Title: sometimes we have to get lost in order to meet us again Fandom:High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Prompt: Leave Me Alone Character(s):Ricky Bowen Warnings:Bad Parenting,Gender Dysphoria, Gender Stereotypes and Misgendering (both accidental and not) Summary: R. always knew there was something about them that makes them different from the rest. But they could never indulge in it until now: “I don’t feel like a girl,” they breathed out all at once, and it was as if Atlas was taking the world off their shoulders.
Title: invisible (no more) Fandom:Miraculous Ladybug Prompt:Funeral/Memorial Character(s):Adrien Agreste & Chloé Bourgeois Summary: Adrien doesn’t know what to do now that he lost his mom. Thankfully, he’s not alone enough.
Title: invisible (no more) Fandom:Miraculous Ladybug Prompt:Funeral/Memorial Character(s):Adrien Agreste & Chloé Bourgeois Summary: Adrien doesn’t know what to do now that he lost his mom. Thankfully, he’s not alone enough.
Summary: Dutch and Hosea are trying to teach John how to read but he runs off after they got frustrated and Arthur goes deep into the woods looking for John.
Word count: 2298
Notes: mild cursing | brief scene despicting an almost hanging | feedback is appreciated!!!
Happy late Christmas and Happy new year! I’m sorry I’m so late, this took me forever; I’ve been giving it a long thought and decided to comply to your second item in your wish list!
2) i love DUMB ASS John Marston and his better looking brother Arthur; give me a slice of life with the two of them pre-canon, or a story about them helping the other thru a tough time.
I’ve decided to combine both ideas and so this story came to be.
When Arthur was twenty-three, he saw a boy—dirty, savage and with a look in his eyes that had given up on living. This boy was with a rope in his neck, ready to be hanged. Dark gray with no reflection but death itself; no tears, no regret. Dead Eyes that held onto dear life with a fierceness reflected in his fists.
Next to the boy, an unnamed man spoke words of dead wisdom and nonsense which to the eyes of Arthur was meaningless.
“We have come to see the of law enacted. We will not sit idly by as people take the law into their own hands!”
Heavy kind of bullshit that Arthur didn’t enjoy a bit.
The crowd of the town roared loudly in excitement and agreement. For them, it was only entertainment, a show that made Arthur’s gut churn with anger. He tilted his hat lower and turned around, ready to move on. However, Dutch’s hand landed on his shoulder and stopped him.
“He looks like you did, a while ago,” Dutch said with a smirk before the gun in his hip shot the rope on the boy’s neck.
“He doesn’t.”
The boy’s shine returned in a glimpse that Arthur caught with both his eyes and heart. A will to fight and survive, to get the hell out of the mess that was about to start.
“What the hell Dutch?!”
“He was not meant to. Not yet.”
A sense of relief in his chest appeared with a long deep breath. He was glad for the boy that had gotten a chance to live, what was Dutch and Hosea thinking when they brought him into camp?
Arthur got wounded in the dirty fight they had in town for freeing the boy and he was resting in his tent, with Susan on his side cleaning his injuries. When Dutch and Hosea walked in, he asked: “What took ya’ so long?” with a warm grin that quickly faded into disbelief.
The boy stood between the two men, pouting his lips, frowning and crossing his arms as means to make himself more intimidating. The way Dutch smiled, looked and treated him with his gentle gestures and Hosea had given his jacket to protect him from the chilling breeze of that night was so familiar to Arthur; he had been in that place after all. What was that boy doing in camp? Similar to himself in the past, why did they needed to bring someone as intense and dumb as him? Wasn’t one dumb enough? He wondered.
“What’s your name, kid?” Arthur asked after he noticed Dutch’s gaze on him.
The boy stood silent.
“Come on boy, tell him.” Dutch crouched to his side and whispered words to him that Arthur wasn’t able to hear.
He remained silent.
When Arthur was twenty-four, he met the boy. A month had passed from his rescue and Arthur’s birthday quickly arrived with the cold and mean air of winter. There was no snow landscape yet, the skies had become dark and gray like the boy’s eyes and the fallen leaves
“John Marston,” the boy said with a mean streak that left Arthur with a bad taste in his tongue.
“Arthur Morgan.” He extended his hand to greet but John had already abandoned and left him with the words unsaid in his lips.
