#i genuinely disassociated all day i have no idea what year it is

[comic-book-jawns]

Ricochet

“I’m sorry.”

Andrea truly doesn’t want to hurt Lena. She never has.

But this conversation is already nine months overdue. Well, nine months, plus three years. And if she’s doesn’t take advantage of this adrenaline high, she’s not sure when she’ll get the nerve back.

“For how I left.”

The way Lena tenses and crosses her arms tighter around herself tells Andrea she doesn’t have to elaborate.

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault I threw myself at you. And I’m the one who ran first.”

Well, yes, and Andrea obviously does not regret not kissing a 14-year-old back a few days before she left for college.

“I couldn’t give you what you wanted. But I… I could’ve give you closure.”

Lena scoffs.

“I would never have let you.”

Andrea thought so too — it’s how she eventually convinced herself that ghosting her only real friend from boarding school had been for the best.

It’s only occurred to her over the past few months that that was never the point.

“You would’ve known that I’d tried.”

***

Lena had really thought (cringey as it was) that she might actually cry if they won ICCA’s. If she played a part in making Kara’s dream since her freshman year come true.

Only Lena hadn’t really caught on that doing so had become her dream somewhere along the way. And, well, with her track record of dreams coming true…

Unfortunately, turns out that disassociating over placing first in a fucking a cappella competition is far more mortifying than tearing up.

Especially in front of someone like Kara. Not that there is someone else like her.

So she’s supposes she should be rather grateful to her team captain for bringing her back to reality… by bringing up her most mortifying experience of all time.

Of course, crying over your childhood crush saying sorry for not like you back is also quite cringey. But Lena’s dignity has lost sight of the shoreline at this point.

“So, yeah, that - that’s what I wanted to say. In case, being a complete bitch to you since August hasn’t been a sufficient apology.”

On the one hand, Lena is surprised by the genuine laugh that bursts out of her amidst the tears. On the other hand, Andrea is the only person who’s ever rivaled Lena’s dry sense of humor.

“I know it’s not an excuse, but… it was easier than worrying about disappointing you again.”

Already nodding along, ready to wrap this up, Lena freezes when she actually process what Andrea said.

“What?”

At the time, she’d been so blinded by hurt and shame for letting herself dream she ever stood a chance that she’d never even tried to put herself in her ex-best friend’s shoes.

It didn’t occur to her until she was actually getting ready for college herself that she had no idea what she’d do if a 14-year-old girl kissed her out of the blue and said she was in love with her.

Not that that was a remote possibility, Lena having sworn off friendship after convincing herself that Andrea had never given a shit about her.

Trying to convice herself, that is. Because she knew deep down that it was a lie. And that was the most excruciating part.

Still, knowing teenage Andrea had cared about her in some form… Well, Lena hadn’t just run into her at the Activies Fair three years later — very alarmed because it was not school Andrea had left for that summer — and assumed…

“I could never get your face out of my head.”

Humiliating, Lena feels herself blush, full well knowing Andrea didn’t mean it like that, and scratches at her wet cheeks as cover.

“No matter what Lex and your mother did, you - you wouldn’t cry. And I was always relieved.”

Oh? Lena’s not really sure what to say to that. But what really catches her off-guard is the sudden rasp in Andrea’s voice. And when she finally looks at the older girl for the first time since she joined her out here in the parking lot, she finds her swallowing harshly.

“Because I knew how to distract you. I was good at it.”

Andrea meets her gaze with an even more jarring attempt at a smile.

“But in the end, it was me.”

Andrea turns fully away then, her back to Lena, so all she can see is the hand running stiltedly through dark hair still pulled into a bun.

“I made you cry.”

Lena doesn’t need to see her face, though.

***

Precariously carrying five cups of steaming hot tea in her bare hands — every kind available; you’d think a singing competition would have a more robust selection?! — Kara considers it quite an accomplishment that she doesn’t immediately give herself third-degree burns when she finally finds the freshman in the parking lot.

Successfully placing them all down on the pavement doesn’t prove to be much easier, but Kara isn’t willing to tempt fate when she’s so preoccupied with the scene in front of her.

Kara does consider her fellow senior a friend, but more in the way she considers a lot of acquaintances her friends. And, frankly, her treatment of Lena has driven a wedge between them that Kara’s doesn’t know if she’s all that interested in dislodging.

Sure, Kara had eventually convinced her that Lena is the team’s future, literally.

The reason they’d used the same repertoire for years was because no one knew how to arrange new material. Nothing better than what they already had at least.

Andrea had never admitted their severely lacking musicianship, of course. So Kara had done it for her… after not defending Lena when she’d previously had the chance.

The point is Kara’s friendship with Lena “it’s just math” Luthor is her priority. She can live with never speaking to Andrea again after graduation. The thought of anything changing between her and Lena after graduation has been making her nauseous for weeks.

“So… Kara?”

Kara doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, she swears. Honestly, she’d kind of expected them to pick up on her presence whether she dropped the cups or not. But it seems the pair is still in their own little bubble, Andrea demurely wiping her face while pulling back from the embrace. Lena keeps her close, though, loosely holding her elbows.

“Kara?”

“I know, Lena.”

“Know what?”

Kara definitely should’ve turned around by now. She’s hardly in a position to get self-righteous about secrets when she has yet to tell her best friend that she won’t be leaving campus, after all.

Staying on for a Master’s in Journalism hadn’t been her plan even back in the fall. But a lot has happened between now and then, so.

Andrea sighs with none of her characteristic exasperation.

“I knew you had feelings for me before you kissed me.”

Kara is positive the only reason she doesn’t audibly gasp is because she’s too shocked. Well, that and Lena scoffs loudly as she takes a step back.

She’d figured that Lena and Andrea had a history, per se. But her mind had never gone… there.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t act like it.”

“How was I supposed to act?”

In four years, Kara has never heard Andrea speak so gently, without even a hint of condescension to boot.

Lena’s more choked scoff seems to suggest she’s not used to it either… and that Kara is probably missing something.

“You don’t have to believe me. And if you want to tell me I’m wrong about Kara, go ahead.”

Yeah, she’s definitely missing something.

“But… if you want to tell me I’m right, I certainly wouldn’t discourage that either.”

Lena’s chuckles in that beautifully thick way she does when Kara gushes over one of her mash-ups profusely enough.

“Fuck you.”

“Still too young for this ride, sweetie. Sorry.”

Kara can’t help her eye roll at Andrea gesturing at her own body like it’s a letter on Wheel of Fortune. But then Andrea frowns, which makes slightly more sense when Kara hears Lena’s abruptly dejected tone.

“It’s the same.”

“What is?”

“You - you and me. Me and Kara. It’s the same age gap.”

“Yes, but I’ve known you since you were a baby.”

“Seven.”

Even as her mind races — scrambling for the missing context — Kara can still hear Lena’s scowl clear as day. Andrea waves dismissively.

“Same difference.”

But then she takes a step forward, her arms hovering pretty awkwardly for someone who was just clinging to Lena a minute ago before she settles them on Lena’s shoulders.

“You jump. I jump. Okay?”

Kara recognizes the quote instantly, but it doesn’t clear anything up for her. Other than it means something to Lena, judging by the way she loops her arm through Andrea’s and leisurely leads them further out into the parking lot.

So they’re thankfully well out of earshot by the time Kara accidentally kicks over all the cups.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

oh yeah I should tell you about the dream I had. basically c!dream became a god somehow and c!tommy sacrificed himself by trapping him in a tiny pocket dimension he couldn’t leave with them as the only living beings. and obviously c!dream was pissed and also basically omnipotent so he put c!tommy through horrifically inventive tortures both physical and mental, but he quickly got incredibly lonely so he started alternating between that and forcing c!tommy to just. hang out with him.

during both, c!tommy was forcibly kept from dying or from falling unconscious, mentally blocked from disassociating from his situation or becoming so traumatised as to become unrecognisable. on rare occasions, he was allowed a short nap, if c!dream was feeling very nice, but other than that he got absolutely no breaks from c!dream, whether he was in a very good or very bad mood. he was also prevented from ever getting used to his treatment, both the good and the bad- each felt completely new and extremely overwhelming.

but like, the interesting part of my dream was that c!tommy and c!dream both ended up developing their own sort of worldview and communication and stuff as a result of being so isolated in these conditions. they didn’t have any concept of time, for one- something lasting a second or a century would be indistinguishable for them. they didn’t need to conceptualise time so they just didn’t. they also grew to not understand a difference between kindness and cruelty- while initially c!dream was taking out his anger on c!tommy, he eventually was just doing it because it was normal for them and neither of them saw a difference between it and their moments spending time together.

 they didn’t even really consider each other separate entities, being basically in arms length of each other at all time and at max like maybe a rooms length if they were on complete opposite ends of the dimension. they knew they weren’t the same, but like in the way your eyes and your ears aren’t the same- they do very different things but you’d be confused if someone treated them as separate entities attached to you rather than just. you. (on that note, they also had zero concept of personal space at all, and both had panic attacks when not in physical contact).

they had even developed their own form of communication, a mix of body language, facial expression, and a pidgin mix of english (tommy’s native language) and ender (Dream’s native language). it also relied heavily on the two of them just genuinely knowing each other so well they just understood each other intrinsically.

anyway after a year in the overworld c!Tubbo was working on a device to bring c!tommy back, but it malfunctioned and he accidentally brought both him and c!dream back. due to time differences between the dimensions, for each day in the overworld c!prime had gone through billions of years. so by the point they were brought back, they had acclimated to the situation they were in to the point they didn’t even recognise the idea of people outside of themselves, let alone their former friends. but i woke up before I learnt what happened :(

[psyduc]

get to know me game

thank you for the tag @tjarry mwah mwah 💛

do you make you bed? not really? my bed is Neat but not made, but i think it looks cozier that way and as someone who takes naps during my lunch breaks, i'm not making my bed more than twice a day lol

what's your job? adjacent to car insurance is the easiest way to describe it! when vehicles get totaled i deal with the DMV paperwork

if you could go back to school, would you? i don't think so, but only because i have absolutely no idea what i would even wanna go back for

can you parallel park? i've only done it once (1) in the middle of a anxiety induced disassociation episode (i don't drive for A Reason) and was told that i did a phenomenal job and nailed it on the first time so. yes, apparently i can sksks

do you think aliens are real? i do and every night i am blowing them a kiss and hope they enjoy their lives on their planets

can you drive a manual car? no <3

guilty pleasure? i don't believe in the concept of guilty pleasures tbh. like's too short, enjoy what u want man who cares

tattoos? not yet BUT i do have a friend who tattoos on the side and we have been chatting, so this might be the summer i actually get my deat's-head moth tattoo hehe

favorite color? YELLOW 💛

favorite type of music? god i have to pick one? love me some punk pop, love me some hard rock, but i've recently been into what i'm calling pretty girl pop so imma say that atm <3

do you like puzzles? YES SO MUCH

any phobias? spiders are a big one and like. deep, open water. like i can't even play video games that deal with it, the thalassophobia is That Bad

childhood sport? i used to play softball but you know the cliche/joke of like. the one kid standing out in the outfield picking flowers and chasing butterflies instead of focusing on the game? yeah. hello

do you talk to yourself? no because oscar is usually shadowing me so i talk to him instead (and he talks BACK it's great, highly recommend getting a cat to everyone)

tea or coffee? tea <333

what was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up? a veterinarian because i wanted to chill out with animals. did u know that there is much more to being a vet than that. 5 year old emily did not know this

what movies do you adore? so many. labyrinth is my all time FAVE, but i genuinely... have so many, i just love movies yall

guilt free tagging some beloveds (idk who else has done this or not yet whoops): @muppetjohntavares @lasciatemi-stare @solittles @jirving @barkovsasha @guentzel @croziers-compass

[incarnateirony]

Truly though, the longer I do this whole metanarrative style DJ leak thing with occasional primer videos, the more I understand why Riddler Khu does things the way they do.

While never have I EVER encountered a fandom so basically rich-socialite-corrupted that people are trained to successfully mass attack/doxx leakers in the name of angry con kids that want to be ITK (2po, scripthunt, every mod in that lot.), much less a fandom that FALLS for this shit as routinely,

Khu still gets obnoxious shit from the occasional PROVE IT TO ME jackass, but it's incredibly rare despite the magnitude of the fandom. Similar to my case, most people with brains recognize how reliable he's been and why he can't say where his shit is from and leave it be but there is always that one self centered motherfucker trying to make it All About Them like folks here do.

But for those who don't know, Riddler Khu is one of the top leakers in the pokemon fandom. But he never just says shit outright. He does things like post pictures that, while themselves are not new content images, tell enough of a story that people use their brains and riddle it out together, and it always comes true.

Ever since I started the musical method, there's been an interesting phenomenon. Most loudly of it, it's that the obnoxious white noise of lies that spew out of my cult of antis just has nothing to latch onto. They lack the honest effort or mental capacity, one or the other, to actually listen, much less do so routinely to the various parts and get the full context. But there's plenty of people that have been listening and have since developed some pretty crystal clear ideas of what I'm saying, maybe even clearer than if I tried to write longass technical posts about it.

And that's it at the end of the day. Haters simply don't have the capacity to Do What I Do, and that makes them angry, but then what I Do What I Do via abstract means, they don't even know what they're supposed to be hating on or lying to counterpoint. They have neither the sense nor the context. So then it just becomes shrill general antiscreaming like it is in its bones. THE ARTIST THAT MAKES THEIR OWN CONTENT UNLIKE US RESELLING OTHER PEOPLES SHIT HAS A PATREON! EVILLLLL! STUPID POOPIE HEAD POSTING VIDEOS I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

And then you see it for what it is. A bunch of angry children throwing feces at the wall. Definitional smear campaigns that they hope to see work, they hope to hide the truth, hope to chase out the person that's been running circles around them for years, but they can't.

And since then, well. All the lies, all the filth he put out there against me. I realized it's been completely undone, looking at the follower count I largely ignore. Why? Because hate doesn't have what it takes to take down the truth, as long as the truth itself doesn't yield to their attacks, which is why spnscripthunt members have been escalating their doxxing, threats, etc the last few months. That's it. That's all they have left. Anger, hatred, revenge. And it's really just, it's all their own faults and they know it. On every level, this is a self inflicted wound. But it's what they have left, for almost exactly 2 months, so goddamn they're gonna keep up the shrill teakettle sounds until the spout clogs and they just explode from pressure.

So yeah. I totally understand both why Riddler Khu and Bobo engage the way they do now. Even when it comes to genuine people, they seem to feel, idk, better? About figuring out parts of it themselves too. Like people love playing Clue anyway and it actually seems to be a better way to spread leaks or any kind of information, period, than writing bigassed posts trying to explain it all that people zone out on.

Just. Thoughts. But no, spnscripthunt. To each and every mod there, I am not ever, EVER going to let this fandom forget you doxxing randoms trying to retaliate against me, and you doing NOTHING to penalize or disassociate from that mod, because you were all involved. Not going to let them forget 2po's con sources threatening hellers at cons with physical violence. Not going to let them forget that you KNEW you were lying when you said my pilot script was fake--lying for EIGHT MONTHS--but you were that dedicated to your hate campaign and salty my copy was newer than your coffee runners, and saltier I knew it despite you throwing half the uninformed fandom at me and couldn't be shaken because we had older drafts and, well, knew it was fucking real resultingly.

They're not gonna forget. And now with this nice collected block list of their mods and users hate trolling my anon box, it's a nice little record to Never Forget, especially once 1x13 airs, and they're truly shown as the hating, anti, bitter, lying frauds they are. Because it's not about The Truth to them. It's not even about the show. It's barely about leaks anymore. It's about their egos, and the violence with which they lost the whole farm.

[coll2mitts]

#30 Funny Girl (1968)

Funny Girl: How Feminism Killed My Marriage!

It was only coincidence I decided to watch Funny Girl after completing my review of A Star is Born, as it hits several of the same plot points.  I honestly thought the only reason they were strikingly similar to me was because I viewed them back-to-back, but then two videos I watched about the Broadway production noted this as well, so I didn't feel entirely unjustified.  Man with lots of money discovers woman before she becomes a star.  They start a obviously doomed relationship and get married right as the wife's career starts to take off.  The husband struggles with his own vices to the detriment of his wife's career, and ultimately their relationship ends because the husband is too proud and can't handle the fact their spouse makes more money than them.  The end.

Although I don't think the plot is necessarily the reason to watch this movie (the reason is to watch Barbra Streisand be the most Barbra Streisand she can be), it is a fictionalized retelling of the rise of real-life burlesque star Fanny Brice and her relationship with her first husband Nick Arnstein.  From all accounts this leans pretty heavy on the fictionalized, as Nicky was married when he and Fanny began their affair, it took him 6 years to get divorced from his previous wife to marry Fanny, and Fanny eventually divorced him because she was sick of him fucking around on her.  Even though her love life was tumultuous, Fanny's career is what made her special, which is why it's a bit annoying that in the majority of this movie it takes a backseat to her fascination with a useless pretty boy.  Although real-life Fanny's character was a Jewish characture, she helped in revising the criteria of what kinds of women could be famous performers.  Beyond a good body and a pretty face, personality and talent were enough to gain notoriety.  Although let's be real, it's not like Fanny was hideous or anything.

Barbra originated this role on Broadway, and it was tailor made to her talents.  Check out the videos linked from Staged Right for a great summary of how the show was created, how Barbra was cast against the wishes of Fanny's non-fictional daughter, and what a seemingly contentious run the Broadway musical had.  When Columbia bought the rights to the show, it was with the understanding Barbra would reprise the role on film. And oh boy, guys, this is probably one of the best love letters to a leading actress I've ever seen committed to celluloid.

Picture it: New York, 1920s. Fanny Brice, with her name in lights on the Ziegfeld Follies marquis, soberly enters backstage and greets herself in a sound clip I used as a log-in alert on AIM for like 6 years. Giving off "I'm going to retire" energy, Fanny wanders the stage and loiters in the empty theater until her assistant Emma finds her and cryptically asks "This is the day, isn't it?". Fanny confirms, and free of context I have no idea if this woman is making a comeback, or leaving showbusiness, or running away to join the circus. When Emma mentions that Ziegfeld is waiting for her, Fanny disassociates and we're treated to a flashback a few years earlier...

Picture it: New York, 1910s. A young Fanny Brice's neighbors are reading her for filth on her appearance and mocking her for having dreams of singing stardom.

I think this is the only ensemble number that doesn't take place on stage.  Any solo or duet numbers with any character that aren't Fanny, like Eddie, Mrs. Brice, and Nick, have been cut so Barbra is on screen almost 100% of the time.  I was genuinely shocked later on when Omar Sharif started singing because I forgot this was something someone other than Barbra was allowed to do.

Fanny heads to her new gig as a beautiful Arabian lady and is immediately fired for not knowing the routine and hamming it up the entire fucking time. The theater owner Mr. Keeney scolds the director Eddie Ryan for even casting such a goof while Fanny refuses to be dismissed and sings and dances her way around until they're forced to physically escort her out of the theater.

Mid-rant, and after accosting a few children, she breaks back in only to find everyone gone except Eddie, who after hearing her pipes asks why she even considered auditioning for a chorus girl when clearly she's a belter. I giggled uncontrollably when Fanny answered, "If you were looking for a juggler, I'd have been a juggler", cause girl, same. When I was a kid I legitimately auditioned for a part in Harlequin that required juggling skills full-well knowing I couldn't, and when asked to prove I could after the singing portion was acceptable, the ensuing display of athletic prowess cemented the fact I would absolutely not be chosen.

