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wellknownwolf · 4 years

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I want to move into a new phase in my relationship with fandom, as I mature with new experiences. I'm not sure what exactly that looks like though. What is your take on the parasocial affection inherent in an RPF like Rhett & Link? Or even the deep attachments that can form with fictional characters? Or a desire to emulate fantasy worlds? I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable with all this, it's just that it's been a long time coming, and once I got started I couldn't stop. - Natasha (5)

First, let me post the full question, since it came in 5 parts:

Hey, it's me again. Your 'mystery inquirer', as you so adorably dubbed me. You're right, I had forgotten I'd sent in that ask. Just now, I couldn't help but think about a scene from Life After, as I am wont to on a frightfully regular basis, which is what got me back here. When you said you pondered over my seemingly simple, banal question for a good while, and wrote out a beautifully thoughtful answer like you always do, it made me happy.

Your narrative voice is similar to my own, and it made my chest ache in a certain way to have gotten such a response to what felt like a random shout out into the abyss (though it obviously wasn't, I sent it directly to you, I guess it's more what it felt like taking a chance on a conversation with a random stranger online). And now I'm cringing a bit at how melodramatic all sounds. But I'm committing to it, anyway. That's the beauty of anon, eh?

Wolfie (is it presumptuous to call you that? Please do forgive me the liberty I'm taking), I must admit. I'm quite envious of this community you have with @missingparentheses, @lunar-winterlude, and other wonderful people. Since childhood, I've been head over heels in love with fandom. Not a specific fandom, I've been a traveller through dozens, but fandom in general. I've read probably thousands of fanfics, spent countless hours daydreaming about beloved characters and their stories.

To the point where, in my most recent and worst depressive episode, it may have been for the worse, if I'm honest. Escapism and yearning to the point of impairment, engendering a sense of constant bereavement. But it's taught me so much about life and its wonders, I can't write it off as just some damaging habit. It's such an integral part of who I am, a deeply curious soul (shout out to my Enneagram Type 5-ers out there!). But I don't anyone to share it with, and it can get quite lonely.

.....................................................................

Thank you for giving me so much to respond to, Natasha. Thank you for continuing to reach out. I accidentally wrote something like a paper in response to your thoughtful question. I even conducted a little research and cited a source. ENGLISH TEACHER, ACTIVATE!

Also, for what it’s worth, I feel at times that I communicate exclusively through shouts into the abyss, so it’s a language with which I am at home. In fact, it is this very technique, this experiment with intense vulnerability at the hands of a virtual stranger, that earned me one of my absolutely most-treasured friends: @missingparentheses. I have poured out a great deal of my own melodrama to her, and she has received it and reciprocated it in a way that, three years later, continues to teach me how to be a better friend. In short, I’m a firm believer in diving straight in when it comes to new friends. Cringe not; I’m on board.

So let’s dive.

R&L is really only the second “fandom” with which I’ve been involved. Third, if we count my preteen obsession with ‘N Sync (and considering how much wall space I dedicated to their posters and self-printed photos, we probably should). My point is, while I don’t have much experience with the community facet of fandom, I do relate to your feeling of near-obsession. Or clear obsession.

I know the feeling of escapism you’re describing, and I know the yearning and melancholy that can come on our worst days, where we feel like “real life” will never measure up to the color and brilliance of the worlds we spend so much time considering. These worlds, these characters and their relationships, their challenges, victories, and defeats all seem so purposeful: they’re the plot points we use to craft the stories in our heads (regardless of whether we’re writers at all). It can be much harder to view ourselves as protagonists worth analyzing, viewing and reviewing through new lenses, perhaps because we’re warned against navel-gazing, perhaps because our self-perception just won’t allow for it. Maybe a little of both.

But yes! It teaches us! We DO learn about life, other people, love, risk, all kinds of things through what we consume in these fandoms, so I would never classify it as a “bad” thing. We hone our imaginations and learn to pay attention to our own emotions as we recognize feelings from our favorite shows, games, books, and characters arising in ourselves.

I used to be a little afraid of the fact that I was always telling myself stories, internally imagining myself as someone else, a player in the worlds I often loved more than my own. I suspected that someday, somehow, I would be caught playing pretend all the time in my own little ways. I was a bright and ambitious young woman, so why would I give so much of my mental energy to such frivolous pursuits?

In my first semester of graduate school, though, I learned from a Lit. Theory professor who intimidated the hell out of me that we all do this. We’re all telling ourselves stories all the time, some of which are true and close to objective reality, some of which are more subjective to whatever fantastical (or fandom) material we last consumed. I’ve whispered my own dialogue in the shower, but so have you whispered yours in your head (if not also out loud in your shower!). And through this act, however it is performed, I have made those worlds part of my own. So have you. In this way, they are real, and I no longer feel fearful of being “found out.”

When we have those moments of doubt, though, when we wonder whether we’re going too far, it probably stems, at least partially, from the “us v. them” divide between fandom and mainstream society. We love our little worlds, but we also feel that twinge of anxiety that we might be bordering on obsession, that our guilty pleasure might be discovered and we will be socially punished for it, namely, as Joli Jensen writes in “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization,” because “the fan is characterized as (at least potentially) an obsessed loner, suffering from a disease of isolation, or a frenzied crowd member, suffering from a disease of contagion. In either case, the fan is seen as being irrational, out of control, and prey to a number of external forces” (13). According the consistent covert (and overt, at times) messages of the mainstream, “[f]andom is conceived of as a chronic attempt to compensate for a perceived personal lack of autonomy, absence of community, incomplete identity, lack of power and lack of recognition” (Jensen 17). Yikes. That doesn’t feel good to admit about ourselves, does it?

Luckily, it’s bullshit.

Treating “fans” as others (outsiders, people who can’t form relationships or find fulfillment in the “real world”) “risks denigrating them in ways that are insulting and absurd” (Jensen 25). Those who take this stance, who see fans as victims of hysteria or desperate loners, do so in order to “develop and defend a self-serving moral landscape. That terrain cultivates in us a dishonorable moral stance of superiority, because it makes other into examples of extrinsic forces, while implying that we [members solely of the mainstream] somehow remain pure, autonomous, ad unafflicted” (Jensen 25). In short, that us/them thinking just makes people feel better about themselves by pointing out an easily-identifiable “other.”

I have also grappled with the concept of parasocial affection, particularly with R&L. I was well into writing my first Rhink fic when the thought crossed my mind, “Oh my god, what if I actually met these people someday? How would I look them in the eye? I’d feel like a crazy person (again)!” From the safety of the Midwest, I laughed off the thought. And then a year or so later, they were announcing their first tour. And I was still writing, here and there, still deep in my affection for them, sometimes wrestling with the thought that I’ve devoted so much energy to people who would never know I exist.

It doesn’t matter that the attachment was in the most obvious, tangible ways only one-sided. As an adult who is ever-learning how to navigate the worlds of her own creation and the ones over which she has far less control, I view my intense attachment to characters both real and fictional with deep fondness. And while I may not receive affection or attention directly from the sources (R&L, fictional characters, sports teams, who/whatever we build fandoms around), I am still earning some very real rewards for my involvement: Because of them, I found my way to a participatory culture in which I was supported and encouraged to express my creativity. This gave me the push and interest that I needed to hone skills that have not only made me a better writer, but also a better teacher and mentor. With fandom comes the ability to immediately strike up a conversation over shared interests. With fandom comes a sense of belonging in what we have proven is an awfully divisive world.

Right now, I’m consuming far less fandom-related material than I did a few years ago. I don’t really watch GMM anymore and I’m on a break from Ear Biscuits (though I still love it), Gotham ended over a year ago and I’m not in the habit of reading fics right now, and I can’t yet play the remade Final Fantasy 7, so that’s out for me, too (though I know I will fall deep into that well once the game is in my hot little hands). This all happened by itself. I never consciously moved away from these sources; I just floated on to other interests and other levels of interest, knowing that if and when I wanted to dig back in, I could always come back.

I used to feel quite sad at the thought of someday “moving on” from these intense interests. I couldn’t fathom somehow falling out of love with those bands, actors, or video games. But for me, the transition into wherever I am now has not been painful in the least. I’m glad I knew the intensity that I did, and I’m happy with the distance I have now. And there’s a good chance I’ll be fanatic about something else someday. I’m looking forward to it!

Here are some responses that I couldn’t organically fit into my essay:

Yes, you can call me Wolfie if you’d like. That name started with @missingparentheses (her second appearance in this answer!), and quickly became a reminder to not take myself too seriously.

Second, I don’t think I know any other Type 5s! I’m a type 8.

Also, here’s my MLA formatted citation for the Jensen source:

Jensen, Joli. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization.” The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, Routledge, 1992, pp. 9-29.

#ask me anything #fandom meta-discourse #bc I always said I wouldn't get involved in fandom discourse #oh no I'm us/them-ing in my tags!#shame on me!

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elenajohansenauthor · 6 years

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Fictober18, Day 24: “You know this. You know this to be true.”

OCs: Shannon and Noah

Project: Untitled paranormal romance for Fictober18/NaNoWriMo, now tagged #spookyromancenovel on my blog

Potential Triggers: none

Word Count: 2,026

About: Shannon dreams about a tornado.

In the dream, I knew I was dreaming. It doesn’t happen often, but I can never control it, no matter how much I read up on lucid dreaming. I am trapped inside of it, a prisoner who cannot wake.

Even when I’m dreaming about something good, I hate that loss of agency, that cold isolation.

We’re children again, me and Noah. I’m on the side roof of my house, the one that projects over the door to the yard, the one I can climb down to from the hallway window. Noah’s on the side roof of his house, a mere four feet away. Our houses are mirrors.

We would have been friends anyway, but having a secret place where we could hang out and talk, feeling separate from everything? That’s irresistible to a certain type of child. Like me. Like Noah.

It didn’t matter that we were plainly visible from the street, or that anyone in our families could find us by walking to the end of the hallway and looking out the window. We didn’t have a tree house to hide it. This was good enough.

I’m listening to the kid versions of us talk, hovering bodiless somewhere in the air above the backyard. The words are all things we said, or things we probably would say, but nothing matches up, making the conversation gibberish.

“My parents want me to take violin lessons.”

“I found a five dollar bill I forgot I had. Do you want to get ice cream after school tomorrow?”

“Fractions are so easy, why are we still practicing them?”

I wanted to merge with my younger self, to flow into her body and make her understand how precious this time was, this friendship. Had I known that, then? Had I ever appreciated Noah enough?

A boom of thunder rolled through the dream, though the sky was bright and cloudless. Both kids climbed through their respective windows in eerie synchronization, and my awareness followed little Shannon inside, a few yards behind her, as flawlessly as a movie camera.

She flew through the open door to her bedroom, our bedroom, and it looked almost the same as I remembered it. If there was symbolic significance in the differences, I had no time to divine it, because she went to the window and I slid into place beside her, both of us leaning out to look at a swirl of distant chaos.

A tornado, moving closer.

We were transfixed. Despite knowing this was a dream, that I was in no danger, I trembled, my invisible hands gripping the windowsill as if the frame would anchor me, as if the house was too solid to break into a thousand pieces when the twister hit. And it would. It was heading straight for us.

My younger self was staring, too, but she didn’t seem afraid, only excited. Then she smiled, and I refocused on the tornado, growing ever larger as it approached.

Inside the whirling winds, I saw chunks of dirt and grass, snapped tree branches, broken boards, bits of garbage. My gaze zoomed in uncannily on each object even as it flew by, too quick to track for more than a second.

When the gargoyles appeared from the heart of the tornado, screaming and clawing through the air, I shrieked and woke up.

I couldn’t move, not even my eyes. I stared uselessly at a random spot on my nightstand, unable to see the time on the clock except for the vague green flow it cast on the wood. The noise that came from my throat was sharp, harsh, a scream I couldn’t consciously put breath and power into. My breath wheezed in panic, a shallow inhale followed by that involuntary keening. I couldn’t stop it.

