#anyway spent less than $20 at the bookstore thanks :)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Book Haul: Consolation Prizes Edition.

So I did Not make it to the finalist round for that first page contest I submitted to last month, but I did get boba and two (2) books about it, so who's the real winner here?? These both came VERY highly recommended, and I'm excited to read them one day that's not any time soon!

[books-and-catears]

Okay so I've been thinking of writing this for a while now. (Spoiler alert for chapter 16-20)

After MC is brought back to life, everyone approaches them as Lilith. And everyone seems to be all over them as if they weren't just almost killed by Belphie.

So MC feels uncomfortable over this whole thing. Not only do they feel like a replacement for Lilith but they can't even tell anyone about the trauma of almost dying cause they are demons, they can't possibly sympathize with human fragility. Well maybe one of them can.

The only brother who didn't know Lilith firsthand. The only brother who has spent centuries studying humans and reading all about their emotions.

Satan.

Tags: Angst, Hurt, Comfort

Only You

GN! Reader X Satan

"Ah MC...It seems you have only a week more left in Devildom." Lucifer announced in the middle of breakfast.

Everyone paused and stared blankly. Even Beel stopped chewing and put down his sandwich. You smiled, "Ah I was guessing it might be. Thank you for confirming, Lucifer."

One more week and then you could stop pretending to be okay. One more week of being Lilith. One more week of holding in your trauma. You smiled at the thought of being free of it all.

Everyone around looked dejected. Mammon was the first to break the silence, "Oi! You both are kidding right?!" Lucifer shook his head sternly.

"Ah how unfair! It seems only yesterday we met MC!" Asmo piped in.

"B-but we have so many animes left to finish in our watchlist, MC! And so many games we're still waiting for release!" Levi whined.

"So we can not have MC's cooking anymore?" Beel asked sadly.

"I barely got enough time with them! And you all are complaining?!" Belphie said, annoyed.

Satan was still silent. You looked at him only to find him staring right at you. You blush and look down, picking at your food. No matter how many times he did that, you still couldn't get used to it.

"You must have missed home a lot MC. Happy to go back?" Satan asked softly into your ear. You nodded slightly.

Then you felt your chest tighten. You did want to leave but that would mean no more Satan. You wanted to open up to him. If there was anyone among the brother's who could understand you - it was him.

After breakfast was over you stopped everyone before they left for class.

"Um..since it's my last week here, I have a request on how I want to spend it." You announced. All the brothers nodded and stared attentively.

"I will spend one whole day with each of you individually. And the order will be Beel, Belphie, Lucifer, Mammon, Levi, Asmo and Satan. Is everyone okay with this?"

Everyone shared confused glances at the sudden statement but obliged never the less.

The rest of the week flashed by and soon it was your last day. Satan's day.

You woke up early that day, already prepping his parting gift. A bookmark made of dried flowers, with two petals on top shaped like cat ears, inside your favourite book from the human world.

"MC? Are you awake?" Satan called out, after knocking on the door.

You were still dressed in your flimsy pajamas but who cares? You ever going to leave tomorrow anyway. You put on some cat ears and called out, "Come in Satan!"

"Good morning MC, I think you'll like what I've planned for-" Satan stopped in mid speech. His eyes widening at the attire that did a fine job of wrapping around your body seductively.

"Good morning...sorry I was too busy to freshen up haha.." You apologize. "Wait for me here, it'll only take me a few minutes."

Satan nodded, hiding his blush behind his golden locks falling all over his cheeks as he lowered his head. You sighed. How was he so beautiful early morning?

Satan held out his arm like the gentleman he was as you prepared to leave for your date. "Take my arm, MC. We have lots of places to be."

You chuckled and did as told. "I can hardly wait."

You spent the day as if you were in a Romance novel. Cat Cafe, the bookstore, walking in the park watching the setting sun, holding hands. Satan really knew the ways to your heart.

After the sun set, you returned to the house of Lamentation.

"Would you like to come to my room later? We could read your favourite book together one last time before you leave?" Satan requested, his fingers still interlocked with yours.

"Yes..." You nodded, "I was going to ask you the same..."

"I'll be waiting." Satan said, walking you to your room and reluctantly letting go.

After dinner when everyone was asleep, you sneaked into his room. He was wide awake, waiting. He was sitting in his bed in only his black t-shirt and jeans, reading a book. The room was dark with only candles providing enough light to read. He looked up when you called for him softly.

"Satan I'm here...sorry for making you wait.." You said sheepishly.

His eyes lit up and he held out his hand for you to take. "Come sit with me."

You joined him on the bed. He swiftly put an arm around you, holding you snug against him. You could smell his scent and feel his breath on your cheek.

"I got something for you. It's not much but.." You handed Satan your gift.

"A gift? For me?" Satan saw the cover of the book and flipped to where the bookmark was. "That's... beautiful. Thank you MC I can't believe you'd- wait what's this?"

He fished out a long strip of stray paper in the middle of the pages beside the bookmark.

You remembered what it was and tried to snatch it away. How did this even get in there?! What the hell?! "IT'S NOTHING!", You scream

Satan smirked as he held it beyond your reach and started reading it. "A poem for Satan? That doesn't seem like nothing MC."

You tried getting up to gain better access to snatch the paper from him. "DON'T READ IT I SWEAR IT'S NOT SOMETHING SERIOUS. I WAS JUST BEING SILLY!"

Satan tightened his grip on your waist and started reading it out loud to your utter humiliation. You struggled in his grip, gave up and hid your face instead. He stopped midway.

"You read it to me." He demanded.

"Like hell I will!" You rebutted.

"Please." He splayed out his fingers on your back holding you close. His locks tickling your nose.

"N-no. It's embarrassing. I can't-" You started but he looked so dejected you gave in. "Fine but you have to look away from me."

Satan swiftly turned his face away and nodded. You cleared your throat nervously and started.

"Dear blonde boy with the sea in his eyes,

I'll be gone soon, so I'm done with the lies,

I've liked you for a long long time,

But it's too late to impose now, so I guess it's fine?"

"You see me for me, like I see you for you,

Everyone else, they just put me in her shoes,

But these shoes don't fit, they're not mine

And I'm sick of having to toe this line."

"But with you, I'm better, I'm more like myself,

And I can't thank you enough for all your help,

For your kindness, smiles and touch,

You always save me when it gets too much."

You stop. The next part of the poem feels like oversharing. Maybe you should have talked to him about this first. He squeezes your arm, asking you to continue.

"Satan I should explain this-"

"I know. I've known this for a while. But I want to hear this first please continue."

Shakily, you continued.

"I feel his fingers on my throat, unforgiving and unkind,

Help it's getting dark...am I going blind?

I let out a tiny scream with whatever voice I have left,

You're the only one here who didn't turn deaf."

"So replace his touch with yours, with your fingers so gentle and nice,

Hold me, warm me, I feel as cold as ice,

I wish I was a kitten, in your care,

You may be full of wrath, but I was never scared."

"But I'll be gone soon, I don't want to return,

But for you my bookworm, my heart will yearn,

Blonde boy with eyes of sea,

One last time, will you kiss me?"

You had barely finished when Satan spun around and cupped your face. He peppered some kisses on your lips, going upto your ear. He nipped at your earlobe and you let out a soft gasp. His face felt warm and flushed.

He placed his head against yours and sighed. "I can't get enough of you. How do I hold myself back when you're showering me with this much love and that too so beautifully?"

He wrapped his arms around you protectively. You instinctively buried your face in his chest and put your arms around his torso.

"You don't need to hold back..." You whisper.

Satan stiffens. "MC, you don't know what you're asking for."

You hold him tighter, lifting your head you place kisses on his jaw and nibble on his shoulder. "I know."

"Then I won't hold back any longer" He says, slowly pushing you down against his pillows.

He reached down and removed your slippers off your feet. "A part of me suspected you might feel this way. But you're not Lilith. You never will be and you don't have to pretend to be. You're MC. And that's all you need to be."

You looked away, outside at the moon. "Tell me honestly...if I didn't have Lilith's bloodline, would you all care the same way?"

