#i also have one other philosophical bone to pick which i know is stupid but merlyn takes up this argument with the fetishizaion of human

[mummer]

i dont remember the last time i stayed up too late to read a book in one sitting let alone in less than two hours so i guess i gotta talk about it. Anyway yeah th white literally unparalleled definitely. Like the book of merlyn is definitely a coda and not necessary— the ending of toafk is one of the greatest endings in literature ever, possibly one of the best things in art period — and it is basically animal farm but good (even if it does maintain Communism Stupid in sort of annoying ways lol, oh white you scamp) and it sort of reads like white is arguing with himself and gets too far into the philosophical weeds but it doesnt even matter because every line is like a joy to read and suprising and sad and genius and twee and perfect. weirdly the ant chapter (horrible) and the goose chapter (transcendent) from the sword in the stone are in here, i guess he moved them over to book 1 when he found out merlyn wouldnt be published so as to keep them? i actually think theyre better served in sword anyway but whatever. One of the really great things here is that arthur has this bit where he gets genuinely angry with merlyn for making him have to be the martyr and the king and in charge of making society good and he just wants more life he wants to live peaceful and quiet but he cannot he’ll die tomorrow. like ok robb stark lets gooo!!! very truly heartfelt movement there. uhhh what else. Metafiction, always good in toafk, just lightly dusted here but yeah love it thinking about how merlyn being from the future living backwards is such a wacky thing to do but is also the only perfect adaptational choice to ever have been made in history. I love king arthur so much and we even get to find out that when lancelot died he smelled pure like flowers like a saint does. thanks guys have a good night

[chalkrevelations]

Ep 27 of Word of Honor, and that was … Well. That was definitely the unicorn chaser to spending so much time and hugging with Awful Yifu in the last episode.

(Spoilers, as ever, so scroll away and come back later, if you’re still planning to watch unspoiled.)

I mean, what is there to say?

Ha, no, really, I can find plenty to say. Buckle up, I guess.

Clearly, I’m going to talk about The Scene, and there’s a lot going on here, besides the obvious cake frosting of everyone coming to everyone else’s rescue and the fighting and the crying and the declarations, and then once it’s all over, when everybody’s still hopped up on adrenaline, before the crash hits, the shouting and the laughing. At the end of it, we’re not even 20 minutes into the ep, and I feel like that should have been the climax (har), but they probably knew nobody would be able to concentrate on anything else that came before it. I’ve seen a couple of interviews now where Zhang Zhehan said he wanted to play Wen Kexing, and given the chance, he would probably still pick that role, and then everyone involved in the interview rambles on about the complexity of the Wen Kexing character, and it makes me worry that Zhang Zhehan isn’t giving himself or Zhou Zishu enough credit for the depth and range that he pulled out of the character. There’s a lot of various people yelling at various other people in many different places in this show, but there’s not been a scene yet that I felt it like I did when ZZS shouts at WKX after Ye Baiyi finally goes away, wanting to know what the fuck he was thinking. That felt real, and it felt layered – like, there’s a bone-deep fear that’s giving that anger extra strength, fear about the fact that WKX could be so self-destructive. Which also may force ZZS to confront for the first time the idea that WKX could die and leave him alone, just like all his other shidi died and left him alone. I’d have to go back and rummage around in previous eps, but I feel like this could be the first time ZZS really has to confront the idea that could happen, and he’s probably not at all prepared for it, because he’s understandably expecting to be the first to go. But this idea that WKX could just disappear, and get himself killed (because let’s face it, Ye Baiyi tossed them both around like toys), and ZZS would never see him again – that he would abandon ZZS like that, just to hide his secrets – I think that might be part of the anger, here. (You don’t fail me … and Zhou Zishou’s expectations for what constitutes not being failed are a pretty low bar, consisting mainly of not getting yourself killed like a fucking dumbass, and even that bar suddenly seems to be too high for Wen Kexing to clear.)

There’s also a clear parallel here, need I say, to the scene in a previous ep when Gu Xiang (WKX) begs Shen Shen (Ye Baiyi) that even after Shen Shen (Ye Baiyi) kills her (him), could he just for god’s sake not tell her (his) boyfriend who she (he) really was. Wen Kexing’s supposedly thought-out plan was basically just going to be what A-Xiang came up with on the fly, and stupid babies need the most love, I remind myself grimly, particularly when all this is about something Zhou Zishu already knew anyway, because he’s a brilliant former merciless assassin, not a good-hearted self-deprecating cinnamon roll who thinks he’s the least talented person in his sect like Cao Weining. We’ve also got some tasty philosophical stuff in this whole confrontation, including competing responsibilities – loyalty vs. justice vs. integrity – along with ideas of retributive vs. restorative justice. This is another good Zhang Zhehan acting moment, because that whole bit about how, actually, Grandpa, his shifu would have been about guiding his shidi toward kindness and making up for the mistakes he made – I actually believe he’s wholly thinking about Wen Kexing when he pulls out this philosophical rapier, and not at all about how restorative justice benefits ZZS, himself, considering how much blood he has on his own hands and that earlier conversation about frying in oil for 80 vs. 100 years. Good job, my friend. The one thing that makes me sad about this scene is that I’ve seen That Extra, and I hate we were robbed of not only Zhou Zishu actually laying his head on Wen Kexing’s shoulder but of Gong Jun’s single crystalline tear spilling down his cheek. Zhang Zehan’s right, that was a better take.

Anyway, Ye Baiyi proceeds to put WKX under house arrest, which, just. So he has to live with ZZS for the rest of his life? Please don’t throw him into the briar patch, right?

Also, yes, WKX. He’d die for you, dumbass. God.

Just to drive home the point of how the Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishou and Gu Xiang/Cao Weining relationships are the same relationship, we then go to a scene … well, we then go directly to a scene where Cao Weining is just sitting there, chin in hand, gazing adoringly at Gu Xiang, much the way Wen Kexing has been gazing adoringly at Zhou Zishu since about Ep 3 2 1 …  but that also leads into a scene where Cao Weining is interrogated about Gu Xiang by his shixiong in a milder, miniature version of the grilling ZZS just took from his elder. “Do you know who she is?” Whoever she is, he’s going to continue to respect her boundaries. “I promised her, so I won’t betray or distrust her.” “We’ve been through so much together.” (“We’re in the same boat anyway, we might as well stay together.”) I won’t fail you. Nobody in this scene has actually made the Ghost Valley connection, yet, and Cao Weining is not as canny as Zhou Zishu, so we’re not yet going to get any kind of resolution on the issue in this relationship - but given the way these relationships are running on parallel tracks, I have positive feelings about how Cao Weining is going to meet this challenge (not that I didn’t, anyway) once the info finally does come out.

What else, what else? We do go back to Xie Wang and Awful Yifu in this ep, and oh boy.

Xie’er: Ghost Valley Master’s faithful minion Heartless Amethyst Fiend has been sent by her master to sneakily follow Cao Weining and infiltrate the Gentle Wind Sword Sect where the Glazed Armor is being held.

A-Xiang, chillin’ outside the gated community in a rustic cabin with her fiancé, doing some mending and waiting for her wedding day: Never speak of my former master again, I have utterly left that life behind me. Also, what should we have for dinner?

I can see how you would come to the conclusion you did, Xie’er, but wow, the only time you’ve been more wrong in your life is about your Awful Yifu. Speaking of which, it appears the cat Awful Yifu is out of the bag. Xie Wang is still all, “Since you saved me, you can take my life back if you want,” and here we are in Zhou Zishu-Prince Jin territory again, shades of ZZS in Ep 1 not even blinking as he offers himself to Prince Jin and takes the gamble that he won’t just get his head cut off for his troubles. ALSO, I distinctly remember telling you, Xie’er, that you were empathizing (although not sympathizing) a bit much with the women of the Department of the Unfaithful, and here we do in fact get an explicit comparison, looking back to the conversation with Beauty Ghost about her loser boyfriend, when you refer to yourself as “also a gambler” as you take your leave of Zhao JIng. You need some Water of Lethe, buddy. Or do you think – to return to that conversation and the parallels with Beauty Ghost – that if you remember all this, you’ll stop making the same mistakes?

A last few random things:

lol, let’s all take a minute to giggle over the fact that ZZS has, in Ye Baiyi’s words, associated with this dude. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Sorry, but I had to pause the show at that point to snicker like a 12-year-old.

Chengling: “How dare those ruffians beat my two dads! Let’s burn down their house.” Wow. OK. Xiang-jie has been … some kind of influence on her didi.

Last scene of ZZS and WKX, oh my god:

ZZS: You’re feeling bad for keeping a secret from a kid? What about me? How are you going to make it up to me?

WKX: Oh, my goodness, look at the time. I’m feeling so … sleepy. Yes, that’s it. I must go to bed. You also must be so … sleepy. You should. You know. Go to bed. Too. Also. To cure your … sleepiness. As you do, in a bed. Where I will also be.

Me, to the screen: He’s going to make it up to you on his back.

Also me: :facepalm: You are a pair of merciless killers. How are you this adorable?

[luninosity]

Catching up on @evanstanweek ficlets again! Here’s Day 3, prompt: on set.

Read at AO3 here - 2,336 words of on-set love confessions, set during The First Avenger - or read on tumblr below!

#

Sebastian’s watching Chris. He often is, can’t seem to help the track of his gaze—can’t pull away from the magnet-tug that’s Chris Evans’ loud laugh and gesturing hands and philosopher’s eyes, and if he’s honest he doesn’t want to. Right now the low hazy grey lighting of the broken bar sits on Chris’s shoulders and turns him into a grieving supersoldier: a man hollowed out by loss, left with a gaping hole right through his chest.

 Chris is so good. So brilliant at emotion, at getting character. So thoughtful and so generous with his feelings, the kind of bravery that holds nothing back. He is Steve Rogers, through and through: a hero, shining blue and gold.

 Sebastian’s not that brave. Not that brilliant. Good at angst and pain, or dry humor, or intensity, maybe; but he’s in character for it. He does love people and stories, and he thinks he’s funny, sometimes, and he thinks he might want to be a writer, sometimes, and he can shove an entire pizza slice in his mouth when he’s comfortable around friends, but.

 It takes him a while. Exhaling. Stepping out. Speaking up. He wouldn’t say he’s shy, because he isn’t, not once he knows people. He’s just…not Chris Evans, who wears joys and vulnerabilities openly, with pride, unafraid.

 Sebastian looks at Chris, and aches with emotion, and says nothing, every day and every minute on this film so far.

 He’s technically done for the day, though he’s not at all done on this film; he’s spent the morning running around with Howling Commandos and being a young and terrified sergeant thrown into war. They’d filmed Bucky’s fall from the train the day before; Sebastian had honestly loved it. The emotion’d been easy: love and loyalty, throwing himself in to fight alongside the other half of his heart, the moment of sheer shock, a small but gloriously physical drop onto thick mats. They’d let him do that one, because it wasn’t a long fall and they needed to see his face. He hoped it’d been good; everyone seemed pleased, at least.

 He shifts weight, wishes he had a pillar or a wall to lean on. He watches Chris some more.

 They’d caught the stunned disbelief on Chris’s—Steve’s—face at the fall, yesterday. Chris is so incredible at nuance, at blazing emotions, even in a few-seconds-long shot. Sebastian had said, after, “That felt really good, that last take?” and had meant, I think you’re a genius, I think I want to work right next to you forever, I think I love you.

 Chris had gotten kind of pink-cheeked because Chris is too damn self-deprecating, and had said, “Oh—um, thanks, man, you too, I mean it felt good to me too, I mean we’re fuckin’ awesome, obviously,” and had nudged Sebastian’s shoulder, somewhere between a punch and a quick resting of a hand. “Craft services? They got blueberry bagels, someone said.”

 Chris, bagel-focused, clearly had not heard Sebastian’s internal monologue. And if he had, wouldn’t reciprocate.

 Which is fine, of course. Chris never needs to know, and Sebastian’s ridiculous emotions will calm the hell down and go away. Any day now. Sometime. Soon.

 But he’s watching Chris, and Chris is pretending to try to get drunk, pain visibly shredding him inside; Chris is Steve and Steve can’t believe it and has to believe it and wants to scream, to shout, to punch a hole through the world—

 The scene’s fantastic, of course.

 They get it in maybe three takes, rapid-fire, Chris laying out his heart for the watchers. His voice cracks; it’s getting rougher, the third time.

 They do it a couple times more for different close-ups. Sebastian takes a step closer, between takes. His boots—he’s changed; they’re his own boots—are louder than he’d recalled that morning; Chris looks over at the sound.

 And maybe Chris looks surprised, or relieved, or grateful, for a split second; maybe it’s all in Sebastian’s head, though, because the next second they’re right back into it, capturing Steve’s heartbreak.

 It’s a wrap for the scene, eventually. And Chris is done for a few hours too, though he’ll need to stick around; he’s got some close-ups to do inside a mock airplane, being bounced around, for what’ll be the big final self-sacrifice. Sebastian loves the heroism and pain of it; he’s always loved good writing, and he’s got a good feeling about this script and about this universe, which he’s a tiny part of now.

 Chris doesn’t get up right away. Just scrubs both hands over his face, shoulders slumped. Hayley Atwell’s gone off to talk to the director; Joe’s nodding, listening to her. Nobody’s checking on Chris.

 And that’s wrong, that’s wrong and not good and not right—Chris has just been hurting, the way that Chris hurts for the world, and Chris should never be hurting, not while Sebastian’s alive—

 Sebastian’s legs move before his brain makes a conscious decision. He’s picking his way across artistic rubble and taking a few running steps and putting a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “Hey.”

 Chris actually jumps a little, which isn’t the best start. “Oh! Uh, hey, hi, did you, um…have a question? About Steve and Bucky, or somethin’?” The Boston comes out extra-strong; it does that when Chris is feeling a lot, or tipsy, or simply exaggerating to make someone laugh.

 “No,” Sebastian says. “Or, well, yeah, we might want to talk about some of those flashback sequences, so we’re on the same page with emotion and all, but.” He licks his lips, realizes he’s doing it—a nervous habit, one he’s had for years—and stops. He can taste chapstick on his tongue. “I just. Wanted to. I don’t know. Are you…I mean, that looked like a lot.”

 “You…” Chris trails off. He’s looking at Sebastian’s face with astonishing intent; Sebastian would say even desperation, but that’d be ludicrous. Chris doesn’t have any reason to feel desperate about him.

 He tries, “I know you, um, like tea? Not coffee? We could go grab, um, tea. If you want.”

 “Tea,” Chris says, a little blankly. “But you like coffee.”

 Sebastian’s starting to get kind of worried, here. “I do, but you gave it up? We could maybe head back to your trailer, and you can, um, relax for a minute, and I can…try to make tea?”

 Chris stares at him some more.

 “Or not,” Sebastian throws in helplessly.

 “Yes,” Chris says. “Yes, yeah, yes—you—fuck. Okay. Jesus, Chris, get it together,” and he even shakes his head like a puppy flinging off water, and Sebastian kind of wants to grin and also scratch his tummy.

 Well. Maybe not scratch. He can think of better things to do with Chris’s stomach. Mostly involving his tongue.

 And he should absolutely not be thinking of that when Chris needs his help. He sticks out a hand. “To the end of the line? Or at least your trailer.”

 Chris looks at the hand, and then takes it, hauling himself up out of the chair. His fingers are large and strong and a little cold, and they squeeze Sebastian’s for just a little too long, as if wanting to hold on.

 No. Must be Sebastian’s heart thinking that. Wanting what he can’t have.

 He walks with Chris through behind-the-scenes set-ups and teardowns, props and people rushing to and fro, the corners of trailers and the shouts of movie-making going on. The sun’s warm, if light; the ground’s hard beneath his boots. He keeps stealing glances at Chris, who doesn’t seem too talkative. Sebastian’s poor overworked heart wants to take each sensation, each sight and taste and scent of this backstage moment, and fold them up safe deep inside.

 Chris is letting him help. That feels like sunshine.

 Chris’s trailer’s simple, unpretentious, unfussy; script copies and notes lie scattered around, and he’s got some weights, and some Disney-movie DVDs. Sebastian smiles, because that’s so very Chris: delight in the magic, always.

 Chris, still in costume, sits down on his sofa. He breathes out, and looks up. “Thanks.”

 “For what? How do I make tea with this?” He’s poking Chris’s electric kettle. He does sort of know how it works, in theory. His mother has an old-fashioned kettle; he’s got fancy coffee-making machinery; he should be able to combine all this knowledge. “Where is your tea?”

 “Seb,” Chris says. “I—hang on, does anyone actually call you Seb?”

 “Um. Not really? You can. I don’t mind.” He doesn’t. Chris uses last names often, an affectionate Boston-bro shorthand for friendship; Sebastian’s somehow always been Sebastian or Seb, in Chris’s voice. He’s wondered why, though he’s thought maybe Chris just doesn’t feel that close to him. Not deserving of the bro-status.

 “You don’t mind, or you don’t like it, and you’re being nice about it?”

 “I don’t mind,” Sebastian says, too quickly. “I like it.”

 “Sebastian,” Chris says.

 “Really,” Sebastian says. “Either. Whatever.”

 “Jesus,” Chris says, face back in his hands. “I’m sorry. I just…just tell me if I’m sayin’ something stupid, okay? Please.”

 “But you’re not!” Sebastian comes back over to the couch. That damn magnet again. Tugging his bones. “You’re not, it’s fine, we’re good, Chris. I swear. Really.”

 Chris doesn’t look up, so Sebastian drops to both knees, right there at Chris’s feet, and tries not to think of all the times he’s wanted to do exactly that. It’s easier not to think of it, right now, because he’s genuinely concerned.

 He peeks up at Chris’s face. “Hey. Kinda worried here. Not about you, I mean, about your kettle, it’s got all these buttons, it’s like a rocket ship, I’m afraid if I touch the wrong thing it’ll explode.”

 Chris snorts, almost a laugh, and then does look up. His eyes go right to Sebastian’s, so close and so blue; and then all at once he’s moving, leaning forward, one hand reaching out and cradling Sebastian’s head, and then—

 They’re kissing. Oh, god, they’re kissing, Sebastian on his knees in front of Chris and Chris bending down to claim him, hand in Sebastian’s hair—

 Chris kisses like reprieve, like the release of storms, like the dive into a heated pool on a chilly day: wholehearted, devoted, anxious to lick and taste and plunge into every part of Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian, who’s been kissed before, has in fact never been kissed before, because no other kiss has ever been a kiss, compared to this.