The door to my room burst open, a secondary crash telling me it had bounced back off my bookshelves. “Shannon? What’s wrong?”

Noah was home, Noah had heard me cry out. Half of me flooded with love while the other cringed in mortal embarrassment.

He and I had been friends since we were six, but never the sleepover kind of friends—our parents were too strict about gender roles for that, even before we hit puberty and ran the risk of doing things other than sleeping. My mother wouldn’t even let my female friends see me in pajamas, so I had never been to a slumber party at all. “Sleep is a private activity,” she always said, “and so are the clothes that go with it.”

I’d been in Noah’s bedroom at times, and he’d been in mine. That sort of thing was unavoidable.

But he’d never been in this bedroom. And certainly never while I was in bed myself.

I was absolutely never going to be able to remember this without cringing. He came in now? Like this? Because I had a bad dream?

I didn’t answer—I still couldn’t. I was paralyzed with leftover terror.

“Shannon? Can you hear me?” He knelt beside me, filling the narrow space between the mattress and the wall. I could only see his left shoulder and arm, his hand as it approached my face.

When he touched my cheek tentatively, he leaned down to peer into my eyes. The shock of how cold his touch was broke my locked muscles free in a shiver, and I pressed my eyes shut and tucked my head, hiding my face from him as I broke into wrenching sobs. I’d had nightmares before, but I’d never experienced sleep paralysis from them—was that even the right term? Was there a name for what I’d just experienced? Because it was more horrifying than the dream itself. I wept as much in relief as in terror. Nothing like that had ever happened to me, so I was scared, but I was also pathetically grateful that it was over.

Noah made equally pathetic comforting noises, starting sentences to leave them hanging unfinished when I didn’t respond. I’d always been careful to hide my tears from him, after the first time he’d ever seen me cry. We were only seven, and one of the older neighborhood kids had been teasing me, working me up into frustrated fury. I don’t remember what he said, but I clearly recall the powerless rage I felt at not being listened to when I defended myself—trying to outsmart the bully had only made him meaner. I gave up and ran home in defeat, but Noah was in his front yard playing alone, and he’d had no idea what to say to the wailing monster who was his best friend. He’d tried, I remember that. But he had had no practice at it, and apparently didn’t have the instinct for it.

After that, I cried alone, to spare him the pain of not being able to help me.

I wanted to talk. I wanted to tell him to leave, not to see me like this, but the words couldn’t make it past the sobbing. I couldn’t find breath for anything else. After a few minutes, I think, he did leave, and I curled tighter under the covers and kept crying.

“Here, Shannon.”

He came back. He was pulling back the covers and wrapping me snugly in one of the blankets he’d stopped using to sleep. I was too shocked and tired and confused to protest as he handled me, gently but with obvious strength.

I ended up a blanket burrito sitting on his lap as he rested his back against the headboard. He held me firmly, my skin insulated from his by a layer of soft, fuzzy fleece. He’d even pulled a fold over my hair to form a hood, protecting my head where it rested on his shoulder.

“I’m terrible at this part of being a friend,” he whispered. “You know this, you know it’s true. So don’t argue. But you’re scaring me, Shannon. So when you can talk, please tell me what’s happening, because I don’t know, and that means I don’t know what to do.”

I gripped the front of his shirt in one hand, wrinkling the fabric over his single-beating heart. He managed to reassure me and put pressure on me at the same time. He was right—he sucked at this. But he cared, and that meant more.

I cried myself close to exhaustion, until I had to switch from sobbing to deep, deliberate breathing just to keep from passing out. When Noah heard the change, he shifted me slightly in his arms, sitting me up higher while pulling me closer. It was a strange feeling, to be this close to anyone at all—I so rarely had. It was an even stranger one to be against a body with no give to it. I was one of those cats, sleeping in the lap of a sun-warmed Buddha statue. Only it was the middle of the night, and even with the blanket, I was already deeply cold.

I wouldn’t tell him, though. He’d hate that he couldn’t even get that part right, and it wasn’t his fault.

At this point, it was definitely mine, for not having found a way to cure him yet.

In broken, coughing sentences, I told him about the dream, and about the paralysis when I woke. He made appropriate comments of sympathy and shared terror in the right places—he was better at this than he gave himself credit for.

But then he asked something that surprised me. “I don’t want to make this about me if it’s not, but do you think the stress is getting to you? Because this happened the same night we talked about Orlando’s proposal—do you think that’s what scared you?”

We hadn’t talked much about it, actually. I’d laid it out for Noah, and once he’d gotten over the initial shock and anger, as I had, he’d said he’d think about it. As I had. Then we’d dropped the subject and watched a movie together, though I’d fallen asleep before the end.

Damn. Noah must have carried me in here and tucked me in. Maybe that’s why he felt comfortable barging in when he heard me in distress.

“It could be,” I answered after some thought. “I want to pretend like it’s just one more thing, another step in the big quest or something.” I’d never played a role-playing game in my life, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t heard the jargon. “But everything else I’ve done for you, I’ve done on my own. Whatever Orlando wants to do, we’ll both be involved, and who knows who else? Can I trust him, will I trust them? I don’t even know his plan, and I already think I won’t like it.”

Noah considered that for a while. “I don’t like it, either, but it might be necessary. And there’s not really any harm in hearing him out, is there?”

“Aside from putting ideas in my head and possibly adding to my burden of guilt if I fail because I didn’t listen to him?” My flippant tone stung Noah—he shifted and turned his face away. Not that I could see it clearly, he hadn’t turned the lamp on. “No,” I said more evenly. “There’s no harm hearing him out. I’ll call him in the morning.”

“And you’ll take me with you this time when you go see him?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you got there and back safe, and proud of you for being able to, and still pissed as hell you did it.”

I smiled and curled closer, pulling the blanket tightly beneath my chin. “Yeah, I know.”

“Think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?”

And miss out on this extra time with Noah, this unusual intimacy? “Probably not. But it’s my day off, so I can take a nap later. Did you hunt already, or do you still need to? Because we could watch another movie, or something.”

He chuckled. “Will I like it more than the last one?”

“I’m thinking superheroes, so probably.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

#writeblr #fictober18 #original fiction #nanowrimo #spookyromancenovel #my writing #amwriting

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niigoki · 8 years

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STEVEN UNIVERSE Title: Never Knows Best - Chapter 27 Rated: M Link to Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7848907/chapters/21473687 Link to FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12115868/27/Never-Knows-Best

The night came fast. After walking around town for a bit longer and having a quick dinner, everyone returned to their respective rooms without exchanging many words. The group was pretty much divided into strangers who knew each other through other people, so conversation was reserved to mainly Amethyst, Peridot and Lapis. As soon as they bid each other goodnight, – but not before Ame’s obvious “don’t be too loud or I’ll kick your ass” joke towards the two girlfriends – they walked into their rooms.

The room was warm and cozy to compensate for the chilling air of the night outside, and Peri fell on the bed and wrapped herself up in the blanket right after Lapis closed the door. Turning around, Lapis halted at the cute sight of her girlfriend, who now looked like a burrito. “Cold much?”

“A little bit,” Peri yawned. “I’m also really tired from the trip.”

“Aww, that’s a shame…” Lapis made her way to the bed slowly. “I was really hoping to annoy Amethyst.”

“Huh?” It took a moment for Peri to get what she meant, and even after thinking a lot, she didn’t quite understand it. Her head was already usually fuzzy, but it got ten times worse when she was sleepy. Blushing, she finally asked. “Annoy her with… what?”

Lapis giggled, not fazed in the least, and lay down next to her. “She did tell us not to be loud.”

“Oh. Ohhh,” For some reason her heart shot up to the skies and Peri buried herself even more inside her blanket. “That.”

Not bearing to look at Peridot being this adorable without touching her, Lapis wrapped one arm around her tiny frame, bringing her body impossibly close and burying her nose on the crook of the girl’s neck. “I’m kidding. I know you’re tired, we should rest.”

Lapis’ whisper near her ear made Peridot melt, and she turned around to face her, untangling herself from the blanket. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be.” Lapis’ eyes were so close and they shone so brightly. “Just being here with you like this is… like a dream come true, honestly.” As soon as she said that, she blushed. “Wow, way to be a sap.”

“Hey, I’m the sap queen.” Peri murmured with a smile. “You can’t beat my sap.”

They both chuckled and stood frozen in time, staring at each other without a care in the world. For a second, everything wrong seemed to have vanished; Lapis’ anxiety regarding meeting her mother tomorrow, Peridot’s fear of the unknown, their worries and anguishes. At that moment, it was just the two of them, staring at the infinite.

“Like a galaxy…” Peri couldn’t stop herself, but Lapis was already used to the random words that left her mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Y-yeah,” Peridot swallowed, forcing herself to remember that this was Lapis, and that she didn’t mind her weirdness. “Your face. Your eyes always seem to shine and your… freckles look like the Milky Way. Sometimes I swear I can see shooting stars in them.”

Lapis’ heart was beating so fast already; there were no words that could possibly compete with the poetry that simply flowed out of the woman in her arms. So she said the first dumb thing that came to mind. “You should make a wish.”

Peridot’s memory flashed back to the first day she saw Lapis in the junkyard, where she mumbled the exact same nonsense to Amethyst. At that time, Lapis had briefly exposed her silhouette to Peri with her lighter, but she had vanished as quickly as she’d come. Peridot had called her a shooting star then, and it warmed her heart to realize that Lapis now was more than a rare beauty in the blink of an eye.

She was real, and she was there.

“You should make a wish.” Amethyst teased.

“I already did,” And then Peridot leaned forward, capturing the woman’s lips with her own. The kiss, unlike a shooting star, was long, and would last for as long as she wanted. A thousand wishes were made against those lips, and a thousand more popped up in Peri’s mind as soon as she was finished thinking about all the things she loved about Lapis. It didn’t matter what happened; Peri knew that this girl deserved a world of happiness. She swore she would try to make that a reality.

Lapis’ hands started to roam through Peri’s sides, and it was then that the bartender had an idea.

“Wait,” She broke the kiss, a little breathless. “Let’s take a shower.”

Lapis blinked, but then smiled, leaning in to give her another brief kiss. “I like this idea.”

At least this way the water would muffle the sounds.

“Man, that shower is a blessing!” Bismuth’s happy face came out of the bathroom and Jasper let out a snicker.

“You say that about every shower that comes with hot water.”

“Exactly! Training camp made me truly admire the little things.” Then she plopped down on the bed next to Jasper, who was flicking through the channels without paying much attention. Bismuth stared at her friend’s muscular back for a bit before speaking. “Say… how are you doing?”

Jasper finally found something decent and put the remote away. She looked down at her tattooed arm and sighed. “Scared.”

“Never thought I’d see that,” Bis smiled softly. “Big-ass Jasper, afraid.”

“My size doesn’t matter, Bis.” She pushed herself back on the bed and settled against the headboard. “It’s an emotional thing.”

“Right…” Bismuth mimicked her pose and looked down to her hands. “You know, I came all the way here to be supportive, but I still have no idea what is happening. I mean, I get that it’s a family thing, but…”

Oh. That’s right.

Jasper never told Bismuth a single thing about her past.

And she had a good reason not to, of course. Just like Lapis, she was afraid of pushing people away with her burdens, so bottling things up inside was for the best. But now that she had involved Bismuth in this whole mess, Jasper felt terrible for not even bothering to explain the basics. She was truly grateful that her best friend had decided to help her, no questions asked. It was just like Bismuth, to do something dumb for the sake of her team.

No. For the sake of Jasper.

“…I’m sorry, Bis.” Jasper looked at her with a guilty expression. “You came to help, and I did nothing but shut myself off. I’ll…” Taking a deep breath, she nodded to herself. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

Bismuth smiled, and put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder. “I’ll be here for you, Jazz. Always.”

Jasper returned the grin. “Thanks. You should make yourself comfortable. It’s kind of a long story.”

