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obscureoperations · 3 years

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martin running into a goth club to hide after feeding and having a meetcute with a goth s/o

This was silly the way I wrote this--like mostly silly. But I really appreciate the thought. I would love to see Martin (the character) ambling through the streets of Braddock at night. In search of any form of solace to shield him from the sirens and the taste of dried blood. He ends up on the subway and entering an unknown part of town.

~~~~~~~~

He hits the tiles with a resounding thud, as he scrambles into the back room of the club. On all fours, trying his best to avoid any employees...he had to get to a bathroom. Heartbeat hammering against his ribs, fresh blood coursing through his veins. He should have been more careful.. He carelessly slipped into the mouth of the alley. Knocking the bum unconscious with a piece of plywood, cutting him open with a piece of discarded glass. The sirens were everywhere, every fiber in his being told him to run. Keep running until he found someplace safe. In this century, safety equated to the streets. Bathed in neon lights, and lost amongst the crowd.

Memories of centuries before continued to swirl through his mind in a gray and grainy blur. Dried blood seeping through his sweater, caked all over his mouth. He stuck low to the floors in fear of gaining any attention. The crowd seemed to bend and sway to the music. Some strange man’s voice blasts through the speaker… “Stigmata Martyr…”

The place reeked of sweat and skunk, he just needed to get to the bathroom. The line was so long, he wanted to scream… He needed to be away from other people. He needed a moment to collect himself, clear away all the dried blood from his face. Wipe away all the remnants that seeped into his black sweater, leaving it ‘crunchy’ and rather conspicuous.

He stuck close to the walls, the smell of dried blood curling at his nostrils. The scent was all over his clothes.. Most of the patrons never even seemed to notice. The dried bits around his mouth seemed to add to the aesthetic. If anything he thought that the crowd would pounce all over him the second he entered the door. “The Bat cave” The name was pretty much synonymous with ‘’Vampyres” For the most part, they seemed to leave him alone. Swaying along the music as if under some sort of trance.

“What am I supposed to do?!”

He nearly trips over your foot in his haisty trip to the bathroom. You stare down at him blankly, as a large puff of smoke escapes your lips.

Still crouched at your feet “S-sorry..”

You don’t reply. Instead, you regard him quizzically-- vaguely gesturing towards the bathroom.

“There…” You whisper with kohl rimmed eyes. Martin found himself continuing to glance back as he ambles towards the loo. He kept looking back at you, comfortably seated. Another puff of smoke escapes your lungs.

He wanted to be sick. Martin ended up dry heaving into the toilet several times. Nothing really came up other than bile and some maroon tainted liquid. He had to catch the next train home immediately. If he didn’t, Cuda would know that he’d been out.

After drying his mouth, dabbing at his face with bits of paper towels, Martin finally stumbles back onto the dance floor. The colors were alarming, flashing across his eyes in a grainy blur. The lights that swirled at the corners of his peripherals left him fearing he was about to suffer a migraine. The sound of the musician's voice pierced his ears. He wanted to crawl under a rock and disappear. Sensory overload..It was all too much.

Two firm hands grasp his shoulders, urging him to stand-- gently dabbing at the corners of his mouth, with what felt like a soft handkerchief. He was so dizzy. The music blares on in the distance, as strong fingers steady him in place..

Before he knew it, he was pressed against the same angelic creature that happened to greet him at the back door. All kohl rimmed eyes and tall leather boots. Porcelain skin that seemed to shimmer beneath the moonlight.

“You don’t belong here…” you whisper, fingers tracing patterns across his cheeks. Martin managed to dry heave once again, his fingers wrap securely around your ankles. He just wanted to disappear. Crawl down in a hole somewhere and die. He was so sick and dehydrated. He wasn’t prepared for everyone to see him yet.

“N-nno. I d-don't.”

He glances up at you with tear stained cheeks. Stray bits of blood caked all around his mouth. Maybe this was actually the Count. From the sounds of him on the radio.. He was just some kid. Bombarded by strange urges and religious restraints.

The music seems to die down a bit , you were soon forced to handle the requirements of your job. You dial the volume up slightly louder in an attempt to subdue the crowd.Adjusting the base, and heightening the speed. Your eyes remain glued to the boy in front of you. His cheek rests against the top of your shoes, fingers lightly grasping at your ankles. Whispering sweet nothings. “I didn’t do it! It’s not me.”

He remains poised at your feet, face buried against the ground. Arms crossed against the back of your ankles. You felt shoddy, there was no need for him to degrade himself completely.

“What’s your name?”

The boy in front of you shakes his head . Drawing his ankles close to his chest.

You weren’t having any of it.

“What’s your..name… sweet one?”

The sensation of your fingers carding through his hair nearly causes his heart to skip a beat.

“Ma--r Martin…” he finally breathes.

The noise from the stereo finally seems to fade into the backdrop, as you weave your fingers through his hair. The young man was trembling, to the point that you lean in pressing your lips against his temple. He seemed to encapsulate everything that you ever wanted.

“Just stick with me here for a while. I’ll take you home. You don’t have to worry about anything beyond that.”

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elvispater · 3 years

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yesloverboy · 5 years

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She’s Thunderstorms (Billy Hargrove x Reader) Part 2

Part 1

SUMMARY: Despite the fact that you continue to reject his advances, Billy refuses to let you get away that easy. Halloween is approaching and, after a month of chasing after you, Billy decides it’s finally time to take matters into his own hands.

word count: 4,242

[Warnings: swearing, smoking, mild kidnapping, smut in the future but none for now.]

NOTE: Wowee zowee, we’re back at it for the month y’all. I really wanted to finish the entirety of this series before Halloween but alas, life gets in the way. This series is a favorite of mine and, as always, let me know what you think!

tags: colsonbakersnoseringmain, @lululovesgwtw, @kingbouji3, @speedmetalqueen, @billysgodcomplex, @all-time-otaku

You stare down at the blank composition book in front of you, feeling as though you don’t recognize yourself. English is your favorite class of the day, but nothing could will the words out of your mind and onto the pulpy, white pages. You don’t dare even hold your pen for fear of writing Billy, Billy, Billy until it runs out of ink.

The last class of the day goes by in the blink of an eye. After your run-in with Billy, and about a thousand confused looks from Jonathan, you’re unable to focus on anything but the memory of Billy’s lips grazing your skin. Initially, you were infuriated by the way he touched you, but now your anger had twisted itself into something that felt a lot more like anxiety. That level of closeness stirred something inside of you toxic and volatile to the tough outer shell you’d spent all of your time cultivating. The threat of vulnerability leaves your skin burning red hot with irritation as a bitter taste settles onto your tongue.

The final bell lets out one last screech, and you reluctantly pull yourself from the safety of your desk, lagging behind the rush of sneakers and brightly colored backpacks that flood the halls. Your stomach churns uneasily with the knowledge that you inevitably have to pass by Billy’s steel blue Camaro before facing the walk home. As you trudge across the tiles and past the rows of lockers, your boots kick up piles of Carol’s neon orange flyers like dead autumn leaves.

As you step out into the crispness of the afternoon, you fantasize about being able to waltz past Hargrove and go home to your trusty record collection. All you want is to be alone and return to your regularly scheduled programming of getting lost in your thoughts– yearning to focus on anything but the events of the afternoon. Unfortunately for you, Billy seems to have other plans. You feel his eyes burn into you as you walk in his general direction, trying to look as if you didn’t know he parked next to the school’s only exit every single day.

“There’s my favorite girl!” Billy booms, ensuring that the entire parking lot can hear him, “Did you miss me?”

Reluctantly, you stop and turn to face him, not wanting to give your peers a reason to stay behind and ogle at the two of you. “Well, distance makes the heart grow fonder and I assure you, Hargrove– it has not been long enough.”

“Now baby,” he says, stepping in front of you with a patronizing stare, “don’t be like that.”

“Is there any particular reason why you feel entitled to my attention, or were you just dropped on your head so many times that you can’t remember how much I don’t like you?” you snap, allowing the exhaustion of a long day get the better of you.

In all honesty, you aren’t sure why you’re being so defensive. Typically, Hargrove’s antics were annoying at best, but something about the way his touch made you feel has put your smart mouth into overdrive.

Billy winces a little and places the cigarette that was resting behind his ear in between his teeth. “Goddamn you’re mean,” he hisses, the flame of his lighter catching the end of the cigarette with a soft crackle.

“Oh I’m mean?” a bitter laugh escapes your lips at the sheer ridiculousness of the concept, “I’ve literally seen your kid sister and her friends tremble at the sight of you– unless, of course, you expect me to believe you’re blind and stupid.”

“Ouch, princess,” he tuts, clutching onto his muscular chest as if his heart were spilling onto the gravel at your feet, “All I want to do is take you to a movie or somethin’ and you’re still insisting on being a cold-hearted bitch.”

“We’re dishing out compliments now, too, Hargrove? Please, don’t quit while you’re ahead.”

Billy lets out a hearty laugh, shamelessly enamoured by your unrelenting wit and stubbornness. His sapphire eyes glisten in the afternoon light as he studies you, cigarette still dangling between his lips. Once the two of you had started bantering, most of the students decided waiting around to watch wasn’t worth the effort anymore. Now the lot is nearly empty, leaving only you, Billy, and the occasional after school club member passing through.

“Look,” Billy starts again, taking a wide step towards you, “what would it take to make you go out with me? Hmm?”

Refusing to be intimidated by Billy’s blatant disregard for personal space, you keep your feet firmly grounded to the spot. “Listen, Hargrove, I wouldn’t go to a movie with you even if you picked me up and dragged me there yourself.”

Billy’s eyes flutter from your face to the ground, his thick eyebrows furrowed together in concentration. As he plucks the cigarette from his lips and tosses it to the ground, you think for a moment that maybe your words finally penetrated that thick skull of his.

“Alright, princess,” he huffs, pausing momentarily to crack his knuckles, “have it your way.”

Billy is crouched beneath you before you even get the chance to process his words, thick arms wrapping around your legs and tossing you over his shoulder as if you weighed nothing at all. The bookbag on your shoulders slides downward at the sudden motion, jamming the corner of your algebra textbook directly into the back of your skull.

Squealing in aggravation, you begin to pound your fists into Billy’s back and thrash harshly against his grip. “Put me down you fucking psycho!”

“What’s with all the whining, princess?” Billy tuts as he carries your squirming form around to the passenger side of his car, “I’m just doing what you said.”

Billy tosses you in the passenger’s seat, smirk never faltering as he secures the child lock on the door. You hit the leather with a growl, tossing your bookbag somewhere in the backseat while frantically clamoring against the jammed door handle. Just as you feel the lock begin to give, Billy is already seated comfortably in the driver’s seat with his finger firmly pressed against the lock button by his window.

You turn to Billy, blood boiling from the pit of your stomach as your face goes flush with a mixture of anger and disbelief. “This is kidnapping, Billy! You do know that, right?”

“It’s not kidnapping if you told me to do it,” he states matter-of-factly. Billy turns the key in the ignition, the Camaro roaring to life with such ferocity that the engine’s rumble vibrates directly through the leather soles of your boots. As utterly insane as Billy is acting, you can’t stop the thrill of the moment from strangling your heart and chasing your pulse down to the tips of your fingers.

Running a hand through your hair, you watch through the window as the last few stragglers of the day gape at the sight of you driving off with Billy Hargrove. “Well, at least there’s more than one person who saw me while I’m still alive,” you grumble, not caring whether or not Billy actually hears you.

“Do you actually think that’s what this is?” Billy laughs, “That I’m going to kill you?”

“It’s hard to say, Billy, considering I have no fucking clue why you even bother at all.”

As Billy pulls out of the school’s parking lot and onto the main road, you can hear the faint sound of him chuckling under his breath.

“Something funny?” you ask, the question leaving your lips in the form of a demand. Billy flexes his hand atop the steering wheel, shaking his head with an amused smirk tugging at his lips.

“I was just thinking–”

“You? Thinking? Somebody alert the press,” you interject, unable to resist the opportunity of hassling Billy just a little bit more.

“I was thinking,” he reiterates, raising his voice for emphasis, “that if I wanted to kill you, I most likely wouldn’t have literally dragged you into my car at the very last place that the both of us were last seen. Don’t you agree, princess?”

It would appear that you have something of a brain after all. Congratulations!” you reply, taming your nervous energy by rifling through the cassette collection in Billy’s glove box. Your fingertips settle on Mötley Crüe’s, Shout at the Devil, tape and you feel the warmth of familiarity settling in your chest. The feelings you have for the boy next to you may be confusing, but your love for music still remains the same as it ever was.

Billy takes his gaze off the road for just a moment and bats his eyelashes at you knowingly. “Oh, but that’s not all I was thinking about.”

You feed the tape inside of the stereo, quite literally tuning Billy out by cranking up the volume and rolling down your window. The biting chill of October floods the Camaro, ruddying your cheeks and moving in chills down the neck of your sweater. Houses become more sparse as rows of corn invade your view and, before you can ask Billy where the hell you’re headed, he’s already switching off the stereo.

“Seriously, Hargrove? That was the only part of being kidnapped that I was actually enjoying.”

“But that’s just it, baby,” he slaps your denim clad thigh playfully, “you didn’t call me Hargrove last time– you called me Billy.”

Despite the cold stream of air seeping in from the outside, your face flushes red hot at Billy’s observation. Billy has never been just Billy to you– no, he’s always Hargrove. First names are for friends and last names are for demands; however, Billy seems to exist somewhere in between. Although, that space in between seemed to be closing more and more with each passing second you spent with him– making you wonder what would’ve happened between the two of you if you hadn’t always been the one to walk away.

“That, uh, is your name– isn’t it?” you flounder, awkwardly shifting in the passenger’s seat to fish a flattened carton of cigarettes from your back pocket.

Billy passes his shiny silver lighter to you, and you find your hand instinctively accepting it without so much as a second thought. “I always knew you were the smartest girl in Hawkins,” Billy teases, his foot weighing down the gas pedal just a little more as the two of you speed even further into the countryside.

“Where are we going in such a hurry, anyhow?” you huff, refusing to meet his arrogant smile with your cheeks still ablaze.

“We’re going to see a movie, but we have to get there before it’s too dark.”

“Why? The Starcourt Mall is back that way, and I’m pretty sure their theater doesn’t give a shit if it’s dark or not, doofus,” you retort, punctuating your insult with a few heavy puffs of your cigarette. You think that, if you’re lucky, you might be able to smoke your lungs into submission before you and Billy ever reach your destination.

“Yeah well everyone in this garbage town knows that the drive-in is still way better than that commercial theater, doofus. Besides, they’re showing a movie I think you’ll really dig.”

“How would you know if I’m gonna dig it or not?” ask, brow furrowing in confusion.

“Let’s just say our little birdy from earlier has an even bigger mouth than you thought, sweetheart.”

You stare at Billy slack-jawed, unsure of what he’s talking about until your conversation with Carol suddenly comes into view. When she pulled you aside earlier that day you mentioned watching a bloody movie with Byers, but you have no idea how Billy could have possibly heard. As a matter of fact, when Carol pulled you aside, he hadn’t even stepped outside yet.

“But, Carol she didn’t–?” you utter, but are quickly stopped by the change in Billy’s demeanor.

In an instant, the once confident Billy begins to squirm uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. His posture still radiates control, but the way that his eyes are suddenly trained on the road after fifteen minutes of glancing over at you tells a different story.

Is Billy Hargrove embarrassed?

“Wait,” you start, unable to contain the shit-eating grin that is now stretching across your face, “did you ask Carol about me?”

“I, uh– may have run into her after free period, yeah,” Billy tugs at his golden curls, sharp jaw flexing in frustration as a touch of pink colors his cheeks.

If there is one thing you know for sure about Billy Hargrove, it’s that he’s a smash and pass kind of guy. Every other girl he’d come into contact with since the dawn of puberty hadn’t meant a single, solitary thing to him. They were a notch on his bedpost– another babe for the body count.

Billy didn’t ask about girl’s favorite movies or stalk them for weeks on end, but now he’s doing it for you. At first you thought he was bull-headed, blatantly refusing to be bested by the new girl on the block. But now– maybe, just maybe, Billy Hargrove is sweet on you after all.

“So, you’re telling me that you, Billy Hargrove– the Billy Hargrove –asked Carol about what she thought would be a good date idea?” you giggle, the teasing tone in your voice almost sounding flattered.

Billy grips the steering wheel with white knuckles, “Well who the fuck was I supposed to ask, princess? Byers? He isn’t exactly a talker.”

“Oh sure, Hargrove, blame it on Jonathan,” you guffaw, unable to resist giving Billy’s free arm a gentle slap.

With a cheshire grin, you move to prop your feet on the dashboard of the Camaro, eliciting a sharp swat on the ankles from Billy’s free hand. “You’re a handful, you know that?” he huffs, the butt of a burned out cigarette still trapped in his clenched teeth.

“Don’t I know it,” you wink as you crank up this stereo once again, this time with no protest from your captor.

...

During the remainder of your journey to the drive-in, you found out that you and Billy actually had far more in common than you were willing to give him credit for. A quick rifle through his tape collection showed that his taste in music was phenomenal. Mötley Crüe, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Slayer, Metallica, Venom– he had it all. Granted, you were quick to inform him that he was missing out on the likes of The Runaways and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but there was always time to fix that. Assuming, that is, you actually wanted to see him after this.

Shockingly, even the one book Billy could remember reading was one of your favorites. He was swift to credit his love for The Man in the Iron Mask on account of his mother reading it to him as a kid, but you could tell he was holding back. At the mention of his mother, your eyes couldn’t help but fixate on the way he gripped the gold pendant of Mary around his neck with white knuckles. You understand it’s probably best not to ask why.

There’s a pain in your chest, knowing that his bravado is just a red-hot, candy coating for whatever he was hiding beneath. Much like a jawbreaker, Billy is sugary sweet and difficult to digest– but even hard candy has to melt. To your dismay, you realize you aren’t sure how many layers the kid’s got left.

After a few moments of surprisingly comfortable silence, Billy makes a gentle left turn off of the main road and onto a side street that flanks the forest’s edge. “Are we there yet?” you grumble, mostly to yourself.

Billy huffs and attempts to light another cigarette, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching his boxy, silver lighter. “You’re real impatient, you know that?”

“Tell me about it, stud,” you sneer, doing your best to mock Sandy’s sultry voice. “Remember what I said about dishing out compliments so early in the game, Billy.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…” he mumbles, unable to conceal the impish smile that dances on his face the minute you utter his first name. While Billy is usually cocky and arrogant, there’s something about that smile he shares with you that almost makes him seem boyish– maybe even happy.

For a moment, you think it might even be cute. The thought alone is enough to make you wrinkle your nose.

Just as you’re about to make another quip about Billy secretly driving out into the middle of nowhere to murder you, the road turns to gravel and fans out into a clearing in the woods. The flattened landscape looks like it may have been a cornfield once, but had now become bulldozed and scorched to nothing long ago. There’s just enough space for several rows of cars to pack in tightly, with a sunny yellow concession stand tucked away in the corner. Overhead is a large projector screen, its white surface colored with an animation of personified movie snacks marching in a merry line. You had to give it to him, Billy found a hidden gem.

“How did you even find this place?” you wonder, awestruck eyes dancing from the scene before you to Billy’s suntanned face.

“Well, you know what they say sweetheart,” Billy smirks as he pulls up to the center of the second row, “all the best things on this planet are just outside of Hawkins.”

“Duh,” you chide, immediately digging around Billy’s car for yet another cigarette to burn through. Finding Billy’s carton of Pall Malls in the cupholder you look up at him with pleading eyes, “May I?”

“Anything for you princess,” he grins, “Speaking of, what kinda snacks does a girl like you get at the movies?”

Lighting up one of Billy’s cigarettes, you take a pensive drag and kick your feet up on the dashboard. Giggling you watch Billy fight off the inevitable cringe that twists his smile at the sight of your dirty boots on his prized car. Surprisingly, he saves you the grief of delivering yet another dismissive smack to your legs.

“Promise not to poison me?”

Billy just rolls his eyes, “Promise not to be such a bitch?”

You mouth falls open in mock surprise as you pretend to be offended, but Billy can see the smile that threatens to pull your face wide open. He just gives you a pointed look and throws a hand on his hip, making it more than apparent that he’s not backing down on this one. In his defense, you could kind of be a bitch sometimes.

“Fine,” you concede, “I’ll take popcorn–Oh! And Twizzlers, if you can find them.”

“Back in a flash,” Billy pulls himself out of the Camaro and dusts the nonexistent dust off of his jeans. Just as you think he’s about to leave you for the concession stand, he leans back in and places a firm peck on your cheek. The kiss is quick, but the impression of his lips burns a hole through your skin.

With a noise of disgust, you push Billy away hard enough to make him smack his head against the interior roof of the Camaro. Feeling a blush betraying your face, you immediately began to rub your hands against where Billy made contact with your cheekbone.

“Do you wanna get yourself killed, Hargrove?”

“Worth it!” Billy laughs, a ring-clad hand rubbing the back of his head as he struts off to the concession booth.

You stare at your boots on the dashboard, watching idly as the sun begins to lose its golden glow to the silvery dip of the horizon line. All the while you wonder about Billy and why it is exactly that he rubs you the wrong way so fiercely. Here you are, in a position that most girls at Hawkins High would only dream of, and yet you feel hesitant. It is almost as if you still don’t trust the fact that the most popular boy in this podunk town could actually like a girl like you. Or maybe, just maybe, you were afraid to let him.

Billy returns shortly with a striped carton of popcorn and a plastic package of Twizzlers crinkling beneath the crook of his arm. “Well then, pretty girl” he sighs, bending down slightly to dip his head into the open drivers side window, “Why don’t we take this party to the hood of the car? I think I’ve got a blanket in the back.”

After assessing the confused furrow in your brow, Billy continues, “Just think of it as my way of keeping good on my promise of ‘no funny stuff’.”

“Oh he has thoughts and he’s considerate?” you feign a romantic sigh as you step out of the Camaro, pausing only to shove the glowing cherry of your cigarette into the decaying earth. “Remind my dad to write up the dowry, would ya?”

Billy, all too accustomed to your jests, simply sets the snacks down on the hood and fishes a southwestern style quilt out of his backseat. The bright orange and yellow tones are in stark contrast with the gloomy midwestern sky, and you can’t help but wonder if this is another fragment of Billy’s old life. A life where there may have been far more to look forward to than a drive-in date with the only girl in town that can hardly stand the sight of him.

After the blanket is spread out to Billy’s liking, he sits on the hood of his car and reclines backward so that he can better reach the popcorn as it rests against the windshield.

“Come on, now,” Billy smiles, pearly white teeth sinking into a handful of of bright yellow popcorn, “I don’t bite unless you want me to.”

“Jesus Christ, Hargrove, give it a rest already. You’ve already got me here, there’s no reason to keep up the act.”

Billy’s perfect brows knit together in mild aggravation at your accusatory tone, “Act? What fucking act?”

“Please,” you insist, propping yourself up high enough on the car’s hood for your feet to dangle carelessly above the ground, “You’re human, Billy. I know you can’t be Casanova all the time.”

Taking another fistful of popcorn from its carton, Billy points the candy striped box in your direction. It’s obvious that he doesn’t care to entertain your theory, but also doesn’t want to fight about it right now. You decide it’s enough and gladly oblige, taking a small pile of the buttery snack for yourself.

