#//coulda shoulda woulda but we’re here now and that’s what matters

[serpulalacrymans]

My neighbors keep replaying the same song…

When I do it I keep the volume down… This is just annoying..

[fandomout]

Dean Winchester Imagine/Preference - Making up after he left you stranded Part 3

Hope you enjoy! Angst/Fluff.

Part 1  Dean Winchester Imagine/Preference- He leaves you stranded (Gender Neutral Reader)

Part 2  Dean Winchester Imagine/Preference - After he left you stranded (Gender Neutral Reader) Part 2

"Talk." Hearing those words, Dean straightened his posture. He had a sliver of hope until his head went fuzzy. His mind was blank on what to say. He’d only been worrying about you since he woke. 

“Wow. I didn’t expect you to let me...I’m sorry? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have driven off like that. Something could have happened. I should have cared.”

“Woulda coulda shoulda.” You snapped at him. 

“I know I was wrong okay? You’ve punished me with silence, and-and...” He lost place of what to say.

“You lasted what ten minutes of silence? Was it really that hard? The rest of the time you just didn’t know where I was. I’d hardly consider you were punished enough.” 

“I was punished! I was thinking something happened to you! Thinking you were dead!” 

“Yeah. Well, let's be honest. The only concern there is that you would blame yourself because you left me!”

“How can you-”

“What else am I supposed to think?!” You feel the heavy feeling spreading through your whole body. As it reaches your head and trickles towards your eyes, you predict the welling of tears. Not wanting him to see you. You muster the last bit of strength in your front to say, “Out.”

“Y/N-”

“Out!” You wheeze. A few tears trickle. You wipe them away quickly. “Please…” Dean looks down defeated and leaves their room not before snatching their key. After closing the door he huffs out in anger and punches and kicks at the wind. He walks back into his room to see Sam just on his computer as usual. 

“How’d it go?” Sam asked.

Dean makes an ugly face and mimics Sam, “How’d it go?” He slumps down in a chair across from him, and he kicks at the other chair next to him.

Sam blinks exaggeratingly blank, “Okay then.”

“Sam, what do I do?” Dean crosses his arms, lays his arms on the table, and leans his head inside of them and groans.

“Give them time?”

“No. It’ll only allow them to get angrier with me. I meant what I did was really shitty. I have to do it today.”

“You do that. I think you should at least give it a day, at least. They don’t need you to make them feel worse. They’re sick, Dean. They’ll be more sensitive.” Sam reaches for one of his books to look through, but Dean slams his book down on the table. Sam was ready to get upset when he saw Dean’s sad expression followed by the words, “Help me.”

“Dean, I can’t. They need it to come from you.”

“Sammy, I am asking you for advice. You are in touch with your feelings not to mention they’re one of your best friends.”

“You know just because your dating doesn't mean you're not friends.” 

“It’s just different, and I really can’t do this on my own.”

“Just speak from the heart. Practice what you're gonna say?”

“You think if I wrote it down and read it. It could work.”

“Maybe.” Dean searches for pen and paper, and he starts trying to write anything he can think of down. After a minute of trying, he asks Sam, “Will you go check on them? They may not want to see me, but someone should be there.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered. I was gonna bring them some soup and tea. I’m picking up the soup soon.”

“Thank you.” 

“Not doing it for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” 

Sam texted you to open the door as he didn’t want to drop any of the hot items in his possession. You opened the door with a smile.

“Whatcha got there?” You asked.

“Food. Tea. I ended up getting soda too. I forgot what works best.”

“Got any candy?” He snickers at you and responds, “No. You're probably not supposed to have it.” You groaned at him before walking up to the food and tasted it a little cautiously, for it was hot. You let out a satisfying ,”Ah” sound.

“Good?” 

“Yeah. It-” Your stomach growls loudly.

“Have you not eaten all day?”

“No. I haven’t felt like it.”

“Is it just because your sick or is it also...you know De-”

“Yes. Now, best friend code. Let's not talk about it. okay?”

“Alright.” You take out the book you and Sam have been reading together, and you look over to see him taking out his copy too. 

��What exactly have you been doing all day?”

“Pretty much just sleep and watch tv.” You set down all the food and drinks as best you can on the nightstand, and Sam sits down next to you with a salad in his hand. You both eat while you two read. After about an hour, you say through a stuffy nose, “I’ve had enough reading for now.” You started to shiver and shudder slightly with your eyes drooping. 

“Cold?”

“Yeah. I think I’m gonna head to sleep. Hopefully, being unconscious will shield me from the cold and sickness.” You give him a hug and thank him.  “Of course...Y/N, I don’t have to go. If you're that cold, come on.” He opened up his arms and motioned for you to get closer.”

“Thank you.” You scoot over and get comfortable in his arms. Suddenly, he asks, “Can I stop you from going for more investigating tomorrow?”

“Nope unless my body stops me.”

“But, if I do it,  you’d get upset. Hypocrite.” You laugh a little bit, but it beelines into a sob. You cover your face with your hands and barley mutter, “Don’t look at me,” through hiccups. He reaches forward and brings you into his chest. You hold onto him and just let it all out. You both stay that way until you start to calm down and drift to sleep. When Sam was sure you were out, he let his eyes close and his consciousness go out. 

In the morning, Sam stirs awake, and he looks to see you still sleeping soundly in his arms. He carefully moves himself from you and heads out towards his room. He walks in to see Dean ready to go. Dean gives him a once over and simply states, “You slept in bed with them.”

“Yeah. They were all cold. Needed someone. You know how close we are. You know it’s not like that…”

“I know…Just makes me wonder how they didn’t just up and choose to be with you.”

“Dean, we’re friends that-”

“We should get going soon.” As they get to impala, you show up ready. You still look a little sick, but you look and feel better. Dean protests you coming, but you weren't going to listen to him. You pulled questions and researched like any other case. By nightfall, you guys had successfully killed a house full of ghosts. Having finished, Dean kept trying to pick up the courage to talk to you, but your cold front intimidated him. Dean insisted he’d head out for a bit, and he dropped off Sam and you before driving off. Sam and you went to your separate rooms. You were watching tv and just still not in the mood to do much of anything. Not eat, not sleep, not drink. You were feeling chills creep on your again, and cover yourself with your thick blanket. Your phone beeps, and it ignites to you that Sam has texted you, Open the door. You walk over to the door expectant since you had a great time last night; however, you open the door to see Dean with bags full of goods. You take a reluctant look at his smile as it weakens your knees composure from it’s brightness. Then, your memory flashes to the pain he caused, and you find it in yourself to slam the door on him. You're walking back toward your bed when you hear the door unlock. You turn towards the door to see Dean walking in with your key in hand. He just let's himself in and closes the door. 

“That’s where my other key went.” You state bitterly.

“Yeah.” He says awkwardly.

“Are you serious?!” You say.

“Look, hear me out. I’ve come prepared for it all. I know I fudged it before, but please give me another chance. I want you to know that I know I was wrong. I should be sorry….I am. I bought stuff for you, I’m sure you’ll want it.” You look at the bag with intrigue. ”You can have them whether you forgive me or not. You can have them whether you hear me out or not. I just hope you give me another chance. Come on, you know I always do better come the second time around.” He nudged your hip with his. You look at him uninspired; however, you took the bags from his hands carefully and put them on the counter. You took out one of the bags of candy and went back over to the bed to wrap the covers around your freezing yet hot body. You looked over to him as he was unsure of what to do with himself. You’d admit he was doing better than last time. His unsure expression was also kinda cute, which didn’t hurt. 

“You may proceed.” He walked over to the bed and just stood there, but he wore a smile on his face. In a light tone, he says, "First off. Thank you, baby. I hate the silent treatment. Not being able to talk to you is-”

“Next.” Dean felt his patience wearing thin from the worry that hadn’t been able to be expressed before. He throws his hands up in defense for both of them. 

"Alright. Alright. I-I-I think I know what to say. I had it all in here.” He reaches into his pocket frantically, but his face shoots into alarm. He pulls out empty pockets. “Lost my notes, but it’s still in here.” He points to his head. He lets out a breath to try and is about to speak, but no words leave his lips. He smiles sheepishly. He lets out a breathy laugh. “Emphasis on had. But! But…still here goes... Being drunk was not a good choice. Even with all the thought I put into our night, it didn't work out. You were right to be upset for how I acted...just know no matter who I've been with, you're the only one that matters.” You scoff at him. He grimaces by bearing his teeth into this weird smile, but he goes on to say, “I know it contradicts with what I did last night. I was angry and sad...no excuse to leave you. I know that. I was worried sick. If we didn't find you by the end of day, I would have blown chunks just all-'' Knowing he’s starting to ramble, he smiles shyly until he saw an unimpressed expression on your face. ”Right. Throw up is not important. Got it. No need to go into detail. Okay. You were right to want it to be special. You were even-even-even right about the part about being insecure..." The last part caught you attention. Your resolve softening. He noticed it and sat down cautiously with some distance between you two. "I-you know my track recorded dating and sexual records too. I said some stuff last night to throw it in your face."

"I think I noticed." He sees the miniscule quirk of a possible smile and takes it as a green light. He was getting somewhere, and he had to move while they didn't notice. He felt you were too smart to just accept things simply, so he moved up and took your hand.

"Despite how bad the words were-me using them at the time like that, they are technically true. So, you being one of the most important people to me and loving you and other love crap, it hurt that you rejected me like that. You're pretty good with words. I'm not really. Skin to skin affection was like my plane field. The fact that you didn't want me, made me wonder what I'd done wrong. What could I do-I didn't want to lose you...hell if I couldn't do well in what I can do in this relationship, I’d have nothing to give you. You'll realize you should be asking yourself why am I with this sucker? and...and you'll go..." He uses his other hand to rub his face. “I’m sorry...I’m really sorry for all of it…” You use your right arm to reach forward and wrap your arm as best you can around his waist. 

"Dean..." With teary eyes, his jaw clenched in trying to keep it together. Softly, almost brokenly, he utters, "I’m sorry, baby." You let out a sigh at the tension of it all. Then, you sit up straighter and brush your thumbs up and down on his face as you say, “I-We-You should tell me that kind of stuff more, so it doesn’t blow up into things like this.” He just nods shamefully at you. “Dean...don’t think so low of yourself. If you're low to yourself, I am too-Then our relationship will actually be on the rocks. You shouldn't-" His head snaps up and he confusingly asks, "Wait, we're not breaking up?"

"No sil-"  Dean takes a big scoot forward, grabs, you and hugs you tightly. He pulls back a bit to give you kisses all over his face. With a loud, "Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!” he smiles, and you can only respond with a laugh in between the words, “Stop it.”

“I can't. I'm just happy I haven't lost you.” He goes in for another kissing attack, but you cover his mouth with your hand. A warmth returning in your stomach, and a less weighted down heart. You smile at him widely. He speaks , which gets muffled by your hand, but you swear you hear him say, “Are we getting kinky?” He winked at you. You laughed and slapped his mouth playfully, and it earned you a “Oh!” exclaimed from him. You could feel the smile under your hand. 

“No more kisses, you'll get sick.” He removes your hand from his mouth, which you allow. He shrugs and says, “I don't care.”

“I do...Now,“ You reach forward within his right hug and caress both sides of his face. "Back to what I was saying. Do not question my love for you. Your greatness outweigh the bad. You're so sweet. We both have insecurities but it's a matter of being honest about it and dealing with it together. Cleary, I still love you. That being said, I accept your apology. But-” You put a finger to his chest. ”you ever pull shit like that again-"

"Yeah. Yeah. I don't need the warning. Now, let's get to work on getting you better.”

“You’re already making me feel better.” You pinched all of your fingers together and put it to his mouth.

“Ya weirdo.”

“I can’t kiss you, but want to. This should hold us both off.”

“I don’t think so. I won’t get sick.”

“Dean-”

“If I do, my s/o will take care of me.”

“Ugh! I don’t look forward to that. You're a stubborn baby when you're sick.”

“Hey!...” He contemplates before saying, “Fair enough.” 

“That’s what I thought.”

“Can't I just get one?” 

“You already got a few freebies a second ago.”

“What can I say I can’t get enough of you.” He leaned in close and wiggled his eyebrows at you playfully. You laughed out. However, you started to feel weak to resistance. It wasn’t the attempt of sex appeal from him, but it was when he started laughing. His beautiful smirk and smile drew you in, and you launched your body into his, which made him fall back onto the bed. Your lips met his and kissed back passionately. He layed out the candy and junk food he knew you liked. He sat next to you eating happily, which made you brighten up too. You scrolled through the channels and landed on the cars movie. Dean lifts his eyebrow at you. “You’re watching this because?”

“It’s actually a decent movie. I think you’d like it.”

“Just because of cars? I’d hope I’m more than that.” You chuckle and nod. “You want to watch it?”

“Yes please. I’m curious to see how you’ll react.” He nods, and you both lay on the foot of the bed on your stomachs as you watch. He lies close to you and lays his arm on your back tugging you close to him. He smiles, laughs, and tears up as you watch the movie. He looks like a kid. You enjoy watching him more than the movie. In peace, you fall to slumber. Having finished the movie, he looks over to you sleeping soundly. He turns off the tv, and he leans in close wrapping one leg around yours, and he frames your face with his hands. He gently glides his rough hand across your soft features for a minute or so. Then, he gives you one kiss on forehead before he moves his head close to meet foreheads. He keeps watching you. He finds himself softly saying, “I love you” before nuzzling closer and finding sleep with you.

Hope your day got better!

[johannstutt413]

(requested by anonymous)

“Hoshiguma?” Bagpipe was on her way home from work when she spotted the Oni making the same trip. “Do you know where I could find Chenchen?”

“‘Chenchen?’ She’s still at the office, but she could probably use a visitor. Try to get her out of there before she sleeps in her chair again.”

The Vouivre nodded. “I’ll do my best! Have a good’un, Hoshi!”

“You, too.” As they went their separate ways, she looked behind her, watching the office door swing open and shut. “I wonder if she knows just how uphill of a battle she signed up for.”

-- -- --

“Now where in tarnation is her desk...” Bagpipe glanced around a central room that had three doors. After a bit of deductive reasoning, she determined it was the one with light coming out from under it and pushed it open.

Ch’en, as Hoshi had suggested, had her head on her desk and was breathing softly - dead to the world after a long day’s work.

“Heh. You always treated yer desk like yer pillow, didn’cha?” She cooed over her for a moment, vivid memories of trying to study with her late into the evening only to fall asleep mid-paragraph, waking up on top of her covers because the Lung had put her there only to study even more herself. No, she hadn’t changed one bit...at least on the surface. “I ain’t lettin’ you sleep like this tonight, though. Let’s getcha home.”

“...Hoshi? You feel different...” Ch’en muttered as the somewhat familiar feeling of being taken mostly-asleep back to her room registered mid-hallway.

Bagpipe smiled, not wanting to jar her with a laugh. “Tonight it’s me, Chenchen.”

“...Wait...Pippy?” She stirred, not enough to fall out of the Vouivre’s arms but enough to remind her of the Lung’s strength.

“I knew ya missed me.” She certainly had. “Ya never stopped burnin’ the candle at both ends, didya?”

Ch’en pouted. “I have even more responsibility than I did back then-”

“I know, I know. I’m just glad ya didn’ go and try reinventin’ yerself like some of the girls did.”

“Why change what works?” Perhaps without realizing what she was doing, she settled into Bagpipe’s arms as if expecting to snuggle. “How are you? Rhodes Island treating you well?”

The Vouivre chuckled. “Can’t complain too much. Doctor gave me a potato plot to take care of, she’s lettin’ me help whe’er I feel like outside that, and I ain’t out in the field if I don’t wanna be. Besides, yer here...” Even as she said it, the lingering note that neither of them acknowledged aloud stuck in both their ears.

“...I never did find them.”

“Hmm?” She blinked a few times. “Didn’ fin’ who?”

Ch’en blushed. “Never mind.”

“Ah come on, ya can’ tease me like that! ‘Specially when I’m carryin’ ya ‘stead of the otha’ way ‘round fer once.”

“For once?” The Lung shook her head, grinning. “What do you call all the times you had to take me out of harm’s way to patch me up, hmm?”

She shook her head right back. “Now that’s dif’rent-”

“I don’t see how - we both needed rest after a hard fight, didn’t we?”

“But ya only let me carry ya when ya were cut up finer than a mound of hashbrowns!” The Vouivre’s face was turning almost as red as her hair. “But I woulda...eh...nah, no good dwellin’ on what coulda been.”

Ch’en’s eyes gravitated to Bagpipe’s as if magnetized. “What could’ve been?”

“Well, I mean...always were pretty close, weren’t we? Shared a dorm, shared meals, fought together, studied together...Got to know each other pretty well, ya know? I just, well...I wu’n’t in the right mindset for it.”

“We both just wanted to graduate back then.” The Lung smiled. “But that was then, and this is now, Pippy.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I know, Chenchen-”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Eh?” A hand cupped her cheek, and suddenly she did. “Oh...Yeah, had that completely backwards, didn’ I?”

She clicked her tongue. “You sure did. I guess you did forget that one talk we had, though.”

“That ‘didn’ find ‘em’ talk? Yeah, sorry. Had so many late-night chats since then they all kinda slipped out ‘tween my ears.”

“It’s fine, Pippy.” Chen’s thumb was idly running up and down her cheek. “You asked me why it was that all the other officers didn’t think you were cute.”

Bagpipe groaned. “I really haven’ changed much.”

