#if it feels like running on a hamster wheel i will simply stop doing it and there is no way to force myself to continue long-term.

[esleep]

i am so tired of being out of shape but i have no idea how to fix this. someone should invent exercise that doesn't make me want to shoot myself in the head.

[soapoet]

what do you need to heal?

oof, you all deserve a hug.

01.

Shufflemancy: SENSITIVE by MOTHICA

your feelings are really potent. you feel like a pressure cooker, constantly ready to burst open. emotions are both your playground and your graveyard, it seems. you feel everything strongly, but there is almost a sense of it never being enough. you yearn for something more, something bigger and better to latch on to. you've probably been accused of being toxic once or twice, and there may be a trail of broken lines of communication behind you as a result. but you have no ill intent. you have so much to give, and all you want is equal returns for your investments. interpersonal relationships especially feel lackluster to you.

here's a storyline that might resonate: you meet someone, platonic or romantic, and sparks fly. you're so invested, they take interest in you, you're each other's favourite person, two peas in a pod, partners in crime, a dynamic duo. every day you pour your heart and soul into this connection, drop the drawbridge and invite them inside your walls to experience you and your world fully. and with every day that goes by, slowly but surely, the honeymoon phase begins to fade. their efforts lessen, even when they say you're their whole world they never seem to find the time, they stop sharing, and feel intruded upon when you inquire and poke around to see what's up. you step back, thinking yeah, alright, i just need to chill, give them space. but that just makes things worse, doesn't it? you end up feeling abandoned and the grief for what the connection once was is agonising. every time you try to rekindle the flames they lash out. you're overwhelming, nosy, obsessive, they feel cornered. oh my god, you're so toxic! and then you fight. you fight for your feelings and the relationship. they just seem to fight you. you tell them they knew what they were getting themselves into. you showed them everything. shared the deepest, darkest corners of your castle. didn't they say that it's okay, that you're perfect as you are, flaws and all, and that they'd never leave? and then they still do.

you're not a monster. you're not trying to lure people in and make their lives miserable. you simply seek companionship. the kind that seems impossible to find these days. you understand that everyone has a life of their own, things to do, and that it's okay to need time and space. what you do have a problem with is the lack of trust. when you drop your armour you need reassurance that it's not in vain and that you are safe. that your vulnerability won't be taken advantage of. you don't want to worry about whether or not you let wolves inside your castle walls. what you need to do is learn a healthy dose of discrimination. really vet the people you let in. take things slowly, and allow things to happen without having to force it. let people come to you. wield your emotions in a constructive way. if you feel like a fraud trying to fit into the whole love and light spiel, then don't force it! you're incredibly powerful. learn the art of transmutation and try to make your emotions work for you instead of against you. it may be easier said than done, but if anyone can do it, it's you.

02.

Shufflemancy: Bridges by ALIKA

stop fooling yourself. you're really making yourself jump through way too many hoops. things don't have to be an obstacle course. there isn't some long, ever-changing list of things that need to happen before what you want can happen. it's like you're running around in a hamster wheel. chasing after what ifs, looking for signs and clues, and when something doesn't align then oops, there you go, right back to the drawing board. reconfiguring things, going back and forth, fine-tuning, undoing, scrapping everything and starting all over. reading your energy feels like i'm walking into a room with crumpled papers all over the floors. and when i look at them, your plans and ideas are so good! why have you cursed yourself into this space of false starts and stagnation?

because your head is full of doubt. your mind is like the static of an old tv screen. there is so much noise, buzzing around and it's so loud you're unable to think straight. there are so many distractions. you're being pulled in so many directions. everywhere except forward. you are so focused on that first step being absolutely flawless that you'll do anything but actually take the damn step. every time you gather yourself and tell yourself alright, it's go-time my dudes, you just stand there, or notice something that you just gotta fix real quick. and before you know it, you're doing all kinds of busy work. anything to make you feel better about not doing what you want to do and feel like you're at least making some contribution toward your dreams.

you heard there would be signs that you're on the right path or that your manifestations are working, and you took that personally. you see a sign, then look for confirmation that the sign really was a sign. then you tell yourself you need to stop actively looking for signs because then you won't recognise the real signs. but uh-oh, what if you were already doing that? does that mean that the sign you noticed was a false flag and you're just delusional and just out there fooling yourself? please give me a sign that— stop. sit down. cut the noise out and just breathe. you really need to start trusting yourself. you have a vision. a path forward. you got shit to do, things to achieve. stop checking the time, the mirror, the skies... just check yourself. still want what you want? great, you got it. have some faith in yourself. refocus your energy and try to stay present. it's okay to get distracted and it's normal to doubt, just don't let the doubts and distractions rule your present moment. the light has been green this whole time, so just go.

03.

Shufflemancy: Trauma by NF

no. that's two letters, but it feels wrong in your mouth, doesn't it? like it's too big or like it'll break something. when we're drowning there is a period known as 'voluntary apnea'. our instinct to not inhale water is stronger than our need to release the buildup of carbon dioxide that occurs when we hold our breath for too long. the brain can cause us to endure the increasing terror and physical pain because of this survival instinct. and it feels like your ability to say no is behind this kind of mental block too. when you do say no to things it almost feels apologetic, and is riddled with apologies and reassurance. you don't want to do this or that, but it's just today, maybe some other time, you'll check your calendar, assure them it's not like you don't care, you're just busy, you gotta go. you'll find any excuse that sounds reasonable when you don't have one. and for what? you don't need to explain yourself. no is a full sentence.

it really feels like you're on the outside looking in. you have a fear of not just missing out, but being left behind. it's like you've convinced yourself that in order to be worthy and good you need to please everybody. maybe in your past you've been betrayed, experienced neglect or really, truly, felt all alone and without support and guidance. so when you're around people you're on your best behaviour. you listen and you are eager to learn. you adopt people's hobbies or otherwise make an effort to be there for them. people come to you for advice, you're a shoulder to cry on, a problem solver, a good time. but when you get overwhelmed, your nerves get the best of you and you need someone to lean on, you feel like you shouldn't burden people. they have better things to do. maybe they wouldn't be able to help anyway, so why bother?

in many ways you feel like a ghost. not quite sure where the influences of other people and life circumstances end and where you begin. your boundaries are so blurry it's no wonder you've accepted so many concepts of yourself that it feels like the hand of cards you were dealt are masks instead of tools. you may need some time in isolation and solitude for a while. not to say farewell to the world and become lonely, but learn to really be with yourself and figure out who you really are and who you want to be. put yourself on the operating table and start carefully removing things that don't serve your well-being. you are whole all within yourself, and i promise that it's all complete and good and worthy of so much love. you don't need to be patchwork quilt made of concepts forced upon you by the world. you're allowed to be yourself and grow in exactly the direction and at the speed that you want. there's room here under the sun for you too.

[myfandomrealitea]

I'm convinced anyone who honest-to-god rages at that post is just someone who feels very impotent and useless off the computer, so they're hardcore compensating by trying to look and feel like they're doing as much "activism" as possible online. Either that, or they have zero understanding of how basic human psychology works and in turn, they don't realize that if people didn't have spaces where they didn't need to constantly be on guard about getting slapped with activism onuses, everyone would burn out. And be useless even if they were able, occasionally, to dive into that stuff before. Not to mention, everyone has a limit. Someone dealing with depression, a death in the family, MS, and the stress of a move has enough shit on their plate and they don't owe anyone an explanation re: "why they don't reblog that post, otherwise it means they're contributing to genocide". Hell, nobody owes anyone an explanation because Brenda, being stressed and pissy and raising your blood pressure about something does not mean you can actually help anyone, and also, half those mutual aid posts are scams.

I know a lot of people were tripped up (apparently) by how I worded it, which in hindsight was probably my fault because I did write it while I was pretty pissed off myself.

But yes, the general amount of people who read it and still insist on either bending over ass backwards trying to nitpick every single possible nuance or immediately launch into accusations and flag waving is just... Disappointing, really.

The whole world is never going to agree on everything, but it is actually very sad to see just how many people have been sucked into the cycle of forced activism, guilt manipulation, setting themselves on fire to keep others warm, ect.

I do hope in the future they allow themselves to let go a little and understand that mentally and physically we are simply not capable of being 'on' every single second of every single day. It helps nobody, and actually, a lot of today's activism is performative and signalling rather than actually effective or influential.

Its people loading up videos of candles on their phones instead of actually lighting real ones.

The unfortunate reality is that a lot of the online "activism" we see isn't.... Actually activism. Its not actually doing anything. There's no outcome from it. Spamming 'FREE PALESTINE' under cat videos and celebrity photos from their holidays doesn't actually accomplish anything. Its just making you feel like you've done something.

Especially activism on a global, actually at war scale like Gaza. It doesn't help anyone. People aren't being freed from hostage camps because user dontlookawayfromwar spammed a tagline under a baking video with an audience of 400 and called the content creator a cunt for not mentioning Gaza once while telling people how to bake scones.

Its likely an unpopular opinion; but modern internet culture has actually ruined activism, compassion and how we understand influence and real change. We are so out of touch with what is actually helpful and what is just virtue signalling and running on a hamster wheel of performative activism. The internet is a communication tool. You can't build a wall with a spoon and you can't stop a war with Tumblr posts telling people they're awful for having family dinners that don't revolve around dead bodies and human greed.

[heavenlythea]

you are love and you are loved

out of all of the possibilities, all of the potential scenarios it was you who came into existence. all that is, great I AM, the God itself chose to experience life through you specifically. you chose to experience life through you. instead of being nothing, you chose to experience filling your lungs with fresh air and hear beautiful melodies and smell lovely flowers and have thoughts and feelings and friends and feel love. instead of just being love, you chose to experience feeling loved.

your whole existence is an act of love. you did not throw yourself into an alien world filled with strangers and circumstances that are always against you. you gave yourself the whole world. you gave yourself an infinite amount of realities with which you can fill your life. and all of those realities are not just yours, they are you. you are all of the people and opportunities and love and flowers and melodies.

and since you (the God) love yourself so unconditionally, you are allowing yourself to experience absolutely anything from great love to great pain and your world is responding to you to deepen your experience. just how you can feel that the world is always against you, you can feel that the world is always supporting you no matter what because at the end of the day, it's not the world, it's you and what you're choosing to experience.

now, i know that it's not easy to relax yourself into love. it's not easy to expect support from the same sources that used to throw punches at you. but that is okay. it's okay to be scared. it's okay to feel uncertain. by embracing where you're at, you can ignite real love and strength within yourself. but it's okay to be scared first.

i do believe that embracing the law of assumption goes to a certain extent hand in hand with self-development, but the law goes much further. self-development is about getting rid of limitations so that it's easier for you to see that you are loveable. but unconditional love is about embracing that you are loveable even with your limitations. actually, that's what you came here to experience, you are supposed to have limitations, if you weren't you wouldn't be a human being.

you can receive love and support of your whole reality even when you're scared. you can receive love and support of your whole reality even if you don't think you deserve it. you can receive the love and support of all of existence simply because you exist. your existence is proof of that. if you wouldn't be worthy of unconditional love, you couldn't exist. the idea of someone unworthy of love and support simply doesn't exist.

allowing love into your life even just a little bit makes you better naturally. it makes you lighter. it makes you closer to your I AMness. and it's a point that you have to eventually arrive at anyway. you can't keep on "getting better" to deserve your own love in the form of your dreams. you're running like a hamster in a wheel for something you deserve without the effort. that is acting out of fear, not out of unconditional love.

you will always have imperfections. you will always make mistakes. you will always get scared every once in a while. that's why true love is unconditional because it loves regardless of any conditions or circumstances. being perfect is not the goal because then you're still just conditioning the love.

all of your role models, idols, celebrities, CEOs, presidents, models from photos on ig and pinterest, or whatever are still imperfect. they get scared, they have things they're ashamed of, they may feel unloveable or unworthy sometimes, they did or went through some really bad things, but they don't let it stop them from living life the way they want to. and you don't have to either.

you are love and you are loved. the love of all of existence is your own love. your existence is proof of it 🤍

[ancientastarwis]

December Pick One Image ⭐

This month I was guided to choose a New Year's theme. Which image(s) did you choose? Was the message accurate and helpful for you? Feel free to comment. Each image contains advice for the month of December through the Tarot and/or Oracle decks I'm intuitively guided. In this case, I chose the Shaman's Dream Oracle Deck for all 3 groups.

Feel free to message me if you want a tarot/oracle reading. I offer guidance for several areas of life, always including intuitive messages and no cards limits.

Reblog 🔃 Like ❤️ Follow ➕ Thank you!❤️

Have a blessed day 🩷

Results ...✨🥰

Option 1: Fireworks 🎆

The Drifter invites you to step out of your to-do list and your ordinary routine to feel the breeze against your skin, calling you to follow the wind and explore life’s opportunities. When the Drifter appears, it’s a sign that it’s time to cut the mooring lines holding you to the dock. It’s not important to know the destination before you set sail; it will become clear as you leave port. Do not wait for a map, as there are none to where you are destined to go. But be sure that you do have a compass to keep you true. Yours is your pure love and your intention to be free, even of your own beliefs and preconceptions. Few appreciate the energy of the Drifter. Here, you might not seem to be doing anything worthwhile or meeting someone else’s expectations. But you are the only one who under­ stands that others are running full-out on the hamster wheel and getting nowhere. Your “laziness” is an underappreciated virtue. You know that life will find you and bring you everything you require without your having to search for it, by simply being instead of frantic doing. Even as you let your mind wander, releasing it to go on a daily walkabout, call it back home regularly to deliver news from the cosmos. The Drifter helps you find what you are looking for, even when you didn’t think you were seeking anything!

