#featuring a very tortured plane metaphor

[coldgoldlazarus]

That plane post reminded me of a funny thought I had earlier. Raven Beak has a powersuit and arm cannon a lot like Samus's, and even shares a few abilities, but also utilizes a bunch that she has never historically had.

We also know from the manga that the powersuit she has for most of Zero Mission is a newer model custom-designed by the Chozo and Mother Brain. (before the latter's betrayal, anyway.) This one was unable to recognize and fully make use of certain upgrades, but presumably with the trade-off being a slimmer build (lacking the giant 'clunky' (iconic) shoulders and keeping a flatter chestplate, even with the Varia suit equipped) and access to newer upgrade designs that older suits might in turn have trouble interfacing with, such as Raven Beak's fancier abilities. Even the Chozo were not immune to the onward march of backwards compatibility limitations, it seems.

But then she passes the mural test and gets the fully-powered suit, an older design able to use the extra ancient upgrades the prior one could not, and despite design shifts across most of the games, I think it's safe to assume that that's the same base suit she's operating with from there onward. We know it has a certain level of regenerative capability, thus why it still looks pretty untouched after all the punishment it takes, but even then it still gets halfway-disassembled in Fusion, stripping away all the outer armor completely, and taking however long between then and Dread to recover a bit of its original form, while still being distinctly less armored than it used to be, a lot of the same organic bits from Fusion still exposed to open air.

So with all this in mind, there's a certain hilarity in the end of Dread. Raven Beak's sitting here in his hyperadvanced, up-to-date and top-of-the-line powersuit, the equivalent of an F-22 Raptor, thinking he's hot shit. And then Samus rocks up in her old suit, the equivalent of not just a dinky WWII prop plane, but a dinky WWII prop plane that's missing half the fuselage like it was left unattended too long in Detroit, and flies absolute circles around him. Sure, he nearly saves it towards the end of the fight until RAGE, but the fact that it is as much of a proper fight as it is becomes kinda funny (and also very badass on her part) from this perspective.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Also guys, about the locations of the podcasts: they are real places. 100%. They are real places somewhere in the Nowhere - most importantely, somewhen.

Prophetic dreams are very real in Little Nightmares and they are things that often happen: however, I do not believe this is yet the case for Noone. She describes feeling sensations and smells multiple times, something that can only happen if the plane of reality one is in is... well. Real. She also describes feeling Jester's presence as she does with Otto's, who is a real person in the real world alongside her. The fact that Noone isn't currently fully there yet doesn't necessarely mean the places aren't real.

Now, whether she's visiting the past versions of some already existing locations is up to debate (COUGH THE BATHHOUSE COUGH), and that locations and habitants of said locations can be parallels to some already existing ones, but the only certainty we have at this point is that these other places that are being described and witnessed by Noone are real places somewhere. After all, the Nowhere is an incredibly vast place of which we have explored incredibly little.

Would it be so surprising if the places Noone visits are separate from the, like, 3 ones we have visited?

(map is from LN II, the school, and is supposedly rappresenting a region of which we only see a single city.)

And another thing, actually: I have seen many compare the Lady to the Woman in Chains, but honestly, after reading through the transcript of the first episode of TSON made by @softichill... the two sound like the complete opposite of each other, appearence and behaviour wise.

The Woman in Chains is described as having a "stretched back face", therefore causing her to have wrinkles due to how her face is structured, which explains Noone talking about her as being "both old and young". There is no concealing, no mask, nothing to hide her face. She doesn't live in secrecy like the Lady does -- quite the contrary, infact.

And about features: in both her forms, the Lady's face looks the opposite of hers. Either completely relaxed, or... nearly like it's melting.

I have also seen some people try to claim that the "familiar outfit" as a reference to the Lady's kimono, but you must remember who the narrator is. The outfit is familiar to Noone. Not us. It is likely that the Woman is wearing either a nun's dress (Noone mentions seeing three laying on a bed in the Prisoner's bedroom) or something Noone might have seen from the institution she's kept in.

While the Lady does thrive in her occupation, she doesn't necessarely take joy in it like the Woman in Chains (Prison Ward, atp) does. For the Lady, it's much more a matter of survival. She is on the Maw because it's convenient, see as she's in a powerful position. The Woman in Chains is instead happily preparing torture devices to haunt the Prisoners with.

Some parallels are certainly there. Referring to them as being, even metaphorically, the same person... it would mean that the team wrote a very bad analogy. They are nothing alike in any other aspect BUT their occupation. Funnily enough, you could say the Thin Man and the Signal Tower operate in a near identical manner to both these places. He's also the living center/battery of his own mechanism.

Noone also mentions that the Workers seem to be made of shadows, similarly to the Shadow Children. However, it is also evident that these beings are different, as they work and can hold objects much like the nomes. Later, when she meets a living child, she notes that they have black goo in their hair that moves like shadows. If that's the same material the Workers are made of, then this would make them some sort of liquid entities.

Lastly, about the inhabitants themselves: no one else in this Prison is here because they want to be. The Prisoners are not like the Guests, who come on the Maw willingly. The Workers are mindless beings, unlike the Nomes who draw and the Shadow Kids who play just like children. The child and Noone want to leave... and that's understandable.

My friend @chorusofkhonshu smartly pointed this out, so I'm just gonna copy and paste what he said word for word.

"So I thought, if these creatures are made of liquid, it has to come from somewhere. So my mind wandered to the prisoners, their purpose. Perhaps like the Maw and Signal Tower need to absorb people. The Signal Towers thru TVs and the Maw thru the Lady. What if those prisoners are only alive to be bled dry so long as they live. Noone smells the prisoner rotting. All those prisoners have to share some purpose, they might be tortured. Some device that the lady there has. She uses straps and cranks. Masks with spikes in the mouth. It runs on tortured souls."

And just as Noone mentions later on:

Swelling.

If anything... rather than paralleling Six's journey, Noone seems to be living it backwards. Completely backwards.

... Mh.

[asphora]

Almost

Jihoon x Reader angst my favorite

It felt as though he’d been delaying the inevitable for far too many eternities. As he watches your face contort, moving from one emotion to another, it felt like watching emotional whiplash: confusion, realization, disbelief, disappointment, understanding, and finally anger. Despite the colorful variety your expressions offered, he wondered why you seemed so dull to him as he sat there, a silent audience as you implode and spill out onto the carpeted floor of the studio.

“You’re leaving me?” Your voice is soft and you’re visibly on the brink of tears. Your question isn’t one that requires an answer and Jihoon knows that this pain you’re currently feeling is a one-woman show; no answer would ever be good enough to alleviate the affliction brought on by the question. So, he doesn’t answer.

You ask again and this time, your tone is demanding and sharp, pouring as much venom as you can, as though you might be able to turn your words into a knife to stick through his ribs and twist. But if you were being honest with yourself, you’d know the truth just as Jihoon did; the only one bleeding here was you. He doesn’t feel the need to dignify your anger with a response. He knows that in your anger, you’re resorting to cheap tricks and hurtful tactics to get what you think you want, so he doesn’t play along. The stage is yours and you are the only character in this play.

Instead, he shrugs. It’s easier to let the body speak than let the words spill out. Especially when there was nothing he could say that would be worth listening to, there could never be enough words to rectify the injustice he knows you certainly feel you’ve been dealt.

At this moment, he’s certain that you feel as though you’ve been shot. Clutching the metaphorical wound, you shove him at his shoulders, once, twice, even thrice with as much force as you can muster as you sob wildly in front of him. You shove at him one last time before letting your hands rest there at the fabric of his shirt, bunching it up in your hands, then moving up to wrap gently around the nape of his neck, then upwards to cup the face that you’d loved so long, thumbs stroking soft circles into the skin of his inert and blatantly unimpressed expression. The gesture is so familiar, so gentle, and affectionate on your part, but empty to Jihoon. He remains quiet as you say the words you think will salvage what is already lost –

“I love you. Please, Jihoon, I love you.”

– and he lets you. He watches as you sob, your tone brimming with desperation and anguish, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he does nothing but spectate as you fall to ruins, watch as the once beloved withers and dies at his feet.

The very words you hope will save your relationship are the very ones that serve as his reminder that this has long been overdue. His silence is answer enough for you to know that this has been something he’d decided on long before this conversation. He wasn’t asking you to break-up, no he was telling you that he’d already had one foot out the door and that he’d practically packed up his bags. This was just a formality; a polite notice of resignation from this life you’d seemingly built together and from this relationship. Leaving wasn’t a discussion, it was his decision.

How cold, you thought.

Breaking away from him, you look into his eyes. Finally, you see the truth behind them, so crystal clear now that you wondered how you’d missed it this whole time. Where brightness and warmth once glanced upon you, now his irises were apathetic to you, cold, and worst of all, seemingly devoid of any remorse or hurt. Even love.

“Did you ever even love me? Even for a fucking second?”

Jihoon has recognized this relationship for what it is a long time ago, a plane falling out of the sky or a sinking ship with no hope or help in sight. The only way to save both of you was to jump. But he knew you. You were too kind, too selfless for him; you would never leave if he didn’t first.

He closes his eyes, the first and only indication of any feeling whatsoever arising from him throughout this tumultuous and torturous endeavor. As he opens them, for a moment you think you see some glassiness, but the emotion is gone just as quick as it comes, leaving like a ghost from his features and seeming more like a trick of the light, or an illusion of your self-deception.

He inhales trying to hold it back. You on the other hand, misread it as a sign of his exasperation; and for the first time since the start of this entire conversation, since he told you that he was leaving you, he speaks. Jihoon knows it’s a half-truth at best, but at this point, you could and would no longer care corroborate it once you heard the words.

“There was a time…I mean, I didn’t, but almost.”

[ebaeschnbliah]

THE  KNIGHT  OF  BASKERVILLE

________________________________________________________________

ACDs novel The Hound of the Baskervilles tells the story of Sir Henry Baskerville who returns from Canada to take up the inheritance of his family, the Baskerville estate with the old manor house Baskerville Hall. 

