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kingexpl0sionmurder · 3 years

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Body Electric - Kaminari Denki - Smut

Author: @kingexpl0sionmurder Pairing: Kaminari Denki/F!Reader Rating: 18+ (contains smut) Words: 5,491 Warnings: Sex work (Cam boy/girl), Quirkless AU, Aged-up Adult characters (someone is in grad school! wow!), mentions of masturbation (both male and female), mentions of casual ShinKami, established KiriBaku, Idk they are all just really sexually liberated and don’t care about watching each other cum. Is that voyeurism? I’m bad at tagging things. Title taken from a Lana Del Rey song. AN: Another BNHarem collab piece! The theme was sex work, and I have wanted to do a camboy Denki for a long time so here we go. This was really smutty in my head but Denki makes me soft and it turned out really cute in the end, I’m sorry? He’s such a dork I feel like any sexual encounter with him would just turn out like this in some way, idk. Thanks to @unbreakablekiribaku and @sailorsero as usual for being supportive of me. Happy birthday to @lady-bakuhoe and @burnedbyshoto 🎂🎂 There is no one else I would rather be birthday triplets with!

Please check out the Collab Masterlist: HERE Look 👀 at My Masterlist: HERE Buy me a Kofi if you’re scared of clowns too: HERE

---

Sighing, you sat up on your elbows, squinting at the chat on the screen, willing your heart to stop pounding and your breath to even out. The donations were pouring in, the chat moving so fast you couldn’t even read it. “Alright, lovelies, I hope you enjoyed that. Be right back and we’ll chat a little bit, okay?”

Donations popped up, the chat slowing a little as the clients who only came to jerk off to you left, leaving those who considered themselves true fans. You stood and made your way to the bathroom to pee, rinsing your toy off in the sink and washing your hands. You went back to your room, pulling on a hoodie and settling in front of the screen again.

“Alright, I’m back! I have some time for a few questions and then I have to go for the night. Let me see what we got!” You scanned the chat, ignoring the normal inappropriate questions. Mindfucker: Do you know who Chargebolt is? Cause I heard he watches your stream.

Your heart, which had finally slowed to a normal rhythm, picked up again. You most definitely knew who Chargebolt was. You gave him a good amount of money from your donations when you watched his cam shows yourself. “I do actually, he’s pretty popular on here, isn’t he?” You sat back a little, furrowing your brows. “How do you know he watches me?”

RedDaddy: He did a Q&A and mentioned your channel! Told everyone to check you out.

You recognized the names of the viewers and knew they were also regulars on Chargebolt’s streams as well, so you believed them. Chargebolt was gorgeous and funny, just your type. The knowledge that he was interested in you enough to watch you get off on camera was flattering. You hoped your blush wasn’t showing on your face.

“I’m surprised he knows who I am!” You had missed the last Q&A he’d done, since it hadn’t been on his normal streaming day, and you’d been stuck at work late. Leaning forward again, you bit your lip, looking into the camera from under your lashes. “Can I tell you guys a secret? I watch him, too. Why do you think I never do shows on Thursdays? That’s Chargebolt day.” With a wink you sat back, trying to will the blush from your cheeks. Mindfucker: I knew it! I bet he’s watching right now. You smiled, shrugging. “I hope he enjoyed the show, then!” You tried to hold it together, suppressing the urge to burst into a fit of giggles at the thought, answering a few more silly questions from your regulars, before signing off for the night, promising to be back again the following week.

You let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, leaning your head back and groaning. It was wild that the guy whose cam shows you watched on the regular, the one who had inspired you to start your own, who you thought of half the time when you were filming yourself getting off on camera for strangers, knew who you were and was one of your viewers.

It brought you down a whole rabbit hole for a second, wondering if he got off on you getting off. Why else would he watch? Did he ever donate? You assumed he had a secondary account so you wouldn’t know it was him even if you tried to look at your past viewers, just like you had a secret account so you could watch him as well.

Cracking your eyes open, you clicked to view the donation tallies for the evening. You’d made enough to pay the rent on your apartment for the month in just one night. Sometimes you wondered how you ever managed to survive before you started doing this. It was meant to be a temporary side job, but you’d been running this cam channel under the screen name Neko for over six months, and you had clawed your way out of debt in such a short time, it didn’t make sense for you to stop.

You viewed a few more visitor stats with interest, before logging off the computer and shutting the laptop. You had to get to sleep for your real job in the morning, so you figured it was time for bed, pushing thoughts of Chargebolt to the back of your mind for now.

It wasn’t until later when you were lying down to sleep, that you thought of him again. Your eyes closed as you ran through a scenario in your head, wondering if he would mention you on Thursday, and what would come of all this? You had noticed your viewer numbers had spiked that day, so it was definitely beneficial that you’d caught his eye. You just weren’t sure what would happen next.

Denki was grinning into the camera, wiping the cum off of his abs with the towel he kept beside him, his chest and cheeks flushed pink. He adjusted in his chair, tugging the toy out of his hole and chucking it to the side, pulling his boxers back up over his softening cock. “I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, babes.”

He chuckled at the comments flooding the chat as he reached for his water and took a sip.

Tapeman: As always, you never disappoint me, Chargebolt.

“Hey thanks, Tapeman! I appreciate you always coming to hang out...get it? Coming?”

Mindfucker: Ridiculous.

“Aw, you love me, Mindfucker.” He winked at the camera. “So, did you guys enjoy my Q&A the other day?”

The chat filled with praise, making him grin. He loved to talk to his fans, and sometimes they had some great questions for him. He knew a lot of people just watched him as a way to get off, but he liked to give a little piece of himself to them because he knew that most of the people who watched were probably lonely, and he wanted to help with that in some way. He kept things laid back, joking and laughing with his viewers before and after the show, taking requests and doing his best to remember some of the regulars. Some of the few who had been with him from the beginning he’d made into moderators to help with keeping things somewhat orderly in the chat. Some of them he actually knew in real life, like his roommate Hitoshi, who used the alias Mindfucker.

Mindfucker: So are we going to talk about Neko? Denki’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, you mean the stream the other day? It was…” He made the appropriate motion as he said it. “Chef’s kiss, immaculate. She’s so beautiful…” Trailing off, he let himself think back to the way your chest heaved and the face you made when you came. “I would do anything for her, man.”

RedDaddy: Dude, I agree! She’s also super sweet, like, the total package.

Sighing, he leaned his elbow on the desk, his cheek resting on his palm. “I am a simp, my guy.” He sat up, squinting at the chat. “She said she watches, right? Is she here right now?” He scanned the names of the viewers, frowning. “She probably has a second account. Well, if you’re here, Neko, you should hit me up. I read all of my DM’s okay?” He grinned, winking again. “Alright, I have to go feed the cats so I’m outie 5000, thanks for hanging out and I’ll see you guys next week!”

He said his goodbyes, ending the stream and sighing. He wiped off his toy with the towel and clicked through his stats for the day, smiling at some of the comments that came with the donations. Hitoshi came into his room a few minutes later, holding one of the cats, an orange tabby named Miso, in his arms. “I fed them, you don’t have to.”

Was it weird that his roommate watched him fuck himself on toys and jerk off on the internet on a weekly basis? Nope. Denki had forgone all sense of modesty when it came to sex a long time ago, and Hitoshi was the same. It helped that they fucked around on occasion, best friends who got lonely and lived together sometimes did that, he guessed. Or maybe they were weird. It was whatever, he didn’t like to think about it too much.

“What would I do without you, Toshi?”

“Kill the cats, probably.” He deadpanned, leaning in the doorway. “Burn all the toast you try to make, buy the wrong peanut butter, eat Cheese-Itz for breakfast every day, forget to pay the cable bill.” He raised his eyebrows. “I can keep going.”

“Fuck off, I got the all-natural peanut butter once, it was an accident!” Denki threw his soiled towel into the laundry basket by the closet and picked up the toy he’d used, waving it around a bit. “Did you enjoy the stream?”

Hitoshi snorted, eyeing the dildo warily. “I didn’t really watch, I had my eye on the chat. I was looking for Neko.”

“Man, I can’t believe she’s a fan!” He waved the dildo some more, watching as it jiggled. “I would let her do unspeakable things to me.”

“Look out, your sub is showing, Denki.” Hitoshi teased. “But I agree, she’s pretty great. I wonder if she’ll ever do private shows.” Pausing to scritch Miso behind the ears, he continued. “I’m sure they’d be in high demand.”

Denki stood, pointing at Hitoshi with the dildo. He really needed to put it down somewhere and stop brandishing it around like a sword. “Don’t even, I’d spend all my money on that girl.”

“I know you would.” He chuckled. “I did try to go through the usernames and see if I could find out who she could be, but I didn’t have any luck.”

“It’s okay! I’m leaving it up to fate now, man. If the universe wants us to know each other, we will.” He stuck his thumb towards the ensuite. “I’m going to wash my ass and then we can play Among Us if you want.”

Hitoshi, completely unphased as usual, nodded. “I’ll get a team together. Check the discord when you get out.”

Humming, Denki made his way to the bathroom, picking up his phone on the way. It buzzed as he closed the door, and he glanced down to see he had a message from his other moderator and friend, Eijirou, aka RedDaddy. Tossing the dildo in the sink, he looked down at the screen and opened the message.

Eiji: No luck on finding Neko on the stream, but she said she never misses a Thursday, so I bet she was there.

Denki: Thanks for keeping an eye out, man. I appreciate you. Among us in 30?

Eiji: Bet. I’ll ask Kats to play too.

Your next stream day had you feeling nervous. Chargebolt had talked directly at you on his last stream, asking you to slide into his DMs, and you had yet to take him up on it. You didn’t know what you were so scared of, Chargebolt was a nice guy. You chalked it up to the fear of the unknown. If you sent him a message, what would you even say? ‘Hey dude, nice cock?’ It was bound to be a disaster.

Pushing your nerves back down, you made sure you were ready for your stream, excited for the news you were about to drop on your viewers. You were needing a little extra cash due to some unfortunate car trouble, and you’d figured out a way to make up what you needed in record time.

“Hey everyone, welcome!” You smiled at the camera, waving your fingers. “Thanks for coming! I see a lot of familiar names here tonight. Hi Mindfucker, Dynamight, RedDaddy, Tapeman, LightningMcQueen!”

LightningMcQueen: Hey, beautiful! I’ve been looking forward to this all week.

Dynamight: Chill out, McQueen, you look desperate.

RedDaddy: Be nice, Dynamight. Hi, Neko!

Dynamight: Fuck off, Shittyhair.

Mindfucker: How’s your cat, Neko?

“Be good, Dynamight. You’re lucky I know you don’t mean that!” You giggled at the antics of your regulars, smiling at the question about your cat. “Ichigo is doing good, Mindfucker, thanks for asking! I’ll bring her on camera after the show if you want to say hi!”

Minfucker just sent a cat emoji and you laughed, shaking your head. “I’m beginning to think that you’re just here for Ichigo and not me.”

The chat went crazy with people denying it, telling you how much they loved watching you every week. You lit up, feeling more excited about your news.

“So I have something I want to discuss before we get started today. I’ve decided I want to try out doing some private shows, so I’m going to be offering up a few spots. I’m going to give some of my longest and most frequent supporters a shot first, and if all goes well, then I’ll open them up to the rest of you! I’ll be adding a signup link at the bottom of my page after tonight’s stream, so if you’re interested you can apply and I’ll pick a few of you and we’ll work out a schedule! How does that sound?”

Dynamight: McQueen already has his credit card ready I bet.

“Aw, you don’t want to play with me, Dynamight?” You teased, giving the camera your best pout.

Dynamight: You couldn’t handle me, Princess.

LightningMcQueen: Hush. You’re a bottom, Dyna.

Dynamight: Die you fucking extra.

LightningMcQueen: Love you too, blasty.

“I was going to let you pick the toy today, Dynamight, but if you can’t behave then I’m just going to have to let someone else have a turn.” You gave the camera a disapproving look, frowning. You’d picked up that these guys were friends, so you knew they were just messing with each other.

A donation popped up from Dynamight with a comment attached.

Let McQueen choose this time, babe.

“It looks like Dynamight is going to let you choose, McQueen. Which one?” You pulled over the box you kept your toys in and showed it to the camera. “Pick a color.”

LightningMcQueen: Yellow

You pulled the yellow silicone out of the box and showed it to the chat, smirking. “I call this one Chargebolt because it’s the same color as his hair. Are you sure this is the one you want me to use?”

When your stream ended, Denki leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath. The fact that he’d watched you fuck yourself with a dildo that you’d named after him was the hottest thing he could have imagined. He was jealous of that piece of bright yellow silicone more than he should be. He’d still enjoyed it, if the mess across his abs and chest were any indication.

He cleaned himself up and pulled on a shirt, clicking on the link for the private show signup. It was pretty straightforward, listing the price and how long the show would be, and asking for his username and what he would be interested in doing or seeing and what day would work best.

Staring at the form for a moment, he contemplated his options. He could sign up with his LightningMcQueen account, and he might have a chance. He was the first one out of his friends to find your channel one night when he was bored and horny. Then he’d shown it to Hitoshi and then shared your info with Eijirou, Katsuki, and Hanta. He would be considered one of the longest and loyal viewers like you had said.

However, if you got a request from Chargebolt? What would you do? Would you ignore it?

“Toshi!” He called out, knowing his roommate would hear him without him having to get up. “I’m having a crisis!”

The door opened, and the purple-haired man stood in the doorway. “I am not prepared to handle your bi panic right now, Denki.”

“Are you going to put in for a private show from Neko?” Denki pushed on, ignoring his friend’s exasperation.

“I spoke that into existence last week, you know. You’re welcome.��

Flopping back in his chair, Denki closed his eyes. “Should I send in the request with this account or with the Chargebolt one?”

Hitoshi shrugged, watching their cat Sashimi wander into the room. “You’ve wanted to talk to her for ages, man. You could have messaged her forever ago and you wouldn’t be playing this game with her. Sign up with your actual account.”

“I mean, she must think I’m cute, right? Otherwise, she wouldn’t watch.” He sat up, logging out of his secondary account and into his main one. He had a few unread DM’s, so he clicked, his breath catching in his throat. “Dude, look.”

There was a message from you, short but sweet.

Hi, Chargebolt. I don’t know if you saw the stream today, but you should check it out if you haven’t. I left it up for you.”

“She wants you to see her use that dildo she named after you.” Hitoshi patted his shoulder, and then bent down to pick up Sashimi. “I signed up but I told her I just wanted to have a date with her cat. She probably won’t pick me.”

“She will, she loves cats.” Denki clicked on your page and scrolled down to the bottom where the signup was again, letting it populate his main account in the information, and writing ‘any day except Thursday’ in the section for the time that worked for him. “I’m going to get this girl to date me, just you watch.”

Snorting, his roommate closed the door behind him as he left. “I believe in you, Pikachu.”

Once his request was submitted, he went back to his DM’s and sent you a message back.

“I was there, Neko. I never miss a stream. I submitted for a private show, so I hope you’ll pick me. I’ve been one of your viewers since the beginning, you know.”

---

In your head, you tried to plan what you would say once you were face to face (via camera) with the one and only Chargebolt. Everything your brain seemed to come up with fell short. What did you say to this guy, who you’d been simping over for over 9 months, who lit up your screen every Thursday with terrible puns and panty-dropping smiles? You knew exactly what he looked like and sounded like when he came. It was a strange thing to think that you knew that but you’d never actually spoken to him before.

It made you feel a little better when you realized he knew just as much about you. That he watched you fuck yourself on a dildo you’d named after him, and then spent the rest of the stream showing off your fluffy white cat Ichigo.

It was time to put on your big girl panties. You could do this.

Chargebolt had been one of the few that you’d chosen to do these shows with. He was also the last one. You’d met with 4 others, the ones who were the most active in your chat, the ones you assumed were actually friends.

Your first one was with Tapeman, who asked you to call him Sero. He was cute, with the widest, prettiest smile you’d ever seen. He made you laugh, and called you beautiful, and spoke to you in Spanish. You didn’t feel uncomfortable once with him, and the experience gave you hope that the rest would be just as nice.

Mindfucker was next, whose name was Shinsou and lowkey your favorite one. He didn’t want anything sexual at all, which surprised you. You sat with him and drank tea and you got to meet his two fur children, Miso and Sashimi, while he told you about his roommate. You let him admire Ichigo, and talked about music. He was sarcastic, but not in a mean way, and you were pretty sure he was going to be your new best friend.

RedDaddy and Dynamight had asked to do theirs together since they were dating. You wanted to question why they both watched your stream but RedDaddy, who was actually named Kirishima, answered it for you.

“We’re both bi, and we think you’re cute!”

“Yeah, plus McQueen has a thing for you so we like to be in the chat to help him out.” Dynamite, aka Bakugou, added in his gruff voice, folding his arms across his chest.

“Aw, that’s sweet!” You smiled at them. “He didn’t request a private show though, so I guess he doesn’t like me that much.”

Bakugou coughed and Kirishima grinned. “Maybe he was nervous! I’m sure you’ll meet him in one of these someday!”

“Enough about that dumbass.” Bakugou leaned forward, his hand on Kirishima’s knee. “Give us a show and we’ll give you one in return. Use that orange and green one for me, Princess.”

And give you a show they did. You got lost in how they looked at each other while they jerked each other off, and you were pretty sure they forgot you were even there at some point. When it was over, you suggested that they start their own channel.

Bakugou scoffed, but you could tell he was blushing a bit.

“I don’t know, Neko. I don’t think I could share him with anyone else. Except you, you’re the exception.” Kirishima grinned, winking at you.

But now it was Chargebolt’s turn. You made sure you had everything you needed, making sure Ichigo was out of the room, and then signed into your account.

Chargebolt was online, so you made the private room and sent him the request. You felt like you were shaking, and you checked yourself in the camera to make sure you didn’t look like a wreck.

You barely had time to breathe before he entered the chat, his camera screen coming to life and showing you his smiling face. You melted a bit, biting your lip, gazing at how attractive he was.

“Hey, Neko!” Chargebolt was as vibrant as ever, tucking his hair behind his ears, the black lightning bolt in his hair dark against the bright yellow of the rest of it.

“It’s nice to see you, Chargebolt.” You tried to relax, rolling your shoulders back. “It’s kind of weird knowing you can see me too.”

He laughed, leaning back in his chair. You tried not to stare at his arms in the tank top he was wearing. Chargebolt had a small frame, but his muscles were defined. You’d seen him plow through an entire bag of chips on stream once, without pausing to breathe, so you assumed he must be one of those people with amazing metabolism that you envied. “You can call me Denki if you want, kitten.”

You choked on air at the nickname, trying to compose yourself. “Kitten?”

“Well, Neko means cat, doesn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow. “I won’t call you that if you don’t like it.”

“No!” You practically shouted. “No, I mean, it’s fine. I like it.”

“Sweet.” He grinned. “Man, I’ve wanted to get you alone like this for so long, and now I’m just feeling really nervous.”

“You’re nervous?” You were surprised. The always cool but super dorky Chargebolt was nervous because of you? “So am I.”

Chargebolt- sorry, Denki, rested his elbow on the desk, propping his head in his hand. “Well, glad to know I’m not the only disaster here. I’ve been trying to get the courage to talk to you for months, and then finally Hitoshi got me to talk about you on stream a few weeks ago, and now here we are.”

“Who’s Hitoshi? One of your regulars?” Knowing that you weren’t the only one who was sweating bullets had you relaxing a bit.

“Oh yeah, Mindfucker! You know him right? He did a thing with you the other day, didn’t he?”

Eyes wide, you stared at him. “Shinsou?”

“Yeah, that’s my best friend and my roommate. He said he showed you the cats.” He shrugged. “You picked all my friends for your private shows. Sero, Kiri, Bakugou, Shinsou.” He paused, smirking. “I forgot that you don’t know that I’m LightningMcQueen.”

“That’s you? I was wondering why they didn’t send me a request, but it all makes sense now.”

Denki shot you finger guns and winked. “Kachow!”

“Oh god, stop it.” You rolled your eyes.

He chuckled, grinning at you. “So, did Shinsou talk about me?”

You giggled, remembering back. “He told me a story about how his roommate mistook a fuzzball for a spider and spent the afternoon sitting on a table waiting for him to come home and kill it.”

“It looked like one of those freaky poisonous ones from where I was sitting. I was afraid to let it out of my sight in case it got away and then multiplied and killed me in my sleep or something.” He took a deep breath. “Spiders are terrifying.”

This man was amazing. “You are everything I always thought you’d be, you know that?”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” He sighed. “You have to have some kind of embarrassing story to tell me so I don’t feel like a fool. You’ve got to make it even.”

“One year my dad hired a clown to come to my birthday party. He walked in the front door and I jetted out the back door and hid in the garden until he left. Clowns are just as terrifying as spiders.”

Chargebolt laughed, and the sound made your stomach do a somersault. It was just as bright and happy as he was. “That is the cutest shit I’ve ever heard!”

“I’m glad my childhood trauma is amusing you.” You deadpanned, trying to keep the smile off your face.

“Aw, don’t be like that kitten! I’m glad we can bond over our irrational fears like this, you know?” He

You shivered happily. “Okay, okay.” You cleared your throat. “So, you didn’t write anything down here for what you wanted out of our chat today.”

“Oh, okay, down to business then.” He sat up straight. “Well, I wanted to tell you myself instead of submitting it on the form.”

Intrigued, you raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t want to give me a chance to back out?”

Snorting, and shook his head. “Nah, I think you’ll like it, kitten.” He folded his hands behind his head. “I want you to tell me what to do. I’m at your mercy.”

Swallowing thickly, you blinked at him. That was...really hot. “You like being told what to do?”

“I would love nothing more for you to pull my hair and peg me within an inch of my life while calling me your little cock slut.” He stared at you with an eyebrow raised, looking pleased with himself when he saw your expression.

Your thighs clenched together involuntarily. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, right? I mean, I’m a switch, I’d do the same to you if you asked. But we can save that for next time.” He smirked. “So, you down?”

Next time? This man was going to kill you. “Take off your shirt, Denki.”

“Fuck yes.” He groaned, reaching behind him and tugging the garment over his head.

His chest and abs came into view, and you let your eyes linger on the barbells through his nipples. “Pants too.”

He pushed his chair away from his desk and shimmied out of his shorts, kicking them to the side. You gazed at him in his blue boxer briefs, eyes lingering on his thin waist, strong thighs, and the outline of his cock. He was a sight to behold, honestly.

You held the fangirling back, leaning forward to get a better look at him. “Do you have any toys, Denki?”

“Of course, Kitten.” He moved out of view for a moment, coming back with a box.

“Let me see.” He tilted the box towards the camera, your eyes flitting over the different colors and shapes inside. “The pink one.”

“Okay, hang on, let me-” He cut off, standing up and throwing the pink toy on the bed. He picked up the laptop and moved it, laying down beside it and angling the camera so you could see what he was doing.

“Did you stretch yourself, baby?”

He made a noise that sounded like a whine in the back of his throat at the pet name, obviously pleased by it. “Yeah, of course I did.” He glanced at the screen. “You should, uh, take your shirt off too.”

“I thought you wanted me to tell you what to do, not the other way around.” Teasing him, you crossed your arms over your chest.

He pouted slightly. “I’ve been good so far though, right?”

“All you’ve done is take off two items of clothing and move to the bed. You’re gonna have to work harder than that!”

Huffing, he lifted his ass off the bed and tugged his underwear down his legs, kicking them off, his hand already moving to wrap around his already hard cock.

