#these bits and pieces of the mundane of life that have been so utterly changed

[impossible-rat-babies]

what gets me sometimes w the idea of the calamity is that there are probably places in the deserts of thanalan where the fire of bahamut turned the sand to glass and it’s just. a few handfuls of sand there are layers of glass

[kivaember]

that idea i had for branch raven finding 621 post-FoR and forcibly kidnapping adopting him... a teaser below the cut...

-

The medium freighter ship, Tapio, was an old, beaten-up interstellar craft that had gone through at least three different Christenings since it had fallen into Branch’s control. When Chartreuse had liberated it from its original owner (some two-bit grey market smuggler who had bitten off more than he could chew), it had been named The Golden Fleece. Raven had let her rename it to Cheese Board, which lasted for only a few months before King changed it to the far more mundane Star Skimmer.

Chartreuse couldn’t really remember when they had changed it from Star Skimmer to Tapio, but it hadn’t been long after they made plans to run the PCA blockade over Rubicon-3. Even grey-market ships like these were aggressively tracked and logged whenever it so much as paused to take a fart in some piece of shit asteroid port, so scrubbing the identity was essential prep for big operations that would land you in some UEG gulag on Pluto.

They’d probably have to change it again, now that their business was concluded on Rubicon. It was Raven’s turn, and knowing them, they’d think of something either utterly boring, or thoroughly deranged. They called their pet cat Emergency Rations of all things, after all.

(To date, she still wasn’t sure if Raven was being tongue-in-cheek about that…)

Speaking of that cat, though…

Chartreuse grumbled as she shovelled soiled cat litter into its bin. The freighter was built with a crew of at least ten in mind, so Raven had dedicated an entire room to the little beast: cat trees, little platforms for Emergency Rations to parkour off of, toys that functioned as trip hazards for the unwary, and this monstrosity of a litter box that was huge and a massive pain to clean out.

Emergency Rations, as imperious as a queen overlooking her lowly subjects, stared down at her from one of its demonic cat trees. It was an ugly creature, in Chartreuse’s opinion: thin, scraggly fur with bald patches, one missing ear and crooked whiskers, with a broken meow that sounded like the strangled croak of a frog. Probably why Raven adopted it; they had a soft spot a mile wide for broken, ugly things.

“How do you shit so much?” Chartreuse sealed the bin shut and pushed it aside. “I swear you do it just to fuck with me.”

Emergency Rations just blinked its ugly goblin eyes at her.

Chartreuse finished up her daily task of tending to the beast’s comfort and slouched out of the ship’s cattery. After a brief detour to the ablutions to wash her hands, she went to the central mess hall that now functioned as a sort of communal area for Branch. The depressing steel benches and tables had been shoved against the walls and replaced with a battered sofa they’d rescued from a dump, and an old-world TV set with a video player and everything.

Chartreuse had no idea where Raven magicked up these relics, or why they had a taste for such useless antiques.

“The beast’s been dealt with,” Chartreuse declared when she walked into the living area.

King acknowledged her with a raised hand, not looking away from the TV screen. He was sprawled out on the sofa, so Chartreuse sat on the armchair. It was technically Raven’s armchair, but they weren’t here right now - too busy committing terrible life choices and all that.

“Is Raven still not back?” she asked. “We sure that rabid dog didn’t eat him?”

“Haven’t heard a thing since they left.” King picked up the remote and paused whatever was playing on the TV. He had a deep frown on his face, his expression troubled even if it didn’t show in his voice. “Their operator would’ve told us if things had gone sour, though.”

Chartreuse grunted.

It’d been only two days since the Second Fires had swept through the Rubicon system, an event they had only survived because they’d been in the process of leaving said system. They’d been mere moments away from engaging the C-Wave Drive to slip into subspace, only to perform an emergency leap to the nearest stellar body when a surge of volatile energy came exploding out of Rubicon-3. Thank god for that small planetoid they’d managed to shelter behind…

But instead of getting immediately out of dodge the second things settled down, Raven had all but commandeered the ship and started gunning back towards Rubicon-3 like a man possessed. When it came out that Raven was hunting down his successor… well, words were exchanged and Chartreuse may’ve thrown a chair at them, but Raven got their way, as always, and now they were here, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for Raven to come back with a potential rabid dog in tow.

“We might have to figure out a naming system if they do find him,” King said idly. “Raven Senior and Raven Junior, maybe?”

“Who’d be the senior and who’d be the junior?” Chartreuse drawled. “That Gen Four is probably a grizzled old man. Our Raven isn’t even thirty.”

“Guess they’d be junior then.” Somehow, King maintained a straight face as he said this. “We could always call the Gen Four after his designation. C4-621, if I remember rightly?”

“That’s…” Chartreuse wrinkled her nose. “So corporate.”

“Hound, then?” King shrugged. “It’s up to Raven, I guess. It’s their name they gave away.”

A name that the rabid dog had technically earned in the same way their Raven had. As sour as Chartreuse was about the whole thing, she grudgingly accepted and respected the dog’s hustle and fire. He’d trounced all three of them in a straight fight, and it was done purely through skill. The things he’d done with that laser dagger were obscene…

But Raven had always been Raven to her. She still called them that, hell, they all did, but if their successor was found and brought into the fold, then they’d have to bow their heads to proper tradition and accept the dog as Raven, and Raven as… Nightfall.

Ugh. She still hated that name. Nightfall. It was a name an edgy teenager would pick for their social media account.

[rachthepoet]

Keep Driving Analysis

Oh my, oh my. Keep Driving renders domesticity with vague tableaus, from the mundane to the utterly surreal, counting off on his fingers a new twist on the grocery list. Ahem, well, to me anyhow. It tacks together a collage, one representative of a dreamy relationship. Romantic, but showing simultaneous unsteadiness. It's a masterclass in delicate deception and extended metaphor, one of those songs I'd personally pull to illustrate just how beautiful Harry has a hold on his art lyrically and musically.

Maybe I'm a bit biased, I'll be so frank, due to the utilization of the stream-of-consciousness poetic style. The intentional lack of organization is such a willful move on the artist's part. A bold and unusual form to be brought into song lyrics due to how off-putting it can come off to the listener, but Harry takes that possibility into ownership and uses it to strengthen his work. The inclination to seek solace while in perpetual motion. Impeccably, may I add.

Here's a deep dive (or should I dare to say drive?) into Harry Styles' Keep Driving, from a poet.

Harry S. & Paul M. 🚗

Something that hit me on the first listen, and persistent in all the listens to follow, is the striking similarity between this song of Harry's and Paul McCartney's Junk. The Beatles and Paul himself have been ingrained in my livelihood since I was small, on car rides with my mother who took my conversion to Beatles fan very seriously. So, maybe it's too natural for me to find any association between the two, but I promise there's a direction to my madness. First, for context's sake, let's talk about McCartney's song, Junk.

Junk is a contemplative piece delving into themes of materialism, nostalgia, and the passage of time. The way I hear this song, it stands against the concept of "letting material things go" with a focus on keeping close to the heart old material things that hold the sentiments — but, parallel, it also opposes consumerism and frowns upon just how fast the economy wants people to live their lives. There's this encompassing of the transient nature of life itself, with a rattling list of items becoming metaphors. Acknowledging, though, the tendency for once-cherished items to turn forgotten & obsolete.

Keep Driving could be illustrating something similar, I suppose. Well, not suppose, I believe it, actually. The constant change of scenery in the song, very reminiscent of McCartney's, can illustrate this transient nature, and even a haunting sense of impermanence lingering underfoot. The narrator and subject drive a faulty car, passing memories and new technologies along the way. "Something old and something new", as Paul himself would say, and does so in Junk. Despite all this change, one thing is blatantly stated as permanent: I will always love you, a favorite part of the song for my hopeless romantic heart. Anywho. Despite the faults in the engine and the brake — all a metaphor, of course — this sense of adoration and devotion courses through his veins for his companion. And there's confidence that'll never change for him, despite the transient nature around them. Or, even, the transient nature that has seeped into their own dynamic, closing in. I find it quite romantic, this proclamation of love in the midst of it all, but I better save my yapping on that for now.

Lyric Pull Apart 🚗

[VERSE 1] Black-and-white film camera Yellow sunglasses Ash tray, swimming pool Hot wax, jump off the roof

The scenery has been set into motion, utilizing that writing technique I tried to sneak into your head before. Yes, stream-of-consciousness. Here, we're given a hint into the structure of the song lyrically: the verses will be chronicling and reminisicing on memories shared between the couple, while the chorus will be a constant that the song circles back to, a stark contrast between fantasy/nostalgia vs. reality. With this importance of the structure, each verse and further sections will be kept intact visually, like above. Okay, shall we get on with it?

Black-and-white film camera: This as the opening lyric is something so genius to me, as I'm accompanied by the visual of the clicking noses of an old camera before you go to watch back memories you've captured. Which, I believe, sets the tone for the rest of the verse — and then for the second verse and bridge to come — in terms of the whole piece's structure solidified. This also gives us a look into the two characters in our narrative I believe. The film camera leans into nostalgia, as both of them tend to lean heavily into memories. This feels like a bit of foreshadowing to the core conflict, the tendency to trick oneself into hiding in the pleasures of what has been instead of focusing on what is now.

Yellow sunglasses: I think there are two ways one could go with interpretations of this detail. Well, three, if you could that it could just be the color of the frame of the sunglasses he's noticed they always wear. So, yeah, correct that to three. The first perspective ties back to my ramble regarding memories and nostalgia. In films, yellow is used as a memory haze coloring, which further amplifies the conceptualization of memories being remembered.

The second perspective is how it very well could be a nod to the common cliche, seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Yellow is a color commonly associated with happiness and buoyancy. The suggestion here, I think, could be that his vision of the relationship is more optimistic than realistic, and doesn't necessarily want to face how tings might be falling apart, even though there's already a small concern. That can so quickly turn into a big concern.

Both perspectives can coexist, and, truly, they help flesh out each other. And both are applicable to the core themes of the song, so, really, all of these thoughts can be true and working in cohesion.

Ash tray, swimming pool / Hot wax, jump off the roof: Bringing in the rest of the verse, and looking at the first verse altogether. To the listener, everything seems like a mishmash of words with no correlation to each other. But not to the two of them, and that integrates the smallest detail, but has the biggest implications attached. These are moments, summarizations, associations connected back to the speaker and his partner. Therefore, they're uninterpretable by anybody else. It radiates a sense of established intimacy, which, when we bring in the rift, it now holds so much more emphasis. A harder hit, because we get the taste of sweetness before the punch of the sour.

[1ST CHORUS] A small concern with how the engine sounds We held darkness in withheld clouds I would ask, "Should we just keep driving?"

He snaps back to the current day, the reality vs. the fantasy, thrown out of the yellow haze of nostalgia, face-to-face with the issue with the two of them, the quote-en-quote "engine" in this extending metaphor. The vehicle is symbolic of their relationship, therefore the engine is representative of the health of their bond. This is the metaphor one has to remember in order to envelop oneself in the true beauty of the song.

A small concern with how the engine sounds: The chord played in companionship with this line is a shock to the ear, pulling the listener out of the laidback groove. It amplifies the shift of the speaker, the reality vs. the fantasy. This is our first implication in the lyrics that something is off, something is in trouble. But the interest in the details is low — he aches to continue wading into the impressions left in his head, the memories he doesn't want to abandon to face reality, whether it's the relationship with this other or something that extends beyond.

A sprite of concern saying, "The engine's making a funny noise that could impact the car's health" evolves, then, to a sprite of concern saying, "There's this issue between us that could impact the relationship's health". At its very best, it will only make for a minor bump in the road. At its very worst, the damage will be far beyond repair.

We held darkness in withheld clouds: This is a bit of a juxtaposition here, but that in no way negates its value in extending the listener's understanding. It's a beautiful and poignant phrase and is one of my favorite lines ever penned at his hand. We've solidified that the speaker is aware of the troubling turbulence, now taking the form of rain clouds. He knew that storms were brewing under their noses, but decided to keep moving along in hopes they would go. He repressed them. Because he didn't just say clouds, but rather coupled it with the term withheld — to keep something back and not share it. And, a little detail in this line I find interesting is the use of past tense. We held darkness in withheld clouds, with the past tense informing that they were no longer in the situation. But he could be looking back with a tinge of regret, in this inner conflict with himself. Trying to work out if he should stick in his ways, in his unhealthy coping tactics, to continue his emotional coasting.

I would ask, "Should we just keep driving?": Is it avoidance? Is it acceptance? Complacency? Apathy? All of it? I'm partial to the last one. He knows something isn't quite right in the engine, but chose those yellow sunglasses of optimistic haze anyway. He wants to ignore the negative parts of their relationship like an inexperienced driver wants to ignore a weird engine sound they don't want to deal with. This common feeling that maybe things will be okay if they wait it out enough. But, still accompanied with I would ask, which I feels like has an undertone of uncertainty of his choice a bit, in the way the chorus ends.

All three of these lines working together makes the chorus intriguing and draws one in, even if kept in such a small package. There's an acknowledgment, concern, then avoidance masked as acceptance. It's such a great chorus, can you tell I love this chorus?

[VERSE 2] Maple syrup, coffee Pancakes for two Hash brown, egg yolk I will always love you

Full disclosure, this verse makes me blush and giggle whenever I hear it. His voice is the softest he has sounded in this piece, which makes sense because it's the softest moment in the song. It's so fairytale-esque and dreamy in the ear. Also, the simplicity of it is saccharine sweet, a beautiful love letter to domesticity that rocks juxtaposition in comparison to the first verse. A constant routine he's reciting because it means so much to him.

Maple syrup, coffee: What's on the table in mornings spent together...

Pancakes for two / Hash brown, egg yolk: Sharing breakfast and sleepy, still-waking-up conversations...

I will always love you: Breakfast, breakfast, and suddenly, a love declaration. It's arguably the most blatant he's been in a romantic song, not hidden behind flowery language or poetry. Though, it does have a poetic flow and intention, but I'll get into that soon. Anywho, through the verses we see him chronicling memories held onto, all the sweetness before the turbulence set in. The memories of mornings spent together in the sickeningly sweet domestic atmosphere, and those are the kind of things he wants to grasp onto as they hit these rough patches. But this line is a stark outlier and disrupts the flow a bit, demandin your attention to be drawn to it, and I believe strongly that it's all in smart design. A full senence of his feelings rather than the expection to continue chronicling what's tangibly in front of him.

In breaking the pattern, it feels like he just couldn't hold it in any longer, that those three little words had to come out then and there. Here are our memories [through the black-and-white film camera], and I loved you all during them. Let's keep driving, I love you still, love you now. Here's our favorite breakfast to have together, remember that? I want to love you for so long.

Before we move past this though, gotta poetry geek out for a moment. This verse is the only one of the song to follow a meter — 4/6, with four syllables in the first and third lines and six syllables in the second and fourth lines — and a rhyme — ABCB — which in turn creates a stable feel and flow to it. Though it's not a concrete rule, often, this is something used very purposeful in poetry and leans more coincidental when it comes to songwriting. But, no matter the medium, whenever a singular section of a piece is set to break the pattern of the rest, it draws attention, and that's more than likely intentional on the artist's part. And I don't underestimate Harry ever. So, I will be proceeding on with the assumption that it wasn't just coincidental.

With this understanding, the second verse becomes even sweeter as it implies stability, which means a lot in a verse that reads as a love letter/romanticization to the domestic life. Saying that those things will always remain stable, even with the metaphorical engine problems and the pent-up darkness in their withheld clouds. Among all, these are our constants I'll keep drawing us back to. The breakfast we like to share, and the fact that "I will always love you". The use of the word always adds a prominent subtext of confidence, even if it's through yellow colored sunglasses.

[2ND CHORUS] A small concern with how the engine sounds We held darkness in withheld clouds I would ask, "Should we just keep driving?" Should we just keep driving?

There's not much difference between this second chorus and the first rendition, except one thing. The repetition of the core conflict of the piece, and I find this significant because of the order of the song up until now. In the first verse, he thought about their exciting memories, ones that embodied fun but also fleeting. When facing the inner conflict the first time around in the first chorus, there's this admittance of a problem at hand, a reflection of how it was handled before, and then this wondering if the two should keep repressing the issue. The question still lingers as he's asking it, with an uncertainty of it being the next step to be taken, though it's presented as a substantial one.

In the second verse, we're also in a reminiscence stage, but this time with memories embodying the heart and a sense of routine, in turn, stability. Remembering love and domesticity in its wholesome glory, and a sense of permanence in its final line. Then, we're back to where we are currently, with the second rendition of the chorus, the inner conflict is revisited, and the core question is repeated without the I would ask preceding it. Which gives off a sense that he's made up his mind. He wishes to keep emotionally coasting with his partner, to pick the optimistic view, having remembered the constant feeling of love by the end of the second verse.

[BRIDGE] Passports in foot wells Kiss her and don't tells Wine glass, puff pass Tea with cyborgs Riot America Science and edibles Life hacks going viral in the bathroom Cocaine, side boob Choke her with a sea view Toothache, bad move Just act normal Moka pot Monday It's all good Hey, you

I call this the everything but the kitchen sink bridge. But, seriously, this bridge works so well in its chaos, and I'll explain. After the second verse, the natural assumption would be for the song to increase its intimacy and domesticity. But, rather, this bridge veers in the opposite direction, becoming less intimate, less domestic. This is all a part of their relationship, assumed, but it's not as specific to them as earlier in the song. And as we lose that intimacy, the grasp on the nostalgia over reality as they mesh into one another, the song's feel changes.

The writing style hasn't changed, but the intensity has. The music behind his voice swells, adding an underlying sense of urgency, trepidation, and apprehension when your focus goes to the instruments alone. Almost akin to a foot pressing on the gas, pushing the car engine too far, almost to the teetering line of complete engine failure. The chaotic nature of the bridge embodies the chaotic moments of the relationship. And, when the focus shifts to the chaos, the reality in opposition to the yellow-hazed memories he's been planting himself in, their bond suffers as felt in the rise of intensity of the instrumentals.

The bridge is significantly longer than the two verses before and is split into two chunks where he's allowed to take a breath. But, in no moment before the end does he stop to beg the question. He doesn't communicate as all this chaos finally rises to the surface, making it hard to ignore. I see this bridge as a moment of emotional release, as a result of the repression before, and it's only when everything is about to hit its peak that he leans back on how he's gotten through it before. Though unhealthy, he finally brings up the question again. The second he does, things return to the status quo -- the music mellows down to the same childlike glockenspiel, a laid-back sway the characters and listeners both fall back to. We have chosen the yellow sunglasses again, as the influx of chaos is too intense to face. We keep on driving, even if it's just a repression. We'll keep on emotional coasting.

[OUTRO] Should we just keep driving? Should we just keep driving? (Ooh) Should we just keep driving?

More repetition is added to the core conflict, to the core question, and the assumed conclusion is given: the choice is to keep on driving, to keep basking in the beauty of our bond instead of looking into the beasts, which will get us stuck in a rut I'm afraid we won't be able to find our way out of. By the outro, the question becomes superficial and redundant because he knows the answer, even before the question leaves his lips. He knows the cycle he's stuck in, the coping through delicate deception. He's stopped trying to bring up that the engine sounds a little off, but rather desperately tries to keep his quickening voice soft, creating a yellow haze in hopes that he won't have to face the chaos again.

I have an inkling this is one of those songs people either love or hate, but, if you couldn't tell by just how much I've been gushing, I love it so very much! It's a song that admits that life can be shitty at times, and that includes the relationships that were once filled with sugar-coated memories, but there's always a sense of permanence that gives the push to keep you driving. Finding the calm in the chaos but almost being chaos together, even in the darkest times. Though poetic, we aren't hiding behind poetry or prose or flowery language, but bringing in the rawness, the realness, the existing and beautiful, even at times our choices can vary into the bad. It's the shortest song on the album, but I don't think it needs to be longer, and think the more condensed feeling only aids. And, speaking from experience, Keep Driving is a whole Kodak memory-maker opportunity when screaming the song in the car. Windows down!

Thank you for reading, you're absolutely incredible! If there are any songs you'd like me to make an analysis of, please send your request to my inbox! along with any questions or insights you might have yourself!

[writefightandflightclub]

Somebody to love (PART 1/2): Richard Alonso Munoz x fem!reader

Summary: Whilst your neighbour, Richard, is in love with love, you are a little more commitment averse. When he performs a small act of kindness though, your feelings start to unravel, and you wonder if you may have found somebody to love - right next-door all along.

Richard is a sweet, gentle man, and so I hoped to create a sweet, gentle story. I hope you enjoy spending some time in it!

I HAVE POSTED THIS IN TWO PARTS, ONLY BECAUSE OF LENGTH. WHILST YOU COULD PROBABLY(?) READ EITHER PART AS A STANDLONE THEY ARE MEANT TO WORK TOGETHER.

Genre / tropes: pining, friends to lovers (sort of - neighbours to lovers), getting together, domesticity, fluff, smut, nothing bad happens, ends happily, quite a slow burn for a one-shot, I guess?

Author’s note: This is part of my friends to lovers event, prompt requested by @foxilayde who I adore and you should too. Prompt was: he does something utterly mundane which shows how well he knows you, and your feelings hit you. I took some liberties with the prompt, and there is zero pressure to read this - IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BLURB! :P More of these requests in pinned post!

Warnings/ Ratings:

PART ONE (Mature, 18+ ONLY): swearing; sexual themes (erotic poetry, thirsty internal monologue, sexual tension); food themes inc. mentions/consumption; family mentions - reader has nieces but they need not be biological; brief mentions of the prison system - Richard is a Corrections Officer; exceedingly brief mention of the Holocaust in context of a non-fiction book Richard is reading (I believe this is a canon read but may be wrong); loneliness (theme, not too angsty); self-esteem issues if you squint.

PART TWO: (Explicit, 18+ ONLY): swearing; explicit sex, including - oral m + f receiving; unprotected vaginal sex; creampie; f squirting (first time doing so); well-endowed man, ahem.

Word count: 10k for part 1, 9k for part 2.

You had been thinking about the small gesture all day. You had been distracted all the way through your shift, and then all through dinner with a friend.

Richard -your neighbour to the right- had turned-up at your door that morning, before setting off on his way to work. His visit had been unexpected, and you had opened the door in a fluster, seeing him greet you with a characteristically soft smile - just visible from beneath the thick brush of his bold, impressive moustache.

He had held them out to you - in between his index and middle finger. A small book of postage stamps.

You had simply looked at him in confusion for a moment.

“For your letters,” he had stated, in his soft-spoken voice. “You said last night you didn’t have any stamps, and I found these in my drawer, so...”

It was true. You had said that. Had forgotten you’d said it. Had barely registered running into him, since it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

Your routine overlapped minimally with Richard’s -though more so since his new role in the letter room had him working days exclusively- but sometimes, you would meet serendipitously, as neighbours tend to do. Last night, in the liminal space between your work day ending and your home life beginning, you had stopped to chat with him, and -you remembered now- had made some offhand comment about needing some stamps.

