#i mean i gotta have some weird freudian stuff in here right

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

[waitineedaname]

"Accidently ending a phone call with your roommate with a casual ‘I love you’ seems like a very good reason to move out"

For benrey @ gordon?

“And can you pick up some oat milk while you’re there? I just realized I’m out.”

“Man, oat milk freaks me out,” Benrey said, pushing their shopping cart towards the dairy section anyway. “Like, do oats even have, uh. Others?”

“Others?” There was a beat of silence as Gordon attempted to figure out exactly what the hell Benrey was talking about. “You mean udders?”

“Yeah. Cow things.”

“Dude, that’s not how oat milk works.” Gordon’s laugh made Benrey’s cheap phone speakers crackle.

“Then how does it work? Huh? Mister scientician?” Benrey propped the phone between their ear and shoulder as they opened the fridge door to grab the brand of oat milk he knew Gordon liked.

“I don’t fucking know! I’m not a goddamn milk scientist.” Even through a phone call, Benrey could hear the smile on Gordon’s face. “They squeeze juice out of the oats or smush them into a paste or something. I don’t know. Stop making me think about how oat milk works, it’s going to make me not want to drink it anymore.”

“Cool, so I’ll buy milk with extra lactose then.”

“You will not, unless you wanna deal with me laying on the couch complaining all afternoon because my stomach hurts.”

“You do that anyway.”

“Fuck off, man.” Gordon’s tone of voice didn’t carry any bite to it. “Alright, I gotta go, I’m almost at the end of the queue to pick Joshie up. I’ll see you back at home, okay?”

“Mhm. Love you, bye.” Benrey hung up and shoved their phone back in their jacket pocket. They unfolded the shopping list and attempted to decipher the mix of their own chicken scratch, Gordon’s doctor handwriting, and the occasional misspelled request for snacks in Joshua’s six year old handwriting. Okay, they had to get those frozen chicken nuggets Joshua liked, another pack of seltzer, a can of black beans since Gordon was planning to cook dinner tonight-

Thinking about Gordon made them suddenly freeze in place as they realized what they’d just done. Did… Did they just say “love you” on the phone with Gordon?

Aw, fuck.

They’d been living with Gordon for a while now. It hadn’t always been an easy thing for either of them. When they’d been freshly respawned, both of them had been jumpy around each other at best, and at worst, they were at each other’s throats trying to kill each other. It took a long time and a lot of uncomfortable conversations for them to get to the point where they could interact without an unbearable amount of tension. From there, they were able to start rebuilding an actual friendship. Turns out, they got along a lot better when they weren’t in mortal danger. Who knew!

Living with Gordon involved a lot of rules, both spoken and unspoken. They involved stuff like “don’t ask weird questions about Gordon’s feet,” “if one of them gets too angry, walk it off instead of actually fighting,” and “no gross body horror in front of Gordon’s son.” It also involved shit like “please for the love of god don’t put empty juice cartons back in the fridge” and “don’t stain the carpets with Sweet Voice, this is a rental and that security deposit is worth getting back.” So far, Benrey hadn’t had too much trouble following the rules. They had been a security guard, after all; following rules was supposed to be their thing. Besides, they were a low price to pay to get to spend time with Gordon.

One of those early unspoken rules, however, had been “keep the flirting to a minimum.” That one had been a little tricky at first, but it had been necessary, especially back when they still weren’t on the best of terms. Benrey learned that when Gordon was already worked up, blowing a kiss did the opposite of diffusing the situation. This was news to Benrey. Who didn’t love a little kiss from their buddies? Lame.

That had been an early rule, though, and one that had kind of faded into the background over time. The longer they lived together, the more physically affectionate they both got, and a little domesticity is only to be expected when you share a household. It was nice. Comfortable.

And then Benrey had to go and say “I love you” on the phone. What the fuck.

That had to be crossing a line, right? Gordon was fine with some handholding and some cuddling and they’d make dinner together once a week, but this had to be pushing it.

Benrey went through the rote motions of buying the rest of their groceries without really paying attention, too busy panicking. There was only one option. They had to move out. This was fine. This was totally fine. They could just crash on Tommy’s couch until they find a place of their own because there was no way this wasn’t going to make Gordon freak the fuck out. As much as they loved fucking with Gordon, they’d learned there was the fun kind of freaking him out and the bad kind of freaking him out. They were fairly certain this fell into the bad category.

By the time that they were walking up to their apartment door, they were already mentally packing up all their things, resigned to their fate. They were so stuck in their own head that Joshua barreling into their legs when they opened the door actually startled them.

“Benny!” Joshua cheered, clinging to their jeans.

“Hey, li’l dude.” Benrey carefully tried to push past the kid without tripping over him on the way to the kitchen. Tragically, that’s where Gordon also happened to be.

“Hey, what took you so long?” Gordon asked, taking some of the grocery bags from them. “I thought you’d gotten lost in Costco again.”

Benrey grunted noncommittally and started putting away groceries instead of answering Gordon. Maybe if they didn’t look at him, they could avoid confronting whatever Gordon’s reaction was. Yeah, definitely, this seemed like a sustainable, reasonable decision to make. Yep.

“Dude.” Gordon’s hand suddenly appeared on their forearm. Benrey stared at it, then looked up at Gordon’s concerned face. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re putting carrots in the utensil drawer.”

Benrey looked down at their hands again. Oh. So they were.

“You’ve been acting weird ever since you got back from the store,” Gordon said, gently taking the carrots away from them. “Did something happen? You wanna talk about it?”

Benrey screwed their mouth up. No, they didn’t want to talk about it, but learning how to talk through things like adults was something they both had agreed to do. That had been a rule introduced by an exasperated Tommy, sick of mediating their bullshit. So, they sighed and looked away while Gordon put the carrots in the vegetable drawer of the fridge. “I was thinking about how I’ve gotta move out.”

“What?” Gordon stood up too fast and smacked his head on the freezer door. He swore loudly, and Benrey reached over to hand him a bag of frozen peas to put on the back of his head. “Thanks. But also, what? Since when are you moving out?”

“Uh, since now?” Benrey said, confused. Shouldn’t it be obvious?

“Why?”

“‘Cause I said I love you on the phone? Dummy? You, uh, a fucking old man got bad brain disease, not remembering things?” They said, defaulting to picking on Gordon to avoid focusing on anything else. Gordon stared blankly at them for a moment, then, against all odds, a grin spread across his face.

“Benrey,” He said, and Benrey decided he didn't like that tone one bit, “Are you embarrassed?”

“Whuh? No.” There was no way they could be embarrassed. That definitely wasn't what was going on here. Nope. Not a bit, “...Maybe.”

“Dude, you don't have to be embarrassed about that.” Gordon laughed. “Do you know how often I've said stupid Freudian slips? I called my sixth grade teacher mom once and wanted to change my name and move to Canada. I've been there.”

“It wasn't, uh… It wasn't too much? Not crossing a line or anything?”

“Nah, man. It was kinda sweet.” Gordon flashed him a smile and finished putting away the last of the groceries.

“Cool.” Benrey relaxed, letting go of the tension that had been building in their shoulders. “That's good ‘cause I was gonna fight you for custody of your Xbox.” Gordon snorted.

“Good fucking luck, you’re too much of a Playstation guy to win that case.”

The evening passed relatively uneventfully from there. Gordon enlisted Benrey’s help in cooking dinner, and Joshua eagerly told them all about the cool dinosaur facts he’d learned in class that day. They went through the easy routine of watching just one episode (which of course always turned into several episodes) of Joshua’s choice of TV, then Benrey helped wash up in the kitchen while Gordon put Josh to bed. Gordon joined them as they finished washing dishes and squeezed Benrey’s shoulder affectionately when they were done.

“Alright, man, I think I’m gonna head to bed early tonight.”

Benrey nodded. “Cool. I’ll be quiet.”

“Don’t worry about it. G’night, dude.”

“Night, Gordon.”

“Oh, and Benrey?” Gordon paused in the doorway of his bedroom and waited until Benrey glanced up at him. Gordon smiled. “Love you too.”

He shut the door before Benrey could respond, leaving Benrey to stare blankly at the door. They let out a groan, careful not to wake Joshua. Oh, Gordon was going to be the death of them.

[thiswasinevitableid]

For the Meet Ugly Prompts-38, NSFW Danbrey?

Here you go! Note: there are mentions of blood in this.

38: overhear you ordering your coffee in a coffee shop and I’m trying to place your voice when I realize that you’re the phone sex operator I’ve been calling on and off for the last few months but the realization startles me so much that I accidentally spill my drink on you and you’re pissed

“One spiced mocha, one oatmilk latte!”

Aubrey reaches for her mocha just as a painfully cute blonde in overalls grabs the latte.

“Oh, excuse me” the blonde calls over the counter, “could I get a lid, it looks like you’re all out at the station. Thanks, you’re the best.” She smiles at the teenager who hands he the lid while Aubrey tries to figure out where she’s heard “thanks, you’re the best” said that exact way before.

Oh shit. Oh shit.

She’s heard that voice every Tuesday and Friday when she calls LoveBites, the premiere service for people who really like vampires. Really, really, like vampires.

Honeysuckle, as the woman on the other end of the line calls herself, probably isn’t a vampire. Aubrey figures most of the people who work that line are just very good at pretending to be fictional monsters. She is, however, incredibly good at getting Aubrey to cum with vivid descriptions of where she’s going to sink her teeth.

“AH! Hey, watch what you’re doing.”

Aubrey snaps back to the coffee shop to discover her drink is now all over Honeysuckles shoes.

“Ohmygod, I’m, I’m so sorry.” She grabs a fistful of napkins, drops down to clean the mess of coffee and chocolate syrup from the floor. She reaches to help clean off the other woman's shoes only for her to wave her away.

“It’s fine, I got itshit” she glares as Aubrey, in her attempt to get out of her space, stands too quickly, bumping her head into Honeysuckle’s cup and sending it all over both of them.

Okay, she can totally salvage this. Right?

----------------------------------------------

“...then I just ran away.”

Duck laughs so hard on the other end of the phone that he startles Dr. Harris Bonkers.

“Oh come on, like you’ve never done something embarrassing in front of someone cute.”

“Dunno, you might have just beaten my ‘six Freudian slips in a row trying to ask ‘Dird how his weekend was.’”

“Ugggggggggggggggh.”

“It’s okay, Lady Flame” he manages to sound genuinely sympathetic through his giggles, “lots of cute folks out in the world who you ain’t spilled two cups of coffee on.”

“Yeah.” She checks the neon orange clock on the wall, “I gotta go practice my tricks for this weekend. Thanks for listening to me whine.”

“Any time, Aubrey. See you at the show.”

She gets through two tricks, including the one where Dr. Harris Bonkers disappears from a box, but she can’t focus. It’s not nerves; instead, she feels like if she got off just once, she’d stop feeling so tense and be able to run through the rest of her act without issues.

It’d be a very bad idea to call LoveBites when she spilled a drink on her favorite operator. She doesn’t feel like talking someone new through her preferences, and she knows with Honeysuckle she’s guaranteed to get off, which wasn’t always the case with previous operators. Besides, the length of her calls must be enough to pay for a replacement drink.

She grabs her phone and dials. Soon a familiar voice purrs down the line.

“Hi, Aubrey. How’s my favorite human tonight?”

“Good?”

“You don’t sound so sure about that, fireblossom.” It’s a new pet name; ever since she mentioned her stage name, Honeysuckle likes to give her ones woven through with flames.

“I, um, I'm fine?”

“Did something happen today, hot stuff?”

“Uhhhhh. Um. I, uh, I made a fool of myself in a coffee shop. I, um, I spilled my drink on a cute girl. Also hers.”

Honeysuckle goes quiet.

“I, um, I think the person I spilled them on was you.”

“..............spiced mocha?”

“Yeeeeah” Aubrey curls inwards, trying to cringe away from her phone, “I’m really sorry about your shoes. And your overalls. And your drink. I, um, I wasn’t gonna mention it but it feels, like, weird not to and I really was going to offer to replace your coffee except I was kinda worried I’d somehow spill that too. I’m, I’m sorry. I just really like talking with you.” She smiles shyly, “you’re my favorite vampire.”

Dead air, then “you really want to make it up to me with another drink?”

“Yes!” Aubrey sits up, hopeful.

“Even if the drink isn’t coffee?”

“Sure it, it can be whatever you want.”

A hungry purr that makes Aubrey reach for her trusty vibrating wand, “In that case, don’t go anywhere.”

“What? But you’re-”

The line goes dead. Aubrey stares at it, frowning. What is she supposed to do now? Did they get disconnected accidentally? Should she just call back?

She shoves the toy back in the drawer, paces back and forth between the kitchen counter and the table where her cards and flashpaper are strewn about, unsure whether she should make dinner, practice, try to get off, or just give up on everything and go to bed.

From his hutch in the corner, Dr. Harris Bonkers honks, thumps his feet in alarm, then turns his bugged-out eyes on Aubrey and thumps again as if to say, “what the fuck, why aren’t you heeding my warning?”

“Aww, it’s okay buddy. Is that cat on the fire escape again?” She looks out the window, finds nothing but some mist. Mist that’s hovering on her tiny balcony and no one elses. She blinks.

Honeysuckle is standing on the other side of the glass; she’s wearing a loose green tank top and grey yoga pants, golden hair taking on the tint of the nearby streetlights. She gives a demure wave as Aubrey throws the back door open.

“Holy fuck I thought the vampire thing was just, like, a gimmick.”

A shrug, “There’s more humans than vampires working the line, but some of us are the real deal. I know a few vampires who do it because it lets them work nights and keep an actually nocturnal schedule. But some of us do it as a side job and go out during the day. Which means we see cute girls in coffee shops who we think we might ask out who then spill drinks on us.”

“Aw beans. Wait, were you checking me out for real.”

“Uh huh. You must have been doing something super interesting on your phone to not notice.”

Aubrey resolves to delete Candy Crush immediately.

“Um, so, not that I’m not happy to see you again, but like how did you find my house?”

“We can trace numbers on our end. It’s a security thing; back when the line started some hunters kept trying to use it to go after vampires, so we needed to know where calls were coming from.”

“Blegh, that sucks.”

“Yeah, not my favorite.” She flutters her eyelashes, “any chance I could come in?”

“Absolutely, uh, here” she holds the door--which has no risk of closing without a lot of force--so the vampire can step into the apartment.

“Do I, um, should I still just call you what I always have?”

Golden eyes look her up and down hungrily, “Dani is fine.” Then she squeaks, “ooooh, hi there little guy, can I say hi? Oop, okay, some other time.” Dani smiles as the rabbit ducks into his covered box, “animals can be kind of skittish around me at first. Which makes sense.” When she turns to look at Aubrey, her fangs are visible.

“Hooboy that’s, that’s, uh-”

Dani steps back, “I can back off. I just, um, I thought since we’re both into each other and you were, um, already in the mood for some lovebites maybe we could -”

“NoItotallywantto!” Aubrey grabs her hand, pulling her towards the bedroom, “sorry, the fangs are apparently an insta-horny button in my brain.”

“Good to know” Dani spins her by her shoulders and pushes her back onto the bed, fangs now on full display, “take your clothes off, fireblossom.”

Aubrey thanks herself from two hours ago for changing into her pajamas so she doesn’t have much to rid herself of. When she gets her shirt off, Dani is down to her underwear, green boyshorts showing off her legs and completely distracting Aubrey from any unwelcome self-consciousness.

“Mmmmmm” Dani crawls onto the bed with her, “I thought you were cute before but fuck, you look incredible like this.”