Satan held your chin and turned your face towards him. He may never have been an angel but awash in this silvery moonlight, he certainly looked like one.

"Remember when I told you how much I hated being a part of Lucifer? And you told me that I'm my own person. You told me there was more to me than my wrath."

"Of course." You reached out to hold his face. "You're the smartest demon I know. And your love for cats and literature is unparalleled."

"Well then you're the only human who has swayed my heart. The human so strong and capable enough to bring a semblance for harmony to a dysfunctional family of demons." He smiled gently, running his fingers in your hair.

You felt warm inside. Atleast there was someone who liked you for you. You were so happy you could cry.

"As for what Belphie did, I made sure you never really alone with him." Satan said, now intertwining his fingers with yours. You give him a questioning glance.

"Remember the book of defense spells I gave you? I cast one on you whenever he's in the vicinity. It will render him useless if he dare attack you." He said, matter of factly.

"You knew...? But I never told anyone." You said, confused.

"I know. You held it in for our sake didn't you? You repressed it so much. I can't imagine what kind of hurt you went through." Satan's fingers tightened around yours.

"But one night, you fell asleep in the library. I went to put a blanket on you when I heard you mumbling for help. You kept saying it hurts and you can't breathe. And then you said Belphie's name and asked him to stop hurting you."

"I was so furious I rushed straight to the twins room. I was going to yank Belphie out of bed and renact what he did to you. But Beel woke up and stopped me. I told everyone in the morning before Belphie woke up. You've never been alone with Belphie ever since. One of us always stayed nearby."

You listened in utter shock. "You...you were protecting me all this time?"

Satan nodded, "Well I can't take all the credit. My brother's helped too. But just know that you're not a replacement for Lilith. And Belphie's an ass who doesn't know how to apologize. I'm sorry you had to go through that alone. I know it's your last night here, MC... so I'll make this one worth remembering."

You smiled and pulled Satan towards you for a kiss. "I'm glad I saved the best for last."

[sagemoderocklee]

Ooh, directors commentary on TAOL?? I know it's an epic so maybe just on the chapter where Lee and Gaara are traveling in Jade Country :3

sorry for letting this sit in my ask box for a couple days. i got kinda sidetracked and then had to go back to work today, which is not a fun time tbh but the evils of capitalism and so on....

anyways, im thrilled you asked for this particular part of TAoL because I absolutely loved that chapter (x) and put a lot of work into it between building up the culture of Gyokukakushin and making sure all the Arabic and Chinese I used was legit (which is partly why it took like 4 months to write). plus the chapter has a lot of great GaaLee moments that make me really happy.

one of my biggest downfalls as a writer is how long it takes me to actually finish anything. as i think most people who follow my writing know, i tend to prefer lengthier stories with lots of heavy politics, and that tends to mean that the build up of romance takes a while... which is again how i like it. i prefer a slow burn--a proper slow burn, not these 2k fics tagged slow burn. i mean, 100k into the story and the most you’ve got is an accidental hand brushing another and some intense eye contact... which admittedly TAoL has given more than just a little bit of physical contact and intense staring, but my point is that when i say slow burn i mean S L O W

anyways, onto the actual director’s commentary

So, Jade Province--as it’s not a country in itself, but a province within Wind Country--is a sprawling section of the south-east portion of Wind. I started building Jade Province and its capitol, Gyokukakushin sometime before I started on Ch10 of TAoL, but it was all a very loose idea. I’d initially conceptualized some things about it for the one shot I wrote, Keepsakes, because I’d been doing some background work on the Kazekage lineage and the culture surrounding the Kazekage family--such as arranged marriages, treaties, etc.

My idea is that Karura and Yashamaru are actually from Gyokukakushin. They would have been the children of a person in the political sphere within the capitol, and the marriage between Karura and Rasa would have been arranged early on and she would have been sent to Suna as a pre-teen or teen so that she would feel that Suna was home. I imagine she and Rasa would have married sometime when she was between 18-20. This was the main reason Rasa was able to take on the roll of Kazekage, based on the family tree I built up for the Kazekage line--he was the only one who was married and could produce heirs.

Not that any of this ever comes up during TAoL. In fact, Gaara doesn’t even realize that in going to Gyokukakushin he’s actually visiting half of his ancestral home. However, there’s a lot of fun hints about his connection to Gyokukakushin if you recall the many mentions of the color the same shade as Gaara’s eyes in that chapter. This was a specific nod to his heritage, and something that the locals definitely would have been fascinated by because there’s lots of significance surrounding that particular color in the region. I also wanted to use the reference to his eyes to highlight Lee’s particular fascination with Gaara’s appearance, and especially the element of Gaara’s eyes and the many ways he looks at Lee.

The biggest challenge within this chapter, of course, was the fact that I was using languages I’m not familiar with and had to find a good place to gather resources. Thanks to @ghoste-catte I discovered that reddit (of all places) has a translation subreddit which I was able to use to help bring that aspect of the story to life in an organic and respectful way. My Japanese is rusty, but I have a much better grasp on it than I do Chinese or Arabic, and so I spent many, many, many, many, many..... many hours searching for resources, watching YT vidoes, at the bookstore--I even bought a small book on Arabic. In the end, the subreddit was way more helpful than anything else because it allowed me the chance to get more concrete explanations from native speakers, so I could understand exactly why something was said the way it was. Most of the phrases used in that chapter aren’t really Gaara saying anything special--things like “be quiet” or “stop”--which I usually alluded to with Lee racking his brain trying to drudge up the vocabulary Gaara has taught him.

However, there’s one line--which I hope people did not turn to google translate for--that makes me especially happy, and that line really would not have been possible without that subreddit. I think the best part about being able to successfully navigate the challenge of using other languages is creating the same confusion Lee feels for those readers who doesn’t know those languages, and for those who do, offering them a nice glimpse at what’s going on that Lee cannot grasp. It’s fun and really changes the experience for each reader.

Language is such a beautiful and intricate aspect of people and culture, and my biggest fear with approaching the use of Arabic and Chinese was not only saying the wrong thing, but being disrespectful. So it was an incredibly good experience, and I was incredibly lucky to receive the help I did!

Building up the tension between Gaara and Lee was something I’d really wanted to execute well, too. It’s not often I write stories where the romance doesn’t start from scratch. With TAoL, Lee needed to already be in love with Gaara, and that was a big stress for me because I’m constantly asking myself: is this earned? I think one of the biggest failings of fanfiction is that people don’t ask that question. You really have to ask if your romance is earned. If your character growth is earned. If a redemption arc is earned. And I constantly worry that I’m moving too quickly with romance in particular, especially for Gaara and Lee. I’m not big on putting them together without a lot of development, and I’m not big on established relationship fics (that aren’t sequels) for them either. I like the work it takes to get them together, I like the journey of getting them together. And I don’t like it to be easy.

But for me, TAoL is one of my best actualized works. I think Alliance really helped me build the skills I needed to execute a story like TAoL on so many levels--from the complicated political landscapes, to the cultures, to the relationships between each character. And so I do feel like Lee being in love with Gaara at this point in their lives makes sense, and does work despite the fact that we didn’t see him fall in love with Gaara during the course of this fic. There are subtle nods to his feelings for Gaara in the early chapters, but I didn’t go too hard at indicating those feelings until really the second Lee chapter, this chapter I’m talking about now. I think there were some hints in the first Lee chapter--the chapter where he broke Gaara out of prison and whisked him away from Suna--but I tried to keep those things to a minimum, partly to not over do it and ease people in to that, and partly because I wanted to keep the suspense alive surrounding the real purpose for Lee being in Suna.

So when they get to Gyokukakushin, it really gave me a much better chance at showcasing his feelings. There were moments prior to Gyokukakushin, but those were from Gaara’s PoV--like the moment within the destroyed village, Myoujou, where they’re hiding from the group of shinobi and Gaara’s trying desperately to get Lee to focus his chakra enough to mask it.