“And then the guy wouldn’t stop calling me for three whole weeks! That’s when I decided to never give my phone number to anyone ever again, doesn’t matter how lovely the night was.” Amethyst finished her story as she rested against the headboard in the bed, earning a laugh from Pearl.

The TV was on, but on the lowest volume – there was nothing good on and Amethyst just liked to have some sort of sound around when she talked to potential crushes. It helped distracting both her and the person in question from awkward silences. Pearl was sitting next to her with her pajamas on after taking a shower and listened to her story with her eyes glued on the screen,

“I suppose that is a smart move.” Pearl nodded. “Although I don’t think I can flat out refuse someone when they ask for my number.”

“You just need to be polite,” Ame reached for a glass of water in the nightstand. “It’s way harder with guys than girls, though. Well, in my experience at least.”

“Oh, with men I can manage.”

The conversation, which had previously started as an ice breaker about the weather and the town, had at some point shifted to dates and past relationship experiences. Amethyst cheered internally, because this opened the opportunity to ask her boss a little bit more about her private life without it sounding weird or flirtatious. Not that Amethyst wasn’t trying to flirt.

She was just not managing to flirt correctly with Pearl for some goddamn reason.

“So I suppose you’re just interested in the ladies.” Ame tried.

“Oh, definitely.” Pearl’s answer didn’t miss a beat. “Not that I should be interested in men, either. Being a nun, and all.”

Ame snorted at this. “I’m sorry, I just— the nun thing I just so funny to me.”

“I get why.” Pearl looked up, reminiscing. “I’m really glad I didn’t go down that path. N-not that there’s anything wrong with nuns.”

“I get it,” Ame shrugged. “Just wasn’t your lifestyle.”

“Exactly.”

A quick pause followed as both of them stared at the TV in a comfortable silence, and then Amethyst spoke again.

“So… any awkward relationship story you wanna share?”

“Oh… w-well…” Pearl’s stutter was really cute. “I suppose we all have those.”

“So you do have one.” Amethyst smirked, leaning in.

“Just one,” The artist shifted on her seat. “It was so bad that no other beat it, though.”

“Damn. Um, you don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s…” Pearl looked over to her phone resting next to her leg and breathed in. “It’s alright. It was a long time ago.”

Ame felt like this conversation could really use some beers, but she didn’t know where the closest convenience store was. So she just nodded and paid attention.

“Well… this will probably sound obvious, since I’ve done nothing but talk about her, but... I more than simply admired Rose. I was genuinely in love with her.”

Oh.

Of course.

“At first I thought it was simply teenage admiration over this older woman. She was on her twenties and I was barely fifteen when she found me crying. After that day we started talking more and more, and I felt… things for the first time. I just wanted to be next to her all the time and make her laugh, you know, typical teenage behavior towards a crush. Then time went by and we were both adults, and the feeling just wouldn’t go away. It was actually stronger than ever.”

Amethyst looked back to the TV, still listening.

“Garnet knew what it was, of course. She’d been there, done that. I was just in a long period of denial.” With a small sigh, Pearl turned to her with a grin. “As you know, it didn’t really amount to anything. Rose met Greg and they fell in love, and that was that.”

Amethyst bit her lip, choosing carefully her words. “Did you… resent Greg for that?”

“Oh, absolutely!” Pearl didn’t miss a beat. “I was extremely jealous. How dare this… stranger come in between us? He didn’t know anything about Rose, and I knew everything.” Then she chuckled. “That’s what I thought at the time. Like I deserved to be the one, you know? We’d been through so much together, so why wasn’t she in love with me too? It took me a long time to realize that Rose didn’t… own me anything. She was free to fall for anyone at any time, and I had to accept that it wasn’t me. Garnet helped me see that, too.”

That really struck Amethyst, and she quietly nodded, lost in her own thoughts. Ame really cherished her freedom above anything else, and that was one of the reasons why commitment scared her to no end. She loved being able to kiss whoever she wanted and sleep with whoever she wanted, without having to give explanations or get nervous about things. She liked it simple, and she wanted to have fun.

So Pearl’s words were confusing to her at first, even though they shouldn’t be. Amethyst had never experienced true love before, so the idea of being jealous of someone because they stole the love of her life was ridiculous in her head. She always thought that if one day she fell for someone, that person had every right to not love her back, and she was okay with that. Amethyst didn’t think it would hurt that much, and she’d be able to move on easily.

But now she understood that it probably hurt a lot more than she realized.

“You know…” Amethyst said. “I never fell in love.”

“…What?”

“Yeah, weird, huh?”

“But… didn’t you say you love people?” Pearl frowned.

“I do love people. I love kissing and I love sex, and sometimes cuddling is okay. But I was never in love with anyone.” She picked the mattress, distractingly. “I forced myself to go on a blind date and try to have a girlfriend for once, to see if I could fix this part of me. That’s actually how I met Peridot.”

“Oh, you two dated?”

“Yeah, it didn’t last. But it was one of the best experiences of my life, because it got me a best friend and roommate. I can say for sure that I love Peridot more than my average friends, but I can also say that I was never in love with her. Not like Lapis, or like you and Rose.” Ame sighed. “So when people tell me love stories, I get a little lost. I mean, I understand the concept and all, but I can’t… feel it. I don’t know what that’s like.”

They stood in silence once again and stared as the TV program ended and the commercials played in a loop. Then Amethyst felt a warm, soft hand on top of hers, and flinched, looking at Pearl.

“That’s not something you need to fix,” The artist’s smile was soft and full of emotion. “Give it time, and just… do what you always do. Go with the flow.”

Ame’s heart started beating fast when she realized their proximity and for a second her eyes flickered towards her boss’ lips. “Can I be painfully honest with you right now?”

“Of course.”

“You’re really pretty and I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a while,” She swallowed hard. “And I totally would have by now if you weren’t my boss, but I don’t want to get fired so I restrained myself, does that even make sense? I mean, I totally get it if you think we should keep things strictly professional between us, I just wanted to let you know that someone out there really admires your passion and your attitude and your hair – I really love your hair and tattoos, by the way, they’re on point – because you work so hard to accomplish things, which is so amazing, and I just—”

“You’re rambling.”

“Yes I am,” Amethyst caught her breath. “I swear I’m much smoother than this. You do things to me.”

Pearl’s expression was unreadable for a few seconds, then she broke into a laughing fit, bending over to touch her forehead on Amethyst’s shoulder – who laughed nervously in return. When the laughter subdued, Pearl straightened her back and looked at her with teary eyes; Ame didn’t know if they were because of happiness or something else. “You’re quite amazing yourself.”

“I am?”

“You are,” She wiped a small tear from her eye. “We’re already sharing a bed, I think we can throw ‘strictly professional’ out of the window.” Pearl’s eyes had a mischievous glint to them, but she was actually really nervous.

“I mean, when you put it like that.”

Pearl’s eyes searched for something in Amethyst that she didn’t really know what it was. “Are you sure you never fell in love?”

“Positive. Why?”

“You’re not really acting like it right now.”

“It’s a crush, that’s different.”

“So you have a crush on me?”

“I—” Ame blushed. That was the worst flirting she had ever attempted in her life. “Yes.”

Taking a deep breath, it was Pearl’s turn to blush. “So you want to kiss me?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“I guess?” Ame frowned at herself. “Okay, usually there are not that many questions, so I’m kind of lost.”

Pearl giggled and bit her lower lip. She didn’t want to disappoint, but this was all so sudden that she was a bit taken aback by the whole confession. “I… could I think about it?”

Ame immediately nodded. “Of course! Don’t feel pressured, or anything. I completely understand if you don’t want to.”

Feeling relieved, Pearl nodded and yawned, the day finally taking a toll on her body.

“We should sleep. I need to mentally prepare myself for the trip back,” Ame said, already tucking herself in. Pearl agreed and turned off the TV, settling by Ame’s side. It was comforting knowing that someone was nearby, Pearl thought, and turned off the lights.

Before drifting off, Ame felt Pearl poking her shoulder, and turned around to face her. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for admiring me.”

Ame smiled, her heart doing that thing again, and she just scooted closer.

It was nearly 4:00am when Peridot woke up. She’d just had a nightmare about a huge witch who had gobbled her up, so her chest was pretty heavy as she huffed. When she tried to move, she felt Lapis’ arms and legs tangled around her body and calmed down considerably at the touch. Peri didn’t want to wake her up, but the darkness of the room was making her nervous, so she placed a gentle kiss on Lapis’ forehead before moving carefully away from her grasp.

Peri crouched and touched the floor looking for her shirt and shorts – which had been tossed aside before… certain activities – and finally found them on the right corner. She put them on and opened the balcony window, stepping outside for a bit of fresh air.

The moon illuminated the night sky and she leaned forward on her elbows to appreciate the view. There wasn’t much to see from the balcony of that particular room, but Peridot still smiled at the thought that she was in a different city. She took a deep breath, and even the air tasted differently somehow. Today was the day Lapis would face her worst nightmare, and Peri wondered if she should prepare an encouraging speech or something, for both Lapis and Jasper. She wanted to help somehow, but at the same time she knew that this was too complicated to work out with simple words.

A sound made her turn her head to the balcony on the left and she was surprised to see Jasper walk out of her room with a lighter and a cigarette in hands. The athlete halted when she saw her. “Oh, hey.”

“H-hi,” Peri replied. It was the first time she was alone with Lapis’ sister – adoptive sister? – and she didn’t really know what to say. So she asked the first thing in her mind. “Are you… okay?”

“Been hearing that question a lot, lately.” Jasper mumbled as she took a drag of her now lit cigarette.

“Oh, it’s j-just… it’s really late and all, so I thought…”

“I’m fine.” Jasper answered. “Are you?”

“U-um,” The whole situation was making her tense, but she forced herself to calm down; that was Lapis’ sister, someone who was going through the same things her girlfriend was. There was nothing dangerous about Jasper. She was just intimidating. “I had a nightmare, actually.”

“You had a nightmare?” Jasper almost laughed. “Out of anyone, I thought I’d hear these words coming from Lapis, honestly.”

“Oh, no, she’s sleeping well!”

Jasper hummed at the answer and brought the cigarette back to her lips. “That’s good.” She took a drag and exhaled. “Is she talking in her sleep?”

“Huh? Not really. I mean, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Gritting her teeth?”

“N-not at all.”

“Frowning, or grunting?”

Once again Peridot shook her head, negatively.

“Then she’s sleeping just fine.”

Oh, that’s right. Jasper used to share a bed with Lapis; she probably knew all of her quirks and habits. Peridot wondered if she missed that.

“Did she… have many nightmares?” Peridot ventured, wanting to know a bit more about her girlfriend.

“All the time,” Jasper looked up at the moon, reminiscing a few things. “She used to grab whatever was within reach and wouldn’t let go until morning. She’s stupidly strong, that girl.”

“She is pretty muscular…” Peridot mumbled and quickly covered her mouth. “I m-meant no disrespect by it!”

Jasper raised an eyebrow at the exaggerated reaction, and let out a heartfelt laugh. “You two are dating, you don’t need to be discreet about it.” Then she looked at the bartender from her head to her toes. “Besides, you’re wearing your pajamas inside out.”

Peri looked down and her immediate reaction was to cover herself for some reason. Jasper laughed again and took another drag. “I get why she likes you.”

“H-huh?”

“You’re genuine. I don’t really know you, but I doubt there’s a single drop of dishonesty in you.”

“W-well, I—” Peri was blushing at the awkwardness of the conversation, but Jasper seemed to be so at ease that she couldn’t help but to calm down because of it. “I can’t really lie to people. Whatever you see is the whole me. I mean, I think being honest with each other is what makes a relationship work out…”

“Yeah…” The athlete sighed. “Peridot, right?”

“Y-yes!”

“Lapis told you everything. About our past.”

“She did.”

“And you stuck around.”

“I wouldn’t leave her because of that.” Peri said with conviction. She might be nervous, but her feelings concerning Lapis were strong.

“Thank you.” Jasper finished her cigarette and Peri blinked, surprised at the words.

