#Everyone else: can you not flaunt your happy marriage to our faces please?

[the-dormant-ocean]

Post-canon Bloodweave where Astarion hits on Gale while he's at work and around his students because he loves to see him squirm and get flustered. When asked about it, Gale has to explain to his students whilst being mortified that no this man isn't bothering him and actually has been his husband for years. As payback, Gale does the same thing to Astarion but it backfires on him because Astarion loves it and keeps escalating the flirting until they almost get kicked out for indecency.

[dionysiandevotee]

QUEERS READ THIS

A leaflet distributed at pride march in NY Published anonymously by Queers

June, 1990

How can I tell you. How can I convince you, brother, sister that your life is in danger: That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary. There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence. It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words. You should by all rights be dead. Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky or a fighter. Straight people have a privilege that allows them to do whatever they please and fuck without fear. But not only do they live a life free of fear; they flaunt their freedom in my face. Their images are on my TV, in the magazine I bought, in the restaurant I want to eat in, and on the street where I live. I want there to be a moratorium on straight marriage, on babies, on public displays of affection among the opposite sex and media images that promote heterosexuality. Until I can enjoy the same freedom of movement and sexuality, as straights, their privilege must stop and it must be given over to me and my queer sisters and brothers. Straight people will not do this voluntarily and so they must be forced into it. Straights must be frightened into it. Terrorized into it. Fear is the most powerful motivation. No one will give us what we deserve. Rights are not given they are taken, by force if necessary. It is easier to fight when you know who your enemy is. Straight people are your enemy. They are your enemy when they don't acknowledge your invisibility and continue to live in and contribute to a culture that kills you. Every day one of us is taken by the enemy. Whether it's an AIDS death due to homophobic government inaction or a lesbian bashing in an all-night diner (in a supposedly lesbian neighborhood).

AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE

Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are. It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred. (We have been carefully taught to hate ourselves.) And now of course it means fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth. Being queer means leading a different sort of 2 life. It's not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It's not about executive directors, privilege and elitism. It's about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it's about gender- fuck and secrets, what's beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it's about the night. Being queer is "grass roots" because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, every heart and ass and dick is a world of pleasure waiting to be explored. Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility. We are an army because we have to be. We are an army because we are so powerful. (We have so much to fight for; we are the most precious of endangered species.) And we are an army of lovers because it is we who know what love is. Desire and lust, too. We invented them. We come out of the closet, face the rejection of society, face firing squads, just to love each other! Every time we fuck, we win. We must fight for ourselves (no one else is going to do it) and if in that process we bring greater freedom to the world at large then great. (We've given so much to that world: democracy, all the arts, the concepts of love, philosophy and the soul, to name just a few gifts from our ancient Greek Dykes, Fags.) Let's make every space a Lesbian and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexual geography. A city of yearning and then total satisfaction. A city and a country where we can be safe and free and more. We must look at our lives and see what's best in them, see what is queer and what is straight and let that straight chaff fall away! Remember there is so, so little time. And I want to be a lover of each and every one of you. Next year, we march naked.

ANGER

"The strong sisters told the brothers that there were two important things to remember about the coming revolutions, the first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second, is that we will win." I'm angry. I'm angry for being condemned to death by strangers saying, "You deserve to die" and "AIDS is the cure." Fury erupts when a Republican woman wearing thousands of dollars of garments and jewelry minces by the police lines shaking her head, chuckling and wagging her finger at us like we are recalcitrant children making absurd demands and throwing temper tantrum when they aren't met. Angry while Joseph agonizes over $8,000 a over for AZT which might keep him alive a little longer and which makes him sicker than the disease he is diagnosed with. Angry as I listen to a man tell me that after changing his will five times he's running out of people to leave things to. All of his best friends are dead. Angry when stand in a sea of quilt panels, or go to a candlelight march or attend yet another memorial service. I will not march silently with a fucking candle and I want to take that goddamned quilt and wrap myself in it and furiously rend it and my hair and curse every god 3 religion ever created. I refuse to accept a creation that cuts people down in the third decade of their life. It is cruel and vile and meaningless and everything I have in me rails against the absurdity and I raise my face to the clouds and a ragged laugh that sounds more demonic than joyous erupts from my throat and tears stream down my face and if this disease doesn't kill me, I may just die of frustration. My feet pound the streets and Peter's hands are chained to a pharmaceutical company's reception desk while the receptionist looks on in horror and Eric's body lies rotting in a Brooklyn cemetery and I'll never hear his flute resounding off the walls of the meeting house again. And I see the old people in Tompkins Square Park huddled in their long wool coats in June to keep out the cold they perceive is there and to cling to whatever little life has left to offer them. I'm reminded of the people who strip and stand before a mirror each night before they go to bed and search their bodies for any mark that might not have been there yesterday. A mark that this scourge has visited them. And I'm angry when the newspapers call us "victims" and sound alarms that "it" might soon spread to the "general population." And I want to scream "Who the fuck am I?" And I want to scream at New York Hospital with its yellow plastic bags marked "isolation linen", "ropa infecciosa" and its orderlies in latex gloves and surgical masks skirting the bed as if its occupant will suddenly leap out and douse them with blood and semen giving them too the plague. And I'm angry at straight people who sit smugly wrapped in their self-protective coat of monogamy and heterosexuality confident that this disease has nothing to do with them because "it" only happens to "them." And the teenage boys who upon spotting my Silence=Death button begin chanting "Faggot's gonna die" and I wonder, who taught them this? Enveloped in fury and fear, I remain silent while my button mocks me every step of the way. And the anger I fell when a television program on the quilt gives profiles of the dead and the list begins with a baby, a teenage girl who got a blood transfusion, an elderly baptist minister and his wife and when they finally show a gay man, he's described as someone who knowingly infected teenage male prostitutes with the virus. What else can you expect from a faggot? I'm angry.

QUEER ARTISTS

Since time began, the world has been inspired by the work of queer artists. In exchange, there has been suffering, there has been pain, there has been violence. Throughout history, society has struck a bargain with its queer citizens: they may pursue creative careers, if they do it discreetly. Through the arts queers are productive, lucrative, entertaining and even uplifting. These are the clear-cut and useful by-products of what is otherwise considered antisocial behavior. In cultured circles, queers 4 may quietly coexist with an otherwise disapproving power elite. At the forefront of the most recent campaign to bash queer artists is Jesse Helms, arbiter of all that is decent, moral, christian and amerikan. For Helms, queer art is quite simply a threat to the world. In his imaginings, heterosexual culture is too fragile to bear up to the admission of human or sexual diversity. Quite simply, the structure of power in the Judeo-Christian world has made procreation its cornerstone. Families having children assures consumers for the nation's products and a work force to produce them, as well as a built-in family system to care for its ill, reducing the expense of public healthcare systems. ALL NON-PROCREATIVE BEHAVIOR IS CONSIDERED A THREAT, from homosexuality to birth control to abortion as an option. It is not enough, according to the religious right, to consistently advertise procreation and heterosexuality ... it is also necessary to destroy any alternatives. It is not art Helms is after .... IT IS OUR LIVES! Art is the last safe place for lesbians and gay men to thrive. Helms knows this, and has developed a program to purge queers from the one arena they have been permitted to contribute to our shared culture. Helms is advocating a world free from diversity or dissent. It is easy to imagine why that might feel more comfortable to those in charge of such a world. It is also easy to envision an amerikan landscape flattened by such power. Helms should just ask for what he is hinting at: State sponsored art, art of totalitarianism, art that speaks only in christian terms, art which supports the goals of those in power, art that matches the sofas in the Oval Office. Ask for what you want, Jesse, so that men and women of conscience can mobilize against it, as we do against the human rights violations of other countries, and fight to free our own country's dissidents.

IF YOU'RE QUEER,

Queers are under siege. Queers are being attacked on all fronts and I'm afraid it's ok with us. In 1969, there were 50 "Queer Bashings" in the month of May alone. Violent attacks, 3,720 men, women and children died of AIDS in the same month, caused by a more violent attack --- government inaction, rooted in society's growing homophobia. This is institutionalized violence, perhaps more dangerous to the existence of queers because the attackers are faceless. We allow these attacks by our own continued lack of action against them. AIDS has affected the straight world and now they're blaming us for AIDS and using it as a way to justify their violence against us. They don't want us anymore. They will beat us, rape us and kill us before they will continue to live with us. What 5 will it take for this not to be ok? Feel some rage. If rage doesn't empower you, try fear. If that doesn't work, try panic.

SHOUT IT!

Be proud. Do whatever you need to do to tear yourself away from your customary state of acceptance. Be free. Shout. In 1969, Queers fought back. In 1990, Queers say ok. Next year, will we be here?

I HATE ...

I hate Jesse Helms. I hate Jesse Helms so much I'd rejoice if he dropped down dead. If someone killed him I'd consider it his own fault. I hate Ronald Reagan, too, because he mass-murdered my people for eight years. But to be honest, I hate him even more for eulogizing Ryan White without first admitting his guilt, without begging forgiveness for Ryan's death and for the deaths of tens of thousands of other PWA's --- most of them queer. I hate him for making a mockery of our grief. I hate the fucking Pope, and I hate John fucking Cardinal fucking O'Connor, and I hate the whole fucking Catholic Church. The same goes for the Military, and especially for Amerika's Law Enforcement Officials --- the cops --- state sanctioned sadists who brutalize street transvestites, prostitutes and queer prisoners. I also hate the medical and mental health establishments, particularly the psychiatrist who conviced me not to have sex with men for three years until we (meaning he) could make me bisexual rather than queer. I also hate the education profession, for its share in driving thousands of queer teens to suicide every year. I hate the "respectable" art world; and the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media, especially The New York Times. In fact, I hate every sector of the straight establishment in this country --- the worst of whom actively want all queers dead, the best of whom never stick their necks out to keep us alive. I hate straight people who think they have anything intelligent to say about "outing." I hate straight people who think stories about themselves are "universal" but stories about us are only about homosexuality. I hate straight recording artists who make their careers off of queer people, then attack us, then act hurt when we get angry and then deny having wronged us rather than apologize for it. I hate straight people who say, "I don't see why you feel the need to wear those buttons and t-shirts. I don't go around telling the whole world I'm straight." I hate that in twelve years of public education I was never taught about queer people. I hate that I grew up thinking I was the only queer in the world, and I hate even more that most queer kids still grow up the same way. I 6 hate that I was tormented by other kids for being a faggot, but more that I was taught to feel ashamed for being the object of their cruelty, taught to feel it was my fault. I hate that the Supreme Court of this country says it's okay to criminalize me because of how I make love. I hate that so many straight people are so concerned about my goddamned sex life. I hate that so many twisted straight people become parents, while I have to fight like hell to be allowed to be a father. I hate straights.

WHERE ARE YOU SISTERS?

I wear my pink triangle everywhere. I do not lower my voice in public when talking about lesbian love or sex. I always tell people I'm a lesbian. I don't wait to be asked about my "boyfriend." I don't say it's "no one's business." I don't do this for straight people. Most of them don't know what the pink triangle even means. Most of them couldn't care less that my girlfriend and I are totally in love or having a fight on the street. Most of them don't notice us no matter what we do. I do what I do to reach other lesbians. I do what I do because I don't want lesbians to assume I'm a straight girl. I am out all the time, everywhere, because I WANT TO REACH YOU. Maybe you'll notice me, maybe we'll start talking, maybe we'll exchange numbers, maybe we'll become friends. Maybe we won't say a word but our eyes will meet and I will imagine you naked, sweating, openmouthed, your back arched as I am fucking you. And we'll be happy to know we aren't the only ones in the world. We'll be happy because we found each other, without saying a word, maybe just for a moment. But no. You won't wear a pink triangle on that linen lapel. You won't meet my eyes if I flirt with you on the street. You avoid me on the job because I'm "too" out. You chastise me in bars because I'm "too political." You ignore me in public because I bring "too much" attention to "my" lesbianism. But then you want me to be your lover, you want me to be your friend, you want me to love you, support, you, fight for "OUR" right to exist.

WHERE ARE YOU?

You talk, talk, talk about invisibility and then retreat to your homes to nest with your lovers or carouse in a bar with pals and stumble home in a cab or sit silently and politely by while your family, your boss, your neighbors, your public servants distort and disfigure us, deride us and punish us. Then home again and you feel like screaming. Then you pad your anger with a relationship or a career or a party with other dykes like you and still you wonder why we can't find each other, why you feel lonely, angry, alienated.

GET UP, WAKE UP SISTERS!!

7 Your life is in your hands. When I risk it all to be out, I risk it for both of us. When I risk it all and it works (which it often does if you would try it), I benefit and so do you. When it doesn't work, I suffer and you do not. But girl you can't wait for other dykes to make the world safe for you. STOP waiting for a better more lesbian future! The revolution could be here if we started it. Where are you sisters? I'm trying to find you, I'm trying to find you. How come I only see you on Gay Pride Day? We're OUT, Where the fuck are YOU? 8

WHEN ANYONE ASSAULTS YOU FOR BEING QUEER, IT IS QUEER BASHING. RIGHT?

A crowd of 50 people exit a gay bar as it closes. Across the street, some straight boys are shouting "Faggots" and throwing beer bottles at the gathering, which outnumbers them by 10 to 1. Three queers make a move to respond, getting no support from the group. Why did a group this size allow themselves to be sitting ducks? Tompkins Square Park, Labor Day. At an annual outdoor concert/drag show, a group of gay men were harassed by teens carrying sticks. In the midst of thousands of gay men and lesbians, these straight boys beat two gay men to the ground, then stood around triumphantly laughing amongst themselves. The emcee was alerted and warned the crowd from the stage, "You girls be careful. When you dress up it drives the boys crazy," as if it were a practical joke inspired by what the victims were wearing rather than a pointed attack on anyone and everyone at that event. What would it have taken for that crowd to stand up to its attackers? After James Zappalorti, an openly gay man, was murdered in cold blood on Staten Island this winter, a single demonstration was held in protest. Only one hundred people came. When Yuseuf Hawkins, a black youth, was shot to death for being on "white turf" in Bensonhurst, African Americans marched through that neighborhood in large numbers again and again. A black person was killed BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK, and people of color throughout the city recognized it and acted on it. The bullet that hit Hawkins was meant for a black man, ANY black man. Do most gays and lesbians think that the knife that punctured Zappalorti's heart was meant only for him? The straight world has us so convinced that we are helpless and deserving victims of the violence against us, that queers are immobilized when faced with a threat. BE OUTRAGED! These attacks must not be tolerated. DO SOMETHING. Recognize that any act of aggression against any member of our community is an attack on every member of the community. The more we allow homophobes to inflict violence, terror and fear on our lives, the more frequently and ferociously we will be the object of their hatred. Your immeasurably valuable, because unless you start believing that, it can easily be taken from you. If you know how to gently and efficiently immobilize your attacker, then by all means, do it. If you lack those skills, then think about gouging out his fucking eyes, slamming his nose back into his brain, slashing his throat with a broken bottle --- do whatever you can, whatever you have to, to save your life! 9

reeuQ yhW

Queer!

Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious. That's okay, we like that. But some gay girls and boys don't. They think they're more normal than strange. And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent suffering. Queer. It's forcibly bittersweet and quaint at best --- weakening and painful at worst. Couldn't we just use "gay" instead? It's a much brighter word and isn't it synonymous with "happy?" When will you militants grow up and get over the novelty of being different?

WHY QUEER

Well, yes, "gay " is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. It's a way of telling ourselves we don't have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the straight world. We use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer. Queer, unlike GAY, doesn't mean MALE. And when spoken to other gays and lesbians it's a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget (temporarily) our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy. Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe's hands and use against him.

NO SEX POLICE

For anyone to say that coming out is not part of the revolution is missing the point. Positive sexual images and what they manifest saves lives because they affirm those lives and make it possible for people to attempt to live as self-loving instead of self-loathing. As the famous "Black is beautiful" slogan changed many lives, so does "Read my lips" affirm queerness in the face of hatred and invisibility as displayed in a recent governmental study of suicides that states at least one third of all teen suicides are Queer kids. This is further exemplified by the rise in HIV transmission among those under 21. We are most hated as queers for our sexualness, that is, our physical contact with the same sex. Our sexuality and sexual expression are what makes us most susceptible to physical violence. Our difference, our otherness, our uniqueness can either paralyze us or politicize us. Hopefully, the majority of us will not let it kill us. 10

QUEER SPACE

Why in the world do we let heteros into queer clubs? Who gives a fuck if they like us because we "really know how to party?" WE HAVE TO IN ORDER TO BLOW OFF THE STEAM THEY MAKE US FEEL ALL THE TIME! They make out wherever they please, and take up too much room on the dance floor doing ostentatious couples dances. They wear their heterosexuality like a "Keep Out" sign, or like a deed of ownership. Why the fuck do we tolerate them when they invade our space like it's their right? Why do we let them shove heterosexuality --- a weapon their world wields against us - -- right in our faces in the few public spots where we can be sexy with each other and not fear attack? It's time to stop letting the straight people make all the rules. Let's start by posting this sign outside every queer club and bar:

RULES OF CONDUCT FOR STRAIGHT PEOPLE

1. Keep your display of affection (kissing, handholding, embracing) to a minimum. Your sexuality is unwanted and offensive to many here. 2. If you must slow dance, be as inconspicuous as possible. 3. Do not gawk or stare at lesbians or gay men, especially bull dykes or drag queens. We are not your entertainment. 4. If you cannot comfortably deal with someone of the same sex making a pass at you, get out. 5. Do not flaunt your heterosexuality. Be Discreet. Risk being mistaken for a lezzie or a homo. 6. If you feel these rules are unfair, go fight homophobia in straight clubs, or: 7. Go Fuck Yourself.

I HATE STRAIGHTS

I have friends. Some of them are straight. Year after year, I see my straight friends. I want to see them, to see how they are doing, to add newness to our long and complicated histories, to experience some continuity. Year after year I continue to realize that the facts of my life are irrelevant to them and that I am only half listened to, that I am an appendage to the doings of a greater world, a world of power and privilege, of the laws of installation, a world of exclusion. "That's not true," argue my straight friends. There is the one certainty in the politics of power: those left out of it beg for inclusion, while the insiders claim that they already are. Men do it to women, whites do it to blacks, and everyone does it to queers. The main dividing line, both conscious and unconscious, is procreation ... and that magic word --- Family. Frequently, the ones we are born into disown us when they find out who we really are, and to make matters worse, we are prevented from having our own. We are punished, insulted, cut off, and treated like seditionaries 11 in terms of child rearing, both damned if we try and damned if we abstain. It's as if the propagation of the species is such a fragile directive that without enforcing it as if it were an agenda, humankind would melt back into the primeval ooze. I hate having to convice straight people that lesbians and gays live in a war zone, that we're surrounded by bomb blasts only we seem to hear, that our bodies and souls are heaped high, dead from fright or bashed or raped, dying of grief or disease, stripped of our personhood. I hate straight people who can't listen to queer anger without saying "hey, all straight people aren't like that. I'm straight too, you know," as if their egos don't get enough stroking or protection in this arrogant, heterosexist world. Why must we take care of them, in the midst of our just anger brought on by their fucked up society?! Why add the reassurance of "Of course, I don't mean you. You don't act that way." Let them figure out for themselves whether they deserve to be included in our anger. But of course that would mean listening to our anger, which they almost never do. They deflect it, by saying "I'm not like that" or "Now look who's generalizing" or "You'll catch more flies with honey ... " or "If you focus on the negative you just give out more power" or "you're not the only one in the world who's suffering." They say "Don't yell at me, I'm on your side" or "I think you're overreacting" or "BOY, YOU'RE BITTER." They've taught us that good queers don't get mad. They've taught us so well that we not only hide our anger from them, we hide it from each other.

