#i cannot stress enough that david was not actually a holy man—he said himself he wasn’t a believer and became a pastor AFTER the outbreak

[aj-lenoire]

david didn’t become a preacher after the world ended because he found god. no one needed teachers anymore, no one was sending their kids off to school to learn math. the only way he could keep power and authority—and specifically power and authority over children—was by turning himself into a holy man.

[brideofcthulhu10]

How would the Lost boys react to having a motherly type of s/o?

OH MY GOD I DIDN'T KNOW TUMBLR POSTED THIS UNFINISHED! UGH STUPID APP! Okay, redo!

Cuuute. The boys could certainly use a motherly touch around, even Max had said that when he wanted to turn Lucy. For this I am gonna be writing a female s/o, if you ever want otherwise always be sure to specify ahead of time otherwise DM me and I’ll be sure to correct it. I love the idea one behind the scenes with the boys, after the late night partying and wild blood orgies. I mean, let's be realistic here- those guys probably smell like cigarettes and ass. That cave is no doubt absolutely filthy as hell, and I don’t think they’ve cleaned up a day of their afterlife. 

Lost Boys with a Motherly Fem!S/O

David

Now David isn’t exactly the type to be told what to do in almost any scenario. Well, almost. But even then he still prefers the majority of the control. It’s going to be a challenge to get anything done with him. Any sort of lectures or advice tend to fall on deaf ears simply because he and the boys have taken care of themselves for so long. Your best method of choice? STEALTH

I’m serious, you gotta be sneaky with this boy. He’ll wake up to you cleaning the hotel because you had assumed it was still daylight, or sweeping around when they go on hunts. Don’t fuck with the cobwebs, its an aesthetically pleasing decoration! Frankly, he’s just a brat who doesn’t like change. It’s gotten to the point however, where he can’t exactly stop you so he just decides to be a butt about it. Take-out trash litter the hotel lobby, he’ll even leave out half-full open containers and try to get some real maggots up in there. Not if you have anything to say about it! Sometimes he wonders how you can keep it as clean as you do.

You have no idea how absolutely rank a pack of teenage vampires can be. Especially with unwashed clothes. Seriously, David and Paul’s boots could make rats gag, the stank of unwashed vamp toes is gnarly. That can be a bit of a fight. Well someone has to get all those bloodstains out! What do you think they just vanished the next day? None of the boys want clean clothes, especially David. According to them you can't be badass vampires and have fresh pants. He’ll even hide his jacket from you on laundry day. How is he supposed to instill fear in the hearts of mortals when his jacket smells like FUCKING LAVENDER?

God help you if you try to make him bathe. The only way he’d concede is if you really went all out. Play to his ego, its the best way to get him to cooperate. After all, what man doesn’t want to be a king for a day. Especially one such as David. Once you finally, FINALLY get him in, then it's a fight to get him out. He’ll let off soft grunts when you massage shampoo through his scalp, leaning his head back with low, grumbling moans. Sometimes he’ll have you join him, even if you aren’t undressed. Yeah, he doesn’t care if you have your clothes on, time to get in. It's hotter when he sees your shirt tightly clinging to your bodice, although he'll huff that you had a bra underneath. If you try to peel off the soggy articles he won't let you. After all, if you got to strip him down, he gets to do the same to you. He'll take his time, and keep in mind the water isn't about to be clean for much longer.

Despite his protests, and he’d never admit it to the rest of the pack, but he really does love having someone caring for him. Being spoiled by his lover has some advantages, especially after a stressful day. Just laying back, having you rub his shoulders for a good minute, maybe suggesting he come over to your apartment and let you cook him a real meal for once. Sure you’ll be telling him how he needs to be more careful when he goes on hunts, but he can handle that much. You’re his precious doll, if it means a few lectures from you then he’ll put up with it. 

Dwayne

Dwayne is kind of the silent brother bear of the group so it’s a relief when he has someone who wants to take care of him. It makes him chuckle when you fret over him. Honey, he can fly, he’s not going to fall off the roof. Even if he did, it wouldn’t kill him! He’s lost count how many times you subtly, or not so subtly, toss around the subject of a helmet when he rides around. You’ll even try using persuasive ideas such as having it custom painted, maybe adding some spikes- anything just wear a stupid helmet! Again, he reminds you the threat of cracking his head open wasn’t exactly that daunting

When you’re on a cleaning spree he tends to stay out of your way. Granted he tried to help once, but you immediately shooed him out. You got it, just go sit down and quit futzing with stuff. On laundry day he’s a bit stubborn, but as long as you don’t wash his leather jacket, he’ll be fine. Seriously, do not touch his jacket. He cannot stress enough how bad it is to try and use water and soap to clean a leather jacket. NO. No touchy! So he’ll just sit in his underwear (personally I think it’d be boxer briefs) on the couch clinging to his jacket while you go off to the laundromat a few blocks over. Eventually you bought him lounge pajama pants for when you do laundry trips. At first he didn’t want to but… well they have a badass puma on them. It’d be rude to not wear it if you went through all that trouble to get that for him.

