I’ve been thinking a lot about what a Hazel and Jason friendship would look like.
Hazel tentatively reaching out after finally understanding that Jason isn’t everything she built him up to be in her head, influenced both by Nico and by what she actually observed of Jason herself
Jason assumes she just wants tips on leadership or maybe how to fight better, so he obliged by offering to train with her
Hazel expects Jason to go easy on her like Percy and Annabeth and Piper do, but instead she gets taken down within a few minutes and has Jason ruthlessly pointing out what things she could improve on.
(Cue: Hazel finally having an opponent who doesn’t underestimate her. Hazel who finally feels like she has somebody she can spar against who will help and not just let her win because she’s young and small. Hazel who finally gets why Nico spends so much time talking about how kind and helpful Jason is, even if what she’s seeing isn’t necessarily kind.)
Jason starts hanging out with Hazel outside of sparring but in other groups, like with Piper, or Nico. He learns that she loves dancing and horses and likes to test the hardness of a stone against her fingernails, likes to collect shiny non-precious things just like Nico does, likes to swear loudly whenever possible as if she’s doing it to purposely piss people off.
Hazel asks Jason if he wants to go hang out one day after the Argo quest is over, maybe go to some museum in NYC that she’s heard Percy talk about, or find metaphysical shops to walk through (I HC that Hazel really loves modern mortal interpretations of magic and that she’s fascinated by the ways mortals accidentally connect to the gods etc.) and Jason assumes she means with someone else and agrees, only to find out they’re going alone.
Jason panicking for a moment about potential misinterpretations, once he realizes, and stammering out some garbled thing about how he really likes her but not like that because ofc all he’s known so far is that being alone with a girl = someone will assume romantic intent. Hazel openly laughs in his face and rather boldly states that she KNOWS Jason is in love with her brother.
Hazel, eventually, being the first person Jason feels safe coming out to. Jason, in return, being the first person Hazel feels safe to talk about being asexual with. The two of them discussing their feelings more and more often while exploring new places together, like Hazel talking about how she did so much researching into queer history and labels when she first found out Nico is gay, Jason telling her that he still doesn’t feel like Thalia is his sister as if he might not be the same Jason Grace she remembers, the two of them coming to terms with being on the aromantic spectrum together.
Jason talking Hazel out of joining the Hunters when she’s having a very very bad day. Hazel stopping Jason from disappearing back out into the mortal world to finish school without first giving his other friends a chance to have input.
(Hazel and Jason inadvertently saving each other’s lives by tweaking fate, thus making their friendship literally woven into their lives forever indisputably. Hades/Pluto patting Jason on the back and telling him thank you with no context or clarification the next time they meet. Hera/Juno, tight lipped and silent, offering Hazel some kind of gift or blessing the next time she returns to New Rome. Hazel and Jason laughing it off when they tell each other because wow, their godly parents are weird as hell.)
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Focusing a bit more on their ptsd lately because I want to and I can, this is set a few weeks after they got to Jackson so still pretty early on. Completely fluffy though, promise!
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There is nothing worse than being alone in a crowd with no one to have your back.
Ellie's hypervigilance is in absolute overdrive after Silver Lake whenever she isn't too dissociated to perceive anything at all, and leaving the house becomes a choice between constantly looking around and driving herself half insane trying to look for something, anything dangerous and gritting her teeth and pushing through it while her brain screams at her that the worst things imaginable are seconds away from happening.
Both options are terrible, both leave her shaking and on edge, and any loud or unexpected noise makes her jump even when it is three streets down and completely unrelated to her. Going outside isn't safe, isn't fun, so she doesn't, and she is acutely aware that it's a problem she will need to solve one day, but for now her skin is stretched less tightly over her bones and the back of her neck only gives her the occasional jolt of paranoid electricity.
It doesn't even fully occur to ask someone for help when there is a movie at the theater she really wants to see that night, she thinks about it all day with a heaviness in her heart that almost has her put on her shoes and go anyway, but then the bell ringing for lunch has her almost falling out of her chair and she settles with the sour taste of defeat on her tongue. She would ask Joel to go with her, but they both know he is just as jumpy as she is, especially with her around in a closed space, and yeah it's a problem, but for now it is what it is, and she doesn't ask.
However, while she forgot about the obvious solution, Joel didn't.
That evening, Tommy comes over, which in by itself isn't surprising, that man is more at their house than at his sometimes, but he doesn't take off his shoes like he always does and waits for them in the hallway instead. She leans against his side in the greeting half-hug they tend to do, his arms around her shoulders, and the weight of it in her neck does the same thing Joel's hugs do - they absorb the panic and let it run through them into the ground, redirecting the lightning jumping across her skin. Ellie looks up at him and her face lights up before Tommy even gets the words out, putting two and two together and vibrating with excitement so bright she can't even feel stupid for not thinking about it herself.
"Ready for movie night?"
"Are you sure?"