I tried googling this musical and I can't find evidence it ever existed. Maybe it was some public school choir teacher's passion project they only got to see kids perform once a year after a 3 week summer camp? Or maybe I had a fever dream when I was 10 and hallucinated being in it? IDK, help me out here.

Eddie decides to give Fanny a second chance at the chorus after she assures him she can roller skate, even though it was a bold-faced lie. After falling on her ass 20 times, which froths the audience into a frenzy, Eddie allows Fanny to sing a solo. Her unique blend of comedy, talent, and the sudden ability to skate once she's getting sole attention from everyone, wins over Mr. Kenney and Fanny is tentatively offered a permanent position.

"Honey hurry up, hurry up, hurry up..." is Barbra's signature slurry phrasing at its peak.

Fanny's shenanigans also catch the eye of a ridiculously attractive gambler Nicky Arnstein, who successfully hustles Mr. Kenney to hire Fanny for $50 a week, but is unsuccessful in asking Fanny out. She shrugs off his advances after surmising she is well out of his league, but oh my god, how the hell would anyone turn down Omar Sharif? I am not that strong willed.

According to Wikipedia, this is the fourth movie on this list that almost cast Frank Sinatra (previous ones including A Star is Born, The Music Man, and Easter Parade). For as much as y'all know I love Frankie, whoever suggested him over Omar should be well and truly slapped.

Several months later, there's a commotion on Henry street when the Brice's receive a telegram, and once the shock that someone hadn't died worn off, they're left in the wake of Ziegfeld's request for Fanny to come by his theater and audition. She reacts in a completely reasonable way.

Unsurprisingly, she aces the audition, and after fighting with Ziegfeld over how beautiful he thinks she is verses how she thinks she's not, she turns his new finale number from a bizarre ode to seasonal brides into a comedy act about a shotgun wedding in order to deflect anticipated criticism away from her face.

Peek a small cameo from Anne Francis, whose part was cut down so much she tried to get herself removed from the credits altogether. It's fine, instead she'll forever be known as the woman who pranked Dorothy Zbornak by pretending to die while beating her at tennis.

Fanny averts termination even though she deliberately ignored the directions of the director, again, because she's too much of a hit. She rides the high of bossing around Ziegfeld right into the arms of Nicky, who just so happens to be there on her opening night. This time she takes him back to her mother's saloon and he politely allows her friends and family to clean out his pockets at poker even though he's a bit of a professional gambler.

After charming the entire block, Nicky convinces Fanny to follow him to a second location out into the alley so they can be alone, and like, sure, this is a colossally bad idea, but how do you say no to that smile? After establishing both of them are single, Nicky adds more red flags to the parade of them by saying he's been with thousands of women because he likes to feel free and never has definite plans. Fanny reacts to this information by babbling incoherently about how some people kinda like being in relationships and Nicky kisses her to shut her up before riding off into the night.

I would die. Just drop dead right there, thank you and good night, it's been a good life.

Flash forward AN ENTIRE FUCKING YEAR and Fanny randomly runs into Nick again at a train station in Baltimore while the Follies are on their national tour. He invites her to dinner in a private dining room at their hotel, and while she momentarily pretends to be aloof, once inside she does exactly what I would do immediately if left alone in a room with Omar Sharif in 1967.

Fanny asks why Nicky never called on her a year and two weeks ago and he explicitly says he could smell the virgin all over her and didn't think she could hang. When asked what has changed now, he replies, "If you don't, it's time you learned."

So... they bone, and continue to bone the entire week the Follies are in town. Unfortunately after 7 days Nicky's racehorse turned into a pumpkin and he has to leave Fanny behind to board a boat to Europe to scam a bunch of bored dudes out of money since he doesn't have any anymore. Of course Nicky confesses to Fanny he's suddenly in love, so instead of going their separate ways after a brief sexcapade, Fanny abandons the show and makes a big romantic gesture by taking a tugboat to Nicky's waterborne casino to surprise him. Her coworkers try to convince Fanny this is a colossally bad idea and you could anger a million bulls with all the red flags Nicky's waving, but she simply. cannot say no. to that smile. I would make a joke that his dick must be legendary but she wouldn't know any better if it wasn't.

Oh look, another helicopter shot from the 1960s that's a million times better than the one in A Hard Day's Night.

Sidenote: Every time I hear "the sun's a ball of butter" I first cringe because I hate that line, and secondly think of this skit.

This was Barbra's first film role, by the way.  Not that she wasn't well-known at this point - her voice was already acknowledged as one of the greats before she even turned 30.  But she steals the camera in every freaking scene, especially this one when Fanny's clearly making the dumbest mistake ever.  You root for Fanny; you want her to succeed in both life and love because Barbra is so charming.  She won a Best Actress Oscar for this performance, and it's incredibly easy to see why.

To the surprise of everyone (even Fanny), Nick is ecstatic to see her - so ecstatic he only giggles when the porter calls him "Mr. Brice" instead of going on a several-day bender that ends with him crashing Fanny's Oscar acceptance speech.  Of course Fanny plays the "please pick me, I'll never tie you down" card, only to THIRTY SECONDS LATER suggest to Nick that usually when two people love each other, they get married.  Instead of jumping off of the boat and swimming toward the shore, Nick informs Fanny if he can win his huge payday, she'll get a husband.  After much distress on Fanny's part, Nick later returns to the room with a big wad of cash, and they immediately return home to play house for a while.

Fanny went from on the road living like a mouse to being blissfully happy with a husband, a mansion, servants and a baby.  But the other shoe finally starts to drop when Nicky's hot streak turns cold.  While he's losing the house on oil fields that produce no oil, Fanny is headlining in a show, putting Nicky's ego in check.  With a famous wife, his more-frequent losses are being broadcast around both his gambling community and society at large.  When Fanny realizes Nick is drowning after he skips her show's opening night for a poker game, she sets up a scheme where his buddy Tom would approach Nick with a legit job offer running a local casino.  After Tom informs Nick he wouldn't have to pony up start-up cash to make him a partner because his experience conning wealthy gentlemen was valuable enough, Nick smells the deception from a mile away and refuses the position because apparently it's incredibly embarrassing for your wife to network for you.

In an effort to get back on top, Nick decides to participate in an scammy bond scheme, gets caught, and pleads guilty to the crime so it doesn't look like he's stupid enough to agree to something without knowing how fucking illegal it is.  Fanny goes to court to see Nick before they ship him off to prison for a few years, and when he tries to end the relationship by telling Fanny he will never be able to support her, Fanny asks him to reconsider. If Nick feels the same way when he gets out, she won't fight him on the divorce.

The absolute paranoia of a world where women could make more money than their husbands is fucking ridiculous to me.  In both A Star is Born and Funny Girl, the moment the universe takes away the man's ability to monetarily provide for his family he suddenly feels as if he has nothing to contribute.  His masculinity and his ego get in the way of being truly proud of his wife.  The women are both willing to entirely give up their careers to take care of their deadbeat husbands (even asserting in public they should be referred to by their husband's last name), which is baffling on its own, but they've already made the irreversibly irredeemable crime of perusing success, even when their husbands initially encouraged it.  All I learn from these stories is that men want strong women, strong enough where he can brag about them, but not strong enough to overshadow them.  If that starts to happen, the wife needs to intuitively shrink in order to give their husband the chance to catch up.

One thing you can't fault Nicky for is hiding his true nature. He told Fanny exactly who he was when they first met.  He never had a set schedule because he wanted to feel free.  She was Woman and he was Man, and she should be smaller so he can be taller.  He might have cosplayed as a dependable dude for a few years, but ultimately he reverted back to his default.

Flash forward to the beginning of the movie, where we finally discover that Nick had been released from prison and Fanny would find out the state of their relationship before she went on stage.  She warns Ziegfeld that if Nick wants to give it another shot she's going to quit the show, because being a housewife will be the only thing to placate Nick's fragile masculinity.  Thankfully she doesn't need to keep that promise, because when the pair are finally reunited she can tell by his behavior that this dude is about to drop the hammer.  Fanny preemptively ends things, and then goes on stage to sing about her heartbreak.

The end of the movie differs from the musical in a pretty significant way as Fanny belts a lament for the end of her marriage.  Barbra insisted singing the vocals at the end of the song live, and had Omar Sharif recite the line "You are beautiful" to her before each take to make her more emotional. It worked - I cry every time I watch the end of this movie.

"My Man" was a song the real-life Fanny Brice popularized in the Ziegfeld Follies Broadway show, which is the only reason it appears here, ending this depressing story on a weak downbeat that legitimately shocked me when the credits rolled.  In the Funny Girl musical, Fanny goes through a variety of emotions that reprise the songs in the show - bitter and sad, but ultimately victorious with a powerful rendition of "Don't Rain on My Parade."  I can only attribute this change as the beginning of the 1970s bummer parade of weird musicals that make you want to slit your wrists on the way out.

And if this wasn't enough, several years later they filmed a sequel to this, Funny Lady, about Fanny Brice's relationship with her second husband Billy Rose, who was just as shitty of a partner as Nick Arnstein was. Their marriage also ends in divorce, so if you want to watch the same movie as Funny Girl but with a clunkier script just to get 10 minutes of Omar Sharif reprising his role as Nicky being as sleezebaggy as ever, don't bother. It's not worth it.

Funny Girl is a show that will forever be associated with Barbra, to the point where its protagonist Fanny is more of a fictionalized character than a real-life previously-breathing human being. This movie is fairly entertaining, although it clearly reflects the ideals of its time. If you like Barbra, it's a must-see. If not, avoid it at all costs, cause there's nothing else here other than her.

Except a hunky Omar Sharif being stupidly charming. There is also that.

Thanks for reading!  If you’ve enjoyed this post, please consider helping me fund this project by donating to my ko-fi :)

[scoundrels-in-love]

Alright, gimme the full DVD commentary about this passage from "I will drown for you...":

"It's not easy to forget, Vash doesn't know how to do it at all actually, but he knows how to put so many things away in boxes with loose lids, stacked in a pyramid that has long since outgrown him. He laughs and smiles and kind-of and almost feels it (and doubts his grief is real, since he can), at least while they're mostly closed.

But there are times when some of the lids open and in a chain reaction, spring many others open, too. Memories and pain and ghosts of what ifs and almosts, and a vacuum of isolation and loneliness that consumes all the air in his lungs, pour out, become all he can sense, all he is.

Unless Vash manages to fix the opening lids quickly, trying to close them can become like a game called guacamole or something of the sort that Rem had told him and Nai about - trying to hit a little pest as it pops out of holes rapidly all over the game field. There is no winning, only endless chase until the time runs out and he collapses from exhaustion, from being hollowed out by all he has held onto. The recovery can be hours or days, he never knows." I wasn't even looking for it, but when I saw it I knew it was the one. I just love it.

Hi hello my dear beloved sibling.

I now realize I have no idea how the DVD commentaries go so I am just going to babble how I know to.

First of all, I am amazed and touched that this is section you still remember *checks* 5 months, oh wow.

In all honesty, it's part that I wrote and then almost deleted. I wasn't sure if this sort of disassociation and compertmentalizing your grief and trauma was something that felt Vash like. At least in these words, in this metaphor.

But I kept it. Stayed honest to my want to write it the way it is and, in some way, I experience and struggle with grief and going through the day. Some of the most stinging, forever sticking with me throwaway comment on my grief in my life has been how 'I am clearly handling my loss quite well' because I could give a sort-of laugh a couple months after my loss. The way the pits of despair would change into numb neutrality through which I would mask and go on and how it always makes me doubt that I am sincerely grieving, that my pain is genuine and true to the bone and not just another reason for me to throw pity parties when I feel like.

In same way, my worst spirals are often gradual, at least at the start - started by some random thought or event that I have to then work on suppressing, putting away, lest it springs forward more and more thoughts and pains until I collapse. And sometimes the attempt to wrangle it all, no - usually, even -, is just as exhausting.

I took those feelings and experiences and gave them to Vash, who seems to compartmentalize a lot, who puts up a mask of cheer, but his eyes aren't into it. Who finds ways to blame himself for everything, even the way he feels things. I think the complexity and layers of guilt and pain and the way he's had to keep going make for very potent, very complex cocktail that he very much can't really deal with other than like this.

In this case, he's been teetering on edge of Feeling Bad and Too Much for a while, the injury and upsetting Meryl (and others) heightens it and the thought of Rollo & Livio resurfaces, as echo of his guilt for having anything nice, for having people who care when he's failed so many, just to push him closer to edge of not being able to tuck it all away neatly.

As for the guacamole, I thought it'd be funny if Vash for all his great memory couldn't quite remember something he heard as baby 150+ years ago and it became slightly twisted into a different word. A sort of little inside joke between me and readers who Know the words. I think a lot about words and things Vash knows that no one else does anymore, in general.

Send me excerpt from my fic and I will give you the DVD commentary on it?<3

[harry-writings]

Arrogant Son of a Bitch

- The one where Harry and Y/n are separated, but Harry gets jealous when he sees Y/n getting ready for a date with another man 

Masterlist 

-

It was the last thing Harry wanted to see, really — Y/n in a tight red dress, hooking gold earrings into her ears while she rubs her lips together,  spreading the crimson lipstick upon the surface, legs ending at her black stilettos.

But that’s exactly what Harry sees when he walks into her apartment to pick up their six-month old son, and he’s never had so much of an urge to gouge his eyes out from their sockets and leave them lifeless upon the ground.

There’s someone else. Y/n’s dolling herself up, wearing her Sunday best, letting her hair down in loose curls even though she hates curling her fucking hair, for somebody else — for somebody that’s not him, for somebody that’s not her husband.

“Hey, Harry! Thank you so much for coming early. I don’t want to be late!”

She still has yet to look at him — still scrambling around her living room, gathering everything she needs — and Harry doesn’t even know if he wants her to. One glance from her when she looks like this... and he’ll be a goner, he knows it, and he can’t afford to get all jealous and possessive in front of the very woman he broke things off with not just one year ago.

It was his idea to file for divorce, at the end of it all. Y/n had tried everything she could to mend the marriage that was in constant shambles, but Harry was always too stubborn and too prideful to admit to all the things he’d done wrong. And he did everything wrong.

He didn’t treat Y/n with the kind of love he had once given her — with the kind of love she always deserved. He treated Y/n like an obligation rather than a choice, a burden rather than a need, yet she always kept her promises and lived by her vows because it wasn’t just a casual relationship that could be thrown away and forgotten about, it was marriage.

She signed them up for marriage counseling, but Harry failed to show up to half the meetings. And when he did, he’d just sit there with a scowl on his face saying that talking about their feelings wouldn’t help any because there were no feelings. She tried working around his schedule to go on getaway vacations together to respire their connection, but he always spent the portion of time he could have spent with her working on more of his music.

And when she got pregnant with his baby, Y/n was desperate and silently hoped that the little bundle of joy growing inside of her would help fix all that had been broken between them. But it was no avail. If anything, it only made them grow further apart. Perhaps it was because he felt more bound to her when he didn’t want to be with her at all.

He told her he wanted the divorce half-way through the six month mark of her pregnancy. She was big, she was struggling, and she was absolutely exhausted, yet Harry couldn’t find it in his heart to push it aside any longer. He needed to let her go.

But as Harry stands here, watching Y/n looking as gorgeous as ever for another man that isn’t even hers, makes him want to take back everything he had ever done.

And it’s not that he didn’t before — he’s wanted to take it back from the second he walked into their home with divorce papers in his hands, his pregnant wife sobbing on the kitchen counter, asking why it had to be this way — it just feels like a fresh wound on his already scarred and fragile heart, and he genuinely feels as if a part of him has died.

“You’re going on a date.” Harry says knowingly, his frown deepening in the corners of his lips. And he knows he has no right to feel the way he does — so upset and hurt, like his heart had been ripped in two — but he can’t help himself from falling apart.

At the end of the day, she’s still his wife. Sure, the divorce papers had been filed, but there was still so much that had to be done for their last final steps. But of course, just like everything else that involved Y/n, Harry didn’t make the time for it.

Y/n shrugs, her thumbs twiddling together with her head down, eyes casted at the ground beneath his feet.

It’s been a year since Harry brought the divorce papers home, and Y/n’s barely looked at him since. Sometimes he’s thankful she doesn’t, but sometimes, in times like these, he wishes she would… even if it’ll hurt.

“Yeah, I guess. Just some guy I met the other night at the grocery store. Couldn’t reach one of the cereals for Topher and saw me struggling. Guess he thought I was pretty or something and told me he wanted to take me out.”

“I didn’t ask.”

She knows she should have stopped herself from talking sooner, but being around Harry makes her head spin and her body disassociate from herself. She doesn’t ever know what to do, or what to say, whenever he’s around.

There’s a part of her that tries so desperately to act as if everything is normal — like nothing had ever happened — mainly for Topher’s sake. But the other part of her knows that that’s such an impossible thing to do no matter how hard she tries.

Y/n purses her lips, dropping her hands at her sides in defeat. “Right.”

And it’s not that Harry wants to talk to her this way — like he doesn’t care about her, like he can barely stand the sight of her anymore; it’s the farthest from the truth, really, he’s just utter shit at saying how he feels or what he’s thinking. He’ll lie, and lie, and lie — chew on the truth and spit it out if it means he doesn’t have to apologize.

And right now, that’s all he wants to do. He wants to break down and drown in his tears, hold her to him and tell her how sorry he is for everything he’s put her through. But he has this unexplainable, unsettling wall built around him that he can’t knock down no matter how hard he swings at it.

He curses his career for it, really. He wishes he could be one of the celebrities that says fame hasn’t gotten to his head, but it has. In the most selfish, most arrogant of ways, fame has made him so prideful that he never puts himself to blame for anything that happens in his life.

His mother was the first one to tell him, and still never fails to remind him now that the divorce has been put in place.

You never fight for anything in your life. She’d always say. You think you’re too good for your mistakes. Put your wife through hell, making your kid go through hell, all because you swallow the two words that could fix everything you’ve ever broken. 

But he wants to fight for Y/n. Oh, how badly does he want to, but at this point, it’s just too late. All the damage had already been done, and no woman could ever forgive a man that left her during the nine months she needed the man she loves the most.

“Didn’t mean it like that, just —“ he croaks brokenly, gulping down the cries he doesn’t deserve to weep. “Does he know you’re married?”

The question makes her feel guilty — really guilty, the kind of guilty that makes her stomach swim with bile because nothing she does is ever going to feel right, for either of them. And she knows going on a date when the divorce hasn’t been set in stone is just making everything so much harder.

But what is she to do? Wait around for Harry to finally take the time out of his music to go to the courtroom so she could finally move on? She can’t keep being legally bound to a man that no longer loves her, she can’t keep doing this dance by herself because she’ll never have the heart to find somebody else.

And she just needs somebody else.

Because she’s still so deeply in love with Harry, it hurts. Everyday feels like the world is grabbing her at her feet, sucking her into its core until she’s floating in the midst of everybody’s life except her own. She’s living day by day stuck between the confines of marriage and separation and the worst part is, she feels not only separated from Harry, but also from herself.

It was so good. Everything about them was just so good… and Y/n doesn’t know what she had done wrong to make Harry fall out of love with her.  But somewhere between their picture-perfect relationship hid an unbearable amount of blame being put onto Y/n for things that weren’t her fault, or her responsibility, or her obligations.

The stupidest, littlest of things would set Harry off — leading to heart-wrenching periods of silence, an uncomfortable amount of tension, and constant reminders that her love wasn’t enough to make him happy.

And she just can’t keep living with that anymore. She can’t stand the fact that she has to keep thinking of him because he’s still here, all the time, swimming in the same gray area she’s been drowning in.

