#life and times of a yoko

[coredrill]

CREATE THE HEAVENS! DAY ONE: FAVORITE QUOTE

[13eyond13]

actually stunned by how gay The Beatles has been all this time and I just never knew

[pennyserenade]

they should let me interview cillian murphy bc i promise you i’d not ask him a single question about himself. it’d be solely beatles business bc he watched that eight hour documentary MULTIPLE TIMES OVER. he’s the only male beatles fan ive ever heard of that’s matched my freak like that. i think he’s a great looking man and a fine actor but im a beatles fan in the deepest part of my soul and my entire life has been in anticipation of meeting a weirdo just like that

[oediex]

"What if we call it Akina?"

My parents bought a robotic vacuum cleaner. They're getting on in age, so it's a good addition to the household. It and I met last week, so I asked what its name was. Turned out they'd just named it after our family name. Boring. "It needs a name," I said.

Today my dad says unprompted, "I think we need to give it a different name. Our last name is a bit stupid." My mum says it's fine, but I agree. I'm drawing a blank, though, until my dad suggests the perfect name.

"What if we call it Akina?"

I like to think he's been pondering on this for two weeks.

In the early 2000s, my parents bought a GPS system for the car. I dubbed her 'Akina'. She was named for an AI system in a space ship in the Yoko Tsuno comic album series that I'm still obsessed with twenty years later.

It stuck. When my parents were going anywhere new, we'd say, "Don't forget Akina." "Akina will guide you." "Where is Akina?" I was sad when new cars with built-in GPS systems replaced the old ones. I always kind of felt like she was my baby.

I've missed Akina. I'm glad she's back.

[meatlesbeating]

Finished Reading Nowhere Man about John's diaries and am starting to understand why people like the One Sweet Dream / Another Kind of Mind podcasters get so defensive over Paul tbh

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

This won't fix me but it's keeping me from snapping

[gregdotorg]

Kusama & Ono Not A Thing

I read a reference somewhere to Yoko Ono and Yayoi Kusama living together at one point, and I was like, what?? I'd done a months-long soak in everything written about Kusama for a huge article, and had not seen that.

So I looked into it, and basically, they knew each other, may have had some interaction or beef—it's not documented, and the documentation of their interactions makes it feel cursory at best—but they almost certainly didn't live together.

The timing and their life situations in the early-to-mid 1960s don't map, and the guy who said it, while he was around at the time and had documented involvement with both Kusama and Ono, was also an unreformed bullshitter and hustler, so he is an unreliable, though entertaining, source.

[i-hear-a-sound]

this goes hard feel free to screenshot

[poisonlove]

Absolutely ignore/get rid of this is you don't wanna do it buttt

Can I request a Wednesday x Fem!reader where Wednesday has a general disregard for everyone and their feelings EXCEPT for her little situationship (reader) and it's just little instances where she's softer with her?

YOU | w.a

pairing: Wednesday Addams x reader

A/N : I tried to satisfy your request as much as possible but Wednesday and reader don't have a situationship, they will develop... something ;)

"The most precious things in life are usually the most helpless." Penn Badgley

Wednesday Addams walked along the corridors of Nevermore Academy with a brisk yet graceful step, the sound of her shoes against the cold marble determining her hurry to get to the library. The other students stepped aside as she passed, probably intimidated by her dark and menacing gaze that seemed carved into her features.

"Addams, one word"

Wednesday reluctantly stops, turning slightly and raising an eyebrow. Yoko Tanaka strides toward her, sunglasses perched on her head revealing a pleading look. Wednesday had no intention of wasting her time with her roommate’s best friend, but seeing the vampire in such a state of despair piqued her curiosity.

"What do you want Yoko?" Wednesday asked, her tone of voice deliberately rude. But the brunette didn't care at all.

"I need your help," Yoko began, trying to keep calm, but her voice betrayed a certain frustration. "Could you help me with Thornill's homework? I can't find the damn Moon Flower anywhere."

Wednesday could hardly believe her ears: how dare she interrupt her plans for something so stupid? With her classic impassive gaze, the brunette stared at Yoko in a prolonged silence that made her feel more and more uncomfortable.

"I don't care," Wednesday finally replied with venom and disinterest, surprising the vampire. "If you can't do such a stupid task, maybe you deserve to fail," the brunette added in a cutting tone.

"but it doesn't cost you anything!" Yoko exclaimed in despair.

Wednesday's behavior annoyed her deeply, but Yoko had hoped that following Enid's advice to be kind and tolerant would at least provide some relief. Apparently she was wrong.

"I said no, Yoko," Wednesday replied, her tone even more icy. Her gaze was steady and impenetrable, and her patience, already thin, was completely exhausted.

Yoko sighed deeply, realizing that pushing further would get her nowhere. She put her sunglasses back on in a quick, controlled motion, hiding her annoyance behind a forced smile. Her grin revealed her pointed canines, a gesture that might have seemed threatening in other circumstances, but here it only served to hide her irritation.

"ok, Addams"

with one last look, Yoko walked away, keeping that forced smile until she turned the corner. Wednesday didn't follow her with her gaze, already tired of that brief and, in her eyes, pointless interaction.

As she set off again, determined to finally reach the library, she was interrupted again. This time it was her two friends Ajax and Xavier who stopped her. The two approached quickly with an air of urgency that seemed to want to drag her into some other stupid discussion.

"Wednesday, can we talk to you for a moment?" Xavier asked hesitantly.

the brunette stopped again, clearly irritated now. her gaze narrowed to a slit of annoyance as she waited for them to speak.

"I have a problem with my new work... and I think you can help me," Xavier said, trying to be persuasive.

Wednesday looked at both of them coldly, her patience crumbling with every passing second. All of Nevermore ignored her and labeled her as the school freak, psychopathic and creepy... and now, by some strange twist of fate, everyone needed her today? She simply wanted to go to the library to further her research on poisons and their uses , see you , continue writing her story, or go to the cemetery later.

“I don't care,” she replied coldly, hoping Xavier would understand that she felt some urgency in leaving.

"Addams," Ajax intervenes, "I wanted to ask you for advice... you know that I'm interested in Enid and since you're her roommate..." the gorgon continues, purposely leaving the sentence hanging.

Wednesday stared at them in silence for a few moments, her impassive gaze betraying her impatience. "I don't care in the slightest about your problems and if you don't get out of my way immediately, I won't hesitate to make you regret this conversation" the brunette threatens in a low and cold tone.

Ajax and Xavier look at each other in confusion and fear, pondering Addams's words. They both knew Wedsnesday's reputation and the very real danger of being killed by the shorter girl terrified them.

they decided to step aside.

Wednesday continued on her way, completely ignoring them, while the two boys exchanged glances of resignation. The massive wooden doors finally loomed in the distance and the swarm of students' voices faded as she entered the less frequented part of Nevermore.

"WED!" an all-too-familiar voice shouts enthusiastically.

For the third time that day, Wednesday had to stop. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to suppress the killer instinct that threatened to surface and put an end to her blonde roommate's irritating exuberance. She was seriously starting to believe that it was a curse cast by her mother, some sort of psychological torture designed to test her patience. Unfortunately, it was far from her favorite torture, and she focused on something she knew would calm her down: you.

"Wednesday," Enid exclaimed, catching up with her with a beaming smile, "I was just looking for you... The Poe Cup is coming up again and we have to defend the title! You'll be there, right? We can't do it without you!"

Wednesday stared at the blonde, impassive. Entering the Poe Cup again was the last thing she wanted to do, but she knew Enid wouldn't give up so easily.

"I'll think about it," she replied, keeping her tone detached. She didn't want to seem too involved, but she didn't want to completely dampen Enid's enthusiasm either.

"Awesome!" Enid clapped her hands, thrilled by the response. Then she walked away, skipping happily down the hallway.

Wednesday watched her go, mentally wondering how Enid managed to maintain all that vitality. With a barely audible sigh, she finally resumed her walk towards the library. The brunette lifts the corners of her lips as she enters her haven of peace, looking at the shelves covered in books and dust.

the sound of footsteps echoes throughout the library, her figure getting lost among the endless avenues of shelves and books of Nevermore. Her diligently runs her fingers through the tomes, grazing their rough and fragile covers, the wisdom that hides within them. The few students who were there were busy reading or studying among the various desks scattered around that place, the silence broken only by the sound of the pages being turned.

but it is among those shelves that she finally sees: you

she knew basically the essential things about you: your name is Y/N; you are a year older than her, you are Italian, you love blue and your power is to control fire. You were very good friends with Yoko, for some strange reason, and you were a person who despite the aura of mystery and darkness that surrounded you, smiled and was kind to everyone.

she noticed you a few days ago and still hasn't figured out who you are. Were you really that nice? what's really bothering you Y/N?

Wednesday watched you intently, savoring your every move. She noticed the way you brushed your hair back from your face, the smile that lit up your face when you read something that excited you, and even the grimaces you made in response to bizarre or banal passages you encountered.

Some might call it stalking, but she's really just trying to understand you better.

her black eyes never left your figure: you were tall, you had a sharp jaw that accentuated your strong face and you had full lips that were somehow always ready to whisper something provocative or sarcastic. at that moment you had chosen to gather your hair in a messy bun, a practical choice but one that added a touch of carefree elegance to your appearance.

you were struggling with a pile of books that seemed to have a life of its own. Some had already fallen, scattering across the floor. You quickly bent down to pick them up, but each attempt only seemed to make things worse.

Were you disorganized or did your hunger for books make you so careless?

Wednesday realized it was the perfect time to come out of hiding. She approached you cautiously, then crouched down and picked up a couple of books. Her cold fingers landed on Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart, and a thin smile threatened to appear on her lips. She was almost certain that she was the only one, aside from maybe Thornill, who had read that book in the entire school. Finding out that you shared the same literary tastes hit her in a surprisingly pleasant way.

“Here.” Wednesday’s voice was almost a whisper, as if she were intimidated by the idea of an interaction.

your eyes lift from the floor to meet hers.

Wednesday held her breath. They were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. You looked at her with curiosity, maybe surprise, but there was something in your eyes that made her feel strangely vulnerable.

“Thank you,” you croak embarrassedly, your cheeks pink knowing someone had witnessed your disaster.

“Maybe you should stop devouring more books than you can handle,” Wednesday said venomously. Her words were a wall behind which she hid the slight agitation she was trying to ignore.

you smile. Shouldn't you be annoyed by my answer?

"What's your name?" she asks curiously

Wednesday stared at you for a moment, cold as ever. “Wednesday,” she replied dryly, not giving anything away. But when you smiled again, the brunette felt a shiver run through her mind, one she tried desperately to ignore.

“Happy reading,” Wednesday adds quickly, turning around as she notices the slight look of confusion crossing your face. It was clear that you wanted to continue the conversation, maybe tell her your name, but Wednesday couldn’t stand there beside you without feeling her body boil.

she needed to leave the library and distract her mind

would have continued after the search, with the necessary calm

but there was an unexpected relief in knowing that she now knew her name

just like she knew yours.

A/N: yes I know, very inspired by the YOU series

[toournextadventure]

when you love it pt.2

Summary: Learning to accept yourself again is a hard task. Thankfully, you've got two lovely Outcasts to help you

Word Count: 5.4k Warnings: swearing, talk of blood, typical vampire violence Pairing: Wenclair x Reader (part 1) A/N: Surprise, this is not the last part, there will be one more. So sorry but... it gets better

“Have you ever eaten somebody?”

Ah, there they were. The Little Bane of your existence, as you had come to endearingly call them over the last few months. A menace at best, the little wolf had, for some unknown reason, made it a point to attach themself to your hip. Even on the full moon, the pup would sniff you out and remain with you until they turned back into the headache they truly were.

Admirable.

“Why do you ask?” You asked without looking down to meet their eyes. The eyes of an Addams, you thought.

“Mother said people go insane after eating human flesh,” the child said. “I’m trying to collect evidence to prove her wrong.”

The question was pure Addams.

“I believe it’s only if they eat the brain matter of a human,” you said, finally looking down.

“So you have then?” They asked. “Eaten someone?”

“What do you think?” You asked.

Their head tilted just like Enid's as they thought of an answer. After all this time, you were still finding more and more similarities between them and their mothers. It was almost comical. The toothy grin, the troublesome look in their eyes. A perfect mix of two perfect women.

