#s6 will make it well worth it I hope

[primcri]

So no Rayllum kiss?

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Favorite Season 6 fics

So these used to be called "Fic recs for my BFF", but unfortunately I was unable to sway her to buddie, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ these are just for me now (and you guys too I guess 😅)

Season 6

🔥Curl Up in My Heart and Let Me Keep You by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Animal Transformation | 10K | Teen): When an orange tabby cat starts hanging around the Diaz house, Eddie doesn't think anything of it. The little guy's cute and cuddly, and seems to always know when Eddie's having a bad time. Weird how the cat's never around when Buck is, though.

🔥let the world have its way with you by fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (Post-Coma AU | 54K | Explicit): “It’s just that—I died,” Buck continues, voice unsteady enough that Eddie wonders if this is the first time he’s acknowledged that out loud. “I died, and there’s so much more. There’s so much more I want to do, things I don’t even know I want to do yet, and I almost had the chance to have and live them taken away. I don’t want to die and regret missing out on everything else, Eddie.” “So let’s make a list,” Eddie says. “Let’s do them.” or, a bucket list that’s really about buck needing to make a change and an eddie who’s ready to do anything to see him fall in love with life again. it takes some crossing off for eddie to realise—the thing at the top of the list in his own heart? it’s been right here all along

🔥like a dog with a bird at your door by fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (Post-S6, Getting Together | 51K | Explicit): The kid with blood pouring down his shins is not so far from the dog lonely enough that he thinks breaking his housetraining is worth it for the ten minutes of berating that come with it, the ten minutes of undivided, if reluctant, attention. Buck thinks, sometimes, that at least he wasn’t the kind of puppy that gets put in a sack and drowned at birth. He wasn’t always unwanted. And he isn’t anymore. or, evan “i love you like a dog” buckley has only ever known how to love like, well, a dog, but maybe eddie diaz is the kinda guy to give a flea-bitten mongrel a forever home

🔥Something Dumb to Do by glorious_spoon/ @glorious-spoon (Post-S6, Getting Together | 8K | Explicit): "Too bad we can't just date each other." Eddie laughs. "What?" "No, I'm serious!" Buck sets his beer down, the better to gesture with both hands, face lighting up, and Eddie just—he really loves the guy, okay. Ridiculous as he is. "It would be so much easier! You wouldn't have to introduce a new person to Chris—he already likes me anyway—and you could tell Pepa so she'll stop setting you up on dates that don't go anywhere—" "And what would you get out of this?" Eddie asks, grinning. — Or: Buck and Eddie try something out together. (Part 1 of homeward bound)

🔥find a way to you (if it kills me) by foxwatson/ @eddiediazes (Post S6E13: Mixed Feelings, Pining | 19K | Mature): It’s something about the way Eddie phrases it. Something about the combination of his words and the way he’s staring down at the floor, and the flush in his cheeks and the way he’s fidgeting. Buck thinks, abruptly, he’s going to ask me on a date. “Well I - wanted to tell you first, and I need someone to watch Chris, anyways - I know he’s getting old enough now he doesn’t like feeling like he’s got a babysitter, so I was hoping - sorry. Not the point. Uh. I have a date on Saturday.” Just as abruptly as his own hopes had come soaring up above the cloud cover of his own unawareness - they go crashing back down to the floor - to the basement, and into the mud. “A date?” Buck rasps out. — the one where eddie decides to start dating again, buck figures out his own feelings just a minute too late, and then he spends a week going through the five stages of grief

🔥Being Eddie by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Time Travel, Post-S6, Getting Together | 80K | Teen): When Eddie starts seeing a new therapist, he’s presented with the opportunity to revisit several days from his past and right regrets that still bother him. OR: Eddie goes through the time travel therapy process of the 2009 Canadian TV show Being Erica.

🔥 Evan Buckley & The Coma-Verse of Madness by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Coma AU, Multiverse | 58K | Teen): After being struck by lightning on a call, Buck experiences a plethora of alternate realities showing him different directions his life could have taken. Fighting hard to get home, Buck learns what, or who, is important to him in every lifetime.

🔥 Both Blade and Branch by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S6 | 62K | Mature): The chances of being struck by lightning twice are incredibly minute, but Buck still manages to pull it off. During a double date with Marisol and Natalia, nonetheless. Eddie manages to resuscitate him, but as Buck recovers from yet another trauma, Eddie can’t help but notice there’s something very different about him. He’s not quite sure what version of Buck he got back.

🔥 where all of the people dancing and clapping would greet me with such warmth by trysetmeonfire/ @try-set-me-on-fire (Season 6, Magical Realism | 15K | Mature): In the fall, Buck begins to disappear. (or: Buck can see that people become transparent when they're about to die) (Part 2 of All I Am, All That I Am)

🔥 Ace of Hearts by glorious_spoon/ @glorious-spoon (Post-S6, Getting Together | 9K | Teen): "I've been wondering…" Maddie pauses, watches Buck make a face like he's bracing to be smacked. "What happened with Eddie? You two were dancing around it for so long, and then… what, it just didn't work out? Was the date really that bad?" She's expecting another wince, or even for him to duck out of the conversation entirely, but instead Buck is staring at her like she's grown a second head. "Maddie. I've never been on a date with Eddie." Or: the poker game was a date. It takes Buck a while to catch on, though.

🔥 situations, circumstances, miscommunications ( i just may like some explanations ) by heartbeatdiaz / @lonelychicago (Didn't Know They Were Dating | 4K | Teen): "You didn't know?" Eddie asks, calmer but not less confused. He frowns. "How could you not know?" "You never said anything?" Buck tilts his head to the side. "We were dating?” “I guess not,” Eddie sighs. His heart is beating a little faster, an unpleasant buzz beneath his skin as he all but chokes on a feeling he can’t quite name— it could be hurt or disappointment or maybe a mix of both. In that moment, he knows three things very clearly. 1. Buck is going to be the death of him. 2. He is in love with the most dense, most oblivious man on planet Earth. 3. He is too gay and, honestly, too old for this shit.

🔥listen to you breathing (is where I wanna be) by Yavilee/ @theladyyavilee (Presumed Dead | 41K | Teen): The thing is – and Eddie should have known this, has been taught this cruel lesson over and over and over again – the thing is most of the time the worst day of your life will start like just any other day. A million small moments, so familiar and mundane you almost don’t even notice them slipping by - until you would give anything to go back and get just one more. (You can’t.) — Or the one where Buck is presumed dead after a building collapse and Eddie has to live through the reminder that tomorrow isn't promised to anyone

🔥Eddie Diaz vs The Feelings by ElvenSorceress/ @elvensorceress (Season 6, Sexuality Crisis, Demisexual Eddie | 62K | Explicit): Eddie dives into the mysteries of attraction, romantic love, and asexuality because there's a good chance he's fallen in love with his best friend. AKA demisexual!Eddie figures out he’s demi and finds the happily ever after he’s been longing for

🔥tomorrow will always and forever now be today (tomorrow is our always and forever) by withmeornotatall/ @chronicowboy (Post-S6, Time Loop | 43K | Mature): "Think I can get a hug from my best man on my wedding day?" he asks, quietly hopeful in a way that makes Eddie want to tear off his skin. "Sure," Chris replies with a shrug, turning to throw Eddie a cheeky grin. "Dad, Buck needs a hug." Two things happen at once then: Eddie has to plaster on a smile authentic enough to convince the one person on this planet that knows him inside out—except he doesn't really have to fake his smile, not at first, because of number two—he sees groom-Buck for the first time. And groom-Buck is every bit as beautiful as Eddie might have imagined him over the years. For a moment, Eddie falls into the greatest betrayal his brain has ever laid out for him, imagining that he might have got to see Buck like this for the first time from the other end of the aisle— (OR: eddie gets trapped in a time loop on the day buck marries natalia)

🔥 Muscle Memory by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S6, Amnesia AU | 40K | Teen): After a disappointment in his personal life, Buck wakes up one morning to find everyone he loves has forgotten him completely. No memories. No recognition. Almost like he was never really there.

🔥 but i can see all along, love (it was you all the way down) by diazchristopher/ @captain-hen (Post-S6, Time Loop | 28K Mature): He puts his laptop away after a bit, and paces the length of his apartment as he tries to take stock of the situation at hand. One: The date is March 22nd, 2024. Two: It has been March 22nd for 3 days now. Three: Buck is trapped in some kind of time loop that is forcing him to relive this day. Four: Eddie is, apparently, in love with him. And. And. Five: Buck doesn’t feel the same way.

🔥 a blaze in the dark by woodchoc_magnum/ @woodchoc-magnum (Post-S6, Eddie Coming Out | 117K | Explicit): Set post-Season 6, where Buck has inadvertently sacrificed his friendship with Eddie in order to focus on his new relationship with Natalia, and is shocked when Eddie comes out to the team and subsequently reveals that he is dating a guy.

AUs

🔥Nothing Left But You by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars ("Blip" AU, Post-S4E13: Suspicion | 27K | Teen | Warning: MCD): In May of 2021, 25% of Earth's population suddenly disappears. Including Eddie. In May of 2026, they all come back. Eddie finds himself suddenly in the middle of a world he doesn't recognize, where the people he loves most have changed significantly.

🔥 Your Love is an Oil Slick (It Glows like Rainbows, It Stains My Soul) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Canon Divergent - Supernatural Elements, Ghost Buck | 67K | Explicit): When Eddie's son claims he has an imaginary friend, Eddie doesn't think much of it. Christopher is seven, it's what kids do. But then weird things start happening around the house, and Eddie starts dreaming about a handsome blue-eyed man. Turns out, Christopher's friend isn't so imaginary. Their house is haunted.

🔥like when the sun came out by spaceprincessem/ @spaceprincessem (Canon Divergent, Ghosts | 39K | Mature): He completely pulls the charger from the wall as he fumbles to put in his passcode. He doesn’t know who to call first. Everyone is busy, carrying on with their lives and Buck is stuck here in the loft with the terrifying ghost of his childhood like an omen. Out of the corner of his eye he catches the Crooked Smiled Man now standing in the dark entrance way to his bathroom. He swallows around the taste of blood in his mouth, hands shaking, useless as his list of contacts blur beneath the burn of tears. Eddie Eddie Eddie. He doesn’t know where the feeling comes from, but it’s sudden and sharp and excruciating. Eddie is the first name at the top of his list, his most recent calls and texts, and he doesn’t hesitate to hit the call button. [or buck can see ghosts au]

🔥All My Shattered Oaths by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Vampires AU | 107K | Explicit): Eddie wants to stay away from his family’s legacy and give his son a normal life. Buck’s desperate to find a way to get over the love he lost. Fate has other plans for both of them.

🔥 Further Than Blood (Or Than Bones) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Vampires AU | 50K | Explicit): Once, Eddie chose to save a newly turned against his better judgment. Five hundred years ago, Buck was saved by a rescuer he thought was a hallucination. Now they're together again and about to find out just how far either of them will go to try and deny what they are to each other.

🔥 let it pour out of your soul series by Rianne/ @rianneeyre (Magical Realism AU, Witch Eddie | 3 works | 71K | Complete):

collectively unconsciously composed (S4E6: Jinx | 46K | Explicit): Or: in which the author re-watched Buck Begins and Jinx and thought: what if this was gayer and had actual magic?

that systematic drug (PWP | 5K | Explicit): Eddie’s mouth goes dry when he opens the door and sees Buck. He’s clean-shaven and with his hair carefully styled back, smiling at Eddie sweetly and a little teasingly. Buck is wearing his dark jeans and his light blue v-neck polo shirt, the one that’s tight enough that it shows off the bulge of his biceps and the definition of his pecs and abs. Eddie knows this shirt. Buck's favourite, because he knows he looks good in it.

something binding us together (Established Buddie | 20K | Teen): Or: Eddie plans a long-avoided visit to his parents, discovers some things about his magic, and begins to build his family a home in LA's witching community.

[thebiggerbear]

"I hate you." "You have a weird way of showing that." - CJ Braxton Prompt Response

Summary: You had only meant to call once, remaining anonymous while feeling out the whole helpline thing for yourself. Now, you talk to CJ every Friday night around the same time. When you don't call one Friday, CJ is worried and comes looking for you which presents its own host of problems.

Pairing: CJ Braxton x Female!Reader; CJ Braxton x College Student!Female!Reader

A/N: Prompt from @creativepromptsforwriting (#941). I initially wasn't going to write anything for CJ but this idea popped into my head for this prompt and I just had to write it. And I absolutely fell in love with the dynamic between CJ and the reader (and had so much fun with this). Please forgive any timeline tomfoolery or anything time wise that makes you go "huh?"; I was trying to make this work throughout the season from CJ's entry into the show (and his conversation with Jen about the helpline) to the end.

I wasn't much of a Dawson's Creek person back in the day (I still haven't seen seasons 2-5), so I hope this came out alright. I tried to keep it as 2000-ish as possible. I remember back in the day not everyone had a cell phone like Dawson, Audrey, and Pacey (though a lot of people were getting them moving into the beginning of the decade) so that rule kind of applied here so to speak.

This is meant to take place during s6 before Jen joins The Stand.

Sequel here

Warnings: implied sex; panic attacks; implied anxiety

Word Count: 15k+

Taglist: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187; @rieleatiel

CJ Taglist: @heartlessdelusions; @nancymcl

Jensen Taglist: @samanddeaninatrenchcoat; @deansbbyx

This was recc'ed by @winchestergirl2 here.

"I hate you." "You have a weird way of showing that."

Soldier Boy version ✨ Beau version ✨ Dean version ✨ Jenny version ✨ Jason version ✨ Tom version ✨ Rachel version ✨ Anael version ✨ Alec version ✨ SDV Leah version

You glanced at the clock, seeing it was 6:59. One more minute and you’d pick up the phone as you did every Friday night and make the call you always did. Your nerves thrummed in anticipation as you stared down the clock, willing the numbers to turn.

Eventually, you got your wish and as soon as the 7 appeared on the clock face you picked up the phone, dialing the number you now knew by heart. After a few rings, the call finally connected. 

“Hello, Helpline. This is CJ.”

You couldn’t help but smile at the sound of his voice. “Hey.”

“There she is.” You could hear his own smile in his tone as he recognized you. “How are you, Jo?”

You winced at the fake name you had given him. At the time, you had quickly scrambled and chose the first name that came to mind. Granted, Joey Potter was in the same school as you so you weren’t too worried about him finding out about either of you seeing as he was from Boston Bay. But as you had talked with him more and more, you really wished you hadn’t given him any name but your own. Even if you were beyond terrified; you felt bad for lying to him.

Why should it matter, right? He was a volunteer counselor for a teen helpline at another college. Why would you care what this one person thought out of you?

Well, unbeknownst to him, you had seen him once and you knew who he was. Thanks to Joey and Audrey’s friendship with Jen, you had come to hear quite a bit about the cute tall guy whose voice made your heart rate speed up way too fast. Jen had even invited him out to a house party and that was when you saw him for the first time. Your nerves got to you and you bounced before one of your friends could make an introduction. Partly because you were afraid he would recognize you from your voice and immediately put a face to the name and possibly be disappointed or worse: he’d know you lied to him. So you avoided him at all costs — well, in person.

It wasn’t like you had planned for this to happen, where you would call a helpline weekly just to speak to a certain boy. That’s not how this started at all.

When you got to Worthington, you were homesick, overwhelmed, and overall terrified. While you eventually eased into the college student lifestyle and Boston was now home, you never really got past the overwhelmed feeling, and terrified had dialed down to being anxious all the time: anxious that you would mess up, anxious that you would fail, anxious that your future wouldn’t turn out the way you planned — all of it. There were days you felt like you were just scraping by, barely making a passing grade (though your final grade usually proved you wrong), and you felt like you were some sort of imposter who was soon to be found out and didn’t really belong. Meeting Joey and her roommate, Audrey Liddell, who lived down the hall from you, helped some, and their introducing you to their group of friends helped even more. But there were still times that you just felt…tightly wound and about to snap. As if you had too many balls in the air and you were about to trip, and all the balls would fall to the ground.

So when Jen mentioned to the group about some guy wanting her to join a teen helpline for the college, you quietly paid attention. She laughed it off — his approach, not the helpline — and she didn’t think she would be right for it so that was that. While everyone else began to talk and laugh about another topic, the wheels in your head slowly started to turn inside your head. A helpline where you could remain anonymous and talk to someone who would listen and could possibly even help. You knew your school most likely had one of those but you wouldn’t even dream of risking it. But a helpline elsewhere where you could talk to someone who maybe understood how you were feeling most of the time, maybe experienced similar things, and you were able to stay anonymous? That you could look into.

After much back and forth in your mind over it, you took the leap and made the call one Friday night after a particularly rough week. You really didn’t think anyone would pick up, it was close to 7:00 and most college kids were either out or getting ready to go out…right?

Before you could answer your own question to yourself, the line connected.

“Hello, Helpline. This is CJ.”

You did what any other person would do; you promptly hung up. You stared at your phone in terror. Someone had picked up. A guy. Just when you were convincing yourself that this was stupid and you needed to take a chill pill and deal.

You argued with yourself in your head for about another minute, hemming and hawing over it all. Wasn’t the whole point of you calling to try to do something about how you’d been feeling? You supposed you could always see a therapist here in town but that could be costly, even with insurance. You also had no desire to tell your parents because they would respond the same way they did the last time you tried to allude to how overwhelmed you were when you had returned home for the summer.

“You should be grateful you got into such a great school, Y/N. Most people would kill to be in your position, going after their degree. You don’t see your classmates moping about, do you? Just because they have classes and homework,” your mother had made sure to prick you with that pin of guilt. “Make the best of it.”

“You know what I think? I think you need to get yourself some friends and then you’ll stop focusing on this so much. If you have nothing to fill your time, of course your mind is going to obsess over what you’re viewing as negative. Try to join a club or a social group. They have keggers all the time. I remember back when I was in college. It was party city every weekend. Maybe let loose a little one of these Saturday nights and things will start to get better. And who knows? Maybe you’ll even make some friends.”

“Thanks, Dad,” you mumbled, tossing your overeasy egg onto its side with your fork, your eyes trained on your plate. You knew he was just trying to help — they both were — but their attitude seemed to imply that you could simply hit an off switch somewhere and you’d stop feeling so overwhelmed. If only.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t tried to take their advice. You had gone to some frat party and it had been one of the worst experiences of your life. You weren’t a big drinker and you weren’t really a party person in general. You didn’t really recognize anyone from your classes or your dorm and the music was so loud, it seemed like a ridiculous notion to try to approach someone and start a conversation. Not something you were very good at anyway. You had no idea how to play the drinking games you saw, other than what you’d seen on TV, and you didn’t want to do something to mess up anyone’s scores if you didn’t do it right. Then some hulk of a guy accidentally knocked into you, deluging you in beer, and he was so drunk, he didn’t even apologize, just kept on going. After about an hour (and the unintended beer bath), you decided to call it quits.  