“That’s not fair.” Y/n frowns, her eyes briefly looking up to get a glimpse of his face, which is red and as broken as ever, and she curses her wandering eyes.

“I don’t go out with other women because you’re still my wife.” Harry nearly sobs the last word, still finding it hard to speak after everything they had been through. Because really, is she his wife, or just the ghost of her? “I still love you just as much. I’d be cheating on you if I even thought of it.”

And it’s true. Harry hasn’t looked at or even thought of another woman since the moment his heart found hers. She’s the first one he sees — in a room full of people, in his daydreams, in his music — she’s the only one he sees, in everything. He couldn’t even imagine it.

Y/n flutters her eyes closed to keep her composure, wishing now more than ever to be sucked up into the earth’s core again because she doesn’t want to be here anymore — in a room so close to him, feeling his every breath, hearing his every word echo in her head.

“Harry… I’m not your wife anymore. We’re separated. You’ve made it more than clear to me that you don’t love or want me anymore. I can’t keep living my life on your time.”

Y/n’s looking up at him as if begging him to understand, but he doesn’t. He may have fucked up one too many times down the line, but at the end of the day, he’s never once told Y/n he didn’t love her anymore. And he couldn’t even dream of telling Y/n he didn’t want her anymore, he’d throw up if he so much as tried.

There isn’t a universe Harry wouldn’t want Y/n in. She’s all he’s ever wanted.

“When have I ever said that?”

He asks it like her words sucked all that was left out of him and she almost wants to take it back, but she won’t.

“You didn’t have to.”

His eyes drop to the floor and a new wave of tears begin to rise at the surface, pushing at his throat.

He has nothing to say for himself.

Y/n sighs, her eyes wandering around the room as she waits for Harry to break this deafening silence, but he doesn’t. So, she lifts her purse higher upon her shoulder before coughing awkwardly to the open air.

“Topher is in the car seat all ready to go. His binkie should be in there, too. I would love to stay and chat but I really need to get —”

“Please, don’t go.” Harry interrupts, his voice cracking as he closes his eyes, loose tears falling down his cheeks and hitting the hardwood floor below them, hand inching closer to hers. “Stay here with me.”

She’s frozen still, the feeling of her hand being this close to his knocking the breath straight out of her lungs and nearly sending her to her knees. Because how badly does she want to — how badly does Y/n want to break the laws of reality just to be with her Harry again, even for a second, but she can’t keep letting herself believe they will ever come back from this. She can’t keep going back to Harry.

She has to stop choosing Harry.

“I can’t, Harry.” She breathes out, not having the heart or the strength to look up into the very eyes that never fail to make her fall in love. “I can’t stay with you any longer. I have to go.”

And before Harry could reach for her any farther, she was already gone.

-

Y/n was practically dead to the world — all her apartment lights shut off, all doors and windows locked, phone turned off and buried somewhere beneath all the covers she’s been hibernating in — before she heard someone practically beating down her front door.

She rolls over to her nightstand, groaning as her eyes blink to adjust to the blue light reading 1:04AM vibrantly in the dark. She sits herself up on her elbow, huffing out a breath as her hands reach up to rub the dryness out of her eyes.

She looks around her room as her brain scrambles to process reality, but it isn’t until another series of knocks jolt her up from where she sits, nearly losing balance in the process.

“Why? Why can’t I have nice things?” Y/n whispers to herself as she makes her way out of her bedroom to her front door, way too far out of her mind to bother checking her peephole before unlocking the knob and swinging it open.

“Mitch!” Y/n shrieks, her arms held out stiffly in front of her as Harry’s body is thrown into them — not so sure if holding him up is the appropriate thing to do considering they haven’t even touched each other once since the separation. “What the fuck!”

“You don’t answer your fucking phone!” Mitch fumes, his eyes bewildered and unsteady as his body is so visibly angry he doesn’t even know what to do with himself — pinching his lips between his fingers, practically walking in circles, trying his hardest to breathe through the pit of fire burning in his chest. “Needed to get him the fuck away from me!”

Mitch knows it’s not Y/n’s fault that she wasn’t answering his calls — it is well over midnight, after all — but he has been so pushed over the edge that he doesn’t have time to think about anything else other than being as far away from Harry as humanly possible.

Y/n’s struck with confusion because in all the four years she had been with Harry, he never had any problems with Mitch. Sure, they’d bump heads about which notes sound better in certain songs, or bicker a bit after long hours at the studio, but never anything like this.

“Been pissing me off all night about your stupid date! Proper fucking idiot, he is. Files a divorce with you, for what? To get jealous at every man that makes eyes at you? Arrogant son of a bitch, had half the mind to knock him in before I decided to bring him here.”

“Shut up, Mitch!” Harry growls groggily against the skin of Y/n’s shoulder.

Mitch turns his body to face Harry’s back, one hand on his hip while the other rubs along the roots of his beard, his face scrunching with what Y/n can only consider to be a look of complete malice.

He knows he shouldn’t be throwing Harry under the bus about their private conversations, especially ones that consist of Y/n, but there’s only so much he could put up with.

It’s sickening, really — having to constantly be there for Harry when everything that’s gotten him to this point has been his own fault. Harry doesn’t deserve comforting, but Mitch has been alongside him for far too long to not care about his feelings and emotions… no matter how wrong they are.

And what’s even more sickening is seeing how badly he’s hurting his own self by avoiding the divorce entirely instead of taking responsibility for his actions. Mitch could go on and on about all the ways to make things right again, yet still in some way, somehow, it always seems to go right past Harry’s head.

Because trying to sway Harry’s mind or his decisions is practically like pulling teeth — he’ll always find a way to go against what everybody else says and it drives Mitch up the wall. He’s sick and tired of wasting his breath all because Harry’s too stubborn to take anybody else’s path but his own.

“You couldn’t just bring him home? Where the hell is Topher?”

Y/n is struggling to keep Harry up because she’s not even sure if she’s doing it right. He’s got his entire body pressed up against hers, all of his weight being held by her still half-asleep arms and he shouldn’t even be here.

“No, I couldn’t bring him home because the first three times I tried, he wouldn’t get out of my damn car.” Mitch growls through clenched teeth, the side of his fist taking one last swing at Y/n’s open door.

He takes a couple deep breaths, his elbow leaning against the doorframe and he squeezes his eyes shut to regain his composure. “Topher’s with Sarah for the night. Now, for the love of fuck, make Harry grow a pair of balls so he can finally talk to you and not me, please.”

His eyes are pleading with Y/n’s silently, and she nods her head at him in response. She can’t leave Harry like this if she wanted to, anyways.

She sighs, holding Harry against her chest now to get a proper grip on him, and she can feel him press a small kiss against the crook of her neck.

“Have a good night, Mitch. Take care of yourself.”

She smiles softly at him, and for a moment in time, she feels like everything might be okay.

Maybe she only feels this way because this is the first time she’s touched Harry in a year now and it gives her the sense of clarity she’s been missing for so long. Or, maybe she feels this way because Mitch was always the one who was rooting for them despite everything they’ve been through, and knowing he still cares enough about the both of them to bring Harry to her apartment to talk gives her the smallest bit of hope she’s been needing.

“You too, Y/n.”

Mitch gives her one last reassuring look before he shuts the door, leaving Y/n and Harry alone in the confines of her apartment with absolutely nowhere else to go.

She guides him to her couch, which was a bit more difficult than she expected considering Harry is nearly twice her height and much stronger than he realizes. It takes almost all the energy out of her to get him to take a few steps of his own until he’s finally sitting upon the cushions.

“Your date.” Harry mumbles against her shoulder while she lays him down upon the couch, his glossy eyes looking up at her with genuine hurt and concern when his head lays upon the pillow. “Did he treat you nice?”

Y/n smiles softly to herself, reaching for the blanket sprawled atop of the couch — the very blanket Harry gifted her for the first Christmas they spent together. It’s been her favorite ever since.

“I didn’t go.”

“You didn’t go?”

Harry can’t deny that he feels happy about it — happy that she didn’t spend the night with somebody else, happy that she couldn’t find it in her heart to move on from him quite yet. But another part of him — a bigger part of him — suddenly feels guilty, and empty, and like his insides have all been set on fire until they all melted to nothing.

She’s been alone all night. She’s been alone every night. And sure, she had Topher to keep her company throughout the week… but she’s lonely and she’s sad. He can see it in everything she does. And tonight was her one night to be herself again, and somehow, Harry managed to find a way to take it all away from her, just like he’s done with everything else.

She was going to go if he hadn’t guilt-tripped her and begged her not to leave. And she looked so pretty, so fucking breathtaking, for nobody to see it. And that alone is enough to make the last bit of his heart completely shatter until his chest becomes a voided pit.

Y/n nods her head, emotionless, as she pulls the blanket up to his chin. “You were right, we’re still married. It wasn’t fair of me.”

She knows it would have been fair either way, but after seeing how upset Harry looked upon the realization that she was going out with somebody else, she couldn’t stomach the thought of spending the rest of the night trying to make another man happy — one, she’s sure, wouldn’t have even made her happy.

She still didn’t choose Harry, but she didn’t choose anybody else, either, and to know that puts her head at rest. At least for a little while.

“With that being said,” Y/n coughs a bit, blinking away the tears that were mere seconds from falling, “You really need to pick a court date, Harry.”

He knows he does. He’s been draining himself out trying to think of the best time to get it all done — it has taken him twelve months, after all. But the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he doesn’t want to be done — not with their marriage, not with her.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever want for it to all be done. And so whenever he plans to meet with his lawyer, he can only get as far as parking his car in the lot because he never has the strength to actually walk inside.

Because he knows once he does, there’s no going back, and he can’t imagine himself not going back to her.

So, he’ll cry. He’ll scream, he’ll punch at his steering wheel, he’ll hit his head against the headrest over, and over, and over again until he’s so worn out he can hardly breathe. Because he can’t do it. He doesn’t want to do it.

There have been five appointments he couldn’t bring himself to go to, and she has no idea.

“I can’t.” Harry whispers with bloodshot eyes and shaking hands — refusing to look at her because he doesn’t know what will happen if he does. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to leave you?”

Y/n’s breath hitches in her throat because of all the things she expected him to say, that surely wasn’t one of them.

Deep down, she knows he’s hurting, but she never expected it to be so hard on him. Besides, he made it seem so easy — to leave her, like she meant nothing to him after the four years they had been together. And she couldn’t count the amount of times Harry had reminded her that he didn’t have feelings for her anymore.

So that’s what she always believed — that he didn’t love her, that he didn’t want her, that he didn’t need her. But hearing Harry cry out those very words, do you have any idea how hard it is to leave you?, makes her question everything she had ever known.

Because he did leave her — has left her on her own for a year now and has never given her a reason to believe he wanted it any other way until this very moment; Harry laying drunk on her living room couch, crying over the thought of her with another man. He has barely looked at her, has barely even touched her, until now — until it’s been far too late.

“You’ve already left me.” Y/n whispers, the tears she once blinked back now falling freely and silently down her cheeks.

There’s a crack in her voice that Harry can feel down his spine, shaking him to his core and leaving him frozen still. He’s never heard her sound so hurt and broken before and he feels his chest hallowing from the inside out; he is the only one to blame.

If he could just tell her everything he hasn’t — if he could just prove to her that not a single fiber in his body has let her go — no matter the consequences, he would in a heartbeat.

But Harry really hasn’t fought for anything in his life, he wouldn’t even know where to begin — he wouldn’t even know what to say, or what to do, to pick up all these pieces. And the worst part is that he wants to, so badly, but he worries that it won’t be enough — that he won’t be enough — and he won’t be able to handle it. His entire world would collapse.

He blindly reaches for her hand because she’s the only one that can ground him and he feels like he’s falling into a never-ending abyss with no safety-net. Truthfully, he’s been feeling that way for an entire year, until now, with her hand in his.

“Not even a little bit.” He breathes out from quivering lips, eyes unblinking, staring helplessly at their intertwined fingers.

Y/n sobs behind her pursed lips, squeezing her eyes closed as she stomps her foot down upon the floor because this can’t be happening. He can’t be doing this, not now — not when she’s this far into grieving his loss, not when she was finally taking her first step away from him. He can’t.

“Harry —”

“Before you say anything please, please just listen to me.”

Both of his hands are now cradling hers in his palms, slightly tugging at her arm because he is wholeheartedly desperate to say everything she needs to hear.

If he doesn’t get it all out now, he may never have her again. And if he has to spend the rest of his goddamn life being so lonely that he begins to loathe the world for moving on when his own stopped turning, he’d rather do it knowing he at least tried.

And if there’s one person he’d try anything for — do anything for — it would be his wife.

“When I filed the divorce it — it wasn’t because of you, okay? I didn’t — fuck — I thought it was my only choice. And it wasn’t because I didn’t love you the same, or because I wanted to be with somebody else, it was because I wasn’t what you deserved.”

Y/n’s staring down at him with furrowed eyebrows and open lips, everything around her moving so quickly she can hardly keep up.

These are answers she’s been begging for for nearly two years now, yet somehow, nothing could have prepared herself for them. She’s gotten so used to wondering — so used to questioning how the universe will take control of their destiny that now, having all the answers seems to defy all forms of faith.

It’ll all be in her hands now. What they’ll be in a year from now, where they’ll be a year from now, or who they’ll be with a year from now is all up to her. Because at the end of it all, Harry wouldn’t be pulling her closer, sobbing into her hand, breaking down all his walls and boundaries if he didn’t want her to break off the divorce.

“I would be away from you for months on end, so goddamn far away that god forbid something were to happen to you, I couldn’t be the first one by your side. I couldn’t be the first one to make you smile each morning, or be the first one to keep you together whenever the world was breaking you down.

“I wasn’t your first, for anything. I couldn’t be. And it was tearing me apart, knowing you were all alone every day and every night. But then I’d come home and it would feel — it would feel so good, like time hadn’t passed between us… but it did, so, so fast, and in a blink of an eye, I’d have to leave you again.”

His mind thinks back to all the times he’s had Y/n crying on his shoulder the nights before he had to leave the country, clinging onto him and begging him to stay with her just a little while longer.

They were so in love with each other that they hardly wanted to spend any time away from one another because they had a connection that was so raw and so real, they couldn’t find it in anything or anybody else. So each time he had to wake up at the crack of dawn to travel the world, Y/n pouting on the bed watching him pack his life together, would break him in two every single time.

The world meant nothing without her.

“The hole that kept swallowing me up every time I had to walk out on you became too much. But I couldn’t tell you that. I couldn’t tell you that because — because I wanted to hold it together so badly for you. I needed to keep it together because I knew if I couldn’t, you wouldn’t be able to, either. It was already so hard on you and I knew that and I kept leaving. And if I had told you that I spent every single night away from you crying my fucking eyes out, you’d sacrifice everything else you had to come be with me… and I couldn’t do that to you.

“And the more I kept bottling it up, the more I took it out on you. I didn’t want to — didn’t even mean to — but I did, in ways that I couldn’t justify to you because I couldn’t even justify them to myself. Then there was a part of me — the worst and most selfish part of me — that couldn’t apologize for it because the world had somehow convinced me that I didn’t need to.”

By now, Y/n’s knees are pressed against the front of the couch as Harry hooks one of his arms around her legs, his forehead making a home at the front of her hip.

“I’d just get more upset with myself, more angry, more ashamed. It was this constant cycle — feeling like I wasn’t enough for you, then blaming you for all my mistakes, pushing you away even farther. Then you got pregnant.”

They both let out a sob.

“And all I could think about was… if I couldn’t be there for my wife, how could I be there for my son? How could I show him the world and give him everything he ever wished for if I couldn’t even do that for you — for the one person I would choose over anything?”

His chin rests where his forehead once did, his red and puffy eyes trying their best to stay open enough to take a good look at her.

“I loved you beyond words. I looked at you and I saw my entire life in front of me. You continuously blew me away, every single day. Being away from you was — it was dangerous. You weren’t beside me and I was just this empty pit wallowing in hotel rooms that I didn’t even want to be in. I couldn’t get enough of you no matter how much I tried. You consumed me whole, and yet I still found a way to convince you that you were the one who wasn’t enough for me.”

He lets out a laugh through his cries, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’s capable of destroying such beautiful things — things that were eternal, things that were once unbreakable.

And here he is, praying that he can also be the man that fixes them.

“Then I thought… if she found someone else that could give her everything she deserved, maybe he could be a better father to our son, too. And I was so scared and so angry and so sad I just — I did what I thought would make you happier instead of being a fucking man and owning up to it. But I didn’t, and now look at what’s in my hands. You’re all alone because of me. You’re crying because of me. Topher has to go back and forth between his parents because of me. I’m skipping meetings with my lawyer because I decided to file for a fucking divorce I didn’t even want. I broke our family apart, I broke us apart, I tore you from the inside out and didn’t even tell you that I was sorry.”

His eyes are closed, mouth open as it chokes out sounds of sorrow and pain, sounds of collapsing lungs and a torn chest.

“And I am so fucking sorry, baby.”

He speaks between sobs, his words broken and cracked but Y/n hears them loud and clear. He’s got her hand cradled against his soaking cheek, her palm pressed against the corner of his mouth that Harry keeps kissing.

He can’t fucking breathe and he really thinks this is it — that these are his last moments on earth and the next time he blinks, he’ll never open his eyes again.

Would he even want to, if Y/n isn’t the first thing he sees?

“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t the husband you needed me to be. I’m sorry that I let you down. I’m sorry I let our son down. I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to you. I’m sorry that you’ve been waiting on me and held yourself back because of me. I’m sorry that I made you feel like you weren’t loved.”

He keeps kissing at her hand, rubbing at the back of her legs, holding onto her like he’d collapse if he dared let her go. He knows he’s going to have to eventually, but he can’t think about that right now.

He needs this — to feel her, to smell her, to soak her all in before their new forever begins, spent apart and living lives so far away from one another that they couldn’t cross paths even if they wanted to.

This is his goodbye. He knows it. She’s not going to forgive him no matter how much he begs for her to understand — how could she? He can’t blame her. He hasn’t even forgiven himself and doesn’t expect anything more from her now, other than to listen to him one last time.

“I love you so much and there will never be a universe where I don’t, or won’t. I think about you… everyday, every second. To this day, I wake up reaching for you at least three times a night, wondering why you aren’t with me. Every time I come to pick Topher up I spend an hour in front of my bathroom mirror telling myself that I have to hold myself back from you. And then when I see you, I have to keep myself together and hold myself in place because you just get more and more beautiful with every day that passes and — and it breaks my heart all over again.”

Y/n reaches her hand down to his hair, gently brushing her fingers back against his scalp because he needs her — she knows he needs her and she can’t choose to be selfish now.

Right now, he doesn’t need her to be anything but his wife, and this may be the last time she’ll ever be his.

They keep each other embraced for a while, silently, unmoving and bracing themselves for the fall they’re each going to have to take.

These are their dying moments — their final moments before the casket gets shut and thrown six feet below them — and it won’t be long before the dirt from the ground gets piled up again, over their bodies, leaving them to decay in the life they once believed belonged to them.

They know it’s to come, because this is the first time that they have been so close to each other, yet feel so lonely all at once. And it’s not supposed to be this way.

“I can’t pick a date, Y/n,” Harry breaks the silence with a whisper, almost losing his voice along the way because what he’s about to say is enough to kill him, “but if you give me one I’ll — I’ll do it, okay?”

He holds her hand even tighter than before.

“If that’s what will make you happy, I’ll do it.”

[ofmythsandmadness]

to be called beautiful | d.h.

