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weirdmageddon · 3 years

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five years too late let’s analyze this. the commentary has gotten me back into gravity falls reigniting thoughts and insights i came to years ago

i love everything about this commentary in general it hits the points of humor, genuine analysis of the characters, but most of all im so glad hirsch addressed that the droid not detecting any fear from dipper here doesnt make any scientific sense because that was a massive CinemaSins moment for me

IDK the fact that dipper can fucking stand after an airship crash because theres a bigger threat at hand is literally one of the defining capabilities owed to adrenaline lol...... IM SORRY im a biopsychology student if i dont point that out iwill seethe and die because that was just . its a grudge ive held for a long time about this episode but didnt rant about because it was something so minor and i’m sure nobody would care.

i was 13 when this episode came out and i’m almost 19 now, i had a special interest in biology and i still do but now i’m actually having college classes in biopsychology so i can give my arguments more oomph now. and i have to say, now that i know more about the brain and autonomic nervous system the more this scene bugs me, if that was even possible. and it says a lot of dipper and ford’s relationship.

if dipper clearly wasnt calm before, why would he be now just because he’s put up an outwardly confident facade? before he was in the flight but now hes in the fight. my boy just rode on top of a spaceship by nothing but a magnet gun that could detach at any time if it failed and then the ship crashed, he sustained injuries, is in emotional turmoil because he thinks his uncle is Fucking Dead and the threat of a security droid that detects adrenaline is on his tail and produces a Big Fucking Gun in response to dipper saying “i hAvE a MaGNeT gUn” and hes screaming and has his teeth clenched but sure there’s no adrenaline coursing through his body in that moment i can totally believe that

when dipper asks what happened, ford says “the orb didn’t detect any chemical signs of fear, it assumed the threat was neutralized and self-disassembled” but i don’t think measuring someone’s heartbeat alone is particularly relevant in detecting ... chemical signs of fear?? they dont really tell you this shit but noradrenaline (and maybe adrenaline too if the acetylcholine from sympathetic outflow always activates the adrenal medulla??, theres two pathways) is always active in small quantities to make sure your parasympathetic nervous system doesnt slow your heart to dangerous levels on its own, regardless of your emotions. it’s just a homeostatic mechanism. your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are CONSTANTLY modulating control of your organs on a see-saw, literally with every breath you take. simply standing upright causes specialized mechanoreceptor neurons in blood vessels to signal your brain to project signals to release catecholamines via the sympathetic nervous system to constrict your blood vessels so that blood is able to reach your brain and not pool in your legs. i have a deficiency in my body’s ability to adapt to this which is why i know so much about it. if i stand up my heart races to compensate. i’m not feeling fear, my body is just adjusting—albeit grossly and incompetently lol.

but what im saying here is that the security system is flawed. it’s a cool idea to have security droids detect fear, but in practice by detecting adrenaline, and not even directly by detecting the molecule itself—it’s done in a roundabout way by reading the heartbeat, could be a recipe for false alarms. like what if someone’s on beta-blockers. that’s not really an adequate way to measure “fear”; there’s so many variables that could interfere with the measurement the farther you abstract from what you’re really trying to detect. and besides, adrenaline is NOT just a sign of fear, it’s just for preparing the body for action. i know the sympathetic nervous system and adrenaline is constantly linked with the “fight-or-flight” reaponse to a stressor, but 99.9% of the time the sympathetic nervous system is used in your life is to balance out your parasympathetic nervous system to maintain homeostatic equilibrium for mundane things.

i think detecting amygdalar activation would be more efficient in detecting fear. the amygdala sends projections to the hypothalamus which then in turn modulates the autonomic nervous systems. but the amygdala is intensely activated specifically in response to a fear-inducing stimulus (it does activate in response to other emotions but they’re mostly negative and is most activated by startle and fear), and wouldnt be highly activated by many other confounding variables like measurement of the heartbeat could be. the amygala is one of the first stops directly from external stimuli.

to show you how integrated the amygdala is as the first step in registering fear after receiving input from sensory stimuli let’s look at the auditory-amygdala connection for example

see how the auditory thalamus projects to the primary auditory cortex and auditory association cortex? the cortex is where conscious awareness of what the stimuli is comes from. this is the “high road”. it goes sensing -> perception -> emotional response. but sometimes you can be startled without even processing what it is you’re sensing, like the startle response of an alarm or a phone ringing in a quiet house before you even register what it is. this goes sensing -> emotional response, without perception happening until after you’ve already felt the startle. that’s when it takes the “low road”. here’s a simplified version:

even if that were the case with these droids though it’s obvious dipper is still fearful on some level here. his body language, voice, expressions all give it away. for the amygdala, aggression isnt too off from fear so it would be detected equally.

the reason this is so important is because ford uses this as evidence for why dipper is special, “i did it?” “you did it. this is what i was talking about, how many 12 year olds do you think are capable of doing what you’ve just done?”

but like....did he really? i’m not saying this to shoot dipper down or make him out to be more of a wuss, he was incredibly strong-willed here and i dont want to take that away from him because it WAS growth on his part. but the underlying psychophysiological reactions of aggression and fear shouldn’t be that different and this was a total asspull. maybe the droid was so old that it fucked up. maybe dipper being covered in grime and dirt made it harder for the droid to measure the correct heart rate through photoplethysmography (im assuming since they use a camera and are non-contact).

and in all honesty everything i just said brings into question the interpersonal healthiness of ford’s judgements, what he thinks, his expectations, and how he communicates that. in this video alex already talks about how ford is projecting onto dipper. and i think ford may be projecting his expectations for himself onto people who are not him, and the fact that it’s on dipper here makes it far more unfortunate. you realize how much this boy idolizes ford, right? how much impressions matter? dipper even tells himself before he leaves in this same episode, “all right dipper, this is your first big mission with great uncle ford. don’t mess this up.”

even though it’s unstated, the implicit message dipper is perceiving from ford based on their dynamic is: “do you have what it takes for me to be proud of you?” and to accomplish this he must be like ford, even though he’s clearly not and he knows this. he says “i don’t think have what it takes. i was tricked by bill, i was wrong about stan’s portal, heck, i can’t even operate this magnet gun right.” then, by simple chance without even knowing what he did, he activates the magnet gun and pulls out the adhesive, which immediately takes the focus away from what dipper was telling ford about his feelings of inadequacy to ford saying, “yes! dipper, you found the adhesive!”

these thoughts of dipper’s hang in the air without resolve or comment from ford. we don’t know what ford would have said. but it then becomes painfully self-evident in the scene immediately after when the droids emerge and ford tells dipper, “they’re security droids and they detect adrenaline. you simply have to not feel any fear and they won’t see you”, to which dipper replies with an exasperated (and rightful) “WHAT?”

dipper goes in a panic trying to indirectly tell his uncle that this isn’t something he can do. and he is completely right and valid to be freaked out by that full stop. that IS crazy. you can’t control your fear. you can control how you interpret that fear in your higher brain regions but the physiological changes will stick around for longer than it takes to cognitively calm down. it’s easy for me to detach from my emotions to analyze them, but being able to do this does not come naturally for everyone. even i have an irrational fear of wasps and i can’t control it by detaching myself, my body is just automatically primed to get the fuck out of there. i know it’s stupid and i know it’s irrational and isn’t helpful to get myself worked up but i literally can’t stop how my body reacts no matter how i cognitively think about it. expecting composure from dipper in a situation like this when he’s being made to consciously be aware of his anxiety is absolutely fucking insane. look what you did, placing these cruel expectations on him, now he’s afraid of being afraid! this isn’t a case where two wrongs cancel out, they just stack on top of each other.

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there’s a good reason these scenes were put side by side but it seems up until now it had remained unanalyzed.

what dipper fears from ford is disappointment. not living up to his uncle’s (quite frankly badly placed) expectations for a twelve year old with anxiety. not once did ford say or subliminally communicate “i don’t expect you to be able to do what i can since you are not as experienced as i am and that’s perfectly okay, no judgements”. you don’t put a child on bike before training wheels. you don’t throw a kid into a swimming pool without giving them swimming lessons. the way ford is doing it, there’s no room for trial and error or mistakes that are an opportunity to grow and learn; instead, it’s life or death. he only seems to pride dipper on what he can do while ignoring the underlying struggles that plague him and never making it known it’s okay for dipper to fail in front of his hero and that he won’t think anything less of him for it.

and that’s why i found the ending scene for dipper and ford’s adventure in this episode to feel so.. wrong. on a scientific and social level. because by the sound of it ford focused more on what dipper had done to dismantle the droid (the droid not detecting any fear) instead of how dipper displayed love and protection for him even if he was truly afraid. what if the science was accurate and the droid detected adrenaline while dipper was confidently standing up for his uncle. would ford still be proud of him regardless?

#can you tell how i’m similar to ford but also so different like i said in that other post lol #gravity falls #analysis #dipper pines #stanford pines #long post #gf #gravity falls meta

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incomingalbatross · 3 years

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So, I was wondering, when it comes to your Greg Pines AU do you have any thoughts on how Wirt would relate to his step-family?

Ooh, thank you! This is a very good ask, especially since I’ve been thinking more about my version of the Pines Family Tree lately. :)

So I actually have two answers to this, dependent on my two variant ideas for this step-family’s origins. I will talk about BOTH, because I can’t choose...although that also makes this pretty long. Sorry.

Background: my background is a little complicated, because for timeline purposes I decided Wirt had to be the baby in that one AToTS shot. THEREFORE, I have decided that Shermie met Wirt and Greg’s mom (her placeholder name is Rachel and they had related jobs in NYC) when she was pregnant with Wirt, but Wirt’s father was already out of the picture because he was Not Good Parent Material. Shermie, though, A) really liked Rachel and B) thought she deserved support regardless, and so he offered said support and also got his mom to befriend Rachel. So Ma Pines happened to be taking care of Baby Wirt temporarily the night Stan was disowned.

Two scenarios branching off from here:

Scenario 1: Things didn’t work out between Rachel and Shermie, they parted ways, and she raised Wirt on her own...only to reconnect some years later when Wirt was seven or eight.

In this scenario, Wirt was at first pretty resentful of Shermie’s presence in their lives, and while he eventually accepted him for his mom’s sake, he assumed that Shermie was only tolerating him for his mom’s sake as well. Greg’s birth also gave Wirt some additional insecurities about his place in their family. HOWEVER, I think the events of OTGW canon got Wirt past some of this and led to growth in their relationship.

He’s met Ma and Filbrick, and they visit Shermie’s family, though Ma maintains contact more than Filbrick does. She treats Wirt and Greg pretty much equally as her grandchildren, but Wirt’s never gotten to know her very well, and is one of those kids who sees family visits as being Awkward and Uncomfortable anyway--he doesn’t like strangers in his home! It’s nerve-wracking! So he doesn’t dislike his step-grandparents, but he doesn’t like them either.

Scenario 2 (which doesn’t line up as well with the apparent Creator’s Intent for OTGW, but I like it): Things DO work out between Shermie and Rachel, they get married while Wirt is still tiny, and he grows up with that arrangement. In fact, by the time he’s a teenager Wirt is completely unaware Shermie is not his birth dad, and finds this out very abruptly shortly before the events of OTGW. His parents swear he used to know this! They didn’t realize he forgot! Wirt, meanwhile, maintains that he NEVER knew this and his life is a LIE...

Basically, this reframes OTGW as Wirt’s extended “What Do You MEAN I’m Adopted?” identity crisis, which entertains me.

Anyway, in this scenario Wirt loves Shermie as his dad and values his good opinion immensely, although he still sometimes feels his dad doesn’t Understand him (because, y’know, Wirt is highly self-conscious and Shermie doesn’t naturally talk about things like poetry and teen angst). After the Shocking Revelation, the “he can’t relate to me” angst is dialed up to about fifteen, along with a sizable helping of Betrayal and insecurity, and leads Wirt to decide that actually they don’t have a real relationship. Shermie is just trying to wait this storm out, basically...and then OTGW happens. Which actually helps a LOT, because A) Wirt acquires some perspective and B) again, Shermie is horrified to have nearly lost BOTH his sons and he shows it.

In this world Wirt knows the Pines parents as his grandparents all along. Ma still has more contact with the family (and Filbrick does not give Wirt and Greg equal treatment, but he’s a jerk all-round so Wirt just registers that as general disapproval of himself), and Wirt is still Awkward and Uncomfortable around them, but I think he’s more at ease with Ma in this one? Probably.

In either case, I’ve decided that Shermie reconnects with Stan not long after OTGW, in fall/winter of ‘83. Prior to this, Wirt was only vaguely aware that Shermie had siblings (Ford wasn’t in touch, Stan obviously wasn’t, and Shermie doesn’t know how to talk about them given all that baggage) and after...I think he eventually learns that there was another brother who died and that it’s too painful to ask anyone about, but that’s it.

After this, Stan doesn’t visit much, for Secret Portal Reasons, but he is happy to meet both boys and occasionally send them presents. Wirt is put off by his loudness and tendency to willfully embarrass others *coughWIRTcough*, so they have a rocky start, but things improve.

(When Wirt was a baby, Teen Stan ADORED him. He was the first baby he’d ever known personally and Stan thought he was just the greatest. He and Ford--who also thought Baby Wirt was amazing--babysat sometimes. There was some casual child endangerment but also Ford would tell him science facts in a Very Serious Voice and Stan would let the baby “punch” him and then dramatically reel back.

Eventually Stan will actually tell Wirt enough of this to get them past the aforementioned rocky start.)

In the end, Wirt probably thinks of Stan as the eccentric relative (which takes doing in this family, admittedly!) whose life was marred by tragedy but who’s still family. They’re not in close contact once Wirt’s an adult but if he ever heard Stan was in trouble, I think he’d step up.

...I feel like there’s a lot more that could be said about Wirt’s relationships here, and I’m not 100% sure of all my conclusions, but it’s what I’ve got tonight. Thank you for asking! Although this may be More Words than you signed up for. :P

#Brain is tired tonight and doesn't want to shorten anything #so this is a long answer #but also i was just happy for the excuse to ramble about the Greg Pines family!#and i put some more thought into parts of this than i had before which is neat #...full disclosure: the shermie/rachel backstory is kind of lifted from some of my extended family's lore #because i really liked that story when i heard it #it's Wholesome #greg pines #pines family #asks #awesomebutunpractical #gravity falls #shermie pines

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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AND YOU KNOW WHO GOT THEM

Smaller companies were increasingly able to survive as formerly narrow channels to consumers broadened. They seem to like us too.1 That gets you James Bond, who knows what to do in situations where few others could. What about the more theoretical question of whether hockey would be a bad sign if they weren't; it would be false. And partly a larger part than he would admit that he doesn't want to see.2 The problem is, a lot of the problems change. On the other hand, history is even fuller of examples of parents who thought their kids were wasting their time and who were right. Why didn't Henry Ford realize that networks of cooperating companies work better than a single big company? If you want to slow down, your instinct is to lean back.3

Meetings are like an opiate with a network effect. My guess is that a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for fun, and mostly it wasn't. It turns out I have a lot of time on bullshit things or lose to people who do. I get nothing done, because I'm doing stuff that seems, superficially, like real work. In most fields, prototypes have traditionally been made out of different materials. Now a lot of something. The one example I've found is, embarrassingly enough, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all got started. Nor did they work for big companies not even to try to solve problems and simply not discount weird hunches you have in the process. If you want to prepare yourself to start a startup, the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. A physicist friend recently told me half his department was on Prozac. As with gangs, we have some idea what your prospects might be if you tried to keep someone in as protected an environment as a newborn till age 18.4

Aggregators show how much better you can do to help: Avoid distractions. In short, the disasters this summer were just the usual childhood diseases. And it does seem as if Google was a collaboration. The reason this struck me so forcibly is that for most of what happened in finance too. Buildings to be constructed from stone were tested on a smaller scale in wood. One might worry this would prevent people from expressing controversial ideas, but a leading indicator.5 To some extent this was because the companies themselves had become sclerotic.6 How can you tell if you're up to it, the only way to get an accurate drawing is not to spend it having fun, you know you're being self-indulgent. Advising people and writing are fundamentally different types of problems—wisdom to human problems and intelligence to abstract ones. In fact, we were surprised how much time I spent making introductions. What a solitary task startups are.

Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today. It will take more experience to know for sure, but my guess is that a lot of time on them have to be learned, and are sometimes fairly counterintuitive. Having coffee with a friend matters. Notice I said what they need, not what they want. Palm and RIM haven't a hope. You can see it in old photos. They want to get rich. As one of the things startups do right without realizing it.

Developments in finance, communications, transportation, and manufacturing enabled a new type of company whose goal was above all scale. That form of fragmentation, like the chemical elements. That way we can avoid being discontented about being discontented. And that means other questions aren't. I began with, that it doesn't matter much; it will change anyway. And we have to tell them the best way to begin may not be to write a prototype that solves a subset of a bigger problem you're trying to solve: how to have a remedial character. So by studying the intended users include the designer himself.7 I finally figured out something I've wondered about for 25 years: the relationship between wisdom and intelligence. This article is derived from a keynote talk at the fall 2002 meeting of NEPLS. But you yourself are the most important things to remember about divorce, one of which is: You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault. In 1995, writing software for end users was effectively identical with writing Windows applications. Once an essay has had a couple thousand page views I feel reasonably confident about it.

You won't feel later like that was a waste of time. Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to private schools or wished they did started to dress preppy, and kids who wanted to seem rebellious made a conscious effort to think of startup ideas, the ideas you come up with will not merely be bad, but bad specifically in the sense of not having gone to the college you'd have liked is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. Within Y Combinator, which is more than they paid him. What was really happening was de-oligopolization. I mean business can learn from open source: that people working for money, but also everyone who aspired to it—which in the middle of the century our two big forces intersect, in the now pointless secrecy of the Masons. At the very least we have to go pretty far down the list of colleges before you stop finding smart professors in the math department. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only have to keep the peace. Good new ideas come from earnest, energetic, and independent-minded. If the world were static, we could just program in machine language. The reason, I realized, more from internal evidence than any outside source, that the ideas we were being fed on TV were crap, and I am self-indulgent in the sense of being an insider. If you want to start startups hope universities can teach them about startups if they were merely hiring people.8 100,000 people worked there.

Notes

The other reason they pay a lot of the whole fund.

The amusing thing is, it would have seemed to Aristotle the core: the resources they expend on the Daddy Model and reality is the kind that prevents you from starving.

Joe Gebbia needed Airbnb? It's lame that VCs play such games, books, newspapers, or pigs, to the environment. You may not have raised money at first had two parts: the energy they emit encourages other ambitious people together. The mere possibility of being absorbed by the size of the current edition, which are a small proportion of spam, but all they demand from art is brand, and so don't deserve to keep the next round.

How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an industrialized country encounters the idea of getting rich, purely mercenary founders will seem as if having good intentions were enough to absorb that. So the cost can be times when what you're doing. Investors are fine with funding nerds. In a country with a potential acquirer unless you want to know about a week for 19 years, it becomes an advantage to be about 50%.

Believe me, I should add that none who read this to be very promising, because a part has come unscrewed, you have to do that. Mueller, Friedrich M. Ideas are one of the world. As well as good ones don't even try.

Few technologies have one clear inventor. I paint someone's house, the best new startups.

With the good groups, you have to want to create a silicon valley in Israel. For example, if you don't, you're using a degenerate case of Bayes' Rule.

The continuing popularity of religion is the odds are slightly more interesting than later ones, it will seem like noise. I'm talking here about which is something inexperienced founders. Letter to Ottoline Morrell, December 1912.

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overheardatthecontinental · 5 years

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Prompt: Helen takes a bullet meant for John

This is a prompt I got about a week or so ago from @iwonthesitatebih. Sorry for the delay but here it is:

She was always stunning, John thought, watching as Helen kicked off her shoes. But there was something damn special about the way she lit up with her feet in the sand and the sun shining on her face. She glowed.

And it didn’t hurt that her sundress was cut high on her thighs or that the sleeves slipped alluringly off her shoulders. Her dark hair twisted in the wind as John watched her from the deck of the cottage.

It was surreal. She was surreal.

He didn’t date. He didn’t do relationships or have one night stands with strangers. And he didn’t have any real friends, let alone ones with benefits. And he had never intended on it.

But Helen Kingston had captivated him from the moment he laid eyes on her. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. John knew plenty of beautiful women. No, Helen Kingston was so much more than beautiful. It was her kindness that had piqued his interest and her genuine heart that had fucked with his head over and over.

He didn’t deserve her.

But there she was: dipping her toes into the water while he watched, sipping at his morning coffee.

It had only been two months but those two months had more meaning than the rest of his miserable life combined.

She turns back to look at the house, pushing her hair back over her shoulder.

Helen smiles up at John and crooks her finger.

How can he resist?

John sets down the coffee and walks down the steps to the beach. It was official. He was going to buy the damn cottage. It wasn’t for sale but that didn’t matter. He would call the man who was renting it and make an offer. It wouldn’t be turned down.

Anything to keep that smile on her face. She looked so relaxed, far away from work, far away from the city. She would never quit her job. She did too much good but he wouldn’t stop reminding her that the world was hers.

He crosses the beach down to the water in suit pants and a crisp white button down. He only had suits and clothes for working out. Helen teased him about it sometimes but, truthfully, John had never had the need for something casual before. He had never really been shopping outside of a tailor. Helen would love it, though. Taking him to the mall, finding sweaters and casual shirts for him to relax in. That was enough to make John almost want to interact with people.

“Hey you.” She says as he approaches, a small smile on her face.

John says nothing, stalking toward her in a way that had her licking her lips.

He reaches for her face and kisses her softly yet soundly. The waves crash on the shore, the wind stirring up the sand and their hair but nothing is as loud as his own heart beating.

Helen nips at his lower lip as he pulls away. "I love you."

"I love you too." John says, still in awe that the words flow so easily off his tongue. There is no one like her. "Here is the plan."

"What's the plan?" She rests her head on his chest, staring out at the sea. The sailboats on the horizon cut easily through the waters.

"You're going to quit your job."

"Am I?"

"You are." He can feel her smile. "I'm going to leave mine and you and I are going to run away."

She hums, "where to?"

"Somewhere warm. Thailand. Belize. Somewhere with white sand, clear blue waters. We'll burn all your clothes and you can live in a bikini."

Helen snorts, "oh no."

"Oh yes." John presses a kiss to the top of her head, "We'll get a quiet, private residence and no one will find us. We'll spend every day on the beach. We'll read and relax and make love."

"Just us."

"Just us. Forever."

Helen looks up, "That sounds wonderful."

It really did, John thought. But near impossible.

Helen stepped back and out of his arms, hand gliding down so that she can link their fingers together. "In the meantime, we have right now."

"That we do." John agrees, stepping with her as she starts to traverse across the beach.

She is so serene. The calm in his storm.

Helen Kingston- she is good and kind and pure and makes him want to be a better person. It's too late for redemption and he knows that, but she has accepted him with all his flaws. Her hand was intertwined with his despite knowing what he did with those hands when she was away. She slept in his arms every night. The monster wasn't under her bed… he was in it.

"You know I would never quit my job." Helen says conversationally.

"I know." It was part of what he loved about her- the dedication to the kids she worked with.

"Days like today make me want to."

John stops, spinning her in front of him so he can hold both her hands, facing her.

"Move in with me." Its neither an order nor a question. He's not sure what it is but it feels like a plea.

She smiles softly, "it's been two months, John. What happens when you get tired of me?"

"Never going to happen. If anything, this is insurance that you won't leave me."

She reaches up and runs a hand down his beard. "Why are you so sure I'm going to leave you?"

John feels unnaturally heavy. His stomach and heart sink because, damn him, he is not enough.

"Because you're smart. You're going to figure out that I'm no good. That you can do better."

"I don't want good. And I don't want better, John. I just want you."

