#also i love him trying to make up titles for gale and giving himself later the title blade of avernus

[sophiasharp]

It’s probably because of how deeply tied to their identities the Tadfools’ backstories are (and also how the fuck does Tav fit into anything) but I’m kinda surprised by how I haven’t seen much, if any, role-swap stories for Baldur’s Gate yet. Which is a shame cause I think there could be a lot of potential there, cause none of these guys would respond to each other’s circumstances the exact same way.

Think of a noble-borne Astarion, who might not have been the best person but still would give anything to see the city he loves safe. This time, it is not infernal machinations that threatens Baldur’s Gate, but the long-standing rot of the Faewild that promises to bring about its ruin. The binding of his mortal soul is made all the more bitter by his family’s formal disowning of a child who conspires with the Fae. Making himself into a hero is not done out of a genuine selflessness but out of a necessity to try and reap SOME reward out of sacrifice, to make it MEAN something other than losing all he once knew.

Think of Lae’zel, stolen from Selune’s Tears during a Githyanki training mission and brought up in the Sharran cloister, damned to forget herself while always and forever remaining OTHER compared to the rest of the acolytes. Shar bids one live their lives in the shadow, but she figures one must sometimes bring the shadows forward more forcefully if they are to further their cause. As a war cleric, she promises to become the sword-arm to the Nightsinger that might one day banish the light for good. And yet, she still wonders some days where she comes from and why her hand sometimes burns so fiercely.

Think of a young, bright-eyed, and curious Karlach, raised on tales of swords and sorcery, who more than anything wants to become one of those heroes one day. She wants to be the next Elminster, or Tasha, or Mordenkainen- no, she wants to be BETTER than them, to outshine even the greatest of spellcasters and use her power to protect those she loves. Mystra sees her determination and feeds it, letting her enthusiasm grow to obsession as she gets older, leaving behind her friends and family in favor of her greatest passion incarnate. But it’s not enough. How could it ever be, when the woman who claims to love her, the one she’s built her life around, continues to hold true mastery of the arcane just out of her grasp? Surely there is some way she can prove her worth. Surely, with her Goddess’s favor and her own deft hand at Abjuration, she will be able to gift Mystra the one thing she wasn’t able to take on her own.

Think of a Gale, a scrappy young man with so much arcane potential and yet none of the money necessary to have it be honed properly. Still, mouths must be fed, and so he pushes himself to become stronger, strong enough to support his single mother in the City of Splendor. Indeed, he grows strong enough to catch the attention of an up-and-coming politician from Baldur’s Gate who may have some shady dealings on the side, but the money was good enough for him to look the other way. Just as long as he could keep sending money back to Waterdeep, he didn’t care much what his boss did. Until, one day, everything changed. He was sent to the hells, his heart ripped out of his own chest and replaced with a searing hot contraption that threatened to burn him from the inside out. Ten years he spends down there, fighting a war he never signed up for, and a rage begins to take form. Through his anger, the magic inside him finally finds a conduit, wild enough to let him survive through everything.

Think of Jenevelle, kidnapped during her Selunite rite of passage by mindflayers and later “saved” by Githyanki raiders. She is offered the chance to prove herself more than a slave, and grabs on with both hands. She trains among them, fighting not only to survive but to be the BEST at it, to justify her existence amongst their ranks. By the time she is grown, her past life is but a distant, painful memory. She earns the title of Shadowheart, her mettle as cold and furious as the dark side of the moon. For her own safety, she can never let herself stop fighting to be better. She will become Vlakith’s champion if that’s what it takes for her to finally, finally be enough.

Think of a Wyll Ravengard born two centuries earlier, nearly killed and left for dead by one of his father’s political rivals when a cold hand offers eternal salvation. Later, he wishes he had perished in the alley as intended. He spends years, decades hoping that his father and the rest of the flaming fist would find him, only to be crushed when rescue from his living hell never comes. He outlives all that would have known the face of Grand Duke Ravengard’s late son, becomes a ghost of himself as he learns how to lead countless to their deaths in the hopes of saving his own skin from more pain. And yet, somewhere deep inside him, there lays a part of him that still holds hope for the happily ever afters of the old stories he clings to despite everything he’s gone through. By day, he sharpens his claws, remembers his training from before his life was thrown away, re-teaches himself how to strike hard and fast before anyone can react, and bides his time. Maybe, just maybe, the gods would give him the chance to be his own hero. The monster and the hunter both.

[xxdragonwriterxx]

Pls do a pt.2 of cuddle bug. I need more where they get delayed and Levi has to share his tent for another night or two. Pls at least consider it, the end of cuddle bug gave me big boy 🦋🦋🦋

A/N: You know, I never really considered a sequel for this story but once you mentioned it, I got really excited about it! I loved writing that story so it’s always really fun to hear people say they enjoyed it. Thank you for requesting, I hope this is what you were looking for! (Also, ur comment inspired the title).

🐉 Song Recommendation: “Liar” By: Arcadian Wild 🐉

~~~

🔥 Butterflies Caught Up In The Storm 🔥

(Y/N) felt it before she saw it. She felt the wind pick up from a light breeze to an insistent gale. She saw the clouds rolling and colliding in the sky, darkening and growling. She heard the rush of wings as flocks of birds shot into the air and flew away from the trees, which were starting to rustle with the increasing wind. It was clear and bright out, a beautifully crisp autumn afternoon, but (Y/N) knew what was coming. Her horse seemed to agree, the chestnut mare’s flared nostrils and wide eyes telling (Y/N) she could sense it too. Giving the mare a soothing pat on the neck, (Y/N) carefully tugged her forward, trying to convince the beast to graze before the storm hit.

“You’re having trouble too?” A familiar feminine voice asked, catching (Y/N)’s attention.

“Yeah,” (Y/N) said, smiling at Petra, who had wandered over with her own bay gelding. “Phoenix won’t eat with this storm brewing, she’s too stressed. I’m trying to calm her down but she’s not having any of it.”

Petra nodded grimly, “Tyson is the same way. He won’t stop pacing.”

“It must be a bad one this time,” (Y/N) said quietly, reaching up to stroke Phoenix’s fur, “She doesn’t normally fear storms like this.”

“Yeah, I’m worried about our tents being blown away.”

“Me too…” (Y/N) murmured. “I’m guessing none of us are going to get any sleep tonight.”

Petra groaned and led Tyson in a small circle, trying to keep the normally level-headed gelding from pacing.

“Yeah, I know,” (Y/N) sighed. “I was really hoping to get some rest, it’s been a long day.”

(Y/N) normally didn’t have a problem with storms. In fact, she had a certain soft spot for them. She loved how dark it got, the clouds creating a gloomy yet comforting blanket over the land. She loved the sound of the rain as it pounded on the windows, the crack of the thunder as lightning struck the sky; a glowing sword slaying some mighty beast. She loved the wind and how it would howl it’s lonely song, crying out for a lover that would never respond. Despite the chaos it presented, storms always tended to soothe (Y/N), making her want to cuddle up with some warm tea or hot chocolate and a book. It made her want to burrow under a blanket and listen to the roaring outside her window as the storm lashed at the stone walls of the Survey Corps castle. But she wasn’t in her room with a warm blanket and a good book. She wasn’t protected by the solid stone walls of the Survey Corps headquarters or given warmth by the roaring fireplace she had across from her bed. She was outside of the walls, in the middle of nowhere with a skittish horse and nothing but a flaxen tent to keep her safe. The only benefit of  the storm was that the titans seemed to have scattered in the wake of the approaching darkness, finding some other place to settle down for the early onset night.

“Hey, at least we won’t have to sleep alone tonight,” Petra said, trying to lighten the mood. “At least we will be paired again since we lost that supply wagon to the titans, maybe it’ll feel better to experience the storm with another person. It might be comforting.”

Petra had a point, but her words also brought a twinge of anxiety to (Y/N)’s gut. Captain Levi hadn’t seemed upset with her when she had cuddled up to him by accident the last time they shared a tent, quite the opposite really, laughing and teasing her. But it didn’t stop the thoughts from filling her head, making her overthink the situation. He had found it amusing the first time because it had been unexpected and she had been so flustered in the morning when she had woken up to find him sprawled underneath her, but what would he think if she did it a second time? Would he be annoyed? She was half expecting him to reassign her to sleep beside Eld or Gunther at this point. She wondered if he would even be compelled to make Petra and Oulo sleep in separate tents despite their relationship, just so he could make (Y/N) sleep with Petra instead.

It made her flush with guilt and embarrassment at the thought. The last thing she wanted to do was make Levi uncomfortable around her, but she had invaded his personal space in a way she was sure nobody else had ever done before. It was only natural that he would distance himself from her.

(Y/N) shook her head, chasing the negative thoughts away, deciding to worry about that later. “Yeah, at least we won’t be alone. Maybe that’ll make it easier if the tents try to blow away, there can be two people to hold each one down instead of one person trying not to get carried off by the storm.”

Petra chuckled and led Tyson in another circle. 

“Speaking of sharing tents,” She said, her eyes glimmering, “How was it sharing a bed with the Captain?”

(Y/N) froze a bit. Memories of that night came flashing back, making her blush as she remembered the feeling of his solid chest pressed beneath her, his warm breath fanning out over her neck, and his soft silver eyes gleaming at her as he fought the urge to laugh at her flushed face.

“Oooooh,” Petra said, her smile widening as she noted (Y/N)’s pink cheeks. “Why are you so flustered all of a sudden? Did something happen? Did you two finally fu-”

“NO, NO,” (Y/N) shouted quickly, waving her hands in front of her face. “No, nothing like that. It was just kind of embarrassing sleeping next to him. I mean, he’s the Captain! It just felt weird as his subordinate to be in the same bed as him with nothing but our pajamas on.”

Petra nodded but the shit-eating grin on her face didn’t disappear. (Y/N) leaned over and flicked her friend on the forehead, giggling when the ginger hissed at her with a glare.

“What was that for?”

“You know what it was for.”

“That was mean, (Y/N).”

“Well, you shouldn’t have been thinking about Levi and I in that tent, especially since I told you nothing happened.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I would never do such a thing.”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes at Petra’s teasing but couldn’t keep the warm smile off her lips as the two laughed together. She had to hand it to the sweet ginger, she had at least helped decrease her stress and pull (Y/N) from her own head. Even the horses had sensed the shift in their riders and had calmed down somewhat, Phoenix leaning down to take a few nibbles of the grass at her feet before she raised her head again, her ears rotating as she listened for any sign of danger.

“(L/N)! Ral! We are setting up the tents. Put the horses away and get over here now!”

Both women stopped laughing immediately and moved to tie the horses to a nearby tree, making sure to loop the ropes into loose knots so the horses could escape if they really needed to without injuring themselves. As soon as the animals were secure, (Y/N) shoved her anxiety away, and the pair made their way over to the rest of their squad.

__________________________

Levi cursed as he glanced at the darkened clouds, the sky now an inky black as the storm covered the setting sun. A light rain had started since the tents had been erected, but Levi knew the worst was yet to come. He watched as the squad moved around, tying down the last of the supplies and attending to any last minute necessities while the rain was still light and misty.

Without his permission, Levi’s eyes automatically found (Y/N) amongst his squad members, watching as she moved quickly around the camp, calming the horses and covering the wagons with the tarp they always brought on missions for exactly this reason. She was so graceful when she was focused, her movements lithe and quick. He knew she tended to be a bit of a clutz when she was just performing mundane tasks back at headquarters, but it didn’t take away from the obvious control she had over her body as she maneuvered around each of her comrades, helping where she could and confirming that everything was accounted for just as Levi had asked of her.

Snapping out of it, Levi quickly averted his gaze and cursed again, this time in anger at himself. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He had had a crush on (Y/N) for ages and yet it had never affected him like this before. He felt like he was flailing, like he lacked control for the first time since he was a small child. It scared him, made him embarrassed and anxious. He had an idea of what this was, but it didn’t make it any easier to digest.

He knew he had been an asshole lately, knew she was confused and hurt. When he had first woken up to find her sprawled over him, he had been overwhelmed with emotions that had pushed him over the edge, leading him to finally act on his hidden desires somewhat. He had allowed himself to laugh and smile, had allowed himself to get close to her, brush his lips along her ear, and compliment her. He had enjoyed it, letting go a little, letting himself finally show her how he felt about her. But then reality had slapped him across the face. She was his subordinate, and while it wasn’t forbidden, it wasn’t ideal. He just knew it would interfere with his focus on the battlefield, and he couldn’t afford the distraction. On the other hand, he didn’t even know if she liked him back. She had cuddled up to him in her sleep, but she had admitted to him herself that she does that to anything she sleeps with. Her pillow, a blanket, a stuffed animal, a person, it didn’t matter, she would cling to it. So what made him special? How did her cuddling him give him any indication of her feelings?

It didn’t. It didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t cuddling up to him because she found comfort in him, she did it because it was normal for her. Any other man would’ve done just as well, possibly even better in holding her close that night. The thought of another man cuddled up with (Y/N) made his blood boil and his teeth clench so hard they hurt, but he couldn’t force his feelings on her just because of one incident. Especially if she didn’t feel  the same way. It just wasn’t meant to be, no matter how much he wanted it. So he had settled for loving her from afar, pushing her away and keeping her at a distance, just like he did with everyone around him. He was determined to stick to his promise of keeping people at arm’s length, guarding his heart  through thick and thin in the event that someone he cares about gets ripped away from him again. He had lost way too many people in his life, he was not about to experience the pain of losing  (Y/N) too.

He could tell his cold behavior confused her, but he kept it up, hid behind his mask no matter how much his heart cried when he saw her hurt expression. It was for her and for him, better for everyone involved if he just ignored the pulling of his heartstrings and continued their relationship as it should be, as Captain and cadet.

“Captain.”

Levi was snapped out of his reverie by the voice of none other than (Y/N), her eyes hooded as she looked at him.

“Everything is stable and prepared for the storm, sir.”

“Good, you are dismissed.”

(Y/N) saluted him and spun on her heel, not looking back as she made her way to their tent to change and prepare for bed. Levi’s gut twisted. He hated that look in her eyes. So far, she had treated him with nothing but respect ever since he had begun ignoring her, but he never missed that look in her eyes, the confusion and disappointment in her gaze. The feeling of wanting to be sick all over the stones of the cliff edge where they had set up camp increased tenfold when he thought about having to spend the night with her once again. The thought of having to experience the tension of laying beside her all night. He wondered if she’d even cuddle up to him again, if her body would reject him even in sleep despite her habit.

Levi sighed and ran a hand through his slick raven locks, rain droplets landing on his cheeks as they dripped from his fringe. He knew he just had to act like an adult and go in there with her, but it was an effort to fight the feeling of nausea in his gut as he made his way over to the tent they were sharing. As soon as he slipped in through the flaps and zipped them closed, the loud roar of thunder rolled over them quickly followed by the intensifying of the rain, turning from the soft taps of droplets to the pelting of bullets.

(Y/N) was facing away from him when he entered, neatly folding her uniform and placing it off to the side while she waited for him to change. Levi undressed quickly and followed her example, placing his clothes beside hers as she settled on the cot, pulling the blankets up to her neck. Neither of them spoke a word, but the urge to spill everything that was on the edge of their tongues plagued both of them. Levi finished his nightly regimen before carefully slipping under the blanket beside (Y/N), blowing out the lantern and making sure to turn away from her so she wouldn’t feel as uncomfortable.

(Y/N) grit her teeth when she felt him turn away from her. Was she really that bothersome? Had her cuddling him really made him that upset? She knew she had no right to judge him, it was his boundaries she had crossed, but that didn’t stop the tidal wave of sadness and disappointment that rose in her chest. She had been hoping they could move past this, that he would give her the chance to apologize and they could go back to the way things were between them, but obviously he was in no hurry to speak to her ever again, if his behavior towards her was any indication.

(Y/N) closed her eyes and tried to let the sounds of the storm outside soothe her, snuggling deeper under the blankets as the rain slapped the tent’s walls, trying to drown out her thoughts and emotions with the sound of the rolling thunder that rumbled and barked overhead.

(Y/N) was nearly asleep, her brain finally quieting down for the night when she heard it. She thought for a minute she had imagined the noise, but after another moment of patiently listening, she heard it again, the sound of a deep groan coming from the Captain. (Y/N) froze, her eyes wide as she waited. She had no idea what was happening, but she knew for a fact it couldn’t be good. The noise sounded high-pitched, desperate, strained, as if the Captain were in pain. (Y/N) turned slightly and opened her mouth to say something when a bolt of lightning dashed across the sky, flashing the tent with a bright white light. (Y/N)’s eyes widened and she had to fight to keep her jaw from dropping when she suddenly realized just how uncomfortable he was.

 Levi was shaking.

What had she done? Thunder crashed as horror seeped into (Y/N)’s bones. She felt his shaking increase, the subtle vibrations making the cot twitch and shift beneath them. How could she have done this to him? What she had believed to be a mild annoyance to her Captain seemed to be much worse than that. At first, she wondered why he didn’t tell her about his discomfort with touch, or why he didn’t have her reassigned, but she quickly shoved those questions aside. Of course he didn’t tell her or reassign her, he was the Captain of their squad, the goddamn Humanity’s Strongest. Of course he would put his pride and reputation before his fears. It was his job to appear unfazed no matter what he was faced with.

And besides, even if it wasn’t his job to keep silent about his personal issues to his  subordinates, (Y/N) had a hard time seeing Levi admit to having a phobia of touch. He always  kept that mask placed securely over his emotions and expressions, it was no surprise that he would hide this as well.

The fact that she hadn’t known didn’t stop the feelings of dread and guilt from dragging her stomach to her feet and choking her heart with a chain. She felt the tears well up behind her eyes, and didn’t try to stop them when they spilled over her lids and cut wet paths down her cheeks. She felt sick. She wanted to apologize, but she didn’t know how. She was used to comforting people with physical affection and gentle soothing gestures rather than using her words. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to wrap her arms around him, to stroke his hair and rub soothing circles into his back, but she forced herself to hold back. She had clearly caused enough damage already.

Making up her mind, (Y/N) decided that the best option was to leave. She knew there was very little she could say or do to make up for what had happened, and she refused to keep him awake with the fear of her touching him again. The last thing she wanted to do was be away from him, especially when he seemed so vulnerable, but she wasn’t going to let herself cause unnecessary tension within the squad because she decided to be selfish. They needed their Captain in top shape, and it was clear that wasn’t going to happen with her in the same room. Quietly gathering her blanket and her cape, (Y/N) slowly stood and crept towards the exit flaps of their tent. She cringed at the thought of being sandwiched with the Oulo and Petra, but she knew the couple wouldn’t deny her entry despite wanting to enjoy their alone time together, and figured that would be the best place for her to stay for the rest of the night. Taking a deep breath to prepare for the onslaught of cold water she was about to get blasted with, (Y/N) curled her  fingers around the edges of the flaps and started to undo each loop keeping them closed.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Levi’s cold voice, despite being a bit shaky, made (Y/N) freeze in her tracks. She had known he was awake, but she hadn’t expected him to protest.

“Um, I’m going to Petra’s tent, sir.”

Levi furrowed his brows, his jaw clenched, “Why?”

“Because I was making you uncomfortable, sir.”

“What are you talking about?”

The last thing (Y/N) wanted to do was embarrass him further, but she figured now wasn’t the time to beat around the bush.

“You were shaking, sir.”

(Y/N) saw the realization quickly flash across Levi’s features before he scowled angrily, leaning back with an arm over his face, “Fuck…”

He hadn’t known that she could feel it. He had been trying so damn hard to hide it, especially after those little groans had escaped him without warning. The knowledge that she was here to see him in such a vulnerable state tossed his heart around like a butterfly in a storm, a confusing blend of intense embarrassment and soothing comfort flooding through his veins.

“I wish you had told me sooner,” (Y/N) said, causing Levi to lift his arm so he could look at her properly. “I know why you didn’t, but if you had, I never would’ve tried to stay with you for another night. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and the last thing I want is for you to think you have to avoid me because I didn’t respect your boundaries. I am s-so sorry…”

(Y/N) broke off, swallowing the tears that bubbled in the back of her throat. She wasn’t the victim here, she wanted to appear sincere and apologetic but she didn’t want to make him feel guilty for his reaction to everything that had happened between them. She just wanted to make him feel better and pretend like this whole incident had never happened.

“I-I’m sorry, I’ll leave now. I hope you’re able to get some rest tonight, Captain-”

“(Y/N).”

The way he said her name, in a tone that sounded desperate and strained, made her close her mouth and meet his gaze.

“Come back to bed.”

She hesitated at first, but quickly found the confidence to move towards him when he pinned her with a dark glare. Moving back to her spot, (Y/N) placed her cape with the rest of her  uniform and brought the blanket back over her body, laying down on the spot furthest from Levi.

(Y/N) let out a loud gasp when Levi suddenly reached over and wrapped his arms around her before she could react, yanking her away from the edge of the cot and pulling her into his  chest. (Y/N) quickly tried to push away from him, but he held her steady against him, his arms refusing to loosen until she gave up on escaping.

“Listen here, brat,” Levi said, his voice surprisingly clear, “It’s not you. I’m not afraid to be held by you. I know I’ve been an asshole lately, but I was worried about letting myself get close to you only to lose you. I’ve lost so many. The last person I want to be caught up in everything is you. I c-care about you, and I just can’t stand the pain of watching you die.”

(Y/N) teared up at his impassioned confession, her fingers clenching in the fabric of her pajama top. Her heart was pounding against her rib cage as if it was trying to bust out, its drumming song throbbing throughout her entire body.

“But, you were shaking, and facing away from me, and fidgeting around,” (Y/N) said quietly.

Levi tensed but took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax again.

“That wasn’t because of you, brat.”

She tilted her head in confusion. He knew she wanted more details than that, but he was finding it difficult to put everything into words. He was just about ready to blurt it out to her, rip off the bandaid quickly, when a flash of lightning broke the sky in half, followed by a clap of thunder that shook the entire camp.

To her utter shock, Levi flinched and whimpered. He cursed at his own reaction, his arms tightening subconsciously around her body.

“Levi…” (Y/N) murmured. “Are you… scared of storms?”

The look in his gunmetal hues was answer enough. (Y/N) felt a dizzying mix of immense relief and a rush of sympathy and sadness wash through her. She was glad she wasn’t the source of his fears and discomfort, but she felt horrible for what he was going through. She had had no idea, never even had an inkling that their fearsome, stone-faced Captain would be scared of rain and thunder.

Quickly shaking off any questions she had, (Y/N) shifted her arms from where they had been hugging her stomach, and wrapped them around his waist and neck, pulling him into her. She felt him tense a little at the foreign contact, but she didn’t let it mess with her confidence. She knew he needed this, knew he secretly craved the comfort of human contact, and forced herself to shove her anxiety to the side and focus solely on her hurting Captain. After a moment, Levi eventually tightened his grip on her and snuggled into her embrace, making her heart explode with love and affection.

He nuzzled his face into her neck, letting out occasional quiet moans and murmurs of approval as she ran her fingers through his soft raven locks with one hand and rubbed comforting circles into his back with the other.

They were silent for a long while, merely enjoying the comfort of the other’s company despite the tenseness (Y/N) could still feel in the Captain’s muscles. Whenever thunder rocked the world, or a gust of wind made the rain lash against the tent like gunfire, (Y/N) would hold him tighter to her, cooing softly at him and massaging his back and shoulders. His eyes closed at her ministrations, his lashes fluttering against her skin, tickling her neck as he started to settle.

“My best friends died in a storm just like this,” Levi whispered into the dark, making  (Y/N) gasp. She looked down to see his eyes were still closed, his nose pressed against her neck.

“Levi… I’m so sorry,” (Y/N) said, lightly scratching his undercut.

“What’s done is done,” Levi said tightly, “But I’m never going to let anything happen to you.”

Levi opened his eyes, pinning her with a look of determined fire, “I will protect you, I promise.”

(Y/N) smiled, letting out a contented sigh as he leaned in to press soft butterfly kisses along her throat, a sign of gratitude for everything she had done for him.

“I’ll protect you too, Levi. Whenever you need me, I am here for you. Always.”

Levi was grateful she couldn’t see his face as he blinked away the tears that had unexpectedly risen to prick at his eyes. “I’ll hold you to that, brat.”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh and leaned down to press a loving kiss to his forehead, “You better.”

Levi snorted, “Go to sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

Levi gave her a weak flick on the shoulder before snuggling more into her warm embrace, a small smile making its way to his face as he felt the fear drain from his body despite the storm still raging outside. (Y/N) was his calming balm, something to soothe his tortured soul and battered heart. He was still afraid of losing her, but he knew now that he couldn’t bear to stay away. He would just have to work harder to protect her, to keep her from harm at all costs. He would become her sword and her shield, a way to repay her for being his blanket, his home, his light.

“Goodnight Levi,” (Y/N) sighed as her own eyes fluttered closed.

“Goodnight Cuddlebug,” Levi said softly, a nickname he was sure would embarrass her later. Just as he expected, (Y/N) threw him one last half-hearted glare for his teasing before she succumbed to her exhaustion, a small smile on her face as she curled into his warm body.

Levi found himself quickly falling asleep behind her, surprised at how fast she made him relax. He was so used to being an insomniac, especially during a storm where he felt paralyzed with fear and horrible memories, but (Y/N) was holding his demons back for him, keeping them locked away for the night, and he couldn’t be more grateful for that as he slowly slipped from consciousness and into a dreamless sleep.

“Thank you, (Y/N),” was the last thing Levi managed to say, the last thing (Y/N) managed to hear, before the pair fell into a deep sleep, wrapped up in their own little world together.

[everlarkficquestions]

Sunday Stumped Day 35

It’s another Sunday Stumped Day!

Sometimes we straight out get stumped. So every few months we will pick a Sunday when we’ll post of a list of asks that we need your help on. 

In this round, we are focusing on asks for specific stories.   If your ask for a more general “type of” story is not included, it does not mean we are ignoring it, it just means we need more time to research and answer these asks. 

If  you know the answer to any of these asks please shoot us a message/  ask/  with the Post number and the fic details and we’ll add it and give you a shout out with our thanks.  Any links you can provide will also be super helpful.

Thanks!

Post 1 , Post 2 , Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, Post 6, Post 7, Post 8, Post 9, Post 10, Post 11, Post 12, Post 13, Post 14, Post 15, Post 16, Post 17, Post 18, Post 19, Post 20, Post 21, Post 22 , Post 23, Post 24, Post 25, Post 26,  Post 27, Post 28, Post 29 , Post 30, Post 31, Post 32, Post 33 and Post 34 can be found here - and there are still fics we need your help with.

576.  Anonymous said to everlarkficquestions:  Hi, I am searching everlarkfic that I read couple years ago in ff.net. Post mockingjay, Katniss and Peeta are getting married then when they’ll rebuild Peeta's family bakery, peeta got collapse and they find out that he was dying. In the end peeta died. Annie and Katniss's mother had to move Katniss to district 4 to taking care of her. In district 4, Katniss met with gale and they were slowly building relationships from there?

577. its-hopeless-romantic said to everlarkficquestions: Hey,I am looking for fic in which Peeta is Katniss's college professor (he is 10 years older than her) and they fall in love. He is teaching history of art and I remember he invited her to the opening of his galery. I remembre that he goes to Italy to teach for a few months and before that he introduces her to his family. I think it has 2 long chapters in second one there is his proposal. (It's called Lessons in Love or something like, but I can't find it)thanks 💕💕💕

578. alwayseverlark said to everlarkficquestions:Hi! Looking for a in Panem fic (I think no games) , where Peeta is working in the mines and an accident happens and Katniss is looking for him thinking he’s dead , but Gale thinks she wa s looking for him instead and when he realizes , he’s mad at Katniss.I am not sure if this is one fic... or if I’m mixing two different fics...Thansk!

579. stonyspideypool said to everlarkficquestions:I'm looking for a fanfic were I think katniss wants peeta to take control/be more dominant so she calls johanna and johanna tells her that peeta would never force himself on her and he has dealt with so much blue balls over the years that he's used to it or something (lmao) sorry that's all I remember 😅😅Love the page btw💙❤ literally its the only reason I'm on tumblr, thank you💕

580. amesielee said to everlarkficquestions:Hi I'm looking for a fanfic. It's either a one shot 2 shot or 3 shot and it's about Peeta and Katniss having sex. It's their first time and once it's over Peeta grabs a wash cloth for Katniss to help her out. She then gets mad and assumes he has done it before with Delly. I think Peeta didn't know it was her first time. And Peeta says maybe we are just good together. He then asks if she loves him. It's on Tumblr. I hope you can help xx

581. booksandeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:Hi there! Another story I remember reading but can’t think of the title. I know Leeta is older then Katniss. Peeta knew Katniss’ Parents and is their age. Katniss likes Peeta and Peeta keeps telling her he’s too old for her but she doesn’t care. They start to date and Katniss dad finds out before they can tell and eggs mad. I think Peeta also gets hurt protecting Katniss and how she reacts makes her dad see they are serious. Thanks so much for the help

582. everlark-always said to everlarkficquestions:Trying to find a fic...modern au where katniss is with her friends (Annie Johanna Finnick Gale madge....) at a party and they find her the next morning in bed with Peeta?

(582) This could be I Dare You (To Stay) by Thewritershae - thank you @allie-rose

583. justanotherrandomaccount9999 said to everlarkficquestions:Hi! Do you know of a fic where it the story is about each time peeta ruins a cake? I read it before but forgot the title. The last time was when he made Katniss a cake for her birthday but dropped it when she said she was pregnant. Thanks for everything you've done for this fandom btw :)

584. pleasantturtletheorist-blog said to everlarkficquestions:Hi! So this might be a tricky one (bc I don’t remember much of the plot lol) but basically in this fic Peeta was like “don’t deny me post-sex cuddles” or something along those lines hahah. And I remember the scene being really cute but I can’t remember much else about it. I know this is very vague but if you could help I’d really appreciate it!! 🥺🥺

(584) This is possibly Blowout by Annieoakley1. - Thanks to @sunsetsrmydreams

585. yeeyeejones73 said to everlarkficquestions:Hello:) I was wondering if y’all know the name of a fic where it’s canon post mockingjay and everlark is growing back together slowly. I remember peeta gets a boner while Katniss and him are sleeping. I also think Peeta accidentally sees Katniss in only her towel after a shower and it’s super cute and awkward. I hope y’all can help and also thanks for all y’all do!

586. superpineappleenthusiast said to everlarkficquestions:Hey, I'm looking for a fic where the tributes of 74th games escape the arena. Thanks!