WE EVEN HIDE IT FROM OURSELVES.

We hide it with substance abuse and suicide and overarhcieving in the hope of proving our worth. They bash us and stab us and shoot us and bomb us in ever increasing numbers and still we freak out when angry queers carry banners or signs that say BASH BACK. For the last decade they let us die in droves and still we thank President Bush for planting a fucking tree, applaud him for likening PWAs to car accident victims who refuse to wear seatbelts. LET YOURSELF BE ANGRY. Let yourself be angry that the price of our visibility is the constant threat of violence, anti- queer violence to which practically every segment of this society contributes. Let yourself feel angry that THERE IS NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE WE ARE SAFE, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack, the self-hatred, the suicide --- of the closet. The next time some straight person comes down on you for being angry, tell them that until things change, you don't need any more evidence that the world turns at your expense. You don't need to see only hetero couple grocery shopping on your TV ... You don't want any more baby pictures shoved in your face until you can have or keep your own. No more weddings, showers, anniversaries, please, unless they are our own brothers and sisters celebrating. And tell them not to dismiss you by saying "You have rights," "You have privileges," "You're 12 overreacting," or "You have a victim's mentality." Tell them "GO AWAY FROM ME, until YOU can change." Go away and try on a world without the brave, strong queers that are its backbone, that are its guts and brains and souls. Go tell them go away until they have spent a month walking hand in hand in public with someone of the same sex. After they survive that, then you'll hear what they have to say about queer anger. Otherwise, tell them to shut up and listen.

[riversnthedesert-blog]

Some Real Talk on Hollywood and the Deep Things in Life

Well, I was originally going to slide this in as a Facebook post, but I had this sudden idea to just make it a blog post. The first of many, let’s hope! There have been so many times where I have started to comment/make a post, etc., and then I began writing a novel. But, it’s called Face “book,” so you think it’d be ok, right? Listen, I have thoughts. Don’t you? One thought here, another there, and then my mind be like, “OH! Forgot about that...and YEAH! That, too!”…and a lot of the time it’s easier to just write and get my thoughts out that way rather than speaking it. It’s a relief, man! Write ya mind. It would suffice to say there’s a lot that goes on up there. Better log it quick because as soon as I have something important...here cometh something else. Ah, feelings, the mind, expressions, inner things, brain files....

So, now that you, reader, have become acquainted with my thought processes, because you desperately needed to know...let’s get to the content.

You guys pray for Hollywood. There are some really creepy things going on behind the scenes….and creepy is an understatement, as I’d do well to keep it kosher in my description. Many things would shock you. But if one isn’t awake so to speak…or one isn’t open to hear in full, there’s confusion. If I could compare it to a puzzle: it’s like there’s all these pieces to a big puzzle. And until someone is ready to sit down and actually put it together, it’s just all these random pieces everywhere...and it’s messy and annoying. You must be willing to sit, observe the pieces, and study them because by themselves they don’t fit anywhere. And since you don’t know what to do with it, it just sits there, and never gets connected; the bigger picture never gets seen. This all might seem confusing, because you haven’t yet sat down to solve the puzzle. Let’s me just say...I don’t have 100% of the puzzle solved, but there are certain things that have been brought to light. But if we go back to the puzzle analogy, if you put together enough pieces of a particular part of the puzzle,you may not see all the details, but you see enough to maybe see, “Oh this is puzzle has a cat in it.” In the case for Hollywood, you might get to a place where you’ll say, “Oh, this puzzle has a rat.” It may seem like I am just finding something to poke at or what have you, but listen: 

The Bible says, “be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)”  and in Ephesians 5:8-13, it says, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible--and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.”

The Bible in different places talk about knowing wisdom (of God), being discerning, and having knowledge. Jesus said in Matthew 10:16, “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves, therefore be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.”

With that in mind, it’s important to note that we shouldn’t be unaware of the devil’s schemes. We should know our enemy’s tactics in order to guard against it. So when we see the deception, the lies, the fake news, the idolatry, the game of distraction, and materialism and fame, the plan of the enemy to sway hearts deceitfully and subtly for his kingdom, we are prepared and not caught off guard.

[Later, hopefully, I will try to discuss this more in depth at as it relates to the Antichrist agenda that is at work in the world by globalist leaders.]

Getting to the point here:

 Pray for your favorite celebrities. God has an army, but so does the devil. God wants to recruit, but so does the the devil. One is Light, one masquerades as light, but is actually darkness. One is good, one appears good. One is true, one is the counterfeit.

Please hear me. The world’s biggest influencers are definitely a target of Satan because they have the platform to be able to change an entire culture. How does this happen? MUSIC, ART…things that grip the HEART. Things that speak to the deepest places in people, the places of pain, emptiness, woes of many kinds. Why is this such a soft spot for the human race? Why are most songs about love and pain? I mean, why is music the language that everyone understands? We’re about to get into that.

[Disclaimer: I don’t know everything, and I don’t claim to. But with evidence from the Bible (God’s word), and when hings that were once just an idea or only talked about begin blatantly flaunting themselves in plain sight, you tend to not just tuck it away hoping that what you saw wasn’t real. With that being said, here we go.]

It’s not hard to find the answer if you really wanna know (read Matthew 7:7). Our inmost being cries out for LOVE. But, hey man, why does love in this world seem to suck a lot of the time? Could it be that we’re going about it all wrong? Could it be that we’re hitting something, but haven’t quite dug it all up to actually see what it is? Love is real, ok. Love is DEEP and beautiful and poetic and all those things, but love is meant to be JOYFUL, though. Does this world see much real, raw, joyful love? Romanticism? Yes. Infatuation? You bet. Any idea how to sustain a marriage? Look at the divorce rate. What is that all about, my friends? Does anyone know what love is anymore? There are SONGS about this. People want to know, though. Their souls try out to know...WHAT THE HECK IS THIS LOVE THING THAT TAKES ME OVER AND THEN LEAVES ME BROKEN AND WASHED UP ON THE SHORE TO SHRIVEL UP AND DIE?Okay, we’re getting somewhere, but in order to go any further, we must admit: Something is wrong, perverted, amiss, broken, disturbed, frustrated...yet, we gotta have it in order to LIVE. This is crazy revelation, right? Fasten your seat belts, people, and as Samuel L. Jackson said in Jurassic Park, “Hold on to your butts!”

So we have just come to the point of realization that someone is doing something wrong. Right? *heh*

First step. Admitting something is wrong.

But chin up fam, there’s no shame. Because the world’s just trying to do the best they can with what they’ve got. It’s like survival mode. And you know animals when they try to find their food to survive...they kill, they go crazy to get their essentials. Dog eat dog world, am I right? The CARNAL mind. Did you know humans have carnal minds, too? Yeah, it’s a thing. The carnal mind deals with the flesh (aka: how we compensate without God. Doing life without Him...either on purpose or ignorantly. Survival mode, because if I don’t fend for myself, I’m at risk of dying. Fear mode. The twisted mentality that my desire (the heart) has to be met before I am fully satisfied.

And the Bible says, “Those who are in [operating out of] the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8) 

K. Well, wait a minute, that sounds rather harsh. 

Hold on, though because I’m going to explain and bring more clarity.

What is the opposite of the flesh?  You might argue, “So if the flesh is all we know...what the heck, man! Like, I have desires, don’t you? I gotta give up my happiness and all that brings me joy?”

No bruh, not exactly. See, if someone is living in the flesh, they are living in an illusion. The illusion that if they “meet their desires themselves [based on their limited power and understanding as a human being of what it is they want/need]. Living based on the flesh will keep someone in a hopeless cycle of temporary fulfillment which will lead, eventually, to a state of deprivation, disappointment, and (un)fulfillment because they are depriving themselves of the SOURCE of their life.

What’s the source, you ask? Who made you and knows what you truly desire and need; what’s at core of your heart. Who knows how it operates? Who saw your unformed body? (Please friends, I’m begging you to read Psalm 139)

Does God just want take away our desires to rob us of delight and a fun, abundant life, just because? Does He want to see us thrive? 

Men, women, young and old, children of all ages. I’d like to introduce you to my Father in Heaven who is a God of GOODNESS. He is Spirit. And the nature of his Spirit are aaalll of these

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

God is good. Anything not good is contrary to His nature. 

Sin = not good. What is sin? Woah! Another post, for another time.

I have suffieciently dove into the deep end. There are rabbits hopping everywhere because my mind has gone down so many trails to explain this all to you. There’s more. 

*Self notes: post to be made on flesh desires and God desires.

 [Or read Romans 8]

Wrapping up our discussion with some further thoughts:

If the world doesn’t know the power and love of Jesus, they’re just trying to figure it out and compensate. We did something important earlier. We recognized we have been going about love all wrong. God wants to show us how to do it right, but He won’t force us. Instead, He lovingly leads, allows His children to live out the love they have received through Him. “We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19-21)” HA! Let me say it again. Love is not to be forced. Not saying that there isn’t sacrifice involved in love because there is, but when it’s properly received and you do it the right way, it looks like Jesus on the Cross. 

Gotta go to the Book with this. 1 Corinthians 13. Love.

*All kinds of things are stirring up in me because I know some are going to say to themselves, “well dats the Bible, that ain’t no solid truth. How can you say that’s truth, made made it!” I will explain to all my atheists friends out there one day, but not now because I literally will start writing a novel right here and now. Help, me, Lord. And like a faithful friend, He will.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (That’s 1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

So if that’s all the characteristics of love, we can say that those are the characteristics of God, too, because 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love.”

If we are imperfect people, we love imperfectly. But wait just a second here because in 1 John 4, if we read the whole thing, it says

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

So if one isn’t a believer in Jesus, like hasn’t received Him as Lord and Savior, then it would be true also to say that they don’t know Love if they don’t know God.

When someone doesn’t know God, because we were made in His image and His likeness (Genesis 1:27, Gen. 9:6), we still have attributes and qualities of God. The Bible also says, “eternity was placed in the human heart, (Ecclesiastes 3:11), people can be without God but still be operating out of the qualities and attributes they were made with. I’m sure God did that intentionally to help us find our way back to “truth north” in the event that we should become lost. What I am saying friends is that people who reject Jesus at this point, choose Atheism, paganism, Gnosticism, and other forms of religion, they still have that eternity void that needs to be filled. And some further discussion on the void of eternity:

Think of eternity as an umbrella…and under the umbrella, there’s

LOVE

MEANING

PURPOSE

TRUTH

If all of these are within the concept of eternity, then all of us have the bent within us to go after them. It’s in us to find these things…because we are trying to get back to our “true north.”

But wait! Because if “true north” is God. How do we know which avenue to God is the right one?

“Oh, boy. You’ve done it now, Lex.”

[to be continued...]

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke and the Inquisition: Cole

For @dadrunkwriting,   a new chapter of Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor) is up on AO3!

In which Fenris makes the tough decision about whether to let Cole stay with the Inquisition or not, with Rynne Hawke’s “help”. Also, SOME MARRIAGE-RELATED FLUFF and Josie being delightful.

Full chapter is here, or you can read on AO3 instead. (~8200 words). 

***************************

Fenris stepped into the Great Hall and quietly closed Josephine’s office door behind him. He was feeling rather disgruntled about the meeting he’d just had with the advisors.

Josephine and Leliana had mentioned that Empress Celene was holding a masquerade in a few weeks’ time. They were both quite insistent that the Inquisition’s interference – and Fenris’s attendance at the masquerade – were necessary to prevent Celene’s assassination and to stop Orlais from collapsing like it had in the dark future. Fenris was not particularly keen to get involved in Orlesian politics, and he was absolutely not keen to attend a formal event filled with human nobles who would sneer down their noses at his pointed ears. But Josephine and Leliana’s rationale could not be denied, and he’d finally – albeit reluctantly – agreed to Josephine’s suggestion to get the Inquisition formally invited to the ball.

He was still having difficulty adjusting to the idea that he was considered the best person to represent the Inquisition. During the entire discussion, it was on the tip of his tongue to argue that a Tevinter elf would hardly be a good spokesperson to represent the Inquisition, but he had to keep reminding himself that that reasoning was no longer valid. To the advisors and the rest of Skyhold’s people, he was the Inquisitor first and foremost. Anything else he was – or used to be – was a moot point now.

To make matters even more aggravating, Josephine had pulled him aside after Leliana and Cullen had returned to the war room. “Inquisitor, if I may have a word?”

“It’s just Fenris, Josephine,” he said, politely but firmly.

She smiled and bowed her head slightly. “As you wish, Fenris. There is one relatively simple way to gain the favour and alliance of any number of noble houses, both in Ferelden and Orlais.” She tilted her head. “The Inquisition can host a formal celebration of our own.”

Fenris frowned. “... a formal celebration? Here?”

“Yes,” Josephine said. “Skyhold is becoming more hospitable with every passing day. Ser Gatsi has informed me that the major repairs will be complete in a few weeks’ time, and – well, I must admit that Leliana and I have been arranging for the castle’s decor…”

He gave her an odd look. “This castle just became livable, and you’ve been thinking about decorating it?” Then her words sunk in, and he blinked in confusion. “Wait. Leliana has been arranging for decor?”

“She has, yes,” the Antivan advisor confirmed. Her expression was as pleasant and calm as always, but her bronze cheeks were becoming slightly flushed. “The Inquisition will soon be receiving guests from all over Thedas. It is important that they feel both safe and comfortable in our new home.”

Fenris stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “All right then,” he grumbled. “You and Leliana are arranging for decor. What bearing does this have on building alliances?”

Josephine smiled. “Well, as I mentioned, a formal celebration will help demonstrate to the rest of Thedas that we are an organization worth working with. An organization with the power to make real change.”

Fenris folded his arms. “A flagrant display of power and wealth. That is your suggestion?”

Josephine gave him a wheedling look. “Think of it as extending a generous hand in friendship.”

He raised one skeptical eyebrow, and Josephine bowed her head once more. “I know you do not entirely approve of this approach, Inquis– ah, Fenris,” she said. “Unfortunately, this is how the game is played. If we wish to curry favour with those in power, we must speak to them in a language they understand.”

He pursed his lips. This was another reason he hadn’t wanted this position. Playing these political games, pretending he had anything but disdain for those who flaunted their wealth so blatantly… All of it rubbed him the wrong way.

But if he was to dismiss Josephine’s advice without hearing her out, he would be no better than the egotistical, know-it-all nobles that he disdained.

He sighed and tried to control his annoyance. Josephine was only trying to be her usual helpful self, after all. “If we were to host a formal celebration, what reason would you suggest?” he asked, only slightly sullenly.

Josephine beamed at him and put her tablet on her desk. “Well,” she said in a suspiciously coy tone, “it’s come to my attention that you and Lady Rynne are not married.”

Fenris stared dumbly at her for a moment. That was not what he’d expected her to say. Then he shook his head. “No.”

“Oh, but a wedding would be the perfect occasion!” Josephine enthused. “The Inquisitor and the Champion of Kirkwall, joining in holy matrimony…”

To Fenris’s mild alarm, her expression was growing wistful, like that of a young girl reading Swords and Shields. “Hawke doesn’t go by that title anymore,” he protested.

Josephine waved her hand dismissively. “Her title does not matter,” she said brightly. “What matters is that you are our Inquisitor, and Lady Rynne is well-loved by everyone here. To see the two of you being wed before all of our people, and any number of respected guests–?”  

“No,” Fenris said, more loudly than before.

Josephine drew back slightly. Fenris took a slow breath through his nose, then lowered his voice. “My – Hawke and I – we are not figureheads to be put on display and gawked at by nobles,” he said, quietly but firmly. “I understand that you want to garner favour and resources for the Inquisition. But you will have to think of something else.”

Josephine bowed her head in resignation. “As you wish.” She picked up her tablet and made a little note with her plume, then tilted her head curiously. “If I may ask… why have you and Lady Rynne not married?”

Fenris raised one eyebrow. “Have you ever tried to find an official to marry you while on the run from the Chantry itself?” he drawled.

To his surprise, she giggled. “If the romance novels my sister Yvette reads are true, then I would have thought it was quite simple,” she said.

Fenris smirked. “I’ve watched Varric writing part of a romance novel. They are not reliable sources of information, I assure you.”

Josephine giggled again, then smiled at him. “Inquisitor – Fenris. If ever you and Lady Rynne decide you would like to be married, please do not be afraid to ask for my assistance. I would be… delighted, frankly, to arrange such a happy occasion.”

He gave her a chiding look. “And to invite a few nobles houses to the event.”

“Only with your permission,” Josephine said delicately. She smiled at him as she returned to her chair. “Please do consider it. A good day to you.”

“You as well,” he said, and he left her office.

As he made his way through the Great Hall, he brooded over the meeting he’d just had. His relationship with Hawke was not some entertaining plot to be picked over by prying eyes, despite what Varric’s not-so-sly references in his Tale of the Champion seemed to imply. As though being forced to go to an Orlesian ball wasn’t bad enough...

Just then, Toby lolloped over to him with a happy bark. Fenris smiled faintly at the mabari, who was wagging his tail so hard that his whole body was shaking.

“Toby,” he greeted. “What thrilling activities have occupied you today?”

Toby barked again, then trotted away in a manner that implied that Fenris should follow. Fenris trailed after him, then frowned curiously as Toby came to a stop beside a young man in patched clothes and a large hat.

Fenris peered at the boy. He looked to be around twenty years of age, with untidy flaxen hair and eerily pale blue eyes…

Suddenly Fenris remembered. “You’re Cole,” he said. “You warned us about the Red Templars.”

The boy looked at him. “Yes,” he said. “And you’re the Inquisitor.” His gaze was vague as he studied Fenris’s face. “The weight of everything is on you. All the hopes you carry, fears you fight… You are theirs. It must be very hard.”

Fenris frowned. That was an oddly intimate thing to say to a complete stranger. And yet, Cole wasn’t wrong. He was… uncannily accurate, in fact.

Fenris swallowed hard. Then he narrowed his eyes as he remembered something else odd: Toby’s uncharacteristically fearful reaction to this boy when they’d first met.

He frowned at Toby. “I thought you didn’t like this fellow,” he said.

Toby tilted his head, then sat next to Cole and leaned against his leg.

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “Changed your mind so quickly, hmm?” He folded his arms and gave Cole an appraising look.

Cole blinked at him in a vacant sort of way. Fenris frowned, feeling slightly at a loss for words. “You helped Roderick to lead the refugees out of Haven,” he finally said.

“Yes,” Cole said. “He was sorry before he died.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “Sorry for what?”