The topic of letters had come up; naturally, given his new position. It caused you to mention having written some letters to your nieces -packaged up with little illustrated portraits you’d gotten commissioned for their new bedrooms. Letters which you hadn’t gotten around to posting.

And so, here Richard was. On your doorstep. With stamps.

It was a little thing. So little, it didn’t even register at the time. In fact, you had bundled him off your porch with a quick, cursory “Thanks, Richard!”, prioritising finishing your morning scramble and making it out of the door on time.

It didn’t register in the moment, no; but you were noticing it now, alright.

“-so, this morning,” you explain to your friend opposite you in the pizza parlour, as she absent-mindedly dips her crusts in some hot sauce, “there he is on my doorstep, and he’d brought me some stamps.”

Your friend, Jaz, dips her chin and slowly raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows, her glossed lips curling in an amused, incredulous smile. “So, let me get this straight. He brought you some... stamps, which he already had, from his house next door,” she recaps, her smile inching wider by the second, “and now you want to fuck him?!”. Her eyebrows knit together in faux concern and she clamps a hand over yours where it rests on the table. “Sweetie, we need to talk. How low is your bar these days? Exactly how dick-starved are you?”

Ordinarily you’d be more than game for the light fun she pokes at you. Would even have a smart riposte ready. This time, though, you simply huff, your jaw twitching in minor irritation at how flippant she is being. So, shaking your head gently, you pull your hand away from hers, folding your jacket around yourself, suddenly feeling exceedingly self-conscious.

“Never mind. I’m obviously not telling it right. And, wait - hold up- who in the hell said I wanted to...” you look around the parlour, voice dropping to an indignant whisper as if anyone around you would hear or care about your hypothetical sexploits “...fuck him?” Your tone is defensive, and you shift to take a masking nibble on your straw, slurping the dregs of your soda and bouncing your leg nervously under the table.

Your friend merely raises an eyebrow, with a healthy -and not entirely unfounded- scepticism, and so, you try to rein your protestations in, lest you get slammed with a “methinks you doth protest too much”.

“Okay, okay,” Jaz concedes, holding up her hands and leaning back in her chair. “All I’m saying is, it seems like you have a hard-on for him all of a sudden. You’ve lived by him for years and you’ve never noticed the guy! It’s just stamps, baby cakes. It’s just your paunchy, kindly neighbour, who gets milkshake stuck in his moustache.”

At least he’s not afraid to make a mess of himself when he’s slurping, you think idly, your eyebrow ticking up - the thought leading you in a very particular direction and sending a sudden scorching heat to your cheeks. Also - paunchy? I like a beautiful soft tummy to rest my head on, thank you very much.

Yeesh. You are not okay. Still, before you go full feral, you shrug your shoulders in partial concession, widening your eyes in innocence. “Uh huh. Sure. Yeah.” 

“Seriously?” Jaz continues, shaking her head in good-natured disbelief - blatantly seeing right through you. “Are stamps your love language now, or what the fuck?”

She’s not wrong. It is very… sudden. You’ve never felt that way about Richard before. But is it so preposterous to think you might begin to?

“Jeez! Who said anything about love?!” You swirl your straw in your cup, concentrating on puncturing the remaining bubbles and ignoring your friend’s peals of bemused laughter. “Look, okay? I guess you’re right, Jaz. Maybe I’m just dick-starved,” you suggest, a smile finally claiming your lips. “It has been… a little while. And the last encounter was not very... inspiring.” You wiggle your eyebrows at her and your shared laughter mingles in the space between you. Still, you’re more than a little keen to deflect, and you bounce your foot more furiously under the table in your haste to change the subject. “I just thought it was sweet of him, that’s all, but… forget it, okay? Tell me everything about your hot date with Jackson.”

As soon as the invitation is given, Jaz jumps on it. And, as you listen to her spill the tea on her latest hook-ups with her fancy man, you try really hard to focus - but you can’t help that your thoughts keep wandering time and again to a certain man. A man with the kindest, most soulful cola-coloured eyes. Your neighbour to the right.  

You’re unsure why, but you feel a little bent out of shape - a little annoyed, even- that Jaz was so quick to dismiss Richard. Particularly that she had seemed to miss the whole meaning behind his small gesture. He was listening to you. He was thinking about you. And, as you dwell further on it, you realise that maybe -just maybe- you want the kind of guy who brings you stamps, goddammit.

Shit - maybe Jaz wasn’t too far off when she said stamps were your love language after all.

And, true, maybe you hadn’t paid the faintest bit of romantic attention to Richard -for the most part- in the years you’d lived side-by-side with him... but maybe it was time to start. Maybe, in fact, it was well overdue.

***

Granted, it hadn’t struck you right away how sweet Richard’s gesture was, but as soon as it had, you started to notice everything. To remember everything.

You remembered how he pushed a flyer through your door one evening, just in case you might be interested in the latest art exhibit going on at the local rec centre. You recalled how he had duct-taped the handle of your garbage can back together after it spectacularly broke one morning, causing your trash to spill over the sidewalk. It hadn’t seemed like a huge thing at the time, but now, as you imagine him painstakingly unfurling the roll and passing it around and around the broken piece, entirely on his own steam, it takes on a new meaning.

You have begun to notice - really notice- how he always smiles and stops to chat to you, his face lighting up as if he is genuinely pleased to see you. You have begun to notice everything he has done for you, over the years, a deluge of kindness flooding your heart. Details -little things- which seemed insignificant at the time, but which weigh heavier than gold now that you reflect on them.

And, most of all, you have noticed him.

Richard.

You have noticed his positivity. That bounce he gets in his step when he’s enthusiastic about something (which is always). The way his expressive, long-lashed eyes reveal everything he’s feeling whenever he talks or listens - his emotions and his compassionate heart pinned firmly on his sleeve, as prominent as his Corrections Officer badge. You notice how handsome he is; a fact which has inexplicably passed you by for the longest time. Perhaps, because of how understated he is? Not cocky and assured and alpha like the guys you’re usually drawn to.

Tonight, though, most of all, you are noticing that he’s not home, as you sit on your front porch steps, entirely locked out of your own house. You know for a fact that a couple of neighbours have spotted you there - you’ve observed pairs of curtains twitching- and yet no-one has come to your aid so far, mean bastards. You know, in contrast, that Richard would help anyone who needed it, without hesitation. And, it’s fair to say that sitting here, waiting for him to return and help you out, is certainly providing you plenty of opportunity to dwell on thoughts of him. In fact, you can’t wait for him to get home; not only because you wish for relief from the elements, no. But because the thought of seeing him actually excites you. You are looking forward to it.

Finally, thankfully, after the evening chill has long begun to bite at your extremities, you see Richard approaching. He whistles a jaunty tune as he comes up his drive, happy as usual. From his silhouette, you note that he’s dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and his usual ill-fitting jeans, his keys already jangling in his hand, and he stops abruptly when he sees you sat out front as though his feet are glued to the floor.

You can just about make out the smile which tugs at his lips, moments before his words do. He always seems happy to see you, and, on this occasion, you echo that feeling too, more so than ever. “Locked out?” he calls, and at the sound of his voice you stand, hopefully, clasping your purse on your shoulder, your own feet glued to the floor too.

“Yeah,” you call, throwing your voice over to him. “Waiting for the locksmith.”

You grip the strap of your purse a little tighter, as Richard takes a few steps closer, a polite but cautious smile lighting his face. “Want to wait inside?”

“Hell yes,” you gush with a relieved exhale of breath, gratefully trotting around to meet him on his porch where the security light bathes him in a halo of orange. “You’re a babe. Thank you, Richard.” You allow your eyes to gently rove over him as you approach. He’s wearing a turquoise bowling shirt, you realise. A bowling shirt with “Alonso Muñoz” stitched in an adorable flourish of red embroidery above the left shirt pocket. What’s more, he looks cute as all hell in it too. You seem to recall he’s in a casual league with some buddies.

“It’s no trouble,” he says with a warm, disarming smile, deep, pleasing creases radiating from around his eyes – and, even though you aren’t usually one to be lost for words, it is all you can do to smile back at him vacantly, clutching your purse strap tight enough that your knuckles strain.

Richard pauses too, seemingly taking a moment to remember the keys bunched and readied in his hand - as though your presence has pushed all other thoughts out of his head. “You must be cold. Let’s get you warmed up,” he says finally, snapping himself out of his stupor.

Yes please.

And so, with a bashful flutter of his long lashes as you shuffle even closer to him, Richard opens the door and guides you inside, hover-handing his palm at the small of your back.

He smiles widely as he is welcomed by his little fur ball, Lady, the white dog yipping and wagging and jumping up at his shins. Richard stoops to bundle her into his arms, the animal rasping its tongue over his shapely jaw, which he raises as he squirms away from the wet, eager kisses.

“Aw, you’re so precious, Lady,” you baby-talk, reaching out to apply fond scritches to the mop of her head. “I forget how cute you are, little bean!”

Richard chuckles with mirth, seemingly warmed by your sweet interaction with his pupper, and only when Lady gets restless in his arms does he set about plopping her down and refilling her food bowl.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Richard offers, before he briefly excuses himself, dipping away into another room and signalling he’ll be right back.

With Richard gone and Lady chowing down on her dried food, you take the opportunity to glance around the place, surprised by how at home you do feel, already, even though you’ve never set foot in here before. You’ve been in his yard before; for example, when he’s hosted block barbeques, or, when the summer sun has withered from your yard, you’ve sometimes shimmied your deck chair to be side by side with his as you languished together in the remaining patch of sun. But you’ve never been inside his home. Now that you are, you drink in the details of him, eager for any new information you can glean, and scanning over the books and paintings and photographs with particular interest. You smile as your eyes fall upon Lady’s bed, filled with a procession of carefully arranged stuffed animals and chew toys.  You are warmed by the painting of a beachy, mountain-edged, palm-fronded sunset, propped against the ‘sill.

You note that his place is homely and well-tended, and you also can’t help but notice that the place signals a rather solitary existence. One plate and one fork drying on the dish rack. A perfectly placed easy chair -for one- in front of the TV, the small couch to its side covered with stacks of books and papers, as if it has been a while since he entertained a guest. In fact, you would take a seat -make yourself at home- but you don’t want to intrude on His Seat, and nor do you wish to disturb his personal papers to clear the couch.

As you ponder this, Richard re-enters, extending a soft, flannel shirt towards you. “Here. In case you’re cold.”

You smile your thanks to him (grinning like a dumbass, actually) and you gratefully slip the garment over your shoulders, feeling instantly warmed. As you wrap it around yourself, you get a waft of fresh-scented detergent. You would never have guessed that you’d be able to recognise any particular Richard-y scent, but as the shirt’s pleasant odour engulfs you, you realise it is infinitely familiar. That it is wildly comforting.

You watch, a brief moment of awkwardness as Richard self-consciously combs his fingers through his thick moustache; sweeps a hand over his already immaculate, plastered-down curls. He looks so... neat. Controlled. Restrained. It crosses your mind that you’d like to mess him up a bit, see him come undone - of course, if he wanted.

Then, noticing your seating predicament, Richard surges over to gather up the strewn piles of mess, shifting them on to the coffee table instead. “Here, take a seat,” he indicates. “Sorry for the mess- I emptied the bureau looking for the stamps. Please. Every time I think to put it back I get distracted.”

His comment is nonchalant, but for the second time since he arrived home, you are at a loss for words, and you can only stare at him as you sink your ass down, gratefully, on to the now emptied couch. He’d gone to that effort for you? And now he’s apologising right to your face for the mess of it?

“That was kind of you, Richard,” you state, finding words again, and he shuffles nervously from shoe to shoe in response. You note that his brown skin grows increasingly flushed, with a deepening undertone of crimson as his eyes skim cautiously over you. “And thank you for letting me hang here. Promise I’ll be out of your hair soon. The locksmith should only be...” You suck in air through your teeth as you un-pocket your cell and glance at the time. “Yikes. Another hour. I’m so sorry to get in the way.”

His moustache twitches with a shy smile, his hand rubbing the back of his neck as he looks at you from beneath his lashes, his eyes all big and pretty. He certainly doesn’t look put-out, at least. “Not at all - it’s… really nice to have you here,” Richard insists, polite and sincere as ever. You are the one to feel bashful now, and you tug his shirt more firmly around your shoulders for comfort, the act serving to further fluster you and entrance him, it seems. He seems frozen to the spot again, and meanwhile, you’re now feeling overly warmed.

He looks a little lost, for a moment, as though it’s been so long since he had a visitor that he doesn’t quite know what to do with you. In the next second though, his practiced hospitality kicks in, his warm and affable nature shining through as he determines a course of action. “Have you eaten? I could fix you some dinner.”

You are hungry, you think, your tongue darting out along your bottom lip at the thought of food. Well, if he’s going to feed you, you’re not letting him do all the work -you decide- so you tentatively rise from your seat, clapping your palms together, signifying action. “Only if I can help you?”

“O- okay. Yeah. Thank you,” he nods; then, he comes to stand with his hands on his hips, thumbs to the front, causing his soft, rounded belly to protrude exaggeratedly from under his shirt. You’re not sure why that sends a very subtle flare of heat down between your legs, but it does all the same.

Meanwhile, oblivious to your thirsty inner monologue, Richard looks at you reservedly, until you smile and cross together to the humble kitchen, where, with another bashful flutter of his lashes he begins grabbing out utensils and ingredients. All the while, he moves seamlessly around you, so careful never to touch or to invade your personal space. The pronounced and careful lack of contact makes you realise, however -as he skims his body so close yet so far from yours in the compact space- that maybe you desperately want him to touch you. That you wouldn’t mind if his hand brushed your back, or lower. That maybe having him envelop his arms around you would feel as warm and comforting as his shirt – or even more so. That even, perhaps, if he pressed you from behind into the counter, his soft stomach leading, followed by his wide hips pinning you in place, his moustache grazing up the column of your neck, that you wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, the thought of his touch, and even the mere potential of it, fills you with an excited buzz deep in your belly. A thrill that you haven’t felt for a long time – at least, not quite like this.

Right now, though, you set these thoughts aside to focus on the task at hand. You move around each other a little awkwardly, but thankfully, the conversation flows far more easily than your bodies. Richard’s shy and gentle, but he’s friendly. Inquisitive and interesting, and he keeps you chatting. And, so, you converse and cook together, until the resulting, homely odours waft into your nose, keeping your mind firmly on your much more literal hunger; at least, for the most part.

When the steaming food is plated up, Richard invites you to take a seat on the couch and you oblige, watching him fondly and with interest as he produces various condiments, a bottle of Mr. Chimi’s Churri sauce taking pride of place on the surface in front of you. You add a healthy dollop.

“Mmm, this is so good, thank you,” you say approvingly when he invites you to dig in, eagerly wolfing down forkfuls.

As soon as Richard has plonked himself down in his chair and balanced his own plate on his lap, he flicks on the TV – likely, more out of habit than anything. A vibrant telenovela sparks to life in the background, a particularly melodramatic scene in full swing. You smile to yourself. You recognise the show - you’ve heard him talk about it too. Even get the impression he watches religiously.

Richard’s eyes fix on the screen for a moment, and he is visibly suckered-in by the unfolding plot, his food disappearing at an impressive rate as he scoops it up to his mouth while he watches. Still, he doesn’t forget you’re there. Quite the contrary.

“It’s so sad,” he explains for your benefit, between his mouthfuls of dinner, his eyes overflowing with warmth as he turns to you. “Carlos and Adela are so in love, but they can’t be together. She’s engaged to Luis. She has to stay with him to save the family home because she already signed some papers.”

You smile, Richard’s heartfelt summary filling you with warmth. He cares about people. It’s what he does. Apparently, he’s even invested in the fictional ones. You try hard to supress your good-natured amusement at quite how invested he is; however, when his gaze meets yours once again, flicking back and forth between you and the screen, he must catch a hint of it in your expression. “Sorry,” he flusters. “I can turn this off, if you like?” he offers gently, eyes apologetic.

“Are you kidding?” you respond, with a warm smile. You’re no stranger to becoming over-invested in fiction, you suppose, and besides - you like the prospect of sharing this with him. “Catch me up some more,” you encourage. “So, we’re rooting for Carlos?”

Richard smiles gratefully, nodding vigorously in response. You like seeing him like this. In his own element, his own environment, doing things he typically enjoys. It’s nice to see him living his best life, thriving on the drama of the trope-laden plot. “I hope Carlos crashes the wedding. Luis doesn’t deserve her.”

“Yikes. You’re brutal, Alonso Muñoz,” you tease, a musical laugh lilting out of you.

You chat back and forth, an amused smile twitching at the corner of your mouth for the duration, and although Richard seems somewhat entranced by the developing storyline, he seems even more invested in you. He makes sure to listen to you, even when you’re sure you must be talking over an important detail. He ensures he fills you in on any prior plot point you may need for context.

And, while his eyes do intermittently flick back toward the screen, your eyes, however, remain firmly fixed on him. On the singular swoop of his meticulously parted, grizzled curls. On his long lashes blinking, his deep eyes shining beneath them, glinting in tandem with the light from the screen. His warm, brown skin and the lines etched in it when he smiles cast with a bluish hue, flickering light and shadow ghosting over the contours of his strong nose and chin and his heavy brow. The soft, inviting rolls of his stomach as he relaxes into his chair, and the way his belly shakes when he laughs. Of course, his glorious moustache, positively flourishing on his upper lip. Last but not least, what most gets you though, are his eyes. Eyes as kind and expressive and open as this sweet man’s heart is.

You laugh alongside him, hoping he is enjoying the company as much as you are. You could get used to this, you think; used to him. Indeed, you have no idea how you have managed to overlook this man, beautiful inside and out, until now. You resolve though, that you won’t make that same mistake again.

Eventually, the credits roll, and you thank Richard once more for the food. He carries your plate over to the sink, insisting -when you offer- that the dishes can languish there for one night. And so, instead of rising, you pat the couch cushion beside you invitingly. His throat bobs around a hard swallow as he stands before you, his feet momentarily glued to the floor; yet again. When Richard finally musters movement and takes a seat next to you, he places himself as far away from you as he possibly can on the small two-seater; out of respect rather than repulsion, you are more than sure. However, the compact space affords him little chance to keep his distance, and his clothed thigh presses warm against your own. He doesn’t make any attempt to move away though, and, equally, nor do you.

“Thank you, Richard,” you say, your voice softer and far more breathy than you intended, now that he is so close to you.

He clears his throat self-consciously, before his eyes crease with a sincere smile. “It’s no trouble. Anytime.” He sounds like he means it too.

You lean back, settling yourself deeper into the worn and slightly lumpy couch cushions. His posture, meanwhile, is still alarmingly stiff beside you, his torso upright and his hands folded formally in his lap. If you had to hazard a guess, you’d say that, perhaps, you made him nervous.

“Richard, I don’t bite,” you soothe. “Sit back. Relax. It’s your home.”

He nods in concession, exhaling his tensely held breath. “Yes, Ma’am,” he sounds obediently. You don’t think you’ve ever had anyone call you Ma’am before; but you note that you don’t entirely mind it, out of Richard’s mouth. You maybe even… like it?

Anyway, outside of your increasingly feral internal monologue, Richard reaches over to flick on the soft, ambient lamp to his side -the room having grown thick with shadows- and then he is sinking back, resting his head against the couch cushions alongside you.

You turn your head and tilt your torso a little towards him. When Richard does the same, it evokes a sense of intimacy that you weren’t all the way prepared for; the rest of the room seems to disappear as you are both held in a close circle of oranged light, the TV nothing but a lulling, background hum now. “I mean it... I... I wanted to thank you properly. For the stamps.”

“It’s no trouble,” he repeats, his voice deep and resonant and close now, catching you off-guard. No trouble? Sure. Despite the fact he’d clearly emptied-out everything in his living room to find them. “Did you send your letters?” he enquires softly, his eyebrows jumping up a little.

You can’t supress the bittersweet smile which inches over your face as you respond. “I did, and I got the cutest video call from my nieces when their mail arrived.” That wouldn’t have happened. Not without him being so thoughtful. You’d have put it off and put it off. The letters would still be sat on your dresser.  

Richard’s eyes light, and he looks genuinely pleased for you, his face glowing. “I’m glad.” He smiles, revealing a flash of his cute, ever so slightly imperfect (and therefore entirely perfect) teeth. Finally beginning to relax again, his hands rest flat astride his sturdy thighs and his head lolls towards you. With his next words, his voice becomes even softer. “I can tell you miss them since they moved away. Portland, right? I, uh. I really hoped you would send those letters. I know how much they can mean to people.”

“Portland. Yeah. Wow, you remember that?” You have to admit that you are a little shocked. Richard listened to you. Really listened to you. And, not only that, but he clearly read between the lines, connecting the dots between each one of your ad hoc interactions in a way which you -apparently- had failed to do thus far.

Jaz would scoff at you right now, you know it, if she could see you becoming all shy and flustered for him.

And now you want to fuck him?

But it wasn’t only that he brought you the stamps, okay? It was why he did it. He did it, because he knew what it might mean for you. Because, evidently, not only did he notice that you were sad -about something you barely let yourself acknowledge, by the way- but he also cared enough to try to make you happy instead.

The realisation that he cares is an emotional thing, causing a slight lump to rise in your throat. It should probably make you happy, but in fact, it saddens you. It saddens you because -you realise now- you have taken for granted all this time how easy Richard is to talk to. Have taken for granted the way he has been privy to so many candid details about your life.

Richard has often been the first person you’ve spoken to when you arrived home -sometimes the only person- and you have never hesitated to share your good news and triumphs with him. Nor have you hesitated to vent, sharing the more difficult details of your bad days. You’ve taken for granted just how much of yourself you’ve cumulatively shared with him; in a way you don’t often share with anyone else. Richard has been an important part of your life all these years, without you truly realising it. Perhaps because your interactions with him have tended to exist in such a liminal, peculiar space in your day. Perhaps because you were too close to see the big picture, instead of this collection of valuable, little things.

You hug your arms around yourself. You can merely repeat it again. “Thank you. For real.”

“It’s just a little thing,” he dismisses, modestly, and you are very suddenly tired of him dismissing himself. You want him to know how appreciated he is. Embodying this, your hand darts out to grip his where it rests on his thigh, and Richard looks down at this small spectacle in mild shock; and yet, he doesn’t pull away from your touch.

“It’s not. It’s a lot of things, Richard. I want you to know I appreciate everything you do. It has... It has been a long time since anyone was so sweet to me.”

Feeling self-conscious suddenly, following your outburst of affection, you inch your hand away from his; retreating, and reining yourself back in. For a moment, Richard’s fingers twitch up from his pant leg as though they might chase yours; but then, his hand stills, settled on his thigh just as before.

Then, a crease appears at his brow. “None of your Adonises are sweet to you?”

Your nose crinkles in confusion. “My... Adonises?”

“The... your... gentlemen visitors.”

Your brow creases, as you try to detect whether there is any judgement or malice in his observation, but, knowing him, you are not inclined to think there is. Still, you feel there is more to uncover. He’s noticed your dates coming and going then? He thinks they’re… Adonises? He’s surprised they aren’t sweet to you?