“Did I say you could touch yourself, Denki?” It was getting hard to keep up the stern act you were putting on, but you knew it was what he wanted. You wanted to watch him touch himself, watch the way his eyes fluttered closed when his thumb brushed over the leaking head of his cock, and the way he would bite his lip when he moved his wrist a certain way.

You could be patient though, so you continued.

“If I was there right now, what would you want me to do first?”

He stilled, blinking at you a few times. “I would want your mouth first, I think.”

Humming, you sat back, pulling your shirt over your head, letting him admire the lacey purple bra covering your chest. “You’d want my mouth on your cock? Trace my tongue along that vein along the underside and suck on the head a little?”

Denki groaned, closing his eyes, his grip visibly tightening around his shaft. He looked like he was trying not to get worked up too fast. You were amazed at how your words were affecting him, so you pressed on.

“I’d take you all the way down until I was choking on it, and I’d let you hold onto my hair and fuck my face. God, you don’t know how many times I've dreamed about doing that for you. What would you say to that?”

The blush spreading down his neck and chest made him look so pretty. “Ugh, fuck kitten, you’re killing me.” He swallowed hard, opening his eyes to look at you again. “I’d tell you how good you made me feel, but I wouldn’t let you finish me off that way.”

“Oh no? Tell me what else you’d do.” You took the opportunity to move to the bed yourself, pulling off your leggings and panties all at once.

Eyes glued to you while you unclipped your bra and threw it across the room, he continued. “Fuck, um, I would...god, you’re beautiful.”

Flushing at the compliment, you looked down shyly, breaking character. “I’ve heard you say that before and I still don’t believe it.”

Denki scoffed. “If you need a daily reminder, I’d be happy to be the one to tell you, kitten.” You could hear the sincerity in his voice, and it made your heart do a little flip. “I might seem like a dumbass but I’m using this camboy money to pay off my student loans for my masters in English lit so I can quote you entire sonnets from Shakespeare without hesitation if that will help you believe me.”

Your eyebrows shot up, impressed. Realizing you’d ruined the moment, you sighed, covering your eyes with your hand. “I’m sorry, I’m crap at this. I really just want to watch you cum.”

Chuckling, you heard him shifting on the bed. “Okay, how about this? Forget the toys. Just close your eyes and listen to me.”

“Okay.”

“If you were here with me right now, just like that, I’d spend so much time exploring every inch of you with my tongue. I’d start with your lips, your jaw, your neck. Collarbones, shoulders, your chest, those cute nipples-”

“How are nipples cute?” You interrupted with a snort.

You could hear him trying not to laugh, his voice pitched a bit higher. “Shh, don’t ruin it.”

“I think you just did when you said ‘cute nipples’.” You’d never had this much fun with someone in a situation like this. “If I had a dick, my boner would have just died.”

Denki wheezed, and you opened your eyes to look over at him. He was gazing back at you, his eyes bright as he laughed into his palm. “God, I like you so much, kitten.”

Your grin softened, your heart pounding at his words. “Me too, Denki.”

#kaminari denki #kaminari denki x reader #kaminari denki smut #denki kaminari #denki kaminari x reader #denki kaminari smut #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha smut #mha smut #kingexpl0sionmurder writes #bnharem collab

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cptsdstudyblr · 3 years

Text

how i gradually fixed my relationship with food

TW: disordered eating, food, neglect, child abuse

Background:

I've always said that "I don't have an eating disorder, but I struggle with disordered eating." I don't know if that's medically accurate, but it feels like a good descriptor for my relationship with food. I grew up in an environment where I only ever had access to fast food, and I often went without food or didn't get nearly enough. I grew up in an environment where both of my parents exhibited severely disordered eating habits (and still do). I graduated from high school with no understanding of healthy eating habits or essentially no cooking skills. Now, I'm 21, and while my relationship with food is far from perfect, I am no longer underweight, I almost never restrict my food intake or binge, and I have a fairly balanced and tasty diet (while also allowing myself to enjoy eating what I want, even if it is junk food).

Step 1: Realize that your relationship with food is bad.

It took me a long time to acknowledge that the way I interacted with food as a child severely impacted my relationship with food. I had always assumed that once I was away from home, my eating habits would fix themselves. It took a lot for me to admit that I needed to really evaluate my relationship with food and put effort into fixing it.

It's hard to get to that point. For some people, they have a moment that makes it really clear for them. But for others, it's a gradual process. For me, it took literally moving to another continent and totally changing my diet to really get me fully to that point. Before that, I did acknowledge that my relationship with food had some issues, but I really didn't understand the extent of it.

Step 2: Figure out what needs to be fixed.

So now, you're aware that there is a problem with your relationship with food. But what do you actually need to fix about it? Are you eating too little? Too much? Too irregularly? An unbalanced diet? What's the problem (or problems) you're trying to solve?

This is a super personal thing to figure out. Personally, I regularly missed meals (often unintentionally), binged when I first bought food, and lived off of really repetitive foods that I really did not enjoy eating. I decided to approach my issues from what I saw as most severe to least severe: first, I needed to eat 3 full meals every day; then, I needed to stop binging; and lastly, I needed to implement a more balanced died.

Step 3: Eat every meal.

To help myself stop skipping meals, I first evaluated what caused me to skip meals. A lot of the time, it was the fact that food was not immediately or readily available to me. As a child, since I was fed almost exclusively fast food (and often just didn't eat), I struggled to actually prepare a meal and often didn't find the effort worthwhile. I especially struggled with this when I lived in a dorm and would literally have to walk 10+ minutes and wait in an unnecessarily long line for every meal.

To fix this, I made sure I always had very simple, readily available food in my house. Things like instant mac and cheese, instant ramen, premade tuna salad, sandwich makings, pasta, cereal, etc. I was so resistant to this approach at first as it felt unhealthy to me, but I had to remind myself consistently that no matter the circumstances it is more important to eat enough food than to eat the healthiest food out there. I was significantly underweight, and it was starting to really affect my life (especially by exacerbating my chronic illness symptoms), so I desperately needed to resolve this issue regardless of the perceived health of my meals.

To be honest, this process was the most difficult part of recovery for me. When combining my poor eating habits with my collapsing mental and physical health at the time, even microwaving mac and cheese was often too much for me to handle. And that's okay. Struggling is okay. It took me over a year just to get to the point where I could say that I consistently ate 3 full meals a day.

Step 4: Allow yourself to eat what you want when you want.

This is the approach I took to address my binging habits. It may sound counterintuitive, but it worked really well for me. Essentially, by explicitly not restricting my access to any foods (yes, even really unhealthy ones), I slowly broke down the fear that was causing me to binge on food.

For me, this fear stemmed from a lack of access to food as a child. When I first bought food, especially snacks, I felt the need to eat as much as I could on that day. And I made myself feel so bad about that. I told myself that I was a horrible person for eating so many Oreos I would make myself sick. And that's just not true. My eating habits don't reflect anything about me as a person.

Once I gave myself permission to eat as much as I wanted without feeling any shame, I started to binge less and less over the next few months. I started to get past the barriers and fear that I had about those foods and learn to eat them in moderation when I want them. I am an adult, I buy my own groceries, and I can make sure that I always have access to any food I want. So now, I rarely feel the need to binge because I am no longer as afraid and I no longer feel ashamed.

Step 5: Learn to cook and have a more balanced diet.

Once I got to a point where the amounts I ate in a day were more appropriate and keep me healthy, I was able to focus on what types of foods I eat. Now, I am by no means a health nut, but I do try to eat a relatively balanced diet and make foods I enjoy.

The first step I took towards this was to move away from instant or prepackaged foods. To this day, I always keep a stock of instant foods like ramen because I do still struggle sometimes, especially on bad mental or physical health days. I'm also sometimes busy and need something quick. However, I tried to move away from prepackaged foods to cooking relatively easy foods. I started making simple things like egg/tuna/chicken salad sandwiches, rice dishes, pastas and raviolis, premade dumplings, various types of eggs, sausage, etc.

While I ultimately wanted to move from instant foods to cooking my own meals, I felt the need to take it slow. I didn't feel ready to jump to cooking things from scratch, so I made sure to step up my difficulty levels slowly. Recently, I've started cooking about half of my meals from scratch, but I definitely didn't jump straight to that. And still, I usually make several servings at once and eat leftovers. I also still generally make simpler meals for most of my lunches and eat homemade foods for dinner most nights and for me, that is totally satisfactory. I'm able to make meals that fit my diet and tastes.

I also found that evaluating what foods I wanted to eat really helped me approach this. On the rare occasions when my parents did cook food, they usually cooked what amounted to a slab of poorly seasoned meat and a spoonful of cooked vegetables. It took me a long time (and moving to another continent) to fully realize that cooking for myself didn't mean just eating a chicken breast and green beans three times a week. After living in Seoul (which has a huge variety of restaurants from all over the world, not just Korean food) for six months and asking my roommates and friends to teach me their favorite recipes, I really started to understand what types of foods I like to eat. Now, I cook primarily Cajun foods and various Asian and Middle Eastern foods because that's the type of food I generally prefer to eat and cook. I'd really encourage everyone who is frustrated by cooking or eating to explore different cuisines and figure out what you like the best. Cooking and eating are both much more rewarding when you enjoy the food.

#tw ed #ed #ed recovery #mental health #mental illness #cptsd #ptsd #anxiety #depression #adhd #trauma #abuse #neglect

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bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher · 4 years

Text

lip sync your way into my heart

( @thecomfortofoldstorries and I got into a fun head-cannon debate last night about Tik Tok POVs and this is what happened)

--- Jaskier has never really been in the loop when it comes to social media. He was behind the curve when he made his Tumblr and he was two years late to sign up for Twitter. It’s no surprise that he finally downloads Tik Tok and makes an account several months after it’s become a viral platform.

That also means all the good usernames are taken; Jaskier types in @buttercup-bard, sees that it’s available, and calls it a day. This isn’t an app he’s going to care about. It’s just to waste time during his forty minute commute to and from campus.

Alas, he has ADHD...and this shit is addictive.

Especially, he hates to admit, the thirst-trap hotties who do weird, obscure, edgy POV videos. Jaskier knows they’re aimed primarily towards teen and young adult women but he’s a red-blooded Redanian gay. He’s horny. He can watch a few POV Tik Toks on the bus and thirst after pretty boys with big muscles...as a treat.

By Jaskier’s second week of classes he’s found a definite favorite Tik-Tokker (is that what they’re called? Or is it influencer? Jaskier doesn’t care). The guy is gorgeous. He has beautiful honey-gold eyes and long, silvery-white hair; which is appropriate since his handle is @whitehairdontcare. He makes a wide range of content, too. Perfect for Jaskier’s Concerta-focused tastes. There are some dances here and there and some Q&A videos, but for the most part he does POVs.

Jask and his roommates, Essi and Priscilla, have spent many happy hours poring over Mr. White Hair’s account, watching and re-watching their favorites from his vast repertoire of content. Essi loves his weird, edgy-boi shit. Stuff with titles like “POV: I fight the bully who insulted your haircut” or “POV: you make a deal with the devil for true love”. Stuff that Jaskier would have been into when he still listened to My Chemical Romance on the regular (okay, he still does, but don’t tell Essie).

Priscilla is a huge fan of Tik Tok dances. She follows every challenge and ranks her favorites, compiling them into a YouTube series that’s more for her self-gratification than anything else. Mr. White Hair is generally towards the top of her list whenever he deigns to follow a trend that doesn’t involve badly applied makeup blood smears. The guy clearly works out and the definition of his body (and the movements of said really hot body) make the dances look so much more fluid and fun. Jaskier and Priscilla clearly share a brain-cell when it comes to appreciating Mr. White Hair’s hotness.

Jaskier’s favorites, of course, are the cute little POVs that lie scattered between all the edgy ones. Stuff made for the softies of Tik Tok. Stuff made for boys like Jaskier. “POV: I fix your car for you” is the one he’s probably re-watched the most. Mr. White Hair is lying on his back beneath a jacked-up blue car, oil smeared in a few strategic places on his face, chest, and arms. At the very end of the Tik Tok he moves the wrench out of the way of his face completely and winks directly into the camera.

Jaskier hates to admit it, even to himself, but no matter how many times he’s watched that stupid twenty-give second video, that wink drops his heart straight down into his shoes and fills his stomach with butterflies.

---

“Hey do you guys carry fake blood here?” an almost terrifyingly deep voice asks from behind him. Jaskier twirls around on his heel, Retail Smile firmly in place, and loses his shit the moment he sets eyes on his latest customer.

It’s Mr. White Hair.

Here. In the middle of the aisle of the Party City where Jaskier works every weekend. He’s either going to throw up or pass out or both.

He doesn’t though. Instead, the Demon Lord of Retail possesses his body momentarily and nods, “Right over this way!” He leads the insanely attractive influencer over to the year-round section of Halloween FX makeup and gestures towards the shelf filled with various fake blood capsules, bottles, and packets.

“Thanks,” Mr. White hair smiles. Jaskier nods again, silent, and drifts back towards the counter in a daze. He’s the only one on shift right now (it is not a very busy Party City) and he knows that he can’t pass out on the dirty tile floor or he’ll get fired (and perhaps tetanus). He just needs to power through the next few minutes and then he can crouch next to the helium tank and freak the fuck out.

But not until Mr. White Hair is gone.

Just as Jaskier is re-learning how to breathe normally, the sexy internet star makes his way towards the counter with an armful of products and the retail worker loses it again. Thank god for the ability to compartmentalize.

“So, just these for you?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“No problem! I love your Tik Toks by the way,” Jaskier replies automatically. His eyes widen slightly. Why the fuck did I mention his Tik Toks!?

“Thanks,” the guy says and blushes. “I didn’t know they’d gotten so popular.”

“You have like two million followers?” Jaskier laughs. “I think that makes you pretty popular. Maybe even famous.”

“Oh yeah...right.”

“Anyway, your total is going to be twenty-one fifty.”

Mr. White Hair pays and Jaskier bags all his fake blood, wondering the whole time exactly what kind of content he can look forward to seeing. More of Essi’s edgy shit, apparently. As he’s handing the plastic bag over the counter, Jaskier smiles and works up the courage to ask, “Is your hair naturally white? I don’t mean to pry, it’s just really pretty.”

Geralt’s face goes slightly pinker than before and he nods. “Yeah. Weird genetic thing. Thanks.”

“No problem. Right on,” Jaskier beams. “Well, it was nice meeting a famous person. Thanks for stopping in.”

“Thanks for helping me out,” the Tik Tokker replies. Jaskier watches him exit the store before ripping his phone from his pocket and dialing Essi. He needs to talk to her before he spirals into a giddy panic attack.

---

“Hey Jask have you seen that hot guy’s latest Tik Tok?” Priscilla asks, lounging across her futon like a queen. Jaskier looks up from his copy of The Collective History of Aedirnian Funeral Dirges and wrinkles his eyebrows in confusion.

“No, why?”

“You should go check your phone. I think you’ll be happily surprised.”

“Oh-kay,” Jaskier says, drawing out the ‘kay’ for as long as it takes him to get up from his seat on the floor and exit the room. He retrieves his phone from the charger in the kitchen and returns to Priscilla’s bedside. He opens his new favorite app and pulls up @whitehairdontcare’s page. There’s a new POV from earlier this morning and Jaskier taps on it.

His eyes go round when he reads the caption: “POV: You’re the cute cashier at the Party City and I’m bad at flirting”.

Mr. White Hair is staring into the camera with those beautifully golden eyes, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand while he lip syncs to whatever song is playing. He’s wearing a tight, navy blue v-neck and Jaskier can see the movement of every one of his ridiculously defined muscles as they flex. The silver wolf’s-head necklace Mr. White Hair always wears around his neck is in its usual place, dangling down between those perfect collarbones…

Jaskier takes a shaky breath and glances up at his friends, who are staring back at him with wide eyes. “It could be about anyone.”

“How many Party Cities do you think he went to yesterday?”

“I’m not going to get my hopes up,” Jaskier snorts. “He’s a social media influencer and I am one semester away from finishing my degree and my thesis. Why would he ever want to be with someone like me?”

Essi rolls her eyes and Jaskier goes back to his homework.

---

Later that night, alone in his room, Jaskier plugs his earbuds into his phone and watches the Tik Tok over and over. He finds the song Geralt used and adds it to his Work Is Tough playlist, which he’s allowed to play over the loudspeakers at the store so long as he’s working a solo shift.

He watches Mr. White Hair’s plush pink lips move around the words and dreams of kissing them someday, as far-fetched as that scenario is (because this video is definitely not for him, that’s impossible):

“My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me.

So won't you kill me, so I die happy.

My heart is yours to fill or burst, to break or bury,

or wear as jewelry; whichever you prefer.”

Fucking Dashboard Confessional. Of course. One of Jaskier’s favorite bands from his emo days in middle school. If this really was for Jaskier, if this really was a legitimate attempt at online flirtation by Mr. White Hair himself, it was working.

Jaskier buries his head in his pillow and sighs.

#geraskier fic #geraskier tik tok au #there will be a part 2 i promise #geraskier fanfic #geraskier #geraskier au #all I do is make aus all day and work retail #geraskier fluff #flirty geralt #influencer geralt #party city employee jaskier #college student jaskier #geraskier college au #geraskier alternate universe #oops I keep making cute shit

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rockofeye · 3 years

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Out of the depths.

It is somehow appropriate that a re-emergence and re-alignment comes with the beginning of the month of May. May is a big month for vodouizan; we celebrate Kouzen and all his family this month and, for people from Jacmel, it is a month devoted to celebrating Jacmel's heritage, which is tied closely to Kouzen. It is said Jacmel is where Kouzen was from before he went to more rural areas; it's not a coincidence that fet Jacmel and fet St Jacques e St Philippe (the patrons of Jacmel) are celebrated on the same days as fet Kouzen (May 1 and May 2).

I've been thinking about Kouzen a lot lately. It's been a difficult year in a lot of ways, but not a bad year. COVID has really permanently changed how things in my professional field work, and with the help of Kouzen and a few of my other lwa, I managed to leverage that into a position using all my professional strengths with the org that has been my target for employment for years. Landing that has not only been life-changing and future-solidifying, but really reinforces that I know what I know and that I am an expert at what I do.

That's a lesson that comes from Kouzen, and it's one that I struggle to learn and remember in my life. Kouzen shows me balance: he is the expert worker in his field (literal and figurative), but you might never know that from how he does his work. Underestimate him and you'll find out, but how he carries himself keeps his mastery of work and growth and agriculture from being the first thing that you see.

I'm pretty okay with that part, but that's the part I get tripped up about. I don't find anything fulfilling professionally or personally about illustrating what I know,, but there is a difference between going about your business and actively hiding from those moments where you can insert who you are and what you know.

I'm a hider. It might sound kind of funny coming from someone who has been writing a blog in the internet for close to a decade, but it's true: I am actually pretty shy and private and being the center of attention--professional or personal--is kind of horrifying to me. I've reached the point in my life where I don't feel I have a lot to prove because I know what I know, but in many ways that's just not possible for me. I don't work in a field where I can just close my office door and have it all be fine, and the lwa have made clear time after time that I cannot just ride off into Ginen with them and live a private life.

This has something that is always a struggle for me because I am introverted and like my alone space and time. It comes back to the good ol' lessons the lwa want me to learn over and over: balance and vulnerability. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes I react like a cat thrown into a bathtub full of water. The lwa win some, I lose some.

I had to get my ass in gear with the notions of balance and putting myself out there and being vulnerable in knowing my worth and demanding (politely) that it be recognized when I found myself completely dissatisfied with my job(s). I was working two jobs (houngans and manbos know about that hustle...) and making good money, but I was ready to work one job and free up time for spiritual work and projects.

I took a chance and applied for a job that was juuuuust within my experience. It was definitely bigger than what I was doing and while it was within my experience level, I honestly wasn't perfectly qualified....but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so I buffed up the resume, sent it off, and sat with my lwa about it. I told them that if this was where I was supposed to go next, I knew they would clear the way.

I didn't get it.

I made it through two rounds of interviews, but ultimately there was an incumbent with 10 more years of experience than I have, and that's almost always a losing equation. I was okay with it because I still had work and at the end of the day, I don't have to love my job to cash the paychecks.

BUT....the lwa had another plan. The team of interviewers liked me, and so I got headhunted for a position that was very, very in line with my professional experience and goals. I spoke with them several times about it and they made me an offer....and it was so low I almost rejected the offer outright.

I was both angry and scared at the same time; angry because the salary offer was ridiculously offensive based on my career history and scared because I have never been in a position to turn down a job offer or, honestly, negotiate.

This time was the first time in my life that I was planning to leave a job because I wanted to. I grew up in a upper working class home and as an adult have spent too much time jobless and underemployed to discount steady work and a regular paycheck. It was scary as hell to be staring down the possibility of kicking the steady paycheck to the side in favor of taking a step into the unknown.

When I got the offer letter, I sat down with the lwa and literally cried because I was so burned out with my other job that it was affecting my performance, but here I was getting a bullshit offer for a hugely involved job. It felt like a loss if I took it and affirmed that both my experience and what they were asking of me was only worth what they were offering. It felt like a loss if I didn't take it, because those opportunities do not come alone like that very often.

It was such a moment of unique despair. Like, I was not hurt or anything tragic but that feeling like I was painted into a corner and that the choices in front of me would leave me at a loss was HUGE and real. For me, when I feel like that it's hard for me to turn on the part if my brain that's analytical. I just need to sit in my misery for a minute (or more) until I get it together enough to figure out what to do.

That is where the blessing of Kouzen (and really all the lwa) came in. He told me to go back to the table, creat another option, and ask for my worth. Like, not swing my proverbial dick and be an asshole, but go be vulnerable and say that the offer was disappointing and that I expected more. So weird because it makes so much sense, right? And yet there I was totally sold that I was either going to be worked like a mule for less money than I was making already, or I was going to remain in The Bad Place until something else came along.

So I did. Even if I felt pessimistic about it (I did) and thought they would say no (convinced of it), I did what I was told because at the end of the day I agreed to sèvis lwa because I believe in the vision the lwa have for me. Some days I say that through gritted teeth, but that's my guiding principle and they have never let me down.

I sent in my counteroffer and waited for the 'we're sorry, but..' email. It was fucking scary. My agency is a behemoth in my field and has been around forever, so pushing back felt a little bit like David versus Goliath, and I didn't have the benefit of a sling and a rock.

It took two days but they got their offer almost to what I asked for, so I took it and it was a huge relief. I am sure that somewhere in the background Kouzen maybe did a quiet fist pump of 'Alex learned a thing' before going back to his work.

In all seriousness, that's a lesson I have struggled so hard with and it was a moment where I had to put it all into practice and rely on what the lwa have taught me as being an ultimate truth. Knowing my worth is not enough; I have to be able to communicate that in a way that both opens doors and doesn't get me used as a doormat. Not doing that seems like it would be almost offensive to Kouzen because, at least in this case, it would be essentially leaving money on the table and wasting it. My Kouzen is very rational about money, but the idea of not trying to set up my financial future makes his eyes bug out and would probably result in Having To Have A Conversation, which I avoid at all costs. Nothing like the lwa reminding you not to fuck up your own blessings.

Getting settled into this particular blessing has been what has been occupying my time the most these days. I came back from Haiti and went right into this job. I have finally clawed my way into administration and, in a very Kouzen twist, am responsible for managing several million dollars worth of grants and spending them both quickly and wisely. I work closely with the person in the position I originally interviewed for and am really happy I didn't get that job, as I am able much better fit where I am.

