#it's been in my drafts for months and i periodically work on it and decided to finally finish it tonight

[reasonsforhope]

For years, the people of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation watched over their waters and waited. They had spent nearly two decades working with Canada’s federal government to negotiate protections for Kitasu Bay, an area off the coast of British Columbia that was vulnerable to overfishing.

But the discussions never seemed to go anywhere. First, they broke down over pushback from the fishing industry, then over a planned oil tanker route directly through Kitasoo/Xai’xais waters.

“We were getting really frustrated with the federal government. They kept jumping onboard and then pulling out,” says Douglas Neasloss, the chief councillor and resource stewardship director of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation. “Meanwhile, we’d been involved in marine planning for 20 years – and we still had no protected areas.”

Instead, the nation watched as commercial overfishing decimated the fish populations its people had relied on for thousands of years.

Nestled on the west coast of Swindle Island, approximately 500km north of Vancouver, Kitasu Bay is home to a rich array of marine life: urchins and abalone populate the intertidal pools, salmon swim in the streams and halibut take shelter in the deep waters. In March, herring return to spawn in the eelgrass meadows and kelp forests, nourishing humpback whales, eagles, wolves and bears.

“Kitasu Bay is the most important area for the community – that’s where we get all of our food,” Neasloss says. “It’s one of the last areas where you still get a decent spawn of herring.”

So in December 2021, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans withdrew from discussions once again, the nation decided to act. “My community basically said, ‘We’re tired of waiting. Let’s take it upon ourselves to do something about it,’” Neasloss says.

What they did was unilaterally declare the creation of a new marine protected area (MPA). In June 2022, the nation set aside 33.5 sq km near Laredo Sound as the new Gitdisdzu Lugyeks (Kitasu Bay) MPA – closing the waters of the bay to commercial and sport fishing.

It is a largely unprecedented move. While other marine protected areas in Canada fall under the protection of the federal government through the Oceans Act, Kitasu Bay is the first to be declared under Indigenous law, under the jurisdiction and authority of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais First Nation.

Pictured: "In some ways, I hope someone challenges us" … the Kitasoo/Xai’xais stewardship authority.

Although they did not wait for government approval, the Kitasoo did consult extensively: the declaration was accompanied by a draft management plan, finalised in October after three months of consultation with industry and community stakeholders. But the government did not provide feedback during that period, according to Neasloss, beyond an acknowledgment that it had received the plan...

Approximately 95% of British Columbia is unceded: most First Nations in the province of British Columbia never signed treaties giving up ownership of their lands and waters to the crown. This puts them in a unique position to assert their rights and title, according to Neasloss, who hopes other First Nations will be inspired to take a similarly proactive approach to conservation...

Collaboration remains the goal, and Neasloss points to a landmark agreement between the Haida nation and the government in 1988 to partner in conserving the Gwaii Haanas archipelago, despite both parties asserting their sovereignty over it. A similar deal was made in 2010 for the region’s 3,400 sq km Gwaii Haanas national marine conservation area.

“They found a way to work together, which is pretty exciting,” says Neasloss. “And I think there may be more Indigenous protected areas that are overlaid with something else.”

-via The Guardian, 5/3/23

[eddiemunsons-missingnipple]

And then there were three.

Eddie munson x pregnant!reader

Summary: you and Eddie find out you're pregnant.

Warnings: fluff, talks of pregnancy, pulling out, condoms etc. Talks of sex. Kissing.

WC: 2.5k

A/n not proofread. I'm posting because it's been rotting away in my drafts. Sorry if this isn't good. I don't even remember what it's about.

18+ minors dni

"This can't be real..." You whispered to yourself as you stared blankly at the piece of plastic in your hands. Staring at two little pink lines.

Two little tiny pink lines telling you you're pregnant. How? You and Eddie have always been careful. You used protection every single time you had sex.

You've had scares in the past where your periods were weeks late. But when you ended up being over a month late this time around. You decided it was time to take a test. You had a gut feeling you might have been pregnant.

You were exhausted more so than usual. Extremely sensitive and had nausea every morning and evening. Were you surprised? No. Shocked? Yes. There was a little part of you hoping you were wrong. A baby right now just wasn't in yours and Eddie's plan.

You've only been dating for almost two years now. While having a family with him is something you do want. Getting a head start right now just wasn't ideal. You only just moved in together this past summer.

Now that you hold this little test strip in your shaking hands, you know you'll have to break the news to your boyfriend eventually. He's out in the living room watching The Golden Girls. A show you never would have guessed was his favorite. You heard his laughter echoing around the trailer during the cheesecake episode.

Was he going to be mad? Would he scream and yell at you? Blame this all on you? You thought to yourself. You felt like you were going to throw up out of nervousness.

No. Eddie wouldn't be upset with you over something like this. He isn't that type of person. No matter how others viewed him to be. He isn't like that. You can't even remember a time he raised his voice to you. You soothed yourself down, taking deep breaths.

Opening up the bathroom door, you make your way over to him.

"Hey baby, come watch." He pats the cushion next to him.

You swallow hard. "Uh, can we turn this off for a sec?"

Eddie looks up, noticing there was something very wrong with you.

"Uh, sure." He grabbed the remote, switching the tv off.

"Well, there isn't any better way to tell you this, so I'm just gonna say......I'm pregnant." You blurted out.

Eddie laughed at first. "Pregnant. Okay." He takes a sip of his beer. His laughter quickly died when you saw the serious and very scared look on your face.

"You took a test?" He gulped.

"Yeah, just a few minutes ago." You swallow another lump in your throat.

You immediately start to panic again, "We're always careful. I don't know how this happened."

Eddie stands to quickly be by your side. He hasn't really had time to process what you just told him. His immediate focus right now is calming you down.

We're careful...WE'RE ALWAYS CAREFUL!" You shouted. Your face is growing hot, and you feel like you could pass out any moment.

"You always wear a condom you fuckin' keep them in your wallet for christ sake"

"I know, baby, but I mean those things don't always work," Eddie reassured you softly, rubbing your back.

"We're always careful." You repeated again.

"Well, let's think back to when we weren't careful." He's trying to help put the pieces together. There had to have been a time when you both were so caught up in each that he didn't put on a condom or something.

"When was there a time I didn't at least wear one?"

"I dunno." You tap your fingers against your forehead. While Eddie guides you to sit down on the couch. "There had to have been a night - where - we..." You trailed off.

"My parents," you gasped loudly, snapping your fingers together.

His brows shoot up, and his eyes widen. He suddenly remembers that night very, very well. But he pulled out. He knows he did.

"When we stayed the night because of the storm" You continued on. The memory of that night flooding back to you. That was it. Eddie had promised to pull out right before he finished - yet obviously didn't do it in enough time.

There was something in the air that day. You couldn't pinpoint what it was. You had told Eddie to behave, but at dinner, you were the one misbehaving. Teasing him a little. Trying to get a rise out of him. You didn't think he was still going to be worked up even after it was time for bed. You were wrong. Very wrong.

"Huh," Eddie sounded utterly perplexed. He moves to sit down next to you. trying to bring you any amount of comfort he can offer.

"Huh what?" You repeated back to him. Why wasn't he as freaked out like you?

"Jus' the fact that I got you pregnant on a pull out couch is fucking ironic" He was in disbelief. Absolute disbelief. He knew pulling out wasn't his strong suit, but he never thought from just that one time would get you pregnant.

Was Eddie upset you were pregnant? No. Not at all. Having kids with you was something he always saw in your future together. How could he be so stupid, though? He thought. The one time he doesn't use a condom and you get knocked up.

"Are you--are you joking right now?" Your mouth hangs open. "Don't joke, please don't joke."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. Everything will be okay. " He pulls you to him. Your head lays flat against his chest. He was trying to be supportive, but on the inside he's freaking out. When he freaks out, he makes dumb jokes to lighten the mood. Something he knows he shouldn't have done, but it's too late now.

"Sooooo at yours parents place it was then." He draws out leaning forward to rest a hand under his chin.

"I guess." You murmured.

Eddie smiles fondly to himself. He most definitely remembered that day. That night, most importantly.

"....well," He perks up, jumping up to stand. He was trying to be as optimistic as possible. Truthfully, on the inside, he was freaking out. If you weren't sitting there in front of him right now, he would probably be pissing himself. Eddie knows you would be an amazing mother to his children. He most definitely knows he would be a great father, too. A complete contrast to how his father was.

"Time to make some calls." He was already heading for the phone when you panicked, running over to stop him. "We can't not yet--i need to see a doctor first."

"To make sure I am...I mean I know I am, but I need confirmation,"you further explained. Eddie just stood there listening to you and agreed as he silently nodded his head.

"Okay, well, after we see the doctor, who are we telling first? Your parents or my parent?" He was so eager to tell everyone. He was terrified, but the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. A tiny little version of you and him mashed together, running around.

"We'll tell Wayne first." You said matter of factly. You loved your parents, but you were closer to his uncle. He was like a second father to you, and you couldn't imagine anyone else knowing before him.

Eddie smiles and leans down to kiss the corner of your mouth.

"You scared?" He whispered leaning his forehead against yours.

...a-a little, but we'll be fine." You whispered back. The longer it sinks in that you're pregnant, the panic seems to fade. Eddie wasn't angry with you. He was scared you could tell but that's to be expected.

"Don't be scared, baby. We're doing this together." He reassured before kissing your lips softly again. "M'gonna take care of you both."

It's been three weeks since you took your pregnancy test and had your doctor's visit. They confirmed you were, in fact, expecting. Two months, to be exact. You were greatfull you got pregnant in the winter. Oversized sweaters and hoodies were your best friends. Now, it was time to break the news to everyone.

Eddie and you had already agreed. Wayne was going to be the first to know. You had everything planned out. You had told Eddie to call his uncle and ask if he wanted to go out for dinner. Knowing Wayne, he wasn't going to pass up on an opportunity to spend time with either of you.

You wanted to surprise him with a gift. You know Wayne has a green thumb. He loves to garden. He brags about how he has the best tomatoes in Indiana. So you took Eddie shopping for the perfect gift to give to him as a cute way to tell him you and his nephew are having a baby. You hope he'll catch on and figure out he's going to be a grandpa when he opens his present. It's a little onesie with "Home grown" embroidered on the front with little veggies.

"I like this one." You pointed at the cute little outfit on the hanger.

Eddie chuckled,reading the front. "Wayne's gonna love it. Hell won't be surprised if he tried wearing it." He joked, picking up the tiny shirt off the rack.

You giggled, "I can't wait to tell him."

"Me too, I can't keep my mouth shut for much longer." He mumbled, smirking at some of the funny sayings scribbled on the baby clothes.

The longer you came to terms with the fact that you're pregnant, your stress eased up. Sure, you were still scared, but you had Eddie and your friends. Plus your family. You reassured yourself almost daily that you'd be fine and to enjoy your pregnancy. Every single article of clothing you saw you bought. Didn't matter the color or size. If it was cute, you picked it up.

Eddie was a nervous wreck in the beginning but concealed it well. Mostly because he knew he needed to be there for you. he was also excited, too. He couldn't wait to share his hobbies with his little one. Read them bedtime stories. Sing to them at night before bed. Teach them to play an instrument or two. He looked forward to showing up to the PTA meetings in his battle vest with his sweet "mini me" on his hip.

Eddie knew he was going to be a good dad. He promised you and the baby still in your tummy every night he'd protect the both of you. He couldn't keep his hands off your belly. You weren't far along in your pregnancy, but Eddie was constantly hoping he could feel a little kick.

"We should do the dinner today." Eddie mentioned holding a handful of baby clothes.

"He might wanna to do it tomorrow since he's off."

"I'll call'em when we get home and ask. he can't say no to me." You agreed. It's true Wayne can't say no to you. Which you will take advantage of.

Later on that day after you and Eddie arrived home. You put Wayne's surprise in a little gift bag with a note attached to it.

Picking up the phone, you began dialing his number patiently, waiting for him to pick up. He should be home by now. You thought. "Hey Wayne, it's me, your favorite. I was wondering if you wanted to go out to dinner with me and Eddie tonight instead of tomorrow? "

Eddie leaned closer over in the wooden chair sat by the dining room table. He scoffs when he heard you get extatic on the other end. Knowing full well, his uncle said yes.

"You will? Okay, we'll pick you up at five o'clock sharp."

"Favorite, huh?" He crossed his arms with a smirk.

"You know it." You playfully mess up his hair as you run to your bedroom to get ready.

"Yeah, well, I've known him longer... I have seniority over him!" Eddie yelled out, teasing you.

He gets up from his chair, making his way to your shared bedroom. He stands there leaning in the doorway. Admiring you getting undressed in front of him. Taking in every curve on your figure.

Eddie moves to wrap his arms around you from behind. Pulling your back tight to his chest. His nose buried in the crook of your neck. You smiled softly, melting into his arms.

"Ya know, I was reading that baby book you bought it said something about sex helping induce labor." He whispered seductively in your ear. His lips trailing light kisses down your neck.

You turned your head."...Eddie, that's not until months from now." You let out a breathy laugh.

"Yeah, but just think about how well prepared you'll be when the time comes - kid is just gonna slide right out." Eddie argued. You know half of him is joking, and the other half is completely serious.

"Get dressed, babe. we leave in thirty minutes." You peel yourself from his tight grasp.

"Offer still stands." He holds up his hands in surrender.

Fifteen minutes went by, and there was a loud knock at your front door. His uncle had driven over so you all could ride together. After much bickering from Wayne, you all packed in Eddie's van.

Wayne refused to let Eddie drive, so it was you and him upfront with your boyfriend sulking in the backseat. Mumbling to himself about how he's not that bad and how everyone else just drives slow.

You noticed Eddie's uncle looking at the small gift bag you made up for him. His eyes kept wandering over to guess who it was for and what was inside.

Once all three of you pulled up in front of the new local diner in Hawkins. You three gathered in and let the hostess walk you over to your table. You and Eddie sat next to each other in a booth, leaving wayne alone across from you. The waitress comes over taking everyone's orders. After she left, you figured it was the perfect time to give it to him.

You look up at Eddie, nudging his side to grab his attention. His uncle just got done scolding him over his breaks needing change.

"So uh, we got you a present," Eddie coughed. He doesn't think he can handle more lectures from the man who practically raised him.

But he straightened up his back, preparing for anything.

"Yep here you go hope you like it." You picked up the bad next to you and placing it front of him.

"For me?" Wayne grabbed it and started taking the tissue paper out. "It ain't ma' birthday yet."

He laughs when he pulls out the tiniest little shirt he's ever seen. "Home grown, that's cute...I don't think it's gonna fit me though darlin-."

He cuts his sentence, short eyes growing wider by the second. You and Eddie look over at each other, smiling from ear to ear.

"Is this what I think it is?." Wayne questioned with tears threatening to spill over his lashes.

"Yep we're having a baby." Eddie moved to wrap an arm over your shoulder and pulling into his side.

"We wanted to tell you first." You choked back a sob.

Wayne still gathering his thoughts. He's holding the small onesie in his hand like he's already holding your newborn baby.

"I-I'm gonna be a grandpa?" Wayne wiped at his eyes. His was starting to become overwhelmed.

Here come the tears from Eddie now. His eyes swelling up and nose turning red. He's never seen Wayne this over come with emotions before. The only time he's ever seen him like that is when his dad started his usual mess. That was always just out of anger and frustrations mostly. This was pure joy and happiness. Wayne has always wanted the best for his nephew.

"We're thinking of naming them, Ozzy." Eddie tried to joke and lighten the mood.

Wayne couldn't say anything but only shake his head at nephew. He cleared his throat, grabbing napkins from the dispenser on the table.

"We are not." You spoke up, wiping your eyes.

Your food finally came, and the waitress gave all three of you a concerned look. A table full of adults bawling their eyes out is a cause of concern. Especially in this town. It was only when she noticed the tiny onesie folded up neatly beside wayne on the table, did her worry look drop. She mumbled a soft aww and set everyone's food down.

"Congratulations to all of you." She said with a warm smile.

The rest of the night went on like normal. Except now instead of Wayne fussing at Eddie for not eating healthy. He was doing that to both of you. Telling you how you need to order seconds because you're eating for two. Informing Eddie how the trailer needs to be baby proofed immediately. The only thing left to do was tell your parents next and his friends. You can only assume which of the two is going to freak out the most.

You leaned over and whispered to Edde, "You wanna tell Dustin next ooooor-?"

He side eyed you. " We're telling your parents next - if it makes you feel better, I'll be on the phone so they can yell at me instead."

"Deal?" Eddie leaned back in the booth, wrapping an arm around your shoulder. He was busy focusing on Wayne's ranting and your concerns about telling your parents.

You sighed, dreading that phone call, but knowing it needs to be done. "deal."

[blue-jisungs]

complete opposite

author's note. here it goes,, finally finished it after having it rot in my drafts for a month grrrrr … also, this one is for the biggest joshu stans i know, @fairyhaos and @slytherinshua <3

summary. you get scared of how joshua will react to bad news, joshua gets scared of how you’re acting… turns out is all a complete opposite of the other one was thinking

genre. fluff but also kinda angst? hurt to comfort me thinks

word count. 2269 hehe

warnings. swearing, mention of throwing up, feeling sick, having intimate relations with joshua but nothing explicit!! reader is overthinking a lot :(

heart thumping in your chest, you stared at your friend in disbelief. rina squeezed your hand and tucked a hair that has fallen on your face.

“i’ll drive you home, okay?” she hummed and stood up, placing a peck on your forehead “stay here”

you nodded weakily, your stomach going crazy. you watched her silhouette disappear and massaged your temples.

when you woke up today, joshua was already gone. he texted you good morning and informed that he’ll probably come home late at night. but then you felt unwell. ignoring it, you decided to eat breakfast and go to work.

which was a mistake. you barely arrived and already run to the toilet, returning your stomach’s contents. rina was already here so she helped you, handing you some water and meds. just when you thought you’re fine, mid-convo with a customer you turned pale again and your stomach was making turns and somersaults.

you bet it was the fish you ate yesterday. you were out with joshu to some kind of a fancy restaurant. lately you’ve been craving fish so you decided, why not. well apparently it wasn’t a great idea.

“okay, let’s go. just please try not to vomit all over my car” rina giggled and helped you stand up. you felt weak, beads of sweat forming on your forehead. rina bit her lip and led you to her car. “i need to pick up one thing on the way but maybe try taking a nap? should i call your boyfriend?”

“no, no. he’s really busy today” you sighed, secretly wishing he’d be there for you.

in no time you were home, rina walking you to the door. suddenly she handed you a few boxes of… pregnancy tests.

“what…” you laughed, looking at her shocked.

“you… look, i need to go back to work but my sister was pregnant a while ago. and her symptoms were similar. and your period is running late, isn’t it? you still haven’t eaten the chocolate from the cabinet at work” rina said softly, looking at your widened eyes “just… make sure. and call me, okay? if you feel worse or better, doesn’t matter. i’ll pick up whenever i can”

“i… you’re being a bit dramatic with the tests. but thank you. i owe you” you smiled. she nodded and gave you a quick hug before rushing back to work.

you entered your and joshua’s apartment, heart wild in your chest. sure, your period was late. but… no, that’s not right.

feeling a unpleasant sensation bubbling up in your throat once again, head spinning, you ran to the bathroom. throwing the boxes on the counter you accidentally knocked some things over. you knelt down and for another time this day, threw up.

taking deep breaths you weakly grabbed the pink box. scanning the stupid imagine of a stupid woman with a stupid baby bump you decided to try. what’s the worse thing that could happen anyways. you’re not pregnant, it’s just the fish. you and joshua always use protection and you’re always safe. right?

you paced around the bathroom, nervously putting away stuff in different places while waiting for the outcome. it’s not it. can’t be. logically – can’t be. physically–

you peeked at the stick.

two lines.

“fuck”

your heart thumped in your chest, ready to rip out from your rib cage and go for a walk. or jog.

“no, it’s not right…”

you spent half of the day testing the other pregnancy tests. because what if it’s just a malfunction? or if one brand has two lines for positive and the other for negative? you had to be sure.

and sure you were when all of them turned out to be positive.

your bathroom looked like war zone, everything turned upside down all over the place.

walking into the kitchen on wobbly legs, your head felt like it was about to explode.

you’re pregnant.

joshua is going to kill you. well, no. not really. but it will kill him.

you never talked about it. sure, he said he wanted to marry you one day but… but he’s an idol. he’s busy. maybe he doesn’t even want kids?

when some rumours floated around about your relationship… it killed him. some carats went crazy, not in a positive way. joshua was really going through it and now… relationship is not as a big of a problem as pregnancy. oh my god, carats are going to kill you. and the baby.

you don’t want to ruin his career. he worked so hard and loved what he did and now… now it’s about to fall apart like a house of cards triggered by a slight gust of wind.

tears dwelled in your eyes, throat tightening. joshua will hate you, that’s for sure. yes, he loved you but a kid… those are different circumstances, choices… way of living.

he will hate you and dump you. that’s for sure.

unless… unless you do it first.

no.

be rational.

he won’t, right?

the room felt like it was about to swallow you. all the pictures with joshua, your joshu. his ebony irises that you loved oh so much stared at you from the pictures. as if judging you.

you had to get out from here.

rushing to the bathroom, you tore all the boxes with the tests and flushed them down the toilet. then you threw all the tests into a plastic bag and then hid them under the sink. joshua never looks there. like that one time when you spent all day looking for something you lost and–

stop.

you took the keys and stormed out of your apartment, the need of fresh air almost suffocating you. you’ll be back before he gets home.

joshua pushed the door open, limbs feeling as if ready to fall apart any second. he just dreamed about changing his pyjamas and falling asleep in your arms.

it was late so he figured he won’t announce he’s here, like he always does. leaving his bag by the entrance, joshua stretched lazily.

he entered the bedroom and halted. the bed was empty.

“that’s weird…” he mumbled. maybe you’re in the bathroom? joshua grabbed his pyjama and decided to go check the bathroom.

if he was surprised that you weren’t in the bedroom, the bathroom left him speechless.

not only you weren’t there, like he thought you’d be. the room looked like a tornado passed through it.

everything was scattered around, as if knocked over; all over the place.

“y/n?” joshua called out, dropping the pyjamas. rushing to get his back to grab his phone, his throat went dry. it’s almost midnight and you’re not home. if you were going out with your girl friends, he’d know. he wouldn’t forget. so why you’re not home?

dialling your number, he noticed there’s no texts from you either. which was concerning too… you’d text him if you were going out somewhere. especially at this hour. and considering how cold it was…

the silence in the house was frightening. joshua didn’t like this one bit. suddenly he heard buzzing and his heart came up to his throat. your phone is home.

you left without taking your phone…?

joshua ran his hand through his hair. he has to stay calm.

he gulped and called your best friend from work. it was dumb, especially at this hour. but rina picked up immediately, even though voice w bit raspy and tired.

“hi joshua. is everything alright with y/n? i’ve been worried sick for the whole day–“ her voice was almost desperate for an answer.

“there was something wrong? i just came home and she’s not here… and, and she didn’t take her phone– i don’t know what’s happening” joshua whispered, feeling how his stomach drops.

“fuck”

“okay… okay… let’s stay calm. she… maybe she went to get some groceries?” rina breathed out “fuck, i shouldn’t leave her alone. is my fault… i…”

“hey, no, don’t say that. what even happened?” joshua asked and switched the light on. he’ll wait until you’re back. rina hesitated – if it was what she thinks it is, she doesn’t want to be the one passing the news.

“she felt unwell at work… and i drove her home but i had to go back… i should’ve stayed with her” rina mumbled.

suddenly there was a soft click of the door opening. joshua jolted, eyes turning into that direction.

you appeared in the doorway, your face catching his gaze. you were crying.

“rina, she’s here. don’t need to worry” he spoke softly. joshua noticed how scared you look. scared, tired and… guilty

“oh thank god. warn her that i’ll whoop her ass in work tomorrow” your grind let out a nervous laugh but she certainly sounded relieved “good night”

“good night” joshua whispered and hang up.

the silence was speaking volumes.

you slowly took off your shoes and sighed. opening your mouth to say something and then closing them again.

“if you wanted to go out, you should’ve taken a jacket” he said softly; there was no poisoned sarcasm in his voice, only genuine worry. you nodded weakly and played with your fingers.

“i…” your voice broke, eyes avoiding his.

joshua stood up and started boiling some water to mar you tea. you sat down on the couch, putting your bag close to you; hands gripping your knees.

for a moment it was peaceful, as if the world wasn’t about to fall apart in mere moments. just you, joshua and the sounds of boiling water.

in no time he returned, placing the cup on the table. then he looked at you, anxiety filling his heart.

“did something happen?” joshua asked. for the first time in ages he was unsure what to do. should he hold your hand? you didn’t look like you wanted to but on the other hand…

you shook your head gently, tears gathering at the edge of your waterline. your throat went dry and you felt like you weren’t able to physically speak out.

“i saw the bathroom, it looks like a mess. you scared me” he let out a soft chuckle, scanning your reaction.

nothing.

your fingers traced shapes absentmindedly on your knee, eyes distant.

“angel?” he asked, concern growing in his voice. only after you took a deep breather and let it out as a shaky sigh, you started. now or never.

“you’ll hate me” you mumbled and were met with a scoff. scared, you looked up at him. joshua was smiling softly, unaware of what he was about to learn.

“y/nnie, i’d never hate you” the smile wrinkles that you loved so much appeared around his eyes. your lip quivered and you looked away

“you will. i’m so… i’m sorry joshua” your voice cracked “i ruined your career”

“what are you talking about, silly?” joshua laughed nervously.

you just shook your head, tears beginning to roll down your cheeks. in a blink of an eye you started harshly sobbing, breathing getting hard to breathe.

joshua rushed and hugged you tightly, petting your hair. even though he hated that such thought crossed his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what did you mean: did you cheat–

“i’m so fucking sorry” you whined, pulling away from him. then you reached to your bag and turned it upside down, causing its content to fall on the couch.

“what do you…” joshua’s voice died in his throat, your crying only getting more intense when you saw his reaction.

he reached to grab one of the white and pink sticks. two red lines.

then he looked at another one. two red lines.

the other one he grabbed has a blue plus drawn.

rummaging through all of them, mouth agape, he felt as if knocked the air out of his lungs.

no, not because you were pregnant (well, this too). because of your reaction. you thought he’ll hate you? that you ruined his career? that…

“oh y/n” his voice broke, grabbing your face in his hands. your quivering lip and wet eyelashes made his heart clench but it was hard for him to resist a smile “how could i… i’m…”

“i’m sorry! we never really talked about this before and… and i know that we’re not that young but your career is blooming and… and–“ you mumbled, voice becoming whiny and hard to control. why is he smiling, by the way…?

“y/n, please take a breath, okay?” he asked gently, caressing your wet cheeks “i would never have thought that… you’re going to panic thinking about my reaction”

you took a deep breath and blinked slowly. why; why in hell he’s so calm?! isn’t he going to–

“i’m going to be a father” he breathed out, his own eyes tearing up too “and you’ll be the mother, y/n. that’s… that’s something i could never dream of but i also always wanted…”

“w-what?” you asked and he shook his head, grinning with pearly tears blinking at the edge of his waterline.

“i love you so so much. i’m… speechless. and above all, so… so happy” he sniffled.

his reaction was… complete opposite of what you thought it would be. you felt as if a huge stone just dropped from your heart, relief washing over you. suddenly you put your hands on top of his and pulled him into a kiss.

lips connected and tears falling down your cheeks, joshua felt like all of this was unreal. pulling away, he rested his forehead against yours.

“i’ll be a dad” a faint whisper left his mouth as you wiped his cheek with a loving smile.

masterlist <3

taglist. @mirxzii ,, @primoppang ,, @l3visbby ,, @nicholasluvbot ,, @planetkiimchi ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @slytherinshua ,, @jiwuu ,, @laylasbunbunny ,, @dazzlingligth

[ivestas]

underlying bitterness

Summary: You were depressed. The family is quick to notice. 

Tags: platonic!yandere!batfam x fem!reader, reader implied to be mentally ill, depression, coddling, isolation, etc (you know the drill)

Word count: 1.6k

Notes: temporarily back from the dead! decided to finish this since i had it collecting dust in my drafts LMAO---apologies for my lack of writing, i have several projects im combing through and school 😭

The manor never really was quiet; there was always something going on.

The only time the quiet came was when they were out for patrol, or when everyone was asleep—but even then, there always seemed to be a pervasive spirit of noise and life that, on a good day, didn’t bother you.

But today was a bad one. Today, everything was an unbearable stretch of life, a near-constant torment of both mind and soul, leaving you incapacitated by your own head. 

It was these days where the bearable—hell, even the nice—was acidic on your gaunt body. 

A knock on the door had you wearily raising your head. 

A call of your name bounced through the door. The voice was bright and chirpy, downright dripping with honey. “You okay in there? Can I come in?” 

Eleven minutes alone? New record.

You sighed. The question only had one answer. 

“Yes, and yes.” 

The door to your bedroom opened silently, barely a squeak from the hinges. Dick revealed himself with a giant dopey grin, Damian just a step behind him. 

You didn’t bother smiling. “Hey.” 

“Hi!” Bright as always, his movement carried an excitable sway, acting more like a kid than a 20-something bonafide detective/vigilante. There was something predatory about it, an inherent layer of manipulative intent with it that never left you at ease. 

At least Damian was always himself, the deep-set frown never leaving his face in anyone’s presence, including yours. 

You would’ve been inclined to like him had it not been for the palpable softness that eased the furrows of his brows. 

Shifting under the heavy blankets, you pat the other side of the bed, the movement practiced and learned. Routine. 

Damian was the one to take the invitation while Dick sat at the end of your side. He rarely sat there. You didn’t care to decipher his intentions, merely regarding him with the same placidity as you had before. 

“So..?” 

“The family’s noticed you’ve been off lately?” 

Ah.

You shifted some more, feeling the weight of their stares assess every micro-movement made. It wasn’t subtle. This was an interrogation, not their self-indulgent visits that had you puking right after. 

“I’m on my period,” you responded bluntly. 

“Your cycles aren’t during this time of month.” Dick’s voice was deceptively light. 

"Hm, well, the female body works in mysterious ways.” 

“Then I’m gonna go check the washroom garbage.”

The silence of your mind buzzed to life. “What?” 

“I’m gonna go check the washroom garbage.” He repeated, rising from the bed. 

What the fuck.

You could let him go and find out for himself that you were, indeed, lying. However, you weren’t in the mood to deal with the punishments that came with that...

...Though, regardless, you were going to be punished. Lying—especially to Dick of all people—never bode you well. 

Really, maybe you just weren’t in the mood to deal with the drama, the stormy face he’ll don when he walks out the washroom after finding out the lie. 

So you sighed tiredly, back sinking further into the thick pillow. “I lied.” 

Dick’s pleasant expression flickered. Damian’s stare deepened in its calculating weight. 

Dick spoke slowly. “You know what happens when you lie.” 

You sighed again. It bordered a scoff. “Hurry up with it then.” 

The smile turned to a neutral line, though you knew he was feeling anything than neutral. Dick loathed lies, but he kept a calm voice. “Why’ve you been off lately?” 

“I lied, Dick. Aren’t you supposed to do what you usually do? Neglect and all.” You were flippant. This was gonna make it worse, and at this point you knew better, you always tried to avoid this, but something was possessing you. 

A will, or more accurately, a lack thereof. 

“Just tell him,” Damian hissed. 

You glanced at him, unimpressed. “No.” 

Dick breathed slowly. “Why?” 

“Because you’ll make me feel bad for it.” 

He blinked. Surprised. 

Why was he surprised? Is this another manipulation tactic? 

Probably. Why did you even bother trying to decipher his intentions? Their intentions?

“You’ll make it about you guys. How bad you guys feel. How you want the best for me.” You yawned. “I’m not in the mood to humor that. Pull that some other time, I just need to recuperate. Touch bases with my soul and all that hippie shit.” Your eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “Okay?” 

A pause thickened the tension in the air tenfold. 

Then, it was Damian who spoke. “You’re..?” 

