#{ because if the final 15 was THE CANON ENDING I would be inconsolable }

[xflashbastardx]

{ how we feelin good omens fandom }

[batcowmaster]

About Damian

Name: Damian Bruce Al Ghul Wayne

Age: Default 13/14, 15+ for any threads with Jon Kent. No sexual content ever. NSFW things such as violence, etc, will be present. Willing to write under age 13 as well if you have a specific thread in mind.

Birthday: August 9th

Father: Bruce Wayne

Mother: Talia Al Ghul

I write with the version of canon where Ras is of Chinese descent but settled in the Middle East and Talia’s mother was of mixed Chinese-Arabic descent thereby making her more Chinese than anything. He can speak Mandarin, Cantonese and Arabic fluently but spoke more Mandarin with his mother and grandfather. You are welcome to not like or agree with my interpretation of the canon and there’s been many retcons and different canon writing of the Al Ghuls but that is what I write for my Damian. 

Siblings: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain

Allies: Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, Jon Kent, Colin Wilkes, Alfred Pennyworth

Background:

Damian is born into the League of Assassins with his mother, Talia Al Ghul. Unbeknownst to him for most of his life his mother actually manipulated his genetics to create the ‘perfect child’ and would go on to clone him repeatedly.

He was raised on a harsh regime of assassin training, various languages, classic reading, violin, art, global politics and history, economics, among other things. He got several degrees before the age of 10 being a complete prodigy and genius. This achievement would be overshadowed by his consistently brutal training.

His father, Bruce Wayne, didn’t know about his existence until he was ten years old. 

Before his tenth birthday he would win a challenge with his mother in which she finally saw fit to introduce him to his father. 

Their brief meeting would end with him returning home with his mother only for his grandfather to try and use his body and Damian to escape and ultimately leave the League for good, instead trying to seek refuge with his father. Bruce, unfortunately, was ‘dead’ (lost in time) and Damian instead became the Robin to Dick Grayson’s Batman. They would bond and become very close.

Bruce would return from his adventures through time and take Damian on. There’s some tension and mistrust at first but they grow to bond and find common ground. A deep affection grows and Damian knows for the first time what it’s like having a consistently loving parent.

He also becomes very close with Alfred Pennyworth.

Damian would demonstrate his enormous heart by always protecting children, and his clear devotion to animals, even becoming a vegetarian. He not only gets a dog given to him by Bruce (called Titus) but also adopts a cow from a slaugherhouse (named Batcow) and a cat rescued by Pennyworth (thus baptised Alfred). 

He also meets Colin Wilkes around this time. Colin is a superpowered vigilante orphan who works out that Damian is Robin and they grow a good friendship. [Colin is erased from continuity later but I love him so I’m going to keep him.]

At around age 11 or 12 his mother places a bounty on his head for refusing to come home and submit to her. Assassins search for him far and wide and then his mother clones him. The clone is hyper aged to adulthood to be a willing servant only he goes rogue and impales Damian on a sword. Talia doesn’t stop Damian’s death and he cannot be rescued by any of the Bat family. His death rocks the entire family and Bruce is inconsolable. He decides he needs to bring Damian back and eventually, after Damian’s body is kidnapped, he’s brought back to life on Apocalypse. For a brief period of a few days the powers that bring him back also give him super powers (such as flight, super strength and laser eyes).

Damian suffers from extreme nightmares after being brought back. This never fully goes away. 

At age 13 he kidnaps Jon Kent because he believes the child super poses a threat to humanity but this leads into his father and Jon’s father (Superman) deciding that they need to work together. Thus begins the Super Son team. Jon becomes Damian’s best friend. Damian spends some time leading the Teen Titans but this team up isn’t particularly healthy for him.

Alfred’s death and Jon’s disappearance lead Damian into a very dark place. He disappears off the map and goes to fight in a suicidal fight club. He stops his great-grandmother from razing the world to the ground and reconnects with his mother and grandfather. He decides to give them a chance to redeem themselves and fix the hurt and damage they caused him. Ras is then brutally murdered, body destroyed, by someone pretending to be Deathstroke. His mother wants revenge. [CURRENT COMIC CANON]

Key traits: loves animals, fierce protector of child rights, massive PTSD and trauma including childhood which leaves some dissociative marks when it comes to his use of the Robin mantle, vegetarian

Verses

BATFAM FROM BIRTH VERSE

Skills [not including his obvious Robin and assassin skills]: 

Damian is an artist, both in graphite pencil drawings and actual painting.

Damian can mimic voices with perfect accuracy.

Damian knows archery.

Before his ninth birthday Damian was trained to PhD level economics. He uses this knowledge to straighten out Wayne Enterprises finances while his father is ‘dead’. And he also finds embezzlement within the firm, traces it, and fires those responsible while attending board meetings at age ten.

At age ten he rebuilt the Batmobile and could understand his father’s blueprints. 

Damian can learn a language in eleven days or less.

He can jig ancient tech and tap into mind control within 2 minutes.

Damian can fight blindfolded, in pitch darkness, without any sense of direction. He completely refutes Dick’s comments about him having a hood being problematic because it can become a blindfold.

Damian knows seven languages fluently including Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin and English. 

History: 

Talia fought Damian to the death every year on his birthday.

Damian has significant trauma from being made to fight for hours on end to the brink of death and then being put in healing chambers and worked upon. He’s ‘repaired’ like a machine. This gets even worse when he’s almost eleven and breaks his spine. He’s sent to get a new spine implanted/repaired but his mother puts in mechanisms to control him like a robot. x x x 

There’s some suggestion that the only reason Talia had Damian was for him to be bred to submit to orders and maybe one day become a host for Ras.

After Damian initially met Bruce he ends up in a situation where Talia asks him to choose between her and Bruce. It’s such a toxic position for Damian to be in – choose between the father he’s always wanted to know and the only parent he’s ever had.

Damian’s alias is Ibn al Xu'ffasch which is ‘Son of the Bat’ in Arabic. 

Damian was raised with mostly British teachers and British influences, which didn’t stop when he came to the Manor and had Alfred looking after him. As such he sometimes uses British words or slang ‘Mum’ and ‘Bugger’ are some that come to mind.

Talia once told Damian that Bruce would never love him.

Personality and how he sees the world:

Within his first few hours with being with Bruce he not only kills and decapitates someone because he thinks he needs to to prove to his father that he belongs, and he deserves respect “fighting crime” because that’s all Bruce has really talked about - not only doing that but believing so heavily in the creed of the league of assassins. that they killed ANYONE who got in their way. what must that have felt like to grow up with as a kid? if you were an inconvenience or got in their way or too much trouble you were under threat of death?

Damian not only has such an emphasis on bloodlines when he first arrives with the Bats but the fact that he doesn’t think you automatically deserve a space within a family, that you have to earn it through respect, proving yourself, and having a blood tie to your parent.

Damian has literally said ‘people trying to kill me, finally something that makes sense.’ He’s ten.

Damian thinks the only way to get respect when he first meets Bruce is to get him to fight him.

When Damian first arrived with Dick he started venting his history of violence into ‘murder drawings’ depicting gruesome violent acts and deaths.

When Damian moves in with Dick he believes it’s very easy to be replaced. So by the time Bruce comes back he’s very worried about what will happen. He thinks Dick will move on without him and Damian will be left out in the cold, maybe forced to go back to Talia. That maybe Bruce won’t want him and instead replace him with someone else. Bruce coming back and Dick leaving the Batman mantle has a huge impact on Damian and it worries him for months leading up to it. x x 

During both his tenure with Dick and his early years with Bruce, Damian really struggled with his identity. He didn’t know who he was or what he wanted. All he knew was that he wanted to be part of a family and he wanted, desperately, to be trusted, loved and respected.

Damian goes to the same school as Jon. He likes making everyone at school scared of him. It’s a reaction to suddenly being thrust into school after being home schooled his entire life. He’s probably scared himself of the reaction of other ‘normal’ kids to him, as it’s never gone well in the past. To date he’s only ever managed to become friends with, and relate to, other vigilante or superhero kids. He doesn’t feel comfortable in the hallways of a school and feels more at ease in the back alleyways of Gotham. Since arriving at school he corrects all the teachers and finds classes boring, leading to most of his teachers treating him like shit and hating having him in class.

To prove to Bruce that he cared about more than just himself, especially that he cared about his father, Damian searched the sewers for months to find a single pearl from his grandmother’s necklace and gift it to Bruce.

Damian may be an assassin and doesn’t blink at murder but he is also highly protective of people. He will stand up and protect them no matter what.