“No,” they finally said. “I don’t think you have.”

You smiled, showing your fangs. “Correct.”

You both looked back out toward the scenery in front of the cabin. Winter was always the most beautiful time, if anyone asked your opinion. The snow coated the trees in the finest powder, creating an almost constant appearance of fresh snowfall. To the back of the cabin was a lake that froze over so thoroughly, you could skate for hours and never fall through.

Though falling through was always an adventure of its own, you would admit.

Perhaps you could get Enid to skate with you again. Oh, wouldn’t that be grand? It had been ages since you had last danced together upon the shimmering ice. The amount of trust that came with such an act… would you be able to skate as before? Could she put her life in your hands once again?

You deflated; you wouldn’t blame her if she couldn’t.

“Have you ever had blood from someone you know?”

Each cell in your dead body froze.

Teeth ripping through flesh. You could hear the blood pumping from the wounds, pouring out over your hands as you tried desperately to stop the flow. Your own blood cascaded down your throat, erasing any satisfaction you had previously received.

You could still smell the blood. It made your mouth water.

You still wanted more.

“What do you think?” You asked, looking back down at them.

They didn’t look away in contemplation. No, they kept their eyes locked with yours. It was uncomfortable. They had Wednesday’s stunning brown eyes. Eyes you had stared into night after night before watching the light slowly fade from one mistake. Just one.

“Yes,” they said.

“Aunt Yoko’s here!” One of the other children yelled from the house.

You looked back out to the scenery before your Little Bane ran off to join the others.

“Correct,” you mumbled with a sigh.

No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t forget the feel of her blood falling down your throat. The heat that pooled in your chest and had your dead heart wishing to beat. Each inch of scar tissue embedded in your skin ached at the memory. She’s just inside, your Instincts whispered. Just a sip.

Your lip caught on your fang as you snarled at the thought. An animalistic sound; pathetic. But the sound made you feel as if you could quiet the Instincts. You would not drink from her again. Had it learned nothing from the last time? There was blood in the fridge, you would survive just fine.

Heavy footsteps came up behind you.

“Aunt Yoko wants to speak with you,” your Little Bane said.

You exhaled slowly and nodded to yourself. Of course she would. She had never truly been your biggest fan. Vampires don’t trust other vampires, she had said, if you remembered correctly. Which you did. Her Instincts may have dulled over the generations, but her intelligence remained as sharp as ever.

“Lead the way,” you said.

Your Little Bane’s lip caught on their canine, so reminiscent of Enid you wanted to laugh. At times, the child was pure Addams. Every cell of their being practically screamed it. Yet, at moments like this, you were reminded that Enid was also an Addams in her own right. And that child, though outwardly appearing as Wednesday, was Enid’s little copy.

In the past, Yoko Tanaka had never intimidated you. After all, why would she? Her family had gone soft, adamantly refusing to drink from a source regardless of its humanity; or lack thereof. There had been a few instances during your college years where she had debated your own family beliefs, questioning the primality of it all. And it was, you wouldn’t deny it. Drinking from the source was what your ancestors had done, and the Instinct continued to flow through your veins whether you liked it or not.

You had silently agreed with her, though you would never let her know.

Now, however? After what Enid had jokingly titled The Beatdown - which neither you nor Wednesday found very humorous, but if that was how she coped then who were you to deny her such a trivial thing - Yoko terrified you. And given how she was looking at you as you walked closer…

She was aware of it.

“Tanaka,” you said with a polite nod and smile.

Her arms crossed tighter over her chest.

“In the car, pup,” she said in a tone that contradicted her body language.

“Aunt Div is in my spot,” they said without hesitation.

The immediate change in Yoko’s body was comical. She turned to look into the car where Divina - with whom you shared no ill will, though you knew it was no mutual feeling - was sitting in the front passenger seat. Her head was facing the back of the car where she was, supposedly, talking with the other Addams children.

Yoko rapped her knuckles against the window. “You’re being displaced, babe,” she called out.

Divina’s shoulders slumped, but she promptly unbuckled her sit and got out of the car. The look she gave you was anything but polite as she slid into the middle seat, pushing one of the children into the back. They were all laughing and smiling; truly Enid’s children.

“Good luck,” your Little Bane said to you.

“Thank you,” you mumbled back as they climbed into the car and shut the door, leaving you alone with Yoko.

How enjoyably torturous.

“Hello, Tanaka-”

“-Cut the bullshit,” she interrupted. Straight to the point as always. “No one wants you around them.” Her finger jabbed into your chest. “No one trusts you around them.”

“I understand,” you said.

“No, I don’t think you do.”

A wet gasp-

-snarling-

-relief-

-pain-

“I very much do,” you mumbled.

“I should rip your heart out now and eliminate any chance of the past repeating itself,” she said. Silence hung thick between you before she pulled her arms back to her body. “But I won’t, because Enid would cry and Wednesday would bury me six feet under.”

“This is my house, Tanaka,” you said. “I am more than prepared.”

“You’d better be,” she said as she started moving at a glacial pace toward the driver’s side of the car. “Because I’ll kill you and curse your entire line if you touch a hair on either of their heads.”

The threat was enough to have you shiver. Oh, if you failed and your family was cursed? They would never forgive you. They would start hunting you for sport, and it would be no less than you deserved.

Yoko stopped before opening her door.

“Not that I’ll need to,” she said. “You’re proof Enid can do it herself.”

Her words bounced around your skull as the car finally pulled away, taking all the Addams children with it. A part of you was almost… disappointed. You had grown to tolerate them over the past few months. They were rather enjoyable at times even, constantly inviting you for games. Or movies, once games had quickly become outlawed due to the… unruliness.

“I wish I had gotten another goodbye hug,” Enid said, appearing beside you seemingly out of nowhere.

You should have been able to smell her approach. Wolves were… not the most pleasant. Not horrific, simply not as appealing as humans. She had asked you to describe it once, what the difference was between her and Wednesday. Like a Christmas candle during the heat of summer, you had explained. So not like in Twilight? She had teased.

She’s my Christmas candle, you thought with a smile.

“It’s only for a weekend,” you told her. Her eyes sparkled. “Then you can have hello hugs instead.”

Her smile could have illuminated the world. “I do like hello hugs.”

“Come inside,” you said with a gesture toward the cabin, “I believe it’s going to snow.”

Enid’s joyful disposition had never waned over time. If anything, she almost seemed more joyous and carefree. Something lightened its load on your chest at the observation. You hadn’t ruined her outlook on life. She was, for all intents and purposes, outwardly okay.

A werewolf was across the room, hovering over Wednesday even as it transformed back into a person. Back into Enid. Her bare skin was shredded.

Wednesday was precisely where you had left her earlier; sitting in your small library, a book in hand and a cup of tea on the table. It was one of your more obscure books, having come from your long line of ancestors. In other words, from some murderous Frenchman’s basement. The pages were probably stained with blood.

“I had almost forgotten the joy of silence,” she said as Enid practically fell into her lap. With practised ease, she made way for her wolf without taking her eyes away from the book.

“It’s too quiet,” Enid said with a sigh.

You walked over to the record player you kept in the corner of the room as your married women talked silently amongst themselves. It was endearing to hear them talk of their young. To talk as if they truly loved them. What was that like, you wondered? To care for your young in such a deep, conditionless way?

Cold fingers ran against the thin spines of records in their cases, unsure of where to stop. Would they have ever had children if you had stayed with them? Younglings had never been in your future; you wouldn’t dare bring a child into your bloodline. But they seemed so very happy and content with their choices in life. Perhaps it was going to happen for them regardless.

Without looking, you picked a record out of its case and gently placed it on the player. Could you be trusted around their whelps? The children themselves seemed unconcerned, but what about Enid and Wednesday? Would they trust you? You weren’t even sure if you wanted them to trust you. Children were creatures you had yet to conquer.

You had attacked them. Both of them. The women you loved. They were bleeding out. Because of you.

The beautiful sounds of jazz fell from the record playing, encasing the room in a warmth that had previously been absent. Deep down you knew it wasn’t the music that made the house feel correct. But things were still new - again. You weren’t ready to make that admittance just yet.

“What are the plans for this weekend?” Enid asked when you sat in the second chair in the room. Only a small round end table was situated between you and your girls. Could… you still call them that?

“We should enjoy the silence while we can,” Wednesday said.

Enid huffed. “You know they aren’t that bad, Willa.”

They continued to bicker - lovingly, of course - while you just sat and watched. Unlike the soiree those few months ago, they were far more relaxed. Casual even, if you had to put a word on it.  Enid was bundled in warm clothes - funny, considering she ran hot - and Wednesday was in a simple black sweater and leggings.

Everything about them in that moment reminded you of college. When you would all relax in the evenings. You were usually stuck with your nose in a book, terrified you wouldn’t manage to pass your classes, let alone the bar exam. But you could never properly focus because Enid and Wednesday were always around, bickering like an old married couple even from the very beginning.

Would you ever have that relationship with them again? Simply existing with them without fear of injury or betrayal. Whether it was just you or all of you, there was tension so thick in the air it was suffocating. You didn’t want to keep a tense, cordial relationship with them. Though, it did no good to dwell on the fact. You would respect their wishes until your dying breath.

Something warm grabbed your hand. Something with claws that pressed deep into the palm of your hand. There would be indentations left behind. If she didn’t ease up, perhaps a spot or two of blood. With you, she had never learned to manage her strength; there was no real need.

You never minded.

“What do you normally do?” Enid asked.

You exhaled slowly. “I sit here, listen to jazz, and work.”

“Both of you are so boring,” Enid groaned. “It’s our one full weekend without the kids,” she continued. “We can’t waste it by working.”

“I’m not working,” Wednesday said as she placed the book down on the table and looked at her wife with the softest of smiles. “I’m reading.”

The way they looked at each other was mesmerising. It was pure, unadulterated love. You hadn’t known either of them back when Wednesday was - as Enid so endearingly described - emotionally stunted. You two hadn’t been as outwardly romantic as Enid - she set the bar rather high - but you would’ve never considered her stunted. Especially now, watching the way she looked at her wife.

“We should do something,” Enid said. Her hand squeezed yours; her nails pricked your skin. “All of us.”

“All of us, you say?” You inquired. She glared at you.

“What a scandal,” Wednesday chimed in.

“I forgot how annoying you both are,” Enid mumbled to herself with no attempt to hide her little smile.

Her smile. The thing you had looked forward to seeing every morning before everything had crashed down around you. Even on the worst of days, you knew her smile would be enough to fix everything. Just the same as you hoped you could have fixed everything for her.

Until you couldn’t.

Outside, you could hear the snow starting to fall.

“What is there to do around the cabin?” Wednesday asked; her eyes never left Enid’s. “So our winter wolf doesn’t get too antsy?”

Another squeeze of your hand, digging the sharp, colourful nails deeper.

“Well,” you drew out the word as you thought. “There’s a frozen lake down the path.” Enid’s ears perked up slightly. “Or the town over usually has a winter market around this time.”

That was what did it. At the mention of a market, Enid practically jumped up from Wednesday’s lap. You kept your eyes on her even as you saw Wednesday smile out of your periphery. Her hands clasped together and she looked between the both of you with an excitement you hadn’t seen from her since before that night.

“Grab your winter coats, we’re going to the market!” She proclaimed excitedly.

You looked over at Wednesday with a raised brow but didn’t bother stopping your smile. She smiled back; anything for your wolf.

—---

It had only been a year or two since you had last attended the market and, as such, everyone still remembered you. As such, it was a little more complicated to get through everything than you had initially thought. With everyone stopping you to talk and catch up, you felt like you were holding Enid and Wednesday back as opposed to letting them have their fun.

The sweet older lady who ran the flower shop was still talking to you when you saw Enid walking off, leaving Wednesday to sidle up beside you. Had she done that on purpose? Clearly, she hadn’t just abandoned Wednesday, right? Not in your care, at least. None of you had trusted you two alone just yet.

Even though it hurt, it was a necessary precaution.

Finally, after what had probably been an hour of conversation with the sweet flower lady, you managed to separate with a polite goodbye and a promise to stop by next time you were in town. Whether she knew of your… infliction or not, you had no clue. It didn’t matter. At least she was kind.

“Where did our pup run off to?” You asked as Wednesday all but led you through the market.