“Depressed.” Dick finished, mild disbelief lacing his words. What stood out was the underlying offended tone the word wore. 

You didn’t bother responding, keeping your eyes shut, pulling the covers over your chin. It was only midday, but you were tired. 

“Why are you... ‘depressed’?” Damian was the one to speak, now with incredulity. 

“Why is the sky blue?” You muttered. 

Cold fingers brushed your cheek, a colder voice poking through. “Open your eyes when you talk.” 

You did as told, looking up at him from your curled position. “Why are you depressed?” He repeated with a voice of iron. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you responded. “None of it does. I’ll be better soon. I just need you to give me space.” 

Another pause. 

Then, uncharacteristically, Damian slipped away. He glanced over where Dick was. 

Dick, even more uncharacteristically, nodded and slipped away, walking with Damian out the room. 

In any other circumstance, your blood would run cold. 

But, at that moment, you were thankful for the temporary relief. 

-----

You hadn’t thought you’d sleep, but you did, only to be awaken by Tim. 

“Dinner’s ready.” He said, eyes burning into yours. 

You grunted, tossing the sheets away. The cold raked your body. Getting off the bed, you glanced out the barred window. 

Sunset. 

How long did you sleep? 

And how come they let you sleep for so long, undisturbed? 

You didn’t care to wonder. Blearily nodding to Tim, you tipped your head to the washroom. “I’m gonna clean up a little, give me a—”

“You look fine, just come.” His hand, now wrapped tightly around your wrist, left no room for complaint. 

Faintly sighing, you nodded again. He led you out the room and through the colder corridors of the manor, down several staircases and past various pillars and paintings you’re always surprised to see, as if you hadn’t been housed in the manor for two-something years. 

Two years. 

730 days wasted here. 

730 days, never to be recovered. 

Your chest tightened, but your heart was empty.

Pushing the thought away, you blankly focused on the outstretched dining table you’d eaten countless meals on. 

Tim said your name. 

You look at him, confused. 

“Sit?” 

Oh. Right. 

You slipped onto the chair, vaguely aware of your surroundings. 

“...That’s my seat.” 

“Sorry,” you moved to get up, but his hands pressed down on your shoulders. 

“No, it’s fine, I’m just surprised. That’s all. You’re usually pretty attentive.”

“Sorry,” you repeated. 

Tim didn’t respond, opting to sit beside you. 

You were vaguely aware of the rest of the family settling in their respective positions—Bruce sitting at the head on your left, Dick sitting across you with Damian to his right, and at the end of the table Jason settled with a tired huff.

What you were fully aware of however was how good the food. The aroma was thick and savory, leaving your mouth to water 

Raising a fork, you dug into the food. 

“How was your day?” Bruce was the one to break the silence, and you notice him looking at you. 

“It was good,” you mumbled around the food. 

A silence cradled the room for a moment, the clanks of silverware mute. 

“Was it?”

“Yeah.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“What, is there a right answer to this?” You were daring, careless with your tongue. “Should’ve given me a textbook, woulda studied real hard before coming down.” 

“The right answer is the truth,” Jason spoke up, mouthful of food. “Dickie’s all red and angry you can’t even tell the truth. Honestly? So am I.”

“We all are,” Tim murmured. 

“But you know? We care for you. So just tell us what’s up, yeah?” Although his voice was light, there was an underlying threat to Jason’s words. Tell us or else. 

You set the fork down and looked at Bruce—whose eyes were sweeping all over your face, calculating—the both of you having frowns tugging at your lips. “Okay. I feel like shit. A dumpster fire. Like my very body has been corrupted by dark—I don’t know exactly what that means, but I feel it, so worth mentioning, right?—anyway, all I ask is to be left alone for a bit. That is what will make my mind better. Just a day of quiet. Please?” 

“...Voluntary isolation is a sign of clinical depression,” Bruce began. “And that would do you no good. What you need is the support of family to help you through this illness.” 

“God, no—”

“Listen.” Damian hissed. 

You shut your mouth, eyes downcast. 

“What will happen is every night, you talk to Dick about whatever’s bothering you. Or anyone else. You will talk, and that will help. Anything you need, just tell them; you know this.” 

“Why not get an actual therapist?”

“You can’t trust all therapists,” Dick jumped in. “I’ve trained in psychology, I know all the therapy ins-and-outs. I can help you as well as any licensed one would—if not, better!”

You stifled a sigh but didn’t bother pushing saying anything. 

“You don’t look to happy about that,” Dick commented. “It’s okay. I know its hard to open up when you’ve suffered in silence for so long, but we’re all on your side, okay?”

Jesus. 

You looked down at the food, picking up the fork. It took you everything not to bash your head against the table.  

[ghostlywhiskey]

John Price - Hell on Earth - Part 2

Pairing: Lawyer!John Price x Fem!Reader Word Count: 2,304 Warnings: Mentions of masturbation Summary: Three months into being Price's main paralegal and while the late nights, work load and attitude is everything you expected - there's something you didn't entirely expect to find out about him. Notes: I recommend reading part one before this part, just to understand a few things, etc. Please be advised I did not proofread at all, so if you catch anything I apologize. I always read through after posting and fix things. But, here is part two of lawyer!price. Enjoy! :) ▸read part one here ▸find my masterlist here

It had been two weeks since the odd behavior John displayed when you had stayed back late at the office the same night as him. But, as quick as he was timid and distant after that night, he was back to his regular self even quicker. 

And if possible, an even more intensified version of himself. While some days he had opted to work from home after court, he had been in every single day. All the paralegals on edge with his looming presence in the office, which was a downside of him being in every day. For you personally, it was ten times worse considering you handled all of his files.

Everyone just had to avoid and stay clear of his gaze. That wasn’t the case for you - there was no way to avoid him being the handling paralegal on all his files. Any drafts of documents, questions on cases, updates and everything of importance brought to his attention. But you quickly learned that while he seemed in a bad mood to everyone else, you were able to gauge where he stood on certain days based on how loud or quiet he was in his office and the way his emails were worded - down to the punctuation being an indicator. 

The cheat sheet was as followed:

Thanks! - The exclamation would make others quick to assume he was in a good mood, but you learned it just meant he was annoyed.

Thanks. - Avoid him at all costs that day if possible. He’s pissed. Can’t avoid him? Then hope everything you send him is perfect and error free.

Thank you. - While it seems harsh and again, the period making him sound pissed off, it was the complete opposite. The addition of you made it genuine on his end. It was the same when he spoke, you noticed a small tug at the corner of his lip when he would say ‘thank you’ before quickly heading off back into his office. 

You never did come across a ‘Thank you!” yet, but that bridge would be crossed when you get there. 

And in terms of how he signed off on an email, while his signature block was always included, he always added John or JP before it.

John - Typically used with outside counsel.

JP - Used with the in office employees, quick and simple. 

But since working with him directly, you noticed he used ‘Price’ with you a lot. It felt a lot less personal and personal at the same time. ‘Price’ as if he didn’t want you to refer to him by his actual name, making it less personal. But, it was personal in the sense that you noticed it was never used with anyone else in the office after asking a few others.

Regardless, every day you were becoming a more skilled paralegal based on the content of work John was giving you. Which part of you was thankful for, it would help in the long run for when you would decide to go to law school or if you would try getting another job, making any application of yours appealing. 

The sound of your name penetrated through the closed office door, your body instantly stilling and the email you were writing coming to an abrupt stop. The way your brain ran through all the tasks you had done thus far today to try and figure out if you had done something wrong, but nothing coming to mind.

Slowly, you pushed yourself away from the desk and stood up to walk to his door. Knuckles tapping three times on his door to make your presence on the other side known before you opened it, standing in the doorway as you made eye contact with him.

“I need a motion for a protective order. Son of a bitch filed a notice to admit.” was the only context Price had given you, no file name or anything. Nor a greeting. 

But having familiarized yourself enough with all of his files, you knew the exact case he was discussing. The notification from the court came earlier today that it was filed. 

“I’ll draft it for your review and get the exhibits ready.” you said confidently, having drafted one before you had an idea of what he would want to include. 

“Fuckin’ bullshit.” he muttered, tossing papers in his hand onto his desk and standing up. “I want it filed today. I’ll review it before it goes out.”

“Yes, sir.” was the only response you gave, not wanting to deal with the wrath he would exude from the remainder of the day. 

And that’s how you were up until 11:00 PM that night. After multiple revisions emailed back and forth between you and Price, exhibits prepared and reordered more than once; your finger finally pressed the ‘CONFIRM FILING’ button at the bottom of the court website.

And when the confirmation page popped up, you quickly saved the receipt into the file and shut your laptop. Standing up from your desk, you made your way to the bathroom and finally got ready for bed. The need for sleep hung over you as your feet dragged you to bed, collapsing onto the mattress. As you were setting your alarm, the text notification at the top rang out into your room to meet only the sound of your soft breathing.

John Price (Work): Thank you. Appreciate you staying up to file it.

For a moment, you thought your sleep deprived brain was pulling a trick on you. But, you had forgotten when he assigned you to all of his cases that you had exchanged numbers. It was just the first time he decided to use it instead of emailing.

Fingers quickly typed a response as your eyes were on the verge of shutting. Quick and simple you responded:

You’re welcome. Have a good night. 

The last thing you remembered was your phone slipping from your hand as you rolled over in bed, sleep overtaking your body until the alarm would wake you up the next morning.

And the next few days went on seemingly normal, whatever twisted normal was when it came to working in a high anxiety inducing firm. 

While Price had left closer towards the end of the day, around 4:00 PM, his last hour was spent with the door shut and obnoxious music blasting; you still found yourself in the office again until 7:00 that night.

The usual cleaning lady, who you learned was named Ana after multiple nights spent clocking overtime, made her way around the office. But, what caught your attention was when you heard her scuff while she was in John’s office. Intrigued, you couldn’t help but glance over and straighten in your seat as you watched her dump the contents of his trash can into her larger one.

“Everything alright, Ana?” you asked, raising an eyebrow as you wondered what caused her disgust.

“Is Mr. Price sick?” she asked, coming out of his office with her cleaning cart. 

Sick? In the head, maybe. Fighting the common cold, not so much. 

“Not that I know of, no.” you shook your head, the expression on your face must have given away the fact you were wondering why she had asked.

“So many tissues in his trash.” she huffed, shaking her head. “Don’t go near him, maybe have some soup tonight to keep yourself from getting sick.” Ana suggested before reaching for your trash can to dump the contents into hers.

“Mhm,” you hummed, not thinking much of it. “Will do, Ana.”

“He’s jerking off.” Morgan says flatly, her espresso martini meeting her lips before she sets it back down on the table. Finally, you had met with her for drinks after you left the office that night, no excuse to use as it was a Friday night.

“You’re crazy. There is no fucking way,” Morgan’s hand going up to stop you as she leans forward in her chair, elbows resting on the table. 

“What reason might a man, who isn’t sick, have a shit ton of tissues in his garbage?” her words make your body stiffen at the fact she might be right. “A man who is jerking off.” she answered her own question, her drink coming to her lips once more.

Not sure why you find yourself trying to defend him, you roll your eyes before speaking, “I doubt someone as professional as him is jerking off during the work day in his office.” 

Morgan’s eyes stare directly at you while she holds her glass close to her lips, the silence building until she chuckles. “You’re serious?”

Shifting in your seat, you reach for your own drink and take a sip.

“You’re quiet because you know my assumption is right.” she points out, setting the glass down. “If people have sex in the office, I’m sure jerking off isn’t as far fetched.”

“No one’s having sex in the office.”

“I am.”

“Morgan!” you exclaim, chucking your crumpled napkin at her. “Are you fucking joking?” the hiss of your words causing her to giggle again, her head shaking ‘no’. 

“Kidding, but my coworker is.” she sings out the last two words, a smile appearing on her face. The thought of it makes you think more about her assumption of Price.

That man is way too tense. Angry. Surely he would be far more pleasurable if he was jerking off at least. 

The snap of her fingers in your face pulls you from your thoughts as you leave your zoned out state. 

“Play detective instead of lawyer one day. See if you can figure it out.”

And that is how on Monday you found yourself distracted the whole day as you tried to get work done. Price had been in the office since you got in around your usual time, his door opened for most of the morning until noon when he had a call.

The call lasted for no more than 30 minutes, the indicator being the loud music that once again blasted through the closed door. Your body perked up, head turning away from your desk as you looked towards his office door.

What if the music is to sound out...oh my god.

Quickly grabbing your phone, your fingers typing into the Google search bar: ‘how long does it take for a guy to jerk off’.

5 minutes. 10 minutes. An hour. All of these answers are different. 

Your eyes glance back at the door and then at your clock on the computer. If I give it ten minutes, maybe I can try knocking on his door. Setting the phone down, you bit your nails as you clicked away on your computer, but your eyes were more so focused on the clock rather than actual work.

And when ten minutes hit, your body raised from the chair and legs slowly made their way towards his door. Knocking softly at first due to the fact you didn’t want him to hear it, part of you wanting to be in denial that he could be jerking off. 

But, when there was no response, you knocked again louder. This time, a voice combining with the music behind the door.

“Five minutes.” his voice was stern, you didn’t notice anything abnormal about the tone, but quietly you retreated to your desk. 

It didn’t mean anything, it didn’t confirm anything. And when you resumed your work, you nearly had forgotten you had knocked on his door as you got wrapped up in work. Except, the door abruptly opening more than five minutes later startled you as you looked over to see Price.

The color of his cheeks had a red hue to them, besides that, everything about him was put together. 

“Did you knock?” his throat clearing as he asked, hands slipping into his pockets of his pants.

“Uh,” you looked at him, caught off guard by his question despite the fact you were expecting it. 

He furrowed his brows, but his expression wasn’t one of confusion, but rather annoyance. “It’s a yes or no question.” he stated, walking closer to your desk. The warmth radiated through your body out of nerves, watching as he got closer.

“Yes.” 

“Yes?”

“Yes, I knocked,” you confirmed, looking up at him as he towered over your seated body. “But I figured out the answer to my question. It was silly.” 

His mouth formed into an ‘O’ shape as he stepped back, nodding. “Alright,” his throat cleared again before he started to head back to his office. “I have another meeting at two, don’t go knocking unless you are completely unsure about a question.” The door to his office slammed shut, causing your body to jolt.

The rest of the day went by rather quickly after that and Price left not long after his meeting. However, for once you stayed back willingly despite having no work or deadlines to worry about. 

Ana wasn’t going to make her rounds in your office until 7 and everyone else was cleared out as you peeked around the office at 5:30. 

So, as you got back to your desk area, you couldn’t help but make your way to Price’s office. Your hand reached for the light switch on the wall, glancing around the office before you stepped further in. 

Turn around and accept you have no proof he was jerking off. No, don’t turn around - get confirmation. 

The voice in your head going back and forth with itself as you walked over to his desk, pulling his chair back. As you bent down, you grabbed the rim of the trash can and pulled it towards you, peeking in.

Tissues.

And before you could process anything else, the same gruff voice that became the reason for your around the clock anxiety filled the office.

“What are you doing?”

For all my non-law besties, here's a quick explanation of the legal jargon I mentioned:

Notice to Admit - A notice to admit facts is an invitation to another party to admit specific facts or parts of a case.  If no reply is made within twenty days, or at a time set by the court, the matters contained in the notice to admit are deemed admitted.

Motion for Protective Order - A request made by a party to the court to limit or prevent the disclosure of certain information or documents in a legal proceeding. In this instance, arguing that the Notice to Admit is being used as a purpose to disclose discovery, but that is not the purpose of it. Therefore, an abuse of the purpose of the Notice to Admit.

[chuuyanakaharalegalwife]

Negotiation (Dazai x Reader)

Pushing the chubby Dazai agenda, he's so cute! Look at his little belly, im gonna cry it's so cute!! Missing him terribly.

In which we bribe him with affection and feed him

Read my other dazai oneshots here & here This has been in my draft for soo long, but I got a job and forgot about it. Happy late Diwali!

Bye now - Mars ♡

Out of everything you saw yourself doing this year, dating an overdramatic enigmatic manchild who whines like a baby was not one of them.

How did you get here? You started officially dating Dazai a few months ago, you two were exclusive. Before that you probably fooled around for a year, flirting here and there, and going on dates, random hook ups but somewhere along the way, you fell for each other. Hard.

It did have a trial and error period and you did have to set some firm boundaries, because as much as fooling around with him was fun, you craved the security of knowing this wasn’t some meaningless fling to him.

Fast forward to being exclusive with Dazai, he’s an amazing partner. His genius brain is quick to pick up on even the smallest changes and he reads you like an open book. He’s affectionate and he always finds money, granted never his own, to spend on you. He’s great in bed and he’s sweet with words. The list goes on. He’s almost perfect.

However, he’s not the best at opening up, he can talk your ear off without revealing a single thing about his mind. His heart. He also tends to neglect himself very much, at first you thought it was just temporary work stress but even when he’s away from work he does it.

At first you noticed how he only puts in efforts when you’re around, and the longer your relationship went on, the less effort he made. The biggest issue you have is how he so carelessly skips meals. It makes you angry but after some thoughts and rants to your cat, you’ve decided to bribe him.

You wanted to be subtle about it but honestly, he probably already picked up on it. You’re convinced he just allows you to do what you want.

You started off small and your plan was to gradually build him up to regular meals.

The first time you did it, it was as simple as feeding him a bite from your snack. A simple yogurt bowl with fruits and a “Mm, try this, it’s good” and stuffing his mouth with a spoonful of yogurt and berries.

That became a regular habit you did, giving him small bites of your snacks whether that be protein bars, cookies, chocolates. This then transferred into your meals, purposefully adding more to your plate so you can whine about not finishing it and offering the rest to him so he can.

That didn’t last long, he quickly caught on your little act and urge you to feed it to your cat instead.

Then the brilliant idea of bribing him with kisses and affection to eat came about. It started with an argument and then you two not speaking for two days. Angry as you were, you decided to deny him of your hugs and you two slept with you backs to each other, you slept at least. Dazai stayed up and drank his feelings. The second night he didn’t even come home, God knows where he were.

The third day you two resolved your little conflict and with some probing, sweet words, kissing and negotiation you got Dazai to eat at least one full meal a day.

You both agreed on that. Baby steps, one meal a day, it’s better than drinking alcohol and eating tinned crab almost every day.

Right now, you were both on the couch, you on his lap with his arms lazily slung around you. You had a small bowl of rice and stir-fried vegetables along with some eggs.

You held the chopsticks up to his lips and looks at him in his eyes, “Please” you looked down at his lips, “For me” you watched as he hesitantly opened his mouth and took the food and chewed and swallowed.

Placing a kiss on his forehead you praised him for his first bite.

Then you repeated that until the bowl of food was almost finished, feeding him, kissing him, praising him.

After he managed to finish, you placed the bowl down and caress his cheeks, “You did so good, m’proud” you mumbled and kisses him. Your hands cupped his face, lips brushing against his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the crease of his brows, his temple, his jawline. Just anywhere your lips found, you placed sweet kisses.

He smiled and you felt like you’d melt away and fall off the couch if it weren’t for his arms around you. “Thank you, Bella” He mumbles quietly, and you can’t help but capture his lips in another sweet kiss. You feel his hands squeeze your waist, pulling you closer to him as he desperately returns your kiss.

He pulls away from you, his brows furrowed, and he belched and it catches you off guard. Dazai looks at you, awaiting your reaction and when he saw your smile and heard a little giggle, it triggered his own smile.

“I really am proud of you, Osamu”

[bitchinbarzal]

missing you, quietly — luca fantilli

warnings; mentions of death & suicide. read at your own discretion.

-

Nobody really remembers what happened that night. They were up by three in the second period, everyone was happy.

Someone, an officer administrator came out onto the bench and called over coach. He walked off and spoke to her before he returned, his face was white.

Nolan noted the whispers of the staff and he looked concerned but before he could ask what was going on, Naurato called the officials over.

They huddled up and mumbled to each other before the officials announced

“The game has been stopped per request of Michigan, all remaining minutes will be played after a period break”

Nobody knew what was going on as they traipsed back to the locker room.

“Coach what’s going on?”

He stood in the middle of the room and cleared his throat “We were just contacted by a member of campus police. A student has been killed on her way here this evening by a drunk driver”

There were immediate mumblings of who it was.

Brandon turned to Ethan who dropped the stick in his hand and scrambled for his phone. The sudden movements caught everyone’s attention.

“Ethan, buddy don’t-“ “No! No, it’s not her!”

Coach watched him as Ethan called you again and again with no response. Tears streamed down his face and coach sighed

“The student who was killed this evening was y/n”

Everyone walked to console Ethan while Luca sat in his stall, mouth opened and heart beating at what felt like a million miles a minute.

They never went back out to play. Michigan forfeited the game.

The days and weeks following your death were nothing short of painful and silent.

Ethan went home to be with his family in this time but ultimately it was decided the Edwards would hold a funeral for you in Michigan, that’s where you felt at home.

Luca didn’t talk much to anyone. Adam had made comment about it once or twice but their mom simply said “Luca’s an empathetic boy, Adam he’s probably just feeling sorry for his teammate”

He wasn’t. He was heartbroken over the death of the love of his life.

Luca attended the funeral service and sat in the back row, waiting until everyone had left to then approach the front and mumble through his tears

“I miss you, so freaking much baby”

He consoled Ethan on occasions, listening to him tell everyone nobody knew what it was like to be this upset. While Luca hadn’t lost a twin and he wouldn’t know that feeling, he so desperately wanted to shout out how he did know the sadness because he was sad too!

He didn’t. He stayed quiet.

Luca thought that by three months past your death, it was all over. He didn’t have to bite his tongue during commemorations of your life.

That was until the team were suiting up for practice one Wednesday morning.

"how you holding up, Eddy?"

Ethan shrugs "My moms still hysterical everyday but the police dropped off her phone to me on my way here" he says, waving your iphone around in his hand.

"You look at it?" Mark asks, slipping his jersey on.

"Nah, I don't know her password"

"It's you guys' birthday" is all mark replies, earning a skeptical look from Ethan but it works and Mark smiles

"She always let me use her phone for the aux in the car'

Ethan stands and scrolls through your phone. Your background was a picture of you and him on his draft day, the devils jersey in your hand while you looked so proud.

A few texts from friends and family members gone unread; mom, dad, even one from him he sent late the night you died begging you to call him and say it wasn't true.

then he landed on a text thread from 'my love

he clicked on it, eyebrows furrowed. There were messages sent since you died.

call me, tell me it isn't true

baby please, please be ok

I love you, come home

There were more he read through, still no idea who this person was. He clicked on the contact and dropped the phone, causing everyone to look over at him.

Ethan looked up, eyes scanning the locker room until they landed on who he'd been looking for.

"You son of a bitch! You were fucking my sister!"

Ethan storms across the room, out to hurt someone when he was held back by Adam, Luke and Mark

"Ethan stop, he was not!" Adam yells.

Luca gulps "Yeah... I was"

Everyone stared at him, he felt as if the walls were closing in on his chest.

Adam steps forward, protecting his big brother “Back off Edwards… I mean it”

Ethan scoffs “You were seriously fucking my sister? Dude what the fuck is wrong-“

“I was not! I wasn’t just- Jesus, fuck Ethan she’s dead stop being so fucking vulgar!” Luca screams, throwing his helmet across the room.

The rest of the boys take a few steps back.

“I wasn’t just fucking her, she’s not some puck bunny you dick! She was my girlfriend!”

Ethan scoffs “no, she would’ve told me”

“No, she didn’t want to because she was scared of how you’d react… clearly she was right!” Luca snaps, shoving past him and leaving the locker room.

Ethan stands with his chest heaving still “Can you believe him?”

Nobody speaks until Johnny stands up “You didn’t hear him Eddy, he screamed and cried that night I thought he was actually going to be sick and he couldn’t breath”

Ethan’s glare snaps to him “So you knew?”

“y/n used to tell you she was coming to study with me but instead they’d go out together” Johnny sighs “She liked him a lot and she didn’t wanna tell you because she was scared it would hurt the team”

Ethan doesn’t respond

“Luca tried to kill himself when you went back to Alberta”

At that, Adam’s head snaps to his teammate and Nolan goes to speak when Johnny continues “I found him real early in the morning with way too many pills and he was just scared and alone, he grieved her death for far too long all alone”

“Ethan, you aren’t the only one who was hurt when she died don’t be so hard on him, he’s already beating himself up too much already”

Luca didn’t speak to anyone for the following days, Adam had left food for him and his mom tried calling along with Nolan but he didn’t talk to anyone.

Ethan sat with your phone watching as the notifications came in from Luca, texts confiding in you as if you were on the other end still. It was when Ethan read the text;

you’re the love of my life, I’m feeling pretty lost without you.

That he knew, Luca had been suffering in silence.

Saturday came and the team were facing off against Ohio state for the first time since the night you died.

The teams had prepared a ceremonial jersey for Ethan to receive with your name and number on the other side. The girls team, your team were in the stands to watch too.

Luca was there early to avoid being in the room with Ethan.

By the time warmups had come and gone nobody had spoken to him. All a little concerned.

When the puck was ready to be dropped the lights dimmed and the announcer read

“Three months ago, when these two teams last played we lost a member of our Michigan family — y/n was a star hockey player, daughter, student and twin to one of our own. Tonight we gift her jersey to her twin brother, Ethan. To honour her by the people who love her most”

Ethan skated forward to collect the jersey and thanked those who gave him it. He placed it on the bench and the game got underway.

You were seemingly controlling the score for the team that evening because when the game finished 7-2 everyone said

“Hey look, seventy-two joined us this evening!”

Luca smiled, headed back to the locker room remembering back to you telling him how you got your number as you were all but one minute older than Ethan so you had a number one before him.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he walked back to his Stall only to find a maize jersey staring back at him.

Edwards

72

Luca didn’t speak, his fingers grazed the number before he looked back to Ethan, who was already staring at him with a soft smile.

It wasn’t much and nothing was going to fix this but it would be a little better now Luca didn’t have to miss you quietly.

[beefrobeefcal]

Beefro proudly presents:

a Chubby!Peña one shot

Javier Peña & his Sweetheart: Ringin' in the New Year

Pairing: Javier Peña x Fem!Reader (Sweetheart!)

Summary: After a dry spell and a communication breakdown, the new year sheds light on new plans. Rating: Explicit 18+ (MDNI) Word Count: 2,976 Content Warning: Smutty smutty smut smut, fingering (f receiving), p in the v - unwrapped, breeding kink, drunkenness Author's Notes: I know that this was not on the list of anticipated fics, but let's all embrace this beef's spontaneous fic writing. Bless @gasolinerainbowpuddles for their inspo. Bless @neverwheremoonchild for egging me on (I started this fic drunk a few weeks ago), thank you to @toxicanonymity for their Chubby!Peña love. And thanks be to @umnitsa & @softpascalito for their ra-rasis-boom-bah's! Final draft not beta'd, so enjoy my typos. TA DA!

‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊

You were thankful that your period had arrived, and it was just the flu that was making you nauseous. Letting your boss fuck you bare back in his office seemed like a good idea at the time until you were faced with pregnancy symptoms. You didn’t dare tell Javier that you were worried, not wanting to involve him unless it was absolutely necessary, and since you weren’t pregnant, he didn’t need to know.  

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥ 

It had been several months from the time when he had you in his office, and since then, the furthest you’d gone was either getting on your knees for him or having your legs flung over his shoulders. He didn’t push because you were so willing to ply him with a blow job and a bag of hard candies, but you could tell he was aching to get back into you.  

But you were nervous. Even if it wasn’t a real pregnancy, the thought alone had you shying away from moving past his mouth and fingers. How would it look if you got pregnant with your boss’s baby? And not just your boss, but Javier Peña? There was that fear, but the bigger one was how he would feel about it; he just didn’t seem like the ‘settling down’ type. And you also worried that he was using you for stress relief, which you were fine with, but when the Peña that grouchily lorded over the office turned into the smooth, romantic Javi with his face between your legs, you couldn’t help but fall hard for him. 

You decided to make sure this scare would just stay that, and you asked your doctor for a birth control prescription.  

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥ 

December was an excruciatingly busy month, and the heads of the Embassy were throwing a large New Year’s Eve gala for all the American agencies in Bogota. It was being held at the Embassy, and you’d been given the task by the ladies in the office to get Javier a new tuxedo – clearly, they knew how stubborn he was the last time he needed formal wear and saw how his eating habits had affected his waistline, further filling him out. You walked into his office, carrying a new tuxedo in a garment bag over your shoulder, and shut the door behind you. 

“Peña, I have your new tux for the New Years do.”, you said casually, laying the bag over the back of one of the armchairs in front of his desk, while looking at your notebook in you other hand. 

“You gonna let me fuck you, Sweetheart?” 

“What? Not now… I have a lot of work t – “ 

“No, not now.”, he said, almost sounding irritated, which was normal for him, as he stood up from behind his desk. “But are you ever going to let me fuck you again?” 

You looked up from your notebook as he walked around his desk, his hands in his pockets, then looked down at you. His belly protruded more these days, as well as out the sides, and it did even more today after the lunch that he’d had with one of the other agency heads. While his tone was firm, and even slightly harsh, his eyes were soft and pleading. He gently raised his hand and moved an errant hair from your face, and he let out a sigh. 

“Peña…” 

“It’s Javi, baby… it’s just us in here.” 

Your breath caught in your throat, and you knew he knew what he was doing. You knew he was testing you, trying to tease out either a chance to get you impaled on his dick or at least an explanation as to why you’d been dodging his advancing and settling for oral.  

“Peña.”, you warned, not wanting to fall into that predicament or conversation just yet. “I have your tux for tonight. Please try it on and make sure it fits.” 

You saw the flash of frustration and hurt in his eyes as his jaw tightened, dropping his hand back to his side, his voice terse and curt. 

“Okay then, Sweetheart. I’ll see you tonight.” 

And with that, you saw yourself out of his office. 

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥ 

That evening, you’d opted to wear an off the shoulder, red cocktail dress, and now that you were in the cab on the way to the gala, you wondered if you’d over done it with your outfit, hair and makeup. That feeling stayed with you as you walked up the steps to the Embassy, through the doors and into the Gala itself. The heads that turned to watch you didn’t help, so to the bar you went to give yourself some courage, comfort, or both, grabbing and downing a glass of champaign on the way there.  

After your second glass of champaign and an amaretto sour with another on the way, you felt pretty loose and nothing short of a shootout could have shaken you as you hid in a quiet corner around the bar. At least, you felt that way until a hand touched your waist and an all too familiar presence filled your senses, and his warm, whiskey-laden breath washed over your neck. 

“Sweetheart, you better slow down.”, Javier said harshly into your ear.  

Normally, you would have jumped away from contact like that in public but being that almost everyone in attendance was at roughly the same level of intoxication and you were in a fairly private part of the room, you didn’t move from him. 

You shook the nerves from your body, feeling emboldened by the alcohol in your system, and turned to face him. Looking Javier's face over, you gave him a lazy smile while wavering on your feet, and in response, he forced a smile back and held your arm firmly to keep you upright.  

“Hi.”, you grinned up at him.  

“Hi.”, he responded curtly.  

You sucked in a breath and placed your hands on his chest, letting one slide down over the side curve of his belly.  

“You look nice tonight.” 

His jaw clenched and he rolled his eyes at you, then huffed out a sigh. 

“So do you.” His tone remained harsh as his eyes met yours again. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” 

You rolled your eyes and tried to pull away, but his hand was replaced with his arm as he held you firmly against him. Javier kept his intense and irritated gaze on you, and you felt uneasy under it. 

“What the fuck is going on with you?”, he hissed.  

Before you could stop yourself, the alcohol had you blurt out what had been eating away at you for the last few months in an embarrassing, rambling confession. “I thought I was pregnant but it was the flu and I didn’t think you wanted me to get pregnant, so I didn’t want you to fuck me just in case, but it’s okay now because I got birth control but then it became awkward and I didn’t know how to tell you because I don’t know what you want beyond just fucking me.” 

His firm, harsh glare gave way to a blank expression. He didn’t say anything, and you could feel your face heating up when you realized what you’d just said. He’d hoped you didn’t notice the way his breath hitched because of his cock twitching at the thought of you being pregnant. 