That night, you had gone back to your dorm room which was blissfully empty, taken a hot shower, and then sobbed into your pillow. So much so that when a drunken Audrey accidentally stumbled into your room, she saw your tear-stained face when your head snapped up and immediately asked what was wrong and why you were crying in her room of all things. Despite the back and forth over whose room it actually was and her drunken state along with the slurring of her words, you two actually kind of hit it off. Before long she had you laughing, something you felt like you hadn’t done in some time. She passed out in your roommate’s bed, much to your roommate’s chagrin, but when Audrey’s boyfriend and roommate came to get her the next morning, you figured that had been it. Your one social interaction with someone who didn’t look at you as an unwanted intruder every single day (like your roommate) or like you were some loner weirdo (like most of your classmates). You knew that Audrey would probably either ignore you the next time she ran into you or she wouldn’t remember you at all. 

Boy, had you been wrong. The day after her hangover, she had been knocking on your door, smiling and telling you that you were going out with her for the night. Just like that. She introduced you to her roommate, Joey, and their group of friends. You had been inducted into their group of friends, just like that.

Eventually, Jen mentioned the helpline that one night and now here you were, staring at the phone as if it was about to come to life and do a dance or something. You waited a few more minutes, deciding you’d try again and hopefully get someone else. There couldn’t be only one person answering phones at a helpline, could there? That would make for some backed up phone traffic and not a good look for a helpline at all. Maybe you’d be lucky and the guy would have already had another caller he was speaking to so another counselor would have to pick up.

When the clock turned to 7:11, you slowly picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and dialed the number again. You began to jiggle your leg as you waited for the line to connect.

“Hello, Helpline. This is CJ.”

Oh crap. You froze.

“Hello?”

What did you do? You wanted to hang the phone up again but you were unable to. 

“Hello?” He asked again.

No. You were going to be a mature adult about this and answer him. Just as soon as you could breathe. You covered the mouthpiece with your hand and exhaled a breath.

“Look, if you’re in trouble or can’t talk, just hit a button. Any button will work.” A minute passed while you were trying to breathe, getting ready to talk. “If you don’t have a crisis and you’re not calling to speak to someone here, then I think you should hang up and let other people who need us call in. No use in tying up the phone lines.”

Another minute passed. You really were trying your hardest to get words out but your chest was tight and you felt like you couldn’t breathe. Your heart was racing yet you were frozen. This happened sometimes but usually you were by yourself, not with someone waiting for you to speak on the other end of the phone line. It also happened a couple of times while you were out with your friends, but usually you hid out in a bathroom stall until it passed and then you left to go back to your dorm with the excuse of a test the next day or a project due, whatever you could come up with on the fly. You didn’t understand why it was happening to you right now, though.

“Alright, I’m going to hang up now.”

You smashed a key on your phone so fast that you heard a loud annoying sound in your ear. Immediately, the guy’s tone changed. 

“Okay, I’m here. If you’re in trouble, hit the key again. If you’re not but can’t talk at the moment, don’t hit it.”

You didn’t hit any more keys and gasped for air that just wasn’t coming.

“Good. I’m glad you’re okay. Is someone in the room with you and that’s why you can’t talk? If so, hit the key again.” 

You moved over to your bed and laid down. That was the fastest way to get your body to relax when you had the option you’d found out.

“Okay, so you’re alone but you can’t talk but you’re not in trouble. Can you just try to say one word or make a sound so I know you’re really okay?” 

You removed your hand from the mouthpiece. “T-Trying,” you rasped out. Holy crap, this was a bad episode you were having. You were completely mortified. Perhaps you really should hang up. You were worried, though, that now he might notify someone or think you really were prank calling the helpline. Either way, you were bound to get in trouble and even more embarrassed, and that just made your chest tighter.

“Okay. That’s good. I’ll take that. Do you have asthma or something similar?” 

Great. That’s how bad you’d sounded; he thought you might actually have some sort of breathing issue. Well, technically, you were struggling to breathe right now so it made sense that he would think that but if he only knew the actual answer was something that was beyond ridiculous and couldn’t be explained away as something as serious as asthma. 

“No,” you whispered, rubbing at the spot in your chest where a mix of discomfort and a heavy-rock-feeling sat. 

“And you’re sure you don’t need to go to the hospital to get checked out?” He sounded concerned now. 

“No,” you repeated, staring up at your ceiling, your vision blurring with building tears. All you wanted to do was give this helpline thing a shot since nothing else seemed to be working, and here you had gone and made it so much worse. On top of that, you were frustrated that you couldn’t even do something as simple as answer a person when they said hello on a phone call that you made to them. What was wrong with you? 

“Okay. That’s good. Why don’t I talk for a minute so you can relax?” A tear slipped down your cheek when you realized he must have heard your heavy exhales over the phone. “Like I said before, my name is CJ. I’ve been with the helpline for a while now. I’m here four days a week. I try to schedule shifts around my classes and pick up a few extra when I’m able. Before you called, I was doing some reading for my Philosophy class. It’s not my major but I had to take another humanities course. It was that or religion so…philosophy it was.”

You closed your eyes and focused on his voice. It was actually very soothing and it was helping.

“Between you and me, I’m not the best student.” Your eyes opened and you stared at the ceiling, listening intently. “I mean, I do okay in terms of grades, but I’m not exactly a frequent flier on the Dean’s list.” He chuckled and after a moment, he asked, “How about you?”

You swallowed, feeling the slightest bit of easing up on your chest, almost if it was allowing the words through. “I do okay.” You didn’t sound as raspy as before but you still had a faint wheeze at the end. You were coming out of this, slowly but surely.

“That’s good. College sure isn’t easy, by any means. When midterms roll around, I always get a little more stressed. I usually have to blow off some steam to keep it all balanced, you know? Or else I get easily overwhelmed. I have to remind myself to take it one class at a time, one day at a time. But easier said than done sometimes, right?”

“Right.” You knew what he was doing but since it seemed to be helping, you played along. He was getting to the heart of the issue while also giving you time to come back down. You’d only been on the phone with him for close to ten minutes and already you felt much better than you had when the call started. 

“How are you feeling? Any better?”

“A little.” 

“Good.” He sounded genuinely pleased. “Is my being the one to talk helping any?”

“Actually…yeah,” you breathed out. 

“Does this happen a lot?”

You bit at your lip, not really wanting to admit it, but you had called for this very reason, hadn’t you? “Yeah.”

“Around midterms or anytime?”

“Anytime.”

“Even when you’re not in school?”

“Sometimes,” you whispered. “But mostly when I’m here.”

“So school related then?”

“Kind of.”

He was quiet for a moment and you wondered if you had said something wrong or if he was looking instructions up in a pamphlet or something for this sort of thing. 

“Hey, did you see Phantom Menace when it came out last year?”

That caught you off guard. You hadn’t expected to switch gears so quickly. “Um, no?”

“You’re not a Star Wars fan, I take it?”

He didn’t sound disappointed so you chalked that up to being a good thing. Most guys you’d met either were completely into Star Wars or weren’t into it at all. “I don’t know if I’d call myself a fan but I’ve seen the original movies.” 

“Uh oh, you’re not one of those prequel snobs, are you?” He teased.

“No? I just saw the trailer and I wasn’t interested.”

“Well, a buddy of mine and I went to see it when it came out. The theater was packed. I’m talking bursting at the seams.” A small smile started to creep onto your face at his energy. “And when the lights went down and the opening credits started rolling and the music started up, everyone was cheering and clapping. It was pretty awesome. My buddy ended up loving it. He’s the biggest Star Wars fan you’ve ever met.” A moment later he asked, “So besides anything in a galaxy, far far away, have you seen any other movies that came out?”

“I went to see The Green Mile. My, uh, my dad is a big Tom Hanks fan and a Stephen King fan so he really wanted to go.”

“And you?”

“I liked it. Though it was sad.” 

“I didn’t see it yet but I got the feeling that it was going to be a bit of a heavy one.”

“It was, but it was worth it.” You noticed then that you were talking to him normally, you were breathing normally, your chest was still a little tight but that was to be expected, and you were sitting up with your back to the wall. You had gotten through your latest episode and this CJ had helped. Perhaps there was something to this helpline thing after all.

“I’m definitely going to check it out then. Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.”

Almost as if he had heard your thoughts, he then said, “You sound a lot better than earlier. Hopefully, you’re feeling better, too?”

“Um, yeah.” You anxiously tucked your hair behind your ear. “Thanks for earlier, by the way. You know, being patient…”

“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Right.”

“So, you feel up to telling me what’s going on and why you called tonight or did you want to talk about something else?”

You bit at your thumbnail, unsure. “I feel bad. I’ve taken up so much of your time already.” You glanced at the clock and saw that you had been on the phone with him now for almost half an hour. 

“Don’t worry about the time and I don’t want you feeling badly.” He sounded completely genuine when he said it and it made you feel a little bit better about monopolizing his time like this. “This is why I’m here. So, if you want to talk, I’m here to listen.”

You still weren’t certain you should take him up on his offer. “Are you sure? What if there’s someone else who needs to call in who is having an actual crisis and you’re stuck on the phone with me? I would feel bad if they didn’t get to talk to you when they needed to because of me.”

“I’m not the only one here so if someone else does call in, they’ll speak to one of the other counselors who can help them. While we’re on the subject, what you’re experiencing is just as valid as what anyone else might be experiencing. I’m not stuck on the phone with you, I want to be talking with you and try to help you in any way I can. And yes, I’m sure.”

You contemplated it, turning it over and over in your brain. This was why you called. This was why you decided to give the helpline a try, to speak to a stranger who would listen and possibly be able to help you and if not, at least maybe understand where you were coming from. If he was willing (and he had been helpful so far), then why not?

“Would it help if I promise not to make any more Star Wars references?”

You couldn’t help but smile. “Tremendously.” 

“Deal,” he laughed. You liked the sound of his laugh; it was warm, inviting, and put you instantly at ease. This CJ seemed to know what he was doing and you could now see why people called in to speak to him and other counselors like him. 

You nervously licked your lips and decided to take the plunge. You told him everything. You told him about how it started when you began college, how the classes and workload immediately overwhelmed you. How you struggled to keep from drowning in assignments and tests and projects and papers. How you started to develop these episodes and how badly you felt during them. How you had tried to talk to your parents but they just didn’t seem to hear you, dismissing it as an issue that would be resolved by you being more outgoing and feeling more grateful that you had such an educational opportunity when many didn’t. How you could be in a room full of a hundred people and still feel completely alone, especially when an episode kicked in. You’d even told him about your failed attempt at attending the frat party. He had rarely talked, giving you the floor, but he had interjected a couple of times to either support you or make some helpful suggestions. Other than that, he just listened. By the time you finished, you felt like you had told him your whole life story, but you had to admit that you felt a lot better once you got it all off your chest, which incidentally, was feeling lighter. And this time, someone listened and actually heard you. That made all the difference.

You glanced at the clock for the first time in a long time and noted it was 10:16. Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped, your cheeks immediately heating up. Had you really been talking nonstop for over three hours? “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize it was so late. I should let you go so you can speak to other callers.”

“My shift ended fifteen minutes ago actually.”

Your heart stopped and however much better you’d been feeling, felt like it went right down the drain. How could you have been so self-absorbed and only concerned with your problems that you’d talked his ear off and used up his whole shift? Not one other person got to talk to him tonight and you didn’t even go to that school. Seriously, how selfish were you? “I-I’m so, so sorry. You should have stopped me or told me there was a time limit per call.” You were full on babbling now. “I didn’t mean to— I am so beyond sorry. I’m going to let you go. Thank you so much for your help and I hope you have a good rest of your night. Don’t worry. I promise I won’t call again. Good night.”

You went to hang up the phone when you heard loudly, “Please don’t hang up.”

You put it back to your ear, your brows drawing together in confusion. “But you said your shift was over.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “But that’s okay. If I wanted you to stop talking, I would have said something. And did I ask you to stop?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then I didn’t want you to stop talking. It seems like there’s a lot on your plate at the moment or else you wouldn’t have called, right?”

“Okay, yeah. But—”

“So it’s good that you called and I’m glad I was able to help. And for the record, there’s no time limit on a call.” Someone said something to him in the background and he quietly responded though you couldn’t hear what he said. “I’m actually gonna get going because my replacement is here and they don’t have another place to sit.” 

“Right. Of course. Again, sorry.”

“But,” he continued. “I’m going to be here Monday afternoon around 2 so if you want to call back then we can talk again.”

“I have class then.” You truly did but even if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be calling him back. You had taken up enough of his time.

“I’m here until 6:00 that day.”

“I have a study session after that class.” Okay, maybe that was a lie. “But I appreciate the offer. Thank you and have a good—”

“I’m back on again next Friday. Same time. Why don’t you call me then if you’re free?”

“I appreciate it, CJ, but don’t worry. If I need the helpline again, I’ll call, but you helped me a lot tonight and I feel better so…I won’t need to call. Again, I’m sorry I monopolized your shift.”

“Do me a favor and call me again anyway, even if you are feeling better. I’d like to check in with you and the only way I can do that is if you call me back.”

“Right. Being anonymous and all,” you mumbled. Thank God for that. You didn’t think your embarrassment at talking his head off for over three hours while you complained about your life would ever go away.

“Yeah. So, please, if you can call me next week, same time, even if you just tell me you’re feeling better and hang up. That’s all I ask.”

You supposed you could do that, after he’d generously taken the time to hear you out, after he’d helped you through your episode. “Okay.”

“Friday, 7:00. Promise me.”

“I promise,” you whispered.

And so had begun the tradition of you calling him every Friday night at 7:00. You hadn’t intended for that to happen, honestly. But each time you would talk to him, ranging in times from twenty minutes to an hour and a half (you refused to ever get near that three hour mark again, no matter what he said), he would always ask you to call him back the following week, making you promise that you would. Over time, you noticed that your overwhelmed feeling had lessened considerably (though not completely gone) and instead of having an episode (or panic attack as CJ called them) twice weekly, they had now diminished to one every couple of weeks. And even then they weren’t as bad as they had been, thanks to the techniques CJ suggested you try using. Things had gotten better for you and you had to admit, the helpline definitely was a useful service for students, though for your own personal experience, you attributed a lot of that to CJ.

Speaking of which, that was how you two began to get to know one another, moving from strictly counselor and caller into a tentative friendship. When initially speaking to him, he began to feel like a friend you were just catching up with on how your past week had been, and then it actually sort of became that. He started to tell you more details about himself and now you knew what type of music he liked, what he was majoring in, where he had grown up, and why he had joined The Stand. He had even shared his backstory with you and why he didn’t drink when you told him how uncomfortable college parties made you in general. The conversation was no longer one-sided and you’d come to like it that way.

Until the day came when he asked your name. 

“My name?”

“Well, yeah, so I know what to call you. It feels weird calling you “you” all the time,” he laughed.

“Um…” You were practically crapping bricks. You didn’t expect this.

“Just your first name. You’ll still be anonymous,” he reassured. “It could be a nickname if you want. Or your middle name. Just something.”

You ran over it in your mind. What if he still somehow managed to find out who you were if you gave him only your first name? Sure, you weren’t going to the same schools, but what if somehow someway…? Plus, your friends weren’t exactly fans of CJ right now. Apparently, Jen had a major crush on him but her hopes were dashed when he told her he didn’t date (something he had told you long before you heard it via your friends) and then hooked up with Audrey the same night. You hadn’t been there that night, opting to stay in and study for a huge test you had coming up in your Lit class, and after hearing that not only had CJ been present but also what happened, you were glad you had made that decision. Audrey and Joey were on the outs thanks to the events of that night and now so were Jen and Audrey once it was revealed that CJ and Audrey had slept together, right before Pacey punched his face in. 

When that Friday rolled around, you almost didn’t call him. You were angry and hurt yourself. Angry because his careless actions had hurt more than one of your friends, and hurt because truth be told, you had started to crush on him yourself from afar. You trusted him with the details of your life, very personal details (without giving specifics obviously), and he’d helped you. How could he be this helpful, compassionate guy working at a helpline but turn out to be this scummy, advantage-taking, selfish player? You couldn’t reconcile in your head the CJ you were getting to know with the CJ your friends saw.

“That’s just the thing, Y/N,” Jen told you when you wondered aloud how a helpline counselor could do something like he had with your friends. “Most people who go into those positions to help other people are usually a thousand times more screwed up than the people they’re helping. Audrey’s been hurting, as you know, and she’s been acting out and he saw an opportunity. Case closed.” But it wasn’t case closed for you. Not by a mile. You wanted answers, but how could you get them while remaining anonymous?

So that following Friday at 7:00, as you angrily punched in the helpline number, you had no idea how you would do it but you were determined to get them. And if you didn’t like what you heard, then this would be your last call and you would close the book on CJ and your budding friendship for good.

It caught you off guard, though, when you heard a different voice this time.

“Hello, Helpline. This is David.”

You nearly hung up. You knew David; he was starting to hang out with your group more and more, especially Jack. What if he recognized your voice?

“Hello?”

You forced yourself to ask the burning question on the tip of your tongue, albeit with a slightly higher pitch of voice. “Hi, is CJ there?”

“No, I’m sorry.” You covered the mouthpiece with your hand and let out a sigh of relief. Whether it was because David didn’t recognize you or you didn’t have to confront CJ right this second, you couldn’t be sure. Probably a bit of both. “He called out sick and asked me to fill in for him. He should be back next week, though.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll call then. Thank you.” You quickly hung up before he could ask you anything else.

The next Friday you called, you got CJ.

“Hey,” he greeted, sounding relieved when he heard your voice. “How are you?”

“I’m okay.” You were standing in your dorm room, staring out the window and watching the rain, your arms crossed. You weren’t as angry as last week, the extra time allowing you to let a cooler head prevail, but you still wanted answers. “How are you?”

“Honestly? I’ve been better.”

“I’m sorry. I know you were sick last week. Has it not gotten any better?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m sorry about that. I was feeling lousy and just needed to take a day, you know?” And he didn’t need to be parading around a still-healing black eye that might prompt questions, you bet. 

“I get that.”

“God, I wish I had your number outside of this so I could call you.” Your jaw tightened. Perhaps your friends were right; there was a whole other side to him. A side you didn’t really want to get to know. “I really could’ve used a friend to talk to.”