 His knees dimly register the hardness of the trailer floor, and his neck’s at kind of an awkward angle, and Chris is still mostly in the Captain America suit. None of that matters. Nothing else matters at all, because Chris wants him and Sebastian’s whole self yearns for Chris, and Chris’s tongue and taste and tug at Sebastian’s hair are all white-hot gloriously perfect.

 Chris pulls back almost as abruptly. They’re both breathless; Chris whispers, “Oh, fuck…” and takes his hand out of Sebastian’s hair, but then touches Sebastian’s cheek, cups his face, as if unable to stop touching. “I…fuck…I didn’t…I’m so fucking sorry, I just…”

 “Why?”

 “What?”

 “Why’re you sorry?” Sebastian tips his head into Chris’s hand. “I’m not.”

 “You’re…not.”

 “Chris,” Sebastian says, and then runs out of words. He hopes Chris can see it, can read it, in his eyes. On his face. “Yes.”

 “Yeah?” Chris reaches out with the other hand too: framing Sebastian’s face now, tender and awestruck. “You mean that.”

 “I mean it,” Sebastian says. “But—”

 “Oh god,” Chris says, “I’ve fucked this up, haven’t I—”

 “No! No, just…are you okay? I mean, from earlier.” Somewhere amid the kissing his hands’ve ended up on Chris’s thighs; apparently they just want to be there, and now rub along Chris’s legs, soothing and caressing and learning all at once. “I mean, I wanted to—”

 “To help,” Chris groans. “You came over to help—because you’re the sweetest fucking person I know, god, you’re perfect, Seb, the nicest and the warmest and the best—and I fucking, Jesus, practically mauled you—”

 Sebastian cuts that anguished recrimination off by diving forward and getting his mouth back on Chris’s. After some in-depth affirmation, he breathes against Chris’s lips, “Don’t think you’re doing any mauling I don’t like.”

 Chris’s eyebrows go up.

 “Really,” Sebastian tells him.

 “Huh,” Chris says. “Huh. Okay. You—okay.”

 “No,” Sebastian says patiently. “Are you okay?”

 Chris stares at him, and then bursts out laughing. Mid-laughter, scoops Sebastian off the floor. Flops them both down across the sofa, holding on. “God, you’re incredible.”

 “The best, you said.”

 “And I mean it. You just make it all…feel better, kind of?” Chris strokes a hand down Sebastian’s back, over his t-shirt. “That’s what it was, earlier. Like…being Steve, losing Bucky, but that’s you, and all at once I was thinking about losing you, and I just felt like…like someone’d dropped me off a train, y’know? Like I’d never get up again.”

 “I’m here.” Sebastian wriggles against him. They fit together: bodies pressed close, every piece of them learning each other. He’s half atop Chris, but with one of Chris’s legs tangled through his. “I’m here.”

 “I know.” Chris rubs his back again. “And you were there, too. You were right there and I could look up and find you, and it was like I could remember how to breathe. And then you were here, asking about tea and looking at me like—and I just had to kiss you. I want to kiss you. Seb. Sebastian. God, I fuckin’ want—everything. I know it might get complicated, I know we’re in the middle of making a movie, but I can’t not want everything. Together. With you.”

 “Well,” Sebastian says, “good to know,” and stretches to kiss Chris again. It’s that simple, if not easy: the future’ll change, but it does that anyway, sprawling out in all sorts of directions. And he thinks it’ll be a good direction, with Chris at his side. “Because I want everything with you too.”

[the-hidden-writer]

I’ll Remember You This Way

Chapter 2: 4,379 words Read on AO3! (check reblog for link)

The story of one unsuspecting man named Edwin Jarvis and how his life and legacy are carried throughout the universe.

Edwin Jarvis -> JARVIS -> Vision

Snippets of that legacy include Tony Stark carrying his butler’s words in his heart for his entire life and Wanda Maximoff sensing an unfamiliar presence in Vision’s mind.

Chapter 2: there ain’t a cloud in sight

“Director Carter!”

Peggy is just about to finally leave the facility when the voice calls her name. She’s tired after having spent the past week helping to set up this brand new S.H.I.E.L.D. training programme, so she can’t help but snap when the young agent catches up to her in the hallway leading to the exit. “What?”

The agent flinches, the grip on the file she’s holding tightening, and Peggy feels slightly guilty. Not that she’d let it show.

Whatever courage the agent had must have dissipated. “I… I, um, was wondering if I could ask a question?” She fidgets under Peggy’s glare. “If you aren’t busy!”

“Well I am busy and you’ve already asked a question,” Peggy sighs, “but go ahead.”

Despite being utterly desperate to call it a day, she admires the girl’s enthusiasm and guts to ask her in the first place. Not many of the younger rookies have done so and she deserves a chance that not many other seniors would be willing to give.

The girl smiles nervously before clearing her throat. “I was just thinking about the name of the new division.”

Peggy can’t help but smile as the girl continues, having a knowing feeling to what she is leading up to.

“I just… I like knowing the meaning behind things and I love learning about S.H.I.E.L.D. history and I think I’ve got them all figured out but I’m so stumped on this one!”

Anger gradually receding as if she were washing some dirt off in the shower, Peggy’s smile broadens. “What have you gathered so far?” She asks curiously.

The agent takes a deep breath. Her confidence is visibly returning, presumably due to Peggy’s own change in mood. Her voice even sounds stronger as she begins to talk about a topic that truly interests her.

“It’s a name, right? That’s all I’ve really got. Nothing as obvious as the ‘Daniel Sousa Award for Bravery’-” Peggy’s smile falters slightly- “but it’s not an acronym or anything, so it’s gotta be a name.”

“It is a name, yes.” Peggy affirms, pride seeping into her voice.

“I knew it!” The agent squeals, causing another agent who was in the process of leaving to give her an odd look.

Noticing how this weakens the agent’s confidence again, Peggy tries to reassure her with another question. “Do you have any idea whose name?”

The agent giggles nervously. “I think it has to be personal. I know that some of the buildings are named for personal reasons but they’re all also somehow tied to S.H.I.E.L.D. history too. Or the person has some sort of connection to the purpose of their namesake. I guess it has to be someone called Jarvis that the textbook didn’t mention.”

She pauses and Peggy realises that all her anger has gone now and her smile reflects that, making the agent look at her in confusion. Peggy shakes her head and motions for her to carry on with her theorising ramble.

“…Looking at your reaction, it has to be someone close to you, right?” The agent pauses again, her smile fading. “But that makes no sense…”

“And why is that?” Peggy asks, quirking an eyebrow.

A blush forms on the agent’s cheeks and she looks down in embarrassment. “Because the closest I’ve got is Howard Stark’s butler.”

The silence between them is enough confirmation she needs.

“Wait, what-”

“Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?” Peggy interjects, relishing in the flabbergasted look on the agent’s face.

Said agent runs a hand through her blonde hair. “N-No.”

“It’s a philosophical principle.” She provides. “To sum it up, it basically means that the simplest explanation to a problem is most likely the true one.”

The agent’s eyes grow wide. “So-”

"So," Peggy continues, “while I commend you for your dedication to the matter, it seems you had the right answer all along.”

She doesn’t bother to stifle her yawn as she watches the cogs turn in the agent’s head.

“But… why?” She asks eventually. “What does the butler have to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

The exhaustion is starting to sink deep into Peggy’s bones, and she knows that the agent would keep asking questions for as long as she could. So, to prevent herself from passing out on the spot, she knows she has to go home.

“Let’s just say,” she says as she turns to leave with one last knowing smile, “that you shouldn’t underestimate the need for support. Being a butler doesn’t define one’s personality and Mr Jarvis is an extremely fitting namesake for the new support division.”

She walks towards the glass doors (which to her, at this point, look like the gates of Heaven) and judging by the click of her heels being the only sound echoing down the corridor she knows that the agent hasn’t moved. Was it really that shocking that Mr Jarvis was a true ally to S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Actually, the more she thinks about it, she didn’t think there was much to him when she first met him either. He was quick to prove her wrong, though, and somewhere along the way he became her best friend.

And she thinks that the world deserves to know. Rumours be damned.

So just before she is about to exit, she turns back to the stunned agent one last time. “If you want to know more you should pop ‘round to my office some time. I’d be happy to tell you more.”

The agent snaps out of her trance and her face lights up with joy. That’s when it suddenly occurs to Peggy that she’s been too tired to even ask the young agent’s name. “What’s your name, agent?”

“O-Oh, um, Hill, ma’am. Nancy Hill.”

“Well since you seem quite the history buff, Agent Hill, I hope you do come to my office. There is a very special assignment I would like to entrust you with. Goodnight.”

Once she is finally out of the building Peggy feels relief wash over her. It’s been an incredibly long and tiring day but meeting Agent Hill has given her a small ray of hope for the future of S.H.I.E.L.D.

And yes, she knows that writing a new textbook isn’t the most thrilling of assignments, but she has a feeling that she would enjoy the challenge. Either way, someone will have to do it. It’s about time that forgotten names such as Edwin Jarvis, Robert Dooley, Jack Thompson and Daniel Sousa got their stories told and the credit they deserve.

~-.-~

God, his head hurts.

Each time he thinks his anger is subsiding, an intrusive thought pokes its way into his mind and rekindles it again. The worst part is he doesn’t have anyone to take his anger out on because he’s the only one to blame.

It’s his fault. He shouldn’t have gone to the Hampers’ dinner party all that time ago. Such a small decision would have saved so many lives! He wouldn’t have met Maria, he wouldn’t have fallen in love with her, he wouldn’t have gotten the poor woman pregnant and have to admit he’s the father.

He takes another swig of the near-empty bottle.

But no, he had to be an idiot and go to the damn party. Not only that, he had to be the stupid womaniser he i- he was, and offer to take her home. And then she’d had the audacity to refuse him- which was a first for him- which made him all the more interested in her. And now he was stuck with upcoming fatherhood without a single clue of what to do.

He has no idea if it’s going to be a boy or a girl- hell, it doesn’t even matter since he’ll screw it up either way. And because the whole world has its eyes on him at all times, everyone will see how much he’s fucking up, too! And then then his entire reputation (which he built up from nothing) will be ruined. His life will be ruined, and so will Maria’s, and so will their unborn child’s.

He moves to take another long drink from his bottle of scotch, but when he realises it’s empty he lets out a low growl.

“Damn it!” He cries, thrusting the bottle across his workshop. It shatters against the wall, and shards of glass drop down like shimmering, deadly rainfall with a soft clinking sound as they hit the floor.

Great. Look, that’s another mess he’s responsible for.

But damn did that feel good.

In a sudden desperate frenzy, his eyes scan the room for any other glass items. In the corner of the workshop, on one of the tables, is a prototype self-charging electric torch. At the moment it doesn’t look like that though, just a mess of bits of circuitry and glass.

Perfect.

He hurries over to pick it up and lob it against the wall. Once again, it shatters and falls to the ground, only this time it's accompanied by sparks as weeks of hard work are destroyed in the process.

Who needs a self-charging torch, anyway? What a stupid idea thought up by a stupid man.

“Sir!”

He races over to the far end of the workshop to pick up a handful of lightbulbs and is just about to throw them when he feels two strong arms wrap around him from behind, pinning his arms to sides.

Jarvis.

“Let go of me!” He shouts, writhing against his butler’s grip. But Jarvis is a lot taller than he is and manages to lift him off the ground.

“Calm..! Down..!” Jarvis says through gritted teeth as he strains to keep his hold on him.

In retaliation to being restrained, Howard drops the bulbs in his hand. They fall and smash on Jarvis’s shoes, causing the man to yelp and let go of him in shock.

“HA!” Howard screams in both hysterics and triumph as he rushes away from Jarvis and plans his next move. Jarvis seems preoccupied with hopping on the spot for some reason and his head is bowed, so he could probably sprint over there and clock him in the jaw without too much of an issue.

So that’s what he does. He rushes toward Jarvis and is about to strike before Jarvis somehow catches both of his wrists and holds them as tight as cuffs.

“Calm down.” He repeats sternly, holding Howard’s arms in such a way that he has no choice but to look up at his butler’s eyes. “You’re drunk, Sir.”

Howard vaguely remembers drinking. There was a bottle, wasn’t there? Oh yeah, there was... that’s what he’d thrown in the first place. But then why is he drunk?

He remembers Maria’s ever-growing baby bump and he lets out a low growl.

“You have no idea-” He begins to snarl, but Jarvis cuts him off.

“Yes, you’re right, I do have no idea.” He says softly but firmly, and Howard can’t help but feel like he’s being told off. “So why don’t you sit down and calmly tell me about it, hm? Rather than destroy months of work?”

That does sound like a sensible idea. It was Jarvis’s idea, of course it would be sensible. Jarvis is a very sensible person.

“Hmm.” He says in reply, and he hears Jarvis let out a small exhale as he releases his hands (damn that man was surprisingly strong) and sits down on one of the workshop’s stools, beckoning Howard to join.

Howard reluctantly obeys. He doesn’t want to be told off by Jarvis again.

“Now,” his butler begins once Howard has sat down, “what’s bothering you?”

The ‘this time’ isn’t said, but Howard knows it’s being strongly implied.

Howard just scoffs and waves him off. “Pshh, you wouldn’t understand, Jarvis. It’s not like you have any kids.”

Something flashes behind Jarvis’s eyes for a brief second, and a sliver of guilt finds its way into Howard’s heart. Not that he can figure out why, and right now he doesn’t really want to.

“Ah.” Is all Jarvis says. “You’re worried about being a father.”

Howard lets out a humorless snort. “Good observation. Do I pay you for that?”

He doesn’t respond to what Howard thinks is a top-quality joke, and instead he lets out a long sigh.

“And what exactly do you have to worry about, Sir?”

See, Jarvis has this voice. This soft, caring, empathetic voice that only comes out when he needs it most. Howard doesn’t know if he puts it on or that’s just what his voice sounds like when heard by drunken ears, but he has this voice that can always soften him, no matter the situation. Granted, sometimes it takes longer to get through to him than other times, but it always does in the end. And, in the end, it usually results in Howard turning into a sobbing mess and spilling his guts to him.

A choked sob crawls its way out of his throat. “I… I just…”

His attempt at trying to explain is cut short when the tears begin to flow freely. Knowing that he is way past any dignity at this point, Howard gives up on talking and decides to try and cry it out.

Jarvis watches but makes no move to comfort him. Because Jarvis knows him, and he knows that he’d rather die than admit that he’s crying or that he needs comforting. And he can trust Jarvis to not mention it in the morning. Still… his butler watches him with worry in his eyes.

After what feels like hours, Howard clears his throat.

“Hey, uh, Jarvis?” He says eventually, his voice slurred. “D’you mind telling me I’m gonna get it right? That… that I’m not gonna fuck it up?” In that voice, he stops himself from adding.

The man sighs. “It won’t be simple, but you’ll pull through, Sir. Your love for Maria and your child won’t let you… mess things up. I have full faith in you. You have people all around you to help.”

Jarvis had been sitting beside him silently the whole time, and Howard knows that without him the entire workshop would be trashed by now. But he feels reassured because Jarvis is a sensible person and if Jarvis says something he’s probably right.

He yawns. “Thanks.”

Suddenly he feels very tired. He closes his eyes, perfectly happy to fall asleep right there on the stool, when firm fingers grab his arm tightly. “Hey-”

“You should go to bed. It’s very late and Mrs Stark must be waiting for you.”

It’s only then does Howard realise that Jarvis has been in his stupid-looking pajamas the whole time. The realisation is so funny that once he lets out an initial snort, he can’t stop laughing, so Jarvis has to half-carry him out of the workshop and back up to his room. That limey bastard had come all the way in his pjs to check on him.

Maria is somehow wide awake when Jarvis opens the door, and she curses quietly before taking him from Jarvis’s care and into her own. He vaguely thinks that Jarvis offers to help but Maria shoos him off.

Howard would much prefer Maria’s hands all over him, anyways.

She tuts at him and leads him to the bathroom, mumbling incoherently. Howard groans in response to whatever the hell she’s saying and she glares at him.

“You’re lucky Mr Jarvis found you. We’re talking about this in the morning.”

This time she speaks more clearly. It hurts his head.

But the words pull through, and all of a sudden he wishes he’ll get assassinated in the middle of the night rather than face his wife in the morning.

~-.-~

Ana knows that she and Edwin both owe their lives to Howard Stark. But that doesn’t mean that they have to spend every hour of every day bending at the knee for him. Yes, without his help she would almost certainly be dead (and Edwin definitely so), but it was done out of kindness. Stark isn’t divine, nor is he a particularly good man anymore.

So why on Earth her dear Edwin is having to leave their bed in the middle of the night to go and help him is beyond her.

It started happening a few months ago, when Mrs Stark’s pregnancy was really starting to show and Mr Stark was getting more and more anxious about it. The only problem is that when Mr Stark gets anxious, he usually turns to alcohol- and that doesn’t end well for anybody. Especially poor Edwin, with the amount of times he’s had to carry a drunken Howard up the stairs and clean up whatever mess he’s made that time.

She keeps on telling him that he should ask one of the other, younger members of the staff to clean it up but Edwin will hear none of it. The excuse he gives is something to do with Mr Stark’s privacy and faith in him, but Ana knows that the real reason is Edwin’s own insecurity and stubborn belief that he must serve Howard Stark until the end of his days to pay off his debt.

And today, even when he is halfway across the world, Edwin still leaves his bed to talk to a drunk Howard Stark on the telephone.

The bedroom door finally opens, and her husband stumbles in. Exhaustion radiates off him but it is nowhere near as much as when he has to physically help his boss. His eyes are alarmingly red and she can spot the wrinkles on his brow which is a worrying sign.

“Is Mr Stark alright?” She asks, trying not to let her voice reveal just how irritated she is at having her husband stolen away from her in the extremely early hours of the morning. She can be grateful to Howard Stark during the day, but at night she just wants a peaceful sleep with Edwin.