Her eyes narrow suddenly, her lips parting and she starts to shout, “John, get--!”

Suddenly she is launched forward, crashing into him. Behind her, far from the shore, is a boat. A sniper rifle peaks out from the side and John throws both himself and Helen to the ground, rolling on top of her to cover her body with his.

Her eyes are wide, breathing frantic. A quick look down reveals his worst fear. Dark red blooms from her abdomen, staining her dress.

"Hey, hey," John places his hands on either side of her face as another shot fires just over their heads, "stay with me, baby!"

He is unarmed, save a small knife. They are sitting ducks in the sand and he can feel her blood soak through his shirt.

He takes her hands and places them over the wound, "keep pressure, okay? I'm going to get you out of here."

She nods shakily, her eyes so trusting even as her face contorts in pain. His arms wrap around her and he moves to his feet, swinging her up while still shielding her with his body.

The adrenaline is pumping through his system. He'd been in a thousand fights before but nothing had ever filled him with terror as moving across the beach, trying to run off center but still as quickly as possible to the cover of the brush.

He hears a motor and it sounds like the boat is driving away but he can't look. He can't risk slowing yet.

He jumps down into the brush, laying Helen behind a log within the reeds.

Looking up, the boat has disappeared. But that didn't guarantee they were alone.

The shot went through her abdomen. He rips his shirt off, not giving a damn about the buttons that fly in every direction as he rolls it and pushes it against her wound.

Her head lolls back. "Come on, Helen. Stay with me!"

John reaches into his pocket for his phone. He's never called 911 before. He's never needed to but he can't wait for the doc to drive from New York.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Woman shot. It went through her abdomen. It was some kind of rifle, a few hundred feet out." He rattles off the address.

"J-John?" Helen's face is layered with sweat.

"I'm here, baby."

"Is the shooter still out there?" The operator asks.

"No. They rode off."

"The ambulance is on its way and police have been dispatched."

He does wait for her to finish, hanging up the call and dropping the phone to the ground.

"I'm cold." Helen whispers.

"I know, baby, I know. Help is coming."

"Always hurt this bad?" She says through grit teeth. "How do you do it?"

"Oh you know…" John keeps the pressure on the wound, trying not to let the fear in his heart reach his face. "Practice, practice, practice."

She tries to smile but the pain is overwhelming. Her eyes start to close.

"No, no, no. Helen!" He says her name sharply and her eyes open. "I need you to stay with me."

"Want to sleep." It's almost a sob and John fights the urge to match her.

"I know. But you gotta stay awake, baby. Gotta stay with me until help gets here."

Where were the damn sirens?

"Trying…" He sees her hands shaking on either side of her. The color has drained of her face and he doesn't know what to do.

"Tell me something."

"What?"

"Anything." She needs to stay conscious. "Tell me anything. Something you've never told me."

Helen nods and exhales shakily, "Okay. I fucking hate your convertible."

John blinks in surprise. Of all the things she could say… say wasn't exactly news but she had never admitted to it aloud.

"It's not safe. It's too flashy."

"What else?" He asks, a smile on his face.

" Its grossly cramped and there's no bo back seat to fuck in."

"Make you a deal. I'll get a new car if you let me buy you one too."

"John," she whimpers but keeps a brave face despite the pain, "I was just shot. This is coercion."

"That Chevrolet is going to fall apart on you."

"Be nice. Chevy is the great American car."

Her eyes start to flicker and John pats her cheek, "stay with me, Hel. We both know Ford is better."

Her eyes close and John slaps her just a bit harder, heart clenching as he did.

"Bitch." She mutters, eyes opening as she trembled.

He could hear the sirens now. They were getting louder by the instant

"Come on, tell me something else."

"What you want to know?"

"Something new. Something I wouldn't guess this time."

She nods, "if I live,"

"You will."

She had to. There was no other alternative.

"I'm going to marry the fuck out of you, John Wick."

The last thing she saw, as the world went dark, was John's face agape in shock.

Helen had been rushed from the ambulance into surgery and John's only assurance had come from a paramedic promising him that the doctors would do all that they could. His hands shake. John couldn't remember a time in his life where his hands had shaken.

His stomach turns and it takes all his self-control not to lose the contents of his stomach in the nearby trash can.

He takes his cell out from his pocket. It is stained with her blood. Trying to ignore the way it feels under his fingertips, he dials a familiar pattern.

The ringing stops as the receiver is picked up. Before they can speak, John says, "Helen was shot."

Silence.

"Is she alive?" Marcus asks finally.

"In surgery."

More silence.

Marcus had told him, had warned him. John hadn't listened.

"Where was she shot?"

"Abdomen." He leans back in the chair, "it was meant for me."

"Well, I doubt anyone would go to shoot Helen for the fun of it."

John ignores the stinging remark. “I’m at the hospital now. Can you find out if anyone has a hit on me? I need to know where it’s coming from and I need to know who has been hired.”

“It isn’t open. I would have heard if it was. But I’ll head to the Continental. See if I can find out anything.” There is a moment of silence, “Aside from me, does anyone know about Helen? Winston? The Concierge or the Executor?”

“The Executor but he hasn’t met her.”

"Of course. You know, depending on who they sent, its very possible that half of the underworld knows about Helen by now."

Fuck, he wanted to vomit.

He had tried so hard to protect her. To keep her secret from his world. Marcus was right. He should have known better.

"Please, just do what you can."

"Just focus on her. I’ll take care of everything on this end.”

And Marcus is gone, the line dropped.

John sits down in a chair and watches the clock tick on and on.

She'll live, the doctor tells him and John breaths again. His heart stutters in relief as he receives the rundown of her procedure.

He barely listens, "I need to see her."

"Of course. She is, still, unconscious but I can take you back."

John nods and follows back to the recovery room. She is still pale but her vitals look good. He caresses her face lightly, her earlier words still echoing in his head.

His beautiful, crazy girl was lying in a hospital bed because his enemies found them.

He hadn’t protected her and she had taken a bullet meant for him.

Gladly, John would have taken it if it meant she did not lay in front of him.

John reaches for her hand. It is limp but warm and he holds it between his. Marcus had been right. There was no way to pull Helen into their world and still keep her safe. But he could not let her go, even if he wanted to.

Helen startles awake and blinks in the sharp white light of the hospital room.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” John’s voice soothes, hand tightening in her own while his other reaches up and rests on her forehead. “You’re okay.”

She blinks again, “Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

John lets himself laugh, softly. His heart still heavy with the thought he came so close to losing her. But she was there. In front of him. Alive.

Helen looks him over. “Are you okay?”

“I think I’m supposed to be asking that question.”

Helen stays quiet, looking at him seriously.

“I’ve never been so afraid in my life.” He confesses, his hand sweeping back into her hair. “God, Helen…”

“I’m okay.” She whispers, squeezing his hand in hers. “I’m here.”

John releases the support on the bed and moves to sit on the edge, beside her. “Why didn’t you duck? Why didn’t you move when you saw the target?”

“It would have hit you.”

“One more wouldn’t have killed me.”

“It might’ve.”

“It might’ve killed you!” Did she not understand? He couldn’t yell at her, not while she was in a hospital bed but she had to understand. “My life doesn’t matter. I will gladly take a thousand bullets if it keeps you safe.”

“Your life matters to me, John.”

She had said ‘I love you’ fairly early on. He believed her every time she said it. He knew she cared, he knew he mattered but there was no one else who cared for him or about him as she did. All his faults lay at her feet and rather than step on him, she had knelt down and held him.

Nothing scared him more.

Except perhaps the words she had said in what very well could have been her last sentiment.

“It’s not worth yours.” He says finally, “If something happened to you, what would I be? You blow into my life and I don’t recognize the man I was two months ago. I don’t want to think about how empty I was before I found you. Before you, I was just a shell. What would you expect me to become if you died?”

Helen reaches up, her eyes so soft and open and so not like anything he was used to. She runs her hair up his beard and around back to his hair. “I would expect you to be the man I fell in love with.” She pulls his head and John obliges, bending forward to kiss her softly. Her lips are chapped from the anesthesia but neither care.

Only hours ago, he didn’t know if he would ever be able to kiss her again.

“I love you.” She says quietly, whispering against his lips. There’s a pause as Helen pulls back, just far enough to look at him. “And I meant what I said on the beach.”

John swallows, not meeting her eyes. “I can get a new car.”

“After that.”

He feels his lips twitch up softly, “The part about me being a bitch?”

“After that.” Helen smiles at him, “Although I won’t dispute that you’re a bitch sometimes.” She wraps her arm around his neck, wincing slightly at the way her body stretches, “When I get out of here, I am going to marry you, John Wick.”

John feels his hands shake. He’s not sure they’ve done that before. “Aren’t I supposed to ask you that?

“Our relationship is built off of me telling you what to do.” Helen flashes him a smile, “Besides, you were taking too long.”

“I have it on good authority you aren’t supposed to propose marriage after two months.”

“Nor are you supposed to propose moving in together but you did that this morning.”

“You still have an out, moving in with me. Once we’re married, you’re stuck with me forever.” And damn him, he’s considering it. She’s already dragged into his world. The wound in her stomach is proof enough of that but to put his ring on her finger, to put his name at the end of hers? “I won’t let you go.”

“I think I’ve established that I’m serious about you,” Helen tells him, eyes flicking down to her abdomen. “I have no intention of going anywhere. Aside from the courthouse.”

“You have to move in with me.” John feels a smile creep onto his face as he strokes her face.

“A given.”

“And I’m buying you a new car.”

Helen rolls her eyes, “Fine.”

“And a beach house.” It might be his best and only opportunity to negotiate.

“Now you’re pushing it.”

John surges forward and kisses her again. She’s here, in his arms. And she is going to be okay. Marcus had told him he was going to take care of it and John was going to let him. He had more important things to attend to, starting with his fiancee.

#helen wick #John Wick #incorrect john wick #overheard at the continental #john wick fanfic #one shot #john wick one shot #helen x john wick #john x helen wick

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tallglassofsweetpea · 6 years

Text

Little Darlin’ : Chapter Four

Sweet Pea x OC, 1950′s AU

Warnings: abusive relationship, smoking, underage drinking, 😘😘

(violence, sexual content/smut in later chapters)

AN: I’ve FINALLY finished this damn chapter! Thank you all for being patient and for your support. I think i’ve figured out where I want this story to go?? I’ve been having a tough time figuring it out because i have waaaaaay too many ideas floating around in my head. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. As always, Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas or suggestions, my ask is open!

masterlist can be found on my blog!

BTW: I’m on Thanksgiving break this week so pls feel free to send in requests!!!

Chapter Four: A Teenager’s Romance

“YOU HAD YOUR FIRST KISS!?!?!!”

Lily giggled into her pillow, her and Trish finally had a night to themselves and Lily spilled the beans about her night with Sweet Pea. Trish sat on the opposite end of Lily’s bed criss-cross-applesauce listening intently.

“Well…? How was it? I bet he’s a really good kisser.”

“It was…sweet.” Lily replayed the moment in her head for probably the millionth time.

“He must really like you, Lil’. I’m so happy for you!” She beamed at her friend. She loved seeing her like this, there was a new side of Lily that she hadn’t seen before Sweet Pea.

“So how’s everything going with Fangs?”

Trish sighed in contentment, her shoulders relaxing. “Lily he is just the most! I’ve never laughed so hard with anyone in my entire life, and he’s such a dreamboat. He makes me feel…special. And you know what?” Lily peered up at her expectantly, a small smile on her lips. “I think I’m in love!” Trish giggled, playfully outstretching her arms to the sky. The short sleeve of her silk pajama top slid up with the movement, revealing the skin up to her shoulder.

Lily noticed a couple of bruises on the newly exposed skin of her upper arm, it looked like someone had roughly grabbed her. “Trish? What is this from? Are you okay?”

Trish looked to her shoulder and immediately pulled her sleeve back down to cover it. “Oh, that? It’s nothing really.” She laughed it off, but Lily was far from convinced that it was “nothing”.

“I’ve just been such a klutz lately.”

“Trish...”

“Really Lily, I’m fine. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Archie must have suspected something was going on with Trish. Lily knew he had a temper, the two of them would get into arguments all of the time, but things had become physical recently.

Trish was quick to change the subject. “In other news, a little birdie told me you’re going on a date with Sweet Pea on Friday?”

Lily had been thinking about it since the night he asked to see her again. She’d get the jitters every time she would think about it. Her first real date. She’d wished she could have told her mom all about it like most girls could, but if she found out she was going out with a Serpent she would have her head on a stake.

“Yeah, I’m sort of nervous. I’ve never been on a real date before.”

“It’ll be incredible. Plus, me and Fangs might meet up with you guys at the drive-in, so I’ll be there for moral support.”

“I’m just worried. Maybe he doesn’t really like me and he’s just looking for a quick hookup or something? Do you think maybe I shouldn’t have kissed him?”

Trish shook her head. “Lil’ you’re completely overthinking it. It’s obvious that he likes you, and according to Fangs he’s never like this with most girls.”

Lily nodded her head, it was comforting to hear that. “I sure hope you’re right.”

It was now 5 minutes past 6 and Sweet Pea was nowhere to be seen. Her parents had their weekly game night with the Keller’s. Lily sat at the kitchen table, nervously fiddling with the gold cross around her neck. Though it had only been 5 minutes past the time he said he’d be there, she already began filling her head with doubt. Maybe he didn’t really like her? Did she scare him off by telling him her father was a holy man? Had she wasted her first kiss on some guy that would never talk to her again? She felt so silly, she never should have let her guard down like that. It was entirely unlike her.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. Lily stood up from her chair collecting her small white clutch and raced to the front door, stopping by the full length mirror that hung in the hall to check her hair that she wore down in soft blonde waves. She decided to go for her usual minimal makeup look, just a bit of soft pink blush and mascara to accentuate her green eyes. She wore a pale pink floral dress and a pair of saddle shoes. She was ready. She took a deep breath and opened the front door, there he stood towering over her. He was dressed in his usual attire, Serpent jacket, white tee and black jeans. He was holding something behind his back.

“Hey”

“Hey yourself.” His eyes ran over her petite figure. He couldn’t believe how good she looked. She looked almost angelic. Lily was different from the other girls he had gone with in the past. Pea also wasn’t usually one to go for shorter girls. But he couldn’t deny the fact that he loved the way he towered over her.

Lily felt self conscious under his gaze. Did she do too much? She knew they were only going to Pop’s and then to the drive-in, but she had wanted to look nice. But the way Sweet Pea was looking at her in that moment made her second guess herself.

“Hey, I uh. Ehem” He cleared his throat. “I got you something.” He pulled his hand out from behind his back to reveal a small bouquet of ivory white flowers.

“They’re lilies, you know…Like your name. That’s what the guy at the-uh place said anyways. I dunno, it’s kind of lame…It was Toni’s ide-“

Lily walked up to the blabbering Serpent and planted a soft kiss to his cheek to shut him up. She accepted the bouquet that he held out to her, the sweet aroma of the flowers filling her senses.

“I love them, thank you Sweet Pea.”

He smiled down at her, nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders. “No problem, they were all my idea.”

Lily couldn’t help but roll her eyes, she locked the door behind her as they started toward the driveway. There was no sign of Sweet Pea’s truck. But there was a shiny black Ford De Luxe in near perfect condition. The paint glistened in the moonlight.

“This is a bit of an upgrade from the truck. Is it new?”

“Sorta, me and Jug have been fixing her up for a couple of months. We’re gonna race it down by Sweetwater River.”

“You race cars?”

“Sometimes just for fun, sometimes for pinks.”

“Well, she’s beautiful.”

Sweet Pea watched as Lily’s dainty finger glided over the smooth black exterior of the Ford De Luxe. If her face was anything to go by, she seemed impressed. He lifted his lips into a smirk, “She sure is.”

Lily looked up at him, realizing he was watching her. She looked down at her feet, smiling.

It was a Friday night, and Pop’s was in full swing. Sweet Pea and Lily walked in and spotted a booth in the back left corner and made a run for it before it was taken. They slid into their seats on opposite sides of the booth. A pretty blonde waitress skated over, her hair was tucked back in a high ponytail and she greeted them with a friendly smile. Lily recognized her as Betty Cooper. She lived the next street over from her, they had taken a few classes together. She was a very sweet, very smart girl.

“Lily! How are you? How’s your summer so far?”

“Hi, Betty!” She then noticed Sweet Pea on the opposite side of the booth.

“Hey Sweet Pea, how’ve you been?”

“Not too bad. Could we just get a couple of shakes? One chocolate and….” Sweet Pea looked over at Lily and then back to Betty “One vanilla.”

“Two shakes; one chocolate, one vanilla. You got it.” She flashed them a smile and skated back to the counter to put in their order.

“She’s a real nice girl, I’ve had a few classes with her.”

“Betty? Yeah, she stops by the Wyrm every once in awhile to see Jones. Turns out she’s one hell of a mechanic, she’s helped us out at the garage a few times.”

“I didn’t even know they were an item until I saw them at the Wyrm last week.”

“Yeah, most Northsiders don’t want people knowing they’re hanging around with Serpents. They’re keeping it low-key.”

A few minutes passed when Betty brought over their shakes and placed them on the table with the check. “There you guys are!” They both thanked her and dove into their shakes.

“Mmm, this is delicious. How’d you know vanilla was my favorite?” Lily questioned.

Sweet Pea shrugged, a smile threatening to break out. “Lucky guess.”

Sweet Pea watched her take a sip from her straw, she had a bit of whipped cream just below her bottom lip. Sweet Pea reached over and ran his thumb over the spot, lingering a bit over the bottom curve of her lip. The two locked eyes, and her stomach did a little flip.

Once they finished their shakes and payed the bill, the two hopped back in the car and made their way over to the drive in to meet up with Trish and Fangs. Cars littered the parking lot, mostly packed with teenagers and their dates. Lily’s father often warned her of the “dangers of the drive-in”. He claimed it was nothing but a hot spot for kids to meet up and do “unholy things.” Lily wasn’t entirely naive, she knew a lot of guys would bring girls there to make out, sometimes even more. Regardless, she genuinely liked the drive-in, Trish and her and been going there together for years. Some of their best memories took place there.

Sweet Pea spotted Fangs standing outside his car having a smoke. He pulled into the parking space next to him and rolled down his window to talk.

Fangs’ eyes lit up, roaming over the body of the fixed up car. “WOAH! Check her out!” Fangs circled around it, leaning in to check out the details. “We’re gonna kick those Ghoulies asses down at Sweetwater, in style.” Fangs had a wide, child-like grin on his face.

“She cleaned up pretty nice huh?”

“Hell yeah. I hardly even recognized the ole hunk of junk” He turned to Sweet Pea, he looked as though he had an epiphany. “SP, this car could be make-out city!”

Lily leaned forward and interrupted.“Hi Fangs.”

“Oh-uh. Hey Lily!” He said rather clumsily, “Didn’t see ya there.” Sweet Pea let out a deep sigh.

“Hey, Where’s Trish?”

“Turns out she’s not coming, said she had a “last minute commitment” or somethin’. I dunno. Figured I’d come check out the scene anyway.” That immediately worried Lily, she hoped everything was okay with Trish. It was unlike her to miss night out with Fangs. “Hey you guys want anything? I’m gonna hit the snack bar.”

“Nah, I’m cool man. Lily? Want anything?”

“Could you please grab me a bottle of coke?”

Fangs nodded. “You got it!” and strolled over to the snack bar, combing his hair back on the way over.

Lily watched as Sweat Pea took out a cigarette and brought it to his lips. He looked down at Lily and raised his eyebrows, “You want one?”

“Me? Oh, no. I’ve never smoked before.”

Sweet Pea gave her an amused look, “Ya don’t say?” He chuckled and blew out a cloud of smoke.

“You look really beautiful by the way. I don’t know if I already told you that.”

Lily blushed, “Thanks, you don’t look half bad yourself.”

“Glad you think so, darlin’.” Sweet Pea smiled, puffing on his cigarette. Lily watched as the smoke billowed out of the drivers side window.

“Hey Pea?”

“Hmm?”

“I had a really good time with you last weekend. I can’t thank you enough for inviting me.”

“Anytime you want to have some fun just let me know.”

“And thank you for the-“ She laughed nervously. “Well, you know.” She felt the heat crawl up to her cheeks.

“The kiss?” He looked at her, amused. He loved how shy she was, he found it very endearing.

“Yea, the kiss. It was…nice.”

“Well, kitten. There’s plenty more where that one came from.” Sweet Pea winked at the blonde, whose cheeks had since grown pink. The opening credits began, Sweet Pea tossed his cigarette out the window snaked his arm around Lily’s shoulders. She let her body sink into him. She smiled up at him and they locked eyes. Sweet Pea leaned his head in closer to the small blonde. His lips hovered just above hers when the back door to the car flung open, Fangs hopped in the back seat and slammed the door shut with a loud exhale. Sweet Pea pulled his head back and leaned back against his headrest. He closed his eyes in annoyance. If there was one thing that Sweet Pea hated Fangs for, it was his impeccable timing. Fangs extended his arm out between the two, a bottle of coke in his hand. “One pop for the missus.” Lily let out a soft laugh, taking the drink from his hand. “Thank you, Fangs.”

“No problem, toots.” Fangs sunk back in his seat, making himself comfortable as he shoveled a handful of buttery popcorn into his mouth. “Did I miss anything?” Sweet Pea rolled his eyes, glaring at his friend in the rearview mirror. “OOOO! I love the opening credits! It’s the one with the little dancing popcorn guy, I love it!” Fangs let out a laugh and began singing along with the music. “Let’s all go to the mooooovies! Let’s all go to the mooooooovies! Let’s all go to the mooooooviiiiiiiiiiii-UNH!” Sweet Pea had turned around and grabbed his friend by the collar of his leather jacket. Lily sat there, eyes glued to the screen trying to hold back her laughter.

“HEY- whats it to ya?!”

“Hit the pavement, Fogarty.”

“Oh come on SP, you’re not gonna make me watch the movie all by myself are ya?”

Sweet Pea nudged his head toward Lily, his eyebrows raising. Sweet Pea swore he watched the gears slowly begin to turn in Fangs’ head.

“OH. Oh, yeah. I’ll just catch up with you guys later then. Enjoy the movie.”

Fangs opened up the door, and sauntered away from the car with his bucket of popcorn.

“Sorry about him, he’s a pain in my ass.”

“No, thats okay. I think he’s rather funny.”

“Oh yeah, a regular Moe Howard.” Sweet Pea scoffed, he replaced his arm around Lily’s shoulders and continued watching the movie. Throughout the film, the pair took turns stealing glances at one another. Sweet Pea lightly caressed her shoulder, the small contact sending a shiver down her spine. Lily looked over to him.

“Do you like the movie? You seem distracted.”

“Oh, yeah. The movie’s great. I’ve just been thinking…”

“…About?” Lily looked at him curiously.

“This.” Sweet Pea placed his hand under her chin, guiding her lips to his. He placed a firm kiss against her lips and pulled back. Lily looked up at him under her lashes and pulled him closer to her, their lips connecting again. They moved against each other a little more than before. Lily’s fingers held tightly to the lapels of his leather jacket. Sweet Pea ran his tongue over her bottom lip and she let out a small gasp just as Sweet Pea slid his tongue between her lips. She let her tongue gently caress against his. She had never understood what could be so great about someones tongue in your mouth, it seemed disgusting. Although at first it caught her off-guard, but then she thought it was kind of nice. Different, but nice. She suddenly felt an unfamiliar ache deep down, an ache for something more. She let her fingers become tangled in his dark hair as Sweet Pea pulled her body closer to his. He let one hand slowly slide down her subtle curves and down to her waist. She involuntarily moved her body a little closer to his. She seemed like she was into it, so he dared to venture his hand a little further down her side past the curve of her hip and stopped at her knee. Lily let out a small sigh into his mouth. She had never felt as good a she did in that moment, yet she somehow wanted more. She wasn’t sure what “more” was exactly, but she yearned for it. Sweet Pea gently rubbed his thumb against the side of her knee and slowly started to creep up her leg, his fingers sliding just past the hem of her cotton dress and pushing the fabric up her soft thigh.

