#I’ve been told that I should go for departmental get togethers

[ego-sum-arbor]

I am now officially an archaeologist!

[controloffandoms]

Buck Begins Fic Recs

For @thisissirius 

Here are a couple of fics that I have written. And I’ll probably add a couple of favorites that I’ve read along the way!

Nothing I Ever Did Was Good Enough

Buck bit his tongue, looking away from his father. It was too early in their get together to have a blow out. He especially didn’t want to have that blowout in front of Chim and Albert. “You know, firefighting, until recently, has had a huge amount of off duty suicides due to improper care of mental health. The department has changed to help firefighters through hard times of losing patients or families in fires by hiring departmental psychologists and having service animals available for visits to the firehouses after really tough calls. If someone isn’t in the right mindset, we could lose more people, not to mention our own people and that person. Mental health is no joke,” Albert stated. Buck had to hide is smile, but he turned to Albert, giving him a knowing look and small smile. His parents spluttered for a few seconds before Phillip turned to Albert. “I don’t think I was talking to you. Mind your own business, this was a family matter.” “Don’t talk to him like that,” Buck nearly growled. “He is family.”

~~Or the one where the parents visit and Buck is in over his head...luckily his family has his back.

~~~~Part 1 in the Nothing I Ever Did Was Good Enough series

Nothing I Ever Did-

~~~~Part 2 in the Nothing I Ever Did Was Good Enough series

"Watch your attitude, Evan," Margaret glared. "Why should I? All you've ever done is put me down and compare me to Maddie and try to make me into her. News flash, I'm my own person and I'm different! I get that nothing I ever did was good enough, but I don't have to keep trying to appease you and let you walk on me or my family. So if you could kindly drop the attitude and rude comments regarding Eddie and Christopher, it would be much appreciated. They invited you into their home and you've been nothing but assholes since you got here! Clearly you came here with opinions and baggage and a want to have your way, but that's not going to fly here. You best just head out of town tonight, you're not wanted here in my life or Maddie's life. We don't want your toxicity melting into our families because I'll be damned if the shit you've said tonight will ever affect my niece or my kid!"

~~Or the one where Eddie hosts the Buckley parents and just tries to be supportive in general...but the parents are nightmares. Featuring cuddles with Chris, Eddie, and Buck.

Not The One You Wanted

“Evan, I don’t know what you expected us to do.”

“Love me anyway,” it had been said like his heart had been ripped out...which, it felt like it had. Because that was the truth, wasn’t it...all he ever wanted was for them to love him anyway. He wanted his parents to give a damn about him but they never did...it was like he was a responsibility that they never wanted.

Maddie had said that their parents had been different back then when they were sentimental and made a box for her...and now Buck knew why. Daniel. His older brother Daniel...a brother that he didn’t even know existed until he sat down with Maddie to look at all the baby photos in the box...and there were plenty...Buck can hardly remember ever getting portraits like these done during his childhood….but his parents were different back then.

-OR- Evan Buckley deserves love and hugs because of how shitty his parents are.

*This is honestly one of my favorites that I’ve written...it’s like a character study while Buck was trapped in the warehouse with some liberties surrounding the reason Buck’s in the warehouse*

Secrets

He’d been lied to his whole life...Maddie had never thought to tell him about not being his actual sister...his parents were acting like it didn’t matter...like he should just get over it. Buck’s eyes met Chim’s...and his whole body went rigid. “You knew,” he whispered, looking directly at Chim. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?!” He rounded on his sister, “you told him, but not me?!”

“Evan, I was trying to protect you-”

“No, you don’t get to do that! You don’t get to try and protect me! I’m a grown ass adult, I deserved to know but instead of telling me, you told him and even though I’ve known him longer he still didn’t tell me!” Buck shook his head, backing from the room. “I can’t do this,” he whispered.

-OR- Buck finds out the secret Maddie's been keeping from him while his parents are visiting...he is understandably betrayed.

*Basically, Buck Begins and the Daniel scenes hadn’t happened yet and I wanted to know what the secret was, so I came up with this.*

Ambush of the Parents

Based off the new Promo (or the one I just saw) where we see Maddie, Chim, Albert, Buck and (who I believe) are Buck and Maddie’s Parents. Buck’s dad says “you’ve been seeing a therapist?” and Buck responds “Well, the job can be stressful.”

