#desperate to get out but unable to break free from his mom and what society puts on his shoulders so instead he’s this.

[barklikeagod]

i think fundamentally benson doesn’t really want to hurt anyone it’s just the way he reacts to trauma like he seeks to have that control even while completely out of it but i think francis… is someone who maybe enjoys violence and the power it gives him when he otherwise feels so powerless. i don’t think he’s remorseful at all…

[dozing-marshmallow]

Hi!! Love the fic that you wrote of reader visiting Chris in prison. Could you write an angsty follow-up of reader finally breaking up with him after he gets out of prison with her being fed up with his unablity to change his negative thoughts and actions.

Ouchhh! Quite angsty, indeed!

HEY EVERYONE! Sorry for my long due absence. I’m currently in the middle of exam season, so that’s been taking up majority of my time, but I can say with certainty that afterwards (in four weeks), I’ll be free to post as frequently as I did before and complete all the requests I received! Thank you all for being so patient, and I hope you enjoy part 2 of this one shot!

Content warning, this one shot involves dysfunctional relationships, so please read at own risk.

CHRIS MCLEAN IN JAIL PART 2- ANGST

“(Y/NNNNN)!” your sweet separated husband exclaims, fixing his arms around you on his return home,“It’s so great to be back again!”

“H-Hi Chris...” you cough, squeezing him back,“How do you feel?”

“Better!” he chirped, patting your spine,“You know, I actually feel like a changed person!”

“Really?” Yeah right.

He nods, pulling away, that grin of his never ageing,“Yep! I realllyyy feel like a functioning member of society, ready to amend and give back!”

Yeah right.

You never thought you would be in the back kitchen with Chef about this.

Two years after his first release.

That’s right.

With heavy bags and sore limbs, you desperately explain,“I’ve tried to convince him to see a therapist or go to marriage counselling sessions with me, but he doesn’t listen!” you wince down to the ground. That word “marriage” felt more like “Hell” to you,“I feel like he’s getting worse and worse...”

“What can you do, (Y/N)? By law, he’s a grown man. No one, not even his mom can tell him what to do.” Chef Hatchet grunted, slicing some potatoes, as though he was not surprised,“Have you considered divorce?”

Divorce!,“That’s ridiculous, Chef. You know you can’t just file a divorce whenever you want. Marriage is a lifetime commitment and I still see the man I love.”

“And it’s that he’s takin’ advantage of.” That knife went blunter this time around,“He thinks it’s okay to go about like a criminal, because he has the money and popularity to get out of it, but if you walk out on him, he’ll eventually realise what he’s lost. I’m dead serious. You keep sticking by him like this, he’ll never change.”

“Hm...” that was an interesting way of thinking, you’ll admit. Maybe it was time to start looking into divorce? But... “What if that approach just turns out for the worst? You know how he is. He’ll turn the tables and play victim, putting the blame on me for not being strong enough to support him and for breaking my promise for making my love conditional-“

Chef looks at you like the pieces were threatening to cut your fingers off,“Do you even hear yourself as you speak about him?”

You stop. 

Dang it, he had a point,“But divorce... It still feels a bit too drastic. Besides, I want to give him a chance.” you offer a strong smile.

He paused entirely in his vegetable slicing this time,“A chance?”

Oh... Yes, you’ve given him plenty of chances already. You force the smile to stay on, as convincing as you tried,“W-We’ll just see how it goes. Besides, I still really wanna make this work.”

Your husband’s so-called best friend shakes his head, leaving you with a pitiful glimmer in his eye,“You’re a good woman, (Y/N). You don’t deserve this.”

Well, you wish you listened to him sooner.

And at some point, you couldn’t take it anymore.

So one day, when you got your suitcase ready and your temporary accommodation sorted in secret, you mustered the courage to break it off.

Your heart was leaping. From what? Anxiety? Excitement? Both? You’ll never know.

It took a lot to get this far. You were going to see it through the end.

No matter how messy it will be.

Obviously when you gently touched on Chris’ behaviour as the reason why you were filing for divorce, he tried denying it,“What are you talking about? I’m a changed man! Prison’s changed me for the better!”

Oh please,“Unless it’s Opposite Day, you should not be using that word.”

You weren’t afraid and that’s what startled him,"N-Now who gave you the right to declare the end of this relationship?! Only I get to choose whether to throw you out on the street or keep you around!” he then strangely turned his head to lean the smooth skin on his cheekbone in your face,“Now give me a kiss."

You almost puke in your mouth,“I’m serious, Chris. I want nothing to do with you anymore.”

“Serious? What do you know about serious? You don’t understand anything!” he barked, slamming his fist on the table.

Your eyelids remained just halfway down,“I understand plenty.”

“No, you don’t! You don’t understand that this is a really dumb decision! We’ve had so many great memories (Y/N), you and I!” his defensive tone morphs into a tone of love,“I love you so much, more than Total Drama ratings! And you give meaning to my life, more than any show I’ve ever hosted!”

There it is. He says all these words then treats you like a broken clock. You made sure he witnessed your sight tap on the papers you laid out for him.

“You’re totally being dramatic! In the worst way possible! I literally give you the life, not even middle class peasants can dream of, and this is what you do to me!?” he was raising his voice. The sign of desperation,“How do you think I feel? Have some respect!”

Respect, huh? You scoffed, rolling the pen further to him,“Oh I’ve tried to be respectful, Chris. In fact, I would much rather live as a “middle class peasant” than live with you any longer.”

He gasps, before snarling,“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.” Chris was too arrogant to get physical with you, and you knew that. The worst he was gonna do is throw petty insults at you.

But he took a scarier approach. He wasn’t fuming or swearing or raving; a smile drew on his lips instead as he sprinkled sugar laced words in your direction.

“Awww. Don’t let your anger speak for you, darling. You know sooner or later, you’re gonna regret ending us like this. And I won’t let that happen. I won’t let you regret losing me. Losing us,” now he has your waist in his arm,“Come on sweetheart, talk to me. I know you just need someone to listen.”

Listen. Is that a fucking joke?

Adoration emitted from his eyes into yours,“We can talk about this. We can talk and exchange forgiveness like we always do. Because we love each other. We’ll come around to see eye to eye and I’ll forgive you for being so annoying.” His other hand begins to comb your hair,“We can forget this ever happened and I’ll even treat you to an awesome date night. I know you really love those, and I would be more than happy to give it to you, as your beloved husband.”

...The thought was tempting.

TAKE YOUR FILTHY HAND OFF ME.

But that was a lot more motivating.

“Nice try. Your empty promises won’t work on me this time.” you push him away. That’s it. You’re strong, you’re strong, you’re strong!,“I don’t need your money. Or your time. I can do fine on my own.”

He stopped running his hand in your hair. Oh, the pride you felt when you watched his bottom lip quiver! You could watch the scene over and over again.

Your instinct to smirk is quickly cowered when Chris shoves you away, thankfully not so forceful to make you lose balance completely as he huffed, that charming persona displaced by his true ugly.

“You want your stupid divorce? Fine!” He angrily scratches the papers with his signature,“There’s your stupid divorce! Now get out of my sight before I change my mind! Only a stupid whore like you would go through with making the awesomest celebrity in the world give up on you! You better not come crawling back after selling your body around for six dollars!”

Wow! Who knew he would resort to sexualising you in such a derogatory way to try get a reaction from you? “No... That’s not true! You know I would never do that! I’m more than just my body!”

“I’ll take the six dollars over you any day.” Hah! Who cares what he had to say? He’s not your husband anymore!

He gritted his teeth as he witnessed you leave his mansion one last time,“You’re ruined, you hear me!? I’ll make sure you lose your job and never find one again!” That’s not true. That’s not true,“I’ll see to it that you live on animal carcasses disposed by yours truly for the rest of your moping days, in conditions more suffocating than maximum prison!”

Such is the behaviour of a scumbag who lost control.

That was the right thing.

Thank Heavens you had your loyal friends and your own ethical job. If any of these things were different, even by a tiny bit, you probably would have still been stuck with Chris McLean. Chained. Trapped. Miserable.

This was the right thing.

You don’t want to think about what could have happened. The important thing was, you got out of it, and he wasn’t your problem anymore. Yet a part of you felt so dissatisfied with how the whole ordeal went. I thought I would feel more different... Why do I still feel something missing? Is this actually the end of our life together?

And your mind, learning from the worst, continued the cycle of torment. Was that really the best way to end things? Why didn’t you leave sooner? Was it really the right choice? Why did you waste so much with him? Were you still in love with him? Is it really too late to start over with love again? Did you really make the worst choice yet by leaving him?

You take a deep breath, and stare back into the eyes of the solitary woman, whose worth was still blinded by the thorns of that demon.

Her brain is pounding from the silence. This might take some getting used to.

You turn the tap on and sigh. For now, you’ll take a nice long shower.

[hamliet]

Yessss, more meta please. How about the repeating fates parents pass on to their children. Lan Xichen ends up like his father, overly generous with belief in good and unable to forgive himself. Jiang Chen ends up much like his mother, starved of love. Jin Guangyao dies in the same manner of "poetic justice" he did to his father.

Me opening this ask: 

OUCH. 

It’s true, though. *cries*

Thank you for an MDZS ask! Hooray for getting to talk about this amazing story more. And yep. It’s extremely painful. But as I said here, the connections these three have–Lan XiChen with his brother, Jiang Cheng with his own brother and nephew, and even Jin GuangYao with Lan XiChen–give me hope for them to move forward in the ways their parents did not. 

In the cases of Lan XiChen and Lan WangJi’s father and Madame Yu, Jiang’s mom, they were restricted by the rules of society. Lan QiRen, Lan XiChen and Lan WangJi’s uncle, is extremely legalistic to the point where I’d say he appears to be entirely missing the spirit of the laws in favor of the letters of the laws. Not that he’s a bad person per se, and he’s notably the only one from the older generation who survives the story, but he doesn’t exactly seem likely to have reached out to his brother. Lan WangJi, on the other hand, breaks the rules repeatedly for people he loves. He breaks them to protect Wei WuXian, and he breaks them to save A-Yuan, and he breaks them to sleep with and then marry Wei WuXian. Because Lan WangJi understands the spirit of the laws as opposed to just the letter–the laws are there to protect people, not to hurt them and isolate them. Thus I think the story offers the possibility that Lan WangJi will eventually help Lan XiChen forgive himself.

As for Madame Yu and Jiang Cheng, both of them do wind up treating those they love most with the most scorn and causing issues for them. In one of the side chapters, however, which takes place post-novel, Wei WuXian actually encourages Jin Ling to listen to his uncle, because he knows Jiang Cheng loves Jin Ling. Madame Yu, however, never had the chance to show Jiang Cheng nor Wei WuXian that she cared, thanks to the Wen Sect’s oppression. Ironically they are the reason Wei WuXian knows she did care for him, and they are the reason she never got to grow, because they killed her. But there are no oppressive structures (currently) in society when the novel ends, so there’s some improvement, and the hope is that Jiang Cheng will be able to express himself at some point, and just maybe tell Wei WuXian the truth. 