“I said that all that really matters is having one person who looks at you like that, and you said that I wouldn’t know because everyone couldn’t keep their eyes off me. Which was funny, because I was so worried they were going to take you from me I never even stopped to look around.”

“...Eh?” She blinked. “‘Take me from you?’ Why on earth-”

The Lung tapped her cheek twice. “We’ll get there. We went back and forth for a bit, beating around the bush like we always did, until you said that, if you never found that person that looked at you that way, you’d take me out for a drink and we’d see what happened. I made you that same promise.”

“And ya never found that person? Shucks, I shoulda just made a move when I had the chance.”

“I should’ve, too.” Ch’en’s eyes began to sparkle. “Especially since I still think you’re the cutest Vouivre to ever set foot on Terra.”

...Rhodes Island just never stopped given’, did it? “Still? Ya mean-”

“I’ve always looked at you like that, Pippy. When we split up after we graduated, it felt wrong, but I always hoped we’d meet again. It’s not like my taste in women changed - I mean, you saw Hoshi, right? Might not look like it just walking past her, but she’s pretty adorable at times, too. Still not as cute as you are just being yourself.”

“...I dunno what to say, Chenchen. I’m just...really glad we feel the same, I reckon.”

She kissed her cheek. “You want to stay the night, since we’re heading to my room anyway?”

“How’m I gonna say no to that?” Bagpipe squeezed her a little. “Just uh...ya know, don’t try to use them city tricks on me, alright? I just wanna take it nice and slow.”

“I’ll make whatever time I need to for you, Pippy. Whatever time you need.”

Looking in her eyes, ‘Pippy’ believed it with every fiber of her being.

[truthseekerastrology]

Chiron Chronicles, Volume Six, November 22, 2020: Venus in Scorpio, Finding Pleasure and Peace in Life’s Pauses.

I probably shouldn't have had that last drink I probably shouldn't have said all the things that I said to you I probably shouldn't have got so loud That's probably why you ain't calling be back right now But I probably shouldn't focus on all the probablys 'cause All that shoulda, woulda, coulda don't mean nothin', no And I know I was trippin' when I should have been lovin' you 'Cause if that shoulda, woulda, coulda did mean somethin' Then I wouldn't be Then I wouldn't be missing what could've been

-- From Shudawudacuda (from the 2017 studio album “Feel The Real” by Musiq Soulchild)

 As I sit down to write this month’s edition of #TheChironChronicles, the clock on my phone tells me that It’s 6:17 pm ET.  Funny thing though; my computer’s clock begs to differ.  It’s showing a time of 4:16pm. It’s been stuck on this time for the last 2 hours.  

I don’t know why the clock on my desktop decided to stop at this time, and to be honest with you, I’m not even bothered by it.  What’s fascinating is that it honestly didn’t occur to me that time stopped on my computer until about an hour later, around 5:15 or so - I was so engrossed in watching a really powerful video about servant leadership (might be a topic for a future edition of #TheChironChronicles, so stay tuned).  

At the moment it occurred to me what was going on, I decided that maybe I needed to cast a chart for this moment, and channel what it’s trying to say to us.  With the moon in the reality-bending sign of Pisces, it truly feels like a Twilight Zone, Salvador Dali melting clock moment.  

Here’s the chart of the moment the clock on my computer stopped at 4:16pm today:

Right off the bat I noticed two things:  

First, Taurus is rising in the late degrees (by the way, this degree aligns very closely with Donald Trump’s career and life purpose angle), which tells me that this is one of those “no turning back” moments. 

The Sabian symbol for the 26th degree of Taurus is “A Spaniard serenading his senorita.”  Blain Bovee writes the following about this symbol:

“Love floats… There is an element of the magical in Taurus 26. It points to something which can uplift, allure, change the entire quality of experience, in this case, through song. The common 26th degree theme is that of 'suspension' in the sense that something exact just seems to hang there in the moment of experience... something extra.”

When I think of magic, Taurus doesn’t automatically come to mind.  But we’re not talking about your garden variety Taurus… the queen of the chart, Venus,  is in alchemical Scorpio,  and she has the power to stop time in her quest to bring you pleasure.  

Venus in Scorpio is an all or nothing Venus.. a whips and chains Venus, a dark magic Venus.  She wants us to open up completely to pleasure, and will pull out all of the stops. She tests our limits.  Sometimes physical pain will be involved.  She will stop at nothing to tempt us away from the mundane.  She is a fishnet stocking stiletto heels corset wearing Venus, built for hedonistic seduction, unforgettable pleasure with a little bit of pain thrown in for good measure. 

Ready or not, she’s gonna give you some toe-curling, back arching, unforgettable experiences that will overtake your senses and make you literally feel like time has melted.  Time stops when you find yourself in her clutches.  She will make you want more and more… but if you’re not careful, she will drive you to compulsively obsess over her, but a warning:

Do not try to dominate or subjugate her. Your efforts to do so will be futile.  Enjoy her - enjoy the moment.  Let it transform you, but don’t try to change or control her.  And definitely don’t allow yourself to be consumed by the darkness. You’ve been warned.

A little more about Venus right now… She’s just beginning her journey through the sign of power, other people’s money, death, sex, mysteries and secrets, having left her (other) home sign of Libra yesterday (November 21) at 8:15 am ET.  

Venus is energetically uncomfortable in Scorpio, the sign of extremes, mainly because she wants to get along with others and understands that cooperation can advance her interests and bring her the things that she needs and wants.  Scorpio could give a shit less about cooperation, to be honest.  

I consider Scorpio an otherworldly place, watery for sure, but not in the way we think of the waters of Pisces (where the moon is right now) or the waters of Cancer.   It’s fiery, steamy, transformative, life-changing - nothing at all like Libra, airy and harmonious, and nothing like her first home sign of Taurus, earthy and security seeking, content to work until the money’s made and the pot of something delicious is ready to be eaten. 

The second element I want to point out is this… below the horizon… the Gemini North Node is in the 1st house, and over in the 6th house is Venus (the queen of the chart) and Mercury (the dispositor of the Gemini NN).  All of the action in this chart is above the horizon and we’re kind of at the whim of forces beyond our control right now. The thing to do is to surrender and allow ourselves a bit of time to enjoy this pause. 

Consider these questions: Have we done a good job in handling all of this Scorpionic, Plutonic and Martian energy over the last year?  

Can we experience (give in to) the depths of pleasure without losing all sense of control? Is winning at all costs worth it in the end?

What ends up getting lost when we struggle to have our way? 

What value do our power struggles and obsessions bring to our daily existence?  

If you could stop time today, what would you say?  What would you do? What needs fixing, what needs tending to?

Remember that Mercury stationed direct on Election Day, November 3rd and has since moved on from all the degrees in Scorpio he retrograded over when he began his travels into the Underworld on October 14th.  He’s surveying new territory in the later half of Scorpio before he moves into the philosophical sign of Sagittarius.  The Sun has since set up shop there, having left the depths of Scorpio for Sag on November 21 at 3:32pm ET, illuminating the way. Philosophical questions need to be raised, and answered… that will come over the next few weeks.  

Between the election drama and the intensifying danger and dread of living through this coronavirus pandemic, feelings and emotions have been charged, polarized, amped up by a sense of revenge, payback and a lust for blood and a pound of flesh.   Maybe we’ve unleashed our frustration on others around us, and maybe those outbursts were justified, or maybe they were over the top and uncalled for.  

Nevertheless, there is a persistent sense that time has been distorted, and that there is really no room for pleasure and enjoyment of the little things, or that there’s this feeling that what you want or desire is being denied you, unfairly.  We may look to overdo things over the next few days, but it is very important to strike a balance between our thoughts and feelings, and to resist the urge to initiate or continue to engage in power struggles with others because we may feel like we’ve been wronged or like we’re not getting our way. 

The truth is, what has been, no matter how seductive or enjoyable or pleasurable it was, has come to and end.  

What will be decided, is what it is, and we have to accept it and move on.  Just like time.  

[smilingformoney]

America’s Most Eligible 3 Diamond Scene: Reminisce

You: But if we’re gonna do this, we have to go back to where it all began… Han: Lead on.

-If you’re marrying Adam

You take your wedding party to the foyer and stand near the staircase, watching as the crew bustles around to prepare for filming later. You: This is where it all started… I met Adam right here, waiting for Jen to finish my paperwork. Slater: The Bad Boy and the Girl/Boy Next door… It couldn’t have worked out better if it was scripted. Kiana: If we’re being hoenst, I always thought that it was. Han: The timing did always seem a little too good to be true. You: You guys don’t know the half of it…

Jen rushes you inside, then point at a spot under the staircase. Jen: Stand there while I get your paperwork. And don’t move. You: (What did I get myself into…?) Voice: Watch out! You turn your head just in time to see a giant light fixture falling directly toward you! You quickly jump out of the way, bumping into someone! Strong arms hold you steady. Adam: Gotta watch your step when you’re on set. You never know what’s gonna happen.

You: Adam saved me from making my TV debut with a black eye. Eden: Doesn’t sound like he was so ‘bad’ after all. You: Adam had been through a lot. His season with Vince and Sierra made him doubt himself more than he ever had… You: But he always had a soft spot for me. Bianca: And what about you?

You: I took one look at him, and I knew… -He was my forever.

You: With all of its ups and downs, this past year is proof that fate brings people together at the perfect time. You: Adam needed to learn to trust again, and I needed to fell safe and grounded in my new reality. You: We found that in each other, and now, with each other’s help, we’ve grown in leaps and bounds.

-He was gonna be trouble.

You: I'd barely known him for a few minutes and he wanted me to skip out on paperwork to hang out! You: But he taught me that my time on AME was whatever I made it. I could play like the sky was falling... You: Or I could do things my way. Let's just say our life together is never boring.

-If you’re marrying Derek

You take your wedding party to an empty hair and makeup room, taking in the familiar scent of foundation and hairspray. You: This is where it all started… I met Derek right here at the vanity. Bianca: All the best relationships start over bronzer. Han: Speak for yourself. The baseball field is where I made my best friends. Kiana: I prefer the anonymity of online, but to each their own. You: Everybody has a place that’s special to them. This one’s mine… You take a good look around, and you can almost feel the sweep of a concealer brush on your skin…

You arrive at hair and makeup. The room is overrun with contestants and stylists putting the finishing touches on their opening night looks. Jen quickly gets to work. Jen: Of all the people you’ve met, Bianca, Zeke, and Derek here are all under my care. Jen gestures to the contestant in the chair next to yours. He meets your eyes and flashes you a genuine smile. Derek: Hey. It looks like we’re on the same team.

You: Derek is really someone that I connected with straight away. Eden: You two do seem to have a lot in common. From what I hear, he was plucked from a sea of fans too. You: True, but that’s where the similarities stop. Derek was a super fan, and I’d missed Season 9 completely. You: On paper, you’d think that all of his preparation and my spontaneity should cancel each other out.

You: But Jen introduced the two of us, and… -It was love at first sight.

You: In that one moment, my life flashed in front of my eyes… in a good way! You: I saw a lifetime of love and laughter in our future, and there hasn’t been a day since then that I haven’t been right. You: Derek may overanalyse, but digging deeper helps him see what really matters to the people he loves.

-Here we are a year later.

You: THings with Derek were definitely a slow burn, but now I can't imagine life without him. You: We balance each other in ways neither of us knew we needed. You: He helps me lean in to see the small details, and I pull him back to look at the big picture.

-If you’re marrying Jen

You take your wedding party outside to the courtyard, your heart pumping with all of the excitement you felt when you first stepped on set. You: This is where it all started… I met Jen right here, waiting to sit in the live audience. Slater: And just like that the Girl/Boy Next Door was born. Superstardom in sixty seconds or less. You: It wasn’t that easy… Kiana: I don’t think I’ve heard this origin story before. Han: At least you have an excuse. I was on that season, and I don’t remember this. You: You were already inside. I was just part of the crowd until Whitney stormed out…

Suddenly, the front door flies open, and one of the contestants rushes back out! Whitney: That’s it! I quit! Jen: Whitney, come back! We can fix this! Fan: Looks like someone couldn’t take the heat. Fan: But… the heat hasn’t even been turned on yet! Jen: Whitney, please! I’ll be fired if you leave now… Whitney: I don’t care! I’m not spending one more second in this stupid house!

You: Whitney may have had a meltdown, but I still had to prove to Piper that I would be good for the show. Bianca: I guess if you can entertain the devil, the fans’ll fall in line. Eden: You can say that again. I’d almost forgotten about Piper. You: That day was so hectic. I aced the mini audition, filled out my paperwork… I even did my first Confessional!

You: Through it all, I still remember how… -Kind Jen was.

You: No one expected me to make it past the first Elimination, let alone to the finale. She could’ve just written me off. You: But even with a mansion full of contestants to produce on the busiest day of the season, she took me under her wing and made sure I was okay. You: And she’s been looking out for me ever since.

-Well we worked together.

You: Whitney was a mess, but together, we were able to pull her back from the brink! You: If Piper hadn’t thrown her out, she could’ve come back to win that season. You: That was when I knew, if we worked together, Jen and I would be unstoppable.

-If you’re marrying Mackenzie

You take your wedding party to the kitchen and breathe in the alcoholic tang of freshly poured whiskey. You: This is where it all started… I met Mackenzie right here during the signature cocktail Challenge. Bianca: Knowing Mackenzie, I bet she did her best to leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Kiana: Wait, Mackenzie was like that to you guys too? When we met, I thought she just didn’t like me! Han: It’s not you. The first week of Season 10, she refused to stand next to me. Said she could fell me getting ‘dumb jock’ on her. You: She definitely has a funny way of introducing herself…

You stand in the kitchen and gape at the available cocktail ingredients… You: Well, at least I know I want to add a cherry on top! You reach for the jar of maraschino cherries, struggling to lift the lid… You: Why… won’t this… open?! Just then, the jar is whisked out of your hands! You look up at the contestant who stole the cherries and see a beautiful oman opening the jar with ease. She pops a cherry in her mouth and leaves the open jar on the counter. Mackenzie: What?

You: Mackenzie is never more unbothered than when she’s competing… Except maybe when she’s eating! Slater: You don’t have to tell us, we’ve seen her do both. Eden: She can be ruthless. You: For all her confidence and bravado, her bite is just as strong as her bark. When we met, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

You: She was clearly… -The most beautiful woman in the room.

You: But she’s so much more than a pretty face. She could coast through life on her looks, but she’s the hardest worker I’ve ever met! You: Whether it’s law school, AME, or taking care of her family… Mackenzie doesn’t shy away from a challenge. You: It’s how I know she’ll always have my back. No matter what.

-My biggest competition!

You: Taking the jar out of my hands like that was such a power move! You: She was trying to intimidate me, but little did she know she put herself on my radar. I ushed myself harder to keep up with her. I still do. You: Mackenzie never gives anything less than her best, and I want to bring that same commitment to our relationship.

Bianca/Slater: I’d say that’s a pretty strong foundation to build your love on. You: One thing’s for sure.

You: If I had to do it all over again… -I wouldn’t change a thing.

You: Our love story may not be perfect, but it’s ours, and every bump in the road has only made us stronger. You: My fiancée and I are gonna finish this special the way we came into it. Together.

-I would do everything differently!

You: Who knows what our time on AME would’ve been like if I’d just made some different choices. You: Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Kiana: Shoulda, coulda, woulda. All any of us has is right now. So what’re you gonna do with yours?

Eden: How your love story started may have been beyond your control, but the rest is up to you to make the best choices you can. You: Eloping wasn’t the right choice for either of us. It was just a means to an end. Han: So if that wouldn’t have helped, maybe you two should sit down and figure out what will. You: You’re right… +50 You: Thanks for staying behind to help me pick up the pieces, you guys. Bianca/Slater: Look, I know this is something you’d usually turn to your maid of honour or your best man for, but we all care about you, Jamie. Bianca/Slater: Especially me. You: Right back at ya.

You: Now, I need to find my fiancée… -So we can spend all night making up!

You: We’ve both got some serious apologising to do. Slater/Bianca: A person after my own heart.

-And hash this out.

You: Bringing back all of these memories reminds me of how great we’ve been right from the start. We can fix this! Eden: You love each other, and that’s all that matters. Go squash this, so we can get back to fighting for your happily ever after.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Bonding Over Idiocy (baon)

Summary:   Stretch really hated hospitals, so you'd think he would try harder to stay out of them.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Hints of Kustard, Mentions of Therapy

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

It wasn’t just the poking and prodding, the nurses coming in at all hours and the doctors coming in to talk to him with serious eyes, trying to find delicate ways to tell him the newest way his low HP had betrayed him that made Stretch hate hospitals.

The sheer boredom was so much worse. No matter how interesting a book or how tempting a cooking show was, there was no escaping that he was doing it from a hospital bed. That in and of itself was too distracting for anything else to hold his attention. His cellphone was still in the lab, probably blowing up with messages that he couldn’t answer. That left Stretch with the option of sleeping, napping, and trying to keep his complaining to a minimum.

For once, this shit was entirely on him, so he was going to swallow back his irritation and take his medicine. Literally.

At least he’d managed to push Edge into going to work for a few hours. With Janice off, he was already behind and the last thing he needed was to make it worse because of Stretch’s dumbfuckery. It also meant he didn’t have to spend the day with Edge looking at him with that tired, pinched expression. He was still pissed off, that much was obvious, probably trying to keep himself from taking it out on Stretch since he was, you know, in the fucking hospital hooked up to his own personal fuel line.