Cole blinked again. “Blood everywhere. Monsters, madness, dying, we’re all dying. The Herald stands against it, and heads turn.” He lifted his eyes toward the newly-cleaned stained glass windows. “Voices in the Chantry. Years since I’ve sung the song and felt it flowing through me, but this is real. So long since I felt it, falling, flying: faith. And I fought him.” Cole looked at Fenris once more. “Maker forgive me. I hope I did enough.”

A rash of goosebumps rippled down Fenris’s spine, and he stared at Cole for a nonplussed moment. Why was Cole talking in that strange manner, as though Roderick was speaking through his mouth?

He folded his arms more tightly across his chest. “Roderick said that to you?”

“Yes,” Cole said. “No. He was in my head. He wanted you to hear it. He would be happy that you did.”

Fenris studied him cautiously. In my head? What does that mean? he wondered. Maybe this boy was addled? Or… perhaps he was infected with red lyrium. He had spent time around Corypheus’s red Templars, after all.

This doesn’t sound like red lyrium ramblings, though, Fenris thought. Red lyrium brought out the worst part of a person and manifested it, like Bartrand’s greed or Meredith’s paranoia. Or in Hawke’s case…

Fenris shivered slightly. Then Cole interrupted his thoughts. “It wasn’t real,” he said.

Fenris looked at him. “What?”

“Red rivers running down her face. She asked to die, but that wasn’t her. Red, wrong, you were ripped away from her, but it wasn’t real.” Cole smiled slightly. “You made it not real. You helped.”

For a long, paralyzing second, Fenris stopped breathing. How…? How did this stranger know about his nightmares?

He took a step closer to Cole. “Did Dorian tell you this?” he hissed. Dorian was the only one who had seen Fenris’s distress when they were stuck together in that dark future. He was the only one who could have told Cole about what they’d seen, how Hawke’s infected mind had made her beg for death…

“Dorian?” Cole said. “No. Sharp and shining like a gem, cutting when he needs to, but not unkind.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Dorian understands hurts. He hurts too, in his way. He wouldn’t tell.”

Fenris scowled. “Then how–?”

“Hello, handsome!” Hawke bounced over, and Fenris tensed in surprise as she squeezed his arm. She smiled at Cole. “Hello, Cole. Perfect timing – Cassandra and Solas want to talk to both of you.”

Fenris stepped away from Cole. “About what?”

Hawke pulled a little face as she led him out of the Great Hall toward the courtyard.  “Uhh… better if you hear it directly. You know Solas and his explanations. I’m listening to him, and I’m understanding everything and I’m all on board, and then he’s all, ‘and the complete opposite can also be true.’ And suddenly I’m wondering about the meaning of life and the universe and everything when all I asked is if he wanted a sandwich…”  

Fenris grunted. He could hear the clack of Toby’s nails on the stone as he and Cole followed them down to the base of the stairs, where Cassandra and Solas were engaged in some sort of debate.

‘... but this violates everything we know about the Fade!” Cassandra exclaimed as they drew near.

Solas tilted his head in agreement. “So it does,” he said mildly.

An auspicious start, Fenris thought waspishly. He folded his arms. “What’s the problem?” he asked.

“Fenris,” Cassandra greeted. She nodded to him and Hawke, but her face was creased in a frown. “Solas and I were discussing Cole’s… unusual abilities. I wondered if he was perhaps a mage.”

Fenris frowned. “Unusual abilities?”

“He can cause people to forget him, or even fail entirely to notice him,” Solas said.

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “Those are… he can do that on purpose?” He glanced suspiciously at Cole. He was sitting on the ground nearby and petting a very happy-looking Toby.

“Yes,” Solas said. “From my conversations with him, I understand that his presence has been objected to in the past, and thus he is making himself… inconspicuous, as it were, so as not to offend.” He shot a quick pointed look at Cassandra. “In any case, these are not the abilities of a mage. It seems that Cole is a spirit.”

Fenris whipped around and stared at him. “A spirit?” he said flatly.

“Yes,” Solas said. His expression was absolutely neutral.

Fenris narrowed his eyes. Then Cassandra mirrored his thoughts. “A demon, more likely,” she said.

“If you prefer,” Solas said. “Although the truth is somewhat more complex.”

Hawke grimaced slightly. “Told you you’d want to hear it for yourself,” she said quietly to Fenris.

Fenris shook his head slowly. It was making sense now. The odd things Cole said… the way he had spoken Roderick’s last words in the councillor’s own voice, and the way he knew what Fenris was thinking – his concerns about being the Inquisitor, and his fears about Hawke…

He glared at Solas. “If he is making people forget him, that means he is changing their thoughts. Such manipulations are the purview of a demon.”

Hawke’s grimace deepened as Solas lifted his chin. “In fairness, Cole’s warning at Haven allowed you to escape and saved many lives,” Solas said.

“You dodge the issue,” Fenris accused. “He manipulates minds. He… I have witnessed it myself!”

Cassandra folded her arms as well. “You speak as though Cole’s intent is to help,” she said to Solas. “But we cannot know the true motivations of a demon.”

Solas frowned slightly. “If this is a terminological issue, then you should know his nature is not so easily defined.”

“Speak plainly, Solas,” Cassandra said bluntly. “What are we dealing with?”

Fenris turned to her. “Solas maintains that spirits and demons are two faces of the same coin,” he said flatly. “What you and I call a demon, he calls a corrupted spirit.” He gave Solas a hard look. “The issue is not terminological, but an issue of whether this ‘Cole’ is corrupted or not.”

Solas nodded politely to Fenris. “That is part of the issue, yes.” He looked at Cassandra. “Demons, or ‘corrupted spirits’, normally enter this world by possession: by attaching themselves to something or someone in this world. In their true form, they look bizarre. Monstrous.”

“But Cole looks like a young man,” Cassandra said. Her frown became even more severe as she darted a look at Cole, who was now `rubbing Toby’s exposed belly. “Is this possession?”

“No,” Solas said firmly. “He has wilfully manifested in human form without possessing anyone. From what I can tell, he predates the Breach. He has lived in this world for months – perhaps years. He looks like a young man. For all intents and purposes, he is a young man.” He glanced over at Cole. “It is… remarkable,” he said softly.

“How do you know he is a spirit in the form of a man and not a man possessed by a spirit?” Fenris demanded. “How can you tell for certain?”

Hawke awkwardly shifted her weight. “Well, we know what a possessed man looks like,” she said.

He glanced askance at her, then wilted slightly. “Anders,” he grumbled.

“Exactly,” she said. “When Venjustice came out, it was pretty fucking obvious. And, well, Anders told us he was hosting a spirit. Or demon, or whatever you want to call it. He was able to tell us that he was a man with a spirit inside of him.” She smirked for a moment – at her own double entendre, Fenris was sure – then cleared her throat and shrugged. “I’ve spoken to Cole a few times. He seems… confused, I suppose, which makes sense if his home is the Fade. But he doesn’t sound like Anders did. There’s none of the ‘normal one second and crazy the next’ that Anders had going on.”

Fenris harrumphed quietly. Then he looked at her in surprise. “Wait. You remember speaking with Cole before? He didn’t force you to forget him?”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t even know he was making people forget him until I heard Bull and Dorian talking about it. Dorian never forgot him, either.”

Fenris frowned. Why had Cole tampered with his and Bull’s minds, but not Hawke’s or Dorian’s?

Then Solas spoke once more. “Cole is unique, Fenris. He has achieved something that I was… not aware was possible. More than that, he wishes to help. I suggest you allow him to do so.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. The mage’s tone was mild, and everything about his posture was deferential, but Fenris didn’t like the hint of command in Solas’s words.

He looked at Hawke. “What do you think of this?”

She shrugged and pulled a little face. “Honestly, Cole seems pretty harmless to me. But it’s up to you.”

He pursed his lips, then glanced over at Cole… but Cole wasn’t there.

He tutted. “Where in cursed Void is he?”

Cassandra seemed equally displeased. “If we can’t remember him, he could be anywhere,” she complained.

Hawke tapped Fenris’s arm and pointed. “He’s there, by the healers’ tents.”

Fenris turned and spotted Cole’s large hat. “Come,” he said to Hawke, and he walked over to Cole with Hawke close behind.

The healers’ tents in the courtyard now held only the most wounded patients: the ones whose condition was too fragile for them to be moved indoors. Cole was just standing there and looking at the wounded patients, and Fenris watched him with undisguised mistrust until he spoke.

“So many soldiers fought to protect the pilgrims so they could escape Haven,” Cole said softly. He looked down at one particular soldier, whose blood-stained bandages covered him from chest to waist. The soldier’s pale and sweaty face was twisted in agony, and his breathing was rapid and shallow.

Then Cole began to speak, and his words seemed to ring in time with the soldiers’ breaths. “Choking fear, can’t think from the medicine but the cuts wrack me with every heartbeat. Hot white pain, everything burns. I can’t, I can’t, I’m going to… I’m dying, I am…”

The soldier exhaled one last time. “... dead,” Cole finished.

The hairs on the back of Fenris’s neck were standing on end. “Stop that,” he hissed. “Stay out of their heads.”

Cole gave him a faintly quizzical look. “They’re in mine,” he said. Then he drifted over to a table bearing jugs of water and empty cups.

“Cracked brown paint, dry, scraping. Thirsty,” Cole murmured. He poured a cup of water, then knelt beside another soldier. “Here,” he said, and he held the cup to her lips.

She gulped thirstily from the cup, then gasped for breath. “Thank you,” she rasped.

Cole rose to his feet, then turned to Fenris. “It’s all right,” he said reassuringly. “She won’t remember me.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “Why do you force them to forget? If you truly mean to help, just show them that you’re there. This deception is unnecessary.”

Hawke scratched her ear. “Didn’t Solas say that people rejected him when they found out he was a spirit?”

Cole blinked at her. “Yes. They want to forget. They would be troubled if they knew, like Rhys. I don’t want them to be troubled. It’s better this way. I’m better.”

Fenris scowled at him. “You’re tampering with their memories. You cannot do that.”

“Oh,” Hawke said suddenly.

Fenris looked at her, then frowned; she was looking at him now, and her expression was oddly sympathetic. “What?” he demanded. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

She took a deep breath, then stepped closer to him. “I don’t think it’s… he’s not erasing their memories, Fenris, not really,” she said softly. “It seems like he’s just erasing himself and nothing else.”

“You don’t know that,” Fenris said fiercely. “You don’t know what he is capable of, and that is the entire problem. Erasing himself is just the start. What if he decides that erasing himself is not enough? Entire conversations, entire days – where would it end?”

Hawke nibbled the inside of her cheek. “I suppose,” she said finally. She eyed Cole sadly for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay then. Are you going to send him away?”

Fenris clenched his jaw. His instinct was indeed to send Cole away. But for some blasted reason, he couldn't help but recall the conversation he’d had with Dorian a few days ago, when Dorian had teased him about dismissing the things he didn’t understand. And then there was that big argument with Solas — the argument about this very issue, when Solas had accused him of scorning any being whose nature was unlike his own…

Fenris gritted his teeth for a moment longer, then sighed bad-temperedly. “We’ll watch him for a day,” he announced. “Observe him. See what he does and how he does it. If he performs any sort of sinister act, I will kill him myself.”

“Yes. That’s good,” Cole said.

Hawke and Fenris both looked at him in surprise. “You would… want Fenris to kill you?” Hawke said slowly.

Cole nodded. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want to help. If I start again, you or Cullen or Cassandra need to kill me.”

Hawke shrugged in a bemused sort of way. “Well, I suppose that’s a tidy enough solution,” she said, but Fenris narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean, ‘start again’?” he asked suspiciously.

“When I was in the Spire, some of the mages wanted to die,” Cole said. “Too sad, too scared, too much. I didn’t know what I was; a ghost, I thought, fading in the Fade. I used the knife to set them free. When Rhys found out, he made me stop. Made me understand there were other ways to help. I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know that you were murdering innocent people?” Fenris demanded.

“No, I knew,” Cole said calmly. “I just thought I had to. They were hurting, helpless, haunted. It was all I could do.” He stood a little straighter. “It was wrong. I was wrong. If I start again, you need to kill me.”

Fenris glared at him. “I will if I must,” he said threateningly. “Do not doubt that.”

Cole nodded. He seemed unaffected by Fenris’s ire. “Thank you,” he said.

Fenris eyed him for a moment longer, but he said nothing more, and finally Fenris stepped back. “All right,” he said, and he jerked his chin at the castle at large. “Do as you had planned. We will follow.”

“Yes,” Cole said, and he ambled away from the healers’ tents.

Fenris and Hawke followed silently in Cole’s rambling path, and Fenris watched with some bemusement as Toby bounded over to prance around the demon boy.

After about thirty seconds of walking in silence, Fenris raised an eyebrow. “Speak, Hawke. You are never silent for this long,” he drawled.

She snorted a little laugh at his bluntness. “I’m just surprised you would want to spend the day doing this. We’re going out to Crestwood tomorrow. I thought you’d be, you know, talking to the advisors or something.”

“I did speak to them. Just before you found me,” he said. He declined to tell her about Josephine’s formal celebration suggestion for now. Getting married was hardly a pressing item on the agenda, even if it had been at the back of his mind for the past couple of years.

“Ah,” Hawke said. She nodded knowledgeably and fell silent again.

Fenris gave her a flat look. He knew the real reason she was biting her tongue. “I am not incapable of changing my mind, you know,” he muttered.

She looked at him. “Nobody is saying you are,” she said carefully.

Fenris huffed moodily, then lowered his voice. “Solas and Dorian think I am… inflexible.”

Hawke pulled him to a stop with a hand on his arm. “Solas and Dorian don’t know you,” she said. She was frowning slightly. “And since when do you care what other people think?”

“Since we joined this blasted organization and everyone is scrutinizing every move I make,” he hissed. “This is not like Kirkwall, Hawke. We work with these people. They are allies, not friends. They’re not…” He broke off before he could inadvertently say something unkind.

Hawke finished his sentence anyway. “They’re not family,” she said, a little bit sadly.

He sighed and took a step closer to her. “No, they’re not,” he murmured. “In Kirkwall, it didn’t matter what Anders or Merrill thought of me. Their displeasure was inconsequential. But it is different here. These people we’re collecting… If they think my… predispositions will interfere with the Inquisition’s work–”

She cupped his cheek in her palm. “Fenris,” she said soothingly. “You are capable of change. If that’s what you’re really worried about, don’t be. I mean, look, here’s a perfect example: you hated me when we first met, and–”

“I never hated you,” he protested.

She gave him a skeptical smirk, and he scowled. “I did not hate you,” he insisted. “I was… rightfully suspicious of you, given my circumstances.”

A slow smile lit her face. “Rightfully suspicious, hmm.” She leaned into his chest and curled her fingers against his abs. “And look at you now. You love me.”

He snorted and gently squeezed her arm. “Yes, I do, for some unfathomable reason,” he grumbled.

Hawke chuckled and tilted her chin up, and Fenris smiled faintly at her. Then he jumped as Cole’s vague voice drifted over his shoulder. “You love her smile. You hold, hide, hovering in her lips: hope like a lighthouse, happiness like the fireplace at home.”

Fenris whipped around and stared at Cole, who was standing just behind his left shoulder. “What – how did you – stop that!” he snapped.  

Cole recoiled slightly. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help,” he said.

Fenris glared at him. Hawke, meanwhile, was positively helpless with laughter. “Well well, this is going to be a fascinating day,” she wheezed.

Fenris hunched his shoulders defensively and scowled at Cole. He could feel his ears getting hot. “Will you be doing that all day?” he demanded.

Cole twisted his fingers together. “Yes? Maybe. Sorry? It’s loud sometimes. When it’s all I can hear, I have to set it free, like birds from a cage.”

Fenris wrinkled his nose with displeasure. Then he tsked loudly at Hawke. “Kindly pull yourself together,” he scolded.

She wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m– he’s just so cute,” she exclaimed. She slung an arm around Cole’s shoulders. “All right, little ghost, let’s pluck some more entertaining thoughts from people’s minds. Ooh, we should go follow Bull around for a while. He’s got an excellent imagination ripe for the plucking.”

“But I’m not a ghost,” Cole said as Hawke pulled him along.

Fenris glowered at them, then turned his scowl to Toby, who was panting at his side. “Why do you both favour this demon so greatly?” he demanded.

Toby tilted his head, and Fenris sighed. “Never mind,” he said grumpily. “Let’s catch up to them before Hawke dares him to possess someone for the fun of it.”

And so Fenris and Hawke began trailing Cole around the castle. They initially followed him quite closely, as Fenris didn’t trust him to leave anyone’s minds untouched. But at one point, when they were standing on the battlements, Cole requested – in a roundabout, indirect sort of way – that they follow him at more of a distance.

“Why?” Fenris said suspiciously.

Cole blinked benignly. “They see you,” he said.

Fenris folded his arms. “And?”

“Too bright, too much, but in a good way. Hope, help, a hero. They can’t not see you. It’s not your fault, but I can’t help when they’re looking.”

“Oh, I suppose he’s right,” Hawke said. She looked at Fenris. “People are hardly going to think their normal thoughts when the Inquisitor is around.”

Fenris started to protest, but Cole addressed her before Fenris could speak. “It’s you, too,” Cole told her. “Bright and bursting like fireworks. They can’t help but look and hear. If they see you, they’ll see me, too.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow at Hawke. For the first time today, he was slightly amused. “The demon is calling you an attention seeker,” he said.

Hawke threw her head back and laughed. “He already knows me so well.” She shrugged agreeably. “Well, I’m fine with following him at a distance if you are.”

Fenris studied Cole critically for a moment. Then he tutted. “Fine. We will follow at a distance. But if you attempt to shake us off completely, I will eject you from this castle on the spot,” he threatened.

Cole gave him a vague sort of half-smile. “All right,” he said. Then he promptly disappeared.

Fenris looked around in consternation, then rubbed his forehead. “Festis bei umo canavarum. Hawke, this cursed demon–”

“Fenris, look, it’s fine. He’s right there.” She pointed surreptitiously across the courtyard toward the tavern, where Cole was standing near the window.

Fenris peered over the battlements. Cole was pulling something from his pocket – something round and dark purple in colour.

“Is that… a plum?” Hawke asked.

Fenris nodded wordlessly, and they watched as Cole sliced the plum into pieces, then left the pieces on the windowsill of the tavern and wandered away.

Fenris was utterly perplexed. “What the–”

“Quick,” Hawke hissed. “We’d better hurry down if we want to catch up to him.”

They scrambled down to the main courtyard and pretended to be casual as they followed Cole’s dawdling path into Skyhold and down to the lower levels. They hid beside the stairs as Cole made his way to the kitchen, and a few minutes later, they watched as Cole emerged with a wheel of cheese, a small bushel of mint, and three loaves of bread – and smelling, for some reason, like burnt turnips.

“What the fuck is going on?” Hawke whispered gleefully.

“I don’t know, but I am not pleased about it,” Fenris groused, and they hurried up the stairs before the demon-boy could disappear again.

They spent the rest of the day following Cole as he did all kinds of odd things around the castle: sprinkling crumbled cheese on the floor beside bowls of crushed mint, stealing daggers from soldiers’ belts and hoarding them in a random barrel, throwing the perfectly good loaves of bread onto the battlements. Fenris was initially of a mind to stop him; the wasting of the bread and cheese in particular was making him antsy.