Because in reality Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian are extremely similar: they both want to prove themselves, and they both strive to earn love from those around them. They just channel it differently: Wei WuXian covers it up with laughs and smiles and jokes, and Jiang Cheng acts like he hates everyone so it doesn’t matter that they all hate him. Wei WuXian repeatedly notes his promise to Madame Yu to protect Jiang Cheng at the cost of his own life if necessary, and repeatedly expresses that he feels indebted to both Madame Yu and Jiang FengMian for dragging him off the streets. His resulting self-sacrificial martyr complex behavior is hardly surprising. Meanwhile, Jiang FengMian’s favoring of Wei WuXian at the expense of Jiang Cheng and projecting of his dislike of his wife onto his son results in Jiang Cheng trying desperately to beat Wei WuXian at something, anything, to earn his father’s love. Even after his parents have long been dead and buried, that hasn’t changed. 

But Wei WuXian doesn’t need to prove himself to Lan WangJi, and that’s how he moves beyond this complex. He’s actually notably at his worst around Lan WangJi and expresses that he would never have dared to do half the things he did if he knew Lan WangJi felt the way he did–and yet, even thinking Wei WuXian was cruelly mocking him for his love for him, Lan WangJi does not abandon him. And the thing is, Wei WuXian and Jin Ling aren’t terribly likely to give up on Jiang Cheng either–not necessarily because of a promise, but because Wei WuXian does love his brother, and Jiang Cheng does love him. So I think there is hope for Jiang Cheng to recover too.

Jin GuangYao is a bit of a different case, since he’s dead so obviously there’s no hope for him to heal. But his father, Jin GuangShan, loved no one by ‘loving’ everyone, and coveted power and sex pretty much constantly. When Jin GuangYao kills him, it’s in a terrible way. And Jin GuangYao dies at the hands of the brother he killed–but his last action is to push Lan XiChen away, to save the one person he did truly love. I mean, he says “I have done all these things and more, but I never once thought of hurting you!” So in that way, he at least showed humanity by saving his one connection with his humanity. 

Connection is kind of at the heard of MDZS. It’s what enables Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian to escape their personal demons, it leads them out of society’s traps, it prevents total genocide by enabling Lan SiZhui to survive, it saves Jin Ling from a life of bitterness like his uncle and grandmother before him by enabling him to make friends after all, and to forgive Wei WuXian and Wen Ning. When you love people, however you love them–romantically, platonically, fraternally, familial–it enables you to break free of society’s rules and curses of repeating the future (because until Jin GuangYao was stopped, he was well on his way to creating Wen Sect 2.0). 

And the juniors aren’t repeating this cycle at all. They’re sneaking out to go on night hunts with Wen Ning, they’re very obviously cheering for Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian’s relationship, etc. 

So anyways, while the novel ends with those definitive parallels, I think it’s also hopeful in its ending that society is changing slowly, and that just because things look to be repeating doesn’t mean they’re doomed to. As I said in my post on the last chapter’s raw translation:

we don’t need to see Lan XiChen recover from Jin Guang-Yao’s betrayal and emerge from his seclusion (which is a parallel to how his father secluded himself), nor do we need to see Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian actually reconcile to believe that they will get there. Because the novel shows us they will get there, and that Lan XiChen will not repeat his father’s life, through showing us not just how Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian broke away from what society told them, but through showing us that Lan SiZhui, Jin Ling, Lan JingYi, and the other juniors are already making choices to go against society and do what’s right. We have faith that society is going to shift slowly, and that the connections characters like Lan XiChen and Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian have will bring them through their pain; their journeys just aren’t over yet.

[mlpdestinyverse]

“A Helping Hand”

In the face of uncertainty, Eventide Twister finds the courage to aid another kid in need.

Feat: Eventide Twister,  Monochrome

Story and Description Under The Cut

-Playing with some stray grass blades in her lap, Eventide awkwardly glances between her best friend, Heather Tart, and two unrecognizable fillies from another class as they sit together in a circle during recess. She quietly listens in as they heartily chat away about different things, from class to hobbies to the latest trends. As much as she wants to add in her own input, a wave of nervousness swallows her words when she notices how deep in conversation the three already are. She finds herself feeling self-conscious, far too aware of the two strangers she had never spoken to before. Eventide had noticed that her friend had been befriending the fillies for the past two weeks. She only wished Heather could have warned her before having them meet up with them during their half-hour break outside.- Filly 1: -raises eyebrow and smiles- You’re really quiet, Eventide. Eventide Twister: -perks up a bit at the sudden acknowledgement. But before she can respond, she hears Heather laugh beside her before giving the top of Eventide’s head a light pat Heather Tart: Pft, she’s always like that. Filly 2: (?) -glances at Eventide- Well, what about you? What kind of music do you like? Eventide: (!) -finds herself smiling excitedly at the subject- Oh! Ireallylikesongswithpiano! Or really nice guitar! My mom knows how to play guitar and she’s been trying to teach me but now she might schedule piano lessons for- Heather: -quickly interjects, wincing as she quietly hisses- Slow down, Eve. Eventide: -halts completely, glancing at Heather to find her friend eyeing her with a frown. She can’t help but stare, bewildered and taken aback. Never before had Heather ever corrected her. Turning back to the other two fillies, she realizes they’re glancing at each other before looking back at her without a word. Feeling a pang of guilt, Eve looks away- Sorry… Filly 1: It’s okay- ooh! -both she and the other filly notice another group of kids - presumably their friends - on the other side of the playground. One of the colts waves them over- Sorry, we gotta go guys! Filly 2: -stands up with the other filly, and waves at them as they move away- See ya Heather! Bye Eventide! Heather: -grins and waves enthusiastically- Bye guys!! Eventide: -smiles shyly and waves as well. Admittedly, she feels relieved that they’re alone once more. She looks up at Heather as the filly giggles happily and stands. When Heather holds out her hand, Eve happily gratefully takes it, pulling herself up- Heather: -blissfully swings her and Eventide’s hands together- SEE, I told you! Aren’t they the coolest?? They’re, like, the smartest girls in our grade and- -Heather yelps as she turns and ends up tripping over a stray root. Eventide tries to pull her back by her hand and is ready to steady her, but Heather manages to balance herself- Eventide: Areyouokay?? Heather: Uuugh, I’m fine…-continues to tug Eventide along by her hand- I didn’t see it, that’s all… Eventide: -frowns, moving to match her friend’s pace- Shouldn't you wear your glasses? Why’d you take them off? Heather: -pouts- They make me look lamer than I already am… Eventide: (!) Hey! You’renotlame! Heather: -scoffs, eyelids drooping- Maybe. But being a part of a family of hicks is. -groans and slaps a hand over her eyes, sliding it down- I’m telling you, Eve, I can’t WAIT until the day I can live it up in Canterlot and get away from this stupid farm life. It’s so embarrassing… -As Heather frowns, looking rather distant as they walk (forcing Eve to keep an extra eye on the ground), Eventide finds herself...worrying about her friend. Time and time again, the lavender filly has vented about how she felt about her family; what it was like to feel like a nobody in such a large, expansive family tree like her own, unable to stand out amongst her many cousins. How she desperately wanted to be more than just a farm hand like her parents and most of her family. Not enjoying the sight of her friend in one of her negative moods, Eve can’t help but try to offer positivity- Eventide: You can be an Apple AND be cool! Look at Applebloom and Applejack! One day you’ll be real big like them, and- Heather: Hmph...Applejack’s really annoying and just forces me to do farm work when I don’t want to...it doesn’t matter if she’s friends with the princess, she’s like, the lamest out of all of Princess Twilight’s friends. And Applebloom might be kind of popular, but she’s still just some farmer with her weird accent and dirty clothes and whatever. I doubt anyone takes her as seriously as her other friends. Eventide: -looks at the ground nervously. She doesn’t agree with those statements, recalling how kind both mares were towards her, but doesn’t want to accidentally worsen her friend’s fragile mood- Oh… Heather: -sighs dreamily, cupping her freckled face with her free hand- But it’ll be different for me! No one will ever see me as just another Apple! -holds out her hand in front of her, as if she could already see the future- One day, everyone will be seeing Heather Tart walking with Canterlot’s greatest socialites and nobles!! I’ll be going to fancy parties and talking to all of the famous ponies, and even the princesses! Eventide: -smiles, squeezing the filly’s hand. This is the side of her best friend that she admires and loves seeing; the one that cherishes her dreams- You’ll totally get there! You’re really good at blending in and talking to ponies! Heather: -grins, clearly priding in that comment- It IS my talent~ -gestures with her head towards the group of kids in the distance that were no doubt a blob of color in her eyes- Which is AWESOME, cause I read that knowing how to make social connections is important if you want to make it to the top~!  -meeting Eventide’s eyes, her own magenta orbs glitter with ambition- And if I’m going to get to Canterlot’s high society one day, I need to start early. Eventide: -smiles sheepishly- That’ssocool...I wish I had a big dream like you. I like doing a lot of things, but I still don’t really know what I want to do… -Eventide glances down at her cutie mark displayed on her shoulder; a colorful twister with out-of-place music notes dotting the design. How that aspect connects to her talent is beyond her. No matter what she did, looking at it still felt weird. To think flying fast enough to catch Ms. Pinkie Pie's stray, flying cake at her own birthday party the previous year was all it took for her to gain her mark (it was a shame that the pretty dress her mother had bought her for the occasion managed to get torn on twigs in the process) . Flying fast was nice, but what was she supposed to do with that talent? Everypony kept recommending the Wonderbolts, but the thought just...didn’t click with her.- Heather: -chuckles and shrugs- Well, whatever you end up doing, learning to stop being so socially awkward could help. Eventide: -winces, feeling a bit of discomfort in the comment. The strange smile Heather flashes her only worsens the feeling, as if the filly found some amusement in her own remark- Idotry... Heather: Psh, well try a little harder! Eventide: -lowers her gaze, uncertain how to respond and still feeling discomfort- Heather: -hums obliviously, swinging their hands again as they follow the back wall of Friendship Elementary and head towards the side of the building where the entrances to the outdoor bathrooms were- Anyway! You’ll go inside the bathroom with me, right?? It’s all creepy and quiet in this corner- -Heather quiets when the two of them hear some voices from around the corner of the building. While at first Eventide assumes some other kids were either leaving or entering the bathrooms themselves, the two fillies slow to a halt when they begin to make out voices- ???: Please give it back! ???2: Whoops! Missed it again! ???: Stop throwing it like that! ???3: HAH, come on, this way! Eventide: -exchanges wary glances with Heather before the two of them quickly tiptoe to the corner together, peering around it-

