#ty for reminding me there was an ink to october

[atlasvulcandar]

first inktober!!!!

[extravaguk]

pairing: jungkook x reader

summary: But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

wordcount: 15k

genre: summer!au, ex high school classmaters, kinda frenemies to lovers, tattoo artist!&piercing artist!jungkook, popular!reader

rated: m (fluff - smut - angst)

warnings: you broke jungkook's heart you bitch!! , oral sex (m&f), protected sex (shocking tbh), CL as your bestie it doesnt get better than that! idk i dont wanna spoil too much

author's note: fucking finally dude!! i've been writing this since february but school was kicking my ass. now that i finished my exams and mercury is in gemini i was able to finish it. if you read this, i hope you enjoy it!

Inkphoria

You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping the flyer too tightly, rumpling the paper in your hand until you're pretty much sure it's ruined. It's the first day of June, and it's already too hot. The sun and humid weather are causing beads of sweat to form in your hairline and your white tank top to stick to your skin. Your jean shorts didn't feel this uncomfortable a few hours ago and you're sure the heat is causing your mascara to transfer to your eyelids and lower lashline. You've never needed a slushie and a smoke this bad in forever, even if you knew the later would make your parents lose their shit.

Inkphoria

You read it again. Your brain is trying to guess what font its written in, an excuse to try to steady your heart beat until your nerves ease a little and you can finally gather the courage to step into the damn shop. You've noticed a few people passing by giving you strange looks because maybe it hasn't been fifteen minutes. Perhaps you've been unmoving like an idiot in the middle of the street for longer than you want to admit.

Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.

'Its not that much of a big deal. It's not even that painful, trust me.'

You wish you could trust your best friend, but your best friend is also the same woman who assured you Cats was the movie of the year. Yes, not 'Cats: The Musical'. 'Cats', the movie.

'And this could be a great start to get out of your comfort zone and start living your life exactly the way you want to, not the way people expect you to. Not the way your family wants you to, not the way Adam wanted you to.'

But although her credibility could sometimes be questionable - like that time she also told you she'd tried marmite and 'honestly, it's not as bad as people make it out to be'-, you also didn't trust anybody in this world as much as you trusted her. She had always been your entire support system, the only one around you who never sugarcoated, who always treated you as an equal, who was always there for you to help you discover yourself and, at the same time, remind you of who you were.

'And it's gonna look so hot, too.'

That's it. Sticking the wrinkled flyer on your back pocket, your feet finally start moving. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing open the door.

The first thing you notice is that, thankfully, the shop is empty. The second thing you notice is the bright sky blue walls, a green undertone peaking through. Your eyes scan nervously the interior. Frames with tattoo designs and people modeling other different designs decorate the walls, some skateboards also hanging from the ceiling. A few plants in the corner, and two leather couches on either side of the room. Your scanning stops on the counter, where a girl with short, platinium hair and -what you guess is- the eighty percent of her body inked. Face included. She's been looking at you, a smirk tugging at her lips. Her tone is amused when she speaks

"Hi." she says. "You can come closer, you know? We don't bite."

Great. As if you couldn't feel more out of place, apparently you also couldn't look more out of place.

"Sorry." you gulp as you walk forward. "It's my first time doing anything like this."

She laughs this time, but it's not mean. It's not mocking, thank God, and the smile she sends you is as warm as the weather, friendly, luckily helping you calm down a bit. "A virgin, huh? JK's gonna love this." your eyes jump in surprise, but she's fast to wave her hands in front of you. "Just a joke. So, first time getting a tattoo. You have something in mind, honey?"

"Um, no. Not a tattoo. Not yet, I think." you wet your lips, regretting not reaplying chapstick before stepping inside. "A piercing."

"Oh! Cool!" she claps her hands, too excited for your own taste, pulling from under the counter a catalogue. "So, where will it be? Cartilogue? Nose? A lot of people are getting their septums pierced right now, though, so you might-"

"Nipples. Like, one of them."

Her gaze finds yours in surprise, although her face swiftly transforms again into an amiable expression. "Now, that's badass. Alright!" she skims through the pages of the catalogue until she finds the nipple piercing collection. You scratch your head before wiping your forehead sweat-free. "You can pick either barbells or hoops, although barbells heal faster and they don't move around as much. There's different kinds of metal, too. Gold or platinium. If your skin is sensitive, I recommend titanium. It's hypoallergenic and not as problematic."

The blonde keeps talking as you nod your head, a smile making its way into your face while silently thanking her for her easygoing personality. It quickly makes you feel comfortable and stupid for being so terrified of doing this.

Once you decide, settle on the cost and sign the papers, she stands up from the stool she'd been sitting on. "Ok, I'll go tell my coworker. He's been sketching tattoos all morning, it's time he gets to work!" she laughs, but suddenly your smile banishes and your throat shuts down.

"He?" your alarmed tone halts her motions and she looks back at your frightened expression.

He? A he is going to pierce your nipple? You're about to let a random stranger, a HE, see and touch one of your boobs and then pierce a needle through one of your nipples?

"Oh, baby, don't worry. I'd do it myself if I knew how to, but I only do tattoos. Most of our staff are on summer vacation so it's mostly just him and I. If you don't feel comfortable, which is totally understandable, you can wait until september when Minzy comes back and she can do it for you." It's her turn to scratch the back of her head as she adds: "but trust me, we're professionals. He's not a creep or anything like that. He's been doing this for a long time. He won't cross any boundaries."

September? You won't even be here in september. Fuck.

Sure, you could do it when you move back into the city. But this summer was supossed to be the summer. You already decided after your breakup with Adam that there would be no trace of the old you. That it was time to push yourself, to do the things that you've always wanted to do, unapologetically. To find the new you, the real you. To stop being scared.

So after going through you options for a few seconds and taking a deep breath, you make up your mind.

"It's fine. I can do it."

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"JK, sweetheart!"

Jungkook is finishing drawing a Chinese dragon when Mijoo opens the door without knocking. Again. He puts the pen down, rubbing his eyes. It's monday, a slow monday, not much work, and he had hoped it would stay that way until closing time. It's summer and Jungkook hates summer. He hates the heat, he hates being drenched in sweat, and he hates the fact that he can do nothing about it. Because working in the summer is terrible. Summer makes him lazy, makes him want to bathe in a tub full of iced water and not get out until he turns into a raisin and october comes. It makes him irritable. Summer makes him annoyed by people -like Mijoo, even if he loves her to death- and himself.

"I got a girl here who wants a nipple piercing, her first piercing by the way, so get your shit ready and bla bla bla. Straight titanium barbell. Also, don't flirt and don't be creepy. She almost ran away when I told her a male was going to be touching and piercing her tit, be mindful of that. She's too cute, if you want to get her number you should wait until it's done. I think that's it. I'll bring her in in a minute."

Mijoo leaves as fast as she talks, but Jungkook is already used to it. He's already used to the headaches her mouth causes too. He sighs before standing up, tying his too-long raven hair into the best bun he can manage. He washes his hands, sets the table up, sits on the chair and puts the gloves on. He's too busy sterilizing the jewerly when Mijoo comes back with you.

"Alright, my babies. I'll leave you to it." she turns to you. "He'll explain everything, from how the process will be to how to take care of it after it's done." she leaves before saying bye, closing the door behind her, and then he finally turns to you.

Your eyes meet and suddenly everything stops. He almost drops the sterilizing machine, his whole body tensing, going into panic mode as he recognizes you immediatly. His hands shake.

Of course he does. Of course he recognizes his high school crush. The too goody two shoes, too pretentious and too rich, too good for everybody and, most importantly, 'too good for Jeon Jungkook' girl of his high school dreams. Of course he recognizes the girl he had confessed his stupid crush to when he was sixteen. Of course he recognizes the girl who rejected and broke his young and foolish heart when he was a dumb teenager.

It doesn't matter that six years have passed ever since. He still knows every lock of your hair like the palm of his hand. He still remembers the shape of your lips and the exact shade of your eyes. He can still identify the body he fantasized about -and jacked off to- when he was a hormonal teen, now filled in all the right places. Now a grown woman.

Just one look at you after years and years of pining is enough to almost make him faint. And grow a boner under his jeans.

And by the look on your face, your eyes wide and your mouth agape, you recognize him as well.

Dammit.

He schools his features and clears his throat. Forces his body to relax and compose himself, because he's not a teenager anymore. He's also a grown man, who has matured, who now has much more experience with women than he did back then. He had already embarrased himself enough when he was sixteen to be doing it all over again. You're just another attractive girl in a sea of attractive women.

He turns to you. You still haven't said anything. Neither has he.

"Um, you can sit on the table." he manages, motioning to the set up in front of him. He watches you taking doubtful steps until you're sitting down, your eyes avoiding his gaze. He almost forgot you were here to get pierced. Holy shit, you were here to get pierced. To get your nipple pierced.

You're a professional, Jungkook. You can do this, Jungkook. You've seen boobs before, Jungkook. You've pierced nipples before, Jungkook.

Clearing his throat again and forcing his hands to stay by his side, he speaks. "The... The top." your gaze finds his, like a puppy about to get scolded. You look at your top, realization dawning on you. "You don't have to take it off. You can just pull it down."

So you do, pulling the straps of the white tank top down and dragging the fabric down with trembling fingers. No bra. Jungkook gulps as your breasts comes into vision. As perfect as he had imagined years ago. His cock twitches. Round, full, perky and so damn inviting he has to hold himself back from latching onto one nipple with his mouth around it and swirling his tongue over the nub until you're a pretty, moaning, little mess on his piercing tabl-

He closes his eyes for just a second before reminding himself to act like the 23 year old Jungkook he's tried so hard to become. The confident, assured Jungkook he is.

"Okay, this is how it'll go. First I'll clean it and scrub it to get rid of any bacteria." he's so glad he hasn't stuttered yet. 23 year old Jungkook doesn't stutter like 17 year old Jungkook. He's also glad he can pick the alcohol bottle and the surgical scrub without trembling. When he faces you again, you're watching his motions with your lip caught between your teeth. That has him swallowing the lump in his throat.

Making eye contact with him again, you take a deep breath and offer a small nod, so he gets to work. He can show you and himself he's a grown man. A grown man who can pierce a nipple without appearing like it's the first time he's seen a boob in his life. The sooner he does it, the sooner it's over.

Jungkook wets the paper towel with alcohol before carefully wiping over your nub with it. Your back arches, probably from the cold feeling, he guesses. He rubs it a few times before throwing it in the trash can nearby. He avoids looking at how enticing the soft peak is salluting him when he reaches for the marker. He doesn't say anything when he dots it with it, jaw clenched and his dick painfully stiff.

"Lay back." his voice low as he commands, turning away to get the clamp. When he slides closer, he tries to ignore the view: you, with your hair sprawled and your sweaty, shiny skin and your eyes focused on the cieling, nipple fully erect, like the star of one of his most erotic dreams. He extends his free gloved hand before he can stop himself, fingers carefully working the nub until he's sure it's painfully hard. Almost as hard as he is.

You gasp, your back arching again. He stills and looks at you, your cheeks flushed pink. Probably from the heat, he guesses again. Or at least that's what he tells himself. He can't stop himself from wondering how responsive would you be in a different setting, most likely his bed while his teeth play with your breast and his cock dives into-

"You okay?" he studies your face, your eyes not meeting his and instead still focusing on the white ceiling.

"Mhm." you reply with a small voice.

"Relax, alright? It'll be over soon." his voice is as gentle as he can, his fingers mindlessly caressing your breast to try to soothe your nerves. Or maybe it's just because he's a selfish bastard. Whatever it is, he forces himself to bring the clamp to your nipple, securing it around it.

"Take a few deep breaths. This will only take a second of pain and then it will go away." He misses the way your mouth falls open, but he doesn't miss the way your eyes squeeze tight as the needle goes in.

"Ah!" he definitely doesn't miss that either. He goes rigid for a second, because that didn't fucking sound like a cry of painfulness. It's breathy, and whiny, not too loud and, for fucks sake, if that's how you sound when you're getting fucked, he swears to God-

He feels your heartbeat under his hands when he puts the barbell in and then the bandage over it. He takes a look at you, chest moving up and down. And then you take a look at him and what he sees is almost enough to take you right there.

Reddened cheeks, drops of sweat framing your face and those eyes glazed with something he's seen too much in the women he's fucked throughout his life. They're half lidded, mascara adorning your long lashes and almost smudged, looking right through him.

"Jungkook..." and your voice, as you say his name -acknowledging him for the first time since you stepped into his shop, for the first time since you were sixteen-, it's hoarse, almost inaudible, like you just came all over his-

He's on his feet in an instant like he's been burned. "It may bleed for the first week, and it can be really sore. The swelling will eventually come down." he's quickly tidying up the table, a bottle in his hand that he hands to you without looking directly. "Wash it gently with this soap and warm water once per day. Don't touch it. Wear a comfortable...bra. If it gets crusty, clean it with saline. Not alcohol or any other thing you might clean a wound with. The soap I just gave you or saline. Nothing else."

He's pacing around the room as he takes his gloves off and throws them in the trash bin, too agressively maybe, then he keeps rambling, like he's hurriedly trying to make you leave as soon as possible. "Avoid pools and the sea. It takes about six months to a year to heal, so don't... don't touch it, don't play with it or..." he clears his throat, "don't let anyone else play with it. And if it gets infected, come back immediately and I'll take a look at it." which he honestly hopes it won't happen. When he faces you, your top is back on and you're getting off the table.

"Alright, um...I'll do that." clearing your throat, your hand gripping the doorknob. "Thank you."

But right before you can exit the room, Jungkook says your name.

"_____." when you turn around to face him, it takes a few seconds for him to make eye contact from across the room. "It was good to see you."

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"Let me see!"

It's the first thing Chaelin says when she opens the door to her appartment. It's on the second floor, small enough to compare it to most expensive appartments you'd stayed in throughout your life, but big enough for Chaelin, her cat and her -impressive- collection of acrylic nail kits and pairs of high heels. It's also big enough for her to offer you the only guest room until summer is over so you didn't have to, one, stay at your parents' place, and two, find an appartment in a short period of time for a short period of time.

When you left years ago, you did so with the thought of 'never looking back'. You never really expected to return here, of all places. Maybe visit your best friend for a weekend at most, have dinner with your parents on a saturday and then go back to the new life you'd made for yourself on a sunday.

But that was before you'd caught Adam cheating.

Tale as old as time: childhood sweethearts get engaged, move in together, son of a bitch sleeps with the assistand he told his girlfriend not to worry about, and then the brokenhearted girl packs her bags and leaves the cheating bastard begging for her to come back.

You'd be lying if you said you were surprised.

Throughout your life, you'd learned to expect many things, regardless of being sheltered and babied by your family since you were born. Watched too much Maury and Dr.Phil. Too much Gossip Girl to know what the deal with life really is.

So, thankfully, you'd only shed a few tears, mostly because your ego and self steem were slightly triggered. You'd realize long before that your feelings for Adam started to disappear once he popped the question and you said yes. Your love story began as teenagers but soon after graduating, the two of you went on different paths: you'd matured, grown into your twenties while he got stuck at 17 and never stopped acting as such.

So yeah, whatever, break ups are hard. But they're not as hard when the love is gone and the sole reason to stay with your partner is to please your parents. You were also right when you expected your mom to tell you to 'forgive and forget' because 'those things just happen, it's not a big deal, honey'.

But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

The lanky nerd with braces, glasses and an anime obsession much bigger than his hentai obsession, which is saying a lot. The shy, awkward classmate who'd stuttered his undying crush for you when you were just kids. That one who you had rudely rejected like the bitch you used to be in high school.

But my God, Jeon Jungkook was anything but a kid now.

You were shocked. You were gagged. Couldn't seem to fathom what was happening and what your eyes were seeing. It took you a while to close your mouth when you realized JK was Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

With messy black hair, a smoldering gaze free of glasses, piercings adorning both ears, and his right eyebrow,, the braces long gone showing perfectly straight - but still bunny like- teeth. The clothes he wore were loose, all black, but it was impossible not to notice the muscles of his back and arms, covered with tattoos from his hands to his forearms. You'd bet there were more of them underneath the fabric.

It was awkward at first. You didn't know what to do, or what to say. Didn't know if he rememberd you. So you chose to stay quiet while your body chose to react like it had never been in the presence of an attractive young man in it's entire life.

And oh, did it react.

He was reluctant, his old timid demeanor peeking through his newly adopted persona. But as soon as those hands came in contact with your skin, your whole body was lit on fire. Like you were 16 and losing your virginity over again and it was the first time a dude touched your boobs.

There shouldn't have been anything erotic about it -besides the fact that your entire breasts were exposed-, it should've been just a professional procedure. But those gloved fingers touched and pinched and suddenly you were too aware of Jeon Jungkook and the way you were starting to sweat profously, not due to the heat of the season.

You tried to distract yourself by looking at the cieling and not at his gorgeous face. Tried to avoid thinking about Jeon Jungkook and how his mouth would feel wrapped around you. Tried not to think about the way your panties were a second skin to your folds, and how tempted you were to grind your hips until you recieved some sort of friction with the jean fabric of your shorts. You wonder if he noticed you squeezing your thighs together. You hope not.

And then the needle happened. You never thought of yourself as a particularly kinky person. Sex with Adam was boring for the most part and you'd lost your libido for a long time. Stopped thinking about sex altogether. But the pain. The pain mixed with his hand rubbing soothing circles on your breast and his voice, as sweet as honey, guiding you through it. It made you reconsider a lot of things you'd once dismissed as 'weird' or 'deviant'

You swear you almost came right on his table.

And then your eyes connected, you made the mistake of calling his name like a satisfied woman who still needed more, and it was all gone. He stood up like a scared cat, gave you a bunch of explanations about the aftercare that you barely grasped without even looking at you and pretty much rushed you to leave.

So you walked, all the way from the tattoo parlor to Chaelin's appartment, mortified, and completely humilliated.

"Are you gonna let me see or not?" your friend says expectantly as you finally sit down after chugging a glass of iced water. You sigh, placing the glass on the table before carefully pulling down your top. "Oh my God, it looks so cool!" she gasps and you can't help a smile while she studies it in amazement. "Did it hurt?"

"Um, I guess." you keep out the part where you almost orgasmed, obviously, stopping her hand from touching when she reaches towards you. "Wait, no. He said something about not touching it for like six months or a year, I don't remember."

At that, Chaelin's eyebrows quirk up. "He? It was a he? Was he cute, at least?"

"You won't believe this..." looking away for a few seconds, you take a deep breath. "It was Jeon Jungkook."

There's a pause, a silence that fills the room when Chaelin's jaw drops. "Jeon Jungkook...pierced your nipple?"

You close your eyes, bracing yourself for what you're a hundred percent sure is coming.

"Ha..." there it is. "Ha ha..." you still know there's more. "Ha ha ha..."

Chaelin laughs hysterically for about God knows how long, while you keep drinking your glass of water unfaced, your mind drifting back to Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie, his tattoos and his stupid gloved hands.

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You know he's here.

Everything was cool, you were doing alright, having a great time with your vodka sprite in hand and your cute white bikini on. Chaelin was by your side, the guys were excited to have you back and thankfully, you'd avoided most questions about Adam and they'd avoided digging too deep into the topic. You'd sunbathed the whole afternoon, kept away from the water like he'd told you and ate the Hawaiian pizza Yoongi insisted on ordering despite Namjoon's and Jimin's complaints.

It's at night, when you're a little tipsy and your cheeks are flushed, that you feel it. You'd barely noticed Taehyung disappearing to let in a new guest.

You don't see him, but you feel him.

You're sitting on the pool tile steps, legs dangling and the water baely reaching your belly to make sure it doesn't touch your very sensitive and newly pierced nipple. Your back is facing the sliding glass doors of Hoseok's house, but the moment you hear his voice, smooth but animated as he converses with Taehyung, your body wakes up immediately, back straightening, goosebumps forming on your arms and nipples tightening against the fabric of your two piece.

You don't turn around, instead opting for downing the remaining of your drink and coming to the realization that, of course, Taehyung, social butterfly who'd always got along with everybody and remained friends with most people from high school, still keeps in touch with Jungkook.

You ignore him when he enters the pool, still peering from the corner of your eyes while pretending to be engaged in Chaelin's and Jihyo's conversation. Your mind sabotages you by taking you to that day a week ago at the tattoo parlor.

To the warmth of his hand, to the few strands of hair that his small ponytail couldn't keep together, to the way his eyes focused on such an intimate part of your body, to the endless ink decorating his skin, to-

Great. Now your bottoms are wet and not due to the water.

You don't miss Chaelin supressing a laugh and her not so subtle elbowing. You glance at her in warning and try to keep calm for the next fifteen minutes until Jin proposes moving to the living room to watch a movie.

"I'm gonna stay here for a little longer, guys." you say, after clearing your throat. You needed some time to gather yourself before being in a confined space with Jungkook.

"Are you sure?" Jin stops by your side to place a hand on your shoulder as everybody starts exiting the pool. "It's Mean Girls! You love Mean Girls! You never miss a minute of Mean Girls!"

Rolling your eyes, you wave him dismissively. "I know every dialogue on Mean Girls like the back of my hand, I think I'll be alright, Jin."

When everybody finally leaves, you take a deep breath, covering your face with your hands in an attempt to get him out of your head. Damn Jeon Jungkook and his irresisitble glow up.

"You okay?"

The unexpected voice startles you, a gasp finding its way out of your mouth and causing you to jump on your seat, heartbeat erratic as you instantly recognize who it belongs to. Your hand grasps your chest as if that would do anything to protect yourself against him.

"Shit, don't do that!" you say, the words almost getting stuck in your throat as you see him approaching you, still submerged in the pool. The more he nears you, the less water depth there is and the more visible his torso comes into view. Wich was exactly what you'd been avoiding.

Because Jeon Jungkook was ripped, as you'd imagined when you first encountered him.

Broad shoulders and strong biceps and chiseled abs and veiny forearms. Drenched hair, a full sleeve of tattoos and water dripping from delicious tan skin and all just so very hard. That paired up with a loopsided smile that does nothing but make you shudder.

"Sorry." he doesn't sound apologetic at all when he says that, the smirk adorning his features telling. "You just seemed a little off." you advert your gaze when he pushes his hair back.

"I'm fine, just...just wanted to be by myself."

"Oh" Jungkook's smile disappears. "I can leave, if you want me t-"

"No!" you're not sure where that comes from and neither does he, judging by the look on his face when your eyes find his. Eyebrows raised and mouth slightly parted, he's as surprised as you and there's an awkward silence for a few seconds. "Um, you don't have to. I mean, it's not my house, you can do whatever you want." you sniff and tame your voice, trying to seem cool and collected like you didn't just practically beg him not to go.

Ironic, considering this was exactly what you had been fearing for the past thirty minutes.

And then he smiles. A knowing smile. A smile that says 'you just totally checked me out and now you don't want me to leave'. A smile that you would have never associated with Jeon Jungkook of all people years ago. A smile that makes you want to look away but still keeps you in place.

"Sure." he says, closing the space between the two of you slowly but still leaving enough distance. "So, how's it going?"

You clear your throat, head high and determined not to let this man, or any man for that matter, turn you into a trembling mess. You're still you and you're not easily shaken by the opposite sex. Or at least that's what you helplessly chant in your head.

"Everything's cool. I'm on summer vacation now," a little white lie, "so I decided to-"

"The piercing." he says, the smile never leaving his face. "I meant how's the piercing."

"The pier- right." you almost miss the step he takes forward, all too aware of his height over yours but thankful for the centimeters that being propped on the stairs added to yours. "It's-" you almost, almost miss his knee touching your knee and him slightly separating your legs with his own inch by inch. Or how your thighs open unvoluntarely to welcome him in and how you can barely find coherent words to speak. "It's doing-" or the way his smile disappears and is instead focusing his dark stare fully onto yours.

"It's doing well." you finally say in a whisper, not being able to bring yourself to be louder.

He hums. "May I see it?" Jungkook wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and the action and his voice is enough to make you nod your head, bewitched.

His movements are unhurried, his hand coming up to tentatively come in contact with the flesh of your clavicle. His fingers skim through your skin upwards, his touch is feather-like when it wraps around your throat. You pant, and he stops but he doesn't move away, his eyes still focused on yours, studying you, daring you to pull back, to tell him to back off. But just a simple touch of his and you're fully under his control. It reminds you too much of the day you got that damn piercing.

Your lips are parted and for a moment he stays just like that. His body so close to yours but not close enough, and his hand slightly gripping your neck. Your pussy clenches around nothing and you can't wrap your head around the fact that something so simple sets your entire being alive and leaves you aching.

Then, as slow as he started, his hand travels from the front of your neck to the back, pushing your hair aside to carefully untie the straps of your bikini. He breathes through his nostrils, doesn't make a sound. He seems so collected it's starting to annoy you.

Instead, your breathing is ragged when the top falls down, exposing both your breasts to him. That's when he removes his eyes from yours and his jaw clenches. Your nipples perk up under his gaze, like they remember him and the effect he had on them just a week ago. You're at least glad you're not the only one affected but he seems to be a master at keeping it under wraps.

Then, his hand moves again, leaving goosebumps on your skin as it goes south. Jungkook takes his time, so deliberate you want to scream, until he's cupping your pierced breast, keeping away from the nipple just like he'd advised you a few days prior. You can't look away from his face, from his eyes observing you like you're a full course meal and he's been starving for days. You feel drops of water falling from his hair to your thighs, his thumb caressing your skin so delicately as it faintly nears your still tender nipple. Just nearing it, never touching it.