You unclenched your jaw when you realized he wasn’t hitting on you and when you thought about it, he sounded genuinely miserable and he never had in any of your previous conversations, even when your friendship formed. It was unlike him, or at least the CJ you had gotten to know. Just like this behavior your friends had told you about sounded unlike him. “Well, I’m here now, if you want to talk.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to make this about me. You called in to talk, not to hear about my problems,” he laughed, sounding nervous. That was a first.

“I’m sure. What are friends for?”

He told you everything while not naming anyone. He didn’t hold back anything and you realized that while he didn’t know who you were, he was giving you the side that had been missing from the story your friends told you: his side. Every side has a story after all. He admitted he had messed up big time. He had hurt Jen (or Blondie as he called her), he had been an ass to Pacey (or The Guy Who Punched My Face) when he had no right to be, and he should have never hooked up with Audrey (or The Girl That Came Out of Nowhere). Apparently, Jen had said to him the same thing she said to you and it got him thinking, along with some things Audrey had said. He felt like a huge jerk and all he wanted to do was keep his head down and move forward, get back on the right track that his life had been headed in. You stayed silent as he talked and before you knew it, the clock read 9:47. 

“Your shift is over soon,” you whispered once he was done.

“Yeah, but I still have a few minutes. So what do you think? Am I a complete jackass or what?” He let out another nervous chuckle.

You briefly pressed your lips together as you thought of how best to answer that. In the end, you were as honest as you could be without giving yourself away. “I think we all make mistakes sometimes. But as long as we recognize them, apologize to those we’ve hurt, and try to do better, then that’s all that matters. So no, not a complete jackass.” 

This time when he laughed, it sounded relieved. “Thanks.”

“Of course. That’s what I’m here for,” you repeated his words back to him, teasing him slightly.

A moment of silence passed between you before he asked, “Will you call again next week?”

That made you do a double take. He never asked you to call the following week like that. Usually he asked in the form of making you promise you would call or he’d tell you he’d talk to you the following week. But when he asked like this, he sounded uncertain, vulnerable. You knew then that more than just his face and ego had been hurt by recent events. Perhaps you were a fool but you believed his remorse to be genuine. 

“Yeah,” you assured him. “I’ll call next week.”

And when you did, he immediately hit you with the name question. 

“Earth to you…” He called, snapping you out of it and reclaiming your attention. “See? It doesn’t really work,” he laughed.

You had to be careful here. Not only because you didn’t want him to find out who you were but also because if your friends ever found out, especially Audrey…you were toast. 

You opened your mouth to give him the name of a classmate that couldn’t be traced back to you but “Jo” came tumbling out instead.

“Jo?”

Oh crap. You had Audrey and then Joey on your mind and it just slipped out. Crap, crap, crap. “Yeah,” you lied. “Jo.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Jo.” You could practically hear him smiling, happy to have gotten a name out of you.

You squeezed your eyes shut, angry with yourself. “Nice to meet you, too,” you mumbled before you dropped your head into your hands.  

So now here you were, him thinking you were Jo from the college he was attending, and you were calling him every single week at the same time like clock work. You had long ago stopped questioning the morality of what you were doing and it seemed that he didn’t appear to question it at all. He was always happy to hear from you and your conversations were more personal now. You couldn’t deny the way your heart rate spiked every time you heard his voice when he picked up the call or how whenever his name was mentioned in passing by David or Jen (though rare these days), you would specifically tune in, listening for anything that had to do with him. You had it bad and you knew it, but it was also a safe crush from a distance and would be staying that way.

You shook your head, snapping yourself out of your reverie and remembered CJ has asked you a question. “I’m good. Really good. How about you?”

“Really good, huh? I’m happy to hear it and happy to be hearing from you.”

You couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I got that paper back and you were so right, The Writing Center really helped. I can’t believe I never thought to try it before. Thank you so much for that idea.”

“I’m happy to be of service,” he chuckled. “I’m glad it helped. And the club thing? Did you give that a try as well?”

Your smile dropped. He had been trying to urge you to join a club or a group where you had shared interests with other students. His theory was that if you gave a small group of people a shot doing a social activity you might enjoy, that it might help decrease your nervousness in other social settings. Even though you told him you had a group of friends you regularly met up with, he didn’t think expanding your social circles would be a bad thing to consider. “No? I told you, CJ, that’s not really my thing.”

“I get that, I do. How about this? If you want, I could meet you at Student Activities and we could take a look around together, get some info. No pressure, of course, but you wouldn’t have to walk in there alone. I know it can be a bit much sometimes. I remember my first semester here and I didn’t know where to stick my head.”

You froze. That was the first time he’d ever mentioned the possibility of you meeting in person. Perhaps if you were really Jo from Boston Bay College, you could take him up on it or give him your number like he’d asked you for or call his room number like he’d offered up a few times now so you could talk outside of the helpline. But you weren’t and so you had to decline. “I appreciate the offer but it’s not my thing so I’m going to have to pass. Sorry, but thank you, though.” 

“If you’re sure.” He sounded slightly disappointed but maybe that was just you imagining it. 

“Yep, I’m sure. Uh, so listen, I can’t stay on long. My roommate and her boyfriend will be here in less than ten so I’m gonna go so I can get out of here before I get hit by the clothes hurricane that’s most likely to happen.” It was a complete lie. Your roommate, Stacey, had actually gone to visit her boyfriend for the weekend. You would have peace and quiet and the dorm to yourself for two whole days. 

He chuckled good-naturedly. “I don’t blame you. If you get bored later, I’m here at The Stand until 10:00, like you already know, and then I’ll be back in my room. You can call me then if you want to talk. I”ll be up for a while so don’t worry about calling too late.”

“Oh. Thanks. Maybe I’ll do that.” You weren’t going to and he knew you weren’t going to. You hadn’t the last two times he’d made the same offer and the last two times you’d given him the same response.

“Jo?”

“Yeah?”

“If I don’t hear from you… Call next week, okay?”

“Okay,” you agreed, smiling, like always. You said your quick goodbyes and you hung up, letting out a heavy breath. While he had been urging you to contact him personally, he had never mentioned meeting him before. That was different. And it worried you at the same time. Why the offer now? Granted, he was just trying to be helpful to you, given the context, but what if he began to find other ways to work it in like he already had about your phone numbers? What if he continued to push to meet Jo? 

You shook your head, telling yourself that you were doing it again, worrying over things that might not happen. You would cross that bridge when you came to it, something CJ had once said to you that you kept for yourself as your own personal mantra. You would wait to see how next week would go.

But unfortunately, the call never happened.

You had been out with Jack and David on Thursday night at Hell’s Kitchen, when Jen waltzed in, smiling and taking a seat. Joey and Emma were working and Pacey was supposed to join you later.

“You worked late today,” Jack commented. 

“Training took a little bit longer than expected. We were supposed to be done at 6:00 but then our relief called and said they were going to be late. Of course, since CJ was going to stay, I wasn’t going to just leave him there.” Your ears perked up at the mention of CJ. You knew Jen was training as a counselor and he was the one training her. Jen had begrudgingly forgiven CJ but it was also obvious to you all that she still had a crush on him. While you couldn’t blame her, you also felt for her. CJ told you that he had to make it clear once more to Blondie that he wasn’t looking to date though he was happy she had finally started training at the helpline. He really believed she would make a great counselor once she settled into it. 

Talk about complicated. Jen was your friend and you didn’t want to see her get hurt, but you could also understand if CJ didn’t see her that way, he just didn’t. They were both your friends now and you just wanted them both to be happy, whatever that looked like.

“But then, listen to this,” she continued. “Our relief, this guy named Seth, sees me there with CJ and starts teasing him about how he’s racking up all of these beautiful girls through the helpline, not leaving any for him.”

“Jen,” Jack warned. 

“No, listen. This is good. You’re going to like this.” 

Jack sighed but let her finish.

“CJ laughs it off but then Seth mentions how he has this girl calling him every Friday night, around the same time, and she talks his ear off for hours.”

You were about to take a bite of your french fry when you froze. Your heart dropped down to your feet. 

“And so I ask if this is true and CJ says that we’re there to help everybody, time limits aren’t a thing, and it doesn’t matter how many times a caller calls back or they speak to the same counselor. As long as they get the help they need.”

“He’s right,” David chimed in.

“But then Seth starts teasing him again and asks if CJ can give him tips on how to get dates using the helpline. CJ laughs and says sure. I mention how he said he wasn’t looking to date and Seth says he tells every girl that so he doesn’t have to commit but can still get what he wants.” You dropped your fry back into your basket, trying to ignore the rolling nausea in your stomach. 

“I don’t know about that,” David chuckled nervously.

“He didn’t deny it, David. He just laughed and walked away. Can you believe it? He’s using the helpline to get girls. Talk about abusing the system, not to mention the absolute lack of morality.” You definitely felt like you were going to be sick. “I quit. If that’s what guys like him and Seth are using that helpline for then I don’t want any part of it. And CJ? Audrey was right. He’s a skeevy player. I can’t believe I didn’t see it this whole time.” Jen shook her head. You were getting that all-too familiar falling feeling again. 

“Wait, seriously? Guys are using the helpline to pick up girls?” Jack turned to David.

“No. Jen, I’m sure Seth was just kidding and CJ was just playing along. Nobody is using the helpline to pick anyone up. Everyone that works there knows the rules and they’re there to help callers. How could they pick anyone up, anyway? It’s all anonymous.”

“Yeah, but if they pushed for a date or something… It could happen.” You immediately felt your stomach jolt and like someone had punched you in the gut at the same time.

“It could,” David agreed. “But I doubt it does.”

“He has the same girl calling him every single week at the same time. What would keep her calling like that?” Jen interjected. You glanced away from the table for a moment, not sure if you wanted to hear the answer David would give.

“Is that true? Every week?” Jack asked in disbelief.

“It’s true,” David confirmed. “I actually got her once when CJ was out sick. She sounded nice.” If you could have, you would have given him a smile, thankful for David’s attempt to defend CJ and the helpline and unknowingly you. But right then, you were trying not to hyperventilate. “And CJ appears to be helping her. He said she’s made a lot of progress since they started talking.”

“He talked to you about her?” Jen looked shocked. Oh God. Your chest started to feel tight.

“Only because he was going to be out sick that one day and in case she called and then decided to talk to me, he wanted me to be up to speed in case she needed something. That’s all.”

“I feel badly for this girl. She probably thinks CJ is some great guy and she can trust him but based on what Seth said, he’s simply playing the long game with her. A girl whose trust he’s taking advantage of. I’m telling you, Audrey was right about him and I should’ve seen it.” Jen rubbed at her forehead. It was beyond hot in here and even though it wasn’t crowded, the room started to feel smaller.

“I don’t think that’s true, Jen,” David defended. “I don’t think he’s looking to take advantage of this girl at all. I think he truly wants to help her.”

“Yeah, that’s how it started with Audrey and look at how that turned out.” David dropped his gaze to his food, continuing to poke at it with his fork. There wasn’t much he could say to that though he wished he still would. “And if that’s true, he only wants to help her, then why was he laughing along when Seth talked about her and how she keeps him on the phone for hours? How is that helping her?”

You felt like your feet were locked in cement but your legs were wobbling to and fro. And yet you also felt like a large boulder was now sitting on your chest, making it difficult to breathe. How could any of this conversation be happening right now?

Jack glanced from David to Jen. “Perhaps David’s right, Jen. Maybe he was just playing along. That’s what guys do sometimes. You know that.”

“I don’t think that’s what that was. Either way, I quit.”

Jack and David started to urge her not to quit, but at that point you’d had enough. Your hands were clammy and you felt that feeling on your forehead, too. You needed cold, and air. “Excuse me,” you nearly rasped out and beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom. You could feel your dinner coming back up. Joey stopped you in your trek.

“Hey, Y/N, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

You shook your head and dodged past her, hurrying to the bathroom. Once you reached it, you locked the door and pushed into a stall just in time. You emptied the contents of your stomach and once you were finished, you made your way towards the sink, splashing cold water on your face. You could feel the panic attack you were having and you tried your best to ward it off but to no avail.

You slid down the wall and struggled to breathe, trying the techniques CJ had taught you. You didn’t want to think about him right now but you also didn’t want to be having this happen while your friends sat right outside. Not to mention, you knew Joey was going to come check on you. You gasped for air and rubbed at your chest. Once it passed, you unlocked the door, made excuses to Joey and your friends, went home, showered, and cried yourself to sleep. For the first time in a while, you’d had a particularly bad episode and ended the night in tears: two things you hadn’t done since you’d started talking to CJ regularly. You felt as if all the progress you’d made was like a house of cards that fell to the ground after one card was pulled out from under you. And all because you’d trusted the wrong person. 

So you stopped calling and instead, spent your Friday nights at the library, studying, so you wouldn’t be tempted to pick up the phone and call to confront the guy who’d betrayed your trust.

A few weeks later, you were sitting on Joey’s bed, watching Audrey unload her closet onto her mattress. Apparently, she was going to rehab, for real this time. She was ready to confront the fact that her drinking was out of control. Joey was helping her sort through everything and handed you things to fold and place in her suitcase. Eddie had already taken one heavy suitcase down to the car, along with a very high Bob. 

You all looked up when there was a polite knock on their dorm room door. Joey got up to answer it, most likely thinking it was Eddie, but when she opened the door, it revealed another guy altogether.

There stood CJ, in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a jacket covering his tall frame. Your heart skipped a beat before falling into your stomach but then leaping back into place and pounding faster than before for a whole other reason. You immediately grabbed a magazine from the nightstand and began sifting through it, your jaw clenched and you refusing to look in his direction.

Before anyone could say a word, Audrey groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw CJ hold up a placating hand in her direction. “I’m not here for you, okay? I’m actually looking for someone.”

You froze.

“I bet you are,” Audrey grumbled.

Joey crossed her arms. “Who?”

“A girl by the name of Jo who lives in this building.”

You mentally cursed yourself. You knew you had let the name of your dorm building slip once by accident but he hadn’t appeared to have heard you so you thought you were in the clear; apparently, he had heard you. Crap.

Joey tensed. Uh oh. You had a feeling this was going to come back to haunt you at some point. Here it was. “Why are you looking for me?”

CJ’s brow drew together. “You’re Jo?”

Audrey was suddenly at Joey’s side. “Yeah, why are you looking for her?”

“Jo is a girl who called the helpline. I haven’t heard from her in a few weeks and I just wanted to check on her.”

Her distaste for CJ forgotten, Audrey turned in shock to her roommate. “Joey Potter, you called the helpline?”

“What? No. Don’t be ridiculous, Audrey.” Joey then looked at CJ. “I don’t know who this girl is but it’s not me. Good luck in your search.” She went to close the door but CJ stopped her.

“Wait, so you’ve never heard of a girl named Jo who lives in this building?”

“No,” Audrey snapped. “Now, go away.”

“Hold on a second. Because Joanna Martin who lives on the 2nd floor isn’t her and has never heard of her. Now you’re saying you’re not her and you’ve never heard of her either?”

Audrey gave him a nasty smirk. “Imagine that. A girl using a fake name calling an anonymous helpline. She probably knows what a sleazeball you are and didn’t want you stalking her. If she was calling the helpline, she’s probably got enough on her plate. Best of luck, Stalker Boy.”

Audrey went to shut the door in his face but again, he stopped it.

“I don’t really care what you think of me. You want to think I’m the bad guy in everything that happened with us? That’s fine. But I’m actually trying to find this girl to help her.”

“Help her into your bed, you mean.”

His jaw clenched. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh, I bet it is but whatever.” Audrey rolled her eyes and turned back to you. “Y/N, have you ever heard of this girl he’s looking for?”

Your eyes snapped up to them and all three of them were now staring at you, waiting for your answer. Crap. CJ was looking right at you. Double crap. You shook your head and went back to your magazine. 

“There you go. No one here has heard of her. Buh-bye now.” 

Audrey was closing the door when Joey’s phone started to ring. Joey, who had gone back into the whirlwind of clothes, looked over at you. “Hey, can you get that? Eddie might be calling from his cell phone.”

You nodded and picked up the line. “Hello?”

“Hey, Y/N. Can I talk to Joey? Audrey’s friend, Bob, is getting a little impatient down here.”

“Sure. One sec.” You handed the phone to Joey. “It’s Eddie.” She took it and began rolling her eyes when Eddie was most likely telling her the same thing he had just told you. She came over, zipped up the suitcase you had been working on after dumping more things into it. “Do you mind taking this to Eddie downstairs? He’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Sure thing.” You tossed the magazine back onto the night stand and grabbed the suitcase handle, picking it up and placing it on its wheels. You slipped your worn paperback copy of your book into the back pocket of your jeans, intent on returning it to your room when you came back up. Now that you knew CJ was trying to track you down and he was in the building, you didn’t feel comfortable having any clues pointing to your identity out in the open like that. 

You grabbed the tail of the suitcase and began to pull it along. “Oh my God, Aud. Do you really need this many outfits?” 

She looked up from her cell phone and gave you a smile. “Of course. Rehab is bound to be drab so I’m going to make it fab.” She shot you a wink and opened the door for you. 

You laughed and shook your head, crossing over the threshold. You made your way to the elevator and pushed the button. While you were waiting, you heard behind you, “Need some help with that?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin. CJ was right there, behind you, talking directly to you. While a part of you wanted to tell him to take a hike, your desire for anonymity was greater. You turned and gave him a wan smile, shaking your head. His green eyes were intent on you and you didn’t care for that one bit. It was like he knew who you were without you even having to say it. Luckily, at that moment, the elevator dinged and the door opened. You went to roll the suitcase onto it when a hand picked it up out of nowhere.

“Let me give you a hand,” CJ offered, not waiting for you to reply and stepping into the elevator. You paused for a moment, considering not getting onto it with him but Eddie was expecting you and Joey and Audrey were waiting for you to come back. You let out a quiet sigh and stepped inside, hitting the button for the Lobby and waiting for the doors to close.

Once they did and you started descending, CJ glanced over at you. “So, Jo, were you planning on ever calling me again?”

Your heart started to pound but you forced yourself to remain cool as a cucumber, hoping he wouldn’t recognize your voice. You arched a questioning brow up at him. “I don’t know who you think I am but my name’s Y/N. Sorry to disappoint.” You turned back to the door.

“The Green Mile book in your back pocket says otherwise.”

Crap. You tried to think quickly. “That’s just a book I’m reading for class.” You decided to channel Audrey, the queen of mean when she wanted to be; perhaps that would get him to leave you alone. The doors were opening and you turned to give him a smirk. “NIce try, though, Sherlock. Better get back to Watson before he misses you.” You grabbed the tail of the suitcase and nearly stormed out of the elevator. 