“Demons do not eat,” Fenris hissed to Hawke at one point. “He can’t understand what it is to starve. That’s why he is discarding all that food!”

“Hang on,” Hawke said slowly. Her eyes were wide, and she was looking at a pair of healers standing near the tavern windowsill where Cole had placed the sliced plums earlier that day.

Fenris frowned, and he and Hawke edged closer to hear their conversation. “... the spiderwebs help stop the bleeding, and they prevent wounds from getting infected,” one healer was telling the other. “Gather as many as you can.” She scratched the back of her neck. “Strangest thing, though. I can’t recall where I heard that. I think I remember… a young man?”

Fenris looked at Hawke, then at the windowsill. The sliced plums were crawling with flies… many of whom had gotten trapped in the spiderwebs that now hung in silken webs from the corners of the window.

He frowned slightly, then jumped when Cole appeared beside him. He ran an annoyed hand through his hair and studied Cole in silence for a moment.

“You put the plums there to attract flies for the spiders,” he said slowly. “So they would make webs for the healers?”

Cole nodded. “The plums are already dead. They don’t mind helping.”

Fenris lifted his chin appraisingly, and Cole unblinkingly returned his gaze. Then Fenris shifted his weight and folded his arms. “Fine. The cheese and the mint, then. What was the point of those?”

“Mice like cheese,” Cole said. “The mint was for the cats.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “Mint makes cats act strangely…” His gaze drifted to Hawke, who was smiling.

“That cranky cook,” she said excitedly. “She was laughing earlier today about the mint-crazy cats dancing around, remember?”

Fenris’s eyes widened, and he turned back to Cole. “You made the cats act foolish to cheer up the cook,” he said slowly.

Cole nodded again. “Kitchen fires are hot, like when Haven burned,” he explained. “The old cook lies under rocks. His head is in pieces. She needs to make it all work, so nothing will burn again. But if she laughs, she forgets for a while.”

“Hmm,” Fenris said. He studied Cole for another moment, then unfolded his arms and turned to Hawke. “Let’s find out what the rest of this demon’s antics have achieved.”

She clapped her hands as she followed him toward the stables. “This is great,” she said with relish. “A spirit scavenger hunt? This is the best thing we’ve done since Sera sent us on that mad little hunt around Val Royeaux for the Red Jennies.”

Fenris huffed, but with less annoyance than before. He still didn’t see why Cole couldn’t simply tell the healers about the spiderwebs. Or found some other way to cheer the cook up that didn’t involve wasting a week’s worth of cheese. Admittedly, Fenris was no expert at cheering people up, but surely Cole, or… or someone else could have thought of…  something. Something that would also seem spontaneous and unplanned enough to make the cook laugh…

He pursed his lips in annoyance. Once again, Solas’s angry words rang in his ears. Do you scorn every being whose nature is unlike yours? Whose mode of being you do not understand?

Perhaps Fenris was – albeit grudgingly – starting to understand what Solas meant.

It was suppertime by the time Fenris and Hawke had figured out the reasoning behind all of the seemingly random things Cole had done. As the sun descended behind the west-facing mountains, Fenris and Hawke leaned against the battlements eating the leftover bread and cheese from Cole’s deeds that day, while Cole himself sat awkwardly on the ground in front of them.

Hawke sighed musically as she tucked another mouse-nibbled wedge of cheese into a bird-pecked hunk of bread. “Remind me again why you’re making me eat this possibly pestilence-ridden food?” she said to Fenris.

He swallowed his own bite of cheese. “It is not that bad. I have eaten worse,” he said chidingly. “Don’t be wasteful. Think of the people starving in the Hinterlands. They would have given a kidney for your pestilence-ridden cheese.”

Hawke huffed in amusement. “Well, if you’re going to make me sound so spoiled… Bon appétit, as the Orlesians would say.” She took a big bite of bread and cheese, then winked at him while she chewed.

Fenris smirked and took another bite of his own impromptu cheese sandwich, and they ate in silence for a few minutes more.

Then Fenris folded his arms and looked down at Cole. “So this is how you help. These convoluted sequences of tasks that eventually ease someone’s pain?”

Cole blinked benignly, and Fenris narrowed his eyes. “You also alter people’s thoughts. Do not deny it. You planted that idea about the spiderwebs in that healer’s mind. You gave her an idea she did not have before,” he accused.

Cole tilted his head quizzically. “But it helped. She healed people. They hurt less now.”

“That is not the point,” Fenris argued. “You listen to people’s thoughts. You take their… their private thoughts and speak them aloud. It’s…” He shook his head disapprovingly. “Do you hear everything that everyone is thinking?”

“Maker’s balls, I hope not,” Hawke interjected. She grimaced at Fenris. “Can you imagine trying to get anything done if you heard everyone’s every thought?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t hear everyone. They have to need me. Pain, fear, sadness, guilt, anger, hurt: things I can fix.”

Hawke raised an eyebrow. “But everyone feels those things sometimes.”

“Yes,” Cole said simply.

Fenris and Hawke studied him in silence for a moment. Then Fenris grunted. “You’re not going to stop poking into people’s heads, are you?”

Cole bowed his head. “I… don’t know. If I stop, I might stop being me. I might become the other way. You might have to kill me.”

Fenris twisted his lips. This whole day had been… unnerving. Enlightening to some degree, but highly unnerving nonetheless. Fenris had been hoping to have this whole demon issue sorted by the end of the day, but it was turning out to be more complex than he’d hoped.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead tiredly. Then Hawke leaned against his side. “So? What do you think?” she murmured.

Fenris pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. Then he finally lifted his face and gave Cole a stern look. “You can stay. For now,” he said forbiddingly. “When you accompany us on our journeys from Skyhold, you will be supervised by Solas and Cassandra at all times until I say otherwise.”

Hawke whistled softly. “Cassandra will love that, I’m sure.”  

“Her judgment mirrors mine,” Fenris reasoned. “If she deems Cole a problem, she will do what is necessary to keep us safe.”

As usual, Cole seemed unbothered by Fenris’s blatant mistrust. “Thank you,” he said. “I want to help. I will go with you where the hurts hang heavy, and I’ll help you melt them down.”

Fenris grunted. “That is… something, I suppose.” He closed his eyes once more and leaned his head back against the battlements. Would it be unseemly if he went to bed, despite the early hour? Truth be told, he wasn’t particularly tired; he’d been sleeping quite well the past couple of nights, in fact. But just yesterday, Josephine had assigned him and Hawke to the newly-renovated lord’s bedchamber, and although the huge bedroom made him feel uncomfortably entitled, he couldn’t deny how much he was enjoying the privacy.

I should get a full night’s sleep before we leave for Crestwood, he reasoned. The journey would be a solid five days by foot. But as soon as he thought about going to sleep, the usual jolt of anxiety poked at his belly; would he dream of that dark future again, or were the dreams finally gone for good?

“It’s all right,” Cole said. “You’ll sleep soundly, safe from scarlet dreams.”

A chill of realization ran down Fenris’s spine. He opened his eyes and slowly straightened. “You,” he said. He swallowed hard. “You stopped the… you stopped them?” he asked.

“Yes,” Cole said, as though this was obvious.

Fenris recoiled, and Hawke frowned. “Wait. What’s happening?” she said.

Fenris didn’t answer. He stared at Cole with mounting discomfort and anger. “I didn’t say you could do that,” he accused. “You – you went in my head without asking me!”

“Fenris, what’s going on?” Hawke asked sharply.

“It’s… it is nothing,” Fenris blustered. “I…” He glared forbiddingly at Cole. He still hadn’t told Hawke the full extent of the horrors the dark future had presented to him. He didn’t want her to know that how thoroughly her usual shining, hopeful self had crumbled into a creature of despair.

But it seemed that Cole didn’t understand the look on Fenris’s face; he was already speaking Fenris’s mind directly to Hawke. “He dreams of bloody walls, of red crystals twisting from the floor and your face and back. ‘Kill me, Varric,’ you begged, and you broke his heart.”

“What?” Hawke squeaked.

Fenris took a step toward Cole. “Shut your mouth, demon,” he barked.

Cole bowed his head and twisted his hands together. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted the dreams to die. ‘Please make them stop, make them go away,’ you said, so I did.”

“I did not say that,” Fenris yelled. “I thought it. There is a difference!”

Hawke took hold of his arm. “Fenris, is this true?” she asked. “That’s what you saw in that dark future? You saw me asking Varric to kill me?”

He took a deep breath and glared at Cole, who was still wringing his hands. “It was not your place to tell,” he snarled. “I didn’t – I don’t–”

Hawke took his chin and turned his face to hers. “Fenris,” she said softly. “Is it true?”

He dragged in a deep, calming breath through his nose. “Yes,” he gritted.

She inhaled slowly, then exhaled through her lips. “All right. What else happened?” she asked matter-of-factly.

He shook his head and tried to lean away, but Hawke cradled his neck in her hands. “Fenris, talk to me,” she begged softly. “That’s all I’ve wanted since Redcliffe. I just… I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Just talk to me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. Venhedis fasta vass, he thought.

He opened his eyes and glared at her. “You gave up,” he said bluntly. “You thought I had died, and you stopped… fighting. You gave up. You wanted to die, you – you asked Varric to kill you, but he wouldn’t. And then you did die, because–” he broke off and scrubbed a hand over his face. “You… a demon killed you. It… you sacrificed yourself to protect me from demons, and I… Hawke, I can’t–”

She surged toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck, and Fenris pressed his face against her sandalwood-scented neck. Her body was warm and solid in his arms, and he was probably squeezing her too tightly, but she wasn’t complaining, so he continued to clutch her so closely that he could feel every rise and fall of her ribs.

She turned her face toward him and pressed her mouth to his ear. “Hey. I promised you, remember?” she whispered. “I won’t ever give up, no matter what. I keep my promises to you, Fenris, all right?”

Fenris pressed his lips together hard, then buried his face in her shoulder and swallowed. Her fingertips carded gently through his hair, and he clenched his fingers tensely against her back as the fabric of her tunic grew damp beneath his cheek.

Hawke held him tightly for many long minutes, and he held her tightly in kind. The evening breeze blew through the leaves in the courtyard, and the faint strains of a lute floated up from somewhere in castle grounds, and Fenris just breathed slowly until the tight, knotted ball of tension in his chest had completely melted into Hawke’s unfortunate tunic.

He heaved a heavy sigh against her neck, and she pulled away slightly. Her thumbs carefully wiped his cheeks as she looked him in the eye. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that shitty future doesn’t happen,” she told him. “We protect each other, just like we’ve always done. No stupid sacrifices, and we both watch each other’s backs. All right?”

He nodded and swallowed again. “All right,” he rasped.

Hawke smiled. She kissed his cheek, then his cheekbone and his ear, and then she was hugging him again. Fenris hugged her back, but the desperation of their earlier embrace was gone. He felt looser now – loose and relaxed and… lightened somehow.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Then Cole spoke in a quiet, tentative voice. “I didn’t steal the dreams,” he said. “I stopped them from stealing your sleep. Do you… want them back?”

Fenris inhaled slowly, then pulled away from Hawke to look Cole in the eye. “No,” he said quietly. “Keep them. Or… get rid of them. Or whatever it is that you spirits do with such poison.”

Cole nodded. “All right.”

Hawke’s arm was snug around his waist, and her smile was tender and warm. He gazed at her adoringly for a moment, then raised one quizzical eyebrow. “He hasn’t exposed any of your thoughts,” he murmured to her. “Why is that?”

She smiled. “Well, I’m an open book. He probably can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

Fenris raised one skeptical eyebrow, and she laughed. “What, do you want Cole to tell you one of my secret thoughts?”

Fenris frowned. “No,” he said. The safety of this whole mind-reading business was iffy at best.

But Hawke only laughed again and turned to Cole. “Go ahead, then,” she said. “Pick something juicy from my head for Fenris to hear. It’s only fair.”

“Hawke, there’s no need–” Fenris protested, but it was too late. Cole tilted his head and looked at Fenris with his eerie blue eyes. “I’m scared. Maker’s balls, I’m scared,” he said.

A shiver ran down Fenris’s spine as he recognized the cadence of Hawke’s words from Cole’s mouth. “Scared, so scared, red Templars and magic in his hand and undead darkspawn, everything is insane, nothing is what it should be. But he smiles, and I’m not scared anymore. Picture his smile, think of him laughing in that deep growly voice: I’m fine, I’m safe, I’m not scared anymore.”

Fenris and Hawke were silent. Then Hawke looked up at him. “Well, now you know,” she whispered. “That’s what I do when I’m scared. I imagine you laughing.” She smiled slowly. “It’s my favourite sound.”

Fenris stared into her brilliant eyes and forced himself to breathe. He didn’t want her to be scared. He didn’t want her to worry. But before he could think twice, before he quite knew he meant to do it, he was kissing her.

He buried his hands in her short dark hair, and her arms twined tightly around his waist. As Fenris kissed her deeply and took the taste of her tongue in his mouth, all he could think was that her laugh was his favourite sound as well.

Hawke nipped his lower lip, and Fenris exhaled heavily against her lush mouth. “Come,” he whispered. “Let’s go inside.”

“Okay,” she breathed.

“Oh,” Cole said. “You don’t need to follow me anymore?”

Hawke snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth, and Fenris scowled at Cole. “No,” he said firmly. “Go stay with Solas.”

“All right,” Cole said, and he disappeared.

Fenris turned back to Hawke, and she grinned at him and twisted her fingers into his vest. “You’re blushing,” she teased.

Fenris pinned her against the battlements, and she laughed. He admired her dancing coppery eyes and savoured her lilting laughing voice, then nuzzled her cheekbone.

“I don’t want you to be scared,” he whispered.

She stroked his neck and brushed his lips with hers. “Just keep laughing for me, Fenris,” she murmured. “That’s how we’ll get through this.”

He nodded, then exhaled tremulously as Hawke licked his lower lip, and then they were kissing once more, kissing ravenously on the battlements as the navy-blue blanket of night bled across the sky.

A minute later, Hawke broke from his lips and stroked his chin with her thumb. “Let’s go to our room, shall we?” she suggested. “I have a few other favourite sounds that I’d like to hear you make.”

Her smile was wicked, and her eyes were bright and brazen with laughter. Fenris lovingly stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “Yes. Let’s go,” he whispered.

Later that night, when the stars dotted the sky outside the balcony and the rumpled sheets lay twisted around their bare bodies in the bed they shared, Fenris fell asleep.

And when he dreamed that night, his dreams were sweet and bright.

****************************

ENDNOTE: I purposely left out the moment when the Inquisitor decides if Cole should kill the dying soldier or not, because I feel the canon writing of this scene is biased against the mercy killing: Cole approves if you tell him to let the soldier live, and there is no change in approval if you let him follow his own judgment and kill the soldier. I’m a clinician in an acute care hospital, and in my opinion, a ‘mercy killing’ for a terminal patient (also known as physician-assisted suicide or medical assistance in dying, in modern parlance) may be the most compassionate thing you can do if it is what the patient wants and nothing else can be done for them. And I personally think that Cole would feel the same.

[goodnightkisseu]

Lee Daehwi - Banquet

Requested By: anonny~ (“ HOLA MI CHICA! can i request a Lee Daehwi fic where liKe it's kind of a romeo and juliet thing? where they like meet at a party and kiss but then he shows up by her balcony? ”)

Genre: Fluff, kind of cliche but it’s cute ;A;

Note: So at first I was thinking this would all be fine, but this fic got more involved than I was expecting. I’ve never really written royal!au type fics before, and this is kind of like that as it was requested for a Romeo and Juliet type of setting? Anyway, I hope that you all enjoy it! I hope that my struggles weren’t in vain xD As always, feel free to let me know what you think! ^^

Enjoy~

Because of the situation with tumblr links, please check my bio for links to my masterlist~

- goodnightkisseu’s admin / ashley <3

No matter how many times you attended these types of parties, you were never going to get used to them. Everyone was dressed to the nine, flaunting their gorgeous gowns, elegant overcoats, and finest jewelry. This wasn't the world that you were born into. So, each time, at your cousin's request, that you were put into a tight bodice, hair pulled back and styled, draped in a dress that was far more than anything your parents could afford with a year's worth of their pay, you always felt out of place. You were by definition, in every way, a commoner. You were a young girl born to two working-class parents. Your mother was a seamstress, and your father worked at the docks. You worked at a bakery in the middle of town, and in your eyes, there really wasn't anything extraordinary about you. You were just an average girl.

But tonight, you were dolled up, paraded around as if you were part of the elite.

You weren’t here because you wanted to feel the thrill of being at a big fancy party. You were here because of your cousin, Yuna. Unlike you, she was part of one of the most revered families in your tiny town, your aunt having married into the Duchess' family. She had everything she could have asked for. Wealth, the royal title, the ability to do whatever she wanted, and many other things. In contrast, you worked day in and day out to just afford necessities. Even though the two of you were very different, you were also very close. She never saw you as lowly, someone that was beneath her. Instead, she saw you as an equal in every way. The two of you would often spend any free time you had together. Which was also why you knew about her current dilemma. She was soon to be married, and you were the first one she came running to.

"I've barely thought of what I'm going to do when we travel to the next town over next week, and they want me to start thinking of marriage?! They already have everything planned out too!" she whined as the pair of you sat on her bed. Yuna pulled her legs up towards her torso, face buried in her pillow as she let out another muffled groan. You remained at your spot on the edge of her bed, straightening out her dress that was draped on the nearby chair.

“Do your parents know?” you inquired, flattening out the fabric before looking over at her. You heard her groan again as she nodded.

"They are most definitely aware. The issue is that my say doesn't matter. My father gave me the talk about how it's time for me to start thinking about the family's power, about expanding our roots. My grandparents think much of the same. My mother understands my concerns, but she also believes that it's time for marriage. Apparently, she also married around this age as well," Yuna explained, a pout forming on her lips. "I'm aware that people of my status are to be married off, to start their own families. Yet, there are things that I want to do for myself. These things don't occur to them..."

You gave a small nod in understanding. Truthfully, you could understand where here frustration was coming from. Though you were a couple years too young to be worrying about this just yet, your mother had been bringing it up more frequently. She told you of the time when girls were to be wed, about the process of finding the right suitor, and how the entire thing could be quite stressful on families. You would have preferred to meet someone by chance, but you knew that wasn't the world that you lived in, and that something similar to what Yuna was going through, but with less fanfare, would also be in your future. If you were lucky, you'd still end up with a nice boy from your town. "Is your marriage happening soon?" you asked.

Yuna let out a defeated sigh. "Unfortunately for me, it's happening very soon. They want to start introducing me to available suitors next week. The plan is to have five eligible young men from the surrounding towns come here to meet me. They want to through a large banquet, make a festivity out of it, just so I can see which one I'm compatible with, that we may be able to move forward with. I'm worried that I'll feel isolated, that I will not know anyone there. These are usually parties for people of our parents' age, not our own..."

"But your friends will be there, won't they? You won't be completely alone," you reminded her.

"They will, but I'm sure their parents will want them looking out for their best interests as well. They're my friends, but they are also carrying their own family's pride as well. It has me worried and nervous. What if this goes downhill?" she confessed, muddling over the event in her head. However, an idea seemed to strike her, and she sat up straight. "I know! Why don't you come to the banquet too!"