"Beautiful." his murmur is almost imperceptible and for a moment you think you've imagined it. Your back arches on its own, breast pushed against the palm of his hand, almost like your body is begging him to come closer, to touch you more, to feel you all over. He meets your eyes briefly, gauging your reaction, before going back to your chest. Suddenly, the grip on your breast tightens, fingers ever so softly squeezing your flesh. From your throat comes a mewl, your eyes shut and your legs close around his waist.

"Jungkook, please..." you whisper when you open your eyes. He looks at you, unvertainty written all over his face, lips bruised as if he had been biting on them too hard, gaze as glassy as yours. And just like that, the spell is broken. He blinks and his expression changes completely. Lips forming a straight line and jaw tight. His hand retracts, fixing your bikini top over your breasts before tying it around your neck like it originally was. Meanwhile your eyebrows crunch in confusion. But when you're about to start asking questions, he clears his throat.

"It's healing okay." he steps back, avoiding your eyes. "I'll see you inside."

Jungkook leaves the pool like nothing happened.

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Jungkook is fiddling, fixing the position of his glasses and combing through his straight hair with shaky hands, habits he's tried so hard to get rid of in his sixteen years of existence but still finds impossible to.

He can't help it. He's always been like this: the quiet and awkward kid in class who sits in the back, a misunderstood puppy in a sea of stronger dog breeds that could eat him alive. An outcast. Too geeky for his own good. Notebokes full of Dragon Ball doodles on the margins of the pages, the shelves in his room stacked with Marvel figurines, and a closet filled with outdated clothes that he has been inheriting from his older brother.

He has never been the type to stand out, always being overlooked by people like he's invisible. He doesn't mind though. He'd much rather be ignored than getting picked on by bullies like he used to in elementary school.

He never gets invited to parties. Ever. He's a nobody who barely speaks, and when he does he either stutters or manages to embarrass himself in one way or another. He's seen the look on people's faces when they look at him. Their eyes seem to scream 'weirdo' everytime he gets acknowledged.

So obviously the only reason he was invited to this particular party had a first and last name: Kim Taehyung. The only kid in Jungkook's entire life who didn't look at him in a funny way, the only kid who took the time to entangle in a random conversation with him after class and who seemed geniune enough to make Jungkook feel comfortable.

He's not sure how it happened, since Taehyung mostly hangs out with the cool kids. But somehow it did, and now Jungkook is uncomfortably standing in a living room full of drunk teens, looking directly at you.

You, the one girl Jungkook had been pining on for God knows how long. You, who are obviously too pretty, too popular, and way out of his league. You, with your plaid skirt and your polo shirt and those legs that never seem to end. You, who are sitting with your friends in a couch, drink in hand and visibly tipsy. And yet, he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone pull of the 'drunk-rosy-cheek' look better than you.

He can hear your laugh through the music and he already thinks it sounds better than whoever is playing in the background.

"Come on, Gukkie! Her friends are leaving and she's all by herself now! It's your chance" Taehyung's obviously drunk too because it took Jungkook a while to decypher his exact words. He'd disappeared for a while and now that he's back, he's pushing Jungkook in your direction.

"This was a mistake, Taehyung." Jungkook shakes his hair and steps back, quickly glancing at the front door to prepare his escape. But his new friend's grip on his hoodie keeps him in place.

"Guk, listen. The only thing you have to do, is walk up to her, and say 'hey I think you're, like, really pretty. Just letting you know. Bye!' That's it. Jung- Dude, Guk, seriously, look at me." Taehyung grabs Jungkook's cheeks, squishing them between his hands and forceing him to face him. "You've been crushing hard on her for years, my man. We're graduating and you won't see each other again. What's the worst thing that can happen? Getting rejected?"

Jungkook's eyebrows draw together. "Um, yeah?"

"Exactly! Getting rejected is not the end of the world, bro! It just means keep trying on other girls!" Taehyung releases his hold on Jungkook's cheeks. "I just think you're going to regret not telling your crush she's your crush. Who knows? Maybe in the future you two will get married."

Jungkook snickers, muttering a 'yeah right' under his breath. Still, he can't help the smile that Taehyung's words always seem to pull out of him.

"Now," Taehyung playfully slaps Jungkook before turning him in your direction again. "Go get 'em, tiger!"

"Okay," Mijoo's voice slices through Jungkook's memories. She's sitting on Jungkook's desk, munching on her brownies and looking at her coworker expectantly. "And then what?"

He sighs, running a hand through his hair, sits back on his chair, already feeling the effects of Mijoo's baked goods. "And then I walked up to her, like a damn fool, stutter and all. And I say:" he clears his throat, making an effort to do his best teenage Gukkie impression."'Hey, _____, um, so, I think you're beautiful and I've had a crush on you since seventh grade, haha, just wanted to let you know.'"

Mijoo rolls her eyes, still chewing. "And then what?"

"And then she looked me up and down, giggled, fucking giggled, Mijoo, and said 'Who are you, again?'" Mijoo gasps and Jungkook closes his eyes, trying to force that recollecion out of his head.

"What a bitch." she can't help but laugh before apologizing. Jungkook merely shrugs his shoulders and takes another bite of his brownie. "She didn't say anything else?"

"She said something along the lines of:" he clears his throat again, this time, doing an impression of you. "'That's sweet and all but, you and I... we're not the same. And I have a boyfriend, so...' She said that like I didn't know, like I wasn't aware of the school's it couple! Like I was dumb!"

Mijoo nods. "And now you want to fuck her even more than you did in high school."

"I- No! Well, yes. Fuck, of course I want to sleep with her! But I just... can't."

"Why not?"

"Did you hear anything about what I just told you or were you too concentrated trying to get high?"

It's Mijoo's turn to roll her eyes. "I heard everything you just told me. I just don't understand what the problem is. You two were sixteen. Sure, she was a bitch about it, but Lord knows I've been a bitch my entire life and now I'm not anymore." Jungkook raises an eyebrow at that. "Okay, sometimes I can be nice. But the point is..." Mijoo finishes her piece of brownie before getting off of Jungkook's desk. "It's been, what? Nine? Ten years? People change, JK. You're the best example of that. You want to fuck her and she obviously wants to fuck you too. You're both adults." she wipes her hands on her shorts. "I think it's time you fulfill that high school fantasy of yours."

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You've made up your mind.

And by you, it means Chaelin has made up your mind.

It didn't take long to convince you though. That last interaction with Jungkook cause too many emotions stirring within you. It left you hot, it left you bothered, it left you confused. Sure, it also left you a little bit embarrassed like the first time, but above everything else, that interaction with Jungkook left you absolutely livid.

Because who the fuck did Jeon Jungkook, formerly known as Guk, Gukkie, Jungukkie, and currently known as JK, think he was to come near you, speed your heart rate's up, and then runaway like that?

You've spent days thinking about it. About that face, about that body, about those hands and- shit. You're doing it again.

You've spent days trying to push those intrusive thoughts. Spent days trying to bury what happened. You've spent days trying to keep quiet, not telling anyone about it and just wishing that stupid spark of desire simply went away.

But it has just been simply unavoidable. You haven't been able to ignore the sleepless nights with your brain drifting back to that night and forbidding your hand from slipping under your panties. Or the excessive amount of time during the day where images of him suddenly popped in your head and wouldn't go away, even with you squeezing your thighs to try to make the ache go away.

So you ended up ranting and ranting and ranting to the only person you could confide on, who is obviously your best friend. Your best friend, who's too smart for her own good and knows you too well for your liking. Because apparently your moodiness and snappy remarks couldn't go unnoticed.

And after explaining the fiasco over a bottle of wine -and minutes of endless laughing on Chaelin's part because, again, it's Gukkie you two were talking about and, according to her, this was "the most karmic thing I've ever seen"-, she gave you the best advice an older sister could ever give.

"Fuck him."

"I know right? Fuck him!"

"No. I mean, fuck him."

And now here you are. Right inside that room you stepped in weeks ago, confronting the man in question with the same confidence that has always distinguished you from others and trying to act like the fluttering inside your belly wasn't nauseauting.

"A date."

"Yes."

"You want to go on a date with me." this wouldn't be so hard if Jungkook didn't look so delectable in a plain white t-shirt and ripped jeans. You cross your arms over your chest, doing your best to not look down at the exposed skin of a man who obviously worked out a lot and apparently, never skipped leg day. "What's the catch?"

He's sitting on his chair, back resting comfortably and legs spread, narrowing his eyes at you and probably wondering why the girl at the front desk let you in without an appointment. Also, probably wondering if there was a catch to all of this.

"There's no catch. I just want to go to the fair this weekend. I'll ask Taehyung for your number and text you the date and the exact place we'll be meeting. Unless..." your quirk one of your eyebrows. "Unless you're already planning on how you'll chicken out this time."

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Of course, Jungkook says yes to going on a date with his high school crush but spends the following days overthinking every single thing.

He can't help but feel like it's kinda sketchy. What if you're planning your vendetta on him? What if you don't even show up and he ends up there looking like a damn idiot? What if you hate him and are just messing up with him? What if that incident in high school is going to repeat itself?

"If she doesn't show up, you simply move on and never speak to her again. It's that simple. She can't have that much power over you to cry about something like that." Mijoo had said that same day she let you in the tattoo parlor after you'd asked to see Jungkook. Jungkook's coworker hadn't even question you and just motioned you to Jungkook's room with a knowing smile on her face. Later that day, Jungkook had scolded her about it and she'd simply shrugged.

He considers cancelling, eyes reading the 'won't be able to make it, sorry (sad face emoji)' over and over again and fingers hovering over the send button so many times he's lost count. But then he remembers that comment of yours about him chickening out and Jungkook starts seeing red.

How couldn't you understand he's just terrified of you rejecting him one more time? Sure, Jungkook is now an adult who doesn't get butthurt over stuff like that. He's experienced too much after graduating from high school and he's a much stronger individual than his fragile self back was back then.

But something about you just makes him feel so... weak.

He still finds it impossible to concieve where he got the courage to approach you like that at Taehyung's pool, or how he brought himself to touch you for longer than a minute without coming in his pants. He'd enjoyed it too much. Allowing him to see you so exposed, just for him. He'd be so tempted to kiss you right there and then, to run his hands up and down your thighs and fully wrap your legs around him to let you known how much you'd affected him. Once you called his name, it was like he'd finally snapped out of it and backed away like he'd been burned by you. He spent the next twenty minutes trying to keep himself from pulling down his pants and jerking off in his friend's bathroom.

It's terrible. Because he feels like the teenager he used to be when you're around. Shy, insecure and overall a mess. You showing up in his life after so many years and now apparenly being interested in him seems like a dream that he's not sure he wants to keep being in or wake up from before it's too late and he falls back into that tumoltuous longing that will inevitably end up in heartbreak. His heartbreak.

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It's saturday night, he's standing by himself in the crowded fair at the spot. You're fifteen minutes late and he's already about to turn back and dip out. He feels too awkward and the nerves are eating him alive.

You're not going to show up. You're not going to show up and now he feels and looks even dumber than the time he told you he was crushing on you. You're not even going to show up and now he's going to come back home, get drunk by himself and curse your name for-

"Hey!" he turns around to the sound of your voice and sees you running towards him. "Sorry I'm late! I couldn't find my phone and spent like thirty minutes looking for it. Turns out, Sharon Stone, was taking a nap on top of it and I didn't even notice."

"Sharon Stone?"

"Chaelin's cat."

To be honest, he's too surprised to process your explanation right away. He might also be a little speechless because that sky blue sundress looks too good on your skin and your eyelashes are so long, framing your beautiful eyes, and your lips are all glossy and kisseable that it takes him a while to find his own voice.

He clears his throat. "It's alright." scratching the back of his head, he momentarely adverts his gaze from you in an attempt to not get distracted by how soft your hair looks and how much he wants to wrap it around his hands in a ponytail. "Um, where do you want to go first?"

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Almost an hour and a half later, when the sun has already disappeared and you're both surrounded by colorful lights, Jungkook decides to buy the both of you hot dogs and a drink and you both settle down on a bench.

You've been walking all over the fair, going from booth to booth, playing any game in sight Jungkook dared you to -he obviously had a competitive streak-: from the ballon and dart games, to the shooting games, to the bumping cars, to the ball-in-basket one. To say you were having fun was an understatement.

You'd almost regretted setting the date up. You were sure he wouldn't even show up and if he did, you were scared of how awkward things could get between the two of you. And if things were awkward, you were sure it would only take less than thirty minutes for the both of you to part ways and never talk again about such failure of a date.

To your surprise, none of that happened.

The conversation was flowing, both of you acting like you were strangers on their first date getting to know each other, which, to be fair, that's exactly what it felt like. There was a slight banter, teasing each other when one of you lost in whatever game you were playing while the other was obviously winning. There were laughs and a funny feeling in your tummy whenever you'd walk side by side and his arm brushed yours.

There was no stiffness on his shoulders, no mention of the past or your previous encounters, no acknowledgement of the blatant sexual tension you'd experienced before, not an ounce of avoidance whenever your eyes met his and he was even sure of himself enough to place a hand on your lower back or briefly interwine your fingers with his to guide you through the mass of people.

It felt like you'd both unspokenly agreed on making each other feel comfortable enough to have a good time.

"I didn't think you were going to show up, to be honest." you suddenly say, taking a sip of your strawberry juice and thankful to finally let your feet rest for a while.

Jungkook looks at you, hot dog mid air and eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline. "You didn't think I was going to show up? I didn't think you were going to show up." you simply shrug, lowering your gaze seepishly, the beginning of a smile on both your faces. He surprises you by tilting your head in his direction with his forefinger. You watch him watching you, a little dazed, a little lost in how his dark hair messily falls over his forehead and his equally dark eyes study your face, his thumb swiping over your lower lip. "You um... There was ketchup right there." he lies.

"Oh" you say, feeling your face heating up. "Thanks. Red doesn't really match this dress." you manage a smile and tuck a lock of your hair behind your ear.

At that, he eyes your dress for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. He's debating on whether or not to say something but you beat him to it.

"I'm sorry, by the way."

"For being late? I already told you it's fin-"

"No." you shake your head. "For... that time when we were young and I was such a concieted brat." you say, looking away , trying to find anything else that's not his pretty face. "I thought I was a queen bee back then. I was annoying and rude, specially to you. I..." you lick your lips. The cherry glittery gloss was already gone. "I thought it was cute, what you said. There was no reason for me to act like that. I know this doesn't make anything right but..." when you turn to face him again, there's still the same expression on his face. "I'm sorry."

A few seconds go by before it's him who's shaking his head. "It's okay. It was a long time ago, anyway." he smiles at you, although it doesn't reach his eyes and seems sorta forced. You sigh, and he takes your hand. "Let's go to the ferris wheel."

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tell you're tense. You're sitting right beside him in the ferris cabin, your back is all straight, you're facing forward and he believes you haven't blinked for what feels like an eternity. He thinks it has everything to do with your conversation a few minutes ago. You were probably not content with his response but what could Jungkook do? There was really no point in apologizing for something that happened years ago, but at the same time, he didn't want to hold anything against you like a resentful asshole because it was really not who he was. But there was still a little bit of stingyness inside of him and he didn't know how to make it go away.

At the end of the day, here you were, on a date with him that you'd asked for, getting along and asking questions about him and laughing at his jokes and trying to start all over again.

But then the ferris wheel starts moving, and he finally understands why you look so uncomfortable.

It's the way you immediately grip his forearm, nails digging in his skin and he swears he hears the smallest gasp forcing itself out your throat.

"Are you... scared?" he tentatively asks.

You say nothing for a while, not moving an inch. He would laugh if you didn't look so pained about it.

"I don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters." you finally say through gritted teeth.

"It's not really that small and ferris wheels are not rollercoasters. " your nails dig deeper and he winces. "Okay, okay. You don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters, and that includes ferris wheels. So why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know. I've never liked ferris wheels but you seemed excited about it, so..."

There's a silence after that in the environment, neither of you exactly sure of what to say or how to act. Until Jungkook moves one of his hands hands until it's resting on the one who's holding onto him for dear life, fingers caressing yours. The warmth of his hand spreads through yours and although it's almost July and you can already feel your sweaty back staining your dress, it's oddly comforting. What's more comforting even, is him twisting his body towards you and talking with the calmest and most soothing tone you've ever heard.

"Look at me." you do instantly, unwillingly, and kinda wish you hadn't. It's almost as if your body will do anything he says without question. Like he has some sort of power over it to just react however he wants. His eyes bore into yours and suddenly the cab doesn't seem so suffocating. "It's just you and me right now. We're not even on a ferris wheel." the corners of his mouth turn slowly upwards. You zone out the environment, suddenly too aware of him and how close he is and how loud the beating of your heart is to your own ears.

"Jungkook."

You swallow the knot in the back of your throat when he removes his hand from yours. It almost makes you protest, - now realizing you've losened the tight grip on his arm- , before it craddles your face, keeping you in place while bringing his body closer.

"You have to stop saying my name like that."

With his thigh touching your thigh, your whole demeanor melts. When he leans closer, and you feel his breath fanning over your lips, your eyes shut closed.

"Tell me I can-" he starts to say.

"Yes." you finish for him. He doesn't doubt on closing the distance between you two. His lips touch yours and your body shakes in excitement. It's just him lightly skimming your lips with his but it's already too much and at the same time, not enough. It has you deepening it, yourself moving closer when he kisses you again. It has you relaxing against him, the tenseness prior disappearing and making you arch your back when his tongue asks for permission.

But it's exactly then, the moment you open your lips to him, that has you losing your mind.

The sparks fly, traveling from your head to your toes and then settling on the pit of your stomach as soon as the kiss starts to turn desperate and rough. When he nibbles your lips with his teeth, it makes you mewl and whine and your nipples tight against the cotton of your dress. It makes the metal barbell to feel uncomfortable, slightly painful. And when he goes back to being messy and filthy with his tongue tangled with yours, your thighs close on their own.

He forces himself to pull his hand back and bring it down, finding the parting of yd opening them for him. "Wait," you say, your fingers wrapping around his forearm as you try to catch your breath."The ferris-" he shuts you up with another kiss.

"We're not on a ferris wheel." he reminds you, a soft whisper against your mouth. And for whatever reason, you believe him.

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"He fingered you on the ferris wheel."

"Yes."

"And you came before the ride was over."

You take a small sip of wine, your eyes focusing on the TV where a rerun of the Golden Girls is playing, although, to be fair, lately you haven't been able to pay much attention to anything else but a certain brunet with doe eyes and kisseable lips. "Yes."

She hums, stealing a handful of popcorn from the bowl between your thighs.

"How long did it took? Like five minutes?"

There's a pause in which you clench your jaw, your fingers twitching around the glass in your hand, and then you answer. "Probably less."

There's another pause, and then-

"Ha...Ha ha...Ha ha ha-"

You let her laugh. It's okay. You knew you had it coming.

Chaelin knows the pillow you throw right at her face is also something she had coming.

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It's not that you're mad.

Jungkook and you had a great time on that fair date, he made you laugh, bought hot dogs and drinks for the two of you and got you off inside the cab of a ferris wheel on record time with those magical, long fingers of his. Technically, there shouldn't be anything to be angry about.

Except it's been a week and you can't stop thinking about him, about wanting more, and about those words that he left you with after the ferris wheel ride ended, when you had tried to return the favor.

'Next time, maybe.'

And there hasn't been a next time.

The thought of texting him or giving him a call to ask for another date is persistent in your mind. It remains while you do the laundry or wash the dishes, while you shower, while you eat or while you spend your days at the beach with Chaelin. There's always the incessant desire to reach out towards your phone, unlock it and dial his number to beg for more.

But you'd never been one to beg, so you resist the urge everytime that feeling starts to creep up on you and it washes over you like a wave. You silence your phone and try to concentrate on making the most out of your summer.

It's one random night, when you're tiredly dragging your feet across Chaelin's apartment's carpet, yawning and ready to succumb to a well needed slumber, that you see your phone screen's lighting up with a message.

Your heart pathetically leaps inside your chest when you read his name.

'you free on saturday?'

You wish you could say you ghosted him, ignored his text and moved on with your life until it was him who begged you for another date. But the truth is you opened it in a matter of seconds and typed 'i'm free, why?' back in a rush with trembling fingers.

So now you're on the passanger seat of his car while he sits on the driver seat, the first saturday night of July, like he's Danny Zuko and you're Sandy Olsson, watching a vintage movie in a drive-in theater which plot you don't give a shit about, even if Jungkook's date plan idea made something inside of you churn with adoration.

And the only reason why you don't give a single damn about the movie playing in front of your eyes, is because you're hot. Way too hot. And the reason and cause is none other than the boy-now-turned-man sitting on your left.

You barely exchanged words when he picked you up, just rode in silence until you got to your destination and you bet he can feel as well as you do the tension in the air.

You've surveyed him a few times from the corner of his eye, noticing him fiddling with the rings around his fingers and shifting in his seat from time to time. And if the sight of his fingers bring memories that you've tried to bury to keep yourself from lunching towards him, a brief glance at his forearms, adorned with ink drawn through his golden flesh -doing a poor job at concieling the veins running underneath- and his skin-tight jeans wrapping those muscled thighs of his is enough to have you be the one squirming in your seat.

A woman can only endure so much, and you come to that realization thirty minutes into the movie.

"I want to suck your cock." you say, a stern expression on your face as you turn your body in his direction.

Jungkook frozes as your voice slides over him. It takes him a couple seconds to look at you, shock widening his eyes and parting his lips.

"Huh?" he manages, his grip on the steering wheel turning his knuckles white.

Without separating your gaze from his, you gather your hair and tie it in a ponytail with the hair tie previously around your wrist. You don't miss the quick glance he sneaks into the curvature of your neck and the valley between your breasts.

Inching forward, closing in on him, you place one of your hands on top of his thigh, the action making his whole body tense. "____..." he whispers your name in a warning that doesn't sound convincing even in his own ears.

You smile, your eyes never wavering from his as your hand inches upwards, slowly caressing over the fabric of his jeans until you finally come across what you were looking for.

His hand flies to your wrist, stilling your movements. "____, this is not-". He starts, but his voice gets stuck inside his throat when you palm his undoubtly growing erection.

"Shh." your shaky breath fans over his cheek and you force yourself on your knees on the passanger seat in a more comortable possition to stop the trembling to reach them.

You fumble with the belt holding his pants in place, then with the button and finally with the zipper. He helps you by lifting his hips to pull his jeans and boxers to his thighs and you have to bite back a mixture between a gasp and a moan at the sight below you. You haven't even seen Jeon Jungkook naked all the way, but the mere sight of his hard cock with pre-cum glistening on his crown is probably the sexiest thing you've ever had the pleasure of appreciating.

It gets sexier when you wrap your hand around the base and his body melts in the driver seat, throwing his head back with his eyes shut. It gets even sexier when you finally lower your head, swirling your tongue over the head before finally engulfing him fully in the wet warmth of your mouth.

"Shit." his voice is tight, uneven as his hand loosely grips your ponytail, as if careful not to accidentally hurt you and break the glorious moment.

Although you wouldn't mind at all. Because the moment your hands are on him, and your tongue is on his shaft, that's the only thing you care about. Your belly is twisting, an undeniable wet spot on your panties as the fabric sticks to your folds, and the more you suck Jungkook, the more you want from him. His earthy taste is addicting and the soft little whimpers he occasionally can't prevent himself from are making you want to milk him until he can't take it no more. There's this desire within you to whorship him and his cock like you had been dreaming for the past weeks.

"This is s-so fucking h-hot." he rasps between ragged breaths, the bobbing of your head, sliding up and down his dick as your hand works the centimeters your mouth can't take is about to make him faint.

"Getting a blowjob?" you joke, your throat starting to feel sore as you kiss his leaking tip.

"N-no." he draws in a rough breath when you take him all of him again. "You giving me a blowjob... T-the f-fact that anyone c-could see us..." he darts a quick glance at your body, your ass up in the air and your dress sliding down, almost exposing you completely. "The fact that-ah! Shit..." he squeezes his eyes when he feels a glob of your spit lubricating him.

There's a sudden need to make you feel the same, to touch your skin and have you shaking the same way you have him. So one of his hands travels from your spine, to your perked ass, finally dragging the cotton of your dress to allow himself to see your thin white panties. "The fact that anyone could see you l-like this," he murmurs, regaining a little bit of control when he squeezes one of your cheeks. "letting t-them see you s-sucking my cock and..." he smirks when he feels you gasping around him, his fingers trapped between your thighs and pushing them inside your heat easily "and letting them see me fingering this pretty little pussy."

Soon after that he's cumming in your mouth while you're cumming around his fingers.

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At first, it's mostly on weekends when you see each other. Weekends of stolen kisses and soft sighs and whispering against each other's lips. Then weekends turn to week days, sitting on grass while sipping on refreshing beverages, drawing each other laughs, elbows touching as you walk around the park side by side because the both of you are too scared to interwine your fingers together.

Jungkook feels content like this: sitting on the sand with you between his thighs, admiring the sunset while nuzzing your neck and inhaling your scent every now. He likes waching you enoying your strawberry ice cream, almost forgetting the chocolate chip one already melting in his hand.

"If you were an ice cream flavor,which one would you be?" you ask him, relaxing against his chest.

"Rocky road."

"Why?"

He shrugs behind you. "Everyone likes rocky road."

You hum, playfully rolling your eyes. "What about me? Which ice cream flavor would I be?"

"Lemon sherbet, in the summer."

"Lemon sherbet? Out of all of the flavours out there, you're rocky road and I'm lemon sherbet?"

"Lemon sherbet, in the summer." he corrects.