He would have taken that look, taken whatever Edge had wanted to throw at him, if he were being brutally honest with himself. It had been hard enough to stifle the desperate urge to beg Edge to stay and fuck his job, stay with him until that aching, lingering panic faded enough for him to believe that they were…well, not okay, maybe, but that Edge wasn’t going to pack up his shit for him and leave it on the porch. That Stretch hadn’t finally managed to stumble across the line of unforgivable.

Not that Stretch didn’t believe Edge when he said he would never leave him, he did…mostly.

It wasn’t like he’d been rubbing the ring on his finger, fidgeting with it until the bone beneath it was chafed and sore, nope, not at all.

Blue had lingered a bit longer and he’d only left when Stretch had pleaded exhaustion, rolling over and feigning sleep until his bro quietly left. No telling where he’d gone, maybe back home for a shower and a nap, maybe he was only downstairs in the cafeteria, but Stretch was pretty sure he’d be back soon enough.

Yeah, that was tiring to think about, his brother that he loved so much hanging around, bullying him into eating a little more and tucking the blankets in too tightly, alternating between scolding and cajoling.

Fuck, he’d never wanted a cigarette so much in his life and he’d never been less inclined to whine for one.

From behind the curtain, he heard the door open, almost silent footsteps walking towards him. Familiar footsteps, not someone he was expecting, but not a surprise, either, not really.

Sans stopped at the edge of the curtain, peering around it. He managed a half-hearted smile when he saw Stretch was awake, tucking his hands in his pockets, offering a weary, “hey.”

“hey,” Stretch grabbed the remote and muted the television. “come in, will ya, stop looking like i’m gonna push you down and steal your lunch money.”

That got him a head shake, but Sans did take a couple steps closer. “you should’ve told him, you know. he might have laid off a little.”

Stretch shrugged. “why? then he’d be pissed off at you, too. besides, you didn’t make me keep working by myself.”

He’d come up with that bit of stupidity on his own. Everything had been set up for yet another test run by the time Sans texted him that he wasn’t going to make it to the lab. By now they’d gone through this a dozen times; the problem wasn’t with the distiller, it was the formulation that kept breaking down after only a few days. Preserving the solution was the issue they were having, not extracting the magic to make it. Or so Stretch had thought.

“nah, i just didn’t give you another option.” He hopped up on the foot of the bed, sitting with his legs dangling. “for what its worth, i’m sorry i ditched out on you.”

“working with me isn’t your only job, bud, i get it.”

“no, it’s not. and we’ve been busting double time down at the embassy,” Sans agreed, wearily, “but what sucks about this whole thing is i was right upstairs with your bro the whole time. i didn’t lie when i begged off, you know, i was tired, but i knew i wasn’t gonna be able to fall asleep. blue asked me if i wanted to stop by for a little television and…eh, i know he gets a little lonely sometimes since you moved out.” He slanted Stretch a knowing look. “that’s not a knock on you, by the way, blue’s gonna have to figure that out on his own. figured it wouldn’t kill me to sit with him, though, and fall asleep on his sofa for a change.”

Sans laughed sourly. “i almost ran downstairs when i first got there, to check in and maybe come up with another day to run the tests.”

“coulda, shoulda, woulda,” Stretch nudged Sans with his toes. “i’m not mad at you, if you’re not mad at me.”

“deal,” Sans agreed. “wanna tell me exactly what happened? pretty much all i had a chance to figure out was that the test was an epic fail, but i could use a few lab notes.”

“yeah, well. after you texted me to let me know you weren’t coming, i thought i’d run a basic distillation. we’ve done that a few times, haven’t had a problem before.” Stretch looked away from Sans’s keen gaze, picking lint off the blanket. “i’m not really sure what happened, power surge, maybe? the process is supposed to shut down after a certain time frame, we put in a failsafe for that. what we didn’t figure on was it getting caught in a feedback loop. for whatever reason, every time it hit the time frame, it reset and started over.”

He shivered a little, not really wanting to remember it. It had been painless, mostly, but the terror of realizing he couldn’t shut it down, the feeling of his magic draining away, dwindling to nothing. The pain hadn’t hit until it started on his HP and before he’d lost consciousness, all he’d been able to think about was Edge. If Edge thought Stretch didn’t care if he hurt him, well, Stretch wasn’t about to prove him wrong by telling him his last thoughts were of Edge finding his dust. He still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t dusted, but he sure as fuck wasn’t about to complain about it.

Stretch smiled, bitterly. “we’re supposed to be so smart, but the one thing we didn’t put on the thing was a fucking off switch and i couldn’t reach the plug. Stupid.”

“welp, if nothing else we know how to do the redesign. maybe next time we can figure that out with a little less drama. riding in a car with your bro and edge while you were trying to croak in the back seat?” Sans shuddered visibly. “let’s keep that as a once in a lifetime experience for the scrapbook.”

“yeah, kinda glad i was unconscious for that,” Stretch considered what he was about to say next, then shrugged mentally. Sans wasn’t going to like this, but he had to ask. “hey, i need you to do something for me. the distiller pulled all my magic, which ain’t no small thing. that means it’s still sitting in the machine, waiting.”

San’s expression was wary. “yeah?”

“it won’t last forever, it’ll start degrading in a couple days. i need you to try the infusion.”

He looked a little horrified, his normal easy calm shaken. “stretch, dude…”

“after all this, i’m not about to let it go to waste,” he snapped. “ask andy to come hang with you while you set it up if we’re going to tighten up protocol. he offered before and that way you won’t be alone. i didn’t almost die for nothing.”

As disturbing as Sans seemed to find experimenting with the magic he’d almost died losing, the scientist in him didn’t seem to be able to come up with an argument against it. “yeah, okay. i’ll call him. this is my fault, too. i’ve been bailing on you in the lab an awful lot lately.”

“stop that, will ya?” Stretch gave him a harder shove with his foot, “you begged off, you didn’t tell me to go on without you, it’s not on you.”

“hey, let me say my piece, okay?” He lay down on the bed next to Stretch's legs, looking up at the ceiling. The top of his head was level with the bottom of Stretch’s rib cage, his sneakered feet hanging off the end of the mattress. “i’m still seeing that therapist, you know.”

“me too. got it down to once a week, at least.”

“yeah. it gets better but shit doesn’t disappear because you want it to. probably do red some good to go, too. he’s pretty pretty fucked up,” Sans said, softly. He flinched a little when Stretch reached down and rested his fingertips on the top of his skull, but he didn’t pull away. “don’t think he’s about to make an appointment anytime soon.”

“no, i bet he wouldn’t,” Stretch said, “not exactly his style, is it.”

“no,” Sans agreed, sighing. “so, i ask you. how do i get past that? i’m not sure. i’m really not interested in your version of happily ever after. doesn’t mean i don’t want a version, though.”

That wasn’t anything Stretch had expected to hear. “sans…”

Sans shifted so that he was pressed tighter against Stretch’s legs. Taking a little comfort in his presence without asking for it, Stretch knew, because he tended to do it himself. “i mean, i’m pretty head over heels for that bastard.”

“that bad?”

“yeah. hey, you’re the lucky one,” Sans said with a bitter chuckle, “you got version 2.0, he’s pretty much housebroken. on a bad day, i think red would shiv someone who accidentally shorted him a curly fry at the local arby’s.”

“pretty sure you’re right. does knowing that change how you feel?”

“not even a little.” Sans tipped his head back, looking up at Stretch, upside down. “whatcha think?”

“i think you’re fucked.”

His grinned widened, sour and amused. “sounds about right.

A soft knock on the door made them both startled, and Sans leaned up on his elbows as the door opened, boots too loud on the tile floor as footsteps approached. Speak of the devil and he’ll show up for a chat of his own, it seemed.

“well, hey, a honey bun and a ketchup packet,” Red’s grin was sharp, and Stretch didn’t think he imagined the veil of careful disinterest that fell across Sans’s face. “how’s things, sweethearts?” His eye lights settled on Stretch, his grin widening. “nice to see you with both feet out of a dust pan. do my bro a favor, and try to stay like that for a day or two, yeah?”

“i’ll do my best. what are you doing here?” Stretch asked warily. Manners were usually wasted on Red, anyway.

“now, that ain’t nice,” Red shook his head sadly. “i’m here to do you a favor and everything.”

Yeah, that didn’t make him feel any better. “what favor?”

“brought you this.” Red reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out what looked almost like a pen, only it was flat and there was a brightly colored cap on one end. He held it up triumphantly before offering it to Stretch.

Like he was going to take anything from Red without knowing what it was. “what is it?”

Red took his wariness in stride, coolly amused, “this is a juul, precious.”

Stretch made a face at both the nickname and the offering. “you brought me a vape?”

“yep, full of nicotiney goodness, only it won’t set off the smoke alarm.” When he still hesitated, Red waggled it in his fingers teasingly. “this one is honey-flavored.”

“okay, you’ve got my interest,” Stretch muttered. Edge would be more than a little annoyed if Red poisoned him. That meant it was probably safe enough. Probably.

Still, he couldn’t help but hesitate at Red’s encouraging look. Welp, he’d already been stupid once this week, may as well go for broke. He held it up to his mouth and took an uncertain puff. The flavor wasn’t overpowering, only a mild sweetness. Not at all like a cigarette, but he could already feel the nicotine settling into his magic and the cloud of vapor vanished quickly as he exhaled.

Stretch closed his sockets and took another puff. “okay, yeah, i owe you one. that ain’t bad.”

“pay me back by not letting either of our bros catch you with it,” Red licked his teeth and Stretch knew he didn’t imagine the way his eye lights flicked to Sans, brief as it was. “and take it easy, the battery only lasts so long. welp, i’ve got shit to do and you’re fucking boring. need a ride home, sansy?”

“not if you’re calling me that.”

“i can probably think of something else to call you,” Red said agreeably.

“maybe i’ll take my chances,” Sans said. His tone was bored laziness. His eye lights were definitely telling another story. “an uber driver would probably call me sir. don’t think i can expect that from you.”

From the way Red’s eye lights flared, Stretch wasn’t sure that offer was off the table.

Ugh, was this how everyone felt around him and Edge? No wonder the others were always rolling their eyes and groaning in disgust. Even Papyrus, whose patience for displays of affection was legendary, would occasionally let out an exasperated sigh when they were particularly revolting. Hell, that was part of the fun, in Stretch’s opinion, and Edge tolerated it with dry amusement. Must be killing Red to be so subtle, or at least his version of it.

Why the hell did he not want Edge to know?

“nice as it was to have you guys stop by for tea and crumpets, i don’t give it a shit if you call him daddy. i’m tired, so you can hit bricks now,” Stretch said. His yawn wasn’t entirely forced.

“no need to bring up your kinks with the edgelord,” Sans grinned slyly, hopping down before Stretch could give him a real kick. “get some sleep, kiddo, i’ll stop by again tomorrow if they haven’t cut you loose.”

“i’m the same age as you, asshole,” Stretch grumbled.

“don’t take it personal, honey bun, sansy here is only pissed he didn’t age as well as you.” Red barely flinched as Sans stepped rudely on his foot as he walked past. “don’t get caught with that and i’ll bring you a new cartridge tomorrow.”

The door closed behind them and Stretch turned the volume back up on the television. At least it was useful for a little background noise to help him sleep. A nap sounded pretty damn good and if he took one, maybe he wouldn’t fall asleep when Edge came back tonight.

He really wanted Edge to come back tonight.

Carefully, he tucked the e-cigarette into the pillow, then pulled the blankets up as best he could around the tubes of his IV’s before closing his sockets. Before he drifted off, he sent a brief, silent prayer to an angel he didn’t really believe in that he wouldn’t dream of dying, again.

His nightmares Greatest Hits album really didn’t need another track.

-finis-

[spliitsoul]

the unsent letters 

———————————————————————-

bex, i’m sat on this plane and honest to god, no amount of training has prepared me for the way my hearts pounding. it was a good last night in the city. i’m glad i got to spend it with you and steve and anton and a few too many drinks. but i’m scared. i wanna make you all so proud, i wanna do good. but my heart is pounding and it feels like it’s gonna explode out of my chest and all i can think is how much i wanna be laid in the grass with you and stevie on a late sunday afternoon, filled with the candy we stole from that place down the street. i feel like a fucking coward. but it’s fine. i know really it’s just the initial nerves. it’s all gonna be fine. it has to be. i love you, stay tough. bucky.

———————————————————————-

steve, you being as sick as you are has never once been a comfort to me till now. always scared the shit outta me, how often i thought we were gonna lose you. you’re a part of me in the same way bex is. in my fucking soul. i couldn’t lose you. but god, this is the first time i’ve ever been thankful for how sick you’ve always been. knowing they’re never gonna accept your ass and that you’re gonna fucking live through this war is one of the only things bringing me comfort right now. i can’t lose you, stevie. this fucking war can take what it wants, it can bleed me till i’m dry and there’s nothing left. but it ain’t taking you. not you. you’re too damned good. it can’t have you. bucky.

———————————————————————-

to both my idiots, if i should die before i wake, i pray you fucking dumbasses never find a way to get over here. you can’t see this hell. you can’t. bucky.

———————————————————————-

bex, i wish i’d told you the truth before i left. i… i wish i’d accepted it myself. i feel like i’m living a lie to the one person i swore to always tell the truth to. god… it’s eating me up. and i know i’ll never be able to tell you now. some truths, you hold inside too long they become this big, ugly thing. how could finally admitting it now ever do any good, when it’s become this blackened monster? maybe… maybe years ago. maybe then, it woulda still been beautiful. it wouldn’t have stung so hard to speak of, even if it was terrifying. god… i don’t even know. guess i’m just sitting here, wallowing in my regrets. fucking stupid, i know. but. i can’t help it. i had to kill a kid today. ain’t got a clue how the fuck he got in. but he wasn’t making it back on his own and we couldn’t carry him and…. i’m sorry. i can’t.

———————————————————————-

bex, i didn’t think it was possible. to lose track. for all the death and the blood on my hands to get so thick and nasty that i’d lose track of how many lives i’ve taken. but honestly, it happened on the first day. and now there’s been so, so many days and weeks and time doesn’t exist out here but i know it’s rolling on, this never ending thing we can stop and i feel it. i fucking feel it in my chest. i’m the same. no real sense, just keep moving on. another life. another. what’s another sin to my thousand?

———————————————————————-

steve, i wish i’d just told you. bucky.

———————————————————————-

anton, take care of her. it’s all on you now. i love you, you got this. stay tough. bucky.

———————————————————————-

rebecca, honest to god, i could rip this fucking world apart for daring to put you there. why, what fucking right did it have? hurting me, i don’t care. they can have all the pieces they want outta me. i ain’t worth shit, they can have it all. but you? no. i’m gonna bring hell down on ‘em for it. tear me apart, peel my skin and scramble my head—they can do it all and i don’t care. i’m still here, still kickin’ and always will be. i don’t care. but this world doesn’t get to touch you. not you. i swear to god, i’ll burn ‘em all for dragging you into this hell. bucky.

———————————————————————-

steve, i thought i got lucky. i really, really was stupid enough to think i got lucky. that you and bex would be away from this mess. but no, god. how could i have been so stupid to actually think either of you would stay back home, where you were meant to be? safe. happy. alive. hearts whole and souls not tainted by this hell. well. if i can’t keep either of you from it, i’ll sure as hell fight till my fingers bleed and breathing burns my lungs, just to keep you alive. this war ain’t having either of you. i won’t let it. bucky.

———————————————————————-

steve, i’m a little drunk right now and the night is beautiful and god, london’s never looked as good as it does with you in it. you’re still so awkward, dancing around the idea of actually dancing even though every eyes on you now. can’t lie, i’m a lil jealous. what, suddenly people thing they’re worthy of ya? i mean shit, i definitely ain’t. but at least i’ve always seen what they only just seem to be catchin. still, guess better late than never. i’m glad really, that the world finally gets it—steve rogers is the best we got. damned heart and soul. and if anyone is gonna end this war, it’s you. but i still don’t want ya to. i still wish you were far, far away from this mess. but we don’t always get what we want, right? never so lucky. guess i’ll have to settle. close my eyes and pretend i’m winning, pretend it’s all you. bucky.

———————————————————————-

bex, i love him. i love him so much bex i can’t fucking breathe. i… it’s gonna eat me alive. if this war doesn’t, then holding this in is gonna. bucky.

———————————————————————-

steve, i don’t think i’ve ever been able to see you in the snow and not have a damned heart attack. it would always get to your lungs. no matter how much we’d try to warm up sat by the fire after, it’s like it just sunk in too deep to every part of you. terrified me, that something that looked so pretty could cause you so much pain. i hated the snow for so long because of it. still can’t deal with it really, how wonderful it is now. i still worry, habit really. but… god. those blue eyes just stand right out on this snowy backdrop and i swear for just a moment, i could touch heaven. i think you’re what heaven feels like. bucky.

———————————————————————-

bex, i still wish i coulda been honest with you about this part of me. i wish this world was kinder. and who knows, maybe after this? maybe it will be. maybe the world wasn’t meant to be kind for me, maybe i wasn’t meant to get to be myself in it. and that’s okay. so long as someone else gets to, right? so you promise me, if that heart of yours is as queer as mine? be loud. be proud. don’t let anyone ever, ever tell you who you can’t be. and don’t let love slip through your fingers coz you’re too damned scared to see it through. i love you so much bex, stay tough. be brave. bucky.

