#and i landed myself in a fucking psych ward

[hauntedwoman]

it's actually so devastating that the first boy i ever loved and who loved me back was struggling with addiction and self harm and depression when we were together and like. it was never going to happen and we were never going to make it, despite my neverending hope that it would.

[mizusjawline]

I actually have a really good life now

(Look at me, actually using my tumblr blog to.......keep a blog)

It's been over half a year now since I landed in the psych ward and started doing therapy. And now, it's actually come to a point where I can say, I'm enjoying my life now.

That's not to say that I don't have relapses and that said relapses aren't still fucking painful. Because they are. And I am still grieving the emotional loss of my parents and by god, that hurts too. But I'm getting better at accepting the pain as part of the healing process.

Today, I started a volunteering job. There's a flat in my town where female refugees can apply to live for a year where they get support integrating into Germany, raising their kids, ect. As of today, I'm helping one of the residents out with her shopping. Once we get to know each other and gain each other's trust, I may also help her out with her kids. I am so excited! I love this, I love the job, I love the opportunities it presents! And I was introduced to her today and she seems really nice.

My life is like an empty flat. Now all I have to do is give myself permission to move in and make myself at home there.

[knucklegagging]

Fifty Shades of Chestpains is my Soul-Sister

Starting this morning off right (debatable) by triggering the fuck out of myself binge-watching this guy’s groovy channel on youtube (check him out!) Maybe if I’m thin enough, eventually he’ll make a deep dive on me. Lol jk, anonymous land is my sacred place. I would hate for anyone to be able to pin a face to my vent sessions. No one needs to ever know I’m the bitch who’s mom took naked photos of me and w my then-dad taught me how to purge, hand stuffed in my gaping mouth begging to go to bed, not being allowed to sleep in second fucking grade till I “got it all out like a good girl” because I had taken two benadryl instead of one by accident (their own fault, they should have been communicating instead of casually handing me pills to make me drowsy enough to sleep). Without tumblr I have to keep these thoughts inside of me. Tumblr is the only place where you can be honest about what happened and people don’t go “oh honey i’m so sorry that happened to you” *BARFS IN CHEESECAKE* because all of us are just making fucked up jokes trying to process through our own shit and laughing writing out “same” in the comment sections. Y’all are like the fake family I should’ve had. The ones who don’t act like assholes or make me swallow up the truth cuz they’re worried about their own dirty laundry getting dragged in the street if I acknowledge that they’d kick me out just to call the cops on me and pretend they were worried about me being a flight risk so that the cops would get me sectioned in the psych ward. Great job fucktards. From like age ten and up you already had maneuvered enough stupid pawns to get everyone believing I was the crazy one. As though your lies even make sense. Tell me, what child would run away from a healthy house? Wouldn’t the logical conclusion be that the child isn’t safe? It’s a fucking child. And when a kindergartener tells the teacher that mommy ‘s taking photos of them naked, don’t you think that teacher should have done something other than chastise the kid for bringing up inappropriate conversations that ought not be talked about?  I don’t care that she thought it was tasteful. How can a naked child be tasteful? Then she goes and sends the pics to people for Christmas like it’s totally normal to make a tiny child pose completely naked on a bed of scratchy tulle. I remember having to apply lotion every day for over three months to places that shouldn’t have seen tulle. I’m on a tangent of traumatic shit no one should ever need to read, especially this early in the morning. But, I guess my point is that it’s nice that I can be real. It’s nice that people don’t act like my mother was a saint here because she was a beacon of charismatic masking in more than one church.  And as fucked up as shit is, or has been, (these days nothing is wrong which is lovely but I’m still stuck processing the past over and over wondering when it’s going to break me and scared to leave my house because if I die and nothing majorly positive has happened to offset my life, then all myhopes of an eventual balancing scale are total bullshit) well... fuck. At least I have 50Shades of Chestpains (ironically my chestpains have been having fun ww me all morning and won’t seem to budge away) cuz he at least seems to get the complexities enough to try shining a light on all of these situations. And yes, of course it’s triggering, but mostly I think it’s a relief. It’s nice knowing that I’m not alone. It’s nice to have this zen garden of anorexia fuckery where video after video I can see and say “hey! that one sounds like me! I’m not the only one who’s stuck in this!” Like tumblr. I think we really get a bad rep like we’re trying to force each other to get sicker. I wish more people could understand that it’s not the goal, it’s an unpleasant side effect *SOMETIMES* and that the focal point in progress is being able to go “oh fuck thank goodness I’m not the only one. Thank goodness that for once I don’t have to posture. Thank fucking goodness there’s one place left where I’m allowed to be truthful without dumb people with perfect lives saying dumber things with imperfect timing. Tumblr is my butter. It makes me feel a little bit more heavy. A ;little less likely that I’m going to float away. You guys are awesome! xoxo

[josiebelladonna]

the fact that gipsygeek exists makes me uncomfortable to crush on alex, and it’s because the exact same thing happened to me when ben was in the picture.

god, i remember the weird anons i would get on here because of him, and the gossip that ensued over on facebook because of him—these really fucking weird people asking me if i personally knew him or if i knew his story at all (and sometimes not even to my face, either). it was ten years ago but i remember it all like it just happened, though. i literally used to have nightmares about it. i never said this but it actually contributed to my little episode in 2015, the time i nearly landed in the psych ward. looking back, i remember i vowed to never talk about a crush ever again after all that. it makes me feel bad for having feelings like that, like there’s something wrong with me. it really makes me doubt myself, like how could i ever tell the difference between limerence and a genuine crush and why do i even have these feelings in the first place, too. why do i have a sexuality. why do i get crushes. why am i like this. my feelings are fucking gross. what is wrong with me.

and to be frank, i’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened again and with alex (it would explain my assumption that they’re just tolerating each other at this point—everyone seems to be okay with my fics and what have you, but it’s hard to tell: i only found out about the gossip because two now-former friends of mine got involved in it).

i don’t like her. i don’t fucking like her, not one bit. i don’t like her smug slasher grin. i don’t like how she’s calculating and heartless and i feel like i’m the only person who sees it. i don’t like her egoism and how pretentious she is. i don’t like her pathetic attempts at being cute to where she makes dad jokes and mermay puns look like genius comedy. i especially don’t like her cringey-ass borderline racist ultimately idiotic name that always makes me want to punch myself in the throat every time i see it.

and i especially don’t like how alex has to constantly cover for her, like dude. stop it. this shit is not healthy and i should not have to point this out, either. run away NOW.

[healinglilia]

i tried to off myself twice in december. both times landed me in the icu. i'm currently locked up in a psych ward, just hoping to go back home. i'm fucking tired

[c0lloidcrystal]

i dont belong here part 29482737272 ig. what is the point of getting out of my comfort zone if i dont end up liking or having fun with anything i do. it just doesnt work. what is wrong with me. why cant i be like everyone else. i hate that feeling of regret every time i push myself to do something that i dont want to do that sounds like it should be fun once i try. that feeling of just loathing and wanting nothing else but to go back to my like 3 consistent interests. i cant even make or keep friends anymore. just talking to people is hard. im worried that ill just keep declining and declining until im so weak minded that i cant bring myself to do practically anything anymore and just stick to the things that make me mindlessly happy and comfortable. i'll contribute nothing and leech off of whatever poor people still feel obligated to care until they dwindle to none and my selfish and cowardly ass either finally lands in a psych ward or dies. i just dont understand. no matter how much im terrified of the idea of all of this it still wont give me the willpower to do anything to change it. to even just give me one small thing to be proud of or not feel selfish about. all i do is complain about the same old shit and do nothing to change it. it makes no sense. how can i care so so much and just do nothing. i fucking hate it here i guess im just gonna give into my brainless desires and nostalgia-whore to my shitty old console games like i always do so i can forget all of this again and sleep

[theuniverseawakens347]

The word nigga… comes from niger Africa…( there previous history there I’ll download later) ya racist Americans come to Africa Nelson times make him and ghandi stand differently like Martin and Malcom but say they’re for the same thing …

It’s like parenting .. one has a soft approach the other aggressive “ good cop vs bad cop” SORRY POPOS.. ( poo poo… ya pigs… well take back UR REPUTATION.. ya let it get this far why!? Ya no kno what to do, OKAY I HELP) …

It’s abbreviated ya feel negative and weird hearing it cause YOU HAVE NEGATIVE HISTORY W YA NOT YET HEALED FROM. THERAPY. TRAUMA YA SHUDNT BE HOLDING A GUN… Nelson. ( desk okay good boy … and cauliflower ears … mhmm ya partner* both got things to work on… “issues”)

I digress…

Two different approach fake meet in the middle to seem “unified” … like children THE CITIZENS N PUBLIC PICK UP ON THAT …

YOU ARE A CHILD BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IN LIFE … and ya go back to roots when ya need protection healing and understanding … requiring rewiring learning.

Sooo niger.. n EYE ger… NEVER HAD A TERM UNTIL RACIST AMERICANS BRAINWASHED CULTURE INTO AMERICA MOSTLY LOUSISANA TEXAS SOUTH STATES THRU “Mexican anex Florida” touching Africa .. FOR SEGREGATION APARTIDE ON TWO LANDS …

So America blacks and Africans mixed TOOK BACK POWER W NIGGA…

A term of endearment.. I see you brother … “this word brought me trauma how can I heel it” … BUT JUST LIKE A RACIST BELITTING SHIT HEAD,

Ya took niggahs and started FIREHOSING ANY BLACK OR DARK SKIN KIN USING THE WORDS TO HARM US …

Again, YA A TERRORIST SLAVE OWNER “oh you’re happy and free I’m still miserable… let me DESTROY ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU FEEL HAPPY WHICH I THE LACK OF GOOD MORAL THINKING ONE SEES AS YOU BEING POWERFUL AND TRUMPING ME”…

Ya scared hurt lost parent inner child REAPS HAVOC AND NEEDS PARENTING .. ya need healing ..

Ya need dislocate and sit with issues face to face .. bhad bhabbie doctor Phil… but ya want fuck on something or be a complete little shit to ppl who are actually trying to help …

Ya need PSYCHWARD ya got a mental disconnection w neutrons and training for more BAD ONES TO GROW …

And psych wards need to change ya treat ppl like savages and expect them to “get better” but ya don’t really care about that… MOST DOCTORS SHUDNT EVEN BEEN IN THE WARD YA THINK “I’m baby sitting a restarted person no need to do anything but the bare minimum “ .. AGAIN HELLEN KELLER GOLDEN RULE…

Switch shoes. How ya want someone to treat you if you KNEW YOURE NOT CRAZY YA JUST GOT TEMPER YA DONT KNOW HOW TO CONTROL AND LASH OUT MAKES YOU LOOK PSYCHOPATH …

Ya “doctors” and nurses need new case studies on the mental what seems a person mentally ill and WHAT LEVEL ARE THEY…

Charles Manson dahmer to … Harley Quinn, joker , me.

