#DEAD FISH KISS...PERHAPS BUT AT LEAST HE COMMITTED TO IT | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rami-pastrami · 5 years ago

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𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖 ; 𝗿&𝗯

date; 3.3.2020 time; 8pm (los angeles) - 4am (berlin) notes; mostly just soft stuff. also @jlxngz mentions b/c 😏

@brendonisms

brendon

the hotel was cold. despite the large, fluffy comforter burying his tired limbs and the slumbering athlete beside him, the emptiness had still managed to follow him overseas. the endless glasses of jameson did little to remedy this, though he was pouring himself yet another as the familiar ringing filled the quiet room. "hey, you." once rami's features were coming into view, brendon was slouching ever so slightly against his pillow, the lamp on his bedside table the only thing warding off the darkness. "sorry if i'm-" a yawn punctuated the statement, despite the fact that he felt awake as ever. "-ugly right now. jet lag's a bitch.." a tired smile littered his features. "how are you? what time is it there?"

rami

he'd had his own brand of restless nights as of late -- prior to his rehab, he's struggled to fall asleep in he first place. now, he couldn't seem to stay asleep, try as he might, and many hours were wasted laying in bed, willing the sleep to return. it meant that his sleeping schedule was highly irregular and his days were sprinkled with sporadic naps here and there to make up for time lost during the night. stretched out in bed despite the early hour, rami's curls were a wild mess that he hadn't considered fixing before noticing them on his screen after brendon picked up. his eyes narrowed at his own reflection but a smile was quick to follow at the singer's languid greeting, his attention darting from the top corner of the screen to settle on brendon's sleepy features. "you're never ugly, just stupid," he corrected him gently. the lighting was a bit better on his end, given the time, which he had to turn his head to look at the bedside clock to confirm. "seven-ish.. only slept three hours last night though, so i'm pretty out of it," he answered in a low tone. "good otherwise, though... lonely, but you knew that." another soft, upward twitch of his lips and a quick inhale. "how's berlin? s'late there... party too hard?" his tone was light and genial -- anything but judgmental.

brendon

"just stupid. right." rolling his eyes fondly, brendon took in what he could from the screen, everything from those tired eyes to messy curls. though several weeks had passed, the polynesian frequently found himself dwelling on emerald orbs and unexpected confessions, and though rami had admitted to seeking help, the incessant worry seemed too stubborn to give him rest. fortunately, with the actor in his view, it was quieting down. "only three?" thick eyebrows raising at the admission, he was sure to keep his tone non-accusatory as he asked, "why haven't you been sleeping?" the mention of partying was bringing another roll to his eyes, though a smile was soon following. "berlin's.. lit. really lit. practically had to carry j home the first night." eyes momentarily tearing away from the screen, he eyed the slumbering brit before meeting rami's gaze. "jesse, i mean. lingard. the footballer."

rami

each eyeroll just made rami grow a little fonder, and for a moment, he loathed how far away berlin was from LA. "dunno.. trying my hardest, but the brain just doesn't seem to want to be quiet for too long. it's alright, i've been catchin' cat naps here n' there, i'm surviving." an eyebrow quirked at the nickname, and when brendon elaborated, rami couldn't stop the look of disapproval that marred his otherwise happy expression. a grunt came tumbling forth, married with an eyeroll of his own. "jesse? ugh. you'll find better company a the bottom of a barrel of dead fish," he groaned. despite his harsh words, there was something about the way he said it -- and perhaps even the hint of a smirk that danced across his lips -- that indicated his annoyance wasn't fully hostile in nature. "let me know if he dies along the way, i'll be happy to arrange his funeral."

brendon

not incredibly pleased with the explanation, though under the impression that surviving was as good of an answer he could hope for, brendon forced the remainder of his light interrogation down for another time. this became easier as rami's reaction to the footballer fed through the screen. muffling his laughter behind a clenched fist, the polynesian took a moment to catch his breath and ensure he wouldn't dissolve into a louder fit of chuckles before responding. "i always forget how much you guys don't like each other." though, the same could be said about himself and the footballer as well. "it's funny because you're pretty much 'twinning' in every possible way." restless as ever, he fingered at his glass of whiskey before taking a swig, letting the silence wash over him as he sorted his thoughts. "i dunno'.. just didn't wanna' be in la anymore, i guess." the added explanation incredibly delayed, he wouldn't be surprised if the actor struggled to keep up. "tired of my house.. starting to get tired of the studio. just needed a change of pace for a bit."

rami

"fuck, perish the thought," rami grumbled in response to their apparent 'twinning'. "he's dumber than a horse's ass, and about as cute as one, too." a sideways glance to the glowing screen of his phone showed off the full-blown grin that now rested over his look of irritation. it faded a bit at the silence that passed between them, comfortable as it was -- but then brendon was speaking again, and rami had to pause a moment to follow his train of thought. "ah.." he muttered gently, nodding his head. "i get that... shit, i've run off to other countries twice now just 'cause i couldn't stand another moment wherever i was at the time." there was another beat of quiet, and then rami was adding in a hushed voice, "just ah, don't disappear for a year, like i did, okay? n' if you're ever sick of home, you're more than welcome to stay at mine... sami's gone, so i've decided to reopen it to the public."