———————————————————————-

stevie, feels like the end is brewing now. the storms just outta reach, but we’re headed right for it. we’re running right into it, head first. and god, i look at you and i know, i know the things you’d do to end this. you’d never tear the world apart for it, but yourself? yeah, you’d pull yourself to shreds if it meant this all got to be over and we could finally taste victory and free the world from this pain and never ending suffering. you’d do it all, wouldn’t you? and hell, if that ain’t exactly what drew me to you in the first place. that fire. that spitting blood spirit. it’s hell, and i’ve told you time and time again how fucking stupid it is, how you’re gonna get yourself killed. but i’m like a moth and you’re the flame and i can’t fucking walk away. i’m here. right at your side. same way you’re drawn to the flames of this war and heroism. well i ain’t a hero. just a selfish son of a bitch that’s loved you since the day we met on school yard and you were kicking at people twice your size. and maybe at first, this was about making you and bex and anton proud. maybe it was about fighting in the memory of gabriel, about making the world a better place, one he could have survived in. but it was always even more than that. it was always more selfish. i thought maybe, just maybe, if i offered up my tattered sinner soul, then maybe it could mean something. tip the scales. it could be an offering, and this world would let you walk free. leave you untouched by this war. but it didn’t work, did it? shoulda known. i’m not enough, what i got to give could never be enough to protect you, to save you. but damn, i’m trying stevie, i’m trying every day. i’ll dirty my soul right down to its last atom. i’ll taint it good and true. i’ll dirty my hands with so much blood i’ll wonder if i was ever clean, even once in my life. i’ll look in the mirror and see a monster. i’ll rip apart families and take parents from their kids and torture every last hydra scum i can get my hands on. so long as it means we win. so long as it means you walk away from this.  i’ll die, i’ll do it. if it means you get to live. i was so damned scared of dying before. but not now, not now the truth weighs heavy in my heart unable to be ignored. i love you, i’ve loved you since before i even knew it was allowed. and i’d walk into the jaws of fire and death, i’d give it all up, just to see you walk away from this. just, be sure to do me one favour at the end of it all? stay tough. don’t lose that edge, that fire. burn on for all eternity stevie, do that for me, and it’ll all be alright. yours, forever and always, bucky.

[somekindofseizure]

When the Ink Dries Part VIII

<Thank you @icedteainthebag for giving me the tough love on the first draft of this.  And to all of you for waiting.  Rated Explicit.>

Chapter 19

Scully waited in the parlor room armchair wearing borrowed clothes, winding a chunk of overgrown split ends around her finger like late autumn weeds, the fur hem of Stella’s wool pencil skirt prickling her thighs.  She picked at her nails until one cuticle bed split open and bled.  Stella was still getting ready - had spent almost the entire day getting ready - for the fallen officers’ memorial event, but Scully’s impatience was levelled squarely at herself.

First thing this morning, Scully had promised herself she would get it over with.  In retrospect, she could see that her plans were doomed the moment she sunk against the bathroom door jamb and set her eyes on Stella.  Stella had been studying herself in the mirror, squinting, shoulder blades knitted together under her t-shirt, weight back on her heels.  Holding herself as she held everyone - at a distance.  Scully crossed her arms over her chest and cleared her throat in an effort to be acknowledged.  Her secret was an accidental one, born as a simple piece of information, an unshaped piece of wet clay.  Using nothing but time and cowardice, Scully had shaped that harmless blob into a weapon with a shortening fuse.  She had never considered herself an artist, except in the field of avoidance.

“My first work event since I’ve been out of commission,” Stella said with a self-mocking smile.  She looked down at a jar of cream and she swiped a glob across her forehead.  Scully hesitated - she’d get to the secret in just a minute - and reached for Stella’s hand, caught two of her fingers.  Stella’s shoulders swiveled and her hand swung with Scully’s like a trapeze act without a net, eyes flickering and then meeting her partner’s in the mirror.  Traveling forty feet in an instant of eye contact.

“Will they find me… as I was before?” Stella asked, a forced comedic lilt to her voice that reminded Scully of when she had to resort to asking Mulder how some skirt made her butt look.  She was embarrassed that she cared.  

“A couple months older, maybe,” Scully teased, then re-capitulated.  “Yes, they will.  Better, even.”

The secret began to smolder the minute Scully decided to put it off until later, foolishly leaving it to eat the silence like a fire eats oxygen.  Now it was hours-stronger, solid as cement, an extra story of the flat inserted between the two existing levels that they occupied.

Scully looked up from the armchair and felt her chin drop when she heard the typewriter click of Stella’s shoes on the staircase.  Stella descended slowly, dangling pauses like pronouncements, each patent leather heel hovering over its next step like she expected it to rise up and meet her rather than the other way around.  Blouse nipped at the sides pinned by seams to her body like a cloud to the sky.  Blacks so deep the gold seemed to swim in it, whites so new they shaded her face pink.  On her, a police uniform was a fantasy of authority and sex so pure that it seemed more like a costume than a mandate.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Scully said, forgetting both her secret and sucking of her bleeding nail a moment.

“Bring that finger over here and let me do that for you.”

If they’d had more time, it would have been a good idea, actually, a way of getting through it...  Run her fingers over Stella’s body between sentences, feel her out like a bit of Braille on smooth, sure stone, fingers placed here and there along her pulse, her spine, her hips, and yes one in her mouth.  Stella had an aptitude for nuance in physical contact that she lacked in conversation.  Would it have been exploitative to talk to her that way?  Or an act of kindness?

“That’s your real uniform?”

“I can’t tell if you’re judging or leering,” Stella said.  “If it’s the latter, please make that clear and let’s skip the party.”

“You keep calling it that. Party.”

“Because it is a party, darling.  We’re having alcohol and we put on high heels.”

“You partake of both those things every day.”

“You don’t.”

Scully smiled despite herself.  Stella was square-shouldered in the foyer mirror now, one lazy eye on Scully in the reflection as she fastened the little black tie around her neck and tossed her hair. As she did so, the blonde picked up the shine of the embroidery on her collar, a crystal casting the sun for a rainbow.

“Are they all going to look like this?  Your colleagues?  Underlings?”

“Why?” Stella teased.  “Looking for a replacement?”

“No, of course not.”  

Had that come off as overly serious? Defensive?  Later, in a childish game of what-if, woulda-coulda-shoulda, Scully would wonder how much sooner Stella would have read her, caught her out, had she not been in an unusual state of self-surveillance, so vigilant of her own vulnerability with the “party” that she could miss something to obvious.

“I have them tailored,” Stella said with a sheepish so-what of a smile.  

She slow-stalked the kitchen like a jungle cat, stroked the cylinder of a water glass and placed long, inexplicable glances on various inanimate objects in the room, as though deciding whether to consume or spare each thing.  Then she sipped her water, made tiger stripes on the rim with her lipstick.   There was silence to fill here, but Scully’s mouth had gone dry.

Finally, Stella reached for her jacket and slipped into it as though she’d been recently painted and was trying not to smudge herself.  

“How should I introduce you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“People are likely to assume we’re fucking no matter what I say.”

“Only you assume that about everyone.”

Stella grinned into her last gulp of water and murmured, letting it echo and bubble as she slurped, pausing to swallow in the middle of her phrase.

“This is for your benefit.  I’m making sure you’re prepared.  People will whisper.”

“I’ve been whispered about that way at work my whole life.”

“There are worse things to have whispered by colleagues.”

“I know.  I’ve had those whispered too.”

Stella was unsatisfied.  She didn’t want jokes, she wanted confirmation that this evening would come off without a hitch.  It was not for Scully’s benefit, not really, and that was okay.  Scully spoke as though by rote, repeating her lessons.

“I am prepared for them to assume we’re a couple.”

Stella circled her and collected a small clutch purse she’d left open on the barstool, nudged Scully’s jeweled earlobe with her nose.  She tucked her phone into the bag, a bed of tissues and lip gloss, and then held it under her armpit as she put both arms around Scully’s waist.  Her face now rested on Scully’s shoulder, the carefully-applied layer of cosmetics wafting like spring flowers sealed in wax, a semi-edible decoration atop a birthday cake.  For a moment it seemed unlikely that anything else scheduled for this evening could hold as much weight as that shoulder did.

“I didn’t say couple.  I said fucking.”  Her jaw had dug itself a permanent residence in the posterior delta of Scully’s clavicle.  Scully worried for a moment that the makeup would come off on the sweater, but it was Stella’s sweater after all.  “Be a lamb and say it for me.”

“Fucking,” Scully murmured.

“Mm.”

Scully turned to face her.  Her neck spasmed where Stella’s chin had left a dent.

“You look nice in my things,” Stella said.  

Scully nodded, the guilt traveling like a heart attack up her arm from where Stella held her wrist.  She’d always been shit at accepting compliments, so Stella didn’t notice.

“You look perfect,” she countered.

“Thank you,” Stella said with the quiet, simple grace Scully could never seem to muster.

Scully braced herself.  She had Stella’s attention, the intimacy of a couple’s last moment alone before a party.  She battled the sickening rush of temptation as she considered what to do with it, whether to speak or keep Stella close, to stay here on the safe side of things a little bit longer.

“Come, darling.”

She took Stella’s arm and followed her out.

*

It had been a long time since Scully had observed Stella in a professional setting and she was mesmerized during the ceremony by her focus.  Hands and limbs kept to herself throughout the ceremony, occasionally lifting her chin, a sort of reverse nod of approval at something a speaker said or did.  Scully wondered if Stella’s mind was wandering, if she let herself think of the fact that she could have been one of these names, if she felt guilty or lucky or strange for having narrowly escaped a place among these unfortunate honorees.  

At the end, everyone was directed to the back of the room where tea lights sprouted on pale blue cloths tossed over coin-sized tables.  The room let out a collective sigh of relief, moving en masse toward the promise of small talk and wine.  Cocktail waiters emerged from swinging doors like crumple-vested spiders, drawing invisible webs around arbitrary clusters of people.  The mourners took part at once, moving easily between grief and relief.  Everyone knew their ghosts would be holding their coats for them at the door.  It was a party, like Stella said.

And for Stella, it was turning out to be a pretty good one.  Her posture was already soft with victory.  She’d appeared here in one piece, as herself, had reclaimed her reputation as reliable and invincible.  Scully’s ankles wobbled in her shoes as she thought of the car ride home, the living room where they’d step out of their shoes and wiggle sore toes, of how she’d begin to spoil a perfect night.  She wondered how many drinks Stella would have in her by the time Scully finally said what she needed to say.  One or two and it wouldn’t make a difference, three-plus meant a sloppier tongue and quicker wrists, the sum-total effect of which was generally more auspicious at the end of a night together.

Stella took two glasses of white from one of the passing trays and handed one to her date.

“Chardonnay,” she grumbled with the pout of an adult equally well-versed in self-abuse and self-care. “I spoke to them about this last year.”

Scully laughed.  

“People are grieving for Christ’s sake,” Stella went on.

Scully sucked her stomach in on a deep breath and Stella noticed, misread it as self-consciousness.  Scully let her, sins of omission multiplying like the empty plastic cups on the tables.   Stella leaned in, put her lips against Scully’s ear and Scully wondered if there would be marks on her skin like the water glass, little bands of metallic pink across the cartilage.

“Do you want to go?  We can go,” Stella prompted.  She fiddled with the knot of the bow on Scully’s wrap sweater and freshened it in a shorter amount of time than it had taken Scully to do in the first place.

“No, no.  I just… think I should have worn my own clothes,” Scully said because she needed something true to complain about.  “Or borrowed a uniform.”

“No one would have known the difference, two thirds of these people are idiots.”

“They seem nice.”

“That’s the third I’m willing to talk to.  You could have had mine.  Uniform, I mean.  I hate wearing it,” Stella said, righting herself beside Scully.

“You do?  Even after all that nipping and tucking?”

Stella’s face darkened as it often did when her memory retraced certain steps.  Scully felt obtuse for needing time to understand the tailoring – it was an act of control, not vanity.  

“It reminds me of school.”

This was always how getting to know Stella had been, like picking up items on a scavenger hunt: school names here, siblings there.  There had been times she was tempted to sit Stella down and ask questions for three hours, take notes and turn on a journalist’s tape recorder to get it all down.  It had never much bothered her much; she’d told herself she knew all she needed to know.  How to read Stella’s temperature from across the room, hear the switch flip from silent-at-peace to silent-in-turmoil with music blaring and a bar full of people.  That Stella likes to be touched, but only by people she trusts, that she likes innocent-faced men and women with purpose, that she brushes her teeth in the shower and leaves cabinet doors slightly ajar, that she likes to dance but only when she asks, that she washes her face wearing a red polka dotted headband sometimes.  She knew she could call her for any reason, at any time, and not be judged or turned away, and that when Stella didn’t answer a question, it meant Scully would find it out eventually, out of nowhere, in some other empty space between two moments, when Stella was finally ready to share it, and then Scully might wish she’d never asked it at all.  But she didn’t know how Stella was going to react to what she had to tell her tonight, and that made her feel like all that knowledge was for nought.

They were moving now, Stella in front and Scully in tow, sailing the crowd shoulder to shoulder, Stella billowing in and out of conversations with impressive ease.  Her fingers trailed behind when she walked, or at her side when she stopped, left an infrared wake for Scully to follow.  Scully felt freer than she was used to feeling as someone’s date.  And feeling good while she deceived Stella was unsettling.  Stella’s trust was a limited fund, one she was using up with every moment she held her tongue.

Stella had stopped now, but the crowd continued to move, and Scully had the sensation of standing still on a boat.  She felt her temperature rise and pushed up the sleeves of the sweater.  Her forearms turned pink from the friction.   She couldn’t do it anymore.

“Stella, I have to-”

Stella turned, pinched a crepey pastry off on hors d’oeuvre tray and supported it with a cocktail napkin on its way to Scully’s mouth. Scully lowered her eyes but obediently nibbled, licked the flakes off her lips.

“Stella-”

But she needed time to swallow and in that time...

“Oh.  You remember Ferrington?”

Of course.  The girl who had “door-stepped” Stella with the soup.  She’d had to twist Stella’s arm into a thank-you phone call, but Dani hadn’t picked up anyway and the voicemail got it.  Dani had a date tonight, presumably a girlfriend and Scully wondered whether Dani had assumed the same about her - presumably girlfriend.

“Hello again,” Dani said with a gracious first nod to Scully.  “Dana, right?”

“Hi there.  How are you?” Scully said, trying not to sound angry.  None of her worries was Dani’s fault.  “I don’t know if Stella told you but I loved your soup.”

Dani beamed and the conversation split, Stella taking on small-talk with the girlfriend and Scully entertaining Dani.

“Still here in town?” Dani asked.

“Yes, still here,” Scully said and tucked her hair behind her ear.  

A warm hand on her lower back, one of Stella’s fingers segregating two lines of cashmere ribbon around her waist, a gesture of concern, of care, of – Scully put her hands to her cheeks to cool them - possession.

“Warm in here, is it?” Dani said to Scully, head cocked in empathy.  Her face must be the color of an apple.  “So, how long before you go back?”

“May only be a few more days,” Scully said under her breath, wiping her brow.  She didn’t think Stella would hear and she didn’t want to lie - had not actively lied yet about it.

But of course, the room went silent the minute she mumbled it and her voice seemed so loud it was as though someone had inadvertently passed a microphone under her lips.  Stella dropped her hand from Scully’s back, turned with such eerie cool that for a second Scully wondered if Stella had known all along, had eavesdropped on the phone call last week.  She searched Stella’s face for some emotion - forgiveness or fury, anything other than the punishing granite wall of indifference suddenly being erected inches from her nose, limiting her view of all else.

Scully glanced at Dani, swallowed, squeezed her lips together before she spoke.

“I - I got a call from my work and I can’t extend the leave any longer so--”

“Always… hard to see a... friend go after a long visit,” Dani said, turning to Stella, unsure what exactly was going on but perceptive enough to know she should take Stella’s side.

“Mm.  Excuse me, this wine is abominable,” Stella said.  “I’m going to talk them into coughing up some liquor.  Anyone?”

And Scully had no choice but to let her go.

*

Scully found Stella ten minutes later in a screen-porch-faded bathroom with chipping yellow paint.  Familiar in the manner of a fever dream, more unwanted and disorienting for each recognizable reference point - a pallid iteration of the psych ward restroom in which Stella’s consolation had begun their friendship.  Stella leaned on the sink with fighters’ fists, blister red with white spots at the bones, staring with chilling remove into the ceramic basin.  Scully’s instinctive relief at not finding Stella in hysterics quickly transformed into the panic of finding this instead.  She glanced uneasily at the walls, as though to make sure they wouldn’t close in on her.

“Stella -”

How many times had she said her name like that tonight, trying to get to more?  So many it was starting to seem detached from Stella the person.  A word became meaningless and foreign if you said it enough.

Stella held a hand up and caught her eye in the mirror a moment and then a toilet flushed.  A waitress emerged from one of the stalls and embarrassed, fumbled through the hand-washing process.  Stella’s stare was unforgiving and lasted the duration, and Scully waited, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, trying to absorb the awkwardness with micro movements.  

“Lock the door,” Stella said when they were finally alone.

“What if someone has to --”

“I said lock it.”

“I’m sorry,” Scully said as she flipped the bolt.  It was heavy and hard to push, left a line in the middle of the pad of her finger.  The irritation she was beginning to feel in reaction to Stella’s behavior was something of a relief.  Anything to avoid the self-reproach she’d been bearing up under all day.  “It’s not like I want to leave you.  But I have to unless I’m going to, I don’t know, move here.”

Stella’s glare set into her like a machete, cleaved her right between the eyes.

“You think I care if you go?  I care that you just made me look like an idiot.”