❛ do you ever miss, having someone around to love you?❜

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SUMMARY: vigilantes!au. you push the boundaries of your relationship, and ask for a wish you know won't be given back. (or — it's late, and after another night of patrol, loneliness sets in deep.) WARNINGS: slightly nsfw??? mentions to sex, no descriptions. it's not a sexual story, just a part of an inner monologue. WORD COUNT: 2.6k+ NOTES: reposting this in hopes it shows up this time (pls pls pls i'm gonna cry). i've been writing a whole other series that is a totally different writing style, but i've been trying to work out my emotions in small, focused pieces like this one when i can't focus. i might develop this into a small ficlit series of it's own, bc i think it's kinda fun — but we'll see how this goes.

THE BEAST THAT IS YOUR LONELINESS has been your burden for too long to say.

It's hold on you is a familiar ache, one you've felt for years, like a chronic tight tugging on your heart that refuses to give in no matter what you try. But you still refuse to name it for fear of coming to terms with the implications of it all. That you're really alone in this life and you're terrified of what that means and the fact that you can't have what your childhood stories promised would be yours.

Like the fool you are, you cling to the idea that it's just passing notions. You'll get over it one day. The flitting daydreams of a fairytale romance better fit for a vanilla Hallmark flick suck, but one day they won't hurt so bad. You'll numb and find a way to fill the void. And you try, you really do, pushing it down for the quick release of meaningless acts and walks of shames and cold bedsheets.

Sex is a toxic friend. You choose it's pull when your heart aches most and the loneliness begs for your breath to the point where every gasp of air is a privilege, not the bare minimum. It's not what you crave. There's no romance, no love. It's a trade and one that always leaves you feeling robbed of something you're not sure you ever even had.

You rarely remember their names. You know they probably won't remember yours. And why would they? The shudders, the whimpers, the cold moans that amount to nothing but crumbs of a supposedly passionate act only pass an hour, then they're gone. Or you're gone, if you're lonely enough to risk it. A bit of fun, a breath of pink and white and the feeling of someone pulling you closer, begging for your skin against theirs.

And then, it's all grey again. And you're alone at your apartment, washing your body free of the marks some stranger dared to press into your wilting skin, wondering what it would feel like for a lover to kiss you that same way. Running your fingers over every inch that has been caressed by so many faceless guests, trying to hold yourself in the way your foolish heart pounds for. But it's never enough. Your hands don't cup your flesh, don't mould and kiss and promise the carefully knitted lies any lover had dealt you in the past. And you're as cold as ever when they fall back to your sides. Nothing enflames your skin like you wishes it could — like those you wish would.

It's a discontent you live with. Just as you're sure millions of others do. That's what life is; you push yourself through the day, through your mundane day job and your taxing nighttime hobbies (because you sure as hell can't claim what you do as real work if your only pay is in blood and tears). You cling to the good times that happened too long ago to remember clearly, and make the moments that you're alone with your thoughts as small as possible.

But there's no time to consider all that now.

You scrunch your face up as tight as you can, squeezing your eyes shut to the point where you see stars, exploding like confetti in some absurd black void that hides behind your lids. For a moment you hold the pose, watching the stars erupt, until the position hurts too much and you have to release.

Surroundings blur and then clear as your eyes readjust from their disassociation. You stare blearily at the random coffee shop you and your 'associate' chose for the night. It's just as generic as the last five visited, a thousand shades of brown and red and weary smiles the bored baristas wear just for a cheap check that'll barely cover their asses. It's worn and empty; no one's hear except the two of you and the workers who probably hate you for being here so late.

Normally, you would feel like an asshole staying so late. But you can't bring yourself to move, or even suggest to. It's all too heavy. And even if it's in brooding silence, you don't want to leave your partner. Not yet, you beg the universe, just a few more minutes.

And, speaking of—

"What's got you so blue today?"

You blink. Look over to him, only to see him already watching you.

There's really no point lying. He always unravels you too quickly, too easily — it's the detective in him, unravelling anyone and scooping their truths from shivering flesh. Some sort of childhood trauma response he developed into another super power.

You used to hate it. Now...if you concentrate hard enough, his sharp gaze feels like one of a lover's.

"Don't know what you mean," you tell him, foolish and flustered. "I'm just fine."

"Bullshit. You've sighed a dozen times in the last five minutes."

"Tch. No I haven't."

"Did too!"

His teeth glint, white and clashing against the full pink of his lips. You wish you could denounce all the times you wondered what it would feel like to have them graze against your keening skin — but not even all the gods could cleanse of you of those thoughts. Those desperate, pleading, melancholic memories stain; he can't see them, but you do when you look close enough. And you can't escape it, much as you try.

"Seriously, though. What's up with you?"

Your gaze falls down to your hands, eager to escape his allure, though it's not a great distraction. It only makes you more bitter, really, taking in all the flaws that litter your weaponised limbs. They're calloused from a million fights. Your knuckles are scarred, aching from wounds you reopen every other night. A thousand scars from a thousand scrapes, cuts, slashes and grazes linger on once perfect skin. You don't know how many there are, anymore, only that you wish you could wipe them off. Start over, have a clean slate. Erase all your mistakes and be beautiful again.

"I'm just tired," you lie. It's tense and pitiful; you know you've screwed it up the second the words leave your lips. "S'all."

"Ri-i-ight, and I'm the goddamn queen of England."

The absurdity of his retort makes your lips twitch. It's not enough for a smile, your self-inflicted misery makes sure of that, but it's a seed of something. "Wow. Didn't know I was in the presence of royalty."

"Yeah, yeah. Shut it."

"My apologies, your highness."

"Shut up, you little shit," he grumbles, but it's as soft as you get from him. It's practically a cry of love — or your foolish mind paints it as such. You take his teasing insults as promises of adorations and his arguments are poems of lust and infatuation that tug on your heartstrings in ways you know they shouldn't.

You're partners, for crying out loud. Professional coworkers (if you call the bloody mess you two create work). You don't get to miss him, or crave him, or love him like you do.

"Something happen to you?"

You watch his own hands fold and unfold on the table. The long, delicate fingers stand out on a man like him; someone who paints himself in only sharp angles and cutting lines. But you think they match him well. They promise life. Bleed hope, even in the raised scars that lace his skin like your own. You've watched those fingers grip a blade, launch it into flesh, pull and push and dig and rip and take and committed acts of atrocity most people would run from. You know he probably thinks of his hands the same way you do. But you think they're beautiful.

"Nah. It's...it's nothing. Really."

You can't see his face, but you imagine his narrowed eyes and furrowed brows asking for an answer you're just not willing to give. "C'mon, just tell me. Can't be that bad."

Your body laughs. You hear it from some place far away. It's cold and hoarse; you wonder how long it's been since you've heard a genuine laugh from yourself. You wonder if he notices (and wishes he did, foolishly, frivolously...).

It's probably stupid, but you go for it.

"You ever miss having someone?"

Something creaks; his chair, groaning as he shifts his weight. One of his fingers taps against his empty coffee cup; idle music for a restless soul.

"Like, in what way?"

"I..." Your nails dig into your palms. This was a mistake, but one you have to follow through with. He won't accept silence after something like that. "In the cheesy, domestic sorta way? That whole, havin' someone to come home to, someone who you can talk to, someone who..." the words stick like molasses in the back of your throat. Try as you do, they refuse to give themselves to him, so you have to substitute. "Just, someone who likes you, past your body or, or whatever."

"Oh."

"Sorry." It's your turn to shift in your seat, awkwardly searching for something to occupy yourself with as this uncomfortable energy you've created carries on. But your cup's empty, and you don't have the cash to ask for another overpriced latte. "Forget about it. Let's talk about somethin' else, yeah?"

He doesn't answer that. In fact, he doesn't say anything at all for a moment, long enough to make you wonder if you've just crossed the line of no return. You can't bring yourself to look at him, hell your cowardice is painful enough to make you wonder if you should just make a run for it, say au revoir! to the bond you've built with this knife-obsessed robin hood and crush your heart forever.

It's tempting, and you consider it, but then he fills the silence.

"I miss Eudora sometimes."

Finally, your gaze tilts up. Your eyes meet his lips. He's not smiling anymore.

You guys don't talk about exes together. It's a forbidden topic, same as family or childhoods or the number of people that have cut you open and bled you dry for fun. It's too personal, and in this line of work, personal doesn't fly. But you know Eudora Patch, because this line of work requires a couple run ins with people like her, and because your partner in crime has never learned how to stop his emotions from bleeding into his expression.

"Not because I still love her, but y'know..." his fingers wave aimlessly. "It was nice, when it worked. I liked having someone to sleep with. In a non-sexual manner." His lip curls a little. "Guess the sex part was nice too, though."

You nod. "Yeah, I get that. It's...it was nice, having someone who knew you. Who wanted to make you feel good, not just for themselves but 'cause that sort of things matters."

"Mm."

"Y'ever consider pursuing that sort of thing?"

He shakes his head. His adamancy is a truck smashing into your heart — though you know you should have expected no less, it still hurts. "I can't. It never works, with people like us. Y'know?"

"Yeah. Makes sense." You want to say more. You probably should say more — but you doubt he wants to hear your woes about intimacy, and the pathetic ways you crave affection you probably don't deserve. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Hm?"

His brows knot. "Why're you asking? Someone do somethin'?"

"What? No."

"Cause, like, if someone's hurt you, I'll—"

"I'm fine," you promise, and without thinking, you reach across the table to pat his hand. To reassure him like one would a lover. But just before your fingers meet his, the bitter reminder that he's not yours sets in and you draw back. Your hand falls a couple inches from his own. "And I can take care of myself, if I wasn't. Don't worry."

He chuckles mirthlessly. "Y'sure about that? You're still the dumbass that tripped over her own feet twice walking down an empty sidewalk, and—"

"—oh, you are such an asshole, why can't you just—"

"—so if you need someone to cut a bitch, I'm available."

You soften slightly. Try to smile, even if it's a false promise and probably hangs like a broken door on mismatched hinges. "I appreciate that. But I'm okay. Think I'm just tired, and a little lonely."

"What, I'm not good enough for you anymore?"

Bitterness seeps onto your tongue; it speaks before you can shut your lips around it. "You're fine as a partner against crime. But you're not anything otherwise, are you?" It feels like a taunt. You hadn't meant it to be — though, maybe you had.

If he takes your jeer poorly, though, it doesn't show on his face. He's still smiling and watching you, eyes simmering with a joke you wish you were in on.

"It doesn't matter though. Having someone's too complicated, 'specially for fools like us. Sometimes it's just..." you don't have a good answer. Not one he'd want to hear, anyways. "I just miss it sometimes. It'd be nice to have someone to talk to, or eat breakfast with in the mornings."

He nods slowly. "Yeah. Was nice, having another body around."

"Yeah. Ha. I," you stutter out a chuckle. Tug at your lip, nibbling at the cracked skin that comes with your long nights. "No one prepares you for how lonely adulthood is. Like, I'm half tempted to make friends with the takeout guys, just so I have a friend at all."

"We're friends."

"You know what I mean," you mumble, swallowing the bitter 'are we?' that almost makes its way off your tongue. "It was just nice when I had the time, to have a person around. Someone to like, hold hands with, or-or call me beautiful, sometimes. I-I can't remember the last time called me that, any..."

Fuck.

You hadn't meant for that last confession.

He wasn't supposed to hear that. It's too personal, too personal, too fucking personal for someone you don't even know.

Everything trembles; you're shaking like an avalanche, ready to sweep it all away under some snow drift. Never to be seen again. But you can't do that, there's no taking back the way your voice cracked as it reaches it's last word, and how your hand slips into a fist, ready to charge even though there's no punching your way out of this fumble.

You crack. Stumble out of your seat. Before he can talk you're moving, throwing a couple bills (too many for your poor wallet, you'll pay for that later) down and mumbling something about heading home. Your head's spinning and you just want to sit down again, pretend like this never happened and ask about some meaningless moment in a meaningless day that you wish could be yours and his, not just—

"—text me when you're goin' out again," you say, high and nervous. "I'll be around."

You turn.

"You don't have to leave."

"I got work tomorrow. Early."

"Thought you had the day off?"

Fuck, la deuxième acte. "Taking a shift for someone."

"Oh." He doesn't believe you. He would be a fool to. But he agrees anyways. "Okay."

"See ya, Kraken."

He doesn't answer you back. It's probably better that way.

BONUS

Many hours later, you're in bed, finally dozing off. You've rinsed off the filth of the night and resigned yourself to a barely adequate rest alone, too tired to consider what usually makes your mind race. It's been a long day; let future you contemplate all the ways you've screwed up.

Just as you're about to fall asleep, however, there's a small ping! that immediately wakes you up A notification sound reserved for only one person.

You groan but still roll over. Your heart may be a humiliated, burning mess, but it still beats for him, much as you've tried to stifle it.

kraken // 2:36 am. you available at 11p tomorrow?

kraken // 2:37 am. got word somethin going down at east docks, wanna check it out before it gets bad.

Relief is a sweet blessing. You exhale and smile into the darkness. He's still a professional, even if you seem unable to understand what that means.

you // 2:40 am. for sure. meet me at my place whenever and we can prep.

You leave it at that. Whatever he has to say after that, cannot be too important to waste your precious hours of sleep. So you roll over and shut your eyes and let yourself forget about the empty space that fills your place.

It's a decision you regret the next morning, when you wake up and realise what you missed.

kraken // 3:31 am. you ever get lonely for someone, feel free to let me know.

kraken // 3:32 am. might not make a great boyfriend, but i'll eat breakfast with you. so long as you're cooking.

A/N - I had a whole idea for two tired vigilantes (like what Diego does in season one, but partnered up) who both are really lonely and tired of life and all it's shit, and rely on each other more than they'll ever admit, and...I'll probably never write it, but this was a fun bit of that. two lonely emotionally deprived assholes who can't accept that maybe they can be loved and the person who wants to is right in front of them. :)

[plaidbooks]

Hey 🥰 could I request working with Sonny and you two used to date but broke up, you remained friends but never really got over each other and your end up going through a pretty bad time with work or personal stuff and you’re struggling mentally and not eating etc and when he realises he comes over to your place to check ur ok and you just breakdown and he tells u he still loves u and that it’ll always be u 🥺

Some Space

A/N: I am so sorry that this took so long! I was so burnt out of writing, but I'm here now! I hope that this makes up for the wait!

This takes place before Sonny joins SVU--and his timeline is a little wonky to make this fic work, but oh well.

Tags: death, shootings, blood, disassociation

Words: 2590

Taglist: @witches-unruly-heart @beccabarba @thatesqcrush @itsjustmyfantasyroom @permanentlydizzy @ben-c-group-therapy @infiniteoddball @glowingmess @whimsicallymad @lv7867 @storiesofsvu @cycat4077 @alwaysachorusgirl @glimmerglittergirl @joanofarkansass @redlipstickandplaid @reading--mermaid @dreamlover31 @averyhotchner @mrsrafaelbarba @detective-giggles @crowleysqueenofhell

“So, do you wanna move in together?” Sonny asked while you cuddled on his couch. You turned to look at him, and his face fell as he saw your expression. “…you don’t?”

You sighed. “It’s not like I don’t love you, Sonny, because I do. It’s just…I mean, we’re still in our mid-20s. I want a little more, uh, freedom before I settle down, you know?”

“I’ve known since we started dating in high school that I was in for the long term. I was thinking of maybe…I don’t know, getting married…having kids…. Now that we’ve settled into patrol, I thought it would be the perfect time to take the next step,” he muttered.

You sat in silence, debating. You loved Sonny, and you did want to marry him…someday. Not right now. You’ve barely lived any of your life; hell, you lived at home still. Sonny had his own apartment, but you didn’t want to go from living with your parents to living with him. You wanted space, time to figure out who you really were. And you didn’t think you could do that with Sonny. If he couldn’t give you your independence, if you both wanted different things, then you were going to have to break up with him, as much as it would break your heart to do it.

“Listen, Sonny, I need to live my own life for a little bit, discover myself. I-it’s nothing wrong with you, I promise—”

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked softly.

Hearing the words out loud made tears form in your eyes. “I…yes, I guess I am. At least until I find myself…. I’m so sorry, Sonny. I’ll always care about you. We can still be friends?”

“Y-yeah…okay, sure. I…yeah…” he trailed off, unwrapping his arms from around you. You both sat there awkwardly, and the tension was thick. You stood, moving to grab your jacket, and Sonny followed you to the front door.

“This isn’t…goodbye. I promise you, Sonny Carisi. It’s just—”

“See you later?” he finished.

You gave him a smile, and a kiss on the cheek. “Yeah. I’ll see you later.”

*****************************

That was months ago now, and you had transferred out of Staten Island patrol, unable to see Sonny every day, those big, sad blue eyes trying to avoid your gaze. Now, you worked for Brooklyn, an officer in their Homicide department. You settled in quickly, and you found a cheap-ish apartment in Brooklyn.

It was nice living by yourself, and you highly enjoyed it. You missed Sonny dearly, but you thought it was too soon to reach out. Your heart still strained when you thought about the breakup, so you kept your distance. But it was getting easier and easier to let those feelings fade away in your new line of work. Brooklyn Homicide was a lot busier than Staten patrol, and you got along great with your partner, Drew Zimmer.

“We keep making these busts, and we’re gonna make detective in no time,” Drew said, grinning at you.

You smiled back as you shoved a cuffed perp in the backseat of your squad car. “Then we get paid halfway decently for doing much of the same as we are now.”

“Plus, normal clothes! Not this suffocating police uniform.”

You agreed, then moved to the front seat, Drew sliding in behind the steering wheel. You and Drew were close, but you never crossed a line. He was engaged to his high school sweetheart, something that made you slightly sad. Sonny was your high school sweetheart, and you wondered how different your life would’ve been if you moved in with him.

*************************

As Drew predicted, you both made detective later that year. You were officially the youngest detective, having moved up the ranks so quickly. You both went out for drinks to celebrate, and you had the wild impulse to invite Sonny. It had been almost a year since you broke up, and you could finally think about it without tearing up. But would he be okay with it? You fought the idea, putting your phone back in your pocket.

“Everything okay?” Drew asked, seeing the look on your face.

You shot him a fake smile. “Fine, fine. Just…thinking. Don’t worry about it.”

He gave you a hard, knowing look, as if he could read your mind. You had told him about Sonny, but you didn’t want to bring the celebration down. Instead, you took your glass and cheers him before taking a sip.

You jumped when your phone rang, and you pulled it out of your pocket. Your Captain’s name flashed across the screen, and you answered with a brisk voice. Drew watched and listened, then sighed when you said that you were both on your way.

“What do we got?” he asked, putting money on the table and standing.

You pulled your jacket on, heading for the door. “Body found in Prospect Heights. You okay to drive?”

“Sober as a fox.”

*************************

You both showed up quickly, seeing the officers who called in the body. Drew parked, and you made your way over. One of the officers started walking you both through the details when a gunshot rang out from down the alley that the body was in. Instinct took over as you hid behind a wall of the building, grabbing the closest officer to you and pulling them with you. Gunshots echoed in the alleyway as someone—or someones—unloaded on the entrance to the alley.

Drew was on the other side of the alleyway, and one of the officers was flat on their back, blood leaking from a bullet hole in their head. You ordered the officer next to you to call for backup, then waited until the gunfire stopped. Taking a chance, you snuck a quick peak. There were three individuals at the end of the alley, making their way quickly towards you.

You motioned to Drew, letting him know, before you reached your hand around the corner, firing blindly in an attempt to at least slow their advance. With the cover fire, Drew came halfway around the wall, actually aiming his gun as he fired.

“You got one of them,” he informed you. He got a few shots off before a bullet went through his neck, knocking him off his feet.