“She saw some hot cider,” Wednesday said softly, stopping at one of the little booths. “She can never turn down a sweet treat.”

“Oh, I remember. We spent far too much money on her sweet treats,” you grumbled.

If you had kept track, you would have been horrified at how much both you and Wednesday spent on Enid. It hadn’t been with the intent to brag, or show off, you just wanted her to have everything she wished. Most of the time, that included drinks and sweet treats. And you were nothing if not eager to please.

“At least it’s not chocolate,” Wednesday said in a voice so soft, you wouldn’t have imagined it had actually come from her.

She was looking down at some of the trinkets at the table. They were brilliantly made, and you smiled politely at the woman in charge before standing behind Wednesday. Over her shoulder, you could see it wasn’t particularly anything interesting. Not to her.

Her body tensed up when you brushed against her. This close, you could hear the blood coursing through her veins. It was enticing. More than enticing. Your fingers twitched with the very thought of tasting something so delectable once again. Pain pricked at the inside of your lips as you re-positioned your fangs. It would be a simple thing.

The scars on her neck looked angry; they held shame not even thousands of years of instinct could fight. You had done that to her. You had nearly killed her. She was deathly still as you lifted a shaking hand to lift the collar of her coat, hiding the guilt you could never erase.

“You look cold,” you said softly, pulling your hands back to clasp them behind your back.

You both knew you were lying.

“I’m quite warm, actually,” she said. “I figured you could tell.”

You swallowed loudly. It didn’t ease the ache that was growing in the back of your throat. If anything, it made it worse. Each time she breathed, you could see the pulse in her veins. Enid wasn’t around. Surely you could handle it this time, you were far more mature this go around.

“I still believe I was correct,” she said.

Your head tilted to the side. Correct about what?

“Your fears of being a monster are unwarranted,” she said as she gripped the blade tighter. “You wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Right.

“We must remember that night very differently,” you said as you looked up; there was a mirror in front of you. She couldn’t see you, but you could very well see her. “I remember proving you wrong.”

You weren’t prepared for her to lean back into you. To be touching you after so long. She was cold; not from the snow starting to fall. And as ridiculous as it sounded, she felt like she trusted you. Did she? After you had very nearly killed her, could she trust you?

“You didn’t hurt me,” she said softly as she pulled your arms to wrap around her waist.

“My dear,” you whispered into her ear, “I very much did hurt you.”

“Yet I’m still here.”

You barely held back a laugh. “All that means is Enid kicked my ass.”

“And I would do it again.”

Part of you urged you to pull apart from Wednesday, like you had just been caught doing something you shouldn’t have. There was nothing wrong with holding her again; hell, your girls had practically encouraged it. But the last time Enid had seen you both together was… not pretty.

Wednesday was bleeding out from more than one bite mark.

“What are we talking about?” Enid asked after she practically squeezed herself directly in between you and Wednesday.

“Your sweet treats,” Wednesday said effortlessly. “Is it worth it?”

She wrapped her hands around the paper cup and shrugged her shoulders high. “Always.”

“I think there’s some chocolate covered strawberries a few booths away,” you said while Enid continued to shimmy her way into more warmth. “White and dark chocolate.” Both women’s eyes lit up. “My treat.”

Wednesday looked at you with soft eyes. A look she hadn’t given you since… it was nice. Without uttering a single word, you were left with a warmth in your chest that your dead heart could never replicate.

“Lead the way,” she said softly.

—---

For reasons unknown to you or Wednesday, Enid was still freezing hours after getting back to the cabin. Hot tea had been made. And remade. And remade again. Then you had finally given in and lit the fireplace, as well as setting up a pallet on the floor in front of it so she could curl up and try to warm her fur.

And she was still shivering.

“Cara mia, please.” Wednesday’s voice carried from the living room to the kitchen. “Will nothing ease your cold?”

Enid hummed. “I know something that could warm me up.”

Her quiet giggle was all you needed to hear to know what she was implying. Your darling pup was the most insatiable creature you had ever had the pleasure of knowing. Perhaps that was why she seemed to fit so well with two other partners; it would take at least two to keep her satisfied.

Outside, the front porch creaked. If you hadn’t already been accustomed to the sound, you would have brushed it off as wind. After all, it was still snowing steadily outside. But it wasn’t the sound of snow falling onto the porch. No, it was something else. Something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

In the living room, you could still hear the soft sounds of Enid and Wednesday enjoying their time together. As you passed, you could vaguely see them on the pallet in front of the fireplace. Every aspect of it reminded you of your times in university, each living your own lives, yet doing it together. Perhaps you could get back to that again. Surely their children wouldn’t mind another… parent? Hmm, that wasn’t quite right, you could figure it out-

“-Hello, bon ami.”

If you hadn’t been frozen in place, you would have slammed the door in his face. What the hell was he doing? In your home? No, he wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to be back home, hunting humans for sport like everyone else. He knew better.

“You gonna let me in?” He asked in his thick accent that charmed some and repulsed others.

“Go home, Bas,” you said quietly.

“Why? You got company?” He inhaled deeply. “Oh, I’m a’comin’ in.”

He pushed his way past you into the cabin. If your mind hadn’t felt like mush, you would have had the good sense to stop him. Or at least to have warned Enid and Wednesday. But no, you were simply stuck wondering how he had even found you in the first place.

“I smell a rougarou.” His smile was sadistic and his fangs were sharp. Lethal. “What if Daddy found out, huh?”

“How about some tea?” You asked, gesturing to the kitchen.

He tilted his head to the side and looked at you. Just looked. Was that what Wednesday had seen in you that night? No, surely you had been more vicious. Nothing curious about you, that was for sure.

“Got some of that boudin left?” He asked.

You nodded once.

“Lead the way.”

He continued to look around as you did your best to lead him as far away from your girls as possible. If he wanted to make a pop-in visit, fine. But you weren’t going to let him torment everyone else in the cabin. He could have a cup of tea, some boudin, and be on his way back home.

“Make it the good way?” He asked as he practically fell into one of the chairs at the table. “I’d hate to have to help myself in this house of yours.”

Without waiting for him to finish, you tossed a bag of blood onto the table. It slid across the smooth wood until stopping directly in front of him. He didn’t even look down, just kept his cold eyes glued to yours.

“Keep your teeth to yourself,” you said.

He laughed while you turned back to the stove. The sooner you got the tea going and could get him fed, the sooner he would leave. That was all you really wanted. Things were going well, and Enid and Wednesday were in good moods. You didn’t need him to ruin it.

The stove lit with a single spark, and you gently placed the kettle on top. It would still take a minute to boil, and you had it all planned out. You would grab the blood and boudin from the fridge. Put the food in the oven, make the tea, and get him fed and out of your house.

But you should have known better.

“I smell meat,” Enid said as she practically skipped into the kitchen.

And stopped short when she saw someone at the table.

“Oh, couyon,” he said with a smile toward you once Wednesday walked in. “You naughty thing, you.”

You sighed and crossed your arms over your chest. Wednesday was looking at you with her “explain Or Else” look. Something you hadn’t minded before, but now? Now it made your skin crawl. Like spiderwebs caught on every inch of your body, and you couldn’t get them off.

The pan slid smoothly into the oven, and you started the timer.

“This is Bastien,” you said with a lazy gesture toward the parasite at the end of the table. “My brother.”

“Baby brother,” he corrected quickly. “And you two must be the delectable little snacks.”

“Told you to keep your teeth to yourself,” you said with a raised brow. You quickly looked at Enid with far softer eyes. “Food will just be a few more minutes.” Then to Wednesday. “I’m making tea.”

Carefully, slowly, both Enid and Wednesday sat down at the table. Across from each other, but not near Bastien. The whole time, he watched them like a predator. Biding his time, the way he had been taught. You met his eyes.

His gaze towards your girls turned softer.

“So,” Bastien said as you turned back to the stove and grabbed the kettle. “Which one of you gave my sweet sibling all those scars?”

You poured some blood into the bottom of two mugs.

“I did,” Enid said. “So don’t try anything or you’ll have some to match.”

Bastien howled; a deep, obnoxious belly laugh. It… was nice to hear. As much as you didn’t want him there, he was your brother. Baby brother, as he constantly reminded you. There was comfort in the sound of his laugh; there always had been.

“That’s good, I like that,” he said, still failing to keep his laughter in check. “So that means your witch was the blood bag.”

You practically slammed the mug onto the table in front of Bastien. He looked up at you again, tilting his head to the side. It reminded you of Enid. He reminded you too much of Enid. No, you weren’t going to be phased. You knew the vampire charm; you wouldn’t fall for it.

“Serve yourself,” you demanded.

“Come on, cher,” he said as you proceeded to pour tea into Wednesday’s and Enid’s mugs. “I’m just askin’ if that’s what you almost died for.” You set the teapot on the table and walked back to the oven. “Simple curiosity.”

“Almost died?” Enid asked.

You didn’t turn around.

“The scars didn’t give it away?” Bastien asked.

You grabbed the kitchen counter.

“How did you know?” Wednesday asked.

He started talking, but you couldn’t hear him. You didn’t have to. The entire night was engraved into every fold of your brain, etched into the walls of your skull. No amount of alcohol, or nicotine, or blood, or the occasional line would erase. It stayed there, taunting you. Teasing you.

Blood pumped in your ears. It was loud, but not loud enough to ease the growls and screams that were bouncing off your skull. The trees soared past you. Each step of your foot was jarring as it practically bounced off the hard ground.

Wednesday’s blood still coated your lips.

The pain in your throat was harsh; it wouldn’t heal fast enough to ease the ache. Miles and miles flew by without you ever noticing. The sun rose, then set, then rose, and finally set again. Each new day was a blur. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

You hoped Enid was okay.

And Wednesday was alive.

Oh. The thought of Wednesday, lying there with your teeth marks in her flesh. Blood pooling around her; her life pooling around her. All because of you. Because of you. You killed her. You killed one of the loves of your life.

Panting breaths came faster. You killed her. Everything slowly came to a stop. The bark was rough under your fingers as you leaned against a tree to stay upright. Around you, the bugs from the bayou were loud in your ears. Still not louder than the fight.

You killed her.

Possibly killed Enid as well.

You killed them both.

Something scratched against the soft tissue inside your throat. It grew and grew until you couldn’t tell where your exterior wounds ended and the interior ones began. Only when you inhaled deeply did you discover the cause.

“What you screamin’ for, cher?” Daddy said, appearing out of thin air. Or directly in front of you. You didn’t know. “Thought you were up at that fancy university of yours.”

“Looks like you brawled with a hunter, little monster,” Bastien said. “Did you at least get a snack out of it?”

A snack.

Wednesday.

You leaned over and expelled every bit of blood you had gotten into your body. It didn’t make you feel any better. If anything, it only exacerbated the sharp pain in your chest to see just how much you had taken from her. From your girl. Your Wednesday.

A chunk of the countertop broke off in your hand. The kitchen went silent. You blinked slowly before looking down. It wouldn’t be an easy fix. But you could do it, it would just take a weekend or two. Hopefully you wouldn’t have to replace the entire counter.

“Boudin’s burnin’, cher,” Bastien said softly from beside you. When had he gotten there? “Go sit down, I got it.”

Niceties would get him nowhere. And yet, you still went and sat at the table between Enid and Wednesday. They were looking at you, you could feel it. But you couldn’t take your eyes away from the scar on Wednesday’s hand.

The scars you had caused.

You killed her.

“I know I asked for dinner,” Bastien said, “but I think I should head out for the night.” His hand rested on your shoulder; it was cold and soft. “It was nice meeting you both.”

He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to your cheek. His lips - much like you believed of your own - were cold. It wasn’t long before he pulled away. His footsteps were loud against the wooden floor, slowly getting softer and softer until the door opened and clicked shut.

Leaving you alone with your two girls.

Your two girls you nearly killed.

A monster.

[thewalrusespublicist]

So didn't realise that people didn't know about the John Lennon 1980 'dear one' thing. As we're all here though I wanted to mention that the phrase 'my dear one' potentially has a bit of a story arc when it comes to John's relationship with Paul. For those familiar with British English, 'my dear one' sticks out as it's not a used term of endearment at all. So where does it come from? It could be a non-straightforward Victorian throwback, but more likely its hearkening to the use of the phrase in Eastern meditation to denote your nearest and dearest. Great, already off to a sweet start (and lines up with Yoko having Paul on the next-of-kin list with Julian and Mimi when John died).