“So,” you take a piece of popcorn between your fingers contemplatively, “what’s the flick called anyway?”

“Fright Night,” Billy answers cooly. When he watches your eyes light up in unbridled excitement, Billy’s chest swells with a wave of pride.

“You picked this out all on your own?” you scoff, knowing full well that, while Carol may have tipped him off, his informant would never have been able to make such a good film recommendation.

Billy shrugs, “What can I say? You’re not the only one in Hawkins that likes heavy metal and horror, even if you try to be.”

You launch the piece of popcorn you had been holding at Billy, watching triumphantly as it sticks to one of his sandy curls. “I guess that makes two of us, then.”

Billy swats blindly at his hair and, for the first time, a genuine laugh bubbles up from his chest and hangs warmly in the chilled autumn. The flush of his cheeks is hot like an indian summer, and for a moment you swear that you’d never felt so warm. Biting your lip, you see something soft in the way that Billy averts his eyes from yours, fixating instead on the snacks in his lap and the vibrant colors of the blanket beneath your jean-clad thighs. For all the harassment you had endured since you moved to Hawkins, it’s nice to know him like this– for bits and pieces of the boy he is, not the man he’s pretending to be.

It isn’t long before Billy’s gruff voice shakes you from your thoughts and brings you back to earth. “See something you like, space cadet?”

“Oh please, if I ever–” you start, but are quickly interrupted by the sound of the film’s opening credits flashing blood red across the projector screen. Try as you may to shoot Billy an icy glare he melts right through it with a satisfied smirk, cocking a brow knowingly as if to say, I won this round.

With an irritated huff, you scoot back towards the windshield to see the screen better, inevitably rubbing shoulders with King Billy in the process. Despite the fact that Billy could probably spare you some room on the car’s hood, he doesn’t move a muscle. Instead, his sapphire eyes remain trained on the screen in front of him, the flashing bursts of color glistening in his irises like an independence day sky. Your heart strangles out a nervous thump in your chest as a lump rises painfully to the back of your throat.

Oh fuck, you think as your hands knit nervous circles through the sleeves of your sweater. You had your suspicions about the feelings you’d been experiencing around Billy lately, and chasing the movement of the film through Billy’s eyes rather than on screen told you everything you were afraid to hear– you like him.

Masterlist

Part 3 (coming soon)

#yeehaw #writing #writing update #billy hargrove #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove one shot #stranger things #stranger things season three #stranger things season 3 #dacre montgomery #billy hargrove fanfiction

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whelvenwings · 5 years

Text

Thanks (for being an asshole)

Dean/Castiel, 4.4k, AU (no supernatural), Breaking Up & Making Up, Angst with a Happy Ending.

Dean and Castiel broke up two weeks ago, and Dean's been a wreck ever since. Tonight, he's heading to Charlie's apartment for some ice-cream, alcohol, and a TV marathon - or so he thinks. Charlie, however, has other plans for the evening, and who might be there to have a long talk with Dean.

Read it here on AO3 if you prefer!

--------------------------------------------------

Dean had been promised ice cream and a TV marathon and beer - and maybe something stronger - and that was the only reason he was leaving his apartment for the first time in two weeks.

It was bitterly cold and apparently he needed to have a look at the Impala’s heating system, because as he drove towards Charlie’s place the air coming out of the vents was doing a great job at speeding up his fingers’ journey towards frostbite. He turned on the stereo, and a song came on that he knew. Led Zep, obviously. Castiel would have -

Dean’s stomach clenched and his chest ached and he said, out loud,

“Nope.”

He wasn’t thinking about Castiel. Not today. It had been two weeks of thinking and thinking and thinking, and today he was giving it a rest. He was going to go to Charlie’s place and watch whatever crappy TV she put on while attempting to drown himself in a potent mix of alcohol and Phish Food.

He turned off the stereo. The silence wasn’t much worse or better. When he had nothing to listen to, he thought about Castiel; when he had something to listen to, he thought about Castiel with a backing track. It wasn’t much of a choice.

Phish Food. Phish Food and old soap operas and no ex-boyfriends.

Even thinking about Castiel as his ex-boyfriend made Dean’s grip on the steering wheel tighten.

When he pulled up outside Charlie’s apartment, he took a moment to gather himself. He’d been avoiding Charlie’s calls for days up until this morning, and he was pretty sure that if she didn’t see him today, she was going to chase him back to his own apartment and force-feed him Ben and Jerry’s finest herself. Even still, he didn’t want to go in. He just wanted to start the Impala’s engine again and drive away. He wasn’t hungry for the ice cream. He didn’t want to be seen by anyone. Charlie would know as soon as she saw his face that he was broken.

Dean felt raw and razor-sharp. He was in tatters and ribbons and he knew that it showed and he didn’t want to damn well cry in front of anyone tonight.

He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. He could stop himself crying, he wasn’t two years old. He was doing it now, after all, wasn’t he? It wasn’t so hard.

Getting out of the Impala, Dean slammed the door behind him and headed inside Charlie’s building. It was a shabby, nondescript place with an elevator that was a little past its best. The sign had some graffiti on it, so that it read,

No More Than 6 00000 People in this Elevator at One Time. Thanks for being an asshole

Dean stared at it.

Thanks for being an asshole, Castiel had pointed out to him, the first time Dean had brought him to meet Charlie.

Thanks for being an asshole, Dean had joked, when Castiel had stolen all the blankets, the first night they’d slept in the same bed.

Thanks for being an asshole, Castiel had said, when Dean would get hard-headed in an argument, give him the silent treatment.

Thanks for being an asshole. Their get-out clause, their password, their grin in the middle of their worst times. They’d had problems, sure. But they’d always got themselves back out, together. Dean had meant it when he’d said thank you for them. He’d been grateful, in a way. Because if he was annoying Castiel and Castiel was annoying him, it meant that even through the worst of their crap, they were holding onto each other.

And now Dean was reading those words for the first time since the break-up, and he wanted to laugh and he wanted to hit something. He could hear them in Castiel’s voice. His throat felt choked. His hands were fists by his sides.

Ding!

The elevator’s doors rumbled open. Dean walked out of it on legs made of concrete, feeling like a part of him was still back in there reading those words, over and over. Before he walked down the hallway to Charlie’s door, he took a second to lean against the wall and try to pull himself together again. He was never going to make it through a long night. He needed to go home and sleep more. But he could at least show his face, stop Charlie worrying about him.

When he peeled himself off the wall and walked down towards Charlie’s door, he found that it was already ajar. Frowning, he tapped his knuckles on against it as he stepped inside.

Charlie was standing in the tiny hallway, her hands on her hips, looking expectant.

“Hi!” she said, stepping towards him.

“Uh… hey?” Dean said. She was wearing a thick winter coat and boots. “Are we going somewhere?”

Grabbing him by the arms, Charlie swivelled them around in a half-circle and then backed out of her own front door, and promptly slammed it in Dean’s face.

“What?” Dean demanded. “Charlie?!”

“It’s for your own good,” Charlie said, and he could hear the sound of her keys in the lock. “I swear to god, Dean, I’m doing this for you, okay? Please don’t hate me.”

“What are you talking ab-”

“Dean?”

Dean went quiet and still. He knew the voice that had sounded from behind him, inside the apartment. He’d know it anywhere.

“Charlie,” Dean said in a low, threatening voice.

“I’ll be at the Starbucks down the block,” Charlie said through the door. “And Dean, I know you probably could break my door down, but please don’t do it. I’ll be back in an hour so just hide in the bathroom if you have to. Don’t break my door. Okay bye!”

Dean slammed his fist against the door, furiously, as he heard her footsteps start to recede down the hall.

“Charlie! Don’t you dare walk away, don’t - don’t - ah, shit.”

In the distance, there was the far-off ding of the elevator.

She’d really gone. Dean was locked in here.

He turned around. Standing opposite him now in the hall, there he was: the person Dean most and least wanted to see in the whole world.

Castiel. He looked -

Well, he looked like a wreck, if Dean was being honest. He had big dark shadows swooping under his eyes, and his hair was a mess, and he seemed to be wearing a new blue bathrobe and old pyjamas with his snowboots at the bottom.

“Did you walk here in that?” Dean asked, at the same time as Castiel said,

“You look terrible.”

Dean wanted to hug him. Not in a stupid airy-fairy sweet way. He wanted to hug Castiel so tightly that it crushed him. He ground his fingernails into his palms.

“Charlie told me we were having a movie night,” Dean said.

“She said to me that she had some of my stuff that she wanted to give back to me. From you.”

“So you came in your freakin’ pyjamas?”

Castiel looked haughty.

“It’s none of your business anymore,” he said.

Dean pulled a big cold smirk.

“That’s right,” he said, “It’s not. Get hypothermia. Whatever.”

“As though you’re the height of fashion, today. How long since you shaved?”

“Not your business anymore,” Dean said tightly.

They stared at each other for a long moment. The light in the hall flickered. Dean was so angry he could weep. He wanted to hit the wall.

“Are we going to try to break out?” Castiel asked.

“‘We’ aren’t doing anything.”

“Then in the absence of a better plan, I’m going to go and sit down,” Castiel said calmly. “And wait for an hour.”

“Dibs on the good seat.” It came out almost automatically - just the first thing Dean could think of that would make Castiel annoyed. C’mon. Feel something. Fight with me. Why exactly Dean wanted a fight wasn’t important. He was so angry that it burned. Him. Castiel. Alone. In an apartment. Fucking Charlie. Dean was ready to physically fight whoever was nearest.

“No,” Castiel said. “I was here first -”

“Doesn’t matter. I called dibs,” Dean said, stepping forward as Castiel turned away towards the living room.

“I called it before you were here.” Castiel was obviously trying to act dignified, but he made a rush for the chair as soon as he heard Dean coming up behind him; Dean grabbed for the back of his bathrobe, and pulled hard. Castiel turned to push him off and the two of them squabbled, ungainly, moving into the living room step by awkward step.

“It’s my turn ,” Castiel said, with Dean’s arm at his throat. “You had it last time we were here.”

“That was before. ”

“Before what?”

“‘Before what?’ Seriously?”

“Before breaking up? That makes a difference?”

“What, it doesn’t make a difference to you?” Dean shot at him.

Castiel glared at him furiously, and then with a twist of his shoulders he was out of the bathrobe and dropping into the best seat in Charlie’s living room. Dean was left standing with the gown in both hands, holding it tightly.

That had been all wrong. The physicality of it. They weren’t supposed to touch anymore. They weren’t supposed to even see each other, that was the last thing Castiel had said before he’d left - but thanks to Charlie, that part was already wrecked.

Dean sat down on the second-best chair. It had a hard upright back that no amount of cushions could improve.

They sat in silence for some time. Dean pulled his phone out, and tried to call Charlie. Her number was unavailable. He texted her, and then texted Sam, and Jo, and even Bobby. Stuck in hell at Charlie’s please come, emergency.

When he glanced up, he saw that Castiel was looking down at the floor.

No one was replying to his messages. Dean put his phone on the arm of the chair, where he could definitely see and hear it if someone answered.

The seconds ticked on.

Castiel. Dean didn’t want to look at him, and also wanted to look and look and look, because this… he thought he’d already had his last chance to look at Castiel, to be in the same place as him. He’d been tearing and twisting himself into pieces over that for two weeks, and now he had another chance. Here. In this awkward living room, with everything and nothing to say to each other. It felt like coming up for air and finding it was poison gas, and breathing it anyway.

“How have you been,” Castiel asked, eventually.

Dean said nothing.

Castiel breathed out.

“Fine,” he said. “Don’t talk to me.”

“I just don’t wanna talk.”

“You never want to talk.”

All Dean had been thinking about for two weeks was the things he wanted to say to Castiel. He had reams and reams and reams of words locked in his head.

“Nope,” he said.

He caught the look on Castiel’s face, the half-second blanch of pain before it was smoothed over with a resigned shrug.

Dean didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to stay shut up tight and safe and not say a single word, and -

Minutes passed.

That look of hurt on Castiel’s face kept cracking against the back of Dean’s mind like a whip.

You never want to talk. Nope. Crack.

Dean swallowed hard.

Stupid. Stupid words. Stupid Castiel. Stupid Charlie. Stupid goddamn situation. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I’ve been okay,” he said. Grunted, really.

Castiel looked over at him.

“You have?”

A long pause.

“No,” Dean said.

Castiel’s mouth twisted up ever so slightly to one side and Dean knew he was trying not to show that he was sad. He wanted to pull Castiel in, hold him together. He wished the living room were smaller and they were crushed together, no escape from each other. He wanted the whole world to be so tiny, right now, that they couldn’t be apart by even an inch.

“You?” Dean said.

“No,” Castiel replied.

Dean nodded.

This room wasn’t claustrophobic enough. It would be a mistake, an embarrassment, a vulnerability, to choose to go over to Castiel now. Dean wanted it to be a necessity, not a choice. He wanted the world to give them no option.

“I keep thinking about that night,” Castiel said.

“When you left?”

“When you told me I had to go.”

“I said maybe you should go,” Dean said. “You were the one who actually did it.”

“You wanted me to.”

Dean’s head jerked up.

“Is that what you think?” he demanded.

Castiel swallowed visibly.

“You think I wanted you to go?” Dean pushed.

“I…”

“Seriously?”

“How am I supposed to know, Dean?” Castiel said, and the pain in his voice was thin as a wire and sharp as a barb. “When you’re angry you just shut me out. You can’t wait to get away from me. You won’t even look at me.”

Dean put his head in his hands.

“I didn’t want to go,” Castiel said. “I didn’t want any of this. But when you can’t stand to be around me…”

“That’s not true,” Dean said, muffled by his hands. Somehow it was easier to talk into them, in the dark.

Castiel didn’t say anything.

Dean took his hands away from his face.

“Then why do you avoid me?” Castiel asked. “When you make me angry, I tell you, and we talk about it, and then it’s done. But when you’re angry, you never say anything, and I have to guess what I think that you want, and this time… everything pointed to you wanting me to leave. Just like it always does. And this time, I actually did it.”

“You knew I didn’t want you to leave,” Dean shot back.

“You didn’t want me to?”

“Really? You’re gonna play it that way? Like you didn’t know?” Dean said. “Jesus.”

“I didn’t know, Dean.”

There was a ring of truth in his voice that brought Dean up short.

“But that’s not - obviously it’s not like that,” he said. “Obviously I didn’t want that.”

“It’s not obvious. You never say anything. Nothing is obvious.”

Dean glared at the floor. How to explain himself? How to tell Castiel that when he was angry, it felt like he was carrying round a bomb and if he talked, if he said one word, it would go off and explode on them both?

“If I talk to you about that crap, you’ll leave,” Dean said.

“I already left,” Castiel said, “because you didn’t.”

Dean paused to take that in.

“But when I’m angry…”

“I screwed up,” Castiel said. “I upset you. I was always going to because people are never going to be able to agree all the time. You’re going to be angry at me. And I wanted you to tell me.”

Dean snorted.

“What’s funny?”

“You don’t actually want that,” Dean said.

“I do.”

“You don’t. You really don’t.”

“You don’t think I want to know about what you’re thinking?”

Dean shrugged.

“I think me being angry is a me problem.”

“Right. So that’s why you said I should leave.”

“I said maybe you should leave.”

“You gave up,” Castiel said.

“ Me? You left!”

“You told me to.”

“I didn’t really want you to…”

“How was I supposed to know that, Dean?”

“You can’t tell that I don’t want you to leave? You can’t tell that I care?”

“I know you care,” Castiel said, angrily at first, and then again, quieter. “I know you care.”

There was a pause.

“Maybe I should’ve tried harder,” Dean said after a while, trying to keep his voice from being too thick with feeling. “That night.” Castiel, across the room, put his head on one side. It was such a familiar gesture that Dean almost broke.

“You always try your hardest,” Castiel said. “I do know that. You just try your hardest to keep me out, most of the time. Not let me in.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Dean said. Castiel went still.

“This is -” he began, and then cut himself off. Dean looked up at him. “Nothing you could say,” Castiel said carefully, “could be worse than the things I imagine you thinking.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re glad I’m finally gone,” Castiel said, so quickly, so easily, and Dean could tell how many times he must have thought it. “Like I’ve been hanging around for too long, all this time. Like your life just got so much easier and better without me in it. Like you’ve wished I’d leave for so long, but you didn’t want to hurt me by telling me. Or you just couldn’t be bothered.”

“Couldn’t be…” Dean’s stupid choked-up throat was giving him trouble. And across the room, Castiel wasn’t helping, looking as though he were barely holding it together. Dean gritted his teeth. “It’s nothing like that,” he said.

Castiel raised one shoulder, slightly, eloquently.

Dean took a minute, and then a minute more.

Damn it.

“These last two weeks,” he said, and then stopped, and then started again, looking at the floor. “These last two weeks the thing I’ve thought about the most is how I won’t get to see you again. I haven’t been out my apartment in two weeks until tonight and the whole drive over here I was looking for you on every corner. I don’t - how long am I gonna do that? I haven’t spent a damn second of my life ever wishing you were gone.” Across the room, Castiel looked unconvinced. Damn. It. “What I, uh. What I think about is how - how now we’re broken up your face is going to change when you get older and I won’t know what you look like anymore. Someone else will, maybe. Not me. And I keep thinking that they might be able to - they might feel - for you, I mean - but it won’t be even a - a small… thing - compared to what I - and Cas, I wish that I could give you…” Dean couldn’t go on. He took in a breath, and let it go.

Every word felt like a fire ant bite. And the only reason he had any of it in his head, the only reason he could talk at all, was because he’d spent so much time recently lying in bed trying to explain himself to a Castiel that wasn’t there. Before two weeks ago, he wouldn’t have had a word to say.

When he looked up, eventually, he saw that Castiel was sitting with his bare arms folded, his eyes on Dean. He looked cold, and Dean realised he was still holding the stupid bathrobe in his hands.

“Shit,” he said, standing up. He held it out. “Here.”

Castiel got to his feet, and came near. Dean pressed his lips tightly together. Hard. Strong. As cold as he could be, after saying all that. He’d never spilled so much all at once. It was too much.

As he took the bathrobe, Castiel’s hands brushed Dean’s.

Don’t, Dean wanted to say. Don’t. I can’t touch you if it might be the last time.

Castiel wrapped the bathrobe around himself again, and tied a knot at his waist. The cord, Dean noticed, was the one from Castiel’s curtains at home, an odd shade of purple.

“You look like a wizard who just got kicked out of magic school in the middle of the night,” Dean said.

“Thanks,” Castiel said.

“For being an asshole?”

Castiel was half a step away. He was watching Dean. There was something in his face that hadn’t been there before Dean had said all that crap - a kind of intensity that Dean recognised. Dean swallowed. He wanted this, he wanted this, he wanted it so badly that he couldn’t speak - but he also knew that he couldn’t stand it, could not stand it, to touch Castiel now and then have him leave. But he couldn’t stand to be here and not hold him, either -

“I can’t do this,” Dean managed. “Cas, I can’t. Not if we’re over.”

Castiel watched him, those eyes of his clouded with thought.

“You’re an asshole,” he said, after some consideration.

“Uh…”

“You are. You’re an asshole. You push me away even though you don’t want to. You’re my best friend, and you act like I’m your worst enemy.”

“Well -”

“It makes me angry, Dean. I’m angry and I’m telling you. And later maybe I won’t be angry, and I’ll tell you about that too. I’ll tell you right now that these two weeks have been hell, in case you couldn’t already tell from the fact that I walked here in a bathrobe to get the things I thought you’d dumped here at Charlie’s for me. I’ll tell you that hearing your voice in the hallway when you arrived was like coming home. I’m telling you because I want you to know... you can’t switch off saying just the bad things. You switch off the good things, too. And I wanted to hear the good things, Dean. I wanted to hear all of it. You were thinking things like that about me all the time? And you let me think you wanted me gone? You asshole .”

Dean’s heart was beating a mile a minute in his chest. He felt hot all over.

“Good things,” Dean said. “That I think about you? You wanted to hear them?”

“If there were any,” Castiel said.

The sincerity with which he said it made Dean want to hit a wall all over again.

“You - you think I don’t think nice things about you? But I do things for you, all the time...”

“You do things for lots of people, Dean.”

“But you - it’s different, it’s special…”

“Is it?”

“You don’t know that?!”

Castiel shrugged.

“I’m an asshole,” Dean said.

He stared at Castiel.

“I’m an asshole,” he said again.

“Dean, I -”

“I am,” Dean said.

“Well. At least when you’re being an asshole, you’re caring and not telling me. Not the other way around.”

There was that slight dryness, the odd humour, Dean had missed with a pit in his stomach.

“Well, for what it’s worth…” He steeled himself. “Cas, I… you… I mean, you know, uh.”

Castiel didn’t know, though. That was the problem. And the world wasn’t going to push the words out of him, fate wasn’t going to force them any closer than this. Dean had to choose. He had to decide to say it.

He looked down at the floor.

“I want to be with you,” Dean said. “Every day. I want you. And I want to deserve you even though I can’t. But I wouldn’t have ever given up. Trying to, I mean. If it wasn’t already over.”

Castiel’s shoulders untensed. His hand moved to Dean’s cheek, thumb pressed into the stubble there.

Dean looked up, into his eyes.

“Don’t leave me,” Dean said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Castiel said, and kissed him. The kind of kiss that Dean had missed more than anything, the kind that said everything Dean didn’t know how to use words for. Devastatingly soft - no teeth, no anger, no hardness. Hands holding, bodies pressed, skin alive, heart thudding.

I love you, Dean said with that kiss. I love you I love you I love you I love you.

One day he’d say it. One day.

After some time, they made coffee. And talked a little more.

“I was angry with you,” Dean said.

“Why?” Castiel asked.

Dean gritted his teeth.

“Because,” he said. “It feels like I do a lot of things to show I care. And they don’t seem to mean much to you. So it feels like I care more than you sometimes.”

“But I always tell you that I care,” Castiel said.

“Anyone can say it,” Dean said.

“Oh, really?”

Dean snorted.

“Fine. Point made.”

“I can show you,” Castiel said. “As well as tell you.”

“You can?”

“Mm.” Castiel drew him closer. “I can start now.”

They sat together on the best chair, which was just big enough for two people who wanted to be close. Dean’s phone, lighting up over on the arm of the second-best chair, went ignored. And so it came as something of a shock when there was an almighty crash from the front door, followed by the sound of a distant wail.

“What the -”

Together, Dean and Castiel rushed towards the noise. When they arrived in the hallway, they saw a small gathering: Bobby, Jo, a very surprised-looking Sam, and a distraught Charlie who appeared a few seconds later.

“What did you do?” she said. “How did you get here?”

“I just kicked down a door,” Sam said, sounding proud of it.

“What’s going on here?” Jo asked, looking between Dean and Castiel, a smile growing on her face as she took in the way they were standing, close to each other.

“We were just told there was an emergency,” Bobby said.