“You’re… thanking me?”

“I used to think I had to carry this by myself through my whole life. Lapis told some people about Malachite and all of them left after that. I couldn’t understand why she did it, but it kept happening.” She side-eyed her tattoo. “I wanted her to be happy, so I told her to keep her mouth shut about this. I never brought it up to anyone, and she shouldn’t either. But she didn’t listen, and kept getting hurt, over and over again. Until you came along.”

Peridot looked at Jasper’s blue flames and wondered why the athlete looked so disheartened by it.

“I see the way she looks at you and I’ve never seen her so… happy.” Then Jasper looked at Peridot again. “So thank you.”

Peri unconsciously analyzed Jasper, focusing on her expression and body language. The bartender had a terrible time understanding people, but was fascinated with how humans expressed themselves. If she could, she wanted to take a psychology course in the future to have a better understanding of people around her. Right now, Jasper seemed relaxed – shoulders down, sleepy expression, curved back, breathing slowly. She should’ve been terrified, afraid, scared of what tomorrow would bring, but none of that was showing – at least not that Peri could tell.

She realized that it was because she’d told her that Lapis was sleeping peacefully. That Lapis was happy dating Peridot. That Lapis wasn’t alone anymore.

As long as Lapis was fine, Jasper was fine too.

“You really love her, don’t you?” Peridot asked in a low voice.

Jasper didn’t answer for a while and stared down at the street. The silence was comforting, with a few crickets singing here and there, and the distant sound of occasional cars. “I do.”

“Have you told her that?”

“Drunkenly and in the worst possible way,” She scoffed. “She didn’t take it very well.”

Peri turned around and touched her back on the balcony, throwing her head back to look at the moon. Then she saw a shooting star and widened her eyes.

“You should make a wish.”

And so she did.

“Tell her again.”

“What?”

There was a fire in Peridot’s gaze when she turned to Jasper. “Before you talk to Malachite tomorrow, tell Lapis you love her. Truthfully.”

Jasper opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again at the intensity of the girl’s words. That shorty truly was something special. With a soft smile, Jasper turned around to walk back to her room. “Alright. Goodnight, Peridot.”

“Goodnight, Jasper.” Peri smiled back and mouthed a ‘thank you’ at the sky, before going back inside too.

#lapidot #steven universe #su #lapis lazuli #peridot #my fic

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gamesmakers · 8 years

Text

That Time We Took Over the World

For @mores2sl.

Kensington, England

April 13, 2015

Local Time: 8:42 AM

“Everdeen.” He rose his glass to her before taking a long swig of what had better be water. “And here I thought you didn’t like me anymore.”

“You know, I just spent eleven hours flying here from Los Angeles. I even paid fourteen bucks extra for internet so Effie could get ahold of me if your condition changed. The least you could do is act like you had a heart attack this morning.”

“Yesterday morning, but I’m all right. They’ll get me some stints, and I’ll be better than ever.” Now that she got a good look at Haymitch, she saw what Effie had been so worried about when they talked this, fine, yesterday morning. The IV bag was all too obvious, but all the quips and one-liners in the world couldn’t hide the fifteen years he seemed to have put on since she’d seen him last Christmas. With the extra gray in the beard he never shaved but had never quite filled in and the deep bags under his eyes, he looked far older than fifty-nine. Those decades of hard living had finally caught up with him. “Y’know, I was thinking earlier.”

“You don’t say.” She didn’t care if he had been dead for almost two minutes yesterday. Haymitch walking into his own favorite insult was too good of an opportunity to pass by.

He glared at her. “As I was saying, I was thinking about your career after these goons were still trying to figure out if they’d saved me or not.” If he thought the legion of medical professionals who restarted his heart were goons, he had to be feeling better.

“And what did you decide?” she prompted.

“Now, hear me out. This might not seem like the most natural pairing, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could really work out well. People really dig that fusion shit, you know?”

“Haymitch!”

He took another drink of his water, then set it aside. “So, kid, tell me. What do you know about Peeta Mellark?”

Chelsea, England

April 13, 2015

Local Time: 11:27 PM

In the late nineties, nobody could escape the Tributes - not that anybody besides a few jealous teenage boys and tired parents really wanted to. The more enthusiastic members of the media heralded the five boys as a return to the Golden Age. They sang. They danced. They even made a film that, surprisingly enough, wasn’t terrible. “Like five Frank Sinatras,” one Rolling Stone critic wrote about them, “but more good-looking.” For teenagers who had been holding down part-time jobs at McDonald’s and Burger King not a year prior, it was high praise indeed. But the longer one watched them, the more justified the comparison seemed. With fourteen chart-topping singles and practically constant sellout world tours, they were on the road to the kind of superstardom that actually manages to worm its way into the history books.

But tastes changed, interest waned, and almost as suddenly as they had shot to fame, the Tributes’ career fizzled out. The former teen idols were suddenly the butt of jokes everywhere from late night talk shows to schoolyards. There was an attempt at a comeback, then another, but the only mercy came when the group officially announced their breakup. With that last blast of publicity, the group somehow managed to fade from the public consciousness completely.

Only one member managed to emerge from the rubble unscathed. Finnick Odair had in some ways always been the star of the group. The man was the closest thing the world had to a living, breathing Adonis. Nobody could really blame the army of managers, executives, and publicity workers that fueled any operation as big as the Tributes for wanting to place him in the center of every photograph or giving him the most solos. Issues of consent and sexualization of a sixteen-year-old hadn’t been the world’s main priority as they collectively drooled over the most recent pictures of him. At least publicly, Finnick seemed to have been able to brush that off with no big impact. Even fifteen years later, his new releases were almost guaranteed to land in the top ten, and he snagged the starring roles in some of Hollywood’s biggest movies.

Katniss had never been his biggest fan, but like every other heterosexual female she knew, she followed him on Instagram. Something about the muscular star holding his new baby and grinning really did it for her. She’d blame it on evolution.

Tonight, Finnick Odair wasn’t her main focus. She scrolled down the Wikipedia article to find the section on Peeta Mellark. Okay, she vaguely remembered him from the poster Prim had hung in their shared bedroom when she was in middle school. The article said he had released his first and only solo album seven years ago and continued to tour, though a quick scan of the upcoming dates and venues showed that he was mostly going to small casinos and clubs. Katniss kind of wanted to judge him for that, but then again, Haymitch wouldn’t go around trying to pair her up with a successful artist. Sure, she played guitar – really well, actually, well enough to make a very comfortable living off of session work – but you couldn’t start a conversation with random strangers on the street about Katniss Everdeen’s style.

She clicked out of that article and returned to the YouTube mix entitled ‘Tributes and Peeta Mellark Ultimate Fanmix :-)’. As a thirty-two-year-old woman and devoted artist, did she feel ridiculous sitting here, listening to ‘90s pop? Absolutely. Did she find herself humming along? Well, the Tributes had gotten popular for a reason.

San Bernadino, California

May 4, 2015

Local Time: 9:56 PM

Peeta Mellark took his job very seriously. One would have to if they were going to go onstage at the San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino in an outfit straight from a music video that came out twenty years ago. The black pants and tight-fitting, primary colored t-shirts had looked a little too Star Trek in 1997, and the look hadn’t aged well. She applauded professionalism and devotion to one’s craft as much as the next person, but there came a point where one should walk away with their head held high and try something outside of entertainment. Katniss estimated Peeta had reached that point about ten years ago. The cheese value of this routine was through the roof. He did more flirting with the audience than actual singing, and every joke had the muddy flavor of having been used night after night for years. In a few spots, no matter how hard she tried to be polite, she had to roll her eyes. Good thing Peeta had managed to comp her a ticket for this show, or she’d be out more than the mileage to drag herself out to San Bernadino.

“For my next song, I’d like to mix it up a little and take suggestions from the audience. Anything’s fair game, mine or not.”

The crowd ate it up the same way they’d gobbled up the jokes earlier. Could they not see that he had a plant? At best, he might take a suggestion from an actual audience member and accept it if it happened to be in the lineup of songs he and his backing group had rehearsed, but otherwise, he’d move on to the predetermined ‘guest’ who’d lob him an easy one. Oldest trick in the book.

“Um, how about you, ma’am? Dark hair, braid, right in front of the stage, very pretty. What would you like to hear?”

It took Katniss a second to realize that he was referring to her. Her mind scrambled through an inventory of thousands of songs, but one kept coming up again and again. “’Til There Was You’.” Not exactly her usual style, and it came as a missed opportunity to see what he could do with something more folky, but oh well. She could grill him on folk’s greats later. It wasn’t like he would actually play her song anyway.

“Gotta love musicals. Who here likes The Music Man?” The crowd cheered as Peeta moved to the piano. Wait, was he actually going to follow through with this? She had to give him some respect for that. His accompaniment wasn’t what she would expect out of a professional pianist, but it got the job done. “I’ve got this on the CD I play when I’m driving to work. It’s one of my favorites.”

The voice she heard then barely sounded like the one she’d heard earlier. That had been as stale as his jokes, but now, he sent emotion rippling through the room. For a moment, Meredith Willson’s metaphorical bells were very, very real, and she did hear them ringing, and maybe, just maybe, Haymitch had been on to something.

San Bernadino, California

May 4, 2015

Local Time: 11:05 PM

After the show, several women her age and older loitered around the stage. Peeta chatted with them one at a time, all winks and smiles that promised something naughty. Now, she had hung around with enough big stars to know that chatting up women after the show was to be expected, but did he not remember that they had a meeting scheduled? According to the schedule Effie had found for her, he had three more shows at this very venue in the next week. There would be plenty of other chances to get laid, but he had royally screwed up his first meeting with a potential business partner. Good to know he had his priorities straight.

Only after he had gathered a few telephone numbers did he deign to join her. “Katniss?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.” He smiled, and she rose to shake his hand. “After that show, you don’t need any introduction.”

“Nice to finally meet you in person.” Maybe he was just a good actor, but the words sounded genuine. Then again, he had sounded pretty genuine a few minutes ago when he was prepping new notches for his bedpost, so maybe she shouldn’t put too much weight on that. “Sorry to put you on the spot back there. I didn’t realize it was you.”

“You did really well with it.”

“Thanks. I really do have it on CD in my car, but I’d never performed it live before tonight. Especially coming from you, it’s great to hear I did all right with it.” He sat down at the table for two that had been hers alone for the show. “I’ve been reading a lot about you since we talked on the phone. I didn’t realize how many of my favorite albums you’ve been on.” God damn it, she couldn’t let him charm her the way he had those other women, but goodness did it feel nice to hear her work praised. “I mean, you’ve worked with everyone around. The Stones, Madonna, I think I saw McCartney on there too. I know you want to do something more on the folk side, but your catalog is pop and rock and roll royalty.”

“Thanks.” She was going to start blushing if he didn’t tone it down a little. He leaned in just a little, and Katniss met those gorgeous blue eyes, and well, it was too late on that whole not blushing thing. “Really, thanks.”

“Sorry, I just don’t think you studio musicians get enough credit. You’re the ones who make the rest of us look good, and we don’t bother to say thanks often enough.”

Definitely buttering her up, then. Good. That meant he wanted to go through with Haymitch’s scheme, erm, idea. She smiled at him. “Flattering as this is, if we don’t stop trading compliments, I think we’ll be sitting here for hours and I’d really like to go home at some point.” Two could play that game. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on Haymitch’s proposal.”

“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” he laughed. “Y’know, I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and…” his voice trailed off and he shook his head ever so slightly. “I’m not sure it’s what’s best for my career.” Wait, what? How was it that Peeta Mellark, corny C-grade casino performer, was the one putting a stop to this? She had an actual career. At any moment, there were five or ten requests for her to come in and play, and with the big names too, and he thought this wasn’t right for him? Her knuckles went white as she fisted her hands into the tablecloth. He must have noticed, because he immediately backpedaled. “That sounded bad. What I mean is, well, this might not seem like a lot to you, but I kind of like it. I get to travel all the time. I constantly get to meet new people. It’s not a very glamorous part of showbiz, but it keeps food on the table and lets me sing instead of working at the bakery back home.