Edwin rubs his right eye and sighs. “He’s just had an argument with Maria. She was especially angry, this time and he needed me to calm him down.”

If Ana was slightly irritated before, she could definitely feel burning hot anger bubbling up inside of her now. Howard Stark had no right to ruin their night just because he couldn’t get over himself and his silly pride.

“He needed you?” She asks skeptically.

“Apparently so. Maria was just having a hard time settling into the hotel and decided to take it out on Mr Stark.”

Maria had left the manor earlier than evening to begin the journey to visit her parents and was planning to break up the journey by staying at a hotel overnight somewhere along the way.

Ana wants to know more about the argument and if Maria is alright, but whenever she asks about Mr Stark’s more… personal affairs, Edwin always brushes her off with some excuse about the man’s privacy. And while she respects that, it does rekindle her worries about who her husband prioritises: himself, or Mr Stark.

She pulls back their quilt to allow Edwin to slip back in, which he does with a small smile. Stress is still written all over his face though, and Ana knows that she has to step in or else he won’t get a wink of sleep.

“I still don’t think he needed you.” She says once he’s comfortable beside her. “That man is in his fifties, he doesn’t need you to coddle him.”

Edwin lets out a long sigh and she feels a twinge of guilt for bringing up the subject. But she knows that he will never rest if the issue isn’t resolved.

“He has nobody else to turn to.” Is Edwin’s weak retort.

“Poppycock!” Ana scoffs. “That man has at least a hundred servants, why can’t he bother one of them for once?”

“He-” Noticing that Edwin is about to spout his usual defence, she quickly cups his face to silence him.

“I’m sure he has done favours for some of the others too, dear. You’ve already given your life to him, what more can he want?”

After Ana lowers her hands he immediately shuffles in bed to face her. His eyes are filled with uncertainty and she wishes she could bear all of his burdens on his behalf and share his pain. Maybe then she could see the relaxed man that she hasn’t seen in months.

“He’s also my friend. I’m doing what I would do for any of my friends. And besides, you know that he’s a danger to himself and others, if I don’t step in there could be a disaster. It’s lucky that he decided to call me before doing anything drastic so I could talk him down.”

He’s showing no signs of backing down and though Ana hates that it has come to this, she must be direct and end the conversation here and now.

So she looks him in the eye and says gently: “He’s taking advantage of you, kedvesem. You’re as much of a tool to him as any of his screwdrivers in the workshop, and you’re the only one who can’t see this.”

There’s a heavy silence that fills their dimly-lit bedroom. She watches as the words slowly sink into Edwin, revelation coursing through his veins, and soon his hardened eyes begin to melt away into a sadness that causes her own heart to ache.

“He’s… he’s not.” He whispers at last, and she knows that the words aren’t directed at her. “He… Howard isn’t like that, he wouldn’t…”

He rolls over so that he has his back to her and Ana’s aching heart shatters into a million pieces.

“He’s not the same as he used to be.” She soothes softly, moving to grasp his hand under the covers. “He doesn’t deserve what you give to him, and I think that you and I both need to take a break from him. From both of them.” He doesn’t seem to react when she rubs his back in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Spend some time with just the two of us, hmm?”

Edwin lets out a broken sob.

He is finally realising what she has known for months. Edwin is too trusting and far too willing to give his life in order to serve others, and Howard Stark is an opportunistic man. It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

After turning him back over to her side, she wordlessly wraps his large frame into her significantly smaller arms, stroking his hair as his shoulders shake while he weeps quiet tears into her. It is late, he has been very stressed lately, and he has just had to deal with a very difficult phone call. Her words simply tipped him over the edge into a long-awaited cry.

As he continues to sob, Ana believes she can hear some commotion happening over in Stark Manor. A few seconds later, she can see lights being switched on from her window. She chooses to ignore it though. Whatever is happening, her husband’s grief is much more important.

Once he is all cried out and she has gently wiped the tears away from his eyes, he utters a quiet thanks before moving to rest his head on the pillow and lie flat on his back. Ana moves forward to plant a small kiss on his forehead before doing the same herself.

They lie in silence for a few moments until Edwin speaks up.

"Ana, darling, I don't think I will be able to fall asleep at present."

It is just as she feared. Sitting up, she smiles a little tiredly. "Do you want to go and sit in the living room for a bit? We can plan our little getaway."

Although they are both in desperate need of sleep, they have just had an impromptu heavy conversation and they need to step away from the tension still lingering in the bedroom.

"Yes… I'd like that."

They move into the living room and sit down on their sofa together. She instinctively cuddles up to him and he wraps one arm around her to pull her close.

"So," she begins, the atmosphere around them already a lot lighter, "why don't we go to Scotland? You said you wanted to visit and I have always wanted to see the big hairy cows."

Edwin chuckles and Ana feels accomplished.

"Highland cows aren't exactly majestic beasts, my dear." He says and she pouts playfully. "But I think Scotland sounds like a great idea. I haven't been there in years."

Ana's heart flutters at the image of a young Edwin walking along a dainty Scottish country path in his old uniform, eyes full of wonder. She wonders if she could convince him to recreate that look.

"Well, I guess that's settled then. Scotland it i-"

There's a sharp, frantic knock at the door causing them both to jump. A loud female voice soon follows it.

"Mr Jarvis! Ana! Mr Jarvis, please, it's an emergency!"

Edwin is the first to recover as he rises and rushes to go and pull on his dressing gown before opening the door. Ana peers over his shoulder.

It's Miss Jennifer Bailey, the head maid. She looks panicked but somewhat relieved when Edwin answers the door.

"Mrs Stark's gone into labour," she blurts out, "and she's asked for you both. Get ready and hurry, we need to meet her at the hospital!"

She's running back towards the mansion before either of them can respond. Ana is only able to mutter "Oh my goodness" before Edwin suddenly pushes past her back into the house and into their room.

It's almost frightening how quickly he switches from her loving husband into a dog for the Starks.

Then it hits her that Maria is about to give birth, and she too hurries inside to get changed.

Minutes later, they are appropriately dressed and in the car with a bag of supplies, and Edwin is driving through the gates of the property with Miss Bailey sitting in the backseat.

So much for their break from the Starks.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Try English

Mary blew smoke out through her nose. It stung.

The empty beer bottles on her grimy kitchen table clinked and clattered as her sleeve snagged on something that made the cluttered table’s surface rattle. She flicked ashes from her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. She ignored this mess, her eyes instead trained on the person standing in front of the refrigerator.

Her brother, Malcolm. He stood there with an almost meditative calmness and stared back at her. His gaze swept through the messy place, never lingering too long on anything like the pile of unwashed dishes, the stacks of old newspapers, or the mountain of empty cans heaped up on the counter. Malcolm looked far better than she remembered him: less pale, and stronger somehow—like he had been working out.

Most of all, how he looked when she last saw him, lying in a casket. Malcolm had been dead for over four years.

The hand Mary used to hold her cigarette trembled. Not with fear, but anger. She was an angry person. Always had been, always would be. Seeing Malcolm back had made a pit form in her stomach, because she wasn’t finished with him. She wasn’t finished with a lot of people.

See, when most other people see anybody return from the dead, they go straight to shock, denial, or pure, unadulterated dread.

But not Mary. Most of her family members had died. And they had had the audacity to kick the bucket before she could really tell them how she felt about them. A lot of messed up history to sort through. A lot of pent-up rage, waiting to be unleashed. And here was Malcolm, loitering around in her home like nothing had ever happened.

She took another long drag from her cigarette and rolled her jaw while she searched her mind for the right words. But none came yet.

“Love what you did with the place, Mary,” Malcolm mused. The corners of his mouth twitched until they twisted upwards into a creepy smile. “You think Mom would have appreciated how you turned this place into such a miserable dump?”

He licked his lips and hooked his thumbs into the belt holding up his jeans.

“Fuck you,” Mary snapped at him.

Malcolm showed no instant reaction, then burst out with a brief chuckle. Knowing. Malevolent.

“I didn’t turn this place into a dump, I let it turn into a dump,” she then corrected him, letting the smoke pour out of her mouth while she spoke.

Malcolm grabbed an open bottle of stale beer from the counter and sniffed it. He raised it as if to perform a mockery of making a toast.

“I see you’ve become a philosopher in the meanwhile, sis,” Malcolm mused. The creepy smile maintained its place on his visage. It turned into a cringe after he took a swig from the bottle, and the rotten taste assaulted his pristine taste buds.

“Yeah. Night shifts at a shitty gas station for over six years sure do lend themselves to deep introspection. Take that bottle, for instance. Is it half empty, or half full of go fuck yourself?”

He smirked and put the bottle down, which caused a small pyramid of empty old cans of beans to collapse as the glass connected with them. He turned away from her and plucked a piece of paper attached to the fridge’s door with a magnet without even shooting it a passing glance.

Mary flinched, somehow sensing that he knew the contents of whatever was written on it without reading. It just made sense. She just made sense of things.

“How are your anger management classes going? Any progress with that, Maddy?”

Her left eye twitched upon hearing that old nickname.

“They’re goin’ good, dickweed. I have a crowbar I can get to cave in your tail lights if you need a demonstration,” she said. She snuffed out her cigarette, mashing it into the pile of other butts in her ashtray, causing more cancer dust to spill out and onto her table.

That wiped the grin right off his face. Which, in turn, prompted a satisfied smirk of her own to form on Mary’s face in response.

“How’d you get here anyway? Hijack a car? Also, not to really address the elephant in the room here, but how the fuck are you not just a pile of maggot-riddled rotten meat and bones? It’s been six years, chickenshit.”

He approached the table and leaned forward until he rested his knuckles against the only vacant spots on it, hunching forward to move uncomfortably close to her. Mary picked up one of the beer bottles in front of her and took a sip from it to wet her chapped lips. She gripped the glass so hard that her knuckles turned white, ready to weaponize the object.

It was not fear that she felt. Mary’s blood boiled.

“See, I’m not really your little brother. I’m just borrowing his body to come see you in person, Mary.”

“Of course, just my fucking luck. Fuck me for hoping to finally get some closure by telling my little dipshit of a brother to eat shit.”

He flashed a toothy grin before he replied, “I can play pretend, if you want. We know many things, Mary. We who pierce the veil and cross over as we wish—we know everything.”

She relaxed her grip around the bottle, ready to flip it and use it as a club. Wasn’t her first time to do so.

“Like that one time you tried talking to Bobby Gordon but shat your panties because you were too scared. Excused yourself quickly and were too late for swim team because you scrambled to clean up your mess,” he said in a singsong tone—referencing an embarrassing memory that she had never told anybody else. Not the AA meeting groups, the anger management support groups—not even her therapist.

Struggling to understand how he knew the pause gave him cause to chuckle again.

He continued, “Or were you just so drunk off your ass that you told someone about that and can’t remember?” Another chuckle, more sinister this time. “Yes, I can taste what you’re thinking, Mary. Or maybe you told it to the thin air, reaching someone who’s now just another body, six feet under, whose memories bled through the thin fabric between worlds?”

“Okay, asshole. I see you’ve got some tricks. Is that the best you’ve got? Am I supposed to be impressed? Shit, man, if I was some sort of dillhole ghost, I would go join a circus or something.”

“A circus?” he asked in confusion.

“Yeah. Y'know, anywhere where people actually give a shit.”

He smirked again.

“Cute, Mary. So edgy. So rebellious.”

The sound of metal scraping cut through the air as he snatched a long sharp knife from the kitchen counter. The chair on the opposite side of the table groaned as he dragged it out, swiped some unopened letters and plastic junk from its seat, and sat down.

Mary’s weary eyes focused on the knife on his hands, clutched in his fist and resting on the table in between them now. She met his gaze again. Glared at him.

“If you’re not Malcolm, I’m gonna have to give you a different name. Least you can do if want to carve me up with that pig-sticker over yonder,” Mary said, pointing at the knife in his hand.

After the gesture, using two fingers, she let her fist slam onto the table. Not a motion fueled by rage, but by frustration, and fed by resignation. All the glass and plastic objects on the table stopped clattering with delay.

“I’d prefer Malcolm, given the meat-suit I’m wearing now. But you can call me Gall,” he said. Something evil flashed in his eyes. It did not even seem inhuman, just unfamiliar. Nothing like Malcolm, no matter what kind of a dick he had been to Mary.

“What kinda stupid fucking name is that?”

His eyes darted and tracked her every movement when she swiftly snatched the crumpled pack of cigarettes off the table, produced a cancer stick from the package and lit it up in one fluid motion, suggesting decades of unfiltered addiction. From the periphery of her vision, she saw his fist tighten around the grip of the knife.

“I’ll just call you shit-stick. And what exactly are you?”

The grin on his face returned. Widened. He tilted his head; movements that did not fit the way Malcolm moved or behaved in his lifetime. Alien, unsettling. He licked his lips but did not yet respond. Like he was sizing her up. His eyes scanned up and down her form.

“Come on, man. Level with me here. I’m sure your whole spiel here is a real hoot at parties and can scare old grandmas, but it’s not really doing anything for me,” she continued taunting him. “Also, if you’re gonna threaten me with a good time by waving that knife around, either fix me something to eat or end me now. I’m starving, and also good for kicking the bucket. Fuck, man. I’d rather puke than go on my next shift, so carving me up like a turkey’s gonna feel like a favor to me at this point.”

She sucked in more smoke. It did nothing to calm her nerves, only drove up her pulse, pounding in her ears. Mary blew it out after the long pause that followed, with nothing but the constant drip of water from the faucet into the dirty sink. Malcolm—Gall—did not answer.

She lifted her arm as if to check her wristwatch but kept her gaze locked onto his. A labored, deliberate sigh escaped her throat.

“You have many names for what I am,” he said. His voice silkier than before. “Ghost, revenant, demon. It doesn’t really matter. Your words are so limited in their scope, so confusing without elaboration. And we don’t have all night.”

Now she waited, continuing to smoke. She once more picked up the bottle of the stale beer to nurse it in between greedy drags from her cigarette.

Before the pause went on for too long and she could reply with another mean-spirited quip, Gall continued, “Have you not seen the signs? I am an agent. I serve the Glass King, and have come to remind you of your duty to Him.”

He spoke with such reverence. Such gravitas. Might as well have been a radio speaker, or one of those narrators on a cheesy movie. Mary blinked and then shook her head. Searching her mind for what he meant did nothing to help.

“I don’t understand a fucking word you’re saying,” she muttered. “Try English, shit-stick.”

He visibly stifled a sigh and lifted the knife, cradling it in his hand. He then used it to point to the pile of newspapers on the counter.

“Did you not see the words forming on the edges of your trash?” he asked. Then pointed the tip of the knife to her phone on the table, its display screen marked with a spiderweb of cracks. “Did you not see the messages that transcended worldly gibberish? Signs, everywhere, pointing you in the direction of finding meaning in your sorry life?”

He then pointed to the empty coffee cups on her table. “Hell, did you not even see the letters taking shape in the foam of your beverages? And here we thought your substance abuse would make you more receptive to the signs everywhere.”

It finally clicked for Mary. She had indeed been seeing strange patterns and signs everywhere. “Obey” or “buy a gun” or some ominous instructions that seemed to be ritualistic or occult in nature—many strange words had, in fact, been appearing to her with frightening regularity over the past week.

But she had been ignoring them. Chalking it up to all the medications and booze and recreational drugs she popped on a regular basis, things that instructions in tiny print told her not to mix.

At the end of the day, Mary was a realist. One whose mind had been turned to Swiss cheese by all the substance abuse, but a realist nevertheless. The sheer thought of that gave her cottonmouth and made her crave a joint.

“If you wanted me to get some message, then fucking spell it out instead of giving me some cryptic crap. I thought I was losing my mind, and was perfectly fine with that. Now you’re telling me it all made sense, which is somehow more obnoxious.”

Gall slowly nodded and his grinning lips parted to show teeth.

“Yes, Mary, now you’re getting it. The Glass King wants you. You will help prevent the end of the world as you know it. You, who yearn for meaning in this God-forsaken world. You, whose miserable and pathetic existence can serve a higher purpose, can help shape a new world. A world of your desires. Do you not feel it? Do you not feel its pull?”

Mary downed the rest of her beer, wincing at how bad it tasted—warm, and opened up for at least a day. It helped masked whatever truths this “Gall” was alluding to.

“You really don’t get it, do ya? Listen, shit-stick, and listen really carefully, okay?”

She slammed the bottle back down onto the table with force, causing all the objects to erupt into another cascade of clanking and clattering noise. He said nothing but his gaze drilled into her eyes, burning with anticipation.

“I’ve worked shit jobs for long enough to know management assholes when I see them. And I’m looking at one right now.”

“But—”

“Shut the fuck up,” she interrupted his interruption. “I’m speaking, shit-stick. You can go back to your boss and go tell him to get fucked. I ain’t doin’ shit for no pay. You’re trying to sell me on some ‘higher meaning’ bullshit like that’s supposed to motivate me? Might as well try to pay an artist with 'exposure,’ you stupid twat.”

“I, uh—”

“I said I’m talking.”

He sat there, slack-jawed, taken aback by her forceful speech. Like the smoke billowing out of her mouth, every word spilled out with repressed rage. Not one that threatened to boil over into violence, but a fury compressed into the shape of a diamond—sharp and smooth and hard and untouchable.

“Like I said, I know management pricks when I see them. I can see your weaselly little sniveling brown-nosing turd behavior from a mile away. I know you’re just here to get me to do something and if you fail to mobilize me, you’re in deep shit. I don’t know how things work over there, wherever you’re coming from. But I’m guessing that you don’t just get a pay cut or fired,” she said.

Now she, like him, flashed a toothy grin. Sadistic, angry, and beginning to enjoy herself.

Was her first in getting to fuck with a non-human entity.

“So how about I give you the finger,” she said, following up with the matching gesture of flipping him the bird. “And you go find someone else to do your dirty work for free.”

The demon was speechless. Never before had this entity seen anybody respond with such belligerent resistance and unrelenting venom in her words.

He eked out another evil grin, but Mary recognized the insecurity in it. Malcolm used to look exactly like that when he tried to impress people, and Gall was running out of cards to play. He raised the knife again, toyed with it, letting the handle roll around in his palm, causing the blade to cast scintillating reflections in the dingy kitchen light.