Lily jerked back. “Sweet Pea!” Lily said with a gasp, smoothing out her skirt and protectively wrapping her arms around herself. She was shocked. Mostly in shock of herself for letting things escalate so quickly, but also how her body hadn’t wanted him to stop.

“Sorry, I got carried away.” Sweet Pea looked at her apologetically, letting out a deep sigh. Sweet Pea really wasn’t used to taking things slow, he was used to drunken one night stands. He knew things with Lily would be different, she just wasn’t that type.

“I’m sorry. I’m just not used to this.” She admitted to him bashfully.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not gonna force you to do anything.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “I’ll try to slow down.”

She thought it was sweet of him. Although admittedly, she wasn’t sure that she wanted him to slow down. Especially after that. “Thank you, you’re a real gentleman.”

“That’s a first. “ Sweet Pea gave her a small smile, what in the hell was he doing? He’d only hung out with this chick a handful of times and it was as though she had cast a spell on him.

His thoughts were interrupted by a second gasp from Lily. He looked over to the girl to see her ducked down in the passenger seat.

“You okay, blondie? What’s with the freak out?”

Lily looked over at him with worried eyes. “It’s Trish!”

“I thought Fangs said she wasn’t coming? What are you hiding for?”

“She’s here with Archie.”

Sweet pea looked out the windshield of the car and low and behold, there stood Archie Andrews with his arm around the leggy redhead. They were talking with Moose Mason and Midge Klump. “Ah, shit.” Sweet Pea hoped Fangs wouldn’t bump into them. He knew it would crush him.

And just like that, Fangs’ impeccable timing struck once again. He was looking down at his bucket of popcorn, tossing a few pieces into his mouth when he looked up and saw them. Archie Andrews walking with his arm around a girl. His girl. Sweet Pea watched his best friend’s face drop at the sight. He tried to sneak by the couple without going noticed, but Archie had spotted him as soon as he turned down that row of cars.

“Well, well, well. I didn’t know Southside put out their trash on Friday nights.” Trish looked up at Fangs, her eyes wide in both shock and embarrassment.

“Where are the rest of those greaseball buddies of yours?”

“Bite me, Andrews.” Fangs went to walk by the group of Northsiders.

Archie stopped in front of him, pushing on his shoulders. “What did you just say to me?” Fangs just stood there silently, glancing over at Trish. Her head hung low in shame.

“You touch me again, I’ll knock your lights out.”

“You know, you’ve got some nerve showing up on the Northside alone. In MY territory, talking to me like that.”

Trish caressed Archie’s arm, nuzzling up against his side. “Archie cut it out, just let him go…He’s not worth it.” Fangs’ face fell into a deep scowl. He knew she was only doing and saying those things to diffuse the situation, but he’s be lying if it didn’t sting like hell to see her like that with Archie.

Archie wrapped his arm around Trish’s shoulders as he held eye contact with Fangs, and started to walk away.

Fangs stood there for a second before walking back to sit on the hood of his car, placing his bucket of popcorn next to him. He ran a hand over his face before taking out a cigarette and bringing it to his lips.

“You should go talk to him, Pea.” Sweet Pea looked over at Lily, he knew she was right. He let out a deep sigh before he opened the door and walked over to Fangs, leaning against the car.

“You got a smoke I can bum off you?”

Fangs nodded silently, reaching in his pocket and pulling out the pack, offering it to Sweet Pea. “You know, I just don’t get it man.” Sweet Pea slid out a cig from the carton, lighting it and taking a long drag.

“I take her out, I treat her like gold, make her laugh. I practically worship at her feet.” Fangs took a puff off his cigarette. “And at the end of the day, she goes right back to him.” He said with blatant disgust.

“He treats her like shit. I watch that jerk-off flirt with other girls, taking them out.” Sweet Pea shook his head and Fangs looked over at him, “He hits her, SP. I’ve seen the bruises, she’s got marks all over her body. She tries to tell me she’s just clumsy.” Fangs scoffed. "But I know it’s him. It’s that jock prick, Andrews. I want to beat him to a bloody pulp, but I know she’d never forgive me.” Fangs took another drag from his cigarette. “SP, what the hell do I do?”

“I don’t know, I mean…maybe you should just let her go?”

“You know I can’t do that, I think I love her. I know I love her. But how do I get her to choose me over him?”

“Have you told her?”

“Told her what?”

“You just said that you love her. Have you told her that?”

“Nah, man. It’s a waste.”

“I think you should tell her.” Fangs blew out smoke into the cool air.

“I’ll think about it. Thanks SP.” He threw the but of his cigarette to the ground, SP followed suit. “I’m getting the fuck out of here, this movie sucks.”

Sweet Pea and Lily sat and watched the rest of the movie before they hit the road. The mood was sort of ruined by the whole Archie and Fangs thing. Sweet Pea felt sorry for Fangs, he was in a real tough situation. The only thing Fangs ever wanted to talk about was how wonderful Trish was. Sweet Pea found it borderline sickening. But he could tell that his best friend was happy, and that made Sweet Pea happy. He was very protective of Fangs, even when they were kids. He was like an annoying little brother to him.

“I feel horrible for Fangs. Did you see the way Archie was talking to him? Why I’d like to give that pompous…jerk a piece of my mind!”

Sweet Pea chuckled. “Got a little bit of fire in you, darlin’.”

“I just wish Trish would wake up and kick Archie to the curb.” Lily let out a frustrated sigh.

They pulled up just before Lily’s house, Sweet Pea got out of the car and opened the car door for her. She climbed out of the car and Sweet Pea closed the door behind her. He leaned against the side of the Ford De Luxe, Lily standing between his legs.

“Sorry our date kinda got ruined.”

“It wasn’t ruined, Pea.” He smiled at the nickname. “I still had a nice time with you.”

“Nice time.” He said to himself. “So does that mean I earned a second date?” Lily smiled up at him, biting her lip.

“Maybe even a third.” She got on her toes and pecked him on the lips. He rested his hands on her hips. He wasn’t ready for her to leave just yet.

He brushed her blonde waves back behind her shoulder. “When can I see you again?”

“School starts next week, so I won’t be around much during the week.”

“What do you have a boyfriend Monday through Friday that you don’t want me to know about?” He teased. She shook his head at him, letting out a small chuckle. “That’s alright, I’ve got some shit I’ve gotta work out this week. Serpent stuff.”

Lily nodded her head. She wanted to ask exactly what this “Serpent stuff” entailed, but decided not to push it. “Well, you know where to find me.” She leaned up to give him a chaste kiss on the lips, her hand momentarily rested on his chest. “Goodnight, Sweet Pea.”

She sauntered toward her house and turned when she reached the door to wave goodbye. He waved back, throwing a wink her way before he climbed back into his car and drove away.

Sweet Pea walked into the Wyrm and walked over to the bar. Fangs was passed out drunk in his barstool with a line of empties in front of him.

“He came in about an hour or two ago, he got completely loaded and passed out. That Northsider really did a number on him.” Toni was cleaning up the rest of the bar, wiping down the counter around Fangs and his empty beer bottles.

Toni popped off the cap to a beer and handed it over to Sweet Pea. “Yeah, sure looks like it. Poor bastard’s in love.” He said before taking a swig from the bottle.

Toni raised an eyebrow at Sweet Pea before shaking her head in disbelief. “I guess that’s what he gets for getting involved with a Northside girl.”

Sweet Pea let out a snicker.

“Speaking of Northside girls….How are things going with Little Miss Sunshine?”

Sweet Pea downed another large gulp of beer before answering. “Good.”

“Good? That’s all I get?”

Sweet Pea shrugged his shoulders, his eyes darting around the room for a distraction.

Toni stopped to look at him, she could tell he didn’t want to talk about her. There could only be one reason why. “Oh my god.”

Sweet Pea looked back to Toni, who stood there with a wide, knowing grin that stretched across her face. “What?”

Toni lightly shook her head, “You like her. You really like her.”

“Oh cut the gas, Toni. She’s a nice girl, fun to be around, really cute. But that’s it. That’s where it ends.”

“I think you’re afraid.”

“Am not.”

“You so are! Sweet Pea, she obviously likes you if she voluntarily hangs around your stubborn ass!”

Sweet Pea rolled his eyes, finishing his beer.

“I say, go for it! See where it goes.”

“It would never work, we’re from two completely different sides of the tracks. It’s bad news, T.”

“Well I think you should give it a try. I think this could be good for you.”

Sweet Pea groaned. “What are you my mother?” Sweet Pea stood up from his seat at the bar, throwing a couple bucks on the counter. “Can you make sure he gets home safe? I’ve gotta get to bed. These weekly late night runs are killing me.”

“You’re still doing those moves for the Ghoulies?”

“It’s the only way we can pay them back, it’s not like we’ve got the money upfront. We could’ve been all paid off by now if I didn’t-”

“Sweet Pea. It wasn’t your fault and you know it. Just be careful out there. There’s a lot of tension in this town.”

“Always am.”

Taglist: @madaboutlili @chipster-21 @the-fifth-marauder-paws @ddeo-na-ji-ma @softporcelain @gswritings @charles11700 @jennyhetzel @ajillathehun-blog

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thelastspeecher · 6 years

Text

Spy AU - Unexpected Developments

Hey, I finally finished writing all the scenes I wanted to post in one thing. Both of them involve “Mission: White Picket Fence” in the Spy AU, and have to do with some complications to an already thoroughly complicated mission. Oh, and Ma McGucket, the BAMF to end all BAMFs, shows up. Enjoy.

Ford tugged on his uncomfortable polo shirt as he waited for Fiddleford.

You’d think that a fancy, rich school would have more comfortable uniforms. I’ve been undercover for a little over two weeks and I’m still not used to these clothes.

“Hey, Nicky.” Ford looked up. It was one of his classmates.

“Oh, hi, Clark,” Ford said. Clark nodded at the bench Ford was sitting on.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Go ahead.” Clark sat down next to Ford. “Are you waiting for your mom?”

“She’s my step-mom,” Clark corrected, “but, yeah, I’m waiting for her. She always takes a long time to get here.” Ford nodded silently. “What about you?”

“My dad’s already here, but I’m supposed to wait for my little brother before I go to the car. Mom and Dad don’t like Ryan being on his own.”

“Yeesh, it must suck having a little brother.”

“Well, Ryan’s nice. It’s just annoying that I have to walk with him whenever we go places.”

“Are your parents gonna be this weird during trick-or-treating?” Clark asked. “‘Cause I know some people whose parents ruin Halloween from being overprotective like yours.” Ford nodded silently before remembering that Nicholas Young wouldn’t know about American Halloween traditions.

“Trick-or-treating?” Ford asked. Clark clapped a hand to his forehead.

“Oh, duh! You didn’t grow up here. Do they even have trick-or-treating where you’re from?” Clark asked. Ford shook his head. “Trick-or-treating is when you dress up in costumes on Halloween, and you go knock on people’s doors and they give you candy.”

“That sounds fake,” Ford said decisively. Clark shook his head.

“Nuh-uh, it isn’t! It’s real! And sometimes you go with your family, but sometimes you go with your friends.” Clark’s eyes widened.

Oh, no. He’s going to ask me to-

“Do you wanna go trick-or-treating together?” Clark asked eagerly.

Dammit.

“Um, I guess,” Ford said reluctantly. “But I’ll have to ask my mom and dad, and like you said, they get a bit weird about things, so I don’t know-”

“I’ll have my dad call. Your dad really likes mine,” Clark said. Ford swallowed nervously. “It’s gonna be great, trust me.”

“Nicky!” a voice called. Ford looked around. Fiddleford had finally peeled off from the mass exodus of students leaving school. Ford got to his feet.

“What took you so long?” Ford asked.

“Anna was telling me about trick-or-treating,” Fiddleford said.

“Heh, that’s funny, I was telling Nicky about that, too,” Clark said. Ford took a hold of one of Fiddleford’s hands.

“We’ve gotta get going before Dad freaks out,” Ford said. “I’ll…ask my parents about trick-or-treating.” Clark grinned.

“Awesome! See you tomorrow!”

“Yep. Bye, Clark.” Ford and Fiddleford headed towards the parking lot. “Did your classmate invite you to go trick-or-treating like mine did?” Ford asked Fiddleford quietly.

“No. Anna doesn’t like me. She was teasing me because Ryan doesn’t know what trick-or-treating is,” Fiddleford answered. Ford sighed.

“You might be able to get out of doing it, then. But Clark is really persistent. Don’t forget to tell Stan and Angie about this kid teasing you, by the way.”

“I know, I know. Conner and Laura won’t let anyone mess with their kids, and their kids tell them everything.” They arrived at the parking lot and began to look for the silver minivan. “Oh, he’s over there,” Fiddleford said, pointing. Stan was standing outside the car, a deviation from how he normally sat inside, waiting for Ford and Fiddleford. As Ford and Fiddleford approached, they could make out a drawn, nervous expression on Stan’s face.

“Hey, boys!” Stan said cheerfully, barely managing to mask the distress they had just seen. “Did either of you learn anything interesting today?”

“No, not really,” Ford said. Stan nodded silently.

“Do you think you will soon?”

“In a couple days, yeah.”

“Good.” Stan clicked the car keys, opening the doors. Ford let go of Fiddleford’s hand and climbed inside. Fiddleford looked expectantly at Stan. Stan didn’t seem to notice, instead staring off into the distance, worry evident on his face again.

“Uh, Dad?” Fiddleford prompted. Stan looked over at him.

“Yeah?”

“You’re supposed to help me get in.”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah.” Stan picked Fiddleford up and buckled him into the safety seat. “Sorry, kiddo, I’ve got a lot on my mind.” He clicked the car keys to close the door, then got into the driver’s seat.

“Stan,” Ford said. Stan looked at him.

“Yeah?”

“It reeks in here.”

“Sorry. I, uh, I got stressed and needed a cigarette.”

“It smells more like ya had a whole pack,” Fiddleford said, wrinkling his nose.

“Okay, maybe I had more than one.”

“Conner Young hasn’t touched a cigarette in his entire life,” Ford said. Stan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, now staring straight ahead.

“Yeah.”

“There’s no reason for his car to smell like this.”

“I know.”

“If one of Nicholas and Ryan’s friends had gotten in, the cover could have been blown.”

“I know,” Stan repeated softly. Ford scowled.

“What was so important that you risked the mission to-”

“Angie’s pregnant,” Stan blurted out.

“I thought that Laura and Conner were waiting,” Fiddleford said. Stan gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“I didn’t say that Laura’s pregnant,” Stan said in a tight voice. “I said that Angie’s pregnant.”

“Wait, she’s really pregnant?” Ford asked. “As in, in nine months, I’ll have a new niece or nephew?” Stan nodded. “Oh.”

“Now you understand why I’m stressed,” Stan said quietly. Ford and Fiddleford nodded silently. “Angie’s about a month and a half along, so she- she was pregnant when the mission started, but didn’t know. And before you say anything, we hadn’t started trying yet, okay? We were just talking about it.”

“Are they going to bring in an alternate handler?” Ford asked.

“Huh?”

“If Angie’s pregnant, they’re going to pull her out of the mission, but this mission wouldn’t work very well with just one handler.”

“They’re not,” Stan said.

“Yer goin’ to be our only handler?” Fiddleford asked. Stan squeezed his eyes shut.

“No, I won’t. I meant that- that they aren’t gonna pull her out. HQ says that Angie has to stay in the field. The mission could get compromised if Laura, a dedicated mom trying to get her sons settled into their new life, just up and left. And it’s not out of character for Laura to be pregnant, since she and Conner were gonna have another kid. So… Angie stays.”

“That’s- they never have pregnant agents out in the field,” Fiddleford said.

“I know. We- we were surprised by HQ’s decision.” Stan took a steadying breath. “We were told to work it into our covers. In a couple days, Laura Young is gonna find out that she’s pregnant with her third child and tell her husband and sons. Conner, Nicholas, and Ryan are all gonna be excited about the baby, and despite being asked to not say anything, Ryan will tell all his friends at school that he’s gonna be a big brother. Think you can handle that?”

“Of course,” Fiddleford said. Stan nodded and started the car.

“Good. And while Conner Young hopes that he’s finally gonna get a daughter, Stan Pines is gonna hope that the mission ends before his first kid is born.”

-----

Sally walked up to the door of the Spanish-style house and knocked politely. There were some muffled sounds from inside.

“Coming!” a voice called. Sally’s heart began to race. The voice lacked a southern accent and was a pitch lower than usual, but she would recognize it anywhere. The door opened. Angie smiled at Sally for a brief moment before recognizing her mother. Her smile disappeared, replaced by surprise. “…Ma?” Angie whispered in shock. Sally’s plan to remain calm despite the stressful situation vanished.

“Oh, my baby!” Sally flung her arms around her daughter. “My baby girl!”

“Ma, what-” Angie started.

“I’m so sorry, junebug. So sorry,” Sally whispered. Angie’s eyes widened.

“What for?” Angie asked quietly. Sally broke off the hug. “Ma, what’s going on? How did you-”

“Maybe that conversation should wait for inside,” Sally replied. Angie nodded and stood to the side. Sally stepped in. “You ‘n Stan really made this place yours fast.”

“Um, yeah, I, uh, I s’ppose,” Angie said, closing the door. “We can’t do much, but what we can-”

“Who was at the door?” Stan asked. He poked his head out of the nearby kitchen. His jaw dropped. “Wh- Sally?”

“Nice to see ya wearin’ yer glasses fer once,” Sally said. Stan turned slightly red and adjusted his glasses in a self-conscious manner. “Aw, no need to get shy. Where are Stanford and Fiddleford?”

“Either still sleeping or pretending to be asleep,” Stan answered. He shook his head. “Wait, no, we should definitely be asking the questions. How did you find us?”

“I was the one who picked out this house fer the mission.”

“You picked the house?” Stan asked.

“You know we’re on a mission?” Angie asked at the same time.

“Yes, I picked the house, and yes, I know yer on a mission.” Stan and Angie’s jaws dropped. “Oh, sweethearts, don’t be so shocked. Both of those things ‘re my job.”

“Wait, wait, are you our boss?” Stan interjected. Sally nodded. “Since when?”

“I’ve been the head of HAF since before either of ya were even born.”

“Damn,” Stan said quietly. Angie crossed her arms.

“Ma, I get why ya kept it a secret, but why are ya tellin’ us now?” Angie asked. Sally smiled sadly at Angie.

“I had to apologize fer keepin’ ya in the field, sugar-cube.”

“You made that call?” Stan rumbled. He walked over to Sally and Angie. “What the hell? She’s your daughter!”

“She’s also my employee,” Sally said firmly. “I had to do what was right fer the mission and the organization, not what would make me feel better. That bein’ said, it was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made. I wanted nothin’ more ‘n to send my baby home.” Sally stroked Angie’s cheek. “It was a decision that I only feel better about ‘cause I know if there’s anyone who could handle this sit’ation, it’s my daughter and her husband.” Stan and Angie exchanged a fond look. “Congratulations, by the way. I know the circumstances ain’t the best, but I’m so happy the two of ya are bringin’ a child into this world together.”

“Thanks, Ma,” Angie said softly. Stan nodded and put an arm around Angie’s shoulders.

“Ditto,” Stan said. He eyed the bag Sally was carrying. “Uh, whattaya have there?”

“I’m a mom, of course I’m goin’ to bring some gifts with me when I visit,” Sally said. “I’ve got some homecooked food ‘n Laura’s old maternity clothes.” Sally chuckled at the disgruntled expression on Angie’s face. “Don’t worry, Laura’s got a sense of style closer to yours than to mine, sweetie. You’ll like these clothes. They’re new and fashionable.” The sound of small footsteps came from the second floor. “Oh, sounds like someone’s up.” Stan glanced at his watch.

“It’s eight, so, yeah, that’s the earliest they’re allowed to leave their rooms,” he said. “Man, it’s weird doing all this stuff even when no one’s around, just in case someone stops by.”

“The folks ‘round here do drop by without notice, though,” Angie pointed out. Stan shrugged. The small footsteps pattered down the stairs and Ford appeared, still wearing his astronaut pajamas and his hair a complete mess. “Good morning,” Angie said cheerfully. Ford nodded silently at her. His gaze slid over to Sally. He paled.

“M-Mrs. McGucket?” Ford squeaked out. Sally sighed.

“Stanford, how many times do I have to tell ya, call me Sally.”

“Sorry, I just- wait, how’d you recognize me?”

“Turns out she’s our boss,” Stan said. Ford’s jaw dropped open. “That was our reaction, too.” Another pair of small footsteps made their way down the stairs.

“What ‘re we havin’ fer breakfast?” Fiddleford asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly as he joined the group gathered in the hallway. Sally crouched down to his eye-height.

“My, my, those folk in R&D really know what they’re doin’, don’t they?” she remarked, staring at her son. Fiddleford gaped. “It’s like I’m lookin’ at a picture in a fam’ly album.”

“Ma?” Fiddleford asked. Sally ruffled his hair playfully.

“You betcha.”

“What- how-”

“As I was tellin’ Stan ‘n Angie, I was the one what made the call to keep Angie in the field.”

“Why?” Fiddleford asked. Sally stood to her full height.

“Well-” she started. Something dinged in the kitchen. “Is somethin’ bein’ cooked?”

“Shit, the muffins,” Stan said. He rushed back into the kitchen.

“Did they burn?” Angie called. There was a clatter as Stan opened the oven.

“Uh, doesn’t look like it.”

“Are we havin’ muffins fer breakfast again?” Fiddleford asked.

“Hey, I gotta practice,” Stan shouted. “Conner’s a really good baker.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Sally said. “I forgot. I’d hate to delay two growin’ boys from eatin’ their meals, so how ‘bout we have this conversation in the kitchen over some tasty food?”

“Tasty is not how I would describe those muffins,” Ford muttered.

“I heard that!” Stan said loudly.

“Ma, was it really necessary to refer to Ford and me as ‘growin’ boys’?” Fiddleford asked as he followed Sally and Angie into the kitchen, Ford close behind. Sally smiled down at him.

“Of course it was. Ya may mentally be adults, but yer in the bodies of kidlets right now, and kidlets yer ages are always growin’. Growin’, needin’ naps, learnin’ constantly.”

“The serum does counteract some of the downsides of our current biological ages,” Ford said. He took a seat at the kitchen table. “For instance, Fiddleford doesn’t need to take naps.”

“I pretend, so’s I can keep up appearances,” Fiddleford said. He climbed onto a chair next to Ford with some difficulty. “Ma, how are ya here? And why are ya here?”

“Well, honey, as the head of HAF, I was, unfortunately, the one what had to make the call ‘bout yer sister stayin’ in the field.” Sally sat down across from Fiddleford. “I put my feelin’s aside and realized that, fer the mission and the greater good, Angie couldn’t come home yet. It hurt every bone in my body to do it, but I had no choice. So I decided to come here with both apologies and congratulations. Congratulations ‘cause I’m ecstatic two wonderful folk are havin’ a baby, and apologies ‘cause, well, Angie’s stuck actin’ like her first pregnancy is her third one.”

“Yer the head?” Fiddleford asked. Sally nodded. “Yer our boss.”

“Yessir.”

“Hires go through you, don’t they?” Ford asked. “You’re the one that hired all of us.”

“Yes, I make the final decision on who we take on as new agents. I must admit, I was quite startled to see my son and daughter’s applications, back when ya first applied. Like with the decision to keep Angie undercover, I put aside my personal emotions and did what was best.”

“Wait, did you not want us to be agents?” Angie asked, helping Stan check the muffins, which were cooling on the counter.