But the success of that particular moment is lost on Gaara because he doesn’t really know how Lee feels about him at that point in time, so his impact on Lee is entirely lost to him....not to mention he’s dealing with a lot of grief and trauma, so he hardly has the wherewithal to be paying attention to whether or not his rescuer is secretly in love with him.

One of my favorite tender moments is this one:

“Do you have a favorite word?” Lee asked, before a yawn interrupted him.

“In Indigosi? Or in general?”

“Both.”

Gaara glanced at Lee from the corner of his eye. “Affection,” he murmured, almost as though he were afraid to admit it. “In Indigosi...” Gaara was silent, his gaze shifting away from Lee to the window. A warmth spread across his brown skin, a blush rising on his high cheekbones. “Rohi.”

He looked down at Lee, something bright behind his eyes.

Heat burned Lee's face like an inferno. “What does that mean?”

Gaara looked away again, hiding from Lee in plain sight. “My soul." The words hung in the air with some other meaning, one that Lee could not decipher. Gaara would forever be a paradox, an ever expanding puzzle for Lee to piece together. He didn't ever want to figure him out completely, but he would never stop trying to get as close to epiphany as he could.

“That is beautiful,” Lee told him as another yawn overtook him.

“I should let you sleep,” Gaara said, moving to get up.

Lee stopped him with an imploring hand against Gaara's forearm. “Stay? You did not finish telling me about your trip to Dusk Country.”

“You kept interrupting,” Gaara teased lightly, settling back into place.

Lee smiled up at him, ever so slightly cheeky. “I promise I will be quiet.”

“You're going to fall asleep,” Gaara corrected.

“Probably. It is very late.”

I love so many of the emotional scenes from this particular chapter, but I love how simple and sweet this moment is. There’s such a wealth of affection in small actions, and I really wanted to highlight that Lee and Gaara have grown closer during their time traveling from Myoujou to Gyokukakushin, and things that were born of necessity (like sleeping close together for warmth) are now things done because they want to. There’s comfort in the closeness of sitting next to one another, there’s something peaceful about Lee falling asleep while Gaara talks to him. It’s a nice moment, less high emotion and more quiet contentment, which I think is much needed after everything they’ve been through.

I think that my other favorite scene would be the scene on the beach, right after they’ve watched the sand artist and Gaara makes his model of Suna. That scene is a complicated affair for Lee because he’s both enjoying his time with Gaara and feeling guilty for enjoying that time together. And of course Gaara’s got a lot going on too, which Lee can only guess at.

One of the other things I really enjoyed about this chapter is the fact of Lee and Gaara being in disguise, and really the use of their aliases. I particularly like any excuse to get Gaara to call Lee “Ren”. I’m particularly in love with that stroke of genius regarding Lee’s alias, and there’s a certain emotion, a certain connection that I really hope I could convey with how they use each other’s aliases.

I could probably talk about this chapter forever, but unfortunately there’s also thins I don’t want to say at the risk of spoiling future chapters since this is still a WIP (and probably will be for a while longer, though we’re almost halfway there! Two more chapters to the halfway mark!) Thank you so much for sending this particular ask anon! I had fun chatting about it and I hope you enjoyed reading my comments! 

[thesundowncrew]

Slice of Life bio ; Axel

Depending on the thread, Axel’s occupation during his adulthood may change, and is flexible because of his affinity for doing odd jobs, but everything else is pretty solid. Left at the foster home when he was four-years-old. Nothing is known about his biological parents except that they were both Romani and that his birth-name was Vali.

TW: Sexual abuse mention between Age 13 and Age 14-15!

Age 4-7 *Had a pretty uneventful life growing up in the foster home. The home was headed by an old married couple who raised the foster children alongside their own, the few out of the 20 kids Vali grew up with. *The home ran their own pre-school, which is where the children learned how to read and write. *Was noted as one of the ‘slow children’ as Vali didn’t show particular interest in learning. *Brought up in a strict environment but was not subjected to anything harsh. *Was exceptionally active and big in size for his age. Loved to play outdoors. *Often played with the older children since he could keep up with their games eg. kickball, wrestling.

Age 7-12 *Vali was starting to be pushed away by the older children because he was ‘too young’ and away from the younger children because he was ‘too rough’. He found it hard to relate to the others because of his size and character. *Miruna (5-years-old) is brought to the home and they hit it off right away despite the obvious differences. *Took care of Miruna as if she was his own sister. Proved to the others that he was indeed gentle and the other kids started playing with him again. *Still spent most of his time with Miruna. They were almost inseparable. *Miruna loved to read and in turn got Vali interested in school again. Miruna would read to him and he would try his best to follow. *Considered an average student but showed great promise in sports and athletics. Age 13 *Grew at least a foot taller within a year, and added on weight in muscle. Could face off boys three years older than him (eg. Boian). *Ketele (14-years-old) is brought to the home and slowly latches on to Vali. She begrudgingly befriends Miruna as well. *Grows infatuated and even looked up to Ketele because she was older, and kids usually trusted those who were older than them. *Ketele seems friendly enough with Miruna but when she and Vali are alone, keeps encouraging the idea that Miruna is too young to be hanging out with them. That now they were big kids, they should play ‘big kid’ games. *Despite the feeling in his gut, Vali listens to Ketele anyway. In the back of his mind, he thought keeping Miruna away from Ketele was also a safer good idea. *Puberty hits very early for Vali much to Ketele’s delight. *Vali found that he was enjoying their visits to the attic and their ‘big kid’ games a lot less as Ketele started doing strange things to his body. *Lost his virginity at an age when he was unsure if he enjoyed sex or not. Also lost his anal virginity when Ketele ‘experimented’ by inserting different objects into him. But in his head, Ketele loved him and this was how they expressed their love for each other.

Age 14-15 *Ketele’s ‘experiments’ grew more frightening as she started using tools such as candles and cigarettes. *Despite the doubts in his head, Ketele’s emotional abuse and leash on him was so tight to the point he thought he deserved to be treated like trash. *Was taken by Ketele to a gas station downtown where his body had been promised to a paying gentleman for one hour of ‘playtime’. Ketele took the cash and Vali took the treatment like the broken toy he was. This continued for a whole year, locations varying from abandoned construction sites to dingy motel rooms. *During the years of abuse, Vali was told to stay away from Miruna (”Why would she love something as disgusting as you?”) to keep him leashed. *Despite the warnings, he sought solace in his little sister; the one, pure thing in this world. He still wanted to spend time with her and be her big brother when he could. *Seeing Vali still very much loved Miruna -in a way Ketele could only dream of someone loving her- she was furious. *Was outside the foster home when he witnessed Miruna get pushed out the attic window and fell to her death. *Ketele was arrested but the damage was done. Mentally scarred and emotionally wounded from being someone’s personal fuck-toy, Vali became unbalanced. *Was moved between three foster homes within 10 months due to his behavioral problems (actually symptoms of PTSD), and received heavy disciplinary measures (making matters worse).

Age 16-18 *Ran away from the foster homes and went ghost, living out on the streets. Traveled far across states until he settled down in the big city. *Was picked on by a gang but after nearly beating half the members to death, the gang leader decided to recruit him for extra muscle. *This way, Vali would get protection as well as combat experience. Learned how to handle knives and pistols. *Befriended Michael (Mikey for short) who took him in like a big brother. Mikey was a few years older than Vali and was different from the other gang members. *Mikey was the first one to figure out Vali’s night terrors stemmed from some childhood trauma and, though he didn’t know the details, he was determined to help Vali overcome it. *Vali idolized Mikey and soon fell for him, which started the confusion on his sexuality. *He came to terms with his sexuality rather easily but because many gang members were openly homophobic, he understood his feelings for Mikey as ‘abnormal’ and kept it hidden for safety’s sake. *He and Mikey had gotten very close. At one point, he couldn’t take it anymore and confessed his feelings, having already planned an escape route out of the gang in case Mikey ratted him out. He didn’t. *Though Mikey didn’t reciprocate his feelings, he wasn’t homophobic either and even helped Vali by validating his feelings as ‘normal’. *Vali discovers that Mikey has been wanting out of the gangs since forever but because of personal circumstances, he couldn’t easily abandon the life. Since Vali was younger, Mikey told him he had a better chance at rebuilding a life off the streets (“You deserve better”). *Vali stays in the gang for the sake of staying close to Mikey, but Mikey dies from a hit-and-run along with a few other members. The incident eventually triggered a massive war between the two gangs, one which Vali almost threw his life away for.