Option 2: Party Hat 🥳

The Empty Well reveals that there is nothing for you here. The well is dry, and the desert is encroaching on your once-fertile garden. It is time to face this harsh reality and move on. Give gratitude and thanks for the abundance you have experienced, and let Spirit guide you to your next destination. This might mean saying good-bye to someone or something or insisting on changing the rules of the game. Stop diminishing yourself for the sake of another. Making yourself small will not produce the results you want. There is a lack of reciprocity, of give-and-take. The Empty Well tells you that it is time to reclaim what is yours and return what does not belong to you. The shadows cast in your direction are not of your making. You do not need to react or respond to them, as they are not real. Simply shine your light upon them and see how it dispels them. These shadows are projections that you are confusing for reality. You may have been offered a shovel to help you dig yourself out of an uncomfortable situation, a bucket to drink from the well. But you cannot dig yourself out of this hole and remember that there is no water to be found in that well. Receive the Empty Well as a gift. Do not exert your energy and waste your resources by repairing the walls or mending the rope. Follow the watercourse way—the aquifers that run deep in the earth—and you will be led to a new spring oasis. You can find these underground streams, these rich natural resources, in the subterranean depths of your own heart.

Option 3: Party Horns 🎉

A great Feast is laid out before you and requires you to choose. What will satisfy your hunger: something new and unconventional, with its potential for bitter or savory qualities, or something you already know you love? You are faced with a plethora of options right now, and while that may seem to be an extraordinary thing, too many choices can throw you off balance. You might be worried that once you commit, you won’t be able to turn back or refuse to confront the consequences of that decision. The most important thing to realize is that the Feast is offering you experience—no amount of overanalyzing or strategizing will help you make the right choice now. Don’t debate the right- or wrongness. Instead, just choose. In the choosing is the seed of experience, and that is what is necessary now. Sour, bitter, sweet, savory—what matters is relishing the experience until you digest all that your choice is offering you right now. Only one warning: avoid the same choice if it keeps you hungry. If something didn’t feel good or does not bring you what it seemingly promised, do not choose that again. The experience will only repeat itself, and you will have more than a bad taste in your mouth. The Feast is yours to enjoy. You can always go back for more when you’re hungry again, for life’s blessings are ever available to you and calling your name.

[galenathewitch]

Binary~

This weekend i had dinner with some old colleagues. During it the topic of gender identity came up.

THE DREADED TOPIC OF THE XXI CENTURY! *faints like an overly corseted lady*

The main topic was regarding a couple that decided to, on a gender reveal party, reveal their child as non-binary. All my female colleagues were outraged. Actually outraged, as silly as that sounds.

I have my own thoughts about it of course: i believe it is no different than forcing normative rules upon children when they can't even say their own names, both points cancel each other out in my eyes, therefore thinking about it is an exercise in futility, like an hamster running on a wheel until it tires itself out. Furthermore, as a childless woman approaching her 30s i feel it's not my place to give opinions on it - as our society so lovingly treats us as if we have little to no value i prefer to continue acting like the old crone witch i expect to become and let society eat itself up while i brew my teas and praise the Hellenic god in peace.

I simply do not care about making a stand either way. Still, if they're is one thing i do not condone is close mindedness. So it does make me feel like raising questions at least:

Why should they care? It's not their child. They might not agree but how does it impact them directly? It's not a human rights violation, it's not child endangerment...

Gender reveal parties are an absolute waste of time. Why even give it value?

Are they so outraged because they fear that their own children, hypothetically, will find it difficulty to deal with other non-binary children? Isn't that inputting your own morals on your children as well?

And when I thought the topic couldn't get more awkward... Someone suddenly states they "don't understand non-binary" and therefore it makes no sense for it to have value or even be considered a thing. (I paraphrase)

So...

If i don't understand mental illness does that mean it shouldn't be a thing? (it'd be nice if it wasn't but thems the breaks)

If i doing understand how the world can be round it shouldn't be a thing? Guess i found out how flat-earthers are born...

Just because you not understanding something it shouldn't make it impossible for others who do. Have your opinions but be willing to accept others as well.

Here is where i actually decided to explain what the concept of non binary is as factually as i was able. There was more confusion as I expected. Some more outrage as well.

I am in no ways an expert as i consider myself a cis-female and have no non-binary friends. What I do is roam the internet frequently. What i do is also study/research into anything related to psychology or brain development. What i do is listen when people talk and try to place myself in their shoes. And what i do not condone is unwillingness to accept that which is different. THAT i know the feeling of. It does not feel good. It does not feel right.

I also know what it feels like to not want to be a woman and to not be referred to as such. The weight of womanhood is one that is heavy to hold. I know how it is to be treated by when people don't know my gender versus when they do (business emails are one example), and how being seen as neither sex could prepare ease that burden. This is in no way my way of saying i understand what it is to be non binary but that i understand reasons why some people might navigate towards it

There was also then the discussion that "they" is not a correct pronoun. I won't lie... this one was when i cracked as the little grammar nazi i am and immediately went on a grammar testing moment. (Bear in mind none of us are native English speakers and there isn't a "right" word for non binary people that sounds correct in our language - latin languages can be a pain in that regard - this is not the case with Germanic languages though.

Fortunately outrage and confusion suddenly stopped as food was promptly served to the table.

If there's one thing we could all agree on, as latin blooded people, is that at least food is a good way to end conflicts 🍝🏳️

[archenemyintellegence]

(Tw: a little bit of vent I guess?)

I believe I’ve gotten out of my merch addiction. I’ve spent too much money on them for years since a break up. Being alone freed me from judgements from others and I picked back up drawing since then. Drawing is an amazing way to deal with everything but sometimes I just simply can’t do it because of burnout. The shadow creeped back in again to try consume me once I stopped drawing. Buying merch was a way to keep me going on, as there’s always something to wait for. However, the joy of receiving merch is temporary. What is the point of owning so many things that anyone can just straight up buy it? What are they providing for me? I felt like all it does is fill up my room, instead of filling up the void of my heart. Actually it’s adding new demons for me to battle with. The constant fear of my merch being screwed, the mental drain of having to keep up of the orders, and the financial drain.

I thought I was stuck forever, until I’ve reached out for counselling in my University. From the counselling sessions, I realized how my secondary school has screwed me over and probably left me traumatized even when I was constantly denying it. It was literally the core of my every problem. Just by acknowledging the fact that I was just a victim of some unfortunate years had freed me from so many things… including self-blaming and feeling of worthlessness. I was dragging the weight of those years with me for so long… stuck in a hallucination which everything hates me… yet I was still trying so hard, making progress day by day, drawing by drawing.

I am the most precious thing I’ve ever owned. When I realized that, the merch has lost their appeal. Even when I kept seeing them on my feeds, I no longer feel the urge to own them. Since I realized my worth, I found something new from my drawings. Besides of the struggle, the prayers for the pain to stop, and the burning urge to become better, I’ve found pride in my drawings. Freed from running in the hamster wheel of being worthy, I am eager to make progress drawing by drawing, absorb knowledge from the books that I bought with the money I didn’t spend on merch or mobile games.

I can be so much more, and I need to do it, as I cannot let my precious soul rot in the shadows anymore.

[lets-talk-spirituality]

Thank you for the message. 🐢

Interestingly I have immigrant parents and feel like I’m doing work for work sake simply to exist in this capitalist society and survive. I have bigger dreams of making music and sharing it which I finally plan to do this year but previously I’ve been delaying doing so even though I really love creating music. My fear of who knows what, failure, the attention, not liking the finished result stops me from going further than just the lyrics that I write. Anywho I also have been living more in my dreams than usual, I sleep and choose to continue sleeping and dreaming because I’m more interested in that than the monotonous routine that is my life. This sounds depressing I know lol but I don’t feel as negatively about it, I just know objectively if I was doing things I loved, I wouldn’t be buried in dreams. This was a lot but thank you again for the message.

I call it the hamster wheel life, we run and run and run to only stay on the same repeating cycle. Kinda bleak but it’s not not true.

Same. I think with music what I learned for me, is that I love it so much I’m afraid of it. It’s like fear I won’t do the creation justice. So I understand. I love to sing and yet my friends wanna do karaoke at their house and I can’t sing for them. How does a singer not sing. It feels too vulnerable to share something so deep with someone. Maybe you have some fears around intimacy or vulnerability to look at.

And you don’t sound negative to me. Navigating human structures isn’t easy and it’s not natural. I understand but maybe you can use that escapism for your art, let that need to get away propel you forward. I spent a whole year writing books because I couldn’t live my life so I lived someone else’s. Maybe you can be your dream self when you create and it slowly brings you to the person you want to be!

Not to give unsolicited advice or whatever. I still struggle to share my music even while I’m more confident with my poetry and spiritual gifts. But I’m sending you encouragement and bad ass energy.

Here’s a song for you:

[leonardodevalen]

"THIS WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME!"

THIS WORLD - I can give you everything you want.

ME - I guess a nice car, a nice house and lots wealth. To be able to just buy whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. That would be the dream.

THIS WORLD - There you go. How do you feel?

ME - Like I want more.

THIS WORLD - Here; maybe some woman can satisfy you.

ME - I feel so empty...

THE WORLD - Ok, here, fame and fortune.

THE WORLD - Are you satisifed with all these people? THEY LOVE YOU! ME - No! I'm still not satisfied! I NEED MORE!

THE WORLD - HERE, HAVE MORE MONEY, DRUGS AND SEX!

ME - IT'S NOT ENOUGH! Please...

ME - MORE!

THE WORLD - YOU HAVE EVERYTHING I CAN OFFER YOU!

ME - No... I still feel so empty inside... I WANT MORE! IT'S NOT ENOUGH!

ME - I feel so sad...

ME - My heart, it hurts so much...

ME - Please, give me anything you have!

Me - "No matter how hard I work. No matter how much I get. I am never satisfied..."

To be continued...

The Cycle

Want, want, want. "When I get a better job, I will be happy. When I get a wife and children I will actually be happy. When I am retired I will finally be happy."

I can speak for myself and I belive I can also speak for many others. I have fallen and continually fall into this trap. Never being happy with what I already have and always wanting more.

Though we are never satisfied with more, we still try to find happiness from the very things that have never satisfied us.

Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

If you are one of these people driving insanity, there is a way out.

Running towards "wanting more" is like being a hamster running in a hamster wheel chasing a carrot that it will never ever reach.

The thing about this hamster wheel is that we don't have to chace the things infront of us forever. We can simply stop running for the things that never satisfy us and enjoy what we already have. We can choose freedom over this never ending cycle.

Millionares often say they have not found happiness even after getting everything they ever wanted. Do you think it will be any different for you?

A wise man once said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

"THIS WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME!"

Continued... -The Unknown Man-

ME - Please... just give me anything...

THE WORLD - There is no more to give...

Unknown man - I see your heart. I see your pain. I want to help you.

You don't know me, but I know you.

Your greed for more... Your hate for others... Your evil ways... They have all led you to the punishment of your own death. The World said it would give you everything, but instead it took your life from you.

The world is not your friend, but I am. Let me show you.

I took your place. My Father hates sin, and will do everything in His power to destory it. Your greed, your want, your evil ways. They are all sin. I couldn't handle it, so I took the blame in front of my my Father

You deserved death, but I stood inbetween it for you. You lied... You cheated... You stole...

You should of died, but because I love you, I died for you so you could live.

Unknown man - My name is Jesus. I did this all for you.

ME - ... JESUS - Now I want you to live a free life. Free from want, free from your pain. I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. You will be satisfied in me.

JESUS - Let me show The World's real form.

JESUS - They are chains. Your idols of money, sex and drugs. Your never ending want for more are chains so you are never truly free.

"SO FOLLOW ME AND YOU WILL BE FREE"

ME - Ok. I choose you. I will follow you with all of my power. This World never gave me happiness! Never!

JESUS - I love you son. You will be free because of my blood. My love in sacrifice will set you free.

JESUS - REMEMBER, you can not do it without me. You can not save yourself. Only I can save you. TRUST ALONE IN ME.

ME - I trust in you and only you with all my heart.

I know can't do it without you.

"I give you my life."

JESUS - It is finished, (the debt has been paid). I have taken your sin and payed the price. Every chain is broken. You are set free!

JESUS - Death and this world have no grip on you anymore.

ME - Thank you......!

JESUS - You are safe with me.

END

Through out our life we have many choices. To have more, or to choose someone that actually satisfies us. Me and millions of others have had this story. Chasing there dreams only to find emptiness.