CJ was suddenly at your side. “I know it’s you. Why are you trying so hard to act like it’s not?”

You shook your head, choosing to ignore him. Thankfully, Eddie came into sight, rushing to get the suitcase. 

“Thank you, thank you.” He picked it up and gave you a look. “About how many more of these are coming down, do you think?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. She has a lot of outfits. Joey’s got her work cut out for her.”

Eddie groaned and then noticed CJ standing next to you. “Good to see you again, man.”

“Likewise.”

Eddie glanced between you and CJ before walking away. Great. He was bound to mention that to Joey who would most likely question you about it later thanks to CJ’s impromptu appearance earlier. You spun on your heel and headed back to the elevator, punching the button.  

CJ was suddenly next to you. “What happened? Why did you stop calling?” He quietly asked you. 

You didn’t answer him, just kept staring straight ahead, your jaw clenched.

He leaned in slightly, his voice even quieter. “Did I make you nervous by offering to meet you? I was only trying to help. Nothing funny, I promise.”

When the doors opened, you stepped inside and of course, he followed you. The doors closed and your ride up began. 

“Are you going to talk to me or just keep ignoring me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know your voice. It’s you.” After another quiet moment, he begged, “Would you please just talk to me? What happened?”

You shook your head.

“Something obviously happened to make you stop calling. So, talk to me. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

You glared over at him. “Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now please stop bothering me.” CJ looked as if you’d slapped him for a moment and you felt guilty but then you immediately remembered what Jen had said that night at the bar. 

He gave you a curt nod and turned to face the door. Once it opened, you went to step out when he lifted the book out of your back pocket. 

“Hey! Give that back!” He held it out of your reach, opening it to find the note from your dad on the inside page that he’d written after he bought it for you. Why did you have to mention that in your phone conversations? That was a dead giveaway that yes, Jo was indeed you. How could you have been so stupid?

CJ gestured to the note. “Tell me again how it’s not you.”

You snatched the book out of his hands and hurried down the hall to your room. You would’ve gone back to Audrey’s and Joey’s room, but you were afraid he’d out you to them. Even if they didn’t believe him, you still remembered Audrey’s reaction when she thought it might be Joey for a moment and the latter’s response. 

“Y/N, wait,” CJ begged behind you. “Please, can we just talk for a minute?” You were unlocking your door when he was right next to you. “Just one minute. Please. That’s all I’m asking. Then, if you want, you’ll never see or hear from me again.”

You mulled it over for a moment. You could do one minute, you supposed, and get this over with. You glanced up at him and nodded, pretending not to see the relief that filled his expression. You opened the door and then held it open wider for him to follow.

You saw your roommate sitting on her bed, talking on the phone to her boyfriend. “Stace,” you interrupted. “Can you give us a minute?”

She frowned. “I’m kind of in the middle of—”

“I need the room.” Your tone brooked no argument. You surprised her; usually, you kept to yourself and never really stood up to her if she got mean or demanding. But you were not in the mood for any of her crap right then. You were at your limit.

Stacey scoffed but got to her feet. “One second, babe.” She glared at you, which you were more than happy to return, and then turned it onto CJ as well. “Boys aren’t allowed to stay up here so make it quick. You know the rules.”

You huffed out a snort. “The rule you break almost every other night? Got it, Stace, thanks for looking out.” You practically shut the door in her scowling face. You turned to find CJ’s eyes trained on you.

“So that’s the roommate, huh?” You shrugged. “Exactly how I pictured her, scowl and everything.”

You didn’t laugh at his joke and instead, crossed your arms. “You wanted to talk?”

He pressed his lips together and thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. “Why did you stop calling?”

You wanted to tell him the truth but it also seemed best to just get him out of there as soon as possible. He knew who you really were now and that was a problem. Especially if your friends found out you were the girl that had been calling him every week. Because sooner or later, they would want to know why and you weren’t ready to talk about that or have them look at you funny. You knew they’d be supportive, especially Joey and Audrey, but you also knew things would change. And you weren’t quite ready for that to happen. 

“I’ve been doing better so there was no need. You should know, you made me your pet project after all.” You didn’t mean to be harsh but you were still angry. 

His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

“You know. I’m the girl who calls you every week to talk your ear off and keeps you on the phone for hours. The girl you’ve supposedly been trying to pick up through the helpline, though apparently I’m not the only one.”

His eyes widened. “Y/N, that’s not true at all. I don’t use the helpline to pick up girls or try to get dates. I don’t date, you know I don’t. I don’t know who told you that but it’s not true.”

“But the other part is?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Because that’s how your buddy Seth put it, the way Jen tells it.”

CJ huffed out a mirthless laugh, rubbing at his forehead and giving a nod. “Jen. That’s who you heard this from.”

“Don’t even,” you snapped. “David also mentioned how you told him all about me and my issues.” You used quotation marks on the last word.

His hand dropped. “Okay, first off, you don’t have issues, no more than anybody else around here, myself included. Second, I only told David because I was going to be out that one night. I wanted to make sure if you called in that you were taken care of. That’s it. David is one of our better counselors, he’s a friend, and I trust him completely.”

Your jaw tightened. “That still doesn’t explain why Seth would even say anything like that. And you laughed! You stood there and laughed as this guy, who I don’t know by the way, is turning me calling you for help into a joke! Is that what I am? The joke at the office? Does everyone there know how I’ve been calling you every week and boring you to death with my problems?”

“What? No! You’re not a joke. And you’re not—”

“Really? Because it sure sounded like it to me based on what Jen said.”

“Okay, let’s get something straight. You’re not boring me to death when you call, you’re not talking my ear off, or keeping me stuck on the phone with you, or anything else that someone else might have said. I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to be there for you and try to help. Then when we started talking about more than that, I wanted to talk to you even more. If I didn’t want to talk to you at all, if you were such a nuisance, then why would I ask you to call back every week or give you my phone number even?”

“But you weren’t trying to pick me up.”

“No, I wasn’t. I wanted to be available to you if you needed to talk to me outside of the hours I had at The Stand.”

“Yeah, because I was your pet project.”

“No, you weren’t and why do you keep saying that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.” 

“Isn’t that what you do, though? Isn’t that why you tracked me down? Isn’t that why you kept trying to get my number and even suggested we meet though the helpline’s supposed to be anonymous? You look for girls who are messed up and try to be their white knight. It gives you some sort of satisfaction, some twisted sense of purpose… That’s what happened with Audrey, right?” Again, he looked like you slapped him but this time, you didn’t feel guilty. You were only speaking the truth. He had told you how much he wanted to help Audrey and how somehow they ended up in bed together and before he knew it, he really liked her and wanted to see more of her. In the end, he’d admitted to you that it might have been him confusing his desire to help her with his interest in her. That maybe Audrey had been right in what she’d said.

You watched as his shoulders deflated slightly and he let out a heavy breath, hanging his head. You bit your lip and glanced away from him, not wanting to see him look so defeated. You had to be strong, you had to stand up for yourself and not let him or anyone else take advantage of you. That was the silent vow you’d made to yourself after you’d cried yourself to sleep that night you found out how you were being used and made a mockery of.

“I tracked you down because I was worried,” he spoke softly. You turned back to find him staring at you, remorse radiating from him. You felt slightly bad for hurting him but you had said nothing but the truth, from his own lips. “It wasn’t like you not to call so I thought maybe something happened or maybe I made you nervous with that last call. Like I said, I gave you my number because I wanted to be there for you anytime you needed me, even if I wasn’t working. So this way you always had a way to get a hold of me if you needed to. I only asked for yours because I did like talking to you and I thought we were becoming friends. I know that’s not the norm for the helpline and it’s never happened before, to me or to anyone else that I know of, but like I said, I enjoyed talking to you. I only offered to meet you at Student Activities that day because you seemed nervous to try it alone and I didn’t want you to feel like that. I would’ve made that offer to anyone that needed it.” He nervously licked his lips. “I do like you but it has nothing to do with my wanting to help you or make sure you’re okay. I made a mistake with Audrey but I learned from it. I told you that.” He sighed before continuing. “I like you, Y/N, because you’re funny and smart and kind. Even if we didn’t meet through the helpline, I still would have liked you once I got to talk to you, once I got to know you better. That’s the truth.”

He turned to leave when he stopped suddenly. “By the way, Seth is the guy who usually relieves me on Friday nights. That’s how he knew about you calling every week. He always liked to razz me about being on the phone with you since I made him fifteen minutes late for his shift that one time. I only laughed because it was obvious he was showing off for Jen, that he likes her, and I was trying not to embarrass him in front of her. I did end up talking to him later about it, though, and asked him not to mention it again in front of her or anyone else. He agreed; he’s not a bad guy.” He glanced back at you over his shoulder. “I’m sorry this happened. If you call the helpline again and want to talk to someone else, I understand. If you don’t want to call at all, I understand that, too. Just…take care of yourself, alright?”

You averted your eyes, not wanting him to see the tears building in them, and you gave him a curt nod. You only looked up again when the door snicked closed. You pretended a tear didn’t suddenly roll down your cheek and you told yourself that you had done the right thing. Though it certainly didn’t feel like it in the moment, deep within your chest. 

You stared at your phone, pacing back and forth as you chewed on your thumbnail. It had been almost a month since CJ walked out of your dorm room, leaving you more conflicted than you felt prior to his arrival. You had turned his explanation over and over in your mind so much that you had begun to dream about him every night. You had more panic attacks during that time, to the point where you’d finally taken the plunge and made an appointment to see a therapist. You’d told your parents everything you’d been experiencing, making sure they heard you this time, and told them you needed help. Your mother was still annoyed with you but your father was supportive, especially when you told him that you had a group of friends you met up with pretty regularly. He agreed to help with payments for your therapy. 

You were doing better, just like you had been while talking to CJ, and the therapist had even more techniques in her toolbox that she taught you how to use. You’d even opened up to her about CJ and everything that happened with him. She was the initial reason why you were considering making a call that you hadn’t made in quite a while. 

When you saw the clock hit 7:21, you made your decision. You huffed out a breath, picked up the phone, and dialed the all-too familiar number.

“Hello, Helpline. This is CJ.”

You resumed your pacing, nervous, unsure of how to say what you wanted to.

“Hello?”

You’ve got this.

“Hello?”

Just do it already. Talk to him.

“Listen, if you’re—”

“What are your plans for tomorrow afternoon?” You rushed out before you lost your nerve.

 “Jo?” You appreciated him using your fake name. “Is that you?”

“Well?” You asked.

“Uh, tomorrow? I’m free...”

“Would you…want to get some coffee? Maybe?”

“Coffee, huh?” You could hear the smile in his voice. “Jo, you’re not calling the helpline to ask me out on a coffee date, are you? Because that would be a serious misuse of this valuable resource the college provides,” he teased.       

“Oh. Okay. Well, I’ll just wait until Seth is on shift then and call him up to ask him instead. Thanks, though. Bye.”

“Don’t you dare,” he laughed. You lifted the phone back up to your ear. “What time and what coffee shop?”

You couldn’t help but smile. “Got a pen?”

You walked into the coffee shop ten minutes early, intent on getting a table and settling in before CJ arrived. To your surprise, he was already there, waving you over. You approached, feeling your heartbeat speed up with every step. “You’re early.”

“I wanted to make sure we got a good table.” You had a feeling that wasn’t the only reason. The worry shadowing his expression confirmed it. Did he really think you had called him up to ask him to meet you only for you not to show? Then again, you supposed you couldn’t blame him.

“Good thinking.” You gestured towards the line with your thumb. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want anything?”

He was immediately on his feet. “I’ll get it. You sit down. You still like lattes?”

You gave him a small smile and nodded; he remembered. 

He returned your smile. “Okay. Here, take a seat. I’ll be back in a minute.” You watched him walk over to the line as you did just that. 

You would be lying if you said you weren’t nervous, but you were taking your therapist’s advice. You were moving your friendship with CJ away from the helpline and out into the real world. You were giving him another chance while also allowing both of you to start over. If CJ agreed to, that is.

A few minutes later, he returned and placed your cup in front of you. You gave him a smile of thanks and waited for him to join you.

“So,” he started once he was settled. “You called in.”

“Only to ask you to meet me,” you pointed out.

The corner of his lips tipped up in a genuine smile. “I’m glad you did.”

“Me, too.” And you meant it. You were happy he’d said yes. “I actually asked you to meet me because I wanted to thank you.”

His brows drew together. “Thank me?”

You nodded and began to tell him about all of the recent developments in your life, including therapy. You also apologized for how harsh you’d been the last time you saw each other but he waved it off, saying you didn’t need to and he understood. He listened intently and his smile grew when you mentioned how the therapy was helping and your panic attacks were starting to lessen. 

“I’m really happy to hear it, Y/N, and I’m glad you’re doing better.”

You bit at your lip, feeling nervous about speaking this next part. “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t helped me the way you did, especially that first night. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he murmured.

Your heart began to pound against your rib cage but you bravely surged forward and kissed his cheek. When you sat back in your chair, his eyes were wide and you felt your face get hot. “Sorry. I just really wanted to do that for a long time. I hope that was okay.”

He grinned. “More than okay.” You felt relief sweep through you. “I was just thinking—”

“I know. You’re not dating, and we’re friends. Don’t worry, I understand.”

He studied you for a moment before speaking again. “I was going to say ‘I was just thinking what a coincidence because there’s something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time, too.’” His hand gently covered yours and he slowly leaned in, giving you time to pull away or tell him to stop. You weren’t going to do either. 

His lips brushed gently against yours and you felt a thrill rush through you at the contact. You had imagined kissing him so many times but the fantasy did absolutely no justice to the real thing. When you broke apart but he didn’t lean back right away, he murmured, “Was that okay?”

“More than okay,” you whispered before pulling him back into you, both of you grinning like idiots before your lips connected again.

You stopped, seeing the front of the building you were about to go into. “Are you sure we should be doing this?” You asked nervously.

CJ turned back to you and gave you a reassuring smile before cupping your cheek and kissing you. “Yes. We should.”

“But—”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he assured you. “Trust me. I’m right here with you, okay?” He pecked your lips one more time, tightened his hold on your hand, and began pulling you forward. 

“Okay.” You didn’t sound so sure about this and truthfully, you weren’t.

CJ chuckled and led you inside. The Stand office was decorated with balloons and streamers and there was even confetti on the floor. One of the counselors was leaving since she was soon to graduate and a party was being thrown for her last day. You tried not to get overwhelmed at the amount of people filling the small space. It was overly warm in here and you could barely hear yourself think over the din of multiple conversations going on at once. Somewhere music was playing at a decent level. You noted a room in the back where through the window you could see two people sitting, talking on the phone, a closed door in between them and the noise. 

CJ intertwined your fingers and moved you both towards a group of a few people that he was intent on talking to, people greeting him as he passed. You remembered the techniques you had been taught and tried to put them into action while reminding yourself that you were with CJ and he wasn’t going to abandon you. 

He stopped and greeted the group before he turned to you smiling. “This is Y/N, my girlfriend.”

One of the guys laughed. “Ah, so this is Y/N.” Your heart started hammering inside your chest. “CJ hasn’t shut up about you since you two started dating.” You nearly sighed in relief.

CJ shrugged, grinning down at you. “Seth’s not wrong.”

Your eyes widened before you turned back to the guy. “Oh, so you’re Seth.”

Seth beamed. “Aww, CJ, you told her about me? I just knew we had something special,” he joked.

You frowned. “Hey now. Go get your own CJ. This one’s mine.” You winked up at CJ who laughed. 

He let go of your hand to wrap an arm around your waist and pull you into him. “Definitely yours,” he whispered huskily. 

Seth pretended to gag. “Ugh. Young love. Gross. You can have him, Y/N.”

“Damn right I do,” you laughed as CJ wrapped himself around you from behind and leaned down to kiss your cheek.

From that moment on, it wasn’t so bad. CJ circulated around the room to different groups, introducing you each time. With him by your side, you began to feel more comfortable and you opened up bit by bit. At one point, CJ took your hand and led you away. “I want to show you something.”

“Again?” You teased. “Didn’t you already show me something back in my dorm earlier? Twice?”

“Ha ha. No, this is something different. Though there will definitely be a third time when I get you out of here and back to my place.”

“Ooo. You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, Mr. Braxton.”

He smirked, wiggling his eyebrows playfully, and pulled you into a kiss that left you breathless. “Just a small preview for later.”

“A small preview?” You panted. You just loved teasing him and couldn’t resist.  

He rolled his eyes in amusement. “Come on.”

CJ led you over to a desk and with his free hand, he swiped confetti off of the seat. “This is it. My station,” he told you.

Your eyes roamed over the computer, the keyboard, the notepad and pens, stopping on the corded phone. So this was it. This was where CJ had sat on those Friday nights during your conversations. You smiled to yourself at the memory.

You let out a squeal when CJ quickly sat down in the chair and pulled you into his lap. You wrapped your arms around his neck to keep from falling, glaring at his laugh. You softened though when you looked back over the desk. “So this is where you sat on those nights we talked?”

“Uh huh. Though I much prefer you here on this end with me.” He gripped your chin between his fingers and turned you to him, kissing you sweetly. You snuck your fingers into his hair and tilted your head to deepen it, not caring right then about anyone or anything else around you. 

You and CJ had been dating for a while now and it was starting to become serious. He had met your parents when they came to visit. Your dad had liked him right away. Your mom, on the other hand, had given him a bit of a hard time but underneath the harsh exterior she was presenting, you could tell she liked him, too. He had initially planned to transfer to a school in New York, which you more than supported (though you were secretly heartbroken). You reminded him that you had done the phone thing once upon a time and you could do it again, if he wanted. After contemplating it, he decided to stay in Boston. 

“Please don’t tell me you chose to stay because of me. I’m not going anywhere. If it’s a great opportunity for you, you should go. I don’t want you to regret not going.”

He’d simply smiled. “I have a great opportunity right here and I would regret leaving.” He’d kissed your nose. “Besides, Boston’s home.”

“CJ, you should go. I’m almost done and I can come visit you. It’s only a few hours’ drive. You could show me things like the Empire State Building or take me to a museum or a play or show me Times Square.” You’d tried to make it sound enticing but inside it was killing you. Everyone knew long distance relationships had their problems and who knew? Maybe he might meet someone new in the Big Apple. But you also wanted him to do what was right for him, just like you’d spoken with your therapist about. You didn’t want him to resent you later on if he didn’t take this opportunity now and you certainly didn’t want him to have any regrets. “We could even visit Jen and Jack, see how her Grams is doing.”