Still, as soon as the words are out of his mouth, perhaps realising how they might be misinterpreted, that crimson undertone to his skin flares again, this time reaching all the way to the tips of his ears. He looks like he wants the couch to swallow him up, and you can’t help but feel for him. “I just meant...”

“-It’s okay,” you say, swooping in to rescue him before he can start helplessly blabbering. He keenly takes the invitation to stop, his mouth suddenly clamping shut, ready to listen. And you? You are ready to talk. The words seem to come so easily around him. “I guess... you’re right. I’ve been on some dates but they...” you sigh, furrowing your brow as you try to find the words. “That’s all fine. Most of the time it’s really fun. Or it was. But... lately...”

“Lately?” Richard encourages, when you don’t go on, his voice barely above a whisper as he hangs on your every word.

“Lately, I think… That maybe it would be nice to have somebody who doesn’t just come and go. To have… somebody to love, I guess?”

“Somebody to love,” Richard ponders, his expression becoming wistful. His head begins moving up and down ever so slowly, gradually building to a more adamant nod. He smiles, but his eyes don’t crease at the corners this time. “That really does sound nice.”

It shocks you, but seeing him even a little sad, like that, has your hands fisting in the material of your skirt, as you resist the urge to reach out for him and offer comfort. You want to cup his face in your hand and kiss him senseless, until his eyes glow once more, imbued with his characteristic positivity. You want to care for him and protect him and make him laugh and spend time with him and…

Fuck.

You want to love him, you realise, and the thought scares you down to your bones. It scares you enough that you sit forwards, breaking this most peculiar tension. Changing the topic. And, abrupt as it may be, at least it works.

“What are you reading?” you ask, shrugging his shirt from your shoulders as a hot, cloying flush creeps along your skin and up your neck, prickly enough that it feels like fingertips. As you imagine Richard’s fingers dancing the same path over your bare shoulder blade, slipping beneath the spaghetti strap of your top, peeling it down, you hurriedly pick up the first book you can put your hands on, turning it in your palms without taking in a word written on it.

Poor Richard. You must be giving the sweet man whiplash.

Still, he leans forward in his seat too, sombrely taking the book from your hands and gazing down at the cover.

“Ah. It’s a bleak topic,” he warns. A deep crease appears in his brow. “It’s Night, by Elie Wiesel – a survivor’s account of his experiences during the Holocaust.”

Your expression turns grave and pinched and you nod, listening carefully as Richard recounts some of the key details. Then, together, you continue to pore through the pile, tackling each book in turn. You listen intently to Richard recount the various synopses, passionate and precise and sensitive in his summaries. It seems he reads a lot of non-fiction. Heavy reading, with many titles about the prison system, and atrocities - often both. But, you understand why it’s important to him. You are grateful to understand how his empathetic nature begets yet more empathy, as he seeks to expand his knowledge of experiences and histories different to his own. 

At first sight, you think it’s seemingly at odds that such a positive man seeks out such dark accounts, but it makes sense to you, in a strange way. After all, he wants to understand how things can be better. He believes they can be. You don’t know anything more Richard-y than that.

Reaching for the next title, you find it is a little different to the rest. You are reluctant to segue too abruptly from such heavy topics, keen to give them the merit they deserve, but at the same time you are grateful for a little lightness as you pick-up what appears to be a slightly trashy romance novel. You smile fondly, connecting the dots between this and the telenovela plotlines that seem to grab his attention; the way he seems so in love with love. Again, you consider how the two sides of him -the more serious and seemingly more trivial - may seem at odds, but that actually, they each reveal what is at the core of him. He is interested in people. He’s invested.

“And this book?” you ask tentatively, not even trying to stifle your smile as your eyes wander over the cover, two half-dressed people locked in an erotic, sordid embrace. You are especially keen to hear what he has to say about this one too.

“Well… Like you said. Somebody to love - right? Don’t we all need those kinds of stories?”

Your eyes glow with admiration. Whilst he’s not cocky or overly assured, no, you are coming to admire Richard’s quiet confidence in who he is and what he cares about. His integrity and his lack of embarrassment in the things he chooses to value. His delight and lack of shame in the things that he enjoys. He’s not afraid to be who he is. You think that’s wonderful.

Next, your eyes flick back to the final book on the pile, partly for completeness but also out of curiosity. You feel with each title you pick-up, you are learning something about him; and, frankly, you want to know everything there is to find out. You look at it with a start however, when you realise what the final book in the pile is.

It’s your book. It’s the anthology of poetry you’d self-published around a year ago, and sold at your local readings. You reach for it instantly, almost cradling it in your hands like a precious object. Not because it’s yours - not exactly- but because it’s his. His copy looks eminently different to the spares you still have boxed-up in your house, all fresh and crisp, spines unbroken. This one looks a little worn around the edges - well-thumbed, spine broken-in. Some of the pages are dog-eared, and various makeshift bookmarks are sticking out of it. You’ve never seen one of your publications looking so… beautiful. So treasured.

“You actually read this?” you ask, a little overwhelmed, your heart hammering, and tears spiking in your eyes.

“I read it often. I told you, I really like it!”

You stroke the cover with your palm. “Honestly? I thought you were just being polite.”

When you’d mentioned to him for the first time that you wrote poetry -specifically erotic poetry- and had invited him to the reading, Richard had looked, at first, as though he was ready to die of embarrassment. Regardless, he’d still come along - your only neighbour to have done so. You vaguely remember having spoken to him the day afterward about it, but when you think of the show itself, you can’t picture him there. Now, you desperately wrack your memory of the event, searching for him. Wishing you could recall him showing-up for you in such an important way. 

It had been such a blur, though. You’d had a lot of friends there. You’d had a date there, who, at the time, you’d thought was the be all and end all. Now, however, you curse yourself for overlooking Richard. You wish you could go back and root through the crowd for him. You wish you could bring him into the spotlight. Bring him into your arms. And yet, while you ponder all of this, Richard reaches for the book and gently lifts it from your hands, with a gentle hum. It practically falls open on one particular page.

“This one is my favourite,” he admits bashfully. “Salted Peach. I must have it almost memorised by now.” You turn to him, studying his face. His expressive eyes are full of a heat gentler and more nuanced than your words could ever hope to be, you think, as he pores over the page. Over your words.

“No way. Prove it, Alonso Muñoz,” you challenge, exhaling a laugh that is surprised and disbelieving and utterly delighted all at once.

You don’t expect him to take you up on it, but the man sets his face, both more determined and more playful than you think you have seen him so far, as he hands the book back to you. “Okay,” he smiles, softly. “I’ll give it a go.”

You hold your breath as his eyes flutter closed -so that you know he has zero chance of cheating- his long lashes fanning-out beautifully over his cheek. You take the chance to look over his handsome features, while he can’t interrupt your surreptitious study.

Then, he begins. His voice is hushed and unsure, yet the richness of it washes over you, right from the first line.

“Like salt kept on the lips,

To resist is to rust,” he begins, and your breath catches in your chest.

“Let me be an oiled thing under you, all fluid and opening smoothly

With keen, slick hinges.”

First, you are struck that he really does know it. That he really does remember it, almost word perfect. You exhale a breath in disbelief, your chest filling with butterflies.

“A ruined peach

Spilling nectar over your thumb,” he continues, and desire knots deep in your belly.

It’s not that the words are explicit – they aren’t. But something about the way he recites them -recounts your desire- makes them feel positively sinful, his voice quietly confident and subtly erotic as he recites your words. You don’t only hear the words, but you feel them, almost as if his thumb really has punctured you.

You are becoming slick already, feeling like a ruined, grateful fruit. You want to be his fruit, you think. His salted peach.

“You can be my stiffness

My joints

My... (my stone heart? Is that right?)” he interjects.

“It’s perfect,” you encourage, your voice trembling slightly, even as his grows ever more robust, and, as you bolster him, he sits a little taller in his seat, his posture proud and the new confidence reflected in his voice as he proceeds. As he grows, stiffer, taller, you become liquid, and you writhe your heat subtly against your seat. You press your thighs closer together.

Enraptured, you watch his lips and tongue move seamlessly around the words. The micro-expressions on his face, revealing how tenderly he wishes to portray them, every word imbued with care. With expression, and feeling.  

“(Got it...) My stone heart

And I, boneless;

Bodiless flesh.”

As he continues, you close your eyes too. You stop checking the words against the book and you let yourself feel them. You let them wash over you. You let his voice wash over you; to sink and curl into the pit of you. You squirm in place, and yet this shifting makes you all too aware of your stillness – this fixed position and distance from him, when surely you should be moving and surging and undulating on him? Surely you should be leaning in and hearing the deep yet gentle timbre of his words waft into the shell of your ear, or fanning over your skin?

Surely, he should be touching you?

Your heart is racing.

“Salt me, then.

Lick your lips and taste me; sweetly.”

You want to taste him. Be tasted.

“Only on your tongue, do I exist.

Only in your hand, do I perish.”

You want to exist and perish on his hand.  

“Do not keep me on your lips.

Oil me with your writhing”

You want to be swallowed by him. Oiled by him. Made slick.

“Or else I rust.”

You are rapt. His words -no, your words, spoken by him- melting you.

His voice. So rich, and so sensual, and you could swear, as you listen to him, that your words have never sounded so erotic. That you have never felt them as deeply as you do now, hearing them fall from his tongue and his lips. Hearing them flow from his heart, as he recites them in a way you’ve never heard them; an interpretation entirely unique to him.

In fact, listening to him, like this, lights a flame in the pit of you, a heat suffusing through you, warming everywhere. He warms you, even from this distance, and you can feel how much heat he has to give. And, on boy. You want to lap it up. Every. Last. Drop.

“I... I forgot the next part,” he adds, shyly, his confidence wavering, and you open your eyes, beginning to recite the rest for him.

“Oh, love,

I long to be a fluid thing;

Under you.”

It sounds… true. It feels right. It feels so right to say those words to him. So right that it knocks the air from out of you.

At the sound of your voice, you watch a soft, unfiltered smile appear on Richard’s face, his still-closed eyes creasing deliciously at the corners, his moustache animating with it.

“And yet you resist me; rust me,” you continue, voice full of fissures, and Richard’s eyes slowly peel open, pooling with heat. This time, unlike the other times his eyes have met yours, he holds your gaze - doesn’t drop his eyes from yours in a flurry of bashfulness and fluttered lashes. He holds your gaze and he holds you, in this moment. In this little circle of intimacy, his eyes glowing, all for you. Pooling with that heat, so nuanced and gentle, but every bit as hot as anything you’ve ever touched.

Your voice and your smile and your heart crack wide open as you continue.

“You are salt kept on my lips;”

You complete the last lines at the same time, eyes locked. 

“Always tempting.

I seize up.”

Of all the swimming emotions rising at that moment, gratitude balls in your heart most intensely, and yet again, it is all you can do to thrust it towards him, your humble offering.

“Thank you,” you say, for the nth time that evening, a smile of the purest joy still splitting your face. “That was really beautiful.”  

It’s hard to comprehend how moved you are by what just happened. You are shocked. Flattered. That someone appreciates your words, that they resonate at all, makes you feel so seen. That the person is Richard is more of a treasure than you can fathom, and it causes a flood of raw, reckless emotion, joyful tears brimming in your eyes.

In return, Richard’s eyes shine as he regards you, with an admiration so deep and yet prominent that you almost shrink back from it. “They’re your words,” he impresses, aiming, as ever, to shrink himself instead.

You shake your head. You won’t have that. “No, Richard - it’s the way you recited them. I swear you should do my next reading for me. You’re so…” You search desperately for the right words, and you can’t find ones any more fitting. “…So fucking beautiful.”

And you call yourself a poet?

Your eyes well up.

You feel entirely caught off guard and just a little silly that you are getting yourself upset in front of him, and yet Richard’s eyes narrow kindly as you try to scrub a stray tear away from your cheek. “Are you alright?” he asks, his voice soothing, and in the next breath he reaches out to touch you, his hand settling over the top of yours. The gesture is a little awkward, unsure, but only until his hand is in place. After that it simply feels... right. Perfect, in fact.

He strokes you, his thumb ghosting slowly, minutely over your pulse point, sending a delicious shiver along your spine. His eyes search yours, and you become thoroughly lost in the intensity of them. Lost in a way that you don’t ever wish to find yourself again. Lost in a way that turns everything on its head - has you finally feeling found.

“I loved hearing you read. It was so wonderful. You should definitely do another event,” Richard gushes. “I’m sure I could listen to you read from this all night.” With that, and the scenario it conjures, perhaps, he looks down at his hand on yours. Maybe growing self-conscious, or worried that he is overstepping; that he has lingered there too long. Suddenly, though, you don’t think any length of time could be too long for him to be touching you.

When your gaze drops to his lips, however, his moustache bristles, and he quickly snatches his hand back to his lap. “Have you written anything lately?” he asks hurriedly, scooping up the book again, his topic change giving off the same energy as yours did previously.

You wonder if he is imagining your fingers trailing over his bare flesh now too. You hope so. Oh how you hope.

At his question, though, you exhale a small laugh, pumping your eyebrows once as your face splits in a smile. You shake your head gently. “I haven’t been... it’s a while since I was, let’s say, properly inspired by an encounter,” you explain, looking down at your hands in your lap, missing his contact already. “I’m just... Hmmph. I don’t know. It’s just... missing something. Guess they don’t make Adonises like they used to,” you add flippantly, poking light fun, partly at yourself.

Contrary to your flippancy, Richard becomes more serious. A gulp trails down his throat, and he seems suddenly frozen in place; seized up. As if he needs you to oil him so that he doesn’t rust. “W-What are you missing?” he asks, his voice lower than you’ve heard it, slightly more grit to it. His chest visibly rising, breaths slightly quickened; just like yours.

You look into his deep, cola-coloured eyes.

You?

What are you missing? You’re not sure, but somehow you feel that whatever it is, Richard could give it to you in moments.

Still, you don’t answer. You can’t. Instead, you ask him a question in return. You ask him a question feeling that, somehow, in a roundabout way, both of your questions may arrive at precisely the same answer.

“Why that poem?” you question, softly, lifting your eyes to him. “Why is that one your favourite?”

“I... I think...” he swallows again, then he whets his plush lips with a flick of his pink tongue. “It’s about longing, isn’t it? About being... lonely? About... wanting... someone in particular.” He fixes his expressive eyes on a point on the table, unable to look at you, it seems, in that moment. Still, his words are telling enough alone, you think, even without you seeing that same sentiment mirrored in his eyes too.

Now, you have another question. “Do you ever... get lonely? Are you? Lonely?”

It’s not even an assumption about him, you vaguely realise. It’s a projection. A projection of how you feel, and how you never realised you felt. It’s a desperate plea for affinity. For that longing to be understood, finally.

You are the one who is rusted. Seized up.

However, as soon as the question is out of your mouth you wish you could retract it. Loneliness is a solitary thing, after all, and you have no business, you suppose, wading into anyone else’s.

“I’m so sorry, please don’t answer that,” you mutter quickly, your fingers darting out to ghost along his forearm in apology, your naturally tactile nature coming through.

He drops his gaze towards your fingers there, watching them skimming his warm skin and the soft, dark hairs on his arms. He doesn’t inch away. Instead, he lifts his eyes to you, and you know the answer before he says it aloud. You know the answer as his emotions are written clearly in his eyes. Worn on his sleeve, like his badge.

The weight of his loneliness crushes you as if it was your own.

“Me too,” you admit, nodding softly, and his mouth curls briefly into a small, sad smile as your fingers continue their slow inch across his skin.

He sits in that sadness for a moment, and then, tentatively, as a thought flashes across his eyes, he brightens, just a little – looking mildly more hopeful. “Well,” he suggests, bravely. “Maybe we can… keep each other company?”

That really does sound nice.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Richard reaches out to fumble away the single tear ever so suddenly coursing down your face, swiping a line on your cheek with the pad of his thumb, and you don’t think you’ve ever felt anything so tender as his touch in that moment. It is yet another little thing; like the graze of a match head along its box. A little act, charged, with all this dangerous potential for a much larger, blazing thing to ignite.

You nod, the corners of your mouth trembling. “I would like that.” You would like that a lot.

Richard searches your eyes, and, ever so slowly - always slowly- as if you don’t wish to scare him away, you dare to hook your arm into his at the elbow, and you lower your head until it is resting on top of his shoulder.

“Is – Is this okay, Richard?” you ask in a small voice, pleading inwardly with the universe that he will say yes. That it is.

“This is... perfect,” he responds, even as he remains stiff against you, and, given his affirmation, you curl and scooch your body, shuffling a little closer to him. Bolstered too, with seeming new-found confidence, Richard raises him arm over you, and he nestles you safely against him where you can better feel his warmth. Where, with your knees drawing up on to his lap and your ear coming to rest on his chest, you can feel and hear the quickened thud of his racing heart as he holds you. His beautiful, kind, open heart.

Your mouth extends in a watery smile as you are held by him. He’s right. It’s a little thing, but it is perfect, isn’t it?

Still, again, although you should feel light, you feel heavy. With emotion. With longing. And so, you reach for another topic change. You reach for lightness. “Has anyone ever told you that you have an incredibly impressive moustache?” you enquire into his shirt, another solitary tear slipping over the bridge of your nose and wetting the flourish of red stitching.

Giving yourself whiplash now, you smile, as Richard’s chest shakes beneath you with gentle, easy laughter.

“Well, not everybody is a fan.”

“Who would actually dare?” you exclaim, as if thoroughly scandalised. “Fuck them, Richard. I like it. I like it a lot.”

His fingers trace shapes on your back. “Thank you.”

You are pleased to feel him gradually relax against you, his form melding with yours, his body becoming less stiff. Less rusted; more of a fluid thing.

“Do you… do you have a little moustache comb?”

Another chuckle. “I do,” he confirms, and you don’t know why on earth that detail settles it, but you think that he must certainly be the most perfect man on earth.

You go silent for a moment, but Richard prompts you gently - “No more questions for me?”- as if he was enjoying your mood-lightening segue. You are more than happy to oblige the sweet man by continuing, and you chew on your lip as you come up with something.

“Are you on Tinder?” A cheeky smile claims your mouth again - you’d kill to see his profile.

You’d think about the fact he’d probably never send unsolicited dick pics, but… then you’d be thinking about dick pics, and that’s one dangerous road towards Feral Town.

While you ponder this, Richard laughs again, but it’s a little self-deprecating this time. “No... I... I was for a while, but I...”

“What?”

He inhales and sighs his whole breath out again - a sad sound. His tone when he speaks is equally morose. “I’m… not sure people are looking for someone like me.”

At that, you abruptly sit up, narrowing your eyes and fixing a determined, earnest stare on him. You reach up, gingerly, moved to cup his cheek with your palm, his groomed sideburn and the plume of his moustache pleasantly rough under your fingers. You make sure he is looking you in the eyes. “Richard,” you contest, with every scrap of sincerity you can muster; and then some. “I think everybody must be looking for somebody like you.” 

His eyes are pierced by a peculiar emotion you haven’t seen there yet. At first it looks like pain, but then it levels off until his eyes are shining, with something resembling pride or gratitude. When a smile finally twitches his moustache, your gaze drops to his lips again, and you are no longer surprised by how easy it is to think about kissing him, desire unfurling in your belly at an alarming rate. A palpable, mutual longing eddies in the space between you.

You surprise yourself though, by dipping to press a sweet, chaste kiss into his cheek, rather than sinking towards his lips as you so wish to do. When you perform this gesture, his eyes flutter closed, and he lets out a soft, involuntary hum, the sound gathering in your very bones and setting up camp there. As you dip back from him, the edge of his moustache grazes your cheek, and you have to admit it’s sort of electrifying. You imagine how it would tickle if you were kissed by him. How it would tickle wherever you were kissed.

The lines of poetry, so to speak, are writing themselves in your mind, already. You haven’t felt this inspired in a long time, and yet, on this occasion, you want to wait. You don’t want to rush it - even though you’ve never felt the need to quell your desires on many occasions before. Life is short, after all – too short to waste. However, something tells you that Richard is the type of man you should savour. Something tells you, that you may have found somebody to love, and, you may not love often; but when you do, you love slow.

So, you pull away from Richard, and you note that his eyes have fluttered closed. When he opens them again, you know that this kiss on the cheek was the right thing to do. You see subtle tears shining in his eyes. Again, he looks pained -with first appearances- but these tears, on second examination you think, are joyful. His heart joyful yet heavy, exactly like yours. After all, when you are overwhelmed with joy all at once, with a flood of little, happy things, it can weigh you down, at first, if the measure of joy is not one which you are quite accustomed to. If you are not practised at carrying it.

At that point, contemplating joy, you are ripped cruelly from the moment, as, with the worst and best possible timing, your phone buzzes to life, vibrating against your hip until you reach to fish out the insistent device.

“The locksmith is here, Richard. I have to go.”

“Y- yeah. Okay,” he nods, despite the fact everything about him is conveying the opposite sentiment.

I don’t want to go.

“Thank you so much.” 

He nods again, and, wanting to leave him with a parting thought (or, not wanting to leave him at all, but needs must), you have the bright idea to pick up your book from the table, thumbing through it quickly to find the page you want. A poem called The Flood.

“Recommended bedtime reading,” you wink, thrusting the book towards his chest and standing, grabbing your purse and making your way towards the door. “I can give you back your shirt tomorrow, right?” you say cheekily. “Maybe after dinner?” 

Richard stands too, following you towards the door like he’s magnetised to you, Lady trotting along too, inquisitively, her little black nose snuffling at the air.

“A-after dinner?” he enquires, confused, as you sweep out in a little bit of a whirlwind.

“Yeah, Richard,” you smile coyly from beneath your lashes, injecting some flirtation into your tone. “I owe you dinner. To make it up to you.”

“You don’t need to make it up to...”

You arch an eyebrow at him, looking at him pointedly and smoothing your hand over his upper arm until he gets the gist. When your meaning dawns on him, he gets that adorable, excited little spring in his step. You revel in his bright toothy smile, striking and pearly from beneath the thick brush of his moustache. “I know a nice little pasta place. And there’s a great documentary playing at the Coolidge if you want to catch it?”

“Sure,” you agree, dipping forward to plant another lingering kiss on his cheek in the doorway, relishing the feel of that moustache all over again. “It’s a date.” 

Evidently flustered, and in no bad way, Richard fumbles for words and finds none, omitting a mere collection of stunted syllables and unfinished sounds in response.

You wink at him, and before swooping off, you add one final thing. “Feel free to consider the bedtime reading a preview, okay? If you’d like.”

The corner of his mouth ticks up in disbelief. You get the feeling he already knows exactly what that particular poem is about. “Yes, ma’am.” he nods, looking sweetly and longingly and adoringly after you as you sashay away.

“Goodnight, neighbour to the right.”

“Goodnight, neighbour to the left.”

You allow yourself one last long look at him before you retreat, an unstoppable smile splitting your face, and, seeing him stood in the doorway, smiling after you, only cements everything you have come to learn this evening.

From now on, neither of you will be lonely anymore. There will be no more longing. Instead, there will be a flood, you think.