Your eyes widened as you tore your eyes away from the dress you were trying to work the wrinkles out of. This seemingly harmless conversation just turned into something more intense. “M-me? W-w-why would I go?!” you exclaimed, now in shock over her proclamation.

"Because we're close and I trust you. Look, everyone else that's going to be there has some sort of agenda. My parents are trying to marry me off. My friends will be trying to find someone for themselves. You're the only one who I know will be impartial during the entire process. Come on, as my cousin, please do this for me? I’m going to be nervous as it is and having someone that is both family and a familiar face there is going to help a lot. Please?” she urged, and that's all it really took for you to say yes. Within the week, your aunt helped to get you fitted for a dress. On the night of your aunt and mother worked to doll you up, much like they had your cousin.

Both your mother and aunt worked to make sure that you didn't outshine Yuna, and you were okay with that. After all, you weren't there to be noticed that night. You were there to be support for your cousin. You stood by her side throughout the night, listening as she conversed with suitor after suitor. From time to time, they would address you, and you were very quick to divert their attention back to Yuna. You listened as she giggled softly while speaking with three of them, giving them each a chance to woo her, to appeal themselves to her. You watched over her fondly, glad that she was starting to loosen up, not seeming as nervous as she had earlier in the evening. Though she gave you a scare earlier, by almost fainting, to see her now, talking happily with the young men, it made you happy, happy that she was finding her place.

Although tonight was about Yuna, about finding her a suitable husband, you felt a pair of eyes following you around all night. You knew exactly who it was, yet you couldn't figure out why he seemed so interested in you. Still, you looked away from your cousin for just a moment, just long enough to lock eyes with a gentle figure that had been glancing at you from across the ballroom. And at that moment, you realized that all it took to be enraptured by Lee Daehwi was a simple glance...

You had met Daehwi earlier in the evening. Your cousin had been conversing with her friends about things that didn't concern you. So to give them some privacy, you slipped away, wandering around the large ballroom to try and find a place to yourself. After weaving through the large crowd, greeting those that greeted you first, you found yourself in a far corner. It was just far enough away from the hustle and bustle of the crowd, but close enough where you could make your way back to Yuna if needed. The quiet was nice. It gave you a chance to collect yourself... at least until a voice to your side made you jump.

"I take that you're also trying to get away from all of the excitement?" He watched as you turned to him, eyes wide. He found your reaction amusing, eyes focusing on the way your demeanor quickly shifted.

"O-oh... well, I suppose you could say that," you replied with a light laugh. "I'm not really accustomed to banquets such as this one..."

The male quirked a brow at you. "You seem like a lady of high status. Don't you go to these types of events often?" he inquired. He had found you very lovely at first, but hearing that you weren’t used to this type of thing made you even more interesting to him.

You regretted the words as soon as they left your lips. Tonight, you were supposed to be one of them, to be regal like the other people in the room. Yet here you were, blabbing to a stranger that you weren't what you seemed. It was a bit too late to backtrack now, however. He would only grow suspicious of you if you did.

"You see," you started slowly, choosing your words carefully. "My cousin is Lady Yuna. Unlike her, I'm not part of the elite, but the two of us are fond of each other, we grew up together. I'm here tonight to give her emotional support while her parents introduce her to suitor after suitor." You realized that your words could be construed as false as if you were some commoner that just snuck in to enjoy the festivities, but you hoped that he didn’t take it in that way. He seemed kind enough. He wouldn’t… right?

The young male's brow furrowed at your words, yet as he thought of them, they felt plausible. After all, there was no way a commoner could sneak in dressed as well as you were. No, there was no way they would be able to afford the extravagant gown you had, the jewelry the adorned you. These were all tell-tale signs that someone wanted you here, and he was not about to question that.

"Your secret is safe with me," he reassured you. He watched as your lips curled into a smile, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. At that moment, something struck his heart. It was a feeling that the young man had never felt before. Yet, he tried to ignore it for the time being. “My name is Lee Daehwi, and you are?”

You quickly told him your name as he gingerly took your hand and gave it a kiss, making you blush at the sudden contact. “Are you here to court Lady Yuna as well?” you inquired.

He shook his head gently. "I am not... currently. My parents sent me here to see who had sent their children to court her. They are interested in a marriage with her family though. They just don't want to rush it yet. You said you were close with Lady Yuna, yes? Maybe you could tell me a bit more about yourself, and about here as well?" he suggested. Though it was a little painful to know that you were a means to an end to get to know your cousin, you agreed. Because the truth was that you found the male before you entrancing. You found him more interesting than anything at this party.

You spoke with Daehwi for what felt like an eternity. At first, it was simple things. You talked about your upbringing as well as his own. You spoke a bit about your cousin, but the conversation quickly shifted off of her and back to you. You learned a lot about each other, things that you liked about each other. This no longer felt like a chance to gather information. It became about getting to know someone you had a connection with. But, before much could come of it - though you were sure nothing would - one of Yuna's maids appeared before you, requesting that you follow her. Your cousin had been looking for you and sent her maids around the ballroom looking for you. With a nod, you agreed to head back with her, and as fast as you had arrived in Daehwi's life, you were gone.

The majority of the evening from that point on was spent at your cousin's side. You often steal glances at Daehwi while he talked with other party attendees. To say that you felt something while the two of you talked would have been putting it mildly. You had grown fond of Daehwi. You had a bit of a crush, puppy love, for someone you knew didn’t feel the same about you. You pushed it aside as best you could, hid it behind a wall as your cousin told you of her evening, the people that she clicked with immediately as well as those she would like to avoid.

As the night drew to a close the ballroom floor came to life, each suitor offering their hand to Yuna for a final dance. You stood by, watching the spectacle in front of you before you felt a tap on your shoulder. Thinking it was one of the maids, you quickly turned, only to come face to face with someone you weren’t expecting.

“Daehwi!” you exclaimed, surprised to see him there with a smile on his face.

“Would you share this dance with me?” he asked, extending his hand to you.

You were hesitant to take his offer, knowing where you stood with him, but your heart told you to take the opportunity while you could, and you let him lead you into the crowd. He was quick to lead in the dance, holding you by the waist as he let you adjust to the tempo of the song. You had never been much of a dancer, but Daehwi was patient. Once you had found your way, he led you around the dance floor, holding you close as you moved amongst the other exquisite ladies and gentlemen.

"How has your night been?" Daehwi asked gently.

"It's been as expected. Been keeping Yuna company while she meets with person after person," you told him. Yet, this was when you realized something. "But, Daehwi, I realized that you haven't spoken to Yuna all night. I thought you were here to introduce yourself as well?"

A smile formed on his lips, obviously amused that you hadn't said anything about his absence earlier. “May I tell you the truth?”

You gave a small nod and he leaned in a bit closer to tell you his secret. You were on edge, but you wanted to know, your curiosity getting the better of you. “I was here to meet Yuna, but I believe that I met someone better… and she is here in my arms now.”

When his words resonated with you, your face turned a brilliant red, making the young man before you laugh. “Did you not notice that I would often purposefully avoid her?”

"I-I did, but I thought you were just biding your time," you admitted. "But Daehwi... you know the truth about me. You know that I'm no well-off. I work in a bakery. My parents work in the town..." you reminded him.

"I'm aware, but it's also what I like about you. Your outlook on life is completely different than girls that grew up as part of the court. You're kind, you're gentle. I've never met anyone like you." Daehwi knew that his words could have been taken as strong, insistent, but he couldn't help it. He liked you, and he didn't want to miss the opportunity to make it known.

“Even so, you can’t tell your parents that you fell in love with a commoner. They'll be upset.”

You were right. His parents would be livid. He came here to meet a noblewoman, and instead fell in love with a woman of a completely different class. “I know, but I… I want to make this work. Please let me try to convince them?”

Though reluctant and wary, you agreed. As you nodded, you felt a soft pair of lips against yours, sending a warmth straight to your heart. And that was how your night came to an end.

========

The festivities ended late into the evening, Yuna suggesting that you should stay with her and leave in the morning. You knew she wanted to do it to hear about what you thought of such a party, as well as to tell you who she had planned to meet again amongst her suitors. Noticing the change in your demeanor, how much happier you seemed, she also managed to weasel out of you the source of your smile. Nervously, you told her of her own run-in with a boy that had captured your heart in such a short amount of time. She kept telling you it was love at first sight, a true love, and you only brushed her off saying that she was being silly. There was no way. He would go home and completely forget about you.

While Yuna went to get ready for bed, you took the chance to wander out onto her balcony, needing some fresh air. Your mind wandered back to that dance, to that kiss, and you couldn't help the light flush that came to your cheeks when you realized how effortlessly your first kiss had been stolen.

As you looked below, watching as the other noble partygoers got into their carriages to head home, your eyes caught sight of a familiar male. He was about to get into the carriage just below your balcony. Feeling eyes on him, he looked up and locked eyes with you as he waited for his turn to enter. "Did you have a good night?" he called out, simultaneously making you smile and blush like mad.

“I did, thanks to a very special person,” you said back.

“I think you’ll be seeing that very special person again soon. Just keep your eyes peeled,” he told you, before disappearing into the carriage and riding off into the night.

It was weeks later, without hearing a word from him, that a large carriage appeared at your home. Daehwi stepped out from it and greeted your parents. He told them who he was, of his noble family and how he wanted to take your hand in marriage. He arrived with offerings to appease your parents. The rest of it was history. Because of that chance meeting away from the crowd, because of that connection you had with him, that was how the two of you could live happily ever after...

[fyrapartnersearch]

A very witty title!

Hey everyone!

So, I'm craving some M/M roleplays at the moment. You can call me Katie, by the way! I’m 23 years old (in two months anyway, so for now still 22), so no worries in that department and I wish you’d be over 18 years old as well.

Since this seems to be a deal breaker for a lot of people, I'll get it out there now: I'm most comfortable playing the sub/bottom character. So, if you’re looking for someone to play a switch or dom, I’m sorry but I’m not your girl for it.

I prefer playing over e-mail, possibly skype.

When you send me an RP request: 

- Something about yourself, please. I like to know my RP partners

- Something about your RP style (how much you usually write, past or present tense, etc.)

- Your limits (What you will not in any circumstances write)

- What you'd like to RP with me

- Smut or not (I'm fine with both tbh, though I do love smut in my RPs) and if you’re looking for a mostly smut or mostly plot kind of RP

A bit about me and how I write:

- I adore long replies (I can write up to about 4 pages on Word, in some instances), but 1 decently sized paragraph is the minimum for me. If the replies I get are shorter than that, I'll get bored easily.

- I usually write 3rd person, past tense, and in paragraphs. I ask you don't write 1st person or script style.

- Plot! Plot is a must!! I love plotting, and creating worlds and all that. I adore smut and I can write an RP that's 80% smut, 20% plot, but there still has to be that little bit of plot too :3 

- I love talking OOC and gushing about our characters, creating soundtracks, plotting and all that, but if you don't like it that's ok too. I only ask that you can talk with me OOC enough for us to get the plot figured out.

- I am a full-time student at university, so it might sometimes take a while for me to answer. If I haven't replied within 3-4 days, feel free to ask me about it though!

- I don't use face-claims, and rarely use anime/manga characters, simply because I can't find a picture that looks exactly like what I imagine my characters to look like. It's ok if you want to use pictures etc. for your character though.

What I like:

- Fantasy

- Medieval fantasy

- Historical settings (especially court settings. Anything with nobility/royalty)

- Drama, heartbreak, arranged marriage, secret lovers, forbidden love, assassination attempts, action, etc.

- Anything fairytale-ish, with princes, pirates, sorcerers, werewolves, vampires, demons, mages, [i]dragons[/i], etc.

- Cultural differences and misunderstandings

- Soulmates

- Alpha/beta/omega dynamics (and Mpreg!) 

- Smut

- RP partners who can bring something to the RP. I want a partner who can make the plot move forward and gives me something to work with, because if I have to drag my partner along, I will get bored quickly

- Us coming up with the plot together. I don't want to be the only one coming up with all the ideas 

I'm honestly not too keen on a modern setting, most RPs I've had in modern setting have been more or less boring tbh, but I can be persuaded to try it again if the plot is good enough (aka. there has to be a lot of action and preferably drama).

Pairings I'd like to try:

(The roles I'd prefer to play will be in bold)

- Demon/Angel

- Demon/Human

- Incubi/Human

- Shapeshifter/Shapeshifter

- Even more specifically: Any canine shapeshifter/feline shapeshifter 

- Prince/Rich noble

- Prince or king/ Prince in an arranged marriage scenario

- Human/Merfolk

- Vampire/werewolf

- Shapeshifter/human

- Alpha/omega

- Pirate, assassin, mercenary/nobility, royalty

There are so many more that I can't even remember them all, but these are just some suggestions! Don't be afraid to ask me if I'd be interested in something specific even if it isn't mentioned here.

A few plots I'd like to do: (YC = your character, MC = my character)

Assassin/Nobility plot:

Hired to assassinate a king/nobleman/important political figure, YC gets to work. He's supposed to disguise himself as a noble/someone who can earn his target's trust, but what he isn't counting on is running into his soulmate while on the job; his target's son, MC. Deciding to take advantage of the situation, he first plans to earn MC's trust and begins courting him, but his plan goes awry when YC realizes he's starting to have real feelings for MC. Does he betray MC's trust and use him to get to his target, or does he abandon the mission, we can plot this further together.

Arranged marriage plot:

MC and YC are due to be wed sometime soon, their fathers have arranged the match to end the long-lived wars and strives between their clans. MC has to move from his home and land to a completely new environment and culture, where his husband-to-be isn't in the least interested in even trying to make the marriage work. YC flaunts his lover around in front of MC (maybe not realizing it hurts him more than YC meant for it to), and MC - having given up on the thought of a happy marriage - in turn seeks the company of others. A third party intervenes, opposed to the marriage, and MC and YC have to flee. While they're running away from the conflict, they realize they have much more in common than they originally thought.

Demon summoning:

MC is a human who, on a day of boredom, decides to try out a demon summoning. It was supposed to be a joke, something to relieve his boredom, but turns out demons do exist. YC is one such a creature, and happens to be the one MC accidentally summoned. MC isn’t in too much of a hurry to sell his soul to the Devil and go to Hell after he dies, but YC can’t go back without a soul, more specifically the soul of his summoner, so they’re stuck together. Needless to say, MC is not bored anymore.  

Soulmates: 

In a world torn by wars, famine and poverty, two princes are born to opposing sides. One, YC, becomes the Emperor at a fairly young age, forced to face the horrors of war as the leader of a nation. The other, MC, is the youngest prince in his family, living his whole life sheltered from the life outside of the palace walls. At night he dreams of another life, his past life where he had found his soulmate, wishing to find them again, imagining everything will be a fairytale after he does. When he is abducted by YC’s men and held hostage in YC’s castle, he must face reality when he realizes the young Emperor hardened by years of war is the man he’s seen in his dreams. Their kingdoms have been mortal enemies since the beginning of time, but can that change? 

Ancient Egypt:

YC is a pharaoh in ancient Egypt, or a world resembling that of ancient Egypt. MC is his lover, previously a slave or servant who caught his interest, now in a rather influential position as someone the pharaoh himself favors. As any ruler, even YC has enemies in his court, those who wish to rule in his stead, and indeed one stormy night when MC is on his way to YC’s chambers, he overhears a conversation between some of the most powerful people in the country about an assassination plan. He brings the news to YC, of course, but even with him aware of the plot to take his life, he cannot stop it. Having to flee with MC, YC - once the most powerful man in the country - has to start anew from the very bottom.

Gladiator plot:

YC has been brought to mighty Rome as a slave, now to be trained as a gladiator in the most renowned ludus (a “gladiator training school”) of Rome. The owner of the ludus, a wealthy man of high social standing, promises fair treatment to those who do well in the arena. He has sons, the youngest of whom (MC) is not as interested in the art of warfare and fighting as his father would hope. When MC expresses a carnal desire for YC, neither of them thought their secret meetings in the dark would lead to love. A gladiator - a slave – and the son of a nobleman can never be together… in Rome, at least.  

UHm, I probably forgot something, but feel free to ask whatever else you want to know! ^^ Hope to hear from you soon!

My e-mail: Katie_Vainio@hotmail.com

[waywardsignnsa]

Happy Birthday Inaya.

@hcppiier making me cry over here. below the cut for length reasons

It was finally her actual birthday, despite all the festivities he had already dedicated to her – today was the most important day. Awakening her with kisses along side her body, a soft awakening that was loving in all the sense. Zafir was aiming to please her on this day and even sang to her the wonderful birthday song in their mother tongue. With kisses and celebration, the feast of the morning came and along with Zafir hurry for her to get ready and that he picked out a wonderful outfit for her already. One that was pleasantly joined with a rather extra crown to indicate that she was the Birthday queen today. 

As much as he was flaunting her yet again, he was simply doing his best to please her today. Just being on her beckoning and call, if that was how the saying went. There was no present yet, for it will come later. Though even now he was too excited to try and contain himself. But he did his very best to keep it a secret. Though even that was very hard for him to do. So if she guessed ahead of times, or even made an assumption of what it could be – then hopefully she will still acted surprised. 

But it would come when the bar would open, how he always had his moment of introduction for Inaya and his grand speech about how wonderful she was. It was then, he asked for her to join him on the stage they had there, to stand beside him as he looked towards her with a grin. 

“ There is no doubt in my mind that I had always loved you, my lotus. – From the day the fire created me, and I had met you.. I knew you were to be in my life for a very long time. I am thankful for the years we’ve been together and for our growth. I couldn’t say there is another creature I would ever want by my side than you. I am truly a lucky man to have a beautiful woman standing before me. One that I hold very dear in my enormous heart.” His grin grew at that part. 

“ But for your birthday, lets give you a few more surprises yes?” he grinned. Magically his hands allowed for a retangluar box to appear, handing it over to his beloved once he did. He rubbed his neck as she moved to open them – inside ? Golden bangles that he had hidden away since years ago. With little lotus designs on them, it was fitting for how their nicknames went. But perhaps to anyone else they were merely jewelry that they’ve seen him give to her before. But these .. were engagement bangles that were centuries old and he’s kept around for this sort of opportunity. 

“ I was wondering when you were going to start nagging me over this .. but you never did so .. I took it upon myself to make this official, despite always calling you my wife. ” He knew that materials weren’t always necessary for their love, but fuck that. He wanted everyone to know just who she was married to, who loved her the most, who would do anything for her. but the golden bangles were merely the first sign of that. Because not soon after, so everyone in the room could understand what was happening, he dropped to his knee. 

“ So let’s do this right, my love…” he spoke, lacking the immaturity and foolishness, despite the grin on his face. He was more than serious than he has ever been in his life. On his knee now, another small box came from his magic and he opened it to reveal a golden ring to match it. He remained grinning as he looked at his beloved’s face. “Now I will properly say my line .. so you can properly say the right answer.” he joked, despite the softness in his eyes and the small nervous shakes in his hands. “ Inaya, my Queen, my love, my lotus, my lioness … will you officially become my wife ? " 

Oh if she were to play a little game it wouldn’t matter to him, he knew her heart, knew his own. If she were to say yes, well that wasn’t the end of this story either. Because tonight’s night was a pure wedding invite, as he already hired some person to make them official under Allah. To go through the steps to be one another among the eyes of everyone there. They didn’t really have family for them to consider inviting, nor that many close friends outside of their staff. He didn’t worry about that … just wanted to be married to her – and he thought why not do it on her birthday as well ? Zafir just couldn’t wait any longer to not be officially married with his Inaya. It was an outrage that he hadn’t done this sooner and yet no one mentioned it !! 