What else? In late January, I turned in a final draft of a chapter I was tapped to write for a book detailing the experiences of people who are converts to African Traditional and Diasporic religions. I'm excited to see the book when it comes out; I was the only writer on Haitian Vodou, and so it is chock full of other experiences from people from all different places who converted at some point in their life to a huge variety of African and African Descended religions and cultural practices. It's a project that has been in the works for several years, and it was interesting to see personal growth during my involvement in it and while tracking and detailing my journey from a fairly conservative Protestant upbringing to where I am now as a sèvitè lwa.

My living situation has changed up in the middle of this and I am once again at a point in my life where I have a dedicated space for my lwa. Living in one of the most expensive cities in the US has meant roommates and keeping my lwa in a closet in my room (my most recent roommate lovingly referred to them as the Closet People), but the lwa managed to swing it so I have a room dedicated to my spirits.

I have longing for that for so long...it's been years since that was a reality, and now it's finally a thing again. I always have the room for my lwa as my studio space too, since they are a creative force behind a lot of it, and it make my heart so full again to have room to spread out. It's such a gift for me. No more sitting down to pray and having my roommate start to have sex with their partner on the other side of the wall....I cannot tell you how many times that has happened.

Recently I listened to my mother tell some folks how to make tchaka/Kouzen's favorite meal. The regleman/ritual food is one of the most important parts of both ceremony and personal relationships with the lwa, and Kouzen reminded me that it had been quite awhile since I made him tchaka and boy his stomach would feel so much better with some tchaka in it and I already had a lot of the ingredients and wouldn't it be delicious to make some doumbrey for the tchaka too?

...so I went shopping for what I would need for tchaka for my beloved Kouzen because I have clearly neglected his stomach for too long. Living in a city with a huge Haitian population is great because the Haitian grocery store I went to had joumou/Haitian pumpkin, lalo sèk/dried jute leaves, tritri/tiny dried shrimp, djondjon/Haitian black mushrooms, fresh kowosol/soursop(!!!!!), and fresh lam veritab/breadfruit(!!!!!!!!!!).

It is so rare to find fresh kowosol and lam up here in New England because it def doesn't grow here and it doesn't last well when it's shipped....but it looked great today. The kowosol is going to be for me...ji kowosol ak lèt is a favorite, ESPECIALLY with a little Barbancourt poured in...and Kouzen will either get some tomtom or at least boiled lam veritab with his tchaka. Also have the makings of some bonbon siwo, so this husband is gonna eat GOOD. He deserves it.

And then...? Our live-on-Zoom socially distanced fet Kouzen will be sometime late in May. Making our fets available for folks to 'attend' at a distance has been surprisingly cool. I was not thrilled about the idea because of my personal hangups (I hate being on camera) but it's been really wonderful and has been a way for people who can't get to the temple to be able to share energy and get a taste of what a real Haitian fet is like. COVID isn't going away anytime soon, so we'll probably keep doing our fetes this way for awhile.

And...Haitian Summer is coming. I could write another whole post on what's going on down in Haiti, but I am very much looking forward to our kanzo and fet cycle this summer. My very favorite ceremonies are part of kanzo, and I love the opportunity to see the lwa in their home in the temple. I've been so lucky to be able to travel safely to Haiti several times during this mess, and it has fed my soul. It's safer for me and many of my family members now that we are vaccinated, so one less thing to worry about.

With Kouzen's month and the season of spring, I hope for growth in new directions for each of you, complete with all the blessings that Kouzen can bring: fertility and fecundity, inspiration, energy, commitment, rootedness, solid partnerships, and wise investments in self, community, relationships, and business ventures. May the fresh breeze bring you health with every breath and wealth with every exhale.

#vodou #haitian vodou #kouzen #kouzen zaka #azaka mede #fet kouzen #manje lwa #real vodou #voodoo

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harryandmolly · 4 years

Text

fear and loathing in mandeville canyon *1*

summary: Shawn & Lilly, derailed, detoured, but maybe not destroyed

warnings: language, big angst but with a purpose

wc: 5k

July 2019

Lilly’s fingers are sunk into the curls at the back of his head, perhaps subconsciously clinging to something already lost. Maybe something she never even had.

His kiss is so brief. It’s a flutter against her lips, followed by a jerk of his head that’s so certain in expressing his desire to be away from her that he may as well have already said it. He steps back, the corners of his lips lifting, soft and timid.

Lilly’s fingers fall. He doesn’t catch them.

“No,” she whispers. Her chin starts to go first. She’s like a cartoon character when she cries. Her chin begins to wobble, then her pillowy lips. Her round cheeks get rounder. Her blue eyes go an eerie sort of green.

She’s watched it happen before, in mirrors when she’s alone. He’s seen it, too. But never from so very, very far away.

“I don’t…” she begins, her voice a painful rake across its cords, “I didn’t know.”

He’s appropriately solemn in that horrible way that feels schooled, like he practiced, like he’s getting through it to get through it. He hunches his broad shoulders, bows his head a little like he’s sorry. God, is he even sorry?

“I’m so sorry,” he says, and holy fuck, no one’s voice has ever hurt so much. She wants to rip it away from him, maybe that would cause him as much pain.

Her numbing fingers cup her arms across her chest, guarding her explosive heart. She can’t even look at him now. She used to think he wanted her to look at him. Did he ever?

“I don’t really know what to say,” he confesses, scrubbing at the back of his neck, keeping his eyes down at his shoes, “I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t think she was ever going to want me.”

Lilly’s back hits the wall and it gets his attention. He blinks up at her, startled, then snaps back into well-trodden guilt.

He doesn’t have to tell her who he means. Anyone who was half paying attention could do that. Because even though he’s the one breaking her heart, she still gets to be called the fool who let him.

“I trusted you,” she breathes, and it’s acid, “When you looked at me, when you held me, when you loved me, when you told me it was me, I fucking trusted you.”

He looks somehow hurt now, like she’s hitting below the belt. Because how dare she question the farce he strung her along for, for his own erstwhile entertainment?

“Don’t do this,” he scolds, shaking his head like he’s the one who’s disappointed.

She is all rage, and it’s bliss. It’s jet fuel and it won’t last her and somewhere buried below the molten spite she knows when she inevitably burns through it, she’ll be just whatever’s left, but it has to ignite, it has to go somewhere.

“All this time, it was always her,” she seethes, dropping her head back against the wall because if she doesn’t anchor herself, she might take a running start at him, “Was it ever, even for a second, was it ever me?”

His heavy eyes drift shut. He looks exhausted. Lying is fucking draining.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, and Lilly believes him. She shakes her head.

“You stupid boy,” she spits, watching as his eyes slam open again, offended, “You stupid fucking child.”

“Stop,” he grunts, defensive again. It’s a red flag to a bull.

She lifts off the wall, fists in her hair. “You had me so fooled. I thought you were so mature. God, you wore it well. The way you talk about your music and your family and your future. I thought you were a goddamn adult. No. You’re not. You’re a child.”

“You sound insane!” he cries, squaring off his perfect jaw.

“You’ve been waiting around for years. What do you think? You get a Calvin Klein campaign,” He scoffs and takes off toward the door, but she follows, “And now she’s suddenly paying attention, but whatever, it must be real? This is it? She’s finally yours? So fucking naive.”

He slams a solid fist against the doorframe. “You don’t know! You don’t know shit about us. Stop talking like you know anything. You’re fucking jealous.”

“Jealous!” she screeches, clutching her chest with both hands, choking on every breath, “Of course I’m fucking jealous! Were you waiting to hear me say that? Of course I’m jealous. Because I’m in love with you! While you had one eye on her and one hand on me, I was in this. I was all in. I love you. I love you! And you love her!”

For no good reason at all, saying it out loud knocks out the ignition. She nearly crumples. With an almost theatrically shuddering breath, she steps back.

He stares at her, bewildered. What could he possibly have expected? Did he really think she wasn’t going to remind him? Worse, did he really think maybe she was lying, too?

Lilly shakes her head, slow and deliberate, pressing a rolled up sweaterpaw to one of her gushing eyes. She is cracking apart. Part of her wants him to go so she can do it alone. The spiteful part wants him to watch what he’s done.

Lilly wonders if she’s waiting for him. She wonders where. At her place? At a hotel? Maybe she’s in a Lyft outside Lilly’s house. She almost wants to check. She manages to keep her feet planted because Camila Cabello is not worth life in prison.

“I just want you to know,” Lilly begins, and her voice is as painful coming out as it is to hear it, “That I really want to hate you. And that should mean something to you. I can’t hate you yet, but I cannot wait for that to kick in. Until then, I’m stuck with loving you. But know when you’re falling asleep with her tonight, brushing your lips against her hair, playing with her fingers, know that I love you, but I want nothing more than to hate you.”

Finally, the guilt looks real. Finally, the shock has his own breath shaking. Finally, she managed to set one little fire from the sparks of her blaze.

He leaves without another word. And she’s left with the wreckage.

March 27, 2020

Lilly used to read creepy stories on the internet. It was one of her many fads. She’d hunt through Reddit and Buzzfeed and Tumblr, trolling for words that made her skin crawl. There was a post once somewhere about the world’s shortest scary stories.

The last man on earth sat alone in a room. Then came a knock at the door.

She’s been preoccupied by that one lately, but she’s unsure why. Maybe it’s because she’d rather be alone right now instead of holed up with seven roommates. Maybe it’s because she’s grateful not to be alone.

The stay-at-home order in Los Angeles has been in place for eight days. Lilly’s been home for ten, when production on her series shut down. No production, no need for a freelance PA. That night, she held her breath and applied for unemployment just like six million other Americans.

She’s gone a bit nocturnal, staying up until 2 or 3am and waking up around noon. She does yoga, paints her nails, washes her hair every day, which makes it brittle and dull. She re-paints her nails, then bites them off while she checks Twitter.

She talks to her mom, who agonizes about the choice to keep Lilly in LA though she and Lilly’s dad would so much rather have her home and close. Lilly’s mom has a respiratory condition that makes her immunocompromised. If she goes home, she risks her mother’s health. She can’t bear the burden.

She talks to her friends and coworkers. Everyone is still in a state of shock for the first week -- scared, anxious, not yet angry. The anger will come later. Lilly understands in her own much smaller way the convoluted route anger takes through fear and numbness. That anger that’s taken a merciful backseat in her mind in recent months feels completely unimportant now, when it crosses her mind at all.

She talks to herself a little, too. It’s not unusual for her, exactly -- being an only child, sometimes it was the only way to make conversation growing up. But more and more as she attempts to self-isolate in her basement bedroom, avoiding her roommates with more fervor than usual, she worries about her growing dependence on it.

When the knock at her door comes, she’s mid-sentence, telling herself putting on the leggings is the hardest part of a workout, and she should just fucking do it and--

It’s two short raps at the door leading to the pool deck. The scary short story flashes behind her eyes as she blinks quickly, startled by interaction from the outside world.

She waits a few beats too long before she goes to the door, pausing with her fingers on the handle. She decides to believe it’s one of her roommates that got locked out upstairs, even if somewhere deeper she knows it’s not.

He had backed up off her little porch after knocking. Lilly’s not sure if it was out of a respect for social distancing or a concern that she might take a swipe at him. Either way, smart move.

Words seem superfluous. Lilly prides herself on a sharp, well-delivered line, but combing through the tangles of her brain, she has nothing. And she’s disappointed to discover the clawing in her throat and the increase in her heart rate that indicate if she tries to talk now, she might just start crying.

“I’m sorry. I know I should’ve called.”

He says it like he definitely thought about it and decided not to. She probably wouldn’t have answered. He once knew her well enough to know that.

She continues staring, wrapping her arms over her chest. He lifts a hand into his shaggy curls, longer than she’s seen on him before, but not totally unkempt. She can’t say the same about his facial hair.

“I needed to talk to you,” he continues. He’s doing the thing where he ducks his head and looks up through his lashes to be sweet and non-threatening.

Ever heard of a phone?

Funny, you haven’t needed to talk to me in nine fucking months.

Nothing feels right, so her jaw stays locked. She continues staring.

“I don’t want to come in, I just got off a plane--” he starts, and she finds her voice.

“Did it look like I was about to invite you in?”

He blinks hard and shifts on his feet. “N-no, I mean, I didn’t mean it like that, I just--”

“Shawn, I have no idea what you think you’re doing here, but you need to say it quickly before I walk straight into the deep end and sink like a rock just to get out of this conversation.”

His pretty lips part. He exhales sharply. After a moment, he squares his shoulders and jaw and she almost has to look away because he’s staring straight into her and it makes her squirm.

“I made a mistake, Lilly.”

Lilly gives him one long, wary glance. She turns away, steps inside, and shuts the door.

Shawn bounds up to the door and watches, confused, as she draws back the curtains and lifts the light filtering blinds. A pane of glass sits between them.

“What are you doing?” he calls through to her.

“Social distancing,” she snaps, cocking her head and pursing her lips. He rakes a hand through his hair.

“Please come out,” he requests, dropping a heavy hand to the wooden frame of the door. She jumps a little.

“I don’t need to, I can hear you from in here.”

He goes from warm and sheepish to annoyed quickly. “What, are you scared of me?”

“Yes,” she says immediately, so honestly. He flinches and stares at her.

“You just got off a plane from Miami, you’re probably one big walking coronavirus.”

Shawn wets his lips and lifts a shoulder. “I didn’t come from Miami, I came from Toronto.”

Lilly’s ire is interrupted by her confusion. She knows he was in Miami with her. The paparazzi were at her house the day after they got there. Lilly doesn’t avoid the pictures like the plague anymore. They don’t cause insane, uncontrollable crying jags anymore.

He no longer has that kind of power.

“You went home?” she asks.

“Last week,” he reports with a nod, propping himself up with his hands on either side of her door. She thinks maybe he got taller. It’s unimaginable.

Lilly will not ask. He seems to have come here to tell her, so she’s not sure how much point there is in her not asking but a scraping in her gut tells her to cling to her pride.

He drops his head. His hair looks greasy. He exhales in a huff.

“What, Shawn?” she prods, voice raspy but harsh.

He lifts his head like it’s extra heavy. “I ended it.”

Lilly shuts her eyes. She hates every piece of this feeling, even hates that she can name them all, sort them alphabetically, can imagine putting them in little baskets like she’s been doing since last summer. She thought she was done with that. Why is he doing this?

She drops her forehead to the glass door and then springs off it just as fast, fisting a hand in her hair. It’s too close.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” she hears herself pant, maybe more to herself than him, “Shawn, what the fuck?”

“I don’t know,” he pleads, eyes wide and lost, “I just really needed-- fuck, I wanted… Lilly, I missed you. I just… wanted to see you.”

She presses her hands together in front of her lips like she’s praying for patience. “You… Jesus Christ, you have to see how crazy this is. I… Shawn, it’s been nine months. And… and you left me.”

The wrinkle in his brow deepens. He was expecting that. He cocks his head slightly and looks pained. “I know. I’m… I still wanted to talk to you after. I just didn’t know how.”

Lilly’s eye roll is so epic she feels the tectonic plates beneath them shift. “It’s hard to be friends with the woman whose heart you broke, I guess.”

Again, he looks wounded. He plays it off better now than he did during the actual breakup. Or until her final parting words, at which he did look genuinely hurt. It was her only consolation.

“I’m so sorry. You have no idea--”

“I have no idea how sorry you are?!” she finishes for him, jerking back to life, her voice reaching a dangerous pitch. Shawn squares his jaw to take it.

“You know normal people get to just unfollow, block, whatever, and they can hide from the person that dumped them and their new relationship? There was no hiding from you two. Especially when you made fucking zero effort to be modest at all. Shawn, I could not escape it. So how sorry you are is nothing compared to how sorry I am.”

Shawn’s hands slide off the door. He takes a little step back, but refuses to drop his eyes. Lilly stares, swallows hard, and looks away when it becomes too much.

“I wanted…” he starts, clears his throat, “Wanted to see how you are. If you need anything. I know, I mean, I remembered your mom has that respiratory thing so you can’t go home.”

Somehow hearing it out loud, maybe hearing it from him, puts her over the edge. Two hot, fast tears trickle down her cheeks. Shawn looks startled, then stricken.

“Is she ok?”

Lilly, embarrassed and angry, goes magenta and swipes at her face with sweaterpaws. “She’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t know why I’m-- It’s ok.”

Shawn still looks concerned. He shoves his hands in his front pockets. “And your roommates? Is everyone ok?”

If she had any sense at all, any hope of self-preservation, she’d lie through her teeth. He wouldn’t know the goddamn difference. But he knocked out her ability to reason when he brought up her mom.

“Casey is sick,” she croaks, bringing her palms up over her eyes. She shakes her head, “We don’t-- I mean, she can’t get a fucking test. Mae is staying with us and living with her in her room, taking care of her.”

Shawn looks horrified and half ready to come through the glass at a run. “Lilly, you can’t stay here.”

“Where am I supposed to go?” she snaps.

He searches desperately for an answer in the cool, muggy air around him. It’ll rain again soon. Another thing for Lilly to cry about.

“With me!” he finally spits, his eyes lighting up, “My place in Toronto. You can, I mean, the guest bedroom--”

“Shawn, no,” she grunts, “I’m not doing that. That’s… what? No.”

The idea of holing up with Shawn in his lavish but small two-bedroom condo is the kind of vision that would’ve made her knees weak a year ago. She would’ve killed for this kind of time. Now, she honestly can’t believe she’s hearing him suggest it.

Shawn seems to go back to the mental drawing board. Lilly continues shaking her head and sniffling, ready to reject any idea he comes up with.

“What if we stayed here? Like at a hotel or something?”

“I’m not staying with you at a hotel for several reasons.”

He starts to look a little frustrated, and it’s oddly gratifying. Lilly crosses her arms.

“Ok, a house. I’ll rent a fucking house. Lill, please. I know you hate me. I totally don’t blame you. Please let me do something good for the first time in a fucking year. Please. Let me do this for you.”

Her teeth come together sharply when he uses her nickname. He doesn’t seem to notice.

She shakes her head for what feels like five minutes. “I really don’t know what to do. The fact that I’m even considering this doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

It’s the boost he needed to let the tension in his shoulders drop. He tilts his head and watches her tenderly as she roils inside.

“Are you as scared as I am?”

Lilly blinks and looks up at him. With a deep sigh, she releases the anger she grabbed onto, the anger she’d stowed months ago, the anger she picked back up as soon as she found him on her back porch. It’s not permanently gone. She knows better than to imagine that. It leaves exhaustion in its wake.

“Yeah. I am,” she admits, swallowing harshly. She drops to the tile floor and watches as he slowly, carefully lowers himself to prop against the other side of the glass door.

He looks different. There are new tattoos she knows about -- the stories behind them, she doesn’t. He’s wearing his hair longer on the back and sides. She thinks she likes it that way. He has a pimple, probably from stress, on the right side of his forehead. And he’s staring at her like he knows her inside and out. She shifts uncomfortably against her side of the glass.

“I replay that night over and over again in my head all the time,” he admits, squinting toward where the sun halos the banana trees at the far end of her yard, “I can’t fucking believe I treated you like that.”

Lilly sighs again, heavy-hearted. “Shawn, if this is something you think I need to hear, you should just go because I’ve dealt with it. It’s over. I’m… I’m not mad at you anymore. I don’t want to be. And if you’re here to deal with your guilt then honestly I think that’s selfish.”

Shawn sniffs and nods slowly. “It is selfish. I am selfish. I was selfish then and I’m probably being selfish now but all I want is to make sure you’re safe. I came here to apologize. I don’t know what I wanted out of that, I don’t know what I expected. But now I can’t leave without knowing you’re going to be safe.”

He looks as sincere as she’s ever seen him. It’s like an out-of-body experience. Just an hour ago she would’ve bet serious money on never seeing him in person again.

She shoves her head into her hands between her knees. She groans, “I’ve probably already been exposed to it. I could get you sick.”

“I’ve been on three planes in the last two and a half weeks, I’ve almost definitely been exposed, too. But at least in a big house with space we can really self-quarantine without you dealing with your roommates.”

He’s perked up a little, lifted his head off the door. He knows she’s considering it seriously. He seems afraid to breathe the wrong way and change her mind.

She chews thoughtfully at the inside of her lip and is silent for almost a full minute before she speaks again. “You could just go back to Toronto. You could go home and stay at the condo for a while, then be back with your parents in a week or two. You could just go home, Shawn.”

A piece of her hates him a little for having that option when she doesn’t.

He looks absolutely certain when he nods, wets his lips, and speaks.

“I could. But I don’t want to.”

It’s less than 36 hours later when Shawn texts her the address. It’s tucked up in Mandeville Canyon, gated and quiet, he assures her. He says it like he went out of his way to find them a place out of the public eye and the cynical piece of her says that’s less for her than for him. From what she can tell on social media and gossip sites, no one even knows he left Toronto. For Shawn to get in and out of LAX without the Army knowing about it, she figures he must be serious about keeping a low profile.

She waits two hours before letting him know that she has to pack, pick up groceries and prepare her roommates for the idea that she might be gone a while.

By the time she arrives, thumbing at the keypad with the code Shawn provided to open the driveway gate, it’s almost 9pm. Pavilions was a post-apocalyptic nightmare and made her feel more alone than she’s felt in weeks since the pandemic picked up media steam in the US. She dropped over $200 on whatever stable goods she could get her hands on and enough fresh stuff she hoped to be able to freeze. Exhausted, and a little traumatized, Lilly turns off the car and steps out to look around.

On the outside, the house is surrounded by tall white stucco walls and expertly trimmed hedges. The windows are wide for light but obscured tastefully by tall palms and sun-scorched banana trees. On the inside, beyond the stoic gates, it’s a little wilder, but in a relaxed, thoughtful way. The bases of trees and plants are illuminated by lights, giving the home a warm glow from the outside in, though Shawn seems to have turned on every light in the house. Wrapped in lush greenness, the house is classic prohibition-era LA -- stucco walls, adobe roof, some Mediterranean and Moroccan influences in the rounded archways and mosaic accents. The windows are all framed in hunter green. Lilly likes that.

There’s a balcony wrapped all the way around what looks to be one room on the second floor. Lilly stares up at it thoughtfully until the side door by the kitchen slams shut.

Shawn practically leaps off the tile steps to the stone pathway, his grin bashful as he tries to smooth it down. He jerks a hand through his hair, which looks cleaner than she last saw it. He’s barefoot in gray sweats and an old t-shirt. Lilly’s chest pulses with the sensation to walk right into him for a kiss. It’s a bizarre phantom instinct that she almost has to physically shake off. She tries to smile back, but it’s a grimace.

“Hey. How was it?” he asks.

Shawn stays a perfectly reasonable six feet away, but it feels further. Lilly swallows.

“It was fine. The lines were long.”

Sharing the vulnerability of telling him how grocery shopping in the midst of a global health crisis made her feel seems too much to handle. So she pops her trunk and looks around while he eagerly loads reusable bags into his very capable arms.

“This place is like something out of a Nancy Meyers movie,” she marvels.

Shawn grins again, that kind of smile it’s hard not to smile at.

“You like it?”

Lilly mashes her lips together and nods, forcing the corners of her mouth up. Again, it feels false. She drops it with a sigh.

“Sorry, I’m… really tired.”

Shawn looks at her suspiciously for a moment before his face clears up. He nods and heads for the door.

“I get it. I can show you your room. How much do I owe you for these?”

He gestures to the herculean number of grocery bags in his hands. Lilly reaches for the last few and shrugs, following him inside.

“It’s fine. You rented the house, I can pick up groceries.”

Lilly knows better than to imagine she won this battle so easily. It’s one of Shawn’s great joys in life to pay for stuff. It’s part of the Leo in him. But he seems to sense she’s not in a place to be argued with right now, about anything.

“I brought antibacterial wipes,” Lilly suddenly announces as the center island of the all-white kitchen gets cluttered with boxes and bags and containers and jars.