“You don’t care if I go?”

“Don’t be a cliché.”

“What does that mean?”

“You don’t want to stay but you don’t want me to let you go either.”

“I just… I didn’t know where this was going… and my life…”

“It’s not going anywhere,” Stella snapped.  

Scully licked her lower lip and swallowed, trying not to cry.

“Well, that’s what I assumed.”

“I sound angry but I don’t mean to.  I don’t like surprises.”

Observing Stella’s process of calming herself was one of the more disconcerting experiences Scully could summon to mind, on par with the mid-ride plateau of a rollercoaster, helpless between two loops, listening to the engine click and collect the momentum it needed to throw you off the next drop.

“I don’t want anything to go anywhere,” Stella said, gaze softening but not warming, falling like sleet into the sink.  Scully followed it, gripped the drain with her eyes before it could swallow her.

“You haven’t been happy having me here?”

“That’s the present.  You’re talking about the future.”

“You know, this is a version of the same conversation we had fifteen years ago after the first night we spent alone together,” Scully said.

“Maybe we’re fools for needing to have it again.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have had it in the first place.”

Stella scoffed.

“Come on, Dana.  What?  And just been together?”  She looked at Scully.  “You wouldn’t have had any of your life with Mulder, your child.”

“I lost them anyway.”

One of Stella’s eyes flinched and she licked her bottom lip, swallowed whatever bit of gloss she’d picked up there.  She turned back to the sink.

“Well, I guess I make for a decent consolation prize.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Scully said, “and you know it.”  She hated the way her voice sounded, wounded and will-less.

“You speak to Mulder recently?” Stella asked and ran her tongue in front of her teeth.

“Yes.  Why?”

Stella tossed off a look that landed like a punch in the chest.

“Don’t you dare,” Stella said and her voice rattled like a stick.

“Dare what?” Scully finally asked.  But Stella didn’t answer because she knew Scully knew.  Don’t you dare pretend he’s beside the point.

Cold air suddenly puffed from the vent overhead.  Scully crossed her arms and shivered with the recognition that she was taking part in an overreaction.  She had made many fights in her life worse this way, by trying to manufacture the end before it had lived its natural course, diminishing a drama before it had played out its denouement.

“Listen.  I don’t know what you want from me,” she said.  “What was my alternative here?”

“Bring it up sooner.”

“And then what?  You would’ve said stay, quit your job, move to England, and we’ll go to a party next week?  You’ve had this thing on your mind for days.  It would’ve ruined it.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

Scully took a step closer and Stella stepped back.

“Let’s talk about this later when we’re calm,” Scully said, reaching for her.  Stella swatted her arms back out of reach.

“Let me be,” she said.  

Scully looked at her feet as Stella edged past her, avoiding her like the pit of a natural disaster.  The thought of staying in this bathroom one second longer than necessary was unbearable.  The thought of not following Stella out made her feel lost and scared and alone in a foreign country in a way she had not felt switching trains on complicated tube lines, not felt getting lost on runs around ungridded alleyways of gory murderers.  

She spent the hour rationalizing and emerged hungry and thirsty and calm, her tailbone sore from the plastic toilet bowl cover seat.  This would blow over quickly.  She and Stella had been through too much.  There were advantages to spending most of your life arguing every day with someone you loved.  You knew what to do with an hour alone in the bathroom.  (Not that Mulder had ever given her an hour alone in her life.)

The lights had gone darker, the crowd had grown louder and there was music she didn’t recall noticing before.  She searched the room for Stella’s golden head, eager to make things right.  The bar came into view as the crowd parted and Scully stopped short, felt a few bodies stiffen and pile behind her.  A couple drops of something cold splashed her calves.  People doled apologies or sought them but she didn’t care.  

There was Stella on a high stool with an arched back and a strategically crossed leg, talking to, or rather, listening to, or rather, pretending to listen to a male officer in his thirties.  Bored and sloping as the moon, leaning on one elbow over the bar, forearm waving its half empty glass of Scotch like a loose clock hand.  The shoe on her crossed foot clucked on and off her heel and she was absent behind the eyes, already living in an event to come within hours, the furthest future she was capable of embracing.

Scully threw a sharp glance down at the floor, then moved forward, thinking of the courage of crime scenes past.  She tried to imagine the comfort of a flashlight in hand, a gun in its holster, a walkie promising backup.  

Stella looked at her as though she were one of the cocktail waitresses carrying substandard table wine and she might as well have murdered her.

“Hi there,” the idiot man said, chipper, swingy, a lucky guy having a lucky night, and Scully allowed herself to hate him deeply and irrationally as she waited for Stella to introduce her.  Nothing.

“I’m going to head back to the flat,” Scully said at last.

“I’ll be there eventually.  Few more things I want to do here.”

He beamed with pride, the man did, in the periphery of Scully’s view; he was that thing she meant to do!  But Stella ignored him for the time being, fixed Scully with a hunter’s stare, eyes empty as the viewfinder of a rifle, Scully filling in the space between the crosshairs, fur up on the back of her neck under a string of pearls.  She felt Stella’s focus sharpen, watched her trigger finger wiggle around her glass.  And Scully turned while she could still get out alive, bolted through the human foliage of widows and revelers toward the exit.

*

There was comfort in the predictability of it: Stella going home with some random man to escape reality.  Scully managed mostly to put the details of it out of her mind and wondered instead what her role here was, what Stella would be expecting of her.   This, she thought, was as apt a description of love as any – wanting to give another person exactly what they expected of you, even when they weren’t looking, even when you were furious with them.

She’d left her shoes in two different spots on the staircase, clothes in three distinct heaps.  She’d hidden her phone from herself, hoped she’d had enough to drink on an empty stomach to fall for it, then cried and taken a shower and sipped wine from an open bottle.  Not knowing what else to do, she’d resorted to tackling the contents of two junk drawers and a spice rack on the kitchen floor.  She’d done this with Mulder sometimes too, reorganized his (overbearing, overwhelming) spaces in their home and office.  It made her feel closer to him then, and to Stella now, trying to safe-crack her logic from the inside out, determine why one thing was on the same shelf as the next, or why condoms were in the kitchen at all (though not wonder too hard).  It took a great deal of energy she would have otherwise used on self-pity to frame things the way Stella would, distinguish complex system from misplaced item; everything with Stella fell into one or the other of those categories.  

It wasn’t until she heard the thick poplin-gabardine swish of uniform sleeves in the foyer that she realized that Stella might view the innards of cabinets splayed across the hard grey floor as a provocation.  But it was too late to undo what she’d already undone, so she kept her eyes on the bottle of cardamom, weeded out a yellow potato chip clip, thought of Stella wiping her hands on a pair of overpriced sweatpants while closing a bag of kettle chips she’d stash in a corner behind the red wine.  

She slumped a little deeper, expecting any minute to hear strident stilettos making their way to the fridge, to feel Stella’s triumphant glare on the back of her head.  She braced herself for the smells, the sights, the evidence of spite-sex.  It was Stella’s right to go home with whomever she wanted, with or without the impetus of a fight.  Scully had never asked her for any sort of exclusivity.  She was good at not asking people for what they couldn’t give, but bad at accepting the fact that they didn’t offer it up.  

But there was something other than gloating triumph going on.  Stella stood still under the arc that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house.  A truce had arrived, or at least, it was within Scully’s power to provide one.  Scully picked up a plastic container of rainbow nonpareils and shook them weakly.

“What are these for?”

“Ice cream.  Fairy bread.”

A smile ached across Scully’s teeth.

“Fairy bread?  How am I supposed to keep arguing with you when you say stuff like that?”

“I’m sorry.  It was rude to send you off that way,” Stella said.  What she didn’t say was for fucking somebody else.

Scully put one hand on the floor and pressed herself up to stand.  The eye makeup hadn’t budged, of course, and the lips were red from rubbing rather than taupe from painting, but the cheeks were splotchy, and the bottom rims of her eyes sagged until the red part showed, as though they’d been stretched beyond repair.  She wondered where Stella could have cried.  Surely not in the presence of that strange man.  In his bathroom?  The cab ride home?  On some street corner between here and there, hiding in a shadow with her palms pressed into a row of brick?  Her heart sizzled like an antacid dropped into a glass - sadness competing with jealousy and anger.  Mulder had never tried or tested her in this particular way.  The first time they’d had sex, or maybe sooner, she got his undying faithfulness in return.  She’d only ever lost him to ideas, thoughts, to himself, never to another person.

The uniform skirt was wrinkled at the hips and the blouse sagged so that it was almost unrecognizable from this afternoon.  Scully felt a twinge of sadness remembering how the day had started; stiff fabric and affectionate glances, innuendo in a foyer mirror.  

“I didn’t expect you to be sorry,” Scully said.

“That’s two of us then.”

Scully rolled a row of unsharpened pencils that were waiting to be organized on the counter.  They seemed so clean and useful absent the frustrated chewing marks she was accustomed to finding in her and Mulder’s office.   Stella found other things to sink her teeth into.

“It’s your prerogative,” Scully said.

“I know that.  But you’re standing there looking at me like that and it makes me want to die.”

Something in the phrase or in Stella’s voice resembled a distant generic concept of couplehood.  This was how most people behaved.  They belonged somewhere at a certain time of night, they were sorry when they weren’t in that place, other people who expected them in that place got jealous, everyone felt guilty.  That was what a relationship was… wasn’t it?  How could she have gotten to this point in her life and not known?

“Maybe we could go to therapy,” she said and almost laughed at herself.  Somewhere she’d heard people talk like this.  “You know, figure it out.”

Stella looked at her with something like gentle reproach.  Or sympathy.  Or pity.  Or apology.  Whatever it was, it was not cruelty.  

“But you’ve come so far,” Scully said, turning her face away, giving in, letting it fold like a pile of shirts on her shoulder.

“Please don’t ask me to come any further.”

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

[octannibal-blake]

damocles 1/?

one of the canonverse drabbles I wrote before 5.12. I'm starting a collection of shoulda, coulda, woulda's. basically, my small rewrites of s5.

*

*

A war chant begins to echo through the valley, bouncing off the surrounding trees and warning of the impending battle. Clarke’s hands begin to shake, so she clasps them together, squeezing so tight that her knuckles turn white. Her leg bounces nervously on the floor as McCreary’s voice booms over the chants.

“Gunners, through the trees!”

She closes her eyes, trying not to imagine her friends on that battlefield. Trying not to imagine the blood smearing across Eden. Her home. No, not anymore. She lost that home to Eligius. Yet, here she sits trying to get it back. Letting everyone else do the fighting, sitting complacent and watching it burn only to come out in the end and stand atop the ashes.

Wrong. This is wrong.

Her eyes find Madi, where she stand peering through the blinds solemnly. She did this for her family and her home.

But at what cost? Will there be anything left? Will it be worth living for?

“We should be doing something.” Madi says, not for the first time. Her voice is strong, no longer a quiet whisper of a child but that of a fierce leader. It's not something she's adjusting well to, every word reminding her that the flame once again lives inside her child’s head.

“We are,” Clarke tells her with matching ferocity, “We’re keeping you safe.”

“Those are your people out there,” she counters, shooting a glare over her shoulder, “And you’re just going to let them walk into a massacre?”

Her gut is filled with lead, something a little like guilt, heavy and toxic and weighing her down, “They made their choice.”

Madi laughs, sarcastic and biting, “That’s what you keep saying. But you’re making one, too.”

She stands, rolling her shoulders back and pushing her chin up. She won’t let the guilt eat at her, not right now. Right now, she has to focus on keeping Madi safe. Her family is what matters, the rest comes later.

But they’re your family, too, her heart cries from deep within her chest. She swallows it down. Not anymore.

“I’m making the choice that ends with you staying alive. What comes after is…”

Madi turns back to the window before speaking again, and it’s so low she almost misses it, “'There can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always looms.’"

Clarke’s breath comes out in a soft whoosh, “What?”

“It's Damocles,” Madi says, turning her eyes on her. They’re different now, no longer wide and innocent. No longer young, but far too wise for her age. They hold memories of too many lives, “Bellamy told you that story, remember?”

Her heart rams into her chest at his name, that particular memory. It was before Praimfaya, when they were sitting in Becca’s lab talking about space. About fear and he had smiled, told her a story, and God, she loved to hear him tell stories. She used to pretend she could hear them on nights she couldn't sleep as she stared at the stars.

And she never told Madi about that, it was her own small detail locked away for her own safe keeping.

“How…” her voice cracks, hands trembling slightly because she realizes just as she asks, the true answer. She thinks about yesterday, when she had mentioned Mount Weather. She had assumed she was pulling from Lexa’s memories. But Lexa wasn't there when they pulled that lever. Lexa wasn't there when she stood in front of Bellamy, kissed him goodbye and told him those stupid words.

I bear it so they don't have to.

“The Flame holds the memories of fourteen commanders before me,” Madi confirms, “Your memory, Clarke.”

She swallows, voice lodged in the back of her throat. Her mind seems to short circuit, trying to hard to loop through all those memories herself, but Madi clears her throat walking to the candle and running her hand over the flame, “You always paint yourself as someone in the background, but you were their leader, Clarke. You're the reason they survived.”

“I’m not,” she shakes her head, moving back so that she falls onto the cot, her legs giving out easily, “Bellamy was…”

“Stop trying to make yourself a bad guy!” She snaps, whirling around, “You took the night blood solution. You pulled the lever in Mount Weather. You stopped ALIE!”

“I wasn't alone!” Clarke snaps back, the memories playing all to clear in her own mind now, “I couldn't have done that without Raven. Bellamy. Monty. Murphy. They are the only reason that I…”

“So you're all heroes, then.”

Something escapes from her, a noise that sounds similar to a sob but she hardly even feels it. She lifts a hand to her mouth to catch the next one, but even it escapes in between her fingers. She stumbles back and falls onto the cot, mind beginning to churn rapidly. Madi has her memories. She’s seen everything she’s done, everything she was willing to do. How could she possibly see her that way? How could she still believe that, even now, after she…

“Those are your people out there,” Madi repeats, stepping towards her. She’s no longer the same little girl that colored her hair only weeks ago, with an innocent smile and bright eyes. She’s a commander now, “And you need to do something.”

Her people. Her people.

“Monty. Harper. Raven. Murphy.” she pauses, staring intently at her mentor, “Bellamy. He’s out there, walking into a trap that you set. Are you really going to leave him to die twice?”

It hits her then, as she stares at the girl she raised as her own, her lifeline on this stupid planet for so long, that she knows everything. Madi watches the light bulb go off, the realization kick in and nods, “Does he know?”

She can’t speak. No words would do the question justice. No words would erase everything she’s done to get them here. Madi grabs something from off the table and approaches slowly, holding her hand out. THe pistol looks large in her small hand, wrong. IT’s not supposed to be there, she was never supposed to see war. The world was supposed to be better than this.

“I know you think you have to protect the people you love,” Madi says softly, “I understand now, why you worry so much. But you know we can’t just sit here why they destroy our home. Destroy each other.”

Clarke reaches for the gun, picking it up delicately from Madi’s palm. It’s heavy and rough in her hand, awkward and yet too familiar.

“You said there are no good guys. But you’re wrong. We can be the good guys.”

It’s too late for her, she wants to say. Her hands are already stained, her soul is black. But she stands, taking a deep breath and placing her free hand on Madi’s padded shoulder, “Maybe you can.”

[hisvanity]

@cacturnefortheworse​ submitted:

Meeting Wallace

Diary, I’m shaking so much I think I’m gonna piss myself. I won the Wallace Cup today. And the prizes are nice and all, but I met THE Wallace. HimSELF. I can hardly even remember everything, it was so fuckin’ surreal. I know one thing though. I’ve been staring at my phone every like twenty fuckin seconds cause bitch… I GOT HIS GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKIN NUMBER.

Sur-Reality

It’s weird to think that I’m hanging out with a guy I’ve admired since I was a little kid. I’m not even sure when it turned from just thinking he was the coolest to catching feelings. It’s like one day I woke up and I was hella far gone.

I guess it’s just wild cause I still remember when I first saw him. He seemed SO MUCH OLDER than me when I was little. Wallace was that cool big kid who got to stay up late and dress how he wanted and travel the world and I was still small-town Harley that didn’t know who he wanted to be.

But I know one thing Wallace made me feel as a kid. Little Eleven was so damn small it felt like the world couldn’t be bigger than that tiny lil neighborhood. But I saw him perform one day and he was the closest thing I’d ever seen to a person like me on TV. Or anywhere, for that matter. So after that contest, it suddenly felt like I could actually GO somewhere. I know when I was eight I wanted to meet him. I don’t think I dreamed I would.

Wallace is so much different than I expected him to be an yet he seems a lot like I thought he’d be at the same time. He’s funny and witty and doesn’t give a shit what anybody thinks. But he’s got a petty side like me an he can cut a bitch down to pin-needles if you cross him.

Man… I hope I never cross him. But I’m thinkin’ as long as I don’t get too close, that won’t happen.

Lunch Date

What IS it with this man? I don’t think I can breathe. I’m pretty sure I went through at least twelve emotions today??? I mean I embarrassed the fuck outta myself by accidentally outing myself and having a motherfuckin’ panic attack in front of only the most inspirational being in all of Hoenn. I got straight-up INSULTED. I think I maybe cried? And also…

I think we went on a date.