Age 19-25 *Left for dead and crawling on the pavement, Vali is found by Aed Hallahan and is brought home to Sundown. *Aed, being an ex-cop, has had experience with street kids getting caught up with gangs and is determined to help Vali rebuild his life. *Meets 10-year-old Sam and 9-year-old Natalie. *Stays with Aed in the bookstore’s attic, which eventually transformed into a proper bedroom (Aed’s bedroom is on the ground floor). *Thanks to connections, Aed helps Vali legally change his name to Axel Hunter and get him a little counseling help for his PTSD and medication for his insomnia. *Axel continues to work for his dues at the Sundown bookstore with the heavy lifting and errands. *Aed taught Axel how to drive, sponsored his classes and helped him acquire his license. *Thanks to Aed’s advice, even went to a vocational college where he picked up mechanic skills. Starts part-timing at an auto-mechanics. *Aed taught Axel basically everything else he needed to know to live a quiet, peaceful life. *Adjustment to this new, warm environment was difficult at first but being around Sam and Natalie helped Vali a lot. Especially Natalie, who reminded him a lot of Miruna. *It did not make his trauma magically disappear. He just became better at hiding it for everyone elses’ sake. *Falls back and forth into highly risky behavior like picking fights, heavy drinking and casual (and very rough) sex with anyone and everyone who shows him an ounce of attention. *Because of the apparent age-gap, Axel still had problems relating to Aed when it came to certain issues. Around this time, he meets Roddy McGee and befriends other people his age who teach him all about self-love again.

Age 26-29 *As Aed’s life deteriorates, he asks Axel to help disguise his failing health when in front of Sam to avoid making him worry. Though Axel didn’t particularly like doing it, he did as Aed wished (but Sam and Natalie figured it out soon enough). *Aed eventually stops being the face of Sundown and stays in bed longer while Axel takes over the front-desk duty. *Even with the additional responsibility of nursing Aed around the clock, Axel still found time to do smaller, odd jobs for extra cash. All the money he earned, he used it for Aed’s health bills and maintenance for the bookstore. *Aed passes away with Axel by his side. Had to deliver the bad news to Sam and Natalie. *To his surprise, he was written in Aed’s will and shared some inheritance with Sam. Sam had no qualms about it as he saw Axel as part of the family. *To cope, occasionally falls back into past risky behavior but nothing too unhealthy.

Age 30 and beyond *Axel restarts his life a second time, now with shared responsibility over the bookstore and with the extra money, he buys himself a small but comfortable flat. The bookstore attic remains as a bedroom for Sam, Natalie or guests to sleepover. *Works full-time at the auto-mechanics. Works hard till he even earns the promotion to senior mechanic and assistant manager. *Aed’s death struck a big blow, but Axel pulled himself together enough to take care of Sam as well as the bookstore. Now that he has sources of emotional and psychological support from friends, he lives a pretty stable and peaceful life like Mikey always wanted for him. *Is still anxious about maintaining healthy relationships, paranoid that he is not good enough for the long-term. Requires a lot of time and patience. *Despite everything, Axel continues on his path of healing. Still absolutely secretive and traumatized from his past life, he grows into his new one to forget the bad memories. But always carries with him the few precious good ones from when he was Vali.

PLACE IN SOCIETY

✖ FINANCIAL – wealthy  / moderate / poor / in poverty

✖ MEDICAL – fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / deceased

✖ CLASS OR CASTE – upper / middle / working / slave / unsure

✖ EDUCATION – qualified / unqualified / perpetually studying

FAMILY

✖ MARITAL STATUS – married, happily / married, unhappily / engaged and devoted to a fault / partnered / single / divorced / widow or widower / separated / it’s complicated

✖ CHILDREN – has a child / no children / wants children / adopted a child

✖ FAMILY – close with (step) sibling(s) / not close with (step) sibling(s) / has no sibling(s) / sibling is deceased / estranged

✖ AFFILIATION – orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by both parents / other

TRAITS & TENDENCIES

✖ disorganised / organized / in between

✖ close-minded / open-minded / in between

✖ cautious / reckless / in between

✖ patient / impatient / in between

✖ outspoken / reserved / in between

✖ leader / follower / in between

✖ sympathetic / unemphatic / in between

✖ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

✖ hardworking / lazy / in between

✖ cultured / uncultured / in between

✖ loyal / disloyal / in between

✖ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION

✖ SEXUALITY – heterosexual / heteroflexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / demi sexual

✖ SEX – sex repulsed / neutral / sex favorable

✖ ROMANCE – romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable

✖ SEXUALLY – sexually adventurous / sex experienced / naive / inexperienced /curious / uninterested

ABILITIES

✖ COMBAT SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✖ LITERACY SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✖ ARTISTIC SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✖ TECHNICAL SKILLS – excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[artificialqueens]

New Man Pt. 4 / Save Me (Biadore) - Fucking Awful.

[A/N]: Thanks for the love, friends! Part 4 is below, some dawn is creeping through the darkness. Will aim to post the last 2 chapters in quick succession, Lord knows we all hate to wait. As usual, thoughts/internal monologue are in italics and lyrics are indented. Xoxo Fucking Awful.

No way was Roy actually taking an Uber home. One of the things he missed most about New York was being able to walk places, so given the chance he was going back to the hotel on foot. Plus, it would give him some extra time to clear his head.

It was mile 1 that it started to drizzle. No big deal, I survived a fucking hurricane.

It was at mile 2 that it started to pour. Shit.

It was at mile 2.1 that Roy realized his hotel was another 4 miles away. So this is it, I guess I die from pneumonia.

 And at mile 2.2, Roy was rescued.

 “Hey little boy, need a ride? I’ve got a nice unmarked vehicle.” Johnny pulled up next to him, thank god in a Prius and not an SVU murder van. 

“Well gee, my mom always said not to get in cars with strange men.” Roy’s teeth were starting to chatter and he knew he needed to get in the damn car, but the last place he wanted to be was cooped up with Danny’s cousin.

“You sure? I hear witches melt in the rain.” Johnny tried for another joke.

Oh right, I’m a hateful witch. I almost forgot. “I’m the wickedest of them all, I guess.” Roy slipped into the car. “Thanks, Johnny.”

“Anytime, man. I’m glad I found you so fast. The hostess said you walked off and I got worried when it started to pour. Thank god your patterns are predictable.” Roy could tell that Johnny was nervous, he was the type to ramble whenever he was uncomfortable.

“That’s me, predictable and evil.” Roy looked out the window. Sky’s falling – that feels about right.

They drove several blocks, only the low din of the radio and raindrops covering the uncomfortable silence. Roy could feel Johnny glancing over at him, projecting all kinds of concerned energy, but his head wasn’t clear enough to talk about the shit that just happened.  He just needed to get back to his hotel and figure out his next move while he was alone. Is there even a next move to make?

But Johnny’s good nature and discomfort got the best of him. “Roy, I’m, um. I’m really sorry about brunch. It was supposed to be a fun time and Danny –“

“Was right.”

“What?”

“Danny was right. He is right.” I started, so why stop. Roy rolled right on through Johnny’s attempts to respond.

“I used to think I was really good at compartmentalizing, that I could separate all the hateful shady shit I do as Bianca from who I really am. The cold, black heart stuff – that was all character, and I was a real person. But maybe it’s been so long, I didn’t try enough, I missed out on – somewhere along the way, everyone decided that’s who I really am. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Even my –” Roy paused. What is Danny to me, anyway? “Even my best friend thinks I’m a rotted cunt who can’t feel, doesn’t even deserve to feel. Maybe I should just give in.”

Thank God they were back at the hotel. On that happy note, Roy made quick work of getting out of the car. “Thanks again, Johnny. Appreciate it.” He walked quickly into the hotel, actively ignoring Johnny yelling after him.