“Oh,” Shawn says with a grateful nod, clearly confused.

“The store was totally out of them but I brought some from home. And there was no toilet paper, weirdly,” Lilly muses.

“Huh,” Shawn murmurs, loading a bag of bell peppers into the vegetable drawer of the oversized fridge. Lilly watches, drumming her fingers against the white granite countertop. Shawn glances up at her as he sniffs and inspects the cabinets, deciding where to put the canisters of oatmeal.

Lilly shakes her head and backs up against the edge of the sink, crossing her arms. “This is so weird.”

“What?”

“Stocking up for the apocalypse in a mansion with my ex-boyfriend.”

Shawn looks like he wants to protest, but he shifts tactics. “Yeah. I guess it is weird. The whole fucking world is… weird.”

From six feet or a hundred thousand miles away across a countertop, Shawn and Lilly face each other. As for what’s between them, beyond the space, it will remain there for tonight and probably nights to come.

Shawn gives Lilly a truncated version of a house tour on the way to her room. He talks nervously, explaining that he took the master because he thought she’d want this room more, anyway. With each step, suitcase hurtling along noisily behind her over the stone tile, Lilly’s sense of panic grows.

This was a mistake. You’re insane to have considered it. Pathetic, even. Ridiculous. Immature.

Shawn wishes her a good night a few feet from the door. She smiles shallowly. Mercifully, the master bedroom is on the other side of the sprawling house. She waits until his footsteps fade to release her stress tears and gasping, short breaths.

The room is gorgeous. Simple white walls like the rest of the house with clean, neutral furniture, comfortable but stylish, with pops of color and lots of plants. Old California. But the real selling point is the balcony. It wraps around the guest suite and is accessible through wide set French doors.

Lilly sits on the end of the bed and attempts to reason with herself. She squeezes her eyes shut. She’s had an overwhelming couple of days. She needs to sleep. If she’s still miserable in the morning, she can leave, Shawn and his pretty house be damned.

Lilly wakes up fully clothed, half under the covers of the enormous bed. The curtains are still drawn open. The room is so bright it could be noon. In frantic confusion, Lilly flips over her dying phone to check the time. It’s 8am. She slept for almost 12 hours. She’s not entirely surprised.

She cranks herself up to sitting and assesses. The exhaustion-fueled panic that had her half-ready to stride back to her car to take herself home is gone. Her suitcase is where she left it in the middle of the room. Her face is tight and dry from salty tears.

And she can hear him.

She knows it’s not recorded music. She knows it’s him. She even knows which acoustic he’s playing. It’s his favorite. Hers too.

On crackling ankles and knees, she stands and shuffles to one of the balcony doors, pausing with her hand on the knob. She sighs and bites at her dry lips, pressing her forehead against the glass, looking over the balcony into the gardens below.

He’s barefoot again like he almost always is in LA. He used to complain that it’s too cold in Toronto to go barefoot even inside when the heat is on. She used to tell him he imagined it. He’s bobbing his head and strumming slowly like he does when he’s playing through a few chords to decide where he’s going next. He takes big, slow steps away from the house toward a bunch of lavender bushes near the edge of the property. Before he can pivot and turn to head back the other way, Lilly steps back.

She glances at her suitcase. She’ll think about it again after breakfast.

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k7l4d4 · 3 years

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Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 6 Part 1

Hello, and once again, welcome back to Midnight Striga!! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

“And now… to test it!” Eda cried, feeding a smidge of magic into the Lacrima sitting before her. In a burst of flames, she was sent flying into the wall, a pained groan clawing its way out of her throat. A crazed grin crossed her face. “Fire! Nice! That’s 163 down, 474 to go!” She cheered, hastily scribbling the results down on a piece of paper detailing the Lacrimas in her store. Carelessly tossing the Lacrima into the appropriate pile, she started sifting through her pile, hoping to find something interesting. “I’ve already managed to identify at least 13 specific types, wonder how many more I got?” She muttered to herself. She reached for her bottle of Appleblood for a swig, only to swipe at empty air. Glancing up, she met Luz’s unimpressed gaze, holding her Appleblood just out of reach. “You mind giving that back?” She asked, annoyed at the interruption.

Luz scowled. “Yeah, no. You’ve had way too much of this stuff.” She stated, a pointed look aimed at the kitchen, where at least 10 bottles lay emptied inside. Spotting the list of recorded Lacrimas and types, Luz’s eyes widened in shock. “Holy HELL Eda! When did you sleep!?”

Eda opened her mouth, paused, and awkwardly scratched her cheek. “I don’t have to answer that.” She finally said, evasively glancing to the sides.

Sighing, Luz plopped herself down from across the older Witch. “Eda, I get that you’re hurting. But trust me, running from this is just going to hurt you.” She looked up, naked grief burning in her gaze. “Believe me, I’ve been there.”

Eda gave a bitter snort. “Oh really? You’ve been betrayed by your family, cursed by someone you trusted, respected even!, and left to rot by society? Well color me surprised.” Eda sarcastically remarked, spite apparent in her tone. Her bitterness briefly fell away, however, when a thought came to her. “And weren’t you supposed to be watching Hooty and King while King was practicing?”

Luz huffed. “Pfft! They’ll be fine!”

King panted, dropping to his knees, the crude spear clutched in his paws trembling. He glanced up at his foe, scowling in anger. Hooty loomed over him, his long, wiry body coiled around multiple boulders he had suspended in the air; boulders that King now knew from PAINFUL experience could be willfully hurled like a slingshot. Forcing himself to his feet, King pointed his weapon at Hooty, screaming, “IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? YOU REJECT WORM TURKEY!!!!” With a savage battle cry, the two demons leapt back into the fray, bloodlust burning in their eyes.

“Yeah, they’ll totally be fine.” Luz repeated, blissfully unaware of the carnage going on out in the clearing she had left the two to practice in.

“I’m surprised you aren’t a mess yourself, Miss ‘My Sister Was a Hostage For My Cooperation Who I Thought Was Dead But May Actually Be Alive.’” Eda snidely stated, earning her a frosty glare from her roommate.

Luz sighed, seriously wishing they weren’t having this conversation right now. “I,” She began, pointing to herself. “Am Compartmentalizing at the moment. Does the information that my sister may be alive hurt me? Oh, absolutely. But I’m aware enough of my limits not to do something stupid, and am planning on putting the screws to Oroboros anyway. Forcing myself to panic and scramble won’t help me, and it won’t help her, if the info turns out to be true.” She finished, pain filling her eyes. Her gaze sharpened, pushing through the hurt. “But what’s important right NOW… is the fact that you avoided going to sleep, and are drinking this early in the morning while running magic experiments!” She glanced over the spread of Lacrimas, bewildered. “What were you even doing with all these anyway?” She asked.

Eda shrugged, lifting the Lacrima she’d most recently selected upwards for Luz to see. “Testing these to see what they can do.” She blithely stated, moving to do just that. Luz’s eyes shot open in panic. With a yelp, she whipped the Lacrima out of Eda’s hands. “Hey! What was that for!?” Eda demanded, holding her lightly stinging fingers.

Sighing in relief at the in-tact shard of magic in her hands, Luz carefully set it in what she gathered was the sorted pile. “That,” She said, pointing to the Lacrima. “Is an Explosion Lacrima. If you had tested that, it would’ve blown you to pieces, and considering its proximity to the other Lacrimas, would’ve taken the house and most of the clearing with it.” She stated, somehow managing to keep her panic out of her voice, even as Eda paled at the implications of what had almost occurred. Luz turned an accusing stare towards Eda. “This is what I mean! If you wanted to know about what these Lacrima were, you could’ve just asked me! But instead you snuck down here and proceeded to haphazardly test them without any kind of safety precautions!! I mean, I get your all about independence and inherent limitlessness of magic and all, but that was reckless, even for you. What. Is. The Problem?” Luz demanded, eyes hard.

Eda’s gaze fell to the table, her nails gouging into the wood. “I trusted her.” She whispered. “For all that we didn’t get along anymore, for all that she worked for Bonehead and I hated him and her attempts to bring me in, I still trusted her. And she’s part of the reason I’m such a pariah, the reason I can’t even live in town! She took my trust… and she stomped on it.” Tears fell to the wood, a look of desolation and pain stretched across her face. She turned to Luz, a look of hopelessness scrawled across her face. “How do I even deal with that!?”

Luz looked on levelly. She understood, she honestly did. While she herself may not have felt the particular emotions Eda was dealing with, she was incredibly familiar with the loss, confusion, and hurt that came from internal conflict. “Well, the first thing you gotta do is ask yourself this: do you still love your sister?”

Eda reeled back, appalled. “What kind of question is that!? She’s my sister! Of course I still love her!” She exclaimed, gesturing wildly.

“But she betrayed you and has been lying to you for years.” Luz evenly pointed out.

Eda snorted. “Yeah kid, I’m aware of that. I haven’t forgiven her for it, I probably never will!” She said, throwing up her arms in emphasis, before she continued, her voice softening. “But she’s still my sister. She’s still the girl who looked out for me as a kid, even if she has been acting like a pompous windbag for years. Am I hurting? Yes. But I know she is too. I don’t need to hold it any further against her than that. I just want my family to stop hurting over it all.”

“Well, my best advice for you is to get some rest and deal with this one day at a time.” Luz said gently. “It may not seem like much, but getting proper rest should do wonders for helping you process this and figure out how to go forward.” She shrugged. “It did with me at least.”

Eda gave Luz a misty smirk. “Since when are you the adult here?” She jokingly questioned, hands folding over her chest. As she felt a familiar sensation brush against her arm, she froze. Ignoring Luz’s inquiring look, Eda roughly pushed up her sleeve, the both of them turning pale at the sight of feathers popping up along her arms. “Crap!” With a shout, Eda rushed for her cupboards, hastily throwing them open, Luz following her lead with the cabinets and drawers. There wasn’t a single potion left in the house. Eda buried her face in her hands. “I can’t believe I forgot to stock up!”

“Well, do you have somewhere you can get more!?” Luz frantically questioned. Eda shot her a look that screamed ‘duh, are you serious?’ Luz sheepishly cringed. “Okay, yeah, you probably do.”

Eda nodded tersely. “Yeah.” With a gesture, she called her staff to her, Owlbert briefly cuddling up against her cheek before solidifying into wood. “Let’s get going before I go full Owl Beast in here.”

Luz gave a sharp jerk of her head, aimed in the direction of where King and Hooty were practicing. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”

Eda gave a mostly nonchalant snort. “Those two? They’ll be fine. Hooty’s more than strong enough to look after himself, and this place, and King isn’t a helpless little fuzzball anymore.” She stated, giving Luz a proud grin, one she happily returned. With that settled, the two leapt onto the staff, taking off into the air.

As they landed in town, Luz instantly took notice of the whispers. Everyone was huddled around, shooting one another furtive looks. Uneasiness rippled through the city, clinging to every group they passed. Luz was painfully aware of the stares she got, the fear and suspicion. She fought the urge to pull in and hunker against the voices, the accusations she just knew were building. A hand on her shoulder caused her to shoot her gaze up, Eda’s awkwardly comforting face filling her vision.

“Hey, just ignore them, okay? They don’t know you.” She said soothingly, rubbing Luz’s shoulder. “I’ve had to deal with it myself plenty of times. We kicked a hornet’s nest the other day, and now people are waiting for it to sting. They’ll be on edge, you might even get a few of the angrier idiots trying to yell at you, but they’ll come around. Eventually.”

Luz gave her a shaky grin, appreciative of the support. “Thanks Eda. It means a lot.” Eda gave her a jerky nod. As they wandered deeper into the city, they brushed by a group of school-age kids, including Amity and that girl who’d been burned that first day at Hexside. The group paused, turning to look at them, uncertain whispers kicking up. Luz was honestly surprised at how little it bothered her.

As they came to a fairly innocuous looking storefront, Eda began roughly pounding on what Luz assumed was the service counter. “Open up Morton! I’ve got an emergency, and I need potions, stat!” She shouted, her fist echoing loudly against the wood.

Thumps and shouts could be heard coming from the other side, before the shutters opened, a sickly seeming Witch poking through. “Oh, sorry Eda. I was up testing poisons last night and I haven’t been feeling too well. You said you’ve got a potion emergency?”

While Luz desperately wanted to comment on him testing Poisons on himself, she was rapidly growing accustomed to the lack of care to personal safety the Isles seemed to possess in regards to its Citizens. Still, Eda seemed to trust this guy, so she wouldn’t say anything. Eda nodded sharply, pulling out a sack of snails. “Yeah. I’ve got the usual payment, so make it snappy.” She barked, roughly sliding her payment across the counter.

Morton sucked in a hissing breath, a look of regret filling his face. Eda and Luz’s own faces dropped at what they expected to come. “I’m sorry, but I’m out of Curse-Suppressant Potions at the moment. Well, I’m nearly out, I should say.” He softly admitted.

Eda slammed her hands against the counter. “Then give me what you’ve got! I don’t even care if you take the entire payment, I need potions now!!” She said frantically, a feverish look burning in her eyes.

Solemnly, Morton pulled out a single potion, the bottle visibly only half full. At Eda’s crestfallen expression, Morton shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I have left.” He remorsefully confessed. Biting his lip, he slid the potion over, along with the payment, drawing a surprised look from the two. At Eda’s look of shock, he glanced up, a surprising amount of steel in his eyes. “It wasn’t right what your sister did, and it wasn’t right for the Emperor’s Coven to lie about what happened. A lot of people are in your corner at the moment, Eda, and I’m one of them.” He gave a firm nod, pushing the potion closer.

Eda gave a faint smile, gratefully pocketing the Potion and her purse. “Thanks Mort, you’ve always been a good one.” Her grin turned cheeky. “When your not doing something stupid like testing poisons on yourself, that is.” She and Morton shared a laugh, Morton’s sounding embarrassed but unhurt.

Morton’s gaze turned to Luz, his eyes widening. “Oh! You’re that human girl!” He exclaimed. “Wait here!” He ducked down, rummaging sounds audible as he looked through his stocks. Popping back up, he slid two bottles over. “Here, a one-time only gift, on the house. A specialty poison that obstructs magic, and a pain-relief potion I made on the sly.” He gave her a cheerful wink. “I heard what you said about that group, and what they did to your family. If you’re with Eda, then you’re a good person, as far as I’m concerned.” He folded his arms, growing stern. “But don’t expect any more charity. I do have a business to run, okay?”

Eda barked out a laugh. “HA! Don’t worry Mort, we’ll be fine. But, I’m sorry to say,” She held up the bottle. “This will barely hold me over for half a day, if that.” She and Luz exchanged worried glances.

Morton gave a rueful nod. “Yeah, that’ll probably be bad.” He scratched his chin, before snapping his fingers. “I think I might know someone who can help you!” His expression shifted into one of worried thought. “But it’ll be pretty dangerous.”

Eda raised an eyebrow, before her eyes widened in realization. “Oh no, don’t tell me-”

“Yup.” Morton replied, looking grave. “The Night Market. Specifically, a guy called Grimm Hammer. He probably has what you need.”

Eda cursed. “I hate the Night Market.” She growled, giving her thanks as she led herself and Luz away from Morton’s shop. “That place is seriously scummy, even for me.”

Luz raised an eyebrow. “Hmm, let me guess, Black Market? Illegal goods and services that would bring the law down like a hammer on ripe fruit?” She guessed, clarifying at Eda’s confusion at the term she used.

Eda snorted. “Exactly.” As the two strolled along, deep in thought about their next move, a finger slowly reached out from a nearby shadow, grasping for Eda’s arm. Luz shrieked at the sight.

#the owl house #fairy tail #owl house au #fairy tail au #owl house crossover #fairy tail crossover #luz noceda #eda clawthorne #king the owl house #hooty the owl house #morton the owl house #magic

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yikesharringrove · 4 years

Note

I have this sorta headcanon that Will has a crush on Billy (or Steve I suppose). Maybe he figures it out and try to let Will down gently because obviously he's both too old and too in love with someone else. ❤

So, I LOVE the idea of Will losing his SHIT over Billy when he comes to town, but like, Steve is hot, and lets be real, Will grew up watching him be King Steve, any little gay child who saw that would be like 👀

Also, one of my all time favorite fics features will having a crush on Billy and he asks him out but Billy thinks its just to like, hang out, so he’s like, I’ll invite Max too! (fic is Yourself or Someone Like You bc it’s like the Harringrove Bible) I’m gonna go with Will asking Steve out bc that’s a stupid big headcanon for me.

It took Will three weeks, six days, and nine hours to finally work up the courage to do it.

He was in his sophomore year at Hawkins High, had grown into his long limbs, and with Steve’s suggestion, had ditched the bowl cut for something a little more, flattering.

He had had a crush on Steve since he was eleven years old.

Steve was freshly sixteen when he coached Will’s baseball team, had a shiny new car and a bright smile and kind eyes and would cheer Will on and clap him on the shoulder when he did something good, would pull him aside and gently teach him how to right it when he made a mistake.

He figures he’s probably not the only queer in Hawkins who had their sexual awakening to Steve Harrington brushing the hair out of his eyes, but he was actually kinda friends with Steve, would hang out on weekends with him and Billy in their shitty little apartment in the city.

He had always kept his feelings on the back burner, had more pressing ones (a.k.a. the ones for Mike) but those were just a pipe dream, Steve had actually told him that he was bisexual, that he liked guys. Will had a shot.

“Would you, like, maybe want to go out sometime?” Steve looked at him slowly.

“You mean like a, like a date?” Will went red, but he nodded nonetheless, his heart pounding as those big eyes went soft. “I um, okay, I’m sorry but I just, I’m gonna have to say no thank you. I’m sorry, Will.”

“But you, you said you like guys.”

“And I do, but like, you’re not exactly age appropriate, and I’ve actually, I’ve got a boyfriend.” Will felt like he was gonna die. Like he was gonna melt right through the fucking floor and die. “It’s really, you’re a great kid, and you’re gonna be a really good boyfriend to someone but, Will, I’m twenty one, and you’re not even sixteen yet. Like, I think it’s actually illegal for us to date.”

“I’ll be sixteen next month.”

“But that’s beside the point. You’re in high school, and I’m like, considered an adult.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” Will didn’t really register himself saying it, but once it was out there, he was burning to know.

“It’s Billy. I thought you, thought you knew.”

“I thought you were just roommates.”

“Will, this is a one bedroom. We’ve been dating since I was in high school.” Will’s mind raced.

“Shit. That actually clears a lot of stuff up.”

“Did you just think we were like, best pals or something.” Will shrugged as Steve stifled a laugh into his hand. “Yeah we’ve been like pretty serious together for like, three years now.”

Will was back to wanting the Earth to open up and swallow him whole.

“Look, Will. You’re a wonderful person, but I’m too old for you, too taken, too much of a douchebag. You deserve someone nice, who’s kind and loving. And you're going to find that, it’s just not me.” Will blew out a breath, leaning back in his chair.

“Have I just made things weird between us forever?” Steve chuckled, getting up to rummage through the fridge, sliding Will a beer, cracking one open for himself.

“Nah. I actually prefer for all my friends to have crushes on me. Makes me feel good.” Will glared at him. He winked. “For real though, no. It’s only weird if you make it weird. We’ll just have to find you someone, because trust me, you can do so much better than me.” Will rolled his eyes.

“But Billy can’t?”

“Oh no, Billy was probably a real sinner in his past life to get stuck with me being an idiot around him all the time. I think he was probably Jack the Ripper or something.”

“I don’t think you could ever be considered punishment.” Steve raised his eyebrow.

“Oh yeah? I literally have never thought out a single decision in my whole life, I’m the world’s clingiest little fucker, and I don’t know if you actually know this about me there, Will, but I’m actually a fucking douchebag. Like most of the time.”

“I mean, not really-”

“Yes, really. Billy’s just a freak that likes it when I get like that. Calls me a brat and-” He cut himself off, averting his eyes form Will. “Basically we’re both garbage and you deserve like, an actual good person, because you’re an actual good person.” Billy’s keys jingled in the lock, the door swinging open to reveal him, bags of groceries on his arms, Walkman headphones over his ears.

“Hey, Kid Byers.” Billy swept down to kiss Steve on the head, dumping the groceries and his headphones on the counter.

“Bill, apparently Will didn’t know we’re together.” Will’s face was red when Billy turned around to look at him, completely amused.

“What, so you thought every time I come home and kiss him on the fuckin’ head that was just us being totally straight friends?”

“I don’t know. I just didn’t really think about it.” Billy laughed at Will, Steve getting up to put away the groceries, pressing a beer into Billy’s hand and shooing him over to the table to sit with Will.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” Will didn’t really know what to say, didn’t want to get like, the shit beaten out of him for trying to hit on Steve.

“He just wanted to say hey. We’ve just been chatting about what a pure trash person I am.” Billy laughed, but nodded along.

“Steve is garbage. You know his feet are somehow always cold? And he’ll put ‘em all all over me every single night. He must be stopped.” Steve swatted at him with a dishrag.

Will doesn’t know how he never saw it, the way they act like they’ve known each other for eternity, the way they’re so obviously, so painfully in love.

“Yeah? Well Billy’s gross and never cleans out the sink after shaving.”

“And you’re a brat that’s just fucking asking to be-”

“Literally, there is a child present. Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Billy just grinned, running his tongue along his bottom lip. “And see, Will. I told you we’re both terrible and deserve being stuck with each other.”

Will thought maybe being let down by the one person he thinks he;s ever been in love with would hurt more, but seeing these two make fun of each other, the way Billy presses a kiss to Steve’s neck when he moves behind him, the way Steve will look at him so softly, he realizes that Steve is happy, and that’s okay, because maybe one day he’ll be happy like that too, with someone who loves him like Billy does.

#yikes writes #will byers #steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington x billy hargrove #billy hargrove x steve harrington #will totally gal pal'ed billy and steve #harringrove fic #harringrove ficlet #harringrove drabble

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hecohansen31 · 4 years

Note

Hello love, I’m back to request something 😊 I’d love to request a modern day roommate Ivar imagine with the prompts 69) “you’re not taking me to bed. ever.” and 53) “we’re not just friends and you fucking know it”. I’d prefer it if at first the reader wants to keep their relationship on the friendship level, but do whatever you feel like! I hope you have fun and thank you so much!! 💕

WARNINGS: Mention of Traumatic Loss of Virginity, Slutshaming, Problematics With Sex, Large Use of Curse Words.

It wasn’t that you didn’t like sex.

Although you had to admit that it had never felt truly pleasurable with you.

But it was more the fact that you knew all too well how awkward sex made things.

Even more when you had to live with the boy who you wanted nothing more than kiss.

And it had already been difficult to simply be accepted by Ivar as his roommate, since for so long he had gone without one.

So, he was the absolute grumpiest towards the idea of having one.

He constantly annoyed you with the most useless complaints, to the point that you had started doing the same, reaching a breaking point that had obliged you to act like true adults and talk it out.

And you had been having a truce since that, even becoming friends, due to your mutual distaste of people.

And even more, on a peculiar Saturday night when you had been cuddled against each other watching ‘The Last Kingdom’, when you had suddenly dozed off in a strange discourse, spurred on by your soft moan as Ivar had started nonchalantly caressing your hair.

Although he didn’t seem it, he was a rather cuddly guy, always justifying it as your couch being too short for both of you, hence he always ended up with you on his lap or the opposite thing.

‘Gosh you are fucking sensitive, (Y/N)” he had uttered surprised, as you blushed, but you hadn’t moved away from his comforting hands, and they had started to gently caress your hair, passing through your hair, as if it was the most natural thing ever.

‘… haven’t had somebody touch me in…’ you had then looked at your hands, counting down the months ‘… in honestly a few years’.