“That being said, I’ve been doing this at varying levels nonstop for twenty years, and I’m ready to try something new.”

“So you want to go for it.”

“I’d at least like to test some things out, yeah.”

“That’s about at the point where I am too,” she admitted.

He had a great smile. It wasn’t fair, really, that he got the eyes, the smile, and the voice all rolled up in one package. How was the female portion of the population supposed to resist? Katniss stopped herself before she could take that line of thought too far. If things worked out, they would be business partners, and even if people didn’t always respect professional boundaries in this industry, she was better than that. “Then I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“Casablanca and The Music Man in one night?”

“Hey, if someone’s said it better already, why not let them say it for you?”

“I hope that’s not the approach you take to songwriting,” she deadpanned.

Peeta winked. “As you wish.”

“Princess Bride, and you’d better.”

Los Angeles, California

June 25, 2015

Local Time: 3:09 PM

“I’m so sorry, that session was only supposed to last the morning. He promised we’d be out by noon.” She really ought to spend some more quality time with that stupid treadmill she’d shelled out six hundred bucks for the Christmas before last. Katniss had only run from the corner to the front door of Haymitch’s office, but even after a few seconds spent panting and wondering if she was about to collapse dead, she still sounded like she was trying for a personal best marathon time.

On second thought, maybe dying wouldn’t have been so bad. Three sets of eyes were on her, the expressions on them a rainbow that went from concerned to amused to annoyed. Yes, an hour and forty minutes late was bad, but she had called as soon as she knew the session was going to run long.

Peeta broke the silence first. “Hey, Katniss. How are you?”

She smiled at him as she took the remaining seat. “I’m pretty good. Howa bout you, Peeta? Effie?” She didn’t need some smartass answer from Haymitch right now, so she left him out.

Not that that strategy ever worked. “So, who chased you up here?”

He got a well-deserved glare for that one. “I just couldn’t wait to get back in your presence. It’s such a magical place to be.”

Effie giggled at that, light and tinkling, but then it was all business. “We’ve been filling Peeta in on the basic business plan we have for you. Katniss, you’ve said that you have quite the catalog of songs built up, so we figured it would be best to use one of them for first single.” She turned to Peeta. “You’ll love them. She won’t brag about them, modest thing she is, but Haymitch has played a few of her demos for me, and they’re just lovely.” If Peeta wasn’t here, she would have hit him. She’d never given Haymitch permission to show any of those recordings to anybody. “If we can’t find anything we like in there, we can always find something to cover, but well, neither of you is getting any younger, and it’s better to get something out as soon as possible.” Katniss did her best not to flinch at that. She knew age was more of an issue for her than Peeta. Female stardom seemed to have an expiration date of around thirty-five, and she was getting closer every day. “Ideally, we’ll have you in the studio next week, have a single out on iTunes in six weeks tops. Then we’ll get you out on tour and hope for the best.”

“Do you ever hope for anything else?” Haymitch asked. “Ouch!” Oh good, if Effie hadn’t kicked him for that, Katniss would’ve had to, and after that admittedly short run, she didn’t feel like moving at all.

Effie smiled at them. “Any questions?”

She and Peeta exchanged glances and shrugs. “I think we’re good.”

“Excellent. Then let’s get started on the paperwork.”

To both of their credit, neither groaned audibly, but Katniss was pretty sure it was a shared sentiment.

Los Angeles, California

June 29, 2015

Local Time: 9:40 AM

Buttercup had only stayed with her for a week while Prim was out of town, and that had been a month ago, but she still found orange cat hair all over her furniture. On days like today, when she wore black, she might as well just add a pair of Tigger ears to complete the costume. Peeta’s black pants were going to be a mess when he got up too. Fingers crossed, he wouldn’t notice.

It would be a lot harder to ignore the fact that she’d said she was going to the kitchen to find some snacks but would return empty-handed. She blamed it on the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Her minifridge currently held the three-day-old remnants of a meal at Chili’s, three bottles of beer, half a jar of dill pickles, and a thing of ketchup. She didn’t even like ketchup. The pantry wasn’t much better. She’d been trying to cut down on her salty snacks habit, which was both doing nothing to help her slim down and not very helpful when it came to being a gracious hostess.

Opening the fridge a second time did nothing to help finger foods magically appear. What a time for witchcraft to fail her. She settled for grabbing two of the beers and heading back to the living room. A+ hostess. They ought to stamp her high society entrance ticket right now.

Peeta sat cross-legged in the center of the room, eyes closed and swaying along with the music flooding through the oversized headphones. She had spent hours over the past three days going through the songs she’d written over the years. Like everything, ninety percent of them were absolute shit, but she hadn’t touched some of them since high school, and revisiting them had brought her almost as many smiles as cringes. Almost.

“Anything sticking out to you?”

Peeta slipped off the headphones. “Yeah. How do you not have a solo career? Your voice is great.”

“Not what I was asking.”

“But inquiring minds want to know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Want a Bud Light?” She hadn’t even been prepared enough to buy decent beer.

“Yes, please.” She handed him the bottle, and he cracked it open and took a long sip, studying her the whole time. “You know, I’m not sure what to think of you.”

“Thank you very little.”

He grinned. “Caddyshack?”

“Yep. Two can play at that game.” She sat down on her sad, worn couch and opened her own beer. “And one can win.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to turn it into a competition. I’ve been touring at least eight months of the year for the past decade, and Netflix and I have spent a lot of quality time together.”

“I thought you liked traveling.” He had said that, hadn’t he? She probably should’ve been paying more attention to the words he said and less to the lips that said them during their earlier meetings, but who could blame a girl for looking? A painfully single woman whose only serious relationship had petered out eight years ago had every excuse.

“Oh, I do, a lot. And I try to get a good taste of the local culture wherever I go, but when you’re in Boise for the sixth time, you kind of run out of new things to do.”

“Fair.”

“Okay, you’ve dodged the question for long enough. Who are you?”

That question made her feel like a Bond girl: sexy, mysterious, and more likely than not playing both sides flawlessly. Too bad she had no idea what those two sides would be in this situation and all her foreign, ‘exotic’ accents were shit. “I’m not sure what you’re after.”

He scooched away to lean back against the room’s single chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not a bad thing. You’re just hard to figure out is all.” Peeta paused for a minute, collecting his thoughts. “What I mean is, I don’t understand why you’d be interested in this arrangement. You’re a rock guitarist, and you’re very successful at it, but the stuff you want to record is all pretty folky. I’m open to anything, but my background’s in pop.”

“Haymitch suggested it, and I thought it sounded like a good idea.”

“That doesn’t add up either. Why is it that you have a manager that’s mostly involved in the country scene?”

“Oh, that’s just coincidence. Haymitch was married to my mom for a very short time when I was a teenager, and we stayed in touch after they divorced. He actually got me my first break.” She rose one eyebrow. “That, or we’ve carefully crafted an intricate spider web of lies with which to entrap you.”

“A guy can never be too careful. The pretty ones are dangerous.”

She made note of that comment so the part of her that was still fourteen could overanalyze and obsess over it later. “Do you have a song picked out?”

“I’ve got it narrowed down to three, but I’m leaning toward ‘Mockingjay’.”

“I like that one too. Want to go for it?”

He laughed. “We’ve really put a lot of careful consideration into all of this, haven’t we?”

“Let’s call it great minds thinking alike instead.”

Annapolis, Maryland

September 1, 2015

Local Time: 9:07 PM

Peeta looked over to her and grinned. Ready? he mouthed.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping the butterflies would fly out of her stomach as she exhaled. When had that ever worked?

“Don’t worry. You’ll be great.” He could say that all he wanted. He’d been doing shows practically constantly for twenty years. Bill Clinton had still been president the last time she did a live gig. No, maybe it had been in 2001, right after Bush the Younger came into office. Either way, if it had been long enough that she didn’t remember the year, she certainly didn’t know what it would feel like. Fuck, it had been a few years since she’d been able to ride a roller coaster without feeling sick to her stomach the rest of the day, and that was way less adrenaline than getting in front of two hundred people and singing. Never mind that most of them were there to see Peeta, and that she was a sideshow attraction at best, she’d still be up there with him, and –

“Katniss, don’t worry. It’ll be fine. I mean it.” Peeta gave her upper arm the gentlest of punches. “You’re great. If you can play for Paul McCartney and impress him, you’ll amaze these people.”

Like wax strips, sometimes it was just better to tug things off as quickly as possible, bleeding or other bodily injury be damned. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“All right.” He winked. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

She frowned at him. “Casablanca, and that’s not the spirit at all.”

Peeta gave her another one of those grins that she was quickly coming to hate – or love, if there was any difference. “But it got your mind off of it.”

Annapolis, Maryland

September 1, 2015

Local Time: 10:56 PM

There wasn’t bleach strong enough to wipe the smile off her face. Who cared if she’d forgotten some of the words in the third verse of “Blowin’ In The Wind”? It hadn’t been her favorite song since middle school, and nobody could understand what Dylan was singing half the time anyway. It lent authenticity to their performance. The adrenaline had kicked in somewhere around the third number, and she hadn’t even wanted to take a break in between sets. While Peeta had gone to grab them some water, she had stayed on stage, singing any song that came to mind. Rock, folk, show tunes, at this point, she didn’t care. Why had she ever cared about that? Distinctions were stupid. She could play one thing as well as another, and if the audience didn’t mind, she wasn’t going to act all high and mighty about which things were better than which. Who got to decide what was good and not? Not her, that’s for sure, and if she had her way, they’d stop using words like that. Outdated language was what it was, not taking into account personal taste. As always, the patriarchy stayed hard at work, grueling over their 1950s-era language like they knew best. They’d be upset when they got home and realized she didn’t have dinner ready for them, but their time was long gone, and hers had dawned.

“It’s about time that we wrap up for tonight.” A few audience members groaned at Peeta’s words. He cocked his head and grinned. “Don’t be too sad. We’re going to miss you too. But, before we head out, we’ve got a real treat for you: our first public performance of our new single, ‘Mockingjay,’ now available!”

“One, two, three, four!” She started with the guitar, and there it was, out for the world to see. Katniss had practiced this song hundreds of times since Haymitch and Effie pulled this tour together two weeks before. Every night before bed, every morning when she woke up. If she wasn’t playing it, she was thinking through it, running through the chords, quizzing herself on the lyrics. Her fingers knew what to do, and the word slipped out without any conscious thought, and for the first time in years, she could just be.

She watched, and she listened, but mostly, she floated above everything. It sounded so cheesy in retrospect, but she felt like she was in the audience more than on stage, watching herself and Peeta as an outsider. She loved it, all of it. The words sat right in a way that only her own words could, the representation of feelings that, though shared in some respect with the rest of humanity, were hers and hers alone. She basked in his voice, swayed with her accompaniment, and the chorus slowly pulled her back to herself. At the second chorus, she and Peeta locked eyes, and they didn’t break their gaze until the last chord finishing reverberating through the room.

Applause made her nerves light up brighter than the Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center. Heat rushed to Katniss’ cheeks, and as soon as she finished two stiff bows, she got the hell out of there. Though Peeta had spent several minutes greeting fans after his show in San Bernadino, he followed only a few steps behind. “You were great!” he said, beaming. Post-gig afterglow was definitely a real phenomenon.

“You think so?” She should say something nice about his performance back, but her mind was still reeling from all of it, and that had only been a hundred and fifty people. What would she do if they ever sold out a stadium? Probably too early to be thinking about that, considering that before the show, they’d only sold ninety-seven copies of ‘Mockingjay’ on iTunes, and that number included Prim, her mom, and all of Peeta’s family, but it never hurt to plan ahead.

“Incredible.” He’d moved even closer. From here, it was impossible not to notice how brilliantly blue his eyes were, and she just wanted to stare at them for a while, commit every detail of them to memory. It didn’t register that there might be a reason Peeta’s face was so close until his lips met hers.