brendon

“really?” the statement taken by surprise, brendon’s curiosity had gotten control of the reigns. the egyptian’s mental health had only fallen on his radar recently, and the topic frequently found its way into his endlessly running train of thoughts when mornings were quiet or worries especially loud. “i won’t disappear.. i promise.. zack would kill me.” the musician’s manager had gotten so skilled at reigning him in over the years, it made impulsivity in the wake of looming commitments less likely. “where did you go?” fully aware he was toeing the line, brendon gently nudged on. “like.. when you disappeared?”

rami

".. argentina, for the long stint. it was after joe n' i finished filming the pacific.." he shook his head, closing his eyes while his brow knitted as the ghostly remains of all those complex emotions were recalled to the forefront of his mind. "got it in my head that it'd help with my.. issues.. didn't, obviously, and i ended up back in LA and moved in with my brother. the other time, it was to thailand, for a couple weeks. hid out in the jungle in a little bungalow till i felt better. so.. like i said, i get it."

brendon

“all the way to thailand?” the hypocrisy so painfully loud it was hard to ignore, brendon was hesitating. the similarity between the situations suddenly made the remaining liquid in his glass seem like a sliver, though he resisted the urge to pour himself more, already considerably inebriated. “and.. did you feel better?” by the look of things, apparently not, though brendon asked anyway.

rami

"not particularly. but i knew a few people would be getting worried, so i crawled back to face their wrath. it sucked.. probably wouldn't do it again, at least i don't think i would, but you never can tell with these things." he looked back to brendon, lip pinched between his teeth for a moment before he went on. "i'd at least make sure to tell the one's that'd miss me before i went, i suppose that's the biggest difference between then and now. it was a panic thing... left with nothing but my dog and the clothes on my back, didn't so much as tell a soul where i was." rami smiled gently, almost sadly. "so at least i'm talking to you now, huh?"

brendon

the whole prospect seemed ludicrous. the polynesian had had his fair share of benders to date, though nearly all of them involved another unlucky soul he’d lasso’d into doing his bidding. he’d never been good at being alone which probably explained why the idea seemed so far fetched as a result. “yeah.. no falling off the grid unless you’re getting help.” the hypocrisy leaving a bad taste in his mouth, he was taking another, longer swig from his glass and letting the burn take over his senses. “are you.. gonna’ be hanging around la indefinitely then?” using a ringed finger to trace the rim of his glass, his gaze periodically flickered to the half-empty bottle across the room. “when you’re not sexing up captain marvel, you should.. come over.” any company was better than nothing at that point. “i have penny this month and word on the street is she misses a certain someone so.. mi casa su casa and shit.”

rami

rami's gaze followed the glass as it was lifted to brendon's lips, and he couldn't help the mild twitch of concern in his expression. "roger roger, corporal," he agreed softly, dragging a hand over his face. "mm? oh... for a while, at least. sold the place in new york, didn't uh.. didn't want to see the inside of that apartment again, as you can imagine. thinking about finding a different one instead, but i don't know. don't really have anything keeping me there anymore... it'd just be a stand-in for the occasional hotel room.." a gentle smile spread across his lips at brendon's offer, shaking his head at the thinly veiled analogy for i miss you. "thanks, bren. i will." before he could continue, a naked paw came from the bottom of the frame, toes spread as it stretched to pap him carefully at the corner of his lips. rami made a face, kissing the cat's paw before gently pushing it away with his free hand. "you gonna be back by this weekend, you think?"

brendon

"should be back by this weekend, yeah." should being the keyword. brendon knew he couldn't avoid la forever, especially what awaited him within, but every day spent away seemed to alleviate the symptoms that had been eating away at him since the new year. "i'm heading to seoul for a night or two-" or three. "-might extend my stay if it's especially litty, but i'm pretty sure it's cold as shit over there too, so." he shrugged, already fed up with berlin's frigid climate two days in. "probably will end up missing the city sooner than planned." the weather, at the very least. "so.." no inclined to linger on the topic of his own flighty behavior, he was bringing another swallowed question to light. "..how long have you and brie been an item?" curiosity mostly fueled this. "i know you mentioned being friends for years, but i never knew there was an us."

rami

"oh yeah? that'll be fun. keep warm wherever you end up and for however long, then... my little marshmallow." he added the last bit with a knowing smirk, nestling back and nodding his head as the conversation moved elsewhere. a topic that he really hadn't talked about with anyone, at least not in any great detail... he tended to be a private person, but that dynamic understandably had to change when it came to partners. which... neither brie nor brendon had agreed to such a label, and rami wouldn't be one to push it, but once there were feelings involved, he was more inclined to be forthcoming about equally important relationships. "well.. not long, actually. first week or two of january this year, she'd just broken up with her girlfriend and i went over to offer comfort.. ended up being a bit more than the usual brand, clearly." he shrugged. "normally wouldn't want to end up a rebound like that, but there was a lot more going on beneath the surface.. things we said to one another while it was still innocent. plus, i thought it was going to be the last chance i had--" he cut himself off, his train of thought completely derailing as his brain caught up to his mouth and realized where he'd been headed. no need to bring that up now, it was done and past, and brendon had suffered enough anxiety at his expense already. "... so i just went with it."