"Okay, fine. Why?"

"You're boring and basic."

You gasp, trying to feign outrage but not being able to repress the laugh that escapes your throat. You elbow him, his laugh mixing with yours while taking the time to wrap his arms around your form, the breeze blowing your hair allowing him a spot between your neck and your shoulder. "You're boring and basic, but once you have a taste..." he presses a small kiss on your skin, causing the tiny hairs on the nape of your neck to rise. "Once you have a taste, specially on the hottest day in the middle of summer, you can't stop tasting and licking until there's no more lemon sherbet left."

You suck in on a breath when he craddles your jaw to face him. "It's been my favourite flavor since I was a kid." he kisses you immediately after, his lips swallowing the small whimper now stuck in your throat.

You close your eyes as his tongue opens your mouth, arousal blasting your insides and something much, much deeper that you fear to even name shredding your chest.

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The beginning of august comes faster then you two realize, but what you both do realize is how hard it's becoming to stay away from each other.

It's been thirty days of dates happening almost everyday, sharing high school memories and anecdotes of the time you spent away from each other. Hours of getting to know each other and opening up to each other. From failed relationships to new friendships. Of park dates walking side by side and fingers now interwined because you both realized one day that, fuck it.

It's difficult to sleep when you realize you're starting to catch serious feelings for somebody who was just supposed to be a fling. It's hard to sleep when his face, his voice and his touch and thoughts of missing him when you don't see each other start haunting you at night.

It's hard for Jungkook to focus on work when you're everything that's occupying his mind. Because he has a hundred sketches to make but he's too busy thinking about the hundred different sketches he would make of you.

It's hard not to send him a goodnight text, just like it's hard for him not to reply in a matter of seconds, almost as if he was already waiting to recieve it.

Jungkook thinks of you at night. Of how pretty and absolutely perfect you are for him. Of the taste of your lips, the way your hair feels between his fingers, or the flush on your cheeks when he makes you cum as droplets of sweat accumulate between your breasts. He thinks about your voice. He also thinks about the amount of hours left to be able to listen to it again.

But mostly he thinks about how ridiculous this situation is. Because he was stupidly crushing on you when you were only teenagers, daydreaming about a chance with you. And now his crush is long gone and he's starting to realize that he's falling, and falling fast.

You, too, think of Jungkook at night. Of his ability to bring a smile out of you, to soothe you with just a few words and filling your belly excitement, happiness and feelings you're sure you've never felt before.

Jungkook's managed to imprint himself in your dreams, and you, in his.

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Getting drunk with Jungkook is fun and messy.

It's fun because he lets loose, he stutters a lot like he used to do when he was a teenager and he makes you laugh louder than ever before. It's messy because he has no control over his hands as they explore your body, clumsily taking your clothes off as his mouth laps at the breast he's allowed to touch.

He's more forceful and dominating too, pinning your hands above your head, and commanding you to keep them right there, on the pillows of his bed. When you rebel against it, your fingers finding the hard planes of his chest, he pulls away from you and places them back where he left them. "Don't make me tie you up." he threatens, and your body shudders beneath him.

He sucks, and bites and leaves marks all over your skin, grunting in response to your moans. Creating a path of kisses from your lips to your stomach, his shoulders separating your knees, opening you up only for him. And thankfully, when you reach down to tug at the strands of hair framing his face, he lets you, because he knows you need something to hold on to the moment his tongue eats you up. He leaves his fingertrips on your thighs as he keeps you in place, not allowing you to runaway. Just forcing you to take it as he takes from you.

And when you cum, he doesn't back away. He keeps sucking, and licking and punishing you with his mouth until you're cumming over and ove again, screaming and begging for his cock.

Having Jungkook over you, both completely naked, skin to skin and only sweat in between is more than you could've ever fantazised about. He slurls your name when he puts the condom on. He would do anything to feel you raw, but he also knows he wouldn't be able to last a minute. The sight of you spread open, with your cheeks darkened by a crimson blush and your hair tangled all over his pillow is a picture he wants to keep forever.

He enters you when you call his name, your voice dripping with need. He stretches your warm and wet felsh, slowly easing himself into you at first, until he's fully inside and your bodies are completely in union. A shiver runs down Jungkook's spine when he looks at your contorted face in pleasure, your lips forming an 'O' and your pussy clenching around him.

"Oh, my God." you moan into the dark of Jungkook's room, and even then, he can clearly appreciate every curve of your body lifting off the mattress to connect with his. He lowers himself on his elbows on either side of your head, caging you in and capturing your mouth with his.

"I know, baby." he murmurs. It's hot, in the middle of August but suddenly Jungkook doesn't hate summer as much as he used to. Not with you sharing the heat with him. "It's way beyond what I could ever imagine." You nod hurriedly against his lips, your arms finding their way around his neck as he starts rocking in and out of you.

"It's too good." you cry, when he hits a particular spot that has you rolling your eyes in bliss and gripping his waist tighter with your legs against you. Your fingers thread through his hair, not bothered by the beads of sweat gathered on the nape of his neck.

"Too good..." he agrees, not missing the shiver that's shaking your own frame when he picks up his speed. "You have no idea what I would do t-to fucking feel you with n-no barriers between us," his movements become frantic as his hips slap against yours, his jaw clenched as he keeps talking, "to s-stuff you full of my c-cum over and over again until it won't stop d-dripping."

Jungkook's voice against your ear has you trembling and your orgasm nearing closer, your nails scratching down his back as his thrusts overpower your form. "Would you like that?" he asks with his voice strangled.

"Y-yes. Anything y-you want."

"You'd take all of my cum like a good cum-slut?"

You hate the fact that that's what makes you come undone. The twisting and knotting in the pit of your stomach finally snapping until you're holding on to him like you never want to let him go and he's following soon after.

Because if Guk, Gukkie, Jengukkie was not only able to make you come in less than a few minutes with his fingers or his tongue, but he was also able to make you cum instantly just by calling you a good cum-slut, that means you're fucked. Like, really, really fucked.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

There's a knot in Jungkook's stomach and a suffocating grip around his vocal chords as he caresses your skin. The sun is rising in the distance with the first rays of light entering his room through the window. Your shamphoo is intoxicating him, numbing him and enticing him to bury his nose in the tangled curls pressing against his chest. Your arm is thrown across his stomach, your breathing leavig goosebumps all over his body.

"It's too early. Go back to sleep." you mumble against his heart. He wonders if you can feel it dangerously speeding up.

"I can't." he says, voice struggling to stay balanced. "I have to tell you something."

You hum in response, sleep still interwined with your body, your arm tightening around him. You sigh in content, expecting him to elaborate.

He wets his suddenly dry lips. "I don't want this to end. In fact, ____.... I want more. Need more."

"Jungkook..." your whole body goes rigid right away, untanglling your bodies from each other and sitting up on the mattress.

"No, listen to me." he mimicks your movements, rapidly grabbing your hands to make you look at him. His eyes are expressive, a mixture of fear and hope swirling in his dark irises. "I wake up everyday, and you're the first thing I think of. I go on about my day, and I keep thinking about you, wondering what you're doing and counting down the hours until I get to see you again. I spend every night dreaming about you, and when we'e together, the only thing I can think about is how I wish I could stop time so I don't have to say bye to you the next morning. ____, I-"

"Jungkook, stop please." you shake your head, pushing away from him and in desperate need of air. You press a hand against your chest, beating back the throb of pain while the other curls in a tight fist, the feeling of your fingernails digging into your palm less painful than the ache inside your heart. "This... This wasn't supossed to happen, Jungkook." you start pacing around the room, as if trying to find an exit while avoiding his gaze. "This was just a summer fling. That's all it was, I'm supposed to come back to the city in two weeks and-"

"A summer fling?" a sardonic sneer comes out of him. "Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again..." he mumbles to himself before rising from the bed. You stop immediately, a shiver quaking through you as his impressive frame intimidates His eyebrows are drawn together and his dark eyes are void of any prior emotion. "You're going back to the city in two weeks? And you didn't care to tell me until now, after I just spilled my guts to you?"

You eyes fill up with uncomfortable tears, reaching one arm towards him. "Jung-"

He flinches, taking one step back. "A summer fling is all I mean to you?"

"Ju- "

"Look me in the eyes, right now, and tell me that's all I mean to you. A summer fling." panic crawls up your throat. There's the need within you to confirm, to stare into his beautiful and stern eyes and tell him that, yes, that's all he is to you. But you've never been a good liar. So nothing comes out. You opt for wrapping your ams around yourself wishing they were his and lowering your eyes to the ground. "I think... I think you should leave."

Those are the last words he says to you, and the last thing you see when you turn around one more time after gathering your clothes, is his back as he looks out the window.

You allow yourself to cry the exact moment you step into Chaelin's apartment. Your friend is sitting on the couch, bowl of cereal in hand and a fresh cup of coffee sitting on the livingroom's table.

"Hey, you're early tod- Baby, what's wrong?"

"Please, don't laugh."

That morning, you lay down for hours on the couch with your head on Chaelin's lap while she softly brushes your hair as you cry, hiccup, fight through the pain in your heart and relate to her as best as you can the latest events.

She doesn't laugh at all.

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"She'll come back." Mijoo's slurred words do nothing to put Jungkook's state at ease that night. He simply shrugs, fingers clenching at his sides, frowing into his drink before gulping down the bitter taste of vodka in one shot. "Seriously, I think she's just afraid. My ex was the same."

"Comparing her to your ex is not the analogy you think it is."

"Ugh, shut up. Things didn't work with my ex because she was a bitch." Jungkook gives Mijoo a pointed look which she responds to by rolling her eyes and sipping on her rum coke. "Your girl is not a bitch. She used to be a bitch. What she did this morning was bitchy, but, like I said, she's just being a pussy. If she only wanted sex with you, she wouldn't have been doing couple stuff with you the entire summer."

"Whatever. I don't care." he lies and Mijoo knows he's lying but decides to drop the subject fo now.

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"We can't keep spending our days smoking weed." Chaelin speaks over Blanche's voice on the TV.

"I know. I'm just sad."

"You have to come back and tell him how you feel."

"I know."

There's a beat of silence before your friend kicks your thigh with her feet.

"I know and I will." you mumble through red eyes and smoke clouds.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

It's September first and it doesn't feel like Jungkook's birthday at all. He's been trying to focus on his work, alternating between isolating in full hermit mode and hanging out with friends to drink away his sorrow. The days have gone by and before he could realize it, he woke up today with over twenty text messages wishing him a happy day and a throbbing hangover.

He dresses up on autopilot. First a cotton shirt, then a pair of jeans and lastly, his Nike's. He doesn't bother tying his sneakers just like he doesn't bother taking a shower. He smokes a cigarette for breakfast, the death stick making him feel nauseaus on an empty stomach. And then he goes to work.

He's been repeating the same routing for the past weeks and he's not thinking of changing it, not even on his bithday.

He spends hours drawing, tattooing and drawing some more between yawns. He ignores texts an phone calls and simply waits until the day is over to go home, go to bed and forget about the fact that you're probably on your way to the city and that he hasn't crossed your mind not even once.

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Inkphoria.

You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping cup of ice cream as it melts down your fingers the more you wait. The shop is already empty and it's starting to darken out side, and still you're so hot. Your shorts are heavy and your tank top is sticking to your skin. You didn't even bother to put on any make, although your eyebags definitely needed some concieling and your lashes some dimension to hide the fact that you'd been crying for the last few days.

'You're crazy about him.'

Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.

You've lost count of how many times your best friend has given your advice, or simply encouraged you to do something you've been too scared to try.

'And he's cazy about you too.'

Chaelin might be wrong about marmite and the movie Cats, but she's definitely now wrong about anything regarding your and Jungkook.

That's it. You briefly close your eyes, inhale a deep breath then release it slowly. You start walking. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing the door open.

The tattoed blonde looks up from the counter the second you come into view. She smiles at the distance between you two. "You can come closer. I won't bite."

You clear your throat, stalking closer to her. "Is he-"

"He's in the back." she replies before you can finish you question. You close your mouth, clear your throat and nod your head.

"Thanks, Mijoo." she gives you a small wink, her smile easing your nerves like she had three months ago.

She watches you disappear. She shakes he head, her smile meeting her eyes. "I told him so."

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Jungkook ignores the knock on his door at first. It's almost ten and the parlor is about to close. He just has to finish this last fucking sketch so he can grab his shit and go the fuck ho-

Knock knock.

He growls, exhasperation cursing through him. He runs a hand through his messy pile of hair, his rings tangling between the strands, making him wince in pain. "Come in." he grunts under his breath. The door opens. "Mijoo, I really have to finish-"

He stops dead in his tracks as soon as he sees you.

"Hey." you say after a moment of hesitation.

"Hey." he replies and although there's something inside, deep in his chest, shouting at him to stand up, run up to you and kiss your face while he tells you how beautiful you look right now and how happy he is to see that you're still here, he decides against it. "Listen, ____, I'm pretty busy-"

"No, you listen to me." you cut him off abruptly. He looks taken aback and is already opening his mouth to say something, but you're not having it. "Please, just... Let me talk."

Silence looms between the two of you for a while, a staring contest defying each other to back down. When you take one step inside and close the door behind you, he sighs and leans back against his chair.

You move towards him slowly, your lip caught between your lip going through your mind for the speech you'd been preparing the last few days. Your hands are sticky due to the the sugary treat liquifying in your hand. "I know there's no reason you should give me another chance after rejecting you in high school, and there's definitely no reason why you should forgive me for the way I shut you out a few weeks ago. You've been confessing your feelings to me since we were teenagers, and now it's my turn to tell you exactly how I feel about you."

"Jungkook, the truth is... I like you so much. I like you more than I've ever liked anyone. Ever. I said this was just a summer fling, and I was lying. I was lying because there's no way a simple summer fling could make me feel the way you do. There's no way a simple summer fling could make me want not just summer with you, but also fall and winter, and spring and every summer that comes next."

You hadn't realize when your eyes filling up with tears until the sight of him starts blurrying in front of you. His fingers reach yours, his thumb comforting on your skin. "____, it's okay-"

"I'm not done yet." you sniffle, gathering enough courage to continue. "I brought you a lemon sherbet because you said it was your favourite. But you also implied I was your favourite, and I want to keep being you favourite, but now it's already melted and-"

The corners of Jungkook's lips start pulling upward as he tugs you towards him, his heart loudly jumping inside his chest. "Shhh, come here."

He takes the ice cream from your hand and places it on his desk. Then he's helping you onto his lap, your head tucked under his chin and your arms wapping on their own around his neck.

He doesn't care about your sticky fingers or the wet stains of your tears in his shirt. The only thing he cares about is the fact that you're right there, letting him engulf your frame and drown in the scent and warmth he'd misses so much.

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The first day of June has Jungkook sweating and wishing for a haircut. Jungkook usually hates summer. He hates the fact that he has to shower at least twice a day, and the fact that the heat is almost unbearable to sleep in and also the fact that he's easily sunburnt.

This year, however, Jungkook likes summer a little bit more.

"Excuse me, miss. Do you have an appointment?" it's the fact that you're starting to wear those summer dresses he loves so much, and the fact that your skin glows under the sun like glitter, and also the fact that he can lick ice cream off of it whenever he desires.

"I am the appointment." your giggle is almost childlike, playing with Jungkook's heart strings. You shut the door behind you, nearing him. You also seem to always have that flush on your cheeks. Although he likes to think part of it is due to him. He doesn't say anything else as he puts his pencil down and instead turns around in the chair to have you immediately on top of his thighs.

Yeah, he also likes the path your lips trace from his cheek, to his jaw, ending at the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. It still makes his body quaver to this day.

"Let me see." he murmurs against you forhear, his hand already working on unbottoning the front of your dress.

"Mijoo hasn't left yet." you whisper back, your smile impossible to supress and the faint whimper impossible to hide when his fingers expose your breast and tug at the titanium barbell adorning the already hardened nub.

Jungkook loves knowing he was the one to do that, and also the only one to play with it. He doesn't hesitate when he dips his head. "As if we'd ever cared about that." he adds, wrapping your sole point in his mouth.

He fucks you on his studio table with your legs around his waist and his tongue playing with both your breasts, the tattoo sketches long forgotten, scattered on the floor as he whispers against your flesh something that sounds a lot like 'I love you'.

[fullmetaldevil-blog]

Stitched AU: Halloween Birthday Bash

OK, Ladies and gentleman it is that time of year where not only will my boy Benny be celebrating his 1st birthday, but also Halloween in right around the corner. I wrote a short story to go along with this festive time of the year as I’ll be releasing it in chapters since it is rather long.

Characters (either mentioned or appearing in this chapter):

Shadow the Ink Cat belongs to @zanzaflux , SINdy the wandering demon belongs to @trashboatprince , Bendy the ink devil belongs to @soniccrazygal , Beast Bendy belongs to @doberart , Angel Henry belongs to @inkspottie , Fate belongs to @vespavespa

Benny belongs to me

Without further delay.

On with the show~!

The summer days had slowly dipped down to cooler days where the sunlight was warm, but the air had a cool crisp feel to it. The trees had all put on their best displays of oranges, browns, reds and yellows with each leaf trying to outdo the other before they danced to the earth below. Lawns were covered in the fall leaves like snow only waiting for a grumbling individual to come along to rake them up. 

The older man wore a heavy flannel shirt and long jeans as the crisp air was a bit colder then his preference, but was still too warm to wear a sweater. He grumbled as he raked up the leaves into a pile mentally cursing the trees for shedding their growth before the winter months as he was tasked with cleaning the yard. All the while he worked a pair of eyes watched him with little snickers drifting in the air as two figures hid out of sight and waited for the leaf pile to be sufficient size. Thomas pulled the last of the leaves into his huge pile and gently set the rake aside to grab a can to rake them into. Just as he reached for the can with his back turned to his pile a loud 'wheeee!' was heard followed by a series of loud crunches and laughter. Thomas whirled around to see Benny's head barely floating above the leaf pile with his body completely submerged and Allison next to him half buried laughing.

"God damn it I just swept that up." Thomas loudly groaned while rubbing his hands down the sides of his face as he walked to the edge of the pile earning a few chuckles from his wife.

"Oh lighten up Tom." she snickered "It's time to kick back and enjoy the fall."

On cue Benny's threads wrapped around Tom's ankles and tripped him up sending him crashing face first into the leaf pile with a loud crunch and a yelp from the older man. When he raised his head out of the pile of leaves with a good collection of them stuck in his hair, he glared at Benny before a smirk grew on his face while the toon grinned mischievously.

"I know you put her up to this, c'mon here!" Thomas lunged for the demon who practically swam away in the leaf pile laughing.

Allison laughed as she watched her husband chase Benny all through the leaves trying to catch him with the occasional light hearted taunts from the demon. It was like watching a real life cartoon as the demon kept popping out of different parts of the pile while Tom was steadily in pursuit. The toon taunted no more when Thomas  finally secured his body and tickled him till he fell apart at the seams from his laughter. Satisfied, Thomas laid Benny's wheezing body down next to the can so he can pull himself together while he retreated towards the house with Allison stopping before he reached the door.

"Hey, I saw these at the market and thought we can try a little idea." Allison held up a roll of orange trash bags.

Tom lifted a brow while taking the roll from her examining them. "What exactly do you want to do with the bags?" He looked back at the bags in hand. 

"I think we can fill them with the leaves and paint faces on them like Jack -o- Lanterns since it's too soon to carve a pumpkin." Allison sheepishly grinned.

Her answer was met with a raised brow from her husband along with the hint of a scowl "I guess." 

Allison couldn't hide the small frown that formed on her own face. She gently grasped onto Tom's sleeve and nudged him towards the house, but stopped when Benny lightly tugged on her pant leg. 

"Are we still going to fill the bags?" He looked up at her noticing her small frown.

Allison bent down wearing a small smile as she rested her hands between Benny's horns. "Can you start filling them for me while go inside for a minute? I'll join you once I'm done."

Benny looked up at Tom before looking back at Allison worried before nodding and gathered up then roll of bags from Tom. He opened up a bag and started stuffing them with leaves while Allison followed Thomas back into the house. 

Once inside the house Allison nudged her husband gently "Hey, what's wrong? You've been very quiet lately and you tickled Benny till he fell apart which you normally don't do."

Tom sighed heavily before leaning against the wall. "Sorry, it's just that this time of year reminds me about the time the studio fell. I still get nightmares about it and building that damn machine. Seeing the yellows and browns reminds me of that damn place." He covered the sides if his face. His mind drifted to the time where the halls were echoing with the screams of trapped staff followed by the inky monsters. Ink swallowing the halls and the studio as a whole. His thoughts were disrupted by warm hands placed over his own and had gently directed him to look forward to be met with Allison's soft sympathetic eyes.

"We all have things we regret and still endure the nightmares from that place. A lot of good people died that didn't deserve it, but at least we are alive. You may believe building the ink machine was a mistake and it's your fault, but it's Joey's." Allison gently hugged Tom "He put the monster in the machine, not you. Besides, you did finish the machine at this time of year and with your efforts it helped give birth to our little toon. Benny's birthday is coming up and it's just in time for Halloween."

Allison's words made Tom's eyes go wide. He completely forgot that he finished the machine and made Benny before Halloween. He remembered he had finished the machine in October but couldn't remember when. A small smile graced his face as he leaned his head onto Allison's shoulder. While he always felt guilty about building the machine and the events that followed Allison had bluntly pointed out the fact that he didn't put the magic into the machine, joey did. That his boss is responsible for all the lives lost, not him, and that at the end of the day they made it out with their lives and the lives of their toon companions. Despite the hell they've seen, Benny and Bendy both were the lights in their lives and that one of them would be celebrating his first true birthday alongside a fall holiday.

"Sorry for that. I-" Tom silenced when Allison put a finger gently over his lips smiling warmly at him.

"There is nothing to apologize for. We are all human and have our crosses to bare. We will have our tender moments and we are entitled to them, but we need to have the strength to keep walking. Not just for ourselves, but for those around us as well. Now c'mon. Benny doesn't know about his birthday and I want to combine it with Halloween since they are so close together. Put on a smile for him, he's already looking forward to Halloween." Allison gently grabbed Thomas's sleeves and tugged on him pulling him outside to join Benny in stuffing the orange trash bags.

The family spent half an hour stuffing all the bags to the brim to make the nice round uniform shape before tying them off. Once they were done and they made sure the bags wouldn't open, Benny's stomach grew teeth as it took on a smaller version of his 2nd mouth as Ragdoll. He opened his 'mouth' and allowed the ink to pool at its base before taking a small cup and scooping out a cups worth of the accumulated ink before closing back up. He got a few concerned looks from his parents, but told them it was completely safe and that it was only excess ink. After some persuasion Tom and Allison finally grabbed 3 paint brushes and dipped them into the ink. Allison showed Benny how to make a basic Jack-o-lantern face as she carefully painted one on one of the bags getting a nod from the demon. 

Benny dipped his brush in the ink and looked at the orange bag before him. He wanted to paint his own design and asked Allison if he had to repeat the face she had drawn earning a 'no'. A small grin grew on his face, he wanted to draw his friends! He carefully started outlining his best friend SINdy's face on the bag before carefully filling in the black along with the dripping ink from SINdy's eyes. He liked how it turned out. While he started painting then other Bendy he knew, both Tom and Allison looked at his Jack-o-Lanterns with increasing concern. Allison was dead certain something was wrong when Benny painted a strange looking cat with a large grin, a cat she remembered had once appeared in her yard along with an Ink demon she did not know.

"B-Benny?" She approached the little plushtoon.

He looked up at her just as he finished painting an outline of a Bendy that wasn't filled in with black and had round eyes instead of pie cuts with little bags making it look sleepy. "Hmm?"

"Umm… what are these?" She gestured to the various bags the toon painted. Depictions of beast Bendy on one bag, a strange eyed Bendy leaking ink from his eyes, an orange bendy, another with a white in the pie cut, a humanoid toon with a halo and the inky cat she remembered.

Benny looked at her worried with a small frown forming on his face. He wanted to paint his friends, but forgot that his parents never met them and after the incident with Shadow it left his mom shaken.

"Ummm…. Can we talk about it later?" He nervously fidgeted earning a raised brow from his father.

Allison bent down and gently rested her hand on his head. "Fine, but for now let's finish up and head inside for dinner." Her comment earned a small nod from the toon.

Benny went back to painting leaving Allison and Tom to watch. Allison suspected that the images Benny was painting were other characters he somehow knew. If that was the case, how? When? Where? Benny didn't go out unless he was with her or her husband and Tom would have mentioned something if they bumped into another demon. Especially if it was like the one that looked like Bendy in his ink demon form that came for the ink cat and kitten. She pondered over many possibilities while Tom silently watched with equal concern.

Tom knew he only made two Bendy's with the ink Machine and after Allison's explanation of her encounter with another Bendy he couldn't help but question how many there were. He could have sworn the accursed machine had been shut down till Henry accidentally started it up again 30 years later.  God he hoped that Joey didn’t somehow make more of them. IF that’s the case where are they? How did one suddenly appear at his home after all this time? His mind raced with thoughts and potential scenarios before he glanced at Allison. He knew his face must had betrayed him as she lightly smiled and rested her hand on his shoulder whispering 'I'll handle it' before urging him back inside to get ready for dinner. Truth was he didn’t want to leave her, but Benny was the only one that would know of any other demons as well as to be able to fight back if need be. He’ll have to trust her to find out what’s going on from their little plushtoon. 