One hand found his shoulder while the fingers of the other carded through thick blonde hair. He wrapped his arms around her, warm and strong, and she sighed against him, moving herself in closer still. Peeta’s breathing turned ragged as his fingers brushed against the back of her neck, and though she keened into the touch, the rational part of her brain finally kicked in. Katniss wanted nothing more than to give in, to do as she’d wanted to from the moment they’d met, but as warmth and desire curled and pooled within her, she moved her lips away from his. “Peeta,” she said, breathless. “Peeta, this is a bad idea.”

His forehead furrowed for the briefest of instants, then he stepped away. “I’m sorry. I thought – never mind. I apologize.”

“No, don’t.” God, she wanted to kiss him again, replace that regret with the passion she’d felt just seconds prior. She wet her lips, and his eyes followed the motion. “I mean, don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it again.”

“Of course,” he responded, avoiding her eyes. Somehow, she doubted the plain white wall was really that interesting, but Katniss wasn’t going to call him out on that. She’d done enough damage already. “Um, should I go, or do you want me to stick around and walk you back to your room?”

She was more than capable of finding her way from the hotel’s club back to her room, thank you very much, and any other time, she would make sure he knew that. “I’d like to walk with you.” Katniss glanced down at his hand, thought about how nice it would be to walk up hand in hand, invite him inside, let herself cut loose for the first time in months, but he stuffed his fists into his pockets. “Peeta?” she asked. “It really is all right.”

He gave her the stiffest nod she’d ever received.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

November 7, 2015

Local Time: 8:31 AM

“Katniss!” The door rattled on its hinges as he knocked. Wanted to wake up the entire hotel, did he? “Katniss!”

Eight thirty was way too early to be dealing with this kind of shit. Still, she didn’t want the poor guests that got stuck next to her to have any more of their mornings ruined. With a sigh, she hoisted herself out of bed and padded over to the door. “What’s wrong?” she said as the door swung open to reveal a far too excited Peeta.

“Wrong? We’re in the top ten!”

“Wait, really?” Any remaining grogginess disappeared in an instant. “Let me see!”

He pressed his phone into her hands and stepped further into her room.

Her hand flew up to her mouth to cover her gasp. There it was, everything she’d been dreaming of. A top ten chart, and there they were, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, right at sweet, sweet number three. She never thought she’d live to see the day. It had seemed impossible, the ultimate pipe dream. No, some random pipe had a better chance of being stolen and made into a found art item valued at a million dollars than she had of releasing a hit single. Incredible. Just incredible.

She turned at a popping sound to see Peeta standing next to the dresser, pouring two glasses of champagne. Usually, she’d say it was too early to start drinking, but today, Katniss could get away with anything. Damn responsibility. Who was going judge her for a little early-morning alcohol? The only other person who knew about this was right there in the same boat with her.

Wait, what chart was this? God, she hoped it was the Hot 100. Anything was a godsend, but Billboard… Billboard was something else, and –

Sverigetopplistan. There was no way that was a real word. She couldn’t even begin to pronounce it. But it had the words ‘top’ and ‘list’, and that couldn’t be good.

A quick Google search told her everything she needed to know. “We’re only number three in Sweden?”

“We’re actually at three in Finland too. ‘Mockingjay’ is doing really well all across Scandinavia. I know it’s in the top twenty in Denmark and Norway, and I want to say it’s doing about the same in Latvia or Lithuania – I don’t remember which. Isn’t it great?”

“Uh, yeah.” She couldn’t help that her voice sounded a little flat.

Peeta winced. “Sorry, the way I said that made it sound like we had it on the British or American charts, didn’t it? I wasn’t trying to get your hopes up.” He held up the glass. “Champagne? I shelled out for some halfway decent stuff.”

She accepted the glass. “Thanks. To us?”

“To our continuing success,” he replied. They clinked their glasses together. “You know, I think we’re looking at this the wrong way. We are now international pop stars.”

“We appeal to the more refined tastes of the European market,” she added.

“America might be our homeland, but it is also our respite from our legions of devoted fans.” The CDC probably classified Peeta’s smile as a communicable disease. “Why would you want to be on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood when you could be on the one in Stockholm? Much cleaner.”

Katniss laughed and went for another sip of champagne only to find it was all gone. He noticed and went to fetch the bottle. “We can’t have you running out of champagne. After that first hit, you never know when the diva behavior is going to start kicking in.”

“You know, you’re really lucky that you’re cute, because otherwise, there’s no way I would put up with that.” The words just slipped out before she could really think about what she was saying. She hadn’t drank enough yet to blame it on the champagne yet, either. Damn it. Alcoholism was a terrible disease, and she understood that, but what she wouldn’t give right now to use Haymitch’s ‘I haven’t been in complete control of my actions for a decade’ excuse.

Peeta’s grin widened. “Just how much would you let me get away with?” His expression was pure sin, and Katniss blushed practically down to her toes.

“Has Haymitch heard the news yet?” Time to change the subject before she said anything even more regretful.

And as though flirting was as easy to turn on and off as a light switch – and for him, maybe it was – Peeta was back to friendly but professional. “Yeah, he’s the one who called me. Believe it or not, I don’t spend my mornings browsing the Scandinavian pop charts.”

“You might have to start now.”

“Good point. Guess I can work it into my busy schedule somehow,” Peeta laughed.

Gary, Indiana

November 23, 2015

Local Time: 10:14 AM

Peeta was a world-class pacer. Unless social niceties dictated that he absolutely had to sit, the man kept to his little four steps forward, right turn, four steps, right turn habit at all times. And so when Katniss walked into his hotel room – they’d left knocking behind weeks ago – to find him talking on the phone and standing stock-still in the very center of the room, she immediately grew concerned.

He didn’t notice her presence, too focused on his conversation to hear soft footsteps against the carpet. She moved back towards the door. He deserved his privacy as much as anyone else. “Yeah, for sure. That’d be a great opportunity, and I’m sure Katniss is on board too.” At the sound of her name, she froze. “I just need to check that the schedule will work out. We’re on the road right now, and you know how I am with dates.” He paused while the person on the other end spoke. “Of course. I’ll call our manager right now and get back to you as soon as I’ve got something. Yep, talk to you soon. Say hi to Annie and Ronan for me.”

“Who was that, and what am I on board for?”

Peeta jumped at the sound of her voice, but he quickly recovered. “Finnick. He’s got a big tour coming up, and his opening act canceled on him at the last minute. He’s wondering if we’re available.” She managed to keep her mouth from falling open, but only barely. Peeta laughed. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. He says he really likes ‘Mockingjay,’ and Annie – that’s his wife, she’s a sweetheart – has been playing it nonstop for days.”

In any other circumstance, she would be flattered, but her mind could only focus on one of those ideas at a time. “He wants us to tour with him?”

“Yeah. Isn’t it great? I mean, you do want to, right?”

“When?” She sounded breathless. Accurate.

“His first show’s in Seattle on the fourteenth.”

“Three weeks.” Okay, they could do three weeks. It might be a little bit of a logistical nightmare to get everything together, but it was an achievable logistical nightmare with some fantastic benefits. How many people attended each of Finnick’s concerts? She’d gone and seen him at the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago with friends, and that place had to seat twenty thousand, easy. He could probably sell out much bigger stadiums, too, and even if the audience wasn’t super excited by the prospect of listening to something kind of folky before the pop show, that was still twenty thousand more people exposed to their music, and even if only one, two percent wanted to go and pick up the album…

“Katniss? What do you think?”

She snatched his phone out of his hand. “I’m going to call Haymitch. He and Effie can make this work. I don’t care if we have to rearrange a few other dates.” She laughed, probably looking like a crazy woman. Oh well. Crazy old witch was one thing, but successful crazy old witch was pretty freaking fantastic.

Los Angeles, California

December 9, 2015

Local Time: 4:21 PM

Beyond a nice dinner with Prim at Sae’s, Katniss scheduled nothing for the two weeks she would be in Los Angeles before they started touring again. Nothing was going to get in the way of her sleeping as much as possible. She put in a grocery order with a delivery service and checked out of life for two weeks. After more than two months of almost-nonstop touring, she deserved it.

It got old after two days. By the third, she was ready to pull hair, and whether it was hers or someone else’s didn’t much matter. Most of her friends weren’t around on an everyday basis – she supposed that kind of came with the entertainment business – and anyway, she’d never been the most social sort. Katniss knew she should be resting up for the next tour, but instead, she found herself filling every waking moment with something. The pervs that hung out on practically every street corner in Los Angeles had always turned her off of walking around the city by herself, but almost every day, she took hours-long walks around her area. She ducked into art galleries and coffee shops she’d noted as places to check out but never managed to get to and wandered around the city’s parks, snapping photos and picking the occasional flower when no one was watching.

As she explored, she allowed herself to think. Big mistake. She didn’t confine herself to any single topic, and she covered quite a bit of ground. Art, the meaning of life, whether or not she’d remembered to lock the apartment on her way out, all of it came up. But she mostly thought about Peeta. He was three thousand miles away in Boston, and she still couldn’t get away from him. Peeta Mellark had ruined ogling cute blond guys, because none of them could quite measure up. She’d see some diet-busting pastry in a window, and her mind would leap to the cheese buns and raspberry tarts she’d tried from his family’s bakery when they’d played that gig in Worcester. He had even infiltrated her blessed TV-watching, because flipping through channels, she’d end up on TCM, and there he was again with one of those movie quotes that she hated but couldn’t get enough of.

When she ended up watching one of the films, she’d text quotes to him, and no matter the time of day, within thirty seconds, he replied with the title. Katniss hoped he cheated and googled them. Nobody should have watched No Orchids for Miss Blandish enough times to be able to quote it.

Damn boy was driving her nuts. She’d given Delly a hard time in high school for crushes far less consuming. How low had she fallen?

Three more days until she saw him again, but who was keeping track?

Seattle, Washington

December 12, 2015

Local Time: 3:09 PM

“Peeta!” She ran towards him, luggage in tow. Two little old ladies moved to one side so she could pass, and one flashed her a thumbs up. Katniss had him wrapped in a hug the instant she got close enough. “How are you? How was Boston?”

He squeezed her. “I’ve been good. Kind of wondering why I thought it was a good idea to visit home in February, but it was good. Nice to see everyone.” He broke away first. Smart move – airport baggage claims were hardly the place for public displays of affection, even completely platonic ones between friends that definitely didn’t want to screw each other. “So, how’s California? Ten below and covered in snow like Boston?”

“Isn’t it always?”

Peeta laughed, and wow, had she missed that. Cliché as it was, Katniss was convinced that one noise could light up an entire room, maybe power all the street lights in Seattle for the rest of the year. “I’m sure you froze half to death.”

“I wore shorts every day I was home.”

“So did I. They only had to amputate one limb.”

“If you two are done, we’ve got the car waiting outside.” She spun to find Haymitch standing behind them and waiting.

“Hey, Haymitch. How’ve you been?”

“Good. Get in the car.” He pushed Peeta in front of him and stayed behind with Katniss a moment. “What do you think you’re doing, kid?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea anymore.”

Seattle, Washington

December 12, 2015

Local Time: 11:30 PM

“You know, I’ve been to rehab three times, and marrying your mother is still the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”

“Rehab was a mistake?” She couldn’t let something like that slide.

“No, the choices I made that landed me there were mistakes.” Haymitch took another swig of his Southern Comfort. “And the first time I went to rehab was a mistake too - made me think that getting clean was gonna make me come to Jesus or some shit like that, scared me off the idea for years – but that’s not the point. They always tell you that your drinking is affecting the lives of the people you love, and trust me, they’re right. They’ve got more scientists than I can count running all kinds of studies and coming up with figures to show you how right they are. And I’m good at fucking up the lives of the people around me – you’ve seen it more times than I want to remember.”