—

Roy wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

When he came to Seattle he assumed he’d be spending his Sunday with Danny, running around the city doing random things just like they did on a hundreds lazy weekends before. They would be watching shitty 90’s movies at a cheap theater, laughing loudly and getting dirty looks as they browsed through a bookstore, fighting over what’s ugly in a thrift shop – whatever it could’ve been, it definitely wasn’t sitting in his hotel room, soaked in dirty rainwater, alone.

What am I doing here? His idea to “fix” the Danny situation at brunch had backfired spectacularly, leaving him feeling worse than ever before. Roy didn’t feel like a lot of people knew him, the real him, but he thought Danny was one of them. And if Danny thought he was a soulless, stone cold asshole who couldn’t and didn’t deserve to feel love…well, maybe he was right.

Here we go. Roy could feel himself spiraling. The self-doubt, self-consciousness, self-loathing…all the self-“bads” were ramping up and swirling together in his mind. He knew himself well enough to know that he was not one to be lifted out of sadness; for him, the only way through it was to actually go through it. He needed that last self – self-indulgence – to get over this shit storm. This is the real Hurricane Bianca.

 He clicked into Spotify and started the aptly named “Rabbit Hole” playlist. The first song was one of his favorites, “Save Me” by Nicki Minaj. Trinity had brought him around to Nicki’s music, and while he wouldn’t admit it to many people she has some of his favorite tracks.

 I drove for miles just to find you and find myself All these screams, all these voices in my head

His internal monologue started in. Did you really think this was going to work, Haylock? I mean come on, you’ve had three years to get it together and go after Danny. What made you think it would work this time, that you’d be good enough now?

You gave me strength, gave me hope for a lifetime I never was satisfied

He thought back to the early days of his friendship with Danny, the time during and immediately after Season 6 when he had become totally enamored with a 23-year-old kid. Back then he didn’t have the passionate, romantic feelings for Danny that kept him up at night - or rather, he didn’t know them enough to put a name to them. So when Danny had made his move – after that fucking finale and Latrice motherfucking Royale’s goddamn Facebook question – Roy panicked. He rebuffed the advances, kindly and carefully so to not break Danny, and they cemented their friendship instead. I may regret that for the rest of my life.

This time won’t you save me, this time won’t you save me Baby I can feel myself giving up

Roy needed to do something while he wallowed – active self-loathing, he decided – so he was going to pack and book a flight that evening. He had screwed things up too much to come back from it, at least right away. He needed to just go home and start trying to actually move on from Danny. The sooner he could accept that he would be alone, the better.

It’s not your fault, I’m a bitch, I’m a monster Yes, I’m a beast and I feast when I conquer But I’m alone on my throne, all these riches I came this way, all this way just to say

I guess it’s my fault. Roy was starting to feel that he brought all of this on himself. He spent too much time being a technician – of costuming, of drag, of relationships – that he lost the right to be emotional. Even if the walls he built up could be broken down, no one wanted to try anymore. Friendships he could keep, but passionate, romantic, soul-swelling love…that was too far gone. God doesn’t give with both hands, right?

Just as Roy was hitting his emotional rock bottom, the song was cut off by a phone call: Shane.

“Roy? Roy. Roy! Are you there?” Shane sounded like he was yelling into the speaker.

Pull it together, Haylock. “Jesus Shane, yeah I’m here. Did you fall down a well? Are you deaf? Did somebody fuck you in your eardrums?

“No I just dropped my phone.” The sound was coming in clear now. “It was under the – wait, Roy what the hell is going on? I just got a hysterical call from Danny – did you break up with Sky?”

Roy closed his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Not exactly, I caught him in bed with someone else a couple weeks ago and I had to leave.”

“A couple of weeks ago? Why didn’t you tell me? Danny just screamed at me for 20 minutes for not telling him, I had no idea. We all thought you and Sky were really happy together, that you guys were always spending time and you were blowing us off for your new boyfriend. Why were you lying?” Shane was mad, but Roy could hear something else – concern – creeping into his tone.

“Roy and Sky broke up? Does that mean he’s available?” Roy could hear Alaska yelling in the background.

“Ooooh, you know we could use some free Equinox passes.” Willam was there, too. “Toss us your leftovers, Roy. Alaska and I can share.”

“Guys, knock it off. They just ended a relationship, Roy has to be a little torn up about this. He’s hiding it from us, so it must make him – ”

This was exactly what Roy didn’t want. His friends were concerned about him, seeing him as weak.

“Willam, I know damn well you and that snake emoji would fuck someone for just a tank of gas, but that trainer whore is apparently into bears now, so as ET’s nasty ass brother you’re out of luck.” Trusty Rolodex of Hate to the rescue once again.

“Aww, there’s that bitch we know and love.” Alaska cooed. “Let us know if you need anything, though, Roy. That heart of stone has to break sometimes.”

Once again reminded just how cold and callous even his friends believed he was, Roy cracked. Well, his voice cracked to be more exact. Cracked and sobbed. And sobbed, and sobbed. 

“Holy shit, Roy are you ok?” He could hear Shane pick up the phone and step out of whatever room he was in. “Hold on, I’m putting you on FaceTime.”

Roy didn’t see the point in denying the video call, there was no way to hide what was happening now. He pulled back the phone and saw Shane staring back at him, a dramatically concerned look on his normally chipper face.

Then he looked into the bottom right corner, and realized what was making his friend look so distressed – Roy looked like misery personified. His eyes were rimmed bright red, his nose was running, his face was blotchy, his clothes were soaked, tears mixing with rainwater on his face – it was bad. Goddammit, I look like fucking Gia with a wonky eye.

“Oh babe.” Shane’s heart was breaking for Roy, he could see it. “I didn’t know you cared about him this much, I never even met him.”

“Shane, it’s not about Sky. I literally couldn’t give less of a shit about that.” Shane was confused again; thank God his face was so expressive. “It’s Danny. I need to talk to you about something.”

—

Roy spent a few minutes catching Shane up on the weekend’s events. Shane knew in theory about Roy’s feelings for Danny, but Roy had always played the extent of it close to his chest so that he wouldn’t put their mutual good friend in an awkward position.

Apparently Danny had not done the same. “Roy, he loves you. He is so deeply in love with you, the fact that you would even doubt that for half a second is just bananas.”

“You didn’t see him, Shane. You didn’t see his face, hear his voice – he thinks I’m a piece of shit and that I’m undeserving of love. The way he looked at me, I just…” Roy’s voice cracked again. Thinking about the emotions he saw in Danny’s eyes earlier that day – disappointment, anger, pity, sadness. It was too much.

“God, that whole thing sounds awful. I’m so sorry, love.” Roy could see Shane trying to work out some way to help from afar. “And Jinkx and Dela – what happened? Why didn’t they do anything?”

“There wasn’t anything they could do. Danny was just so angry. I’ve never seen him like that. I really fucked this up, I don’t think there’s coming back from this. I lost it, I lost him, I ruined everything.”

God, you sound depressing. Roy was too exasperated to keep going, there was nothing else to say. He just needed to go home, so he carried the phone over to his suitcase where he continued packing.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Shane asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m packing, I’m going to get on the first plane out of here and try to figure my life out.”

“You can’t LEAVE! Roy – no, this isn’t over. This is the part in the movie where things just start to get good. You can’t just give up.”

“It’s not giving up Shane, it’s knowing when to retreat so you don’t get slaughtered. This isn’t a movie; this is the unfortunate reality of my life right now. Danny deserves better than what he thinks I am, and I can’t be around him right now without…” Jesus, pull yourself together Haylock.

“We’ll figure out how to be friends later, but I can’t just stay here and see the person I hurt and the relationship I ruined. It’s just too much.” And now you sound like fucking Laganja – GREAT. By the end of that, Roy’s chest was heaving and his eyes were starting to water again.

Suddenly there was a pounding at the door. Roy was confused, he didn’t call down for anything. “Hold on Shane, let me get that.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, this conversation isn’t over.”