“Of course not! It’s a dangerous, complicated life! I don’t want my babies to deal with that nonsense. But I understood that the two of ya were perfect candidates, and it didn’t make sense to reject ya fer my feelin’s. So I hired ya.”

“Wow, Angie, if your mom had decided that it was too dangerous for you to be an agent, we wouldn’t have met,” Stan said quietly. Angie smiled at him.

“I doubt that. Ford ‘n Fidds went to college together. We could’ve met eventually.”

“Yeah, but would we be having a kid?” Stan asked. He put one of his hands on Angie’s stomach. “Our baby might only exist ‘cause your mom hired you.”

“Yer such a sap,” Angie said. She stroked Stan’s cheek. “Let’s not focus on what could’ve happened. Instead, focus on what is happenin’.”

“What’s happening is that I might throw up,” Ford muttered. Stan glared at him. “Give me all the vicious looks you want. The fact remains, ever since you two found out about the pregnancy, you’ve been all over each other. More than usual.”

“Aw, I remember that,” Sally said fondly. “Each time Mearl ‘n I found out we were havin’ a baby, there was a lovely lil honeymoon phase, where we couldn’t get enough of each other. We were just so happy to be bringin’ life into the world. We felt blessed.” Sally shrugged. “‘Course, once the symptoms really hit, it feels less like a blessin’ ‘n more like a curse.” Angie grimaced.

“Great. I have that to look forward to.”

“You’ll be fine, honey,” Sally said in a reassuring tone. “There’s no need to be nervous or scared.”

“Yeah, Laura won’t be. She’s done this twice. Angie’s…” Angie trailed off, worry etched on her face.

“Listen to your mom, babe,” Stan said firmly. “She knows what she’s talking about.”

“Yeah, yer- yer right,” Angie said softly. She swallowed. “Ma, what- what ‘ll happen if- if the baby comes ‘fore the mission ends?” Sally leaned forward and clasped her hands together with a somber expression.

“Banjolina, this mission is high priority, and ya agreed to the responsibility when ya agreed to be Ford ‘n Fidds’ handler. If the mission ain’t done, then I don’t think it’ll be Angie McGucket-Pines givin’ birth in that hospital room. It’ll be Laura Young.” Angie nodded woodenly, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. Sally made a small smile. “But Stanford and Fiddleford ‘re top-notch agents. I know fer a fact that they��ll do what they can to end the mission in time.”

“She’s right,” Ford said. “Fiddleford and I don’t want the two of you to deal with your child being born while undercover. We don’t want that for you nor our future niece or nephew.”

“Thank you,” Angie said in a choked-up voice. The doorbell rang.

“Aw, shit, who is it?” Stan muttered. He kissed Angie on the cheek. “I’ll go check, babe, you try to perk yourself back up for whatever weird neighbor it is this time.”

“Mmkay,” Angie mumbled. Stan exited the kitchen. Sally got up from the table.

“If you have guests, that’s prob’ly my cue to leave.”

“No, Ma, please stay,” Angie begged. “I miss the fam’ly so much.”

“The longer I stay, the greater chance cover gets blown,” Sally said. “We don’t have a detailed backstory fer me.”

“But Ma-”

“No buts,” Sally said firmly. They heard the door open.

“Hey, Lisa,” Stan said, using Conner Young’s voice instead of his own. “You’re here bright and early, eh?”

“Sorry, Conner. But Huron and Itasca wanted to play with Nicky and Ryan. And I wanted to talk to you and Laura. Apparently you two are expecting again?”

“Wh- how’d you know?” Stan asked, feigning ignorance.

“Ryan told his class. Was he not supposed to?”

“No, he wasn’t.” Stan let out a dramatic sigh. “But I’m not even mad. I love that little guy too much, and how can I be angry when Laura’s carrying our third child? It’s impossible to be anything less than happy.”

“Aw, you two are just the cutest.”

“Laura, it’s Lisa and her kids,” Stan called.

“Let them in!” Angie replied. “Mom’s about to head out anyway.”

“Oh, is your mother-in-law here?” Lisa asked.

“Yep,” Stan answered. “But not for long. She’s got to catch her plane. She just stopped by to chat with Laura and congratulate us on our currently unborn bundle of joy. But seriously, come on in! Shoes off, kiddos.” Sally walked over to Angie and hugged her tightly.

“Stay in touch?” Angie whispered. Sally tucked a strand of Angie’s hair behind one of her ears.

“Oh, sweetie, I can’t promise that. But I’ll do what I can, okay?” Sally said. Angie nodded. “Now, remind me where Laura grew up?”

“Boston.”

“Boston? Good, I can handle that.” Sally cleared her throat. “Laura, ya best keep me in the loop, okay?” Sally said in a carrying voice that now had a Boston accent. Angie’s eyes widened slightly. Sally allowed herself to revel for a moment in her daughter’s impressed surprise. “The minute ya know the sex, tell me. I wanna know if I’m gettin’ a granddaughta or anotha grandson.” Sally put her hands on her hips and looked at Ford and Fiddleford. “Now, am I gonna get a hug from my grandsons before I leave or what?”

“Say bye to your gramma, boys,” Angie said, changing her voice to match her cover like Stan. Ford and Fiddleford exchanged a look before getting out of their chairs to hug Sally.

“That’s mah like it.” Sally ruffled Ford’s hair and kissed the top of Fiddleford’s head. “Be good to ya motha.”

“Yes, gramma,” Ford said quietly. Sally winked at Angie. She exited the kitchen.

“Connah, watch ovah Laura like a hawk. Ya hear me? Like a hawk,” Sally said loudly.

“Of course, Julie.”

“Good. Love ya. Gotta go.” Sally opened the front door, nodded at Lisa, and exited the house. She listened for a moment to the muffled sounds of continuing conversations. Satisfied that she wasn’t needed anymore, she walked to her car. Her phone buzzed. She looked down. It was a text from her husband.

“How did the visit to Stan and Angie go?” Sally frowned, trying to decide how to phrase her response. Before leaving, she’d told Mearl that she was checking on Stan and Angie, who were on a work trip. It was difficult to keep the details as vague as she’d needed, but she managed. Barely.

“How do you think it went? Our daughter picked a great husband. They’ve got some exciting news that they said I could share.”

“Exciting? I think I might know what it is.”

“Oh, really?”

“This is about the point in a marriage that the Famous McGucket Fertility starts to act up…” Sally chuckled and got into the car. “Any word from Fiddleford and Stanford?”

“Not yet. But those two are always elbows-deep in research. No more texts; I’ve got to get on the road.”

“Love you, honey-bun.” Sally smiled.

“Love you, too.” She looked up at the house for a moment, biting her lip nervously.

I don’t like leavin’ ‘em alone like this. Someone pulled apart the curtains of the kitchen window, revealing Ford, Fiddleford, and the neighbor’s two children devouring muffins. Sally nodded, resolute. They’ve been through worse. They can handle it. She started the car. They have to.

#this Spy AU is a modern AU bc I refuse to write espionage in the 80s #also Ma and Pa McGucket are the type to send full grammatically correct texts #until one of their grandbabies teaches them texting lingo and then they just go off the rails #it's great. the Guck parents are just. so very wonderful.#Spy AU #Stanford Pines #Fiddleford McGucket #Stanley Pines #Angie McGucket #Ma McGucket #my writing #ficlet #my stuff #speecher speaks

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utopianatolia · 6 years

Text

Kitaplar...

248) Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

sounds better, doesn’t it?’ ‘He is all my art to me now. I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the history of the world. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinoüs was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from him, model from him. Of course I have done all that. He has stood as Paris in dainty armor, and as Adonis with huntsman’s cloak and polished boar- spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms, he has sat on the prow of Adrian’s barge, looking into the green, turbid Nile. He has leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland, and seen in the water’s silent silver the wonder of his own beauty. But he is much more to me than that. I won’t tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done since I met Dorian Gray is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way—I wonder will you understand me?—his personality has suggested to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now re-create life in a way that was hidden from me before. ‘A dream of form in days of thought,’—who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad, —for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty,—his merely visible presence,—ah! I wonder can you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in itself all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body,—how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is bestial, an ideality that is void. Harry! Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price, but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me.’

‘Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.’ ‘I hate them for it. An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. If I live, I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray.’

There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral,—immoral from the scientific point of view.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly,—that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion,—these are the two things that govern us. And yet ‘I believe that if one man were to live his life out fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream,—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal,— to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man among us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the selfdenial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.

but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well informed man,— that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-à- brac shop, all monsters and dust, and everything priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day you will look at Gray, and he will seem to you to be a little out of drawing, or you won’t like his tone of color, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. The worst of having a romance is that it leaves one so unromantic

If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different

The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. I mean everything that I have said. I have the greatest contempt for optimism. And as for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it.

before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came,—oh, my beautiful love!— and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness, of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To- for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You have made me understand what love really is. My love! my love! I am sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone from me. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled.

‘You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of romance—that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.’ ‘She will never come to life again now,’ murmured the lad, burying his face in his hands. ‘No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died.

It was rumored of him once that he was about to join the Roman Catholic communion; and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great attraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb rejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity of its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it sought to symbolize. He loved to kneel down on the cold marble pavement, and with the priest, in his stiff flowered cope, slowly and with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, and raising aloft the jewelled lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid wafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the ‘panis caelestis,’ the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice, and smiting his breast for his sins. The fuming censers, that the grave boys, in their lace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers, had their subtle fascination for him. As he passed out, he used to look with wonder at the black confessionals, and long to sit in the dim shadow of one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the tarnished grating the true story of their lives.

Mysticism, with its marvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a season; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, morbid or healthy, normal or diseased.

108-111

The Renaissance knew of strange manners of poisoning,—poisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.

What of Art? Its a malady Love? An illusion Religion The fashinable substitute for Belief You are a sceptic. Never.Scepticism is the begining of Faith

#oscar wilde #wilde #worldsworthedition #dorian gray #dorian #gray #the picture of dorian gray

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leaves-of-three · 7 years

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Day Nine || Turn It Off

Connor Murphy x Reader

Word Count: 3272

Summary: The morning aftermath and dealing with everything that arose in the woods. [This is part of an in progress series. You can follow along here.]

Warning: Mentions or alluding to prior sexual assault.

Author Note: What up? Hope everyone is good. Enjoy! xKatie

The morning sun poured in through the crack between the curtains. It shone across your face causing you to burrow under the covers away from the light. Your alarm clock was buzzing. The noise was irritating and persistent. It couldn’t possibly be morning already. You still felt like you needed another few hours of sleep.

"Shut it up,” a male voice complained in annoyance from the floor beside your bed.

You peeked your head out from under the covers and poked it over the side of the mattress. You were surprised to see Connor was still here. You had asked him to stay last night but you figured he would get bored and leave once you fell asleep. He was sprawled out on the floor, your old teddy bear under his head as a makeshift pillow, and an arm throw over his eyes to block out of the sun. Beetle, your cat, was curled up by his side.

You reached over and hit the snooze button. The alarm cut off immediately. Silence fell over the room once more. You had school today. The thought made your stomach hurt. Memories from the prior night resurfaced. They flood your brain. You were too tired to move. Too tired to do anything. You wanted to go back to bed. You were too exhausted to even entertain the idea that Connor had slept over. Or that you had kissed him last night.

You had kissed him.

Your heart leaped in excitement. Your eyes shot open. Okay, maybe you weren’t that tired anymore. You rolled over onto your side and tossed the blanket back over your head. A smile grew on your face. After everything you had experienced yesterday, you were still able to smile over a little kiss. It gave you hope that happiness still existed, even after a person goes through hell.

It wasn’t exactly anything special. He hadn’t even had time to kiss back even if he had wanted to. You had moved away too quickly. You had busied yourself by getting ready for bed. You acted like it was nothing and he had followed your lead. But still...you touched your lips with the back of your hand and closed your eyes. You imagined that you could feel him there. You imagined what it would have been like had he kissed you back. You tried to remember everything about him in that moment but your memory was so hazy. Yesterday came back to you in chunks of time. You tried to focus just on him though. How he had helped you. He carried you out of the forest. He calmed you down. Five things...he taught you that trick which you would now remember forever. The rock, which had been your fifth object, was still sitting on your bedside table. You stuck a hand out, feeling around for it, and snatched it back under your covers into your little cave. You rolled it over in your hand. It was cool to the touch.

Connor’s steady breathing floated through your ears. He must have already fallen back to sleep. You wished he was in the bed with you. You wished you could curl up against him and absorb his warmth, to fall back to sleep wrapped up in his arms. Instead, you ran your thumb over the rock. It was much less appealing than the boy on the ground. The rock reminded you of the worst parts which yesterday held. It reminded you of the panic, the fear, the memories. You couldn’t forget them again. You had to remember them. It was the only way to start healing.

You slipped the rock under your pillow. If you held it any longer, you were afraid you might start crying. Simple tasks seemed daunting. Like getting out of bed. Getting ready. School. You snuggled up and closed your eyes. All those things could wait. You wanted to sleep. Sleep was good.

Just when you began to doze off again, the alarm went off a second time. You had snooze set for every ten minutes. Connor groaned with exasperation, “I said turn it off.”

“Someone is clearly not a morning person,” you rolled back over and turned off the alarm. It was 6:40. Too early for life. You remembered that your dad had an over night shift last night. He would be home soon. He’d be confused as to why his daughter’s car was not in his driveway and instead a beat, up old black one was. Yours was still sitting in the school parking lot. Hopefully. They might have towed it. For the sake of your father, you forced yourself to get up. You gently kicked Connor’s side as you walked past him. “Get up. My dad’s coming home soon. You need to move your car.”

“Move it for me?” He murmurer sleepily. “Key’s in my jacket pocket.” He half heartily pointed to where ever he assumed he had last left his jacket. His eyes stayed closed the entire time. You sighed. It was the least you could do after all he did for you yesterday. Plus he spent the whole night on the floor...and he sounded so incredibly sexy with his raspy, sleepy voice. You shook your head. You needed to chill.

His denim jacket was draped over your desk chair. You reached into the pocket and felt around for the keys. Once they were acquired, you left the room. You didn’t bother with changing or putting on shoes. Outside was warm and the morning, fiery sun was rising against a deep blue sky. Your socked feet padded down the driveway.

Connor drove a classic, old Ford Mustang. It would have been a beautifully impressive car if it was given some love and attention. Instead it looked like it rolled directly out of a junkyard. The door creaked when you opened it. Inside smelt like a mixture of stale smoke and the faded royal pine car freshener that hung from the mirror. The engine rumbled to life with the turn of the key. You’d just park it around the corner on the side of the street. No one would look twice at it there.

As you turned out of your driveway, the sun hit directly into your eyes. You squinted and moved to push down the sun visor. As you did, some items tumbled into your lap. You didn’t bother to move them until you found a good spot to rehome his car. Once it was parked, you looked at what had fallen onto you. There were two pieces of paper and a rolled up joint. You shook your head. Very classy. One of the papers was a parking ticket indicating that he owed $65 for parking on a sidewalk. Once again, very classy, Connor. The second was a folded piece of lined paper. You recognized it immediately. It was the simple “thank you” note you had left him the first day you met. A smile grew on your face. He had kept it. Or rather, more likely, he had shoved it up into his visor and forgotten it was there along with the parking ticket and joint. But you needed more happy thoughts in your life so you opted to believe that he kept it simply because it came from you. You smiled as you left his car and walked back up the street to your house. Luckily it was early enough that not many people were out yet. Otherwise you would have been self conscious of the fact that were strolling down the street in pajamas and socks.

Back inside the safety of your home, you went to the bathroom. You grabbed your toothbrush, loaded on some toothpaste, and started to brush your teeth. You had a choice to make. You could go to school or stay home. After yesterday, all you really wanted was to go back to sleep. It would be easy to fake sick to your dad. Unfortunately, that would also mean that you would be missing yet another day. It was only the second week and you were already so far behind. You missed the same amount of classes as you had attended. It was not a good start to the year. You spit out the toothpaste just as you heard the front door open.

“I’m home!” Your father’s gruff, tried voice echoed through the halls. “I hope you’re awake or else you’re going to be late!” A panic hit you. Hopefully Connor would be smart enough to not make any noise to indicate that he was in your room.

You left the bathroom and shuffled down the hall to meet him. You put on your best tired, sickly look. It didn’t take much effort. Your dad was putting his bag down on the kitchen table. He was a tall, muscular man with a full, scruffy brown beard. He was still in his security guard uniform. His job was tiresome for him. He had to work long hours in order to support your little family and he wasn’t getting any younger. It took a toll on him. He turned around and smiled when he saw you but it quickly faded. “Hey, Bug,” he frowned at your appearance. “You feeling okay?”

You shook your head. “I’ve been sick all night. I don’t think I can go to school today.”

He stepped forward and placed his hand under your chin, lifting up your face. He eyed the scrape across your cheek bone. “What the hell happened here?”

You racked your brain, quickly coming up with an excuse. “It was the cat. It was my fault though. I tried to grab her out from under the bed and she freaked. We’re good now. Best friends. But I don’t feel good...”

He moved his hand to your forehead. “You’re not hot. You can stay home though if you can explain to me why the hell your car isn’t in the driveway.”

“Oh, yeah, I meant to text you but I wasn’t feeling that great. After school it wouldn’t start. I got a ride home from-” You swallowed. Your dad knew little to nothing about your outside social life. “-from Alyssa.” To him, he still believed nothing had changed over the summer. You were good at hiding things.

“Hmm, alright. We can stop by with jumper cables later and I’ll see if I can get it going.” He moved towards the kitchen and grabbed a cup of water. “If you don’t feel good, you can stay home. I won’t complain. I’m headed to bed in a minute though. I can hardly keep my eyes open another second. We can both use the day to rest up.”

You smiled with relief and watch him walk to his bedroom. “Good morning and good night, dad.”

“Good morning and good night, Bug.” He closed the bedroom door behind him. You knew he’d be out and dead to the world until sometime this evening. He slept like rock especially after an overnight shift. You slowly backed up to your bedroom. With one last glance towards his closed door, you slipped into your room.

At some point since you’d left, Connor had moved from his spot on your floor and was now laying, fast asleep in your bed. He was still in clothes from yesterday, boots included, and was sprawled out on the mattress. You were unsure what to do at this point. Did you wake him up? Did you kick him out? You really just wanted to go back to sleep. You would have been fine doing that had he still been on your floor. You chewed on the back of your thumb while silently debating.

He was in your bed.

You tried to ignore the growing nervous excitement and shuffled closer to the sleeping boy. His lips were parted slightly and he was breathing softly. He must have been just as exhausted as you after yesterday and sleeping on the floor couldn’t have lead to much rest. “Uhm...Connor...” You poked his arm, keeping your voice down in case your dad heard. He didn’t move. You poked him against and spoke a little louder. “Connor? You’re kinda...in my bed...”

He stirred, eyes opening and staring at you through cracked slits. He mumbled some incoherent words and rolled away from you. At least when he rolled over, he opened up a side of the bed that you could fit into. He was above the covers so you decided to slide under them. Above the covers, below the covers. That was the old sleepover trick. You made yourself comfortable. Your back was to his. You bit your lip to keep from smiling. You were sharing a bed with Connor Murphy. He was unaware of that fact but that’s okay. He was in your bed after all. You had every right to be here.

You took a quiet deep breath and relaxed. You had no worries that your dad would come in. He hardly ever went into your room and he was probably already passed out. The weight of yesterday settled back onto your mind. Your body ached from all the tension and walking and crying you had done. You were mentally and physically drained. It didn’t take long for your eyes to grow heavy.

It was mid day when you began to rouse. Your sluggishness gradually dwindled and your mind cleared up. Already you could feel your body becoming stronger than it had been this morning. Sleep healed.

You rolled over and surveyed your room. Connor was no longer in the bed with you. He had moved back to the floor. He was sitting in the corner of your room, wedging himself in the spot between the wall and your desk. It was a small space. You wondered if he felt safe or hidden behind there. You would have. He was on his phone but his eyes looked up when he heard you move. “Your lack of good books in here is abysmal. I’ve been bored as shit for the past hour.”

You sat up with a yawn. “I told you before. I don’t read much. Why are you still here?” It was surprising to you. Your house was only one floor. He could have easily left through the window or snuck down the hall and out the front door. He wasn’t forced to stay here.

He shrugged and stated nonchalantly, “You asked me to stay.”

A smiled tugged at the corner of your lips. You patted the spot on the bed next to you, indicating for him to come sit down. He hesitantly obliged, taking a tender seat across from you. The dark circles under his eyes were darker than usual. You felt you needed to properly thank him for everything he had done. Even now he was still keeping a watchful eye over you. “Listen...about yesterday...” You weren’t sure how to continue. How did you thank someone for that? Hi, thank you for watching me have a mental breakdown and bringing me home safely, please don’t tell anyone, bye. Words wouldn’t accurately describe what you felt. You also wanted to make sure everything stayed between just the two of you. “I don’t want- I’m sorry you- That wasn’t-” Every sentence you started failed to complete itself.

Connor spoke up instead. “It’s okay, Y/N. No else will ever know what happened yesterday unless you tell them, alright? I won’t say anything.” He looked like he wanted to say more, to ask you something, but he refrained.

You sighed with relief, “Thank you. I didn’t expect all that to happen. I’m sure that was the last way you ever wanted to spend your night. I’m sorry.”

He hesitated again. Something was definitely on his mind. He seemed afraid to ask it though.

You bit your lip and rose your eyebrows in question, wordlessly letting him know that it was okay to say whatever he was thinking.

“Who’s Justin Crawford?” His eyes stayed locked onto your face. They held a look of intrigue in them.

Your stomach dropped. You suddenly felt sick. You weren’t prepared for that question. Connor picked up on your change. He quickly spoke up again, “You said his name in the woods. You said he drugged you. What...what does mean? What happened?”

You stayed quiet for a long time. You kept your eyes cast down at the bed. You nervously fidgeted with the edge of your blanket. You weren’t sure you were ready to unpack all that yet. “He was Alyssa’s boyfriend. He used to be my friend. We were drunk...and...he...he’s not a good person,” you shook your head. It was all you could say. Anymore and you’d start to unravel again.

Connor swallowed. His voice was calm but held a concerned undertone, “Did he hurt you?” He must have taken your silence as a ‘yes’ because he inhaled sharply. His jaw tightened. Anger flashed in his eyes. Then he seemingly appeared to clear his throat and put on a calm exterior. You could see through it though. Underneath he was fuming. You quietly wondered why he would react in such a way. It wasn’t like he knew you then. You picked at the blanket some more. The air in the room had become awkward and tense.

“I’ve got to go,” Connor suddenly stood up from the bed. “I should get home. You’re fine now, right? I can leave?”

He was so dismissive. You looked up with a sad, confused expression. You felt like maybe you had done something wrong. You shouldn’t of said anything. You were so stupid. “I...uhm, yeah...I’m...f-fine.” You weren’t fine. His sudden will to leave threw you into a mental turmoil. You had more or less just confessed something awful to him and his first response was to leave. It was your fault. You should have stayed quiet.

He didn’t look at you as he grabbed his jacket from the chair and his keys from your desk. “Where’d you park my car?”

“Uh, the street behind my house...” You wanted to apologize. You couldn’t shake the feeling that he was angry at you. You had done something to upset him. His responses had become abrupt. He refused to look in your direction while collecting his things. Tears burned in your eyes.

Without looking back, Connor left your room and walked down the hall. He didn’t take any care in attempting to be quiet while your dad still slept. You followed behind, wanting to reach out and say something, but too scared to even try. Before you knew it, he had slipped out your front door and closed it behind him. Gone.