Katniss nodded, wary. She was used to Haymitch drunk, or angry, or the quiet, determined way he got when he had a plan that he was dead-set on seeing to completion, but she hadn’t seen this kind of open emotion from him before. Frankly, the thought of some baring their soul, particularly to her, made Katniss a little nauseous. She had signed up for Thursday night drinks and catching up, not a feelings orgy worthy of the Hallmark channel.

But he kept going, a steamroller headed downhill at a hundred miles an with no brakes. “Well, I really thought I had things under control this time. Y’know, I’d been to rehab, managed to stay clean for a whole year. Still wanted a drink from the moment I got up right up ‘til I fell asleep at night, but I figured that was to be expected. I know you’ve heard all that before, but it bears worth repeating. Your mom, she just seemed perfect. Too perfect, looking back on things. Gorgeous, smart, patient as can be – you’d have to be, to put up with me.”

She had her own opinion on that matter, but now wasn’t the time. “Haymitch, I’ve got things to do today. You sure that –“

“Let me finish. Long story short, she was too good for me, and I knew it, but I somehow managed to con her into marrying me anyway. And guess what? All I wanted to do was make things better. I really did, and still do, care about how you all ended up, but I couldn’t keep it together, and I ended up taking you all with me. Made you move, have to do the whole new school, new friends thing, made you deal with my problems, forced you to deal with my divorce because I wasn’t responsible enough to deal with my shit by myself.” Tears had gathered in the corners of his eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should try to comfort him or bolt. Katniss settled for reaching over and giving him an awkward pat on the back. Beyond a few handshakes over the years, this might very well be the first time she’d touched Haymitch. She’d been twelve when he’d come into her family’s life, and at a point in her life when she scorned physical contact with everybody, and neither of them had ever been the touchy-feely type. “Cut it out. You see, it’s happening again. I’m the one who made you hurt, and now you’re cleaning me up. That’s what happens when you let someone who’s too good for you in. You take and take until there’s nothing left to give, and when they finally give up and leave you, you’re both left with nothing.”

“You think Peeta’s too good for me.”

Haymitch’s eyes were steady as he nodded.

“Fuck off.” God, she wanted to leave with that, but something kept her rooted in place. She choked on something that wasn’t quite a laugh and bordered on a sob. “That’s precious, coming from you.”

“There’s a reason we get along so well, sweetheart. Here, have some.” He pushed the bottle towards her, but she pushed it away as she rose, spilling fat drops of amber liquor all over the pristine white couch. It’d be a bitch to clean up later, she reflected, but then again, so would she.

Katniss didn’t stop running until she was well into the parking lot, and even then, she only stopped because there was no place to go.

That seemed to happen a lot these days.

Toronto, Ontario

January 10, 2016

Local Time: 11:11 AM

When she and Peeta had gone on tour previously, it really had been just the two of them, Peeta’s Lincoln, and four different hotel rewards cards. They didn’t have a lot of extra equipment, so there was no need for anyone to help them haul anything, and though there were at least daily phone calls with Effie and Haymitch, nobody needed to be there to hold their hand and get them to the gigs on time. It was bare-bones, but it was fun. Yeah, that meant that she had spent an evening in Peeta’s car with a bottle of nail polish remover after a less-than-successful attempt at giving herself a pedicure in a moving vehicle, but they also got to talk and joke and stop at stupid roadside attractions whenever they felt like it.

Finnick’s touring was as far away from that as one could get. First of all, they had a private jet. She supposed that made sense, as thirty-five people accompanied Finnick everywhere. Family, security, personal assistant, sound engineer, stage coordinator, the backing group, Katniss, Peeta, and two people whose purpose on the tour remained a mystery even four weeks into the three-month stint. She blamed those people for her current situation.

There was a timid knock, then the door opened just a crack. “Are you feeling okay?” Peeta asked.

“The only reason I know I’m not dead is that everything still hurts.” Her voice came out as little more than a whisper. Katniss had always liked to think that she could tough her way through just about anything. How nice of this cold/flu/sinus monstrosity to rid her of that delusion.

Peeta didn’t move away from the door. Smart guy. “Do you think you’re going to feel good enough to perform tonight?”

“Yes.” That wasn’t even a question. She would have to actually be dead to not show up for tonight’s show. In the halo ring that was this tour, tonight’s show, the only one that would be broadcast live to millions of home viewers, was the pendant diamond, the one your friends were really complimenting when they said how pretty the whole thing looked. They forecasted that twelve million viewers would tune in tonight. She was going to wow every single one of them.

“You can’t talk. How are you going to sing?”

“I’ll rest until then.”

Peeta frowned. “I’ll go to CVS. Do you like pills or liquid cold medicine better?”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Liquid then. I’ll get some soup too. Don’t go around infecting anyone else.”

She mumbled something at that, but even Katniss wasn’t quite sure what point she was trying to get across.

Toronto, Ontario

January 10, 2016

Local Time: 4:55 PM

She loved those green lights. They should make all the lights green. Then the cars could go faster because they’d never have to stop, and all the people would be happy because they spent more time with their families and less time driving. Lots of good things were green. In fact, she couldn’t’ think of a single bad green thing. Money, trees, kale, those rain boots she’d been eyeing at Target since last winter… they should make everything green. It would be nicer that way. “Don’t you think so?”

“Don’t I think what?”

“That everything should be green.”

Peeta shook his head. “I think you’re a lot less coherent on cold medicine than you led me to believe. I don’t have any strong opinions on the color green.”

“That’s too bad.” Peeta had a green sweater that made his arms look fantastic. Maybe she could convince him to wear it more often.

He had other things on his mind. Peeta’s voice dropped. “Look, we’re going to have you lip sync tonight, all right? Haymitch has a tape of your part on all our songs, and all you’ll need to do is mouth along with the words and pretend to play your guitar.”

“Okay.” She hated lip syncing, but it was hard to be upset about things right now. Why think about the bad things when there was so much green?

Toronto, Ontario

January 10, 2016

Local Time: 7:21 PM

The wiggles went through her entire body when she tried to shake the nerves out, tickling enough that she giggled out loud. Her fingers felt fat and sluggish as they danced over her guitar. The object was so familiar that it might have been another limb, but holding it now, it could just as easily have come from another planet. The weight was off, the balance just not there, and when had the strings gotten so little? No matter. She’d made it through three songs. She could handle two more before she went backstage and conked out.

‘Mockingjay’ shouldn’t be too bad. The first chords were easy. It started nice and slow, perfect for beginners and heavily-medicated Katnisses, before picking up speed. She knew what she was doing. Same thing, just faster, and faster, and faster, and then –

She realized an instant too late that this was her verse. Her eyes widened, and she did her best to start mouthing along, but the damage had been done. Whispers from the crowd rolled over her in waves, and it was all she could do to not cry on stage.

They struggled through that next number. She gave it everything she had – so not much – but she couldn’t sell it. Because of her fuck up, both of them would be in the papers tomorrow. They’d never have a successful album. Hell, they might not even be able to record an album. Nobody would invite them on tour again. Peeta might be able to go back to his old career, but maybe not. Opportunities dried up quickly in this business, which she knew better than anyone.

Katniss fell apart as soon as she got backstage. “Katniss, hey, it’s no big deal. I should have told Finnick you couldn’t go on. I’m so sorry.” Peeta’s words burned like acid over fresh wounds. He knew what she had ruined, and here he was, comforting her. If she was going to wreck something for someone, why couldn’t she pick some awful person who kicked puppies or something? Why did it have to be the nicest, sweetest man she’d ever been lucky enough to meet? Haymitch was right. “Katniss, I’m really –“

She kissed him. “Shut up.” Another one, this time harder – and now that he had gotten over his initial shock, he responded. Peeta dragged her close, pressing her tight against his chest. One hand found her waist, and the other toyed with the ends of her braid. His heartbeat was going nuts, but so was hers, so she supposed that was fair, and she –

“Hey, you two have a dressing room for that.” Peeta pulled away, and she turned to glare at Haymitch. He wouldn’t be cowed so easily. “Hey, if you don’t want to start damage control right now, I’m gonna enjoy the concert.”

“It’s okay, Katniss.” Peeta pulled her into their shared dressing room. “It’ll be okay, all of it. I promise.”

The worry swelled over her again. “You can’t promise that.”

“We can avoid the internet for a couple days. It’ll blow over.”

She closed her eyes and nuzzled up against his chest. “Maybe.” At least he smelled nice. Small consolation, but she’d take what she could get.

He kissed the top of her head. “Either way, we can’t do anything about it now.”

Another thought came to her. “I’m sorry if I gave you the flu.” Because she just couldn’t stop screwing up today, could she?

“Hey, it’ll make it easier to not go online, right?” he laughed. Then his voice dropped. “But since I’m already infected, I suppose there’s not anything to keep me from kissing you again, is there?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her level.

Boston, Massachusetts

October 11, 2028

Local Time: 7:31 PM

She’d been convinced that it was Haymitch who always edited the “Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark” page on Wikipedia, but in the two years since his death, it continued to change. Every week, some new, strange story popped up that managed to keep the basic outline of their story the same while putting them into the strangest circumstances. She rather liked this one, a fairy-tale themed story involving dragons (poor Effie), a knight in shining armor, and herself as the beautiful princess trapped in the castle of studio work while she longed to be out among the people. Pity it had to go.

She copied and pasted the short version of the group’s history into editing window and hit ‘submit’. Nowhere near as interesting, but at least there were no beheadings in this version.

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are an American folk-rock duo. Since the two artists began collaborating in 2015, they have released four studio albums and toured extensively. Though best known in the United States for their first single, ‘Mockingjay,’ and a lip-syncing controversy that occurred during a televised Finnick Odair performance, the duo has achieved great critical and commercial success in northern Europe. They are most popular in Sweden, where their third studio album ‘Girl on Fire’ held the number one chart position for thirty-one weeks between 2021 and 2022. The duo began dating shortly after meeting in 2015 and married on June 11, 2017 in Mellark’s hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. They are parents to three adopted children: Aster Mellark (born 2019), Rye Mellark (born 2024), and Senna Mellark (born 2026). In September of 2028, Everdeen and Mellark released dates for their Everlark tour, their ninth world tour, with dates across Europe and East Asia.

Only when she was reading it through for the second time did she notice that she’d forgotten to delete the prankster’s last line. Katniss smiled. She highlighted it, and her finger hovered over the backspace key, but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it.

And they lived happily ever after.

After all, who was she to argue with the truth?

So sorry I posted this early on Ao3 and FFN. I promise that I can count. Don’t take away my math degree.

#thg #everlark #everlark fanfic #that time we took over the world #mores2sl

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socialattractionuk · 4 years

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I’m a 38-year-old single woman and coronavirus has ruined my plan to have kids

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks (Picture: Shannon Power)

Usually I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I flipped things around and decided I would dedicate 2020 to finding ‘The One’.

I told everyone around me that even though I was not very interested in going out with anybody and that the thought of going through the motions on dating apps made me nauseous, it was time to get serious and give it another crack.

My method of leaving my marital status up to a ‘Que sera, sera’ attitude clearly was not working, considering I’d never dated anyone for longer than a handful of months.

And getting back in the dating game was not solely motivated by wanting to find marital bliss, but rather my very strong desire to start a family.

I turned 38 in February and it’s foolishly taken me this long to realise that I’m living with a biological clock that is ticking impatiently and that I should probably do something about it.

But then the world turned upside down.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, mingling with anyone outside of your household suddenly became forbidden – let alone going for drinks with a random stranger to figure out whether he could be your future baby daddy.

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The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks.

2020 was going to be my year (Picture: Shannon Power)

2020 was going to be my year. I’d overcome hardships to get to a fantastic place mental health-wise, and I felt emotionally ready to take on a relationship. But now I felt terrified and defeated.

As I emotionally chowed into my lockdown supply of chocolate, I did the maths. Social distancing rules could be in force for many more months, which would delay me meeting and vetting potential partners.

But I know I’m not going to just walk out of lockdown and find ‘The One’ immediately. Dating and relationships take time to develop, and that’s long before you even know whether you might want to start a family with someone.