You had felt again surprise take on Ivar’s body, as he had stilled against you.

‘Years?’ he seemed truly surprised ‘… didn’t you have a boyfriend, before coming here?’.

‘Not really’ you mumbled lightly, again a thoughtful smile on your face ‘… I was just busy trying to get a degree and then a decent job, I didn’t have daddy to set me up in the family agency’.

He simply flipped you off, making you lean closer and before you knew you were even a few centimeters away from a kiss.

‘… all pleasure and no business, (Y/N)?’ he had asked, and his mouth had turned into such a sensual shape that you couldn’t help but stare at it, as it formed the rest of the phrase “… you should definitely get somebody to help you relax’.

‘Mhm?’ you had mumbled tentatively, still distracted by his beauty, not having truly heard what he had said.

Ivar had always had this algid beauty, but you had never observed it so closely, and you couldn’t help but enjoy his pretty masculine strength, with his thick and muscled neck.

Although you had to there wasn’t much in Ivar that wasn’t muscly.

He took great care of his body, something that you couldn’t help but appreciate, even more when it gave you all the fanservice content you weren’t getting anywhere else, and it certainly paid off, since he was incredibly handsome.

And you couldn’t understand how he hadn’t a stable girl, yet.

You knew that he wanted one, because other than having caught him talking awkwardly with girls, you had seen all the dating apps on his phone.

He might have his temper, you had to admit it, but once you got him to shut up, he certainly seemed ready for the ride of your life.

And that was totally what you were thinking as Ivar repeated the question he had asked.

But you weren’t hearing anything anymore.

And you had leaned in down onto his lips, almost as if you were hypnotized and you couldn’t desire anything more than to kiss those plump lips, which you couldn’t help but tease softly, as it turned out in a full-on make-out session.

Ivar hadn’t seemed in the slightest opposed to it.

As he leaned down, quickly pushing you under him, as you felt his hands rush down your back, slowly scrunching up your pajama top, as his hands slipped under it, making you shiver lightly at their natural coldness.

And then they had moved to gently bunch up your shirt and that is when you had started panicking, immediately realizing what he was doing and where all of this would go, and retreated so suddenly that Ivar had looked as if you had almost slapped him.

But you couldn’t help but move away further, eventually awkwardly stumbling away to your room, as you thought about how screwed you’d be.

So, for the following week you had avoided Ivar like the plague, staying out till late at friends’ house and avoiding him even when you were obliged to be together in the house, trying to stay in your room and eat when he was in his to study.

But eventually you knew that the final showdown would come.

And you wouldn’t ever be ready for it.

Because you liked Ivar, mostly as a friend.

But you had been the one who had kept that relationship on that basis, because you didn’t want anything to be ruined, for your sake and his.

And now thoughts of a pleasant future with him run through your mind.

But not only you had to keep them quiet because you didn’t need a relationship to make things even more complex, but you weren’t sure of what Ivar might want from you, because you couldn’t ruin everything just for a nice fuck.

You knew yourself too well.

You’d fuck, you’d develop feelings for him, and you’d end up kicked out from the nicest house you had ever lived in.

And that is what you told Ivar when he confronted you about not wanting to have sex with him.

‘… it isn’t about you, but it’s about me’ you had replied tiredly, as he stared at you as if he wasn’t used to such words.

And he told you as much.

‘Usually it is the other way around’ he muttered, sitting in front of you on a chair in the dining room, meanwhile you tried to avoid his stare, because you just knew that those perfect blue eyes would have gotten you under water pretty quickly.

And you’d drown in them, with just a few smart promises and soft words.

And you couldn’t let yourself go through that again.

What Ivar didn’t know was that not only you were touch-starved, but before your long reign of singleness, you had been with only one man.

You had loved him so so ardently that you were absolutely sure you’d be married once you finished high school.

You had grown in a rather conservative family and you were ‘supposed’ to wait till your marriage to have sex, something that at that time you had truly believed in, so when your high school sweetheart had proposed to sneak away from a party and have a bit ‘of fun’ you had thrown all your morality through the window, sure he’d be the man who you’d marry.

Because you were simply crazy for him.

And it seemed all ‘oh so romantic’ and ‘dangerous’.

But when you had moved to have sex, it had hurt like a fucking bitch.

It hadn’t been pleasurable in the slightest.

You had hated every minute of it, sure that this was some kind of punishment for having broken your purity vow, and when it was over you had smirked at your lover as if it was the most pleasurable thing but he hadn’t cared in the slightest for you, rolling on his side, away from you and falling asleep.

A few weeks after, he had broken up with you.

And you had been heartbroken.

Not only because you had felt like you deserved it, but also because you just couldn’t believe the awful way you had been used.

It had taken you a long time to stop blaming yourself for what had happened, and this had certainly made you feel extremely uncomfortable when men approached you or tried to convince you to have sex with them.

Hell, you were still uncomfortable at the thought of having sex.

Felling like it’d just ruin things.

And that you were too ruined to be truly loved.

“Believe me, Ivar, it is better that we just forget about it” you had then then muttered, hoping to finish your discourse and go back to your self-pitying corner.

But for Ivar it wasn’t enough.

“… why are you so scared of this?” he seemed completely unfazed by your discourse and you wondered whether he had fully heard it or not “… you obviously wanted me, on that couch, don’t deny it…”.

You wouldn’t have certainly.

Even more when he looked downright sinful with that grumpy expression on his face.

“Ivar it is more complex than that!” you retorted, low key annoyed “… we can’t simply have sex and then go back to our lives as if nothing happened! You know it!”.

Because it would have almost hurt more than the possibility of something changing.

“… do you have some issues with sex, (Y/N)?” replied tightly Ivar, hissing through his teeth “Because sex can also be simple sex, just a stress reliever, and Gosh you fucking need it, if you are bitching like this”.

You almost wanted to reach out and slap him, but you were sure that would have been a point on his favor.

“You’re not taking me to bed. Ever” you replied tightly at him, wanting to seriously shut up this discourse “… even though I fucking want that stress relief, I don’t think it is appropriate, so fucking get over your ego and… we are roommates, maybe friends but…”.

“We’re not just friends and you fucking know it” again that hiss through his teeth, made liquid heat spill through your thighs and you were even more than willingly to fucking run away, and maybe you should have.

You should have looked through new apartment options, instead of facing him, as you felt your heart breaking and crumpling apart.

You didn’t know what hurt you more; the thought of giving in to him or to keep yourself away from him.

But he didn’t give you much chance, as he pushed himself from his chair, and you expected him to shout at you some more, but instead he just turned, pushing himself towards his room and locking himself inside, as you were left alone on that couch.

And you almost hoped it’d swallow you.

You waited till dinner time, because you felt like, although you had been desperately looking for a way to close this discourse, you hadn’t wanted for it to end this way.

And it made you realized what truly pained you.

Ivar had been important for you, even though he was extremely grumpy and sometimes could be a bit harsh, but you couldn’t deny that he had helped you get yourself through the hard times, making you comfortable enough that you felt sure in his arms.

And that you had panicked on your own, thinking that he was the same as your high school sweetheart.

But Ivar wasn’t.

Deep down you knew it.

He had fought for you, but still left you your time.

So, although you weren’t sure what you wanted, you still felt like you still owed him an explanation.

As you knocked at the door, you heard him cursing loudly, followed by a ‘I want to be left fucking alone’.

“You haven’t started the emo music yet, so fucking open the door” you tried to tease him, to slightly ease the situation between you.

“Fucking leave me alone”.

“What are you going to tell me next ‘it isn’t a phase mom, IT IS WHO I AM’ “ and that was enough for Ivar to open the door right in your face with an annoyed expression, but you could absolutely see something more, a nostalgic feeling.

“… what the fuck do you want?”.

“Not sex” you mumbled, as he almost smashed the door in your face “… but I feel like I owe you an explanation”.

“I know what you are thinking, don’t bother yourself with an explanation” he muttered, as he shot a light look at his legs “… I am good enough to snog up a bit, but full on sex? Gosh no, fucking leave the cripple alone”.

“Stop with this self-pitying, it doesn’t suit you, shithead” you replied, as you pushed lightly on his chest, eventually letting yourself in this sadness lair “… it is seriously about me, I am the problem”.

“You don’t like boys anymore, do you?”.

“Would you shut up that fucking sharp tongue” you replied sarcastically, and he just showed you his tongue indeed, wiggling in a way that was almost painful to see and not feel between your legs “… I did a fucking mistake a long time ago…”.

And you told him about your first time, the way you had felt so guilty about sex, and how difficult it had been for you to relation yourself with men.

How you had thought for so long that sex wasn’t anything more than degrading act, but also how it ruined every relationship you had.

Because once men got what they wanted… they just… left.

“… I just… I don’t want us to you know… do the do…” Gosh you couldn’t believe that you were blushing “… and then wake up to us being nothing”.

Because you didn’t want to lose Ivar.

And that was why you were explaining that to him.

You expected him to either call you an ‘whore’ for what had happened to you in high school, as some of your friends had done or not take seriously what you had said (as some others of your friends had done).

But Ivar seemed almost as shocked as you had been at his revelation and softly, he moved onto the floor in front of you, meanwhile you were sat down on his bed, and you moved to help him up, thinking he had fallen, but he stopped you, and painfully pushed himself to look at you in the eyes, as he softly grabbed on your hands.

“… thank you for telling me this” he mumbled, as he caressed your hand softly “… I am sorry you had to go through that and that you don’t feel comfortable with sex because of that, and I am even more sorry for pushing you through that again…”.

“It isn’t your fault” you replied softly, comforted by his gentle gestures.

“I also have an awful sex story to share, in hope that you’ll understand that I do think that I can imagine what you felt… when it happened to you” and you were surprised about this, but he simply ducked his head, hiding his eyes away from you “… the first time I did something… ‘sexual’… I couldn’t… I didn’t raise up to the occasion. And the girl I was with… she laughed about me”.

You had no idea.

Although being roommates definitely made you share a lot of things, you hadn’t known about this.

But this would explain Ivar’s annoyance at your refusal and the way he was insecure of himself.

Although he had been an asshole, you could feel he had his own reasons.

“I… it took me a long time to get comfortable again with… the entire sex aspect” he explained “… I am still not comfortable… about some things… so I am sorry if I pressured you, when you felt uncomfortable it is just…”.

He now was definitely pained by the confession and you stole it from his lips.

“… it is just that you are more than my friend” you commented “… I have to admit that I never thought about you in ‘that’ way, till last weekend… I mean I did ogle your six pack…”.

“I noticed that that” he mumbled, making you laugh lightly, embarrassment easing off.

“… so this is new, for me… but I couldn’t get… away the thought of you like that” he now raised his eyes finally meeting your eyes with a shocked expression “… and I’d like to try, just… we need to go slow”.

“We’ll go slow” he promised, as he gently caressed your job “… and I’ll make you fucking forget that asshole who screwed your heart”.

You blushed lightly at the determination in Ivar’s promise.

You didn’t doubt it in the slightest.

“Don’t worry my lady there won’t be any ‘ploughing’ yet”.

“Why the fuck did I let you watch the ‘The Last Kingdom’ with me?”

#Ivar #Ivar The Boneless #Ivar Reader #Ivar x Reader #Ivar Imagine #Ivar Fic #Ivar Ask #Ivar Drabble #Ivar Blurb #Ivar Angst #Angst #Ivar Fluff #Fluff #Ivar Moodboard #Ivar The Boneless Fic #Ivar The Boneless Moodboard #Vikings #History Vikings #Vikings Imagine

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enchi-elm · 4 years

Text

So today’s been... a day, not necessarily an awful one, but one that builds into a knot slowly and by the end of it you’re feeling a meltdown come on and you realize you haven’t drunk any water since noon.

But you’re dehydrated enough that you’re stubborn about it? Like “No, I’m not drinking water until someone tells me to.”

So I went on the Turn discord server and asked them to tell me to drink water.

No response. Deciding I should be an adult, I went to fill my water bottle.

Ran into my roommate--whole other story--who wanted to start a conversation and I kind of...politely declined cause crap mood, and he held up a letter that I’d gotten.

Aside: I live with these people temporarily, but have decided to get some kind of proof of residence by asking my BFF to send me a letter at the address so I can get a local library card and use its considerable resources in the future, because it’s a better connected library than my usual one.

It’s a birthday card--my birthday was five months ago--from my best friend and other half, insisting that she knows when my birthday is and that the plague has prevented her from getting more appropriate stationary. The letter is written as if from the 18th century. I feel an intense burst of love for my friend and start sniffling then and there.

Go back to my room with the letter and water to find that two people have encouraged me to drink water and take heart. Then followed up with one and felt, just, really attended to. Then another friend--telepathic?--checked in while a totally unrelated friend to Turn or real life popped in to say they’d commented on my fic. Another friend--number four!--started sharing some gossip and things going on in her life, and it feels so good to be a part of something like that.

This is the thing -- having people in your life doesn’t have to mean they’re lifting mountains all the time to help you come back to baseline. Each of those interactions was small and meaningful, and over the course of twenty divinely ordained (it seems) minutes, I felt at home with myself (and considerably better hydrated).

So, my friends, do the little things. They add up, up, up.

#personal things #fandom love

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spiltscribbles · 5 years

Note

combo of 7 & 8 for pynch hehe :)

Notes: Thank you so much love!!! | Send Me A Prompt

“It’s the last straw! I’m done! I’m over it!” Blue stabs the spoon into her yogurt, teeth clenched, and knuckles white. Adam, like the good friend he is, just calmly slides it out of her hand and gives her a banana instead.

“She’s not that bad of a roommate,” he tells her with a one armed shrug. The look she shoots him can only be described as the personification of betrayal. Adam can’t believe it’s the third time he’s rolled his eyes at her and it hasn’t hit nine in the morning yet.

“They were naked Adam! Nude! Birthday suits!”

“The biblical state,” Henry tacks on and Blue nods along graciously.

Make it four times before nine in the morning.

“It’s Orla…. She’s eccentric

“It was on the couch! I sit on that couch Adam!” blue hits her hand against the table, fully indignant now.

“I really would recommend having it at the very least steam cleaned before partaking in that activity again,” Henry advises sagely as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“Oh no! No way! I will never sit on that couch another day of my life!”

“Glad to see you’re taking this reasonably,” Adam says, voice blithe, as he brings their cereal bowls to the sink.

“Don’t start with me Adam! You haven’t seen the things I have! The freckles and birthmarks— The hair.” Blue shutters and henry slings an arm around her slim shoulders in comfort, clucking his tongue all the while.

Fifth…. It’s been the fifth time now.

“So how do you reckon you’ll live in there without sitting on the couch ever again?” He needles with a quirked brow, fully having decided to just fall into the dramatics. It’s always easier for him at the end of the day when just excepting it.

“I’m moving out! Duh.”

“Oo, My Blueberry is becoming her very own American woman!” Henry preens. “Let me get you a chic new outfit Sabrina style!”

“That movie is sexist and culturally appropriates middle eastern garb.” Blue sniffs.

“Good to know that the new Blue has still got all her old spunk.”

“You’re both ridiculous,” Adam tells them, lips pinched.

“We bring bursts of color into your otherwise stale existence,” Blue argues loftily.

“Ridiculous,” Adam repeats with feeling.

“Lying doesn’t become you my dear Henrietta Prince,” Henry tells him far too frankly before turning his attention back to Blue. “You know you’ve got a place here if you want it.”

“Where?” Blue snorts. “In your living room?”

“Our couch doesn’t have naked Orla germs,” Adam offers halfheartedly.

Blue just levels him with a unimpressed look, and Adam’s got flashbacks to junior year when Maura caught the pair of them getting drunk off Persephone’s peach wine coolers.

It’s terrifying.

“Charming. But no need, I’ve already begun sifting around for places nearby that are looking for a new roommate.”

Adam takes the papers she’s already printed off and begins shuffling through them.

“This one has like five cats,” he tells her with a curled lip.

“It sounds homey.”

“You’re allergic,” Adam rebukes.

“I’m desperate Adam!” Blue reminds him.

“This one has a picture of him wearing a MAGA hat on his facebook profile pic,” Henry informs her, holding a second listing.

“Okay not that desperate,” Blue crumples it up and tosses it to the side. Adam would tell her to throw it in the trash like an adult but reasons she’s having a moment.

“Mmm, what about this one,” she waves around the paper and Henry takes it to look over himself.

“It’s with three random dudes.”

“Three normal looking dudes,” Blue presses. “And so to reiterate, I’m desperate.”

“Ted Bundy was a normal looking dude,” Adam charges, making Blue glare at him menacingly.

“Adam I can still see flesh in my nightmares!”

Sixth, sixth time he’s rolled his eyes. Jesus fucking Christ Adam is gonna be sent to an early grave because of an aneurism from them.

The problem is that when Blue sets her mind on something, not even the angels above can dissuade her from it, so that’s why Adam spends his Saturday afternoon— the only one he’s had off from a shoot in literally three months— driving to some sketch apartment with her and Henry, in the latter’s abrasively flashy sports car.

He feels like a fraud.

“Blueberry are you sure you put in the right address?” Henry asks, face scrunched in confusion once they cruise into the open parking spot in front of a dilapidated looking manufacturing building.

Blue flickers her eyes back down towards her phone before glancing up with a sure nod.

“Look it says Monmouth right over there on the sign near the front door. This’s the right place.”

“Right place to get murdered,” Adam intones darkly.

Blue only tosses him a glare before slipping out.

“Are we bad people for going along with this?” Henry asks Adam, his mouth downturned in concern.

“Nah, we were bad people long before this.” Adam assures him wryly before following suit.

“I don’t want a new roommate,” Ronan tells Gansey for the third time in the past hour. In turn, Gansey only rolls his eyes before trying to stuff the old pizza boxes into the trash can. God fucking damn it, Helen’s right, they do live like pigs.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Noah contends. “It’ll bring some new energy in this place.”

“Oy, what did I tell you about saying shit like energy and chakras.”

“That’s it’s something a douche hipster would say and you’d throw me out a window if you heard it again.”

“And yet.”

“All I can say to that is dude you need to clear your chakras.” Noah says, fully goading, and making it so an unexpected laugh tears out of Ronan, the total prick.

“For the love that is all holy and right, will you two please just attempt to act normal when she gets here.”

“It’s a girl?”

“A girl with models as friends,” Noah perks, completely beaming. “And you know what that means,” Noah winks and Ronan, for the good of the public, cuffs him on the back of the head. Hard.

“You fucking sly dog, how do you even know that?”

“Preliminary interview through the phone,” Noah shrugs. “She sounds nice, better than living with that guy with a pet snake.”

“That snake was fucking cool.” Ronan argues.

“There’s a one pet limit here, and your raven has taken the slot.” Gansey huffs, hand on his hip like Aurora would do if Ronan and Declan were being especially rowdy. “And Noah don’t ask about her model friends, that’s creepy.”

“That’s kind of my shtick man.” Noah points out, wide eyed.

“Less horror film creepy and more loser from Revenge of the Nerds creepy,” Gansey clarifies scoldingly.

Noah swallows down a lump, properly cowed.

It’s right then when the doorbell rings and Gansey frantically puts in the last of the empty cups into the dishwasher from the sink before scurrying to the doorway, Noah and Ronan on his heals.

Ronan knows he lost the battle and the war the moment the door swings open and the first thing the pixie sized, colorfully dressed girl says is a glowing “Blank 182?” While gesturing towards Noah’s… Well Noah’s everything.

Noah looks like the cat who’s gotten into the cream, Gansey looks more glowing than usual, and Ronan can’t take his eyes off the sandy haired boy she’s brought along with her.

Living with Blue is a beast that Ronan can’t quite figure out how to defeat.

She, probably like any sane person, expects the house to be in some sort of semblance— aka no more jackets and other innocuous articles of clothing thrown about the shared living space, and for dishes to be rinsed after use and put into the dishwasher accordingly.

“Your rooms can be as trashy as you want, but can we please not make the whole place a pigsty,” she had sniffed with a cocked head and jut out hip. Gansey of course nodded giddily— on account to his staring at her all moony ever since meeting her— Noah had shrugged, indifferent. But Ronan held out as long as possible, sneer on his lips. But alas, she met his every zig with a zag and he found himself in a stalemate.

But Ronan could deal with the tidiness and even the impromptu yoga sessions she holds with randoms from her classes at university. Hell he could deal with her weird obsession with Yogurt too, and can actually listen to her rants about the patriarchy and institutional blocks that keeps the impoverished and people of color and women down from being able to achieve feats once only meant for wealthy white men. Fuck, Ronan’s come to think her particular brand of spitfire humor is actually hilarious.

So yes all of this is fine. But with Blue comes them. Henry Cheng, best friend she met at some art class her freshman year. And fucking Adam Parrish, apparently someone she’s known for so long and so intimately that she refers to him as family more often than not.

And yeah. Ronan is not jealous and Noah needs to take that fucking sneer off his face.

“You’re jealous!”

“I am not jealous!” Ronan yells emphatically for the fifth time.

“Ronan has a crush!”

“Noah God so help me!” He threatens, totally venomous.

“You’re in loveee!”

“Noah I will destroy you!”

Okay so Ronan might be sorta, kinda, not jealous…. But bothered. Yes Bothered. He’s bothered because he can’t fucking figure out Blue and Adam’s deal. One second they’re sniping at one another about the economy and the next she’s lying her head in his lap while he’s carding a hand through her hair.

Fucking salacious shit.

But occasionally, on especially good days, Blue falls asleep early and instead of going back home right away, Adam stays. He stays and he shares a drink with Ronan on the porch and they talk about nothing really, but also a lot of things. Ronan find’s out he basically grew up with Blue, that she was his first everything. He’s deaf in his left ear and he didn’t mean to fall into modeling but he didn’t have enough money to finish the semester at MIT and instead of giving up he took up some side gigs which eventually culminated into a career of his own.

Ronan finds out that Adam’s favorite flavor of ice cream is cow tracks and his front tooth is chipped from behind. Adam has a small, crooked smile and when he laughs its more breath than sound and its absolutely lovely.

Ronan finds this all out but still has no idea whether he has a shot.

And again, he’s bothered.

“I vote on something classic,” Blue tells them with a sip of her shake. (Read the shake Adam bought but Blue somehow still always drinks half of even while she complains about being on a diet, which then leads her to grouse about how Adam stays narrow and lithe even if he eats four quarter pounders back to back).

Sadly, this happened once and only once when Adam was especially stressed over a finals week and hadn’t eaten for literally three straight days.

She really has seen him at his worst.

“Ooo, let’s watch some singing in the rain! I’m ready to belt out some toons.” Henry crows.

“Oh well if it includes your perfectly pitched singing,” Adam says flatly. Blue promptly elbow checks him and Henry waggles his tongue out.

“Sounds good to me Henry, so where?”

“Your place?” Adam says, brow kinked and trying to smother down the hopefulness in his voice. Of course, it doesn’t work. They know him better than anyone else, and they immediately stick him with matching smirks.

“Pray tell Parrish, me and you have the better entertainment system by far, and yet you’ve been insistent on heading to Blueberry’s place for our weekly movie nights for the past two months…. Hah, I wonder what two months signify?”

“Ooo ooo! I know Henry, I know!” Blue teases swinging her arm up high like an excited school girl. “I just moved into Monmouth and Then Adam over here got all slack jawed and goofily eyed over my scary roommate!”

“Blueberry gets the point!” Henry squawks, giving her a makeshift bracelet out of the straw wrapper.

Adam looks at them both with as much fury as he could muster, cheeks infused red, and jaw locked.

In retort, they only laugh ebulliently.

Adam is so tempted to make new friends.