“Drew!” you screamed before whipping around the wall, shooting with deadly precision. There was only one man still standing—Drew must’ve got one before going down—and you shot him quickly. Then you dropped to your knees by Drew’s rasping form. You ripped off your jacket, pressing it to the bloody wound.

“Stay with me Drew, do you hear me? You have a fiancée to go home to,” you ordered, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. “Call a bus!” you yelled at the officer, who was staring in shock.

Drew reached up, grabbing your wrist. “T-tell Steph I—I love her…please,” he gasped, voice weak.

“You’re going to tell her yourself when you see her, okay?” you said, trying to smile at him.

He shook his head. “Tell her…please. I-I—” Drew let out a death rattle before laying still.

“No! No! Live, damn you! You can’t die on me, Drew! W-we’re partners!” you screamed. But he was gone. Tears spilled down your cheeks as you leaned over him.

Time meant nothing as you knelt there. You had no idea when the ambulance arrived, nor when your Captain showed up. You’re not sure who moved you away from Drew’s lifeless body, and you didn’t notice how you ended up at the hospital. You were still covered in Drew’s blood as the nurses ran tests, making sure you were uninjured. Your Captain ordered you to take time off, and you didn’t hear him, didn’t argue. You blinked and you were home, sitting on your couch, a bottle of whiskey in front of you.

***************************

IAB had been delayed by your Captain, but eventually, you had to face them. You couldn’t recall what they asked, or what you answered. The first emotion you felt in days was fleeting anger; the body that you had been called to investigate was left as bait. The men who shot at you, who killed your partner and an officer, were part of a gang, attempting to become cop killers. It was all a ruse to kill whichever cops arrived on the scene. Drew, one of the nicest, most genuine people you’ve known, was killed for street cred. But your anger soon disappeared, just like everything else.

***************************

It had been a week since Drew died in your arms. You visited his fiancée—she had already been informed of her love’s death—but you had to see her, pass on his final words. You held her as she cried, but you had no tears left. You felt nothing; you were just a shell. You stopped eating, stopped showering, stopped drinking, even water. You stopped sleeping; you just passed out nowadays, at any and all times of the day, wherever you happened to be laying. Your Captain called you a few times, trying to get you into therapy, but you never left your apartment.

One night, there was a knock on your door. You moved on phantom feet, unlocking and pulling your door open. You felt a dull punch to the gut as Sonny stood on your doorstep.

“H-hey doll…. I heard about your partner, and I thought I’d check up on you,” he said softly.

You nodded, not even attempting to fake a smile. “I’m fine,” you said in a monotone voice, ready to close the door on him. But Sonny was quicker.

“No, you’re not.” And with that, he pushed into your home. “When was the last time you’ve eaten? Washed? Brushed your teeth? Anything?”

You had no answer for him, and he quickly went to your kitchen, pulling open your fridge. Normally, you’d follow him, but instead, you went and collapsed on your couch, your legs unable to hold you up anymore.

Sonny came out with a glass of water. “Drink that,” he ordered, then stood there until you did. “Most of your food has gone bad; I’m going to run to the store. While I’m gone, I want you to shower, okay?”

You didn’t nod, made no indication that you had heard him. He ran a hand through his hair, hating seeing you like this.

“Okay…if you can shower, please do. Otherwise, just at least…drink another glass of water, okay?” He took the glass from your hand, refilled it, then came back and handed it to you. “I’ll be right back.”

You were unsure for how long he was gone; you dimly heard him come back. Sonny went to your kitchen with full grocery bags, and soon, the sounds and smells of cooking emanated from within. He came out soon after—or maybe it was longer, who knows?—with a plate of food.

When he noticed the full glass of water in your hand still, he shook his head, then sat next to you. You didn’t fight him as he fed you small bites, nor as he raised the glass of water to your lips. You tasted nothing as you ate half the plate. Sonny was afraid to make you sick with too much food at once, so he put the rest back in the kitchen. Then, he pulled you to the bathroom. He undressed you, then himself, before guiding you into the shower. The hot water brought you partly to your senses, just enough to feel Sonny’s hands washing your hair and body.

“You may have to get your hair cut short—it’s pretty damaged from lack of care,” he muttered, trying to work the knots out with his fingers. You nodded gently, letting him care for you. Once done, he wrapped you in a towel, patting you dry. Then, he took your toothbrush and put paste on it before handing it to you, lifting your hand to your mouth.

“Brush,” he softly ordered, and you did.

After finishing up in the bathroom, Sonny tugged you to your room, where he dressed you in your pajamas. Then he pushed you down into the bed.

“Sleep, okay? I’ll stay here with you until you fall asleep,” he promised.

You laid on the pillow, and fresh tears came to your eyes. “He died in my arms,” you muttered.

Sonny’s expression softened. “I heard, doll. There was nothing more you could’ve done. Just rest now.”

As promised, he sat next to you until you drifted off, your hand in his.

*******************************

Sonny practically moved in with you after that, just until you could take care of yourself. He took you to a therapist, and a hair salon. He made you meals and made sure you drank water. At first, he would shower with you and made sure you brushed your teeth; those were the two things you started doing yourself the quickest. It took you a few weeks to break out of the shock-induced disassociation you were experiencing. Eventually, you started helping Sonny cook in your kitchen, and doing small chores around your apartment.

“Thank you, Sonny, for everything,” you said one night while you were eating dinner.

He smiled at you. “Of course, doll. I care about you.”

“I care about you, too. I—I should’ve called you earlier. I was just afraid that it was too soon.”

His smile faltered slightly. “I understand. I…it’s probably still too soon….”

“What do you mean?”

Sonny put his fork down, looking everywhere but at you. “Look, I’ve…I thought that enough time had passed, especially when I heard about your partner—” you flinched at the mention of Drew— “but when you opened the door and I saw how much it affected you, I realized that…I still love you, have always loved you. You were literally wasting away, and I couldn’t stand by and watch.”

You froze, not in shock at him, but at yourself. Because hearing the words out loud, you knew that you loved him, too.

“I’m sorry; you don’t need this right now. The last thing you need on your mind is—”

“I love you, too, Sonny. God, I love you so much,” you replied, throwing your arms around him, and leaning against his side.

He hesitated a moment before he wrapped an arm around your back. “Are ya sure? You’re going through some pretty traumatic stuff right now. Your emotions going a little haywire.”

“I’m sure. I-I was afraid to call you because I couldn’t handle seeing you. Because I never got over you.”

Sonny nodded. “I never got over you, either. Look, if you still want your space, I can live with that, as long as I don’t lose you again. I never want to lose you again.”

“I don’t want to lose you, either. I love you; I want to marry you one day. Let’s just…see how it goes, okay? I’ve learned a lot just in the year we’ve been apart—”

He cut you off with a kiss, his lips soft against yours. He felt so familiar, so much like home, and you realized how much you had really missed him. You kissed him back, holding him to you. He leaned his forehead against yours, lips brushing over yours.

“We’ll figure out the details later. Right now, I just want to get to know you again,” he breathed.

You nodded. “Please, yes. I want to remember you, Dominick.”

He pulled you closer, promising his whole self to you in a searing kiss.

[sassy-pelican]

Never Before

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader

Prompt: Eating Out (day 2)

Warnings: smut (duh), oral - fem receiving (what ever gave it away?), nastiness, some fluff. 

A/N: I have no shame people. None. Let’s also all ignore the state of things right now and assume that Sebastian can be filming something like this, and that he doesn’t have a girlfriend (all the happiness to them). Or you know, pretend that this happened prior to this shit year. No time is specified so it’s whatever. Basically porn with a little plot (but not much). This continues on Day 7. 

It wasn’t that you were nervous for the various sex scenes with none other than Sebastian Stan, a friend you found this industry a few years ago. No, you could disassociate yourself and get through them without feelings just fine, have done so before. It’s just that well, one of them was different.

That particular scene was steamier than most, more intimate than others you’ve filmed. With all the precautions it wouldn't be intimate while being filmed but it would be a different experience for you. He wouldn’t really be going down on you, that’s silly. But he would be the first man, person really, to have his head between your legs.

Sebastian had no idea of course. You weren’t about to disclose that information to him before he has his face pressed awkwardly against a fucking maxi pad. No, that would only do more harm than good. 

“You ready?” Sebastian asks, stepping up beside you on your way back to set. 

“Sure,” you reply, unconvincingly. 

“Oh come on,” he teases. “You’ve seen me naked more times than I care to admit by now. This isn’t going to be that bad. I’ll be almost fully clothed this time.”

“You ready for a face full of maxi pad?” you tease him, trying to deflect away from your nerves. 

“As I’ll ever be, well as long as it doesn’t get stuck to my face.” It pulls a laugh from you, a genuine one that puts the nerves to rest for a moment. 

“I’d pay good money to see that, Seb.”

“I’m sure you would.”

The second the set comes into view your heart starts beating out of your chest. For fucks sake, you’ve been practically naked pressed against him before. This isn’t that bad. At least you tried to convince yourself it wasn’t going to be as awkward as you’re making it. 

You’re ushered into your dressing room and put in the scarcely there underwear set before being shoved out and into the fray. Yet, even as you know that it’s part of the script, seeing Sebastian in everything but a shirt makes you feel underdressed, as in, not at all. 

“Nice lace,” he says, eyeing you appreciatively, something he didn’t do the other times. Of course, the other scenes were often tearing clothes off. 

“Nice pants.” The button and zipper of his jeans are undone and you are almost surprised they aren’t falling off his hips. 

“Places!” The director yells, everyone following the order, including you and Seb. 

Your back is on the bed, legs spread and he’s looking at you from between them, and if you knew it wasn’t acting, you’d say you could get used to it. 

“Action!”

His hands skim up your legs, leaving very real goosebumps in their wake. Lpis follow his hands, leading up to the apex of your thighs. You’re positive that if a pad weren’t in the way he could see you starting to get wet. Even the lights and microphones surrounding you aren’t dulling the ache. 

Sebastian’s nose grazes the front of the lace panties, and you bite back a moan. You may have filmed sex scenes with him before, but not like this. Fingers pull at the sides of your underwear, dragging them down your legs. Once again you’re thankful for the barrier between you and his face, however unromantic. 

He smirks, then lifts your legs over his shoulders and dives in, face pressing against the fabric of your covering, the light pressure enough that your clit feels it, even if only slightly. This time you do moan, hoping that it sounds real enough for the camera and not so real that Sebastian starts to realize what he’s doing. 

His hands move to your hips, gripping them tight as he starts to move them, indicating the wanton pleasure he’s giving you. If only he knew. You throw your hand over your head, clutching the pillow and let out another moan. 

It’s for the camera. It’s not real. At least that’s what you tell yourself as you fight to keep your hips from bucking for real. Every move of his head shifts his nose that’s just hairs width from your clit. 

“Perfect! That’s a wrap!” The director yells. Sebastian pulls himself from between your legs as you try to collect yourself. “We’ll review the take and get back to you tomorrow. Today’s been a long day for everyone, go home and get some rest.” You’re thankful that was the last take of the day. Any more time around him after that may have done you in. 

The fluffy robe pulled around you as you lounge in your hotel room feels nice compared to the high strung feeling over your nerves. You’ve had a man’s head between your legs now, and you want more. The mere preview of that it could be like wasn’t enough and you want more. You want the real thing, tongue and lips and everything. 

You sit up, all reason out the window and before you can tell yourself to back out, your slippers are on and you’re across the hall, knocking furiously on Sebastian’s door. “Dammit Seb, open the damn door!”

“What the hell?” he asks, hair looking still damp from a shower, the same fluffy robe wrapped around him as is wrapped around you. You push past him and sit on the edge of the bed, he shakes his head but closes the door. “What’s going on?”

“I want the real thing god dammit!”

“I’m not following,” he says, still standing by the door, confusion written all over his face. 

“Don’t make me say it,” you plead, but when he only stares at you you resign yourself to your fate. “You were the first.”

“Y/N,” he says. “We’ve never actually had sex. I can’t be your first.”

“Fuck! Not that!” you yell, hands flying to your hair. “You were the first person to have their head between my legs!”

“No one’s ever eaten you out?” he asks, completely stunned. 

“Fuck,” you sigh, sitting back down. “No. And the preview wasn’t enough you bastard.”

“Shit,” he says, his own hands going to run his fingers through his hair. “I would’ve backed off had I known.”

“I don’t want you to back off,” you say, shyly for the first time since entering his room.

“What?”

You swallow the lump in your throat. “I don’t want you to back off,” you say, looking him in the eyes. “I want the real thing.”

“Are you drunk?” Sebastian asks, eyeing you skeptically. 

“Dammit, no!” you say. “Can’t I do this when I’m in my right mind?”

He stares at you, blues eyes boring your soul. “You’re sure? One-hundred percent sure?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian wastes no time, before your next breath he’s holding you by the cheeks and kissing the hell out of you, tongue already asking for entrance. You gladly give it to him, hands now clutching at his shoulders. 

In seconds he has you on your back, hovering over you, tongue still exploring the expanse of your mouth. You have no shame admitting that you’ve never been kissed so thoroughly and don’t know if you’ll ever be satisfied with any other kiss again. 

Fingers play with ties of your robe, slowly, torturously slow, push the sides, exposing you to his gaze. Normally being looked at like Sebastian is looking at you makes you cringe in embarrassment but this time, it fills you with pride. This god-like man is staring at you with such hunger and lust that you can feel it in your soul. 

His lips trial down your neck; tongue licking circles around your nipples before continuing lower. He’s already got you panting and you’re still in your underwear. You can feel his breath tease your clit, his nose barely bumping it as he places a gentle kiss over the fabric. 

You’re lifting your hips, allowing him to pull the offending fabric off. If your mind wasn’t so muddled you might have been able to tell what he cursed but as it was all you knew was that he was holding your legs apart before diving in. 

The contact of his lips on your cunt sends a  jolt of pleasure through you and he moans as he tries to hold your hips down. Never before have you been as thankful as you are now for his long tongue. Sebastian’s tongue prods at your entrance, tracing the sensitive flesh, before licking up to your clit and flicking. 

Your eyes roll in the back of your head as he sucks, hard, and it has you seeing stars. You’ve imagined the sensation sure, but you never thought it’d feel like this. Either you are extremely sensitive, or Sebastian is a master at eating pussy. 

“You taste so good,” he groans, holding your lips apart before he sucks once more on your clit. 

You let out a hoarse moan, arching your back off the bed as he holds your hips. Sweat is dripping in between your breasts but you don’t care, not when his mouth is doing wonders on you, not when Sebastian has you experiencing things you never thought possible. 

He moves down slightly, pushing his tongue fully inside you, the muscle reaches depths you thought impossible for a tongue, as his thumb rubs at your sensitive nub. 

“Fuck,” you moan, grabbing his hair and pulling. Sebastian’s groan of pleasure reverberates through your cunt, and you have to bite your lip to hold back another. 

“Let me hear you,” he whispers, coming up for air. You smirk. He wants you loud, you can be loud. “Let me feel you.”

Your fingers fist his hair, and tug harshly and you watch as his eyes roll, mouth opening in a silent moan. “Fuck me with you tongue.”

Without wasting a moment he obliges. You get more than you bargained for. Instead of just the thick muscle of his tongue, which you now doubt you can live without, he adds a finger. The sinful combination has the coil that has been building in your stomach tighten. 

“Shit!” you yell, throwing your head back and pushing him further into you. “Feels so good.”

You can feel him smile against you, still tongue fuckig you while his finger moves down and circles yoru back entrance. He feels you tense and retreats, not without a smirk. 

His hands move back to your thighs, pulling them apart and holding them there with strength you certainly couldn’t fight with the state you're in. 

A harsh suck against your clit and you scream. “Oh fuck! Seb!”

You feel yourself gushing against his face, and you can’t bring yourself to care. Your hips move of their own accord, riding his face through your orgasm, his nose bumping your clit with each pass. 

Sebastian finally pulls himself away, smirking. “Everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”

You smile wickedly. Just because you’ve just had the best orgasm of your life doesn’t mean you can give him the upper hand. “I don’t know, I might need one more experience, just for research purposes.”

“I think I can do that,” he says, crawling back up your body, tongue tasting of yourself pushing into your mouth. 

You push your hips up against his, flipping him onto his back. “Not before I return the favor.”

[overwatch-does-stuff]

A Summary On Chronal Disassociation and Gravitic Fluxes

Password Accepted

WINSTON’S NOTES- DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU ARE WINSTON!

Athena suggested that I try to write out my line of thinking in simpler language, as to get the basics down before I get into the “nitty-gritty” of the matter. It reminded me of something that Dr. Winston said to one of his co-workers back on Horizon, something along the lines of “if you can’t explain it to a five year-old, you don’t understand what you’re talking about”. Wise advice indeed! While I don’t have any five year-olds around, and anyone I would show this to certainly wouldn’t be five, haha, I figured it was worth a shot just to get my ideas straight.

So, where to start?

Let’s start with Lena. It’s always good to start with what one knows rather than what one doesn’t. Anyway.

Lena has acute chronal disassociation. Chronal disassociation is a condition where the particles that make up the body spontaneously detach themselves from their current time and place and reappear in a different time and place. To the extent of Lena and I’s observations, this does not include inter-dimensional or alter-dimensional travel. Even if there were such things as alternate timelines, her disassociation through space and time would not create them due to the transient nature of her travel, but that’s getting beside the point.

My chronal accelerator design (it’s not really an accelerator, per say, more of a harness, but the name seemed to stick) keeps Lena in this current timeline by. . . hmm, keeping it simple simple. . .  kind of in a way that a quantum computer works. (No, that’s not simple! Think, think. . .) Quantum computers work by having infinite states of existence, which the computer infrastructure is able to control what state is active at which time. The chronal accelerator uses very much the same principle- it essentially “tells” Lena’s particles where to exist and in what state.

Now, that status is programmable, allowing Lena to alter her state at will (within certain safety parameters, of course!). With the aid of the accelerator, she can manipulate when her particles exist (such as restoring herself to a younger and undamaged time) and where her particles exist (such as moving herself on the X and Y axes, although it must be someplace she could reasonably get to using her own two feet. She cannot fly, for example.)

Now. . . here’s where things get. . . interesting. Lena, I hope you’re not reading this without me.

Chronal Disassociation is transferable. Not contagious! Lena is not dangerous to herself or anyone around her, even without the accelerator! But it is transferable. She does have the ability, with familiarity and practice, to disassociate other particles and reassemble them in another location. This idea is obvious to anyone who thinks to ask the question of why her clothing and weapons travel with her whenever she blinks or recalls. In the early days, in fact, we ran several experiments with the accelerator to make sure that she wouldn’t teleport the oxygen molecules out of her lungs, since the air she breathed wasn’t the same air that was involved with the Slipstream incident. I was genuinely concerned that she might suffocate should she ever try to blink!

I digress. The fact of the matter is, Lena can control the timeline of particles around her. Not just her own bodily particles, but the particles around her. While she herself is hesitant to acknowledge it, her condition isn’t just a condition- it’s a power.

Which leads me to the next, far less pleasant topic, and the real reason why I’m typing all this out.

Dr. Siebren de Kuiper underwent an unknown procedure of events and has now arrived under my study with the power to control gravity. To make matters worse, in between that unknown event and now, Talon got to him first and already constructed a kind of “harness” for him. A “harness” that’s highly invasive and shoddily built compared to my inventions (and that’s saying something, my chronal accelerator notwithstanding!) I’ve been working night and day not only to understand the basics of how his power works, but also how that harness is supposed to function in relation to that.