THE END

PART TWO IS HERE

[delimeful]

to taste your beating heart (4)

warnings: nightmares, flashbacks, mind control/thrall mention, mental breakdown, blood mention, impalement/staking, upsetting thoughts, panic, ptsd responses

-

A plastic-sounding click, like someone pressing a button.

Anx took a breath, staring intently at the person bustling around across from him.

Patton was making tea like someone vying for a professional butler position: setting saucers and cups in front of each of them, managing the teapot with a steady hand, motions smooth and automatic.

“Sorry, I’m just so used to setting up refreshments for guests,” he chuckled nervously. “My sister always insists on tea when she comes by, so—“

Logan shifted next to him, impatient and more than a little irritated after every one of his inquiries had been deflected or outright ignored. Patton had invited them in, though, and he was currently their best lead on one of the most vicious cases they’d ever dealt with.

Even if he seemed utterly incapable of answering any of their actual questions.

That wasn't saying he wasn't willing to talk at all. Roman was chattering with him, their most sociable member easily drawn into discussion and more than willing to natter on in the hopes that Patton would let some vital information slip.

Anx wasn’t the only one who noted the way their host set an extra saucer and cup out, but when he met Logan’s gaze, the hunter only rolled his eyes, more than content to dismiss it as another element of the stranger’s apparent airheaded personality.

Patton was still speaking, discussing the many alleged merits of ignoring allergies for the sake of fulfilling experiences. Roman, who was lactose intolerant, was nodding along wholeheartedly. Logan, who was the one to deal with Roman’s post-dairy consumption whining, looked a lot less agreeable.

His own attention remained pinned on Patton’s movements rather than his words. There was a pattern there, a careful turn of the cup so the handle was facing the right side, lift the teapot from the warmer, and pour. One by one, he went around the table.

Anx was the only one watching when the man finally fumbled. After pouring each of their cups with surprising grace, he reached that final, fifth teacup. He twisted the handle so it was right-aligned, lifted the teapot, poured— and then reached for what looked like a cream pitcher.

A beat late, Patton’s hands suddenly swerved to the side, and he pulled them back as though he’d been burned. His voice didn’t even falter.

Anx reached across the table lightning-quick and seized the pitcher, knocking a few of the porcelain jars over and effectively cutting through the conversion as he did. Roman was asking something, but Patton only stared at him, something both fearful and grateful in his gaze.

Anx pulled the lid off, and the thick smell of blood hit him, like iron and rust.

“Your sister, you said?” Logan asked, and Patton bit his lip hard enough to bleed.

Click.

He was in a different room of the same tiny apartment, though it took him a moment to recognize the interior.

Put bluntly, it looked as though a miniature hurricane had torn through it.

The wallpaper was shredded and splattered. The cute decorative furniture had been thrown askew at best, smashed to bits at worst. Everything was in disarray, the valuable and mundane targeted indiscriminately. An entire life torn to pieces.

In the eye of the storm, Patton stood, hands fisted in his hair and eyes bloodshot.

They’d known the backlash of the bond breaking would be hard on Patton, but they hadn’t been prepared for this. It was entirely possible that they had never run into a thrall this strong, one maintained for so long, in their entire hunting career.

Most aggressive thralls would attack relentlessly to defend their master from harm. Seeing as they’d been the ones to kill his “sister”, if Patton was going to vent his ire on anyone, it would be them. Roman stepped forwards carefully regardless, knowing that they owed it to him to at least try to help him recover. “Patton?”

“I should have helped her,” he replied tonelessly, voice half-ruined from screaming. He picked up a broken chunk of a table leg, and they all went tense, but all he did was slam it against the wall.

“I should have saved her!” he cried, punctuating every word with a swing. “Where is she, where is she, what did I do to her?”

“A better question would be: what did she do to you?” Logan asked, ignoring the sharp look Anx sent his way. They’d all been unsettled at the way the vamp had talked about Patton, like someone possessive over a favored plaything, but that didn’t mean they should be bringing it up now.

They’d finally gotten Patton’s full attention, as he turned to them with angry tears in his eyes. “She did everything for me! And I— I gave her away, I betrayed her…”

“She was hurting people,” Anx cut in, voice firm but not unkind. For all that he’d been through, Patton didn’t deserve unkind.

“I could have fixed it, I thought I was— I was getting through to her,” he pleaded, his voice unsteady and unconvincing even to himself. He dropped the wood, pressing bleeding knuckles against his face to stem the tears.

“It’s not your fault, Patton, okay?” Roman tried, stepping closer until he could reach out and set his hand on a trembling shoulder. Patton only seemed to bow further with the weight of his grief.

“Giving her up was supposed to kill me,” he said softly, the frenzy gone from him. “How am I supposed to live without her?”

“The same way everyone else does,” Roman pulled him in for a hug, his own eyes wetter than they’d been before. “One day at a time.”

Click.

The living room of the house— their house.

Perhaps more importantly, the smell of something burning.

Anx had always been twitchy about things like this-- a thousand potential disasters in mind for every little inconvenience-- so he bolted off the arm of the couch the moment the scent registered.

When he got to the kitchen, he heard the rattle of an active microwave, saw Patton standing and staring blankly at the display as the inside of the microwave clouded up with smoke.

Cringing at the thought of the smoke alarm going off, he turned on the overhead fan and pulled the window up before finally yanking the microwave door open.

A plastic takeout container was halfway to a melted puddle, mixing with whatever leftovers had formerly resided there. He slid on a pair of duck-themed oven mitts and grabbed the most solid-looking parts, quickly lifting and carrying the mess to the balcony where it could cool down without making their house smell like burnt plastic.

When he returned, Patton was still in that same spot, frowning slightly as though just realizing that something might be a little off. Like someone had pressed pause while the world fast-forwarded around him, Patton had described it once.

Anx flitted about for a moment, putting the mitts back and cleaning the leftover residue, and then finally faced his friend with a wry half-smile. Patton’s eyes snapped to him, as though just realizing he was there.

“Hey, Pat.” He reached out and set his hand against Patton’s back, watching as the touch helped ground him slightly. “Can you go sit at the table? I’ll bring us both something to eat.”

Without a word, Patton turned and walked to their little dining table.

Cooking was admittedly harder when he ducked away to check on the other room every few moments, but he managed alright, only singeing the eggs slightly where Roman would have incinerated them.

He set the table for them both, and sat across from Patton, who was motionless and quiet in his chair.

“Can we eat together?” Anx asked, offering Patton a fork so there was a physical prompt as well as a verbal one.

It took a moment, but Patton gripped the fork easily and started to work through the motions of eating, mirroring Anx. Whenever he faltered or seemed to forget what he was in the middle of, Anx would nudge his attention back on track.

Once they were finished, he gathered up his dishes and asked Patton to grab his, carrying them back to the kitchen together.

Patton paused for a moment at the sink, mouth twitching into a frown as he stared at his glass and the lingering layer of orange juice at the bottom.

“Does anyone want tea?” he asked suddenly, a well-practiced line in a cheery tone. “I’m very good at tea service, you know.”

Anx swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m good, Pat,” he declined instead of pointing out that they didn’t have any tea in the house.

Patton seemed to get a little hazier, his face going sad and then quickly lax again. Anx took the glass from him and offered him a hand to hold instead, squeezing his palm comfortingly when he accepted.

“I need help out in the garden today. Do you think you could lend a hand or two?”

He dipped his head in a nod, and as they made their way to the back door, Anx shot a text off to the group chat.

> nightmare on edge street: out in the garden with pat. bad day protocol, stat

When they came back in hours later, dirt under their nail beds and probably a little sunburned, Roman and Logan had already combined their talents to set up an elaborately decorated but still structurally sound blanket fort spanning the entirety of the living room.

Patton’s face twitched into a tremulous little smile as the others waved them over, and Anx felt him squeeze their joined hands gratefully.

Click.

The sequence rewound, restarted. Ran him through it over and over, the same scenes-- the same memories. Patton pouring tea with a determined, terrified glint to his eye. Patton’s mind struggling under the stress of the snapped bond. Patton working through a difficult day with the help of friends.

The scenery grew brighter and brighter with every repetition, like saturation turned all the way up on a screen, until they were as painful as sunlight on his bare skin. He tried to close his eyes, to move away, to change something, anything, but his body wasn’t his own.

Look at him, it seemed to demand, keeping him frozen in a sensory hell. Pay attention. Look what you did. Understand how you hurt him.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Clunk.

Silence. The memories vanished, leaving him floating in an impossible, endless black space. Between one blink and the next, he was eye-to-eye with a mirror image, something about it just slightly off.

He didn’t notice the stake in its hand until it was too late.

---

Anx jerked upright, hands jumping to his chest as the phantom sensation of wood between his ribs faded. His breath stuttered painfully, as though he expected to feel ichor welling up in his mouth any minute.

Staking a vampire was an archaic hunter method. It was difficult to manage, it was messy, and it was the slowest and most painful way possible to kill a vampire. He knew this, though he wasn’t sure which life was providing the facts.

Regardless of memories, he couldn’t know how it felt to actually be staked. He’d been injured before, with a coven as temperamental as his, but nothing like that. Nothing even close to that. It was just a bad dream, an imagined pain.

There was a subtle shifting nearby, and his head snapped up, eyes bright and teeth bared. If those assholes thought he was in the mood to have his space invaded--

“Easy, Count Chocula.” Across the room, the sword-wielder-- Roman, that was his name-- settled back into the armchair by the door, watching him with narrowed eyes. “I was simply noticing your… abrupt awakening?”

Right. Because he wasn’t settled into one of the tiny, dark rooms reserved for the newly-turned and those who couldn’t shake off the urge to sleep. He was captured by weird hunters, who trapped him in their weird house, and asked weird invasive leading questions about his weird night terrors.

He was also tucked into a bed, for some reason.

The comforter had already slipped down halfway due to his sudden jolt into wakefulness, and he wasted no time in kicking free of the sheets. The room was surprisingly dark in both theme and lighting, with deep purple walls and heavy spiderweb-patterned curtains blocking out any potential sunlight.

There was also a warding circle of ash carefully smudged in a perimeter around the bed, the burning containment runes strong enough to make him want to sneeze even from this distance. The diameter of the circle was wide enough that he could theoretically keep away from any stabbings if he pissed Roman off enough, but add even one more hunter to the mix and it would take virtually no effort to pincer him.

Nothing he could do about the new cage for now, with the hunter staring at him expectantly from his sentry position. He sent a poisonous glare back and hissed, still crouched on the bed like an exceptionally angry gargoyle.

Roman pressed an offended hand to his chest, but was cut off by an inordinately cheerful knock at the door. His expression flickered to a sort of bitter resignation, and he shot Anx a much more serious warning look before unlocking and cracking the door open.

“Hey, Pat! I thought you were taking a nap?” he asked with impressively feigned lightness to his voice.

“I was, I just— Is he awake?” Another too-familiar voice replied, sounded distracted. “I felt…”

“Yeah, Padre,” Roman admitted after a strained pause. “He’s up. You remember your key?”

“Of course!” Patton said, and neither of them elaborated on what the hell that was supposed to mean. Roman stepped aside, and Patton beelined to the bed like a compass needle to true north.

He stopped just short of the circle, like a determined enough— or cornered enough— vamp couldn’t reach out and drag him in. “Anx! I’ve been so worried about you! You took quite a tumble, are you feeling alright?”

Anx stared at him. The words were bright, but there was a thread of something fervent and barely-controlled in them, something frenetic in the way he shifted from foot to foot. It sent a pervasive feeling of wrongness down his spine, like looking at an old photograph and realizing that something you remembered from it was entirely absent.

Anx didn’t— couldn’t know enough about Patton to recognize when he was acting off, but every piece slotted neatly into place anyways, dragging him to a conclusion he didn’t intend to realize; Patton was pretending, ignoring the parts of him that felt bad to reassure the rest of them. After everything he'd already gone through, he was bearing the stress of being thralled without a word.

He could feel the thrall tether pulled taut between them, already mentally frayed from both the time passed since feeding and the pain that had ricocheted through him at his last order. Looking at Patton like this, it was bizarrely easy to loosen his grip and let that last thread connecting them fall apart.

Patton’s shoulders eased, all of him sagging slightly like a puppet with strings cut. And wasn’t that just an uncomfortably accurate metaphor.

In the next moment, the hunter was stepping neatly over the line of ash and into the circle, arms lifted. Roman shouted something, but his alarmed words were meaningless noise against the roar of anticipatory fear that overcame Anx.

Get away, his instincts screamed, but his body remained stuck, stalled by a resentful whisper in the back of his mind: Doesn’t he deserve to get a few hits in though? Look at what you did to him.

A sudden touch made him curl in on himself, but the arms that folded around him were careful, even gentle. His head jerked up, and sure enough, Patton was hugging him. He froze, struck dumb.

Over Patton’s shoulder, Roman was stopped a few feet away, hand outstretched as though he’d planned to yank Patton back out of the danger zone. Anx met his stare, eyes round as quarters.

“I did not tell him to do this,” he blurted, and Patton’s chest vibrated with a little sniffly chuckle. The human was so warm.

At the door, Logan appeared, glasses slightly askew. “Patton? I heard—“

He paused, taking in the room. His expression grew more and more unimpressed. “... I see. Exactly what happened while I was away?”

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter 20: Second Assist

Characters: Captain Logan “Sy” Syverson, Shane Benton (OFC), various other original supporting/secondary characters

Summary: Shane reunites with friends and family, hashes out some feelings, and gets real with Sy. Can their relationship survive her trauma? And the threat that still looms above them?

Romance and Smut Abound HERE!

Word Count: 4500

Warnings: Mention of rape, alcoholic beverages, violent imagery…feels out the butt.

Author’s Note: You guys are so splendid and beautiful! I can’t thank you enough for your support and encouragement to finish this piece. First, welcome to new readers! I know poor Henry’s injury and subsequent physiotherapy has driven some of you here, and while I’m sorry for him, I’m glad I can consider myself something of a pioneer in this particular genre and provide you some help for your newfound thirst. To my OG readers, it is to you I owe this entire work, parts written and incomplete, and I hope an eventual book deal. I mean to mention you in my acknowledgements, should this ever reach a willing publisher. You’ve inspired me so supremely that I cannot quantify it, even with the words I hold so dear.

Since my last chapter was posted, we’ve said a relieved goodbye to 2020 and a tentative hello to 2021. To be honest, this year has started out worse than last year. Lots of bad weather in my area this winter, my sister is currently on her way to a new life in another state, and my grandmother, the last grandparent I had, passed away in February. Those last two things have been especially difficult to shake off and recover from, both coming to fruition pretty suddenly. Amongst all that, I’ve been pretty distracted by my other fandoms, especially Marvel, and I’ve been reading a killer book series that I’m utterly in love with. (The Throne of Glass novels by Sarah J. Maas. 10/10 recommend.) But I knew I needed to get back into Shane and Sy’s story, especially given the new and rekindled interest in the subject matter. In all honesty, I’ve had most of it written for months. It’s just been a matter of finishing it off to set up the rest of the story.

I really hope you all enjoy Chapter 20, Second Assist, and would love your feedback and notes. You are all so important to this story, and your notes, reblogs, and comments are cherished. Thank you so much for reading! Love from Hannah!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism. This is an original work by me, Hannah. Please reblog if you wish to share. Please do not repost either in whole or part, as the work of anyone but myself. Thanks so much for reading!

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X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@

Shane woke in her warm bed, late morning sun streaming in through her sheer curtains, the heavier drapes parted to let in the light. She wished she'd remembered to close them before now. She really was not ready to be awake.

She was sore. Achy. Her sleep had been fitful and full of shadowy nightmares and muffled screams. Beyond that, she didn't try to remember images or events. She knew the general premise of the dreams. It would take a lot of time, effort, or a miracle to make her forget those traumas she'd been through in the last week. Not even forget. She knew she never would. But move on from them. Accept them. And heal from them…even that seemed a mighty obstacle. One she was not sure she could surmount.

Through the open bedroom door, she could hear Lynyrd Skynyrd and the clanging and sizzling of pans, and she could smell bacon and freshly brewed coffee. Sy had left the room, but had not, it seemed, gone far. She gingerly sat up, stood from the bed, and donned her robe as she walked out into the hall and down the corridor to the kitchen.

The sight before her warmed her heart. There was Sy. In only his boxers, daringly frying the notoriously dangerous breakfast meat. Upon her entry to the kitchen, she could also smell pancakes, and she thought syrup, as well. He seemed to be warming a bottle of the maple unction in a pot of hot water. He turned as she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, and grinned widely at her.

"Mornin' sunshine." And she was struck by the irony of someone with such a radiant smile calling her sunshine. Especially when she didn't feel much like beaming. But she couldn't help return the expression, even through her pain.

"Mornin' bear. Did you go to the store?" She knew she couldn't have any bacon in her fridge, and she doubted her eggs and milk were still good at this point. But she also couldn't think that he would leave her for any reason.

"Nah, some of the guys brought over some provisions. Matt worked on your car all night, too, and filled up the tank. It's as good as new. He and Nate brought ‘er over as well as the groceries. I just had ‘em get stuff I knew your family wouldn't be bringing later. They've had tons of food given to them this week, and they're ready to share. You should have seen your mom loading me down with sandwiches and chips and whatnot when I visited them."

"I still can't believe you met them. I really wanted to introduce you personally." Shane's face fell. She would never be able to get that back. She wanted to cry. Sy had poured her a cup of coffee and sat it in front of her with her favorite creamer.

"Darlin' I’m so sorry. I had to talk to them."

"I know." she sniffed. "I'm not mad. Not at you. Just…"she didn't want to say Elliott's name. "I'm disappointed that the experience was stolen from me." That so many things had been stolen from her. By that monster. There was no other way to describe him. Sy growled. As if he could read her mind. He really just knew her well enough and shared her thoughts.

"Well, don't worry, we'll have a nice dinner with them one of these days, and we can pretend. Sound good?"

"Yeah, and I can feign nervousness." she laughed.

"And I'll pretend too. That I'm scared to meet your dad." he chuckled. "What if he threatens me with his shotgun?"

"I'll pull the ol' 'Daddy, no, I loooooove him!' line, as I throw myself between you!"

"That oughta work." he laughed and kissed her on the forehead as he stepped toward the stove and flipped a pancake.

As they sat eating their late breakfast, Shane's mind wandered. Nothing had changed on the surface, but everything was different now. This cozily mundane breakfast with her boyfriend felt like an out of body experience. As delicious as it was, as wonderful and comforting as it should feel, her guard was up. Even through her amiable façade. She was not the person she was two weeks ago. She was not the same woman who said goodbye to Sy at the base. Maybe that was the real transformation. Maybe that was why nothing felt normal. It wasn't the world, but her own self coming back into it.

"Shane?" Sy asked, gently, but it felt like he was speaking through a megaphone directly into her ear. She was so startled, she nearly dropped the half full mug of coffee that was paused midway to her lips. A bit sloshed out onto the table and splashed her shirt.

"Shit!" she chided herself. It wasn't a big deal, but she felt stupid jumping at the sound of her own name.

Sy reached for the closest towel, hanging from the oven handle, grabbed it and started for her clothes with it. She stopped him. But she couldn't think about why the intimate act made her uncomfortable.

"No, don't, it's fine. These clothes have seen better days, anyway." She pulled the towel from him and began to mop up the small puddles of coffee around her plate.

Sy seemed to note the stains already present on the shirt, as if trying to divine their history. She was something of a messy eater, so the battle wounds of many a barbecue, spaghetti dinner, and hurried breakfast peppered the now off-white SATB club tee she'd gotten her second or third year in college choir. She thought back to a huge room with high ceilings. White, cinder block walls, flecked tile floors, a beautiful, glossy, black baby grand in front of a long whiteboard with black lines to resemble sheet music. She thought about the mnemonic device she'd learned to help her remember what notes appeared on each line, and in the spaces between them. She pondered the deeper meanings and implications of these devices. EGBDF…every good boy does fine. She thought about the "good boys" in her life. She knew many. Her dad, her brother Ethan, Sy, obviously, her many male coworkers and friends…and honestly they did far better than "fine." They were wonderful. But she was letting the "bad boys" she'd encountered dictate her mood. Permeate her psyche. Tear her down. She didn't want to be like this. Then FACE came to mind, and above their purpose of indicating the notes between the lines on the staff, they called her to action. To face these newly minted demons with all the strength she knew she possessed, and she too would "do fine." But as with almost all actions, this was easier said than done.

She felt a warm presence on her left hand which had paused it's torture of the now coffee-infused kitchen towel. Sy's hand was squeezing hers gently.

"Shane." he uttered, barely above a whisper this time. She looked at him through tears that she had not realized had formed. He continued.

"Shane, what can I do, darlin'? I'll do anything."

"Babe, you're doing everything you can, and more. This…this is all going to have to come from me. I…don't know when I'll be myself again…" she paused, tears streaming now. "I'm…I'm different."

"You're not though." he reached for her face, but she pulled away.

"I am, damn it! Sy, I was…" Words had power. And the one she was thinking of had more power than she thought was warranted. She knew that uttering it would take away it's power…and yet mustering the courage and strength to actually do so…seemed impossible. She took a deep breath, and disassociated herself from the statement, even though it was about her own past.

"I was raped." She refused to cry. She felt it all again. She had never said the words. She had never thought it necessary. Everyone understood. Sy, his friends, and she was sure her own loved ones had made the connection. But she knew she needed to say it now to drive home the points she was about to make.

Sy, looked at the table, nodding, not needing to be told in so many words something he already had surmised from the clear evidence. He remained silent. She went on.

"I love you, Sy. I have since the day we met, on one level or another, and I believe that I always will. But I…right now I can't be a proper girlfriend to you. I can't…be with you, touch you, be touched by you, in the way we used to be. In the way you deserve…and I don't know when…or even if…I ever will. Not that I don't want to. That's ALL I want in the world. To go back. To be the woman who fell in love with this…incredible man. To make love with you, but…I can't."

Sy's eyes were full of tears, their predecessors already descending his round cheeks and disappearing into his thick, dark beard.

"Sy, I don't want to lead you on and keep you tied to a relationship with no life in it. You deserve someone who's whole. Someone who can be a fully invested partner for you, and not this broken, damaged--"

"You stop that, Shane. I won't hear no more of this kinda talk. Y'hear? You're my girl. My woman. My person. No matter what. You gotta know I'd never leave ya just cuz you aren't ready for sex again. You don't think that I would, do ya?"

"Well, you went to Virginia…you took that job…knowing the distance it would put between us. Literally and figuratively."

"Biggest mistake of my life." Shane raised her eyebrows in surprise as Sy elaborated. "I couldn't focus on my classes without wishing you were there. Wishing I could team up with you for discussions and hand to hand combat training…that thought got me a little too excited, if you catch my drift." He smirked, pulling a sheepish smile from Shane. "Then in that forest. I dreamt about you every night. I thought of you constantly. I could barely breath sometimes, I missed ya so damned much. I was an idiot. I was insane to think that I needed anything other than you. Any MORE. There IS no more. You're it. You're the MOST! The most important thing in my life."

The declaration hung like vapors in the air, more felt than seen. Tangible yet ethereal.