It POTENTIALLY gets a bit more layered than that though once you add in the idea of hugging meditation. Contrary to what Paul says (sorry Paul, I do believe you on most things, just not this) despite being 'Northern men' TM the Beatles were a huggy bunch. John mentions it in the 1967 Hunter Davies interview:

''We used to be embarrassed about touching each other. We’d do an elaborate handshake just to hide the embarrassment… or we did mad dances. Then we got to hugging each other. Now we do the Buddhist bit… arms around. It’s just saying hello, that’s all.''

As pointed out in @thecoleopterawithana and @monkberries amazing posts, the Buddhist bit is hugging meditation which became popular in the 1960s. In hugging meditation, you

''have to make him or her very real in your arms, not just for the sake of appearances, patting him on the back to pretend you are there, but breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit, and heart. Hugging meditation is a practice of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, she is so precious to me.”''

We know physical touch was important to John. One of the plusses of being with Yoko was being affectionate with his best friend, he tells Paul that touching is good whilst hugging him and in the Get Back sessions he delightedly asks Paul about a vivid dream where he was touching Paul (whether platonic or romantic this always read to me as a blatant subconscious desire for increased intimacy with Paul). The desire for intimacy is still present in the 'Real Life/Love' demo in 1977 where John muses about holding a mysterious has-a-baby-expecting-another-lives-on-a-farm someone in his arms as if it was only yesterday (another piece of media I still cannot believe we have on tape).

With John's evident desire for physical intimacy in mind and the focus on holding dear ones in hugging meditation, I don't think it's too far to think that John would associate this term of endearment with a certain level of both physical and emotional intimacy. Whether its a slightly bittersweet ironic recollection of those times together in the late 60s or a sincere statement of their current relationship, Paul as his dear one could be seen as continuation of John's suppressed, resentful but ultimately present desire for reignited intimacy with Paul on multiple levels (again romantic? Platonic? Choose-your-own-adventure there, I'm not in charge of you).

Or I could be talking shit. Who knows? It's just fun to think about!

[nikidontsurf]

GEORGE HARRISON and PATTIE BOYD leave Kinfauns to go to the Walton and Esher Magistrates Court, March 18, 1969.

  She was at Kinfauns, their bungalow home in Esher, Surrey, playing genial hostess to a group of visitors from Scotland Yard’s drug squad. She recalled the events in her memoir Wonderful Tonight: ‘Suddenly I heard a lot of cars on the gravel in the drive – far too many for it to be just George. My first thought was that maybe Paul and Linda wanted to party after the wedding. Then the bell rang. I opened the door to find a policewoman and a dog standing outside. At that moment the back-doorbell rang and I thought, Oh, my God, this is so scary! I’m surrounded by police.

The man in charge introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Pilcher, from Scotland Yard, and handed me a piece of paper. I knew why he was there: he thought we had drugs, and he said he was going to search the house. In they came, about eight policemen through the front, another five or six through the back and there were more in the greenhouse. The policewoman said she would follow me while the others searched and didn’t let me out of her sight. I said, ‘Why are you doing this? We don’t have any drugs. I’m going to phone my husband.’ I rang George at Apple. ‘George, it’s your worst nightmare. Come home.’

The officers clearly thought the Harrisons would be at Paul’s wedding. The timing was not a coincidence. (...) Pilcher had already busted Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Donovan, as well as Lennon and Yoko the previous year. National treasures or not, The Beatles were no longer protected from the law. - ‘And in the End: The Last Days of The Beatles’ Ken McNab

  I was with George in the office when that call came through. It was the end of a long day at Apple. Pattie rang and said, ‘They’re here – the law is here,’ and we knew what to do by then. We phoned Release’s lawyer, Martin Polden. We had a routine: he came round to Apple, and we all went down by limousine to Esher, where the police were well ensconced by then – and I stood bail for George and Pattie. They went off to the police station. We were all extremely indignant because it was the day of Paul’s wedding, a poor way to celebrate it. The police can be so nice.

George was calm about it. George is always calm – he sometimes gets a grump, but he’s always calm – and he was extremely calm that night, and very, very indignant. He went into the house and looked around at all these men and one woman, and said something like. ‘Birds have nests and animals have holes, but man has nowhere to lay his head.’ – ‘Oh, really, sir? Sorry to tell you we have to…’ and then into the police routine.

That’s how calm and how cross he was, because, as he said, he kept his dope in the box where dope went, and his joss sticks went in the joss stick box. He was a man who ran an orderly late-Sixties household, with beautiful things and some nice stuff to smoke.

 In my opinion he didn’t have to be busted because he was doing nobody any harm. I still believe what they did was an intrusion into personal life. - Derek Taylor in ‘The Beatles Anthology’

[pennyserenade]

discovering the beatles in high school genuinely shaped me into the person i am today which is kinda insane because i don’t think much about them anymore. they were like my first loves and while i do think i would’ve gotten to who i am today without them, i know i did get there because of them. i became a girls girls and a fierce hater of republicans during that time and i never looked back  

[gardenschedule]

What Happened In India?

(or around that time...)

Before

Shortly before we were due to leave for India John spent the weekend with Derek Taylor, a former journalist who had become the Beatles' press spokesman and a good friend to us all. He, his wife Joan and their five children lived in a big country house where they seemed incredibly contented. When he came home after that weekend John put his arms around me and said, 'Let's have loads more kids, Cyn, and be really happy' Despite my increasingly strong feeling that John was slipping away from me, it seemed at moments like that as though nothing had changed. John was off drugs and seemed almost like his old self. 'We can make it work, Cyn,' he said. 'When we're in India we'll have time for us and everything will be fine.' I hoped he was right.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

Cyn hoped that Rishikesh would afford seclusion, privacy and an opportunity for her and John to rediscover each other and to revive their marriage. ‘Impossible hopes,’ she said sadly. ‘John said to me just before we went to India that he wanted us to have more children. Well that came out of the blue, I can tell you. I was really surprised, as he’d never said a word about that before.

Lesley-Ann Jones - The Search for John Lennon

Cynthia: “It was a time for us all to drop out for a while. The years of fame and fortune had taken their toll on our nerves and minds. John and I both felt closer. There seemed to be a greater possibility of our finding a solution to personal difficulties. If our trip to India wasn’t going to solve our emotional problems, then nothing would.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

That letter made it crystal clear that they [John and Yoko] had been in contact. How well had they got to know one another? I tackled John, who told me she'd written many times, both letters and cards, but said, 'She's crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her. Another nutter wanting money for all that avant-garde bullshit. It's not important.' I had no way of knowing whether he was telling me the truth. He sounded genuine, but a sixth sense told me there was more to this than he was admitting. I tried to put it to the back of my mind. We were going to India, and I wanted that to be a special time for us.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

John panicked at the accumulating threats from the Princess of Darkness. That was when he decided to go to India with Cynthia to put some distance between himself and Yoko. If he stayed away long enough, he could hope Yoko would just go away. Maybe she’d go back to America, or vanish in a puff of smoke. Her scissors act might go horribly wrong, or while she was bagged up one day the Royal Mail might frank the bag and deliver it to anywhere but India. Yes, a long trip to the ashram, where he could meditate and learn how to be calm and in control, give up drugs and spend romantic moments with Cynthia and glue his crumbling marriage back together, seemed opportune.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

“I don’t like the unhappiness she [Yoko] caused. She was horrible. John wanted to avoid her at first. He said, ‘Get rid of the bloody woman!’ But after India, he saw her differently — perhaps filtered through an exotic mindset.”

Tony Bramwell - the band’s ex-road manager

During

“The pressure of being the Beatles had driven a wedge between them individually and that had all percolated in the months leading up to their visit to Rishikesh,” he said. “Once they got there, and they unburdened themselves from all of that, they reconnected with their songwriting and their creativity. It just flowed forth.”

Bob Spitz to the New York Times

 “I was in a room for five days meditating,” said Lennon in The Beatles Anthology. “I wrote hundreds of songs. I couldn’t sleep and I was hallucinating like crazy, having dreams where you could smell. I’d do a few hours and they you’d trip off, three- or four-hour stretches. It was just a way of getting there, and you could go on amazing trips.” Cynthia Lennon said in Bob Spitz’s book The Beatles that for John, nothing else mattered when it came to mediation, adding “John and George were [finally] in their element [at the ashram]. They threw themselves totally into the Maharishi’s teachings, were happy, relaxed and above all found a piece of mind that had been denied them for so long.”

The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn’t Know

I was right in the Maharishi’s camp writing “I wanna die” you know. I’m So Tired and Yer Blues where they were pretty sort of realistic, you know, they were about me

Lennon Remembers

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was born on the steps of one of the low slung cottages where the entourage lived. One day, remembers Saltzman, he was passing by the cottage when he saw Lennon and McCartney sitting on the front steps and strumming the tune on their acoustic guitars. He ran back, picked up the camera and took pictures of the two with a pensive-looking Starr sitting on the side, from outside a wicket gate. Saltzman remembers the two were singing the first two lines of the song "over and over again, going fast and slow, having fun". "That's the riff we have," McCartney told Saltzman, "but no words yet".

filmmaker Paul Saltzman

Jenny Boyd, Patti’s sister “I sat with John a lot, since he didn’t feel well, either from terrible jet lag, and insomnia. He would stay up late; unable to sleep, and write the songs that would later appear on The Beatles’ White Album. When I was at my lowest, he made a drawing of a turbaned Sikh genie holding a big snake and intoning, ‘By the power within, and the power without, I cast your tonsil lighthouse out!’ Sometimes, late at night, I can still hear John singing those sad songs he wrote during those evenings, like ‘I’m So Tired.’”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

John “I went to the Maharishi and, regardless of what I was supposed to be doing, I did write some of my best songs while I was there. It was a nice scene. Nice and secure and everybody was always smiling. The experience was worth it if only for the songs that came out. It could have been the desert or Ben Nevis. The funny thing about the Maharishi camp was that, although it was very beautiful and I was meditating about eight hours a day, I was writing the most miserable songs on earth, like ‘I’m So Tired’ and ‘Yer Blues.’”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

Meanwhile, I was not having the second honeymoon I'd hoped for. John was becoming increasingly cold and aloof towards me. He would get up early and leave our room. He spoke to me very little, and after a week or two he announced that he wanted to move into a separate room to give himself more space. From then on he virtually ignored me, both in private and in public. If the others noticed they didn't say so. I did my best to understand, begging him to explain what was wrong. He fobbed me off, telling me that it was just the effect of the meditation. 'I can't feel normal doing all this stuff,' He said. 'I'm trying to get myself together. It's nothing to do with you. Give me a break.' What I didn't know was that each morning he rushed down to the post office to see if he had a letter from Yoko. She was writing to him almost daily. When I learnt this later I felt very hurt.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

And because the Beatles didn’t know anything about ashrams and they haven’t seen anything before because they went for Maharishi, not for the ashram. Maharishi didn’t allow men to stay with their wives. John was delighted with the idea. He loved it, actually. I think it made Cynthia very unhappy. She wanted to stay with John, everybody had his own problems. My great interest was with John. I was very happy because I found John much healthier. The color in his face was different and he was happier and he took the whole thing very seriously, and he was trying hard and he was so excited when I arrived because perhaps I was part of the reason he was there.

Magic Alex in All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

We all went through a depression after Maharishi and Brian died; it wasn’t really to do with Maharishi, it was just that period. I was really going through the “What’s it all about?” type thing – this songwriting is nothing, it’s pointless, and I’m no good, I’m not talented, and I’m shitty, and I couldn’t do anything but be a Beatle. What am I going to do about it? It lasted nearly two years and I was still in it during Pepper. I know Paul wasn’t at the time; he was feeling full of confidence, and I was going through murder during those periods. I was just about coming out of it around Maharishi, even though Brian had died – that knocked us back again. Well, it knocked me back.

John Lennon, interview w/ Barry Miles, (partially) unpublished. (September 23rd, 1969)

By spending two months in deep meditation in India, John brought his deepest problems to the surface but he was unable to resolve them: the contradiction between his family life and his life as a rock star with all the drugs and groupies was too great. Had he stayed with the Maharishi until the end of the course, he might have avoided some of the pain, but by terminating the instruction abruptly, he was left hanging in thin air. During the weeks at the camp, he had been receiving daily letters from Yoko, though nothing sexual had yet happened between them. He was very attracted by her but he felt tremendous guilt about breaking up his marriage: doing to Julian what his own parents had done to him, repeating the pattern.