“Thanks” Aubrey’s breath catches as Dani bumps their noses together, “can, can I kiss you?”

“Please.”

She raises up on her elbows, mapping Dani’s mouth with her own. Aubrey’s kissed plenty of people in her life, and there have only been a few where the gesture felt like coming home, like she was slotting against a body that was meant to be with hers. All of those pale in comparison to the way Dani’s body seems to meld with hers. She gasps when the vampire cups her right breast, teasing the nipple with her thumb as she eases Aubrey all the way down. Her other hand finds her face, traces from there to the base of her neck, touches moving from light to sharp as she curves her nails down her skin.

When the fangs scrape her sternum she moans. Dani snickers against her, kisses and nuzzles her way down her chest, sighing when Aubrey threads her fingers into her hair.

“So, my pretty snack, what were you going to ask me for when you called?”

“I, I was kinda hoping we’d talk about you eating me out.”

A kiss above her belly button, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“OhgoodOH, ohfuck” she opens her legs wider as Dani dips her head between them, “ahhhn, please, a little higher, ohfuck, god.” Her hips twitch as Dani sucks her clit. There’s a muffled laugh as two fingers tease her cunt.

“Wow, you really do like the fangs.”

“I mean yeah, but that’s more because you’re really hotOH, ohyesfuckthat’sgood.” She moans as Dani presses two fingers in, stroking and rubbing in time with the vampire’s increasingly wanton groans.

“Fuck, Aubrey, that’s it, you look so pretty like this, be a good girl and cum for me.”

“Trying” Aubrey squeaks as Dani laves her tongue across her clit and curls her fingers inside her, “fuck, right there, yeah, ohyes, that, just like that.” She squeezes her eyes shut, clinging to Dani’s head and to the hand gripping her thigh. When she cums it’s intense enough that she’s terrified she’s going to kick Dani accidentally, but the vampire simply holds her thighs down, lapping at her until her moans die down.

“Fireblossom?”

“Uh huh?”

“You still owe me a drink. Whatever I want, remember?”

“Yeah? Oh, oh fuck yeah.” She squirms in excitement as Dani drops to the floor and pulls Aubrey towards her until she’s able to hook her knees over her shoulders.

Dani pushes stray hairs from her face, “If you start feeling lightheaded, tell me okay?”

Aubrey gives a thumbs up, winces at how dorky it is, then giggles when Dani cranes forward to kiss it.

The vampire kisses a line from her right knee to her inner thigh, sighing loudly when she noses a certain patch of skin.

“Perfect.”

Fangs sink into her skin and Aubrey clamps her hands over her mouth to avoid waking the neighbors. It’s a sharp, precise pain, flooding her body with the urge to lay back and let Dani take her fill. Then the teeth retreat and Dani’s tongue takes their place, licking the red rivulets and moaning as she sucks at the punctured skin.

“Such a perfect snack.” Dani looks up at her, heavy-lidded and scarlet-mouthed.

“Dani” Aubrey reaches for her, not sure what she’s even asking for.

The vampire takes her hand, rubs it against her cheek, “Does it still feel okay?”

“It feels so good.”

Dani smiles, turns her head to pierce the left thigh, Aubrey moaning weakly as she drinks from her. The moan is echoed, and when she manages to lift her head she sees Dani’s hand is not between her own legs.

“Oh god that’s hot.”

The vampire grins at her, “I get dinner, you get a show. It’s perfect.”

Aubrey watches her lick the bites until they cease bleeding, her moans pitching higher as she fucks herself, getting off on the taste of Aubrey’s blood-tinted skin. Then she tenses, tipping her head back, fangs glinting in the light from the windows, and gasps Aubrey’s name as she cums.

Then a blonde head rests on her knee. Aubrey sits up, Dani’s hair as they catch their breath.

“I, um, I should clean you up. Do you have band-aids?”

“Bathroom.”

Dani stands, cheeks much pinker than before, and returns a minute later with the Pokemon band-aids that Aubrey bought solely for the Charizard ones. She wipes her legs with a warm hand towel, gently pats the bandages into place, stealing giddy glances at Aubrey the entire time.

“You know that fucking ruled, right?” Aubrey rests her head on her shoulder when Dani joins her on the bed.

“Glad you liked it, fireblossom. Can’t believe I’m lucky enough that the hottest human I’ve met in years has a thing for vampires.

“Pretty sure I just have a thing for you. Which, um, I mean this can totally stay casual but, um, do you want to go out sometime?”

Dani nods, leans in for another kiss. She must have borrowed Aubrey’s mouthwash, since she tastes of mint instead of iron.

“I’d love to, Aubrey. But, um, let’s avoid coffee shops for awhile?”

“Good plan.”

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep10: Kaiba Embarrasses Himself on International Television Again

We start off this duel by teasing us into believing that this is a part of a theme park:

The Kaiba theme park is a weird mix of actual horrorscapes and animal crossing cutesy stuff...you can really tell what parts were Mokuba and what parts were Seto in this park.

But Leon takes it well, just kinda standing there as he’s done this entire arc--being a general forgettable nice boy who just...doesn’t do anything. Like he gets up, he plays cards, he sits down. Having him on top of a rock with melodramatic Little Mermaid waves crashing at his feet is laughably the opposite of Leon’s whole vibe.

Leon just seems like the type that listens to coffee shop ambient Youtube videos when he wants to amp himself up. This kid appears to attend a private school...somewhere...I think, and just went to a dueling competition in his school outfit because he literally doesn’t have a style of his own hanging in his closet.

Like Yugi wears his school outfit, but he does that ironically, to off-set the amount of makeup and hair spray he has in his hair. Leon wears the school outfit maybe because he admires Yugi so much, but is like “time for my rogue bow I wear in my hair. That’ll scare my competition.” He completely missed the point of the 00′s alt school outfit scene.

I do way too much art to not see the imagery. I feel like this is half my job, and playing “where’s the hidden Freudian meaning?” is half the fun of going to any art museum.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, Seto got tired of no one paying any attention to him, so he stepped out of his 14-monitor mancave, he very quickly pulled his Dragon outfit out of the (dirty) laundry, flicked a couple sea crabs out of his pockets, spritzed it with Febreeze and called it “good enough.”

Like, is it just me, or has dragon jacket greyed out a tad from last season? Like it’s starting to get a little...worn? Like what funk is coming off of Seto Kaiba right now?

Also notice that he brought his giant stash of cards to the duel. He’s going to put on this show as if he’s not going to pull out the giant stash of cards. But like...he’s going to pull out the giant stash of cards. Like Hell boring ass Leon is going to play his deck of Candyland characters again.

Leon is declared a winner on Technicality and it’s like.

Damn Seto, for reals?

So congrats, Leon, you did literally nothing, again, and yet you mystifyingly  persist on this show. Clearly you aren‘t going to grow a second head out of that ponytail like professor Quirrel in the last act of this arc.

That’s when Yugi’s hazy memory recalls something from the Before Times of “that time period before I was possessed by a needy ghost that eats up 3/4 of my memories and time.”

So Schroeder is Atari. Neat.

Also, this makes Zigfrieds outfits a hell ton more endearing when you realize he’s this Willy Wonka game company owner making toys for children. Kinda makes you wonder why Seto’s such a stick up the ass in comparison when it’s like--dude Kaiba, maybe you could learn a thing or two about whimsy. It could really help out your inconsistent park.

Anyway, Kaiba quickly realized who hacked the park and so, understandably, he asked Zigried to leave, which...backfired?

Y’all card culture is a lot. Everyone in the audience covered their faces in shame because they were so embarrassed by Seto Kaiba and I’m like...not sure why? Because he didn’t do a duel? Against this guy who snuck into his tourney not unlike Rex and Weevil? This asshole?

Recall that the last time Seto played a guy who had a fake name it was Marik freakin Ishtar and he killed a LOT of people (actually, it was Alister, pretending to be Pegasus, but he also killed a lot of people so that still tracks). Card culture can’t seem to learn from their mistakes, although Seto clearly sees the problem with dueling a professional hacker in a digital card game on a hologram that may or may not be able to murder you. At least its not a magic.

And so, tired of being humiliated on television, Seto decides to bust out the dueling gloves (well, not those gloves. You know what I meant) and use the equipment he BROUGHT WITH HIM and clearly never intended not to use in the first place.

(I hope you enjoy this dutch angle that wasn’t quite dutch enough, so it just looks like they’re lounging)

Roland patiently walks over from...somewhere? I don’t know where Roland comes from whenever he pops up, but he waltzed over to hold onto this suitcase as if that’s a formal part of his job.

I say this so often but like...I don’t know what Roland’s job is. He’s like a valet/butler/duel referee/duel cheerleader/CEO/and I will spend the rest of this series trying to understand it. Part of me is like...could Roland be a temp worker at an agency who just gets rehired for a different Kaiba Corp job every couple of weeks?

That weird ass fourthKaiba, I will never understand Roland.

Just one letter away from being a Zigfriend, Kaiba. Just one letter away. I know this because I misspell friend a LOT.

Zigfreind? Zigfriend? Damn it, both of them look the freakin same to me, this sucks! Why can’t I spell friend without autocorrect!?

Just the amount these two fight when Seto clearly barely even remembers who this guy even is.

Leon shows up in the seats, pretending that he’s totally cool about winning on a technicality right after Zigfried went on a rant about how shameful, irredeemable, and mortally embarrassing winning on technicalities are.

He seems to take it pretty well, smiling, sitting next to Rebecca, and then dissolving right into the background because this kid’s whole deal is being way too nice to exist on this show.

Y’all we just had that art meme where people were redrawing that “How to draw manga face” and guys...that’s what our anime used to look like.

I mean look at that uncomfortable chin there, that tapers in for some reason. Those eyes melting off of her face. The lack of any 3d sense. This was an anime ideal for a very, very long time.

Anyway, the “how to draw manga face” is a perfect masterpiece and never needs to change. (But it is fun to make fun of it although I guess the person that drew it was actually a kid, which makes sense from a publishing perspective to have a kid make a book about how to draw stuff for kids.)

We see a little flashback of Schroeder and why he hates Seto Kaiba, and can I just say, I kind of love this little outfit. Kind of a shame that it’s stuffed into a flashback.

Which is when we found out that Zigfried thinks Seto Kaiba did a plagiarism.

Which is hilarious because it was Gozaburo Kaiba who was plagiarizing Seto, so like...who did it first?

OK guys. Lets talk about this.

APPARENTLY, there was some sort of contest to work with Pegasus...kind of like an architecture contest (which is a thing, when a city is doing a big project, they send out a call, and big firms will compete to see who builds it) and I GOTTA know what Pegasus’ theme was.

Like did he say to all the little rich kid geniuses “I would like something that makes my cards ALIVE, can you do that?” Then when Pegasus got a hell ton of holograms and was he like “But ALIVE--it makes it alive, right boy?” And when he was shaking the hands of each stupid kid was he like “So if I hypothetically put my dead wife on a card and slapped it into the machine--could she EXIST. Like...enough? I just need her to legally exist is all, and not like..literally of course...but enough literally to be a sin against God, can you do that?”

I just want to know if Willy Wonka Wonderkid Von Schroeder had any idea he was creating a resurrection chamber for a dark wizard. Like he has no idea that he dodged getting his business bought straight from under him and his soul shoved into a card. And it’s not like Schroeder was going to abduct Yugi’s Grandpa and ensure that Yugi would be there to save him down the road. Like I’m pretty sure Schroeder would have been sacrificed waaay before that whole island contest even went down.

Zigfried got so freakin lucky. I can’t believe he’s mad. But then again...

...the man swims in milk pools so like...maybe his logic center is busted? Maybe he wanted to die in a horrific murder island? I don't know what Zigfried is into, but I do know that because Zigfried doesn’t have millennium rod powers linking him to the millennium eye--so would it have mattered? There’s destiny reasons that Pegasus chose Kaiba.

Course...we never found out where the scales ended up, have we? We think it’s Shadi, but have we seen Shadi bust those out since Season Zero?

Man that would be a good plot twist that will absolutely not happen.

Yo, make horse guy into a dark wizard, show, I dare you!

Anyway, that’s all for now, but if you want to read from the beginning, here’s the link:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[knivesandwives]

Can you give an excerpt (is that the word?) or a pic from the book about Hannibal and Clarice's little date thing? I'm intrigued lol

Oh lol I'm honestly still reading it! Thank you for facilitating my venting though, and I will gladly share my incomplete knowledge. I haven't even finished this scene, which continues into another chapter. I had to take a break and cool my head because it makes me want to gag like I was a 5 year old with an aversion to kissing scenes (which is not usual for me. I just. I don't know about this). I could take the time to finish reading it in the time I'm writing this buuuut I'm too heated to do so atm, even though it would spare me the embarrassment of having very incomplete context. I don't even know whether Thomas Harris intends for the reader to want them together, but his treatment of Hannibal Lecter has generally verged on salivating over him, imo, so. I'm gonna take it as implied that I should like this a bit more than I do. I could be very wrong. Under the cut because it is a Rant

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I’ve got the fun wacky stuff first because this book is Wild. Bonkers. Then I have semi serious stuff and Thoughts thoughts in the second half 

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WACKY FUN STUFF PART

it is So over the top corny. Highlights so far:

-Hannibal is playing the harpsichord when Clarice walks out. In other scenes he’s played his theremin. He is insufferable

- the piece he's playing is called ‘If True Love Reigned’ and was composed by Henry VIII, which is a red flag if ever I heard one

-he dresses up in white tie for her and spends FOREVER decorating the house *just so* and inspecting the dinner table from various angles to check whether the Aesthetic is right, because the house he's rented out is only so-so and he's gotta make up for it:

I mean. He decides to add a shit ton of flowers to make it intimate and create a hanging gardens effect, realizes that this looks bad, and decides that the solution is More flowers. Maybe he’s right, but I think with the rest of the decorations this is probably looking like a mess right now.

-Uhhh if I remember correctly from the Freudian Daddy Issues chapter (hhhhh I want to have a word with Thomas Harris), the reason he makes the peonies in the flower arrangement “white as SNO BALLS” is because she has some sort of (dad-related) childhood memories about these fucking Hostess twinkie-level snacks. There are Levels to his floral arrangements

-Similarly, the cocktails he prepares for them have orange slices on the side because it’ll remind her of her father slicing oranges and Hannibal wants to be daddy

-The landlord he’s renting the house from (where he’s keeping Clarice and holding Date Night) has a fixation on Leda and the Swan, to the point that he has four statues of it and eight paintings of it in that one house alone. Hannibal likes the horniest one with the best “anatomical articulation.” Make of that what you will. There was indeed a reason for Bryan Fuller including such a pussy out painting in the set for Hannibal’s dining room. Hannibal covers the other Leda statues and paintings that don’t live up to his standards

- He brings her clothes to wear?? Special Fancy clothes for Date Night. Ugh. And I thought it was pushy and anal in SOTL when he gave her tips on how to improve her fashion

- Hannibal wears an ascot over a white shirt. No jacket. I don't know if I trust the taste level of this man. I like Freddy from scooby doo but his look seems like a stretch in this context

-he uses candelabra like he's the phantom of the opera and has this incredibly fucking extra mirror in his rented house:

-he tells her his goals for the evening in one of the trademark Long Confusing Hannibal Monologues we’re so used to seeing in the show, then asks Clarice if she understands, and her response is: no I don’t so I hope your food is good at least

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Actual Serious Thoughts about it  (content warning: some vaguely psychosexual things involving characters’ family, drugging and non-sexual consent issues)

I think my reaction is definitely influenced by the context that's been presented so far for their relationship in this book, which includes (briefly):

--Hannibal has a fixation on Clarice as a potential replacement for/idealized version of Mischa, his dead sister. The moment he lays eyes upon her again in this book he starts having uncontrollable flashbacks that directly associate Clarice with Mischa and overlays their meanings and iconography. So... that's something. It shows up constantly whenever we get a glimpse into his POV. I have thoughts about what Hannibal finds appealing about Clarice RE as an idealized version/teacup reversal of Mischa; the book tells us he admires her courage and her spirit as a warrior despite having been victimized, and so Clarice is in some ways a version of Mischa that was capable of surviving despite the odds. That was (crudely) my working theory, anyway. Might have to reevaluate that now because I'm less certain now about Hannibal's intentions and how much his appreciation for Clarice is really *respectful* of her potential, versus how much he sees her as some sort of vehicle to replace Mischa and be some sort of walking talking idealized doll that he crafts into his dead sister. I wanted it to not be *as* weird and psychosexual as I thought it would end up being, but this book definitely leans into some weird sexualized Freudian shit, and I'm concerned that Mischa and Clarice are part of that despite my best efforts to rationalize it in a way that I would have preferred. Really, who fantasies about their lover being a reminder of their sister?