-She immediately sees an older filly and an older colt throwing a blue notebook to one another. Between them, a shorter pegasus with dark hair and light streaks turns from one kid to the other, their rounded, stressed green gaze following the notebook- ‘Bullies...even Princess Twilight’s school has them.’’ Heather: -cringes, whispering- Yikes...nevermind, let’s go. Eventide: (!) -whispers- Shouldn’twehelpthem? Heather: -pulls her head back in disbelief, whispering harshly- Wha- no! They’ll just go after us like that kid! -tugs at her hand- Come on! Eventide: -brows narrowing back, Eve can’t bring herself to budge from her spot. Hearing the kid’s pleas, watching how increasingly upset they’re becoming, Eventide feels a great deal of worry, as well as anger, as she watches the scene- ‘What would mom do…’ …-biting her lip, she soon finds her body moving from their hiding place, ignoring Heather hissing her name. With clenched fists at her sides, she manages to find her voice- Hey! -All three kids turn their heads towards the voice, only to find Eventide standing there, wide-eyed and shaking like a leaf- Colt: Psh… -raises an eyebrow and rests his hands, one still holding the notebook, onto his hips- What? What do you wa- ???: -realizing the colt is distracted, they dart for the notebook and attempt to grab it back- Colt: (!) Ha, no way-! -yanks the notebook back. However, the harsh movement and tugging causes the notebook to tear, leaving a cover and numerous ripped and crumpled pages in his hand- ???: -gasps, staring in horror and distress at the mess- Filly: Well geez, way to overreact kid. Colt: -laughs- Whoops! Hey, you’re the one who pulled first-! Heather: I'M TELLING PRINCIPLE TWILIGHT!! -the three ponies, including Eventide, turn towards the direction of the loud voice, only to find no one there. The sound of quick retreating footsteps around the corner can be heard, causing the two older kids to exchange worried glances- Filly: W-wait, we were just playing! Colt: -throws the papers in his hand to the ground and begins running, completely ignoring Eventide as he passes her and quickly rounds the corner with his friend in tow- Yeah stop, it was an accident!! Eventide: -while she feels some worry for her friend, she hears soft rustling and turns, seeing the remaining pegasus on their knees to pick up the scattered ripped papers. Taking in their disheartened expression, Eve moves to pick up the closest paper to her and moves to kneel by the kid. Holding out the paper, she smiles sadly- Here. ???: (!) -surprise flashes across their face. Another second passes before they carefully take the paper from her, their voice soft- Thank you… Eventide: They were real jerks…areyouokay? -notices how the kid’s mouth presses into a tight line, their green gaze downcast and only deepening her worry. Yet they nod- W-whathappened? How come you were over here alone with em...? ???: -sighs, gathering the papers into their lap- ...I saw this dragonfly and...really wanted to draw it. It flew over here so I followed it. But I ran into them instead... Eventide: -puzzled- Draw-? -Eve cuts herself off as she picks up a ripped paper she noticed laying behind the kid, her expression full of wonder as she gives it a good look.  A half-finished drawing of a pegasus with bug-like - dragonfly-like- wings stares back at her. Eventide: Holymoly...thisissopretty! ???: -peers at the drawing in her hand. But their expression quickly twists into dismay- No… Eventide: -looks up- W-what’swrong? ???: -balls up their fists in their lap, miserably staring at the ripped paper- I drew that for my friend...h-he said he liked dragonflies the last time I saw him, and he’s been really sad lately so I just- -bites down on their lip and lowers their gaze, tears pricking at the corner of their eyes, their voice coming out hoarser- Now it’s ruined. Eventide: -ears flatten, watching the kid wipe at their eyes with a fist. Newfound determination bubbles up within her and she shoves a hand into one of her vest pockets- Holdon! ???: (?) -glances up at her in confusion- Eventide: -whips out a small roll of clear tape- Therewego! ???: -blinks- ...you...carry tape with you? Eventide: My dad says you can never go wrong with tape. -places a hand on their shoulder, smiling gently- It’llbeokay! Watch! -lays the drawing down and lines up the ripped edges before carefully fixing the rip with tape on both sides. Feels the kid quietly watching- Aaand there! Itstilllooksamazing! And even if you don’t give this one to your friend, maybe it can help you if you want to redraw it? ???: …-slowly exhales- Yeah, that’s...that’s a good idea. -takes their drawing back. Meeting Eventide’s blue gaze, they finally offer her a soft, sincere smile- Thank you… Eventide: -grins cheerily- Mhm! Hey um, what’syourname? ???: Oh...my name’s Monochrome. But it’s kind of long, so um...you can call me Mo, or Momo- Eventide: (!!) -claps her hands together, eyes sparkling- ‘Momo’issocute! Okay! Um, my name’s Eventide Twister! YoucancallmeEve! It’s nice to meet you! Monochrome: -blushes- That's a really pretty name. Um.... -nervously shuffles the papers in their lap- Nice to meet you too... Eventide: How come I’ve never seen you before?? Monochrome: Oh. Well, I’m in 5th grade. Eventide: (!) Whoa, you’re two years older! Monochrome: Yeah. And I usually draw during recess. -shifts their eyes away- I’m...not really good at talking to ponies. Eventide: Aw, that’s okay…-glances down and sheepishly rubs the back of her hand- I’mthesame… Monochrome: -stares at her curiously- Really…? Eventide: Mhm. I get real nervous talking to anyone I don’t know. But it kinda helps to have a friend with me- -both Eventide and Mo glance up upon hearing the ringing of the school bell. Standing up, Eve offers Monochrome a hand, one they stare at for a moment before gently taking, pulling themself up- Monochrome: Well...thanks again, Eventide. -smiles softly- Bye then... -begins walking away, the remnants of their drawings and notebook clutched against their chest- Eventide: (!) I’llseeyouaround! -when Mo turns to give her a puzzled look, as if surprised by those words, she continues with a bright beam- I wanna see more of your drawings next time! Maybe we can doodle together! -Something about that lights up Monochrome’s eyes, and they eagerly nod and smile back. As they begin to rush off and round the corner, Eventide notices them suddenly jerk back, as if almost running into something. Ducking their head, Mo murmurs a quick apology before walking around whatever is around the corner. To Eventide’s relief and delight, Heather walks into view, though she eyes Monochrome with a strange look as they retreat.- Eventide: Heather!! -runs towards her- Heather (!): -opens her arms and catches Eventide as she throws her own arms around her. She snickers- Well geez, missed me much? Eventide: -pulls back to clasp Heather's hands between her own- I’msogladyou’reokay. Did those bullies catch up with you? Heather: PFT, catch up? I hid behind the first door I saw! -smirks and pulls her hands back to cross her arms in satisfaction- They were dumb enough to go running around for somepony they never even saw! Eventide: Huh…? You...didn’t tell a teacher? Heather: -scoffs- No way...! I’m no snitch, Eve! I already told you they’d start picking on us if we messed with them! If that kid wants to report it, they can speak up for themself. Eventide: -face twists in confusion, her ears flattening- A-areyousure...? Heather: 'Course I am. Speaking of, I saw you were making friends with the loner?? Eventide: ‘Loner’…? Heather: Yeah, that kid. The one who just sits in a corner all quiet and writes stuff in their notebook. Eventide: Oh! Theirname’sMonochrome, andtheyactuallydraw! They’re really good! Heather: Eeeh sure… Eventide: And they’re really nice! You should meet them! Heather: -laughs uncomfortably, glancing off to the side while rubbing her arm- Yeah, not really the kind of friend I should make, Eve. -raises an eyebrow, that strange amused smile on her muzzle again- But I guess you being friends with them kind of makes sense? Eventide: (...??) -hesitantly smiles back, not quite understanding- Huh? Heather: (!) -takes Eventide’s hand and begins leading her again- C’mon! We’re gonna be late! Don’t want to miss choir, right~? Eventide: -manages to perk up again at the mention of one of her favorite classes- Ah, right! -following a step behind her friend to their lined up class, she worries about Monochrome, just catching a glimpse of their dark tail as they disappear into the school with their class. New prickles of guilt hits her when she spots the two bullies following the older classes into the building.- ‘Is it...really okay to just say nothing?’

Presenting the day Eventide and Monochrome met as kids, kill me softly. I just want to give a fair warning to the people who will inevitably ship ChromeTwister that I too am fond of this relationship and if different ships can be canon in different AUs, this one is absolutely a thing in some AU of Destinyverse. But in this main canon timeline, it isn't the end-game relationship in mind for either of them. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy their ship of course!! Have fun with different pairings in Destinyverse! Just keep it in mind and um, don't have ship wars? That's all I ask. <xD

If you want a reminder of what their general friendship was like, check out Mo's little speech in "Admirer".

[grimoiregirlsbook]

01:

A Lament For Al’s Pancake World

A wind carries with it no voices, no songs, no texture whatsoever. This distilled breath finds its way through crevices unknown to even rats, and how desperately have they burrowed their way into this derelict building. Even as four individuals covered in grime-laden flesh feel the welcomed lick of cool air, any sound is refused.

Characterized by a pout and straight black hair stuck to her skull, Lorelai sits at a table where two companions occupy where her parents once had sat. Across from her would be her daughter, missing, though presumably safe. Instead, there is a man consumed by heat but who can no longer sweat.

Formerly the owner of his town’s only soda shop, the elderly Taylor Doose remains proud of his inability to succumb to death.

Occasionally the man will peer down at his wrist and remember the moment he had lost a majority of his left hand. Chewed away and wrapped up in cloth moistened with blood, he has virtually become useless to his party. To his left, Lorelei’s right, is a thin lad encumbered with exhaustion and a fidgeting leg.

“Oh, Kirk. Would you please stop that incessant…” Taylor exhales and is unable to finish his sentence. His head bobs forward when a chill runs through his body. “That incessant…”

“It’s restless leg syndrome, Taylor, and it’s a common ailment of men between the ages of fourteen and seventy-two.” His tort does not inspire a response. “If we’re really going there, I’d ask you to stop breathing so heavily. The rhythm of my lungs naturally attunes to those who are nearest to me, and if you’re exhaling at a rate above a-hundred-four beats per minute, my anxiety tends to…”

Lorelai raises her hand. Her eyes are shut so tight she can remember what fireworks look like. All three look to her with expectation, perhaps some wisdom or comforting words. “Everybody needs to shut up. Like, right now.”

The fourth occupant of the dinner table pipes up. “I agree. Everyone is bickering like little annoying dogs. Chihuahuas.”

“For once, I think I agree with Mrs. Kim. You are all acting like chihuahuas, the mutant rejects of the animal kingdom.”

Kirk shrugs. “I think they’re sweet.”

“I had a chihuahua growing up,” Taylor’s voice breaks. The three are silent. This is the first time Lorelai paid attention to his tongue: dry, scaly. Something resembling empathy rises in her and she flutters her eyelashes after feeling a lump grow in her throat. “A sweet dog, yes,” he continued. “But infamously difficult to train.

“I remember I must have been ten, maybe twelve. No, eleven. Eleven…” His mind trails away and the story ceases like a water hose gradually losing pressure.

The four return their attention to themselves and the ever-growing hunger in the pit of their stomachs. Lorelai knows she must have lost weight. The way they look at her anymore spikes her self-image issues. She notices how she inadvertently covers her arms and avoids eye contact, more-so now than she ever had in high school.

Another gentle gust rolls in. Her mouth parts to breathe in this cool air that cuts through their sweltering sanctuary. “I think it’s going to rain.”

“Rain always excites me,” Kirk claims with a croak. “Something about the electricity in the air. My body is sensitive enough to feel the change of electromagnetic pressure in the atmosphere. My mother always used to call me her little thunder rod.”

Mrs. Kim frowns, and Lorelai verbalizes what she is unable to muster the strength to say. “Don’t you mean ‘lightning rod’?”