“I can be very persuasive. I can make things slow and painful, Mary.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she said with a groan, stamping out the next cigarette. She just glared at him, yielding no attention to the knife now. “I see right through cheap shit tricks like that. What stupid movie did you get that line from? You need me—you need me to do something, so you’ll need me at full capacity. Your threats are empty, you spineless shit stain.”

Without missing a beat, she lit up yet another cigarette and leaned over the table, shortening the distance between her and the knife.

“Try me, motherfucker. I can’t wait to die. Life sucks, so I will spite you by dying before I lift a single God-damned finger for you or whoever the fuck you work for,” she said. Her grin widened, the cigarette lazily drooping from the corner of her mouth, displaying even more spite. “I wonder what happens to you if you fail to get me to do whatever you want me to do. I bet that’s worse than whatever kiddo crap you’ve cooked up for me.”

The chair underneath Gall creaked and its legs scuffed over the filthy floor as he got up. He backed away from her and placed the knife back on the counter.

“Yeah, get the fuck outta here, you little chickenshit. You come here, wearing my little brother’s sorry-ass face, waving a knife around, threatening to torture me and end my life? Fuck you. Don’t come back until you come up with something scary.”

Gall continued to back away. The grin never left his face, but not one inch of it was sincere anymore. Just a mask to hide his growing dread.

Everything she had said rang true. Punishments for failure were no trifling matter. The Glass King’s orders needed completion. He would have to find someone else, for this Mary was not a lost lamb they could manipulate into doing their dirty work—she was just a lost cause.

“My shift’s gonna be nine hours, asshole. You can visit me at work or you can come waste my time when I’m back, or whisper your dumb sweet nothings in my ears while I’m trying to sleep. See if I give a shit,” she said, continuing to harass the demon as he continued to back out of her kitchen. “Maybe bring good dope or a massive dragon-shaped dildo next time, maybe you can bribe me. Maybe a stack of hundred dollar bills. See, I’m responsive to material goods and pleasures. But I bet you’re too cheap of a shit for that.”

She continued to rant, even well after he had gotten out of earshot and retreated from the old decrepit home. It was true what they said, Gall thought.

Humans were the fucking worst.

—Submitted by Wratts

[tessatechaitea]

The Ray #1

In 1994, I had no idea who Christopher Priest and Howard Porter were so I have no idea why I purchased this comic book.

Although (continuing the thought from the caption which is just me saying, "Fuck the format! I can do what I want!") I was in my early 20s in 1994 so I was probably into that edgy fascination with freaks and body deformity. I hadn't seen Tod Browning's Freaks yet but I'm sure I would have jumped at the chance if I'd known about it. It's the only reason I can figure why I bought a comic book about a character I knew nothing about. Because it looks like he's a hero with a deformed baby leg. I probably picked it up off the shelf and yelled, "Fuckin' A, dude! Look at this ganky bastich!" It was 1994 so obviously I was emulating Lobo in my every day life. Some of you might be thinking, "Ugh! You're so gross and problematic!" But I'm just being honest! I was a young man, masking like crazy in order to hide my vulnerabilities so I wouldn't be crushed by social interactions and existential threats to my psyche. I had to act tough to survive the crazy streets of Santa Clara, California! Back then, Silicon Valley wasn't like it is now! In 1994, hulking techno-nerds were roaming the streets with razor sharp circuit boards looking to cut the genitals off of anybody who criticized the Neo-Geo CD home gaming console. If you looked at them funny, they'd challenge you to a game of Cyberball and you'd better hope you won because they were also obsessed with Mortal Combat and if you lost, the last thing you'd hear would be a bunch of techno-nerds screaming "Finish him!" before you found yourself upside down gagging on the filthy water of an unflushed public toilet. The early nineties were some rough years! Especially when you were into heavy metal! People think grunge and rap killed metal but think about what people thought was "rock and roll" during the early 90s: Warrant's "Cherry Pie" and Extreme's "More Than Words." I mean, Feetal's Gizz! Metal was dead long before grunge and rap came by to fill its grave. Anyway, you could totally be into freaks in the early 90s because the Internet didn't exist so your opinions weren't reaching anybody outside your small circle of friends. All the other people of the world who didn't know you at all didn't have a way to tell you you were a piece of shit because of one single thing that comprised the myriad facts of who you were. Fuck you, Internet! No, no! I'm sorry! Don't be mad at me, Internet! I can't live without you! Also, maybe I just bought this comic book because the cover was shiny and embossed and growing up in Santa Clara was so boring that it made this comic book looked exciting. The issue begins with The Ray battling Brimstone. Remember him from Legends?

Brimstone is as big as Godzilla and he's already killed hundreds of people, judging by the apartment buildings he's smashed.

I don't know who The Ray is or where he's from. What part of the United States of America uses slang like "gaffle," "put my serve on," "zoom this buster," "bone out," "feebs," and "rot." Is this just Christopher Priest trying to mimic youth speak? I would expect this kind of thing from an aging comic book writer like current Neal Adams but Priest was in his early thirties when he wrote this. Maybe The Ray is from another Earth and Priest's theory was that slang words would obviously differ between Earths. But not so much that you couldn't get the gist of what he's saying. Except for "gaffle." I don't know what the fuck he wants to do to Brimstone when he says he's going to gaffle him. I know what I would mean by it but that doesn't seem appropriate in this situation.

Oh wait. The Ray was just writing fan-fiction about himself.

So the Brimstone fight didn't really happen. Or it did happen but The Ray is using it as fodder to write comic books about himself. So he's like Clark Kent writing articles about Superman? At least writing comic book stories about your own adventures isn't unethical. Fucking Clark Kent. What kind of a journalist uses his soap box to simply promote himself? No wait. Journalists fucking suck. I despise journalists for the same reason I despise police officers. If you're just letting your profession go to shit because a bunch of people are abusing their positions of power and not actually doing the public service they're supposed to be doing, you're just as bad as the worst apple in the barrel. There's a reason that whole apple/barrel thing is still a saying even though nobody really associates apples with barrels anymore. Maybe The Ray isn't writing comic books although it seems like the super edgy postmodern take a writer in the 90s would think was fucking mind blowing. We got Kyle Rayner, comic book artist, as the new Green Lantern. Why shouldn't we also get a comic book writer in there as well? Or The Ray might just be writing stories for his college paper which would mean he's just as unethical and terrible as Clark Kent, I suppose. But in an amateurish way. The Ray (whose name is Ray Terrill so it was lucky he got light-based powers) stops trying to write and decides to tell the readers about the last few days. He's a young guy who works at a fast food chicken joint and has just leased his first apartment. It's a piece of shit with some garbage and/or artistic sculpture in the middle of the room but he doesn't have any credit or money so he's stuck with it. I bet there are corpses under the floor boards as well as other things too boring to mention (but which I'll mention anyway) like rats and cockroaches and dried semen stains.

This is Ray's narration of the place which I read after I wrote the previous paragraph. Was I writing comics and named Christopher Priest in 1994?

The Ray spends all day handing out flyers to Clucky Chicken while standing right outside Clucky Chicken. Is that what flyers are for? To remind people about the thing they can totally see right in front of them? I guess they could be coupons. While he's handing out flyers, his super cool cousin Hank stops by to gaffle some swang all up in through him.

This must be Earth-15 where they say things like "Yo trip dat frum, golderboots!" and "Swank on into my PQs, Flub Daddy!"

The Ray is disappointed that he's a man now because responsibility sucks. Kids can't stand curfews and rules but man is it sweet to be able to come and go as you please (within curfew, of course!) while doing whatever the fuck you want and not worrying about money for food or rent. The Ray can't even fuck his girlfriend because she saw him in the chicken suit and is all, "Oh, um, I just came by to say I can't come by! Bye!" The Ray can travel at the speed of light anywhere he wants while carrying other people. That makes sense because comic books. He takes his cousin Hank Fonzerelli to see a volcano shaped like a hand in Hawaii only to discover that it's another Brimstone. It's activated by a henchman of Darkseid while The Ray and Hank are checking out a surf competition or a luau. It's at this point when The Ray gets back to the beginning of the story where he was failing to stop Brimstone from destroying a city. As he picks the story back up, Superboy arrives to save the day. Not the boring Superboy who used to be Superman and learned a terrible secret about himself on his sixteenth birthday about an extra candle. The new Superboy who arrived on the scene after Superman died. He might also be boring but I wouldn't know having never read any comic books about him. The new Superboy is an arrogant dick and The Ray hates him. That's probably why The Ray winds up killing him. Or he thinks he killed him. Everybody reading the comic book probably thought The Ray killed him too (because we were all dumb-dumbs who actually believed DC Comics had killed Superman off for good. Why wouldn't they?! He was a big boring boy scout whose powers kept fluctuating because editors and writers thought the problem with writing Superman stories was that he was too powerful. But the real problem with writing Superman stories was that those same writers and editors were unimaginative assholes who didn't actually understand Superman. Why else would Superman have died from a fist fight?! Seriously, Dan Jurgens. What were you thinking?! Superman should never have been killed because he encountered something more powerful that could just beat the shit out of him. Superman should have been killed because of a philosophical or ethical dilemma where he realized the only way to save the world was to allow himself to die. He should have been Jesus but instead he was just Apollo Creed. Who I think was a metaphor for John the Baptist? The issue ends with the narrator letting the readers know that Superboy isn't actually dead and why would the idiots think he'd be killed in The Ray when he was currently starring in his own popular monthly comic book? Stupid dumb comic book readers! But the narrator also mentions that The Ray is out of power (I didn't know he had to recharge) and Brimstone is kind of mad. Then he's all, "If we were you," (I don't think a proper editor in 1994 would have allowed a writer to use the plural pronoun "we" as a non-specific gender singular pronoun so now I'm picturing the narrator as a small group of old people), "We'd be back here in 30 days!" And I guess 22 year old me agreed with them because I purchased Issue #2. The Ray #1 Rating: C. C is average, right? I didn't find anything I particularly loved about this issue but I also didn't find anything I absolutely hated. Except for Superboy but I think I was supposed to hate him so that's a positive critique. I probably purchased the next issue because I wanted to find out what happens to Hank Fonzerelli. What a cool dude! The letters pages don't have any letters but it does have a story by Brian Augustyn about how Christopher Priest changed his name from Jim Owsley. It also explains that Priest's idea for The Ray was to have a teenager suddenly have to deal with god-like powers while still being a teenager. I think before this that was called "Spider-man". Except for the god-like powers! Those were more spider-like powers.

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: New Life, short 8-- Precarious

Recovery is a tedious, nonlinear process. Demyx, Ienzo, and the others living in Radiant Garden's castle have to learn to come to terms with their pasts and their memories, learn to grow, and begin to understand what, exactly, it means to be human. While there is unexpected joy in this, there is also unexpected sorrow. A series of oneshots set after Beyond this Existence.

Current short: “Precarious.”  Demyx finds Ansem wandering deliriously in the rain, and this dredges up painful memories for all involved.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

----

It was a stormy, blustery kind of day. Wind wailed against the stone of town, eerie and ghostlike.

Demyx and Aerith hadn’t had a whole lot of work that day; he noticed, for whatever reason, these things seemed to come and go in waves, regardless of whether or not it was sickness. Instead they were making a backlog of medicine, jockeying for the limited counter space in Aerith’s kitchen.

There had been a point when this made him nervous, when memorizing lists of ingredients and their corresponding spells gave him intense anxiety. Even just a few months later, it seemed second nature.

Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.

“...You seem spacey,” Aerith said.

“What? Oh, sorry.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Just thinking that it’s gotten easier. That’s all.”

She smiled. “I knew it would. I told you. It just takes practice. I think you’re more of a manual learner, anyway.”

“That what Even says.” Demyx put the capsules in their bottles and labeled them.

“You’ve been doing well with the injuries, too. How many broken bones is it?”

“Too many to count.”

“Exactly. It’s baby steps.”

He nodded, then said, “You don’t have to take care of my ego.”

She snorted. “Trust me. I wouldn’t.”

The wind kicked up even more firmly against the kitchen windows. Thunder echoed against the stone.

Aerith frowned. “You should go home, unless you want to wait out the storm here.”

“Is this sort of weather normal?”

“For late summer, yes. The beginning and end of the drought’s always like this.”

He shook his head. “Alright. Well. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m visiting Theo and Anya in the morning, just to make sure Anya’s cancer has stayed gone. You should be there to observe.”

It was the first time she’d mentioned bringing him along to something so serious. “Oh… Sure. When?”

“I’ll text you. Now get going before it rains.”

Demyx set off. The sky was dark, almost black, and town had gone still. The normally busy marketplace was all but empty, stalls shuttered or battened down with tarps. He picked up his pace.

He liked rain. The smell of it, the feel of it against his skin. It could be calming, could quiet down the human noise of the world, leaving behind the rest. This was not one of those storms. This was the kind that could blow out windows. Demyx pushed against the wind and felt the thin needles of water as the rain began to break.

The angry music of it quickly soaked him though. He made it up to the postern at last, preparing himself mentally for Dilan’s inevitable lecture about him getting mud everywhere, when he saw something.

Ansem stood, in the rain and the wind, by the railing, his red scarf flicking agitatedly.

Demyx approached him. “Ansem?”

He didn’t turn; his orange eyes stared over at the town, his face grim, stony.

“We should go in case there’s lightning,” Demyx said. “This is all metal. It’ll go up.”

He turned slightly. While he looked at Demyx, his eyes were elsewhere, slightly unfocused. “I haven’t seen such a storm in some time.”

“Yeah, it’s bad. Which is why we should go.” The stare was unnerving him, sending little flickers of anxiety through him. “Why are you out here?”

“There wasn’t weather there. It was all black nothingness, stillness, hell.”

Demyx blinked. “In the Realm of Darkness?” A peal of thunder startled him. “Ansem, I’d love to talk this through with you inside. We can’t stay out here.”

“Nothing is sustainable.”

“Look, that’s very philosophical, but I--” Demyx exhaled sharply, his heart in his throat. “Ansem, you didn’t come out here to--?”

He blinked, slowly. “No. I--no, that was not my intention. I suppose I wanted to feel--” Ansem didn’t finish the sentence. “I suspect I am not well.”

“Yeah? I can help you.” Between his heartbeat clanging in his ears and the wind, it was almost impossible to hear. He offered his hand to Ansem. “We can talk about this.”

“What is there to say?”

“You’ve gotta have something. You’re a smart guy. You’ve got a doctorate in something or another. Help me out.”

Ansem’s grip on the railing tightened. He might as well have been choking him. “I failed. I left them to clean up my mess. When he… when he apologized to me, only then did I realize what they did to that poor boy. I should have known they were using him as a puppet. I should never have--”

“Ansem, doing this isn’t going to help.”

“I’m not sure what will.”

“Please--”

“I have treated everyone in my life so poorly, without remorse. I have utterly neglected the code I swore to uphold. Why is it I deserve this chance when so many have perished?”

This was all sounding too familiar. Demyx swallowed the spit welling in his mouth, tasting rain. “I felt the same way too,” he admitted. “In the war, there were so many of us in the unions. And do you know how many Dandelions there were? Three hundred. Three hundred people got to live while the rest suffered and died. And I lived again and again. You can’t… you can’t question why. Maybe consider that you’re meant to be here, for whatever reason. If you give up now, that’s kind of like spitting on their graves, right?”

Ansem turned slightly.

“You and me can do the right thing. We can help people. That’s why we’re here. You… you believe in fate, right? You can’t see that as not mattering.” He offered his hand again. “Let’s go.”

After a long, agonizing moment, he reached out and took it. Ansem’s skin was warm, uncomfortably so. Demyx towed him steadily to the door, trying to maintain eye contact. As soon as they had crossed the threshold he breathed a sigh of relief. Ansem watched the water dripping from his scarf and coat like he wasn’t sure what it was. Demyx kept hold of his hand and scanned his vitals quickly.

Ansem was a mess, physically speaking; feverish, low blood pressure, heart beating unsteadily. He’d caught a bug, the bug made him delirious, and the delirium made him vulnerable to the pain he could usually keep controlled. It was sad, but made a lot of sense.

“Come on,” Demyx said softly. “We should get changed. You’re probably tired.”

“Things are… very unclear…” He shook his head.

“You’re just sick. I’ll help you.”

“You’re too kind. I saw it in you when we met.”

Likely untrue. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

Demyx was able to get Ansem to go put on dry clothes, and to get in bed. He fell fitfully asleep almost immediately. Anxiety and his damp clothes made Demyx shiver. He decided to chance going to change and get some medicine.

Dilan met him coming down the hallway and was predictably huffy. “You do know Aeleus and I just washed the floors, right? I do not appreciate you tracking  mud and what have you--”

Demyx cut him off. “Ansem’s sick. I need to go get medicine. Can you keep him company for a few minutes?”

Dilan blinked. “Yes--quite--whatever’s the matter?”

“It feels like just a fever, but I--I’ll tell you in a bit.”

“...Certainly.”

He dried himself off quickly and felt a deep chill that only had partly to do with the rain. Demyx texted Ienzo and gathered some of the pills Aerith had gave him, including some antibiotics. Panic was making everything a little shimmery, as was the impact of what had just happened. He could freak out about this later.

Ansem was still asleep, flushed and washed out against the sheets. Demyx put up the kettle in the kitchen and shooed Dilan out of the seat he’d pulled up to the bedside. He felt again at Ansem, doing a little more of a thorough scan this time. It was a high fever, and seemed like one that had been unattended; he couldn’t be sure of the cause, as it didn’t feel bacterial. A virus. It didn’t seem to be causing any dangerous damage.

But the thing was, in order to do this spell Demyx had to feel at his energy, his aura, and you could feel a lot about a person from their aura. He felt Ansem’s guilt and pain pour into him, staggering regret. He let go of it and swallowed nausea. The kettle was whistling loudly. “Get that for me,” Demyx said to Dilan.

“Absolutely,” he said, with only a trace of bitterness, and came back with a cup of boiling water.

Demyx dropped one of the pills into it and watched it dissolve, turning a brownish pink.

“What’s that?” Dilan asked.

“Fever reducer.”

“I see.”