“And you couldn’t have tried to knock first to stop it?” Charlie demanded.

“We thought the element of surprise might be important,” Sam said. “Like in a hostage situation.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said sarcastically. “Loudly slamming my door off its hinge is going to make it really surprising when you walk into my apartment.”

“It wasn’t a very good door,” Bobby said.

“It was great! It opened and it closed and it didn’t hang off one hinge at all!”

“I can get a new one. Better.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yep,” Bobby said.

“Huh. Well… okay, then.”

“Yeah, but seriously, what’s going on here?” Jo asked. She was still looking at Dean and Castiel, her eyes flickering between them. “Is there something I don’t know?”

“Don’t look at me,” Dean said. “Charlie’s the one who locked us in here.”

“Wait - what?” Sam demanded.

“You did what?” Jo said, sounding more delighted than Dean would have preferred.

“Well…” Charlie shifted uncomfortably. “You know, they just wouldn’t talk to each other… and they make each other so happy, when they don’t have their heads up their asses… and it was all wrong, so I just thought…”

“You thought you’d lure us to your apartment under false pretences and then lock us in,” Castiel finished for her.

“With the best of intentions?” she said weakly.

“Still kind of an asshole thing to do,” Dean said.

Charlie opened her mouth, and then closed it, seeming to accept this.

“But, uh, hey - Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

Dean looked at Castiel, and grinned, and took his hand.

“Thanks for being an asshole,” he said.

#whelvenwingsfic #thebloggerbloggerfun #angst with a happy ending #hurt/comfort elements #i just had to get those breakup feelings out guys #seen too much of the angst on my dash #also #nano is looking good so far!!!#that's 4.4k today plus the poems i wrote!#feelin good #also thank you so much to the people #who helped me call dibs!#;d

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letterboxd · 4 years

Photo

Green-Light Yourself.

As Merawi Gerima’s debut feature Residue lands on Netflix, he tells Gemma Gracewood about being the son of indie film legends, duty of care as a director, and why Akira is his go-to comfort movie.

Sometimes it’s impossible to move forward with your art until you’ve taken a good look back. In Merawi Gerima’s impressionistic and hypnotic first feature, Residue, a young man, Jay, returns from college on the West Coast to find that his Washington, DC neighborhood has been hugely transformed within a few short years. A white neighbor barks at him to turn his car stereo down. Familiar faces have disappeared. The gentrification is debilitating, but Jay’s efforts to work out his disorientation and rage through art meets opposition with old friends.

Like his lead character, Gerima is both a DC native and a graduate of a West Coast college (USC’s School of Cinematic Arts), and was similarly confronted by change when he got home. Making Residue was “absolutely something that I had to do because that was the only positive direction to pour my energies into,” he says. “I think that there was a lot of destructive potential in my life at that point. The film really was the first moment when I started to feel that I perhaps was not powerless in this situation.”

Derron “Rizzo” Scott as Mike in ‘Residue’.

Gentrification as a form of structural racism has long impacted Black communities, and Gerima is not the first in his family to cover this ground. His parents are the LA Rebellion filmmakers Haile Gerima, whose work includes the Golden Bear-nominated 1983 slavery drama Sankofa, and Shirikiana Aina, who documented changes to their DC neighborhood in her 1982 non-fiction short Brick by Brick.

Residue was a family affair; the Gerima name is all through the credits. “My aunts were the chefs; my sister, she was, like, the head of the catering.” Although his legendary father managed to get off lightly with Costco runs, Gerima’s equally impressive mother ended up anchoring two of the film’s most affecting scenes, as Tonya, the Mom of Jay’s childhood friend, Mike (Derron “Rizzo” Scott).

“I had somebody else cast—she was a no-show. My mother was on set that day, just kind of helping feed people. I knew that she had what we needed, emotionally speaking. She was actually trying to drive away to go find the woman; I was like, ‘Nah, I need you right now’. She did it, but at a great cost.” The thing about filming in your own neighborhood, Gerima explains, where you’ve raised not only your own but also everyone else’s kids, with varying outcomes, is you end up bringing that lived experience to your scenes. “It’s very real for her. She’s not acting. I almost cried once we finished filming. Nobody spoke for a long time.”

The scene taught Gerima much about a director’s duty of care—particularly when he dared to ask his mother for a second take of a pivotal scene that takes place in a downpour. “In preparing to shoot in the rain we made a few mistakes, with the camera, the placement, there was miscommunication with me and the DP [Mark Jeevaratnam]. I, he, we both agreed that we needed another take. When I asked my mother for another take, she just looked at us like, it hurt, it was painful to ask. She did what she could, but you could tell that she didn’t have it in her.” As it turns out, the first take was the one. “I thought we ruined everything, but once I slowed down, I just saw what a miracle it was.”

It’s impossible to separate Residue from its limited budget and circumstances. Structurally rich and technically unusual, the film is a triumph of local knowledge, happy accidents, and “hood auditions”, where people were pulled straight off the street into the cast. It’s infused with an all-hands-on-deck spirit, constructed scene-by-scene during a home edit by Gerima himself.

“We shot the first draft of the script. You know what I mean? We didn’t have time to wait for a rewrite. We didn’t have time to wait for money. We didn’t have time to wait for anything. In many ways, it was the source of many of our problems, but it was also the source of a lot of our freedom, because we weren’t tied down by money. We weren’t tied down by a locked-in script.”

Mark Jeevaratnam, Merawi Gerima (with camera), and Obinna Nwachukwu on the set of ‘Residue’.

At Slamdance this past January, Residue won the audience award, and an acting prize for its star, Obinna Nwachukwu, whose story is a lesson for other aspiring actors. He was right for the role (“He fit the bill in terms of, he knows DC lingo, he knows the culture, he’s from the area, which was incredibly important”). More importantly, he was available. “The fact that we didn’t have resources, we needed somebody like him. He wants to act. He designs his life in his way where he was able to give us two weeks without knowing much about us. Once we got him, everything else became a lot easier.”

After Slamdance, of course, 2020 took a bit of a turn. Residue was shortlisted for Cannes, but that was cancelled and in May Gerima told his college paper: “I think that the festival prospects for the rest of this year are getting dimmer by the day.” When we speak, however, he is in Venice, where his debut feature has just screened in the independent Venice Days section of La Biennale di Venezia. It turns out that Cannes Directors’ Fortnight head Paolo Moretti had put in a word with Venice Days. As 2020 goes, this is as good as it gets for new filmmakers—and is a beautiful demonstration of how the global festival community has pulled together to make something good out of the mess we’re in.

Likewise, Gerima is grateful to Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing, who made the Netflix deal. He notes that a Black-led distribution company is a luxury his parents never knew. “I think if Ava did not exist, our film probably would not have distribution. The broad imagination necessary to see the commercial potential of Black films is still not there. I’m often sad thinking about the fact that my parents had no such opportunity.” Like a scene straight out of Dolemite is My Name, Gerima describes how his folks would book their own theaters across the US and use the African diaspora to help fill them, “proving the commercial nature of these films, in communities that hungered for real Black stories”.

Merawi Gerima directs Jacari Dye on the set of ‘Residue’.

Gerima’s film appetite is wide, and he’s often looked outside the US for inspiration. Some of the most crucial films in his development as a director have been the 1968 post-revolutionary Cuban films Lucia and Memories of Underdevelopment. He is also a fan of La Lengua de las Mariposas (‘Butterfly’, 1999, José Luis Cuerda), which has “one of my favorite endings in film, period”. Japanese influences include Akiro Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and Kaneto Shindo’s The Naked Island (1960) and he also looks to Chilean legend Miguel Littin and Soviet directors Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Eisenstein and Nikita Mikhalkov. His go-to comfort film? “Akira. I don’t know if it’s comfort, but I watch it all the time! I just think it’s one of the best films ever made.”

On the home front, an “incredible, important” American film is Ivan Dixon’s 1973 action drama The Spook Who Sat by the Door, while the movies that “really put me onto talking to girls” are Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball and Rick Famuyiwa’s The Wood. “These are the types of films, circulating within the Black community [that] we memorize the lines to. That set the sexual compass of Black adolescents, you know what I mean?”

‘Sankofa’ (1993), written and directed by Haile Gerima.

His parents, however, remain Gerima’s greatest influence. “Sankofa was made without arbitration. Black stories that have no minders like that, nobody to answer to, often are far and away, the most honest types of Black storytelling that we see in film.” For other storytellers yet to take the first step, he offers this: “My best lesson from this film has been to always and at all times green-light my own self, my own actions, because that’s the only thing that I can control—and to not wait for conditions to be right or perfect.”

Acknowledging the privilege of being born into a filmmaking family, Gerima adds: “That may not apply to everybody. There are many, incredible things which prohibit action at times. But I think that there are many incredible conditions under which people can take action with the camera. I think that it’s really just a matter of how urgently that story burns within you. I can only say for myself, that’s the way the film got made. Without that, it would have been literally impossible.”

When asked who we should watch next, Gerima recommends 200 Meters, written and directed by Palestinian filmmaker Ameen Nayfeh. (“He’s an incredibly poised and principled filmmaker.”) The film won the audience award at Venice Days. He also recommends Really Love by Angel Kristi Williams, which won a SXSW Special Jury Recognition for acting, and will feature as a Special Presentation at AFI Fest next month.

‘Residue’ is in select US theaters and on Netflix now. Follow Gemma on Letterboxd.

#merawi gerima #haile gerima #la rebellion #residue #netflix #netflix film #array #array releasing #ava duvernay #washington dc #washington dc films #usc #usc cinema arts #letterboxd

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carol-effing-danvers · 5 years

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knock me the fuck out (i dare ya, babe), part one

TEACHER STEVE AND SOFT BILLY

Ten years, eight months, three weeks, and nine days ago, Billy had escaped this Lovecraftian nightmare town and never looked back. He’d come into Hawkins believing that it was his own personal hell and left it certain that it was actual, literal Hell.

(this got long so i decided to divide it into three parts) If you prefer the Ao3 format, click here

Billy’s first thought as he rolls back into Hawkins for the first time in ten years is: I cannot believe Max stayed in this deathtrap.

He didn’t. Ten years, eight months, three weeks, and nine days ago, Billy had escaped this Lovecraftian nightmare town and never looked back. As soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital, he spent most of his savings on a shitty Ford Bronco (he did NOT miss that car), packed up his records, and hit the fuckin’ road. He’d come into Hawkins believing that it was his own personal hell and left it certain that it was actual, literal Hell.

Billy wonders, a bit guiltily, if Max’s life woulda turned out like this if he hadn’t left her in this Midwestern madhouse all by herself. Only twenty-four and she was already getting a divorce.

He’s never like Justin van Haut but at first, Billy attributed that to the fact that the dude was dating Max - he had a right to hate any dude trying to fuck his sister, he figured. Facts was just facts. But then they got married and it didn’t get better. If anything, Billy might’ve hated him more.

Justin reminded Billy way too fucking much of himself, of the strutting arrogant little dirtbag that he used to be - only, van Haut had the money and the influence to get away with his bad deeds. He was the kind of guy who wanted something only until he got it, and then he didn’t want it anymore.

Billy wasn’t that person anymore. He couldn’t be. It took too much energy that he didn’t have - like the Shadow Monster had sucked all the rage out of him. And without it, there was so little left of Billy Hargrove.

Old Billy would’ve gotten drunk and drove to South Bend. Old Billy would’ve beat the shit outta the bitch-ass pussy who’d spent six and half years cheating on his sister. Old Billy would’ve spent the night in the county lock-up.

New Billy didn’t do that, because New Billy promised Max he’d be there by dinner time. New Billy knew that Max would just have to bail his sorry ass out of prison with money she didn’t really have.

But either way, Billy knew even if he had the chance to, he’d never change the way it worked out, because in the end-

“UNCLE BILLY!”

-in the end, he got his girl.

As soon as he opens the door, she launches herself at him. “Who is this?” he demands seriously, stabilizing her on his lap, letting her grip the stirring wheel in two tiny hands. “Who are you? Where’s my Lulu?”

She giggles at his theatrics, tugging at his leather jacket, wisps of red hair escaping her little braid. “I’m Lulu, Uncle Billy!”

He gasps, feigning shock. “You can’t be my Lulu! You’re such a big girl!”

“I’m going to Kindie-gar-den now!” she says proudly, with a cocky little toss of her head that reminded Billy of her mother so much that he couldn’t hold in a grin.

“Yeah? Do you like school, Lulu?” They get out so that Billy can grab some of his things from the trunk.

“Uh-huh. My teacher is really nice!”

“Yeah? What’s your teacher’s name?” he asks absently, resting Lulu on his hip as he pulls his bag from the trunk.

“He’s Mister H!” she says, and his brows bounce up. Male kindergarten teacher? That was pretty unusual. Maybe Hawkins was finally getting outta the Stone Age. He doubts it, but hope springs eternal.

From inside the house, Max yells “Lauren!”

“Mommy, Uncle Billy is here!” she shouts, and squirms back down to the ground, running for the front porch. “Mommy says you can have my room!”

Billy thinks with no small horror of the pink room with Mickey and Minnie Mouse’s faces staring out from the wallpaper. Jesus Christ. Lulu beams at him, utterly delighted at the prospect of her uncle moving in, and he barely has to lie when he says “Fantastic, princess.”

Max gives him a wry smile as she appears in the doorway, practically reading his mind as she wipes her wet hands on a dishtowel. “Welcome home, big brother.”

Old Billy would’ve told her that this town might be home, but it wasn’t his. Home was a place he lost when his mother left him with Neil. New Billy knows Max isn’t talking about Hawkins. “You’re gonna get so sick of me,” he promises, dropping the paper bag he’d taken from the trunk. “Here.”

“What the hell is this?” she asks, laughing. “You better not’ve brought me a bag of p- oh my god, Billy.”

He chuckles at her open-mouth as Max stares down into the stacks of cash inside the crumbled paper bag. Rubbing the short hair at the back of his neck, he awkwardly answers, “Rent.”

“This is way too much!” she protests, trying to hand it back, like she didn’t miss a mortgage payment last month.

Billy dances out of the way, picking Lulu up and twirling her around. Grinning like a madman at her delighted shrieks, he throws her across one shoulder. “Wanna help me set up the stereo, Lulu?”

“Yeah!”

“Billy, get back here!”

“Can’t hear you, Max! All that loud metal music, y’know!”

---

“I’m home!” he calls, pushing the door shut with his hip. The apartment is completely silent and then Steve hears a familiar ‘thump’ and grins.

With her bushy tail held high, a black cat races down the hall, wailing “Waah!”

“Hello, Angie,” he coos, crouching to scratch her under the chin. “How are the birds today, huh?”

“Waah,” she repeats loudly, pleading at him with her huge yellow eyes.

“Missed me?” he asks, stroking the fluffy black fur along her back. “Let’s have some dinner.”

He must’ve told Dustin a thousand, maybe two thousand, times that he did not want a cat, but the very morning that Dustin left for MIT, he dropped the fluffy soot-black kitten on Steve’s doorstep and raced away anyway. “His name is ‘the Witch-King of Angmar’, good luck, Steve!”

Ha. The joke was on him, though. His ‘Witch-King’ was actually a queen and Steve called her Angie and she was a fucking delight – he suspected that Dustin was just overly dramatic. Steve supposed that the cat was a nice compromise, considering that Dustin had tried not to leave for college at all.

That had probably been the worst six months of Steve’s life.

He’d never fought with one of the kids before, let alone Dustin, but they spent nearly all of his senior year fighting – because Dustin managed to get a scholarship, a two-year free ride to Princeton, and he didn’t want to leave Hawkins. Or more specifically, he didn’t want to leave Steve.

Lucas was bound for Howard in DC, Will and Mike were reuniting at MIT, and Dustin got into fucking Princeton, but he didn’t want to go.

(“What the fuck are you talking about, you don’t wanna go? I don’t give two dicks what you want, shithead. I’m an adult, Dustin, and I can take care of myself! You’re not going to throw your whole life into the toilet because you think I’m LONELY!”)

So, yeah. Steve and Dustin spent Dustin’s senior year of high school fighting, and now Steve has a cat and Dustin is in graduate school, because college was where he fucking belonged, just like Steve had told him.

Filling Angie’s bowl, Steve idly dances around the kitchen to no music, pulling open the fridge and peering inside. “What should we have for dinner, Angie? What do ya think Aunt Robin wants to eat?”

Angie doesn’t bother turning her head away from her cat kibble, but her tail swishes at the sound of his voice. Humming ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, Steve throws together a stir-fry.

Cooking has become one of those parts of being an adult that Steve finds unexpectedly pleasurable. Cutting up the ingredients, mixing spices and seasonings, tending to the food – Steve enjoys that.

He hears jingling in the hallway as Robin comes through the door, purse swinging from her arm. He can also hear her swearing under her breath and she kicks her shoes off onto the mat beside the door. “Angie, Angie baby,” she coos as the cat runs to greet her. “Please feed me, Steve-o. I’m gonna fucking kill Bobby Monroe.”

“Parent-teacher conference didn’t go well?” he asks lightly, fluffing the rice with a fork before he pulled his stir-fry off the fire.

“NO,” she says shortly, before calling “How was the dentist? Is this a bad time to say that I picked up a banana cream pie at Baker’s Square?”

In a rather bloodthirsty tone, Steve replies “Cavity or no cavity, we are eating dessert, Rob.”

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to get out a torch and a pitchfork.”

“What happened with Bobby Monroe?”

Oof, speaking of bloodthirsty. Robin’s teeth grind together and Steve pokes her pointedly in the side as he takes their plates down from the cabinet. “His kid is on the verge of going to juvie and this guy just…Does Not get it, Steve.”

Steve’s glasses were on the verge of slipping down the bridge of his nose as he cracked open the tops on two beers. “That’s ‘cause Monroe is golfing buddies with Mayor Walsh and my old pal Tommy Hall, Rob.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh,” she mutters, then brightens a bit. “I got to read another one of Holly’s essays.”

Smiling at his plate, Steve says “Yeah?”

He was a little sad he got into teaching too late to have Holly or any of the other kids as a student, but Robin got the joy of having both Erica Sinclair and Holly Wheeler pass through her classroom. “Her analysis of the creation of the Constitution was…I wanna send it to Harvard, Steve. She’s only fifteen, but she can already understand how to translate nuance in the document. Half of my graduating class couldn’t write something that impressive on early US history.”

“That’s fantastic,” he says, grinning.

“How was Munchkin Land?” she asks, through a mouthful of vegetables and rice.

Laughing slightly, Steve says “The Lollipop Guild always keeps me on my toes. Thank god for naptime!”

They eat banana cream pie on the couch in front of ‘Frasier’, Robin’s toes shoved under his thigh as Steve tries not to fall asleep on the damn sofa. She laughs at him, throwing one of the cushions at his face.

“It’s seven-thirty, you old man,” she teases, coaxing Angie onto her lap.

“Leave me alone,” he whines, melting into his secondhand couch. “I’m an educator of young minds!”

Rob stuck her tongue out at time. “It’s called ‘narcolepsy’, Steven.”

“Please leave me to die in peace.”

She does leave, an hour later, and Steve locks the door behind her like a Responsible Adult.

He is surrounded by almost total silence again. He’s a helluva lot more comfortable with it here in his apartment than he was in his parent’s house. Maybe it was because there wasn’t quite so much space to echo the silence back to him. Maybe it was because there was no steaming blue pool waiting in the backyard. Maybe it was the lack of judgmental silence, which persisted whether his parents were home or away.

He turns off the television and the lights in the living room, babbling baby-talk at Angie as he brushes his teeth and gets into bed, putting his glasses on the nightstand and sliding between the cool sheets.

Angie curls up behind his knees and Steve closes his eyes and listens to the empty space all around him.

Briefly, he spares a thought of apology for the Dustin of years past, because he’d been right. Steve was lonely. But at least now that he was a real grown-up, he was comfortable with it.

Mostly.

---

“You don’t have to do that,” Max mutters, head resting against the back of the sofa. Lauren was put to bed an hour ago and the only sound down in the house in the constant quiet tick of the grandfather clock in the hall.

“Hm?” Billy asks sleepily, sipping his beer. It was a thirty hour drive between San Diego and Hawkins and Billy had only slept once, and not recently. Honestly, that was probably the best state to experience the Horror of the Mouse that awaited him in Lulu’s old room.

Max gestures restlessly to the stacks of hundred dollar bills hastily stuffed into the paper bag. “Don’t pretend that isn’t your entire savings, Billy.”

“Don’t have to anything but die, Max,” he murmurs, his free hand subconsciously drifting to the tight silvery mass of scarring beneath his shirt, even as his eyes remain closed. With a damp shaky sigh, she leans against his side and Billy shifts that hand to drape around her shoulders. “Don’t fuckin’ argue with me, you know I ain’t gonna let you win.”

His t-shirt gets a little wet. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she admits, sniffling. “I missed you.”

His throat clicks as he swallows. “Missed you, Mad Max.”

Though Billy’s exhausted and goes to bed early, he spends an hour in Lulu’s full-sized bed, flat on his back and staring at the ceiling.

Despite his best-laid plans, here he is. Back in Hawkins, Indiana.

Funny that he still kinda feels like a mess, even though he’s a better mess than he used to be.

When his alarm goes off, Billy has the taste of antifreeze in his mouth and though it’s nearly March and Max keeps the heat low, he’s sweating.

Getting Lulu ready for school is a breeze. Firstly, because she’s smart and independent and she knows the routine she’s supposed to be following by now. Second, because once you fight an interdimensional alien monster and temporarily die, not much phases you anymore.

“This one, Uncle Billy!” Lulu says eagerly, pulling him along through the halls, towing her uncle with single-minded determination. "You can meet Sam and Freddy!"

Samantha Cross and Fred Ferris were Lulu's little friends. "Alright, slow down, you're gonna run someone over," he says, amused. She reminds him so much of Max, it's insane. "This one, Lulu?"

"Yeah!" A dark-haired man wearing a navy cardigan over a collared shirt is helping a pair of identical twins with their coats, crouching near a row of cubbies with sixteen name tags on them – from here, Billy can see Lulu’s near the end: Lauren V. "Hi, Mister H!"

Mister H-who-wears-the-dorky-cardigan turns his head and the bottom of Billy’s stomach drops out.

Steve Harrington gives Lulu a dorky little smile, all cute and happy, squinting from behind the lens of his big nerd glasses, and warmly says “Hello, Lauren.”

As a teenage boy, rolling fresh into Hawkins, Billy had fallen into a wild spiral of lust for Steve Harrington the moment he saw him standing next to Nancy Wheeler at a Halloween party. Closeted and angry and unable to escape his father’s rage and his father’s expectations, all Billy wanted was some of Steve’s attention – he hadn’t dared to let himself seriously consider getting more than that. Steve, being a straight teenage boy with a girlfriend, with popularity and money, had froze him out at every turn, and it drove Old Billy fucking crazy. No matter what he did, he never got a reaction more interested than bland annoyance.

As hot as his passions for him burned, Billy couldn’t make the Hawkins ice princess melt even a little.

But at a certain point, when you grow up, you can look on certain things you got attached to or certain things you enjoyed as a teenager and find your attachment sort of silly, maybe even comical. New Billy had sort of looked forward to reaching that conclusion here.

This isn’t like that at all.