Unlike the other three, Dwayne doesn’t need much bribery to get in the tub. DO you have ANY IDEA the last time he had a god damn shower? He misses it, he doesn’t exactly like smelling like parfum de cul (kudos to any of you who know what that means ;) ). Oh just watch him sink into the tub as you massage his luxurious mess of dark hair, you swear sometimes he audibly purrs when you do. Its one of the few times Dwayne will let himself be completely vulnerable. He won’t necessarily force you to join him, but he would certainly love it you have your cute butt nestled between his legs where he could lather you up. But, I mean, that’s entirely up to you to refuse your ripped, completely naked boyfriend eyeing you up.

When he gets injured or sick, which you never expected that he could, you immediately go into hyperdrive. While he’d rather be out riding with the guys, he can’t help but love being pampered by his princess who always treats him like a king. You’ll shove him into Star’s old bed and demand he stay put, wiping his forehead down with a cold cloth. One would assume that someone with no body heat left would get a fever. Actually, it makes it worse. He won’t DIE from any illness, but it sure does suck when he gets them. Usually a few feedings will heal him up within a day, so you’ve started smuggling bags from blood drives and keeping them in a little cooler for him. Granted you only get him A or B blood, but he still appreciates all the effort you go to just for him. 

Paul

Paul loves it up until you make him do things he doesn’t want to. Typical guy. He DIED in a freaking bath tub, why the hell would you want to put him back in one?! It would take either a serious amount of strength or bribing to get him into one.

“It doesn't even have holy water Paul, just normal, plain, stupid water! You smell like a rat’s ass, will you please just get in?”

“I’d rather smell like ass!”

Yes, he may even try to bolt out of the room buck naked. Fuck you, try to catch him now! Did you hide his clothes?!

Your best bet is to play to his most vulnerable side: horny. Sure he refuses to get in the bath on his own, but add you naked covered in bubbles and it just became the best place to be. The blonde won’t even sulk when you’re sudsing up his hair because you’re too distracted to notice he’s about to cop a feel. He’ll just laugh like an idiot when you get mad, after all you put him in here in the first place. There will probably be tub sex, because dammit he deserves something for being such a good boy. Surprisingly he actually loves it when you use the hair dryer on him. It feels amazing, he doesn’t exactly get warm anymore so the sensation of heat rushing through freshly cleaned hair is just incredible

Paul is not a fan of laundry day, just like David. Again, you gotta chase him down. He’ll tease you the whole time though. 

“Babe if you wanted to just rip my clothes off me all you had to do was ask.”

You only leave him in his underwear because he doesn’t have anything else to change into. You never realized how much of a pain in the ass white pants were until you met him. Why the hell did he even have white pants in the first place? They show every damn stain! Paul will probably come with you to the laundromat. Its three in the morning, who cares if someone sees him in his boxers? Big deal! He’d even offer to go nude. You managed to find a pair of pajama pants and a band t-shirt he could wear on laundry day because this ass refuses to buy any other clothes. 

Paul thinks it’s absolutely adorable the way you dote on him. It’s a pain in the butt, but nothing is better than the tiny notes you leave for him when you go out. Or when you surprise the coven with a bunch of tupperware dishes full of real home cooked meals. Yeah being ragged on half the day is never fun but he knows that the only reason you do that is you care so much for him. You almost died when you thought he’d been killed, it was fair you got a bit over protective after. Besides, you were still his ride or die baby who did anything for him. Hell, last Valentine’s day you even went all around Santa Carla until you found someone who made him a mother fuckin Gene Simmons teddy bear, with the tongue out and everything. Paul loves you, nags and all

Marko

Probably one of the only boys to be a bit more cooperative when it comes to mothering him. After all, he’s the one being spoiled. It’s precious when you fret over him on a hunt out, warning him to avoid any hunters, fly safe, please don’t jump off any bridges. He’ll just hug you tight and assure you he’s gonna be fine. Yeah you’ll go one about how he should have a helmet when riding or raising concern when he tries something of questionable origin from the boardwalk vendors. But most of the time he just kind of tunes you out and smiles until you’re done.