What I’ve got so far is pretty crude. I think Dr. de Kuiper has some kind of control over quantum gravitons, aka the particles that transmit the force we all know as gravity. The more gravitons he creates or gathers on an object, the more gravity exerted. Similarly, he has the ability to destroy or scatter Earth’s normal gravitons, which reduces the amount of gravity exerted on an object. On the large scale, it functions almost as a kind of basic telekinesis from a superhero movie.

If that theory is correct, de Kuiper must have an astounding amount of control. We’re talking septillions, octillions, maybe even nonillions or decillions (stupid huge numbers, forgot to keep it simple) of individual graviton particles that he’s manipulating here. The crude “harness” that Talon strapped into him (I mean literally INTO him, into his brain) must help him with that in some regard. Whether the technology controls the particles for him or if it simply helps him “feel” or “visualize” them better, I have no idea.

According to de Kuiper himself, aboard the ISS, he experienced what he called a “singularity”. Now, his language was very. . . flowery and unscientific, but given the subject matter he’s trying to describe I don’t blame him. Most disturbingly, however, it matches Lena’s description of the Slipstream incident almost perfectly. Lena (the much more reliable narrator of the two,) described the sensation as being “everywhere at once, “not knowing which way was up or down”, and “feeling incredibly old yet only lasting a few seconds”.

Lena doesn’t talk about the Slipstream accident. I highly, highly doubt she said anything about it to de Kuiper before he recounted his story for me. While his testimony is dubious, the events he described were too close to hers for me to dismiss them as coincidental storytelling.

As a result of this seemingly identical incident, he now has control over his own particles and the particles around him.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though! Lena’s powers and de Kuiper’s powers are two fundamentally different things. De Kuiper exhibits no control over any other subatomic particle, only the gravitons, which is an important distinction. Lena’s power is indiscriminate- the reason she can’t “fly” like he can is that she takes the gravitons in her body with her when she teleports and can’t separate them out. She certainly doesn’t have individual molecular control, whereas de Kuiper might, but only for gravitons as I mentioned. And then there’s his “melody”, which he claims is related to the fluctuations of his power, but that’s likely just to be how his psyche deals with the associated trauma. I mean, Lena isn’t crazy enough to report hearing music.

But. . . it is important to remember that time and gravity are related quantities. I haven’t been able to tell de Kuiper’s physical age in the very same way that it’s impossible to tell Lena’s based on DNA testing. It’s common knowledge that the greater the gravitational field, the slower time passes within that field. I suspect that de Kuiper is physically younger than the amount of time that has passed since his supposed death.

Does this mean that de Kuiper could have control over time? Does this mean that Lena could be unwittingly manipulating gravity? I have my doubts. There’s a lot of caveats with this “theory” that are only visible when talking about the more complex science. 

Regardless, I’ve cautioned Lena over and over again not to let de Kuiper use his powers on her, just in case. Even if their powers aren’t connected, I don’t want to discover any sort of strange reaction that could cause Lena to disassociate for good. I just hope she listens. 

Alright. Let’s get back to work now on the real science of it. I’m not sure how useful this exercise really was, but I suppose I can use it as a quick reference or something.

User Logged Off

[thesweetestkimberry]

it’s you

pairings: hanta sero x reader

summary: a panic attack is never a fun thing, but luckily, you have your boyfriend to help you through it.

warnings: READER HAVING A PANIC ATTACK, cursing, OOC characters, also contains a dash of latin sero

notes: this was inspired after i had a panic attack of my own, unfortunately i did not have a sero to pull me out of it, so here’s this piece to hopefully help those of you who need someone, even if they are fictional. also in some places i wrote it a bit more personal than most, i hope you all don’t mind

『° 。✰˚⋆☾⋆。✰°』

numb

that’s all you felt

body no longer felt like your own and your breathing uneven

you cried

we’re you crying? you couldn’t feel the tears running down your cheeks. you tried to move but you felt as though you were trapped inside your own head, the attempt to claw your way out seeming impossible.

you didn’t notice your phone constantly lighting up with notifications and missed calls, your chest tightening, further disrupting your ability to breathe properly.

you wanted to scream, but no sound came out, you wanted to cry out and call for help, but the voice in your head told you no.

you felt like you were suffocating.

then you heard heavy footsteps, shouting, rapid knocking, and eventually the muffled sounds of someone approaching you could be heard.

“(y/n)?...”

sero was in the common room with some other classmates, some hanging out, other eating or studying. he and kaminari were playing a game on their phones when momo and iida shared the idea of ordering pizza.

“aw yeah, pizza!” his friend cheered, bakugou threatening him to keep the voice down. sero looked up when iida walked up to him, hand chopping the air as usual,

“sero! please inform (y/n) that we’ll be ordering pizza, you should ask her what kind she’d prefer as well.” the red eyed boy said, brows furrowed behind his lenses as your boyfriend shot him some thumbs up, “you got it boss.”

“speaking of (y/n), where is she?” mina asked from her spot in the couch, upside down as she scrolled through her phone,

“she’s in her room, said she had some work to do.” he says looking down at his phone, hitting your contact and smiling at the name,

[✨ Mi Amor ✨]

he quickly shot you a text asking you what you’d like on your pizza, setting it down for a moment and looking back at your friend who’s brows were furrowed, “(y/n) never does work.” she says as bakugou arches a brow, “you could stand to be a little nicer.” he says as she chuckles, “shut up you know it’s true.” she finished with a sigh.

“if she says she’s doing work, that usually means she doesn’t want to be disturbed because she’s feeling out of it.” mina explains, sero looking up at her in question, “she doesn’t do it often, but lately she’s been pretty down.”

kaminari also looks at your friend, “how come just yesterday she was looking like she was having the time of her life?” he asks genuinely confused, “you dumbass spark plug, just because someone looks happy doesn’t mean they are.” bakugou shouts at him, remembering all you’d vented to him.

“she always says she feels like a bother, although she never is. she doesn’t want anyone to “waste their time on her”.” she says, accentuating your words with air quotations.

while they discussed you, sero continued to message and calls, noticing that you still hadn’t responded. he had zoned out of the conversation, so focused on you, until what mina said next made him shoot up and dart to the elevator up to your room.

“it’s times like those when she gets these really bad panic attacks-“

he couldn’t hear his own pounding footsteps as he exited the elevator and made a mad dash to your room.

finally getting to your door, he rapidly knocked, his concern only growing more when you didn’t answer, “i’m coming in!” he warned, turning the knob and entering your room.

“babe?” he called out, however getting no response. it wasn’t until he saw something by the bed, seemingly balled up under a sheet.

“(y/n)?...” he said gently, crouching down on his knees to uncover you, only for his breath to hitch when he took a look at the state you were in.

having familiarized himself with the symptoms, he knew you were having a panic attack. he pulls your hands away from where they were digging into your arms, creating deep crescent shapes, one or two of them beginning to bleed.

he thought about ways to ground you, coming to a conclusion that he had to go with a method aizawa had actually taught him.

“hey, baby, i’m here. all you need to do is listen to my voice and try to answer okay?” he tried gently, lowering his head to try and get a better look at your face, only for his heart to clench at your disassociated eyes, a sense of brokenness and anguish hidden behind your eyes. the ones that looked so bright on a good day, the ones that sero fell in love with.

after getting no response, he still decided to begin the grounding anyway, “babe, give me five things you can see.”

at first you gave no reaction, worrying him a bit. he stared at you as he bit the inside of his cheek, nerves getting to him however there was no helping you unless he could keep his own fears and anxieties at bay.

he repeated his instructions and let go of one of your hands to pet your head, gently running his hand over it in a comforting way. as he did this, he took notice of the knotted, oily feeling of your hair. he felt saddened by this, knowing right away that you’ve been suffering in silence and not taking care of yourself.

he was about to repeat his instructions for the third time until he felt your hand lightly squeeze his,

“y-you...” was her first answer, sero immediately letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “good job baby, four more.” he encouraged, sitting in front of her and running his thumbs over her hands, the feeling becoming apparent for you as you slowly regained control over your body.

“..the lights..” the fairy lights he’d bought you when you mentioned how you missed the ones back home.

“the pictures.” the photos on your wall, a collection of both from home and from UA.

“a book.” coincidently, the book had been one that sero had bought you for your birthday one year.

“my hands.” were the last thing you said, the hands that sero held so gently in his, almost as if you were made out of the finest china and he was worried he’d break you.

even though you’d succeeded in completing the first part, you still felt trapped. sero noticed this as well and continued, this time, more determined to help you.

“great job baby, now give me four things you can feel.” he said scooting closer, trying to hear if your breathing had returned to normal, however hearing it continue to be uneven and jagged.

“yo-you...” your voice caught, sero still getting your answer loud and clear. the fact that you had the same answer didn’t go unnoticed by him, but as long as you were responding, that was enough.

“the carpet..” he noticed you wiggling your toes, socks still on, and rubbing against the fluffy carpet beneath you, lightly stained with various foods and other substances, each however a memory.

“my hair..” you said, head dropping slightly as your curls brushed against your face, ticking your skin.

“warmth.” you finished, body twitching slightly and feeling the warm interior of the hoodie you were wearing, sero taking notice that it was his.

“you’re going an amazing job (y/n), now give me three things you can hear.” he encouraged again, gently lifting your chin and resting his forehead against yours. your breathing had returned to normal but you still sat rigid and tense.

“you.” you whispered making sero arch a brow but continued to stay silent. you’d also fallen silent, and if he could imagine little ears atop of your head, he’d imagine that they were twitching in search of sound.

“my-my music.” the fact that you’d given him your second answer almost immediately after the first made him grin. you were right, your music played softly in your room, the feeling of the melody encasing you both, bringing you out little by little.

“our friends..” you said with a shaky voice, noticing your eyes welled up with tears again. sero smiled sadly at you and pressed a gentle kiss to your temple, “we’re almost done, you can do this, i’m so proud of you.”

“two things you can smell.” he instructed, chuckling a bit at how you sniffed the air, even if snot was running out. not seeing a towel or napkin around, he pulled his sleeve over his hand and cleaned you up a bit, smiling once he heard you sniff again and your nose was clear.

“you.”

“do i smell bad?” he joked, knowing you were slowly coming back out, figuring if he made a joke it would help pull you out. you exhaled from your nose and shook your head slightly.

“well that’s good. what’s next cariño?” he urged, tucking a strand of hair out of your face and behind your head, revealing more of your face to him.

“..pizza?...” he sat back slightly and sniffed the air as well, lightly laughing at the fact that the air actually did smell like pizza,

“one more, give me one more baby.” he said cupping your face and lifting it up to meet his eyes. “one thing you can taste.”

your knees finally relaxed and stretched out, arms no longer tense as they ran up his neck to his face. you didn’t answer immediately, only pulling him in to meet your lips, his hands flying to your neck where his thumbs ran over your cheeks,

“you.” your voice was now more certain, even if there was a shaky exhale after it. you pulled away and looked into his eyes, his clean sleeve coming up to wipe your tears away while you both let out light laughter.

“thank you.”

“you don’t need to thank me, love.”

“i love you.” “i love you too”

he stood up and offered you his hand, letting you take it and pulling you up off of the ground. with a groan at how sore your muscles were, he chuckled and kissed your cheek,

“how about you go take a shower and i’ll be back with some pizza?” he asks unsure if you were okay to be left alone just yet, however his nerves were put to rest as you offered a small smile and a nod, “sounds great babe.”

sero watched you make your way into the bathroom, not leaving until he heard the water to the shower start.

turning and making his way out of your room and back to the common room, he let out a heavy sigh when he entered the elevator, hand running over his face as he groaned.

he was so scared for you.

the look in your eyes, the way your body trembled, your choked sobs and broke look left a sour taste in his mouth. once the door dinged and opened, the scent of pizza wafted into the compartment he was in, walking into the living room with eyes falling on him.

“is she okay?” momo asked him as he nodded with a soft smile, “yeah she’s good now. just came down to get some pizza for us.” he explains gesturing to the mountains of pizza boxes.

“we got you and (y/n) a half and half! half with your toppings and half for her.” she said opening a box and revealing both of your favorite pizza toppings. “wow! this is great, thank you!” he says appreciatively while kaminari slides up next to him.

“you were gone for a while, you get some lovin’?” he teases his friend, elbowing his side, only to get gently shoved away with a chuckle, “it’s not like that man, we’re just gonna hang out in her room, watch movies, kick it,” sero explained as kaminari laughed and patted his shoulder, “go for it dude.”

entering your room again, sero saw you sitting on your bed, criss cross applesauce while you dried your hair. sero laughed at your childish position and set the pizza down.

noticing something, he was about to ask, only for you to beat him to it, “would it be alright if i borrowed your sweater? it smells like you.” you ask as you last the towel down, finally standing and walking over to him. “of course babe.” he says placing his hands on your shoulders, then moving to fluff your hair, the slightly damp strands sticking to your face,

“your hair is really soft after you wash it.” he says ruffling your hair making you giggle at the attention, his hand went back to their spot on your neck, holding you in his hands as if you were everything, his everything, and that was exactly what you were.

he let you go and went over to your bed, pulling the blanket you usually kept on top aside and sitting down, reaching over to grab the pizza. he set it down beside him and opened the blanket, patting the empty space next to him for you to hop in.

you curled into his side and let out a laugh at the sudden burst of happiness you received, “if you steal the blankets i’m going to put my cold feet on you.” he says making you squeal at the feeling of his cold feet against your leg.

he pulled your laptop into the space between you two and handed you a slice of your pizza, quickly finding a movie to watch and pulling you into his side with an arm around you.

with a sigh of content and a small smile gracing your lips, you leaned your head on sero’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.

his free hand found yours and interlaced his fingers with yours,

“i love you.”

“i love you too.”

[incarnateirony]

The thing that’s hardest for me to understand is the terminology you use, maybe it’s because I didn’t follow everything and missed details, but references to names, rituals, events and the mystical way of explaining the steps almost non-linearly made it everything difficult. It would be a lot, but if you could explain at least the most important parts step-by-step, with clear terms and explaining it chronologically and all the terminology before getting really into it, would be nice.

"Almost nonlinearly" is a funny observation, as ultimately the trick I am using is something modern science addresses as Nonlinear Retroactive Consciousness, a theory by nobel prize winning Penrose and man, trust, I survived a shooting in only one waveform of it, I understand this and now naturally live it in a way people can't understand.

So let me shorthand the idea: Pretend thinking works faster than we grok in a sense it literally comes from the future; usually in milleseconds, but there are ~theories of longer bootstraps; unchosen forms collapse and main observed timeline is chosen. Into the universe we know. But events sometimes casually called Quantum Immortality happen where someone basically Memento Mori sees how they die Final Destination, but avoid it.

The ideas are these moments, for example, are Retroactive Consciousness in the immediate, but on a grander and near ~divine scale it reaches beyond our understanding of what kind of directive can sustain without collapse, like running multiple game files. We already know the human brain saves three slightly different copies of the same memory for example. So that. And one day you walk into the memory version of your appartment that is missing a particular plug in the wall and uh, huh? I guess it was always like that I'm. Fuckin. Trippin.

It's kinda like you feel like you're in a dream or derealized for a second. You look around. What the fuck? On god i had a light plug in the wall. right fucking here. I've lived here for two years. And it's fucking gone. Am I losing my mind bob? Nobody came in my place Ted? What the genuine fuck is there a reason we would all hallucinate me having a light plug right fucking here?

Those moments. The.. glitch in the matrix ones that make you feel totally insane but if you are, so is everyone you know. Consider that weird effect from this kind of casual observation, importance, choices, whatever, determination? in the jelly?

That is the best way to summarize that.

But what if the universe, and us observing it, and it reacting, was as if god was having one giant DID/schizophrenic psych break into self-creating infinity after he went "HUH?" in conflicted un-nothing, basicaly?

Open Jung volume 9, you will find a plot similar to the end of Supernatural, and yet he fathered psych; but we are barely allowed to whisper of him, and rightfully many of his students went mad. Looking at my blog early this year, as I did what I did, in magnitude I did, I can only credit myself for being able to not only recover, but see past my local grudges into what called me so.

Pretend... like generations are like hands of god growing from its lessons or failures, sometimes weighted one way or another for generations.

There is power in the word kind like in the start of the bible, or any hermetic work, which was a lot of my early weaving; I mostly disassociated self from a rightful voidwalker state I had, I screamed, I checked tags like pinned topics to find where my own voice raised, like fingers in the modern generation. If I called as hermes arm then I was finding my fingers each and every one and learning how to talk with each of them.

When in early January you thought (and were half correct) I lost my mind going "STFU I DONT CARE ABOUT SPN RN I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TIMELINE IM IN" this was legitimate; the idea is, summarily, like retroactive, fractal, moon phase based shattering of consciousness attributers to update in the fragmented messages I was getting, both densely during the event but littered in weird arrays years before. This is how retroactivity works, especially when approaching source.

All the spiral charts we talked about. I am, I confess, dangerously close to where the funnel gets very narrow, children. I am paying a price for what I dabbled in, but will make sure it becomes something greater yet still even after, but I just---it is one of many pieces and parts and fandoms I have raised between the cracks one way or another, for decades.

I really like it here.

I have seen a version I can be old and gray. I already paid my price, in weird reverse, and now spraying over political fields.

I do not know what else to say. My ex used to be Athena or Freyja in closest aspect, lost her mind after I left due to her own insanity over Lemons that would need its own backstory; made a cult to my old ideas without realizing it, refused to stop or take it down, antagonized it during critical times; she clawed herself bald; she tried to bring it to court and failed; just every self defeating failure while falling thousands in therapy refusing to look at the truth of why she can't let me go and who is on her altar, even when I told her, just stop this.

It made a catastrophic blowout of... i dunno. tv show proportions of the stars just right, and her stupidity just right, my years of study and escaping the system just right, all the global events just right to set it off over a decade after the last time she did this (and I clearly forgave her between)

It's all thus been about restoring divine feminine imbalances going on, hence my so called queen systems, what I post from "VA", the Great Goddess who works with me as her peer at a goddamn illuminati confirmed level, and so on.

Each and all of these parts demand their own understanding of how things were confirmed or happened or got us here, all I can say is:

QAnon is a giant psyop among psyops, partner to one done on silicon valley about AI, mixing mech and mysticism into the things like Claudebot my old game material infested, or whatever, the great game, xorvintaal, digital zarathustra, fucking whatever. But Qanon had been fucking with dark tree forces, azazel, others were involved, fucking. mess. if you want more details can also review this chapter, literally azazel got into it with me from a former placid near botlike Qanon account, whatever.

Their entire messaging comes from Q, source, the idea all the gospels came from the same source, reduced to ideas like Q vs K, Qaballah, Qadistu, those spellings etc, they just got it all fucked up.

"VA" is literally "Q" in that sense, but is not QAnon, and is helping me Boil The 4Chan Pepe Frogs on a cosmic level while we fight back to shuffle the deck, replace biden, and try to have the eagle lift the woman from the desert this fine revelations.

DRASTIC SUMMARIES YET SIMPLE TRUTHS.

Highlight what you want to "huh naw you don't mean that?" if you want. Ask for expansions of whatever parts. Truly, again, ask a man to explain his lifetime coming to a point.

Try "Why does Aaron have the godfather of blue hair and pronouns the corporate barnburner the video game avatar" let's start there.

[entitycradle]

A Tree Without Wind

Content warnings: mention of, discussion of, threats of, and plans to commit suicide. Panic attacks, disassociation, and paranoia are described, sometimes in detail. An eating disorder is alluded to. Characters are horny for each other but there’s nothing sexually explicit.

I promise the ending is hopeful. I genuinely am not trying to trick you, I know what this sort of thing is like, I want to respect your capacity while still being truthful to the experience and allowing tension in the story. If you’re in the right place for it, click that button.