Disclaimer: Please don't read if verbal abuse from parents triggers you.

~~~~Or Buck’s parents  are absolutely horrible and Buck’s family defends him.

Buck Begins

Buck always tried to please his parents. He wanted to be recognized and loved. He tried to get their approval but it was never enough. *Includes flashbacks, this was before Season 4 was even in production*

~Evan had thought that the SEALs would make his parents proud. He tried out for the SEALs, he went through training, but it still wasn’t enough. Then he’d dropped out. That had been the icing on the cake. Evan had never had a big blowout with his parents. He’d always tried to appease them. He tried to be the perfect son…but they never thought he was good enough. So when he dropped out of the SEALs, having a shouting match with his father as a consequence, he left for South America. He bartended and had fun. Then he’d gone to LA and became a firefighter and he hadn’t contacted his parents since the blowout. 

Here are some fic recs that are not my own works

double vision wrapped in last night’s party clothes by amirlywritingfanficnow

"I have always been honest with you." When Eddie's voice cracks, Buck's composure almost cracks with it. "Why can't you just be honest with me?"

or

When Buck is let in on a long kept family secret, he doesn't know what to do. He almost ruins things with the one person that keeps him from feeling like he's floating away with no way to land, but it ultimately turns out okay with help of a little communication.

*This one pulled at my heart strings a little*

but i leave it in my heart, cause I don’t want to stay in the dark by neoncrayolas

Buck hadn't meant for the confession to come out like it did. He'd wanted it to be more eloquent and not so full of snot and tears.

But once it was out, there was no going back.

Or, part character study of Buck, part coda to 4x05.

*Basically, Buck isolates himself, Eddie gets worried, and Buddie is endgame

Learning to Breathe by TearsThisSideofHeaven

Boy, he thinks as the city lights blur a little in his vision, my therapist is going to have a field day with this.

*Short little fic that delves into Buck’s emotions with Eddie trying to support him

Finally Safe by WinterLioness

In the aftermath of finding out a family secret Buck finds himself going to Eddie. Christopher and Eddie use their Diaz charm to help.

*This picks up on the emotions Buck feels not only because of the family secret but because Maddie kept it from him (not full on hate, but what any normal person would need to work through) and Eddie is there to support him. Features cuddles with the Diaz Boys.

Not Related to the story line of 9-1-1 but has a whole ‘Buck Begins’ vibe because I was world building: The Life We Live

*The Old Guard AU no one asked for* "Athena had seen many a millennium and many men, women, and children die. She had seen the rise and fall of civilizations. She had felt the pain of loneliness and the happiness of community...but she’d never, in her many years of living, seen something like Eddie, Buck, and Chris. She’d never seen this profound of a bond, even between herself and Bobby. After Buck lost Abby and, later, Ali, Athena wasn’t sure he would have let his heart reach out to another person that he could lose...but she was proud of him. He built something that was hard to come by in their way of living. He built a home."

*I’m really proud of this one, it turned out well*

Not Related to the Story Line of 9-1-1, Fics by others!

Please Don’t Say You Love Me (because I might not say it back) by Queerfeministdork

"Say I love you loud, and say I love you often. It was an easy sentiment, and it was a beautiful background picture. But something clenched tightly in Buck’s chest when he saw it flash open as he handed Hen her phone. Because he knew it was a simple thing for most people, that most people could just let those three little words slip out without a care. But he couldn’t. They always got caught in his throat, stuck behind his chest. Tamped down before he could think to breathe them out."

Buck always wished he could just say the words. Turns out, maybe people just know.

*Basically, Buck can’t say ‘I Love You’ as easily as everyone else and panics about it...but eventually, everyone understands.

everything is blue by amirlywritingfanficnow

When Evan Buckley is ten, he discovers nail polish.

-

In which Buck paints his nails, Eddie is flustered, and May is a matchmaker.

*Basically Buck and Eddie saying fuck toxic masculinity. Buck enjoying painting his nails and Eddie is definitely in love with him.

Coming Home To You by kariberri13

The 118 want to know more about Buck, but the man won't give them many details. That is until the biggest detail walks through the station's bay doors.

*Not focused on his past, but a different story focusing on the fact that Buck is married to Eddie and has a kid that he didn’t tell the Fire fam about.

There are tons more, but this is what I could think of off the top of my head! 

Hope you like them!

[roman-writing]

two, across (1/?)

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Hilda Valentine Goneril / Lysithea von Ordelia

Rating: T

Wordcount: 6,428 

Summary: Lysithea can barely keep afloat under the workload of giving undergrad lectures and finishing off her PhD thesis. Meanwhile Dr. Hilda V. Goneril is somehow both the laziest person as well as the most successful young professor she has ever known. It's absolutely aggravating.

Read it here on AO3 or read it below the cut

“Homes are a crossword puzzle I can’t solve.”

-Maria Tsvetaeva “Moscow in the Plague Year” (trans. Christopher Whyte)

--

Lysithea stares down at the newspaper. The world is falling apart, political crises cropping up everywhere, precarious markets teetering on the edge of another GFC, and worst of all: someone else has already done the crossword.

Even worse still, whoever has done the crossword puzzle has done so absolutely flawlessly. In pen. With no mistakes. She picks up the newspaper, incredulous, to inspect the crossword more closely, but sure enough -- perfectly executed in ballpoint. 

Her hand clenches into a fist, crumpling the thin pages. Breathing deeply, Lysithea smooths the page out again. In her other hand she holds a travel mug filled with a mocha and extra marshmallows. It's 6:46am and the offices of the biosciences department are empty but for her. Or at least she had assumed that the offices of the biosciences department were empty, but clearly that is not the case. Not unless someone waltzed in and stole the free department newspaper before 6am, which was ludicrous. 

Nobody but her bothered to come in this early. Who could have possibly ruined her routine? It's the beginning of the first term of her last year of her PhD thesis, and if there's one thing Lysithea hates more than the thought of having to actually submit her thesis, it's a break in routine.

With a huff, Lysithea takes a sip of her coffee, then starts on a hunt through the offices in search of the culprit. Most of the offices are dark, their doors locked. Her own office is little more than a dingy storage closet that was converted into spare workspace for the youngest of the departmental doctoral students. But when the university allowed her to teach undergraduate courses, they had to clear out an office as well. It came with the territory. 

Directly across from her own door is an office that she rarely saw open throughout all two of her years at Garreg Mach University. The nameplate on the door sports the letters: DR. HILDA V. GONERIL. Lysithea's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. The door to Hilda’s office is open a sliver, showing a slit of light from within. Stomping forward, wielding her newspaper and coffee like relics in some holy war, Lysithea barges in without knocking. 

Hilda is not -- as Lysithea had expected -- working. The back of her office chair has been loosened so that it leans precariously back, and one of Hilda's bare feet is propped atop the desk. She is hunched over her foot, wielding a tiny paintbrush and bottle of pink nailpolish that matches the colour of her hair. 

Hilda only glances up in bored disinterest from where she’s painting her toenails, before returning her attention to her present task. “Oh, hey! Lysithea, right? What’s up!”

Instead of answer, Lysithea holds up the newspaper as though it’s a piece of labelled evidence in a murder case. “Did you do this?” 

“Sure did. Hey, do you want me to paint your nails, too? Pink would look great with your complexion.”

“What? No.” Lysithea scrunches up her nose. “Why are you even here this early? I’ve never seen you here before noon.”

In truth, Lysithea has rarely seen her around the office at all. They had been introduced a year ago, when Hilda had been hired as the department’s newest Associate Professor, but as far as Lysithea could tell, the woman might as well have worked on another campus. She could count on one hand the number of times they had exchanged words, none of them particularly memorable. 

Hilda rolls her eyes. “Ugh! I know, right? I drew the short straw, and got the 7am undergrad OChem courses this term. Can you believe it? Being the most junior professor in a department is the worst.” She puts the finishing touches on her foot, and drawls, “Buuut it does mean I get to leave early most days. Tit for tat.” 

Hilda puffs up her cheeks and blows on the wet nailpolish. 

Angry words gather on the tip of Lysithea's tongue. She has to take a deep breath to quell them. "Dr. Goneril -" she begins.

Hilda makes a face. "Ew. What are you? My student? Don't call me that."

Lysithea grits her teeth. "Hilda," she begins again, trying to sweeten her words as much as she possibly can. "I would really appreciate it if you didn't do the crossword in the staff newspaper. Could you maybe get a different paper on your way to work, if you're going to be coming in so early every day this term?"

At that, Hilda lets out a snort of amusement. She puts her foot down on the ground, spreading her legs out so that she's sprawled in her seat. The toes of both feet, Lysithea notices, are perfectly manicured and painted. She must have been here for a while now, if she managed to get the crossword out and do her nails before a lecture. 

"No way, short stack. You know how boring it is here without anyone else around? I need to do something with my hands, or I go, like, crazy." Even as Hilda says it, her fingers are fiddling with the armrests of her office chair, drumming a syncopated rhythm. 

Lysithea frowns, remembers she is trying to be charming -- which she has never been very good at, to be perfectly honest -- and puts on a plasticky smile. "Well, maybe we can work out some sort of deal."

Hilda remains slouched in her seat. "Like what?" 

"We’ll trade. You leave me the crossword on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I leave you the crossword on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and the weekends. How about that?"

"Hmm." Hilda taps her ankles together, like a child who can't keep herself still for longer than two seconds. Then she announces gleefully, "Nope!" 

"Great! We can -" Lysithea blinks. "Wait. What?"

"No deal!" Hilda says, as cheerfully as before. Her cellphone rings on her desk, and a calendar notification pops up on the screen. "Shit! I'm late." 

Rather than stand up immediately and bolt for the door however, Hilda leans her head back and sighs to the ceiling. 

Lysithea stares at her, then at the phone, which is still chirping away. "Aren't you going to go to class?"

"With wet nail polish? Are you kidding?" Hilda waves her hand in the vague direction of the exit, where the elevators are around the corner. "The little goblins can wait."

"It's the earliest class! You'll be lucky if half of them show up, let alone wait five minutes before bailing."

Hilda yawns. "Good. Maybe then I can just go home and get some more sleep."

"At least turn off your phone," Lysithea snaps. The mechanical chirping is really starting to grate on her nerves. It's way too early for this.

"You know, you're pretty bossy for a PhD student." There is no malice in her tone, and even as she says it, Hilda reaches over and presses a button on her phone so that the alarm stops. 

"So I've been told." Lysithea shifts the newspaper so that it rests in the crook of her elbow. When Hilda doesn't look the least bit concerned that Lysithea is still standing in her office, Lysithea sighs, "Listen. I need this, alright?"

Hilda shoots her an incredulous glance. She has begun to swing her chair around so that she slowly twirls in place, her legs outstretched so as not to hit any of the clutter that’s scattered everywhere. Somehow through the full arc she manages to maintain eye contact the whole way. "You need...a crossword puzzle?" 

"It's -" Lysithea can feel her cheeks burn. "It's just a part of my routine! I don't like having my routine interrupted! It ruins my whole day." 

Hilda continues to twirl in her office chair. Her long pink hair, tied back in twin tails, dangles over the back of the chair, stirring lightly as she turns. Lysithea secretly wonders how on earth someone manages to pull off that hairstyle without appearing completely juvenile. If she wore her hair that way herself, she would look like she was fifteen, but when Hilda does it, she just seems like a free-spirited adult. 

Hilda makes a noise between a sigh and blowing a raspberry. Then, all of a sudden, she stops her chair. She bends over double and tests her toenails, deems them suitably dry, and pulls on her socks and shoes -- a pair of black boots that reach just past her ankle. When she stands abruptly, Lysithea has to resist the urge to take a step back. 

She had forgotten that Hilda was so tall and broad-shouldered; Hilda dressed in such a way to make her seem as delicate as possible, but there was no mistaking the flex of muscle beneath her clothes. Most people were tall when standing next to Lysithea, but Hilda had a presence that seemed to extend beyond her, making her appear larger than she actually was. 

Hilda picks up her phone and begins tapping away at the screen to unlock it. Then, she sticks the phone in her bag -- black and trendy, to match the rest of what she wore -- and slings the bag over her shoulder. 

"I really gotta go now. So..." Hilda walks towards Lysithea, making a shooing motion as if trying to herd a cat. "Chop chop! Let's go! Out of my office!"

"Hang on -! Hey! Just -! Can't we talk about this?"

Lysithea is shuffled out the door, and Hilda flicks the light off, shutting her office behind them and locking it. 

"We did talk." Hilda tosses her keys into her bag, where they clank against her phone and whatever other objects are kept all in a jumble in there. "And I liked it! Surprisingly. We should definitely do it again! You’re here tomorrow, yeah?"

“What do you mean ‘surprisingly’?” Lysithea says, indignant.

But Hilda only pats her on the shoulder and strides off towards the elevators. For a moment, Lysithea stares after her, then gives chase. She catches up when Hilda rounds the corner.

"Just leave me the crossword," she says as Hilda is pressing the button to call the elevator. "You can do the sudoku!"

Hilda wrinkles her nose as though she had been offered garbage from behind the cafeteria. "Boring!" she says in a singsong voice. 

The light for the elevator flickers through the various levels to reach theirs on the fifth floor. When the elevator doors slide open, and Hilda steps forward, Lysithea panics and says the only thing she can think of: “Please.”

At that, Hilda pauses. Her hand lingers against one of the doors, keeping the elevator open. Her fingernails are painted the same colour as her toes, the same colour as her hair, and her knuckles sparkle with various gold and coral rings.

She turns around, and holds out her hand. “Give me your coffee.”

“My -?” Lysithea looks from Hilda, to her mocha, then back to Hilda again. “You want my coffee?” 

Hilda makes a grabby motion with her hand. “Time’s a-ticking. Bring me a coffee every morning, and I’ll let you do the crossword. Deal or no deal?” 

To accentuate her point, she lets the elevator doors begin to shut, enclosing her within. Quick as a flash, Lysithea thrusts her hand forward, so that the elevator doors bounce back against her wrist. She holds out the travel mug -- all whites and pastel purples and cartoon kittens -- and announces, “Deal! It’s a deal!”

With a beaming smile, Hilda takes the mug. Their fingers brush. Hilda’s skin is warm, but calloused. When Hilda takes a sip, her face scrunches up in disgust. “Ugh. Way too sweet, even for me. Make it a cappuccino next time. Double-shot.”

“You annoying -!” Lysithea starts to swear, but the elevator doors are sliding shut, and Hilda is waggling her fingers in a little wave of goodbye. “- asshole!” 

--

The rest of the day goes poorly. Lysithea is convinced it is all because the beginning of her routine was disrupted, and that it only spells misfortune for the rest of the term. It's completely nonsensical, but she can't shake the feeling nonetheless. To top it all off, she only manages to write a hundred words of her thesis, which sets her a hundred words behind her carefully laid plans for the year. Tomorrow, she'll have to write an extra hundred to compensate. Every word feels like pulling teeth. 

Instead of reading articles and writing, as she should be doing, she finds herself clicking through the university faculty website. She has bought herself a hot chocolate from the groundfloor cafe, just to make herself feel better about life in general, and takes a sip as she clicks on the link to 'DR. HILDA V. GONERIL.' 

She nearly chokes on the hot chocolate, when the page loads. 

With only a year and a half as a professor after completing her PhD in molecular biophysics at an outstandingly good overseas university, Dr. Goneril had already published eight articles in her academic career. Lysithea reads through the bibliography list, gobsmacked. It certainly explains why the university wanted her on their staff so badly; any university would salivate over a promising young professor with a matrix like that. 

Four articles a year? Plus teaching two classes a term? That's impossible. There's no way a woman that lazy could have achieved that. Not unless the laziness was an act, and she never slept. Ever.

Four academic articles a year. And here Lysithea sits, struggling to type out two hundred words on an open word document. 

Furiously clicking out of Hilda’s profile, Lysithea opens another tab to the university library database and begins searching for more articles to read for her own research. 

--

"Where's my mug?" Lysithea asks the next morning. 

It's 6:17am, and Hilda is cradling the takeaway cup Lysithea had ordered at the cafe down the street, because the cafe on the groundfloor doesn't open until 7am. Hilda yawns. "I left it at home." 

"Well, bring it tomorrow. I want it back." Lysithea snatches up the newspaper from where it had been deposited on the floor earlier that morning. 

"Sure. Whatever," is Hilda's non committal answer. 

Lysithea doesn't believe for a moment that Hilda ever intends to give the mug back, but she'll be damned if she lets it go without a fight. Edelgard had given her that cup as a gift last year, which meant that it was no doubt expensive as anything. 

Starting off down the hallway to her office, Lysithea can already feel the spring in her step at the thought of everything returning to normal. She has a mocha in hand -- extra marshmallows, as usual -- and a fresh newspaper in the other. It's incidental that Hilda is trailing after her; their offices are directly opposite one another, after all. 

She doesn't pay it much heed as she unlocks her door, and steps inside. A flick of the lights. Her bag tossed onto the spare chair, where visiting undergrad students usually sit. And Lysithea drops into her seat, already flipping to the page with the crossword. She folds up the newspaper just the way she likes it, so that the pages have enough grit to not let her feel the scratch of the table beneath her pen, and feels a wave of relief wash over her. She sips at her coffee with one hand, and holds a pen in the other. 

The first few clues come easily. Lysithea scrawls in three of the answers that immediately pop out to her, and it doesn’t register right away that she has not heard Hilda opening her own office door. Lysithea is tapping the tip of her ballpoint pen against the margins of the newspaper. She scowls down at the next clue, and chews her lower lip.

A shadow falls over the table from someone approaching behind her, and a hand reaches over her shoulder to point at the crossword with one perfectly manicured pink nail. "OBDURATE."

With a start, Lysithea nearly spills her mocha. Hilda is standing behind her, takeaway coffee cup in hand. She is close enough that her arm brushes against Lysithea's shoulder. Lysithea can feel the warmth of skin through her cardigan. 

Scowling, Lysithea leans away in her seat to aim a glare at Hilda. "Excuse me?"

"Five down. The answer is 'OBDURATE.'" Rather than get the hint and move away, Hilda sets down her cup on the table so she can use her other hand to grasp the back of Lysithea's chair and lean against it while she studies the newspaper. 

"Thanks," Lysithea grumbles. She adds the answer, and is annoyed when it fits perfectly.

Hilda points to six down. "Ohh! 'Ermine in summer' is 'STOAT'. And seven down is 'TRIPLETHREAT'."

A muscle in Lysithea's cheek jumps in irritation. She writes the words, then grumbles, “This was not a part of the deal.”

“The deal was: I would let you do the crossword. I never said that I wouldn’t do the crossword with you. Duh!” 

Lysithea tosses down the pen atop the newspaper. “That completely defeats the purpose!”

“CHUTZPAH!” Hilda announces, and grabs the pen from the desk to begin writing it into the boxes. 

“Hey!” 

Lysithea has to wrestle the pen from Hilda’s grasp, but not before Hilda manages to write in another answer. Even then, it galls her to know that Hilda let her have the pen back, and could have easily kept it for herself. 

Lysithea brandishes the pen under Hilda’s nose like a sword. “Quit it! Leave some for me!” 

“You know, you could just get one of those free apps that has, like, a squillion crosswords, right?” 

Glowering, Lysithea turns back to the newspaper. “I like this one.” 

Hilda drops the matter, but only because she is now pointing to another clue with the answer on her lips. Lysithea smacks Hilda’s finger with the pen.

"Geesh. Okay! Okay!" Hilda grabs her cup, but when she straightens she says quickly, "And nine down is 'ABLOOM' okay bye!!"

Lysithea crumples up a spare piece of paper on the desk and lobs it after her, purely out of spite. 

--

Lysithea doesn’t know exactly when it happens, only that it does. Suddenly, horribly, Hilda is part of the routine. 

The realisation dawns on Lysithea during the third week. Every morning Hilda is waiting for her by the elevators on the ground floor. Her smile is brighter than the dawn creeping through the windows. She takes the coffee Lysithea hands her, and immediately launches into loud and colourful conversation about her previous evening, about her students, about her cute neighbor and her cute neighbor’s cat, while Lysithea nods -- groggy, and still half asleep herself -- and mumbles appropriate responses. 

They ride the elevator together. They do the crossword in Lysithea’s office, because even though Hilda’s office is bigger it’s always cluttered to the point that Lysithea can barely stand to be in there for longer than a few minutes at a time. The spare seat in Lysithea’s office has become Hilda’s designated seat, which she hauls over to the desk so they can sit, side-by side. Their elbows press together. They drink their coffee, and bicker over crossword clues, and the fact that Hilda has forgotten -- again! -- to bring back Lysithea’s mug. 

Lysithea has even taken to complaining about Hilda in her texts to Edelgard. Her childhood friend lives two timezones away however, and can only do so much via text when she's busy inheriting her family's multi-million dollar mega-corporation.

The fact remains that on the Thursday of the third week, Lysithea arrives at the elevators on the ground floor at her usual 6:14am, and is surprised to feel utter disappointment that Hilda is not there.

She peers around the corner for any sign of her. She waits. She taps her foot on the ground, and checks her wristwatch, which means she nearly spills Hilda’s cappuccino when turning her wrist over. Finally, at 6:32 she gives up and rides the elevator alone. She watches the floors tick away in bright numbers over the doors, and even though she is rising it feels like her gut is falling.

She places Hilda's coffee cup on the desk, and does the crossword by herself. She should feel relieved. This is what she wanted. The newspaper all to herself. Nobody bothering her. No annoying chatter in her ear. Nobody taking away the satisfaction of figuring out the clues for herself. 

Instead, she keeps shooting glances at the coffee cup as if it might suddenly turn into a rambunctious conversationalist and fill the gap. 

Eventually, with the crossword puzzle only three-quarters of the way finished, other faculty members start to stream into the offices. Lysithea gives up and throws Hilda's coffee into the rubbish bin; it has gone cold. She folds the newspaper back to its original state -- painstakingly ensuring that each crease is exactly as it should be -- and places it on a corner of her desk. She pulls her laptop towards her, and opens up her latest thesis draft document with a beleaguered groan. 

For the first time in three weeks, she doesn't get the full two hundred daily word goal that she set for herself. It irritates her to no end. 

She considers going to have a chat with her counsellor, Mercedes, but decides to just text Edelgard instead. She gets back a reply almost immediately, reminding her to eat something that day, which she has predictably forgotten to do. In response, Lysithea types back a message telling El to get some sleep. The phone goes quiet for a minute, then another text pings back from Edelgard with a series of 'zzz's that makes Lysithea roll her eyes. 

A knock at the door behind her, and Lysithea whirls around in her seat. It's not Hilda. Her stomach twists unpleasantly at the realisation. 

Lysithea puts her phone down. "Hi, Professor Hanneman. Do you need something?"

Hanneman hovers politely in her doorway until she greets him, at which point he pushes the door fully open and steps inside. "Good afternoon, Lysithea." He nods towards the newspaper. "Are you finished with that?"

She isn't. The crossword is nowhere near finished. Lysithea's mouth slants to one side, but she sighs and hands the newspaper over regardless. "Here. It's all yours."

He takes it with a gentle smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes behind his round spectacles. "Thank you."

"You haven't heard anything from Tomas, have you?" Lysithea asks. "It's just -- I sent him the last draft of my thesis a month ago, and he still hasn't gotten back to me.”

At that, he grimaces in sympathy. "I'm sorry, but no. I haven't heard anything. You know how busy he is.”

Crestfallen, Lysithea mumbles, “Yeah.”

“I’ll follow up with him again,” Hanneman assures her, but they both know there’s not much he can do. Tomas is her main thesis supervisor, while Hanneman was only an adjutant brought into the process earlier last year. At the beginning of this whole thesis ordeal, she had thought Tomas would be a great supervisor -- he shared her Alma Mater, and other family connections -- but so far he had been nothing but chilly and unhelpful throughout the process. 

“Thanks. I would appreciate if you did.” 

He nods. He’s about to leave, when she blinks. “Hanneman?” 

“Hmm?” He turns back in the doorway to face her.

Tugging at her lower lip with her teeth, Lysithea asks, “You don’t happen to have Dr. Goneril’s cellphone number, do you?” 

--

After her own lecture later that afternoon, Lysithea stands in her empty classroom and worries her lower lip between her teeth. Her phone is in her hands. A contact is open on the screen with the name 'HILDA' beside the call button. 

Lysithea takes a deep breath. She taps the icon, then raises the phone to her ear. It rings for a long enough time, that she is led to believe Hilda won't pick up, when the dial tone stops.

There's a rustling sound on the other line, followed by a raspy, "Hello?"

"Hi!" Lysithea says. "It's me."

A pause. 

"Who?"

"Lysithea."

More rustling. The distinct noise of the phone being dropped, and then muted swearing, as Hilda fumbles for it. 

"Oh. Yeah. Hey," Hilda says when she's picked up the phone again. She doesn’t sound thrilled, but she doesn’t sound mad either. "What's up?"

"Nothing! I just -" Lysithea has to put her free hand down when she realises she has lifted it to her mouth so she can chew on her fingernails. “I was just wondering if everything was alright. You weren’t here today, but if you’re just playing hooky, then -”

She is interrupted by a series of coughing. Lysithea holds the phone away from her ear until Hilda is finished.

“I mean -” Hilda rasps, “Normally you would be totally on the money, but not this time.”

For some inexplicable reason, that makes Lysithea feel unfathomably guilty, even though she knows that her initial assumption was on the mark. 

“Do you - Do you need me to get you anything?” Lysithea can’t believe that those words just came out of her mouth, but it’s too late to take them back now.

Silence. Then -

“Schweppes Sparkling Lemonade.” 

Lysithea’s brows furrow in confusion. “What?”

“I said: Schweppes Sparkling Lemonade. I’ll text you my address.”

And then Hilda hangs up. True to her word, a text appears almost instantaneously on the screen while Lysithea is still blinking down at her phone in befuddlement. It’s only at that moment that Lysithea remembers she doesn’t own a car, and will need to take public transportation to get out to -- oh, wait, that’s not that far. She could walk, if she had the stamina for it. 

Twenty minutes later, Lysithea is standing outside a two-story, brick-faced apartment complex that looks like it had been built thirty years ago and never renovated. So, basically, like any poor grad student accommodation on the planet. She approaches a door with the chipped brass-plated number ‘2-A.’ 

In one hand she holds a grocery bag, and in the other she triple-checks her phone to make sure this is the right place. Stuffing her phone into her pocket, Lysithea knocks. 

Hilda answers the door draped in a blanket like a maudlin empress surveying her fallen nation. Her normally immaculate appearance has been tossed out with the bathwater. There are dark circles beneath her eyes, and her hair is a mess. The apartment beyond is cast all in shadow. The curtains are drawn, and Lysithea can't make out anything beyond Hilda except clutter and darkness.

“Hey,” Hilda croaks, trying to add a bit of her usual sing-song emphasis but instead dissolving into a fit of coughing. 

Lysithea thinks of a dozen lies and platitudes she should say, but what comes out is: “You look terrible.” 

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Hilda chuckles, and leans in the doorway. “Do you got the goods, dealer?”

Lysithea holds up the grocery bag filled with two large plastic bottles of sparkling lemonade. “Only the finest.” 

“You’re a saint,” Hilda mumbles as she takes the grocery bag and peers inside. “I could seriously kiss you right now.”

At that, Lysithea takes a step back. “No, thank you. Keep your nasty virus to yourself.”

“Guess that means you don’t want to come in, then.”

Lysithea is surprised when she hears herself say, “Next time.”

Even Hilda looks a bit shocked, though it’s difficult to tell. Normally she’s more expressive than this. She mustn’t have the energy to emote, when sick. 

Still, she gamely cracks a smile, and waves Lysithea away. “Next time, then. Go on, now. Shoo. Before you get my nasty virus.” 