“Fuck, Peña… I’m sorry… Just forget I said anything and lets just get really drunk, and – “ 

“You thought you were pregnant?” The way his eyes searched yours and the way his voice dropped to a quiet hiss was not the response you were expecting.  

“I had the flu, and my period was late and I - ” 

“Okay... but what do you mean you don't know what I want beyond me fucking you?” 

“What?” 

“You think that’s all I want from you? Just to fuck you?” 

Javier’s tone remained in a harsh whisper as he held you under his stern glare, but there was something else in his eyes. You didn’t know what it was, but it seemed to be growing as he stared you down. Your mouth opened and you hoped your brain would catch up and you could respond with something insightful or enlightening, but instead you froze. 

“What?” 

Your response made him let you go, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he sighed, muttering to himself in Spanish. His hand went to his waist as the other pointed at you in a scolding manner as he continued to whisper harshly. 

“You really think I would risk my job – and yours, for that matter – just to fuck you? You’re not that stupid!” 

You narrowed your eyes and met his tone straight on.  

“Well, what else was I supposed to think? You're either wanting me to suck you off or organize your day! Oh, and feed you an endless supply of candy! What else am I supposed to take from that?” 

His mouth tightened and he huffed out, eyes wide in irritation.  

“What the hell are you talking about? You do way more than that for me!” 

“Yeah! And what about it?” 

“What?!” 

“What about it, Peña? How the hell am I supposed to know what else you want from me?” 

You both stood, glaring at one another accusingly.  

You huffed, alcohol encouraging you to say what you didn’t want to admit out loud. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to trap you into something that you didn’t want to be in!” 

He let out a flustered cluster of words, not able to finish any of them before the next one came out, desperate to correct all the wrongs he had no idea existed until tonight. But before he could get a coherent response out, one of the other agency heads approached him, pulling Javier out from your private corner, and you watched as he gave you one final glance that said we’re not done before he was whisked away. 

◤━━━━━━━━━━━◥ 

It was nearing midnight, and you’d spent the majority of the evening nursing drink after drink while making small talk with coworkers as your circulated the room. You’d assumed that Javier was not going to be returning to your conversation until the next time you were in his office, and you’d been officially ditched for the night. Not that you had assumed you would get his attention the whole evening, and you chided yourself for even feeling rejected. Your champagne-buzzed brain had allowed your mind to go into darker places than you would have liked while you waited on the New Year’s arrival. 

Who else was he fucking? What if this was too much of a headache for him? What if he fired you over no longer wanting to fuck because you weren’t useful to him anymore? Was he that big of an asshole? 

You grabbed a full flute of champagne and slammed it back like a shot of tequila. 

“Jesus, Sweetheart!” 

You swung around and met Javier’s eyes, softer and definitely more glazed than before; he looked just as drunk as you did. He took the flute from your hand, placing it on a passing waiter’s tray the grabbed two full ones. 

“S’getting close to midnight. We gotta toast.”, he grinned at you. “An’ we gotta talk.” 

He turned and walked towards the exit of the event room, and you followed as he led you to the hallway and into one of the empty offices. After the glasses were placed on the desk, he turned and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close to him. His breath reeked of cigars and alcohol, but in that moment, you could care less. 

“Peña...”, you whined softly. 

“You know the rules, Sweetheart... when we’re alone, it’s Javi.”, he said softly with a smile.  

“Javi - “  

“That’s better.” 

His lips quickly found yours and your mouths collided messily. Tongues, teeth, spit, and moans made it looks like you were devouring each other. Javier’s hand gripped the hem of your skirt, pulling it up and he shoved his hand between your legs and his face detangled from yours.  

“Know how fucking hard you made me when you said you thought I’d fucked a baby in you?” 

You let out a panting moan as his finger pushed your thoroughly wet thong out of the way and he teased your hole.  

“You know how good your tits’ll look when you’re pregnant?”, he rasped out, arousal heavy in his voice. “You wanna know what I want from you? I want you to give me a fucking family... a home life... domesticate me, Sweetheart.” 

He shoved two fingers into you, forcing a choked whine from your throat. You nodded and gripped his shoulders as he fucked you on his thick digits, his thumb nudging your clit. 

“You do that for me, baby, and I’ll give you everything... I’ll even fucking marry you... just – just lemme fuck you again... lemme fuck that sweet pussy of yours... please, Sweetheart...” 

“Javi!... oh, Javi... yes... please, Javi!”, you screeched, feeling yourself tipping over the edge. 

“Good girl... getting me tethered making you hot, baby?... pinning me down makes this pussy sing, don’t it?... yeah, you gonna let me fuck you into the new year? Yeah? Gonna lemme fuck you into a mama?” 

You came hard and before you could register what was happening, Javier pulled out his fingers and maneuvered you on your back on the floor. He got on his knees between your legs, and you sat up. Both of you panted as you frantically undid his belt and pants, made all the more cumbersome by your intoxication and his belly now hanging over his waistband. Both shoving his pants down, he fumbled with them to get them off as you grabbed his hard, aching cock and gave it a few tugs. 

He groaned as he managed to get his pants around his ankles, and decided that was enough. Javier pushed you onto your back and gripped your hips, pulling your open core to him, and lined his cock up.  

“Please... fuck, I need this... I need you, Javi!” 

He pushed into you and groaned, “You got me, Sweetheart.” 

After months of only taking his fingers and tongue, your body relished in his dick making an intrusive comeback. The sting of him stretching you out was made all the sweeter from the low, guttural moan Javier let out when he was finally seated deep within you. 

His belly tightened as he pulled his hips back and then rammed them forward again, and he set an even pace. 

“Fucking hell... oh fuck... I missed this... missed you... don’t-uh!... don’t even do this to me again... don’t deprive me of your perfect cunt... anything.... anything but that, Sweetheart... please...”, he panted as he rutted into you. 

You moaned and panted his name him, and he shifted, hitching your thigh on his hip. He leaned over, hand planted beside your head and belly pressed into your middle.  

Wrapping your arm around his shoulders, you dug your heel into his lower back, trying to egg on his thrusts.  

“Harder... Javi baby, please, harder!”, you begged, chest heaving. 

He pulled back again and pushed you back onto the floor and shoved your knees into your chest. Javier looked down at you, your pussy open for him and your eyes begging him, and he smiled.  

“So fucking perfect for me... how the fuck did I not let you tame me before?”, he groaned with a grin, pushing his cock back into you and leaning forward. He began a brutal, harsh pace that he put all his weight into – and there was definitely more of him since the last time he fucked you. His cock slammed into you, bruising your cervix and making your eyes roll back into your head.  

“That’s it, Sweetheart... fuck, your sweet little cunt missed me... j-just sucking me – fuck!... sucking me in...”, he grunted. 

From the other room, you could hear the crows counting down. 

10... 

“Fuck... sweetheart.... m’close!” 

9... 

“Javi... don’t stop, baby...” 

8... 

“Oh fuck!” 

7... 

“Right there!... yes!” 

6... 

“Ungh... fuck... yes....” 

5... 

“Keep going... yesyesyesyesyes!” 

4... 

“That’s it... baby, that’s... fuck! Where...?” 

3... 

“Ah-oh fuck!... in me... come in me!” 

2... 

“That’s my girl... fuck... yes... Unghhhh!” 

1...  

Javier collapsed onto you, and you held him. You were both panting heavily and sweating, and you thought how if you were to walk out of this room right now and be seen, no one would have a doubt as to what you’d done in there. And for the first time, whether it was the alcohol or what Javier had said, the thought of being caught didn't scare you. He pressed his face into your neck and sighed, still breathing heavily, and turning your head, you kissed his cheek softly.  

He raised his head and nudged his nose against yours and you both huffed out panting, soft laughs. 

You finally found the courage and asked, “Did you mean it?” 

He nodded, still catching his breath. “Yeah... yes, Sweetheart. I’m y-... you’re mine.” 

Getting up off the floor, you adjusted your panties and dress, then looked at Javier. “Does this mean-” 

“You might have to quit or get reassigned, yeah.”, he interjected with a small frown, sucking in his stomach and doing up his pants. 

“No...”, you grinned, handing him a flute of champagne. “I was going to ask if I should stop taking my birth control pills. I don’t give a shit about my job anymore.” 

He let out a loud laugh and took the glass. “Have it your way then. You’re fired and we’re going house hunting when we’re sober.” 

You smiled and nodded, clinking your glass to his, and said before downing the golden liquid, “Agreed.” 

‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊

TAGLIST: @theywhowriteandknowthings @harryleatherfit @toxicanonymity @harriedandharassed @neverwheremoonchild @rebel-held @beee-haw @nevergoingbacknowshine @idolatrybarbie @v4vayha @lalocitos @xdaddysprincessxx @deathsholywaterr @heareball @lyssramscal @wintrwinchestr @blackfemalenerd  @southernbe @starkeydaviss @noxturnalpascal @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

[whiskeyapologist]

was looking through my camera roll & realized i never posted about this?? but i did a check please theme in my bullet journal back in april & i am still beyond obsessed with how it turned out!

task list & cover page

april was all about finishing my fucking thesis (i earned my mfa in stage automation in may) & i used the task list to break down each section of my thesis & make it less intimidating. i still pulled a bitty & had to marathon write most of my thesis within a like 36 hour period. i slept so good once that draft was finished!

when i started planning this theme, i flipped through the comic & decided pretty quickly i wanted the cover to be this view of faber from 4.25 "faber". i filled the outside with some of my favorite details from throughout the comic, including (clockwise from top left) the "text from chowder: i'm shouting!" from 4.2 "nonstop celly", jack's "oh" moment from 2.17 "graduation", the jack lego (?) figure from 3.1 "wag", dex & nursey's background roach & house bubbles & (i think it's) ransom's "et tu lardo?" bubble from 2.12 "post i: roadie", one of my fave senor bun appearances that didn't make it into a weekly from 1.16 "linemates", & bitty's phone (i don't think there's a specific appearance of bitty's phone that looks like this, at least not that i'm finding in the flip-throughs i've done to write this post. i think i did a lil freehand moment with it, but if anyone happens to find it in the comic, let me know!), as well as my usual little calendar & monthly focuses section

monthly calendar & habit tracker

the monthly calendar & playlist is inspired by the smh team roster hanging on the bulletin board in the haus at the beginning of year 2

the habit tracker features a few other details from 2.1 “moved in”, namely the “haus sweet haus” rug & the sock pinned to the bulletin board. the shopping list bubble is a callback to the “jizz!” speech bubble also pinned to the bulletin board next to the sock

meal & time trackers

the breakfast, lunch, & dinner headers are a callback to the hockey puck taped to the bulletin board

not much to add here, but it’s a great time to mention the “it’s tough but you’re tougher” speech bubble from 4.20 “spotlight on eric bittle” which was the quote i used to decorate my grad cap ❤️

weekly #1 is modeled after y1 & features my favorite y1 senor bun appearance (1.18 “playoffs - i”) & line (1.8 “checking clinic”)

weekly #2 is modeled after y2 & features my favorite y2 senor bun (2.10 "shinny") & line (2.4 "hazeapalooza")

weekly #3 is modeled after y3 & features my favorite y3 senor bun (3.3 "meet the falconers") & line (3.26 "cup v - post")

weekly #4 is modeled after y4 (the layout of the top panel specifically is modeled after the first panel of 4.16 "christmas in madison - iii" which shows a bunch of the christmas pics/posts from the rest of smh & tater) & features my favorite y4 senor bun (4.17 "senior thesis") & line (also 4.17 "senior thesis"). i has some extra space, so i included some excerpts from bitty's y4 tweets

camp nanowrimo tracker, before the pen. the left is just a table for tracking time spent on & words written for my thesis & the novel i've been working on forever. my camp nanowrimo goal was to write 1 hour every weekend day & 2 hours every week day, for a grand total of 50 hours, which i am proud to say i achieved! the right is a visual tracker, where each pie was equal to an hour of writing. i included 50 pies for my 50 hour goal. the bubble near the top is from 1.4 "the haus" with 2 footnotes i added; one on "kitchens" that says "word docs", & one on "pies" that says "words". clearly i think i'm very clever lol

visual tracker, filled in. i surpassed my 50 hour goal with about a week left in the month, & i wanted to include that additional progress on my tracker. once the month was done & i knew how much i needed to add, i made a tip-in (although this might just be a fold-out lol) to tape in. on one side, i included the dialogue bubbles from a panel of 3.19 "keagster"

on the other side of the tip-in/flip-out, i included jam jars for the additional 10.25 hours of writing i did, plus "it's gonna be two trips" also from 3.19 "keagster"

& that's all the spreads! spreads were done in an archer & olive b5 notebook. supplies include: mildliners in the colors vermillion, dark blue, beige, & gray; a black papermate flair, a white gellyroll pen in size 08, and stabilo pens in gray and brown. oh, & a piece of masking tape, bc i couldn't find any clear tape lol

[yurimother]

An Update on YuriMother

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, there has been a distinct lack of my regular news coverage and articles as of late. I recently moved and started working at a new school (for those who do not know, teaching is my day job). While I love this job, it has considerably taxed my time and energy, which compounded with my strained focus and dedication that was already affecting the volume of my content, resulting in the near month-long silence.

However, I hope to recommit myself to YuriMother, as nothing in my life brings me more joy than my work with Yuri, and I want to continue celebrating the genre as I have for the past 11 years. This means resuming coverage of Yuri news stories, conducting more research, writing more reviews and articles, filming videos for TikTok, and working towards some of my personal larger goals for YuriMother.

Rather than going back and trying to cover everything I have missed over the past month, I am posting an article with a quick roundup of many major Yuri manga and light novel releases. The rest of the news slate is planned out for the week with, of course, room for any new stories that break. Additionally, I have several articles of varying scope, both for the main YuriMother website and for the Patreon exclusive "Secret Garden" line, at different stages of conceptualization and research. I look forward to drafting and editing these soon. Some are pieces that have floated around my head for over a year, and the prospect of finally putting them to page for you all to enjoy and learn from delights me.

I also created a poll on Patreon for members and the public, whether they subscribe to me or not, to decide the subject of my next review. Perhaps more than anything, I am thrilled by the prospect of actually reading Yuri again, as I practically have not consumed anything since I spent the majority of July burning through over a hundred webcomics and several times that amount in dollars because forget those free period wait times, I've got lesbians to fangirl over, for the 2023 Yuri Guide. There are so many incredible new titles and returning series sitting on my bookshelf, or more accurately, sitting in or on top of moving boxes next to my as-of-yet unassembled bookshelf, that I am thrilled to share with you.

Lastly, I want to thank you all for your continued support and patience with me during this time. I know many of you back me, and my work with your hard-earned money,  a fact which persistently baffles and humbles me, and I acknowledge that I have not always lived up to my end of that relationship.

I cannot promise that I will be perfect or that there will not be times when I struggle to deliver YuriMother content, but I can at least assure you that I will try my best every day and once again express my enormous gratitude to all of you. Thank you, everyone, especially my wonderful Patrons, for your engagement, kindness, support, and love of Yuri.

Sincerely,

Nicki Bauman The Holy Mother of Yuri

As always, if you can, consider joining the YuriMother on Patreon. Patrons can check out news, reviews, and articles early, get access to exclusive content like "The Secret Garden" an series of essays all about Yuri , and help support me and my work celebrating Yuri anime and magna.

[catullus0525]

Repentant Sighs And Voluntary Pains: Oscar Wilde and Robbie Ross 1895-1900

Foreword: 

This is the first draft of a chapter in a longer biography of Robert ‘Robbie’ Baldwin Ross (1869-1918) that I am currently working on. I hope to share this with other people who are interested in Victorian queer history and the Wilde circle. 

I started this project at the start of February, originally envisioning a short and sharp biography for LGBTQ+ History Month, because imo Robbie deserves to be remembered as a queer hero in his own right. But as I started writing I realised how much there were to his story, and how much emotions often lurked beneath Robbie’s deceptively dispassionate writing style, so the project very quickly ballooned beyond its intended scope. This essay biography will probably end up with 100-120 pages, and I am currently entertaining the idea of turning it into a book. 

Part of why the project ballooned so drastically was the fact that Robbie was full of paradoxes.

He was at once incredibly talented and incredibly dismissive of his own talents. Oscar Wilde said he was ‘as cleaver as can be’ and everything he wrote was ‘admirable’; booksellers who had worked with him praised him for his impressive knowledge and inordinate memory; and even Alfred Douglas, who hated Robbie in his later years, conceded that he was ‘a man of brains and ability’. Yet he always thought little of his talents and erased himself from the narrative. He refused to write a biography for Wilde on the ground of his own lack of talent. And even at the 1908 dinner honouring his Herculean effort in reviving the Wilde estate, Robbie declared himself ‘inadequate’ and attributed the revival to others.

Similarly, he was at once unbelievably strong-willed and perplexingly vulnerable. He came out to his family at the age of 19 after being bullied out of Cambridge, and, unlike many of his contemporaries, he never denied his sexuality throughout his life. Moreover, he spoke up against sexism, antisemitism, and militarism, and protected a generation of young queer artists from a hostile world. Yet Oscar Wilde was his Achilles heel: between 1897 and 1900 he was hurt time and again, but he went back to Wilde every time; and in protecting Wilde’s posthumous legacy, he exposed his most vulnerable side to the viciousness of the world, which eventually chased him to his early grave. 

I believe the key to unravelling much of the paradoxes is his love for Oscar Wilde. I believe he at once loved Oscar Wilde in the romantic sense and worshipped his art; but his love for the artist compelled him to forsake and denounce his romantic love. This was because, despite so many biographers had claimed that Robbie reconciled his Catholicism and his sexuality without difficulties, I believe he had in fact struggled silently with internalised homophobia against himself throughout his life. He most likely thought of himself as a ‘corrupting influence’ and bore the cross of the guilt for ‘corrupting’ the artist ever since 1895. This chapter tries to unpack the nature of such love, as well as the relationship between Wilde, Ross, and Douglas between 1895 and 1900. 

Now, a couple of disclaimers: 

This is very much unfinished. I tried to be as accurate factually as possible, but omissions/errors are inevitable at this stage, so pls lmk if you spot any. I am also still working my way through archives and biographies to plug gaps. 

I tried my best not to led period-typical homophobia influence my own writing & terminologies, but it has not been easy, so if you find anything problematic in this please help me correct it. 

The original manuscript has a million footnotes, and the finished product will be referenced. I decided not to put them in these posts for the sake of brevity, but I am more than happy to share my sources if you are interested. 

Some part(s) of it can be a bit rambly, particularly since I found it very hard to control my urge to rebut many claims by Alfred Douglas and his biographers (which were often unsubstantiated, untrue, or maliciously misconstrued)… I really tried to give Douglas sympathetic treatment and benefit of the doubt, but the sheer amount of bile in his biographies and autobiographies made it very hard (I read over 500 pages by himself and three biographies about him with the intention of fathoming the depth of his character and finding every redeeming quality in him, but all of them had substantial revolting passages that made me incredibly uneasy. On top of that, although I am fully aware that he was most likely seriously traumatised, mentally-ill and needed help, I still found his vicious antisemitism and homophobia rather inexcusable)…In my revision I may try to soften some of my criticisms and structure them better. In the meantime apologies in advance if my criticisms of Douglas hurt anyone’s feelings. 

Lastly, I sincerely love and admire Oscar Wilde’s writings so much, which makes me a bit apprehensive in writing about him or in analysing his work. De Profundis is my favourite prose work in English and it means a lot to me personally, so I feel personally inadequate in doing literary analysis on it…In other words the bits here about Wilde’s character & writings are very, very imperfect. I will try my best to polish & flesh them out in revisions, but I would sincerely appreciate any advice from fellow Wildeans. 

Nothing can ever blot from my memory what you have suffered in defence of your writings […] I shall never forget what enemies your learning, and what envy your glory, raised against you. I shall never forget your reputation, so justly acquired, torn to pieces, and blasted by the inexorable cruelty of half-learned pretenders to science […] since it is decreed that your virtue shall be persecuted till it takes refuge in the grave, and even beyond that, your ashes perhaps, will not be suffered to rest in peace,—let me always meditate on your calamities, let me publish them thro' all the world, if possible, to shame an age that has not known how to value you. I have hated myself that I might love you; I came hither to ruin myself in a perpetual imprisonment, that I might make you live quiet and easy.

—— Heloise to Abelard, Letter II

Later on I think everyone will recognise his achievements; his plays and essays will endure. Of course you may think, with others, that his personality and conversation were far more wonderful than anything he wrote, so that his written works give only a pale reflection of his power. Perhaps that is so, and of course t will be impossible to reproduce what is gone for ever. 

—— Robert Ross, around 1900

I. 

On 3 June 1918, Alfred Douglas indignantly declared in the Central Criminal Court that Oscar Wilde was ‘the agent of the devil in every possible way’ and ‘the greatest force of evil that has appeared in Europe during the last 350 years’. He was testifying on behalf of Noel Pemberton Billing, a proto-fascist politician sued for libel after spreading a conspiracy which alleged that there had been a circle of 47,000 ‘unpatriotic’ deviant women and clandestine homosexuals in England tied to Robert Ross and the ‘Wilde cult’ undermining the English war effort for the German Kaiser. Douglas’ testimony played right into the homophobia, wartime paranoia, and moralistic fervour of the English public. The jury, in turn, acquitted Billing and condemned Wilde. 

Douglas would forswear his statement years later (as he had forsworn many other things in his life), but the harm done was hardly reparable. For Ross, who had fought endless battles to rehabilitate Wilde’s name and literary legacy for the past eighteen years, to see Wilde’s name dragged through the mud in the press again must have been excruciatingly distressing. Days after the acquittal of Billing, Ross wrote to Sir Charles Mathews (then the Director of Public Prosecutions), sardonically congratulating him on ‘the complete rehabilitation of your protégé, Lord Alfred Douglas’ and called him ‘the bastard of a mummer’. Meanwhile, to his friends Cecil Sprigge and Charles Ricketts, Ross lamented that the war-weary English public revelled in ‘kicking Oscar’s corpse’, and that he himself had been ‘used as a piece of mud’ in smearing Wilde’s name. Four months later, Ross died of heart failure, aged only 49. 

Ross was a private man who left behind few traces of himself. Unlike Douglas, who wrote endless autobiographies regurgitating his narratives, Ross never told his side of the story. Therefore, we would never know whether behind the official cause of death of ‘gastritis caused by chronic bronchitis’ lied a broken heart. Was he tormented by the thought that his effort for the past eighteen years was rendered naught by the fresh wave of anti-Wilde furore? Might he have worried that Wilde’s name would forever be buried in the mud as a result of Douglas’ vendetta against himself? These we could only speculate. However, we do know that Ross had been seriously depressed, struggled to sleep, and prematurely aged for a long time before his death, due in no small part to Alfred Douglas incessant persecution over the past five years. It would also be reasonable to postulate that the uncharacteristic sarcasm of his letter to Sir Charles Mathews was the tip which belied an iceberg of agony.

Ross left almost everything in his possession to others upon his death. The Oscar Wilde estate was transferred to Cyril (then deceased) and Vyvyan Holland in its entirety. Most drawings in his possession were presented to the British Museum. To himself, he had reserved only a quiet little space in Wilde’s majestic tombstone. Unbeknownst to everyone, he had requested for such a secret little space to be built when commissioning Wilde’s famous Père Lachaise tombstone. In his will, written four years ago during his persecution by Alfred Douglas, Ross had directed that:

[…] my remains shall be cremated at Golders Green Crematorium with the ordinary burial offices of the Catholic and Roman Church. And I direct that my ashes shall be placed in a suitable urn and taken to Paris and buried in the tomb of the said Oscar Fingal O' Flahertie Wills Wilde. If however it should prove impossible to obtain the licence of the necessary authorities for this I direct that my ashes shall be scattered in Père Lachaise. 

It was as if Ross was being the Heloise to Wilde’s Abelard. In that famous Medieval love story, much like how the illustrious writer Oscar Wilde was captivated by the 17-year-old Robbie Ross, Abelard, the brightest philosopher of his day, fell for his astute pupil Heloise, 19 years his junior. They were not only intellectual partners but also passionate lovers, yet their love transgressed the strictures of society and religion, thus scandals befell the brilliant Abelard. But Heloise’s love was unwavering even after Abelard’s ruin, not unlike how Ross steadfastly stood by Wilde after his imprisonment till the very end. In the end, much like how Heloise demanded to be buried with Abelard 22 years after his death, 23 years after Wilde’s death, Ross yearned for eternity alongside Wilde, beneath the same hallowed earth that cradled Heloise and Abelard.

Yet, unlike Heloise, whose effigy lay proudly beside Abelard's in Père Lachaise, Ross deliberately left no mark of his own on the final resting place he shares with Wilde. So whilst Heloise receives countless visitors’ songs and tears alongside Abelard, out of the hundreds of kisses imprinted on Wilde’s grave, none was intended for Ross; and most who wander through Père Lachaise remain unaware that Ross's ashes are silently guarding Wilde’s body.

Such self effacement was despite the fact that Ross had given up his eternal life with God for eternal rest with Oscar Wilde. As a devout lifelong Catholic, in directing his body’s cremation, Ross had denied himself resurrection. This is because it was not until 1963 that the Vatican finally conceded that cremation was ‘not opposed to the Christian religion' and ceased to deny Catholics wishing to be cremated their sacraments and funeral rites. Although at the time of Ross’s death, the Catholic Church sometimes acquiesced to cremation in practice as a result of  WW1 (as reflected by the ‘the ordinary burial offices of the Catholic and Roman Church’ at Golders Green Crematorium), it was still quite possible that Ross never received the funeral rites which prepare a Catholic’s soul for afterlife. What had prompted such grave sacrifice? Perhaps he wanted to take up as little space as possible, lest his presence eclipse the master’s lustre. Perhaps it was his ultimate penance for his incurable sin of loving Oscar Wilde. Or perhaps he saw incineration as the only way to purify his body and to make himself worthy of eternal rest by the artist he had corrupted, just as Alexander Pope had written of Heloise: 

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain; And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain, Here all its frailties, all its flames resign, And wait till 'tis no sin to mix with thine.

Yet, were it not for Ross, us contemporaries might not have known Oscar Wilde at all. Despite Nicholas Frankel’s brilliant effort to re-write Wilde’s final years as a saga of joy, love, and self-acceptance, there is no denying that Wilde died as a ruined bankrupt in 1900. Upon his death, he was a persona non grata in England whose name was synonym to scandal. And due to his bankruptcy, everything he had owned was automatically passed into the hands of the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy. This meant that none of the proceedings from Wilde’s works (if there were any at all) would go to his orphaned children. Furthermore, though Salomé was successful on the German stage and The Soul of Man under Socialism welcomed by the bookshelves of Nizhny Novgorod, Wilde’s works were deemed worthless in England: the complete rights to Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest were sold off for the meagre sum of £100 each. Indeed, the Official Receiver had told Ross in 1901 that Wilde’s works ‘would never command any interest whatever’. But Ross’s labour of love worked miracles. In eight years, Ross had accomplished what none had thought possible: he had repaid all of Wilde’s debts, restored Wilde’s children’s rights over their father’s literary estate, and re-established Oscar Wilde in English literary history. Moreover, we owe much of our knowledge of Wilde and his works today to the 14-volume edition of Wilde’s Collected Works, compiled and published by Ross in 1908. That remarkable undertaking remains one of the most exhaustive collections of Wilde’s writings and had informed much of subsequent Wilde scholarships. Few in history had done so much yet said so little. 

II. 

In a cruel twist of fate, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years of imprisonment with hard labour on Robbie’s 26th birthday. On that very day, a great many homophobes paraded through the streets of London, celebrating the death of the ‘b-gger’. The fateful day of 25 May 1895 was to go down in history as a turning point in so many’s lives. For artists, it spelled the end of the short 1890s, the glorious age of aestheticism and decadence. For activists, it marked the beginning of a vicious conservative backlash towards everything deemed ‘deviant’, from men’s right to not be masculine to women’s right to vote. 

For Robbie Ross personally, his 26th birthday spelled the death of ‘Robbie’, that witty, impulsive, kitten-like youth. Most accounts before 1895 described Robbie as an attractive boy looking younger than his age, but every account since described Ross as ‘an old man before his time’ worn down by care. And from the few portraits and photographs we have of Ross, we see that the spark of youthful wit so visible in his 1893 photograph was never again to be seen in any of his pictures since 1895. The change in appearance mirrored the shift in Ross’s literary career: after 1895, he rarely wrote without others demanding him to write. In May 1895, Edmund Gosse encouraged Ross to find solace in ‘the infinite resources of literature’ which Gosse believed was open to Ross ‘more than to most men’. But in his letter to Max Beerbohm five months later, Ross declared with a great deal of resignation that ‘I do not write now’. Indeed, nothing beyond criticism and satire came out of his pen in the next five years. As Bogle said, since that fateful year, it seemed as if Ross had made ‘a deliberate decision against writing what would make him successful’. 

Ross was already a worn down man when he received information about Wilde’s sentence. Wilde withdrew his libel action against Queensberry to prevent Alfred Douglas from being called to the witness stand. This, however had led to a witch-hunt for all men with homosexual tendencies in England; as a consequence, Ross was exiled in Europe. The memory of Oscar’s arrest weeks ago was probably still very fresh in his mind. After all, he was with Oscar when he was arrested, and on that apocalyptic day, it was Ross who went to Wilde’s Tite Street home to pack his clothes for him. Ross most likely remembered painfully how he rushed from Tite Street to Bow Street police station carrying Oscar’s Gladstone bag, and fought his way through a homophobic mob ‘shouting indecencies’ at both Wilde and himself. He was hoping to see Oscar for one more time before his inevitable imprisonment, only to be cruelly denied permission to even leave the bag with him. Afterwards, Ross went to his mother’s place and broke down in tears, and according to his former boss W.E. Henley, Ross was heartbroken and fell ill. Despite his illness, however, Ross stayed on for a couple more days after Wilde’s arrest and returned to Wilde’s Tite Street home multiple times to collect incriminating manuscripts. 

We do not know exactly why Ross ceased to pursue his own literary career after 1895. Perhaps, as Bogle postulated, he ‘could not help feeling emotionally responsible’ for Wilde’s downfall, and his ‘lack of ambition for himself’ was a ‘subconscious punishment for the disaster he felt that he had brought to Wilde’. Or perhaps, as Borland suggested, Ross had realised that his real talent was in supporting artists. Regardless, because Ross’s life from 1895 onwards irrevocably revolved around Oscar Wilde, we would never know what Ross could have become on his own terms as a literary figure. He would spent the remaining 23 years of his life as Wilde’s personal secretary, part-time lover, and full-time literary executor; and he would burnt his own life to keep the flame of Oscar Wilde’s literary legend. 

III. 

Love weaves itself into the human experience in myriad forms as a result of our complex nature. Anthropologists have uncovered that at the heart of love lie three primary brain systems shaping our journey toward mating and reproduction. These systems orchestrate the dance of physical attraction, the depths of romantic affection, and the enduring bonds of profound attachment. Yet, these strands of love do not always intertwine seamlessly. It is therefore entirely feasible to find oneself deeply bonded to one, while the flames of romantic desire burn for another, and seek fulfilment of desires elsewhere. Such multiplicity of biological pathways has set the stage for many romantic tragedies through the ages.

The tragedy of Wilde and Ross found its crescendo within the grey walls of Reading Gaol. It was in confinement that Wilde’s affection for Ross reignited with unprecedented depths of passion. Perhaps prison had made Robbie beautiful. Perhaps against the backdrop of 'weeping prison walls' and the dual spectres of ‘lean hunger and green thirst’, memories of Robbie came to be cast in ever more luminous light, as every beautiful moment was relished time and again, and each time made more beautiful by the power of imagination. As evidenced by that famous passage in De Profundis, to the imprisoned, even a trivial gesture could be exquisitely beautiful and inspire extraordinary love:

Where there is Sorrow there is holy ground. Some day you will realise what that means. You will know nothing of life till you do. Robbie, and natures like his, can realise it. When I was brought down from my prison to the Court of Bankruptcy between two policemen, Robbie waited in the long dreary corridor, that before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and simple hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as handcuffed and with bowed head I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode of love that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or stooped to kiss the leper on the cheek. I have never said one single word to him about what he did. I do not know to the present moment whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action. It is not a thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal words. I store it in the treasury-house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed and kept sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears.