I hope you think hard on this. Jesus says, you will never be thirsty if you come to Him. That does not mean you don't have to drink water, haha. It is a metaphor for being satisfied in life. Jesus might not give you money, and fame. But He does satisfy your soul.

EXTRA THOUGHTS:

In class we were talking about pastors not having good pay. To be honest. If any pastor is in it for the money, they are in it for the wrong reason. Money does not satisfy. Jesus does.

[rainbow-shine]

the odyssey of labels, pins and acceptance

@spnprideweek's day 1: coming out/flags

Here’s the thing.

Dean didn’t exactly come out to anyone. And that wasn’t his fault, not entirely at least. After all, he spent much of his life denying the existence of that part of himself, that by the time he could finally begin to accept that what he felt wasn’t as bad as his father always wanted him to believe, well, it no longer seemed necessary to go through an experience that was aimed mainly at teenagers.

Also, Dean didn't need a label to know that he was totally and utterly in love with a man. Dean had accepted his feelings for Cas, at least on a subconscious level, long before he even began to come to terms with his sexuality.

Besides, all the people he cared about knew to some degree that he wasn’t straight (being married to an angel in a man's body hardly left any room for doubt) and he finally felt comfortable in his own skin, without having to prove anything to anyone and without having a script to follow. He had finally gotten off the hamster wheel and something as insignificant as having to label himself wasn’t going to ruin his much-deserved happiness, thank you very much.

Or so he thought until he saw those stupid pins.

Cas had texted him in the middle of his shift at the workshop complaining that he needed more seeds from a flower that grew specifically during this time of year and Dean who since their relationship began after a very epic interdimensional rescue was simply unable to deny his angel anything, ended up making a quick stop at the store after work.

And that's when he saw them.

In any other circumstance Dean probably wouldn’t have noticed them, but considering that it was june and apparently this month was important for the LGTB community, next to the checkout there were a series of pins representing the flags of the different sexual orientations. Dean watched them for a second, wondering which flag would be the one for him before forcing himself out of stupor, paying for the seeds that Cas needed and practically running towards the store's exit.

What did it matter which flag would be the one for him? It's not like at some point he has even bothered to think of a label that he feels comfortable with. Furthermore, he was no longer a teenager discovering the world for the first time and taking pride in sharing with the world who he really was. His chance for that had already passed.

But had he really pass it? Dean remembers a vague conversation he overheard of Claire and Jody about how there wasn't an age to try to figure out who you are and that it was okay to even spend years trying.

Dean had always known that he was attracted to women, with their soft curves and charming smiles. But he also had to admit that on more than one occasion he had been curious about men with strong arms, a stubble brushing against his face and a deep voice.

(Though now that he thought about it, his current thoughts regarding his attraction to men may have been biased because of Cas.)

By the time Dean arrived at the small house he shared with Cas and occasionally with Jack (the fact that your son was god is more or less as if he was studying abroad and only came home for the holidays), the subject had completely ruined his good mood and he knew he had to do something about it before Cas looked at him with his bright blue eyes full of concern and started asking questions that Dean still had no answers for.

"Here are the seeds," was the first thing Dean said when he entered the house and found Cas sitting on the couch, fully focused on a book. With an involuntary smile curving his lips, Dean approached his husband and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead in greeting, his previous thoughts almost completely forgotten.

“Did you have a good day?” Cas asked, giving him a soft smile and tilting his head slightly in a clear invitation that Dean didn't even bother to resist, connecting their lips in a brief kiss.

"Yeah" Dean replied, kissing his husband a second time to erase the frown of concern that had taken over Cas' expression at his unconvincing response before heading up to the bathroom to take a shower and start making dinner.

Following his routine helped Dean ignore his little crisis in the store and by the time he was playfully hitting Cas with the spoon to stop his husband from stealing more pieces of cheese that were meant to melt above the pasta, the subject had been all but forgotten.

But see, Cas wasn’t only his husband, he was also his best friend and probably the person who knew him best in the whole wide world, so when they were both laying in bed, preparing to sleep until their respective alarms woke them up, Dean must have expected that the subject would resurface.

"Are you okay, Dean?" Cas asked, sounding so genuinely concerned that Dean couldn't help but lean in to capture his lips in a soft kiss. When the kiss ended, Dean spent a few seconds trying to organize his thoughts so that he could answer honestly.

"It's stupid," he decided to say, if he couldn't pretend he was okay, he would at least try to get them to ignore the subject.

"Nothing you can say is stupid," Cas murmured, placing a series of quick kisses on his face. Then, with an amused smile taking over his lips, he added: “Well, except when you say that western movies are actually good”.

“They are!”

"Whatever you say, dear".

Knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to look at Cas in the face as he made this stupid confession, Dean pulled his husband's body more firmly against him before hiding his face in the curve of Cas’ neck, breathing in the soothing scent of cotton and sunshine that was just Cas to calm down.

"I think…" Dean began, clearing his throat to force his voice to formulate the words. He had absolutely no idea why this was so difficult for him. “I think I’m bisexual".

Now, Dean had expected many reactions from Cas: from the typical "duh" as it was obvious that Dean had to be something other than straight to be in a relationship with a man, to an overwhelming and emotional reaction like the ones that he had seen on TV, or even an indifferent or confused reaction.

Dean hadn't expected this.

Cas held him tighter for a few seconds before slightly pulling away from him, cradling his face in his hands and gazing at him with the deepest adoration anyone could ever feel. Cas gave him a soft smile before leaning in to capture his lips in a tender kiss with which he seemed to want to convey all his love for him.

"Thank you," Cas said, surprising Dean even more. “Thank you for trusting me with this part of you”.

And that was it.

Dean felt like a weight that he didn’t even know he was carrying was lifted from his back and, although he would deny it to the grave, he felt his eyes water at the sudden wave of love he felt for the man in his arms.

The next time he was in the store, Dean didn't even hesitate before buying the pin of the pink, purple and blue striped flag.

[whump-a-la-mode]

Uhhh. Ok so I don’t know what this is. It’s certainly not very good. It’s different than what I usually write. I’ll get back to normal stuff soon. I just thought this would be fun.

CW//Pet whump, lab whump, wing whump, medical exams, cages, dehumanization, needle mentions, implied past abuse

Signal hated waiting.

They hated a lot of things. They hated Dr. Natalie Sampson, for one thing.

Actually, that was most of the things they hated. Everything to do with Dr. Sampson. Their lab, their stupid experiments, their exams, or whatever the hell they spent all their time doing. Staring at those screens and hemming and hawing like an idiot.

Signal hated Dr. Sampson, more than anything. And, right at the moment, that was connected very closely to why they hated waiting. As, at the moment, they were specifically waiting for one of the doctor’s medical exams.

They had told them the night before that they were due for another one. Not that it was on a regular schedule or anything, the doctor had simply decided it was time again to shine lights in their eyes and take their blood.

Stupid doctor. Stupid medical exams.

In some small part, Signal wished they didn’t know the exam was coming. Of course, they would have preferred that it didn’t happen at all, but at least then they wouldn’t have to anticipate it. They had spent the whole night trying, without avail, to get some sleep.

They couldn’t stop thinking about what was to come. Being forced onto the exam table and poked and prodded and stuck with needles.

Stupid goddamn doctor!

The thoughts refused to stop overwhelming her, and they knew that there was no point to trying to sleep, then. They got up from her position on the floor, moving to a sitting position, sliding back against the wall. The bars dug into their spine.

That was another thing they hated, they thought, blinking open heavy-lidded eyes.

They hated their cage.

Dr. Sampson always insisted on calling it their ‘room.’ As if it was a cute little bedroom where normal humans got to sleep.

It was a cage. Bedrooms didn’t sit in the corner of laboratories. Bedrooms didn’t have walls made of close-spaced metal bars. Bedrooms didn’t have plastic floors. Even with the padded material covering said floor, it was never exactly comfortable.

Hell, bedrooms had beds! The cage had no such thing, just the mattress-like floor covering. At the very least, the cell had a sort of hiding box, in the corner. That was where Signal sat at the moment-- it was where they generally slept. The only place where the doctor could not see them easily.

Right now, though, the doctor was not here. The lights in the lab had been turned off for the night, leaving Signal feeling safe enough to get up, making their way out of their hiding space, and into the wider cage.

Not that it was exactly big. Ten paces by six, if that. The rest of it was occupied, as well. A sort of modified water fountain in one corner, with the food slot next to it.

In the other corner, Signal had thrown all her ‘toys,’ doing their very best to bury them under the mattress flooring. They didn’t need toys. They were human being, at least partly.

They were human at first glance, at the very least. Two arms, two legs, human face, the works. Hell, they had been a human, at one point. It had been great! They remembered with a sickly sort of nostalgia, how it felt to walk down the street, in public, with other people. Other normal people.

But, then, they had become a ‘specially designated class of protected persons.’ In less fancy words, a human lab rat.

That’s what they were. A lab rat. It was a wonder that Dr. Sampson hadn’t thought to put a hamster wheel in here, too.

The way they looked around the lab, checking for activity, was almost instinctual. They quickly confirmed that there was none-- besides the whirring of computers, running their overnight calculations.

They were safe.

With an aching pain of pins and needles, they shrugged off their outer jacket. Their outer downy feathers pricked up at the sudden change in temperature.

Rolling their shoulders, they let their wings fall from her back. They crackled a moment as they stretched them to their whole length-- a length enough to take up the whole of their cage, if they really tried.

They were a mess. Their wings. Not that they actually belonged to them-- they were just stupid things that had been stuck onto their back one day. Or, grown out of their back. It didn’t matter. Whichever way, they took no ownership of them. They were why they were stuck in here in the first place.

That didn’t mean they couldn’t bemoan the state that had befallen them. At some point, they had started molting, leaving clumps of loose feathers barely hanging on by their tips, crowded out by freshly-grown ones. That didn’t even take into account the dirt, or the fact that her flight feathers were all crutheyd together from having been compressed for so long.

They would clean them if they cared to. But they didn’t. Cleaning their wings wouldn’t get them out of this cage, out of this prison. Out of this lab.

Even though they still ached from prolonged cramps, Signal drew the feathered limbs back into themself. They didn’t want to look at them. By all accounts, they would have been far happier if they would just fall off.

Maybe they could arrange th-

The thought got no time, no chance to continue. The creak of the lab door felt like a gong, striking Signal’s rib cage, followed quickly by the burst of light that burned their corneas.

In a moment, they were back in her hiding spot, as far back in the corner as they could manage. With no gentleness, this time, they snapped her wings to their back.

Their face fell as they peered out of the box, seeing their jacket strewn across the center of the cage. It was the only thing that helped them forget the stupid feathery things stuck onto their back, but there was no way they was going out to get it, now. Dr. Sampson might see them.

“Good morning, Signal.” That stupid cajoling voice sounded, alongside the telltale sound of the doctor slipping on her lab coat. Had the whole night passed already?

Signal did not reply to the greeting. Stupid doctor. They fucking hated them, why would they talk to them?

“Hm.” The doctor hummed in disappointment. “You left your jacket. And a lot of feathers... Signal, are you molting?”

They turned to face the corner of their hiding box, digging their head down into the soft flooring as deep as it could go.

“You must be. Well, let’s get this exam started as soon as possible, then.”

Signal’s stomach dropped to her feet. They shouldn’t have let out their wings, shouldn’t have left the stupid jacket, should have cleaned up their feathers. They could already practically feel the prodding, poking touch, latex gloves jabbing at every inch of their body.

Touching their wings.

There were a few blissful, or perhaps stomach-churning moments, where Dr. Sampson did not speak. Instead, their footsteps sounded, moving about the lab. Picking up and setting down objects. Preparing to torture their little lab rat.

Whether the wait was nice or terrifying, Signal did not know, but they knew exactly when it was over. The sound of a key pushing into a padlock was all it took to make their feathers stand on end. No no no no no-

The door to their cage creaked open. They tried to wipe their tears on the mattress-like floor-- when had they started crying?

As if it mattered.

“Signal. Come here, bud. It’s time for your exam. I told you last night, remember?”

Signal buried their head deeper, nearly cutting off their own breathing.

“Signal.” The doctor’s voice was firmer, this time. Their heart skipped in their chest. “Come here, now.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Their words were muffled, but must have still been clear enough to be heard.

Dr. Sampson let out a sharp sigh.

“I don’t know why you insist on acting this way, Signal. I don’t want to hurt you, you know that. Just because they hurt you doesn’t mean I will.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!”

Another sigh.

“I understand you’re upset. This exam is happening whether you want it to or not, and I’m sorry about that. I know you don’t like it. But you know I can’t get you out of there by myself, and Dr. Crane hates to be interrupt-”

Signal was at the cage door in under a second. They moved quickly enough that they nearly lost her footing, but managed to retain it.

Dr. Sampson smiled.

“That’s more like it. Come on, then.”

Despite their cheery tone, Signal knew they had no choice, especially as the slip leash was pulled over their head and made taut about their neck. Not that the leash was really necessary-- just because they’d tried to escape two dozen times before didn’t mean they’d do it again.