“Will I see you tomorrow?” Lysithea asks as she steps away.

“I’ll be lecturing in the morning, and then coming back to bed,” Hilda says, though she sounds like she should be organising her casket arrangements rather than teach right now. 

“Oh,” Lysithea says. She tries not to let the disappointment show, and she thinks she does a decent job of hiding that sort of thing. At least, she should be, given her history. 

“But you can buy me a hot drink before I go home.” Hilda offers that like it’s some sort of prize to be won. 

Lysithea frowns. “Is my offering of soda inadequate for Her Highness?”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” Hilda winks and shuts the door. 

--

Lysithea brings the newspaper, but not the coffee. It’s 7:04am, and the students of Organic Chemistry II have let themselves into the lecture theatre six minutes ago. Lysithea sits in the back corner, trying to get as much distance as possible between herself and any undergrads who might mistake her for one of their flock. None of them seem to pay her any mind. It’s too early for anything but using their bags as pillows and trying to sneak in an extra few minutes of sleep before their professor arrives. 

Exactly nine minutes after the class was meant to start, the double doors to the lecture theatre swing open, and Hilda walks inside. Her heeled boots clack with every step, announcing her presence.

"Sorry I'm late." Hilda drops into the chair at the head of the classroom beside the podium. "I didn't want to come."

She is wearing enormous heart-shaped sunglasses that shield her eyes from view. A dark-washed scarf is wrapped around her neck and shoulders like a shawl, and the total effect makes her look like a celebrity trying to escape the paparazzi. She props her feet atop the table, and waves to the classroom at large without actually looking at anyone. “Pop quiz.”

The class gives out a collective groan of despair. 

Hilda ignores them. She pulls out her cellphone. For a brief moment, Lysithea thinks that Hilda is just going text through the entire lecture, but then the projector screen descends from the ceiling behind her, and the projector itself flickers to life. 

Hilda gives her phone a few idle taps, and a slideshow quiz appears on the screen. “You have twenty minutes.” She tosses her phone to the table. “Go.” 

The students are scrambling for spare paper from their notebooks. Some of them exchange blank pages in a flurry of movement, before they are all hunched over their desks, silent but for the scratch of pens against paper. 

Lysithea reads the list of questions on the screen. They are hard, but not impossible. In their shoes, Lysithea would have aced the quiz. Then again, Lysithea had been a model student that two universities had fought over for the grant money that came tethered to her thesis project. It takes these students the full twenty minutes, and even then a few of them are scrambling for answers and scratching their heads.

Hilda’s phone alarm chirps, and all of the students put their pens down like well-trained Pavlovian subjects. On the other hand, Hilda does not move at all. Her arms are crossed, and most of her face is either hidden by scarf or sunglasses. 

She is, Lysithea realises, fast asleep. 

“Professor Goneril?” one of the students in the front row hazards. Lysithea recognises the student from her own class, a quiet girl by the name of Flayn, related to Seteth, the university’s chaplain. 

At the sound of her title, Hilda’s head jerks. She lowers her feet to the ground, and sits upright. She pushes her sunglasses partially up her face so that she can rub at her eyes with the heel of her palm. From here, Lysithea can see that while Hilda looks far better than their last encounter at her apartment, she still looks like death warmed over. 

Hilda cranes her neck to peer at the clock on the wall, and says, “Turn ‘em in. And if you cheated, I’ll know.”

All of the students exchange glances, then stand to approach her table and deposit their sheets of paper at her feet. 

One of the students lowers his head to whisper to his neighbor. “Do you think she has the place bugged?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” his friend replies under his breath. 

Lysithea rolls her eyes, and says, “No. It’s because I’m here, and I would tell her.” 

The two nearly jump out of their skin. One of them squints at her. “Aren’t you a student from Mathematical Methods for Physical Sciences?” 

Lysithea gives him her very best glower. “I’m the professor of that course.” 

Both their eyes widen, and they shuffle away towards the front of the classroom. 

The lecture as a whole is supposed to last two hours. Hilda only takes an hour and a half, and lets everyone go early. Throughout the entire thing, Lysithea chips away at the crossword to very little effect, and grinds her teeth at the back of the class. 

She herself has to prepare pages and pages of carefully labelled and researched notes every week for her own lectures, and even then she always feels like she is scrambling to use up her total time. If she lets the students out five minutes early, it’s like she’s failed in her duty. Hilda on the other hand breezes through the course content like she wrote the fucking book. 

And she definitely didn’t write the book. Lysithea checked. 

To add insult to injury, Hilda’s slides have an unparalleled clarity that make Lysithea green with envy. The students nod their heads, and type up notes on their laptops. When they raise their hands with questions, Hilda answers breezily and efficiently from her seat despite her lingering cold, checking her fingernails and sometimes even tapping her phone to another pre-prepared slide as though she had expected just that question to pop up during the lecture. 

Whenever Lysithea got a question from her students, she would need to work off the spike of adrenaline by drawing out the answer too small on the whiteboard.  

By the end, Lysithea is fuming. She hasn’t finished the crossword, and she is feeling thoroughly outclassed. 

It’s 8:31, and the students are packing up their bags to leave. Some of them are brave enough to approach Hilda like their approaching a lazy queen sprawled upon her sumptuous plastic throne. Flayn is among them. Lysithea hovers near the exit, clutching her newspaper, while Hilda holds court, waiting. Flayn is the last student to leave, waving at Lysithea, who returns the gesture with a forced grimace. 

Hilda is slinging her designer black bag over her shoulder as she walks towards Lysithea. “Hi! Miss me much?”

Hilda smiles at her, and all of those ugly feelings melt away like a snowbank in late spring. 

“As if,” Lysithea says, already turning to walk towards the nearby cafe down the hall and to the right. 

She orders their usual, but Hilda interrupts to get a lemon honey and ginger tea for herself instead. They sit near the windows, and Lysithea tosses down the newspaper with a scowl.

Hilda sips at her tea. “Someone’s feeling grumpy this morning. What’s wrong? Couldn’t finish the crossword without me?”

“No! I mean -- that’s besides the point!” Lysithea lifts her chin and says, indignant, “One of your students mistook me for an undergrad.”

Rather than laugh, Hilda sticks out her tongue as though at a bad taste. “If that happened to me, I would literally die.”

Lysithea nods. This is the reaction she had been expecting at so grave a transgression.

And then, Hilda asks the worst possible question. “How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-four.”

Hilda splutters, and has to put down her tea in order to cough into the crook of her elbow. Lysithea can feel her face heating up while Hilda collects herself. 

"Oh my god." Hilda’s face is painted with horror, "Twenty-four? When did you start undergrad? As a foetus?"

Lysithea straightens in her seat, and answers primly, "I was sixteen, thank you very much."

"Twenty-four." Hilda repeats with a shudder. "No wonder. I have students that age. Gross."

Lysithea bristles. "Excuse me?" 

"Oh, I didn’t mean you. I just had an intrusive thought about dating a student, and had the instinctive urge to dry-heave." Hilda flutters her hand at the base of her throat as if she’s going to be sick. 

"I’m not one of your students!"

"Thank god," Hilda mutters. 

"I may not have my PhD yet, but we are still colleagues! And I'll have you know that I am very dateable!"

At that, Hilda’s eyebrows launch themselves over the rims of her sunglasses. "I never thought you weren't."

"Well - good!” Lysithea crosses her arms with a huff, and leans back in her chair. “Because I am! I’m great at -” she struggles for what exactly to say, but is too obstinate to give up, and ends up with, “- being available! For dating!” 

Hilda is biting her lower lip as if she’s desperately trying not to laugh. Lysithea wishes she could see her eyes; it would be much easier to tell what kind of expression Hilda was wearing if she could see her eyes. It certainly doesn’t help that her own face is aflame; she just knows that her pale complexion will have gone ruddy with embarrassment. 

“Glad to hear it,” Hilda drawls, before tilting her head back to drain what remains of her tea. Meanwhile Lysithea clears her throat, and takes an extra large gulp of her hot chocolate. 

Dropping her now empty takeaway cup onto the table, Hilda pushes her chair back. “Thanks for the tea. I’m off to bed to show this virus who’s boss.”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem.” 

Lysithea can still feel the flush in her cheeks. It doesn’t get any better when Hilda lowers her sunglasses just enough to peer over them at Lysithea and flash her a smile.

“See you Monday,” Hilda says, and it’s not a question. She pushes her sunglasses back into place, and swings her bag over her shoulder. 

Then, she pauses. She reaches out, and Lysithea leans back slightly in her seat, but not before Hilda has tapped the tip of her nose.

“You’ve got cocoa on your nose.” Hilda shows Lysithea her finger, which does indeed have a smidge of cocoa powder from the hot chocolate. With a smile, Hilda turns and strides away with far more flounce in her step than a sick woman should be able to achieve. 

Lysithea sits, frozen in place. Then, realising she is staring, she swipes furiously at her face for any residual cocoa powder. When she’s finished, Hilda is long gone.  

[rogertaylors-lipgloss]

Love & Lasagna- Chapter One

I know I have a couple of requests waiting but those are almost finished and should be up in the next few days. I’ve had a lot going on since school let out and I got really behind in my writing. BUT I hope you guys enjoy this new series, and should be updating the others very soon. Let me know if you’d like to be added to this taglist or to my permanent taglist. 

This is a Prof!Gwilym x Reader. 

Warnings: 18+, smut, maybe some cursing, forbidden romance, unprotected sex (no glove no love, peeps)

Word Count: 4.5k+ (I can’t check for sure bc Word has decided to glitch)

It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Y/N tapped the end of her pencil on the table, barely paying attention to the words drifting from the professor’s lips. After a particularly grueling shift the night before at the local café she worked at, she found it increasingly difficult to stay awake. This was her favorite part of the day, her class with Dr. Lee. She was his graduate assistant, and although the freshmen in World History 101 could be a little tiresome, she loved her job. What she loved even more, however, was how close she had become to Dr. Lee. He was British and had moved to the U.S. to teach at the university she had been at since undergrad. His face was striking, with a subtly pronounced jawline covered in light stubble, and his deep, hazy blue eyes were set off by his neatly coifed brown hair. Today, his tall, slender (yet still muscular) frame was accentuated by a crisp white button-down tucked into a perfectly tailored pair of tan chinos. Even in her drowsy state, Y/N swooned internally.

Though there was always an air of professionalism between the two, she couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to kiss him. She shook the thought out of her head. He may not be her professor anymore, but he was still her superior. Not to mention he was on the committee overseeing her thesis. But she couldn’t help be remember fondly the first time they graded exams together.

-----

She had been in her office after hours attempting to grade some of the 100+ papers she had stacked neatly in front of her. Gwilym had been on his way out when he heard the faint sounds of music coming from down the hall. He hadn’t expected to find you, but there you were. She startled at the sound of him knocking on the door. “What are you still doing here?”

“Uh, well, some hard-ass left a giant stack of papers here for me, so…” Gwilym laughed and her face broke into a wide, toothy smile.

“I’m sure he- or she-“ Y/N giggled. “- meant well. Maybe I could be of some assistance?”

“Well, I mean, considering you’re the hard-ass in question, I figure that would be the least you could do. Your office or mine?”

Gwilym glanced around at the small, cramped space. “Mine. Definitely”

He picked up the stack of papers while she slung her backpack over her shoulder. After locking the door, she followed him down the hallway to his office. Since he was one of the more recent professors to join the history department, he had also been stuck with a drab basement office. Y/N had been in his office many times. It was the same size as the TA office she shared, but with only one desk it was significantly more spacious. After settling into a pair of chairs, Y/N and Gwil settled in for a long night of grading. They sat in comfortable silence, interrupted every so often by exchanging jokes about some of the responses the students had left on their exams. “This one really thought Henry VIII broke with the church to marry Elizabeth I, his daughter!” The two laughed heartily and a conversation about the prevalence of royal incest ensued. The night continued on this way until Y/N had some trouble making out one of the written responses.

“Dr. Lee- “

“Gwilym.” He corrected.

“Right. Gwilym. Can you make this out by any chance? This one must think they’re a doctor.” Y/N walked over to where he was sitting, and leaned over his shoulder, placing the stapled packet within his view. His breath hitched at how close she was. She noticed but interpreted it to mean that she was crossing a line. She cleared her throat and took a step back.

“Ah, so the question is ‘what was the name of the pope who excommunicated Henry VIII,’ and they appeared to have answered incorrectly. Unfortunately, ‘that one pope dude’ is not a sufficient answer.” They laughed together again, and he handed the paper back to her.

They sat there grading for another hour, Gwilym glancing at her every so often. Her soft, Y/S/C face was framed by stunning Y/H/C hair. He had noticed it before, but only now did fully take it in. Not only was she intelligent, but she was undeniably beautiful and had a sense of humor that perfectly matched his own. When they finally called it a night, she waved goodbye as they went their separate ways. He watched longingly as she walked away, relishing the subtle swaying of her hips. Little did he know that she had fallen asleep that night touching herself to the thought of him. 

-----

Dr. Gwilym Lee glanced up at Y/N occasionally as he droned on. Y/N was a bright student. Typically attentive and engaging in class, he couldn’t help but wonder why she looked like she was going to pass out at any given moment. Sighing, he shut down the projector and dismissed the class. The other students quickly disappeared while Y/N collected her things, not noticing Dr. Lee striding towards her desk as she shoved her notebook into her bag.

“Y/N?” Her head snapped up, meeting his gaze as a deep blush rose to her cheeks. “Are you feeling quite yourself today?”

His accent never failed to make her knees weak, but she steeled herself and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears. “I’m sorry Dr. Lee, I just had a late shift last night and my car wouldn’t start when I clocked out. I had to walk all the way back to my dorm and I had barely been asleep when some idiot pulled the fire alarm. By the time they let us back inside, I had to shower and get ready for my meeting with Dr. Barnett. I know that’s not an excuse, I won’t let it happen again.”

She was so frantic that Gwilym placed a calming hand on her shoulder. Y/N’s heart fluttered at his touch. “Don’t worry, Y/N. You aren’t in trouble.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, she felt visibly more at ease. “Thank you, Dr. Lee.”

Chuckling, Gwilym gave her shoulder a squeeze before letting his arm drop. “I’ve told you, Y/N. You can call me Gwil.”

“Right, okay. Gwil.” A smile crept across her face. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Being this close to him made her nervous.

“Next time something like that happens, call me, yeah? I don’t live too far from campus and I’d rather lose a little sleep than have you walking alone at night, okay?” Her eyes widened, but she nodded.

“Do you have other classes today?” He looked at her inquisitively over the rim of his glasses. She shook her head. “Work?” She shook her head again. “Good,” he smiled. “Why don’t you try to go get a nap in, yeah? I had been hoping to discuss your thesis progress, do you think you’d be up to meeting me in my office later this afternoon? About 5-ish?”

“Sure thing, Dr.- I mean, Gwil. Sorry. I think I can manage that, Gwil.” He chuckled at her as she mentally chastised herself.

“Wonderful. I’ll see you then, just make sure you get some rest first.”

Y/N made her way back to her dorm room, but instead of going inside to sleep, she was confronted with a ribbon tied to the door handle. Shit, she thought. The ribbon was the code she and her roommate, Georgie, had decided on to signify when they had a “companion.” Unfortunately for Y/N, Georgie had been using this code at least three times a week. She was still in her undergrad, and although she was always friendly, Y/N couldn’t help but wish she had forked out the extra cash for a single dorm. Or an apartment, she thought. Georgie was only 19, and at 24, Y/N felt a bit out of touch with the culture of sex and partying that Georgie had bought into.

Sighing, Y/N walked back across campus to the building that housed the history department. If she couldn’t sleep in her own bed, maybe she could at least find respite in the TA office. It was small and she shared it with about three other TAs. The office was tucked away, out of sight in the cold, dank basement, with four desks crammed tightly inside. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found it empty, the other assistants out for the day. Y/N flicked off the main light and turned on the small lamp she kept on her desk. Her desk was tucked away in the corner and covered with books for her thesis. Pushing the books to the side, she zipped up her hoodie and laid her head down on the desk. She had just started to doze off when she heard the door open.

“Y/N? I thought I told you to go home and sleep?” Y/N peered up at Gwilym, who stood in the doorway.

“You did. And I tried. Except my roommate was too busy not sleeping, if you catch my drift.”

Gwil’s cheeks flushed. “Ah, yes. Well, you should have texted me. I forgot I had to go to a departmental meeting this afternoon, so my apartment will be empty until later tonight. I could give you a key, if you’d like, that is.”

It was Y/N’s turn to blush. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be quite alright- “

“Y/N, please. I insist.” Gwilym slid his spare off of his keyring and handed it over. Y/N nervously took it. He pulled a blank piece of paper out of the printer on one of the desks and scribbled something on it before handing it to Y/N. “This is my address. Like I said, it’s pretty close to campus.”

“Thank you, Gwilym.” He nodded at her before muttering goodbye and turning to leave.

-----

Y/N soon found herself standing in front of a small stone house, glancing back down at the scrap of paper to make sure she was in the right place. This is it. She walked up the pathway and unlocked the front door. Stepping inside, Y/N walked down the short hallway to the living room. The first thing she noticed was the books. The room was small, but with a cozy feel. There was a fireplace on the center of the back wall, with a leather couch and matching chair facing towards it. On the wall behind the couch, stood four tall bookshelves overflowing with books. Upon inspection, Y/N noted that they were predominantly history-related, with a few fictional classics thrown in. They were all meticulously organized by genre, then chronologically based on the period they covered. She chuckled to herself. Typical historian. It was how her own tiny dorm-sized bookshelf was organized.

It took minimal exploring to find the bedroom, given it was the only closed-off room aside from the bathroom. Inside, she found an immaculately made bed with white sheets and a matching white down comforter. It looked so comforting and inviting that Y/N almost climbed in still wearing her jeans. Shit, my jeans, she thought. With her dorm room occupied, she hadn’t been able to snag any of her pajamas. She could always sleep in her underwear, but then what if Gwilym came home and saw her? Would that really be so bad? She shook the thought out her head and walked over to the dresser, hoping he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed something. She pulled out a long pair of oversized, plaid pajama bottoms, and a plain white undershirt. Gwilym was relatively slender, but somehow Y/N managed to fit her hips into the pants. After changing, she pulled back the comforter and dove in. It felt like a cloud to her tired body, and she buried herself under the blanket. It took mere seconds for her drift asleep.

-----

It had been a long day for Gwilym. The meeting had run late, and it was 7:45 P.M. before he finally made it back home. He could hear light snoring coming from his bedroom and opened the door slightly to get a look. Y/N was still there, fast asleep. Her hair was a disheveled mess atop her head, and her lips were parted just enough for a small bit of drool to escape. Beautiful, he thought, though he immediately felt guilty. At 29, he was only a few years older than she was, having only finished his PhD two years ago and had been lucky enough to find a position shortly after. Age, however, was not the issue. Though she was not his student, she was still his assistant. The other professors would not look favorably upon such a relationship, though he had thought about it often.

She’d been his assistant for most of those two years, and over the course of that time he had fallen hopelessly head-over-heels. They often chatted together while they graded the undergraduate students’ papers and exams and found that they both had the same dry sense of humor. He loved the way her eyes always shut when she laughed, how she tugged on her ear lobe when she was deep in thought, and so much more. Sometimes he even thought she might feel the same but had brushed the notion to the side. She would never love someone like me, he thought. Little did he know about the butterflies that plagued Y/N every time she was in the same room as him.

He gently shut the bedroom door and made his way into the kitchen to put the kettle on. As he waited for the water to heat up, he picked up one his books and settled into the leather chair. Soon after, the kettle began to whistle. Shit, he hadn’t thought about the noise that came with making tea. He silently chastised himself, hoping he hadn’t woken her. He knew how much she needed the rest.

Y/N shot up in bed at the sound of the whistle. She looked over at the clock he had on his nightstand. “Shit,” she muttered to herself. She’d been asleep for almost five hours. Hearing noises coming from the kitchen, she begrudgingly climbed out of the warm comfort of the bed.

Gwilym had taken the kettle off the heat and was digging around searching for a mug. “Gwilym?” At the sound of you voice he whipped his head around.

“Y/N. Please forgive me, I forgot how loud the kettle was.”

She rubbed her eyes, still heavy with sleep. “S’okay. It’s my fault for oversleeping.”

He glanced up and down, recognizing the clothes she was wearing as his own. A grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “I see you made yourself at home.”

Her cheeks burned red, and she stuttered, “Oh, uh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to sleep in my jeans, and I couldn’t very well sleep naked- oh my god.” She didn’t think it was possible, but she felt her cheeks get even hotter when the word “naked” left her lips. “I’m so sorry, I’ll just go change and I’ll be out of your hair.”

As she turned to walk back to the bedroom, Gwilym reached out for her wrist without thinking. “Please don’t go. It’s alright, love.” It was his turn to blush. In a moment of spontaneous boldness, he commented, “Looks better on you anyways.”

Her eyes widened and she looked down to hide her smile, though it didn’t go unnoticed by Gwil. Clearing his throat, he tried to ease the awkward tension. “Would you like to stay for dinner? We never did get the chance to discuss your thesis. I’m not the best cook, but I can make a mean lasagna.”

“Anything would be better than another night of microwaved Ramen. And if I see one more Lean Cuisine I might die.”

Gwilym laughed. “Well, we mustn’t have that. God only knows where I’d be without you in class with all of those freshmen. If I hear one more question that could be answered by reading the syllabus, I WILL die.” They both giggled at that.

Y/N walked around the small kitchen island. “So, chef Gwil, how can I help?”

-----

After dividing up tasks, the two quickly completed their masterpiece and placed it in the oven. “How long do we wait?” Y/N rubbed her stomach, not realizing until just then how hungry she was.

“About forty-five minutes,” Gwil said as he set the timer on the stove. Y/N let out a groan and Gwilym laughed at her reaction. “There, there, it will pass in no time. Oh, hold on. You’ve got a bit of sauce- “

He reached over to wipe a bit of tomato sauce off of her cheek with his thumb. Her breath caught as his sudden touch. He gulped and started to pull his hand away but was surprised when Y/N placed her hand over his. He stepped closer until she could feel his breath on her forehead.

“Y/N,” he whispered. She felt a chill run down her spine.

“Gwilym.” She closed the short distance between them and pressed her lips against his. She was surprised at how soft they were and even more surprised when his hand left her cheek and slipped into her hair, pulling her closer to him. He politely swept his tongue across her bottom lip before deepening the kiss. She moaned into his mouth as Gwilym reached around her to lift her up, setting her down on top of the island counter. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him in.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He uttered between kisses.

“I think I have some idea.” She pressed her hips into his pronounced erection, and he let out a soft moan.

The t-shirt she had borrowed from him started to fall off her shoulders, and Gwilym pressed kisses to the exposed skin, working his way from her shoulders to her clavicle. “You’re so incredibly beautiful, Y/N.”

“I’ve wanted you for so long, Gwil.” She answered, her head falling back as he marked her neck.

“And I, you.” He lifted her back up, allowing her time to wrap herself around him more securely before carrying her into the bedroom. He laid her back down on the plush comforter she had been buried in not too long ago. Y/N tugged at his belt, unbuckling it quickly before plunging her hand underneath the waistband of his pants and boxer briefs. His breath caught in his throat as she palmed his bare erection. She could tell by the outline on his pants that he was large, but she never expected what she found when she finally freed him from his underwear, working her wrist up and down him in steady strokes. He moaned before pushing his pants the rest of the way down his legs before kicking them off the bed, with his shirt quickly joining them on the floor. She only paused her movements for Gwilym to pull his t-shirt over her head and stood up briefly to remove his pajama pants from her body.

She started to climb back into the bed, but Gwil stopped her gently. “Please, let me just take you in for a moment.” She blushed but complied. Gwilym had often wondered what she would look like undressed, but now that he was confronted with the reality of her standing in her underwear in his bedroom, he was speechless. She silently thanked God that she actually managed to put on a matching bra and underwear. He quietly admired the way the purple fabric contrasted with her skin, then patted the space on the bed next to him. She belly-flopped onto the bed, and he let out a loud laugh. She grinned at him before moving to straddle him. His eyes shut at the erotic feeling of his naked member brushing against the thin fabric of her panties. Putting his hands on her back, he held her in place as he moved up the bed until his back was against the headboard. He cradled her in his arms and she slowly ground her hips into his.

She could feel his erection growing harder and the neediness she felt in the pit of stomach was becoming unbearable. Sensing this, Gwilym looked into her eyes. “Are you sure this is what you want, love?” She nodded fervently. Gwil reach behind her to unhook her bra and she stood up on the bed so that he could pull her panties off easily. She sat back down next to him and let her head fall back on a pillow. Gwil positioned himself at the foot of the bed and lightly pushed her knees apart. He trailed kisses up each of her thighs before finally settling in the spot she needed him most. Her body jolted with pleasure as he attached his lips to her folds, and she absentmindedly laced her fingers tightly in his hair to hold him in place.

“You’re so wet for me,” he breathed before reattaching to her clit. His name tumbled from her lips, over and over, the sound like heaven to his ears. When she moaned as two of his fingers slipped inside, he rutted his hips into the mattress for relief. “D’you like that love? Come for me, Y/N.”

He continued pumping his fingers and felt her start to tighten around them.

“I need you Gwil. All of you, please.”

God, even her whining is enticing, he thought. “Don’t worry love. This isn’t even the start of all the things I want to do to you. Want to make you feel good,” he murmured into her pelvis. “Do you think you can take one more, sweetheart?”

When Y/N nodded, Gwil carefully added a third finger and began pushing his fingers into her with more aggressive enthusiasm. She began to unravel around his unforgiving pace and felt herself tiptoe closer and closer to the edge of pure bliss. His mouth and fingers were relentless, and even as she fell over the edge, he kept up his pace until she was convulsing with the best orgasm she’d ever had. He pulled his fingers out of her, and the sight of him licking her wetness off of his fingers was almost enough to make her fall over the edge again.

Gwilym slid up the mattress until his face was level with hers. She turned and placed her hands on either side of his head before initiating another deep kiss. She pulled him until his entire body hovered over her own. His lips attached to her neck, and though she was still sensitive from her orgasm, she didn’t want to wait any longer. “Gwil,” she breath into his ear. “Please Gwil.” Her hand snaked down the length of his torso until she felt his member in her hand. He was so worked up that he bucked into her hand as she began stroking him. “You’re so needy, baby. Tell me what you want.”

Her words elicited a quiet moan from him. “You. Just you.” His lips met hers hard before he aligned himself with her entrance. He looked into her eyes once more. She nodded and he finally entered her.