Arthur sighed and placed his hands on his gun belt; he could see John’s silhouette far away, hiding somewhere where he thought no one could see him, and grinned. A part of him still refused to acknowledge John, prouder than a bull and wilder than a cougar in a midnight sky, and another part of him found itself in that boy who slept with a knife under his pillow.
“John, come here!” Dutch called the next morning.
Arthur was laying in comfortably in his bed, with his worn-out leather hat covering his eyes, thinking about what to draw in his journal. A bird? A flower? An herb? His imagination was as dull as dishwater and his brain couldn’t tell skunks from house cats. Boredom was partly guilty of the dullness, too.
“John, come on.” From his closed tent, Arthur saw how Hosea’s figure grabbed John’s arm and took him somewhere beyond the reach of their shadow. A loud growl, from the boy, echoed through the whole camp that Arthur scoff. The boy was that stubborn?
The blue-eyed man closed his journal, stood up from his bed and walked out of his tent to do the chores of the day. As he chopped wood, he could see Dutch and Hosea, with John between them, sitting together in one of the round tables near the food station with a book in hand. This was going to be fun to see, Arthur thought.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” Dutch said firmly. “Read this part here.”
“No,” John scowled.
“Why not? It’s not that hard if you try. Here. The king in his…” Hosea slowly talked
John went silent.
“Boy,” Dutch lowly growled.
Arthur swung his axe over the log and splat it in half. When he was putting the wood aside, he peeked at John. The boy had his arms crossed, frowning and giving the book in the table a deadly gaze. Did he hate reading that much? Arthur laughed to himself and got caught by Hosea who looked at him with disapproval. Oh shit, oh shit, ohshit. He tried to slowly walk away, feigning ignorance, but the older man approached quicker than he predicted and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Arthur.” Hosea squeezed hard the shoulder blade and grinned in a way that created grimace in Arthur’s expression, “wanna’ join us? I thought I could show you the new book I got!”
Arthur grunted.
Justgreat. He knew Hosea’s way of scolding Arthur and thinking about it annoyed him, however, he didn’t expect to see Dutch vexed, red-faced and squeezing the book with both his hands, yelling to John.
On the other hand, Hosea was perplexed. He dragged his hands over his now tired face and sighed.
“He wasn’t this troublesome!” Dutch said to Hosea, referring obviously to Arthur.
Something in that statement made Arthur chest puff in pride. Oh boy, he really liked that. Even if he refused to acknowledge this feeling to everyone else, he liked it when Dutch or Hosea praised him.
Arthur remembered the days when Dutch and Hosea were teaching him to read. Hot summer days, mosquitoes everywhere and that smell he couldn’t forget, berries and lemon, which brought his mind ten years back, when he was a thin, small and young boy. He grinned to the loveable thought and looked at Dutch fighting with John.
“Dutch, what’re ya doin’!? Don’t ya’ grab him like that and rub his head!”
“I know he can do it, but he’s not even trying!”
Something Arthur knew is that Dutch would take as “true” whatever he assumed; and hardly took back his words—standing for what he believed, a true blessing for the wise and a curse for the ignorant. Later on, Arthur didn’t know which of those Dutch was. A true mystery until the very end.
“Dutch, calm down, you’re gonna scare ‘im…”
“But I know he can—"
“Shut up, you pair of dimwits!” Susan yelled from afar as she sewed one of Arthur’s shirt.
And before any of them could say any further word, John slammed his hands against the table and ran away into the woods that surrounded the camp.
“Get back here, boy!”
What a mess. When Arthur saw no signs of Dutch calming down or Hosea backing down, he decided to look out for the now goner.
“John! Where are ya’!?” Arthur yelled as he stomped over some broken sticks. Definitively John.
“Ya’ damn bastard, dontchu’ ever get tired?” he whispered to himself, wondering as he furrowed his brows and rushed his pace.
As he walked deeper into the woods, the stars that normally would be faded under sunlight, had come out without any shame, telling Arthur to hurry. The breeze got colder and the sky darker and even if he found clues of where he could have gone to, the boy sure knew how to keep out of sight. He was going nuts; what the hell was the kid running from?! He had nothing to run from and nowhere to go, what was he thinking?