He’s a sneaky boy, you oughta know that by now. You want him to take a bath? Only if you join him. You want to brush his hair out? Sure he’ll sit still… for ten kisses. Laundry day? Fine but he gets to come with. It’s hard not to laugh at him crouched up on the top of a dryer with his knees to his chest in only his underwear watching you throw in his pants and socks. He can’t help but grin when you throw him a side eye because of the stains all over his white shirt. Sheesh, him and Paul with the white clothes.  Again, please please PLEASE don’t wash his jacket. You will ruin it. He doesn’t care if you bombard it with air freshener until his sorry ass smells like Hawaiian Breeze, but do not ever wash it

It’s adorable the lengths you’ll go to for him. Last year when he told you they were just gonna have some hot wings and beers for Thanksgiving you flipped. Next thing they know you had them come over to your apartment as soon as the sun went down to a full spread. Paul actually ended up hugging you too. It looked like something out of a catalog. Two fatass turkeys filled to the brim with homemade stuffing, easily four pounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, bread rolls, the whole fucking thing! And veggies. Nasty. Sure the corn on the cob was bitchin, but asparagus? NO. Yeah you made Marko put some on his plate and half the time he just kept pushing his peas around until Paul flung one at him. Then it was a silent veggie war. After that they pretty much came over for any holiday. He’d be all over you just gushing over how happy he is that you went through so much hard work for him, for them. Even Max did fuckall besides what he had to, the guy wanted to toot his own horn about dad of the year but sucked ass at it. 

They start coming over so often that you bought black out curtains for every window in your house. Even during the day they could sleep in your guest room without fear of the sun. Well, the guys could. You had him tucked into your own room, still sleeping with his feet to the headboard for that upside down sense and his arms tightly pressed to his chest. He absolutely loves how much you care for him, especially after so many decades of being a filthy biker boy who feasted on the living. Even his vampirism didn’t send you away. You’d even keep a mini fridge in your room stocked with blood bags in case he craved a midday snack. Sometimes he’d awaken to you sleeping beside him and just savor those quiet moments with his baby. Maybe for Christmas this year he’d offer you the best gift he could think of. Who needs a wedding ring when you can offer an eternity with your angel instead? 

[ravenwritesstuff]

Repetition (4/?)

Fandom: Timeless Pairing: Lyatt (Lucy Preston/Wyatt Logan) Rating: Very M A/N: So fun to write about your writing legend hero who happened to be an alcoholic when you are trying to not abuse substances to be able to write. WEEEEEE! But anyway, Timeless fandom, here is this!

[ part one ] [ part two ] [ part three ]

She cannot quite pinpoint the moment it all began - which would be fine if she was anyone else - but she isn’t. She is Lucy: the girl who gave plays in her living room about great moments in history with undeniable accuracy. She is Lucy: the girl who had a poster of Abraham Lincoln on her wall as a teenager and contested facts about him to her middle-school history teacher. She is Lucy: the girl who can remember every date, every name, every important event down to its core except for this one.

She does not know when she began falling in love with Wyatt.

Her difficulty - she is certain - lives in the fact that she can hardly even admit to herself that it has gotten this far. It is so easy to write off the feelings she has when she can just point to the stress of the missions and blame that - but she knows that is just a cover. The problem is, however, it is a damn good cover.

Everything is up for grabs when time is on the table.

She remembers everything that happened on those missions. Every word she said. Each person she spoke to. Each thing Flynn forced to change with them scrambling after him but she cannot remember when she dropped her guard enough to let Wyatt in. She can’t remember the moment when he actually decided to Wyatt take advantage of her vulnerability.  

Or she take advantage of his?

Because no matter how many bullets he fired or punches he threw - she knew from that moment in Nazi Germany that his bravery was a front as much as hers. From that moment on she saw all the chinks in the armor of his heart in mirror image to those she had on her own. But had she imagined them? Had she constructed a world where her love could be reciprocated?

She had thought… but then she’d seen his face as he’d left The Lifeboat.

He wants Jessica.

He will always want Jessica.

No matter how many missions she accepts, no matter how many things she changes, she knows she will never change that. She’d seen it in his eyes. She’d heard it in his question. Lucy could rip Jessica from the fabric of time and somehow Wyatt would still want her.

He would always want Jessica, but she remembers the burn of stubble against her chin and had tasted how much he wanted her too.

She presses fingertips to her temple and rubs.

This is madness. Everything in her world is slippery and she can barely grab hold. She wants to hold him.

But when had the want of him become one of her only unchanging pillars among this landscape of shifting sands?

She cannot remember - and that is the problem. She does not do well in this gray world where the only absolute is that everything is up for grabs. She does not do well without him.

But he is gone now - not the same way Jessica or Amy are gone - but he may as well be and she can only do so much.

She can only love so much.

She can only seem to love him.

….

She can see her veins through the thin skin on her wrists, can feel her pulse throbbing in her neck, but this is not Rittenhouse blood. She may not be sure of many things, but she is certain of that.

It's who you are, Lucy.

His daughter.

It's who you are, Lucy

Rittenhouse.

I will never be a part of this, do you hear me?

But she already is, in her own way. Each time she fails to stop Rittenhouse, each time she fails to bring back Amy, she is less and less sure she is not playing into exactly whatever game they have decided she is playing. She may not be Rittenhouse but that does not mean she has not been an unwitting, unwilling ally.