587. anonymous-loner95 said to everlarkficquestions:What the fic where Peeta thinks he's about to sleep with some random girl, which I think is actually is Jo, but is tricked into a room with Katniss?

588. thatgirl56834 said to everlarkficquestions:Hi! First of all, I love this blog! You guys rock! I’ve been looking for a one shot I used to read all the time. It was where Katniss and Peeta were friends in middle school and kissed after their dance but then Katniss moved away. Years later they ended up being neighbors and getting together. Peeta lied about who he was at first but then Katniss figured it out. If you know what this fic is, I’d love to read it again! 💗

588 FOUND!  Wishes Old and New by Peetasbunmyoven. Thank you, @sunsetsrmydreams and @allie-rose

589. neonsnail said to everlarkficquestions:Hey I'm looking for a fic where peeta meets katniss and she has some kind of vision that if she gets pregnant prim dies and tries to stay away from peeta but she fails and then she sleeps with peeta to try to get pregnant and fails then disappears and they meet again a few years later and become a couple

589 FOUND! The story ha been identified as The Fool by Myusernamehere but unfortunately it has been deleted by the author.  Thank you @katnissdoesnotfollowback​

590. everlark-always said to everlarkficquestions: what’s the fic where Peeta cheats (post mockingjay) on Katniss and because of this she ends up with someone else?

591. everlark-always said to everlarkficquestions: Peeta and Katniss are in highschool and Peeta goes to prom with Madge and Katniss goes with Gale. She wears a burgundy dress and at the pre prom thing she meets an old friend from home named Josh.

592. tributeintraining said to everlarkficquestions:I'm looking for a specific fanfic I read years ago. It's a modern AU where Katniss and Gale are in a band together. Katniss is the guitarist and doesn't sing. Gale is married to Madge but was having an affair with Katniss. The public finds out and she leaves the band. She goes solo and starts a PR relationship with Peeta. Her first solo performance is singing "Shake it out". That's all I remember. Thank!

593. supreme-doritos said to everlarkficquestions:Hi! im looking for a fic where the rebellion happens early and the capitol gets overthrown before the 74th hunger games by a tribute (then victor) from district 7. At one point katniss and peeta (who lost his leg in the bombing) look after haymitch but he ends up killing himself so they don't starve during a really harsh winter. Before he dies he asks katniss to give chaff a naked lady mug/glass (i cant remember the name lol sorry) Thank you! I really appreciate you guys <3

593 FOUND!  The Avalanche And Little Pebbles by Dyce - thanks to @eggplant8

594. entwodreiquatrocinq-blog said to everlarkficquestions: So i'm looking for this fanfic I read once on FF.net. Peeta and Katniss are intimate in the catching fire arena, and later in district 13, she finds out that she pregnant. Peeta is either in a coma or captured and one of his brothers survived. I believe there is a fight between Katniss and the brother, and he says something like "just because you f'ed my brother in front of the entire country doesn't mean....."  That's all I remember, I hope it's specific enough. :)

(594) Possibly The Sharp Edge of Memory by Titania522 - thanks @eggplant8

595. lettrsto said to everlarkficquestions:hi guys!! i can't remember for shit the name of this one shot, i guess it was written for promptsinpanem, where katniss dates gale, but haymitch hates his guts so k&g make a deal w peeta so katniss fake dates peeta while she's actually dating gale behind haymitch's back. can you guys give some help, pretty please? does it ring any light? thank you!!!!

(595)  FOUND by the asker!  Yours And Mine by Andthisisthewonder

596. jonerys-everlark said to everlarkficquestions:I remember a fanfic where Katniss and Peeta were in the 74th games when Katniss learns that Peeta is with the Careers, she remembers him telling her something (I think) but I know that she then waits until they are gone, and says to the audience something to the effect of , “I have something to say... he has not betrayed me, he is protecting me, as to his confession in the interview, I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it” or something like that, basically, she knows he is on her side an

Do any of these fics ring a bell? Please let us know!

[furidojasutin]

Title: Fire on Fire

Pairing: Fraxus (Freed x Laxus)

Universe: Canon

Rating: K+

a/n: If you wanna, listen to the song ‘Fire on Fire’ by Sam Smith because this was basically the inspiration for this and... feels. Lots of feels. It’s beautiful??? djwkfw Anyway yea, I actually managed to write something up before bed so I’m throwing this before I’ll get my Zzzzs!

                                      My father said I'm too romantic                               He said, "You're dancing in the movies"                                      I almost started to believe him                                       Then I saw you and I knew

Laxus thought about his childhood and teenage years more often than he would like to admit to himself or anybody else, really. He thought about how it could have been a nearly perfect childhood, how he could've been as happy as a kid could be, keep doing stuff that normal kids do and be excited about the smallest things, carrying the people along with his own excitement.

He'd had all of this at some point, with his grandfather. He may have been a sickly child but he was still not miserable. There had really been a time where he could be careless and happy and simple and pure. It was all thanks to Makarov. His mother couldn't be there for him, although he refused to believe that she would have been anything else but an amazing mother. So it was Gramps and him. He was happy to have him.

And then there was his father who took everything from him, everything.

His innocence, his happiness, his kindness, his bond with his grandfather.

It was cruel, it was pain, it was brainwashing and false beliefs. That bastard of a father had managed to ruin so much of his life, such a big part. And the worst is, that Laxus almost lost himself entirely to it, and other people that were actually dear to him. Very dear.

Like his grandfather.

Laxus clicked his tongue in disdain. At times he tried to tell himself that, at the end of it all, Ivan just made him stronger. He wasn't saying that he was grateful for anything Ivan put him through, it was disgusting, but he had made his body and his mind much stronger. Hatred was a bad motive to follow, but somehow it had worked out and now he could throw everything back at this fucker. He was older and he was powerful, so much more powerful than him now.

Yes, Laxus had fucked up a lot along the way, and that was an understatement. It had taken a long time until he had gotten back onto the right path... But he had found it now.

Somehow he had managed to get caught in those kind of thoughts in the middle of the night. That, and when he kept stirring in his sleep restlessly and eventually woke up, he noticed that the place beside him was empty. It wasn't supposed to be empty.

His instincts, and some prior knowledge, had led him to the living room. He immediately spotted a messy head of green hair and... was that a light snore? Laxus' lips formed a lopsided grin at that discovery. He would have something to tease Freed with the next morning.

“Stubborn idiot, told him that he was gonna fall asleep,” he muttered, strictly as though Freed could hear him. There was a soft touch in his deep and usually rough voice and the rune mage didn't move, didn't give any sign that he had heard Laxus talk.

He wasn't only older and more powerful. Eventually he had realized that there was something that was just as important as the power to protect the people he cared for. He had gained something back that he had lost a long time ago.

His happiness.

He didn't want to claim that his soul was entirely at peace. Was that ever the case for anybody anyway? But it was definitely more at peace in certain moments, in certain company.

His exile had given him more than enough time to think a lot of things through and reflect on moments, on events, on people. His grandfather was with him again. The guild had his support and he had theirs, and their trust, what was still a big miracle to him. Evergreen and Bixlow were the best friends he could have ever hoped for, and so was Freed.

Freed had always been... a little different. For so long, Laxus had failed to realize this. For so long, he had been blind to Freed's feelings for him and the feelings he had harbored and closed off in his own shadowed heart.

                                Maybe it's 'cause I got a little bit older                                  Maybe it's all that I've been through                        I'd like to think it's how you lean on my shoulder                                      And how I see myself with you

Soft-footed, Laxus approached the couch and looked down at his sleeping boyfriend. Somehow, the messy hair managed it to make Freed look a different kind of handsome although the image almost got destroyed by the slightly parted lips and the little snore.

Laxus shook his head, a loving touch in orange eyes that was reserved for Freed only. Red gale-force reading glasses were still sitting on Freed's nose, position far from perfect. A book was resting on the sleeping man's stomach. His right arm was sprawled across it and his left was dangling from the couch. So so fast asleep.

This image was not objectively perfect, but it was to Laxus. It was also a bit amusing, but Freed still looked peaceful. He deserved to have a sound, steady sleep without nightmares disturbing it, too. Freed’s had dark aspects in his past as well and he had also been right there when Laxus tried to take over the guild. It had been so fucking stupid. They had hurt their family, tortured and almost killed.

There was so much to be grateful for and in these times, good bonds and peace definitely belonged to those things.

They were safe here and alive and that really wasn't something either of them still took for granted. So many things had happened in the past and so many dangerous things could still happen in the future.

There were still a lot of things Laxus was learning but he appreciated every single moment Freed and him got together. This, this was peace.

Sometimes Laxus only had to look at Freed to be overwhelmed with feelings. There was so much he hadn't realized before, about Freed and about himself. Whether it was the sound of Freed's hearty laugh or how he himself had learned to laugh more genuinely again. The sight of Freed's smirk, teasing or cocky or bursting with confidence. How he could relax so much easier when it was only the two of them. How Freed soothed his nerves and seemed to know just what to say. The way he was always there by his side, no matter the circumstances. How he had never shied away from talking back against him when he was doing or saying bullshit. How he was a great sparring partner and best friend and lover all in one person.

How he loved him unconditionally.

And how Laxus realized that his love for him was just as strong, and that he had suddenly begun to feel like they could do everything and anything together.

Perhaps he had only woken up so his restless thoughts could take him here, to their living room, so he could look at Freed and feel at ease. Feel how the nature of his thoughts turned to something positive, instead of focusing on the negative things of his past.

                                               I don't say a word                   But still, you take my breath and steal the things I know                          There you go, saving me from out of the cold

If he picked Freed up now he risked waking him up. If he managed to carry him to their bedroom without waking him, then the Freed would either thank him in the morning or he would be stubborn and try to make Laxus believe that he only dreamed that and that he had been in bed all night, just to approach him later and thank him after all.

Laxus huffed at the thought and decided that he didn't want to risk rousing Freed from his sleep, at least not by carrying him. He started with the reading glasses, stealing them from Freed's nose with caution. The man only crinkled his nose slightly, but nothing else. Carefully, he sneaked the book away from under Freed's arm and put it on the table. He continued to pick up the scattered papers and the dropped pen, then he grabbed the empty mug that had contained a steaming cup of tea hours prior and brought it to the kitchen. When he returned, he snatched a blanket from the arm chair and covered his boyfriend with it. For a moment he thought that Freed had muttered something but even if that was the case, he couldn't understand it.

His decision was made and Laxus planted himself in the arm chair right next to their big couch. He couldn't sleep right now anyway and perhaps Freed would wake up by himself. Then he would not only have caught Freed in the act but he could also go back to bed together with him. A double win, if you will.

For the longest time, he had lost the belief that anybody could ever made him feel the way Freed did. Holding Freed in his arms, having Freed hold him, it made him feel warm from the outside. And he made him feel warm on the inside. Being with him had somehow lit a flame within him that never ceased burning, instead it seemed to grow stronger with every experience, every day, every moment he spent with the man and every meaningful past experience he recalled.

Freed managed to make him feel breathless and out of control and helpless in the most wonderful ways possible, and he had never even assumed that these feelings could ever be wonderful.

They could. Freed made it happen.

Freed was capable of so many things Laxus had assumed impossible. Freed was powerful, intelligent, attractive... and those were only the most superficial, the most obvious attributes. There were so many aspects and sides of Freed as a person, and some that not everybody would get to experience, to see.

Some that were exclusive to Laxus now and this was a feeling that he held onto because he still couldn't fathom what he had done to deserve this twist of fate, to earn this love from Freed.

But he knew that he didn't want to screw this up, that he didn't want to lose this. That he didn't want to lose Freed.

When he looked at Freed, Laxus saw his partner. They were a perfect team and no enemy would ever stand a chance against their storm. When he looked at Freed, he saw his friend who would be honest with him and who he could be careless around.

When he looked at Freed, he saw the very man that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

In thrall to his thoughts and the emotions they brought forward, Laxus had to give a silent laugh. It was an attempt to stop his eyes from watering and he had to sniff hard, dragging the back of his hand across his face before looking at his sleeping boyfriend once more, whispering.

“Fuck, I love you, Freed.”

                                  Fire on fire would normally kill us                          With this much desire, together, we're winners             They say that we're out of control and some say we're sinners                          But don't let them ruin our beautiful rhythms                  'Cause when you unfold me and tell me you love me                                            And look in my eyes                               You are perfection, my only direction

                                                It's fire on fire

[continuallycrow]

i wanna know (when the pain stops)

Linhardt has 'Good Days'. Linhardt also has bad days.

title from dread by nothing,nowhere.

basically this is what happens when my brain helpfully supplies me with "what if the reason linhardt naps a lot is because he has a chronic illness but they're not really named or recognised in the time period of three houses".

i listened to a lot of nothing,nowhere. and this happened.

can be read as gen or gay aside from the very last line which is gay. caspar and linhardt are both sixteen.

Linhardt always knows, when he wakes, whether it’s going to be a good day. Or at least, a ‘Good Day’. He’s taken to borrowing the air quotes Caspar loves so much when it comes to describing the highs. Mostly because it means he has the energy to do them, and sometimes, it’s the little things.

A ‘Good Day’ begins with sleep, late enough that the morning rising over Garreg Mach is bright enough to creep in through the drapes, but not late enough that Edelgard is knocking on the door, demanding in shrill tones that he “better not be about to skip a lecture again!” It means he can wake up, swallow whatever potion or herbal tea Professor Manuela wants him to try this month, and dress in his own time. He replaces the burned-out candle from the night before, puts away the book he was reading before he fell asleep, and straightens the bedsheets, sometimes tucking them in if it feels like it’s worth it. He pulls the curtains aside and the day streams into the room, illuminating the dust motes, the sun warm on his hands. He dares to think, perhaps, that today will be fine.

There’s time for breakfast, even, sometimes, and he can walk there. The monastery grounds hold his many fellow students, clustered in pairs and groups talking, or walking alone to their duties and classes. Annette and Mercedes bid him quiet good mornings in unison as he passes, and he responds with a greeting and small smile in return. He meets Ashe under the arches, and they walk to the dining hall together, the grey-haired boy spinning a tale of Alois and the stable cats, and as Linhardt listens to his chatter and not-too-distant birdsong, he wishes all days would be like this.

Later, he is the last to their classroom for Professor Byleth’s lecture, but only by seconds, since Petra spots him from across the courtyard and sprints for the door - and of course, he understands why, because he’s late so often it would be an insult to the professor to walk in behind him. As it turns out, though, they both arrive before the professor himself. Linhardt slides with almost ease into his seat at the desk he shares with Caspar, and it’s as though the shorter boy’s whole demeanor lights up. “Lin! You made it.” Caspar beams, and Linhardt’s chest blooms with warmth. “Of course,” he replies, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. And really, it should be. Making it to class before the cathedral bells ring is supposed to be the easy part of academy training. Punctuality is a simple request, if he listens to what Seteth says.

Caspar only seems to grin wider. He scoots closer to Linhardt on their shared bench, and then Linhardt is being hugged. It surprises him every time, the affection that Caspar is so willing to give him. Others treat him like he’s made of spider-silk or blown glass, afraid to so much as bump into him in the hallways or land more than a tap during training. And of course, it’s sensible, for the most part. But it’s like Caspar can read him at a glance, and the embrace is the perfect amount of pressure, of warmth. So Linhardt allows himself to melt for just a moment, closing his eyes and finding the right way to return the gesture. For a few seconds, he forgets the dull ache behind his eyes, the heaviness in his limbs that even the short walk over from the dining hall has brought. All he knows in that short moment is Caspar.

“Your heart’s beating fast,” his friend whispers, shattering the spell. “My heart is always beating fast,” Linhardt reminds him gently. It’s one of the first things to slip Caspar’s mind, if he’s going to forget anything. He laughs a little as he pulls away, but stays sitting right by Linhardt’s side. It’s a good thing he takes notes with his right hand, while Linhardt uses his left. “Of course. I’m sorry.” “There is no need to be.”

Professor Byleth chooses that moment to stride in, and what could become of their conversation is lost to the respectful silence that sweeps the room. “Good morning, Black Eagle house.” A chorus of greetings in return. “We will begin today by recalling the sword blocking technique we studied last week. Ferdinand, if you would join me here…”

On a ‘Good Day’, Linhardt’s notes are neater than Caspar’s. His script is small, neat, slanted to the right in neat lines across his pages. On a ‘Good Day’, there are no ink spills or broken quills. There is simply the professor’s voice, and Caspar by his side, and when he’s asked to stand and demonstrate Recover on Edelgard as one of Bernadetta’s arrows goes awry, he’s more than happy to do so.

----

It stands to reason, of course, that after a streak of ‘Good Days’, and better days, and average-but-not-terrible days, the black clouds will come at their worst. And it’s just typical of Linhardt’s luck for it to all come tumbling down, just as he was beginning to hope he might feel better one day.

He first wakes to the bells chiming early morning - exactly what time, he can’t tell, because each toll sends what feels like earth-shattering pain through his head, radiating down his spine. It’s only because it’s early and the dormitory walls are thin that he finds it in him to grit his teeth, to hold back the cry that so desperately wants to tear out. He pulls the blanket over his head, but even the small movement is enough to bring hot tears to his eyes. It isn’t supposed to be like this, it’s incredibly rarely like this, but when it is, every time feels worse than the last.

He searches his mind for something to blame, to bury his head in the pillow and curse until his lungs give out. But there’s nothing there, nobody to spit at, because everything they’ve been doing, to try and help… it’s been working. Manuela’s latest syrup, infused with fresh herbs from Dedue’s small patch in the greenhouse, has had all but cured his headaches, pushed back the constant looming nausea to a level where he’s been eating three regular meals for weeks now. He’s been putting on a little healthy weight - putting on muscle , much to Professor Byleth’s delight, his hands hardly shake at all when he draws back the string on a training bow - and attending all his classes. He takes up weapons at the training ground and works to a programme devised just for him by the professors and Edelgard. A little more every day. Just three nights ago, he accepted Caspar’s offer of a duel after hours, and damn near knocked him across the classroom with his first successful Cutting Gale. He sleeps through the night, and only naps once a day, if at all.

He’s been getting better.

And yet, now, he’s powerless to do anything but lie motionless on his stomach, alone in his room. With the blanket pulled over his head, his feet and ankles are exposed and freezing. He’s always struggled to retain body heat, but the thought of moving to resolve the problem is too much. It’s all too much. So he shivers, and slips in and out of restless sleep, waking with tears drying on his cheeks more times than he cares to keep count of.

Daylight comes, and brings with it the soft sound of rain at the windows, because, well, of course it does. Linhardt’s father once hypothesised that his pain changed with the weather, and while experience has only served to prove that wrong time and time again, (he skates on the monastery pond with the others when mid-winter allows, and more than once has been bedridden as his friends frolic in the Blue Sea Moon sun - he missed Caspar’s sixteenth birthday, and is sure the regret will never leave him) it does seem that whenever the rain comes, so does the deep-set ache in his bones. He doesn’t see himself falling asleep again, at least not without a heavy dose of healing magic and another new potion or balm to try, and he knows that sooner or later, someone will come looking for him.

He doesn’t wait long. The thing about Edelgard is she seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to members of her house missing class. She must have a routine. Checking the infirmary, passing Bernadetta’s door to haul her, kicking and screaming, to the classroom, and then, coming by Linhardt’s room. Her sharp rapping at the door and the accompanying command of “Linhardt! Up!” is too much, too piercing, too painful. “Edel… please…” His lips are cracked, throat sore just from the effort of forcing out the words she probably can’t even hear. “I know you’re in there. Wake up!” When he doesn’t reply, she only goes on. “Come on, Lin! You’ve been so… spirited lately. So much better. I will not have you fall back to old habits. Open this door, before I open it myself.”

He knows she means it, and he doubts he’d be able to stand even if she gave him all day to do it, so he’s not surprised when the door flies open, hits the door with a thud, and reveals the princess in the light it lets in. She’s wet through from the rain, a sure sign that she’s made her way here without Hubert, as her advisor would insist upon carrying an umbrella for her. It wouldn’t do for a noble lady to catch a chill, of course. Something about that thought makes pained laughter spill from Linhardt’s mouth. How he wishes he could, one day, simply catch a cold and have that be the worst way his body could betray him. Edelgard strides in, and for a moment Linhardt fears she’s going to snatch the blanket right off him and order him to his feet. But as she blinks, her eyes adjusting to the darkness in the room, he watches her face soften, in familiar concern, and then even more familiar, pity.

Normally, he would despise her pity. But in this state, he’ll take what he can get.

“Again?” she asks, the anger in her voice melted away, replaced by a whisper. He closes his eyes against the disappointment in hers, and confirms, “Again.”

The Black Eagles all know of Linhardt’s affliction, though the Empire doctors don’t have a name for it. There was no way to keep it from the other students, either, though he suspects they think they know more than they do. He tried, of course, at first, to keep it hidden. Even lied to Caspar, whom he hadn’t seen in a year or more, and told him it was getting better, under control. Fainting at the steps up to the entrance hall within a week of enrolment had not been one of his finer moments, and had sparked a lot of questions and prying eyes. But by now, the students surround him with support, for the most part. He knows he frustrates them at times, with his constant exhaustion, his inability to concentrate or remember the point of conversations or the passages of the books he pours over, again and again, desperate to retain the information through the fog in his mind and the tears in his eyes. Sometimes it’s hard to remember a lesson, or call back a moment in battle. And it angers him, let alone them.

But now, Edelgard perches at the edge of his bed, he can feel the slight dip in the mattress as she settles there. She’s hardly the most affectionate of his classmates, but still, he appreciates the warm touch of her fingers on his icy skin, as she draws back his tangled hair from his face and ties it loosely with the ribbon he lost at some point in his sleep. He whispers a thank you, but the words are lost once they pass his lips. “You’re welcome,” Edelgard tells him anyway. “Are you absolutely certain… no. No, disregard that. You are clearly too unwell to come to classes.” She sounds as though she regrets even going to ask. “I cannot stay. But I will fetch your medication, and send for Professor Manuela the moment she is available. And some extra blankets.” Her presence is suddenly lost, but only for a moment, and he can smell sweet-mint. Too exhausted to even consider sitting up, he allows Edelgard to pour a small dose of the syrup into his parted lips, and somehow, swallows it without choking. She rearranges the blanket to cover him properly, and in lieu of a cool rag to cover his eyes, finds a small towel and lays it there, to block out the light. “Rest, Linhardt. Do what you do best.”

He hears the door close, and with the help of the medicine, manages to pass out again.

He guesses it’s mid-afternoon when he next wakes properly. He’s been roused a couple of times, first by Professor Manuela with some stronger medication and a couple of magical tests to make sure this is just another relapse, and not something that’s going to spread through the academy like the flu that did this time last year. When she’s sure it’s just him, she leaves, and the second time he wakes coherent, and she’s brought blankets from the infirmary, which he’s infinitely grateful for. He manages to thank her, and she gives him cool water to drink. When she tries to coax him into eating, though, he manages a few bites of something plain and unidentifiable before the dizziness overcomes him once more and he drifts off again.

He recognises the smooth heat of white magic before he even opens his eyes. He expects Manuela again, but instead finds Mercedes in a chair at his side, her brow knitted together in concentration as she casts healing spells over him. He watches her for a while, almost transfixed by the spirals of light bridging the space between them, until she notices he’s awake and closes her hands. “Linhardt.” She’s always so at ease, it puts his mind to rest too. “How are you feeling?” He takes a moment to answer, first assessing the state he’s in, and then deciding whether it’s worth lying to her. “Quite dreadful,” is the reply he ends up giving, with a rueful smile. “Though better than this morning. Warm, at least.” It’s a little easier to speak, easier to breathe. “Such is the way these things go, I suppose.” She stands up and picks her way over to his desk, bringing back a steaming teacup. “You absolutely must drink this. While another remedy is brewed, this will help.” The tea smells familiar, and Linhardt tries to focus on that instead of how much his body protests as Mercedes helps him sit up.

He insists on holding the cup on his own. Something about having a fellow student there, even if she is practically Manuela’s apprentice, brings a little shameful heat to his cheeks. “Angelica?” he asks, after a long moment inhaling the steam. “For nerve and joint pain.” Mercedes practically claps, which he thinks is ridiculous, because he’s a healer too. What kind of a healer would he be if he didn’t know the uses of simple herbs? He smiles anyway. “My favourite kind. Thank you, Mercie.” It’s slow, but he raises the cup in shaky hands and takes a sip. It’s perfectly warm, and brewed just right, and as he  drinks, he feels a little more human again. It clears some of the clouds in his mind, at least.

Mercedes sits with him until the cup is finished, and she talks about the weather - it’s still raining -  and an incident in the courtyard involving Ferdinand and a cat exactly the colour of his hair. It makes Linhardt smile, her insistence on filling him in on the day he’s slept away. She tells him Ashe and Annette are making sweet buns for dinner, and she’ll be sure to have someone bring him a plate, since there’s no doubt in either of their minds that he will see this day out in his bed. And when his tea is finished, she takes his cup and goes to help him lie down once more, but he pushes her away, albeit gently. “Not yet. When I want to sleep again, I will call for someone, if you leave the door ajar.” “If you’re quite sure, then of course. But I doubt that will be necessary. Your house have been quite desperate to see that you are recovering,” she tells him, still smiling. “Professor Manuela insists only one visitor. Perhaps two, if they’re quiet. But last I heard, Caspar was willing to spar someone for the honour, so…”

Despite everything, that idea is so undisputedly Caspar that it makes Linhardt laugh, for the first time all day. “Let him come. No, tell him I requested him, specifically. The others can wait.” “Of course. I’ll pass the message along, I’m sure he’ll be with you shortly.” She beams. “Take your syrup before bed, as usual. The new blend should be brewed by morning, Professor Byleth has been working on it all afternoon. I hope you feel well again soon, Linhardt.” As promised, she leaves the door open just a little on her way out, and he’s left to wait for Caspar.

He listens to the rain on the window for a while, and hopes that every set of footsteps to pass his room will be his blue-haired friend. Just as he’s wondering whether he should have asked Mercedes to pick out a book for him, though he doubts he’d be able to focus his eyes enough to read more than a few lines, the air fills with the sound of running boots on wooden floorboards, and Caspar comes rushing in in a flurry of cold air and wet clothes, though thankfully without his armour and weapons, so at least Linhardt knows he hasn’t come straight from a training session. “Lin!” Caspar’s excitement at seeing him takes over for a moment, and Linhardt winces at the sudden noise, enough to be visibly uncomfortable if Caspar’s reaction is anything to go by. The shorter boy presses his hand to his mouth and mumbles out a muffled “I’m sorry!” before getting his volume under control. “I’m sorry,” he says again, once he’s taken off his academy jacket and hung it on one of the hooks on the wall. He takes Mercedes’ vacated seat by the bed, and perches on the edge of it. “Hey… I missed you today.” The easiest smile of the day makes its way onto Linhardt’s face. “Hey, Cas. I missed you too.”

They talk for a while like that. Caspar takes off his boots, and the warmth of the room dries his hair, leaving it fluffy. His hand creeps across the blankets, and when Linhardt notices it getting close to his own, he moves to close the gap, entwining their fingers. Caspar always worries about being too rough when he’s like this, yet Linhardt still hopes that before tonight ends, he’ll get to feel his friend’s arms around him. Caspar hasn’t hugged him on a bad day before, and he’s too proud to ask for it, even though he thinks, or perhaps hopes, that it might take some of the edge off, the same way it does on the days he makes it to class, or the library, or the pond.

“Come closer,” Linhardt hears himself say, later on when the candles have been lit and the exhaustion is setting in. He can see that Caspar is tired now too, and most likely uncomfortable, leaning in to talk in the dim light and still sitting on that awful chair that Linhardt hates because it makes his back kick up a fierce complaint any time he tries to work in it. “I can’t move the chair any more, Lin,” Caspar points out, trying anyway. He drops it back to the floor with a thud, and Linhardt smacks his hand lightly. “Ow. You can get on the bed, you know. Idiot.” It’s a fond insult, and accompanied by a tug at his wrist, there’s no doubt that he does, in fact, want Caspar there beside him, quite desperately. Caspar frowns. “There’s not a lot of room. I don’t want to hurt you.” “When have you ever hurt me before? You won’t. I trust you.” “You trust me more than I trust myself, you know.”

“I know I do.” Linhardt pats the bed. “We’ll figure it out. Come on.”

Caspar looks as though he’s fighting an internal battle for a moment, but he sighs and relents, and moves from the chair to the space at his friend’s side. The pillows are all propped up, and he sits against them. He’s right, there isn’t much room for the two of them, but Caspar is short for his age and Linhardt, despite everyone’s best efforts, is thin for his height, so they’ll make it work. And Caspar is so warm, so familiar, that it’s all Linhardt can do not to collapse against him and, though he’s too proud to beg, beg to be comforted and held.

Because really, that’s what it all boils down to. To Linhardt, Caspar’s presence is safety, sanctuary. It means a hand to grasp onto when it all gets to be too much, an arm around his waist when he grows weak with fatigue, a voice in his ear that tells him it’ll all be alright, even if it doesn’t seem in the moment like it will be. Sharing the bed with him is awkward and painful, but if it means they can be this close, he won’t so much as whimper.

It’s a surprise when Caspar sighs, exasperation evident in his voice. “Lin, you’re hurting. Come here.”

And he’s resting on Caspar’s chest. His friend may be shorter than he is, but when they’re pressed up together, and muscle tension has Linhardt curled in on himself to be most comfortable, the difference is barely noticeable. He lets out a shaky breath, and cuddles closer, and to his delight, Caspar’s arms wrap around him and he cuddles back.

For a moment, the room is quiet.

“Better?” Caspar murmurs into his hair, so close and yet so soft it makes Linhardt jump. “More than better. Nearly perfect,” he admits, not sure when he closed his eyes, yet making no effort to open them. If this is a dream laced with medicine and pain, he doesn’t want it to end just yet. Caspar laughs quietly, and Linhardt feels the sound go right through him, flooding his veins with warmth and bliss. He decides he doesn’t ever want to move from Caspar’s embrace, right here in his bed. “Good. That’s good. You gonna be okay?” Linhardt yawns. “Oh, absolutely. I promise.”

“You wanna go back to sleep?” “It won’t help.” “Does anything help?”

“You do.”

“Me? Sure you’re not feverish, Lin?” Caspar is laughing again, and Linhardt feels like his heart might swell right out of his chest. “I don’t know how I do. But you’ve always got me.”