Damian is WILDLY protective of children, especially from abuse or violence. x x 

Damian’s response to being on a hit list by Tim. He says that he’s ‘done all that’s been asked of me, I control aspects of my upbringing that neither of you could begin to understand and I am dismissed by him as a threat to be monitored for some hidden agenda! It isn’t fair.’ I think this says a lot to how much Damian has to keep control of himself and how much he feels he needs to suppress on a daily basis.

Alfred once described Damian as ‘the inheritor of his father’s courage, his determination, his desire to do what is right.’

Damian puts a LOT of pressure on himself to not only be perfect but to NEVER fail. This was probably cultivated by Talia but he so wants to make Bruce happy that he continues it as Robin.

Damian can come off bratty sometimes, probably due to being an only child for most of his upbringing, but he’s also a genuinely generous kid.

Damian has said of being Robin to Talia: Being Robin is the best thing I’ve ever done, Mother. And even if Father does return, this is the life I’ve chosen to lead. I don’t need you to save me.

Relationships:

Damian has asked Talia to love him for who he is not what she wants him to be. Her response was that it wasn’t in her nature, she’s too much of a perfectionist and to continue with her cloning enterprise.

After Talia placed a bounty on his head Damian gave up on having a relationship with her. She was ‘dead to him’ and that only increased after she let him die. From then on she went from ‘Mother’ to just ‘Talia’. (And when he was little she was Talia before she insisted on being Mother, simply because he barely spent any time with her until about the age of three or four.) He’s also said Talia was barely there for him, that running a criminal empire didn’t leave much time for bonding. He’s also said that he saw her rarely during his upbringing and knows her by reputation alone. Damian turns on Talia at the first opportunity.

 She also told Damian that he was no longer wanted in her home.

When Damian breaks his back his mother tries to manipulate him. She says ‘I cared for you when there was no one else. I believed in you. And I know what’s best for you Damian. To see you squander your future on a delusion, well… that’s what breaks my heart.’ … ‘Do you honestly believe these crimefighters trust you? Or accept you? Damian, their plan is to tame and brainwash you until nothing is left but a spineless puppet.’ 

Upon their last meeting before the Robin (2021) series Talia called Damian an immense disappointment.

Damian will, and has, risked life and limb to save Jon and keep him safe. 

Damian once asked Bruce to never give up on him, and he’s since expressed to Bruce that he will NEVER give up on him.

The comics have proven time and time again that despite their rough start as a team, Bruce not only LOVES Damian, he’s both proud of Damian and trusts him whole-heartedly. 

Dick was the first person to believe in Damian, and often tag teamed with Alfred to help Damian believe in himself and see what kind of better person he could be.

Damian will always stan strong female heroes – think Cassandra Cain, Wonder Woman, Donna Troy, Artemis. 

I think Tim, Steph and Jason all know if they want to poke at Damian’s weak spot they suggest that Bruce doesn’t trust him and neither will anyone else.

Damian absolutely thinks Tim hates him. He also thinks Tim thinks he’s better than him, that he doesn’t want him around, doesn’t trust him, refuses to accept him, is jealous of him and more than likely wishes he’d never come to Gotham. Or existed in the first place.

Tidbits:

After rescuing Batcow from a slaughterhouse Damian became a vegetarian. As a show of solidarity Bruce will eat a vegetarian meal once a week with Damian.

Damian listens to music to go to sleep, can often find him with earbuds in before he wakes up.

Damian gets horrific nightmares after coming back to life.

At age 11 Damian still has baby teeth.

When Damian first arrived to meet Bruce at age nine, almost ten, he swore quite a bit. Out of respect to Alfred since moving in with Dick, he barely swears.

Damian’s future Batman look is a tribute to both Dick and Bruce – his two Batmans.

In an alternate timeline, even as an adult, he’s still comparing himself to Dick and Bruce.

Damian has a tiny ‘R’ on the sole of his Robin boots.

Damian sleeps on a single oddly shaped pillow and a single mattress with no blankets.

Damian loves bouncing castles. He was introduced to them by Steph after a mission together where she helped him feel more like a kid.

Damian sits through old movies with Bruce to make him happy.

When Damian moved in with Dick they left the manor and started living in a tower (like in The Batman). 

Because Dick was a Robin he knew how to come up with intricate team moves where he calls out a request and Damian reacts. These stunts served them well in fights. 

Damian is one of those annoying brats who eats the last of everything in the house and doesn’t ask if anyone wants anything because he was brought up as an only child for so long.

[twinsky]

what do you mean heat haze day was 15 days ago this is totally on time

It may have been over 4 years since I actively participated in this fandom but kagepro has always held a special place in my heart, and this year I wanted to honour that by finally writing a fic for it! Even if what I’m writing is like... depressing lmao. (p.s. jin thanks 4 saving my life with the new album announcement)

-

Title: I can’t take this alone.

Summary: Because what’s the point of existing when she’s gone?

What’s the point of being alive when it’s all your fault anyways?

-

The life and times of Route XX Shintaro Kisaragi

!!!cw for: suicide (both referenced and described), self harm (intentional and not), and murder/death!!!

[ao3 link]

Shintaro is six and his teacher congratulates his parents on how quickly he picks up on things, on how quietly he sits at his seat and how easily he follows instructions.

Shintaro is six and the other kids mock him for being a teachers pets; even the nicer kids stop inviting him to hang out with them when all he ever does is ignore them.

Shintaro is six and he wishes he could stay at home all day.

 -

 As he grows older the teasing stops –his lack of reaction seems to bore them enough to dissuade it.

(He was bored of it too, but he thinks that might be different.)

The teasing stops and so does the teachers praise, his silence though before was ideal is now ‘disrespectful’ and ‘rebellious’. The complaints never reach his parents though, his grades still perfect and thus his behaviour though irritating is not worth reprimand.

His parents remain oh so proud and Momo, just starting school, claps excitedly at every perfect score he brings home and with a big bright smile tells him she’s going to be just as smart as him.

The people around him grow, they change, but it all remains so static in his eyes.

 -

 He’s eleven and his parents have him tested at his teacher’s behest.

‘He’s so bright,’ she had gushed, as if his intelligence had in any way been thanks to her, ‘but he’s so disenchanted with class, maybe I could try to get something closer to his level.’

The examiner smiled as he handed his parents back the results. An IQ of 161*, a certifiable genius. His parents cheer, vowing immediately to go celebrate.

They buy way too much food for just the four of them and won’t stop talking about smart their boy is. He picks absently at his food while Momo laughs good-naturedly as if he doesn’t notice how her eyes grow bitter whenever their parents aren’t looking. He sighs, wondering when this will end so he can go back to his room and not come out until school starts up again next week.

(Secretly, he’s glad that the Japanese don’t have the concept of skipping grades –he’d be just as bored in a whole new setting with people who aren’t used to just ignoring him. And Shintaro has learned the easiest way to get by is to just go with the flow and have as little people notice him as possible.)

   -

   His father dies.

Momo is inconsolable for weeks, she cries and cries as if the whole thing is somehow her fault. He stays by her side, he’s not good at offering comfort but just giving her a hand to hold seems to help.

It seems to do something at least, while their mother finds another job, another two, to help keep them afloat now that their father is gone.

   -

   Momo, he thinks as he watches her scurry from one end of the room to another, has never looked so simultaneously stressed out and excited in all the time she’s been alive.

Somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, Momo signed on to become an idol and from one day to another she’s become a verifiable sensation. Her first real big gig is this weekend. In some grand stadium he’s never heard of that she’s somehow managed to sell out even though she’s been on the idol scene for less than a month.

There’s going to be confetti canon involved and Momo thought it would be sweet if she cut out the confetti herself for her first big concert. Except, as always, Momo has severely underestimated how much time and effort that would take and so now all three of them are in the living room trying to finish this in time.

He’s gotten so into the rhythm of it that he’s barely even paying attention anymore, so when Momo yells out his name sounding somewhere between terrified and reprimanding he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“You stupid older brother! You cut yourself,” She says, rushing over to lift up his hand to show a small cut on the tip of his finger –their mother coos worriedly excusing herself to kitchen to grab a wet cloth and a band-aid.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he sighs to the both of them. Sure, it might be bleeding a lot but the wound isn’t all that deep –it’ll be scabbed over by tomorrow at the latest.

“You bleeding is always a big deal –anyone bleeding is!” Momo insists, looking torn between scolding him or continuing to fuss over him. Shintaro would vote for the former if he had a choice. At least angry Momo would get off his back.