Actually, Billy thinks it might even be worse than before. Billy feels a dull flush beginning to form over his face and swallows the urge to say something stupid to get Steve’s attention – that was the ghost of Old Billy talking.

God, he looks so good.

All grown up, the knitwear clinging to the tantalizing hint of strong biceps, Steve’s eyes are huge and dark behind the lenses of the geek glasses, bangs hanging down into his eyes. Beneath the cardigan, his collared shirt shows an enticing view of his clavicles and the moles high on his neck. Billy used to jerk off to a fantasy of sucking on them and seeing what kind of noise he would get.

He looks soft and sleepy, like Billy could just curl himself around him and press his mouth to that bare skin and Steve would just-

“This is my Uncle Billy!”

Billy is abruptly pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Lulu’s voice and realizes that he’s well on his way to pitching a tent in his pants in front of Steve Harrington and his five year old niece. What the fuck is his life, seriously?

“Harrington.”

---

“Harrington,” the man next to Lauren drawls, and suddenly, Steve’s attention is focused and sharp.

This is my Uncle Billy.

He’s…wow, he’s really…grown up.

The sneering boy with a headful of dirty blond curls and a baby-fine mustache has aged into a grown man with a full beard – the old mullet has almost reversed, with the hair at the back and sides nearly shaved off and the hair at the top slicked back away from his face.

Oh my god.

So. So so so so so.

The thing about Billy- “Hargrove,” he greets, hoping that he sounds friendly and surprised and not breathless. “Max didn’t tell me you were coming back to town.”

Billy Hargrove was the very first boy Steve was ever attracted to, and after he left town, the realization that 1) he had a big gay crush on him and 2) he wasn’t ever going to see him again, were sorta the things that began his big bisexual breakdown – what Robin affectionately calls Steve’s ‘all dicks tour of ‘86’, even though she still doesn’t know what started it.

And now Billy’s standing here, in Steve’s classroom, the muscles he used to flash now hidden beneath leather and denim and flannel but possessing every inch of them as much as he had ten years ago. He looks like he could toss Steve over his shoulder and carry him off somewhere, like a caveman.

But hotter, Steve thinks, helplessly staring at the long sweep of his lashes. His lips, the same deep, full red of ripened berries. The dusting of freckles over Billy’s cheeks from hours standing in the sun.

For a moment, Steve feels a stab of uncertain fear – has Max ever told Billy anything about what happened in ’86?

No. His relationship with Max may have gotten slightly distant, especially after she officially married Justin, but he was pretty confident that she wouldn’t have told him such embarrassing and personal information about Steve, not when she that knew Billy had hated him.

At least she seems to be right, though – Billy had calmed down a lot.

Billy shrugs, in that effortless, careless way of his. Steve experiences a visceral urge to have that short beard rub his mouth raw and it makes his stomach twist with desire, uncomfortable in its intensity. “Got tired of San Diego – thought I’d see my best girl. Right, Lulu?”

Lulu. God, that’s cute.

Lauren grins up at Billy, proud as a peacock, and Billy smiles back at her for a moment, so nakedly adoring that Steve’s stomach gives another twist, his insides melting into goo. “Billy lives with me and Mommy now, ‘cause he missed me so much,” she declares, lifting her chin. “I’m his best girl.”

“That’s right,” he vows, cuffing her lightly over the head.

“That’s…really nice of you, Hargrove,” Steve says lightly. He knows that Max is getting a divorce – the entire town knows. Honestly if he didn’t think Max would kick him in the nuts, he’d have a nail bat with Justin’s name on it.

Lucas, chewing on his jealousy like a wad of bubblegum, had told them that Justin had basically spent their entire relationship cheating on her. He’d gotten the most willful girl in school to be his girlfriend and got bored with her almost immediately afterward.

He has a feeling that was the real reason for Billy’s sudden appearance in town after ten years of absence.

Billy shrugs again and peers at Steve through those long lashes. “Max didn’t tell me you were Lulu’s teacher.” He grins, tongue held between rows of sharp white teeth. Steve’s heart kicks up in his chest. “Kindergarteners, Harrington?”

He smiles awkwardly, dodging the question. “Lauren is one of my best readers,” he says instead. No matter which child it is, Steve can always find a reason to brag about one of his kids. “And her penmanship is terrific.”

Lauren gasps, bouncing with excitement, one of Billy’s rough hands clutched in both of hers. “I read a chapter book with Mommy and she only had to help me with two words, Mister H!”

“That’s awesome!” he says, unable to keep himself from beaming down at her. “Did Mrs. Diaz help you get a library card?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Maybe your uncle can help you, then,” he says brightly, neatly side-stepping anymore conversation with the boy – the man, god, Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone more of a man – who can apparently still make his heart race, even ten years since he’d last saw him.

In the doorway, he spots Marcy Roberts holding her little brother’s hand. “Morning Marcy. And good morning, Martin.”

“Morning, Mr. Harrington!”

---

“Alright, Lulu, it’s almost time for your class to start,” Billy says, tucking her too-long bangs behind her ears. “Mom will be back to pick you up, okay?”

For the first time, some of Lulu’s uncertainty shows through. “You’re still gonna be here, right? You aren’t going home?”

Billy pauses. Fuck, this kid’s dad has done a number on her.

Justin was hardly ever around anyway, but he’d just packed up and left in the middle of the night – Billy doesn’t even know the last time he bothered to talk to her on the phone. Lulu’s gotten upset when she and Max had to say goodbye to Billy in the past, but she’s never acted this insecure with him. “I’m home now, Lulu,” he says, crouching down to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be there to say goodnight, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees in a tiny voice that steals his whole fuckin’ heart away.

“Who’s my girl?” he asks in a whisper, tugging gently on the end of her ponytail.

Her face brightens. “I am.”

“The best, Lulu.” He winks and she giggles. “Be good, okay?”

“Kay!”

He stands to his full height and Harrington’s eyes accidentally meet his. There’s still a small smile lingering around the soft shape of his mouth and as soon as he looks into those big brown eyes, Steve looks away. Billy bites the inside of his cheek, resists his automatic urge to say something spiteful, something that will get those eyes back on him.

He would like to be able say that it’s because New Billy knows better. But it’s really because he already knows from experience that it won’t do anything but make Steve that much colder. He wants fire, and all that’s there for him is ice.

He leans against the wall right outside the classroom door and…just listens.

Listens to Steve speaking, his sweet patient drawl used for the children in his classroom. “Alright let’s take attendance and then I want to hear all about what you did this weekend, class. Evan Adams?” He stays there, listening with eyes closed, until he hears, “Lauren van Haut?”

“Here!”

Billy shakes himself, pushing away from the wall. No sense mooning over a straight boy who thinks he’s lower than dirt.

TBC

#harringrove #teacher steve #soft billy #knock me out babe #my writing

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bookandcranny · 4 years

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Stone Heart Gambit

Part 1 - Chapter 2

Soso has always had good intuition, and never was she more unhappy to be right than now. She tails the car until they reach the treeline and then dips off the main road to one of the more concealed footpaths. By the time she breaches through to the other side, she’s late to the party.

Twenty or so college kids are tailgating in the clearing, some of them in rubber masks, others in face paint made smeared and sticky with gratuitous fake gore. Loud music crackles from car stereo speakers, interwoven with the sounds of laughter and drunken jeers. They line up on the lawn to throw eggs and empty bottles at the building and holler with triumph every time one hits its target. Soso ditches her bike and bag and edges around the chaos, trying not to be spotted in the crowd.

Her anxiety spikes. Now that she’s here, her suspicions confirmed, she realizes that she has absolutely no idea what she plans to do about it. Calling the cops would only throw fuel on the fire, and that’s if they even take her call seriously. Some drunken revelry, kept well away from the rest of the town and anyone else who might complain, probably doesn’t register very high for them tonight.

At least Surehouser has the sense not to engage with them. The library’s been closed early, the windows shuttered and dark. She hopes he’s alright in there. He’s such a recluse, she can’t imagine him standing up to this sort of crowd.

Another round of eggs pelt the front doors, met with uproarious cheers, and Soso seethes. He doesn’t deserve this; he doesn’t do anything to anyone and yet, because he’s a little odd, people find reasons to treat him like this. In that moment she hates them, and she hates herself for standing on the sidelines while this happens. She always imagined that when it came down to it, she would be the sort of person who stands up for others, but here she stands, frozen in place and feeling utterly useless.

Move, she tells herself. Do something. Fix it. You’re supposed to be good at fixing things.

In a burst of angry adrenalin, she pushes through the crowd and climbs on top of one of the parked cars. She gathers all the breath and courage she can and screams at the top of her lungs.

“PARTY’S OVER!”

She stomps the hood of the car, setting off the alarm and putting a satisfying dent in its surface. All at once the music cuts off and everyone’s eyes are on her. It should be terrifying, but she’s still riding that bright burst and instead she feels a strange swell of pride. Her own cry rings in her ears, loud and shrill with a hint of a growl to it that she hadn’t known she had in her.

Someone, presumably the owner of the car, curses loudly. “Who the hell are you?”

“Your- your worst nightmare!” A ripple of laughter passes through them and, yeah, that did sound pretty stupid, didn’t it.

One of the boys peels off his mask to get a better look and as he blots his sweaty face with the front of his shirt, Soso realizes that she recognizes him.

“Don’t I run errands for your grandma?” she says. “Kyle. Kyle Farafellis, right?”

He pales. “No, that’s not me.”

“How do you think your grandma would feel about this, Kyle? Are you even drinking age? Huh?”

“Get off the car!” someone else yells.

“Shut up, you’re next!” She points. “That’s right! I know all your grandmas!”

“What are you talking about?”

Okay, so she might not be getting as much mileage out of that bluff as she hoped. Trying to keep her momentum, she instead jumps down, picks up a discarded beer can and crushes it against her head, to try and intimidate them like she’s seen on TV. The can crushes maybe half of the way, and she’s not sure but her head might be bleeding now.

“You’re crazy!” someone says.

“That’s right! I’m crazy, and I can do this all night!”

The group begins to mutter amongst themselves, things like, “not worth it” and “let’s just go” and “need to call my grandma”. Amazingly, they begin to disperse, leaving only an equally amazing mess in their wake.

After they’re gone, Soso wipes her forehead— no blood, just some leftover beer. The rush of manic energy drains from her as suddenly as it arrived and she stumbles over to slump against the steps. She sits down in something sticky and winces. She wonders how often Surehouser puts up with this sort of thing. It’s no wonder then that he keeps to himself, she thinks.

Without the light of headlights, Soso is in the dark now, squinting even under the light of the bloated yellow moon. It’s probably for the best; she’s not sure she wants to see everything that’s become of the place. The library had been her oasis, such a tranquil little place untouched by the rest of the world. Now everything, even her friend the gargoyle, had been defiled and she hadn’t been there in time to stop it.

“Enough sulking,” she chides herself. “You’re not a sulkr, you’re a fixer. Start fixing.”

She starts cleaning up the best she can, picking up and piling the trash out of the way, wiping off as much egg residue as she can with her balled up sweatshirt as a rag. She can clean it later. Or burn it, she amends when she smells the thing. It doesn’t matter.

The vandalism of the gargoyle is what hurts her the worst. She just doesn’t understand how someone can look at something like this and not see the beauty in it.

“Is it just me? Am I really the crazy one?”

The stone creature is sticky with dried alcohol and drawn on in makeup and marker. Soso wipes clean its smooth surface with gentle care, feeling her frustration boil over and turn to tears.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Surehouser wouldn’t want her touching it, but she isn’t concerned with that at the moment, although she does wish he was here just so she could know he’s alright. “I’m going to help. I won’t let them get away with this.”

It sounds like a hollow promise, even to her. What’s she going to do, wave her arms and scream some more? She’s useless. Can’t protect her friends, can’t finish her degree, can’t do anything. Her fingers catch on a crack in the stone, bringing her back to herself.

“Sorry,” she chokes out again. “This is stupid, I should’ve…” She trails off. “I don’t how to do this, how to stand up for people, how to stand up for myself. This was the only time and, and all I could think to do was make an idiot of myself. And I was still too late to even really… ugh. What a mess.”

She takes a few deep breaths. It helps, and so did giving herself a moment to vent. She shivers. Without her sweatshirt, and with her temporary burst of energy now well and truly gone, she’s starting to remember why walking around the woods on an October night in a t-shirt was generally not advised. Cold, tired, and resigned, she gathers up her things to go. The plastic shopping bag slung around her handlebars crinkles in her hands and, on an impulse, she takes out some candy and sets it down on the ground in front of the gargoyle like an apology.

“A little holiday treat, on me. Happy Halloween.” She pats its head.

With that she hops on her bike and rides away. She wobbles a bit at first, but finds her rhythm with a sniff and a wipe of her eyes. As she goes, a silence falls over the clearing. It’s a true silence, not so much as a singing cicada or the rustling of trees to interrupt it. All at once the wind picks up again, the world resumes its steady turning, and a monster made of stone reaches down and curls his clawed fingers around a single, plastic-wrapped sweet.

She returns home. Her aggravation rolls over in surrender, exhaustion on its underbelly. Phoebe is there handing out candy in her stead and looking very much like she wants to know why, but Soso makes it clear that she doesn’t want to talk about it. She kicks off her sneakers, tosses her filthy sweatshirt in the bathroom sink, and collapses on her bed with a bag of candy pulled into the crook of her neck like a pillow. It’s not her finest moment.

She manages a fitful doze until a car alarm goes off across the street, rousing her with a groan. She could happily go the rest of her life without hearing that sound. When it becomes clear that the noise isn’t going to let up, she rolls over and checks her phone. It’s one in the morning. She has a concerned text from Carmen, by way of the house group chat, and a number of email notifications she can’t be bothered to check. Is it too much to ask for the rest of the world to leave her alone for a few hours?

After nursing her bad mood with some candy, she gets up to get a drink. The house is silent this time of night but she notices as she starts back from the kitchen that the back door is open a crack. It happens, and it’s not as though they live in a notably dangerous area, Halloween hijinks aside. But as she goes to shut it she could swear she catches a flicker of movement in her periphery. She ignores the quickening of her heart and shuts the door firmly.

There are scratch marks on the door; she feels them more than sees them, little divots in the wood around the edges as if something tried to pry the door open. That cat Phoebe had been seeing around, Soso reasons to herself. She’d probably been feeding the poor thing and now it’s become dependent on her attention. Although, the scratch-marks seem a bit high for a little cat to reach, and a bit deep. A coyote maybe? A bear? That’s ridiculous though. It would have to be a pretty bold bear to wander so far from the woods, as well as a pretty smart on to avoid being detected on the one night when the streets wouldn’t be empty until long into the night.

Feeling unsettled, Soso goes to the kitchen and flicks the nearest light switch. It gives her little comfort. When she turns around, the fridge door is hanging open, swinging gently on its hinges. The car alarm is finally silenced as she adjusts to the new quiet, Soso can hear someone moving.

“Carmen?” she calls. She could be coming back from her party about now, right? Or maybe the alarm woke up Phoebe. It could even be the nocturnal wonder Nessa, who Soso had only met on a sparse handful of occasions as she came and went from her cave of a room.

“Hello?” she tries again, venturing towards the pitch darkness of the common room.

“Hello,” the darkness growls back.

She jumps and just barely holds back a scream. A looming figure moves out of the shadows and as the light falls upon his face, Soso realizes that she knows this intruder. Maybe that would be a comfort if not for the context. The strong, angular features, the dull gray skin, the horns that sprout from his sloping brow, over a face that seems caught somewhere between human and animal. A feeling like hysteria comes over her. Surely she must be losing her mind to think her friend the gargoyle is standing before her.

The monster takes another step forward and Soso scrambles back, colliding with the counter.

“Stay back,” she trembles out, caught between fight and flight as she fumbles around for something to use as a weapon.

The monster, to her astonishment, obeys. He pauses mid-step and narrows his eyes at her, assessing, then backs away. He stands in the threshold of the kitchen, his flame-bright eyes tracking her movements. They maintain this staring match for a moment while Soso slowly regains control of her breathing, and then the towering beast cocks his head to the side and asks,

“May I approach now?” He sounds strained, impatient. Soso can’t help but wonder, if she says no will he listen?

“Please don’t.”

He doesn’t. He sits back on his haunches, lowering himself until they’re almost the same height. His clawed hands come to rest on his thighs. He is naked but for the torn scraps draped over him in the vague shape of some sort of tunic, and the remnants of some petrified plant life that tangle around his forearms like shackles.

“It was improper of me to enter your home without permission,” he says, his voice a rasping baritone. “I apologize.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay then.” She feels lightheaded. Suddenly the floor is moving towards her and Soso realizes about a moment too late that she is fainting.

Something catches her right before she can rattle her skull against the tile, and that’s the last thing she registers before unconsciousness overtakes her.

#original fiction #writeblr #fantasy #my writing #project: stone heart gambit #happy summerween yall

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all-by-myself98 · 5 years

Text

I’m Sorry

Fandom: Hellboy

Prompt: Your chest will glow when you get close to your soulmate.

Character: Ben Daimio

Warnings: It’s 2019 Hellboy. There’s definitely swearing.

It has been 8 years, 5 months, and 22 days since you were kidnapped and first experimented on. In those 8 years, no one seemed to care about your disappearance. The tiny box TV in your padded room tells you current events in the area and there is nothing about missing homeless teens from 8 years ago.

Fair enough. You didn’t have much friends back then except for a few other kids on the street you would hang around.

You also weren’t alone, from what you could tell. About 3 months ago, there was a lot of chatter with the guards about a new specimen locked away in their own special place.

The experiments performed on you consisted of a lot of weekly injections. They would also wheel you into a room but you were never awake or told what they did to you. All you knew was that, one day, you were completely normal and, over the next few months, you realized that you could manipulate your own, and other people’s senses. You had even attempted to escape by rendering the guards blind but you learned that they could block your abilities by turning on a specific frequency.

You knew you missed so much. You had been kidnapped at 18 from under a bridge where you made home. You were now almost 27. A lot of things would race into your mind.

Where are your friends from the homeless network? Did they finally get off the streets and finish high school?

What about the stray dogs you would feed every Saturday?

Did you ever get a call back on that job opening at the movie theater?

Is your soulmate well?

You had been the last of your friends to not meet your soulmate and, now that you were here in this hell, you doubted you would ever get to see him. You would just end up being a guinea pig for the rest of your life.

But it’s 8 years, 5 months, and 22 days after you were initially kidnapped that you will finally be saved.

It’s another mindless day of tests. They always run tests on you, learning about you and poking and prodding you. In fact, you have never left this compound. They let you do their dirty work for them from the same interrogation room. You sit in the room, they bring someone or something in. They tell you what to do to it, what to change, what to heighten or take away.

On this day, they do their tests as always. Eight AM to 1 PM, and then you have the rest of the day off to have your lunch, read, watch from limited television programs, and sleep. The rest of the time, they are working on their new mystery specimen.

It’s around 7 PM, after they slide your dinner under the door, that something unexpected happens. The television flashes off and doesn’t turn back on again. Almost simultaneously, the lights switch off and then are suddenly replaced by a dark glow from the emergency lights.

You frown, standing up from your place on the ground and checking the little stereo as well. It is also not working.

Then there’s commotions from outside. Yelling and gunfire and fighting. The hands on your arms stand up on end, goosebumps arise as the heating system is also shut off.

The eye-level flap to your door is opened and a guard yells out “Get back, you freak!”

You do as told, crawling back onto your bed in the corner of the room. However, before he can unlock and open the door, something big and red rams into him and throws him out of your view.

You suddenly feel a strange faint warmness from your chest. You look down to see that, through the gray T-shirt, there is a bright glowing emanating from your chest. Your soulmate is somewhere nearby!

What in the actual hell is going on?

The door is then thrown across your room, hitting the wall, with signs of scorching on what used to be the outside. A big, red, brutish man enters. He has long black hair, red horns that look to have been crudely sawed off, and yellow eyes. But his chest doesn’t glow. He isn’t your soulmate.

“Hi.” He says point-blank. “Um... I’ll be honest, we didn’t know anyone else was here except for the weird fish guy.” He adds sheepishly, an irony to the screaming coming from down the hall. “So anyway, we turned the power off... and yeah... we’re here to save you. Let’s go.”

He leaves, running down the hallways once more and you can hear the yelling and screaming of your abusers.

You follow hesitantly, peaking your head out of the empty doorway. Blood and bodies litter the floors and walls, scientists who experimented on you for years, others who didn’t lift a finger to help when you screamed and cried as a young 18-year-old girl. You follow the hulking red man from a considerable distance. He’s a new face and, with the mind games that these people have played before, you wouldn’t be hugely surprised to find out this was all some sick simulation.

But you also can’t argue that your chest is glowing right now. The sudden feeling of warmth and safety and love is not something they can fake. The feeling of real sticky blood on the walls isn’t something that can be faked either. And the hot scorching from the broken down door you left behind.

There is simply no way this can be faked, right?

All of a sudden, you find yourself thrown to the ground, a large creature on top of you. The large cat bares it’s fangs at you, its paw partially tearing into your shirt.

You scream, trying to push it off before you notice the same glowing that comes from your chest also comes from its chest. You temporarily blind the thing, giving you the advantage to push it off and away from you. In front of your own eyes, the large cougar begins to transform into a naked and vulnerable man.

The red-skinned person from earlier turns around to see what happened, noticing you shifting closer to the wall, hugging your knees to your chest with your shirt partly torn and the cougar man thing yelling that he can’t see.

“What the fuck, Daimio? She’s was held captive, you dumbass.” He pauses as he approaches you both. ‘Daimio’ is silent now, curled into a ball. You scamper away again, back to your room and grab a blanket from the bed.

“Why is he saying he can’t see?” The red man asks you as you come back.

You don’t say anything, though. You still worry that you’re still under the control of the scientists and you were always told to keep your mouth shut. Instead, you drape the blanket over Daimio, placing a soothing touch to his head. His sight is immediately back and, even though he doesn’t shy away from your touch, his whole body is stiff and tense.

You finally speak after you feel you’re in control again. “I’m sorry.” You whisper. Your voice is hoarse from a lack of using it. He relaxes a bit more under those words so you repeat them over and over again. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Daimio looks up once again, eyes open and eyesight fully restored. He repeats your words back to you when he sees the small tear on your shirt. And he apologizes again when he sees the glowing from your chest and his. But, with this realization that you two are soulmates, he finally relaxes and hugs you closer and refuses to let go.

You haven’t realized until now as you hug this stranger who is no doubt your soulmate close to you that you missed touch. Despite all of this control over senses, the one you yourself lacked the most over the past 8 years was touch. The scientists only ever touched you to perform their tests and experiments on you and, even before, living life as a homeless teen on the streets, you never got to experience this feeling much. You had associated touch with danger or weakness.

Now that you truly felt safe, you were willing to embrace the so-called weakness.

---------------

A/N: I totally feel like this was a bit extra and a bit too heavy on actions and descriptions but fuck it. As always, feedback is appreciated.