brendon

though he only just recently became aware of the actor and actress' relationship status, it wasn't as if it were a huge surprise. his attraction towards the pair were like two halves of the same coin, though the musician was more emotionally devoted to one side than the other. the dance his fingers had been doing with his now-empty glass was coming to a stop as he set it aside and he instead busied himself with a loose string on the end of his long-sleeved tee, rami's words washing over him. "yeah?" he'd murmured following the brief monologue, catching the unfinished sentence though choosing not to acknowledge it. "well.. i'm happy you two are happy." as tiredly as he'd said it, it was true. all the polynesian seemed to want these days were his loved ones general well-being, despite their determination for the opposite. his eyes were instinctively flickering towards the slumbering athlete beside him as the thought fluttered from his mind, and the heaviness was returning in his chest, though he didn't voice this either. "life's too short for what-ifs. second-guessing is so 2019."

rami

a quick, well-intentioned smile was thrown in brendon's direction, but rami couldn't help but feel that something was amiss. "yeah," he agreed quietly, having noticed the shift in brendon's attention. the musician's words floated around his mind for a few moments before he sucked in a gentle breath, doing his best to not let the concern he felt show on his face. "are you happy?" he let the question hang in the air for a few seconds before adding, "i know we've been... well, we were pretty focused on me and my... troubles for a while, but... this impromptu getaway, this need to get out of LA.. you alright? there something you wanna talk about?"

brendon

he'd just about tugged an entire sliver of loose threading from his sleeve when rami's question was dancing from his device, though he waited a few extra beats before choosing to respond. "i'm not.. unhappy." his emotions a feat too complex for even himself to tackle on a normal day, brendon was adding a shrug before shaking his head. "just tired of the city." it wasn't a lie. every day spent in the warm, humid stuffiness that was los angeles seemed to drive the musician closer and closer to madness, though he couldn't pinpoint why -- or simply refused to. "don't worry about me. i'm not.." worth it. "..gonna' vanish or anything. just needed a change of scenery." the lies that'd seep from between his teeth had no taste these days, repetition breeding ease. "i'll probably end up dozing off on you soon though." he was adding in a more lighthearted tone, lips curling into a half-smile. "just a.." a yawn punctuated the sentence. "..warning.."(edited)March 10, 2020

rami

there had to be plenty he wasn't saying, rami could read that on his face despite the pixelated lag. but, he knew better than anyone that sometimes accepting the little lies was the best course of action -- he trusted that brendon would come to him if things became unbearable, or at least bad enough that he wanted to share the load. for now, rami would let him deal with things in his own way and make sure he was always there as a safety net, should the need arise. he hoped, though, that it wouldn't. he hoped that the musician's restlessness would either find a productive outlet, or ease off naturally. "okay," he said gently, giving brendon a small nod. "i trust you." his smile broadened when his counterpart yawned, tongue clicking disapprovingly. "go to sleep, love. ah, but make sure you pound some water first, yeah? gotta promise me." rami's gaze dropped, the fond grin still lingering on his lips. "lookin' forward to seeing you.. i love you. take care of yourself for me, yeah?"

brendon

i trust you. rather than vocalize how that was an ill-advised decision on so many different levels, brendon was nodding curtly, resisting the returning urge to eye the abandoned bottle of whiskey taunting him on a distant table. “gonna’ pound that water real good..” he was murmuring suggestively, a more authentic, tired smile gracing his features at the undertone. “and i love you too.. throw back some nyquil if you keep having trouble and enjoy some wicked hallucinations while you’re at it.” entirely joking, he was carding restless fingers through his messy fringe. “and.. thanks for the call.” he’d added as an afterthought before he was hitting the red button hovering at the bottom of the screen and things were going black.

#. 𝕟𝕖𝕨 𝕡𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕠 𝕕𝕚𝕤? ; call #. 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 ; b. urie

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leonawriter · 6 years ago

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Try Again

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Bungo Stray Dogs

Pairing: Dazai/Chuuya

Summary: Their firsts don't really count. They're not really kisses, they happened wrong, and Chuuya hates the taste of river water more than anything.

But at some point, somehow, it starts to work. Even if it takes taking down a dragon to get there.

Notes: Inspired by this art here.

...

Chuuya's still fifteen when he first kisses Dazai, and he hates every moment.

To be more specific, he's fifteen, just come from a mission, just heard that Dazai had wandered off after his own, and he just so happens to be walking around the river - still a new and novel thing, having spent as much of his life as he could remember in the slums, unable to so much as see the sea - when he sees something black floating downstream, and when he looks closer, he realises that it's actually a body, Dazai's body, floating face down.