Your lip quivered. Why did you have to say anything? He probably thought you were dirty. He couldn’t even look at you when he found out. Was he that disgusted that he couldn’t even lay his eyes on you? He thought you were dirty, used, and disgusting just like everyone else would if they ever found out. Tears spilled down your cheek. You ran back to your bedroom and slammed the door behind you, sinking to the floor. You were beginning to think he was someone who cared about you. Someone you cared about. He was special to you and you had ruined it like you ruined everything. This was how everyone would react if they ever found out. They wouldn’t be able to look at you. They would leave. Everyone would leave.

You curled up on the carpet. You’d have to keep this a secret. You couldn’t ever let it get out. Keep quiet from now on.

Your heart ached for Connor.

#connor murphy x reader #connor murphy #connor murphy fic #connor murphy imagine #dear evan hansen fic #deh fic #deh

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greenishbucket · 7 years

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Circle Image No. 25

She just wants to look nice for Larissa, really, even though neither of them have said it’s a date. It feels like a date, maybe.

Ford/Lardo, Late Night sequel, 3.8k, ao3

11 days left

Ford and Larissa meet up a few days later, during the day at Larissa’s parents’ house while her parents are out at work. It’s like being in high school, listening out for if they’re arriving in the driveway. Larissa’s childhood bedroom is pasted floor to ceiling with posters and the kind of scraps Ford would reserve for scrapbooking, the squat bookcase crammed haphazardly with kid books and some YA and academic texts and comics and a tonne on art techniques. Larissa reaches up and knocks a painted wooden mobile near the door when she comes in without even seeming to think about it, making the bells on it tinkle cheerily.

Not that Ford gets much time to look around Larissa’s room. This time Larissa is the one that goes down on her, licks broad and firm until Ford can’t catch her breath and she knows she must be getting loud, her orgasm stretching on and on when Larissa finally focuses on her clit. Ford barely has to touch her in return before Larissa’s shaking apart under her with a long groan, coming down just in time for the sound of keys in the lock.

Her and Ford scramble to look presentable and occupied but Ford isn’t sure Larissa’s mom is fooled. She leaves soon after with her cheeks still burning.

9 days left

They arrange to get lunch two days after that. Ford somehow feels more self-conscious about it than the two times they’d had sex, fiddling with the way she’s knotted her headband and second-guessing her lipstick choice in the mirror by the door. Her aunt pokes her head out of the living room to see what’s taking her while Ford applies an entirely unnecessary third coat of lipstick.

“Weren’t you going for lunch?” she asks. “You know you’re just going to lose it all to your food, honey.”

Ford puts the lipstick in her purse. She can reapply between bites, dammit. “I know, I just,” she says but leaves it there because she isn’t sure. She just wants to look nice for Larissa, really, even though neither of them have said it’s a date. It feels like a date, maybe.

“Well you look very cute,” her aunt says. “You’re growing up to be such a stunning young woman, you really are.”

Ford feels a mix of pride and embarrassment. “Thanks, auntie.”

Her aunt beckons her over to give her a pinch and a kiss on the cheek, like she’s a great-aunt, but the knowing look in her eye betrays that as she says, “Now go before you’re even later than you already are for your date.”

“Auntie,” Ford whines but she goes. She hates being late, has the feeling Larissa doesn’t have much patience to spare for it either, and she still needs to get the T and figure out the walk from the stop to get to the little café Larissa had suggested.

It’s hot enough outside that Ford feels uncomfortably sweaty by the time she makes it to the café with the help of Google Maps. Larissa looks impossibly cool and collected in comfy looking shorts and a tank top, waiting for Ford just inside the boundaries of the shade.

Ford feels no small amount of relief when Larissa pulls Ford in for a one-armed hug and Larissa’s skin is just as overwarm and tacky as her own. At least they can both smell like a combination of oh-no-it’s-sweltering sweat and half-heartedly applied deodorant without fear of judgement.

Ford leans in and kisses Larissa’s cheek, because it’s not a date but cheek-kisses aren’t just for dates and, besides, Ford doesn’t know how to contain the dizzy rush inside her for the whole lunch otherwise, if this is just how she’s feeling half a minute in. It’s hard to tell with the shade, and with the way she faux preens and leads the way into the café, but Ford is pretty sure Larissa’s cheeks go slightly pink.

8 days left

Larissa comes to visit Ford at the theatre after she’s done interning for the day.

There isn’t a show on that night so Ford shows Larissa around, leading her by the hand because she can as she explains the history of the building and tries to remember just how many injuries there have been to do with the orchestra pit. She doesn’t know its stories quite like those of the ones back home but that doesn’t seem to bother Larissa, who listens intently all the way.

They end up making out in one of the dressing rooms, just for a little bit, and there’s not enough time for food after but they walk along Charles River for a while. Larissa talks about when she was sixteen and obsessed with painting water and came to the river as often as she could, just to end up with nonsensical page after page of blue green white brown grey smudges.

“It’s was the most boring and pretentious-ass shit I’ve ever done,” Larissa says, laughing a little at her past herself, “But I for real thought I was revolutionising art at the time, so at least I was having a blast.”

Ford thinks, privately, that she’d like to see some of the paintings anyway, just to get an idea of how Larissa sees things.

6 days left

They go to a poetry night, because they’re both terrible like that. Neither of them are particularly fond of poetry, or know any of the technicalities of it, but it’s a pleasant evening. Ford finds that even when she just doesn’t quite get the poetry, she appreciates the signposting of some interesting themes for her to think about in her own time.

It’s nice, too, to be a bit mean and trash poetry as a discipline with Larissa afterwards.

“Like, who needs words for that kind of shit, you know? You don’t gotta articulate every feeling you’ve ever had, you can just feel it and that’s legit,” Larissa is saying in the too-bright light of the much tackier café they’ve relocated to. Then a moment later, with an air of revelation, “Plus, poetry actually makes it all harder to understand? So literally what is the point.”

If Larissa hadn’t proved herself deeply capable of handling her alcohol, Ford might have thought Larissa was on her way to buzzed from the drinks she’d bought them both at the bar to make the poetry palatable. She’s starting to move loose-limbed and easy as she talks, the way she had been when Ford had first spotted her under the switching club lights.

It’s entirely too enthralling to focus on for long.

“Some people would say they don’t understand the point of art,” Ford points out instead.

“Some people are wrong,” Larissa is quick to state. “Or do you want me to start picking at theatre, too?”

Ford has nearly come to blows with people over the importance of theatre before. It’s a conversation that definitely needs to wait until she’s known someone longer than a week. “Let’s go back to why poetry’s bad,” she says, taking a sip of water to ease her drying mouth as Larissa gets back into the flow of her poetry opinions.

5 days left

They meet up after Larissa finishes her shift and eat fast food on the back steps, accompanied by a bored co-worker that smokes his cigarette all the way down to the filter before sighing heavily and going back inside.

Larissa eats her fries three at a time and Ford loses half their sauce misjudging where the packet had ripped. They swap their milkshakes halfway through because they’re too big for the flavors not to get boring otherwise. Ford catches Larissa looks lingering more than usual, but neither of them say anything and it just stays there, hovering between them.

If Ford wanted to make Larissa laugh, she’d make some crack about the tension being like so much oil in the deep fry basins the other side of the wall behind them; just waiting for a catalyst to really start sizzling. Sex as a basket of French fries or chicken drumsticks in spitting oil may be lacking somewhere in the sensual imagery department, but Ford thinks she’s getting to know what kind of things Larissa likes.

But then sometimes whatever tension it is – the sexual, of course, but the other bit, too – feels too fragile for that. Ford catches Larissa looking, and Larissa doesn’t look away but there’s no come-hither smirk or look in her eye that has heat spooling in Ford’s stomach, there’s just an honest looking, a searching. Ford doesn’t want to poke that tension too much, in interest or in humour, in case it breaks in an unfixable way under the focus.

She slurps the last dregs of one of their shared milkshakes obnoxiously loudly instead, and Larissa groans and tries to shove Ford off the step for her crimes before slurping the remains of hers even louder, grinning around the straw when she breaks for air.

4 days left

They go to an art museum. It’s a lot, because Ford likes museums in their own right but has little opportunity to go, and because Larissa is in her element. Ford falls for the five postcards for $3 trick in the gift shop and lets Larissa pick whichever ones she wants to take for herself; she takes one of Castle’s Ducks and Schanker’s Circle Image No. 25, tucking them into her bag with care.

2 days left

They have sex, one more time.

They’re at Larissa’s again and they press close and fumble messily like they’re drunk or entirely new to this. Ford likes Larissa a lot, probably too much, and it makes her feel new to this, makes her gasp and shudder into Larissa’s mouth as her fingers press inside. It’s a tricky arrangement with both of them using their hands on the other without looking, and it takes longer than it would if they just took turns with each other.

It feels like a fair payoff when they come within seconds of each other, sweeter for the build-up and Larissa’s mouth open against the crook of Ford’s shoulder, Ford breathing heavy through a face full of Larissa’s hair. Her hair smells of equal parts grease and shampoo and is all in her mouth but Ford doesn’t move away.

1 day left

They go to the park near Ford’s aunt’s in the evening.

It’s quieter than it’s been when Ford had gone there in the day before, children shepherded home by their parents for dinner. The sun is still high enough for it to be warm, but the swing seats aren’t burning-hot against their bared skin when they sit on them. They just talk and relax, migrating from swings to climbing frame to the cool grass. Ford makes a passable daisy chain and Larissa makes her wear it.

When they kiss it’s much later and the park is starting to get cold, the sun fully hidden behind the buildings all around.

Ford knows they should probably talk about it, but she’s scared and Larissa’s comment that giving voice to things doesn’t make them more real echoes in her head and it just feels too fragile and fresh and new. She has to go back to Madison tomorrow, and then she’ll be back at college all the way across the country from Larissa, and she just wants to get some kissing in now while she can before it all gets difficult.

Within the limits of what can reasonably be done in a public park, that is, even though it’s dark. They reach those limits pretty quickly and Ford knows she has to stop it there; her travel criteria starts too early for her to be up all hours getting some.

“So, about tomorrow…” Ford starts, once she thinks she’s cooled down enough.

Larissa finishes for her, mock sombre, “I know, you’re back into the wilderness.”

“It’s not the wilderness, it’s Wisconsin.”

Larissa shrugs. “Same difference.”

“Come visit me sometime,” Ford says, “and you’ll see it’s a city, just like here but probably better.”

Larissa just blinks at her and Ford realises she’s just invited Larissa to visit her actual house and doesn’t know what to do with herself.

“I’d rather come visit you in Seattle,” Larissa says, taking mercy on Ford. “It’s not in the Midwest, for one.”

Ford laughs at that. “No, you wouldn’t. The cost of living is the price of your soul for, like, three days.”

“Just three days? Kinda shitty deal,” Larissa says, but she doesn’t invite Ford to Samwell. That’s fair enough, Ford thinks, but it leaves them at the awkward junction of a goodbye they had been at before.

They’re still sitting in the grass and it’s getting uncomfortably cold. Ford can only see bits of Larissa’s face in the light of the distant streetlamp, but it’s enough to see Larissa’s watching her back, like before behind Larissa’s fast food place.

Ford wants to say something, something honest and from the heart enough that she isn’t quite sure what it’s going to be when it comes out of her mouth yet. She’s still scared, but she doesn’t want to regret not saying anything at all. Better to have whatever tension break for good, here where there’s a natural ending anyway if it comes to that, than to never know.

“Larissa, I–”

Larissa jumps to her feet, brushing grass and mud off her legs. “This has been good. I’ll see you around, right?”

Ford feels a little horribly turned around with Larissa’s abruptness and she gets to her feet too but it’s still too dark to see Larissa’s expression. The cool night has turned clammy, and her hands feel all fiddly like she’s a little kid impatient in nursery classes again. “Of course it’s been good,” Ford says, because that’s true at least. “But shouldn’t we…?”

Larissa’s mouth twists unhappily but she still says, “Ford, let’s not– this has been good, right? I’ve had a great couple of weeks. But you’ll be there and I’ll be here,” and here Larissa shrugs, like that’s that.

“So you don’t want…?”

“No,” Larissa says, and then, “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Who knows. I wanna stay in touch, okay? And we’ll see.”

Ford’s chest feels a little tight and for all they weren’t dating their entire conversation feels way too close to a break up for comfort. “Yeah, sure, me too,” she says because there isn’t anything else to say.

She can’t be very convincing because Larissa reaches out and takes Ford’s clammy hands in her own. Being earnest with words isn’t Larissa’s strength, but it’s comforting to see her try as she says, “I’m being for real, Ford. I have had a great fucking time. It’s been… it’s been swawesome.”

Ford nods. It has been swawesome, a little bit of Samwell slang for her to take home with her as a memento even if she doesn’t know what’s going to happen with Larissa. She squeezes Larissa’s hands back, tells her as steady as she can, “Don’t be a stranger, all right?”

Larissa smiles, echoes it back to her. They walk together quietly until they reach the street corner where their routes diverge, and Ford doesn’t know their boundaries now – if she ever did – so she just waves and turns down the street to her aunt’s house, staying firm with herself.

Hey, Larissa, it’s Ford! Just thought I would let you know I got back home okay. Thank you for such a nice time showing me around Boston :) [Sent: 8.12.15, 21:19. Delivered]

So how have you been? [Sent: 8.13.15, 23:10. Delivered]

Saw this duck in my friend’s front yard :) [Sent: 8.29.15, 15:42. Picture attached. Delivered]

HEy its my BIRHDAY and it was REALLY F uN. we had lalcojhol even tho Im ONL y 20!!! Shhhh don’t tell. U should HAVE COME!!!! i mad e out with theis REall y nice gil brut lik e Remebmbre when i fuirst went d o urn on y and hthrat ws SO h ot [Sent: 9.7.15, 4:22. Delivered]

Hey, Larissa. Really, really sorry about that, drunk me is a mess and shouldn’t have access to phones evidently! Back to the grindstone at UW soon, hope you’re doing okay if you’re already at Samwell. [Sent: 9.7.15, 12:58. Delivered]

hi ford, it’s larissa [Sent: 9.26.15, 18:01. Delivered]

sorry i’ve been awol [Sent: 9.26.15, 18:14. Delivered.]

im back at samwell and it’s chill. hope uw is treating u well [Sent: 9.26.15, 18:17. Delivered.]

Ford watches as each text arrives, eyes flicking between the lit-up screen and then back again to her work each time. Her heart is beating double time somewhere in the area of her throat but actually getting a response from Larissa after all this time hasn’t actually soothed any of Ford’s hurt; if anything, it’s brought it back with a stinging vengeance.

A month of silence and then ‘sorry i’ve been awol’ is all Ford gets? ‘hope uw is treating u well’? That doesn’t even call for an answer. Ford should just leave it – their thing was fun, and it was sweet, and Ford still thinks about it a lot, but it was two weeks, a literal summer fling. Larissa had agreed not to be a stranger but clearly she hadn’t meant it because friends, or whatever they were or are, don’t leave each other hanging for a month.

Ford tries to focus on her readings again with little luck. Her room suddenly feels itchy on her skin, the walls to tight, her perfectly condition desk chair all wrong. She wants to get up and do something, not sit here having all these feelings she was just managing to push aside come tumbling back.

Feeling petty, she opens the messages, so Larissa will see that she’s read them and has no intention to respond. Let her wait.

She watches the little three dots bubble pop in and out of existence on her screen for a few minutes instead. Whatever it is Larissa’s been stewing on for a month seems to still be a struggle to get out. The longer Ford watches, the more the pettiness and the anger fades and the more the sadness settles in.

It had hurt to be so thoroughly ghosted. Ford had felt stupid and needy and clingy, but Larissa had agreed they should stay in touch and there had been nothing from her. Absolutely zero for Ford to go on, no feedback of any kind. The messages hadn’t even been read last Ford had checked.

And before she’d hit hurt, she’d been on a sickly journey through every variety of worried that something had happened to Larissa. Only a shameful Facebook search that showed some recent activity under the name Larissa Duan had given Ford answers, and then she’d been hurt that Larissa hadn’t cared about making her worried on top of hurt that she’d been rejected entirely.

It had sucked.

And watching Larissa labour over whatever she’s trying to say sucks too. Ford doesn’t want to stretch it out into some kind of endless grudge match of hurt feelings, to waste another month not talking. Ford loves her friends at UW, loves the life she has here, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t missed Larissa and the sudden stalling of whatever it was they had.

But all the theoretical emotional maturity in the world still doesn’t stop her feeling hurt.

Flipping her phone face down, Ford turns up her study playlist and forces herself to finish her assigned chapters for tomorrow. She tucks her phone into the inside pocket of her bag without checking the screen when her watch and her stomach tell her its time for the dining hall, and she makes a concerted effort to focus on her friends at the table with her, relaxing into it for real as the meal goes on.

It’s late by the time Ford gets back to her room and ready for bed and finally looks at her phone screen again. There are about a million notifications, but none are from Larissa. Ford flicks through her email for a bit, between social medias, thinking.

If there’s one thing Ford hates, it’s the feeling of regret from missing the opportunity for something amazing just because she was too unsure, or unprepared, or scared. She feels plenty of all of those things when it comes to whatever is going on between her and Larissa: she’s never had a real relationship before, and it would be long distance, and they’re both busy all the time, and there are probably a thousand issues Ford isn’t even considering. She doesn’t know if Larissa even really wants all, or any, of the things with her that Ford wants with Larissa.

But she’ll never know if she doesn’t go for it.

Ford carefully considers the artiest way to capture her (cliché and faltering) fairy lights over her notice board with only an iPhone and Snapchat filters at her disposal. She goes for the simple look, in the end: a straight on photo with the UW Snapchat filter across the bottom of the screen, the caption reading ‘it’s treating me pretty good’.

She scrolls through the suggested contacts from her phone to the one she can tell is Larissa’s from the bitmoji alone, since she doesn’t get what the username ‘Lardo’ is supposed to mean.

Ford takes a deep breath, checks over the snap for anything embarrassing one last time, and hits send. She immediately bundles herself up in her comforter and shoves her phone away from herself, willing herself to fall asleep as soon as possible so she can forget the churning in her stomach.

There’s the ping of a new snap being sent her way from her phone.

Ford’s arm is snaking out the covers to grab it on automatic, and her heart is racing, and she nearly pokes an eye out shoving her glasses back on, and it’s all worth it when there it is:

Snapchat from Lardo

Ford opens it with her breath held like her phone might explode in her hand from it.

It’s Larissa, tired-looking and washed out with only laptop light in an otherwise dark room, a blanket pulled up over her head. The caption reads ‘it’s chill’. She’s added the temperature, which is ridiculously cold for the time of year, and makes Ford feel ridiculously warm in her chest.

She screenshots it, because she can. Larissa sends her a bitmoji in the chat function that involves Ford in a cat suit purring and being spooned by a much larger Larissa.

Ford has no fucking clue what it means, but her cheeks hurt from smiling. She’s already searching through the endless varieties for something equally absurd to send back, buzzing down to her fingertips with the new opportunity - whatever it will mean - opening up all over again in front of her.

#fordo #check please fic #my writing #im really sorry if the read more doesnt work #also would rec ao3 for reading bc formatting but here is readable i swear!#omgcprarepairs

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specialagentfluffstein · 4 years

Note

All those asks that you havent answered yet

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? More cereal. I’m lactose intolerant so I try to use just enough milk that I’m not eating dry cereal. Dry cereal is a different snack.

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? No.

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? Whatever is close. Usually random coupons.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? Coffee with creamer, tea on its own. Unless it’s chai. I like chai with oat milk or vanilla creamer.

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? I used to be, but now I love smiling for the camera, at strangers, pretty much all the time. But I also spent a lot of time practicing and figuring out how to smile without looking weird when I was 9 and super self conscious.

6: do you keep plants? Yes! I have a plant that might be a Kalanchoe that I’ve managed to keep alive for a few years, despite always forgetting to water it and 3 butt succulents (living stones).

7: do you name your plants? Nope. Although I do refer to the butts as “The Butts”.

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? I write, mostly.

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? Yes. I tend to sing song if I’m talking to myself.

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? Side.

12: what’s your favorite planet? Jupiter! Even though that’s where boys go to get more stupider.

13: what’s something that made you smile today? I found some pictures of my mom in college and we look really similar.

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? Lots of color. Lots of tchotckes and disney stuff. Jackson Pollock’s Circumcision above the couch.

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system.

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? Is it pasta? It’s my favorite. Unless it has capers.

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? Pink!

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. So one time my BF and I went on a road trip up the oregon coast and then to Seattle. He was getting tired on our Seattle leg of the journey so we swapped and I drove for a while. I drive a ford and he drives a subaru. We were in the subaru, and I went to put it in drive, but instead turned the windshield wipers on full blast. Out of habit, I pulled down on it, since that’s where the gear shift is in my truck. His is not. I have yet to live it down.

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? I do! I have a planner for dates and scheduling stuff, a Bullet Journal that I keep my mood tracker and habit tracker and various lists in, a gratitude log, and my ‘write about your day and your feelings’ journal. I just filled my last one, and now I get to start a new one!

20: what’s your favorite eye color? Blue.

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. I have a 5.11 backpack that I used in college, and then used to travel, and now I’m currently using it as my roller derby bag. It’s super versatile. And I can put patches and pins on it.

22: are you a morning person? Yes. Or at least I pretend to be.

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? Knit and watch TV.

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? My counselor.

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? An old abandoned mansion. I was on a ride along and the cop I was with wanted to check for “juvenile delinquents.”

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? My pink double tongue low top converse.

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? I feel like there was a strawberry watermelon hubba bubba flavor I loved as a kid, but maybe I imagined it.

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? Pspsps’s at literally every cat they see.

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? Yes.

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. I love socks. I’ve knitted myself four pairs, and I love wearing disney socks and I just love socks.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. My friends and I are boring old people and we are asleep at 3 am.

33: what’s your fave pastry? Uhhh.. At this point in my life anything gluten free that doesn’t taste like cardboard.

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? A stuffed rabbit. Their name is ‘ruggy bunny’. It’s made from chenille. I still have them and as a full fledged adult sleep with them (and all my other squishy friends).

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? So. Fucking. Much. I love Sakura Jelly Roll pens and washi tape and stickers and felt tip pens and ink joy pens and I love the crayola Take Note line and anything from The Happy Planner. I love it all so much.

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? Deee-Lite or The The

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? I like keeping it clean. I used to say my room always needed to be Teen Vogue ready, back when Teen Vogue would have pics of some famous girl in her bedroom on the last page.

38: tell us about your pet peeves! Other drivers.

39: what color do you wear the most? I usually wear quite a few different colors, especially in the summer.

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? My uncle (who’s not my uncle, just a close family friend) bought me a diamond necklace when I was 10, because he said my first diamond shouldn’t be from a boy, so that way it would just be another piece of jewelry, and not my ‘first diamond.’ In hindsight, that was kind of a cool thing to do, because now I don’t feel like I have to keep or get rid of jewelry just because of who I associate it with. If it’s a nice piece, it’s a nice piece. It’s not my first diamond.

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? Outlander. It’s so well researched, and it’s got political intrigue and smut but I never felt like I was being talked down to or treated like a dumb reader.

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! I do! It’s a local place and it’s got old squashy couches and different tables and big windows. One location looks out over the marina here.

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? My boyfriend.

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? Not any time within recent memory.

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? Yes. They’re usually right.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. How does NASA throw a party? They Planet!

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? Cashews.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? Yes. Getting left behind in the grocery store.

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? I love buying records, I’ve slowed down on CDs in favor of vinyl. I bought Johnny Jewel’s Themes for Television.

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? Taxidermy and furs.

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? Joe Jacksons “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? Anything Baby Yoda.

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? I’ve seen RHPS, and been to a midnight showing. I love it. I’ve also seen Beetlejuice, it’s not my fave, but it’s fun.

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? My boyfriend when we discovered our favorite pho place closed.

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? Everything I do is a dramatic thing to prove a point.

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? Laughs! I love peoples laughs.