#hellboy #hellboy 2019 #ben daimio #ben daimio x reader #i feel like this is probs too much but oh well #feedback appreciated #soulmate au

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evien-stark · 5 years

Text

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 76

It didn’t take a genius to know that the Mandarin was not the only one who could and would get use out of Tony leaking your home address to the press. Even calling ahead to make sure the gate was secure didn’t really help the situation. There were helicopters hovering around the airspace outside, no doubt all equipped with plucky reporters aiming big news TV cameras at your house. Your private space.

At least it used to be.

Your phone was ringing off the hook- both your personal and work phones- the house phone- and all of Tony’s phones, too. Pepper’s voice was found somewhere in the mix of all the voices asking what the hell the two of you were doing- and she asked a very similar question. And then asked if she should come back.

To which you warned her, “No. Stay where you are. We’re fine. We’ll be fine.” She didn’t need to get wrapped up in this mess, too. It was dangerous. And she was better off wherever she’d ended up. When it all died down, that’s when she could come home. Something else you told her. But if she needed to work after the holidays, if this wasn’t all wrapped up by then, she could go to the Avenger Tower. That was a safe place, right? There were people there who would protect her, right?

Useless to think about now. None of that would help you. Or Tony. The two of you were in a giant mess. With seemingly no way out.

Your thought was to immediately leave. So as soon as you got in the door, you went by the living room to start collecting Dvahli’s carrier, her harness, a couple of her blankies and some food… she was really the most innocent in all of this and she needed to be somewhere safe. But when you turned around, ready to put her in and take her back outside to the car, Tony had mysteriously vanished. Although, really, not so mysterious, was it? You knew exactly where he was.

So, hoisting Dvahli (who absolutely seemed nervous, sensing your own nervous energy) onto your shoulder, you walked down the stairs into the lab. Bright blue holograms were spread out everywhere, and Tony was sitting on a couple of stacked stereos, watching high from above. Immediately you picked out the crime scene from the night previous. He was going over it?

The image of Happy lying on the ground, hand outstretched, was hard to look at. In front of Tony were a couple of windows of information that he was scrolling through. Hurriedly. Hecticly. Trying to find answers to something, probably. Wasn’t he always?

“We need to go, Tony.” Trying your best to soften up your voice.

“Go? Go where? Safest place is here.” He didn’t look up at you, crossing his arms, still reading.

“You just gave our address out to the public. This house is no longer safe.” He had apologized for this already, so it wasn’t the best idea to bring it up again. But he had to understand that being here was a hazard. There was no telling what the Mandarin would do after an explosive monologue like that.

Finally, he looked up. “I got a- what have I building all this stuff for?” The army you were sure he was referring to. “This house is the safest place we can be. He wants to attack, I got a thousand ways to hit back- speaking of-” He swiped the info panels away, easing himself down onto the floor. Coming to a stop right in front of you, he put his hand just over your chest. “Where is your-”

“In my purse.” A rehearsed line of annoyance that shot out from you as soon as you knew what he was asking. But you eased up immediately, realizing for the first time now was not the time to feel scared of it. “Sorry- I’ll… I’ll get it.”

He’d been frowning, but he tried on a tired smile. “Thank you.” What had the talk hours ago, in this very spot, been for, if not that? He was terrified of something happening to you. And really, he’d just invited hell on earth to knock on your door- so why wouldn’t he leave, then? He really must have believed in that army underneath the lab. Would it be enough?

He reached up to give Dvahli a little scratch behind the ear as you turned away to go back upstairs. To the bedroom where you’d left it. In a bag you hadn’t carried with you in a couple of days. But no one needed to know that. Least of all, Tony. But even knowing your circumstances now, holding it in your palm still made you feel queasy. Nervous. Something was coming. And you’d have to use it, for sure… no getting out of it now, but…

The doorbell ringing broke you from your thoughts. Great timing, as you didn’t really have the leisure of falling down yet another black hole. But- “JARVIS did somebody just ring our doorbell?” Confused. Incredulous. Tony had threatened a terrorist, his message was playing on all television stations, going viral on every internet news outlet. So why-

“Yes, ma’am. My apologies. Someone seems to be at our front door.”

“Who?”

“I’m scanning her now. She’s coming into the foyer.”

“JARVIS, no!” Scolding him as if he were a child. No, bad! Don’t do that! But- if he let her in, surely she wasn’t a threat? He wouldn’t let someone crazy onto the property, right? Taking Dvahli into your arms, slipping the Heart Reactor into your pocket, you rushed out of the bedroom, leaning out over the banister, hearing Tony conversing with whoever it was. “Who’s there??”

“Maya Hansen.” His voice floated up to you. “Old botanist pal that I used to know- barely…”

“Who?” Not expecting an answer back, but having no idea who the hell he was talking about. Or why she’d be here now. When no answer came and you heard them continuing to talk, you came downstairs, stopping just at the last step, giving her a long look as she looked back at you. Pretty young woman. Brown hair.

Scared.

A feeling you were getting quite used to.

“Excuse me, who are you? Can we help you?” Watching her. Carefully. Didn’t matter how scared she was. Everyone was a threat right now. And you were absolutely done with believing in coincidences. There was a reason she was here. Was it malicious?

“I need to talk to him- well, both of you- but not here.” At least she wasn’t stupid. But why talk to the two of you? What could she possibly want right this second?

It was Tony moving back across the room that drew your attention. A suit was standing a foot away from him, opened up. He must have answered the door inside of it. He was just as frightened as the rest of you. Mutual. But then why- “No. Sorry. We’re not going anywhere.” He told her.

You stepped away from the stairs. “Aren’t we? We need to go, Tony. We can’t be here.”

“What did I just- I told you already.” Waving his hands at you.

Maya brightened up. “Great. Let’s go.”

Tony turned to her. “That’s a terrible idea. Please don’t-”

So you turned to him. “We cannot stay here, Tony. You painted a target on this house, we can’t just- we can’t pretend like nothing’s gonna happen.”

He put his hands on your upper arms. “So what if something happens? I told you. I’ve got this. Right here is the safest place we can be- I can’t protect you out there.” Trying his damndest to get you to understand his need to have you close in a space that he trusted. That he built.

“I can protect myself!” Clutching Dvahli closer, as she mewled, unsettled. Upset. Just like the rest of you. “We can protect each other. Please, just listen to me…” Even through his troubles, through his foggy mind, he must have been able to make sense of this, right? You couldn’t stay here! It was madness!

“Guys-” Maya’s voice was somewhere behind you, but the two of you weren’t motivated into listening.

Stuck on each other, still. “I am listening, but honey, please try to understand-”

“Guys!” Maya yelled this time, snapping the two of you from each other. And when both of you turned, you saw her outstretched hand, pointing at a hovering feed on the television. A news reporter’s helicopter parked in the air space outside the house over the ocean- but- “Do we need to be worried about that?”

It was too late to zero in on what she was pointing to. What the media was already reporting on before it had even happened. A missile was headed for the house.

Practically the last thought that registered as the blast hit the side, the heat and full force of the explosion throwing you back. No time enough to react. At least not for you. The only sensible thing you found yourself doing was twisting, trying to protect Dvahli-

But in just another moment, as you collided back against the wall, your vision went dark. Tremors and rumbles played above you and you struggled hard to get out of that murky darkness. When you opened your eyes you recognized immediately the HUD that covered your vision. Not yours-

Tony’s. Tony had somehow suited you up. And, with Dvahli still snug under your arm, you pushed yourself up, looking out on the destruction of your living room. Seeing Maya lying face down. Unconscious. And Tony-

Reaching up to brace for impact as the ceiling fell. “JARVIS boost!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Throwing thrust into your boots so you could cover him just in time, holding your free arm out as you knelt over him, feeling the impact of debris hit your back hard. Something the suit took easily. Zipping your eyes up, you deactivated the helmet, looking at him as it pulled back. He had entered that terrified state, even looking at him you knew. “I’ve got you.” You told him, carefully. Gently. About as much as you could afford.

“I got you, first.” Relieved that he was still in there and not succumbing. You needed him now more than ever. “Like I said, we can’t stay here.” You’d have to hit him later for his sass.

As the two of you found your feet in a weak stand, another blast rattled the living room, parting the two of you, throwing him to the opposite side of the room. Your brain was chugging just a little too hard. Squeezed by the multitude of feelings so suddenly. Your own. Tony’s- and Maya’s you realized, as she was just regaining consciousness. It made it hard to breathe.

Turning back you tried to get to him, but another hit underneath the structure of the house crumpled the floor of the living room, tearing him further from you. “Tony!”

“Get her and get out- don’t stop- go!”

With only his directions guiding you, foolishly you stepped away from him. Still in his suit. Dropping to a half kneel, you yanked Maya up by her arm, no time to worry about if you were hurting her, Dvahli tucked firmly underneath your other, and you tried to find enough footing and a clear path to sprint out the closest opening. When a beam fell you held your hand up with a push, expecting a blast, but nothing came. “JARVIS talk to me!”

“Mark 42 is a prototype and not fully powered, ma’am. I’ll assist you. Brace for impact.”

He lit up a flight path directly forward and with no further warning he put another boost in the boot jets and you wrapped your arm around Maya to protect her as the two of you went full thrust through the glass windows, falling out onto the lawn. It took you too long a moment to register as your brain was quite literally shaken around. When you finally forced your eyes open again and moved to a kneel the suit was forcibly removing itself from you.

Piece by piece. Something you’d never seen before. Tony was calling it from inside the house? You didn’t have a lot of time to register as suddenly you were fully bare and another missile hit the house sideways, pulling the ground from underneath you as the whole structure slid on an uncomfortable angle. A return blast finally came and you knew Tony must have been trying to stop the hits from landing from inside.

What to do? What should you do?

Turning to Maya you shoved Dvahli into her hands with a warning. “Anything happens to her I’ll end you.” Not enough time to worry about whether you were threatening an ally or not. Just sure enough you were sending a message. That cat was more precious to you than almost anything else- yet you didn’t have time to protect her yourself. Something that would make your heart ache and your guilt run free if it weren’t for terrorists blowing up your house.

Reaching into your pocket you pulled the Reactor free and pressed it to your chest, giving it a double tap. Suit up was longer than you remembered as those nanobots crawled over your clothes and skin. When the helmet lit up over your face, a bunch of warnings were blaring.

“LUNA, talk to me!” “Some systems were damaged in the blast, ma’am, I’m working on rerouting power!”

Another helicopter got hit with a second blast, sending it whirring down in an angle too close to the house, slicing the top. You held your hands up with that forward momentum, sending a powerful blast to shred it to pieces. Voice booming out, you really only had one thought on your mind. “Stop wrecking my house!” The emotional shock of release send a shiver through you.

Too little too late as the ground beneath you groaned in a snap, sending the contents of the destroyed house tumbling down towards the ocean. Another pained cry escaped you, and you held both hands up again to target a shot towards the third helicopter that was hovering close, poised to fire on you. That was the wrong move though, wasn’t it? Where was Tony? A thought that was too little too late as this one came raining down on you. You had to bend to shield both Maya and Dvahli- and then the worst thing happened-

You felt the break, and heard metal collapse as the house slid and then collapsed into the ocean below. Once the rain of debris was over you ran straight up towards the edge. “LUNA we’re going in!”

She killed your jets, leaving you in a collapsed lurch clutching the ground. “Ma’am, the suit is too damaged. We’re no longer air tight and we’re not fully powered- if you go down there you’ll drown!”

“Tony talk to me!” The only second thought that mattered. Was he clear? Did he make it out? The house was still sinking. No answer came. “Tony!” And still nothing, as the rest of it sunk so deep down you couldn’t see it anymore. “LUNA where are his vitals?”

“I’m not synced to Mark 42, ma’am-”

A guttural cry of frustration ripped through you and you backed away from the edge, boosting yourself into the remaining debris at the bottom of what was left of the house. The basement was destroyed, but underneath you saw that solid steel ring that was housing that army he’d built. Suits staring back at you. Empty.

You smashed the glass case on the closest one. “LUNA, take this over!”

“Ma’am- only JARVIS’ network is allowed access to the Iron Legion.”

Your options were running thin. Pulling your helmet back, not that it mattered, you screamed. Practically begged for anyone at all to hear you. But most of all- “JARVIS where are you!? Activate this suit for me!” Your hand smashed against the metal frame, unlocking the case completely, pulling the lifeless suit from its frame. “JARVIS!” Same as Tony.

No answer.

Your breathing was out of control. Tears had started an easy free flow. Still, you screamed. “JARVIS where are you!? JARVIS!!”

Flooding out in a cascade of chaotic energy, collapsing to your knees, barely holding yourself up any longer. “JARVIS I need you- where is Tony? JARVIS! JARVIS!”

LUNA was the one to answer you. “He’s not answering my calls, ma’am…”

“You can do two things at once my fucking ass, JARVIS!” Fists pounding uselessly on the ground like that might shake him loose from wherever he was hiding. He’d gone down with Tony in a new suit that wasn’t meant for much yet- had they cleared the ocean? Should you just go down there anyway? What if Tony- Tony was drowning- and you were just-

The next cry that ripped from you shook the very earth.

“JARVIS!!!”

Sitting there. Screaming yourself hoarse. For too long. Time just rushed by you. You just sat there uselessly. Calling for him- and- “Tony…” Scared to try. Scared to reach out into those depths. You should- you should-

You should.

Gathering up what little precious left there was of your energy, already knowing that by now you’d- you- had wasted too much time- you were responsible now- you stood on uneasy legs, clawing yourself up from that hole, to stand on the edge once more. “We’re going, LUNA-” Too late now. Too late. Your fault.

“Ma’am-”

The world seemed to crack as she said this, there was a sudden pair of hands on your shoulders. Yanking you hard from that edge. Turning back you saw Steve- of all people- “What are you-” Having trouble finding your breath. “What are you doing- what are you doing here??” Were you hallucinating?

The painful look he was giving you threatened to take everything you had inside of you. “I was on my way, when Stark- ...somebody just blew up your house, what do you mean why am I here?” As if that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Maybe he was right. “Where is Tony?”

At that moment, Steve was the only thing holding you up any longer. “LUNA…” Begging her to tell you anything that wasn’t the truth. Tony had cleared the house, right? He’d gone off somewhere? She’d managed to link up with JARVIS and everything was-

“Ma’am… JARVIS has deactivated.”

You crumpled inward, the world went dark. This was your fault. If you’d just had the Reactor on you- if Tony hadn’t had to save you- if you’d had your own suit like you were supposed to- if you’d done anything else- if you’d just gone into the ocean anyway and held your breath- he would have for you- so why didn’t you for him-

Tony was dead and it was your fault.

“Hey-!”

“Not now, Fury.”

Voices were holding conversations around you. You had no idea where you were. You couldn’t move- didn’t want to. Why not just die here, like he had? What was the point of it anymore?

“LA looks like it just timewarped to 1992. She needs to-”

“I said not now.”

They continued bickering. None of it mattered. None of this made sense. Nothing made sense anymore. Tony had needed you and you’d let him die. It was your fault. Your fault. You were barely clinging to reality anymore. Crying until you couldn’t breathe. Tony was dead. It was because of you. That was the only thing you knew anymore.

Steve tried to pull you from the wreckage but you just couldn’t budge. It became a fight. You beat your fists at him, cried at him, let yourself fall in a heap on your knees to the last place you’d ever call home. It was destroyed, much like your life now- and it was your fault.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way-” You heard yourself choking out these words in a sob as he finally forcibly lifted you up, carrying you out of the ground and onto the lawn.

More helicopters were circling, but through your blurred vision you saw agents on your property. Pulling yellow tape and shooing away reporters. SHIELD, you realized. Spying Coulson with a team of people at his heel. The sun was going down. Fury was barking orders.

What did any of it matter anymore?

As you cast a weak look up Steve’s way, feeling returning slightly through your numbness, his hands gripping your arms tight, he was talking. You couldn’t hear him. For a long while. He was just talking and none of it was registering. His hands were on your face. Turning your head. Wiping blood off your brow. A medteam in pristine white suits came over and then left.

He was talking. He was talking. Finally, the ringing in your ears you hadn’t even realized until it died down, dissipated, and some of his voice broke through. “Let’s go back to New York-”

And some of your strength returned so you should pull away from him. “No.” Your voice didn’t even sound like your own anymore. “No- I won’t leave- I won’t-” You couldn’t go anywhere but here. You had to stay here. What if JARVIS came back online? What if Tony needed you- what if- what if-

Steve said your name. Hard. Shaking you just a little, hands on your arms clutching. “Listen to me. Look at me. Tony was in that part of the house- when it went in? What about his suit? Was he in his suit?”

“He- he had- it was a prototype- it was low on power- and mine was damaged-”

“Listen. Listen.” Stopping your new fresh weeping and babbling. “Look at me. Stark went in there. He didn’t come out. Did you see him come out?” Your eyes dropped from him as you felt another collapse imminent. “You have to-”

With all your fury you shoved him away from you. “No- stop!” And when he reached out you felt another rage ripple through you, hands forming tight fists at your sides, eyes closed tight as you screamed at him. “STOP!!”

The sound of holsters unlocking- the click of guns with hammers cocking- it became very clear. Steve turned his back to you, spreading his arms wide, covering you. Because every SHIELD agent in the vicinity just drew on you.

For what?

“Stand down!”

Whether it was your fright that stopped them, or Steve’s sturdy commands, they all lowered their weapons. “What’s happening?” Now? Here? To you?

He turned back, hands on your arms again. “You need to calm down-”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” How could you? How dare he? Didn’t he understand? Could he possibly understand??

“Ma’am.” LUNA cut through the rest of it, and even as Steve started talking again you held your hand up to shush him. And you waited. You waited. Holding your breath. “I have a delayed incoming from the secure Stark Industries server.”

“-wait-” You begged her. Frightened to near death. Delayed message? Delayed recording? Was this Tony’s last goodbye? A sort of- in the event of my death- …? “Wait- please- is it-”

“The message was sent fifteen minutes ago.”

“Play it.” Desperate. Not even sure the sound you’d just made was actual words.

But when Tony’s voice filled your ears you felt a weight lift. Just as you fell to your knees again. Holding your hands to your ears to block out every other sound surrounding you. Just letting his voice fill you. The tears came fresh as he spoke.

“Honey, it’s me. I’ve got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time. So. First off. I'm so sorry I put you in harm's way. That was selfish and stupid and it won't happen again. It’s me. It’s always me. I want you to know that. Which is why- second- when we’re done here- got it. Therapy. Whatever it takes. I promise. And I'm sorry in advance because...I can't come home yet. I need to find this guy. That's all I know. I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian. And- JARVIS is down. I’ll send coordinates when I can. Because we’re a team- and well… I’m sure I’m owed an in-person beating after this. But not more than the guy that blew up our house. Wait for me. I love you.”

You asked her to play it again. And one more time. And… one more time after that. Crying uselessly into your hands. Tony was alive. Tony was alive. That was all that mattered.

At least that’s what you thought. Until you heard Maya arguing with Steve. Turning your head up, trying to collect yourself, “What? What do you want now?” Agitation returning fresh and easy. She’d been at your house just before it blew up. There had to be a reason. No coincidences in your life anymore, remember? But when you saw Steve blocking her still, you let go of a hard sigh. “Let her- just- let me talk to her. It’s okay. She’s holding a cat. She’s not dangerous.”

Least of all because if you found out she was part of this you’d reach out and snap her neck right now-

She came over, kneeling on the grass, lowering her voice. “This was why I wanted to get away. I need your help. I know who did this.” You held your breath. Feeling the kick to your stomach as she said, even quieter, “I think I know where the Mandarin is.”

Well. That was that, then, wasn’t it?

You were going to go kill the Mandarin.

#Tony Stark #Tony Stark x Reader #INY Chapter Seventy Six

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karimcbride · 4 years

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Three Girls

They sat crossed-legged on the floor in a circle under the twinkling lights in Marisa’s room, in middle rested a mammoth Astrology book and a few crystals. Lacey had to smuggle all of it in a duffle bag because Marisa’s family was southern Baptist. Her mother would have lost her mind if she thought witchcraft was within her walls. Vanessa, on the other hand, brought nothing to the party. She always showed up with only the clothes on her back, hands turned out.

They felt like a haven, but they called themselves a coven. They didn’t dabble in the Occult or Wicca, but to the suburban barbies they might as well have been witches. Their friendship was a weird thing in an ordinary place.

“It says right here, Aquarians and Scorpios are fire together. You are a giver, and he is a taker, but that you like that. You feed each other,” Marisa said, looking up at Lacey.

Lacey sighed deeply and threw herself back onto the shag rug.

“Of course. I don’t ever stop giving, and he doesn’t ever stop taking. That has been our deal since day one.”

“Not to be a bitch, but I don’t know why we are still talking about him,” Vanessa said, picking at her nails and not bothering to make eye contact. Her disdain for the subject of Cullen was palpable. She didn’t even pretend to hide it any more.

“Marisa, read to me about me and that cute boy from photography,” said Vanessa.

“The freshman? What’s his name? Scott? Dude, I don’t know anything about him. How can I read to you about him?”

“Don’t give me shit about his age. Who cares if he’s younger than us? He’s hot and I want to know my odds.”

“I would say your odds are pretty good. Half of the school wants to be with you Vanessa,” Lacey said.

Last week Lacey saw Cullen with Vanessa. His arms rested low on her hips while he spoke to her in a recessed corner of the hallway. They were both far more advanced than Lacey. She didn’t have her first kiss until freshman year, whereas they both had lost their virginities by then. They oozed something that was another language. Something that exuded from their bodies in the way they angled their limbs and in the slight of touch that only those who had climaxed could comprehend.

Vanessa kicked her black boots off, revealing her toes poking their way out of fishnets. Lacey looked down at her own feet in her hand-me-down white Keds and white socks. She hid them by tucking them beneath her crossed legs.

“I’ll read to you about him. Do you know his birthday?” Lacey reached forward and grabbed the book, eager to get her mind off of Cullen.

“He just had a birthday last week on Friday I think? What would that make him?”

“Last Friday was the 26th. He’s a Libra.”

“Oooooh!” All three girls rang out in unison.

“Another Libra. Barf. Whatever, read it to me, he’s still hot,” Vanessa said pulling her curly hair down around her finger and releasing it into a bounce.

“Scorpio and Libra are the perfect match. Emotionally they will connect on a level unlike any other. It is a deeply satisfying connection—“

“I don’t want to date him Lacey. I want to do him. Get to the sex part already.”

Lacey flipped a few pages and picked back up reading.

“Scorpio and Libra’s sexual relationship is both exciting and challenging. When you think of their love making, think of animalistic natures.”

“Okay that is more like it!” Vanessa practically howled, snatching the book from Lacey’s chubby fingers.

“What about you Marisa? Feel like reading anything about you and Brent?”

Vanessa ran her tongue along her teeth, staring at Marisa without blinking.

“I’ve read it before. Nothing new or interesting to read in that book,” Marisa said.

“I guess when you’ve been together for half of your life, you don’t really have anything left to learn about each other, huh?” Vanessa tossed the book at Marisa’s feet and thumbed through her CD collection.

“Can we listen to something else. I’m kinda sick of this total chick pop.”

Vanessa was quick to point out what was too mainstream, what was last year, and what every one else’s main-malfunctions were. To say that she was trying too hard was an understatement, and yet also felt untrue. To try to keep up with Vanessa was pointless. She popped in an obscure CD that they had all purchased one night at an open mic night.