Though if Inaya were to disagree with getting married on her birthday – cancel all that. Zafir would heavily gesture to everyone to put away the decorations for a wedding. But the celebration continues none the less and there will still be cake that satisfied her. And there would still be a man beside her, to love her and to continue making her feel as though she was the only woman in the world for him. The look of pure love and devotion was the core emotion in his eyes tonight. His eyes following her everywhere she went. For once.. Zafir was quiet and laid back to simply just watch his belove. Before feeling his own eyes swell with water as he watch her, how his love for her grew just by doing that. Hopefully no one witness his wiping them away, though if Inaya had he simply would tell her the truth regardless. 

” These tears are simply caused by the one who makes me the happiest in my life… happy tears, my love. Im very much happy..“ he would speak, soft before kissing her head and then her lips. 

She could never tire of the way Zafir spoiled her ... and quite frankly the outfit he had insisted she wear complimented her very wonderfully ... and the crown? While it was certainly a bit much she thought highly enough of herself that it was certainly necessary considering just what today was! So again that week she let herself be led down to the bar, let Zafir make a grand entrance for her ... not because she particularly needed one ... but because he enjoyed it far too much for her to tell him that once was enough. Besides ... she always had liked a good show. 

Little would she know the show that Zafir would be putting on tonight would be far different than she would ever expect. Marriage was not something that Inaya ever really thought about ... really it was more of a human thing in her eyes, despite knowing other creatures that had other ‘versions’ (so to speak) of it. Though she would be lying if she had said she didn’t admire engagement bangles from time to time ... 

Though none were more beautiful than the one she looked at now, violet eyes naturally drawn to whatever he was presenting to her as she stood at his side. Holding the box in her hands, her expression showed a very genuine surprise as she looked down to the gorgeous jewelry she now held, only drawn away from the sight of the gold by Zafir’s action ... and immediately noticed it for what it was. Genuinely feeling so much surprise, she nearly didn’t believe the words that were spoken as he asked her to be his wife, a jumble of conflicting emotions rolling through her mind ... until a smile slowly began to build on her lips. 

Forcing him to wait for just a moment longer, Inaya moved slowly to slip the bangles over her hands, letting the weight of them settle on her wrists without once letting her gaze part from the love of her life. Only when they were properly in place, would Inaya reach forward, able to see the nervousness and anxiety in Zafir as clear as day despite the expert level of acting he showed now ... and cupped his face with both hands. “I would be honored to be your wife...” she spoke, not bothering to make her voice heard by others ... this moment wasn’t for them. It was for her and Zafir. 

Letting the ring be slipped on her finger, with a snap of her fingers a beautiful wedding gown flowed over her form ... though she left her crown on, a beautiful smile on her lips as she looked to him. “Better now than never, right my love?” she spoke, laughing lightly ... and the following moments? Were some of the best moments of her life ... 

One she happily sealed with a kiss repeatedly through the night, coming to him finally to once more hold his face in her hands. “...Let us go to our room and consummate this marriage, my love...” she whispered ... though really she simply just wanted to be alone with him. Now and forever more.

[marriageofconveniencerp]

Congratulations Nessa and thank you for applying for another character! Your application for Brittany was awesome and she will be a great addition to our family. Please send an Ask to the main with your blog information!

Name/Alias/Pronouns: Something we can call you. she/her

Age: 

Your Birthday: march 30th

Time zone: GMT -3

Activity level: 7/10. I work in the afternoons.

Trigger Warning: Rape, violence, incest.

Anything else?: There is no password but please read the rules.

IN CHARACTER.

Desired Character: Brittany Susan Pierce

Desired FC: Heather Morris

Birthday: February 25th.

Gender/Pronouns: she/her.

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Straight.

Occupation/School:  Physical Education teacher. Choreographer.

FAMILY INFORMATION.

If you’re applying for a family already on the masterlist, please delete the first two questions from your application. Please read the Family Bullet Points. 

The Pierce family may be the most underrated family out there. Most don’t take them seriously, when they should.

Mr. and Mrs. Pierce are among the richest but don’t flaunt their wealth like most. They prefer to let people underestimate them as they love to prove people wrong.

Why are they/did they, arrange your characters Marriage?: Her parents think the Abrams are a suitable family to join to.

How do you feel about the person your parents chose for you?: Brittany is okay with Artie as his arranged husband, she sees he is a good man and that’s all that matters to her.

Bio

 Brittany Susan Pierce was born on February 25th to one of the wealthiest families on Lima, Ohio. And from a very young age, she understood she would have to earn her place in the family. See, Brittany was always catalogued as someone with no intelligence at all, but, as it run in the family, she always proved everyone wrong. From an early age, she showed her passion for dancing, she found easy to coordinate her body and have grace and elegance when she danced. Knowing she should work her way to what she wanted, Brittany did it with passion. In high school, she started at the bottom of the cheerleading chain and escalated, thanks to her talent, to be head cheerleader on her junior to senior year, while at the same time she studied ballet.

Once she graduated high school, she started studying physical education since it was natural for her already while she gave dance lessons to pay for her career. Now at 29 years old, Brittany is comfortable and happy with how life turned to be. Not every day you can work from what you love, and she feels lucky enough to do it.

On her love life, Brittany always had boys around her. Being a cheerleader was a benefit to get good dates with popular guys, but Brittany always liked them smart rather than good looking guys. She preferred a good conversation over muscles. Yet she had to play dumb most of the times, because she was supposed to be easy just because she was a cheerleader.  Her face of happiness when people actually surprised themselves that she was in fact smart was priceless. When she heard she was arranged to marry Artie Abrams, she couldn’t be happier. They knew each other’s families and knows for a fact that he is a good man and smart, and that’s all she cares about.

[choicesfanatic86]

TTS:  Part 13 (Liam x MC)

DISCLAIMER:  All characters belong to Pixelberry Studios, except characters unique to my story.  Those belong to me. ;)

PAIRINGS:  Riley (MC) x OC, Riley (MC) x Liam, Liam x Riley (MC) x OC, Olivia x Drake, Bertrand x Savannah, Maxwell x OC

SUMMARY:  When Liam unexpectedly shows up at the Beaumont Estate, Riley’s emotions run wild.

If you are new to the series and would like to catch up by reading previous parts, please check out my master fan fiction listing.  CATCH UP HERE

TAGS:  @herladyshipxx  @theroyalweisme @blackcatkita @devineinterventions2 @hopefulmoonobject @captainkingliam @pbchoicesobsessed @cocomaxley @queencatherynerhys @mfackenthal @boneandfur @spetstoof @bobasheebaby @grapefrults @pessimystic-fangirl @dralenamax @mspaigemoore @drakelover78 @kaitycole @jayjay879 @hhiggs @umccall71 @penguininapinktuxedo

If you want to be added to the tag list so that you an be notified when new parts of the series are released, please let me know, and I will add you to the above list.  Also, if the tags aren’t working for you, I can also message you when I post a new part.  Please request to be added to the “message” list and I’ll gladly shoot you a quick message of the new part’s posting.

Part 13! :) We are a little over half way complete with the series, guys! :) I hope you enjoy some Liam x Riley angsty romance, because this chapter is only about them!  Thank you for all the sweet messages about Part 12.  It’s my favorite part by far!

Part 14 will be released on 4/19/18.

PART 13 - Liam

It was the first time in two years that she had allowed his name to slip past her lips.  His name rang over and over again in her head.  It was no longer he or him . . . generic terms to refer to someone she thought was long out of her life.  Instead, it was just Liam.  It had been so much easier to pretend that she didn’t care about him or about the love that they had shared when she didn’t say his name.  It helped her to forget, or at least try to forget the memories between them.  At least that’s what she told herself.  Hearing it . . . saying it . . . it made things much more real.  Suddenly, she could no longer hide from the reality that there was unfinished business between the two of them.  She had left Cordonia on that God awful night without as much as a goodbye.  She knew better to tell him she was leaving.  After all, she had made herself very clear about her position on things between them.  She knew that if she went to tell him goodbye, she’d take one look at him, and suddenly throw caution to the wind again and stay.  For him.  Stay until it killed her.  Stay until her heart was shattered into a million more pieces than it already had been.  

Standing here in front of him had made her heart feel as if it were going to jump out of her chest.  She didn’t know what to expect.  The silence between them lingered and each passing moment had her feeling more and more anxious.  The waiting for one of them to speak was killing her.  She had millions of things she had wanted to say in that moment, yet she couldn’t bring herself to say any of them.  She imagined that he probably felt the same way.  She nervously twisted the sides of her sweatpants, her gaze wandering over Liam.  In the back of her mind, she had realized that she probably, at some point, would run into him while in Cordonia, but she hadn’t imagined it would be so soon.  She felt so confused.  She remembered feeling the same thing that God awful night she had left.  She had never felt more lost . . . well except for now.  As hard as she tried to push that night out of her memories, their last conversation would forever be ingrained in her mind; after all it was the night she had closed the door on Cordonia for what she thought would be forever.

“Liam,” she yelled through falling tears, not caring if anyone else in the palace could hear her.  She was angry, upset and most importantly hurt.  She needed to talk to him.  Something had to give.  Riley could not sit through another court event with the side-eyes and whispers.  She couldn’t take the public and private ridicule anymore.  “Liam,” she pounded on the door of his study furiously.

He opened the door swiftly, motioning for her to quiet down.  “Riley . . . what’s the matter?” Liam’s brows creased in worry as he pulled her inside before anyone could see them together.  

Riley narrowed her eyes as he tried to calm her down.  He was concerned about the gossip.  They couldn’t have the betrothed king seen running around with one of his former suitors, the American slut no less.  The monarchy’s stability had already been questioned enough over the years.  They didn’t need another scandal adding a black mark to its ever-turbulent history.

“I can’t take this anymore!” She exclaimed, throwing her hands up in defeat.  “These people . . . this place . . . nothing is going to change.  We aren’t going to find Tariq.  The scandal is never going to be resolved,” she cried out sadly.

Liam walked over to her, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders.  “They will find Tariq, Riley.  We just have to be patient.  This sort of thing takes careful planning and calculation.  It – “ Liam tried to explain, before she interrupted.

“It takes time,” she said disgustedly.  “I know!  That’s all I’ve been hearing for two months, Liam.  How much more, Liam?  I can’t help but feel we’re running toward an ending instead of a beginning ,” she sobbed.

“Riley, what’s bothering you?” He led her over to the couch in his study, having her sit down to calm herself.  “It isn’t like you to get so upset about these sorts of things.  What happened?”

She started to carefully wipe away the tears from his eye, trying to compose herself.  “Lady Kiara’s mother called me the American slut at dinner tonight,” she whispered sadly.  She saw his jaw clench, disapproval forming in his eyes.  

“She’s not the only one, Liam.  I hear the rumors . . . the whispers about the troubled American.  They say I’ve brought shame to the monarchy.  Maybe I have,” she looked at him sadly.  “Everyone at court thinks I’m a joke.  Then there’s Madeline,” she sighed.

“What about her?” He asked, a bit more concerned than before.

“She’s constantly flaunting the engagement in my face.  Do you know what she had the audacity to have me do?” Riley exclaimed.

Liam shook his head sadly.  “She made me pick up her wedding band the other day,” a new set of tears starting to stream down her face.  “That was supposed to be my wedding band, Liam,” she tried to get out, her voice quaking.

Liam started to rub her back soothingly.  “I know things have been difficult for you,” he replied sadly.  “I wish there were something I could do to make things easier for you.”

She looked at him through bleary eyes.  “But, Liam, there is something you can do.  You’re the King.  Can’t you put a stop to this?”

Liam’s eyes shone of deep regret.  “I’m so sorry, Riley, but there’s nothing I can do.  Bastien and the rest of the security team are working tirelessly to find Tariq so that we can clear your name, but you heard my father, the monarchy is at risk.  If it’s revealed that the Crown was involved with a plot to rig the selection of Cordonia’s Queen . . . who knows how the people would react?”

Riley heaved a deep sigh, suddenly feeling so emotionally drained.  “Liam, how much longer will I have to endure the whispers?  The lies?”

He frowned, grabbing her hand.  “We have to be patient.  My love, we will wait for as long as it takes,” he squeezed her hand, trying to be encouraging.

“Liam . . . the wedding is in two weeks,” she whispered.

He nodded despondently.  “I’m well aware of how close it is, Riley.”

“Are you going to marry her?”  She asked, a wave of anger washing over her.  She stood, pulling her hand away from his grasp.  “Tell me honestly, Liam.  If we are unable to find Tariq and there isn’t any other way to clear my name, are you going to go through with it?”

“Riley . . .” He started, a bit speechless at her sudden burst of outrage.

“Liam,” she said firmly.  “Just tell me if you’re going to go through with it,” she demanded, desperately.

He averted his eyes from her steely gaze.  “I will do what I have to do for Cordonia,” he said without emotion.  

Riley felt like she had been sucker punched in the gut.  Mere months ago she needed to talk him out of abdicating.  She remembered their discussion in the grotto about what their lives would be like away from court.  Riley could picture every part of their regular, ordinary lives.  She longed for it, of course, but she knew that Liam wouldn’t be able to give up the monarchy.  She would never want him to do that for her.  Now, suddenly she felt differently.  Cordonia be damned, all she wanted was Liam.  She tried hard not to cry, biting her lower lip until she could taste her salty blood on her tongue.  

“What does that mean for us then?”  She bit back a sob.  She didn’t want him to see her cry.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said quietly.  He stayed silent for a while; Riley contemplated whether or not she should leave.  After all, what more could be said?  He had ultimately sealed the coffin of their relationship.  He’d marry Madeline, and she’d be left out in the cold mending a broken heart.  She turned to walk away, when he grabbed her hand, pulling her closely to him.  “Have you thought any more about Madeline’s proposition?”

Riley’s face contorted into pure rage, she pushed him way from her.  How could he even ask that?  She had made it clear to him that if he were to go through with the marriage, she couldn’t be with him.  It wasn’t fair to him . . . to her . . . and as much as it pained her to say, it wasn’t fair to Madeline either.  Riley was no longer on the verge of tears, instead, she was on a warpath.

“What kind of person do you think I am, Liam?  We’ve spent all this time together and it feels like you don’t know me at all,” she screamed.  “I’d never do that.  You have to make a choice, Liam.  It will be a difficult one, but you have to think of your happiness . . . you have to think of our future . . . if you still see a future for us,” she added.

Liam was silent, taking in her words.  He walked over to his bar cart, pouring himself a glass of scotch.  He sipped quietly, Riley waiting earnestly for his response.  He inhaled deeply before starting, “What kind of King would I be if I put my own selfish desires before the needs of my nation?”

The words struck Riley across the face.  She knew then that she could no longer stay in Cordonia.  How broken had this country made him?  How broken had his father made him?  She looked at him with a newfound sadness.  Maybe he knew all along that their time together was fleeting.  The happily ever after was never in the cards for them.  She didn’t have a chance in hell in marrying him.  

“What kind of man does it make you if you’d gladly have an affair in order to fulfill your selfish desires?” she spat back at him.  She shook her head angrily.  “To hell with Cordonia, Liam.  To hell with the monarchy.  To hell with you,” she yelled.  “I wish I never came to this godforsaken country.  I wanted to marry you.  I wanted a family,” a small sob escaped her lip.  The future she had once pictured was slipping away from her with each passing second.  “You and this goddamn country have done nothing but ruin my life,” she hiccupped.

“Think about what you’re saying, Riley,” he tried to reason with her.

“I know exactly what I’m saying, Liam.”  She turned away from him, for what she thought would be the last time and sadly walked away.

When she left Cordonia, she vowed to never think of him again.  Of course, that was much easier said than done.  It was a lie she told herself so that she could move on.  It took months before she was even able to get him out of her head.  After all, how could she just forget someone she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with?  The love . . . the excitement . . . the passion.  She had never experienced that with anyone else.  She had foolishly believed that they would have the storybook ending that all great romances had.  She was wrong.  The memories of their fight burned in her mind, causing her eyes to water as she was brought back to the present, still awkwardly standing out in the veranda, waiting for one of them to make the next move.  

Looking at him standing in front of her, there was a part of her that ached with him being so close, yet so untouchable.  She remembered all the nights they spent together, wrapped in one another’s arms, kissing one another until they were out of breath.  She remembered the secret rendezvous on the engagement tour, when she still had hope that they would be together in the end.  She longed for the days when his gentle kisses would make her woozy and oh so happy that she’d spend days smiling after a simple night with him.

But then she remembered Madeline and the wedding and his words to her that night about Cordonia.  The raw emotions she felt back then came tumbling back.  Suddenly, she felt the urge to scream at him.  She wanted to scream at him for going through with the wedding . . . for leading her on and breaking her heart.  She wanted to blame him for the sleepless nights and nightmares . . . to blame him for the struggle it took to rebuild a new life for herself that didn’t include him in it.  She wanted him to hear how miserable she was those first few months after she left . . . to know the same pain and hurt that she had experienced all those years ago.

Her internal struggle was interrupted by a shiver down her spine.  A mix of the night’s cool air and her nerves had caused a chill to spread all over her body.  She felt herself begin to tremble. She started to rub her shoulders with her hands, trying to rid herself of the uncomfortable sensation.  Liam seeing this started to remove his leather jacket.  He walked forward, placing it loosely over her bare shoulders, his hand briefly brushing her arm in the process.  The trembling worsened, her body yearning for more of his touch.  She closed her eyes scolding herself at such thoughts.  She was supposed to be mad at him.

“There now, that better?” He smiled a little, breaking the silence between them.  He took a few tentative steps forward toward her, unsure how to proceed.  “I must have dreamt about this moment at least a hundred times over the years,” he whispered with a half-smile.

She looked at him, still remaining silent.  She saw the longing in his eyes.  The longing to hold her, to kiss her, to whisper the sweet words he had spoken to her all those years ago.  She closed her eyes, unable to hide the fact that she had the same longing . . . when she knew she shouldn’t.  It had been two years . . . it may as well have been two lifetimes ago.  Things had changed, and she couldn’t just pretend that things weren’t different now.  She was different now.

“I’ll have to admit,” he spoke quietly.  “I didn’t quite think this through.”

She looked up at him, confused, her eyes asking for clarification.

“When I learned that you had returned, I found myself pacing the floor of my study at the palace.  I had just returned from the derby with this new piece of information, and I didn’t know what to do with it really.  The news of your return was ever the surprise.  Considering how things were left between us, I thought you’d never step foot in Cordonia again,” he explained.  “I didn’t fully know what to do or if I should do anything at all.  So, I hopped on my motorcycle and decided to go on a ride to clear my head.  Give me a chance to rationally think things through at least that had been my intent.  As you can see, my thought process wasn’t entirely rational.  I found myself pulling up to the Beaumont property, and well, here we are,” he motioned between them.