Demyx waited for the tea to cool. The proper thing to do would be to continue tracking his vitals, and try to destroy the virus from within, but the pain was just too much. No wonder, at first chance, it had come poking out of his psyche.

“What on earth happened?” Dilan asked.

“He must’ve been sick and decided to go out in the rain.”

“Your expression belies more than that.”

Demyx hesitated. Dilan had once been one of Ansem’s closest companions; didn’t that mean anything? Before he could even try to explain, Ienzo came through the doors, his face drawn.

“Is he alright?” he asked in a strained voice.

“The actual sickness itself doesn’t feel too serious.”

Ienzo frowned. “Then whatever is the matter?”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s go over into the other room. You, too,” he added towards Dilan.

The private study was a mess. Books and papers flooded the desk, as well as crusty glasses. It didn’t bode well for what Demyx had to say. Rain blew in from the partially open window; Dilan quickly sealed them.

Demyx took Ienzo’s hands.

“So it’s a mysterious fainting illness?” Dilan asked dryly. He leaned against the windowsill.

“Not quite. It’s a little baby virus. Once he gets some rest and fluids it’ll take care of itself. That’s not why I’m worried.” Demyx sighed. “I was coming up from town and I found him wandering deliriously by the postern. I think… and I’m not sure how delusional he really was, but I think he was trying to kill himself.”

Ienzo touched his throat. He breathed heavily.

“You’re sure you weren’t merely seeing things in the rain?” Dilan asked.

“I spoke to him. He asked why he deserved to live when everyone else had died. Stuff like that. I know he was sick, and that kind of twists things, but I…”

“I… I know he’s struggled, but I… I didn’t think he was…” Ienzo sat in the rocking chair.

“What can we do?” Dilan asked.

“I mean, there are medicines and spells that can help balance brain chemistry, but I mean, we really just have to talk it out. Get him to talk about it.” He took a few shaky breaths. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad we know,” Dilan said.

“I can probably do the most,” Ienzo said, looking at the floor instead of either of them. “I’ll… I’ll be here when he wakes.” His eyes were wide, and frightened. Demyx pulled him into an embrace, not particularly caring that Dilan was in the room. Demyx could feel Ienzo trembling. No doubt this was bringing up any number of unpleasant memories. He kissed him on the forehead.

“I’ll be right back,” Demyx said. “Keep an eye on him,” he mouthed to Dilan, who nodded in response.

He didn’t want to leave Ienzo, but he also couldn’t be sure how deeply Ansem was sleeping, or how delirious he really was. The tea was now cool enough to be drunk; he shook Ansem gently.

“Demyx?” He seemed groggy, disoriented.

“Here. Drink this. It’s for the fever.”At least, Demyx noted, he had enough wherewithal to do that on his own. “You’ll be okay. Just a virus.” He fought hard to keep his voice neutral, soft-spoken. “The rain doesn’t help.”

“The rain?” His expression sharpened. “I’m a--I’m a fool.”

Idiot. He shouldn’t have said that. “Try to get some rest. We can talk about this when you’re stronger.” Demyx took the empty cup from him.

“I do feel quite ill…”

“So sleep, okay?”

Wearily, Ansem turned over and went back to sleep.

They waited for a while. Ansem’s fever slowly dropped, but didn’t quite break. Ienzo sat on his other side, his expression grave, drawn. The rain continued to pour down. The room seemed dark, misty. Demyx didn’t know what to do with himself. He checked Ansem’s vitals, dabbed the feverish sweat off his forehead. Scrolled through Kingstagram. Held his breath.

After the longest few hours of Demyx’s life, Ansem stirred. Demyx got him a glass of water. “Here,” he said in a tone that was much more strained than he intended. “Drink some water. Keep up your fluids.”

He sat up slowly and touched his brow. “...Boys?” Ansem asked. “What are you doing here?”

“You fell ill,” Ienzo said, with difficulty.

“That is rather… embarrassing.” Ansem took the water from Demyx, and didn’t meet his eyes.

“What do you remember?” Demyx asked.

He frowned. “It’s all rather… hazy,” he said. “I was delirious, wasn’t I?”

“Something like that.” Demyx sat back down. “Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?”

Ansem held his gaze blankly for a moment, and then something seemed to spark. “Oh, dear,” he said softly. “I do believe… I was to do something reckless.”

“Reckless?” Ienzo asked incredulously. His face had turned pink.

Ansem turned to Ienzo. “My dear, sweet boy. How have you ever forgiven me for all I’ve done? Why? I left you there, with that… monster.”

Demyx could see Ienzo trembling, and trying to keep it contained.

“I have not even played a decent role in your recovery.”

Demyx felt like he was watching something too intimate. He started to go to the other room.

“Please stay,” Ienzo said in that same strained voice. Demyx understood. He stood behind him and rested his hands on his shoulders, feeling the incredible tension there. “Forgive me. I am… reeling.” A peal of thunder made him jump, slightly. “I can act as your… son, in this moment, or I can act as a therapist. Not as both.”

“I want nothing more than your honesty, Ienzo.”

He exhaled heavily. “I was told so many lies.” Ienzo spoke so softly that Demyx had trouble hearing him over the rain. “Lies about your sanity, about supposed experiments on children, about your… ulterior motive for adopting me.”

Ansem went to speak, but Ienzo held up a finger.

“And those lies…” His free hand was clutched tightly in his lap. “Those lies mutated the truth, mutated my memories. In dealing with this… guilt, I have been trying to forgive you, to realize now that your abandonment was not one by choice. I know that. But my heart…” His voice broke. “In my heart that trust is no longer there.”

“I do not desire your forgiveness, Ienzo. Nor do I deserve it.”

Demyx could feel him trembling. Ienzo needed him in this moment, for whatever reason, which is why he remained present, but he felt he were being a voyeur, watching something far too private.

“I…” His breathing grew more ragged. “I feel… used. Did you use me?”

“That was never my intention.” The pain stretched Ansem’s face taut. “I wanted to give you an opportunity. You were a bright light in a growing darkness, and I hoped to give you a chance to use your brilliance for good. But I… I should have let that be your choice. You should have been given the chance at a childhood, a real one. Rather than spending it wrapped in matters too mature.” Ansem took Ienzo’s hand.

“Did you truly desire an end to your own life?” he asked.

“Pain creeps unbidden. It is… difficult to fight it off.”

“I don’t want that.” Demyx could hear Ienzo’s breaths quivering. “I don’t want you to--”

“Then I won’t. Simply as that. I owe it to you, to live. I owe you so much more.” Ansem wiped, shakily at his eyes. “I am glad for your honesty. It gives me a sort of strength. If I know what is wrong, I can try to mend it.”

“I want that.” He was crying freely now. “I want that very much.”

Demyx handed him a clean handkerchief. Ienzo squeezed his hand once.

“Would you leave us?” Ienzo asked. “I do believe there’s a lot to say.”

Demyx kissed his salty cheek. “Okay.”

[flannelpunkcalum]

WANT YOU BACK, TOO

“I-”

“The thing is-”

They both stop.

“You first.” Y/N says, thinking she's being polite, but Calum shakes his head.

“You know how I feel.”

I know you know I will never get over you

Y/N licks her lips. “Fair enough.”

(GOD sorry this took so long but it’s also literally 4 times longer than the original WHICH IS A LOT.

anyway they bone in this one. 

8k words, smut, angst, and really cheesy descriptions of love.

read part one here)

Y/N usually tried to focus on the positive. If she was going into an exam, she focused on how prepared she was, how cunning she could be. If she was going to a job interview she imagined clicking with the employer immediately and getting hired on the spot. Maybe it helped the most positive outcome happen, she didn't know. That said, the second they were wheels up she started thinking about plane crashes. Fiery ones.

This was a mistake. She was en route to New York to see Calum for the first time in months and it was such a mistake.

Y/N didn't like to fuck up in the same way twice, which is why she stayed friends with her exes if they wanted, but never more. She never entertained the thought. And Calum - he had ruined her, a little. Before she had him she had always felt fine spending time on her own, but it had been weeks and she couldn't even watch Netflix without thinking about how much better it had been with him next to her.

Sometimes she thought that even the time she had spent furious at him was felt better anything she could do alone. They had broken up for a reason, but that was hard to remember at times like this, when she felt restless for him. He always said that she helped keep him sane in his crazy stupid rockstar world - she was starting to think that he had done the same for her.

The man in the seat next to her had settled down for a nap as soon as the flight attendants had finished their speech. Y/N had been ignoring him, but now she turned towards him and pretended he was Calum. If they were still together, where would they be going together, on the edge of winter?

Well, for one, she would be in business class.

It's easy to joke about it, but Y/N knows what comes next. When she starts to think about Calum and her, she can't turn her brain off until it's done. It's probably unhealthy.

Really, if they were still together, he would have flown her out the second she had a break from school to wherever he was in the world. He’d send a car for her, probably, have a driver waiting for her with a sign with her name on it. Maybe a snack in the car if he was feeling really considerate. He’d probably have something set up in his hotel room for when she got there, fancy candles at least, and champagne, the cheap kind, the kind she likes. Maybe he’d be busy and come in later, but if he was there would be lingerie laid out, she's sure, or that sweater that she likes but didn't steal. And she'd put that on and nothing else and she'd wait for him, because she’d be in love.

Y/N tries to get through the next part quick, like ripping off a bandaid.

He’d kiss the taste of champagne out of her mouth and they’d fuck like rabbits and order room service and and talk and fuck like rabbits again until they tired each other out and it would be good, like the last time, like every time.

That's what would happen if they were still together.

But they're not.

Y/N is trying not to get her expectations up. For anything. She knows there's gonna be a big serious conversation, and she's dreading that, but other than that… Jesus, she doesn’t do this. She doesn’t even know what she wants from this. She’s gonna be lost and confused and aching in New York.

Calum better fucking buy her tickets to MoMA or she’s rioting.

The seatbelt sign flicks back on all too soon. Y/N wishes she lived a little further away from New York right now, so she had more time to sort through her thoughts. She’d been putting it off for days now, trying not to ask herself if she wants something with Calum again. Now she wishes she had, so she wouldn’t be suffering on the plane next to some guy from the midwest.

Unfortunately, the plane doesn’t crash, and Y/N’s only brought a carry on so she doesn’t get to stall at the baggage carousel. She texts Calum as soon as she touches down, because - fuck him, honestly - he had been determined to come and pick her up this time. Maybe that's a little harsh. It's not that she doesn't want to see Calum, she does, she loves just hanging out with him, it's just- she doesn't know what he wants from this, from her. That sounds stupid since he wrote and recorded a song about how he wants to get back together, but she can't help it. He said she didn't have to make any promises, just to come and see what happens. That makes it sound like he wants something to happen, just doesn't give her a clue about what. Like, does he just want to hook up, or does he want to make it “official” and post about her on Instagram?

The thing is, she doesn’t know if anything’s changed since the last time. She’s still guarded. He is, too. He’s still living like a rockstar. She’s still living like a student. They’re both busy, and it frustrated them both so much when they didn’t get the time they wanted together, and then they’d rub each other raw and then they’d argue and then they’d fight, say things they didn’t mean.

And if that had been it, the breakup would have stuck and she wouldn’t be finding her way through Arrivals at JFK.

Here’s the thing, though; it had been wonderful. When they were good they were so, so good, like nothing she’d ever felt before. Holding Calum’s full attention was almost overwhelming. When he focused on you you felt it, like the sun on your skin, but it was all just coming from one golden boy. Y/N had never met someone who could make her feel like that. And yeah, they were both trying to protect themselves, but even guarded he was such a giver. He knew he was lucky, he had so much, and whenever she let him he’d share it with her. It had meant a lot to the both of them. They’d both said some pretty awful things to each other after a late night. Every time, though, Calum would give her these beautiful fucking apologies that made her feel human again. Y/N is a little scared that she won’t be able to feel whole in a relationship without that pretty chaos, just because of how good it felt to have him speak tenderly to her after a fight.

Still, Y/N needs to focus. “Can there be love without pain” is a question for some pretentious philosopher, not for her, and anyway if she’s not careful she’s gonna walk right on to a plane to El Salvador.

She had texted Calum as soon as they landed, to let him know she was making her way out, and now he texts her telling her where the car is waiting. It feels weird, to be talking to him again like nothing ever happened. For weeks she moved through the world itching to tell him about her day, and now that she has the chance she’s paralyzed, somehow. She’s making the effort, though; as she fights her way through the airport she sends him the lady across from me ob the plane took off her soes AND socks as soon as we took off im dying with one hand.

The car is a black Audi, and Y/N finds it after a few seconds standing in the grey New York afternoon. She tosses her carry on into the trunk (she doesn’t blame Calum for not wanting to come out) and takes a deep breath.

She opens the door to the backseat and sees him, and the rush of relief nearly kills her. When she goes to sit down on her side of the car, she’s already reaching out, and Calum catches hold of her and tugs her across the seats into his arms.

Fuck, she missed him.

“Hi,” she says.

She feels him press his face into her hair. “Hi,” he mumbles.

The car starts moving, and she pulls away to put her seatbelt on. She has to slide over so she’s not sitting in the middle. That would be weird, right? Adults don’t usually sit in the middle seat, no matter who their ex is.

Y/N has to stop overthinking this stuff.

“So. You ’n the boys seem like you’re doing well.” She says, smiling. She’s a little proud of them, even though she’s got no claim on ‘em anymore.

Calum ducks his head. “Yeah, the new single, it’s- we’re all really happy about it.”

“Well, you’re welcome.” She teases.

“Oh, right, yes, thank you for breaking my heart, very kind of you. How can ever I repay you, sweetheart?”

Y/N wants to pretend she doesn’t feel warm inside when he calls her that, but her toes curl in her shoes. “Well, a muffin basket would be a start.”

They’re both smiling at each other, and Y/N knows if things weren’t so fucking weird he would have kissed her.

He doesn’t, though.

Calum doesn’t talk much on the way to the hotel, asking her about herself and her classes as much as possible. It’s probably all the interviews he’s in, eventually all the questions feel the same, she’s sure. It can be hard to get him to talk.

It feels nice, though. Some parts of her want him back in her life, you know?

There’s only so much you can say about college, though, and as they get closer to the hotel they get back on even footing. “I haven’t been in New York since I was like, twelve. What are the cool spots? Is it still hip to go to the M&M's factory?” She asks as they start to stall in traffic. She’s not sure if she believes in that whole ‘crazy New York energy’ thing, but she does find anticipation rising in her as they get deeper into the city.

“I was gonna ask you what you wanted to do, actually. Like, we can do those touristy things if you want, I don’t mind. There’s a place that does this Macbeth show, it’s a hotel, and I know you like that shit, but if you want we can-”

Calum looks a little worried all of a sudden, so Y/N cuts him off. “Hey, I’m here for like a week, we’ll figure something out. Don’t stress. I’ve had like seventeen midterms in the last three days, so that plane ride was like a vacation in itself, my man.”

Calum smiles at that, but it’s not bright, not usual. “‘My man’? ‘S that where we’re at?”

Oh good. Relationship talks. Y/N had been really worried they wouldn’t get to that. Not that she wanted to ignore it, but- fuck. “I dunno. I haven’t seen you for a really long time, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.” She says finally, glancing at the Uber driver. Is Calum famous enough for it to be worth their while to tell a magazine about what they’re saying? Is that a thing?

“Yeah, no, I understand. It doesn’t - like, you’d tell me if me callin’ you sweetheart and all was bothering you, right?”

Calum’s literally a rockstar, he’s a confident fucking guy, but they’re both edgy all of a sudden. It’s like the first time they dated, only about a hundred times worse; instead of waiting to be kissed she thinks they’re both waiting for both their hearts to be broken. Y/N has to try to fix this (she fucked things up the first time around, it’s only fair), so she makes a joke. It’s what she does. “Oh, Calum, if it was bothering me I would be in another Uber right now. I actually would have called an Uber to this Uber and like - on the bridge, I would have jumped to the other car - it would have looked really badass.”

Calum laughs politely, and she can breathe easier, but things still feel out of alignment.

It doesn’t take too long for them to get to the hotel after that. Calum directs the driver to the back door, by the dumpsters. He beats her to the trunk, grabbing her bag before she gets the chance. “I can get it.” She insists, but he’s already got it slung over his shoulder. “You haven’t seen me for ages, I’m really buff now.”

“I know you can, ‘m just not gonna let you.” Calum says, distinctly smug.

Y/N does her best pout, but here’s the deal; she goes fucking weak at the knees when Calum takes care of her. “You’re a tyrant.” She says, following him up a set of stairs, where he unlocks a door.

“That’s right.” Calum waits for her to get inside and for the door to close behind her before he hip-checks her. It’s very considerate of him.

Maybe she should have thought about this before, but oh, shit. Where is she supposed to sleep?

Calum leads her into an elevator and presses a button for a very high floor, so her ears almost pop as they ascend. But they didn’t stop by the front desk, which means she’s staying in Calum’s room, and she’s willing to bet good money that it’s not a double.

And if she’s honest, she knows some guilty part of her is desperate for his touch again. She hadn’t expected to be back in her ex-boyfriend’s bed so soon, is all.

It’s like Calum can read her mind as he unlocks the door. “There’s only the one bed, but I cleared out one of the drawers if you want to unpack. I was hoping-” He drops his keys on the table, her bag on the floor, and turns to her. “I was hoping we could share. I know we’re - we’re broken up, but I think I sleep better with you next to me.”

Y/N wants to sleep with Calum again. That’s not the issue. If it was just about being in his arms, curling up on his chest and letting him keep her warm, then fuck, yeah, she would already be in her pjs. She just doesn’t want to walk into something that destroys her, and she thinks if she gets back into the same mess she had with him she’ll get cut to ribbons by their sharp edges. “I-” She starts, and then she stops herself. She wants to do this right. “We should have our weird relationship talk first. Right? I like you, Calum, you know I do, but I can’t- we can’t hurt each other again, you know?”

“Yeah,” Calum says, too quickly. “Yeah, of course. You want me to order room service first, or-”

Y/N didn’t get much of a lunch on the plane, but all of a sudden she’s got no appetite. “Not for me, thanks.”

“Alright.” Calum says, shifting his weight. He leads Y/N into the living room, gestures for her to sit on the couch. She goes for the armrest, and he stays standing, running a hand through his hair. Even their positioning is awkward.