“Don’t leave,” Linhardt hears himself murmur. “I’ll sleep, but don’t leave.”

He hears the smile in Caspar’s voice. “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.” And perhaps Linhardt imagines the kiss to his hair, as slumber pulls him in once more.

[bluewatsons]

Michael Goldberg, Dennis Wilson: The Beach Boy Who Went Overboard, Rolling Stone (June 7, 1984)

He was the wild one. He could never get enough of anything: drugs, women or booze. But in the end, he had nothing

Dennis Wilson from the Beach Boys, 1970

It was almost midnight on Christmas day, 1983, and Dennis Wilson’s head was a bloody mess. The thirty-nine-year-old Beach Boy had been beaten up by a male friend of his estranged wife — nineteen-year-old Shawn Love Wilson — at the Santa Monica Bay Inn. Wilson had checked himself out of the detoxification unit at a local hospital and had been drinking in the area when he ran into Shawn’s friend, with whom he picked a fight. He lost that fight.

Several hours later, drunk and puffing on a cigarette, his face a ghastly gray, Wilson was vowing revenge outside St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica. “I just want to go down. there and kick his ass,” said Wilson in a gruff croak. “Call the cops. Close the place [the Santa Monica Bay Inn] down. Bust everyone.” Steve Goldberg, a close friend who had brought Dennis to the hospital, did his best to calm him down.

Inside the hospital, Chris Clark, another buddy of Wilson’s, was on the phone, trying to convince Dr. Michael Gales to readmit Wilson, an alcoholic and drug abuser, to the hospital’s detox unit, from which the Beach Boy had checked out earlier. But Gales didn’t want to have anything to do with Dennis Wilson.

“He’s just too much trouble,” Gales allegedly told Chris Clark.

“He may die, you know,” Chris Clark told Gales.

“He might have to,” the doctor allegedly replied.

Three days later, on December 28th, Dennis Carl Wilson was dead, his body pulled out of the cold, murky water of nearby Marina Del Rey. Toxicological tests showed Wilson’s blood alcohol level to be 0.26 at the time of death — more than twice the legal limit for driving. A week after his death, Dennis Wilson’s ashes were sprinkled into the Pacific.

“Dennis Wilson was the essence, the spirit of the Beach Boys,” recalled Fred Vail, a longtime business associate of the band’s. “We used to think of him as the Steve McQueen or James Dean of the group.”

For one thing, Dennis was the only Beach Boy who knew how to surf. He was also the band’s sex symbol. But while he was breaking hearts at their live performances, he wasn’t always playing on the records.

By the time the Beach Boys’ fifth hit single, “Little Deuce Coupe,” was released in 1963, Dennis was frequently being replaced in the studio by session drummer Hal Blaine.

It apparently didn’t bother Dennis that Blaine was drumming on the Beach Boys’ records. “I think as soon as the checks started rolling in, Dennis had other things,” says Blaine. “He was buying things; he was appreciating his motorcycling and hobbies and so forth. When you’re sixteen years old and you’re literally handed millions of dollars, you get crazy.”

And Dennis Wilson loved to spend money. “He was a Sixties type of person,” said Robert Levine, his personal manager. He wasn’t concerned about materialistic things. He would give away clothing, money. . . .”

Wilson was famous for letting people crash at his house — when he had one. In 1968, Charles Manson and his “family” moved into Dennis’ Sunset Boulevard home. By then, Dennis had divorced his first wife, Carole Freedman, and was participating in orgies and other debauchery under Manson’s direction. During this, period, he also tried heroin for the first time. The Manson Family spent $100,000 of his money and wrecked an uninsured $21,000 Mercedes. But rather than kick them out when things got too heavy, Wilson himself split, moving in with Gregg Jakobson, a friend and musical collaborator.

Wilson’s involvement with Manson was not atypical in at least one respect: The drummer loved to flirt with danger. In the early Seventies, he would drink a six-pack or two, smoke some grass, then get in his jeep and drive through the desert at top speed with the headlights off.

“Whatever he did,” said Chris Clark, “he did in excess.” Including sex. Dennis was a notorious womanizer; he was never able to remain faithful to one woman. “He called himself ‘the wood,'” says one friend. The wood? “Yeah,” the friend said, gesturing to his crotch.

Even his manager acknowledges Dennis’ satyriasis. “Dennis was a sex fiend, plain and simple,” said Levine. “The man used to think more with his sex organs than with his brain.”

Wilson was married five times, and had filed to divorce Shawn — the illegitimate daughter of his cousin and fellow band member, Mike Love — a month prior to his death. He is survived by four children: Jennifer Beth, by his first wife, Carole Freedman; Carl Benton and Michael Dennis, by his second wife, Barbara Carol Charren; and Gage Dennis, by his last wife, Shawn.

Wilson’s relationship with actress-model Karen Lamm was by far his craziest. Their first date was in 1974 at Mr. Chow’s, a Beverly Hills restaurant. “He reached over and grabbed my right breast and said, ‘Great tits!”‘ Lamm remembers. “I ran to the bathroom; I was so humiliated. I thought, ‘I never want to see this guy again.”‘ But Lamm and Wilson saw each other for the next six years, a period during which they were married and divorced twice. “We were so out of control,” said Lamm. “It led to a very wild existence with each other.”

Indeed. Like the day in 1975 when Wilson hit Lamm, prompting her to fetch a.38-caliber revolver from her house. She had decided to put on an act to keep Dennis in line. “You get your ass off my property and don’t come back,” said Lamm, waving the gun. Then she shot a hole through the side of their Mercedes, just missing the gas tank. Lamm says they both broke up laughing. In 1978, Dennis drove Lamm’s Ferrari down to Venice Beach and, in another fit of rage, doused the interior of the car with lighter fluid and torched it. “Then he went up to a house on Venice Boulevard and played the piano while it burned, like Nero,” recalled Steve Goldberg.

ll was not wanton destruction while Dennis and Karen Lamm were together. Dennis’ most creative period came in the mid-Seventies, when he wrote and produced a marvelous solo album titled Pacific Ocean Blue. Released in 1977, it sold a respectable 200,000 copies.

Wilson recorded about half of a follow-up album, though most of the songs were never finished. “Dennis was not what you would call a completer,” said Levine. Part of the reason may have been his use of heroin. According to sources close to the band, Dennis had started to use the drug in 1978, and during a tour of Australia that year, he was allegedly sharing his supply with Brian. At one point, the drummer checked himself into a hospital under an assumed name and cleaned up, but his overindulgences were creating problems within the Beach Boys.

Toward the end of 1978, Wilson took up with Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie. The romance began while Fleetwood Mac was recording Tusk. “Dennis walked into the studio one night and whisked me off my feet,” McVie recalled. The two went out for nearly three years, and Wilson even moved into Christine’s house in Coldwater Canyon. “It was probably the experience of a lifetime. Dennis was such a character. Half of him was like a little boy, and the other half was insane. A really split personality.”

With McVie, Dennis was both a great romantic and a drug abuser and alcoholic. He had a heart-shaped garden planted at her home in 1979, and at a surprise birthday party the following year, Dennis hired a symphony orchestra to serenade her as he sang “You Are So Beautiful.” McVie and Wilson sang and wrote songs together at the piano. They considered recording an album together, and she dedicated a song on the last Fleetwood Mac LP, Mirage, to him.

Still, along with the romance and good times came bouts of drunken destruction, when Wilson would storm through the house breaking anything within reach. “He used her place like a hospital,” said Steve Goldberg. “Then he’d call me, I’d go and pick him up, and she wouldn’t see him for a week. When he was totaled out — he wouldn’t sleep for a week — he’d go back. Over and over again. He cared about her, but his priority was having a good time.”

In 1979, the Beach Boys had had enough. Dennis was frequently missing tours, and when he did show up, he was often too messed up to play. Finally, he was kicked out of the group.

When his business affairs in disarray, the drummer hired Levine as his business manager. Within a year, Levine also became Wilson’s personal manager. “It wasn’t the easiest situation,” said Levine. “He was heavily in debt when he came to me. The whole gamut. Two years of back taxes. He owed everybody in every store money. We set up a program where it took us about two and one half years to work down the most pressing debts.” In 1980, Dennis rejoined the Beach Boys and began to tour again.

By the beginning of 1981, Wilson and McVie had split up. Dennis moved into a house in Venice Beach with his seventeen-year-old daughter Jennifer and some other friends. “Things got real bad,” said Steve Goldberg, who was also living at the house. “When he was living at Christine’s, he was doing a lot of coke. [The drinking] kind of started to ease the shakes from the coke. By the time he moved to Venice, he was carrying around a ready-mixed jug. It just progressed to a continual drink.”

Up until his death, Dennis Wilson would show up at the Venice Beach home of Garby Leon, a friend with a doctorate in music composition from Harvard. There, Dennis, Garby and sometimes Brian would hang out and make music late into the night, with Brian on Hammond organ and Dennis on grand piano or harp. During that time, Brian wrote nearly an album’s worth of material.

But, Garby Leon says, the other Beach Boys didn’t like Dennis and Brian’s new songs. In late 1981, the Wilson brothers spent a few days making demos of several songs in the studio, but money to pay for the sessions was cut off.

It was while Dennis was living in Venice that the affair with his illegitimate second cousin, Shawn Love, began. Shawn, then sixteen, recalls showing up at Dennis’ house in Venice with a mutual friend.

“What’s your name?” asked Dennis.

“Shawn,” she replied.

“What’s your dad’s name?” asked Dennis.

“Mike.”

“Mike what?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Just tell me who your dad is,” insisted Dennis.

“His name is Mike Love.”

Then, she recalled, “he started talking to me like a big brother. He said, ‘It’s not safe for you to tell everybody who your dad is.’ All of a sudden he changed the conversation. At first, some people thought he was coming on to me to get at Mike.” Soon they were living together.

Dennis did go back on the road with the Beach Boys, but it was rough for everyone. Bodyguards were needed to keep Dennis off the bottle prior to performances. When he drank, he could be boorish onstage, as well as an erratic drummer. There were raging battles between Dennis and Mike Love. Finally, restraining orders were issued to keep them apart.

Wilson used to get a kick out of hassling Love. Once, on the way to a concert date, Wilson walked up to the area on their private jet where Love was meditating, pulled open the door and threw up.

By the end of 1981, Dennis and Shawn’s relationship showed signs of strain. “He was acting like a real punk,” said Shawn. “He was drunk and high. It was embarrassing to me. One of my girlfriends told me he was trying to take another girlfriend to bed.”

Shawn was furious. “I ran up to him in the alley, and I just slugged him in the face,” she said. “I came up to him like, ‘I am going to kill you.’ We got into a full-on fight. He didn’t actually punch me, but he had me down. He dragged me by my hair.”

Despite the ongoing friction, Dennis and Shawn were married in July 1983, nearly a year after their son, Gage Dennis, was born. By the fall of 1983, there wasn’t much of a relationship left. Scrawled in crayon on the walls of their house at 6120 Trancas Canyon Road in Malibu were the phrases “No love” and “No respect.” The house was a shambles. Doors were broken. On one occasion, Shawn nearly drove her silver BMW into the front door. Less than a month before he died, Dennis smashed the windows of the same car with a baseball bat.

Dennis and Shawn separated. “I left partially because of me and Dennis not getting along because of personal things — jealousies and stuff,” said Shawn. She moved into a $150-a-week room at the Santa Monica Bay Inn, a stone’s throw from the drug connection Dennis Wilson turned to when he needed cocaine. A divorce was in the works at the time of his death. Shawn claims that they were working things out, but adds, “We probably would have been together, then apart again.”

***

In 1982, the more business-minded beach Boys — Carl Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love — and their manager, Tom Hulett, felt there were two big problems that had to be solved: Brian Wilson and Dennis Wilson.

Brian had ballooned to over 300 pounds. He wouldn’t bathe, he would eat and then throw up his food, and if drugs were around, he would use them. He was, as one associate put it, “extremely nonproductive as a human being.”

The task of curing Brian eventually fell, as it had once before, to psychologist Eugene Landy. Landy had once worked for a fan magazine, Teen Screen, and was later a record company A&R man before becoming therapist to the stars. In 1976, he became a celebrity for his role in getting Wilson out of the bedroom and into the recording studio. Eventually, Landy was fired when he allegedly began asking for a percentage of the Beach Boys’ income and wanted to become active in the management of the group.

Nevertheless, it was Eugene Landy whom Tom Hulett turned to. Though Hulett refused to be interviewed for this article, he told the Los Angeles Times last summer that he had Brian Wilson’s interest at heart when he enlisted Landy. “I told the other guys in the band that if we didn’t do something, Brian was going to be the next headline (death) in Billboard.”

In late October 1982, Brian Wilson was told by his accountants that he was broke and that he owed the government tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes. A week or so later, at a meeting attended by Mike, Al and Carl, plus various managers and accountants, Brian was fired. He was handed a letter dated November 5th, 1982, that read, in part: “This is to advise you that your services as an employee of Brother Records, Inc., and otherwise are hereby terminated, effective immediately.” Though it was signed by the four other Beach Boys, Shawn Wilson claims that Dennis didn’t know what he was signing, if indeed he signed it at all.

“They told him that the only way that he could be a Beach Boy again, and the only way they would release his 1982 tour disbursement money, was if he would agree to see Dr. Landy,” says Brian’s girlfriend, Carolyn Williams, who was present at the meeting. “Brian started yelling that he didn’t like Dr. Landy and that [Landy] was charging him $20,000 a month the last time. He was willing to see anybody to get the weight off, but he didn’t want to see Landy. And they said, ‘Well, no, you have to see Dr. Landy. That’s the only way.”‘

A while later, Brian was taken to Hawaii to begin a program with Eugene Landy. Brian remains under Landy’s care to this date; his fee is rumored to exceed $50,000 a month. Landy has recently become the Beach Boys’ “recording manager” and may share song writing credits (and, thus, royalties) with Brian Wilson on the next Beach Boys’ album. Because of his relationship with Brian, Landy actually told a reporter from California Magazine, “I’m the one who’s making the album.”

The three Beach Boys and their manager then apparently turned to the other problem: Dennis Wilson. “When they put Brian in the Landy program,” said Shawn, “A couple of our friends said, ‘Dennis, as soon as they have Brian done, they’re going to try to do the same thing with you.’ He said, ‘No, they’re not going to do anything.”‘

Dennis was wrong.

Mike, Carl, Al and manager Hulett had already banned Dennis from some concerts during 1983. Finally, Dennis was told he would not be allowed to tour with the band unless he went through a detox program. “Which was okay,” says Levine. “They were all interested in helping him. I was in full agreement with that.”

To hear Dennis’ Venice Beach friends tell it, the rock star was literally put out on the streets. For a month prior to his death, Dennis was without a home. He had no car and little money. He lived a nomadic life, crashing with various friends. “If Dennis had had a place to live, he might not have died,” said Garby Leon.

At least one member of Dennis Wilson’s immediate family agrees. “I feel if Dennis had had a place to stay, he might not have been down in the marina that day,” said his daughter Jennifer.

Though Bob Levine feels Wilson was fairly serious about straightening out his life, Steve Goldberg maintains he was just telling people what they wanted to hear. In late November, Dennis checked into a country club-style therapy center in Arizona. He left after two days.

Over the next month, he bounced from friend to friend. There was a scene outside an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where Wilson and Beach Boys manager Tom Hulett argued about money. Hulett reportedly pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off fifteen dollars and offered it to Wilson, who wouldn’t take it. Hulett threw it on the ground. The next day. Hulett apparently gave Wilson $100.

On Friday, December 23rd, Dennis Wilson checked into St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica. Dr. Jokichi Takamine, the doctor caring for Wilson at St. John’s, says that “he was very serious” about the program.

Wilson and Takamine spoke at length on Saturday; the doctor says he told Wilson he would be away on Sunday, Christmas Day, but would see him on Monday.

But Dennis checked himself out of St. John’s Hospital early in the evening on Christmas Day. Although Shawn had apparently agreed to come to the hospital with Gage to visit, she never made it. “He just showed up at my mom’s,” said Shawn. “He said he was really lonely and that he wanted to be with us on Christmas.”

He spent about an hour with Shawn and Gage, then left. A friend bumped into Dennis walking along the road near the Santa Monica Bay Inn. They went for a drink at a club. It was later that night that Dennis stopped by the Santa Monica Bay Inn and was beaten up by Shawn’s male friend. After being denied medical attention at St. John’s hospital, Dennis was admitted to Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital at around two a.m. He spent the night.

Wilson checked himself out at 11:30 a.m. the next day and called Steve Goldberg an hour and a half later. “He was at a beer bar two blocks down the street He wanted me to drive down and pick him up,” said Steve Goldberg. “I told him I was working on my van and said, ‘Why don’t you just walk over here?”‘ He kept calling me back. He wanted money and a ride. He ended that conversation [with the word] termination. Click. I don’t know if he was referring to the conversation, our friendship or his life.”

***

On Tuesday, December 27th, at about eight p.m., the phone rang on Bill Oster’s boat, the Emerald. Dennis wanted to visit. The old friends had been out of touch for nearly a year, but Oster was happy to hear from him and agreed to pick up the Beach Boy and the girl he was with, Colleen “Crystal” McGovern.

Wilson had met Oster, a mechanical engineer, a few years earlier when his boat, the Harmony, had been docked next to the Emerald at a Marina Del Rey slip. After Wilson lost his boat, Oster hid a key on the Emerald so Dennis could have use of the boat. Dennis had called Oster from Colleen McGovern’s house in Culver City. McGovern was a casual friend; she and Dennis had been seeing each other only for a few weeks. After talking with Oster, Dennis was excited. “He said, ‘We’re going to the boat; we’re going to have a good time. And tomorrow I’m going to go to detox,”‘ recalled McGovern.

When Oster picked the couple up, Dennis said, “Gotta get a bottle.” They stopped at a liquor store, Wilson bought a fifth of vodka and some orange juice, and they drove to the boat.

Oster, his fiancée, Brenda, McGovern and Wilson sat around in the boat’s small cabin that night, reminiscing and drinking. At one point, the conversation turned to Dennis. Oster told the Beach Boy, “It wasn’t six months ago that I said to Brenda, ‘I hope the next tune we see Dennis, it’s not at his funeral.” Wilson looked right at Oster and said, “Don’t you worry about that.”

“We talked about his alcohol rehabilitation, detox and why he didn’t want to go in,” recalled Oster. “He said, ‘They won’t let me back in the band until I do it.” He didn’t like the atmosphere [at St. John’s]. There was a place in New Mexico he was willing to try.”

Wilson was drinking heavily. “If anybody else had been drinking the way Dennis was drinking, they would have been smashed,” said Oster. “But Dennis drank like that normally. I don’t think I ever knew him sober.”

At about midnight, Dennis passed out. He slept fitfully. “Dennis was just sweating like I’d never seen him sweat,” said McGovern. “It was just dripping down his face. I was mopping his forehead constantly.”

McGovern eventually fell asleep, but was awakened an hour later by Wilson. “I could see right away he was wound up again.” Wilson made several phone calls, apparently including one to Shawn. “Dennis and I ended up staying up all night,” said McGovern. “We would sleep a few minutes, then he would wake me up again. Every once in a while he’d say, ‘Honey, what are we going to do?’ And I’d say, ‘We’re going to get some sleep.’ And he would say, ‘I can’t sleep, ‘I can’t sleep.”‘

The next morning, the foursome sat around talking. At about ten, Oster suggested that he and Wilson go rowing. “We set it up, put the oars in it,” said Oster, “and he’s wandering around. ‘I want a drink, I want a drink!’ The girls had hid the stuff. He finally found it and mixed himself another drink.”

They returned an hour later; at noon, they had turkey sandwiches. Wilson had consumed three-quarters of the bottle of vodka by this point. When he spilled a drink on his pants, Oster loaned him a pair of cutoff jeans. That’s when Dennis began diving into the slip next to the Emerald. He surfaced and handed Oster an old piece of rope.

“That was the first thing he brought up,” recalled Oster. “He kept diving down, scrounging around, bringing up junk. Why he was doing it, I don’t know.”

Wilson came out of the fifty-eight-degree water after twenty minutes; back on the dock, he was shivering and his teeth were chattering. He sat in front of a heater inside the cabin. His friends brought him towels, and after about fifteen minutes, he stopped shaking. He ate another sandwich and had another drink.

Then he made a few more dives. He found a silver frame that had held his and Karen Lamm’s wedding picture. He had thrown it off the Harmony in 1980, when they were divorced.

“He was really excited,” said McGovern. “He said, ‘Guess what I found! A chest of gold!”‘ Back on board, the Beach Boy sat around for about two and a half hours, relaxing and drinking. He finished off the fifth of vodka. He was talking about what he thought was at the bottom of the slip: a tool box, the “chest of gold,” a sack of silver dollars. “He was psyching himself up to go back in after his treasures,” said Oster. “I told him there was nothing down there. We tried halfheartedly to talk him out of going back in. There was no I talking him out of it.”

At some point, he found a bottle of wine on the boat and drank from it. Around four p.m., Dennis was ready to go back in the water. But first he walked to another houseboat on the other side of the dock in search of booze. He managed to talk a friend into giving him a partially filled fifth of vodka and had another drink.

Then he made his last dive. Oster was standing on one of the slender piers that extend between the docked boats, across the slip from the Emerald. From there, he saw air bubbles. “I saw him come up to within two feet of the surface,” said Oster. “Then I saw him swim behind my rowboat, where I couldn’t see his face or what he was doing. I think I heard him take a breath of air.”

Oster called out, “Dennis, what did you find?” There was no response.

“At that point, I saw him go straight down and back out of sight. I said to myself, ‘That sucker’s playing a game on me, he’s trying to hide.’ That was my fatal error. Because that was the last time he went down. I took a few puffs on a cigarette, waiting for him to come up. Didn’t hear or see anything. So I quietly walked around to my side of the empty slip. I didn’t see him, so I stomped on the dock and made a whole bunch of noise and said, ‘Hey, Dennis, where are you? Ha ha. I can’t find you.’ Still no response. Then I started looking. It was just clear enough that you could look under all the docks and see if there was an object under there. There were a lot of places where he could have come up and hid.”

But when Dennis didn’t surface, his friends became worried. Oster was going to dive in himself when he spotted the harbor patrol. According to the autopsy report, “The harbor patrol searched the waters for approximately thirty minutes before finding the body. The time that the body was pulled from the water was approximately 1745 hours [5:45 p.m.]. Dennis Wilson was pronounced dead three minutes later.

***

“We are not disbanding,” announced Carl Wilson at an L.A. press conference on Monday, January 9th, twelve days after Dennis Wilson’s death. “We are postponing currently scheduled dates during this period of mourning.”

Regardless of their personal feelings about Dennis, the Beach boys will continue — and at least one member thinks the band will be stronger. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is how Mike Love characterized Dennis’ effect on the band during his decline. “Dennis had his problems: drugs, alcohol. . . .”

Now middle-aged men — Love is forty-three; Brian Wilson, forty-one; Al Jardine, thirty-nine; Carl Wilson, thirty-seven; and Bruce Johnston, forty — the remaining Beach Boys are caught in a bind. Their last studio LP, Keepin’ the Summer Alive, sold fewer than 200,000 copies, and the band members have reportedly been unable to hang onto their money. (Mike Love filed for bankruptcy last year.)

As a result, they must tour constantly to afford their extravagant lifestyles. So, to no one’s great surprise, the Beach Boys were performing at Harrah’s, a casino in Lake Tahoe, a little over a month after Carl’s announcement.

Renewed concert activity is not the only front the Beach Boys are now active on. A million-dollar deal with Vestron Video to make a home video, The Complete Beach Boys, has been made. Culture Club producer Steve Levine, who has recently spent time working on music with Brian in Jamaica, will produce a new Beach Boys album in London. Recently, the Beach Boys aimed up on the soundtrack to Up the Creek. A collaborative Beach Boys-Four Seasons single titled “East Meets West” has been cut, and the band is pairing up with international pop star Julio Iglesias on a remake of the Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe.”

At the late show at Tahoe, Brian Wilson did not perform. The others, backed by an eleven piece-band, including a horn section and two drummers, offered an unexceptional rerun of the Beach Boys’ oldies. With the exception of “Rock and Roll Music,” which reached Number Five on the pop charts in 1976, and a couple of tunes off Carl Wilson’s solo albums, the Beach Boys performed music that was nearly two decades old.

Toward the conclusion, the band sang a weary version of “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Conspicuously absent was any mention of Dennis Wilson. The period of mourning was apparently over.

[thevirtualcanvas]

Red like Roses

Just a little story about my builder showing her affections for Portia's favourite Captain. I gave him roses every day for two weeks solid to get his affections up and thought – yes! That is a sweet story idea. Arlo getting flustered at getting flowers.

So, enjoy!

“Good Morning, Captain.”

Arlo was teased from his reverie, as a delightful smile and soft voice brought him back to reality.

“Ah, Grace, good morning. How are you?”

Pleasantries, but then again the new builder was very pleasant. She was an unexpected addition to his little town, but as time went on, not an unwelcome one. It was a bright and early spring morning, and they were the only souls in Peach Plaza. A soft pink light shone on everything, shone on her.

“Well, thank you. I'm just headed to the Mayor's house to visit Ginger. I have some things that might cheer her up,” Grace gestured to the little wicker basket in her arms; it was full of goodies, like sweet rolls, a thermos of what he presumed was soup, a pie and a bouquet of roses.

“Would you like some company?” He asked her before he even really thought about it. Embarrassed and shocked by his own outburst, Arlo stiffened, lips tightened as he awaited her answer.

“Sure! That would be lovely, just as long as I'm not taking up too much of your valuable time?”

Arlo thought quickly. “It's on my route – and I need to see Gale this morning anyway. Here let me carry this,” he held his arm out for the basket, she didn't really need the help, but he felt it was the right thing to do. It also might help him focus on something else other than his very pink cheeks that were no doubt blending into his hair.

Grace gave him the basket and started walking up the hill around the base of the Church to the Mayor's house. They walked in tandem, talking easily, the world quiet except their own conversation and a few twittering birds. Arlo found himself relaxed in a way few other Portian's made him, it's not that he didn't like the people here, it's just that few saw beyond his authority. He watched her with cool reverence as she spoke about all of the commission's she'd take on. How each one was its own challenge and the relief and joy she felt when they were completed and completed well.

“Don't get me wrong,” she said casting him a soft smile. “I enjoy my official work, but I get more of a buzz on working on the little projects. The ones that actually help people.”

“They all help,” Arlo found himself saying as he shimmied the basket back up his arm. “Each task you complete is all to enrich the lives of each citizen.”

“Yeah, but the little ones are personal. They help me get to know the people asking me for help. It's nice. You must know what that feels like? I've seen you going above and beyond countless. Walking QQ for Gust when the alliance keeps him busy with new plans. Feeding the chickens for Sophie, when Emily cleans the coop. Picking up extra patrols for Sam and Remy so they can have a lie-in on a Sunday. You don't do them just because it's in your job title, Captain,” she nudged his arm as she spoke. She was warm, he could feel the heat through the stiff layers of his uniform. “Helping builders carry their wicker baskets? It's not official but very much appreciated.”

Arlo relented, he wasn't sure if it was because of the words she spoke, or the fact her beaming face was making him feel like a prepubescent boy all over again. “I take your point. I want to make everyone's lives here safer, easier. I do what I can, but as Captain of the Civil Corps, nothing is really beyond my remit.”

The morning light bounced off her face, eyes glimmering as she took her victory, cheeks full and even at this early time had flecks of coal and dust on them. “Speaking of, I'm nearly finished with your new training dummy's. I should have them delivered by next week, so, I hope you can manage without for a little while longer?”

“Yes, of course, thanks. Not to play favourites but the last ones from Higgins only lasted six months. So I appreciate your discretion on the matter. I wouldn't want to upset him.” It's not that he particularly cared for Higgin's emotions – he just became insufferable when anyone questioned his work. It was not a rant Arlo wanted to endure for a second time.

Grace's smile turned a little mischievous. “He obviously didn't take into account our dear Captain's fierce strength,” was – was she flirting with him? “Not to worry, the springs on the dummy's recoil are composed of galvanised steel and the interior from titanium. They'll have give, but shouldn't break, nor hurt you.”

“I – yes, well, thank you. Again.”

The mayoral house came into view and there seemed to be life inside. Arlo was somewhat relieved, his heart was beating so hard in his chest he was certain she could hear it.

“And here we are. Thank you for accompanying me this morning, Captain,” she said as she opened her hands for the basket of goods. Her fingers brushed his; they were warm and calloused but he wanted to hold them anyway. Grace took the basket from him and held it in the crook of her arm. “It was nice to have an escort, you should do it more often.”

She laughed as she saw him fumble over an apt response, reaching for his hand to apologise for her jesting. He cleared his throat, pushing back the slurry of highly inappropriate thoughts that were swimming in his head.

Grace rapt her knuckles against the door and then turned back to Arlo, she reached into the little basket and grasped at one of the roses. She held it out and urged him to take it.

“Please, take it. It's a 'thank you' for walking me here this morning. Ginger won't notice one missing. Besides, the colour matches, you're supposed to have it.”

“I really shouldn't, Civil Corps shouldn't accept gifts...” he recited, more embarrassed by the contents of the gift than the subject of getting one. He didn't think anyone had ever given him flowers.

Grace tilted her head and chuckled. “It's a rose, Captain. Not a bribe. Go ahead, I promise not to tell.”

Tentatively he reached out and took the delicate present in his hands. It was so delicate, rich with colour and he could even feel the bite of the thorns under his gloves. Coming from her this was – perfect.

“I grew them myself,” she added. “You're holding my first horticultural endeavour. Alice helped me set it up but apart from that the hard graft was all me.”

He noticed how proud she seemed, beaming at the delicate little organic thing in his hands. It served no practical use, not like a bridge, or the dee dee transporters. Yet, she seemed more thrilled by the little rose than all of the mechanical marvel she'd produced in the short time here. He was truly astounded by her. Arlo held it delicately, worried it might fall apart in his hands, inwardly giddy and smitten by the small act of kindness from the builder.

“It is beautiful – you should be proud,” he flitted his eyes to her, to find her entirely focused on him. Watching his every movement. Bated and hooked on his response. He felt wobbly all of a sudden, she'd shuffled closer. Hands to her chest, smiling. She smelled like coal, like fresh bread and the soft roses she'd grown with her wonderfully clever hands. He wondered what it would be like to hold those hands, to hold the rest of her. To lean in and taste those lips and feel that body, strong and study and – he needed to go. He was getting ahead of himself. It was just a flower. Arlo straightened, he took a step back and focused. “I should get going. Give Ginger my best.”