The Sherlock BBC adaptation, The Hounds of Baskerville, transforms the centuries old manor house into the modern high-security military base BASKERVILLE, supervised by the britisch government. Because the character ‘Sir Henry Baskerville’ had to be included as well, it’s understandable that a renaming of this important character became necessary. 

But why Henry KNIGHT? Names are important in Sherlock BBC. Reason enough to take a closer look at the name and significance of ‘knight’. 

TBC below the cut ….

What’s a knight?

- Nowadays, a knight is a person who has been given a rank of honour by the Queen or King of GB because of special achievements

- In the past a knight was a man of high social position, trained to fight as soldier on a horse for his liege lord

- In myths, legends and fairytales knights are often depicted as brave and valiant men who fight against all kinds of evil forces. They defend not only their king or queen, they often become ‘a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted … a final court of appeal for everyone‘. They stand up for justice and fight for those who aren’t able to help themselves. 

Knights and pirates

Mycroft mentions in ASIB that his little brother Sherlock initially wanted to be a pirate. In TFP, right after Sherlock jumps through fire and flames onto a ship which will bring him to Sherrinford, he calls himself a pirate. Are there connections between pirates and knights? Of course there are:

One of the most famous pirates of the British Empire was Sir Francis Drake -Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received on his ship, the Golden Hind. 

William Knight  was a 17th-century English buccaneer (pirate). Reading the Wikipedia entry about him, it looks like ‘Captain Knight’ has indeed raided ‘the seven seas’. 

William Sherlock Scott Holmes, consulting private detective, the only one in the world and additionally dragon slayer, pirate and knight …. this man really loves to be dramatic.  

(For more delicious pirate treats look up this post about Sherlock and the Pirates of the Caribbean, black spots and Treasure Island)

Knights are guardians, defenders, soldiers ... pirates ... who slay the most dangerous dragons and save damsels in distress …  

(With every quiver of his beating heart   The Black Defender).

Two ‘damsels’ in Sherlock BBC

A damsel - is an old fashioned term, meaning a young woman, often unmarried and of noble birth. Synonyms are: demoiselle, girl, maid, maiden, miss. The word comes from the Middle English damesel, from Anglo-French dameisele, from Vulgar Latin domnicella (young noblewoman), diminutive of Latin ... domina lady   (x)

‘Damsel’ appears two times in Sherlock BBC in two different scenes from two different episodes. It is used by two different characters and aimed at two different persons.

Mycroft in ASIB talks about Sherlock and ‘dominatrix’ Irene Adler:

That’s all it takes: one lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special. …. The damsel in distress. In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption; then give him a puzzle … and watch him dance.

Magnussen in HLV talks about Sherlock and ‘eternal friend’ John Watson:

Very hard to find a pressure point on you, Mr. Holmes. The drugs thing I never believed for a moment. Anyway, you wouldn’t care if it was exposed, would you? But look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.

What an interesting combination of characters on both sides of Sherlock. And one more confrontation of the two (so often hinted at) opposites in this story - sex and friendship (Solutions or choices). Irene and Jim represent the female and male incarnation of sex, while John-I’m not gay-Watson represents the ‘eternal’ friend and fixed point in a changing age. Both aspects - sex and friendship - are called Sherlock’s ‘damsels’. And it’s even more interesting to see who makes those statements:  

MYCROFT - owner of a laptop on which depends the security of the free world (”with potatoes on it - shelves in exchange for chips - I am glad you liked my potatoe -  you’re suicidal, you’re allowed chips”)

MAGNUSSEN - who runs the western world from a library of secrets and scandals that isn’t stored on computers but on hard copy in vaults

A computer versus hard copies in vaults … Well, this reminds me of Sherlock’s explanation in The Great Game, regarding his brain. He compares it to a computer hard drive and adds that  ‘it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful ... really useful. Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters?‘   And what might be a ‘hard copy in vaults’? This seems to be a perfect metaphor for informations stored inside the brain. That organ occupies the space in the skull called ... cranial vault. 

(Mycroft & Magnussen   A shadow of massive proportions)

A computer versus hard copies in vaults … two paraphrases for one and the same thing … a brain. Janus-faced, one could call it. A mind in conflict with itself. Time to choose a side for Sherlock Holmes. Friendship or sex? John or James? Saint or sinner? 

What if Sherlock chooses neither? ‘I could just walk out of here’ (and carry on torturing myself in an isolated dungeon, locked up in solitary confinement with my worst enemy, that’s ME by the way,  for another couple of centuries … I can’t die anyway, I’m an immortal literal character ... an undead)

What if Sherlock chooses both?  A tempting idea …. :)))

A game for the brain

Chess is called the ‘game of kings’ (’Am I the current king of England?’) and chess plays a vital role in Sherlock BBC. Serial killer Jeff Hope compares the game he wants to play with Sherlock to chess … ‘it’s chess not chance’. There’s a chess board in 221b, the pieces are always standing on it, ready to play. It turns up in each episode, placed at different locations in the living room. The third episode of S1 is called The Great Game. A fake chess game in TEH. A game of chess in Tiblisi, Georgia between two massive lion statues. And let’s not forget the three mysterious promo pics for S4 … Sherlock and Mycroft playing chess and John sitting between them. There are no visual connections whatsoever in S4 to those pics. Anyway, chess is important … especially one certain piece type of the figurines, it seems. 

Chess is a very old two-player strategy board game, originating from India around the 6th century. The oldest archaeological chess artifacts were excavated in Uzbekistan, central Asia, and date to about 760. Chess is played on a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid, with16 pieces for each player: 

One king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each piece type moves differently and ... these are the moves:

The knight is a specialist ...

The chess piece called ‘knight’ is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. The area a knight is able to cover - to protect or threaten other pieces - forms a circle. 

The knight moves unconventionally compared to all the other chess pieces. Whereas other pieces move in straight lines, knights move in an “L-shape”—that is, they can move two squares in any direction vertically followed by one square horizontally, or two squares in any direction horizontally followed by one square vertically …. a bit similar to the strange sitting arrangement of Sherlock and John, chosen for the plane scene in TST. 

Presumed both men were knights on a chess board, each move of either man could bring him to the place of the other one. Mary isn’t in the way at all because knights are able to …. jump.

The ‘jumper’

Another characteristic feature of a knight is the fact that it is the only piece in the game of chess that can “jump over” other pieces, regardless of whether those pieces are black or white. Because of this, some languages refer to the knight as ‘the jumper’ (in german ‘der Springer’). 

Of jumping and jumpers

Jumping in front of trains, of ‘transport’ and leaving behind strawberry jam, connects the Andrew West case from TGG with the Strawb-Fizz-Explosive-Flavour-Bus from TST, in which John meets E (Eurus/Sherlock). A quite explosive meeting indeed, thinking of Eurus’ passions grenade a little later.  

(Bus spotted on and speculated about during setlock, in the night-shot with Faith 12.06.2016 x x)

Jumping from a rooftop, taking a leap of faith from the edge of a waterfall, throwing oneself through fire and flames out of windows onto an island ..... jumping, falling, flying and landing …. those are definitely main topics in Sherlock BBC.  (Developement of the fall)

Considering the fact that the creators of Sherlock BBC obviously enjoy playing with names, words, double meanings and innuendos really very much, I seriously wonder wether there is a reason behind the decision to dress John Watson in his, by now, famous oatmeal coloured jumper or let Sherlock tell a room full of wedding guests that he ‘could go on all night about the depth and complexity of (John’s) ... jumpers ...’

PS:  Taking the screen caps from the wedding, I noticed for the first time that a female voice says ‘jumpers’ simultaneously with Sherlock in this scene. It’s a bit like Mrs. Hudson suddenly chiming in with ‘softer, Sherlock’ during his conversation with Molly in TFP. 

The Christmas jumpers shouldn’t be forgotten either. There are two of them which play a role in Sherlock BBC: John wears one in ASIB, the other one turns up in the fisherman deduction scene in THOB. @sagestreet  wrote about the fisherman and his mother  here.  By the way … that’s most likely a reindeer on the fisherman’s jumper. Reindeer’s are a species of deer and deer, stags and harts are another heavy featured topic in this story. 

(Sherlock the stag and the skull   Stalking the deerstalker   The three Garridebs   Study in pink and green)

Change of colour

Also interesting … due to its L-shaped movement, a knight, beginning on a white square, will always end up on a black square, and vice versa. The colour of the square it stands on, changes with each movement. Changing is definitely another main theme - if not THE main theme - of this story.

Short version for the transformation from Rosie to rainbow:   Rosamund=rose of the world=rosa mundi=rosa versicolor=changing colours/many colours/iridescence=rainbow   

(longer version in these comments   The elephant in the room/womb   Prism)

Back to the game and the knights

Looking at the chess pieces on the board and the captured ones lying next to it, one can safely say that it had been Mycroft who started this game, because according to the rules of chess, white moves fist. 

If Sherlock BBC is meant to be a great, metaphorical game of chess, with the various characters serving as chess pieces, then Mycroft starting that game, would coincide with a PILOT starting point. Before John Watson walks into the lab at Bart’s Hospital and meets Sherlock Holmes for the first time, before DI Lestrade summons Sherlock to the crime scene of the Lady in Pink, it is Mycroft who sends Sherlock an E-Mail, asking for his help in an ‘impossible situation’. Sherlock answers his brother with the famous Holmes quote from canon: 

‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains must be the truth. ‘

This interpretation would also coincide with the idea that in this story Mycroft represents the brain, Sherlock’s brain. Logic, reason and intellect. After all, it is this organ which starts every movement and every thought in everyones life.  (The reptile in 221b)

It is Mycroft who first kidnaps and investigates the ‘eternal friend’ - Sherlock’s feelings for John. In the wake of the first explosion, it is him who brings the ‘West' case to Baker Street, who later downright forces Sherlock to take the ‘Woman-case’. It is him who releases the ‘Hound’ and also him who brings Sherlock back from the dungeon inside the forest. Jim becomes Eurus’ Chrismas present because ‘big brother’ allowed it. Mycroft is responsible that Sherlock gets involved in the Carmichael case and it is also him who tells Sherlock that ‘We don’t defeat them (emotions). We must certainly lose to them. Because they are right, and we are wrong.’ This case leads Sherlock to his very own Reichenbach Falls - ‘the greatest crisis of my career’ - the point where he throws himself into the waterfall, out of his own free will. No one forces him, there is not the slightest need to do this. Yet Sherlock jumps and flies.