Jen and Jack had transferred to New York. You had been worried to tell her that you and CJ were dating but while she was a little miffed in the beginning, she was more focused on the developing situation with her grandmother who had been diagnosed with cancer. Eventually, she forgave you before she left and gave you her blessing. You had been relieved; Jen was a good person, a good friend, and you didn’t want to lose her friendship. Jack had been worried about Jen’s reaction but for the most part, he had been fine with it. David was happy for you both. Audrey was doing better these days and though she had wanted to know what the hell you were thinking by shacking up with The Sleaze (as she referred to him), she had eventually told you she loved you and just wanted you to be happy. Joey asked you if you were sure when you told her and when you assured her that you were, she pretty much said the same thing as her former roommate and gave you a hug. She gave you a look when you pulled away and you knew that she had connected the dots on who you really were to CJ, but to her credit, she mercifully never said anything. Pacey and Emma had shrugged (CJ had apologized to Pacey at some point after what happened with Audrey and they had resolved things), wishing you well. Dawson…well, you never really got to know Dawson all that well during his brief visits so no conversation needed to be had there really. All in all, your friends were supportive, even if still a little wary of how things were going to work out. You were happy, though. It was strange but shifting from friends into romance proved to be an easier transition then you thought it would be.

CJ laid his forehead against yours, staring into your eyes, as he stroked your cheek with his thumb. “I’m not going without you.” You went to speak, to remind him you weren’t going anywhere, when he cut you off. “I know what I want. I’m okay with my decision. I need you to be, too.”

You tenderly stroked his arm. “Are you sure?” You whispered, worried he was making a mistake.

“More than sure.” He then pulled you to him for a kiss.

“Okay,” you whispered to his lips before kissing him again.

And now you had met all of his co-workers at The Stand and had seen where he worked a few days out of the week. He had offered to bring you several times before, but you had been hesitant to take him up on it, still worried someone might figure out who you really were. It’s not that you were embarrassed that you had called the helpline for help, but your business was your business and you didn’t want to be seen as that girl CJ got himself through the service. You both obviously knew that wasn’t the case but people talked, people judged, and you just wanted to steer clear of both as long as you possibly could. You knew you shouldn’t care what anyone thought or said, just like CJ didn’t; it was something you were currently working on in therapy. 

“So,” you teased when he finally broke away for air. “Is there a switchboard somewhere that you have somebody directing all the girls to you when they call? Is that how I got you every single time I called?” 

He grinned. “Not exactly. I told everybody that any calls that came in on Fridays at 7:00 were mine.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Well, how did you know I would call every single time?” You huffed out. “How do you know I might not have gotten held up? Or made plans at the last second? Or got fed up with you?”

He gave you a cocky smirk. “Because you liked talking to me. I could tell.”

You playfully swatted at his shoulder, making him laugh, and rolled your eyes. “It always amazes me that you’re able to make it through doorways with that massive ego of yours. That can’t be how you knew I would call you every time.”

His smirk grew and he nodded. 

“I hate you,” you mumbled. You didn’t really mean it and he knew you didn’t.

CJ pulled you closer up against him. “You have a weird way of showing that.” He inclined his head towards your embrace around his neck. 

“True,” you murmured and kissed him again.

“Plus,” CJ added when you pulled back. “You always said you would call back and I believed you.”

“Better,” you decided. “Though I will begrudgingly admit that I did like talking to you.”

“Like I said, I could—”

“Hush.” You covered his lips with yours and he chuckled into your mouth. When you pulled back this time, you laid your forehead against his, your eyes closed, smiling. “I love you,” you murmured.

“I love you, too” he whispered back to you, lifting up to press a kiss to your brow before you buried your head into his neck and he discreetly snuck his hands under your shirt to rub your back, just the way you liked. 

“Want to get out of here?” He asked you after a few minutes had passed.

“Mmm.” You lifted your head to look him in the eye. “No Fleetwood Mac this time, though.”

He laughed and helped you to your feet. “What have you got against one of the greatest bands of all time?”

“Nothing. It’s just weird to listen to that chorus when we’re about to…you know.” You could feel your cheeks starting to warm.

He grinned salaciously at you. “Oh, I know. Hey, at least it’s not the Star Wars theme.” He snickered at your glare and picked up your hand, kissing it. “No Fleetwood Mac tonight. Got it.” He intertwined your fingers and his grin softened into an affectionate smile before he led you out of there. You quickly made your goodbyes and hurried back to his place where he kept his promise of no rock group music track playing along to your own soundtrack. 

Later, as CJ slept, you repeatedly ran your fingers through his messy hair in soothing strokes as you studied him. Who knew calling the helpline that one Friday night would lead you here? Where you were happy, in love, and doing much better than you ever thought possible? You had gone from feeling overwhelmed by your education to feeling a different type of overwhelmed together. Overwhelming love and affection for the special person in your life; overwhelming gratitude for the progress you’d been able to make in managing your anxiety and panic attacks as best you could; and overwhelming contentment with every single moment, no matter the ups and downs that was best known as life. Regardless of whatever happened from here, you knew you’d be okay and you’d handle whatever was thrown your way. Like CJ had once said, one day at a time.

In his sleep, your boyfriend reached out for you and pulled you in closer to him, snuggling into your side and burrowing into your neck, making you smile.

And to think, you almost hadn’t made that call. You laid your head against CJ’s and closed your eyes. You were so glad you did.

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[coraniaid]

I'm pretty critical of Buffy's final season (because ... well, I've watched it), but there are some things I think it does well and, since I'm trying to talk myself into working on my S7 AU fic again, I thought it might be worth trying to write down what they are.

I like the sense of completeness there is in going back to some of the show's beginnings. I like seeing Buffy in school again, but this time as an adult with a job. It doesn't just let us re-examine the high school years from a new perspective, it gives Buffy's arc over the last few seasons a nice sense of direction. I like what little we see of Dawn in high school. (I wish there were more episodes like Help.) In principle, I even like the fact that this season's Big Bad is a supernatural threat we've seen on the show before.

While I think there are a lot of problems with the execution (and even with the wider concept) of making the First Evil the primary (frequently the only) antagonist, the First being around does give you a lot of possibilities for having characters literally come face to face with their pasts. I like the final scene of Lessons and I like Conversations With Dead People and I like seeing the Mayor on screen again. I wish the show had done more with this concept.

I like meeting new (Potential) Slayers and finding out more about past Slayers. I like Robin Wood. I like Kennedy. (I wish the show did a better job making the audience care about any of the other Potentials.) I like that Faith comes back. I like that there is a focus on what it means to be a Slayer this season (compare how the show opens, with Buffy taking Dawn on patrol and telling her "it's about power..." [which Dawn doesn't have], to the scene in Chosen where Buffy asks the Potentials "what if you could have that power?").

I also (sorry) really like the fact that the writers resisted the urge to make Dawn a Potential or have her suddenly develop any magical powers as a result of being the Key (which there are at least rumours they were talking about doing). I like that the show stuck with the idea that Dawn is the part of Buffy who gets to be an ordinary girl.

For all its flaws (silly CGI battle against monsters I don't care about which is resolved by a random mcguffin from a different show; weird retcon about Sunnydale apparently being inland; a bunch of other unfortunate writing choices I won't get into here) I really do like Chosen a lot. It feels very fitting that the show ends with Buffy both finally getting to leave Sunnydale and with her no longer having to shoulde the burden of being "the" Slayer (or one of only two Slayers, anyway) anymore. I love how open-ended and hopeful that manages to be.

And speaking of Chosen, I like Buffy's "cookie dough" speech. I like the fact that the show lets Buffy end the series single, and recognizing that she doesn't have to be in a serious romantic relationship if she doesn't feel she's ready for one right now. (I like post-S7 Fuffy as a concept a lot, sure, but I think I prefer it as something that neither of them rushes into.)

I like that Amy comes back? I mean, I don't like anything the season does with her, but still: points for remembering she exists, I guess.

I like the fact that Willow gets to grieve Tara but also move on with her life and start dating again. [I don't know if I would have killed Tara off if I was writing S6 -- I think probably not -- but given that Tara did die I think this is the only good option.]

Empty Places is a good .... name for an episode?

For all my (many, many) issues with Andrew Wells this season (and in particular with just how much Andrew Wells is in this season, which is ... a lot), I think Storyteller is ... pretty good? I liked Jonathan, I think it's sad he dies (and his speech about missing high school now that he's left is another good moment from this season) but I wouldn't really have wanted to have him turn up and help save the day either. Having Andrew kill him (and then have to face up to the fact) feels like the right choice, to me, if you were going to bring either character back [I'm not really sure I would have done that though, to be honest].

Equally, for all my irritation at the time wasted on the "is Giles the First Evil?" subplot and at some of the other character deaths the writers did go for, I'm glad that the Core Four all survive. What the season actually does with Giles isn't very good, and neither Xander nor Willow are in this season enough (especially not in its second half), but at least they all get to live.

Oh, and Anya. I'm glad the writers didn't give in to the temptation to kill off Anya for some sort of cheap shock value, the way some leaked early drafts of Chosen suggest they were thinking of doing. Can you imagine how infuriating that would have been? I don't know if I would ever have accepted it. I might even now be living in denial. Thankfully common sense prevailed there and Anya definitely survived.

[raayllum]

so Ezran and Karim, right

The fact I'm making this meta, however small, when my third and final Mirrored Paths meta centring on Karim and Callum is still sitting in my drafts, is particularly rich. That said, this is sort, mostly speculative, and I do what I want.

Although Karim has the most parallels with Viren, particularly in his political path and choices, and Ezran mostly parallels Janai in Arc 2, I hit upon some interesting potential parallels, namely three main ones, that I think are worth talking about.

So let's get into it:

Archdragons

First off, Ezran and Karim are the only characters we see really negotiate with archdragons in S4 and S5, albeit for different reasons. Ezran invites Zubeia to Katolis and Karim seeks out Sol Regem, more similarly to how Ezran likewise seeks out Domina Profundis in S5.

Ezran doesn't ask for help from Zubeia as well, but he does offer it: "If the Fallen Star is a threat the whole world will face, this is a chance to solve our problems together," whereas Karim offers a partnership and a request to a disinterested Sol Regem. Zubeia and Sol Regem don't have many parallels on the surface except for both being dragon monarchs, but there are some tethers with being lost in their grief, Zubeia being similarly hurt by dark magic in S5, and Zubeia saying that Zym's return "brought back [her] baby, hope, and her love" which echoes Regem's assertion that "I lost my hope long before I lost my sight".

There are more tangible parallels between Ezran and his archdragons (Domina, Rex Igneous) and Karim and Sol Regem, though. (There's also just a lot of bartering, offers, and exchanges in TDP in general, particularly in arc 2, but that's a meta for another day.)

These similarities are mostly due to asking each of them for something; for Domina and Rex, Ezran needs information; for Karim, he needs literal, physical help. Where Ezran is asserted as the true king, needed by his kingdom, Karim offloads it onto Sol Regem.

But just like Ezran asks for the dragons' aid, generally, in S5 to help hunt down Claudia and Viren (two humans in Xadia), Karim asks for help in getting rid of humans from the Xadian side of the border entirely.

Domina gives the information freely, but Regem and Rex both require a bit more... nudging, shall we say. And both dragons are convinced (seemingly, in S6 for Regem) by the right gift.

Which fits nicely into our next parallel of sorts, regarding

Worth and Parental Keepsake

Now, this is more of a contrasted parallel, of course. Karim asserts that the ring is worthless because it only has personal value (perhaps reaffirming his view of public relationships as something less important than political power, or his focus on symbols as something with immense value), whereas Ezran states that his crown has worth purely because of its sentimental meaning.

Additionally, while Janai loves Khessa and presumably their parents just as much as her brother, the same way that Callum loves Harrow just as much as Ezran does, it is the younger brothers who 1) seem to have always cared more about the throne in general and 2) who maintain keepsakes from their parental figure in comparison to their older sibling.

Which brings us rather nicely to our last point:

Brothers and Sisters

Like I've just said, Ezran and Karim are both the younger sibling and fiercely concerned with the future of their people; this is, admittedly, something Ezran and Janai likewise share ("to build a brighter future" amid other statements) but they have the hope and faith to get there. Karim is concerned with his own individual kingdom only, whereas Ezran has a broader view with Katolis at the top of his mind.

There's also plenty that they could take from Karim's subplot and give to Ezran, honestly—particularly because TDP has a tendency towards exploring how the younger siblings are more heavily impacted by disagreements with the elder (Karim and Janai, Janai and Khessa), abandonment (Soren and Claudia), and death (Amaya and Sarai). We also have confirmation that Callum and Ezran will have a conflict in future seasons where Ezran will be inclined to pull rank about it, throwing Janai's line above into a new foreshadowing light, perhaps.

It also feels inevitable that the brothers are going to have a big wires crossed perspective moment. This could be over Runaan, what to do with Aaravos, or something else entirely, but it seems bound for there to be a moment where they expect to agree ("Who knows my brother better than I do?") and are shocked if not also angry when they disagree, heavily.

If it's over Runaan, this parallel would be particularly fitting due to 1) Karim and Ezran potentially pushing unforgiveness and 2) while Callum would free Runaan regardless because that's just who he is (nor do I think Ezran would actually want the elf trapped or jailed forever), Callum's desire to help Rayla and make her happy is undeniably a factor at play there, just as Amaya helps Janai realize that "Yes, absolutely, I do want to be queen" through both the trial and on the hillside, whereas Karim still believes that "Janai never wanted to be queen" so she will step aside.

Like I said, this is the most speculative, but it seems likely the Broyals will temporarily have a more bitter sibling feud for a time than we've seen, say, from even Soren and Claudia (though S6 could change things!) and I am not opposed.

Other Misc Thoughts / Speculation

Another interesting fact that, again, Ezran shares with both Karim and Janai, is the importance of a royal ancestor from 300 years ago. We know a decent amount more about Queen Aditi—the Merciful, the Kind, who outlawed blood duels and also bound Kim'Dael to her family tree, deeply trusted by the Archdragons, and then mysteriously vanished = was "swallowed"—than we do about the Orphan Queen.

However, the two women definitely have an interplay. One fell prey to Aaravos; one helped imprison him and discovered his treachery. There are also potential parallels if Ezran gets woven into more into the Key of Aaravos debacle, similarly to how only the True Ruler of Lux Aurea can free Kim'Dael, Janai leaving Karim a currently moot point.

That said, I don't think Ezran will have too much to do with the Key as it stands now; he's been pretty narratively removed from it despite being in plenty of seasons where it was actively around (s1, s2, s4, etc) and his main tether to it at all is the Orphan Queen herself. I also wouldn't be surprised if Janai ends up paralleling Aditi more than her brother (though he is, admittedly, the one working with Kim'Dael, so parallel points there) since Aditi seems like ultimately more of a positive than negative figure.

Additionally, we see Karim be reaffirmed time and time again as a 'student of history' in ways that only Viren really comes close to. Karim is our most indicative Mage Scholar character, calling upon history and its importance throughout most of his episode appearances, and his deep desire to return to the past is part of what makes him such a massive fuck up in ways even Viren never meandered into. While I don't think Ezran will have too much to do with the cube, I could see him doing research maybe now that he's back in Katolis on his own for a bit in early S6, and eventually finding out more about his royal ancestor and the cube his brother has, miles and miles away, subsequently for the audience's benefit (and horror?).

And yeah, that's about it! Hope you enjoyed about best king and worst prince until next time!

[embarrasingmf]

S/O HEADCANNONS

CHARACTERS INCLUDED: dean, sam, and cas.

A/N: I got lazy writing these🤫 also I would’ve added more characters but I’m not that far into the show☹️ (I’m only on late s6 but I have a lot of spoilers LMAOOOO)

—————————————————————————

DEAN:

CIVILIAN VERSION:

- if you were a civilian, I feel like dean would try to keep his hunting life a secret from you for as long as possible.

- he doesn’t want another cassie situation to come up because he loves you so much.

- personally, I don’t feel like dean would’ve told you on his own terms, I feel like you somehow found out on your own.

- whether that be you found out he lied about whatever job he said he worked as — a job that obviously made people move around a lot, so you didn’t get suspicious — or you just found some fake IDS or some weapons you found while snooping in the Impala.

- you decided to stay, to take the risk of possibly being hunted down by the supernatural to be with dean. and to you, it was the best decision you had made in your life.

- he treats you so well for a guy who slept around a lot before he met you.

- he always tries to call you every night while he’s out of state hunting.

- I feel like he’d get you a promise ring, something to make up for the no-go decision of marriage.

- whenever he comes home from a hunt, he’s forever by your side, cuddling on the bed or the couch of your apartment. he never leaves your side, and will even stay interlocked with you if you decide to go to the kitchen, he’ll only let you go if you need to go the bathroom. (you need your privacy ofc)

HUNTER VERSION:

- dean was definitely a little hesitant to start a relationship with you, you were both hunters. that never ended well, he saw first hand from tamara and isaac.

- but, he eventually decided to just take the risk. you were one of the only people — beside sam and cas — who understood the life that you guys lived. the risks that came with it.

- dean never would’ve thought about having a domestic life, he knew that wouldn’t have worked out. he had enough experience trying to make it work with lisa and ben.

- but you, you give him a small spark of hope that there is a chance he can eventually run away from hunting and life in peace with you.

- he’d also get you a promise ring, an identical ring to the silver one he used to wear on the ring finger of his right hand.

- he’d secretly buy you cassette tapes of the type of music you like and start playing it for you when you two are alone in Baby. the smile on your face is worth every penny he spent. (if you have similar or the same music taste to dean, much like I do, he’d make a mix-tape of songs he has that remind him of you.)

- dean being with a hunter s/o would mean he isn’t that heavy on PDA, he believes that it could put a bigger target in your back than there already is.

SAM:

CIVILIAN VERSION:

- much like dean, he wouldn’t have told you at first. he didn’t want you to end up like jessica, and be strived of a full life you deserved to live.

- although, unlike dean, I feel like he’d tell you himself instead of you finding out on your own terms and possibly being pissed at him.

- sam has a habit of going to stores full of little trinkets, reason being he’d bring them to you. you have a whole collection at this point, and you don’t plan on getting rid of it.

- whenever he comes to visit, he likes to spoil you with whatever money he has from hustling pool with dean.

- around the time sam and dean get the bunker, he’d invite you to live full-time, that way he can be closer to you and not drive extra miles after a hunt just to see you. (forgot to add it, but I feel like dean would do the same thing.)

- he claimed that you could help them do research on cases since sam doesn’t want you getting into the hunter lifestyle.

HUNTER VERSION:

- I believe that sam would be more open to a relationship than dean would be, sam knows you can protect yourself. you’re a hunter.

- while on hunts, sam always makes sure to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re safe.