“I-”

“The thing is-”

They both stop.

“You first.” Y/N says, thinking she's being polite, but Calum shakes his head.

“You know how I feel.”

I know you know I will never get over you

Y/N licks her lips. “Fair enough.” She agrees. Fuck. She thought of a million ways to say this since their phone call, but now that he's here- she doesn't want to hurt him, and that's all she really knows. “Obviously, I'm here in New York, I want to see you. I miss you. And I think I still have-” She can't say she still has feelings for him. It's too ugly, too cliché. “-um, I miss you.” She repeats instead. Calum doesn't move. “But when we broke up it was the right thing to do, you know? We hurt each other a lot. And I don't know if I’ve changed.”

“I mean, you said you got super buff, so...” Calum grins, though it looks stiff.

Y/N laughs a little, just for him. “I'm super buff now, I could bench press a car, but I don't know if I can do long distance right. You know? It’s not- Cal, it's not a hard no,” she says quickly, because he looks agonized. Well, and she means it. “I just don't know what's different. I can’t go through that again.”

Calum is quiet for a long moment, which makes Y/N feel even worse. Is this whole week gonna be like this? “I get it.” He says, after a long moment.

Something inside Y/N breaks. She had hoped that Calum had met her here with a plan (or at least some really expensive lingerie) to get her back, to make them work. Songs can make empty promises, after all, and that's what she had been scared of - that he’d say that he’d do anything for her and then do anything but change. She misses him, enough to say it out loud, misses his touch and his laugh and that goofy fucking smile you have to earn from him. If he decides there’s no hope for them, is he gonna kick her out? Of his life, or- oh, shit, of his suite. He wouldn’t, she knows, but she doesn’t really have the money right now to stay-

“I read Macbeth.”

Y/N’s head jerks up from where she was staring at the carpet. “What?”

“I, uh, read Macbeth. The whole thing. And Einstein’s Dreams, you know- ‘bout a month or two ago I went through all our conversations and I read all the articles and books you said I should read but I didn't. I should have told you-”

“I knew you weren't reading those. It's okay, really.” Y/N says. She's not mad. She had been mad about it when they broke up, but now it's just shitty and she's over it. Their relationship didn't fall apart because he wasn't reading enough Shakespeare, that was for sure.

Calum smiles stiffly. “No, it's not. Those were good books, but when I was trying to read them they reminded me how smart and… and dimensional you are. I think, while we were together, I let myself forget. I should have been better to you. Y/N, I was falling in love with you, and I hate myself because I didn’t show you. I let you walk away.”

Her heart spasms, but he looks so sad when he says it. She can’t let that happen. “We both made mistakes-” Y/N starts.

“No.” Calum says, stepping forwards to stop her. “No. I mean, you said some mean shit, but only after I ignored you and brushed you off for weeks. I deserved it. Most of what you said was true, anyway, I was bein’ a- what was it you said? A bratty little shithead.” Y/N isn't proud of that. “Anyway, it was true. We had some bad fucking days, and the make-up sex was fun and all, but I’m willing to give that up to have you stay in my life.”

“You’re a martyr.” Y/N can’t help but tease. What he said in the car comes back to her; did she really break his heart? Calum looks miserable, even though he smiles at her joke.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “I think I was scared, before. I am- I was falling in love with you, and I didn’t want - well,” he gestures at their positions. She’s still sitting on the armrest like a bird on a wire, he’s just within arm’s reach. It’s a terrible distance.

She hadn’t wanted this, either.

Calum runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath before he continues. “I think maybe that’s why I was so shitty. I know that’s not an excuse,” He says, before she can say anything. “I’m trying to be better. I am. I want to read the books you’re passionate about and listen to the music you love and kiss you on the cheek in every picture we’re in. I just- tell me what I have to do for you to give me another chance.”

So that’s it. The ball is all the way in her court.

Y/N looks up at him for a long moment.

She knows what she wants. If love is like the ocean, she would choose to drown for him. She wants him back again. It seems simple, when she puts it that way, frames it as what she wants. But she was always the sensible one. She won’t let herself hurt him like that again. She doesn’t want to break his heart - not more than she already has.

“Let’s just- let’s just have this week.” She says, carefully. Like the ceiling might cave in. “Seven days can be a long time. Let’s just do what we want for one fucking week and see where it leaves us at the end. I- Calum, I’m bad at this, but you know… you know what you mean to me. Love is a verb, you know? Let’s just do what feels right. And I’m not trying to say I -” She rushes to add (she didn’t miss the way his body jolted) “-like, you know, the “L” word, I know that it’s not the time. I just-”

“Does that mean I can kiss you?”

Y/N blinks. Stands. “Yes.”

She had braced herself for him to kiss her like a starving man, but he reaches out and cups her face in both hands, fingers cool and dry. He keeps his eyes open as he leans in, searching hers until they’re too close to see anything.

Then their lips meet like sun meets rain.

Calum kisses her like slowly as she winds her fingers into his hair, like she’s made of glass, like she’s made of sugar. He doesn’t move his hands until she pulls her own body closer to his, and then he feels his way to her waist to keep her there. The gentle drag of their open mouths floods her body with warmth for what feels like the first time in fucking weeks.

It must not be long before they pull apart, but Y/N feels breathless.

“I missed you so fucking much.” Calum says, and this time when he pulls her in there’s real heat behind it. His tongue presses into her mouth with intent, and for once she lets him direct the kiss to show her just how goddamn much he missed her. She wants this so much her body aches when he pulls away again. “I’m gonna be so good to you, promise, I-”

Y/N cuts him off with her mouth on his. Promises make her nervous, but more importantly, Calum kisses like he did before they split and she missed that. It feels like she’s blushing over her whole body - almost like a kid, only there’s nothing innocent about what she wants to do with him.

Maybe she shouldn’t, but… all they have is a week. Maybe not even that. And fuck it, she wants to do love.

She stands on her tiptoes, pressing a little harder against him. She wants to direct this, but Calum pulls away again. He’s panting. They both are.

“We can start over, baby.” He says. “I’m just- I’m so happy to have you back.”

He’s still cupping her face, but he doesn’t pull her back in, and she takes that chance to speak. “We can’t do that.” She says, but she has to hurry to continue because she sees the fear that flashes across Calum’s face. “I mean- if we start over this is technically our first date, and I don’t fuck on the first date.”

She grins, but Calum doesn’t. All of a sudden he’s unreadable. Did she say something wrong? Already? She can feel his grip change on her hips, like he’s thinking about letting go. Her fingers relax in his hair, in case he pulls away, so she doesn’t hurt him-

He tosses her over his shoulder before she knows what’s happening, and then she is gleefully upside-down with his hand on her ass keeping her steady. She can see her bag on the bedroom floor as they pass by it, anticipation rising in her stomach.

God, she was trying to be cool, but he is so, so, so sexy she could spontaneously combust.

She only has a moment to take it in before he stops, and then she’s head-over-heels again until her back hits the bed. Before she can get her bearings back, Calum’s climbed his way back on top of her and is brushing the hair out of the way for another kiss. He’s not shy; there’s no air between them, his chest pressed hard against hers. One elbow is planted by her head, holding him up, and the other is running down her ribs, pawing at the hem of her shirt. She can feel him smiling against her lips before he pulls away. “You couldn’t wait five fucking minutes, could you?” He says, but she can hear that he’s teasing and anyway the way he’s trying to ease her shirt off says more than enough.

His lips go to her neck, so she can feel his stubble as he lays kisses down, looking for a weak spot. “I’m sorry, did you carry me to your bed like a caveman for something else? You didn’t wait five seconds.” She jokes. Her breath hitches as he moves a little lower, closer to her collarbone. He always finds those spots. It would be a curse if it didn’t feel so good.

Calum knows it, too. “What did you say?” When she starts to respond he bites down, just enough to make her squirm and snap her mouth shut before she can fucking squeal. He’s still playful, she can feel his lips moving against her skin when he says, “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“Shut up,” she manages, and swats him on the shoulder.

He catches her wrist as she draws back, and pins it to the bed right next to her head. She doesn’t miss the way the muscles in his arm flex to hold her down.They're both breathing shallowly; Calum’s close enough that she can feel his chest rise and fall just like hers. Y/N feels a little lightheaded, all of a sudden. When he leans in and kisses her again, it's less playful, there's real heat behind it. He kisses her deeper, and she parts her lips to let him, this time. He draws back, and rest his forehead against hers. They're close enough that their breath mingles between them.

They've both still got their clothes on, but this feels like the most intimate she's ever been with Calum. Neither of them speak for a long moment. His brown eyes lock with hers, and he is beautiful but she feels that gaze low in her belly. One of his hand is still on her ribs, but he's not pawing at her shirt anymore, just smoothing his thumb over her side like he can't stop touching her. She wants to kiss him again, but she can't bring herself to ruin this moment.

Eventually Calum huffs out a breath - was that a sigh? - and lets go of her wrist to haul her shirt over her head with both hands. Immediately, Y/N’s hands go to her back to undo her bra clasp. Calum helps slip her bra off her arms and doesn't waste a second throwing it into some corner of the hotel room before he’s back on her, kissing along the side of her neck and down her chest. It feels /good/ as his steady hands find her breasts, grasping at them firm enough for her to really feel it. He’s still kissing a path downwards, pausing to unbuckle her belt. Y/N plants her feet and lets Cal drag her jeans and panties off, but it feels wrong, her being all undressed while he’s still wearing his t-shirt.

As soon as she sits up to tear that damn thing off him, Calum grabs her hands and laces them with his, pressing them down to the mattress. “Baby,” he murmurs, “I wanna focus on you, tonight, please. Let me show you how much I missed you.”

Calum's great in bed, she's not gonna deny it, but it's not what makes her quiet. He means that. He's an intense guy, but she's never seen his dark eyes like this, like he can see right through her. She has to take a deep breath.

“Please.” She says.

Calum grins at that, and lets go of her hands to press her thighs apart.

Y/N sits back on her elbows, because Calum eating her out is a hell of a view, but that's not what he does. Once he has her legs spread he starts to kiss the inside of her thigh, so fucking close to where she needs him. She thinks he's just trying to tease, but then he starts kissing with intent, nipping and sucking like he's… he's trying to mark her up. He'd never done that before, although whether it was from trying to avoid paps or just class she wasn't sure. But this- it feels good, to see him kissing on her like it was his last day on earth. It's just very new.

“Cal, what’re you-” She starts to ask, but before she can finish he pulls off of her leg and licks a big stripe up her pussy, right up the middle, and her brain goes a little fuzzy. She moans softly, to let him know it feels good and to please keep going, but he goes back to working on her leg, lifting her knee to get a better angle. His tongue sweeps over her skin in a way that would feel so damn good just a few inches away, but when she tries to shift to direct him over, he just holds her leg a little firmer. “Jesus, don’t tease.”

Calum pulls away again and Y/N’s stomach swoops because his lips are glossy from playing with her. He almost looks smug. “From the way you’re dripping you don’t seem to mind, angel.” He says, and Y/N tries to look unaffected but she knows it’s not working. “I’m gonna make you feel so fucking good, just let me take my time with you. Want every inch of you tonight. Trust me.” He adds.

Well, she’s not gonna argue with that.

Y/N goes back to resting on her elbows, toes curling in the sheets as Calum goes back to dragging his teeth over her thigh. The spot’s starting to get a warm little ache, but the way he looks at it when he pulls away goes all the way through her. It’s just for a second, but she feels his grip relax, like he doesn’t have to hold her so tight now that he’s got a mark on her. Maybe that’s exactly what he’s thinking, too. He presses a quick peck to the red spot, and reaches up to play with her nipple as a reward. /Nice/. She shifts a little in his grip, she can’t help it.

“You like that?” Calum grins.

“Fuck,” she moans, despite herself. His other hand is still holding her leg open for him and he’s so fucking close to where she needs him but he’s not biting. She knows from experience he wants her to beg, but she’s not ready to play, not quite yet. She might be lying back for him, but she can still do a little teasing of her own. “You got anything else planned?”

Calum smirks a little more at that, somehow, and lets go of her completely to sit back on his ankles. Y/N’s body shifts to follow him, unconsciously. “You know I do.” He says, pulling off his shirt. /Fuck/, was he always this built or was this new? His skin is intoxicating. “Like I said, I’m gonna take my time. You gonna be good for me?”

“Aren’t I always?”

Calum looks up briefly from where he’s undoing his belt. “No. That’s why I fell in love with you.”

Before she can even start to process that, he’s fumbled his belt off and presses in to kiss her, catching one of her hands in his and steadying her at the waist. “You know,” he gasps in between kisses, “‘thought so many times about what I was gonna do to you once I got you back, don’t even know where to start. So much I wanna do to you.” He laughs. “And with you, I guess. But right now-” He starts to kiss down her neck again, gently.

She doesn’t mean to say it, but- “I want you to fuck me.”

“Gimmie time, angel,” He smiles as he pulls away.

“No, now, please, Cal, I’m so ready for you.” Y/N urges, and when he pauses she runs his hand, in hers, down her body to where she’s warm and aching for him.

Calum’s eyebrows crease. Not a lot, but even in her haze she can tell. “Baby, wanna make you feel good first, get you-” As he lets go to feel her up, he presses two fingers inside her, easy. She’s soaking. She can feel it, and she sees in his face he can too. “...shit.”

“Please.” She says again, and Calum’s face goes a little soft. She knows he loves it when she goes all quiet and nice, just for him, and she’s glad because she doesn’t want to wait. She wants- twenty minutes ago she didn’t know what she wanted but now she knows she wants him in her, looking into her eyes, she wants to watch him cum and flop down next to her and smile and pull her back into his arms. She wants to do love. She wants it with him.

Calum kisses her once, quickly. “Whatever you want.” It sounds like a promise but it doesn’t scare her, not this time.

Pants. Socks. They’re gone in a second and Calum is ready, cock hardening in his hand as he fumbles for a condom the bedside table. Y/N sits up too as he find one, to help him roll it on.

Well, he couldn’t sit there looking so beautiful and serious about making love to her and expect her to keep her hands off him. He tries though, using one hand at her waist to lay her back down. “Missed you.” She says to his dick as her back hits the pillows, and Calum chuckles above her.

She tries not to feel like it’s life changing, as he lines himself up with her, but it is. He’s still smiling as he pushes into her, and she can see it change into something /else/ as he starts to bottom out. Y/N is suddenly overwhelmed with how lucky she is that this man, smart and great and terrible, he saves this for her. At the same time she can feel him filling her like he used to, and her fingernails dig into his shoulders. When he groans, he sounds like music.

Fuck.

They stay that way for a moment, like they’re locked together. Y/N cups his face with one hand. She likes the way her fingers look on his cheekbone, her thumb on his jaw, like maybe she could keep him this time if she held tight.

She really had missed him.

He starts to move and it’s like she’s come back to life. It’s winter outside but her body feels like spring, and she reaches for him. Even hikes one leg up around her waist, and moans as it sends heat crackling through her body. Calum’s forehead rests on hers again. His nose is crinkled up, eyes closed, and he’s doing this sweet little groan every time he bottoms out. It’s just as intoxicating as the songs he wrote her, getting to see him like this. Only him- only her- fuck.

She’s close. She doesn’t know how, but she can feel her orgasm building in the pit of her stomach. No one-night stand compares, no other ex. Calum’s arms seem to be everywhere, and the motion of him- “Fuck, Calum,” and she’s not proud on the way her voice breaks but he leans in to kiss her again so it’s worth it.

He shifts his body just a little and suddenly his motion brushes her clit and she feels that shit in her toes. “Shit, baby, there, there, there-” The only thing that stops her begging is that he starts to fuck into her harder. She has to focus on breathing; it’s like he’s fucking the air right out of her lungs. His pace is still slow, still steady, but he’s making sure she feels every inch of him.

Y/N’s not stupid, she knows saying “I love you” during sex doesn’t count. But this doesn’t feel like just sex.

It’s scary. But as Calum grabs her waist, bumping his lips with hers, it feels right. Better. “So good, angel,” he says. Does he feel it, too?

The way he’s loving her is relentless. She’s starting to get close, record time, but as Calum suddenly stills and ducks his head down to kiss her, she can tell he’s almost there. She’s still cradling his face, and she gently tugs his lips away from hers. “Calum, I’m really close, I-”

“Don’t wanna wait, do you, baby?” He teases- or tries to. But he’s panting too hard for him to play cool.

She shakes her head. “Waited three months.” The weight and width of him isn’t enough; she’s about thirty seconds from trying to wrestle him over onto his back and taking over.

Calum huffs out a breath above her and smiles, ducking back down to kiss her. Yes. “You’re lucky you’re so pretty.” He says, but there’s no heat behind it. His eyes are crinkly as he kisses her quickly, and then while her eyes are still closed he tucks his face into the crook of her neck and starts to move again.

She always liked the way he’d hold to keep them close. Like two halves of a locket. This time, though, she’s practically got herself wrapped around him, with her leg around his waist, one hand in his hair, one hand on his bicep to keep anchored (and, wow, he has not been skipping arm day). He feels like fire around her, all warm skin and hot breath on her shoulder, and it’s kindling something inside her, too.

It’s like the unbearable tension of three months apart is threatening to overtake her, along with the beautiful ache of Calum inside her and the way he keeps brushing her clit with every stroke- it’s a lot, and Cal groans as she catches hold of his curls. She needs something to keep her steady. “Come on, baby,” he says, in between gasps of his own.

She’s close, she’s so, so close, and she hauls Calum’s head up by the hair and kisses him and closes her eyes and it hits her like a fucking tsunami. He keeps kissing her as her mouth falls open and she ruts her hips up into his, fast, and he speeds up in response- all she can do is feel the way his cock sends waves through her and hang on for dear life. With a groan, he pushes deep into her and stays there and she can feel him cumming, doing tiny little bucks of his hips that make her whimper as her own high starts to fade.

Eventually Calum settles in her arms, and she releases her hold on his hair. When she opens her eyes, he’s resting his forehead on hers, catching his breath.

He looks really fucking good like this.