Y/N had been with other men before, but none of them had even come close to filling her up as fully as Gwilym did. Her eyes rolled back in her head as he gave her a moment to adjust. After a few seconds, she pushed her hips up to meet his, silently giving him permission to begin.

He started slowly, afraid of hurting her. She felt heavenly around his cock, like she was perfectly made just for him. But she was just as needy as he was and kept bucking against him in an attempt to speed up the pace.

“So eager,” he chuckled. “Use your words, Y/N.”

“I need more of you, Gwil. God, I need more.” A moan escaped her lips at his tantalizingly slow pace, and he smirked down at her.

“All you had to was ask, my sweet, sweet girl.” He pecked her cheek before sliding his hand behind her head. He readjusted his weight and held her close as began to thrust into her with a renewed sense of purpose. He wasn’t going to last long, especially not with the cries that were flowing from her lips. She was so warm, and all she wanted, at least in that moment, was him.

When Gwilym felt her walls tighten again, his movements became more erratic.

“I’m so close, love.” He was struggling to hold back, but he knew he couldn’t for much longer.

“Me too, oh my God Gwil please. Please.” That was all it took for his hips to stutter as he released his warm, sticky fluid inside of her. The warmth the coated her walls was enough to send her tumbling back over the edge. Her vision went black and he continued moving inside her, coaxing her through the wave of pleasure that had taken over every inch of her being.

Her body trembled as she came down from her high, and though he was gentle, she cried out when finally pulled out of her. Gwilym held her tightly, steadying her as the began to come back down to earth. He sweetly kissed her temple, her nose, then her mouth. She parted her lips, inviting him to deepen the kiss. They laid there making out for short while.

Suddenly, Gwilym broke the kiss, pulling back slightly but his hand remained fully entwined in her hair.

“Y/N, I want you to know that this wasn’t just sex to me.” She looked up at him with wide eyes. “I know there are consequences to what I’m about to say, but I have to say it. I have been in love with you since the first night you came into my office to grade.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I love you, Gwilym.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, taking in the surprised look on his face. He hadn’t dared to hope that she would feel the same way and hearing it out loud was more than he could ever want. “How do we do this?” She asked.

“I don’t know. You only have a few months before you graduate. We just have to keep this between us until then, and maybe for a little while after to avoid suspicion of foul play.”

Y/N didn’t like keeping secrets but knew that in this case she’d have no choice but to make an exception. “What about my thesis?”

“Well, we’ll just have to continue as normal. It would look odd if I suddenly resigned from the committee.”

Y/N nodded, and Gwilym pressed a knowing kiss to her temple. “I know this is difficult,” he said. “But I love you and I want to be with you. It will be okay, Y/N. No matter what happens, you will always have me.”

She smiled, and then jumped up out of the bed. Panicked, she looked at Gwilym and shouted, “THE LASAGNA!”

Permanent Taglist: @disasterdeacy

[misspandalily]

because Team Gai is so extra

Last entry for Nejiten Month! Prompts used: it isn’t my fault you’re perfect, gifts

AO3 | FFN

"Your new hurdle assessment piece: in pairs, you will be assigned an egg to care for over the next month. Now, please come up to the front to draw your partner's name."

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Because she has no surname, Tenten is the first to draw a name from the weird, sparkly blue top hat that Mr Hatake insists on displaying year-round, even though it's a little frayed at the edges and losing the rich sapphire colour it used to have. She remembers Temari the Senior telling her that it's because he actually stores his porn books in it, though no one's ever come close enough to the hat to find one. He also wears a mask, for some reason, and she's pretty sure that it's against Departmental Regulations but Mr Hatake is also the coolest health teacher on campus so she isn't about to cross that line. Yet.

She dips her hand into the hat, swirls it around a bit, prays that she'll have a partner who'll help her pass and not shatter the egg, then picks up a piece of paper that's folded so precisely it's an exact square. Opening it up, Tenten is awarded by the most shocking revelation of her life. Who in the blazes is 'Neji Hyuga'?

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Neji Hyuga, apparently, is that guy who sits right at the front with his hair immaculately tied into a ponytail and snaps out lines that border between poetry and insults. She honestly has never paid much attention to him, only now knowing that he's been topping the academic board for so long that no one - not even the teachers - bother acting surprised when he scores highest every year. Also, he's the cousin of Konoha High's wallflower, Hinata Hyuga, a sweet sophomore who's so quiet and kind that no one in the school wants to pick on her, ever. Which is why their relation comes as another shock to Tenten because Neji (who actually talks a lot in class, to her surprise) is probably the worst person she's ever met.

"Hi, I'm Tenten," she holds out a hand for him to shake. Their seats are being reassigned to whoever their new partners are, and amongst all of the shuffling and shouting that's going on, Tenten is one to always remember etiquette because she's a good girl who was raised right by the orphanage caretaker. The same doesn't seem to go for him, because he leaves her hanging and replies with a stiff nod. "Okay," she slumps into her new, disgustingly warm, seat, "nice to meet you too."

"Let's just get this over and done with," he says with an air of finality. Tenten sputters, her eyes darting between the egg sitting before them and his stoic face. He returns her incredulous gaze with one of impetuousness. "We only need to talk whenever the assignment entails it."

"Wow," she mutters to herself, then side-eyes him, and decides to completely skip over the part where she wants to retain her etiquette, "You are such a loser."

That gets his attention. Neji swivels in his seat, abhorred. "I don't think I recall you topping the school's academic board."

"I came first in PE, doucheface," she hisses back when Mr Hatake's powerpoint slides pop up - a sign for total silence that no one has ever listened to in the years he's been teaching here (so, five).

"Ah, a subject for men."

"Yeah, well," her brain is rifling through the vast database of insults she stores in her mind whenever she's in the shower and arguing with an imaginary person, "If you look at that list, you don't even qualify as one."

Neji stares. Mr Hatake finally manages to quiet down the class with a horn he keeps stowed away in his top drawer. Neji continues to stare, to her satisfaction. "I don't like you."

"Neji," Mr Hatake calls out, having caught him for breaking the Sacred Rule of Silence, "Kindly refrain from defying authority for today, thank you."

From her slumped posture, elbows on the table, fingers holding her pens and paper in place, Tenten tilts her head back and lets out a silent laugh.

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"Look," Tenten sighs for the fiftieth time since entering the Hyuga Compound. It's a large mansion with marble floors, columns and staircases; she's slipped once or twice, because that's how polished it is. They're in Neji's room, deciding on a name for their egg (which apparently takes more than the six allotted hours of a school day when it comes to Neji Hyuga's 'List of Adequate Baby Egg Names, Condensed and Revised for Tenten's Stupidity') and timetabling their shifts. "Could you please stop thermoregulating the egg? Literally nothing has changed in the past two hours. Give it a rest."

He almost gasps in astonishment, but she counts it as a success when he finally removes his thermometer from the mini marble egg bathtub. Don't ask, because she'll tell you anyway, but Neji claims that his little cousin Hanabi has a Thing for collecting elaborate, custom-made egg-holders. Tenten doesn't buy it. At all. "Excuse you. My child will be cared for in the way I deem fit."

"Wow," she watches him fuss over his - their - egg like a mother hen and massages her forehead delicately. "I think I just understood something."

"Meaning?"

"Nothing flattering for you, that's what."

"I don't need flattery from you when I have Eggbert to care for."

"Hold up," Tenten places her palms in the air, affronted, "Eggbert? I thought we agreed on Eggs Benedict?"

Neji scoffs with his nose high up in the air. "No child of mine will be named Eggs Benedict. How barbaric."

"I'm sorry," she starts sarcastically, "It's not my fault you're so perfect. After we inaugurate the egg into your clan, shall we decide on Eggbert von Hyugastein's bedroom decor?"

"The best suggestion you've made since...well, ever."

Tenten groans. This is going to be a long month.

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Despite the looming threat of mid-year exams catching on, Neji sticks to their shift timetables like a slavedriver and insists on getting the compulsory 'joint parenting outing' out of the way so that he 'never has to see her face again'. Like he can even help that. They literally have every class together.

Because he's the one forcing her out of her procrastinatory slumber, though, she gets to choose where they go - egg-racing in the park with Lee, since he refused to pay for a huge dinner at Konoha's most expensive restaurant (The Golden Flower) for their family.

Reputedly the most active person in all of Konoha, tying only with Mr Gai, Rock Lee wears spandex-green jumpsuits on a constant basis and emulates his idol Bruce by spending almost every waking second in the gym and dojo, if not on his extremely sleek bob. He's overwhelming, but he's also Tenten's best friend, as well as someone Neji once described to her as 'pitiful' and 'annoying', so that's why they're meeting up with him.

Predictably, Lee's egg is painted forest green, complete with orange leg-warmers and a mini-bob, and is called the 'Springtime of Youth'. Tenten takes utter delight in the cringe that spreads across Neji's face when he realises that they have to spend the next ten hours with Lee unless he agrees to spread out 'joint parenting outing' over a month instead of a day.

Anyway, the race is amazing. Lee puts all of his energy into everything he does, so it's a complete obstacle course of sloping slides and mazes for the waxed eggs to roll through. She places all of her savings (so, fifty cents - she likes to buy things, okay? Shut up, Neji.) on Eggbert von Hyugastein and is shockingly backed up by Neji's big, fat, fifty-dollar bill. The gesture catches her off-guard, because he's actually smiling at her, but then Lee declares the betting pool closed and starts the race.

Here's a snippet of how it goes:

"Lee's winning. LEE'S EGG IS WINNING. SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH IS WINNING. NEJI."

Neji calmly squints at their egg, dressed to the nines in tailored Hyuga robes, to move faster down the padded obstacle course. It works; Springtime of Youth suddenly comes to a halt, giving Eggbert the precious few seconds it needs to gain ground. Tenten whoops and tackles Neji into a headlock.

"YOU'RE AMAZING. NEJ, WE'RE WINNING!"

Neji manages to claw his way out and straighten his robes with enough dignity to make the Queen feel ashamed. "I told you," Tenten's seconds away from crying tears of happiness when she looks at him, "Eggbert is telepathic."

"My baby's growing up," Tenten wipes a tear away from the corner of her eye as she leans her head onto Neji's stiffened shoulder. "Our baby's growing up."

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"Honey, I'm home!"

Neji opens the door to his room and greets her. "I prefer being called Neji."

"I was talking to Eggbert, loser."

"Oh," Neji replies, trying not to look too disappointed.

Tenten places her bag on the ground and coos at the egg perched in its diorama-room, in between the mini-marble columns and Picasso paintings on the walls. "How's my widdle baby doing? Mummy's home now and she has a gift!"

Tenten extracts a decorative egg cup with 'SPELL-BINDEGG' printed in bold over the surface and situates it in the corner of Eggbert's room.

Neji joins her and smiles down at his child. "They grow up so fast. An hour ago Eggbert rolled over."

She gasps in delight before letting her face fall. "I've been meaning to ask," Neji turns around and quirks up an eyebrow. "Don't you think I should get some home-time with Eggbert now? You've already had your two weeks and I am the mother of our child."

Neji gawks at once. "But-what will I do in my spare time? This is just cruel."

"You'll still get to see Eggbert every second day and on weekends - it's not like I'm taking it from you forever."

Neji gives Eggbert a pained look and says, "I'm sorry this is the way things have turned out, son. But understand that your mother and I love you very much. It's just best for you to know what it's like to have a mother before you come back and live with me forever."

Tenten turns to him, aghast. "Forever? What happened to equal coparenting? I'm family too! I deserve to be with my baby and if you won't accept that then I demand full custody. In fact," she grabs Eggbert and the cup and seizes her bag from the ground. "Good luck seeing my baby again."

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It's a little dramatic, even for her tastes, but it's her baby. She can't help it if eggs bring out the drama queen inside of her.

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"Are you going to keep ignoring me?"

Tenten sniffs, like Neji sitting next to her like he always does in class these days is the beginning of the apocalyse. Eggbert is sitting on her side of the table for the in-class examination of egg-health.

"We have to make up someday. Eggbert needs both his parents. I'm sorry I tried to take you out of the picture, but I've thought about it and I think we can come to a compromise."

She turns to him with a slight smile. "You mean it? You don't think I'm a horrible parent anymore?"

"No," Neji shakes his head encouragingly, "I think we both have our strengths and weaknesses. It's up to us to give Eggbert the family it deserves."

Mr Hatake walks in twenty minutes late with his briefcase, and Tenten sniffles and slides Eggbert to the middle of their table. "Okay."

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"I don't want to see Eggbert go," Neji whines when the alotted month is up. Tenten's sniffing beside him as they walk up the steps into their classroom. "You think you know a person but they're really just an inhumane teacher trying to steal our babies away from us."

They reach the door to the classroom, where they're greeted by Lee's strange green egg, Naruto and Sasuke's predictably smashed egg yolk and Sakura and Ino's bowtied egg, and Neji makes a strange hissing sound.

"My precious," he clutches Eggbert to his chest and glares at Mr Hatake, who's not late for once and rolling his eyes at them humourlessly. "You will not take my baby from me."

"It was never yours to begin with," their teacher calls out flatly, because yes, chickens lay eggs.

Churlishly, Tenten stomps to her desk and shouts, "You're never yours to begin with," Neji in tow with Eggbert still held tight against his chest. They take their designated seats at the front and glare up at the teacher in silent protest.

Mr Hatake ignores their passive aggressive intervention and drawls out the names of partnered groups to walk up to the front for presentations. Predictably, as Kakashi always calls people at the top of the roll, she and Neji are called up first. They make a show of whipping out her custom made shuriken USB drives when they go up, terror-inducing glares still glued onto their faces and aimed at Naruto, who's suddenly confused as Hell.

"It is time," Neji starts when their very detailed slides finally pop up on the screen, "to ask yourselves a question. Who are you?"

There's a groan at the back of the classroom that Tenten silences with Kakashi's blue whiteboard marker. Neji continues. "I am Neji Hyuga."

"And I am Tenten."

"Today we bring to you not a presentation, but an expression of our souls. Our time together with Eggbert von Hyugastein has taught us many valuable lessons." There's a slight cough when Eggbert's name is brought up.

"Humility," Tenten quips, slamming her closed fist into an open palm as each new word is accompanied by a different picture of Eggbert wearing different costumes, "Patience. Creativity. Respect. Cooperation. Bonding. Compromise." She shoots a megawatt smile at Neji that he doesn't have enough time to properly absorb but responds to with gusto nevertheless.

"We found ourselves struggling to juggle work with family, fun with stress, and sternness with flexibility - but in the end, we pulled through and learned the true meaning of parentage. And that is, responsibility."

Neji retakes the helm and places Eggbert on the front desk. Their PowerPoint presentation lands on the final picture - one of Neji and a Tenten smiling down at their baby. "After a month with Eggbert, I can safely say that if anything happens to my baby I will make everyone's lives a living Hell." She beams proudly at how he maintains his classic straight-faced, no-nonsense face. The classroom remains deafeningly silent. "Many times, I have considered electrocution, but apparently that's illegal when performed deliberately."

"Apparently," Tenten reinforces with a dagger-like glare at the audience.

"And now I ask you all - who are we? We are parents," the slides move alongside Neji's words. "Parents who love, hate and sacrifice for their children. I think I can vouch for everyone here that they would devote their lives to their children. Except you, Lee. You'll chase them away with green spandex."

"Hear hear!" Lee cheers from the back, causing several others to join in with the standing ovation. Neji and Tenten bow at the front with ear-splitting grins on their faces before walking back to their desks triumphantly. The whooping does down as Mr Hatake heads to the front of the classroom, mildly dazed.

"Thank you, Neji and Tenten, for that shining pearl of wisdom. You truly...outdid yourselves," he allows a brief silence to commemorate his words, "Now, who would like to go next?"

The classroom immediately shrinks back, leaving Lee to stand up from his desk exuberantly and march to the front with lines of determination on his face. "Me! Me!"

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"You know, we don't have to hang out after school anymore." Tenten swings her backpack around her shoulder and smiles at Neji, who's standing beside her expectantly. They'd received an A, of course, though Neji's been whining about the lack of a '+' and Mr Hatake's lack of a spine, apparently, for not being able to stomach empty threats. She's just glad that they scored so high, really, and that they got to keep their egg.

"True, but I've been meaning to say something."

He waits for her to finish rifling through the rest of her papers and look up at him before continuing. "I think you're great."

"Oh. Thanks!" She replies brightly, pretending that Neji Hyuga overtly displaying his thoughts isn't throwing her off a ledge at all.

"I mean," he seems to retract a few mental steps, a little deflated at her reaction, "If you ever need anything, like lunch at The Golden Flower, or a movie partner, or perhaps-"

"Hold up," she stops him, her palm pressed directly over his sternum. He flushes a little at the contact but clamps his jaws together regardless. "What are you trying to say?"

"Date," he blurts out, face reddening, "Would you like to go on a date some time?"

"Sure. How about this Friday?" Grinning, Tenten lets go of her hold over his chest and skips a little when they exit the classroom. Neji positively beams.

"That sounds perfect."

[professor-riddikulus]

Craigslist - Ch3

Summary: James and Sirius are looking for a roommate for their Los Angeles house - Remus has just moved from Dublin needs a place to rent while he goes to graduate school. One Craigslist ad later, the three of them find themselves living together and shit is bound to get complicated. Featuring trans Remus and the wonder of Wolfstar.

Author’s Note: Sorry, sorry, sorry to have left anyone in suspense. I could give you tons of excuses for why this chapter took so long to write (working three jobs, finally coming out to my parents etc) but there’s also just the fact that this one didn’t want to be written. There are a lot of voices in this chapter and they spent most of the time talking over one another in my head. Anyway, enjoy this mess of a chapter, in which Remus meets the other queers that make up this motley crew, everyone gets blisters from Ikea construction, and someone is pushed in the pool. I should also mention that Remus’ experience of his gender is based on my own gender journey™ and does not speak for every trans guy etc. etc. Onwards!

You can also read this story on Ao3 or FF.net :)

Lily E: So you want me to come over to the mansion for a party? Me: I told you, we're building furniture, it isn't like it's going to be a star-studded affair. Lily E: I don't know about that, James is going to be there right? Me: Yeah but Lily... Lily E: Okay okay. You want me to bring coffee? I'll pick up Mary on the way for some more backup. Me: Am I even breathing? Of course I want coffee. She's the one that I met at the department welcome party right? Lily E: Yeah. She lives like a block away from me so we see each other all the time. Me: I really liked her. Lily E: We'll see you at 2! :)

In the morning, I tiptoed downstairs before either James or Sirius woke up so that I had time to shower and get changed without having to put on my binder again on the way down. After cleaning up, I pushed my suitcases to the side of the pool house, trying to make room for the boxes of furniture that the Ikea guys would be bringing. Sirius and James said that we could build out on the patio so that we'd have more room and then we'd carry everything into my space to set it up. That way everyone could work and hang out in the same area. It only took a minute or so to get everything out of the way, so I wandered into the main house to watch TV and make coffee and hopefully have a few minutes of relaxation before the backyard was inundated with cardboard and spare screws.

Sirius was even awake before noon, if people were going to coming over, he would get up early (apparently 11:30 am was early for him) so that he had time to make sure his hair was washed, blow dryed, and presentable for the company. James assured me that this was normal for him, that it was part of his routine. I tried my utmost not to laugh at this but (unsurprisingly) did not succeed.

"I know, I know," James said, running a hand through that crazy hair of his, "Sirius is, well, he's a bit extra."

I raised my eyebrows and James folded, "Okay he's absolutely ridiculous. But he means well."

“What does it say about you that you’re his best mate?”

James shrugged, “That I have a heart of gold and can’t resist a basket-case?”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Very rude thing to say Lupin. And to think we took you in.”

“Took me in? I am paying rent you know, I’m not a lost puppy.”

James shrugged and busied himself pouring milk into his coffee.

I continued, "I mean Sirius does have really nice hair...both of you do. Actually I was wondering if it's a requirement for living in the house...?"

"Don't worry, your hair is passable enough for you to stay."

"You don't think I could use a new conditioner?"

James leaned against the counter of the kitchen, his long lanky body stretched out like a lazy cat. He was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the name of the NPR radio station that he worked for and a set of old sweatpants that looked like they’d been turned soft with over-wear. His glasses kept sliding down his nose a bit as he spoke and he hesitated, perhaps not sure whether to use the hand not holding his coffee mug to push them back up or to continuously muss up his own hair. He was, objectively, quite handsome in that annoying I’m-not-even-trying-this-is-how-I-woke-up fashion I never seemed to pull off. I tried not to blame this on him. "I mean I think maybe Sirius has some extra moroccan argan oil that you could borrow."

"What even is that?!"

"I honestly have no idea," James sipped from his coffee mug nonchalantly, "Something that Sirius puts in his hair once a week and then wraps it up in a towel so he looks exactly like some basic white girl who just got out of the spa."

"I'm really looking forward to seeing that."

"Ugh I don't know why. I can’t unsee it"

I pulled a shot from the espresso machine at the counter and grabbed some almond milk from the fridge. Once the coffee was made, I perched myself on one of the bar stools near the enormous kitchen island.

"So what time is the furniture coming?"

"Around 2 this afternoon. Did you guys get in contact with your friends?"

"Yeah Marlene and Dorcas are coming over around 3 after Dorcas finishes practice for the day."

"Practice?"

"She works for the Galaxy and she's there for their practices and stuff. Used to be a soccer player in college."

"They really didn't have to come over to build my furniture."

"Is this going to be a thing with you?" James looked smug, "You know, like you're always going to be saying that people don't have to do things for you?"

"What? I--"

"Anyway chances are Sirius is going to put the legs on the wrong side of your bed and fuck the whole thing up or something so don’t thank anyone just yet."

I grinned at him, "He does seem pretty confident about his building skills for someone that didn't even know Ikea existed."

James rolled his eyes and sighed, "Yeah well he's confident about everything isn't he?"

______

By two in the afternoon James and I had settled into comfortable silence, each tapping away on our computers while old 30 Rock episodes played in the background and we waited for the Ikea guys to arrive. Sirius emerged from upstairs in a cloud of steam and cologne. His hair was, after all the discussion between James and I, looking perfect -- like he had somehow managed to make it silky, smooth, shiny and healthy without making any effort at all. He actually flipped it as he descended the stairs and James rolled his eyes at his computer without even looking up.

“Sirius you’re the gayest fuck I’ve ever seen.”

Sirius laughed, “Watching a lot of gays fuck recently James?”

“Yeah right! Your friend Evans is coming over today right Remus?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, “I don’t see why that’s relevant James.”

Sirius saw me and threw himself down on the couch next to me, I shook my head at him. "You smell nice."

"I know." The cheeky bastard winked at me.

James tapped out a text on his phone, "Don't compliment him Remus, he's already got more self-confidence than is normal for several people."

Sirius grinned, "Turns out I have enough talent for several people too so it actually works out perfectly."

"Talent," I said, "talent doing what?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

I must have blushed bright red because James couldn't stop laughing.

“Can you fucking stop Sirius?! You’re going to give him a goddamn heart attack and we finally found someone sane to live in the pool house.”

I was going to protest this, I didn’t need James coming to my rescue and I’d be happy to put Sirius in his place myself, but before I had the chance to voice any of this the doorbell rang. Padfoot rocketed downstairs barking madly and Sirius threw himself over the back of the couch to run down the hall to the door as well. James, on the other hand, hadn’t moved at all, hadn’t even looked up from his phone screen.

"LESBIANS! THE LESBIANS ARE HERE," Sirius bellowed.

For a moment I wondered whether I should meet Marlene and Dorcas at the door or stay put but by the time I had decided to get up, Sirius' loud voice echoed down the hall "What the actual fuck? You're not our lesbians."

"No, we're not anyone's lesbians. Sirius this is Mary, Mary this is Remus’ mental new roommate. What have you done with Remus? Did you kill him already?"

Lily Evans appeared in the doorway to the hall looking as if she’d somehow captured the sunset, her long red hair shining, her bright green eyes flashing and in her hands, two large cups of coffee. I'd never seen anything more beautiful. She set her bag down on the kitchen island and as she did, her eyes fell on the La Marzocco in the corner.

"You didn't tell me that you had an espresso machine here Remus."

Oh, she was angry. "I mean, erm, I didn’t realized that I did until this morning."

"So why did I stop and get coffee?"

"Because, you love me and value our friendship?"

She pushed the cup into my hand a bit roughly but laughed anyway, "God knows why I do. You're nothing but trouble."

Mary walked into the room closely followed by Sirius, who was already trading hair-care secrets with her. She was shorter than Lily by a bit, with a heart shaped face, large soft eyes, and short dark hair with straight bangs. We’d met once before at the departmental mixer that was meant to entice visiting prospective students to attend USC. Since we both studied film, Lily had gotten us talking and we’d spent the better part of the party debating the best superhero movies, the idiocy of colorblind casting, and whether or not live-action movie remakes of anime were always doomed to fail. Today she was wearing an oversized button down shirt and leggings and smiling from ear to ear as she humored Sirius. "Yeah,” he said, “but I use the coconut oil in the summer when it gets hotter 'cause my hair tends to get more brittle around then."

Mary smiled at me, "Hey Remus."

I hugged her, she smelled like rosewater, "Thanks for coming. I know this isn't probably the most exciting social event that you've ever been invited to."

Mary shrugged, "Well it was either this or read and annotate another book of theory that I should have started much much earlier in the summer so, at least building furniture includes good company and free food.”

“Yeah,” Sirius snapped in front of James’ eyes, since he was unabashedly staring at Lily, “James order that pizza.”

The doorbell rang again.

I let the Ikea guys around the back and had them stack all the boxes on the patio. I tipped them and by the time they’d left and I was back in the kitchen, everyone was grouped around the kitchen island looking over the pizza menu and arguing about the perfect toppings.

“No dumbass,” James was saying, “Dorcas is a vegetarian.”

Sirius giggled, and said in a whisper, “vag-itarian.”

Lily knocked him over the head with an open hand.

“What?! I’m allowed to say that. She’s my lesbian.”

“Pretty sure that I’m Dorcas’ lesbian, dog-breath.” A girl I assumed was Marlene was leaning against the back sliding door that I had left open. She had big blue eyes, black eyeliner so sharp that it was borderline dangerous, and blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders and in gentle waves. She was willowy with long arms and legs and pale skin that made her bright red lipstick stand out even more. She was dressed in a old Ramones t-shirt that was once black but was now a faded grey and was tucked into high-waisted black jeans. My immediate impression was of a girl that had spent her whole life being the hot one, and with an entrance like this one, she might give Sirius a run for his money to win the award for most dramatic.