Stupid leash and all, Dr. Sampson led them to the exam table in the middle of the room. A cold, metal thing, with a sort of pole sticking up out of its side. The end of the pole was marked with a hook-- a hook which the slip lead’s end was secured to as Signal climbed onto the table, legs dangling off the side.

It may have been the worst part of the whole ordeal, the stupid metal pole that stopped them from lowering their head.

“Let’s get started, then.” The doctor clapped their hands with far too much cheeriness. “How have you been feeling?”

“I feel like I want to rip your face off.”

“That’s- Unfortunate.” Their lips pursed together. “Let’s try that again. Physically, how are you feeling?”

“Fine. Is that it?” They strained against the leash a moment. “Can I go now?”

“Hm? Oh, no. This exam is going to take at least an hour, honey.”

Signal’s stomach twisted.

“I’ll start with your wings, so we can talk a bit.”

Somehow, those words made them feel even sicker than before. Still, they didn’t resist as latex-clad hands took up one of their wings, unfurling it until it took up half the lab. The touch made them shiver.

“Your flight feathers are coming back in well. It’s terrible, to think that they clipped them like that...”

“As if you wouldn’t do the same.”

“Of course I wouldn’t.” Dr. Sampson spoke through gritted teeth. Signal’s words were getting to them-- at least that was good news. “Signal, why are you upset?”

“That’s pretty vague.”

“You’ve been so stressed out since you got here. I have tried to make you comfortable, but I must say I’m at my wits end.” A touch to a particularly sensitive feather made the winged lab rat flinch. “Are you bored? I can always get you more toys...”

“I don’t want more toys.”

“Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick.”

Signal placed their hands on their legs, gripping them until their fingers went numb.

“Then what is it?”

They hadn’t decided on the best snippy answer to that one, but they did not have to come up with one. Instead, the air was filled with the sound of the door again creaking open.

Signal snapped their wings closed, and began desperately scratching at the slip lead around their neck.

“Oh, Dr. Crane. How are you this morning?”

[lucyintheskywithxanax]

Russian Roulette

Pairing: Sally McKenna x Fem Reader

Requested by anon “sally x reader with the prompt 2, 3, 9, 10, 15, 44 from angst but with a happy ending”

A/N: this one’s a bit chaotic and messy, but I wanted it to be, because so is Sally (I’m sorry anon I didn’t use one of the prompts, but I couldn’t make it fit with the rest of the story. I hope you’ll like it all the same). x

Word count: ~ 3 000

Warning: swearing, not the healthiest of relationships, English isn’t my first language

The Hotel Cortez had eyes. Of that you had always been convinced. The walls could see and they did not avert their gaze when lovers made love or when lovers broke each other’s heart.

You had whispered that to Sally one night, and she had nodded in agreement. Taken a drag on her cigarette, said the whole place was a fucking hamster wheel. But unlike hamsters, human beings were aware of being trapped, she had said, with a sad laugh and wiping at the tears that fell from her eyes (sometimes she would even cry in her sleep).

Liz – the ghost of Liz, still reading a book behind the counter, still so ridiculously faithful to the hotel – raised her head at the sound of your footsteps and peered at you over the rim of her glasses. You walked past her without as much as a glance her way. You didn’t care for reproaches right now. At least not from her.

You stepped into the elevator and waited for the heavy doors to close. Leaned your back against the wall, closed your eyes and took a deep breath. The elevator began to move. You opened your eyes again.

It was here, with her arms folded on her chest and her leopard coat sliding down her shoulders, mascara smeared, lips painted red and her breath stinking of cigarette, that Sally had stared at you and barked, “What am I in your life? Because as of lately I feel as though I’ve been nothing to you.”

And you had been mad at her, so you had shrugged, toed at the ground in silence. Sally had blown smoke in your face, but that didn’t make you cough anymore. You had shot her an angry look as the doors of the elevator had opened, and she had tried to stop you but you had pushed past her with your suitcases in your hands and stormed into the hall, as the walls with their eyes had watched and frowned.

“Don’t be an asshole, Y/N, “Sally had called after you. Behind the counter the ghost of Liz had raised her head at the sound of your footsteps and peered at you over the rim of her glasses. “Fucking fuck Y/N I swear if you take one step out of this godforsaken rat hole I will come after you I will haunt you I will – “

The doors of the elevator opened with a ding. You jumped, straightened your shoulders and stared at the long, empty corridor in front of you. Silence. Only silence. It wasn’t even that late. Where was everyone? The clients? The staff? The ghosts were always so loud. They were mad, so, so angry, screaming and yelling and laughing and crying and stabbing and murdering. The place was too quiet.

On auto-pilot you walked to Sally’s room, knocked on the door, waited, frowned as an old man opened the door and asked you something in a foreign language. You raised one hand apologetically and turned on your heel. Where was she? The walls were sneering. They were mocking you. Run, run, little mouse.

You rushed down the stairs, down an empty corridor, into the bar. And of course – that’s where you should have headed first. For here she was.

She was sitting at the counter with her back to you, in a black velvet dress, shoulders slumped as always. It had been more than a year and a half and yet you remembered everything about her, as if she had haunted you indeed as she had threatened to: the way she walked, like a funambulist on a tightrope, the way her lips would close around her cigarette and how it would bob as she spoke. You remembered the exact shape of the tattoo on the nape of her neck, the exact way her tongue would dart out to lick your face like a hungry, faithful dog. Those greedy, nervous fingers of hers had lingered on your skin and you had been able to feel her touch everywhere and whenever, in the night, in the blazing sun, in the heart of a storm.

For a moment you stood as if frozen watching her. Wondering if you were really about to do the right thing. But then your feet were moving and you carefully sat on the stool next to hers.

“Long time no see, pumpkin,” you teased.

She jumped and turned her head to face you.

Her face still looked exactly the same. Time had altered the shape of your features, but hers were just as you remembered them. Her eyes were still like a dark sun, and they still made the water on her cheeks glint.

Her fingers closed around her glass of whisky like pale spider legs and her lips parted in surprise. You folded your arms on the counter and pressed them against your chest as you shot her a slightly sheepish smile.

And then her anger exploded like a bomb.

You barely managed to dodge her fist as she threw a punch in the general direction of your face. She lost her balance on her stool, almost fell, then with one hand gripping the counter for support she made to throw herself at you, but you pushed her away from you. She slammed into the counter, rounded her shoulders and bared her teeth.

“That’s not exactly what I call a warm welcome,” you hissed.

“Fuck off,” she growled, as she wriggled back up on her stool. Her hand closed around her glass again.

None of you spoke for a long time. Sally stared at her glass. You stared at her. Your fingers were shaking, so you folded them on the counter. A different you, a younger you, would have run away in fear and never come back. You had always wanted a love that was sweet and soft and easy. Sleepy morning kisses to the sound of birds singing outside in the sun. But that was before you had met Sally. Before you had opened Pandora’s box. You had bitten into a rotten fruit and the poison had seeped into your veins and now there was no going back.

You wanted her, and her only. It had taken so long for you to figure that out. You had run away from her, abandoned her with barely any second thoughts, and for a few days it had felt like freedom. Like finally waking up from a nightmare. Sheets soaked with sweat, pillow on the floor. But one morning you had stepped out of the shower and suddenly become aware of the ache in your chest that tasted like her mouth and smelled like her skin. You had tried to ignore it, but it simply would not disappear. It grew, like cancer.

So now that you knew what living without her felt like, nothing could convince you to leave again.  

“You stink of cigarettes and booze,” you remarked after a while.

“Shut the fuck up,” she snarled without looking at you.

You waited. Studied her face, followed the glistening trail yet another tear left on her cheek.

“You started drinking again, didn’t you?” you asked. There was no reproach in your voice. Just a casual observation.

Sally let out a mirthless laugh.”Yes, well, you noticed,” she said, voice raspy, gravel in the back of her throat.

“You promised you would stop drinking,” you said.

“And you,” she replied, an angry growl, but her voice broke on the last few words, “you promised you wouldn’t hurt me.” She laughed again, raised her glass. “So, let’s drink a toast to broken promises.” She downed her glass, slammed it onto the counter. “Fucking promises,” she hissed. “Do people really ever mean them?”

“They do,” you nodded.

She glanced sideways at you. “Oh, shut up. What the fuck do you know about it? Plenty of assholes lied to me, but you were the only one who didn’t have the decency not to promise me forever.”

“I never promised you forever,” you retorted, anger rising in your throat.

“Oh you sure did,” Sally growled, straightening in her seat. “You told me, plenty of times, that you’d never leave me, that you’d always be by my side, that you – “

“I didn’t realize it would mean being stuck in this hotel for the rest of my life!” you cried.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before!” Sally cried louder. Two tears dropped from her eyes, and she angrily wiped them away.

“Did you even miss me?” she went on, voice quavering. “Did you even think about me?”

“Of course I did. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

That was the truth. Not only had you carried her in your chest, but you had seen her in every landscape, found her in every song and read her in every book. People had smiled and you had seen her smile instead of theirs.

“But I had to see the world, Sally,” you went on in a softer voice. She scoffed. “What?” you growled. “I know you’d rather I had killed myself and stayed with you, but I can’t – “

“I never asked that of you,” she said.

“Now you are the liar.”

She shot you an angry look, then averted her gaze and stared at her empty glass. For a long moment there was only silence.

“There’s a man in your room,” you said eventually.

“Yes. I got a new room.” She sniffled, wiped her nose on the back of her hand.”The old one reminded me of you.”

Of course you’d known she would miss you; but you hadn’t thought she would miss you that much. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, really. She was an addict, Sally, had always been. First it had been drugs, then the internet, then you, then alcohol; whatever helped her feed that bottomless hole of need that was her mind.  

She reached for the bottle of whisky on the counter, but you caught her wrist and held it.

“I think you’ve had enough,” you said gently.

She tried to free herself; you tightened your grip.

“Let go of me, Y/N,” she growled between her teeth.

“I don’t think I will,” you retorted, as gently as before.

Your thumb started stroking the inside of her wrist, tracing the outline of her tattoo; for a few seconds she froze, and her eyes widened slightly and you thought that you had won her, easy as that – that a simple caress could be enough to pacify her wrath. But then she yanked her wrist free, jumped on her feet, grabbed the bottle of whisky and ran towards the elevator.

“Sally!” you called as you sprinted after her.

She gave a furious cry, tripped on nothing; you caught up with her, laid one hand on her shoulder. With her teeth bared she threw the bottle at you. You managed to dodge it at the last second: it crashed on the floor and you both watched, as if transfixed, as the thick carpet slowly soaked up the golden liquid.

Sally gave you a shove and walked away down the corridor. You followed her.

“Leave me alone, Y/N!” she cried over her shoulder.

“I won’t,” you said.

She turned on her heel, shook one finger at you. Her cheeks were flushed with anger or alcohol, you didn’t know.

“Why did you come back anyway?” she snarled. “Uh? Let me guess, you spent every damned penny you owned and now you need a place to sleep?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” You gave her a smile, saw the fury glint in her eyes. “I’m completely broke.” You shrugged, assumed a causal expression again. “I went to all the places I wanted to see and did all the things I dreamt of doing. I guess it was a kind of test. I wanted to know whether they could make me forget you.”

Sally blinked in surprise. For a moment she seemed at a loss for words; then she gritted her teeth and hissed, “Bullshit.”

You shrugged again. “If they had, I wouldn’t have come back,” you said slowly, staring into her eyes.

Her mouth opened, closed again; tears dropped from her eyes. You reached out to wipe them, but she swatted your hand away and once again stumbled towards the elevator.

And once again you followed her.

She reached the elevator, pressed angrily on the button. You leaned against the doors and watched her. She pretended not to see you, then turned abruptly and snarled, “Why are you still here? You can go back to motherfucking Greece or Italy for all I care. I don’t want you here.”

“Oh pumpkin,” you quipped, “we both know you’ll take me back.”

The elevator doors opened with a ding.

“You have no right,” Sally’s voice broke, her face crumpling, “to just waltz back into my life after all the pain you’ve caused! You fucking left me!”

She rushed into the elevator, and for the first time you felt nervous. What if she meant it? What if she really didn’t want you back, what if she had learnt how to live without you? You had thought she wouldn’t, thought she couldn’t. But Sally was fierce, Sally was stubborn. But then again, Sally was starving for love. It didn’t even matter who it was; she would fall for anyone who looked at her fondly.

You slipped between the elevator doors before they had time to close.

“And you,” you said to Sally, voice growing angry again, “you had no right to ask me to sacrifice my life for you. It had to be my choice. And I had to leave in order to make it. But now I’m back.” Something changed in her eyes. Something softened, like night subsiding to gentle morning light, as understanding dawned on her. “I choose to sacrifice my life for you.”

Your voice broke. You shook your head, closing your eyes to hold back the tears you could feel burning under your eyelids. “If that can’t prove my love for you, then I don’t know what can.”

She didn’t answer. You opened your eyes. Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she stared at you, eyes as black as coal, tears coating her face. You didn’t say anything more. She didn’t either.

With another ding the elevator doors opened on an empty corridor. Sally stumbled out, bumping her shoulder into yours, and stopped in front of the second door on the left. With one hand on the handle she stared at you, lower lip still trapped between her teeth. It took you a second too long. The doors of the elevator were already closing.