“At least this has some kick to it. I started following these chicks you know. They are pretty cool. I think they are playing again this weekend in Freeport if y’all can get a weekend away?”

“I don’t think so,” Marisa said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I mean, I would love to go for sure but there is no way my parents would let me go.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it as she saw the words hit Vanessa’s face in a wince. Lacey felt the tension and spoke up, “Well I can probably go. I just need to not eat lunch all week and tell my Mom I’m staying with you.”

“I can always count on you Lace!” Vanessa popped her in the thigh and kissed her cheek. “I’m hoping we can take notes while we are there. How sweet would it be to form our own band?” She air strummed the guitar in wild motions.

Just then a knock at the door came followed by a soft and gentle voice. “Girls. It’s getting late. I think it’s about time to turn the music down.” Marisa’s mom popped open the door, sticking in her head just enough to see the top of her doily laced gown. “Yes ma’am.” Marisa retorted as she jumped up to turn off the stereo in hopes her mother wouldn’t see the books on the ground. “Thank you sweetheart. We’ll have breakfast ready first thing in the morning. Daddy is making his signature pecan pancakes for you girls! Sleep tight.” She pulled the door shut and all three girls let out a sigh. Marisa’s mom wasn’t one of those Christians who believed that everything had to be by the book, but she was not someone who approved of most things their generation cared about. “I guess we ought to go to bed. I am pretty tired anyway,” Lacey said. She yawned and stretched out onto one of the two daybeds in Marisa’s massive renaissance themed bedroom.

Nights in early October were often the best nights in Houston. It was the beginning of the turn of the weather, when the mosquitos started to die and the breeze started to make its way back to the trees. Nostalgia was born on these nights, before football games and between jacked up trucks in parkings lots. And for these three girls most especially when the windows were open and they were staring at the moon and talking.

Vanessa found she wasn’t as tired as the other two girls laid down to sleep. She excused herself to the “rooftop terrace” as they lovingly referred to the tiny bit of shingles outside of Marisa’s window. This was where she often snuck cigarettes and wrote in her journal. She could hear Lacey and Marisa’s low murmur through the window. She shivered, pulling a lighter from her jeans and lighting the last cigarette she had that she stole from a half empty carton on the patio before sneaking out of the apartment. It was the fourth place she had lived in the last ten years. She couldn’t remember the last time they had a yard, much less her own room. She thought about her mom a lot in her moments alone. She felt like such an asshole sometimes, an ungrateful shithead kid. Before she left to come over to Marisa’s tonight, she had a huge fight with her Mom. Vanessa played it over in her head and how she had told her mom she was going to die alone and that she might as well move out now because she didn’t feel like she lived there at all. Her Mom was a pediatric nurse at a hospice center in the medical center in downtown Houston. She worked crazy hours and was often flustered when she was not working. Vanessa knew it wasn’t her Mom she was pissed at, but she wasn’t really sure what it was she was actually pissed at.

Vanessa grabbed her phone and flipped it open. She stared down at Cullen’s number, contemplating calling him. Before she knew it, it was ringing. “Well Hello.” His voice was raspy and deep. It made her smile instantly as a warmth spread to her toes.

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adevotedappraisal · 4 years

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Short Story: Gershom, part one of two

A short story about a memorable day in the life of the most famous folk-hero of Barbados, one Winston Hall. I played loose with the actual facts of Winston’s life, the way all folk tales do, but also because the story is less about the particulars of his life and more of the imaginary mind-state and desires of a person in solitude who wishes to connect with a country that is as scared and confused about him as he is of the country itself. Enjoy.

Gershom part one (the mid-day son)

By Christopher White

Run always. Run until it doesn't make sense, until it gets too thick and it makes more sense to stop. Do the patrol. First go up to Old Ledge and do some sight seeing from there. Look. Look at the brown on the rooftops. Look at that section there with the path by the side. You made that path, trample all over the grass. It makes the runs quicker. Sky is clear. No rain smell, good. Mrs. Graves must be cooking by now. She makes good veggies. Are you hungry? You aren't hungry, good. Anything out the ordinary from the sight-seeing? No. Children going school. Look at that little one. Cheez on bredders I know he mother back when she was a child, now look she got a lil' boy. What's her name? She was cute girl, she used to look at me and smile sweet. I thought she did love me, but I was seven, I ain't know what love was then. She was cute. What was she rassole name now? It's an 'M' name. Anyway, check the trespass traps. No one has been up here. Good. Look up again. Look at that sky. Now look at the green. Go over by that mango tree and tie your lacens. What was her name? Winston stood by the mango tree overlooking St. Joseph and tied his shoe-laces carefully. The wind was soft but enough to push the trees to swaying. Down the hill was a pasture, a display of overgrown grass with an arcing path carved into it, made by Winston four months earlier. The countryside was silent save for the cheering that the leaves made in the wind, the occasional high shout of the school-children going to the nearby Primary School. A wooden crate laid half buried and overcome by the dirt, and one of the primary school boys stopped to kick at it. His mother quickly came and slapped his hand and the boy cried and breathed in, cried and breathed in, breathed in, then breathed in again, and then let his cry carry over the sloping section of the country, through the primplers of the dunks trees, over the ribs of the stray dogs, under the stereo of Stephen ' Step-Hen' Roberts, and into the tightly knit and thatched corridors of the Hill-trees (sparkling from the sun light coming through), past the perpetually deciduous Breadfruit tree until the last bit of the cry met the mango tree, and made Winston Hall look up, causing him to pity the boy and his own childhood, the recollections of which were as faded as the child's bellow.

The sun went on during the morning as Winston stayed mostly behind the large and thick line of trees, and carried his supplies as he made the trek to Chimborazo, where a sizable patch of farm land lay. On his walk along the ridges and down the dips along Joe's River and up through the slowly-swaying trees Winston remembered bits about his childhood. He thought about Primary School sports and how he was real good with the egg and spoon race. His little secret was to do the race on near tip-toes. A strange sort of balance, a strange sort of control occurred when he did this. The finals race was him up against Peter from down the gap, and Peter was the favourite because he had just won the 200m easily, but Winston had his technique. By this time of the day the sun was becoming soft around the Pasture of the school sports, and the sno-cone vendor had run out of evaporated milk, and Winston was ready. He got the lead early, trying to absorb all the shock of movement through his toes and knees. His eyes were on that egg, brown and wobbling, then he looked up at the yellow tape. He kept his nerve, trying to keep all his might and auspices on this one task. Mrs. Licorish was shouting "Go Winston! Lick down boy, lick down!" and he kept it all out while he warbled on. Winston stopped his thinking of his younger-Winston and looked up because he thought he saw someone. Down boy. keep low. Look for shadows that don't move like trees. Could be an animal. Could be nothing. It's not a person, you would have heard something by now. People is mek noise when they walking without minding their walking. Look the field over there. Good carrots and lettuce. The soil real dark. Gets turned over alot. He could grow some weed at the back there. Make himself some extra money. Remember Dizzy. Dizzy used to get a small boat and go over to Tobago every fortnight to get weed from he stash. Went with him sometimes. On the boat over he used to sing Sam Cooke tunes. Good voice. Barely used to hear him and was right across from him. It real hard to sing at a whisper and sing well. But you could do it if ya practice. I shoulda win that egg and spoon race. I lose concentration. I was thinking about the prize before I get it. Got complacent. Rest pun my laurels before I had de laurels. Peter just took advantage. He was safe tho. It was my fault. I wonder where that silver medal is? Mummy was proud or not? Mummy say once that she wish she had chinee eyes. I tell she I still proud of she eyes. She hug me. Okay stash de bags here. Come back later tonight. Get some carrots then. Sometime during the day you gine be hungry. Just hol off till you get to Robert. Robert got something for you. Remember. Later this evening. On his way back near Suriname, Winston heard a rap song. He wondered when was the time that rap got so popular in Barbados. He cared neither way for the music, it wasn't the music of his youth, and he really hadn't the time to learn new music. After getting free from prison during the late nineties he made it to the foot hills of his home-hamlet of Suriname, but on the way he remarked at all the antennae that were on top of roofs, all the fancy new cars on the road, and the even more churches that popped up during his imprisonment. By the time he reached Robert's house he was dirty, smelling of sweat, and tired, but the first thing he whispered to Robert was "wait Robert, Bajans sell dey ass to de Devil to get these new tings or wha?"

The sun had gone behind a sudden construction of clouds. Through the spaces in the clouds the sun came down in verdant lines. Winston was in a tree looking out at the country-side and nursing his right knee with a handkerchief in a way similar to this:

He had injured his knee on his latest escape from prison around four years ago. It was morning and the guards knocked on his door and said "Hall! Bath!" Winston got up off of his lumped bed and pushed against the wall. Silently he pushed against the inside of his cell, grimacing his futility only to himself, fingers clawing the faded paint, the thick stale air reminding him of his situation, of his choices. He did this same gesture to the walls everyday he remembered to do it. The young guard knocked on the door then the door opened. He stared at Winston. "Come 'long." he said.

Down the corridor he walked with the two guards flanking him, looking at the sorrowful structures of the century old prison. The feeding chain in the prison no longer surprised Winston. 'Big Criminal eat the little one' he mused. He noticed his feet chains were not the way he remembered them. He was walking with more freedom than the previous mornings. 'water goes to the path of least resistance' he thought. 'Geography teacher said that. But what was his name?' he thought. Then he pushed the guards fiercely aside and ran.

A large percentage of the Prison officials were in a meeting, and Winston ran like if he knew this beforehand - with reckless determination. Prison pants-legs rubbing swiftly against each other as Winston darted through some boxes then up near the play-court where Justin Maynard and Harold Peters stared in amazement at Winston's bursts. So concentrated, yet so risk-taking. Winston ran like freedom to the wall. The guards ran in pursuit and motioned others to tell the rest in the meeting. Gravel sparkled over his legs, then no gravel as he leaped up onto a shed and then onto the sharp-toothed wall. He looked back, at the galloping guards, at the stunned new-comer prisoners and the observant veterans who stopped the basketball game the moment they realised that this was an example that their fellow prisoners should view. They stood up, some cheering, most just beholding. Beholding Winston thirty feet up in the air on the precipice of a barbed wire wall that overlooked an over-run gully packed tight with all types of things discarded.

Winston jumped, not flailing, but not sure.

Don't squeeze it, just put you hands around you knee. Just let it know that you there for it. That jump was messy as blood. Uneven ground to land on. Thought it was broken. Thought it had snapped. Still bothers me to this day. Doesn't hurt when I bend down, only when I get up. This is good enough. Look at the sky. Sun coming back out. Look at the cloud shadow on the ground. That woman is coming back from dropping she son off from school. She doesn't work. Now I remember, she does, she just goes out 'round mid-day. She breasts look good. She do she hair pretty well up just to drop she son off. That's what I like. A woman that care what she look like. What is her name? I should run down there and ask her. Just ask her and kiss her and tell her I ain't got shite to give you but my heart and hope. I should tell she I want she to hope for me. Hope I work something out of this life. I is a good kisser I feel. Suck bubbies good. I would be a good father for de child. Child father aint around. I don't see any man ever with her. I would discipline the child good. I would love the child good. Tell he everything I know. Tell he everything to make sure he never end up like me.

Miriam Lowe walked down the cracked road to her home. She took her glasses off and started to clean them while walking by memory. She put them on again and stared at the trees and over-run grass behind the row of houses where she lived. Some of the children call that area the jungle and so she forbade her young one to go there without her. Her slippers flapped lazily as she walked up staring at this elaborate chaos back there. Fear truly resides in the unknown. Because fear implores you to assume, demands that you suppose the nature of the things that scare you. She day-dreamed a cabal of mad rastas in the hills, scorning the plaintive practicality of a remote control. Or she dreamt about drug dealers with huge weed trees reaping their harvest that would stick a knife through anyone who discovered their bounty, or any little boy. Maybe back there was a time warp, and pirates and runaway slaves and vampires and duppies and ravenous forest wolves all lived between the trees, all waiting to feast on the minds that fear them, the minds that are so scared of them, that they imagine them on morning walks while cleaning their glasses. Miriam walked up the unpainted steps and into her home. She put the boy's colouring books into a pile, and looked at the back of the newspaper. She then looked straight ahead at the picture of Kevin Lowe, staring straight ahead, policeman hat and visor sloping and shiny across his forehead, lips pursed, against a plain blue background. She stared at him and smiled at the dead man. On the nights that she would invite a man over for a night-time coupling, she would turn that framed picture down onto the glass cabinet that held assorted souvenir cups and decorativia. She put the kettle on the stove, sat down to gather herself before she left for work at a Christ Church hotel. She sat in her chair, bright from the sun coming through the ajar door, and thought about the duppies going to work in the bushes behind her house and up the hills. She thought about this until the kettle began to scree, unsure at first, then full throated as soon as enough of the water had boiled within it. Winston was down in a depression near Joe's River checking on stash B. He had a series of places where he stashed supplies, clothing and weapons. He walked further into the dense grass and further into the hills to Stash C. Stash C had dry foods and loose magazines he managed to get. He took out a green plastic bag filled with dry food and walked further down until the denseness stopped and the ground became softer. The ground gathered on his shoes but he walked on. The ground became sturdy again and a small pasture emerged; mostly dry grass and cracked earth. At the far end of the pasture was a tree with rope tied onto the base. Attached to the base was a dog, pacing silently back and forth, wagging all the while. There he is. He always lets me know he missed me. Give him a hug. Scratch his belly. Wrestle the bastard to the ground. There you go. He likes so much games. Is that lice there? No just dirt from the play-fall. Well, give the bag of dog food. Look at him nose through that. Sometimes you wait too long to feed him. Remember that. There was a boy in primary school who used to take children food from them. Used to call him Charles Bronson. Found out years later he was taking all that food home to feed his brothers. I would have given him the food if I had known that was the reason. He didn't have to hit me that one time. I cry but stop real quick. But I learn that sometimes you could reason with a man, but sometimes it doan matter. When a man hungry, all he know is letting go blows for food. Everybody like that. When dey back to the wall, they would beat they dog for food. Policemen is got to beat confessions out of people to get de case finish. Dem aint care, but when they job on the line dey beating up poor people. And if that poor person was a policeman he would do the same thing. Sometimes my back was to the wall. Sometimes I didn't have nuh big money for nothin. And sometimes I had to share out fuckin blows too.

And so Winston went through the day, hiding between one spot and the other, travelling with his dog, scouting out movement in the areas of St. Joseph, and thinking an assembly line of thoughts to stop himself from going mad. Winston's torment was not only his choices of his youth ( a naive 20 year old creeping up to a plantation house looking for quick money), but also the realisations that these choices were simultaneously making him more popular and more apart from this country he took for granted in his youth, as we all have. By the time of his second escape from prison (third from police custody), Winston Hall had managed to become the most well known male in Barbados while at the same time being the one person who had the least knowledge of what was occurring in his country for a man his age. He could tell you the best escape route from the gully near Richmond's house, and the best unguarded breadfruits in the parish, and how to separate normal flashlights from more expressive police flashlights, but at the same time Winston had no idea of the movie theatres that were cropping up, the dynasties of night-clubs that rose and fell over the decades, the spread of the internet, the drugs, the government, the rise of women in schools, the travel accounts for black managers at insurance companies, the carve of a rally-car tire into the asphalt, the smell of the west coast after it flooded and killed a few people, the look of a signature on an invoice slip of a DVD player bought at a department store, the progresses, the illusions, the pursed lipped rage of this country, all these things were apparitions - stories he might hear about but never care about because his country was not our country, his anthem was not the same we sing at events half-heartedly, his motto was of no high-minded Pride and Industry, but of only one word embedded into his thoughts, permeated into his action. His only motto was Survival. The sun was beginning it's slope downward now. Mid-day had come and Miriam was in a Transport Board bus rocking slightly, hopping up whenever the huge busses went down into a hole in the road. The grass and boundless grass that went by the window went into her eyes, left the memory that this road had grass on the sides of it, and then the rest of the images left her mind. The distinctions were only picked up by her under-mind, her subconscious, and her under-mind seldomly reminded her of how the world truly looked, of how the world truly operated. While the Bus stopped at a traffic light, and in the background, Grantley Adams Memorial School loomed sprawled by against the pastures. It was then that her under-mind began to remind her of the way her life truly was. The images of her late husband slapping her into the wall of their house came up. Miriam closed her eyes. She countered by reminding herself that he truly loved her, and she was not a door-mat for her man because she could get any man she wanted in Surinam or most places. She knew of the constitution of her breasts. But she stayed because she realised that things get complicated when you get older. "When you are a teenager or a girl like that of course you coul' leav ya boyfriend like that, because the only obligation is to the relationship. There is that thing telling you that you could get a better man. "But when you get married to a man, have a child with a man, get a house with a man, appliances, garden supplies, new bed sheets with a man, ya is become more entrenched. It's harder to leave. All of a sudden you start weighing everything. You is say to yaself 'yeah he hit me las night, but he change de child diaper real good and fix de back door'. The practicality of him over-weighs the emotional shite he might get on with. All of a sudden you get stresses when he get stressed, and vice-versa. We hurt each other differently when we in bad moods that is all. He shoved me into a wall when he was angry, and I tell he that he need to clean he ass better or I ain't gine suck he balls no more. People get hurt in different ways I guess." she thought to herself. The bus went along through the country. Past the mini-marts and the wooden churches and the rum-shops, and into the roads filled with hotels and night-clubs and well-designed restaurants. She rang the bell and got out, and went into her hotel. In the back room Janice Callender had her hand up her skirt pulling her shirt tail down so that it was all flat against her. The younger girl looked at Miriam as a bigger sister, an aunt, a guiding hand of some sort. "Miriam," Janice said while they got prepared for their work of work and smiling. "Yeah what happen Janice?" "Um, wha you would do is you man cheat on you? You woul' cut off he doggie?" "Nah, I wouldn't do that." Miriam said, "Men gine do tings like that sooner or later. I wouldn't even leave he." "Fuh trut? Why you wouldn't leave he?" Janice asked. "Because if you want to be in a relationship you is realise that ya aint in just a relationship, you in a life together. You have to learn patience, and hope, and most o' all, forgiveness. Love is mess up we head, and make us put up wid a lotta shite from de people we love. But to tell ya de truth, I wouldn't have it any other way." Miriam said. The two stood in the back room fixing up, and then Janice said, "but what if he was pun de down low with a man?" "Then I woul' throw he bullin ass out de house and cut off he doggie." Miriam said as they both laughed themselves into the hallway.

All was calm during the afternoon. The grass was knotted up amongst each other and the clouds moved softly. Years ago, there would be Reddifusion boxes wheezing out the hymns and solemn-spoken events of the day, but now those radios were gone and now a home stereo would vibrate bass-lines from a house where an unemployed man might live, or a woman at home with her child, or a middle-aged man going through a youth resurgence, listening to young-people stations while taking a day home from work. The community was at rest, as it usually is, as it usually expects itself to be. Winston sat behind a clutch of dunks trees mostly bare from being picked by Winston all the time. He was sharpening a piece of wood by planing down the edges to a point. Maybe he'd use it as a weapon, maybe he could stick it in the ground, tie rope to it and use it as an anchor for a make-shift tent if he suddenly had to run. Mostly he was doing it so see the soft, tender slices of wood peel off from over the knife and flick off playfully to the ground. Thin bends of wood, making not a sound as they were cleft from the wood that they were part of. No reason that they were now separated from their wood except from pure boredom now, or maybe pure usefullness. In any event, the wood shavings probably understood that these things were a course of life, and it didn't have to be fair, or expected, or planned, or even holy, in order for it to be a part of life. Winston took up the shavings from the ground lest anyone find them and suspect that he was living nearby. He was chewing some tamarind leaves slowly. "Tastes just like de tamarinds" he always told himself, and even as a little boy, it always calmed him down whenever he remembered that tamarind leaves calmed him down, because sometimes he didn't remember. He sat in the shade, his stomach not grumbling, and just stared at the countryside. Most would not believe this but he was not overly concerned with his legacy. He was so pre-occupied with survivng for no other reason than to survive that he seldom really thought about the impact of his survival on people who didn't have to. He once read an article when he was in Trinidad about the situation of the ghettoes around and the near Port-Of-Spain. The reporter asked a question, "How do you think your condition here in this squalour reflects on Trinidad and Tobago on a whole?" and then the reporter reported that the ghetto citizen had nothing to report on the question initially. He wrote that the man just stared at him as if he had never thought of anything related to this. The citizen then said " Ah cahn really say what other people should tink, ah only know what I tink. Maybe it reflect bad bad bad, but maybe nobody else really tek this ghetto into dey mind. In fact ah doan tink they do tink about the ghetto enough to feel ashamed or anyting about it." He heard shouting, but did not startle himself because he immediately recognised it as children's shouts. He slowly looked out and down the road from behind the trees and stared. He counted the money and objects in his pockets as he stared. Bajan women legs either small or big. They either skinny or meaty. no inbetween. They hips move like if only the hips dancing. Mrs. Fenty hand is getting better. Moving it better. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve I feel her husband broke it thirteen fourteen fifteen she looks like the type that would get beaten sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty and that's where ya is usually grab a woman when ya hold she rough twenty one twenty two twenty three twenty four - twenty four dunks in de right pocket. There's the little boy. The neighbour is carrying him home along with her son one two three four five his face is round just like his mothers six seven eight nine what is her name? ten Maureen? eleven Mary twelve wait Mary? thirteen Mary-Ann? fourteen fifteen Maybe Mary-Ann is she name. That is the closest I could get. I still feel I wrong, but less wrong than before sixteen seventeen. Seventeen bills I got, de same as yesterday so I know is de same amount. I is think about that girl too much one two three I getting feelings for she but I need to still concentrate on tings four five six seven eight she is treat people so good tho nine she so sweet to de other people ten when she laugh I is could hear it eleven and it is a laugh that so sweet twelve I want to mek she laugh like that bad bad bad thirteen rassole I love she? fourteen love who? I only love myself and mummy fifteen I have to talk to she, introduce myself to she, mek she laugh for me eleven, shite I think I lost count. Miriam tugged on the left side of the bed to make sure both sides of the sheet tails draped evenly off the bed. She looked outside the window at the sand, at the waves. She thought about drowning and then moved away from the window. She walked down the corridor, light thumps on the carpet when she walked. She sat down in the break room where the lockers were and unfolded the foil over her lunch. The smell of the beef chunks rose up and made her scramble for her fork. She speared one and shoved it in her mouth, biting down forcefully. She pushed the other chunks to the side to keep for later and scooped up the rice with her thumb on top of the place where the fork bent downwards. She enjoyed the meal but didn't smile about it. Smiling usually comes from enjoying the thing itself only for the entertainment in it. Food that you ate when you were hungry served the purpose of keeping you alive more, so there was little entertainment to enjoy about hunger-eating as opposed to say, eating ice cream. Miriam thought about when she was a child hiding from her father. Balled up inside a suitcase, she watched through the open zipper teeth as her father looked under the bed, sweetly growling her name, with his penis dripping. Yolanda came into the break room. Miriam looked up at her. Yolanda smiled back. "Doan be so sad Miriam. Jesus helps us all." "yeah...you right." she said, then took the beef into the fork and carefully bit the meat from the solid bone, using her tongue to rotate the piece, while she thought about dark rooms.