It’s levels in everything, but ya start at child hood assessment to teen years ya get enough knowledge about a person from then on …

But ya issues is … “oh I saw myself in here and COMPLETELY FORGOT IM NOT DIAGNOSING MYSELF ITA MY PATIENT IM HELPING” … which then means ya gon turn ur client into an experiment “I’m too professional to leave my job or scared to ask you questions so I’ll be fickle and get what I want my way w my degree” … instead of saying ya no what..

Like surgeon in ER AND POLICE AND JUDGE .. WHEN LEGAL “ ur family I can’t work so close to ur case”

ITS REASONS FOR THAT HIPPA VIOLATION YA LET YA EMOTIONS GOVERN WHEN YA NOT IN A STEADY PLACE TO DISCIPLINE THEM… Lee

“Fuck if I see myself in these behaviors are the outsiders going to think it’s me I’m talking about when I talk shit about cashay and work soooo damn hard to do dirt in her name… how do I AT ANY MEANS PUSH IT OFF OF ME AND ONTO ANYONE??” …

YOU NEED MENTAL HELP … bc WHY YA COMMITING CRIMES YA NO READY TO DO TIME FOR .. no logic in ur thinking .. ur missing hierarchy of needs… so you murder bc it bring chemical relaxation* and those elements BUT NOT IN A GOOD WAY MISS I KNOW BAD FROM GOOD BUT BAD GETS EASY FIX … ur an addict even if its not drugs … ur creating ur own drug chemicals and imbalacing it as fuck … COW BRAIN WO RAW MEAT …

——

Nothing wrong w excitement FUCK YEAH I THINK LIKE GOD GHANDI BRÜNA .. but are you gloating “such and such would have done … said blah… make me better cause I’m in alignment”

NOT BETTER JUST ON THE RIGHT TRACK TO HELP HEALING GROW UP AND FORWARD AND NOT BACKWARDS … check ya self.

I do my little one two head bob cause I ATE .. meaning I know someone gon like it but ion toot my horn n rub it in ya face … even friendly competition drake ft Chris brown dance …

Okay less twin boys… ya poompoom dance n grey shorts ya sexy Alize by men … no your fault make uncomfortable to dance or be in “less clothes” … especially being telepathic “picking up others thoughts … is this me or someone else”

Ya need vacation alone time sit w you… monks journey ya learn who’s who and what’s what ya twins ya close but share a weird … “grudge” inside might be wrong word but tension ya gotta be alike all the time … Lee industry thinking and Beyoncé “it’ll make you cool but get a little freedom be more you” … but he’s ur filter… filmer.. but phone on ground and dance boys .. girl… spend time alone more often … ya telecommunicate even from far UR ONE PERSON SPLIT … that’s a different topic

[dopaminergicaddictions]

I'm sorry. I guess I deserve it. I'm not trying to be annoying. Or obsessive. I'm not trying to scare you or chase you away.

I mean if you read anything, I don't have to explain how badly I want to know you. How I don't truly view it as a duel relationship. I viewed it as a friendship but it fucked me up when you dropped me.

I mean I'll stop writing about you soon. I'm going to kill myself anyways bc of psychosis. Thr auditory hallucination kills me everyday.

I hope I hear from you soon. I don't really want you as my therapist but i don't know if you'll know me personally..anymore.

I'm fucked up. Psychosis broke me down. Landed me in a psych ward for a day. I was delusional. I was hallucinating constantly.... and now I'm not delusional. But I'm hallucinating constantly...

I fell apart. I only have two wishes:

1) psychosis ending...

2) talking to you person to person

Idk how you feel about me. I feel like I fucked up and made you block me. I ended up being a blocked account on every account you have.

I'm sorry. I'll forget about you. I don't want to but I'm worried you hate me...

It doesn't matter other than I wanted to say I'm sorry

You're the only person who ever made me have passion for writing.

I won't write for much longer.

I'm sorry for scaring you away. I'm upset and I guess I was hoping you'd understand.

I do have psychosis... but yea I get it I am viewed as less of a person because of it.

People treat me differently now even my doctors..

I'm sorry.

[rroundtable]

gonna put this here because it is semi-applicable to system things, but also just because I don't want it on main but I would like to put it somewhere for me to remember and see.

dissecting brain and suicidality a little bit:

I am glad to have things that make me happy and excited and look forward to things, but the issue with all of this is that then I get scared to die.

which shouldnt be an issue! but it is because instead of that inspiring me to fix my situation, I just isolate and start taking away the good things from myself so that I can fall back into numb suicidality again.

I'm not really sure how to fix this. I should be wanting to fix my situation instead of removing good things so that i'm not afraid to die again, this shouldn't be what is happening ?? I think it's because death has always been there as an option for us, and good things are not stable or dependable (and are honestly quite rare), so the good things feel scary while death is familiar and "safe".

So I understand (maybe) why it's happening, but I don't really know how to fix that hmmm. I cannot bring this up with the counsellor we see because I have to avoid talking about suicidal ideation at all to prevent us from landing in the psych ward for a third time (which honestly wouldn't be such a bad idea except for the fact that our mother would be fucking furious with us for it), so I'm on my own on figuring out how to handle it - which isn't out of the norm anyways LMFAO can u imagine professional mental health help actually being helpful??? what a joke fdsjkl

[femalehysteria420]

i want to kill myself like seriously i am so sick of livijgnlike how do you ever come back from lkterally getting fcuking raped and sexually assaulted not even just once but literally multipke times in the woods behind fucking target and in the gender neutral bathroom of the college i dropped out of besause im embarrassing and i genuinely think id slit my wrisds if i ever saw her face again but god i dont want to bother my friends anymore i can already feel [insert name] growing more and more exhausted and tired and fed up with my stupid schizoborderpolar insane shit and me constnatly being clingy and textiny web non stop i seriously just need to bite the dusr already i keep picturing a blade slicing into rhe veins of my wrists then slitting my throat open for good measure jesus christ i cant stop thinking about it i cant stop thinking about hurting myself and cutting myself opena nd killing myself and even numbers and numebrs and wordw and letters and phrases all blendiny together and not making sense anymore just absolute word salad abandoning all common sense and sensibility in generao lol thats a book i never rrad but god im falling apart again i keep thinking about every imperfection every errorthe left sode of my stomach itches but the top of the right side of my head itches too but i have to scratch both sides of both places in intervals of 4 repeated 4 times each with the same amount of pressure and with the same fingers and then i need to crack each part of each of my knuckles individually and count how many of them actually audibly crack and keep doing it until it forces them to crack until it lands on an even number and then i have to wait exafrly twent minutes and qnxiously watch my clock for the perfect time to repeat the same process so i feel safe knwoing i did it an even numher of times im paychotic im delusional im schizophrenic im trqumatized im borderline im on the verge of walking out into the night and praying i get hit by a car but its kind of funny isnt it i think im this close to the end but im doing just about anything and everything besides actually killing myself because i know that if i fail in my next attempt it will not only end in an odd number but i will also be forcibly hospitalized and quite frankly i think i would rather chew on glass and swallow it and feel my insides bleed out before i would set foot in that stupid fucking psych ward with the white walls and the patronizing nurses pumping you filled with these psychotropic drugs until you forget who you were and dont feel a thing anymore and all you have going for you is a bond with the other bipolar woman whos literally like gen x there who lost her mom the aame year you lost your grandmother and really enjoys beyonce and you just really enjoy hearing her talk and hearing about her interests because she really is lovely and treats you almost like her daughter but god i dont even know where im going with this stupid fucking post anymore i hope i die soon i hope we all die i especially hope she burns in hell for all eternity or maybe something worse than death can find her since what she did to me aas worth than death god i need to end this i need it to end im nothing its all crumbling i need to kill ymself so bad i just need to pull a trigger ill neevr feel anything good again except for whej im talking to my friends and it all dissipates the second i go home or they go offline and i know theyre sick of me i can feel it and i dont know how to make it so theyre not sick of me because im such an annoying pathetic miserable whiny bitch who cant get her shit together and never accepted shes a fucking full grown adult i seriously need a bullet through my skull i seriously need a byllet through my skull fall on your tongue like pixie dust just think happy thoughts this is bothiny but schizophrenic word vomit i seriously hope i get stabbed and bleed out or some shit i dont know how much i can go on living like this i hate being a rape survivor i dont see my death going by any other means than suicide or grey or james killing me themselves

[con-te-partiro]

the curse of all my best friends

left every single one with a tearful end

i lent her all my faith and all my trust

i keep swearing she did nothing wrong

but then why was i kept in the dark

she spoke as if it were only chance that we grew apart

when every inch she had pushed from the start

[demonlandline]

Okay so I'm gonna take a little break from tumblr dot com because it's consuming my soul a little bit too much and I feel like I need a circuit breaker. Not sure how long I'll be gone, will just depend on my self-control, but hopefully long enough to carve out some headspace. I've got posts queued but I won't be ya know, actually online, hopefully. Mutuals that want to talk to me or send me memes or whatever, message me in the next few hours before I log off and I can give you my insta.

Oversharing under the cut, tw for mental illness, psych ward etc.

So, uhm, having a following and a constant stream of people saying nice things about my art in my notifs is wonderful and has provided me with a lot of serotonin but I'm starting to get a lot of anxiety (I get a lot of anxiety about everything tho tbh) about being perceived at a rate that I can't constantly observe or keep up with. The idea of missing a comment freaks me out a lot, maybe because I'm worried someone will say something negative even though no one ever has idk. So I think the solution is to just miss a whole lot of comments and get over it. Plus Tumblr is kinda turning into a slightly unhealthy avoidant coping mechanism and I need to like, put my phone down and go for a fucking walk or something.

Also, I know I kinda joke about my mental health a bit, but I just want to say that I don't think mental illness is funny or romantic. Humour is just where I land when I'm trying to restrain myself from blatantly oversharing. I'm trying to get better and also trying to make silly little jokes.

Just in case anyone is genuinely worried about me or anything. I'm getting help, sort of. I've been trying to get an inpatient admission for about 6 months but the mental health care system here is fucking hostile as hell so it's not going very well. But I have a safety plan and support systems and a good doctor so major risks are being managed as best they can. Anyway yeah, I'm not... not doing... well. so yeah.. i'm yeah

[novelconcepts]

fic: walking with the lady

Every movie, every book, every story about the horrors of letting in the ghosts has prepared Dani for the constant state of alarm. The panic. The discomfort of the situation.

Not a single goddamn one told her how stupid it would be.