- sam would 100% let you chat his ear off, even if it’s about a topic he isn’t interested in.

- if you had long enough hair, sam would definitely love to play with your hair. whether that was braiding it or just running his hands through it. (totally not based off one of blondie’s headcannons haha..)

- in his free time, he likes to lay your head in his lap and read to you, it’s a moment of domesticity that he loves.

CASTIEL:

CIVILIAN VERSION:

- you two first met after he lost his grace and Dean kicked him out of the bunker.

- he wasn’t all used to being a human, and you didn’t think he was weird for it. in fact, you helped him adjust to life without grace.

- when cas got his grace back, he was worried for you. you didn’t know he was an angel and he’d eventually have to return to the Winchester brothers.

- eventually, he decided to tell you before he left. you looked a him like he was crazy, it wasn’t until he showed you his wings in the form of a shadow behind him.

- he didn’t want you to stay at the bunker, he thought there was still a chance that a supernatural being could break in and possibly hurt you.

- and that belief grew after dean became a demon and tried to kill sam in the bunker.

- much like sam, castiel would also get you little trinkets he obtained from going on hunts with sam and dean.

- I also feel like he’d bring jack over to your apartment every now and then since he’s like a son to him!

HUNTER VERSION:

- at first, you were a little wary of castiel. but when you saw how much dean and sam trusted him, you decided to let yourself like him a little more.

- cas always gave you space, he never tried to force you to like him. he always let you get used to his presence at your own pace.

- it wasn’t until cas lost his grace and was forced out of the bunker did you realize how much you actually liked having him around.

- so when he eventually returned, you started treating him more like a friend and less than a stranger you were forced to interact with.

- eventually, that friendship bloomed into a relationship between an angel and a supernatural hunter.

- if you were ever injured on a hunt, you’d be the first one he’d heal. sometimes, you’d have to force him to heal someone else because they had worse wounds than you did.

- I feel like cas would love to hold your hand, just interlocking your fingers gives him a sense of peace.

—————————————————————————

tags! : @ryvkkr @marunene

[illiophop]

GO and Statue Significance

Anyone noticed the statues? Three in particular, which take center stage quite literally in Seasons 1 & 2. We have:

Crowley and his "wrestling" demon and angel, which had pride of place in his flat.

Gabriel's graveyard statue portrait

Aziraphale's marble bust

Because nothing in the set seems accidental and because the statues are so lovingly and prominently displayed, I think it's worth lavishing some attention on them and think about why the characters chose them/like them/display them. This is gonna get academic, for which I'm sorry/not sorry!

Some background on what we know about each statue, with much thanks to @fuckyeahgoodomens for lots of info regarding #1 and #3 statue origins. The wrestling demon and angel is an original work, based upon the Uffizi statue "The Wrestlers." The original is dated to the age of Augustus after a Greek original, which depicted two men engaging in an Olympic sport called Pankration which is described as "an empty-hand submission sport with scarcely any rules." (Make of that what you will).

Gabriel's statue is particularly fascinating. Typical monumental-sized angel statuary with a large cross either has the cross placed above, and the angel below, carrying it, or the angel crouching while embracing the cross. In either composition, it is the cross which is the focal point. In Gabriel's statue, we see the Cross in a non-dominant position, whereas Gabriel's face is the focal point. Also important to note - in traditional angelic statuary, Gabriel is usually depicted as a herald with a horn, and not with a cross at all.

Aziraphale's statue bust original is located in the Louvre, and is called "The Victorious Athlete." It dates from around the time of Crowley's statue, perhaps a century or so later. It is also Roman and it is most likely an idealized figure, not a Greek portrait. Greek-style hair and features came back into fashion in the Roman first century AD, when the Emperor Hadrian fell in love with a Greek youth, Antinous.

My theory is that each statue represents how its owner sees themself and their purpose. In other words, an allegory that allows us to understand the events of S6 and each respective character's actions.

Crowley: Crowley's statue elevates the beauty of eternal tension between dark and light. It's a spiritual and also a very physical, fleshly beauty. More tension. There is definitely sexuality in that piece as well (a few of us have noticed, including Neil!) Each figure pushes the other to their best effort and is, in turn, shown at its best. And each figure is defined by its engagement with the other.

Gabriel: The statue is a clear portrait, unlike the other two (highly unusual for angelic statuary). The whole composition serves to allow the viewer to look, and admire, Gabriel's face. The hope of a resurrection of the dead, as represented by the cross, is completely sublimated to angel portraiture! Pretty extreme stuff for a graveyard, tbh, and reconciles nicely with Gabriel's complete disinterest with the Second Coming.

Aziraphale: His bust is meant to serve as an idealization and embodiment of qualities of the ancient athlete, summed up in the word arete, a term describing "a maximum of ability and potency for action (optimum potentiae); a man’s effectiveness and skill in goodness." Not making this up, btw, this is a widely accepted view of why such idealized statuary was created to represent ancient Olympic athletes - they were literally offerings dedicated to Gods at sanctuaries in Olympia, Delphi and elsewhere.

Such arete encompasses Aziraphale's goal and purpose, and it makes sense that the bust would be displayed so prominently in his bookshop. In S1, it dangled a medallion presented to him from Heaven in 1800. It is interesting that Aziraphale's medallion is missing from the bust in S2 - has it been stripped by Heaven after the events of S1?

Because Crowley has been stripped of his flat, we have no idea what happened to his wrestling angels statue but we no longer have it in S2 as an allegory to access and reference. Is this because he has evolved in his self-definition and that of his relationship with Aziraphale? We cannot know until we have an opportunity to see his flat again, and whether it is still in place.

We know that Gabriel uses his statue as narcissistic reinforcement and a date spot. With his escape from earth, we expect that it will retain little value to him, shed as a narcissist sheds all supply once it is of no use.

But what has happened to Aziraphale's bust in S2 E6? We see Crowley methodically put everything back together exactly as it was after the Ball/Demon incursion, but we don't see the bust go back in place. What is the significance to its absence in the Kiss scene, and the following one with Metatron? I don't know, but I wonder if this is not foreshadowing to indicate that Aziraphale's self-conception is going to be radically altered as a result of his going to heaven. He is not going to come back the same angel, and his allegory is going to have to change with him!

[noblechaton]

gonna ramble a bit about the ml art style change bc ig I have more thoughts about it than I knew. tagging this as leaks but no like story stuff is gonna be mentioned bc I don't really know any lol

so going off what little we've seen of it (and in arguably the lowest possible quality at that) I think it's gonna make the show very visually pretty which isn't to say it couldn't be or wasn't in the older style(s) but that was def more inconsistent between studios and such so if this new style is the standard then like. yeah it's gonna look great

buuuuuuuut I also think it looks kinda. generic? like what's happened to a lotta brand logos that used to have personality but now all look super flat and simplified. like the Pepsi logo or whatever. it's a similar situation to the movie (I'll get into this in a bit) where like yes it looks pretty but it doesn't really look like Miraculous to me? like ik the style kinda varied somewhat between the studios but it was largely consistent enough and felt much more unique. like I could see a screencap from any timestamp of any episode and place it as Miraculous just bc of the visual style

now tho it looks less unique to me and more....like a mobile game ad? some kinda un-marketed direct to streaming movie? not trying to sound mean or anything but it just doesn't strike that same feeling the old style did for me as of yet. it feels more like an attempt to ape off a generic Pixar/Disney sorta style which the movie's style did too - and that ig is a good excuse for me to kinda dive into my thoughts there bc like. it looks way more like that movie now right? the y'know completely non-canon movie that to my knowledge wasn't received too terribly well lmao. I feel like this is on some level purposeful tho

I made a post the other day about how someone (especially the youngins) might go into season 6 thinking it's actually more of a season 1 only to presumably find that very much isn't the case pretty quick lmao - but that's still a new viewer, which makes number go up, which is a Good Thing. that s6 looks to be something of a fresh start given the whole Gabe in da Ground situation makes me believe this more since I'm pretty sure he got got in the movie too (<- does not remember the movie she saw twice) albeit in a different way. very real chance they view s6 as something of a soft launch pad with the hope of ppl who only saw the movie just jumping in without looking first. I also have an even more insane conspiracy theory that they're using movie assets at lower res for the sake of cost management but again. nutso hunch

regardless I'm kinda surprised they're changing it so drastically this deep into the series and I have no idea how the quality of animation is gonna hold up from episode to episode, season to season. presumably this is part'a why we haven't had s6 drop yet, that they've been working on it thoroughly, but it's been a good minute since s5 ended and I feel like the drought in content isn't really worth it?

like it's been so long that to me sometimes it's felt like the show straight up ended and while I don't mind a wait like this, the show then coming back looking entirely different to how it used to is gonna be jarring. I'm giving it a chance bc we haven't really seen it yet and that footage is very likely a wip of some sort but all the same I'm not terribly impressed? the emotions seem more stilted and flat, there's a few sorta redesigns that look....off (namely Adrichat, imo), and it feels too much like an attempt at cashing in on whatever success the movie might have had by bringing the look of the show more in line with it

think what gets me the most is that the style and animation of the show was one of the biggest things that drew me in beyond the bugcat of it all. it was the first CG animated show I'd seen where I felt as if the animation really worked; the world felt alive and vibrant, the city lived in and populated, but it didn't feel uncanny or like realistic in any sense, and there were plenty of gaffs and flaws throughout but I feel that only endeared the look of the show to me more - it had its own style that stood out for better or worse and I think that played more a role in the show's success than most have given credit for, and now that it's being entirely dropped in favor of a style that feels much more like some generic CG animation style I can't help but feel a bit disheartened and even nervous about the future of the series tbh

want to say that I'm not looking to hate it - I'm gonna give it a chance, and again I think it does visually look pretty, but I feel like it loses a lot of what made the show stand out to me and changes things I don't think really needed changed. time will tell but as of now I'm really not sold on it

also think having a special (or two? maybe?) in the old style just to drop us into the newer one presumably shortly after is kinda weird. wonder what happened there. bad timing? tbh using a special to introduce it mighta helped a bit but idk for sure

[notyour-valentine]

Do you think Tommy was cappable of love? He loved his children thats for sure but what about his wifes? I never understood his fascination with Grace, in my opinion it was more obssesion than love... I always felt bad for Lizzie cause she truly loved him even after all the harms she suffered through him. He was starved for love, for affection, he needed someone to love him but I always felt like he couldn't love them back...

Hi - thank you for that very interesting question.

The short answer is yes. I think Tommy is absolutely capable of love and all kinds of love. When talking about love, I think we should always differentiate between types of love. Like you said, he definately loves his children deerly and deeply.

With Grace, well in S1 we see very little of a real relationship as she is still a spy. I do think he fell for her, but which version of her did he really fall in love with (also loving someone and being in love with someone are two very different things in my opinion). S2 is an affair and in S3 we see very little of their actual relationship until she dies. I think he very clearly mourns her in S3 and in S4. But the thing about mourning is, it is hardly ever objective. One of my grandmother's favourite sayings is "You're never more popular than at your own funeral" and I think that is true. With Tommy there is also guilt. He didn't just lose a loved one (like with Greta) but he is directly responsible for her death, she died not just for him but instead of him. I don't think it is obsession so much as it is guilt. And in S5 when Grace shows up again in form of hallucinations, we see that. She isn't a comforting entity that calms him, she is the personification of his death wish and destructive thoughts goading him to suicide. That's not a sign of love, even love lost, but of guilt.

I do believe he loved her, I believe he loved Greta and I believe he loved Lizzie and especially with Lizzie has loved her for far longer than he admitted to her or has allowed himself to admit. He also loves his family, his siblings, Polly etc.

But I don't think Tommy is capable of expressing that love in a healthy way because to a certain extent, especially by S5, he seems to consider himself unlovable. To me, he seems to have such self worth issues and such self-hatred. He tells Ada to keep her baby away from him, he distances himself emotionally and pushes his family away.

There is a moment where he says to Lizzie "In my head, I still pay you for it" and I know in the scene it is phrased and meant as an insult after that letter where she tells him she is considering leaving him.

But I think that sentence describes Tommy's state of mind perfectly.

"In my head, I still pay you for it" not because he still sees Lizzie as a prostitute, but because he can't imagine another reason for her to be around him, because he doesn't see a worth in his presence in their lives apart from money. He even says that in the end of S3 and S6 and it's tragic.

So when you say he is starved for love and affection, I think that is 100% true and not seeking that out is another form of self-punishment for him. And I think he couldn't return the affection he did receive, because he doesn't seem to trust himself, he doesn't consider himself worthy of love, especially not of the love of the people around him, especially Lizzie, because Lizzie has been the most supportive, most loyal and most constant figure in not only his life, but his son's life too. And with her I think he went through the different types of love from sexual passion (eros) to platonic friendship (Philia) and deep trust, to familial love (storge) and longstanding love (pragma). I do think he loves Lizzie, but he never allowed himself to be in love with her, because he thinks he doesn't deserve love and especially not her love.

I am so sorry for the long, rambling answer but questions like that always get me going as it is so interesting and layered - I hope you could make something of my response.

xx Val

[tinyshinysylveon]

I just saw on Google that Ochako confirmed that she is in love with Deku in the manga, is this true?

I'm really behind on the episodes, believe it or not I didn't even have the courage to leave the first episode. Yes, I ship BkDk, I'm following it through the community, you make me have hope, even though half the famdom hates this beautiful ship, I know there's a possibility that it's fake, I don't know, but I was sad about it.

I'm sending this ask to all BkDk analysis professionals, as you can see I'm a bit desperate, don't be surprised if you see this ask on other profiles!

(I researched more, it seems like everyone is against BkDk, even though the manga gives so many signs), can you explain it to me? what are the possibilities that BkDk will be canonized?

wooo i finally got time and caffeine to answer (sorry anon for the late reply!) -- i just realized you sent this ask to me bc you consider me a "BkDk analysis professional" and i am very flattered except i feel like i'm not one you say i am lol but thanks for the thought tho anon, so for you, i'll try my very best! ;;;;;

disclaimer: sorry for any spoilers if you decide to read on!

Anyway, when I saw that first question, I was so confused in the beginning because I didn't remember Ochako confessing to Deku that she's in love with him. However, I did go back to search it up and she did confess to Toga that she did fall in love with Deku (chapter 394) esp when Toga and Ochako had a heart-to-heart convo.

(i had to go for the raw ver. so that i can see what she says in japanese but it is basically the same as what it says on the translated ver. "...then, I fell in love with Midoriya Izuku and now, that's why I'm here to stop you!")

This chapter tho literally has togachako moments all over it! She was trying to reach out to Toga by revealing what her motives were and how they had changed from being a hero, not just bc her fam has poor income and she needed the financial stability, but for others (mostly influenced by deku) as well and that's why she's willing to even "reach" out a hand to Toga and listen to her feelings. (anon you made me read that chapter again and i'm in literal tears because i remembered she told toga she has the "cutest smile in the world" in the end aaa my heart asdfghjkl) Now, I'm not going to ignore that she revealed to Toga that she has feelings for Deku (even in the manga/anime, she's so obvious with her feelings by blushing, ashido teasing her, etc.) so we technically already knew from the start. It's just that she admitted it now, not really surprising tbh.

BUT, we have yet to know what Deku's feelings are in the matter or if he even reciprocates them. As far as I know (or I have seen so far), Deku literally gets blushy or embarassed around girls whenever he gets near them (like the time with hatsume accidentally landed on top of him) because he is still just a teenage boy with hormones who probably rarely have close girls as friends until he attended UA.

Please keep watching anon! Ngl, I actually had the same thought as you back then, but then I kept watching and watching until I finally caught up with the anime and manga. Hori does not disappoint when it comes to the BkDk dynamics, especially in the most recent chapters in the manga which I won't spoil for you, but it is definitely worth catching up to! I highly suggest you keep watching because season 6 by far has one of the best top moments I've ever seen that happened between bkdk. Also, a lot and I really mean a lot (bc I have posted a couple of bkdk posts back then when s6 was still airing so i read reblogged tags and chats lol) have even acknowledged that bkdk could actually turn into something special esp from the ones that were against it from the beginning. This means not everyone is against their relationship as you say they are. If anything, the people against it have actually lessened and the ones that are still hell-bent on being an anti are probably the ones that never read the manga, watched past season 1, knows that this is the top-ranked ship in mha and feel threatened it'll get in the way of their respective ship for bk/dk or just plain homophobes. I've never seen or recalled someone putting together a whole essay of why bkdk can't be together, other than, "he bullied him" or "guys can't get together in shonen anime!" or some other dumb reasons.

As for the other question, "what are the possibilities that BkDk will be canonized?" All I can say is anon, we just need to have hope for Hori to provide us that in the end honestly ;; Don't get me wrong, I love BkDk as much as the next person since I shipped them right from the start of episode 1 but I would still love it if Hori gives us a little panel at the end where they're working together in the same agency or damn, staying together as roommates under the same roof. He didn't even have to make it obvious, just make it indirect while us bkdk audience can fantasize about what's really happening behind closed doors while the others can think of it as them being platonic roomies asdfghjkl In any case, through my 'bkdk rose-colored glasses' tho, my answer would be a huge chance of them being canonized because of how much their relationship and character has grown so so much from the impact towards each other since s1, especially from Katsuki's end (i would love to show you the moments, but idk if i should spoil ;;;), but with the glasses off, I'm just really hoping it goes to that direction where Hori is one of the few authors that does it because I'm sure there are other shounen mangas out there that have their protags get together with the same gender, although subtle, but are not as popular as Hori's work.