Grace looked confused. “Don't you need to speak to Gale?”

She had him there. “I can catch him later, better go and put this in water,” smooth, Arlo.

Russo had come to the door at that point. They greeted the butler and Arlo used it as his means of escape. Turning on heel, he turned from her. Face blushing furiously.

“Captain?” She called for him.

He couldn't refuse her, he looked back hoping she wouldn't comment on his face. “Yes, Grace?”

“Add a little bit of sugar to the water, it'll help keep the rose for longer,” she told him with the genuine intention of helping him, but also as an opportunity to see that strong and blushing face once more before he left.

“Right, good tip. Thanks, have a good day,” he spat almost too quickly, feeling hot and bothered under her soft gaze.

“You too, Captain. Don't work too hard,” it was said with playful teasing and a coy smile as she entered the Mayor's home.

Arlo dashed away, hoping if he dived into his daily routine his head would clear. Her smile and honest excitement swarmed in his mind, on repeat. As if he could work with her taking over his head.

For a few days, it was quiet, Arlo barely saw Grace, she was working on steel frameworks for the new bridge crossing and was mostly holed up in her workshop or overseeing the bridge construction. And he himself; between protecting the border and dealing with the inane requests of the residents, scarcely had time to think, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He was running, as he always did first thing on the morning. Sam and Remy were ahead, trying to competitively catch up with Paulie, the furniture store owner. There was something about working up a sweat that made him feel good. At six foot three running wasn't always the easiest for him, but he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the way his feet smacked off the concrete, how his blood raced through his body and the wind rushed past him in resistance. It made him feel like he was truly working, that these little things would help him become a man worthy of the Flying Pigs. He did a couple of laps around the fountain, waving to Nora and Minister Lee as they set up for the day, and set off at pace down the high street. Sonia was sleepily setting up her stand, Django was chatting lightly to her. Issac trundled out of the archway, chessboard in hand and grunted at hello in his direction. Alice was as punctual as ever at her stand, she was chatting away, she caught his eye and noticeably nudged the person she was talking too. He'd recognise that set of overalls anywhere.

“Captain! Good morning! It's a beautiful day, isn't it?” Grace spun around, calling him over, and his long limbs struggled to stop. He ground to a halt at the edge of Alice's flower stall and used the bridge to support himself as his lungs screeched at the sudden stop.

“Morning Grace, Alice,” he greeted them, holding onto his chest as he forced himself to full height. Arlo was suddenly aware, suddenly embarrassed. He was sweating buckets, his hair was windswept and plastered to his head all at once. His long calves were poking out of a pair of old shorts and weathered trainers. He moved his arms behind his back, a bone of contention for him. Littered with thousands of freckles thanks to the weeks of beating Portian sunshine. She was holding arms full of flowers, a litany of roses, lilies, and others he didn't recognise.

“Hey Arlo,” Alice greeted warmly. “It's supposed to get super warm today. I wouldn't run for too much longer if I were you. Do you need some water?”

The sun was beating down on his head, it was early but he was still feeling it's adverse effects. “Yes, thanks, Alice, that would be great.”

The bespectacled woman smiled at him and reached round into a cooler beside a crate. “No worries, I know the heat can be tricky. We, redheads, have to stick together,” he knew she dyed her hair. It was more auburn at the minute, but when he arrived at Portia you could have mistaken them for twins. She wasn't embarrassed by the colour, she reminded him, just interested in what her flowers pigments could do. It was merely for science.

He chugged it back quickly, almost relishing in the cold, his throat was parched. Arlo wiped the back of his mouth with his hand and exhaled in relief, noticing immediately the builder watching his every motion, double guessing the way she licked her bottom lip with the pad of her tongue. Alice took the empty bottle from him and thanked her again, leaning past Grace to do so, catching the powerful smell of flowers and something else.

“How goes the bridge work?” He asked, eager to get into the desert himself and explore the ruins before the research center and church got their claws into each other about it.

Grace smiled, “It's going great. Though I feel a bit at odds being the only woman in the group. Albert can be quite the charmer, at least he thinks he is. So, it's a good thing I have Gale and Mint at my side to keep him in check. I'm just waiting on my steel to heat enough to work with and I'll get back into this afternoon. I just wanted to get away from the workshop a bit, so I thought I'd bring some flowers over to Alice to bundle and bouquet for me.”

He was perturbed at the thought of Albert being sweet on her, granted he was like that with everyone, but still... “If Albert is being a hassle, I could have a word with him? It's not very professional of him to act like that.”

Grace laughed as she handled the flowers over to Alice. Alice rolled her eyes at him as she turned to work. “Thanks, Captain, but I can handle him. He's harmless. I appreciate the gesture though.”

Of course, she could, and now he was embarrassed all over again. “Right – sorry – I didn't mean to insinuate you couldn't. And what of Higgins, is he behaving himself?”

She shrugged, Higgins had despised her since day one. It's not because he knew her, she was just competition and he couldn't get past that. “So – so. He just ignores me, which is probably for the best. I don't want to argue at work – but thank you for asking.”

“And done!” Alice announced, breaking the awkward silence between them. In her hands the florist held a couple of bouquets; one of lilies, one of roses, and one individual rose wrapped in hessian. He didn't really know flowers, but Arlo could appreciate Alice's talents, they were beautifully arranged with pockets of greenery to break up the colour. She handed them back to Grace, while putting the remainders in her own buckets to make arrangements of her own later on. “There you go Grace, I'm sure Gust and Ginger will be happy with these.”

Grace grimaced slightly. “Oh, I hope so. Ginger has been feeling down a little lately – I hope getting out to visit her mum will help.”

“Oh, so the flowers are for her grave?” Arlo asked, humbled by the kind notion of Grace helping Ginger out.

Grace pointed to each individual bouquet. “The irises are for the grave, the roses are for the house and this – ” She paused at the little individual one, twiddling with the little ribbon wrapped around the hessian. “Well, this one is for you, Captain. It's been a little while and I thought the other one has probably wilted by now. I just wanted to replace it – ”

Arlo looked at the little flower, beautifully wrapped, with petals more delicate and rich than the last one he received. He then looked at Grace, who held it out to him with less certainty than last time. No flirtatious behaviour, in company she'd become as meek and shy as he was. Alice stared at him from behind Grace and nodded at him.

Take the flower, Arlo. It seemed to say. So he did, even though his head was running a million miles a second, and his blood was pumping faster than his interrupted morning run. He didn't really know what to say, well anything appropriate of Captain of the Civil Corps. She was hiding behind the other flower, cheeks pinks, and eyes averted.

“Thank you,” he said. “The other one, despite my best efforts gave up. So – um, thank you for the replacement.”

Something smacked him on the back, he jilted forward and turned around to see Sam teasing him about taking a break. His small teammate's interruption couldn't have come at a better time. Holding the flower firmly in his hand Arlo excused himself.

“Sorry, gotta get moving – have a good day, Ladies,” he waved with the rose, and ran towards Sam and Remy, not looking back but hearing the soft whine of Grace, and the supportive words of Alice.

“You did great,” she said to the Builder. “He'll get it someday.”

Roses appeared everywhere he went.

On his desk at the end of the day. Strapped to Spacer's saddle. Tied to a tree on his route around the city limits. On the internal door of the abandoned ruins by the church. Attached to a finished commission report, or in a box with the finished commissioned items. Each one wrapped in hessian with his title etched onto a cream luggage label. He stored them in his room, away from prying eyes and gossip. Each one was precious and a testament to the way he felt about her. Though it had taken him nearly the whole summer to admit that. He thought she was just being nice, she did nice things for everyone. Food for Django, apples for QQ, fish suppers for Pinky, ruin artefacts for Petra and Merlin, helping Emily and Sophie wrangle the chickens. She even gave flowers to Ginger and Alice. She commissioned a new hat for Sam, and boots with arch support for Remy. She played with Carol and Mars' kids, fed Oaks and Papa bear on the outskirts. Arlo didn't think he was special, he thought the way he felt about her was how everyone felt about her. But then, he didn't think everyone fantasized about kissing her, or taking her on dates, making her smile, or coming home to her at the end of a hard day. They definitely didn't fantasize about taking her to bed, peeling off all of her layers and laying his hands over her until she moaned, no, sung his name, and laying with her until the first light poked through the curtains.

Nope, that last part was definitely just him.

The moment of realisation was his birthday. Sam and Remy had taken him for a meal at the Round Table, Django smiled as they entered the premise.

“Ah my favourite officers of the law, please come in – I've been expecting you. Come take your seat, your meal has already been pre-paid for. Happy birthday, Arlo.”

Arlo thanked the restaurant owner and looked to Remy and Sam. The smiled sweetly and shrugged their collective shoulders.

“I've no idea what's going on,” Sam answered. He didn't believe her.

“No clue, man,” Remy answered, cool as a cucumber. He didn't believe him either.

Arlo stepped across to their usual table, the restaurant surprisingly quiet, and there it was – at his seat, a singular, red rose. He sat down cautiously, took the flower from its small vase and looked at the little luggage tag. For the first time ever since receiving the flowers all those months ago, it read his name. Arlo. He gulped, it felt surprisingly intimate. He flipped it and read the other side. Happy birthday! I bribed Sam and Remy to bring you tonight – enjoy your meal on me! Grace x

“You alright, boss?” Sam asked, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder.

He looked at Sam, hand to mouth and chuckled. “Yeah, I'm fine. An idiot – but okay.”

Sam gave him a cheery smile and shook him with friendly gumption. “She's planned it for weeks you know. So, enjoy it.”

Remy looked at his Captain and clapped his hand against the other shoulder. “But maybe, don't forget to say thank you? Maybe tell her how you feel too, I hear roses are a great way to let someone know.”

“Right – yeah. Thanks, guys.”

They enjoyed the food with gusto. All specially prepared favourites, starters, mains, drinks, and deserts for Remy and Sam. The atmosphere was warm, and light-hearted but he couldn't help but feel like something was missing. She was missing. She should have been here enjoying it too. Some of the other Portian's came over and wished him a Happy Birthday, buying him a drink (non – alcoholic, he still had work in the morning), or giving him a present. He thanked his friends for dragging him out, the other Portian's for their well wishes, and Django for a beautifully prepared meal, but he had to go.

“Go get her!” Sam and Remy encouraged in a united chorus.

Arlo darted from the restaurant, darkness already settled on Portia, he made a beeline for Alice's house and knocked hard on her door. Jack answered, and sleepily called for his sister.

“Hey, Alice,” she answered in pajama's, a book under arm and ink on her fingers. His courage seemed to fail him as he spoke to her. “I have a favour to ask...”

The bookish florist shook her head. “It's not a favour, Arlo. Consider this my present to you. Wait there a moment,” she disappeared back into the warmth of her house. Arlo heard tumbles, what he thought was a swear, and minutes later Alice returned, a bouquet of roses in her arm. It was massive, at least three dozen red roses, all trimmed organised and presented in brown paper, red and white ribbons wrapped around the outside, and dusted with glitter. “There you go, that's what you wanted, isn't it?”

He took the flowers from his friend. “I didn't even ask – does everyone know except me?”

Alice shrugged deftly and leaned against the frame. “Pretty much, Captain,” she pushed her glasses up and reached for him. “She's head over heels for you, Arlo. Go and tell her you feel the same.”

His stomach fluttered, hearing those words from Alice didn't make it any easier to process, but at least so many people were on his side. Yet he was concerned, what about his dreams – what about the Flying Pigs? It's all he'd ever focused on but this gnawing feeling wouldn't leave him. No matter how much he trained, focused, or fought. There she was, the first and last thing he would think about each day.

“Alice,” he hung his head. “I – don't know. I've never done this before. What if she rejects me?”

“You fought monsters, protected our town for years, dealt with every petty squabble Portia's had, and now you're afraid? Oh Arlo. This will be the only certainty you'll ever have, so go,” Jack called from behind her. “Sorry, I have to go. It's getting late. Good luck, Arlo.”

She waved goodbye, and then was gone. Arlo stood at the door for a long moment before willing himself to move. Alice was right, clearly. Grace was expecting something from him, some kind of answer. He wasn't going to chicken out. He rubbed at his arms, the chill of the night Autumn night air piercing through his jacket. He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck as he walked quickly to Grace's workshop just outside of Peach plaza. The town was quiet, everyone was either merrymaking in the Round Table or retired to bed for the evening. He hoped she hadn't gone to bed, he might not have the courage to do this again. As he left the safety of the city gates, at the edge of the road he saw the lights to her workshop were still on.

Here I go.

He faked it, strode with purpose, opened the gate, reached her door, and – hesitated. Fist millimeters from the heavy oak door. Arlo grumbled to himself, rested his head against the wood and cursed himself. Coward. He should just go. Before he made a fool of himself. The wood creaked and light fell into the darkness, he jumped back. Pretending he didn't just knock on the door with his own thick skull.

“Captain?” It was her. Hair tumbling around her shoulders, in an old t-shirt and joggers that did nothing to hide soft curves and strong arms. She was beautiful. He wanted to hold her. To bury himself in patches of soft skin and hold those calloused hands against himself.

“Grace, good evening. I'm sorry for calling so late.”

“Shouldn't you be at the Round Table?” She queried, a look of concern on her face.

“I was.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah,” he smiled, looking at the sea of red petals in his hands. “I suppose it did. Thank you, for a wonderful surprise. I am truly grateful.”

“But?” Grace asked, folding her arms against herself.

“But,” he continued. “It just wasn't the same without you there. You should have been there, Grace.”

She stammered. “I didn't think you'd want me there.”

“Why wouldn't I? I enjoyed my surprise. But I find myself thinking I would have enjoyed your company more,” he held out the bouquet of roses, finding a reserve of courage. “These are for you, a thank you for my meal and to thank you for all of the things you've done for me recently. I'm sorry I've been too stupid to figure it out.”

Her eyes sparkled, she held the flowers as her life depended on them at that very moment. “Arlo...” she whispered his name and he shivered. It sounded right coming from her lips.

He took a step closer, towering over her, dipping his head forward. “I should have accepted it much sooner, I'm sorry I made you wait, Grace,” he ran a hand through the messy mop of red hair, nervous, but steadfast in his confession. “I like you, Grace, a lot. In ways, I'm not poetic or capable enough to describe. You're unlike anyone I've ever met and, I'd like to spend time getting to know you better than anyone else. That is if you'll have me?”

“Arlo...” she whispered his name once more, clinging onto it like it was hers alone.

Time stood still, they looked at one another, truly, and without pause. He couldn't help but admire her, she embodied everything he strove for. Kindness, intelligence, unequivocal morality, and empathy. He wanted to be with her in every way he could, spending as much time in her glow that she could stand of him. Arlo loved her. He wasn't ready to say it, but he felt it, knew it, in the very core of his soul.

Her face shifted as something had just clicked. Time sped up and in a flash her arms were pulling around his neck, bringing his head closer. Her head tilted and lips found his, hot and flush. She moaned and whimpered against him as he tucked a hand around the base of her spine, being mindful of Alice's creation. She tasted of home, warmth, and sweet tea. He wanted to consume and be consumed by it forever. He shivered at the way her hands ran through his hair and along his jaw. How her breath felt along his mouth and against his face. Arlo loved how her study body demanded his touch, locking into place against him.

He pulled back, smirking, feeling elated beyond measure. “So is that a yes?”

Her cheeks were flushed, and lips swollen. Grace ran her hands through her mussed-up hair and laughed. “That's a resounding yes. Happy Birthday, Arlo,” she pulled him into another passionate kiss, yanking him across the threshold and bolting the door shut behind him.

A single rose sat in the trellis near the gatepost of the workshop. It was a late bloomer, it's deep, red petals were hidden behind walls of thick, green leaves. Grace had trouble coaxing it to unfurl during the Summer and had all but given up. The next morning it emerged, full, plush and with the richest red she'd ever seen. The singular flower stood out against the oranges and browns of the rest of her forecourt and she smiled.

“You too, little rose? I suppose the best things do take some time,” she ran her fingers along the velvet petals, content. She called back to the house. “Arlo, you're going to be late.”

The Captain emerged from her house, a soft smile on his face as he righted the blue neckerchief. “Right – right. I'm on my way. See you later, yeah?” He asked, not quite believing his luck.

She planted a kiss on his cheek, rubbing away at the crumbs by his lips from breakfast. “I'll be here.”

“A Captain's work is never done, I'll be back once I finish my paperwork. Then we could go somewhere, maybe?” He looked coy, she thought it was cute.

Paperwork, hmm? She looked at the rose, looked back at him and had a stroke of genius. “Of course, I'd like that.” She waved him off and took a moment to herself before heading to the commerce guild.

“Well little rose, it took some time, but we finally did it.” Grace left home with a spring in her step and love in her heart.

[phoutube]

while the rhythm of the rain keeps time

ao3 link (kudos appreciated!)

Rating: General Audiences (subject to change) 

Pairing: Dan Howell/Phil Lester

Words: 3,906

Summary: Dan loved the rain. He loved how it made the world just a little bit duller, but not in a bad way. Never in a bad way. When the world seemed to get a bit too intense, too noisy and crowded and chaotic, Dan could always count on the rain to melt the colors together, blending them and morphing the scenery around him into something dull and comforting. It would only make sense that - on a day that was wet and cold and drizzly and perfect--Dan would meet someone who would change his life in so many amazing ways.

a/n: a special thanks to my beta readers, @freckliedan, @shrugs-are-kinky, and @edgylester for making this fic possible! Go show them some love!

likes and reblogs appreciated!!

Chapter One: Water Washes It Away

Dan loved the rain.

He loved how it made the world just a little bit duller, but not in a bad way. Never in a bad way. When the world seemed to get a bit too intense, too noisy and crowded and chaotic, Dan could always count on the rain to melt the colors together, blending them and morphing the scenery around him into something dull and comforting.

He loved how it made the world smell, how the rain made all the scents spring from the earth and dance in the air, bringing forth a vivid fragrance that lingered in the air and reminded him of woods and rivers and freshness.

He loved how it sounded, the steady metronome of rain drumming on the roof of his house, the sporadic but peaceful rhythm caused by drops cascading through the trees, and even the occasional rolling of thunder in the distance.

Dan even loved it when the rain would come all at once, in fierce gales and howling winds and big cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning that lit the entire sky. He loved how it made the world look afterwards, when the rain had stopped but drops hadn’t quite ceased dripping from the trees, when the sky was grey and beginning to clear and the world had a distinct waterlogged look about it.

Most of all, though, was how it gave him every excuse to stay at home, warm and cozy and wrapped in his favorite blanket. He’d sit, sipping a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, content with the world outside. Maybe he’d read a book or sit on Tumblr or watch a show on Netflix, but sometimes Dan would just sit outside under the balcony, headphones in his ears and at utter peace with the downpour around him.

Dan wasn’t the most superstitious, but whenever it started to rain, he knew instantly that his day would be a good one.

It would only make sense that - on a day that was wet and cold and drizzly and perfect--Dan would meet someone who would change his life in so many amazing ways.

--

It began sometime in early June. Dan could never remember the date (he’d always joked about how warped his sense of time seemed to be), and he’d harboured the vague idea that his birthday was nearing as the days dragged by.

Dan had woken up in a despondent state of mind, a unique sort of exhaustion weighing in his gut and a fuzzy feeling that started in his brain and wormed its way through each of his limbs.

Days like this were ones he immediately chalked up to be useless and hollow, days that were empty and futile and meant that there was no point in getting out of bed because he knew he’d only be an echo of himself.

The rain drizzling outside was calming in a way that nothing else was--a steady downpour that matched his melancholy state of mind.

Depression. That was the word for it. Disgusting.

Glancing out the window once more, Dan debated calling in sick to work or just not bothering at all. Would he get in trouble again if he ditched? It was hard to remember what the policy was for that. Also, Dan was finding it hard to care.

Should he get out of bed and try to fill this gaping void with a hot cup of steaming caffeine? He could even scrawl down some bullshit in his journal (the one his therapist insisted he keep) about the steam tendrils curling through the air like a hot breath on a winter’s day, injecting the warm scent of coffee into the air around him. He probably wouldn’t. Just drinking it was enough for now.

Coffee, Dan thought, was probably the only thing that was worth making on one of these days. He had never been a breakfast person (eating so soon after he’d woken up always made him nauseous), and besides, clutching something warm gave his hands something to do. Occasionally the caffeine was even enough to jerk him out of this stupor so he could do something productive, like the dishes. Or maybe the laundry.

Ugh. Even thinking about laundry was almost enough for him to burrow his head under the covers and never emerge again. Almost.

He sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side. His head pounded with the beginnings of a migraine, and his hair was greasy--probably due to the fact that he hadn’t showered in… shit, what day was it? What day had it been when he last showered?

Sometimes the days got like this. They seemed to drag on forever on their own, but if Dan wasn’t paying enough attention it seemed months could go by without his noticing.

He threw on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie that didn’t exactly smell clean. It wasn’t like he cared.

He padded out of his room, tucking his hands into his pockets and muttering to himself as he went. The hallway was sparse, devoid of any decoration (save for the plastic potted plant sitting in the corner--Dan couldn’t trust himself to take care of a real one), and the tile was cold beneath his toes.

Rounding the corner into the kitchen, Dan went through the motions of making coffee--pouring water into the machine, getting a coffee filter out of the cabinet above his head, drifting away while his hands were busy. In a few minutes, he had a warm cup sitting in front of him and only the vaguest memory of actually making it.

He did that sometimes--floating away, phasing through the day like some sort of lanky ghost. Some days were better than others. Most were the same, though.

He hummed along absently to a song he hadn’t bothered to listen to in months, his scratchy vocals accompanied by the drip, drip of the tap and the slight creaking of his chair as he shifted around. The rain outside drummed a sparse beat onto the window pane, the clouds above not quite enough to hold back the weak sunlight now streaming through his curtainless windows.

His brain felt fuzzy, and Dan lifted the cup up to his mouth for the first time. It had gone cold. When had that happened? How long had he been sitting here, while echoes of Reinventing The Wheel To Run Myself Over bounced around in his head? Was that even the name, or had he gotten it confused with another, equally angsty title? Dan had to admit it was off a pretty decent record, but it reminded him too much of his awkward teenage years and hating himself and everyone else.

God, being a teenager was such shit. He didn’t even remember much of it, his brain clouded in a haze of My Chemical Romance and hoping that he would ever mean something to anybody and the first bitter realization that he wouldn’t. He could practically taste the first sip of lukewarm beer he’d had (he’d nearly spit it out), his first kiss with a girl (which, ironically, was exactly the moment he decided he didn’t like girls very much--at least, not in that way), and especially the day he realized that his friends seemed to have grown up without him--feeling separated from his peers and wanting desperately to figure himself out, et cetera. Fuck, was he spiraling? He was spiraling. Damnit.

Dan was suddenly jolted away from wherever he was by the buzzing of his phone on the table beside him. He didn’t remember bringing it out to the kitchen with him, but he supposed he did, at some point or another. He reckoned that was his boss calling, wondering where he was and why he hadn’t bothered to call in sick and why the hell he thought it was acceptable to miss another day of work and still expect to keep his job.

Dan answered it, not bothering to mask the apathy in his voice.

“Hello?”

“Dan. Where are you? Your shift started ten minutes ago, and I can’t ask Leslie to cover it again, she did that last week and she’s out of town today. You know this. Why aren’t you here?”

Dan sighed, quickly realizing that he had been breathing directly into the speaker. He cringed. “I’m sorry, Matt. I- I guess… Well, I don’t know what I guess but-”

Matt’s voice was tinny through the phone speakers, but the exasperation in it was clear. “This behavior isn’t acceptable, Dan. You know it isn’t, and I don’t want to have to let you go, but you realize that I don’t have much of a choice, you know that, right?”

“Sorry?”

“I’m going to give you one more chance to get yourself together, and then I’m afraid you’re going to lose your job, and you know more than anyone else I’d hate to do that.”

Dan’s boss assumed that Dan knew a lot of things, when really, he didn’t. He’d always got the impression that Matt had only put up with him because he did his job half-decently. When he showed up.

“You know I like you, Dan, but letting you go is really my only option, and if you can’t get your act together by the end of the week… Well, let’s just say you won’t be working at Asda any more, you understand what I’m saying, right?

“You’re lucky you don’t have to come to work today, because Tom just got here--but please, Dan, you know you have to come to work sooner or later.”

Matt hung up before Dan could say anything else.

Dan frowned, staring contemplatively at the wall opposite him. He was going to get fired, and Matt was probably going to do it both by finding ways to say the phrase “you know” a million times and also without saying the word “fired” at any point in the conversation. How would he pay the bills? He was already relying on pity checks from his parents to help with the monthly expenses that came from renting a tiny flat in the middle of London.

He sighed dejectedly and stood up, draining the cold dregs of coffee in his cup and placing it in the sink. He wasn’t sure whether the dishwasher was clean or dirty, and if he didn’t check now then he wouldn’t have to be angry at himself later for not unloading it if it did happen to be clean.

Dan made his way over to the couch, fighting back a shiver as he sat down. It was plenty warm in the flat--in fact, he could feel a sheen of sweat beginning on his forehead, but it still felt like his very core was freezing. He supposed there wasn’t really anything else he could do except get a blanket from his room and be content with lying somewhere other than his bed for once.

He suddenly resented himself for making coffee, knowing that the caffeine now in his system resulted in his body being physically tired enough to lounge around like a sack of lanky potatoes on the couch, but not enough to warrant actually going back to sleep. He wasn’t even sure whether he would be able to sleep, anyway--he’d gotten about five hours the night before, which Dan considered a luxury he was rarely able to indulge in. He didn’t even have dreams anymore, which he was okay with. Dreams were overrated, most of the time.

His laptop was on the coffee table in front of him. Reaching out and pulling it closer to him, Dan opened it with vague intentions of watching something interesting on Netflix. It was dead. He didn’t know where the charger was. It didn’t matter.

Closing the computer, he set it back down and sat back against the sofa, the sorry-looking couch cushions molding around his body almost perfectly. He could turn on the television, Dan supposed, but the commercials gave him headaches and he was at least 70% sure the only thing currently on were talk shows and football matches he didn’t care about.

Maybe he’d just rest here until his miserable excuse for a body needed food. It’s not like he had to go to work, or anything. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to sleep and that the position he was currently in would make his neck ache for hours afterwards. He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

--

Dan stood in front of the fridge, dumbfounded. The milk had expired six days ago? When the hell had that happened? For God’s sake, he couldn’t even have a bowl of cereal without something getting in his way.

He’d finally gotten his arse off the couch once his stomach started growling--and now, with a refrigerator that was as empty as his stomach, he supposed that the time had finally come for him to leave the house for the first time in what felt like forever but was probably a bit closer to four days.

He was due to go grocery shopping anyway--he hadn’t been in almost two weeks and at this point the only edible things in the flat were (dry) cereal and a half-empty jar of peanut butter that he supposed he could eat with a spoon if he were particularly desperate. The corner store down the street was much too expensive, although nobody looked twice if you wandered in wearing pajama bottoms and looking like you hadn’t showered in a week.

Speaking of showers.

Dan supposed he had to take one at some point, and hadn’t his therapist (who he had sporadic appointments with) said that maintaining his physical health was just as important as maintaining his mental health? Some bullshit like that. He walked back through the kitchen, shucking his shirt off and tossing it somewhere towards the corner of the room. Maybe he’d go to the Tesco that was a bit further away, the one with much cheaper prices and better products. Maybe he’d even stop at the Starbucks across the street and indulge in coffee that didn’t taste like shit.

He padded into the bathroom, humming the harmony of All The Small Things and stepping out of his boxers. Good moods were rare, and came on as suddenly as they went away, and Dan knew he’d have to make the best of it.

Turning the shower on, Dan looked, really looked, at himself in the mirror while he waited for the water to warm. Sometimes he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. Sometimes it felt like the person he was inside didn’t look like the person staring back in the mirror--which he always had a hard time explaining to other people, ones who didn’t understand the jerk in your stomach and the pounding in your skull when you looked in the mirror and a stranger was looking back.

Today, however, he thought he could see a sliver of himself in the dark eyes of his reflection, in the curly strands of his hair, in the way he held himself. Maybe something would actually happen today. Sticking his tongue out at his reflection and stepping under the hot stream of water, Dan suddenly remembered why normal people showered regularly. It felt fucking great.

He would stay in here forever, if he could.

--

Stepping out of the shower, Dan toweled himself off as he walked out of the bathroom, picking up the clothes on the floor that he’d worn earlier that day. He’d forgotten how nice it felt stepping out of the shower and wrapping yourself in a fluffy towel--and, knowing himself, he’d likely forget it again when it was time to bathe himself again in a few days. At least it was nice to rediscover the feeling.

His room was a mess. Dan really didn’t feel like cleaning it today, and besides--he already had a very important Adult Thing to do that involved leaving the house and spending money responsibly. Picking up a shirt off the floor, Dan surveyed it--there weren’t any questionable stains, and it wasn’t incredibly wrinkly, so that would have to do.

He picked up the first pair of jeans he found (because nobody even looked at trousers anyway) and stepped into them, hopping around about as gracefully as a sack of geese trying to escape from said sack. Dan crash-landed on the bed, muttered a quick, “Jesus Christ,” and stood up once more, attempting to get the trousers up his thigh. At least he was getting some exercise.

When all his clothes were properly on and he deemed his appearance acceptable enough to leave the flat, Dan stepped back into the hallway and immediately tripped over the towel he’d thrown on the floor prior to getting dressed. Cursing loudly and colorfully, Dan slung the towel over the open bathroom door (musty-smelling towels were the worst) and wandered around the flat in search of socks he could wear. He’d already checked his room, and the absence of clean socks only meant that a load of laundry was long overdue--so, naturally, Dan was looking for any excuse to delay that.

Finally locating a mismatched pair behind the couch and putting on his shoes, Dan grabbed a jacket from the coat rack (“A coat rack? Why in the bloody hell do I have to buy one of these when I could be getting, I don’t know, things I actually need?” Dan had asked after his mother insisted he get one--turns out they were actually pretty useful) and stepped outside, keys in hand.

Dan hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he had to turn back into the flat, silently scolding himself for forgetting his phone and leaving it who knows where because now he has to go look for it and- oh, it was just on the table. After a moment of hesitation, Dan grabbed his earbuds and shoved them in his pocket.