And besides, he thinks, staring at the steadily flowing cut, red is a nice colour.

Red, well red isn’t boring.

 -

 That night he dreams of floating in a sea of deep deep red that pulls him in far and then spits him out right before he can drown.

When he wakes up, he finds himself feeling not much at all.

 -

 He’s fifteen and there’s a girl in his class that won’t leave him alone. Most of these kids he’s known his whole life, and as such they leave him alone. The only time he’s ever interacted with his classmates by this point is group projects and even then everyone involved is perfectly fine with just letting him do most of the work to keep interaction to a minimum.

Shintaro likes the lifestyle he’s built around himself. Or, well, like might be too strong a word but when everything around him is so boring and predictable he doesn’t see the point of changing anything. It’ll all fade soon enough into the monotony of life so why bother getting worked up about it.

It’s a philosophy Shintaro has been living by for years. A passive existence to his family and a non-entity to basically everyone else.

He doesn’t want to get attached to anything, can’t see the point of it in the first place.

 If only this girl would catch the memo.

 -

 The girl’s name is Ayano Tateyama and she does not get the memo.

Telling her to go away, calling her annoying, none of it deters her in her efforts to get to know him.

She is bright and bubbly and wants Shintaro to see that there’s more to life than the practical nothing he has come to see it as. Shintaro is almost certain that she is his antithesis sent down by God to finally lead him to his early death.

And god if death would not be a welcome mercy to his pointless existence on this planet.

As if sensing his morbid thoughts she reaches over and pinches one of his cheeks hard. Her gaze is sheepish when he turns to glare at her, hiding a blush beneath her scarf.

“Sorry, it’s what I do to my siblings when they would get mopey.”

“I’m not mopey!” He refutes indignantly, and even if he was he’s not going to be treated like some snot-nosed brats.

Ayano laughs at that, bright and sweet like bells, and Shintaro ruthlessly squashes that thought down. People aren’t worth the trouble, and Ayano Tateyama definitely doesn’t even come close to making him rethink that.

 -

 Except, Ayano doesn’t stop bugging him, she sits with him at lunch and asks questions about the math lesson they just had. And, when lunch ends and she still hasn’t gotten the hang of it, somehow convinces him to go with her to the library to help her study a bit.

She shows him funny videos, and keeps turning his test papers into paper cranes that for some reason he stops throwing away.

When she latches onto his arm after almost tripping in the hall he doesn’t shove her away. He for some reason tells her something silly Momo did the other day, and when he notices how much she liked the candy he had for dessert buys two the next time he goes to the convenience store.

She says that they’re friends now with a wide smile, and that maybe soon she’ll finally convince him to change the outlook he has on life. Shintaro may begrudgingly concede to the first point, but he doesn’t see the second one happening anytime soon.

The world is still boring and predictable, not any harder to figure out than the tests they give out at school. Ayano might disagree, but that’s just because she actually thinks the school tests are hard.

He’s pretty soon one of them would sooner die then seeing things the others’ way.

 -

 (Later on he’ll spend so much time regretting everything he’s said and done. Over and over again until it all threatens to swallow him whole.

And by that point, he’d be begging for it to happen.)

  -

 His friend group triples in size, he’s not sure how this happened but he does know he hates it. He alternates between completely ignoring them, yelling at Takane for being an absolute moron, and wishing he could just straight up leave.

 Life settles into its own steady beat again, and Shintaro would almost dare to say that he’s… happy. That maybe things aren’t as boring as he was thinking.

 -

    Sometimes he’s sure his life was meant to end in tragedy.

    -

 He’d already lost people he’d almost consider friends before. He was an idiot for thinking that she was somehow safe from this awful world they live in.

 -

 Ayano for as long as he’s known her has always been smiling, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes shyly, but always, always smiling.

So to see her at her seat after class crying is a sight so bewildering he’s almost not sure it’s happening. But it is real, she is there, and he has no idea what to do about it.

Shintaro Kisaragi was not built with the emotional capacity for this, he could barely help his own sister after their father died what could he possibly do here when he doesn’t even understand the situation.

He backs away slowly, unsure, and resolves to bring it up tomorrow when she’s calmed down a bit.

  -

 In some fancy poet’s words they might say she flew. But Shintaro is not a poet, nor is he fanciful or anything but realistic. She fell, she fell and she fell until there was no air left to fall into and life was cut as abruptly as her fall was.

Again and again he’ll replay the day before wondering that if maybe he’d reached out instead of shying away she’d still be here with them (with him). If somehow, just maybe, he could’ve changed her mind and stopped her fall.

If maybe, instead of pushing her away at every turn he could’ve let her know how much he cared about her and what she’s done for him. If maybe they would have been closer, he might have seen behind her smile to find the girl underneath who was capable of shedding such sad looking tears.

But what if’s are pointless, just like everything else in this godforsaken world.

 -

 (In some myths, in some stories, at the end of your life you are judged for every act you have committed. It is weighed against your soul to see if it is too heavy to achieve everlasting peace and bliss.

He knows he’s not that great a person, but if there was ever any act that would damn his soul forever, he thinks that might’ve been it.)

 -

 The world had always been boring, but now it seems dull, listless, even more pointless than before.

The flower sitting atop the desk next to him feels like a mockery, the tears of his classmates, the mournful silence whenever her name is skipped during the morning rollcall. All of it just feels like a bunch of pretty lies strung together to make their grief have meaning.

Still, still, there is nothing more he hates than the looks they give him. Sure on the surface there is pity, there is comfort, but Shintaro is many things but an idiot is not one of them. He knows what they say when they think he’s not listening, the cruel thoughts that hide behind placid smiles.

He hates it, he hates all of it.

But most of all, he hates himself, hates how he can’t even deny that just maybe they’re right.

 -

 Shintaro is pointless, pointless, pointless.

As meaningless as life is, as existence is, so why should he bother to try.

Why should he leave his house, his room, when there’s absolutely nothing waiting for him out there?

So he doesn’t.

At least here, there’s nothing but him, and his memory of her. And he’d sooner die then let her memory fade away.

Because what’s the point of existing when she’s gone?

What’s the point of being alive when it’s all your fault anyways?

 -

 The other day he was almost sure he saw Ayano at his window telling him it was all his fault, just a few hours ago he’s sure he must have been dreaming but she was here in the room cursing his very existence.

He’s hallucinating, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

 -

 His mother leaves a computer at his door, he’s not sure if it’s supposed to convince him to leave or stay in more but he becomes obsessed with it.

The internet is a whole world at his fingertips, one he can access without leaving his room, without having to interact with people that might make him forget about her. He doesn’t need anything but the internet, this room, and the memory of a girl who smiled so sweetly.

   (In another place (the same place), another him (the same him) discovers music and it gives him an outlet that he’ll never find.)

 -

 Despite all his protection he’s somehow downloaded a virus (a nuisance) and she (it) just won’t’ go away. He’s tried deleting her, restarting his computer, he even tried resetting the whole thing and yet every time. Every single time. There she is waiting for him with a large cheeky grin the word master spilling from her lips as if it’s just the most natural thing.

He screams and he yells but she doesn’t leave no matter what he says.

‘I’m Ene, and you’re stuck with me Master!’

He sighs, relenting to her existence and going to bed –maybe he’ll dream of better times, maybe he’ll dream of her and never wake up.

Because living without her is a nightmare, because being left behind, being left alone, is unbearable.

 -

 (In another place (the same place), with another him (the same him), they’d become friends of a sort, she’d help him smile, to laugh. She’d help him move on. But he doesn’t want to move on, doesn’t need to move on.)

 -

 His hair is growing long enough to become a nuisance; constantly falling over his face when he tries to lean over his keyboard. He could just go to Momo’s room and steal a hair-tie but he doesn’t want to deal with her yelling when she notices it’s gone. And besides it (she) has been mocking him for it for days now and he’s tired of dealing with that.

People cut their own hair all the time, how hard could it really be?

He grabs a pair of scissors from his nightstand and heads to the bathroom ignoring it’s calls as to where a NEET like him could possibly be going. He stares at dull eyes through the mirror and sighs, lifting up his arms and beginning to cut.

He’s just about done, just clumsily trying to cut a few strands when he feels a stinging sensation sudden and sharp enough to make him drop the scissors as he brings his hand forward to clutch it against his chest.

He uncurls it slowly, revealing a long cut along his palm bleeding profusely. He stares at it blankly moving his other hand to turn on the tap before pausing almost entranced.

Red. Red like the clips she always wore and the scarf she always had wrapped around her neck. Red like the colour she left behind when she fell.