--Freudian hell part 2: Hannibal has rescued Clarice from the Verger farm (after she rescued him, which was quite dramatic) and has her drugged at his house and undergoing the type of hypnosis we see suggested with Will and Miriam Lass in NBC!Hannibal. Hannibal suggests things, she follows those suggestions with apparently little agency of her own. He probes into her history and traumas and causes her to see things. Among his goals here is to have her make peace with her dead father in some way (in a scene which strongly resembles Abigail's therapy with GJH's corpse as seen in the s3 flashbacks), and to give her some form of control over her memory of him. This is accompanied by some very squicky speculation from Hannibal about Clarice having taboo sexual associations with her father, which she projects (among other things) onto other father figures in her life like Jack Crawford or her fallen FBI partner. I didn't know before I got into this book whether it was going to legitimize the Electra complex angle on Clarice this much, and maybe I'm wrong to accept Hannibal's viewpoint as sacred, but. So far, that seems to be the take.

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So that's the context for the leadup to this romantic dinner scene. Hannibal has decorated his house specially for this date night type thing and given her a slinky, fancy dress to wear in his fancy house. Clarice has been heavily under the influence of drugs so far, and this night is no exception. This chapter so far has been a treasure trove of the more romantic dialogue repurposed for NBC!Hannibal, but I kind of can't stand it here in this book as anything remotely romantic. It's almost entirely him talking *at* her and it seems like this is more about him and his idealized fantasy of her than it is actually about her. The text does refer to him as "the monster" more frequently in this chapter, and it calls him out directly for his vanity and self congratulation, so I'm not entirely sure if I'm even supposed to like it, but. Anyway. You asked for excerpts! This particular scene is probably the densest part of a very dense chapter (the highlights are a mess rn):

There's a lot of interesting stuff in here, some of which really raises my hackles in ways I wasn't anticipating. Clarice has just emerged in the outfit he chose for her to join him. Clarice's first question to him is to ask about how much he's invaded her privacy without her knowledge, and he has a very bullshit answer where he pretends that this situation he's manufactured, in which he drugs her and creates a fantasy world for them, is okay because it exists outside of reality. It doesn't. It's an interesting idea but it's bullshit. This is not his memory palace, this is reality and it does exist as a part of time that Clarice has had to experience (or not, as the case may be for her level of consciousness throughout this). And he turns around from this question about him being intrusive to reiterate his attraction to her. Squick at that. Her plain (possibly curt?) answer to his compliment, even though it's a thank you, causes him annoyance. This is where I really, Really start to have, like, flashbacks to Jessica Jones and the playing house plotline. Real strong flashbacks to that. Clarice's (apparently unintentional) failure to meet his standards and reciprocate in the exact way he wants her to makes him Annoyed. Clarice identifies this and holds her ground, interestingly enough, and Hannibal has a moment of awe at her stubborn individuality, but immediately falls back on self congratulatory wanking at his choice of woman. Then, there's more talking at her, to which she eventually says that she basically doesn't know what the fuck he means but she hopes he plans to make dinner worth her while. I appreciate Clarice holding her ground so well here, especially given the circumstances, and I don't know quite where this is headed, but I guess the gist of it is that in this context I just really want to slap Hannibal about and see him burn

[vaguely-concerned]

empire of ivory here we go!

previous temeraire let’s read here

- um excuuuuse me I have waited two books for us to come back home to britain to see everyone again and now everything is awful and shitty and scary and my fave is leaving and nothing’s how it should be??? no??? this is unfair??????

- tharkay NO please don’t go everything provably goes to hell whenever you leave D:D:D:

(to be fair to him I guess it’s understandable to want some time alone to process the absolute outrageous bullshit he just pulled for a guy he’s known for like four months)

he used his page time well tho; instantly convincing roland of his worth and making her laugh... giving laurence his cup of tea b/c he looked like he needed it more... telling laurence that he’s leaving because he promised to do that much at least... truly the best boy, off to fetch more dragons apparently because it wasn’t quite crazy enough the first time

- god I love jane roland, I’m so glad my two faves got along instantly, between them they could... maybe protect laurence from himself? at least a little??? I can but dream

- I think this is the most emotionally invested I’ve been in a piece of media since that time I spent a few months completely incoherent over uncharted, and naughty dog very kindly held my heart in their hands and chose to be gentle with it in the end but I am not so sure that is how it’s going to be for this series and I am Not Prepared for the suffering

- I love whenever laurence thinks uncomfortably about one of the various and sundry atrocities committed by the government he’s still pledged all his loyalty to. yes william maybe the british empire... is in fact not good and has enough blood on their hands to dye the ocean red. I can’t wait until he connects the dots here (and presumably has a pretty intense crisis if faith about it because it seems like one of the loadbearing structures of his character... actually no wait I’m not ready to see this D:D:D:)

- the little details like the fact that he just calls bb!roland ‘emily’ and harcourt becomes ‘catherine’ so easily in his narration now are so so sweet  

- lord allendale is one of those dudes who have good politics but is a shitheel to his family and I want to smack him

laurence being the mortified poster boy of this party, though? priceless, imagine coming up with a protagonist this effortlessly involuntarily hilarious, it’s the mark of true genius

- I don’t usually quibble over things like this, but I think the edit for this fourth book specifically is a bit lacking? I’ve come across a lot of mistakes even my dumb ass can pick up on already, and I’m only a hundred pages or so in

- caught between crying and cackling at this part b/c like laurence I’m  d e v a s t a t e d  at the thought of temeraire getting sick but also temeraire is just like cheerfully getting laid the whole time

also how did none of the aviators think to give laurence The Talk about giving his dragon The Talk, you all know what he’s like

- oh thank god

- I have spent half of today crying about dragons coughing, how are you this fine evening good reader

- btw this series fills a hole in my soul left by jkr giving me all those tantalizing hints of different types of dragons in ‘fantastic beasts’ and never following up on it

- tharkay may not be here but laurence just mentioned him like once in his narration so let’s take the excuse to reminisce about the good old days (when tharkay was here)... remember that time when the one of his own jokes he laughed openly at was about lawyers and laurence frankly should have responded better b/c it was kind of funny and sadly temeraire doesn’t have the worldly experience to know it yet.... aaah precious, he truly is a sardonic blessing to my heart and deserves the world

okay back to our regularly scheduled content   

- riley why u gotta b such a bitch about this

(I love how laurence is constantly doubting himself over this tho, as if he’s done something wrong in this situation... like honey baby if there’s one thing worth breaking a friendship over it’s probably them being cool with slavery lol. it shows how much laurence has grown, considering that this disagreement has always existed between them but he used to be willing to just overlook it... I’m so proud of you laurence)

also lol @ berkely coming in to tell them everyone can hear them, I have a desperately soft spot for him and maximus. just the image of both of them turning to him ‘united in appalled indignation’ like ‘excuse you???’ and him giving exactly zero fucks... *chef kiss emoji*

- most important information revealed in this book: a) dragons are not widely considered to have committed original sin, thank you reverend erasmus and b) laurence has taken time out of his day at some point to worry about it b/c he’s a dork

(this is the sort of world building I am hopelessly weak to lol)

- gong su tricking temeraire into eating in the most melodramatic way possible... god bless you chef

- fkjhsadkjfhsdkjalhfaskjldhf laurence judging chenery for what he’s wearing while going out into the jungle in full uniform hat included himself... I caaaaan’t

- demane has only appeared on three pages so far but if anything happens to him I’ll kill everyone in this book and then myself

- ‘average dragon speaks one million languages’ factoid actualy statistical error. Temeraire Linguist Georg, who wants a pavilion thank you very much & learns over 10,000 languages each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted <3<3<3

(I love that temeraire is like... a nerd dragon with a hopelessly jock captain)

- laurence effortlessly rating the relative hotness of the other male aviators to try to suss out who harcourt has slept with fjsaldfhsdkljafh do you ever hear yourself think william

like this is the thing about him it’s so easy to headcanon him as bi b/c he can be so mindbogglingly oblivious it’s entirely possible he literally wouldn’t even have noticed until someone smacked him over the head with it

- see I’m very happy they found the cure but I don’t fucking trust it b/c the pattern of these books tends to be to give you one moment of ‘oh phew everything is going to be okay’ about 2/3 into the story and THEN everything goes to hell and fifty pages later laurence is dissociating and napoleon has conquered prussia 

- THERE WE GO RIGHT ON SCHEDULE

temeraire is never going to let laurence go anywhere without him again and rightly so

- hasn’t mrs erasmus been through enough. can’t she just be allowed to chill 

- this is really cool world building but I’m too stressed out to appreciate it

really enjoy the description of architecture tho this sounds so awesome

- sfahdfklsahdfksjda laurence making sure his clothes are as washed and presentable as possible... I can’t with you you beautiful idiot

- TEMERAIRE OH MY GOD IS HE HERE IS LAURENCE HALLUCINATING PLS SAY HE’S ACTUALLY HERE

- ...well I mean if anyone has a freudian excuse for being kind of dickish I guess it would be these guys? it’s actually pretty chill of them to only flog one of them (laurence, because he just can’t play it any way but stupid lawful good at every turn) and not just killing them all I guess, they kept them fed and stuff

- oh thank god

- temeraire you are the most darling dragon boy and I love you

I was really really worried for a moment there that the reference to the Colosseum was a not-so-subtle hint they would have to gladiator fight to the death but thankfully they were basically just calling in a parliament

- DID THIS MOTHERFUCKER JUST STAB A CHILD IN THE STOMACH?? I HOPE HE ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE DICK AND DIES pls say demane is going to be okay

- aw okay finally something good for mrs erasmus I will take it

- laurence you useless fool of a narrator is demane okay?? 

- god roland is just so cool naomi novik really gave us a jovial butch silver fox aviator lady huh... she did that for us and I for one am full of gratitude

- oh thank GOD (hm I sense a running theme here lol) the kid is going to be okay I can breathe again

- iskierka the pirate captain + temeraire’s reaction... perfect

- ;____________; I would lay down my life for temeraire and also that’s a gutpunch of a moodswing... the perfect hilarity of ‘that is an ugly hill’ immediately followed by That... jesus

- awww every time volly shows up again is a joy (temrer!!!)

- laurence... laurence you need to stop asking people to marry you because you never actually really fucking mean it!!!!! have you learned nothing about yourself since book 1, trust your goddamn instincts for once in your life you and roland have been doing perfectly okay thus far as like... affectionate fuckbuddies right? 

(her reaction was priceless tho god bless)

- aaaah there we go the british government is looking more like itself... welcome to the world of realpolitik laurence I’m really sorry :(

- “It is only dragons, you know” JANE ROLAND WTF DID YOU JUST SAY

- “This government is not of my party; my king is ill and mad; but still I am his subject. You have sworn no oath, but I have.” He paused. “I have given my word.”

:) this is... fine

(like. I know this is necessary character growth and he’s basically been a waste of a good man in service to a government like this the whole time and the writing’s been on the wall since book 1 but I don’t want this to be happening to hiiiiim)

- tfw... ur dragon boi is so good... that being anything less than good for him in turn is unthinkable...................... b o i

- ...jane doesn’t really know him very well if she didn’t see this coming from a mile off tho does she

I mean I guess she has other stuff to think about but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone

- remember when he thought the entire corps was weird and now he’s finally at home there... and has to leave it behind :):):) super extra fine is what this is

- yeah okay laurence definitely has a crush on ol’ bonaparte noting that down lol he’s all but blushing after that kiss on the cheek 

also... if you just overlook the dictator thing for a moment is napoleon wrong about what he’s saying tho. (no and not even laurence is prepared to say so he’s just going to go back there and get murdered anyway b/c idk lawful good is dumb as fuck sometimes I guess)

It’s really cool how the author shows that napoleon has a better handle on laurence’s psychology after barely meeting him than a lot of people he’s known for years now, though, really adds to his menace and appeal as a character

- wow uh that’s one way to end a book... it’s actually tipped over from tragedy into a strange sort of hilarity for me now: he literally got sued out of his life’s earnings for being a decent human being, committed treason for the same reason and is about to be hanged for thinking genocide might have been a step too far -- in the span of thirty pages. I believe ‘that escalated quickly’ is not too much of an exaggeration here

- SIPHO IS GONNA WRITE BOOKS ONE DAY YOU GUYS!!!! I PROUDLY WELCOME OUR SECOND NERD TO THE CREW

 - I think this one might be my least favorite so far? not that I disliked it, it’s just the one that’s hit the worst by the fact that there’s not always that much time spent with the cultures central to the book; tswana seems really interesting but because of the way the plot played out and our limited perspective though laurence it just didn’t work for me? the cool shit comes in sipho’s book at the end, like how thoroughly they kicked the europeans out of the coast of africa, which is very cathartic (I will say that most of the second book being set on the ship and then only a sliver of it is actually in china annoyed me too haha) 

I have the distinct feeling this book is setting up for some Misery and breaking of the pattern a bit in the next one though, which will be interesting! ONWARDS TO MORE PAIN AND LAURENCE IS ALREADY PASSIVELY SUICIDAL FROM THE OUTSET SO LIKE... I’M SURE THIS WILL BE REAL FUN :)

maybe my boy will be back tho? silver linings silver linings clinging to some silver linings