Behind her stood another girl with dark skin and incredibly curly hair that was shaved on the right side. She was a bit taller, with a gold septum piercing and a Los Angeles Galaxy t-shirt. She had a wide nose with a smattering of freckles across it and her cheeks, even a few dotted her full lips. She wrapped an arm around Marlene’s waist and smiled down at her, and when she spoke her voice was measured and reassuring, “You know we could have just come through the front door.”

“Sure,” Marlene smirked, “but look at their faces.”

Sirius ran over and grabbed Marlene, picking her up and spinning her around before she smacked him enough times that he put her down. Then he put his head between her breasts and she pushed him away.

“You fucking asshole,” she laughed, “You can’t get enough huh?”

Sirius turned to Dorcas as James greeted Marlene with a normal hug.

“You better be giving her so many orgasms.”

Dorcas raised her eyebrows, sizing up Sirius who was almost the same height as she was, “More than you did you big queer.”

James went around the room and introduced everyone, “Marlene, Dorcas this is Lily and Mary and that over there is Remus Lupin our new roommate and the one who is forcing us into slave labor this afternoon.”

I waved a bit half-heartedly. If I’m totally honest, I sometimes get a bit awkward around lesbians. It’s not a misogynist thing, they just tend to be able to spot gender-nonconformity better than gay guys or heteros. I think it must have something to do with the fact that butches are so accepted as a part of lesbian culture in the way that really femmey gay guys can sometimes be on the outs. It doesn’t really matter, I guess I’m just always nervous that they’re going to say something, out me in a way that will make other people notice what they may have overlooked before. Plus, I did spend quite a bit of time as a butch before I began transitioning. Sometimes I really miss being a part of that family.

Dorcas nodded at me, “Nice to meet you Remus. I hope these idiots haven’t given you too much trouble.”

“No,” I smiled, “But I’m sure they will.”

Marlene squealed, “Oh my god listen to that accent.” She crossed the distance between us in two short steps and just as I went to stick out my hand she swept me into a bone-crushing hug. I panicked and patted her awkwardly on the back of the shoulder. She smelled fresh, like clean laundry and lavender and some sharp citrus fruit that put me in mind of summer and elaborately fruity mixed drinks that disguised the amount of alcohol contained within. She let me go eventually, but only as far as her outstretched arms reached, which she had on my shoulders. She looked over at Dorcas and grinned.

“He’s fucking adorable. Can we keep him?”

Sirius laughed a booming bark of a laugh that sounded remarkably like Padfoot, “You can’t have him Marls, he’s mine...I mean you know, ours.”

A chorus of “Ohhhhhhhh” went up from James and Marlene and James winked obscenely at me while nudging Lily in the ribs (she looked less than thrilled about this, rubbing the spot in her side where James’ elbow had hit and looking put out). I extracted myself from Marlene just as Dorcas began to lead a chant of “Freudian slip, Freudian slip!” at Sirius. For the first time in the few days that I met him, embarrassment flit briefly across his face before he expertly replaced it with sassy defiance (apparently his go-to look).

“He should be so lucky,” Sirius gestured to his body, “to have all of this. But you know I’m a free spirit, uncagable, unflappable, uncomparable.”

“Incomparable,” Mary offered, “you can’t just make up words.”

“Oh Mary darling,” Marlene offered, “Sirius does whatever the heck he wants, literally all the time.”

“And the world, is better off for it.” Sirius supplied, “Now it seems to me that we’re all just fucking staring at one another when we should be staring at one another while holding booze. James, order the damn pizza already.”

James got on the phone, muttering something about having Sirius’ credit card number memorized and once we were all supplied with beer or some ridiculously strong mixed drinks that Sirius had whipped up we trooped out to the backyard and divided the boxes up so that a group of two or three would tackle each piece of furniture. I smiled, sipping my beer, and thought vaguely that mixing alcohol and flat-pack furniture construction may not have been the smartest idea. If I had any luck, most of the bigger items would be finished before anyone got so intoxicated that they couldn’t decipher the instructions (which, after all, only had pictures and not written steps). Sirius and Lily started putting together the bed, James sat with Dorcas and Mary and began on the dresser and Marlene stood next to me staring at the pile in between large gulps of something with pineapple and rum in it.

“I should warn you,” Marlene stressed, “I consider myself far too beautiful to work up a sweat.” She laughed as she said it, and the way she cocked her head reminded me forcefully of the same gesture Sirius had made a few times already. The two of them really were a dynamic duo. It was as if the same being had been split into two queer people, one dark and the other light -- the yin and yang of overconfidence, stunning looks, and that weird borderland between charming and insufferable. I wasn’t sure whether she was being funny or trying to get out of helping or both? The comment disarmed me, and I didn’t exactly know how to answer this pronouncement. I settled for shuffling a bit back and forth from one foot to the other.

“Erm…”

She must have taken pity on me, “I am just kidding! Jesus you are new aren’t you? Okay, I’ll do my best to be a reasonable human for a bit and we can bring you into the kiddie pool one foot at a time.”

I must have looked as confused as I felt at this.

“We’re kind of a weird but dangerous gang,” she shrugged, looking out at an already squabbling Lily and Sirius, “it’d probably best if you don’t dive head first into it or you’ll catch the strange.”

“Don’t worry,” I assured her, “I’m good with strange.”

“Then you’re going to fit right in here. Now pick a box and let’s get all this heavy lifting over so we can drink for real.”

The building went largely without major incident. Sirius did accidently try to hammer his own thumb and at one point James put the legs on the wrong side of the desk but no one (either human or furniture) was seriously maimed or broken which was a triumph considering. It only took two hours to put together everything but the side tables and the shelves, which I was planning to do in front of the TV the next day. The back patio was scattered with discarded instructions, the odd screw or plastic piece that had seemed suspiciously extra, and piles upon piles of now empty cardboard boxes. The pizza was passed around, second and then third drinks were poured, and everyone was nicely buzzed by the time the sun had started to creep down into the treeline and the warm summer breeze had cooled into a balmy and pleasant evening whisper.

Marlene and Dorcas turned out to be hilarious company. They struck a balance, Marlene flitting around and seemingly unable to stay on either one task or one topic for more than a few minutes at a time, Dorcas followed after, redirecting Marlene, teasing her, and largely keeping her as focused as possible. Marlene had a habit of leaning back against Dorcas whenever they stood near one another, so that Dorcas would wrap her arms around Marlene’s waist and this seemed to encapsulate their relationship as I observed it. Dorcas, a bit quieter, nevertheless was whip-sharp, with a sense of sarcasm that lashed hilariously but not maliciously out at James, Sirius, and Marlene in turn.

Sirius and Marlene, on the other hand, only seemed to dial one another up. They were waging a noisy and over-the-top war of the wills, trying to out-do one another in ridiculousness and shock value, which led to overly detailed jokes and jibes about one another's’ sex lives, fancifully extrapolated stories that got grander and more unbelievable as they were told, and at several points, all-out physical play-fighting which left both of them complaining about the other’s attacks on their hair.

I sat on the edge of the pool, jeans rolled up and toes swirling through the water. Lily was next to me, working on the same something that Marlene had been drinking earlier. I gathered that this pineapple concoction was one of Sirius’ specialties and accordingly, I had decided to stick with beer. Lily, on the other hand, was on either her fourth drink and I was about to suggest that she perhaps have a water or two before Sirius poured anything else for her to drink. However, he looked awfully busy -- he, Dorcas and James were trying to arrange the cardboard boxes into a fort, standing the long ones up and using the shorter ones as building blocks or mock furniture. Marlene was of course sabotaging the building, sneaking from side to side kicking over boxes while trying to avoid being swept up into the arms of her girlfriend.

Mary sat down on my other side, adding her feet to the water and gripping the edge of the pool with her hands. Lily looked up and smiled at her.

“Having fun Mary? You’re awfully quiet.”

Mary rolled her eyes, “I’m not sure how anyone could get much of a word in with those four around.”

“Yeah,” I agreed fondly, “they are a bit more than I’m used to.”

“The decibel level alone,” she stated, but with more edge to her voice, “it’s like looking after my three nephews, I’m exhausted. I don’t think I could ever live here if they’re like this all the time.”

Lily laughed, a golden sound that hung in the air before her, causing James to momentarily look away from his cardboard construction like a dog catching sight of a squirrel, “They are literally building a fort with boxes so perhaps the comparison isn’t entirely unfair.”

“I kind of like it,” I shrugged, “I can just sort of observe. Anyway, it’s nice that they don’t care about looking like utter pillocks. I miss being that care free.”

Lily nodded but Mary looked at me strangely, “But you’re so mature. I mean, I…” she blushed but soldiered on, “you seem like the kind of guy who prefers um...I don’t know...different company. More grown-up or intellectual company.”

Lily intervened, “I think Mary means you seem like an old soul.”

Mary nodded quickly, “Yeah, that’s one of the things I like most about you.”

This struck me as odd considering Mary and I hadn’t spent much time together at all. Sure, we’d got on well at the departmental event, but I didn’t think we’d spent enough time together for her to determine the age of my soul at all, or to make a list of things that she liked about me, marking ‘old soul’ as the most liked. I didn’t like what was happening here. She seemed to have decided that in some way she or I or maybe the both of us were above Sirius, James, Dorcas and Marlene. Why? Because they were loud and exuberant? I gazed back over at their makeshift fort, which they were now trying to get a roof on without knocking over the walls. Marlene had apparently given up her attack and was stretched out on one of the lounge chairs shouting directions which Sirius and James were studiously ignoring. Dorcas had gotten ahold of a fat marker and was drawing windows on the outside of the walls.

I smiled at Mary but inside I was feeling the beginnings of anger bubbling up in my gut. “Just because they’re loud and like to have a bit of a craic doesn’t mean they’re un-intellectual,” I snapped at her and she looked taken aback, “perhaps you should lighten up a bit Mary. It’s a drinking session not a seminar.”

I stood and withdrew my feet from the pool, walking away while trying to avoid looking back at what I’m sure would be Mary’s angry face. Where did she get off insulting my new roommates, my new friends? I was feeling oddly protective of these fools and their cardboard house and their stupid fruity drinks. Something in her undertone, something in the intellectual snobbery that turned me off from many of the graduate students I’d met in the past, something about a cis straight woman sneering down her nose at a group of queers. I knew that I was probably overreacting, it was probably partially the beer making my anger spike higher than it normally would have (I definitely felt it rush to my head as I stood from my place on the edge of the pool). But these weirdos had given me a place to live, had already made me feel at home, accepted, one of the gang as Marlene put it.

It was a short skip from thinking you’re smarter than someone to thinking you’re better than them. And another small jump to thinking you know what’s right for them. I shook my head attempting to clear it. Poor Lily, she was going to have to do some damage control with Mary but, I reminded myself, she’d been the one to bring her in the first place. I walked over to James, who had finally got the roof to stay and was standing back from the fort admiring his handiwork.

“Well done mate.” I grinned at him, forcing myself to leave the unpleasantness of Mary’s jugement behind, “Now I’ll have somewhere to live for that rent I’m paying you.”

“Are you kidding Lupin? You couldn’t afford this place. We’re going to be listing this masterpiece on Craigslist for double what you’re paying for that hovel of a pool-house.”

Sirius poked his head out from the inside of the fort, his hair sticking out of its bun at all angles, “Bullshit! There’s no way I’m letting anyone else live here! This is my damn castle. I just finished the throne for christsakes.”

“Permission to enter, your highness?” I bowed low.

Marlene laughed from her chair and hollered at me, “I imagine he’s been asked that a few hundred times before!”

Sirius shot her a scathing look before nodding at me in mock solemnity and affecting an over-the-top British accent that likely would have sent Lily into a rage, “Permission granted my good sir, do watch your head.”

The inside of the fort was a bit stuffy and unsurprisingly smelled overwhelmingly of slightly damp cardboard as a few of the boxes had drinks or pool water splashed upon them in the construction of the fort. It was dark and in the fading sunset light filtering in from outside I could just make out the stack of smaller boxes that Sirius had arranged to create a kind of weird chair. It didn’t look like it was going to support his weight but it was decorated with some of the leftover hardware from the building which caught the light and glinted silver.

“Allow me,” Sirius continued in his accent, “to give you the royal tour.”

“Carry on, my liege.” I laughed.

“Over here,” he gestured to one corner of the fort, “you’ll find the grand reception hall where the lords and ladies gather to shower their king with gifts, affection and compliments.”

“As well they should, your highness,” I supplied, trying to suppress a giggle.

“And here is of course, the royal throne. Perfectly constructed to flatter the royal behind, which is of course the king’s most valuable asset.”

“Asset?” I laughed, breaking character, “Really?!”

“Don’t sass me Lupin.” Sirius barked, “a royal must be both mentally and physically a paragon of beauty and class.”

“Wait but I thought you said you were the king?”

Sirius looked scandalized, and clutched a hand to his chest. “You wound me, mortally. How dare you speak such to your king?!”

“Well I don’t know how you got to be king, I didn’t vote for you.”

“TREASON.” Sirius yelled, “TREASONOUS SLIME. GUARDS!”

Dorcas’ head looked around the side of the entrance to the fort.

“What are you screaming about you fuckwad?”

“THIS PEASANT HAS DARED TO QUESTION MY ROYAL LEGITIMACY!” Sirius pointed at me accusingly and I saw a flash of mischief in Dorcas’ eye that I didn’t like the look of, “OFF WITH HIS HEAD CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD.”

Dorcas looked mock-seriously at me, “Did you, sir, question the legitimacy of our lord and savior, king of the box-fort and royal jackass, Sirius Alastair Gerald George Harold Anthony Black the Third of his name?!” I marveled that she was able to come up with so many middle names at the drop of a hat and then briefly wondered whether Sirius didn’t actually have several middle names. Maybe that was his actual name? Impossible.

“I did!” I pronounced defiantly, “And I shall continue to do so! Liberty for the people!” I thrust my fist into the air at the same time James pushed one of the walls in on me, resulting in a mess of cardboard and limbs. Somehow in the confusion, James and Dorcas managed to each grab one of my arms, shouting things like “Traitor!” and “Death to the rebellion!” and “Long live King Sirius!” I found myself extracted from the remains of cardboard castle and frog-marched to the edge of the pool. It only then dawned on me that perhaps I should have thought through my rebellion before committing to the cause. But it was too late to turn back now.

“End the monarchy!” I cried, trying to push back against my captors and get a foothold on the slippery wet edge of the pool, “We shall not be enslaved by tyrants!” I caught sight of Lily and Mary, still sitting where I had left them, both looking incredulous and confused at the pandemonium issuing from our end of the pool. Dorcas laughed until she was tearing up and Marlene shouted from her place behind us, “END HIM MY KING!”

James turned, struggling to keep a hold on my right arm and looked straight at Sirius. I twisted around to look at him too. He was drawn up to his full height, having extracted himself from the ruins of his cardboard castle and he looked down his nose at me in mock-disgust, his haughty cheekbones and strong brow making him momentarily look truly like the royalty he was pretending to be and he extended his thumb sideways before rotating it to point down. It was only a half a second later that I was hitting the surface of the water, the screams of triumph echoing behind me as Marlene, Dorcas, and James yelled “LONG LIVE THE KING.”

At least, I thought, emerging to the surface sopping and laughing so hard I didn’t think I’d be able to stay above the surface of the water, at least Mary had taken the brunt of the splash.

[allyinthekeyofx]

Fading Light - Part 1 - 1/6

Summary - Scully’s cancer returns and hope comes at a high price.

This is sort of AU but is set in season seven. There are references to season seven episodes but ‘All Things’ hasn’t happened.  We switch between Scully POV and Mulder POV throughout the whole fic.

I will post a chapter every day without fail.

PART ONE

Prologue

My Father once told me that secrets are like old wounds. That no matter how skilfully we hide the scars, they are still there, lingering beneath the surface. Invisible to the eye, but all too obvious if we take the time to really feel them. There are no good secrets. Even the ones we hide in our hearts to protect the people we love will eventually find a way to push themselves up through the layers of deception.

I've discovered that we can never hope to protect through lies and after all, isn't a secret just another name for a lie?

Semantics

Mulder would laugh if he could hear me now. Arguing with myself as I lay, eyes wide open, staring up at the patterns made by the street lamps refracted through the rain that streams down my window.

I'm not sure what time it is. I don't seem to sleep much, which is strange, because all I want to do at this moment is close my eyes and sink down into its welcoming arms.

To escape from the accusatory voices in my head for a short while would be wonderful, but I just can't seem to relax enough. If I'm honest with myself though, I'm well aware of the reason for my insomnia.

It is guilt; pure and simple.

I have a secret, and no matter how often I tell myself that I am keeping it from him to protect him, I still feel its presence every minute of every day. I keep it hidden because in doing so I am attempting to shield him from a truth he is ready to neither hear nor accept.

Every day I keep the truth from him is another day spent tiptoeing around him, so afraid that he will look into my eyes and see my lies. It was easy in the beginning.

Mulder was still shattered over the death of his Mother and I was there for him as he fell apart piece by harrowing piece, supporting him as he has supported me throughout our partnership. I watched over him like the proverbial mother hen as his quest threatened to take him over the edge, ready to drag him back should the need have arisen.

For once he didn't need me to catch him and as each day passed he learned more facts behind his sister's disappearance and finally, finally I was rewarded when he came back to me. Not entirely at peace sure - we have seen and experienced too much for that ever to happen - but I saw the stress literally roll off him as, in his own words, he was set free.

How can I take that sense of peace away from him now?

I have remained silent, promising myself, as I promise myself now, that tomorrow I will tell him, just as I have made the same promise on so many nights past.

Promises to myself I know I won’t keep.

Chapter One

Mulder is not in the sweetest of moods. He tries his best to hide it, but it was obvious from the moment he arrived flustered and dishevelled at my door this morning.

I'm not sure exactly why we started this whole car pool thing. It certainly wasn't out of any sense of wanting to save the planet, it just kind of happened.

I had offered Mulder a ride home one night when he was without his car - I can't remember why he was without it - and he decided it was only right and proper to return the favour. It seems to have set a pattern now that neither of us is willing to break, and it's strange really, but I kind of enjoy it. I like the fact that his face is the first one that greets me every morning.

Usually I like it that is.

But on days like today, when he is edgy and tense, I wish to hell I could just make him stop the damn car so I can escape out in to the clogged Washington streets and hail a cab. We have hardly spoken during the ride in, just the barest early morning pleasantries. No small talk, no innuendo, no teasing glances. In fact, so far all Mulder has given me is the charming view of his set profile as he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead.

We are running late for the office, which is never a good thing, especially not today. Today is the second Wednesday in the month. Second Wednesdays mean inter-departmental meetings. Which in turn usually mean bureaucratic scrutiny of our recently submitted expense reports. I hate the meetings almost as much as Mulder does. The difference being, that I don't tend to show it quite as blatantly. But at least we no longer have to suffer the dubious pleasure of AD Kersch as we attempt to justify flying halfway across the country on nothing more substantial than some redneck's sighting of lights in his cow field. Skinner is no less forgiving when we balls things up, but he’s more used to it and therefore more accepting of it.

Mulder mutters something under his breath as the car in front slows down to a virtual crawl. I don't bother trying to figure out what it was. The very fact that we are attempting to negotiate rush hour traffic pretty much tells me that whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant and certainly has no need for a response from me. So instead, I just lean my head against the seat rest and close my eyes against the headache that is beginning to pulse at the centre of my forehead.

I think that the headaches were the first clear sign that something wasn't right, although for a couple of weeks I was able to pretty much deny their existence. Self-denial is a powerful force, a bit like encasing a broken ankle in a plaster cast. The pain is gone, pushed in to the background, and it's almost impossible to imagine that the broken bone ever happened at all. Until of course you walk on it at the wrong angle and the pain is back to remind you to take more care.

That's how it was with me. Only my versions of the plaster cast were non-prescription pain pills. Until they weren't enough, even when foolishly, I was taking well over the required dosage.

And then came the day when I couldn't deny it any longer. I remember it vividly. A Saturday spent shopping with my Mother I was in so much pain I could hardly stand. She noticed of course and I remember making vague assurances that I was fine, made my excuses and headed for home. I made it through the door, watched as the room began to spin in that endearing way I had come to recognize from scant years back in the early manifestations of the disease, and woke up three hours later on the floor, still clutching my house keys in my hand.

I wish now with all my heart that I had answered the basic need that pounded incessantly in my head.

Call Mulder.

Instead I had called Dr Zuckerman.

Every day since then, I have been trying to find the right words, the right moment, to broach the subject with Mulder, and right along with it, I have found a thousand excuses as to why now isn't the right time.

Of course I realize that the right time is never going to happen, and that the longer I keep putting it off, the harder it's going to get.

Especially since I have already decided that this time, treatment to prolong the inevitable is not an option for me and whilst I don’t profess to really know or understand exactly what my ‘cure’ entailed the last time around, I am smart enough to realise that its mechanism would never be found written on a treatment protocol. So I have opted to do nothing. To wait out the inevitable. I will continue to work for as long as I can. Until I’m once again incapable. But for how long I can keep up the pretence is anyone’s guess.

Not to mention the fact that Mulder is neither stupid nor blind. Eventually he will figure this thing out for himself, and deep down, I can't help wondering if he already suspects something. A paranoid little voice is whispering that I am the reason for his dark mood this morning. Which when I think about it is ridiculous.

Oh yeah. Guilt really sucks.

Suddenly, I am catapulted from my musings and transported violently back in to the here and now as Mulder curses loudly, swerving the car savagely to the left even before the word is fully formed on his lips.

"FUCK!"

I'm not entirely sure what he has seen to provoke such a reaction. Mulder rarely, if ever curses aloud. And then I hear it. A sound I have become so attuned to over the years I could recognize it in my sleep.

The sound of gunfire. Close by.

My senses hone in on the sound, and beside me Mulder is already moving, unbuckling his Seat belt and reaching for the door handle in one fluid movement. Even as I automatically follow his lead I am still searching for answers as to why exactly we have come to a halt in the middle of rush hour traffic. But, like pieces of a jigsaw the answers fall together as I finally see what he sees.

My years on the job have taught me to assimilate information pretty quickly. Headache or not, this is no exception. In the space of a heartbeat my consciousness has thrown several words at me.

Bank. Alarms. Guns. Robbery

Great. Just another fun day in the lives of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, where even a ride to work has the capacity to become a fucked up nightmare.

The shoes I chose to wear today are definitely not made for pounding the pavement. More blisters for me tonight.

Mulder of course doesn't have quite the same fashion impairment and even before I have fully cleared the car door he has taken off like a track star, waving his gun around and cutting a swath through the early morning streets like Moses parting the Red Sea. He can move pretty fast for a guy approaching forty, and, whilst I am not exactly a slug myself, an extra six inches of leg length makes all the difference and I find myself trailing further and further behind.

As I run, I can hear Mulder shouting something, but the wind is against me and his words are lost in the slipstream making them almost unintelligible. Instead, I concentrate on keeping him in sight. The perp is somewhere ahead and by the pace Mulder is keeping, seems to have no intention of giving up the fight easily.

I'm not sure what happens next.

A deafening sound that threatens to split my now pounding head in two; Mulders horrified shout.

"SCULLY!"

A blow that stops me in my tracks and slams me to the ground.

It's funny actually, because even as I am aware of falling, I don't feel anything other than a faint buzzing in my head as the pavement rushes up to meet me. No pain, no fear and certainly no understanding as to what has just happened.

But through the white noise that surrounds me, I hear another gunshot. And then another.

The sound seems to act as a catalyst for my own awareness and the dreamlike quality I had wallowed in for maybe a couple of seconds is replaced by a burning hot pain that seems to radiate through my whole body.

Shit. This really hurts.

I am reminded of the time when I fell out of the tree house that my brother Bill had spent the summer building with his cronies. I had been mercilessly chased away every time I dared show my face. A seven year old younger sister - a girl - had not been welcome in that den of pre-pubescent masculinity.

So, tomboy that I was, I had snuck over there one night and undertaken the precarious climb through the twisted boughs to reach what was forbidden to me; I'd made it up ok -getting down though had been a different undertaking all together and trees tend not to be very forgiving to seven year olds who don't have the sense to realize when they are way out of their depth. I nursed a broken wrist for the rest of the summer, and it had taken years for me to forget the white hot pain I felt as that fragile bone snapped cleanly.. But, with typical childhood resilience I had forgotten.

Until now that is.

Flesh wounds hurt. Gunshot wounds hurt. Damaged bones hurt like a bitch.

I'm unsure as to how much time has elapsed since I first heard Mulder shout out my name although I suspect it is no more than a few seconds at most.

Mulder

Shit, where is he?

Three shots Dana.

Count em.

Three.

Oh Fuck.

My eyes snap open, which in itself is futile really because I can't seem to focus on anything other than the pavement which is tilting at an impossible angle before me. I can just make out a collection of coloured blobs in the near distance and although they are fuzzy around the edges I am able to recognize them as being human. From their size and shape I am also able to determine that they are crouched down, hugging the ground as thought their lives depend on it.

But my only thought right now is for Mulders well being. Nothing else matters to me and not for the first time I am aware that what I feel for him goes way beyond the accepted boundaries of our friendship, because, had it been anyone other than Mulder, I would just close my eyes and allow myself some respite from the terrible pain that now overwhelms me.

But sometimes, even the purest love cannot conquer the frailties of the human body. As I shift my weight fractionally to the right in order to release the arm that is trapped beneath me, I am engulfed in a wave of agony so intense that despite myself I close my eyes and scream. Maybe I screamed out his name. I don't know. But it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing matters except the sudden feeling of Mulder's hands on my face, smoothing away the hair that is plastered against my cheeks. And I hear his voice from far away. He is frightened. I have frightened him.

Just like he's frightened me in the past.

So much fear for two people to bear in a lifetime.

"Sssshhhhhhh Scully, It's ok....don't try to move...it's gonna be ok. Ssssshhhhhhh."

Slowly the pain diminishes a fraction and I am able to open my eyes again. Maybe a little of the initial shock has subsided, or perhaps a gnawing desperation that needs me to know he's ok, allows me to finally focus enough to look deep in to his eyes.

Mulder has beautiful eyes, the most expressive eyes I have ever seen in my life. I could easily lose myself in their depths, which is why I don't allow myself to stare in to them too often. Right now he is fighting tears and not making a very fine job of it. I know how he feels. I've been there too. I've watched him hurting far more times than I care to remember and each and every time I have found myself crying real tears for him when he has been unable to shed his own.