“Calm down, drama queen.” Roy went to the door. “Jesus, I’m coming!” Looking through the peep hole, all he could see is two sets of hands banging. He opened it and –

“Jinkx? Ben? What are you –“

“Who is it? Who is it? Is it Danny?” Shane was shouting excitedly through the phone.

“No you kangaroo, it’s the two worst wingmen of all time.” He rotated the phone again, letting Shane see Jinkx and Dela as they came in and sat on his bed.

“Oh good, they can help me. Guys, Roy is trying to leave. Please agree with me on this, he can’t go!”

“Roy I’m so sorry for what happened earlier, I should’ve waited to bring anything up until I knew how it was going. This is all my fault.” Ben looked so genuinely apologetic, while Jinkx looked off in thought.

“It’s not your fault, Ben. It’s mine. Guys, I appreciate your concern and wanting to help, but this isn’t just about a bad decision I made this weekend. It’s about the bad decision I’ve made hundreds of times every day since I realized I love Danny, which is to not tell him and make it real. I should’ve done something years ago, instead of shoving everything down and turning him away and insisting we just be friends. I made myself stone to him, because I thought I had to, and I did such a good job that now he believes it. But enough with my fucking monologues. Bottom line – Danny would never be with someone who –“

“Are you done?” Jinkx made himself known.

“Excuse me?” Roy was shocked.

“I said, are you done yet? Done feeling sorry for yourself?” Shane and Ben joined Roy in his look of confusion, but Jinkx carried on. “We were just with Danny – Shane, I know you talked to him too – and fuck me if that kid doesn’t love the shit out of you. He’s pacing around trying to figure out what he can do, beating himself up just as much as you are. When we left I convinced him to smoke a little bit to mellow out and he started going off about calling some witch friend of his about time travel –“

“I wish you wouldn’t let him smoke so much right, he’s been on vocal rest. He’s got so many shows coming up, he needs to stay healthy.” Roy couldn’t help himself.

“OH MY GOD, listen to you! Here you are, in your own personal hell and rock bottom, clearly emotionally ripped to shreds by Danny, and you’re still worried about his voice? Jesus Roy, you owe it to yourself to try and make something work with him.”

“I’m not the one who matters here, I don’t want to force Danny into –“

“Ok, are you not listening?” Jinkx flicked Roy upside his head. “You’re not forcing him into anything. You’re the fucking air he breathes, and vice versa. You make each other better when you’re together, and you both crumble when you’re apart. Why do you think you’ve been so off since he moved up here and you started talking less? You do a good job hiding it, but I know you’ve been really sad. Tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.”

This snarky bitch is getting grand. But Roy couldn’t argue. The two of them had spent a lot of time together through all the BOTS and press tours; even if they weren’t the best of friends, there was something about Jinkx that saw right through Roy. He just nodded.

“So do something about it. Or better yet, talk about it. You and Danny have spent so long trying to jam down all your feelings for each other, you have to talk about it – sober – for once. Be honest with him, and listen to what he has to say. I guarantee you’re going to hear something that will make you happy.” Jinkx paused, looking at Roy for a reaction. “If you don’t do this, you’re going to regret this for the rest of your life. However short that is, grandma.”

Roy could only sit in silence. He was running all the scenarios in his head, trying to figure out what he could say to Danny to make it all ok.

“Hey, you.” Shane was talking now, in the calm and almost motherly way he sometimes had. “Get out of your head, I see you turning inward. Stop over analyzing and trying to make something perfect.”

Taking a deep breath, Roy began: “I think – “

Ben cut him off. “Don’t think, Roy. What do you feel?”

Roy had to roll his eyes at that. “I feel,” he began snarkily, before taking a serious breath. “I feel…I feel like if I walk away from Danny, I’m walking away from the only person I ever have or will be in love with.” Goddammit, I’m crying again. “If I can’t be with him, I can’t be with anyone. And that scares the shit out of me.”

“So don’t. Don’t walk away.” Jinkx cracked the drill sergeant façade, and gave Roy a rough side hug.

Roy’s phone dinged – a text message. The eyes in the room shot to the notification banner – it was from Danny. It dinged twice more – 2 more messages from him, in quick succession. All Roy could muster was, “Oh shit.”

“What’s going on?” Shane looked confused.

“Roy just got a bunch of texts from Danny. What do they say? Click over and see what they say!” Ben was getting excited.

“Let him read them himself first, Dela, geez.” Jinkx swatted Ben’s reaching hand away.

“Hold on Shane, you won’t see us for a minute.” Roy switched into his texts, his heart beating so fast he thought it might burst out of his chest, Alien-style

The first message: I wish you had told me. How was I supposed to know? Don’t keep things from me.

The second: Sorry, not the point. That came out wrong.

The third: We need to talk about this. About us. I have a show tomorrow night, please come and stay to see me after.

A fourth came while Roy was reading: I really want you there, it would mean the world to me.

“Alright, I’m staying at least one more day. But you bitches are coming to this show with me tomorrow night.” For the first time in hours, Roy cracked an honest smile.

“I’m getting on a plane!” Shane shrieked in excitement.

“We’ll alert the tops of Seattle to stock up on lube. But you aren’t staying with me, you kangaroo.” Roy wasn’t sure he could actually make a comeback, but Danny wanted him there and he sure as shit was going to try. 

—

[End of Part 4]

[arathoonabroad]

Chapter 13

In which Katie uses 2,000 words to say "I was tired."

Thursday, September 21, 2006

There have been certain grumblings of the "are you dead?" variety concerning my lack of updates recently, and I apologize; hopefully this installment will both satisfy those grumblers and explain my (extremely out of character) reticence.

So. I actually managed to give up alcohol for a month, and here's the story of why. One week after my birthday, we accidentally threw the most awesome party ever. The excuse was the arrival of a new flatmate, the awesome Freya—so it was a "house re-warming" party. Our arrival time was set at eight, and the theme was "Heroes and Villains." At eight o'clock we four flatmates were sitting in the living room. Sarah had made the largest token to the party's theme, and was wearing an Astro Boy t-shirt and, most impressively, an Astro Boy pair of underpants on the outside of her jeans. Freya was dressed up as an evil version of herself, and I was dressed up as a not-evil clone of the evil version of Freya, which meant that we were both wearing cute skirts and glasses, but otherwise looking pretty normal. Amina appeared to be going as Amina.

"Did you invite anyone?" asked Sarah. A chorus of Not Really's ran 'round the room. "Me neither," she sighed. The party seemed a loss. I texted the few people I had invited and warned them it was dead.

And then people started arriving, and they didn't stop. The house was full of people. We’d purchased forty bottles of wine, and we ran out and had to go get more. My camera was passed from hand to hand, capturing people's costumes (most impressively a young gentleman dressed entirely in tinfoil). People we didn't know showed up. People we did know and didn't like showed up. Somebody's younger brother and his best friend showed up, refused to speak to anyone, and then passed out in the living room. We had Brazilians and Italians and Indians and Germans and more, but everyone drank like Aussies. At four o'clock my camera was full of pictures, we were full of alcohol, and we decided it was a really good time to go to a bar. So, we shuffled off to the bar, I broke a chair, and the rest is a blank until it was suddenly 8:20 in the morning and one of my newfound best friends was shoving his watch in my face and saying, "Aren't you supposed to be at work in ten minutes?"

Ah yes, yes I was. A special one-off Saturday job, shelving books in the bookstore part of the café. Still reeling, I leaped into work clothes and ran the whole way to the café, making it there in just ten minutes (rather than the usual twenty). My boss thought my showing up reeking of alcohol was hilariously funny, and I proceeded to shelve books, dwelling on all the stupid things I'd done the night before, for two hours. Two hours of silent book shelving in a silent café is a really good time to do some earnest reflection, and I'd done a lot of stupid things the night before. By the time I'd finished the last box of books I'd worked myself into quite a state.

"Come on, I'll shout you breakfast as a thank you," my boss offered.

"I can't, I have about twelve apologies I have to make," I said, and, brain now moving into hangover zone, I wandered home, collapsed on the sidewalk outside my house, dissolved into tears, and called my mother.

Not my proudest moment in Sydney.