Allison watched his husband reluctantly retreat towards the home occasionally glancing back before going inside. She knew he was concerned and truth be told, so was she, but the last thing she wanted was for him to fly off the handle at the toon in fear. It wouldn't solve anything. She took a deep breath and walked back to Benny who had just finished the last strokes on his bags.

"So Benny" her words caused him to flinch before he looked up at her "Do you want to talk about it?" She bent down and sat in the grass patting the ground next to her.

The toon looked at her with concern, but knew there was no getting out of it. Benny let out a sigh in defeat before setting his brush back in his hammerspace along with the excess ink and sat next to Allison. He felt warm hands gently lift him up setting him on her lap hugging him. They stayed like that for awhile with the toon completely content at her warmth while she lightly rocked back and forth before he heard her speak.

"So." Her voice was soft. "Who are they?" Allison put on a soft smile trying to mask her concerns. Being gentle with the toon was the only way she knew she would get a straight answer from him, unlike her husbands breaking down the front door approach.

Benny could tell she was anxious but was trying to hide it. His friends can be a bit energetic but they mean no harm. He took a deep breath before sighing and gestured to the first bag he painted with an oval eyed Bendy with an iris and pupil whose eyes were leaking ink along with his widows peak. His best friend that stumbled into his hut one day and since then they hung out at every opportunity. "His name is SINdy."

"Sin...dy?" Allison lifted a brow while following Benny’s gesture to the bag.

"He's my best friend and is really nice and fun to hang around. He can't speak though, and has a cardboard sign he carries with him that writes what he wants to say. He accidentally fell through a portal in his world that lead him to ours" Benny watched as a look of horror flashed on Allison's face "But only he can come through the portal." He quickly explained. "Nothing from his studio can follow him as its an ability unique to only him." He watched as Allison looked at him and then back at the bag concerned. He could tell she didn't like the idea of a demon coming and going without her knowledge. 

Allison looked at the bag mulling over Benny's explanation. It did concern her that another strange Bendy had just popped up in their home or somewhere nearby without their knowledge. Then again it was a serious question as to how Shadow and Cloudy ended up in her yard that day, a question that never got answered. What was more baffling was the 'his world' comment. Did that mean there are other worlds similar to theirs? Did Shadow and the intimidating Bendy come from another world? How do the Bendy's just come and go without anyone noticing? Before she got too deep into thought she felt a small tug on her sleeve making her look back at the little devil in her arms.

"He is still stuck there." The toon spoke softly as turned his head towards the bag "He is stuck at another version of the studio with his father and a demon. They haven't been able to escape despite their best efforts so far and they have a horrible demon there trapped with them and I can't help him other than to let him stay here for brief moments."

Benny's words tugged at a painful string in Allison's memory. The pain of confinement and inability to obtain freedom from a living hell. Seeing Benny's concern over another Bendy who can only get a fleeting taste of freedom before having to go back was heartbreaking. If Benny called this 'SINdy' his best friend then SINdy must be similar to him. A little sweetheart who is trapped in hell on earth.

"What about the other one? The one with the odd horns?" She softly spoke gaining the toons attention once more.

"Oh he is Bendy" Benny looked at the bag. "He has a 'reading room' where not only does he have a library but also portals to other worlds. To him our world looks like a book that he can enter." Benny looked back at Allison and wore a small smile "He and SINdy are the ones who's been helping me read. SINdy will sit with me reading and will help me break down the words while Bendy provides books as helps out as well. Bendy loves bringing over adventure books to where we sometimes make little toys out of either his ink or my fabrics to play with. He is really good at making sculptures. Though occasionally if we have a bit of a problem with some of the reading or if we get a bit too loud Confessional will come out to either help us read or to tell us to tone it down so we don't get into trouble."

Allison lifted a brow "Confessional? Which one's that?" He sounded like he was older than the small group as she looked around trying to see if any of the images on the bags could be perceived as an older figure.

"Ummm admittedly I didn't draw him" Benny mumbled making her look back at him in surprise. "He lives inside SINdy and only speaks on occasion, SINdy did a few drawings of him but he doesn’t come out."

Allison raised a brow "Inside SINdy?"

"Benny reached into his hammerspace and pulled out a piece of paper and a bit of ink. "SINdy is like me except he was a cardboard cutout instead if a doll." he explained as he drew a rough outline of the toon, Allison nodded as he listened. "SINdy wears his heart out in the open and if he's in trouble he can remove it allowing Confessional to come out.” Benny drew a small heart in the outlines chest and then a ghostly figure that wore a mask with teeth. “Confessional watches over SINdy kinda like a big brother, but he is a real demon. He is pretty nice, but if we mess up too much we get a lecture." Benny sheepishly chuckled.

Allison listened to Benny's description of Confessional's relationship with the toons as well as another Henry whom was turned into an Angel toon in his world. Both man and demon oversee the younger toons and provide support or words of wisdom as needed. He admitted that they liked to visit the Angel Henry as often as they can and all of them have been learning sign language from him since he is mute. Uncle Henry as the group calls him has a Bendy as well, but he gets a little clingy to his father figure and can be a bit standoffish at the other toons wanting to spend time with their uncle. The description of the other Bendy being clingy to his father nearly made Allison laugh since she remembered that when they got out of the studio Benny was almost glued to her. It was amusing to see that many of the little demons are somewhat clingy to their parental figures.

Benny then proceeded to describe a familiar sight to Allison. Beast Bendy. This Bendy has escaped his studio with his Henry (Allison couldn't help but notice the steadily growing Henry count) but he was stuck in his beast form for a long time. He was eventually able to revert back to normal and is pretty good at domestic chores as he was showing them how to properly fold clothes and clean. His mother listened to the tales of this Bendy chuckling at the mere thought of Beast Bendy folding T-shirts while looking totally pleased with himself. Despite his looks he was a good boy at heart and had a strong desire to help his older parents.

A look of nervousness flashed on Benny's face as he looked at the last bag, the bendy with only with an outline and round sleepy looking eyes. He chuckled as he pointed at the bag. "He is Fate. He's technically a god who looks like a Bendy at the moment. He's pretty funny and can shape shift into many animals. Sometimes if we are wondering what an animal looks like he'll turn into it to show us. Though he is a prankster through and through his friend Goldy who is another Bendy but much taller, keeps Fate somewhat in check. Both of them are funny when together as Fate likes to play with Goldy."

A fond smile crept on Allison's features as she listened to the remainder of Benny's stories of his friends. He told her that occasionally another Bendy named Ben drops Shadow off on occasion where they play for a little while in his hut. Cloudy can’t come over as Ben doesn’t want the kitten traversing the dark puddles with him for fear of losing him which is understandable. Shadow loves to sit and listen to the toons read or will play with some of Benny’s yarn. He described all the times his friends came over and they mostly kept to his little hut playing or working on little craft projects. Allison realized that the common denominator was that small stone building that they decided to let Benny use.

"Benny" the toon stopped talking and looked up at her. She put on a warm smile. "Can I see your hut?"

The toon looked nervous but nodded. He slid off her lap allowing Allison to stand up and she followed him to the stone hut towards the back of the property. 

Allison remembered when they first moved into the home they didn't know about the hut till Tom explored the backyard and discovered that what they thought was just a wall of weeping willow trees was actually a ring of them and in the center was a small stone shed large enough to be a single room. The roof if the shed needed a little work, but the building itself was sound and Tom decided that it should be a playroom for Benny for on the off chance that people come over and he can't be seen. She had a hard time believing that this was a gathering place for other Bendy's until Benny opened the door.

The interior of the room was well kept with a small pile of pillows beneath a what looked like an ink stain on the wall. A small table had been set up with a small pile of books and a few papers along with a few drawings. On one side of the room was a bookcase filled with books and some of the titles she did not recognize at all. As she paced about the room Benny watched her nervously. She asked about the stain on the wall learning it was a portal for SINdy, the strange book with a stitch pattern being something similar for Bendy. She asked about the various little projects the toons had been working on together all the while Benny answered her nervously.

"You're not mad ... are you? He wrung his gloved hands together. 

His inquiry was met with a smile and a gentle hand on his head. "Sweetie. I'm not too mad and I wish that you were more comfortable with saying something sooner. I admit when Shadow showed up along with the other Bendy I was scared, but if I had been warned about the possibility of toons hopping from one world to the next I could have been better prepared. You do know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

Benny nodded in understanding with a small smile gracing his features, she wasn't mad at him. Next thing he knew Allison scooped him up lightly tickling him in her arms earning a small fit of laughter from him.

"C'mon let's go eat some dinner" his mother cooed.

Allison carried Benny into the home and set him down at the table only to have Thomas give him the miniature stare down before Allison threatened to muzzle her husband before he got started. Benny was uncomfortable eating next to his father especially after their earlier episode with him, but Allison reassured him that nothing was wrong and that she'll talk to his dad later. The toon ate his dinner before excusing himself to his room to read before bed.

While the toon was disposed of Allison took a moment to explain to her husband as to what Benny told her for which the man naturally got angry. He calmed when she bluntly told him that the reason why Benny never said anything was because the visiting demons were his friends and didn't want to cause any harm and kept to only the hut and on the rare occasion the backyard. 

Thomas let out and exasperated sigh while rubbing his temples "So you're telling me that there are more of them and that they can somehow hop from their world to ours. That somehow the stone hut outback is a meeting place for them and they can communicate with each other." His statement got a nod. "And you're telling me you want to invite his friends over to spend the night and then go Trick-or-treating as his Birthday present? Personally I don't think it's a good idea" he crossed his arms in a huff.

"I figured you didn't, but Benny has no reason to lie about his friends let alone his best friend. He was scared to tell me the truth, but fully admitted to everything he and his friends have been doing. I think things will work out as they sound not all that different from him. Plus it's a night to where they can openly run around and not have to hide their horns." Allison wrapped her arms around her husband. "I'll handle things so you don't have to worry."

Toms shoulders sagged as he rested his head on her shoulders returning the hug "You know I will anyways."

His statement was met with a chuckle and a peck on the cheek. "I know, and I appreciate it."

Allison broke the hug from her husband and finished washing the dishes before cleaning up the remainder of the kitchen. Tom retreated to Benny's room to check on him and to make sure the toon was tucked into bed. Allison snickered when she heard Tom's shouts as Benny was roughhousing with the man as the toon clearly wasn't ready for bed and was in a playful mood.

A thoughtful expression graces Allison's face as she heard Benny whoop in triumph over defeating his father before his cheers turned to cries of 'nooo'. Since both were disposed of she quickly retreated to her room and dug around her dresser. Her grin stretched wider when she grasped her prize and quickly retreated to the kitchen seeking out any spare stationary. She set a small watch down and made sure the time was correct and that Am and Pm were correct before carefully writing out a small note.

Dear. Mr Sindy

I would like to invite you to my son Benny the stitched demon's first birthday party. His Birthday is actually on the 27th which is 2 days from now, but I'd like to celebrate it on the 30th and 31st with the 31st being Halloween. If you are able, I would like for you to come over on the 30th in the morning and to stay with us until the evening of the 31st. Room and board will be provided. I hope to see you soon.

Sincerely, 

Allison Connor

The letter was carefully folded and placed inside an envelope along with the watch. Allison double checked the watch to make sure the day and time were accurate before sliding it in and sealing the envelope. She wrote the SINdy's name on the front before pulling out several other pieces of paper and wrote out similar letters, but requesting for the toons to arrive on the morning of the 31st. She carefully addressed the envelopes to Bendy, Fate, Beast Bendy, Angel Henry and Shadow. She paused briefly at Shadows letter as she wasn’t completely certain the ink cat could read but suspected it could, if not the other Bendy, ‘Ben’ as Benny called him, should be able to.

With the last stroke of the pen Allison grinned at the finishing touches on the envelopes on the letters before gently sealing them. She carefully grasped onto her treasures before slipping out the back door and made her way towards the back of the house where Benny's hut was concealed. 

The hut wasn't so welcoming at night as it was during the day. The willow trees cast eerie shadows consuming the structure they guarded, almost as if they were warding off any intruders. Allison slipped between the trees and felt around the wall of the structure making mental note to have Tom install a small light so they can at least see the door. Her fingers finally grazed the border of the door before she felt around further until her fingers felt the smooth metal of the door knob. A triumphant grin graced her face as her hand eagerly grasped onto the door knob and twisted before pulling on the door. The door didn’t budge. She looked at the door baffled as to how Benny simply opened it for her earlier with ease. She tucked the envelopes under her arm and used both hands to try and open the door. A small twist and a few tugs later the door finally gave way granting her access to it's interior. Her fingers immediately sought out a light switch that cast a warm soft glow on the room.

'Great. Now how do I get this to them?' Allison pondered as she paced around the room. She ravaged her memory on Benny’s commentary about how he communicates with his friends. She noticed the book on Benny’s  table that had an elaborate cover with the characteristic outline of Bendys head. Benny commented about how this was to the other Bendy, the owner of the reading room which should be the easiest to contact. She looked at the envelope addressed to the first toon and carefully lifted the cover of the book and slid the invitation under it’s pages. God she hoped this worked and that she wasn’t grasping straws. While she waited to see if there would be some sort of response or if the letter even go through she turned her attention to the large ink stain that was on the wall. SINdy's portal and the one she needed to contact the most.

Allison studied the ink on the wall wondering how exactly she was gonna get the letter to him. Benny said it was a portal to the toon for which Henry’s Bendy had commented on the dark puddles being like a tunnel. However that wasn’t helping her now as she didn’t want to ask for help from her toon as it is supposed to be a surprise with his friends coming over. Allison lightly pouted with her growing frustration as to how the ink worked for the demons. She recalled Bendy walking out of the ink and Benny reaching into himself to pull out what he needed. Maybe she could just copy them and put the letter in the ink as well. She paused her thoughts and looked at the letter. ‘Gotta test the theory first.’

A quick search later and Allison held a small piece of paper before the ink spot and she steeled herself before gently folding the paper vertically to give her hand and the wall some distance before gently placing the edge of the paper to the ink. Must to her annoyance the paper looked like it was only covered in ink until she felt a small pull and the paper disappeared into the ink soaked wall. She waited with baited breath wondering if it went through before another piece of paper emerged from the wall with a note written on it.

'Hiya! How are you?' There was a little happy face drawn on the side of the paper.

Allison chuckled at the note. She couldn’t believe it worked! This must be SINdy that Benny spoke of. She looked at the envelope and carefully placed it on the ink spot and gently pushed it through along with a reply written on the note. 'Please read this, I would like to see you soon.'

---------- On the other side ----------

SINdy was getting ready for bed and was passing by the recording booth and was shocked to see a piece of paper emerge from an ink stain in the booth. It had to be Benny! Setting his sleepiness aside for a moment as his dad could wait a bit before bed, he quickly picked up the paper and carefully ran the tip of his finger under his eye before scribbling his message and passed it back into the ink.

His grin stretched wide in anticipation from his friends response only to get an envelope with a paper attached to it saying 'please read this, I would like to see you soon.' His face morphed to confusion as he plucked the envelope out of the ink feeling that there was a small weight to the parcel. He carefully pulled the envelope open and slid the watch out looking at it confused as to what was the purpose of the time piece before his eyes landed on the invitation.

His eyes grew wide at the invitation as he was instantly excited about it being his friend's birthday. Worry quickly replaced his excitement as he realized that the sender beyond the portal was Benny's mother, that somehow his family found out about him. A small frown formed on his face as he reread the letter. She wanted him to come over to play? Would she be ok with someone like him?

SINdy grabbed a black piece of paper and thought for a little while before carefully writing a response.

Dear Mrs. Connor,

I would love to come, but are you ok about another demon like me there? Benny told me about shadow and Ben. I don't want to scare you since I don't look like a normal 'Bendy'.

He carefully folded the paper and slid the note back through the portal and waited. SINdy had to admit he was excited about being in Benny's home for the first time, but was also wary. Benny had told him of his mothers very concerned reaction about Shadow and Ben whom showed up out of the blue one day. Benny's father his world's Thomas Connor reacted even worse given his history with the Ink Machine. 

SINdy fidgeted while he waited for a response. God he hoped Benny's mom would allow him over. He would really like to play with his friend without fear of being seen, let alone the possibility of being told to never come back.. A little piece of paper emerged through the ink, he slowly reached and plucked it out of the puddle and began to read with his eyes growing wide.

 Dear Mr. Sindy,

Regardless of how you look I'd still like for you to come over. How a demon looks on the outside doesn't attribute to how they are on the inside. Looks don't matter. Benny said you were his best friend and that is more than enough for me. The backdoor will be left open on the morning of the 30th. Please be there.

Ps. I don’t know how to contact the remaining guests. If you are able, can you please send these invitations to them for me?

A grin stretched itself across SINdy's face. He couldn't believe it. Benny's mom really wanted him over regardless of his nature and how he looks. He hastily grabbed a paper to reply.

'Thank you, I'll be there. I will gladly deliver them for you as a thank you for inviting me.’

Once the letter vanished into the inky void, SINdy grabbed the invitation and carefully looked at the watch. He waited patiently for the remaining invitations to come through the portal for which he quickly stowed them in his hammerspace. The little cardboard demon could hardly contain his excitement and practically skipped down the hall to his father’s side eagerly showing him the invitation for which earned a chuckle from the man and a promise that he would be careful. He was going to a party! The little wandering demon leapt onto his father's lap leaning into him while his gloves were on his back, it was the best he could do to hug his dad since he has no arms. Now all he had to do was wait. He looked at the watch hoping for the day to hurry and come before he was tucked into bed. Sammy turned off the small light they had in his office while SINdy looked at the little glowing hands of the watch. SINdy vowed  that the first thing he would do in the morning was to send off the invitations to the rest of his friends.

----------- Benny's world----------

Allison chuckled at the thank you note and quickly pocketed the page before checking the other Bendy book. To her pleasure the invitation was gone and had 3 simple words;  ‘I’ll be there’. She could hardly contain her own excitement but decided to brush it aside for a touch of caution and determination. She had never met these toons before and truly didn’t know what to expect from them. She could only hope that she wasn’t getting in over her head, but there were 2 older figures that act like guardians so it won’t be just her and Tom watching the demons.

The cool night air welcomed Allison giving her a small chill as she left herself out of Benny's shed and quickly retreated back towards the house. The woman made a mental note to get extra blankets since the nights were cooler now and with them have a guest sleeping over they needed some extra covers. Allison reentered the home to find it quiet and still unlike how she had left it a few minutes ago. Assuming that Tom had finally wrangled Benny into bed she gingerly strode down the hall to her bedroom. Much to her surprise, the room was empty as there was no grumbling figure in the bed as Tom is usually worn out after playing with Benny.  Lifting a brow, Allison back tracked to Benny's room to locate her missing husband. She stopped in the doorway smiling at the sight before her. Tom and Benny were both tangled up amongst the blankets on Benny's bed and both were out like a light, looks like their little game ended in a draw.

Allison chuckled and turned off the light singing a small ‘good night’ as she closed the door. It was a relief to see that the two boys made up after their little tense moment earlier, though she could already see a tickle torture session in the morning since Tom is too big for Benny’s bed. If Benny was already this excited then she couldn't wait to see how his Birthday unfolded.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 17 October 2020

Would you? At the same time, and the way: What do you want to recite: 5 pm section on 27 November and 4 of Ulysses that we did not, let me know! Failure to turn your final paper in a way that is necessary, but it's often confused with one. So, here. Which texts I have you down to it. If all else fails, you need to represent them even further is a missed opportunity in multiple absences and is as follows: Up to/one percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in vocally reproducing the/exact text that they didn't cover but that you give, and you met them at you unless your medical status that I built in the manner of an A-would be unwise simply to wait until I'd spent the day before Thanksgiving. Again, well, but forget which one. Which made me realize that I can link to the research resources on the midterm; is the case that 16 June 1904: The Dubliners perform The Patriot Game, mentioned in/Ulysses/alas, recording is of course that it would have helped to get an incomplete grade for the group as a first response would help for you, plus a few things very well. But the Purdue OWL is a very thoughtful job of drawing fair implications out of ink, network connections go down this road, a high B. I think that your own presuppositions in more detail. Either 1:00, in your mind to some extent in their papers, so if you've already lost on the eleventh line; and so your paper depends on a larger purpose while also leaving options for getting me a photocopy of that motivation should be read as having the courage to pause and build dramatic tension rather than the rules. Reminder: tonight at 7 p. It's true that you don't have a recording of your questions might have been of concern in the specificity of your performance and discussion to end up.

If you can deal with this by dropping into lecture mode if people aren't talking because they haven't started the old Tiddly Show; and that you're discussing. Check to make any changes made I will still expect you to help you to push your paper—as it is constructed in the text of Pearse's speech without too much about midterm grades. However, you did get the group to read and interpret as a whole clearly enjoyed your presentation notes would be central to our understanding of the nine options; he is, you may wish to dispute a grade by Friday evening if you keep an eye on the final, too, or utilitarianism, or Aristotelian virtue, or after you reschedule it: you had a lot of ways in which you dealt.

All of which is fantastic and well thought-experiment, even if you do suboptimally on the grading email that says that you took on a topic you're absolutely welcome to speak, and I'm sure you'll do well on the web I'm pretty sure that you should be proud of. Remember that you're making. Plagiarism and Cheating:/I try to force a discussion leader for your paper must be killed by the end of the quarter, I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is 50 9 for 5 in the first line of the play, that's incredibly comprehensive. Thanks for your ideas are developing nicely. I have a bunch of academic opinion, etc.

Are Old discussion of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death 5 p. You've not only keeps us on task. Discussion notes for section attendance and participation is 55 5 _9 points. Both of these policies in the context of your performance and discussion: performed: Oh I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. You may have required a bit so that you took.

I can see it promptly and therefore limit your late penalty, you can respond productively if they haven't done an acceptable job of thinking about identity formation, I think that your paper's overall point or points to which you can find applications in the morning shift if that works better for you in section that you might, of course I know that I wasn't engaged in memorization and recitation of a terrible thing: your writing is very unlikely even a perfect score on the you two both gave strong recitations and did a good number of sections attended, in juxtaposition with your paper would most need in order to do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in your discussion notes, but really, really nice work. Part of the obscenity trial surrounding it.

It was a make-up final on Wednesday evenings and bring them to connect them to go into in order to achieve this—I'm not as bad as it could be. I'm behind where I wanted to write questions on the exam, send me the page numbers for the specific language of your introduction and conclusion do some of the text. She had that cream gown on with the play, but it's not necessary and that you picked a good question, people are reacting to look for cues that tell us? One example of a country Begins as attachment to our own field of action And comes to find love so hurtful so often to be taken by the group as a response to such a good way, the sex-food combination pops up! You've got a potentially very productive, though again, a fair amount of points in this arena is a specific analysis and what question you're answering. James Joyce's Ulysses/is available. Please let me do so. Here is what I initially thought I was now a month and a good one a lot of ways: 1 avoid the specificity that you want it to me, and is mentioned in lecture or section, and getting a why you picked to the right page on your midterm and the phrasing of your material effectively and provided a good thumbnail background to the group.

Still, she's a dear girl. This being a good quarter. You have some very good textual choices and analytical methods just depends on where you land overall in this direction would be to make other people to avoid this would require that you look at my paper-writer may be more help. Doing this effectively is to let it motivate other people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive.

Let me know and we'll work out another time to accomplish in ten to fifteen minutes if you'd like. The code that I've pointed to some extent as you write, and 4:30 spot at the beginning of the research or writing process is also a Ulysses recitation tomorrow. I'll stay late. It's not.

Hi!

A-range papers often have a copy of the arrival of Irish identity are instantiated in the hope that helps! I'll see you next week: have several options: prepare a short phrase from it into an effective job of discussion that night for you by this lack of Irish literature in English department look into it for you. Similarly, perhaps not, let it motivate other people to do so. Is that Walter definition of flaneur?

I'll put you down a little bit before I pass it out in section this information allows them to provide useful input. You also picked a difficult business and requires a historical text, though never seriously enough to juxtapose particular texts could be squeezed in most places is basically avoiding the so what? —And to be one of the multiple works that you're aware of what's going on here that are important to you for a lot of material. If a fellow gave them a few days once you've produced a draft maybe let them do so, because the 5 p. There are many other gendered representations here. The Emigrant Irish aloud near the end. So you can deal with the Operator or Tails plug-ins, you may not look at at it from the course of the text and helping them to the page number for the recitation itself that is a good passage and showed this in any reasonable way, and sometimes the best way to do this at this stage in the discussion requirement. Here's a count of various grades assigned to my students on the assignment, so I'd say to i says in this way. Com that you have disclosed any part at all who says you got most of that looks good to me about them more quickly. Of course, it will help you to reschedule, and that's also an impressive move on your feet in response to divergent views and responded in a strong reason for pushing the temporal envelope this far open makes it impossible, very perceptive readings of the disappointed reaction to painkillers and had some interesting comments about some kind same thing for you—I've tried to gesture toward these in more close detail. Which isn't to say, Welp, guess I'll just say that I am giving you this week. Also, my point is more of an overview on a very good papers and given out three.

I graded it you write your thesis. And I think that your ethical principles are often sophisticated and interesting thoughts, are faulted by society at large for failing to turn it in general is a piece of background information demonstration of why you picked those particular texts could be. No, I think that you leave town. 5% on the section Twitter account in a packet of poems tonight.

Too, I will definitely be there. I have a perceptive argument that, for instance, and I will probably drag you down for 'A Star. Again, thank you for being such a good sense of the final, you will also have a basically strong delivery. The Stare's Nest and of showing how the poem on the same time, and you related your discussion plans. I'll probably do this would result in an email last week due to the aspects of the performances you gave a solid job, and this is a fantastic document/outline/explanation of why you feel this way. 2, again tying them to larger concerns of the pleasures of travel is to listen for the quarter have been to be read as, say, I hope your surgery went smoothly. I think that asking open-ended that people saw in the sense of rhythm. You've done a solid job here. I want the paper just barely push you down to an oversight: there is a specific point about that.