What if Flynn is right?

What if the only way to stop them is to burn the house down from the inside, from the foundation? For a single second she wonders what will happen if she kills this man in front of her, her father, right now. She wonders if somehow that will open the doors she needs to bring back Amy, to bring back Wyatt.

She shakes her head.

That thought is nonsense.

Her world may be spinning but she knows staining her hands with more blood only make matters worse. That does not stop her from throwing daggers with her words instead.

When you're ready to come home I'll be here, Lucy. With open arms.

She chokes down the words that she wants to say - that if she took him in his arms the only reason would be to stab him in the back the way he has stabbed her in the heart.

….

She has dreamed of Paris in 1927 the way that most girls dream about their senior prom or wedding. It is so bright and idealized and perfect that she can almost forget about Benjamin Cahill being her father or how the utter look of betrayal on Rufus’ face is now added in the catalogue of her mind of times she had let down her teammates simply by way of existing.

Maybe we let Flynn torch history.

She is probably the most surprised out of anyone to hear those words come from her mouth, and yet - she said them.

What would you do to preserve history?

Not as much as she had before.

What would you do to preserve history?

Nothing if that meant bringing Amy back, bringing Wyatt back.

What would you do to preserve history?

Did it even matter when every attempt she has made has seemingly only wrecked the world she knows a little bit more?

I cannot do this. Not now.

She does not add: not without Wyatt.

She does not even if that is what her mind, her heart is screaming.

She does not say it when she is introduced to Walmart-Wyatt Master Sergeant David Baumgardner and he has the audacity to say Holy Crap in regards to time travel.

She remembers the words she had when she found out about The Mothership and they had not been quite so G-rated.

She wants him to break the rules.

She wants to break the rules.

The admission is stranger than anything as she finally realizes that breaking rules is all she had done since she has taken on this strange mantle of Time Traveling Historian.

Liar.

Cheater.

Murderer (even if history killed Jesse James way before she did).

A few weeks ago she never would have assigned those words to herself but now….

He's been thoroughly briefed, but show him the ropes.

She accidently almost asks ‘Dave’ to help buckle her in - a force of habit she knows she must forsake but she is not ready yet. She is not ready for Wyatt to be nothing but a memory, but she has a feeling that when people disappear from top-secret government organizations after hijacking a super-secret hitech asset it is not because they are going to make a glorious comeback.

She thinks it is rather the opposite.

She thinks that maybe she will never see Wyatt again and she is sick for an entirely different reason than the velocity and violence that is jumping through seconds, minutes, hours, years, decades to a destination.

He had made her strong: Wyatt.

Now she has to be strong without him.

And she will.

She will even though she may also vomit in the process.

….

She is tired.

Just.

So.

Tired.

But she knows she could be more tired and that keeps her going.

….

She recognizes him before he introduces himself - as if a page from her favorite history books had jumped up and come to life. Ernest Hemingway is, if not larger than life, than at least alive and standing in front of her. For a moment she forgets everything else. For a moment she actually believes she may have the best job ever.

By the time they get to The Only Place That Matters she is rethinking that opinion. Ernest is drunk, drunker than she knew a man could be and still walk, but here they are and he is still drinking. Lucy recognizes figures she knows she cannot approach: Pablo Picasso, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald and she remembers a quote:

No such thing as a man willing to be honest - that would be like a blind man willing to see.

It has never quite made sense till now.

But as Josephine Baker approaches she thinks she may be able to give a lecture on its finer nuances.

She is unstoppable: a woman of with potential beyond her time. If she was born in 2017 Lucy would not be surprised if she became president but in this day and age she has risen nearly as high as she can go. Lucy thinks to tell Josephine just that. That in the future things, while far from perfect, are better for women of all classes and creeds. She wants to tell her to give her hope, to infuse a bit of light into this lost generation when she herself has so little hope left, but she doesn’t. She’s stepped on enough butterflies and she does not want to keep this formidable woman from completing her destiny even if it is less than Lucy knows it could be.

(For the first time she wonders if she herself, Lucy, has a destiny - if it even matters - if it ever will - )

She can feel her insides quaking. The Lost Generation - she wishes she didn’t feel such a kinship with them.

They are all standing in quicksand, sinking.

She tells Josephine as much and marvels at her unexpected smirk.

This is a woman who has no time for romantics. She made her name by dancing in a bejewelled banana skirt and not much else despite her legacy but she is not cruel. No. There is a sweetness in her face that she has fought to keep - a sweetness Lucy fears she herself is losing.

Lucy had thought to give Josephine hope, but somehow she has ended up on the receiving end.

And in this moment she is ready to stand back up.

She is ready.

She will stand.

With or without Amy or Wyatt or her father.

Lucy will stand - and at this moment she supposes that is more than most could hope for.