Asking him that feels like she is stomping on a christmas present before even opening it, but her fingers are twisting in her shirt and joy is a warm, yellow sun in her chest, and she needs him to wants this as much as she does or she will feel bad for dragging him along. His hand settles on the back of her head and her gaze flicks between him and Joel, who is watching her and her only.
"Are you kidding me? Alien? Of course I'm gonna go see it, it's one of the best fucking movies ever."
There is a few seconds of silence and dizziness shoots straight into her head when she forgets to breathe, but then she falls forward and squeezes Tommy so tightly she can hear the air rushing out of him before letting go to put on her shoes. She is so focused on getting there before everyone else so they can get the best spots, planning out the quickest path to the building (although there really aren't that many options, more like three and a half possible routes), she only realizes Joel is shrugging on his jacket too when she turns to say her goodbye for the next few hours. There's a familiar tightness in his jaw, and she is pretty sure there's at least a knife somewhere on him, but his eyes are soft and she realizes that Tommy isn't just an additional anchor of security for her.
Paranoia grows all over her skin, a deep-seated itch she can never scratch enough, but Joel is right next to her and she can hear Tommy's footsteps behind her, and it is enough to keep it subdued enough for her to handle. They all silently come to the agreement to sit near the side rather than in the center, neither of them fully comfortable with being surrounded by people like that, and having space on one side, Joel on the other, and Tommy behind her makes it easy to forget about everyone else once the movie starts.
She jumps when someone accidentally kicks over a chair, and Joel gently squeezes her hand whenever she crushes his during the few times her brain tries to convince her everyone in the room is out to kill her, but they all make it through the next few hours without chewing on their panic the entire time. Tommy's quiet comments from behind her make up half the fun, and on the walk back, she paces circles around them while talking a mile a minute about a conflicting mess of a thoughts she cannot sort through in her excitement; Joel watches her just like he has been doing the entire night, and she doubts he heard a single line from the movie. The tension in his jaw has dissipated, though, and her lungs expand without resistance.
They stop right between their two homes, and for the first time since arriving in Jackson, Ellie feels almost sad to go back inside again. There's a moment of silence before she wraps herself around Tommy in another hug, her thank you a muffled whisper against his chest before she leans away, and it is hard to tell whether she is thanking him for having her back or for being family.
"Any time, sweetheart."
Both, she decides, and they all know without having to say a single word.
There is nothing worse than being alone in a crowd, but she is no longer just by herself, and although she forgets sometimes, there will always be someone to have her back now.
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I just love how carefree mulder and scully are in david’s episodes, it’s a side of them we so rarely got to see… 😔😔😔
yeah, me too. david writes journeys for mulder, with clear morals and arcs. the unnatural is about valuing “life on this planet,” finding space for joy and connection in the midst of blinding pursuit. amor fati is about commitment to your purpose, realigning to who you are at the core, who you were as a child. the promises that you made to yourself then. hollywood a.d. is about legacy, what we leave behind: does it matter if it’s warped, or if it’s nothing, so long as we loved and were loved well?
david’s episodes are classic hero’s journeys, active lessons for mulder as a character. but these are all things that scully already knows, so she gets to be passive and lighthearted and wise. they aren’t having anything beaten into them; they’re growing through storytelling, through play, through identification. they’re growing through watching a movie at 3am and rambling to each other. they’re growing through eating gross fake ice cream and reading old newspapers on a saturday morning. they’re growing through swinging a baseball bat, hips before hands, all night under the stars.
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Me being reminded of how Tallulah and Fundy are so different in how they have experienced love.
That Tallulah is so loved by her father since the first day he met her, by the immortal man that had taken up the responsibility and love her the same as his other children, by her brother so devoted to her happiness and protection, by so many people on the island. There is a community of people that love her, unconditionally by choice for who she is. That despite her flaws and her needs, they understand and cherish her so much for who she is. That she has never had to prove her worth or change for the people around her to receive that love. But the one she wants to love and misses, isn't there. And it is a terrible thing to be surrounded by love, but feeling like it isn't enough.
And then I am reminded of Fundy, who has never been able to find the love he craves for. That no matter how hard he has tried, over and over again, he ends up in the same desolate space he had begun upon. That he had to fight and do all the things that tore himself apart just to have a place to belong, giving up parts of himself to do so. He repeats the cycle, the same damned thing, making the same mistakes and choices. He tries to chase after phantoms and run away from them at the same time. That all he finds are empty spaces to occupy, and for some time, it is enough to distract him of its conditional nature. But eventually, he is and once again is he left devoid of the care and affection he desires so much from someone else. And it aches, his heart bleeds from all that rejection, by his father, his family and the friends and leaders and companions that he seeks for something missing in himself. But all his effort and who he was could never be enough to be both loved and respected. And that in trying, he has neither and fell apart in despair. So perhaps then, does that means he was never something that could be lovable, despite how he tries so hard to be.
And just something something about how love struggles in different ways, in both absence and overflow. Wanting and needing love as different things, trying to hold onto it, even if it hurts. So painful is it to have the capacity for love when life makes it so hard to do so, how much does it matter that the world is both one that gives and takes it in the same space.
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