Ronan opens the door on a random Thursday afternoon a week later and Adam steels his nerves, not about to back down.

“Oh, ah Parrish.” His prominent brows furrow together, suspicious. “Maggot isn’t here yet.”

“I know,” Adam says, head tipped high. “Can I come in?”

Ronan only shrugs as he moves aside to give him the room to enter.

“You look like you have something squirming up your ass,” Ronan tells him, as blunt and as crass as ever.

Adam silently questions to the universe why is it that he’s so resoundingly attracted to him for that.

“You’re so eloquent with your words Lynch, you know that?” Adam tells him, completely flat, and making it so Ronan’s answering grin is something feral and amused.

“So you gonna just stand there looking pretty or actually get it out?”

“Jesus Christ, do you have an ounce of patience in your entire body?”

“I sweat it out at the gym, you wouldn’t know that skinny.” Ronan barbs, hip checking him while he struts to the kitchen.

Adam just glares after his form… His well built and deliciously broad shoulders.

“Still got enough muscle to beat your ass,” Adam teases and Ronan leers, impressed. Adam walks closer, magnetized.

“So Blue’s enlightened me about something.”

Ronan hikes up a brow, betraying his mask of indifference.

“Is that right. What? Did Maggot make you understand that the hand holding and lovey-dovey looks are getting abrasive?”

Adam is utterly confused to what he’s talking about— Did he find out about the crush, and if so does that mean he’s already, wordlessly rejected Adam. Is Ronan completely uncomfortable right now.

Adam shakes off the questions, is determined to just plunge in for once in his life without beating a situation to death with analysis.

“She’s enlightened me that my crush on you is getting to ridiculous levels of yearning and i should just ask you out like an adult.”

A thousand different expressions pull at Ronan’s face until finding landing at something Adam can only call aw.

“Oh— Ah, wait. Wait do you like me?”

Adam rolls his eyes heavenwards. God he really is going to get an aneurysm.

“You are such a doofus,” Adam sighs before inkling his head forwards and kissing Ronan senseless.

Ronan grabs his head and presses impossibly closer.

Later that night, when Henry and Blue march in with the decided upon movie they both begin to preen at the sight of them, exchange bills with Noah and Gansey too.

Again, Adam is going to be sent to an early grave. But hey, if in the meanwhile Ronan does that thing with his tongue, Adam will at least enjoy his final earthly days.

#PYNCH #ADAM PARRISH #RONAN LYNCH #THE RAVEN CYCLE #Spilled Ink #rainy day prompts #SPILT INK

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 4 years

Photo

All Those Things They Couldn’t Say - A Runaway Baudelaires AU

{ao3} {tumblr} {masterlist}

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Changing Course Again

“I can go now, really, I promise.” Quigley said. “It’s just a bit of a cough, we should get going.”

Beatrice and Bertrand exchanged a look. Quigley had awoken on the third day while Beatrice was keeping watch and Bertrand had fallen asleep, and he had already packed his things neatly in his backpack and started gathering their items up by the time Beatrice returned.

“Quigley, we don’t want you to get worse.” Beatrice said.

“But I’m fine! I feel great!” Quigley said, bouncing his leg quickly and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I can sleep on a bus or something if you really want me to but we don’t have to stay here anymore, we can go-”

“Quigley, we talked about feeling guilty.” Bertrand said.

“But I’m not! I just don’t want to hang around here when we could be moving!” Quigley swore. “Please, please, let’s just head out! This barn is boring and there’s bugs and my siblings are only three days away, two if we leave now, please can we go?”

Beatrice and Bertrand shared a look, remembering how Violet used to beg to go to whatever museum was nearby. Quigley sounded much more desperate, of course, but the way he widened his eyes, trying to look more innocent and adorable and quivered his voice as if he was about to cry… he was totally doing that on purpose. Still, that meant he had enough energy to fake it and he hadn’t coughed in a while…

“You are sleeping on the bus.” Beatrice said.

“Yes!” Quigley jumped up and down, flapping his hands with glee, and then leapt forwards, clinging to both of the adults in a hug. “Thank you thank you thank you let’s go!”

Betrand couldn’t help himself; he started laughing, and Beatrice said, “Okay, just a few more things! Okay? Just a couple more things.”

Quigley pulled away, nodding quickly, eyes locked on them so they knew he was paying attention.

Beatrice knelt down slightly to meet his eyes. She held up her hands, counting off her orders for him. “You are sleeping on the bus, but when we wake you up you have to move. If you start to feel sick again, no playing the hero. You tell us. Better to get to your siblings a bit late than not to get to them at all and have to tell them you almost got back and then died because you wouldn’t tell anyone you were sick.”

“Yeah, okay.” Quigley nodded.

“And…” Beatrice and Bertrand shared a quick, concerned look, and then Beatrice reached into her jacket and pulled out a small pocketknife that they’d swiped from a general store. Quigley’s eyes widened as she waved it slightly. “Do you know how to use this?”

Quigley nodded, staring at the knife. “I had a Snow Scout special interest last year. Got a pocketknife license with Isadora. Duncan was too chickenshit to-” he paused, catching his curse word, and corrected himself. “Too nervous to do it with us. So, yeah, I know how to use it.”

Beatrice tried not to smile at the teen trying to censor himself. “Then this is yours.” she said. She handed it to him, gently sliding it onto his palm, and then said, “Keep it with you at all times. And only use it if absolutely necessary. You don’t want blood on your hands if you can prevent it.”

Quigley nodded seriously. “I know.”

Beatrice smiled, and then gave him another hug. When she finally pulled away, she said, “Let’s get going then.”

When Quigley did, indeed, fall asleep in the back of the bus, leaning on Bertrand’s shoulder, Beatrice did a quick check-up as best she could. Feel his forehead, his pulse, anything she could do without awakening him. “He… seems fine.” she said uncertainly, glancing up at Bertrand. “I guess he wasn’t lying?”

“That’s good at least.” Bertrand said, as Beatrice sat back next to him. “We don’t want him getting worse.”

“Of course not. I just… I’m worried about him. He’s not suited for this.”

Bertrand tightened his hold on Quigley. “We’ll find him somewhere to stay. And his siblings, and our children. Someplace where they can’t find them.”

Beatrice nodded, and slid down in her seat slightly, watching her reflection in the window. As the houses and streets passed by outside, she said, “You know, I never went to Prufrock.”

“It’s not really VFD.” Bertrand muttered. “Just-”

“Recruitment ground.”

“Yeah.”

“And we were already recruited, so…”

Bertrand shut his eyes. “You don’t think-”

“Our kids wouldn’t get caught by VFD.” Beatrice said certainly. “If some recruiters showed up and tried, Sunny would bite their fingers off.”

Bertrand smiled a little. “I would actually love to see that.”

Beatrice nodded, shutting her eyes. “Me, too.”

When they finally reached Prufrock, Beatrice straightened Quigley’s jacket while Bertrand shoved a hat on him to hide the fact his hair hadn’t been washed in a day or so. “Okay, stay quiet.” Beatice said. “And your siblings are here, whom you’re identical to, so try not to draw attention to yourself.”

“Our cover story, if we are approached,” Bertrand said, “Is that we’re visiting school to see if it would be an appropriate environment to send you to. Your name is Logan Kingwell, alright?”

“Logan Kingwell.” Quigley nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Just stay quiet and stay with us.” Beatrice said. “Your siblings will probably react so we’re going to have to calm them down. Our children will likely know to keep their cool and play along, but if they don’t, you’re cousins.”

“Cousins.”

“Alright.” Beatrice grabbed his hand, swinging it slightly. “Stay calm, and stay with us. Do not split up, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

Shaking slightly, Bertrand pushed open the gate for them, and they followed the path, looking between buildings. “I believe that’s administration,” Bertrand pointed, hoping Quigley didn’t notice his voice quiver. “So that’s the gym field, and dorms are- those two buildings.”

“So long as Josephine remembered this shit correctly.” Beatrice murmured.

“Can you scale the administration building and get the room chart?”

“Definitely. Stay with Quigley a moment.”

Beatrice smiled and then let go, running to the building. Quigley watched, wide-eyed, as she scampered up the wall, ducking through a window in only a minute or two.

“Wow.” he said. He turned to Bertrand. “Can we try a little? While we’re waiting for her.”

Bertrand hesitated, and then nodded, taking Quigley to the brick wall. “Okay, so you gotta look for stuff jutting out that your hand will be able to rest on, double points if you can put your foot on it later. Once you have enough practice, it becomes second nature.”

Quigley nodded, running his hand along the mortar until he found an indented brick, which he gripped the edge of. He glanced down and spotted a bit of a hole, where he stuck his foot so he could hoist himself up. “Like that?”

“Yeah! But you’ve always gotta be on the lookout for how far ahead your next jump will be. You don’t want to get stuck-”

Quigley jumped, sliding his foot into his handhold and reaching up to grab something above him, lifting himself once again.

“Whoa.” Bertrand smiled. “You have climbing experience?”

“In trees, not walls. Why?”

“You’re doing pretty good for a beginner- and you should get off now, because Beatrice is climbing back out.”

Quigley looked up, seeing that Beatrice was sliding down a windowsill, and he nodded and jumped down to the ground, swinging his arms as he watched her scamper down. His eyes followed her hands and feet, watching for which crevices she grabbed onto and used as footholds, before glancing around the building, looking for similar areas.

Beatrice reached the ground, tossed her hair, and then pulled a paper out of her pocket. “They’re using the Sonnenfeld names.” she said quickly. “Looks like the Vice Principal split them up by gender but I seriously doubt they’d go for that. Still, we should check their listed rooms, I’m sure they’re camped out in one of them.”

“We’ll head to the dorms, then, the children should be there now. I assume classes should be done for the day.”

“If they’re not there, we start searching the rooftops.”

“Or that shack over there, I can see them hiding in that.”

“Hmm, might be too exposed.”

“True. Dorms, then.”

They walked over, with Quigley skipping beside Beatrice, his smile growing the closer they got to the buildings. When they reached them, he took off ahead of the adults and raced to the door, pushing it open and looking inside the hall, scanning to see if there were any students milling about he might recognize. Beatrice and Bertrand followed him in, and Beatrice pulled him aside and whispered, “Okay, so-”

“I know, I shouldn’t have run, but my siblings-”

“Oh, no, I was just going to say that Bertrand and I are definitely going to swipe some of this expensive-looking shit. Just pretend you don’t notice.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They wandered through the halls, with Beatrice and Bertrand chatting in carefully-controlled tones about something or another, hoping that if their kids were in a room, they’d be able to find them. Beatrice kept her eyes on the room numbers, trying to find the one listed for their eldest. When they finally reached the door, she took a deep breath, sharing a cautious look with her husband, before knocking on the door.

They waited a tense minute for a response, before Beatrice knocked again, her brow creasing with worry.

The door finally swung open, and a redheaded girl looked out, a dark look on her face. She huffed, glaring at the adults, and then she looked down at Quigley, and she froze.

“Hello, are you…” Beatrice tried to remember the name from the paper. “Ms Spats? Carmelita? You’re Emily’s roommate, right? We have a-”

“Duncan?” Carmelita gasped.

Now it was Quigley’s turn to freeze over, his eyes going wide. “Wha-”

“Get in here, idiot!” Carmelita hissed, grabbing his arm and yanking him in. Beatrice and Bertrand, panicked, quickly raced inside as the door slammed behind them.

“What the-” Quigley began.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Carmelita said. “Nero’s looking for you little shits everywhere. The gym teacher and his bitches only just fucked off, they could come back at any time!”

Quigley blinked. “What the fuck are you- what happened to Duncan? What’s going on?”

Carmelita cocked her head, confused. “Wait. Are you Isadora? Why do you look like a boy?”

Quigley started breathing rapidly. “What happened to my siblings?”

“And,” Bertrand said carefully, “Where’s your roommate?”

Beatrice and Bertrand, while the interrogation was going on, had started multitasking, in that they were taking in the room. There was absolutely no sign that more than one person lived there, and they could see absolutely nothing indicating that Violet had even touched the room. She definitely would’ve closed the window, for instance, or made the bed.

Carmelita looked between everyone, and then stepped back. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I-” Quigley took a deep breath, then stepped closer to her again. “My name’s Quigley Quagmire, I’m-”

“You’re the dead triplet?”

“Well, uh,” Quigley spread his arms. “Not dead. Surprise! Where are my siblings? We’ve been trying to get to them for ages, and their kids, too.” He gestured at Beatrice and Bertrand. “Is V- is Emily with her brother?”

Carmelita stood stock-still, her wide eyes looking between everyone in the room. She caught the quiet panic in the adults’ faces, and the much louder terror in Quigley’s voice, but she took a moment to think, one hand dipping into her pocket. Beatrice recognized that signal and quickly held her hands up, showing she was unarmed.

Then, carefully, the girl said, “You two. You’re the Baudelaires’ parents?”

Bertrand stiffened. “You… know their names?”

“Last thing Emily told me before she ditched.” Carmelita said. “Well, I mean, I dunno Liam’s name, but Emily’s Violet, and they’ve got this baby with em, apparently.”

“So they’re together? And safe?” Beatrice asked.

“Last I knew of. They’re with his siblings.” Carmelita said, gesturing to Quigley. “Skipped out. The weird-ass new gym teacher had it out for them.”

Beatrice’s eyes widened, her heart stopping. She reached out, grabbing Bertrand’s arm, and he said, “Do you think-?”

“He’d be after us.”

“Why would he want them if we’re out?”

“He can’t be on to us, he’d stay here.”

“We have to get to them before he does.”

“But Josephine and Lucky Smells are out, they don’t have any other-” Bertrand turned to Carmelita, and said, “Do you have any idea where they went?”

“Please.” Beatrice said, moving a bit closer and kneeling down to get eye-level with Carmelita. “Please, anything you can think of.”

“I- I don’t know. Em- she didn’t tell me.”

“Anywhere you think they might’ve gone, please.” Beatrice begged. “Please, we have to find our children. We need to protect them.”

Carmelita looked almost confused, glancing up towards Quigley as if expecting him to be just as bewildered. Instead, he pled with his eyes, asking for her help as best he could, desperation leaking into his gaze.

Finally, Carmelita thought. “Um… Liam liked libraries and stuff, and Violet mentioned wanting to go to the museum in the- oh!” Her eyes lit up. “The Quagmires have this woman, she’s in charge of them, they might’ve gone to her for shelter. I- I don’t know her name-”

“That’s okay.” Bertrand said. “I’m sure we can-”

“I know they said she lived in this city a day or two away, cause they bitched about the drive. And- they said something about her being in the financial stuff? Or maybe trends or something, she dumped them here cause orphans weren’t ‘in.’”

Beatrice and Bertrand both shared identical looks of pure, utter terror.

“Oh no.” Beatrice said.

“We have to go, now.” Bertrand said. He grabbed his wife’s hand, hoisting her to her feet, and said, “Thank you so much, Carmelita. Please don’t tell anyone we were here.”

“Pfft, no one to tell-” Carmelita cut herself off as Quigley leapt at her, clutching and hugging her as tight as he could.

“Thank you thank you thank you.” he said.

Bertrand threw open the door, dragging Beatrice behind him, and Quigley pulled away from Carmelita, giving the surprised girl a quick smile before taking off after them.

They ran back down the hall, and Quigley was starting to get nervous at just how terrified the adults looked. Beatrice barely looked to be breathing, while Bertrand kept almost tripping as he directed them out.

When they stepped outside the building, Beatrice pulled away from her husband and let out a scream, sliding against the wall and collapsing to the ground, terror across her face. Quigley leapt back, horrified, as Bertrand knelt in front of his wife, blinking tears away.

“Bea! Bea, Bea, we have to keep going, we have to go-”

“She has them, she has them, she has the kids-”

“No, no, she doesn’t. We just know they’re heading her way. Bea, listen. Bea! Bea, they’re heading her way but they’re smart, okay? They’ll stay hidden, and once they realize it’s her they’ll leave, they know who she is, they won’t- please, Bea, we have to go.”

“She’s going to- she-”

“We’re going to get to them first, okay? We are getting to them first.” Beatrice looked up, sobbing uncontrollably, and Bertrand pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay. It’s okay, we’re getting to them first.”

Quigley trembled a little, sitting beside them, his eyes widening. “Who is she? Who has my siblings?”

“We…” Bertrand shut his eyes. “We need to go to the city. Make sure we either get to them before Esmé does, or find out where they are. We cannot let her get to them.”

“Why? Who is she?”

Beatrice sobbed into Bertrand’s shoulder, and he said, “She works with Olaf.”

Quigley gasped, terror hitting him, and Bertrand said, “Bea, we have to move. We have to get to a car and get to the city now. Come on, let’s go. Okay? Bea, please.”

Beatrice looked up at him, and then, still crying, nodded. He helped her to her feet, putting an arm around her, and then said, “Quigley, stay with us. We’re going, now.”

The three of them then took off running.

“Yo, boss.”

One of the White-Faced Women, leaning against the wall still in her cafeteria worker’s uniform, wrapped her finger around the phone chord.

“Yeah, they came. And they’re heading west.”

#asoue #asoue au #asoue netflix #a series of unfortunate events #runaway baudelaires au #mine #asoue fanfiction #my fanfic #all those things they couldn't say

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sweetcatmintea · 4 years

Text

When Cats Stare

Hello hello! Flash Fiction Friday again! I wanted to give you something a little more fun since I won’t be able to write for a while. I’m going to the land of beans on toast with my dad and I’m very excited! I’ve never been on a plane before, much less over seas! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this story! Feedback is appreciated ^u^

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Words: 1565

It’s never a good sign when your cat stares intently beyond you. You can tell they’re not daydreaming, but you don’t really want to know what they’re looking at. So, when my own furred goblin was sitting bolt upright on my chest in the middle of the night, staring at something, I did my best to ignore him and go back to staying up way too late watching videos on my phone. His persistence waivered my resolve. Usually he would flop himself against my face in a loving kind of smother. The closer to suffocation I am, the more he feels accomplished in his affection giving. But not tonight. He stared with those big green eyes into the space above my head. I figured I should at least try to assure him that the only thing silly enough to be up in the deep dark night was us.

“What are you looking at Bud? You staring at ghosties?” The last word was lost in a yawn.

His soft black fur was warm against my palms. He hunkered down, devoid of his usual purr, still staring.

“If it’s a demon, are you going to earn your rent and protect me like those animals in the hero pet compilations?” I kissed his little nose. “No, probably not. You’d leave me hanging, wouldn’t you, Basil Boy. I’d save you y’know. I mean, I probably wouldn’t be very good against a demon, but the thought is there.” Another yawn. At least my rambling was putting someone to sleep. Basil’s paw silenced my next round of spouted nonsense. The cheek of this cat! It’s hard to contain giggles at one in the morning. Harder still to contain the shriek. Long, slender fingers stretch like tendrils reached down from above. Cracked nails barely glanced my scalp when I looked up in my mirth. Fight, flight, or freeze. I froze. Burning, swirling, bottomless pits on a face of twisted fur matted with what I could only describe as ichor. The hand paused over me, deliberating. Its head tilted slowly, slowly, mechanically unwinding itself from the body while the neck grew longer and longer. Hot goats’ breath fanned my face. I sunk back as far as the twelve or so pillows allowed. It didn’t move. Basil, surprisingly, stayed hunkered on my chest. Of course he wouldn’t make things easier and just run away.

For several long seconds, we stayed like that. Me, pressed into my bed. Basil, squat on my torso. And the creature, looming above. No one moved. No one spoke. There’s an unwritten conversational rule where, if a silence stretches longer than four seconds, it becomes increasingly awkward. Not going to lie, I already don’t do well with social stuff. The more time stretched the more I hoped something would, well, happen.

“Sooo…” I began, tapping my index fingers against the mattress. “What brings ya here?”

It drew back. Not by a lot, still very much in my personal space bubble, but I’m not complaining. It was a start. Its mouth parted, tasting the thought before voicing it. (Or preparing to lunge, I’m not exactly a strange night creature psychologist.) Huh. There’s a beak under all that wiry fur. Cool.

“soOoO…” My own voice parroted back, warped. I guess the beak is just for show. The noise reverberated around us, no indication of its source. Other voices mixed in, creating a jittery, juttering kind of speech. “SsSooOO… SsssoooOoo…”

“… Cool… Are you uh.. Here to kill me maybe?”

“NnoOo.”

That’s promising. I’m sure they’re a very honest.. being…

“Are you a ghost?”

“nnNOo.”

Hmm. “Aaare you a demon?”

“YyEsS.”

K. “Are you here on business or pleasure? Not Pleasure pleasure. Fun pleasure. Like, a holiday or something.”

They pause, crinkling a long finger against their chin. A thinking pose. “PleAsUReee. NoTTt PPleaSuREE pleasure.”

Thank cat beans. That could have been awkward. Their neck clicked as they turned to look at Basil.

“PLeAsuRe…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re not here to steal my cat are you?”

No response. I sat up, drawing Basil closer to myself.

“I mean like, you can pat him if you don’t have that death touch thing going on, but he’s my baby. You can’t take him.”

“Ssoofftt…” They trailed a finger through his fur. The traitor started purring. “NicCee…”

Scooting up so I was sitting, I patted the bed, motioning for the demon to pop a squat beside me. They complied, creaking as they unfolded themselves joint by joint, from their ceiling perch. Basil wiggled from my grip, smacking me in the face with his tail in his haste to double cross me and sit in the demon’s lap. Somehow, I got the feeling this wasn’t their first meeting.

“So that’s Basil.”

“BaAssIiLll. LLikE BaSsIlL.”

“He’s a cool little dude. Do you have cats in the demon world, or where ever you come from?”

“CaaAnn. WaAnTtT BaaSiLLl.”

“Again, and this is super important, you can’t have Basil. He is my baby cat.” I leaned back, shoulders popping in that satisfying way. “Although, we might be able to arrange something for you.”

The demon tilted its head again. I could have sworn there was excitement in those deep, deep, deep pits. Deep, dark.. What was I saying? Oh yeah. Arrangements.

“One month. If you can show me that you are able to properly care for a cat, I’ll get you one in a months’ time. You can stay here and show me with Basil, or show me where you live and that you are able to fulfil a cats’ needs. They need more than food you know. You’ve gotta play with them, desex them, take them to the vet, make sure they have grass to munch on. It’s a big responsibility. I’ll show you some good websites though so you’re not going in blind or anything. What do you think? Sound good?”

They nodded. “SssoUnd GoOd.”

And that’s how I ended up with a demon roommate for a month. Once we got over the initial awkwardness like bathroom schedules, possible dietary issues, and the appropriateness of guests from the underworlds, it was actually pretty nice. We had long discussions about cats, obviously, but also about life. Our experiences were totally different, but we discovered new things together. They made a point of watching 2D animated movies with me and I got really into demonic card games. It was a lot of fun. We added each other on pokemon go and finally cleared some research tasks. They showed me their realm (more pokestops than you would expect) and we worked together to construct a proper cat enclosure using Ikea hacks and the Kitten Lady’s youtube videos. I even had a nice little existential… What’s the opposite of crisis? Calmness? Low-fi study music moment? Experience? Where life after death was confirmed. Damnation may be upgraded to Ikea jigsaws now. Sorry about that. That one’s on me…

It felt like no time at all had passed between that late night conversation and walking into the local animal shelter. The demon (who I should have mentioned wanted to be called Toto after the fuzzy bear dude from My Neighbour Totoro) had taken a human(ish) appearance. A totally generic stranger that was easily forgotten but that something nagged at you that it wasn’t quite right. Today was the day. We’d been approved as potential adopters and were picking out Toto’s new best friend. The lady gave us a friendly greeting and led us straight to the cat room at the back, debriefing along the way. I always forgot how loud it could be back there. Cats yowled and mewed, much to the chagrin of their quieter shelter mates. We looked at kittens and adults, fluffy cats and patchy cats, noisy cats and shy cats. Each one Toto inspected with care. I did not envy their choice. If I could, I’d take them all home. Toto stopped at the far corner. I peeked over their shoulder to see which one had caught their attention.