Suicidal brats who don't care about their own lives really are the kind he hates the worst, and Dazai's top of that list, with the way he can't even manipulate his gravity in order to just lift him out easily, no, he's got to remember to put his hat down so he doesn't lose it before jumping in after the idiot with no sense of self-preservation.

Thankfully, he doesn't need his ability in order to hit Dazai on the chest (maybe with a bit too much vindication in that), or to do a rudimentary performance of CPR that he'd only vaguely heard of until now.

Dazai's unresponsive at first, and no matter how much he says he hates him and no matter how much he says that one of these days he's going to see the brat dead, it still scares him.

Not the idea of seeing a dead body. Or even, a kid's dead body. He's seen enough of both, and he knows he's going to see (and, more than likely, make) more in his lifetime.

He tells himself that it's spite, and because if that bastard dies now, he'll be happy about it, and the thought makes him want to kick Dazai's shit in.

Dazai opens his eyes.

Chuuya yells at him.

(Look at you, he'd said, yelling, what, you're making me fish you out of some river now like you're some damn mackerel? Go drown yourself by a fishing boat next time!)

Dazai brushes it all off, disappointed and irritated, and Chuuya hates him even more.

(That'd be counterproductive, though, Dazai had said, single eye narrowed, the bandages around the other one sodden. Besides, at least I have a good reason for being wet. Unlike you, who's just walking around leaving a trail behind him like some kind of slug.)

It isn't the last time Chuuya kisses Dazai like that, though, and he loses track of the number of times he tastes seawater, hoping he's not going to get sick from shared river water.

He hates it, every time.

...

The first time Dazai kisses Chuuya, it's a shared moment of too much intimacy, too close, too soon when their hearts are still beating too fast, while Atsushi is fighting for his life-

And yet, with one hand tangled with Chuuya's, which is still sticky with blood from Corruption no matter how much he'd tried wiping it off on Dazai's white suit - which he hadn't exactly minded, given he was hardly going to be wearing this present from Shibusawa ever again - and the other supporting Chuuya's body so that he didn't just fall over, even now that he had a little of his strength back... his lips were pressed to Chuuya's, and it was strange, because no ability should be able to affect him, and yet, and yet.

He felt light and heavy as though his body couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to listen to gravity, yet without any of the actual floating sensation, which just left him feeling vaguely nauseous. Feverish?

Something in his stomach, at least. Something in his blood.

(And it was wrong, wrong, wrong - because Atsushi was out there fighting, this wasn't over yet, and here he was. Taking advantage of the situation to his own ends.)

Dazai feels more than sees Chuuya smile, and right now he isn't so sure that he'd call Chuuya a dog after all, limp as he is and yet still seeming so much more like the cat that got the cream.

"Mm," Chuuya hums. Their foreheads now leaning against each other, which feels far more close than a head-butting should. "You make for a really shitty Snow White, Dazai."

Dazai laughs, the first real laugh he's had since the whole ordeal had started, he thinks.

"You think so? I thought I didn't do too badly."

Chuuya scoffs.

"Yeah, right... you make an awful princess. But... I think I can live with that."

They can both still hear the sounds of fighting in the distance, but it's nowhere near them and neither of them seem to care, and perhaps that means they're both going to go to hell. But for now, for now at least, the moment is a good one.

...

Dazai wonders if he should be feeling happy, in the days afterwards, because things have changed and in some ways they'll never go back to how they were, but instead he feels anxious, and thinking back on it, a kiss shared in the rubble while the new kids were fighting to save Yokohama, doesn't quite feel real.

So he distracts himself with bothering Kunikida, and pushing his paperwork onto Atsushi, because those are easier than the slowly dawning realisation that his dream of ending his life with a beautiful woman doesn't feel nearly so much like something he wants anymore.

It's frustrating, to the point of irritation, because Chuuya is getting in the way of his plans for committing suicide again, because as much as he wants to die, he also doesn't want to - can't, somehow - imagine Chuuya dead.

He can't quite find it in himself to be disappointed this time, though.

Kunikida points out that he's touching his lips, and says that if he's still feeling the effects of anything that had happened to him, then he should talk to Yosano, but he deflects by saying it isn't anything to do with that at all, and he's just thinking of frosted donuts, which has the intended consequence of Ranpo telling him to go and fetch some.

The walk is supposed to clear his head, and seeing Yokohama (relatively, at least) unharmed does help.

"Oi," he hears, stood out near the water and looking out in the direction of Cone Street. The slums, where he'd found first Chuuya, then Akutagawa. "You'd better not be planning to jump in, after all the effort I went to the other day, shitty Dazai."

There's a smile on his face when he turns around to see Chuuya, the real Chuuya a welcome distraction from imagining what the dragon must have looked like, and how Chuuya must have looked, fighting it - deadly, dangerous, and in danger of dying.

Chuuya scoffs, giving up on getting the answer he wanted, probably, and comes to join Dazai at the railing.

They stand like that for a while, comfortably next to each other, arms touching.

Something has changed, Dazai feels, although he can't quite put his finger on what.