So, from that day until the end of August, I went teetotal. Totally teetotal. This caused extreme consternation amongst my friends. I did prove very definitively that I am capable of going out without drinking; I also proved that it's almost impossible to go out and have fun without drinking, mostly because everyone else gets annoyed with your sobriety and spends the evening trying to get you to change your mind. Spending evenings explaining why you're sober is really, really dull.

Luckily, the flu that I'd picked up back in June was still around and getting worse, which meant that most of the time I was too tired to go out anyway. Some days I would come home from work at five, get straight into bed and fall asleep, wake up at eight and have dinner and then go back to sleep; other days I would pass out at 7:30 and not wake up until 7:30 the next morning. I'm not sure quite why it didn't occur to me that being sick for more than two months was a bit odd, but it just seemed to be one of those facts of life; I'm Katie, and I sleep for twelve hours at a time on a regular basis. The month of no alcohol dragged on, things ended (I think) with Marco, and then work took a turn for the worse.

The boss, bless him, figured out that he could pick on me—and pick on me he did. When he yells at Sara she yells back, and Kia set down boundaries early enough that he doesn't yell at her at all, but he soon discovered that with my tendency to a) internalize disapproval and b) burn banana bread on a regular basis, I could provide a useful outlet for the daily frustrations of café management. Day by day things got worse—to the point where the other girls were leaping in to my defense ("Don't speak to her like that!") and I broke down in tears on several occasions.

The breaking point came one Friday in early September. Late in the afternoon I found myself getting shouted and sworn at, top volume. The boss was throwing around a sandwich I had made and was so angry that he was barely articulate. I went into crisis-control mode, as usual, and solved the sandwich problem (there was no problem, it turned out—the sandwich was exactly what the customer had wanted). Then I spent the next hour cleaning and finishing my shift and getting more and more worked up. I was sick, and tired, and absolutely sick and tired of getting screamed at for no good reason.

The next day, shopping with Kia, I related the story. "If he treated me the way he treats you, I'd quit," she said frankly. I considered that option. I have enough money saved up for this trip that I could just stay in Sydney until I leave. The money from the café is great, but not a necessity. Why don't I just not go back to work on Monday?

But then, thinking it over that Sunday in our sunny garden, I had a far more liberating thought: if I have enough flexibility that I can quit, then I can also just behave any way I want to at work, and if I get fired, it's no big deal!

I can shout back!

I went into work on Monday eager for him to pick a fight with me. He was gonna get it! Anybody who throws a punch at me from now on is getting knocked out of the ring! Just you wait, matey!

And, of course, that change in attitude has meant that I don't actually need to shout back; bossman has stopped picking on me. The few times things have drifted back towards our old pattern, I've dug my heels in and gotten sassy, and then we go back to him treating me like a human being. The old adage about standing up to bullies is true, it seems, and I’ve emerged from the experience with a—potentially useful—thicker epidermis.

But I was almost too tired and miserable to appreciate my once-again enjoyable work environment. September had arrived and I was still sick, still in bed by eight o'clock every night, still knocked off my feet for days every time I drank alcohol (teetotal August having ended at last). I tried to go out for dinner with Brenda one night and felt so miserable I could barely stand. "You look like you're going to cry!" she said in dismay, and sent me home to bed. I had to get a taxi because I was too tired to walk the two blocks to the bus stop. I was too tired to go out, too tired to write. What is the point of being here, I wondered, if all I'm going to do is work and sleep?

At Mum's urging I went to get checked for mono, or "glandular fever" as they so quaintly call it here. (Shoutout to free universal healthcare, btw!) The doctor poked and prodded me for a while and finally said with a note of satisfaction, "Ah. You have an enlarged spleen."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"That means your mother is probably right," he said.

"My mother is always right about everything," I said glumly.

So they drew gallons of my blood and sent them off for testing, and then Cousin Becky arrived. 

Cousin Becky, one of my favorite people in the world, is moving to the Australian equivalent of Napa Valley until the end of the year, and touched down in Sydney first. So there's Becky, my big cousin whom I adore—and there's me, too tired and sick to show her a good time. Luckily, she was jetlagged and missing her boyfriend, so we were both able to be tired and miserable together. This somehow involved us buying extremely cute bikinis and lying on beaches for hours and hours, and then having lunches that consisted of wine and ice cream and dinners that consisted of phantasmagorically amazing seafood. Hey, if you're gonna mope, mope in style!

Becky left on a Sunday morning and I went straight to bed and slept more or less nonstop for the next eighteen hours (standard Sunday protocol at this point). On Monday I actually felt a little better. Tuesday even more so—to the point where I actually went out and had some drinks and got up to no good. Despite that, on Wednesday I was feeling, for the first time in months and months—practically normal!

That Wednesday was of course the day when my blood tests came in, and I slunk into the doctor's office feeling a bit sheepish. Here I'd just gone and gotten all these tests done on Medicare's dime, and just today my body was refusing to play the role required of it. Where was the drama, the lethargy, the I'd-rather-be-hit-by-a-bus misery? I have an enlarged spleen, damnit! I'm dying here!

"Nope," said my body, "Actually, I'm feeling pretty okay today."

So I was somehow unsurprised when the doctor explained to me that I don't actually have mono/glandular fever, at least not any more. (Glandular fever—honestly! What an archaic-sounding disease! Next they'll be telling me people still get scurvy, or gout, or the plague!) Very patiently he took me through all the different tests, all the different results that my gallons of blood had provided—and they all basically said I was a-ok. Even my cholesterol's pretty good, it turns out.

I tried to be enthusiastic, but I was still confused. "So, why have I been so miserable?" I asked.

"Sometimes, the body just gives out when it's being pushed too hard—when the patient is going out too often, or there's stress at work, or they're not eating the proper food."

World cup. Bossman. Cornflakes. Hmm. "Burning your candle at both ends?" I suggested.

The doctor looked at me carefully. "Sometimes I think some patients aren't just burning both ends—they're burning holes in the middle, too."

Point taken.

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Dorm Living for Professionals Comes to San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — In search of reasonable rent, the middle-class backbone of San Francisco — maitre d’s, teachers, bookstore managers, lounge musicians, copywriters and merchandise planners — are engaging in an unusual experiment in communal living: They are moving into dorms.

Starcity is renovating two large buildings in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to turn into dorm rooms for the middle class.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall and having no individual kitchen or living room is becoming less weird for some of the city’s workers thanks to Starcity, a new development company that is expressly creating dorms for many of the non-tech population.

Starcity has already opened three properties with 36 units. It has nine more in development and a wait list of 8,000 people. The company is buying a dozen more buildings (including one-star hotels, parking garages, office buildings and old retail stores), has raised $18.9 million in venture capital and hired a team of 26 people. Starcity said it was on track to have hundreds of units open around the San Francisco Bay Area this year, and thousands by 2019.

These are not micro-units, nor are they like WeWork’s WeLive housing developments, where residents have their own small kitchens, living rooms and bathrooms but share common event space and industrial appliances for parties. These are not single-family homes that are being used as group houses.

Instead, Starcity residents get a bedroom of 130 square feet to 220 square feet. Many of the buildings will feature some units with a private bath for a higher rent. But Jon Dishotsky, Starcity’s co-founder and chief executive, said a ratio of one bathroom for every two to three bedrooms makes the most sense for large-scale affordability. The average one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco rents for $3,300 a month, but Starcity rooms go for $1,400 to $2,400 a month fully furnished, with utilities and Wi-Fi included.

“If you think about the most private things that you do, a lot of them are related to the bathroom,” said Mr. Dishotsky, 34. “So that’s probably the hardest part.”

CEO and co-founder Jon Dishotsky, on the roof of a dorm room building.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Starcity’s target demographic makes $40,000 to $90,000 a year. Most of the residents, who range in age from their early 20s to early 50s, have no political philosophy around communes nor any previous experience in them. Moving in was a practical decision they each made. But after they arrive, what they are most surprised by is how much the building changes them.

‘I Was Looking for More Meaning’

One recent night, the Mission Street house gathered to celebrate a set of birthdays, and there in a party hat was Carla Shiver, 38.