It was… Unfortunate. A scraggly brown cat with fur guaranteed to mat at a slight breeze. A short little thing with, what I think, was a snaggle tooth sticking out of his mouth. It was not a pageant winner. If someone took a year old loaf of bread and had it trampled by a herd of heavily concussed camels, and one buttered donkey, stuck whiskers on the rounder side and a bottle brush on the rear, it’d be in the same ball park as this ugly cat. It opened its mouth and gargled at us.

“ThHiSs OnEE iS GooOd.”

“I thought you’d say that.” I checked the info card. Not much to go on. The shelter guessed she was about 14. Ah, man. That’s… That’s not great…

“I’m, I’m not sure this is a good choice for your first cat, Bud. She’s pretty old… It’s a pretty difficult thing to go through, y’know, when your pet passes away…”

“NoO gUaRantEE FoR AnYtHiNG.”

“That’s true… I’m definitely not saying don’t get an old cat, just don’t want you to get hurt so soon… Would she stay with you as a spirit cat?”

“If ShE WiLLs It. CaTs WaNdER.”

“Oh. Sweet. Let’s get her then.”

“yeS.”

“What are you going to call her?”

He inspected her again. Human skin crinkling into a smile when she sneezed and left her tongue poking out.

“FrRiEnDd.”

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Tag list

@snobbysnekboi, @inkovert, @kainablue, @i-rove-rock-n-roll, and @goblin-writer

#writing #writblr #original story #flash fiction friday #short story #story #flash fiction #More at my deviantArt SweetCatMint

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relucant · 5 years

Text

cut for oceans of personal salt in an attempt to not punch a wall (again)

so over the weekend, i drove my mother down to see her sister -- who is very much dying -- for her 80th birthday. which is an incredibly depressing experience for both obvious and less obvious reasons, but it was also obviously the right thing to do, so like, i didn’t want to, but did not resent doing so.

and my back, which is always fucked up but has been more so the past week or so, really did not like driving for three-plus hours twice in three days, and by the time we got home sunday evening had gone completely thrown out, and has pretty much been excruciatingly painful in any position except completely flat on my back since then.

which sucks balls, but it happens, and at least this time it didn’t happen in a hostel in fucking albania where i was then very very nearly fed codeine by an extremely well-intentioned roommate, to which i am very very allergic and would almost definitely and ended up with me in an albanian hospital, so like, there’s that. (almost also was fed codeine in a chilean hospital despite obviously listing my allergies -- or allergy, since it’s my only known one -- and only barely noticed and had to figure out how to say “omg no i am allergic” in spanish which i don’t really speak, which wtf world stop it with the codeine)

except. except. the a/c unit in my room is very old and has been making dying noises for a while, and whenever i am here i have been gently (and, admittedly, increasingly less gently) reminding my mother that it would probably make a lot more sense and be far less expensive to start looking to replace it before it totally dies in the middle of florida summer, and/or starts leaking all over my bed and bedroom, and is suddenly an emergency. but she, of course, is the most useless person on the planet, and will do absolutely nothing about anything ever until and unless i finally snap and have a fucking screaming meltdown like a fucking child, in which case about 5% of the time she’ll put in like three minutes of effort, or at least say she will and then wait until i leave again and then go back to her sudoku puzzles and wine.

(seriously, like, my father is dying of cancer and cirrhosis and has dementia reaching the point that he can’t really be left alone even with two different people coming by twice a day to make sure he and the cat are okay, and she’s one trip-and-fall [in a walking obstacle course of a house] away from going from can’t-walk-without-assistance to in-the-hospital-indefinitely, and it took me years and years and multiple screaming fights for her to finally begin to wrap her head around the concept that maybe we/they should have, i dunno, a fucking lawyer, and some vague sort of plans in place for when one or both of them die and/or can’t live at home anymore, which, well, i guess at least they finally have a lawyer, which i literally had to find for them through friends when i was thousands of miles away, which seems reasonable i guess...)

anyway, yeah, so we finally get home, and -- after discovering that my father had somehow got his hands on the tray of baby catnip seeds i had planted and carefully tucked in a sunny windowsill away from him, and of course, ...dumped them into the fridge. which of course, dementia is not his fault, but dementia has just exacerbated his infuriating need to just get his hands on anything nearby, with no regard as to whether it belongs to him or not, and just mess with it, so of course i was instantly pissed off within minutes of walking in the door --

so i head to my room to do the whole lie flat on my back while make vague pitiful noises thing, and the a/c unit had, of course, suddenly finally begun to leak filthy a/c water all over the inside of my room, and mostly, of course, directly on my bed and pillow, which were completely soaked and disgusting, and the entire room still smells like -- well, like filthy a/c water had been soaking into it for two solid days. fortunately, the a/c still works, more or less, or else i flat-out couldn’t stay here (not that that’d be a bad thing, i guess), but there is now a giant gross paint bucket either hanging precariously from a lamp to catch the nonstop water drip, and which will be terrible if and when the arm of the lamp breaks, or just kind of propped up on my bed which i will almost certainly kick over in my sleep and will be terrible.

and, of course, although this is a three-bedroom house inhabited only by my parents and temporarily me, with a full pull-out couch in the den and a reasonably comfortable couch in the living room, there is absolutely no other place i could sleep. my parents’ bedroom now reeks so badly of my father’s urine and excrement that even the cat won’t go in there, so my mother (quite understandably) will not share a bed with him and so has appropriated my brother’s old room; they are hoarders so i don’t know if i could even reach the couch in the den, let alone clear off the several feet of random junk that’s festered atop it for probably a decade, let alone actually pull it out; and frankly i don’t want to sleep anywhere my father has even sat down like the other couch. so my sleeping option sleeping upside down on my already uncomfortable bed, with no wall or headboard to support a backrest or pillow, trying not to kick over a bucket of dirt-water onto myself in my sleep.

and like, i know it’s my own responsibility to make sure that things that need to happen do in fact happen, because my father obviously can’t and my mother just won’t, and i should have been more proactive about -- well, everything -- but like, i bring up things over and over and over, trying to discuss things like actual fucking adults, and just get a complete blank stone wall every single time, without even a response, even a “yeah, but we can’t do that right now,” just nothing, to the point that i’m like, “...did you hear me? are you there?” and i guess this was just another straw on the camel’s broken back, and went in to talk to her about like, you realize this is now A Problem, right, which -- admittedly after probably too much painkiller vodka since i have no actual painkillers -- i could not stop the flood of anger and resentment and hurt, and said some shit that was true but cruel -- all of which i have said many times before but not cruelly, and so was thoroughly ignored and dismissed every time.

which devolved into me in tears, again, over how unfair, inappropriate, and just plain horrible it is for her to treat me as her emotional support pinata, and the only person in the world she has to vent to and unload on, while categorically refusing to seek any sort of external support in any way shape or form, just knocking on my door drunk as fuck every night shaking with anger and anxiety and literally hiding from my father and just telling me how she feels like she is going to die, with absolutely no understanding or care that what she says and does (and does not do) actually, like, affects me, at all. she has this thing in her head where happiness/misery is like a zero sum game, where as long as she makes sure she is as absolutely miserable as she can possibly be, she somehow like uses up the misery so it’s good for everyone else.

and, of course, her seeing me as her only source of support or outlet to vent is very much a one-way street, because when she’s so wrapped up in her own anxiety and misery, it’s not like she is willing or capable of someone i could go to for anything ever. the few times that i’ve ever been like look i’m dealing with a lot right now, can you just like be there for me a tiny bit, she’s like i’m sorry you know i love you and would do anything for you, but i’m not actually willing to do anything at all so i don’t know what you want me to do or say.

and her manipulative takeaway, of course, was not “you’re right, it’s not fair, i will try to look into more/healthier ways to deal with this and people who can offer me help and support” but instead “you’re right, it’s not fair, i shouldn’t ever vent to you again i just won’t talk to anyone ever about what’s going on.” because of course.

she has a million excuses to avoid going to therapy, which are all bullshit, because she actively refuses to understand that like making an appointment with a therapist is zero percent commitment. no, for the fiftieth time, if you don’t want to get into your childhood trauma, you don’t have to; if you’re not ready or willing to deal with your alcoholism right now, frankly i don’t blame you, and you don’t have to, and i will say exactly those things to her and she will respond with, literally, “well, but i don’t want to get into my childhood trauma and i’m not ready to deal with my alcoholism right now.” great. glad you listen.

she finally agreed that if i found a therapist for her, she would try (again), which i’m totally willing to do, since i have a lot more experience in the mental health/therapy area than she does and i get totally that’s intimidating. but also, we’ve done this before, and she liked the therapist she was briefly seeing, who i connected her to via my own shrink, but despite promising to continue seeing her after i left, absolutely never did again. which, like, okay! her therapist specialized in addiction, so of course the drinking came up frequently; they only met for maybe six weeks, so her therapist was still obviously getting to know her and the drinking is an issue, but not the issue, but also hey, maybe it’s just not a good fit, that’s totally absolutely fine, but also don’t fucking lie to me until i leave the country and then stop going.

and also she was like “well i just spend half the session bitching about your father, so it seems pointless” and i’m like half the fucking point is so you have someone else to bitch to, and in particular someone who may have access to actual resources and things that could help this shitty situation. but, nah, or she could just make sure everything is as bad as possible.

i’m leaving in a week, at least, not super long term (maybe) but get a break from here, see some cats and some beloved friends and some old and new places on the other coast and also some temperatures that aren’t triple digit. and i have friends here that have offered me a bed or couch if and when i need to just not be in this terrible house, and i have no reason to doubt their sincerity at all, but i just hate the version of me that exists here so much that it’s so difficult to believe that anyone would want to be around me when i so very much don’t even want to be around me.

#personal #depression #so much salt #family #tw: dementia #tw: alcohol

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justanotherwannabeclassic · 5 years

Text

What Kind of Day Has It Been

Author’s Note: It’s time for the presentation of my Hub SS. A very long time ago (aka a few months) @distant-rose prompted me with a series of political CS AU prompts. One of them involved Killian working at the White House, and Emma getting a job there, but she was worried he somehow pulled strings. Anywayyyyyy, I finally wrote it. Ro, I apologize for being the worst question-asker, but I am so so glad to be your Santa. It was almost as cool as being your friend. I hope this brings cheer to your busy holiday season, and provides a useful study break. <3 Summary: Emma Swan was one of Washington’s best lobbyists, and she is about to be offered the role of the lifetime: Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs for the President of the United States. But when her boyfriend, Killian Jones, the Press Secretary, lets it slip that he spoke to her potential boss about her, Emma questions if she’s receiving the position on her own merits or because of who she knows. Is it a giant misunderstanding?

Rating: T Read on AO3!

*cue The West Wing theme*

“Ohmigod, can we have a picture?” Emma hid a smile behind her travel mug of coffee, watching as her boyfriend became flanked by two starry-eyed undergraduate students. Killian flashed his winning smile — the one that landed him on the top of Washington’s Hottest Political Operatives last year, and she knew the young women by his side were swooning in more ways than just one.

“Apologies, love,” he said to her after. He slid his gloved hand into her free one, and pulled her closer to his side. Emma could still hear the girls excitedly commiserating, no doubt discussing which hashtags to use to show off their photo with the Press Secretary to the President of the Goddamn United States. She still wasn’t over that part. She doubted she ever would be.

“Please, you’re not sorry one bit.” She bumped her shoulder against his, reveling in the way the tips of his ears turned pink — and not because of the winter weather. “Don’t act like you won’t be scrolling through the OnlyatGW tag looking to see what they said about you.”

“I will not! I’m not that vain,” he argued, his voice taking the petulant tone of a teenager, which meant he — or more accurately, his assistant, Smee — would be doing just that over the next few days. “Besides, you don’t even know if they were GW students.”

“We’re literally on GW’s campus.”

“We’re in Foggy Bottom.”

“Which is GW’s campus,” Emma pointed out, no doubt waiting for him to whine about urban campuses. “Besides, it’s not like Georgetown students would deign hobnobbing around with the common folk to venture into the city proper.”

“I’ll have you know your President attended Georgetown,” Killian countered. Emma wanted to point out that it wasn’t necessarily a defense. Regina Mills, now Madame President, carried an air of haughtiness wherever she went. Not that it wasn’t totally deserved. The woman was incredibly intelligent, holding degrees from Georgetown and Princeton, not to mention accomplished. She’d had the titles of Mayor, Representative, and President. Regardless, that didn’t stop the various news pundits of skewering her on air for her pretentiousness and how she didn’t relate to ‘Real America’, whatever that meant.

“Yeah, well, your big boss isn’t here and the GW students are.” A strange, almost hopeful, expression crossed Killian’s face for reasons that Emma couldn’t quite place. Filing that thought away for later, she tugged his hand. “C’mon, walk me back to my office. I’m getting cold and I know you have to get back.”

They had met for a quick lunch at one of the many fast-casual salad places that popped up over the city seemingly overnight. Emma had been craving the totchos at Tonic, a pharmacy-turned-bar further into campus, but Killian had limited time with meetings and the endless corralling of the White House Press Corps, and she knew she had to take what she could get.

It wasn’t easy being in a romantic relationship with the most public facing staffer in the Mills Administration. He was constantly busy, always on call, and she thought he hair was turning prematurely grey — well, about as a premature as a thirty-six year-old-man could get — due to the stress of it all. But that’s what happened when you served at the pleasure of the President. Besides, it wasn’t as if she didn’t also have her stressful and busy periods. Whenever budget appropriations and major bills loomed on the horizon, leaving work before 10 pm felt like a luxury.

Such is the life of Washington’s Hottest Power Couple, she thought. Not that anyone outside of Mary Margaret, Emma’s roommate when she first moved to Washington, called them that — at least to Emma’s face, that is. Will Scarlet had tried, and Emma had dumped a glass of water over his head in retaliation.

She could play dirty in and out the courtroom, thank you very much. This was one of the many reasons why she was a pretty damn good lobbyist. “Assuming the political gods don’t conspire against me, I’ll try to be home at a somewhat decent hour tonight. Perhaps then we can crack open that bottle of wine we’ve been hoarding and relax for a spell?” Killian asked when they reached the building where The Queen Group was located. He quirked his brow in a way that Emma found to be most adorable, and she leaned up to kiss him before answering.

“I thought you wanted to save that for a moment worth celebrating?” she asked. The bottle in question had been a gift from Regina Mills herself, fermented with grapes grown in her family’s vineyard, after the close of her campaign. Killian, being the overdramatic and sentimental man that he was, had decided that he wasn’t going to open it until a time worthy of drinking wine gifted from the President of the United States.

“Every day I spend with you is worth celebrating.” Emma snorted. “And perhaps I found out some good news that I want to celebrate later.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“You’ll know soon enough.” The man had the audacity to wink. Asshole. “At any rate, I’m expected back at the office. I’ll see you tonight, love.” He placed a kiss on her cheek, and promptly darted off before she could attempt to ply him for more information. She had no idea of what he meant about ‘good news’. It wasn’t as if he was expecting a promotion. He already had a pretty ideal gig, and she knew he wasn’t planning on leaving for at least another year or two. She wondered if it had anything to do with any of the West Wing information he wasn’t allowed to share with her. Maybe it had nothing to do with work, but instead family. Maybe Liam and Elsa were expecting? They last time the couple visited, Elsa had confessed that they were trying to conceive.

God, they would have beautiful babies.

She and Killian had only discussed babies in the theoretical sort of way. It was something they both wanted, but at the current points in their careers, neither wanted to add the additional responsibility of caring for an infant. Besides, they weren’t married, or even engaged. Yet, a traitorous voice whispered in her eye.

Could that be Killian’s reason to celebrate? Was he planning on proposing? Emma pushed away the thought as quickly as it entered her mind. It was doubtful that Killian would propose on a random Wednesday night — he was far too dramatic for that sort of thing.. She walked back into her building somewhat in a daze and directly to the elevator, uncharacteristically forgetting to wave to Anton the Front Desk Security Guard. Now that she was thinking about Killian proposing, it was hard to get the idea out of her mind. Months ago, the thought of him dropping down to one knee would have, to quote Ruby, “sent her running to hills.” But now the idea made her feel warm inside, secure — and that was more terrifying than anything else. She’d always been a bit gun shy regarding interpersonal relationships. She could trace that flaw — because, though it was deserved, she still considered it a flaw -- back to the day she was born, to when her parents abandoned her on the side of road. She’d bounced from home-to-home after that, never really finding a place or close friends. She thought she had found one in Lily, but that went to hell. That lack of stability didn’t make for the most trusting of adults, even if things did work out in the end.

Emma honestly didn’t know where she would be had it not been for her final foster placement — the Nolans. David and Mary Margaret Nolan had welcomed her into their home with open arms. David was a state representative, so Emma was sure her placement had everything to do with wanting to score cheap political points instead of actually wanting to care for a disaffected teen.

Emma had never expected that she’d still be keeping the family photo Mary Margaret had insisted they take her first day with the family on her desk fifteen years later. And yet… The Nolans were not what she expected them to be.

She had assumed they’d be fake...plastic...only for show. She’d assumed Mary Margaret Nolan would have used to the family photo for some gain as a politician’s wife. But no, she was simply alarmingly sentimental. They asked about her favorite foods and books. Mary Margaret took her shopping for new clothes and assisted her with her homework. David filled her in on the inner-workings of government and secretly took her out for pizza whenever Mary Margaret was on a health kick.

They watched television shows together. Had family game nights. They offered help with homework. It was all so saccharine…

...which was why Emma attempted to screw it up as soon as she could. She’d learned before that even the “good” families never lasted. There was no use waiting around for them to kick her out, so she would force their hand. So, she stole a couple of watches from the pawnbroker in town. She made it so she would get caught, and caught she had been. Things were easier that way.

Only things didn’t turn out how she expected — par for the course of life with the Nolans.

David Nolan convincing Mr. Gold not to press charges hadn’t been a surprise — of course, he had to protect his optics. What surprised her was that they didn’t send her back. He should have sent her back. That’s what people like him and his wife were supposed to do. But they didn’t. The Nolans sat her down and had a long talk about it. They hugged her, like they were the family from fucking Full House. They also didn’t, however, let her off the hook completely.

They made her volunteer. “Community service,” they said. It would teach her a lesson while also giving her something to put on her college resume. (Because they actually cared about her getting into college.) So off Emma went to assist Mary Margaret in planning the Miner’s Day Festival — which she hated — and over the summer up the state capital to help David with constituent services.

“I don’t get why you do it,” Emma had said on day, watching as David mulled over the pros and cons of an upcoming pension bill.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not like most politicians, that’s all,” she’d replied. “You’re not soulless, like, you actually care.”

“Well, there’s your answer, Emma. I do it because I do care.” She remembered how he had sighed deeply and moved from his desk to sit by her side on the Nolan’s overlarge sofa. “I’m not in this for the money or fame, but because I believe this is the best way for me to make a difference, just like how Mary Margaret believes teaching is the best way for her to make a difference.”

“That’s pretty cheesy.”

“In the short amount of time that you’ve known me, when have I never not been cheesy?” The had been, and still was, “never.” David Nolan still encapsulated the concept of cheesiness well into retirement age as he did when he was younger. It had actually been him, and not Mary Mary Margaret, who bought the t-shirts emblazoned with “Nolan Family” on the back he insisted they all wear the day their adoption of Emma had finally gone through.

But even beyond the cheesiness, that conversation had always stuck in the back of Emma’s mind. How would I make a difference, Emma had pondered. She knew early on that she loathed teaching with every fiber of her being. Volunteering with David’s re-election campaigns never enthused her. It wasn’t until she was ‘forced’ to join a club — for which she chose Speech & Debate — that Emma found she was actually good at being persuasive. When she was accepted in college, she had decided to major in political science, because that was familiar. Soon, a path began to reveal itself to her, and after a couple of internships Emma knew how she would make a difference: lobbying.

Her career path was an odd mirror of David’s. Like him, she had chosen to work in field that was more or less considered a hive of scum and villainy, aiming to further line to the pockets of the top 1%. And, to a degree, that reputation was deserved. Many lobbyists did only care about corporate interests — but there were many who also advocated for prison reform, reductions in gun violence, healthcare reform, and the rights on minorities across the spectrum. The Queen Group, where she worked, tended to focus on lobbying for causes that primarily impacted women and children. Emma, herself, had successfully aided in lobbying for laws expanding the protection of victims of domestic and sexual abuse and increasing the adoption tax credit. This was how Emma made a difference, and she felt damn good about it.

“Hey Emma!” The eager voice of the firm’s top Policy Researcher, Belle French, pulled Emma abruptly from her thoughts. Belle approached her quickly, a stack of color-coded files in hand. “Here’s the stuff you requested. I think stats of trafficked kids might be particularly appealing to Senator Gold. You know how he gets about those things.” “Thanks, Belle. I really appreciate it.” Belle also wasn’t wrong in her assessment of Gold. He was a jackass tof the highest order, but Emma could also consistently count on him to sponsor or at least take interest in legislation dealing with children. And while supporting kids sounded like something everyone should agree on, the how of it was often a point of contention. “Do you have any information on a state-by-state breakdown? If we get some good stats on California, Fisher might also swing.”

“Will do.”

“What would I do without you?”

“Die, probably,” Belle replied with a wink. Emma wasn’t sure she could dispute that fact. “I’ll get that to you by COB.”

“You’re the best.” Emma weaved her way back to her desk, Killian’s whatever momentarily forgotten as she rant through a list of Representatives would might be open to listening about earmarking more money to efforts focused on curbing human trafficking. She was so focused on her thoughts, that by the time she got to her desk and dropped the stack of files and her phone down, Emma realized that she had missed two texts from Killian.

Heads up if you get any calls from the 202 code, don’t assume they’re spam. Please answer.

Followed by, in close succession:

I promise at least one won’t be spam.

Emma stared at her phone. What the hell was going on? Whatever it was involved someone from the local area code calling her, but what about? Knowing dwelling would do no good, and that she had too much work to do, Emma set her phone aside. That would be a ‘later’ problem —but she made sure to turn up her phone’s volume as not to miss a call.

An hour later as Emma working her way through her inbox, her cell began to ring, the default Apple ringtone startling her. Her screen indicated that it was an unfamiliar number, but from the 202 area code.

“Killian Jones, if this is spam, I’m going to murder you…” Emma muttered. She moved to close her office door, unsure of who was on the other line or what they were discussing before she answered. “Emma Swan speaking.”

“Emma? Hi, this is Mal Draco. How are you doing today?”

“Um, well, fine. Good. I’m good,” she sputtered. Mal Draco was the Director of Legislative Affairs at the White House. She was wicked smart with an incredibly impressive resume even ignoring her position within the Mills Administration. To Emma, she was sort of a professional role model — and Mal Draco was calling her. “How are you?”

“Excellent. I’m considering strangling Speaker Spencer, but what else is new?” She laughed, and Emma joined her, though she was sure her own voice sounded fake. “Listen, let’s cut to the chase. I’d like for you to take some time to come over to talk about the deputy position. I want as little time between Glass leaving and the new person coming on as possible. Is that something you would be interested in discussing?”

“Of course, yes, definitely.” Emma was sure if her heart was attached to a monitor, her pulse would be off the charts.