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

8: So Be It

“Church.” They. We. John had for so long only been responsible for his actions. Wake up, brush his teeth, eat breakfast, read, eat lunch, read, ignore the voice through the vent, read, dinner, read, lights out, staring out into the darkness until he finally drifted away, wake up, brush his … “Church.” And everyday she pulled him out of that routine. That first week John resented Mike McGuire for it. He wanted to curse her for her ignorance. This morning he had just finished a bowl of oats. He knew Mike was still doing some wrap up getting her number two up to speed to run her business. He knew that he’d be able to dig into another … That’s another thing that perplexed him. He woke up one morning last week to see a box of assorted books in front of the door of the guest room. It was never brought up. But every dinner was over a different movie on the television. Every training session was in tandem and was always accompanied by strategy. What was the future of their tag team? What does he think of his opponents? What does he need to do to succeed? But that Saturday morning, John had just cracked open a book about the life and death of Nikola Teslawhen she said it was time to go. They could make a trip of it towards Baton Rouge and then catch a flight back back North to Boston after the Friday event. “Church!” His blank stare out of the passenger’s side window was startled by a sharp yet ultimately harmless jab. He turned away from the endless farm fields and turned to the driver. “Yeah?” “You with me, buddy? You looked a million miles away just then.” The reverberations of the powerful engine of her muscle car, a gaudy yellow late model Mustang, certainly aided in that distance. The red leather seats creaked softly as John adjusted his seat and sat straight back up. “I’m okay.” “Good,” she smiled, looking almost at peace behind the wheel, the sun on her face, “You got any ideas? Tons of stuff to do on the way there. Pick something. Anything you want.” “I don’t know,” John looked back out the window and saw the handwritten sign about the man with no vocal chords, “I always lived out west. Even when I traveled,” John paused, perhaps considering his words,“when I traveled it was the same loop. The hotel, the gym, and the arena.” “I did that stuff too. Livened it up a bit though, used to go bar hopping a lot. Man, some of the crawls I did were fuckin’ eeeepic,” she snickered to herself a bit, “You wanna do something like that? I know all the best places.” “I don’t drink. Never have,” John had started to understand that some of his social interactions were unintentionally blunt, “but …but don’t let that stop you.” “Okay, fair enough. Well, there’s a travel guide in the glove compartment there. Should have some stuff of interest en route. Leaf through it an’ see if there’s anything that catches your eye.” “Surprise me,” John had almost tried to stop himself from saying that. He hated surprises. He liked his routine. He hated his routine, too. It was too familiar and was born of a sense of minimization. Mike responded with that wide grin and accelerated past a semi truck. Some more time past and John could feel himself getting lulled into the sights as the farm plains transitioned into the rocky corridors of West Virginia, “Fine. This time. But sometime between now’n Baton Rouge you’re pickin’ something. We’re doing this together, y’know,” she drove a bit longer, eyes flicking to the exit signs and the flow of traffic, before speaking up again, her cadence that of a person watching their words when unused to doing so, “Hey. Sorry to bring this up again, but it’s kinda been buggin’ me. That thing a while back. With Emma. What was it about? You like her or somethin’?” He’d almost forgotten. The woman certainly had, “I, uh, would consider it a Freudian slip,” he felt that Mike sometimes walked on eggshells around him about these subjects and she most likely did not want a repeat of what could be the catalyst of this whole ordeal. He had heard and read what people thought of him. Amongst all of the requests to end his own life, people had legitimate questions and concerns. He was artful in his ability to dodge the questions about his past and his even more surreal present. John cleared his throat, “Look, I’m not sure. She, I mean, you know …” He danced around it for so long and in the eyes of the public, they painted him as dull or even some masterful sociopath disassociated with the act and its victim. “Mike, I, I’m just not sure. The dispositions were nothing alike but the shine of her eyes, her hair — they were a reminder. So to answer your question: I don’t like her. I mean, I don’t dislike her. She’s just a competitor,” he continued to struggle as Mike listened with her eyes intently on the road, “I don’t know why I’m back. I’d been forgotten and now, I’m here talking with you and now doing what I always wanted to do. I don’t talk about it because I don’t know what to say. I can barely remember what happened. I’d been grilled and grilled over details that I just didn’t know. I had finished a show and it was called it Beware the Ides of March. It was in reference to whatever the main event was. I’d opened the show and was the first person out because Reno was my hometown. The promoters like that sort of thing, you know? It was twenty minutes away from the apartment. I was alone which was the usual at this stage. I was woken up from my bed the next morning with a loud knock,” John sighed, “and well, there’s been plenty of discussion about it. It’s been in print, on the TV, so it doesn’t bear repeating. I was where I was at and now I’m not. I don’t think… I, I, I belonged there.”

 “Okay. S’ all I wanted to know,” she let it go at that. She didn’t want to dwell on that particular subject, she supposed, any more than he did. Her fingers drummed on the crimson leather cover of the steering wheel. Letting a pause linger for a bit, she smiles over at him, artfully letting the subject pass for a new one, “Mind if I turn the radio on?” “Okay.”

 “Master conversationalist as always, my man.” 

Chuckling softly, she turned the dial on the radio- what would be considered an old-school affair, no Sirius or even a cassette deck. She kept it true to the rest of the vehicle on her rebuild, even though she was well aware she could’ve put in something more modern.

 “Lessee… gospel… country, ugh… fuckin’ disco… goin’ to hell, yeah yeah… HERE we go,”

 she landed on a rock/metal station, by lucky happenstance at the tail end of a commercial break. The band was a classic and it pleased her. TNT, it’s dyno-mite, “FUCK. YEAH. … This cool with you? You an AC/DC person?” John looked into the rear view mirror and they were all alone in this stretch of road as it cut and curved throughout the high walled rock landscape, “It’s not really something to have an affinity for but if you’re going to put me on the spot, alternative current based equipment just have better life expectancies.” She paused for a moment, blinked, and laughed, “The band, Church. The one on the radio. Right now.” John looked at her blankly then at the radio and then back at her, “I know. I was just playing around. This is fine.” “A’ight, cool. Lemme know if you get sick of it, I’ll find somethin’ else,” she drove on, the road spreading out like a ribbon of asphalt before them. John didn’t. He just listened. Eventually this one faded out into static and Mike had to keep turning the dial past all of the sludge. He almost objected a few times but he also remembered the old adage that the driver is the master of the radio. An hour or so passed and finally Mike finally just turned off the radio for the mean time. The mountainous terrain eventually gave out to a thick wooded view. “Hey. Just so y’know, I believe in you. I know how fuckin’ corny that sounds, but I do. I like t’ think I have an eye for these things and I really think I’m lookin’ at the next TV champ,” she paused, maybe placing her words, maybe for effect, “Something you said really stuck with me. I think you figured out a question I’ve been askin’ myself for years without me even askin’ you, in a conversation that wasn’t even about me. Weird’s that sounds.” Earlier that week, the company had arranged for another sit down interview. By virtue of defeating the former champion, Bishop Church had earned the #1 contendership for the Television Championship. What stood before him was his greatest challenge and the company wanted some face time from both their champion and challenger. So once again, John sat in the hot seat. Despite Mike being there, that tense feeling did not dissipate. John fiddled with the microphone clipped to the collar of his t-shirt while Ace Heart flipped through a stapled packet of papers held steady with a clipboard. “Careful with that. The audio technicians hear every time you touch the clip.” John stopped and sat up straight in his director’s style chair, “Okay.” “So here we are again. Before we start, you gotta tell me, why did you delete your Facebook account?” “I don’t trust Zuckerberg. You ever get the feeling that he’s not giving straight answers.” Ace scoffed at that, “Look, Bishop, we set that up for you as a way for you to speak to your fans. You had 150,000 followers and then all of a sudden, you 86’d it.” “I just … didn’t want it. I’m here for this, isn’t that what you wanted?” Ace raised his hands perhaps feigning indignation, “Yeah, that’s right. You’re here. For this. Whatever this will be.” Ace signaled to the camera man and crew to start filming. “Dr. Pepper presents an Extreme Wrestling Corporation live interview on Facebook Watch. I’m Ace Heart and this is Bishop Church.” John nodded. Ace sighed, “Splendid. So since we last talked it seems like your circumstances have made a 180 degree turn. You’ve managed to dispatch Emma Louise, Chris Chambers, and most recently former Television Champion Kendrick Kross one after another. Most notably this is the same Kendrick Kross who unthroned Ruthless Aggression at Stranglemania. Now three days after you face Malice at Friday Night Rampage, you get your first shot at gold against Ruthless Aggression at Monday Night Brawl. Most recently, she impressively defeated a man twice her size in Grizzly Duggan and retained the TV title. Now she stands before you - your biggest match to date, what say you?” “She-“ “Swear to God, if you say she seems nice, this is over.” John’s eyes narrowed at the interruption but just seconds later, his expression relaxed. He turned to face the camera. “Ahhh, women. Women, women, women, women, women.” Ace’s reaction is one of abject horror but he was helpless to stop as John continued. “What are women like? What do women want? How should I treat a woman? Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to find a woman at all. I’ve been staking out for hours looking for one and the closest I got was this fellow.” The camera shot cut to Mike, unknown at this to all viewers, chowing down on a ham and cheddar sandwich at the catering table. Back to John, the camera shot tightens in on him, “Where are all the women?” He then turned back to the interviewer, still frozen, “Is it all perhaps an elaborate fraud?” Finally, “CUT!” Ace exploded right after the cameras turned off, “What the FUCK was that? What are you even talking about? Your opponent is a woman. Half of the roster are women. Why can’t you just answer my questions?” He then shouted to the assistant off screen, “Where’s his goddamn handler? Saint assured me that I wouldn’t have to put up with this shit anymore.” As if on cue, Mike stepped into the interview set and stood in face to face with Ace while seemingly shielding Church from him, “Partner, okay? Not handler. Partner. Got it?” “Okay Bishop’s partner, can you explain why every interview with this guy turns out to be a waking disaster? In my nearly twenty years of thousands, literally thousands of interactions, I’ve interviewed them all. Every hall of fame inductee, every champion, every one that mattered in this industry has had the decency to answer my questions and yet talking to this guy is like squeezing blood from a stone.” “I’m still here,” John mumbled. “Ignore him, Church. Your right-hand man’s got your back. Just forget about that guy for a sec. It’s not his fault he ain’t got no class or sense of professionalism.” “Why I never!” “Go trim the ‘stache or something. And you there, sweetcheeks, gimme that camera,” there was a bit of a jitter on the picture as the camera was either handed over or taken forcefully, and adjusted by its new operator. Ace Heart shrugged his shoulders and there was an exodus of company crew from the set, “Just like before.” John nodded. The shot came back to life. John stood behind the right director’s chair and looked deep in thought. The camera zoomed out as the new cameraperson struggled with the controls. After a moment, Mike managed to follow his movements. “I’m starting to understand it,” John gestured, “you know, the necessity of all of this. This sport is fueled on the idea of conflict and the reasons for those conflicts vary. Sometimes it is simple. Two people not liking each other. Sometimes there is something at stake. Bragging rights, money, or in the present case: championship gold. And this is a business after all so it’s not just the contest itself. It’s also the circumstances that led up to and surround the bout. That’s why there is all of this pomp and circumstance. Does it really matter what I say here? Will these words truly have an affect on what happens in that squared circle? Actually, yes. And that is what is expected of me.” John took a seat, although he tilted the chair facing forward. “Expectations, right? There are certain expectations on how I should conduct myself. Smile for the camera. Talk to the people. Tell them why I’m the best. Or don’t. Be absolutely abhorrent. Be a disgusting caricature of humanity. Also them why I’m the best. That’s not me. Reevaluate your expectations. I talked a little bit about what people have seen in me thus far and I expect that afterwards, they perhaps had to reconsider. That’s how we got here. I was asked a question on how this stage was set. If you’re watching this, you probably saw just how that happened.” He paused. John so much wanted to keep this internalized. He felt nervous talking about himself but he didn’t feel the need to deflect. He wasn’t so naive to know that she wasn’t the only one listening but just the hypothetical idea of it allowed him to continue. “The former champion stated that he needed this. Essentially he believed that a victory over me would be a turning point. He didn’t see me as viable. He didn’t think of me as a peer. He concluded that I was just here to collect a paycheck. He misjudged me. He underestimated my passion for the sport of professional wrestling. And so he learned in this cruel world that needs aren’t always fulfilled. His story has to carry on with the knowledge that all of the accolades and comeback aspirations evaporated in the space of three seconds. Thus is the cycle of life. That cycle brings us to the idea that I am a contender now.” He shifted in his seat and sat forward. “This is my very first championship opportunity. Never before have I had to chance to compete with stakes so high. Some could say that I need this but that would be oversimplifying it. Think about it. Think about who I am. Not what you see and read but who I am right now. Do I need to be champion like I need air to breathe? Do I need it for financial security? I guess it would be nice but as the camera shakes to and fro, I’m not just here for material objects. What about for love?” John chuckled softly. “As ridiculous as that sounds, the history books are filled with pages of men and women who take advantage their standing for their romantic desires. How about just to make myself feel better? That journey isn’t so trivial that gold plates screwed into a leather strap will clear the path. And so what it comes down to that what a man can be, he must be. So that addresses the match itself. If I can become champion, I must become champion. But that isn’t the end of it, is it, Ruthann Hunter?" For this whole time, he waxed hypothetical to the masses but his meandering questioning tone changed to a more direct one as he began to address his opposition. “If it was, you would have ridden off into the sunset long ago.” The genesis of Mike prodding John into the proverbial sunlight will most likely never meet the air. She had went to check in on him early his stay and she discovered notepads filled with amended notes of his opponents. Who they are. What they do. How John could neutralize their abilities and come out on top. And most noticeably notes on what they said about him. Real statements and all he could manage was nonsense. It wasn’t until his exchange with Ace here that she noticed that it was very intentional. “This is where I would go into that tired song and dance about who you are. You are a living legend and I’ll be the exception. I could say that I would stand fast against the ruthless aggression and persevere. Let me stand up here and I could raise my voice and snort and chortle about my destiny.” John shook his head. “But none of us know what the future holds for us. I can’t make that promise. I want what you have. That’s human nature. We always want what we don’t have. This sport is like a microcosm of life. Look no further than the former champion. Look at the desperation in his words even when he was proud and boastful against you. Due to this being a competition, we usually absolve ourselves of what affect we have on the vanquished. Think about that, won’t you? Someone somewhere in an office gets a promotion over someone else. Maybe that person that failed needed the money more. Maybe they have a crippling disease. In our world - who cares? So the former champion was right on one thing, we all see each other as stepping stones. We all see each other as that obstacle to self-actualization.” He stands up and moves closer to the camera. “And so we go about and we both say this to each other solemnly. I don’t care about your legacy. I don’t care about your family. I don’t care what you have done in the past. I don’t care about what losing could do to your ego. All of that does not matter in the confines of the ring. In that moment, we are two demigods engaged in a struggle that could ravage the earth. The ground could fall to pieces all around us as we were locked together and all that would matter is our musculature straining as we resisted each other’s powers. Our bodies would be intimate in ways no mere mortal could comprehend.” And for this, he did raise his voice. “That is what matters.” And back to a low conversational tone. “This isn’t about redemption. I’m here to take what is mine. And if that has to be on the backs of the broken and beaten…” Closer. “So be it.” Mike’s epiphany was punctuated as the car hit a pothole. They rattled about, “What do you mean?” “Ooof! Shit. Sorry. What I mean is… I kept hittin’ fucking walls. I got a bit of momentum here an’ there but I never got no place because I kept hittin’ walls and I could never think of what the hell was wrong with me. And I never HAVE been able to figure it out until you said it. I didn’t have enough… I dunno. Killer instinct seems really fuckin’ cliche but that thing you were talking about. Having t’ not worry about other people, what they were like or what their dreams an’ motivations might be, long’s you’re in between those bells,”

 her eyes, no, her entire expression was alight, as if she’d just seen the writing of God or heard the prophecies of Mohammed or gotten the truth of the universe from benevolent space aliens
, “I kept holding back, I think. Not… consciously, but on some level I cared too damn much about the other guy when I shouldn’t have.” “Mike, the battlefield is the only place where those virtues that the good covet become a weakness. I’m glad you understand. It’s ignoring that very distinction that creates the overabundance of negativity that permeates the landscape of the company,” John reached over and put his left hand over the middle space and on gently on her right forearm, “We can be that change. I mean, a real change. Let’s not kid ourselves - what we do in the ring will be for selfish reasons but outside we can discover who we are - who we are meant to be.” Mike gave a small gasp inward while trying not to look like she was gasping inward. This was huge. She was a physical person, her affection for a person was accompanied by a shower of hair ruffles, noogies, playful jabs, and other forms of fond roughhousing. She’d held back with this somewhat as it had become apparent to her that John wasn’t exactly the touchy feely sort. So for him for once to initiate physical contact with her… it was so overwhelming almost that she— “Look out!” “Oh FUCK!” Mike suddenly swerved away from a brown blur in their line of site. They could hear a loud thud as something smashed against the right headlight of the car and then into the side mirror on the passenger side. As Mike, rather expertly regained control, John turned his head and could see the tail end of the culprit dart into the woods. Mike put the car to stop in the breakdown lane free and clear. She cut off the engine, “You alright?” “Yeah.” “Good. Okay. We’re okay. Shit,” she closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths and willing her heart not to burst through her ribcage and slow the hell down already, “I’m gonna go check out the damage. Fuck. Hopefully nothin’ I can’t fix,” 

carefully scanning the traffic, Mike exited the Mustang and took a look at what’s been done to her labor of three years. Thankfully, nothing much. The passenger side mirror was torn loose, there were some significant but not horrific dents, but probably the worst were the liberal traces of blood and fur all over the affected area. It was going to be a bitch to clean up. Still, it could have been much, much worse. Meanwhile, John faced the trees, “You hear that?”