Centre stage for the knights …. the jumpers ….

Henry Knight instead of Henry Baskerville …. it seems there could have been a lot of good reasons for the creators of Sherlock BBC to choose KNIGHT as the new surname for … THE Baskerville … the man haunted by demons.

(Shoes for the hound   Investigator of secrets and scandals)

Source of chess info/pics (x x x), source of Sherlock BBC chess promo pics (x)

I leave you to your own deductions. Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

October, 2019

[withyouandthemoon]

Daddy Issues

Author’s Note: This was, to my utter embarrassment, inspired by a line from what I believe was the second episode of TO S5. Something along the lines of “there are certain damages that only a father can do”, which I find completely nonsense. Many moons later that disdain along with @garglyswoof‘s kind prompting finally pushed me to write this down. Set sometime in the future where KC are in an established relationship; probably a few decades after TVD 4x23 and anything Canon after that is not acknowledged here. It started off like a ton of lemons (I love this obsolete term that I recently just learned) but is actually so filled with fluff it’s more like lemon meringue. My teeth hurt in the end.

When Caroline was young she was terrified of flying. Granted she didn’t flew that much to start with – just a couple of times to visit her dad and that one single time when her mom took her to see her aunt in Florida.

Each and every one of those times she was scared out of her mind. Her imaginations ran the wildest when they were backed up by data, and she had always been a thorough researcher. She’d clamp her little hands so hard on the armrests to crush the images of falling and explosion in her head as the giant plane sped up, hard steel digging into her back like some unnameable dark force with an evil mind of its own.

And then she’d be hovering midair. Her heart floating in her already floating body, all trapped up in a floating still iron box.

Caroline thought she’d loathe that feeling all her life and avoid it at all cost.

Little did she know how drastically feelings changed over time, especially when you hold a few decades, or even centuries of it in your palm to squander about.

Then flying became soaring. Floating, freeing. Looking down on the ground from miles above felt like a metaphor for the immortality of which she was still just beginning to get a grasp.

And that was probably why Caroline found herself fantasizing about what she used to fear the most when Klaus’ controlled warm breaths scorched her inner thighs. He was taking his sweet time tonight, lips hovering near her soaked core, the tip of his tongue ghosting her sensitive skin now and then, but never fully landing. A frustrated half-sigh-half-moan slipped out of her throat and he merely hummed, the sound buzzing through her suddenly arched spine like the engines of a plane, lulling, but exhilarating all the same.

“Easy, there.” His thumb gently rubbed under her knee while a light kiss grazed her abdomen, “we haven’t even started yet.”

And how she yearned for that. Speeding. Gaining traction. Pulling up and up and up until she was blinded by the sun blasting over the hazy clouds.

His low chuckle traveled along her midsection to the valley between her breasts, and he licked her there as if tasting her wandering thoughts, “what lovely images are you conjuring up this time, sweetheart?”

She knew what he was asking about. After decades of roaming the earth it was no news to Caroline that people saw or heard the strangest things during sex. But surprisingly she had quite the artistic mind when it came to sex with Klaus (sometimes she suspected she was channeling him but she would never feed that to his egotistical ass). The first time he coaxed the imaginative painting of undulating hills swirling with colors out of her, he stared at her with such awe and fervor in his eyes like she’d just single-handedly invented the freaking impressionism. Ever since then he became quite obsessed with her little “sex visions”, and it was not like Caroline didn’t enjoy it.

But not now. He was wordy when he got artistic, and wordy meant slow.

So she dragged him up by his dangling necklaces, stealing a bruising kiss for her own before replying, “I’m not telling you if you keep this game up.”

“What game?” He feigned innocence, like those fingers so skillfully fiddling with her nipples weren’t even his.

She couldn’t quite swallow her gasps, her eyes half-closed from the charges spreading from her chest, but not enough to shut out the smug grin on his face.

Well if this was the road he wanted to go down, then she might as well spice things up a bit more.

Silently she began to nibble at the side of his neck, Klaus’ head immediately falling back exposing his throat where tiny sounds of satisfaction were rumbling. To this day it amazed Caroline a little when he acted this open around her, and she felt herself growing wetter at the thought.

Sucking on his pulse point, she reached over to the glass jar on their nightstand and sank her hand into the sea of notes inside.

The jar was Caroline’s two-year anniversary gift to Klaus, filled with both of their fantasies and dirty thoughts. Klaus was, of course, most obliged to try it out as often as possible, but now over one year later they’d still not run out of ideas – not completely unbelievable considering they’d both been caught on more than one occasion sneaking new notes into the “kink jar”, as dubbed by one very disturbed and disgusted Rebekah Mikaelson.

Caroline laughed inwardly at Rebekah’s scrunched-up face as she fished around the little pieces of paper. But before she could draw one out, her hand was enclosed in his, the heat of his palm almost burning her.

She looked up into Klaus’ teasing eyes, “I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

“When are you not?” He was idly rubbing circles on the back of her hand through the thin notes, and she almost moaned out at the feeling of the rough edges of paper scraping against her skin. When did the back of her hand become an erogenous zone anyway? Damn it, focus.

She raised an eyebrow challengingly, “can’t keep up?”

His grin grew wider at that, “I’m not complaining.”

Snatching a piece of note from between her fingers, Klaus withdrew his hand and lay back against the headboard, his other arm instinctively circling around Caroline as she snuggled close to take a peek. She was startled by Klaus’ sudden growl of anger, and she hurried to grab the note before he crushed it in his iron grip.

Apprehension clouded her mind as she read the now slightly smudged words: Call Me Daddy.

That definitely hit a sore subject if there ever was one. And judging by Klaus’ murderous expression she doubted he threw that one in just to test his own limits. So that left…

“Kol.” Klaus bit through his clenched teeth, confirming her suspicion.

“But how…?”

Their bedroom was spelled so that only the two of them could enter, and anyone who dared to break the barrier would leave marks wherever they touched inside the room. Not to mention that with Klaus’ hybrid senses, he could probably detect any past intruders from a mile away. To wipe all the traces Kol would have to have some assistance in the form of witchcraft, but Caroline still vividly remembered the disastrous fight Klaus had with him just days ago about Kol “childishly antagonizing all the covens in the city”.

“Kol has always had a way with witches,” Klaus huffed, “if he’s not acting like a raging imbecile.”

“So you’re telling me that he somehow made up with the witches, which I believe was what you expected in the first place, and he got them to help him get inside our bedroom to mess with our sex life, just so he could get back at you because you yelled at him for making an enemy of the witches that ended up helping him?” Caroline rolled her eyes, “I know I’ve said this a million times but you all are a twisted bunch.”

Klaus’ lips lifted smugly, “he’s my brother after all.” In the blink of an eye the smirk turned into a scowl, “but if he thought he could get away with this he was sorely mistaken. I do not care if he’s restored some sort of rapport with the witches. This crossed a line.”

“It can’t really be that bad.” She sighed, sitting up straight, nudging Klaus’ head to settle on her chest before he could protest. She could feel the little puff of air he let out warm on her skin, his long dark blonde eyelashes casting shadows on those high cheekbones that felt way too petulant for a thousand year old monster.

“I will be the judge of that.”

The moonlight was shining favorably on all his good features, and from Caroline’s vantage point he almost looked like one of those ancient statues she saw during their never ending world tours, the perfect human specimen perpetuated by hands that were long dead. But those masterpieces of marble were truly strong, ageless, fearless.

He wasn’t.

He was a thousand years of weaknesses and struggles, sleepless nights and blood-soaked frenzies sedimented into one.

And he was resting so petulantly, yet so contently on her very chest.

Without lifting his eyes Klaus seemed to have sensed the little smile tugging at the corner of her lips, “what? No name-calling? Not a word of ‘get over it?’” His arm idly went around her waist, bringing their bodies even closer, “that’s a first.”

She didn’t answer him for a while, just silently playing with the soft curls on his nape. And for once Klaus didn’t rush her, his artistic fingers drawing sketch after sketch on her side. Neither of them was particularly good at the patience thing, but somehow they found the rhythm as the years passed, finding each other more fascinating than the heavy stress of silence.

“I was just thinking…none of us seemed to have won the lottery in the father department. I mean, mine left when I was ten; Bonnie’s father was practically absentee when we were growing up, and from what I heard the Salvatores nearly got killed by theirs. Elena’s father was probably the only nice one, but it turned out he was a heartless psycho who tortured vampires for science.” She couldn’t help a small shudder when she mentioned that piece of information, and Klaus’ arm instantly tightened around her.

“Among the lot of us, we could run an awards for the shittiest dad.” She continued with a light shake of her head, “on a scale of one to ten your dad can get, like a nine or something.”

This time Klaus looked up at her, his face more incredulous than angered, which Caroline took as a good sign.

“What? There must be something even worse than wanting your own kids dead.”

“Caroline, are you seriously trying to rank this medley crew according to paternal ‘shittiness’?” She could hear the air quote loud and clear in his words.

Shrugging, Caroline reached for his hand, now stilled on her ribcage because of her ever-so-whimsical idea, and guided it to resume its drawing patterns, “I’m tempted. This sounds like there could be a nice colored histogram involved. I’ll even let you pick your own color – I call dibs on hot pink though.”

Klaus snorted, clearly knowing her enthusiasm was only half-faked, “I promise I won’t fight you over it, love.”

“Good. Because you don’t stand a chance anyway.” She retorted smugly, bending down to press a kiss at the crown of his head.

She knew very well that vampires didn’t have a heartbeat. It took her a long time to get used to not feeling it in herself, and even longer to stop looking for it in others. But after that, she started to notice the tells. More importantly, she started to notice his tells.

How his lips hung open, how his eyelashes shook infinitesimally, how that tiny pause in his even breaths segued so smoothly into the next as if nothing happened…all the little signs screaming in silence the skip of a nonexistent heartbeat.