This Robbie, painted by Wilde’s imagination, symbolised everything he had longed for in prison, and everything he had missed from the outside world: Robbie was a safe harbour which promised comfort, security, acceptance, and unconditional love. 

Croft-Cooke contended that Wilde ‘dragged in’ Ross’s name in De Profundis because he was ‘naïf enough to suppose that Bosie might feel some envy for Ross’, so he leveraged Ross’s ‘jealous longing to appropriate him’ to make Bosie jealous. And even biographers sympathetic towards Ross, such as Edra Bogle, believed that Wilde had mentioned Robbie only to ‘make Bosie seem even worse by contrast’. This interpretation, I believe, commits the ‘supreme vice’ of shallowness by entirely misjudging the nature of De Profundis. Though much ink had been spilled in debates over the nature of De Profundis, most serious scholars nowadays agree that it was ‘never just a letter’. For one, in 1897 Wilde instructed Ross to have the manuscript copied without telling Alfred Douglas, alluded to potential publication posthumously, and hesitated to send the letter to Alfred Douglas. Moreover, it was one of Wilde’s best proses which contained exquisite passages on aesthetics, theology, and philosophy. To reduce it to a love letter intended to incite jealousy, therefore, not only overlooks much of the historical contexts, but also does much injustice to the beautiful text itself. The piece, as Lee contended, is best read as Wilde’s mourning of the death of ‘Oscar Wilde’ the literary personality, an exercise to exorcise his own demons in order to reclaim and perhaps recreate his sense of self. Thus both ‘Bosie’ and ‘Robbie’ in De Profundis are essentially symbolic characters onto whom Wilde projected himself: ‘Bosie’ mirrored the ‘Oscar Wilde’ in his ‘Neronian hours’, when he was ‘rich, profligate, cynical, materialistic’; ‘Robbie’, in contrast, embodied the simple, tranquil, pensive, and creative future beyond prison which he had envisioned for himself. 

Wilde was visibly torn between the two versions of himself after his release. On the one hand, he desired to reinvent himself as an artist by living a healthy and wholesome life. As declared at the end of De Profundis: 

I hope to go at once to some little seaside village abroad with Robbie and More Adey […] I hope to be at least a month with my friends, and to gain, in their healthful and affectionate company, peace, and balance, and a less troubles heart, and a sweeter mood. I have a strange longing for the great primeval things, such as the Sea, to me no less of a mother than the Earth […] I feel sure that in elemental forces there is purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence. 

The longing for rebirth and restoration was reiterated time and again in many of his post-prison letters. In his letter to Selwyn Image on 3 June, for instance, he wrote that he was ‘thoroughly ashamed of having led a life quite unworthy of an artist’, and that ‘if I have good health, and good friends, and can wake the creative instinct in me again, I may do something more in art yet’. Similarly, he told Mrs Stannard that France, the ‘mother of all artists’, had given hm ‘asile’ and enabled him to recover, and that he wished to live thus in ‘solitude and peace’.

However, on the other hand, almost immediately after release, his old luxuriating taste came back to haunt him. On 27 May 1897, for instance, he told Reginald Turner that:

Robbie detected me at Dieppe in the market place of the sellers of perfumes, spending all my money on orris-root and the tears of the narcissus and the dust of red roses. He was very stern and led me away. I have already spent my entire income for two years.

The story was probably as much truth as it was trope. Orris, or the roots of iris flowers, was harvested by the ancient Greeks and Romans for essential oil. The flower carried strong homoerotic connotations: for one, some had argued that in Greek mythology, Apollo had created iris (instead of what we know as Hyacinth today) in remembrance of Hyacinthus, the beautiful youth who died for him; moreover, the flower itself was turned into a symbol for queerness over the 20th century, not least because it had derived its name from the Greek goddess of the rainbow. The ‘tears of the narcissus’, likewise, was a thinly-veiled homoerotic reference: one may recall that Wilde had compared Alfred Douglas with narcissus after their first night together. Thus the flowers were most likely at once flowers of perfumery and flowers of youthful beauty, and the lavishing of the ‘income for two years’ probably referred to not only money but also his spiritual developments over his two years of imprisonment. 

It was befitting, then, in the story, it was ‘Robbie’ who sternly led him away from the marketplace of perfume-sellers. He had canonised ‘Robbie’ in Reading Gaol, and he pleaded as ‘St Robert of Phillimore’ for salvation from himself. In such pleadings the ‘Robbie’ in his imagination and the actual person Ross became indistinguishable. In his letter dated 28 May 1897, Wilde wrote that: 

For yourself, dear Robbie, I am haunted by the idea that many of those who love you will and do think it selfish of me to allow you and wish you to be with me from time to time. But still they might see the difference between your going about with me in my days of gilded infamy - my Neronian hours, rich, profligate, cynical, materialistic - and your coming to comfort me, a lonely dishonoured man, in disgrace and obscurity and poverty. How lacking in imagination they are! If I were rich again and sought to repeat my former life I don't think you would care very much to be with me--I think you would regret what I was doing: but now, dear Robbie, you come with the heart of Christ; and you help me intellectually as no one else can or ever could do--you are helping me to save my soul alive--not in the theological sense, but in the plain meaning of the words: for my soul was really dead in the slough of coarse pleasures: my life was unworthy of an artist: you can heal me and help me--no other friend have I now in this beautiful world. I want no other. Yet I am distressed to think that I shall be looked on as careless of your own welfare and indifferent to your own good. You are made to help me. I weep with sorrow when I think how much I need help, but I weep with joy when I think I have you to give it to me.  I know you love me, but I want to have your respect, your sincere admiration, or rather, for that is a word of ill omen, your sincere appreciation of my effort to recreate my artistic life. But if I have to think that I am harming you, all pleasure in your society will be tainted for me. With you, at any rate, I want to be free of any sense of guilt--the sense of spoiling another's life. Dear Robbie, I couldn't spoil your life by accepting the sweet companionship you offer me from time to time. It is not for nothing that I named you in prison St. Robert of Phillimore. Love can canonise people. The saints are those who have been most loved.  I made only one mistake in prison in things that I wrote of you or to you ....My poem should have run: “When I came out of prison you met me with garments, with spices, with wise counsel. You met me with Love." Not others did it, but you. I really laugh when I think how true in detail the lines are.

‘Robbie’ was to be his saviour from despair, and he hope to be reborn as an artist through loving ‘Robbie’. But such love had little regard for Ross the actual person: Wilde wanted ‘Robbie’ to save him from himself, fully aware that he could well harm Ross by demanding salvation from ‘Robbie’. Yet, in the end, instead of trying to bridge the yawning gap between his imaginary ‘Robbie’ and the actual Ross, he merely prayed that ‘St Robert of Phillimore’ may absolve him from ‘any sense of guilt’ for ‘spoiling another’s life’. 

Wilde professed much of the similar affections for Ross three days later. However, by then, he had already begun to show signs of yielding to temptations, or rather to his former self. He wrote that: 

I feel that Berneval is to be my home. I really do. […] It is also extraordinary that I knew Berneval existed and was arranged for me. […] Dear Robbie, I wish you would be a little more considerate, and not keep me up so late talking to you. It is very flattering to me, and all that, but you should remember that I need rest. Good night. You will find some cigarettes and some flowers by your bed-side. Coffee is served below at eight o'clock. Do you mind? If it is too early for you, I don't at all mind lying in bed an extra hour. I hope you will sleep well. You should, as Lloyd is not on the verandah. I adore this place. The whole country is lovely, and full of forest and deep meadow. It is simple and healthy. If I live in Paris I may be doomed to things I don't desire. I am afraid of big towns…I am frightened of Paris — I want to live here. […] Please send a Chronicle to my wife, just marking it, and if my second letter appears, mark that. Also one to Mrs. Arthur Stannard……I have no one but you, dear Robbie, to do anything……

Here, on the one hand, he was desperately trying to bring himself to love Berneval; on the other hand, however, his pre-1895 self was already rearing its head and luring himself to Paris where temptations filled the streets. This made his declarations of love of Berneval sound all the more like desperate attempts at autohypnosis. Thus, it should be entirely unsurprising that merely two months later, Wilde described Berneval as unbearably ‘black and dreadful’ which made him ‘quite suicidal’. Alongside his rapidly waning love for Berneval’s natural tranquility was probably his increasingly wavering love for ‘Robbie’, which made it all the more necessary for him to keep himself up late to pen contentless love letters to Ross. 

Such love was expressed in more explicit terms on 6 July 1897: 

I long to see you. When are you coming over? I have a lovely bedroom for More, and a small garret for you, with my heart waiting in it for you.

But at the same time as he told Ross that his heart was waiting in the bedroom for him, Wilde was already making plans of eloping with Alfred Douglas to Naples. By that point, the post-prison persona he had envisioned for himself in Reading Gaol had already been eclipsed by the revival of the Neroian Oscar Wilde. 

I largely concur with Laura Lee on the interpretation that Wilde loved Douglas because Douglas seemed to him sin personified; thus he was drawn to ‘Bosie’ ‘not in spite of his flaws but because of them’. He was ‘rapturously horrified’, and he wanted to experience through ‘Bosie’ the ‘heights and depths of life’, and to burn both pleasure and pain with ‘a gemlike flame’. However, for an author so adept in manufacturing symmetries, Lee missed the crucial symmetry between Wilde’s ‘delight in decadence’ with Douglas and his desire for transcendence in his letters to Ross. The oversight is all the more curious because Lee’s referencing of Wilde’s own reflection on his life as ‘a harmony of two extremes’, which considered ‘artistically […] perfect’. I believe this confession offers a profound insight into Wilde's inner conflict: his heart was torn between 'Bosie' and 'Robbie,' the dual muses in his imagination, which inevitably led him to hurt both Douglas and Ross.

IV. 

We could not ascertain the level of intimacy Wilde and Ross shared during these months; however, it is nevertheless safe to presume that physical intimacy did accompany the fleeting revival of intense romantic affections For one, Robert Sherard alleged that during Ross’s visit to Berneval in August 1897, he accidentally saw Wilde and Ross in a passionate sexual embrace through undrawn curtains one morning, which had let him to contend years later that ‘there is no doubt — and I am speaking from absolute knowledge — that it was [Ross] who… dragged Oscar back into the delights of homosexuality’. Alfred Douglas likewise wrote in 1932 that ‘it is an absolute fact that it was Ross who at Berneval dragged Oscar back to homosexual practices. Oscar told me this himself… Harris told me at Nice that Ross had told him the same story.’ On top of which, when writing to Leonard Smithers in this period, Wilde said that ‘He [Robbie] can ride everything, except Pegasus’. The thinly-veiled innuendo strongly corroborated the existence of sexual intimacy. 

McKenna characterised their relationship as ‘Oscar was in need of comfort, and Robbie obligingly comforted him’. He also claimed that the intimacy between Wilde and Ross was merely ‘sex as consolation’ but was not love and could never ‘scale the same emotional heights as Oscar’s love for Bosie’. But the claim that Ross offered up his own body only to comfort Wilde was not only unsubstantiated but also profoundly degrading: he was not a passive object providing cheap pleasure or consolation but a human subject possessing the agency to love. Moreover, given that Ross very likely harboured a profound sense of guilt for corrupting Wilde and leading him to his downfall by introducing him to homosexual practices, it is highly unlikely that he would casually offer his body as a pastime.

The more plausible conjecture, I believe, was that Ross fell deeply in love with Wilde despite his every effort to prevent a second corrupting of Oscar Wilde by his own love. Ross’s responses at the time to Wilde’s love letters are now largely lost in history, perhaps because Wilde had no habit of keeping letters, or perhaps because Ross (or his family members) had burnt them at some point. However, Ross’s unfinished and unpublished 1918 manuscript, which was supposed to be a preface to a collection of Wilde’s letter to him, gave hints of the depth of his affections. Recalling the day 23 years ago when he welcomed the newly-released Wilde off the shore of Dieppe, Ross wrote: 

We met them [Wilde and Adey] at half past four in the morning, a magnificent spring morning such as Wilde anticipated in the closing words of De Profundis. As the steamer glided into the harbour Wilde’s tall figure, dominating the other passengers, was easily recognised from the great crucifix on the jetty where we stood. That striking beacon was full of significance for us. Then we began running to the landing stage and Wilde recognised us and waved his hand and his lips curled into a smile. His face had lost all its coarseness and he looked as he must have looked at Oxford in the early days before I knew him and as he only looked again after death. A good many people, even friends, thought his appearance almost repulsive, but the upper part of his face was extraordinarily fine and intellectual.  There was the usual irritating delay and then Wilde with that odd elephantine gait which I have never seen in anyone else stalked off the boat. He was holding his hand a large sealed envelop. ‘This, my dear Bobbie, is the great manuscript about which you know. More has behaved very badly about my luggage and was anxious to deprive me of the blessed bag which Reggie gave me.’ Then he broke into great Rabelaisian sort of laughter. The manuscript was of course De Profundis.  […] Wilde talked until nine o’clock when I insisted on going to lie down. We all met at twelve for déjeuner, all of us exhausted except Wilde. In the afternoon we drove to Arques[-la-Bataille] and sat down on the ramparts of the castle. He enjoyed the trees and the grass and country scents and sounds in a way I had never known him do before, just as street-bred child might enjoy them on his first day in the country: but of course there was an adjective for everything — ‘monstrous’, ‘purple’, ‘grotesque’, ‘gorgeous’, ‘curious’, ‘wonderful’. It was natural to Wilde to be artificial as I have often said and that is why he was suspected of insincerity. I mean when he wrote of serious things, of art, ethics or religion, of pain or of pleasure. Wilde in love of the beautiful was perfectly, perhaps too, sincere and not the least of his errors was a suspicion of simple things. Simplicity is one of the objections he urges against prisons. During that day and for many days afterwards he talked of nothing but Reading Prison and it had already become for him a sort of enchanted castle of which Major Nelson was the presiding fairy. The hideous machicolate turrets were already turned into minarets, the very warders into benevolent Mamelukes and we ourselves into Paladins welcoming Coeur de Lion after his captivity.  

In stark contrast to his earlier prefaces, which were concise and impersonal, this unfinished piece unfolded with elaborate detail and a deeply heartfelt touch. The first half of the extract reads more like a smitten seventeen year old savouring his love at first sight than a middle-aged man recalling his reunion with a friend from a respectable remove. The vivid depictions of Wilde's tall figure ‘dominating the other passengers’, his ‘odd elephantine gait’, and his ‘great Rabelaisian laughter’ all had a level of raw, animalistic vitality. Subtly, they reveal a deep-seated, almost primal attraction that defied the passage of time, an allure as impossible for Ross to resist in 1918 as it was back in 1897. In weaving his memories, Ross imbued them with such tender details that one can almost imagine a blushing author as he was committing these words to paper. His recounting of Wilde's ‘extraordinarily fine and intellectual’ visage on that ‘magnificent spring morning’ carries the freshness as if but a moment had slid by. Moreover, even after the elapsing of 23 long years, he still remembered with painfully loving precision how Wilde's lips 'curled into a smile’ under the soft, early light of half-past four in the morning, a detail so heartfelt and personal that it defied the yawning chasm of time. It is as though, despite his utmost efforts to restrain and conceal his profound affection and desire, they inevitably seep through his prose and permeated the pages. 

The heartfelt affection, however, was heavily tinged with guilt and remorse. Noticeably, Ross described Wilde at his most ‘fine and intellectual’ as how ‘he must have looked at Oxford in the early days before I knew him and as he only looked again after death’. It was as if Ross believed his very presence had cast a shadow over Wilde's luminance, as if Ross saw Wilde as Adam and himself Eve, the snake, and the apple all at once. Thus, as the narrative unfolded, Ross erased himself from the second half of the extract. He affectionately described from the perspective of a silent onlooker how Wilde had ‘enjoyed the trees and the grass and the country scents and sounds in a way I had never known him do before’, the string of ‘and’s hinting at his ‘childish’ curiosity and spontaneity. In that moment, in Ross’s eyes, Wilde was free, untethered by his own corrupting influence; and he himself watched over his return to the Garden before the fall from a distance with almost-maternal affection. Ross reemerged in the narrative not as a participant but as a protector, who removed himself from memory and defended Wilde’s sincere love for beauty to the reader. Perhaps this was Ross’s subconscious hope: to cleanse his influences from Wilde’s life and legacy, to piously marvel at Wilde’s artistic brilliance from a distance, and to walk silently in the shadows as a loyal, protective spirit. 

This unfinished manuscript was perhaps Ross’s rawest confession, penned without the chance to polish or pare down his own voice or longing from the narrative. It revealed the tragic conflicts which underpinned Ross’s life: he wanted to erase himself from Wilde’s life at the same time as he wanted Wilde with every fibre of his being; and he believed himself to be the fatal temptation for Wilde but could not help himself from yielding to the temptation of Wilde. In a way, this was the dilemma between his faith and his sexuality he encountered at the dawn of his life reenacted at the dusk: he had internalised the idea that homosexuality was to be a corrupting sin but could not deny his nature, thus he walked with the cross of repentance on his back his entire life. 

The most tragic aspect with the second ‘fall’ after Reading was that the final straw before Ross gave in to his own romantic desires was possibly a promise of a life together. After breaking his promises to Ross and abandoning him for Alfred Douglas, Wilde wrote to Ross on 21 September 1897 saying ‘I could have lived all my life with you’. Moreover, in his 2 January 1899 letter rejecting the idea of a second marriage, Wilde suggested that Ross would want him to marry ‘some sensible, practical, plain, middle-aged boy’ —— a description which eerily mirrored Ross himself. Though it might appear as mere coincidence, but reading these words together with his 1897 letter, they seem to hint at profound commitments in the nascent days of their reunion after prison.

But when did the love begin? As argued, I am not quite convinced by the claim that Ross was hopelessly in love with Wilde ever since 1886; rather, from the few textual evidence we have of him, I believe that Ross’s love was most likely rekindled by sorrow and remorse after witnessing the pain of imprisonment taking its toll the man he had admired and once loved. After the prison sentence, in 1895, Ross made multiple trips back to England at great risks to himself. According to Bogle, on 24 September 1895 Ross visited the building ‘where Wilde waited while the Registrar decided to adjourn bankruptcy proceedings for seven weeks’. He then came back again on 12 November 1895, only to wait patiently in the corridors of the Court of Bankruptcy for a glimpse of Wilde, and to silently but solemnly raise his hat to Wilde amidst a jeering crowd. Before the bankruptcy proceedings, Ross had ‘harried and pleaded’ in his attempt to raise £2000 to pay back Wilde’s debt. He went so far as to write to his former Cambridge tutor Oscar Browning for money, but, partly due to Alfred Douglas’ inability of unwillingness to contribute, Ross’s effort fell £400 short, Wilde went bankrupt. Adding insult to injury, the Marquess of Queensberry (Alfred Douglas’ father, the man who sent Wilde to prison) became one of Wilde’s primary creditors upon his bankruptcy.

On that very day, he had a brief interview with Oscar. From which, Ross recorded that: 

Physically he [Wilde] was much worse than anyone had led me to believe. Indeed I really should not have known him at all . . . His clothes hung about him in loose folds and his hands are like those of a skeleton.

He further remembered that the only subject on which Oscar had spoken calmly without breaking down was death. His shock and despondence at the ruin of the once great artist was palpable. 

He then visited Wilde in prison again in May 1896. His letter to More Adey after the visit repeated many of the same themes. In the letter, Ross wrote that: 

Then Oscar appeared. He is much thinner, is now clean shaven so that his emaciated condition is more apparent. His face is dull brick colour. (I fancy from working in the sun in the garden). His eyes were horribly vacant, and I noticed that he had lost a great deal of hair (this when he turned to go and stood in the light). He always had great quantities of thick hair, but there is now a bald patch on the crown. It is also streaked with white and grey. You must allow perhaps for my exaggeration but I try not to do so and I am writing from pencil notes taken down immediately after leaving the prison. I did not break down at all, although this the worst interview I have had with Oscar[…] I did not know he[Sherard] gave way to exhibitions of feeling, though I know he feels things of course, as much perhaps as I do […] He[Oscar] cried the whole time and when we asked him to talk more he said that he had nothing to say and wanted to hear us talk. That as you know is very unlike Oscar.

His attempt to be calm and judicious barely belied his pain. The letter reads like a string of consciousness spilled onto paper, where attempts at detached brevity inevitably give way to detailed and heart-rendering accounts of Wilde’s physical decay. For one, whilst claiming that he ‘did not break down at all’, Ross confessed that the this harrowing encounter had shaken him to the core, and that Sherard’s breakdown was barely on par with his own pain. Moreover, his description of Wilde as a shadow of the man he had once known danced between maintaining a facade of control and the inevitable surrender to grief. It was as if he was desperately trying to reign in his thoughts and tame his emotions. 

He further wrote that: 

I firmly and honestly believe apart from all prejudice that he is simply wasting and pining away, to use the old cliché he is sinking under a broken heart. […] Each person has his view as to what constitutes a decayed mind, but if I were asked about Oscar before a commission, I should say that 'Confinement apart from all labour or treatment had made him temporarily silly, that is the mildest word that will describe my meaning. If asked whether he was going to die. It seems quite possible within the next few months, even if his constitution remained unimpaired, but for the causes that wives and husbands die shortly after each other, for no particular cause or men who have lost all their money or their '10 o'clock business' and young girls whose engagements have gone wrong. I should be less surprised to hear of dear Oscar's death than of Aubrey Beardsley's and you know what he looks like.

Here, in the shadow of Wilde’s decline, Ross's heartache is again palpable. Wilde’s deterioration was described as a gradual erosion of character evoking his introduction to homosexuality, which Ross most likely believed to be the beginning of his corruption. The phrase "sinking under a broken heart" further deepens the tragedy, evoking the downfall of something majestic now in ruins. 

Yet, amidst this despair, Ross clinged to a sliver of hope: he insisted that Oscar’s mental decay was but temporary silliness induced by gaol fever, suggesting the possibility of recovery and restoration. Here, however, this hope was shadowed by the looming spectre of Wilde’s death, making Ross’s optimism appear fragile. It was telling that the analogies Ross drew were all disasters befalling respectable heterosexual families. This resonated with the profound remorse in the apologies he gave Constance before undergoing the life-threatening surgery in 1896: perhaps deep-down, he was repenting over what he saw as his own destructive effects on Oscar’s marriage to Constance.

Ross kept this vow of devotion for the rest of his life. From then on, though fifteen years younger than Wilde, Ross was to be a safe harbour for him amidst every storm. He was to become Wilde’s anchor and confidante, offering unwavering support with almost-maternal tenderness. The only deviation, as argued, was the love and longing which he could not tame or renounce despite his best efforts.

V. 

Though Alfred Douglas and his biographers have insisted time and again that Ross had schemed and plotted to replace Douglas ever since Wilde’s imprisonment, historical evidence points to the contrary. 

The tussle over Douglas’s dedicating of his first volume of poems to Wilde was a case in point. In May 1896, Douglas decided to dedicate the first volume of his poems to Wilde, either as an inconsiderate display of devotion or a selfish scheme of self-promotion, risking another heavy blow on Wilde’s already-ruined reputation. Upon hearing of this from multiple friends, Wilde went into a fit of rather ugly rage and denounced the dedication as ‘revolting and grotesque’. Moreover, he ordered Ross at once to go to Douglas and retrieve every letter, book, and jewellery piece he had bequeathed Douglas during their affair, for he wished to have ‘nothing to do’ with Douglas. Douglas, however, declined to listen to anything Wilde said in prison and rather melodramatically told Ross that Wilde shall only have the letters back when he was dead. 

The odious task of mediating between Wilde and Douglas must have worn Ross down, because a month later, he fell seriously ill and had to undergo a life-threatening surgery to have one of his kidneys removed. Ross never fully recovered from it. According to his brother Alex, Ross lost most of his hair after the kidney operation, and was consistently unwell in the years to follow.

Yet, even during his painful illness, Ross pleaded sympathy for Douglas in front of Wilde by quietly slipping him a piece of paper (to evade the prison censors), with the consequence of drawing rebuke from Wilde upon himself. Moreover, even as Ross was recovering from the surgery, emaciated and barely able to work, he tried to lift Douglas ‘out of his malaise’ and encouraged Douglas creativity. If Ross had truly seen ‘the opportunity to re-stake his claim to Wilde’ as Douglas Murray argued, he would not have gone to such lengths to protect Douglas from Wilde’s wrath: if his aim was to supplant Douglas in Wilde’s affection, he merely had to step aside and let Douglas’ petulance do the job. 

If anything, Ross did not need an ulterior motive to dislike Douglas during this period: any friend of Oscar Wilde would have been frustrated by Douglas’s utter inability to see beyond himself. In November 1895, for instance, Douglas complained to More Adey that there was nobody to ‘play his[my] card’ in England, and all of his friends ‘seemed to be his[my] enemies’ despite their effort to console his grief. And in a fit of rather tone-deaf self-pity, Douglas wrote that: 

I am not in prison but I think I suffer as much as Oscar, in fact more, just as I am sure he would have suffered more if he had been free and I in prison.

Moreover, when Ross informed Douglas that Wilde did not wish to see him again in 1896, Douglas declared to More Adey that: 

[Oscar] warned me that all sorts of influences would be brought to bear upon me to make me change; but I have not changed. From the first to last I have been absolutely consistent and absolutely the same. I shall not change now. I decline to listen to anything he says while he is in prison. But I do not believe that he means what he says, and I regard what he says as non-existent.

And in June 1896, during Ross’s life threatening illness which led to the kidney removal, Douglas told Ross that he would not obey Wilde’s wishes and give up the letters. He declared that: 

The possession of those letters and the recollection they may give me even if they can give me no hope, will perhaps prevent me from putting an end to a life which now has no raison-d'etre. If Oscar asks me to kill myself I will do so, and he shall have back my letters when I am dead.

Then, in July, only days after Ross recovered from the ‘very critical state’ post-surgery, when he was still emaciated and barely able to walk,, Douglas wrote Ross a bitter letter blaming him for Wilde’s animosity and bemoaning his own tragedy despite Ross’s effort to plead Douglas’ case in front of Wilde:  

It certainly was a surprise to me that you do not think Oscar Wilde and I should ever be together again. If Oscar Wilde only loves me half as much as I love him - if he comes out of prison nothing in the world will keep us apart. All friends and relations, all their plots and all their plans will go to the winds once I am alone with him again and am holding his hand.

Douglas's animosity lasted well into 1897. The fact that he himself had at least some part to play in Wilde’s downfall was entirely lost to Douglas. Indeed, throughout most of his life, the very notions of guilt and responsibility seemed alien to him. Thus he clung onto the fantasy that once Wilde was released all would have been restored to the olden days; and thus he refused to accept Wilde’s evolution in prison. And because he indulged in his own victimhood and refused to bear responsibility for Wilde’s downfall, he could not comprehend the simple fact that the disaster itself sufficed in making Wilde fall out of love with him. So it was psychologically necessary for him to pin the blame on someone, and Ross became his target. 

Such oblivion was painfully obvious when it came to relationships with Constance Wilde. In his autobiography, Alfred Douglas claimed that: 

I was always on the best of terms with Mrs Wilde. I liked her and she liked me. She told me, about a year after I first met her, that she liked me better than any of Oscar's other friends. […] After the débâcle I never saw her again, and I do not doubt that Ross and others succeeded in poisoning her mind against me, but up to the very last day of our acquaintance we were the best of friends.

The patronising tone is especially jarring: it had not even occurred to him that Constance could have independently come to dislike him after his affair with her husband brought unimaginable calamity onto her life; it simply had to be the malicious influence of ‘Ross and others’, as if she could not have any agency of her own. And if Alfred Douglas could at least claim diminished responsibility due to hereditary mental illness, the fact that his biographers had believed him was truly astonishing. Caspar Wintermans, for instance, contended (without evidence) that it was Ross who ‘blacken[ed] Bosie’ in the eyes of Constance and the Leversons. 

Moreover, it was more likely that Wilde himself sowed the first seed of discord between Ross and Douglas by convincing Ross that if he was to recover as an artist, he must first recover from Douglas. In May 1896, Wilde wrote to Ross saying that: 

The idea that he is wearing or in possession of anything I gave him is peculiarly repugnant to me. I cannot of course get rid of the revolting memories of the two years I was unlucky enough to have him with me, or of the mode by which he thrust me into the abyss of ruin and disgrace to gratify his hatred of his father and other ignoble passions. But I will not have him in possession of my letters or gifts. Even if I get out of this loathsome place I know that there is nothing before me but a life of a pariah – of disgrace and penury and contempt - but at least I will have nothing to do with him nor allow him to come near me.

After Ross’s attempt to defend Douglas, in his November letter, Wilde further said that: 

Do not think that I would blame him for my vices. He had as little to do with them as I had with his.[…] I blame him for not appreciating the man he ruined. An illiterate millionaire would really have suited him better. […] My genius, my life as an artist, my work, and the quiet I needed for it, were nothing to him when matched with his unrestrained and coarse appetites for common profligate life: his greed for money: his incessant and violent scenes: his unimaginative selfishness. 

Even if Wilde’s words might have been excessively harsh, Ross was probably convinced of Douglas’s inability to appreciate the genius he had ruined by Douglas’s self-absorption over the past months. 

On top of which, Wilde swore time and again that he must get over Alfred Douglas to restore his life. He wrote in his November letter that: 

In all tragedies there is a grotesque element. He is the grotesque element in mine. Do not think I do not blame myself. I curse myself night and day for my folly in allowing him to dominate my life. If there was an echo in these walls it would cry ‘Fool’ for ever. I am utterly ashamed of my friendship with him. For by their friendships men can be judged. It is a test of every man. And I feel more poignant abasement of shame for my friendship with Alfred Douglas … fifty thousand times more … than I do, say, for my connection with Charley Parker of which you may read a full account in my trial.

Then, he famously wrote in De Profundis that: 

Deliberately and by me uninvited you thrust yourself into my sphere, usurped there a place for which you had neither right nor qualifications, and having by curious persistence, and by the rendering of your very presence a part of each separate day, succeeded in absorbing my entire life, could do no better with that life than break it in pieces. […] Having got hold of my life, you did not know what to do with it. You couldn’t have known. It was too wonderful a thing to be in your grasp. You should have let it slip from your hands and gone back to your own companions at their play. But unfortunately you were wilful, and so you broke it.  You did not understand why I wrote beautiful letters to you, any more than you understood why I gave you beautiful presents. You failed to see that the former were not meant to be published, any more than the latter were meant to be pawned. Besides, they belong to a side of life that is long over, to a friendship that somehow you were unable to appreciate at its proper value. You must look back with wonder now to the days when you had my entire life in your hands. I too look back to them with wonder, and with other, with far different, emotions.

After finishing the manuscript, on 1 April 1897, he wrote to Ross instructing him to copy it twice, and said that:  

[…] there are in the letter certain passages which deal with my mental development in prison, and the inevitable evolution of character and intellectual attitude towards life that has taken place: and I want you, and others who still stand by me and have affection for me, to know exactly in what mood and manner I hope to face the world. […] Of course I need not remind you how fluid a thing thought is with me – with us all – and of what an evanescent substance are our emotions made. Still, I do see a sort of possible goal towards which, through art, I may progress. It is not unlikely that you may help me. […] My friendship with A.D. brought me first to the dock of the Criminal Court, then to the dock of the Bankruptcy Court, and now to the dock of the Divorce Court. As far as I can make out (not having the shilling primer on the subject) there are no more docks into which he can bring me.