Carla Shiver with her dog, Stanford, in her unit at the Mission Street house.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Last year, Verizon eliminated Ms. Shiver’s job in Albany, Ga., but offered to transfer her to San Francisco to work at a store. Ms. Shiver, who makes about $85,000 a year, knew she could never afford a house here but moved anyway.

“People talk all the time about what they dream of, and I decided to stop talking about it and just do it,” Ms. Shiver said. “I was looking for more meaning.”

She divorced her husband, packed her Yorkie Pomeranian, Stanford, in the car and drove west.

The idea of sharing a bathroom was initially alarming, but the pictures of the house looked nice and Ms. Shiver wanted to meet new friends. For $2,200 a month, she now rents a Starcity room with a queen-size bed, a bedside table and a chair.

She said she could not imagine any other life.

“I’ve run a household; I’ve done the bills; I’ve mowed the yard, and I don’t want to be responsible again,” Ms. Shiver said. “I want to paint and learn how to make ramen noodles. And when we run out of tinfoil, there’s just more tinfoil.”

The Starcity community manager (a.k.a. the building manager) is extremely involved in household affairs, dropping off care packages when someone is sick and organizing birthday parties. If tenants sign up for premium services, Starcity will do their laundry for $40 a month, clean rooms for $130 a week and even arrange for dog day care. For many residents, the arrangement does not feel temporary.

The communal kitchen at the Starcity Nottingham House.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Shared bathrooms at the Starcity Nottingham House.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

“I never thought I could live like this,” Ms. Shiver said. “But the more I live here, the freer I feel.”

She said she had not locked her bedroom door once since moving in, and most days when she gets home from work, a roommate has taken her dog into the shared living room. She said she hardly thought about the dorm-style bathroom setup, that there had never been a line for a shower, and that the building was like a family.

“This afternoon we’re going to the Exploratorium,” she said, referring to the science museum located at Pier 15.

Mr. Dishotsky’s Awakening

Mr. Dishotsky looked very much the part one morning as he walked into a building site.

Wearing muddy leather boots, black jeans and a hard hat, he examined Mason Street, formerly a residential hotel that served homeless and low-income people in the Tenderloin neighborhood. It will soon be 71 Starcity units.

The Tenderloin, a traditionally working-class and diverse neighborhood with a large arts scene and a sizable homeless population, has been slowly gentrifying, leading to rising tensions. (Most of Starcity’s residents are white.) On the sidewalk outside Mr. Dishotsky’s construction zone that morning, there were used needles and several tents.

He paced through the first floor’s 2,500-square-foot living room. The basement will be a communal kitchen, with a lineup of industrial sized refrigerators.

The only thing people really need to do alone is sleep, he said.

“What are the things you can do with other people? Eat food, drink wine, watch TV,” he said. “You don’t need to do that in your own unit alone, so why pay for it?”

Mr. Dishotsky in the Tenderloin neighborhood, where Starcity is renovating two large buildings. CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Painters work on one of Starcity’s dorm renovations in the Tenderloin neighborhood.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Mr. Dishotsky grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., where housing prices have soared and the median home value is now more than $3 million. His parents were both teachers and left-wing political activists living in an intentional community in the late 1960s before they bought a house for $50,000.

After Mr. Dishotsky graduated from college, he spent a decade at a commercial real estate firm making deals until one day in 2015, he had a crisis. His friends were leaving town. The arts scene was fading. He saw a political cause and an economic opportunity.

“My mom got shot once protesting for what she believed in,” he said. “And here I am building offices.”

So he quit. He wanted to build something that, at market rate, would be affordable.

When Mr. Dishotsky first tried to get a bank loan for his new type of pared-down housing, he was turned away by 40 lenders.

“They were like, ‘Who would live this way?’” he said. “We’re like, ‘It’s everybody, it’s normal people you know.’”

A couple blocks away was the Ellis Street building, a former bathhouse turned into medical offices that became a vacant property. Another developer had tried to turn it into 11 luxury condos. Mr. Dishotsky’s pitch was 52 dorm rooms.

The move was both idealistic and practical. Because of arcane permitting rules and neighborhood associations that push against new developments, building new housing in San Francisco is painfully slow. But workers keep flooding the city, so roommates jam tighter into existing housing, already sharing bathrooms and renting living rooms as bedrooms. Mr. Dishotsky said he decided to build for what was already the city’s reality.

At the Ellis Street site, his team is digging down about a level and a half to make a basement lounge. Each floor has a communal kitchen for eight to 15 people. He’s working with his co-founder, Mohammad Sakrani, 30, on new beds that can be hoisted up and suspended from the ceiling during the day. They are also trying to design modular bathrooms and even entire bedrooms that can be “plugged in” to buildings.

Inside the communal kitchen at Starcity’s Mission House, where residents gathered for “wine night.”CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Ms. Ndrepepaj’s New Friends

In Starcity’s South of Market building, known as Gilbert House, which has a reputation for being the party house, tenants call themselves the Gilbertines.

Migerta Ndrepepaj, 25, the headwaiter at the Nob Hill Club at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel, said her favorite tradition was Sunday family days when the housemates cook together and go on adventures like renting go-karts.

“That makes us sound like college kids,” Ms. Ndrepepaj said. “But we’re not.”

Migerta Ndrepepaj, right, hangs out with her Starcity housemates in the kitchen of their building.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

For the annual San Francisco race and parade Bay to Breakers, the housemates rented sets of four-seater tandem bikes and cruised the city. For Halloween, they dressed as characters from “Alice in Wonderland” (Ms. Ndrepepaj was the White Rabbit). Recently, they all went to Lake Tahoe to a house that Starcity supplied.

“You don’t have to think up plans anymore because they kind of do it for you,” she said. “And now, I live with my best friends.”

The units are fundamentally not fancy, but Starcity adds accents that gives the spaces a trendy millennial look. Furniture is a midcentury-modern aesthetic. Plants hang in concrete pots on the walls alongside art that residents make on painting nights.

“I feel like I’m in a relationship with everyone I live with,” Ms. Ndrepepaj said. “If their day is bad, your day is bad.”

A Birthday Party

One evening back at Starcity’s Mission House, Rachel Haltom, 22, an account executive at Yelp, baked a birthday cake with Steph Allen, 24, a fashion boutique merchandise planner, for a housemate.

Ms. Haltom had never made meringue, but Chris Maddox, 27, a writer, had come home and took over the egg-white whipping. One tenant announced a secret crush on another, and there was debate about the merits. They joked about alcoholic seltzer water, a new trend they all agreed was absurd, as Ms. Allen drank one.

Residents and guests in the communal kitchen at the Mission House gathered for a birthday party.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Before Starcity, Mr. Maddox paid $4,100 a month for a one-bedroom apartment and worked near constantly as chief executive of Seneca Systems, a start-up that provided software for local governments.

What he wanted was to be a writer. Now, he pays $1,900 a month and lives in a cluttered bedroom with a bed, a record player and an overflowing bookshelf.

A glimpse into a Starcity room with a loft bed.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Katherine McKim with her dog, Zoey, in her room at the Mission House.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Katherine McKim, 37, came home with her dog, Zoey, who trotted around the kitchen. Ms. McKim had worked for Penguin Random House in New York but always admired the San Francisco-based publisher Chronicle Books, so when she and her husband divorced, she packed up and moved out. (There are quite a few divorcées in Starcity.)

“Everybody told me housing in San Francisco was really expensive, but I was like, ‘I live in New York, how much more expensive can it be?’” she said. “I was a bit cocky.”

Now, for $2,050 a month, she has space for a dog bed for Zoey, a full-sized bed for herself, a TV, a mini fridge and a sink.

Every other Wednesday is “wine night.” An upcoming Tuesday is “kombucha and yoga night.” On Feb. 14, it was “pal-entines day,” planned and hosted by Starcity.

Nellie Bowles covers tech and internet culture from San Francisco. Before joining The Times, she was a correspondent for “VICE News Tonight.” @nelliebowles

NELLIE BOWLES

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