***

The first time Viola Lloyd rears her spectral head outside of a dream, Dani is doing her best to enjoy an incredibly pleasant spring morning. She’s been having strange thoughts--strange echoes of night terrors that have been escalating, images weaving as though shot from the depths of some great ocean--for a few months now. Has been trying her very best to take Jamie’s advice and not worry about it. One day at a time. Stop gazing into every reflective surface in the county and just...live. 

And she’s been doing that, she thinks, with a decent amount of peaceful abandon for a woman carrying an unknown beast in the depths of her psyche. She’s traveled. She’s seen much of America, and more of Jamie. She’s learned she’ll never get any better at tea, that she’s honestly not terrible at pasta, that she can talk the ear off old women who just want to stop and smell the flowers. It’s been a serene six, seven, eight years, if she lays them all end to end, and she’s glad of it. 

But the dreams are coming faster now. With more regularity. Long stretches of night fade into black and white, into memories she can feel with her whole body, but knows aren’t her own. Corsets and sweeping skirts, a sister she never had, a husband. A child. None of this belongs to Dani, so it must be her, mustn’t it? 

It scares her. She talks about it to Jamie when she wakes--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the middle of the night; whether she’s truly awake or not, Jamie always listens. They always hunker back down, holding tight to one another, Jamie whispering into her hair that you’re still here, you’re still you, it’s all okay, Poppins. It helps, as much as anything’s going to. 

What doesn’t help is sitting here on this park bench, a list of shopping plans open in her lap, and hearing--hearing isn’t even the right word for it, it’s like a ringing voice coming up from the very back of her head--someone say, “And what on earth is that?”

Dani sits straight upright, every line of her body rigid with fear. “What...is what?”

She’s said the words out loud, she realizes when an elderly man with a basket of stale bread turns slowly to look at her. Her mouth twists itself into a rictus grin of apology, and he shuffles off, looking very much like a man prepared for his own murder at the hands of a lunatic schoolteacher. 

“Well,” the voice says, coolly amused. “That was embarrassing for us both.”

What, Dani thinks, the fuck is going on?

“What’s going on,” Viola Lloyd’s deep, accented voice says, “is truly beyond my knowledge. Do you know the last time I had this many thoughts of my own? Must have been...oh, three hundred years, now...”

Why, Dani thinks furiously, are you having them now?

“I certainly couldn't say.” Viola sounds astonished. “The last I recall, I was trying to reclaim my child--”

Flora, Dani interrupts with a rush of anger, was not your child. 

She imagines she can feel Viola’s hand flip to and fro, carelessly. “It’s all apples in the end, isn’t it?”

She’s clenching her fists in her lap, she realizes, as if there’s anything to fight. As if she could ward Viola off from inside her own body. 

“Oh,” Viola says coolly, “I wouldn’t worry just yet. I couldn’t say for sure--it’s all rather new, you must understand--but I don’t think I could do anything to you. Not yet. Look, here, I’ll try...”

Dani’s muscles strain against an invisible force that never comes. Viola chuckles. 

“See? Nothing. The lights are on, my dear, but none but you is really home.”

Then why are you awake? Dani demands. 

“Not a clue, darling. It’s nice, though, isn’t it? You really take it for granted in life.”

Take what for--

“Seeing,” Viola breathes. “I haven’t seen anything properly in centuries. I’d forgotten how bright the world was. How full of...color.”

Is it Dani’s imagination, or does Viola’s tone hold an edge of disgust on that final word?

“So, again, I find myself asking. What on earth do you call that?”

Dani allows instinct to turn her head, somehow sensing the direction Viola wishes for her to look. She finds herself staring at a young child playing at her mother’s feet. 

I--it’s... And it’s here, in this moment, faced with the nearly impossible task of explaining to the 400-year-old ghost woman who shares her body what a Slinky is for that Dani Clayton decides this whole cohabitation thing might have been a mistake. 

***

“Hang on,” Jamie says. “Hang on, she’s awake in there?”

Dani, folded nearly double on their couch with her face in her hands, nods. Her head is pounding. Viola has been, ah, what’s the polite way to put it? Running her mouth. For nearly four hours. 

“She’s got some...opinions,” Dani mumbles into her cupped hands. Jamie stops rubbing light circles into her back, curious. 

“About what?”

“Might be a shorter list, to ask what she doesn’t have an opinion about,” Dani says. At the back of her head, she feels Viola cross her arms. 

“This sounds like you are on the path to impudence, Miss Clayton.”

“But hang on, I thought--” Jamie seems to be choosing her words carefully. “I thought she was just sort of...in there. Tucked away, like the kids said. What do you mean she can see?”

Dani blows out a long breath, wishing dearly for a cigarette. “I don’t know, Jamie, I’m not the authority on carrying Victorian women around in my skull.”

“Bit nearer to it than me, Poppins.” Jamie’s smiling, plainly trying to make her feel better. Dani turns to glower at her. 

“I love you very much. Please don’t test me right now. She hasn’t stopped talking for more than twenty minutes all afternoon.”

Jamie raises her hands in surrender. “Can she...can she see me now?”

“Tell her,” Viola says. “Tell her I can see her, and her mannishly-inappropriate hairstyle.”

“I will not be saying that,” Dani mutters. Jamie raises an eyebrow. 

“Are you having a conversation now? What’s she saying?”

“Please let her know I find her insistence upon men’s trousers silly at best, her blouses are entirely too loose, and I am bewildered by the wealth of ankle she seems to find appropriate in mixed company--”

“She says you have a nice smile,” Dani says. Jamie’s eyebrows raise to her hairline. Viola makes a horrible little noise of revulsion.

“How dare you place words in my mouth!”

“You are absolutely not telling me the truth, are you?” Jamie says in the same moment. Dani groans.

“Aspirin. I am going to need so much aspirin.”

***

It’s not all the time, thankfully; Dani thinks she’d go mad if Viola were truly there at all hours, yammering away about silks and petticoats and the good old days when a person could just drop dead of the plague with no notice. Sometimes, Viola even goes days at a stretch without saying a word, as though she’s sunk back to sleep in whatever little corner of Dani’s mind she calls a bedroom. 

And then, like a thunderstorm, she emerges once more. Usually with something snappy and irritating to share with Dani.

“Are we really wearing that?”

“There is no we, Viola,” Dani grumbles. She’s in the process of trying to choose between a flower-patterned dress and a denim vest, unable to gauge what kind of day it’s going to be when she steps out of the closet and into the chaos. Business has been booming down at The Leafling, which is wonderful, but more than a little overwhelming. And Jamie, god love her, has taken to watching Dani when she thinks Dani won’t notice, always with this worried little crease between her eyes. 

It’s making her crazy, if she’s honest about it. Jamie isn’t the worrier in the relationship, and watching her slip into the role is making Dani feel worse about the whole situation. She needs Jamie to tell her it’s all fine, it’s all perfectly all right, they’re going to make it through this new weirdness together no problem. 

“My dear, we became a we the night you said the magic words,” Viola says, a bit pettily. “Or have you forgotten me already?”

“How,” Dani grits out, “on earth am I supposed to forget you? Feel like I spend every day just...waiting for you to spring up and ask some idiotic question about cars or airplanes or deodorant--”

“For a schoolteacher, you surely lack for patience, Miss Clayton.”

Dani closes her eyes, searching for strength. Her hands grope, landing on dress and vest and yanking them free. “You know what? Both. We’re doing both today.”

“We most certainly are not! Not even a glove to be found? And again with the florals! We’ve been over how tacky the florals are, Miss Clayton. Miss Clayton, are you listening?”

“No,” Dani says decisively, wriggling into the layers and looking around for her chunkiest pair of earrings. 

“You are the scandal of the town, Miss Clayton,” Viola sniffs.

***

“Does she, ah...watch when we do this?”

Dani groans. They’d been having such a nice evening--an old movie fading slowly into wandering hands, Jamie’s mouth making its way down her neck, Jamie’s fingers slipping beneath the hem of her shirt and tickling her ribs. She’d just flipped Jamie onto her back, was just looking to remove the deeply inconvenient articles of cloth between them, when Jamie pressed a palm lightly against her chest. 

“Not trying to be weird about it,” Jamie says, breathless. Her eyes are dark and heavy; though she’s stopped Dani moving closer, one of her legs has wound around Dani’s hip, easing her in. It’s giving Dani the worst kind of mixed message, to say the least. 

“Would you like us to put this sort of thing on hold until I find a way to exorcise the demon from my head, Jamie?”

“I did not say that. I decidedly said nothing of the kind.”

Dani lets her head fall forward, covering Jamie’s face in a fall of blonde. “Sorry. That was snippy. I just...I don’t know the answer. She’s...” She tilts her head, eyes shut, searching. “Quiet. For now.”

Jamie brushes her hair back, cups the side of her face, thumb moving in a slow arc across her cheekbone. “S’all right then. Can’t blame me being curious, can you? I mean, it’s not every day you find a third party sneaks into your bed.”

Dani leans into the soft stroke of her hand, sighing. “I don’t like it, either, you know. She’s so...judgey. I hadn’t realized ghosts could be judgey.”

“What’s she judging?” The hand on her chest slides, gripping a fistful of her shirt, pulling her toward Jamie. Dani sighs again, letting Jamie kiss her with the soft determination of someone apologizing for stopping this train in the first place. 

“Me,” she murmurs against Jamie’s lips. “You.”

“Me?” Jamie sounds affronted. “What’s there to judge about me, I’m a bloody peach.”

Dani laughs, bites her lower lip until Jamie groans. “It’s not anything personal. It’s just...the whole world is so different from what she remembers. There’s TV, jean shorts, women out there having jobs and lives without consent of their husbands...for her, it must be the Wild West.”

“Judges what she doesn’t understand, is that it?” Jamie is doing an admirable job of pretending to still be invested in this conversation, even as her hands are making short work of Dani’s sweatpants. Dani sucks in a breath. 

“I guess. Yeah. Can’t blame her for that, really.”

Jamie mulls this over, fingers tracing hipbone. Her nails bite gently into soft skin. “Does she judge us for this, I wonder?”

“Do you care?”

“Not,” Jamie says, twisting her hand and bringing their mouths together hard, “in the least.”

***

“Put it out the window.”

“I am not putting it out the window, Viola.”

“Down a flight of stairs, then! What in all cosmic reaches of hell is this for, if not throwing it somewhere it can never harm another soul again!”

Dani exhales through her nose, slowly, embracing every meditative memory of dealing with errant children. “I am not,” she says slowly to the empty apartment, “going to throw my television anywhere. And I'd really appreciate it if you’d stop making that suggestion every time I turn it on.”

“You are letting your soul rot from the inside out with this filth!” Viola is all but shrieking. Dani imagines her pacing back and forth, back and forth, her hands wild. “Your moral fiber, Miss Clayton. What of your moral fiber?”