“Wonderful. I’ll have my assistant send you some times. I look forward to speaking with you. I’m particularly curious to hear your thoughts on the latest CR.”

“I have many.” Which was true. She had very many thoughts on the latest CR and what she thought the Democrats had to give up and what they should hold their ground on. “I look forward to speaking with you.”

“Same.” After exchanging a few final pleasantries, Mal Draco hung up on the other end of the line.

Emma leaned back in her office chair, her head spinning and heart pounding. Mal Draco, Director of Legislative Affairs at the fucking White House, wanted to discuss her soon-to-be open deputy position. It was her professional dream. She pinched herself to ensure that she wasn’t just doing that.

There was no way this could be real, could it? When news had gotten out that Draco’s deputy, Sidney Glass, was stepping down to take a Pharma lobbying position, she had entertained the idea -- as had practically every other Beltway lobbyist. But she never imagined…

“Holy fucking shit.”

Emma quickly opened her personal email account, where sure enough, a message from Draco’s assistant was sitting and waiting for answer. Emma cross-checked the the potential dates and times provided with her calendar, and fired an answer back. She would have to come up with an excuse explaining why she would be gone on Thursday afternoon, but that was doable. OBGYN appointment? No, people would assume she was pregnant. Dentist? People would absolutely know she was interviewing elsewhere. She had plenty of sick days saved up, but she had to ensure that she was seen lingering around the EEOB in professional attire. But that was just a small issue, dwarfed by the amazing opportunity that had fallen into her lap.

No, not fallen. She worked hard for this. She deserved this. She was Emma Swan. Potentially Emma Swan, deputy Director of Legislative Affairs. She liked the sound of that title.

She grabbed her phone.

You will never guess who just called me

Emma knew Killian was busy, and likely wouldn’t respond immediately, and she was correct. Another hour had passed by the time her phone began to buzz again. Emma was actually a little surprised that he was calling instead of texting, but she didn’t mind.

“Hey babe,” she greeted. She was still on cloud nine, and strategizing on what she could discuss with Draco. “Guess what?”

“Does what I’m guessing involve the Great Dragon of Capitol Hill?” His voice was teasing, though there was an undercurrent of pride; however, all Emma could focus on was that he apparently already knew she was getting the call.

“Um, yes, actually. It does.” She shouldn’t be surprised. He had warned her, without explicitly saying what it would be about. So why was a knot forming in her stomach. “She wants to talk to me about the deputy position.”

“That’s excellent, love! Truly. When Mal talked about it with me, I told her that—”

“Wait — you two discussed me?”

“Well, yes, why wouldn’t we?” he responded with a laugh. “No worries. I only said nice things and kept it decidedly PG.”

“I’m glad you didn’t tell the Director of Legislative Affairs about our sex life.” She kept her tone light, not wanting to let on that her excitement was quickly fading as their conversation continued. “Look, I’m a little busy at the moment, so maybe I can talk tonight?”

There was a pause. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just distracted by the CR, that’s all.” It was a lie, but she didn’t want to let on her feelings over the phone now. Besides, she actually was concerned about the upcoming CR vote.

“Aren’t we all?” Killian mused. “Well, I’ll let you go. Assuming that we don’t invade another country or a SCOTUS justice kicks it, we can celebrate.” His voice lowered. “And maybe rate things a little NC-17.”

“Reign it in, tiger. We don’t want the press pool assuming you’re trying to have sex talk in the oval. The last thing Regina needs is a sex scandal.”

“Look who’s worried about optics now. That’s usually my job.” Emma could practically hear his smile. “I love you, Emma.”

“I love you, too. Bye.”

Emma waited until the distinct sound of Killian ending the call before she sat her phone carefully on her desk. Her earlier giddiness had been replaced by a sense of gnawing self-doubt that she hadn’t landed the interview because of her credentials, but because of who she was sleeping with. She was well aware that politics was a “who you know” kind of field, built on networking and recommendations passed along. Hell, she been at one of those networking happy hours when she had met Killian. But still, she wanted Killian’s role in her maybe getting the job of a lifetime to be absolute zero.

Some might call it misplaced pride, but Emma considered it caring about her reputation. Politics as a whole was still a Good Old Boys club. She knew how people talked, especially when it involved women and sex. It had been one of the reasons why she’d initially been wary of even going out on a date with Killian, back when he was just the Communications Director to the Speaker of the House. She hadn’t wanted her integrity put into question. If she was sleeping with one Hill staffer, she was sure enough to get more passes and maybe the reputation that she slept with them all.

God, and with Killian being in the position he was in...he was the most public facing staffer. Even outside of the government-focused at the local universities, strangers people recognized him. Hashtags were dedicated to him. If she got a job at the White House, she wouldn’t be surprised if some blogger with an axe to grind with the administration would make a ‘thing’ out of it. What was even more maddening was that if their roles were reversed, she doubted anyone would question if Killian was the one who got the job.

“Fucking shit!” She slammed her hand against the desk.

Truth be told, Emma was also angry. Angry at the situation. Angry that Killian had talked to Mal Draco about her. Angry that she was dwelling on optics, and not on the amazing opportunity.

That anger carried over throughout the rest of the work day. She stayed late, partially because she wasn’t ready to head home, but also to prepare for a long day of meetings on the Hill the next day. It was cold when she left the building, the chill souring her mood even more. She took comfort in the fact that the late hour ensured she could find a seat on the metro. She attempted to read, as was her favorite pastime on the train, but her mind was far too distracted.

If she was offered the position, she would take it. There was no question about that. But she did not like the doubt that had seeded itself into her mind. She wanted to get by on her own merits. It was why she didn’t apply to the college her adoptive parents had attended, nor accept any internship opportunities back in Maine. She didn’t want to get by as David Nolan’s daughter, and she didn’t want to do the same as Killian Jones’ girlfriend. The many, many rom coms that Mary Margaret was obsessed with hadn’t prepared her for this.

She walked slowly from the metro station to the row house she and Killian rented together. She remembered when he had suggested moving in together. It had been the morning after Regina had won the election.

“I like this,” he had said that morning as he twisted his fingers through her hair. His voice had been thick with sleep, and God, they had both been so terribly hungover that morning. But they had been so happy.

“It’s called hair.”

“I meant waking up with you,” he’d replied. He then kissed her softly. “I would like to do it every morning.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” The surprise had been clear on his face, even has his smile dazzled. “Every morning?”

“Every morning.”

They had found a place during the transition. Killian had prioritized the Capitol Hill neighborhood, wooing her by pointing out that she could walk to the pretzel bakery she loved. They’d found a row house, its door painted bright red — “It’s your color, love,” Killian had teased. She always felt a bubble of warmth whenever she turned the corner and saw that house, and despite her foul feelings that night, she was unable to suppress a grin when she saw the lights shining bright in the winter night.

“Emma?” She heard Killian call out from the kitchen. Her favorite record was playing in the background. “Hope you don’t mind, but I picked up some Italian from that place in Bloomingdale! I ordered you the Saffron Mafalde.”

Also known as her favorite meal from her favorite restaurant in town. She had to remind herself that he was happy for her. The pride in his voice had been evident over the phone. He didn’t know about her tumultuous feelings. Emma hung up her keys and shed her coat, giving her a moment to brace herself a battle. She doubted he would understand.

“Emma, love?” Killian suddenly appeared before her, a bottle of wine in hand. He had long since changed out of the suit she saw him in this afternoon, and was now dressed in jeans and a dark sweater. He still wore his anchor socks, however. Killian, for as cool as he tried to appear, subscribed to the George H.W. Bush School of Patterned Socks. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a bit of an open book, darling,” he replied. His brows knitted in concern. “Did something happen at work? Is your family okay?”

Emma knew she that she should ask him to sit down so that they could calmly talk it out. That’s how David and Mary Margaret worked out their feelings. It was the mature way to handle conflict. Emma, however, wasn’t feeling particularly mature that night.

“Why the fuck would you talk to Mal Draco about me?” Her voice was louder than she intended it to be. “Look, I get that you want the best for me, and that’s nice—”

“Emma—”

“—but it’s important to me to get a job on my own merits. I want to be hired at the White House because I’m a fucking badass—”

“—you are a fucking badass—”

“—not because my boyfriend decided to pull some strings. My career and reputation are important to me—”

“I know.”

“—and having you going around and trying to hook me up with dream jobs isn’t what—”

“Emma, stop!” This time it was Killian who raised his voice. Emma abruptly stopped her argument, not fully surprised by Killian’s interjection. She watched as he sat down the bottle of wine on the entryway table, before he turned back to her and crossed his arms.

“For what it’s worth, I never once attempted to hook you up with a dream job. I knew you’d bite my head off if I even tried, which you are now,” he said pointedly.

“Then why did you say that you talked to Mal about it?”

“She was the one who talked to me about it. She thought I would find it interesting that you were at the top of their shortlist. And, just so you know, that reason I never told you that earlier was because I didn’t want you to accuse me of meddling,” Killian added. Emma’s anger was quickly dissipating, only to be replaced by regret. “She also wanted the Communication team to be aware of the situation, should anyone jump to conclusions...like yourself, apparently.”

She could feel Killian’s anger radiating hotly, even as his tone remain measured throughout the rest of his speech. “Killian, I--” The words died in her throat as she struggled to find the right words to say.

“At any rate, because you are such a ‘fucking badass’, I did pick up some dinner to celebrate, which is now probably getting cold. I don’t wish to argue any further, so let’s just eat.”

“Killian, come on.”

“Swan, you made you feelings apparent, and there’s nothing I can do to rectify that. So, please, let’s just have our dinner.”

She considered arguing further, but refrained. As dinner wore on, she realized she should have pushed for reheating the meal later. Conversation was stilted, and she could tell Killian was still wounded from her accusation. Besides…

“No offense to your boss, but this wine is not better than Two Buck Chuck...and it goes for a lot more.” Emma grimaced at the glass in her hand. So much for the Mills special label.

“It’s Three Buck Chuck now,” Killian corrected. He had a habit of going out of his way to correct her when he was annoyed. It was petty, and Emma hated it, but she let it go. “Besides, she’ll be your boss soon enough.”

“You don’t know that. I haven’t even sat down and interviewed with Mal yet,” Emma said as she stabbed rather forcefully at her pasta.

“You’ve got it. You know how these things go. This isn’t some hillternship. They wouldn’t bring you in if they weren’t serious, so unless you bungle it up significantly— which you won’t — you’ve got it.”

He was right. That was how these things went, which had only heightened her earlier excitement. This was almost certainly happening.

“So how long have you known I was up for the job?”

“Swan—“

“C’mon, you can at least tell me now,” she prodded. “Everything is already out there, and it’s not like this dinner is going super swell.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment before sighing deeply. “I’ve known for about a week. I didn’t know she was going to call you until this morning, however.”

“Which is why you were so giddy at lunch.”

“Which was why I was so giddy at lunch, yes,” he confirmed. “I was really looking forward to celebrating with you.”

“Until I fucked it up,” she replied, irritated.

“I really wish you didn’t put words in mouth. I never said that.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You’re right. Sorry.”

The expression he gave her told her that he didn’t believe she was actually sorry, but he didn’t say it. He didn’t need to. He was being a bit of an ass, but it was reactionary. He honestly hadn’t started anything this time. Honestly, he’d been more blindsided than anything, something Emma regretted.

“Look, I get it, I know I’m the one who messed up tonight. I know that, Killian, and I truly am sorry about that,” she stressed. “I know I was being a bitch to you, but can you at least understand where I was coming from? Even you said that Mal was worried about the optics.”

“I just wish you would have trusted me not to interfere like that, love,” Killian replied. He tentatively reached out and grabbed her hand. “I know what your career means to you, and we’re honestly not worried about the optics. Your resume speaks for itself. That’s why they want you. We’ll also be in two completely different departments.”

“But still under the same White House.”

“Yes, still under the same White House. We’ll probably still have to meet with HR and fill out some paperwork, but it’s not like I’d be your boss and you my assistant. It’d all be above the board,” Killian answered. His expression shifted. “You want this, don’t you?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s The Dream,” she emphasized. “What political science nerd doesn’t dream of someday working at the White House? Jesus, I’ll have to figure out a way to tell David without him getting a gleeful heart attack.”

“They’ll be quite proud. I know I am,” Killian said, and Emma knew he meant it. “My girlfriend is going to work for the President.”

“That would be more impressive if you didn’t already work for her.”

“If you want to talk about optics, it’s honestly the kind of shit the press eats up. They’ll be having pools on when the Rose Garden wedding might be.”

“God, Mary Margaret would die.” She could just imagine it now, her parents flanking her sides as they escorted her down the makeshift aisle, Killian wearing a navy suit and smiling brilliant. She flushed when she noticed Killian staring at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Does the press really bet on that stuff?”

“When they’re bored,” he shrugged. “I’d rather them focus on that than trying to drudge up a pantsuit scandal.”

“I don’t even remember the last time I saw Regina in a pantsuit.”

“Exactly."

They laughed together, the earlier tension slowly dissipating into something more tender. Knowing there was more left to be said, she told him, “I really am sorry for freaking out at you. I recognize that wasn’t fair.”

“I appreciate the apology, and I do recognize that this is overwhelming. Remember when I first got my job?” Killian replied, his expression soft

“I believe you wore mismatched shoes immediately after you found out.”

“And I vomited in my office trash can both before and after my first briefing,” he said. He’d never told her that part. “I truly am looking forward to seeing what you accomplish for the administration. I have a feeling that you’re going to be extraordinary.”

“Going to be? I thought I already was extraordinary,” she said with a laugh. He called her that often enough. Extraordinary. Fantastic. Beautiful. All the adjectives in between.

“Haven’t you put me through enough tonight, woman?”

“Please, I’ve barely begun to put you through anything tonight,” Emma teased. She took triumph in the way his eyebrows practically disappeared into his hairline and the slight flush the colored his cheeks.

“Well then.”

“Someone did promise me that we’d make tonight a little NC-17."

“That I did.” He licked his lips. “Would that make this makeup sex or celebration sex?”

“Who says it can’t be both?” They both laughed as he chased her up the bedroom to truly celebrate the night.

#captain swan #cs ff #captain swan ff #cs au #s writes fic #hub ss #are you going to yell at me?

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docholligay · 5 years

Text

Silverleaf 14: The Doors of Fate

Our next installment of Silverleaf, as sponsored by Benjamin! If you’re enjoying, PLEASE make sure to thank him--the people who sponsor are what make all of this possible! All of Silverleaf is here

It had always been said by many that dogs had owners, and cats had staff, but Mouse thought this was rather unfair. It was true that dogs had owners, they were mastered and obsequious and weak. But it was not true, to Mouse, that Haruka was his staff, and it seemed ungracious to him, to deny the closeness of their relationship.

Roommates. They were more deeply affectionate roommates than anything.

And because Haruka was Mouse’s friend and not his staff, he could immediately recognize the difference between when she was readying for a night out with her friends, and when she was readying for a date.

Tonight, Haruka was readying for a date, and trying to act as if she was going out with friends. She had all of her casual shirts tossed onto the bed, trying all of them on, tucking and untucking, and Mouse helpfully laid himself on top of the shirt he thought Haruka ought to consider.

“We’re going to a sports bar,” Haruka told Mouse, “They’re supposed to have great wings, Elsa said,” she turned to Mouse uncertainly, “She decided where to go, so it must be okay.”

I think a casual date’s a good idea for you, he chirped, Try this shirt! The color’s nice with your hair. He loafed on top of it to better indicate the idea.

“I still want to look nice though, I’m not gonna wear a t-shirt or something,” she tugged at the shirt she had on, untucking it, “God, no. That looks like shit. I’m supposed to take this girl to the formal ball, I don’t want to her to think I’m a slob.”

Mouse looked up at Haruka, ruffling her hair as she looked in the mirror, horrified by the sudden seeming realization that she owned nothing appropriate at all. She sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging as she stared and stared.

Try this shirt on! He stood up and meowed angrily.

Finally, Haruka turned around, in some deference to his irritation. She looked down at the shirt under his feet and grabbed for it slowly,Mouse easing off of it as she picked it up. Blue and green and pink, soft and striped, made to look worn and near pastel. It was a nice shirt, and Mouse liked it, and Mouse could not imagine a girl who wouldn’t enjoy it herself.

But sometimes Haruka had bad taste in women, Mouse was forced to concede.

“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” haruka said, unbuttoning the shirt, “It’s just one night. Just a beer and some wings, but I…” She sighed again, “I don’t want to go alone to the ball. I wish I could just go with Mina again, that was fun.”

Mouse flicked his tail in annoyance. She very well could go to the ball with Mina, but both of them were being so serious about it, and spent the entirety of the Bachelor commiserating back and forth about it, much to Mouse’s irritation as he tried to enjoy his Pinot Meow.

Haruka pulled the shirt down flat, and pulled a blue sweater over the top of it, letting the collar pop out appealingly.

You should wear that with that blue sweater. That would pull out your eyes nicely. Mouse suggested, rubbing against Haruka’s legs. Her eyes were more grey than anything, but the blue gave them a softness Mouse thought was nice. Not black, black made her look too harsh.

Haruka gave him a pat and looked at herself again. “This one or the purple one?”

Mouse looked up at her. Sometimes, he could swear she half-listened.

This one! He mewed. And besides, the other sweater is lavender, not purple, he did not say. It hardly seemed to matter, and he was more than used to the way she used about eight different words for colors, even if she could clearly see the differences herself.

She nodded appreciatively. “This one. I know I shouldn’t be nervous but...I don’t know..”

Mouse sat silently for a moment. Haruka had liked the girl that smelled like flowers, with the leather purse and the shimmering silk dress. He wished it had gone better with her, and that it hadn’t been such a blow to her ego. She was such a strange creature, to him, so bullheaded and gentle hearted all at the same time, and more embarrassed at the latter.

He gazed up at her with what he hoped was a look of love and appreciation, and that she would feel it in the way that it was meant, and know for herself that it was true.

______

“I’m going over to Saki’s.”

It wasn’t a lie, Hotaru convinced herself, because she was going over to Sakiko’s. That she was going to immediately leave Sakiko’s to try and reason with a teenage tyrant was only a detail, she thought, and no reason to worry her father.

He worried too much as it was. That Hotaru was going to live,was going to be an adult, was going to experience all the joys and pains of existence seemed even more news to him, and while he seemed genuinely pleased at it, there was an aspect to their closeness, when she had been unable to do much more than stay at home and play board games or watch movies with him, that he missed.

Sometimes Hotaru did too.

But both of them seemed more or less secure in allowing Hotaru a bit of life, despite whatever reservations either had, and so her father simply gave a smile and told her to have a good time.

She nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth that some confession would come rolling out, and headed over to where Sakiko lived.

Hotaru had not yet decided what her plan to deal with Cere was, short of begging, and she wasn’t sure that Cere would even allow for the begging. She was one of those people that would one day be charismatic and charming, and may very well bring good things into the world, but like many of the young and charismatic, she namely used her nascent powers to be a tiny despot.

Hotaru had done her best to avoid her while she had been at Silverleaf. And then she had fallen in love with a member of her girl gang.

Sakiko was standing outside of her house, leaning up against the light pole and flipping through her phone. There was at least some comfort in knowing Sakiko would go with her, however small that might be. That she didn’t have to go through this alone.

“You ready?” Sakiko smiled, but it seemed more like a grimace in the yellow haze of the streetlamp.

Hotaru nodded, unable to say anything at all, completely consumed with script she wrote and rewrote in her head. She had nothing to offer Cere in return, no designer purse or pull with the ball committee or access to blood sacrifices or whatever it was that a rich girl like her could possibly want.

Sakiko and she walked in relative silence on the way to that part of town, where the streetlights became period reproductions and boulevards lined every street. Sakiko was richer than Hotaru--almost everyone at Silverleaf was, except the other scholarship kids--but she was nothing like Cere, or any of Chibiusa’s other friends, who occupied an echelon that was rich, even for rich people.

The Amazon girls were all wealthy, all talented, and had all been together since they were in kindergarten. None of them were anyone that Hotaru imagined herself being around, except for seeing Jun lap her gym class, because of course she had ended up in gym class with one of the most athletic girls in school.

She tried to think about what Ms. Tenoh had said, about just seeing her own improvement, but that was easy for her to say. She wasn’t trying to compete with Cere’s charm and Jun’s athleticism and Palla’s art and Ves’ intelligence over some girl she liked.

She couldn’t wait to be out of high school. Adults had it so much easier.

___

“Oh my god, what am I doing?” Haruka put her head down on the countertop as she waited for Elsa to knock.

Why had she said it was okay for Elsa to come pick her up? Wasn’t that unchivalrous of her? This girl had apparently just gotten out of a relationship. There was no way she wasn’t going to spend the entire night comparing Haruka to her ex. Her ex was probably--oh God, was her ex a girl or a guy? Haruka’d totally forgotten to ask Mina, and at the present moment, it seemed like the world’s most foolish thing not to know.

She sat up and looked around the room, trying to think if Mina had said either way, convinced suddenly that if she incorrectly identified Elsa’s ex in any direction, it would show that she didn’t put though or care into anything, and Elsa would be unimpressed with her completely, and she’d be right to be, Haruka just jumped into things without thinking and had since she was a kid and that lack of thoughtfulness was why Yuki left and--

“Ah! Fuck!” She jumped up as a full glass of water spilled into her lap, and looked up at the counter to see Mouse staring at her flatly, paw still raised from where he had knocked over the glass. “Mouse! Ah! Naughty kitty!”

Mouse continued to stare at her with a look of annoyance.

“You might be right, I might be overthinking this.” She walked back into the bedroom, the second pair of jeans she’d rejected now her only option. “Man, I remember being a kid,” she pulled on the other pair of jeans and smoothed the front, tucking her shirt back in, “you’d just go out to a movie with a girl, no big deal,” she walked back out into the main room, threading her belt through the loops, “and--” she looked over at Mouse, who had laid down on the counter and was looking at her with a touch of disbelief, “I did date in high school, Mouse!”

____

“Are you going to the ball?” Sakiko asked, looking up at the stars for a moment. “I got asked by someone from Oakwood.”

Hotaru looked over at her with a smile. “Seriously? I didn’t know you were even talking to a guy.”

Oakwood was the boys’ equivalent to their school, and the ball, along with most of the social occasions, was hosted by them in concert with Silverleaf. So it occurred to Hotaru that there would be a fair amount of boys there, but even her first year in, she was so used to the way life at the school centered around women that she hadn’t thought about anyone actually attending with a boy.

Sakiko herself seemed embarrassed by the admission, and looked away from Hotaru, off onto what seemed like perhaps the most interesting noodle shop she had ever seen in her life, and shrugged. Hotaru felt a brush of shame. She’d been so tied up in all of her feelings for Chibiusa, that she’d completely forgotten to ask after Sakiko’s love life. She’d just assumed that hers was as much of a disaster as Hotaru’s, which, she reflected, was unfair to any normal human being.

“What kind of dress are you going to wear?” Hotaru touched her arm, hoping her current enthusiasm would make up for her past lack, and that Sakiko would forget about Hotaru’s attendance to the dance at all.

She had no plans of attending. She was just trying to survive the year, at this point, in a way she had never imagined when she was trying to survive other years.

They chatted about the details of Sakiko’s dress and shoes and hair as the noodle shops and izakaya gave way to fancier fare, coffee shops with various milks, wine bars with low lighting, and things that pretended to be izakaya, only more expensive and shaving truffles on everything, calling it upscale. The shops gave way to houses, each one larger and more impressive than the next.

Hotaru stood in front of the thick white door with the brass knocker. Haruka stood in her kitchen.

There was a knock, one given, and one received.

In both worlds, a door opened, and the next terrifying leap began.

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