….

She thinks she is used to this - this death outside of calculation. She’s read the numbers. She knows the astronomical casualty of war. She knows the grim reality of assasination a bit too well. Yet she still cannot quite resign herself to accept the color of David’s blood.

She does not know how to accept that his mother will not be able to bury him - much less even be allowed to know how he died.

She does not know how to accept that he is just one of many that could soon suffer similar fates.

She does not know how to mourn their unlived futures.

She does not know how Rittenhouse has survived this long or how her blood determines her course or why Wyatt had to go after Jessica -

She does not know, she does know, and that enrages her.

The world is a wash of gray - always changing shades.

Gray: the shade of a storm, the color of twilight.

Gray: the space between what is right and what she wants to be right.

Gray: murky water hiding its depths  (how deep -? maybe if she just holds her breath -?)

She wishes she knew what shade this is - how dark and irreversible.

She thinks maybe it is a moment of growth that she does not just wish for black and white - that she is becoming comfortable in the gray - but then she thinks perhaps that that may be the problem.

….

His name is David Baumgardner, by the way.

She could spit in Flynn’s face - could punch it. This is not the way it was supposed to go. ‘Dave’ didn’t know the rules, not really, and now he is dead. She cannot believe this is what any of them wanted. Not even Flynn with his eyes dark and watchful and she thinks she sees a flicker of remorse.

Still, he covers it well with a dark breath.

I thought your guy was Wyatt.

And the way he says it - the way it trips off his tongue - says it all. She wants to deny it but he makes it impossible. He knows just how much Wyatt has seen of her, has felt of her, but she will not let it change anything when she calls him to carpet.

She lifts her chin.

She is her own guy now.

Her lip curls over the words: You knew, didn't you?

And of course he did. Of course, at least, he pretends to know. She does not know what is in this journal that he has but she cannot deny it feels like he is reading her mind. Even if he is not on her team it feels like betrayal. How could he have not told her - not spared her these games and this heart ache?

She musters every inch of strength allotted her.

She tries not to hate.

I will convince him to leave Rittenhouse and not become the monster he's supposed to become.

She has no idea how she will do this - if it is even possible, but she has to try. It is either that or sit in the room with Garcia Flynn and have him spew half truths at her until he bends her to his will. It is either that or accept just what her father had told her.

Rittenhouse isn’t a choice.

She needs to prove to herself that it is.

You can't just kill Charles Lindbergh. It's not right.

Does she even believe in right or wrong anymore?

You convince him there's a better way, and I'll spare him.

She needs to prove it to Flynn - that people can change. That he can change even she is not so sure of that herself.

So she goes in and sits down across from a very young, very scared Charles Lindbergh and cannot help but see a perfect reflection of herself in his eyes.

He does not want to be his father’s son any more than she wants to be her father’s daughter.

He does not want to be held captive by Flynn - by Rittenhouse - any more than she does.

He just needs something to believe in and Lucy is back in the bar listening to Josephine talk.

He doesn't mean aimless. He means battered, broke down, but getting ready to stand back up. There's a difference.

She is ready to teach him how to stand up again - needs him to stand back up again - because maybe then she just might believe that she has a chance.

Then Rufus comes in.

….

She thinks that if she ever makes it to be a grandmother she will laugh with her grandchildren about stories too impossible to be real about time travel and seeing things she should never have been able to see. She will tell them stories about times that no one alive could have experienced wisdom that is inexplicable.  

That is if she makes it to be a grandmother.

At this rate she is pretty certain that is never going to happen.

One of these times that a gun is pointed at her it is going to go off and she is going to be on the receiving end.

In some ways she wishes that day will come sooner than later.

….

Almost every face they come back to is different, clinical, and honestly a surprise that it has not happened sooner.

Lucy thinks of the flashdrive close to her hip that has all of Agent Christopher’s data on it - but it doesn’t matter much of Agent Christopher does not exist to accept it.

She just hopes they have not changed so much that Wyatt -

She shakes it off. There will be a time for that but now she exchanges a look with Rufus and gives a report.

She is telling them that David Baumgardner is dead. She is telling them how and tries to not think of blood - of her blood - of Rittenhouse blood.  

She is tell them facts, numbers, hard and solid but they seems so strange and shifting now. As if the fact that she has always loved and clung to are now a betrayal.

Is there such a thing as a wrong answer when you can go back and change it?

She does not have time to think about these sorts of things and yet they keep poking their way into her mind. She cannot focus, cannot breathe. Her mind is too full.

Is Wyatt still out there?

Is Amy?

No matter what else is happening in this crazy world around them - there is still a chance that she can get them back.

She doesn’t like Agent Neville. She does not like him one bit, but if working with him means that she has a chance to get back any kind of a normal life she will bite that bullet. Hell. She may even take it in the head at this point.

….