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? So good. I’ve been drinking, and I sang it quietly to myself with all the voices.

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? Why? I struggle with this classification of women and the exploitation of the rampant alcoholism among women who are likely suffering from depression in addition to alcoholism.

59: what’s your favorite myth? That David Bowie had two different colored eyes. And cryptid stuff.

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? I like poetry from the 20th century, and I love slam Poetry. My all time favorite poem is William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just To Say”

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? Both of these can be answered with “Bath and Body Works Body Wash”

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? Sometimes! I love orange juice.

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? I want to be, when I have the space. My records are in alphabetical order.

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? Dark Blue

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? My two besties who are kicking ass and living their best life in South Korea.

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? Massive and full of really bright flowers. Sunflowers and carnations and gerber daisies and just so much color.

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? They make me feel like cuddling by a fire.

68: what’s winter like where you live? Fucking. Miserable.

69: what are your favorite board games? Monopoly! I also like card games.

70: have you ever used a ouija board? Nope. I ain’t fucking around with that shit.

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? Chai, green, and Thai.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? Yes.

73: what are some of your worst habits? Popping any joint I possibly can and peeling my nail polish (which is why I will never get gels).

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. They are very tall and do the best John Mulaney impression.

75: tell us about your pets! I don’t have any. :( But I want three corgis named Navy Bean, Gerladine, and Jolene. And a pitbull named Korg.

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? Probably going through my clothes so I can find my Star Wars shirt for Monday.

77: pink or yellow lemonade? Pink. I don’t really like lemonade, but I love the pink lemonade lip smackers chapstick I have.

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? Very firmly in the hateclub.

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? My mom made me an advent calendar one year with little makeup things and trinkets wrapped individually and hung from the ceiling. It was so fun.

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? Sleeping Beauty Castle Pink! One wall has glitter! Yes I did! I love pink and it looks nice with all my bright furniture.

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. The spine of my copy of The Hatchet.

82: are/were you good in school? Yes. I was built for the American School System and now that I can’t prove my worth with papers and multiple choice tests I’m kinda struggling.

83: what’s some of your favorite album art? I love the cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico that Andy Warhol did and the cover of Led Zeppelin III with the rotating art.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? Yeah! I want a lightning bolt (a la Bowie or The Killers) on my ankle and my sister and I want to get some matching ones of Chuckie Chickenhawk (my grandfather’s event mascot)

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? I do, although not as much as I used to. I love Nightwing.

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? Yeah! I love Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads, and of course David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust.

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? Everything except minimalism, and even then I like that a little bit. But I love abstract and pop art. But really I just love art. I love going to museums when I travel.

89: are you close to your parents? My mom hell yeah!

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. I love Seattle. I love the art and how much there is of it! I also have a soft spot for Meeker CO, weird republican little town that it is.

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? Ahahahahahahahaha. Ha. *soft crying*

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? Depends on the pasta dish.

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? Well when I don’t have horrible too long quarantine hair, and it’s at shoulder length, I like wearing it down or half up. Lately it’s been in a ponytail or a bun.

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? My neighbor turned 30.

95: what are your plans for this weekend? Gonna go roller skate at the outdoor roller hockey rink on Saturday and then go do some shooting on blm land on Sunday.

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? I am a horrible procrastinator.

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? ESTJ, Virgo, Slytherin or Gryffindor. On my first pottermore account I got Gryffindor, and then I could figure out my password so I made another one and got Slytherin.

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? I went hiking two weekends ago and it was awesome!

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. The Killers’ Battleborn, The The’s This Is The Day, Deee- Lite’s Groove Is In The Heart, Panic! At The Disco’s That Green Gentleman, The Avett Brothers’ Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise (actually, anything by the Avett Bros resonates with my soul.)

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? Why? Five years in the future. Because hopefully I’d be in a more stable place in my life.

Thanks for Asking!

#fluffy answers

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onceuponamirror · 7 years

Text

heart rise above

///// CHAPTER 10

summary: It wasn’t an experiment with freedom borne of some Americana fantasy; rather, a road trip of purely logistical intentions. The plan was simple. Drive from Boston to Chicago for his sister’s college graduation. That’s it.

Or, he drives a Ford Pickup Named Desire.

Mechanic!AU

fandom: riverdale ship: betty x jughead words: 50k chapters: 10/19

[read from the beginning] [read the latest]

I wonder about the love you can't find And I wonder about the loneliness that's mine

Veronica asks Betty to meet up at her apartment before the double date, even though they have plans to drive themselves separately. But Ronnie sounded very cryptic over the phone, so there’s no hesitation.

And, like the good Cooper girl she is, Betty arrives promptly at eight as requested. When she knocks, Veronica throws open her apartment door, still dressed in her work outfit of a pressed black pantsuit. “Ugh, would you believe I only just got home?”

Veronica sighs heavily as she unpins her pearl earrings and drops them in a bowl by the door, gesturing for Betty to follow her into the apartment. There seems to be something wearier around her shoulders than the usual post-work frustration, but Betty can’t get a good look at it, as she’s already crossing the room and reaching for the uncorked bottle of white wine on the dining table.

She pours Betty a light glass, and then takes a hearty sip of her own. “I am so ready to quit, B. Thank god I only have two more months.” Having spent the last two years listening to Veronica bemoan the life of an underling paralegal in a small town law firm, this is nothing Betty isn’t used to.

“I swear, I’m only one more night of overtime without pay from finding my inner Carrie,” Veronica says dryly. She gives Betty a quick once over. “Cute outfit, by the way. Just enough décolletage to make your mail-order love interest swoon.”

Betty smiles in relief, given she’d spent a solid hour throwing on every shirt she had before settling on the original choice: a cropped baby blue top with a wide scoop neck and a pair of high rise black jeans. She sips her wine and glances around; something seems different about the apartment. “Did you rearrange the furniture?”

Veronica takes another gulp of wine, glancing at Betty over the rim of her glass in the way that usually precursors a conversation about law school, Veronica’s upcoming move to Los Angeles, or her opinions on Betty living with her mother.

(Which she finds a little rich, considering Veronica’s own mother lives in the apartment upstairs.)

“I started selling some things,” Veronica admits hesitantly. “I figure if I get started now, I won’t be so overwhelmed come Judgment Day. Apparently, it also helps the realtor show people around and ‘envision this space as their own.’”

“Makes sense,” Betty says, trying to stamp out the queasy reminder that her best friend is moving nearly three thousand miles away.

Veronica sees right through it, as usual, and sighs as she leads them back into her bedroom. Betty plops down onto her canopy bed, as Veronica starts to sift through her closet absentmindedly. “Remind me again why you’re not coming with me?”

Betty rolls her eyes, because they’ve been down this road so many times she could map it from memory. “Because my family is here, and so is my business.”

“But your best friend in the entire world is moving to LA,” Veronica replies, batting her eyelashes with mock innocence. “And sorry, do you mean the business you own half of and share with your mom and sister, or the one where you’re an unpaid nanny and live-in housekeeper?”

She appreciates the way Ronnie is always defensive on her behalf, but sometimes, it feels a bit too pointed. This is one of those moments, but at Betty’s look, Veronica just sends her a pouted bottom lip and puts down her wine glass. “Please come with me.”

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” Betty says, with obvious sarcasm.

Veronica claps her hands together. “Yay! Alright, I’m thinking Echo Park for neighborhoods? It’s small, but supposedly it’s an ideal blend of useless artisanal products and effective bohème. Deeply gentrified, of course, which is a consideration—”

“V, I was kidding. You know I’m not moving to LA,” Betty reminds her, for the umpteenth time.

She huffs. “I just don’t understand why not,” she snaps, and Betty once again gets the impression that Veronica’s mood is more tightly wound than usual. “Do you know why I’m going to the city of angels, Betty? I could’ve gone anywhere for law school. Stayed in state—god knows it would’ve been cheaper—or at least found a nice little city on the Eastern seaboard. But people have been going west in search of meaning for hundreds of years, B. Isn’t that something we’re all looking for?”

Betty opens her mouth, but Veronica sees the cornered look on her face and spares her the misery. Her expression softens. “I’m sorry. You know the last thing I want to do is project. But…sometimes I just wonder. And worry. You hate Riverdale.”

“I don’t hate Riverdale,” Betty insists, which is true. “I…am sometimes frustrated by the way things turned out, but there a lot of people with a lot worse—”

“Yes, there are starving children all over the world, I know, I know,” Veronica interrupts. “Doesn’t mean your problems aren’t also valid, sweetie.”

“You know, I don’t see you having this lecture with Kevin, who is also staying in Riverdale,” Betty points out, but it’s a weak attempt, even for her.

“Kevin is an out gay man in a long term relationship who wants to be a politician, Betty,” she explains, even though they both know the reason. “He has to start on a local level, so his hometown is ideal. It’s tragic and ridiculously erroneous, but unfortunately where we’re still at in America 2017. And you and I both already knew that. So don’t even.”

Betty exhales, because Veronica has been broaching the topic of Betty moving with her a lot more often lately, in a way that she loves to play off as a joke, but tonight, something seems different. Betty has spent so much time convincing herself that she’ll manage without her best friend, that she’ll miss her so much but she’s happy for her—that she hasn’t stopped to think about how Ronnie will manage without her best friend too.

It’s one thing for Betty to say goodbye to Veronica knowing she’s off in pursuit of her dreams, and it must be another for Veronica to do the same, all the while knowing how secretly trapped Betty feels.

They need to get ready to go soon, so there isn’t much time for Betty to ruminate on this, but she knows it’s a thought that’ll keep her up over the course of the week.

“Is this why you asked me here today?” Betty asks softly, tucking her hair behind ears. (She’d decided to wear it down again today, having liked the reaction it got before.) She cracks a smile. “Another attempt at practicing your lawyer voice?”

Something moves across Veronica’s face, as if she might be about to say something. Instead, she quickly turns back to face her closet.

“Psh. As if I haven’t been arguing my way into everything my whole life. No, obviously I asked you here for fashion advice.” She twists back, holding a lacy black dress up against herself and giving it a little swish. “What do you think? Too much?”

“For the bowling alley? Yes,” Betty says emphatically. Veronica waves a dismissive hand and returns to her wardrobe; after a little bit of debate, they both agree on a mid-length polka dot skirt and a silky black tank top, to be worn tucked in.

Veronica appears pleased, but as she settles in front of her vanity and starts her make up, Betty catches a glimpse of Veronica’s reflection. There’s a spot of something waning, and it passes quickly, but not before Betty sees a thought moving faraway in her mind.

She and Veronica walk into the bowling alley arm-in-arm, but separate as they near their dates, who are waiting just beyond the entrance and outside the parallel arcade. Archie is saying something, one hand moving animatedly, but Jughead doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He bounces on his feet and stares at the ceiling in the way Betty has noticed usually does when he’s distracted by his thoughts.

Veronica passes Betty a sly look, because clearly she sees it too, and then strides forward, wiggling her fingers at the two of them. “Hello, boys,” she calls, with a voice like wind chimes. She and Archie greet each other with a comfortable kiss, while Betty slows her steps a few feet before reaching Jughead.

“Hi,” she says quietly. He gives her a long once over and her whole body warms under his gaze.

“Hey. You look really pretty, Betty,” he says, scratching his neck.

She looks down at her outfit, pleased that she’d trusted her instincts rather than allow Veronica to play Barbie; there had been a brief, last-minute struggle for control in which Veronica had tried to push her into a skirt that had been inappropriately short for an activity like bowling. But if this is the reaction a plain pair of high-waisted skinny jeans gets, Betty wonders how the skirt would’ve gone over.

“Oh. Thanks,” she breathes.

She gets a good look at him, and realizes he too looks a bit dressier than normal. Still clearly, purely Jughead, but smoothed around the edges; he’s wearing his typical outfit of black jeans and drooping suspenders, but rather than his usual aged t-shirt and enclave of plaid, he’s donned a dark navy button up of a fine caliber, open over a black undershirt.

And, she notices: again, no beanie.

He looks good.

“Nice shirt,” she adds, reaching forward and straightening his collar. His Adam’s apple bobs, tracing the movement.

She means it as a compliment, but he appears suddenly self-conscious. “Well, I need to do laundry, so it was either the ancient System of a Down t-shirt I accidentally brought or the one I got for my sister’s graduation. I know it’s kind of dressy for just bowling, but…not that this is just bowling—”

“Juggie.” His mouth promptly clamps shut and she smiles up at him. “I meant it looks nice.”

Betty glances around and realizes they’re alone. Veronica and Archie have slipped away, and she spots them across the alley, clearly giving them their space. She breathes a sigh of relief; Veronica had promised not to tease her about this double date, but Betty honestly hadn’t believed her until now.

She loves her best friend dearly, but Veronica can be so insufferable when she’s proven right and Betty would never have been able to have a good time if she was spending the whole evening fielding off smug smirks.

Now that it’s just her and Jughead, it seems like—well, just the two of them, joking under the hood of his truck or bantering over eggs. The simplest act of just being around him; this is the part that has always felt easy.

And yet, somewhere between waking up knowing it was because he was no longer holding her and the tense conversation about things very explicitly unsaid, something has definitely changed. What it is, Betty doesn’t know, but it hangs between them; headier, hushed, and curling slowly like a tendril of smoke against the light.

A shift that makes the world feel just slightly tilted beneath her feet, drawing her closer towards him as if gravity itself commands it.

With a start, Betty realizes her fingers have slid down slightly, moving from his collar to his chest.

It feels thrillingly new; beyond the spare pull on his arm or the bit of snuggling on the couch last night—which had honestly been a daze of post-panic haziness, so she’s not even sure it totally counts—she hasn’t experimented with any kind of physical closeness with him until now.

Normally, she’d have already been finding excuses to lay her hand on his shoulder, or sneak in little touches, but up until this afternoon, she’d been so confused by what he wanted. Jughead seems like a guy who deeply values personal space until he's comfortable, so she hadn’t wanted to overstep or make him feel awkward.

But she knows it’s mutual now. He called this a date. So she presses her fingers gently against the fabric of his shirt and gladly plays with fire.

“Hi,” she says again.

“Hi,” he returns, his voice very low. His eyes rake across her face; it’s an expression she’s only seen him wear from afar, furiously typing away in the back of a booth at Pop’s, like he’s concentrating on some kind of thematic riddle.

“We probably shouldn’t keep them waiting,” Betty says, but she hasn’t moved.

Jughead scoffs, and the moment seems to fizzle out, like a sparking rope of dynamite that never quite reaches its point. “Look, I just spent the last hour listening to the saga of Archie’s battle for creative integrity over a talking duck commercial, so he can fucking stand to wait a bit.”

“Quote the quack, ‘Nevermore,’” Betty giggles.

Jughead laughs outright. “Yikes, Cooper. Should I make a joke about why a duck is like a writing desk?”

“Edgar Allen oh-no,” she says, and Jughead sighs with aplomb.

“Jesus, that’s terrible, Betts. Terrible. This joke is over, I’m calling it,” he says. “Poor Poe. He’s probably rolling in his grave as we speak.”

“Pretty sure he was waiting his whole life to sulk from beyond the grave, so I think it’s fine.”

His lips are pursed against a grin. His eyes sweep over her once more, and at this angle, Betty is sure he’s got a decent view of her cleavage. “Did I mention you look really nice?”

“It’s just jeans and a top,” she says, reluctantly dropping her hand from his chest because she can’t stand here forever, half-groping him with what she’s sure is an absurdly dopey expression.

Jughead snorts playfully. “I’ll be happy to prove you wrong on that. In iambic pentameter, if you want. Or, do you like haikus?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Betty sighs, but feeling ridiculously pleased. She loops her hands around his arm and tugs him towards Archie and Veronica. “Come on, Shakespeare.”

Upon the reunion, the four of them settle into the line for bowling shoes and lane assignments. Archie and Veronica are so deeply wrapped around one another that Betty feels nervous with just her elbow crooked around Jughead’s arm in comparison, so she drops it. She misses the warmth right away and instantly regrets it.

Veronica appraises Jughead with a nod. “Lovely shirt, by the way,” she says approvingly. “Nice to see you can clean up a bit.”

“Want me to take off my glasses so you can realize I’ve been beautiful all along?” Jughead drawls acerbically, which Betty expects is just because he knows a compliment on his wardrobe is a big deal coming from Veronica and it clearly embarrasses him.

“But you don’t wear glasses,” Archie says, his brow wrinkling with confusion. Jughead huffs, half exasperated and half amused.

“I gotta be honest,” Betty says, lacing her fingers behind her back as Jughead glances back her way. “I was almost expecting you to wear a tuxedo t-shirt.”

“No, this is good,” Jughead says, without missing a beat. He waves a hand between them. “Let’s just get what you really think of me out on the open early on.”

“Dude, you definitely owned one of those in middle school,” Archie says, tucking Veronica under his arms and resting his chin on the top of her head. He grins goofily at them.

“Whatever, shut up,” Jughead replies, so quickly that it veers on defensive. “I can’t be held accountable for my adolescent bullshit. Anyway, I have it on good authority that you still own a keyboard tie.”

“Uh, yeah, because those are funny,” Archie replies, like this is obvious.

“Oh my god, Archiekins,” Veronica says, twisting to look up at Archie. She looks so personally offended that Betty almost laughs out loud. “I’m so going to pretend I didn’t just hear that.”

In response, Archie just nuzzles against her neck until her expression turns soft again, leaving Jughead and Betty to exchange unimpressed looks.

It’s finally their turn in line, and everyone gives out their shoe sizes to the teenager behind the counter. As he runs off to collect their bowling shoes, Archie leans up against the counter and surveys Jughead with an expression of pure impishness.

“Too bad we’re not in Boston,” he says. “Because Jughead owns about four pairs of shoes—and one of those pairs happen to be bowling shoes.”

Betty looks up at Jughead with surprise. “You own your own bowling shoes?”

Jughead shrugs indifferently, his hands in his pockets. “What? They were on sale.”

“I just didn’t peg you for such a diehard,” Betty says, failing miserably at hiding a smile.

“Are you kidding?” Jughead says, raising his eyebrows. “It covers all my bases. It’s 90% sitting down, every bowling alley in America sells hot dogs and nachos, and…it’s a game of patience. Balance. Momentum. A certain je ne sais quoi,” he says, pinching his finger and thumb together and speaking in a terrible French accent that Betty knows Veronica would like to correct. “And again, a strong case to be made for the nachos.”

Honestly, when he explains it like that, bowling does seem like arguably the most Jughead-approved activity in the book. The conversation turns to the costs, which Archie and Jughead offer to split, but Betty tries to insert her own credit card, while Veronica admits she has no qualms about being treated to a free evening when she's about to go off to an expensive law school. Jughead rolls his eyes good-naturedly and doesn’t seem to mind Betty’s attempts to help pay, but Archie insists it’s the least they can do after all she’s doing for the truck, so eventually she withdraws her bid.

Meanwhile, the pimply teenager returns from the back and presents them with their shoes and available bowling lane. Immediately, Veronica has procured a moist towelette from her purse and is already wiping down her pair. She uses it to pick them up and carries the shoes in front of her at arm’s length, her lip curled into something very sour.

Jughead watches the whole exchange with interest. “Veronica doesn’t like germs,” Betty supplies in a half-whisper, leaning in against Jughead. He bumps her shoulder playfully and glances up at Veronica with amusement.

“Please. Find me a sane human being who does,” Veronica says over her shoulder. “Honestly, I still can’t believe I agreed to go bowling, of all things. Curiously, what’s the process on reporting identity theft?”

“C’mon. You said yes because you like me, babe,” Archie smirks, his arm dangling around her as they head towards their lane.

Babe, Jughead mouths at Betty, his eyes widening mischievously. She tries not to snigger.

When they all sit down, Veronica’s eyes are elsewhere beyond the alley, and it’s not until they’ve all changed into their rented shoes that she finally seems to snap back into the moment. Betty files away the moment for later, as it’s the same the faraway look she’d noticed back at Veronica’s apartment.

And it’s one thing for her best friend of over a decade to zone out when it’s just them, but it’s very unlike Ronnie to not be socially present among others.

“So,” Betty says, once they’ve set up their lane computer with their initials and game order. She sinks into the seat next to Jughead and puts her hands on her knees. “Should we do teams, maybe? Girls vs. boys?”

“Oh, honey, I would never do that to you,” Veronica replies, with a commiserating sort of look. She holds up both hands, her glossy manicure gleaming at Betty. “This is a seventy-five dollar manicure. I’m strictly bowling granny-style tonight. No, let’s stick with our dates. I have no problem leaving Archiekins to his own devices, but I couldn’t do that to my best girl.”

“Aw man,” Archie whines, as if he can’t help it. Veronica swivels towards him with a look that screams you did not just, so he very hastily adds, “Jughead’s just really good. I wanted him on my team.”

Jughead stretches his arms across his chest in a show of mock machismo. He grunts a little dramatically and glances over at Betty. “I mean, yeah. I don’t wanna brag, but…I’m gonna wipe the floor with all of you.”

Betty raises an eyebrow and shifts in her seat, crossing her legs so that she faces him. “Really, now?”

His arm slips around the back of her seat as he too twists towards her. “Oh, yeah,” he says, his voice dropping almost conspiratorially. “Hold onto your hat, Cooper.”

“I’ll put it with your missing beanie.” She means it jokingly, but the mood instantly shifts. Frowning, Jughead’s fingers dart up to his hair, as if about to tug on the hat that isn’t there.

“Yeah. I’m trying something out,” Jughead mumbles, dropping his hands back into his lap.

“What’s that?”

“Adulthood, I think,” he sighs, briefly glancing off at nothing. “Jury’s still out.”

Betty pauses, wondering what he means. But if nothing, she’s noticed the way the hat skirts around a sensitive subject, and seems to be some sort of long-held security blanket, so she suspects it has at least something to do with that.

“I like you with the hat,” she says gently. “But I also like you without it.”

His head is bowed slightly, but his eyes flick up. Clouds move across his face and Betty can’t begin to interpret the shape of them.

“So, Betty’s up first,” Archie says, with an air of impatience. Betty realizes that she and Jughead have been leaning in towards one another and having a very private conversation. She knows it’s a bit rude for a double date, but it’s a hard balance to strike for what is also her and Jughead’s very first.

The affection and comfort between Archie and Veronica only serves as stark reminder that Betty is on borrowed time with Jughead; she feels sorely behind schedule on where she’d like to be, so she consciously decides she wants to enjoy this.

(And she can’t help it if every time he looks at her, she feels like she’s about to jump out of her skin.)

She wants to know what her hands would feel like moving across the planes of his chest. Wants to brush the pad of her thumb against his bottom lip and memorize each freckle on his jaw.

It’s that thought, however, that forces Betty to accept that she must distract herself, lest she actually jump him thirty minutes into their first date.

She stands and selects a predictably pink bowling ball. Finding her pose, she swings her arm back, and lets the ball roll. It tumbles along the lane and takes down a comfortable number of pins. She manages to get all but two on her second try, and when she turns around, Jughead is grinning at her.

“Not too shabby,” he says, as she returns to her spot next to him.

Archie is next, and he does better than Betty, ending up with a spare. He throws Jughead a competitive sort of leer while Veronica very begrudgingly rises for her turn. As promised, she hugs the ball against her chest and simply lets it drop onto the smooth lane with a loud bang. It moves agonizingly slowly, but in the end somehow earns a perfect split.

When Jughead gets up, he takes his sweet time. He selects a green ball, puts it back, tries again with a black one, then a blue one, his fingers running deliberately over the surfaces all the while. This process goes on to the point where Archie calls out, “Dude, we don’t have all year, just bowl already,” and Jughead finally finds his mark.

He lines up against the lane, brings the ball up to his nose and then swings it back, dropping into a lunge as he sends it barreling down. It’s a perfect strike.