He looks down at the table and creases his browline. “I don’t know.” This distant memory, no longer relevant or clear. “Maybe.”

There is a sound from the other room that stirs them from an incoming depression. Each look to the hallway that connects to the kitchen, sans Taylor who is, instead, viewing a movie under his eyelids. A man, unshaved and tired, emerges with a tray of cold sandwiches. “I scraped the mold off of the bread the best I could. What, you’re going to be picky now?”

Lorelai crosses her arms and watches as the serving tray is placed in the center of the table. This stirs Taylor from his rest. Kirk cocks his head. “Is that safe to eat?”

“Safe?” Luke scoffs. “Nothing’s going to be safe for a while, Kirk. Might as well fast if you’re worried about contamination, especially here. What, have your parents ever heard of canned goods?”

Spawn of Gilmore rolls her eyes. “Well, there. That’s the thing. My parents believe that, by default, nothing from a can is good.”

“Try telling Budweiser that. Here,” he bites down into the corner of a sandwich that was cut in half. Through a full mouth, he insists, “Perfectly safe. Delicious. Eat it.”

Kirk removes himself from the table without a word. Luke frowns. “What, too good for a little bit of mold?”

“Oh, no, never. I am going to wash up, though.”

“You’re going to wash up before eating mold?”

“Even while society falls, we must maintain our dignity by living as we would. Civilized, sanitized. Also,” his shoulders straighten. “I have to pee.”

Mrs. Kim shakes her head and Lorelai turns to her with a dim smile. Mentally, she considers how difficult it has been to comfort the woman who is separated from her daughter as well. Though the bond is different and at times estranged, there is no terror as specific as being uncertain about a loved one’s fate.

She can ascertain, however, that Lane is perfectly fine and more-than-likely holed up in the same stead as Rory. Perhaps they are regaling each other with stories of the olden days. It is possible that they are laughing at a strangely specific observation. It is possible that they are able to survive in the same way her mother is, the same way this room full of people are.

Luke’s voice breaks her from this trance. “Is he okay?” She looks to Taylor, who is now shivering in violent throngs.

“Looks like a totally normal reaction to a zombie bite.”

“Oh, zombie this, zombie that. Spare me. Those are just - just sick people who have gone crazy or something.”

Lorelai’s eyes reduce to a sliver. “You can tell that to my mom. No, feel free! She’s upstairs, waiting for you to tell her that the flesh-craving is just a minor symptom of the common cold.”

He is silent for a moment. Taylor’s groans of pain fill the empty space. “I’m not saying it’s the cold, but…”

“Luke.” She shakes her head, telepathically forcing a suggestion to drop the conversation. He agrees with a snarl and a silent mock. Lorelai ignores her sandwich and focuses her attention to the man opposite her. “Taylor, sweetie, can you hear me?”

The old man blinks, disoriented. His eyes are not trained to any specific point. “Hm. Huh?”

“Do you feel good enough to eat something? It’s no pancake from Al’s Pancake World, but it’s something. Are you thirsty? The taps in the bathrooms still work.” Though there is no verbal response, the state of the man is enough to elicit action. Luke shakes his head when the woman begins to shift in her seat.

“I’ll get it. No, sit. Eat the moldwich.” With confidence -- because at least one of them must have some amount of it -- he quickly walks to the bathroom after grabbing a scotch glass from the late Richard Gilmore’s liquor cart. Remembering the escapade of his companion, he knocks on the door. “Kirk, you gotta let me in.”

There is no response. Luke frowns and tries at the handle, and to his surprise, it opens with ease. He peeks in. “Kirk?” Even though the man is gone, there is evidence of his brief visitation.

Luke cranes his neck and looks into the toilet. He suppresses a gag, rolls his eyes, and turns on the faucet. Nothing comes out.

Back in the dining room, Lorelai is pacing. She attempts to calm herself down by refusing the interior dialogue that struggles to become exterior. She tries to remember how to breathe let alone exhale slow, deep breaths. The panting of Taylor increases over time, and so does her anxiety.

Ms. Kim slams the table with either palm and knocks Lorelai from her trance. The exhausted woman points to the injured man. “Would you stop that? Always breathing -- heh, heh, heh. Just die already!”

“Mrs. Kim!” Lorelai finally allows her lungs to clear from stagnant breath. “That is - that is so mean.”

“I don’t understand why we must keep him around. Look at him! Pale and sick and dying. Where is the gun?”

“No. We’re not… Taylor, hush, sweetie. Nothing’s going to happen.”

Luke passes through the threshold with a still-empty cup. “Uh, everything okay, guys?”

“No!” Mrs. Kim stands up from her seat. “We must kill Mr. Doose before he becomes a monster like the others, like your mother.” She directs a hard glare to Lorelai, who quickly looks away after feeling a paralyzing shock run through her body.

“Oh, nope. No, you don’t.” Luke approaches the hysteric woman and places the empty glass on the table. “You’re not allowed to emotionally torment us when we already have very real, physical torment just outside of these doors.”

Lorelai runs her hands through her thick, graying hair and cups her ears. The voices come muffled now. He continues: “There are solutions other than violence. Plus, between you and me, I’d rather not waste one of our precious bullets on a man that looks like a strong breeze could evaporate him.”

Mrs. Kim raises her chin. “Go on.”

“Okay, good,” he says, relieved. “We can start delegating in a totally cool-headed way. I’m glad to see that we can communicate with each other about this instead of resorting to, you know, murder. There’s always a simple solution.”

“You have no idea what to do, Luke Danes.” The sound of Mrs. Kim’s voice has always cut through him as she was one of the few women to completely intimidate him. Lorelai creases her brow and unlatches her hands from her ears. She crosses them and cocks her hips.

“Oh, come on, Mrs. Kim. Luke of all people not having a plan?” The woman laughs and looks to an unconvinced Mrs. Kim and a nearly comatose Taylor Doose. “That’s - that’s why they call him the man with the plan. Right?”

Not receiving an answer, she verbally prods him once more. “Right, Luke?” He begins to cock his shoulders in a slow shrug. “What? No, no, no.” She rounds the sharp corner of the dinner table, cuts in front of Mrs. Kim, and closes in on the uncertain man.

“Listen, Lorelai,” he begins while rubbing the back of his neck. His voice reduces. “Maybe we should do something about Taylor. I mean, look at the state of him.” She humors him by examining the man; bereft of color, gasping for one of the few instances a breeze could be felt.

She does not respond immediately. Her gaze floats like a transient yellow rubber duck upon a freshly drawn bath. “We have two more bathrooms.”

Luke blinks. “One more time?”

“Two more bathrooms. Mom’s in the upstairs master. The guest bathroom in the hallway is free. I don’t want to put him down here, because, you know, just in case, I guess.”

He looks at her creased face and empathizes with what little energy she has left. This compromise saps her remaining reserves of hope.

Luke chews on the inside of his lower lip and straightens his posture. “I’ll need help getting him upstairs. No, you can stay here. I’ll find Kirk.” An uninvolved Mrs. Kim re-seats herself, but not before grabbing the empty scotch glass. She stares into the bottom and imagines the taste of every liquor it has once held.

“Find Kirk?” Lorelai tilts her head. Her voice still holds passivity. “I thought he was just using the bathroom.”

He shrugs and pulls away from the conversation without another word, leaving Lorelai to stand alone, idly bobbing like the useless rubber duck she hated imagining herself as.

Once again, Luke disappears from the room but his voice can still be heard calling for the missing companion.

He travels up the flight of stairs and knocks on the wall as he does. “Kirk?” His voice projects and cuts through the cement maze that is the Gilmore mansion. “You gotta help me out here.”

Intuitively, he approaches the guest bathroom. Even as his body contours around a wall he is able to see the door cracked and the lights off. He hums inquisitively and feels worry crease his forehead. “Kirk, buddy, you better not be doing anything stupid.”

He waits for a response but instinctively knows that somewhere within this building, Kirk was indeed doing something stupid and perhaps even dangerous. The man considers a mental archive of each possibility and flares his nostrils when one resonates particularly so.

Luke sets off to the master bedroom where a disoriented Emily Gilmore resides. Excommunicated, alone, infected.

He keeps his footsteps quiet as to not alert his companions downstairs. Heel to toe, he deftly navigates the tight labyrinth and eventually happens upon the master bedroom where a soft voice speaks with child-like innocence.

Kirk speaks to the bathroom door. “It’s okay, Mrs. Gilmore. I’m just going to use your sink for a few seconds. Maybe use a hand towel if you have a clean one you’re not using.” He feels a new presence and turns to an angry Luke.

“Jesus, Kirk! Are you insane?”

“I just need to get in there for just a moment, you know? Just a quick moment.” He reaches for the door handle and Luke lurches to swat his hand away. The frail man observes the back of his left hand. “Ow. That’ll probably bruise.”

Luke’s nostrils flare and his mouth parts open to further admonish him, but a thump against the bathroom door causes either man to jump. “Okay. We have to get out of here.”

“That’s probably a fair assessment, but, Luke, the downstairs faucet isn’t working.”

“Don’t wash your hands, then.” Another thump, this time with more force. “I don’t think that door is going to hold. We need to lock her in here.”

Kirk nods and claps his hands together with excitement. “Great! I’ll open this right up and you can distract her while I run in and wash up.”

Incredulous, Luke is unable to prevent Kirk from following through with his own asinine plan. His eyes widen and feels time slow around him as he watches the door swing open to reveal Emily Gilmore.

Sunken cheeks and dim eyes are fixtures on a canvas of skin that has since lost any familiar color. Makeup is smeared from her lips up to just below her right temple. A concave eye is made beauteous by uneven liner and a nude eyeshadow.

As Kirk brings the door to a full pivot, Luke is able to see the damage on the inside of the door: expensive makeup residue patterned within the splintered wood. Dark, unhealthy blood had been exhaled on the walls inside of the bathroom. The shower curtain is mostly dislocated, with few rings remaining intact.

Emily Gilmore locks her remaining eye on the man in front of her. Somewhere deep within her skull spins the few gears that belong to lucidity.

Backward hat, the corpse churns this recursive thought through sickness induced mania. Backward hat, backward hat.

She lunges forward and pauses to regain control of her failing nervous system. Luke backs up in short strides with his hands positioned just inches ahead of his chest. “Emily, Mrs. Gilmore,” he attempts to reason with the woman in a quiet, synthetically calm voice. “Kirk just has to use the bathroom. You can have it back after he’s done…” He cranes his neck around her to watch him hovering over the sink. “After he’s done washing his hands.”

Her lips curl and reveal shattered teeth. The force of her clenched jaw coupled with a bereft of pain receiving faculties has resulted in a loss of all of her front teeth. Her hair, however, is still in pristine form.

Another step forward and she trips over her own feet. This opening is enough for Luke to make an executive decision.

The toe of his boot, having known soil both dry and moist as well as the grease-slicked tiles of his restaurant for decades, is now introduced to the underside of Emily Gilmore’s throat.

The force of his response tears a hole in the woman’s neck. Her weak flesh rips away and Luke’s foot is shallowly burrowed. The woman squelches in pain, the sound muffled and reduced, garbled from the blood that she chokes on through this.