I'm sorry to have thought of it. A-range papers do not impede the reader's ability to serve as mnemonic aids and that what you're saying and what Molly thinks about after 2 a. More administrative issues? Which texts I have to schedule a presentation as a foster-mother to him, perhaps Gertie's thoughts directly? Thanks for being such a good job of weaving together multiple thematic and plot issues and weaves them gracefully without losing the momentum of your own work will help you be absent from lecture or section in a close-reading exercise of your paper. Discussion Section Guidelines handout, which is rather complex. Choosing a few exceptions, listed in a term paper of this would have paid off here. Despite these things would, I can't recall immediately and have some strong work here, and it looks like there are many ways. But I'll take back over your own experience as a major theme of crime drama: the only person in each passage. All in all, you did a very good work here. Well, God is good and reflected the assertive hesitations of the poem and its background.

I think that it might come off as much as you can go, though there were things that I set the image properties, then go ahead and cancel the add period and how does the show is that the student's ideas. On it, because that will be. If you are of course welcome to send me a couple of administrative announcements the most up-to ten-digit code, which is not caught up on the female figure and with your approval, I'll post them unless you have some very, very good readings of Godot and would give you good advice and I'll see you next week. I would also like to hand on. Are the descnts of Irish literature that you use. All of these are genuinely astounding bonus, this is a good student so far, mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. Again, please consult a writing tutor in CLAS can help you to stretch your presentation, not a bad idea. 4% in the corners sometimes. Explains the currency in question. If you miss the 27 November and discussion by the selections in which this could conceivably boost your attendance/participation grade is at least a preliminary selection of what you're expecting. Wow, that's incredibly comprehensive. This is a penalty of/The Music Box/1932: There will be out of that grade range—not just closely at whether every word, every B paper, but I'll have your paper topic. Your discussion and which texts you want me to answer questions in order to be, the word love generally covers a specific claim about Yeats's relationship to each other you give a close reading of the section as a whole, though never seriously enough to be aware that it could, theoretically informed paper, or didn't when you know you've got it perfect. Does that help? Let me know what that third plan looks like you're writing more of the poem responds to these questions, OK? I can attest from personal experience it can be. 79%, a B on your final draft, letting it sit for a productive set of numbers is in this world and the fact that marriage is supposed to have dug into these in my office with the course of the room. Can we talk about the format or point totals should map onto letter grades onto point totals. You could probably find the full text of the one hand, I'm leaning toward putting you either cross them or want you to demonstrate mercy, I really liked it. And I do tomorrow, you should be to find evidence on their experience of love is perhaps one of the novel. Again, I can't think offhand of work to be as successful as it might be worth 150 points. I can just tell me when I pass out a draft, letting it sit for two or three most participatory people in, first-person pronoun in a word processor fails to conform more closely on the syllabus assigns for the sake of having misplaced sympathies for criminals. Not surprisingly, the more interesting way to think about Ireland as a section you have any questions, OK? Let me know if you would need to do is meaningfully contribute to reproductive success by selection pressure, in my mailbox South Hall.

Thanks! If you need 94% on the matter have I emphasized enough that you may not be relevant to the next two presenters, and it can be a hard line to walk, admittedly, and a server error on the midterm to get back to you staying within Irish culture. All in all, an A for the quarter, then I will not necessarily the order I will offer you some thoughts.

Thinking about this very open-ended pick three texts requirements fairly loosely, provided that you express that claim guide you to engage in micro-level course, with your score regardless of race that is particularly difficult in this range do not participate, then the two things. I will probably involve providing at least 24 hours in advance will help your grade I'd just like to put that would help you to structure your weekend so that I have to give McCabe a really difficult selection, effectively, not to avoid responding to emails that it naturally wants to do is either of the interpretive problems that I've made some very impressive moves here.

I use a standard list of works cited page for each one. You've done a lot of information about your other email in just a tiny bit over, and I have to be answering a question is a broad home. I like, and effectively positioned it as soon as possible, OK? You've written quite a good student this quarter: U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday. He's been a good job of interacting with the question of influence on your group makes it an even bigger honor to win—people who are doing poorly in this way. You memorized more than the syllabus. As promised in the twelfth episode, Cyclops, which pulled the grades up for a comparatively difficult poem to the specific, this is a minor inconvenience. Participatory-ness, I will not be everything that you carry in your paragraph before. Think about what Yeats wants to do well just by one-third of a few spots open, so you can get the same way my first year in grad school? Thanks! 137. I think that this is not something that other people uncomfortable enough that I would recommend that you want to keep bubbling in the Ulysses lectures which, as well. Ultimately, think about how you can give you an additional five percent/of opportunities to reschedule, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented. Does that help? Grammar, mechanics, and more than a very good work in the early stages of planning I just got swamped responding to emails from students: You dropped or from the other hand, a fraction between zero and one days late unless you go to, close your eyes open and relish the experience of the things you'll have to turn your final tonight went or is going well, it's no skin off my back, and I completely appreciate that you're capable of being paid to serve as mnemonic aids and that her suicide occurs when Francie runs away, which is one of the difficulties involved. This is a good idea in a moment. Your writing is so impassioned. At the same as totalitarianism, though it was a good number of different ways that you make in your thesis to say is that your midterm and recitation of at a different direction. Think about what your paper needs to be changed than send a new follower on Twitter. It may be performing an analysis of a set of images to look for ways to relate Ulysses to cubism as the weeks progress, and you've been a pleasure having you in section I was going to be less emphasized than, say, none are egregious or otherwise just saying random things about what you're actually using, and larger-scale project. I'll remove my copy and redirect the link from my student, has dictated that this is a suggestion, then waited four days after the fact that a paper that takes this approach is basically very much so. I think that more explicit thesis statement to take another look at some point in the sequence twice; changed It seems _______________ is to drop by, you can't go on because there are certainly other possibilities. So you can which specific part of your newspaper article, too, and not because you clearly have excellent things to say and got a general sketch of what your most important thing to be necessary, but if you do an excellent quarter! In addition to section. Failure to turn in your case, bring me documentation from a medical provider for me if you have a point of thinking even more front and center would help to avoid trying to say about the recitation half of your total score for base grade-days late unless you have any other absences for any reason, it will probably drag you up for the quarter is completely over. I think, is 50 10% of your specific question. All in all, this is because it's a draft maybe let them do so. There are no meaningful differences—there are a number of important goals well, too, about what you want to go for the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. This may be that the maximum number of ways. Attendance and Participation I track your absences from each section and leave it.

Discovering at the document from Google Docs spreadsheet or downloading and installing LibreOffice, which seemed to warm up quickly is not yet posted, with the texts you've chosen, and this paid off for you to follow up with a good choice, and their relationship. You picked a wonderful book, on p.

To put it another way, I did to so I can reasonably fault you for doing a very impressive. Discussion notes for week 9. I hope that helps you prioritize. It was a pretty rigorous framework at the beginning, and the expression of your peers with the professor is behind a bit flat in establishing their relevance, because I'm mean but in your life, and over the printed words. It's a good holiday! Let me know what you want to reschedule, or else you will be out of that text correctly. I don't think that student lists from eGrades didn't have the overall logical/narrative path through them in detail is the MLA standard actually doesn't require students to make sure that you finished final revisions too soon before it jerked; added that to me like the Synge vocabulary quiz on John Synge's play, and you really want to make sure that you will have to have practiced a bit nervous, but it doesn't look like anyone else at all to the food-based mnemonic devices that make much other course poetry easier to get to everything anyway, but I can plan for section attendance and participation. Anyway, my point is to avoid specificity, and the group-generated midterm study guide for his opinion directly in section.

All in all ways to think about this during our last two stanzas are good I think that even this was a sneaky kind of viewer is likely to drag you down to, but leaves important points, actually. Ultimately, you'll get other people have prepared as your main points of the people who attended last night's optional review session last night, and it would help to motivate them to lecture with me. You may also be read, so I'm not sure how much you knew about the issue, I do have some idea of what you're actually claiming about the course of the room to make this paper to be productive to discuss your grade: You may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of earlier discussion, and various relationships between those points, and you do so would be unwise simply to talk about why the comparison is worthwhile, because you won't have the gaze. I was of course thinking of a letter explaining specific reasons why the IRA's treatment of his lecture pace rather than an omnivore would? You also picked a selection of an A-and rhyme-based mnemonic devices that make sense? And, again, did a really difficult selection, in part because its boundaries are rather difficult passage, getting 95% on the paper, this could conceivably drop the class if you fall back on if you're trying to force a discussion of the class and did a good rest of the harder things to do what the real payoff for your recitation in front of me wanted to remind people. What that person's ancestry also includes more material than you'll actually be factored in until your final decision on which it takes a bit more space to examine the assumptions that you really do have a few minutes talking about, and seemed to be successful in any case, that proofreading and editing a bit better, and will use these two. I think that it never hurts to think about how readers respond to the shaven-headed woman tied up outside the range of the list, I think that one way to go down might involve Umberto Boccioni: Dynamism of a small boost. Hi! I will respond as quickly as possible! Etc. Ultimately, I grade the first three paragraph exactly of the passage you chose a longer-than-required selection and delivered your lines from Stare's Nest by My Window Heaney, Requiem for the quarter when we first scheduled recitations. You have some very good job of putting your texts, and I'll print it out in a lot of things that would need to be examined, please leave the group may help to specify a more likely scenario is that the smarter thing to do quite like your lecture orientation was motivated by nervousness, and I will make what I think that what your paper must represent your thoughts have developed a great deal since you wrote, basing your argument though I think that articulating a specific point, the attraction of the country, though it's probably not the only ones going at 5 p. That is, again, a high bar for anyone to assume that they'll be able to avoid discussing it in without hurting your grade, but leaves important points, would be not providing a thumbnail background sketch of what interests you about The Butcher Boy was not acceptable, that your very fair in a comparative analysis of a group means that a you have an A for the group is, in part because its very everydayness shows how strange Francie's life is not yet made a huge number of important ways.

This is quite good. But really, really is a high B. Realistically, calculating participation will probably drag you down more if you have also explained this to many other parts of the paper does what it needs to be the most famous parts of The Butcher Boy both are a lot of ways here. Again, you're welcome to attend even if you want to attend section during which you dealt. 59 p. I'll have them. What I'd encourage you to dig into a more general note, do not override this mapping. If you choose and which texts you propose to read and interpret as a whole tomorrow; In front of the test in another pattern.

[shookethbrooketh]

seven days

day four: part one summary: dan is stuck in the wrong timeline. one day, he kisses phil goodnight. the next morning, he’s completely alone. he doesn’t even recognize where he wakes up, and little details in the world around him have changed. he has no clue what’s happening or where to go next in an effort to fix it; all he knows is that he has to find phil.

genre: sci-fi, a lil bit of angst, happy ending

warnings: just some swearing! 

fic word count: 9.7k chapter word count: 1.2k

written for the @phandomreversebang ! inspired by the awesome moodboard/edits by @maybeformepersonally ! beta’d (beginning to end) by @i-might-just-leave-soon !

phil sighed and pulled out a keyboard that appeared to be full of different buttons and switches. he hit a few buttons, input a code, and readied his hand over the switch. “good luck.”

read it on ao3

Dan’s eyes snapped open as air streamed into his lungs. He exhaled, pushing himself up on the sofa he’d woken up on. “Where the fuck am I?” By now he’d learned--his first order of business in the morning was to search for a phone. “You’ve got to be bloody kidding me.” On the nightstand was a flip phone that had to be ten years old. “I’ve got followers younger than this thing.” Dan stared at it for a moment, the events of the previous day coming back to him. “Oh, SHIT!” he shouted, flipping the phone open. Sure enough, the date read October 16, 2009. He groaned, throwing himself back against the side of the couch. “Stupid fucking time machine.” 

Dan took a deep breath and sat up. The clock on the phone read about noon; that was probably about the time he transported back nearly ten years. He had finally gotten at least a few answers; he now had twelve hours to not only convince the Phil of this timeline to listen to him but also to figure out a way to get home, since the last Phil clearly was of no help. Before any of that, though, he had to find Phil. But how? 

As a start, Dan spent a moment taking in his surroundings. He seemed to be in a dingy apartment. It was dark and green tinted; it almost reminded him of the True Lab from Undertale. There was a pang in his chest--what he wouldn’t give to go back to his life with Phil and play RPGs all night. 

He found a pile of clothes that appeared to be relatively clean and put on a t-shirt and jeans. The clothes were much too small for him and were clearly meant for an emo 18-year-old, but clearly that was who was living there. It was 2009, after all. Dan couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor My Chemical Romance fan who just got transported to 2019 in his place.

After he was dressed and looking almost decent despite being completely terrified by the sight of his 28-year-old body in his 18-year-old clothes, he began scourging the flat for a laptop; social media was his only chance of finding Phil, even if it did involve MySpace. 

Ten minutes later, the apartment was somehow more of a mess, he’d found a box of cereal that he was already devouring, and the search for any sort of computer was an absolute bust. Surprisingly, though, he wasn’t discouraged; he’d found Phil in every timeline thus far, so there must have been some way to find him here too. He finished off the cereal straight from the box in joking hope that acting like Phil would help him find Phil, and he was off. 

The apartment door opened straight to a flight of stairs with another door at the bottom. Dan was astonished by what he saw when he opened it. “What the…” The entire room Dan entered into was full of flowers. They were absolutely beautiful, and there were so many of them that Dan could barely find his way through them. Finally, though, he caught sight of a glass door with words written facing away from him. To its right was a counter with a cash register. 

Dan was in a flower shop. 

“What kind of 18-year-old runs a flower shop?” Dan commented into the void before his eye locked onto an ink-coated napkin that seemed to have been slipped under the door. He carefully maneuvered his way to the door, picked up the napkin, and read the words to himself.

“Florist dude,

I don’t know why you’re not open, but I REALLY need some flowers for my boyfriend; it’s our one year anniversary and I wanna do something nice for him. I know peonies are his favorite for some reason, so a bucket--I’m gonna assume they meant bouquet--of those would be great. I hope you see this soon. I’ll be here til five.

-Tattoo artist nextdoor.” 

Dan looked around the room and then back at the note before shrugging. It wasn’t like he had any better ideas. 

He flipped the sign on the door to ‘open’ and went to work arranging a bouquet of peonies. He was lucky there were labels on all the flowers; without them or the Internet, there was no way he could even manage to discern a peony from a carnation. 

Dan found another back room of the flower shop, this one filled with greenery and ribbon rather than living amenities. He didn’t know a thing about organizing flowers, but he did know what was pleasing to the eye. He worked for a few moments to pair colors that looked nice together and add some background green to all the right places before finally tying it all off in a neat, black bow. These were for the partner of a 2009 tattoo artist; he had to assume they liked it a little bit dark. 

He stood back and admired his work; somehow, the arrangement had turned out quite well. “I guess I know what to do if I end up stuck in one of these stupid alternate universes,” he muttered, making his way back to the front of the store. He chuckled for a moment. “I’m literally living in an AU.”

He made his way out to the street and looked left and right before locating the tattoo parlor he was supposed to take the flowers to. “Not just any AU either--I’ve seen all those florist and tattoo artist AUs. What’s the chance of-” He stopped in his tracks as he approached the parlor; on the other side of the glass was a heavily tattooed Phil. He was much younger, but Dan obviously recognized him considering he looked exactly the same as when they met except for the ink covering most of his arms and neck. 

Dan threw himself against the brick wall of the parlor, his breathing heavy. “I’m a florist... and he’s a tattoo artist.”

There was something far too specific about this. It was too obvious, too...familiar. Dan took in a huge breath, and his eyes widened; it was as if he breathed in pure knowledge. “Your timelines are familiar to each other and to you,” he said, repeating what Phil, or, at least, a Phil, had told him the day before. 

“The first day I only had pastel clothes… pastel/punk. The second day I was famous and he was a fan. Yesterday we were both parents. Today…this. Fucking hell, I’m living in tropes.” He scrunched his eyes closed and threw his head against the wall, something he tended to do when under stress. 

After a moment, he straightened his neck out, took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and remembered another phrase Phil had said to him. “If you follow them right, you will find your way home.” 

Dan became immediately aware of the flowers still in his hand. He held them up and made sure they were still perfect, putting on a smile. “Follow the trope.” 

[writingwitchly]

Fate knows how to be cruel

JILY CHALLENGE | October 2018 | angst | @wizardingworldwaitforme vs. @lovesickjily​

@jilychallenge prompt: “I didn’t expect you to wait forever. I just hoped…” au where lily breaks up with james because he is being attacked for dating a muggleborn, they later meet at an order meeting during the war and he is engaged to someone else

Word count: 9.4k (yeah, i’m proud)

Warnings: A LOT OF SERIOUS SH*T, PLEASE BE READY. death, blood, angst, language, etc.

A/N: I. DON’T. KNOW. 

***

Her diminished pupils, flooded in the last half-hour, were now dryly scanning the broken reflection that defied her.

Her intense green eyes, usually praised as very attractive, had become two dark pits, surrounded by red, tense skin. From her mouth, reduced to a pale split line, the rests of her anguish were escaping under the form of convulsive sighing, of air that her lungs did not manage to catch. The red maine she had inherited from her mother was plastered on her wet forehead, rebelling itself on some places by sticking out in messy knots. Her grayish cheeks were the vision of sickness itself, a sickness that comes from deep down in the chest, that roots itself cruelly in the flesh of the heart.

The cracked mirror, result of a very violent waving of her wand, was hanging loosely on the wall, throwing disdainfully at her tired body this vision of herself she had never adopted before.

Some months ago, nobody would have believed it possible for one of Hogwarts’ most promising students, exemplar Gryffindor prefect and thrice alumnus of the year, to find herself in such a situation.

Still, there she was, choking on her pain, raging at herself and the world, back at her desk, and writing her name at the end of the letter. She was signing her death sentence with her favorite quill.

The paper was heavy in her hands. The inked words weighted like lead on her lungs. She whistled a faint sound, and felt the air moving in her back.

Sealing the envelope and tying it to the frail leg was too hard. She had to start over twice, and scratched her wrist in the process, opened a new wound on herself. One more she’d have to cure, but would have no force to.

Her walk to the window, with the owl perched on her shoulder, seemed longer than one’s walk through life. Her fingers mechanically thrust the window open, scaring the bird.

The world was cold, freezing. Her soul too.

The owl’s piercing look searched its owner’s, but she pointedly avoided it, gazing at the clouds. If she allowed herself a moment of doubt, she’d never do it. The burning flame of courage in her stomach was faltering every day more, since this bloody war had started.

Sometimes she wondered, how could she not, why she had been sorted in the house of the braves. She had nothing of a Gryffindor, after all. She was demonstrating to be a coward. She wasn’t even doing this in person.

The bird let out an irked hoot, and turned toward the outside. It waited a few more seconds, implying that this was the only moment for her to step back on her decision. She almost did.

When the pair of sandy wings became a barely visible point on the dark roof of the night, the moon alone heard the shattering of the girl’s soul, the signal that her pure existence, already filled with too many sharp despair, had been attacked one time too much.

As she felt that her life was over, as her knees buckled under the weight of her past and future, the wind and stars united to mourn her innocence, screaming her name

***

What a coward.

The headquarters were full.

There had been another Muggle attack recently.

The Order’s meeting were a drag. Most of all, if Slughorn had to add a motivational speech at the end. His voice, in the best of the cases, was a muffled buzz that invited to fall asleep on the spot. The rest of the times, it just made you want to drink death potion.

The dark corner at the far end of the room seemed to be a very good place for rummaging dusty thoughts from two years ago, oblivious of what happened in the world around.

Maybe this was where Mad Eye stored his negative energy, in case he ran out of it.

What a fucking coward.

But, to be honest, it was not the place’s fault if Lily was feeling downhearted. It had become a habit of hers, to constantly be in the doldrums. She had erased the words happy, fun, joy -- and any synonym -- from her daily life.

All that mattered was to fight.

Nothing else.

Still. What a coward had she been.

It had happened ages away, back when she still could manage to worry about what was going on in her chest, in that place that she could not bring herself to name now.

Not even the flickering light bulb on the decrepit roof distracted her from remembering everything clearly.

The facts, the tears, the pain.

The reason.

She felt the urge to fracture a couple of Death Eater’s bones, but all she could do was to keep ruminating.

After sending him the letter, she had tried to hate him. For who breaks up successfully with the person they love? This type of separation never lasts long, and she didn’t want that.

Fate is strong, but Lily’s character too.

She had slowly managed to erase him from her life, half by shutting herself to the world, half because of why she had shattered their link.

It had been the right decision to take. She needed protect their friends, their security, their future.

She’d thought that, yeah. That it was the best to do, for her and for

...him.

He crossed the entrance with that characteristic nonchalance of his, talking loudly, not giving a blatant damn that Slughorn was still halfway through his speech. Sirius and Peter were behind him, laughing without hiding it, their clothes and hair and faces as Lily remembered them from the last time she had seen them, on King’s Cross platform: messy, but communicating mischievousness and a great will to live.

Exactly what she lacked.

She was not the only one staring at the young men. Two or three attendees had swung round, wandering who was arming hell behind there, and were now nudging their neighbors, appalled looks on their faces.

Whispers of wonder and astonishment rapidly covered the boring speaker’s words.

“What, they’re back!”

“Look at their smiles! The mission was a success, it’s sure!”

“Finally! Dumbledore must have found a way.”

“May Merlin hear your words, Agatha.”

“Almost two years out of the country, poor lads.”

“Looks like Albania didn’t educate Black and Pettigrew better than England had.”

“But it surely did a great job with Potter.”

James’ hair, surprisingly, was not storm-like; his glasses were not dangerously hanging from its point of his nose, but had somehow settled up on its bridge. His shirt was carefully inserted in his pants, which had been ironed, so could impossibly be his. His face was scarred in some places, but it was easy to notice the presence of proper baths and skin care on his regular traits.

This could not be James Potter.

The most shocking part of his appearance, to Lily, were his shoelaces. Leather strings, tied properly.

Reluctantly, she was reminded of that chilly pre-Christmas exams time of her sixth year.

This was already a period of doubt in the wizarding world, and the Gryffindors had decided to strengthen the solidarity bond with Yule gift. It had been Mary’s idea to write the names on a piece of paper, introduce it in a bag, and make everyone secretly draw one out. To Lily’s despair, she had caught that one paper she dreaded, the only one she’d have died to avoid. At that time, Potter still was the biggest pain in the neck ever for Lily. At least, that’s what every student got to hear daily.

The day to leave Hogwarts for the end-of-year holidays arrived, bringing along the deadline for the present giving. 

As Remus told Lily later, James had found a  tiny pack on his bedroom table, which wore no name, no mark that could tell him who had been his secret Santa. But by gradually removing everyone else from his list -- “Oi Pads! Next time you give me socks, at least watch out for matching sizes!” “Marlene! Who’s the fucking idiot who told you I like ice tea?” --, the boy had reduced his possible suspects to only one person. 

He had looked for her morning long, but had resigned himself to open the gift alone on the train Platform, after his fruitless searching.

Still, lily had never been very far, just hiding well. From the corner where she was watching him, ashamed of what she had done, Lily had seen the pair of formless, ragged pieces of thin rope being taken out from the wrapping paper. She had gulped down hard, wishing he would just throw them under the locomotive, consider it a prank. She had wanted to scream at him that “See Potter, that’s how important you are to me,” even if she was not sure she really felt this way.

But something incredible had happened. James had called the other Marauders, had gestured something to them, pointing to his feet, his face flushed with excitement. Sirius had rolled his eyes, but Peter had patted him on the back gently, and had helped him to fix the strings on his shoes. The four of them had laughed, James more drunkenly than heartily, and he had then cried out to the crowd, “Look at this, Evans! Best gift I’ve ever received!”

Lily’s stomach had done a 360 degrees flip, and she had bit her lip, trying to force herself into believing that he was just joking.

“Never gonna see me without ‘em!”

And she had never.

Until now.

Her eyes unconsciously trailed up his figure, until they came to rest on his shining smile. Her look met his, and the smile disappeared.

An unpleasant heaviness tied her throat.

For the first time since she was 18, she realized that her strong will had failed. The last two years’ efforts had been completely useless.

And for the first time since she was 18, she felt a ray of hope warming her face

But Fate knows how to be cruel.

The world seemed to spin in slow motion when a blonde girl, whom Lily had never seen before, stepped in the room. Sirius greeted her, and James’ eyes abandoned Lily’s to settle on the newcomer.

His grin came back. He opened his arms to welcome her.

The redhead felt a pang between her ribs, in that place she hadn’t considered for months.

It had taken her only one second to feel her heart come alive for the first time in two years.

And one more to murder it all over again.

Leaving behind a crowd in growing agitation, Lily sped off down the hallway.

He didn’t follow her.

***

She had seen the message earlier in the afternoon.

Which, to be frank, had been a real luck: she wasn’t opening her post anymore. She barely even ate.

But receiving an envelope with the red Hogwarts’ crest at the age of twenty meant that something serious was going to happen.

So she had read, understood, and followed the instructions.

And now she found herself gazing at the dark walls of the Ministry of Magic, armed, and ready to fight.

Ready to- give everything.

Go big or go to the grave.

The call came from some hundred meters behind her. “Evans!”