“If MTV rots away one’s moral fiber,” Dani says, as calmly as she knows how, “then I suspect we’re all lost causes, anyway.”

Viola is silent for such a long time, Dani thinks she’s done the trick. She turns her attention back to the laundry she’s been folding to the tune of Janet Jackson. Her head bobs gently in time as the videos shuffle past--Madonna, Michael, Paula, George. Then, with the hour change, newer fare. She’s still getting around to some of these artists, still trying to work out how she feels about them. 

"Did you hear that?” Viola seethes. “What was that about an anaconda? Is this man suggesting we feed a woman to snakes? What barbarism do your people accept in this age?”

Dani folds a pair of Jamie’s socks with such deliberate care, she nearly forgets to breathe while doing it. 

“Moral fiber,” Viola hisses. “Moral fiber is wasted on this age of nudity and...and...hammertime.”

Dani finds herself desperately invested in ironing the wrinkles out of a pair of jeans with her hand until Viola goes quiet again.

***

“You could have such nice hair,” Viola croons. “Such nice hair, if you would only put them away...”

“They’re convenient,” Dani says, scraping her hair back into a pink scrunchie. Viola makes a noise of disgust. 

“They’re abhorrent. Honestly, your time and its...fashions. What do you call this?”

She’s gesturing toward the bathroom counter, to the little basket that holds all the hair supplies. Dani sighs. 

“It’s a headband, Viola. We like headbands. They keep the hair out of our eyes.”

“There are other ways. Fine hats. Lovely veils. Why don’t you own any lovely veils, Dani, do you want the common folk seeing your every decision in your eyes?”

Dani reaches for the hairspray. Behind her, Jamie bustles in with shirt half-buttoned, suspenders swinging around her thighs. Viola makes another catty little noise. 

“Any news?” Jamie asks, reaching around for a hairbrush and kissing Dani’s cheek. 

“She doesn’t like scrunchies,” Dani reports. “And she’s started calling me Dani.”

Jamie frowns. “Good sign or bad?”

“Impossible to guess.”

“Tell her you want some veils,” Viola says sweetly. “And for her to learn the value of a fine skirt.”

Dani, ignoring this, reaches around the back of Jamie’s neck and pulls her into a searing kiss. Jamie drops the hairbrush with a clatter, leaning Dani back against the counter and gripping the small of her back like she’s suddenly forgotten they’re both late for work. 

When they break apart, they’re both flushed, Dani giggling into the underside of Jamie’s jaw, Jamie’s eyes glazed. In the back of her mind, she hears Viola sigh. 

“That is truly childish, you know.”

***

It’s kind of an accidental habit, punishing her inner ghost for bad behavior by channeling her frustrations into sex. She couldn’t explain it if she tried, except to say Viola does tend to shut up when Dani’s properly distracted. Maybe it’s just the way the connection works, thinner when Dani isn’t willing to give it energy. Maybe Viola’s embarrassed. Either way, a year after Viola first speaks, her life with Jamie burns hotter than it ever has. 

It’s best when Viola is trying to run her mouth over Jamie’s fashion sense, she’s noticed. It is, in fact, the only way to shut Viola up about the aforementioned fashion sense. Which Dani intellectually understands; coming up from a world 400 years away, where women dressed in endless layers and a person’s value was often found in the shine of her jewels and the rich fabric of her skirts, slamming face-first into the 1990s must have been a trip. Truly, Viola is lucky Dani didn’t cart her out of that lake earlier. If she thinks scrunchies are bad, she should have seen the heyday of shoulder pads. 

Honestly, though, the worst thing is listening to Viola trill on about how much better Jamie could look if she’d only bow to the whims of femininity. Jamie, whose primary word on fashion has always been “can I dig a hole in this?” is perfect just the way she is. In fact, as the years go on and her jeans grow cuffs, her shorts grow shorter, her tops crop midway up her stomach, Dani thinks the world is finally suiting Jamie instead of the other way around. 

“She’s prancing around for the world to see--”

“It’s ninety-six degrees out,” Dani says in a low voice. She understands these conversations with Viola can be internalized, but she tends to wind up wearing this distant expression every time, and Jamie can spot it a mile off. Best to just mutter aloud in the sanctity of their own home. 

“She’s walking her wares up and down the block,” Viola rages on. “Not a shawl to be seen!”

“Jamie,” Dani calls from the kitchen, “have you ever in your life worn a shawl?”

“That’s, uh, one of those blankets with the fringy bits, yeah?” Jamie calls back. She’s bent over the air conditioning unit, trying to coax life into the old girl. The cropped line of her black t-shirt rides up her back, revealing glistening skin. Dani tips her head to enjoy the view. “I’ll pass on account of any blanket in this heat being like to kill me.”

“Best not to test it,” Dani agrees. Viola heaves the longest-suffering sigh Dani’s ever heard. 

“It doesn’t bother you in the least, your woman out there, where anyone could see her...her bare stomach!”

“One,” Dani says coolly, “she’s my girlfriend, not my woman. Two, I’ve never once tried to dictate her clothing, and I’m not stopping because a dead woman insists. Three, I happen to like it.”

“Like what?” Jamie strolls back to her, pushing sweaty hair off her forehead with a sigh. She stops a few inches away, rocking back and forth on her heels like she wants nothing more than to close the distance despite the mind-numbing heat. 

“Viola is commenting upon your more risqué clothing choices.”

“What? This?” Jamie grasps the exceedingly high-cut hem of her shirt and tugs it gently upward, teasing. “What’s her problem with all this?”

“It’s on display, evidently.”

“As it should be,” Jamie says almost primly. “I’m a fine specimen to behold. Learn to enjoy it, love, it’ll be faster than trying to change the view.”

This last, she says in a slightly louder voice, as though speaking to the shadow behind Dani’s eyes. She’s grinning, and Dani has time to think how strange it is, how quickly they’ve learned to accommodate Viola’s appearances into their conversations--Jamie has taken to leaving beats between her sentences, allowing for Dani to process two people speaking at once--before Jamie is wrapping both arms around her and lifting her off the floor. She squeals in surprise, delight turning to desire as Jamie licks a bead of sweat from her neck. 

“Not again,” Viola sighs. “You’ll wake the whole village.”

“Apartment,” Dani corrects, catching Jamie by the jaw and kissing her hungrily. It’s too hot for this, probably, but she can’t quite remember how to care when Jamie pulls free of her grasp and slides to her knees, taking Dani’s skirt with her. 

“It’s a nightmare, regardless.”

***

Eventually, Viola proves herself capable of learning a thing or two. Namely, that she is welcome to run commentary on anyone in the world except for Jamie. 

Even old ghosts can learn new tricks, apparently, although it takes a number of months, a great deal of sex, and one memorable weekend in which--upon Viola raging over every article in Jamie’s side of the closet for half an hour--Dani simply removed the option of clothing from Viola’s sight altogether. 

“This,” Jamie panted, both of them on the floor with a sheet draped over their tangled limbs, “is working for me in the weirdest way, Poppins.”

“I think she’s really starting to hate me,” Dani said conversationally, even as her fingers slipped between Jamie’s legs yet again. Jamie’s hips rose to meet her, one hand burying itself in her hair. 

“Well, that makes one of us, doesn’t it?”

***

Not commenting on Jamie, naturally, does nothing to stop Viola talking about every other goddamn thing in the world. 

“We’re going to have to have a long talk about not shaming women for their bodies, you know,” Dani tells her one afternoon. Viola has been tearing a young woman to pieces over her short skirt, furious that someone so pristine could soil herself with such impunity. Dani must be getting used to this in the weirdest way possible, because this kind of floral language is starting to feel second-nature. 

“I would never shame anyone,” Viola protests. “I am simply stating fact. Men do not value women as it is, and while we may win their games, we get nowhere at all if we do not play them.”

“This isn’t a game, Viola, it’s her life. Her body. She can do whatever she likes with it.”

“But I want her to succeed,” Viola insists. There’s an almost disconcerting eagerness to the words. She really truly believes what she’s saying. “A woman viewed as nothing more than a strumpet will have an even more difficult time securing a dowry, and then where will she be?”

“In college?” Dani suggests blithely. “Traveling? Living isn’t just for men, Viola, I know you know this. You refused the oath of obedience on your wedding day.”

“Of course it’s not for men’s sake alone, but when the law--”

“The law is different here,” Dani says, almost gently. “Has been for a long time. Or haven’t you noticed how well Jamie and I get along without a man to be found?”

Viola’s silence stretches so long, Dani’s sure she’s either gone back to sleep or is finally choosing this moment to let the ugly banner of homophobia unfurl. She’s been waiting for this moment for years, it seems, waiting for the ghost in her head to mimic her mother on the one and only occasion she attempted to send home a letter. 

“You’re different,” Viola says at last, very softly. Dani blinks. 

“Pardon?”

“You’re different,” Viola repeats. “Jamie is your forever. Does that young girl have her forever, Miss Clayton?”

“Well--I don't know, I don’t suppose it’s my business--”

“Perhaps she will find it in one like our Jamie,” Viola says impatiently. “But perhaps she will find instead the stones of men who have not, over four centuries, really changed all that much. Is it so wrong of me, to have a mother’s care for that?”

Dani doesn’t know how to answer. Doesn’t have the first idea, when faced with a Viola who is not simply catty for cattiness’ sake, but genuine. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, unable to find argument. 

“We just. We just don’t pick on girls for what they do with their bodies, all right? It’s...it’s cruel, and it isn’t necessary.”

Viola sighs. “Fine. But we still ought to discuss the pattern choices. Those polka dots are not flattering in the least.”

It’s only later, watching Jamie chop carrots for dinner, that Dani realizes Viola had said our. Our Jamie. 

“Oh sweet Christ,” she mumbles.

***

The change is slow. Subtle. If not for the fact of carrying this woman in her head, Dani’s not sure she even would have noticed. 

“She what?” Jamie looks up from the plant she’s tending, fingernails grimed with soil, wedding ring carefully strung upon a thick chain around her neck until she can clean up again. “She...sorry, what?”

“I can’t be sure,” Dani muses. “It sounds...crazy. But I think she’s starting to like you.”

“Well, sure,” Jamie laughs. “I’m a deeply likable human being. But this is the Lady, yeah? Same one who dragged Peter fucking Quint to his death? Same one who thinks I show too much skin?”

“I’m...not convinced she thinks that anymore.” It’s really hard to say for sure. On the one hand, it’s possible Viola has shut up about Jamie’s shorn sleeves and shorts because every time she mentioned either, Dani made it her personal life’s mission to make sure Jamie never wore anything else around the house. On the other...

“I think she looked at your butt the other day.”

Jamie raises her eyes slowly, brow furrowing. “Can she do that? Turn your eyes to something you weren’t already looking at?”