He’s not sure how long he stands there simply staring at his bleeding palm but eventually he drifts back to his room and sits back down in front of his computer flipping open a tab.

“Welcome back Master, you we’re gone awhile what were y -  you’re bleeding!” It screeches, pixelated face pressing as close as it can to the screen. Shintaro winces at the volume, pressing his hands to his ears and smearing blood across his face in the process.

Ah, he had forgotten to wash the blood off his hand.

“It’s fine, it’s just a cut.” He replies, voice coming out just as dull as his eyes had looked in the mirror.

It startles at the words, flinching back and Shintaro can’t help but think that for being fake, a facsimile of human emotion and existence, it sometimes comes off as strikingly real. Not that Shintaro’s going to fall for it, especially not when it won’t stop trying to get him to leave the house.

“It’s not fine, you’re still bleeding! Did you even bother cleaning it? Put a band-aid on it or something, Master!”

He rolls his eyes, pushing away from his desk and winces slightly at the pressure against his wound. “Shut up, can you calm down? I’m going to sleep.”

“Sleep?! Master you’re injured you have to treat it!” It screeches once again, forcing his speakers to blare an alarm. He ignores it, smothering his head underneath a pillow. Either his sister or mother will bang on his door to shut it up, or it’ll grow bored enough on it’s own.

After all, no one really cares about him anymore –and the feeling is quite is mutual.

Shintaro doesn’t much care for himself either.

 -

 That night he dreams of her, he always always dreams of her, but tonight her eyes are a blazing red as she smiles sadly at him.

Red like her hair clips, red like her scarf, red like the blood flowing through his veins just waiting to be spilled.

When he wakes, he can feel a smile on his face. Or maybe it’s a grimace, he’s not sure he can tell the difference between them anymore.

 -

 It’s been more annoying lately. Ever since he accidentally cut himself, ever since that wasn’t the last time. Constantly chattering away to uncaring ears, playing what it calls funny videos and still, still, insisting that maybe if he just left the house he’d cheer up a bit.

It’s getting so very annoying, pointless, frustrating.

So what if he’s covered in cuts, so what? He thinks, slicing a nice thin cut along his forearm. So what, he thinks, as the blood bubbles through a nice deep red cutting through this dull existence of his.

So what? So what? So what?

Life is pointless, meaningless, and every day feels like he’s walking through a haze with no end in sight.

He’s getting bored of still breathing when there’s nothing left tying him to this world.

He’s getting tired of being alive.

He cuts another line, deeper than usual and hisses at the pain that stings through him. Another tally, another mark against his wretched worthless soul.

 -

 “Are you okay?” It wails, posed in a mockery of genuine worry and concern. And Shintaro thinks that maybe if he were anyone but himself he’d be able to take comfort in its fake worry and tremble.

But Shintaro is no fool, and he won’t be swayed by false words. It’s all just an act anyways.

He turns away from it and goes back to sleep. Only there does he ever feel some kind of peace and happiness with the world. Only there is she still there –the only person in his life that ever felt like they mattered.

The only person in this world that in the end was worth giving a damn about.

And his dreams are all he has left of her, he doesn’t know what he would do without them. Doesn’t know why he even bothers waking up anymore when she’s all that he wants.

That’s right.

That’s right, that is all he needs. And anything that gets in the way of that? It doesn’t need to exist anymore –doesn’t need to exist at all.

It – Ene – doesn’t need to live; it’s not like it’s alive in the first place.

   When he awakes it’s still calling out to him, frantic voice grating on his ears. He doesn’t care, it’s attempts will never get through to him, all of its words useless platitudes that are nothing but a hindrance. Nothing but a needless annoyance.

So he reaches out, and for a second its expression flits into something other than the worry and regret that has dogged it as of late. It almost brightens as if it thinks maybe it has finally won. If Shintaro were capable of feeling anything but an empty haze he thinks he might’ve laughed at its artificial glee, it’s deadly naivety.

But instead he feels nothing, is nothing, as he watches that glee turn to fear as he reaches out to grab something that doesn’t exist and finds something solid instead. Feels nothing as he squeezes and squeezes until something snaps, it, him, the whole world.

It snaps, and everything disappears around him.

(It’s not real, it’s not real, so then why does he feel just as bad as he did when he first heard the news about Ayano.

Why does he feel like everything’s crumbling around him all over again.)

 -

 Shintaro is eighteen years old and he’s a horrible rotten person. A boy, a man, with not a shred of kindness in his heart. He’s not surprised it ends like this

(A different Shintaro (the same Shintaro) is eighteen years old and long before this moment had been able to move on, move forward.)

 -

 It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and he hadn’t even known he had more hope to lose, a last string of sanity left to snap and leave him even worse than he already was.

His breath starts and stops, heaving gasps that leave him stumbling backwards as he crashes to the floor. Just really? What is he even doing anymore. Maybe he really should just end it all.

Shintaro’s never cared for this boring predictable world. Maybe it’s time he finally left it behind, maybe she’ll be there waiting for him at the other side, maybe there this heavy pressure on his chest, his mind, his soul, will finally disappear.

      -

      He sighs and collects himself if just barely, grabbing his well-used and loved scissors.

  .

  (A different Shintaro (the same Shintaro), in a different time (at the same time) watches a friend he had grown to care about possessed and deranged as he lifts up a gun.)

 .

   He grips them tightly, the only sense of stability as the world around him burns with all the mistakes he’s made.

He raises his arms.

  .

  (At the same time another him (the same him) dashes forwards as the other lifts a gun to his head, intent on someone’s death, it doesn’t matter who’s.

This him, he won’t let someone else he cares about die again when he can help it.)

  .

  He plunges them in, one swift movement.

He falls.

  .

  (A gunshot rings out, the other him (this same him) makes it in time.

He falls.)

  .

  (On August 15th at around thirty minutes past noon two lives (the same life) end in tandem. The haze swallows them whole, as it has done to so many before them, ready to set just one of them free.

There a girl waits patiently (oh so patiently, for so many years) for the moment she��s been waiting for.)

  .

  On August 15th at around thirty minutes past noon he plunges scissors into his throat and opens his eyes to see her once more. Eyes glowing the vibrant red he remembers from a dream oh so long ago.

She smiles at him sadly, head turned as if trying to hold back tears and he wants to scream, wants to let her know that she has nothing to be sorry for when it’s all his fault. But her expression shifts and then he knows that’s not what she’s apologizing for.

“Please,” he begs, words spilling from his lips as he stumbles towards her, “Please don’t leave me. Not again, don’t leave me behind.”

He doesn’t know where this is, why he’s here, but he knows he doesn’t want to leave –not while she’s right here in front of him. There’s nothing outside of here to return to, no one waiting for him outside these four walls he’s dreamed of so often.

But she does, and so does he and everything around him. Still, for just that one moment of seeing her – the real her – was almost worth it.

On August 15th, a bit longer than thirty minutes past noon Shintaro Kisaragi’s worthless, dreadful, disgusting life ends.

 .

  (On August 15th, at around thirty past noon a gunshot leaves another him (the same him) dead, and he opens his eyes to see her once again. Her expression sheepish as she apologises and a part of him wants to laugh, feeling for a moment as if perhaps nothing ever changed.

He smiles at her, real and warm in a way it never was when she was still alive. He offers it as a thanks, to her, to all of them, for what they’ve done and how far he comes. She smiles back and it feels like validation, like a weight off his shoulders, like everything might actually finally be alright.

On August 15th, a bit longer than thirty minutes past noon Shintaro Kisaragi opens his eyes (red, red, eyes) and remembers. What was, what has been, and what could be. He remembers, and he promises to remember for as long as it takes to make everything okay again.)

     -

     If the clock were to rewind (but not far enough to make everything okay), if he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing if it meant he could see her one last time.

Because those boring days he lived through, he’d kill them again and again if it brought him back to her.

 And every single time, it would be worth it.

[pumpkinpiejack]

I finally remembered to add the parts we talked about my memory is so bad lmao

You guys are so big brained, my au hadn’t even gotten that far I was focused more on Season 9. Cas would have to take Tanya and that actually forces Dean’s hand into letting him back into the bunker and letting him stay there (still too late like in canon tho). Baby Jack would have come in a lot later on.

Cas would originally still be humanish and still be on the run from the angels but now also having to care for a baby and trying to keep Tanya safe because it’s the least he could do after everything he’s done to her life already. He so desperately wants to help people and heal people and this is a way he can. In his mind, this is better than putting her in the system because he will love her, he already does in a way.