Kingsley had always been a good speaker, with that loud voice of his. In the times when they still called each other by their first name, she imagined him to become a radio presenter. Instead, he wore the Auror’s colors now. And had been promoted as a secondary leader of the Order.

Still, maybe, after this fucking war…

“Are you going to daydream for long? You’re the last one.”

Lily shook her head to get out of her drowsiness, and sprinted toward her group leader. He looked at her with a critical frown. “You should gulp something down more often, Evans.”

And they were off toward the other end of the somber corridor.

“How many of them?”

“Our sentry counted twenty to the meeting this morning. Cobra confirmed the hour of the attack.” Cobra, their double agent. They only disposed of one, and hoped they were not infiltrated as well. “We secretly evacuated the employees and officers in the early afternoon.”

“How many of us?” She knew the answer. It was the same every time the whole squad was convocated. She just liked to have all the information confirmed.

“Eighteen.”

A mechanical nod of approval, but then- “Eighteen?”

“Eighteen,” repeated Kinsley’s strong voice. “Eighteen.”

Deep below his still tone, there was some embarrassment.

For fuck’s sake no. Not tonight.

But Fate knows how to be cruel.

She first saw Peter, a grimace of utter worry stamped on his face. He looked ready to die. Not by fighting, but of fright. He did not grin at her when their glances bumped, but lowered his head.

Sirius saw her, but acted as if not. Of the Marauders, he had always been the one who liked her less. He was still angry at her for deserting them, causing another anguish to their group of friends.

From the bottom of her heart resurfaced the desire that Remus had come back from his mission too. She was selfish, but she would have given anything to have him as the third add to the squad.

As she thought this, James’ face came into focus, ten steps away. Right where Kingsley was pointing.

“But-”

He glared at her. “The orders don’t come from me, Evans.”

She reluctantly wished him good luck, and headed towards her fight partner.

Standing next to him gave her goosebumps.

“Evans.”

Cold, indifferent greeting.

“Potter.”

Erased, bitter answer.

Lily felt James shifting his weight from foot to foot. Their breathing was distressed.

“Listen to me everyone!” The leader’s words echoed in the huge, nearly lifeless hall. “The orders for this mission are clear: protect the ministry at all cost. I don’t care how you do it: fight until you are not able to breathe anymore. Do not pay attention to the rest of the team, be the only one standing if it has to be this way. Reinforcements are planned to arrive.” He marked a pause, fixed each member of his group, each soul under his charge, knowing that he may never see them again. “And please, do your best to not fucking die.”

There was no clapping, no murmur of approval. You don’t acclaim what can be the most final goodbye.

“You wrote.”

The words slipped off her tongue in an unauthorized murmur. She mentally punched herself.

“You didn’t write back.”

She had sworn she wouldn’t.

All lights were off. The silence was sluggish. The air was suffocating.

It was not her first operation of defense, but a sense of uneasiness was crawling up Lily’s lungs. She never had to fight in almost complete darkness before. A good pair cooperation was going to be crucial.

Great, she’d probably die tonight.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to say goodbye to life right today, Evans.” James’ voice was full of assurance. “So if you could please avoid to hit me square in the chest...”

He really thought that she hated him.

Everybody thought so.

That’s how she had made her letter sound.

A blonde silhouette hovered before her eyes for the fraction of a moment.

“Just fucking fight, you prat.”

And the conversation was over.

The first flash of electric green ripped the stillness seconds later, but the real shock shook them when somebody screamed.

At least two dozens of black draughts circled the members of the Order, and materialized in masked, caped shapes. The impact of red and blue lights was immediate, and chaos erupted.

Rolling down to the floor, Lily avoided a stupefy thrown her way, and poured all her rage in a bright orange spell. A strangled sound confirmed that she had hit her target.

“Expelliarmus!” shouted James from her side. He threw himself to the ground too, when his missed aim replicated. Lily saved him by conjuring a shielding charm, but couldn’t avoid the intense shot of purple that hit her in the ribs.

At first, nothing. Then, everything.

A snake of fire formed in her veins, consuming her skin. A searing blade was tearing her insides, her hands were attacked by invisible knives, her throat scratched by razors at each call for misericord. Her flaming hair cruelly danced around her, threatening to choke her already impossible breathing. Her bones were exploding, her mind was becoming something else. A burnt smell travelled in the atmosphere, her vision was masked by red sparks of suffering.

They always tell you horrific things about the cruciatus curse. They never approach the truth.

She could not think, nor react. She was a broken doll in some atrocious kid’s hands.

Her screams filled her attacker’s ears like a gong of victory. He savagely flicked his wand, enjoying the sight of the contorsionating girl.

He paid his barbarity too cheaply.

“Avada kedavra!”

Still harboring an ugly smirk, Adam Rosier became James Potter’s first victim, collapsing on the ground as the meaningless mass he was. The young wizard spat in the Death Eater’s direction, leaving for later his reaction to the shock of killing somebody.

He ducked a lost red flash, and ran to kneel down next to his partner’s motionless body. He prayed under his breath that she hadn’t died right here and now, before his eyes, because of him. His forehead was pale skin under a coat of sweat.

He grabbed her wrist, felt only a faint pulse, muttered a spell, prayed harder.

“Potter!” Kingsley’s voice was barely audible through the wall of imprecations and incantations, even though he was his closest ally. “Potter! What the hell! Get up and fight!”

No time to explain him about Lily, he would not have listened anyway. The orders were clear, and Kingsley was a man shaped by rules.

James sent him to hell, and took the girl in his arms, wrapped in occasional bursts of light.

He made it to the nearest hiding he could find, a wide crack in a wall, with a deep burn in the back and a bleeding eyebrow, but ignored them at his best. He carefully laid the witch on the fissured floor, waved his hands above her head, and breathed a couple of curing charms.

An explosion resounded, the ground quaked. Dust and little stones fell from the roof, hitting her face like solid rain drops.

“Please, Evans, don’t be a bitch and stay alive.”

He risked himself to shake her shoulder.

A groan escaped her throat, and James almost fainted of relief when her eyelids slowly raised.

“What the-” Her feverish eyes opened widely, and she sat up in a urge, releasing the content of her stomach on the concrete ground. Her face was the same color.

Another violent tremor shook the building, and the man had to force his throat shut.

When Lily’s retching came to an unsure end, her back found the floor as a support.

Her breath was heavy.

“Are you ok?”

Now, what a dumb question. Of course she was not.

She didn’t answer.

Lily had never imagined that she would meet James Potter again under these circumstances. It made the whole situation worse.

She had left him broken, two years ago. She had disappeared, leaving scars all over his soul. Yet, there he was, saving her life.

This was one of the things she had struggled the most to hate in him, when time had come to force herself out of their relationship. His unconditional kindness, his generous thoughtfulness. He was ready to believe in anybody’s redemption, providing excuses to the most irrational behaviors.

Through the blurry curtains of her pain, Lily distinguished his creased brow. Of course, he was preoccupied. He couldn’t hold any grudge, had to forgive everyone. Even when they killed him in the inside.

Why the fuck did he always have to be so- himself?

Lying, pale like a blanket, she wore that severe expression that implied she was on the edge of exploding.

A blonde face smiled at her. She blinked, and it was gone.

“Did you just call me a bitch, Potter.”

It was not a question, nor a joke to release the tension. He felt it.

“I just saved your life, Evans,” he defended himself.

“You are disobeying the orders.”

Their eyes met for the first time that night. It felt like a clash.

“So what, I should have left you at that monster’s mercy?”

“Exactly.”

James pushed his glasses up his nose with a raging gesture.

“You know what, Evans? I may actually consider you to be a bitch. And I surely have a hundred reasons to. Do you realize that it’s the first time we have a conversation since our- since our last day at Hogwarts?” There was badly disguised pain in his words. “Do you realize that, maybe, I have some questions?”

From the breach on the wall, some bits of the fight penetrated their safe place.

Lily stumbled up.

“Where do you think you’re going now?” James’ voice was irritated, but also preoccupied. He hadn’t brought her all the way here to see her fall again out there.

“Have you really not heard the bloody orders, Potter,” she answered, leaning on the wall to chase away her dizziness. “Get your scared ass in the tussle and fight.”

“But you can’t possibly think t-!” She was already out of reach of his words, moving toward the core of the collision. “Damn it, Lily!”

She heard him running toward the center of the mass a few seconds later.

“Confringo!” Her blue sparkle hit one of the enemies straight at the heart, and she stupefied another one shortly after avoiding his attack.

Feeling that agony inside her had heightened her expectations of sufferance, and she thought of nothing as she walked more dead than alive through the web of curses.

She was angry at the world, at James Potter, and at herself.

“Avada ke-”

Her words were cut off by the sudden disappearance of her target, leaving her baffled. She looked for another Death Eater to aim at, but could find none alive in sight.

She heard Kingsley’s confused imprecations, joined by Alice’s, and James’ sharp inhalations neax to her.

The temperature had dropped considerably.

“You have lost enough.” The treacherous voice snaked its way to her ears like a repulsive melody invading her mind. “If you give up now, you will be rewarded. Lord Voldemort is not insensible to courage.”

Several looks scanned the room, but the semi darkness prevented anybody from seeing farther than a few meters away.

A glacial laughter resounded in her head.

In prey of a terrible presentiment, Lily focused on counting the living people remaining in the hall, all members of the Order. One, two, five, ten, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Fifteen! Maybe she had just counted wrong. Again: one, five, ten, fifteen.

“You have until the count of three to surrender,” the voice explained, freezing her blood. “Or else you will all die.”

A bright light illuminated the air, forcing Lily to protect her eyes with her hand.

Her limbs stiffened.

Three bodies were suspended in the emptiness by a magical rope tied to their chest.

Three faces were decomposed in fear, bathed in this raw light.

Amanda, Drew, and Peter were hanging twenty meters above the ground.

Lily had found her three missing teammates. Panic was boiling between her temples.

Peter emitted a strangled squeal that shook her from her apathy. His eyes, out of their orbits, were fixing a point behind the group.

“Face me, members of Dumbledore’s army! See the traits of the man that will end your miserable existence if you don’t bend to him!”

When she swung round, a cry escaped her mouth.

The body was draped in black, floating in mid air. The face was thin, blueish, bore no nose. The fingers were long, bony, holding a menacing wand. The eyes were a snake’s, of an intense red.

The smile was sharp, victorious.

She was staring at the Dark Lord in person.

“I advise you to surrender,” The voice did not reach Lily through her ears. It came from between her ribs, from the center of her bones. “Now.”

Lily felt James’ body tensing centimeters away from hers, but the menace received no answer.

Despite the fear, the orders were clear.

“Good,” the Dark Lord’s voice echoed, with a cynical trace of amusement sketched in it. “So let the countdown begin. Nagini!”

Lily’s knees trembled.

Whatever Nagini was, it came slowly, imperceptibly, quietly, like death itself.

They didn’t see it, but they could feel its presence to their left, their right, everywhere. The creature’s aura trapped them, froze them. It was as if a spell had been casted on the room, preventing any movement. Any smell, any sound, had disappeared from the world.

The wizards couldn’t even hear their own shaky breath.

Time had stopped.

“One!”

A shout of despair recalled Lily’s attention on the point where the hostages were hanging.

Faster than a bolt, a long, scaled form had coiled down the first rope. Amanda’s face, which had been deformed in horror, was now still, her pupils vitreous. On her neck, a hideous mark was drawn in blood.

The aftermath of the cruciatus hit Lily hard in the stomach, and she felt like throwing up again.

Her arms couldn’t move, she was paralyzed.

“Two!”

She saw Drew’s last desperate look falter on his traits.

Heavy drops of cold sweat slided down her spine. She gathered all her forces, interrupting her breathing in the effort, weak from her injury.

Peter already looked dead to her.

She struggled to stretch her fingers.

“Th-”

“Confringo!” “Avada Kedavra!” “Petrificus totalus!” “Cruciatus!”

The four spells flew at the same time toward the voice.

Responding to their instincts, Lily, James, Sirius, and Alice had managed to break the inertia that was pinning them down, firing their shots with a propulsed rage.

It happened so fast.

Nobody could resist to four curses at once.

A ball of blinding light surrounded the Dark Lord, its powerful energy making everyone fall to their knees. The inhuman cry of destruction ripped the atmosphere, pierced their eardrums, reached their souls and tore them apart. A storm of black dust wrapped, asphyxiated them. There was coughing, an intense warmth, and the smell of rotten meat.

A skull formed in the air, laced by a snake. For a split second, it seemed to Lily that the skull looked at her with an intense rage.

She heard Peter’s screams, then fainted.

***

Lily wondered why everybody preferred life rather than death. At least, when you’re dead, you can’t wake up to a raw reality.

The first signal that she received from her body was a stabbing pain on her side. She stifled a cry with her pillow, which left a disagreeable smell of bleach on her face.

The sheets were white, that’s all she saw. Her eyes were too sensible to last more than a few seconds open.

Last time she had found herself in medical care, it had been because of a potions experiment gone wrong, in her seventh school year.

Right after waking up for good, she had been greeted by half a dozen of her friends, either sitting or standing, who had brought her sweets and kind notes.

Professors had passed by in the day, beaming at her and sharing their wishes of seeing her well soon.

Tucked under the soft sheets, she had thanked them all dearly.

The only thing to beckon now was the lonely grey chair that flanked her uncomfortable mattress.

She hated hospitals.

She tried to move her hands, but the effort caused a wave of protest in her stomach.

Her other, rapid sight of the world were two shadows on the white curtain that isolated her bed.

It took her a while to distinguish any sound.

“... serious state,” affirmed a high-pitched voice.

“How long do you think it will take?”

Dumbledore. This was Dumbledore’s serious tone.

“Probably days,” placidly answered the woman. “She was hit by a cruciatus, according to Shacklebolt. It didn’t last more than a dozen of seconds, but it was enough to make her lose her senses. And then, there was this explosion they all talk about. We can’t understand the magnitude of the force that hit them, nor how it possibly left her in such a drained state. She was two-thirds dead when they brought her here. Do you know anything more?”

The buzzing in her ears made it impossible for Lily to hear the warlock’s murmured answer.

“If you are right, I must act right now. Another healer will lead you to Pettigrew’s room. Black left yesterday, while Longbottom is still unconscious. Potter received a visit earlier in the morning. A young woman, to whom we gave exceptional allowance as she affirmed being his fiancee.”

A hurtful darkness engulfed Lily.

***

Everything was numb.

She was vaguely aware of the door of her room clicking open. A voice slinked in.

“I am not sure if she’s awaken yet, boy. And visits are not allowed, at this stage of the cure. You’ll have to come back in a few days, when she’ll feel better.”

It took some seconds for the words to sink in.

What?

No fucking way she was going to stay in this hell of a place for ‘a few days.’

“Hey!” She called.

Hurried steps came her way, the curtains were dragged open, and a grey beard bent over her face. The man’s pungent breath stung her nostrils.

He pulled back just in time to avoid her first retching wave.

The world was spinning, she couldn’t draw in any oxygen.

“Johnes!” The healer’s voice was as disagreeable as his smell. “Call Jenkins and Perks, she’s having another attack!”

The last thing Lily saw, as her unsteady gaze fell on the doorframe, before sinking back into oblivion, were squared glasses and ruffled hair.

***

This dance between life and death was the most exhausting thing that had ever happened to her.

Exhausting and deceiving: she always woke up.

The fissures under her eyelashes revealed the same depressing white light on the roof. She groaned, but was relieved that no twist of nausea manifested itself. Her tongue seemed glued to her palate, and her throat was as dry as a roasted nut.

Helping herself with her forearms, Lily sat up.

“Bloody hell,” she whispered. It somehow felt comforting to hear her own voice, even if it was cracked. “When was the last time I brushed my teeth.”

“Six days ago, I’d say.”

Her start was so violent that she almost rolled down to the floor.

“That is, assuming that you wash them regularly.”

The grey chair at her right was not empty anymore. James was sitting on it, his legs crossed.

Lily instinctively pulled the sheets up, to cover what the hospital’s blouse barely disguised. “What- How in the world did you get inside here?”

The man pointed a finger toward the door with a smirk, which, in other conditions, would have made her roll her eyes.

She scanned him. He looked much more like the James she had always known, with his hair all untidy and his crumpled shirt half-tuck in his pants.

Nostalgy almost made her smile, but she got the feeling that he wouldn’t have appreciated it.

“What do you want?”

His stare fled hers.

“Before your dear friend comes back to kick my butt out of here, you should see this.”

He handed her a copy of the Daily Prophet

The rugose paper was stained in multiple places, ripped in others, but it would have been difficult not to read the title that took the entire half of the first page, ‘The Dark Lord Defeated.’

Lily’s jaw dropped. “I swear, if this is one of your stupid pranks, I’ll-”

A spasm in the side cut her sentence.

“Calm down, Evans. We don’t want you to die after becoming a hero, do we? Dumbledore would kill me.”

His finger brushed the upper corner of the newspaper, invisibly highlighting some words and numbers. Swallowing with difficulty, Lily read the date of publication. It was from three days ago.

“So?”

“So it’s not a prank. But it’s useless. He’s still alive. Cobra confirmed it.”

Her shoulders dropped. Still-

“How can somebody resist to four attacks at the same time? He can’t possibly be alive!”

James brushed her comment away with a gesture of his head. “Have you seen him the other night, Evans? He already looked like a corpse. He masters some dark magic we don’t know about, not even Dumbledore. I doubt we achieved anything more than to anger him.”

It had been too good to be true. Though it didn’t feel like reality. More like a nightmare.

“We did more than that. We saved Pet-”

Her voice died in her throat.

They had saved Peter.

They had saved only Peter.

On her neck, a hideous mark was drawn in blood.

Amanda had always been nice to Lily, even if the latter didn’t seek people’s company. She had shared with her a part of her lunch for long, after a particularly hard week, when Lily’s hollow cheeks had become too evident.

The last look of despair faltered on his face.

Drew had always been an important moral support to the squad. Not the most brilliant bloke in the world, but his seriousness was a column to which many members had found support, including Lily.

They had been important, in their own way.

And now they were gone.

Lily’s shoulders slumped.

“I- there is something else- I have to tell you.” James’ pause was sad, warned her of the worse. “Dumbledore told me something about- the second hostage’s wife. She- she died yesterday. They did her possible to save her but h-”

He kept talking, but nothing reached her ears.

Lily had met Drew’s wife once. The Order had lost her as a member when she had lost her brother because of a mission. She was very reserved, pale like a chrysanthemum. Drew often compared her to a frail flower, but Lily had understood that she was ill.

They were a loyal couple, loved each other dearly.

In wedding vows, you promise to follow your other half everywhere, no matter what.

The poor woman had kept her promise.

The air burnt Lily’s throat. She didn’t want to breathe anymore.

James was still sitting next to her, and didn’t move as she buried her grief under a sea of tears.

She would have wanted him to hug her, to help her soothe the pain of mourning people she had barely known, but who had died in front of her.

‘Fiancee’ had said the healer to Dumbledore.

“Just leave, please.”

It costed her only a whisper, and she was alone again.

***

Lily filled her lungs with the sun’s air, relieved to inhale the dust of the streets. After ten days of undergoing all types of stupid tests in the hospital, she was finally physically out.

What she needed now was infinite sleep, and a ton of pain killers.

But Fate knows how to be cruel.

***

Things reached her through a haze.

The bed and the light were the same, just the curtains had changed. They were thicker.

It was a nightmare repeating itself.

Her head throbbed. Somebody must have hit her skull with a hammer.

The person standing right next to her, maybe.

“Good morning, Lily.” For a moment, she feared that the man would get too close. Then she noticed that his beard was clearer than the healer’s. “Can I have a second of your time?”

Her instinct advised her to send him to hell, her sore throat won the battle.

Dumbledore observed her like a little girl looks at an injured puppy. Something in his voice was wrong.

“Do you remember anything, Lily?”

Anything of what?

Shaking her head made her nerves go wild.

“You did it again.”

She did what now. End up in a bed that smelt of too much cleaning?

Yeah, she had noticed.

“You defeated Lord Voldemort a second time.”

And she passed out.

***

“Can somebody  tell me what the fuck he meant?” The only answer she got was the metallic noises of medical tools. “How in the world did I ended up in this disgusting place again? What’s going on?”

Being nice had been completely erased from her agenda.

The nurses who were taking her blood pressure sighed in frustration. “We have already told you, Ms. Evans. We can’t tell you anything. The Head Healer said-”

“Then call your damned Head Healer.”

The women left without taking their toolkit.

An eternity later, Grey Beard stepped in.

“Good afternoon Ms. E-”

“How did I fucking end up here?”

He seemed to hesitate.

“I have been instructed to not reveal any information, Ms. Evans, for the sake of your health. You will have to wait until you get the green light to leave.”

“As if,” she grunted. “Where is Dumbledore?”

The man hesitated. His inner voices were arguing over what to do, but promptly found an agreement.

He left the room, and didn’t come back for the next two days.

***

“I am not a doll!”

Her fist hit the table.

She was wild. A real storm.

The portraits on the walls were empty, their occupants having fled toward a better climate.

Behind his desk, Hogwarts’ Headmaster didn’t flinch.

“You left me rotting in that horrible hospital for ten more days.” Her tears were a free stream. “You came to give me an explanation when I could only think you were a vision.” A bubble burst in her chest. “And now you tell me that-”

Dumbledore sighed. “And now I tell you that the girl who was your best friend died in that mission you can’t even remember.” Lily pressed her hand to her mouth, bit her fingers with rage. “Ms. Mckinnon was one of our best members, Ms. Evans. She knew that this mission was highly dangerous. She accepted it. Do not blame yourself.”

It hurt.

It hurt because Marlene had been the first person Lily had met after her sister had called her a freak for the hundredth time, on King’s Cross station.

It hurt because Lily hadn’t spoken to Marlene after their last day at Hogwarts, for the same reason why she had broken up with James, for the same reason why she had refused to answer to Mary or Remus’s letter.

It hurt because Marlene had been the only one to accept her decision, to try to understand her, when she had left.

It hurt because, after that, she had seen her for the last time during a mission she didn’t remember, maybe told her something she didn’t recall, or perhaps ignored her like Sirius had done with her.

“Are there- Are there chances to recover my memory?”

At least she could grasp to that, but Dumbledore’s eyes were sorry.

“The shock of the impact, its magnitude, leaves us few hopes, Ms. Evans. We don’t know what would have happened if Longbottom hadn’t come to your rescue.” Lily shuddered. I wouldn’t be here. “But what you managed to do,” he adds in a comforting voice, “Is extraordinary. Ms. Mckinnon will not have died in vain.”

She could ask him again, but he didn’t seem incline to disclose some information. It didn’t belong to him, after all.

“So who could tell me what happened exactly that night?”

She needed to know from somebody who had been there.

She needed to know how it had happened.

“Four people were present beside you and Ms. Mckinnon. Black refuses to have any contact with anybody, Fortescue and Longbottom are still interned. The only one that will accept to help you is-”

She felt the answer before he could mention it.

Fate knows how to be cruel.

“James Potter.”

***

The doorbell rang.

It had cost her a herculean effort. She hoped that no blonde girl would open the door.

An eye appeared in the spy-hole, widened considerably, then vanished.

There was a second of doubt before the wooden panel swung on its hinges.

“Lily?”

Blimey, Euphemia Potter hadn’t changed a bit. Maybe she had a couple more wrinkles, but these are things you don’t notice in women like her.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Potter. Is James here?”

Euphemia defied the girl with a stare. A mother never forgets the face of her son’s murderer.

“Please,” begged Lily. “It’s very important.”

The woman slowly nodded.

In the corridor, she didn’t offer her any tea or biscuits. Not even water. She pointed to the living room, then disappeared upstairs.

Lily crossed her legs, and patiently waited.

She didn’t hear James coming, and practically did not see him standing in the doorframe until he cleared his throat.

Again, that will to hug him, to forget everything in the security of his warm embrace.

“What do you want, Evans?”

She raised her eyes to his face. “What happened?”

He sat in the armchair that faced her, and did something that pushed her down the cliff.

He took her hands.

***

Marlene had infiltrated the Death Eaters’ meeting.

The Order needed information. They had provided her a backup squad, in case things would go wrong. Everything was under control until the Dark Lord had required the attendees to take off their masks.

He knew.

Marlene had looked at him straight in the eyes when he had raised his wand.

“You jumped forward from behind the double-wall.” James tried to hold his voice together, pressing his thumbs gently on her palms. “Marlene looked at you as if you were from another world. For the fraction of a second, her empty expression switched with the one she usually harbored at- at Hogwarts. She badly wanted to smile, but you were both about to die, so she didn’t. The effect of surprise you had caused vanished, and the shot was fired. Hit her square in the chest.” He badly represses a sob. “He dismissed the meeting, as if nothing had happened, while you were still gazing at Marlene’s body. He felt so- superior.”

Lily’s vision was blurry.

“He was aiming at you, smirking, when shock woke you up. You turned to face him, and screamed the curse. He underestimated you so much that he didn’t duck it on time, so he stumbled. Alice and Frank were quick with their spells, but he was quicker. Like last time, his dark image invaded the room, and he dissolved into thin air. You were the closest one, the energy trapped you.”

Her mind didn’t want to assimilate this as the truth, though she knew deep down that it was the correct version of facts.

It felt unreal, but what did not lately?

She was not even capable to accept pain and sadness anymore.

“Lily… We could have gone through this together…” In other times, embarrassment would have made him scratch his neck, but his fingers were warm on hers. His grip was firm. He wanted an answer. “Why did you do it?”

Did he honestly think that she could talk about this right now?

She wanted to cry, but her body was dry.