“No,” Dani says, a bit stiffly, all too aware of stepping into the trap. Jamie grins. 

“Thought not.”

“But it was different,” Dani presses on through flushing cheeks. “I mean--even if I was already looking, she was--I mean--she--”

She doesn’t know how to explain it. How the rumble in her chest, already so familiar at the sight of Jamie puttering around their home, had seemed to expand until it encompassed all of her. How it was like someone had turned the heat in the room to its breaking point. 

“I can just tell, okay?” she says, aggrieved. “She looked at your butt, and she liked it.”

Jamie makes a thoughtful face, brushing dirt off her hands with slow, deliberate motions. “So...what you’re saying is...your personal ghostie has a crush on your wife?”

Dani presses her face against the counter, letting the cool metal relieve her blush. “Shit. Yeah. I think she might.”

“This is,” Jamie says triumphantly, pressing up against Dani from behind and kissing the back of her neck, “the funniest thing that has ever happened, by a country goddamn mile.”

***

A series of events, cascading in short order, that Dani almost actually feels bad about. If one could feel guilty about putting strain on one’s personal-pan Casper. 

The Britney Spears video, for one. Viola still does not like music videos--or music, frankly, unless it involves a ridiculous number of flutes and orchestral swells--but she’s grown to tolerate them. Mostly. 

That is, until Britney sways onscreen in a plaid skirt and schoolgirl pigtails. 

“Fuck,” Dani gasps, hand coming down hard against her own breastbone. It’s like someone grabbed the dial on her blood pressure and cranked it all the way up. That someone, she suspects, being the dead woman who has been more and more present of late. 

“I--I cannot--I simply am not capable of understanding--” Viola sounds like she’s short-circuiting. “I know we are not meant to comment, but what on earth is she doing?!”

“Dancing,” Dani says sharply, trying to coax her breathing back down. Is this what a stroke feels like? Is her fucking ghost roommate giving her an actual stroke? “Viola, you’ve seen dancing.”

“She is so young! She is a child! Who is protecting this person from the world?” Viola is furious. Viola is exploding. Dani sort of wonders if her chest is going to explode, too. 

“She’s...a pop star. This is what they get paid lots and lots of money to do.” It’s a bad answer, she knows. These videos make her a little uncomfortable too, when she thinks on them too long. But Viola? Viola’s rage is a towering beast of a thing. For a minute, lungs scraping at the air, Dani is genuinely afraid this is the point where the switch flips. Where she finds herself staring at the room from the back of her own head. 

“Someone,” Viola says in a low, terrible voice, “must protect these children.”

It takes almost an hour to calm her down. Dani doesn’t turn MTV back on for a while after that. 

***

“The. The moon?” The opposite end of the emotional spectrum this time. If Viola had been nearly apoplectic over Britney’s choreography, she now sounds faint.

“You should have floated that a bit more softly,” Dani tells Jamie, who looks confused. 

“Float what, all I did was mention NASA--”

“The moon,” Viola repeats. “We have seen. The moon.”

“She’s having trouble with the moon landing,” Dani says. Jamie waves her hands helplessly.

“Poppins, I have trouble understanding the geography of Texas, we all have problems.”

“We have,” Viola breathes, “stepped foot. Upon. The moon.”

Dani pours herself another large glass of wine.

***

“How’s this, then?” Jamie gives a very small, somewhat self-conscious twirl. “Too much? Too little? Too, ah, revealing, as the ghost contingent might say?”

Dani, leaning against the bedroom wall, can’t quite find the words. Viola, too, is conspicuously silent. 

“It’s bad,” Jamie says, nodding fervently. “Yeah, y’know, I think I knew it when I picked it up. Better on the sales rack, as they say. I can just...if you wouldn’t mind popping the zip real quick...”

“Yes, Dani,” Viola says quietly. “Pop the zip.”

“You don’t even know what that means,” Dani hisses. Jamie raises an eyebrow.

“What’s that?”

“It’s not bad,” Dani says quickly, ignoring the little harrumph Viola utters. “It’s very not bad. Opposite of bad, really.”

Relief floods Jamie’s face. The dress is low cut in a way very little of her clean-up clothes are, with a slit running clear up the leg. Patterned in burgundy petals, the black velvet is stark against her pale skin. 

“I won’t get run out of the convention, then? Only they said there’s a bit about drinks and networking, and it was just shy of black-tie. I could do that instead. Get a black tie. Think I’d look nice in a black tie.”

“The dress,” Viola says in a low, conspiratorial voice. “Tell her it is a nice dress.”

“It’s a nice dress,” Dani repeats with comic dazedness. “Best dress I’ve ever seen, maybe.”

“And now,” Viola says soothingly, “you go to her. Walk confidently now, shoulders back, chin up--”

“Are you...wing-man-ing me toward my own wife?” 

“Seduction requires confidence, Dani.”

“What’s she saying?” Jamie’s face has gone a curious mix of apprehensive and amused. Dani swallows. 

“Seduction requires confidence, evidently.” 

A slow grin spreads across Jamie’s face. Dani raises a hand, finger extended. 

“Don’t. Don’t make that smug face.”

“What’s smug about it?” She’s moving across the room, arms already reaching. “This is my very natural expression, I’ll have you know. The most normal expression in the world for a woman whose wife is being told to undress her by the ancient rage-ghost sharing her body.”

“Our lives,” Dani says helplessly, already pressing herself flush against Jamie, “are different than other people’s lives.”

“Yes,” Jamie agrees in a low voice, sliding the sweater over Dani’s head. “Can’t find it in me to complain, though, can you?”

***

It’s weird, almost. Weirder, that it’s almost not. That the beast in the jungle, the creature Dani spent nearly a decade dreading, has pounced at last and...mostly, she just seems to want to see Dani happy. 

Jamie finds it hilarious, in that pretend-callous way Jamie has of smoothing over genuine concern with soft laughter. She doesn’t like Dani sharing her mental space with someone at all hours, Viola popping up like a wack-a-mole game on high. But, if Dani must share the space with anyone, at least--

“It’s someone who thinks I'm gorgeous.”

“You are gorgeous,” Dani replies, a bit exasperated. “Gorgeous, silly, perfect person. But my inner ghost has a crush on you, that isn’t strange for you?”

“Poppins, my life has been strange since a doe-eyed American strolled into it and told me she still saw her dead fiancé when we kissed.” Jamie reclines on the bed in a sleep shirt and underwear, hands playing lightly with the pillowcase beneath her head. “Strange is my bread and butter these days, and if I had to sacrifice you to have it any other way, we both know how it would go.”

Dani makes a mulish sound under her breath. Jamie cups a hand to her ear. 

“Say again?”

“It’s weird,” she repeats, arms crossed over her chest. “She’s weird. I always thought she’d do something bad--walk me off a roof, or strangle someone to death, or try to rob a convenience store. But mostly she just wants to protect young girls from an uncaring world and look at your butt in the shower.”

“That is...very specific,” Jamie says lightly. Dani shakes her head. 

“It’s so bizarre. The longer this goes on, the more she sees of the world, it’s like...like she’s getting more real. More Viola, less Lady.”

Jamie sits up, hand sliding to rest high on Dani’s thigh as if to shield her from harm. “But not more solid, right? Not taking up space you already rent?”

Dani shakes her head. “That’s the thing. She doesn't feel like she’s taking over. And it feels...like she should.”

“You want her to?” 

“No, no, of course not.” Dani raises Jamie’s knuckles to her lips, raining soft kisses up and down her hand until the tension goes out of her brow. “I just don’t understand what’s happening. This isn’t...what I expected.”

Jamie exhales, shifting her weight until she’s sitting in Dani’s lap. She takes a Dani’s face between her hands, kisses her long and slow until Dani eases back against the headboard. 

“This is good, Poppins. You’re a good influence. You were on those kids, and on me, and now on this Lady of yours. Maybe that’s all a ghost needs, deep down.”

Dani leans into her, lets the rhythm of kiss and gentle bite and hands slipping beneath her clothes carry her away for a while. Still, no Viola, and she’s grateful. She doesn’t like to think how that would feel, Viola popping up while Jamie’s curling her fingers deep, groaning soft against her shoulder. There is a time and a place for hauntings, and time with Jamie is something else entirely. 

She’s pretty sure Viola even respects that. Which is, like everything else, incredibly strange. 

***

Viola attends their second wedding. Their real wedding. It’s bizarre on a level Dani isn’t prepared to deal with, feeling her surface as the plans become reality. Jamie’s got flowers, naturally, and Owen’s catering, and Henry has the kids--who are kids no longer, but fully-formed people with lives of their own--running errands on the day. And Dani...

Dani is looking at herself in a wedding dress for the second time in her life, only this time, she can breathe. 

“You are radiant,” Viola says. Dani closes her eyes for a moment, steels herself. 

“Nothing else to say? No notes?”

“You chose wisely,” Viola says. Dani sighs. 

“I figured lace was classic, and someone told me I had nice shoulders once, so--”

“The dress is beautiful,” Viola says. “But I was not talking about your grooming for the day.”

Dani gives a shaky laugh. “I love her, you know. I really do.”

“I can tell.” A beat of silence. Then: “I did not understand at first. Her. Or you. I suppose I will never understand completely. But...I understand the depths of what you feel. It is a part of me, too, I think. That devotion, sinking into all the spaces where I had forgotten.”

“You’re in love with Jamie, too?” Dani asks, not really wanting the answer. Viola laughs. 

“Yes. And no. You and I are intertwined, Miss Clayton. What you feel, I feel, to a degree. More importantly, I have seen your life with her. The life you build with the reckless joy of two people doomed one day to die.”

“Thanks,” Dani says, a bit sharply. She senses Viola putting her hands up, a terribly-modern gesture of surrender. 

“You understand what I mean. It takes courage, to love this completely. To do so while carrying a burden neither of us can truly comprehend is...something else altogether. There is a strength there I could not have understood on my most willful of days.”

“You turned Death away at your own doorstep,” Dani points out, smiling. Viola is pleased. 

“I did, didn’t I? And I could never regret it, even now. But you. You are doing something so much more incredible. Loving, even knowing what ending love must craft.”

“This is a bit dark for my wedding day,” Dani points out. Viola nods. 

“You are radiant. And you are fortunate. And I wish you both all the happiness in the world.”

It is the strangest wedding toast she’s ever heard, and something within Dani’s heart has never been more at peace.

***

“How’s our Lady doing tonight?” Jamie asks as Dani slips into bed beside her. She tips her head, thinking on it. Viola, as she usually is once Dani crosses the bedroom threshold, is nowhere to be found. 

“Good, I think. Calm.”

“And my wife?” Jamie looks at her, eyes serious. “You’ve been quieter lately. Fighting her less?”