Now, I would like to end this with a comment, please don't give up on shipping BkDk. You may feel like you're a minority who ships them, but we're actually a big growing community (esp in ao3 and djs) with just a lot of haters (mostly from the western side) because Hori gives us more of the spotlight and a whole lot of character development since the start of chapter one. I would say it doesn't really hit you for being proud to be a bkdk shipper until season 6. If you see it, you'll know what I mean because it still makes me tear up to this day ;;;

so here's to hori and to many bkdk moments we'll get in the future (hopefully in the upcoming movie!) and thank you anon, fellow bkdks, or prob other random but curious passerbys for coming to my boring Ted-talk haha

also here's dk looking at kacchan and kacchan looking away (๑ᵕ◡ᵕ)

[mandy4ever69420]

in seasons 1-10 the only times mickey shows interest in topping (incomplete language - referring also to having sex with women) it's been an expression of psychological distress or being unsafe. this pattern emerged by coincidence mostly but fits pretty well also into mickey's casual tone leading people to not take him entirely seriously.

see: "my dad will kill me" - it sounds like hyperbole, because people say things like this as hyperbole, so ian assumes he must be at least slightly overreacting

especially when he refers to incarceration his casual tone laughs off "being somebody's bitch" and people don't tend to take prison, even child prison, as seriously as i think they should. mickey generally builds a pretty impressive defense mechanism against facing how scary things are by saying them straight up so people don't follow up. a lot of his plot involves the story asking you to take something seriously that he says as though it's a joke. this also has to do with the complicated maneuvers he has to do around the closet. when mandy says he only asks for "girl-on-girl porn" it did immediately occur to me that he'd found a non-gay way to ask for gay porn.

mickey's sleeping with women is another topic where he can mostly find it easy to look away from the hard parts of how it feels. technically speaking, none of the women he slept with did anything wrong. though it does feel relevant to note: we are introduced to the fact that mickey covers for himself by actually having sex with women (rather than implying it, or just bearding like ian and mandy) a literal single scene after he confronts a manipulative pedophile. in a similar piece of framing, we don't learn mickey is gay until after we've learned that his dad is a nazi

his deal with byron is kind of an outlier as the least outright sad occurrence of this, because he's not actively having THAT much of a meltdown. he is, however, making a very direct point, basically to ian's face. both ian and the viewer are made excruciatingly aware that this guy is not somebody mickey would ever seriously pursue. he does it to hammer home the point that he's never going to seriously want to pursue anybody BUT ian. mickey is immediately cognizant of the exact kind of self worth meltdown ian is having (because he's seen it before) and this time he's figured out the retrospectively obvious fact that the best way to get ian out of his own way is to just piss him off. when he tried making his devotion more obvious to reassure ian in s6 it just fed into ian's guilt complex about making mickey act like he loved him. byron is given the unfortunate hand of being picked out as a sort of a parody of everything mickey doesn't want in life. sorry dude.

i've said it before but to reiterate: the fact that mickey is making a strategic choice here doesn't negate that he's feeling vulnerable and hurt. he's just not one to linger on that sort of thing and prefers to move forward with gritted teeth. pragmatism in the most ridiculous dramatic way

i think there was a pretty good opportunity to tie all of this up^ with like a nice bow in 11.03 by either working with a "maybe the discomfort gained from a lifetime of being pressured into something i wasn't that into doesn't have to have power over me anymore even just once to prove my point with someone i do trust" angle OR by taking this from an potentially miss-able subtext into something more overt - if mickey's worrying about being the "man" is it an indication that something else is going on in his head that we need to worry about?

so it's just. infuriating to me that instead this episode is written like an intro to gay relationships. because we couldve been making points here people. nevermind that it barely sidestepped the slightly interesting "bottoming isn't womanly, and womanly isn't bad" there was much more potential there! well let's simply hope that framing mickey as making some sort of concession by regularly bottoming, whoever decided to write that isn't fucking anyone. because jesus christ

[piraterefrigerator]

I would put this in a reblog for that anon, but because I don't want to subject my followers to such negativity, even when unfounded and disputed, I'll just say it here: Liam Jones was EVERYTHING for Killian. Liam helped make Killian who he was. If not for Liam, Killian would've died a bitter and alcoholic slave onboard a merchant's ship two hundred years before the show even takes place.

Liam only shows up in TWO episodes. TWO! In one of them, he's shown helping Killian not dwell on his pain, helping Killian find a way out of their horrible lot in life, and even waiting to leave slavery until Killian is able to leave with him. If Liam only cared about himself, he wouldn't've stuck around after Killian accidentally gambled away the price of his freedom. Liam is then shown standing up for the lives of his crew! (I will argue that him accepting Hades' deal and selling them out was a bit of jerk move, but even in the context of the show it's not regarded as the right choice for him to have made, and it CANNOT be said that he did this for his own good and not Killian's as well.

And then we have him in Good Form, where he's a little stubborn- but thinkj of all he's put on the line. Liam has been banking EVERYTHING (getting out of slavery, selling out the crew, accepting this commission, his and Killian's future) on service to the king. If the king is not to be trusted, if the crown and kingdom are dishonorable and not worth fighting for, if the navy itself is corrupt, then they have NOTHING. They have NOTHING apart from the navy- the king HAS to be right, otherwise he's banked their entire future on nothing. His stubbornness in this episode is borne of his love for his brother and hope for their future.

And then in The Brothers Jones, it can be argues that, yeah, he wasn't always perfect there. No, he shouldn't've kept working with Hades, but he really did trap himself in a web there. YES he should've been honest about everything with Killian from the very beginning- just like Killian should've been honest about the shears in s6 and Emma should've been honest about making Killian a dark one in s5 and David should've been honest about the dreamshade in s3 and Gold should've been honest about the dagger in s4, and Milah should've been honest about her strained feelings with RUmple in s2, and Killian should've been honest about his deal with Rumple in s4... the point is, a LOT of characters in this show mess up. That's part of how a story is structured, it's part of conflict, it's part of the drama that drama shows are based on. So much of this show WOULD be better if people knew how to communicate and ask for help- we can't pin all of that on Liam.

I also do see how it can be seen as "selfish" for Liam to want Killian to move on with him from the Underworld- just like it was "selfish"for Emma to make Killian a Dark One and "selfish" for Killian to keep the shears of fate... and the reason why we can move on from these acts of selfishness? Because in the end they did the right thing. In the end, Liam is truly sorry for what he did, and in the end, he respects Killian's decision not to move on yet.

Liam messed up once or twice, but so did EVERYONE in this show, and he does NOT deserve slander for it!

ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC TAKE KAZZY!! Although I must admit that ask was all in good fun. No actual negativity!! Just friends sending one another anon slander to warrant rambles and rants

[divinekangaroo]

I’m loving your new fic w the pov being from the Doctor’s— to see Tommy’s life from the outside. You mentioned darling Lizzie quite often, and to see her and Ada in parallel pushing Tommy to therapy or whatnot because they are the only two with hope left in him :

“‘My sister,’ Shelby said. ‘And my wife. They encouraged it. I never told them much. The people who love us have a habit of laying on labels that are unwanted and often not true.’”

Him acknowledging Lizzie’s love for him (and Ada’s) i would imagine is a big turning point— however then he mentions that his wife needs to have clothes and jewels worth twice as much as the ones the women wear who step into his foyer. Which makes me think of her more as property, arm candy. But then I see this;

“…and beneath that dress she wore her old boots, like a Cossack on the run.’”

And i think of lizzie and her humble roots and i love her lol. And i think that grounds her to a post with tommy as well.

“I sometimes fuck my wife. I once fucked other women, but I don't fuck other women no more.”

The instance of him saying “no more” twice in the fic is so important to his character.. i feel like he tries to be so posh to a point and this is so not. But on the quote itself, what do you believe was his reasoning behind this, and when did he stop fucking other women? Does he know make love to his wife in his head, or is lizzie to fed up with him to even want to fuck? Or is she in this last stage of trying so hard to “fix” their relationship that it might even feel like making love to him?

Thank you for your feedback! I'm so glad all the little details are being enjoyed and love hearing how they're interpreted.

The language structure Tommy uses in the show absolutely fascinates me as to what it means to his state of mind. I don't know if it's the scriptwriters or CM's layer, but the switching from Tommy's almost-proper English into deep working class grammatical structures, and then whatever the hell was going on in S6 which was almost archaic -- I try so hard to embed that into the writing. The "no more" was from his final conversation in Michael in S6 and it's stuck with me. I use it with very specific intent. So am very pleased this comes across.

Onto the question when did he stop fucking other women?

My rambling headcanon mixed with aspects of canon:

He stopped hiring prostitutes in S4, after his Christmas Eve fail!prostitute (he didn't even take his reading glasses off; he looked at that woman partially naked and shook his head and paid her to leave, and she was all, dude I might even do you for free Xmas special, and he nearly had a traumatic flashback to Lizzie and sent her off and went back to his book).

During the rest of S4 getting prostitutes was noted as difficult (needed vetting to avoid an italian assassin) so I imagine he didn't bother. But meanwhile, he was reaching out (Jessie, Lizzie, May) for some kind of meaningful connection.

End of S4, all the deferred trauma of Grace's death that he couldn't acknowledge because he had to get through S3 and then S4, catches up to him. And this is crushingly compounded by how he never dealt with the war trauma in the first place. And his brother's death. So now he has combined childhood, war, brother and wife trauma.

Post S4 and before S5 is about 4 years after marrying Lizzie. Here I imagine monogomy by default - he was too busy with trauma repression and learning how to be an MP and drinking and opium addiction and actually having a wife ready and available to seek out other women. But also, opium kills libido (desire) and erections (actual physical capability), so even with a wife ready and available they probably had mostly crappy sex. It would have started ok, warm and desperate, as I do think marrying Lizzie was him partly using her to try to address the trauma, and declined over time as his addictions and unstable behaviour increased. Imagine, Tommy swinging between a week of crazy all-night drunken marathons and then weeks where he initiates nothing because he can't even get hard, and Lizzie's quietly burning up next to him, assuming he must be spending it on other women because all that lust doesn't just...go away, right?

I also think he never thinks 'i am monogamous now because I'm married' because 1) he feels he has the right to be non-monogamous and 2) he's confident he'll break monogamy at some point, as his father did, as Arthur did, as John does without care. But, he sort of doesn't want to, because it's just another 'fated to bad things' / 'fated to be bad' sensibility; he won't think 'I am monogamous' because it'll hurt him when he breaks yet another promise, but he behaves monogamously because it's no extra skin off his back to do so, if that makes any sense?

S5 starts, and there he is, monogamous by default or laziness for four years after marriage, while his relationship with Lizzie is deteriorating for other reasons to the point of divorce. He then reconnects with Jessie; he looked like he was trying to work himself up to having sex and got so plastered, similar to how drunk he was with Tatiana. Then he self-sabotaged any sex: deliberately offending Jessie in so many ways, ending with his (hilarious) lurching/looming across the table proposition, and she leaves in disgust. And he went back home to Lizzie and they had that super interesting 'here are my conditions where I will accept your infidelity' / 'i own you but will also let you into my head (give you intimacy) sometimes' scene. I picture him telling Lizzie in anger he was going out that night to fuck Jessie, and when he came home early, Lizzie realised he didn't, therefore offered herself/her conditions for her staying with him.

Then there is S6 which has the S5 trauma load added on: Polly's death, his fear of fascist war, and his failure with Mosley. The failure with Mosley is also a sexualised kind of thing (literally in my AU, but canonically) with how Mosley has attacked Tommy's wife, Tommy's symbols of power and Tommy's territories, making Tommy feel impotent. So it looks like Tommy's honoured his deal to 'let Lizzie in sometimes' because he has a much more intimate relationship with Lizzie in S6, but it's still broken, this broken-carer relationship. He is pouring so much energy into restraining his impulses and addictions, I cannot imagine a very good sex life. Immediately post his detox, I imagine he goes through a period of feeling like he's got to do better, and being better/more intimate with Lizzie is part of this, but I imagine across four years it declines downwards until we reach that point in the season where Lizzie feels like having sex is a box he's ticking off on a list.

During those S6 years, I shift into the headcanon which is: he has Lizzie's conditions where infidelity is acceptable, and yet still doesn't indulge because he's tired from too much self restraint, because maybe abiding by Lizzie's conditions might not hurt her but breaking his marriage vows (behaving like this father) would hurt him, and so. I frequently have him think about fucking other women, including 'fuck this, I'm going to a hotel and getting that escort', because he also has that mentality that it's his absolute right to do that, but just not doing it and not thinking too hard about why he's not.

He does have the prostitute he has sex with in America in S6, but I'm contemplating MAYBE writing what I think happens there, so will pause that thought. It's definitely weighted by what I think was at least four months of a trade mission. So maybe once or twice in America. (In my fic, he's yet to leave for America so he can say he's not fucked other women.)

So, it's always fucking in his head, not making love, but I don't feel like this is derogatory or bad for Lizzie, because in my head she also thinks of it as fucking. I don't think either of them with their pasts put any weight in 'making love'. But I think over time there is an ease to it between them, and sometimes sex is very comforting or very intense, in a way that having someone long term can be; an ability to be more intimate and exposed, to do things like talk about sex (liked that, didn't like that).

I think I remember writing Lizzie thinking most of their sex was like having a mutual wank except with bodies, and that to me is their main married couple mode. Which, alas, is not super interesting to write, which is why I'll write the all-night marathon instead...

[raayllum]

The Cycle Speculation

So I was thinking about this post in regards to the cycle restarting and how TDP loves to parallel structures with escalation of stakes amid differing scenarios with similar dilemmas, and it got me thinking about how the Cycle has been perpetuated over the centuries / course of the show thus far, and the commonalities between the objects/spells used, and well... 

Let’s strap on our thinking caps and wheel out a conspiracy board, which is to say: tracking spells, generational parallels, the symbolism of the Heart in TDP, and how I think the Cycle will be perpetuated in S5 / S6 - and possibly how part of it began, re: Aaravos and the Key. AKA my torment is over and I think I may have, honest to God, figured out what the Cube is and how it could be used thematically and plot wise going forward.

Tracking spell 

So tracking spells are surprisingly important in TDP. They don’t seem to be at first glance, as often times the main trio are just wandering along until they find the right spot, or are embedded more generally into their world’s geography than anywhere extremely specific (most of S1, parts of S2, etc). However, tracking spells are crucial in both Claudia and Soren’s tracking spell to find the trio at the end of S1, bleeding into early S2. 

We see the tracking spell repeated when Viren is searching for the magma titan, down to needing a piece of the victim (the Magma Titan, Rayla’s braid) down to the glowing jar, before finding the exact Titan the piece was from. 

This journey, of course, sets off the death of the three queens, most notably Queen Sarai, whose death causes Harrow and Viren to perpetuate the cycle further in killing Thunder. But even more than that, The same jar used in this spell also coincidentally houses Sarai’s last breath until it’s used to fell Thunder.

This of course also made me think of the Key of Aaravos, which according to Callum’s Spellbook and featuring screencaps from the show, is routinely being pulled somewhere, leaving the same lines in the sand every time. Upon reaching Xadia, the marks got longer, although it is not clear exactly what direction they are in. We do know that the rolling of the cube always ends with the Star rune being faced most directly. 

Which is to say: the previous things we’ve seen pulled rather unknowingly have all been parts or pieces of a previous tracking spell, and beyond that, ordinarily symbols of love. Rayla’s braid symbolized Ethari’s love and affection for her; the piece of the Magma Titan allows for its home to be invaded and for it to be murdered; Sir Sparklepuff is able to lead his strange new little family to Rex Igneous through an innate sense of knowing from Aaravos, and is clearly a part of Aaravos as well. Which goes to support that whatever the cube is, it is, or holds, a piece of whatever it is being pulled to, most likely Aaravos himself (after all, it is his Key and unlocks something in Xadia). But more on that later.

For now, let’s look at the generational parallels. 

Viren, Harrow, Sarai / Callum, Ezran, Rayla

At first glance, it is very easy to slot the kids just into a single generational role, which is to say: Viren-Callum as high mages and brothers to the king; Harrow and Ezran as the actual brother kings; Rayla and Sarai as a compassionate moral through line. However, I don’t think it’s quite that simple for a number of reasons. 

I’ve touched on it before, but all three kids are very much Harrow split down the middle and then some, each embodying and amplifying certain aspects:

Rayla carrying on Harrow’s martyr complex and hope for redemption / wanting to make a difference; by and large, personality wise she is the most similar. More in depth parallels here if you are interested, as well as the theme of what’s worth dying for

Ezran of course has Harrow’s responsibilities as king, but where being king was ultimate an experience of chains and a lack of freedom, Ezran is a child king and finds genuine liberation in his work. He is also the direct manifestation of Justice, paralleling Harrow’s assertion that “Above all else, I must be a Just king” 

Callum wrestles most directly with the theme of Freedom in relation to Harrow, specifically the freedom to make choices and give up the temptation with Dark Magic. More discussion regarding this here. Callum also gets Harrow’s emphasis on fairness (in relation to justice, but also as its own thing thematically, re: fair opportunity within the system outside the accident of birth)

Additionally, Rayla has plenty parallels with Viren as well, with Ezran perhaps best embodying Sarai’s appeal for personhood: “Does it think? Does it feel? Does it have a family?” Furthermore, Callum also has parallels to Sarai; he really is his mother’s son.

But like, what’s the Point of all this? If there’s so many and Viren, Sarai, and Harrow all had specific places in perpetuating the Cycle largely in spite of their best efforts (Viren hoped by killing Zym that “all of this will finally, truly be over”) than how does this impact the current trio, thematically? 

Going into S4 and in terms of behaviour / choices, Callum undoubtedly has the most in common with Viren and Harrow, specifically Viren with his loved ones (“I have always been ready to do anything to protect my family, however dangerous, however vile”) and being generally fine with the concept of dying to protect them, not necessarily out of any sense of rightness the way Harrow did. Callum’s S4 arc also mirrors Harrow’s arc in 3x06; trying to move on and focus on peace, while being undeniably angry and furious over the loss of someone he loves. So he’d be Viren-Harrow in about that order.

Rayla has likewise become more like Viren (willing to leave those needing help behind in 2x06 / 4x05), although her parallels to Harrow from the previous seasons are so strong I think they overrule. Additionally, her hair style is an exact match to Sarai’s old hair (the braid-bun combo, the three piece over her cheeks, etc) as well as her place in Callum’s life as a cautious moral through line. Moreover, her and Sarai’s pictures alone are hung up closely together. While we haven’t see this set of parallels come to fruition yet, I think we may in S5. So I’d place her tentatively in Harrow-Sarai. 

Last but not least, we have Ezran, who I think is thematically embodying Sarai-Harrow with blessedly none of Viren, trying to carve a better path forward even if he feels in over his head, even if it will be exceedingly difficult, and even if it will take “decades of hard work”. He knows that there’s no monster he can slay to solve all his problems and unlike Rayla, he is not going to try. 

So loosely, we either have Viren-Callum, Harrow-Rayla, Sarai-Ezran, or Viren-Callum, Sarai-Rayla, and Harrow-Ezran. Just as Arc 1 was about correcting and making up for their parents’ mistakes, it seems that Arc 2 is well underway to be about trying to make up for their own mistakes (Ezran ignoring anger, Callum trying to ignore his, Rayla leaving and more). Which is to say: all of this has happened before and all shall happen again. 

Haunts The Very Heart of Xadia

Hearts are kind of important in TDP. There’s the repeated motif, used most commonly but not exclusively by Rayla, of a hand or first to the heart, also employed by Callum, Ezran, Viren, Terry, and many others. Most often this is in the context of a loved one or reaffirming pain / a decision to make. 