She’s rather given up on irony at this point, but she barely chokes down the hysterical laugh that bubbles up her throat at her mother’s gift.

It is the journal she has seen in Garcia Flynn’s hands too many times.

It is the journal she has silently resolved to never fill if it ever came into her hands and her first thought is to burn it, but she does not want to hurt her mom’s feelings. So she smiles a tight smile and holds the gift in brittle hands.

At the first chance she takes it to her room and throws it on her desk. She stares at it and bites at her cuticle. Amy would slap her hand out of her mouth - always trying to break her sister of that habit - but Amy isn’t there. Amy isn’t there and that screw that has been rattling around in her chest for days finally shakes loose.

She takes a pen from her desk. It is old - from years ago when she did her homework - a navy blue gel pen with glitter in it (about as daring as she ever used to get) and she has to to scratch the tip on the paper several times before the ink flows again.

Then with bold, precise, strokes she sends Garcia Flynn a message she hopes he chokes on.

FUCK YOU

It is childish, she knows, and maybe that is where this all starts. Maybe time is a circle and Flynn has already seen this and it will not be shock and everything they are doing is just like a rat running in a wheel. Or maybe not and he will see this and choke on his own tongue.

She throws the journal back in the drawer with her pen and slams it shut.

….

It isn’t relief so much as it is like standing in the eye of a hurricane when Wyatt walks into that warehouse. Her lungs burn as if she hasn’t been breathing for years and there is so much to say - so many things - but she chokes on them. She barely manages two choked words.

You’re okay.

And he is. The skin around his eyes is a little tight and he smells like he hasn’t showered since 1984 but she soaks it in because he is here and he is holding her and for the first time in a long time she feels like something just might be going right. ….

They can’t come and go any more than necessary on the off chance they will be tracked back here so they are taking their time before they make any moves. Their phones are off. The lights are down to the emergency settings giving the whole space the eerie feeling that they may be existing outside of time somehow. And maybe they are. Lucy knows enough at this point to know that anything is possible.

Agent Christopher is talking technical specs with Rufus - strategizing a battle plan against an enemy they haven’t even truly seen. She and Wyatt stand away from each other, her back against a wall, his shoulder butting against a pipe.

She does not know if he is listening, but she has drifted.

Fighting Rittenhouse feels an awful lot like boxing shadows and she does not know how to help in this scenario.

For all her historical knowledge, her encyclopedic memory of battles and espionage, she is coming up with a big blank on this one. Insidious global shadow organizations aren’t really her forte. It is overwhelming and she pushes off the wall with a sigh that might have been a groan.

All eyes zero in on her.

“I - uh -” she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she cannot just stand there for one more second. “I’m just going to stretch my legs. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Rufus and Agent Christopher both seem to understand, and nod before diving back into their conversation. She cannot quite bring herself to look at Wyatt for his reaction.

The longer she stands there with him just being there - so close - makes everything that much more complicated.

She knows they are fighting something so impossibly huge that she should not even have room to care about the fact that he went back for Jessica but she does. He went back for her and she cannot blame him but she also not feel great about it. As glad as she is to see him, as great as it felt to hug him and hear him say he was here for them, he had made a choice. He made a choice and it wasn’t her and that was fine until now. Now he is standing there just looking like he is thinking of the next dangerous, hotheaded moved he may try and it is breaking her heart.

She is just tired.

That’s all. That’s what she tells herself as she slugs back through rows of crates and equipment.

She is tired.

That is why she feels this way.

Her heart is not breaking.

If her heart was breaking that would be that he is breaking it and - well that would mean - she shakes her head and slumps back in an obscure crevice in their home base.  

It is a decently sized warehouse and she has no idea what is in any of these boxes or what any of these tools are for, but she is glad now that she is able to get this far away from the group. Even if it is just for a minute. Even just a second.

Her eyes burn.

She doesn’t fight it.

She has been fighting for what feels like years and she just needs a minute.

She cries for all of it: Amy, her father, the journal, Rittenhouse, Rufus, Jiya, Agent Christopher, tension, Flynn, relief, her mother, exhaustion, Wyatt - and she does not hear him approach. Her sobs are too deep - too profound despite their muffling - to be interrupted by footsteps, but when he wraps his arms around her she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt who is holding her.

She sinks into him. Months of uncertainty, fear, and heartache bleed through her tears onto the shoulder of his stupid leather jacket. He never says a word, never asks her to explain because he knows. He knows exactly what she is going through and perhaps that is the reason why she doesn’t fight when he strokes her hair and whispers shushes into the shell of her ear.

Perhaps he is taking as much comfort from her as she is from him.

Perhaps since he hadn’t been able to bring back Jessica -

She looks up at him, eyes worse for tears, and she struggles for the words to say to him.

She wants to be angry, but she cannot be.

She had no claim on him.