So she snuggled her face into his hair further, curling around him to ease the tightening of her own dead heart, their bodies molding into each other like a gender-reversed version of that famous painting of Gustav Klimt’s.

Sometimes she couldn’t fathom if she was looking at the world through his eyes, or he hers.

“How come you speak so lightly about such things?” Klaus’ voice was barely above a whisper, contorted emotions hidden well in the creases of hushed breaths.

“And how can you give them so much power?” She pushed back the question softly, the knuckle of her finger grazing his jaw line, “I thought it was human nature to forget.”

And she’d experienced that nature more and more now that she was almost in her fifties in human years. They were, in the end, selfish and cowardly creatures who shed memories like they shed hair. Because hair ate at your body, and memories ate at your soul.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine clinging to the past for a century, let alone a millennium.

His quiet sigh weighed heavy on her heart, “maybe so. But may I remind you that we are no longer human, and common senses don’t necessarily apply to our cases.”

“Yet you’re the one who keeps letting him get to you.”

She knew she was treading on thin ice, but she never could hold her tongue in front of him. Feeling him tensing she leaned in to press another kiss on his temple, his body now almost completely wrapped in hers. They felt like one bizarre creature with tangled limbs and ragged breaths, his lashes shuttering against her chin its disproportionally-tiny, erratic heart.

“Caroline…”

He spoke her name in a way that nobody else would. Like a whole new language that consisted of only one word, and every part of speech was just her, her, her.

But somehow she always understood him perfectly.

“It was the summer when I was twelve that it really sank in – that I couldn’t count on my dad.” She started talking without prompt, her other arm reaching over to circle him in a full embrace, “sure he was gone before that, but we talked on the phone, he’d send me gifts and sometimes visit, so it didn’t feel that bad.”

She felt him settle further into her. There were subjects that Klaus would never go into details. But from time to time he’d listen quietly as Caroline talked about them, without a word of response. It’d become yet another one of their things – those feelings that he didn’t dare utter, that he hadn’t quite figured out even after a thousand tumultuous years flowing through her like a dark stream, brought into the freeing daylight by her soft voice. In those moments he’d just hold her tighter, as he did now.

“That summer I went to stay with him and Stephen. We had so much fun together. I’d never seen my father so happy and carefree, always laughing, joking, trying out new things. Stephen brought that out in him. He was not bad himself either. I almost forgave him. But then it was the end of the summer and of course, I didn’t want to leave.”

She’d used up all her tricks but her dad still wouldn’t budge, looking at her apologetically, his eyes full of things that she didn’t understand then.

“My dad said I had to. Period. I was upset, but more than that the whole thing just felt so unfair. My dad chose to leave, he chose to start a new life without me, and he chose to send me back. But why didn’t I get to choose?” She sighed into the side of his neck, “but it turns out life just doesn’t give you that many choices, no matter who you are.”

She trailed her fingers down his vertebrae, one bone at a time. She’d watched him turn several times over the years, her hand helplessly trying to soothe the pain bursting out from the seams. Yet now they rested so cluelessly under her finger tips, little fossils of suffering with invisible secrets and puzzles carved into them, but no answers.

“I was mad for a month or two. About my dad, of course; but also because Kimberly Fell told everyone I kissed her douchebag of a brother and got dumped, which was the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. Hello? Alex Fell was so not my type!” Klaus was chuckling softly into the crook of her shoulder. She slapped him on the back without much force, her own laugh bubbling in her chest, “anyway, I’m just saying that it was…ordinary, you know. He was not father of the year, but he was hardly the cause of everything gone wrong in my life.”

Klaus’ voice startled her a little, hoarse from the long silence on his part, “as I’ve told you a long time ago, the issue with my father was slightly more complicated than that.” But unlike the first time, instead of harsh he just sounded pensive, his hand still caressing her side in its own accord.

“Well I suppose so,” her voice took on a teasing tone, “but I doubt you are a special scattered spot outside the normal distribution curve.”

“I see that statics course of yours has proven useful.” Klaus huffed a laugh, fingers traveling to the dips of her lower waist, making her shiver involuntarily.

“I told you college education had its perks.”

She never finished her first undergrad, opting for traveling the world on her own instead. When she mentioned getting back to it one more time a few months ago, Klaus was more than supportive – at least about everything aside from her class schedule.

“It still doesn’t make up for those mornings when you leave me in bed alone.” He sucked at the sensitive spot between her clavicles, his full lips forming a perfect pout to prove his point.

Caroline shoved him away and flipped them over, straddling him with a triumphant smirk, “don’t be a baby.”

His hand instantly landed on her hips, squeezing her so deliciously she let out a gasp, “fine, then be a good student and tell me where I fall on your normal distribution curves.”

She ground her ass into him, eliciting a low moan, “normal is never the word to use when it comes to my curves, and you know it.”

“My apologies, love.” He looked up at her, all flashy dimples and shiny curls, “I hereby declare that from this day forward your curves will only be referred to as ‘sensational’ and ‘out of this world’.”

“You better.” She leaned over to kiss him, only to feel the discarded piece of paper under her palm. Frowning, she threw it aside, “and for this once I’m not against you straightening Kol up a little. He has no business in The Jar. And ‘daddy’? Seriously? You are at least a grandpa.”

Klaus rolled his eyes, “if we absolutely have to play this game I prefer the vampire term ‘sire’.”

“Huh.” Caroline inclined her head teasingly, “If you want to get into the technicalities, I believe you are my great-great-great-grand-sire. You are practically my ancestor in vamp terms.”

“You make me feel so old, sweetheart.”

“Hate to break it to you, but as a vampire you have to change your perception of time.” Caroline wiggled her brows as she repeated his words to him, “apparently saying you are old is like, the highest compliment.”

“Apparently.” Klaus hummed as he palmed her breasts leisurely, thumbs brushing over her hardening nipples and Caroline’s head fell back in the surge of pleasure.

Still she never was one to back down from a banter, even if her voice was husky from the lust and anticipation, “so suck it up, sweetheart.”

The next second he was shifting their position so he was sitting up with her still in his lap, his hot lips grazing her left breast while his hand kept kneading the other, “I promise to start sucking if you keep up the compliments.”

But before she could utter a word his mouth was on her, soft lips enveloping her nipple with his tongue skillfully brushing the tip. Caroline sighed loudly, her fingers once more sinking into his curls in abandon.

“Oh yes sire!” She arched her back, pushing her breasts into his head-reeling ministrations, her moans half from arousal and half her playful streak, “you are so old, I just love how old you are…” she ground her burning core into his already rock hard cock, “yes, ravish me, punish me, hit me with your long hard cane!”

Klaus suddenly let go of her nipple, pulling her down for a wet kiss, the sound of laughter shook from their chasing tongues all the way down to their joint hips.

He was still laughing when he pulled back, his hand brushing the fallen hair out of her face gently, “this reminds me of…never mind.”

“What?”

Caroline studied him suspiciously. He looked…embarrassed, with his eyes downcast and the annoyed little lines forming at the corners of his eyes. And then something clicked.

“You were thinking of When Harry Met Sally weren’t you? Admit it!”

She’d all but forced him to watch with her all the chick flicks that’d ever been made, some more than once, or try five times. It was not her fault that the hybrid had an impressive memory.

“I most certainly did not!” He narrowed his eyes, pulling her closer into his lock of iron-hard arms, “how dare you sully my name like this, young lady.”

“Whatever you say, great-great-great-grand-sire.”

Caroline batted her eyelashes at him, curling the last word around her tongue like he so often did. She gasped when his cock grew even larger underneath her, vibrating against her soaking slit with a mind of its own.

“Are you actually turned on by that?” She faked incredulity while furtively rubbing her core over him, earning a growl deep in his throat.

He looked at her long and hard, sweet and tender, his face still lit up by a playful smile yet his eyes burned into hers as if fusing them together, even if they were already so close she tasted him at the back of her tongue with each breath she took, “Caroline, you make me want to kiss you, spank you, fuck you senseless and have a good laugh with you, all at the same time.”

He slowly leaned into her, their cheeks touching inch by inch and he was whispering into her ear like the whole world had silenced to a halt, “there is no bigger turn-on than that.”

She laughed softly, her hands raising to cup his cheeks, murmuring an indiscernible “good” before she dove into him, and felt like flying.

[calzona-all-ways]

Mrs. Torres and the Red Headed Devil

By Anonymous

Chapter 2

- hi! I can’t wait for you to come home. I’ve missed you so much!-

-really?- Callie couldn’t believe she could be so lucky as to be missed by the person she herself so desperately missed.

-of course I have. I’ve been really sad since you left. But now that you’re coming home I’m super happy again!-

Smiling ebulliently, Callie reflected on Arizona’s almost childlike enthusiasm and the thought of it in her life once again.

-I miss u too. And I can’t wait to see u -

-you will. Soon. I’ll buy tickets. When do you want to come?-

Wow, Arizona was as eager as she and Sofia for their little family to reunite. Maybe their daughter had gotten it wrong after all and there were no impending nuptials in the immediate future for her former wife and the imitator.

-we just bought the tickets online. For tomorrow.-

-tomorrow?!-

-Surprise! I couldn’t wait. I really want to come back.-

-OMG! YAY! Tomorrow’s perfect. Now I really can’t wait. I’ll probably be up all night, too excited to sleep!-

-lol! U always say that tomorrow comes a lot faster when u sleep. Especially if u have good dreams.-

-you’re right, I do. And it does. And I will have the best dreams ever tonight because I’ll be dreaming of you.-

-I always dream of u. I really can’t wait to see u.-

-Me too! In fact, I’m going to go to sleep right now so tomorrow can come and we can be together sooner. -

-lol, okay. Me too. Goodnight-

-Goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow! ;) -

- :) -

Arizona smiled brightly and placed her phone on the night stand beside her bed. Sofia was coming home. Finally. The year of torturous separation was over and she would be seeing her mini Calliope once more. Sure they’d visited each other over the last twelve months but their time together always seemed to fly by and on each and every occasion left her feeling devastatedly hollow when it was time to part once more. It certainly wasn’t the same as having her favorite person right beside her long term. But now, now was a time for happiness. Sofia was coming home. Her daughter was finally coming back and Arizona was excited beyond belief.