“John!” He called once more before he heard a gasp to his side.
The moment he turned his head, he saw a terrified boy who had fallen into the ground. Unlike the first time he saw him, fierceness shone in his eyes despite of the fear that his thin body could not hide—however, that didn’t mean it wasn’t agile. He quickly got up into his feet and started running towards the glowing moon.
“Oh no, you ain’t!”
He could hear John’s broken breathing and how he gasped for the air he didn’t have; it broke Arthur’s heart.
“Watchu’ running from, kid?!”
Arthur got closer with every step he took and grabbed without any restrains John’s wrist to stop him, quite brusque for his liking but there was nothing he could do. Those iron eyes gazed at him with the loathe and anger he deserved which left a sour flavor in his mouth. John struggled to free himself from Arthur’s grip but it only got stronger.
“Lemme ask you again, kid. Watchu’ running from?”
John struggled again and Arthur grabbed his other wrist. He took a deep breathe and closed his eyes for a moment. Was it this hard for everyone else to deal with him? Being a kid in the streets wasn’t easy, it roughens you up in a way that shatters what you truly are, breaking and eventually rotting every corner in your mind. But he was no kid in the streets no more, he could finally begin living and not just survive.
“He wanted to kill me,” John replied in a quick low whisper.
Arthur raised a brow. “Dutch was shootin’ his mouth off and by now Hosea and Susan must have given ‘im a black eye for that.” He tried to sound reassuring.
“Let go!” John fought with all his strengths to free himself; Arthur tightened his grip.
“Listen to me, kid. You got nothing to run from; here you got a bed, food and people who want ya’—”
“Dead…” John interrupted.
“Let me finish! Goddamit—as I was saying. None of ‘em want ya’ to be a goner.”
“How can I trust you? They all said I was an idiot, useless. They all hate me and they’ll kill me. It’s better if I’m gone.”
“We’re family.” Arthur meant it. He had found a part of himself in the little black-haired boy that wanted to keep running; running to never look back, from all the things he didn’t deserve.
“We ain’t.”
“Listen to me you little piece of…! You became part of us the very moment Dutch cut that rope on your neck and brought you into the camp.”
“Still; that doesn’t mean I can trust you guys. You’re outlaws.”
John wasn’t buying a single bit of what Arthur was saying. Shit. At this rate he was gonna run off by himself and God knows what would happen to him.
“They took me in when I was your age.” John’s eyes widened in curiosity; “I… well, my momma died when I was real young and my daddy… let’s say I wish he did too. They taught me how to read and Hosea taught me how to draw.”
Despite of the nervousness inside him, Arthur took the journal out of his satchel and gave it to John without letting go of one of his wrists. He eagerly flipped through the pages and stopped to look at some of the drawings it contained; some of the graphite stuck into his fingers, but it didn’t stop him from eyeing with detail each illustration.
“Why didn’t ya’ read? Back then, when Dutch and Hosea asked you to.”
There was a long pregnant pause. “I did—read it, I mean. I, uh, wasn’t sure to er, say it out loud.”
“Really?” Arthur smiled from ear to ear. “See? You’re smart, John! Ya’ ain’t that bad, there’s potential.”
John blushed at Arthur’s praise and kept looking at the drawings until he reached the last one, that page that had remained blank for the whole day.
“They are family to me. Family is everything; I’d die for it.” His voice didn’t shake even once.
John closed the journal and gave Arthur a gaze full of admiration that Arthur wasn’t worthy of. He could be one nasty son-of-a-bitch, rash to anger and emotions; unfamiliar to giving inspirational speeches like Dutch would do or smooth-talking like Hosea the Conman.
“And I will…” he stuttered, “I, uh…”
“You what.”
“I won’t let them kill ya’; just in case.”
A mischievous grin appeared in John’s face. “That won’t stop me tho.”
Arthur had let his guard down. John escaped from his grip and started to run the fastest he could. Where the hell was he going to and, most importantly, where the heck had he gotten all that damn energy from?
“Cuz’ I’ll kill ya’ myself, you little piece of shit!”
“Thank you, brother” John screamed in the distance.
“You ain’t got the right to be my brother!” Yet, he wanted to say but kept it to himself.