"And when I found out that you were missing…I was…well, I think I looked like death…and not warmed over. You can ask the program director I met with after I got the news. She could tell I was just sick over it. And as I thought about it on the way home, pieced things together, started thinking about who'd taken you, I got murderous. Shane, I have been in dozens of battles, skirmishes, firefights, you name it. War. But…the sheer bloodlust I felt thinking about what you could be going through…I've never experienced anything like it. Everything was red. Everything. For days. Until I saw you, alive. And then it went red again when I saw the fear and damage on your face." she could tell he was doing his best not to talk about the farmhouse and that basement, but she still flashed back to the moments before and after his appearance there. The moments when she simultaneously prayed to live and hoped to die.

"You don't owe me anything, Shane. I just want you in my life, and I don't care what your presence looks like. Romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between. I'm here for you. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Shane felt the urge to wrap her arms around her boyfriend, but could not seem to move more than one arm to place her other hand on top of his. She hoped the gratitude and love behind the small, but heartfelt gesture landed. It was all she had in that moment, no matter how abundant her affection.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shane's family's arrival was a complete blur to her. It was joyous, tearful, and the happiest she'd been in a long time. The moment she opened the front door for them, she was surrounded, engulfed with hugs from her parents and siblings. They stood in their affectionate huddle for several moments before Peg waved Sy over with marked insistence. He'd been standing by, observing happily, but not wanting to intrude on the familial reunion.

When they finally dispersed, John asked the two younger men to help him bring in groceries. The women headed into Shane's bedroom for a more private setting in which to talk. Shane filled her mother and sister in the best she could given the rawness of the wounds left on her mind by the events.

She leaned against the headboard cuddling with Gabby while her mom rubbed her feet. She had insisted on doing this thing that had always comforted her children, and made them feel much better when they were younger.

"Well, I'm very proud of you, pumpkin." The girls both looked at their mother, who rather uncharacteristically hadn't spoken in some time. Shane was nonplussed. Peg elaborated.

"You survived something that many women don't. You're talking about it now, which even more women don't. You may think you're broken, but you're just a tree damaged by a storm, but standing stronger than ever." Trust her mom to lay such wisdom on her. When she felt like giving up. When she just wanted pity. When she could only see defeat. Her mother had always found a way to encourage and buoy her and show her the victory.

"Mom's right." Gabby affirmed, and it was Peg's turn to be nonplussed, as the two women, though similar in so many ways, never seemed to see eye to eye. "It's true. Shane I've seen a lot of women come into the clinic in shoes very much like yours. And trust me…some of them…they don't make it to this point. You've got a long way to go before you're fully recovered, don't get me wrong, but you'll get there. You have us. And you have Sy."

"And then there's Sy." She diverted. "How am I supposed to plan any sort of future with him when…" She looked at her mom, and hesitated. Peg rolled her eyes.

"Shane, I know what the two of you get up to when you're alone. You don't have to be shy with me."

"Still…" she took a breath and spoke. "When I can't bring myself to…sleep with him?"

"Look at him, you're kidding, right?" Gabby chided, insensitively, but recanted at the pained expression on Shane's face. "Sorry, sis. Trying to lighten the mood a touch. Too soon. But seriously, I don't think this reluctance you feel will be permanent."

"And even if it is," Peg took over, "that man is out-of-his-mind in love with you, Shaney." She kissed Shane's toe before putting a sock on her foot. "He almost seems to worship you. Now, you know how I feel about using that term outside of religious context, but that is exactly the kind of love I want for you. Devout, and unconditional."

"But, mom, I can't--"

"Did you hear me? I said 'unconditional,' sweetie." Peg interrupted. "No matter what. No matter the obstacle. No matter the distance. No matter the circumstances. Love unwavering. That's what Sy has for you. I've seen it in him. Trust the momma."

The insistence her mother placed on trust had always ruffled Shane's feathers. Gabby's too, who she could feel stiffen slightly beside her. But Shane, for once, really wanted to trust her mother, hoping against hope that she was right. And that she, herself  wouldn't screw up the best relationship she had ever been in or was likely to ever be in again.

The girls had begun talking about some of the coworkers who'd brought food in the past week, and Peg couldn't resist remarking on the character of her favorites and judging the ones she didn't care for…oddly enough, getting more or less, the correct measure of them, as Shane saw it.

After what must have been an hour from the time they'd arrived, they heard a knock on the slightly ajar bedroom door. John poked his head in.

"Ladies, we've put a casserole in the oven, and completed various manly projects around the house--"

"Oh, daddy, what projects?" She cringed. She hated that the men had felt the need to "fix" things.

"Babe, your guest bathroom had not one, but two leaky faucets, your kitchen table seemed to be more of a teeter-totter, and half the light bulbs in the living room were out. Among other tiny things. You're welcome." he smirked his crooked smirk so similar to her own, and she returned it as if he was looking in a mirror.

"Thanks, dad."

"Anyway, lunch is almost ready. So, when you've finished your confab, let's eat."

Dinner passed amiably, Shane found a reserve within herself to allow some quasi-normal behavior, as long as you didn’t look too closely. She was talking animatedly with her siblings, making their parents and Sy laugh riotously. Shane noticed some odd looks passing between Sy and her father, but chalked it up to paranoia. She wished at least Gabby and Ethan could stay, but Heather would be over soon, and she deserved her own dedicated time. Shane wanted to give that to her.

She said her farewells to her family with promises to visit them the next day, and at least one more time before her siblings went back home, if she could work it out.

Sy was so wonderful the whole time. Standing by her, a hand resting lightly on her shoulder as they waved goodbye to the departing vehicle. He made her feel so safe. They went into the kitchen and cleaned up from lunch. Well, Sy cleaned. Shane was texting Heather about when she'd be over.

"Heather says she'll be here in about a half hour. She's picking up wine and pizza." Shane told Sy without looking up from her phone. She could see out of the corner of her eye, though, that he had just closed the dishwasher and was selecting a cycle.

"Sounds great. Do you want me to get out of here? Give you guys some time, one on one?" He asked as he dried his hands, wet from preparing dishes for the machine.

She thought about it, and shuddered. She played a scene in her head that startled her. In her mind's eye, she saw Sy leave and then moments later heard a knock on the door. Presuming it was Heather, she opened the door with abandon, only to see Elliott standing there under a flickering porch light, smirking maliciously at her and ready to overpower and abduct her again. She shook the thought from her head, but remained uneasy as she answered his question.

"Uh, no. Thanks. I'm sure she'll want to talk to both of us. She likes you." Shane grinned softly at Sy in an attempt to mask her trepidation over the thought of him leaving her alone for any period of time. She thought it had worked.

"Okay, well, whatever you think, sunshine. I don't wanna get in the way." He was wiping down the countertops. She felt so impossibly full of love for him, she was starting to wonder how she hadn't yet burst with it. She couldn't bear the thought of holding him back from a fulfilling relationship. He deserved everything she couldn't give him right now. And she knew she should make him leave her. Cut him loose. But she was, as she'd been since she'd met him, a weak woman. She couldn't stand the thought of being without him. Of him no longer being hers. And somehow worse, of not being his, herself. She would always need him for so many reasons, not least of which being her love for him. Maybe one day, she'd recover from this trauma, and be able to be who he deserved. To give him what he needed.

"You're never in the way, bear." She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed him as tight as she could. He placed a loving hand over hers, sighing and smiling, though she had no visual proof of the latter. It was just a feeling.

Heather's greeting was no less exuberant than that of Shane's family, but it was more joyful and less emotional, even though she was immensely relieved to see her best friend after so long. They talked as if no time had passed, and Shane mustered up the dregs of her former self to have one more interaction for the day. Thank God it was Heather and not someone who would require more. She wouldn't have it to give.

"I am so glad you're okay, Shane! Things around the clinic have been bleak as fuck. Susan is loosing her mind, Anita is beside herself with concern, and the rest of us just plain ol' miss the hell out of you. And not just because of all of the overtime everyone has been pulling to get your patients seen."

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize…wow, I'm awful. I didn't even think---"

"That you'd be missed? Think again, sister. The place would fall apart if you ever really left. But don't feel guilty. It's the least everyone can do, and they've all said it themselves. We all love you, and know that you'd do the same for any of us if you could at all. Hopefully you won't have to, though!"

Shane nodded, eyes wide in agreement. She wouldn't wish the last week of her life on her worst enemy. On the worst person in the world. Except maybe the people responsible. Tit for tat.

"Well, I'm sorry my absence has caused extra work for all of you." Shane looked into the deep glass of Chardonnay Sy had poured her from the bottle Heather had brought. She felt about as small as the air bubble making it's way up the sloping curve of the stemless vessel. She felt a guilt that she knew was fully void of logic. It made no sense for her to feel guilt for being kidnapped. But she had always had this notion, this nagging voice in her head that told her that her misfortunes were a direct result of her decisions. That she'd inadvertently stepped on the butterfly that resulted in the monsoon she was currently experiencing, and whatever cataclysmic events she would face next.

"Why in God's name are you apologizing for this, Shay?" Heather's tone was kind, but still mildly scolding.

"If I'd never been with Elliott, none of this would have--"

"Bitch, are you a fortune teller?"

"No, but--"

"Soothsayer?"

"No."

"Time traveler?"

"I wish!" Shane chuckled. But she really did wish.

"Have you any real and proven success at consistently predicting the future?"

"I don't, but--"

"No. No buts. No howevers. You had no idea what becoming involved with Elliott could have done. Were there signs, sure. But you can't look on the past as a rubric to judge the quality of your decisions. You know that. You can only learn from your mistakes. And you have."

"Heather's right, sunshine. You really have learned. You look for Elliott's behaviors in mine and shut me down quick if you see 'em. You're not going to let yourself go down that road again. And I'm proud of you for it."

Shane silently worried her wine glass. It was hard to argue with such truth. But it was hard to agree when her own feelings were in such stark opposition. So she did neither.

"Well, I've preached my sermon for the day." she laughed. "I've taken up enough of your time. Oh, your phone. It's in my purse. I think it's fully charged, but I turned it off."

Shane thanked her friend, then Heather hugged them both and took her leave.

"Y'okay, bug?" Sy asked her after what she surmised was several minutes of silence. Minutes she didn't notice as they passed.

"Mmm…" she trailed off.

"Can I do something for ya?" And she really thought about the question. He could probably do a lot of things for her. He could make love to her until she felt whole again, even if it hurt her at first. Not an ideal option. He could probably get them both some new identities and enough money to spirit her away to somewhere her past wouldn't follow. If she became someone new, literally, would she have to bring that old baggage, those old scars, with her? Again, suboptimal. But he could definitely take the source of all grief and turmoil in her life far into the Missouri back country, somewhere not even the hunters would venture, some fallow field or forgotten cistern, and end him. Snuff out his spark of life like a candle caught in a tornado. Spill a fatal amount of his monstrous blood onto the unforgiving earth and send him to the Hell to which he was undoubtedly destined. But did she want that? Did she want another soul as a scar on that of the man she so deeply cherished? He'd say it was worth it. He'd say he'd take a thousand more for her. A million. That was Sy.

"Nothing comes to mind." She lied. And he knew it was a lie, but didn't push it. She was so grateful that he respected her, not for the lie itself, but for the reason she wasn't giving him the whole truth just now.

His phone went off and he picked it up as he stood from his seat at the table. She could only hear that it was Matt, the guy she thought she understood had the car place, before she heard tension in Sy's voice. Even from the next room, she could tell something was wrong, though he was talking too quietly for her to make out words.

She heard him suddenly shout a stream of profanities that he rarely said at all around her, at least, let alone together. There was a bang, and the walls of her kitchen quaked like the tectonic plates beneath them were shifting.

Sy walked back in, his face was red, as were his knuckles. He was shaking an injury out of his hand.

"What's wrong?" she asked, deep concern at his appearance and demeanor, suddenly ominous.

"I need to fix your wall in there." he grumbled, evading, without success. She'd be doing therapy on his hand, next.

"What's really wrong?" she repeated, sternly.

"That was Matt. Elliott's…escaped, somehow. He's in the wind."

Shane's heart became so heavy, she could almost feel it smashing through the kitchen floor and burying itself deep in the cement floor of her basement.

"Oh, God! No! What if he goes to the police!?"

"Fuck that, I'm more concerned about him coming after you!"

The two stared, faces full of equal measures of concern for the other.

Up Next: Chapter 21-Patient Education

[junquisite]

Blind Date

WORD COUNT : 1.3K

GENRE : Fluff,  Wookjin/ Nine X OC

WARNING : None

NOTE : This is my first Onlyoneof fic so like..enjoy!

There are a lot of ways a blind coffee date can go for you. Mostly it is meeting someone you have never met before, smiling awkwardly in the beginning and hopefully it gets better and more comfortable and if all goes well, you find yourself with a second date, probably a dinner date.

For Bora, it went NOTHING like that. 

It started normally - a Saturday morning filled with her best friend raiding her closet and making her try any cloth combination she deems fit until choosing the one she actually said she wanted to try - a simple knee-length beige one piece and a cardigan around her shoulder lest it gets chilly in the evening. She reached the cafe with regular messages from the same best friend on her phone about how she’ll probably sweep the guy off his feet because she looked so pretty.

It was a blind date. Her first one at that, set by an office friend that she gave into after about 4 times of being asked. 10 minute passes and she just assumed he was late. She ordered herself some water when the waiter came.

20 minute passed. Then 25. Then 30. Eventually she could feel the stares of the staff and people pitying and there was only so long she could wait for a date she knew she had been stood up for. 

As soon as she pushed her chair back though, the chair in front of her was pulled back and a young man bowed at her as he rushed out, “I’m sorry i’m so late, you had to wait too long didn't you?” he said as he sat and signed at her to sit too.

She took the seat and stared at him. Okay so it was not as much as a blind date per se, she had seen the picture of the guy she was supposed to meet and this extremely handsome idol looking DEFINITELY younger guy was not him.

“Who are you?” was what she asked first and he gave her a shy smile.

“Jung Wookjin. I know I had no right to come and sit here but I was here to meet with someone who had to cancel out and it looked like you were stood up too so I thought maybe we could bond over our broken hearts.”

She stared a bit at him, utterly confused and trying to understand why he was here which apparently made him uncomfortable as he started fidgeting.

“If you want to leave I will understand.” he said as he looked sideways and a giggle escaped her lips. He looked so cute, pouting slightly like that.

“I’m Kim Bora.'' The smile she got at her response made her look away. She wasn't used to sitting in front of cute men, she was bound to turn red.

“So how old are you Bora-ssi?”

“Aah im 24, you?” she asked and he smirked at her.

“I'm turning 22 soon, can I call you Noona thne?” she nodded as she sighed in relief when the waiter came to take their order.

The slight awkward conversation took a turn for the better with every passing second until they looked out and saw it was getting dark. They decided to leave then and as they walked towards the subway station, Wookjin grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Noona.. Why don't we have dinner too? I mean there is this restaurant nearby that I have heard alot about and I would like to try but I have never had anyone to go with and you are here now but of course you don't have to say yes-” his rambling stopped when she started laughing.

“I'm hungry anyway, lets go.” she said as his eyes gleamed with happiness, and during the whole small walk of 5 minutes, he went on and on about the reviews of that restaurant.

The dinner date too, went effortlessly smoothly as the coffee date had gone. They were not even halfway done with dinner when plans for the next date were made - to watch a movie the next day only they both apparently have been wanting to. By the time dinner ended, plans to meet for lunch during their breaks on monday were also made since their offices were nearby.

Phone numbers were exchanged amidst laughter and giggles over stories, incidents at works and even university life popped up. It was fun - Wookjin was fun, Bora realised as time passed. He had this really bright personality and the way to tell even mundane stories as if they were the best thing that ever happened. And the way his whole attention was on her when she spoke, asking questions and wanting to know her- it had been a while since she had felt such a connection with someone in a short span of time and any doubts she had before of maybe she was moving too fast went out of the window by the time they left the restaurant.

It was nighttime and slightly chilly as she wrapped the cardigan around her tightly and rubbed her hands. It was cute how he grumbled slightly and she turned to ask him what was wrong.

“Your cardigan makes everything tough Noona. I could have offered you my jacket when you would have complained about the cold weather but no, you brought the cardigan.” he whined as he glared daggers at the cardigan around her. His whiny tone along with his comment made her laugh so hard she was almost sure there were tears in her eyes.

His little giggles at her laughter and pinkish cheeks did not escape her eyes and she stood up on her tiptoes to pinch his cheeks.

“You’re so cute.”

“I'm not cute Noona, I'm not supposed to be cute!”

Even the way he complained was endearing to Bora as she dragged him towards the subway station.

Half an hour later, he was standing in front of her apartment building as he had insisted on walking her home even when she insisted she could go and it was a safe area.

“I had fun today Noona.” he said as he smiled shyly at her. 

“Me too. I'm kind of glad my blind date didn't turn up.” 

“Im happy too. Can I confess something before we end this date?” he asked and she nodded, curious about his confession.

“My friend did not bail on me, they were running a bit late and I was the only one who cancelled because I wanted to sit with you. I didn't want anything that might happen between us to be founded on lies.”

Well that..doesn't really change anything but is still news for her. It was also slightly flattering to know this and he had already said about 10 times that it was not out of pity why he came to sit with her. And the fact that he was not only adorable, intelligent and interesting but also mature? 

“I.. it's alright I suppose? Although I feel bad for your friend who you cancelled on because of me.”

“He’ll be fine.” he said with a huge smile which made her smile in return.

After a few seconds of simply looking at each other, Wookjin was the first to look away. After clearing his throat and with a clearly red face, he looked at her and said, “So I uhh-- will get going Noona.”

It was a spur of the moment thing. She had not planned for it to happen at all but something about his red face made her want to tease him even more as she pulled him down from the lapel of his jacket and left a small kiss on his cheek.

The result was satisfactory - his face turned even more red, which she did not knew was possible, and he stuttered out incomprehensibly for a few seconds. It was cute, just like everything else about him as she had come to realise.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Wookijn-ah?” she asked as he nodded quickly and then finally looked up at her with the biggest smile on his adorable red face. 

She really was happy her blind date stood her up.

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year Round-Up: Part 2, Dr. Pete Larson to  Young Slo-Be

James Brandon Lewis

The mid-year exchange continues with the second half of the alphabet and another round of Dusted writers reviewing other people’s favorite records.  Today’s selection runs the gamut from Afro-beat to hip hop to experimental music and includes some of this year’s best jazz records.  Check out part one if you missed it yesterday.  

Dr. Pete Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band — Damballah (Dagoretti Records)

Damballah by Dr. Pete Larson and his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band

Who Picked it? Mason Jones

Did we review it? No, but Jennifer Kelly said about his previous record, “It’s authentic not to some musicological conception of what nyatiti music should sound like, but to the instincts and proclivities of the musicians involved.”

Bryon Hayes’ take:

Judging from Jenny’s review, Dr. Pete Larson hasn’t really changed his modus operandi much since last year’s self-titled release. Well, he has appeared to have dropped vocalist Kat Steih and drummer Tom Hohman, who aren’t credited with an appearance on Damballah. Sonically, this album feels more polished than its predecessor. There’s a richness that was lacking before, a sense of clarity that Larson seems to have added here. He still hypnotizes with his nyatiti but doesn’t lose himself behind the other players. That sense of mesmerizing repetition of short passages on the resonant lute-like instrument is what sets the music of the Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band apart from other rock groups who play in the psychedelic vein. It’s easy to get lost in the intricate plucking patterns as the guitars and synths swirl about. The rhythms bounce cleverly against those created by the percussion, anchoring the songs to solid ground. Balancing the airy and the earthy, Dr. Peter Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band create a cosmic commotion perfect for contemplation. 

 James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet — Jesup Wagon (TAO Forms)

Jesup Wagon by James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek said, “’Fallen Flowers’ and ‘Seer’ contain sections of almost telepathic convergence, the former and the closing ‘Chemurgy’ culminating in Lewis’ spoken words inculcating the import of his subject.” 

Tim Clarke’s take:

Tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis demonstrates his control of the instrument in the opening moments of Jesup Wagon’s title track. Before his Red Lily Quintet bandmates join the fray, he alternates between hushed ululations and full-blooded honks, inviting the listener to lean in conspiratorially. Once the rest of the band fire up, cornet player Kirk Knuffke, bassist William Parker, cellist Chris Hoffman and drummer Chad Taylor lock into a loose, muscular shuffle. Their collective chemistry is immediately evident, and each player has the opportunity to shine across this diverse set’s 50-minute runtime. I’m particularly drawn to the rapid-fire rhythmic runs on “Lowlands of Sorrow,” the gorgeous cello on “Arachis,” and the spacious, mbira-laced “Seer.” There’s something about the mournful horn melody of the final piece, “Chemurgy,” that sends me back to first hearing Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” — and, just like that, I’m excited about the prospect of exploring jazz again, for the first time in a long time. Great pick, Derek.

 Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed — The Ritual And The Dance (Astral Spirits) 

the Ritual and the Dance by Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek wrote, “Roscoe Mitchell remains an improvisational force to be reckoned with.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

For 17-plus minutes, Roscoe Mitchell solos on his soprano with barely a pause, the rush of notes powered by circular breathing, as drummer Mike Reed’s controlled clatter counterpoints Mitchell’s exploration of his instrument’s range and tonal qualities in what sounds like a summation of his long career at the outer edge of jazz. It‘s an extraordinary beginning to this performance, recorded live in 2015. On first listen it sounds chaotic, but shapes emerge in Mitchell’s sound, and Reed’s combination of density and silence complements, punctuates and supports in equal measure. After an incisive solo workout from Reed combining clanging metal and rolling toms, Mitchell swaps to tenor and the pace changes. Longer, slower notes, a rougher, reed heavy tone and a lighter touch from Reed. Having not closely followed Mitchell’s work since his days in The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, this performance was a revelation and will have me searching back through his catalog.     

The Notwist — Vertigo Days (Morr Music)

Vertigo Days by The Notwist

Who recommended it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it?  Yes, Tim said, “The Notwist really know how to structure a front-to-back listening experience, and this is emphatically a work of art best appreciated as a whole.”

Arthur Krumins’ take: 

In his review of Vertigo Days, Tim Clarke highlights the “multiple layers of drifting, shifting instrumentation.” It is an album that seems unbound by adherence to a set instrument lineup, and it moves quickly between moods both frenetic and contemplative. However, due to a careful mixing and an unforced approach to genre expectations, it is a surprising and varied listen that bears repeated scrutiny. The touchstones of the sound are at times the motorik beat of krautrock, at others the ethereal indie pop of their melodies and the quality of their singing. It feels like the perfect quirky coffee shop album, just out there enough to create a vibe, but tactful enough to take you along for the ride.

  Dorothea Paas — Anything Can’t Happen (Telephone Explosion)

Anything Can't Happen by Dorothea Paas

Who picked it? Arthur Krumins.

Did we review it? No. 