Xxxxx

Buckled into the luxuriously heated leather seat of the chauffeured vehicle her mama had waiting for them when they stepped off the plane in Seattle, Sofia pulled her phone from her bag and held the power button, the illuminating light brightening up the cars interior as she waited for it to come to life. She was beyond excited and wanted to text her mommy to tell her she was almost there.

The little fingers dancing quickly around the keyboard caught Callie’s attention and she smiled proudly at their deftness, her mind envisioning a successful surgical career in the young girl’s future.

“Sofia- wait. Wait. Scroll down a little,” she told her daughter as the tail end of a familiar conversation caught her eye.

Callie gasped loudly as more of the previous exchange was revealed.

“Ma-maa,” Sofia complained as her fingertip moved the screen and she saw the unfamiliar conversation. “You were using MY phone again.”

“Oh my-” a larger tanned hand, deft in its own right covered the shocked woman’s mouth.

“Didn’t you see my kitty stickers?” the little girl accused, after all this wasn’t the first time her mama had made this mistake. Hence the colorful stickers.

Silence abated as the ortho surgeon closed her eyes tightly.

“Mama, what’s the matter?”

When long moments went by without an answer, Sofia tried again.

“Mama?”

“I used- she doesn’t- oh my g-” Callie swallowed heavily, startled as the realization of her error and the consequence of her mixup landed like a punch to her metaphorical gut.

Confused little eyes stared up at Callie while the shock of the revelation played out comically on her features before eventually subsiding. When the ortho surgeon could finally breathe again, she inhaled heavily, hoping to calm her racing heartbeat, and put her arm around her daughter to reassure the alarmed child while she covertly used her other hand to swipe away a disappointed tear.

“Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing’s the matter. Mama’s just a little crazy.” She sniffled before adopting a tremulous smile. “I’m sorry I used your phone again. Silly me, I didn’t even notice all of the pretty stickers on it.”

“It’s okay.” Sofia could see her mothers eyes filling with water. “You can use my phone if you want. I don’t mind,” she offered.

Sniffling once more, Callie pulled her daughter close, kissing her head before laying her cheek atop the child’s dark hair. “Thank you baby. That’s so nice of you.”

“S’okay.”

“I love you,” her lips met the crown of the child’s head once more.

“Love you too, mama.”

They stayed like that for the rest of the ride as Callie’s mind worked feverishly to decide on what to say to the ex wife who had no idea she was not only accompanying their daughter on this jaunt, but that she had also left her job and all of her belongings back in New York for the misinterpreted promise of a shared tomorrow.

Xxxx

“We’re here, Ma'am.” The car pulled to a stop in front of a neatly manicured lawn of deep green. “Miss Torres?” The driver called out, startling Callie out of her reverie of ‘what if’s’ and 'if only’s.’ “We’re here.”

“Oh.” Callie raised her head from atop her daughters as Sofia snuggled sleepily against her side and cleared her throat. “Oh. Thank you.” She jostled the snoozing child lightly while the driver got out and retrieved the suitcases from the trunk before coming around to her door and pulling it open.

“Oh, uh, just the small one, please,” Callie corrected, the sadness in her eyes easily discernible as she watched the driver wheel the larger case back to the trunk and heard him heave it in. She thanked the Heavens for noticing the mistake before she showed up like a fool with her suitcase in hand at the door of the woman she still loved. The woman who was talking marriage with somebody else.

“Ugh,” the disapproval of that thought left Callie’s lips in a grunt of distaste and she sullenly vowed to think of some way to stop that whole debacle from happening and win Arizona back for herself.

“Sofia. Sofia, honey, it’s time to wake up. We’re here.”

The little girl was suddenly wide awake. “We are? Yay!”

Callie smiled at her daughters enthusiasm as Sofia tried to climb over her in an effort to be the first one out of the ajar door.

“Hey! Hey, slow down,” she called to the eager child. “We have to grab your suitcase.”

“Hurry up, Mama! Mommy’s waiting for me!”

“Okay, okay.” Callie turned to the driver as her daughter ran up the stoop to the house and started banging her little fists against the wood.

“Mommy! Mommy it’s me,” she hollered as she danced excitedly from foot to foot.

“I’ll uh, I’ll need about an hour, so if you want to go grab a coffee or something that’ll be fine,” Callie informed the driver.

“Yes ma'am. Thank you.”

“Uh, also, could you wait until I’m in the house before you actually leave ?”

Callie couldn’t stand the thought that the blonde might not be alone, and if that was the case there’d be no way she would be sticking around to have her foolish heart flayed open in front of witnesses. “Of course.”

“Thank you.”

With a slight smile, Callie nodded and the man returned to his position inside the vehicle while she turned to fully face the house her daughter was assaulting with her balled up little fingers. She took a deep breath and shook her own hands several times to quell the nervous quiver that had suddenly settled in them, wishing there was a likewise easy remedy for the butterflies that were currently fluttering in her stomach as well. “Okay, Cal, here goes nothing,” the whispered encouragement slipped out unintentionally as she watched the front door being abruptly flung open, her daughter jumping ecstatically into the waiting arms of her other mother. “Please be alone, please be alone…”

Pulling out the handle of Sofia’s suitcase, she made her way to the scene on the front porch. She couldn’t help but smile grandly as she watched the reunion before her play out, both parties obvious in their elation at finally being in physical contact with the other. She waited until her daughters feet were placed back onto the ground then opened her mouth to speak but found herself struck dumb as the full force of dimple power was now aimed and fired in her direction. It hadn’t been just a diversionary tactic at all when she’d told Ruby about that super magical smile and it’s abilities. She had been dimply annihilated on more than one occasion.

“Calliope, hi.”

Her breaths became shallow and yet shuddery at the same time.

“Hey you!” Callie cringed for the response that sounded over enthusiastic even to her own ears. She cleared her throat and tried once more. “Uh, hey Arizona. How are you?” Not knowing what to do, she kept an awkward distance until the blonde leaned nearer and pulled her into a warm embrace, their daughter still attached to her midsection.

“Good. I’m- I’m good. How about you? How are you?”

“Good.”

“I didn’t know what time you would be here.”

Callie sighed as her arms wrapped reciprocally around Arizona and squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she valiantly fought back tears, overwhelmed with emotion at the feeling of finally being home again after an excruciatingly long journey. Her body trembled with sadness at the realization of what she had given up by walking out of that therapists office so very long ago.

“Oh, uh, sorry about that,” she offered when the embrace came to an end and their bodies regrettably parted. She didn’t elaborate because didn’t know how to without playing the fool and letting on that it had been her with whom the fetal surgeon had been communicating by text with and not heir daughter.

“That’s okay, I just took the entire day. So… Um, did you, do you want to come in?” Blue eyes shifted to the waiting vehicle. “Oh, you probably need to leave.”

“No. No no. I’m good.I’m good.”

She could’ve sworn she saw a gleam sparkle in blue eyes at the unintended innuendo and beneath her mocha colored skin tone, Callie’s skin grew heated. "I mean, I can stay. If you want me-”

Now it was Arizona who blushed furiously.

“To stay! I can stay if you want me to.”

Was it in her imagination, or did Arizona’s smile just grow in size? Callie’s heart pounded harder at the thought.

“Come on in.”

With a quick backward glance Callie nervously followed the blonde and their daughter into her home, becoming overwhelmed when she stepped inside fully and the fragrance of the woman she loved permeated the air. Her lungs expanded to capture as much of the tantalizing smell as they could while her eyes took in the homey decor as she stopped to look around.

“You don’t have to the stand in the hall, Callie.”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“And you certainly don’t have to be sorry about it.”

“Oh. Uh sor-” she cleared her throat instead and walked further into the residence. 'Nice place.“

Arizona laughed. Was it her imagination or was her ex-wife actually nervous? "You’ve been here before.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never looked around. I mean, usually I’m just in and out.”

“Well, not this time. I’m glad you could stay for a bit.”

Now it was Callie’s smile that expanded and Arizona fought to drag her gaze away when Sofia voiced a question.

“Is Andrew home, Mommy?”

“Uh, no, sweetheart. Andrew doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Oh.” Sofia wore a comical pout. Her mother’s roommate was fun to play with and always made up the best games.

“What happened? He didn’t- he didn’t try something did he?”

“What-No-”

“Because if he did, I’ll set him straight-” Callie offered, surprised at the sudden burst of aggression she was feeling towards Arizona’s roommate and the obvious edge her tone reflected .

“No. No. Nothing happened. He just uh, he just felt it was time to move on.”

Brown eyes watched her skeptically.

“Uh huh.”

“Um, sit down, Calliope. Can I get you something? Coffee?”

Callie was glad for the offer and calculated exactly how slow she could drink it for the optimum amount of time in Arizona’s company.

“Sure. Coffee’d be great.”

“Mommy can I have a cookie?”

The blonde smiled. It was so nice to be around her daughter and parenting once more for even just the little things.

“I just made some last night. I was too excited to sleep.”

She moved to the kitchen and blew out a heavy breath the second she was out if sight. God, Callie looked as intoxicating as ever and having her there, in Arizona’s personal space, was really wreaking havoc with the blondes libido. The overwhelming temptation to kiss those incredibly soft lips forced Arizona to acknowledge that no matter the amount of years they had spent apart, or the lovers since, she hadn’t even partially detoxed from the exhilarating brunette she’d called home for so long.

When long minutes passed with still no sight of Arizona, Callie made her way through the house, following the trail she had seen the blonde take.

“Uh, hey, I hope it’s alright, Sofia passed out and I was getting kind of lonely in there.” Her thumb ticked over her shoulder.

“Oh. No, yeah, come on in. Sorry about that. I was waiting for the coffee. Sit down.”

Callie sat at the small table in front of the bay window. “You kept the kitchen set.” She liked that there was a piece of 'them’ in Arizona’s home.

“I did. It was nice of you to let me have it.” The blonde enjoyed the reminder of furniture shopping with her wife for their new home and the feelings it invoked within.

“Well you picked it out.”