Leaving the flat (again) and locking the door, Dan felt a swell of pride in his chest. He was going outside, and he was going to do mature, adult things maturely. It wasn’t like he had a history of going out with the intention of spending his money wisely and coming back home with £50 worth of Maltesers, or anything.

Dan put his arms through the sleeves of his jacket while walking down the stairs (he was great at multitasking) and nodded at the security guard standing by the door once he reached the ground floor.

Striding outside, Dan inhaled, taking in the scent of the rain. The world was beautiful today.

The rain cascaded from the dark grey sky like a waterfall, splattering onto the sidewalk and dripping from trees. Dan was glad he’d abandoned straightening his hair years ago as the occasional drop smacked the top of his head and rolled down his scalp, managing to soak his hair and send shivers down his spine every time it happened.

Dan hailed a cab and spent a few minutes sitting in silence before putting in earbuds. After a few taps of his finger, Spotify was rolling and Dan stared out the window, lost in thought. The rain tapped against the window, and the grey world around him seemed to put his mind at ease.

Dan had created a playlist for days like this, with songs he loved but were mellow enough to create that rare feeling of peace that Dan was so quick to associate with the downpour around him. Using his hands to drum the beat of the music on his thighs, Dan gazed through the window contentedly until it was suddenly time to get out.

Stepping through the doors of the Tesco, Dan was immediately overwhelmed by the superficial glare of the lights on the shiny floors and the fact that there were people everywhere.

Dan wandered through the aisles, picking up packages of food that would last a long time, like instant noodles and frozen dinners. He also made sure he spent his money responsibly on essentials such as chocolate and… chocolate. And more coffee. He was pretty sure he’d used the last of it this morning.

When he’d managed to gather all the groceries he thought he’d need and avoid making eye contact with anyone who passed him in the aisles, Dan got in line behind some bloke in the SelfServ.

The man had an interesting tattoo on his shoulder, and Dan took the opportunity to study it closely as he waited in line. It was very intricate, with swirls of color that starkly contrasted his dark skin. What looked like gears for a machine of some sort were inked onto the man’s skin, and-

“What the hell do you think you’re looking at, mate?”

Dan was jerked back into reality by the stranger, who was now uncomfortably close to his face and glaring menacingly. “Nothing- I-I’m sorry, it’s just, I mean, you have a really, uh, cool tattoo, and I-”

The man, whose cash register had begun to beep, only stared at him for a second longer and returned to his purchases. As soon as he was done, Dan quickly scanned his items and left the store as soon as possible. Heart thundering, Dan rushed into the Starbucks next to the Tesco and collapsed into a booth in the corner of the coffee shop. That had been absolutely mortifying, this is why he didn’t go outside, that poor man had been just trying to shop and Dan had been ogling him like he was a display in a shop window, what had he been thinking?

Dan forced himself to take deep, calming breaths as he surveyed his surroundings. The few customers who had turned to stare at the lanky bloke bursting haphazardly into the coffee shop had returned to their drinks. In fact, it was fairly quiet in the shop, with nothing but the soft murmurs of people not wanting to disturb the peace and the quiet hum of coffee makers putting out the scent of freshly ground coffee beans.

Stomach growling, Dan remembered that after he’d realized that there hadn’t been any food in the fridge, he hadn’t actually taken the time to eat something amongst all his impulsive decisions (such as taking a shower and leaving the house with no prior plans to do so. Who did that?).

In the midst of all this thinking, Dan suddenly realized that he was in a coffee shop and could literally buy something to eat right at this very second. Standing up and walking over to the line, Dan contemplated what he should get. A muffin? He was going to get coffee, obviously, but as his tired idiot brain didn’t realize this morning, caffeine on an empty stomach made Dan want to vomit. Which was a lovely prospect, in all consideration, but Dan still decided to get some food as well.

He’d just stepped up to the counter and turned to look up at the menu when his eyesight was suddenly bombarded with pale skin and black hair and eyes that were blue-green-yellow and a shy smile that made his stomach do backflips.

“Er, hello,” the barista said, completely unaware of the apparent effect he was having on Dan, “I’m Phil. What can I get for you today?”

[ribbonsed]

To Build A Home: An Ode To A Certain Enigmatic Crow

Disclaimer: Okay before proceeding, please note several of these things:

These are merely my headcanon, being my headcanon, these are how I view Lin’s actions for this season.  THIS IS SO MESSY OK I'm so sorry for any of you bothered to read this mess, I'm not a writer I'm dying I love Thunderbolt Fantasy so much;

I’m an annoying Lin Xue Ya stan and apologist first and foremost, and needless to say that this headcanon will be heavily centered on him. I do love and attached to ALL characters and puppets on Thunderbolt Fantasy, and I would gladly write for every single of them if only my knowledge, my time and my creativity reservoir would allow me write any worthy piece for them. But I can’t help to get this out of my head, and for now, this will do for Lin;

I can’t help but notice Lin’s actions especially during the course of Season Two, especially his breakdown after failing to trap Xiao Kuang Juan’s prompted me to write this. So, the start point of this headcanon will be from there. Also, I’m beginning to start building this headcanon in the middle of watching Season Two, and I start writing this after Episode 11 Season 2 and added a little bit after watching Episode 12. So I might be going a little back and forth with the timeline so please do bear with me;

I can't speak nor I can read Chinese/Mandarin and Japanese. Thus, I can't understand Thunderbolt Fantasy on its original language, so, all materials I use for reference on this headcanon will be based on from translated materials in English (the show, the movie, the manga, wikipedias, news articles, etc.) and I apologize if there are mistake on from my understanding of translated material (whether is it because of my lack knowledge or because of mistranslation or just misinformation altogether, let me apologize first here);

trigger warning: mild curse words (lmao I can't be civil);

tldr: Lin Xue Ya is getting way way more softer in Season Two compared to previous materials (The Movie, Season One) and here is my take on why is a certain Wandering Tired Man Way Too Soft and Too Good For This World is responsible for that

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Lin's visible foul mood over Xiao Kuang Juan outsmarting him by refusing to go back to Xi You over the course of Episode 11 Season 2 doesn't make all that much sense to me on first glance. Why? Because no matter how hard I think about it, it just doesn't make sense that Lin would get 'that' mad just because Xiao refusing to go back to Xi You. I mean yeah, Lin got the taste of humilation and defeat on Season 1 finale at Mie Tian Hai's hand where the latter literally killed himself and broke Tengyouken, depriving Lin of tasting his complete, successful scheme of stealing Mie Tian Hai's pride. That's where we saw Lin Xue Ya, the notorious Enigmatic Gale, for the first time ever, truly losing his composure and his vulnerable, emotional side breaking through an ice-cold, unpenetrable facade he has been keeping for the whole course of Season 1.

So, this is where it got tricky to me. Does Lin Xue Ya really learn nothing at all from his whole fiasco with Mie Tian Hai? Does Lin Xue Ya, is really so above himself that he flat out refuses to use his defeat on Mie Tian Hai as a lesson learned to avoid him the same mistake on near future? Does Lin Xue Ya, the infamous, great thief and trickster across Dong Li did NOT, even consider, just freaking once, of the possibility of Xiao Kuang Juan, a high-ranking, corrupt, shady, military official that is powerful enough to cross The Wasteland of Spirit, making a choice that would thwarted his plan over? Wouldn't a great, high-functioning schemer like Lin Xue Ya know first thing first that things would not always go like the plan, that there is always a possibility after a possibility, a single stone that could overturn the flow of the river. Why is the emo breakdown, Lin?

This is also highlighted by the fact that, unlike Mie Tian Hai who straight up killed himself, making Lin stripped of another chance at fucking him over again, Xiao Kuang Juan is literally, still alive. Dude is literally still out there, alive, breathing, running amok. Wouldn't a calm, reasonable, level-headed choice here would be playing along with Xiao newfound plan of starting over in Dong Li, let him do whatever he pleases, then strikes him, humiliate him when another opportunity strikes. Doesn't Lin also has upper hand with this would-be scenario, since The Enigmatic Gale knows Dong Li inside out like the back of his own hand. So, why not wait, Lin? Why not let Xiao slip this time, giving him the illusion of how easy to escape persecution of his own crime and to start anew, to crush him later when the time is prime. Are you really that upset, that your plan got thwarted so easily, Lin? Are you? Why the rush, Lin?

Another comparation to Mie Tian Hai case, where Lin waited until the very last, opportune moment, to confirm it himself clear that Mie Tian Hai utmost pride was his sword skill, and him collecting fancy powerful holy sword is because he wants swords worthy enough for his skill. Doesn't it indirectly implies that the whole cave scene of Episode 11 Season 2 basically Xiao Kuang Juan confirming it himself that his pride does not lie with his wealth, status, nor title back in Xi You? Xiao Kuang Juan flat-out admitted in Episode 11, that he is glad he is still in Dong Li where his stolen goods is currently being exposed on Xi You now, that he is glad that his head is even still intact and attached to his body right now. Interesting part of their whole conversation in the cave excerpted here:

Xiao Kuang Juan   : Whatever, it doesn't matter. If anything, it's a relief. If I've lost all my prestige and authority, I at least don't have to act like a pompous jackass anymore. I can take things easy from here on out.

Lin Xue Ya                : What's gotten into you? Are you feeling alright, Sir Fugitive Hunter?

Xiao Kuang Juan   : When you deal in dangerous and dirty deeds, you've gotta know when to give it up. Sure, I was hoping I could score enough loot for early retirement first. But, whenever you make the long, risky gamble, you've gotta realize that one wrong play, and you'll end up going bust. If anything, I'm just glad my head's still attached to my shoulders.

Wouldn't his very confession infers that, Xiao Kuang Juan treasures his own life, his own survival, no matter how wretched his soul is, how many life he stole, how many wealth he embezzled, more than anything else? So, if Lin's initial goal of sending Xiao Kuang Juan back to Xi You along with his corrupt deeds failed because he mistakenly certain that man's pride lies within his boastful honor and titles in Xi You Imperial Army, wouldn't The Hunting Fox confession on that cave just confirms that Lin is just mistaken about his pride all along? So, why the big fuss, Lin? Didn't you also made the effort to swap Tengyouken's part in Season 1, because you were still uncertain about Mie Tian Hai's utmost pride, while also keep patiently waiting until the very last minute to confirm Mie Tian Hai's actual pride---his sword skill--not him merely wanting to posses Tengyouken.  So, Xiao Kuang Juan  just revealed his utter, most, prized possesion on his life, his own life. Wouldn't it be a simple matter for you to rework your strategy and concoct another plan for Xiao, Lin?  Don't you seek amusement and thrill out of outsmarting the most corrupt and wretched individual, Lin? So, isn't Xiao Kuang Juan---a shameless, corrupt official banished from his original country, trying to rebuild his life in a foreign land---, just the perfect target to occupy your time, Lin?  

That is, if Lin Xue Ya end goal is solely to humiliate Xiao Kuang Juan, as per Lin usual motive with his scheme. So, what makes this job is not Lin Xue ya usual scheme? This is where Shang Bu Huan, Lang Wu Yao, and the whole Sword Index feud comes into play. What if Lin started to play Xiao on the first place, because he, genuinely wanted to help Shang? Yes, Lin triggered the whole plot of Season 2 by spreading the word of Shang Bu Huan's heroic deeds against Mie Tian Hai, and that's how hordes of Xi You people came crossing The Wasteland of Spirit in pursuit of Shang and The Sword Index. But what if, that was Lin way of trying to help and repay Shang? By inviting people who has been against Shang Bu Huan this whole time, to his dominion, Dong Li, and play them here, where he arguably has the upper hand to his familiarity with the country.

Even if Lin, still, intentionally invited Xiao Kuang Juan to Dong Li himself, Lin's whole trap for Xiao is set up specifically to be resulting in the infamous fugitive hunter getting back into Xi You, humiliated with his stolen goods and corrupt deeds exposed in front of Royal Army. Xiao Kuang Juan back in Xi You, his corrupt deeds exposed and facing Imperial Court punishment kills two birds one stone. It clears Shang the additional trouble of getting chased by Xiao in Dong Li when he is already busy enough protecting his Sword Index and trying to contain Seven Blasphemous Death, and maybe, Xiao crooked dealings getting punished would also exposes other Xi You corrupt military doing and would be a start of getting Shang's name cleared, even if it's for just bit by bit, and even if Shang himself cares not about clearing his name back in Xi You. Lin is going out of his way to make sure his (initial) endgame plan for Xiao Kuang Juan benefits Shang Bu Huan.

Lin greatly implies during his two pool scene with Shang (where he was fishing) that all he has been doing on Season 2 is for Shang's sake. He stated explicitly, from their 'first' Pool Scene, on Episode 7, with excerpt from said scene goes like this:

Lin Xue Ya           : I want to propose a mutually benefical deal regarding something    else, actually. I'd like you to tell me about Xiao Kuang Juan. His accomplishments, insight into his character, past conflicts between the two of you... anything will do. It will be information that will go into the calculations of my next scheme.

Shang Bu Huan : And then, you're gonna screw him over for the fun of it, huh?

Lin Xue Ya           : Exactly! He is your enemy, isn't he? I can't imagine you'd have any reason to show him sympathy.

Shang Bu Huan : Yeah, I wouldn't shed any tears over him getting his. He's earned everything you've got cooked up for him. That doesn't mean I have to go help you with your fun, though.

Lin Xue Ya          : I had thought that my sabotage of his efforts would be benefical to you.

Shang Bu Huan : That guy's free to dig his own grave. I just don't wanna sneak up behind him and kick him into it. Feeling guilty about it later might spoil a meal.

(Note: I would like to note that Shang Bu Huan's and Lin Xue Ya pool scenes on this season are very important to me (as a viewer, and yes, as a shipper) because in my opinion it holds a significant purpose as running symbolism to testament  their relationship and character growth, and I might be go back and refers The Pool Scenes many times later).

So, when Xiao Kuang Juan refuses to fall into Lin's sweetly prepared trap, and instead choosing to reside in Dong Li and build his new way into crime, Lin goes frenzy, because Xiao retaliates in one of the worst way possible that goes against Lin's initial goal of fucking him over in the first place. Xiao Kuang Juan residing in Dong Li, Night of Mourning on his hand, building his new band of thugs would mean that: (1) his past crimes committed during his time in Xi You goes unpunished because he doesn't return there and it would be impossible to indict him; (2) Shang Bu Huan reputation in Xi You is still in murky water; (3) it adds to the trouble they already facing on top of the imminent danger Lou Zhen Jie---powerfully wielding Seven Blasphemous Death making his way across Dong Li holy sword shrines---, and who knows how dangerous Xiao could get knowing how resilient and how little he regards others life and how he would not mind making innocent civilians as his victim.

Lin's mistakenly judge Xiao Kuang Juan's pride over his honor and titles, when actually Xiao is so shameless, he is happy just to be alive after his corrupt scheme on the Imperial Army exposed. Not only Lin unintentionally humiliate himself by misjudging his foe true nature, he also completely fucks over his supposed one job. During the second Pool Scene on Episode 10, Lin boasted to Shang that his plan is ripe to take Xiao Kuang Juan down. But, how is the reality, our sweet dear thief? Nope, it ain't working out. Killing Xiao Kuang Juan right there and taking his life as his life is most precious to him right now is arguably the most efficient way of stopping him, but it also goes against Lin's principle of spilling unnecessary blood and drawing Yan Zhue unless it is most necessary. On the other hand, waiting for Xiao Kuang Juan to thrive with his plan and destroy him when the opportunity arises also takes way way too much time, because after the whole event of Season Two unfolds, and underneath Lin needing to get his share of getting high over fucking Xiao Kuang Juan over, Lin realizes a little too late that what needed most is for said Fugitive Hunter, to get away from Dong Li, as far as possible from Shang.

For the first time ever, Lin Xue Ya finally feels it how devastating it feels to fail in something you proudly prides yourself with when it's directly involves the well-being of someone you care about (re: Shang Bu Huan, and also arguably, yes, to Lang, also--because despite how hostile their interaction on Episode 4 and 5 seems, deep down Lin respects Lang as someone who used to be Shang's partner in Xi Yo) For the first time ever, Lin feels... for lack of better word, useless. Lin prides himself so much as master manipulator, more so than his carefully hidden yet unbelievable gift as swordsman--, but when the occasion calls for it, he failed. He said it so himself during his fight with Mie Tian Hai that he shied away from swordmanship because it would straight up send him down into villainy path, and that's the reason Lin resorts to trickery and manipulation instead, BUT when the the time needed for him to be, he failed manage to use his trickery to protect the people he cared about.

Of course when talking about Lin Xue Ya, one can not simply throw terms like 'endearment', 'affection', and 'care' around. We clearly see throughout the course of Thunderbolt Fantasy timeline, depicted effortlessly throughout The Movie, Season One, and also side material like the novel and the manga, how Lin seemed to completely show no remorse over fucking up Sha Wu Sheng, Xing Hai, getting Shou Yun Xiao killed with his so called expedition against Mie Tian Hai. But, as we also see from the event of Season One, and expanded in the manga itself, when Lin was shown visibly quite somber after he saw his master brutally killed, partly also because of him, because he toyed with Sha Wu Sheng and that karma comes back to bite him in the ass by taking his master away. The manga even goes in length to show how he kindly asked the group to help him bury his master body.

Season 2 had that scene where he objected Xiao Kuang Juan method of slaughtering innocent townfolks during his confrontation against Xie Yingluo. Albeit, yes, Lin arrived way too fashionably late to prevent the slaughter of the people controlled by Night of Mourning on the hand of Xiao Kuang Juan, but my stance is that he is also against taking the lives of people who do not actively take up arms. Heck, dude even did not straight up kill Mie Tian Hai and pulled his blade away before Mie Tian Hai's neck. I think it is safe to say that Lin, is against killing. My point is that, (also as I said in the disclaimer before, this is coming from huuuuuuge annoying Lin Xue Ya stan/apologist so yeah hahahahahahaha) yes, Lin is capable of feeling emotion despite it is his trade to get high off his target misery. He is capable of feeling affection and adoration toward other people, albeit said people receiving his admiration maybe is so very easily to count with fingers. The question is, how does our dear thief fare when it comes to building trust and relationship with other people?

This is where Shang Bu Huan comes into the equation. Lin explicitly stated by the end of Season One that Shang is so fascinating to him, that keeping him around will most likely to draw the most wicked, the trashiest people for him to toy around. Are we sure this is Lin's only motivation for triggering the event of Season Two by posing as that jester, spreading the word of Shang Bu Huan's heroic deeds? Are we sure, there is nothing more, to Lin Xue Ya actions throughout Season Two, especially in relation to the man that is Shang Bu Huan? Why did Lin managed to meticulously showed up at Certain Dong Li Government Office, right where Xiao Kuang Juan popped up first thing first he arrived at Dong Li, complete with a whole fake identity he already secured before? Why did Lin, even amidst 'entertaining' Xiao Kuang Juan during the first three episodes of Season Two, also bothered to track Shang down and cured him out of his ailment from Xie Yingluo deadly, first-rate poison?

My personal answer is that, Lin Xue Ya, is, attempting to build a healthy, trustful relationship with Shang Bu Huan (note at ATTEMPTING, because as much as I like this trashy garbage snow bird puppet as a character I acknowledge his messy ass personality and his questionably ability /so far/ to keep healthy functional relationship like most of normal people). Yes, he is, attempting to build a healthy, trustful relationship with Shang Bu Huan, as two people, who despite their complete utmost difference, acknowledge each other strong and weak side, trust each other, and help each other during needed times.

Why Shang Bu Huan?

Despite his motor mouth and Shang constant no-nonsense attitude toward Lin's antics, he really never ask him to... change. He asked why Lin is the way he is, during Season One, and Lin answered with smart ass, sassy, "Do you really want to know because I could go on length here but do you have the time for that", but Shang, never ask Lin to change.

Shang, the guy who is so against taking the live of another person, who intentionally tires himself using a battle technique that drains his qi, who believes every single person, even the most villainous ones, deserves a second chance and that they are capable of change and transformation. But Shang saw Lin, this shady ass dude, who intentionally plunged him into a dangerous journey against evil dark dude along with several other evil dudes, saw with his own two eyes that said shady ass dude fucked up real bad by dooming an entire country to a giant praying mantis eldrich abomination, proceeded to clean up said dude mess, left off wishing he would never have to meet said shady guy again, only for said shady guy to spread his rumor and whereabouts to and Shang reaction basically could be summed up as something along the line of "Man, you are really fucked up man... But, but... But whatever!".

Because Shang, deep down, despite always raising his eyebrows and we, as viewer, could personally hear him whispered softly "What the fuck" at every single Lin's Options in Life, he acknowledges and sees Lin's redeeming qualities under his lying, manipulating ass. That, Lin Xue Ya is Lin Xue Ya. And Shang knows, that deep down, there is part of him that is also intrigued by Lin despite another part of him (initially) repulsed by Lin's way of scamming. But Shang could not help but admit that Lin's method works most of the time, especially against big time villains since they share common principle against unnecessary killing. A whole, interesting mix of fascination, repulse, but the fascination part always outweigh the repulsed part, and by the end of Season 2,  I dare say that the repulsed part for Lin Xue Ya's antics on Shang would be completely gone.

The fascination goes both way of course, but in Lin's part, there is nothing in Shang that repulses him, only endless fascination and surprise. Shang is far from the definition of a 'villain' or a 'bad guy', he does not seeks destruction, really, just a humble, wandering, a slightly bit old (the 4-koma comic had me rolling) but really powerful guy who happens to possess three dozens of stolen mythical swords. But no! It's okay, there is nothing bad, he is not going to use those swords for Evil, he just want to keep them safe out of bad people who will use them wrongly. At first glance, there should be nothing in Shang that should fascinate him, right? Dude is so chill, laidback, and berates his antics more than anything. But Shang just keep surprising him over and over again. As flat-out admitted by Lin himself on Episode 4 Season Two:

Shang Bu Huan : And who the hell is my friend in this equation?

Lin Xue Ya          : Ah, a good question. Does a friend lend their aid because they're a friend? Or does someone become a friend once they've lent their aid? Sorting out the course of events can be a bit like solving a riddle.

And still on the same episode, but different scene with different character asking him the question;:

Ling Ya                : Hey man, why do you care so much about Shang, anyway?

Lin Xue Ya          : I'd say my interest begins and ends with how much fun he is. Come now, spare me the probing looks. This is no lie or exaggeration. Amusement is the solitary motivating force in my life. You could call it my very reason for living.

Upon knowing and seeing it firsthand Lin's usual dealing yes, Shang may be disgusted, but does Shang completely cut his ties off with Lin? No. For as much as Lin spreading mischief, intentionally spreading Shang's tale of taking down Mie Tian Hai and his horde of Black Demon Force, Shang just casually find him, pop up, give him several sigh and that's that.

Lin feels acknowledged by Shang. Lin feels acknowledged by Shang not asking him to change. And Lin feels appreciated. Yes, he feels appreciated because to him, Shang is easily categorized under his decent dude on his list of relation, and by Lin's standard to the people he kept company so far, Shang is basically a hero. A good guy. And for such upright guy to not immediately fend him off despite knowing his trickery? So, for the rare instance on his life, Lin decided to do something he just knows he is highkey sucks at doing, and that is, yes, building a trustful, healthy relationship with Shang Bu Huan.

Speaking of pursuing a healthy, mutual trust, this where Lin Xue Ya failed to do on his past relationship with Sha Wu Sheng. See, Sha Wu Sheng, for as merciless and as skillful a warrior he was, he also managed to peer underneath the facade Lin kept. Sha Wu Sheng wanted and planned to still be Lin's bodyguard even after he gained Sword Saint title, prolly out of his pity seeing how lonely Lin is, underneath all that. However, Lin's instinct and thirst for mischief outweighed his subconscious that sees Sha Wu Sheng's sincere, genuine attempt at starting a new life free from killing and Sha Wu Sheng's gesture of reaching out to him. Instead, Lin one-sidedly decide it himself that Sha Wu Sheng talent is too good to waste on building a sword school and set the ploy of what would be The Sword Saint Tournament.

By doing this to Sha, Lin Xue Ya not only ended up depriving Sha Wu Sheng of his what-could-have been life, but also his future and plunges him into his suicidal mission that makes Sha looking for an enemy stronger than him and him ending up dying on Mie Tian Hai's hand. Since Sha Wu Sheng arc is beautifully crafted onto the timeline that spans from The Movie first half into Season One, where Shang is present halfway, this could infer that maybe, Lin deep down regretted over what happened to Sha Wu Sheng so much and this too, could also goes into part of Lin's decision to keep an open, honest relationship with Shang ('honest' by Lin Xue Ya's standard, by all means) over the end of Season One and into Season Two.

This goes into the part that the whole event of Season Two was Lin trying to help Shang, albeit yes, it's still done on Lin's fucked up, round about way that ends up getting way more people hurt and killed than necessary. But his underlying motive is purely to help Shang Bu Huan. Yes, Lin might be hoping to secure a good prey along the way, but his whole priority is still Shang and his attempt to make Shang believe in him, that he, too, capable of forming a meaningful, trustful, healthy, relationship. No tricks, no ploy.  

By finally encouraging himself to build a healthy relationship with someone else that involves no trickery and lies (no trick and lies on 'most' part, remember that we are talking about Lin Xue Ya here, little lies here and ther counts as a honesty with him considering his usual trade), Lin is also, inevitably and unconsciously making himself more vulnerable emotionally, in a good way. I always felt that the way Lin's puppeteer making him move on Season Two and the way the directing is shot during his scene is way, way more extra compared to Season One and The Movie. I initially guessed that this is maybe because the cat is out of the bag, that Lin Xue Ya is Enigmatic Gale, a notorious, infamous thief across Dong Li for his scheme, compared to Season One where his reveal was held off until the good last quarter of the season. That's why Lin's movement and mannerism is more subdued in Season One, especially on the first three quarters, in order to avoid spoiling way too much into his true nature and reveal.

But now that we've got to Episode 11, with his whole emotional fit over Xiao refusing to go back to Xi You (he has emotional breakdown in front of two people, one being his supposed victim, Xiao Kuang Juan and the other one being Lang Wu Yao), to me this opens the interpretation that the dramatic, over the top puppeteering, writing, and directing style for Lin Xue Ya this season is intentionally on the showrunners part as a way of telling us how soft he has become. Lin Xue Ya is far, far more, expressful this season due to him more open of letting his guard down and expresses himself more emotionally. It's as if, in Season One and The Movie (I refer to the first part of the movie only, when we saw Lin and Sha Wu Sheng story, and not including the second part of the movie where he goes around as a jester spreading Shang's telltale), there is a dark, black cloth that Lin is purposely putting up between himself and us viewer. We could never see him past beyond the dark cloth, and the only way for us to see him is when he intentionally puts himself in front of the dark cloth and show us what's he doing. But beyond that, nothing. Compared to the dark cloth, the Season Two Lin forgoes the dark cloth completely, and instead replaces them with a kind of white mesh fabric, that is sheer and see-through. Despite the fabric still conceals his true doing, but with the mesh fabric we could guess his movement through his silhouette.

Going back to Lin's whole motivation of Season Two in helping Shang, this is also why Lin hurried his ass to save Lang Wu Yao and Ling Ya from Lou Zhen Jie and Seven Blasphemous Death after he failed his plan to send Xiao back to Dong Li. He sure nonchalantly dodged Ling Ya question and stated that he merely just passed by and the sight of someone chuckling so proudly just after his humiliation on Xiao Kuang Juan's hand is so irritating to him he want to turn said person into his pet food. But, is it all that there is to it, Lin?

I already mentioned briefly how expertly Lin's handling his whole cover during the first three episodes of Season Two. While he was pretending to be a government envoy, humoring Xiao Kuang Juan spreading lies about Shang being absurdly evil individual about to threaten Dong Li, Lin also managed to keep track on Shang and Lang's whereabout. When he knew that Shang and Lang are at disadvantage due to Xie Yingluo poison, Lin quickly hurried off and tracked them to their hideout, all the while covering up Lang's previous track, and putting up off new, fake tracks meant to throw Xiao Kuang Juan. Our resident Thief then proceed to find Shang, diagnoses his poison, and together with Lang managed to find the antidote for Scorpion Princess best poison all the while still keeping his cover as a government envoy in front of Xiao Kuang Juan.

Based from these events, it would not be far too much of a stretch to guess that Lin is actively keeping track of Shang and Lang's whereabout during the course of Season Two. So, assuming Lin keeping track of Lang's whereabout, sensing that Lang was in danger, up against Lou Zhen Jie, a proficient man wielding a notorious demon sword, Lin goes and proceed to save him. Why, Lin? Isn't he the man who is not hesitant to pull his sword attacking him you back when you guys in the middle of Wasteland of Spirit, procuring dragon's horn together? I know you hate seeing unnecessary bloodshed, but you never strikes me as the type who would go in such active way into saving people, Lin. Were you not in the middle of your mental breakdown, Lin Xue Ya?

Plot-wise, it would be to heartless and maybe, a tad anticlimatic just to let Lou Zhen Jie finishes off Lang right then without Lin interfering. But also, if we track back to the second Shang and Lin's pool scene, during Episode 10, and if we put the context of Episode 10 and Episode 11 weaven together, it makes it clear that the whole pond scene was Shang entrusting Lin with... his best buddy, Lang's safety, because Shang is about to went away to meet Juan Can Yun. Shang Bu Huan knew a psychopatic nihilistic monk is running amok with a freaking demon sword that enchants and drains life-force from people. As much as Shang have faith on Lang's ability as a warrior, Shang also desperately wants Lang to be alive, safe and sound, from the mess he created and Lang had nothing to do on the first place, and Shang wanted some kind of an insurance--fail proof way to ensure Lang safe no matter what. So, he asked Lin Xue Ya for help. He asked Lin Xue Ya for help, he entrust Lin Xue Ya to help him keep his dearest friend, alive. It might not be explicitly stated, but;

Lin Xue Ya          : Urgent and distant business, then?

Shang Bu Huan : You could say that. I'm gonna try and get back as soon as possible, so until I do, try not to make things even worse, all right?

This is the freaking Shang Bu Huan, who knows Lin's track record and also Lin's tendency to  fuck things up just for the sake of fucking things up and experienced it first hand. So, he asked Lin Xue Ya, specifically, to keep everything under control until he gets back pawning The Sword Index off to Juan Can Yun. This is, a big deal, because when in the beginning of Season Two, Shang vehemently refused Lang's idea to call someone for help (which is, in this case, incidentally said person on Shang mind happens to be Lin) until Lin showed up himself at his doorstep and forced his way to cure Shang, and now, several episodes later, Shang, specifically asked Lin for help. This means so much, because in a way, this is Shang's way of reciprocating and acknowledging Lin's attempt to be a better version of himself. Shang sees Lin's effort, and he acknowledges it.