He’s resting most of his weight on his elbows, but before she can untangle her leg from him he pulls her into his chest and rolls over so he’s on his back. His cock is still buried deep in her, and as she squirms a little he tosses a second arm around her. “Stay.” He murmurs, and although Y/N hadn’t been planning on going far she settles.

Calum looks fucked out, sweat beading like diamonds on his brow. His eyes are half open, like he’s gotta keep watch on her, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. All the hard, worried lines she had caused in his face have softened, and it feels like she might have done good by him for once.

...it had been really good sex, but maybe that was reading too much into it.

She tries to press herself up, to see him better, but as soon as Calum feels her movement he shakes his head. “You should save your energy, love.” His words rumble through his chest.

Y/N smiles. “You got big plans, Hood?”

“You didn’t let me take my time, remember?” He smiles back. She can hear it in his voice. “I’ve got a lot more to do to you before I let you out of this bed.”

She smiles at that. Fuck like rabbits, check. There’s still something bothering her, though. An aching in her inner thigh that won’t let her rest. “Cal?” She asks, after one more second of stillness. “Can I ask you why you had to make a love bite on my thigh?”

She can feel him tense up under her, and nerves pool in her stomach. Was that bad? They can’t have fucked this up already, can they? “I just… yeah. Um,” Calum starts, after a long second. “I realized after you left that I, uh, never got to leave any on you before and I needed to do it before I lost you again. I put it somewhere out of the way. Somewhere I’d be the only one to see it. Or… I don’t want to be jealous with you but if there’s someone else I want them to see it and know that there’s someone who…” Calum rushes. Y/N peeks up and sees that his eyes are shut tight, face aimed up at the ceiling. “...who cares so much for you.”

Y/N doesn’t know what to say. She presses a gentle kiss to Calum’s chest while she tries to think, but she can’t follow any of that up with sweet words. “‘M gonna leave a hickey on your dick.” She says, after a long moment, and Calum laughs underneath her.

It feels right.

“Is that even possible?”

“Only one way to find out.” Y/N grins. “Hey, if I suck your dick will you take me to the aquarium tomorrow?”

“Only one way to find out.” He says. “Just… in a minute, okay? Lemme hold you.”

Calum’s going soft inside her as she snuggles a little closer into his arms. The future’s unclear, but one thing’s for sure; it feels really fucking good to be back.

[drcloyd]

31 for daryl/jesus

the prompt is “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.” it deviated a little (and got a little longer than i was intending) but here it is! as for anyone who else that sent me a prompt, i haven’t forgotten you! 

It’d been almost six months since he and Paul called it quits.

At the time, he’d been spitting – mad enough to watch Paul stalk out gates of Alexandria and not give a damn. Honestly, now, he wasn’t even sure what they’d been arguin’ about in the first place, only that he’d rather chew off his own damn tongue than be the one t’apologize.

Eventually, the silence between them had moved past stubborn pride and into the sort of stalemate where it just seemed impossible to bridge it. So. Daryl shoved all the thoughts of their brief relationship to the very back of his mind, buried it nice and good, beneath the other thoughts his mind had no business touching (the sound of Paul’s laugh when he thought Daryl said something funny, that glint in his eye when he started spouting that philosophical bullshit – how he’d make sure to clock Daryl’s reaction, the way he felt pressed against him after Paul came back from a run, too tired to even take his damn boots off).

And he went on.

Sure, he saw him, sometimes. They mighta had more than a couple communities now, but the group of survivors still wasn’t staggering. There was still Maggie to see at Hilltop, the supply run frequent between the two communities. So, yeah, he saw him. He didn’t look long, eyes jack rabbiting off him like they’d catch on fire if he landed on him for more than two seconds, but he saw enough.

Saw him with Kal, shoulders pressed together as they walked back to the RV to grab more produce to unload.

Saw him with Al – one of them Saviors they hadn’t put down after the War, smirking at him with that dumb, stupid smirk he had, while said something that was no doubt sarcastic, Daryl too far away to make it out.

Then, once with some blond guy from The Kingdom, his hand lingering a few seconds too long on the man’s arm.

Wasn’t no reason for him to be jealous, though that didn’t stop the feeling from burnin’ in the pit of his stomach, hot and welling. He ignored it though, cos eventually it’d have to go away right? He and Paul had their shot and it’d blown up in their goddamn faces so there wasn’t no point moping about it.

It’d go away.

Daryl didn’t go on a whole lotta scavengin’ missions no more – his talents were more served toward huntin’ – but Gracie was sick (a few sniffles, nothin’ major, but the poor thing was miserable) and Aaron wanted to stay back with her.

He didn’t begrudge him that, least not until the car from the Hilltop pulled up t’the gates and he realized who was in the fuckin’ driving seat.

Paul.

Daryl felt like someone had jabbed a rusty fork into his chest, though it was less painful than it was annoying and he had to take a breath to keep from stomping past the car and out into the woods.

For his part, Paul looked just as surprised to see him stalking toward the car, big ol’ eyes all wide.

“I thought Aaron was –“ he started, as Daryl yanked the back door open and tossed his crossbow inside, slamming it shut with a little more force than necessary.

“He’s busy,” Daryl said shortly, and that seemed to answer that.

He climbed into the passenger seat, slouching down until his knees could touch the dashboard, staring through the windshield.

“Great.” Daryl didn’t look over but he could hear how sharp the word was could only imagine what Paul’s face looked like now.

“Look – Daryl,” Paul started and Daryl could see him turning to face him from the corner of his eye. He stuck the side of his thumb in his mouth, chewed at it a bit, refusing to look over.

“Best get goin’, got lotta ground t’cover,” he said, and his tone, at least, wasn’t any more abrasive than usual. He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t. There was no reason t’be. They were over and done and he was willin’ to behave like an adult so long as Paul was.

There was silence for a beat or two, and then the car was backing up, turning around, and heading back down the road. Daryl stared at the scenery, which was a whole lotta nothin’, empty pavement disappearin’ beneath the car, the exact same as all the other empty pavement in front of it.

If he looked (and he wasn’t) he could see Paul’s hand on the wheel, grip sure, and he didn’t know why he wasn’t wearin’ his gloves. Probably had them in his pockets or something. Anyway, he didn’t give a shit.

Eventually, Paul asked him to get the map out of the glove box and Daryl did so without comment. They were just gonna hit a few stores about fifty miles away. Somebody from another community had mentioned going to the strip mall before the world went to shit, said it was remote enough that it might still have a few things left. At the very least, there’d been a veterinarian’s clinic there and some of the drugs could be used for humans, if needed.

Daryl pointed it out on the map, keeping his eyes fixed on the map and nowhere else, and the miles piled on. By the time they made it to the strip, Daryl was fighting the urge to open the door and chuck himself out, just to get away from the silence that was only broken when he grunted out a direction.

Wasn’t like they’d had long-drawn out conversations on car rides that often when they were.... before. Most of the times it was spent in companionable silence, classic rock flickering from the speakers (Paul knew all the words to every song, every single goddamn one). Once, Paul had held his hand over the center console.

That all didn’t mean shit.

After too many more miles, Paul pulled into the parking lot – half deserted, the cars left near rusted out and empty – and drove the car right up against the curb. The line of shops had dusty windows, but none of them were broken.

A good sign.

Daryl got out, retrieved his crossbow from the back and slung it over his shoulder. “Work our way down the line?” Daryl asked, gruffly, squinting against the afternoon sun as he looked over the car at Paul.

He wanted to pick a shop and clear it on his own, but he wasn’t in dying on this trip just to steer clear of Paul. He could handle himself with a few walkers just fine, but if there were more than that cooped up in one of these places he’d be shit out of luck.

“Okay,” Paul said, pulling his leather gloves out of his pocket and putting them on.

Daryl headed toward the nearest storefront and slipped his bowie knife from his pocket, used the grip to knock a few solid times against the glass.

And then he waited. He leaned back against the glass, gaze slipping over Paul and away.

One minute, then two, and there wasn’t so much as a peep. Daryl gave another knock – but before he’d finished Paul was moving past toward the door, giving it a yank. It was locked.

That’d never stopped Paul before and Daryl watched, despite himself, as Paul picked the lock in less than handful of seconds.

The whole place was clear, and they managed a pretty decent haul from it – mostly self-care supplies like shampoos and soaps, but there were also cotton balls and antiseptic, and make up, though Daryl didn’t know why anyone gave a shit about that anymore.

The rest of the stores went much the same way – despite well, everything, he and Paul still made a decent team, clearing the buildings without much need for conversation – but they weren’t ignoring each other. At least, not in relation to clearing the buildings – hand signals and looks conveying more than words.

The car was almost full by the time they were done, with just the vet clinic left to hit.

That one was locked too, but Paul got in there as easy as the rest and Daryl eased in behind him. It was just a small shop, the waiting room with two exam clinics behind the counter in the back, a hallway leading to the recovery area and a store room Daryl was bettin’ they kept all the medical supplies.

“Jesus,” Daryl said, and he could see the flinch run through Paul’s shoulders – the name felt weird comin’ out of his mouth anyway, but he couldn’t take it back.

“I’ll go first,” he said, lifting his crossbow slightly.

Better he take anything out with a bolt than let Paul get handsy with them knives of his.

Paul eyed him for a long moment before he sighed and made an exaggerated ‘go ahead’ sweeping motion with his arm. Daryl rolled his eyes, headed down the hallway.

As soon as he opened the door the smell hit him and he had to take a minute, head turning against his shoulder. It was old and faded, but the room smelled like death and Daryl could see the outlines of bones and fur in the cages, gleaming white in the dimness. There was somebody – somebody human. Their decayed corpse was slumped over on the ground, near an open cage, one skeletal hand resting inside. Daryl aimed, shot off an arrow, went in to retrieve it. Then he came out, blocking Paul’s big blue eyes as he strained to see over his shoulder.

“Nothin’ there,” he said to Paul’s questioning look.

“Daryl I’m not some sensitive –“

Daryl huffed an explosive sigh, glared at him. “Go ahead and look if you want, Jesus Christ, ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of animal corpses.”

He could see the way Paul’s lips went white, beneath his beard, the way he’d sometimes do when he wanted to stay calm but was about two seconds away from making some comment that would make Daryl flip his lid.  

Daryl pushed past him to storeroom, which Paul had gotten open while he’d been busy. It was lined with pill bottles, sterile supplies, the whole nine yards.

Fucking jack pot.

He shrugged his bag off his shoulder, started putting stuff in, ignoring Paul when started to do the same.

It was two minutes of golden silence, then Paul had to go and open his trap.

“So we never did talk about....us. About what happened.”

Daryl grunted, enough to say that he didn’t plan on starting today.

“It’s been what – six months?”

Daryl shrugged. “Ain’t been keepin’ track,” he said, though that was bullshit. He wasn’t countin’ days or anything pathetic like that, but he had a rough idea. He knew.

“Look,” Paul said, stepping right up in his space, trapping him toward the back corner. The only light was some weak tendrils filtering in from a grimy window on the other wall. Daryl could still see him though, see the look on his face. That we’re going to have this conversation and there’s nothing you can do about it set to his jaw. “I’ve given you space. I’ve given you plenty of time. You can at least talk to me.”

“Ain’t got a lot to talk about,” he said, trying to reach around him to shove some sterile gauze in his bag.

Paul grabbed his arm at the elbow, ignore the warning look that flashed in Daryl’s eyes.

“Daryl. We were good. We had one fight and that was it. You were gone.”

He could feel his face getting hot. He fucking hated talking about this shit.

“Didn’t go nowhere,” he bit out.

Paul looked exasperated. “I tried to talk to you –“ he said, and Daryl opened his mouth to protest because he’d never come to him. “No – I did – you were always out when I came over, or I’d see you out and about and you’d be gone before I could get to you.”

Daryl frowned – wasn’t how he remembered it. Sure, he’d been huntin’ more and more since they’d split, but that was only because it helped him blow off steam. And they needed it, with the communities growing like they were. And he’d only ever left when he saw Paul because he’d been all over those other guys.

“You seemed plenty occupied enough,” Daryl bit up, then immediately wished he could swallow his words. He wasn’t gonna get into this, it didn’t matter.

“Occu – Daryl, come on.” Paul said, those big blue eyes of his wide and disbelieving.

“What?” Daryl said, chin tilting defiantly as he eyed him. “Saw you with Kal, whats his face from The Kingdom.” He left off the Savior because that was a can of worms best left unopened.

“Daryl that’s – I went two months before I figured out that that was it. The end, of us. Because you wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Y’didn’t try so hard, did ya?” Daryl asked, feelin’ cornered and caged. “Bet ya just couldn’t wat t’get done with me so ya could try them on, huh?” he asked, feeling cruel and unable to stop it.

Paul went white.

“Shut the fuck up, Daryl,” he said, voice unsteady and Daryl blinked at the glossy sheen to his eyes. “Yeah, alright, I kissed them, okay? I kissed Kal and I kissed Al and I kissed Daniel.  I did, but I was only ever imagining that they were you!”

He felt like he’d been slapped, head jerking as the words echoed round his head. Paul had let go of his arm, looking shamefaced and sad. Daryl’s chest gave a violent, brutal ache, his throat tightening until he was afraid he would choke.

Paul turned to walk away and Daryl reached out, quick as a snake and yanked him back, shoving him against the shelf as he kissed him. It wasn’t sweet, or nice, it was teeth and pressure and making up for every single day they hadn’t been able to do this.

“Like that?” he panted, mouth burning, nose aching where it mashed up against Paul’s face. “That what you were imagining?” he rasped, but it came out all vulnerable like, less a flirty question than an honest, raw plea for an answer.

“Yeah,” came Paul’s breathless reply, forehead pressed against his. “Daryl I’m –“ he started, and Daryl couldn’t stand to hear Paul’s voice sound like that anymore, so he kissed him, and he kissed him.

And he kissed him some more.

[thinktosee]

JOURNAL – DAVID AND CAMUS – PART 4 – THE FALL

Titian’s Fall of Man, c1550. Image courtesy Museo del Prado, Spain

This journal is a continuation of Part 3, which may be accessed via this link :

https://thinktosee.tumblr.com/post/613609798512115712/journal-david-and-camus-part-3-the-fall

Journal to David

Dear David my Son,

“I always thought our fellow citizens were crazy about two things : ideas and fornication.” (The Fall, p5)

Albert Camus’ monologue of 1956, titled “The Fall” is arguably the most distilled exploration of his philosophical beliefs about Existentialism. The term, “arguably” is applied here as it’s possible you’d disagree. Yes, “The Stranger” is emotionally, yet intellectually stimulating – fused to mine the soul trapped within the reader, rendering it to explode to the surface, as a dramatic offering of our otherwise dormant passions! (1) “The Myth of Sisyphus”? Well, that’s absurd. It is exasperating and predictable like any ritual, religious or otherwise. Besides why do we have to repeat it again and again? Boring. Say what? That’s Life, ain’t it? In Sisyphus, Camus makes us see the folly of our ways, of our life, with a Dante-que’ twist.(2) It’s no doubt a revealing story, I agree. But let’s get back to The Fall, shall we?  That’s the real enchilada there. That’s the story of the fall of man.

Sisyphus, burden and hope – Image courtesy reasonandmeaning.com

The Fall hints at the Garden of Eden when Google, oops pardon me, I mean Knowledge, made its entrance on the camouflaged stage following the supreme feast of the apple. And as in Sisyphus, that original fall is repeated forevermore everywhere, as if perfection and triumph are within our slimy grasp, each time we laboured. But hey, what do I know? You were the Camus-go-to-guy. You were the Existentialist, David (3). I am just following in your footsteps. Hence, our fall? Our never-ending search for Knowledge.

Camus’ The Fall takes the reader through the colourful musings of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, formerly a successful defence lawyer in snooty Paris, to his new digs in “Mexico City” a bar located in so very depressing Amsterdam. What in heavens caused this fall from grace? A couple of things, just like what happens on any given day to many of us, really, when Truth happens to cross our path, like a black cat :

Our copy of Albert Camus’, The Fall. This excellent edition is translated by Robin Buss, Penguin Press, 2006. 

1. One day in Paree, Jean-Baptiste had an altercation with a motorcyclist. It was clear from a legal perspective, that Jean-Baptiste was quite right. However, an observer didn’t see it that way and rudely chastised him for his behaviour. While being distracted by the observer, the motorcyclist took a swing at our kind lawyer and sped off. The incident infuriated and also embarrassed Jean-Baptiste. Where did these negative and violent urges in him originate, he wondered? Wasn’t he a man for the common people? Were his professional and also personal support for the down-trodden superficial after all? Was all this service, for himself, rather than for them? To create and then foster a false image of oneself? The seed of knowledge took root when he began to ponder on these Socratic questions.

2. In the second example, which is recounted in Part 3, Jean-Baptiste’s utter and pathetic failure to act when the young woman jumped into the river, gave him cause to re-examine his bona fides – his life’s assumptions. What in today’s lingo may be dubbed as his “fake news” life. Our contrived persona, really.

With these in mind, Jean-Baptiste migrated, wandering, and finally ended down under. Sitting on a mound in water-logged Amsterdam, he meets a stranger one day. Being expansive, as lawyers tend to be, and over a series of lectures or monologue, he recounts his fall. These accounts trace his “regression” and amplify what the fall is to Jean-Baptiste, as it possibly was to Adam and Eve, or to any one, including me.

The Fall really is about a Socratic exploration to live a life without any pretence, or camouflage. A life of freedom and not dependency. Or as you admonished me to “Be Yourself!” That is the only constant. Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden ushers the introduction to Knowledge, and away from a blissful dependency and ignorance. So is Jean-Baptiste Clamence’s. So is mine. 