Eric McDowell’s take:

In one sense, it’s fair to say that Dorothea Paas’s debut album opens with a false start: A single note sounded and then retreated from, fingers sliding up and down the fretboard with the diffidence of a throat clearing. Yet what gesture could more perfectly introduce an album so marked by uncertainty, vulnerability, and naked self-assessment? 

If Anything Can’t Happen is an open wound, it’s a wound Paas willingly opens: “I’m not lonely now / Doing all the things I want to and working on my mind / Sorting through old thoughts.” That doesn’t make the pain any less real — though it does make it more complex. “It’s so hard to trust again / When you can’t even trust yourself,” Paas sings on the utterly compelling title track, her gaze aiming both inward and outward. Elsewhere she admits: “I long for a body closer to mine / But I don’t want to seek, I just want to find.” Instrumentally, Paas and her bandmates manage to temper an inclination toward static brooding with propulsive forward motion, a balance that suits the difficult truth — or better yet, difficult truce — the album arrives at in the climactic “Frozen Window”: “How can I open to love again, like a plant searches for light through a frozen window? / Can I be loved, or is it all about control? / I will never know until I start again.” In the spirit of starting again, Anything Can’t Happen ends with a doubling down on the opening prelude, reprising and extending it — no false start to be found. 

 Dominic Pifarely Quartet — Nocturnes (Clean Feed) 

Nocturnes by Dominique Pifarély Quartet

Who recommended it? Jason Bivins

Did we review it? No 

Derek Taylor’s take: 

Pifarely and I actually go way back in my listening life, specifically to Acoustic Quartet, an album the French violinist made for ECM as a co-leader with countryman clarinetist Louis Sclavis in 1994. Thirty-something at the time, his vehicle for that venture was an improvising chamber ensemble merging classical instrumentation and extended techniques with jazz and folk derived influences. The results, playful and often exhilaratingly acrobatic, benefited greatly from austere ECM house acoustics. Nearly three decades distant, Nocturnes is a different creature, delicate and darker hued in plumage and less enamored of melody, harmony and rhythm, at least along conventional measures. Drones and other textures are regular elements of the interplay between the leader’s strings, the piano of Antonin Rayon and the sparse braiding and shadings of bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer Francois Merville. Duos also determine direction, particular on the series of titular miniatures that are as much about space as they are centered in sound. It’s delightful to get reacquainted after so much time apart.  

The Reds Pinks & Purples — Uncommon Weather (Slumberland/Tough Love)

Uncommon Weather by The Reds, Pinks & Purples

Who picked it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer said, “Uncommon Weather is undoubtedly the best of the Reds, Pinks & Purples discs so far, an album that is damned near perfect without seeming to try very hard.”   

Bill Meyer’s take:

Sometimes a record hits you where you live. Glenn Donaldson’s too polite to do you any harm, but he not only knows where you live, he knows your twin homes away from home, the record store and the club where you measure your night by how many bands’ sets separate you from last call. He knows the gushing merch-table mooches and the old crushes that casually bring the regulars down, and he also knows how to make records just like the ones that these folks have been listening to since they started making dubious choices. Uncommon Weather sounds like a deeply skilled recreation of early, less chops-heavy Bats, and if that description makes sense to you, so will this record.

 claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams Records)

a softer focus by Claire Rousay

Who picked it? Bryon Hayes  

Did we review it? Yes, Bryon Hayes wrote, “These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical.”  

Ian Mathers’ take:  

In a weird way (because they are very different works from very different artists), A Softer Focus reminds me a bit of Robert Ashley’s Private Parts (The Album). Both feel like the products of deep focus and concentration but wear their rigor loosely, and both feel like beautifully futile attempts to capture or convey the rich messiness of human experience. But although there is a musicality to Private Parts, Ashley is almost obsessed by language and language acts, and even though the human voice is more present than ever in rousay’s work (not just sampled or field recorded, but outright albeit technologically smeared singing on a few tracks) it feels like it reaches to a place in that experience beyond words. The first few times I played it I had moments where I was no longer sure exactly what part of what I was hearing were coming from my speakers versus from outside my apartment, and as beautiful as the more conventional ambient/drone aspects of A Softer Focus are (including the cello and violin heard throughout), it’s that kind of intoxicating disorientation, of almost feeling like I’m experiencing someone else’s memory, that’s going to stay with me the longest. 

 M. Sage — The Wind Of Things (Geographic North)

The Wind of Things by M. Sage

Who recommended it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? No

Bill Meyer’s take:

Matthew Sage’s hybrid music gets labeled as ambient by default. Sure, it’s gentle enough to be ignorable, but Sage’s combination of ruminative acoustic playing (mostly piano and guitar, with occasional seasoning from reeds, violin, banjo, and percussion) and memory-laden field recordings feels so personal that it’s hard to believe he’d really be satisfied with anyone treating this stuff as background music. But that combination of the placid and the personal may also be The Wind of Things’ undoing since it’s a bit too airy and undemonstrative to make an impression.

 Skee Mask — Pool (Ilian Tape)

ITLP09 Skee Mask - Pool by Skee Mask

Who picked it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No 

Robert Ham’s take:

Pool is an appropriate title for the new album by Munich electronic artist Bryan Müller. The record is huge and deep, with its 18 tracks clocking in at around 103 minutes. And Müller has pointedly only released the digital version of Pool through Bandcamp, adding it a little hurdle to fans who just want to pick and choose from its wares for their playlists. Dipping one’s toes in is an option, but the only way to truly appreciate the full effect is to dive on in. 

Though Müller filled Pool up with around five years’ worth of material, the album plays like the result of great deliberation. It flows with the thoughtfulness and intention of an adventurous DJ set, with furious breakbeat explosions like “Breathing Method” making way for the languorous ambient track “Ozone” and the unbound “Rio Dub.” Then, without warning, the drum ‘n’ bass breaks kick in for a while. 

The full album delights in those quick shifts into new genres or wild seemingly disparate sonic connections happening within the span of a single song. But again, these decisions don’t sound like they were made carelessly. Müller took some time with this one to get the track list just right. But if there is one thread that runs along the entirety of Pool, it is the air of joy that cuts through even its downcast moments. The splashing playfulness is refreshing and inviting.

 Speaker Music — Soul-Making Theodicy (Planet Mu)

Soul-Making Theodicy by Speaker Music

Who picked it? Mason Jones

Did we review it? No 

Robert Ham’s take:

The process by which DeForrest Brown Jr., the artist known as Speaker Music, created his latest EP sounds almost as exciting as the finished music. If I understand it correctly — and I’m not entirely sure that I do — he created rhythm tracks using haptic synths, a Push sequencer, and a MIDI keyboard, that he sent through Ableton and performed essentially a live set of abstract beats informed by free jazz, trap and marching band. Or as Brown calls them “stereophonic paintings.” 

Whatever term you care to apply to these tracks and however they were made, the experience of listening to them is a dizzying one. A cosmic high that takes over the synapses and vibrates them until your vision becomes blurry and your word starts to smear together like fog on a windshield. Listening to this EP on headphones makes the experience more vertiginous if, like I did, you try to unearth the details and sounds buried within the centerpiece track “Rhythmatic Music For Speakers,” a 33-minute symphony of footwork stuttering and polyrhythms. Is that the sound of an audience responding to this sensory overload that I hear underneath it all? Or is that wishful imaginings coming from a mind hungry for the live music experience? 

 The Telescopes — Songs of Love And Revolution (Tapete) 

Songs Of Love And Revolution by the telescopes

Who recommended it? Robert Ham

Did we review it? No. 

Andrew Forell’s take:

Songs Of Love And Revolution glides along on murky subterranean rhythms that evoke Mo Tucker’s heartbeat toms backed with thick bowel-shaking bass lines. Somewhere in the murk Stephen Lawrie’s murmured vocals barely surface as he wrings squalls of noise from his guitar to create a dissonant turmoil to contrast the familiarity of what lies beneath. The effect is at once hypnotic and joltingly thrilling, similar to hearing Jesus And Mary Chain for the first time but played a at pace closer to Bedhead. A kind of slowcore shoegaze, its mystery enhanced by what seems deliberately monochrome production that forces and rewards close attention. When they really let go on “We See Magic And We Are Neutral, Unnecessary” it hits like The Birthday Party wrestling The Stooges. So yeah, pretty damn good.

 Leon Vynehall — Rare, Forever (Ninja Tune)

Rare, Forever by LEON VYNEHALL

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No. 

Jason Bivins’ take: 

I was amused to see Leon Vynehall’s album tucked into the expansive “Unknown genre” non-category. This is, as is often the case with these mid-year exchanges, a bit far afield from the kind of music I usually spin. Much of it is, I suppose, rooted in house music. Throughout these tracks, there are indeed some slinky beats that’ll get you nodding your head while prepping the dinner or while studying in earnest. There’s plenty to appreciate on the level of grooves and patterns, but he closer you listen, the more subversive, sneaky details you notice. The opening “Ecce! Ego!” isn’t quite as brash as the title would suggest, featuring some playfully morphed voices, old school synth patches and snatches of instrumentalism. But after just a couple minutes, vast cosmic sounds start careening around your brainpan while a metal bar drops somewhere in the audial space. Did that just happen? you wonder as the groove continues. Moments of curiosity and even discomfort are plopped down, sometimes as transitions (like the closing vocal announcement on “In>Pin” — “like a moth” — that introduces the echo-canyon of “Mothra”) but usually as head-scrambling curveballs. Startled voices or flutes or subterranean sax bubble up from beneath deep house thrum, then are gone in ways that are arresting and deceptive. I still don’t know what to make of the lounge-y closing to “Snakeskin – Has-Been” or the unexpected drone monolith of “Farewell! Magnus Gabbro.” In its way, Vynehall’s music is almost like what you’d get if Graham Lambkin or Jason Lescalleet made a house record. Pretty rich stuff.

 Michael Winter — single track (Another Timbre)

single track by Michael Winter

Who recommended it? Eric McDowell 

Did we review it? Not yet! 

Mason Jones’ take: 

Over its 45 minutes, Michael Winter’s 2015 composition slowly accelerates and accumulates, starting from an isolated violin playing slightly arrhythmic, single fast strokes. The playing, centered around a single root note, seems almost random, but flashes of melodic clusters make it clear they're not. After nine minutes other players have joined in and there's a developing drone, as things sort of devolve, with atonal combinations building. By the one-third mark everything has slowed down significantly, and the players are blending together, with fewer melodies standing out. Instead, it's almost more drone than not; and at a half hour in, most of the strings have been reduced to slowly changing tones. As we near the end we’re hearing beautiful layers of string drones, descending into the final few minutes of nearly static notes. It's an intriguing and oddly listenable composition given its atonality. The early moments bring to mind Michael Nyman, and the later movements summon thoughts of Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, but it's clearly different from any of them, and more than the sum of those parts.

 Young Slo-Be — Red Mamba (KoldGreedy Entertainment / Thizzler On The Roof)

Who picked it? Ray Garraty 

Did we review it? No. 

Ian Mathers’ take: 

The 12 tracks on Red Mamba fly by in a little over 27 minutes (not a one breaks the three-minute mark) but the result doesn’t feel slight so much as pared down to a sharpness you might cut yourself on. Stockon’s Young Slo-Be only seems to have one flow (or maybe it’d be more accurate to say he only seems interested in one) but he knows how to wield it with precision and force, and if the subject matter hews closely to the accepted canon of gangbanger concerns, Slo-Be delivers it all with vivid language and the studied, superior disdain of an older brother explaining the world to you and busting your chops at the same time. The tracks on Red Mamba all come from different producers, but Slo-Be consistently chooses spectral, eerie, foreboding backgrounds for these songs, even when adding piano and church bells (on “Asshole”), dog barks (“21 Thoughts”) or even Godfather-esque strings (the closing “Rico Swavo”). What’s the old line about the strength of street knowledge? These are different streets, and different knowledge.

[jjongleurs]

Something is wrong with Cas inside the Empty, and it’s being driven mad. The Shadow can’t go back to sleep, and the Empty is loud. Jack, half human, had made it loud. The explosion wasn’t just energy. It was partially his human essence permeating the Empty as well. Cas, well, he has been becoming human for quite some time now. Not just because he lost his grace and his powers dwindled, but because he was gaining humanity. Never, in all the infinite universes Chuck had created, had this happened. This Cas, was the one who rebelled. The one that refused to follow orders, the one that learned to care about humanity, the one that fell in love with Dean. All the others had listened to what they were told. They all killed Dean sooner or later, never met him at all, or were utterly indifferent to him. They never had the chance to find out what that initial fondness for Dean Winchester really was. 

Cas, stuck in the Empty, had a piece of Dean’s soul in him—the same way Dean had a piece of Cas’ grace. They were inextricably linked, and that was it. Cas—Angel of the Lord, Warrior of Heaven—became less so over time. He changed as he learned to love, as he became protector of the world, of the Winchesters. Of one particular Winchester. Dean, although extraordinary, was also just an ordinary man. He fought the stuff of nightmares with bloody fists, kept a protective fire in his soul, waded through the horrors of life out of selflessness. He did what he did, what he could, because it was all he knew how to do. Not because he was an angry, volatile, violent person. He did so because he loved greasy burgers in busy diners, the sound of billiards in a musty bar, the sound of the Impala’s engine on a lonely road, having a shitty beer with his brother, and every other unimportant detail of being human. Those ordinary moments were few and far between in his life compared to that of most, but, because he knew those joys, he made sure every other unimportant, mundane, boring human with an apple pie life or otherwise got a shot at those joys, the things often taken for granted. 

Saving people, hunting things, the family business. The “business” part of that wasn’t a monetary exchange, it was one of joy, and love, and life. Dean would give what he could, whether it be blood, sweat, tears, his soul, his life, his happiness, whatever else he had to offer, in exchange for whoever he could save. He wasn’t in the business of taking, he was in the business of giving. 

Dean never saw that, but Cas did. He saw it in every atom of his being as he put him together—bit by bit. He saw it in each sparkling piece of his soul as he pulled him out of hell. Cas saw it as they stood, side by side, saving the world time and time again. Cas saw it, too, when they were on opposing sides. When they were angry at each other, when Cas distanced himself because he was no longer worthy or useful enough to stand by his side, when he couldn’t stand the sight of Dean, he saw the selflessness, the love, the care he had for him and for the world. 

All of that, and Dean couldn’t love himself. So Cas did it for him. He loved him because, sometimes, it was all he could do. He loved him because Dean deserved to be loved. He loved him because he just couldn’t help it. 

Castiel, an angel almost as old as time itself, was never supposed to love. He was supposed to be a creature of duty and obedience. Dean Winchester taught him otherwise. He said a great big fuck you to destiny, how things are supposed to be, to fate, to the very fabric of reality, and to God himself. He dismantled every facet of how things ought to be, and grabbed hold of the free will none of them were ever supposed to have. 

The Empty was no longer quiet with these thoughts. They crashed like thunder, roared like the engine of a car, they emanate like a large crowd’s chatter. They filled the empty with the sounds of humanity. The Empty, older than creation and God himself, was never supposed to contain creatures like Castiel. The empty was devoid of life, but full of things. It wasn’t a graveyard. It was a junkyard. It was full of broken tools, weapons, wind-up toys, and the cogs of machines that used to work. Castiel was a thing like no other because he was no longer a thing. He was no longer a tool of the author, a thoughtless toy soldier to be ordered around, he was no longer silent because he was alive--because he was becoming human.

Cas was asleep, but unlike the remnants of angels, reapers, demons, and long-forgotten things in the darkness, he dreamed.

[nyadversary]

asking since your harry potter post was really interesting and made me wonder - are there any magic systems you really like or think are well-constructed and consistent? what are the traits of a good magic system?

oh i definitely don’t feel qualified to make any broad statements about what makes a magic system Good, it depends so heavily on what kind of story you’re trying to tell. i do want to say more about why i think the magic system in HP is ultimately bad though, and i have at least one example of a system i like to compare it with. under cut

very very early on in the HP series — i’m talking about the first few chapters of book 1 — we get the impression that magical ability does symbolize something? like think about how the series opens. the first chapter of the first book follows vernon dursley, a man who lives an extremely mundane life, likes it that way, and is highly perturbed by anything unusual happening or by anyone who seems out of the ordinary. he’s, what, CEO of a drill company or something? some comically boring but well-paying job. petunia is a housewife who passes the time spying on the neighbors. their infant son is already being spoiled and treated more like a prized possession than a human being. and these people hate anything they think is weird, which of course includes anything to do with magic. the dursleys know for a fact magic is real and it pisses them off and they hate it. 

when harry is left at their doorstep, mcgonagall protests and says the dursleys could not possibly have less in common with magical people like them. either she or hagrid says something to the effect that the dursleys are the biggest muggles around, which stuck with me because it implies that magical ability lies on a spectrum and the dursleys, who are outright opposed to anything the slightest bit unusual, are the furthest from magical anybody can be. this implies all sorts of things about what magic could represent for the series going forward — creativity, rejection of social norms, etc. — and, since these people are harry’s only living blood relatives but he winds up finding community for the first time once meeting other witches and wizards, it appears to be setting up a found family theme. which all sounds perfectly good, and people will still cite this as being a theme of the books. the main problem with that is it isn’t the intended theme going forward at all. 

JKR’s weird obsession with blood lineage honestly needs to be unpacked in a whole other post and i don’t think i’m the guy to do it but... obviously as the series goes on, the importance of blood family gets underlined again and again. it turns out harry is being protected by some sort of sacred maternal blood magic (which is never explained) and this is why he has to live with the dursleys, people he hates and has nothing in common with. the fact that they’re his blood relatives trumps anything else. magical ability generally is passed down within families, and in the later books much time is spent going over various magical lineages (voldemort’s family, dumbledore’s family, sirius’ family, the malfoy family, the hogwarts founders and their descendants, etc...). any notions of magic symbolizing creativity is undermined by the lack of actual creativity in how the magic is presented going forward (like i said in the other post, it winds up serving mainly utilitarian functions in the story) and as for rejecting the status quo, the series embraces the status quo. the happy ending the characters work 7 books to achieve just has everything “returning to normal” — voldemort is killed and the remaining death eaters dealt with, the ministry gets a new PM, hogwarts gets a new headmaster, and things continue on as they were before. issues of systemic injustice are left unaddressed, the subplots about magical beings fighting for full personhood status (centaurs, merpeople, house elves, etc) are left unresolved, slytherin house is allowed to continue on as an institution and presumably many wizards are still just as bigoted towards muggle-borns as they always were, and — oh yeah — the idea that muggles are innately inferior somehow? never explained or addressed. the takeway is just that if you can’t do magic, you suck. it’s so disappointing. all the pieces are there for a way better story (hey guys i think there might be some systemic problems with your magic school and your magic government do you wanna try fixing that maybe?) but JKR was never gonna write that story because it’s one she doesn’t believe in.

to summarize how magic works in harry potter just so i can really make it clear how boring it is:

magic ability is innate and the vast majority of people lack it. with relatively few exceptions, the ability runs in families — it’s rare for someone without magical ancestry to have the ability and it’s also rare for someone with magical ancestry to not have the ability

with only a few exceptions, all wizards are able to learn all spells. some wizards are stated to be unusually powerful but how much of this is due to raw magical potential and how much comes down to other factors like education, general intelligence and ability/willingness to learn, desire to cause harm in the case of the unforgivables, etc is unclear. some magical abilities, like being able to speak parseltongue or being a metamorphmagus (or whatever the fuck shapeshifters are called in this series) or being a seer, are innate and can’t be learned by most wizards. like magic itself, whether or not you have any extra ability seems to be genetic (these are all traits we know run in families)

in order to perform magic, devices like wands, cauldrons, etc are used as instruments or vessels to direct the user’s innate powers. there is no summoning, channeling, or ritual use involved and spells typically only go wrong if the wizard in question is inexperienced or something is wrong with their wand. with very few exceptions (the main one i can think of is divination, which is handled very ambiguously and most of what trelawney teaches is implied to be complete crap), magic works in very predictable and straightforward ways

so it all boils down to “you’re either a wizard or you aren’t, and you almost certainly aren’t unless you come from a magic family, but if you are — good news! you have basically the same abilities as any other wizard. don’t worry there’s nothing even vaguely pagan involved.”

which, like. how utterly dull. there are so many other ways one can approach these issues and nearly all of them that i can think of / have seen done are more interesting than this:

you could have a magic system where magical ability is much more specialized. instead of all magic users being all capable of more or less the same stuff, let’s say person A, B, and C are all magic users but each has a unique magical ability (say A can fly, B can talk to animals, C can become invisible) and, while they might be able to develop their individual talents and become stronger, they can’t learn each other’s skills. charlie bone, which is a crap series overall but which i do think has a more interesting magic system, falls into this category, as does a lot of superhero stuff although it’s generally not called “magic” in those stories.

another, similar, approach would be to have more specialized branches of magic that characters train under — say pyromancy, necromancy, etc. — and so, while it might be possible for a water mage to learn a fire spell or two, characters have much more individualized skillsets. RPG magic tends to be this, obviously. harry potter kind of vaguely gestures in the direction of this trope in that the professors obviously specialize in their particular subjects, but it’s not as if snape doesn’t know charms or whatever — it doesn’t amount to much of anything in practice as all the adult characters are capable of performing a diverse range of spells.

how does one wind up with the ability to do magic in the first place? is it innate, and, if so, is it random or does it run in families? is it associated with any other traits? are there drawbacks to being a magic user? can non-magical people acquire the ability to do magic through some other means, and, if so, does this represent an irreversible change? are magic users really “human” or are they something more? are non-magic users lesser? is there any loss of humanity associated with magical ability? do magic users channel their own innate power or are they channeling something else — if so, is it a godlike entity, demonic, or does it defy moral classification? is there “good” magic and “bad” magic, and, if so, is the delineation clear? if these are different branches of magic, are they wholly distinct in how they work or is there overlap? etc, etc, etc.

ultimately i don’t think anyone should be worried about finding the most unique combination of these tropes, because they’ve literally all been done 10 billion times — if i started off listing popular examples of how these tropes are handled in other media pandemic will have ended before i’m done. what’s important is how writers choose to handle these questions when telling their story. like, what does magic mean to the characters? what does their use of magic say about them? what does magic symbolize? etc... these are opportunities for the story to have Themes and Meaning and impart something to its audience! tbh i think it really says something that the magic in harry potter is so ultimately unimportant to the story that people didn’t bother asking the usual questions about what magic itself / the magic system might symbolize... if you look at what rowling might actually be trying to say with any of that, well, it’s not good.

i guess to end off with an example i like. in the bartimaeus trilogy, which is an extremely good YA series and i highly recommend, magic ability isn’t innate at all. magic in this universe is all done via summoning “demons” (energy beings from another plane of existence basically) and binding them to one’s will, which as you might expect is very dangerous if you fuck it up and summoning is on such extreme levels of academic bullshit that you basically have to study your entire life to do it safely (learning dead languages, being able to draw elaborate pentacles with perfect accuracy, etc etc). in practice, this means magic is something only the ruling class does / can afford to do. anyone in any significant position of power is a wizard, while everyone else — the “commoners” — is a second-class citizen under the thumb of what are essentially superpowered politicians. while the fact that magic exists isn’t a secret, the majority of commoners have no idea how it actually works, that it’s really just summoning and anyone can learn it. they’re being encouraged to think of wizards as innately superior/gifted and to defer to them as their betters. yknow, Or Else. there’s much more i could say about this but it’d wind up being its own post and i’d probably have to just break down the entire plot of the trilogy, but i think from what i’ve said you get a sense of the themes / commentary here. 

this has run long but point being, magic systems Can be used to say something about the story and the characters and to make some sort of thematic point or provide social commentary perhaps, and i think it’s cool when they do. harry potter tries its best to avoid having the magic mean anything and when you do try and analyze what it means, you just get a story about how some people are just way better and cooler than others because of. uh. their blood. so rather than further unpacking that suitcase i say you could just throw it away and, as they say, read another book

[neighborhoodmoonchild]

ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη

Pairing(s): Cursed!Seokjin x Reader

Genre(s): Fantasy Au, Fluff, Soulmate Au

Summary: “There’s a story whispered around here. One surrounding the beautifully carved statue of a man at the center of the town. Legend says that when the hand of his true love graces his palm, he shall wake from his cursed marbled slumber. It’s always been a silly old wives tale, until you give in to a friend’s dare.” (prompt idea from writing-prompt-s)

Warning(s): mild language

Word Count: 1.8K

Part I, Part 2, Part 3, ...

taglist: @best-space-boy @maryelixabeth @mochimaw @yeontanismypresident @hannahantonette17 @ign-is @fanfuckingfic @koala-wonderland @suchgayaesthetic​ @dulcaet​

~ if you want to be added to the tag list for this fic, feel free to send me an ask! thank you💜

The statue was no doubt beautiful. At times, it looked as if it truly was just an incredibly pale living man standing still, transfixed by something the naked eye could not see. Stories, old wives tales, the likes, manifested around it, creeping their way into the homes of every person ‘lucky’ enough to dwell within the town. They graced the tongues of parents at each late night bedtime story to their children, snuck into the early morning gossip of elderly women topping off tea cups, and laid dreamily in the back of every young girl’s mind, each one hoping to be the key to end the curse.