At my age, time is of the essence when it comes to not only fertility, but my chances of having a healthy pregnancy and embryo.

Contrary to popular belief, fertility does not fall off a cliff after the age of 35, but there is a gradual decline in the chances of a natural pregnancy.

Women under 30 have about a 25 per cent chance of getting pregnant naturally each cycle, and that drops to 20 per cent for women over 30.

By the time a woman hits 40 it drops to less than five per cent, according to research by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. There are also greater health risks for myself and the embryo if I conceive in my 40s.

Fertility options such as IVF are also not as an easy option as one may think. Qualifying for NHS funding is complicated and the costs when paying out of pocket are astronomical. I’m worried that I might struggle to afford treatment if I can’t get it covered by the NHS and I’m saving my pennies up for that potential rainy day.

And even if you can afford it, the success of IVF treatment decreases with age.

This fills me with a sense of regret and I wish I’d taken all of this more seriously when things could’ve been easier for me.

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me (Picture: Shannon Power)

Until this wrecking ball of a realisation hit me, I didn’t think coronavirus would impact me much at all because of my privilege, so long as I stayed indoors and followed government advice. But coronavirus could completely derail my life plans in a very serious way.

I’ve currently disassociated and pushed my feelings way down so as to not completely crumble in an emotional heap, because there’s not much I can do about it for now. But I know that I will be heartbroken down the track if this does stop me from having kids.

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me. I may be keen to settle down, but I want it to be with the right person.

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I am also adamant that I want to find my life partner before I have kids, which is in no way to denigrate single parenting – I came from two generations of single mothers who did an amazing job of parenting against all the odds.

But I’ve seen how hard it can be to do it alone and, after facing many personal hardships myself, I think I deserve to have something beautiful, such as a loving, long-term relationship.

When lockdown ends, after hugging my friends and flying to Australia to see my dog, I’m going to put myself out there to find love. I plan to not only use the dating apps effectively, but also to be open to meeting someone on a night out or through friends.

Until then, I’m going to re-download the apps and try some old-fashioned courtship until we can meet face to face. Developing a relationship strictly online can’t be so hard, right?

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]

Share your views in the comments below

MORE: I’m single and have spent £30,000 on trying to have a baby

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biofunmy · 5 years

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How The 2010s Crystalized Women’s Anger

Amanda Edwards / FilmMagic

NEW DELHI, India — As a woman in my twenties who grew up in India — a country where abuse of women has been described as the biggest human rights violation on Earth — the SlutWalks of 2011 were, frankly, bewildering.

Every day of our lives, women like me were taught to go over a mental checklist of ways to avoid getting raped. The list had become second nature, so deeply, seamlessly internalized that the doorbell only had to ring, and my mother and I, hanging out in our home, watching TV, or maybe making dinner, would first reach for a scarf to throw over our bodies before we answered the door. At my high school, where uniforms were mandatory, girls were asked to kneel on the ground, so the teachers could check if our skirts were long enough. If they didn’t touch the ground, they were too short, and a particularly terrifying teacher would rip open the hem of our skirts, those frayed edges marking us for the rest of the school day. There were a million ways to dress like a slut if you were a girl (there were no such codes for boys) — our white shirts could be “too transparent” if the cotton had worn thin from frequent washing or if we wore colored bras inside instead of white or “skin”-colored ones.

When I was a 25-year-old reporter, I went to ask a group of young girls who lived in a slum in Govandi, Mumbai, what their checklist looked like. What did paranoia look like in a place where thin corrugated sheets of steel were all that stood between the girls and their neighbors, adult men, leering boys?

Fourteen-year-old Nafisa told me she made sure she texted her friend Neelu before she left home. Neelu carried red chili powder with her everywhere she went in case she needed to throw it in the eyes of a potential attacker. Annu made sure her water bottle was always full so that she had something heavy to hit a potential molester with. Pinki had stopped wearing glass bangles once she turned 11 — because her mother told her that if someone grabbed her wrists, they would break and injure her, slowing her down as she ran from her attackers. Neena had stopped wearing her hair down because it attracted too much attention. At 15, most of them avoided going outdoors unless it was absolutely necessary, and when they did, they were usually accompanied by an older male from the family. A lot of the older girls carried small knives in their bags but were unsure if they’d be able to use them when the time came.

Some girls who wore hijabs said they did not feel any safer: “They want to find out what is underneath,” Nafisa said.

If adulthood was the steady accumulation of survival skills — a realization of one’s own power and its limitations — womanhood, for as long as I’d known it, appeared to be about developing a sixth sense that warned you when you were in a specific kind of danger from a man. But the news we read every day, of women abducted, burnt, raped, killed, appeared to be filled with women whose sixth sense had let them down.

Dibyangshu Sarkar / Getty Images

A SlutWalk in Kolkata in 2012.

The comment that sparked the first SlutWalk, leading to gatherings across 200 cities and 40 countries, didn’t even seem particularly surprising to me. A police officer in Toronto had said to a group of students: “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” It was the kind of thing that ministers, judges, police officers, holy men, and celebrities constantly repeated across the world.

But as the protests began to go viral, we dissected the SlutWalks avidly, over Facebook posts and IRL, in quiet, thrilled tones with other women. When Indian women held their own version of the SlutWalk — the Besharmi Morcha, or the March of Shamelessness — we cheered them on. But privately, I wondered if the entire project of reclaiming a pejorative word was counterintuitive. Did we really need to normalize the word “slut,” or the behavior associated with it, when there was so much else at stake — especially in a country where women struggled for basic rights?

And then there was the question of inclusivity, posed in the open letter from black women to SlutWalk organizers: Who can afford to reclaim the word “slut”? Who are the women whose bodies are always already considered sexualized and without agency by the patriarchy, and did the marches have space for sex workers? Trans women? Dalit women? Were the SlutWalks about provocation or about language? Were they only for the rights of privileged white women? Could we ever change the power imbalance that routinely blamed women for inviting sexual assault just by walking down a street?

In 2012, the conversation turned dark and urgent in India, when the gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi sent tens of thousands of women marching on the streets. Overnight, our fear had birthed an inchoate rage — against the culture of shame, against the constant policing of our bodies and clothes and words and movement. We wanted more than just the right to be safe, we wanted the right to roam the streets and hang out in public and take risks and have fun like any man, without fear of assault. We demanded justice; we also demanded joy. And for a moment, it seemed as though something might really change.

The next year, the world changed so much that it became unrecognizable to me. I was sexually assaulted, not by a stranger on a dark street corner, but by a person I had known and trusted for many years. I testified in court against him and felt as though I had set my entire life on fire. I lost my job, moved cities, moved back in with my mother. Scores of people and professional opportunities disappeared from my life. (The accused denies any wrongdoing.)

From the depths of my nightmare, SlutWalk, even with its problems, represented a spectacle of sex-positivity. It felt like a world of color and hope that I would never inhabit again. People from a range of genders and ages were still gathering in Spain, South Africa, India, and Pakistan, marching in the streets wearing school uniforms, office clothes, lace and leather, nuns’ habits, fishnets, and denim — flashing skin, drumming, dancing, holding babies and signs, and sharing stories of rape and assault and trauma and songs and jokes.

Meanwhile, I was called a slut all the time, by people close to the man who abused me, his lawyers, others who had never met me but were convinced I had lied — by strangers on the internet. I became less interested in reclaiming words and dissecting them. I was tired and suicidal, and I wanted to focus on being something more than, other than, separate from what happened to me and my body. The SlutWalks were described as the most successful feminist action of the last two decades. What good was any of it going to do?

It wasn’t until 2017, when women first began to speak publicly and loudly about Harvey Weinstein and the things they said he had done, that the fog of the past few years started to clear: For some of us, the SlutWalks had been our first moment of articulating collective rage.

For women, particularly those who were in our twenties or younger when this decade began, our only point of reference for women’s rage had been photographs from the anti-rape movements of the ’60s and ’70s, or marches called “Take Back the Night” — women occupying city streets at hours when decent women were supposed to be safe at home. Some of us knew about feminist theory, the first wave and the second and the third, still more of us knew that no matter where we were, our rights were precarious. Many of us now had opportunities our grandmothers could only dream of, but we were marching for the same old shit. Our bodies were still our first battlegrounds.

The next billion people — including women — who are learning about the power of collective action on the internet are from places like India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. These women have grown up in worlds where public spaces are fraught with danger and private spaces are frequently regarded with shame. As a teenage girl in Pakistan learns a new language of sexual freedom and identity online, she is also learning to navigate the murky waters of digital abuse that a woman lawmaker in the US is punished for. The cautionary tales of trolling, doxing, being targeted with rape threats, having intimate photographs posted online for all to gawk at, being morphed onto naked bodies on a random porn site all exist. But so do the possibilities of forming solidarities, joining protests beyond geographical confines, allowing more women than ever before to have a voice — and to listen in. The measure of successful feminist action, I learned this decade, has never been only about changing laws, governments, or workplace policies. Anger itself is clarifying, because it changes us, the people who participate in it, by giving us ways of seeing: seeing ourselves as part of a collective, seeing through patterns of abuse, seeing as in witnessing each other’s lives and stories.

In this decade, we have seen women’s rage move front and center — it is the subject of books and films and television shows. Beyoncé feels it, so does Greta Thunberg — a 16-year-old climate activist who only recently was told by the president of the US to seek anger management.

But, in workplaces, in courtrooms, at universities, on red carpets and during election campaigns, women are still expected to articulate that anger in the most bloodless way possible, in order to seem rational, likable, electable, and believable.

Hindustan Times / Getty Images

Students protest in Mumbai on Dec. 3, 2019.

Carefully contained anger has a role to play in history. Over the years, we’ve watched Anita Hill testifying against Clarence Thomas to an all-male, all-white jury that dismissed her account of being harassed at work. We read the letter that Chanel Miller read out to Brock Turner — a man who sexually assaulted her, but served only three months in prison. We witnessed Christine Blasey Ford’s restrained terror when she was forced to face the man who she said sexually assaulted her. We listened to Nadia Murad, as she described with every shred of dignity she could muster the ethnic cleansing, genocide, and rape of Yazidis — and then again, when Yazidi women were made to confront their rapists on the news.

It is telling that the backlash against the #MeToo movement, in the form of defamation and libel and aggressive defense lawyers, has sought to drag women back to the courtroom: a space they did not trust with the trauma of their abuse in the first place, a place where they are treated as though they cannot be credible witnesses to their own truths.

Yet women’s rage is still unruly: It frustrates all attempts to contain it, shocks, confuses, and provokes. And its unruliness is productive. What else can explain the fact that women are still gathering and marching together across the world? That a day after Donald Trump — a man who was recorded on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women — was confirmed as president of the USA, women held the largest protest in American history? This year, women declared a feminist emergency across 250 cities and towns in Spain, after years of gang rape acquittals, domestic violence, and murders, despite being called “psychopathic feminazis.” In Argentina, the murder of teenage girls, abortion rights, and widespread harassment sparked #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less Woman, Not One More Death) — mass strikes in 2015 which spread across Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and El Salvador, and most recently Chile, where this year, a street protest has turned into a feminist anthem performed across Istanbul and Latin America. In South Korea, over 40,000 women protested an epidemic of spy cameras in dressing rooms, unleashing the largest women-only strike in the country’s history. And in India, women came together to form a 385-mile-long human wall against hundreds of years of patriarchy that illegally restricts their entry into a Hindu temple.

It’s 2019, and everything is both terrible and fine. If you feel tired, inhale, exhale, drink some water, and take a break. But remember, even this form of self-care is a luxury for 785 million people on this planet who lack access to clean water, and hours spent looking for water locks women across the world in a cycle of poverty and abuse. In China, polluted air is being linked to an increased risk of miscarriages; in India, Pakistan, Sydney, and California, a deep breath can be hazardous.

Meanwhile, that thing we all need more of — time — is marching on, and so must we. ●

Sahred From Source link World News

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