She had called you on your cell phone the day after you’d left. You hadn’t been able to understand her first few sentences for she had been choking on sobs, her throat full of bits of broken glass, but then you had made out her words when she had demanded where you were and come back at once and she would fucking kill you if you didn’t come back at once. You had hung up on her, hung up on the mess, and your phone had rung again and Sally’s voice had screamed something that sounded like “Did I ever mean anything to you or were you a fucking liar since day one” and something else that ended with “you bitch”.

“Leave me alone,” you had growled, and when your phone had rung again you had thrown it out the window.

Now the bits of broken glass were back in her throat as she let out a groan and threw herself at the elevator doors to prevent them from closing. But she was a second too late. You cursed, slammed the button to open the doors – ding, and then Sally was in your arms and her tears and spit were on your face.

It was a blur of blond hair and red lips and the taste of salt and alcohol, it was all a mess and all too harsh – you pinned her against the wall as her hands desperately roamed and tugged and pinched. Fingers pulling on your hair, fingers kneading your ass. You bit her lip and tasted blood.  

And as she panted into your mouth you pressed her against your chest and felt her warmth slowly soothe that ache that tasted like her mouth and smelled like her skin.

“Mine,” she growled, or maybe sobbed. Her tongue darted out and licked up your cheek, collecting tears you had not even noticed were falling. “How I hated you,” she went on, voice breaking, “I could have killed myself if I hadn’t been already dead.”

You groaned, clasped her head between your hands and crashed your lips against hers.

“Mine,” she repeated. Her teeth sank into your tongue, and this time it was your blood that flowed into both your mouths, as if to seal a pact.

**

“Hold me,” she rasped in the dark, as if your body wasn’t already tangled with hers. Her tongue licked up your neck, hot and wet. You tightened your grip on her, one hand tugging on her hair and the other digging into her back.

“How many did you fuck while you were away?” Sally sobbed. With a groan you tilted your head to capture her lips with yours.

“Shut up,” you moaned into her mouth. She bit your tongue, somehow right on the wound she had made earlier, and you pulled away with a hiss of pain.

You rolled her on her back and kissed her again as another sob pushed out of her throat. “Are you going to leave again?” she whined, raking her fingers through your hair, tugging and pulling and making your skull sting.

“Never,” you groaned. “I told you.”

“So we’re staying trapped in here forever?”

“Together,” you rasped, burying your face so deeply into her chest that the eyes in the walls could no longer see you, only Sally’s face as it crumpled with despair and then her brow pushed up and it brightened with rapture. “Forever.”

[writingsfromstarfleet]

Thy’lek Shran - The Lift

♫ - Two Birds - Regina Spektor

For a lovely Anon, enjoy!

The Enterprise was no stranger to technical difficulty. Nearly every day something had to go wrong. Though, it hadn't happened in a while, and you imagined Trip must have been working some sort of miracle down in the engineering rooms. Most of the time, it seemed as though the ship was programmed to function as defectively as possible.

The NX-01 had a visitor today, a few to be exact. The Andorians were boarding once again, to discuss something with the captain. You hadn't paid too much attention to the reasons, excitement at seeing Shran once more was clouding your brain.

You got along well with the Andorian, and he liked you a lot. Each time he had visited, Shran made sure to spend some time with you, learning about you and discussing almost anything with you. He thought you were interesting, and would admit he thought you were very nice to look at, even for a human. You shared a mutual feeling, and when he came aboard you were simply happy he was around.

In the shuttle bay, you were accompanied by an ensign as you awaited the arrival of the Andorians. They stepped out of the shuttle, and Shran's eyes immediately fell on you, a smile gracing his face, as small as it may have been. You nodded to them, extending a greeting their way.

"Welcome back, gentlemen, Commander, it's a pleasure to have you aboard once more."

"Pleasure to be here," Shran responded, not taking his eyes off you.

"I assume you'll all want to b shown to your quarters," the ensign spoke, motioning for them to follow him. Shran was the only one who didn't follow.

"I would like to speak with Captain Archer first."

"I'll take you to his ready room," you said, and Shran simply nodded and followed you to the lift.

Once in there, the quiet surrounded you almost awkwardly. You'd spoken before, but something about the enclosed space made you feel nervous. The lift shuddered and came to a halt and you groaned.

"Why, why now?"

"Who are you talking to?" Shran mused, and you slid down the wall.

"Better make yourself comfortable. These things take ages to fix."

Shran huffed a little, clearly not amused, but nonetheless he sat down too, his back on the same wall as yours. He wasn't too far away, but was far away enough that it wasn't weird. Little snippets of chat between you had gone on, mainly just small questions, 'how have you been?' and 'how are things on your ship?'.

The quiet overtook the lift once more, and you couldn't take it. You weren't sure what to talk to him about, but anything at this point was better than the silence. You glanced at him occasionally, and still you admitted he was very handsome. That much hadn't faltered in the time you hadn't seen him. In the light of the lift, his skin was the prettiest colour. As he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, Shran felt your stare, and smirked just a little to himself.

"Is there something you need?" He enquired, and your eyes widened, and you stuttered.

"I- uh, I- no.. no."

Chuckling to himself, he sat upright properly and looked over at you.

"Of course."

That simple sentence made you nervous, and you weren't sure why. This was a man you had spoken to many a time, but the situation of an enclosed space was wreaking havoc on your senses.

"You know," you started, before your brain could process anything you were going to say. "I had a pet when I was a kid, a hamster."

Despite your overt nervousness and stuttering, Shran made no attempt to stop you and he listened intently as you continued. The smile on your face grew the more you spoke.

"He was called Rocket, tiniest little thing. He uh, he had the softest fur and he was adorable. He'd cuddle with me sometimes and hide in my clothes Sometimes, he'd eat with me, I'd replicate him some vegetables and he would cuddle up and eat alongside me. His favourite thing was, uh, to run, on his wheel; he'd do it for hours..."

You chuckled at the memories of him, before you realised you were rambling on.

"I-I'm sorry!" you blurted out. "I talk when I'm nervous and I uh, I didn't know what to talk about, and-"

Shran smiled at you and waved your apology off with a hand. He stared in amusement as you blinked at him.

"It's quite alright, in fact, I would love to hear more of those stories you have there. You're a fascinating person, Y/N."

A blush crept its way to your face and you tried to hide it as best you could. Shran saw it and smirked, unseen to you, of course. Over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, you rambled on about Rocket, and stories about other happenings in your life, Shran asking questions and speaking where needed, and it was then that you realised, you really do go on at times.

The lift jolted and started to move, Shran getting to his feet and extending a hand to help you up. Taking it, you felt him brush his thumb across the back of your hand, and looked to see him smiling at you.

"That was rather enjoyable," he stated, having not let go of your hand. "I would love to hear more of your stories before I go. Perhaps, over dinner?"

"Oh, uh- certainly," you answered, caught off guard by his offer. "I'd like that."

Chuckling to himself, Shran placed a kiss on your knuckles before the lift stopped at the floor he needed.

"Until then, Y/N."

[starlightinhumanform]

Friday Night Lights: Chapter Two

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ship: Romantic Prinxiety, Platonic Sleepxiety 

Summary: Roman and Virgil play opposite positions on their rival high school football teams. It’s the Homecoming game and tensions are high. Neither are willing to lose but one must rise above the other...

Warnings: Descriptions of pain/injury, Moderate language, One mention of drinking (Please tell me if anything needs to be added)

Genre: High School AU, Rivals to Lovers, Fluff 

A/N: Well... nearly a year since the first chapter came out I’m finally writing again!!! I really love this AU (even though I know very little about football lmao) and I have a lot of ideas about how I would like to include more Sanders Sides characters into this world. If I can get some more of my unfinished fics done, I really want to expand this series. Until then, I hope you enjoy! Love you all 🖤✨

Chapter One   Ao3   Fic Masterpost   Fic Request Info

The first play passed by in a blink. Most of the guys at the front went down quickly, even the largest crumpling under Prince and his brigade. Somehow in the chaos, the ball had been passed to Remy instead of Virgil and the fullback was tackled to the ground.

Virgil rolled his eyes at Remy as the team fell back into formation, only a few feet forward from where they had begun, “Dude, why’d the fuck did it get passed to you? It’s not like a knucklehead like you would know what to do with it.”

Remy huffed a laugh in response, “I have no clue. I’ll make sure it gets to you this time… hopefully.”

He glanced over in the direction that Remy was grimacing. It was Prince, of course, lumbering toward his position with what seemed to Virgil to be nothing but brutish arrogance. Roman acted like the entire game was about him; he acted like it was West Shore Vs Roman instead of West Shore Vs Knights. He probably didn’t even care about the game— it was all about showing off.

Crouched in the back of the formation, it was hard to see anyone at the front but he could picture Roman, somehow managing to smirk behind his mouthguard. Virgil hoped that Remy would rub his face in the turf.

—————————————-

Roman prepared for the second down, glad to see that the jock in front of him wasn’t looking nearly as confident as he had at the first down. Knocking someone to the ground always seemed to do the trick.

The ball was hurled straight back to Tempeste and the bitch who had growled at him earlier didn’t even try to block Roman. Good. All that was left between him and the weird little halfback was Remy Ristretto.

Roman tried to steady himself before the expected slam, but Ristretto’s tackle hit him low in the stomach, managing to knock him off balance. From the ground, he could just barely see the purple form of Tempeste weaving down the field and avoiding every single one of the Monarch Knight’s defense.

Roman tried to throw off the weight of the boy on his back but found himself thoroughly pinned down. His mouth was filled with the taste of plastic turf and dusty rubber and almost the entirety of his vision was blocked by the grape juice flavoured uniform on top of him. It was humiliating. And Tempeste was still running, reaching the end zone without being touched by a single Knight. It was like his feet didn’t even touch the ground, flying across the field.

The West Shore team were given the chance to make a field goal, and made it, but Roman hardly noticed. He was too busy grumbling about how he was going to get back at Tempeste the second he got the chance.

—————————————-

By halftime, Virgil felt like he had been driven over by a steamroller. Multiple times. A steamroller covered in baseball bats.

As the marching band paraded past where Virgil was sitting, he wondered vaguely about the operability of a steamroller that had baseball bats attached to it. Maybe the hit he had taken to the head earlier in the game had been harder than he thought.

Remy sat down besides him, “What’s going on in that big old head of yours?”

“Uhhhhh, a lot of cartoon gong sound effects. Now that I think about it, that might just be the band.”

Virgil looked out across the field as the marching band made their final pass around the turf. The sky was completely dark by now but the stadium glowed bright as day under the huge lights. It was always wonderfully surreal to Virgil, the time of night when the field became its own little world still holding onto the glory of day. He hoped glory was still how he felt about this field by the end of the game. The alternative would be shame; the alternative would be defeat.

And defeat was not an option for a game right before homecoming. It’s not that Virgil particularly cared about the school dances, quite the opposite in fact, he hated them. They were crowded, noisy, and you had to wear uncomfortable clothes and stand around with a bunch of people you don’t like instead of being at home watching scary movies and eating pizza in your pajamas. But there’s only one thing worse than going to a school dance— going to the a school dance after losing the biggest game of the season.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” Remy’s voice broke through Virgil’s thoughts, “Well stop it. We’re ahead of the Knights—“

“Barely.”

“—you’ve made some great runs so far—“

“I’ve gotten blocked plenty of times too.”

“—and you’re always at your best in the second half of the game. Now stop putting all your energy towards making the little hamster wheel in your brain turn faster and go use it on the field. C’mon man, the third quarter is about to start.”

Virgil shook his head as if to dislodge the distracting thoughts, letting his purple bangs fall in front of his face for a moment before brushing them back and putting his helmet on. Remy was right. Virgil had started football as a way to channel his anxiety, not to cause himself more. He just needed to get on that field and start running.

He jumped up and started bouncing on his feet, letting the adrenaline flow through his body until it felt like he was buzzing. Virgil was ready to win.

—————————————-

Roman was ready to win.

He could feel it boiling in stomach, the drive, the push to alway be the best. The teams had been neck-and-neck the entire game but West Shore’s grape-coloured menace had managed to scrape by with a slight lead by the end of the second quarter. Roman had no idea how Tempeste could even run that fast; he had short little legs and was about as delicate as a twig. Maybe West Shore just hooked him up to a car battery and gave him 20 energy drinks before every game.

However they made it happen, the kid could run. He didn’t look like he belonged on a football team, more like a trackstar or even a dancer. Roman knew he looked like a football player— tall, with broad shoulders and a thick waist, his extra weight part of what made him such a good defense. But Tempeste... he was like no player Roman had ever seen. Maybe that’s why Roman couldn’t beat him like any other player.

As the teams fell into formation, Roman looked across the row of helmets and accidentally made eye contact with Virgil. His stare burned with intensity. Roman hated to admit it, but he liked that about the rival school’s halfback, the feverish energy that seemed to storm around him. In fact, if Roman was being really honest, he loved playing against the West Shore because he loved playing against Tempeste. The energy was infectious. Playing against him made Roman want to run faster, hit harder, be better.