Though Wilde might have wished to revoke some of the harsh words in the early parts of De Profundis, they most likely left an indelible mark upon Ross as he was reading the long manuscript to the typewriters. As someone who adored Wilde’s art more than anything, and who blamed himself deeply for his corrosive influence upon the artist, Wilde’s harsh denunciations gave Ross every reason to want to keep them apart for Wilde’s own good —— and indeed, as argued, for a while, Wilde himself pleaded for ‘St Robert of Phillimore’ to save him from his temptation-prone self. 

VI. 

Despite all of these, however, it was only after Wilde betrayed him with Douglas that Ross became hostile towards Douglas. Wilde was incredibly contradictory in his letters to Ross and to Douglas between April and August 1897. Ten days after his release, upon Ross’s departure from Berneval, Wilde was resolute in resisting the temptation of returning to Douglas and his former life. In his 28 May 1897 letter, he wrote that: 

Bosie's revolting letter was in the room, and foolishly I had read it again and left it by my bedside. My dream was that my mother was speaking to me with some sternness, and that she was in trouble. I quite see that whenever I am in danger she will in some way warn me. I have a real terror now of that unfortunate ungrateful young man with his unimaginative selfishness and his entire lack of all sensitiveness to what in others is good or kind or trying to be so. I feel him as an evil influence, poor fellow. To be with him would be to return to the hell from which I do think I have been released. I hope never to see him again. 

On either 29 or 30 May 1897, he reiterated the message to Ross: 

I am terrified about Bosie. More writes to me that he has been practically interviewed about me! It is awful. More, desiring to spare me pain, I suppose, did not send me the paper, so I have had a wretched night. Bosie can almost ruin me. I earnestly beg that some entreaty be made to him not to do so a second time. His letters to me are infamous.

And Douglas was not the only source of temptation: a day later, he swore to Ross that: 

[…] I was not tempted by either sirens, or mermaidens, or any of the green-haired following of Glaucus- I- really think that this is a remarkable thing. In my pagan days the sea was always full of tritons blowing conchs, and other unpleasant things. Now it is quite different.

In conjunction to his sworn resolution to resist temptation, in these letters Wilde was incredibly affectionate to Ross. The 28 May letter quoted above was extravagant in its proclamation of love for Ross: Ross was to be his ‘St. Robert of Phillimore’, healing him from the wounds the world had inflicted upon him and offering him unconditional love in ‘disgrace and obscurity and poverty’. Moreover, in the letter, Wilde declared that:  

I made only one mistake in prison in things that I wrote of you or to you ....My poem should have run: “When I came out of prison you met me with garments, with spices, with wise counsel. You met me with Love." Not others did it, but you. I really laugh when I think how true in detail the lines are.

And on 31 May 1897, he sounded entirely like a pining lover: 

Dear Robbie, I wish you would be a little more considerate, and not keep me up so late talking to you. It is very flattering to me, and all that, but you should remember that I need rest. Good night. You will find some cigarettes and some flowers by your bed-side. Coffee is served below at eight o'clock. Do you mind? If it is too early for you, I don't at all mind lying in bed an extra hour. I hope you will sleep well. You should, as Lloyd is not on the verandah.

Yet unbeknownst to Ross, at the same time as Wilde professed love and loyalty to him, he was planning a reunion with Alfred Douglas. On 2 June 1897, Wilde tersely told Ross that ‘Bosie has written, for him nicely on literature and my place’, yet enticed Douglas with talks of art and a meeting at the metaphorical ‘double peak of Parnassus.’ In his next letter two days later, in stark contrast to his assurances to Ross, he showered Douglas with admiration and affection: 

Don't think I don't love you. Of course I love you more than anyone else. But our lives are irreparably severed, as far as meeting goes. What is left to us is the knowledge that we love each other, and every day I think of you, and I know you are a poet, and that makes you doubly dear and wonderful.

Then, ten days after he had promised Ross ‘dear boy, there is no one who would stay with me but you’, and after Ross had sent him £250 by check upon his request, on 16 June, Wilde beckoned Douglas to come to Dieppe: 

I have asked you to come here on Saturday. I have a bathing costume for you, but you had better get one in Paris. Also bring me a lot of books, and cigarettes. I cannot get good cigarettes here or at Dieppe.

The romantic reconciliation, however, was bound to end in disaster. Lady Queensbury disapproved of any meeting, and Wilde’s weekly allowance from Constance was preconditioned upon him severing all ties with Alfred Douglas according to their divorce settlement. Moreover, any reunion was bound to cause a scandal in the English press, damning what little possibility of a restoration of Wilde’s literary standing. On either 16 or 17 July 1897, Wilde received a resignation letter from his solicitor Arthur Hansell, who informed him that were him and Douglas to meet, Queensbury would descend upon Dieppe and wreck havoc. It is curious that many biographers accused Ross for deliberately tipping off Constance and/or Hansell out of jealousy, for there was really no evidence of either the actus reus or the mens rea. Both could have heard about the plan from many other sources. For one, Wilde himself had written to Lady Queensbury on 7 or 8 June asking for her consent to a meeting with Alfred Douglas, and she duly replied in the negative to More Adey. Moreover, Queensbury had private detectives in France, and Dieppe (next to Berneval) was full of English tourists who could have conversed with Wilde. 

But Ross did suspect of something, perhaps a reunion. Like many other friends who wished to see Wilde rehabilitated and financially secure, he was ardently against the meeting. And given that he was most likely in love with Wilde at the time, one could reasonably postulate that Ross also had personal grounds to oppose the meeting. As if reassuring an insecure partner, Wilde tried to dispel Ross’s suspicion by scorning Douglas. On 3 June, he wrote: 

The entirely business-like tone of your letter just received makes me nervous that you are a prey of terrible emotions, and that it is merely a form of the calm that hides a storm. Your remark also that my letter is "undated," while as a reproach it wounds me, also seems to denote a change in your friendship towards me. I have now put the date and other facts at the head of my letter. I get no cuttings from Paris, which makes me irritable when I hear of things appearing. Bosie has also written to me to say he is on the eve of a duel! I suppose about this. They said his costume was ridicule.

A day after the meeting in Berneval was called off by Wilde’s solicitor, he told Ross on a postcard that ‘A. D. is not here, nor is he to come.’ Then, two days later, he gave Ross a fuller account of the matter:  

I suppose you know that Hansell has resigned his position, and will not act for me any more. He writes a mysterious letter about 'private information'. I suppose he has heard that Bosie wishes to see me. I have now put off Bosie indefinitely. I have been so harassed, and indeed frightened, at the thought of a possible scandal or trouble. The French papers describe me going about at Longchamps with Bosie at horse-races! So that must suffice for evil tongues.

In his version of the story, he was again the hapless prisoner to the whims and wishes of ‘Bosie’, as if he had never written the letters pleading his ‘dear boy’ to visit Berneval. 

Douglas blamed More Adey and Ross for the thwarted reunion. Immediately after Wilde called off the meeting, Douglas wrote Adey an ugly letter reeking with antisemitic resentment: 

I should like to have some explanation from you as to what your views are and what steps you propose to take to free Oscar (and myself) from the ridiculously transparent Jewish trap which has been laid for him by the admirable George Lewis, and into which you have guided him.

Adey was ill with pneumonia at the time, so Ross replied on his behalf and explained to Douglas why the divorce arrangements between Wilde and Constance forbid the reunion. In his reply, Douglas cursed More and took out his anger on Ross in another revolting letter: 

Your letter is rather absurd. The fact of More having a cold does not alter his responsibility for the extreme stupidity of the arrangement that he has made by which Oscar is at the mercy of a Jew solicitor, nor does the fact that you, personally, happen to agree with the Jew solicitor make your own part in the business any more admirable……Nothing short of a very serious operation can atone for More’s part in the sale of Oscar’s freedom to the Jews. A mere feverish cold is no good at all. But operations cover a multitude of sins as you know or ought to. […] As long as Oscar was a captive in prison and I was morally bound hand and foot, you and More could make your own arrangements, but now your interference is simply an impertinence and the fact that your interference between two perfectly free people is conducted by intrigue and backstairs wire-puling only makes it more intolerable. . . . I may point out that I never suggested that you were responsible in any degree for the silly and old-womanish attempt to separate me and Oscar but you have in your letter today deliberately claimed the responsibility and as you seem to be rather proud of it I have no hesitation in giving you the full credit of it.

The remark about ‘operations cover a multitude of sins’ was clearly referring to the kidney removal surgery which nearly claimed Ross’s life the previous year. This begs the question: for what supposed transgressions was Ross being asked to seek atonement, and by Douglas out of all people? The presumptive claim is perplexing. Moreover, perhaps it had never occurred to Douglas that were Ross to be pulling wires behind the scenes, he would not have stepped into the limelight, exposing himself to Douglas’s verbal rotten vegetables. Indeed, if Ross was truly manipulating events to drive a wedge between Wilde and Douglas, as Croft-Cooke, Wintermans, and Murray alleged, he would not have informed Douglas of his own role in negotiating Wilde’s divorce settlement, for it would only work against himself.

At this point, Ross’s patience with Douglas finally frayed. Douglas’ insults of Adey and offensive remarks aimed at himself did not sit well with Ross. Further fuelling Ross's anger was Douglas's apparent disregard for Wilde's precarious financial situation: not only did Douglas seem indifferent to the risk he posed to Wilde's modest annual income of £150 from Constance, he also showed little willingness to alleviate Wilde’s plight by paying £150 out of his own pockets. Thus, Ross’s reply was laced with biting sarcasm:

With your £150 he will have the added pleasure of your perpetual society and your inspiring temper.

In response, Douglas haughtily and patronisingly proclaimed: 

You still seem to cling to the idea that Oscar does not want to see me, The wish is the father to the thought. You probably overlook the fact that I am passionately devoted to him, and that my longing to see him simply eats my heart away day and night.

But alas, one could not feed on love alone. As Bogle acutely remarked, Alfred Douglas, the spoiled aristocratic boy whose mother indulged his every whim, struggled to comprehend that there were other things that mattered in this world beside his affections. Perhaps in his head, if he and Oscar had loved each other, nothing else ought to matter, not Constance, not Oscar’s children, not his own mother, not even his father’s threats. To him, anyone who dared to thwart his wishes must either be woefully ignorant or wilfully insidious. 

Upon being informed of the row between his two ‘dear boys’, Wilde immediately wrote to console Ross. On 28 June, he wrote that: 

Bosie has sent me a long indictment of you and panegyric of himself, to which I will reply to-morrow. You can understand in what tone I shall answer him. But for you, dear friend, I don't know in what black abyss of want I would have been.

Eight days later, he further promised Ross that he had chastised Douglas and that an apology from Douglas was forthcoming: 

I have had no time to write lately, but I have written a long letter - of twelve foolscap pages - to Bosie, to point out to him that I owe everything to you and your friends, and that whatever life I have as an artist in the future will be due to you. […] I also wrote to him about his calling himself a grand seigneur in comparison to a dear sweet wonderful friend like you, his superior in all fine things. I told him how grotesque, ridiculous, and vulgar such an attempt was.

In the same letter, he implored Ross to visit Berneval. In a rather saccharine if not somewhat erotic manner, Wilde promised Ross ‘a small garret […] with my heart waiting in it for you’. 

A period of silence followed, during which Wilde received no word from Ross, who might well have been nursing his anger or licking his wounds. During this very period, Douglas wrote Ross yet another letter, in which he haughtily flaunted Oscar’s love by stressing how eagerly Wilde implored him to go to France: 

[…] You must admit that if he doesn't want to see me, he has a curious way of expressing his disinclination. When a man writes to one and invites one to come and see him, and says that he trembles with ecstasy at the joy of seeing one again it requires a subtle mind like yours to detect symptoms of his unwillingness to see one.’

We do not know whether Ross believed him. After all, Wilde had never confessed to Ross how eagerly he longed to reunite with Douglas; if anything, his letters gave the opposite impression. Thus it may well be that Ross took Douglas’s flaunt as nonsense. But regardless, Ross did not reply to any of Wilde’s letters or postcards till late July. Ross’s delayed response, attributing his silence to ‘domesticity’, might have struck Wilde as a veiled expression of a wounded heart; thus, perhaps to reassure Ross, he once again upbraided Douglas and lavished Ross with kind words in his reply on 20 July: 

As regards Bosie, I feel you have been, as usual, forbearing and sweet, and too good-tempered. What he must be made to feel is that his vulgar and ridiculous assumption of social superiority must be retracted and apologised for. I have written to him to tell him that quand on est gentilhomme on est gentilhomme, and that for him to try and pose as your social superior because he is the third son of a Scotch marquis and you the third son of a commoner is offensively stupid. There is no difference between gentlemen. Questions of titles are matters of heraldry - no more. I wish you would be strong on this point; the thing should be thrashed out of him. As for his coarse ingratitude in abusing you, to whom, as I have told him, I owe any possibility I have of a new and artistic career, and indeed of life at all, I have no words in which to express my contempt for his lack of imaginative insight, and his dullness of sensitive nature. It makes me quite furious. So pray write, when next you do so, quite calmly, and say that you will not allow any nonsense of social superiority and that if he cannot understand that gentlemen are gentlemen and no more, you have no desire to hear again from him.

Over the subsequent week, Wilde pestered Ross with a flurry of letters and postcards, each brimmed with a mixture of requests and yearnings. Sometimes, like a lovestruck suitor, he beckoned Ross to visit Berneval and stay for long. Yet, in other letters, he dispatched orders for watches and pictures, treating Ross more as an aide than an equal.

By early August, despite the weight of professional and personal obligations, Ross carved out three weeks for Wilde. During this sojourn, Wilde’s creativity flourished and he began to pen The Ballad of Reading Gaol. It was also there and then that Robert Sherard accidentally spotted Wilde and Ross in a ‘sexual embrace’ through curtains accidentally left open by the pair. This was perhaps a ‘golden holiday’ for Ross, as Borland suggested, with Wilde parted from what he believed to be the ‘corrupting influence’ of Douglas, and with himself healing Wilde’s wounds with the balm of love. Yet, as argued above, it might have also been a period of intense struggle, where he was elated by Wilde’s affections but at the same time anxious about another corruption of his beloved artist by his own love just as his creative genius was about to be revived. We would never know whether Ross was content or conflicted under Wilde’s romantic advancement; but regardless, from what we do know, it was almost certain that Ross was very much smitten if not in deeply in love during that enchanted summer in Berneval. 

Yet, again unbeknownst to Ross, despite his promises, Wilde never seriously broke with Douglas. Though few letters from 7 July to 31 August between the two survived, from the ‘loving nature’ of their correspondence which ‘frame this gap’, it is possible that Wilde showered Douglas with ever more ‘exaggerated expressions of affection and devotion’ (as Douglas claimed in his 1929 autobiography) at the same time as he promised Ross that his heart was waiting in the bedroom for him. And given that Douglas was still accusing Ross of pilfering money and exploiting his own absence on 22 July, it was very likely that Wilde never chided Douglas for his offensive conducts towards Ross. 

Days after Ross left Berneval for London, on 28 August, Wilde reunited with Douglas in Rouen. He had informed a great many people except for Ross of his plan to escape from Berneval. After their reunion, ‘St Robert of Phillimore’ was replaced by Douglas as his savour from despair and creative impasse. On 31 August, he told Douglas that: 

I feel that my only hope of again doing beautiful work in art is being with you. It was not so in old days, but now it is different, and you can really recreate in me that energy and sense of joyous power on which art depends. Everyone is furious with me for going back to you, but they don't understand us. I feel that it is only with you that I can do anything at all. Do remake my ruined life for me, and then our friendship and love will have a different meaning to the world. I wish that when we met at Rouen we had not parted at all. There are such wide abysses now of space and land between us. But we love each other. 

Four days later, he finally confessed his real feelings for Douglas to Ross: 

Yes: I saw Bosie, and of course I love him as I always did, with a sense of tragedy and ruin. He was on his best behaviour, and very sweet.

Rather incredulously, after confessing that he had lied about breaking with Douglas, in the same letter, he told Ross that he really wanted him and beckoned Ross to join him in Rouen. We could only imagine how Ross responded to the invitation. 

Two weeks after Rouen, after he managed to borrow some money from a couple of his friends, on 15 September, Wilde and Douglas eloped to Naples, the city where homosexual men could enjoy ‘freedom from morals’. From Naples, he told Ross that his returning to Douglas was ‘psychologically inevitable’, because he could not ‘live without the atmosphere of Love’, and the fact that Douglas had ‘wrecked [his] life’ only made him love Douglas even more. To Ross, it was nothing less than a ‘metaphorical slap in the face’. But to him, the cruellest part of that letter was perhaps: 

I could have lived all my life with you, but you have other claims on you — claims you are too sweet a fellow to disregard — and all you could give me was a week of companionship. […] for the last month at Berneval I was so lonely that I was on the brink of killing myself. The world shuts its gateway against me, and the door of Love lies open. When people speak against me for going back to Bosie, tell them that he offered me love, and that in my loneliness and disgrace I, after three months' struggle against a hideous Philistine world, turned naturally to him. 

Relegating Ross to a part of the ‘hideous Philistine world’ which ‘shut its gateway’ after all of his sweet affection and labour of love was so callous that it seemed almost heartless. Moreover, dangling the dream of a life together before Ross’s eyes only to dash it by blaming his own infidelity on Ross’s absence was perhaps as hurtful as he could have been. Ross was understandably devastated and furious. In the following week he sent Wilde multiple angry letters. In response, Wilde wrote: 

I have not answered your letters, because they distressed me and angered me — and I did not wish to write to you of all people in the world in an angry mood. You have been such a good friend to me: your love, your generosity, your care of me in prison and out of prison are the most lovely things in my life. Without you what would I have done? As you made my life for me, you have a perfect right to say what you choose to me; but I have no right to say anything to you except to tell you how grateful I am to you, and what a pleasure it is to feel gratitude and love at the same time for the same person. I dare say that what I have done is fatal, but it had to be done. It was necessary that Bosie and I should come together again; I saw no other life for myself. For himself he saw no other: all we want now is to be let alone, but the Neapolitan papers are tedious and wish to interview me, etc. They write nicely of me, but I don't want to be written about. I want peace- that is all. Perhaps I shall find it.

Adding insult to injury, after declaring that he saw ‘no other life for [him]self’ but being with Douglas, he told Ross that they have rented a ‘lovely villa over the sea and a nice piano’ in Naples. But when a heartbroken Ross questioned him whether he wanted his[Ross’s] literary assistance at all, Wilde was quick to take him up on the offer. Because Ross’s letters were lost, we could not tell whether his offer was genuine or angry sarcasm; but regardless, despite the betrayal which ended their romantic affair, Ross stayed on as Wilde’s faithful editor, assistant, and literary executor. 

The elopement shocked everyone who had Wilde’s welfare at heart, chief of whom Constance. Mere months before, she was contemplating letting her ex-husband see their children despite the trauma he had inflicted upon the family, as long as he stay away from Alfred Douglas, whom she referred to as ‘that appalling individual’. After the betrayal, there was no way she could stomach paying her ex-husband £3 a week to sustain him and the ‘male equivalent of a mistress […] who had torn her family apart’. Perhaps moved by her agony, More Adey advised Wilde to give up his weekly £3 from Constance ‘in the name of Beauty and Art’, which he refused to do. But regardless, pursuant to the terms of their divorce settlement, Constance promptly terminated his weekly income on 16 November. Under his earnest entreaties over the subsequent weeks, Ross still sent Wilde small sums to keep him financially afloat as much as possible, though he was understandably unwilling to defend Alfred Douglas to Constance. 

Over the next two months, Ross wrote to Wilde about nothing but literature and business. He diligently assisted with the writing and editing of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and Wilde had accepted a great many of his suggestions. However, trouble arose when the poem was about to go to the press in November. As Constance had cut off Wilde’s weekly income, and Lady Queensberry Douglas’s, both men were anxious for immediate profit from the poem. Consequently, Wilde proposed to serialise the Ballad on Reynolds, an English newspaper with a seedy reputation, before having Leonard Smithers publishing it as a book. From a business perspective this was self-destructive, for serialisation would spoil the book sale. Unable to drill such basic commercial awareness into Wilde’s head, Smithers complained that Wilde knew as much about the publishing business ‘as a chrysanthemum’. And despite Wilde’s insistence to Ross that Smithers ‘did not mind a bit’ the poem appearing elsewhere, Smithers had in fact written to Ross on 23 October, threatening that if Wilde was to ‘Reynolds-ise’ him, he shall ‘send back the manuscript of his poem’. Thus Ross was ardently against publishing the Ballad in any newspaper. This, to Alfred Douglas, who probably knew less about business than a chrysanthemum since he had always prided himself on his aristocratic aloofness above the commercial world, seemed like sabotage. In his letter to More Adey, he accused Ross of starving himself and Wilde of money by ‘throwing obstacles in the way of Oscar’s gaining money by his literary work’. The fact that Douglas seemed to have Wilde’s implicit support was the last straw for Ross. On 25 November 1897, Ross wrote to Smithers in resignation of his duty as Wilde’s executor: 

I regret to inform you that I have ceased to be on intimate terms with Oscar Wilde or to enjoy his confidence in business or any other matter…Alfred Douglas has written to a common friend that I have tried to prevent any considerable sum being obtained for the poem.

In response, Wilde protested to Smithers that: 

Robbie may not wish to be worried any more by my business affairs. He has had endless worry for two years over them but it would be fairer of him to say that it is too much worry to go on, than that he finds he has not my confidence. Such a statement is childish and, if taken seriously by you, would lead you to think that I was at once dense of judgment and coarsely ungrateful in nature.

Wilde seemed painfully oblivious to Ross’s pain. In his correspondence with all of his friends, Ross included, he spilled more ink arguing that Alfred Douglas was not in fact a ‘disreputable person’ than soothing Ross’s hurt after a second betrayal. In a follow-up letter to Smithers, he even complained that Ross was behaving ‘unkindly’ to him, and that Ross had sought to ‘claim the crown of thorns’ of the tragedy ‘on the ground that [his] feelings ha[d] been harrowed’. And although he acquiesced to Ross’s breaking up of their ‘intimate friendship’, he grumbled to Ross that the termination of their business relationship was ‘unjust, unwarranted, and unkind. He went so far as saying to Ross: 

I do think you make wonderfully little allowance for a man like myself — now ruined, broken-hearted and thoroughly unhappy. You stab me with a thousand phrases: if one phrase of mine shrills through the air near you, you cry out that you are wounded to death.

The accusation of making insufficient allowance was shockingly inconsiderate. After all, Ross had raised money for him, made time for him, given him his heart and body and provided him with substantial assistance even after the betrayal had left him heartbroken. Perhaps Wilde did not fully grasp the fact that Ross was under no obligation to provide him with comfort or assistance, and that the generosity hitherto had been premised upon love, respect, and mutual trust. 

It is difficult to determine why Wilde was so contradictory in his letters to Ross and Douglas, and biographers all had different guesses. Perhaps, as Frankel postulated, his ambition to restore himself in society through the more ‘upstanding and respectable’ Ross by reforming his lifestyle and reconciling with Constance faltered under repeated encounters with vicious homophobia, which reverted him to his old ways and rekindled his infatuation with Douglas. Or perhaps he simply wanted to enjoy the ‘safe, predictable, and consoling homespun of Robbie’s love’ and the ‘dazzling and dangerous love of Bosie Douglas’ at the same time as McKenna contended.Indeed, monogamy was never quite his style. As he confided to John Fothergill: 

Two loves have I:  The one of comfort;  The other of despair.  The one has black;  The other golden hair.

Or, if one is to be less charitable, he could have been ‘playing off Ross against Douglas’, manipulating Ross’s love to keep him as his free personal assistant, whilst intending to ‘join Douglas as soon as he could without endangering his income’. Douglas himself subscribed to this cynical version of events. In his Autobiography, Douglas rather cruelly boasted that Wilde cared more for ‘my little finger’ than for Ross’s ‘body and soul’ put together. And Rupert Croft-Cooke remembered that Douglas had once told him that Wilde and him kept Ross around as someone ‘useful’ in attending to ‘occasional matters of business’ which they were ‘too indolent’ to attend to themselves. Personally, I see elements of truth in all three interpretations (although to different extents), but I believe Wilde was less socially-minded than in the first version, (somewhat) more genuine in his love than in the second, and more noble a personality than in the third. His will might have faltered, his loyalties were possibly split, and he may have wished to keep Ross as a useful aid, but I believe underlying all of these was the irreconcilable tension between his Apollonian and Dionysian impulses. In Ross, and perhaps in Berneval as well, he saw the possibility of a more orderly, wholesome, and tranquil life, where he could derive artistic inspirations in the embrace of the sun and the sea;  whilst Douglas, and perhaps Rouen, Naples, and Paris too, constantly tempted him with the exquisitely decadent pleasures in the shadows of the metropoles. He saw artistic salvation in both men, and therefore he implored both men to ‘remake’ his ruined life for him.

It is even more difficult to scale Ross’s devastation. Most of his letters to Wilde over this period were either lost or destroyed. The few lines which survived read like a heartbroken spouse in a shattered marriage. For one, after discovering Wilde had been lying about his feelings for Douglas, Ross tersely admonished him: 

Remember always that you committed the unpardonable and vulgar error of being found out.

The choice of passive voice intriguingly obscures the subject who was doing the ‘f[inding] out’ and leaves much room for imagination. This was probably as much an allusion to Wilde being caught by Queensberry for associating with male renters as to him being ‘found out’ by Ross for associating with Alfred Douglas. The interplay, moreover, was clearly warning Wilde against another disastrous scandal arising out of affair with Douglas. Subsequently, Wilde proposal to dedicate the second edition of The Ballad of Reading Gaol to Ross with the words ‘When I came out of prison some met me with garments / and spices and others with wise counsel / You met me with love’ was sharply dismissed by Ross in his letter to Leonard Smithers, in which he wrote: 

I think the dedication with or without initials is ROT and at all events quite unsuitable to a poem of that sort…… I am convinced that dear Oscar meant to tell me and Douglas and two or three other people that each was intended. That only amuses me. 

The passage was brimming with the hurt, disillusionment, and passive-aggressiveness of a lover betrayed. It is worth noting that this dedication was first proposed to Ross on 28 May 1897, in that very letter Wilde had canonised Ross as ‘St. Robert of Phillimore’ and promised him that he wanted ‘no other’ in this world. Therefore, Lee was most likely right in postulating that Ross was heartbroken by the fact that ‘the man who had written him words of love a few months before had not trusted him enough tell him the truth’, and had instead ‘lied over and over’ about his feelings for Douglas. He might have also been deeply disillusioned in the character of the man he had loved and admired. As Bogle suggested, because he would ‘do anything he could for Oscar’, he had probably believed in an implicit understanding of mutual support and trust. The relevatin that Wilde might not fully grasp the depth of his devotion, or worse, that a genuine mutual trust had perhaps never existed between them, then, must have been jarring. 

But the heartache Ross experienced was not merely a matter of betrayed love, for Wilde’s return to Douglas had torn apart the very fabric of Ross’s aspirations and dreams for Wilde. As a friend, he had wished Wilde a healthy long life after prison, yet his hope was dashed by Wilde’s returning to decadence. Above all, he had worked tirelessly to repair Wilde’s relationship with Constance, hoping to restore his family life if not some semblance of respectability in the eyes of society. Yet, Wilde’s reunion with Douglas had irrevocably cast these hopes adrift, severing the fragile ties that might have reconnected Wilde with his sons. Moreover, as an admirer of Wilde’s artistic genius, Ross must have been pained by the fact that his own effort to rehabilitate ‘the literary Oscar Wilde’ to the European reading public by presenting him as ‘reformed, respectable, and not dangerous to read’ was endlessly sabotaged by Wilde himself —— his cohabitation with Alfred Douglas in Naples had raised endless English eyebrows, for one. 

Compared to the ‘branding problem’, however, Ross was probably more devastated by Wilde’s return to the ‘slough of coarse pleasures’ which he had implored Ross to save his soul from merely five months ago. The memory of Wilde begging for salvation from the snare of ‘Bosie’ was still fresh in Ross’s mind, and reading De Profundis word for word multiple times must have further convinced Ross of the exigency of saving Wilde’s art from Douglas’s destructive ‘lack of imagination’. And as mentioned, in his unfinished manuscript 23 years later, Ross fondly recalled Wilde’s post-prison days as a return to the state of nature before corruption: he was enjoying ‘the trees and the grass and the country scents and sounds’ like ‘a saree-bred child might enjoy them on his first day in the country’, and such enjoyment filled him with endless creativity, enabling his imagination to turn Reading Gaol into an ‘enchanted castle’. Thus it was possible that Ross saw Wilde’s disastrous return to Douglas as a result of his own failure to protect Wilde from corrupting influences, and he might have even considered himself partly responsible for failing to suppress his own love and ‘dragging’ Wilde back into ‘homosexual practices’. Therefore, in December 1897, beyond being shattered as a lover and disappointed as a friend, Ross was possibly devastated above all by his sense of guilt for yet again seeing Oscar Wilde expelled from his Garden of Eden. 

VII. 

After breaking off both his ‘intimate friendship’ and professional relationship with Wilde on 25 November 1897, Ross spent the next couple of months licking his wounds and trying to shut Wilde out of his life. The breakup also made Ross begin to contemplate resuming his own literary career: his best short story, A Case at the Museum, was penned in early 1898 and published in October in Cornhill Magazine. Between November 1897 and January 1898, he did not write to Wilde at all, though he sent him newspaper cuttings to update him on English literary news every once in a while despite his own illness during that harsh winter. When spring finally arrived, Ross was struck by the terrible news of the death of Aubrey Beardsley, another dear artist friend who was only 25 years old. Thus Ross was hardly in a state to cater to Wilde’s needs physically or mentally. 

Perhaps realising that he could not do without Ross’s literary and personal assistance, from 25 November to 15 December 1897, Wilde begged for Ross’s forgiveness and return via every channel possible. On 6 December, he wrote Ross a long letter explaining his conduct and expressing his gratitude: 

I knew that I was running a fearful risk of losing my income by being with Bosie — I was warned on all sides: my eyes were not blinded. Still l I was a good deal staggered by the blow: one may go to a dentist of one's own free will, but the moment of tooth-extraction is painful, as More's acquiescence in Mr. Hargrove's refusal to pay Mr. Holman wounded me — and I shot poisoned arrows back. […] You have done wonderful things for me; but the Nemesis of circumstances, the Nemesis of character has been too strong for me; and, as I said to More, I think I was a problem for which there was no solution..

On the same day, he reiterated the message of gratitude in his letter to Leonard Smithers: 

I am quite broken-hearted about Bobbie's attitude towards me, and the way he has written of me to Alfred Douglas. But nothing can ever spoil the memory of his wonderful devotion to me, or rob me of the pleasure of being deeply grateful to him for the love he showed me.

With the expectation that Smithers would serve as his intermediary in communicating with Ross, he also emphasised that he had parted ways with Alfred Douglas, who was ‘on the way to Paris’. But if Ross was heartbroken by his failure to save Wilde from himself, the apology of ‘the Nemesis of character ha[d] been too strong’ probably only served to rub salt into his wounds. In any case, Ross did not reply to his letters, and Wilde only heard back from Leonard Smithers, who advised him to ‘make it up with Robbie’. In response, on 10 December, he told Smithers: 

[…] I would gladly go on my knees from here to Naples if Robbie would be nice to me. I was upset and distressed at everything that had happened, and wrote bitterly - not about anything that was said about me but about what was acquiesced in about someone else. […] I still hope that Robbie may be kind to me again. 

But at the same time as he begged for forgiveness and confessed that he was ‘deeply sorry’ for the pain he had inflicted on Ross, Wilde also complained to Smithers about Ross’s reluctance to argue against Constance on the matter of whether Alfred Douglas was indeed a ‘disreputable person’. Moreover, he also grumbled that Ross ‘like most people […] only realises the pain he gets and not the pain he gives.’ In particular, he said:

Robbie's refusal to interest himself in my poem I feel is inartistic of him - my work as a poet is separate from my life as a man - and as for my life, it is one ruined, unhappy, lonely and disgraced. All pity, or the sense of its beauty, seems to me dead in the world.