The sun was on it's stage to rest by the time Winston got underway to see the dog again. He thought about the future for the first time in a long time. He usually only thought about the future in terms of where things should be, where things are expected to be tomorrow: the sun comes up over there in the future, the school children sound this way in the future, the crickets will go like this in the future, the wind is expected to blow like this, and then like that, and then it would relent. But he never usually thought about that other future - the future that you can change. He wasn't one to think about five years into the future, because in his mind that was absurd. Other than the days, or maybe hours before a jail break he didn't think about his involvement in the future. Even in Trinidad during the calm nights, rain outside and the woman warm against him cooing herself to him saying, "Tony you is mek me feel safe, ya is a strong man ya hear me?", he never thought long about marriage, or where the little children would be in ten years or anything large like that. He just went on in his mind about what the rain was expected to sound when it slowed down to a drizzle, where the only big sounds would be the fat-as-cunt rain drops that fall from leaves, or dribble down the galvanize roof notching into the ground. He would think about that, then about the next day, and only after tomorrow came would he start to think seriously about the day after that, and what the accoutrements of then should look like. End of Part one.

#short story #winston hall #caribbean #barbados #long read #Black Fiction #island fiction

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bonniejstarks · 4 years

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Kinfolk’s Katie Searle Crafts a Beautifully Imperfect Life

Chantal Anderson

When Kinfolk magazine emerged in 2011, it quickly became a cultural touchstone for a distinct millennial aesthetic that combined rustic twee and Scandinavian minimalism. Like a cross between Martha Stewart Living and your coolest cousin’s Instagram feed, its pages evoked a world of wind-swept daydreams: Maine lighthouses perched above cranberry bogs. Camping recipes for Dutch-oven cornbread and spicy dandelion greens. Long-haired dads in denim jackets cutting down Christmas trees in snowy forests. Photogenic friends gathered in fields of clover.

The magazine inspired legions of devoted fans—despite its modest circulation of 85,000, its best-selling companion books sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and in a certain milieu the name “Kinfolk” was ubiquitous, as if it had distilled an essential vapor of youthful identity. Its devotees fanned copies of the handsome paper magazine on their reclaimed-wood tables and made pilgrimages to its Portland, Oregon, offices. But the magazine also inspired a backlash that ranged from legitimate critique (it featured few people of color) to self-satisfied snark, construing the publication as peddling the absurd fantasy of an impossibly perfect and privileged lifestyle.

A photo spread at the beginning of The Kinfolk Home, a companion book, shows Nathan Williams and Katie Searle, the beautiful twentysomething couple who founded the magazine along with friends Dan and Paige Bischoff, sitting in their Portland loft, on an elegant tweed couch in front of walls striped with sunlight—both of them fair and beautiful and stylish, dressed in minimalist dark clothes. It looks like a life built from sophistication and composure, as if one could summon domestic harmony with style itself, almost like casting a spell.

But as with most glimpses of paradise, this one already held in its frame the seeds of its own unraveling. After Nathan and Katie relocated the magazine from Portland to Copenhagen in 2015, they lost a baby—Katie delivered their son, Leo, stillborn at six months. Just a few months later, when Katie was pregnant with their second child, Nathan came out to Katie as gay, and they decided to end their marriage. At three months pregnant, Katie moved back to Oregon to be closer to her family, preparing to raise their daughter as a single mother.

Katie Searle and her daughter, Vi, photographed in Oregon last December.

Chantal Anderson

It might be easy to look at Kinfolk and simultaneously crave, distrust, and resent the perfect lives it seems to evoke. It’s the same envious resentment we bring to Facebook pages and Instagram feeds, the triple punch of projection, aspiration, and repulsion we often fling at lives that appear more ideal than our own. But in truth, its pages don’t testify to perfection so much as its impossibility: how every “ideal” life is actually a constructed fantasy cast across the troubled fissures of reality, in ways that are more vexed and contradictory than we imagined—and in this human trouble, also more full of grace.

On a crisp evening near the end of 2019, I meet Katie for dinner at Ned Ludd, a lamplit restaurant located just across the street from Kinfolk’s old offices, which are now occupied by “tech bros,” she tells me, who have let the wisteria grow wild along the exterior walls. Named for the original Luddite, Ned Ludd was where the magazine held one of its annual Christmas parties, and the interior feels reminiscent of Kinfolk’s early rustic aesthetic, full of raw wooden beams and brass chandeliers, with hip-hop on the stereo and pine boughs on the bar. It’s clear that for Katie, that Christmas party belongs to not just a different era but to another life.

It has been more than four years since Katie lost Leo, saw the end of her marriage, and moved back to Oregon to give birth to her daughter, Vi; and almost a year since her boyfriend, Joe Ensign-Lewis—the doctor with whom she fell in love just after Vi’s second birthday—died in a car crash when the van he’d rented was struck by a reckless driver. He was in the midst of moving into Katie’s house, where they were going to build a home together.

At 31, Katie has survived the loss of a child, the end of a marriage, and the death of a great love, but her presence holds vitality rather than weariness: Her warmth feels grounded by a solid core of deliberate resolve, her compassionate attention is electrified by intelligence, and her luminous eyes flicker with the competing vectors of disclosure and restraint. Her friend Sarah Winward, an early Kinfolk collaborator in Salt Lake City, calls it a mixture of fire and poise. Petite and slender, almost elfin, Katie looks like a college student, but of course I don’t say this, because she also looks like a person who might get tired of being told, “You look like a college student!”

Over dishes that could have been lifted from the pages of one of Kinfolk’s autumn issues—river trout stuffed with lemons, foraged mushrooms on toast, and a maple shrub soda our waitress calls “agrarian Gatorade”—Katie tells me about her childhood growing up in McMinnville, in the middle of Oregon wine country, a town known mainly for a famous set of UFO photographs taken there in 1950.

At 31, Katie has survived the loss of a child, the end of a marriage, and the death of a great love, but her presence holds vitality rather than weariness.

CHANTAL ANDERSON

Katie’s parents divorced when she was six, and she was raised in two homes: by two lesbian moms who are former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and by a still-active Latter-day Saint father and stepmother. Growing up, Katie experienced a deepening cognitive dissonance about the fact that the church taught her that her mothers’ lesbian relationship was wrong—“Their being lovers was as close to murder as sin could be”—but that they were also the most “Christlike” people she knew. She wondered how the Latter-day Saint notion of eternal families, the belief that the devout will dwell in heaven with their families forever, would apply to her own. Her mother, Jill, remembers how Katie tried to integrate the very different worlds of these two homes—one day she came into Katie’s bedroom and saw her sitting in a yoga pose with a crystal in one hand and the Book of Mormon in the other.

Katie met Nathan, also raised a Latter-day Saint, at Brigham Young University–Hawaii. In 2009, when Katie was 20, Nathan proposed in a Hawaiian forest under tree branches strung with hundreds of battery-powered tea lights. Though she had vowed not to marry young, she said yes, because she felt the presence of a divine design larger than her own intentions. When Nathan called Katie’s mother, Jill Searle, and asked for her permission to propose, he told her that he was planning to be a doctor, and that he would always provide for Katie. So a few years later, when he quit his job at Goldman Sachs to put out a lifestyle magazine full of photo-essays on juicing, Jill remembers wondering, “What happened to that doctor thing?” But Nathan was successful at everything he did. “We used to joke that he had the Midas touch,” Jill says, though he never took any of his mother-in-law’s ideas. (She once suggested a large-print issue of Kinfolk called “Old Folk.”)

In the early days of the magazine, it was a “complete labor of love,” Katie says, with all their friends doing the photography and design. She and Nathan packed and shipped the first issue from a friend’s living room. Katie smiles when she remembers the time they photographed hydrangeas spilling out of ice cream cones: how cold it was that day—even though you can’t tell in the shots—and how that chill was part of the grit and the magic; how wonderful it was to muddle through together.

Katie embraced that sense of community, but things shifted over time. As the staff got larger, Katie moved from an editorial role to a managerial one, and Nathan’s commitment to the magazine grew more consuming. Right before they relocated Kinfolk to Copenhagen, they ran it out of the loft where they lived. Katie was pregnant and struggling with morning sickness, but she would still wake up early to get everything looking orderly before the rest of the staff arrived. “It was a nightmare,” she says. The business had invaded their home, a concrete manifestation of how much of Nathan’s life it had already absorbed—an irony, of course, for a magazine committed to the idea of slow living and work-life balance. “We were so busy with Kinfolk, it was just like a hamster-wheel situation most of the time we had together,” she says. “I didn’t really stop for one moment to pause and focus on myself.”

When I ask Katie how much she felt the magazine was her dream as well as Nathan’s, she tells me that she has spent much of her life struggling to identify her own tastes and preferences. For many years, she didn’t realize how malleable she was—how much of the patriarchy of her church she had internalized. “I one hundred percent have codependency,” she says. “And I think a lot of that stuff is from the church.” It taught that her role was to be a caregiver, so it made a kind of psychological sense to spend much of her marriage supporting her husband’s vision: “All the moves we made, all the things we did for the business, were more or less Nathan’s dreams.”

“I one hundred percent have codependency. And I think a lot of that stuff is from the church.”

As we drive on darkened highways back to McMinnville, Katie tells me about how different it felt when she fell in love with Joe in 2018. Joe was completing his psychiatry residency at Oregon Health and Science University and lived with a big-hearted ferocity that thrilled her: He enjoyed simple pleasures like fast food and video games, and got teased for saying, “Guess what? I love you” to his friends and family all the time. Her friend Sarah remembers how Katie talked about Joe in the beginning: He’s just such a dude. He’s such a bro. He’s rowdy. He wears sweatpants. “She loved the way he lived unapologetically,” Sarah says.“It lit Katie up.” Candid and unrestrained, Joe was the opposite of Nathan, who had always been quiet and private. While Nathan brought out the serious side of Katie, Joe summoned her goofy side. “When Joe came into her life,” Jill says, “it was like we got our Katie back.” He’d never heard of Kinfolk when they met, and Katie liked that. Joe didn’t want her silhouette from a Kinfolk photo shoot. He wanted her.

Chantal Anderson

Joe was devoted to Katie’s daughter from the start. Their first Halloween together, he and Vi dressed as bumblebees, and Katie was a beekeeper with a long white veil. Vi called him Joe Joe. “Joe had a lot of firsts with us,” Katie says—visiting his first pumpkin patch, cutting down his first Christmas tree—and she is glad he got to have them before he died.

The couple didn’t end up getting much time: They met in October 2018, and Joe died the following March. Katie’s grief for Joe isn’t just grieving for the loss of what they had, but for what they never got—the children they might have had, the additional father figure he could have been for Vi. “I don’t regret at all how deeply we fell for each other and how hard we loved each other,” she says. “I’m so grateful for it. We’d never felt that kind of love, and we were able to experience it together.”

Katie and Joe Ensign-Lewis—the doctor with whom she fell in love just after her daughter’s second birthday.

Courtesy of Katie Searle

Halfway to McMinnville, Katie grows distracted and starts fiddling with her GPS. She has realized the route is taking us past the site of Joe’s accident, where she has not yet returned—it took her months to even get in a car. (Her mom would drive Vi to preschool.) In the early days of her grief, Katie felt pressure to perform hope at the end of every articulation of pain, to reassure people that she would be okay. But she learned to push back against her impulse to offer silver linings—to convey hope only if it was what she felt in that moment, and to accept that in other moments, she might feel like doing something else: yelling at the sky with Vi, or driving to a place called the Rage Room with her mothers, where she got hammers and mallets and all kinds of things to break (“The wine bottles were the best”).

When I ask Katie if she has ever just wanted to wail at the universe,“Enough!,” she shares that when she found out Joe was dead, she kept repeating, “ ‘I can’t do this. I don’t want this….’ ” she says. “What kept blurting out of my mouth was like, ‘I remember this. I don’t want this again.’ ” Her body remembered the brutality of grief. She wanted to push it away like a toxin, or an intruder. But driving along the dark Oregon highway, Katie clearly holds her pain close; it textures her sense of self with ragged edges and long furrows of loss. She tells me grief isn’t a tunnel, and the point isn’t to emerge on the other side. You don’t move through it. You learn to carry it with you.

Her body remembered the brutality of grief. She wanted to push it away like a toxin, or an intruder.

Under gray skies the next morning, the air smelling like pine and smoke, Katie shows me around downtown McMinnville. The streets are striated with layers of her history: the boarded-up coffee shop where she used to get steamers in high school, and the sidewalks where she’d run into childhood acquaintances when she returned from Copenhagen, three months pregnant and single. Back then, she often had the impulse to share too much in response to questions about her life: Yes, I’m pregnant, but my husband is gay and we’re getting a divorce and I’m going to raise the baby on my own.

Katie points out the entrance to the hidden speakeasy where she took Joe on their first date, and then the movie theater they went to with Vi one night a week before he died. Vi couldn’t make it through the whole movie, so they left early to get ice cream. These are the ordinary nights that become electric with significance when you realize you will never have more of them.

We eat breakfast at a farm-to-table café that Katie identifies as McMinnville’s first hipster establishment, though back when she was growing up it was a paint-your-own-pottery shop called All Fired Up. At the end of their senior year of high school, she and her girlfriends had a fancy dinner in a little loft overlooking all the pottery, and after they ate, they climbed out a slanted window onto the roof. “Just to give you an idea of how unrebellious we were,” she told me, “this was our idea of breaking the rules.”

But after a few minutes, they thought they heard the cops on the street below and climbed back inside so quickly they scraped their backs on the window frame. “We didn’t last more than two minutes out there,” she tells me. “I was very much a goody-two-shoes kid, and I’m still very afraid of authority.” This is a woman who has trouble jaywalking, and who didn’t start drinking until her mid-twenties. She didn’t cuss at all until her marriage ended; now, she cusses all the time. “I feel like I could say the f-word every few hours when I remember what happened in my life,” she says. Joe cussed constantly. She sometimes pictures him as a young child, teaching himself how: “I have this vision of little Joe standing in front of a mirror and being like, bitch, fuck, damn. Just practicing in the mirror. Seeing what it felt like.”

““I feel like I could say the f-word every few hours when I remember what happened in my life”

After Joe died, Katie wanted to break a few rules in honor of him. She told his brother she’d call him from jail, to bail her out, but her version of breaking the rules has been both less dramatic and more meaningful than breaking the law. She has stopped telling people what she thinks they want to hear, and started being honest about her own needs and desires instead. It’s part of a larger process of self-assertion that’s been happening since the end of her marriage—a process that includes the tattoo across her forearm. She got the first installment—the simple phrase “ilove,” an anagram of Leo’s and Vi’s names—when Vi was a baby. After Joe’s death, she took a group of his loved ones to get tattoos with her. (“You have to remember that a lot of these people are Mormon; it was a big deal for them.”) Hers included a J for his name, and a tiny bumblebee. Katie told me the pain felt right. She even wished it had hurt a little more.

Chad Ford, Katie’s college professor and mentor, points out that Katie getting tattoos with Joe’s family and friends is one of many ways she makes her pain communal. “She’s not just lost in her own grief,” he says. “She also has this ability to share it.” Ford flew out to Oregon a few weeks after Joe died, and though he’d seen her go through other life-altering losses, something about this grief felt more shattering: “She was really at the pinnacle of happiness, as happy as I’ve ever seen her in her life. I think she finally saw a life that she wanted, and then to watch it crumble…. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard her wonder, ‘Am I cursed?’ ”

A sketch of Katie’s tattoo, featuring the letters “ilove,” an anagram in honor of Leo, her first child, who was stillborn, and her daughter Vi, who is three, crossed with a “J” for Joe, her late partner.

Courtesy of Katie Searle

Katie lives in a quaint farmhouse-style home on the same street where her mothers have lived for decades. She bought it two years after moving back to McMinnville, and says setting it up felt like discovering her own aesthetic after years of keeping her preferences submerged. This was the home that Joe was moving into when he died, and their last argument before his death was about what couch to buy. “Nathan was all about form over function,” she says. “But Joe was the opposite.” He wanted a comfortable couch and didn’t care what it looked like.

We sit on the one Katie bought soon after his death—comfortable in honor of Joe, but also stylish, a way of staking her own spot on the form/function continuum marked by these two men—facing a fireplace full of candles, and the massive plastic trampoline that dominates Katie’s small backyard. She tells me she assembled it herself. “The moral of that story was, Read the instructions,” she says. But perhaps the moral is also that a woman who’s been called “graceful” her entire life—“It’s an adjective people are always using about me,” she says—might be other things as well: determined, competent, resourceful, capable of building a trampoline twice her size so she could jump on it with her toddler daughter. “There are two things I’ve done in my life that were physically impossible,” she says. “One was birthing Leo. Second was building this trampoline.”

We will always lose what we love. There is no deeper truth than that, no other way.

Both Jill and Sarah describe Katie as a “memorializer,” and upstairs, in her bedroom, she shows me a shrine dedicated to Leo: ink prints of his tiny hands and feet; the tiny blue knit hat they put on him at the hospital in Copenhagen; his ashes in an urn; a stuffed lion that Vi sometimes takes down from the shelf to play with (though all it takes is one look from her mom, and she immediately puts it back). Katie tells me that bringing the urn through airport security when she was coming home from Copenhagen was “the most public display of disarray and just pure grief that I have ever manifested. I just didn’t want to let it go.”

Katie wonders if it sometimes makes people uncomfortable to see these shelves dedicated to Leo, and I say that maybe it does—but maybe there’s something useful for them in facing that discomfort. There is one kind of beauty that tries to survive pain by covering it, and another kind of beauty that tries to survive pain by expressing it—by integrating that pain into daily life in a way that might allow a person to be fully present. There is a Chinese saying that before you can conquer a beast, you first must make it beautiful; and this is the kind of beauty I sense in Katie’s home—the transfigured beast, the beauty of carrying grief rather than shunning it. It’s not an easy beauty. It’s hard to look at that tiny blue hat. It’s like staring straight at the sun. We will always lose what we love. There is no deeper truth than that, no other way.

When she was pregnant with Leo, Katie tells me, she pictured him as fragile, a lion cub—someone she had to protect. During the period of time between learning about the fatal defects in his heart and terminating the pregnancy, she could still feel him kicking inside of her. “That was a painful time,” she tells me, and these five simple words summon an emotional crevasse that’s hard to fathom.

Before Leo’s delivery, Katie and Nathan had imagined they wouldn’t want to hold him, but of course they did. The first thing Nathan said after he was born was, “He’s perfect.” He was stillborn, but he still looked like an absolutely ordinary baby—just tiny and quiet and still. “Some people don’t understand that I have two children,” Katie says. “I have a daughter and a son.” Katie says that when you lose an infant, you are also mourning “the imaginings of that child…envisioning what they were going to be like, and experiences you’d have with them.” With Leo as with Joe, she is partially grieving what never was.

“We’re all just figuring out how to take each step within that pain,” Katie says about rebuilding her life and creating a home for Vi.

Chantal Anderson

The mussels that Katie cooks for our lunch—simmering in coconut curry, flecked with shallots and bell peppers—could have come from a Kinfolk spread on winter hospitality, but they hold the ghost of an era—its distance as much as its residue. Nathan used to make these mussels for Katie on special occasions, especially when they lived in Copenhagen, where seafood was cheap and plentiful, but she never tried to make them herself. She always felt like an inferior cook in their marriage, so it’s a milestone that she’s pulled them off today. She’s far away from the wife she was then, dressed in the elegant black clothes Nathan always felt looked best on her, and as we eat this beautiful food—tearing hunks from a crusty baguette, breathing in the humidity of the spicy broth—Katie points out the un-Kinfolk-like aspects of her life: her messy counters, the pre-minced garlic she has scooped from an economy-size plastic tub. It strikes me that she’s taken what she loved best about that world—food as a catalyst for gathering and intimacy and care, beauty as a form of holding memory—and left its more constricting elements behind.

After lunch, Katie brings me to Vi’s preschool to watch her holiday recital. Vi sings “Jingle Bells” in her candy-cane-striped dress, carefully concealing a little green bell behind her back until the time comes to raise it high and shake it. When she waves at her mom and grandmothers in the audience, the sense of joy and closeness among all three generations is palpable. But it’s not a joy that has forgotten anything. It holds everything that has come before: Jill holding the body of her stillborn grandson, and then bringing her pregnant daughter back home after the end of her marriage, or standing in the hospital room when Vi was born, punching out of Katie with one tiny fist under a stormy sky full of thunder and lightning.

“I feel really broken, but really whole.”

As we watch Vi in her special reindeer glasses, it feels like the moral of Katie’s story is that no life has a moral. Or, at least, no life has just one. Old morals are joined by new ones. Katie’s story is a story about loss, but it’s also a story about care—a mother’s care for her daughter, that daughter’s care for her own daughter; the kinds of care made necessary and possible by the strange, unforgiving territory of grief. It’s a story about losing the Latter-day Saint idea of eternal family and gaining another sense of family, just as durable, in its place. It’s a story about leaving the beauty of Kinfolk and forging a new sense of beauty in its wake; a story about losing one partnership and forming another one, and losing that one and saying “Enough!” and waking up to live another day, even when it feels unbearable. “We’re all just figuring out how to take each step within that pain,” she says.

Katie’s life is now about beauty as sustenance rather than performance. It’s about letting herself be many things at once: “I feel really broken, but really whole,” she says. “A huge part of me is missing, but I found part of me…. I’m so grateful yet feel so robbed.” Katie no longer thinks of life as a search for happiness as if it were a destination, a place where you could remain in perpetuity. Pain isn’t what you’re trying to transcend; it’s part of where life happens. So she allows the present moment to hold the residue of all the wreckage. She makes the beast beautiful, and lets the contradictions stand—broken and whole, grateful and robbed, missing and found.

A version of this article will appear in the June 2020 issue of ELLE.

Subscribe to ELLE for Just $10

Leslie Jamison Leslie Jamison is the New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering, a critical memoir; two essay collections—The Empathy Exams and Make it Scream, Make it Burn; and a novel, The Gin Closet.

The post Kinfolk’s Katie Searle Crafts a Beautifully Imperfect Life appeared first on Trends Dress.

from Trends Dress https://trendsdress.com/kinfolks-katie-searle-crafts-a-beautifully-imperfect-life/ from Trends Dress https://trendsdresscom.tumblr.com/post/614027662141358080

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thewineabout · 5 years

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I’ll give you a light (When your hands tremble) Chapter 3

Notes: Everyone has been so nice to me thank you. You can find this fic with all the relevant tags and ratings on A03!

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The car is unsettling when the only noise is the hum of driving: the engine, the all seasons on the wet pavement and the hood cutting through the air as they speed. Chris doesn’t risk checking the rearview because he doesn’t want to see Stiles sitting coiled up in the back and he really doesn’t want to think about what the kid looks like now. Older, that much he knows; his first glance over had told him that. He might even look like John if it weren’t so dark.

Allison would have started to resemble Victoria’s sister by now; they had the same eyes and chin. She’d have lost the teenager youth; would have grown into the adult he never got to meet.

Chris shifts in his seat, leg stretching out the best he can while maintaining his foot on the pedal. His knee bounces twice.The strangling guilt Chris carries around crawls up his throat until he has to swallow and press his tongue against his teeth; the protein drink he’d sucked down an hour ago left them gritty.

Peter’s heavy palm lands on Chris’s leg hard enough to make his thigh twitch under the ensuing grip. Chris can guess what he must smell like; the wolf gets tactile when either of them start to fall into the specific misery he’s feeling now.

The stereo continues to croon into the car but when the song changes Peter’s fussing with Chris’s phone to jump passed the Aerosmith slow jams to Cage the Elephant.