When Riley didn’t respond, he continued to speak.  “I don’t really know why I came here.  I tried to have more restraint than this,” he looked disappointed in himself.  “I apologize; I suppose when it came to you, I never could think clearly.  I wanted to respect the fact that had you wanted me to know you were here, you’d have told me yourself.”

After what seemed like hours, Riley finally addressed him.  “Who told you I was back?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”  He asked, shaking his head at her.  “I wish it were you.  I wish I had gotten a telephone call from you telling me that you were coming back and that you’d like to talk,” he said sadly.

She turned away from him then, suddenly embarrassed.  “I guess not,” she shrugged, pulling his jacket tightly around her.

“Perhaps we should sit down?” He motioned to the couch under the awning.  “It may help you warm up a bit more,” he explained.  She nodded, moving to sit on the far right side of the couch.  He followed suit sitting on the far left side.

“Your hair is shorter,” he said quietly.  His eyes were intense as he studied all of her features, as if he were trying to memorize all the changes that had happened over the past two years.

She instinctually reached for the edges of her hair, nodding slightly.  “I wanted a change,” she ran her fingers through her hair.

“I like it . . . it’s different.  A nice different.”  Liam went to reach for her hand, but Riley pulled her hand away, taken aback by his sudden desire for physical contact.  

“I’m sorry . . . it’s just . . . I forget sometimes that we haven’t seen one another in two years.  I remember all of our time together as if it were yesterday,”  He sighed, clearly disappointed by her rejection.

“What are we doing here, Liam?” She asked quietly.

“I’m not sure,” he responded truthfully.  “When Drake came to me that night you left, he told me that you were going back to New York.  I foolishly didn’t believe him,” he sadly said.  “I was so angry and hurt after our fight, I didn’t want to see you.  He begged me to talk you out of it, but I truly did not think you would leave.  I thought that after a good night’s rest, we’d both have calmed down and have clearer heads.”  He cracked his knuckles anxiously.  “Clearly I was wrong.”

“I am sorry .  . . for leaving the way I did,” she acknowledged.  “You deserved better than that.”

He nodded, “And I’m sorry for discounting your feelings on things.  I guess I had been groomed for a life of service, I often forgot that not everyone has the same outlook on things.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t.  She let the silence sit between them, before he spoke again.  “I stood at the end of the aisle at the cathedral, half-hoping , half-expecting you to somehow appear.“

“That was rather presumptuous of you,” she stated frankly, a little bit of bite in her tone.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, taken back by the change in her tone.

“To expect me to stop your wedding, beg you not to go through with it,” she sighed.  “That’s what you meant right?”

“You left, Riley.  I never thought I’d see the day where you stopped fighting for me . . . fighting for us.”

“Fight for you,” she exclaimed, angry, but not the least bit surprised at the direction their conversation had taken.  “That’s not fair,” she yelled.  “You don’t get to say that I didn’t fight for you, Liam, because I did.  Every damn day that I had to watch you hold Madeline in your arms pretending to love her.  Listening to you tell the press how excited you were to be marrying her.  Allowing noble after noble to degrade me . . . question my character . . . That was me fighting for you,” a broken sob escaped her lips.  “You broke my heart, Liam!”

“And what of my heart, Riley?  Was your heart the only one worth caring about?  My heart broke just as yours did.  You didn’t give me as much as a goodbye.  Maybe had I known – “

Riley stopped him.  “Maybe had you known that I was leaving, things would have been different?” she asked.  “Liam, let’s not kid one another.  Nothing would have been different.  You still would have married her, and I still would have left,” she said sadly.  

“I didn’t want you to leave,” he replied.

“You didn’t give me a choice,” she said firmly.  “You asked me to be your mistress, Liam,” she said.

“I did no such thing.”  He grumbled indignantly.

“You didn’t use the word mistress, Liam.  I’ll give you that.  But a girl knows how to read between the lines.  You asked me if I’d considered Madeline’s proposition.  You know , the one where she gave us her blessing to be together in every way we wanted except through marriage.  What kind of life would that be, Liam?  I wanted a life with you where we didn’t have to hide our love for one another,” Riley started to cry, hyperventilating in the process.  Liam watched on, mouth ajar, taking her words in as she spoke.  “What if I got pregnant?  Our child would be seen at court as a bastard.  That child would have been forced to endure the same shame and ridicule that I went through every single day.  That’s if she would have even allowed me to have a child.  I went on that ridiculous engagement tour, had the press spread horrible lies.  I overcame obstacle after obstacle just to be with you, only to have my dreams of being your wife dashed time and time again,” she sobbed.

“Riley . . .” he reached his hand across the couch, placing it on her knee trying to comfort her.  

Riley didn’t shy away from the physical contact this time.  She was too upset, angry that she had allowed herself to breakdown in front of him.  The overwhelming stress of being back and trying to avoid him and reached its toll.  

“I did not come here tonight to argue about our past or to upset you.  Although, it seems as if I have unfortunately done both,” he said sadly.  “I don’t know what I had hoped to achieve by visiting you.  Perhaps I had some small sliver of hope left that we could pick up things where we left off . . . Madeline and I . . . we divorced.  I couldn’t live the lie anymore,” he explained solemnly.  “I miss what we had.  We loved one another once, Riley.  Very much.  Our relationship started out as a friendship and, I’d like us to get back to that point,” he murmured hopefully.  “Then maybe someday . . . we can revisit the idea of a relationship again,” he smiled wistfully.

“I have somebody waiting for me at home, Liam,” she blurted out thoughtlessly.  She closed her eyes.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to find out that way.  I just don’t want to mislead you,” she explained.

His face distorted into a look of disappointment, although he quickly corrected himself, giving her a light smile.  “Of course,” he said  “he must be someone very special.  I hope he realizes how lucky he is.”

Riley nodded slightly, wanting to move away from all talk of Paul.  “It’s nearly midnight,” she whispered.  “You should get back to the palace, before they realize you’re missing.”

“Come to dinner with me,” he blurted out suddenly.  Seeing the surprise on Riley’s face, he corrected his word choice.  “Please come to dinner with me,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Liam,” she replied sadly.  “Maybe it’s best if we keep our distance for a while.”

“It’s just dinner, Riley.  It would just be the two of us catching up with one another’s lives, rebuilding the friendship we once had.  It’s important to me.  I want to start over, start fresh.  I respect that you have someone who you’re with back in New York.  All I want is to be your friend,” he replied simply.

“I don’t know if I can make it tomorrow,” she explained.  “There are all these wedding events and parties,” she sighed.

“I doesn’t have to be tomorrow.  The next night . . . any night you so choose as long as you agree to have dinner with me, I will make sure my schedule is cleared.”

She frowned at him, “I don’t know . . .” she trailed off.

“Just come to dinner with me, and I promise, if after we’ve talked and shared a meal you still want nothing to do with me, I will honor your wishes and will never bother you again,” he said sorrowfully.  

She considered his words.  Could she really go to dinner with him?  Pretend that they hadn’t broken one another’s hearts?  She had just chewed his head off about everything that happened, and he still wanted a friendship with her.  He was crazy.  She closed her eyes, knowing she was about to make the wrong decision.

“Okay, I will have dinner with you.  I’ve got nothing to lose right?” she shrugged.  “Well, except my sanity I guess,” she deadpanned.

He released a low chuckle.  “Thank you.  Once again, I apologize for the intrusion, but I do not regret it,” he smiled lightly.  He pulled something out of his pocket, and grabbed a pen that she had lying on the table next to her laptop.  He scribbled something down, handing it to her.

“To let me know if you’re free tomorrow night,” he explained.  She nodded.  “I’ll be seeing you, Riley.” He once again moved to touch her hand, grazing her fingers lightly as he went to leave.

“Goodnight, Liam,” she whispered faintly as butterflies suddenly fluttered around in her stomach.

[nothingnewunderheaven]

QUEERS READ THIS         A leaflet distributed at pride march in NY              Published anonymously by Queers                         June, 1990   How can I tell you. How can I convince you, brother, sister that your life is in danger:  That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary.   There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence.  It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words.  You should by all rights be dead.  Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky or a fighter.   Straight people have a privilege that allows them to do whatever they please and fuck without fear.  But not only do they live a life free of fear; they flaunt their freedom in my face.  Their images are on my TV, in the magazine I bought, in the restaurant I want to eat in, and on the street where I live.  I want there to be a moratorium on straight marriage, on babies, on public displays of affection among the opposite sex and media images that promote heterosexuality.  Until I can enjoy the same freedom of movement and sexuality, as straights, their privilege must stop and it must be given over to me and my queer sisters and brothers.  Straight people will not do this voluntarily and so they must be forced into it.  Straights must be frightened into it. Terrorized into it.  Fear is the most powerful motivation. No one will give us what we deserve.  Rights are not given they are taken, by force if necessary.  It is easier to fight when you know who your enemy is.  Straight people are your enemy.  They are your enemy when they don't acknowledge your invisibility and continue to live in and contribute to a culture that kills you. Every day one of us is taken by the enemy.  Whether it's an AIDS death due to homophobic government inaction or a lesbian bashing in an all-night diner (in a supposedly lesbian neighborhood).               AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE   Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are.  It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred. (We have been carefully taught to hate ourselves.)  And now of course it means fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth.  Being queer means leading a different sort of                                                            2 life.  It's not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy or being assimilated. It's not about executive directors, privilege and elitism.  It's about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it's about gender- fuck and secrets, what's beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it's about the night.  Being queer is "grass roots" because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, every heart and ass and dick is a world of pleasure waiting to be explored.  Everyone of us is a world of infinite possibility. We are an army because we have to be.  We are an army because we are so powerful.  (We have so much to fight for; we are the most precious of endangered species.)  And we are an army of lovers because it is we who know what love is.  Desire and lust, too.  We invented them. We come out of the closet, face the rejection of society, face firing squads, just to love each other! Every time we fuck, we win.  We must fight for ourselves (no one else is going to do it) and if in that process we bring greater freedom to the world at large then great.  (We've given so much to that world:  democracy, all the arts, the concepts of love, philosophy and the soul, to name just a few gifts from our ancient Greek Dykes, Fags.)  Let's make every space a Lesbian and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexual geography. A city of yearning and then total satisfaction. A city and a country where we can be safe and free and more. We must look at our lives and see what's best in them, see what is queer and what is straight and let that straight chaff fall away!  Remember there is so, so little time.  And I want to be a lover of each and every one of you.  Next year, we march naked.                           ANGER   "The strong sisters told the brothers that there were two important things to remember about the coming revolutions, the first is that we will get our asses kicked.  The second, is that we will win."   I'm angry.  I'm angry for being condemned to death by strangers saying, "You deserve to die" and "AIDS is the cure." Fury erupts when a Republican woman wearing thousands of dollars of garments and jewelry minces by the police lines shaking her head, chuckling and wagging her finger at us like we are recalcitrant children making absurd demands and throwing temper tantrum when they aren't met.  Angry while Joseph agonizes over $8,000 a over for AZT which might keep him alive a little longer and which makes him sicker than the disease he is diagnosed with.  Angry as I listen to a man tell me that after changing his will five times he's running out of people to leave things to.  All of his best friends are dead. Angry when stand in a sea of quilt panels, or go to a candlelight march or attend yet another memorial service.  I will not march silently with a fucking candle and I want to take that goddamned quilt and wrap myself in it and furiously rend it and my hair and curse every god                                                            3 religion ever created.  I refuse to accept a creation that cuts people down in the third decade of their life.   It is cruel and vile and meaningless and everything I have in me rails against the absurdity and I raise my face to the clouds and a ragged laugh that sounds more demonic than joyous erupts from my throat and tears stream down my face and if this disease doesn't kill me, I may just die of frustration.  My feet pound the streets and Peter's hands are chained to a pharmaceutical company's reception desk while the receptionist looks on in horror and Eric's body lies rotting in a Brooklyn cemetery and I'll never hear his flute resounding off the walls of the meeting house again. And I see the old people in Tompkins Square Park huddled in their long wool coats in June to keep out the cold they perceive is there and to cling to whatever little life has left to offer them. I'm reminded of the people who strip and stand before a mirror each night before they go to bed and search their bodies for any mark that might not have been there yesterday.  A mark that this scourge has visited them.   And I'm angry when the newspapers call us "victims" and sound alarms that "it" might soon spread to the "general population." And I want to scream "Who the fuck am I?" And I want to scream at New York Hospital with its yellow plastic bags marked "isolation linen", "ropa infecciosa" and its orderlies in latex gloves and surgical masks skirting the bed as if its occupant will suddenly leap out and douse them with blood and semen giving them too the plague.   And I'm angry at straight people who sit smugly wrapped in their self-protective coat of monogamy and heterosexuality confident that this disease has nothing to do with them because "it" only happens to "them." And the teenage boys who upon spotting my Silence=Death button begin chanting "Faggot's gonna die" and I wonder, who taught them this? Enveloped in fury and fear, I remain silent while my button mocks me every step of the way.  And the anger I fell when a television program on the quilt gives profiles of the dead and the list begins with a baby, a teenage girl who got a blood transfusion, an elderly baptist minister and his wife and when they finally show a gay man, he's described as someone who knowingly infected teenage male prostitutes with the virus. What else can you expect from a faggot?   I'm angry.                       QUEER ARTISTS   Since time began, the world has been inspired by the work of queer artists.  In exchange, there has been suffering, there has been pain, there has been violence.  Throughout history, society has struck a bargain with its queer citizens:  they may pursue creative careers, if they do it discreetly.  Through the arts queers are productive, lucrative, entertaining and even uplifting.  These are the clear-cut and useful by-products of what is otherwise considered antisocial behavior.  In cultured circles, queers                                                            4 may quietly coexist with an otherwise disapproving power elite.   At the forefront of the most recent campaign to bash queer artists is Jesse Helms, arbiter of all that is decent, moral, christian and amerikan.  For Helms, queer art is quite simply a threat to the world.  In his imaginings, heterosexual culture is too fragile to bear up to the admission of human or sexual diversity.  Quite simply, the structure of power in the Judeo-Christian world has made procreation its cornerstone. Families having children assures consumers for the nation's products and a work force to produce them, as well as a built-in family system to care for its ill, reducing the expense of public healthcare systems.   ALL NON-PROCREATIVE BEHAVIOR IS CONSIDERED A THREAT, from homosexuality to birth control to abortion as an option. It is not enough, according to the religious right, to consistently advertise procreation and heterosexuality ... it is also necessary to destroy any alternatives.  It is not art Helms is after .... IT IS OUR LIVES!  Art is the last safe place for lesbians and gay men to thrive.  Helms knows this, and has developed a program to purge queers from the one arena they have been permitted to contribute to our shared culture.   Helms is advocating a world free from diversity or dissent. It is easy to imagine why that might feel more comfortable to those in charge of such a world.  It is also easy to envision an amerikan landscape flattened by such power.  Helms should just ask for what he is hinting at: State sponsored art, art of totalitarianism, art that speaks only in christian terms, art which supports the goals of those in power, art that matches the sofas in the Oval Office.  Ask for what you want, Jesse, so that men and women of conscience can mobilize against it, as we do against the human rights violations of other countries, and fight to free our own country's dissidents.                      IF YOU'RE QUEER,   Queers are under siege.   Queers are being attacked on all fronts and I'm afraid it's ok with us.   In 1969, there were 50 "Queer Bashings" in the month of May alone. Violent attacks, 3,720 men, women and children died of AIDS in the same month, caused by a more violent attack --- government inaction, rooted in society's growing homophobia.  This is institutionalized violence, perhaps more dangerous to the existence of queers because the attackers are faceless.  We allow these attacks by our own continued lack of action against them.  AIDS has affected the straight world and now they're blaming us for AIDS and using it as a way to justify their violence against us. They don't want us anymore.  They will beat us, rape us and kill us before they will continue to live with us.  What                                                            5 will it take for this not to be ok?  Feel some rage. If rage doesn't empower you, try fear.  If that doesn't work, try panic.                         SHOUT IT!   Be proud.  Do whatever you need to do to tear yourself away from your customary state of acceptance.  Be free. Shout.   In 1969, Queers fought back.  In 1990, Queers say ok. Next year, will we be here?                         I HATE ...   I hate Jesse Helms.  I hate Jesse Helms so much I'd rejoice if he dropped down dead.  If someone killed him I'd consider it his own fault.   I hate Ronald Reagan, too, because he mass-murdered my people for eight years.  But to be honest, I hate him even more for eulogizing Ryan White without first admitting his guilt, without begging forgiveness for Ryan's death and for the deaths of tens of thousands of other PWA's --- most of them queer.  I hate him for making a mockery of our grief.   I hate the fucking Pope, and I hate John fucking Cardinal fucking O'Connor, and I hate the whole fucking Catholic Church. The same goes for the Military, and especially for Amerika's Law Enforcement Officials --- the cops --- state sanctioned sadists who brutalize street transvestites, prostitutes and queer prisoners.  I also hate the medical and mental health establishments, particularly the psychiatrist who conviced me not to have sex with men for three years until we (meaning he) could make me bisexual rather than queer.  I also hate the education profession, for its share in driving thousands of queer teens to suicide every year.  I hate the "respectable" art world;  and the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media, especially The New York Times.  In fact, I hate every sector of the straight establishment in this country --- the worst of whom actively want all queers dead, the best of whom never stick their necks out to keep us alive.   I hate straight people who think they have anything intelligent to say about "outing."  I hate straight people who think stories about themselves are "universal" but stories about us are only about homosexuality.  I hate straight recording artists who make their careers off of queer people, then attack us, then act hurt when we get angry and then deny having wronged us rather than apologize for it.  I hate straight people who say, "I don't see why you feel the need to wear those buttons and t-shirts.  I don't go around telling the whole world I'm straight."   I hate that in twelve years of public education I was never taught about queer people.  I hate that I grew up thinking I was the only queer in the world, and I hate even more that most queer kids still grow up the same way.  I                                                            6 hate that I was tormented by other kids for being a faggot, but more that I was taught to feel ashamed for being the object of their cruelty, taught to feel it was my fault.  I hate that the Supreme Court of this country says it's okay to criminalize me because of how I make love.  I hate that so many straight people are so concerned about my goddamned sex life.  I hate that so many twisted straight people become parents, while I have to fight like hell to be allowed to be a father.  I hate straights.   WHERE ARE YOU SISTERS? I wear my pink triangle everywhere.  I do not lower my voice  in public when talking about lesbian love or sex.  I always  tell people I'm a lesbian.  I don't wait to be asked about  my "boyfriend."  I don't say it's "no one's business." I don't do this for straight people.  Most of them don't know what the pink triangle even means.  Most of them couldn't  care less that my girlfriend and I are totally in love or  having a fight on the street.  Most of them don't notice us  no matter what we do.  I do what I do to reach other lesbians.  I do what I do because I don't want lesbians to assume I'm a  straight girl.  I am out all the time, everywhere, because  I WANT TO REACH YOU.  Maybe you'll notice me, maybe we'll  start talking, maybe we'll exchange numbers, maybe we'll become  friends.  Maybe we won't say a word but our eyes will meet  and I will imagine you naked, sweating, openmouthed, your  back arched as I am fucking you.  And we'll be happy to  know we aren't the only ones in the world.  We'll be happy  because we found each other, without saying a word, maybe  just for a moment. But no. You won't wear a pink triangle on that linen lapel.  You won't  meet my eyes if I flirt with you on the street.  You avoid me  on the job because I'm "too" out.  You chastise me in bars  because I'm "too political."  You ignore me in public because  I bring "too much" attention to "my" lesbianism.  But then  you want me to be your lover, you want me to be your friend,  you want me to love you, support, you, fight for "OUR" right  to exist.                       WHERE ARE YOU?  You talk, talk, talk about invisibility and then retreat to  your homes to nest with your lovers or carouse in a bar with pals  and stumble home in a cab or sit silently and politely by while  your family, your boss, your neighbors, your public servants  distort and disfigure us, deride us and punish us.  Then home  again and you feel like screaming.  Then you pad your anger with a  relationship or a career or a party with other dykes like you  and still you wonder why we can't find each other, why you feel  lonely, angry, alienated.                 GET UP, WAKE UP SISTERS!!                                                            7   Your life is in your hands.   When I risk it all to be out, I risk it for both of us. When  I risk it all and it works (which it often does if you would  try it), I benefit and so do you.  When it doesn't work, I suffer  and you do not. But girl you can't wait for other dykes to make the world safe  for you.  STOP waiting for a better more lesbian future!  The  revolution could be here if we started it. Where are you sisters? I'm trying to find you, I'm trying to find you.  How come I only see you on Gay Pride Day? We're OUT, Where the fuck are YOU?                                                            8   WHEN ANYONE ASSAULTS YOU FOR BEING QUEER, IT IS QUEER                      BASHING. RIGHT?     A crowd of 50 people exit a gay bar as it closes. Across the street, some straight boys are shouting "Faggots" and throwing beer bottles at the gathering, which outnumbers them by 10 to 1. Three queers make a move to respond, getting no support from the group.  Why did a group this size allow themselves to be sitting ducks?   Tompkins Square Park, Labor Day.  At an annual outdoor concert/drag show, a group of gay men were harassed by teens carrying sticks. In the midst of thousands of gay men and lesbians, these straight boys beat two gay men to the ground, then stood around triumphantly laughing amongst themselves.  The emcee was alerted and warned the crowd from the stage, "You girls be careful.  When you dress up it drives the boys crazy," as if it were a practical joke inspired by what the victims were wearing rather than a pointed attack on anyone and everyone at that event.   What would it have taken for that crowd to stand up to its attackers?   After James Zappalorti, an openly gay man, was murdered in cold blood on Staten Island this winter, a single demonstration was held in protest.  Only one hundred people came.  When Yuseuf Hawkins, a black youth, was shot to death for being on "white turf" in Bensonhurst, African Americans marched through that neighborhood in large numbers again and again.  A black person was killed BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK, and people of color throughout the city recognized it and acted on it.  The bullet that hit Hawkins was meant for a black man, ANY black man.  Do most gays and lesbians think that the knife that punctured Zappalorti's heart was meant only for him?   The straight world has us so convinced that we are helpless and deserving victims of the violence against us, that queers are immobilized when faced with a threat.  BE OUTRAGED!  These attacks must not be tolerated.  DO SOMETHING.  Recognize that any act of aggression against any member of our community is an attack on every member of the community.  The more we allow homophobes to inflict violence, terror and fear on our lives, the more frequently and ferociously we will be the object of their hatred.  Your immeasurably valuable, because unless you start believing that, it can easily be taken from you.  If you know how to gently and efficiently immobilize your attacker, then by all means, do it.  If you lack those skills, then think about gouging out his fucking eyes, slamming his nose back into his brain, slashing his throat with a broken bottle --- do whatever you can, whatever you have to, to save your life!                                                            9     reeuQ yhW     Queer!   Ah, do we really have to use that word?  It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it.  For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious.  That's okay, we like that.  But some gay girls and boys don't. They think they're more normal than strange.  And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent suffering.  Queer. It's forcibly bittersweet and quaint at best --- weakening and painful at worst.  Couldn't we just use "gay" instead?  It's a much brighter word and isn't it synonymous with "happy?" When will you militants grow up and get over the novelty of being different?                         WHY  QUEER   Well, yes, "gay " is great.  It has its place.  But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay.  So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world.  It's a way of telling ourselves we don't have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the straight world.  We use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer.   Queer, unlike GAY, doesn't mean MALE.   And when spoken to other gays and lesbians it's a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget (temporarily) our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy.  Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe's hands and use against him.                       NO SEX POLICE   For anyone to say that coming out is not part of the revolution is missing the point.  Positive sexual images and what they manifest saves lives because they affirm those lives and make it possible for people to attempt to live as self-loving instead of self-loathing.  As the famous "Black is beautiful" slogan changed many lives, so does "Read my lips" affirm queerness in the face of hatred and invisibility as displayed in a recent governmental study of suicides that states at least one third of all teen suicides are Queer kids.  This is further exemplified by the rise in HIV transmission among those under 21.   We are most hated as queers for our sexualness, that is, our physical contact with the same sex.  Our sexuality and sexual expression are what makes us most susceptible to physical violence. Our difference, our otherness, our uniqueness can either paralyze us or politicize us. Hopefully, the majority of us will not let it kill us.                                                            10                        QUEER SPACE   Why in the world do we let heteros into queer clubs?  Who gives a fuck if they like us because we "really know how to party?" WE HAVE TO IN ORDER TO BLOW OFF THE STEAM THEY MAKE US FEEL ALL THE TIME!  They make out wherever they please, and take up too much room on the dance floor doing ostentatious couples dances. They wear their heterosexuality like a "Keep Out" sign, or like a deed of ownership.   Why the fuck do we tolerate them when they invade our space like it's their right?  Why do we let them shove heterosexuality --- a weapon their world wields against us - -- right in our faces in the few public spots where we can be sexy with each other and not fear attack?   It's time to stop letting the straight people make all the rules.  Let's start by posting this sign outside every queer club and bar:            RULES OF CONDUCT FOR STRAIGHT PEOPLE     1. Keep your display of affection (kissing, handholding,  embracing) to a minimum.  Your sexuality is unwanted and  offensive to many here.  2. If you must slow dance, be as inconspicuous as possible.  3. Do not gawk or stare at lesbians or gay men, especially  bull dykes or drag queens.  We are not your entertainment.  4. If you cannot comfortably deal with someone of the same sex making a pass at you, get out.  5. Do not flaunt your heterosexuality.  Be Discreet.  Risk  being mistaken for a lezzie or a homo.  6. If you feel these rules are unfair, go fight homophobia in straight clubs, or:  7. Go Fuck Yourself.                      I HATE STRAIGHTS   I have friends.  Some of them are straight.   Year after year, I see my straight friends.  I want to see them, to see how they are doing, to add newness to our long and complicated histories, to experience some continuity. Year after year I continue to realize that the facts of my life are irrelevant to them and that I am only half listened to, that I am an appendage to the doings of a greater world, a world of power and privilege, of the laws of installation, a world of exclusion.  "That's not true," argue my straight friends.  There is the one certainty in the politics of power: those left out of it beg for inclusion, while the insiders claim that they already are. Men do it to women, whites do it to blacks, and everyone does it to queers.  The main dividing line, both conscious and unconscious, is procreation ...  and that magic word --- Family.  Frequently, the ones we are born into disown us when they find out who we really are, and to make matters worse, we are prevented from having our own.  We are punished, insulted, cut off, and treated like seditionaries                                                            11 in terms of child rearing, both damned if we try and damned if we abstain.  It's as if the propagation of the species is such a fragile directive that without enforcing it as if it were an agenda, humankind would melt back into the primeval ooze.   I hate having to convice straight people that lesbians and gays live in a war zone, that we're surrounded by bomb blasts only we seem to hear, that our bodies and souls are heaped high, dead from fright or bashed or raped, dying of grief or disease, stripped of our personhood.   I hate straight people who can't listen to queer anger without saying "hey, all straight people aren't like that. I'm straight too, you know," as if their egos don't get enough stroking or protection in this arrogant, heterosexist world. Why must we take care of them, in the midst of our just anger brought on by their fucked up society?!  Why add the reassurance of "Of course, I don't mean you.  You don't act that way." Let them figure out for themselves whether they deserve to be included in our anger.   But of course that would mean listening to our anger, which they almost never do.  They deflect it, by saying "I'm not like that" or "Now look who's generalizing" or "You'll catch more flies with honey ... " or "If you focus on the negative you just give out more power" or "you're not the only one in the world who's suffering."  They say "Don't yell at me, I'm on your side" or "I think you're overreacting" or "BOY, YOU'RE BITTER."   They've taught us that good queers don't get mad. They've taught us so well that we not only hide our anger from them, we hide it from each other.  WE EVEN HIDE IT FROM OURSELVES. We hide it with substance abuse and suicide and overarhcieving in the hope of proving our worth.  They bash us and stab us and shoot us and bomb us in ever increasing numbers and still we freak out when angry queers carry banners or signs that say BASH BACK.  For the last decade they let us die in droves and still we thank President Bush for planting a fucking tree, applaud him for likening PWAs to car accident victims who refuse to wear seatbelts.  LET YOURSELF BE ANGRY.  Let yourself be angry that the price of our visibility is the constant threat of violence, anti- queer violence to which practically every segment of this society contributes.  Let yourself feel angry that THERE IS NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE WE ARE SAFE, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack, the self-hatred, the suicide --- of the closet.  The next time some straight person comes down on you for being angry, tell them that until things change, you don't need any more evidence that the world turns at your expense.  You don't need to see only hetero couple grocery shopping on your TV ...  You don't want any more baby pictures shoved in your face until you can have or keep your own.  No more weddings, showers, anniversaries, please, unless they are our own brothers and sisters celebrating. And tell them not to dismiss you by saying "You have rights," "You have privileges," "You're                                                            12 overreacting," or "You have a victim's mentality."  Tell them "GO AWAY FROM ME, until YOU can change."  Go away and try on a world without the brave, strong queers that are its backbone, that are its guts and brains and souls.  Go tell them go away until they have spent a month walking hand in hand in public with someone of the same sex.  After they survive that, then you'll hear what they have to say about queer anger.   Otherwise, tell them to shut up and listen.