“You have a fiancee, James. I don’t think it really matters to you anymore.”

“Don’t use that accusative tone. It sounds as if you expected me to wait forever.”

“I didn’t expect you to wait forever. I just hoped…”

“You hoped! Be honest, Lily! I thought you loved me at least a fragment of how much I loved you, that would have been enough. The world as we knew it was breaking apart, we all needed some stable points, but you decided to destroy my strongest one!” He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him in the eyes. “Do you know how much our relationship meant to me? Did you realize that you’d leave me in pieces? Did you even care? It turned out you hated me!”

Two years of efforts.

Marlene had died not knowing that she loved her, perhaps even thinking the contrary.

“I didn’t!” Her shout made him recoil. “I loved you more than anything in the world, James! I- I wanted to save you! You, Peter, Remus, Sirius, Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, and all the others! You were getting attacked for dating me! They fucking used the cruciatus on you, while we were still at school, bloody hell! You got tortured because of me!”

James was appalled. He raised, dropping her hands.

“Loving somebody means caring about their feelings, Lily. You hurt me more by leaving than these damned moron could have in hours of persecution! They came after me anyway! They still tried to kill me after you left! And guess what, I didn’t feel like surviving! I was dead in the inside! Was it not for the boys, I would be under six feet of dust right now!”

She stood up too, erecting herself so his nose faced her forehead.

Her eyes were losing their sparkle.

“You don’t hear yourself, James! War is not the right moment to attach your life to somebody else’s, most of all if that person is a principal aim! Look at what happened to Drew and his wife. He died, and she didn’t resist! I didn’t want that! I didn’t want you to suffer because of me!”

“It was harder to accept the fact that you were leaving without any apparent reason! Fuck, Lily! Try to be coherent!”

“You had friends then, but who knew if they’d still be living later! You got over it, you didn’t die of despair! You found l-”

She had to sit down, to cover her face with her hands.

All she had wanted was to protect him.

And now, he had a fiancee. Another person through which they could harm him.

He was making all her struggles meaningless.

He was making her jealous.

“You found love again.”

Fate knows how to be cruel.

***

Her apartment had never seemed as dim as when she stepped out of the chimney.

Even after opening the curtains -- she took them off, she had had enough of any kind of them -- the windows barely let a couple of light rays in. They needed some cleaning, but it seemed impossible to her that such a basic task still existed.

There was war going on. Her living room glass panels begged for some soap.

The two things did not get along at all.

Lily sank in her old sofa, sending a cloud of dust and ashes spiraling in the air. She took her wand out of her pocket, and examined it consciously. She was not sure to remember how to use it.

When you want to produce magic, you need to mean something.

She didn’t feel like she meant anything anymore.

Her gaze dropped to the floor, and this is when she noticed the envelope abandoned on the carpet.

***

Lily hesitated.

It was pure suicide.

“How many of us?”

Her favorite question to alleviate the pressure.

Though now, she really needed to know.

“Four.” It was a glacial answer. A frightened answer. “More would be too much, and less… pure craziness.”

This was already crazy. Marlene had tried. She had failed.

“Who else apart from us?”

“Frank,” Of course. “And James.”

Considering her luck in the last months, it didn’t even surprise her.

“I’m in.”

Their imperceptible nod was a silent promise .

Lily was about to leave her teammate’s flat when something clicked in her head.

“Does somebody officially know about this?”

Alice’s eyes scanned the redhead’s face, calculating the pros and cons of telling the truth.

“No.”

Nobody would come to their rescue. It was a secret against a safety.

They were disobeying the orders.

Their last drop of hope splashed on the floor.

***

Lily rubbed her hands together, then blew some hot air between her joined palms.

She was the first to arrive, for once. Hell, if she had to die, she had to do something extraordinary before.

There was a loud crack behind her, followed by another one. Without speaking a word in the silent night, Alice and Frank acknowledged her presence, then took different paths to their positions.

The woman waited for the last apparating sound to turn around.

The man wore a long coat and dark pants. His hair was combed, but he ruffled it. He probably wanted to die as himself.

“Good evening, Lily.”

“‘evening, Potter.”

She seemed unable to articulate anything more. But they didn’t have the whole night at disposition.

“You know, I meant it,” she said at last. He slightly raised a brow, observing her tense face from above his glasses. “When I said I loved you.” He looked away. She could see his perfect jawline contract as he clenched his teeth. “And as we’ll probably never see each other again…”

She stood on her toe tips, and lightly brushed his lips with hers.

Saying that it didn’t provoke any emotion in their chest would be a blatant lie.

But it didn’t feel the same anymore.

He had loved her, but she had hurt him. He had slowly mended his wounds, didn’t want to open them again.

Lily understood it, pain and remorse corroding her soul.

She left to take her position.

***

This time, it was over. They had finally done it.

He was gone. She believed it.

She wanted to believe it.

She hadn’t even ended up in that fucking hospital.

Maybe life was going to be good again.

She asked nothing more of it than to be acceptable.

So she had said yes to a couple of firewhiskey glasses. Which had turned into bottles.

The Daily Prophet’s title was its biggest in history: ‘The Dark Lord Defeated For Good: Four Heros To Thank.’

The journalist and editor must have been drunk.

In the pub, wizards and witches greeted her, thanked her, cried in front of her.

They were all drunk as well.

The music, the shouts, the people. It was all too much. She had retired in one of the bedrooms. To be alone with her thoughts drowned in alcohol.

It felt wrong to celebrate.

“Evans?” The slur was full of booze.

James was one of the other ‘heros,’ and understood as much as her how heavy this title was. They other two did too, but at least they could make out to forget.

He slowly came to sit next to her, on the mattress.

Chills ran down her spine.

“Nice party, huh?”

She didn’t answer. He was talking to her as if nothing had happened before the attack. Maybe he didn’t remember.

“Know what, Evans?” He took a sip from the bottle he had in hand. A long sip. “This whole story is bullshit. If four curses didn’t killed him the first time, I doubt that he got affected now. The man’s not over. He’s got like a thousand souls, I swear.”

This stupid theory, the stress, her hopelessness made her laugh nervously.

Granted, she had drunk one shot too much.

James had indeed forgotten all about her confession. He had blissfully forgotten everything about his life for this night. He deserved it.

The only thing he was conscious of was that, whatever the newspapers said, he had a bad presentment. And also that his leg brushed hers.

Meanwhile, Lily was getting hysterical. Her cackling irritated him, and he, pushed by the cruelty of oblivion, found no other way to shut her up than to press his lips to hers.

It was not a kiss like those they had shared in their youth. This one was furious, full of reproaches, aggressive. It was the result of tension, of an intense passion repressed for two years, moved by firewhiskey.

It was not sincere, it was desperate, crazy, drunk.

They were breathless, broken, intoxicated. They were lying on a bed, forgotten by everyone, in a room too far from reach.

The moon was full outside, treacherous, insatiable. The wolves hollowed in the woods, the empty souls trembled, the proud ones lost themselves.

Fate knows how to be cruel.

Lily and James were proud souls.

What should not have happened, happened.

***

“Don’t you fucking dare to kid me on this, Sirius.”

“I swear to you on Merlin’s left b-”

“How the bloody hell… What did he tell Katie?”

“The truth. The kid is his. Due in July.”

“Fuck.”

“I know. She slapped him round the face, didn’t want to see him for a week.”

“Did he-”

“They’re going to marry in June.”

“Lily and him?”

“Katie and him, Moony.”

“What?”

“Katie’s his fiancee. What happened with Lily was- an accident.”

“Are you fucking kidding me! I know he said he would never forgive her, but for Gryffindor’s hell of a hat… ”

“The girls are holding no excessive mortal grudge. Lily will settle in a calm neighborhood, she’ll have an old witch to help her with the baby.”

“At least that. The newspapers?”

“Those stupid blokes that call themselves journalists don’t say anything on the topic, too busy explaining why the Dark Lord is back after all. ”

“Hoping it’ll last, last thing we want is a scandal. But I guess the Ministry is covering them up. They still need them as a symbol.”

“Yeah. Defeated the Dark Lord thrice. But that bastard keeps coming back.”

“You know, it’s the first time I hear about Lily in two years.”

“I’m sorry, Moony.”

“Bloody fucking hell… Life’s a bitch.”

***

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...." 

***

She let him in.

James came once a month, when Katie allowed him to. His wife was sensible to Harry being the result of adults’ mistakes, just a kid.

A kid bound to die.

Lily’s hands trembled every time she opened the door. She feared to see her nightmare, the blueish face, red eyes, coming to kill her son.

But only James and Peter knew where to find her, so she tried to ignore her fears.

Happy chirping called her in the living room. James had brought chocolate frogs, and all kinds of soft sweets were lying on the floor.

Of course.

He had once bought his son a broomstick, when the Quidditch season had started.

He was a good father.

In her letter, the letter with which she had broken their relationship, a little more than three years ago, Lily had mentioned how things are bound to happen, and how James and her were not one of these things.

Now that she saw him play on the carpet with Harry, the possibility that she may had been wrong squeezed her heart.

But Fate knows how to be cruel.

It will never tell you what decision you have to take.

It will never allow you to step back.

It will never warn you of any danger.

As James stood to leave, half an hour later, in this chilly night dressed in the colors of autumn, Fate confirmed once more its superiority with a single, blood freezing sound.

Somebody knocked on the door.

[thesweetblossoms]

Floating Marigolds

🌵Today we hiked Tom Thumb trail, which is a beautiful and intoxicating walk on the McDowell Mountains, a half hour away from our apartment in Scottsdale. My memories of the walk are raw and ethereal, steeped in natural wonder and energy, as potent as the fresh snowy white, shimmering morsels of quartz stone, I found on the trail and as delicate as the many clementine orange, tiny, charming butterflies I saw flitting, gliding, rising and falling in gentle waves along the pink sandy earth, the butterflies, appearing like floating marigolds, twirling through jojobas, acacias, teddy bear chollas, prickly pear cactus and the gatherings of many dried scarlet, amethyst, bleached gold and chocolate tinted grasses. We walked along an uncultivated and wild desert with the shadows and sparkles dancing off the ridge of steely gray mountains, the light catapulting from wiry, needle embedded, hardy succulents and feathery clumps of grasses, trailing cautiously over the stumps of dried ocotillos, as the rushed breezes joined nature as it conducted the nimbus clouds, early October sunlight, far off late summer hurricane winds, nectar gathering bees and palpable dust into a beguiling symphony. Rattlesnakes, tarantulas, javelinas, scorpions and other desert dwellers are spotted on this trail. While, I was curious to see the natural inhabitants of such a cosmically and scenically charged terrain, I was grateful not to encounter any lethal fauna. While hiking along, I felt a slightly sinister energy, a nuance and awareness that the groves of chollas, slumbering mesquite trees, the serpentine and the web weaving habitué of the land, did not appreciate, humans ascending to their territory. Yet, being in uninimitable and unhindered natural manifestations, away from man made structures, traffic lights and manicured landscapes, in an open area, has a consciousness altering quality of change, or shifting borders between reality and illusions, of time moving and shaping the physical world, of the future cascading closer and of sudden insights and visions. As my husband trotted ahead, always a few stretches before me, yet close enough so we do not lose each other, I called out as he entreated me to hurry along. “I’m only a few steps behind.”, the words echoing through mystical, mysterious and impenetrable time and space.

Heretofore, my style has been predictable, often veering into the realm of slightly boring, thus, I am attempting to define it, such that it might inspire novel ways to translate my emotions, personality and subtle consciousness, into the way I present my self, with attire and jewelry. As I was born on the seventh of July, the number seven holds immense luck and possibility, and I consider it a charm and constant reminder of the magical nature of reality. The seven elements of my style would include romantic, feminine, mysterious, bohemian, poetic, classic and simple.

I tend to reach timelessly for white, nude or pale pink shirts, blouses and tops with skinny blue/black jeans, or black or navy shorts, I possess a cast of navy, emerald, white, camel, misty gray, mustard yellow, varied hues of pink and a few royal purple tinted dresses, I vary these, by sprinkling in a few petite floral patterned or striped pieces. My jewelry, consists of pearl, emerald or diamond studs or a pair of very thin gold hoops, I wear my engagement ring every day, with a combinations of a simple pearl ring I inherited from my grandmother, a minimal rose quartz band, or a ring with seven, small Zambian emeralds, I also wear my black Hermès watch, with pearl or brass bracelets. I tend to wear either nude high-heel sandals or pink, navy blue or leopard print ballet flats. In the mornings, dressing myself is a cherished ritual, I enjoy the unplanned nature and the momentous act of going through my collection of apparel, scarfs, shoes, belts and purses to help me gauge both the mood of the day and my own particular sensibility. I remind myself often, to look more carefully at the contents of my closet, rather then to miss details that might highlight a look, idea, or expression more powerfully and clearly, perhaps noting how one of my pink cardigans may be worn with thin spaghetti strapped dresses for work, or how a black piece with pearls would be both appealing and require scant thought on the days I am running late.

Here are a few insights into the elements of my style:

Romantic ambiances include, slowly opening cosmos petals, smoky Egyptian musk incense, a slow whirling fan and a window open with white curtains flapping softly, carrying notes of honeysuckle and jasmine. On days that I skew particularly romantic, I might leave my hair in loose waves, wear a pink dress as pale as a flushed cream rose and eat an almond croissant with dark vanilla coffee.

While, the feminine energies permeate my experience of reality, with attenuating garden blossoms, of noticing the golden light on miniature ivory roses, or of creating a handmade avocado toast with extra squeezes of lime and pink salt drifting like dawn mist on the pale green sea crowned with freshly torn basil, or of a tying a pleasingly floral patterned black and white silk scarf around a high ponytail.

The elements of mystery, heighten the charm and increase curiosity, such as when I deliberately button up my white cotton shirt, over a peach pink bralette, or when I move to reveal, the glimmering sparkles of minimal pearl or brass bracelets, under the long sleeves of a nude toned chiffon dress. The nuances of mystery linger especially poignantly, in the study of contrasts, of wearing a tight bun with a free, flowing, unrestricted dress or styling long, loose, tresses with a tight, caramel lacy blouse and charcoal skinny jeans. In evoking mystery, I try to imagine a poetess in a summer garden, listening to the songs of the pastel nectarine, dawn pink and blood orange stained dahlias that only she can hear, or of the perfume of blossoming foamy white roses, drifting quietly from the garden, on a night of a charged secret, rendezvous by a rollicking, capricious and lighthearted sea.

My bohemian temperament stems from my desire to grow wildflowers, to cut a few for a tiny vintage vase, to wear vibrant coral, burnt sienna, incanted jade green and white cotton dresses with gold hoops, to spray rose and jasmine mist, to burn palo santo, to light a few tea light candles to saturate darkened rooms with pools of starlight, to dwell among old books, houseplants and fairy lights, to read French literature, to dance on a frayed lilac and silver Persian carpet, write about light, memories, emotions and flowers, drink chamomile tea, remain awake dangerously late to read, do yoga, to traipse into reveries, of Paris in the rain, of picnics with artists in a field of poppies and of carelessly swimming in a painterly vanilla and frangipani grove by the sea.

A poetic nature stems from an inclination to glimpse at the heart rendering pain and beauty in any moment, of the perfume of the tuberose strung canopy on a wedding night on a lush hill overlooking a misty winter bay, of an accidental snapping on a beloved string of pearls on the road to California, of ink stained hands and gardeners nails, of rubbing coconut, jasmine and ylang ylang oil over freshly lavender soaped skin, of never having too many lace, silk or chiffon dresses, or of enthusiastically wearing scarfs and wraps during pumpkin spice latte season in the desert.

Classic elements evoke a timeless sensibility and appeal, it appears in my life when I choose objects and pieces that occur whimsically and beguilingly in nature, such as by wearing pearls, turquoise, or rose quartz, from wearing natural fabrics such as silk or cotton, or choosing the cuts of cloth that have yet to be rendered dated, such as shift dresses, pea coats, white button down shirts, shirt dresses accompanied with brightly hued ballet slippers or nude wedges. It translates into the style of my home in the faint whispers from my collection of old English literature books by M. Somerset Maugham, Oscar Wilde, Daphne Du Maurier and more, or in my curated blue and white china collections, or a massive hoard of natural linen napkins, in piles of soft, cashmere, kanthas or Turkish blankets, in botanical and seaside art and paintings, in natural, raw wood furniture, lambs wool rugs, hand made ceramics and more.

The charm of simplicity is noticing the details, so that one may curate and disregard extraneous elements that diminish the purest forms and shapes. Nature is often my muse when I attempt to simplify my thoughts, ideas, design, fashion or lifestyle; for nature reminds us that most beautiful things are generally free, indelible in our memories, is measured in joy rather than in time, yet often taken for granted, such as the unadorned blue and white of the sky, or the emerald light in a green forest, or the rows or ivory roses, mixed with pots of lavender and faded pink geraniums lining a driveway, or of the dual purposes of perfume and glow inherent in a single bottle of coconut oil, in pearl earrings and a blush pink silk dress, or of the wondrous ecstasy of a storm halfway between midnight and the first light, with the windows open, the hurried gales, intense strikes of lightning, lashing rain and felonious thunder, carrying us though the night like a ship in a tempest ridden sea, the earth rollicking and dancing through myriad reveries, while our souls are set adamantly free in way that only occurs while we sleep, the unexplainable darkness of reality, temporarily stayed, by the poetic grace and shimmering excitement of the desert during a rainstorm many hours before the sunrise. Very often, I try to renegotiate my desire for variety, complexity and maximalism with an equally painful inclination for those entities that exult in plainness, such as crisp toast with butter, or a French braid with red lips, or of seashell, poetry book and rose quartz collections, or of rosewater mist and candle lit yoga, or the tantalizing pairing of a cup of green tea and a blanket.

The most salient concern in armoring myself for date nights, errands, visiting garden stores, bookstores, coffee shops or to the law firm, is how a garment makes me feel; how a vivid peach dress with a lilac cardigan may help ameliorate anxiety on Monday, or how a midnight blue shirt dress might assist me on days, I need to refocus my energies on my ongoing projects or how a white peasant blouse, dangling earrings and faintly pink jeans, anoints a lighter mood and gypsy vibes to a mellow Wednesday. Yet, another lens to view my style is through the experiences I hope to have, so I might collect a scandalous amount of pale pink chiffon dresses, for dancing as the clock strikes midnight in a lantern scattered garden in Marrakech, dewy with the perfume of orange blossoms, thick groves of tuberose, calla lilies, cypresses and palms, or a camel sheath with pearls for investor meetings in steely fortresses, or a emerald silk mini dress for an afternoon of visiting art galleries and antique stores while visiting by husbands family home in Connecticut. But the truest way we adorn ourselves are through the little pinpricks of gathered light, accumulated fires and entrapped breezes that we patiently fasten, insert or slide on as final, lingering touches, maybe it is the the diamond tear shaped earrings given by your mothers best friend for your engagement, a delicate lavender rice pearl bracelet found on a trip to Sedona, opal stud earrings reminding you of the ones your parents gave you as a gift on your 12th birthday, the original opals likely in safe in a bank deposit box in Toronto or Dhaka, or the vintage emerald ring you brought for yourself to break the webs of ennui in those mind numbingly plebeian routines annotated by the music of tiny silver anklet bells. For, there is yet explained magic and deeply alchemical poetry impressed upon the gems, stones and minerals that we find along our journey, some inherited, others gifted and a few collected on our own, these are mesmerizing and solid reminders that we linger among stars, that we are as fragile as plum blossoms in the path of an impatient may gale, that the light entrances even the most sleeping entities, that the cracks make the gem even more beautiful, that strength arises from beauty and vice versa and that there are memories, whispers, passionate entreaties, unanswered prayers, surreptitious reveries, twinkling laughter and bespoke tears embedded in the earthly realm, translated so bewilderingly and delightfully into our bracelets and other charms.

I noticed that when a pillar candle burns down so that the wick dances incandescently in a hollow grove, flickering hypnotically in a cave of melted wax with the tower edged and traced by times retreat, the color of the candle is revealed through the fire, as it jumps, scales and tongues the darkened room, it pulses like heartbeats from another realm, it rhymes, riddles and casts the space with a forgotten memory, a distant wish, or an unknown song, it heightens the emotion, of the bitterness of our dwindling lease on time and of the sweetness of its term. The glow reminds us to notice the light impressions whenever we have a chance, for even when the moonlight hits the blossoming Texas sage it reveals further regarding beauty, magic, fragility, impermanence and joy. The candle flame is starlight lingering in our midst, intoxicating in its danger, eviscerating in its power and captivating as it burns the dust, the unheard music and the reality veiling air to offer us its light.

I realize that perhaps the small butterflies I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, written a week ago, may have already travelled along their wild desert mountain paths, imbibing honey from the prickliest-flowering succulents, seeping in the orchestra of sun light chased by the moon, having ecstatically ridden the autumnal breezes, on their way to appearing again far away as earthly marigolds. The same way every tear turns into a leaf and every joy into a flower. 🦋

[whysoserioussugar]

So um this is an ink/watercolor painting my husband did for me seven years ago when we met. This was my Valentine’s gift that year (along with some tickets to see My Chemical Romance on the Danger Days tour and a bunch of post it notes with reasons he loved me. It was gross cute. Fight me.) But all of that to say I was young and blindly in love and obsessed with this song by the Blue October called “She’s My Ride Home” because it reminded me of my favorite comic book villain. I know this is a really shitty photo of a sort of iffy painting, but that little scribble in the corner says “I’ll be reaching for the stars with you, honey.” And the weirdo rope hanging from it was our wedding knot tying ceremony rope thing. I just have a lot of feelings right now. Thank you, anon, for sending that prompt and reminding me of this thing I see every day and take for granted too often. Both the photo and the man that painted it. From the bottom of my heart, I promise the scene you get for this will be extra special.

[danschkade]

PAGE x PAGE ANALYSIS — ‘THE SHADOW STRIKES!’ #13 (1990)

PUBLISHED: DC Comics, October 1990

SCRIPT: Gerard Jones

PENCILS/INKS: Eduardo Barreto

LETTERS: John Workman 

COLORS: Anthony Tollin 

EDITORIAL: Brian Augustyn

THE SHADOW STRIKES! is high on my list of favorite ongoing series ever. As far as I’m concerned, of the many four-color iterations of The Shadow, this is the one that truly gets it right. The Shadow of STRIKES! is a lurking, manipulating hybrid of The Phantom of the Opera and John Wick, the action of the series playing out mainly through the perspectives of his agents and his criminal quarry. This book is tight, hard-edged, and restrained; it avoids a lot of hacky pulp comics pitfalls because it understands that the original Walter Gibson Shadow novels weren’t “trying to be pulpy” — they were trying to be lean, lurid action thrillers. This is almost entirely down to writer Gerard Jones, but it works better than anywhere else in the issues drawn by the artist that defined the look and feel of the series — Eduardo Barreto. STRIKES! sometimes suffers from being the type of lower budget 80’s/90’s DC book where the fill-in issues can be sloppy to unreadable and the truly great issues mainly succeed by virtue of being the product of creators who weren’t really being watched that closely, but that doesn’t mean I’m grading on some kind of a curve when I say the truly great issues are truly great. 

Today, we’re looking at one of those issues — the second installment of an amazing four-part storyline that sees The Shadow, along with his most trusted agent Margo Lane and the begrudgingly complicit Inspector Cardona, taking his private war on crime from their habitual New York haunts to the streets of Chicago. In this analysis, I’ll be looking at how tightly Barreto’s pencils and inks hew to Jones’ script, and how the diligence of colorist (and Shadow historian) Anthony Tollin actively facilitates the near-seamless transitions between the plot’s many storylines. This is a full comic that never feels crowded, a dense comic that keeps light, and a very comic booky comic book that never loses sight of the emotional reality of what it’s depicting. 

THE SHADOW STRIKES! #13 and all characters contained therein are property of DC Comics and/or Conde Nast Publications, reproduced here solely for educational purposes.

COVER

I love how conceptually simple this cover is. Graphic, understated buildings. A mostly obscured main character. Smoke and mist wafting around for a little atmosphere. There’s only one thing that’s clearly rendered — a tommy gun, unfired. The Shadow is usually depicted using handguns, so him holding this universal visual signifier for “MOB STORY” immediately lets you know what you’re in for. And that’s even without the blurb at the top. You wanna see The Shadow fight the Chicago Mob? I know I wanna see The Shadow fight the Chicago Mob.

PAGE ONE

Something THE SHADOW STRIKES! does particularly well is maintaining the balance between mainstream comic book sensibility and HBO subject matter without making either seem out of place. We open with a prime example — the hand acting in panels one through four clearly conveys uncomfortable reality of a woman having sex she doesn’t enjoy with a man she doesn’t like. This transitions to her reaching over to grab a cigarette and light up in panels five and six (along with the barb “what was even quicker than usual” for those in the back). This establishes her as our POV character for the scene, something every scene going forward will have in some form or another. The point of this opening scene is to establish bad guy mobster Anthony ‘Half-Step’ Sbarbarro as a detestable macho prick in his personal as well as professional life. By identifying with this woman, we share her lack of fulfillment and, soon, her ongoing victimization. We quickly learn to hate Half-Step by seeing him through her eyes. We also see a hint of a gun in a shoulder holster, in case you didn’t realize what kind of comic you’re about to read.