Just like he is crying for me now.

Despite the pain, I am able to shakily reach up a hand that feels like a dead weight and catch that first tear as it escapes its confines. Watching as it traces a crystalline trail down my finger. I want to speak, to let him know I'm fine, but just that small movement has left me as weak as a day old kitten snatched from its Mother and I just want to close my eyes and sleep. Instead, I fix my gaze on his; attempting to communicate to him through sight what I am unable to do with speech.

I'm so sorry I didn't tell you Mulder. And now it's too late.

He is going to find out.

My secret is no longer going to be mine alone and I need to hang on to consciousness for as long as I can, because, I know that if I close my eyes now, the next time I open them, everything will have changed.

Continued chapter 2

[neruda96-blog]

Female Professionalism?

I have an important question, well important to me anyway. The question has become a bit personal to me in light of the last few weeks. The question is: Is female professionalism possible in a world where males who objectify women in the work place exist?

Recently, I worked with a male customer. At first he seemed to take a liking to me. Any woman in the retail business knows to expect customers to hit on her while at work, but to not typically take it on. But what happens when it gets to be a little too much, going from mildly inappropriate to very uncomfortable? This customer had a project he was working on, and it was a bit complex because we had to work on the design of a bridge as well as the creation of a smaller model. He wasn’t too great at math, so we had to figure out the dimensions and reduce it to a smaller scale that could be on paper, then increase by a little bit so that we can build a model, which when maximized would be the size of the actual bridge. He was building it because he wanted the workers to have a physical model to follow. He had come in previously for smaller projects like business cards and banners, so I recognized his name. When he came in a few weeks ago, he had asked me to help him but I told him I was scheduled to leave in ten minutes but the other associates would be able to help him. He insisted that it wouldn’t take long. I ended up staying an hour and a half over my time. In all honesty, it would not have lasted that long. But every time I tried explaining something to him he would just stare at me smiling. This was quite unnerving but I didn’t want it to get to me. It got to a point where I had to ask him if he was listening to me because if he didn’t figure out the math, the design would be impossible.

Thankfully, a coworker from another department, who is a very close friend of mine, came over. He is an engineer so he was mathematically adept. When my friend started speaking, the customer started paying attention. If this isn’t sexism, I’m not sure what it is. But then the customer started to get argumentative and kept on stating his own mathematical formulas that had nothing to do with the project. It’s like asking for the perimeter of a circle, and getting the answer for the area of a trapezoid: completely unrelated. My friend told the customer of his qualifications but he refused to listen. At this point it was getting way beyond my time and I told the customer that he would have to come back. Throughout this time, he kept asking personal questions about my love life and where I lived and how I would get home. I told him that I was very happy with my partner in hopes that he would stop the incessant flirting but no such luck. He continued to tell me about places he would take me if we were together and other inappropriate things of the same aspect.  I tried to deflect these comments by refocusing the conversation onto the design at hand, but he was relentless.

He came in a few days later and I was fixing one of the machines. I saw him from the corner of my eyes and thanked God that I was not responsible for taking customers on line. He called out my name loudly. Now I couldn’t ignore that. So I looked up and said hello, to which he responded that I have to go help him. I told him that the other associate will be able to help in a few minutes. He asked me why I couldn’t help him, and I told him that I had different departmental responsibilities that day, and would be unable to help him. He said that he’d wait for me and I told him that I have a lot of tasks to take care of and by the time I’m finished, it would be time for me to leave. He became very upset. He said that he started this project with me and he wants to finish it with me. He said that it didn’t make any sense to work with someone else when I’ve already submitted all his materials and worked on the order, I reminded him that nothing was submitted because he didn’t have the math worked out yet so it would be starting from scratch.

Now, in the past, I had broken away from my tasks to help with the line, especially if it’s a customer I have worked with extensively in the past. But I just did not want to work with this guy. He made me very uncomfortable. Not only would he say wildly inappropriate things, but he would touch my arm or my elbow unnecessarily. I feel completely grossed out. In this case, I cannot be professional. I cannot ignore my personal feelings to get my work done. I’m not too sure how I feel about that. Should I have just helped him? I’m sure in the future, when I move on in my career, it won’t be as easy to walk away from a client just because he makes me feel uncomfortable. How will I or how should I handle a situation like that? Of course there are HR departments to help in situations like these, but in such a competitive professional environment, the inability to swallow personal feelings to do my job may hurt my chances of success.

Back to the story: I had a male coworker with me that day, and asked him to take over. He did. When the customer left, my coworker told me that he said that he’s glad I’m not his girlfriend because he would never support me. What does that even mean?!

Now, there are some issues with his order because no one knows what’s going on, not even the male coworker who took over. I’m guessing it’s because he didn’t figure out the dimensions for his bridge. I told myself that I would not work with this customer again. But, yesterday, I was the one figuring out what was going on with the order. Because I’ve been working there the longest, figuring out things like this where it’s complex and murky tends to be left for me. So I’m pretty sure I’ll have to interact with him again. I really don’t know what to do.

[kacydeneen]

NYPD Chief Fires Cop Who Used Chokehold in Eric Garner Death

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill has fired the police officer accused of using a banned chokehold on Eric Garner in 2014, siding with the departmental trial judge who recommended termination earlier this month.

He was quickly lauded by advocates and local leaders -- and blasted by the head of the police union, who in a searing statement accused O'Neill of choosing "politics and his own self-interest over the police officers he claims to lead" as the officer's attorney said they would appeal his firing.

Chokehold Led to Eric Garner's Death, Medical Examiner Says

O'Neill's decision, revealed early Monday afternoon, is final, closing the years-long book on embattled NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, whom a local grand jury and federal prosecutors all declined to criminally prosecute. Pantaleo will not receive his 13-year vested pension, but will get the contributions back that he had made over his years on the force, O'Neill said.

Police sources aligned with Pantaleo and familiar with the process say there were discussions last week and over the weekend about a deal that would have removed Pantaleo from his position but allowed him to retain a partial pension. The sources say they were told that was off the table on Saturday.

It’s not clear what happened between those discussions, and O’Neill’s decision on Monday, to terminate. O’Neill, in his news conference Monday, acknowledged that a so-called separation of service (as opposed to outright termination) had been an option under consideration. He also said he did discuss the decision with Mayor De Blasio.

When asked directly if City Hall interfered in his decision, O'Neill said "there was pressure from any number of sides."

'I MAY HAVE MADE SIMILAR MISTAKES'

During a lengthy, emotional explanation leading up to his announcement of Pantaleo's firing, O'Neill set up the stage on that Staten Island corner in that time period -- a period where crime was rampant in the area. Residents avoided it.

He described a series of actions by Pantaleo and by Garner, beginning with Garner's refusal to comply with officers attempting to arrest him for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on the street corner. O'Neill spoke of Pantaleo's initial response and actions as the situation became tense, saying he abided by NYPD protocol the entire time -- until the moment of the chokehold.

"Had I been in officer Pantaleo's situation, I may have made similar mistakes. And had I made those mistakes, I wish I would've used the arrival of backup officers to give the situation more time to make that arrest," O'Neill said. "And I wished I would've released my grip before it became a chokehold."

"Had I been in officer Pantaleo's situation, I may have made similar mistakes and had I made similar mistakes, I wish I would've released my grip before it became a chokehold," said O'Neill, who had 34 years with the NYPD before he became commissioner.

"Every time I watch that video I say to myself, as I'm sure all of you do, 'Mr. Garner, don't do it. Comply. Officer Pantaleo, don't do it,' he added. "But none of us can take back our decisions, most especially when they lead to the death of another human being."

O'Neill said it was "clear that Daniel Pantaleo can no longer effectively serve as a New York City police officer."

“In this case, the unintended consequence of Eric Garner’s death must have a consequence of its own," O'Neill said, adding that "there are absolutely no victors here today."

The police chief took full responsibility for the decision to terminate the officer's employment, and clearly had empathy for both the Garner family and for Pantaleo, who logged hundreds of good arrests during his time with the NYPD.

"If I was still a cop I'd probably be mad at me," O'Neill said. He added later: "But it certainly wasn't the most difficult thing I've had to do as a police officer."

The commissioner went on to cite the names of police wives he's had to inform about the deaths of their husbands, saying, "This is a very difficult job."

But if there's one thing he wants the people of New York City to take away from his decision, it's that the NYPD is fair and impartial, O'Neill said.

"Don't judge us on one incident. Judge us by the totality of what we do," O'Neill said.

To read O'Neill's full statement on Pantaleo's firing, click here.

SCATHING RESPONSE

The police union has planned a news briefing for later Monday afternoon, but President Patrick Lynch released a scathing statement immediately following the decision: "Police Commissioner O’Neill has made his choice: he has chosen politics and his own self-interest over the police officers he claims to lead."

"He will wake up tomorrow to discover that the cop-haters are still not satisfied, but it will be too late. The damage is already done," the statement continued. "The NYPD will remain rudderless and frozen, and Commissioner O’Neill will never be able to bring it back. Now it is time for every police officer in this city to make their own choice. We are urging all New York City police officers to proceed with the utmost caution in this new reality, in which they may be deemed ‘reckless’ just for doing their job. We will uphold our oath, but we cannot and will not do so by needlessly jeopardizing our careers or personal safety."

In a press conference following the NYPD's decision, Lynch blasted the leadership of the city and police department saying they "are absolutely afraid of criminal advocates and based this decision not on the facts, but based this decision on the politics," calling the events that unfolded in 2014 as "not a crime" but a "chaotic situation."

Lynch called for Mayor Bill de Blasio to be removed for what he sees as a lack of support for the police department. He also went on to say that O'Neill "lost" the police department.

Pantaleo's lawyer, Stuart London, stood beside Lynch and said Pantaleo "is disappointed, upset but has a lot of strength and wants to go forward," as they plan to appeal the decision.

"We will file an article 78. We will continue with this case. After the article 78, if we need to appeal beyond that we will," London said. "We are looking for him to get his job back."

Meanwhile, in a separate press conference Garner's children and the family's attorneys, alongside Rev. Al Sharpton, said the fight is not over.

"Today Daniel Pantaleo lost his job, but five years ago Eric Garner lost his life," Sharpton said.

"It was clear in the only proceedings that happened, that Eric Garner was a victim of a policeman that broke policy and, in fact, contributed to his death," he went on to say.

Sharpton said they plan to go to New York state lawmakers to demand that the use of chokeholds by police be declared illegal by law.

Garner's daughter, Emerald Snipes Garner, thanked O'Neill for the decision to fire Pantaleo.

"Commissioner O'Neill, I thank you for doing the right thing. I truly and sincerely thank you for firing the officer," she said, adding he "finally made a decision that should have been made five years ago."

"Yes, he is fired, but the fight is not over," Snipes Garner went on to say.

The Garner family and their attorneys, as well as Sharpton, are also calling for the other officers present during the 2014 incident to be held accountable and for an investigation to take place as to why officials across the country decide not to bring cases similar to Garner's to federal court.

In yet a separate news briefing, de Blasio said that the city finally ended a chapter that brought pain and fear to many.

"It was so difficult for all of us to reconcile what we saw with what we must believe about law enforcement," he said, adding that on Monday "we've seen the NYPD's own disciplinary process act fairly and impartially."

"Justice has been done," de Blasio said, but underlined that there is more work to be done and that both the community and police department must work together to build a positive relationship for all.

De Blasio also discredited the idea that he and O'Neill do not support police officers.

"I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I know that every single day we have tried to help our officers, support our officers, give them the tools they need, give them the protection they need," de Blasio said.

A YEARS-LONG PROCESS

On Aug. 2, an NYPD trial judge found Pantaleo guilty of "reckless assault" when he used an impermissible chokehold on Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island father. She found the officer not guilty of "intentional strangulation." An autopsy had found Garner's death was caused in part by a chokehold; the medical examiner ruled the case a homicide.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board prosecuted the case. In a statement Monday, Chair Fred Davie said O'Neill had no choice but to dismiss Pantaleo given the evidence presented at the department trial.

"Make no mistake: This process took entirely too long. And the tragic reality is that neither a verdict from a judge nor a decision by a police commissioner can reverse what happened on July 17, 2014," Davie said. "Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s termination from the New York City Police Department does not make the death of Eric Garner any less harrowing. But it is heartening to know that some element of justice has been served."

Following the NYPD judge's recommendation to fire Pantaleo, his lawyer maintained that the officer's case had been won in the courtroom but lost due entirely to politics. He said Pantaleo did not use a chokehold, but a department-approved takedown move designed to subdue a suspect.

The chokehold or no-chokehold debate was the crux of the entire case against Pantaleo. Prosecutors had argued the video, which captured Garner's dying words, "I can't breathe," clearly showed Pantaleo use a banned chokehold -- and the medical examiner's autopsy report listed a chokehold as the cause of his death. Health factors, including obesity and high blood pressure, were mentioned as contributing factors in that report.

Defense attorneys submitted at trial that the move Pantaleo was seen using was not an illegal chokehold, but a department-approved takedown move used to subdue suspects resisting arrest -- and that his arm was not around Garner's neck when he said, repeatedly, "I can't breathe."

His words became a rallying cry for the national movement against police brutality. Garner's family received $5.9 million from the city in 2015 to settle a wrongful death claim.

Photo Credit: News 4/AP Images NYPD Chief Fires Cop Who Used Chokehold in Eric Garner Death published first on Miami News

[mathematicianadda]

Remembering Murray Gell-Mann (1929–2019), Inventor of Quarks

First Encounters

In the mid-1970s, particle physics was hot. Quarks were in. Group theory was in. Field theory was in. And so much progress was being made that it seemed like the fundamental theory of physics might be close at hand.

Right in the middle of all this was Murray Gell-Mann—responsible for not one, but most of the leaps of intuition that had brought particle physics to where it was. There’d been other theories, but Murray’s—with their somewhat elaborate and abstract mathematics—were always the ones that seemed to carry the day.

It was the spring of 1978 and I was 18 years old. I’d been publishing papers on particle physics for a few years, and had gotten quite known around the international particle physics community (and, yes, it took decades to live down my teenage-particle-physicist persona). I was in England, but planned to soon go to graduate school in the US, and was choosing between Caltech and Princeton. And one weekend afternoon when I was about to go out, the phone rang. In those days, it was obvious if it was an international call. “This is Murray Gell-Mann”, the caller said, then launched into a monologue about why Caltech was the center of the universe for particle physics at the time.

Perhaps not as starstruck as I should have been, I asked a few practical questions, which Murray dismissed. The call ended with something like, “Well, we’d like to have you at Caltech”.

A few months later I was indeed at Caltech. I remember the evening I arrived, wandering around the empty 4th floor of Lauritsen Lab—the home of Caltech theoretical particle physics. There were all sorts of names I recognized on office doors, and there were two offices that were obviously the largest: “M. Gell-Mann” and “R. Feynman”. (In between them was a small office labeled “H. Tuck”—which by the next day I’d realized was occupied by Helen Tuck, the lively longtime departmental assistant.)

There was a regular Friday lunch in the theoretical physics group, and as soon as a Friday came around, I met Murray Gell-Mann there. The first thing he said to me was, “It must be a culture shock coming here from England”. Then he looked me up and down. There I was in an unreasonably bright yellow shirt and sandals—looking, in fact, quite Californian. Murray seemed embarrassed, mumbled some pleasantry, then turned away.

With Murray at Caltech

I never worked directly with Murray (though he would later describe me to others as “our student”). But I interacted with him frequently while I was at Caltech. He was a strange mixture of gracious and gregarious, together with austere and combative. He had an expressive face, which would wrinkle up if he didn’t approve of what was being said.

Murray always had people and things he approved of, and ones he didn’t—to which he would often give disparaging nicknames. (He would always refer to solid-state physics as “squalid-state physics”.) Sometimes he would pretend that things he did not like simply did not exist. I remember once talking to him about something in quantum field theory called the beta function. His face showed no recognition of what I was talking about, and I was getting slightly exasperated. Eventually I blurted out, “But, Murray, didn’t you invent this?” “Oh”, he said, suddenly much more charming, “You mean g times the psi function. Why didn’t you just say that? Now I understand”. Of course, he had understood all along, but was being difficult about me using the “beta function” term, even though it had by then been standard for years.

I could never quite figure out what it was that made Murray impressed by some people and not others. He would routinely disparage physicists who were destined for great success, and would vigorously promote ones who didn’t seem so promising, and didn’t in fact do well. So when he promoted me, I was on the one hand flattered, but on the other hand concerned about what his endorsement might really mean.

The interaction between Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman was an interesting thing to behold. Both came from New York, but Feynman relished his “working-class” New York accent, while Gell-Mann affected the best pronunciation of words from any language. Both would make surprisingly childish comments about the other.

I remember Feynman insisting on telling me the story of the origin of the word “quark”. He said he’d been talking to Murray one Friday about these hypothetical particles, and in their conversation they’d needed a name for them. Feynman told me he said (no doubt in his characteristic accent), “Let’s call them ‘quacks’”. The next Monday he said Murray came to him very excited and said he’d found the word “quark” in James Joyce. In telling this to me, Feynman then went into a long diatribe about how Murray always seemed to think the names for things were so important. “Having a name for something doesn’t tell you a damned thing”, Feynman said. (Having now spent so much of my life as a language designer, I might disagree). Feynman went on, mocking Murray’s concern for things like what different birds are called. (Murray was an avid bird watcher.)

Meanwhile, Feynman had worked on particles which seemed (and turned out to be) related to quarks. Feynman had called them “partons”. Murray insisted on always referring to them as “put-ons”.

Even though in terms of longstanding contributions to particle physics Murray was the clear winner, he always seemed to feel as if he was in the shadow of Feynman, particularly with Feynman’s showmanship. When Feynman died, Murray wrote a rather snarky obituary, saying of Feynman: “He surrounded himself with a cloud of myth, and he spent a great deal of time and energy generating anecdotes about himself”. I never quite understood why Murray—who could have gone to any university in the world—chose to work at Caltech for 33 years in an office two doors down from Feynman.

Murray cared a lot about what people thought of him, but would routinely (and maddeningly to watch) put himself in positions where he would look bad. He was very interested in—and I think very knowledgeable about—words and languages. And when he would meet someone, he would make a point of regaling them with information about the origin of their name (curiously—as I learned only years later—his own name, “Gell-Mann”, had been “upgraded” from “Gellmann”). Now, of course, if there’s one word people tend to know something about, it’s their own name. And, needless to say, Murray sometimes got its origins wrong—and was very embarrassed. (I remember he told a friend of mine named Nathan Isgur a long and elaborate story about the origin of the name “Isgur”, with Nathan eventually saying: “No, it was made up at Ellis Island!”.)

Murray wasn’t particularly good at reading other people. I remember in early 1982 sitting next to Murray in a limo in Chicago that had just picked up a bunch of scientists for some event. The driver was reading the names of the people he’d picked up over the radio. Many were complicated names, which the driver was admittedly butchering. But after each one, Murray would pipe up, and say “No, it’s said ____”. The driver was getting visibly annoyed, and eventually I said quietly to Murray that he should stop correcting him. When we arrived, Murray said to me: “Why did you say that?” He seemed upset that the driver didn’t care about getting the names right.

Occasionally I would ask Murray for advice, though he would rarely give it. When I was first working on one-dimensional cellular automata, I wanted to find a good name for them. (There had been several previous names for the 2D case, one of which—that I eventually settled on—was “cellular automata”.) I considered the name “polymones” (somehow reflecting Leibniz’s monad concept). But I asked Murray—given all his knowledge of words and languages—for a suggestion. He said he didn’t think polymones was much good, but didn’t have any other suggestion.

When I was working on SMP (a forerunner of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language) I asked Murray about it, though at the time I didn’t really understand as I do now the correspondences between human and computational languages. Murray was interested in trying out SMP, and had a computer terminal installed in his office. I kept on offering to show him some things, but he kept on putting it off. I later realized that—bizarrely to me—Murray was concerned about me seeing that he didn’t know how to type. (By the way, at the time, few people did—which is, for example, why SMP, like Unix, had cryptically short command names.)

But alongside the brush-offs and the strangeness, Murray could be personally very gracious. I remember him inviting me several times to his house. I never interacted with either of his kids (who were both not far from my age). But I did interact with his wife, Margaret, who was a very charming English woman. (As part of his dating advice to me, Feynman had explained that both he and Murray had married English women because “they could cope”.)

While I was at Caltech, Margaret got very sick with cancer, and Murray threw himself into trying to find a cure. (He blamed himself for not having made sure Margaret had had more checkups.) It wasn’t long before Margaret died. Murray invited me to the memorial service. But somehow I didn’t feel I could go; even though by then I was on the faculty at Caltech, I just felt too young and junior. I think Murray was upset I didn’t come, and I’ve felt guilty and embarrassed about it ever since.

Murray did me quite a few favors. He was an original board member of the MacArthur Foundation, and I think was instrumental in getting me a MacArthur Fellowship in the very first batch. Later, when I ran into trouble with intellectual property issues at Caltech, Murray went to bat for me—attempting to intercede with his longtime friend Murph Goldberger, who was by then president of Caltech (and who, before Caltech, had been a professor at Princeton, and had encouraged me to go to graduate school there).

I don’t know if I would call Murray a friend, though, for example, after Margaret died, he and I would sometimes have dinner together, at random restaurants around Pasadena. It wasn’t so much that I felt of a different generation from him (which of course I was). It was more that he exuded a certain aloof tension, that made one not feel very sure about what the relationship really was.

A Great Time in Physics

At the end of World War II, the Manhattan Project had just happened, the best and the brightest were going into physics, and “subatomic particles” were a major topic. Protons, neutrons, electrons and photons were known, and together with a couple of hypothesized particles (neutrinos and pions), it seemed possible that the story of elementary particles might be complete.

But then, first in cosmic rays, and later in particle accelerators, new particles started showing up. There was the muon, then the mesons (pions and kaons), and the hyperons (Λ, Σ, Ξ). All were unstable. The muon—which basically nobody understands even today—was like a heavy electron, interacting mainly through electromagnetic forces. But the others were subject to the strong nuclear force—the one that binds nuclei together. And it was observed that this force could generate these particles, though always together (Λ with K, for example). But, mysteriously, the particles could only decay through so-called weak interactions (of the kind involved in radioactive beta decay, or the decay of the muon).

For a while, nobody could figure out why this could be. But then around 1953, Murray Gell-Mann came up with an explanation. Just as particles have “quantum numbers” like spin and charge, he hypothesized that they could have a new quantum number that he called strangeness. Protons, neutrons and pions would have zero strangeness. But the Λ would have strangeness -1, the (positive) kaon strangeness +1, and so on. And total strangeness, he suggested, might be conserved in strong (and electromagnetic) interactions, but not in weak interactions. To suggest a fundamentally new property of particles was a bold thing to do. But it was correct: and immediately Murray was able to explain lots of things that had been observed.

But how did the weak interaction that was—among other things—responsible for the decay of Murray’s “strange particles” actually work? In 1957, in their one piece of collaboration in all their years together at Caltech, Feynman and Gell-Mann introduced the so-called V-A theory of the weak interaction—and, once again, despite initial experimental evidence to the contrary, it turned out to be correct. (The theory basically implies that neutrinos can only have left-handed helicity, and that weak interactions involve parity conservation and parity violation in equal amounts.)

As soon as the quantum mechanics of electrons and other particles was formulated in the 1920s, people started wondering about the quantum theory of fields, particularly the electromagnetic field. There were issues with infinities, but in the late 1940s—in Feynman’s big contribution—these were handled through the concept of renormalization. The result was that it was possible to start computing things using quantum electrodynamics (QED)—and soon all sorts of spectacular agreements with experiment had been found.

But all these computations worked by looking at just the first few terms in a series expansion in powers of the interaction strength parameter α≃1/137. In 1954, during his brief time at the University of Illinois (from which he went to the University of Chicago, and then Caltech), Murray, together with Francis Low, wrote a paper entitled “Quantum Electrodynamics at Small Distances” which was an attempt to explore QED to all orders in α. In many ways this paper was ahead of its time—and 20 years later, the “renormalization group” that it implicitly defined became very important (and the psi function that it discussed was replaced by the beta function).

While QED could be investigated through a series expansion in the small parameter α≃1/137, no such program seemed possible for the strong interaction (where the effective expansion parameter would be ≃1). So in the 1950s there was an attempt to take a more holistic approach, based on looking at the whole so-called S-matrix defining overall scattering amplitudes. Various properties of the S-matrix were known—notably analyticity with respect to values of particle momenta, and so-called crossing symmetry associated with exchanging particles and antiparticles.