Image courtesy Sanskritimagazine.com

Let Camus tell us then what he means in a few selected passages :

“ ‘Do you want a clean life, like everyone else?’ Of course you answer yes. How could you not? ‘Fine. We’ll clean you up. Here’s a job, here’s a family, here’s some organized leisure’ And the little teeth bite into the flesh, right down to the bone.” (p6)

“There, give up. Mine is a double job, that’s all, just as humans are double.” (p7)

“I live in the Jewish quarter, or what they called the Jewish quarter until our Hitlerite brethren cleared a space in it. What a clean-up! Seventy-five thousand Jews deported or murdered : that’s vacuum cleaning. I admire such diligence, such methodical patience! You have to be methodical when you have no character. Here, the method worked wonders, there’s no denying it : I live on the site of one of the greatest crimes in history.” (p8)

“There is no denying that, at least for the moment, judges are necessary, don’t you agree? And yet I couldn’t understand how a man could appoint himself to exercise that surprising office. I had to accept it, since I saw it, but rather in the way that I accepted locusts….with the difference that the invasions of those orthoptera have never brought me a penny, while I used to earn a living by conversing with people whom I despised.” (p13)

“…but I would also only take their cases on the sole condition that they were good murderers, as others are noble savages.” (p13)

Fortunately, my profession satisfied this call to the heights.” (p17)

“Conversely, the indignation, talent and emotion that I expended relieved me of any debt towards them. Judges punished the crime, the accused atoned for it, and I, free of all responsibility, beyond judgement or punishment, reigned at liberty, bathed in a prelapsarian glow.” (18)

“I mean, relatives and in-laws (what a word!) – it’s a different tune. They find the right word, but it’s usually the one that wounds. They pick up the phone to you like someone picking up a gun. And their aim is on target.” (p21)

“Perhaps we do not love life enough. Have you observed that only death awakens our feelings?” (p21)

“That’s a charming house, isn’t it? The two heads there belong to negro slaves. A trade sign : the owner was a slave trader. Huh, they didn’t mince their words in those days! They came right out with it and said : ‘I’ve got a house on the street, I deal in slaves,  I sell black flesh!’ Can you imagine anyone nowadays stating publicly that that was his business? What an uproar! I could hear my fellow lawyers in Paris from here. They’re adamant on this matter and wouldn’t hesitate to publish two or three manifestos,……I might even add my signature to theirs. Slavery! Why, no, we’re against it! If we are forced to have it in the home or in factories, fine, that’s the normal run of things, but boasting about it, is going too far.” (p28)

“I’m well aware of the facts that one cannot do without dominating or being served. Every man needs slaves just as he needs fresh air.” (p28)

“Just between ourselves, servitude, preferably with a smile, is unavoidable. But we don’t have to acknowledge that fact. If a man can’t help having slaves, isn’t it better for him to call them free men? As a matter of principle, firstly, then so as not to drive them to despair. Surely we owe them at least that compensation? In this way, they will carry on smiling and we can keep our conscience clean. Otherwise, we might be forced to examine ourselves and become mad with grief….” (p29-30)

“The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and ruling over society by violence alone. As this is not as easy as one might think from reading novels in the genre, people generally turn to politics and hurry to support the cruellest party. It matters little, wouldn’t you say, to abuse one’s mind if by that means one succeeds in dominating everyone. I found that there were sweet dreams of oppression within me.” (p35)

“There was no deception involved, or merely that blatant deception that they consider a mark of respect. As people commonly say, I loved women - which amounts to saying that I never loved any one of them. I have always thought misogyny to be both vulgar and stupid, and considered almost all the women I have known to be better than myself. However, while setting them so high, I exploited rather than served them. What does that mean?” (p36)

“Otherwise, there would be a solution and one could at last be taken seriously. Men are not convinced of your arguments, your sincerity or the seriousness of your suffering, except by your death.” (p46)

“If we are to end, doubt, we must stop existing, purely and simply.” (p47)

“The most natural idea for mankind, the one that comes naively, as if from the depths of one’s being, is that of one’s own innocence. In this respect we are all like the little Frenchman in Buchenwald who insisted on trying to lodge an appeal through the clerk, himself a prisoner……The clerk and his friends laughed : ‘Useless old chap. There’s no appeal here.’ ‘But, you see, Monsieur,’ said the little Frenchman, ‘mine is an exceptional case. I’m innocent.’ “ (p50)

“But above all because wealth shields from immediate judgement, lifts you out of the crowd in the underground, shuts you up in a chromium-plated car and isolates you in huge expanses of protected parkland…Wealth,..is not actually acquitted, but a reprieve.” (p51)

“How could sincerity be a condition of friendship? A liking for the truth at all costs is a passion that spared nothing and that nothing can withstand.” (p51)

“Dante allows for neutral angels in the quarrel between God and Satan : and he places them in Limbo, a sort of waiting room for his Hell. My good friend, we’re in the waiting room.” (p52)

“What we call elementary truths are the ones we discover after the rest.” (p52)

“I proclaimed my loyalty, yet I think that there is not a single person that I loved whom I did not also eventually betray. Of course, my betrayals did not get in the way of my fidelity.” (p53)

“I began to advise ‘transference of guilt’ as a tactic for the defence. Not that form of ‘transference of guilt’, I said, which has been perfected in modern inquisitions where a thief and an honest man are tried at the same time that the latter can be made responsible for the crimes of the former. What I meant, on the contrary, was defending the thief by bringing out the crimes of the honest man, in the event, the lawyer.” (p58)

“I had always lived a life of debauchery, since I had never ceased to desire immortality.” (64)

“The purely verbal references to God that I sometimes made in my pleas in court made my clients suspicious. No doubt they were afraid that heaven would be less qualified to look after their interest than an advocate…” (p66)

“I realized that the shout that I heard many years earlier echoing across the Seine behind me had not ceased to travel across the world,….I realized too that it would continue to wait for me…”(p68)

“...we cannot be certain of anyone’s innocence, while we can confidently pronounce everyone guilty. Each man bears witness to the crime of all the others.” (p69)

“Believe me, religions are wrong when they start to moralize and sound off with their commandments. We have no need of God to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men are enough, with our help.” (p69)

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgement, it takes place every day.” (p70)

“But too many people are now climbing up on the cross just so that they can be seen from further away, even if in doing so they have to trample a little on the one who has already been there for so long.” (72)

“Judges are swarming over the corpse of innocence, judges of every species, those of Christ and Antichrist, who as it happens are the same, all reconciled in little ease” (p73)

“What does it matter, after all? Don’t lies in the end put us on the path to truth?” (p75)

“He announced that we needed a new pope who lives among the poor and needy, instead of praying on his throne…” (p78)

“…you see, the main idea is not to be free any longer, but to repent and obey a greater knave than you are.” (p85)

“The judgement that you are passing on others eventually blows right back in your face and may do some damage.” (p86)

“Since we could not condemn others without at the same time judging oneself, one should heap accusations on one’s own head, in order to have the right to judge others. Since every judge eventually becomes a penitent, one had to take the opposite route and be a professional penitent in order to become a judge.” (p86)

“Throw yourself in the water again so that I might have once more the opportunity to save us both!” (p92)

 If only, we have that opportunity once more, David. 

daddy

Sources/References

1. https://thinktosee.tumblr.com/post/177348082353/david-and-camus-part-1-the-stranger

https://thinktosee.tumblr.com/post/177516436953/david-and-camus-part-2-the-stranger

2. https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Sisyphus-Albert-Camus/dp/0848833481

3. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/

[estherroberts]

and nothing ever does begin like nothing ever ends

chapter eight: abscission 

fandom: ars paradoxica, his dark materials

words: 2315

rating: T

characters: esther roberts, bridget chambers, original characters

read on ao3

series masterpost

September 6, 1938

they break taboo all the time now that they’re back at school and back together. in their dorm, at clubs, in the library, and always when they go out and about. it’s reckless, thrilling, stupid, sure. but it’s also the best feeling in the world. they can’t hold hands when they walk down the street without getting hassled, but they can switch daemons with no one the wiser.

galené sits on esther’s shoulders as they walk, and sure, it’s a little odd for esther without ritsa on her wrist, but feeling this constant and electrifying surge of— whatever the fuck it is, love and protectiveness and understanding— from bridget is enough to erase that entirely. she’s pretty sure bridget’s feeling the same, from the way she keeps stealing glances and biting her lip gleefully.

esther really wants to lean over and kiss bridget’s cheek, but she settles instead for kissing lené’s wings, and bridget’s face-splitting grin makes that just as good.

when they get to the cafe, bridget lets ritsa slide along her arms and tuck her face into her elbow as galené settles into esther’s lap.

“it still feels like we’re getting away with something,” bridget tells her, shaking her head.

“well, we kind of are. did you get a chance to—“

bridget lights up. “yes! i was in the library for hours the other day while you were taking your philosophy exams, and i convinced catherine to let me have a look at the witch-lore section.”

“there’s a witch-lore section!?!” esther’s sure her shock shows on her face.

“only the librarians know it exists, and only they have access to it,” she grimaces. “and it’s not like there’s much there anyway.” she stops again, sucking air in quickly through her mouth.

sometimes the sensation of switching is still intense enough to render them silent, so esther casually asks, “you alright?” as though she isn’t buzzing wildly herself.

“mhm.”

“so did you find… anything?”

“scraps.”

the waitress comes by and takes their order, and esther feels like she’s gonna bust out of her skin the whole time. “what did they say!” she asks as soon as the they finish ordering.

“it’s not what's normally thought of as a common practice, but there are several records of consensual switching occurring throughout history. it’s clearly not as taboo as everyone thinks it is, especially if we have proof that witches are keeping record of it.”

esther can tell there's something else there that she's not saying, so she sits forward in her chair.

"all those cases, though? one time incidences. no one else that i could find switched with the same frequency or for such extended periods."

"so...” this time, it’s esther who gets momentarily lost in the overwhelming feeling of her daemon safely tucked into her girlfriend’s arms. she takes a long breath, letting it wash over her. “so, what you’re saying is, we’re special.”

“no shit. i mean, obviously we need more data in order to reach any kind of solid conclusion—"

"as any good philosopher knows."

"uh huh. but it sure seems like we're outliers."

the waitress brings them their drinks and for a short while, they can only sip quietly, smirking at each other every once and awhile.

esther grabs bridget’s hand and squeezes twice, and bridget does the same back.

December 16, 1938

“JEAN AND RUDJURO ARE ON THE MARCH!” one of the girls from myrielle hall runs down and knocks on each door, starting a wave of ruckus that spreads throughout the dorm.

from their pushed-together bed in their room toward the end of the hall, esther groans.

“room inspection? the RA is coming?” bridget asks, rubbing her eyes.

“uh huh.”

“fuck me.”

“we don’t have time.”

bridget whacks esther gently and rolls off the bed onto the floor. “we have… so much to do.”

“so let’s get cracking!” esther hops to the ground and starts stripping the bed. “come on!!”

“mmmmmph.” bridget gets up slowly. “toss me the sheets.”

esther hurls them across the room and they smack bridget in the face. “wake up!!”

bridget giggles and picks them up, galené gathering up the pieces that drag. they toss them into their closet, and pull out the two sets of twin sheets. in revenge, and mostly to prove she's awake now, bridget throws one of them back at esther, who catches them deftly. somehow, she has already dragged her half of the bed back to the wall and is making it.

the sounds of jean walker’s room inspection outside grow closer. her power walk and gila monster daemon have been putting the fear of god into the hearts of myrielle hall girls for the last few years, and today is no different. the other girls in the hall are more worried about hiding illicit substances or organizing their stuff, but bridget and esther are doing their best to make their room look as normal and heterosexual as possible.

ritsa is trying to separate their desks by herself but, without limbs, is having a bit of trouble. “go help.” bridget gestures her own daemon in that direction, and starts making her own half of the bed. she looks over at esther, and smiles. “hey, ettie.”

“hey, bridge?” esther’s bed is made and she’s taken pity on the daemons, separating the desks herself.

bridget finishes making her bed and comes over to the desk to organize her side. “ever think about, ykno, separating our shit the night before a room inspection?”

esther looks up at her and grins. “now, my love, what fun would that be?”

bridget picks up ritsa and lets her coil around her wrist as she turns to grab the picture of the them with the two gay guys they’d met in a bar. after she hangs it up, she turns back to see esther grinning at their newly straightened room. actually, maybe she’s grinning at her daemon on bridget's wrist. yeah, it's definitely that.

bridget kisses ritsa gently just as jean walker throws the door open. immediately, bridget tucks her arms behind her back and esther slides into her desk chair, carefully keeping her own hands under the table and away from lené’s back.

“how’d we do, miss walker?” bridget asks, holding her breath as she waits for an answer.

jean squints at every inch of the room, taking a tentative step toward the cracked open closet before deciding better of it. “looks good. up to standard. but it’s hasty. be better prepared next quarter.” she stops again and looks at bridget, then at esther. "hands out, ladies."

reluctantly, bridget pulls her hands from behind her back, and esther pulls hers out from under the desk.

jean studies bridget's arms carefully and turns to esther. "miss roberts, isn't ritsa your daemon?"

"no, miss walker." she holds out her arms, and lené flies right into them. "galené is my daemon."

jean whips her gaze to bridget, trying to gauge her reaction.

bridget shrugs, doing her best to disguise the shiver that just ran down her spine, an involuntary reaction to the most intense confirmation of esther's love that there is.

"if you say so." jean leaves, shuts the door, and esther pulls galené closer to her, cackling.

bridget grins and lifts ritsa back to her face for a nuzzle.

May 31, 1939

"i think she’s bigger than this, lené.”

"bigger than us? than the school? the city?"

if a bee could look concerned, this one certainly does.

bridget sighs. "i don't know. all of it? she's just—“

"brilliant? powerful? destined for greatness?"

"yeah."

"we're so screwed."

bridget laughs a little, her eyes wild. "the snake isn't much better is she?"

"no," lené settles into bridget's lap and cuddles up. "you know, she’s so quiet cuz she's always plotting world domination or salvation. i can never figure out which one it is with them."

"i hope the latter." bridget takes a deep breath, which turn into a long sigh. "the truth is, lee, esther’s going to leave us and never look back. i can feel it in my bones."

"sometimes i think you're crazy for thinking that. but other times, it's like. she forgets a date, or she disappears for a few hours and comes back with a whole research paper written and edited. or she's sworn she's found a new method of observing Dust, for fuck's sake, on a day where she promised she'd do laundry."

"yep. i don’t— i feel like... was this happening the whole time? and we just didn't see it? or is this neglect as recent as it feels?"

"i don't know."

“what are we gonna do about that little philosopher of atomcraft, huh?”

suddenly, the door swings open and the aforementioned philosopher comes flying in. "I PASSED!" she crashes into bridget and lené and hugs both of them tight.

"you goon," bridget laughs, and she can feel her worries sliding off like the whipped topping off a pudding. "i told you it would be fine!"

"i can't believe our late night study sessions really did pay off."

"they always do! and hey, it can't be that hard to write an essay when your brain is the size of your ego," bridget smiles, kissing the top of ritsa's head and then, delicately, the inside of her girlfriend's wrist.

esther's eyes roll back in her head and bridget can't tell if she's exasperated or aroused. when esther pulls her closer by the waistband of her skirt and tells her she's being an idiot, she decides it's both.

November 26, 1950

esther can’t stop thinking— no, feeling, it’s definitely a feeling, that she should be holding galené. her arms ache in a sort of tender, sort of heavy, sort of way and she has to hold herself back from reaching out and pulling her ex’s daemon to her chest. she missed them. and, looking over at bridget, who hasn’t stopped rubbing her wrist, esther wonders if she feels this ache too.

there’s been a lull in the conversation, enough for her to say, “it’s weird.” she’s trying to laugh and nearly chokes instead, “we’re—“

“we’re sort of pretending this is okay.” bridget offers her a sad smile.

“i’m certainly not okay.”

“i’m not exactly okay either.”

esther hesitates. “i wish— i mean, i don’t think you trust me enough to— i don’t want to assume. but it’s not like we can just pick up where we left off, and the last time we saw each other…” her head still feels fuzzy, and even though she’s been mostly okay with conversations, she’s having trouble finding this one’s thread now. but what she's talking about is them holding each other’s daemons again, and she hopes bridget understands that.

“no, you’re right!” this time, it’s bridget who fails to laugh. “i don’t trust you. but i miss you, god, i miss you.” bridget studies her for a moment, and shakes her head. “i wish we could…” she lifts up her arm, grabbing tightly to the place on her wrist where ritsa used to curl, “but i think it'd be too painful.”

esther pushes herself up in the bed that looks like a hospital bed but isn’t, and holds out a hand. “probably.”

bridget lets down her arm and entwines her fingers with esther’s while lené, still buzzing, always buzzing, lands softly on the bedrail. she squeezes her hand, but just once, so esther knows she’s still upset. it’s not an ‘i love you’ but it’s half of one.

“you’re a fool,” the bee tells the snake.

ritsa, curled up on esther’s lap, flicks her tongue, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

esther, however, nods. “hubris is… a bitch.”

this earns her a genuine chuckle from bridget. “ettie, please do try not to get yourself entangled in situations like this.”

“says the girl who agreed to work at my top secret and extremely dangerous organization.”

“hey, who else is going to keep you out of trouble?”

esther swallows, trying to push down the guilt that rises painfully in her throat. she has it on good authority that bridget barely left her side when she was in the coma, and, on top of that, she's visited every day since esther woke up. “you really don’t want to do that. give up your life for me.”

“excuse you, miss hubris! i have a responsibility to the sanctity of this alliance, which is to prevent the corruption of an institution with too much power, and maybe save a few lives in the process!”

“good luck with that,” esther attempts a smile and get hit with a wave of dizziness. “whoah.”

“are you alright?” bridget’s expression changes from jovial to concerned so quickly it breaks esther’s heart. “is there anything i can do?”

“i’m okay. thank you, bridget.”

ritsa slithers down esther’s arm and curls up on her wrist. it’s as good a signal to esther as any that they’re done here.

“you sure?” bridget pulls her hand back gently and clasps it with her other in her lap, but her eyes never let go of esther’s.

“yeah. i think i need to rest, though. catch you later?” it’s a lie. she won’t be able to rest anytime soon. she’s too busy thinking about how she’ll never be capable of returning all she owes her ex-girlfriend.

“you bet.” bridget and her daemon slip out of the room, each throwing one glance back as they go.

without galené’s buzzing, it’s completely silent in the room, and esther is left staring up at the ceiling. “ritsa?”

“yeah?” the small, pink snake shifts around to look at esther.

“they love us so much.”

“they do.”

“i can't—” esther’s voice breaks and she pulls ritsa up to her face. “i can't. i can't love her,” she swallows, “like that. or maybe at all, i don't know. i'm letting her down.”

“yeah,” ritsa tells her softly, “you are.”