Many Years From Now - Barry Miles

He [Mick Jagger] told me with amusement that the real reason why the Beatles left the Maharishi was that he made a pass at one of them: “They’re simple north-country lads; they’re terribly uptight about all that.” Am still not sure if I believe this story.

“The Sixties,” the second volume of Christopher Isherwood’s diaries

After

And I was slowly putting myself together after Maharishi, bit by bit over a two year period. I destroyed me ego and I didn’t believe I could do anything. I let Paul do what he want and say, them all of them do what they want, I was just nothing, I was shit. And then Derek tripped me out at his house after he got back from LA, and he sort of said you’re all right and pointed out which songs I’d written, and ‘you wrote this and you said this, you are intelligent, don’t be frightened’. And then next week I went down with Yoko and tripped out again and she filled me completely to realize I was me and it was alright.

Lennon Remembers

So much had changed since I’d last seen the Beatles just a few months previously. They had come back from their trip to India completely different people. They had once been fastidious and fashionable; now they were scruffy and unkempt. They had once been witty and full of humor; now they were solemn and prickly. They had once been bonded together as lifelong friends; now they resented one another’s company. They had once been lighthearted and fun to be around. Now they were angry.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

The rage that was bubbling inside John was the most obvious sign that something was seriously wrong. There was new tension between John and Paul, and even between John and Ringo, in addition to the often strained relationship that Paul had with George and the resentment that Ringo sometimes exhibited when Paul coached him too much on drum parts. In fact, the only two Beatles who seemed to get along during the White Album sessions were John and George. Perhaps that came from the experience they had shared at the ashram—after all, they were the two who had stuck it out, staying on long after Ringo and Paul had gone back home. Maybe they felt deserted by their bandmates, or betrayed. The undercurrents between the four Beatles were so complex at that point, it gave me a headache just thinking about it.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

Our first night back in the studio began, as usual, with small talk and catching up. “So how was India?” I asked. “India was okay, I guess… apart from that nasty little Maharishi,” John replied, venomously. Harrison looked deflated, as if it were a conversation they’d had many times before. With a deep sigh, he tried to calm his agitated bandmate. “Oh come on, he wasn’t that bad,” he interjected, earning a withering glance. Lennon’s bitterness and anger seemed almost palpable. Ringo tried deflecting things with a little humor. “It reminded me of a Butlins holiday camp, only the bloody food wasn’t as good,” he said with a wink. I glanced in Paul’s direction. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless and weary. He didn’t have much to say about India that day, or any other. I sensed at that moment that something fundamental in them had changed. They were searching for something, but they didn’t know quite what it was; they had journeyed to India looking for answers, and they were disappointed that they hadn’t found them there… but it seemed to me that they didn’t even know the questions.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

“By all accounts, John had hit an all-time low [after India]. “John was in a rage because God had forsaken him,” George recalled. “Then he went and completely reversed himself. He turned from being positive to being totally negative.” According to Pete Shotton, who was spending time with John at Weybridge, there was an overriding feeling of humiliation—from the Maharishi, from the Apple Boutique shambles, from his deteriorating marriage, from what he felt was his shrinking position in the Beatles. “He was more fucked up than I’d even seen him,” Shotton remembers. “It seemed like everything was going to the dogs. He’d been desperately grasping [at] straws, as far as I was concerned, and there wasn’t even a straw there.”

the beatles: the biography, bob spitz

JOHN: How can two women split up four strong men? It’s impossible. You know, The Beatles were disintegrating slowly after Brian Epstein died, it was a slow death, and it was happening. It was evident in Let It Be – uh, although Linda and Yoko were evident then, but they weren’t when it started, I don’t think. It was evident in – in India, when George and I stayed there and Paul and Ringo left.

October, 1971 (St Regis Hotel, New York)

There was little need for me to repeat my instructions. As soon as we got there, it was obvious that things were not hunky-dory with the Beatles. Their recent month-long meditation retreat with the Maharishi didn’t seem to have helped their relationships very much, and the estrangement was definitely having an effect on their work. I don’t think any actual recording got done that night. Paul, George and Ringo were rehearsing some new songs, trying different ways of playing and singing them. Meanwhile, John spent most of his time sitting on the floor next to Yoko, chatting privately with her as she stroked his hair. He seemed no more involved in the proceedings than me and Lawrence, who watched the uncomfortable tension building from the other side of the studio. “Hey John.” Paul turned around to face him at one point. “Are you in this band or what?”

Leslie Cavendish, The Cutting Edge: The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser Who Defined an Era

Back at Kenwood John continued to be distant towards me. Now that we were away from the others and the charms of India, I felt increasingly afraid and depressed. John and I were back in the same bed, but the warmth and passion we had shared for so long were absent. John seemed barely to notice me. He was little better with Julian and was more likely to snap at him than give him a hug. There was just one moment of real warmth between us and that was, ironically, when John confessed to me that he had been unfaithful. We were in the kitchen when he said, out of the blue, 'There have been other women, you know, Cyn.'

John (Cynthia Lennon)

On the flight back from India, he had gotten very drunk and, for some reason, decided to confess all his affairs to Cynthia. Brutally, he ticked off a very long list, which included groupies, models, prostitutes, the wives and girlfriends of his and Cynthia’s friends and, possibly cruelest of all, Cynthia’s own girlfriends. Cynthia felt totally betrayed.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

The shattering of his faith in the Maharishi, meanwhile, had left John spiritually adrift once more; his instinctive response was to return with a vengeance to his former drug habits. (Like the other Beatles, John had totally abstained from alcohol and drugs while in India.) In retrospect, it's easy to see how wide open John was, at this particular juncture, to anything—or anybody—that might conceivably lift him out of his rut.

The Beatles, Lennon, and me - Pete Shotton

PAUL: I gave myself a set period, and then if it was gonna be something we really had to go back for, I was thinking of going back. But at the end of my month I was quite happy and I thought… this’ll do me. This is fine. If I want to get into it heavy, I can do it anywhere. That’s one of the nice things about it, you don’t have to go to church to do it, you can do it in your own room. So I was quite happy.

RINGO: I left just a little disillusioned, and John was a little disillusioned when he came back, and Paul was. [pause] George just loved it.

1993 rough cut of the Anthology series

Although Paul was the first to leave [India] disillusioned, John left in the mind of, ‘OK, well, we tried, we surrendered to God but it wasn’t God, it was Maharishi and this God thing is proving itself to be a total fallacy’ - and then went back to being The Beatles.

I left Rishikesh with John. Alex [Madras] had been the naughty boy who’d stirred everything up. John went in a rage because God had forsaken him (although it was nothing to do with God, really). Then he went and completely reversed himself. He turned from being positive to being totally negative.

I went to South India […] and everything that happened to me went wrong to the point that I felt, like John and Alex, that the Maharishi had put the heeby-jeebies in me.

George Harrison, c/o Derek Taylor, Fifty Years Adrift. (1984)

JOHN: I’ve got no regrets at all, ‘cause it was a groove and I had some great experiences meditating eight hours a day—some amazing things, some amazing trips— it was great. And I still meditate off and on. George is doing it regularly. And I believe implicitly in the whole bit. It’s just that it’s difficult to continue it. I lost the rosy glasses. And I’m like that. I’m very idealistic. So I can’t really manage my exercises when I’ve lost that. I mean, I don’t want to be a boxer so much. It’s just that a few things happened, or didn’t happen. I don’t know, but something happened. It was sort of like a click and we just left and I don’t know what went on. It’s too near—I don’t really know what happened.

John Lennon, interview w/ Jonathan Cott for Rolling Stone: The first Rolling Stone interview. (November 23rd, 1968)

Cynthia Lennon “John had taken acid once more and enthused, ‘Cyn, it was great. Christ Cyn, we’ve got to have lots more children. We’ve got to have a big family around us.’ At this point, I burst into tears … All I could blurt out was that, in no way, could I see us as he did. I was so disturbed by John’s outburst, that I even suggested that Yoko Ono was the woman for him. John protested at my crazy suggestion and suggested that I was being ridiculous. Although life went on as usual, my fears grew and I felt nervous and depressed. John was aware of my depression and suggested that, as he had to work for long hours in the recording studios for a few weeks, I should accompany Jenny, Donovan, Gyspy and Alexis on a holiday to Greece. The very thought of sun and sea really brightened my outlook.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

During the spring of 1968, John was as confused, lonely, and unhappy as I'd seen him in years. Though his relationship with the other Beatles was still free of serious strain, he was seeing increasingly less of Paul and George, both of whom were now pursuing independent lives and interests of their own.

In My Life, Pete Shotton

The resentment might have been coming from a different place. With his marital problems still unsettled and Cynthia gallivanting around Greece, drugs continued to govern John’s fitful moods. He dosed himself continuously with LSD, tweaking its random effect with any spare pills he happened to find lying around the house. In the right company, it plunged John into a deep, unfathomable trance that altered between indecipherable rambling and deadpan silences. At Weybridge, into which Pete Shotton had moved in order to keep his friend company, he stayed up nights, tripping and battling wave after wave of incendiary rage. One night, after the usual snack of hallucinogens, Shotton says he noticed John moving his arms around very slowly in a circle. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ ” recalls Pete, “but John couldn’t explain it. He said, ‘I can’t stop. There’s something making me do this. I can’t help myself.’ ” Tears followed, uncontrollable rivers of tears, intermingled with hideous laughter. When Shotton tried to comfort him, John resisted. “I’m not crying,” he insisted peevishly, wiping his eyes with the back of a hand. Suddenly John declared that he was Jesus Christ, back from the grave. “He was convinced of it,” Pete recalls, “saying… ‘This is it, at last—I know who I am.’ ” The next day the Messiah convened an emergency meeting at Apple to announce his identity to the other Beatles. Unimpressed, they said: “Yeah, all right then. What shall we do now?” After someone suggested lunch, the matter was dropped.

That night at Weybridge, in the middle of another drug-induced reverie, the TV flickered off, whereupon John, already chastened and in a self-abasing mood, asked Pete if it was okay if he invited a woman to the house. Shotton, who had no intention of staying up another night with his friend, was relieved. “Well, I think I’ll call up Yoko,” John said.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

What happened that night can only be left to the imagination, but since it patently wasn’t the coming together of two virgins for the very first time, did Yoko do her hypnotism thing, as some of John’s friends thought she had, or did she have a powerful new drug in her arsenal? Nobody really believed that John fell in love overnight, because why hadn’t he done so before? He’d been kicking Yoko in and out of his life for over a year. Mostly, he had given the impression that he resented and despised her. So it must have been something pretty potent that made John fall headlong out of his casual affair with her into a mad obsession. Perhaps it was that he really was mentally ill and like many schizoid personalities, got religious mania. If he really did believe that he was Jesus, Yoko would probably have convinced him she was the Virgin Mary. A virgin at any rate. John was shortly to tell the world that they spent the night at the top of the house in his bloodred music room, recording the Two Virgins tape. They say that a moose in heat can waken the dead and achieve the impossible with his bellows. John and Yoko spent the night screaming.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

Whatever her reasoning, Cynthia remained determined to see the marriage through [after finding John and Yoko together]. Convinced that John still needed her, she returned to Kenwood, mollified by his apparent denial that anything improper had occurred. “For a while, everything was wonderful,” she recalled. “We could speak more openly and honestly with each other, and there really was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.”