Growing up in this small town, it was hard to ignore the incessant buzz surrounding the terrifyingly detailed slab of marble. However, the challenge intrigued you, spurring you on at a young age to scorn those of ‘childish’-enough mind to ever believe in such nonsense as the ‘Story of the Statue.’ How ridiculous could one be to believe that the statue was once a man, and that the only way to return him to his ‘true form’ was the hand of his ‘one true love?’

If one should believe in such a thing as a living hunk of rock, it would make just as much sense to one day find half the townspeople deep in conversation with their hairbrushes.

Insane is a good way to describe it.

Completely and utterly bonkers another.

Much to your dismay, however, the entire town seemed to believe the exact opposite. Placing your hand upon the statue’s at midday became a reveled ritual for the townspeople. Men and women alike took their chance to entertain the mystery; to indulge in their deepest fantasy of being a part of the magic.

It was this 180 of belief from yours that ended in your own scrutiny. Instead of the ‘magical statue’ being the center of ridicule, it most often times was you. You couldn’t count on your fingers and toes combined the number of times you’d heard your name amongst the petty laughter of your neighbors, or caught the wicked smirks of the other girls your age as they hushed their voices as to be ‘undetected.’

It was painfully obvious that your reluctance to accept what has always been a town tradition made you an outcast amongst them all. The only friend you’d had to stick around being the quiet girl in the house neighboring yours.

In all honesty, she was quite drab at times, most of her vocabulary consisting of the words ‘soulmate,’ ‘statue,’ and ‘magic.’ Yes, she was just as deep into the mess of it all as everyone else, it seemed. As much as it pained you to sit through her lengthy airs on how romantic the whole situation was, that she’d do anything to be the soulmate the man was waiting for, she was the only one that had stuck around to entertain your rants.

Maybe her head was so far in the clouds your negative words never truly reached past the tips of her ears, but you were nonetheless grateful to have someone to at least pretend to listen, and she never made you feel any less-than for having differing opinions. Though, it didn’t stop her from picking fun every now and then, claiming that there must be a small part of you that was even slightly curious.

Her efforts to bring forth the inner-believer in you is what led to the present moment you find yourself in.

The face of utter disgust mixed with slight terror must have looked quite an odd combination for someone about to do the most mundane of things one could do in this particular town. It was as normal as walking your dog, or fetching the mail, yet this was a spectacle most could agree on as being anything but.

The nervousness could not be helped, no matter how desperately you tried to remind yourself that this was nonsense.

An intense burning sensation was the only thing your tingling form could truly comprehend, the eyes of nosy day-goers relishing in the sight of the known town hypocrite about to suddenly go against her beliefs. If anything, you seemed to attract an entire crowd, as if you were the main act in a thrilling road show that would come and go so quickly, the people rushed to witness it before it was gone.

A shooting star, a comet across the night sky, or an eclipse perhaps.

‘Get ahold of yourself,’ you thought, wiping your increasingly sweaty palms across the denim of your jeans.

‘It’s just a silly story, all you have to do is touch it,’ your mind reminded you. The more stares you garnered, the whispers becoming a loud buzz in your ears fighting above the rush of blood pounding through, the more your confidence seemed to crumble.

A tiny speck of a part of you wormed its way up through the depths of your being to call out to the reasonable part of your brain ‘what if it’s true?’

In the unbelievable off-chance that you were wrong, could you deal with the backlash of standing so firmly against it?

As you felt the warm push from the instigator of this whole affair, her face adorned with a slightly amused smirk, you realized that even if this whole story is true, there was no way in the universe that you would ever be the soulmate the story talks about.

Your experience with men is virtually nonexistent. The last time you’d indulged in the whirlwind of possible ‘romance’ had been when your middle school crush had kissed you quickly on the lips after school on a dare, promptly gagging afterwards and swearing to the high heavens that ‘girls are gross.’

Maybe you were traumatized from the whole experience, never mind the fact that the men of your town just weren’t vying for the attention of the town laughingstock, but romantic relationships just weren’t a part of your story.

It didn’t really matter much to you anyways, considering all the eligible men are, have been, and always will be, meager farm boys living off what their ancestors have laid down for them. Not that there was anything innately wrong with that way of life, it just wasn’t what you wanted for yourself and your future.

You have big plans, ones that include getting as far away from this place as possible, and no man was going to get in the way of that.

You’d rather die a painful, lengthy death than be a little hometown wife the rest of your life, reduced to nothing more than mindless cleaning, cooking, and birthing children. To be the ‘property’ of some man that could never understand your true potential; your true worth.

So, despite the twinge of fear lacing the edges of your mind, creating a rigidness in your limbs as you crossed the dirt path to the statue, you rose to the occasion, in a sense.

Maybe this would lay to rest the constant chatter of snobby folk, let them believe that, even for a moment, they’d found a way to manipulate you into their way of thinking. Maybe they’d finally stop whispering petty words when you passed, even begin to accept you into their society, not that you were desperate for that.

Or perhaps, it would give you a little more piece of mind, at least. Quell an unadmitted thirst to understand the hype so you could be completely unattached from this silly thing and hopefully move on with your life.

Those things would not change over the few seconds it would take to finish the deed, but as your mind raced through the possible aftermaths of what you were about to do, a change of sorts had definitely begun.

It was like all of time and space slowed around you. The closer the statue came into your field of vision, it was like entering a tunnel, or vortex, that sucked you in further and blurred reality around you.

And then everything stopped.

There, mere centimeters from you, lie the statue. It’s intricate detail and craftsmanship a new level of divine when admired closely. This was the closest you’d ever been to it and it stole the breath right from your lungs.

It was a strange feeling, mixed with the stares, the heat of the summer day, the nervousness in your belly, and the charge floating through the air. An unnerving mix that, shockingly, calmed the thoughts waging war within you. Like everything was numb, quiet, peaceful almost.

“Just do it already!” A shrill voice called out, followed by the sound of agreement flowing through the crowd. It snapped you from your state, reminding you of the task at hand.

With a little less reluctance than you’d expected, your hand reached out in the direction of the statue’s. Fingers shakily outstretching, all at once, your palm slid into the cool marble one.

It was smooth, yet you could feel every ridge and line like that of a human hand. The cool feeling of the marble against your clammy flesh was surprising considering the temperature the day had suffered through.

You hadn’t even realized your eyes were closed, breath held, until you opened your eyes upon the exhale, coming face-to-face with...

A statue.

You couldn’t help the anxious giggle that slipped from your lips like a mad woman.

You were right, well, at least that was one possibility. You’d touched the damn thing and nothing happened, just like you’d expected.

So why, among the rush of relief, was there an aftertaste of disappointment on your tongue?

The crowd, mildly satisfied and admittedly bored, had begun to disperse as you stood there, hand still placed in the statue’s.

Even though you’d bit the bullet, gotten it over with, you weren’t sure what to do now that it was done. For some reason, you couldn’t seem to pull yourself away, tell your friend ‘I told you so,’ and get on with your life, finally free of the unknown.

That same familiar warmth that pushed you here found its way back to your shoulder.

“Alright, you’ve proven your point...for now. Let’s go.”

Without turning your head to acknowledge her, you looked up into the face of the hunk of rock. For a fleeting moment, you felt as if you were staring into the eyes of another human being.

Without a word, you slowly turned to retreat back to your home, emotions a frenzy you couldn’t quite understand, let alone share with another soul.

As you began to take that first step away from the thing, your hand slipping carefully out of its grasp, you felt the smallest bit of movement behind you.

Before you could turn around on your own, something warm wrapped around your wrist, spinning you back to face the creation that plagued your mind.

Only, you weren’t met the the stark white of the marble, but the ivory tone of skin. Stiffly sculpted hair now flowing freely, dark, with the wind. Empty, pale eyes now filled with a deep rich brown, struck wide as emotion after emotion swirled within them.

Shouts and gasps echoed throughout the square, eyes of every villager as wide as their gaped mouths, returning to their prior posts, the show ending with a twist no one could have predicted.

Mind and body going into an immediate state of shock, there was no time to process anything at all before the weight of the now-man collapsed down from his pedestal onto you.

So the stories held some truth after all...

To Be Continued...

[xfandomwritingsx]

And The Devil Makes Three – Billy Butcher

-gif source-

Description: Years after Butcher abandoned you, he finds out he left you with more than the thought he did.

Warnings/Labels: Angst. Heartbreak. If you’re looking for a happily ever after, this ain’t it. Mentions of sex and pregnancy. Reader has a named son.  

Approx. Word Count: 2,500

A/N: First, I SUCK at accents and dialect so just… forgive me for Butcher not sounding like Butcher. Second, there is so much history between these two that doesn’t get explained and I’m sorry because it would be like a 10k long story if I did that and I just… can’t do it right now. Maybe another time. Third, I need more Billy Butcher. NEED.

You had been washing the dishes on a fucking Wednesday afternoon when your doorbell rang. It was mundane. It was ordinary. It was how you liked it now. But then you opened that damn door and the floor about came out beneath you as your stomach plummeted and your blood burned.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” The rage in your voice is clear as a bell. Billy fucking Butcher turns around to face you instead of the rag tag team of men on your doorstep. The faded look on his face is replaced with a forced smile as your eyes meet.

“Hello, love.”  

You slam the door in his face. You hear muffled voices through the door and then a delicate, but very persistent knocking on the wood.

“Please,” Frenchie calls from the other side. “We won’t be long! Just let us in and talk to us for a few minutes! That’s it. Then we’ll leave you alone.” His knocking continues through his entire plea. A mixture of inconvenient curiosity and concern of what your neighbors will think cause you to throw the door open again.

“Five minutes,” you snap at them before walking away from the door, leaving them to shuffle in behind you and follow you to your living room. “The hell are you doing here?” Your bitterness is aimed at Butcher and judging by the way he doesn’t meet your eyes, he knows it.

“We just need some information,” M.M. Speaks first, softly. There’s something about his tone that doesn’t quite sit well with you, like he’s afraid to speak to you. Sure, you weren’t exactly welcoming to them on your doorstep, but your grudge wasn’t with all of them. Just the one. “I know you got out of the game and you don’t want anything to with us, but we could use your help.” You scoff loudly and cross your arms over your chest just to make sure you didn’t punch anyone, specifically the asshole in the leather jacket, currently wandering aimlessly around your living room while the others stayed politely near you.  

“Is that what you told them?” you ask coldly. “That I left?” M.M. And Frenchie exchange a confused look before looking back at Butcher. You haven’t felt like this in years. You hate it.

“I told them you were out of the game and moving on.” He says it so plainly, like it was the whole truth and you snap.

“You left! You fucked me one night and the next morning you were just gone. Ghosted me with a half-assed note about how it was better this way or some shit!” You turn your attention back to M.M. and Frenchie. “He ever tell you that?” The shell shocked looks on their faces clearly say he did no such thing. “He decided I was out of the game. He kicked me to the curb.”

“Yeah well, looks like it worked out pretty well for ya, didn’t it?” You turn sharply to glare at him and see he’s got one of the photos that was on your mantle in his hand, holding it up for you to see. A cold dread rushes down your spine and your anger subsides for a moment.

In his hand is a photo of you and a young boy with dark hair that looks a little too much like the man standing in front of you. Butcher’s eyes are hard and unreadable. You wait for him to say something, to do anything just so you can move past the cold fear that’s slowly making you shrink down.

“Everyone get the fuck out now.” Your tone, though it waivers in the tiniest way, leaves no room for argument and the two men next to you seem ready to hang their heads and leave. But the new guy who followed them in, the doe-eyed young fella filled with optimism so sweet it makes you sick, steps towards you, briefly touching your elbow to bring your attention to him. You flinch at his touch and he withdraws quickly.

“Please, Miss…” he struggles to try and find your last name in his memory. He senses your impatience and moves on without it. “All we need is a name.”  

“Kid, I don’t know who you are, but you’re hanging with the wrong crowd.” His eyes drop to the floor, defeat slowly coming over him too. “My advice? Leave before he abandons you like a sick dog too.”  

“Told you she wasn’t gonna help,” Butcher says, an air of confidence in his voice that brings your anger flooding back over the fear. He gently puts the picture back and ushers all his boys back towards the front door.  

You don’t move from your spot, don’t walk them out, don’t do anything except stand there squeezing your arms over your chest and willing them all to go away. When you hear Butcher say, “I’ll follow in a minute,” your heart sinks. You don’t want to do this. Not now, not ever.  

His face is a stone when he stalks back into your living room, his own rage and confusion masked behind a blank expression that pierces through you. It threatens to make you feel guilty. You refuse to let him have that control over you, not anymore. You stare right back at him, waiting for his first move.

“How old is he?” There’s no question who he’s asking about

“It doesn’t matter.” You don’t have the patience to play dumb, but you’ll be damned if you make this easy on him. Your defiance breaks a little of his façade.

“Don’t fucking bullshit me,” he growls. “How old?”

“He turned three last month.” Your nails dig into the skin on your arm through the thin fabric of your sweater.

“Fucking hell!” He runs a hand over his face, his mind doing the quick and easy math to arrive at the answer he already knew. You let a little bit of your anger bubble past the surface.

“You don’t get to be fucking angry,” you snap at him. “You made your choice to walk away from me and anything and everything that came with me.”  

“It’s not like I knew you’d end up fucking pregnant!” He takes a step towards you and even though he’s still across the room from you, it feels like he’s too close. You finally release your arms, letting them flail up in an agitated fury.

“What difference does it make it if I ended up with a kid or not?”  

“He’s fucking mine, innit he?”

“No!” you scream at him, something within you snapping. Years of anger and resentment flooding out. “He’s mine. He is mine and no one else’s.” Your screaming drops to a deadlier tone. “I went through the pregnancy alone. I went through labor and nearly dying when I gave birth alone. I did the sleepless nights, the diaper changes, my fucking recovery, his entire three years of life all alone. He is mine.” You point your finger into your chest even though the emphasis is unneeded. Your fingers on your other hand have curled into a fist, squeezing into a white knuckled grip around themselves.  

“He’s got my blood,” Butcher says slowly. You shake your head.

“That doesn’t make you his father.”

“Legally, sweetheart, it does.” He tilts his head and that sickly sweet, better-than-you voice he uses makes you bark out a bitter laugh.  

“What, Butch?” you ask, utterly amused. “Are you going to take me to court?” He flinches back just the slightest bit and it gives you a sick twist of pleasure. “Want to stand in front of a judge and explain why your lifestyle is so conducive to raising a child?”

“Yeah well maybe it coulda been had I fucking known.” His eyes are still hard and angry, but they falter and look away from you for just a moment.

“I saved you,” you tell him slowly. “I saved you the struggle and the guilt of saying you’re going to be there for us and then not following through because you can’t let go of your crusade. I saved him a lifetime of where’s daddy? and why isn’t daddy here?” You feel the sadness creeping back in and the tears you thought were over years ago start to well back up, your heart breaking all over again. “I saved him from looking out a window, watching you leave and wondering why he isn’t good enough for you.”  

There’s a short silence where his eyes soften and you know your words hurt him. Not because they’re mean, but because they’re true. His eyes keep flitting to the pictures in the room, looking at the boy he doesn’t know. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand.

“You didn’t even give me the choice.” It sounds more pained than he meant it to, his anger melting away.  

“Kind of like how you didn’t give me a choice in leaving?” There’s still a little bite in your voice, but you try to subdue it. “What did you want me to do? Call the phone you’d already ditched? Go to the safe house you’d already burned? Did that.” You pause, considering if you should tell him the next bit. You feel yourself starting to tremble and without thinking about it, you find yourself walking towards him. “You think I should have tracked you down? I did.” Your voice is much softer now as you get closer. “I had your confirmed location in one hand and a pregnancy test in the other.” You put your hands out as if you’re still holding those items and the emotions of that day come flooding back. “And the moment that stick read positive, it was over. I threw out that piece of paper with your address on it and I never looked back.” You feel tears spill onto your cheeks and you try to not break down. Butcher won’t look at you, actively keeping his eyes anywhere else. “Tell me I made the wrong choice,” you whisper, not even sure what kind of reaction you’re hoping for.  

“What’s his name?” he asks instead, his own voice quiet. You roll your eyes and shrug your shoulders.

“Why?” You hate how defeated you sound. “What does it matter?” He clenches at your words and he rolls his neck in the smallest circle before looking back to you.

“C’mon, just…” he starts harshly, but falters when he sees you. His hand reaches up and his thumb strokes across the tear streak on your cheek. “Just give me that?” There’s a desperation in his voice that makes you ache.

“Ollie,” you finally tell him. “Short for Oliver.” His brow furrows and his lips tilt up in just the slightest way. When you involuntarily smile, you realize his hand is still hovering near your face. “I remembered you liked that name.” He sighs, giving in and letting his hand cradle your cheek gently. You want to push him away, but instead you find yourself melting into his touch.

“You’re such a bitch.” It’s said without malice and he stops trying to withhold his smile.

“So are you,” you say without missing a beat. He leans in to be closer to you and your hands find the edges of his leather coat, the zipper teeth biting into your hands.  

“I do miss that spitfire mouth of yours,” he admits.

You hate how much you miss him, how easily he can make you want to forget every awful thing he’s ever done. You told yourself for years that what you had was a one-night stand, that neither of you cared for the other. And then he shows up and unravels the delusion you held onto in order to keep yourself sane.  

“Why’d you do it, Billy?”  It’s the question that’s been burning at the back of your throat since he left. He grimaces and lowers his eyes to the floor.

“You needed out. You were ready to move on from all of it.” He leans down further, presses his forehead to yours and groans. “But you weren’t gonna leave me. And you… God dammit, you deserved more.” He pulls himself away from you and leaves the space in front of you cold. He starts pacing your living room again, footsteps heavy. “You wanted the white picket fence bullshit. And I wanted ya to have it.” He stops, facing away from you and brings his hand over his face. “I didn’t intend on fucking ya.” There’s an honesty there that you know he doesn’t like showing. “I was going to say goodnight and leave your room and just be gone. But then…”

But then you had grabbed his hand and asked if everything was alright and before you knew it, his lips were crashing down to yours and you were both tumbling back into your motel bed, years of bottled up passion and feelings pouring out. It had been the happiest you had felt in years. Until you woke up the next morning and it all came crashing down.

“Do you regret it?” you ask softly. “Any of it?” He pauses before answering, approaching your mantle once more.  

“Do you?” The bastard could never just answer a question. His fingers trace a frame that’s holding a picture of Ollie’s school picture.

“I don’t regret him.” It’s not a direct answer but it needs to be said. He nods firmly to himself before turning away and walking back towards your front door.

“They’re waiting on me,” he says gruffly, a flimsy excuse to make his exit. You follow him this time, not wanting him to leave yet.

“Butcher,” you stop him with his hand on the knob, but you can’t think of a single thing to say. There’s really nothing more left to discuss. It’s not like he’s going to stay and you sure as shit aren’t going to ask him to. So you sigh and ask instead, “What information did you guys need?” He puts his fake smile back on.

“Don’t worry about it, love.” He straightens out and his eyes clear, slipping back into business. “I told ‘em not to come here anyways. Was still trying to push them off your porch when you answered the door.”

“Look, if it’ll help you finish all of this then I’ll give you the information I have.” You shrug casually, but he sees right through it and catches that hopeful glint behind it. He shrinks again and his voice gets low, regretful.

“You know when this is finished… I probably won’t still be around.” You press your lips together and nod, the hope squashed right out of you. He was going to finish this plan even if it killed him. And it probably would. Watching the ground, you hear him open the front door. “Take care of the little bugger. I’ll make sure no one comes to bother you again.”

And just like that, he’s gone again, leaving you just as alone as he did last time.

[sepublic]

           As a teacher, Trexdis has definitely SEEN a lot.

           She was and is a spy, so she’s pretty good at observational skills, just quietly noticing others, keeping track of little clues or hints here and there, tiny puzzle pieces that allude to a bigger picture, to something else going on in the back of a person’s head.

           Trexdis also has a pretty good frame of reference for what decent parents should be like; Her and Will’s parents were loving and attentive. And of course, Trexdis knows what it’s like to grow up neglected, without parents to really look after you… And, she grew up alongside her handful of classmates and friends who hadn’t been as lucky. Kids who’d been neglected, didn’t get enough to eat… Had unhealthy pressures and expectations placed onto them, didn’t get validation, were afraid to speak up. Felt like their parents’ acceptance was conditional, that sort of thing… She quickly got a good eye for tiny little reactions to even the most innocuous gestures.

           So, by the time she became a teacher at Arkley’s… Trexdis has a pretty good eye for this sort of thing. And, she’s wizened up, cooled down, she knows how to approach things properly, subtly, carefully. She doesn’t call the kid out on it- Instead, she approaches them in an almost deceiving kind of way… Where she’s hiding her true intentions with some mundane and innocuous, but really she’s getting at slowly unrooting the truth from the kid, without actually confronting them, not making them uncomfortable, etc.