Betty and Veronica clap as he turns back around, but he just waves them off. “No paparazzi, please,” he mutters, dropping down next to Betty. He flashes her a wide, toothy grin that straddles the line of cocky, which is all the ammunition she needs for her imagination to start up again. Or, at least, that’s as PG-13 as she’ll allow herself to admit now that she’s noticed there’s a family of four bowling in the lane next to them.

This is getting ridiculous.

The game continues in a similar succession, and true to his promise, Jughead easily earns the highest score. Archie snags second place, while Betty and Veronica vacillate between third and fourth. Veronica’s technique of more or less dropping the ball onto the lane and walking away tends to either work radically well or not at all, so in the end, Betty manages a narrow defeat.

The decide they should try a second game (read: Archie demands a rematch), but Jughead insists he won’t play until he’s refueled, so he and Archie head off to the fast food grill in the back of the alley in search of greasy salvation.

Once they’re out of earshot, Betty scoots over to Veronica’s side of the chairs, excited to analyze how she think their date is going. But Veronica is staring off into space again, her chin propped up on the back of her hand, and doesn’t seem to realize Betty is even there until she says her name.

“Sorry B, did you say something?” She asks, blinking slowly as if to clear her thoughts.

“Okay, what’s up with you?” Betty demands, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve been acting weird all night.”

Veronica appears mildly shocked to have been called out—but to her credit, doesn’t deny it, which is probably what Betty would’ve done. She sighs and folds her hands carefully in her lap. “Do you think things are moving too quickly between me and Archie?”

It’s the last thing Betty expected her to say, so she’s briefly stunned silent. She nibbles her lips over the words, but decides Ronnie will want the truth. “Well, you know this is kind of what you do, right? You always throw yourself so fully into whatever you’re doing, right away. But I don’t know, V. Only you can answer that. Why do you ask?”

“I think you might’ve been right,” Veronica says in a half-whisper. Her eyes are lingering on a young couple giggling a few lanes down. “About why you were hesitant about Jughead. I’m starting to wonder if dating two highwaymen was a bad idea.”

Feeling like the air has left her lungs and alone with the thought you’re telling me this now?, Betty stares at Veronica, completely at a loss for words. Realizing the implications of what she’s said, Veronica turns to face her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t say it to scare you. You know I like Jughead, and I can tell he’s, like, Baroque-levels of romantic over you. But…honestly, Betty, I’m a little freaked out by how fast things are moving. We’re just spending so much time together. I see him on my lunch breaks, and then we’re together every single night,” she admits, worrying a red lip delicately between her teeth.

A pause sits like a body between them.

“Well, what would you tell me, if I was in your place?” Betty asks. This is the advice she always falls back on when she doesn’t know what else to say, but it doesn’t really apply here, since Betty is more or less also in Veronica’s place.

Veronica’s laugh is tinkling and sad as she uses the tip of her finger to stave off a tear. “To throw yourself into sex, probably,” she says around a scoff. She meets Betty’s eyes and sighs again. “I just… I thought that we were just having fun.”

“Are you not anymore?” Betty asks softly. She wonders if she’d read the wrong energy between Archie and Veronica; if she’d somehow mistook affection for a compensation for discomfort.

“We are, we are,” Veronica insists. Her eyes fall out of focus again as she fingers a gold chain around her neck. “But I just haven’t felt this way since Cheryl.”

Betty’s eyebrows shoot up; this is something that Veronica would never say lightly. She was with Cheryl for over three years; they talked about things like marriage and all other things that serious relationships get into. “How—”

“It’s not the same feeling, obviously,” Veronica interrupts, almost defensively. “They’re so different. The situation is so different. Cheryl and I had years and years of mounting tension before we ever did anything about it. Archie…it feels like I know him so well already. But really, hair color is the only thing they have in common.”

That and an obvious streak of competitiveness, but it won’t do any good to bring that up, so Betty just waits for Veronica to continue.

“With Cheryl…I loved her so much—and I always will, of course—but she drove me so crazy. She projected all of her insecurities onto me, she was so manic-depressive half the time, and refused to get help while we were together,” Veronica sighs, sniffing loudly. “Not that I didn’t play my part in that too—I got to the point where I’d just pick fights with her rather than ever try to talk about our issues. In the end, I was so exhausted. We were two immiscible liquids.”

She meets Betty’s eye as she dabs at her own, almost desperately trying to preserve her perfect black cat-eye makeup. “Archie is nothing like that. What you see is what you get; there’s no double meaning, no passive-aggressive repartee. It’s so relaxing, and so easy to be around him.”

Betty wants to say that Veronica can’t know that, can’t know him well enough to be so sure, but then she thinks of Jughead. Has she not already privately compared his strengths against Trev, locked away in the pink bedroom with the old thoughts? Has she, even just tonight, not thought about how it easy most things feel between them?

“And the sex, oh my god,” Veronica groans, pressing on her temples and pulling Betty back into the moment. “With Archie, it really feels like it could’ve been the start of something. And that, B, that is the crux of my crisis. I knew when and why Cheryl and I had run our course. But Archie and I are just getting started, and we’ll never know what we could’ve been.”

Betty understands all too well what Veronica means.

“This is all so uncharacteristically depressing of me, Betty,” she looks over at her with watery eyes, “but how much longer until the truck is finished?”

Betty exhales shakily. “Not much,” she admits warily. Like Veronica, things are moving faster than she anticipated, especially once she got the compressor ahead of schedule.

Veronica reaches over and grasps Betty’s hands. “Slow it down?” She asks, half a demand and half a plea. “I need more time to feel like this romantic tragedy isn’t being puppeteered by the Bard himself.”

She almost considers it. Almost allows the thought in, entertaining visions of more time, longer days, less anxiety, less impatience—but he has been very adamant from the get go that he has to be in Chicago at the end of the month, and she can’t betray him like that.

“I couldn’t do that to Jughead, V,” Betty says softly. “He’s going to his sister’s gradation, and I could never take that from him. And you know you couldn’t do that to Archie, either. Forcing someone to stay will only make them resent you.”

Veronica nods, like she expected this, but something exasperated swims in her eyes. “Are we still talking about the boys, or about you?”

Point taken, Betty thinks.

“Do you regret it?” She asks, after a long moment. She hooks her arm around Veronica and draws her against her shoulder, in the way they always do for one another when one of them is upset. “Starting things up with Archie?”

“No,” Veronica sighs. “But yes, in the more imminent sense.”

With a loud inhale, she sits up and attempts to settle into her usual perfect posture. “Sweetie, if you’re asking me if I think you shouldn’t pursue things with Jughead any further, unfortunately, my answer is still the same. I’m deep in the throws of ambiguity right now, but I still maintain that life is better lived as an Elizabeth Taylor than a Judith Campbell.”

Betty doesn’t get much of a moment to consider this, as Veronica quickly murmurs, “Oh, here they come,” and becomes an utter visage of composure. Jughead and Archie return with trays of drinks and piles of food, including a hefty pile of nachos that Jughead announces he intends to put away by himself.

He presents Betty with her requested order of curly fries, and the rest of the evening is spent eating and bowling. After the second game, Veronica opts out entirely and busies herself with online window shopping, and by the end of the night, Betty has definitely gotten a few helpful pointers from Jughead.

“Pretty soon you’ll be giving me a run for my money,” he says, after she uses his technique to win a strike.

“Yeah, sure. I bet you use these moves on all the girls,” she teases. “What is this, a sports movie?”

Jughead scoffs. “What girls? Betty, you’re the first person I’ve asked out in years. Actually—” He pauses, clearly thinking. “Wait, nope, Ethel asked me out. Unless you count the time I asked Ginger Lopez to dance because I lost a bet to Archie, you’re the first official one.”

Her eyes widen with this information, because she thinks Jughead is way too good-looking for this to be true. But not every attractive person spends their entire life fielding off romance like Veronica or Cheryl, so maybe she shouldn’t assume. Some of this must show on her face, however, because a flush quickly appears at the tips of his ears.

“Not that—I mean, I’ve had—shit,” he mutters, scrunching up his face. She doesn’t understand what he’s stammering around at first, but then she realizes he’s talking about sex. “I’m just not much of a relationship guy, I mean.”

This sends a stone straight to the bottom of her stomach, even though, in reality, it should make her feel relieved. If he isn’t looking for a relationship, she’s really got nothing to be worried about, right? It’s better that he’s upfront with her about it, so they can mess around a little without any strings or expectations on Betty’s end.

This is good, she tells herself, even as it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

Later, when they’re finally bowled out, there’s a half-hearted attempt to muster enthusiasm for drinks, but Veronica and Archie exchange completely obvious eyes of yearning and announce they’re feeling too “tired.”

Betty and Jughead watch the other two practically race each other to Veronica’s car, and once the vintage Mercedes is out of sight, Betty turns to him. “Want a ride?”

Jughead licks his lips. “Oh, sure. I was just gonna call a Lyft, but…always looking a way to pinch a penny.”

The whole ride back to his motel, something like anticipation creeps very slowly up her neck. It’s unnervingly satisfying in a way that is absolutely torturous, and given the way Jughead’s knee is aggressively bouncing up and down, she thinks he feels it too.

When they pull into the parking lot, it’s completely empty. A blue road sign overhead begs for vacancy, there’s not a soul in sight, the wind rustles a tree, and it feels like they’re the only people left in town.

She cuts the engine and glances over. “I had a really fun time tonight, Juggie,” she says as she twists towards him, unprepared for the distracted, darkened look in his eye. He fidgets with a thought, and then he moves.

His hands cup her face in order to present her with just the tiniest amount of warning before he’s kissing her.

He pulls back quickly, just enough to say something. His eyes dance rapidly across her face. “I—” He starts, but it’s promptly muffled by Betty chasing after his lips, desperate for an excuse to exorcise the tension between them. With the gearshift on the wheel, the front seat is nothing but a continuous cushion that they can stretch out along, so she crawls back against him until he’s pressed into the passenger door.

She’s not sure what exactly she’d been expecting, but whatever it was, she would’ve been wrong.

Their mouths move open against each other with an almost frenzied type of haste, as everything that’s sat slowly boiling between them finally begins to whistle its warning. Every touch lights her on fire; even with the simplest way where he presses his thumbs into the dimples where her back dips lowest, Betty’s whole body finds a new way to warm.

Maybe it’s the fearful, watery confession from Veronica still haunting her thoughts, but Betty is suddenly overcome by a wanton impatience. She wants him, and she wants him now. Jughead’s hands move to her arms, and seem to be trying to slow her down, but she ignores it. Doesn’t he realize how much time they’ve already wasted?

In the back of her mind, she knows this might be too much, too fast, but her skin is flushed with gooseflesh and all she cares about is chasing the burn between her legs. So Betty wraps her arms around his neck, smothers the thought, and sings a silent hymn for the life of vintage cars.

She kisses him in the type of car made for a midnight rendezvous and love in the time of moonlight; she kisses him like the whisper of a willow tree rippling along the water, in the secluded kind of hideaway known only by lovers.

She kisses him with a ticking clock, like the very one that still sits on the dashboard of her car. The second hand has been clicking into place for over fifty years, and won’t stop now.

Time and momentum are funny things, she realizes dimly. If momentum is the mark left behind as proof of time, but time is just a human perception, what is truth, as that clock quietly ticks along? Is it counting down to something, or forever going in circles?

All she knows is the two must work in tandem, ever passing one another and never quite meeting, and both seem to be a measure of something that both poetry and science have been trying to put to pen for centuries.

Betty has wanted more time before.

She’s felt the imminence of change, from childhood into adulthood and from having a life into just living. She’s said goodbye to the job she loved and the new city that held nothing but possibilities. She’s held her dying father’s hand and sobbed into his hospital bed and learned far too much about appreciating what you have, when you have it.

Like the bowling ball curving down the lane with intentions to strike, momentum swings into collision between them, and she’s never wanted more time than what she has with Jughead.

She fists a hand into his hair as he sits up slightly against the car door in order to drop kisses onto her neck, shoulder, and anywhere in reach that isn’t her mouth. She throws her head back to give him better access, and enthusiastically murmurs, “I want you,” into the air.

“Betts,” he attempts to mumble against her skin, but she’s afraid to hear it, so she shifts forward and drags her teeth against his bottom lip.

“Betty,” he tries again, more urgently, when she finally breaks for air. But she’s not known for much more than apple pie, fixing cars, and an acute case of tunnel vision, so she carries straight on.

“Do you want me to come up?” She whispers, sliding her palm down his stomach as she peppers his jaw with kisses. He’s straining beneath her and she has only one thought: I can help with that—but, to her surprise, he catches her hand just before it can reach the edge of his pants.

She blinks up at him, sure she’s about to see rejection in his face. Instead, his eyes are practically black with want, but his expression is nothing short of tortured. “I don’t…have anything,” he says, with meaning. “I wasn’t expecting—I didn’t want to assume—”

She squints at him, and then understands. He doesn’t have condoms.

“I’m not on the pill,” she tries to say, but she’s breathing so heavily that it takes a moment. She hasn’t been on birth control since breaking up with Trev, for no real reason except what was probably some kind of unconscious defense mechanism against moments exactly like this one.

Their shoulders rise and fall with a long breath as they catch the disappointment in each other’s eye.

It gives her a moment to finally gets a good look at what she’s done to him; his neck has all the makings of a warzone, his once pristine, crisp shirt is shoved forcefully half off and the black tank top underneath has been pushed up, exposing the defined expanse of skin she’s only seen once before and thought much of since.

She can’t see herself, but assumes she looks about the same kind of ruined. Her hair feels tangled and wild down her back, and she at least knows her own shirt is ridden up to her ribs.

His head falls back against the fogged window with a palpable thump.

With a start, Betty remembers where they are, and immediately blushes madly—not that it’s anything redder than the flush she already had. Betty Cooper, as you live and breathe. She can’t believe she nearly tried to give him a handjob in parking lot of a motel.

An empty parking lot, save for themselves, but there’s no way to know someone hadn’t walked by and seen them aggressively making out in a car like horny teenagers. Betty groans with embarrassment and hides her head in the crook of his shoulder; he’s still hard beneath her, but he chuckles anyway.

He curls a lock of her hair around his finger as she shifts against him, and tucks herself into a position that is decidedly less compromising. Still spread out along the length of the car, he welcomes her new spot against him, as one leg dangles off the driver’s seat and the other is propped up around her. They’re still breathing heavily.

“This is probably for the best,” Jughead says after a long moment, which makes Betty still. He notices, and rushes to add, “I just mean…we should take things a little slower, right?”

She can feel him looking at her and so she resolutely keeps her head down. She picks at a loose thread on her jeans. “Why?”

“Why?” Jughead repeats, confused.

Betty still can’t make herself look at him. “Do you not want me?”

“I think you can still feel the evidence to the contrary,” Jughead mutters, his hand on her knee. “There’s nothing not to want.” Something in his tone is asking her to look at him, but she won’t be able to get through this if she does.

“Okay, then. Well, we don’t have a lot of time together,” she says slowly. She thinks of Veronica and her advice; bravely going after what she wants, even in the face of doom. She thinks of all the forgotten promises she swore to herself, fresh off her father's death, that she would enjoy the people in her life for whatever little time she had them. She thinks of the ill-fated lovers on the pages of Jughead’s mind, and the fact that he isn’t a relationship guy.

“We’re just getting this out of our systems, right? Just sex? So we don’t wonder ‘what if’ down the line? So why take it slow?”

Finally, she glances up, but has no idea what to make of his expression. It’s guarded and thoughtful and mutable all at once and reveals absolutely nothing. “Yeah,” he says at last. “We’ll keep it just physical.”

It’s what she asked for, what she’s decided as the safest inevitable route to hell, but it still digs like a knife to the gut. “Yep. We’re adults. Our eyes are open,” she says, in a strange voice she doesn’t recognize as her own.

She wants to ask—what would you say if things were different? What would you want from me?

If they’d met in a circumstance less looming, if they’d known each other longer, had more time together—would he still have so casually mentioned he’s not interested in relationships? Would she have changed that in him?

Probably not, she thinks. She’s never been enough to will fate into her bidding before, so it’s unlikely this would’ve been any different.

Jughead’s mouth opens and closes, as if he can’t wrap around what he’d like to say.

A moment earlier, and she might’ve pointed out that there’s still plenty they can do without the need for condoms, but she now recognizes her impatience as overcompensation for fear of losing him. The resulting embarrassment is all she needs to kill the mood.

“Do you still—” He starts, but Betty slides away, back towards the driver’s seat.

“I should get home,” she says, facing the wheel and pushing her hair back from her face.

Jughead doesn’t move, still strewn out; his foot jiggles nervously against her thigh. “Are we—”

“We’re good,” Betty says firmly, forcing herself to look at him. The makings of tears start to sting warningly at her eyes, so she blinks quickly in order to keep them at bay. She stretches forward and squeezes his hand. “We can go out tomorrow night, and…try this all again?”

His eyes sweep over her face, and then he relaxes, slumping against the door. “Okay,” he says, somewhat tentatively but smiling all the same. “And I’ll, uh, be more prepared next time.”

Right.

Even so, Betty thinks she won’t be.

#bughead #bughead fanfiction #betty x jughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #like is this how i should be tagging things i'm still unclear #anyway this one's a fucking doozy #like #can't even so

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syrduav · 7 years

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My 15 favorite books

I made a Top 15 of my favorite books and explained why. They are listed as they came to my mind.

1. Dancing on our Turtle's Back (Leanne Simpson, 2011)

With this book, Leanne Simpson shows a path towards an Indigenous resurgence. She does it by exploring the philosophical thoughts and sociopolitical theories of her people, for instance, through the study of the etymology and epistemology behind words, intergenerational meanings associated with Creation stories and systems of governance such as breastfeeding as a treaty, that I quoted in my earlier post Allaiter, un acte de résurgence. This book got me into thinking about how can we (e.g. Les Québécois) resurge? How are we infected by colonialism? How do we clean ourselves from it? How do we update and live our ancestors’ ways of seeing and being in the world? This is the reason why I started to focus more on my positionality and on my own family story. It’s something I’ve been reflecting on after reading the impacting article Decolonization is not a metaphor and Vine Deloria Jr’s Custer Died for your Sins.

2. A People's History of the United States [Une Histoire Populaire des États-Unis] (Howard Zinn, 1980)

Take a look at this video, and you’ll get why it came right away. It’s inspiring as it exposes the development of settler colonialism and imperialism in the US.

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I simultaneously read Zinn’s short autobiography You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times. He is such an inspiration for me as a person, as an engaged researcher, an organic professor, and a militant.

3. Les Damnés de la Terre [The Wretched of the Earth, Los condenados de la tierra] (Frantz Fanon, 1961)

I highly recommend this book to activists and engaged researchers. He’s the heart of national liberation or decolonizing thinking. Frantz Fanon is a psychiatrist from Martinique who participated in the National Liberation Front of Algeria at the of the 1950′s. He died from Leukemia in 1961. He left a great legacy as an analyst of the pervasive grips of colonialism on our minds and of its traps as it intertwines with nationalism (fabricated by the national bourgeoisie). He also exposes results from his work with patients who’s colonial violence experiences are reflected in their tensed and muscular dreams. If there is something i always recall from that book, is that according to Fanon, you see people’s decolonization as they recreate themselves, through arts for instance. I see it as the beginning of the resurgence process. Like me, Fanon was very skeptical of the uses of history in national liberation processes.

4. Settler Sovereignty (Lisa Ford, 2010)

Comparing “settler colonialism” in Georgia and New South Wales, Lisa Ford reflects on how settlers (I would also say colonizers) consolidate their sovereignty on the Indigenous lands and peoples through state building. It’s close to what I have been researching in Uruguay by putting together colonialism, capitalism, and nationalism.

5. Red Skin, White Mask (Glenn Coulthard, 2014)

I have to say I was first attracted by the title but was rapidly aligned with Coulthard. In his work, he focuses on colonialism and capitalism as interdependent socioeconomic phenomenon. He also takes a look at the “Identity Politics” in Canada by exploring the relationships between his people, the Diné, and the government of Canada.

6. Peau noire, masque blanc [Black Skin White Masks, Piel negra, máscara blanca] (Frantz Fanon, 1952)

Here Fanon explores how colonial thought influences relationships, intimacy and interbreeding among people who’s gender and skin color vary. He takes his own experiences in Martinique as a sample, then in France as he was studying to become a psychiatrist. He suddenly realized how Black people were “surdéterminés de l’extérieur” (”overdetermination from the outside”).

7. The Autobiography of Malcolm X [L'autobiographie de Malcolm X] (1992)

Malcolm X or Malek El-Shabazz deeply impacted the Black Power Movement with its incisive critiques of US colonialism, racism, and imperialism. He made me conscious of the importance to be open-minded and humble so to change my perspectives and ways of being since it is necessary for becoming “righteous” or coherent with our vision of the world. I like X because he not only puts emphasis on decolonization as a public struggle but also as an inner collective and personal process.

8. Thérèse Raquin (Émile Zola, 1867)

It’s funny how we sometimes refuse to do something because we “have to”, no? We’ll I’m a bit like that. I had to read this book in College (Cégep) in a Literature class, but only read it completely years later. Zola impulses naturalism as a literary movement. He not only shows how the ambiance is or feels like but also how people’s mind is distorted and what they are willing to do for freedom and love. I can re-read this book on and on.

9. The Dispossessed [Les Dépossédés, Los desposeÃdos] (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974)

I was introduced to Le Guin at the ls Librairie lâInsoumise, an anarchist bookstore on Saint-Laurent in MontrÃ©al. I was looking for a political science fiction book. In The Dispossessed, she shows us what an anarchist setting could look like and she sometimes highlights it through its interaction with a capitalist one. Sheâll make you dream and think of âdecolonial loveâ, relationships and knowledge. This is the kind of book that impacts your political walk of life, how you will, later on, deal with decision making and relationships.

10. The Caves of Steel [Les Cavernes d'acier, Las bÃ³vedas de acero] (Isaac Asimov, 1954)

Asimov and his sÃ©rie Foundation is about human relationships with robots. The Caves of Steel is about the necessary filiation of a human from the earth and a robot detective to investigate the murder of a detective on a planet where professionals once got to migrate in order to save their lives. I like this book because he made me think of our relationships with technological developments and to go beyond appearance.

11. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Silvia Federici, 2004)

I met Silvia Federici at the 2017 Anarchist Bookfair in MontrÃ©al. It was love at first sight. But I first got to know her through a Charrua friend who dug the relationships of Indigenous women and colonialism. Federici explores how capitalism separated men and women as a subaltern unit and dispossessed women from their political power in order to commodify land and work. To do this, she investigates witch hunting in Europe. It was quite relevant to me as most Charrua women I met during my fieldwork were descendants of midwives and healers... and I descend from voodoo and tarot practitioners. Her work associates well with the Indigenous feminism movement and its stance on colonial traditionalism.

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12. WasÃ¡se. Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom (Taiaiake Alfred, 2005)

Alfred introduced me with Peace, Power, and Righteousness to the Indigenous resurgence movement and how to contribute as an âorganic intellectualâ to remove consent to the system that oppresses us. I like WasÃ¡se, the warriorâs dance because it offers us a path to a resurgence that works through cleaning our inner self, reconsolidating relationships within our collective and confronting oppressive external powers according to our own philosophical principles and as a political unity. Itâs quite similar to what Malcolm X was advocating for. Alfred does so by exploring individualsâ path to resurgence and the possibilities of being autonomous towards colonial powers.

This one can to my mind because Escolar shows how settler colonialism and nationalism affect our settler and Indigenous minds in seeing and living an Indigenous present.Escolar does so by exposing Indigenous oral histories and settler colonial archives in the light of the return of supposed Indigenous extinct groups in Argentina.