The women shared a quiet moment lost in the surprisingly comfortable memory of their past.

“So, Sof passed out, huh?”

“Like a light,” Callie agreed. “She was so exhausted, I had to wake her when we pulled up.”

“Oh. Well I guess you guys had a busy day.”

“We did. And as hard as traveling is a on an adult, I’m sure it’s a lot worse when you’re little.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Sadness washed through Arizona. “You’re probably tired too. Did you need to leave?”

“No. No, I’m good. I’m fine. Unless… Did you need me to leave? I mean you probably want to spend some time with Sofia-”

“No. No, it fine. Stay. It’s fine, Callie. And Sofia’s sleeping anyway.”

“Are you sure? I mean I understand-”

“Callie, stay.”

The women shared a smile and a secret sigh of relief that their time together would not be ending anytime soon.

“And if you need to rest, I have a guest room too, you know. Um, I mean if you think Penny wouldn’t mind.”

“No. No. Penny wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay good. Because I don’t want to cause any problems between you.”

“That’s ironic.”

“Excuse me.”

“Nothing. Nothing. So uh, no DeLuca huh? Did he finally put on his big boy pants and get a place of his own?”

“No, not yet. He’s couch surfing. I think he’s at Meredith’s right now.”

“Oh. So what happened?”

“Nothing. Well, nothing bad anyway. He just felt awkward with me dating his sister.”

“Oh. Oh. I didn’t know Eliza and DeLuca were related.”

“Eliza? No, not Eliza, Carina.”

“Who’s Carina?”

“DeLuca’s sister.”

“Wait. So you’re dating someone new now? And she’s DeLuca’s sister? What happened to Eliza? I thought you guys were serious? Like marriage serious?”

“Oh my god, no. Never. I mean she was a good time and I enjoyed her company, but marriage? Nuh uh.”

“Oh.” Callie realized she’d been had, led astray by a very duplicitous little girl, and her mind worked to find its way through the confusion of Arizona’s love life. “So… you’re dating DeLuca’s sister now?”

“I am. WAS. I was.”

“Was? Wait- So you’re not dating her anymore?”

“Nope. Free as a bird.”

“That’s ironic.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that.”

“Uhhh-”

“Are you trying to pick a fight, Calliope?”

“What? No.”

“Well then what’s so ironic about me being free? Or about me not wanting to cause problems for you and Penny? Because I thought we got passed all that when you took Sofia and moved to New York.”

“We did. We did. And I’m sorry, Arizona. I wasn’t trying to start a fight.” She stands from the table. “But I uh, I think I’d better go now. My car is waiting.”

She hated to part so soon but Callie needed to sort through this new information, and she realized an argument was not going to be conducive to the request for another chance at togetherness with the blonde.

“I’ll be staying at Mer’s too.”

Arizona rose as well, disappointment making her heart feel heavy in her chest.

“Okay. Well, I’m sure Sofia will be calling you later to say goodnight.”

She followed dejectedly as Callie led the way towards her front door.

“And maybe we can talk then, too,” she added.

“Count on it,” Callie replied, pulling open the front door and stepping out into the porch. She turned suddenly, pulling an unsuspecting Arizona into a warm embrace. “Thanks for the non coffee,” she teased. “And I’m sorry things got a little heated. I really wasn’t trying to fight with you.”

“I’m sorry too, Calliope. I don’t want to fight with you either.”

Callie’s eyes held the blonde’s and she smiled , before turning and heading towards the waiting town car.

“I’ll talk to you later?” The shouted request for reaffirmation stopped Callie at the vehicles opened door and she turned to smile at the fetal surgeon one more time.

“Without a doubt,” she called back before ducking into the car’s interior and the door was closed behind her.

Arizona was free and Callie desperately wanted to be back on her radar, and as soon as she worked up the courage she would definitely be back to court her and win her heart all over again.

End ch 2

[jakelace]

2017 IN FILM - PART 1 (84-71)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year again! No, not Christmas. It’s Awards Season, my friends. The time of year where we look back at the films that graced cinemas over the calendar year, and where, just like last year, I tell you all about every new movie I saw in that time. With the announcement of the Academy Awards nominees I’ve decided that we’ll begin our journey today with the worst of the worst that 2017 had to offer. Over the course of the year I saw 84 films. Some were good, some were bad, and still others had Emoji in the title, so without any further ado, my ranked list of every 2017 movie I’ve seen.

84. The Emoji Movie

“We’re number two! We’re number two!”

The Emoji Movie, despite being at the bottom of my rankings, is not the worst movie of 2017. That’s because this ninety minute misstep isn’t a film, it’s an advertisement. While it might seem silly to make such a distinction (there is a plot that actually makes a shred of sense, it’s at least feature length, etc.), it’s incredibly hard to get past just how often this advertisement detours from its central plot just to make a cheap and out of touch product placement for an outdated app like Candy Crush. The Emoji Movie’s greatest offense, however, is when it tries to capitalize on the inherent meme culture that surrounded itself from the pre-production stage by creating a new dance called ‘The Emoji Pop’, that I am absolutely certain they thought was going to catch on with the youth of the world. Sony Pictures Animation’s latest cash-grab is an unoriginal, unfunny, and morally questionable mess. At least the animation is decent?

83. Unforgettable

“There was a time when I thought we were on the road to getting back together...but then he met you.”

Here it is, my lowest rated film of 2017! While a lot of times a movie can be bad for being incoherent, unoriginal, or offensive, I often say that the worst sin a film can commit is being boring. Unforgettable commits that sin. While I can admire Rosario Dawson’s commitment to this truly awful retread of the “crazy ex-wife” trope that was popularized by every Lifetime movie ever, its Katherine Heigl’s performance that makes the film somewhat endurable. It’s over the top in all of the best “so bad it’s good” ways. After thirty minutes of being bored out of my mind I found the best way to get through this cinematic torture was to watch for the next hilariously overacted bit of poorly written dialogue that would come out of Heigl’s mouth. In the end though, you can’t blame her for trying to make the best out of such a predictable and horribly paced film. Unfortunately it would seem that Unforgettable is by far the most forgettable film of 2017.

82. Phoenix Forgotten

“I just want to apologize to Mike's mom, Josh's mom, and my mom. And I'm sorry to everyone.”

Do you remember Phoenix Forgotten? No? Neither do I...yes I know that’s two jokes about forgettable movies with some form of ‘forget’ in the title in a row, but I just couldn’t help myself. Just like the screenwriters for this film couldn’t help themselves from stealing every plot point in the movie from not only the 1999 horror classic The Blair Witch Project, but also taking several ideas from last year’s sequel; Blair Witch. It’s absolutely shameless how little originality can be found within the film’s eighty minute runtime. The film follows three college high-school students lost in the woods desert, searching for a witch aliens who terrorize a town, while footage from the present day follows the protagonist’s brother sister who is still haunted by the sudden disappearance of their sibling. All of this blatant plagiarism wouldn’t have even been so bad had the movie at least been decent, but who needs to make a good film when you can just ride on the coat tails of a horror film that is already beloved? No other release this year sparked such a passionately heated response from me which shocks myself the most considering I’m not even that big of a fan of The Blair Witch Project in the first place! Oh well...at least they don’t fight about a map in this one...or did they?

81. The Bye Bye Man

“Don’t think it! Don’t say it!”

If Phoenix Forgotten is horrible for being unoriginal, then The Bye Bye Man is horrible for being completely and laughably incompetent in every way. The entire film is based on the premise that if you say or think his name then he will come and...make you go bye-bye? The rules are completely unclear, and that’s a huge part of the problem. The threat of the Bye Bye Man (I seriously hate that name) is hindered by the fact that it’s impossible to understand what his powers are. Sometimes he can make our poorly acted main characters see things that aren’t really there. Sometimes he can possess them. Sometimes he can...make them impotent? Who encouraged the thought that that would be a good thing to include in their supernatural horror film? Like, I get it, erectile dysfunction is a serious and scary thing that affects more than three million American men every year, but it’s not really the kind of fear I’m looking for in a movie called The Bye Bye Man. I’d continue to discuss this one, but, I mean, it’s all in the name. Also in this scene from the movie. Enjoy.

80. Amityville: The Awakening

“God gave up on us, sweetheart...”

I had been watching the post-production and release of this film very closely for years before it was eventually released this past October. While that might not seem too out of the ordinary, you have to keep in mind that this was filmed in 2014. That is three years of reshoots and pushed back releases. However, when all seemed bleak and I thought I might never get the chance to watch what was sure to be a glorious train wreck, the film was released to own for free on the Google Play store. However, even with my rock bottom expectations, I was still disappointed by Amityville: The Awakening. While I was expecting something laughably bad, what I got was an end product that was more boring than anything else. And while I haven’t seen any of the other films in the Amityville franchise, I can’t help but feel contempt for its continued use of a real family’s suffering all in the name of making money. I guess it’s a good thing this one only made $742 dollars on its opening weekend then, yeah?

79. Wish Upon

“Hold up, you dig on multiverses?”

One shot. I liked one shot in this entire movie. Everything else is lazily written drivel. It’s not all that hard to get me on board for a movie with Final Destination style deaths. I love how silly and over-the-top those films are, and I’ve always thought that bringing that style of Rube Goldberg death traps into more films could provide for entertaining new ideas. This movie has none of that. Its biggest offenses, however, come when it also tries to tackle the well-worn “be careful what you wish for” message. Besides the weird moment where Joey King’s character wishes that her dad would become cooler which then in turn leads to her friend wanting to to sleep with him, the moral of the story is so trite at this point that even adding a horror element into the mix can’t save this from being nothing but bland. Looks like the director should have wished for a better movie.

78. Rings

“There's a mark on your hand. It says ‘rebirth’.”

If Rings was an attempt to bring the horror franchise into modern technology by presenting Samara’s video as a metaphorical computer virus, or even commenting on the state of internet content as a whole, then this movie completely fails on that front. Seriously, the only time this movie even brings that aspect into play is in the last two minutes of the film. No joke. Everything else up to that point is a senseless retread of the previous two American films in the franchise. On top of that, it is easy to tell that Rings fell victim to countless reshoots and rewrites. There is no finer example of that than the fact that this film has two cold opens. It’s almost as though they had the plane cold open (the one from all of the trailers) from a previous version of the movie and thought it was just so good that they couldn’t leave it on the cutting room floor. If it were up to me I would have left the entire film on the cutting room floor.