Kirk pokes his head out of the door as Luke heaves the woman off of his shoe. He looks up and furrows his brow with such intensity the man thought it would be better for him to find new residence in the decimated bathroom.

“You son of a bitch,” he barks through gritted teeth. For just a second, he watches the infected woman struggle against the ground. She claws at his ankles, but he steps over her to avoid the simple attacks. As Luke approaches, Kirk reaches to shut the door. “Don’t you dare, Kirk. Don’t you --”

“Get away, you lunatic!”

“Me? I’m the lunatic?”

Just as the metal lock connects with its home and the wooden door meets its frame, the same bloody boot connects with the mullion and collapses the door inwards. Kirk strafes away to avoid the intruder he once considered an ally.

While Luke’s boots are familiar with the concept of hard work and have been purchased with the idea of friction in mind, Kirk’s shoes have only known the feeling of escapism. Loosely connected activities, incomplete schemes. Never once grounded in a shared reality.

They do know now, however, the taste of old blood.

As the heel licks the metallic paste left over from somewhere in Emily’s lungs, the man is able to feel himself fall backward. The nape of his neck wraps over the side of the exposed bathtub where within many jets were installed to provide a comfortable yet exciting bathing experience.

Luke is frozen. He feels the cold drip of terror work its way through his lungs, and then into his esophagus. Dehydrated as he already was, there was even less moisture left on his tongue and none in the back of his throat. He speaks, but his words are made of dust: “Kirk? Are you okay, buddy?”

The man’s body is limp and impossibly contorted. “Kirk?” He hesitates before stepping forward. Luke’s head bobs forward like an unsure cat in an empty alleyway. His heart thrums in triplets -- each third beat further closing his throat.

Kirk’s hands and feet simultaneously twitch. Luke can feel all collected air escape from his lungs in the manner of one second. He is lightheaded and clutches his chest to calm his flailing heart. “Oh, my God. I was really worried there. Here, let me - let me help you up.”

He extends his left hand and uses his right for support against the cool wall. Another full-body twitch from Kirk, but no verbal response. Luke’s fingers wilt and he slowly pulls away. Two more twitches, then a seizure. His nostrils flare and, as if by divine timing, he turns away from Kirk to witness another stressor.

The body of Emily Gilmore had dragged its way out of the bedroom and left with it a trail of mucus and blood. He resolves to deal with her as his top priority but first tries to seal the door to the best of his ability. The hinges were destroyed in his breach and he is still able to clearly see Kirk’s spazzing body.

Luke does not have to travel far to meet up with the tenacious corpse. She hears his footfall and turns to face him. He is not able to look at her for more than a second before feeling nausea overwhelm him.

With a deep breath, he moves to grab her ankles and drag her back into her bedroom. Flecks of loose skin and crumbled teeth are left in her wake.

As he re-enters the room, he notices Kirk has dislodged himself from his previous position. While gripping Emily’s ankles, he keeps a close eye on the ostensibly dead man. “Kirk?” He calls once more. There is a belch as a reply. Luke drops Emily’s feet and quickly shuts the bedroom door before returning to Kirk with anxiety in his chest.

The man is not dead, nor is he alive. The same look as the late Emily Gilmore is etched on his face, sculpted deep within his eyes where there is no intelligent luster, but a drained well of lost sentience. “You too, huh?” Luke breathes this out and feels wasps of guilt swarm his thoughts.

Behind him is a snarling Emily Gilmore, the first of their party to be lost to the terrible and unknown disease. Several feet from Luke is the second, a man whose death could be somewhat beneficial for their longevity. He frowns and idles for a long moment. There is a sharp voice that calls his name.

Lorelai is at the bottom step, too weak to continue more than this. “Luke, are you okay?” There is minor panic in her voice after having heard a strange commotion. In the next room, Taylor’s pained heaving has reduced to calm, short breaths. She thinks about the sick man and wonders if she should feel relieved or even more worried.

Soft steps alert her, but she recovers with a genuine smile as she sets her eyes upon the grizzled but handsome Luke Danes. He tries to smile but his words do not carry with them the confidence they should have. “Hey. You okay?” They travel back to the kitchen with a quickened pace.

“Yes, but you aren’t. Obviously.” Lorelai looks behind her shoulder to examine the staircase. “What’s going on? Where’s Kirk?”

“Alright.” Luke clears his throat. He examines Mrs. Kim from the end of the room staring them down, and then Taylor with raised eyebrows. “He’s looking better.”

Lorelai’s smile acts more as a grimace. She is waiting for him to communicate with her and he picks up on this. “Kirk, erm, he… Yeah, do I really have to say it?”

“What? Yes, you do,” Lorelai’s voice raises and the neurotic woman stands up from her seat once again. He huffs and crosses his arms as Mrs. Kim joins the conversation with wide, speculative eyes. “What happened to him?”

Mrs. Kim scoffs. “Kirk?” He nods with a short sigh.

“Best to just tell you, I suppose. Alright! He freed Emily and -- no, Lorelai, listen. He wanted to wash his hands, and…”

The daughter of the household’s pet corpse looks up. A chandelier catches the corner of her eye. Cobwebs connect to multiple bulbs, once acting as a bridge for eight-legged critters. “She bit him.”

Luke freezes. He examines the woman he had known for as long as he could remember.

Even as many old memories have begun to fade -- holidays, festivals, birthdays, Lorelai remains a fixture in his mind. Every moment he closes his eyes, no matter how tired or distracted, the woman eventually finds her way into his mental cinema.

He sucks his lips for a long time before replying with a slow nod. Luke is unable to bring himself to lie, not out loud, not in his own voice.

[readingsrantsrambles]

An Alternative to Police That Police Can Get Behind

In Eugene, Oregon, a successful crisis-response program has reduced the footprint of law enforcement—and maybe even the likelihood of police violence.

By Rowan Moore Gerety

The Atlantic - December 28, 2020

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/12/cahoots-program-may-reduce-likelihood-of-police-violence/617477/

Photographs by Ricardo Nagaoka

Should American cities defund their police departments? The question has been asked continually—with varying degrees of hope, fear, anger, confusion, and cynicism—since the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day. It hung over the November election: on the right, as a caricature in attack ads (call 911, get a recording) and on the left as a litmus test separating the incrementalists from the abolitionists. “Defund the police” has sparked polarized debate, in part, because it conveys just one half of an equation, describing what is to be taken away, not what might replace it. Earlier this month, former President Barack Obama called it a “snappy slogan” that risks alienating more people than it will win over to the cause of criminal-justice reform.

Yet the defund idea cannot simply be dismissed. Its backers argue that armed agents of the state are called upon to address too many of society’s problems—problems that can’t be solved at the end of a service weapon. And continued cases of police violence in response to calls for help have provided regular reminders of what can go wrong as a result.

In September, for example, new details came to light about the death of a man in Rochester, New York, which police officials had initially described as a drug overdose. Two months before Floyd’s death, Joe Prude had called 911 because his brother Daniel was acting erratically. Body-cam footage obtained by the family’s attorney revealed that the officers who responded to the call placed a mesh hood over Daniel’s head and held him to the ground until he stopped moving. He died a week later from “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint,” according to the medical examiner. Joe Prude had called 911 to help his brother in the midst of a mental-health crisis. “I didn’t call them to come help my brother die,” he has said.

A few weeks after a video showing Daniel Prude’s asphyxiation was made public, police in Salt Lake City posted body-cam footage that captured the moments before the shooting of a 13-year-old autistic boy. The boy’s mother had called 911 seeking help getting him to the hospital. While she waited outside, a trio of officers prepared to approach the home. One of them hesitated. “If it’s a psych problem and [the mother] is out of the house, I don’t see why we should even approach, in my opinion,” she said. “I’m not about to get in a shooting because [the boy] is upset.” Despite these misgivings, the officers pursued the distressed 13-year-old into an alley and shot him multiple times, leaving him, his family has said, with injuries to his intestines, bladder, shoulder, and both ankles.

Neither these catastrophic outcomes nor the misgivings of police themselves have produced an answer to the obvious question: How should society handle these kinds of incidents? If not law enforcement, who should intervene?

One possible answer comes from Eugene, Oregon, a leafy college town of 172,000 that feels half that size. For more than 30 years, Eugene has been home to Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets, or CAHOOTS, an initiative designed to help the city’s most vulnerable citizens in ways the police cannot. In Eugene, if you dial 911 because your brother or son is having a mental-health or drug-related episode, the call is likely to get a response from CAHOOTS, whose staff of unarmed outreach workers and medics is trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. Operated by a community health clinic and funded through the police department, CAHOOTS accounts for just 2 percent of the department’s $66 million annual budget.

When I visited Eugene one week this summer, city-council members in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Houston, and Durham, North Carolina, had recently held CAHOOTS up as a model for how to shift the work of emergency response from police to a different kind of public servant. CAHOOTS had 310 outstanding requests for information from communities around the country.

A pilot program modeled in part on CAHOOTS recently began in San Francisco, and others will start soon in Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. Even the federal government has expressed interest. In August, Oregon’s senior senator, Ron Wyden, introduced the CAHOOTS Act, which would offer Medicaid funds for programs that send unarmed first responders to intervene in addiction and behavioral-health crises. “It’s long past time to reimagine policing in ways that reduce violence and structural racism,” he said, calling CAHOOTS a “proven model” to do just that. A police-funded program that costs $1 out of every $50 Eugene spends on cops hardly qualifies as defunding the police. But it may be the closest thing the United States has to an example of whom you might call instead.

In 1968, Dennis Ekanger was a University of Oregon graduate student finishing up an internship as a counselor for families with children facing charges in the state’s juvenile-justice system when he started to get calls in the middle of the night. Through his work in court, word had spread that “I knew something about substance-abuse problems,” Ekanger told me recently. Anxious mothers were arriving at his doorstep desperate for help but afraid to go to the authorities. It was a turbulent time in Eugene, with anti-war protests on the University of Oregon campus and a counterculture that spilled over into the surrounding neighborhoods in the form of tie-dye, pot smoke, and psychedelic drugs.

The following year, Ekanger and another student in the university’s counseling-psychology program, Frank Lemons, met with a prominent Eugene doctor who agreed to help them mount a more organized response by recruiting local health-care providers to volunteer their time. Ekanger went to San Francisco to visit a new community health clinic in Haight-Ashbury that had pioneered such a model, offering free medical treatment to anyone who walked in. Back in Oregon, Ekanger and Lemons each put up $250 and signed a lease on a dilapidated two-story Victorian near downtown.

The White Bird Clinic opened its doors a few days later, with a mission to provide free treatment when possible and to connect patients to existing services when it wasn’t. But the city’s established institutions didn’t yet have a clue how to deal with people on psychedelic drugs. Teenagers who showed up in the emergency room on LSD were prescribed antipsychotic medications. Unruly patients got passed to the police and ended up having their bad trips in jail.

The forerunner to CAHOOTS was an ad hoc mobile crisis-response team called the “bummer squad” (for “bum trip”), formed in White Bird’s first year for callers to the clinic’s crisis line who were unable or unwilling to come in. The bummer squad responded in pairs in whatever vehicle was available. For a while, that was a 1950 Ford Sunbeam bread truck that did double duty as the home of its owner, Tod Schneider, who’d dropped out of college on the East Coast to drive out to Eugene.