“She’s been fighting me less,” Dani says. “She...likes it here, I think. Likes us. You know, I thought after this much time, she’d get bored or restless or...go back to her old ways, but...”

“But I’m just too gorgeous,” Jamie teases. Dani slings a leg across her body, holds tight to her with hands that never feel as though they can hold on hard enough. 

“I think sometimes...sometimes it’s just about remembering. What it’s like to be a person. What it’s like to be in love.”

“Mm,” Jamie agrees, fingertips drawing dizzying spirals on the bare back of Dani’s shoulder. “Well done, you. You’ve tamed your beast.”

Dani sighs, content. “I think it was a joint effort.”

“Yes,” Jamie agrees, kissing the top of her head. “Because I am, famously, too gorgeous to deny.”

[rhysismydaddy]

An Artful Revenge Pt. 1

First part of The Archeron Damnation series. 

~Rhysand~

Have you ever had everything you’ve ever wanted dropped in your lap like a present? 

It makes it so easy you almost don’t even want it anymore. 

Before today, this had never happened to me. For over thirty years, I’ve worked and fought and killed for everything I’ve wanted. Nothing about my life has been easy. 

Until today. 

Until a young, beautiful woman paused to look at a piece of art, oblivious to the monster who stood behind her. 

As soon as I looked up and saw her, I felt like an anvil fell on my chest and robbed me of air. I couldn’t fucking breathe.

For the first time in my long, miserable life, I was utterly speechless as Feyre Archeron tilted her head contemplatively, as if the slab of paint was something that required great concentration. 

Her focus was so singular it gave me more than enough time to figure out what I wanted to do. 

But I couldn’t concentrate enough to even do that. Not yet. For now, I just took her in. Photos didn’t do her justice, honestly. Sandy blonde hair, a slight frame more than pleasing to look at from the back, defined cheekbones, full lips. Beautiful. 

It was almost unfair for someone like her to be so beautiful.

She had a hand on her chest and was completely still as she looked at the work in front of her, like she almost couldn’t stand the rush of emotions it gave her. 

I understood the feeling. 

My friends often tell me I should go on the road as a mind reader or fortune teller or some other bullshit. The point is, I’m pretty decent at reading people. 

And just from the way the woman in front of me is looking at an overpriced, ugly piece of art, I know she’s innocent. 

She has no idea who she used to share a bed with, no idea what kind of evil she invited into her life with a smile. 

I also know I can’t let it change things in the slightest. Innocent or not, beautiful or not, I’ve been trying to find the perfect moment to worm my way into her life and turn it fucking upside down. 

And she’s just handed it to me on a silver platter. 

I’ve been looking for her, and I’ve finally found her. 

She’s mine.

~Feyre~

“You like it?”

Gasping and pressing my hand harder against my chest to calm my racing heart, I spin around to face whoever just asked such an obvious question. 

And the first thing I can think is, He’s more beautiful than the painting. 

The stranger’s casually leaning against the opposite wall, hands in his pockets, confidence and wealth and class draped over him like a very impressive, very handsome mask. 

He’s concealed in a jet black suit, but somehow I can tell he’s impressively built; it’s like strength and power are radiating off of him. His face probably took the gods years to craft, the sharp angles of his jaw and slash of his brows perfectly creating the most alluring thing I’ve ever seen. 

Dark hair, piercing violet eyes that scan me head to toe, and smirking, sensual lips complete his features. 

He’s the most attractive male I’ve ever seen. And I’m an art major who frequently finds herself painting models, so that’s saying something. 

“You like it,” he states, whatever he finds on my face taking away the need for a question mark. 

“I do,” I confirm, forcing myself to turn back to the painting and stop gawking like an idiot. 

He surprises me by asking openly, “Why?” 

The painting in question is one of the most revered paintings in the world: Dancers in Blue by Degas. But he’s asking in a way that makes it clear he genuinely doesn’t know why people pay to look at it.

Running my hand through my hair, I try and put it into words. “There’s just so much... energy in it. The background’s nothing but a bunch of paint splatters, and yet you can feel it almost. The dancer’s excitement, the energy of the crowd. It’s breathtaking.”

There’s a beat of silence, and I cringe inwardly, thinking of how weird that probably sounded. 

Then, “Would you like it?”

Only four words and they almost knock me on my ass. I spin back around so fast he chuckles, eyes wide, and sputter, “Would I what?”

I mean, it’s clear he’s rich, but there’s rich, and then there’s buying a Degas rich. 

“I was planning on buying it anyway. It should belong to someone who loves it as much as you obviously do.”

“What?” I repeat, still not understanding why he would offer something like that to a total stranger.

“I presumed you to be intelligent, but if you keep asking that question, I might have to amend that.”

I narrow my eyes, somehow intelligent enough to pick up on the insult. “I’m just confused. I mean, you look rich and all, but that painting’s worth $45 million dollars. And you just asked...”

“If you want it.”

Putting my hands on my hips, I regard him speculatively. “Which psych ward did you break out of, exactly?” 

He smiles, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can accept the painting and stare at it from home, or I can buy it and hang it with the other one and never give it a second thought.”

My mind can’t stop running, and I think if I wasn’t determined to not completely embarrass myself, I’d collapse to the ground and sob at the impobability of this situation. “What do you mean the other one? You already have a Degas?”

“The pink one,” he confirms casually, flicking a nonexistent fleck of dust off his jacket. 

“You have Dancers in Pink?” He nods, lips twitching at the look on my face. “And why, exactly, are you buying priceless pieces of art if you don’t like them?”

“It’s not priceless. You just told me it’s worth $45 million.” I scowl at the non-answer, and he shrugs. “Someone I don’t care for likes them.”

I connect the dots slowly. “So you buy them so he can’t.”

He nods. 

My mouth falls open, making him smile again. It’s dangerously attractive and distracting, but I still demand, “Who the fuck are you?”

The stranger laughs outright at that, strolling forward and offering me a tan, tattooed hand with practiced ease. I notice there’s a platinum, engraved ring on his pointer finger, and I stare at it for a moment because it looks strangely familiar. 

He seems to pause as I look at it, holding his breath. I’m probably acting like a total weirdo, so I snap out of it and take his hand. 

Because he’s rich and confident and beautiful, he feels entitled to drag his calloused thumb across the back of my hand. 

And because I’m poor and stupid and at the end of the day, just a woman, I blush. Which only gets worse as he notices and smirks. 

“My name is Rhysand.”

“Rhysand what, exactly? Rockefeller? Vanderbilt? Carnegie?” I run out of rich families and fall silent, and he gives me a look like I’m the most amusing thing he’s ever come across. 

“Rhysand Azara. When you google me, you won’t find anything of consequence, I’m afraid.”

The way he says when instead of if makes me blush again, because I’d been waiting for him to leave so I could pull out my cracked, struggling little phone and do exactly that. 

He looks at me expectantly, and I realize I haven’t said a word, just held onto his hand like a toddler being led across the street. “Oh, I’m Feyre.”

Rhysand just raises an eyebrow. 

“Feyre Archeron.”

“And what would I find if I were going to google your name?”

I notice his statement has an if, but I answer anyway, stating facts nervously like an army cadet reporting for duty. “I’m an art major at UChicago. From Missouri.”

“What else?”

“There’s really not much else.”

He tsks, telling me this answer is unacceptable, but doesn’t press it. Instead he shocks the hell out of me once again. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

It isn’t a question, but it isn’t quite a demand, either. It’s a statement, and it’s said like he already knows what my response is going to be. 

But like I just told him, I’m a college student. 

Which means for the past three years, I’ve been dealing with college boys. 

I’ve been asked to “hang,” “smash,” and even to go to coffee on a few rare, wonderful instances. But never, in my entire life, have I been asked---or told--to go to dinner by someone like him. 

I realize it’s because I’ve never met anyone like him. 

Even my ex-boyfriend, who’d been well off and older, was nothing like him. Compared to the man in front of me, everyone else seemed... juvenile. 

They were boys, toddlers even, compared to the man still gripping my hand.

It prompts me to ask, “How old are you?”

He smiles. “Too old for you, I’m sure. Have dinner with me anyway. For the sake of the painting.”

I’m halfway sure I’m in the middle of a fever dream, about to wake up covered in sweat and wondering what the hell just happened, because this cannot be real. 

“You’re... are you actually... you’re offering to give me a $45 million painting if I have dinner with you?” I sound incredulous and wheezy to my own ears, but I don’t even care. 

Who the hell is this guy? 

“You’ll be my second most expensive date.”

“You’re insane.” I look down to where he still holds my hand, entire focus narrowing on the strength in his grip. How would it feel to have him grip me somewhere else? Rhysand gives me a look like he knows what I’m thinking, so I look at the ceiling. Then declare, “I can’t have dinner with you.”

It almost hurt to say it, honestly, because I really love that painting. 

He waits until I look back down at his face before asking, “Why not?” 

Blushing to high hell, I murmur, “It feels a little like... prostitution.”

Rhysand throws his head back and laughs, a full, wonderful sound I hadn’t been expecting. It’s easy and contagious, and I find myself grinning, even though what I said was true. 

“Dinner, gorgeous, was the deal.” He leans in close and whispers, “You coming home with me won’t have anything to do with it.”

I push him away, mind set on giving myself a few feet away from him to compose myself, but I’m so dizzy and confused and strangely turned on I almost fall. His hands shoot out, landing on the bare skin of my shoulders, and I pause. 

And really, really contemplate my life. 

Yesterday I was sitting on the floor of my dusty apartment in my underwear, eating Ramen and struggling to figure out what the fuck to put in the background of my painting. Today I’m being asked to dinner by a probable-billionaire. On the condition I accept a very expensive form of bribery. 

“I’m not going home with you, but I’ll have dinner with you.” He starts to smile, so I cut him off, “Only if you promise to not buy the painting.”

His brows narrow, a silent demand for information. 

“I come here almost every day to see it anyway,” I explain. “Besides, there’s no way I can accept it. It’ll get stolen or damaged or... I just can’t accept it. And the thought of you putting it in some forgotten hallway depresses me.”

He sighs dramatically and re-puts his hand out. “No painting. Just dinner.”

“And no sex.”

A very male look crosses his features. “We’ll discuss that later, I think.”

I roll my eyes but shake hands with him, a strange sense of finality settling over me. I shake it off, telling myself the bare mention of having sex with him is why I’m so nervous. 

~

Four hours later, I stand at the door, purse clutched in one hand, keys in the other. I’m staring at the door, practically foaming at the mouth, waiting for a knock on the other side to hopefully shock me out of my crazed state. 

I’ve been like this for ten minutes already, for some reason not wanting him to wait for a second after he got here. Or maybe I just don’t think he’s actually coming. 