My main plan was to have Cas literally be on the run with Tanya (Dean didn’t take him back to the bunker thinking it would be even more important to have him be away from Sam and Gadreel now that there’s a baby involved. He honestly had also assumed that Cas was going to find a good home for the baby and not keep her) All he has to his name is the hacked credit card that Dean had finally given him, which he only uses for motels and baby stuff absolutely terrified that it would be tracked, and his car that Dean had stolen for him.

This leads to a lot of anguish because he’s mad, he doesn’t want anything of Dean’s but he’s forced to take it anyway because he needs to keep Tanya safe now. It’s not just him, he can’t be stubborn about this. He’s constantly at odds with himself because can he do this? Can he raise a kid? Is it cruel for him to raise Tanya like this. Maybe it would be better to find her a home. But she very quickly becomes attached to Cas and she is inconsolable when he even puts her down for a nap. The whole fic would be him trying to decide what the best thing for Tanya would be while also learning to be human for her. He hates being human a little bit less because he has her. They’re learning together.

While on the run, he stumbles across Claire in one of the first homes she had been in. (Amelia left Claire with her grandmother when she was ~12 and her grandmother passed a couple years after that iirc so she would be 14-15 when she started going in and out of foster homes. You can usually push the ages around a bit since the only set ages are: she was 11 when Cas left for the last time, Amelia left her at her grandmothers house a couple months after that and she was 17 when they met her again at the end of season 10)

Subconsciously, he was drawn to someone familiar because he was trying to ignore Dean’s longing and she was drawn towards him because of the grace that he had left her with when he used her as a vessel. She basically refuses to leave his side, originally believing he had finally come back to save her. There would be a lot of angst about Cas admitting that he was never planning on coming back for her and her realizing that no he isn’t her dad and her dad is gone. Despite all this she continues to follow him even when he tries to leave her to protect her. Eventually, he gives in because if she’s not going to stay with her foster homes at the very least she’ll be safer with him than on her own. So they sort of find each other.

There’s so much on just Claire being jealous of Tanya because he came back for her but not Claire. Just resentment and anger and jealousy, but also, she’s just a baby and Claire finds that she wants to keep her safe and keep her from going through the same thing that she went through.

Dean would have stumbled into helping them when Cas is kidnapped by the angels like in canon, ending in Claire calling Dean (emergency contact and the only person Cas would trust with his kids <3) and going “Cas is missing we need somewhere safe to stay while we find him” Dean would realize that Cas hadn’t found Tanya a family and would be horrified.

This also has the added horror of leaving both Claire and Tanya in the bunker while Dean finds out that Ezekiel isn’t actually Ezekiel.

Wait a Tanya au, Elle, you and Jess can’t just drop that and not talk about it. Super secret Cas runs away with Tanya au that lives only in my head does exist and my two beloved mutuals and me apparently share a hive mind

Hiiii Sarah!!! Hey @lobotomycastiel we have a co-conspirator! A lot of the following text comes directly or is paraphrased from a conversation in our discord, and @deanwithsmudgedlipstick actually came up with some of this too. Okay so in this au Nora has a tragic accident and Cas takes the baby so she doesn’t go into the system. It’s technically kidnapping but the foster system in the US is shit and she has no other living relatives, so it’s justified. Dean at first is like “wtf is that a baby” but he is VERY quickly swayed by way of: he watches Cas interact with Tanya for more than five seconds and folds like a house of cards.

Cut to three years later when baby Jack comes into the picture. (Of course this is a baby Jack au, it’s me and Jess.) Cas dies like in canon (aka temporarily) and Dean is left alone with not one but TWO children under the age of five, one of which the angels are trying to kidnap (unlike his and Cas’ own kidnapping, this one is NOT in the best interests of the child). They want him just like Hell wanted Sam all those years ago, to use him. The angels try to burn down the bunker so they can steal Jack. Dean has been having nightmares about Cas burning on the ceiling the way his mom did, and he wakes up from his dream where Cas is burning on the ceiling to find the bunker ACTUALLY on fire. At first he thinks he’s still dreaming, and then he considers that maybe he should just let this happen (he wants to be with Cas and doesn’t know about the empty yet), but then Sam is there dragging him out just like Dean dragged Sam out when it was Jess. He shakes Sam off and runs to the bassinet, shoved Jack into Tanya’s little arms and tells her to run as fast as she can. Meanwhile he runs to Cas’ room and scrambles to find the mixtape and the trench coat, the only things he has to remember him by.

Sam scoops up Tanya, who’s holding Jack, to shelter them from the smoke and the heat and Dean’s breakdown, the way no one was there to shelter him and Dean. This gives Dean a chance to grieve and a moment to just break down. Afterward, Dean realizes he forgot something. He sifts through the burned down house trying to find Cas’ ashes. He clutches the cracked, scorched urn, making sure the ashes are still safe inside, and from Sam’s arms Tanya watches Dean on his hands and knees, weeping for all that he’s lost. Two minutes later, Dean gets up and turns to them with an easy smile on his face and says it’s time to get going, and he hopes they like clown motels. All his Cas Emotions have been shoved into a box and shut away tight. Sam asks why they can’t go to a *nice* hotel, and Dean makes fun of him for being afraid of clowns. But Sam has to drive the Impala because Dean’s hands are still shaking, and the only way to still them is to hold onto both the kids as he cradles them close in the backseat.

At the funeral, Dean passes Jack to Tanya when he goes to light the pyre. When he steps away, he takes Jack back and holds Tanya’s hand so they won’t feel alone. Later, Tanya tries to heat up a bottle for Jack but he takes over and tells her “go watch tv kiddo, I got this.” The next night he gets up to quiet a fussy Jack and finds Tanya already there, singing to him. He scoops her up and sings to both of them. After that he sits her down and explains that it’s not her job to take care of Jack, it’s his job to take care of them both. He plays them the mixtape and tells them he made of for their dad. He also lets them pick the music in the car. He watches Tanya singing along in the rear view mirror, the windows down, doing that thing kids do where she tries to catch the wind in her tiny hand while Jack laughs in his car seat. She’s a kid and doesn’t know about driver pick the music yet, so he lets Tonya listen to every Hannah Montana album and five hundred consecutive plays of Baby Shark because they’re her favorites. When Sam complains about how he can’t play his indie music, Dean pulls the classic, “how old are you?” “I’m 35, what does that have to do—“ “and how old is Tanya,” Dean interrupts. “Like, four?” Tanya interrupts, offended, to say “I’m four and a HALF.” Dean gives Sam a *you see?* look and says “so who’s gotta be the mature one here?” He’s the older sibling now, and Jack and Tanya are babies who deserve to listen to shitty kids’ music because Dean loves them and they’re his kids. Claire rolls her eyes from the backseat, squished between two carseats, but she doesn’t argue with the choice of music. Baby Shark makes her want to gouge her eyes out, but she secretly kind of likes Hannah Montana.

Dean takes them to the meadow to help scatter Cas’ ashes. Claire supervises while Tanya and Jack play in the brook, and over by the windmill Dean opens the urn. He makes sure the ashes cover as much ground as possible, wanting to feel Cas everywhere in that field. He takes the kids there often, and he knows it’s silly, but he thinks Cas would appreciate watching his kids grow up. Claire comes sometimes, but she’s not there this time. Dean puts Tanya on his shoulders, with Jack in a wrap in his chest, and Tanya reaches down to pat Jack on the head when he starts to get fussy. Tanya tries to reach up high enough to tough the windmill, and Dean fixes Jack’s hat to protect him from the sun, and Dean looks up at the sky and prays that Cas can see them somehow.

[astoldbyacertifiedunicorn]

Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran

3rd song. BTW, this features an Alex ship I’ve liked since s11, that is NOT JOLEX. Don’t read if you stan them. (I don’t have anything against them, they can be happy in canon, fine by me, I just feel like I can write whatever ship I want in FF). This is obviously a japril fic, but more or so concentrates on Jackson and Catherine’s relationship for obvious reasons. 

I took the supermarket flowers from the windowsill I threw the day old tea from the cup Packed up the photo album Matthew had made Memories of a life that's been loved

 "Jackson, honey, are you ready to go?" 

He didn't really remember what he was doing before his wife had called him that day, asking him to come to the hospital. There had been an accident. She'd fallen down the stairs. A misstep. There was bleeding. He needed to come. Soon. 