Chris feels guilty about it, always does, but Peter’s jarring sense of humor eases the pressure from the base of his lungs.

They drive like that, with Peter smirking to himself as they take an exit that loops them back to the south side of the highway.

When he looks over again, Chris’s gaze catches on the splatters of inky red decorating his partner. “Change your shirt, Peter, Jesus .” It barely sounds admonishing when it’s mostly breath, but Chris tries, and the tighter fingertips on his leg feels like a fair response.

“Stiles,” Peter waits until brown eyes move from the window to the space between the front seats. “Pass me a shirt from the bag beside you,” the wolf twists in his seat to gesture to the duffel Chris had yanked clothes from in the parking lot.

There’s movement in Chris’s peripheral, shadowy rummaging elbows, and then a black tee-shirt is sailing over the center console. It almost smacks into the dash but Peter snatches it and makes a show of taking off his bloodstained one.

“You never let me bask in it,” Peter complains, and Chris knows it’s just to hear his own voice. “It’s always: change your shirt Peter, brush your teeth Peter, not in this fucking car Peter.”

There’s a snort from the backseat that feels like a windshield chip in the tension.

The motel they pull into has a flickering vacancy sign; it’s the nicest thing about the place.

The parking lot smells like piss and there’s broken glass littering the sidewalk up to the office where a bell announces Chris’s solo entrance much louder than the thud of his boots over the threshold.

“Need a room,” he says and slaps down cash to the cut out in the counter; more cash than a shithole would have any dream of asking for. A surplus of money in the bank means he and Peter have never worried about the cost of discretion.

The woman behind the polycarbonate divider doesn’t lift her watery eyes up from her phone longer than it takes to appraise the stack of bills. Her bubble gum pops as a key attached to a chipped plastic number clatters through the slot just a moment after the money is fed into a lock box at her feet.

His key reads 4A and when he’s back outside and looks over at the long building he can tell the letter designates them on the ground level of the two story dump.

It looks like the kind of haunt that movies try to mimic to get that specific might get murdered ambiance. Chris knows he can’t really complain about it considering he’s got a murderer sitting in the car arguing with their kidnapped teenager’s taste in music.

“Who let the dogs out does not have the same ironic value as Hungry like the Wolf,” Peter is sniping, fully turned around in his seat. “And, it’s an irritating song I would never voluntarily listen to.”

“You’ll play Beast though?” Stiles has a leg hanging out of the SUV; the door open since they parked. “It’s funnier. It’s funnier Peter, you can’t fucking argue that.”

“That’s racist,” Peter sniffs and then turns his head over to meet Chris’s approaching gaze. Peter’s brows are up and the corner of his mouth budges in the direction of a smirk he is visibly containing. “Stiles is making dog jokes.”

Chris shrugs both shoulders, “you put him in the car.” He knows that Peter hates anything in the vein of canine humor, he’ll make the occasional crack about himself when the mood strikes but he doesn’t tolerate it from anyone else. Chris is surprised that he looks unbothered.

The keys jangle when Chris holds them up and gestures Stiles out of the car with a hike of his thumb. “We’ve got that room,” he points two doors down from the stall they’d pulled up into and moves around the back of the SUV to tap his knuckles against.

There’s a quiet snick and whuff before the back door is popping up and Chris eases it up above his head.

Peter slinks out of his seat and gives Stiles a pointed snub as he skirts him to get to Chris, specifically the keys he’s holding and the overnight bag stacked on the top of their totes and duffels of supplies.

“This place looks like we’ll be sleeping in the car,” Peter says with a distinct wrinkle to his nose. He shoulders a bag to each arm and leans forward in a distracted way Chris recognizes as skin seeking.

“Your breath, Peter,” Chris reminds as he leans away from the wolf and snatches up a soft sided cooler. The trunk comes down and he bounces his weight against it to be sure its closed; it doesn’t stick like his old one but the habit’s still there.

A loose chunk of concrete skitters through a scatter of glass and startles the men into looking back over at Stiles. He’s standing with the grimey yellow motel porch lights at his back, it makes him look bigger than he is. Nothing to distinguish between the lumps of his sweater the outline of his body in the dim.

Stiles rubs his hand through his shorn hair and then crosses them both under his armpits. “You know, this is the first time anyone’s thrown me in the back of their murder van before taking me to a shitty motel.”

Chris blinks and raises a brow a little. He doesn’t want to feed into the restless energy clearly spooling out of the teenager. Stiles’ fingers are fiddling and his body shifts like his weight doesn’t know where to settle.

It’s not hard to see how quickly uncertain and displeased could turn hostile, Chris watches Stiles shoulders hitching the longer they stare at him.

Peter breaks the half stunned silence first by locking the car and starts walking towards their room. “It’s not a van Stiles, it’s a sport utility vehicle. Roomy,” his fingers flip and it’s a flamboyant gesture Chris recognizes as put on, “without screaming government watch list.”

“Right, ‘cause you’re not on any of those,” Stiles drawls; his gaze flicks to Chris once before he follows Peter with curved in shoulders. “A back from the dead millionaire and an ex arms dealer with a name that comes up too much.”

“Yes, well, it’s not the car that tips people off,” Peter jabs the key into the motel room door and braces himself before he actually opens it.

There’s always a pause, a scent acclimation before he’ll enter something this low class by choice. This time’s the same. Peter inhales shallowly, and then deeper, eyes skimming in the dark for the things that scurry when the lights come on.

“Aside from the pesticides I can’t smell anything too malevolent.” Peter steps in and palms the wall which turns on a lamp beside the tightly made double bed that centers the little room.

“Christopher is afraid of cockroaches,” he says to Stiles so plainly it makes Chris grunt irritably behind them.

“No bedbugs?” Chris asks as he squints at the bed. It looks flammable and the thin plasticy blanket is a rosey pink he’s only ever seen in motels.

“Gross,” Stiles hisses as he steps another foot away from the mattress and coils into himself, face twisted.

Peter looks between them before he lets his bags fall to the bed where they bounce and settle, “no bedbugs.“

It’s a small blessing, and the prospect of catching sleep in a truly horizontal position reminds Chris how sore he is. He rolls both shoulders and moves to the bed, shoving the duffels aside so he can sit and then stretch out. The cooler bag abandoned with the others as he rubs his hands over his face.

“I’ll take the first shower, unless anyone would like to share?” Peter asks as he smoothes a concerned expression away from Chris and to the bag he’s rummaging through for a toiletry pouch.

“Fuck off,” Stiles responds when Peter looks at him and his shoulder pull up near his ears. Stiles looks so defensive and flighty that Chris wonders if he won’t try and dart out on them.

“Your loss,” Peter quips back with a smirk that’s too crafted not to be obvious, “if there’s no hot water left.”

“Just go wash off, you’ve got blood in your beard,” Chris says from under his palms. Trying to rub the tension headache out of his face.

Peter scratches at the faint rust in his facial hair with a scowl but does disappear into the little stall of the attached bathroom.

“So,” Stiles starts and his body is rigid before he takes a breath and goes languid, approaching the bed to sit near Chris’s knees. “You going to ask what a good kid like me was doing in a truck stop?”

“I think I know what you were doing,” Chris intones flatly as he moves his hands from his face and props his torso up by his elbows to look at Stiles with a less severe height difference.

“Just paying my way; rides aren’t free,” Stiles speaks as he lifts a hand and settles delicate fingers around Christopher’s knee. “And I still need one.”

The pipes in the wall behind them groan as the water comes on in the other room but Chris barely notices. His attention is caught on Stiles’ hand.

All of his knuckles are bruised

#stetopher #stiles stilinski #peter hale #chris argent #swearing #do I have to tag for swearing?

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foolproofidea · 5 years

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The Best Gadgets for 2020

Pelican Go G40 Charge Case

Pelican has consolidated its rough waterproof Go case with a 10,000mAh rechargeable battery. The brand structured the arrangement for simple remote charging of your cellphone. You can likewise go through it to charge different gadgets through a USB charge port while in a hurry.

The Pelican Go G40 Charge Case will hamper you $100. It estimates 10.63 inches long, 5.39 inches wide, and 2.42 inches down, and it weighs about 1.8 pounds.

NAD M10 BluOS Streaming Amplifier

In spite of its minimized plan, this remote speaker has the force and execution of an encompass sound framework. Perfect for laying everything out for on-board gatherings and meals, the M10 can stream and play music in remarkably high caliber from various administrations including Amazon, Spotify and Tidal and is additionally ready to help Alexa or Google voice-controls.

Self-Sealing and Self-Changing Trash Can-TOWNEW

This creative trash can will make taking out the trash considerably less of a task. It may resemble your run of the mill movement sensor container, yet it's quite considerably more. At the point when it's full, you should simply press a catch for it to naturally seal the trash pack and line the receptacle with another one.

Regardless of whether the canister is flooding, the top compartment will lift up so it can even now seal the sack shut with no wrecks. Our Cleaning Lab aces state it's the ideal size for restrooms, workplaces, and little kitchens.

Samsung Ballie

Samsung's Ballie is an intriguing mix between keen home gadget and automated partner. The ball-molded device, furnished with cameras and sensors used to chase after you, can control different shrewd home highlights, take photographs, send you refreshes about your home when you're away, and even capacity as a wellness right hand. Intended to be an "inside and out life partner," Ballie may be adorable enough give your puppy a run for its cash.

A 20-PIN USB-C MAGNETIC BREAKAWAY CONNECTOR

Goodness, how this has altered my life. Thus did the MacBook MagSafe connectors from the times of old. They spared me hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in fixes and new MacBooks by keeping me from hauling my costly yet delicate workstation to the ground careful my occasional chimp-like clumsiness. Be that as it may, my MagSafe MacBooks became old and I in the long run needed to move up to a more up to date model highlighting USB-C connectors.

Delicate USB-C connectors. USB-C connectors that cling on enough to permit my MacBook to be pulled off a table and placed into Isaac Newton's cold, detached hands.

At that point a peruser pointed me in the direction of the 20-pin USB-C magnetic breakaway connector. I was skeptical, not just because they were sold under no-name marking, yet additionally because of the price. $25 appeared to be cheap.

However, they are incredible. Fantastic. I have accumulated a serious collection, and they are perfect for MacBooks as well as any contraption with a USB-C port. The magnet is sufficiently able to keep the two pieces of the connector cozily attached, yet will give way if the cable is pulled hard enough to jeopardize the attached device.

I recently discovered that there is additionally a form with a USB-C cable attached in the event that you need a progressively compact arrangement.

The connector underpins 100W (20V/5A) charging, which makes it perfect for all MacBooks and different PCs and USB-C devices, and even backings up to 10Gbps information move and 4K@60Hz video yield.

Samsung Sero TV

CES is always big on TV announcements, and especially worth noting is Samsung's new Sero TV, because its defining feature goes beyond LED and 4K and what have you. It seems so obvious: a TV that transitions from the horizontal plane to the, gasp, vertical plane. That's what Samsung is doing with The Sero, which means "vertical" in Korean. This QLED TV, already available in South Korea and going global this year, flips so that longways it resembles a 43-inch phone screen. That means it's ideal for mirroring an Instagram or TikTok feed from your Galaxy phone, should you have one. What a trick. And here you hoped you’d be looking at your phone screen less in 2020.

Cleer Flow II Headphones

Cleer sound have increased their game with the most recent model of remote, sound-dropping headphones. Close by a google-voice helped control framework the Flow II headphones currently highlight a discussion mode, permitting volume and sound-dropping to be incidentally diminished by squeezing the left earcup. Perfect for plunging all through discussions or tuning in to declarations.

Dell XPS 13

CPU: eighth era Intel Core i5 – i7 | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620 | RAM: 8GB – 16GB | Screen: 13.3-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080) – 4k (3840 x 2160) | Storage: 256GB – 1TB SSD

Focused webcamBattery life superior to ever2019 update isn't hugeExpensive

The Dell XPS 13 has been a customary of our best laptops list for a considerable length of time, and – despite the fact that the Huawei Notebook X Pro knocked it off this rundown for a brief timeframe – the 2019 model is a genuine come back to frame. It holds all that we've come to cherish from Dell's lead 13-incher, from the perfect and light plan, to the incredible present day segments that force it.

The Dell XPS 13 shakes an eighth era Intel Core i5 or i7 processor and a bezel-less 'Limitlessness Edge' show, this Dell XPS 13 keeps on being the most well known Windows laptop on the planet.

Likewise, there's a wide scope of customization choices, so you can truly make the Dell XPS 13 the best laptop for your needs. The 2019 model doesn't bring a tremendous measure of enhancements, yet then not so much about the Dell XPS 13 needs improving. Its webcam has been put at the top focus of the screen, rather than at the base, which a great deal of clients have been requesting. You additionally get a more drawn out battery life in the current year's model.

Mophie Powerstation GO Phone Charger and Car Jump Starter

You know Mophie for its phone chargers and force banks, yet the brand's most recent item makes it a stride further: It can jump start your car and charge your workstation, as well. Keep the lightweight Powerstation in your car if there should be an occurrence of crises, such as awakening on a virus winter morning to a car with a dead battery.

It additionally incorporates small scale jumper links that won't start. It likewise has USB spaces, a divider charger opening, and a remote charging cushion — and it can charge numerous things simultaneously. It's excessively conservative, so you never must be without power.

Canon EOS-1D X Mark III

Rumors of the DSLR’s demise have been greatly exaggerated based on Canon’s update to its beloved — and expensive — EOS-1D X lineup. The Canon EOS-1D X Mark III boasts improvements like the faster Digic X processor, burst shooting at 16 frames per second, and face and head-tracking thanks to improved computer vision tech. It also shoots 5.5K RAW video and 4K video at 60 frames per second.

Altec Lansing EVP Speakers

Altec Lansing has refreshed its whole line of Everything-Proof (EVP) speakers. These speakers glide, are IP67-evaluated for waterproofness, and have a remote scope of 100 feet, fun-shaded LED lighting, and a carabineer clasp or convey lash so you can undoubtedly take them anyplace. Most even have Qi remote charging to effectively charge your cellphone from the speaker's battery.

There will be five sizes of the EVP speakers on offer in spring 2020. The two new bigger units offer Play Your Way innovation, taking into consideration vertical-direction, 360-degree omnidirectional sound or even direction, forward looking stereo sound. Estimating ranges from $40 to $200.

Bose Audio Sunglasses

The new audio sunglasses from Bose signal that the future really is here. While providing UV protection, these wearable devices can be used to play music, make and answer calls and connect to bluetooth. They can be pared with your other devices and are capable of accessing apps including Spotify, Skype or Google Maps. Eventually Bose hopes to offer sunglasses that can be connected to fitness and gaming apps too. There are currently two frame shapes to chose from; Alto (pictured) and Rondo

Fitbit Charge 3

Assume responsibility for your wellness with the best tracker

Light designBig screenNo installed GPSNot a shading screen

More refined than the Fitbit Charge 2, the Charge 3 is one of the organization's most cultivated gadgets. It has a more lightweight plan than the last-gen, and it looks better on your wrist. It's our main all-round wellness tracker since the cost has dropped somewhat as of late, and it offers a great deal of knowledge into your general wellbeing.

There's no locally available GPS, and it doesn't have the more test plan of this present guide's past victor, the Moov Now – which doesn't have a screen! the Charge 3 does, in any case, offer a full wellness suite including a pulse tracker. It's even waterproof as well.

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throwaway-sinfulwriter · 5 years

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The Same - Chapter 6 - Malcolm (1/8)

Malcolm Bright is not a sociopath.

Truly.

He might have PTSD, and several other mental afflictions, but he was just fine.

Just because he wet the bed until he was 15 didn't mean that he didn't have a conscious.

And the fact he set fire to the 11th birthday card his mother got him didn't mean anything..

None of it mattered.

Malcolm Whitly was just fine.

No amount of his father goading would get to his head.

He repeats this to himself as he wakes up, mind foggy with terror and a few new memories. "Dad.." Malcolm calls out, still not fully awake. Tears wet on his face.

He grunts, his wrists hurting. Even with the sterile, soft restraints. Must have been struggling again. It was a particularly rough night.

The profiler sighs loudly and turns his wrists, unbuckling the restraints.

Sunshine is chirping happily away periodically, and a the tiniest smile crosses his face. He gets out of bed and turns his stereo on, turning his morning playlist to shuffle.

Whoa, I feel good

I knew that I would, now

I feel good

I knew that I would, now

So good, so good

I got you

Whoa!

I feel nice

Like sugar and spice, now

Malcolm feeds his parakeet, reaching into her cage and petting her little head. She snuggles into his finger, lovingly nipping at his fingertip before getting bored with him and going to eat her seed.

He sighs, closing the cage door and heading to the counter to take his morning medication. His phone buzzes on the counter. It's his mother. He clicks decline.

Malcolm pushes the card holder button, reading the daily affirmation and laughing cruelly.

"I am thankful for my past and it's many lessons."

Ripping it in half and dropping it to the ground, he sniffles, still chuckling lowly. Learning lessons from his past.. yeah, right.

His phone buzzes again. Mother. Malcolm begrudgingly answers it, knowing the woman wouldn't leave him alone if he didn't answer.

"Hello, mother." Malcolm sounds even less enthusiastic than usual, the memories of the ball of orange flames in the sink still pressing behind his eyes.

He hated that year. He hated his mother pretending like everything was normal when it was anything but. So he set it ablaze. His eyes glaze over his mother speaks.

"Hello, sunshine. Aldopho's outside with the car." That snaps him back into reality. He scowls. His mother was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. She never did anything for herself.

She had people for everything.

At least she remembered some of their names. A lesser evil.

"Listen, I'm a little busy, so.."

"Are you going to eat a meal today?" Malcolm could feel his right eye twitch. He didn't need this. He just wanted to be alone.

"One would assume."

"Then you can do it with me." He could practically hear her acrylic nails tapping in irritation.

"..Fine. Let me get ready."

30 minutes later, he was in a posh resturant with his mother and sister. Having a cup of tea. An english muffin sitting in his stomach. Weighing him down.

"So I said, "If you sit me next to Huma Abedin and that Madoff woman again, I swear, I will throw a splendid fit." Now I'm at a table of Sacklers. I hate the Met." God, he was so bored. His mother just went on and on.

Malcolm might have also been born with a silver spoon, but at least he didn't flaunt his wealth and have honest to god servants. She was insufferable.

It was so tiring. His intelligence was insulted by his mother's trivial affairs.

He was distracted by his sister's phone buzzing. Malcolm raised an eyebrow, gripping his cup as his hands tremored.

"I hope I'm not boring you." His mother said, rouge lips pulled into a tight line. Glare so heated it could cut through steel.

Ainsley looked flustered. "Uh, sorry, uh, works blowing up." She picked up her phone and looked at it, eyes widening.

Malcolm leaned in towards her, eager to know what it was.

"Our scanners just picked up a call. Four dead bodies in Brooklyn Heights."

The profiler lit up. "Quadruple homicide?"

His sister nodded. "Crazy, right? Network might even break into coverage for it."

Malcolm nodded, happy for her. "Fingers crossed." Ainsley sat up, smiling at their mother shortly before kissing Malcolm's forehead tenderly.

"Love you. Mean it."

He tried not to gag at the gesture.

"Bye." He's left staring at his notebook as his sister leaves.

"Well, nothing like a murder to cheer you up, hm?" Malcolm chuckles nervously, not willing to answer to that.

He picks up his cup, sipping his tea and tries to ignore how violently his hands shake.

His mother stares at his hands, expression unreadable.

"You look exhausted." She states. Malcolm sets his cup down on the saucer.

"Well, not sleeping will do that." He answers plainly, the bags under his eyes weighing a hundred tons each.

"Night terrors?" Malcolm maintains eyes contact with her.

"Yes."

"Are you being safe? The mouth guard, the restraints?" His fist curls into his palm on the table. Knuckles cracking quietly.

"The nightmares always did require a seat belt."

Malcolm doesn't grace her with an answer looking down at the tablecloth and calming his breathing.

"I know what's triggering them. Seeing your father again." His head snaps up, heart jumping into his chest. Did she know? How on Earth could she know?

"What? No, I-I promised you, I haven't seen him in years." He knows he's pale, that sweat is gathering on his brow. Typical signs of lying.

But he can't stop his reaction. The pure panic that ran through him was worse than what he felt when he was unconscious.

His mother seems not to notice, but she always wore a mask. Hiding her true reactions. He never knew what she was thinking.

"I know that. I just meant that he's been featured on the news with that copycat story. The media loves a charismatic serial killer."

Oh.

"Right." He swallows, muscles in his shoulders relaxing as his mind processes this is not a fight or flight situation. Just his manipulative mother, stressing him out.

God, why hadn't Gil called him yet? How soon could he get out of here?

"What are you not telling me?" She asks, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

His elbows come up on the table, fingers rubbing his forehead to ward off the oncoming headache.

Quick, think..

All he could think about was his burning birthday card and the trunk. The box...

"Uh, these nightmares.. I've been seeing new things about that night, and uh.."

His mother sees where he's going with this, and tiredly fills it in for him.

"The girl in the box?" She sighs, and presses her hand to her eyes, exasperated. "Again with the girl in the box." Mother raises her mimosa to her lips.

She takes a long pull, and half of the glass is gone when she sets it back down. "They never found her, Malcolm. She didn't exist."

"Not found doesn't mean never existed." He argues, anger rising in his chest.

"Malcolm! The guilt you wear like a millstone around your neck, it will crush you. Stop." She says firmly, glaring at him. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows drawn together in an expression of anger.

"I can't." Tears burn behind his eyes, and he relaxes his jaw, refusing to let them form.

"I have to find out what happened to her, to- to me, and-"

"I know what happened." His mother interrupts, and he pushes his chair back from the table. He doesn't want to hear the bullshit story again. Something deep inside of him knows it isn't true.

"You snuck into your father's hobby room, you found photos of his victims, his plans. Enough evidence to put him away for a hundred lifetimes."

She leans forward.

"But there wasn't any girl."

"What if there was? There has to be a reason I keep seeing her." Malcolm tells her desperately, the investigator inside of him wanting to know the answers.

"No, there doesn't!" His mother blows up, yelling. People stare at them, and his skin prickles uncomfortably at the attention.

"No, there doesn't. Nightmares aren't real, Malcolm. And neither was she. End of story." Jessica says firmly, gripping her glass with a death grip.

Malcolm stares at it, afraid of it shattering. Other ones had before, and he had to repair his mother's hand when the glass cut it open.

"As an investigator, "end of story" rarely means "case closed", Mother."

"And that's your problem. You think life is a case to be solved. Sometimes it's just a tragedy to be endured."

Malcolm couldn't drink his tea anymore. The leftover taste in his mouth was bitter, and he was sure if he picked it up and drank it would taste like cigarette ash.

His phone buzzes to life and he thanks whatever deity up there that it does.

Not saying another word, Malcolm jumps to his feet and heads out of the resturant. On his way out, he sees his mother call another waiter over and order another mimosa.

#prxdigal sxn #malcolm bright #malcolm whitly #martin whitly #malcolm/martin #my fic #my writing #this is an extra long chapter so lots of parts for this one #i apologize to this fandom

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