But were these sufficient to understand the properties of strong interactions? Throughout the 1960s, attempts involving more and more elaborate mathematics were made. But things kept on going wrong. The proton-proton total interaction probability was supposed to rise with energy. But experimentally it was seen to level off. So a new idea (the pomeron) was introduced. But then the interaction probability was found to start rising again. So another phenomenon (multiparticle “cuts”) had to be introduced. And so on. (Ironically enough, early string theory spun off from these attempts—and today, after decades of disuse, S-matrix theory is coming back into vogue.)

But meanwhile, there was another direction being explored—in which Murray Gell-Mann was centrally involved. It all had to do with the group-theory-meets-calculus concept of Lie groups. An example of a Lie group is the 3D rotation group, known in Lie group theory as SO(3). A central issue in Lie group theory is to find representations of groups: finite collections, say of matrices, that operate like elements of the group.

Representations of the rotation group had been used in atomic physics to deduce from rotational symmetry a characterization of possible spectral lines. But what Gell-Mann did was to say, in effect, “Let’s just imagine that in the world of elementary particles there’s some kind of internal symmetry associated with the Lie group SU(3). Now use representation theory to characterize what particles will exist”.

And in 1961, he published his eightfold way (named after Buddha’s Eightfold Way) in which he proposed—periodic-table style—that there should be 8+1 types of mesons, and 10+8 types of baryons (hyperons plus nucleons, such as proton and neutron). For the physics of the time, the mathematics involved in this was quite exotic. But the known particles organized nicely into Gell-Mann’s structure. And Gell-Mann made a prediction: that there should be one additional type of hyperon, that he called the , with strangeness -3, and certain mass and decay characteristics.

And—sure enough—in 1964, the was observed, and Gell-Mann was on his way to the Nobel Prize, which he received in 1969.

At first the SU(3) symmetry idea was just about what particles should exist. But Gell-Mann wanted also to characterize interactions associated with particles, and for this he introduced what he called current algebra. And, by 1964, from his work on current algebra, he’d realized something else: that his SU(3) symmetry could be interpreted as meaning that things like protons were actually composed of something more fundamental—that he called quarks.

What exactly were the quarks? In his first paper on the subject, Gell-Mann called them “mathematical entities”, although he admitted that, just maybe, they could actually be particles themselves. There were problems with this, though. First, it was thought that electric charge was quantized in units of the electron charge, but quarks would have to have charges of 2/3 and -1/3. But even more seriously, one would have to explain why no free quarks had ever been seen.

It so happened that right when Gell-Mann was writing this, a student at Caltech named George Zweig was thinking of something very similar. Zweig (who was at the time visiting CERN) took a mathematically less elaborate approach, observing that the existing particles could be explained as built from three kinds of “aces”, as he called them, with the same properties as Gell-Mann’s quarks.

Zweig became a professor at Caltech—and I’ve personally been friends with him for more than 40 years. But he never got much credit for his aces idea, and after a few years he left particle physics and started studying the neurobiology of the ear—and now, in his eighties, has started a quant hedge fund.

Meanwhile, Gell-Mann continued pursuing the theory of quarks, refining his ideas about current algebras. But starting in 1968, there was something new: particle accelerators able to collide high-energy electrons with protons (“deep inelastic scattering”) observed that sometimes the electrons could suffer large deflections. There were lots of details, particularly associated with relativistic kinematics, but in 1969 Feynman proposed his parton (or, as Gell-Mann called it, “put-on”) model, in which the proton contained point-like “parton” particles.

It was immediately guessed that partons might be quarks, and within a couple of years this had been established. But the question remained of why the quarks should be confined inside particles such as protons. To avoid some inconsistencies associated with the exclusion principle, it had already been suggested that quarks might come in three “colors”. Then in 1973, Gell-Mann and his collaborators suggested that associated with these colors, quarks might have “color charges” analogous to electric charge.

Electromagnetism can be thought of as a gauge field theory associated with the Lie group U(1). Now Gell-Mann suggested that there might be a gauge field theory associated with an SU(3) color group (yes, SU(3) again, but a different application than in the eightfold way, etc.). This theory became known as quantum chromodynamics, or QCD. And, in analogy to the photon, it involves particles called gluons.

Unlike photons, however, gluons directly interact with each other, leading to a much more complex theory. But in direct analogy to Gell-Mann and Low’s 1954 renormalization group computation for QED, in 1973 the beta function (AKA g times psi function) for QCD was computed, and was found to show the phenomenon of asymptotic freedom—essentially that QCD interactions get progressively weaker at shorter distances.

This immediately explained the success of the parton model, but also suggested that if quarks get further apart, the QCD interactions between them get stronger, potentially explaining confinement. (And, yes, this is surely the correct intuition about confinement, although even to this day, there is no formal proof of quark confinement—and I suspect it may have issues of undecidability.)

Through much of the 1960s, S-matrix theory had been the dominant approach to particle physics. But it was having trouble, and the discovery of asymptotic freedom in QCD in 1973 brought field theory back to the fore, and, with it, lots of optimism about what might be possible in particle physics.

Murray Gell-Mann had had an amazing run. For 20 years he had made a series of bold conjectures about how nature might work—strangeness, V-A theory, SU(3), quarks, QCD—and in each case he had been correct, while others had been wrong. He had had one of the more remarkable records of repeated correct intuition in the whole history of science.

He tried to go on. He talked about “grand unification being in the air”, and (along with many other physicists) discussed the possibility that QCD and the theory of weak interactions might be unified in models based on groups like SU(5) and SO(10). He considered supersymmetry—in which there would be particles that are crosses between things like neutrinos and things like gluons. But quick validations of these theories didn’t work out—though even now it’s still conceivable that some version of them might be correct.

But regardless, the mid-1970s were a period of intense activity for particle physics. In 1974, the J/ψ particle was discovered, which turned out to be associated with a fourth kind of quark (charm quark). In 1978, evidence of a fifth quark was seen. Lots was figured out about how QCD works. And a consistent theory of weak interactions emerged that, together with QED and QCD, defined what by the early 1980s had become the modern Standard Model of particle physics that exists today.

I myself got seriously interested in particle physics in 1972, when I was 12 years old. I used to carry around a copy of the little Particle Properties booklet—and all the various kinds of particles became, in a sense, my personal friends. I knew by heart the mass of the Λ, the lifetime of the , and a zillion other things about particles. (And, yes, amazingly, I still seem to remember almost all of them—though now they’re all known to much greater accuracy.)

At the time, it seemed to me like the most important discoveries ever were being made: fundamental facts about the fundamental particles that exist in our universe. And I think I assumed that before long everyone would know these things, just as people know that there are atoms and protons and electrons.

But I’m shocked today that almost nobody has, for example, even heard of muons—even though we’re continually bombarded with them from cosmic rays. Talk about strangeness, or the omega-minus, and one gets blank stares. Quarks more people have heard of, though mostly because of their name, with its various uses for brands, etc.

To me it feels a bit tragic. It’s not hard to show Gell-Mann’s eightfold way pictures, and to explain how the particles in them can be made from quarks. It’s at least as easy to explain that there are 6 known types of quarks as to explain about chemical elements or DNA bases. But for some reason—in most countries—all these triumphs of particle physics have never made it into school science curriculums.

And as I was writing this piece, I was shocked at how thin the information on “classic” particle physics is on the web. In fact, in trying to recall some of the history, the most extensive discussion I could find was in an unpublished book I myself wrote when I was 12 years old! (Yes, full of charming spelling mistakes, and a few physics mistakes.)

The Rest of the Story

When I first met Murray in 1978, his great run of intuition successes and his time defining almost everything that was important in particle physics was already behind him. I was never quite sure what he spent his time on. I know he traveled a lot, using physics meetings in far-flung places as excuses to absorb local culture and nature. I know he spent significant time with the JASON physicists-consult-for-the-military-and-get-paid-well-for-doing-so group. (It was a group that also tried to recruit me in the mid-1980s.) I know he taught classes at Caltech—though he had a reputation for being rather disorganized and unprepared, and I often saw him hurrying to class with giant piles of poorly collated handwritten notes.

Quite often I would see him huddled with more junior physicists that he had brought to Caltech with various temporary jobs. Often there were calculations being done on the blackboard, sometimes by Murray. Lots of algebra, usually festooned with tensor indices—with rarely a diagram in sight. What was it about? I think in those days it was most often supergravity—a merger of the idea of supersymmetry with an early form of string theory (itself derived from much earlier work on S-matrix theory).

This was the time when QCD, quark models and lots of other things that Murray had basically created were at their hottest. Yet Murray chose not to work on them—for example telling me after hearing a talk I gave on QCD that I should work on more worthwhile topics.

I’m guessing Murray somehow thought that his amazing run of intuition would continue, and that his new theories would be as successful as his old. But it didn’t work out that way. Though when I would see Murray, he would often tell me of some amazing physics that he was just about to crack, often using elaborate mathematical formalism that I didn’t recognize.

By the time I left Caltech in 1983, Murray was spending much of his time in New Mexico, around Santa Fe and Los Alamos—particularly getting involved in what would become the Santa Fe Institute. In 1984, I was invited to the inaugural workshop discussing what was then called the Rio Grande Institute might do. It was a strange event, at which I was by far the youngest participant. And as chance would have it, in connection with the republication of the proceedings of that event, I just recently wrote an account of what happened there, which I will soon post.

But in any case, Murray was co-chairing the event, and talking about his vision for a great interdisciplinary university, in which people would study things like the relations between physics and archaeology. He talked in grand flourishes about covering the arts and sciences, the simple and the complex, and linking them all together. It didn’t seem very practical to me—and at some point I asked what the Santa Fe Institute would actually concentrate on if it had to make a choice.

People asked what I would suggest, and I (somewhat reluctantly, because it seemed like everyone had been trying to promote their pet area) suggested “complex systems theory”, and my ideas about the emergence of complexity from things like simple programs. The audio of the event records some respectful exchanges between Murray and me, though more about organizational matters than content. But as it turned out, complex systems theory was indeed what the Santa Fe Institute ended up concentrating on. And Murray himself began to use “complexity” as a label for things he was thinking about.

I tried for years (starting when I first worked on such things, in 1981) to explain to Murray about cellular automata, and about my explorations of the computational universe. He would listen politely, and pay lip service to the relevance of computers and experiments with them. But—as I later realized—he never really understood much at all of what I was talking about.

By the late 1980s, I saw Murray only very rarely. I heard, though, that through an agent I know, Murray had got a big advance to write a book. Murray always found writing painful, and before long I heard that the book had gone through multiple editors (and publishers), and that Murray thought it responsible for a heart attack he had. I had hoped that the book would be an autobiography, though I suspected that Murray might not have the introspection to produce that. (Several years later, a New York Times writer named George Johnson wrote what I considered a very good biography of Murray, which Murray hated.)

But then I heard that Murray’s book was actually going to be about his theory of complexity, whatever that might be. A few years went by, and, eventually, in 1994, to rather modest fanfare, Murray’s book The Quark and the Jaguar appeared. Looking through it, though, it didn’t seem to contain anything concrete that could be considered a theory of complexity. George Zweig told me he’d heard that Murray had left people like me and him out of the index to the book, so we’d have to read the whole book if we wanted to find out what he said about us.

At the time, I didn’t bother. But just now, in writing this piece, I was curious to find out what, if anything, Murray actually did say about me. In the printed book, the index goes straight from “Winos” to Woolfenden. But online I can find that there I am, on page 77 (and, bizarrely, I’m also in the online index): “As Stephen Wolfram has emphasized, [a theory] is a compressed package of information, applicable to many cases”. Yes, that’s true, but is that really all Murray got out of everything I told him? (George Zweig, by the way, isn’t mentioned in the book at all.)

In 2002, I’d finally finished my own decade-long basic science project, and I was getting ready to publish my book A New Kind of Science. In recognition of his early support, I’d mentioned Murray in my long list of acknowledgements in the book, and I thought I’d reach out to him and see if he’d like to write a back-cover blurb. (In the end, Steve Jobs convinced me not to have any back-cover blurbs: “Isaac Newton didn’t have blurbs on the Principia; nor should you on your book”.)

Murray responded politely: “It is exciting to know that your magnum opus, reflecting so much thought, research, and writing, will finally appear. I should, of course, be delighted to receive the book and peruse it, and I might be able to come up with an endorsement, especially since I expect to be impressed”. But he said, “I find it difficult to write things under any conditions, as you probably know”.

I sent Murray the book, and soon thereafter was on the phone with him. It was a strange and contentious conversation. Murray was obviously uncomfortable. I was asking him about what he thought complexity was. He said it was “like a child learning a language”. I asked what that meant. We went back and forth talking about languages. I had the distinct sense that Murray thought he could somehow blind me with facts I didn’t know. But—perhaps unfortunately for the conversation—even though A New Kind of Science doesn’t discuss languages much, my long efforts in computational language design had made me quite knowledgeable about the topic, and in the conversation I made it quite clear that I wasn’t convinced about what Murray had to say.

Murray followed up with an email: “It was good to talk with you. I found the exchange of ideas very interesting. We seem to have been thinking about many of the same things over the last few years, and apparently we agree on some of them and have quite divergent views on others”. He talked about the book, saying that “Obviously, I can’t, in a brief perusal, come to any deep conclusions about such an impressive tome. It is clear, however, that there are many ideas in it with which, if I understand them correctly, I disagree”.

Then he continued: “Also, my own work of the last decade or so is not mentioned anywhere, even though that work includes discussions of the meaning and significance of simplicity and complexity, the role of decoherent histories in the understanding of quantum mechanics, and other topics that play important roles in A New Kind of Science”. (Actually, I don’t think I discussed anything relevant to decoherent histories in quantum mechanics.) He explained that he didn’t want to write a blurb, and ended: “I’m sorry, and I hope that this matter does not present any threat to our friendship, which I hold dear”.

As it turned out, I never talked to Murray about science again. The last time I saw Murray was in 2012 at a peculiar event in New York City for promising high-school students. I said hello. Murray looked blank. I said my name, and held up my name tag. “Do I know you?”, he said. I repeated my name. Still blank. I couldn’t tell if it was a problem of age—or a repeat of the story of the beta function. But, with regret, I walked away.

I have often used Murray as an example of the challenges of managing the arc of a great career. From his twenties to his forties, Murray had the golden touch. His particular way of thinking had success after success, and in many ways, he defined physics for a generation. But by the time I knew him, the easy successes were over. Perhaps it was Murray; more likely, it was just that the easy pickings from his approach were now gone.

I think Murray always wanted to be respected as a scholar and statesman of science—and beyond. But—to his chagrin—he kept on putting himself in situations that played to his weaknesses. He tried to lead people, but usually ended up annoying them. He tried to become a literary-style author, but his perfectionism and insecurity got in the way. He tried to do important work in new fields, but ended up finding that his particular methods didn’t work there. To me, it felt in many ways tragic. He so wanted to succeed as he had before, but he never found a way to do it—and always bore the burden of his early success.

Still, with all his complexities, I am pleased to have known Murray. And though Murray is now gone, the physics he discovered will live on, defining an important chapter in the quest for our understanding of the fundamental structure of our universe.

from Stephen Wolfram Blog http://bit.ly/2Ib2nMm from Blogger http://bit.ly/2ELaTAS

[theliterateape]

The Surveillance State Made Personal: Why Everyone Should Have a Body Camera

By Don Hall

Once, a long time ago, I was assaulted by an ex-girlfriend. I use the word “assault” but that’s because that is the legal definition. The simpler truth, unpainted with the soft language of the victimized, is that she punched me in face several times because I wanted her out of my house.

So I called the police.

Not because I wanted her arrested but because I wanted her out of my house. Hell, I’d been punched by far larger people with far more malicious intent than her.

She patiently waited for the police and, when they arrived, without a hint of remorse or pause, she told them that I had assaulted her. She accused me of stalking her and luring her to my house and assaulting her.

I knew I was fucked. Her words against mine.

Images of prison flooded into my vision, of my life flushed down the toilet, of the devastation it would cause.

I was so shocked by her statement, at the overwhelming untruth of it, all I did was shrug and say, “I just want her to leave.” The officers assessed the situation, one escorting her to the lawn, the other, hands on his belt near his gun, questioning me. After ten minutes or so, they determined either she was lying or that they couldn’t decide who was lying but ultimately drove her to her car and followed her home.

I sat in my chair and contemplated what was going to happen. She was an activist. She was a woman of color. She had serious ties with the justice system and law professors as close friends. I felt trapped.

An hour later, she came back. Pleading with me to let her in so we could talk about it. When I wouldn’t, she broke my front window with a brick. I finally agreed to sit down, her on one side of the locked screen door and me on the other, and she calmed down. I took my phone, hit voice memo and record, and after 30 minutes got her to admit on the recording that she made it up to hurt me, that I had not assaulted her, that she had punched me rather than the other way around. I had it on tape and I told her so.

I still have that recording on a CD somewhere in a box. You know, just in case.

On May 20, activist Shaun King shared yet another story of a police officer pulling over a black woman and the subsequent horrors of justice so common in that scenario.

“Sherita Dixon Cole just happens to be a close personal friend of Civil Rights Attorney and my close friend Lee Merritt. These are the facts he was able to get together after speaking with Sherita’s family:

On May 20th, 2018 at approximately 1:30AM Sherita Dixon Cole was pulled over in Waxahachie, TX by a Texas State Trooper — Officer Hubbard, near a abandoned car dealership (I287 South & I35 South). She was told she was being stopped because Hubbard expected she was driving while intoxicated. Cole voluntarily performed and passed all DUI/DWI protocol including a breathalyzer. However, Hubbard decided he “didn’t like [her] attitude” and that he was going to take her to jail anyway. He handcuffed her hands behind her back and placed Cole in the front passenger seat of his patrol vehicle. Hubbard then took a seat beside Cole and placed his hand on her thigh. He asked her if she wanted to go home as he hiked up her skirt. He told her that she could earn her way home, if she really wanted to go.

Cole had called her boyfriend to the scene of the stop when she was first pulled over. He arrived just as the officer began to accost her. Hubbard asked Cole who was in the car. When she explained it was her fiancé he asked her, was he armed. When she said he was not, Hubbard retorted “If you tell him what happened he will be armed and his fire arm will be visible when I have to shoot him.” Hubbard went out to speak with Cole’s boyfriend and allowed him to speak with her briefly in his presence. She told him that she passed the DUI/DWI protocol but the officer said he was taking her in anyway “because of [her] attitude.” Hubbard immediately ended the conversation and told Cole he was taking her to the Ellis County Jail. Her fiancé told Hubbard that he would follow them to the jail but Hubbard warned him that he could not follow him and would be arrested if he tried. Cole’s fiancé drove a short distance up the road and waited for the officer to head toward the jail.”

He wrote that she reported being sexually assaulted to the county jail and they refused to take her in for medical treatment. That very evening, the Texas Department of Public Safety responded that the body cam footage of the arrest did not support her claims.

The Faceborg commenting nose-bleed sitters responded in outrage. Apparently, here was another instance that supported the trend. “We believe HER!” was the online cry. King was apoplectic and tweeted without cease about the injustice, that her character was unassailable, demanding DNA testing on the officer, alleged a departmental cover up and insisted the department release the body cam footage to the public.

So they did.

And she lied.

Upon watching the two hours of video, King responded on Medium:

“Earlier today I was able to review nearly two hours of body camera footage provided by the police department. The footage appears to be authentic and trustworthy. At no time does it show any of the horrible allegations originally made by Sherita Dixon-Cole. The officer never threatens her or her fiancé as she described. No sexual assault of any kind takes place. From all indications the officer, Daniel Hubbard, was very professional and patient throughout the ordeal. The whole thing was rather routine and painfully normal.”

There are those who have made the case that, due to decades of police not believing women in assault and rape cases, that it is time for all men to be held accountable. I’ve read think pieces that state that hatred of all men (misandry) is now a just stance and that calls for due process are tantamount to upholding the Patriarchy.

“We believe HER.”

Using the soft language of the victimized,

a dirty joke is sexual harassment

breaking up with someone is abusive behavior

laughing at someone online is assault

Had there not been a functioning camera recording the arrest, Cole would have been successful in using the hysteria of our times to destroy the life of what appears to be an upstanding and honorable peace officer.

Here is where I am faced with a legitimate quandary. How do I have a rational and logical discussion about these issues with people whom I love and respect when my natural — and I would argue, earned — skepticism conflicts so directly with the message that any doubt as to the honesty of accusations is tantamount to putting a boot to the neck of feminism and declaring allegiance to abuse and rape?

The hysteria is such that a recent exchange in which I pointed out the irony of someone who has used the theatrics of abuse narrative and the aforementioned soft language of the victimized whining about someone using the same tactics against her resulted in her mob all agreeing that I was psychotic and dangerous.

A friend was told he was not welcome to an event because he was considered ‘problematic’ and would violate their ‘safe space’ when it was discovered that he questioned the validity of the accusations against Woody Allen. (Something similar happened to me despite my working for a feminist cause for months prior.)

How do I have a conversation with people so entrenched in ideology that it feels somewhat like trying to reason with an avid Trump supporter?

Men should just listen, I'm told. But what if I listen and still disagree with the strident whole-cloth condemnation of behavior I consider ultimately benign? Does "You should just listen" mean that if I don't completely agree that I didn't fully listen? Does listening require me to turn off my brain?

I very much want to be an advocate for women (and men, and, hell, humans in general.) If being a non-thinking reactionary is what is being asked of me, I'm not at all certain I can comply nor would I want to.

More importantly than my perspective, what happens to Officer Hubbard after being falsely accused of rape and police brutality? Is he going to "believe her" the next time he has an assault reported? Or will his lens of personal experience color his perspective to begin doubting any woman's claims?

Maybe everyone should have a body camera and leave their recording apps on their smartphones in continuous ON position. At least with recorded evidence, those who would use a legitimate and necessary social activism for their own nefarious ends will be thwarted.

Or maybe it’ll just make them famous. 

[mysteryfanfictheatre3000]

Back to the Frollo, Chapter 20

Warning: More racism. Seriously. They call Esmeralda “g*psy vermin” in paragraph 2 of this. It’s repulsive. 

Claude escorted me up to the belltower, while Quasimodo took Renee on a little tour of Notre Dame. We both endeavored to keep our amusement in check, but as soon as we reached the top, Claude Frollo fell to the floor, convulsing with uproarious laughter. "My darling", he said between deep, throaty chuckles, "that was one of your best performances. The way you dispatched that gypsy vermin!"

The sheer amount of pure, unashamed racism in this story is physically making me sick. This author is a terrible human being.

The melee between Esmeralda and myself became the talk of Paris; Claude didn't even try to stop me from my 'big payback'. Esmeralda was now locked away deep in the dungeons of the Palace of Justice. Claude would later interrogate her on the whereabouts of Malus' accomplice. I knew Claude had 'special' methods for making people talk, and I never questioned those methods.

Holy FUCK. This just gets worse and worse. When did this stop being a creepy romance story and start being a story about how Esmeralda is tortured?!

Hmmm --- 'cruel and unusual punishment' --- a lot of folks in my time would say, "Bring back the rack!"

I literally cannot talk more about how this author is a horrible human being. Blaming the victim of harassment, attempted rape and attempted homicide is so unbelievably wrong on so many levels, and I cannot stress that enough.

Claude caught me trying not to laugh. He held my hand and asked me, "Oh Danisha, dearest...Do you have to leave? I thought we could enjoy an extra week together, what with things turning out as they did." He leaned over and kissed my mouth, then, pulled something from his pocket. It was the pager.

Because what’s funnier than torturing an innocent girl?!

"I know you have responsibilities at home, but, no matter."

What responsibility?! She was able to leave her home for 2 solid months to go on a joyride to the past. Even if she’s a teacher, the summer isn’t just free time, it’s classroom-setting up, lesson-planning time. Danisha is just ignoring all her responsibilities, why should it change now?

Claude sighed as I pulled my own pager from my purse. "We still have this; we're not that isolated.", I said, returning the kiss. Claude Frollo smiled and asked, "Do you remember when you received this little device?" I nodded, replying, "Do I ever! And I thought everything was a dream! Then..." Claude finished my sentence, "Strange things began to happen..."

We don’t care. Why is this dragged out for so long? They’ve gotten together, Esmeralda’s been (wrongfully) assaulted and captured, and Malus is dead. The drama is over. Who cares about these jerks anymore?

************************* Was it all a dream? A summertime fantasy? An hallucination brought on by too much exposure to Midwestern heat and humidity? I threw myself back into work and routine. Jacki had already returned to graduate school, and Kyle started his sophomore year at Ball State. I'll never forget Claude's expression when Kyle said he wanted to "be a teacher, just like Ma." I supposed Claude had hoped Kyle would go into law; after all, as Claude told me, "I had hoped to act as his mentor." Yeah...right. Like Kyle's going to travel back in time just to start a law career. That would never happen -- could it?

I mean, yeah, this story is dumb enough that it could happen.

I was beginning to wonder if I dreamed it all. But I still had the sterling silver key, and the tapestry which hung on my living-room wall. Many of my friends kept asking, "Where did you get that?" I just said, "A friend gave it to me." Whenever I looked at the tapestry, I wondered if Claude Frollo and I would ever cross paths agaim.

It’s “again.” PROOFREAD YOUR WORK. And hopefully you don’t, because I hate you both.

Fern seldom mentioned our trip to medieval Paris; I guess she didn't want to upset me, seeing how painful it was for me to say me final good-byes to Claude. Oh well, as Claude always says, no matter.