[meanwhileinoz]

People On Reddit Share The Dark Secrets That Could Destroy Their Marriages

We’ve all got secrets.

Things we are afraid to tell anybody. People will judge you, especially if your secret is messed up.

That is why we have the Internet. To post our secrets anonymously, facing no criticism and getting it off our chests as well. A Reddit thread revealed people sharing their darkest secrets, which could potentially ruin their lives. Read them below:

“Years ago my gf (we’ll call deb) and I were out with her friend (we’ll call Sara). This one day Sara had to pin unlock her phone each time to take one of many pictures….out the corner of my eye I saw her pin. I saved it in a note. Months later sara and deb were at my place and went to the pool. Sara left her phone indoors. I used her password and hit jackpot. Nudes, videos, message logs with some guy she was talking (well call jeff) to, along with tons of dick picks and videos of him jacking off…

With this goldmine of pics and vids I concocted a slow plan…..very slow. Slowly I broke off with deb but kept in touch with sara. I then created a alter ego online (we’ll call it Vanessa). For months I worked this identity so it looked real. This identity started following Sara on all social media (Sara accepted any friend requests). Vanessa blackmailed jeff. Jeff was given 2 days to stop talking to sara or his dick picks got leaked. He was chicken sh*t and dropped her like a hot potato. But Sara was strong willed…when Vanessa threatened sara to stop talking to jeff or her pics get leaked she protested…so I knew I had to change tactics. Vanessa disappeared for a while until I could get Sara’s phone in my hands for a bit. One day sara was over and ‘lost’ her phone at my place. I ‘found’ it for her the next day…. Not before I installed a spy app that let me keep track of her everything. A few weeks later Vanessa came back but now armed with the conversations sara was having with everyone. While tracking Sara’s reactions and suspicions, I made it show that Vanessa wasnt real….

Now all my friends know me as being pretty tech literate. One day im talking with Sara and she breaks down crying telling me how she been long distance sexting this guy and somebody hacked his or her phone and now shes being blackmailed by some stranger she doesn’t know. So she askes me if I could help her. Long ending short I made it look like jeff was Vanessa. I made it look like he created this person so that he could blackmail Sara into f*cked up sex stuff. Sara left him and guess who was the hero? Me. I caught ‘Vanessa.’ Sara was now safe because of me. Once we blackmailed the guy, ‘Vanessa’ disappeared… You know…for realism. Sara and I now had this tragedy…this hurdle that we overcame together. We started dating not long after. She was never going back to long distance relationships and wanted to try local….4 years later were married.”

  “My father never had anything other than boys, and my mother always wanted a girl. Try as they might, they just had tons of boys. When I was 6 they adopted a girl of also 6. Everyone was pleased, and she was quickly included into the family by everyone and we all took an immediate shine to her. Especially me.

We started playing ‘doctor’ at 9. This progressed to fooling around by our early teens, and into actual sex shortly thereafter. We’re both over 30 now. We have sex whenever we see each other. We also like to pretend we are twins when we do have sex. We’ve both had our shares of girlfriends and boyfriends, but we always kept it up even while in those relationships. She’s actually married now.

We still have sex about 2 times a month, more when the family gets together for holidays. I can’t even imagine the bricks that would be sh*t if anyone ever found out. It’s been close a few times, especially when we were younger, but nobody’s ever caught on.

  #3 From a divorce lawyer who goes by TheLadyInReddit:

“Client is an elderly gentleman, some type of retired professional. His son is a pastor. Everything about his situation seemed very normal in terms of income, property, etc. However, it turns out he had a pretty serious porn hobby and he was concerned his wife might find out and use it against him in the divorce. However, as I mentioned above, I assured him that was pretty run-of-the-mill these days and unlikely to affect anything. He then asks if I feel the same knowing the porn is not ‘mainstream.’ I asked what he means and he looks very nervous. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t referencing CP, so I pushed him on it.

The guy was into goats.”

  “My friend inherited a beautiful diamond engagement ring. The stone was worth $20K. His fiance was thrilled to receive it and flaunt it. Now his wife of 25 years, it’s still one of her most precious possessions.

Only I (and you 4 million) know that she does not own the original diamond. My friend sold the stone for $15K and an equal sized, substitute diamond on the day he picked it up from being sized to fit her…

The value of the ring was learned at appraisal, and was actually appraised a bit higher. The $20K was the number he knew he could get from a wholesaler in the district. It is still insured for the higher amount. The stone that was substituted is a diamond – and I couldn’t tell the difference. The money was mostly used to clear debts.”

“I’m an atheist. I’m also a deacon in an evangelical church. I’m not exactly proud of it but I try do my part to convince people to live like Jesus because even if he wasn’t god, he certainly had some good ideas about loving other people.

The problem for me is my family. I’m married with a one kid and another on the way. I believe that such a revelation would be devastating for my wife. I’ve tried to tell her in subtle ways but I can’t bring myself to just come out and say the truth. I love my wife and I don’t wish to harm her emotionally in that way.”

  “I am a gay man married to a woman who has no idea I am gay.

How is my life? It’s great. It’s pleasant. I have two beautiful children who I love more than anything. I have a successful job and a lovely home. My wife is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. So that is my life.

Myself, however, the way I feel inside is not so good. I feel disgusted with who I am. Growing up in a Catholic household had me living in fear of being banished by my family for revealing my sexuality. That’s not something I’m afraid will happen, that is something that is a well known fact in my family. I would love more than anything to be honest to everyone. I am a coward though…

As ridiculous as it sounds I thought that getting married and settling down etc would make these feelings I had about being gay go away. Before meeting her I was constantly struggling with the fact that I might be gay. My upbringing made me believe that being gay was wrong and so I always tried to convince myself that that’s not who I was. For awhile it worked. I think I wanted so bad to be straight that I just made myself believe I was. I got married to my wife at 23 and for a short time after our wedding I was relieved. I thought ‘Yes, I knew it. I knew I just had to find someone who would clear all this up for me!’ That just came crashing down. We started having sex more to try and get pregnant and that caused me realise [sic] that I am a gay man. I’m not remaining in the closet because I’m too scared of my wife’s reaction. In fact she would probably be the most forgiving. I have decided not to come out because of my family. I’m not exaggerating when I say that they will disown me. They wouldn’t think twice about it. I wouldn’t be happy. I would be lost. Now that I have children that just scares me even more. I wouldn’t ser [sic] them much at all and that’s not an option for me… There are many things I wish I had done differently but I do not regret any of my choices because they’ve all led me to where I am today. My son and daughter are these amazing little people. I live in a great house with a loving and sweet little family. Our marriage (sham marriage as some people have pointed out) is a good one despite my sexuality. Our marriage is healthier than some that I know about and hear about. I have accepted that I may never come out and I’ve learnt to be okay with that. I will consider going to therapy too. This is the most I have ever talked about it. Up until now I have not told a soul and so I have really swept everything under the rug. It is amazing what you can block out if you really try.”

  “I once helped out my a female friend’s family by taking care of their cat for a week. Every day for a week, I would go over there and snoop around their house. I found my friend’s diary, and proceeded to read the entire thing. I used this information to get her to like me, and she is currently my wife.”

  “I have lesbian sex with my best friend about once a month. Neither of us say anything to our husbands. We drink a good bottle of wine, get tipsy, get nasty, and fall asleep. When we wake up, we laugh, kiss, and go about our lives.”

“No ones going to probably find this comment, but I have an addiction to prostitutes. I can’t control myself. I’m also married and my wife has no idea. I spent $2000 on our credit card while she was overseas for 3 weeks. I lied and told her that I had a gambling problem, that’s why I spent so much. Little does she know, I was bringing hookers home.”

  “I’m a guy with a foot fetish. And I -never- told my wife even though she has amazing feet. BUT it gets worse – I have a weird twist to my foot fetish. I’m really into ‘pedal pumping’ (i guess that’s the closest way to describe it) and I’m mortified to tell her or anyone else, and never have. When I was a little kid we spent a LOT of time at church during the week for mom’s choir practice and there was a decent looking piano player lady who would kick off her shoes and play the piano barefoot. And even though I knew nothing of my sexuality, I remember Saturday afternoons, being up on the stage/pulpit during boring choir practice, laying on the carpet, playing with Matchbox cars and trying not to make it seem glaringly obvious that I was transfixed watching this lady’s bare foot pushing on that piano pedal…

I was totally transfixed, and it continues to this day. Women playing pianos, organs, driving barefoot, using a sewing machine barefoot. My fantasies usually always involve me imagining myself as the pedal, and the woman has a sexy bare, nylon, or sock clad foot. If it’s a smelly foot even better. I feel guilty and stupid to this day. Why on earth would a fetish like that develop when I was a prepubescent kid?”

  “When i was in 8th grade i fell in love with my girlfriend. I never thought it would be possible for someone so young could have such strong feelings. The relationship didn’t last more than three months because my mom and step-dad divorced and i had to move. I thought about her every day since i moved away. I met another person and have been married for 20 years now. I have four kids and have no complaints about my wife. Five years ago through social media i was able to correspond with 8th grade girlfriend. It turns out that she still has feelings for me too. I have been faithful to my wife for our entire marriage but want more than anything to be with my first love.”

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