I’m having a hard time processing this, Diary. I CAN’T have gone on a date with Wallace. It can’t have been a date ‘cause if Wallace knew who the fuck I was there’s no way… I…

Diary, I dunno what to do. We’re not dating, so I can’t break up with him. We didn’t even call it a date. I don’t WANT to call it a date. And more than that I’m livin’ the FUCKING DREAM. I don’t know how I could look him in the eye and tell him he deserves better than me.

I wish you could talk back to me, Diary. I really need someone to tell me if I’m doin’ somethin’ wrong.

Texts & Phone Calls

Shit talking with Wallace is my new favorite pastime. I think. I mean it’s FUN, like bitch you KNOW how much I love to cut a few words. But…

Sometimes he goes off about someone and I can’t help but wonder what he woulda thought of me six years ago. I bet he woulda hated me. I’m gonna be sick.

A First Kiss

Ya know diary, people make jokes about not expextin’ to ever get so far? But today I really didn’t expect to get this far. I was like a thousand percent sure Wallace was going to give me shit for the Pocky Game. Instead I got a kiss? Like a real one, not that ‘our lips touched so game over’ fuckery twelve year olds do.

It was so surreal, I still feel kinda half-here. And I’m not even gonna ruin this moment for myself, Diary. I’m gonna put this pen down and have good dreams tonight.

Flower Pickin’

This is really fuckin’ stupid, but I’m really tempted to do one of those flower-pickin-he-loves-me things. I’ve never done it. I mean… I know it’s just a matter of how many petals are on the flower so it really doesn’t matter or anything, but then again, what if it DOES matter? Like I said, it’s really stupid. Just a dumb cliche I’ve never tried.

UPDATE: it said he loves me. :)

Almost-Confession

I couldn’t tell him that I love him. But Wallace isn’t a fucking idiot. I know he knows. I’m… kind of in disbelief right now. I told this fucker EVERYTHING. (Almost everything.) What kind of embarrassing fangirl just gushes about how she’s had some sort of weird crush-admiration thing since she was a little fucking KID?

I think I’m just a little thrown. I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to fall in LOVE with him. I just wanted to MEET him once. To tell him he meant so much to me and was such an inspiration and now we’re fucking and I almost dropped the L-word and I still don’t even wanna call him my–

Diary, what do I do? He deserves so much better than me and I don’t even know how to tell him THAT much.

Hell in a Handbasket

So yeah, Diary. It happened. And I’m not gonna tell you the whole story. Just gonna tell you that it happened, just like I said it would.

You know what? I haven’t felt like this much shit about myself since I was a little kid. Isn’t it kinda funny how the people who make ya feel the best also make ya feel the worst? It’s like a curse. Cause I guess they really do become your weakness or somethin’.

It’s just that the whole time he was yellin’ at me I realized I hadn’t told him ANYTHING about me. He didn’t know about who I was six years ago. He didn’t know about who I was eight years ago or ten years ago and how was I supposed to tell him when he was so MAD at me??? This is totally my fault, Diary. I fucked up. He shoulda known about Little Eleven and he shoulda known about the Winstrates and he shoulda known about all those kids I hated and the girl who looked like May and how I met Cacturne an’ how much I didn’t like myself an’ then maybe I coulda told him how much he meant to me an’ what I learned six years ago an’ why it’s not like that anymore.

I feel so fuckin stupid, Diary. Why’d I gotta spend all my life bein’ such a goddamn puss?

That Knotted-Up Gut Feeling

I don’t think I’m ever going to see Wallace again, Diary. I mean in person—TV and Magazines don’t count. The thing is, I always knew this would be what would happen. I think—actually I’m pretty damned sure that’s why I was so afraid to tell him. I spent most of my life just wantin’ to know the guy would like me. Now he fuckin’ hates me.

But you know, a month ago, I thought I was okay with it. I knew it was gonna happen eventually, so why be upset, right? That was a load of bull, Diary. I’ve been upset from day one. I did the one thing I said I wasn’t gonna do, which was fall in love with him. An’ I never even said that to his face.

To be honest? I’m still not sure if I did somethin’ wrong. I told him cause I always thought ya couldn’t appreciate where you were goin’ if ya didn’t know where you’d been. But it fuckin’ SUCKS to be punished for shit I did like six years ago.  

I do know one thing, though. I may not be the greatest at this whole right-and-wrong thing, but I know for sure when I hurt someone.

I really hurt Wallace. So if only ever get to say one thing to him ever again, I want it to be that I’m sorry. An’ I dunno what else to write, Diary, so I guess I’ll leave it here.

[crazyblondelife]

Life and Age...Redefined

As a woman in midlife, going through menopause, do you ever feel somewhat hopeless. Do you question your sanity when you can’t remember where you left your keys, or even worse, when you can’t remember your children’s names? Do you ever feel irrelevant and wonder what to do next. Everyone feels like this at times no matter their age but…

It doesn’t have to be this way and here’s why!

Your brain controls everything, clearly not just in menopause, but for your whole life, but if you haven’t learned this by now and are living on autopilot…letting life live you, it’s time to change a few things.

The thoughts you think today are creating your future. Every day you think thousands of thoughts and 90% of those thoughts are the same ones as the day before. How frightening?? Your brain is on autopilot causing you to live the very same day over and over…again…how frightening. I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I want my life to be. Thinking the same thoughts every day leads to the same choices and behaviors, and the same behaviors create the exact experiences and because of that, we expect the same feelings from those experiences. When we were hunters and gatherers, this is how our brain gave us protection, but we are evolving and this thought loop is no longer necessary, but…how can we change all of this?

Our hormone balance, our biology and even our gene expression (what causes us to be sick or not) will be equal to how we think, how we act and how we feel. Science is proving that genetic predisposition doesn’t have to be our reality. That’s good news because it means that you can creates your personal experience of health or sickness…and that’s it…even during menopause…even if your mother had a hard time…even if. Please don’t take my word for this, or stop reading because you don’t believe it…look into it yourself!

If you want to create a new life and redefine what this age means to you, you have to create a new personality and start becoming conscious of your unconscious behaviors and modify them. I realized this years ago when Baldy and I were going through an extremely hard time in our marriage and we had the same fight and the same pattern of getting mad and starting over every single time. It got to the point where it was almost daily and we lived apart for a while several times. It was making us both crazy, but we couldn’t seem to get out of the loop and we were both truly miserable. I will say that we were miserable for years before it all started to explode, but the explosion was what made me start searching for how to really make my life better. All of this probably would have, could have and should have happened sooner, but I was very busy being a mom and not paying too much attention to the fact that things were really bad. Woulda, coulda, shoulda…

Part of searching for ways to make my life better includes looking for new knowledge every single day and trying to better myself by learning about how to control my brain and therefore take control of my life and my destiny. If you don’t believe this is possible, look back at the patterns you have created in your life. You keep reliving those patterns because it’s how your brain has been programmed to behave and because that is what is familiar. And as I’ve said before, there is comfort in the familiar. The unknown can be a scary place.

Begin to look at the emotions that you live by every single day that keep you connected to your past and decide whether those emotions belong in our future. You can’t create a new life by doing the same things you’ve always done. I decided that I wanted things to change in many areas of my life and I knew that the only way those changes could happen was for me to be extremely conscious of my behavior and intentional in my actions. For example, I have learned that when I drink too much, for some reason, I pick a fight with Garrick. I go back to all the things he ever did that hurt me and I get mad all over again, just like it was yesterday. He always responds to me with anger and we start the same patterns all over again. These days before we go out, I make a plan in my head to only have 2 glasses of wine that I drink very slowly, or only one if we’re in a hurry. This saves us from having a fight and ruining a perfectly good night. You can do this in every area of your life. A good question to ask…”will this benefit me now, and will this benefit me later:. As a side note, I chose to stay in our marriage and because I made that choice, I have a responsibility to do my part and dredging up the past isn’t helpful.

The patterns in your life have become your identity. Not all of those patterns are bad…I’ve been working out for most of my life in some form or fashion and I’m very proud of that. Part of my identity is that I’m someone who exercises and takes care of my body. I have also, for most of my life, identified myself as someone with low self esteem who was angry because of things that had happened. This probably wasn’t apparent to people from the outside looking in, but that identity caused me to create similar experiences over and over again and kept me in an endless loop of unhappiness. Nothing started to change for me until I realized that I was capable of being aware of my thoughts and that I had the power to change them. It was the beginning my search for meaning…of realizing that I had a connection to the Divine. I heard someone say the other day that when you begin to change patterns in your life and become conscious of how you’re living, the Divine will leave breadcrumbs to guide you. I love looking for those breadcrumbs!

You are capable of changing your entire life no matter your age or anything else if that’s what you desire. You have to decide to do things differently….you have to decide that you will let yourself sit with the uncertainty of change and allow yourself to be uncomfortable at times. Everyone is afraid of the unknown but in order to redefine you life, you have to go there. You have to decide to no longer allow one period of time or one event shape the rest of your life. You can’t use a bad childhood or your husband’s affair to keep you stuck in the past…and really why would you want to relieve such unpleasant experiences? The memories of those events create emotions that keep you connected to them. Those events are over and it’s time to move on.

Are you uncomfortable with the silence of the present moment? Do you find yourself mindlessly picking up your cell phone to check your email or Instagram when you’re standing line or waiting somewhere. Do you fill you time with busy work because you’re not comfortable with just being? The present moment can be uncomfortable because we are programmed to go back to the familiar. Your brain will tell you how hard your life has been, how mean your parents were or how your husband treated you badly… it will constantly go back to those programs and impact everything you do…causing you to stay stuck in the past and not move on to something better. The simple but not so simple act of observing your thoughts can change them.

Meditation means - to engage in contemplation or reflection. The process of meditation makes you super aware of your thoughts and feelings. Many people think that when you meditate, you have to completely stop thinking for 15 or 20 minutes or you’re not doing it right. That is far from the truth. In meditation, you become the observer of your thoughts and that in turn, can make you more aware of your thoughts when you’re not meditating. There will be times while meditating that you get lost in your thoughts and when you realize that is happening, you come back to focusing on your breath. When you simply see a thought as something passing through (like a cloud) and don’t get caught up in it, you are being a conscious observer. With a regular meditation practice, because you’ve been the conscious observer, you begin to notice when your thoughts go back to past experiences and you can catch that and change them. The more conscious you become of those unconscious thoughts that have been programed into your brain, the easier it becomes to change your life. Your job is to take that state of meditation with you throughout your day and become the CONSCIOUS observer of your thoughts. Your life will begin to change…I promise because mine did. The Divine (God, Universe) will start to intervene and help you in ways that will seem unreal. You will see yourself change before your eyes. My youngest daughter told me the other day that I’ve changed because I don’t talk about people like I used to. It’s not that I never do anything wrong, or that I never gossip, but I will say that I do it much less often, and when I do gossip, or say something mean about someone else, it makes me feel so bad. I am also able to maintain a certain calmness when things around me are crazy. I’m also more able to respect the differing opinions of others and try to understand where they’re coming from. Admittedly, tall of his is much harder with my husband than with anyone else, because there are so many triggers, but we are working and learning how to strengthen our marriage every day.

What do you want for your future? If you’re not being defined by a vision of the future you desire, then you’re left with the memories of the past and you will stay the person you always were.

I knew after going through many horrible experiences in my life, that something had to change. My mental health was suffering and I had to figure out another way. This work is ongoing…not one and done…it takes perseverance but there is nothing more rewarding. There are very few days that go by when I don’t have an ah-ha moment…one of those moments when suddenly something makes sense that never did before. I am living proof that there is something on the other side of pain that’s better. If I were to sit down and write my whole story you would be amazed that I’m sitting here writing this today instead of crumpled up in a corner somewhere. I’m not saying that to make anyone feel sorry for me because I certainly do not feel sorry for myself and I know 100% that I’m not alone because we all have our stories…some worse than others. I can honestly look back and be thankful for everything that happened to me. Every time something bad happened in my past, I put a wish into the great Universe for things to be different. All of those experiences led me to where I am today.

I’m not telling you that you’ll never have a bad day, but when you begin this practice, you will be so hyper aware of your bad day and what you could have done differently that you’ll begin to figure out how to have less bad days because you are able to look back and see what happened. That’s what this work does for you…it causes you to be unbelievably aware of what’s not right. Before in my life, I just felt unhappiness. Now when I’m unhappy, I know I’ve caused it in some way and that I have the power to change it. You’re never too old or too anything to change. You absolutely can believe in a future that you can’t see or experience with your senses yet. That’s what it means when you hear that you have to believe it before you can see it. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my life will only get better and better.

It is completely possible to choose a new reality and begin to emotionally embrace that for your future. Your brain does not know the difference between now and the future you’re creating in your mind. I won’t get into it here, but there is scientific research to prove this…it’s not just airy fairy stuff. Every day you can condition yourself to the way you want your life to be and your brain doesn’t know the difference., so your life begins to change. Just follow the breadcrumbs…how cool is that? It becomes fun to see what you can magnetize into your life. Keep your energy connected to the dream of your future and don’t waste a precious minute reliving the past. Don’t be impatient but be super intentional and conscious of your thoughts and actions (like not having that last glass of wine that sends you over the edge).

Give yourself the gift of taking time out of your life to prove to yourself that you can be defined by your vision of the future and not live in the past. Your future can be what you choose and the unknown doesn’t have to be scary, although it will be uncomfortable at times. Sit in the discomfort when it comes instead of distracting yourself on your phone or with busy work. Catch yourself going into familiar patterns that no longer serve you and you’ll begin to overcome your old self and become the person you were always meant to be.

Let the magic begin, but remember that you MUST feel worthy of receiving your dream because the Universe only gives us what we think we’re worthy of receiving. This work you do for yourself is so important and not only changes you…it changes everyone around you!

I’ll end with this… ask yourself at the end of each day how you did. What caused you to go on autopilot. Begin to contemplate what pushed your buttons and, in your mind or your journal, rehearse how you could have changed that experience. How you will handle it the next time? Plan your behavior. Close your eyes and plan what you’ll do next time. Your brain will begin to transform and you’ll behave differently because you’ve already seen it in your mind. Like the wine…I saw a nice evening in my mind instead of a big fight because I was dredging up the past. You can change the hardware of your brain. Think about how you will live your life differently. Take some time each and every day to practice, to read and to learn. You’ll start to be aware when the fear and frustration want to take over and you’ll be able to self regulate. Connecting to the energy of your future takes energy and lots of awareness. Don’t allow people or circumstances to take away your power. . The times when you are able to correct your behavior are very valuable moments because that’s when you prove to yourself you can do it,…you are in control…your life will become better and you’ll want to do it again.

So…to tie this all together…there is so much talk about redefining how society views aging and this is how I see it. We age how we want to and we can and should be a living example of age and life…redefined.

Thoughts?…leave a comment below!

[morego]

2020 - The year the world turned upside down

There’s not a lot I can say about 2020 that hasn’t been said yet. It’s the year we never saw coming, the year that disrupted indiscriminately, the year nobody wanted. But also it was a year that refocused many of us, gave us a chance to slow down and introspect. Let’s get into how I faired.

Goals Living on hope I say living on hope because I didn’t take any solid plans or goals coming into the year. In fact these two are the only real goals I remember I had real intentions to go for 2020: A comfortable Comrades: This was an easy goal to run with (excuse the pun) and I could never forget it. I was intent on running a race (any race) without any uncertainty or unease - I wanted no ‘Bafana Bafana playing in cup competition calculation’. Ironically my Comrades qualifier was uncertain to the point of receiving the race results. But I quickly got focused and became the fittest I have ever been in my lifetime by end of March, just before the lockdown. Needless to say it’s been a struggle to get back to that point since we were allowed to run freely again. I comfort myself by reciting the script ‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former glory’. It’s getting there. Flow: For the first time I prayed for vision for my family and not just for myself to carry into the year. This year we focused on FLOW. We were to consider and acknowledge our blessing, but unlike the dead sea, we would be the vessel that allows blessing to flow through us. It was to be a year of generosity and kindness. I haven’t been kind to myself and expected that we could have done better, but objectively, we did pretty well. I’ve seen even The Boy intentionally exercise flow. With some of the idle cash from services being cancelled due to Covid, we were able to make charitable donations. However the most meaningful for me was being able to help and support family members. For the first time the phrase ‘charity begins at home’ made sense to me. Spiritually healthy: This was more of an implicit goal than anything, and I’m glad the family managed to stay plugged in to church week in week out. It would have been so easy to fall off this year (and perfectly reasonable), but we’re still as committed. We pray, we engage and still 100% team Jesus.

Under lockdown Theoretically, I’m team 5am, team crush the day, team goaldiggers. So it goes without saying that the moment we got ‘down time’ in the form of a lockdown, instead of taking care of my mental health I became obsessed with taking advantage of the extra time and doing EVERYTHING I previously thought I couldn’t because time. But that’s all in theory. In reality I failed almost across the board - but I now know it is as I said above: no solid plans or goals, nothing written down, nothing committed to. But at least: New garden: Ever since living on my property, we’ve had a constant struggle with the grass patch in our front yard. It wouldn’t grow evenly across the front yard. I resolved to fix it once and for all so that my children can play comfortable on the grass at the end of the year. Mission accomplished. On Christmas day we had the kids playing on the grass with a portable pool. Fantastic. Fit and healthy: I also resolved to keep my family fit, healthy and Covid free. I also hoped to get a six pack (or at least a flat tummy) but that didn’t happen. All in all everybody is now settled into a fitness regime, we take vitamins and get some sun time regularly and know how to keep healthy. But also part of health was the mental aspect. I think we’ve done well in that respect, everybody is still alive and we’re still a loving family.