final?! She has weekends and holidays off, and there’s always next summer!

As I said, I threw myself back into my old routine. Everything seemed to go smoothly; I was beginning to put Claude Frollo's memory 'on the back burner'. Then very odd things began to happen to me.

Of course they did, because this story has to go on even longer!

Fern and I made our annual visit to the State Fair, taking in all the agricultural and industrial achievements. Naturally, I wanted to see the farm animals. Fern left me to get us some lemonade, saying, "Why don't you mosey into the draft horse barn; I'll meet you in front ot the Percherons." I wandered up and down the aisles, marvelling at the Belgians, the Clydesdales, and, my favorites, the Percherons. One particular animal seemed peculiarly friendly as I petted his nose. Hey, this one looks like Snowball...

Ughhhhhh. Here we go.

A young man who was standing nearby spoke; his French-accented voice sounded awfully familiar. "You know, my brother owns such an animal. Fabulous black stallion."

A French guy has a brother who owns a horse? That’s sure strange!

Something about the man's voice clicked. I wheeled around but saw no one but Fern, who was carrying two lemonades. "It ain't the fair without a lemonade shake-up", she said as she handed over a cup. "Damn good-lookin' animal!", was all Fern said as she studied the stallion.Down in September, my old car gave out on me; I had no choice but to buy another. I finally chose a late model Camry, recently repainted a lovely shade of violet. When I picked up my car, the mechanic told me, "My master...I mean, my boss made sure everything was in working order."

If this is Quasimodo, which I’m sure it is, because this author is bad at subtlety, he should really be more careful. Normal people don’t refer to their “master” ever.

I didn't get a good look at the young mechanic as I replied, "Thanks..." Then I noticed something else as I examined the inside. "What is this?", I asked, pointing to the violet button under the dash. "Oh that", said the mechanic, "My master...I mean my boss said to give you this." He handed me a glossy booklet entitled, Traveling Tips. But this doesn't tell me about the button; and, I have all the travel books I need. "Wait a minute!", I called to the mechanic, who had already left the garage. I caught a glimpse of him as he crossed the parking lot. He was deformed, with a humped back, and walked with a slight limp. This is getting too weird...but that guy can't be Quasi...

I don’t understand this. Are all these characters somehow traveling to the future just because they like Danisha and want her back soooooo very much? How does Quasimodo know who Danisha is, which car is hers, how to install time-travel buttons, and how to pass as a mechanic? The fact that he’s portrayed as a stupid man-child only makes this weirder.

Yet, the oddest occurence was when I finally received that curious device; then, HE showed up on my doorstep.

Come oooooooooonnnn. Just let this stupid, racist mess end already.

It was the day of homecoming; I was looking forward to the pep rally and parade that afternoon. In the evening, Fern and I would attend the football game. The day started out as any other Friday. I joined my co-workers for our usual 'whoopee-it's-Friday' coffee hour.

Can teachers just take random weekly coffee hours? Don’t they have classes, and papers to grade and copies to make and so on?

The early morning conversation centered around the rally and parade. Just before my first class, I checked my message box. There was the usual stuff: attendance reports, minutes from a departmental meeting, booklists - and something else: A small box wrapped in shiny purple paper and tied with a black velvet ribbon. I thought it was an early birthday present, so I locked the package in my car until school ended.

Who let a random elderly priest into a school to slip a message into a teacher’s mailbox? And how did Frollo know how to get to said school?

After the rally and parade, I unlocked the glove compartment and removed the package. I untied the ribbon and, very carefully, removed the paper. I cautiously opened the box and took out what looked like a pocket pager - but this was unlike any pager I've ever seen. It was about the size of a poker deck, but not as thick. It was of the most exqusite sterling silver, with tiny amethysts encircling the front and edges. I flipped it open; there was array of buttons, and a screen.

Frollo somehow knew how to find a magic time-travel pager? This story makes less and less sense at it rambles along.

Immediately, the pager flashed brightly and beeped loudly; a message began to scroll across the screen.

This will make the trip that much faster! I love you.Hugs and Kisses, Claude. Claude Frollo? How can this be?

Well, gee, I don’t know. Maybe you’re just a horrible writer who can’t have historical accuracy or any sort of consistency in your work?

I gasped with the sudden realization that THAT'S what he meant by, "We'll see each other again." Maybe that mechanic was Quasi. Then again, this could be just another hallucination; after all, I was tired and stressed-out. I put the pager back in it's box and went home. Maybe Fern knows something about this...

Why does Fern care so much about these two idiots’ relationship? Why is this even important to her? Her level of involvement is getting weird.

I said I'd meet Fern at the gate around seven; maybe we can get a good seat. This ought to be an interesting game...even if I do hate football...

Why are so excited about homecoming if you hate football? Why are you even here, then? Teachers aren’t like, required, to go. My mother was a teacher and she almost never went. I quickly showered and changed into my 'spirit' clothes: blue jeans and my black-and-orange high school sweatshirt. I even tied my hair with black and orange ribbons. I had just turned out a few lights and headed for the back door when I heard the front doorbell. Now who can that be? I'm almost out the door, for goodness sake...

Frollo, I bet. Somehow.

Visibly annoyed at having to postpone my departure, I turned on the front porch light and opened the door. At once, my annoyance turned to sheer delight and utter surprise when my eyes met those of Claude Frollo. He smiled at me then began to speak. "I hope I didn't come at a bad time. I know you have plans for the evening, but I had to see you, my love."

Of course. I don’t know why I was expecting anything better.

[long passage about them making out, cut for time and also because ew]

This is just gross at this point. Disgusting, stupid, unnecessary… I could go on.

Now, I was too ecstatic from seeing Claude Frollo, again, in the flesh; I never noticed what he was wearing. "Hey, baby", I said as I stepped back to admire his fabulous ensemble. Oh my goodness! Check out sexy Claude Frollo!

Remember how I said every time I see Claude Frollo described as sexy, I lose a little bit of my will to live? Well, my will to live right now is right about zero.

Claude was clad in tight - they looked as if they were sprayed on - black leather pants and matching vest, a purple silk shirt, black velvet cloak, and, of course, that famous triangular hat. "Ooh, Claude", I cooed, my eyes taking in every detail. "You sure are looking mighty fine." Mmmm...I like the way the leather hugs every contour of his glorious body...those pants are really fitting...in ALL the right places!

Now it’s negative one.

Claude Frollo, smiling broadly, again took me in his arms, kissed me deeply, then said, "I'm glad you approve." He laughed when he kissed me again, then modeled that fabulous outfit, saying, "Jacqueline showed me a picture of this in...what is that publication...GQ? If I remember correctly, you fantasized about me wearing this very ensemble."

Negative two.

Claude smiled again as his hand caressed my waist and back. I turned on a few lights; Claude favorably assessed my living room. "Charming home", he said; his eyes falling on the tapestry. "I see you've put this in a prominent spot", Claude said, feeling the softness of the fabric. I said nothing as I watched him move about the room, his eyes taking in everything. He stopped then looked quizzically at me.

We still haven’t discussed how he got here.

"What's this? A chilly October night, and no fire." "But Claude, I'm going out. I have to meet Fern at the field..." My voice was silenced by Claude's lips. Mmm...it's so good to have him here with me... Claude continued to caress me then said, "My darling, I had hoped to spend a quiet evening with you." He kissed me again, then smiled and asked, "Now where is that delightful 20th Century music?" I complied and tuned the radio to my favorite urban station. Then, something in the back of my mind snapped. Hold it! How did he get here?

You didn’t think to ask this question before?! How did Danisha even live this long with only half a neuron to her name?

Claude must've sensed what I was thinking for he immediately reached in his cloak and pulled out what looked like that pager -- it was identical! "Jacqueline is so brilliant, my dear", he began. "She managed to make this little device right after you left. You see", he flipped open the pager and continued, "these buttons allow us to contact each other any time we want." He then pointed out a red button.

Jacki’s brilliance knows no bounds, and the fact that she’s not using this skill to help the world or make money makes me think she’s being forced to use it for evil purposes such as this by Fern. Jacki and Esmeralda are the real victims here.

"This is an emergency button. It allows its owner to instantly transport him or herself to the desired time period. I had Jehan test it with Jacqueline back in August." Claude then smiled, adding, "Isn't that ingenious? I can visit you whenever I want, as you can visit me."So...that man at the fair...it was Jehan Frollo!

And Jehan was totally okay traveling to the 20th century. It’s not like he would be completely bemused, alarmed, and endangered by the new technology, or at the very least curious. But yeah, of course the only thing he did was hang out with a horse. And if this emergency button lets them transport themselves effortlessly, why did Danisha need to use the car at the beginning of this story if she had the pager?

I immediately rifled through my purse and took out my pager. "So that's why you sent this -- to keep in touch", I told him. I threw my arms around him and exclaimed, "Claude Frollo, if you aren't the sweetest man...I love you!"

Yes. Sweet. Sweet in that he’s a racist, murderous, homicidal, genocidal, rapist maniac!

Claude returned my kiss, then said, "And, dear Nisha, I hope you like the vehicle. I thought the color would please you." My eyes widened. "YOU found that car? I supposed you arranged to have that button installed. Wait a minute...", I said, just now recalling that mysterious mechanic. Claude smiled again. "Yes, my dearest. That was Quasimodo. I thought he'd like a special treat -- to visit your time, albeit briefly.

And again, like Jehan, do nothing of note but meet Danisha for less than a minute. Sidenote: how can they control where and when they go? Is there a little dial that can change the time and place? Can one use this as a teleportation device by changing the time to one second earlier and the place to, say, NYC, and just pop up there? Because that would be a way more useful thing to do with this miracle device than have this stupid summer fling between these two unlikable idiots.

Let's say it's a 'thank you' gift for being so kind to him. He talks of little else these days." I then asked him about the de Chateaupers children: Jules and Renee. "They are well and adjusting quite nicely. Mme. d'Arcy has found them a place; Jules is working in the stables and Renee has taken up sewing. The girl is rather gifted." He smiled again, then said, "I didn't come here to discuss other people. I thought..." Well, it is getting late...guess I'll call Fern...looks like my previous plans have fallen through...HE'S here...that's all that matters.

So the de Chateaupers are happy, but what about Esmeralda? Is she still being tortured?!

"Umm...Claude?", I began, my hands caressing his slender waist, "Why don't you start a cozy fire while I call Fern. I guess I can skip homecoming this year." Claude looked puzzled. Once again, I had to explain another 20th Century American custom. "But won't you miss seeing your old classmates?", Claude asked as he built the fire. "There'll be other games; I can see old school chums anytime. Besides...I hate football."Claude burst into laughter as he removed his hat and cloak. Oh, Claude! Now I can REALLY feast my eyes on all your leather-clad glory...baby, you sure look good!

Why is that funny? Also, my will to live is at -5 now. Thanks.

A roaring fire, a bottle of my best California Zinfandel, and mellow, yet, sultry music, set the stage for a perfect romantic evening. And just when I thought it was all a dream. Mmm...it feels so good to hold him again, kiss him, hear that deep, manly voice. I sure like the way this leather feels...the way these pants hug his long legs...Oops...I didn't mean for my hand to go...there! "Oooh, my love", Claude moaned softly as he returned my every caress.

Negative ten. Hope you’re happy.

Suddenly, Claude asked, "My dear, what is that song?" It was Adina Howard's Freak Like Me; both the rhythms and the lyrics were rather sensual. "I think it sort of fits. You know, how I feel about you", I told him. Claude, still kissing and caressing every inch of me, softly chuckled and said, "Darling, I would hardly call you a 'freak'."

Well, I would! If the Frollo fetish wasn’t enough, the racism is!

"Baby, what else would describe how I feel! I guess I'm just 'freaky' over Claude Frollo." Claude Frollo laughed again, saying, "Well, Danisha dearest, if you want to go about and call yourself 'Frollo's Freak', I'm not about to stop you." I kissed him back. "Honey, from this day on, at least in your little circle of ladies, my code name will be 'FrolloFreak'. How does that grab you?"

Oh dear God almighty. This is just outright admitting that this character is a shameless self-insert, the story is a wish-fulfillment fantasy and the author is PROUD of it! We all knew that, of course, but outright saying it is another thing!

Claude smiled broadly, kissed me deeply, then said in a wildly seductive voice, "If that is what you want...mmm...Speaking of 'grabbing' things..." And with that, he took my hand and placed it on a special spot that he knew I loved to caress -- the inside of his slim thigh.

Negative twenty!

At last, Claude and I were together again. It would be like this for many days and nights to come.... ********** Claude walked me to my car as he voiced small protests. "I don't see why you can't stay at least another day. After all, this has been a trying week." He was referring to the tragedy of Jules' death. "Claude", I tried to reason, "you know very well I have responsibilities at home.

Responsibilities you consistently ignore in favor of stupid romances. Also, jumping timelines again!

Besides, you want me to write up that account of what really went down that night after the Festival." Claude Frollo nodded sadly as he handed me a some papers. "Oh well...no matter. You'll return to me someday." He smiled, then added, "Oh yes. Jules dictated this to Jehan the day Jehan found him. It's a confession of sorts, explaining Malus' role in the plot to destroy me, and how Malus died."

Like we care at all.

That's right...I never learned what really happened to Malus...finally, I'll know everything... Claude continued to give me instructions as I unlocked the car. "Of all people, Nisha, I'm leaving it up to you to tell the world the truth." He then kissed me goodbye, then mounted Snowball. "I shall leave you now, my love. I've found it far too painful to watch you depart." Claude blew me a kiss, then rode away. I wanted to cry, but, just as he said, we'll see each other again -- and again.

Negative fifty! My will to live is at negative goddamn fifty!

I locked Jules' paper in the glove box, then started the engine. Just as before, I looked back one more time to see Claude riding away in the distance. I floored the accelerator and depressed the violet button underneath the dash... Ah, home again! It's been a long weekend...hmm...what day is it? Saturday?! Glad I had someone cover for me at work. Look at the mail! Hey, what's this? A card? Looks like...Claude Frollo's handwriting! Aww...this is so sweet.

My Darling Danisha, Thank you for a wonderful weekend. I regret that things did not work out for the best. But at least I did get to see you, my darling. Make sure to get some rest. I love you so. A Thousand Kisses, Claude Frollo.

I have this sneaky feeling I'll see him again. Only then, it'll be under more pleasant circumstances! Hmm...now where did I put that catalog from Christy's..Ah! Here it is! Now...wonder if Claude will like this...oh my!...that IS kind of sexy!

NEGATIVE ONE BILLION.

[allyinthekeyofx]

Fading Light 1/24

Fading Light AllyinthekeyofX Summary: Scully's cancer returns and hope comes at a high price. Notes: I wrote the first 6 chapters to this way back in 2001 and just never finished it....until last year. Yay me! lol PART ONE Prologue My Father once told me that secrets are like old wounds. That no matter how skilfully we hide the scars, they are still there, lingering beneath the surface. Invisible to the eye, but all too obvious if we take the time to really feel them. There are no good secrets. Even the ones we hide in our hearts to protect the people we love will eventually find a way to push themselves up through the layers of deception. I've discovered that we can never hope to protect through lies and after all, isn't a secret just another name for a lie? Semantics Mulder would laugh if he could hear me now. Arguing with myself as I lay, eyes wide open, staring up at the patterns made by the street lamps refracted through the rain that streams down my window. I'm not sure what time it is. I don't seem to sleep much, which is strange, because all I want to do at this moment is close my eyes and sink down into its welcoming arms. To escape from the accusatory voices in my head for a short while would be wonderful, but I just can't seem to relax enough. If I'm honest with myself though, I'm well aware of the reason for my insomnia. It is guilt; pure and simple. I have a secret, and no matter how often I tell myself that I am keeping it from him to protect him, I still feel its presence every minute of every day. I keep it hidden because in doing so I am attempting to shield him from a truth he is ready to neither hear nor accept. Every day I keep the truth from him is another day spent tiptoeing around him, so afraid that he will look into my eyes and see my lies. It was easy in the beginning. Mulder was still shattered over the death of his Mother and I was there for him as he fell apart piece by harrowing piece, supporting him as he has supported me throughout our partnership. I watched over him like the proverbial mother hen as his quest threatened to take him over the edge, ready to drag him back should the need have arisen. For once he didn't need me to catch him and as each day passed he learned more facts behind his sister's disappearance and finally, finally I was rewarded when he came back to me. Not entirely at peace sure - we have seen and experienced too much for that ever to happen - but I saw the stress literally roll off him as, in his own words, he was set free. How can I take that sense of peace away from him now? I have remained silent, promising myself, as I promise myself now, that tomorrow I will tell him. It's ironic in a way, because even I don't believe it anymore. XXXXXXXXX Chapter 0ne Mulder is not in the sweetest of moods. He tries his best to hide it, but it was obvious from the moment he arrived flustered and dishevelled at my door this morning. I'm not sure exactly why we started this whole car pool thing. It certainly wasn't out of any sense of wanting to save the planet, it just kind of happened. I had offered Mulder a ride home one night when he was without his car - I can't remember why he was without it - and he decided it was only right and proper to return the favour. It seems to have set a pattern now that neither of us is willing to break, and it's strange really, but I kind of enjoy it. I like the fact that his face is the first one that greets me every morning. Usually I like it that is. But on days like today, when he is edgy and tense, I wish to hell I could just make him stop the damn car so I can escape out in to the clogged Washington streets and hail a cab. We have hardly spoken during the ride in, just the barest early morning pleasantries. No small talk, no innuendo, no teasing glances. In fact, so far all Mulder has given me is the charming view of his set profile as he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. We are running late for the office, which is never a good thing, especially not today. Today is the second Wednesday in the month. Second Wednesdays mean inter-departmental meetings. Which in turn usually mean bureaucratic scrutiny of our recently submitted expense reports. I hate the meetings almost as much as Mulder does. The difference being, that I don't tend to show it quite as blatantly. But at least we no longer have to suffer the dubious pleasure of AD Kersch as we attempt to justify flying halfway across the country on nothing more substantial than some redneck's sighting of lights in his cow field. Skinner is no less forgiving when we balls things up, but he’s more used to it and therefore more accepting of it. Mulder mutters something under his breath as the car in front slows down to a virtual crawl. I don't bother trying to figure out what it was. The very fact that we are attempting to negotiate rush hour traffic pretty much tells me that whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant and certainly has no need for a response from me. So instead, I just lean my head against the seat rest and close my eyes against the headache that is beginning to pulse at the centre of my forehead. I think that the headaches were the first clear sign that something wasn't right, although for a couple of weeks I was able to pretty much deny their existence. Self-denial is a powerful force, a bit like encasing a broken ankle in a plaster cast. The pain is gone, pushed in to the background, and it's almost impossible to imagine that the broken bone ever happened at all. Until of course you walk on it at the wrong angle and the pain is back to remind you to take more care. That's how it was with me. Only my versions of the plaster cast were non-prescription pain pills. Until they weren't enough, even when foolishly, I was taking well over the required dosage. And then came the day when I couldn't deny it any longer. I remember it vividly. A Saturday spent shopping with my Mother I was in so much pain I could hardly stand. She noticed of course and I remember making vague assurances that I was fine, made my excuses and headed for home. I made it through the door, watched as the room began to spin in that endearing way I had come to recognize from scant years back in the early manifestations of the disease, and woke up three hours later on the floor, still clutching my house keys in my hand. I wish now with all my heart that I had answered the basic need that pounded incessantly in my head. Call Mulder. Instead I had called Dr Zuckerman. Every day since then, I have been trying to find the right words, the right moment, to broach the subject with Mulder, and right along with it, I have found a thousand excuses as to why now isn't the right time. Of course I realize that the right time is never going to happen, and that the longer I keep putting it off, the harder it's going to get. Especially since I have already decided that this time, treatment to prolong the inevitable is not an option for me and whilst I don’t profess to really know or understand exactly what my ‘cure’ entailed the last time around, I am smart enough to realise that its mechanism would never be found written on a treatment protocol. So I have opted to do nothing. To wait out the inevitable. I will continue to work for as long as I can. Until I’m once again incapable. But for how long I can keep up the pretence is anyone’s guess. Not to mention the fact that Mulder is neither stupid nor blind. Eventually he will figure this thing out for himself, and deep down, I can't help wondering if he already suspects something. A paranoid little voice is whispering that I am the reason for his dark mood this morning. Which when I think about it is ridiculous. Oh yeah. Guilt really sucks. Suddenly, I am catapulted from my musings and transported violently back in to the here and now as Mulder curses loudly, swerving the car savagely to the left even before the word is fully formed on his lips. "FUCK!" I'm not entirely sure what he has seen to provoke such a reaction. Mulder rarely, if ever curses aloud. And then I hear it. A sound I have become so attuned to over the years I could recognize it in my sleep. The sound of gunfire. Close by. My senses hone in on the sound, and beside me Mulder is already moving, unbuckling his Seat belt and reaching for the door handle in one fluid movement. Even as I automatically follow his lead I am still searching for answers as to why exactly we have come to a halt in the middle of rush hour traffic. But, like pieces of a jigsaw the answers fall together as I finally see what he sees. My years on the job have taught me to assimilate information pretty quickly. Headache or not, this is no exception. In the space of a heartbeat my consciousness has thrown several words at me. Bank. Alarms. Guns. Robbery Great. Just another fun day in the lives of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, where even a ride to work has the capacity to become a fucked up nightmare. The shoes I chose to wear today are definitely not made for pounding the pavement. More blisters for me tonight. Mulder of course doesn't have quite the same fashion impairment and even before I have fully cleared the car door he has taken off like a track star, waving his gun around and cutting a swath through the early morning streets like Moses parting the Red Sea. He can move pretty fast for a guy approaching forty, and, whilst I am not exactly a slug myself, an extra six inches of leg length makes all the difference and I find myself trailing further and further behind. As I run, I can hear Mulder shouting something, but the wind is against me and his words are lost in the slipstream making them almost unintelligible. Instead, I concentrate on keeping him in sight. The perp is somewhere ahead and by the pace Mulder is keeping, seems to have no intention of giving up the fight easily. I'm not sure what happens next. A deafening sound that threatens to split my now pounding head in two; Mulders horrified shout. "SCULLY!" A blow that stops me in my tracks and slams me to the ground. It's funny actually, because even as I am aware of falling, I don't feel anything other than a faint buzzing in my head as the pavement rushes up to meet me. No pain, no fear and certainly no understanding as to what has just happened. But through the white noise that surrounds me, I hear another gunshot. And then another. The sound seems to act as a catalyst for my own awareness and the dreamlike quality I had wallowed in for maybe a couple of seconds is replaced by a burning hot pain that seems to radiate through my whole body. Shit. This really hurts. I am reminded of the time when I fell out of the tree house that my brother Bill had spent the summer building with his cronies. I had been mercilessly chased away every time I dared show my face. A seven year old younger sister - a girl - had not been welcome in that den of pre-pubescent masculinity. So, tomboy that I was, I had snuck over there one night and undertaken the precarious climb through the twisted boughs to reach what was forbidden to me; I'd made it up ok -getting down though had been a different undertaking all together and trees tend not to be very forgiving to seven year olds who don't have the sense to realize when they are way out of their depth. I nursed a broken wrist for the rest of the summer, and it had taken years for me to forget the white hot pain I felt as that fragile bone snapped cleanly.. But, with typical childhood resilience I had forgotten. Until now that is. Flesh wounds hurt. Gunshot wounds hurt. Damaged bones hurt like a bitch. I'm unsure as to how much time has elapsed since I first heard Mulder shout out my name although I suspect it is no more than a few seconds at most. Mulder Shit, where is he? Three shots Dana. Count em. Three. Oh Fuck. My eyes snap open, which in itself is futile really because I can't seem to focus on anything other than the pavement which is tilting at an impossible angle before me. I can just make out a collection of coloured blobs in the near distance and although they are fuzzy around the edges I am able to recognize them as being human. From their size and shape I am also able to determine that they are crouched down, hugging the ground as thought their lives depend on it. But my only thought right now is for Mulders well being. Nothing else matters to me and not for the first time I am aware that what I feel for him goes way beyond the accepted boundaries of our friendship, because, had it been anyone other than Mulder, I would just close my eyes and allow myself some respite from the terrible pain that now overwhelms me. But sometimes, even the purest love cannot conquer the frailties of the human body. As I shift my weight fractionally to the right in order to release the arm that is trapped beneath me, I am engulfed in a wave of agony so intense that despite myself I close my eyes and scream. Maybe I screamed out his name. I don't know. But it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing matters except the sudden feeling of Mulders hands on my face, smoothing away the hair that is plastered against my cheeks. And I hear his voice from far away. He is frightened. I have frightened him. Just like he's frightened me in the past. So much fear for two people to bear in a lifetime. "Sssshhhhhhh Scully, It's ok....don't try to move...it's gonna be ok. Ssssshhhhhhh." Slowly the pain diminishes a fraction and I am able to open my eyes again. Maybe a little of the initial shock has subsided, or perhaps a gnawing desperation that needs me to know he's ok, allows me to finally focus enough to look deep in to his eyes. Mulder has beautiful eyes, the most expressive eyes I have ever seen in my life. I could easily lose myself in their depths, which is why I don't allow myself to stare in to them too often. Right now he is fighting tears and not making a very fine job of it. I know how he feels. I've been there too. I've watched him hurting far more times than I care to remember and each and every time I have found myself crying real tears for him when he has been unable to shed his own. Just like he is crying for me now. Despite the pain, I am able to shakily reach up a hand that feels like a dead weight and catch that first tear as it escapes its confines. Watching as it traces a crystalline trail down my finger. I want to speak, to let him know I'm fine, but just that small movement has left me as weak as a day old kitten snatched from its Mother and I just want to close my eyes and sleep. Instead, I fix my gaze on his; attempting to communicate to him through sight what I am unable to do with speech. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you Mulder. And now it's too late. He is going to find out. My secret is no longer going to be mine alone and I need to hang on to consciousness for as long as I can, because, I know that if I close my eyes now, the next time I open them, everything will have changed. Continued chapter 2 #fan fic #cancer #it's a bit heavy on the angst #msr #rst