It didn’t take long for the bummer squad to start showing up at some of the same incidents that drew a response from Eugene police. One day in the late 1970s, Schneider answered a call from a mother concerned about her son. “Mom, I think I made a mistake,” he’d told her. “I took some PCP, and I’m feeling weird.” Schneider showed up to the family’s home to find the teenager in “full psychotic PCP condition.” As Schneider got out of the truck, the boy came running out of a neighboring house naked and bloody, and tackled him. Another neighbor called the police, thinking they were witnessing an assault. “So police came out and figured out what was going on—they talked to me a little bit, and they just left,” Schneider told me. “The police realized … they didn’t know what to do with these people that was productive.”

White Bird continued its volunteer-run mobile crisis service—and its informal collaboration with the police—into the early 1980s. Bummer-squad volunteers periodically gave role-playing training to the police department, and some beat officers grew to appreciate Eugene’s peculiar grassroots crisis-response network.

In the late ’80s, Eugene was struggling to respond to a trio of convergent issues that still plague the city more than 30 years later: mental illness, homelessness, and substance abuse. Police in Eugene were caught in a cycle of arresting the same people over and over for violations such as drinking in public parks and sleeping where they weren’t allowed to.

“The police hated it; we were doing absolutely nothing for public safety, we were tangling up the courts, and we were spending a horrendous amount of money,” Mike Gleason, who was the city manager at the time, recalled. Gleason convened a roundtable with Eugene’s social-service providers, offering city funding for programs that could break the logjam. A local detox facility made plans to launch a sobering center where people could dry out or sleep it off. White Bird and the police department began a dialogue about a mobile crisis service that could be dispatched through the 911 system.

White Bird and the police were not a natural pairing. To the city’s establishment types, White Bird staffers were “extreme counterculture people.” Standing by as the bummer squad defused a bad trip was one thing; giving the team police radios was quite another. White Bird’s clinic coordinator at the time, Bob Dritz, wore a uniform of jeans and a T-shirt; for meetings with city officials, he’d occasionally add a rumpled corduroy jacket. With his defiantly disheveled appearance, Dritz seemed to be declaring, in the words of one colleague, “Look, I’m different from you people, and you have to listen to me.” White Bird staff members worried that working with the police would erode their credibility, and maybe even lead to arrests of the very people they were trying to help. But in the space of a couple of months, Dritz and a counterpart at the police department drafted the outlines of a partnership. The acronym Dritz landed on was an ironic nod to the discomfort of working openly with the cops.

Things were slow at first. Jim Hill, the police lieutenant who oversaw CAHOOTS at the police department, recalls sitting at his desk listening to dispatch traffic on the radio. “I would literally have to call dispatch and say, ‘How come you didn’t send CAHOOTS to that?’ And they go, ‘Oh, yeah, okay.’” Before long, though, CAHOOTS was in high demand.

CAHOOTS teams work in 12-hour shifts, mostly responding without the police. Each van is staffed by a medic (usually an EMT or a nurse) and a crisis worker, typically someone with a background in mental-health support or street outreach, who takes the lead in conversation and de-escalation. Most people at White Bird make $18 an hour (it’s a “nonhierarchical” organization; internal decisions are made by consensus), and some have day jobs elsewhere.

One Tuesday night this summer, the medic driving the van was Chelsea Swift. Swift grew up in Connecticut and, like White Bird’s co-founder a generation before her, was introduced to harm-reduction work in Haight-Ashbury, where she sold Doc Martens to the punks who staffed the neighborhood needle-exchange program. Swift’s childhood had been marked by her mother’s struggle with opiate addiction and mental illness. She never thought she’d be a first responder, or could be. She was too queer, too radical. “I don’t fit into that culture,” she told me. And yet, she said, “I am so good at this job I never would have wanted.”

Around 6 p.m., Swift and her partner, a crisis worker named Simone Tessler, drove to assist an officer responding to a disorderly-subject call in the Whiteaker, a central-Eugene neighborhood with a lively street life, even in pandemic times. When we arrived, a military veteran in his 20s was standing with the officer on the corner, wearing a backpack, a toothbrush tucked behind his ear. The man said he’d worked in restaurants in Seattle until the coronavirus hit, then moved to Eugene to stay with his girlfriend.

That day, he’d worked his first shift at a fast-food restaurant. Soon after he got home, a sheriff’s deputy working for the county court knocked on the door to serve him a restraining order stemming from an earlier dispute with his girlfriend. He did not take the news well. The deputy called for police backup, and when it arrived, the man agreed to walk a block away to wait for CAHOOTS and figure out his next move. He had to stay 200 feet away from the place where he’d been living, and he couldn’t drive. “I been drinking a bit, and—I’m not gonna lie—I want to keep drinking,” he said. He needed somewhere to stay, and a way to move his car to a place where he could safely leave it overnight with his stuff in the back.

Swift and the officer talked logistics while Tessler leaned against the wall beside the man and chatted with him. She told him that she’d worked in restaurants before joining CAHOOTS.

The Eugene Mission, the city’s largest homeless shelter, had an available spot, the officer explained, thumbs tucked inside the shoulder straps of his duty vest. You can show up drunk if you commit to staying for 14 days and agree not to use alcohol or drugs while you’re there.

The man hesitated, thinking through other options. He had enough cash for a motel room, as long as it didn’t require a big deposit. The officer prepared to leave so CAHOOTS could take over. Swift, Tessler, and the veteran took out their phones and began looking up budget motels along a nearby strip, settling on one with a military discount and a low cash deposit.

“Do you know how to drive stick?” the man asked. Tessler and Swift exchanged blank looks, then continued to spitball. Did the man have AAA? Was another CAHOOTS unit free to help? I felt a lump rising in my throat. I’d wanted to keep my reporterly distance, but I was also a person watching a trivial problem stand in the way as calls stacked up at the dispatch center. I drove the car three blocks to the motel with Swift in the front seat.

“So much of what people call CAHOOTS for is just ordinary favors,” she said. “We’re professional people who do this every day, but what was that? We were helping him make phone calls and move his car.”

A couple of hours later, CAHOOTS received a call from a sprawling apartment complex on the north side of town. Tessler and Swift showed up just as the last hint of blue drained from the sky. The call had come from a concerned mother who lived in Portland, 100 miles away from her 23-year-old daughter; she believed that her daughter was suicidal. The young woman’s grandmother, who lived nearby, stood in the parking lot and gave Tessler and Swift a synopsis: Her granddaughter was bipolar, with borderline personality disorder. She’d run away at 17 after her diagnosis, and never seemed to fully accept it, traveling across the West with a series of boyfriends, sleeping in encampments. She’d been back in Eugene for a few months now, the longest the family had ever gotten her to stay.

Tessler walked around the corner and knocked. “It’s CAHOOTS.” No answer.

“Can you come and talk to us for a minute?”

The door was unlocked from the inside and left slightly ajar.

The apartment was dark. A tiny Chihuahua mix barked frantically. A tearful voice called out from the bedroom, “I just want a hug. Are you going to take me away?”

Tessler crouched down in the bedroom doorway. “I’m not gonna take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”

“I’m really sorry I’ve caused all this,” the young woman said, sitting up.

Swift grabbed a handful of kibble from a bowl on the floor to quiet the dog. “My family tries to put me away a lot,” the young woman explained. Breathing fast between sobs, she seemed both overwhelmed by grief and adrenaline and primed to answer questions she’d come to expect in the midst of a crisis.

Unprompted, she told the CAHOOTS team her full name, letter by letter. “I know my Social Security number, and I know I’m a harm to myself and others.” She took a deep breath. “I’m just feeling really sad and alone, and I don’t know how I got here.”

Tessler turned on a light, and Swift went out to the parking lot to summon the young woman’s grandmother.

“Nana! Nana!” The young woman dissolved into her embrace.

Swift surveyed the bathroom scene that had prompted the call. An open pack of cigarettes lay on the wet floor along with a belt and an electrical cord. There was a straw in a bottle of gin on the edge of the tub, a six-pack on the toilet, and half a dozen pill bottles strewn across the bathroom sink and countertop. Swift unfolded a soggy piece of paper marked “Patient Safety Plan Contract” that identified seeing San Francisco as the one thing the young woman wanted to do before she died.

As Swift took her vitals, the young woman’s tearful reunion with her grandmother continued. “I love your blue eyes, Nana,” she said.

“I love your brown ones.”

CAHOOTS brought her to the emergency room, and she was discharged less than 24 hours later.

On my first morning in Eugene, I spent a couple of hours in Scobert Gardens, a pocket-size park on a residential block not far from the Mission. Many of the park’s visitors are part of Eugene’s unhoused population, which accounts for about 60 percent of CAHOOTS calls. Everyone I met in Scobert Gardens had a CAHOOTS story. One man had woken up shivering on the grass before dawn, after the park’s sprinklers had soaked him through; CAHOOTS gave him dry clothes and a ride to the hospital to make sure he didn’t have hypothermia. A woman had received first aid after getting a spider bite on her face while sleeping on the ground. Another man hadn’t had a place to stay since he got out of prison more than a year ago. When he had a stroke in the park earlier this summer, a friend called CAHOOTS. “If you go with the ambulance, it will cost you big money, so a lot of people go the CAHOOTS route,” the man explained.

Earlier this year, Barry Friedman, a law professor at NYU, posted a working paper on policing that highlighted the mismatch between police training and the jobs officers are called on to do—not just law enforcer, but first responder, mediator, and social worker. Reducing the number of instances in which police are called to assist Eugene’s unhoused population reduces the number of calls for which their skill set is a poor match. But if the goal is eliminating unnecessary use of force, helping people without housing is hardly sufficient.

In a 2015 analysis of citizen-police interactions, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that traffic stops accounted for the majority of police-initiated contact: 25 million people reported traffic stops, versus 5.5 million people who reported other kinds of contact. And police are regularly involved in incidents that escalate partly because of a failure to consider mental-health issues. In October, Walter Wallace Jr.’s family members and a neighbor called 911 because he was arguing with his parents; according to the family’s attorney, Wallace had bipolar disorder. Two Philadelphia police officers arrived, found Wallace with a knife, and fatally shot him, despite his mother’s attempts to intercede. (Police and district-attorney investigations are ongoing, and no arrests have been made.) Near Eugene, police in the neighboring city of Springfield in March 2019 killed Stacy Kenny, who had schizophrenia, in an incident that began with a possible parking violation. None of the officers involved was criminally charged, though a lawsuit brought by the Kenny family resulted in the largest police settlement in Oregon history. Springfield also committed to overhauling police-department policy and oversight practices around use of force.