77. The Mummy

“Sometimes it does take a monster to fight a monster.”

How do you kill an entire cinematic universe in one fell swoop? Ask The Mummy. Sure, that might be a low blow, but The Mummy is one of the most sorry excuses for a blockbuster I’ve ever seen. When the entire conflict of your entire supernatural action flick can be boiled down to ‘who would Tom Cruise rather sleep with? A mummy or an alive woman’ you know you went wrong somewhere down the line. The worst part about this is that there are moments where you can see where they’re coming from and what they’re trying to accomplish, but they just can’t seem to make any logical sense of it. Scenes are often rushed or dragged on for far too long and it becomes clear that nobody involved had any grasp on how a film should be paced...or written...or acted...or made at all.

76. Rock Dog

“Dad, I’ve decided to become a musician.”

I barely remember this movie. There is a dog. He shoots lasers out of his hands (not kidding). He rocks I’m guessing. I know I watched this, but everything about it was so generic and well-worn that I felt like I had seen this before, just done a lot better. I had never seen laser dog hands before though. Sure the moral about following your dreams and standing up for what you believe in is good, but when it comes to children’s entertainment you can do so much better. Unless you want to see a dog shoot lasers out of his hands. This movie has got you covered on that.

75. Fist Fight

“Teachers can’t fight!”

I wanted to really enjoy Fist Fight. It’s filled to the brim with actors I find quite funny, like Charlie Day, Jillian Bell, and Kumail Nanjiani, but it’s hard for these comedic talents to find anything to work with when the plot for the film is so bare-bones. Outside of the original comedic value in thinking of teachers fist fighting in the schoolyard, it’s hard to find much else to do with that premise. Nothing speaks more to the failure of this film than the fact that I didn’t laugh even once. The story is dumb, the jokes are played out, and worst of all the director wastes some of the best comedic actors in the industry on a movie that barely even functions.

74. Split

“Someone's coming for you, and you're not gonna like it.”

Controversial Opinion Alert! When I first saw Split I felt like I was alone on my island of disapproval of this film. The world seemed to be completely sold on M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent directorial endeavor, but something just felt off to me about it. It took me a few months and discussions with my friend Aaron when he finally cracked the case wide open; while everyone was expecting the film to vilify individuals with mental illness, the exact opposite comes true in the final act. Split goes so far as to glorify mental illness and being ‘broken’ in a way that feels unbelievably gross to me. If you want to read more of my thoughts about the exposition-heavy writing side of the film you can do so here, but I can’t even begin to explain how horrible of a message this is, so let’s just move on, shall we?

73. Sandy Wexler

“You can’t stop a shooting star, scientists have proven this.”

If it weren’t for its ungodly long runtime and constant detours into meaningless garbage, Sandy Wexler might actually be alright. In fact, this film does something that an Adam Sandler film hasn’t done for a very long time: it made me laugh. Sure it was just once and every other attempt at humor is just as overdone and juvenile as anything else he’s made, but a small step in the right direction is still a step. Last year for my ‘year in review’ I covered another Adam Sandler flick called The Do-Over, and in that mini review I called Sandler’s recent string of films a downward spiral in quality and ability. Now, if that was true, then Sandy Wexler is the first step towards getting out of that creative hole he’s found himself in. What can I say? I’m an optimist.

72. Despicable Me 3

“You told me my father died of disappointment the day I was born!”

Despicable Three (yes I’m calling it that and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me) is the same brand of gutter trash we’ve come to expect from Illumination Studios. The story is nonsensical, the animation is sinfully simplistic, and the Minions...my god...the Minions. Once again, I have to ask how Illumination Studios have become so popular with American audiences? I truly do not understand. Every character, every plot line, every joke feels focus tested to death. There is no originality in any of these frames. The heart and soul of the original is gone and replaced with Minions merchandise. Every decision seems to be based around how merchandisable they can make every second of their sensory overloading piece of garbage they have the nerve to call a film. I hate Despicable Three and everything it stands for. That being said, I love hearing Trey Parker’s voice come out of a children’s cartoon. 

71. The Circle

“Knowing is good, but knowing everything is better.”

I love how much I hate The Circle. If you’re looking for a basic description of what this YA fiction masterpiece in preaching is all about, then imagine Black Mirror, but remove all of the subtlety and nuance about a world run by tech and replace it with a caveman grunting “technology bad.” There you have it, a screenplay worthy of Tom Hanks and Emma Watson’s time and talent. Just kidding. Why would they ever agree to this? Maybe they too hate the dangers of social media so much that they can look past all the good it can do. The worst part about it all though is that the film constantly insults the intelligence of its audience by claiming that there is no healthy middle ground to take between being completely obsessed with technology and living off the grid entirely. Which reminds me? Why are you reading this online? Go make weird deer antler ornaments or something you tech junkie.

That’s all for today, but join me tomorrow as I cover three bombastic blockbusters, two unsettlingly bad thrillers, and one movie about a baby that’s also a boss...no hints.

[gigsoupmusic]

Mighty Brother's "Naked Winter" is A Timely Release for Current Anxious Times

New Orleans band, Mighty Brother, recently released a music video for their single “Naked Winter” as a tease to their upcoming double album (The Rabbit. The Owl.), due in Summer 2020. "Naked Winter" immediately evokes a feeling of angst and foreboding, establishing the haunting, indie vibes that define the second side of their upcoming double album. The song is a slow-burner, but once the groove drops in, Mighty Brother takes us on a climatic journey, the apex of which features a wailing sax solo and the grittiest bass wah you’ve ever heard. “Naked Winter” captures familiar feelings of isolation, uncertainty about the future, and the feeling of being held hostage by uncontrollable forces such as the media (and, more relatively, the coronavirus), all while artfully exploring the band’s unique genre-bending style. We sat down with Mighty Brother to talk about their band's humble beginnings, new music video, and what's next for the dynamic group.

How did Mighty Brother get started as a band? Mighty Brother began as a duo songwriting project of Nick Huster and Ari Carter in Bloomington, IN, and quickly grew into a five-piece indie rock outfit based out of New Orleans.  We started making music together in 2015. Ari likes to point to a moment after we had first jammed and shared some of our songs that he woke up hiking in Denali National Park, Alaska with one of Nick’s songs stuck in his head as the “aha’ moment for starting the band. After he returned from that hiking trip, we got to work on our first album.   Where does the name 'Mighty Brother' come from? What does it stand for? The name came from “Dearly Beloved,” one of our early co-writes. “Mighty Brother” appears in the lyrics, and we felt it both a strong name and one that hinted at something greater than the sum of its parts. "Naked Winter" is a release from your upcoming double album..... what made you decide to release a double album? Short answer, we’re interested in music that creates an immersive listening experience.  But we could go on… As writers, we both like long-form stories and world-building (think LOTR, Dune, Game of Thrones, etc.), so when we set out to write an album, we hinge on a concept and let that inform what we create. In a listening culture dominated by singles, we just kind of wanted to push back on that.  If you’d like the full story of this particular concept... The Rabbit and the Owl first appeared as characters on the cover of our debut album Jettison. Reprise. We saw them as unlikely friends, predator and prey, the king of the night and jester of the day, and decided to place them on a simple, equal plane. Folks would ask, "So, who is the Rabbit and who is the Owl, and what do they represent?" Over time, the personification of these two contrasting characters grew, as did their stories. Certain tunes became characteristically more "Owl"-esque, while others were clearly the playful and energetic "Rabbit" shining through. Naturally, we ran with it (or took it too far), until a double album became the only clear and viable solution. Thus our upcoming Double Album: The Rabbit. The Owl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEB9ouscstw&feature=emb_title What's your favorite lyrical line in "Naked Winter"? “Yet tarried she along the yawning frozen fringes fair with Venus in her hair…” That line calls back to the moment of the song's conception, as the sun was setting over a frozen lake, and the light sort of just hung there. You could see Venus beaming through the naked branches of the trees along the icy fringes. There was a profound stillness that lives between the lines of that stanza. What I love most about the lyrics and the song format, is how they allude a sense of motion without moving. There is action in the lyrics, the sun is setting, the world is getting colder and darker, but there’s something beautiful about that. The main action is observing this, and we get the sense that no direct action follows, concluding with the words “silence where it sings” where we just want to shout into the void! Musically, the song cycles back on itself and repeats this refrain over and over again, building each time, driving forward each time, but with no real release: motion without moving.  How did the idea for the music video come about? The music video, from concept to shooting, came together in the course of one whirlwind week last December. Ari and I had the idea of making a music video with an analog TV grid and digital mapping but had no idea where to start. When we contacted Bruno Doria and Worklight Pictures to chat about the concept, he revealed that they were, in fact, working on an analog TV installation already and that this would be the perfect push to pull it together. Following that chat, we crafted the video concept and narrative with our director Bruno Doria.  We filmed the video about a week after first contact. Ari and I got together for a whole day and wrote out the narrative and scenes we wanted to capture. The driving themes we wanted to explore were isolation and media feedback cycles / fake news. We wanted to craft this sort of "blind leading the blind" metaphor and how that can escalate and fall apart. In this case it's mute leading the blind leading the tortured and finally (after an epic sax solo) finding some sort of liberation. It's tough times and we need to be really mindful of our bias and our voice and how we treat each other. That's at least what this video means to me, and I'm really proud of how it came out. 