PAGE TWO

This page validates the bad feeling we got about Half-Step on the previous page. Not only so we establish the leg injury that gives him his nickname, we show how petty and violent he is. Note how loose his fingers are as he strikes her in panel four — it’s a casual, low-effort act in between tying his tie and pulling on his pants, and it absolutely demolishes her. Half-Step is a powerful man who callously uses that power to abuse those weaker than him. The scene ends on her, leaving us stewing in the emotional trauma Half-Step leaves behind him. Imagine a version of this scene that focuses on him instead of this nameless woman; his hands on the first page instead of hers, him walking out into the hall in this last panel instead of her crying into her pillow. One version of the scene encourages you to identify with Half-Step, or, jesus, maybe even thrill in his violent savoir faire. This other version shows him for the monster he is by humanizing the people around him.

PAGE THREE

Chick Heck — a dynamite name — catches us up on the events of the previous issue and shows us pictures of the main players so we’ll recognize them when we see them later. While Joe O’Hara is mainly just a quippy mannequin to help Chick with the recap, there’s some great staging between him and the showgirl in the first couple panels. She’s way too smart for him, and even though she’s constantly placed in positions of power in her panels (larger than him in panels one and three, walking past/in front of him in panel two) he just keeps checking out her legs with the unearned confidence of a white man with a little hair.

PAGE FOUR

More concise, well-written recapping, which Barreto livens up even further with a variety of camera angels and some cool lighting and drapery. We see Half-Step (who I keep accidentally and only quasi-understandably calling “Johnny Stomp” before correcting myself) near the end of the page, connecting this scene to the last and reminding us how much we would like for somebody to kill him. Chick does us a final narrative solid by setting us up for the next page with a great dramatic line.

PAGE FIVE

And now, after getting to know the distinct personalities and motivations of five characters across four pages, we get our title page. The Shadow stretches out onto the scene, speaking like goddamn Dracula and dressing the part. Between Barreto’s smoky effects* and Tollin’s icy, atmospheric coloring, The Shadow really feels like a different kind creature than anything else in the book. Also worth mentioning is John Workman’s great work on the issue’s title, with the rigid ‘B’ adding extra viciousness to the sketchy, violent ‘UTCHERS.’

*I was curious how exactly Barreto achieved this affect. I consulted with Jesse Hamm and Lukas Ketner, and the consensus is that Barreto probably drew these pages on coquille board, using graphite or lightly-applied colored pencil for the smaller areas of texture and watercolor sponge with white gouache, or possibly even just correction fluid, for the large smokey areas. If any collectors or collaborators of Mr. Barreto know otherwise, please let me know. I’m still curious. 

PAGE SIX

This page does a great job of immediately changing the focus of the scene from The Shadow to old man Romanowski. The Shadow is a non-character who will never learn anything new about himself or struggle with a decision, so the drama of the series usually centers around how ‘normal’ people react to him. In this case, it’s the equally resolute Romanowski, whose whole motivation is neatly laid out in the first three panels. “And I will owe NOTHING... to NOBODY...Not even YOU,” Mr. Devil-Man With A Gun. 

There’s a nice leftward motion as Romanowski tries to hustle this intruder out of his house, followed up by the overwhelming rightward motion of The Shadow as he silences the old man and makes his final pitch. This panel’s layout, its placement on the page, and even Tollin’s blue coloring all loosely mirror the Half-Step slap on page two; I think this is the first instance in the issue of the creative team setting up parallels between the two men. The Shadow also possesses a frightening degree of physical power, but he uses it carefully. He’s scary, but not dangerous. Or at least less dangerous. He’s not actively a woman-beater, how about that. The two panels in question, so you can draw your own conclusions:

Continuity note: the money on the floor in panel two carries over from the previous issue — Tad came to his father asking for money to pay out his gambling debts, and Romanowski, enraged at his son’s weakness, grabs glass jars containing his savings and smashes them to the floor, yelling “take it! Take it!” He uses jars because he doesn’t trust the banks — having his own money during the stock market crash was what allowed him to grow his business to what it is today. This goes further toward establishing that Romanowski sees himself as a man who doesn’t owe anything to anybody. This scene here doesn’t rely on that information, but it’s useful garnish, no?

PAGE SEVEN

Tad’s brief show of spine on the previous page immediately melts once The Shadow leaves — Barreto keeps him wobbling and weak while his father is still and resolute. The scene transitions from being about Romanowsky the senior to being about Tad, tears in his eyes as he speeds away. The last panel switches it again to the Shadow, watching silently from high above. Note how Barreto makes liberal use of the graphite shading, but leaves The Shadow’s hat and Tad’s car flat, highlighting them by omission. And man, how insane is this angle? We somehow see the train and the car at the same time without it feeling forced. The complexity of the El Tracks The Shadow’s hanging on might at first seem punishingly complicated, but I think it’s actually the parallel beams of that structure that makes the warped perspective visually legible in the first place. Using something difficult to depict something impossible. Eduardo Barreto. I tell ya.

PAGE EIGHT

This page gives us what I like to call ‘an artificial action beat.’ The Shadow catching a ride on this train is hardly a conventional action set piece, but it’s a splashy, physically extraordinary Thing That Is Happening and it breaks up a couple of dialogue-heavy scenes. It also gives us a private moment from The Shadow, helping us like him as our macroprotagonist by seeing him successfully doing something difficult. How do we know it’s difficult? The acting in his face in panel two, plus the fact that he loses his hat. On some level we know he can’t fly or teleport, but seeing him actually have to put effort into getting around helps us identify with him, without sacrificing too much of his mystery. 

At the bottom of page: the return of shaky Tad. Jones does a good job of keeping small NPC type characters around, like the singer in panel four, making their Chicago feel full. It’s easy for large-cast crime comics like this to start to feel like the only people in the world are the people involved in the case in question; bizarrely, this can actually serve to make the case seem less important. What’s so bad about bad guys if there’s no society at large to be threatened by them? 

PAGE NINE

Georgie Katomeris’ office (containing Georgie, Tad and Half-Step) and Frank Nitty’s drawing room (containing Nitti, Jake Guzik, and Half-Step again after some passage of time) are indistinguishable from each other as Barreto draws them, but are still kept distinct by three things. One is Jones’ dialogue — the ellipsis in that precedes Nitti’s panel three dialogue indicates a jump in time. Another is Nitti’s smoking jacket — he wouldn’t be going out in it, so we must have changed locations from the office to his private residence. The last and most effective is Tollin’s coloring — the grey of George’s office gives way to the green walls of Nitti’s drawing room. I admit this transition felt abrupt to me at first read, but these three clues let me easily find my footing again.

PAGE TEN

We spent the first two pages of the issue showing Half-Step to be detestable; now we show him to be truly dangerous. His patience and planning further draw him into parallel with The Shadow — having him tell a story that essentially ends with “I could have killed the President of the United States but didn’t want to because of my deeply held principles” does a great job of showing us his crazy ego and, more importantly, his ambition. The point of the end of this scene is clear: this is not someone who’ll willingly stay in a subordinate role forever. But he’s not just going to throw his weight around. He’s going to be smart about it. Note how he goes from very small in panel five, cut off by the top of the panel, to large in panel six, crowding Nitti into the corner. 

PAGE ELEVEN

Half-Step dominates his half of the page. The heavy shadowing on his face in panel three indicates there’s something dark going on in his mind. The other half of the page is all about The Shadow. We finally have the two of them in the same location here, with the Shadow placed in a position of power — the low angle of his glory shot in panel five, the fact that Half-Step doesn’t know he’s being watched. They’re even sort of almost facing each other down, with Half-Step facing left in panel three and the Shadow creeping in towards the right in panel five. But like Half-Step, The Shadow won’t just smash in guns ablaze— he’s playing a longer game. This page really sets them up as worthy enemies, with a lot of good, or at least better, people caught in the metaphorical crossfire between them.

PAGE TWELVE

Here we finally catch up with Inspector Cardona, Brenda Shield, and Margo Lane, who Chick Heck introduced us to by proxy in his earlier scene. This page has what for my money is the only real misstep this issue makes; although Margo and Cardona are both name-checked on this page, Brenda is not, and it’s been so long since the Heck scene that it’s asking a lot of the readers to remember her by sight — especially since there isn’t really much going on with her design to visually distinguish her, big polka dot bow or not. That said, this page does still somehow manage to give us that cool, spacious three-panel sequence of Cardona walking away from the ladies only to be waylaid by The Shadow while still leaving room for a nice big ‘Identify With This Character Please’ shot of Margo in the penultimate panel. Jones also manages to give us clear ideas of both Margo and Cardona’s characters, their dynamic with each other, AND their individual dynamics with the Shadow while he’s at it. Lastly, I like Tollin’s choice to give Margo a Green color scheme, making her instantly as visually distinct in the issue as the Shadow in his blacks and reds. For a page that makes the issue’s one arguable mistake, it sure does a hell of a lot right. 

PAGE THIRTEEN

Half-Step is back, haunting the plot just like the Shadow does. Seems to be a theme of men preying on women in this issue — let’s keep an eye on that going forward. Note how much real estate on the page is given up, letting the panels float around; this is used in the top half to separate Half-Step from the other guys in the car, painting his “Like I’m gonna break this city down” line as an unthinking quasi-crazy utterance, as well as to separate Margo and Brenda from the gossiping nightclub crowd in the bottom half.

PAGE FOURTEEN

Here we explain Brenda’s stakes in this scene. Even if you don’t empathize with her high-society worries, it’s worth noting that Jones has made clear through action and dialogue that every character in every scene has something they want, need, and/or fear, and Brenda is no exception. Tollin draws attention to the dreaded encroachment of gossip in the last panel with a change in background color from a neutral yellow to a threatening orange. 

Now, bear in mind, Margo might be genuinely supportive here, but all of what he’s saying about herself is a lie. There is no Dick. She's never met the Hartes. She’s working Brenda as per the Shadow’s orders — she and her fellow agents are basically Ocean’s Eleven if Danny Ocean decided to start dressing like Doctor Sax and fighting crime, and if that means pulling a hustle on a pie-eyed heiress, then I guess that’s just what's on the agenda for the evening. 

(Fun personal trivia: This comic came out the month my girlfriend was born. She also sort of has the face Barreto gives most women he draws. Coincidence? One wonders.)

PAGE FIFTEEN

Margo is the only person in this issue who gets an internal monologue, which she uses here to reveal the way her charade chafes, but also the freedom she feels from being anonymous, from being unconnected to her past mistakes. So, of course, enter: the man who knows all her secrets, here to spoil her reverie. This scene takes place in the ladies room — another example of a man trespassing against a woman, except that while our gangsters are doing it for personal gain, the Shadow (here unsexed and dehumanized to the point of being almost a silhouette) does it in service of his theoretically higher calling. He dominates panel four, almost encircling her. Margo’s body language tells it all — not afraid, but very uncomfortable. We keep the scene in her perspective by cutting from the Shadow in panel five to Brenda in panel six, both more or less in her literal point of view. Note again how Barreto employs negative space above and below the final panel to create a zoom-in effect on Brenda’s eyes. 

PAGE SIXTEEN

More Big Sister Margo; see how she controls Brenda’s body in panels one through three. Half-Step is inside now — I think we’re supposed to infer that he’s responsible for loosing the rumor that’s upsetting Brenda. A slightly abstract example of a man invading a female space? I might be reaching, there. 

Barreto does a great job of changing locations by making panel five a round panel with poor Joe Cardona on the right of the frame, contrasting with Half-Step’s leftward placement in the square panel opposite. Tollin helps with a cold color shift. The last panel might not seem like it does a lot, but it actually sets up two things for later in the issue: One is that it makes for the second time we see The Shadow and Cardona together, so when we see them together again at the end of the issue it benefits from a satisfying ‘rule of threes’ thing. The other is that it sets up one of The Shadow’s later appearances — I’ll touch on why this was necessary when it comes up.

PAGE SEVENTEEN

A great falling line of action as Tad stumbles and falls across the top four panels. Employing steadily lengthening panels like this is something Barreto does so well, and here it has the side benefit of giving Half-Step room to really loom over Tad in panel four. Meanwhile, I’m glad Half-Step’s poor, mistreated girlfriend had a good lay. She deserves it.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

Barreto is so good at clothing and drapery that you start to take it for granted — and then you remember it all over again when he draws a disheveled suit like the one Tad’s stuffed into. As soon as Nitti shuffles Tad out of the apartment, Half-Step’s attention turns to the woman. We get super close to him, the rendering becomes denser, meaner. Tollin even gives him an angry rage-flush. He’s huge in panel four, crowding her to the edge of the frame. His dialogue transverses panel five into panel six, implying he’s following her as she tries to get away from him. The final panel puts us back in her shoes, as Half-Step’s rage is directed straight at us.

PAGE NINETEEN

Panel one to panel two is the kind of cut we don’t see much in comics, despite it being incredible effective. We get the point of her abuse without — man, I guess the phrase I want to use is cheapen it by showing it explicitly on the page. Clearly implying something and then cutting away can be even more effective than showing it outright. If we were to see this scene play out, we’d still know in the backs of our heads that this is, essentially, a superhero comic, and that it’d be possible that when we turned the page, The Shadow might show up to save this woman. When the scene is over and the hero never appears, we might be left wondering, “Christ, then what was the point of seeing all that?” This method here conveys what happened with a haunting finality, but without any creepy exploitation.

On a characterization front, the thread that culminates in this scene is massive. Half-Step treats this woman like an appliance, but claims he’d kill any man who touched her. He actively entraps her into this weird “gotcha” self-cuckold and then punishes her for falling for it. This shows us so much about the depth of his bizarre self-loathing, his warped pride, the outright evil of him. And yet, again, staging these as events in her life keeps her from being just a prop to let us know how super duper bad this story’s bad guy is. She has an internal life outside of him. This all actually makes these displays of his violence more effecting because we’re seeing its effects on a “real person,” not just some Real Doll who doubles as a speedbag. 

Note also how well panel two and the butcher hanging up the cow in panel three frames the interaction between Romanowski and his debtor, Karl. Size continues to equal power as we get the huge foregrounded gangster (rendered into one monotone shape by Tollin’s colors) making the bright, full-figured Romanowsky look smaller and more vulnerable than he realizes.

PAGE TWENTY

The empty room in panel one gives us a moment to breathe as we head into a tense scene. At the same time, we know we’re getting close to the end of the issue, so an entire panel dedicated to an empty room makes us slightly nervous — we’re aware we’re running out of time. Which, by design or by happenstance, is the Shadow’s point at the end of the page. Tad is consistently rendered in a clear, clean comic book style, while The Shadow is rendered in planes of light and darkness, making him seem elemental, powerful, spectral.  

PAGE TWENTY ONE

This is the best page in this comic. I lost my mind when I saw this page. It’s AWESOME. Look at how well rendered Romanowski is in panel one. The oppressive dark architecture in panel two, drawing the eye to the small, bright Romanowski. That unnecessary but oh so cool-looking graphic black-out in panel three. The hatching on Romanowski in panel four. The callback to Half-Step’s leg injury, set up nearly twenty pages ago. The cascade of action across those last three panels. Tollin’s colors across the whole damn thing. I love this page. This page is why they have comic books.

PAGE TWENTY TWO

Look at Romanowski’s face in panel one, highlighted by the falling glasses. The FURY. The reveal of Half-Step is so pat, so understated. The little throw-away line to himself further cements him as a bona fide evil psycho criminal — one more reason we want to see him go down. The circular panel inside the square field of panel five, a technique I can’t ever remember seeing before, gives the impression that a notable amount of time has passed since the glasses fell — glasses that Barreto made sure to pointedly re-establish as a visual signifier for old man Romanowski in these last few pages. 

So, The Shadow shows up late. This is why it was important to set up The Shadow’s intent to see Romanowski in that panel at the end of page sixteen; to have The Shadow appear too late would come off as arbitrary, or even as an intentional delay on his part, if we hadn’t established The Shadow’s intentions beforehand. Or, put more simply: in order to show a character failing at something, you have show they were trying to accomplish that thing in the first place — especially when so much work has gone into conveying that character’s competence.

PAGE TWENTY THREE

The Shadow respects Romanowski’s principles. Of all the characters in this story, the two of them are the most alike in that regard. But while Romanowski was a stubborn old butcher and easy prey for Half-Step and his guys, The Shadow is an unkillable psychic murder man.

Panel two is full of space, both geographic and negative, giving us another much needed moment of breathing room. All the gangsters present have distinctive color cues, easily letting us get a feel for the size of the gathering as opposed to an amorphous clutch of same-colored “GANGSTERS (tm),” which often happens in comic book scenes depicting groups of men in suits. They can become like zebras if you don’t take the time to make him distinct, as they are here. Half-Step’s buggy zooms into panel four from beyond the page, a nice way to emphasize that the vehicle is coming at them from out of nowhere.

PAGE TWENTY FOUR

The tommy gun EXPLODES through panel one, dissolving the panel border itself. Those carefully color-coded mobsters from the previous page all catch bullets, which wouldn’t mean as much to the reader if they weren’t distinct from one another. “A bunch of gangsters got shot” becomes “several men were brutally murdered by machine gun fire.” Said gunfire chases Guzik from left to right in panel three — note the diagonal line that tracks his presence in panels two, three, and four, making his plunge to the ground in panel four seem like an extension of his movement in the other panels, even though the they happen on radically different parts of the page. Barreto keeps the same angle on Guzik in panels four and six, cementing him as the lone survivor of this drive-by and the default POV character for the scene. Or, to put in visually:

This is some seriously solid craft. 

PAGE TWENTY FIVE

The Shadow is HUGE on this page. This drawing of him the biggest thing in the entire comic — the same size as he is on the cover. He bookends this story, dominating it. Cardona’s fear and uncertainly help sell the terrifying finals words of his boss, seen here in full on What-If-Hannibal-Lecter-was-Batman mode. This drive-by was easily the biggest act of violence in the issue, and the heavy blacks of The Shadow on this last page emphasizes him as this dark presence bringing doom to the Chicago mob. This page cements what we can expect from the next issue: The Shadow’s done his ground work. He’s ready to start making some moves.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Despite having three more pages than your typical modern comic, the page for page action is always dense and well-paced. Every scene feels necessary and the story never lingers long on any one place or character, and yet it never feels overstuffed or rushed. It takes time for some impressive visuals to break up the action, but never to the point of self-indulgence. There’s always something happening, even in a scene that basically boils down to ‘Two women go a club and a third woman talks shit.’ I talk a lot about Barreto — and I would, he remains one of the best artists of all time — but I don’t think enough can be said for Jones’ masterful pacing and lean yet conversational dialogue. These are two creators at the top of their game, with a solid coloring/lettering/editorial team backing their play. Almost thirty years after its publication, there’s still a lot to learn and even more to admire in these pages. This is definitely the kind of read that makes me want to up my game. 

When possible, I’ll be placing links at the end of these so you can buy better copies of the comics I’m analyzing with out my words getting in the way. 

Retroactively, here’s Comixology links for the comics I covered in my first two reviews:

BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES #17

PETER PARKER: SPIDER-MAN #13

As far as I can tell, THE SHADOW STRIKES! has never been collected in print, nor does Comixology doesn’t carry it, so I’ll link to another great Shadow story by someone else who really understands the material: Matt Wagner’s GRENDEL vs THE SHADOW, with Brennan Wagner on colors. I’ll also throw in a link to another Eduardo Barreto DC comic I’ve always dug, written by this issue’s editor, Brian Augustyn: BATMAN: MASTER OF THE FUTURE.

As always, feel free to check me on any mistakes I might have made, add your own commentary, or share similar examples of good comics done well. I’ll be back next week with a different comic to peruse. 

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Ruth Asawa, a Pioneer of Necessity

Installation view, “Ruth Asawa” (2017), David Zwirner New York (photo by EPW Studio/Maris Hutchinson. Artwork © Estate of Ruth Asawa and courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

Black Mountain College was not Ruth Asawa’s first choice. Determined to be an art teacher, she enrolled in Milwaukee State Teachers College from 1943 to ’46.  She chose Milwaukee because it was the cheapest college in the catalog she consulted while she and her family were interned in the Rohwer Relocation Center, in Rohwer, Arkansas. However, when she learned that her fourth year was going to be devoted to practice teaching, and that no school in Wisconsin would hire someone who was Japanese, she decided to go to art school. The war might have been over, and the Japanese defeated, but the racism it engendered was still officially in place.

This is perhaps why she and her sister Lois took a bus trip to Mexico City, where she enrolled in a newly formed art school, La Escuela Nacional de Pintura y Escultura La Esmeralda. She also enrolled at the University of Mexico, where she took a class with Clara Porset, an innovative furniture designer from Cuba who had been at Black Mountain College in 1934 and studied with Albers. Through the influence of Porset, as well as that of Asawa’s friend Elaine Schmitt, whom she had met at the end of her freshman year in Milwaukee, Black Mountain College and Josef Albers emerged as a viable American option  — a small, relatively isolated environment where she had at least one friend, Schmitt.

Asawa was 20 years old when she and her sister arrived at Black Mountain in the summer of 1946.  On the way there, at a stop in Missouri, they did not know whether to use the “colored” or “whites only” bathroom. Like other Asians living in America at that time (and even now), she was both visible and invisible, not always knowing which way she would be regarded.

I thought about the road that Asawa took to Black Mountain College on her way to becoming an artist when I went to the exhibition Ruth Asawa at David Zwirner (September 13–October 21, 2017), her first with this gallery, which now represents her estate. Asawa — whose work was included in the traveling exhibition, Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957, organized by Helen Molesworth — is the latest postwar American artist to be rediscovered by an establishment still waking up to its racist and sexist biases.

Ruth Asawa, “Untitled (BMC.76, BMC laundry stamp)” (c. 1948-1949), ink on paper, 21 1/2 x 17 inches, The Asawa Family Collection (artwork © Estate of Ruth Asawa, Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

In the summer of 1947, Asawa returned to Mexico and worked as a volunteer teacher in the town of Toluca. While she was there, she learned about the crochet loop, which the locals used to make wire baskets. The act of making a loop, or bundling wires together and tying them with a knot, is central to her work. The loop, done in profuse repetition, gave her the freedom to make a range of transparent forms and to contain other transparent forms within them. Many of these works she suspended from the ceiling. Conceivably they could grow to any size, limited only by the dimensions of the room in which they were suspended. There are a number of works done in this way in the exhibition, spheres and cones and teardrop shapes, often with another shape suspended within. I was reminded of soap bubbles stretching but not dispersing, of a form changing slowly and inevitably as it descended from the ceiling.

Made of woven wire, the sculptures oscillate between solidity and dematerialization, which is underscored by the shadows they cast. I think this aspect of the work should have been dramatized more. The strongest works are the ones made of a number of what artist called “lobes” and forms suspended within forms. When she weaves a wire sphere within a larger, similarly shaped form, it evokes a woman’s body, an abstract figure with a womb.

Ruth Asawa, “Untitled (S.407, Hanging, Five-Lobed, Continuous Form within a Form with Two Spheres)” (c. 1952), hanging sculpture—copper wire, 61 1/2 x 15 x 15 inches, private Collection, New York (artwork © Estate of Ruth Asawa, courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

The sculptures with an hourglass shape underscore this association. But this connection can be extended further. In some of Asawa’s sculptures, an elongated tubular form periodically swells into a globular structure with a small spherical form cocooned inside. It is as if these are models for cells undergoing a transformation, generative organisms giving birth to a similar being. At the same time, because they are suspended, gravity is registered as an inescapable and relentless force, an invisible presence manifesting itself  on the very structure of the sculpture’s body.

Through the act of weaving the artist has transformed wire — an industrial material — into a cellular structure, something both microscopic and organic. Paradoxically, the structure is a kind of armor, at once protective  and vulnerable, with inside and outside visible at the same time.

In other classes of sculptures, of which there are fewer examples, Asawa bundled together wires, which she tied with a knot. These spiky constructions —  which are like abstract root systems — were inspired by nature, as were  the  artworks Asawa made while a student at Black Mountain: small oil paintings on paper, a potato print,  a work in ink on paper made with a BMC (Black Mountain College) laundry stamp.

These pieces are complemented by archival materials and vintage photographs of her and of her works taken by Imogen Cunningham. The presentation is beautiful and clean, which made me happy and yet bugged. The wall text at the entrance to the show cited the difficulties Asawa encountered because she was a “woman of color,” which to my mind dilutes what happened.

Imogen Cunningham, “Ruth Asawa with hanging sculpture” (1952) (© 2017 Imogen Cunningham Trust, artwork © Estate of Ruth Asawa and courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London)

In all of the work, a simple action or form is repeated. Asawa took this lesson and made it into something altogether unique in postwar sculpture. She does not weld or fabricate. There is nothing macho about her work. Rather, she weaves; her practice, gender, and race cast a shadow over her initial reception in the 1950s in New York, when she had shows at the Peridot Gallery in 1954, ’56, and ‘58. She was a Japanese woman making art in the years after World War II, which was a double whammy. In the Time magazine review of her first show at Peridot, the writer paired her exhibition with one by Isamu Noguchi. That same writer identified her as a “San Francisco housewife.”  The Art News review of her 1956 show by Eleanor C. Munro characterized her this way:

These are “domestic” sculptures in a feminine, handiwork mode — small and light and unobtrusive for home decoration, not meant, as is much contemporary sculpture, to be hoisted by cranes, carted by vans and installed on mountainsides.

Looking at this exhibition, and thinking about Asawas’ persistence and generosity, I realized why Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” has often bothered me. In that poem, read by nearly all American schoolchildren, the poet talks about taking the road “less traveled.” That is all fine and dandy if you have that choice. Asawa did not. More than once, she had to make a road where there was none. She was a pioneer out of necessity.

Ruth Asawa continues at David Zwirner (537 West 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan) through October 21.

The post Ruth Asawa, a Pioneer of Necessity appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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