Then Chuuya turns to face him, and there's something in his eyes, that reminds Dazai of the way he'd felt when Atsushi had told him that he thought Dazai was a good man, feeling that Atsushi could have only said that if he didn't know anything about him, and yet Chuuya- Chuuya knows, so much, so much more than anyone. And he's looking at him with those eyes.

"Hey, Dazai..." Chuuya trails off long enough he almost could have forgotten what he was going to say, but Dazai knows Chuuya better than that, knows that Chuuya found it easier to do things - kick things, hit things, a punch to the face - than to find the words he wanted to say, sometimes. "That thing we did. You know, the..." Kiss, Dazai's mind supplies, all too helpfully. The rest of his mind starts to go blank, unable to figure out what to do, what to say, what to feel. "Hah... d'you know how many times I've brought you back? You tasted like disgusting seawater, you shitty Mackerel." He doesn't know what to say. "I guess, what I mean is... we're doing that again, right?"

His brain, for once, has short-circuited, and nothing is there, and nothing is making sense, and nothing is real, because from everything he knows about Chuuya, and he knows a lot, Chuuya doesn't...

"...Ah?"

He might glare up at him angrily like that, but he doesn't grab at a handful of shirt-and-tie to get Dazai to lean further down, doesn't look like he's searching for something like that, doesn't...

"I'm asking, dimwit, can we try that again?"

...oh.

...

It's not the first time Chuuya's kissed Dazai by far, and it's not even the first time he's kissed the idiot and not tasted seawater, but it's the first one that feels like it really counts.

Dazai goes just as limp as he had that last time, and for all that Dazai'd made him act and talk like a debutante to make a fool out of him, it was Dazai who'd always related most to the princesses in those fairy tales he loved so much, and it was Dazai who felt a lot like one right now.

Chuuya breaks the kiss, feeling as though the entire world could see them and what they'd just done, but that thought and that feeling are pushed to one side at the sight of Dazai, still looking dazed, with a stupid smile on his face.

Worth more than a masterpiece, he finds himself thinking, and then, one I'd want to see again.

#bsd #bsd stuff #bungo stray dogs #soukoku #dazai osamu #nakahara chuuya #Leona fic

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prairiedust · 6 years ago

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The Folktales of Supernatural

Here is the third and probably last post in my trilogy of the folkloristics, folklore, and folktales of Supernatural. You do not have to read the first and second posts necessarily, but it is a series, so…

Anyways, in Unhuman Nature, Ross-Leming and Buckner gave us a thumbnail of season three’s main arc-- Dean’s imminent hell deal-- in Jack’s perfectest day evaar. However, Dean got to do for Jack what no one was able to do for him when he was living under the shadow of his own death. Instead of taking a joy ride, going fishing (or to the beach, come ON show,) or fine okay spending some time with a girl with daddy issues (come ON buckleming,) Dean took care of business and showed Sam how to take care of the car. When Sam was also undergoing the Trials, they were again racing against the clock. Cas, too, was under the shadow of the Leviathan infestation, and there was very little carpe in the few diems he had left until the creatures destroyed him. There was always the understanding in Unhuman Nature that TFW would be doing everything possible to save Jack, but while Sam and Cas were best tasked with trying to find a cure, Dean knew that what would be the right thing for Jack was not being in the bunker dwelling on his imminent demise, and living is a particularly Dean thing.

It was a wonderful way of retelling this particular series legend, and using that series “motif” in a new way (anyone want to tackle a Supernatural Motif Index LOLOLOL) to do the “what happens when a story is retold” theme.

So, to tie up this trilogy of close readings, I want to talk a little about how the European version of Sleeping Beauty is a good way to understand what else is going on thematically with the trifecta of recursion-retelling-mirroring that’s been going on.

There are very few citations here as the evolution of Sleeping Beauty is more or less accepted as general knowledge now-- the concept is explored in Folk and Fairy Tales 2nd edition, edited by Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. It’s also on Wikipedia, if you’re into that.

CW for discussion of the non-est con to ever non-con and other unsettling themes that are nonetheless perfectly ordinary in folklore.

Sleeping Beauty was once considered to be perhaps one of the most wholesome of the Grimms’ fairy tales, but (in pop culture at least) the shine is starting to wear off. I was playing the Ellen edition of Outburst with some people I didn’t even know about a month ago and one of the “clues” was “Sleeping Beauty” and as soon as the guesser put that card up on her forehead, a guy shouts out, “That story is about sexual assault, fight me!”

Which makes this particular “folk tale” a neat way to show how folklore, or storytelling and retelling, is such a good frame for season 14.

I mentioned in the first post of this series that Sleeping Beauty is a great example of the intercycling of folklore and literature-- oral tales can become literary works, and vice versa, and they can comment on one another in surprising ways.

Let’s start with one of the most recent iterations of the Sleeping Beauty story and a move from one kind of text to another-- Disney’s 1959 animated movie, “Sleeping Beauty.” I know a lot of readers on here will know it-- and we’ll work our way down to the centuries-old bones of this tale.