What do you hope the single conveys to fans? That we’re back! It’s been a little over two years since we released new music, so we’re hoping this new single is a good reintroduction to the band. We’ve been playing a lot of shows and working really hard on the double album, and we are ready to bring it to life! We hope that this single gives fans a taste of what the second side of the double album, The Owl., is all about. We can’t wait to turn that on its head when we release a single from The Rabbit. side of the record!  What can fans expect next? We will be putting out a couple more singles before the album release this Summer. This is a very difficult time to be an artist, and we feel lucky to have new music to share while we’re all waiting to see what the next few months hold. We’ve had to alter our release schedule a lot with canceled shows and tours, but we plan to continue bringing our music to folks via live streams, and we are pushing to release more music sooner than later.  How have you been affected by the global pandemic? Do you have a message for folks during the crisis? We mostly miss performing, and we really feel for our fellow musicians, artists, and hospitality workers during this time. Many folks in New Orleans are without work entirely, and spring is usually the most productive time for us. ⁣ We’re hanging in there, fortunate to have music to share, and it’s heartening to see our community pulling together, streaming concerts from their bedrooms, sharing playlists of local music, building digital communities across the web…  We’ve been encouraging folks who want to help to please stalk the artists you love, continually stream and share their music and videos, buy their merch. Buy paintings from visual artists you love, donate to organizations providing meals for artists and hospitality and gig economy workers.  Almost anything you enjoy in your leisure, whether that’s going to a gallery, listening to music, going out to eat or drink — these industries are the most threatened. Buy locally, however you safely can, if you want those businesses to remain after everything shakes out. And most of all be safe, stay inside for now as much as you can, stay healthy, and we hope to see y’all out there as soon as we can! Read the full article

[cooperjones2020]

Nobodies Nobody Knows

Summary: She is the lamp in Hero’s tower, the scissors in Delilah’s hand, the blood in Guinevere’s bed. She is a million and one metaphors and all of them are his undoing.

part 1/?

Some of the scenes from Second City but from Jughead's perspective. More a character exercise than a story.

Apparently I have no self-restraint and need to post things as soon as they’re completed, which now means I’m out of pre-written material so stuff may take longer. Also I really wanted to use this title and Algren strikes me as someone Jughead would like.

(ao3->http://archiveofourown.org/works/11434950/chapters/25623927)

By the time Sunday night rolls around, Jughead Jones wants a beer, a shower, and several hours uninterrupted with his Netflix. He has been doing line edits on his new manuscript for ten hours, sitting hunched over his coffee table. Because he’s a grown-ass man and he doesn’t own a desk.

So, more than the beer, the shower, and the Netflix, he wants to grunt and sweat and expend some goddamn energy until his muscles are as tired as his eyes.

But, instead of any of those things — those blessedly simple, easy to satisfy desires — because the universe has a fucking sadistic sense of humor —  he walks into Mary Andrews’s house to find Betty Cooper.

Now that he thinks about it, Mary had looked surprised when she’d opened the door. But he’d pushed his way in and made himself at home the way he’d been doing since he was 19. Mike was expecting him. They had a date with some wood.

It’s not a creepy sex thing. He’s taken up woodworking and furniture restoration.

Expect Mike is in London. Halfway down the hallway, her words stop him cold. “Here, come into the living room, I’m having dinner with Betty.”

“Betty.” He only knows one Betty. “Betty Cooper?” Red alert. SOS. All hands on deck.

“Of course Betty Cooper. Didn’t I tell you she was moving here?”

“No actually, I don’t think you did.” He doesn’t know how much Mary knows, doesn’t know if it’s truly an oversight on her part or if Archie has told her something and she thinks she’s helping him by keeping him in the dark about Betty. If it’s the latter, she is. Or she was, anyway.

But she’s already pushed past him into the living room. There’s nothing else for it.

Betty Cooper is every bit as beautiful as she was ten years ago. More so. And he swears his heart stops in his chest when he rounds the corner and sees her for the first time.

He truly hasn’t seen her since high school. He doesn’t have a facebook, doesn’t follow her on instagram. She may have featured in a few of Archie’s posts over the years, but he’s always told his eyes to slide off of her. To not linger on what he can never have. She looks older. No shit. But more mature, more relaxed. Her neck looks longer and her hair shorter. It is still a beam of sunlight.

Jughead Jones is a writer. And he likes to think he’s at least okay at it. He trades in metaphor and simile, synechdoche and metonym. But his entire life, every time he’s seen her, the only thing that’s shot through him, the only word he’s been able to grab onto and hold is sunlight. The color, the warmth, the feeling.

When she says hello and reaches out a hand, he takes it automatically. Something somewhere in his nervous system is misfiring. He’s pretty sure he says her name.

“Can I get you some food, Jug?”

Ah yes, a distraction. “Always Mary. Do you even have to ask?”

Of course that means Mary turns back to the kitchen, so Jughead is left sitting across from Betty Cooper, staring at her like she’s a goddamn ghost. Betty, forever her mother’s daughter, manages to make small talk.

“Did you say something about a desk?”

“A—? Oh yeah. Mike and I are restoring this turn-of-the-century roll-top desk Mary found at an estate sale. It was gift when The Final Fissure hit the bestseller list.” Idiot. Stop bragging.

But then he notices color creeping her up chest and her eyes slide to the right. Where what he assumes is her purse sits in front of the fireplace with a very familiar cover peaking out of the top. Before he gives himself a chance to think, he picks it up.

“If you ask me if I want an autograph, I’ll clock you.”

“I would never.”

It’s a paperback, and it feels like a pretty new one. The pages are crisp and there’s no crack in the spine. He thumbs through it.

“Why, Betty Cooper, no annotations? I’m shocked.” That’s good, Jug. That’s almost funny.

“Actually—that might be my second copy. I got to the airport way too early and, in a whirlwind of productivity, I’d already shipped all my books here—well not here, cause they’re in Lexington at the moment—but I didn’t have anything to read and I’d already finished the newspaper and it was on display in Hudson’s. I picked it up just to look at but before I knew it you’d sucked me back in. So I bought it so I’d have something to do on the plane.”

There are many threads in that spiel on which he’d like to tug—Lexington?—but at the knowledge that she not only found his writing compelling but found it compelling enough to buy two copies of his book, his heart swells up in his chest and he can’t breathe.

“Hey you don’t have to justify buying my book to me.”

He’d actually thought about sending her a copy, before it first came out. He debates telling her that, just to see how she’d react.

But then Mary returns.

“Here you go, Jug. Let me know if you need anything else.”

Logically, he doesn’t. So he accepts his plate and turns tail for the basement, trying to ignore the ball of string that wants to lead him out of the labyrinth, up the stairs, right to where Betty sits.

So many questions run through Jughead Jones’s mind the first time he sets eyes on Betty Cooper in ten years. But above all he wants to ask her, Who are you now, Betts? How did you get here from there, Betts? What happened to you when I left you? Did you find the strength I always knew you had?

For a while, he loses himself in the slog of paint stripper, sand paper, and power tools. He tries not to think about the fact that they’re almost certainly talking about him. He wants to know what she’s asking Mary. He wants to know what Mary’s telling her. He’s ashamed when he considers creeping up the stairs to listen at the doorway.

When he emerges a few hours later, most of the lights on the first floor have been extinguished. But for the glow creeping its way down the hallway from the kitchen, slipping its fingers into Betty’s hair where she sleeps on the living room couch, an afghan slipping off one shoulder.

He gives himself a moment just to look at her. When the moment passes, he turns and Mary is watching him from the doorway, a mug of tea cupped in her hands.

“How’d it go?” There’s a look in her eyes he can’t quite decipher, but he’d bet his next advance it’s not about his pet project.

“Slow progress. I’m trying not to damage the wood when I remove the old varnish. It’s like the Battle of Verdun but for my patience. When’d you lose Sleeping Beauty over here?

“An hour and half or so ago. I was going to just let her sleep on the couch but I’d forgotten you were here. Maybe you could carry her upstairs.” Everything inside him screams out yes: yes, take her in your arms again; yes, press your cheek to her hair; yes, match the rhythm of her heartbeat to yours. But everything also screams out no: no, don’t torture yourself; no, she wouldn’t want it; no, you have no right. The two everythings wrench him apart.

But then, before he can respond: “I’m awake!” And so she is.

“Hey Pippi Longstocking.” He wonders how many more mediocre movie references he can jam into tonight.

“Betty, you’re welcome to sleep in the guest room upstairs. But if you want to go home, I’m sure Jughead can take you.” His stomach twists in two different directions again.

“Oh no that’s alright, Mary. I can just take the L.” Like hell she can.

“No, Betty, you’re not riding the red line home by yourself this late at night.” He is not being a caveman. He would say that to anyone. Hell, he wouldn’t ride the red line at midnight by himself. Especially not if there’s been a game tonight — which he thinks there has been. And he looks scary. He has a leather jacket!

“Jug’s right, honey. It’s not safe and you’re so new to the city anyway. Let him take you home.”

He’s not quite sure how, because he can tell she doesn’t want to, but Mary somehow convinces her. He tries to mentally prepare himself to have her on the back of his bike, touching him, a twisted version of his sixteen-year-old self’s fantasy come to life.

When Mary has kissed his helmet and vanished back into the house, he asks, “So where to, Miss Daisy?” Update: the answer is one. One more mediocre movie reference.

She names an address near the Newberry. “Of course you live in River North.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ask me again in a month if you haven’t figured it out.” Stupid. Betty in Chicago is not equal to Betty in his life. He will not try to parse whether this is a fantasy or a nightmare. He will not let himself hope. Hope is not for people like him.

“And where do you live?”

“In Logan Square. And before you say anything, I lived there before the hipsters moved in.” More stupid. She’ll definitely latch onto that.

She does. “Really? Before the hipsters moved in? Well okay then. By all means, continue to proselytize on the ills of gentrification.”

He snaps his visor shut and swings a leg over the bike.

He takes her down Lake Shore Drive though it’s slightly out of the way, so they can enjoy the juxtaposition of the city lights and the deep, dark lake. In the night air, her arms burn where they touch his chest.

When they get to her building, she awkwardly climbs off and he stows the helmet in a saddlebag.

Then she touches him. “Thanks, Juggie.”

He sucks in a breath. He feels the point of contact, the nickname, zing through his system. She, too, seems to realize what she’s done.

He can’t help himself. He slides a hand down her arm, cupping her elbow, before bringing it to rest atop hers. He lifts it and squeezes, says, “Night Betts.”

“Night.” He watches her slip into her building, then kicks the bike to life and roars away. He takes the corner as sharply as he can get away with and heads toward the expressway.