And... AND... LIN KEPT HIS WORDS !!!!!! THIS THIEF FUCKERY VAPING WIZARD IS KEEPING HIS PROMISE!!! Even though Lin, partly on his fault, lowkey already fucked things up by failing to send Xiao away back to Xi You, but he managed to save Lang from great peril, and this is of course, the better deal. Lin's honoring Shang's request, even though he admitted himself that he has some kind incompatibility with Lang, shows how Lin respects both Shang Bu Huan, and even, to some degree, to Lang. Lin understands and accepts that Lang, is a part of Shang's life, and needless to say that Shang would be broken if anything ever happens to him.

Instead of succumbing into a dark desire lurking somewhere within his unconsciousness to toy with Lang's life (and given he context of Season Two, if Lin plays Lang then he would indirectly toy with Shang’s too), Lin represses that urge and strive to work with Lang instead, not just once, but twice. It could be also that Lang has nothing that Lin would ever want, and that Lang is not Lin's target and he had nothing on fucking up his life, but this also does not automatically making Lang exempt and safe from Lin Xue Ya's destructive tendencies to people around him, because Lin's past actions have shown that his machinations often proven fatal and claims collateral damage on Lin's own acquaintance even whom he did not actively mark as his prey at the moment (re: Sha Wu Sheng and Shou Yun Xiao dead bodies during their 'expedition' against Mie Tian Hai). Lin's active action on saving Lang's life is a great deal, because not only by doing so he is committed to his mission learning how to have a healthy relationship, it also shows Lin's character development striving to be a... less destructive version of him.

On top of saving Lang, Lin does not even bother on concealing his pissed stance in front of him, showing Lang his, ungraceful side as he shamelessly continues his emotional breakdown in front of Lang the moment Xiao Kuang Juan name mentioned. This part is just so, so endearing to me because we can see in the screen, both Lang and Ling Ya too, are baffled seeing Lin's throwing tantrum, something that they does never expect coming off from the dude who nonchalantly, politely asked a dragon before chopping off said dragon's horn. Retreating back into Season One, Lin Xue Ya was alone when Mie Tian Hai humiliated his ass off, nobody is even there to saw him getting his trickster ass owned and yet, the moment Shang came up to him, asking how the hell did a giant praying mantis monster got unleashed, Lin is seen masking his agony over his humiliation and feigning a nonchalant attitude as per usual. This contrasts heavily with Season Two, where Lin is visibly upset over his failure at scheming Xiao Kuang Juan, and even goes on a rampage to show how upset he is to someone he just know several days ago.

Now into Episode 12, when Shang Bu Huan finally retrieved Night of Mourning off from Xiao Kuang Juan, and Shang called out to Lin Xue Ya to undo his disguise, we can see how the two of them have full come circle and reaches another level of trust and bond between the two of them. On this scene, with Shang Bu Huan, Lang Wu Ya, and Ling Ya all present, Lin really went and admitted how he is pissy af because he fucked up his plan with Xiao Kuang Juan. Lin. Freaking. Xue. Ya. Admitting. His. Failure. He nonchalantly brought up his failure of messing with The Fugitive Hunter and reasoned that he wants to tag along because he want to see Xiao getting his due with his own eyes (or don't you really, just wanna help, Lin). And Shang Bu Huan, hearing Lin's failure, did not flinch, did not even comment, did not even make fun of it or rejoice on Lin's failure despite Shang never agreeing with his method. Shang just brushed it by and instead offered Lin to tag along and help them.

(You want Lin on his usual fancy clothing instead of those boring lawmen outfit, don’t you Shang ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) )

Shang Bu Huan : Why are you following us?

Lin Xue Ya           : Well, what else? I'm hoping that you might lead me to some new amusement. To be honest, I'm feeling incredibly frustrated. I'm willing to do just about anything to clear my head as a result. If I don't see someone get their painful just dessert's soon, I think I might go mad.

Ling Ya                  : Man, this guy's as twisted as they come, huh?

Shang Bu Huan   : Well, we're about to go after Xiao Kuang Juan. You willing to help?

One episode left for Season Two, and where this season has it's ups and downs, and it's owns pros and cons, I personally think with the lesser amount of main cast we really get our main cast fleshed out more and I'm really happy with this development of Lin. As much as his trickster, jester side of a character is entertaining and incredibly potent and powerful on it's own right, but I as viewer could not help but happy seeing Lin's making some good decisions for once. Here is to praying that our main trio makes it out alive of Season Two.

[cosmicevila]

Merry Christmas, @losttostardust! I am your Secret Santa for the @jjba-secret-santa swap! I’m sorry for getting this to you so close to the deadline, but December ended up being ridiculously busy! I hope you like the fic! Best wishes to you in 2018!

Edit: Fixed the GARBAGE formatting that I got with trying to post this via mobile, and added a readmore link.  Also, if you click on the title of the fic, you’ll find the song that inspired me a little, Joni Mitchell’s Come in from the Cold.

Title: Come in from the Cold

Pairing: Gappy Higashikata/Yasuho Hirose

Rating: PG

Summary: Yasuho finds Gappy alone in the snow on Christmas Eve.

The snow always fell long and hard upon Morioh in the winter, ushered in by cold winds blowing in from over the sea.  It was beautiful to look at, no doubt, but the way it buried the city and dampened its hustle and bustle made Yasuho feel at once refreshed and terribly lonely. She spent a lot of time holed up in her room in the winter, ignoring her mother as hard as possible when she did bother to check in.  However, today was a day when she just couldn’t stand being shut away any longer, and so she pulled on all of the warm clothing she could handle and set out for a walk.

Yasuho only meant to take a short walk around her block to shake off her cabin fever, but Paisley Park woke up the moment she stepped outside, and Yasuho couldn’t ignore her Stand’s call.  Her heart beat a little faster as she followed Paisley Park’s directions further and further from town, because her Stand so often led her to Josuke, and if Josuke was in trouble, then Yasuho needed to go to him.  (And if he wasn’t in trouble, well, then Yasuho needed to go to him then, too – she would never pass up a chance to see the boy she cared about so deeply.)

The snow grew deeper and the roads and sidewalks messier the further she ventured from the city, and the wind rushing in from the ocean stung her cheeks and nose.  Her eyes watered, making it difficult to see, and she pulled her jacket’s hood closer around her face to try to block some of the gale.  She sped up, hoping to find out where Paisley Park was taking her as soon as possible – and before she realized it, she had reached the Wall Eyes.  The land they surrounded was eerily quiet, and Yasuho realized that it was slightly warmer there because the strange structures blocked some of the wind.  But the tradeoff was the disquieting feeling of being watched by something that wasn’t quite human, and that chilled Yasuho right to her bones.  Still, she wandered closer at the insistence of her Stand, and suddenly she noticed a familiar tassel peeking over a snowbank.

“Josuke~?” she called, and trudged through the deep snow to the valley beyond.  And there he was, sitting on the ground without a single thread of winter clothing on, his canvas sneakers almost hidden by the snow.  She called his name again, but he still didn’t answer her.  His lips were tinged with blue, and she would have assumed that he had found a new shade of lipstick if she’d found him in any other weather.

“Josuke!  Josuke, it’s me, Yasuho!” she yelled as she finally reached him, dropping to her knees in front of him and taking his face in her wool-glove-warmed hands.  “Are you okay?”

Josuke blinked, and his lips silently formed her name.

“Yes, it’s me, Yasuho!” she cried, voice shrill with panic.  She gently shook his head and said, “What are you doing out here without a coat or anything on?  You need to get inside!”

“Yasuho-chan,” he murmured, and hot tears spilled onto his cheeks.  “It’s good to see you.”  Yasuho pulled him into a fierce hug, vigorously rubbing his back, his arms, anything.  “I had a feeling I’d see you today.”

“What?  It’s good to see you, too, but it’d be nicer if we were inside,” Yasuho stuttered, the chill from the snow she was kneeling in finally seeping through her jeans.  “You know, I had a feeling I would see you, too…  Paisley Park led me here.”  Keeping one hand over his heart, she moved on to trying to rub some warmth back into his legs.  The fabric of his sailor suit was thicker than she realized, which was a slight relief, but only a very slight one. 

Josuke dropped his head against her shoulder.  “It was so strange,” he murmured.  “The Wall Eyes were calling me, pulling my heart here, and I just walked here without a second thought.  And when I realized how cold it was and where I was, I thought, well, Yasuho-chan always finds me here, and I waited for you.  And here you are.”

“I always find you here?  What do you mean?  Paisley Park did all of the work.”

“This is where I’m from…  Where you found me.  Where I was born from the ground…”  Josuke trailed off, and Yasuho looked around.  They were sitting on the exact spot on the coastline where Yasuho had originally found Josuke, naked, alone, and unknowing; where Yasuho’s tiny world had expanded more than she’d ever dreamed it would.  And they were both called here again on this day… 

Suddenly, Yasuho’s breath left her in a gasp.  “It’s Christmas Eve,” she whispered.  She’d completely forgotten.  She didn’t have any plans – she and her friends had exchanged gifts earlier in December, and she certainly didn’t plan to give anything to her mother, even if her mother gave something to her.  Her mother would probably just leave money on the kotatsu before she went on another all-night bender with some strange, dangerous man.  That was her Christmas Eve tradition.

Christmas Eve was supposed to be a day that you spent with the ones you love.  Yasuho hadn’t celebrated it properly since she was a child because her mother’s addiction trumped whatever love she had left for her daughter.  And today, on this Christmas Eve, both she and Josuke were drawn to the same place, together.  The place where they met for the very first time.

At least the blush covering Yasuho’s face made her feel a little warmer.

“Come on, Josuke,” she said, unwinding her scarf and wrapping it around his neck, making sure that every inch of his always-exposed collarbone was covered up.  “Let’s go back to my house, where it’s warm.  I’m surprised that you haven’t already frozen solid!”  She tugged on his elbow and guided him into a standing position.

“It’s not that bad.  Soft and Wet keeps taking my cold away,” Josuke said, and, right on cue, a familiar robotic hand appeared from behind Josuke’s shoulder and touched a star-marked bubble to his cheek.  Yasuho hadn’t noticed them earlier because their translucency caused them to nearly blend in with the snow, but Josuke’s Stand’s bubbles were littered all over the snowbank.  She sighed in relief.

“Thank God for Soft and Wet,” she said.  “But this is no place to spend such a special day!  Come back to my house, warm up, and then maybe we can get dinner later.”  She tugged on his elbow again, and Josuke followed her gladly as they climbed the snowbank.

“Can we get fries?” Josuke said, a hopeful lilt to his voice.

Yasuho giggled.  “Whatever you want,” she said.  They walked along at a happy clip, humming Josuke’s large fries jingle all the way.

*****

Her house was empty, just as Yasuho suspected and hoped.  She ushered Josuke through the doorway, and, as they toed off their shoes, said, “I’ll plug in the kotatsu in a second after I get you a blanket.  I’ll warm some water for tea, too – or would you rather have coffee?”

Josuke hummed and then said, “Coffee, please.  What’s… a kotatsu?”

Yasuho blinked.  “You don’t know?  Do they not have one at the Higashikatas?”

“If they do, they haven’t said anything about it.”

“Well, here.  It’s so~ good.”  Yasuho led him by the elbow – as she’d been doing this whole time, she realized with a bit of embarrassment – into the living room, where her family’s kotatsu was set up.  Its pink flowered blanket and round black tabletop were looking worse for wear, but the heater worked just fine, and that was the important thing.  She lifted up the blanket and arranged one of the pillows, and motioned for Josuke to sit down.  “Here, sit down, and arrange the blanket however you like.  I’ll plug it in…”  Josuke settled himself underneath the blanket, and as soon as Yasuho plugged the kotatsu in, he let out a cry of surprise.  Yasuho giggled.

“It’s a warm table?!” Josuke said, sticking his hands underneath the blanket as well, and then scooting up until his forearms were covered, too.  “This is amazing~!”

“I know, right?” Yasuho said with a smile.  “Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll make it even better.”

Yasuho rushed to the kitchen to start the coffee pot, and then to her room to grab some blankets, because she’d hoarded all of them for those days when her mother was using the kotatsu and those cold, cold winter nights alone.  On her way back to the living room, she pulled a couple of oranges from the fridge, peeled them, and grabbed some napkins.  When she returned to the living room, Josuke was nowhere to be found.

Yasuho frowned.  “Josuke?” she called – but then she noticed the blanket around the kotatsu bulging strangely, and, after setting the oranges on the table and the blankets on the floor, she lifted it to find Josuke curled up underneath it.

“’S warmer under here,” Josuke mumbled. 

“I guess Soft and Wet wasn’t doing as good of a job of taking the chill away as you thought, huh?” Yasuho said.  “You should come out.  I don’t want you to burn yourself on the heater.  I have blankets for you.”

Josuke slid out from underneath the kotatsu, pouting, and as soon as he sat up, Yasuho piled every blanket she brought on his shoulders.  He pulled them around himself and retreated into them like a turtle going back into its shell, until only his sailor hat and a little bit of his curly hair was visible.  Yasuho couldn’t resist giving his shoulders a little squeeze.  “That’s better, right?” she said.  “I’ll be back – I need to pour the coffee.  Have an orange, too, if you want.  That’s also something you do at the kotatsu.”

A few minutes later, Yasuho returned with two steaming mugs of coffee and cream, and the Josuke bundle hadn’t budged.  “I’m back~” she said, and, placing one mug of coffee in front of him, sat down next to him – not too close, but not too far away.  Just the right distance for a friend to sit next to another friend.

But Josuke had other plans, and suddenly Yasuho was absorbed into the blanket pile.  She felt like her face was probably steaming with how hot it got from Josuke’s arms wrapping around her middle and his head tucked under her chin.  For one of Josuke’s impromptu hugs that he was prone to giving, it felt impossible intimate with the added layers of warmth.

“Josuke…?” she stammered, her voice barely above a squeak.

“Yasuho-chan,” he said, his voice muffled by the blankets and Yasuho’s sweater, “you’re always there when I need you the most, even when I don’t know that I need you.”

“Oh,” she breathed.  Did she?  Well, this was the second time she’d found him at the Wall Eyes, and she did come to him when he was in trouble, but…  She’d never felt like she was truly that helpful to Josuke.  Maybe she was doing better than she thought. 

She placed her hands on the arms that surrounded her, and stroked them gently with her thumbs.  “Well, I just want to help you,” she murmured.  “No matter what, I want to help you.” 

“No matter what,” Josuke murmured in reply.  “I always want to help you, too.”

Tears pricked the corners of Yasuho’s eyes, and she shifted so she was full-on holding Josuke.  “Do you want to stay with me tonight?” she blurted, and the tears suddenly fell, regret immediately replacing the sudden surge of feeling in her heart that prompted the question.  “I mean – I don’t mean like that, just – we can watch TV, we can just talk, we can play a game –”

But Josuke hugged her tighter, and laughed.  “Yeah,” he said, “I wanna stay here with you.  I want to eat oranges and sit under this amazing table all night.”

“Well, if you get tired, you can sleep between the mattresses on my bed,” she said.

“Or you can just lay on top of me right here,” Josuke mumbled, and he giggled when Yasuho choked and fell back.  Josuke snaked an arm out from underneath his cocoon, picked an orange slice, and popped it into his mouth – and when orange juice squirted from the gap between his two front teeth, Yasuho collapsed onto the floor with laughter. 

Merry Christmas, she thought.  I don’t wanna spend it with anyone but you.

[everlarkficquestions]

Sunday Stumped Day 20

It’s another Sunday Stumped Day.

Sometimes we straight out get stumped.  So each week on Sunday we’ll post of a list of asks that we need your help on.

If you have an answer to any of these shoot us a message/ask/reply with the Post number and the fic number and we’ll add it and give you a shout out with our thanks. Any links you can provide will also be super helpful.

Thanks!

Post 1 , Post 2 , Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, Post 6, Post 7, Post 8, Post 9, Post 10, Post 11, Post 12, Post 13, Post 14, Post 15, Post 16, Post 17, Post 18  and Post 19 can be found here - and there are still fics we need your help with.

248.  everlarklucaya said to everlarkficquestions:

Okay so I'm looking for a fanfic that I don't remember the title of but it was like a growing back together one where Katniss and Peeta went to the beach in district 4 and someone tried to shoot Katniss and Peeta hit his head and then all of his memories came back?

249. virgosupremacy said to everlarkficquestions:

could you help me find a post-mj fic where katniss and peeta get together and she starts taking queen anne's lace or something herbal as a contraceptive?

250. ktanissevrdeen said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi hi hi are there any fics where katniss and peeta are still living in 12 when the bombing happens? Also, are there any fics where katniss and peeta are still regular citizens during the rebellion? Like they're not the ones that go into the games and start the rebellion but it still happens? Thanks!!!!!

POSSIBLY!

Hero of the Story by atetheredmind (s_e_irvine)

Thank you @joaquinablog!

The Grass is Always Greener by icbiwf

Thank you @gabzep​!

251.  everythingisprettygood said to everlarkficquestions:

Any where Peeta sees Katniss and Gale kiss?

FOUND!

The Lover and the Best Friend by writersblock700

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams!

252. slytherin-larrie said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I'm looking for a fix where Katniss is pregnant during Catching Fire/Mockingjay. I remember that when she arrived in district 13, the doctors there removed her baby for its protection or something? and they (possibly) lie to Katniss telling her the baby dies and she doesn't find out for awhile and the baby turns out to be alive and okay and after awhile she takes it to her compartment with her mum and prim and looks after her daughter?? I read it ages ago and can't find it :(

FOUND!

More Than Words by OfPearlsAndShoelaces

Thank you @geekymoviemom and @andthisisthewonder!

253.  sunsetsrmydreams said to everlarkficquestions:

I cannot remember the name of the fic where before they send Peeta and Katniss into the Quell, they put Peeta and some others in a victors program that implants them with mind control devices and Portia is in Peeta's head. He makes it to 13 and confesses to Katniss that sometimes he can't control himself.

FOUND!

Swingsets by lollercakes

Thank you @eggplant8 and @jennagill!

254.  thankyouthgproject said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I'm looking for a story where katniss has to decide if peeta should lose his leg or not after an accident. Once he's awake and doing physio he gets really angry at katniss and tells her she's useless and she runs away. Katniss also gets jealous with his relationship with the physio (Lavinia?). Pleaseeee help!

FOUND!

Two Wrongs by JLaLa

Thank you @smartalexy!

255.  everythingisprettygood said to everlarkficquestions:

Hello! Are there any where Gale comes back to District 12 after the war and wants Katniss to go to District 2 with him/his family? Thanks! Love this page

FOUND!

You Look So Good in Love by peetabreadgirl

Thank you @peetabreadgirl​!

256.  wheresoulsmeetbodies said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I am looking for a fic where Katniss and Peeta are dating in high school but then they break up right after graduation. They are at a graduation party and they sneak into the woods to be alone, but then they break up and Katniss runs away from him. Any ideas? Thank you!

FOUND!

Black and Blue by hutchhitched

Thank you @hutchhitched!

257.  fangirlingoverquotes said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey! Do you know some cute fics/oneshots in which Haymitch's really cute with toastbaby's and acts like their grandfather? Thanks!!!

FOUND!

The Grandmentor by silvercistern

Thank you @eggplant8!

258. thatgirlisahurricane said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! Do you know any fics based upon Grace and Tommy's storyline in the first season of "Peaky Blinders"? Thanks in advance.

259.  prettyshirleyann said to everlarkficquestions:

hey! your blog is so helpful and I was wondering if there are any fics wherein katniss and peeta are not together but have a baby or they've kinda seperated and are dividing their time because of their child. Thanks! <3

FOUND!

The Match and the Rock by HPfanonezillion

Thank you @booksrockmyface!

260.  mellarkkeverdeen said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I'm looking for a one shot where peeta is divorced and has a kid with someone else, he and katniss are together and katniss is pregnant with his child, they have a weekend alone and then delly/Madge drops off his child and katniss is upset?

FOUND!

Somewhere in the Middle by SassyEverlarking

Thank you @keytomykingdom!

261.  youmakemyheartpanic said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! First of all, I just love this page and it has helped me finding a lot of my favourite fanfics to date. I was looking for a fic I read on FanFiction.Net. It was set during Mockingjay, but the only thing I distinctively recall is that KP were watching kids from the medical ward as requested by Prim during the bombings to D13. Thanks!

FOUND!

Have Heart, My Dear by monroeslittle

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams!

262.  emmmmma25-blog said to everlarkficquestions:

any find involving the Jabberjay scene in CF? Like reversals where Peeta gets caught in the hour, or Katniss hears Peeta's screams??

FOUND!

By Your Side by geekymoviemom

Thank you @geekymoviemom​!

263.  liabelen10 said to everlarkficquestions:

Caste System! everlark, please. thnx

FOUND!

Know That Your Place Is With Me by titania522

Thank you @arabeth-thea!

264.  seafinnickeyes said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey hello. I don't know if you guys can help me with this, but i'm asking all same. Did you know any everlark fanfic with a great amount of gadge as well? It can be of any type, but preferably complete and set in Panem.

FOUND!

The Bride Swap by titania522

Thank you @titaniasfics​!

265.  jobanana7 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi guys I can't get hold of this drabble and I can't remember the title but, it has a gif on it and is k and p on vacation and k is going to tell p she's pregnant and she has a call with prim whose dating Rory and is babysitting the toast baby girl... And that's as much as I remembered, do you think you can help??? Thank you so much !!!

266.  jobanana7 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I was hoping you'd help me find this drabble of k and p on a vacation and k is going to tell p she's pregnant, and k calls prim and she's (prim) babysitting the toast baby girl and there's a gif of feet on a bed entwined together... As always thanks!!

267.  craftydiva0828 said to everlarkficquestions:

Looking for a fic where in the first chapter Katniss remarks about of course the "star crossed lovers" would end in front of an audience because that's how they started. The scene has all the remaining victors going their separate ways, including Peeta.

268.  winkrookie said to everlarkficquestions:

fics with young toastbaby boy?

FOUND!

The Many and Varied Adventures of Young Fletcher Mellark by Silvercistern

and

The Synchronicity Universe by Everlark_Pearl

Thank you @jennagill​!

269.  bellemelody-blog said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I was was reading story written by kismet4891 "Careless wishes". I wonder maybe it is possible to find something similar, with another reality or dream in story. When a hero can understand that everything is going differently not how it suppose to be. I just fall in love with this story!

270.  adarnalways said to everlarkficquestions:

Is there any everlark fic where katniss is more open with her feelings towards peeta and proves to everyone including gale that peeta is the one she loves proudly?

FOUND!

The Other Mockingjay by MockingJayFlyingFree

Thank you @jennagill!

271.  hellaeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi I am trying to remember a fic that I read where Peeta burns bread in his house so he stays with Katniss for a few days and then they go into his house again and kiss in the smoke. I was wondering if you knew of it?

272.  thankyouthgproject said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi I read a fic a while ago but can't remember the name of it. Katniss, prim and her mum move to this residence sorta place and K gets a lifeguard job and eventually meets Peeta. They end up becoming friends and enter a triathlon sorta thing and K has to teach P how to swim and he nearly dies?? TYSM!

FOUND!

Under the Setting Sun by janerey

Thank you @icbiwf​!

273.  addygal39 said to everlarkficquestions:

I'm trying to find the name of fic where Katniss lives with Haymitch(?) after the death of her parents. peeta sees her walking one day and takes her home in his carriage. They form a friendship, fall in love and decide to get married but he dissapears only to turn up a long while later after having been sent off to war. They see eachother by accident at a party/gathering and he explains that he didn't willingly leave her but was sent off. Thanks for any help you can provide :)

FOUND!

Peeta and I by Lulubee1234

Thank you @aynako808!

274.  devfame said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi, I remember a while back I read a fanfic where Katniss goes to district 7 (post-mockingjay). She visits Johanna and ends up spending a week or so with her. They bond, go hunting, Katniss sees a moose for the first time. I believe that Johanna got over her fear of water and now lives by a lake. She also leaves food on the doorsteps of some houses. Sorry if this information isn't much help I can only remember bits and bobs - For all I know it's been deleted. Thanks in advance :D

FOUND!

An Evergreen Forest -  bodylikeabattleaxe

Thank you @kdlovehg!

275.  adarnalways said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey do you have any fic where katniss gets to see how peeta gets tortured and It breaks her?

276. stickymooniverse said to everlarkficquestions:

I don't know the name of this fic or where to find it. Katniss and Peeta in college. Katniss was raised by her uncle Snow (I think). He was (was killed) and she inherited a lot of money, buys a fancy apartment. She uses drugs sporadically, goes to Peeta's family for Christmas. They date. Etc. I'm not crazy, right? Oh also Gale is her weed connection but has a crush. She's not into it

FOUND!

Lost and Wandering by Bemac

Thank you @icbiwf!

277.  hellaeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I am looking for a fanfiction I read a while ago about Katniss and Peeta growing back together after the war. The scene I remember most is that their first kiss was in Peeta's bedroom, which was filled with smoke because he burnt some bread. Hope you can find it! Thank you so much:))

278.  silent-movements said to everlarkficquestions:

Looking for a fic/drabble that was about a lot of the characters were in and that peeta was a knight? And katniss was probably an archer and they were at the last boss when peeta died because of using a potion too early and they all failed to clear the game? Thanks!

280. lysen5972 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi again, thanks for the help last week. i am now wondering about another fic. In this one there is a separate revolt in district 12 (started i think when they tried to send the peacekeepers that had started lives in 12 away) and there is somekind of trial where katniss and others are being prosecuted because they don't want to follow the new regime and district 13s new law. Any ideas which it could be? Thanks for the help

FOUND!

The Avalanche and Little Pebbles by Dyce 

Thank you @eggplant8 and @icbiwf!

281.  hellaeverlark said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I love your site, and I was wondering if you know any fics that take place during Catching Fire and go into more depth about Peeta's reaction to Katniss suggesting they get married. I have been looking for fics about this for ever and I wanted to ask if you knew some! Thanks a bunch:))

282.  adarnalways said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi.... First of all I want to let you know you are doing an amazing job.. So thank you and second I wanted to ask if you know any fics where peeta sparks the rebellion and snow gets angry with peeta, not katniss!

FOUND!

Either Way by bellissimaanima

Thank you @tsweetyumi!

283.  intensely-melodramatic said to everlarkficquestions:

Ok so I’m looking for an AU fic set in college and Katniss and peeta meet through mutual friends and at one point she spills coffee on him. Later in the story she sings in front of the group which I think includes Finnick and gale etc and peeta is super impressed. I’m sorry I know this is a bit random and all over the place

284.   intensely-melodramatic said to everlarkficquestions:

 I have another one, Peeta and katniss have a baby but she keeps the pregnancy from him and the baby Years later. Katniss gets kicked out along with her daughter from her mums home and moves in with peeta who is a teacher. Can you find this one?

Do any of these ring a bell? Let us know!

[totallyrhettro]

The Lone Jedi, Chapter 21

FWord Count: 2214 Rating: This chapter: PG-13. Overall story: explicit Warnings: Kissing Summary: Jedi Knight Rhett McLaughlin managed to escape the purge of the Emperor to become one of the last of his celibate order. After years of a solitary life, he finds himself with a former slave for a friend. Despite his efforts to maintain anonymity and the jedi code, he starts to realize that doing either is easier said than done. Notes: Star Wars AU; Events take place between episodes III and IV

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

*See the end of each chapter for additional notes on star wars terms*

Link POV 

Despite Rhett’s assurances that he had left the life support systems on, the shuttle soon became far too cold for Link’s tastes. Even wrapped up in a blanket and Rhett’s arm around him, he was shivering slightly. Finding comfort in fatigue, Link let sleep take him someplace warmer, drifting through a sea of distant dreams. He didn’t know how long he slept, but it wasn’t until his body was roughly shaken that he finally opened his eyes.

 “What’s happening?” He was terrified that the empire had found them at last. Rhett wasn’t by his side but at the con, looking over the controls. He didn’t look too scared and that was some consolation. Still, he did look a bit worried.

“The storm outside is getting worse. We’re safe in here,” he added. “The wind is just blowing hard enough right into our cave. I’m adjusting the inertial dampeners… There.” He pressed a few more buttons before pivoting his seat to face the back. “That should keep the rocking to a minimum.”

 “Any news from Kavra?” Link felt a bit guilty for sleeping when his friend was still in danger. 

“Nothing yet.” Hiding a small grimace, Rhett turned back to the controls. “I’m not sure if he’ll be able to land, at this rate.” Getting to his feet, Link went to stand behind Rhett and placed a hand on his shoulder. He could sense the man’s uneasiness, but didn’t know exactly how to soothe his fear. Their relationship was still in a strange sort of flux and he was unsure how to proceed. They were friends,and if that’s all they could ever be it would be enough. Yet, in his heart, he wanted more. He felt more. In his heart he knew Rhett did too.

“What happens if he can’t land?” Visions of the small starfighter being torn apart by rough winds and crashing into the mountainside flashed through his mind.

“We’ll just have to wait out the storm by ourselves.” Rhett tilted his head and chuckled. “Kavra’s crazy, but not that crazy.” 

When they finally received another message from Kavra, Link felt a wave of relief wash over him and not just because he was glad to hear from his new friend. Hopefully this meant they were going to be able to leave this frozen hiding spot and get somewhere warm at last.

“Not gonna lie, it was a bit touch-and-go there for awhile,” Kavra admitted, over the com. “But they won’t be back any time soon.”

“So... we can leave?” Link asked, hopeful. He didn’t need to wait for Kavra’s response to know the answer to that. The look on Rhett’s face was answer enough.

“My ship was built to handle acrobatics and g-forces in space,” Kavra noted. “Doesn’t exactly do well in gale-force winds. Neither does yours. Sorry, Link buddy. I think you two are grounded for now.”

“We can bunker down until it passes,” Rhett assured him and Link. “Meet you back at base. No sense in you waiting around for the weather.”

“Copy that, Green Leader.” There was lilt in his voice, almost a tease in his use of the formal title. “Catch you on the flip side.” As Rhett closed the channel, Link gave him a confused look.