After lockdown So I never went back to the office since the first lockdown and have been working from home ever since. This does create a little extra time for me and so I’ve been able to try get my running back on track and start swimming. Sub-25: In September I started a running programme to try run a sub-25 minute 5k. I really think I was progressing well, at least until a heart matter brought everything to a grinding halt (see below). But yeah, I consider this an achievement. Swimming: I now also go for swim lessons during lunch. This is something that’s been outstanding all my life and just starting is that big of a deal. But also unfortunately it was also disrupted at some point by an ear issue (see below, hahaha). I’m back at it though and progressing really well. I now just need a bike and we’re on our way to Iron Man.

Another day at the hospital Following from my first one last year, I really hope this doesn’t become a pattern. A heart matter: Anyway, this was a crazy story. My insurance asked for new medicals (routine), but the checkup picked up my heart was irregular again. This finding would trigger an absurd chain of events that landed me in a hospital bed for an Angiogram operation. And after all of that they found... wait for it... nothing. So I’ve been diagnosed with what they call ‘athletes heart’. I’ve spoken about this heart issue a few times here so, I hope never to speak about it again. (This is the matter that stopped my speed running ambitions). Specialists even: Though this was not an admission, I also ended up in the rooms of a specialist because of an ear infection. Yey, this one was painful and even more so when the specialist recommended a theatre procedure. Fortunately the meds cleared my ear. LOL. (This is the issue that disrupted my swimming).

Social adventures Because of the strict regulations, we were required to be socially distant this year. I want to say this suited me just fine but it’s something I’ve been trying to break out of for years, so much so that I’ve listed my social exploits as achievements on this platform. Throughout the year we’ve done the best we can to keep the WhatsApp, Zoom and Houseparty meetups going. But the moment we got the chance to socialise in person, we actually socialised, so much so I consider these outings ‘adventures’. Kuruman: By far the best thing I have done in a few years. Wife and I were on our way on a Friday night to a Sunday funeral in Bloemfontein, but at an uncharacteristically last minute we changed direction to go see my little brother in Kuruman who was having a birthday weekend bash. Man Kurara was lit and it was so great to spend time with family who came out to support him. We eventually went back to Bloem on Sunday morning and all was fine. Even after the funeral we klapped some drinks with the husbands of the Wife’s friends, was a cool hang out, at the funeral. Pati’s grad: In the spirit of intentionally badly calculated decisions, we went to Pati’s house for her graduation party and ended up staying overnight having the time of our lives. Yay! Wolfpack annual getaway: Once again this seemed like it would never happen, but fortunately me and the Wolfies managed to get out town (albeit to Haarties) for a weekend to go drink and once again attempt to play poker. I can’t say it was the best one yet, but it’s up there.

Work I really thought I was having a brilliant year at work. I really did. I put in the hours, I put in the sacrifices and gave everything I had towards it. But it was not to be seen. To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. But because this has been the year of introspection, I see that much of the effort given was misdirected. But over and above that I think it has opened my eyes to what is important, and work is not important. My family is important. My spiritual, mental and physical health are important. Work is important, but not more than these.

The rest It’s really hard to account for this year, especially between April and September as that time, although felt like the longest time in the history of time, went by quickly in retrospect. I’m left here left with shoulda coulda woulda’s. But: Wife’s birthday: was awesome as we went bungee jumping in Soweto and for massages at some exclusive rich people boutique.  I grew a beard: As in I had a beard the whole year. Festive was great: with all my kids. I made every effort to make sure everybody feels included, loved and appreciated. Depression: is becoming a thing with me and my seasons are becoming longer and more frequent. Sure depression was inevitably a 2020 thing, I had hoped not to have it so hard. The issues in the Wolfpack are making things difficult to help figure and address issues. I suppose I need a new group of people to walk me through this.

Ok. So first of all I’m writing this on the 14th of January 2021 instead of the usual 31st of December. I’ve been struggling to commit to sit down and write my thoughts, goals and plans and because of that I’m totally convinced this is part of the reason why things didn’t go really well for me in 2020. If one thing I do in 2021, is get back to the habit of taking time to write, express, review and expect - the rest will follow.

[glamrpmemes]

★*ﾟ‘ﾟ･Frequency (2000)

❝ Hey, Rookie.  Be cool.  Just stay with me.  This is what we do. ❞ ❝ I seem nervous, huh? ❞ ❝ Please man, you gotta get us out of here... ❞ ❝ I want you to abort!  Now! Get the hell out of there! ❞ ❝ I should'a been a fucking mailman. ❞ ❝ Elvis has left the building. ❞ ❝ I'd go with you and Chinese take-out over her any time. ❞ ❝ Caught in a trap, I can't walk out, because I love you too much b-b-baby. ❞ ❝ Nothing wrong with old age, ______...long as you get there. ❞ ❝ Don't quit on me now, _______. ❞ ❝ He just needs to know you're right there behind him. ❞ ❝ Fine, go ahead and save the whole world, _______. You don't gotta worry about me. ❞ ❝ What?  It don't matter, _________.  Why?... Cause I don't got no friends or family. ❞ ❝ What the hell is that smell? ❞ ❝ So Yahoo went up another two points. Man, did we miss the boat on that one. ❞ ❝ Coulda, woulda, shoulda, pal. ❞ ❝ Why don't you come with us?  Three days of fresh air and barbecue would do you some good, man. ❞ ❝ So this was what people used before the Net, huh? ❞ ❝ Man, do I feel old ❞ ❝ It's junk, kid.  Nobody uses those things anymore. ❞ ❝ Look, I don't really remember how this thing works. ❞ ❝ Pal, my whole life's an emergency. ❞ ❝ I can't believe people are still using these things. ❞ ❝ I don't really follow baseball anymore. ❞ ❝ She made up her mind.  Nothin' I do is gonna change it. ❞ ❝ I wish I could remember him better. Truth is, most of the stuff I know is from the stories you used to tell.  But they're not mine.  They're not my memories. They're yours. ❞ ❝ Is this some kind of joke?  ________ is that you?  Are you fucking with me? ❞ ❝ I'm dreaming this.  Shit, this is a dream. ❞ ❝ Wait a sec...there was something on the news.  Something about this space anomaly.  I think they said it was connected to some storm in '69. ❞ ❝ This is wrong.  Who are you? Why are you doing this? ❞ ❝ It's really you, isn't it? ❞ ❝ Don't go.  Don't go in that warehouse... ❞ ❝ C'mon, man.  Get inside.  I'll come over. We'll play some Nintendo. ❞ ❝ Hey, hey.  It's gonna be okay.  We're gonna help.  Okay?   Okay. ❞ ❝ ...one wrong turn... If you'd just gone left. ❞ ❝ My father didn't die in a fire? ❞ ❝ Don't be scared.  This time I'm right behind you if you fall. ❞ ❝ Take your time.  I'm not gonna let go 'til you say okay. ❞ ❝ I'm right here behind you... ❞ ❝ You're the voice of an angel, ________.  If you hadn't told me, no way I would'a ever made it. ❞ ❝ We needed you.  I needed you.  So many times...I wished for you.  But you weren't there for me. ❞ ❝ Well, you think about it.  And you remember, cause I don't wanna lose you again. ❞ ❝ I'm not goin' anywhere, _________.  For the rest of your life. ❞ ❝ Do not disrespect me.  Disrespect yourself all you want.  But not me.  Or anybody else around here.  You got that? ❞ ❝ Do you know how much I love you? ❞ ❝ I do know.  I'm a cop.  This is what I do. ❞ ❝ Close is just close if you're still alive to talk about it, y'know? ❞ ❝ I'm not gonna let anything happen to her...no matter what. ❞

[lavender-montgomery]

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019) - Thoughts [SPOILERS]

So I finished watching this movie about 51 seconds ago. I was very excited for this film when it was first announced. I only read one of the books when I was a kid and I don’t remember it, I was more a Goosebumps and Pointe Horror kid, however I was still excited. I saw the trailer I believe before Annabelle: Creation when I went with my friend, and we vowed to go see it in the cinema. Spoiler: We didn’t go see it in the cinema. I completely forgot. This was August 2019. It is now March 2020 and I have only just remembered, so I watched it for free online. Don’t tell the police. I’m kinda glad I didn’t pay to go see it, although I do feel it woulda been better in the cinema environment with the surround sound. If you’re watching this on a computer I 10/10 recommend wearing headphones/earphones. I put mine in half way through and it improved it greatly, even when my laptop was on full blast. 

So the film starts and immediately I notice it’s set in the past when President Nixon was a thing, so correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that was early 70s. I dunno, I’m British and don’t know much about American history. It also begins on Halloween - excellent, we’re off to a great, spooky start already. A touch I appreciated was the Halloween costumes the cast were wearing. Home made costumes of a spider, a clown and a witch. Loved them, kids don’t wear stuff like that anymore. I’d love to have costumes like that. So it starts off with the three main characters getting revenge on some bullies - pretty standard. One character annoys me when he takes it too far by throwing a bag of poop lit on fire into the bully’s car - which his big sister is sat in. Oops. Can’t help but judge this character already as that was pretty stupid. Didn’t bother me that much though as I’d forgotten about it until going over my notes just now. The kids hide in someone’s car at a drive thru, in comes the fourth main character, Ramone. That’s another thing I loved, the drive thu showing a black and white horror film on Halloween night, all of the old cars pulled up. That’s a rare thing nowadays, I think in the twelve years I have lived here I’ve only seen one drive thru - and I have kept an eye out always as I’ve wanted to go to one since seeing Greece when I was a kid. 

Obviously the kids make the stupid decision to go to the town’s creepy house that has a scary story attached to it. What else would they do? And also obviously they find a secret door no one has ever found so OBVIOUSLY they have to go through it and get locked in by the bullies. Duh.

I noticed this movie has a very dark colour scheme. I get that adds to the spookiness, but damn I’d like to be able to see what’s going on every once in a while. I kept adjusting my laptop and moving the screen but to no avail. 

What’s the scary story, you ask? There was a family who lived there who had a daughter named Sarah who killed a load of kids in the town who then killed herself. Please note the whole plot of the movie revolves around Sarah’s book of scary stories that come true and kill kids, and she writes in it in the afterlife. I was a bit confused about if this book killed kids before the movie was set and it was a known thing, or if it happened for the first time in this movie. I THINK it supposedly happened before but I can’t say for certain - I was texting when this was spoken about, my bad. 

Something that had me frowning was when they went into this secret room that was supposedly locked for a hundred years... The candles were lit. Why? How? I didn’t see any of the kids light the candles, but there they were, lit and burning bright as anything. Like I mentioned, they get locked in this room along with their big sister by the school bully they through the firey poop at. But the book sets them free. Somehow. 

Come to think of it, it must be known that the book has killed kids as they mention it. Silly me. So nerd girl Stella continues to read after being told it kills kids... Stella, are you thick? Characters like that drive me mad. She even took the book home. Dumb ass. Then again, she is a huge horror fanatic as her bedroom is plastered in horror film stuff, and she’s a mega nerd, so how could she not take the book? I would. It’s a bit spooky when she’s looking at the book later on and it isn’t finished and ink is still wet as it’s still being written. Reminded me of in Harry Potter.

I started to suspect this movie would be like the Goosebumps movies. It was more what the Goosebumps movies shoulda been - no offense to those movies or the cast, I just feel they were aimed at an audience younger than the book audience both old and new. 

The first monster we saw was the scarecrow. He was a bit creepy. I realised all the monsters in it are targeting specific kids with their worst fear. ‘You don’t read the book, the book reads you.’ The scene with the scarecrow made me think of umm I think it was called In The Tall Grass on Netflix, because of the dark corn field, the sound of the plants in the wind and the fact he couldn’t get out of the field. What I don’t get when the bully Tommy died, he turned into a scarecrow - why was this scarecrow not found? It still looked like him. 

Ruth. Ruth is one of the kid’s big sister. She’s beautiful. Not much to say on her really, she wasn’t in it THAT much. But she was incredibly pretty. 

I liked the part where Stella took the book back to the house then when she went home, Ramone found it in her bedroom. It was a bit cliche but it worked. 

The next monster we saw was a scary ghostly figure missing her toe. The kid this ghost was targeting stupidly hid under his bed while the door was being opened then only seconds later he emerged. Suprise surprise he was taken/killed. I’d be under that bed all night if it was me, stuff coming out seconds after the door is opened. He did a quick look left and right then that was it. Made me feel a bit grim when he almost ate this ghost’s toe in the stew in the fridge. Bit of background: the ghost walks around saying ‘who took my toe’ as the toe is missing off her/his body. Not sure why. I’m sure there was a reason why this kid was scared of this monster but I don’t remember it and for some reason I didn’t take note. Feel free to let me know and I’ll add it on. 

The next monster we saw wasn’t really a monster, it was spiders. A lot of them. Which, to be honest, is the worst one of all the horror characters as I am extremely terrified of spiders. The sister Ruth had them all crawling out of a ginourmous zit/spider bite on her face. It’s quite sad that she’s hospitalised for her breakdown and is absent for almost the whole rest of the movie. I quite liked her, woulda liked for her to be in it more. The scene where she’s covered in spiders reminded me of one of my psychosis hallucinations that I have bugs all over my body, hundreds of them running over me - before anyone asks, yes, it is scary. 

So for some reason there’s a character called Lulu who is an old lady who I think is blind and she’s a bit off her rocker. When she was a child she was friends with Sarah. She didn’t really do much for the story. The only benefit was they found out Sarah killed herself at hospital not at home, but I’m sure they coulda discovered that elsewhere. It’s a shame as she was a very interesting character. It was a bit creepy when the music box just like Sarah’s starts playing and Lulu sings along, then when Sarah’s book is shown the music stops. 

The sad part about Sarah is her family had her sent to the hospital and they lied about everything. Her own brother was her doctor, giving her electroconvulsive therapy and abusing her. No wonder she came back and killed a load of kids, she was put through a lot in her childhood when she was completely innocent, she wanted to help. She didn’t do anything she was accused of. In voice recordings of her interview she kept saying ‘I didn’t do it’ and you could hear her get electrocuted. This made me so sad, I really felt for her. She tried to save the kids by telling people what her family were doing to the water, so her family framed her. Tragic. It was a bit creepy when after this part, the recording they were listening to then spoke to them saying ‘I’ll tell you what you want to hear’. One of the creepiest parts of the film, sadly. 

The next monster we saw was the fat pale lady. She was a bit creepy and weird, my favourite monster out of all of them. She didn’t really do much, though. But her design was cool. The costume was so well done, she was chilling and realistic. The teen she was after couldn’t run away, no matter which way he turned she was there. I’ve had a nightmare similar to that, so the scene gave me a bit of anxiety. She looked how I imagined Umbridge in the Harry Potter books before she was in the movies. 

Broke my heart a little when the girl Stella was on the phone to her dad. He was so worried and wanted to help but he couldn’t. You could tell he really loved her, especially after everything they’ve been through what with the mum leaving. 

It took me ages to catch on - each monster/story is of the victim’s worst fear. 

Next monster was the Jangly man. He was also very well done. The way he moved was unnatural and creepy. I feel they overdone the dead look and sound effects but that’s okay. He was truly disturbing. I loved how he managed to squeeze between the bars in the police cell to get to Ramone. Also loved how he could dismember himself and put him back together. 

I appreciated how the film wasn’t reliant on jump scares like something I watched recently *cough* Brahms: The Boy II *cough*. The monsters in this mighta scared me if I was a young kid. 

So it ends with the girl Sarah who was writing the stories was doing it for revenge, and Stella talks her into stopping. Predictable ending but it worked. I liked when Stella became Sarah back in the past when she was locked up and they didn’t know she wasn’t Sarah. When Stella was locked in the basement, everything went back to normal and she was Stella gain. The creepy music box played again and Sarah appeared, angry. I felt the acting in this scene wasn’t great, it was like watching a year eleven GCSE drama duologue. 

When Ramone was drafted and he said goodbye to Stella, they shown that they had feelings but they didn’t kiss which I am glad about. That would have been a very cheesy ending to the movie. 

Is there going to be a sequel? It ended with Stella, Ruth and dad going on a hunt with the book as Stella thinks the book can bring back all the kids that went missing due to the stories. Will it work? Maybe in another movie? I kinda hope not. I most likely won’t watch it, this movie wasn’t good enough for a sequel. The script and cast were meh, the plot was eh, I’m rating it a 4/10 and that’s being generous. Wouldn’t recommend to others especially adults and I won’t be watching again - I am so glad I didn’t pay to go to the cinema to see this.

[mbtizone]

Nick Clark (Fear the Walking Dead): ISFP

Dominant Introverted Feeling [Fi]: Nick believes in morality, and his high Fi can sometimes clash with his mother’s inferior Fi. He usually wants to do the right thing. While Madison’s main concern is self-preservation and protecting her family, Nick wants to help people in need. He wants to go warn his neighbor about what’s happening, but Madison’s main concern is herself, her boyfriend, and her children. After he discovers Celia’s death , he decides he would rather survive on his own than stay with Madison because they “destroy everything.” Nick internalizes a lot of his feelings, and, instead of talking about them with other people, he acts (Fi-Te). He has a lot of complex emotions in the wake of his father’s death, and instead of seeking help, he turns back to drugs. When he eventually kicks his habit, Nick is shown to be a selfless, kind-hearted person with a genuine desire to help others.