Right off the bat, we get a really great (and subverted!) example of that “rule of three” 2/1 pattern I already talked about. The king and queen invite three “good fairies” to their daughter’s christening. They are even called “good fairies” by the herald as they enter on a sunbeam, so you already know there’s gonna be a bad one. The first fairy, Flora, gives Princess Aurora the gift of beauty. The next, Fauna, blesses the baby with the gift of song. Before fairy #3-- Merryweather-- can bestow her gift, Maleficent arrives, totally pissed that she hadn’t been invited but cool as a frozen cucumber, casually lies about her reason for showing up and then curses Aurora to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die on the evening of her 16th birthday. Merryweather uses her turn to alter Maleficent’s curse, as she does not have the power to nullify it: Aurora will fall into a deep sleep that only “true love’s kiss” can awaken her from. In hopes of protecting her from the curse in any way shape or form, King Stephan orders every spinning wheel in the kingdom to be burned, but the fairies say that this will not be enough so they sequester her in the woods under the alias Briar Rose, and they all live as peasants, eschewing magic and raising her in almost total isolation so that Maleficent can not find her to work the curse. Neat. Briar Rose gets into mischief anyway, gads about the forest singing like a klaxon, meets a prince named Phillip who is having Adventures in the Woods, falls In Love™ with him despite some now-creepy hand-grabbing. Later the fairies tell her not to worry about mysterious forest dudes and traumatize her by telling her that her entire life has been a lie, and then inexplicably send her home to the palace for her 16th birthday celebration despite the fact that the whole reason for hiding out was to keep Maleficent from being able to find her. Maleficent discovers that Aurora is at the palace, games the anti-spindle situation by luring Aurora up to a tower to a magical spinning wheel; Aurora pricks her finger on the spindle, and Bob’s your uncle. The good fairies put everyone in the castle into a deep sleep (so that while they are waiting for some weirdo to fall in True Love with a sleeping teenager, eugh, the people she knows (aka JUST MET) will sleep with her so that they won’t be upset by the complete failure of their plans) the fairies realize that Prince Phillip, the guy that Aurora has been betrothed to since she popped out of the womb, is one and the same as Mysterious Forest Dude that she fell in love with, and they send him to Aurora’s castle. Maleficent imprisons him, the fairies help him escape, he tears through a thorn bush that Maleficent creates as an impediment, kills the witch, and wakes Aurora with a chaste kiss. It’s fine, they met once, it was only a kiss (IT WAS ONLY A KISS), and this was 1959. So, that’s the Disney text in a nutshell. Folklorist Kay Stone says in her book Some Day Your Witch Will Come that while Disney had been called “a ‘Master of Fantasy’ in fact Disney removed most of the powerful fantasy of the Marchen and replaced it with false magic.” While her criticism of the Disnified Grimms tales is explicitly feminist, the criticism stands as Disney’s product is far divorced from the folk “originals.”

Most people are familiar with the Grimms’ written version of “Sleeping Beauty,” or “Little Briar Rose,” as they titled it when they published it in their first collection. This is the version that Disney partly modeled their story after. I won’t retell it, I’ll just discuss differences between the two versions, so please go read D. L. Ashliman’s translation here. It’s short. And. It turns out that the German “folk tale” that the Grimms brothers harvested is more than likely based on a story that was published by Charles Perrault in France which re-entered the Germanic oral tradition at some point. In this version, there are thirteen “wise women” (as opposed to fairies) in Briar Rose’s estimable father’s kingdom, but he only has twelve golden plates for them at the celebration of her birth, so he only actually invites twelve wise women (which is a hilarious commentary on what the lower classes thought of the nobility, am I right? Heaven forbid you don’t have enough fancy plates, quelle horreur or rather wie schrecklich or whatever the German equivalent would be.) Again, after eleven blessings, the evil crone who was disrespected barges in and curses the princess to prick her finger on a spindle (not the spindle of a spinning wheel, though) and die at fifteen; The next-eldest of the wise women modifies the curse and dad has all the spindles destroyed. Fifteen was apparently too young for a sexual awakening in 1959 but it was fine in 1812. Also, there were no shenanigans in the woods-- Briar Rose grows up a princess. She finds an old woman illicitly spinning in the castle one day and wants to try it, pricks herself with the spindle (the German version never specifies where) and her sleep is so profound that the entire castle falls asleep with her. A massive thorn hedge grows up because neglect, and eventually conceals the castle, and all that is left of the kingdom is a legend. Many other princes met agonizing deaths in that thorn hedge trying to get to Briar Rose but one day Her ACTUAL Prince shows up. The thorns turn to blossoms, he sails right through, kisses the girl, and as she wakes up so does the whole castle. The tale is over with an “and they lived happily ever after” ending.