 “No… hear what?” Admittedly, she was a little preoccupied with the state of her vehicle. John could hear a pained yowl. He started towards the source of the noise. “H-hey, hold up!” Reaching in through the passenger door and pulling her 8-ball keychain out of the ignition, Mike followed her counterpart away from the car and off to wherever he was heading to. John hurried through the first rows of large trees until he reached a small clearing. He could see it. A young female deer laid out in the leaves, twigs, and debris of the forest. It’s eyes were wide in the realization of its situation. Blood seeped out large gash on its neck and it also trickled out of the corner of its mouth. It gasped and fought for every breath. John’s shadows loomed over its dying body. Mike finally caught up to him. “Oh. Oh, geez. Poor thing. Shit. What do you do in this situation, I know this… okay. You call the cops for the accident, the park service or some shit to take care of the deer… goddamnit. I’m sorry, Church. This was supposed to be fucking fun,”

 sighing, she fished in her pocket for her phone. “I hope it goes without saying that any interaction with the police may not be beneficial to me,” John knelt down next to the animal. “Oh. Fuck, sorry,” she wasn’t in the mood to argue the point, and shakily dropped the phone back into her pocket, “Hey… what’re you doing? I don’t think there’s much you can do for her at this point.” “Give me your knife.” She closed her hand around the four-inch object in her pocket- a utility Swiss Army knife, mostly used for the screwdrivers and bottle opener, “What do y’want my knife fo… no. Church, nuh-uh. We can’t.” A little more assertive, “Give me your knife,” without facing her, he put his hand out with the palm up and he grasped for the knife to be placed there. “Fuck. Shit,” biting her lip and with obvious hesitation, she took the knife out of her pocket and placed it in his hand. Hers trembled in a manner very unlike her. John looked down at the multi-tool and used his thumbnail to flick open the blade. He stared down into his reflection in the sharp sliver of steel. The deer flailed its once strong legs in a helpless fashion unable to control its motor functions. The smell of urine and feces wafted throughout the air and its blood began to pool and carpet the foliage under its neck. “I’m sorry it had to be this way,” the blade pressed against its throat. “So be it.”

[bazypitchandsimonsnow]

Watford Cove

Chapter 5: not so typical love song

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff/Angst

Word count: 5365

Chapter: 5/13 [All chapters]

Summary: Baz goes to Simon's house to work on the project.

Read on AO3

AN: So as some of you may know/remember, I work at an amusement park. I was supposed to work today but it's literally raining all day so the park is most certainly closed. Which means I can post early! Hooray! This is personally one of my favourite chapters. I enjoyed writing it quite a bit, though I had trouble writing Baz's emotions. The boy is a weird self destructive mess and it's difficult getting that across lol. Finally, we learn a bit more about Simon. Plus some fluff, of course. Hope you all like it!

Tagging: @wayward-son-61​ @lunar-lover394​

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“Where are you going?”

I lazily turn towards Mordelia. She’s standing next to me with her arms behind her back, rocking on her heels. The picture of an adorable, unassuming child. You can hardly tell she's a brat.

“Out,” I reply.

“Mum says you go out too much.”

I do feel a bit bad about that. Daphne does legitimately care about my well being. “Well, you can tell her I’m not going out drinking. She can stop worrying.”

“Drinking what?”

I sigh. Right, she is still seven years old. “Nevermind. I’m just going to do schoolwork at someone’s house. I might be home for supper or not, I don’t know.”

“Okay. When can I ride on your motorbike?”

I smirk and buckle up my helmet. “Let's wait until you can reach the pedals. Then we’ll talk.”

Mordelia pouts pathetically. I ruffle her hair, which only makes her pout become an impressive scowl. I flip down my visor with flare and rev my engine. I give Mordelia a salute before driving off down the country road.

Simon’s house isn’t that far from mine, actually. Maybe a twenty minute ride, the way I break the speeding laws. I zip down the hill at ludicrous speeds, and keep that pace up across the country roads until they become moderately paved. Soon I’m on the sparse outskirts of Watford Cove, not the bloody fucking wilderness like mine. A much nicer place to live in my opinion.

Only a few minutes in, I arrive at the address Simon texted me. The house is actually quite posh. It’s not the terrible extravagance of the Pitch mansion of course, but it’s nice. Red brick, white shutters, some fancy curtains. There's a silver mailbox at the end of the drive with "Salisbury" painted on it in annoyingly bright green letters. The handwriting looks childish, as in a child probably wrote it. The initials "LS" are under the words like an artist's signature. Hm, interesting.

I park my bike in the driveway then make my way to the oak door. The doorbell chimes deep and loud. There’s some steps and soon it swings open. Oh. This is...not Simon. Because Simon is not an older greying-blonde woman.

This woman reminds me of portraits my own grandmother. She was also tall, straight backed, and respectful looking. But my grandmother never showed an ounce of happiness. This woman has a very kind smile on her face though, her wrinkles more from the expression rather than age.

“Hello,” she says kindly. “May I help you?”

“Um, I’m here to see Simon.”

Both her blue eyes and smile widen. “Oh right, Simon said you were coming. Simon! Your friend is here!”

There’s a crashing sound, like someone falling on the ground. Rapid steps come down the stairs until a beaming Simon jumps to the bottom.

“Hi Baz,” he says breathlessly. “Glad you found it.”

“I have Google Maps, Salisbury,” I deadpan, but with a smirk.

“Oh yeah, right, let’s go.” He motions for me to follow him inside. I nod to the woman. She looks up towards the stairs, hands on her hips.

“Simon,” she says with mock accusation, “are you not going to introduce me to your friend?”

Simon freezes halfway up the steps and whips his head around. “Oh right! Sorry, Gran. Um, Gran, this is Baz. Baz, this is my grandmother, Ruth Salisbury.”

I reach out my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Salisbury.”

Her brows rise up in surprise. I suppose she didn’t expect politeness from a guy wearing a black Ramones shirt, leather jacket, and ear piercings. But she still takes my hand. “Pleasure to meet you as well, Baz. You two have fun.”

Simon scoffs. “It’s school, Gran. We’re not supposed to have fun.”

“School can be fun if you try, darling. Maths has made me very good at cards.”

“And you fleece Mrs. Jones every week at your games, I know. We gotta go.”

“Yes yes, go do your schoolwork. Don’t break anything.”

Simon and Ms. Salisbury smile good naturedly at each other as we go upstairs. He runs at a breakneck pace, nearly tripping over the green carpet. I follow more slowly, looking over the walls. Unlike my house, there are many personalised things. Landscape art, funny knick knacks, and some pictures. There’s one of Ms. Salisbury with an older man, who I assume to be her husband. Next to that, there’s the couple again but in their younger years. A boy and girl stand in the foreground, both as blonde as Ms. Salisbury. The last one at the top of the stairs is obviously the two kids as teenagers, grinning with arms around each other. The woman looks weirdly familiar. Her freckles, they remind me of...stars.

“Baz, c’mon!” Simon yells.

“Yes, yes, I’m coming. You’re quite bossy today, darling,” I say teasingly. I hear his gasp, then fall into a coughing fit.

“I-I just want to start working.” His voice is still a bit hoarse.

“Alright.”

I saunter down to the hall Simon went down. I step into his room, and...well, I’m not sure what else I expected. The bed and desk look old, but everything else is new. The floral blanket, the multicoloured rug, the IKEA shelf filled with comics, all quite fresh. The walls are bright blue and covered in posters. Troye Sivan, Lana del Ray, Hayley Kiyoko, and assorted pastel coloured art. Equally pastel clothes are spread out across the floor. The whole room is so...bright. It sort of hurts my eyes. I’d prefer everything a bit darker. I guess I like Simon’s colour palette in small doses, just not all in one room.

I look up. Simon’s at his desk. I finally notice that he’s wearing a new shirt. It’s like the sunflower one, but pink and with bright red rosebuds instead. It works with the copper undertones of his hair. He looks perfect in it.

“Pretty,” I whisper.

“What?” Simon asks sweetly.

Fuck, I hope my face isn’t as red as his shirt right now. “Um, nothing.”

He looks confused for only a moment then shrugs. “Okay. I woke up late and forgot breakfast, so I'm starving. Want some of this? For brain food and stuff.” He holds up a mint aero bar. My smile is instantaneous.

“Sure. Mint aeros are my favourite.”

He grins to his ears. “Mine too!

I sit in the chair next to him. He breaks off a large piece for me. We eat the chocolate at the same time, but Simon gets some around his mouth. (Of course he's a messy eater.) I want to slowly lick it off his cheek then kiss him so hard we run out of breath. I quickly look away to resist temptation. “So, you got the project up?”

“Oh yeah!” He turns back to his laptop. I see that the desk is covered in scribbly note paper, candy wrappers, and nail polish bottles. He’s got almost every colour in his preferred pastel shade. He’s actually wearing the pink one right now. It matches his shirt. I have to keep myself from making an out loud comment again.

“So I’ve started making the powerpoint,” Simon says, bringing up the application. “And I think we should start with Watership Down. The actual place. Cause it’s like, the most important setting right?”

I bite my tongue, because I...disagree. Strongly. Watership Down should be in the middle, because it is the end of their first journey and the beginning of the next. It’s important to illustrate that, I think. But he doesn’t know I would think that.

“Sure, cool,” I mutter.

“O-Okay. Then, uh, for characters, we should start with General Woundwort.”

Wrong, very wrong. He’s important, sure, but others should be discussed first. Maybe Hazel, Bigwig, or Fiver. Fuck, Bluebell should come before Woundwort.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” I hope there isn’t a strain in my voice.

“Awesome! And I thought for analysis, we could talk about the archetypes and shit.”

No! Archetypes are Jungian! We’re supposed to do Freudian! Oh, fuck it.

“Give me that,” I hiss, snatching the laptop away. Simon blinks at me confused. I type furiously, barely thinking really, just spouting out the knowledge I have onto the slides. Some of the stuff is very smart but not well put, so I redo the wording. Not good with words, just like Simon said. I don’t know how long it takes, but when I’m done, I put the laptop back on the desk with my arms crossed.

“There,” I say curtly.

Simon looks through it, jaw falling open wider and wider with every slide. I shift away. Christ, this is embarrassing.

“Holy shit,” Simon whispers. I wait for him to start laughing, or yelling because I change his work. But he just turns to me with big awe filled eyes. “You’re...really smart.”

My cheeks must be as red as tomatoes now. I scoff and look at the Hayley Kiyoko poster. “Yeah, whatever.”

“No, no, I mean it, Baz. This is bloody brilliant! You’re super smart!” His brow furrows. “Why do you never show up to class? You could be getting As in like, everything.”

I press my lips together, digging my nails into my bicep. “I don’t care about school or grades. That’s all.”

“Really? You just, don’t care?”

“No, I don’t.”

Simon sighs, and I hate how close to pity it sounds. I don’t need his pity or anyone else’s. I made my choice a long time ago, and I don’t regret it. Well, I mostly don’t regret it. Certainly don’t regret because of where I’m going when term is done. Not at all...

“So, uh,” Simon says rapidly, obviously trying to break the forming tension, “I'm also mostly done the drawings. I’ll scan them later and put them in the presentation if you like them.”

He pulls out a sketchbook from his desk and flips through the pages. He shoves it in my face once he’s found the right one, making me jolt back in my chair. I snatch it from him.

“Christ, Salisbury, let me actually look,” I chuckle.

“Oh, sorry, sorry.”

I look at the picture, and it’s my turn to be awestruck. It’s...amazing. Rough, raw, a bit messy, but amazing. He’s captured Watership Down in just pencil. Sure, it’s just a hill, but Simon has drawn it from the perspective of the rabbits, so it looks looming and majestic. There are little shapes at the top, and I realise it’s a few of the rabbits looking out into the distance. A cute and perfect addition.

“Wow, this is incredible,” I say with absolute reverence.

Simon blinks at me. He seems genuinely surprised. “R-Really?”

“Yes. You’re very talented, Simon.”

“Oh, uh, well, thanks. I’m...really glad you think so.” He fiddles with his fingers nervously. “There’s a-a couple more if you want to see them. Three pages after.”

I flip through a few more pages. There are a lot of rough, abstract sketches. They look more like feelings than specific things. Waves of smoke, angry scribbles of pencil, over and over. He must do that a lot. Eventually, I land on what I think I'm supposed to see. It's obviously Fiver, based on the photo he showed me. But it's not an exact replica. It's a gorgeous interpretation. He's emphasized Fiver's large, sad, all knowing eyes. You can almost see everything terrifying and wonderful happening in them. To say I’m impressed doesn’t really cover it.

I go to the next page, and I immediately recognise it as a scene from the animated movie. When El Ahrairah, the first rabbit, was given physical gifts to survive predators from their fictitious god Frith. This one is in colour, and somehow even more stylised than the movie. El Ahrairah himself is a deep rich brown with grey loops, the sun is swirl of orange and yellow, and the sky is ripples of vibrant blue. The same colour as his eyes.

“These,” I say, “are perfect, Simon.”

Simon chuckles nervously, fiddling with his fingers. “I’m glad you think so. Think Miss Possibelf will approve?”

“If she doesn’t, she’s completely incompetent. And I don’t think that’s true.” I absentmindedly turn to the next page. It’s the start of another unfinished drawing. It’s of someone’s face. Someone with sharp cheekbones and dark wavy hair. Wait, is that-

Simon snatches the book and quickly flips it closed. He hides half his scarlet face behind the leather cover for a long moment, until he nervously coughs and lowers it. “Okay, good,” he stutters. “Glad you think so. I, uh, guess we’re done now. Man, we really could just do most of this over text.” Mother of God, must he keep doing that hair tuck? It’s torture.

“I suppose that's true," I chuckle.

"Wanna hang out?" He asks very quickly, gripping his sketchbook with ghost white knuckles.

I shouldn't. Fuck, I really shouldn't. I should go home, avoid him, keep my toxic self far away from Simon. But fucking hell, I'm weak for this boy, and just weak in general.

"Sure." My voice stays impressively neutral. "Any ideas?"