That day, when Arthur was twenty-four, his family grew by one member. Even if mocked him every now and then and behaved like assholes, it was the most important thing to Arthur. It was everything he had—not like money or gold; those two could go straight to hell unless Dutch and Hosea gave the word.
[id: two drawings of tim stoker and sasha james from the magnus archives asleep together on a couch, the first as teenagers and the second as adults. tim is a malay man with medium brown skin and black hair, and sasha is an afro-latina woman with curly hair and dense freckles. in the first, tim is dressed in dark clothes with a studded bracelet and smudged eyeliner, and his hair is down to his shoulders. sasha wears a sleeveless blue top, and her hair is dark brown. she lays up against tim’s side, and his arm is loosely curled around her head. in the second, tim’s hair is long and up in a bun, and his hearing aid is visible. sasha’s hair is also longer, and now blonde. both wear button-downs and slacks. sasha sleeps on tim’s chest, tucked between his legs. /end id]
They interacted once and then never really thought much of each other ever again. And that one interaction; Catelyn was understandably pretty shaken up after her son nearly died.
At most, Catelyn probably just ignored him (after all he wasn’t her responsibility) and was generally just cold. Most of her bitterness/resentment about the bastard-situation rested with Ned.
We need to acknowledge that Jon’s childhood was actually pretty decent (if you consider the alternative being he could’ve been left to die in the woods or live with the peasants). He was raised as an almost equal to Robb, in that they received pretty much the same education and training (Robb probably had a few extra boring private lessons with Ned about being a lord and managing the vassals tho). All in all, Jon’s just moody.
I still like the irony that in an alternative universe where Jon didn’t go to the Wall, and instead stayed in Winterfell or joined Robb in the Wot5K; he and Catelyn probably would’ve become unlikely allies in their efforts to dissuade Robb from making some stupid decisions. And hey, the Red Wedding would probably be avoided too.
Aaaaah! I’m so sorry, I had a request from an anon but i’m dumb and instead of saving a draft for later I post it and now I can’t answer the request anymore ;-;
I’m so sorry anon! I’m new at this writing thing, but I hope that you read this!
The request was: What if a person was being rude with Bruno and Reader came and said something like *you mess with him, and I mess with your face*
This is gonna take place pre-canon, so Bruno and Reader are 25 or so in this!
Bruno hated going down to the village, he hated it with an intense passion. And it’s not even because he hated being outside. He loved being outside! To feel the sun on his face and all the views, different from Casita, from his dumb room with all those dumb stairs. Like seriously, why did he had so many stairs?
But that’s beyond the point, he didn’t hated being outside, he just hated the fact that once he was out of his tower, every person in the Encanto would watch him like some kind of freak, like they would die just if he looked back at them.
But he was a man on a mission, today Julieta was feeling under the weather and she wasn’t able to cook that day so, while Pepa and Mamá took care of her in Casita, Bruno was tasked to go to the market and get some medicine for her older sister. Easy peasy. So here he is, with his ruana’s hood covering his face and making his way between all the fearful stares.
He was looking down while he walked, trying to ignore everyone’s stares, when a different smell came to his senses. It smelled so nice, like fresh baked pie. Once he looked up, he could see that he was in front of the village’s bakery. He needed to get that medicine, but the bread smelled so nice! Maybe medicine can wait a little, after all he was a little hungry and he could even grab some merengón for July! That would make her feel better for sure, after all food is the way to the heart.
Without thinking, Bruno stepped inside, taking down his hood and noticing a few costumers looking at the different bread in the store. While not everyone noted his presence or simply didn’t cared, there was a few people that stared at him, causing him to look down again and making his way to the counter.
“¡Bienvenido! ¿En qué te puedo servir?” (Welcome! What can I do for you?) That made him look up from his feet and he stared at you. Man, he was out of words, you were so pretty, he even dare to say that the most beautiful person he has ever seen in his life “¿Are you looking for something in particular?”
“oh! Sorry, Uhm…” He glaced at the side, thinking about what to say “it’s just that you are really pretty… I MEAN- You smell pretty! NO! The bread smells pretty!… I-I’m not saying that you smell bad! You surely smell just as nice as you look! I-I-I” he then covers his face in embarrassment, without noticing your own red face and the smile that was now in your face “Ay papá, ayúdame” he said in a low voice.