A day later, perhaps realising that Ross would not take too kindly to his defensiveness when it came to Alfred Douglas, Wilde sent a more suppliant apology to Smithers professing his love for Ross yet again:  

As for dear Robbie, if he will kindly send me out a pair of his oldest boots I will blacken them with pleasure, and send them back to him with a sonnet. I have loved Robbie all my life, and have not the smallest intention of giving up loving him. Of all my old friends he is the one who has the most beautiful nature; had my other friends been like him, I would not be the pariah-dog of the nineteenth century. But natures like his are not found twice in a life-time. When dear Robbie heavily bombarded me (an unfair thing, as unfortified places are usually respected in civilised war) I bore it with patriarchal patience. I admit, however, that when he seemed to me slightly casual about someone else, I sent up a rocket of several colours. I am sorry I did so.

And as if worrying that the letters to Smithers were not enough, Wilde also asked More Adey to pass on his love to Robbie in his 15 December letter. 

However, Ross could not renounce his love for Oscar Wilde. Despite his every effort to set boundaries and cut the man who had hurt him so terribly out of his life, he could not help but to return to him. When Wilde finally broke with Douglas and beckoned Ross to meet him in Paris in February, Ross gave in; and when they met, it did not take much for Ross to forgive Wilde. And when Constance passed away in April 1898, upon receiving Wilde’s telegraph begging for his presence, Ross at once dropped everything and left for Paris, though he was subsequently very disappointed by how little Wilde was impacted by his ex-wife’s death. Moreover, whilst Alfred Douglas described Wilde as ‘a fat old prostitute’ over his incessant demands for money, Ross continued to dole out money to Wilde to keep him afloat between 1898 and 1899, even when he suspected that Wilde was lavishing money on random boys off the streets of Paris. Notably, once, despite knowing that Wilde was lying to him, despite being strapped for cash himself, and despite the fact that he had not gotten over the hurt, when Wilde asked him for money, Ross sold one of his beloved paintings and asked Leonard Smithers to send £5 to Wilde without stating the source of the money. In return, in February 1899, Ross received a short dedication on a new edition of The Importance of Being Earnest, the brilliant play which Wilde himself never took very seriously.

Over much of 1899, Ross travelled around Europe with his friends and family to recuperate from illness, yet ever so often he gave in to Wilde’s demand for comfort and company. In April 1899, Wilde sent Ross a series of postcards begging him to come to Switzerland because he was desperately unhappy after leaving Harold Mellor. Upon Wilde’s earnest beckoning, Ross headed to Switzerland despite being ill at the time. There, Ross paid off every hotel bill Wilde had racked up out of his own pockets, bought him train tickets, brought him back to Paris, and spent several days with Wilde trying to get him sobered up. In August, Ross fell ill again and spent a couple of weeks in the countryside with More Adey. Then, in October, before joining his mother and niece in Italy, he deliberately stopped at Paris to see Wilde again upon his request.  

Wilde decayed rapidly over the two years, and Ross constantly tried to save Wilde from himself. Apart from the old habits of lavishing money on beautiful clothes and beautiful boys, alcoholism was a particular cause for concern. According to his acquaintances, though Wilde had never been ‘exactly sober’, but since 1898 he began drinking excessive quantities of champagne and absinthe, and was often barely able to ‘stagger from the Madeleine to the Opera’. One claimed that he also used cocaine regularly. Moreover, insomnia was increasingly a problem. In March 1898, he asked Ross for money to rent two rooms ‘for insomnia’, and as he sunk deeper into alcoholism, he also began spending every night talking non-stop to everyone who cared to listen, from Ferdinand Esterhazy to poor street girls. This was most likely the consequence of severe depression. or other mental illnesses. Unfortunately, without modern knowledge into mental illness, he was never diagnosed and seldom found understanding. Even Ross, who wanted nothing but the best for Wilde, found it difficult to sympathise with his struggles or to help him at times. For one, Ross advised most friends that if they were to send Wilde anything, it was better to send clothes than money, for money would be squandered in self-destructive ways in no time. Similarly, when he was with Wilde in Switzerland in April 1999, he sternly warned Wilde of the consequences of alcoholism and ordered him to sober up, but was unable to prevent a relapse six months later. Ross blamed himself for not having ‘ordered around’ Wilde enough to keep him sober; however, perhaps Wilde was right in complaining that ‘Robbie is a dear but he does not understand’.

More intriguingly, Ross also tried to steer Wilde’s away from homosexuality despite his own relationships with men, and even as he occasionally engaged in polyamorous affairs with Wilde and his lovers. For one, he objected to Wilde taking unfurnished apartments for fear that he would take endless Parisian street boys to bed if he was accorded such freedom. He also lectured Wilde on associating with ‘gutter perverts’ and even went so far as suggesting another marriage. Yet, this apparent contradiction in Ross's stance was most likely not due to hypocrisy or wariness for societal opinion as some have suggested.: after all, he rarely lectured any other friend on their sexuality, and he opposed several marriages of convenience of his homosexual friends. I believe the key to unravelling this contradiction is in Wilde’s retort to Ross’s admonitions in mid-1898: 

It is a curious thing, dear little absurd Robbie, that you now always think that I am in the wrong. […] The only thing that consoles me is that your moral attitude towards yourself is even more severe than your moral attitude towards others. Yours is the pathological tragedy of the hybrid-the Pagan-Catholic. You exemplify the beauty and uselessness of conscience.  When I read your often bitter censures of me in your stern lectures, I think of your stern censures of yourself — of your awful curtain lectures — delivered alone — listened to in silence — unanswerable merely because they are unanswered. Judge and prisoner the same person — yourself your own gaoler. 

Echoing the subtle subtext in Ross’s unfinished manuscript reflecting on Wilde’s immediate post-prison days, here, again, we see Ross at once defying homophobia and internalising it: he never consciously denied his love for men, yet he could not help but to see it as his sin and corruption. His internalised homophobia, I believe, was not social but religious and psychological in nature: he did not shy away from associating with homosexual men as if it was a social blight, and he never intended to marry some poor girl to win societal acceptance, but his conscience before God was never at ease. Thus, he was his own ‘gaoler’ constantly engaged in self-flagellation. Consequently, he could accept homosexuality in anyone but the man he loved the most: everyone, including himself, could succumb to their base nature, but the artistic genius must be shielded from corruption. 

In April 1900, Ross spent his final days of joy with Wilde after recovering from a horrible flu, a period he later described with warmth in a letter to Adela Schuster. In the letter, Ross recalled that during their brief sojourn in Rome, Wilde wanted to be received into the Catholic Church through him, but he[Ross] believed that there was no priest in Rome sufficiently intelligent to debate theology with Wilde. Moreover, he fondly remembered in great detail how Wilde ‘made a good story’ out of the stay with him by playfully telling people that ‘whenever he[Wilde] wanted to be a Catholic I[Ross] stood at the door with a flaming sword which only turned in one direction and prevented him from entering’. But the happiness was tinged with a strong carpe diem flavour. In Rome, Wilde indulged in numerous liaisons with beautiful boys, and before leaving, he mused that: 

In the mortal sphere I have fallen in and out of love, and fluttered hawks and doves alike. How evil it is to buy Love, and how evil to sell it! And yet what purple hours one can snatch form that grey slowly-moving thing we call Time! My mouth is twisted with kissing, and I feed on fevers.

The awareness of his own mortality was poignant, for that ‘grey slowly-moving thing’ was to  grind to a halt for him in just eight months. 

Despite Ross’s every effort, in the end, he could not prevent Wilde’s life from slipping through his fingers. After returning to Paris, he wandered slowly from cafe to cafe looking pale, lonely, and desolate. One of his old friends recalled him saying that he had ‘lived all there was to live’, and that ‘it won’t be long’ before he finally meets the end. In October, the ear infection he had caught in Reading Prison remised. Consequently, he had to undergo a major operation which exteriorised his middle ear and the mastoid cavity in order to prevent the infection from spreading to his brain, this resulted in permanent and complete hearing loss in his left ear. Wilde downplayed the condition’s seriousness to Ross before the operation, but sent him two consecutive telegraphs begging him to come to Paris as soon as possible because he was ‘terribly weak’. Ross immediately set aside everything and headed for Paris, where he stayed with Wilde for a month, taking care of him every day and accompanying him on drives. After being reassured by the doctor that Wilde was recovering, on 13 November, Ross left for the South of France to care for his ailing mother. 

However, unbeknownst to all of them, the surgery did not prevent the invisible bacteria’s advancement towards Wilde’s brain. Merely two weeks later, on 26 November, Ross received an urgent letter from Reginald Turner (who had remained in Paris) informing him that Wilde was very unwell. On 27 November, Turner sent Ross two other ominous letters asking Ross what shall happen upon Wilde’s death, followed by another message the next day informing Ross that ‘it’s all over with Oscar’. Ross caught the express train to Paris at once. Upon arriving in Paris on 29 November, he found Wilde emaciated, struggling to breathe, and unable to talk. This at once persuaded Ross that Oscar was, in fact, dying. Remembering his promise in Rome to bring a Catholic priest to Wilde’s deathbed, Ross, though still weary from the 17-hour train journey, immediately went about Paris to search for a priest that would accept Wilde into the Catholic Church as he[Wilde] had wished. It was not until evening that he managed to find Father Cuthbert Dunne to administer last rites for Wilde. After fulfilling his promise to Wilde, Ross wired Harris, Adrian Hope, and Alfred Douglas about Wilde’s urgent condition late at night, before collapsing exhausted himself. That night was restless, with numerous nurse's calls and a final summons to Wilde's side as dawn neared at 5:30 a.m., marking the beginning of the end. The horrible process lasted for nearly ten hours, and Ross was by his deathbed witnessing every bit of the gruesome struggle. He would later recall this horrible day in painfully graphic details to More Adey: 

[…] I had never heard anything like it before; it sounded like the horrible turning of a crank, and it never ceased until the end. His eyes did not respond to the light test any longer. Foam and blood came from his mouth, and had to be wiped away by someone standing by him all the time. […] From 1 o’clock we did not leave the room; the painful noise from the throat became louder and louder. […] at 1.45 the time of his breathing altered. I went to the bedside and held his hand, his pulse began to flutter. He heaved a deep sign, the only natural one I had heard since I arrived, the limbs seemed to stretch involuntarily, the breathing came fainter; he passed at 10 minutes to 2 p.m. exactly. 

The pain was palpable through the text. We can scarcely fathom his agony when wiping foam and blood from the lips of a beloved for hours, or when sensing the pulse of the man he had cherished so dearly grow ever fainter under his fingertips as he held his hand for the final time. After washing and cleaning Wilde’s body, Ross requested Maurice Gilbert to take a deathbed picture of him, the picture is still preserved in the Robert Ross Memorial Collection at Oxford today. 

Douglas would later accuse Ross of misleading him to prevent him from seeing Wilde one last time. With all due respect for the deceased, this is plainly nonsense. Firstly, if Ross actually believed that Wilde was dying in early November, when he telegram Douglas to inform him that Wilde was ill but was recovering, he would not have left on 13 November himself only to return in haste barely 24 hours before Wilde’s death. Secondly, Ross did telegram Douglas on 29 November not long after he arrived in Paris himself. It could hardly have been more urgent. The unfortunately fact was simply that Ross himself had arrived too late. Thirdly, even Laura Lee, who is often prone to giving Alfred Douglas excessive benefit of the doubt, could not help but to point out that Douglas only had his own lusts to blame for the lack of farewells to his former lover. He had countless opportunities to visit Wilde in Paris between August and November —— after all, unlike Ross, he did not have to work and had just inherited a substantial amount of money from his deceased father. But instead, he chose to buy a stable in Chantilly and idle there; moreover, even when he visited Paris in October, he spent all of his time cavorting with cabaret boys instead of visiting Wilde.

Entangled in French bureaucratic red tapes and constrained by financial shortages, Wilde could only be laid to rest in a modest, provisional grave in Bagneux. At his funeral, Alfred Douglas was the chief mourner leading all of Wilde’s friends and former lovers. In Douglas’s shadow, Ross quietly laid on Wilde’s grave a wreath with the simple yet heartfelt inscription ‘From the admirer of his genius, a tribute to his literary achievements’. I believe this proved Maureen Borland right in believing that Ross mourned for the waste of Wilde’s genius, and that in his tormented heart he ‘longed for the Wilde of former years, the man who had dominated London theatre-land, the man who had, before hie his imprisonment, been destined to become one of the greatest dramatists of the century.’ As he laid the wreath, Ross silently vowed that once he acquire sufficient means, he shall secure a more magnificent final abode befitting Oscar Wilde, ideally in Père Lachaise, that famous resting place of Abelard and Heloise. 

[hockeylovee12]

Anyone But Him

Prologue-Discontinued Version

Jack Hughes/Original Character

Summary: The day Luke Hughes has been waiting years for finally arrives-Draft Day, little does he know this day will bring a new beginning for more than just him.

WARNINGS: Underage Drinking, mentions of death of a parent

A/N: I'm gonna be so honest I'm not sure if this classifies as a prologue because I couldn't give you the definition of one, but I had already planned out all my chapters when I decided to add this so now it's called a prologue. I have posted previous versions of a story entitled Anyone But Him on this tumblr but I have spent the last few months deciding I want to rewrite it. The previous versions will not be deleted but I will not be continuing them either. Starting from this chapter will be the series I will be writing from. Also I’m aware Luke was drafted in July not June because of Covid but for this story Covid did not happen, but the draft was still switched to a remote version due to something else. This is also posted on AO3 and I hope you enjoy it!

June 20th, 2021, Draft Day

The walls surrounding the spacious living room in Canton, Michigan owned by Ellen and Jim Hughes, appear to vibrate with a mixture of excitement and anticipation as a large crowd of familiar faces gather inside the space, their voices laced with emotion as they eagerly whisper predictions and hopes for the upcoming moment. 

Along the edges of the room, a camera crew stands silently, capturing this important moment. Their lenses remain focused on the nervous faces, surrounding the large television. 

At the center of attention, 17-year-old Luke Hughes sits rigidly on the edge of his seat, his navy blue suit stretching across his broad shoulders and tall frame. 

As he watches the numbers on the television continue to descend, counting down to the next draft pick, his heart relentlessly thumps against his ribcage and his fingers begin to tremble uncontrollably, betraying his conscious efforts at appearing calm. 

To the right of him, his oldest brother Quinn-the one he’s idolized for years-sits his posture impeccable as his fingers move his dark brown hair away from his face. Quinn silently offers a nod, a small gesture of reassurance, in an attempt to ease his youngest brother's nerves. 

On the other side of Luke, his brother Jack, remains calm and collected, his body leaning comfortably against the back of the couch, as he allows a playful grin to curl at the corner of his mouth as if to say “Been there, Done that” 

They’ve been through this before, not in this exact space, but the same anticipation, same nervousness, of waiting to hear your name called, to find out if all the work, all the late-night practices, all the hours you spent watching the same plays over and over again, if all of it was enough to make it to the NHL. 

Quinn had endured this waiting game in 2018, as the Canucks 7th overall pick, and Jack-who had a much shorter waiting period being first overall- felt the same nerves, up until the moment the New Jersey Devils announced his name, and now it’s Luke’s turn. 

The waiting is almost suffocating as the numbers continue winding down. The fourth pick would be chosen soon, a pick held by the Devils. 

Luke turns his head to the space next to Quinn, where the gorgeous girl with light brown hair and a flowy blue dress, is perched on the edge of her seat, her blue eyes glued to the screen with unwavering focus and concentration. His gaze lingers there for a moment longer, his heart fluttering with a feeling he can’t quite name yet. It’s the same girl who knows nearly everything about him, the one who’s shown up to every single one of his games for the past five years, the one who’s spent more nights in his bed than he could count, the one who sees him as as more than just a friend, the one that sees him as a brother. It’s Sadie, his best friend. 

His eyes flutter to the conjoining side of the couch where his mother Ellen and grandmother Penny are seated, their hands clasped tightly together and their eyes beaming with a mixture of pride and anxiety. 

On the other side of Jack, Jim, their father, and his younger brother Marty, share a tense posture from two armchairs, strategically placed next to the couch, their shoulders stiff with anticipation.

The coffee table in front of Luke is adorned with an array of hats each proudly representing a different NHL team. Luke nervously fiddles with his tie, his fingers itching to pick one up, to claim it as his own, to write his own future. But Not yet, Not until his name is called. 

Luke stares at the hats, their colors blurring as his thoughts race. This moment was more than just a personal milestone, this was his whole life, everything he has worked for since he was two years old, everything his family has worked for, his coaches, his teammates, every game, every win, every loss, all of it has led to this moment. His moment.

The final seconds on the screen wind down, and the crowded room falls into a hushed silence, every eye trained on the screen as Tom Fitzgerald, the General Manager for the New Jersey Devils, approaches the podium. 

Luke feels an invisible sting tugging at his spine, pulling him upright, and every muscle in his body begins to coil, prepapering to spring or recoil-whichever fate decides. The pulse in his throat hums, a silent prayer escaping through his clenched teeth, while the rest of the room, a mirror of anticipation, holds its breath. 

“With the fourth overall pick the New Jersey Devils are proud to select…from the USA National Development Program…Luke Hughes”

The words hang in the air suspended for a moment, before reality sets in and the room erupts into chaos, a mixture of cheers and applause filling the room. 

Jack, unable to contain his excitement after learning his baby brother was drafted by his team, practically tackles Luke in a bear hug, his joy contagious, as Quinn wraps both his brothers in a tight hug, congratulating Luke. 

Sadie stands beside him, her own smile beaming with pride and joy “The Devils!” she exclaims with a joyful laugh, as Luke turns to hug her tightly. 

Deafening cheers continue to erupt as Luke’s arms squeeze tightly around each member of his family. 

The TV in the background buzzes with commentary from the draft analysis. Their voices blend together with excitement “...and there you have it folks, Luke Hughes, will be joining his brother Jack in the NHL, what an incredible moment for the Hughes family…”

Luke’s eyes briefly flicker to the screen as one commentator adds, “...and let’s not forget, Luke is already committed to the University of Michigan, like his brother Quinn. What a powerhouse program they’re building there. He’s going to make quite the impact in the NCAA before he takes the ice in the NHL.” 

He turns his eyes back towards Sadie, a mixture of excitement rising inside him, at the reminder, he gets to go to his dream school, with his best friend. He watches Sadie tightly embrace his mom, tears of joy streaming down both their faces, as Jack reaches down to pick up a red hat with the iconic Devils logo, and hands it to Luke, who places it on his head. He made it. 

***

About an hour later the initial excitement and shock had begun to dispute, Luke had finally finished the whirlwind of interviews he found himself in, and he’s able to join the lively party taking place in the backyard courtesy of his parents. 

As he steps outside he’s met with a mixture of chaos and excitement. The nearly 70 people that were previously crowding inside the living room, had all spilled out into the backyard. 

The scent of fresh pizza mingled with the tang of barbecue sauce-an elite combination-accompanied by laughter, chatter and loud music coming from the speakers, fill the outside air. 

Luke maneuvers his way through the crowd of people, exchanging hugs, and fist bumps with friends and family, until he arrives at the barbecue area where a group of his friends are standing. 

He grabs a paper plate from a nearby stack and selects a piece of pepperoni pizza, before standing to the side of the group and listening in, a tap on his shoulder pulls him from his thoughts. 

He turns around to see Sadie standing there with a smile plastered across her face. 

“Congratulations!” Sadie exclaims, pulling him into a tight hug. 

 Luke lets his arms rest around her small waist for a moment longer, the feeling of his heart fluttering returning. 

“Thanks Sades,” Luke replies grinning from ear to ear “I couldn’t have done it without you” 

Sadie playfully rolls her eyes before replying with a smirk “Oh please, you would’ve made it either way” 

Luke shares a similar smirk before countering “Nuh uh I think showing up to my games was crucial to my success. Kinda like having my own personal cheerleader” 

Sadie laughs and narrows her eyes in his direction, delivering a playful threat “Watch it Lukey, You know I’ll push you into pool if I need too” 

The two exchange a look, a look only readable by them as a result of several years of friendship. 

The moment is interrupted by one of their friends Michael, a friend from high school, inviting them into the lively debate over the ultimate question of which pizza topping reigns supreme “Luke, Sadie help us settle this, which is better pepperoni or sausage?” 

“Definitely pepperoni” Luke declares with no hesitation

Michael shakes his head in disagreement, before continuing the conversation “None of you have taste buds!” he claims. 

A wave of laughter washes over the group, when Luke hears a voice call his name “Hey Hughes!”

He turns around to see his close friend Chase effortlessly weaving his way through the crowd to reach him. 

Luke takes a few steps closer to Chase, slightly distancing himself from the group. “Chase, hey man” Luke greets with a casual nod

With a mischievous glint in his eye, Chase leans in closer to Luke and directs his gaze towards Sadie, “Alright spill it,” Chase begins lowering his voice despite the noise around them “Have you talked to Sadie yet?”

Luke Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard, his gaze instinctively seeking out the girl in question, who was now energetically tossing her hands up, defending her love for pineapple on pizza. 

“Yeah, I’ve…talked to her” Luke sheepishly responds. It’s not entirely a lie-he did talk to her about the draft-but that’s not what Chase was asking. 

“You know what I mean, about how you feel?” Chase presses his simple question speaking volumes to the complex feelings that stirred within him. 

Chase was one of the few people that knew how Luke felt about Sadie, beyond their platonic relationship, and he only found out after their senior prom prior, when Luke had planned on taking Sadie, as friends-at least that’s what he told her-but their plans fell short, when another guy asked Sadie, leaving Luke somewhat heartbroken, although he wasn’t quiet sure why. Chase on the other hand, quickly put the pieces together, and has been trying to offer encouragement ever since. 

“No” Luke confesses, tugging at the collar of his shirt, suddenly feeling suffocated by the formality of it. “I haven’t said anything, we’ll both be at Michigan come fall and I just I just don’t wanna mess up a good thing you know” 

Luke was more than happy to use the excuse of Michigan to end this conversation, because it was true, Luke didn’t need to worry about it now, They still have at least two years ahead of them, it was plenty of time for him to figure out his feelings. 

Chase claps him on the shoulder, a gesture heavy with unvoiced understanding “Well I guess you got time, just don’t wait too long for someone else to swoop her up, cus she’s a catch” he says a hint of encouragement and teasing threading through his tone “And hey now that you’re a first-round NHL pick, anythings possible right”

“Right,” Luke repeats, reassured by the simplicity in Chase’s logic. Anything is possible, including finally telling Sadie about the way his heart speeds up whenever she’s around or how he wishes more than anything he could lean over and kiss her. 

But not today. Today is a day for celebration. The other stuff well that can wait.

***

The evening sky continues to paint a canvas of deep blues and purples as laughter mingles with the fading daylight. Luke’s hand is still tingling from the countless handshakes and high fives he’s given through the night, when Jack’s teasing voice cuts through the noise. 

“Hey Moosey, come here” Jack beckons flashing a mischievous grin, well this ought be fun, Luke thinks as he walks closer toward his brother, and now future teammate. 

Quinn appears beside Jack, nodding in agreement, a silent partner in whatever scheme Jack has planned. 

Quinn wraps an arm around Luke’s shoulder and steers him through the crowd towards a more secluded area. 

Once their feet are planted in an area, out of sight from the majority of the guests, Quinn being the only one of the three who could legally drink, reaches behind a plant, and pulls out three bottles of beer, which he had snuck from the drink station a few minutes prior. 

Jack and Luke exchange a look-the kind shared by siblings who knew all too well the tale of bending a few rules. 

“Seriously” Luke raises an eyebrow glancing at Quinn. 

Despite prior accusations, typically coming from their mom or dad, Quinn was not accustomed to sneaking alcohol for his youngest brother, seeing as how Quinn still sees him as the baby of the family.

Jack on the other hand, had no issues, flashing a compelling smile, towards the pretty girl, who works weekends at a nearby liquor store, in exchange for her ‘forgetting’ to check his ID, allowing Jack to successfully buy a bottle or two for his younger brother. 

“Only because it’s your night,” Quinn says, the corners of his mouth twitching with suppressed amusement. 

Jack checks over his shoulder before passing one bottle to Luke “Don’t worry, I’ll take the fall if mom catches us” Jack assures knowing Ellen and Jim would not be too pleased to find Quinn drinking, let alone all three of them, especially considering the legality of it. 

Luke wraps his fingers around the cold bottle, and pops the cap off, a fizzing sound erupting. 

“Consider this like a rite of passage” Jack says his voice low but warm, as he raises his bottle towards the middle of the three brothers, a clicking sound occurring as Luke and Quinn do the same. 

Luke brings the beer to his lips, the taste of bitterness and roasted barley trickling on his taste buds. 

“Thanks guys” Luke murmurs, receiving a nod in response. 

The backyard behind them, echos with music, but in their bubble it’s just the three of them. 

After a few more sips, private words and laughs are exchanged, Luke rejoins the party, weaving through the backyard. 

***

Two hours pass by, and the party begins to slowly disperse. Luke navigates his way through the thinning crowd of people, his mind seeking a moment of solitude as the noise and energy surrounding him starts to blur. 

“Luke! A photo?” 

“Congrats again man!” 

“Can’t wait to see you play” 

The voices bounce around him, well-meaning but overwhelming. Finally he reaches the sliding doors leading to the kitchen, and slips inside to the quiet, deserted space. 

Luke, stands alone, leaning against the cool countertops, closing his eyes as he lets out a measure breath. His only company the hum of the refrigerator and his thoughts. 

The events throughout the night play like a movie inside his head, leading to the return of Chase’s question. Sadie’s image flickers behind his closed eyelids, and a smile tugs at his lips as he imagines the possibility of a future with Sadie, a future where they’re more than just friends. 

The soft padding of footsteps interrupt his thoughts as he opens his eyes to find Sadie, walking towards him, her dress swaying gently as she moves. 

“Hey” She says, her voice a calm achor in the sea of festivities 

“Hey Luke replies, the previous tension in his shoulders easing just a touch “Crazy out there huh” 

“Yeah, you’re family knows how to throw a party” she agrees, her gaze lingering on him with a platonic concern “You holding up ok?” 

“Ya just needed a breather” Luke responds with a smile 

“Me too” Sadie chuckles before leaning against the counter next to him. 

“It looks like things are starting to wind down a bit” Sadie gestures with a nod towards the now less crowded backyard. 

“Yeah” Luke agrees his eyes fixated on her “Want to crash here tonight?” Luke offers the same way he’s done so, many times before

Sadie hesitates, her eyes wandering around the kitchen. Her lips part, ready to speak, “I don’t think I can, I came with my dad” Sadie tells him 

“Gotcha” Luke nods, understanding flashing in his eyes. A figure appears near the entrance of the kitchen. It’s Sadie’s dad, David. 

Sadie and Luke move closer together, Sadie’s arm momentarily brushing against Luke’s as Sadie’s father approaches them. 

“Great party, Luke and congratulations again,” David says, offering a firm handshake, that Luke returns. 

“Thank you for coming Mr. Howe” Luke replies his tone genuine

The three engage in some polite small talk, the conversation light and familiar, as David is a good friend of Luke’s parents. 

“How are things going at the station?” Luke asks 

“They’re going well, although we have had some crazy calls about teenagers getting into some trouble, I hope you two are staying safe?” He replies 

“Of course Dad” Sadie answers 

As the conversation continues, several people make their way through the living room, making their departure from the party. 

“I think we should head home, Sadie” David says glancing between his daughter and her best friend

“Right” Sadie agrees, a small speckle of reluctance shown in her posture. 

“I’ll see you soon Sades” Luke says, his voice tingling with a hint of sadness, as the three make their way towards the entry of the home. 

“Definitely” Sadie promises her smile bittersweet as she follows her dad out the door. 

Luke returns to the kitchen, the house feeling slightly emptier. He stares at the space Sadie, previously occupied, and exhales slowly. He has time. 

***

Sadie enters her house the sound of the closing door, echoing softly behind her. She climbs the stairs, each step deliberate. Finally reaching the top she makes her way to her room, flicking te lights on, and quietly closing the door behind her. 

She begins stripping off the baby blue dress and heels, that have been torturing her feet for the last several hours, and replaces them with a pair of comfy sweatpants, an oversized sweatshirt and her fluffy blue slippers. 

She stands in front of her mirror, removing each piece of jewelry, from the dainty earrings to the statement bracelet with a large S and the multiple rings. The only exception being her gold necklace with a delicate chain and a pendant bearing the words ‘one in a million’ a precious gift from her late mother, that she never takes off. 

She moves towards her desk to put her jewlery away, carefully placing each piece back in their designated spots, when a large white envelope catches her eye. 

It’s addressed to her, from Rutgers University. 

A school she has dreamed of attending since she was a little girl, her mothers school. 

Sadie’s fingers tremble as she reaches down to pick up the envelope. A few weeks ago, she applied on a whim to the school, never thinking she would actually get in. 

She moves to her bed, taking a seat on the edge and taking a deep breath, before tearing open the seal and eagerly pulling the contents out. 

She scans through the words on the paper. “I got in” she whispers 

“I GOT IN!” she repeats her voice raising loud enough to be heard through her closed door

“Sadie?” her dad asks the door still shut

Sadie practically leaps off her bed, the letter clutched tightly to her chest as she opens the door.

“Dad I got in! I got into Rutgers!” She exclaims, practically shoving the papers into her dads face. 

Her dad softly removes the papers from her hand, reading through each word. 

“You got in! Sadie I’m so proud of you” Her dad announces his tone genuine, as he wraps his daughter in a hug. 

A surge of accomplishment floods through her body, mixed with a pang of sadness. She had always dreamed of going to this college, but now all she could think about was how much her mom would have loved to see this moment. 

“Sades?” Her dad asks his voice ringing with parental concern 

“Ya sorry” She replies, shaking her head slightly

“How about I make us ice cream sundaes to celebrate?” Her dad suggests a beloved tradition made up by the two a few years back. 

“Ya that sounds good, I’ll be there in a second” Sadie says watching as her dad walks out of her room. 

Sadie takes a seat on her bed, unable to shake the feeling that something else is missing. Sadie's gaze falls to the photos displayed on her nightstand. The one of her mom and the one of Luke and her side by side. staring at her nightstand, the picture of her mom.

That’s when it hits her-Luke thinks they’re going to Michigan together.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to send me any comments or feedback! Updates will be rather slow because I have a lot of school work but the first chapter should be coming soon.

[bellysoupset]

Okay, so, two things:

One, does Leo ever get jealous or upset when he sees kids with loving and caring parents?

Two, maybe a fic where Leo hasn’t been feeling well all day and on his way home he sees a super sweet family with a dad and a cute giggly son, and for some reason his feverish brain combined with the sweetness sends him into a depression episode. And then he goes home and takes Benadryl for his fever and his anti depressants as well, and basically over-sedates himself, and Jon gets home later to find Leo almost completely out of it and he freaks out.

I know you’re doing the mini saga rn, but I was thinking maybe you could do this after?

Sorry if this request is too long!!!😭😭!!😭

I'm sorry it took forever to write this!! This poor fic has been in my drafts for too long, I'm so sorry!

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

Leo knew he was not supposed to covet things that weren't his. That had been a maxim of his father and during most days Leo still agreed to it, all trauma aside.

Except during the holidays. He wasn't sure what was it about the end of the year that brought up the ugliest parts of him. Maybe it was all the fake glee or the longer nights and shorter days or the fact he wasn't practicing nearly as much sports or the fact that consumerism was off the charts and even though he could afford things now, he didn't think he'd ever get rid of that feeling in the pit of his stomach when standing in a cashier line. Maybe it was all that put together.

Or maybe it was the drilling about Holiday Spirit. In his house that had meant discounted alcoholic eggnog and much screaming, his father calling him a "little elf", school being out for recess so him being stuck in a house with no heat and an incredibly pissed off man, who was drunk off his ass.

For everyone else, though, holiday spirit meant being more kind or loving or charitable. Right. Leo rolled his eyes as he watched his coworker boast about the charity he was helping at the end of the year.

There was also the fact that the "philanthropy works" that his colleagues liked to gloated about were more often than not directed at people who were just Leo, except seven years ago.