Simon twists his lips, looking around the brightly coloured room. His eyes drift down to my hands and he smiles mischievously. “I could redo your nails.”

I look down at my hands. Well, my nails are definitely chipped. I forgot to repaint them a few days ago. I look back at him with a raised brow. “I doubt you have a bottle of my ‘Chanel Le Vernis in Gris Obscur’, Salisbury.”

“Nah, definitely no Chanel. But I got some pretty good stuff from the drugstore.” He lifts up some obviously cheap but pretty nail varnish bottles. They’re all his pastels colours though.

“Not really my style.”

He shrugs. “Maybe you’d like to try something new?”

I bite the corner of my mouth. The colours hurt my eyes a bit. But he looks so adorable with that hopeful grin and glint in his eyes. I sigh, and put my left hand out. “Very well. I want your darkest shade though.”

Simon literally bounces with excitement. “Awesome! So, uh, how about...” He messes around with the bottles, almost dropping a few. Eventually he settles on a pale blue. “This one, and,” he holds up a unused looking dark grey, “this one? We can alternate.”

“Hm, sure. That grey doesn’t really match your style, though.”

He shrugs. “Eh, came with the set. Glad it did. It, uh, matches your eyes.” He looks pointedly at the desk instead of my face. That’s good though. I don’t want him to see the blush that’s spread across my cheeks. “Now gimme your right hand.”

I do as he says, placing it on the desk. He puts down some paper towel then pick up his nail polish remover and cotton balls. I have the exact same supplies at home. He reaches towards my hand, but quickly hesitates. He’s shaking actually. I can’t blame him. Every time we’ve touched, it’s been accidental or very quickly. This is different. This isn't a shoulder pat or playful shove. This is long and sustained and purposeful. And I may not be showing it, but I’m just as nervous.

“I can take it off myself,” I say quickly, reaching for the bottle. But Simon pulls it away.

“No no, I’m good. Just sit there and look...badass, alright?”

My lip twitches up. He’s so sweet. I leave my hand where it is. “Very well.”

Slowly, shakily, he slips his finger under mine. His skin is callused but still much smoother than my rough palms. It feels weird, but very nice. Almost electric. He dabs the cotton ball on the nail, rubbing off all my high end black nail polish. Huh, they look odd. it’s been awhile since my nails have been clean. After wiping them dry, he starts on with the blue. It’s a nice colour. Not something I would pick, but I can see the appeal. Simon drags the brush against my nail slowly but surely, making sure the coat is even.

“Hm,” I say, “you’re good at this.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles. “Self taught. A lot of trial and error, y’know? Took me ages to figure out how to do my right hand.”

“I learned from YouTube videos. Those makeup gurus know their shit.”

“Huh, smart. Oh, y’know what.” He stops painting and spins in his chair. Even with his back to me, I now he’s fiddling with his phone. Suddenly, the honeyed voice of Lana Del Rey is resonating through the room. He spins back with a grin.

“Your weird music is necessary?” I raise an eyebrow for sarcastic emphasis. Simon chuckles.

“Yeah, helps me concentrate. And it’s part of my continuing effort to convert you to good music.”

“Oh, is that your grand mission?”

“Yup! Slowly pull you away from all those screamy boys with bad haircuts and towards the beauty of Troye and Lana.”

I scoff. “You keep trying that, darling.”

He gives me a shy but sort of playful look from under his long eyelashes. “I certainly will...darling.”

Oh shit. I hope my complexion hides my blush enough. I smile back and try to look calm, hiding the storm in my chest.

We switch between chatting and companionable silence. Though Simon is never truly quiet. He hums along with the song, or makes noises of contemplation and frustration while trying to get my nails right. His hands slowly get less shaky, which helps. When we’re not talking, I take the opportunity to just watch his expression. How he sticks his tongue out in concentration, and his brow pulls together, and his face adorable pinches together when he gets something wrong. He always tries his best to fix it though, even with his clumsy fingers. It’s really sweet. Just like him.

I'm so unbelievably fucked.

“And...there!” He pulls back with a flourish. “Topcoat and everything. What do you think?”

I examine my hands. Huh, the blue is actually nice on me. And he’s right, the grey matches my eyes. It’s very well done. Maybe black isn’t the only colour I should use. I look up. Simon is staring at me wide eyed, chewing on his lip, leg jittering.

“It’s wonderful,” I say. “You did a marvelous job, Salisbury. Maybe you have a future as a nail artist.”

His nervous expression breaks, thankfully. I’ve found I prefer his grin to his genuine agitation. Blushing smile? Adorable. Wide eyed leg jittering? Not so much. “T-Thanks. Maybe...you could do mine sometime?”

Our eyes meet, and there’s no deception there. He’s always so genuine. It’s amazing. “Sure," I say before thinking. "If you can learn to like black.”

She shrugs. “Well, if you can learn to like blue, I guess I can try black.”

He grins, and I grin back. There’s a stretch of silence. It builds between us, making the air thicker and thicker. I’m torn between what I want to say and what I should. That I want more from this, more than just winks and smiles and “darlings”. But I know it can’t work. Simon should know that. I should tell him, all of it. But...he'll hate me. For not telling him about Switzerland, for using him like a plaything, for being an utterly stupid reckless prick. Can I handle him truly hating me?

“Simon, love! It’s nearly supper! Are you and Baz done your work?” Ms. Salisbury’s voice carries quite well. It jolts me from my depressive pit. Simon sighs and leans out towards the door.

“Yeah! Be down in a minute, Gran.” He looks at me, and I swear I see genuine sadness. “Looks like it’s time to say goodbye.”

I try to hide my own disappointment. “Yeah, looks like it.”

He bounces out of his chair, then offers his hand. I inhale sharply. Did not expect that. But after only a second of hesitation, I take it. He pulls me to my feet with ease. I’m still disturbed by how much his strength excites me.

“C’mon, let’s get you back on your motorbike, Pitch.”

“Should get you on it one day,” I say under my breath.

“What?”

I straighten up, hands in my jacket pockets. “Nothing, Salisbury.”

We walk down the stairs quickly. Well, Simon more jumps down them. He’s a never ending ball of energy. Ms. Salisbury is at the bottom.

“How was the work, you two?” she asks sweetly.

“Wonderful!” Simon chirps. “Talked about bunnies and stuff, and Baz let me do his nails.”

My brow shoots up to my hairline. I can’t believe he’s so open about this. If I told my father or Daphne the same, they would not say anything at best and lecture me at worst. But Ms. Salisbury looks positively elated by Simon’s words. “Oh, marvellous. Finally you can practice on someone other than me, love.”

Simon rolls his eye. “Yeah, like you don’t like it.”

“Of course. But it’s good you have another guinea pig. May I see your work?”

Simon looks at me in silent question. I shrug in response, then hold out my hand for his grandmother. She flips the glasses down from her head. “Amazing job, Simon. You’ve gotten so much better. And it looks great on you, Baz.”

“Thank you, Ms. Salisbury.”

She pulls away, waving dismissively. “Please, call me Ruth. Now, Baz, will you be staying for dinner?”

“Uh.” I turn to Simon. “Am I staying for dinner, Simon?”

Simon’s face turns red. “Oh, sure, if you want.”

I shrug. “I’m certainly in no rush to get home, and if it’s no trouble.”

“Oh it’s none at all,” Ms. Salis- Ruth says, waving her hand dismissively.

“Then I guess I’ll stay for supper.”

Ruth claps her hand once loudly. “Wonderful! Let me put out another setting.”

She saunters off to the kitchen. I decide to actually take off my jacket and boots and stay awhile. Simon leans in close to my ear, making my pulse spike.

“Hope you like roast beef,” he whispers. “It’s the only thing Gran knows how to cook well. Grandpa was a chef, and she’s been on her own since he died, so she’s never had to cook anything else. But she’s been learning more since I’ve got here.”

I shrug like he does. “I think I’ll live.”

“Good to hear.”

Simon leads me to the small dining room table. When I go to the left side, Simon grabs my hand and drags me to the right. I jolt slightly. Wow, that’s bold for him. Not that I’m complaining. I sit next to him as Ruth brings out a platter of delicious smelling meat and mash potatoes. Simon immediately shovels the food on his plate, licking his lips like a starving animal. I on the other hand take only a few slices delicately just like my mother taught me. But Ruth gives me an odd look.

“Are you not hungry, Baz?” she asks.

“Um, no, I am,” I reply slowly.

“Then please, take as much as you like. I always make a lot because of Simon’s endless appetite.”

Simon rolls his eyes, speaking with a mouth full of roast beef. “I’m a growing boy!”

“Growing monster more like it,” Ruth chuckles.

Huh, okay. I decide to be polite and take some more. Dinner proper starts, and it's...weird. My family is never this talkative at supper. We’re mostly silent and sullen. But the Salisburies are the exact opposite. Ruth and Simon chat, though Simon has trouble responding through all the the food in his mouth. (The boy has zero manners. It’s adorable.)

“So, Baz,” Ruth asks, facing me, “how’s school for you? I’ve only ever heard about it from Simon and Miss Penelope.”

No one’s ever asked my opinion of school either. I shrug. “It’s alright. Not my favourite place to be, of course. I think English is my favourite subject.” I tap Simon’s foot under the table. His breath hitches slightly, and he flashes me only a small smile. But it’s enough.

“Glad to hear so. Simon loves English too. He’s always eager to get to first period for Miss Possibelf’s class every morning.”

I flick my eyes over to Simon. His cheeks are flushed as he bites into his roast beef.

“Hm, glad to hear I’m not the only one who loves literature.” I let my voice drawl a bit, hopefully enough for Simon to notice but not Ruth. He doesn’t look up from his food, but I feel his toe tap my foot. And once again, it’s enough. Everything Simon does seems to be enough for me.

“I’m just glad Simon’s adjusting to Watford,” Ruth sighs. “It’s not easy moving schools most of the way through the year.”

Simon sighs in return. They sound almost exactly alike. Though Simon is more exasperated. “I told you, Gran, I’m fine. My grades are much better than last term.”

“There’s a good reason for that.” Ruth aggressively stabs her beef, and Simon looks sad as he nods slightly. This is the only crack in Ruth's kind demeanour I’ve seen all day. It’s strange, and the curious brainiac in me wants to know more. But the sensible part knows to just keep eating my food.

“Hey,” Simon chirps, “did I tell you about the kid who gave himself a wedgie in gum class yet?”

Ruth’s playful smile immediately returns. “No, I don’t believe you have.”

“Oh man, it was hilarious! Baz you’ll love this too.”

I lean my cheek into my palm. “I’m sure I will.”

Simon launches into the rambling anecdote, using mostly weird noises and illustrative hand gestures instead of words. Ruth and I both laugh along genuinely. This is the first time I’ve enjoyed a family meal in ages. It may be unusual, but it’s certainly not unenjoyable.

Soon enough, dinner is over, and Ruth brings out dessert. They’re sour cherry scones from Pritchard Bakery. Simon takes three immediately and starts slathering butter all over them.

“You like scones?” I ask mockingly.

Simon nods, scone crumbs all around his mouth. “Uh-huh. Gran got me some my first day here. They’re absolutely incredible.”

“My cousin owns the bakery, you know.”

His eyes go impossibly wide. “Really?! Could you get me some free samples?”

I shrug, a playful smile on my face. “Maybe.”

“Simon, you eat enough, you don’t need any more,” Ruth kindly berates. Simon frowns.

“There’s never enough scones, Gran.”

Ruth and I exchange an understanding look. Maybe I will bring him to see Cousin Pritchard before I go though. Something to make him happy before I’m gone.

Soon enough, Simon’s eaten all the scones, the dishes are done, and it’s my time to go. I’m a gentleman, I know when to take my leave. Simon and Ruth walk me out of the house.

“It was lovely having you, Baz,” Ruth says. And I have to admit, I’m a bit taken aback. Most parents and/or guardians aren’t this friendly to me. Dev and Niall’s parents barely acknowledge my existence nowadays, and they’ve known me since I was a baby. It’s a warm feeling I never thought I’d miss.

“Thank you for having me, Ruth,” I reply, smiling graciously.

“Anytime. Simon, feel free to invite him over again.”

Simon smiles sweetly at me, cheeks unabashedly scarlet. “Yeah, okay. Maybe we should meet up before the presentation on Wednesday?”

I nod, hoping my cheeks aren’t as bright. “I think I’d like that.”

Because I would. I regretfully very much would.

“Awesome! See you later!”

My lip twitches up without thinking. “See you.”

I get my helmet on. I don’t rev my engine as loud as usual to be respectful. Simon waves with his entire arm, while Ruth’s looks more like the queen. I salute in return. (That seems to be my thing now. I’ve embraced it.)

As I drive back towards my home, my mind stays with the Salisburies. With nail polish, roast beef, and a sense of peaceful happiness that lingers in me long after the house is in the distance.

I get to the Pitch hill and just sit there, looking up at the looming little bastard. I know what I’m supposed to do. Go back to all the misery there. But fuck that. I turn to the left, not back towards Simon’s, but at least somewhere my father isn’t. Somewhere I can keep this feeling for a little longer. And maybe get really pissed.

———————————————-

“Basilton! Where have you been?!”

If I didn’t already have a migraine, I’d assume my father’s voice had just given me one. Going on a two day bender will do that to you. I stop walking but don’t turn around. Honestly, I look like a wreck right now, and I don’t want him to see it.

“Away,” I say curtly.

“Away where?! We haven’t seen you in days! No calls, no mail. We’ve been worried sick!”

I groan and turn on my heels finally. To my utter surprise, he looks genuinely concerned. His eyes are wide and his hair is disheveled, like he’s been running his hands through it. Huh. Actually worried about where I’ve been. That’s a first.

“Well, I’m home now,” I sigh. “Happy?”

“Certainly not.” He puts his hands on his hips like a pissed off school teacher. “I’ve been getting calls from your school. You’ve missed almost all of your classes, including tests and projects. I thought we had an agreement.”

I whip around, scowling with as much menace as I can muster with a hangover. “No, you gave me an ultimatum. And I refuse to be threatened into doing what you want, Father dearest.”

I start stomping away again, but we Grimms refuse to not have the last word. “Are you sure you haven’t just been...distracted, Basilton?”

I stop halfway up the stairs. The tone of his voice could imply many things, but I have a sinking feeling I know what he means. I chuckle, shaking my head. “Daphne told you about Tuesday, I suppose.”

“That you brought a boy over to our house without our knowledge? Yes. And I find it a bit disrespectful that-”

“That I what?!” I yell, probably louder than I should, considering it’s late at night and I have four younger siblings. “Dare to be gay?! Sorry it’s harder to ignore my sexuality when I’m actually acting on it.”

My father takes a deep breath, something he always does when he’s trying to keep his slipping composure. “Basilton, that is not what I meant.”

“Oh really? So you’re actually okay with me bringing guys around? Maybe I’ll start having big gay nightclub parties in the receiving room.”

I can see my father losing his cool. Bit by bit, his perfect British man composure is slipping. It’s the effect I certainly have these days. “That would not be appropriate, Basil. And I merely meant that maybe this ‘Simon’ is distracting you from your studies and causing your poor grades.”

For a second, I don’t know whether to laugh or be furious. Fire bubbles in my gut, my fingers curling on the bannister. Yup, let’s go with righteous fury. I stomp down the stairs and push my face into his.

“No,” I growl, “Simon is not at fault. You are. You are the catalyst for all the things I’m doing now, Your bullheadedness, your pride, your prejudi-”

“Oh for God’s sake, Basil!” He roars. “For once in your life take some goddamn responsibility for your own actions!”