Charles Perrault, the Frenchman who wrote the version of “La belle au bois dormant” or “The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods” that the Grimms’ informant possibly retold a hundred years later, has seven good fairies invited to the shindig, because everyone assumes that fairy number eight is dead or too ill to travel or senile or whatever. Here you can see that this isn’t an error made because a king was afraid of committing a faux pas and not from being afraid of the “bad” fairy, but because no one bothered to check on the old woman and find out what the reality was. You know what they say about what happens when you assume. So this time a young fairy steps forward and changes the curse, and instead of violently burning all the spinning wheels and spindles, the king merely outlaws their use. When the princess is sixteen or seventeen, (French nobles apparently had a little more childhood than German peasants,) she finds an old woman spinning in a tower who has remarkably never heard of the spinning ban. She hands over the spindle and the princess pricks her hand, and faints dead away. The king puts her on a bed of gold and I’m gonna quote Ashliman for this next part: “When the accident happened to the princess, the good fairy who had saved her life by condemning her to sleep a hundred years was in the kingdom of Mataquin, twelve thousand leagues away. She was instantly warned of it... [and] set off at once, and within an hour her chariot of fire, drawn by dragons, was seen approaching.” She puts everyone in the castle to sleep and this time the thorn hedge is actually a privacy fence that sprouts up under the good fairy’s magic. A hundred years later, some prince is having Adventures in the Woods when he sees the tops of the castle towers from a distance. One of his retinue tells him there’s a pretty girl inside, so he goes to check it out. Bruh, the brambles part for him magically, but allow only him, out of all of his party, to enter. He doesn’t awaken this princess with a kiss, but by the mere act of falling down beside her and being so genuinely and enormously in love with her that she wakes up on her own. Ol’ Charlie’s story is not over by half, though. They talk for hours, Perrault has a lot about eating and getting dressed and then they nap together a little, and finally get married. The prince’s mother is an ogre, however, and wants to eat her grandkids, Dawn and Day. Where does this come from? Why is it in here? What the actual heck? And it gets crazier from there. The prince becomes king and rides forth to wage war in a distant land, and the queen actually tells her steward that she wants to eat the little girl for her dinner. He tricks her by hiding Dawn and serving the queen a lamb instead. Next day, she wants to eat the little boy. He tricks her again by serving her a baby goat. Then, she wants to eat her daughter-in-law and they serve the evil queen venison. Then one day she hears the voices of her erstwhile entrees in the castle, discovers that she had been tricked, and prepares a cauldron full of venomous reptiles to throw the three innocents into to their deaths. The prince-turned-king shows up just in time and his mother is so beside herself with rage that she actually throws herself into the vat instead. So, yeah, weird stuff. Stuff that the Germans left out, or forgot, or decided that there was no “moral” that they wanted anything to do with. Was Perrault out of his damn mind?

WELL AS IT TURNS OUT, Perrault was actually retelling a Neapolitan folk tale that had been collected long before by a fellow named Giambattista Basile. He called the story “Sun, Moon, and Talia.” There is some evidence that it predates Basile, but most folklorists start there because the problem with oral tradition is that it’s rarely written down (ba-dump-tsss.) So we can definitively pick up the European version of Sleeping Beauty in Naples, Italy, in the early seventeenth century, when this mid-level clerk and author writes down a whole bunch of “nursery tales” and then dies. One of the stories he writes down is called “Sun, Moon, and Talia.” And I didn’t want to talk about it much before, except that I think understanding that Perrault seriously sanitized Basile’s story is the perfect illustration of “what happens when a story is retold.” In Basile’s story, to which I’m linking an okay version here with a content warning for rape and for the fact that they linked that painting “Nightmare” to the story, http://www.mftd.org/index.php?action=story&act=select&id=3364, Talia the princess is not cursed, but her father’s scholars tell her fortune and say to the king that she would “incur great danger from a splinter of flax.” He forbade flax (from which linen is made) from entering the castle. So in this version, it is the material, not necessarily the method of transforming it, that imperils the princess. Yes this is a giant metaphor for sexual intercourse and/or loss of innocence. Nonetheless, she comes across a woman who is spinning flax into thread, wants to try it, and gets a splinter under her nail. She falls down dead. The king is heartbroken, shutters the castle, and leaves her propped up on a throne. Some time later, another king comes across the castle, explores it, sees the dead Talia who seems to be weathering her death remarkably well, and has his way with her. I can only imagine what ran through Perrault’s head when he came across this. “Sacre bleu!!! Non, non ma petite chere, this will not do. A true king would never!” or something like that. ANYWAY, Basile’s story is still the frame on which Perrault based his literary fairy tale, for Talia gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, Moon and Sun, one of which sucks the splinter out of her finger, and she awakens. The king finds her but keeps her a secret. The king’s wife (he has a wife!) sends for them, and then to get revenge on her husband she orders the children cooked and served to him one day, but again there is a switcheroo and the cook uses lambs instead, and later it all comes out and Talia marries the king and Basile’s moral (vastly different than that of Perrault) is “Those whom fortune favors find good luck even in their sleep.” I don’t know if that was written in “sarcasm gothic” or not.