However, it goes deeper than that. (Illusion) Viren and Avizandum are both stabbed directly in the heart (“That was her spear, my mom’s, and my stepdad put it into his heart”) which is particularly apt given it was revenge for killing “the love of King Harrow’s life, Queen Sarai.” This moment is also directly harkened back to in the majority of the S4 openings, although Callum’s, which could have been very different, also features his own more Star magic-y stone spell beginning in his heart.

There is also Ezran’s big speech from 4x03 that invokes the heart specifically as a call to action and compassion, stating: 

 It’s not that easy or simple. Because people are still hurting and they are still angry. We can’t ignore that, or pretend it will go away. Somehow, we have to hold it all in our hearts at the same time. We have to acknowledge the weight of the pain and loss, but open up our eyes and allow ourselves to hope and maybe forgive and love again. We have to give today’s children a chance to inherit a future filled with peace. To give them that, we have to hold pain and love in our hearts at the same time.

Which, one of S4′s big theme in particular is set up and discussion of when to, and when is it possible, to reconcile dualities, but more on that later. 

The character most closely tied to this theme of Heart, in many ways, though is Rayla, from the very first episode.

My Heart for Xadia!

Your heart isn’t hard enough to do whatever it takes.

[To Ezran] You have a good heart. It’s super annoying. 

Before you left, I told Runaan you were too good hearted for the work of an assassin.

You have true courage, and a big heart.

My only allegiance is to my heart and those that know it. (Tales of Xadia bio)

I remember how I felt when my parents left me to join the Dragonguard, like PART OF MY HEART WAS MISSING and I would never feel right again. (Dear Callum letter) 

Please don’t let this hurt too much. But, if it does—if you feel that soft aching—know that that piece of your heart isn’t missing. It’s not missing at all, Callum: I’m carrying it with me! Always. (Dear Callum letter) 

One of the most critical things S4 did was establish Rayla’s importance in the future outcome of Callum being possessed by Aaravos. Both that she will likely be what helps him ultimately break out of it, but moreover that she will do so at great possible cost. This comes back to “You let him live but you killed us all” and the possible consequences of sparing Callum at any cost, in a classic Duty VS Love conflict. Additionally, it also pushes Rayla precisely into the position and role she was supposed to fill after a season of belief that “We can’t save everyone” and being taunted by Aaravos, specifically, that she was incapable of killing. So it’s going to hit doubly if it becomes one of her cornerstone conflicts next season.

But wait, as I always say, there’s more. 

Rayla identifying her parents and herself as a missing piece of her and Callum’s hearts, respectively, as opposed to the implied entire heart exchange between Runaan and Ethari (“My heart goes out with this one”) struck me as interesting, particularly when it’s the only time we’ve seen that separate signifier is in Rayla’s letter itself. So I was thinking about Rayla, and Rayla-Aaravos parallels per usual, and how the Cube glows a pure white in the 4x04 intro, just like the falling star when it makes the proper side Star sigil in the “Mystery of Aaravos” typography, as well as a remark from TDP’s head writer Devon that the Key may not be exactly what we think/thought it is, and...

I think the Key may hold Aaravos’ missing chest piece—a literal missing piece of his heart. 

This is for a few different reasons. The first is that we know Aaravos had his chest piece in the 1x01 intro, and at one point he lost it. The intro appears to happen during the exiling of the humans, but it’s hard to tell whether that’s actually accurate given the singularity of the framing. If not for it, I’d say he put it in the Key to give to the human founder of Elarion as an act / presentation of love, that predates the fall of Elarion and subsequent expulsion (although we’ll return to her/them in a minute). 

Although it would be tempting to say definitively that he lost it at the Fall of Elarion, Aaravos still walked Xadia for centuries, and the intro we see him in seemingly belongs to this, and he did not leave with the other Startouch elves. Zubeia frames it as though he was a Star until his treachery was uncovered and not that he Fell prior but was accepted past that point regardless. We also know that Aaravos isn’t at his full strength inside the mirror, even though the Star arcanum is all about time and space, and it’s hard to tell how his powers have been restricted otherwise. With all that in mind, it’s far more likely Aaravos was at his full power until Zubeia and the other archdragons /accomplices surprised him, ripped his heart out, and then tossed him into the mirror. Therefore, it means that it isn’t the mirror or its dimension necessarily keeping him restricted, but the fact the piece of his arcanum - his quasar diamond - was taken from him in the first place and its resulting physical / magical effects. 

This makes sense for a few reasons.

A villain who is literally heartless is very juicy symbolically

Light has also been associated with bad things across the series, not solely good things (the specific Sunfire staff test of the Light to decide your fate for example)

Not only is Aaravos currently terrifying, but reclaiming his heart piece in some capacity would either 1) put him at full power, 2) allow him to get himself out of the mirror past that point on his own, or 3) both

Aaravos’ prison itself is surely powerful, but Aaravos himself is ultimately even more powerful and at this point, the most powerful character in the show:

As well as having multiple layers of thematic precedent. There is Aanya’s ring, also featured in this episode, given to Harrow and then passed onto Aanya after her mothers’ deaths, kept inside a sealed six-petalled flower, just as Harrow passes the six sided cube down to Harrow. 

Then, there is also the fact we know, thanks to interviews, that a lot of Aaravos’ actions are motivated by a relationship/bond he had eons ago, presumably with a human and more specifically, the human founder of Elarion. If he loved this human deeply (particularly romantically, due to his short birthday story featuring being given an apple by a human, which is a very loaded symbol and almost always used for romance) and losing her/them is part of what motivated him to begin his thousand year long manipulation play, his heart would undoubtedly be a very important symbol. We’ve seen numerous characters to questionable or vile things for their loved ones or in the name of revenge (Viren with his family; Harrow using dark magic to avenge Sarai). Aaravos doing all of this out of a long broken heart would be very thematically in line, a heart that now only feels pain rather than love. 

We also know, pretty blatantly, that Egyptian mythology has been an influence on the series (Ibis’ name and association with Callum; the centre of an ankh being a mirror and a diamond, just like the quasar diamonds). One of the traditions in Egyptian mythology was holding up a dead soul’s heart and weighing it against Ma’at’s Feather of Truth. If it was heavier than the feather, you were wicked and condemned. This makes the Orphan Queen holding it (whether it would eventually contain or already did contain) fall in line, as we get this voice over from Zubeia regarding the moment Aaravos’ treachery came to light and the truth was discovered:

This would mean then that the Key is both a key of Aaravos’ jail and a piece of Aaravos - a double meaning, a double key, related to its prisoner and its owner. It would fall perfectly in line with everything we’ve learned about the Key up to this point as well as its symbolism and foreshadowing while building on it with some twists and even higher stakes than we already had.

There would also be a few layers of delicious irony.

First, we’ve seen that dark magic has limits that it cannot overcome on its own, but presumably can with Aaravos’ help. Thereby, more than being offered unlimited power solely from dark magic in Callum’s 2x08 dream, he’s being offered unlimited power because of the Key as well. There’s also Callum holding what would contain a quasar diamond in the first place while literally asking if there is no gem for Star magic, not knowing that he has one in the very palm of his had (“Having knowledge isn’t the same as knowing knowledge” after all). 

Last but not least, there is the fact that concept art of Aaravos, shared when he was identified all the way back in S1, has his chest piece being far more akin to a literal diamond than even the upside down Star arcanum it holds now.

Then, another factor I would be remiss not to mention because 1) I’m me and 2) it could be a very cool connection is that if the Key is indeed Aaravos’ missing piece, it makes this shot of Rayla when she re-enters Callum’s life in 4x02 all the more meaningful and make all the more sense in its framing.

While the framing is pretty blatant, given that Rayla is literally haloed in light seconds after Callum was saying, “In darkness, gaze upon a Fallen Star.” It clearly indicates that she is tied to this plot line of ‘darkness’ (which 4x07 confirms with “I need you to kill me [...] what if I’m on a path of darkness?” “Then take another path dummy”) even before it truly ‘begins’ in an inciting incident sense. So far so good, very straight forward. But even when seeing this for the very first time I wondered, why the fuck is the cube there? Because it absolutely doesn’t need to be. There were plenty of other scenes (like the one immediately preceding it for example) or times where Stella making the Star primal glow could’ve be shown. Especially since in the above shot many people are bound to be distracted by Rayla’s return and new appearance and not even paying attention to the cube held by her little monkey. 

But, if the cube is the missing piece of Aaravos’ heart, and Rayla, as we’ve already said, is canonically / has identified herself as the missing piece of Callum’s heart, well, placing them together to foreshadow this specific importance of the cube makes a lot more sense. It’s a still a bit of a stretch right now because it requires reading Rayla’s letter, which is decidedly additional supplementary material, but the supplementary material is routinely used to foreshadow things exactly like this (Rex eating a jelly tart for example) so it also wouldn’t be out of line. Then as always I have my theory of Rayla’s life being exchanged for the cube, which if this heart parallel is true, would just make more sense and tie a tighter parallel than the whole thing already does.

Last but not least, there is the way this brings the Magma Titan plot line back full force thematically, and I actually think this is one of the most interesting parts, if not the most interesting part, of the whole theory.

It’s been previously accepted, generally, that in spite of the personal pain and moral ambiguity in hunting the Magma Titan, its murder was a necessary evil and its personhood debatable at best (cue Harrow and Sarai’s opposing views to begin with). I always figured that the biggest way this plot line would be used thematically, beyond a good example of the Cycle and Sarai’s death, is when Viren effectively turns his own soldiers into Magma Titans in 3x07 Hearts of Cinder. He strips them and they strip themselves of their own personhood and humanity while they prepare to do the same on an untold scale in Xadia. 

However, if Aaravos’ heart was forcefully ripped out against his will, it would ask the exact question I’ve always posited when trying to get people to consider the messy ethical ramifications of the Magma Titan: how sentient does something or someone have to be before this would be considered organ harvesting? Would you view the spell the same if it had the Magma Titan had been some undeniably more human, like an elf, or even an elven child? Yes, I’m sure we’ll see precisely why Aaravos truly had to be imprisoned, but I think almost anyone would feel some unease about a violation on that level, if not sympathy. (And then of course the added layers of irony of Avizandum attacking the humans and killing the queens for ripping out the heart of the Magma Titan when he did the very same to Aaravos three centuries prior, if it was indeed lost pre-immediate imprisonment / Viren being compared to Avizandum in the intro and beyond is a pin the show has to return to eventually. 

A heart (Thunder’s) for a heart (Harrow’s in Sarai) for a heart (the Magma Titan). A heart (Aaravos’ for ‘Elarion’) for a heart (the cube) for a heart (Callum’s in Rayla). 

We also can’t ignore the emphasis placed on childhood and games with the cube. Love is often treated or thought of as a game outside of the series (blasting “the winner takes it all” and “blank space” among many others, but mostly “love’s not a game” from Crazy Ex Girlfriend), but the concept of children’s hearts are an important part of the show’s construction of how to break the Cycle. The Book One novelization lays this out very plainly with (although I’m too lazy to grab my copy and am paraphrasing) “Children see with their hearts, not just their eyes.” 

Aaravos’ childhood and possible loss of childhood innocence/idealism is definitely something we are going to explore given baby Aaravos’ prominent placement on the Mystery of Aaravos’ star chart map. Aaravos playing a game was largely absent as a motif in the first arc save for whenever Rayla would speak about the cube in seasons 1-2, with S4 cementing the motif more firmly with Aaravos himself directly. Aaravos losing his heart in that sense and any hope he had left to be something Different than what he currently is would be truly heartbreaking, and showing that you can always undo what’s been done. You may be able to take elves out of coins and a dragon egg back home to its mother, but some things are too ruined beyond repair; a heart will never fit the same ever again, literally. 

The Cycle

So what does this mean, going forward?

Well, as other people have pointed out, Harrow doing dark magic to avenge Sarai is the core thing that started the current Cycle the characters had to directly overcome, with Sarai’s death both a ghost and an inspiration and likewise, Callum doing dark magic to protect Rayla is what is allowing Aaravos to control / manipulate him into playing into his hands, and we know Aaravos will ultimately be successful / Callum has to fail in some capacity, otherwise Aaravos would never get out. 

Therefore if we look at it even further back to see what started the Cycle, we return to that continual violation of having your heart ripped / being heartbroken, literally or figuratively. The Magma Titan’s heart being ripped out began this portion of the cycle, so Aaravos’ heart being literally ripped out began the much earlier portion, figuratively perhaps began his spinning of the wheel a millennia plus earlier, and it being restored will begin the next.

How’s that for Consistency?

Alternatives 

As always, I try to do my best not to present a theory without any alternatives, if I can think of them at the time. The other main option, it seems, would be the Key not being used / having its secrets discovered in S5, which would greatly expand its possibilities. 

This seems unlikely though, given the emphasis on Ocean and Earth when it comes to unlocking the key’s secrets whenever it is mentioned, as well as the fact that Aaravos’ prison is in the Sea of the Cast Out (and possibly literally underwater to begin with). This makes the scope of what the Key could unlock far more limited because it has less seasons to maneuver. 

Then there is always the possibility it unlocks the Star Nexus or something along those lines, but unless it was given to Aaravos by other Startouch elves (before he began to hate him? Or when they didn’t know he did?) its connection to him is less unclear, but not impossible. This could be something that is revealed in S5 and we don’t see the key actually used until S6, particularly if it’s Book Six: Star, but it makes me wonder why give the Key such a heavy and consistent ominous foreshadowing (again, usually with Rayla as the mouth piece), the negative associations thus far given to the game motif, and why not call it the Key of the Stars, as TDP as no problem creating things like the Corona of the Heavens when they want something to be associated with Star Magic and not our favourite evil starry elf boy. 

With all this in mind, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this meta. As for the key and the theory itself, what do you think? Am I on to something, do you have your own thoughts and alternatives I haven’t considered here? Do you just want Aaravos to be Big Sad and S5 Big Dramatic? Let me know! I would love to hear them. If you are interested in more posts related to this theory, I will link my specific tag for it here in case of perusal. 

And last but not least, Dragons out, peace!

[lollo-sw-br]

Bello: It's the Unnecessary hate on the Fandom Wiki

In this vent post I'm not only going to be honest with the show's producers, but the hate attacks on the Fandom Wiki website.

Hate in Fandom? Yes, Bello is suffering a hate attack on his description by users who left his page a real minefield of so many pejorative words.

look at this nonsense guys, I don't see any point in that honestly.

As you could see, the entire post that was ridiculously modified by a user who in my opinion is a big idiot, because if you don't like that character, you don't need to ridicule him in such a cruel way. Using words like "Awful, annoying and stupid" and we know that Bello is none of the above.

Bello, as well as Flip (my last vent post) deserved more attention, as his development in the series was short and somewhat poorly constructed.

Bello should be more leveraged and with more skills, It would be cool with a Super Pet (Bello Pet or Mini Bello), However, the super charge would not be an option for him due to his peculiar lifestyle, but would be a good move, because Bello loves living close to animals and he, besides In Mira, Bucky and Tino (Would love an episode with the four of them together).

However, the two companies do not think like the characters they created, they do it only for a certain season and then discard it, this is very wrong, because in this period of action of these characters, they were gaining fans in all countries where the series is shown, which they do not stop to reason, they do what they want without thinking about the fans, making everyone very upset and even stop watching the series, as I did years agoat, when the appearances of Grand Albert decreased during the series from S3 and I only watched it again in October last year, already at the height of the S6.

Now reason with me: Why do they still discard characters, when this only decreases their number of viewers?

This really is absurd, in addition to discarding a Super Wing with a lot of potential, making hate attacks with what's left of it. A disgrace in my opinion.

There are images that claim a possible return of Bello in Super Wings The Movie, which left me with a tiny bit of hope, but I learned that the plot of the film is horrible and not worth it.

Let's see when the movie comes out so I can give my opinion more clearly, I hope I'm not disappointed with the fate of Bello and the other Super Wings that were discarded in the movie. We'll see if the plot will be reasonable at least. Bye Bye

[resslington-is-my-otp]

A small snippet of my even smaller piece in progress.

The setup: it's AUish/canon divergent take on s6 through s9. Everything happens just the same (yeah, Don having sex with Liz as well), but for one tiny exception.

Donald does all that because he has found out first that Liz's the one to put Red into jail. And whilst he thinks Red belongs there, he recognizes that the good the TF has done is worth more. And Liz’s actions put the TF at risk. Also, at the same time, he figures it's an opportunity to dig into Red's identity vas well. Don's hoping to earn his trust with the intel he has about Liz. They have an arrangement—Ressler keeps Liz close and shares what he knows.

Unfortunately, Ressler isn't wired for this kind of game and gets caught up into shit real fast, and he's now torn between to whom his loyalties lie and his desire to do the right thing.

And so, it's post s8, Liz is dead, and Red is back after two years of absence. The investigation regarding Liz's death and her involvement with Marco Jancowicz is reopened again.

***

“Good evening, Agent Ressler.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“Don't shoot the messenger just yet. May I come in?”

“What do you want, Reddington?”

“Can’t the two friends catch up?”

“Since when do you have friends?”

“Well, I have you, don't I?”

“Get lost.”

“I was hoping to have a word with you.”

“You deaf or what?! Get out. Now.”

“Can’t do that now, I'm afraid. My sources say, the DOJ is looking for the Pazzi. With Elizabeth gone, they need a new face of domestic terrorism. And you, Donald, are on their radar.”

“Goddammit, Reddington, just get the fuck—”

“Donald, you’re going to jail.”

***

“I can't imagine how hard the past two years must've been for you.”

“Cut the crap. You give no shit just about anyone. Why should I be different, huh?”

“You look exhausted, Donald. Please, have a sit. New painkillers aren't working the way they should, are they?”

“You got one fucking minute or I swear I’m gonna shoot you.”

“Really? Your best option to get out? I don't think so. My car's waiting outside, if you're up to it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“Right thing my ass. You killed Keen's mother, Reddington. There's no coming back from that.”

“Katarina Rostova is dead—”

“Of course she is! You put two in her chest in front of Keen and walked away afterwards.”

“Donald, I know this must be challenging for you, but please make an effort to comprehend this—I did not kill Elizabeth’s mother. And speaking of challenges. Please humor me, how does one end up bedding a domestic terrorist?”

“Wh—Fucking—You fucking told me to keep Keen close and I did! I fucking told you everything!”

“Indeed you did, though I have an impression that you two have shared more than just a bed. Did you tell her?”

“Tell her what?”

“About our arrangement.”

“What?! Why would I?”

“Donald, are you Elizabeth’s quarterback now? Because from where I'm standing, it feels so. Are you?”

“If you had told her the truth—”

“—And if you kept your pants on, you wouldn't have found yourself in this predicament. But what's done is done.”

To be continued