Maybe I’ve been on some horrible practical jokes show, and Rhysand Azara isn’t even a real person. I’ll probably end up on television, blushing and beyond naïve, having been convinced a man who looked like a male model wanted to buy me a Degas. 

I snort, shaking my head at myself. And then almost fall down when a soft yet somehow insistent knock sounds through my small apartment. 

“Holy fuck, he’s here.”

I have no idea why I state it aloud, to myself no less, but I feel like it should be said. Hell, it should be written down in history books. If I kept a diary, I’d write in bold, underlined letters: I HAVE A DATE WITH A VERY STRANGE, VERY HANDSOME MAN.

After fluffing my hair and checking my makeup in a mirror, I stop stalling and open the door. 

He, of course, looks like sex on a goddamn spoon. And for a split second--just a moment, I swear--I debate grabbing him by his expensive lapels, dragging him backward into my apartment, and finding out what his mouth feels like against mine. 

“Feyre,” he greets, snapping me out of my perverted daydream. “You look beautiful.”

I know it’s dumb to be flattered, because it’s fairly standard to tell a girl she looks nice when you pick her up for a date, but it does my ego no harm because how I look right now took some fucking work. 

I shaved from the eyebrows down, exfoliated, scrubbed, cleansed, plucked, and spent thirty minutes deciding what to wear. 

I’d taken a gamble he’d wear a suit and dressed to match in a black dress, unremarkable save for the very low back, and simple heels. 

I step outside with him, grateful for the warm weather, and turn to lock the door. 

Rhysand makes a humming sound, and I freeze as I feel a finger drag down my spine, stopping right at the edge of the fabric. Which happens to be very, very close to something indecent. 

“Beautiful,” he states again, and hell if I don’t feel like it. 

I finally manage to get the lock closed, then spin around to face him. Up close, there’s silver flecks in his eyes, like starlight. Oh, and he smells amazing. Something manly and wintery and not sold in a bottle. 

I. Am in. So much. Trouble. 

I have no idea why this man has taken an interest in me, but I know it can only end in one way: me in love, him long gone. 

But even though I know it, I’m ready. Five minutes with him makes me feel more alive than I ever have, and even though it’s a disaster in the making, I can’t bring myself to care. 

He offers his hand and pulls me towards a--surprise--black car, one that looks expensive. After depositing me in the passenger seat, he goes around and climbs in beside me. 

“Where are we going?”

“I’m making a guess about something.”

I glance over at him. “Have you ever realized you don’t give actual answers?”

"Yes,” he responds with a grin, turning the stereo on. 

Twenty minutes later, I’m practically bursting at the seems to know where he’s taking me. 

What kind of guess is he making? Also, what does that even mean?

He pulls up in front of a nice looking place I’ve never been to--again, surprise--and comes around to open my door. Despite the crowd, as soon as the hostess sees the man leading me through the restaurant, we’re ushered into the back. 

Turns out the place has private rooms. It’s quiet and cozy, and I’m pretty sure only the president gets this kind of treatment. 

Once I’m seated across from him, menu in hand, I have to ask, “Was your guess correct?”

“I don’t know, do you like French food?”

I smile because j’adore French food, and he grins back because he somehow knew that already. 

The waiter comes to ask for our drink order, and I gesture at Rhysand for him to order mine. I know nothing about wine, and he obviously does, because he orders something fancy and expensive sounding. 

There’s soft music playing in the background, candles in the corner, and a handsome man sitting across from me. It’s the most romantic situation I’ve ever been in, hands down. 

He braces an arm on the table, watching as I take a small sip of the wine. Trying to maintain some sort of maturity, I say, “You have good taste.”

“I do,” he replies, but his eyes are on me, not the wine. “Are you almost done with school?”

“One more year,” I answer, trying not to cheer as I say it. Four years of education for an art major is kind of ridiculous to me, but it would’ve been stupid to turn down a full scholarship. 

Rhysand hums, nodding. Even though he asked, I somehow feel like he already knew that. Weird. 

“Did you go to college?”

He gives me a strange look. “My formal education stopped around seventh grade.”

It’s an effort to keep my jaw off the table, and I’m proud of myself when I say mildly, “Impressive.”

“Being uneducated impresses you?”

I scowl. “No, but having everything you do despite not being handed anything is.”

His face stays impassive, but there’s a twinkle of respect in his eyes. The waiter comes back and asks what we want to eat, and because the menu I’ve barely even looked at is in French, I get the same thing as Rhysand. 

When we’re alone again, I ask, “Okay, spill. How’d you know I love French food?”

Rhysand shrugs. “I’m good at reading people.”

I wave a hand, because that wasn’t answer enough, and he continues on a sigh. “You’re kind of... easy to read. No offense.”

“Interesting you say ‘No offense’ after calling a woman easy,” I note.

He laughs, but points out, “You’re not easy. I offer to buy you a Degas and you won’t even come home with me.”

It’s my turn to shrug. “Once again, you haven’t answered my question.”

There’s a long beat of silence. “You like French food because you like Impressionist art, and both Degas and Monet were French. Your dream vacation also happens to be Paris, and eating French food makes you feel closer to that goal.”

My mouth drops open, and he laughs soundly at the blatant display of shock, but before I can ask how the hell he knew that, the waiter comes with our food. Identical displays of delicious-smelling pasta are set in front of us. 

I reach for my fork, but he grabs our plates and switches them. 

When I raise a brow, he shrugs and says, “In case you were thinking about poisoning me.”

I snort in a very ladylike manner, tucking into my food. A soft moan escapes me, and he looks up at me, bite halfway between his plate and mouth. 

“Uh, sorry,” I murmur, blushing down the neckline of my dress. 

Rhysand just smiles, making me feel young once again. “Don’t be. I quite enjoy the sound of a pleasured woman.”

Rolling my eyes, I take another bite, managing to refrain from sounding too pleasured. “So, Paris. How’d you know?”

He doesn’t really give me an answer, just says, “I bet you have a little Eifel Tower trinket on your desk and everything.”

An embarrassed laugh bubbles out of me, because I do. I totally do. I’ve had it for three years and look at it every time I’m tempted to drop out.

“What do you do for a living?” I ask, trying to get us back on even ground. I feel like he somehow knows everything about me, and even though I’ll have to ask questions, I’m finding out at least one thing about him. 

“I’m in real estate.”

I nod, ready to just accept that answer. Then I look around us, remembering how crowded the restaurant was, and start giggling. “You own this restaurant, don’t you?”

A sigh. Busted. “Yes, I do.” 

I tsk and give him a judgmental look. “You can’t take me somewhere you own for a date. That’s cheating.”

He takes a sip of his wine. “How so?”

“It just is.” I sigh, just to tease him. “Shame. I was feeling so romanticized, maybe enough so to go home with you. Not anymore, though.”

He rolls his eyes, the gesture making him younger. “Eat your food.”

I do, and by the end, I’m so full I probably look pregnant. “Holy fuck, that was good.”

Rhysand smiles, like it’s adorable that I cursed, and pushes back his empty plate. “Dessert?” I shake my head. “Coffee?” 

“I’m so full I might die.”

Rising with fluid grace, he extends a hand. “Then come with me.”

Not bothering to ask questions at this point, I just take his hand and follow him out, noticing the city has a slight chill now that the sun’s gone down.

“Why is it women can never plan for the sun going down?” he ponders, wrapping me in his suit jacket.

“It’s a test to see if you’ll let us freeze to death.”

Rhysand chuckles and slides his hand into mine, so casually and simply it seems like a mundane thing we do every day.

I know I’ve known him for a total of five hours, but everything about today has been... easy. Natural. It’s like we just click, and I’m not stupid enough to question it right now. 

“You’re quite the gentleman,” I remark, bringing up our intertwined fingers to look at the tattoos on his skin. He’s silent for a minute, and when I glance over, he’s looking at the ground as we walk, a strange look on his face. “What?”

“You’re probably the only person in this entire world who believes that.”

I scoff, because the idea that the man next to me, holding my hand and running his thumb across my fingers, is anything but a gentleman is absurd.

“What other paintings do you have?” 

It’s a question I’ve been dying to ask since he mention his other Degas. 

“It’s a shame you’re determined to not go home with me. You could see them yourself.”

I drop his hand and shove his shoulder, my lips twitching as he laughs. “You asshole. You’re leveraging access to a private collection for sex? Men are horrible.”

Rhysand chuckles, throwing an arm around me and pulling me close. “I have a Monet,” he whispers in my ear, placing a featherlight kiss to my temple. “And a Rembrandt.” 

“I hate you.”

He releases me and grabs my hand again, then pulls me toward a dark alley I hadn’t noticed he’d been guiding me toward. “Um... where are you taking me?”

He, of course, doesn’t tell me. No, he shushes me. 

“I will not be quiet while you drag me down some seedy alley!” I’m beginning to panic a bit, because besides spending way too much time alone, I like to watch Law and Order, and this is turning into the beginning of a familiar episode. 

“Is this because I said I won’t have sex with you tonight?” Before he can respond, I blurt, “Because I probably will at some point, I’m just kind of nervous-”

“I’m not going to murder you, Feyre darling.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. Now shut up.”

Pouting like a sullen child, I shut my mouth and accept my fate. He tugs me further down the black alley, and eventually I can’t even see. Can he? Is he some sort of vampire? Am I really asking myself that?

The glow of his phone illuminates the dark for a second, and I catch the time 11:59. “One more minute.”

“Until...?”

He’s silent for thirty-eight seconds, then he says, “Until this.”

Suddenly, the space above us lights up, colors shooting all around us in a kaleidoscope of reds and blues and greens. 

Gasping, I look up to see the air above us full of glass lanterns, the surfaces painted with swirling black paint. The alley is covered wall to wall, and the end result gives the walls around us beautiful designs and dimension.

I laugh in surprise, twirling around to take in the entire place. “What is this?”

“We’re in the artist’s quadrant of the city. I don’t know why, but they do this every night, exactly at midnight.”

I spin around in a circle, arms out, smiling from ear to ear. He watches with a grin, leaning against one of the walls casually. I walk down the alley, eyes up, taking in everything. 

It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen. 

The lanterns are each unique, like they were done by different people. Some are solid colors, others are mixtures. 

I look back over at Rhysand, beams of red and blue and pink bouncing off his face, a smile playing at his full lips. It’s obvious he took me here because he knew I’d love it, and it makes me feel insanely special. 

Still giddy with happiness, I bound over to him, put my hands on either side of his face, and press my lips to his. 

For a second, we probably look like idiots, just standing there pressing our smiles together. 

Then, like we’re in synch, the smiles fall away and we start to actually kiss. 

His hands slip inside the jacket, linking at the small of my back and pulling me closer to him. He’s still leaning against the wall, back against the brick, and I put my hands on his chest, fingers digging into the corded muscle I find there. 