But the tunnel was short, and the light soon faded. Within weeks their life together had disintegrated into a revolving state of solicitude and withdrawal, resignation and despondence. Following a stretch when John became disturbingly incommunicative, Cynthia packed once again, escaping on still another vacation to Pesaro, Italy, with her mother, Julian, and a favorite aunt and uncle.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

No sooner were they back from India, than Jane returned to her work at the Bristol Old Vic, and Paul launched into what was probably the most relaxed time of his life. He opened wide the doors of Cavendish Avenue and the groupies, who had camped as faithfully outside as they had in Wimpole Street during the years that Paul had lived there with the Asher family, were astonished to find they were now invited in. Not only were they invited into the house, but also into Paul’s bed. Whenever I went up to see Paul, the house was filled with giggling, half-naked girls, cooking meals, walking Martha, or glued to the phone for hours on end, calling the world.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

It came as a welcome relief that John and Paul, along with Neil Aspinall, planned a quick trip to New York on May 11, where several press events had been scheduled to announce Apple Records in the States. Friends agreed that getting John away might do him a world of good; being alone, with just Paul to steady him, might have a calming influence. But Paul was grappling with his own set of anxieties. “We wanted a grand launch,” Paul said, “but I had a strange feeling and was very nervous.” Drugs, he later admitted, may have been at the root of his problem; there was a lot of dope-smoking before takeoff and even during the transatlantic flight. But Jane Asher also helped spike Paul’s mood. The grudging engagement between Beatle and actress had been ticklish at best. But since traveling together in India and a subsequent ten-day trip to Scotland, Jane’s eccentricities rankled. Paul was having serious second thoughts about the relationship, which had reached a kind of critical, now-or-never stage.

Between John’s attitude and Paul’s paranoia, the Beatles were a PR nightmare. “It was a mad, bad week in New York,” recalled Derek Taylor, who met the two Beatles there to chaperone a round of press conferences, followed by interviews. Taylor had fashioned himself into a debonair drug aficionado since the Beatles first dosed him at Brian Epstein’s housewarming party, and now he and John gorged themselves on speed and a “mild and extremely benign hallucinogen” called Purple Holiday, courtesy of their New York chauffeur. The effect of it came through in the interviews. John was gallingly withdrawn and dismissive, Paul unusually distracted—which made them come off as two rich, snooty rock stars peddling another product.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

+ a couple of extra things

A quick timeline

December 25 Paul and Jane announced that they were engaged to be married.

February 15 George, Patti, John and Cynthia flew from London Airport to India.

February 19 Paul, Jane, Ringo and Maureen flew from London Airport to India.

March 26 Paul, Jane and Neil Aspinall flew back to England from Rishikesh, leaving George and Patti, John and Cynthia and “Magic” Alex who had come out to join them.

April 12 John and Cynthia, George and Patti and “Magic” Alex left in a hurry from Rishikesh, India, after “Magic” Alex convinced John and George that the Maharishi was using his position to gain sexual favours from at least one of the female meditators.

May 11 John and Paul, accompanied by “Magic” Alex, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans, Ron Kass and Derek Taylor, flew to New York to launch Apple in the US.

May 15 Accompanied by Linda, Nat Weiss drove John, Paul and “Magic” Alex to the airport for their flight back to London.

May 19 With Cynthia taking a short holiday, John called Yoko Ono and invited her out to Kenwood. They made a random sound tape, which was later issued as Two Virgins with the notorious sleeve showing them both naked.

May 26 Cynthia returned home from a brief holiday in Greece, to discover Yoko Ono in residence with John.

May 31 Abbey Road. The White Album sessions. Work continued on ‘Revolution 1’ and the last six minutes was removed to form the basis of the chaotic ‘Revolution 9’. Yoko screamed on the track, her first appearance on a Beatles recording.

June 4 Paul began seeing Francie Schwartz.

June 22-23 On this day Paul McCartney addressed a sales conference attended by executives from Capitol Records, where he announced that all future Beatles records would be released through the group’s Apple Records label. The day after they fell in love in Los Angeles, Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman spent much of the day together at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he was staying as part of an Apple promotional trip.

July 20 Jane Asher, appearing on Simon Dee’s BBC Television show Dee Time, said that her engagement to Paul was off – but that it was not she that had broken it. She told Dee that they had been engaged for seven months, after knowing each other for five years. (She had arrived back at Cavendish Avenue one day to find Paul in bed with a girl named Francie Schwartz.)

The Beatles Diary Volume 1 The Beatles Years (Barry Miles) & https://www.beatlesbible.com/

A comment from Heydullblog, which I find interesting and think sums up how insufficient & unsatisfying most explanations are for how John changed during this period:

Michael Gerber November 25, 2021 at 4:31 pm

What, in all that, makes you HATE Cyn, and divorce her in the most abrupt and vicious way, even attempting to get her to commit adultery so you can give her (and your own son) as little as possible? Why not a quick and amiable divorce from a woman who, let’s be honest, knew she was getting cheated on pretty constantly since 1961.

What, in all that, makes you HATE Paul McCartney, who has been your closest professional collaborator since 1957, and engage in a five-year campaign to smear and demean him in the press? Why do you insist your millions of fans choose you or him? Why not simply pause the group, and everybody goes solo and remains friends, as was predicted at the end of touring?

What makes you DETERMINED to bust up your rock group, the most popular group in the world, the source of all your fame, money, and power?

What makes you pick Yoko Ono IN PARTICULAR out of all the groupies, hangers-on, and even sensible appropriate partners within your current circle? Eighteen months ago you were attracted to Maureen Cleave, Sonny Freeman, Alma Cogan, etc — pretty much the type of women you always picked — but now, you pick a conceptual artist offering total submersion into someone else’s ego?

And what makes you spend the rest of your life pretending all this was the greatest thing ever, the fullest flowering of your genius?

It’s not that John Lennon looked around at his life in early 1968 and thought, “I don’t want this anymore. This isn’t for me.” It’s that he lashed out incredibly fiercely, in every direction, made no distinction between friend and foe, demonstrated a huge amount of resentment and bitterness towards the very people who it would seem had helped him the most, and spent literally the rest of his short life at least arguably LESS happy than he’d been before. He didn’t dump his wife for the nanny and live happily ever after; he started a process of picking things up and throwing them away with great force that, if he’d been that way in 1957, would’ve kept any of his genius from ever emerging.

He changed, fundamentally, in a short time. Why?

Midlife crises happen, they are to be expected, but this one gets more singular the more you look at it. And the thing about post-India Lennon is how he’s no more happy, no more productive, no more self-aware, no more comfortable in his own skin, than pre-India Lennon. What does the guy in August 1980 have to be angry about? Really? It was only after I reached middle-age and went through my own version of crisis (crises) that I thought, “How strange.”

[nakahras]

᯽ lost in the fire • chuuya nakahara

synopsis • you’re next in line for the executive spot that’s been opened up by fyodor dostoevsky killing ace. the job was already practically yours, all you need is the expected unanimous vote from the rest of the executives to guarantee you the position. but when have your expectations ever been met?

warnings • lower case intentional, swearing, threats of violence, mentions of guns and knives, reader causes minor harm to chuuya, depictions of panic attacks, chuuya unintentionally mansplaining :)

wc • 6.5k

a/n • this fic was sm fun to write. i wanted to wait to post but all of my other wips are unfinished so you guys get this one early <3

reader’s ability: the emissary (yoko tawada) - the ability to manipulate money, wealth and anything related to them. the user can create, shape and manipulate money, currency and wealth; including coinage, notes, gems/jewels and anything that is used as currency. this also includes any currency that is digitalized.

secondary to physical currency, the user is also able to manipulate a person’s life currency: time. the user can take and give years as they please.

you’ve always considered yourself an extremely patient person. always the perfect picture of calm and collected in the face of frustration. you’ve been patient, waited your turn. you waited when dazai was given the colonel’s executive spot while you were “gifted” second hand to a man that you would compare to a snake — but that would be an insult to their species. you were patient with your superior, even though you loathed him and only reported to him under the request of mori himself. you were patient with your subordinates, the ones you had to manage because ace simply couldn’t be bothered to do so himself. then you were patient, again, and waited your turn when chuuya was gifted another emptied executive position after that. 

you bode your time, knowing that eventually it would come in due time. 

so, when it was reported to you that ace had kicked the bucket thanks to his arrogance and the aid of one fyodor dostoevsky, you were over the moon. if he wasn’t a current threat to yokohama and by association, the port mafia, you think you could kiss the russian. a huge, grating and irritating weight has finally been lifted from your shoulders and it has been all thanks to him.

your subordinates came to you gushing about how lucky you were to not get caught up in the crosshairs of that situation and get killed yourself. you almost snort at the irony. ace never wanted you near his ship, his suspicions of you being his handler (courtesy of mori of course) were growing stronger by the day. instead, he made you do all of his port mafia duties, including standing in as acting executive in meetings with the higher ups instead of going himself. you weren’t complaining though, you’d rather a bullet be put through your head then to step foot on that ship. you’re not and never have been immune to sea sickness.

it’s definitely safe to say you aren’t mourning ace. sure, he brought in extra funds, but your ability is just as - if not more - useful in funding mori’s whims as well as the port mafia. 

naturally, you’re expected to completely take over the role of executive following ace’s death. everyone expects it. you expect it. you’ve waited patiently for this day. you deserved this. the vote in the decision to make you an executive should have been unanimous. “should” being the operative word here.

you can tell kouyou is trying to deliver the blow as gently as she can but your eye is twitching and you’re clenching your fists so hard you can feel your freshly manicured nails digging into the palm of your hands, effectively breaking skin. “you have nothing to worry about, sunshine. just because the vote wasn’t unanimous, doesn’t mean mori isn’t still going to promote you. the vote is more of a formality. mori just has to let the dust settle before making his final decision.”

“i’m going to kill verlaine.” you don’t miss a beat, you’re seething, smoke practically billowing out of your ears. “he knows i’m more than capable of holding my own. i was practically an executive already.”

you miss the way kouyou gets tense at the mention of verlaine in your fit of rage but you don’t miss the way she smiles tightly at you. “verlaine wasn’t the one opposed to you being promoted…”

you immediately stop in your tracks. your mind reeling, trying to catch up with the new information kouyou has presented to you. there are only three of them now, since mori refuses to fill dazai’s spot and now with ace dead… if verlaine wasn’t the one to oppose and obviously kouyou didn’t oppose it, always supporting you — that only left… 

betrayal courses through your veins turning them into a frigid stream so bitter and cold that it stings. there is absolutely no way, right? you try to wrap your head around the implications of what kouyou just said. nauseous, you feel dizzy - sick. you’re going to throw up. you’ve always thought you’ve had chuuya’s support and with good reason because he’s always telling you so. 

actions speak louder than words.

the mantra rings loudly in your head. you’ve always been a strong believer in it, but chuuya? he preaches it constantly, firmly believing that words are worthless if they aren’t followed through with. you admire him for it  - you admire him for a lot of things, honestly - so hearing that he wasn’t practicing what he preached made your blood instantly heat up and boil, the previous cold bite of betrayal melting away.

kouyou takes a step closer and makes a risky calculation by reaching out and stroking your hair soothingly. “i’m sure he meant well, sunshine. you know he had to have a reason.”

“i don’t care if he had a reason. he lied to me, kouyou, and i’m going to find out why.” you bristle and gently but pointedly move away from the executive’s  touch. “where is he?”

“if he’s smart? hiding from you.”

᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽

kouyou is a traitor.

you think to yourself offhandedly while you storm through the hallways of base, looking for a certain gravity manipulator. the more experienced woman refused to tell you where the traitor was. her penchant for being protective over chuuya, while usually admirable, is highly annoying for this particular situation. so you silently curse her too.

you feel as if you’ve checked every nook and cranny in this building. you even checked the underground torture chambers in your delusional state — thinking maybe he set everything up, as well as himself, on a silver platter for you. of course you wouldn’t have actually done anything but the thought alone is therapeutic all the same. his office is naturally the first place you checked and the only place you have been periodically checking throughout your search. 

as a matter of fact, you’re headed to chuuya’s office for the fourth and final time. you were ready to call it quits, exhausted from the emotions swirling inside of you like a storm. you can’t quite let go of the fact that chuuya doesn’t think you are cut out for this kind of responsibility despite having already had it on your shoulders this entire time. sure you’re angry, you deserve this role. but mostly you’re simply hurt. he knew - no, he knows how hard you’ve worked for this, almost refusing his own offer in order to give it up to you. just so you wouldn’t have to deal with ace’s bullshit anymore.

so what the hell changed? maybe if you could find the bastard, you could ask, but someone must have tipped him off because you can’t locate him anywhere.

in your head, you are side eyeing kouyou so hard right now.

your mind is so preoccupied with cursing the orange haired duo that you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings. you’re caught off guard when you quite literally run into someone on your way to chuuya’s office. you’re almost knocked to the ground when long tendrils of cloth wrap around your waist to steady you.

akutagawa? what was the black-fanged hellhound doing here?

you internally flinch at the thought. you must be far more out of sorts than you originally thought because when have you ever referred to akutagawa by that ridiculous moniker? never. the answer is never. you’ve even endearingly referred to him as a lost puppy a few times just to get a rise out of him. you’ve been pleasantly successful in coaxing a blush out of him every time.

you pat the cloth reassuringly as a signal to let the younger man know you’re alright. “thank you, ryunosuke, for catching me and sorry about running into you. my head isn’t quite here today.”

akutagawa’s brow is creased as he nods. you take a moment to really acknowledge his presence as a distraction. you need to get a hold of yourself and focusing on something else would certainly do the trick.

akutagawa seems entirely too rigid with how tense his muscles are and his pursed lips. he doesn’t usually hold the most approachable expressions on a good day, but this is a little much even for him. you watch him tug on one of the silver rings adorning his bottom lip, one of his biggest nervous ticks — it’s always subtle, you wouldn’t even notice it if you didn’t know the younger man so well. his fingertips twitch around the envelope he’s holding and that’s when you realize the direction he was coming from.

that’s a mission assignment he’s holding and considering the only thing down this particular hallway is chuuya’s office…

your eyes narrow and gaze pointedly zeroes in on the report being held by his twitching hands.