A TREE WITHOUT WIND

I was nine years old the first time Phoenix told me he was going to kill himself. Is that too brutal? Sorry. It's where this starts. We were outside, in the morning before it got too hot, kicking around a ball in the scrubby grass. We used the long shadow of the I34Q tower to make the rules--you can't use your hands if you're in the sun, that sorta thing. It was fun because the boundaries of the shadow were always moving with the shape of the tower, and because the tower was a little scary. Phoenix lost a game and just said it, frustrated, "I'm gonna kill myself." I laughed.

When I was that age I loved looking at the shadow of the tower, because it made so much more sense than the real thing. You'd look at the dark, fuzzy stain on the ground and you could imagine it was some sort of antenna, or house, or marker. But then you'd look at the structure itself and your eyes would glaze over trying to figure it out. Unevenly rotating, stacked polyhedral structures, dark gray but covered with a rainbow film like an oil slick. Irregular pieces would be transferred between different sections with no apparent pattern. It smelled like someone you'd never met. The tower was doing something but no one was ever clear on what. That's how it is with I34Q stuff, I think.

I'm stalling. It was some stupid shit, he must've picked it up from some awful caster or something. As a kid Phoenix liked that sorta thing. He'd watch videos of mean people cursing and laughing and he'd laugh with them. I preferred my cartoons, or the I34Q casts, as weird as they were. Later I repeated what he said when I found out my dad was making squash for dinner, "I'm gonna kill myself," and my mom told me off pretty hard. Kept me from saying it again, at least in school and at home. Phoenix kept at it though.

- = -

Phoenix and I got put in the same dormitory when we went to T-school. Do they call it T-school in other places? It's the thing where 4Q tanks (as in I34Q) come and take a bunch of eleven-year-old kids to stay at "training" facilities. No one I've asked knows what T-school is actually for, same as the towers, same as all the 4Q stuff like I said before. An organic shape attached to the ground heads a classroom, gibbering except for the occasional english sentence (Phoenix said he also recognized some Cantonese). Mrs. Lough, who apparently also lives in the facility, tries to teach "formalist english," which is like english but the rules contradict themselves. You take notes on the behavior of a tank filled with inky fluid for four hours a week. One day a three-legged machine packs up your stuff and shepherds you to the gate.

I was ejected a year and a half after Phoenix. I went home on the bus and met him at burger king that afternoon. I caught a glimpse of him from outside. His hair was in long, tight braids. I felt self-conscious about the uncontrollable smile growing on my face. "Aco!" he said through a grin as I opened the glass door. A green poster advertised a meal made from "water beads," an I34Q plant thing.

"Dang," I said, grinning as I sat down. "Dang."

"You make it out? Fuck you to 4Q?" He'd stopped eating to greet me. His grin looked as uncontrollable as mine. Phoenix's nose was wide and flat, also like mine.

"Fork you, 4Q." I still felt nervous about cursing. I was fourteen. "How ya doing, Phoenix?"

"I'm good, I'm good. High school is interesting."

"Oh, man..."

"It's actually like, fucking nice to understand what's happening. But now there are actual smart kids and you actually get punished when you, y'know, mouth off. I'm like, I gotta get around to--" He swiped with his hand, bent his neck, and made a cracking sound with his mouth. I laughed. "Don't worry, I'll show you around. Maybe we'll have a class together."

- = -

We did have a class together. High school with Phoenix was fun, because I got to have a proper crush on him. Pining, sexuality, youthful obsession, yards and yards of it. It was weird, we kinda drifted--Phoenix hung out with kids that I was afraid of, I hung out with kids who played too many videogames. As our familiarity waned, I started seeing him differently. A foreign, adult desire began to penetrate me, replacing childish affection. It took me a while to realize that's what was happening.

It was a shame our familiarity waned, though, because Phoenix was really struggling, and I didn't see it. His friends were mean, when they weren't outright abusive. Not a lot of people liked him. I learned later that he started hurting himself when he was sixteen. Little cigarette burns, and then cuts. He got put on meds at seventeen--the wrong meds, for a year. He went to a psych ward when he was nineteen. His family did not have the money to pay for an extended stay. I still don't know exactly how that worked out. I do know he went into debt after his second stay two years later.

I wasn't doing too well myself, after I hit twenty-two. Something in me broke I guess. So when Phoenix told me he was going to travel to the Santitos digger and throw himself off a cliff, it didn't take me very long to ask if I could go with him.

- = -

"I... I didn't..." He paused for a long time. Ten seconds of silence feels unbearably long in a conversation, and I was quiet for fifteen. My teeth held each other tightly as his thoughts whirled. "I didn't..." He looked me in the eyes. There was an intensity to both our gazes. He'd stuck his jaw out, just a little. "I guess I did. I was, kinda, hoping you'd say that."

"Fuck," I said, looking away and down. "Fuck." I put a hand over my eyes, gripping my face as tears came.

"I'm gonna die," he said, beginning to smile and looking up. I felt the discomfort I'd felt since we were nine.

"Yeah, I wanna go, I wanna go," I said, pulling my hand away midway through and looking back at him with a force I didn't recognize.

He looked back at me and said, "I'm gonna die, and you're gonna die with me."

- = -

The Santitos digger is in northern California, in the Redwood national park. People have figured out the basic idea of what the digger is doing, unlike the towers or the T-schools: the digger is making a big hole. I'd heard that in some places it had dug more than a mile, almost straight down. Don't ask me how the digger would've done that. Don't ask me why it's called Santitos, either, since it's pretty big and not very saintly. Maybe it was the name of a town. Getting to the digger from Prince George County was about fifty hours.

"I figure we could do it in three days if we really fuck-you-pushed-it. But I'm planning on five." I craned my neck to look at Phoenix's cracked phone screen, where he'd pulled up the route.

Gas is expensive because 4Q takes most of it. Basically no one flies. Even in Phoenix's hybrid, it would be a thousand dollars to get to the west coast. But it's not like we'd need the money afterwards.

"We'll eat along the way," he continued. I bit my thumbnail. "I'm not picky, we'll just stop at wherever they won't run us out of town."

We'd sleep in the car. It was April, so temperature wouldn't be a concern. I packed a change of clothes, a water bottle, my meds, and a box cutter I'd stolen from my last job.

The next morning, he pulled his blue, dented '38 prius in front of my apartment building. I saw the car arrive out the window. There was an anxious pit in my stomach that deepened when I opened my front door. I didn't want anyone to see me. This is it, I thought, this is it, this is it. I repeated that phrase down the stairs. My landlord could fucking charge rent to my corpse, I could give a shit. This is it, I thought. That final T stretched to enrobe me. The sky was gray and wet. The sensation wasn't enough to rip me from my inwards reverie. I was about to get in the back of the car when Phoenix spoke. "That ain't it."

He was leaning out the window, regarding me coolly. "Morning. Shall we go?" I walked around the car and got in the front seat.

- = -

Virginia is beautiful once you get into the mountains, forested and rolling. I told Phoenix, "Once I read the Appalachians are millions of years old, and used to be taller than the Himalayas."

"No shit. Was there like an Everest? Where's the old Everest?"

"I don't know, I never heard anything about that. But yeah the continental plates looked totally different. And then things changed and the rain and wind and plants broke them down."

"Hah. Fucking awful. Just being broken down like that. I mean, it's better than what 4Q did to Everest."

I was quiet for a moment. "That's... the worst thing they did, right?"

"I dunno, dude, I think taking kids from their families is worse."

"No, right, right. But like... Everest was like... like everyone knew about Everest. When I was really little I had this big book about mountains and I read the bit on Everest so many times. And now it's like... they made it about them. And people lived in the Himalayas before 4Q came! It forced everyone out and carved a bunch of nonsense into it. A forever reminder that we're below them."

"Hah, literally. Hmmm. I still wouldn't say worst, but, I get what you mean. I'm so numb to it. It's good some people still care." Phoenix shrugged. "I mean I dunno. It doesn't matter much to me, at this point. But from an outside perspective it's good."

That first evening was alright. I drove Phoenix into a beautiful sunset. You hear the phrase "rode off into the sunset" and you think, what a nice ending, but it's not really an ending. If you're the cowboy you keep riding, and eventually the sky darkens and you have to set up camp and eat and sleep and wake up the next morning and eat and go riding again. A feeling of dread and desperation fills me when I think of surviving alone like that. Maybe I'd get used to it. The trip to Santitos was an attempt to write a story with a proper ending.

We didn't stop until we crossed into Illinois. We parked on the shoulder of a country road. I used the light in the car to look at the atlas we'd bought for when we didn't have cell service, and laughed. "We've been in five states today. Pretty good. Keep it up and we'll have visited every state by June."

"What the--?" Phoenix snorted, laughing. "You mean if we visit five states a day. Asshole."

I always giggled when he snorted and called me an asshole. "Hey, I'm just saying."

"Fucking dumb. Doesn't even work. You'd have to wake up in a different state than you fell asleep in." He caught my eye. The smile felt intimate, mutual. Born of sleepy exhaustion from a shared journey. I looked at the divot between his nose and upper lip.

I realized something. "Shit, I forgot to bring a blanket."

"Poor baby. You cold?"

"Hmm. I guess not really."

"Oh, you know what I do have..." He leaned towards me and reached toward the back seat. I watched his shirt stretch over his chest. Phoenix retrieved a big gray sweater. "Feel free to stretch it out."

My fingertips touched the back of his hands as I took the bundle. I did that on purpose. His skin was warmer than I expected, as skin always is. We tipped our seats back. Not the most comfortable, though the sweater would help, hopefully. I checked out Phoenix to see him on his side, looking at me and smiling. I let my own smile relax into me as I watched his eyes. His irises were a rich, beautiful brown. His skin was the color of cardboard in your childhood memories. I loved the way his smile wasn't symmetrical, wider on one side than the other. I carefully resisted scanning my gaze down his body. I actually saw his eyes flick down my form, instantaneously. His eyelids half-lowered, and then, horribly, what seemed to be a great tide of sadness overtook him. I watched him hold it back. I watched his smile mix with growing grief and fear, then bow to neutrality. He covered his gaze with his eyelids, breathed in, breathed out. "All right," he whispered, then opened his eyes. The gaze was gone. "Time to sleep." He sat up and turned off the light.

The sweater had a very particular, subtle smell to it. I guess it was his smell. I was desperately horny, yet blasted to pieces. A heady mix.

"I think I could fall in love with you, if things were a little different." He broke the silence, fifteen minutes later. "I probably would. But I'd cling to you like a fucking baby. And you're here, right?" He paused. For a response? I didn't give him one in time. "That's what I mean, codependent hell. I'd only be alive for you, and you'd only be alive for me, and then the second anything goes wrong we'd be right back here except I'd, fucking, direct all my shittiness at you... and you'd blame yourself."

I was quiet. "Ain't... ain't being codependent better than dying?"

"Hah! But that's what I'm saying, it doesn't change anything, it just leads us back here."

I fumbled for something. "Yeah but if it could... like stave it off..."

"Why is that good? The world is fucked, Acoatl, totally and truly fucked. Things don't get better from here, for me, for people. Should I beg? Stay here in misery out of some misplaced sense of morality? We're doing the only thing that makes sense."

I stayed quiet, not unconvinced. Sleep came, eventually, uncomfortably, anxiously.

- = -

The International Astronomical Union provisionally called it 8I/2034 Q1. I had to look that up. The eighth interstellar comet discovered, identified in 2034. I don't know what Q1 means. The name was briefly changed to 8I/Pasarati, for the research group that had discovered it, but by that time I34Q was clearly accelerating non-gravitationally and on an Earthbound trajectory. 8I/Pasarati is still in orbit, technically. You can see it through a telescope, it's like five miles across. But I34Q is the name for all of it, the craft that came to the surface, the life it brought with it, the structures it built, the war, all the consequences. No one can make any sense of it, except the one thing everyone knows: something else controls the world now.

- = -

I just barely remember waking up to switch seats in the morning, and then desiring nothing more than to return to sleep. Eventually Phoenix nudged me awake. "Hey." We were parked somewhere in Missouri. I'd slept all the way through the night and Phoenix's turn to drive. At least twelve hours, depending on when I actually fell asleep last night. I'd missed the big arch in St. Louis.

Phoenix was curt and reserved as I drove. I thought he was still thinking about last night, or angry at me for leaving him alone on his drive. Then he tilted his head back and began to gag. "My... heart..." Tears streamed down him face.

"Phoenix." I glanced back and forth between him and the road. There were abandoned cars on the shoulder; I couldn't pull over. "Phoenix, Phoenix, um."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, stop." He bent, heaved, and emitted a yowling, harsh retch. Nothing else left his mouth. "My heart..." He was breathing hard. A panic attack, I realized, stupidly too late.

"Do we have..." Panic attacks can be interrupted with certain intense sensations. The general goal is to increase awareness of the environment, focus the mind on the current moment rather than the future or past. Holding an ice cube can help. There were no ice cubes. I reached into the back seat for my water bottle, which would at least be cool. A truck behind us laid on the horn. I swerved back into my lane. "Sorry." Phoenix dry heaved again. It was a uniquely distressing sound.

I searched for the hazards, feeling useless. Far too much time passed before I found them and started slowing down. A different truck laid on a different horn. I was able to slip in a gap on the shoulder between an abandoned pickup and a rusting minivan.

I led Phoenix onto the tall grass beyond the asphalt, where he collapsed onto all fours. His torso flexed as he heaved. I put a hand on his back. "Phoenix, look at the trees." There were bushy, broken trees lining the sides of the highway, a vibrant green against the blue and white sky. "The, listen to the road." No, the road was stressing me the fuck out. "Listen to the grass waving, feel it." Stalks crumpled in his fists. I twisted my head and saw the tip of an I34Q tower peeking up over the treeline. "Look, a tower, just like when we were kids." Over the next few minutes, his breathing slowed, his heaving stopped. But the tears stayed. He sobbed away the panic. I read somewhere that tears actually contain different chemicals depending on the emotion causing them. Something to do with hormones I think.

He apologized to me. I would've done the same thing. I've done the same thing. So I got it, but felt indignant at having understood--he didn't need to apologize!

We got back on the road and listened to static on the radio. Sometimes the edge of a station would pass by, and we'd get fuzzy country, or christian rock. I changed it whenever there was a sermon. Sermons always come back to 4Q and they're always awful. The 4Q broadcasts are actually better than sermons about 4Q. They're kind of like static, anyway, totally unintelligible. We encountered more of them than I expected. Maybe static itself is a 4Q broadcast. I don't think that's right, I think static is like cosmic background radiation. But maybe 4Q has changed it somehow, like it used to be white noise and now it's blue noise, a different random distribution but still random.

"I'm off my meds," he said, as we rolled into darkness. The moon was a crescent, low on the western horizon. He spoke flatly and calmly. "I didn't even bring them with me. I thought you should know."

I hesitated. I wanted to voice this diplomatically. But then, we'd be dead in four days, anyway. "Is that why you had the attack?"

"No. I panic even on meds." That made sense. I remembered a few times in the past year when he'd canceled an event with little notice, or left early. "But I'm not a person right now, and that's definitely because I'm off my meds."

"You're not a person right now?"

"Yeah. It's called depersonalization. Also derealization, which is when nothing is real. Or that's how it feels, as I'm told. It's pretty freaky if I'm honest. You don't get the same emotional reaction from stuff. It feels like you're watching from somewhere else." He wasn't looking at me. He was looking down. "You're not you. You're not even real." He whispered. "Pretty freaky."

"Can I--do you--"

"Ahh, I'm coming out of it. Some of it is just recognizing that you're in it." He drew a knee up to his chest and shook his head. "Uhh, could you. Could you hold my hand. Touch helps."

I gripped the wheel with my left hand and held his palm with my right. It was warm and sweaty. I wish I could say that was okay. I felt miserable. I wanted to feel happy, holding his hand, comforting him. I didn't.

Sleep came quicker that night, though still uncomfortable, still anxious.

- = -

I slept late, again. I hadn't touched the chicken sandwich I'd gotten from a drive-thru last night. It had awful 4Q stuff on it anyway. I hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours, so I was pretty hungry, but I had no actual desire to eat. I'd deal with it later.

My own panic attack must've seemed similarly unbidden to Phoenix, though I felt it coming about an hour beforehand, and tried to stave it off. We were on I-80, driving through the hypnotizing flatness of Nebraska. Every ten or fifteen minutes I kept seeing this scarlet structure. It was like a giant, bloody caricature of a water tower, a skinny, triangular column maybe ten feet across and at least two hundred feet tall, supporting an enormous squashed sphere more than twice as wide as the column was tall. I'd watch it rise from the horizon, far too big. I'd never seen them before but guessed they must be 4Q. I started thinking we were somehow traveling in a loop, that my sense of direction was faulty and we were passing the same structure in the same field over and over again. Then I started thinking about how crazy that sounded. But I couldn't stop the thought.

I wanted to pull over but I couldn't stop anywhere in view of the structure, because it was watching me. Of course it wasn't, but I couldn't stop the thought that it was. Hell, maybe it was. Maybe only the mad can decode the purpose of I34Q stuff. I felt how hard I was breathing and glanced over at Phoenix, wondering why he hadn't said anything. He was staring down. He was probably disassociating again, I realized later, but at the time all I knew was that I was alone.

I get angry at myself after my attacks. I feel so stupid. Phoenix apologized to me that night, which made me feel even stupider. I couldn't wait to get to the Santitos digger.

- = -

The next day was bad. Quiet, lonely, and frustrated. A further reminder of the reasons. I saw patches of 4Q purple grass climbing up the Rockies. We both took long shifts and entered Redwood park just after midnight.

- = -

I read a story once about a man that was falling in the dark. He was falling so far that he would die instantly when he hit the ground. He realized that his brain wouldn't have time to process the impact, or even the few moments before. And he couldn't see the ground. He couldn't see anything. All that was left in the world was him and his death. I wondered if Phoenix had read the same story, and was hoping for a similar effect, coming here at night. Of course, we got it wrong. There were clouds, burgundy with light pollution, and every few minutes a star would gaze through; an unearthly glow was cast up from distant pieces of the digger.

Some parts of the digger looked like the towers, spinning and shifting. Some parts looked like exposed microelectronics, cables sutured to shiny terminals of minute complexity. Some parts were just made of asphalt blocks, cream-, gray-, and lime-colored pebbles tightly embedded in dark tar. Distant redwoods, many damaged by fire, ringed the horizon. The Santitos digger was less an object and more a place.

I felt wordlessly close to Phoenix as we scrambled over asphalt, looking for a pit. We touched each other frequently in our effort, to assist, to communicate. We'd have to give each other boosts, lift each other up, look for alternate routes. This place was not made for people.

Finally we came upon a deep canyon. I had half a mind to walk off the edge immediately. But both Phoenix and I stopped to regard it.

I couldn't tell if the rumors were true. You could only see maybe a hundred yards down before the walls of the abyss disappeared into ink. Or, not ink--not blackness, either. People are black. This was something else. The most prominent features were the semi-perceivable red blotches left on my optic nerve after gazing at one of the digger's glowing sectors. The unknowable told me nothing. It just revealed the flaws of my being. Maybe we would achieve our effect after all.

"This is it," I said, elliptically. The beginning is the end. If you take out the 'h' that phrase is a palindrome. "That was the first thing I said out of the door before I got into your car on Saturday. If you take out the 'h' the phrase is a palindrome. The beginning is the end. This is elliptical. This is it."

"That ain't it." He was regarding me coolly.

I laughed.