“H-hey, it’s okay” you reassured him “You don’t smell bad yourself” he looked up again, now seeing your fond smile “Uhm, don’t get me wrong, I love the compliments, but are you gonna order something?” He then notice that more people is looking at them, so he just say in a high pitch voice.
“SI! I mean… Uhm… Do you… By any chance… Have any merengón? It’s for my sister because she isn’t feeling so well and I wanted to surprise her because, well, she loves desserts, and she isn’t feeling over the top right now but I already said that, and now I’m rambling, me voy a callar, si” he grabs his left arm, something that he always do when he is nervous, then you give him a reassuring smile.
“Que tierno, I wished someone did something like that for me” you comfort him “and aren’t you lucky, guapo? I have a fresh stack back in the kitchen, just wait here, I’ll be right back” You winked at him and left to grab some of the dessert while his face exploded once again with that scarlet color. Did you just called him handsome?
“Pfft, look at the rarito over there, he can’t even talk like a normal person” Bruno looked at the voice and could see a woman an her group of friends staring at him “I mean, I knew he was already a freak, with all those visions he has, it shouldn’t even surprise me” She laughed, while what look like her friends did the same in a lower tone.
Embarrassed, he covers his face once again with his hoodie and look away for them, but that only could do much about how they were talking about him. Gosh, he remembered again why he hated to be in the village so much.
“Yeah, you better hide you freak, no one wants to see your face” she laughs but it’s cut short with a loud cough and some gasps from her friends. Surprised, Bruno looked up again and the sight almost made him laugh. There was the same woman, but her face was now snow white covered in what looked like flour. She was coughing so loud and her friends were trying to clean up the mess.
“That was uncalled for, amiga” Bruno is surprised to see you with your arms crossed, your hands where snow white as well. Did you… Just threw flour at that woman? “Your face is not muy hermosa that we say, maybe you should be the one hiding it” you then get out of back the counter and stand in front of the group, the rude woman looking at you in disbelief. “And here we don’t want rude customers, so you and your friends better leave, cara de guanabana”
Fuming, the rude woman and her group leave. “Alguna gente Dios mío, tarados, eso son” (Some people I swear to God, morons, that’s what they are) You sigh and take your place back in the counter once again and looked at him as if nothing had happened with a wide smile in your face. “Aquí tienes guapo”.
“Why… Why did you?” He tries to ask, but the words seem to fail him again.
“¿Qué? That? Oh well, they were being assheads, and I don’t want that kind of people in my bakery, it makes the bread all fungy, you know, because of those parasites” you joke, getting a surprised look from him.
“B-but, now they are never gonna buy from you anymore and maybe tell a lot of people that you were defending me” he grabs his arm once again.
“And why would I want them near my shop again? Hm? Son unos babosos, I don’t want that kind of customers” you looked at him dead serious in the eye, making him stare at you in disbelief once again. “Besides, just because you can see the future, that doesn’t make it right for them to call you a freak, don’t you think Bruno?”
And he almost wanted to cry, it was the first time that someone besides his family ever stood up for him, and more surprisingly was that you knew him and surely all the rumours about him and you still did it.
“Well, I better leave you, I still have some work to do but uhmm…” You looked almost unsure, a soft red color taking place in your checks “I… I close the store at six… Maybe you could come here… And… we could drink some coffee?”
That makes him sweat a little. “Are you… Quieres… With me?” He said surprised, and you nodded “SI! I mean-” he clears his throat “I’ll be here at six”.
“Nice! I’ll see you then!” You then handed him a little container whith merengón “Is on the house, I wish your sister feels better” you wink at him.
“Gracias… You too… I MEAN! I’m gonna go now” before he leaves, he can hear a laugh coming out of you. What a beautiful sound.
He then gets out of the store and take a deep breath. He had a date!… Oh por dios, HE HAD A DATE! He had to tell Pepa an July! He needs to be ready! God, Pepa was gonna have a trip for sure.
It’s just when he got back at Casita when he notice that he forgot to buy the medicine.
~~~~~
And there you go! I’m really sorry again that I could reply you with this anon, but I hope you liked it!
I liked the idea of a baker s/o when I read The Seer and The Baker if you guys haven’t read it, you totally should!
Once again, if you see any grammar mistakes don’t be afraid to correct me!