Roman smiled behind the mouthguard that rested on his bottom teeth. Maybe he did know how to beat Virgil; maybe he had to be just as crazy and vicious as his opponent.

—————————————-

Virgil knew what it felt like to get tackled. In his high school career he had gotten jumped on top and thrown to the ground by various sweaty, muscly dudes more times than he could ever dream of counting or would ever care to. He had been dragged to the ground, sat on, and pushed over from every angle and in every way.

But he had never, never felt a tackle like Roman’s in the beginning of the third quarter of that game.

He saw it coming, practically in slow motion, before Prince actually hit him. The boy’s shoulders were nearly twice as big as Virgil’s even with all his gear. He came charging towards Virgil head-down like a bull, his bright red helmet set with a direct trajectory to Virgil’s solar plexus.

Virgil tried to sidestep, skirting just past the moving wall of Roman Prince, but somehow Roman was moving simply too fast. The impact struck just at his core and a deep kind of pain, like a bruise that goes all the way to the bone, resonated outwards through his entire body. A vibration ran all the way to his fingertips.

Virgil could see the crowd going wild, booing and cheering and maybe just screaming with no inflection, making noise for the hell of it. He couldn’t hear any of it. Maybe the entire world had been put on mute or maybe the ringing in his ears was drowning it out.

He fell backwards and Roman flew over him, momentum carrying him forward. When he landed— and boy, did he land— he fell on directly onto Virgil’s chest. Virgil thought Roman had knocked the wind out of him by hitting him in the sternum. By landing flat on his chest with the entire bulk of his body, Roman found another ounce of breath left in Virgil’s body to shock out of him.

His vision and hearing tunneled out, focusing on the one thing capturing his entire attention: Roman. The boy on top of him was heavy, crushing Virgil through his thick shoulder pads. The heat of Prince’s body spread through his gear as well, although, based on the sweat damping his hairline, Virgil really wasn’t one to talk.

Roman was strong, stronger than him. Virgil tried to squirm away but he could feel Prince throwing his weight downwards and his arms straining to keep Virgil caged to the ground.

Just as intense as his physical strength, Prince’s eyes seemed to burn. Before, they always seemed to be depthless, simply dark and brutish like a bear. Now, breathlessly close, there seemed to be a light behind them, a thousand times brighter than the stadium lights. Gold tones shining through the dark brown of his eyes. It was the most beautiful thing Virgil had ever seen. It was also easily one of the most terrifying things he’d ever seen.

Virgil kept the ball close to his chest. As long as he could keep it, the West Shore team would still have possession and could continue to move forward across the field. They could still win.

—————————————-

Roman had Tempeste pinned to the ground and somehow it was the most exhilarating thing he had ever done. Which isn’t to say he had never tackled the halfback before— they had been playing against each other for several years now— but this was different somehow, more personal.

Tempeste growled beneath him, wriggling to escape the tackle like water slipping between his fingers. Roman push down harder, refusing to let him go.

Footsteps pounded behind them, turf crunching under the stampede of Knights quickly charging forward. Roman braced himself for the pile-up he knew was coming, over a thousand pounds worth of his team jumping to join the tackle.

One guy slammed into Roman’s back then another, then another. The pressure of the game must have been getting to them as well because they threw themselves at Roman and Tempeste like a pack of wild animals.

It felt like every single Knight, including the offense players, were joining the tackle. And feel was the correct term. He could hardly see anything besides Tempeste’s face within his purple helmet. But he could feel everything, every hit of his teammates as their full weight fell against his back. Beneath him, Tempeste’s breath began quickening, like he was sprinting again. But of course he wasn’t, he was pinned down just like Roman was.

Roman glanced down into the depths of Virgil’s helmet, searching past the grill. Shining in the dark, his eyes caught a small reflection of the stadium lights. They were large, startled, and obviously panicked. He looked like a trapped animal and his breathing only continued to become more rapid.

Their eyes met as Roman looked down and he realized this was the first time he had ever seen Virgil look really, truly afraid. He had seen Tempeste in the fourth quarter, 20 points behind and looking as determined and fierce as ever. He had seen Tempeste sprint across the field, followed by the entire Monarchs team, with a huge grin on his face like there was nothing he would rather do than be hunted after. He had seen Tempeste stand toe-toe-to, small chest puffed out and jaw set confidently, with some guy over a foot taller than him because he tried to mouth off about Virgil’s ability. He had never seen him like this.

“Hey, it’s going to be ok,” Roman set his helmet grill against Virgil’s. He knew Virgil couldn’t hear him and probably didn’t even know why he was putting his face so close. Hell, Roman didn’t even know why he was doing it. There was something about Virgil’s genuine fear that he felt the need to comfort him, tell him that it was just a game, that he would be alright.

The weight of another player hit him and Roman was slammed against Virgil’s chest. The sudden shift forced Roman onto his wrist, the small joint carrying him and the entirety of his team. Something cracked. He gasped sharply as pain struck every molecule in his body. Roman’s vision went black.

—————————————-

Virgil sat in the locker room, staring vaguely across at the rows of blue shelves in front of him as he held a pack of ice against his shoulder. The nurse said that it might have been dislocated in the pileup.

He wished he could blame it on Roman, that oaf was the one who had tackled him to begin with. He couldn’t though. It was Roman’s job to tackle him and that’s exactly what Roman had done and as much as it confused and somewhat infuriated Virgil, he also knew the other boy had protected him from the blunt force of his teammates. Why? Why would he do that?

Dull pain throbbed through the entirety of his body, clouding his mind. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what had happened.

Virgil was pretty sure Roman got hurt too. As he had walked off the field, gritting his teeth, he caught a glimpse of Prince cradling his hand as he walked in the opposite direction.

It was one hell of a pileup; four years of football and he had only been in a tangle that bad the first time he had played against the Monarchs. Maybe he and Roman were just destined to create disasters.

Virgil grimaced as his mind kept wandering back to Roman. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t help but worry if Prince was alright. Virgil had no idea what was going on in his mind, or on the field, or in the locker room on the other side.

—————————————-

Roman was bored. He sat on the bleachers, watching the game drag on ahead of him as he held a pack of ice to his wrist. The nurse had told him it was probably just strained but Roman wasn’t convinced. He could feel the ache throbbing up his arm with every beat of his heart. Between the pain and the pressure spreading out from grinding his teeth, Roman’s head was trapped in a haze that he could barely see through.

From what he could tell, the Monarch Knights were winning. With Virgil out, Westshore’s offense had been greatly weakened. Roman hardly cared; he wasn’t out there, Virgil wasn’t out there, none of the spark was left in the game. What was the point of winning if there was no one to win against?

The crowd roared as the final quarter came to a close. The Knights won, but Roman didn’t. He felt disappointed, dejected, and like he didn’t quite understand where he was. This wasn’t his game.

The night came to an end and Roman opted to go straight to the locker room instead of shaking hands with the other team, blaming it on his wrist.  Usually, he loved facing the other team after a win— admittedly because it gave him a chance to gloat over them— but he just couldn’t find that same feeling tonight.

—————————————-

Virgil leaned against a cold concrete wall of the bleachers, staring up at the stadium light’s false sun above him. If he looked far enough, he could find the dark sky and the twinkling lights of the city below him and beyond the intense glow of the school.

A cool breeze was picking up as the world shifted into night. It was beautiful but Virgil couldn’t appreciate it. He just wished there had been some sort of ending, a closure of some kind. He and Prince’s last hurrah against each other. But they hadn’t gotten a hurrah, all they got was a game that petered out and came to sputtering stop as they both sat on the sidelines. Virgil didn’t even care that West Shore lost; it was never about West Shore and the Monarchs. It was about him and Roman.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, “You mind if I join your sulking or would you rather be left alone to mope?”

Virgil spun around, his body tensing at Roman’s voice and sending a twinge of pain down from his shoulder, “What do you want?”

Roman stepped closer, “I told you, I came to sulk with you because that’s obviously what we’re both doing.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, “Yeah, right well... fuck off.”

“Man, I thought you might bite before but now I’m sure of it.”

Prince took another casual step forward as Virgil’s mind began racing. What is he doing? Virgil’s eyes swept over Roman. He had never really seen him out of his football uniform and damn. In denim jeans and a red tee shirt, Virgil was actually able to see him for the first time. Most guys were greatly exaggerated by the uniform, making them look bigger and stronger, but nope, Roman was really just built like that. His gaze reached Prince’s face. Like the rest of his body, his features looked like they had been sculpted and chiseled like some type of statue. He was reminded of how beautiful Roman’s eyes were when he actually took the time to look at them, the warm shades of brown filtering through each other.

“Uh, what are you looking at?” Roman laughed, a hint of nervousness creeping into the edge of his voice.

Virgil felt blood rushing to his face as a deep blush rose to his cheeks. He had been staring, hadn’t he? “Sorry.”

Roman stepped even closer, clearing his throat again, “I actually came over here because... I wanted just wanted to tell you I’ve really enjoyed playing against you. And it can’t just be summed up by saying ‘good game;’ it’s been a hell of a good four years... you’re a phenomenal player.”

Virgil stared down at his feet. This was not what he had been expecting, not that he had been expecting any of this, “You know... it hasn’t been easy to be the smallest person on the team— shit, I’m the smallest player in any of the district teams. I don’t think I would have kept playing, or would have tried as hard to stay on the team if I wasn’t absolutely set on kicking your ass.”

Roman laughed— a deep, genuine sound flooding from somewhere in his broad chest— and Virgil couldn’t help but grin.

“So yeah... thanks for that. And good game,” Virgil smiled up at the other boy.

“Well, we can’t exactly shake hands like usual,” Roman glanced down at his swollen wrist and Virgil’s shoulder that he was still nursing.

“Can we do something else then?” Virgil moved so he was standing face to face with Roman, his heart pounding in his ears.

Virgil could feel Roman’s breathing quicken as he reached up with his good arm, sliding his hand to the base of Roman’s neck. Put he didn’t startle, he didn’t try to move away. If anything, he seemed to be leaning into the touch.

Virgil moved forward, standing on the tips of his toes to press his lips against Roman’s. For a horrific second, he thought Roman wouldn’t return it but after a moment of apparent shock, Roman bowed his head to deepen the kiss. He tipped them forward, supporting the entirety of Virgil’s weight with his uninjured hand.

When they finally broke away, Virgil was completely breathless. He definitely hadn’t seen that coming at the beginning of the evening.

Roman looked equally surprised but he began grinning like an idiot as the realization of what had just happened settled over him, “Can we do that again??”

Virgil laughed at Roman’s eager, puppy-dog-eyes expression, “At least buy me a drink first.”

“Well, I can’t exactly do that seeing as we’re both like 17–“

“Excuse you, I’m 18,” Virgil stuck his tongue out in mock indignation.

“Yeah, well, uh, would you maybe want to go to homecoming with me?” Roman began rushing his words out, “I mean, I totally get if not. There’s absolutely no pressure. And I’m sure you already have plans so—“

“That’d be cool,” Virgil broke in, “I’d really, really like that.”

Roman’s face once again broke into a beaming smile, “Really??”

“Yeah you big idiot, that’s why I said it. Besides, it’s awful going to a dance after losing a game so I might as well bring a trophy,” Virgil slipped his hand into Roman’s and began leading them out of the stadium and into the parking lot. Nothing could have prepared him for what happened tonight. He had started the evening determined to win, but even though West Shore lost, he didn’t feel disappointed.

Virgil looked at the silhouette of Roman against the fading campus lights as he walked alongside him. Maybe he had won something even more important than the game.

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[feathersandblue]

Dean Winchester, Character Death, and Frodo’s Return to the Shire

This will be a LOOONG post that has been stuck in my head for a while in bits and pieces - about Dean’s death, what it was and what it wasn’t, and incidentally, the Lord of the Rings has found its way in here too.

It’s pretty clear that Dabb always meant for Dean to die.

And while I strongly disagree with that, on so many levels, I think it might have been more palatable if framed in a different way, and so I’ve been trying to figure out what the ending might have looked like in a world that wasn’t quite as shitty as ours. Still shitty, but marginally less so.

Dean is notoriously bad at letting bad things happen if he can prevent them. I find it difficult to believe that Dean would ever quit hunting entirely, and for as long as he kept hunting, the danger of dying would always be present. It’s not unrealistic at all for him to die on a routine hunt. Life is unpredictable; life as a hunter, even more so. I understand that the writers might want to make that point. And it might have been valid if – and that’s the real problem – Dean’s death hadn’t otherwise been devoid of meaning.

The thing about character death – any sort of character death – is that it needs to have purpose.

And there are different ways that it can have purpose, but it depends on what sort of character we’re talking about.

Minor, often unnamed characters – the redshirts in every narrative – die to illustrate injustice or to highlight evil. Their death is a catalyst or a consequence of the events as they unfold, part of the conflict the heros have to solve. An army led into battle by a tyrant. Refugees in a camp dying of malnutrition. Murder victims of a serial killer. In all these cases, death fuels the plot but has little meaning beyond that.