It had been his day off. He must have woken up and made love to his wife, he must have leisurely dropped the kids off at school, and then he must have come home, watched the game, or maybe he did the laundry. He's not sure. There is one memory that sticks out though. Somewhere during the day, he'd gotten a call from his mom. He usually does. She's retired now, from her job and the foundation. She has too much time on her hands. It's usually him, April, Richard or the grandkids who are on the receiving end of her constant boredom. She called for the most mundane things, to talk about a party she'd gone to, or ask him about a surgery. Sometimes to inquire about a highly inappropriate aspect of his marriage. So, he usually didn't answer. Sometimes he was in a surgery, a board meeting, but sometimes, he just hadn't wanted to. That day, he just hadn't wanted to. He was watching the game. The bloody, precious game. He'd answer tomorrow. He'd call her tomorrow. It never crossed his mind, there would be no tomorrow. 

He feels April's hand on his shoulders, and he looks up.  

"Babe, if you need more time, we can-" 

"No. I'm done." He nods, closes the box, and stands up. Richard had asked him the day before to come in and take whatever stuff of hers he needed to. He was giving the rest off to goodwill, apparently. The funeral hadn't even happened. Jackson wasn't sure why the hell he was trying to get rid of this stuff, anyway. It's not as if he wanted to keep it forever, he wasn't looking to create a shrine out of her room, but he wanted more time. He just needed some more time. But, Richard lives here. Jackson understood, in a way. If it was April, he wouldn't be able to live in a place which reminded him so much of her. Still, she was his mother, first. Childish, he knew, but he didn't feel very adult these days. 

He stands up, adjusting the box in his hand, and looks around the room once more. It's not the last time he'll see it. Richard will still live here. He's still his step-father, his wife's father-in-law and his children's grandfather. He'll visit, he'll have to. But it won't be the same. There will be a gaping hole, a silence that no one can fill. 

She loops her hand through his, and they walk out. 

"Did you take everything, son?" Richard asks, and he pats him on the back. There's a sadness behind his smile, it never reaches his eyes. The only time he sees it full is when his grandchildren are there. Jackson understood that. He found solace in his wife and children too. Well, as much as they could offer him now. 

He nods, doesn't really say much. There's nothing to say, really. Nothing will make it better for anyone. Nothing stops the ache in his lungs every minute he remembers and the deep pit of guilt that never seems to go away. It never seems enough. When they're alive, well, people don't say I love you enough, they don't pick up the phone enough, they never do anything that is enough. Because they always assume there's time. He feels the hate settle in. The anger. He clenches his fists and take a deep breath. He needs to be calm. 

"How about we take this picture, hm? If Richard doesn't mind, of course." April asks, walking to the fireplace which was lined with frames of memories. 

"Take as many as you'd like." He replies. 

April looks at him, and smiles hopefully. He doesn't want a bloody picture. What good is that going to do? It's not her. It's an image, of a time when she was here, when he could've thanked her, when he could've been nice, when he could've cared enough to pick up the phone. He doesn't need the stupid pictures. He doesn't even need anything in this box. He'd taken it because he didn't want to be rude. But what the hell was he going to do with the diaries she apparently kept, that he didn't know about, or the sketch books she kept of all his achievements when he'd gone his whole life thinking she never really cared or believed in him, all that much. What the fuck was he supposed to do with those? 

He runs his fingers along the edges of the frame April is pointing to. It's a picture of the two of them, at his high school graduation. He didn't think anyone would come. But his mother did. And she clapped and yelled as loud as she could when he walked onto the stage. He's absent in the picture. His eyes are looking elsewhere, probably at a friend, or a girlfriend. He wants the photo to be done. He's looking to leave, get out. She's looking straight to the camera, and he's looking away. He takes it, and it takes all he has not to throw it across the room. 

He looks at the other pictures, ones with Richard, on their wedding day, a holiday with her nieces and nephews, a shopping trip with April. She was loved. Every person in that picture was looking at her with love and kindness and care. She was loved. 

"Thank you." He nods at Richard, and walks away to the car, while April lingers behind. 

"How are you?" He hears April asking, "I'll bring more food tonight. Call Maggie and Alex. Ask them to stay over."

"No no, I'll be fine. It's a school night for the boys, and those two were here yesterday as well," Richard replies, and Jackson can hear the smile in his voice. His step-sister Maggie had found a home with the person they all least expected her to. Alex, of all people. But they worked. Different, true, but Jackson and April knew that you didn't need to be alike to be happy together. They had 2 boys, and a good life. He knew she was here for her father, she'd even chastised him for not grieving with Richard, but he wasn't looking to grieve with anyone. He wasn't looking to grieve, period. 

"How is he?" Richard enquires.

"He's.... angry. He's closing up, and he's building all these walls, and I'm not really sure how to get through to him," She whispers, and he feels a little guilty because she sounds stressed, "I'm not expecting him to get over it. Of course not. I just want him to let me in. Let me grieve with him."

"He just need some time. This is how he's choosing to deal with it. Alone. So give him some time. He's his mother's son, after all." He laughs, but it's a sad laugh, and Jackson is sick of hearing sad laughs. He walks away before she finds him eavesdropping on the hallway. 

She gets in the car, and faces him, "Ready?" 

He doesn't respond. He's not sure if he is. He's not sure if he'll ever be.  

Took the get well soon cards and stuffed animals Poured the old ginger beer down the sink Dad always told me, "Don't you cry when you're down" But mum, there's a tear every time that I blink

He hasn't cried yet. Not really. At the hospital, he'd been in too much of a panic. He'd run down the hallways, as fast as his feet would carry him. A place he'd known like his own home, suddenly felt strange to him. He wasn't sure if he was taking the right turns, even when he's been taking these turns for years. The familiar sounds of machines beeping, patients crying, doctors chatting, all sounded like white noise. He couldn't hear any of it. She'd been in surgery when he'd gotten there. They hadn't let him in, family member and all. He'd yelled, tried to manhandle Hunt, and then yelled some more. He'd only calmed down, when April had dragged him to the waiting room, and told him in a harsh voice, that he couldn't behave the way he did no matter how scared he was. She was right, she usually was. 'Listen to your wife, she's always right'. His mom would say that a lot after the marriage. 

The surgery didn't do much. She'd lost too much blood, the impact was too severe. They were sorry, but there was nothing they could do. The mechanical, robotic response he'd given hundreds of patients. They'd been taken to the room, where she lay still, plugged to many machines. She was there, well her body was, but she wasn't anymore. Not really. April had cried. A lot. She'd sat next to her bed, and cried, and prayed, and then cried some more. Richard had cried too. He prayed with April, they were the believers of the family.. But Jackson, well he'd just stood there. Staring at the machines, recalling how she'd made him promise she wouldn't keep him like this. Conscious, but not. There, but not really. After a while, they'd needed to move her out.He thanked the nurses, and the doctors, held his wife's hand and he'd gone home. 

His children had been inconsolable, even Samuel and Harriet, who were almost 16 and 15 respectively, had broken down. He'd watched them. All his children, the twins, the triplets, all of them cry, and let out their anguish, while he'd just sat, and starred. At night, when April had told him that if he wanted to cry, she was here, he'd told her to get some sleep because she had an early shift. She was confused. She was waiting for him to break down. 

But he wasn't sure how to do that either. 

Oh, I'm in pieces, it's tearing me up, but I know A heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved

He goes through the first stage of grief fairly quickly. He doesn't deny her death. She's gone, she's never coming back. It's not like he wasn't used to the finality of a parent leaving. For all he knew, when he was 6, his father might as well be dead, he wasn't coming back. But the anger, the anger stays for sometime. He yells at April. She annoys him a lot these days. She's suffocating, he feels. She's there, all the time, asking him if he's alright, if he needs her, if he'll be okay. She wants him to let her in, whatever the hell that means. He's angry because she's trying to love him, even when he's becoming unbearable. He doesn't deserve her love, so he's mad. And she cries, he can tell. It's been 3 days, and she's spent the time crying, about Catherine, about him.

He’s mad at the kids. They drive him crazy, faster than usual. He yells at them, tells them off, and he holds himself back because his youngest son looks afraid sometimes and Samuel doesn't talk to him anymore. He misses his kids. But he's not letting his walls down. It would mean having to grieve, and he's not willing to do that. Not yet. He's also, in a twisted way, jealous of them. They have a mother in April. She loves them, adores them, is the best mother she can be, and they know that. They love and appreciate her. It reminds him of his own failures, and he's angry at himself, so he yells at them. It makes no sense, and he hates himself for it. 

He hates Richard. He was there. He should've been there when it happened. He should've stopped it. He should've saved her. He knows, deep down, it's not Richard's fault. There's nothing he could've done. But he chooses to be mad at him, because it helps to blame someone. 