In July 2015, police responded to the home of Ayisha Elliott, a race and equity trainer and the host of a podcast called Black Girl From Eugene. Elliott’s 19-year-old son had been experiencing a mental-health crisis, she told me, which was the result of a traumatic brain injury. At 2:43 a.m., Elliott called Eugene’s nonemergency number and asked for CAHOOTS, not realizing that the service ran only until 3 a.m. In a subsequent call, to 911, Elliott’s ex-husband indicated that Elliott was in danger; authorities say it was this second call that led dispatchers to send police to the scene. Elliott greeted the officers on the front porch, and explained that she needed help getting her son to the hospital. Instead, in an incident that escalated over the course of 15 minutes, her son became agitated and began to yell. Elliott attempted to shield him from officers as they ordered her to stand back. Police say her son charged as they tried to separate him from his mother. Her son was punched in the face and tased. Elliott herself was pulled to the ground, resulting in a concussion, she said. She was arrested for interfering with a police officer. (She was released the following morning.) She and her son sued the city of Eugene as well as individual police officers in federal court, for excessive use of force and racial discrimination, among other claims; the court found against the plaintiffs on all counts. Elliott told me the experience didn’t change her view of the police so much as confirm it. “I realized that it didn’t matter who I was; I’m still Black.”

Together with the fatal police shooting that year of a veteran who had PTSD, the incident helped focus public attention on Eugene’s response to mental-health crises. In its next annual budget, the city included $225,000 to make CAHOOTS a 24/7 service for the first time. (Both the mayor’s office and the police department say the increase in funding was not related to a specific incident.)

Yet CAHOOTS is still limited by the rules that govern its role in crisis response. Its teams are not permitted to respond when there’s “any indication of violence or weapons,” or to handle calls involving “a crime, a potentially hostile person, a potentially dangerous situation … or an emergency medical problem.”

Many 911 calls unfold in the gray area at the limits of CAHOOTS’s scope of work; in Eugene, the same dispatch system handles both emergency and nonemergency calls, in part because so many callers fail to grasp the distinction. One call I went on with Swift and Tessler was to check on the welfare of a young man with face tattoos who was reportedly acting strangely on the University of Oregon campus. The fire department and the police had been out to see him, without incident, but also without resolution: The man was still there, unsettling passersby, who kept calling him in as a potential threat to himself and others.

By the time CAHOOTS arrived, the man was lying on the grass with a small burning pile of latex gloves next to his head. When Swift jumped out of the van, alarmed, he sat halfway up and poked at the fire with a kitchen knife, then lay back down. Had the cops been called again, I thought, the incident might have played out differently, and landed in the next day’s paper: “A young man setting objects on fire was shot after brandishing a knife.” But that’s not how it went. Swift grabbed the knife, threw it well out of reach, and began talking to him.

At 11 a.m. on a Friday, I met Jennifer Peckels, one of the few cops in Eugene who walk their beat, to tag along as she patrolled a quadrant of restaurants and curbside gardens downtown. Born and raised in Eugene, Peckels is now in her fifth year on the force. Many of her interactions downtown are with a core group of people experiencing homelessness, mental-health crises, and addiction, or some combination thereof.

Across the street from the library, Peckels recognized a woman who was sitting on a bench, crying inconsolably. When Peckels approached her, the woman explained in breathless bursts that her daughter’s surrogate parents were telling lies about her. She feared she might never see her daughter again. Over the radio, Peckels called in the woman’s location to dispatch. “CAHOOTS will come help you—they gotta help the fire department, then they gotta help a suicidal subject, and then they’ll come. You’re on the list.”

“I’m suicidal,” the woman said.

“Do you have any means to hurt yourself?” Peckels asked.

The woman explained that she was afraid she would start drinking again. She began to slap herself in the face. “I’m tired of Eugene,” she said, gesturing across the street at a statue of Rosa Parks seated on a pair of bronze bus seats. “I got threatened to be arrested for sitting next to Rosa Parks, and I said ‘Fuck the police.’ I haven’t done anything wrong here except be loud and drink in public!”

“You know, when I get upset, I do this breathing exercise,” Peckels suggested.

Together, they inhaled for four seconds, then held their breath. The woman closed her eyes and, by the exhale, appeared calmer for the first time. “You’re on the list,” Peckels repeated. The woman wanted to know when CAHOOTS was coming, but Peckels had no way of knowing. We continued walking.

The most common complaint about CAHOOTS you’ll hear in Eugene is that its response times are too slow. Last year, across roughly 15,000 calls in the city, the average time between receipt of a call and the arrival of a CAHOOTS team was an hour and 56 minutes, compared with an hour and 11 minutes across 46,000 calls for the police department. Having more CAHOOTS units on the street could serve to reduce Eugene Police Department response times as well, by freeing up officers to do what Peckels called “police work.” She said it’s not uncommon for reports of even very serious crimes that are no longer in progress—such as rapes or burglaries—to sit in the dispatch queue for hours while officers race to work through a backlog of calls.

White Bird and the EPD are trying to come to an agreement about the best way to quantify CAHOOTS’s contributions. CAHOOTS has circulated its own estimate, saying it responds to 17 percent of all calls handled by dispatchers. Yet the police department contends that most of those calls wouldn’t have gotten a police response to begin with, because many of the requests that CAHOOTS receives—to check on a person who seems heavily intoxicated, or for transport to a medical appointment—aren’t really “police calls.” According to the police department’s analysis, the true diversion rate is between 5 and 8 percent. Which number is the “right” one to evaluate CAHOOTS’s contributions to the city?

I asked Eugene’s chief of police, Chris Skinner, about the prospect of increasing CAHOOTS’s capacity to respond to calls. He told me he thinks of the benefit to the police as a question of probability: “The less time I put police officers in conflicts with people, the less of the time those conflicts go bad.” That, in a sense, is the same argument made by activists who have mentioned alternatives such as CAHOOTS in their demands to shrink the footprint of policing nationwide.

Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Eugene voters approved a payroll tax projected to bring in $23 million a year for 126 community-safety positions. Originally, two-thirds of that money was slated to pay for positions in the police department; as several police officials I spoke with pointed out, Oregon has among the lowest number of police officers per capita of any state in the country. Now, in response to Black Lives Matter protests, Mayor Lucy Vinis told me, the city council is consulting with community organizations to revise that plan. “Until this challenge around ‘Defund the police,’” Vinis said, “I don’t think that the police department ever really looked at CAHOOTS as depriving them of funds: It was really excellent service for a very low price.”

Anecdotally, at least, Eugene’s citizens have come to appreciate the CAHOOTS approach to crisis response, perhaps too keenly. CAHOOTS exists in a society where many feel that the risk of police violence outweighs the potential benefit of calling 911, and where an encounter with EMS can wreck a household’s finances. Last December, a CAHOOTS team showed up to a fatal drug overdose hours after the victim’s friend had called in for help. The caller had avoided language that would have brought a faster police or EMS response.

Brenton Gicker, who has worked for CAHOOTS for 12 years and as an emergency-room nurse for the past five, told me that callers have sometimes omitted key details to bypass police. “They’ll say, ‘My friend is bipolar; he’s in a manic episode. I’d like CAHOOTS to talk to them.’ And we show up, and they’ve set the kitchen on fire, or they’re running around naked, stabbing holes in the wall.”

CAHOOTS has undoubtedly saved lives in Eugene. The question for cities hoping to emulate its success is how its approach might be adapted and scaled up. Eugene is a small, homogenous city (its population is 83 percent white). The proud hippie culture that helped give birth to the White Bird Clinic, the bummer squad, and eventually CAHOOTS continues to thrive there. The city supports a robust network of homeless shelters, crisis centers, and mental-health and drug-treatment providers that have a long history of working with CAHOOTS, which makes it easier to connect people in need with services that can help. Los Angeles has 23 times as many people as Eugene, living in dozens of far-flung neighborhoods, each with its own landscape of language, history, and social services. In October, L.A.’s city council voted unanimously to develop a CAHOOTS-like program of unarmed crisis responders. It will face different challenges.

When the pandemic struck, it revealed just how reliant CAHOOTS is on the city’s safety net—and just how fragile that net is, even in progressive Eugene. CAHOOTS was the rare social-service provider in the city that was able to carry on its regular operations. The Buckley Center closed its sobering program; the Eugene Mission continued to serve residents but closed the door to new arrivals for months; social-service agencies asked their caseworkers to work from home, which made it harder to help clients who don’t have stable addresses, schedules, or cellphones.

For a stretch, measures taken to stop the spread of the virus among Eugene’s poorest residents made up for the absence of some of the usual services. Federal CARES Act funding enabled Lane County to open a new 250-bed homeless shelter in buildings on its fairgrounds. To Gicker, the new shelter was a revelation. “This is the first time ever in my CAHOOTS experience where I can take somebody somewhere to sleep with no questions asked: They don’t have to be a battered woman; they don’t have to be experiencing a mental-health crisis; they don’t have to be ill or injured. I don’t have to sell it in some way.”

The CARES Act money ran out in June, however, and the fairground shelter closed. CAHOOTS was back to having very few places to take people in need of a bed. Similar bottlenecks exist for inpatient drug treatment and mental-health facilities. Eugene might have more social services than some American cities, but it’s still an American city. If it can’t manage the cries for help, how will larger, more diverse cities that lack Eugene’s long-standing interagency collaborations or progressive attitudes fare? In rural areas, gaps in service are even more pronounced. Earlier this year, officials from another jurisdiction called White Bird’s director of consulting, Tim Black, to announce with excitement that they’d received funding to “bring CAHOOTS here” in a matter of months. Black replied, “Where are you going to bring someone if not to the hospital or the jail?”

Around 5 p.m. on a Wednesday, I was halfway through the day shift with another CAHOOTS team, Tatanka Maker and Brian Troutz, when it was called to a parking lot just south of Washington Jefferson Park. A woman in her 50s stood at the lot’s edge, surrounded by a swirl of trash. She was barefoot and had a sheath of plastic wrapped around her midriff. This was someone the CAHOOTS team had known for years.

An employee of a nearby aquarium shop had made the call to CAHOOTS, and Maker approached him to get a sense of the situation. “She’s been trespassing since nine,” the employee said.

“I’m packing up,” the woman replied. She picked up armfuls of newspaper and takeout containers, then dropped them just as quickly, as though she’d spotted something else in the pile that she’d been looking for.

“That’s not an option any longer,” Maker said, addressing the woman by her first name. “You can pack one bag of important stuff, and then we’ll take off.”

“Where are we going?” the woman asked.

“Somewhere else,” Maker said.

Troutz brought a clean garbage bag from the van. Maker began guessing what she might want to put inside: “Do you want this sleeping bag?”

Imploring her to cooperate, Maker said she could bring a second garbage bag along too.

“If you don’t come to the van right now, they’re gonna take you to jail and throw it out,” Maker said. But the woman was stuck in another world.

“Can I focus on getting this done?” she asked, annoyed.

At last, Maker and Troutz succeeded in leading the woman to the van. They’d avoided an arrest, but it was a temporary victory. The woman had only just gotten out of jail. Before that, she’d been in and out of the state mental hospital for years. Space constraints, insurance issues, and time limits on residential programs all contributed to the difficulty of finding a place where she could receive long-term mental-health services and drug treatment.

Lacking a better option, Maker and Troutz opted to take her to White Bird. The clinic was closed, but a large shaded parking lot sits behind it.

“This is one of those cases where there is no perfect place to take her, but it’s better to take her out of the part of town where she’s been causing some trouble,” Maker said. The van stopped, and the woman got out and took a seat on a discarded couch in the parking lot.