I step back a bit. I haven’t seen him this outwardly angry in a year, but he’s practically seething. If he was the kind of man to throw a punch, he would have just clocked me. But instead he just stares me down in an attempt to intimidate. That won’t work.

“Fuck you,” I mutter, turning on my heels and stomping towards the door.

“Where are you going?” he calls after me.

“Out!” I turn to glare at him. “And I’ll be back when I feel like it!”

I make sure to slam the door very loudly, hoping my message is clear. I know exactly where I want to go. And who I want to see.

———————————————- 

AN: Is Baz being a total brat here? Yes. Is his bratiness sorta justified? Also yes. Things are complicated. And finally we meet Ruth! I loved reading everyone's comments speculating about Simon's home life cause this was planned from the start lol. But why is Simon living with Ruth? Well, that will be explained shortly. Tune in next time for answers :)

Chapter title is from "Alfie's Song" by Bleachers.

[inhalareexhalare]

Dianne Is so Awesome but She Might Freak If She Saw Me Post About That/Whatever the Hell Is Happening to Me

I managed to speak with more confidence over the phone with my boss, Dr. Seth. And then I initiated a long conversation with Ms. Dianne that lasted for almost an hour until my boss arrived so we each had to return to our work hahaha

So many stories! I admire her capacity to be patient with people and her capability to keep conversations bright without sacrificing her own feelings. She is driven to be truthful to people, and not just the if-I-am-asked kind; she has the initiative to tell you things that she feels bothered about in you, but with genuine compassion that you don’t feel attacked at all.

She knows how to balance yourself with other people. She knows how to balance teamwork with self-improvement. Most of all, she never allows an external, material, temporary thing to be a basis of motivation. She believes in having a real sense of purpose.

She is the kind of girl who lives in the company of people. She thrives in it.

I admire how she can balance the energy of a conversation (I made sure to let her know this). She doesn't extinguish the negative parts, but she balances it out with her own positive energy. Allowing other people to remember to heal themselves in the process. Spreading a remembrance of hope.She does all this, and she does it without knowing. I can tell she enjoyed trying to really answer why and how she does it.

I don’t have to thrive in it, but I’d like to be able to at least develop it as a skill, so I can also bring people up.

She believes in positive reinforcement, in motivating people to get better by themselves, rather than punishment that might work short-term but in the end kills what matters most.

That is true. I should do my best too.

2019-01-15 10:08 Philippines Friday

To Karu:

i have a letter for you and it contains a bigger perspective to whatever the hell it is that is happening to me

i'm so sorry

After sleeping alone two nights in a row, (the first night with my blood vessels boiling, figuratively, from who knows why, after Karu announced he’ll be away to a beautiful place) I just heard from him (he called me just now) and I felt so...cold. Like, dead cold. I was bitter. Monotone. Indifferent.

I can very easily tell you about my loneliness, reader, and although I won't expound on it I can very easily give some trusted friends a primer about it, but Karu is different. Somehow I feel so restrained to do that, and it's something I'm doing to myself.

I feel so desperate to hide it. It reminds me of how I maintain an icy poker face when others used to bully me (and gave up soon enough because I was indifferent). Is Karu a bully to me? I don't think so. But it's there. The fear of revealing more than I am comfortable to.

So here’s what I found out, in letter form for Karu to read (o my lord i am so sorry you ended up with a person like me who has low understanding of her own emotions):

Why am I so bitter to you

when we speak?

It’s like I don’t want to show

the loneliness inside me

in front of you

I fully enjoy everything

else that is happening

but your voice reminds

me too much of something that I long for

and, in self-dialogue, the second part:

that makes sense.

bitter is a plant

that is taken cared of poorly

but you’re not a plant, are you?

you’re the number one care you have

so be okay with being lonely

be kind to yourself

water yourself as often as necessary

you don’t need to fear yourself 

anymore

Also me, to Karu:

(he needs help to prepare gig clothes for tomorrow, so i’m probably the one available to do just that. he also said he’d be there with me tonight, but even that possibility is something i’m avoiding right now. i’m too scared to hope when i’m on bitter/sulk mode.

 i usually enjoy doing stuff for him but i’m still transitioning from feeling bitter... it takes work. i won’t give up!)

is it oki if [lobo] gets some snack later? i know it's not good to indulge but i might get pissy and stuff doing laundry and getting pissed for no reason haha

From Karu:

Yassss! Although the only thing that needs manual washing is the white button down

To Karu:

unless i get too lazy to bring laundry bags to the laundry shop of course hahaha i honestly think that's more likely to happen XD

my sulky mode needs a lot of working on, and i won't give up, so that might change but this is my mood right now haha still trying to transition properly

From Karu:

It's okay. I can take the stuff to the shop. If I get home early, I should also be able to cook

[Karu] gonna take care of sulky [Lobo]

Will gib hugs toooooo

  To Karu:

:< thanks

From Karu:

It all gud. I just have to get home hahaha 

That’s exactly the hope I’m avoiding right now I’ll just let him read this entry later...

From Karu (cont’d):

Do we haz laundry funds?

[Karu] is gonna get paid tomorrow ehehe

We will also try to start surviving on 200 pur dei

To Karu:

yes

okiii

From Karu:

Awesome heeheehee

Pork steak, yes?

To Karu:

....*•-•* nod

To be honest, I only ever use this awkwardly-self-made-but-too-accurate emoji with Karu. My poker face has zero capability to do this face (or any other emotional face) but the feeling tends to only apply to Karu.

From Karu:

I'll go see if we can go that route today  If not, I'll just think of something else hahaha

Upper limit for food is 250 and lower limit is 150. So I guess we eat less now when we get carinderia food hahaha

Lez get you some art materials and get me some goddamn lessons and yaw yan

Would you like some paint to play with?

Oh fuck I gotta change my strings soon btw. Maybe April or June :)

To Karu:

let's find pout i guess. eating less will probably help me appreciate food more. anything in excess makes us feel sick.

Yaw Yan's good.

painting materials are crazy expensive though

From Karu:

Pout?

To Karu:

out

punintended

freudian slip

lof yu

From Karu:

We can save up for art stuff :)

To Karu:

morp

I notice that Karu isn’t using the “:))” today. Change of brain?

or maybe it’s just the mood.

I’m stopping here, it seems to be irrelevant now lol

2019-01-15 10:50 Philippines Friday

Feeling these things, I was about to do a last-minute ditch a.k.a. escape from my (previously initiated) informal lunch date with the big group of secretaries today, until Dianne reached out her hand to me.

She actually didn’t, but I swear, that was what it was like to me. All she did, really, was beckon. I don’t even think she did it consciously/purposefully. But that. That evaporated all the doubt that I had left of joining them for lunch. 

Her hand in my mind, reaching out for mine. And I took it.

It is good to have good friends. She knows a little about my social anxiety since I told her about it this morning to celebrate and explain my celebration, of my progressing confidence in front of Dr. Seth.

That was what led to us having a long conversation. Halfway, I was almost losing attention, but I willed it on. It was just my fear that was trying to pull me out.

And I made it okay. We made it okay. Her hand, my hand.

I can’t give up now.

This is also training so I can reach out to people who might have similar struggles as myself.

2019-01-15 13:49 Philippines Friday

Aaand he's not home.

Well, I expected as much. It still stings a little though.

It seems he forgot it's Friday again. I get out of work an hour earlier than usual every Friday.

Actually, I don't even think he's coming for dinner tonight. I'm tired.

Guess I'm getting my own food and doing the laundry, then play some mind fucking games later. That should prep me up for tomorrow's story writing.

2019-02-15 18:04 Philippines Friday

Then again, life is only filled with uncertainties.

If I can't even embrace this, I've no right to pursue something as weird as psychology.

(Though I'd only apply this mindset to myself. Tough love works with myself most of the time. If it's my own voice HAHA I'm such a prideful creature.)

Speaking of psychology, what if I happen to unconsciously use Karu at this point in time as a hiding place from myself? My bitter/sulk mode as well as my nighttime separation anxiety are both based on fear of being alone to myself.

Alone with my thoughts. My ultimate chaos. My infantile order. I can't escape order for too long and hide in my mess of chaos. Order is in order. It won't do to just have chaos. I have to systemically know myself.

I didn't know Karu before, but I already had these things a long time ago. I always knew it never was Karu's fault or mistake, but could this be something closer to the truth?

I truly love him, but sometimes I feel weir. Maybe in those "sometimes," I use the warmth of our togetherness as a form of escapism.

Remember the letter I wrote earlier today?

"You don't need to fear yourself anymore."

The last line. I was worried at first that it didn't fit in my poem, especially that my head and hand just sort of spat it out there unconsciously. I seriously considered whether to delete it,

but I couldn't.

A slip of the pen?

I feel like I am closer to my personal truth. If you feel or think though, reader, that something's amiss or inconsistent with my observations and analysis, by all means please share your insight.

For now, I'll keep note of this.

To begin with, when I first was infatuated with Karu, my intention was just all him. He interested me very much. He is my first love. (I'm really lucky to be with someone as willing and patient as him. He isn't patient at all for most things, but he is when it matters.) (I always had a hard time being in love with others. I was indifferent a lot before. I had a sexual crush on my adopted older brother at age 5, and then a mutual crush with a high school close friend that I turned down because I got bored when he confessed. I know, I'm fucked up. But those are tales for another day.) Annnyway. And then I transitioned into the kind of sober love, where it felt like a deep ocean where my infatuation before was just a puddle.

But it never changed the fact that my intention was to make him happy. To love him. To give him affection, attention, and care.

I mean, who enters a relationship thinking, "I want to be with you to become a better person."

NO ONE does! But we all should!

With the all-for-the-other mindset we have, we risk destroying ourselves and even the other in the process.

It's all very romantic and courageous and admirable to have so much passion in caring for another, but forgetting yourself is setting both of you up in a pretty ugly loop.

Point is, getting into any kind of relationship just so you could celebrate not being alone anymore... Sends quite an important message.

You're uncomfortable with being alone with yourself.

You are who you end up with until the end of your life. Might as well learn to love this self.

It's important to take care of your social life, but you need to be doing it for the right reasons.

But don't worry, and don't punish yourself. It wastes time. When you find yourself in misalignment, reconfigure, and start over.

It's never too late, as long as you have breath and you have mind.

Stay Alive, everyone! Never stop learning.

I have feelings. That are unpleasant. That I look for other things that might take it away. But they're never taken away. Only hidden.

It's only now I realize (again), I've been trying to banish something important in me. These unpleasant feelings were treated poorly by myself. I didn't give them enough time. I'm too impatient, too afraid.

But now I remember. To let things go, you've got to let them in first.

Change usually involves more of involvement rather than stepping back.

And besides, learning to be comfortable with who you really are? I'd think that's the true, real love.

2019-02-15 19:13 Philippines Friday

I got to open up a bit about how I am sad to Karu last night.

Also, it's been a while, so I knew he was bursting. I helped him release.

Of course, that made it easy to thaw my ice. But I'd like to be able to learn how to show him more of my loneliness with more willingness.

[humanintereststory]

8: So Be It

“Church.” They. We. John had for so long only been responsible for his actions. Wake up, brush his teeth, eat breakfast, read, eat lunch, read, ignore the voice through the vent, read, dinner, read, lights out, staring out into the darkness until he finally drifted away, wake up, brush his … “Church.” And everyday she pulled him out of that routine. That first week John resented Mike McGuire for it. He wanted to curse her for her ignorance. This morning he had just finished a bowl of oats. He knew Mike was still doing some wrap up getting her number two up to speed to run her business. He knew that he’d be able to dig into another … That’s another thing that perplexed him. He woke up one morning last week to see a box of assorted books in front of the door of the guest room. It was never brought up. But every dinner was over a different movie on the television. Every training session was in tandem and was always accompanied by strategy. What was the future of their tag team? What does he think of his opponents? What does he need to do to succeed? But that Saturday morning, John had just cracked open a book about the life and death of Nikola Teslawhen she said it was time to go. They could make a trip of it towards Baton Rouge and then catch a flight back back North to Boston after the Friday event. “Church!” His blank stare out of the passenger’s side window was startled by a sharp yet ultimately harmless jab. He turned away from the endless farm fields and turned to the driver. “Yeah?” “You with me, buddy? You looked a million miles away just then.” The reverberations of the powerful engine of her muscle car, a gaudy yellow late model Mustang, certainly aided in that distance. The red leather seats creaked softly as John adjusted his seat and sat straight back up. “I’m okay.” “Good,” she smiled, looking almost at peace behind the wheel, the sun on her face, “You got any ideas? Tons of stuff to do on the way there. Pick something. Anything you want.” “I don’t know,” John looked back out the window and saw the handwritten sign about the man with no vocal chords, “I always lived out west. Even when I traveled,” John paused, perhaps considering his words,“when I traveled it was the same loop. The hotel, the gym, and the arena.” “I did that stuff too. Livened it up a bit though, used to go bar hopping a lot. Man, some of the crawls I did were fuckin’ eeeepic,” she snickered to herself a bit, “You wanna do something like that? I know all the best places.” “I don’t drink. Never have,” John had started to understand that some of his social interactions were unintentionally blunt, “but …but don’t let that stop you.” “Okay, fair enough. Well, there’s a travel guide in the glove compartment there. Should have some stuff of interest en route. Leaf through it an’ see if there’s anything that catches your eye.” “Surprise me,” John had almost tried to stop himself from saying that. He hated surprises. He liked his routine. He hated his routine, too. It was too familiar and was born of a sense of minimization. Mike responded with that wide grin and accelerated past a semi truck. Some more time past and John could feel himself getting lulled into the sights as the farm plains transitioned into the rocky corridors of West Virginia, “Fine. This time. But sometime between now’n Baton Rouge you’re pickin’ something. We’re doing this together, y’know,” she drove a bit longer, eyes flicking to the exit signs and the flow of traffic, before speaking up again, her cadence that of a person watching their words when unused to doing so, “Hey. Sorry to bring this up again, but it’s kinda been buggin’ me. That thing a while back. With Emma. What was it about? You like her or somethin’?” He’d almost forgotten. The woman certainly had, “I, uh, would consider it a Freudian slip,” he felt that Mike sometimes walked on eggshells around him about these subjects and she most likely did not want a repeat of what could be the catalyst of this whole ordeal. He had heard and read what people thought of him. Amongst all of the requests to end his own life, people had legitimate questions and concerns. He was artful in his ability to dodge the questions about his past and his even more surreal present. John cleared his throat, “Look, I’m not sure. She, I mean, you know …” He danced around it for so long and in the eyes of the public, they painted him as dull or even some masterful sociopath disassociated with the act and its victim. “Mike, I, I’m just not sure. The dispositions were nothing alike but the shine of her eyes, her hair — they were a reminder. So to answer your question: I don’t like her. I mean, I don’t dislike her. She’s just a competitor,” he continued to struggle as Mike listened with her eyes intently on the road, “I don’t know why I’m back. I’d been forgotten and now, I’m here talking with you and now doing what I always wanted to do. I don’t talk about it because I don’t know what to say. I can barely remember what happened. I’d been grilled and grilled over details that I just didn’t know. I had finished a show and it was called it Beware the Ides of March. It was in reference to whatever the main event was. I’d opened the show and was the first person out because Reno was my hometown. The promoters like that sort of thing, you know? It was twenty minutes away from the apartment. I was alone which was the usual at this stage. I was woken up from my bed the next morning with a loud knock,” John sighed, “and well, there’s been plenty of discussion about it. It’s been in print, on the TV, so it doesn’t bear repeating. I was where I was at and now I’m not. I don’t think… I, I, I belonged there.”