It is her fault for falling in love.

It is her fault for wanting him as much as she does.

“I’m so s-sorry.” She hardly manages and just like back in the landing bay she cannot quite tell him why.

He shushes her again, arms tightening, but she cannot stop.

“I’m sorry.” She says again, hands reaching up to grab his face - his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Each time her mouth curls around an apology she breaks a little further.

“Stop,” she hears him but she is unable to obey, apologies tumbling from her on gasping breaths. “Stop!” He grabs her arms as if to shake her but still she cannot stop her tumbling tongue.

He does it for her.

His kiss his is expected and a surprise all at once. She responds without thought. Each muscle in her body tenses and releases with the contact. She has wanted this, can’t want this as much as she does.

She pulls back.

“Wyatt -” She doesn’t know what to say.

“Please - Lucy - let me…” She can hardly see his face in the emergency lights, his pupils wide and blown out as his face descends on hers once more.

He drinks from her like a man in the desert. Like he is lost and she found. Like maybe, just maybe, this has hurt him as much as it hurt her.

Her shoulders shake as she crumbles into him. She knows she should put up more of a fight - demand a conversation first - but that has never been who they are. They aren’t the talking kind. Honesty is reserved for some other sacred corner of the universe, but not for them. Not when their entire relationship has been built on lies and convenient truth.

This feeling burning in her chest is anything but convenient.

Still she thinks his lips taste like sincerity. She thinks the way his tongue traces her teeth feels like unblemished need. She thinks the way his shoulders quake beneath her hands might mirror the trembling of her own. She thinks that maybe that is its own form of honesty. She thinks that maybe that is enough for now.

One of his hands skirts around to the front of her pants and fiddles with the fastener.

“Not here.” She pulls back just far enough to choke, but not too far because she wants it. She wants him, but she also doesn’t want Agent Christopher or Rufus to find them. “Not now.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers dig beneath the elastic of her underwear and she is lost.

Her own hand drags down his torso but he stops her.

“Not me. Just you.”

She doesn’t quite believe him, has felt him hard against her stomach, and pulls back to look in his eyes even as his fingers dip inside of her.

“Why?” Her voice is breathy. It is honestly embarrassing how turned on she is already.

His eyes are black moons, drawing her in. His voice a low rasp tickling down her spine. “You deserve better.”

He crooks his fingers just so and she gasps. She doesn’t have time to ask what that means, what any of this means, because he is kissing her again. It is all she can do to hold on and keep it down. Her body starts to lose itself, knees weakening, and he catches her between his body and the wall.

“Next time…” His fingers keep a good pace rubbing the places he is learning she likes, her body building to the peak more quickly than she imagined possible. “Next time we do this right.”

And with that - just the promise that this is not some strange goodbye or final send off - is enough to push her over the edge.

She bites her lip to keep the whimpers at bay as she clenches and shudders around his fingers. He slows down as she does, weaning her off the high, until she is sated and silent against him. He pulls out his hand and re-fastens her pants.

She notices tries to not let it hurt when he rubs his fingers against the leg of his jeans but then again what is he supposed to do in these circumstances?

She wants to reach for him, to thank him, but she is not sure either of those things are a good idea with the state he is in. She can practically feel the arousal rolling off of him in waves and he’d already made it clear that he is not interested in finishing what they started tonight.

Next time.

A shiver shoots down her spine.

He seems to sense the same awkward pause in the conversation they will have to have if they make it through this mess. She hears him take a breath like he is going to say something, but then releases it with a sigh that speaks its own language. He leans in and presses his lips to her forehead and lingers there - just breathing - before he turns on a heel and starts walking away.

“Wyatt.” She takes a step towards him but pauses.

He turns to look back at her, his face in shadow.

“I - I’m sorry.” She is not apologizing so much as she is using the only language she knows how to when it comes to him - keeps everything just beneath the surface.

He looks at his feet, hands jammed in his pockets to keep his pants off off his (no doubt painful) hard on.

“No, Lucy.” He looks back at her - his eyes catching just the barest glimmer of light. “I’m sorry.”

With that - he is gone. [ previous part ]

[violetsystems]

“People were up in arms,” recalls Ursula Reinhart, a former member of Sufism Reoriented who left the order in 1980. “‘Suddenly this thing is supposed to be built?’ In the website were these comments, and they were all battling back and forth: ‘where does this money come from?’ And me, being an outsider, I just put in — ‘Cheesecake Factory.’”

It was true. While part of the sanctuary’s budget was sourced from the 500-plus congregation’s personal finances, it would turn out that much of the money was coming from one member in particular: David Overton, the founder and CEO of the family-dining chain. Overton had founded the Cheesecake Factory, now renowned worldwide for its abundant comfort-food menu and its rich glass-cased confections, in 1978. In the decades to come the Cheesecake Factory would blossom to nearly 200 locations worldwide, from L.A. to Hong Kong to Beirut.