Rhysand pulls back for a minute, traces his fingers over my face lightly. He looks so surprised and confused, I’m tempted to ask what’s wrong. But then his mouth is back on mine, moving more fervently, and I forget all about it. 

His hands cup my jaw, tilting my face to where he wants it, then slide in my hair. 

He tastes like honey and citrus, and I slide my tongue in his mouth, desperate for more. I moan at the taste of him, and he suddenly moves, like the sound unleashed something in him. 

One hand grabs the back of my thigh, the other wrapping around my waist, and then I’m the one against the wall. The brick digs into my shoulder blades, but I hardly even notice, because he wraps my leg around his hips and presses us together. 

His mouth is sliding down my jaw, sucking on the spot between my neck and shoulder softly. I make a low sound, slip my hands in his hair, and prepare to eat him alive. 

And then the world goes dark. 

The lanterns above us turn off, casting us in darkness, but we don’t stop for a few minutes. When we’re both breathless, he pulls away with a low chuckle and releases my leg. 

I slide down him slowly, leaning against the wall for support. 

What the hell was that? 

Did I really just make out with a complete stranger in an alley? 

The answer to that question--and the one of if I’d do it again--is hell yes.  

He runs a hand over his lips, almost in disbelief, then takes a healthy step back and holds out a hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

I take another look at the disheveled hair, swollen lips, rumpled shirt. And I know without a doubt that if he were on my doorstep, looking at me with those bedroom eyes, I’d pull him inside without a thought. 

“I think I should take a cab.”

Rhysand smiles, knowing exactly why. “I’m flattered.”

“Shut up,” I laugh, pushing him away and starting back toward the busier street. 

Even though the street’s deserted, he manages to hail a cab easily, the bright yellow car slowing to a stop next to us. I open the back door, kiss his cheek, and slip inside. “Thank you for dinner. Even though you cheated.”

He rolls his eyes and shuts the door behind me. “I’ll call you.”

I nod, feeling a little ridiculous for how happy that statement makes me. Tonight was... like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It was just dinner, I remind myself, but it doesn’t do any good. 

It feels like the beginning of something. 

The cab driver glances at me in the rearview mirror and laughs. “That good, huh?”

I don’t even respond because yeah. That good. 

I’m halfway home before I realize I never even gave him my number. And I honestly wonder if I’ll ever see Rhysand Azara again. 

_________________________________________________

Part 2

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[propshophannah]

Am I the only one who thought the book had a lot of sexist undertones? Like preemptively modifying your body to MAYBE one day give birth to your man's (male's) babies? I feel like the IC never tried to let Nesta heal in her own way, they just forced her to do things they thought would be good for her, while demeaning her along the way. And the shield thing around Feyre is very reminiscent of how Tamlin treated her in ACOTAR... I don't know, a lot of the book just made me uncomfortable :/

Hi Nonnie!

First, I want to say that I’m sorry parts of this book made you uncomfortable. That’s never fun. Second…

I think we can reasonably say that no matter what we’re looking at, we can find sexism if we want to. Now that doesn’t mean that some things are not just blatantly sexist. I think with this book there is a conversation to be had about what some of us read as sexist and what some of us read as not sexist or even pro different-forms-of-feminism.

It’s sort of in the eye of the beholder.

It’s also a fantasy world that has developed under a patriarchy. So some things are just as sexist as they “should be” because that’s the world building, right? 

So, like, territorial Fae males is fully explained in the world building and is therefore fully acceptable for the books, and is also, frankly, a kink. SJM caters to that kink. So we know we’re going to get that in these books. Most if their shit is NOT okay for planet Earth. (That’s why some of us actively seek it and enjoy reading it in books.)

So let’s get in it!

Nesta modifying her body

Now as far as Nesta modifying her own body to have children one day, I don’t see that as sexist at all. Because the alternative to her altering her own anatomy is her pausing for a moment and asking Cassian if she can strip him of his faerie race and make him something else that doesn’t have wings. If that happened, we’d be getting into race and identity and all kinds of other shit that is hella problematic. 

So, no. Nesta wanting to one day birth her own children is not sexist. Nesta deciding to alter her own anatomy so that she can safely birth her own children with Cassian, is not sexist. (Now if Cassian did it without permission, then we’d have a problem!)

The IC making Nesta heal their way

Now THIS is a conversation on choice. Not sexism. Rhys has long touted that his court is a court of choices and all that. So forcing Nesta to either go to the human lands (where she’ll very likely die) or go to the House of Wind (where she can’t readily leave) and train and work everyday, is a problem. If you want to make an argument that this is the equivalent of Tamlin locking Feyre in the house, I won’t stop you. I would only ask that you consider the nuance. 

And the nuance here takes us back to world building. They don’t have psychiatric wards or mental health services or rehab centers like we do on planet Earth. Nesta needed help. AND LET ME BE REAL CLEAR: I’m not here to debate what kind of help she needed. (We could run in circles all day long debating that.) What I am saying is that they recognized that: 

Nesta’s behavior was not good, 

that THEY WERE ENABLING HER, 

that they actually had the power to do something about her situation

They do not live in a democracy. They live in a monarchy. They have and hold absolute power and rule. And while that whole intervention—or whatever the fuck that was—was absolutely TERRRRIBLE, they had every right to do what they did. Why? Because it fit the world building.

They acted like rich parents fed up with a wild teenager so they cut her off and gave her a choice between getting kicked out of the house or going to work on grandpa’s farm in the middle of BFE. Essentially that’s what they did.

Do I agree with it? Eh... they didn’t have a lot of options and SOMETHING needed to happen (I’d have been VERY ANGRY had they left her to die like that). Do I like it? FUCK NO. They went about it all wrong and it was shitty.

Abandoning her in the human lands would have been fucking murder. But do you HONESTLY, HONESTLY think Feyre would have done that??? ALSO, LET’S BE REAL: Nesta would not have stayed there long because EVERY HIGH LORD knows about her power and would want her in their court. That whole shit about the human lands likely was NOT real and was a scare tactic. It was a shitty scare tactic. But again, it fit the world building. AND Nesta’s character (cuz it worked, she didn’t ask to go to the human lands). 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

This isn’t directed at you Nonnie, but what did people think would happen? There would suddenly be psych wards and rehab centers and Feyre and Rhys would start acting with compassion and kindness and like they themselves had gone to therapy for decades and suddenly be able to convince Nesta to sign herself into one of those facilities? 

I get it’s annoying. And it’s infuriating. And some of their bullshit talking out their ass moments made me want to throw the book across the damn room. Because that’s not how you act to people in the middle of a downward spiral/crisis like Nesta was. 

But here’s the thing: they have no basis for knowing better. They don’t have mental health services. Gwyn mentioned a priestess who counsels them, but that’s NOT the same thing as a therapist or psychologist or psychiatric NP or psychiatrist.

So what did people expect?

Also. Do you think for one second, Nesta would have responded well to compassionate attempts to get her help? She hadn’t hit rock bottom yet (where compassion would have worked wonderfully *depending* on the type of rock bottom she hit). She would have seen any attempt like that as pity and she would have rebelled.

Here’s how I get over being annoyed with Feysand and Amren for that dumb af “intervention” moment: I remind myself that

They recognized she couldn’t keep going down the path she was going.

They recognized that they loved her too much to let that happen (Feyre at least). 

They recognized that they held ABSOLUTE POWER over her in their realm

They recognized that they needed to put her in a place where she had a purpose, a routine, where she couldn’t fall back on old habits, and where she had the option to talk to other trauma survivors (if she chose to) 

That’s what they knew. Putting her in the House was their only choice. So they did. And guess what? It worked. 

Now, the forcing her to train thing was BULLSHIT. You can’t force other people to change, they have to want that for themselves. But guess what? Turns out Nesta wanted to change. Because she wasn’t against training. She was only against doing it in a place where she could be judged. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Also, exercising is FUCKING FANTASTIC for mental health. (Maas knows that.)

Now did they demean her along the way? Yes. 

Was it shitty? HELL, YES! 

Did Rhys finally learn his lesson that night with the nightmare? He sure af did! 

Did some people in the fandom expect too much from Amren? Yep. Lady was never going to show affection or be nice to Nesta. Amren shows respect. When you respect Amren, she respects you. That’s her ENTIRE character. We’re three books in with Amren. Idk why people are still butthurt about her personality. Like. You can’t get mad at Amren for not being a table when she’s always been a chair. (Doesn’t mean we have to like her behavior or anyone else’s. But it does mean that we only have ourselves to blame when she acts the way she always has.) This same logic applied to Mor and Feyre and Elain etc.

Also. Did them acting like assholes drive the plot forward? IT SURE AF DID! If they had acted differently the book wouldn’t be as good as it is.

The shield around Feyre

If you want to make the argument about how this is a Tamlin thing to do, I won’t stop you. But again, I’ll ask you to consider the nuance and the world building. 

In a world where anyone can scent a pregnancy, would you not try to hide your ruler’s pregnant scent and body from enemies and potential attacks? I would! 

Is it a little territorial? Yes. 

Does that make sense for the world building and what we know about Fae males? Yep! 

Could Feyre have told Rhys to cut the shit? Yes. 

Is it possible Feyre *maybe* use the lie of Rhys and Helion(?) having fun with shield as an excuse to have it around herself? Yeah. I’d probably do it. 

Look, if Feyre hadn’t wanted the shield, it would have been gone. They said it was a compromise, but you can’t tell me Rhys would force a shield around her against her own will (or that she, The Cursebreaker, wouldn’t bust through it in a heartbeat).

Sorry if this comes off as salty, Nonnie! I don’t mean to be. I just don’t really understand why people get mad at stuff in books *that’s perfectly reasonable* for the world building when the alternative that they would prefer would be out of character, out the world building, or create plot holes etc. 

Hope this helps!

[truth-for-lies]

Tried to kill myself a few nights ago (I now know where I went wrong so shush) and it has landed me in the psych ward at hospital (against my will might I add) and I wasn't intending on befriending anyone here but one of the people here is rather chatty and so we've been talking and shit.

Anyway I finally told her what had essentially landed me here and why I don't want my family to know and she thinks this is how I beg for them to show they care? Mate no i don't want then to care, them caring means hurting even more people when I die.

It's not even that I want to die because I feel like no one cares. I know there are people that care, but it's their own fucking fault for doing so. I hate being alive. It's stupid and exhausting. I don't want to be alive anymore, but stupid doctors and nurses and friends all want me to live a long life - a life, might I add, I didn't fucking ask for.

There's nothing in life I want to do or achieve or aspire to. I just want to end my pain and misery of being alive.

And now because I won't let the doctors call my family to tell them what's up, they think they're better off keeping me in another night when that literally won't make any difference at all.

God the system is fucked.

Life is fucked.

Just let me fucking die already.