 “Okay. S’ all I wanted to know,” she let it go at that. She didn’t want to dwell on that particular subject, she supposed, any more than he did. Her fingers drummed on the crimson leather cover of the steering wheel. Letting a pause linger for a bit, she smiles over at him, artfully letting the subject pass for a new one, “Mind if I turn the radio on?” “Okay.”

 “Master conversationalist as always, my man.” 

Chuckling softly, she turned the dial on the radio- what would be considered an old-school affair, no Sirius or even a cassette deck. She kept it true to the rest of the vehicle on her rebuild, even though she was well aware she could’ve put in something more modern.

 “Lessee… gospel… country, ugh… fuckin’ disco… goin’ to hell, yeah yeah… HERE we go,”

 she landed on a rock/metal station, by lucky happenstance at the tail end of a commercial break. The band was a classic and it pleased her. TNT, it’s dyno-mite, “FUCK. YEAH. … This cool with you? You an AC/DC person?” John looked into the rear view mirror and they were all alone in this stretch of road as it cut and curved throughout the high walled rock landscape, “It’s not really something to have an affinity for but if you’re going to put me on the spot, alternative current based equipment just have better life expectancies.” She paused for a moment, blinked, and laughed, “The band, Church. The one on the radio. Right now.” John looked at her blankly then at the radio and then back at her, “I know. I was just playing around. This is fine.” “A’ight, cool. Lemme know if you get sick of it, I’ll find somethin’ else,” she drove on, the road spreading out like a ribbon of asphalt before them. John didn’t. He just listened. Eventually this one faded out into static and Mike had to keep turning the dial past all of the sludge. He almost objected a few times but he also remembered the old adage that the driver is the master of the radio. An hour or so passed and finally Mike finally just turned off the radio for the mean time. The mountainous terrain eventually gave out to a thick wooded view. “Hey. Just so y’know, I believe in you. I know how fuckin’ corny that sounds, but I do. I like t’ think I have an eye for these things and I really think I’m lookin’ at the next TV champ,” she paused, maybe placing her words, maybe for effect, “Something you said really stuck with me. I think you figured out a question I’ve been askin’ myself for years without me even askin’ you, in a conversation that wasn’t even about me. Weird’s that sounds.” Earlier that week, the company had arranged for another sit down interview. By virtue of defeating the former champion, Bishop Church had earned the #1 contendership for the Television Championship. What stood before him was his greatest challenge and the company wanted some face time from both their champion and challenger. So once again, John sat in the hot seat. Despite Mike being there, that tense feeling did not dissipate. John fiddled with the microphone clipped to the collar of his t-shirt while Ace Heart flipped through a stapled packet of papers held steady with a clipboard. “Careful with that. The audio technicians hear every time you touch the clip.” John stopped and sat up straight in his director’s style chair, “Okay.” “So here we are again. Before we start, you gotta tell me, why did you delete your Facebook account?” “I don’t trust Zuckerberg. You ever get the feeling that he’s not giving straight answers.” Ace scoffed at that, “Look, Bishop, we set that up for you as a way for you to speak to your fans. You had 150,000 followers and then all of a sudden, you 86’d it.” “I just … didn’t want it. I’m here for this, isn’t that what you wanted?” Ace raised his hands perhaps feigning indignation, “Yeah, that’s right. You’re here. For this. Whatever this will be.” Ace signaled to the camera man and crew to start filming. “Dr. Pepper presents an Extreme Wrestling Corporation live interview on Facebook Watch. I’m Ace Heart and this is Bishop Church.” John nodded. Ace sighed, “Splendid. So since we last talked it seems like your circumstances have made a 180 degree turn. You’ve managed to dispatch Emma Louise, Chris Chambers, and most recently former Television Champion Kendrick Kross one after another. Most notably this is the same Kendrick Kross who unthroned Ruthless Aggression at Stranglemania. Now three days after you face Malice at Friday Night Rampage, you get your first shot at gold against Ruthless Aggression at Monday Night Brawl. Most recently, she impressively defeated a man twice her size in Grizzly Duggan and retained the TV title. Now she stands before you - your biggest match to date, what say you?” “She-“ “Swear to God, if you say she seems nice, this is over.” John’s eyes narrowed at the interruption but just seconds later, his expression relaxed. He turned to face the camera. “Ahhh, women. Women, women, women, women, women.” Ace’s reaction is one of abject horror but he was helpless to stop as John continued. “What are women like? What do women want? How should I treat a woman? Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to find a woman at all. I’ve been staking out for hours looking for one and the closest I got was this fellow.” The camera shot cut to Mike, unknown at this to all viewers, chowing down on a ham and cheddar sandwich at the catering table. Back to John, the camera shot tightens in on him, “Where are all the women?” He then turned back to the interviewer, still frozen, “Is it all perhaps an elaborate fraud?” Finally, “CUT!” Ace exploded right after the cameras turned off, “What the FUCK was that? What are you even talking about? Your opponent is a woman. Half of the roster are women. Why can’t you just answer my questions?” He then shouted to the assistant off screen, “Where’s his goddamn handler? Saint assured me that I wouldn’t have to put up with this shit anymore.” As if on cue, Mike stepped into the interview set and stood in face to face with Ace while seemingly shielding Church from him, “Partner, okay? Not handler. Partner. Got it?” “Okay Bishop’s partner, can you explain why every interview with this guy turns out to be a waking disaster? In my nearly twenty years of thousands, literally thousands of interactions, I’ve interviewed them all. Every hall of fame inductee, every champion, every one that mattered in this industry has had the decency to answer my questions and yet talking to this guy is like squeezing blood from a stone.” “I’m still here,” John mumbled. “Ignore him, Church. Your right-hand man’s got your back. Just forget about that guy for a sec. It’s not his fault he ain’t got no class or sense of professionalism.” “Why I never!” “Go trim the ‘stache or something. And you there, sweetcheeks, gimme that camera,” there was a bit of a jitter on the picture as the camera was either handed over or taken forcefully, and adjusted by its new operator. Ace Heart shrugged his shoulders and there was an exodus of company crew from the set, “Just like before.” John nodded. The shot came back to life. John stood behind the right director’s chair and looked deep in thought. The camera zoomed out as the new cameraperson struggled with the controls. After a moment, Mike managed to follow his movements. “I’m starting to understand it,” John gestured, “you know, the necessity of all of this. This sport is fueled on the idea of conflict and the reasons for those conflicts vary. Sometimes it is simple. Two people not liking each other. Sometimes there is something at stake. Bragging rights, money, or in the present case: championship gold. And this is a business after all so it’s not just the contest itself. It’s also the circumstances that led up to and surround the bout. That’s why there is all of this pomp and circumstance. Does it really matter what I say here? Will these words truly have an affect on what happens in that squared circle? Actually, yes. And that is what is expected of me.” John took a seat, although he tilted the chair facing forward. “Expectations, right? There are certain expectations on how I should conduct myself. Smile for the camera. Talk to the people. Tell them why I’m the best. Or don’t. Be absolutely abhorrent. Be a disgusting caricature of humanity. Also them why I’m the best. That’s not me. Reevaluate your expectations. I talked a little bit about what people have seen in me thus far and I expect that afterwards, they perhaps had to reconsider. That’s how we got here. I was asked a question on how this stage was set. If you’re watching this, you probably saw just how that happened.” He paused. John so much wanted to keep this internalized. He felt nervous talking about himself but he didn’t feel the need to deflect. He wasn’t so naive to know that she wasn’t the only one listening but just the hypothetical idea of it allowed him to continue. “The former champion stated that he needed this. Essentially he believed that a victory over me would be a turning point. He didn’t see me as viable. He didn’t think of me as a peer. He concluded that I was just here to collect a paycheck. He misjudged me. He underestimated my passion for the sport of professional wrestling. And so he learned in this cruel world that needs aren’t always fulfilled. His story has to carry on with the knowledge that all of the accolades and comeback aspirations evaporated in the space of three seconds. Thus is the cycle of life. That cycle brings us to the idea that I am a contender now.” He shifted in his seat and sat forward. “This is my very first championship opportunity. Never before have I had to chance to compete with stakes so high. Some could say that I need this but that would be oversimplifying it. Think about it. Think about who I am. Not what you see and read but who I am right now. Do I need to be champion like I need air to breathe? Do I need it for financial security? I guess it would be nice but as the camera shakes to and fro, I’m not just here for material objects. What about for love?” John chuckled softly. “As ridiculous as that sounds, the history books are filled with pages of men and women who take advantage their standing for their romantic desires. How about just to make myself feel better? That journey isn’t so trivial that gold plates screwed into a leather strap will clear the path. And so what it comes down to that what a man can be, he must be. So that addresses the match itself. If I can become champion, I must become champion. But that isn’t the end of it, is it, Ruthann Hunter?" For this whole time, he waxed hypothetical to the masses but his meandering questioning tone changed to a more direct one as he began to address his opposition. “If it was, you would have ridden off into the sunset long ago.” The genesis of Mike prodding John into the proverbial sunlight will most likely never meet the air. She had went to check in on him early his stay and she discovered notepads filled with amended notes of his opponents. Who they are. What they do. How John could neutralize their abilities and come out on top. And most noticeably notes on what they said about him. Real statements and all he could manage was nonsense. It wasn’t until his exchange with Ace here that she noticed that it was very intentional. “This is where I would go into that tired song and dance about who you are. You are a living legend and I’ll be the exception. I could say that I would stand fast against the ruthless aggression and persevere. Let me stand up here and I could raise my voice and snort and chortle about my destiny.” John shook his head. “But none of us know what the future holds for us. I can’t make that promise. I want what you have. That’s human nature. We always want what we don’t have. This sport is like a microcosm of life. Look no further than the former champion. Look at the desperation in his words even when he was proud and boastful against you. Due to this being a competition, we usually absolve ourselves of what affect we have on the vanquished. Think about that, won’t you? Someone somewhere in an office gets a promotion over someone else. Maybe that person that failed needed the money more. Maybe they have a crippling disease. In our world - who cares? So the former champion was right on one thing, we all see each other as stepping stones. We all see each other as that obstacle to self-actualization.” He stands up and moves closer to the camera. “And so we go about and we both say this to each other solemnly. I don’t care about your legacy. I don’t care about your family. I don’t care what you have done in the past. I don’t care about what losing could do to your ego. All of that does not matter in the confines of the ring. In that moment, we are two demigods engaged in a struggle that could ravage the earth. The ground could fall to pieces all around us as we were locked together and all that would matter is our musculature straining as we resisted each other’s powers. Our bodies would be intimate in ways no mere mortal could comprehend.” And for this, he did raise his voice. “That is what matters.” And back to a low conversational tone. “This isn’t about redemption. I’m here to take what is mine. And if that has to be on the backs of the broken and beaten…” Closer. “So be it.” Mike’s epiphany was punctuated as the car hit a pothole. They rattled about, “What do you mean?” “Ooof! Shit. Sorry. What I mean is… I kept hittin’ fucking walls. I got a bit of momentum here an’ there but I never got no place because I kept hittin’ walls and I could never think of what the hell was wrong with me. And I never HAVE been able to figure it out until you said it. I didn’t have enough… I dunno. Killer instinct seems really fuckin’ cliche but that thing you were talking about. Having t’ not worry about other people, what they were like or what their dreams an’ motivations might be, long’s you’re in between those bells,”

 her eyes, no, her entire expression was alight, as if she’d just seen the writing of God or heard the prophecies of Mohammed or gotten the truth of the universe from benevolent space aliens
, “I kept holding back, I think. Not… consciously, but on some level I cared too damn much about the other guy when I shouldn’t have.” “Mike, the battlefield is the only place where those virtues that the good covet become a weakness. I’m glad you understand. It’s ignoring that very distinction that creates the overabundance of negativity that permeates the landscape of the company,” John reached over and put his left hand over the middle space and on gently on her right forearm, “We can be that change. I mean, a real change. Let’s not kid ourselves - what we do in the ring will be for selfish reasons but outside we can discover who we are - who we are meant to be.” Mike gave a small gasp inward while trying not to look like she was gasping inward. This was huge. She was a physical person, her affection for a person was accompanied by a shower of hair ruffles, noogies, playful jabs, and other forms of fond roughhousing. She’d held back with this somewhat as it had become apparent to her that John wasn’t exactly the touchy feely sort. So for him for once to initiate physical contact with her… it was so overwhelming almost that she— “Look out!” “Oh FUCK!” Mike suddenly swerved away from a brown blur in their line of site. They could hear a loud thud as something smashed against the right headlight of the car and then into the side mirror on the passenger side. As Mike, rather expertly regained control, John turned his head and could see the tail end of the culprit dart into the woods. Mike put the car to stop in the breakdown lane free and clear. She cut off the engine, “You alright?” “Yeah.” “Good. Okay. We’re okay. Shit,” she closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths and willing her heart not to burst through her ribcage and slow the hell down already, “I’m gonna go check out the damage. Fuck. Hopefully nothin’ I can’t fix,” 

carefully scanning the traffic, Mike exited the Mustang and took a look at what’s been done to her labor of three years. Thankfully, nothing much. The passenger side mirror was torn loose, there were some significant but not horrific dents, but probably the worst were the liberal traces of blood and fur all over the affected area. It was going to be a bitch to clean up. Still, it could have been much, much worse. Meanwhile, John faced the trees, “You hear that?”

 “No�� hear what?” Admittedly, she was a little preoccupied with the state of her vehicle. John could hear a pained yowl. He started towards the source of the noise. “H-hey, hold up!” Reaching in through the passenger door and pulling her 8-ball keychain out of the ignition, Mike followed her counterpart away from the car and off to wherever he was heading to. John hurried through the first rows of large trees until he reached a small clearing. He could see it. A young female deer laid out in the leaves, twigs, and debris of the forest. It’s eyes were wide in the realization of its situation. Blood seeped out large gash on its neck and it also trickled out of the corner of its mouth. It gasped and fought for every breath. John’s shadows loomed over its dying body. Mike finally caught up to him. “Oh. Oh, geez. Poor thing. Shit. What do you do in this situation, I know this… okay. You call the cops for the accident, the park service or some shit to take care of the deer… goddamnit. I’m sorry, Church. This was supposed to be fucking fun,”

 sighing, she fished in her pocket for her phone. “I hope it goes without saying that any interaction with the police may not be beneficial to me,” John knelt down next to the animal. “Oh. Fuck, sorry,” she wasn’t in the mood to argue the point, and shakily dropped the phone back into her pocket, “Hey… what’re you doing? I don’t think there’s much you can do for her at this point.” “Give me your knife.” She closed her hand around the four-inch object in her pocket- a utility Swiss Army knife, mostly used for the screwdrivers and bottle opener, “What do y’want my knife fo… no. Church, nuh-uh. We can’t.” A little more assertive, “Give me your knife,” without facing her, he put his hand out with the palm up and he grasped for the knife to be placed there. “Fuck. Shit,” biting her lip and with obvious hesitation, she took the knife out of her pocket and placed it in his hand. Hers trembled in a manner very unlike her. John looked down at the multi-tool and used his thumbnail to flick open the blade. He stared down into his reflection in the sharp sliver of steel. The deer flailed its once strong legs in a helpless fashion unable to control its motor functions. The smell of urine and feces wafted throughout the air and its blood began to pool and carpet the foliage under its neck. “I’m sorry it had to be this way,” the blade pressed against its throat. “So be it.”