“You know those orange cones they put on the highway?” Maker said when we got back in the van to head to the next call. “Last summer, there was a day that she spent 10 hours meticulously climbing up the embankment, grabbing them, and throwing them over the edge.” The police, the fire department, and CAHOOTS had all responded multiple times, she said. “We ended up bringing her to White Bird that day too.”

This article is part of our project “The Cycle,” which is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge.

[glendowen]

Big Bang

So, my big bang posting date was technically the 28, but I was at camp for the last week, and the wifi blocked tumblr and Ao3, and I ended up with a lot less free time than I was supposed to have, and it all boiled down to me not having the time to finish or post my fic by Friday (thanks to me scrapping my first draft completely changing my writing style two weeks before the deadline, because I’m so smart.)

So, my solution is to share little snippets every day until it’s all done, and by the end of the week, the whole fic will be posted. It wasn’t my original intention, but someties life doesn’t go exactly how you want it to. 

I want to thank the mods at @aftgbigbang for putting this wonderful event together. I’m so sorry this isn’t exactly how it was supposed to be posted, but thanks for the opportunity anyway. 

I also want to thank my wonderful artist @jojen-hewitt . Maaya put up with my crazy schedule and my internet break and made some truly incredible art for this fic, and I am absolutely amazed by everything she did. 

So, here are the first ~2000 words. I’m really hoping to have the rest for you as soon as possible.

The mutant games were messy, a violent clash between humans with “extraordinary” abilities trying to prove that they were worth something in a world that only found their value in entertainment.

The games’ creators, Tetsuji Moriyama and Kayleigh Day, were just two mutants who understood the world’s obsession with violence and used it to reserve them a spot in history books. The mutant games were nothing more than a feeble excuse for validity in a cruel world that managed to catch on spectacularly.

They were a perfect convoluted combination of violence and acceptance. In a world overwhelmed by the existence of mutants, the games provided a way to let them exist without being normalized; they gave a marginalized group a voice, but not one strong enough to be heard.

The court was a place of acceptance, but it was still a cage.

It was the perfect setup for Kengo Moriyama: it gave an acceptable outlet for his mutant brother and second born son to succeed without being directly involved with the main branch of the family and provided the best mutants to work for him. It was a sea of profit and power, and he was Poseidon.

Mutants were desperate for the ability to just exist in a society that perceived them as a monster, and Kengo was willing to provide that if they were willing to do his dirty work. He took the best of the players in his brother’s game, used their skills and their ruthlessness, and sent them to work.

One of his favorites was Nathan Wesninski, a man with a taste for blood and an ability to manipulate metal with just his mind. He could slaughter entire buildings full of people without leaving a trace or feeling an ounce of remorse, and he was so useful Kengo could even overlook his involvement with the Hatfords.

The mutants games were useful, and Kengo Moriyama could appreciate useful things.

Nathaniel Wesninski grew up learning his importance was strongly founded in the mutant games. The only way he could exist was if he, along with the other kids on his team, could manage to sustain fewer injuries in the hour they were on the court than the other gaggle of children across from them.

Most eight year-olds played little league soccer and football and thought about running away when their parents made them eat spinach and only changed their names when they were playing make-believe with their friends.

Nath—Alex, was not an average eight-year-old. Alex could change his looks with just a thought, could steal people’s powers if he saw them in use, and could quite literally inhabit other people if he touched them. Alex changed his name almost every other month as he ran around the world with his mother, who could make people think or feel whatever she wanted them to, away from his father, who could manipulate metal. Alex was forced to fight other eight-year-olds who could do who-knows-what, and when he got too good at fighting other mutant eight-year-olds his mother panicked that his dad’s boss was going to kill him, and stole him from a fancy mansion in West Virginia in the middle of the night.

Alex really missed fighting. He would reminisce about it when he was pressed up against his mother with his hand wrapped around the gun under his pillow, living in a place where no one knew that his name wasn’t actually Alex, or Stephan, or Christopher, and where he didn’t quite speak the language. But if you asked him what he wanted most, he’d tell you that he’d give anything to be average.

Neil was alone.

He was a nobody kid with no parents, squatting in a house in nowhere, Arizona, playing in the mutant games for some no-name high school.

His mother’s voice was screaming at him, reminding him that no matter how far he distanced himself from Nathaniel Wesninski it wasn’t safe for him to go anywhere near that world; that a new body and a pretend power (He told them he could manipulate fire. Useful, but not too uncommon for people to raise an eyebrow at it.) weren’t enough to protect him, and that a moment of adrenaline wasn’t worth death.

He ignored her. She might be right, and playing in the mutant games might be a death wish, but she had forced him to watch her die in Washington and had abandoned him at eighteen without his consent, so he figured acting out a little was fair.

So he pretended to be adequate at manipulating fire, so he could play for some average mutant team in Millport, Arizona and tried to keep his head down as much as possible.

It had worked perfectly until they lost the championships in May. They had been doing surprisingly well, and now Neil was watching them tear down the only place he had felt at home at in years.

As he watched them tear up the floor, he planned his next life. He figured he could pick up some unassuming looks from someone in the airport and actually fly back to France like his mom had planned before she went and died on him. He would stay away from the mutant games for the rest of his life and everything would work out like it always had, until his dad found him for good.

It was the perfect plan until David Wymack showed up in his life.

David Wymack was the mutant coach for Palmetto State University, a group of college kids who would have been incredible at the games if they could ever get along. They had the reckless abandon needed to succeed in such a violent atmosphere since Wymack only recruited mutants who had lived through some genuinely terrifying shit.

Mutants like Neil.

Except, there was no reason that he should know just how fucked up Neil’s life was, nor that he should have any interest in recruiting him. Neil had spent most of his time in Millport acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary; the Jostens were rich, busy business owners who had no time for their son, and stuck him in the mutant games after moving to the small town as a way of helping him make friends. He had no prior experience in fighting, and Millport wasn’t exactly a place known for its athletes.

None of that mattered, though, because Wymack was here and he was offering Neil a place on his mutant team after his last member was “unable” to maintain her contract.

(She had attempted to kill herself and was now locked up in an inpatient facility somewhere. Neil had read the article online about her.)

Neil tried to escape, to give up on dreams of a high school diploma and create another brand new identity before Wymack could drag him back into the world of the Moriyamas. He knew joining the foxes would put him close to Kevin, and that even if he didn’t recognize Neil and it was all a coincidence, the moment he let his guard down his true powers would slip out and he would be dead.

It had been tempting, to reach out and grab the opportunity for a real life Wymack was dangling in front of his face; to become a permanent fixture in the world, to have a name more substantial than dust. But taking the bait was dangerous, and Neil hadn’t let his guard down enough to do something quite that stupid.

So, he ran.

He booked it past a shocked Wymack and an even more shocked Hernandez and pushed towards the exit, his hand tight on the strap of his duffel bag. He had the papers, the plane tickets to France, the money to make it for a few more years. He would swipe the unassuming looks of his English teacher (the dirty blond hair, the hazel eyes, the generic face structure) and disappear, leaving Neil Josten in the cosmos, just as he had all the other identities sitting in between him and Nathaniel Wesninski.

He would disappear once again, and the world would continue to spin.

Which was a wonderful plan that he had every intention of following, until he felt a solid hand wrap around his wrist and pull so hard Neil could feel the bruise forming, and suddenly the world fell away.

Not in the overly sappy, romantic way, where you meet your soulmate and suddenly you are the only two in the world. No, Neil meant that his facade was stripped from him piece by piece, and he was suddenly facing someone a mere three inches shorter than him, a crazed smile taking up the majority of his assailant’s face. He couldn’t see himself, but if the glint in the eye of the maniac midget (he belatedly identified him as Andrew Minyard, defensive player for the PSU foxes) was anything to go by, he was most definitely standing at a solid 5 feet 3 inches tall, with shocking blue eyes and hair the color of blood.

The psycho’s smile grew impossibly wider, and he tipped his head to the side as if in thought.

“Isn’t this interesting? I’m going to have a lot of fun with you.”

The crazed laugh that slipped out after the statement threw Neil off once again, and he was suddenly rendered useless as he tried to compose his thoughts into a semblance of order.

His slip up had left Wymack enough time to catch up, and after making some quip about not having nice things to Minyard, his attention was back on Neil, making sure that he wasn’t injured or incapacitated.

He brushed the larger man off with a solid “I’m fine,” and moved to separate himself from what felt like a pack of wolves surrounding him.

Andrew opened his mouth, most likely to make some witty response that would once again piss Wymack off when another voice cut him off.

“Great. If you’re fine you can sign the forms and we can head back to South Carolina with a full lineup.”

Neil’s heart stopped, his blood froze in his veins, and he suddenly wished that he had the power of invisibility or spontaneous combustion.

He hadn’t heard that voice in ten years, but no matter how much deeper it had become, Neil knew who was about to appear in front of him.

Kevin Day hopped down from Hernandez’s desk, closing up a file with a picture of Neil, with brown hair and brown eyes and a few added inches of height, taped to the front. He took up his place behind Andrew, his green eyes flashing to the pint-sized psycho he had adopted as his bodyguard following the “skiing accident,” and then towards Neil.

Kevin had hardly changed at all over the years, the only stark difference the permanence of the number two under his eye; Riko Moriyama’s 18th birthday had begun with the sharpie being wiped away and replaced by a tattoo gun. His eyes were far more sunken into his face, and the cloud of anxiety that had followed him was more subdued, but Kevin Day was still the recognizable son of Exy.

Neil felt trapped with all of the pairs of eyes on him; he knew that only Minyard could see him stripped down, but he still felt too seen. Up until this moment, Neil could categorize his memories into fight or flight, but for once his only response was to freeze.

Wymack seemed to be unaware of Neil’s internal dilemma, or purposefully ignoring it, but he shot a dirty look at Kevin and Andrew and spat out some harsh words that he couldn’t hear, and the pressure around Neil’s wrist disappeared.

Pleased with the privacy they had achieved, Wymack shot him a look that screamed exhaustion; he had seen a lot over the years of coaching his team of misfits, and one man can only have so much patience.

He gave Neil one last chance, reminded him that they could protect him from whatever he happened to be running from, just like they protect Kevin. They wouldn’t announce his name until the last possible minute, would provide him housing for the summer, would guarantee him at least five years of permanence, and would let him participate in a game that he had been desperately missing for a decade. Kevin obviously didn’t recognize him yet, and Minyard was far too interested in him to reveal his secret just yet.

He signed the papers and counted down the days until May.

Neil Josten was going to be real for as long as possible, and Mary Hatford was too dead to do anything about it.

He realized that he didn’t need to catalog any new faces in the airport, knew that he was actually going to look the same for a decent amount of time, but old habits die hard. People watching hadn’t just been Neil’s main source of entertainment as a child, but an integral part of his survival and airports were the perfect place to do it.

He found one of the Minyard twins and followed him out to the parking garage, deciding that it had to be Aaron because his apathetic look could never be achieved by his heavily medicated counterpart.

He followed him out to the parking garage and climbed into the passenger seat of a vehicle that looked far too expensive for an orphaned college student.

Their wrists’ bumped lightly together as Minyard reached for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket; his eyes met Neil’s, and they silently agreed to keep quiet.

Andrew pulled the car out of the parking garage, and they headed towards PSU.