“what’s that in your hand? it looks an awful lot like a mission assignment.” your eyes linger on the crisp envelope. it didn’t have the wear and tear akutagawa's reports usually had. so he had to have just been given the mission.

his only direct superior, other than mori himself, is chuuya. your eye twitches at the thought. he’s around here somewhere and you just got the confirmation you needed to know that the ginger is actively avoiding you. you suppose kouyou is right when she praises the man for being smart because at least he has enough sense to stay out of your way after making such a bold decision about your future in this organization before explaining it to you first. 

you watch the horror flit across akutagawa’s face when he realizes you know. the younger man shifts the envelope behind him in an attempt to hide it but he knows. he knows the damage has already been done. akutagawa has accidentally condemned chuuya to a fate probably worse than death, if the look on your face was anything to go by.

loyal to the very end, the high ranking subordinate shifts, almost as if to block the hallway behind him. you let out an exasperated sigh when you realize what’s going on. you neither have the time or energy for this game.

“akutagawa…i realize we’re technically of the same rank but we both know it’s best if you continue about whatever it is you were doing before running into me. understand?” the black and silver haired young man hesitates, feet still glued in place and you let out another annoyed sigh, this time pinching the bridge of your nose. “this is between me and your superior. don’t get yourself involved. i’m not going to kill him.”

akutagawa’s gaze shifts and eyebrows furrow as if…

oh this has to be a joke.

the sickly man is clearly on comms with someone and by the looks of it, whoever is on the other end is telling him to stand down because he finally moves to the side and out of your way. you’re fuming at this point, clearly your omission of not killing chuuya was enough to ease his mind but you never said anything about not hurting the coward. a fitting word for the ginger at this moment. far too cowardly to tell you the truth. far too cowardly to tell you his intentions. 

far too cowardly to face you afterwards. 

your perfectly manicured hand gently cups akutagawa’s shoulder and you lean into his ear, knowing his comm piece is snuggly nestled in it. 

“the first smart move you’ve made all day…” you’re leaning back as quickly as you were leaning in and offer your flustered colleague a sweet smile. “thank you for entertaining me, have a good rest of your day, ryunosuke!”

you leave akutagawa standing in bewilderment, wondering what the fuck just happenned as you practically skip down the hallway to chuuya’s office.

᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽•᯽

you blink 3 times. twice normally and then once harshly, squeezing your eyes shut tightly as if that would make chuuya appear before you. you’ve scanned over his office several times. even checking the wardrobe he keeps in there and under the desk. 

you stopped looking about 10 minutes ago and decided, instead, to glare at the open window you now assume the executive used to flee out of. 

coward.

you’re exhausted. you’ve been on this wild goose hunt all day, you just want to go back to your apartment and sleep. you know kouyou reassured you that chuuya’s vote wasn’t damning but you can’t help the anxiety creeping into your chest and crawling up your esophagus making it burn. you’re sick with the idea that you’ll never make it higher in this organization. always having to answer to more than just one person.

not only is chuuya a coward but he’s cruel too. lying to you all this time, giving you a false sense of security of where you stand with him. a false sense of hope had been blanketed over you by his honey filled lies.

you can feel your body begin to tremble, working yourself at the thoughts swirling a storm in your mind. you try to take a calming breath but it comes out shuddered. you lean against the front of chuuya’s desk and close your eyes as you allow your head to fall back. your face scrunches and you let out a frustrated groan while bringing your hands up to cover your face. your hands move up and fingers through your hair while taking a deep breath. you pick your head back up and finally reopen your eyes. 

you finally let out a sigh of defeat. chuuya’s won- for today- you’re officially resigning from your search. you can’t help but to give his office one last scan before kicking yourself off the almost comically huge desk and making your way to his door. 

you reach out for the door handle, grimacing. this can’t be how you end the day, you know you’ve resigned, but the thought of letting chuuya get away with this for the night makes your stomach churn. you stand there for a moment when a brilliant idea comes to mind. you want to try something. 

you turn the knob, open the door, count to 10, and then close the door. it takes all of  roughly 5 seconds for your plan to actually work. the room somehow seems to darken and that’s when you notice it, a strange shadow being cast from the ceiling behind you. a shadow that’s, oddly enough, in the same shape as one certain port mafia executive. your hand slowly drops from the door handle but not before effectively locking it. 

“hey, jackass, do you think you’re funny?” you start speaking before you turn around to look at him.

the ginger stops dead in his tracks. he’s trying to sneak back into his own office. despite your question to him you almost bark out a laugh at the absurdity of it. almost.

chuuya blanches, staring at you with wide eyes and you watch as he contemplates running, eyes darting back to the opened window. 

“you better not be trying to haul your carrot top ass out that window right now. you and i need to have a word, but i’m not talking to you like this. get off the damn ceiling.”

the executive gives you a weary look and decidedly does not come down from the ceiling, where he’s deemed safe from you.

 your eye twitches, patience having thinned a long time ago. “port mafia executive, nakahara chuuya, get your ass down here. right. now.” 

 chuuya prides himself in not flinching at your tone and use of his title. so much so that he thinks he might let it get to his head a little too much when he says, “y’know, doll, when trying to coax someone into doing something, they don’t usually respond well to demands.”

your expression hardens and nostrils flare, chuuya doesn’t think he’s ever seen you this upset. he tries to conjure up a sane reason as to what possessed him to say something like that to you in this situation. he only comes up with one viable answer: sheer visceral stupidity. he’s simply an idiot. the ginger contemplates letting you kill him right then and there in this moment. he deserves it, especially after that comment.

you don’t miss a beat. your hand raises, gun in a vice grip and you shoot. one, two, then three quick and scattered shots. you know well he can stop them easily. in fact you planned on it. you needed him distracted as you reach your other hand around to your thigh holster and grasp your throwing knife. while preoccupied by the bullets you toss the knife right next to his head, the chain on his hat breaking and the knife taking a small slice of chuuya’s cheek and ear with it before lodging into the ceiling as a warning.

you’re both still for a moment, chuuya looks oddly impressed while you’re trying to figure out what just happened, having blacked out in your fit of rage. 

“…well. ‘spose i can’t say i didn’t deserve that…” chuuya lets out a nervous chuckle but clearly you’re not amused.

in fact, you look even more irate than before. 

“really? really, chuuya? this isn’t a joke. i’m. tired. do you know what i’ve been doing all day? actually- of course you know what i’ve been doing all day because you’ve been avoiding me all day. tell me- did you take brain damage the last time you were in corruption? did that freak let you simmer in that state just a little too long? it’s the only reasonable explanation i’ve come up with all day for what you did in that executive meeting-“ you let out a frustrated noise as your words start to blend together the longer you speak and your neck screams at you. ”jesus christ, chuuya, would you get down from that god damn ceiling? my neck is starting to hurt and that’s the last thing i need right now-” 

your voice breaks off, the storm of emotions that you’ve been successfully avoiding all day pouring over you all at once. your chest is constricting, feeling as if it’s caving in on itself. your breathing is labored and you recognize that the looming anxiety has finally taken over. your body is trembling. you need to breathe. in through your nose and out through your mouth. you try, you swear you try to concentrate on your breathing but the only person that’s been able to get you out of this state successfully refuses to get off that godforsaken ceiling.

you count.

one.

two.

three.

four.

five.

what’s your favorite color? favorite meal? what's something you could touch and feel in this very moment? your necklace. the one with your birthstone nestled on a silver teardrop frame. you reach for it and rub the sizable stone between your fingers. it’s been a while since you’ve needed to ground yourself in this way, but it still works like a charm. 

it all feels like it’s happening in slow motion but in reality in was only a few minutes. not even enough time for chuuya to make the full decision to come down from the ceiling and approach you. his feet are landing on the ground as you tune back into reality.

your blurred vision clears and zeroes in on the way the gravity manipulator takes a hesitant step towards you. he watches the way your gaze instantly sharpens and he takes the hint in staying put. he even goes as far as to raise his hands up in a way that tells you he’s admitting defeat.

”i just want to make sure you’re okay…”

you let out a humorless laugh. “maybe if you’d explain yourself, i would be.”

chuuya let’s out a long sigh, clearly having dreaded this all day. he knew your reaction would be less than savory, how could it not be when he was showing you that he thought the opposite of what he’s been telling you all these years. he didn’t want to face you so soon because he wasn’t even sure he had an answer. it took 5 hours and 37 minutes for him to come to a conclusion. 

the ginger swallows thickly as his bicolored gaze fixes onto yours. “becoming an executive… it demands a lot of someone…”

there he goes, being vague as he usually is when it’s clear there’s something he doesn’t want to discuss. he knows, he knows why he voted no in that meeting but you can’t figure out why he just won’t tell you. instead he’s trying to give you a lesson on the position you’ve been coveting for over five years now, ever since dazai had taken up his position as the youngest port mafia executive in history. 

you blink at him in utter disbelief. “i know what becoming an executive entails, chuuya.”

“that’s… i didn’t mean it like that, hell, i know you’ve been told and seen some of it but you were hardly ever with ace. i know that bastard kept you occupied with busy work.”

a smile stretches at your lips but it’s thin and doesn’t reach your eyes and it’s almost mocking. then a humorless laugh slips past your lips as you shake your head in obvious exasperation. chuuya starts to panic when you begin to pace, walking away from him almost altogether. the executive racks his brain and tries to diffuse the…frustration you’re still holding towards him. chuuya can’t bring himself to imagine you holding any more severely malicious feelings towards him right now — it would make him physically ill.

“what i’m trying to say is that you haven’t experienced the target that it puts on someone’s back. it’s so damn physically and mentally taxing. then there’s the paranoia you have to accept when any other normal or sane person would be told to push it aside. it isn’t easy-“ the ginger’s gaze falters, shifting to the side then back to you but he isn’t really looking you in the eye, that mixed with his words was really starting to piss you off after having calmed down. “the things that need to be done in this position isn’t something you should look forward to, you should be happy that-“

you let out a loud scoff, promptly cutting off the bullshit spewing from chuuya’s mouth. he had no right to mansplain this to you. you know all of this, you know the kinds of demands that’s required of someone when becoming a port mafia executive.

you’ve been preparing for this for 6 damn years. 

your blood is simmering, threatening to boil all over again. your fists are tightly balled and you think you may be drawing blood from your palms again. this time the sting is a little worse, rebreaking the indents in your skin from earlier. your nail lady is going to be so pissed at you, she spent hours to make your nails look as stunning as they do and you’re already staining them with blood. your blood, no less.

you’ll blame it on chuuya. it is his fault after all. the rage he incites in you is impressive to say the least. you think you’ll get let off the hook if you tell her a man was involved. she is always prying into your love life anyways, maybe you’d be able to indulge her for once, even though chuuya is far from being any type of lover at this point. 

you actually want to laugh at the thought considering the events of the last 12 hours.

in fact, the man in question is still prattling on with his mansplaining. you tuned out like maybe a minute or so ago. if he was paying attention he would have noticed the glazed over look you’re giving him. 

you suppose you should try to pay attention but the moment you come back into focus, your mouth is flying open to cease the ginger’s useless words.