Auxiliary Extroverted Sensing [Se]: One of Nick’s primary attributes is his resourcefulness. He notices the world around him and uses his observations in order to act. Nick sees potential in his environment, which makes him a skilled survivalist. When he is out on his own, he survives by getting nourishment from a cactus and by drinking his own urine. When he’s injured, he is able to take the belt from one of the infected and fashion a makeshift tourniquet. Nick is good at thinking quickly in the moment. He uses whatever is available to his advantage. He’s adaptable and able to adjust to the new world with ease. As a matter of fact, he thrives in it. From the very beginning, he has consistently proven himself capable of dealing with the harsh reality of life after the apocalypse. He was able to spot the gun on Calvin, realize what was happening, fight him off, and kill him. He remembers that the neighbors have a shotgun and he and his family go to take it. He actually does a lot better for himself following the outbreak than he was prior to it. As he kicks his drug habit, Nick seems to substitute heroin for putting himself in dangerous situations. He doesn’t seem to mind taking risks or making impulsive decisions in the moment. He’s the first one to realize that being covered in the blood of the infected allows him to move through hoards of them undetected.

Tertiary Introverted Intuition [Ni]: Instead of coming up with a variety of ideas, Nick tends to lean towards singular truths. He’s the first one to realize that the “infected” aren’t actually infected, but dead. When Nick reaches a conclusion about something, he sticks to it and rarely changes his mind. Before the outbreak, Nick seemed to be pretty aimless in life. He had been kicked out of college and did anything for a fix with little concern for his future. However, once the world went to hell, he seemed to find his place in it. His main mission is survival and keeping the people that he cares about safe, which has given him a newfound purpose in life. Nick’s intuition can be very good and he often trusts it completely. When he came face-to-face with the infected, he wasn’t afraid. He knew that he wasn’t going to die with absolute certainty.

Inferior Extroverted Thinking [Te]: When Nick explains himself, he does so in a direct, concise manner. Nick is better suited for life after the world begins to collapse around him. He isn’t really built for structure and society. Nick wasn’t able to keep his life on track before, but is able to truly shine once the former way of living is dismantled.

Note: Nick is a clear IxFP. The general consensus seems to be a pretty even split between INFP and ISFP, but I just think that he’s too grounded and present in the moment to be an INFP. He doesn’t really entertain possibilities, think about the future, speculate, or theorize about anything. He tends to just respond in the moment to whatever is happening.

Enneagram: 4w5 Sx/Sp

Quotes:

Nick Clark: She’s not sick. She’s dead. Travis: Why would you say that? Nick Clark: Cause it’s the truth.

Alejandro: Luciana tells me you did as we discussed. You were cautious at the Pelicano. Nick Clark: Man, I was more than cautious. I was respectful to those pricks. I kissed ass. Called them señor. Cut my balls off. Alejandro: Better your balls than your head. You were surviving. Nick Clark: Surviving feels like eating shit. Alejandro: [Alejandro smiles] You’ll get used to it.

Alejandro: That’s a long walk. You should be dead. Nick Clark: Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Story of my life.

Alejandro: Strange. Luciana said you were brave. Nick Clark: I’m not. Alejandro: No, you are foolish. Death is not to be feared, but it shouldn’t be pursued. There’s a difference.

Nick Clark: She was right about us. Madison Clark: What? Nick Clark: Celia. She knew what we are. Madison Clark: What are you talking about? Get in the truck, Nick. Nick Clark: We destroy everything.

Madison Clark: What? Nick Clark: I don’t know. I feel strange. Madison Clark: Yeah, we’re spinning off the planet. We don’t know where we’re going. Nick Clark: That’s the thing. I never knew where I was going. It’s like I’ve been living this for a long time. And now everyone is catching up with me. Strange.

Celia Flores: You have a heavy smile. Why? Nick Clark: I’m just a bit sick of it. Celia Flores: What? Nick Clark: Of all the killing.

Nick Clark: Hey, you want to know what the most underrated perk of the apocalypse is? Alicia Clark: Yes. Nick Clark: No planes. No pollution. No smog. Just stars. Alicia Clark: Yep, well, we definitely stopped the climate crisis. Awesome.

Nick Clark: More people are gonna die. More die, more leave the Colonia. Nick Clark: [Reynaldo chuckles] What’s so funny? Reynaldo (Scout): Americans. You love to fix others’ problems. Nick Clark: I just give a shit, okay?

Nick Clark: When I was on the beach, I came face-to-face with one of them and I didn’t feel fear, I didn’t feel hate. I just knew I wasn’t going to die. Not there, not that way. I move among them, Mom. Invisible. I will not die.

Alejandro: What is it you think you saw, Nick? Nick Clark: I saw you afraid. Yesterday, you were afraid of people leaving. Today, you’re afraid of that bite. Alejandro: I was shaken. There’s a difference. Nick Clark: You’re lying. You’re petrified.

Gloria: Is it good? Nick Clark: My dad gave it to me. Gloria: He gave you a lot of books. Nick Clark: It was his way of connecting. Gloria: But is it good? Nick Clark: It reminds me of him. It’s just a lot of people feeling shit and not saying anything about it.

Alejandro: You believe you’re safe amongst them. You may be right. But you’re never safe with the Marcos of the world, the men with guns. But you still like being out there. You’re desperate for it and that scares me for you. Nick Clark: Why? You sound like my mother. Alejandro: I’m trying to be anything but. I’m not asking you not to go. I need you to go. Everyone here needs you to go. I’m asking you to be careful. Brave but careful. ‘Cause I want you to come back. Nick Clark: Well, thank you. Alejandro: For what? Nick Clark: For giving a shit.

Nick Clark: If I had known this was gonna happen, I’d have taken Spanish in high school. Luciana: What did you take? Nick Clark: Uh, just myself very seriously.

Nick Clark: You don’t survive a bite. Alejandro: Oh, you don’t believe I was bitten? Nick Clark: Um… I don’t believe in miracles. Alejandro: Miracle is your word. Nick Clark: What would you call it? Alejandro: A leap of faith. Nick Clark: Yeah, I have trouble with those, too.

[in a flashback, Gloria tries to help Nick practice on expressing his feelings] Gloria: So after your three weeks in rehab, Nick, exploring your thoughts and feelings about your drug use, are there things you need to say to me? Nick Clark: You? Gloria: Pretend I’m your dad. Nick Clark: Start with my mom. Gloria: Why? Nick Clark: She’s like a school counselor. She has degrees in this shit. My dad… Gloria: What? Nick Clark: He wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Nick Clark: You’re always tired when you get home from work. You just skip dinner and go to your room. And if I go in there to talk to you, it’s like you do listen and I can tell you hear me, but it’s not like you’re there. You used to be there. And then you stopped. And I don’t know why you did that. [Nick pauses before continuing] Fathers are supposed to show sons how to be a man in the world, but I guess the world is too much for you.

[Madison holds up one of Nick’s Oxycontin pills as he lays in the pool rejecting to take them] Nick Clark: Look, give it to Griselda. She needs it more than I do, you said it yourself. Madison Clark: I know what I said, but the point is to wean you off of it slowly. So it just doesn’t, you know, happen again. Nick Clark: I thought you’d be happy. Madison Clark: I am happy, I just… Okay, well, if you need it, it’s right here. Don’t be a hero. Nick Clark: No chance of that.

[Alejandro questions Nick about stealing from Marco] Alejandro: I hear you almost started a war over a Gansito. Nick Clark: That girl’s father died today. I just thought she might need something. Alejandro: And what did you think she needed? Nick Clark: Something. Anything. Comfort. Alejandro: If it’s comfort you want to offer, you’re going to need more cake.

Nick Clark (Fear the Walking Dead): ISFP was originally published on MBTI Zone

[junker-town]

The new ‘Last Chance U’ head coach explains ‘football jail’

“I’ll either be at Independence next year, I’ll be at Alabama, or I’ll be fired,” Jason Brown tells us. “It’s probably gonna get ratings.”

“I don’t care if you hate me now. Love me at the end, when you get a scholarship.” When the trailer for Season 3 of Last Chance U was released, one thing became clear: producers had found quite the character in Independence Community College head coach Jason Brown.

The Compton, California, product is a JUCO lifer. He was an All-American quarterback at Compton Community College before finishing at Fort Hays State. Four years after completing his degree, he became the head coach at Compton. After a stint as a high school coach and an assistant at Garden City CC, he took over moribund Independence.

In his first year, Brown engineered a turnaround from 2-8 to 5-4, with the Pirates winning their last four games and drawing LCU’s attention as the show moved on from East Mississippi CC.

[Spoiler alert, since the season captured by the show has already happened in real life.]

In year two, with LCU cameras everywhere, they went 9-2, winning a rugged Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference (perhaps the deepest conference in JUCO) and beating Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in the Midwest Bowl Classic.

The season began as poorly as possible, with Independence welcoming powerful Iowa Western and falling behind 42-7 at halftime in a loss.

They rebounded, winning seven in a row, often in dramatic fashion. They beat Garden City, Brown’s former employer, 27-23. They survived a trip to Dodge City. They beat Ellsworth CC in overtime. And after a 31-27 loss at Butler, they secured the conference title with a 27-22 home win over Coffeyville.

I recently spoke with Coach Brown. This conversation is edited for clarity and brevity.

BC: First things first: What was the process for Independence getting selected?

JB: They called me, and we were in our December exit meetings with my staff. I say, I got a call from Last Chance U, and I was like, no way in the hell that I’m taking it. I don’t want cameras on me.

My staff didn’t say nothing. They looked crazy, though, and I said, “Does anyone disagree?” I think [they thought] the college’s history, not being very good over a span of time at least until I got here, was a reason I should listen to ‘em.

So we called them back, and for whatever reason, they had heard about me and wanted to see my crazy ass, I don’t know.

BC: What was the biggest surprise in having to deal with those cameras?

JB: You know, we got our butts kicked game one because of the cameras. That’s truly my gut instinct.

Doesn’t matter who we played — we played a great team — but I think we coulda played a high school team and woulda got beat the same way. We just thought that that was supposed to be our night, and everybody was gonna stop what they were doing and bow down to the Indy Pirates.

We played a team that just took it to us and outclassed us, as I told their head coach after the game. I didn’t even get pissed off about it like I usually do. It was just so unbecoming, and it wasn’t our team.

The next morning I had ‘em at practice, and I told ‘em, hey, we’re gonna hit the reset button and start this thing over.

My shoulders got even heavier, with more weight on ‘em, and the pressure became greater because, OK now we’re gonna look like crap on a national TV show, get blown out every game? I knew we were probably as talented or more talented than anyone in the country, but I knew I had to get ‘em gelled together.

BC: Then the rest of the year was like a made-for-TV thing: tons of close wins, a long winning streak, a bowl win.

JB: That was who we were supposed to be.

There’s so much to do here. It was just a place that was down, and we had to revive it and try to create a new standard, create a culture that kinda permeates through the entire student body, and kinda what we’ve done. But this is a five-, six-year process that we’ve done in 24 months. And we shoulda been 8-2, 9-1 in year one, to be honest. We were very close.

And then the rules changed and it became completely unlimited [scholarships and signings], and now it’s kinda fallen into my hands because that’s what I live for — recruiting kids.

So we brought in some great guys, and shoot, we signed 40 guys. Those guys did great all spring, and we’ll have another class like that this year. We’ve got the No. 1 player in the country here, Jermaine Johnson [a four-star DE among the highest-rated 2019 JUCO recruits], and you got a lotta guys like him, too.

We’ve grown faster than I think the town of Independence or the school can go, and it’s kinda took them by shock. I’ve probably ruffled feathers along the way — I can be primitive at times. But it’s a results-oriented business, and last time I checked, they keep score, and you usually either get the kid or you don’t, or you win the game or you don’t, and you either graduate the player or you don’t.

Netflix

BC: Just from the moment people found out you were going to be on Last Chance, was there a bump in recruiting and awareness?

JB: To be honest, no. We beat East Mississippi for some kids when they had the show, and I told our staff, this is not gonna get you kids here. It’s not gonna graduate your players either. Cameras don’t do any of that.

Next year’s when we may see something. I don’t know if East did or not. But when the show comes out, maybe everybody’ll say, “Shoot, I want to go there.”

I don’t think kids care about a lot of that stuff — not the good ones, to be honest. I’m from Compton, California, man. We had a dirt track and people pushing strollers across the field during the game, and I had guys go to the NFL off my team in ‘08.

It’s about the trust factor with the coach and knowing that he’s not selling you a used car. And there’s a character evaluation. Most of these kids come from homes where you’ve been lied to by male figures, and I think I do a good job of explaining our values and wearing my heart on my sleeve and telling them how it’s gonna be.

Then, when they get here, shoot, I got ‘em, man. I tell ‘em when I stop yelling at you, I don’t care anymore.

BC: Right — part of the trailer was you saying something like, “Hate me now, but love me when you get a scholarship.”

JB: Hate me now, love me later.

It’s true, though, man. I gotta teach these kids a lot more than just football. The real world’s gonna hit ‘em in the mouth in 18 months when they leave my place. And if they’re late, they’re gonna end up at McDonald’s and being late there and getting fired.

My job is to get ‘em to the next level. I’ve sent 190 guys to Division I in 17 years, and I’ve never had a kid get kicked out of a four-year. Not one. That’s what I’m most prideful about.

Hopefully I’m harder on them here than they will be at their four-year, and when they get there, they’ve already gone through football jail, so to speak.

That’s what I call this place. I call JUCO “football jail,” and you’ve gotta get out of it.

Netflix

BC: Have you seen any Last Chance U screenings yet, besides the trailer?

JB: I’ve seen a few clips of a few episodes, and to be honest, I haven’t had time. But the clips I saw ... you know, I’ll either be at Independence next year, I’ll be at Alabama, or I’ll be fired. It’s probably gonna get ratings, I guess.

Hopefully the kids can get something good out of it, and I think our kids really portrayed themselves and represented their families and us well.

BC: As this show gains popularity, do live JUCO football games ever become attractive for television?

Especially in our league, I think that a Fox affiliate or someone could take it on and not lose revenue. I think it would help ‘em, and it would help junior colleges.

Junior colleges are kind of in a bad time right now. Half the schools in Arizona folded. Mississippi has 16 schools in a very poor state. They do a great job of managing that many schools, in my opinion.

TV would be great, but I don’t know if it behooves any of those people in that world to air junior college football. And I mean, what day do you do it on?

BC: I was just curious because viewers start to recognize not only East Mississippi but also Co-Lin and some of the other teams they were playing. And if there’s name recognition, you’re more likely to tune in. But yeah, you’d have to have games on Friday, probably.

JB: And you’re competing against high school on Friday, and college football kicks in on Thursday.

Nowadays, there’s football every damn day of the week. All them MAC schools, seems like Toledo or Akron plays on every Tuesday or some crap. But who knows, man, maybe you just live-stream everything and put it on YouTube TV.

Netflix

BC: A lot of people are getting to know how the JUCO process works, but most viewers are fans of four-year schools. So we’re used to the four-year recruiting cycle, where it starts in February and ends in February. For you, when does a recruiting year start and end?

JB: Football recruiting in junior college never ends. That’s our blood-life. When a tackle gets kicked out of Florida State on July 30, we need to go pick him up. We have to show we are the go-getters that have their ear to the ground and turn over rocks.

You always want to bring in the best players, and you want to bring ‘em in 30 deep, if you can. I believe competition breeds winning cultures.

It eliminates a lot of kids doing foolish things, too, because now you can cut Player A, and Player B’s just as good. That’s why we bring in so many numbers, and that’s why we recruit the nation.

We recruit until Day 1 of the season. And we recruit all season long for the next year’s class.

It’s an 18-month school. We don’t have an alma mater, don’t have a fight song. This is not a four-year institution. I don’t get to build these kids for a year, so we don’t teach a lot of Xs and Os. We had 27 Division I transfers last year — 15 Power 5 transfers. I’m not teaching them nothin’, and neither are my 22-year-old coaches. So we teach ‘em how to go to class on time, how to be on time, how to be respectful to a woman, how to be accountable.

And then we run the hell out of ‘em and lift ‘em hard, and we structure a program that’s militant almost. But we love on them and give them our all, and I truly believe if you get 22 of those guys going in the same direction at the same time, they’ll run through a wall for you.

A lot of the guys I have are here for four to six months! They’re transfers, and they just come in, play one season, graduate, and go right back to Division I.

BC: That was leading to my next question — from an X-and-O standpoint, how do you build a system, when you know the pieces are going to be changing so much? What are the tenets of your offense from year to year?

JB: You’ve heard of the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Well, I keep it stupid-simple. I’ve done that forever, and it’s all about keeping it simple as possible with our formations, our verbiage, our lingo.

It’s word-oriented. You get a lot of [academic] non-qualifiers here, so you have to realize that numbers aren’t their best strong suit, and we try to stay from numbers. I try to stay away from long verbiage.

Plus, shoot, I’ve probably gone through over 40 coaches or more, and we’ve gotten 11 of them Division I jobs, a couple of guys got Division II jobs, so the turnover rates for coaches are high. My tight ends coach just got a job at Liberty two weeks ago. He’d been here since January, but now he’s gone, so why coach him up on everything?

I’m about as JUCO as JUCO can get. I believe that it’s a rewarding deal, man. I think I can affect more kids’ lives here than anyone at the four-year level can do. I’m turning boys into men, and I’m giving guys a second chance.

We all make mistakes, I don’t think we should be thrown in the fire for making one mistake or two, but you know, you make mistake three and four and haven’t learned from one and two, then I have a problem.

BC: Good luck to you. A lot of people are gonna know your name here pretty shortly.

JB: No doubt! [laughs] Good, bad, or indifferent!