He was angry. "Are you fucking kidding me? The point of this thing, the whole fucking point is you do it in your right mind. You're letting your madness make the decision for you. You have to make the decision!"

I found that extremely funny. I laughed harder.

"Shut up! Fuck!"

"What's a right mind?" I asked, still grinning. "There's no such thing anymore. Even when it was a thing, all it meant was the most socially-acceptable, capital-promoting mind. Now? The world doesn't fit us anymore. The human condition is inconvenient to its purpose. 4Q can't even train us. The right mind is a dead one. You want a right mind, go ahead." I gestured at the abyss. That's what I did.

He stepped forward. He stepped forward. A foot hung above the end.

I don't know what I would've done if he had lowered that foot, changing his balance, tipping him forward. Jumping in after him wouldn't have felt right. Maybe I'd have gone back to those red eyes in Nebraska and begged for them to torture me. Maybe his idiosyncrasies would have been repelled by the unknowable, flowing away from his body and into me, and I'd be lost forever in a derealized paranoia. Maybe I'd have gotten in the car and driven back home.

His foot remained, hanging, the edge a gallows. "Suicide is about pain. It's the ultimate response to ongoing distress. I never wanted you to be normal. I just didn't want you to be in pain. In a twisted way, I guess I thought, if this was your way of dealing with pain, I wasn't going to stop you. That is your right. I feel like that has to be your right." His balance was incredible. He remained still, a tree without wind. "But you can be abnormal, you can be a bad fit for the world, you can be utterly broken, and you can still live without pain." We're both crying. Tears descend into the pit.

| ' , |

I do think madness is the right way to understand I34Q. I feel this mysteriously. I wonder what it would be like if I tried going to T-school while embracing my altered states, living in them. I suspect Phoenix would have more success, being more comfortable with unreality. Not that either of us would participate in whatever hegemony 4Q perpetuates. More that we'd figure out what it wanted, and how to resist. I've been thinking about this a lot. Maybe other people are, too. We need to find each other.

Phoenix and I wandered north. We found this incredible queer community in Oregon, with actual traditions and mechanisms to deal with communal trauma. I can't say anything about the world, the world is unknowable. But I think there's hope for us.

Phoenix and I are together, now, in a way I can't quite name. We did finally make love. That was beautiful. But we don't live together. I make love to other people, sometimes, and he does the same. Sometimes I'll go a week or two without seeing him, without notice. Sometimes I'll go a few days without even thinking about him. I love him, and I tell him that, and he says the same to me, though both of us have admitted that we don't know what that means.

We still panic. I still get paranoid. Phoenix disassociates. He's been using the state to make art. I think about I34Q and write down what I think. I'm pretty good at eating regularly, even if I don't feel like it. I don't know if we're living without pain. I think maybe that's a pretty tall order. But I don't want to kill myself anymore. So I think that's pretty good.

[Ed.: have this little treat. It takes me about the length of this playlist to read the story.]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5VD5lJJqNUJsITPj3Rg8Sn?si=d262096479104d4f

[hyukiee]

Chapter 5: Hope

warnings: cussing, overdose mention, a little angst, drug mention

I thought yesterday was Wednesday 😩 .. a little late but enjoy! :)

After what you remember from last night, anyone would assume you feel like absolute shit. You do but it’s nothing that wasn’t there before last night. Your used to the headaches and body aches. You slowly opened your eyes, the room your in is beyond bright but the bed was beyond comfortable. Taehyung was sitting in a chair in front of you obviously sleep deprived. He probably didn’t sleep at all. “Do you remember anything from last night?” He spoke quietly, he sounded exhausted. “Bits and pieces. Why? Are you okay?” you sat up interigating him. What the fuck did you do to him last night? “Have you ever tried to cluelessly help someone out of a potential overdose while her so called “friends” couldn’t give a single fuck-“ “Taehyung” “No. No you listen to me,” Taehyung raised his voice the more and more he spoke. He went from looking down playing with his fingers to looking at you with eyes that burn into you as he pointed his finger at you. “You make no sense at all. You walk around acting like you know everything but you are so clueless that the people around you wouldn’t care if you died right in front of their eyes. You deserve better. You deserve more y/n. Why do you do this? Why?” Tears started to stream down your face. You weren’t sad or hurt by what he was saying, you just can’t handle people yelling at you. It happend your whole childhood and now you deal with being the most sensitive person anyone comes by. He sighed noticing the tears you failed to wipe away fast enough and pulled you against his chest. “Don’t fucking yell at me.” It was something in the way you muttered those five words that made his heart drop. Every day he seems to feel more and more of your pain. At this point, he just wanted to get you away from here and away from these people. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, i’m not thinking straight i’m so worried for you,” he sighed again sitting down on the bed still holding you against him. “The members are almost in L.A, they’d like to meet you if your up for it.” He was lying out of his ass and even though he hardly lies, he’s not bad at it. The group didn’t ask to see you but he needed to get you away and have you around good people, for once.

“Soo, where are we going?” You and Taehyung haven’t talked much since you cried in his arms. Everything that happened last night is making the usual comfortable silence, very awkward. “This restaurant by their hotel. Be prepared for a lot of raughtiness,” he said softly smiling at you. He’s trying to forget. He’s that type of person, to ignore everything bad that happens so there’s no confrontation. It could be for your sake though, you really don’t want to talk about it. You’ve always hated meeting people’s loved ones. You feel like you have a terrible first impression and your terrified they won’t like you. Taehyung reassured you the whole car ride that they would adore you but there’s always a thought at the back of your head thinking they’ll see right through you and hate you.

“Hello again, y/n, how’s our boy been treating you?” Jungkook quickly walked to you two putting his arm around you with the biggest bunny smile. “Is he secretly a dick or something?” Everyone chuckled at that making you realize the other five had walked over too. Everyone made their introductions while slowly making the way inside the restaurant. They weirdly all made you feel happy without even doing anything. Taehyung looked happy too, the happiest you’ve ever seen him. That stung your heart a little bit, you couldn’t make him smile like that but it’s not like you could even be compared to his members. “So why’d you learn Korean y/n?” Namjoon asked sitting across from you. “Oh, I got really into the culture and stuff. I wanted to live there and teach English.” You hate thinking back to that time in life. So full of hope and dreaming about the future. It was nice to have goals but thinking about it now just hurts you. You fucked up your life, you fucked up your little dream. “Oh wow, why haven’t you moved then?” You knew he was just trying to make conversation but you just hated this one. “Ah, things just turned out differently in high school,” Taehyung glanced at you after you said that and put his hand on your thigh. He knows what you mean. Going to South Korea was your dream but then you started doing everything you do now and you simply stopped dreaming. It made him feel bad, he could see how Namjoon was hurting you by bringing it up. “Well, her Korean is probably better than ours that’s for sure,” Taehyung smiled at you. “Yah, not even,” Jin laughed hitting Taehyung on the back of his neck. “Y/n, you dance?” Hoseok asked you randomly. “I love to.” “Perfect, this song is amazing, let’s dance!” he almost yelled getting up grabbing you. Yoongi gave you an apologetic look but the rest of the guys laughed at your obviously terrified face. Meanwhile Hoseok stood there as happy as can be in his own little world.

“Can you guys be deadly honest with me?” Taehyung said bringing his attention to the boys while you danced with Hoseok and Jimin on the patio. “When am I not,” Yoongi smiled to himself playing with his fingers. “I don’t think I can leave y/n here. She is involved with things that will kill her and I know it sounds stupid but I think we can help her.... I just- I don’t know what to do,” Taehyung couldn’t bring himself to look at the guys, he felt pathetic for feeling this way after knowing you for a couple of days. “Well she said she dreamt of going to South Korea, it might sound crazy but let’s bring her back with us. She seems nice, I don’t mind it,” Jin piped in as everyone else nodded along. It really could work the more Taehyung thought of it. They could bring her back and help her get on her feet and then she can live a better life and he could still see her. “What type of life threatening things are we talking about Tae?” Namjoon didn’t mind that Taehyung had found a pretty girl that seemed to be very nice but he had to logical, that’s his job after all. Taehyung looked up at the guys, trying to bring himself to admit your dirty little secret. “Drugs.” Everyone’s expressions changed, with reason of course. They are famous, if someone were to find out they had a drug addict living with them it would be a terrible scandal and that’s just the harsh truth but Taehyung realized he wasn’t the only one that felt like he needed to help you after Jungkook put in his two cents. “That doesn’t define her though, she could get sober back home, we shouldn’t judge her, not yet.”

After you all ate and had a bunch of crazy funny conversations, no one was ready to go home so you put out the idea to go cruising around. You were sitting in the very back of their van in the middle of Taehyung and Hoseok. They were both raping your ears with how loudly they were singing along with everyone. You would never admit it but you loved the moments where you’re genuinely happy and you get to sit back and take it all in. You liked them. “So y/n, do you see yourself anywhere in 5 years?” Yoongi asked turning down the music from the front seat making Jimin laugh at the randomness. If you were honest you would say dead but you don’t want to sound suicidal or something. “Mm, I don’t know really I like to just live day by day.” “How about South Korea?” Hoseok piped in giving you a big smile. That’d be nice if you lived a life where everything went your way, but it doesn’t. Taehyung gripped your thigh and you looked at him and noticed they were all giving you the same type of look. “Listen, y/n, you said yourself it was your dream to go there so why miss this opportunity? Live day by day and take chances right?” Hoseok said making it seem so so simple. Are they really asking you to go to South Korea? For what? So Taehyung doesn’t get depressed when they go back home? You met this guy a few days ago and they want you to go back with them? You could slap Taehyung for being so naive. “Just think about it baby I think it would be a great opportunity. I just want to see you suceed.” Baby... you felt your eyes starting to swell up. “Where’d the music go, I love this song,” you whined trying to change the focus so they didn’t see the tears come out of your eyes. “Y/n please-“ “No, fuck you for puting me on the spot like that. Do I look like a person that suceeds?” you argily whispered at Taehyung as the music started playing again. Your not mad at him, your mad at yourself for being to afraid to say yes. He sighed before grabbing your hand and speaking again. “Our flight is tomorrow at 5pm, we’ll wait for you but you know I have to go back.”

“Don’t you want to say bye to the guys?” Taehyung spoke softly to you, afraid to say something wrong. You haven’t talked to him since he started packing, you just stayed laying in a fetal position completely disassociated. Everything was hitting you all at once. He’s really leaving, you’re fun is over. He’s going to leave and your going to go back to your pointless life here in L.A. “Are you not even going to say goodbye to me?” “Bye.” Your heart dropped being this way but if he hated you then you won’t lay awake at night thinking about all the things that could of been done differently. Your thoughts came to a complete stop when Taehyung slammed the door making you flinch. He’s gone. God he’s gone and you didn’t even look at his beautiful face one more time. Part of you hoped he would force you to at least hug him goodbye but he just left. You fucked another thing over like you always do. Tears escaped your eyes as you started to think about actually leaving with him. If you really wanted to, you could. Your all about impulsive decisons. Why do you have to keep yourself from happiness? How long will you do this to yourself? You heard him that one night, when he thought you were asleep. He said he might fall in love with you. You of all people, you and your throwing it away. After sitting up and whipping your tears you dialed Julian and prayed he was alive. “Julian, I need you to pack all my shit in the bathroom and enough clothes to fill one bag and meet me at the airport. Now.” You stared at the time. 4:00pm. Your gonna miss it, nothing works right for you. Your gonna show up and he won’t be there, he won’t.

“Hyung, she really isn’t coming?” Jimin pouted at Taehyung in the van. He couldn’t believe you wouldn’t even look at him. He’s hurt, he wants to curl up in a ball and cry but he couldn’t help but hold on to the hope that you might show up. “Don’t lose hope yet, she might show up, you never know,” Jungkook tried to reassure the two boys but it almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself in the process. your not showing up. Taehyung felt so stupid getting involved in something he knew would hurt him. The whole car ride felt like hours with everything running through his brain but they finally got there. The place that will take him away from you forever. He never even got your number. He’ll never see you again. “Do you want to wait out here for a few and see if she comes?” Namjoon asked stopping him at the enterence of the airport. “No, she’s not coming,” Taehyung knew if he looked up he would start crying so he looked down at his shoes and tried to breathe evenly. “You should have more faith in her,” Yoongi laughed shoving Namjoon so he would look ahead and see you. Taehyung looked up and turned around as fast as he could, it almost gave him whiplash. “Taehyung... i’m falling in love with you and i’m so convinced it’s fate,” You yelled at him with the most beautiful smile making him smile so much it hurt. This felt like some cheesy K-Drama. God you were just so perfect to him. So so perfect.

[sassy-starker]

Running

A Starker Drabble

There was something oddly therapeutic about running away, about knowing that nobody has any clue where you are, about having no idea where you’re headed. Nobody on the street pays attention to you, because you’re just another stranger heading somewhere— heading nowhere— and nobody gives a shit about you or your life. There’s nothing significant about you, no feature that makes you stand out amongst the crowds as you wander through the towering building and blinding lights of New York City in the nighttime. There was— is— something therapeutic about running away, and Peter Parker knew that.

It wasn’t anything important; he wasn’t on the run from a terrorist organization or a life of crime or his debts to the mob. There was no reason for him to run, for him to think about getting out of New York and never returning. He shouldn’t be running, shouldn’t be leaving, but he just couldn’t bring himself to stay after he’d found out. When he walked into his apartment and found out that Quentin was cheating, he didn’t think about his options. His first thought was simply:

Run.

It was dumb, and he knew that. He couldn’t just run away from his apartment, from his home, and never face what had happened. He should go back and sit down with his boyfriend— ex-boyfriend?— and talk about it, but the more he thought about turning back, the more unappealing it sounded.

So, instead, he walked, head down and hood pulled up, along the dark streets of the city, ignoring the world around him, and the world ignored him right back. He had no clue where he was going or when he would stop running. He had his phone, a charger, fifty bucks, and a small container of chocolate hearts that he’d bought to give to Quentin when he came home that evening after work.

Coming across the stairs leading to the subway, he went down, the sound of his sneakers tapping against the concrete drowned out by the sounds of the city. Making it to the bottom, he jumped the gates, a skill he’d had extensive practice at as a teenager. Finally, he stood at the bottom, waiting for the next train to come.

The station was empty, the tunnels eerily quiet with only the faint sounds of the world above drifting down, muffled by the amount of space between him and the city. It was calming, in a way, just like running, with nobody there to stop him, no person there to tell him to turn back. He was in control, he could go anywhere.

He could go nowhere.

He heard the train before he saw it, the deafening sound of it coming down the tracks echoing through the tunnels. The glare of the front lights made him squint his eyes a little, but he didn’t turn away.

When it came to a screeching halt, the doors slid open with a creak. He stepped into the cart closest to him, which was nearly empty except for one man sitting in the corner looking down at his phone. Peter sat down on a seat about in the middle of the cart, across from the doors he entered through and a little to the left, so he was in the same half of the car as the stranger.

The runaway didn’t pull out his phone or close his eyes, instead staring straight at the windows across from him and watching the concrete tunnels and blazing orange lights go by.

Nobody got on at the next three stops.

Peter could feel the other passenger sneaking glances at him, but said nothing and didn’t spare him a look, sitting unmoving as he continued to just stare out the dirty windows.

Another stop went by.

“Are you okay?” the stranger asked.

The brunet startled a bit and turned to look at the man, who was gazing at him with eyes full of what appeared to be genuine concern.

“Yeah. Why?” Peter replied, tone turning

slightly defensive, but a voice crack betrayed his assurance of being okay.

“You just looked like you were disassociating and I didn’t want you to miss your stop or anything.”

“Well, I’m fine, so you don’t have to worry.”

“No offense, but that sounded so fake that I’m only worrying more.”

Peter sighed, closing his eyes and running his hands down his face before opening his eyes again and looking back to the man.

“I’m just having a rough night,” he admitted with a shrug, hoping he could leave it at that.

“I figured. Not many people are riding the subway this late because they’re having a great day.” His voice was slightly humorous, but there was still that tone of concern underneath. The brunet found it almost endearing how much this stranger seemed to care about him.

“Well, wouldn’t that mean that you’re here because of a shitty night too?” Peter shot back, praying it would shift the focus off of him.

“I am,” the man confessed with a slightly sad smile. “How about this: if I tell you why I’m here, will you tell me why you’re here?”

Peter mulled over it for a few seconds, weighing the pros and cons. The logical part of him said that he shouldn’t even be talking to a random man on the subway, as you never knew who you could trust in New York City, but his curiosity wanted to find out why this stranger was here. Eventually, he came to a decision.

“Sure. What could go wrong?” Peter told him with a shrug, trying to act uninterested. “Why are you on the subway at two am, talking to some random twenty-two year old?”

“I’m a businessman and my assistant got pissed at me because I might have ruined a deal for the company I work for and I couldn’t sleep because I was so worried about it.” The sentence came out easily, no hesitation in the man’s voice. It was obvious to Peter that he was telling the truth. “Now it’s your turn.”

“I came home from a late shift at work and found out my boyfriend of two years was cheating on me,” Peter confided in the stranger, voice quiet and tone sounding almost embarrassed.

The man paused, simply staring at the brunet with a concerned face, looking even more worried than before.

“I’m really sorry. Being cheated on sucks.”

“It’s okay. I just didn’t know what to do and all I could think of doing was running, so here I am.”

The car stopped at the next station. Nobody got on.

Tears slowly started to leak out of Peter’s eyes and he didn’t realize how much he had wanted to cry until that moment. Still, he began to furiously wipe them away.

“Sorry. I sound like such a baby.” The tears wouldn’t stop falling.

The man got up and walked over, careful to keep his balance as the cart rocked back and forth on the tracks. He sat down near Peter, one seat between the two, enough to be close, but also enough so the brunet didn’t feel trapped by him.

“You don’t sound like a baby. Being cheated on feels awful, and I know that from experience. I don’t know why you would think that it’s dumb to feel upset over this.”

“Quentin, my boyfriend, I mean, he always told me I was just being dumb when I cried over things, and I am. I’m being a baby over this whole thing. Instead of facing him, I just ran away.”

The man sighed, eyes gleaming with sorrow and a controlled rage.

“He sounds like a dickhead.” That got a light chuckle out of Peter. “You’re allowed to be upset. You’re allowed to feel emotions. The fact that you’re emotional over him cheating on you is completely normal. He’s a manipulative asshole for making you feel like you can’t be mad at him.”

“You really think so?” The absolute hope in the brunet’s voice was heartbreaking, so full of innocence and wonder.

“I know so.”

The cart fell back into silence for a few moments as it came to a stop at the next station. Nobody got onto the cart.

“I’m Peter, by the way. Peter Parker,” the brunet introduced himself, deeming the stranger trustworthy.

“Tony Riggs,” the man replied, lying through his teeth about his last name. After all, his company didn’t give a face to the name of their owner, and he wasn’t about to give up his identity.

“It’s nice to meet you, Tony.” There was a soft smile on Peter’s face.

“You as well.” Tony matched his smile.

The cart came to a stop at another station and Peter gave a small sigh.

“I should get off. I need to go somewhere. I hope I see you again, Tony.” He stood up and walked off, leaving the man, who was in a bit of shock as the brunet walked off abruptly.

Tony was a moment too late to stand up and call after Peter, but the brunet was already gone. He didn’t know where the boy had come from or where he was going, but he did know one thing.

He wanted to meet Peter again, and he would go to the ends of the earth and back to see that soft, rosy-cheeked face and puppy dog brown eyes once more.

Notes: this was slightly inspired by this short fic by @birdycurtains and partly by a story of me talking to a stranger on the subway who was very nice to me and helped me through some shit. i’m open to writing a sequel to this if y’all want!

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