Nearly a decade before its launch, Overton had become a proud Saranap Sufi. Older versions of the menu cover incorporated a piece of traditional Sufi iconography, a winged heart. At the Cheesecake Factory location nearest Saranap, a ceiling mural features that same winged heart along with the Star of David, the Hindu Om, and other religious icons, presumably a recognition of Sufism Reoriented's respect of all world faiths.

In one 2012 meeting, Cheesecake Factory CEO David Overton came to voice support. He identified as a member of Sufism Reoriented's Board of Directors. He praised the quality of the sanctuary’s architects, which was indeed top of the line: the plans came from the elite New York firm Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie, which had built Central Park West’s massive Trump Tower.

"The sanctuary has been a dream of ours for many years," Overton explained. "All of our members continue to give generously from their savings to make the dream a reality. In addition I have committed to ensuring its debt free completion because I believe so strongly in the principles of Sufism Reoriented: Honesty, financial responsibility, kindness, and service to others. I stand here today to tell you this project is on sound financial footing.”

Overton was attempting to bolster the project’s integrity. But to some, the promise of money felt like a battering ram.

The Saranap Sufis’ religious freedom does “not justify special treatment of the wealthy,” one local stressed in response. “Sufism Reoriented seems to have unlimited wealth,” claimed another. No one actually knew what the numbers were. But there was a sense that the tap would never run dry. (In 2003 Sufism Reoriented was granted non-profit status as a religious organization. In their last tax filing as a for-profit entity, they listed over $16 million in funds.)

The language would become pitched, heated, melodramatic. It felt, a bit, like a community finally having a frank, long-put-off conversation. It also felt, a bit, like the classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” in which a quiet suburb experiences unsettling power outages and subsequently falls into a riot of paranoid recrimination. The sanctuary was the trigger. And now the community was letting it all out.

Mechanical engineers, on the anti side, passionately argued zoning violations; rabbis, on the pro side, pointed out religious discrimination. “I will keep my comment to the trees,” said one woman, her voice quavering, “who cannot speak for themselves.” “The word isn’t proud,” said one local. “I am grateful that the Sufis are in our neighborhood.”

In 1970, Meher Baba landed the cover of Rolling Stone. The article was written by The Who’s Pete Townshend, who, at the height of his fame, had become a Baba Lover, as followers of Baba self-identify. The Who's classic jam "Baba O'Riley" is a nod to Meher Baba; it was written as part of a never completed rock opera, Lifehouse, that Townshend envisioned as an adaptation of Baba's ideas. Baba had died — or dropped the body, in his followers’ parlance — in 1969, at the age of 74, in the throes of his own international renown.

In the piece Townshend relates the guru’s biography. How he was born in a town called Poona in the west of India in 1894. How he studied under five Perfect Masters. How, one day, one of those Perfect Masters hit Baba with a stone right between the eyes, and how at that point Baba came to understand his destiny as a Perfect Master himself. How he took a vow of silence in 1925 that lasted the rest of his life.

As Baba would explain, "Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form I observe silence. You have asked for and been given enough words. It is now time to live them."

“At first his words were encouraging, his state of consciousness and his claims to be the Christ exciting and daring,” Townshend wrote. “Later they became scary. He made me weep for hours.” Baba had gotten inside his head: Townshend had been a prodigious drug user, he said, until he came across Baba’s declaration that narcotics were not the way to higher consciousness. Now Baba was his drug. “The crux of it is, I am now stoned all the time.”

There were tens of thousands of Baba Lovers throughout the world (then as now, there are no exact counts). In the U.S., they clustered around the Bay Area. San Francisco residents in the ’60s would have likely been familiar with Baba pamphlets (“God In A Pill? Meher Baba on L.S.D. and The High Roads”) and aphorisms. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was Baba’s coinage; it’d appear on postcards and billboards. (Bobby McFerrin spotted the phrase while visiting the San Francisco apartment of the jazz duo Tuck & Patti in San Francisco. In 1988, he took his corresponding song to No. 1.)

From Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The Beatles’ favorite, to Rajneesh, the “sex guru,” divinely-touched figures from India were a cultural mainstay of 1960s America. Ursula Reinhart, the ex-Saranap Sufi, recalls a trip to India in the ’60s. “There were so many holy men that sat around the Ganges in orange robes smoking hash,” she laughs. “Thousands of them!” Through traveling companions, she was told to seek Meher Baba.

Baba, long at that point voluntarily mute, would use a wooden alphabet board to communicate (a follower would vocalize the Master’s messages). Baba asked her: who do you think I am? “I said, ‘I have no idea,’” Reinhart recalls. “And he said, ‘I am God in human form, and I know this because I constantly experience it.’” She was rattled. She was convinced. “The authority with which he said it — I believed him.”