           The kid’s comfort is VERY important to Trexdis, the whole idea is to give them a safe environment where they can feel like they can open up- If Trexdis deprives that, what’s the point? But at the same time, she has to make sure… She can’t take any chances, she won’t and refuses to. So of course Kate will take matters into her own hands… She’ll quietly get to the root of things, and then subtly do what she can to help, without calling attention. Maybe having an impromptu pizza party, claiming that the Spirius Drones or some friend of hers accidentally made too many pizzas, she’d REALLY appreciate if the kids could clear it out before it goes bad…

           Not really calling attention to it, not making a big deal as she commends a kid’s progress, gives them good notes on their work. Or else makes sure not to call on them to speak in front of class, watches her body language… Reads the general room and environment, and if she can tell some kid is lowkey panicking and having anxiety over an assignment that’s due, she’ll admit to the entire class that whoops, she made a mistake, and now she’s extending the deadline to compensate! If kids come to her with questions, Trexdis is ALWAYS incredibly patient and attentive, thorough, making sure to give as many answers in anticipation, so the kid doesn’t have to speak up much.

           And of course…

           Like I said- She doesn’t want to get the kid involved. Not make them uncomfortable, not make them feel at fault for ‘causing a mess’. But Kate HAS to know and be reassured, because she can’t make assumptions in good faith… And, well- Her time in the Monster Realm taught her that sometimes, you’ve gotta do morally dubious things, for a greater good of sorts. Privacy is important, so of course Trexdis isn’t going to immediately go off and spy on some kid at home using her invisibility; Well, not always. Instead, sometimes she’ll arrange a meeting, under the innocuous guise of just ‘checking up’ with the parents or guardians, whichever, let them know how the kid is doing, it’s all routine and normal.

           And, Trexdis will drop small hints, little verbal cues, and gauge the reaction of whoever’s she talking to then. She’ll make it clear the child’s having a GREAT time at school, but it really depends on the situation. And, if she feels like it’s appropriate… Well, she might have a chat- Just bring up her curiosity. Allude to just how observant and careful she is, her wild imagination that goes out of control, there’s literally nothing the kid could be blamed for about this… Then, she might ask. Or not. Trexdis might allude to it, say she noticed this, she’s just a bit concerned, and depending on the reaction… Well, she can figure out a LOT from the reaction.

           Trexdis respects privacy, but she also CAN’T take any chances when a kid is at stake here. Especially if the issue in question IS as bad as she thinks it is, if it’s something Trexdis can’t just remedy at school, if it’s something that requires her to immediately step in, to put a STOP to this adult ASAP… Then, yeah- She’ll use her invisibility to check on a kid back home, and make sure they’re safe. It’s wrong and intrusive, but Trexdis is used to doing bad things for a better purpose. In some cases, the kid’s privacy is already being violated by someone else, so at the very least, Trexdis can make sure that when this is all said and done, she’ll never have to invade their privacy like that again, because they won’t need her to. It’s necessary closure.

           For peace of mind, Trexdis watches and quietly observes, totally unnoticed- And if she sees something that confirms the worst, then… Depending on just HOW bad it is, who knows? Maybe she’ll just outright step in to stop it. But probably not, that’s only rarely… Instead, she’ll arrange another meeting with the parents. Again, just a follow-up… And this time she’ll be a lot more direct about her curiosity and paranoid ‘imagination’, and outright ask if something’s the matter, if this kid is having issues. Trexdis can’t exactly call social services, her status with as a member of the Arkley Gang is kind of complicated… But amidst what cruelty she must inflict, Trexdis is determined to do at least some good, wherever she can.

           Trexdis will call out the parent. She won’t reveal the bombshell yet, if ever… But she’ll make it clear that yeah, there’s CLEARLY an issue here, and it’s her responsibility to check. Some ask her what right she has, that this isn’t Trexdis’ jurisdiction, but she’ll bat that aside, because hey, SOMEBODY has to step up when the parent clearly isn’t! And she can and WILL get serious… Trexdis wants to, and she only reins herself in for the sake of the kid. She doesn’t want to disrupt things for them, but sometimes…

           Sometimes, you just gotta do what needs to be done. Trexdis will get her point across, clear and bluntly- You do anything wrong, you make that kid uncomfortable… You make them feel responsible for this change of behavior, you do ANYTHING that isn’t to make their life better…

           …And she will know. She always does, she always finds out. Sometimes she’ll even drop the reveal that, yeah, she knew and SAW what happened last night, too!

            Usually, Trexdis makes the point while she casually, wordlessly reveals her own sword collection, or something like that. Yeah, she’s used to making threats, and the unusual status of Arkley’s as a school… It gives her a LOT of leeway to do plenty of things, she’s pretty high-up in a criminal organization, so Trexdis exercises plenty of resources and minions at her disposal. Normally she prefers to do it by herself, on her own, but you know how it is.

           If the parents still aren’t getting the point? Try to get mouthy, threaten to call the police on her, or something? Again… Trexdis has spent a LOT of time not being nice. Doing horrible, terrible things, and she’s accepted this by deciding to contribute it towards something greater and worthwhile in the end. She can and WILL get physical and kick someone’s ass, to get her point across; Because sometimes, nothing enrages her more than what she sees a parent do their own child. Sometimes she remembers how they took advantage of this kid, someone so vulnerable and dependent…

           And a part of her just snaps, decides screw it, the time for formalities or that stuff, it’s all done and gone- These people are twisted and need to be put in their place ASAP, as brutally as needs to be done, because no chances can be taken at the kid’s expense! Trexdis can and will get physical to prove her point, she’ll utterly terrify and thrash the abuser, and make threats that she will ALWAYS follow through on, if her conditions aren’t meant. Long ago she stopped worrying about who had the right to do this or that, now all she cares about is settling this, and doing what needs to be done.

           When the parent crawls back home, after being reminded by Trexdis not to let their kid know ANYTHING happened… She’ll of course follow them. Follow them the whole way through, invisible and undetected, to make sure they don’t break her rules. Trexdis will silently stalk and decide if the parents are trying to go behind her back, keep an eye out for them trying to abuse the kid, trying to take things out or accuse them. 

          If she catches them doing something wrong, she might just knock on their front door very loudly, as a reminder that SOMEBODY is watching… And again, if push comes to shove- Sometimes she HAS to step in personally and manhandle the abuser. She’ll of course be invisible, for anonymity and confidentiality, the kid has no idea what’s going on, and in some ways that’s more terrifying… But regardless, after the first time, the parents truly realize just how serious, just how far Trexdis’ eyes and ears can reach- And then they finally, truly, permanently stop.

           The poor kid is of course terrified, and it breaks Kate’s heart- But what else can she do? They were always going to be terrified no matter what happened… This way, the terror can finally end and stop, once this moment is over. And once Trexdis ensures everything is going along nicely, as she so kindly demanded… Sometimes, she’ll take matters into her own hands, and have Arkley just take the kid. If an environment is THAT toxic, Trexdis has no choice… And yeah, she knows what Arkley eventually has planned for those kids, too, she’s no idiot- But that’s why she has that plan to backstab him, to kill Arkley before he has the chance to really begin the torture and indoctrination.

           She’ll make an ACTUAL safe haven out of Arkley’s assets and resources, and to the kids there- Hopefully, nothing will have really changed, except for the better. In the meantime, Trexdis is busy, so a lot of times she’ll have an agent of the organization do things on her behalf, the Spirius Drones such as Nine or Ten prove useful in that regard. She can pull her strings well and subtly, to the point of being untraceable- And in some cases, she might just ask a student she trusts to befriend the kid, to give them support and much-needed solidarity.

          And, if Trexdis deems it necessary, if she deems the environment for the kid comfortable enough- She might drop the hints that, yes, things ARE going to get better and stay that way, and she knows- Because she’ll personally see through to it. Because that’s what she’s been doing. Trexdis of course prefers to operate in anonymity, but sometimes the kid wants or deserves an answer, and sometimes they feel better, knowing a trusted teacher is keeping watch over them. It really depends and Kate handles it with all of the tact she can, she’s not perfect… But in the midst of some mistakes, sometimes you just gotta keep trudging on stubbornly to get it over with and do what needs to be done, all temporary and momentary feelings or morality be damned.

[charmtion]

missed last week due to life™ and general assoc. mundanities but here I am back with another ✨ #sundayspotlight ✨ to showcase a few of the things that have utterly charmed me and made me smile even on the greyest days this week. so without further adoooooo:

writing to reach you by @chocolateghost [chapters 1-3]

‘Too many years living with a mindstate of logic and pragmatism had closed his eyes to otherworldly events like this. Surely something so extraordinary only happened in fiction. Fiction was a blank canvas. Anything and everything could happen in fiction. But reality was different…’

Modern au with a 1940s twist. Jaded Jon buys an antique weirwood desk. In its top drawer is a letter written by a certain Miss S. Stark. Do not sleep on this fic! It is beautiful. Packed with magic. Realness. Friendship. Feelings. Ink. Paper. Two hearts beating together despite the distances of time and space. I am already a  little bit in love with it.

All You Never Say by usuallysunny [chapter 5]

‘She cradles his groan in the hollow of her throat… People come and go, but he'll always have that part of her. She'll always mean something to him, even if that something fluctuates and changes as the years go by. At the crux of it all, they'll always have this, this connection, this burning under the skin...’

Modern au. Friends with benefits burgeoning into (a) secret relationship. This fic — and this chapter in particular — is pure spice. Fire. Explosions. Really well-written smut. Feelings bursting just beneath the surface. Magnetic pull between Jon and Sansa. All the glorious, messy complications. It is hot and intelligent at the same time. Very much enjoying following it as it unfolds!

leaving by @aflashofgreen [one-shot]

‘It doesn’t matter who hears. They’ll think she is a kitchen maid or perhaps a whore, anyone else the King is allowed to bed as long as it’s not her. Of course, he’s allowed to bed her too, technically speaking, but there are more than technicalities lying between them and the rest of the world…’

Post-canon au. Jon is King in the North; Sansa readies to rule the Riverlands. Intriguing premise and — even at less than 300 words...! — this little fic delivers on it beautifully. Latent longing between Jon and Sansa. Pain of goodbye. Ache at realisations that things have been left unsaid, feelings left unlived. My heart. Bittersweet — but beautiful, too!

Something wicked this way comes by @sonderlust45 [chapter 8]

‘It was easy for Arya to shed this piece of herself, but Sansa clings to it like she’s sewn it to her body with muscle and sinew. It’s as though if she lets go of her name, she’ll forget herself completely — and there’s already so little left to hold onto...’

Canon-divergent au. Maggy the Frog gives Sansa a prophecy before the Starks leave Winterfell. Ooooh, this fic is just delicious. Pace. Drama. Deviations from book-verse that feel so bloody right. Feelings. Emotions. Sisterhood. Fire-streaked escape. WOLF PACK. Swoon-worthy sentences and beautiful prose, too. Each chapter just takes my breath away. Go read it! 

Too Close for Comfort by @noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth​ [chapter 1]

‘She whines his name, begging for something she can’t find the words for, not anymore. All that’s left inside of her is electricity, desperate to be unleashed...’

Modern au. Pseudo-incest. Adopted Jon. Student Sansa. Dorm room debauchery. This left me — leaves me still — at a loss for words. It is so hot. So spicy. Pure filthy sexy smoky smut with a delicious thread of restraint and regret running through it. Omg go read it please — just be sure to take a fucking peacock-feather to fan yourself with like the queen you are, honey!

[anthropologicalhands]

Ellie’s Works in Progress

Last year, writing was very intensely difficult. Blame the pandemic, stress, or just a natural consequence of my skills not keeping up with my expectations--no matter how I think about it, that whole experience just felt awful.

So it’s good to see such a shift for this year already. January was a wonderfully productive writing month, in so many ways. Getting back into YYH has really been good for inspiration, and I have all kinds of stories I’m excited to explore.

In addition, I’m ready to branch out and try different writing techniques when approaching stories, to see if I can find some new tools to add to my kit.  I also want to develop a good writing habit and keep myself accountable, and that includes setting deadlines and other things to hopefully see these fics all the way through. I’ve started using a word/work tracking document to catch word counts on different projects, through it isn’t as convenient for shorter oneshots, and I’m going to give writing posts like this a go and see if they help. 

Ongoing Projects

Yusuke asking Hiei why he trusts Kurama - ready for revision (might need rewrite) In canon, between the Four Saint Beasts Arc and Rescue Yukina Arc, where Yusuke wants to know why Hiei forgave Kurama’s betrayal. I’ve already written a draft, but not sure if I feel very confident with the characters’ voices because this was the first thing I wrote for them.

Hiei meets Youko Kurama in the woods during the Dark Tournament - ready for revision Youko Kurama isn’t really a character as such in the series, but given how Hiei reacts to the idea that Kurama has transformed back to full power, I thought it might be fun to see what a discussion between them would look like, because while I think Hiei likes the idea of Youko Kurama, I don’t think he really would like the actual manifestation all that much. Keiko and the King of Makai - ready for revision A widowed Keiko has a meeting with the King of Makai (aka Yusuke), twenty-some years after the series ends. I wrote it entirely in chronological order, instead of my usual jumping around between interesting scenes and then writing connective tissues. A friend is reading it through right now, and I’m really excited to hear her comments. I don’t know, it feels like a very me fic. The many dates of Kuwabara Kazuma - ready for revision  This one is just going to be fun! Kuwabara decides that the best thing he can do to be a man is to try and get over Yukina and date like a normal person. And, poor guy, it doesn’t go so well. I got some great notes back, so I need to do some revisions to make it meatier. Internally, I’m weeping a little bit, because it’s probably going to expand at least another 1000 words, but the story will be better for it. Kurama stays as a guest at Mukuro’s fortress - currently writing It makes me so sad that there isn’t much fic where Kurama and Mukuro just talk. Even outside of the Hiei question, I think they could potentially have such interesting conversations with each other. I’m approaching the main climatic scenes - I can already see how this fic is shaping up differently from my expectations, but not too drastically. Plus, Mukuro’s voice is very fun. It is, however, going to be twice as long as my original predicted word count. Hiei questions Kurama’s choice to stay in Ningenkai - currently writing A sectioned/fragmented fic about Hiei interrogating Kurama about the mundane aspects of Kurama’s human life, and how he starts to understand what Kurama likes about this world.    Keiko turns into a demon AU - brainstorming  Inspired by two utterly gorgeous fanarts. After one harrowing post-canon adventure, Keiko becomes a demon and everyone deals with it. Boyband AU - brainstorming This is my comfort AU - it is so cracky and goofy and ridiculous and based on a kdrama so I need to figure out what changes if the setting is Japan, but I love it so much. Besides, YYH has always been such a boy band anime, so I think it’s only fair. I have no idea if this one will ever see the light of day, but I love it so.  Soulmate AU - brainstorming, starting to write. Because why not. This is under the premise that humans have soulmate marks, but demons don’t. Given how many characters end up straddling the border of demon and human in one way or another, I just want to explore how that works even further. The Mystery of Minamino Shuuichi - outlining A third-party POV fic that rapidly got out of control. This one will actually have chapters (gasp!) and therefore needs some planning to even begin to have a chance to make it. I’m actually going to try a long-form outlining technique I found via twitter. I’m really interested to see if it will work with my own habits. At the very least, I love that this outlining style might give way to try writing more beautifully/skillfully, which is something I desperately want to try. 4th Makai Tournament Fic - nascent brainstorming A post-canon romp as all the YYH characters gather together nine years post-finale at the fourth Makai Tournament, and all kinds of stuff ensures. This fic is still very, very unformed in some ways, because I originally wrote a few short ficlet pieces and then realized that they were all part of the same canon and actually, probably part of the main story. Depending on how the outlining works out for the mystery story, I think I’ll also try that technique here, because I am terrible at plotting for chapters and need any help I can get!

On Hold

Telepathy AU - ready for revision One day, I will revise this fic and get it out into the world. Maybe not this month, but next month.

Writing Goals

Some stuff has come up in my personal life that makes me hesitant to put any February due dates on any of these fics, though I really hope that will be possible for some of the drafts I’m currently revising. Instead, I’m going to just push through to move along as many of these stories as I can and reassess at the end of the month.

[starstruckteacup]

Cottagecore Films (pt. 11)

A Little Princess (1995)

starring Liesel Matthews, Liam Cunningham, Vanessa Chester, Eleanor Bron

synopsis

I was extremely disappointed in this film, to put it lightly. The story itself was beautiful, but that is thanks exclusively to the novel on which it was based. The movie itself utterly failed to convey the magic and timelessness of the book. The acting was flat, emotionless, and forced at every point, from every actor (except for maybe Cunningham, but he was absent for half of it). One would think a gaggle of girls would have some form of natural chemistry, whether pulling them together or apart, but not a single child actor portrayed even the remotest semblance of a relationship to another. (Note: I describe in my review of Pan’s Labyrinth what quality acting from a child looks like, for reference.) Even Matthews and Cunningham could not pass a believable father-daughter relationship, despite the story being about that. As far as emotional acting, the adults were just as bad as the children. They couldn’t even feign a single moment of joy, sadness, or anger, regardless of the context. I actually laughed for the entire scene during which Sara nearly died because of how bad the acting from the adults was. At least Chester seemed somewhat worried; Bron and the nameless police officers stood around so vacantly it looked like they forgot what was happening. I really was appalled by the abysmal acting, especially when so much was handed to them in the story. I want to preface my next point by saying that yes, I know computer animation was still a work in progress in the 90s. But this was horrifyingly awful. I have never once, not in my entire life, seen CGI as terrible as the monster in Sara’s stories. I nearly gave up on the entire movie within the first five minutes because of that monster. And it kept showing up, which absolutely ruined whatever favor I tried to hold for this movie. If you don’t have the budget, which this film clearly didn’t, don’t try to animate a monster. It’s that simple. I wish I had more words for it but it was truly so atrocious that I’m at a loss. Any good will I hold for this movie is due to my fondness for the story (no credit to the film), the settings (while not exceptional, they were fairly pretty), and Liam Cunningham’s acting. 2/10

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

TW: blood, mild gore, torture, racism against indigenous people

starring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish, Jordi Mollà, Samantha Morton

This film is the sequel to Elizabeth (1998) (see part 10 of my film reviews), which continues the story of Queen Elizabeth I as her rule progresses. Tensions between Catholic Spain and Protestant England grow ever greater, escalating to treasonous plots and assassination attempts. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and King Philip II of Spain conspire to depose Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, restoring Catholicism as the national religion. Even as these events lead to war between the two superpowers, the court provides no sense of stability as new faces and new stresses surround the Virgin Queen. She forms a strong friendship with the pirate Walter Raleigh upon his return trip from the New World, where he seeks to establish colonies under the English flag. However, his stay is extended greatly when Elizabeth’s selfishness and pride take over, and are only broken down in the face of battle when she puts him at the forefront of the British navy. Outnumbered, Elizabeth will need Raleigh’s loyalty and cunning, along with the unwavering loyalty of her people, if they wish to survive the Spanish onslaught.

While still a drama, this film proved to be much more war-oriented than its predecessor, but I’m not sure it did either as well. I liked the deeper look this film gave us into the Elizabeth’s mind, especially with her social and emotional conflicts. They remind us that she is still human, despite the somewhat cold appearance the first film gave her at the end. She is more mature, and even more prideful, but there’s still a limit to what she can take as a person. I think the first film gave a better portrayal of her complicated mind, but this was a solid continuation of what years of ruling can do. I also liked how much detail they put into Raleigh’s character, which the first film didn’t do as well with its secondary characters. We got to know more about him, even if he did still feel somewhat surface-level. I think the dramatic aspects could have felt more high-stakes than they did, especially for the characters who were actually in danger. Even though so many characters were actively committing treason, I only felt that level of tension with one: Mary Stuart. Her death was particularly elegant and laden with symbolism, and even though I knew the outcome historically the scene still delivered the anxiety it was meant to. The others simply didn’t have the same delivery. Even the assassination attempt didn’t project any kind of concern, regardless of one’s historical knowledge. The war focus was a fairly different take than the first had, which I appreciated. The film established a strong balance between the tensions in England, Scotland, and Spain, and did a good job making the stakes very clear for each group. Given the uncritically positive stance on England that this film takes, I would have expected the film to villainize Spain a little more to form a stronger dichotomy between the two rulers, but Spain was presented rather neutrally to the audience. The Spanish ruler and nobles didn’t have much character, despite being the antagonist. As for that uncritical positivity regarding England, I do have a bit more to say. Although to an extent it makes sense that the film would lean in favor of England, given its content and the point of view from which the story is told, it became overbearing at times. England could do no wrong in this film, despite children dying in battle, indigenous people being humiliated and dehumanized for show, talk about slavery, and a complete disregard for the suffering of non-white and non-Protestant groups. In contrast, the first film heavily criticized England, from Mary of Guise shaming Elizabeth for sending young children to war, to Elizabeth frowning upon Walsingham’s torture methods (granted she never stopped them, but she didn’t approve as readily as she did in this film), and so on. Although England in truth did all of these things without rebuke, the film could have handled it more gracefully and came across less like propaganda, at the very least. 5/10

Loving Vincent (2017)

TW: suicide (action offscreen, death onscreen)

Sensory Warning: movement of the impressionistic paintings can be very disorienting for those with sensory processing difficulties. I had to break from watching multiple times so as not to become ill.

starring Douglas Booth, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jerome Flynn, Robert Gulaczyk

This fully hand-painted animated film follows Armand Roulin, a young man with a severe temper, on his way to deliver Vincent Van Gogh’s last letter to a living recipient. When he reaches the town where Vincent died, he begins speaking to a variety of villagers with their own stories about the artist, and their own theories about how he died. Armand tries to piece the puzzle together, wondering if the death was not a suicide as claimed, but rather something more sinister.

This film was spectacularly breathtaking. The amount of work that went into painting every scene was awe-inspiring, and definitely sets the bar high for any other films of its kind. The team of artists that created this film represented Van Gogh’s unique art style exquisitely through their loving application of oil-based paints, and truly brought to life the emotion he put into his works. I wish I hadn’t struggled so much with the constant movement, as I feel I would have been able to appreciate the film in its entirety better, but as it was I struggled to pay attention to the story because the art style consumed too much of my sensory processing capabilities. As for the story, I thought it was interesting, but I found it lacking despite the incredible artwork. Foremost, after some cursory research, I discovered that the homicide theory on which this film was based was only acknowledge by one individual, and spurned by hundreds of others. Although the film leaves the verdict open-ended, both to Roulin and to the audience, the story itself seemed to lean into the homicide theory, then completely give up on it with no resolution, so it came across as fairly noncommittal. I won’t argue for or against the theory, as I don’t know nearly enough about Van Gogh to assert an opinion, but I’m somewhat unsettled by the amount of weight it gave to it without any kind of evidentiary support, only to dump it as if the writers changed their mind themselves. The pacing was also slow for a murder mystery, which is basically what the story turned out to be. I would much have preferred the film to cover Vincent’s life, or even the days/weeks leading up to his death, instead of only featuring him in other people’s flashbacks. This kind of existential impressionism should capture the life of its creator, not the mundane views of people who didn’t understand him or even hated him. There wasn’t anything wrong with the film, per se, but I wish the writing was given as much love as the art was. 7/10

Part 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10