“oh my god, chuuya, shut the fuck up. you’re not telling me anything new- you’re actually just pissing me off even more because it’s clear you really believe you need to explain this shit to me. i have half a mind to pull my gun back out at you…”

and you really do consider emptying your holster. maybe taking a couple more shots at the executive could be therapeutic, who knows? again, you know well it won’t do him any harm, he can stop the bullets easily with his gravity manipulation. that’s not enough, he needs to feel how much he’s truly hurt you, so you use your words to hopefully cut him.

“i just- i don’t fucking get it. i really don���t. since i’ve joined, after dragon's head, you’ve continuously supported me in wanting to climb the ranks at this organization. hell, you’ve even encouraged it. was it not you that told me i would make a ‘damn good executive?’” your voice raises and you can feel the anger rising, threatening to erupt. “have you just been lying to me for years? telling me what i want to hear but not actually believing it?! because the faith i instilled in myself was because of the faith you had in me! i trusted your opinion! was it all just one big fucking lie you told-”

“no!” chuuya looks just as worked up as you feel, his telltale signs being the way his eyelashes flutter in frustration and his fingers tremble and twitch at his sides.

you scoff, crossing your arms and looking away to try and hide the way you’re blinking away tears. “then what is it?”

“fyodor dostoevsky is gonna come for us-”

you let out a snort. “the fuck does that even mean?”

your demeanor is manic, your patience has been stretched so far passed its limit that you’re becoming delirious. your smile is vicious, eyes wide and almost wild, and your giggling is threatening. chuuya easily identifies it. he’s only seen you get this upset a handful of times, it’s actually terrifying to witness and he has always been grateful he’s never been on the other side of it. obviously until now, that is. 

“dostoevsky, and god knows who else with him, is going to come for us. he’s cunning. If the man is as smart as he’s rumored to be he’s gonna try to weaken the port mafia by taking out the executives. we have a target on our backs- you would have a target on your back but if you stay in the position you’re in now, you’ll be safe…”

chuuya flinches, the look you’re giving him is not kind and he has a feeling he knows where this is going.

”i’ll be safe? why do i need to be kept safe, chuuya? do you just assume i don’t know how to defend myself? do you think i’m that weak? do you really think that lowly of me?” your voice is dripping with venom, tone saturated with a poison that’s paralyzing chuuya’s mind — he can’t think clearly anymore.

the ginger is becoming increasingly more overwhelmed with each passing moment. “no- no! that’s not what i think at all. i just-”

“you just what? you just think it would be better for me to keep the status i have now? you think i should just stay complacent and be content with the power i have now? my aspirations just mean nothing? what is it? which one is it? or are you going to keep lying to me and spew your bullshit excu-”

chuuya’s own thread of patience snaps, desperate to fix this, he loses all sense of rationality and cuts in quickly before his mind has a chance to catch up with him. “ i love you- i love you and i couldn’t just sit in that meeting and agree to something that i know will put you in harm's way. more so than you already are just being with the port mafia. i can’t let a huge target be drawn on your back. i can’t-”

chuuya’s voice breaks off before he says too much, his mind finally catching up with him as he watches your reaction.

your breath hitches and you physically stumble back. your eyes fly open and lips part in utter shock. 

i love you.

the words running on a constant loop in your head. it’s something you thought you would never hear from him, making peace with that a long time ago. you had resigned to only being close friends and colleagues. you were fine with that. you were. 

so why did those three words jilt you like a rejection instead of an admissionof love? you can’t sort through your thoughts and feeling that are thrashing violently though your chest and mind. it’s all jumbled. 

you try to respond but only manage, “you…what?”

chuuya’s eyes are wide, he himself reeling from his unintentional confession so the best he can muster is a confused, “i- what?”

“…chuuya, you just said…you love me…” 

the man in question is stumbling back into his desk, leaning onto it for support. the weight of his outburst physically pushing him down. wait… no. that’s his ability. in the mess that’s his head somewhere he must’ve activated his ability instinctively and distantly he recognizes the faint red aura surrounding his body. he looks over to you and realizes you notice it too, concern is twisting your perfectly stunning features.

…how embarrassing.

this hasn’t happened since he was a kid. chuuya has always been careful to not lose control, meticulously controlling his emotions so as to not let his gift take over. it’s been almost a decade since this last happened. chuuya didn’t even have this type of reaction when he learned about dazai’s defection. the creaking of his desk is all too apparent in the silent room.

you watch in abject horror as the wood beneath him begins to splinter at his weight. you panic, the previous conversation and frustration forgotten as you watch chuuya struggle in his own mind. 

your own mind races. you need to do something, bring him out of this state immediately. you fear the damage he’ll inflict on not only the desk you know he loves (he spent months looking for the perfect one) but also on his own body. that much weight has to be paralyzing — crushing to him.

the rational side of your mind screams at you and you listen to its cries. “god damnit, chuuya. you need to calm the hell down, you’re gonna cause some serious damage to this building if you keep this up…”

you’re going to do some serious damage to yourself, you want to say but can’t push the words out, your own panic becoming increasingly more tangible as you watch his ability get stronger and stronger.

chuuya’s eyes are distant and now his breathing is ragged. your words, unfortunately, do not fall on deaf ears. the ginger clings to every word you say. your tone is still harsh. you’re still angry with him. 

shit. of course you’re still pissed at him. why wouldn’t you be? he doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. he deserves to be buried by the rubble he can create with his ability. 

he deserves it. 

your own panic rises with each passing moment. if this continues, the executive is going to take the whole building down with him. who knows how many people are occupying this tower, not to mention the boss. mori would not take kindly to this skyscraper being reduced to rubble. 

crack, crack, crack.

the creaking of the desk under chuuya is deafening. you want to scream at him, shout for him to knock it off. frustration getting the better of you, but you know. you know that won’t be of any help in this situation.

“chuuya, please, you need to snap out of this. you need to come back. i need you to take control.” it’s too late now. your words are no longer penetrating the barrier that’s been placed around his mind by anxiety.

talking the superior out of this state is no longer an option for you. shit. this is bad. this is so fucked up. what options do you have left…

finally. an idea finally crosses your mind. it’s reckless, you could get hurt yourself and you know if that happens chuuya would blame himself. riddled with guilt, he would never forgive himself. 

but do you even have an option here? you have to do something. you can’t just stand here paralyzed, frozen in fear.

fuck it.

your feet are moving forward in an instant. this is risky. if it doesn’t work you risk being crushed along with chuuya. touching him right now would cause his ability to envelop you, it could shatter every bone in your body. 

you take a deep breath, hands reaching out and gingerly glide across the ginger’s jawline. his eyes focus almost immediately and you work quickly. you hold his face in your hands and gently bring his forehead down to yours. 

“hey, come back to me…chuuya, please…” you feel the weight of the ginger’s ability slowly envelope you and it almost suffocates you. the pressure makes it hard for your lungs to contract. it’s so dizzying you think you might vomit.

you force yourself to push pass it. the weight isn’t as intense, you search chuuya’s eyes and find them staring back at you. his focus isn’t fully there but his eyes aren’t trembling like they were before. the problem now, you can’t talk. you try desperately but the force of his gravity manipulation makes your esophagus spasm painfully. 

your words are completely useless now. there’s one more thing you could try. it feels wrong to use this while the executive’s in such a state but you’re completely out of options. 

you lean into the ability user, hands bringing his face closer to your own. you feel his shallow breaths turn into deeper ones as they fan over your cheeks. you try to swallow nervously but it makes you wince. you’d let out a frustrated noise if you could get your throat to work. you toss the thought aside. you don’t need your throat to work for what you’re about to do, so you lean in closer, lips finally brushing chuuya’s own and his breath hitches. 

you let a pleased smile quirk your lips up, or at least it feels like you do.

time slows as you finally lean in all the way and let your lips press against chuuya’s. his reaction is so instinctive it startles you, stealing what little breath you have left in your lungs. his hands that had previously been gripping the edge of his desk now find their way to your waist. 

the pressure of his ability lifts gradually and you can finally breathe again. the kiss is gentle and innocent. a stark comparison to chuuya himself, anything but innocent in any sense. 

finally the cracking of the desk ceases and the warmth of the red aura, the one that chuuya emanates when his ability is activated, completely disperses. the only source of warmth that comes from the ginger now is his body heat. his normal warmth is more that enough to make your mind swim. 

after a few more seconds, you part from the executive. you resume your previous position, letting him lean his forehead against your own. you open your eyes only to find one that’s reminiscent of the depths of the ocean and another that reminds you of a warm and rich caramel sauce staring back at you. his eyes scan your face with such concentration you almost hold your breath, not wanting to disturb whatever it is he’s looking for.

his lips part and his voice is raspy when you speaks. “i’m sorry… i shouldn’t have lost control like that…”

“what else are you sorry for?” you hum and quirk an eyebrow up at him expectantly. 

he knows what you’re referring to and even though he swears he plans on apologizing — a sigh escapes passed his lips before he can suppress it. you instantly turn rigid, lips turning downward into a frown and hands dropping from his face. the regret hits chuuya in the gut and his grip on your waist locks you in place. 

the executive is quick to rush out another apology before you can close yourself off. “i’m sorry for not telling you the truth and for voting against you becoming an executive. i’ll make this right.”

your shoulders finally relax for the first time all day. you almost cry at the tension leaving your body, it has been plaguing you all day. based on the guilty look chuuya offers, you must look exhausted. exhausted or not, you don’t plan on letting this go just quite yet. rest can wait.

”you’ll fix things right now.” you pull out your phone to type out a quick message then send it off and put your phone back in your pocket. “mori’s expecting you.”

you watch as a conflicted gleam flickers in chuuya’s bicolored eyes. you take a deep breath, not allowing yourself to get worked up before hearing what he has to say. instead you hum questioningly and patiently wait for him to answer your unspoken question.

chuuya gently squeezes your hips in reassurance that it’s nothing serious. “will you wait for me?”

you blink for a moment, letting your tired and slow moving brain catch up with his words. you’re unable to mask the genuine shock when his request finally processes. will you wait? will you? you look at his couch and think it would be comfy enough to take a nap on. the ginger follows your gaze and instantly catches on. he finally releases your waist and grabs one of your hands, encasing it in his own. 

the executive leads you to the couch wordlessly and has you sit down. he’s quick and before you can even protest, you’re presented with a blanket and pillow. when you don’t reach for them, your mind working on overtime at this point, he places them next to you. 

“use ‘em while i clean up my mess with mori. if you’re asleep by the time i return… i’ll make sure you make it to a proper bed. okay, doll?” the look on his face is nothing short of hopeful and how are you supposed to say no to that?

you let out a sleepy sigh of defeat and simply nod your head.

chuuya can’t help the wide grin plastered on his face. “it shouldn’t take too long. i’ll be back before you know it.”

he doesn’t wait for your response as he makes his way to the door of his office. he unlocks it and as he’s turning the knob you’re calling for him. the ginger looks at you over his shoulder questioningly.

the thought occurred to you that you never verbally reciprocated chuuya’s confession and your mouth is moving for you before you know it. “i love you too…”

you watch as chuuya’s gaze softens and becomes glassy. his smile is bright and stretches into his eyes. his smile is actually so wide that his eyes almost shut completely. he let’s out an airy and carefree laugh and your heart stutters at the noise. suddenly you’re grateful that in your sleepy stupor, you had enough sense to voice your reciprocated feelings because you don’t think you’ve ever seen a more beautiful site.

[caitlynskitten]

Wednesday: There I did it!

Yoko: What is that?

Wednesday: A serum. I made specifically for Enid for her to have a much higher endurance and energy for….. running.

Yoko: Huh. Running? Okay, sure. Tell me how that running goes.

-Three nights in a row of werewolf Enid fucking the ever loving life out of Wednesday-

Wednesday screaming from her room: FUCK, FUCK KEEP GOING! FUCK ONE MORE TIME- OH FUCK, IM GONNA-

The raven screams for the thirtieth time in a row. All the students and teachers at Nevermore are wearing headphones or playing loud music to drown out the sound

Yoko: I guess it worked.

Divina: Of course it did! It’s Wednesday.

-Weems office-

Thornhill: Jesus Christ, should we call someone?

Weems: Don’t bother. She’s an Addams. She can handle it her.