There are minor characters whose death both fuels the plot and gives the hero a more personal motive to act. Supernatural is full of these. Mary and Jessica burning at the ceiling; Charlie dumped in a bathtub. Minor characters can have their own arcs, but ultimately their deaths are only important for the impact they have on the main characters.

The death of a protagonist is markedly different. Protagonists need to have agency even in death to maintain their status.

Their death has to be the reflection of their character development up to that point but it also has to tell us something about them that we did not already know – show us how they make a final decision or draw a final conclusion that marks the end of an inner conflict – which is what all storytelling is about. Character death has to serve a purpose to have meaning, and for a protagonist, the purpose must be personal.

And If it fails to do that, then that’s either a sign that we’re no longer dealing with a protagonist, or that something weng very, very wrong in the writers’ room. There is no inherent value in tragedy. In storytelling, tragedy is justified when it achieves something, otherwise, it’s just capriciousness.

Buffy’s death at the end of season 5 of BTVS is a classic example for the death of a protagonist. Harry’s decision to go and face Voldemort in the forbidden forest, even though it doesn’t ultimately kill him, is another. When Sam jumps into the abyss in Swan Song, that is his heroic sacrifice, but if he’d permanently died in season 2, that would have been bizarre and nonsensical because it was entirely beyond his control – it did not reflect his decisions, gave him no agency, and reduced him from a protagonist to a side character. In that moment, his death was something that happened to Dean. It worked because his death didn’t stick – he regained his agency after resurrection. But as an ending to his hero’s journey, it would have been singularly unsatisfying.

Dean is our protagonist, and he has been for 15 seasons. What does his death tell us about him that we didn’t know – what decisions did he make, what inner struggle got resolved, what meaning did his death have for him, personally, and then, in extension, for us?

The problem is that the finale, as is so often the case in Supernatural, tells two stories at once.

Whe the episode starts, it appears that Dean moves on with his life just fine, a well-adjusted model citizen. He’s ready to get a job, seems to be moderately happy. He even has dog. The decision to keep hunting is his, and death just accidentally happens, which of course is not unrealistic in his line of work. On the forefront, his death is brought about by the fact that he exercises free will. It tells us that he is a hunter and will always be one, that he keeps protecting people because that’s just who he is.

None of that, however, is new. It is just more of the same. All of Dean’s decisions in the finale tell us nothing about him that we did not already know. He’s trying to move on from the death of the people closest to him, as he’s always done. He chooses the hamster wheel, as he has always done. He follows in his father’s footsteps, as he has always done.

As he gets impaled, he has no choices left to make. There is no agency in his death, no inner struggle. His death furthers neither his character development nor the plot. That Dean simply accepts his death is as unsurprising as the fact that his final moments are spent reassuring Sam and telling him that he has to keep fighting.

The conclusion? Dean ceases to be a protagonist.

He dies not as the hero of his story. His death just happens to him.

After Sam and Dean had presumably freed themselves from the constraints of Chuck’s narrative, the final episode should have emphasized their agency, their freedom of choice, through change. But in the end, it only led them both to making the same choices as always, the unsurprising ones. And even the choices that did indicate a change (like Dean’s job application) were not shown to bear fruits.

What meaning does free will have when it doesn’t change the outcome? All the finale does is tell a bleak story about humanity and how we are incapable of making meaningful, consequential changes in our lives.

It’s almost like Lucifer is talking to us all the way from the Endverse of 5.04: “Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up – here.”

Devastating as that is, there is another interpretation of the finale that is arguably worse, a different reading strongly suggested by both text and subtext.

Dean, as mentioned before, is trying to move on with his life but ultimately fails. The situation is different from the way he behaved when he lost Cas and Mary in season 13 where he was outright suicidal – his desperation is more quiet but also more profound. He seems determined to honor Cas’ and Jack’s sacrifice. But determination is not enough. Dean only goes through the motions, and it shows. He clings to the dog in the morning; the dog sticks to him closely throughout the day as dogs tend to do when they feel that their owner is in distress, almost like a therapy dog. His room looks messy, he makes an attempt to fix it but then abandons it as it requires too muh effort. Ultimately, he can’t be bothered. There are alcohol bottles standing around, a sign that he’s drinking, though not as heavily as in the past. All the while, he sems very laid-back, presumably relaxed and at peace and coping well with the loss but also weirdly detached.

When Sam mentions Cas and Jack at the pie festival, he says, “Yeah, I’m thinking about them too. You know that pain’s not going to go away. Right? But if we don’t keep living, then all that … sacrifice is gonna be for nothing.”

He feels an obligation. And he’s trying. It’s just not working very well.

He barely reacts when Sams pies him in the face.

When impaled on the rebar, Dean actively prevents Sam from calling for help. He tells Sam not to bring him back. And in the end, he asks Sam to tell him it’s okay to go. Which isn’t something he would do if he was simply dying – it strongly indicates that he wants to be allowed to die.

Prompting the conclusion that Dean is giving up on life the first opportunity he gets, not even knowing whether he’ll end up in heaven.

In this reading, Dean does have a little bit of agency. He makes a decision, sort of. His death marks the resolution of an inner struggle: He gives up.

He dies as a protagonist.

In the worst way possible.

In all honesty, I can’t decide which interpretation I hate more.

But what could the writers have done differently, if Dean was meant to die all along?

Back when the SPN finale had freshly aired, I was describing it like this:

Imagine that the One Ring is destroyed. But Merry died in the battle and Pippin went missing and was never found again. Frodo and Sam return to the Shire; Pippin and Merry are mentioned once in passing. Upon their arrival, Frodo is attacked by Wormtongue and slowly bleeds out over the span of thirty pages. Sam marries someone else than Rosie; Rosie is never mentioned again. Somehow, both Frodo and Sam are teleported to Valinor, where we are told that the real fun begins.

At the time, I only used this as an example to illustrate what a mess the finale had been. But in the weeks that have passed since, then, I’ve started thinking about the LOTR comparison some more, and it got me thinking about Dean’s death in a different way.

And it has everything to do with the difference between running from and walking toward.

As mentioned before, it’s not unrealistic that Dean would die on a random hunt. Would the Dean Winchester we know ever stop hunting? Maybe. We might want him to. Then again, would be still be Dean Winchester if he did? We know that Dean can’t help but feel responsible. He is someone who is incapable of staying hands-off.

Dean, as we see him in the finale, is trying to honor Cas’s and Jack’s memory by living, although he’s not very good at it – not outright suicidal but worn-out. Exhausted. And still he makes the decisions to keep hunting because he can do nothing else.

When Frodo and Sam returned to the Shire in LOTR, they had earned their happy ending. But Frodo, who had carried such a heavy burden that he was permanently altered by it, could no longer find happiness in Middleearth, and ultimately decided to depart for Valinor along with Gandalf and Bilbo with the promise of later being reunited with Sam. The journey had changed both of them, but it had changed Frodo to a greater degree, his responsibility had been greater, the weight on his shoulders heavier.

And I started to wonder whether the intention had initially been to show Dean in much the same state – and to frame his death as a decision to move on, the same way that LOTR has Frodo move on to the West.

Imagine the following: Cas is pulled into the Empty. His happiness and love change the Empty; he merges with it or otherwise changes it so that it’s now a more demon-friendly environment. Everyone there is at peace. Cas, in whatever form, moves on to Heaven – or maybe his soul does as it’s now mostly human.

Dean goes on a hunt and dies. Jack, or some other entity, shows up where you would expect the curiously absent reaper in order to give him a choice. Learning that Cas is in Heaven, and knowing that he will never be able to stop hunting if he remains on earth, Dean makes the conscious decision to move on. For the first time, Dean prioritizes his own happiness over his perceived duty. His death is no longer suicide by proxy, and neither is its sole purpose to illustrate the inherent meaningless of free will by turning him into a hamster-by-choice. Instead, it becomes a decision because he’s given back agency. He resolves an inner conflict and there’s even a final bit of character development as he breaks the chain of mutual co-dependency that ties him to Sam and allows himself to be with Cas. He remains a protagonist throughout the end.

And because he acknowledges his love for Cas and decides to be with him, he no longer just runs from, he walks toward.

The parallels to The Lord of the Rings get even more obvious when you take Sam into the equation because much like Samwise, Sam remains on earth in order to have a life that, for him, still holds meaning and the chance of happiness – whereas Dean can no longer be happy on earth as long as Cas isn’t there.

To be completely clear: I’d still think that such an ending would suck because it puts too much emphasis on an afterlife, and it would still send the message that characters like Dean could only find peace in death, and unless some adjustments were made to Sam’s arc as well, the ending would still suck for him.

But seeing as SPN plays in a universe where an afterlife exists, I could probably learn to live with Dean’s death if it had any sort of meaning, for him, besides dying and waiting for Sam to arrive, if it allowed for that final bit of character development. If he got to choose.

While I’ll never be able to see the finale that we actually got as anything but a complete atrocity.

[lu-undy]

Un-alone, Chapter 6!

Here it is!

“Go to hell!”

“L, it’s me.”

Lucien jumped out of his sofa and it was so sudden that he knocked the bottle of vodka. It fell on the floor and spilled a bit before he managed to grope for it and make it stand up. He rushed to the door and opened it. 

“Hey.” Fred was standing there but before he could add anything, Lucien grabbed him by his collar and pushed him against the wall in the corridor of the hotel, outside his room. He was fuming with rage. “Wow! L? What the fuck?!”

In his surprise, Fred dropped the briefcase he was holding and it fell on the carpeted floor of the hotel corridor.

“Why did you never tell me?! Why?!” Lucien roared.

“About what?!”

“You know very well what!” Lucien pushed his knuckles harder against the wall and Fred’s throat started to feel really uncomfortable. 

“I-inside… P-please..?” The American pushed the air out of his mouth but his vocal chords couldn’t produce a sound.

Lucien kept him there, breathing fast not an inch away from his face, and Fred smelt the alcohol in his breath, because he could hardly smell anything else but alcohol… Eventually the Frenchman let go and both entered the suite. 

“Tom told me you went to see him and he gave you the file. So I thought I should come and see how you were doin’...” Fred adjusted his collar, trying to get the air he had been lacking a moment ago. “And I see you’re doin’ brilliantly…”

“Why not tell me straight away?” Lucien couldn't raise his eyes. If he did, he wasn't sure he would be able to contain his rage.

“Because you were head over heels for her and married her before any one of us could run checks on her! Besides, I’m not supposed to run checks on her, you should have done that yourself! What did you think about marrying a girl you knew nothing of?! You’re a goddamn spy and she could have been another one!”

Lucien sighed and grabbed the vodka, gulping down from the bottle straight.

“I mean, there’s no one else to blame but you! And it’s not like she played particularly hard or anything! No! It’s like you never bothered to check at all! Like you never bothered!”

“Is what the file saying true? All of it?” Lucien asked.

“Of course it is!” Fred shouted. “She used to go around, pulling money out of men she thought had loads of it! And the kids she had?! God bless! She had seven kids before your one, seven?! How did you not see any one of them?! She’d always do the same. Find a guy, get him to buy her anything she wanted, maybe get knocked up and married and go straight to a divorce, only to get the child support! L, she did that seven fuckin’ times before she met you! Seven fuckin’ times?!”

Fred was as mad as Lucien felt betrayed and disappointed at himself. 

“Did you never see any of the other kids?!”

“Non.” Lucien was beyond ashamed, his voice was at the other end of loud. 

“Goddamn it!” Fred went on. “She played you like a damn fiddle! And you never wondered how on Earth she came to agree to you fuckin’ off and leavin’ her alone for years? It was for her to go and get around other guys! Continue her business! It was perfect for her! She’d continue receiving your money, your gifts, whatever the fuck you’d send her, all the while playing with other guys!”

Fred slapped his own forehead. He had been walking in circles in the room while Lucien was on the sofa, drinking each time the heat of embarrassment was too much to handle. 

“For fuck’s sake! You’re supposed to be one of the best spies in the world!”

Lucien winced. Fred’s shouting on his drunk ears rang loudly and painfully.

“I did not want to risk it.” He whispered.

“What?” Fred turned to him and sat next to him on the sofa. 

“Part of me feared to know why she was insisting on going to the restaurant I was singing in, despite barely having the money for it. I… I just… I thought she...”

“Fuckin’ hell…” Fred shook his head. “The issue isn’t even just her. It’s the mess she left!”

Lucien lowered his head. He was still holding the bottle of vodka.

“You mean Jérémy?”

“Yeah, Jeremy and the horde of others…! Half of them has already spent some time behind bars and Jeremy bein’ the youngest, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d follow them!”

Lucien shook his head. The weight of his mistake increased by the second. He let a hand sink down his face from his brow to his chin, pulling his skin down but not digging his nails in. Not in front of Fred. 

“Although I guess the fact that he was bullied to bits by his elder brothers helped, or maybe not…”

“What?” Lucien asked, turning his head to his colleague. 

“His brothers, or half-brothers. Did you see them? You must have, at the funeral.”

Lucien winced. Again, he failed himself. 

“You didn’t pay attention, did ya? Pfff, Lucian… What the hell, pal…? Yeah, maybe retirin’ is the best option for you…”

The Frenchman hated to hear it because he hated to hear the truth said so bluntly. Again. 