 “What’s the flip side?”

“He just means ‘see you later’.” With a sigh, the jedi turned to another panel to his left. “At least we can turn on the heat now. No need to freeze while we wait for the blizzard to pass.”

“Too late,” Link grumbled, tugging the blanket even tighter around him. Rhett chuckled before getting to his feet and putting his hands on Link’s arms.

“We’re safe now,” he assured him, rubbing his hands up and down to keep Link warm. “It’ll warm up in here soon.” Rhett’s hands felt good- real good. Link found himself looking up at him, trying to read his face, his mind. He looked tired; Link wondered if Rhett had slept at all while he had drifted off in dreamland. After everything they had both been through, he definitely deserved a rest.

It wasn’t until long after Rhett’s hands had gone still that Link realized he was staring. He didn’t want to pull his gaze away from those green eyes. There was a depth to them; if he wasn’t careful, he could fall into them and never get out. He wasn’t sure he’d want to. Then time seemed to slow down. Rhett was leaning forward, Link’s lips parted of their own accord, and just as he felt Rhett’s breath against his skin, he pulled back.

“Rhett…” Immediately, Rhett stood taller, his mouth pursed tight. Fear shown in Rhett’s eyes and guilt sunk into Link’s gut, but Link had to know something first. “A-are you sure you want this?” Rhett licked his lips, his tongue just peeking out beneath his beard out of nervousness. “Your code- 

“Teaches the jedi how to not stray from the light,” Rhett interrupted gently. “”It keeps us from straying from our path.” Link held his breath, too scared to speak, too scared to breathe. “The Force guides me; I can feel it even now. It guided me to you, the day we met. I know now what it wants of me. Where it’s leading me.”

“Where?” For a split second Link wasn’t even sure he’d made a sound, his throat felt so tight, his voice so quiet. Rhett moved closer once more, so close now Link was certain the other man would be able to hear his heartbeat it was pounding in his chest. That same look was there in Rhett’s eyes, the same look from when they were last together in the academy ruins, but there was also something more. There was more than the blind lust that had driven Link to push the boundaries of their friendship that fateful day.

“You are my path, Link. You are the light in the dark. Link I…” His words stumbled, fear thick in his voice and his whole body shuddered. Just as his eyes looked down, his head turning away and Link thought he was going to give in to his cold feet, he spoke once more. Barely a whisper, yet the most important words Link had ever heard. “I love you.”

That’s all Link needed to hear, all he wanted to hear. Reaching up with a trembling hand, he cupped Rhett’s check on his palm, coaxing him to meet his eyes. There were no words; Link had already made it clear how he felt. Now he tried to convey all the love he could on his face, the trust and understanding. ‘I want you close to me’ and ‘I’m ready and willing’ shined from his eyes, echoing off the curl in his smile.

His lips shook with nerves as Rhett moved close once more; scared, excited. He practically vibrated from anticipation. He could feel Rhett ‘s breath on his skin, hot and slow in the moment before their lips finally touched. The kiss was as soft as their first time, but far more sweet with the last hesitation between them finally gone. The last of the guilt and shame, the fear, the deceit... it all fell away until there was only one truth. Souls bared, hearts and minds entwined, there was nothing left but what they really felt and it could no longer be denied.

Link grabbed hold of Rhett’s shirt, pulling him closer and making sure he couldn’t back out this time. Rhett smiled against Link’s lips, barely pausing as he tilted his head from one side to the other, exploring, experimenting. On rare occasions when he had seen others show affection, through sideways glances and discreet stares, he’d seen the way they kiss. Now he tried to recall the intricate ways they moved, the delicate touches. In the end he drew more on his instinct than his knowledge, letting his own body take the lead, not his brain. Slowly he fell into a steady rhythm, learning how to move, how Link wanted him to move.

Link, on the other hand, had witnessed more than his fair share of physical exchanges between slaves, with each other and their masters. Unlike Rhett, he wasn’t discouraged to stare and even had some more… ‘hands-on’ education from his fellow dancers. It had never been anything more than curiosity, but he was glad he’d had at least some practice. That’s not all he was good at.

Lifting his head, he coaxed Rhett’s mouth to travel down to his neck, nibbling at the soft flesh there. Link, meanwhile, pressed the side of his lips against Rhett’s ear and placed his left hand against his chest as he whispered in his best sultry voice.

“I want to dance for you,” he breathed, his fingertips tracing lines down the back of Rhett’s nape. Rhett quivered under Link’s touch, leaned back so their eyes could meet again. He had seen Link dance, back at the slave auction, and knew he was as talented as he was handsome. Part of him had wondered if the dance would have been any more beautiful once Link was freed. He assumed it would be, but he never dared ask. Even now his brain refused to give the answer on the tip of his tongue. Instead he just barely managed a nod and Link understood loud and clear.

With a light push, and a step back, Link separated their bodies. Cool air rushed in to fill the void left behind and a chill ran up his spine, but it wasn’t the cold that gave him a frisson. The room had warmed considerably, now that the life support systems were turned on full. His bulky flight jacket was getting unbearably stuffy and he began by taking the zipper and slowly pulling it down to his waist.

His eyes never moved from Rhett’s face a he slipped out of his coat and tossed it aside. Stepped back to the center of the ship, he stretched out his arms towards either side; plenty of room for a simple dance. There was no music, but Link didn’t need any. All he needed was the beat of his own heart and Rhett’s watchful gaze.

Lifting one arm into the air, then the other, he let his right hip fall slightly below the other. It was a slow dance, not the upbeat or flashy. His legs stepped with practiced agility, his waist teetered back and forth. Rhett’s eyes were drawn to those movements, though he was obviously trying to focus on Link’s upper body out of habit. Link turned around and bowed slightly, wishing he had on his normal dancing attire. Still, as he turned back to face his audience, he knew his maneuver had the intended effect. Rhett was getting rather pink around the collar and Link basked in the knowledge that he had been the cause.

He continued to dance, using all the techniques he had learned over the years- his favorite steps, his most tantalizing moves- and Rhett was completely entranced. His eyes were dilated and his fingers were fidgeting against his thighs. Link had seen this before and he let a sly, knowing grin cross his face. Flexing his stomach, he raised both of his arms once more, and rolled his pelvis in curving, sinuous circles.

Rhett was almost in a fervor, trying to hold still and wait patiently as Link performed his dance. Not wanting to push Rhett’s newly awakened passion too far, and more than willing to give him want he obviously greatly desired, Link slowed down and took a twirling step back towards his friend’s chair. As he finally came to a stop, his companion let out a sighing laugh and smiled.

“You are magnificent,” he whispered, clearly in awe. His arms reached out to hold Link has he came in close, straddling the seated jedi. “I promise wherever we end up, I’ll make sure you have lots of room to dance.”

“I’d like that,” Link noted, wrapping his arms around Rhett’s neck. Rhett ran his hands up Link’s sides, caressing, not sure where to hold him; he wanted to touch him everywhere but was still scared of what that meant. “You know what else I’d like to do?”

“Hmm...” Rhett hummed, half listening. His eyes wavered from Link’s face, casting down on his chest and stomach, still remembering the dance they had just observed. With a smirk, Link rolled his butt forward, thrusting lightly against Rhett’s lap and eliciting a surprised moan from his jedi friend. “Ohhh… Link…”

“I know this isn’t the most romantic of places,” Link admitted. “But I want you to…” He bit his lip, scared to ask for what he so desperately desired. “I- I want you, Rhett. 

“Link I…” Rhett’s voice wavered, but it was clear that ‘no’ wasn’t exactly on his mind. “I’ve never… I don’t know how to…” He took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. I mean, I know how it works,” he added, blushing hard. “I just… um…” Link silenced his ramblings with a tender kiss then took Rhett’s hand in his own and pulled him to his feet. Looking deep into those gorgeous eyes he whispered in a quiet, yet commanding voice. 

“I can show you.”

Next chapter

Additional Notes-

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More Fics

[jbankai89]

The Stag and The Snake Chapter Three - First Impressions

My good friend and braintwin @kuriquinn suggested I try posting my actual fics on Tumblr, rather than just linking them, so I'm giving it a try. For those of you following my work on AO3 or AFF, these will be reposts until I'm caught up and everything is posted. :)

Title: The Stag and the Snake

Author: JBankai89

Status: Complete, Part 1: 12/12 Part 2: 22/22

Rating: Part 1: PG-13, Part 2: NC-17

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin

Achievements: None

Warnings: Violence and Gore, Violent Sexual Assault, Minor Character Death

Summary: Vernon Dursley is enraged with the prospect of raising a boy he never wanted. Petunia recalls something that might help them get the child out of their hair more quickly. Overcoming their recalcitrance for anything magical, they invoke The Rite of Betrothal. Who will Harry be forced to marry, and will he be able to cope with all the demands it will entail?

Word Count: Part 1: 46 772  Part 2: 85 442

Other Links: AO3, AFF, LJ

Notes: Please note that this fic also contains Evil!Snape, which is a trope I hate, because Sev is my favourite character, but for the purposes of this story, he worked best.

This fic is based on the story of The Swan Princess, which I will be following the canon of in conjunction with the HP canon. Canon divergences include Voldemort is definitely dead, Lucius Malfoy is a bit OOC, and Sirius did not go to Azkaban. Because most of the story takes place before and after Hogwarts, a lot of the Hogwarts years are glossed over. I tried to keep the links and stuff organized how they did it on the old LJ group MyChemicalSlash, so I hope this is clean enough for you guys to follow easily.

Previous Chapter

Fic Masterpost

Chapter 3 – First Impressions

Four years had passed.

The passage of time at Number Four, Privet Drive, was marked only by the evolution of the family photographs upon the mantle. The little blond toddler had been replaced by a rotund, boisterous boy at the fair with his parents, eating ice-cream by the sea, and standing proudly next to a Christmas tree overloaded with gifts.

Harry's passage of time under the tyrannical rule of his aunt and uncle was marked quite differently. It was punctuated chiefly by memories of running away from his cousin and his friends as they gave chase, and while some of those instances were followed by bloody noses and broken glasses, those times were few. Harry remembered the running and the hiding more clearly, amidst the gales of cruel laughter that snapped at his heels.

Harry remembered watching Dudley as he was doted on by every family member, his own jealousy burning like a fire in his heart; not for the gifts he received, but for the love and attention Harry had never been given. He remembered watching as Dudley consumed enough food to make him sick, leaving Harry with meagre portions of his own, his aunt and uncle all but daring him to ask for more.

In contrast to Dudley's pampered upbringing, Harry was ignored, or worse, blamed for things that couldn't possibly have been his fault. How could he have been responsible for his own hair regrowing overnight, after a particularly awful haircut? Or Uncle Vernon's car tyres mysteriously disappearing in the night, after he had screamed himself hoarse at Harry for breaking a glass on accident?  

He hated it when his uncle yelled at him, but even when he did his absolute best to follow the house rules, Uncle Vernon always found things that were definitely his fault—even if they definitely weren't.

Harry learned quickly to make himself invisible. If he was not seen, Dudley wouldn't practice his punching on him, and Uncle Vernon wouldn't yell at him. Not that it did any good, anything that went wrong was always his fault.

Of course, his pleas fell on deaf ears, and he would be shoved into his cupboard and locked in. In the dark and quiet he tried to reassure himself that things would get better one day, but how could it? The Dursleys were his only family, and there was nowhere else he could go. Some nights this was easier to accept than other, like when he had gone to bed of his own accord, instead of being unceremoniously locked in after daring to cry for allowing himself to fall and get hurt. Harry would hug his pillow those nights, muffling the sound of his tears with the thin cotton while whispering, “it's okay Harry,” until he fell asleep.

It may have been easier for Harry to cope with if he had some sort of thing to look forward to. But while he knew that Dudley was going to Primary School come September, there had been no mention of such plans for Harry. He wondered if they planned to send him to school at all. As the summer passed, his aunt and uncle had become curiously tense, though they did not punish him any more or less than usual. He often heard them hissing at night in panicked whispers the more the season progressed, and they became gradually more hysterical, going so far as to snap at Dudley one morning—closely followed by vomit-inducing apologies from Aunt Petunia. While the whole thing made Harry wonder, he knew better than to ask.

~*~

Harry woke one bright August morning, three days after his fifth birthday, and at first, he was not entirely certain what had woken him. A moment later this unspoken question was answered for him when he heard a sharp rapping on his cupboard door. He still had a bitter taste in his mouth, remembering his so-called birthday gift—a paperclip and some string—but he knew better than to ask why. He was his aunt's sister's son, and Aunt Petunia made no effort to conceal her absolute hatred for her late sister.

“Up, up!” Aunt Petunia shrieked from the other side of the door. “Get up, now!”

“Yes Aunt Petunia,” he said groggily while he put on his round sellotaped glasses and  fished out some clean clothes—three sizes too big—and clambered out into the hall. He was still rubbing sleep from his eyes and it did not immediately register that Aunt Petunia was still outside his cupboard door, hands on her hips and white apron layered over her light blue dress. He looked up at her in confusion, but he found his voice to be caught in his throat. What could he have done now? He only just woke up!

“Get your things,” she said stiffly, as though the slightly softened tone that she suddenly spoke to him with was physically painful to her. “You're leaving today to spend some time with your—your godfather.”

“I—what? I have a godfather?” Harry blinked in surprise, certain for a moment that he had misheard her.

“Get your things,” she snapped angrily, and Harry flinched. “They will be here in two hours to collect you.” She spun and stalked off without another word, and while her silent refusal to answer him wasn't unexpected, it was still frustrating. He stepped back into his cupboard, leaned over to pull his patched rucksack out from under the camp bed.

It didn't take long to pack. He shoved an armful of clothes into the bag, then after making sure his aunt was nowhere to be seen, he lifted up the thin mattress and pulled out his most prized possession. He slipped it into his bag.

Uncertain what to do with the packed bag, he set it on top of the bed and stepped out of his cupboard to head to the kitchen for breakfast. He was not surprised when no one acknowledged his presence, and he picked at his toast silently. He desperately wanted to ask a million questions: Who was this godfather? Why was he only finding out now? What was going on? Why did Aunt Petunia say they? Was someone else coming with him? But Harry knew what the answer would be. “Don't ask questions.” He didn't want to be yelled at again, and resigned himself to two hours of painfully frustrating silence.

Of course, the idea of time away from the Dursleys was an exciting prospect. Maybe this godfather would even let him sleep in a real room, or, dare he wish, get to wear something other than oversized hand-me-downs. Harry shivered at the thought, and wondered if he was getting too greedy with such a thought. Jumbled in with his excitement was also a number nervous worries—Harry had heard of children who were hit by grownups. While it had never happened to him, what if this godfather turned out to dislike him even more than the Dursleys did? The thought overshadowed his excitement, and he felt his stomach tie up in knots.

Harry slipped away quietly after breakfast and sat in his cupboard. He picked at the loose threads on his jeans nervously. He didn't have a clock or watch, and two hours seemed like a really long time. He knew it was longer than a quarter of an hour, at least. He tried to count the minutes, but he kept getting distracted by the same questions fluttering through his brain. Who was this godfather? Would he be nice, or mean? Harry's emotions were so mixed up, he felt like he might be sick.

Distantly, Harry heard a sharp knock at the door, and caught sight of Aunt Petunia racing up to the second level with Dudley, as though the house was suddenly under attack.

Uncle Vernon lumbered to the door, and while Harry couldn't make out the words, he heard two polite voices answer his uncle's curt one.

Harry hadn't been properly paying attention however, and jumped when his uncle suddenly yelled, “boy, get out here!” Harry swallowed thickly, took a breath to try and steady himself, and he slung the light bag over his shoulders. He stepped out of his cupboard, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

Harry shuffled towards the door, but didn't dare slow his pace. He stopped just behind his uncle, and peered around him to the two strangers that stood there, and Harry's eyes widened in surprise. There were two men standing there, both with open, kind smiles on their faces. His uncle appeared distinctly irritated about something, but whatever it was, he didn't say.

One of the men, the one with shoulder-length dark hair spoke, and his voice as nice-sounding to Harry as his face was kind.

“Hello, Harry,” he said, “my name is Sirius. I'm your godfather.” His voice shook a little at the end, and that surprised Harry. He'd never seen a grownup nervous before. Harry was still in a state of shock, and he couldn't find his voice straightaway. “This is my—friend, Remus. Your uncle is letting you stay with us for a little while, and we have a room all set up for you. Would you like that?”

A million questions exploded in his mind like a crate of fireworks.

“I have a room?” was the first thing Harry blurted out, while he stepped out from behind his uncle and moving forward. His eyes were wide with shock, and also nervous kind of happiness. The man's smile faltered and he glanced over to his uncle, who seemed to quail under the man's gaze, but held his ground at the same time; it was a strange thing to see. The man but didn't say anything, and refocused his attention on Harry.

“I—I mean, yes,” Harry tried again, vaguely remember that the man—Sirius, had asked him a question.  “That'd be nice.” His words stumbled out of his mouth in a rush, and his emotions felt as jumbled as his words had been. He was nervous, wondering what was to come, excited at the prospect of having his own room, and almost dizzying joy at the idea of getting away from his relatives, even if it was only for a little while.

“Get on with it, I haven't got all day.” Uncle Vernon snapped, making Harry jump. He had almost forgotten that his uncle was there. Sirius extended a hand and Harry stepped forward to take it. Sirius gave his uncle one last nasty look, and led Harry outside.

It was a strange experience for Harry, he couldn't recall an adult ever holding his hand before, and gently leading him somewhere instead of shoving. He wanted to ask the man more questions, who he was, where were they going, what was going on, but he was afraid, too. He noticed that once out of sight of his aunt and uncle's house, he took the other man—Remus's hand, lacing their fingers together in the way he'd seen mothers and fathers do. He didn't know exactly why, but the gesture made Harry feel warm in his stomach.

They continued to walk until they reached a bicycle path a few blocks from Number Four. Sirius led Harry down to the middle of the path, which was bordered on either side by high, thick hedges. He let go of his hand and reached into his pocket and pulled something out. It was a key on a string, and he held it out within Harry's reach.

“On the count of three Harry, I want you to grab hold of this, all right? It will be uncomfortable, but I promise nothing bad will happen,” said Sirius seriously. Harry could hardly explain it, he'd known this man for less than half an hour, but he could feel that he was telling the truth. Harry felt his stomach begin to untie itself, and a warmth he couldn't explain began to swell in his stomach.

“'Kay,” he said, while the other man had reached out and grasped hold of the string too.

“One, two, three—” as he said three, Harry reached out and grasped the string, having just enough time to gasp in shock, before he felt a sensation like a hook behind his navel tug him forward.

The next thing he knew, he was falling down onto a cobblestone street. He looked around, his eyes wide. He was somewhere else entirely! He was fairly certain that they were still in England, but he knew they had somehow moved.

The place he found himself in was some sort of strange combination of old fashioned and modern buildings, houses, and shops. Before he had a chance to really absorb what had happened, he felt himself being fulled to his feet. Harry looked up, still slightly dazed, to see Sirius's hand on his upper arm, but the hold was gentle, and not painful. “Sorry Harry, taking a Portkey for the first time can be a little disorienting. Are you all right?”

At first, Harry didn't know how to answer. He could hear the question, understood what was being asked of him, but it was the way Sirius looked at him. Concern. Worry. It was strange to see, and for a moment the look itself overwhelmed him. Harry shook his head and looked back up to see that Sirius was still watching him.

“I'm okay,” he said quietly, feeling genuinely conflicted about how he could readily trust a man who was practically a stranger, even if he was supposed to be his godfather.

“Come on,” Sirius said, pulling him from his thoughts, “let's go inside.” He took Harry's hand again, and led him up the staircase of a building directly in front of them, and used the same key to let themselves in. The other man walked with them silently, but he was watching Sirius with a small smile on his face. It looked like he was proud of Sirius for something, but Sirius hadn't exactly done anything special, had he? Harry didn't know what to make of it.

After walking up four flights of stairs with the two men, they stopped outside a highly polished wooden door with a brass '7' on the outside. Harry heard a soft tap, but couldn't see what they were doing. The door swung open and Harry stepped in behind them, unable to stifle the soft gasp that escaped him when he crossed the threshold.

It was much smaller than the house at Privet Drive, and messier. There was a small, cramped sitting room with two mismatched armchairs and a sofa around a low table that faced a fireplace. Connected to it was a small kitchen, with a rectangular wooden table and a number of things hanging from the ceiling—herbs, garlic, meat— and directly to Harry's left was a long hallway where he could see a number of closed doors. The floors appeared to be made of some kind of stone, and they had been covered by a number of rugs in varying stages of shabbiness, and none of them seemed to fit together. Some were woven with green and brown, others were made of some kind of fur, and others still looked like they had been knitted, and covered with intricate designs.

The walls held a few photographs—at least, Harry thought they were photographs—did that lady just wave at him? The walls had light brown wood panelling, and the the upper half of the walls were covered in a deep maroon wallpaper. Harry thought it felt more like a little cottage than a flat.

There was no other word for it: it was cozy. Harry couldn't wipe the smile off his face, and looked up at Sirius, who had been watching him with a strange look of worry.

“I really get to stay here?” he asked, unable to completely quell his excitement.

Sirius's face broke out into a smile, and Harry saw his shoulders sag a little. “Come on my lad, let's show you your room.”

His room. Harry liked the sound of that.

Sirius rested a hand on Harry's shoulder and steered him down the hall. It felt different than how Uncle Vernon would do it; Uncle Vernon would grab him so roughly that his knees would almost buckle, then all but shove him forward. This was gentler, and allowed Harry to walk at his own pace, with Sirius merely guiding him in the right direction.

They stopped outside the second door in the hall. It was made of the same polished wood as the front door, and the other man, Remus, leant forward to turned the knob. Sirius let go of Harry's shoulder, and with a feeling of mild nervousness, he stepped inside.

Harry's mind had gone blank with shock.

He stood in a bedroom, a real bedroom. There was a bed with blue sheets and a headboard made of some kind of pale wood, a nightstand with what looked like an oil lamp, as well as a desk and wardrobe made of the same material. The walls were light blue, and there was a window that looked out on the street below, for the moment obscured by a set of white curtains. Harry had no idea where his voice went; he didn't know what to say or how to express what he was feeling. His feet shuffled over the plush carpets and reached out to touch the wood of the headboard, wondering if he was dreaming. It felt real.

There was a soft chuckle behind him, and he turned to see the pair smiling at him. “I take it you like it, then?” Harry nodded. He wanted to thank him, or cry, though for once not because he was sad. But for some reason he felt like he couldn't talk. Sirius seemed to understand though.

Sirius showed Harry the rest of the flat, where his and Remus's room was, as well as the toilet. Harry was still reeling from everything that had happened, especially after Sirius had opened the wardrobe to show him that it was filled with clothes for him, in his size. Some were normal things, like T-shirts, jeans, and pyjamas, but there were also strange garments that almost looked like dresses. In the meantime Remus had wandered off, though Harry was too overwhelmed to pay much mind to it.

“It's not much,” Sirius said after the small tour, “but this is your home too, Harry. We are thrilled that you're here.” His godfather smiled at him, and gripped his shoulder again. “Why don't you go and try on some of your new clothes, then come out to the kitchen for something to eat, all right? We have some—er—stuff to talk about with you.”

“All right,” he said, still slightly in a daze. He felt as though he had been picked up and tossed about by a whirlwind. It wasn't the sequence of events that made him dizzy, but what Sirius had said. We are thrilled that you're here. Harry hoped that he meant it. Sirius gave him one last smile and walked off, and Harry headed to his room. It still sounded strange to him, the idea of having his own room. The morning with his godfather had been wonderful, but it still didn't feel entirely real.

Harry shuffled through the clothes in his new wardrobe nervously. It still felt a little strange, even after his godfather had said it was for him, it almost didn't feel like it. He eyed the strange dresses for a moment. Did Sirius have a niece or something? He ran his fingers over the fabric to find that some were made of some heavy material, while others were thin and very soft. He shook himself out of his daze, and selected a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

It still was amazing to Harry that the clothes fit. He didn't have to roll up the trouser cuffs five times to keep from tripping over his own feet, and the shirt was fitted, but not too tight. He looked down at himself, hardly daring to believe that Sirius had bought things for him, someone he barely knew. Why would Sirius bother to do that? Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia knew Harry particularly well, and had never bought him a thing. It made Harry feel strange, and not for the first time he wondered if this was some sort of hyper-realistic dream.

Remembering that he couldn't stand around staring at his clothes all day, Harry forced himself to walk out of his room—was it really his?—and he made his way towards the kitchen.

Harry was a little nervous; he knew that when grownups wanted to talk it was never a good thing. It meant someone was in the hospital, or in trouble, or something just as bad. He had heard his uncle talk to Dudley about things like that, in gentle tones he had never used with Harry.

When Harry entered the kitchen, he saw Sirius leaning against a wooden table with his arms crossed, and Remus carrying a large plate of sandwiches from the kitchen counter to the table, where three plates and two jugs sat. He chewed at the inside of his lip nervously, uncertain how to make his presence known.

“Harry!” Sirius cried a second later when he noticed him standing uncertainly in the doorway, “come on in. No need to look so nervous, everything's fine.” Something in the way Sirius didn't meet his eyes told Harry that something was most likely not fine.

He stepped over the threshold as the two men sat down at the little table, and Harry climbed into the third chair. Sirius stacked two sandwiches on his plate, and filled his glass with milk. Harry watched quietly as the two adults served themselves, pouring an amber, foamy drink into their own glasses. Harry thought that it might be beer with the way it foamed, but the smell was sweeter somehow, like caramel and barley.

“Tuck in, Harry. They don't bite back.” Sirius laughed at himself, while Remus rolled his eyes. Harry bit into the sandwich, ham and cheese, and eyed the adults nervously. They had said they needed to talk to him, but so far they seemed more focused on their food and drink. Harry hadn't realized how famished he actually was, and was already on the second sandwich on the plate before either of them spoke.

“Harry,” Remus said gently after a moment, while Sirius looked at him with a strange, sad expression. “We wanted to talk to you about a few things, in particular why you're here instead of with your aunt and uncle.” He paused, and Harry felt his stomach clench with worry. Suddenly, he didn't feel so hungry.

“When you were a baby, you were left with your relatives by a man named Albus Dumbledore. He felt that that was the safest place for you.” Harry frowned a little at that, but reigned in his urge to ask questions as he waited for Remus continue. “But your relatives weren't—er—keen on taking you in, and they decided to ask the Ministry of Ma—er, the government to find you an, erm, friend of sorts.” Harry blinked. Since when did the Dursleys care whether or not if Harry had friends?

“What that means,” Sirius added, though his voice was harsher than it had been before, “is that they wanted to find you someone for you to be very close with, and when you get older, live together.”

“Like you an' Remus?”

“Exactly.” Sirius seemed to relax a little, but his face still looked sad to Harry. “This friend is someone we're taking you to meet soon, so you can get to know them.”

“What if we don't get on?” Harry asked nervously, and his voice suddenly sounded very small in his ears.

“Let's wait and see before we worry about that,” Sirius said while he offered him a small smile, “his name is Draco Malfoy, and he's from a very different kind of family.” Remus snorted as though something was funny, but Harry didn't understand what Sirius meant. Apparently sensing his confusion, Sirius elaborated, “for one, they're very rich. For two, they have very strong feelings about people who don't live like them. They think certain ways of living are wrong, and they don't agree with interacting with certain kinds of people.”

Harry frowned, and tried to wrap his head around what he was being told. “Like nancy boys?” he asked, making both men start a little. “I heard Uncle Vernon talk about them before, how they're wrong, or bad, or something. Is it like that?”

Sirius suddenly looked very sad, though Harry couldn't figure out exactly why.

“Yes, something like that,” Sirius replied at last, “the Malfoy family feels very strongly about people like—well, like your mother.” Sirius was almost whispering by the end, and Harry almost dropped the bit of sandwich in his hand.

“My mum? But...why? And if they don't like people like her, why do they want me to be friends with their son?”

“It's complicated, Harry,” Remus said, and Harry frowned. He hated it when grownups said that. “When your uncle asked us to do this, the government picks your—er, friend. Once they're selected, there's no way to change it. So the Malfoy family has to learn to be more accepting.” Sirius's cheek twitched a little, as though he wanted to smile, but it didn't look like a happy expression to Harry at all.

“But why don't they like my mum?” Harry felt suddenly like he had eaten something alive and wiggly. He didn't like the feeling.

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look. Both of them looked very serious all of a sudden, and it didn't make Harry feel any better. After a few moments of silence, Sirius turned back to Harry, who had been picking at the crust of his sandwich absentmindedly.

“You mother was a witch,” Sirius said, then paused, while Harry blinked in confusion. Instantly, his head was filled with images of an old crone with warts and a black cat. “Your mother was born to a family of non-magic people,” he continued, though he no longer looked happy. “We call them muggles.” He paused, watching Harry with a strange look in his eyes, like he was scared. “Your mother was what's called a muggleborn. Your father was a wizard.”

“I—but—what...” It was too much. Was Sirius really saying what he thought he was saying?

“That means you, Harry, are a wizard too.” Remus said, smiling at him in a quiet, peaceful sort of way. While Sirius looked very anxious, Remus seemed very calm by comparison. The conflicting personalities made it hard for Harry to digest what he was being told.

“I'm a what? But, how can I be? How come no one ever told me?” The questions tumbled out of him one after the other in a rush. Harry was feeling very strange, as though he was being pulled apart inside.

“Your aunt and uncle are afraid of people like us—wizards. I don't know why they didn't tell you, but I can assure you that you are most definitely a wizard,” Remus said while he smiled kindly, but Harry looked down at his hands. Could it be true? It felt real, but at the same time, how could it be?

“Harry?” Sirius asked, and Harry looked up to see that the pair were watching him worriedly. “Are you all right?”

“I...this doesn't seem real. I thought wizards and—and things were pretend.” He trailed off, looking back to his hands. He pulled his legs up onto the chair and folded them under him. He heard Sirius chuckle and he looked back up to see him drawing a narrow piece of wood out of his pocket—a wand.

Harry gaped as he flicked it at the platter that held the leftover sandwiches, and suddenly it was lifted up on two narrow pieces of metal, and two more narrow bits of metal grew out on either side of it. It took Harry a moment to realize that the platter suddenly had little arms and legs, as it crab-walked across the table towards him, reached up, and handed him one of the sandwiches. Still staring at the platter, gawking at it with his mouth hanging open, Harry accepted the sandwich and watched as it settled back down on the table, the arms and legs disappearing.