He's mad at everyone trying to tell him they understand. Meredith, who loved her mom enough to pour her ashes down the OR drain, Alex, who's mother wasn't really ever present, and Maggie, who insists she gets it, but he just wants to yell at her and tell her it's not the same. She knew her mother was dying. She had time to tell her everything she wanted to. He didn't. He didn't know. He didn't have time. 

He knew his whole, mismatched family was trying their best to be there for him, but he didn't want any of it. He just wanted his mother back. . 

I fluffed the pillows, made the beds, stacked the chairs up Folded your nightgowns neatly in a case John says he'd drive then put his hand on my cheek And wiped a tear from the side of my face

It was the funeral. He hated, loathed, funerals. He'd been to a fair share in his life. His grandmother, Evelyn's, his best friends, Reed and Charles', his mentor and ex girlfriend, Mark ad Lexie, Derek's, Diane's, and Harper's. That was lot of funerals, a lot of dead people. It was the side effect of being part of Seattle Grace Mercy Death, he figured. But he'd never get used to them. Everyone was miserable, it was full of grief. Funerals, he'd always believed, wasn't for the dead. It was for the living. It was your chance to say goodbye, your closure. As if, anyone could ever really have closure from something like that. As if the dead would hear the sorrys you were saying. It was stupid. 

"I can ask Samuel to talk. If you're not up for it, that is. Or even Harriet." She says, and picks invisible linen from her dress. She sounds careful around him, and he realizes he still hasn't stopped being cold towards her. He needs her, today of all days. He can't take whatever anger he feels towards himself out on his wife, who's been nothing but incredible to him. 

"Can you help me?" He asks her, speaking, not yelling, to her for the first time since it happened. She looks a little shocked, that he's not picking a fight. She quickly rearranges her face and walks towards him taking the tie from his hand.

"Of course." She places it across his neck, and meticulously ties it across. He looks at her face, and he beams with pride. She is so beautiful. After all these years, of waking up next to her, of the crows feet she complains about and the stretch marks she spends a stupid amount of time looking at, she is the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He's so glad he married her. He knew his mother was proud of this choice, even if she was angry at first. He never did include her in his life. She should've been there, at their makeshift wedding in Lake Tahoe. He regrets it now. He regrets a lot of things now. 

She pulls the knot tight into place, and pats his chest. He grasps her wrist and holds her there, bending his head to kiss her. She responds, roughly pressing into him. He's missed this. It had been 3 days, but he's missed this. 

He pulls away, and keeps his forehead pressed against hers, "I'm sorry." 

"Don't apologize." She says, and claps his face between her hands, "Just let me in?"  

He sighs, pulling her hands from his face, “I can’t, April.”

Her face falls, but she nods, and she goes to turn away.

“Not yet.” He says, and she looks at him, a little more hopeful. He will, eventually, but the pain is too soon, and he’s still angry, and pissed off at everything and everyone, and he’s gone back to feeling like the 6 year old waiting for his dad to come home. Hopeful for something that was never going to happen.

He walks into the cemetery and hates the silence. She was loud, a force of nature, she was so full of life and this place was everything she would’ve hated. He misses her in the silence more than anything. It’s as if he expects to turn around and hear her yell his name, ‘Jackson Avery!’ He expects to be able to wince at her voice, but deep down be glad to see his mother. Expecting the impossible, once more.

I hope that I see the world as you did 'cause I know

A life with love is a life that's been lived

April and the girls sing a beautiful version of ‘Amazing grace’. Catherine wasn’t religious herself, but she had always loved April’s voice, and she’d said that April gave the song so much emotion. ‘It’s hauntingly beautiful, sweetheart.’ She cries throughout the whole song, and Harriet holds her hand, while the younger three, wipe away the occasional tear. The boys, sans Jackson, stand up and make a speech that has everyone in joyful as they can be in this situation. It’s a collection of all of their favorite moments with their grandmother. The funny, the sassy, the loving. It leaves the large crowd, every single one of them there to celebrate this incredible woman’s life, in tears of joy. All except for him. He isn’t there yet. He still can’t laugh about her. He still feels the anger, and the anguish and the guilt. He won’t feel the happiness for some time. It’s his turn then, after Richard’s loving goodbye to his wife. He takes a deep breath, feels April kiss his cheek, and he walks to the top of the grave. It’s a chilly day, but it doesn’t rain and for that he’s grateful. She hated the rain. They all look at him, with that pity that he doesn’t want. So he focuses on his family. His wife, kids, step-father, step-sister and brother-in-law, and nephews.

“My mother is… was a single mom. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just, me... he left behind for her to take care of alone, it was the foundation, and the legacy. It’s a lot of work for one person. Especially for someone who didn’t really ask for any of it,” He gulps, he needs a moment. He needs to be grounded. He makes eye contact with April, and she smiles at him through tears. He nods. “She wasn’t the perfect mom. Far from it, actually. She was a doctor, head of a foundation, that’s a lot of work. She missed a lot of games, and I never really got the edges of my sandwiches cut. She wasn’t like my wife.”

He laughs, and they all laugh along, but his sounds too high pitched to be real, but he means what he’s saying, “But, but… but she stayed. She was the one who stayed behind. She wasn’t the best, but she tried really hard. And if you ever had a parent who left you behind, you know how important that is. She loved me. A… a lot. She loved my wife, my kids, my whole family. And we loved her, so much.”

He looks up and he sees his whole family nodding, even Alex.

“They all appreciated her,” Unlike him, they all were grateful, unlike him. He wasn’t. He never said thank you. He never picked up the phone. He never said thank you. Ungrateful, ungrateful, “I didn’t pick up the phone. She called that day and I didn’t pick up. I didn’t pick up… the phone. I…”

He feels them all looking at him, April partially up from her seat, and he gets why. He’s crying. He’s finally crying. He’s breaking down, and it feels... free.

He runs then. Across the cemetery, sprints across the grass and dirt. His chest tightens when he needs to breathe, but he doesn’t slow down. He runs. Then he falls, and he’s not sure where he is, but he doesn’t really care. He falls and he lets himself fall. He lets himself cry for his mother. For the amazing woman who raised him, for the strained relationship they’ve always had, for the love she’s always given him.

“I miss you,” He whispers to the air, “Please come back.”

After what feels like an hour, although it could have been a few minutes, he feels hands hugging him, from all around. He looks up, and he sees his children, and April. They’re kneeled in front of him, arms wrapped around him, holding him tight.

The best thing his mother gave him was this. April, and the kids. She never made him stop believing in love. ‘You’re just waiting for the right girl, honey. The one.’ He’d laughed and tell her that if he had met the one, she’d probably scare her off.

‘You’re going to need your family, Jackson. No matter what shape and size they come in. One person, or ten, you need your family.’

She was right. She almost always was.                                                    

Hallelujah

You were an angel in the shape of my mum

You got to see the person I have become

Spread your wings and I know

That when God took you back he said, "Hallelujah

You're home"

“Is grandma in heaven?”

It’s his youngest son, Holden that asks him this, about 3 weeks later, when they’re all seated in the living room. It’s a clear Seattle night, and they’re all in the pajamas after dinner, just hanging out. April’s idea of family time.

“Um…” April looks at him from her seat on the ground, where she’s helping Celie and Adeline, construct a lego airplane. The girls were obsessed with flying recently, having learnt of Amelia Earheart in school, “Daddy, you want to deal with this one?”

He appreciates her wanting him to give an answer. If it was her parent’s the answer would be a fast ‘yes.’ But she was respecting his and Catheriene’s lack of faith.

“She… is wherever people are when they’re dead.” He says, it’s not an acceptance nor a denial. Holden still believes, and he wasn’t going to interfere with that. That was the agreement.

“So heaven?” He asks once more, and Harriet rolls her eyes. Out of the oldest 2, Samuel shared his mother’s faith, while Harriet shared her father’s lack of.

“If that’s what you believe in, honey.” April quips in, and Holden seems satisfied with that answer.

“She’s probably up there sassing all the Angels.” Maya laughs, and the whole family bursts into laughter. She holds up a finger, and mimics her grandma perfectly, “I am not going to wear that ridiculous halo. Make me.”

“You think she can hear us?” Holden inquires once more.

“Why do you want to know?” Micah asks.

“Because I talked to her yesterday.” He mumbles, and the whole family goes quiet. Holden was a special little boy. The only boy from the triplets, and the youngest in the family.

“What did you tell her, bud?” Jackson asks, and he feels like there’s something stuck in his throat.