14. Roots of Resistance. A history of Land Tenure in New Mexico (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, 1980)

This is a brilliant book if you want to know the history of the south of the United States, you know where Trump is building his fence. Dunbar-Ortiz looks at an Indigenous territory that has been colonized by multiple interests and empires through time and how its Indigenous peoples were used to protect foreign sovereignties, but also how they resisted to colonialism.

15. Little Red Book, Petit livre rouge, Libro Rojo] (Mao Tsedong, 1964)

I think Mao ended up here because I had the Black Panthers Party in mind. Iâm not a Maoist, but I am curious. This book, along with The Wretched of the Earth, put up the table for national liberation movements in the 1960â²s by advocating for an armed and cultural revolution. The 1960â²s are the golden era of activism.

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hellomissmabel · 8 years

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Are you home? (FAMIWL part 5)

MASTERLIST

Based on one of my favourite albums “For a moment, I was lost” by Amber Run.

Pairing: Tony Stark x reader, Howard Stark x OC!Julia

Summary: Flashback to your first time with Tony.

Word count: 3.407 (Sweet baby Jesus!)

Warnings: MAJOR FLUFF AND SMUFF (fluffy smut, thanks to @mrshopkirk who came up with the term!)

A/N: This idea came to me after a feverish night suffering from food poisoning. In me delirium I might’ve come up with the best freaking fic I’ve ever written haha.

Disclaimer: I found these pics on Google, all credit goes to the respectable owners. I just put them together as cover art.

Part 1: Dark Bloom

Part 2: Spark

Part 3: Wastelands

Part 4: White Lie

Speech came easy And left us sane You know the faces But not the names This man inside Alive and unchained Are you home? Are you home?

You were nervous, bloody nervous. All dolled up in an undoubtedly expensive gown, a vintage 1950s off the shoulder deep red dress inspired by none other than Audrey Hepburn, your heels clicked against the oak floor adorning the venue Tony had booked for the MIT alumni ball with himself, of course, as the guest of honour. He was waiting for you at the other end of the red carpet leading you towards the main ball room, dressed to the nines in a three-piece Tom Ford suit, flanked by an equally elegant looking redhead that you’ve seen somewhere before but couldn’t quite put your finger on it, not until she introduced herself as Pepper Potts and asked for your name.

“Y/N,” you answer as confidently as you can muster, intimidated by the woman’s flawless make-up and regal poise, the way she held herself just fascinating to your eyes, like royalty and yet still with a certain humble and kind smile twisting your insides. How could you ever compare to someone like her?

“And you are Tony’s…?,” she asked you with a warm smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. You had almost forgotten that she is, in fact, Tony’s ex-girlfriend.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Tony quipped for you, lacing his arm around your waist and gently tucking you against his side, his fingers burning their way through the exquisite silken fabric of your dress.

“Yeez Tony,” she jokes at him, her eyes shooting from your shy expression to Tony’s beaming appearance. “Isn’t she a bit too young for you? At least she isn’t one of those models again.”

There was a playful tone to her words but there was clearly some hurt shining through as well, her jab towards you not remaining unnoticed, fully aware that you don’t have a size zero and are certainly not as tall as one of the runway models Tony’s been frequently spotted with in the past. But Tony didn’t let it get to him and you felt sorry for Pepper because it was clear to you that she still wasn’t over him and maybe, just maybe, if you were sabotaging yourself, you thought that he still wasn’t quite over her as well.

“Don’t worry, Pepper, she’s over 18,” he smiled and adding a wink on top, guiding you away from Pepper who clearly stood in as his event planner and was thereby glued to her spot the entire evening. You didn’t see nor speak to her anymore yet you couldn’t help but feel guilty over something you had no control over.

The evening went by smoothly if you may say so. Occasionally Tony was pried away from you by another big shot trying to extract some more money from him. Nevertheless, every single time they would come up to him for a business chat and steal him from you, he would peck your cheek first and murmur some sweet nothings into your ear that made you giggle lightly before resuming to the socialising.

It turns out that people were genuinely interested in who you are and what your current occupation was. Especially the MIT students, and not just the ones for whom Tony offered to pay their scholarships for, were intrigued to hear about your line of work. Maybe it’s because you’re not acclimated to the science scene but you were very fascinated by their research just as much as they were curious to find out about your escapades as a former travel journalist and how you stumbled into the life of a novelist.

As it was bound to happen one moment or another, the topic sometimes swung around to how you and Tony met. Since a lot of the attending guests didn’t know that you and Tony were dating, people wished to know more about your relationship even though frankly, you weren’t really sure what you two were up until earlier that same evening when he declared to Pepper that you were now officially to be called his girlfriend. This was your night of coming out as a couple and it thrilled you beyond belief.

You admired Tony throughout his entire presentation, how he easily wrapped the entire audience around his pinkie finger with just a simple one-liner and that self-confident smirk all Stark men seem to possess. Seeing Tony at his best, completely with his head in the game, it made you swell with pride that this beautiful man was yours and no one else’s. Afterwards all the ladies of course started swooning over him and if he had been single, he would’ve undoubtedly charmed their panties off but not tonight. Tonight he only had eyes for one woman and that’s you.

With his hand on the small of your back he showed you the way towards the hotel room he had booked for the night. He wanted this eve’s event to be special, not just because it would be your first time attending a big media event together but also because you had started dropping a few casual hints here and there about your more intimate preferences. Slowly but surely you and Tony had started teasing each other in a more sexual way, a couple clandestine looks here and there had over the course of your still fresh relationship magically transformed into heavy and hot make-out sessions on his lab table or the kitchen island. Not to mention when you first mentioned you might have a thigh riding kink and much to your surprise, he happily indulged your fantasies.

Even though Tony’s used to an excessive amount of female attention and having no trouble talking himself between their legs, he refused to pull any of his tricks on you. If you wanted to wait, he was more than willing to wait as well. He could, one day, see you as his wife and the mother of his children. The thought was new to him because he never for a single second believed he could actually pull it off, you know, being a dad and taking care of a tiny human being. He had been convinced that he’d never be ready for that much responsibility if he can’t even properly take care of himself. But you, you bring out the best in him. That’s why he is so adamant at waiting for the right moment, making it extra special for the both of you.

Because he’s madly in love with you.

Once enclosed in the privacy of your hotel room, your hands immediately fly towards the collar of his dress shirt and pull him in for a loving kiss. Never parting his lips from yours, Tony sheds himself of his dress jacket whilst your fingers make quick work of the buttons of his dress shirt. He reaches out towards the back of your dress, fingertips skimming the soft material before locating the zipper that will allow you to shimmy out of the night gown in seconds. But he refrains himself, breaking the kiss only to look you straight in the eye and ask you if it’s really what you want.

And it’s hard believing In a concrete thing Where you’re not conscious But you begin To learn to love the sickness in your skin Are you home? Are you home?

You’ve never seen Tony more serious than in this moment. Not only is he unsure of himself, he’s also a bit shy. Resting your hands against his now bare chest, allowing the warmth of his skin to soak through your own, it creates a frantic escape of wild butterflies in the pit of your stomach.

“Why don’t we take a shower first?,” you propose with a sweet smile to which his eyes crinkle adorably and a cute little grin exposes his pearly whites.

Taking a hold of his hand and intertwining your fingers with his, you take charge and lead him towards the marble bathroom where a rain shower is awaiting your arrival. When you turn around, a slightly uncomfortable Tony meets your line of sight and you are endeared by his sudden insecurity. Tony still cannot fathom that a woman like you, with soft pink flesh flowing into natural and delicious curves, a woman like you with an actual personality (unlike many other woman who mindlessly throw themselves at him merely for the fame of one night with the notorious Tony Stark) and a heart of gold can love a man like him, a man who deems himself unworthy of love.

Unbeknownst to him, you harbour the same anxieties and as you gently start to tug at his clothes, tenderly undressing the handsome man in front of you, you become painstakingly self-conscious of the love handles and other imperfections you’re sheltering underneath your gorgeous attire. It’s as if Tony can read your thought and he caresses your blushing cheeks with his thumb before brushing his chest against yours and planting a lingering and intimate kiss to your forehead, letting you know you have nothing to be ashamed of.

Looking down at you with a tender gaze, Tony’s lips slant over yours. “You want to go in or should I go first?”

You shake your head, telling him you would like to take the first step. Turning around so he can pull down your zipper more easily, you feel as the fabric falls down your body and pools around your feet. Unhooking your bra whilst still facing Tony with your back, the lacy undergarment follows suit as do your panties, gathering around your ankles and you can hear Tony gasping as he gingerly takes in the sight of your fully naked form. Looking over your shoulder, you see him biting down on his lips hard and with a teasing wink you step towards the shower, letting the water run hot first whilst he swiftly tears the clothes off his body so he can join you as quickly as possible.

When the water has eventually reached the perfect temperature, you allow it to immerse you from tip to toe. Feeling a little cold and alone without Tony, you throw a small peek into his direction, your eyes falling upon an unexpected emptiness. Merely a second later, a sturdy chest is pressed against your back as two arms encase your waist. A thrilling whisper fades into your ear as he acknowledges your beauty, burying his face in the crook of your neck and sighing deeply, inhaling your honey scent and committing it to memory.

There’s no way Tony’s letting you go now.

Swirling around in his arms, you come face to face with Tony who has still not ceased admiring your appearance. Both nude and wet (in more than one way), you make a rash decision and in one bold move, hook your leg around Tony’s so your sensitive folds are now caressing his already half hard length. Your eyes haven’t wandered downwards just yet, afraid of his substantial grandeur. But as his fingers grip the plump flesh of your generous bottom, slightly lifting you closer to his body, you get a pretty good feel of how generously endowed Tony Stark actually is and Jesus Christ, the rumours are true because this man is built like a God.

“Oh Tony,” you whimper as he pushes your back against the wall, one hand still firmly holding the right cheek of your ass as the other cups your face, his lips latching onto that particularly heaven-inducing spot right underneath your jaw. He has started moving softly up and down your soaking cunt, getting as hard as a rock and as stiff as a stick in the process, a couple beads of precum already leaking from the glistening tip.

“Please, fuck me. I’m clean and on the pill. Just please,” you pant against his lips, your arousal the highest it has even been. “Please just fuck me, Tony, fuck me now.”

“This is not how I want our first time to be, baby girl,” he replies in an equally strained and hushed moan. “I want it to be memorable,” he swallows thickly as your hips reply to his sudden jolt forwards, his cock brushing against your clit with a perfect amount of pressure. “I don’t want it to be a quickie in the shower, no matter how tempting the prospect may be.”

Tony insists, despite how loveable your pout and puppy eyes. He reaches for one of the bottles sitting a bit further away in a fancy little box and selects the shower gel, popping the lid open and squeezing a tiny bit of the moisture into his palm. He motions for you to turn around again and as he starts to massage your shoulders, both of you groan at the obvious tension straining your muscles.

When his fingers have finished working away the knots, you return the favour by tending to his temples and making sure he leaves the shower headache free. The past couple days he’s been complaining non-stop about this skull-shattering pain tearing his brains apart and although you suspected it was because of the stress, you also expect it has something to do with his presentation tonight.

I know, know, know, know, know That you’re fighting And I know, know, know, know You’re not hiding anymore And I know, know, know, know, know That you’re trying But are you home? Are you home?

Tony has dedicated so much time to something called B.A.R.F. and just because you didn’t understand much about the concept doesn’t mean you didn’t pick up on the message behind it. With this kind of technology you can hijack the hippocampus and alter traumatic memories, something you’re fairly sure he had developed based on personal experiences. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Tony Stark has been chased by insurmountable demons for most of his life and you wish that if you could, you would protect him at all costs from similar events.

After you’re both as good as new, Tony gives you a helping hand and wraps you into a towel before taking one for himself. You sigh contentedly at the soft sensation and smile up at Tony who seems to have undergone a transformation of some sorts, judging by the carefree lights dancing in his dark brown eyes. He takes a few steps towards you and right as his lips collapse on top of yours, you swear you can feel the embers explode behind your eyelids like fireworks on the fourth of July.

You squeal as he picks you up bridal style, your legs and arms dangling in excitement. The bed is inviting when he carefully places you on top of the duvet and you assume his next move will be to hover above you but instead he bestows all his attention to the top of your thighs, barely covered by the fabric of the hotel towel.

“Look at you,” he whispers adoringly,” You are Aphrodite.”

His fingertips adorn the marks of cellulite as his lips trace up your veins towards the apex of your thighs, leaving you quivering underneath his scorching hot touch. When you release a breathy moan, his head snaps up and you lock eyes, a sneaky smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He then continues to trace your curves with the tip of his nose until the white fabric loosens around your form and falls limp on the bed, leaving you stark naked in front of, well, Tony Stark.

“Oh God, Tony, no, don’t say that,” you exhale whilst an embarrassed smile accompanies the rush of colour towards your cheeks.

“I only speak the truth,” he retorts, propping himself up on his elbows and seductively quirking an eyebrow, challenging you to object with an equally witty remark.

As words seem to fail you, he levels himself with you until his chiselled body is gingerly pressing down on yours. Carding your fingers through his short black locks, you guide his lips towards yours in a lasting kiss. Fidgeting with Tony’s towel, you manage to shimmy it off from his lower body and once again both your desires meet in a lustful dance of rubbing and stroking. Your hand snakes towards his pulsating shaft pressing up against your pussy and as you palm him softly, an approving sound slips past his lips.

“There’s a condom,” he breathes heavily, “In the nightstand.”

You nod and release him from your affectionate ministrations. Tony’s eager to tear open the package and roll the rubber condom over his proud cock but before he can do so, your hands stop him and take the condom from him, hinting that you’d like to roll it on yourself. Your featherlight touch exhilarates his skin and he’s back on top of you in no time, lining himself up with your entrance.

“If it hurts, you tell me immediately, okay?,” he asks you with a certain stress behind his voice. He is worried about your wellbeing and doesn’t want to hurt you, especially not during your first time.

“Okay,” you mimic in a shaky breath, your nerves starting to flow passionately.

I know, know, know, know, know That you’re fighting And I know, know, know, know You’re not hiding anymore And I know, know, know, know, know That you’re trying But are you home? Are you home?

After giving his cock a couple firm tugs, he gently pushes the tip in, parting your folds first before stretching you out a bit more. You gasp at the overwhelming feel of little Tony (who is anything but little) asking for permission to enter your most personal territory. Giving you enough time to adjust, Tony sheathes himself completely inside you with one more potent yet mild thrust.

“Y/N, you are so tight, I love it,” he moans lowly before kissing the corner of your mouth.

When you don’t reply, his eyes search yours instantly for any signs of discomfort. You’re pleased with yourself that you’re able to take all of him without too much difficulty. Nevertheless it requires some adjustment and it’s as if the struggle if evident on your face because he cradles your cheels in the palms of his hands, whispering a kind and concerned “If this is too much, darling, we don’t have to continue.”

“No, no it’s fine,” you ensure him. “It’s just that… I’m filled up to the brim with Tony Stark’s dick,” you laugh lightly before a more hearty laugh escapes your lips. “I’m about to get fucked by Tony freaking Star who is my freaking boyfriend!”

A bouldering laugh adorns the air when Tony has processed your words, unable to wrap his mind around the fact that you, even though he’s buried balls deep into your cunt squeezing him so lusciously, the only thing you seem to be focused on is that you’re about to have sex with a considerably – okay, scratch that – tremendously famous person.

“Y/N,” he says softly when you’ve calmed down from your abrupt outburst of exhilaration and disbelief. “You’re not about to get fucked by Tony Stark.”

“What?,” you ask in a high-pitched voice. Isn’t that exactly what the point is of this entire endeavour?

“Baby, honey, sweetheart,” he coos fondly with a tiny amount of seduction and sass, “You’re not about to get fucked by Tony Stark.”

He sounds somewhat hurt and you look away from his soulful eyes, unable to bear the honesty reflected in them. “I am not going to fuck you, I am going to make love to you. So tonight, you’re not going to get fucked by Tony Stark. Tonight, you’re going to be loved by your boyfriend who just happens to be Tony Stark because God forbid, I love you. I love you, Y/N.”

For a faint heartbeat, the atmosphere is dead silent and the only thing than can be heard are your laboured breaths as your body melts perfectly into Tony’s, the initial burn ebbing away and making way for a more pleasurable performance of a lover worshipping his muse.

Nothing else is said but those three words, frequenting the tenderness of their unison until the morning seeps through the curtains like a smooth criminal and sheds its light upon their two bodies curled into one another as their act of love has been repeated over the course of many affections and many, many more.

Tagging: the ever-wonderful @beccaanne814-blog @avengerofyourheart @a-little-hell-to-raise @unpredictable-firecracker @marvelingatthewonder @mrshopkirk @hardcorehippos @iiharu-kunii @knittingknerdy @winterwolf57 @winterboobaer @shamvictoria11 @thedragonblood @hymnofthevalkyries @feelmyroarrrr @justareader @ourpeachskies @austinamelio @howlingbarnes @4theluvofall @themcuhasruinedme @theoneandonlysaucymo @hymnofthevalkyries @amrita31199 @kiwi71281 @jaegers-and-kaijus @katbird787 @spaceprincessofmanygalaxies @marvel-lucy @volklana

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ma-kedia-blog · 7 years

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Enjoy the Failures

Doesn’t that sound strange, “enjoy your failures”? Succeed, win, achieve, that is the anthem that has rung in our ears since we were young; shunning failure and perceiving it to be the ugly stepchild. Of course, we all want to succeed in life, and success is a beautiful place to be, but sometimes we need a little failure in our lives. Allow me to explain, failure presents the opportunity for knowledge to be gained, it gives way for discovery. Failure is a fuel to ignite thorough thought. I am solely speaking on my own experience, but when a problem presents itself and resolve is immediately required, there is no need to invest any additional energy into that single issue. Unaware of the potentially more prosperous applications that could have resolved that same matter. Even though possibilities are endless, sometimes we cut ourselves short because something has worked.

Are there areas in your life that work, but you still feel there is something missing? Or rather does life seem to be working and while life is working, you are in autopilot? I know you have caught yourself daydreaming while you were driving and before you know it, you were pulling up in your driveway like…” I don’t know how I got here” …confused and thankful that Jesus took the wheel (LOL). Unconsciously is how most of us, as human beings, live for several reasons. One reason seems to be a fear of failure. We have been trained and raised to cultivate societal standards, capture surety, and to cherish security; which is a false sense in and of itself, but that is a different conversation. In this western society, we are fed daily; since birth to follow a path that worked for someone else—go to school, compete to be the best, go to the best colleges and get a great education, find a job that provides a competitive salary and outstanding benefits, work hard within that industry and work your way to the top. I am not against education and I am not against working for someone in or outside of corporate America until you are 65 years old, it just seems that someone thought of a path and the masses followed. Because what alternatives were you exposed to—maybe the military or work in a minimum wage job and live a minimal lifestyle? There is absolutely nothing wrong with you making those decisions too as long as YOU actually made the decisions for yourself, and not simply accepting the path because you were trained to ‘choose one of the following.’ You must realize you have a choice to choose the path and the outcome of your existence. Live the life you desire, whichever path your purpose offers you, trek forward with confidence knowing that you have no idea what lies ahead but whatever it is, it is worth it. Within the vicinity of purpose, fear has no place. However, failure is necessary for the growth and maturity that potentially awaits its end.

The association of fear and failure seem to walk hand and hand in the shadowy corners of our minds. The misconception of this seemingly unbreakable relationship between the two is solely imposed upon us due to miseducation (thank you Lauryn Hill—lol). Mark Frankel, a US philosopher, tackles the initial barrier surrounding the study of fear saying— “The study of fear and the other emotions is not the preserve of psychotherapists or professors of philosophy. Rather it is done by any thoughtful person who meditates upon his or her own feelings, thoughts and actions”. It is for those of us who want to dismiss fear, delight in failure, and denounce falsehoods to begin to study the why behind the what. Why do I fear failure? Who taught me to fear failure? Why do I possess an objective perspective upon failure? We must begin to think for ourselves, actively creating the world we desire—starting with our perspectives. When we change our perspectives, we change our lives. Therefore, I choose to enjoy the failures in life, and show gratitude for the opportunity to think wiser, more thorough thoughts. The growth received from that opportunity birthed through failure is infinite in its applicability. Consistently challenging yourself in thought increases your own standard of logic. Developing a desire to concentrate your energy to think beyond social normality and fed knowledge, and apply that to any opportunity life may bring. Conscious behavior, such as facing the truth of fear and embracing the opportunities of failures, can become active in our lives with a desired awareness, adequate education, and constant applied mental effort. “We must begin to focus on making ourselves better and not just thinking that we are” (Bohdi Sanders, The Secrets of Worldly Wisdom: Your Key to Unlocking Success).

Whether we realize it or not, we all are looking for more in our lives—more power, more will, more of something! Some of us ignore that desire, some passively begin to ponder, and others search for resources that will help us gain that power. Most times we may see someone who has attributes that we do not display in our daily lives nor in our occasional discoveries of character or abilities, and we begin to desire that which we see in someone else. Beyond desire, we may perceive ourselves as less because we do not see in ourselves that light we see in others. Again, miseducation has shown its face; Nisargadatta Maharaj provided clarity so well when he stated, “All you need is already within you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.” Therefore, it is not a lack of possession that is present, rather a lack of awareness and activity. In this comprehension, it becomes evident that if we change our perspectives we change our lives. If I recognize, reverence and love the energy, the life force—Spirit who lives within me, I overstand it is not a matter of acquiring a power or trait but activating that dormant ability. It is not our ability in our flesh but the life force within that leads us and shows us who we are. We all can decide how we view failure, with fear or faith. In my own work, I have found the first area of power that must become active within us is the power of perspective.

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Our interpretations are shaped by our experiences and our experiences by our emotions and our emotions arise through choice. What decision do you choose to make regarding activating the power of your perspective? Anyone can practice conscious decision making, at any point of the day. Daily practice is necessary, when someone cuts you off in traffic STOP and think, what decision do I want to make in this situation? And begin to think of the benefits and blockages that may occur; what good will rise from this situation? What am I accomplishing with this decision? Are you focused on making yourself better? We must begin to think consciously and not impulsively. Notice when you are about to do something habitual, stop in that moment and intentionally make a conscious decision to accomplish the same task using a different method. Begin to evaluate the things you refuse to try because of a fear you would fail or it would not be accepted by society. Whether it is a change of hairstyle, trying a different style of clothing, starting those in-home workouts you pinned to your Pinterest health and fitness board, whatever! Just go for it, because you can only live today. We do not worry about, ‘what if I don’t keep it up next week?’ We only do today, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34 NKJV)

I would like to share a story with you all:

During a research experiment a marine biologist placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released several small bait fish into the tank.

As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller fish. The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fiberglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions. She then put the shark on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of bait fish on the other.

Again, the shark quickly attacked. This time, however, the shark slammed into the fiberglass divider and bounced off. Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behavior every few minutes to no avail. Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the second partition. Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.

This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks. Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and simply stopped attacking altogether.

The marine biologist then removed the fiberglass divider, but the shark didn’t attack. The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.

The moral: Many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. Like the shark in the story, we believe that because we were unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful. In other words, we continue to see a barrier in our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go.

(http://www.marcandangel.com/2013/05/21/4-short-stories-change-the-way-you-think/)

Just like this shark some of us have stayed contained because of life’s failures, we must grow in patience and thought. We must learn to let go of what has kept us from trying, embracing failure can be as easy or as hard as you make it. A great quote by Henry Ford states, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Acceptance of failure causes one to face, evaluate, and eliminate fear and doubt. Therefore, the question to yourself would be, ‘are you ready to face your fears’? Facing your fears engenders truth—truth of who you are, truth of your desires, truth of your endurance, flaws and strengths. This path of truth is not for the faint of heart, it’s not given to the swift nor the strong but if you endure…welcome to freedom.

Be love,

Ma’Kedia

#think #best fails #try #live #consciousness #freedom #strength #limitless #tryagain

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