Harry didn't eat the food that had been handed to him, but instead set it down on his plate. He felt overwhelmed, and definitely not hungry.

“If my mum and dad were both wizards, and you say I am too, why wouldn't this family like me?” Harry asked quietly. He wasn't used to asking questions and not being yelled at for it. What if he said the wrong thing and they sent him back to his aunt and uncle?

Sirius didn't answer right away, and instead glanced towards Remus, who nodded slightly. “Because of your mother's family, the Malfoys don't see her as a real witch. They see you as what's called a half-blood, meaning half magical, and half not.”

“That's stupid,” Harry grumbled, crossing his arms.

“Yes Harry,” Sirius said with a laugh, “it is.”

Next Chapter

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[papermoonloveslucy]

MY FAVORITE HUSBAND ~ Season 2

July 2, 1949 - June 25, 1950

“My Favorite Husband” ~ Season two aired on CBS Radio from September 2, 1949 to June 25, 1950.  There were 40 half hour episodes sponsored by Jell-O. Episodes were also aired on Armed Forces Radio & Television Service (AFTRS) without advertising.

Regular Cast: Lucille Ball as Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Cooper, Richard Denning as George Cooper, Gale Gordon as Rudolph Atterbury, Bea Benadaret as Iris Atterbury (and others), Ruth Perrott as Katie the Maid, and Bob LeMond, Announcer.  

Season 2 Guest Cast: 

Hans Conried (17 episodes), Frank Nelson (11 episodes), Hal March (8 episodes), Jay Novello (5 episodes), Eleanor Audley (5 episodes), Peter Leeds (4 episodes), Elvia Allman (3 episodes), Richard Crenna (3 episode), Herb Vigran (2 episodes), Jerry Hausner (2 episodes), Anne Whitfield (2 episodes),  Doris Singleton, Jack Kruschen, Rolfe Sedan, Joe Kearns, Wally Maher, Johnny McGovern, Sam Hearn, Norma Zimmer, Sam Edwards, Jim Backus, Gege Pearson, Joe Forte, Mary Jane Croft, Harry Bartell, and Veola Vonn (1 episode).

To Experience the Full Episode Blogs - for both “My Favorite Husband” and “I Love Lucy” - simply click on the hyperlinked (underlined) text.

“The Elves” ~ September 2, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz and George arrive home from summer vacation to find that someone has been ordering strawberry ice cream from the milkman every day, and the pink trail leads to the doorstep of their new neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Wood, and their ten children.

“The Auction”* ~ September 9, 1949

“The Bank Outing Baseball Game” ~ September 16, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz is determined not to be left out of the baseball game at the Annual Bank Outing, so she persuades her neighbor Mr. Wood to teach her how to play the game.

“The Attic” ~ September 23, 1949

Synopsis ~ One of George’s old Glee Club friends is in town and George wants to find his old ukulele, so he and Liz search for it in the attic but get locked in.

“Women’s Club Election” ~ September 30, 1949

Synopsis ~ George has cause for alarm when Liz is elected treasurer of the local women’s club because he knows how much trouble she has with figures but Liz has a surprise for him.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Club Election” (ILL S2;E19) 

“George Needs a Raise”~ October 7, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz tries every trick in the book to convince Mr. Atterbury to give George a raise. To get results she even resorts to selling apples in front of the bank where he is employed.

Basis for “Ricky Asks for a Raise” (ILL S1;E35)

“Too Many Television Sets” ~ October 14, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz can’t get George interested in buying a television set, until they spend an evening at the Atterburys, who have one. With his interest piqued, George arranges one be sent over on trial. Little does he know Liz has done the same thing - as have the Atterbury’s!  

“Liz’s Superstitions” ~ October 21, 1949

Synopsis ~ A chirping cricket in the Cooper’s hearth is driving George crazy, but Liz is convinced it means good luck. When Liz insists that it isn’t lucky to banish a cricket, George gets upset with her superstitions.

“Halloween Surprise Party” ~ October 28, 1949

Synopsis ~ The Atterburys decide to throw a Halloween surprise party for Liz and George, but when Liz hears about their party at the beauty salon, she thinks that she and George just weren’t invited.

“Mother-in-Law” ~ November 4, 1949

Synopsis ~ George gets a letter from his mother that she’s moving to Sheridan Falls. Liz has no doubt that means staying with them!  But when will she ever leave?

Although similarly titled, this radio episode is not the basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “Lucy’s Mother-in-Law” (ILL S4;E8) in 1954.

“BABY SITTING” ~ November 11, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz takes up baby sitting to balance her financial books and earn money for George’s Christmas present.

Shares plot elements with the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Amateur Hour” (ILL S1;E14) 

“Liz The Matchmaker” ~ November 18, 1949

Synopsis ~ After dating Mr. Negley the postman for three years, Katie feels that their relationship is not going anywhere, so she enlists Liz’s help!

Although similarly titled and themed, this radio episode is not the basis for the “I Love Lucy” episodes “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15), “Lucy is a Matchmaker” (ILL S2;E27), “The Matchmaker” (ILL S4;E4), or “Lucy, the Matchmaker” (HL S1;E12).

“College Homecoming”* ~ December 2, 1949 

“The French Lessons” ~ December 9, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz and Iris are humiliated when they can’t read the menu at a French restaurant, so they decide to take French lessons. The lessons lead to the prospect of a duel between her favorite husband George and her amorous French teacher.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episodes “The Adagio” (ILL S1;E12) and “The French Revue” (ILL S3;E7)

“George’s Christmas Present” ~ December 16, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz vows to finish knitting George a sweater by Christmas. She finds George’s Christmas presents for her and exchanges it too early.

“The Sleigh Ride” ~ December 23, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz is taken for a sleigh ride (figuratively and literally) when she and her neighbors borrow a milkman’s horse and make a jingle bell trip to the countryside for a yule log. The party turns sour down when the horse insists upon making all the stops on his milk route.

“Liz & George Are Handcuffed” ~ December 30, 1949

Synopsis ~ Liz is playing ‘cops and robbers’ with little Tommy Wood from next door, and lets him handcuff her and George with what turn out to be real handcuffs! During the time the Coopers are linked George finds himself under the hair dryer and Liz later has to stand by at the barber’s while her husband gets a shave.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Handcuffs” (ILL S2;E4)

“Is There Another Woman?” ~ January 6, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz buys a book that lists the danger signs to look out for to tell if your husband is being unfaithful, and George has them all!  Liz then she finds herself innocently coupled with her husband’s boss!

“Liz Teaches Iris To Drive” ~ January 13, 1950

Synopsis ~  The Atterburys have bought a new car but Rudolph refuses to teach Iris how to drive. Liz readily volunteers to be Iris’s driving instructor.

“Liz & The Green Wig” ~ January 20, 1950

Synopsis ~ George goes over Liz’s accounts and discovers that she has listed $180 for miscellaneous expenses! George decides she can eliminate the $10 a week she’s spending on her hair. Liz buys a green wig to show George what might happen if she dyed her hair at home.

“Liz Writes a Song” ~ January 27, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz is convinced that she is a musical talent, but when a music professor tells her she’ll never be a singer, she decides to take up songwriting.

Portions of this script were used as inspiration for “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13)

“Country Club Dance” ~ February 3, 1950

Synopsis ~ Iris and Liz want to go to the country club dance, but George and Rudolph want to go to the fights.  The girls decide to get dates and go anyway, until their plan ends in disaster.

The plot inspired elements of the story in “The Girls Want To Got To A Nightclub” (ILL S1;E1)

“Mrs. Cooper’s Boyfriend” ~ February 10, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz decides that the only way to keep George’s mother from coming over on Valentine’s Day is to get her a boyfriend.

“Liz Teaches the Samba” ~ February 17, 1950

Synopsis ~ George talks Liz into teaching Wally, the son of the bank’s newest director, Mr. Forsythe, how to dance the Samba, and Wally gets a crush on Liz.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” “The Young Fans” (ILL S1;E20)

“Liz Redecorates the House” ~ February 24, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz wants to hire the town’s new interior decorator, Andrew, to redecorate her house, but George tells her she’ll have to do the job all by herself.

Although this script never directly inspired any specific episode of “I Love Lucy” it is most like 1952′s “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8)

“Women’s Rights - Part 1″ ~ March 5, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz and Iris start a campaign for equal rights, so George and Rudolph take them out to dinner but insist they pay their own check. With no choice but to do dishes, Liz plots to make the boys resent abandoning them - but even when everything is patched up they still want equal rights.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episodes “Equal Rights” (ILL S3;E4)

“Women’s Rights - Part 2″ ~ March 12, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz and Iris have bet George and Rudolph that they can hold down a job, and the boys have bet the girls that they can take care of the housework and cooking.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “Job Switching” (ILL S2;E1)

“The Wills” ~ March 19, 1950

Synopsis ~  After Liz and George make out their wills, Liz is convinced that George intends to do away with her. Liz is startled to find a receipt for some arsenic and rope in his pocket, but is shocked when George suggests a trip to the country - with a one-way ticket for Liz!

Basis for a scene in “I Love Lucy” episode “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her” (ILL S1;E4) 

“Liz’s Radio Script” ~ March 26, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz’s entry is a finalist in a playwriting contest, and the Coopers and the Atterburys perform it on the local radio station.

Portions of this script inspired the “I Love Lucy” episode “Lucy Writes a Play” (ILL S1;E17)

“April Fool”* ~ April 2, 1950

“Hobbies” ~ April 9, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz and Iris are tired of waiting at home on weekends while George and Rudolph are at the golf course, so they decide to leave half-smoked cigars around the house to make the boys jealous.

Some elements that were later used on “I Love Lucy” in “The Golf Game” (ILL S3;E30) 

“Anniversary”* ~ April 16, 1950

“Liz Appears on Television” ~ April 23, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz and Iris make an appearance on a television show celebrating Friendship Week. Their friendship is tested, though, when they discover they’ve bought the same dress for the occasion.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3) 

“Spring House Cleaning” ~ April 30, 1950

Synopsis ~  Liz sends George an anonymous love letter that she wrote to him during his bachelor days, and he thinks its from his secretary, Gladys.

”The Health Farm” ~ May 7, 1950

Synopsis ~  Liz and Iris are fed up with their husbands taking them for granted, so they check in to a fat farm.

This episode features elements that later went into the “I Love Lucy” episodes “The Diet” (ILL S1;E3) and “The Charm School” (ILL S3;E15) as well as the “Lucy Show” episode “Lucy and the Countess Lose Weight” (TLS S3;E21)

“Numerology” ~ May 14, 1950

Synopsis ~ Mr. Curry, George and Liz’s landlord, is raising the rent, supposedly on instructions from his late wife, Bernice. Liz figures that she can fix things with a crooked Ouija Board.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “The Seance” (ILL S1;E7). It is a revision of the script used for “My Favorite Husband” episode #24, also titled "Numerology” when the characters were then known as the Cugats.

“Mrs. Cooper Thinks Liz is Pregnant” ~ May 21, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz tells George’s mother that she’s ill so the older Mrs. Cooper won’t try to come to Liz’s bridge game, but George’s Mother thinks Liz is really pregnant, and tells all of Liz’s friends what she thinks.

“Liz Sells Dresses” ~ May 28, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz accidentally returns a dress to a more expensive store than where she bought it, and makes money on the deal. She then decides to go into business buying dresses at one store and returning them at another.

Basis for a scene in “I Love Lucy” episode “The Freezer” (ILL S1;E29). It was a revision of the script for episode #14 from season one, when the characters were known as the Cugats. 

“George is Messy” ~ June 4, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz is fed up with George’s messy habits around the house, so she draws a line down the middle of the living room and divides the house in two -her half and half his.

Basis for “Men Are Messy” (ILL S1;E8) of “I Love Lucy”

“Liz Learns to Swim” ~ June 11, 1950

Synopsis ~ George makes a bargain with Liz: If she’ll learn to swim, they can go to the beach with the Atterburys for their vacation.

“Be a Pal” ~ June 18, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz feels thinks George would rather not spend time with her anymore, so she tries everything she can think of to be a pal to her husband.

Basis for the “I Love Lucy” episodes “The Camping Trip” (ILL S2;E29) and “Be a Pal” (ILL S1;E2). It is a revision of the “My Favorite Husband” season one episode "Be Your Husband's Best Friend" when the characters were named Cugat.

“Dance Lessons” ~ June 25, 1950

Synopsis ~ Liz cons George in to taking her to a nightclub by telling him it is to celebrate their anniversary but it is actually to celebrate the anniversary of the last time they went out to a dinner dance.

[papermoonloveslucy]

SPRING HOUSE CLEANING

April 30, 1950

“Spring House Cleaning” (aka “Spring Cleaning”) is episode #86 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on April 30, 1950.

Synopsis ~  Liz sends George an anonymous love letter that she wrote to him during his bachelor days, and he thinks its from his secretary, Gladys.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benadaret was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) had worked with Lucille Ball on “The Wonder Show” on radio in 1938. One of the front-runners to play Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy,” he eventually played Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, during two episodes in 1952. After playing a Judge in an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1958, he would re-team with Lucy for all of her subsequent series’: as Theodore J. Mooney in ”The Lucy Show”; as Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s Lucy”; and as Curtis McGibbon on “Life with Lucy.” Gordon died in 1995 at the age of 89.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) does not appear in this episode. 

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers, it’s a beautiful spring day, and Liz is just going into the kitchen to talk to Katie, the maid.”

Liz tells Katie that they are going to give her a raise.  Katie thinks there’s a catch.  And there is.  Today is the day of Spring housecleaning.  This year, George is going to help - although he doesn’t know it yet.  After five marriages, Katie knows the only way to get a man to help with cleaning is to shame him into doing it. 

Meanwhile, at the bank, Mr. Atterbury calls George into his office to tell him that he can’t make their golf date that afternoon.  He suggests George stay at work and dictate to his new secretary Gladys.  Mr. Atterbury says that Gladys is sweet on George - calling him “Cuddles Cooper” to the other secretaries.  George wants Mr. Atterbury to transfer her so he can get some work done.  

George found a poem on his desk:

Oh, what a lucky girl am I, Who wouldn’t want to be me? Who wouldn’t like to have a boss, So handsome, tall, and dreamy? 

Mr. Atterbury says that if George still wants Gladys transferred, he’ll consider it on Monday, maybe switching with Joe Ridgely. 

At home, Liz and Katie are putting their plan in action by pretending to lift heavy items just as George comes through the door.  George sees her trying to lug a ‘heavy’ bucket of ashes, but makes no attempt to help her.  He quickly realizes he needs to help - but when he tries to lift the ‘heavy’ can of ashes, the can goes flying across the room - along with the ashes. George says for her tricks she can do the cleaning herself. 

Katie comes into the room from cleaning with an handful of love letters to George, written in a woman’s hand.  Naturally, they can’t resist reading it.  Katie does the reading so Liz can technically say she hasn’t read it.  

Katie reads a mushy love letter to “Coopie Whoopie”.  Katie lets it slip that she’s read the entire pile.  The letters are signed E.E.  Liz admits that she was E.E.  Liz gets a fun idea. She’ll finish one of those letters and send it to George to see his reaction.  Later, Liz tells George that a letter came for him ‘special delivery’.  George reads a few lines and immediately thinks it is from his secretary Gladys.  He tells her it is just a bill from the gas company.  

LIZ: “How come the gas company sends you special delivery? You got bigger burners?”

Liz taunts him a bit more and George gets angry and storms out - just as she is about to tell him that she wrote it!  She breaks down in tears thinking there’s  another woman in his life!  

KATIE: “But you wanted him to think it was someone else!” LIZ: “Sure, I wanted him to think it was from someone else. But he thinks it was from someone else!” 

End of Part One

Announcer Bob LeMond does a commercial for Jell-O Tapioca pudding.

ANNOUNCER: “As we return to the Coopers, Liz is burning up about the supposed other woman in George’s life. Right now, George has shut himself in the den to use the phone.”

George calls Mr. Atterbury to tell him that Gladys sent him a special delivery love letter. Mr. Atterbury asks whether she used bank stamps!  Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Liz and Katie wonder who George is talking to on the phone.  Liz is sure it is ‘her’.  Liz wants to open the den door on the premise of letting the dog out.  Katie reminds her that they don’t have a dog!   

Liz and Katie have cracked the door enough to overhear:  

GEORGE (on phone): “There’s just one thing to do: I’m going to get rid of her. I’d like to make it as painless as possible. First thing Monday morning I’ll ask her to leave.  I’ll tell her you arranged for a transfer. LIZ (to Katie): “Transfer?  What does he expect me to do? Go to Reno on a streetcar?”

From 1904 to 1927 there was a network of streetcars in Reno, Nevada, that served as the main mode of public transit. While Las Vegas was known for quickie weddings, Reno was known for its fast divorces. Nevada divorce laws,  allowed people to divorce each other after six weeks of residency, instead of six months. People wishing to divorce stayed in Reno while waiting out the mandatory period. The association of Reno with divorce has entered pop culture references. 

GEORGE (on the phone): “Joe Ridgely can have her, and I’ll take his.” LIZ (to Katie): “He’s going to trade me in on a later model!”

Here the plot is very similar to “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her” (ILL S1;E4) the very first episode of “I Love Lucy” filmed, but the fourth aired.  Ricky tells Jerry on the phone that he has decided to ‘get rid’ of his girl singer Marilyn.  Lucy overhears and think she is “a future doornail”!

George tells Mr. Atterbury that he’ll call Gladys and tell her about the change.  George hangs up and Liz and Katie pretend to be casual.  Liz picks up the nearest book - the dictionary. 

George says he has to do something. And Liz and Katie hide in the closet while he calls Gladys.  Katie is straddling a vacuum cleaner.  The dusty closet nearly makes her sneeze.  

GEORGE (on phone): “I’ve decided to do something about it.  I’ll be sorry to lose you. I don’t care what they told you in business school, I love my wife!”  

Liz hears nothing but compliments from her hiding place in the closet.  The dust makes her sneeze.  George thinks it is Gladys.  Or that the operator is listening in.  He wants to give Gladys a second chance.  George wants Gladys to talk to Liz on the telephone.  From the closet, Liz tries to make it sound like she’s in the attic.  Liz sneezes again.  George realizes it came from the closet and throws open the door to find Liz giving Katie fine points on spring cleaning the closet!  

[papermoonloveslucy]

THE BOB HOPE CHEVY SHOW

October 21, 1956

Bob Hope (Himself / Ricky Ricardo) was born Lesley Townes Hope in England in 1903. During his extensive career in virtually all forms of media he received five honorary Academy Awards. In 1945 Desi Arnaz was the orchestra leader on Bob Hope’s radio show. Ball and Hope did four films together. He appeared as himself on the season 6 opener of “I Love Lucy.” He did a brief cameo in a 1964 episode of “The Lucy Show.”  When Lucille Ball moved to NBC in 1980, Hope appeared on her welcome special. He died in 2003 at age 100. 

Lucille Ball (Lucy Ricardo) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon, which was not a success and was canceled after just 13 episodes. 

Desi Arnaz (Fred Mertz) was born in Cuba in 1917 and immigrated to America as a youngster.  He was a musician who married Lucille Ball in 1940 after meeting her on the set of 1939’s Too Many Girls, which he had done on stage in New York. In order to keep him ‘off the road’ Ball convinced producers to cast him as her husband in a new television project based on her radio show “My Favorite Husband.” The network was convinced. In 1951, Arnaz and Ball began playing Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, roles they would be identified with for the rest of their lives. The couple had two children together, Lucie and Desi Jr. In 1960, Ball and Arnaz divorced. Desi became a producer, responsible for such hits as “The Mothers-in-Law” (1967-69). He re-married in 1963. Desi Aranz died in 1986, just a few years before Ball.   

Vivian Vance (Ethel Mertz) was born Vivian Roberta Jones in Cherryvale, Kansas in 1909, although her family quickly moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where she was raised. She had extensive theatre experience, co-starring on Broadway with Ethel Merman in Anything Goes. She was acting in a play in Southern California when she was spotted by Desi Arnaz and hired to play Ethel Mertz, Lucy Ricardo’s neighbor and best friend. The pairing is credited with much of the success of “I Love Lucy.”  Vance was convinced to join the cast of “The Lucy Show” in 1962, but stayed with the series only through season three, making occasional guest appearances afterwards. She made a total of six appearance on “Here’s Lucy.” She also joined Lucy for a TV special “Lucy Calls the President” in 1977. Vance died two years later. 

William Frawley (Captain Blystone) was already a Hollywood veteran when he was hired by Desi Arnaz to play Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy.” After the series concluded he joined the cast of “My Three Sons” playing Bub Casey. He did an episode of “The Lucy Show” in October 1965 which was his final TV appearance before his death in March 1966.

Tommy (Trained Seal) Others guests on the show that evening were James Cagney, Diana Dors, New York Yankee Don “No Hit” Larsen, and Les Brown and his Band of Renown.

The Hollywood DebStars (up and coming young women in the entertainment business nominated by the make-up industry) include: 

Nicola Michaels aka Niki Dantine (from MGM) 

Elaine Aikens aka Elaine Aiken (from Paramount) 

Dani Crayne (from Warner Brothers) 

Anna Navarro (from NBC) 

Nancy Kilgas (from CBS) 

Roxanne Arlen (from Pine Talent Productions) 

Stephanie Griffin (from DelBar Productions) 

Carol Nugent (from American National Studios) 

Autumn Russell (from Al Wallace)

Veneita Stevenson (from RKO) 

This cross-over episode of “The Bob Hope Show” aired on NBC (Hope's network of choice) two weeks after his guest-star appearance as himself on the season six opener of “I Love Lucy.” 

Because the show is sponsored by Chevrolet, the opening theme is their jingle “See the U.S.A. In a Chevrolet” by Leo Corday and Leon Carr. Dinah Shore sang the song after 1952, and it became something of a signature song for her. Later the song was also sung by Pat Boone on his “Pat Boone-Chevy Showroom” (1957-60) on ABC. Hope's signature tune “Thanks for the Memory” by Ralph Rainger is saved for the closing credits, with special lyrics about the 1957 Chevies.

In Hope's opening monologue, he promises a look at the new 1957 Chevrolet cars. He then alludes to the new TV season. Hope wonders who is running the country with Walter Winchell on TV and IKE out campaigning. Winchell's new NBC variety series was titled “The Walter Winchell Show” and it premiered three days before this “The Bob Hope Chevy Show.” It lasted just one season.  A month after Hope mentioned IKE campaigning, Eisenhower handily won election to a second term as US President.

Hope says that Sid Caesar's back – with a new wife. Hope is referring to the third season of NBC's “Caesar's Hour.” Nanette Fabray left the show after a misunderstanding when her business manager, unbeknownst to her, made unreasonable demands during contract renewal negotiations. Fabray and Caesar did not reconcile until years later. Fabray appeared with Lucille Ball in the her 1974 special “Happy Anniversary and Goodbye.” 

Hope says that Steve Allen is back and busy as ever. Allen's new show on NBC was titled “The Steve Allen Plymouth Show” (another show sponsored by a car manufacturer) and would run five seasons. Steve Allen interviewed Lucy Whittaker (Lucille Ball) in 1977′s “Lucy Calls the President.” 

Hope also reports that Perry Como is back. Hope is referring to Como's hosting of “The Kraft Music Hall.” Como appeared on the premiere of the aforementioned “Walter Winchell Show” to promote the “Kraft Music Hall.”  

Trying to make a joke about “The Ed Sullivan Show” (which he says “owns Sunday nights), Hope mistakenly says “Elvin Presley” instead of “Elvis Presley.”

Hope does a joke about Winston Churchill's son being on “The $64,000 Question.” On September 18, 1956, a month before this Bob Hope Show first aired, Rudolph Churchill was a guest contestant on the American quiz show hosted by Lucille Ball's friend Hal March. Churchill and the other contestants all got the answers right that evening and it was discovered that they were already given the answers. This began what is know as the quiz show scandals in Hollywood.

English-born Diana Dors does a sketch where she plays Hope's wife in a traditional English cottage. Dors and Hope then do a companion sketch about a married couple in modern day America where the house practically cleans itself. They even have a baby (several) thanks to automation.

Hope and Cagney sing and dance to “Mary's a Grand Old Name” by George M. Cohan. Cagney won an Oscar for playing George M. Cohan in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, which also featured the song. It was also in the film The Seven Little Foys (1955), which is mentioned by Hope. Cagney says he is doing a new film about Lon Chaney called Man of a Thousand Faces. It was released in 1957. Hope also makes a joke about Burt Lancaster's 1956 film Trapeze.

During Hope and Cagney’s introductions of the DebStars, background singers perform “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody,” “You Oughta Be in Pictures” and “You Are Too Lovely.”  

After ogling the DebStars, Cagney does an imitation of  Ernest Borgnine saying “What're you doin' tonight, Marty?” from the 1955 film Marty. About Cagney, Hope says he's such a tough guy that he thinks Somebody Up There Likes Me is a comedy. The dramatic 1956 film is about the life of boxer Rocky Graziano. 

Hope rightfully states that he knew Lucy long before she met Desi and wonders what it would be like if he'd married Lucy. This sets up the premise of the “I Love Lucy” cross-over sketch that follows.

The “I Love Lucy” theme is played at the start of the sketch.  

Although the “I Love Lucy” set is used, it is slightly changed to accommodate the action. There are now closet doors at the extreme left and right edge of the set. The set dressing in the hallway is also different.

The sketch was probably recorded in advance, possibly on the “I Love Lucy” stage, to accommodate the cast, including the live seal. This is born out by the fact that during Hope's “curtain call” during the final credits, only William Frawley and Vivian Vance come out to shake Hope's hand, and they are dressed in different clothes than they were wearing moments before. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz do not appear as “themselves” out of context of the characters they play in the sketch.  

The action opens on the Ricardo's New York City apartment with Lucy leading a live seal from the front door into the living room closet. Ball has some trouble getting the seal through the closet door, despite tempting it with food. 

Lucille Ball would work with live seals again in “Lucy at Marineland” (TLS S4;E1).  

When Ricky (Bob Hope) comes home, Lucy smothers him with kisses, which makes him suspicious that something is up.

Lucy: “What are you talking about?  I give you a kiss every day.” Ricky: “I know, but this is October. You just kissed me through Lincoln's Birthday.”  

Lincoln's Birthday was formerly a Federal holiday celebrated on February 12.  It is now marked only in select states, having been replaced by Presidents’ Day at the Federal level.

When Ricky tosses his hat into the closet where the seal is hiding, it immediately comes flying back at him, nearly landing back on his head, but missing.   

Lucy: “We've got termites!” Ricky: “One of them must pitch for Cleveland.”  

Hope was part-owner of the Cleveland Indians, and never missed an opportunity to joke about the team. 

Lucy says she was just trying to help by getting the closet fumigated. 

Ricky: “You're always helping, like when we went on our honeymoon. You thought we'd be lonesome so you invited your mother along.” Lucy: “I was just trying to help.” Ricky: “Who were you helping? You're father?”

While Lucy Ricardo's mother was an integral part of “I Love Lucy” in its last few seasons, her father was never mentioned. In real-life, Lucille Ball's father died when she was an infant and she was raised by her grandfather. Like most cross-overs, Hope's writers appear not to have been avid watchers of “I Love Lucy.”  

Seeing a plate of whole fish (the seal's food) on the coffee table, Ricky gets suspicious. He calls them “Texas anchovies.” Lucy explains that they are her first dividend from her membership in the Herring of the Month Club.

Ricky says he has an audition in the morning for the 100-piece Havana Symphony Orchestra: 99 bongos and a sweet potato.  

When Fred enters (played by Desi Arnaz), Lucy barely recognizes him:

Lucy: “Well Fred, I didn't recognize you.  You look like a new man.  Took off a little weight, put on a little hair.”

When Ethel smothers Fred (Ricky) in kisses, Lucy (or Lucille Ball) says “All right, break it up. Let's not overdo it.” On “I Love Lucy,” Vivian Vance did not enjoy having to be affectionate with William Frawley. If the script required them to smooch, an air kiss was all Frawley and Vance would do - and that reluctantly.

When Ricky (Hope) turns his back to the audience, his bathrobe says “Havana U” on it.  

On “I Love Lucy” Ricky Ricardo claimed to have attended the University, and even sang their fight song in one episode. 

When Ricky can't understand Fred's thick Cuban accent, Bob Hope recycles a punchline he also used on “Lucy Meets Bob Hope” (ILL S6;E1) the week before: “You're trying to tell me something!”  

Lucy insists on playing charades. When Ricky complains he needs to go to bed, he asks Lucy “Who do you think I am?”  As if a charade clue, she quickly replies “The Beast From Hollow Mountain”! This was the title of a low-budget horror flick about a modern-day dinosaur on the loose. The movie was released in August 1956.

When Lucy announces that Fred and Ethel's apartment is being fumigated (to hide that Captain Blystone is staying there), she says that the girls will sleep in the bedroom and the boys will take the living room. Hope breaks the fourth wall to address the audience:

Hope: “How do you like that?  I marry Lucy and wind up with Desi.”

Both Ricky and Fred dive for the sofa at the same time. Hope is still straddling the fourth wall.

Hope (to Desi): “One chorus of 'Babalu' and out you go.”

Then Desi mutters under his breath “I should have never left CBS” which is likely an ad-lib by Arnaz.

When Ricky opens the closet door a huge circus ball rolls out. Lucy claims it is a beach ball for the little girl next door. When Ricky (Hope) tries to lift it, it is heavy, and he remarks “Who's the little girl? Sophie Tucker?”  

Sophie Tucker was a vaudeville personality of sturdy build. Lucille Ball would play Tucker on “Bob Hope's All-Star Comedy Salute to Vaudeville” in 1977.  

In another closet, Ricky finds what Lucy calls a ‘gramasousaxylophonovitch’, a series of horns arranged like a xylophone. 

Five years earlier, on “The Audition” (ILL S1;E6), Lucy Ricardo pretended to be a trained seal and played "How Dry Am I" on the (what she called then) the ‘saxavibratronophonovitch’, but is virtually the same instrument. This was also part of the act Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz toured live across the country to convince CBS and sponsors that their pairing would work on television.  

Lucy's performance wakes Captain Blystone (William Frawley) upstairs, who comes to claim his seal, who he calls Tommy. Lucy introduces the seal as her music teacher!