“That I miss her,” He whispers, “and I’m sorry we don’t visit the grave stone, because it makes dad sad.”

April sighed, and came to sit next to Jackson, pulling Holden next to her, “You know, I’ll take you to visit grandma anytime, right? You just have to ask.”

“Yes, but-”

“Come on,” Jackson says, getting up from his seat, “Everyone to the car.”

“Jackson, what?” April asks, a little wide eyed and confused.

“To the car.” He repeats, and turns around to her, “Trust me.”

A little while later, they’re all in the pajamas, in the middle of a graveyard at 10 in the night.

“Anyone else scared?” Samuel asks, shivering.

“You’re such a baby.” Harriet replies.

“Hey!” April warns and the two of them shut up, “We’re here to say what we need to say and leave-“

“-before people assume we’re trying to bury a body.” Maya grins, her somewhat twisted humour amusing them all.

“Okay, here goes,” Jackson says, patting Holden on the head, “Go ahead, bud.”

He steps forward, and places a drawing he’d done of Catherine, childlike, and yet uncanny, in front of the grave stone, “Miss you gradma. Hope you’re having fun in heaven. Tell God I said hi, and that Josh pushed me first and that’s why I had to push him back.”

The rest of the family chuckles at that. The kids each take their turn, the endless string of I miss yous, and a tid bit of update on their lives.

It’s finally his turn.

“I miss you, mom,” He says, “I wish I had picked up the phone.”

“What would you tell her if you did?” April asks, and he knows what she’s doing.

“I love you, and thank you… for everything.” He probably wouldn’t have said that, but he’d like to think he would.

They each file back towards the car, and he pulls April to his side, and drops a kiss on top of her head, “You really think she’s in heaven?”

“I really do.” She looks back at him, sure.

He smiles. It’s not like he’s going to start believing all of a sudden, but he’d like to think that if Heaven was real, she was up there, sassing the Angels and all.

"Hallelujah 

You're home." 

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed <3 

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Required Reading

Brothers Adam and David Nagy have created the first clear coffee drink. It is made from Aracica beans and promises not to stain your teeth. (via My Modern Met)

“It’s about time for the Indigenous art canon to create a space for gender-variant and sexually diverse voices.”:

But Indigenous feminist art of the late 1990s through the 2010s isn’t the Indigenous womanism of generations past. Indigenous womanism seeks to emancipate entire Indigenous communities, including men, believing deeply that the struggle of our men is our struggle as a people. Next-generation Indigenous feminist artists and thinkers do not seek to reconcile themselves to patriarchal peoples and institutions. Instead they unapologetically take up and take back space. They rage against the gallery and the current affairs of arts administration, asserting that their practices happen in the streets and around kitchen tables; that Indigenous feminist art and cultural writing is self-published, self-distributed and defined within and around community; and, above all, that they aren’t afraid to talk back to the man (or their men, for that matter).

A consciously queer reading of the 2017 Whitney Biennial:

In the 2017 Biennial, the idea of non-normative sexual and gender identities emerges through a more truthful array of lenses, surfacing visual approaches that limn questions of autobiography alongside economics and politics. Where the curators’ choice of artists ensures a space for more singular voices, so too does it invite a secondary reading of contemporary experiences of queerness that collectively complicate and modernize a historically fraught approach.

New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz reflects on his former life as an artist and probes his own story in the process:

On the outside things were great. On the inside I was in agony, terrified, afraid of failing, anxious about what to do next and how to do it. I started not working for longer and longer periods. Hiding it. Then not hiding it. Until all I had left was calling myself an artist. At 27, I had what I think of as a one-year walking nervous breakdown. Which was shattering. I began having panic attacks; couldn’t be around people even though I was dying to be around them; got insomnia, took five-hour walks to wear myself down, was filled with bitter envy for everyone and everything. In this state of self-deprecating deprivation, I wanted what others had, hated anyone who had more space, time, money, education, a better career. To this day I tell all young artists to make an enemy of envy or else it will eat you alive. Like it did me.

Kate Imbach takes a look at the photos on Melania Trump’s social feeds to figure her out. This is what she finds:

Everyone has an eye, whether or not we see ourselves as photographers. What we choose to photograph and how we frame subjects always reveals a little about how we perceive the world. For someone like Melania, media-trained, controlled and cloistered, her collection of Twitter photography provides an otherwise unavailable view into the reality of her existence. Nowhere else — certainly not in interviews or public appearances — is her guard so far down.

What is that reality? She is Rapunzel with no prince and no hair, locked in a tower of her own volition, and delighted with the predictability and repetition of her own captivity.

Why not move to the White House? Let’s see.

Frieze magazine asked roughly 50 people around the world, “How Important is Art as a Form of Protest?” Some responded with art (some work better than others), but many responded with words, including Jimmie Durham, who said:

Where there is injustice, it is necessary that we protest. But, seeing that making art is neither a job nor a profession, protesting injustice by using art is really difficult. For me, no more difficult than trying to make art for decorating a room. What do we want in life, individually? It would be good for me if everything I do is on the side of liberation. An interesting and full way to live.

Kyle Chayka explores how drones are changing the way we see the world. He observes:

Amateur drone photography has already developed a distinctive set of subjects. The book is organized into sections such as “Urban,” with photos of city landmarks and street layouts; “Fauna,” with Planet Earth–style shots of animals; and “Probe,” which documents environmental threats like pollution and wildfires. The themes are decidedly unsubtle: The photographers are preoccupied with capturing a novel view of a familiar scene, or playing tricks with the camera’s height rather than using it to push the boundaries of symbolism or the format of the photo. Superficial content dominates form. Given the camera’s distance, the results also tend to be visually static, and even alienating to viewers.

… If drone photography often feels glib, it may be because pictures taken from the air don’t fit easily into clear, human-scale narratives. In fact, the looming presence of the machines threatens the order of life on the ground. In 2013, the novelist and photographer Teju Cole published a series of tweets composing “seven short stories about drones.” Cole inserted the machines into the beginnings of novels by Melville, Kafka, and Chinua Achebe, giving familiar stories abrupt endings, echoing the innocent lives that drones cut off in the real world: “Call me Ishmael. I was a young man of military age. I was immolated at my wedding. My parents are inconsolable.”

The world-renowned architect I.M. Pei at 100:

Given Pei’s penchant for elegant solidity, it’s ironic that the project that nearly sank the firm was the Hancock Tower in Boston, a glass edifice so ethereal that clouds seem to glide right through it. Construction of the tower damaged nearby Trinity Church. Then the curtain wall began to crack, and for a while workers patched the broken windows with plywood panels, making the façade look diseased. Finally, an engineer discovered that a strong wind might knock the structure over, and it had to be reinforced with 1,650 extra tons of steel. Pei’s partner Henry Cobb had designed the building, and the tower opened in 1976 to become a Boston landmark, but notoriety clung to the firm.

A short description of cultural appropriation for non-believers by Rajeev Balasubramanyam:

1. Your new friends Bob and Rita come to lunch and you serve them idlis, like your grandmother used to make.

2. They love your south Indian cooking and ask for the recipe.

3. You never hear from Rita and Bob again.

4. You read in the Style section of the Guardian about Rita and Bob’s new Idli bar in Covent Garden… called ‘Idli.’

…

Ijeoma Oluo interviews Rachel Dolezal — the white woman who identifies as Black �� about race, and the encounter is a must-read:

I ask her some easy questions, but she answers them with increasing irritation. When we have been together for three hours, I feel it’s time to ask The Question.

  It’s the same question that other black interviewers have asked her. A question she seems to deeply dislike—so much so that she complains about the question in her book. But even in the book, it’s not a question she actually answers: How is her racial fluidity anything more than a function of her privilege as a white person?

  If Dolezal’s identity only helps other people born white become black while still shielding them from the majority of the oppression of visible blackness, and does nothing to help those born black become white—how is this not just more white privilege?

One Instagram account (@idontgiveaseat) documents the textiles on metros and subways around the world.

A thread by Rukmini Callimachi on what happens when a neighborhood is liberated from ISIS forces:

1. All over liberated areas of Mosul, 1 of the 1st things people are doing is painting over ISIS graffiti. Some are being artistic about it: http://pic.twitter.com/Rkmj9rZf4Z

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 15, 2017

The police in Iowa really took 420 seriously:

You've heard of speed traps? We have weed traps http://pic.twitter.com/TP7ir4qg1h

— IowaStateU Police (@ISUPD) April 20, 2017

Required Reading is published every Sunday morning ET, and is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.

The post Required Reading appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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