He pressed on his keyboard with a little more force, rubbing at his temples. He had a headache from all the smells permeating the office — Sandras' peppermint candle, Chuck's cinnamon rolls he had brought for everyone else, Dean's fucking overpowering cologne his girlfriend had gifted him — and the loud noise wasn't making his life any better.

Leo sighed, squinting at his screen. Normally he could do his job in his sleep. Research had always been his forte, even back in high school, and he knew he aced it, because his boss always planted him as the paralegal for the big clients, where the lawyer would need a lot of research help in a short period of time.

Today he was struggling to put two and two together, let alone figure out if there were any similar cases that could serve as their defense. His stomach grumbled and Leo decided he needed a break from Sandra and Dean's incessant bickering, getting up and going to the coffee machine.

"Hey Wagner," Chuck opened a little smile, "what's with the sour face?"

"Headache," Leo answered truthfully, grabbing the biggest paper cup and starting the coffee machine. Damn, he really needed one of these back at home, "it's fine, there's just forty minutes more."

"That sucks man, feel better," Chuck said, but didn't move, "do you have any plans for the holiday break?"

"That's only next month," Leo wrinkled his nose in distaste. Could people stop pre-gaming for December in the middle of fucking November? Halloween had just happened-

"Well, there's thanksgiving," Chuck shrugged, "in less than two weeks."

"Oh," Leo sighed, having completely forgotten thanksgiving. He didn't think he had ever celebrated that.

"Are you going back home?"

Ha!

Leo nearly snorted in his coffee cup, instead changing it halfway so it looked like he was just blowing off the steam, "no, there's n- No. It's just me and Jon, so I'll probably do whatever his plans are."

Which Leo didn't think he had any... Jonah's plans lately were solely eat, sleep, study, hand in his final works for graduation, work. Rinse repeat.

"Hope you guys have fun," Chuck smiled brightly, before side stepping him and walking back to his desk, "get a turkey or something."

"Or something," Leo grumbled, squeezing his eyes and shuddering violently. He was also freezing. He blamed that on Sandra, who just had to wear the fancy coat she got in the designer sale at Nordstrom, so the a/c was at stupidly low levels, for sure.

Even though he had said it was just forty minutes more, they dragged. By the time Leo managed to get out of the office, his headache had escalated significantly and his stomach was hurting, since all he had eaten all day was a pastry at lunch and copious amounts of coffee. He was freezing to the point of his teeth chattering and he it was only when he stepped out of the elevator, buttoning up his coat, that he realized most people didn't seem to be feeling that chilly.

Sandra poked his side, "Wagner, you mind?"

He had stopped right at the ID scan, so he quickly apologized, jumping to the side as she scanned her card and then looked over her shoulder at him, "are you alright?"

"What?" Leo squinted at her, the lights reflecting off her blonde hair.

"Are you feeling alright?" Sandra repeated, "you're quieter than usual, that's all."

"Yeah, uhm..." He shrugged, running his own ID over the scan and joining her as they walked to the parking lot, "I'm fine, I'm just freez-" he shut up, stunned into silence when his co-worker lightly touched his forehead, getting on her tiptoes to reach him.

"You're running a fever there, Wagner," she rolled her eyes, clicking her car keys, "are you alright to drive?"

"Yeah, of course!" His voice came out squeaky at the sudden display of care and Sandra shrugged, smiling at him.

"Alright, take care," she waved, moving away to her designated spot and Leo was left a little stunned into silence, before collecting himself and getting in his own car. He really needed to stop being stubborn and let Bella fix his radio like she had offered, because there was just a terrible silence the entire drive home.

Leo stopped at a red light, just a street away from home and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. Now that Sandra had pointed it out, he couldn't deny the fever. Everything hurt, the sound of the wind howling outside hurt, his head was pounding, the kid's squealing as they walked ahead of their parents on the street...

He watched as a little boy ran back to his father, in a ridiculously large coat. The kid barely reached his dad's hip, he couldn't be over four years old. He was blabbing, cheeks all red and Leo watched the dad let out a chuckle and grab the lapels of his son's coat, covering his face in kisses.

Someone honked behind him and Leo jumped, startled. He had missed the green light.

The remaining 5 minutes to his house, were dark five minutes. Not only because the clouds clumped together to start spilling snow, but because his thoughts started to run down a dangerous road.

This was what he hated the most about the holidays. How his dark thoughts creeped up on him with such ease, how much emphasis was there on family and love and how it highlighted that he was painfully alone in this world. There was no place to go for thanksgiving and there was no father to smooch his face and comfort him and none of the garbage that every single TV ad was showing now.

He avoided the first floor, not in the mood to force a smile for Matthew, and once he got home, Leo went straight to the bedroom, stripping out of his tux jacket and kicking off the shoes.

JD meowed, pushing the door ajar as she entered the room, climbing the bed and forcing herself on his lap even when he paid her no mind. He was too busy trying to undo his tie with one hand, the other one running through the mess of meds they kept in the bedside table drawer.

Vaguely Leo was aware that Jonah kept more meds in the first aid kit, but he couldn't remember where it was and his head was throbbing too much and he felt like fucking crying, so he decided not to go looking. They were out of paracetamol, but still had benadryl and Leo swallowed the little pink pill dry, before opening the drawer right under that one, where he kept his own stuff.

He always took his meds in the morning and then two before bed, but even thought it was only six PM, Leo decided to just taken them already. He wanted to sleep for fifty years, maybe sleep and just... Just stop existing all together.

Leo rubbed his face at the thought, letting out a groan, and his cat let out a meow, forcing her head in the space between his arms.

"Hey," he sighed, scratching her behind the ears, "hey, sweetheart, it's okay. I'm fine. I'm not doing that..." he reassured JD, pulling on the blankets so he could crawl under them. Jonah had left the heater on, but the apartment was still freezing.

JD meowed, chewing on his now undone tie and Leo wrapped an arm around her, thinking that maybe he should get out of the office clothes.... Then fell asleep.

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

Jonah wasn't a festivities type of man. He had never been, not even back when he was a teenager and he definitely wasn't the type now, when he was so stressed about graduation.

Yet, he knew Leo was acting pouty for the past ten days and his bet was that it was related to the holiday season. It was very unlike Leo to not openly complain about what was upsetting him, unless it was something close to his heart, when he closed off like a clam.

So if Leo wanted Holidays, Jonah was going to give him Holidays. Hopefully with a better outcome than Halloween, Jon cringed at the thought.

"What is this?" Jon asked, as Wendy reached inside her car and pushed a big tupperware in his hand.

"Torrone," she said, fishing one of the little white squares, "it's an Italian candy, traditional around Christmas. Vin's mom sells them, but she made a huge first batch and sent him. Here's some for you and Leo."

"But Ma made them for Vince..."

"Vince has half my fridge filled with these," Wendy rolled her eyes, getting in the driver's seat of her car, "just remember to get a picture of Leo eating it so we can send it to ma."

"Alright Dee, bye," Jon sniffed one the little white bars, before turning around to get in his own car. That had been the start of his Christmas mini spree and the reason why he was going up to their apartment now carrying not just the tupperware, but a bunch of little boxes of fairy lights, a wreath and a bag of groceries to make a black forest cake.

Jon wasn't daft, he knew Leo was being terribly considerate with the fact he had all but put their whole relationship in the backburner so he could focus in the school work. He needed to woo the guy a little bit.

"Leo?" Jonah pushed the door open, before crouching down to grab all the items again, "Leo, I got a bunch of shit I think you'll like..." he thought nothing of it when there wasn't an answer, instead starting to put things away. He found a good jar for Ma's little torrones and checked on JD's food bowl, frowning as he realized Leo hadn't fed her yet.

"Leo, did you feed JD? Her bowl is empty..." he said, but still got no answer. Jonah didn't wait for one, shaking the little empty dish until he heard their cat trotting back to the kitchen, then filling it up. She snaked between his legs, purring as Jon scratched her behind the ear and watched her eat for a little bit.

Only then did he frown at Leo's full absence, walking back to their room. Jonah wasn't sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn't his boyfriend buried under all their blankets, heavily asleep. He checked his watch. Eight o'clock.

"That's early," Jonah whispered, moving closer to get a good look at his face, "Leo?"

There was no answer, not a snore, nothing. Leo's blonde hair was peaking out and so was the top half of his face, but that was it.

Jon sighed, a little bummed he was already asleep, but deciding against waking him, tiptoeing back out of the room. JD was still in the kitchen, happily munching on her treat and Jonah crouched down next to her again, "why did Leo go to bed so early, do you know?" he asked, causing the cat to stop eating for a second, before she went back in.

He put away all the groceries, then went through the fridge. They meal prepped and Jonah frowned as he realized there were exactly as many frozen dishes as there had been when he left the house earlier that day.

Happy that he had found an excuse to wake Leo up, Jonah got two containers out and put them to defrost, while walking back to the room. Leo hadn't moved a muscle and he didn't stir even when Jon sat on his side of the bed, brushing his bangs.

"Leo..." he whispered, shaking him lightly, "baby wak-" Jonah interrupted himself, noticing Leo was still wearing his office clothes. That was very unusual... So was the low heat rolling off of him.

"Goddammit Leo," Jon sighed, touching his face and feeling the low grade fever. He shook him a little harder, "Leo, wake up. You gotta eat something..."

Still nothing. By now, normally, the blonde would be blinking awake.

Jonah frowned, pushing the blankets down and shaking him a little more, "Leo, wake up..." his voice raised at the end as alarm bells started to go through his mind, so he all but rattled the other man, finally causing Leo to open his eyes.

Jon was about to let out a relieved sigh, but he didn't have the chance, as Leo slurred something unintelligible and then passed right back asleep.

Jonah rattled him again, harshly, and this time he got no reaction, not even a whine.

"Leo!" he called, leaning in so he could feel his boyfriend's breathing, planting two fingers to his jugular in search of a pulse. His own heart was drumming in his ears, so it took Jonah a second before he could differentiate what was his, what was Leo's.

The blonde's heartbeat were slow...Too slow. His breathing was weirdly timed.

Jonah felt vaguely dizzy as he looked around the room, in search of his coat. He had left his cellphone inside the pocket... He almost got sick as he saw the three different medications sitting on Leo's bedside table.

His usual Zoloft and Ambien and... Benadryl?

Jon frowned at the label, before shaking the antidepressant case and ambien. Both were still full, Leo hadn't taken more than he should... Or at least, it didn't look like he had, not on purpose.

"Baby," Jonah patted his cheeks, with more force than he'd normally use, "baby, open your eyes for me. Wake up-" he bit the inside of his cheek, before deciding that fuck that and splashing a little bit of water on his boyfriend's face.

Leo blinked, confused and drowsy, "why am I wet..." he groaned, attempting to go back to sleep, but Jonah stopped him, patting his cheek again.

"Leo, hey, look at me- How many pills did you take?"

"Uhm?" he yawned, his eyes starting to roll back again.

"LEO!" Jonah shook him vehemently, forcing the blonde to wake up, "how. many. pills?"

Leo groaned, rubbing his eyes, "Jon...?"

"Yes, baby, it's me," Jonah shook him again, holding the pill bottles in front of his face, "how many pills?"

"One," Leo slumped back against the pillow, "just one."

"Each?"

The blonde nodded, yawning again, "I don't feel so good..."

"I know, baby," Jon grabbed his shoulders again, forcing him to sit up once more, "c'mon, we're going to the ER."

"What...?" Leo groaned, slumping forward so his forehead met Jon's shoulder, "no, I'm not sick, I'm just... I'm just off..."

"Yeah, because you took two sedatives and your antidepressants," Jonah scoffed, looking one of Leo's arms around his neck, "c'mon, baby, get up."

"Jon, no, stop-" Leo weakly tried to shove off his chest, but his legs were almost jelly under him and the only thing keeping him up was Jonah holding him tightly, "I wanna sleep..."

"Nope," Jon dragged him out of the room, "no sleep for you until a psychiatrist checks you out."

"No!" Leo shoved at his arm and then stumbled back, falling sit on the edge of the bed. Jonah glared at him, feeling his own temper flare up, fueled by the sheer stress.

The stress of the situation, the panic of finding Leo like that, but also the overall stress that had been Halloween, followed by Leo's appendicitis, followed his quickly approaching deadlines...

"You're getting in the car even if I have to fucking carry you, Leo," Jonah glared at him, "get up."

If he expected to get a rise out of the blonde, he didn't. Instead Leo planted a hand on his chest and fell back on the bed, facing the ceiling as he groaned, "Jon, I feel really weird..."

"Yes, get up-"

"No, there's... There's someone standing in our hallway," Leo said and Jonah glanced at the open door and saw nothing, not even JD.

"There isn't, baby, its in your head..." he grabbed his boyfriend's arm, pulling him up again, "c'mon-"

"No, they're gonna get me."

"Ah fuck's sake," Jonah sighed, although while this was scary, he much rather have Leo fighting him and responsive than dead to the world, "no one is going to get you, Leo..."

All he got as an answer was a whimper.

"Fuck," Jon whispered, leaving the room in two steps to grab the coat he had hung behind the door and his phone, already dialing 911.

They asked him how many pills Leo had taken and upon Jonah's answer, a lady said "It doesn't sound like a suicide attempt, we're going to transfer you to poison control. Please stay on the line and stay calm."

A suicide attempt. Jonah's mouth dried as he sat right next to Leo on the bed, wrapping a hand around his wrist and feeling his pulse, barely listening as the poison control responder said that at this dosage going to the ER wasn't necessary. To keep checking on him and get loads of liquids on Leo, take him to emergency if he started throwing up or struggling to breathe.

Jon's ears were still ringing as he crouched down next to Leo again, now holding a glass of cold water, with a straw sticking out.

"C'mon, baby, just one sip, it's gonna help..."

Leo groaned again, but after a little more prodding, he did open his mouth and took the drink. Apparently he had been thirsty, because he drained the entire cup without much of Jonah's prodding.

He pulled back, looking slightly more awake, "Jon..." Leo clumsily grabbed his face, "something's wrong."

"I know, Leo," Jonah pulled back from the clumsy face squeeze, planting a kiss on the blonde's brow, "you'll feel better in the morning... Well, probably hungover as fuck, but you'll feel better in the morning..." his voice caught at the end and Leo pulled back, frowning.

"Are you sad...?"

"No, I'm fine, I'm fine," Jonah cleared his throat, "why did you take the benadryl?"

"What?" Leo blinked, struggling to keep his eyes open, "get into bed..."

"The third medication, Leo," Jonah raised the little box in front of his eyes, "why did you take it?"

"My head hurt..." Leo yawned, "had a fever... Couldn't find the right-" he yawned again, tugging on Jon's shirt to pull him closer, "the right one."

Jonah let out a little sigh of relief, allowing himself to get pulled into a clumsy, weird hug, the best that Leo's half sedated brain could do.

"I love you," he whispered, voice muffled by Leo's shirt and the blonde let out a hum, sounding like he was falling right back asleep. Still, Jonah did hear a faint, "love you too" said in return.

[lookismaddict]

Happy 1-Year Anniversary to Rendezvous 🎊

Hey guys, it’s been a while. 😀 (I can now see the flaming torches and pitch forks heading my way… 🔥) I decided to come back because today marks the actual 1-year anniversary of when I joined the Lookism community and posted for the very first time on Tumblr, which is none other than Rendezvous’s Introduction. The story that started all of the chaos. 🖤 And yes, I posted it on Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate! 🦃💨

I’m so sorry for leaving all of you for almost half a year, and I missed you all dearly. There has been many ups and downs in my life these past few months, and I could safely say that I’m okay, and that I have healed from the loss of that one person in my life. I’m also happy that I have grown as a person. Not just my age (I’m 21 now, and I’m officially an adult. Woo!) but also, this sense of maturity that I have acquired from opening myself to new surroundings. I got the opportunity to reconnect with many people in my life socially, while I have developed many new relationships with others over the span of four months.

To be frank, the reason why I had to take a huge break from Tumblr wasn’t just because of my mourning period of a past loved one. It was so that I can mend myself mentally, physically, and socially. Tumblr was my escapism, and it’ll always be there whenever I feel like coming back. But being away from Tumblr made me realize that I should cherish the people that I have in my life more, than just pushing them off to the side and remain anti-social for my own personal enjoyment. And it also gave me some time to think and heal. It refreshed my mind greatly, and I might be coming back more frequently (if school wasn’t being such a pain).

However, I will try and be active again. It’ll take time for me to get rid of this uncomfortable awkwardness from me, and I will eventually go back to my usual unhinged self. 👍🏽 (Plus, I have no idea what’s been going on in Lookism and I’m not updated, but I have seen some spoilers on other social media outlets.) So, I will dive back into the Lookism rabbit hole sometime soon.

As for my writing, I plan on continuing them again and I need to take care of those drafts. (Yes, I will be continuing Rendezvous and my other works. Don’t worry about it.) Again, happy anniversary to my baby, Rendezvous. I’m proud of myself for pressing that “Post” button a year ago, on this very day. (With my finger hovering shakily over the button and all. 😭) You will surely see more of Gun and (Y/N) sometime in the future, including other characters too. Until then, Cat is off and ascending to reply to everyone’s messages, comments, and asks! 😼👐🏽 (Descending. Most likely in he-)

Just beat me up already.

[ahonice]

Thunder

Thunder - Lana Del Rey

Trevor Zegras x Fem Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: !!!This is a work of fiction, real people in this story are depicted differently then who they truly are!!! Buckle up this one is rough (imo…read note for more context) ANGST, Trevor being a bad boyfriend (I’m sorry, I spun the wheel and he was who it landed on for writing this about like actually I have a wheel to decide who I write about) reader is going through it and cannot catch a break (who can though??) Cursing, drinking (underage, blacking out, drunken confessions) 

Note: This is my favorite Lana song ever, it’s so good (also describes my relationship with my ex PERFECTLY) um so this fic is literally just a telling of my past relationship in fiction form. But new series WHOOP WHOOP more Lana song fics coming soon

*Italics are song lyrics*

***

“You roll like thunder, when you come crashing in. Town ain’t been the same since you left with all your friends.”

Trevor Zegras, your alluring, passionate, loving best friend. Trevor Zegras, your manipulative, callous, apathetic boyfriend. 

You met Trevor when he moved to Michigan for hockey, he was sitting in your unassigned, but assigned, seat in your study hall period. You told him, as nice as someone could be at seven in the morning on the first day of classes after break, that he was in your spot and he immediately got up and moved to the spot behind you. Which surprised you, most people would be assholes about that and refuse to move because there wasn’t assigned seating in that class. What didn’t surprise you was that the guy you had moved out of your seat was now bothering you.

“Would you stop talking? This is a study hall, people might be doing work or studying, that’s what this period is for.” You told him, not very quietly making others in the classroom turn towards you. After he kept talking to you, well to the back of your head, about how god knows what. 

“Sorry, it’s just my first day here and I’m a little nervous.” The boy said, ducking his head in shame, immediately making you feel guilty.

“Oh no I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were new here.” You said, a light blush spreading across your cheeks. “Do you want help figuring out where your classes are?” You offered in hopes to make up for embarrassing him. 

“Sure, that would be great” He smiled at you, “I’m Trevor.” 

“Y/n.”

***

The two of you hit it off, instantly becoming friends. You drove to school together, you hung out during your study hall period every morning, you sat together at lunch, you both had after school activities but afterwards you would meet up to work on homework or just hang out together. After a few months Trevor had asked you to be his girlfriend, and everything was going great, until it wasn’t.

Trevor was a year above you in school, having met when he was a junior and you were a sophomore. The gap never was an issue until the last month of his senior year came crashing in, he was moving to Massachusetts for college in August and you were staying in Michigan to finish off your senior year. The talk went well, you were worried that Trevor would want to break up because he was leaving and didn’t want to do long distance, but Trevor made it very clear that was not what he wanted and he was fine with doing distance for a year because he was sure you were going to get into any school you applied to and that meant you could go to school wherever he ended up after the draft. You were happy in the moment, but you later wished he would’ve just ended things with you then.

“You roll like thunder, when you come crashing in. Regattas in the wind, that's why you’re visiting.”

The first month of long distance seemed to be going great, over the summer you accompanied him to the draft where he got picked to play for Anaheim. Immediately after the two of you spent time researching schools in California, Trevor freaking out once he realized UCLA was under an hour away from the area where he would be staying. 

The second month of long distance went decent, his hockey season began so he was a bit preoccupied, but that was nothing you weren’t used to he had been playing hockey the whole time you were dating. What you weren’t used to was not being in close proximity with him, even with hockey seasons going on the past two years you still were able to see him after his practices got out, now you had to settle for text messages and the occasional phone call.

The third month of long distance is when it all started going to shit, he had a game against the University of Michigan, which you had attended of course, but there was a weird tension between the two of you. There was no flirting, no secret glances which ended in a fit of giggles once you were caught, no sneaking out of his hotel room to meet up with you, he didn’t even take you out to hangout just you two, he kissed you twice the whole time he was there. When he arrived and when he left, they weren’t even real kisses, just grazing of the lips. After he got back to Boston it was radio silence except for one text message.

From: Trev <3

It was nice to see you this weekend.

It was nice to see you this weekend. No I missed you so much, and I miss you even more now that we’re apart again. No I love you, no plans to visit or even call soon, nothing.

“You act like fucking Mr.Brightside when you’re with all your friends, but I know what you’re like when the party ends.”

By the fourth month of long distance your relationship was no longer a relationship, you texted a couple times a day, basically all being stupid imessage games, the only time you got anything close to a real emotion from Trevor was when he was drunk and he called you, he always called when he was inebriated, but you never liked what he said.

“I miss you, but I can’t do long distance anymore.”

“We aren’t the same anymore.”

“Next year when we’re in California I’m worried things will be different between us.”

“I don’t think I love you anymore.”

Each confession was worse than the one before, you’d always end the phone call telling Trevor to call in the morning to properly discuss your future together when he was sober, but he never did and he never remembered the conversations you’d had, leaving you to deal with the drunken confessions yourself, having to stomach knowing that your boyfriend who you love so much no longer feels the same and he won’t even admit it to you. 

“Just do it. Just do it; don’t wait.”

Everyday you waited for the text, the one where Trevor asked to talk to you. The one that would result in the ending of your relationship, but it never came. It got to the point where you wanted to do it for him, to rip off the bandaid he couldn’t. You knew you would never though, because even if he didn’t love you anymore, you still loved him, and at the end of this all you hoped next year, when you were living near each other again, everything would go back to normal between you two. You wish you weren’t so naive when it came to him, you knew you needed to break up, if not for his sake, for yours. It was taking a toll on you, on your mental health, on your school work, you ended up with a C in one of your classes at the end of your first semester of senior year, you had never gotten anything but an A, let alone a C.

“You roll like thunder, pouring all your drinks. The parties lit and you, my friend, half cut when it begins.”

The drunken confessions didn’t stop, they only got worse.

“I never opened the gift you got me for Christmas.”

“I hooked up with a girl last night.”

“When people ask if I’m single I say I am.”

“I’m doing amazing down here, without you.”

“When are we gonna break up?”

Each new confession was another knife to the heart, but you just sat there on the other side of the line listening to each new piece of information your boyfriend, if you could even call him that, would give you.

“You roll like thunder, you’re tryna catch that wind. That lightning in the bottle, that moonbeam in your hand.”

Senior prom came around, you weren’t surprised when Trevor told you he wasn’t coming. You didn’t blame him, even if your relationship wasn’t a shit show and he still cared about you in the slightest bit he had hockey stuff going on that night, and besides who wants to go to a high school dance after they’ve graduated?

What did surprise you was the phone call you received after you sent him a picture of you all dressed up, hair and makeup professionally done, the dress you saved up for months to buy.

“Hello?” This would be the first time the two of you would talk on the phone since November where Trevor wasn’t drunk.

“You look beautiful.” Whiplash rang through your body, Trevor had complimented you. He hadn’t done that in months, the smile that had grown on your face quickly dimmed when you came to that realization. 

“Trevor, why haven’t you broken up with me yet?” The question coming out of your mouth surprised you. You never thought you would be brave enough to face the reality of your relationship.

“Y/n, what are you talking about?” Trevor’s shocked tone of voice riled up your anger. Had he really not been able to pick up on the very obvious changes between the two of you? Was he that apathetic? Could he not tell how much of a toll this was taking on you? Was he even aware of how much you were hurting everyday just by the thought of him.

“We’ll talk later, please don’t drink tonight. I need to have this conversation with my boyfriend–” The words hurt to say, because he wasn’t your boyfriend and he hadn’t been since August, “-not with the drunk asshole he has become.” You hung up before he could say anything in response.

“And you try to see the brightside when each new day begins, but you’re not satisfied at the rainbow’s end.”

To your surprise, Trevor did end up staying sober that night, he waited by the phone for your call for hours, a nice analogy to how you’ve been spending your Saturday nights since you went long distance. You had gone to an after prom party with your friends and had a little too much to drink. You called Trevor, and this time you spoke the drunken confessions that would break your lover’s heart.

“You break me more and more everyday Trevor.”

“You cheated on me, and told me about it like it was no big deal. Do you remember that?”

“Do you remember when you told me you didn’t love me anymore?”

“I got into UCLA, I’m not going. I’m not following you to California.”

“Somehow, after all of this, I still love you.”

“You have to be the one to end our relationship, because I can’t do it.”

You hung up before Trevor could get a word in, hoping that he would take what you said to heart and finally, officially, break up with you.

“Just do it. Just do it; don’t wait.”

Trevor didn’t do it. He didn’t break up with you, he told you the next day he was determined to make it work. That he wasn’t giving up without a fight, which made you laugh seeing that he had given up and your relationship ended months ago.

The day of your graduation, you walked the stage and heard cheering from your friends and family. You heard him, you shouldn’t have been shocked that Trevor showed up, you had sent him the details to his ticket the night before, but seeing him and hearing him in person for the first time since the game he played against Michigan in November was enough to have you crying. You ran into his arms, he ran into yours. He whispered apologies in your ears, but they went in one and out the other. This was your swan song, the last time you would be his girlfriend, the last time he would be your boyfriend, the last time you would be in each other’s arms, it was bitter sweet.

“Cause if you’re on fire, you’re on fire. Just keep burning, ‘til rain. Baby keep me ablaze. Honey if you’re on fire, you’re on fire. Just keep burning, keep me alive. Spare your blade.”

You stayed together, Trevor started acting like the boyfriend you once knew and loved, still loved. But you knew. You knew it was all an act, in august he was gonna move to California to get settled in before preseason and you were moving to Connecticut. You committed to Yale, not UCLA like Trevor had wanted. When you told him you could tell he was upset, he was hoping you would take back what you said to him the night of your prom, he was hoping that you were too drunk to remember you said it and didn’t mean it. Just like you had hoped all those times when he was the one calling you blackedout. 

Anyone around you could tell that your relationship was on its last life, they were shocked you even made it through the school year. You didn’t, but they didn’t need to know that.

It felt like your relationship was the only thing keeping you alive, it was all that kept your flame burning, but all flames die out eventually.

“Just do it. Just do it; don’t wait. If hello just means goodbye then, honey, better walk away. Just do it. Just do it’ don’t wait. If hello just means goodbye then, baby, better walk away.”

Today was your last night with Trevor, you sat by the fire with him in silence until the final flame went out.

“We need to break up.” You stated, the second the two of you were surrounded by the darkness of the night.

“I know.” Trevor stated, looking at you, but he couldn’t see you. You couldn’t see him, you two were in pitch black darkness. The fire was the only thing providing light, but it was now dead. A cruel metaphor for your now dead relationship.

“Just do it. Just do it; don’t wait.”

***

Note: Hope y’all enjoyed, this gets pretty fucking sad. I’m toning it down a bit though just for the sake of my mental health (idk if I can handle reliving this in full honestly…again fuck you chris) Leave feedback, this one might not be everyone’s favorite but I need to write about my feelings because I’m still torn up about this (once again…fuck you chris) (chris is my exes name if you haven’t put that together yet) (I’m gonna stop spilling my guts to strangers on the internet) (goodbye.) This took two hours to write so it might not be my best work, but I proofread (no editing needed kinda worried about that lol) so I hope this at least a little bit decent. Love y’all babes <3

[cheesybadgers]

Narcos Fic: Old Habits Die Hard (Chap. 21)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo

Words: 7,356

Summary: After arriving in Manizales, Horacio introduces Javier to his family, leading to a long overdue heart-to-heart and a drinking game with a twist.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Discussions of coming out, grief, parental loss, canon-typical violence, allusions to period-typical prejudices, drinking game, smoking, swearing.

Notes: Firstly, I will soften the blow of leaving it so long since my last update with the news that chapter 22 will be posted within the next week or so! I decided to split it in half to give more space to the conversations between the characters. So, hopefully that will make up for my elongated silence lol.

Secondly, I finished drafting the rest of the fic at the end of last year 👀 So, I just need to complete editing on chapter 23 and the epilogue. Then, and I can't believe I'm actually saying this, it will be time to leave these two messy idiots to it.

I think it will take me some time to get my head around it coming to an end, not least of all because it's been almost 3 years since I started working on this behemoth. And I can't believe how much has happened/changed since then, yet my love for this ship and this story has stayed strong and close to my heart. So, a bit of a premature thank you to anyone who has supported it at any point since March 2021, it's been quite the emotional rollercoaster ❤️ As always, I love hearing from my readers, so feel free to drop me a comment/message!

I’ve also added to my OHDH trivia post to cover this chapter if anyone is interested.

Chapter 21: For Old Times' Sake

A haze of mist hung low on the horizon, clinging to the rolling waves of verdant peaks that bled seamlessly together with worn asphalt until it was impossible to tell where the sky began and the earth ended.

Luckily, the tyres of the hire car were built for rougher terrain, and it wasn’t the first time Horacio had driven this route. Admittedly, it would have been easier to fly. But this had the added benefit of giving Javier a taste of undiscovered territory.

If truth be told, it gifted them more time to mentally prepare for what was getting closer with every hour that passed, each stop off to admire the view and refresh a stubborn way to prolong the status quo.

Progress had been slow for the last hour as the congested traffic crawled along the sharp angles of the road with its treacherous drops only a few inches away. They had come to a standstill behind a bus that allowed passengers off to take photos, and with little room to manoeuvre around the vehicle, a trail of cars had no choice but to wait.

Javier lounged back in the passenger seat, one foot resting on the opposite knee, his elbow leaning on the door, and the window half open.

He watched Horacio’s hands on the steering wheel alternate between clenching and tapping, a particular kind of rigidity returning to his jaw for the first time in months – if not years.

Javier made an executive decision by reaching into the glove box. He pulled out an emergency pack of cigarettes and a lighter they had stashed away before setting off from Medellín.

He lifted one out of the pack and sparked up. “So, did you say it’s a farm we’re heading to?” There was no point asking the obvious, so distraction it was.

“A coffee farm on the outskirts of the city, yeah. It belongs to Fabián’s family. He and his brother, Santiago, do the bulk of the work now their father’s winding down.”

“Sounds nice. And kinda familiar.”

Horacio’s eyes finally left the windshield and met Javier’s with a shadow of a smile. “Yeah, it does. A lot hillier than Texas, though.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be hard.” Javier held out his smoke across the car, their first one that wasn’t post-coital in a long time. But needs must.

Horacio apparently agreed as he accepted it with a huff of resignation. “Fine, one for the road.”

“I think it’s allowed on roads like this one.”

“I did warn you.”

“Hey, no, I like it. Keeps you on your toes.”

“It reminds me of when Papá drove us to visit Tia Salomé and Tio Jairo in Bogotá. He and Mamá let us have sweets for the long journey but warned us the Mareco would take them away if we didn’t behave.”

“The Mareco?”

“La Leyenda del Mareco. It was a story we were told as kids. The Mareco’s a red devil that looks like a lizard on two legs. He steals children’s candy and conjures up a whirlwind to blow them away if they don’t obey their parents.”

Javier nodded in recognition as Horacio passed their cigarette back. “La Llorona was the story used to scare me and my cousins.”

“Oh yeah, we got that one as well.”

“I gotta say, the Mareco explains a lot.”

“About what?”

“About how you developed a problem with authority.”