“Anyway, they’re all twice as big as Jeremy and they never played nice with him. Most of them work like their mum. They go around holdin’ whatever shady business they can. Drug dealing, minor thefts, whatever’s big enough to get you a few months in the shade. The poor last boy got no rest at home and became good with a bat…”

Lucien raised intense eyes to Fred. 

“For baseball I meant, calm down. I guess he releases what he can’t elsewhere there. And he plays it with other people, not his brothers, so I guess for him hitting a ball as hard as he can with a bat is as close as he can get to release whatever frustration he has.”

Lucien sighed and drank more. 

“What a mess.” He simply said. “And quite ironic.” Fred turned to look at the French spy. “I am the spy, the one no one should trust and I trust no one. I trusted her, only her, I… Pff…”

Lucien’s hair was messy and he was still wearing only black. A black shirt and black trousers. They looked crumpled and it pinched the American’s heart to see that such a professional and outstanding man could be that deeply fooled and lost. 

“You really loved her, eh?”

Lucien bit his lip and looked away to take another swig of the bottle. 

“Goddamn it…” Fred sighed and shook his head. “I don’t even know what I’d do if I were you… I mean… Can I be honest with you?”

Lucien raised tired eyes to him. 

“You did not feel the need to ask so far.”

“Yeah, right… Look, I don’t know what it feels like to realise that the one girl you like turns out to have played you for all your life. I don’t know what it feels like to be a dad but never be called “dad”. I don’t know any of these things and may God preserve me from all of it. But I’m damn sure that if I did know any of this mess personally, I’d want to retire, fly to the fuckin’ Moon and bury myself there.”

Lucien nodded, his head still lowered. 

“But I know you, L. Nevermind that girl, you’re good. You’re very good at what you do and that’s why you’re still there. You can only thank God that she wasn’t another spy and going after you or you wouldn’t be sittin’ here downin’ that bottle like you are. So listen, there’s two things you can do. One,” Fred extended his thumb. “You can fly yourself to the damn Moon and bury yourself there. Or,” He extended his index finger. “You can take up the one thing you know how to do and do it. I told you before and now you might understand what I meant a bit better: if you take up that contract, you get Jeremy a job, you get him off the streets and give him a chance to set his life straight. The boy’s not lost yet and he is half you, at least.”

“He hardly has anything of me. He does not know me.”

“Not yet. But you can change that. That’s maybe the one thing you can do to make this mess a bit better. Give that boy something to put his energy in that won’t lead him in the shade.”

Lucien shook his head. 

“Alright, alright, look. There’s something else cookin’ and it might be better that you take that up.”

Lucien leaned back on the sofa and threw his head back, staring at the ceiling.

“Remember back fifteen odd years ago, there was this guy that you Frenchies and us managed to get. It was all you in the end. He was dealin’ whatever he could lay his hands on but what really got on our nerves was the smugglin’ of kids through the border, girl kids…”

“Oui, I remember.”

“He got out.”

“What?!” Lucien’s head swooshed to Fred. “He escaped prison?!”

“Worse, he got freed.”

“How could you let him free?!”

“Hey, I didn’t but he managed to get himself released. Here’s the file.” Fred handed it to Lucien who opened it and squinted for the letters to stop floating around. The vodka did not help his vision...

“Hm. Well, I cannot say I understand this decision but what can we change in it?”

“Well, here’s the thing, the guy disappeared off the face of the Earth the second he stepped out of prison. We know he didn’t leave the country but that’s as far as we got.”

“So he is resuming his business or starting afresh, depending on his clientèle." Lucien answered and Fred couldn't but crack a slight smile. The French spy raised his eyes and saw it. "Why the smile?"

"Give you a file and you become the good old L again. It's funny."

Lucien's eyes went back to the file. 

"I presume you want to find his whereabouts?" 

"Yeah. HQ isn't happy not knowin' what he's up to."

Lucien pondered for a second where his mind rolled like a hamster in a wheel. 

"I will take it." He concluded. 

"Oh, really?"

"Oui."

"I don't need to convince you any more than that?" 

"Non." 

"Alright…!" Fred exclaimed enthusiastically. "Well then, if you need anythin'-"

"Where can I find my son?" 

Fred's eyebrows jumped. He took a split second to make sure he heard it right but seeing the determination in Lucien’s eyes thrilled him. He got a pen out of his jacket and scribbled an address on the file. 

“Anythin’ else you need?”

“Oui, an answer.”

“Yeah? What’s the question?”

“Why give this to me?”

“You just want me to say that you’re the best again, don’tcha?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Look, you’re the best at trackin’ people. Say what you want about it but that’s the borin’ truth of it. That’s your answer.”

Lucien lit a cigarette and slowly nodded. 

“Now, you’ll really take it and your son with you?”

“I need to take a shower. I trust you can show yourself out.” 

This was Lucien’s answer and Fred knew what it meant. 

“Before I go, I talked to Francis from gadgets and he told me to give you this.” Fred put his briefcase on the coffee table. “He said he kept it simple and classic, like you used to like it.”

Lucien nodded and Fred stood up before taking his leave and leaving the Frenchman alone. 

The shower lasted a long time. Lucien needed it to think. The white noise was an excellent stimulant for his brain and he closed his eyes, feeling the water continuously drip down his face, his hair sticking on it.

Marie had toyed with him completely. She had played him like a damn fiddle indeed, to quote Fred. And as Fred had said, it was all but Lucien’s fault. He should have run the usual checks, to try to understand why a woman who could hardly pay to go in such an establishment insisted on frequenting the place and going backstage to talk to him. It turned out, more than twenty odd years later, that it was not out of blind love, or because she had thought he could sing well. But what about the letter then? She did say that she needed to hear him sing? Had she lied about this? Had she sent letters to the other men she had fooled? Where did the lies begin and where did they stop? 

One thing was sure, she married him for nothing else but his money. Maybe his looks helped.

Like all the other women who looked up at Lucien with dilated pupils, it was only because they saw the charm and the green bills through his clothes and in his bank account. That, or they wanted to kill him. Nothing personal, some lady spies knew how to use their charms. 

Lucien sighed under the running water of the shower. His shoulders were hunched and he put a hand on the wall in front of him, just to make sure to not lose his balance. 

There were a few things he started to piece together and still some missing links. Marie going to a place she barely could afford was all a strategy and she did that to find targets from whom to suck money out, like a leech. On top of that, she made sure to come and show only a few dresses, excusing herself for it, only to push him to offer her more. 

Everything from her was fake, everything from him was sincere.

All the gifts, all the letters he wrote with a trembling hand and a shaking heart, threatening to burst out of his chest… The countless drafts for each letter, trying to find the perfect words to describe his longing, the endless nights of solitude, keeping her souvenir in his head to try to sleep with a smile on his lips.

The money he sent to raise a boy, their son, his son.

She had also lied about him. 

Lucien did not want to show it in front of Fred but what his colleague told him contradicted Marie’s letters over the years frontally! She was saying that he was a brilliant little boy at school, that his teachers could not stop praising him and saw a bright future ahead of him, outstanding studies and a safe career…?

She had lied not only about her feelings, about their wedding, but also about someone who had asked nothing about this! The little boy was… He was…

Lucien opened his eyes under the shower water.

That little boy was the incarnation in flesh and blood of his mistake!

But Lucien wasn’t one who could hate him for it. The poor thing had asked for none of this. It wasn’t his fault and however hard Lucien tried, he couldn’t but feel something for the baby he had held and sung lullabies to.

If only....

If only Lucien had run checks on her, if only he had been a professional and not a hopeless romantic, if he had followed his head and not his foolish heart, yearning for a much quieter life, then he would have avoided all of this and the boy wouldn’t be wandering the Earth pointlessly! But no! After the war and on his way to America, the young man, even if very gifted for his craft, had to believe that most of the evil of this Earth had been purged. As if. As if...

In the end, it was his fault, as much as it was hers.

She tried, and he let her win.

But further than that, and the biggest part of the problem he was having with himself, was elsewhere. Non, the issue that he was trying to avoid because he did not know if he could stop himself, was him. 

Not him now, but him throughout all these years.

He had spent more than the past two decades living a lie. In his head, he had been a father, a husband, a heart bound by sacred bonds. Lucien wasn't very religious but on that day at the church, he had not lied! When the priest asked him if he would take care of Marie till death did them apart, the Frenchman had looked in the deepest blue of her eyes, where he saw his reflection, and had answered 'I do' with as much honesty as emotion. To him, he had tied his life to her!

But it all made sense now. As much as it hurt, it made sense. Thinking about it again and had the roles been reversed, he would hardly have accepted for her to leave him, travel the world most of her time and above all… He remembered a conversation with her that now took a whole other meaning.

“Marie, I… I cannot be married.” He took her hand. His was trembling with distress.

“Why? Are you already married?” She had taken a step away from him, as if she was disgusted by the idea that Lucien could have two ladies at the same time. Gosh, the talents of the most brilliant actress she had…

“Non, but… My job requires me to not be faithful, to sometimes share my bed with other people.”

Her eyebrows had jumped.

“You mean as a singer?”

“N-non. My real job is not a singer, but it requires me to be one now.”

Lucien now understood how on Earth she could have suggested a marriage that fast.

“What is your job?”

“If I told you, you would leave me.”

“No, Lulu…” She had cupped his face and looked in his eyes with hers, filled with lies. “It’s alright. Whatever your job is and even if you have to sleep with other people, I don’t care.”

Lucien’s eyebrows had jumped and tears had come to his eyes. In his enamoured eyes, he had accepted everything, he had let her guide his needs, guide his decisions, guide his everything… And if she accepted such harsh conditions, he had taken it for unconditional love and respect, not for anything suspicious. He thought she loved him as much as he loved her, madly, to the point of forgetting any and everything around him. Forget himself even, forget he was a spy, forget lies were something that he used so frequently, forget that they could be used against him. Non, with Marie, he was Lucien the husband, Lucien the man, Lucien the nobody, the normal Lucien. 

And he loved it, he revelled in it and adored her for it.

Finally, finally! Someone didn’t see him as a means to an end! They didn’t see him as an agent, as a blade, as a disguise, as a shadow of smoke.

Ha. The irony. 

Lucien was a spy, he was an expert liar, manipulator, a machine of deceit and cunning plans. And what other spies failed to do so far, what the war didn’t manage to do as he was a young man, what no one yet had managed to do, she did. 

How could he have let himself fall without a safety net…?

Worse than all of it. He had been living in a fairy tale of his own. Marie had never been his the way that he made himself hers. She had used him for the money and Jérémy was only a safety plan, in case Lucien wanted to sign out too soon for her to collect her prize. Beyond the heartlessness of it all, Lucien realised that he hadn't found a saint of a woman at all. He hadn't found a pearl rare enough that she profoundly trusted him, gave him a chance at being what his mind could barely thank her enough for: being a family man. 

He was working his head off for her and for their son who, as it turns out, was only a means to an end for her. Did she even see Jérémy as a baby at all? Or was he nothing but guaranteed money? 

Lucien put a hand on his chest. It disgusted him and maybe - maybe - in the grand scheme of things, maybe that was what he deserved. Him, the one who manipulated and got countless people to share a night with. Maybe that was only fair that sometime, somewhere, someone would manage to fool him. 

The Frenchman shook his head under the shower. 

And Fred knew about it. The Americans knew about it. The whole world knew about it. 

Anyone could blackmail him for this and Fred certainly did. Anyone could force him to do anything they wanted knowing that about him, and it had already started. His reputation as an outstanding spy, a war hero, a liberator of France; all of it now dangled from the ends of a twenty-odd year old ongoing lie. 

A woman, a nobody, had managed to manipulate him, to get him to do whatever she wanted. 

"Mon Dieu…"

Lucien stopped the shower and dried himself quickly. He put a black suit on, only the shirt was white. As he adjusted the cufflinks, he went to sit on the sofa and opened the briefcase. Francis from gadgets had prepared these, huh? Francis was a great engineer. What Fred called “gadgets” was the research and development department. They conceived and fabricated all kinds of custom weapons and equipment for the spies to use. 

Lucien retrieved a pistol, a suppressor, a revolver, some ammunition and oh, there was a plastic packet. He lit a cigarette and opened it. 

“Ah.” He couldn’t hold back a sigh and an almost nostalgic grin. 

He slipped the pair of black gloves on and emptied the rest of what the packet contained on the sofa. Fake glasses, a make-up kit, a fake beard, fake moustaches and…

“Le masque.”

[The mask.]

Lucien took it in his hand and looked at the balaclava. It had been ages since he had last put it on; ages being since he set foot in America, almost a month ago now. He put the mask down and looked at the fake beard and moustaches. He didn’t need them, his own had grown over the past weeks. Lucien looked at his reflection on the cigarette case. Any hair he had on his face was tainted with grey streaks, including his beard of course. 

He shook his head and got himself ready. He put all these items away and slipped his cigarette case and his blade in his pocket. Before exiting the suite, he made one last trip to the bathroom to fix his hair and stare at himself. First impressions always matter a lot. 

Even if you give them more than twenty years later.