“What’s your excuse then?”

“What can I say? I was led astray.”

It was a blatant lie, but Javier didn’t care when it caused laughter lines to materialise in the corner of Horacio’s eyes.

“We both know you were drawn to it as much as you resented it.”

“Only where you were concerned. Anyway, you were just as bad even though you'd never admit it.”

“Maybe you were my exception too.”

A moment of silence fell as memory after memory collided, snapshots of how the push and pull between them had evolved with their relationship.

"Listen, I was thinking,” Javier started before taking a drag, “would it make things easier if you wore this? Just while we’re here, I mean.”

Horacio’s gaze drifted to Javier’s exposed skin, the taillights of the car in front catching on the crucifix at his chest. “No,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s yours now.”

By the time their cigarette was finished, the traffic edged forward, and the road ahead and Javier’s hand on Horacio’s leg soon replaced conversation.

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

Two and a half hours and several bursts of heavy rain later, the muddied hire car pulled up by a complex of buildings nestled amongst a sea of lush green and vibrant flowers. The buildings sat atop steep slopes of vegetation that led to the coffee plantations below, the foggy skyline above etched with rugged ridges and the ominous outline of Nevado del Ruiz in the distance.

Any sounds from life on a working coffee farm were drowned out by birdsong and their feet crunching beneath them as Horacio and Javier walked up the gravel path towards the main finca. It was typical in its style with a rustic tiled roof, whitewashed bricks and wooden pillars around its perimeter painted in the same shade of terracotta red as the doors and window frames. At the back of the property was a large garden with a patio area, pool and a spectacular view for miles on a clear day.

As they lugged their suitcases onto the porch, Alejandra waited to greet them at the front door. Her dark hair was styled in a bob with waves bordering on curls, the kind Javier imagined Horacio could grow if he wasn’t so insistent on keeping his hair short. At least since leaving the CNP, he had been less strict about cutting it.

The family resemblance between the two siblings was evident in their facial features, particularly in the shape of their noses, charcoal eyes and Cupid’s bows. But Alejandra was a few inches shorter, and her frame was slimmer on account of not carrying the same muscle as Horacio.

“The wanderer finally returns,” Alejandra announced as she pulled Horacio in for a long hug, neither of them keen to be the first to let go. “At least you remembered how to use the phone before turning up on my doorstep.”

“Of course. It's good to see you. But I am sorry I left it so long. There’s, erm…a lot to catch up on.”

“I’ll say.” She peered curiously behind Horacio. “But first, let me say hello to this handsome new face.”

She all but pushed Horacio to one side, forgoing any formal introductions he might have had planned. All Horacio could do was stand and watch two parts of his life converge that, for a long time, he believed would never – and could never – meet.

Javier had hung back by several feet, his hands self-consciously stuffed into the pockets of his jeans as he kept his eyes on the ground until he was spoken to.

“Hi there, I’m Alejandra. You must be Javier?”

“Oh, er, yeah, hi.” For reasons unbeknownst to Javier, he raised his hand in a stiff wave rather than the relaxed handshake he had planned and felt the heat instantly rise in his cheeks. “Pleasure to finally meet you. Beautiful place you’ve got up here.”

“Likewise. And thanks.” Much to Javier's relief, she took the lead and held out a hand for him to shake with a reassuring smile. “Although you’ve got Fabián to thank for that. He’s down there giving a tour to one of our new buyers.” Alejandra turned back to face Horacio. “Mamá’s shopping for school supplies and tonight’s dessert with Juan José, Sofía and Mateo. Ana María’s out with friends. But they should all be back in the next few hours.”

Horacio nodded but remained taciturn, keeping to himself his strong suspicions that Alejandra had made sure she was the only one to greet them upon arrival.

“Come on, you can show Javier around whilst I make us something to eat and drink.”

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

It had been a long time since Horacio’s last visit, but he could just about remember the layout of the place. He took Javier through the downstairs rooms, moving from the hall to the living areas and then the kitchen, which appeared tidier now than in his dreams.

The décor was all tiled or wooden floors and earthy tones, contrasting against large airy windows that made the landscape outside seem like a part of the finca. Evidence of three generations and two cats was scattered everywhere in the form of toys, games, videos, tapes, books, various coffee products and photographs from over the years. In one corner stood a home altar containing a large crucifix, prayer cards, rosary beads, candles, and a statue of Virgen de Chiquinquirá. In the opposite corner was a shelf full of old vinyl with Lucho Bermúdez taking pride of place, naturally.

Upstairs housed six bedrooms and three bathrooms, on account of the brood of four children, three adults and a spare room. The spare room was their last stop, where they dumped their luggage, sharing an amused glance at the double bed with a smaller fold-out one laid out in the corner with a pile of fresh sheets.

“As your guest, I take it I get the bigger one?” Javier asked with a spark of mischief in his eye.

“Well, technically, I’m also a guest here. And I did do all the driving.”

“Maybe I’ll, er, flip you for it later.”

Horacio merely raised a brow at the suggestion in Javier’s tone before they headed back downstairs.

They sat under cover of the terrace in the wildly growing garden, just in case the rain returned, which was always a distinct possibility in Manizales. An impressive platter of fruits was laid out on the table alongside freshly made coffee.

“So, how was the wedding?” Alejandra asked as she poured from a pot into three cups, the dark, rich aroma diffusing into the same crisp air the beans were grown and harvested.

Horacio accepted a cup with a thanks and passed the other to Javier. “It was nice. Good to see everyone again.”

“How’s Trujillo doing? It’s been strange seeing his face all over the news.”

Rather than his, Horacio thought with a strange lurch to the gut he wasn’t expecting. “He’s doing well; he’s a Major now. He deserves some happiness after everything.”

“He’s not the only one.”

Alejandra gave Horacio a pointed look, one he wasn’t ready to entirely meet, so he reached for a slice of guayaba instead.

“And Javier...I take it this is your first visit to Manizales?” she continued, offering him the fruit tray.

“Thanks. And yeah, it is. Never got the time to explore much beyond Bogotá and Medellín.” That wasn't exactly true, but Javier didn’t think talk of Cartagena or Tolú would be welcome right now.

“Well, I hope it won’t be your last.”

Horacio could feel another look directed his way but pretended not to notice it and sipped on his coffee.

Once they had eaten their weight in fruit, Alejandra had some business calls to make, leaving Javier and Horacio to unpack and freshen up before reconvening to make a start on dinner.

Of course, it had to be sudado de pollo. Horacio and Alejandra worked as a team, issuing sporadic instructions to Javier when necessary. But he was happy listening to them catch up and reminisce.

“That smells amazing already,” Javier said as he finely chopped onions across a wooden board, gesturing to the dishful of chicken thighs that Alejandra had just finished marinating.

“Mamá’s secret blend,” she replied as she set the dish aside to move on to dicing several tomatoes.

“Oh yeah? What would I have to do to get the recipe for that?” Javier reflexively caught Horacio’s eye across the kitchen.

“If we told you, we’d have to kill you.” Horacio shot Javier a warning look that indicated he was only half joking before focusing intently on cutting up a large batch of yuca and potatoes.

“Yeah, not even Fabián knows.”

“Papá never knew either. But he was happy for us or Mamá to make it for him.”

“My Mamá was the same with her Abuela’s morisqueta. Although, not long before she passed, she left me and my Pops the recipe.”

Alejandra paused her knife to look up at Javier, the surprise on her face soon transforming into recognition and sympathy. “I bet it’s delicious. You should make it for us some time.”

Now it was Horacio’s turn to stop, his eyes travelling from Alejandra to Javier and back again as the implication of his sister’s words hung as heavy in the kitchen as the aromatic spices of her marinade.

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

Once the chicken and vegetables were all prepped and placed in a pot on the stove, the front door opened and closed, a loud chatter of voices soon filling the hallway.

Before Javier knew what was happening, he was being introduced to the children, shaking hands with Fabián, then kissing Elena’s cheek.

“Welcome, Javier. It’s good to put a face to a name at last,” Elena said, thoroughly taking in his appearance, apparently satisfied with what she saw.

At last. Javier wasn’t sure whether those words put him at ease or made him more nervous, but he managed to push such thoughts behind a smile. “Nice to meet you, and likewise.”

Javier had briefly seen pictures of Horacio’s family in the past. But he, too, spent time studying Elena now that he was close enough to smell the floral notes of her perfume. Neat oval glasses and a mix of dark and light grey hair cut short and choppy framed her sharp features, the shape of her nose and Cupid’s Bow matching those of her children.

“No thanks to this one here, mind you.” Despite her chastisement, Elena embraced her son tightly, reluctant to let go. “I think he’s been hiding from us.”

“You know it wasn’t like that, Mamá.” Although, over his Mamá’s head, Horacio gave Javier a sheepish look that said otherwise. “It is good to see you. And I’m sorry I left it so long.”

Upon greeting his nieces and nephews, Horacio was struck by how much they had all grown up since his last visit. Ana María was the spitting image of her mother. Juan José was several inches taller than Horacio and resembled his father more than ever. And Mateo and Sofía had presumably become resentful of all the matching outfits in their younger years of being twins, going out of their way to dress as differently from each other as possible. Once they had said their obligatory hellos, they scattered around the house and no doubt wouldn’t re-appear until dinner was ready.

Right on cue, when Alejandra brought out steaming and brimming plates full of sudado de pollo, everyone rapidly took their places around the table.

Silence fell as they tucked in, the warmth and comfort of childhood cocooning Horacio from what he knew was inevitable. A welcomed interruption from his thoughts came with a soft brush against his leg, his instincts telling him it was one of the cats issuing their own greeting. But he should have known better.

As they ate and endured the usual family small talk, Javier's foot became Horacio's anchor, subtle and soothing rubs against his ankle unseen under the table. Steady, grounding, home. 

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

Horacio carried the last few empty plates to the kitchen, where piles of dishes were already stacked high. He had left Javier with Juan José and Mateo, who were showing off the latest video games they had got for Christmas – and were comfortably beating Javier at them, too.

“I’ll wash; you dry. For old times’ sake,” Alejandra said without looking up from the sink where she was filling the basin with water and suds.

“Okay. On the condition we both tidy everything away afterwards.”

“Deal. You’ll just put it in the wrong place unsupervised anyway.”

Horacio swatted the tea towel he’d picked up in her direction, only for her to retaliate by flicking bubbles in his hair.

“We did okay with dinner, didn’t we? I haven’t made that in a long time,” Horacio said.

“You had a good teacher.”

“So did you.”

“Oh, I know. I think that’s why Papá always loved it. We were all in there somewhere.”

“Like our Christmas tamales.”

“Oh, yeah, he couldn’t get enough of those. Remember we always had to make an extra batch for him to take to work?”

“He said they were to share with his unit, but I’m not sure many made it that far.”

Now they were laughing as they worked in tandem, Alejandra changing the water as Horacio cleared the draining board, ready for the next load.

“Did you ever feel like you let him down?” Horacio asked after a long silence, both siblings seemingly waiting for the other to fill it.

“Of course. You know Papá didn’t approve of Fabián at first, right?”

“What?”

“You must’ve heard the arguments?”

“To be fair, there were plenty of arguments between you and Papá.”

“Yeah, and they were mostly about me daring to marry someone other than a cop.”

“That’s what it was about?”

“Mostly. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Fabián; I just think he had suitors picked out for me. People he knew he could trust.”

“But they got along in the end, didn’t they?”

“Once Papá had got over himself, yeah.” Alejandra let out a nostalgic laugh, which Horacio quickly joined in with. “He could be tough when he wanted to be, but…he meant well,” she settled on. “Once he saw how happy I was and how Fabián had taken after his father with the farm, he came around. It was never personal with Papá. It’s just the way he was.”

“So, you don’t think he’d be disappointed in me…” Horacio paused to swallow, his throat drier than a Texan summer. “For quitting?” he got out eventually.

Alejandra gave Horacio a look he’d seen countless times over the years. One only a big sister could give her little brother when she had to feign ignorance of something she had already discovered for herself. The perks of being the eldest.

“How did you know?”

“Horacio, are you really asking that of someone who has been surrounded by cops all her life?”

Horacio rolled his eyes but let Alejandra have that one unchallenged.

“I thought you might have been discharged on medical grounds, to be honest. I hoped you’d seen sense. Or maybe met someone.”

“I wasn’t discharged, but I negotiated a payout after my injury.”

Alejandra released a self-satisfied hum, a whisp of a smile threatening to break free from the corners of her mouth. “Two out of three’s not bad, I suppose.”

Horacio gulped hard enough for Alejandra to hear; he had no doubt about that. But no words followed, not even when he caught her eye.

“You love him, don’t you?” It wasn’t an accusation or an interrogation. In fact, it was barely even a question.

“Yes.” It caught Horacio off guard how fast he answered. How direct and concise he’d been.

“And he loves you.” There was no pretence of a question mark now, but rather a clarification of a well-established fact. A rite of passage both parties needed to hear.

“He does.”

“Enough to walk away from it all, too.”

Horacio nodded, scared the lump in his throat would give way to something else as his glassy gaze met Alejandra’s.

“His father – Chucho – owns a ranch in Laredo, Texas. That’s where I went after…” he trailed off, not wishing to dwell on the finer details of the ambush. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I hated lying after everything we’ve been through. But I figured the less you and Mamá knew, the safer it was.”

“I had a feeling you’d left Colombia. But Texas?” Alejandra blew out a low whistle. “That’s the part we’ll need to prepare Mamá for.”

“They’re Mexican-American. And the ranch is right on the border by the river.”

“I’d lead with that part if I were you. Not sure you can avoid a lecture about fraternising with Spanish colonisers, though. Twice.”

“I got that the first time I moved over there. But she went quiet when I reminded her Madrid was good enough for Simón Bolívar.”

Alejandra’s shoulders shook in unison with Horacio’s until a comfortable silence fell between them.

“So, you were there a whole year?”

“Just over. I couldn’t do much to help for the first few months – whilst this healed.” Horacio flexed his right arm to prove to Alejandra that everything was back in working order. “But it was good to have a routine eventually.”

“Wait a minute…you worked on the ranch?”

“No need to sound so surprised when you live here. I was actually pretty good at it. And I liked it.” Although Horacio understood and returned his sister’s bemusement because even he had shocked himself.

“No, I’m not. It’s just…oh, Horacio...” Alejandra broke off to bring her hand to his cheek, her brow creased, but her eyes caught between being on the brink of a smile and tears. “Look at you.”

Horacio made a show of wiping away the suds from his cheekbone, hoping he wouldn’t still have an audience afterwards. But no such luck. “It’s not what I expected to happen – any of it. But it just....felt right. I know that probably doesn’t make sense.”

“Actually, it makes perfect sense.”

“Does it?”

“Well, for starters, I can see the appeal. Obviously. Can’t blame you for going for a younger man, either. And taller.”

Horacio rolled his eyes and hoped his face didn’t look as hot as it felt. “Not by that much. On either count.”

“Hey, no judgment from me. But seriously, of course, it makes sense. I know we all used to joke about you being married to your job, but…after Juliana, I did wonder if there was more to it than that.”

“I think burying myself in work killed two birds with one stone.”

“It was killing you.”

“I know.”

“And Papá would have told you the same.”

A hollow laugh escaped Horacio’s throat, Martínez’s words from the wedding still ringing intrusively in his ears. “I’d have been kicked out of the force. He’d have made sure of that. And I wouldn’t have blamed him.”

“Right, because you were the first officer on Colombian soil to commit violence or be used as a political weapon.”

“He was against it, Alejandra. La Violencia was enough for anyone to see in a lifetime.”

But that was just another in a long line of civil wars. Even if his father's life hadn’t been cut short, he would have seen yet another bloody outbreak in which the state did more to perpetuate the death toll than bring peace to the country. And Horacio had plenty of blood on his hands. At least his Papá was spared witnessing that.

“And you don’t think he was ever put in a compromising position back then? You don’t think La Violencia was why he didn’t want the same for you? You won’t remember much, and Mamá and Papá never spoke about it around us, but I got pretty good at listening through doors.”

“He never did talk about it. Even when I was older.”

Not that he really needed to, Horacio conceded. Even though they were kept relatively safe and away from the violence in Medellín compared to other regions of Antioquia – particularly the rural parts – he had heard enough over the years to fill in the blanks.

He remembered his Mamá’s stories of helping the displaced, those who sought refuge in the city. Thousands who had been forced to flee the violence and start over again, often in makeshift housing on the outskirts, the irony never lost on Horacio that one of those neighbourhoods became Comuna 13. But for all his Mamá’s tales and the work she continued to do until she left for Manizales, his Papá never spoke about those years.

“He was protecting you. Like Mamá was with us after he died. Sometimes silence is easier.”

“I know. I get it. Before he died, the cocaine trade hadn’t got going in Colombia yet. It was mostly marijuana. But with FARC around and the gringos spreading their anti-communist propaganda, he knew it was a question of when, not if, another war was coming. I think he hoped things would be different this time.”

“You did what you had to do, Horacio. Just like he did. Just like every generation of our family did to survive. What’s done is done.”

“I’m not sure you’d say that if you knew everything.”

“You think I never heard any of the rumours out here? Or picked up a newspaper once in a while?”

“You never said anything.”

Alejandra shot Horacio a cutting glare, the kind he was an expert at delivering, but only a select few could get away with throwing back at him. “I knew you wouldn’t talk about it even if I asked.”

Horacio scoffed. Touché. “Not all of it was true.”

It was Alejandra’s turn to laugh. “Well, I kinda figured you weren’t dead after you called.”

“I don’t just mean the ambush.”

“I know,” she said briskly.

But Horacio couldn’t ignore the relief in her body language. Even though he understood it, a wave of shame hit him for even planting a seed of doubt in her – his older sister, the mother of his nieces and nephews – mind in the first place.

“But that’s all in the past now,” he concluded, shutting down his own train of destructive thought. “And you’re right; Papá’s not here. But Javier is.”

“So your future’s in Laredo, then.”

“Are you mad?”

“Am I mad that my little brother is finally getting his shit together and is head over heels in love? Oh, yeah, I’m livid.”

An inferno had spread across Horacio’s cheeks, and he struggled to think of a response. But luckily for him, Alejandra wasn’t done yet.

“It’s…safe, though, right? For you both to live together?”

“As safe as anywhere else. Every country has its problems. I’m sure there’ll always be people with something to say. But we’ve been careful.”

“Just promise me you’ll keep being careful.”

“We will, I promise.”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll convince Mamá to visit in the summer, though.”

“That’s fair. But you do think she’ll want to visit?”

“She might be strong, but we know what she lost – what we all lost. So, if there’s a chance for you to share your life with someone as she did with Papá, to be safe – to be happy after everything – yeah, I think she'll want to visit.”

“Do you think Papá would if he could?” Horacio knew it was a loaded grenade of a question and unfair to ask. But he couldn’t help himself.

Alejandra hesitated, seemingly aware she was between a rock and a hard place. “Maybe in his old age. Or if he knew Javier saved your life.”

“How did –?”

She expelled a comedically dramatic sigh. “Keep up, manito. When you called, you told me the DEA came after you that night. I don’t need to hold a badge to guess who that was.”

Horacio was banged to rights once more as he tried to recall the exact information he had relayed to Alejandra in the hours after the ambush; evidently, it was more than he thought.

“He – and his partner, Steve – went against orders and got suspended for helping me and my men.”

“So, they took a leaf out of your book then?”

“Something like that.”

Before Horacio could overthink it, he took a deep breath and told Alejandra everything. From the blackmail to his and Javier’s resignations to their year in Madrid, it all came tumbling out whilst she kept washing and he kept drying. Just like old times. Just like their Papá was in the next room along with their Mamá. And in so many ways, he always would be, not as a ghost of their past, but forever a part of their present and future.

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

Arriving during the week had its advantages, as it wasn’t necessary for Horacio to make excuses to get an early night. Work and school beckoned in the morning for most of the household, so the evening had ended in a low-key fashion.

That was more than fine by Horacio after a long drive and an overdue heart-to-heart. He lay on his side, his back nestled into Javier’s chest in the centre of the spare room’s double bed. They made up the fold-out bed for pretences, but it was purely extra space to store their luggage.

A bedside lamp and hints of moonlight peaking around the edges of the curtains cast the room in soft shadows, the low murmur of a telenovela in one of the nearby bedrooms the only sound to be heard at this hour.

“How old were you there?” Javier asked, his voice muffled against Horacio’s shoulder where he’d temporarily paused his trail of kisses after picking out one of several framed photos on the wall.

“The one from Alejandra’s wedding? I’d have been 24.”

“Cute curls.” Javier’s nose nuzzled against the back of Horacio’s head, which was sadly lacking the same unruliness as in the photo.

“Fuck you.”

Javier sniggered. “Hey, I was being serious! They suit you. Plus…more to grab hold of.” He slid a hand into Horacio’s hair as his mouth resumed its work along bare skin.

Horacio’s back arched with a sigh as he leaned into Javier’s touch. “You know we can’t get carried away. Not here.”

“I know.” Of course, Javier understood. It was one thing for him to have sneaked in and out of the guesthouse back in Laredo; it was quite another to be under the same roof as Horacio’s whole family. But that didn’t stop the almost petulant tone in Javier’s voice. He was still human, after all.

“I promise we’ll make up for it once we leave.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Despite their flirtation, exhaustion was thick in their throats and pressed heavily on their limbs, pushing them closer towards sleep as the butterflies in their stomachs finally settled.

“The wedding wasn’t that long after Papá died. Alejandra asked me to give her away instead. At first, I didn’t think I deserved to take Papá’s place. But I think she needed me there with her, so, I said yes.”

“Of course you did, and I bet she never forgot that.”

“No, and I’ll never forget tonight."

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

It was still dark in the spare room when Javier stirred and untangled himself from Horacio as slowly as possible. He had woken up thirsty and threw on a precautionary pair of jeans before tiptoeing down the wooden staircase towards the kitchen.

The clock on the oven read 01:30am, so he wasn't expecting to find the spotlights above it switched on. He searched through the cupboards until he found a tumbler and filled it with water from the tap, taking large gulps until the glass was drained.

“So, you’re a night owl too, then?”

“Shit!” Javier hissed, spinning around with a sharp intake of breath, almost dropping the glass on the tiled floor.

“Sorry,” Alejandra whispered. “I was just reading before heading off to bed.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I just needed some water. Didn’t think anyone else would be up.” Javier was suddenly very aware of the fact he was standing half naked in the middle of the kitchen, Horacio’s necklace like a flashing beacon at his chest. “Obviously,” he added with an awkward huff, looking down at his state of semi-undress.

“Right,” Alejandra replied with a stifled laugh. “How about you avoid catching a chill whilst I find something a bit more…authentic than tap water?”

Once Javier came back downstairs with his chest now covered, Alejandra was sat at the kitchen table with two shot glasses and a bottle of aguardiente.

“Not sure my stomach can handle any more of that after the wedding.”

“Lightweight. And just think of it as an initiation.”

Javier sighed in defeat, accepting the challenge as he took a seat opposite Alejandra.

She unscrewed the bottle and tipped measures into each glass. “Wanna make this more interesting?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Three shots, three questions each. But you can only ask a question after you’ve emptied your glass.”

Javier laughed for a second, unsure what he imagined Alejandra to be like, yet somehow, she surprised him anyway. “Okay. Already sounds better than every other icebreaker inflicted on me. Who goes first?”

“Guest’s choice.”

He stared down at his glass as though it was the barrel of a gun, remembering why he had eventually insisted whiskey was his and Horacio’s go-to drink. When he first arrived in Colombia, Horacio would offer him a shot, pouring liberally from the stash of aguardiente in his office drawer, and Javier accepted on multiple occasions. But it was over and done with like a spoonful of caustic medicine. At least whiskey could be drunk slower and delayed saying goodnight.

That wasn't the order of things now, though. So, Javier grabbed the bull by the horns and threw back his glass, wincing at the aniseed burn as it slid down his throat.

“New rule: you’ve got 30 seconds to come up with a question. Otherwise, you take another shot.”

“Alright, alright, I’m thinking.”

Alejandra’s gaze fell on the oven clock, ramping up the pressure. “10 seconds left…”

“Okay. I’ve got one. What was it like growing up with a younger brother?”

“Annoying, obviously. Especially after he got the highest grade in his English class. I don’t know where he picked them up, but he knew all the swear words. Of course. He drove me crazy testing them out.”

“He did that to my old partner, Steve – his Spanish isn’t great, and Horacio sure liked to remind him whenever he got the chance.”

“Sounds about right. No wonder he liked you – best of both worlds.”

“Maybe.” Javier knew what Alejandra meant, but it didn’t stop heat from spreading through his cheeks regardless.

“He was generally pretty quiet at school,” Alejandra continued, "but not afraid to take the lead…or break a few rules.”

“Again, I’m not surprised.”

“Nope.” They both laughed at that. “He always liked to be moving, though. Doing something with his hands. Or playing sports – he was a good runner. We used to race each other around Jardín Botánico, and he would always beat me. I think he already knew he was in training for the Academy. So, obviously, he was accepted. No doubt some thought he got a free pass, but he was determined to prove himself. Then he had to grow up.”

The joviality faded abruptly from Alejandra’s face, transforming into a wistful smile.

“We both did. But at least I’d had more time with Papá. Good job I did have those few years to myself ‘cos Horacio followed him around like a shadow. Until he couldn’t. Then he thought he had to be the man of the house. Even when there were two much more qualified women for the job.”

“He thought it was his duty."

“Yeah. He did.” There was something akin to awe in how Alejandra looked at Javier, as though she was simultaneously taken aback and impressed that someone summed up and understood her brother so accurately and succinctly.

“Isn’t it your turn, now?” Javier asked after a moment of silence.

Without further hesitation, Alejandra downed her shot. “Why Colombia?”

“Why not Colombia?” He tried a feeble laugh but knew that wouldn't cut it. “I studied Gabriel García Márquez in high school. Although, can’t say I really got him at the time. Took me another try when I was older.”

Now he thought about it, Javier wasn’t convinced he exactly got him the second time around either, considering García Márquez’s views on extradition aligned fiercely with Horacio’s. But that was the luxury of hindsight.

“By then, my Mamá had long since passed, my fiancée had just become my ex, and I had no fucking clue what I was doing with my life. Guess I needed to get lost in someone else’s problems for a while.”

“Tell me about it.” Alejandra held a book up in the air that had been abandoned on the table since Javier joined her.

“Smart move. My teacher loved telling us how García Márquez moved to Mexico and wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude over there. And with how things went down in Laredo, I could see the appeal of starting over in another country. Mexico was…too close to home. The drug war was getting out of hand. More and more agents were being transferred. And what’s the line?” Javier broke off, eyes cast towards the ceiling as he licked his lips in concentration. “‘We came’, they said, ‘because everyone is coming’.”

Alejandra let a pause of bewilderment pass between them as she studied Javier with intrigue. “You’re not at all like the other gringos he’s worked with in the past.”

“Did he bring any of them home to his family?”

“No. You’re the first. As I’m sure you're aware.”

“Maybe.”

“Drink up.”

Javier did as he was told, repressing a cough as the potent liquid worked its magic. “Why did you choose farm life over being a cop?”

Alejandra laughed a little too loudly, considering the time. “There are other career choices, you know.”

Javier gasped. “There are?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? But that’s not quite how it went for me. The farm came with Fabián. They’re sort of a package deal. I’m sure you can understand that.” She threw Javier a knowing smile. “But I ruled out being a cop years before I moved here or met Fabián. I knew from Papá that women in the force were few and far between back then. They’re still pretty scarce now. I wasn’t up for putting myself in the firing line being a General’s daughter. They never would have respected me or believed I got there on my own merit. I didn’t want to spend my life trying to gain anyone's approval.”

“Makes sense. It’s not easy in the force if you’re…different from the rest."

“Exactly. I’m not sure it’s what Papá even wanted for me anyway. Because he knew what it’d be like. Then there was Mamá with her social work. She was in her element. Always fighting someone’s corner, especially during the suffrage movement. I think I was the odd one out in the family, ‘cos everyone else seemed to have…a calling except for me. So, I studied, got a business degree, became a buyer for various companies and ended up in the coffee industry. And the rest is history.”

“Good for you. And I guess that explains Horacio’s, er, distaste for a badly made cup of coffee.”

“Yep. He’s got no excuse. And neither do you anymore.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Your turn.” Javier took the bottle this time and filled Alejandra’s glass.

She downed it in one go. “¿Por qué no un llanero ahora que has descartado ser policía?” (Why not a llanero now you’ve ruled out being a police officer?)

“¿Por qué no un vaquero?” (Why not a vaquero?) Javier corrected with a glint in his eye that Alejandra returned with an eye roll. “Like you said…there are other jobs. That one was just never for me. I need more variety day-to-day. Like I’m making a bigger difference somehow. But preferably without the pretty fucking significant risk of death or blackmail.”

“A fair demand.”

“Right? It’s not like I’m asking for a raise.”

“When I moved here, I didn’t know where life was taking me, especially when the kids came along. I couldn’t keep my old job because of all the travelling…and being a mother was the priority until they started school. It took me a while to find my place on the buying and selling side of the business. So, all I’m saying is, things might get clearer once you’re settled back in Laredo.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Javier raised his glass and nodded his thanks to Alejandra, touched by her unprompted advice.

His third and final question had arrived, and the pressure to make it a good one pressed uncomfortably on his increasingly fuzzy head. “If your father was here now, what would you say to him?”

For a brief second, Javier feared he had overstepped some forbidden and invisible line and been overfamiliar with someone he only really knew by proxy at this stage.

But whilst Alejandra’s smile was permanently stained with traces of grief, warmth flickered then grew in her charcoal eyes. “I’d tell him we’re fine. That we miss him and wish he’d come back for good but that he needn’t worry. Because even though Mamá didn’t always get things right, she steered us through it as best she could. And we didn’t turn our backs on the world. That we found love in the dark.”

Alejandra sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “Sorry. I think it’s the alcohol.”

“No, don’t be sorry.” Javier paused to clear his throat, blinking his vision back into focus. “It was beautifully said.” His hand reached for hers across the table, hoping again that he hadn’t gone too far.

But she let his hand rest there until she shook her head like a wet dog and poured her final shot. “Same question to you about your mother, obviously,” she said before downing the aguardiente in one.

Javier scoffed. “Well, I guess I deserved that.” He took his time, collecting his thoughts as though he was preparing an important speech. As though he’d been trying to find the right words for most of his life – and how rarely he’d succeeded.

“I’d tell her I miss her morisqueta. I’d tell her Pops visits her every week. But then I think she already knows that. Same way I think she made sure he never re-married.”

Javier couldn’t help but laugh, seeing with perfect clarity where his own loyal streak came from when his Pops was still as devoted to Mariana as the day they married. Siempre tuyo was no exaggeration.

“I’d make sure she knew he wasn’t alone, though. That he was known as Don Chucho to most in Laredo. That she’d be proud of him for growing the community she helped start. I’d brag about all the tamales we’ve made and quote her favourite poems. I’d introduce her to Horacio.”

He envisaged showing her Horacio’s poetry book, knowing that all it would take was for her to read Javier’s message in the opening pages to understand everything about who they were to each other. He’d even dreamed of it, waking with a ridiculous hope that she had somehow intercepted it.

“She sounds as incredible as your father. I hope one day I can thank him for taking my little brother under his wing when he needed it the most.”

“I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“I can’t – and don’t want to – imagine where he would have ended up without either of you, to be honest. He told me about the ambush…and everything else. And even though it doesn’t feel nearly enough, I just want to say...thank you.”

At first, Javier could only nod and swallow the lump bobbing at the base of his throat. “He did the same for me. It wasn’t easy walking away from my job, don’t get me wrong, but it was different for him. He felt like he’d betrayed Colombia and his Papá. Yet he did it anyway.”

“When it’s the right person, the sacrifices are worth it. And I can’t think of anyone more worthy of wearing that.” Alejandra’s sightline had fallen to Javier’s neck. His chest may have now been covered, but the silver chain still poked out from beneath the seam of his shirt.

She poured them a bonus shot each and raised her glass. “Welcome to the family.”