The bones of all of the stories are the same, but in each iteration something has changed which makes a huge impact on the overall themes of each telling. First, Perrault drops the rape of Talia, and slides the villain role over to the prince’s mother and makes the rape-king a virtuous prince to erase the royal philandering and necrophilia, and there is no kiss at all. The Germans bring the kiss back, weirdly enough, to somehow reach back through Perrault’s chivalrication to the sexual component of Briar Rose’s awakening-- it might be the imagery of the spindle, which in some cases is a big rod typically dropped between a spinner’s knees to make the yarn or thread, or it could be the completely bonkers idea that just kneeling beside her bed would not be enough to break the kiss (but then again, why wouldn’t a test of virtue be enough? Indeed, in the Disney version, the three fairies arm Phillip with “the shield of virtue.”) In Basile’s version, Talia dead, not sleeping, and in the Disney version there is the totally weird seclusion until young adulthood (that weirdly enough hearkens to the Irish legend of Deirdre, a woman who was betrothed to the king of Ulster and was sequestered to both preserve her innocence and thwart a dire prophecy but who still managed to run off with another guy and cause an epic war) and they rename the princess Aurora, which is Latin for Dawn, which is the name of her daughter in the French version. It’s all very intermangled.

Did other stories with similarities come from a single stalk, an ur-story like the Great Hunt may have? D. L. Ashliman in Folk and Fairy Tales: A Handbook tells us that Grimm and other folklorists believe that these SB stories are the vestiges of myths (132) such as the story of Brunhilde, who was put to sleep with an enchanted thorn for reaping a warrior favored by Odin. Or does this particular metaphor just crop up in cultures everywhere through synchronicity? In the Japanese folktale The Matsuyama Mirror, a young girl is given a mirror by her father, who tells her that whenever she is sad she can look in the mirror and see her mother, and eventually the mirror’s symbolism thwarts her evil stepmother, much as in the story of Snow White. Is there an even older story that connects these two?

I chose these four versions of Sleeping Beauty because for one thing this story was mentioned in the text of The Scar, they are clearly family, and the American/European versions are the most familiar to me (and I assume at least the American audience of Supernatural) so it easy to demonstrate this “digging down” to get to the seed of a story-- in this case the sterilization of the Sleeping Beauty story is an excellent metaphor for a powerful trauma weathering and being repressed-- or healed-- over time. Many scholars have noted the sexual symbolism of the spindle, which if you’ve never seen one is a rod of varying lengths with a round weight at the bottom, and in hand-spinning, typically a spinner hangs the spidle between their legs and it can pump up and down as it spins. Even the later versions of the story that feature spinning wheels have a spindle on them, and it is an unmistakably phallic component of the rig, coupled with the pistoning action of the spinner’s foot on the treadle to spin the flywheel. So hm. However, not all spindles are sharp enough to possibly prick a hand or a finger, and in the original “Talia” it is the flax splinter that inserts itself into her flesh. At any rate, it’s a metaphor for sexual penetration retold for an audience that has increasingly moved further and further away from being able to see (or is unwilling to acknowledge) sexual subtext.

Jack’s perfect day was bittersweet, but was also unmistakably idyllic and idealized, almost Disnified, although the magic was still unmistakably powerful. The scene by the river, where Jack explicitly invokes the memory of John, should also illuminate scenes from the series’ past, such as Dean’s dream sequence where he was fishing off of a dock, or where rogue angel Daniel was fishing when he was found by Castiel and Hannah. Fishing is a motif, if you will; it’s been featured in the show before. Jack’s eventual death is one of the show’s tale types. Dean, Sam, and Cas have all been through it-- as Cas says in The Spear, it’s “something of a rite of passage.” But we’re being told this story again from a point of view that was almost tragically abbreviated the first time-- when John trades his soul for Dean’s in In My Time of Dying, we got very little of what it means for a parent to sacrifice themselves for a child. Likewise, the other times that TFW faced their dooms, they had (albeit under duress) volunteered themselves. Jack was an innocent. Dying is perhaps the ultimate loss of innocence-- it certainly was for Talia. So by stripping away the halcyon glow of the river scene, we get to the bones of where the “under threat of impending death” tale type originated in the series.

This whole season so far has been the most clever way possible to do a “retrospective.” It’s not a sign that a show is tired, but that it has reached a point of self-reflection that very very few shows ever get to.

I have to wonder if this way of painting season 14’s arc through a constellation of motifs-- through callbacks as hysterical as the Scooby lunchbox full of pressurized gas in Mint Condition to returning characters as poignant as Lilly Sunder’s appearance in Byzantium, to thematic parallels to past seasons-- is going to continue into the second half of the season. We will know quickly, as the stakes have been raised after Dean’s repossession, whether Dabb and his writers continue to use the motif index of the show, or if this retrospective period is over and we’ll be covering new thematic ground. I will say, this theme has been tied up pretty neatly with the mid-season finale, that while Castiel essentially stepped into the Jack’s Fractured Fairy Tale much the same way that the way the good fairy modifies the evil fairy’s curse in Sleeping Beauty, that choice could shift everything in his mythos over to “beat the devil” which is another favorite SPN story, Tale Type 210a or whatever (and is irl ATU 330: The Smith Outwits the Devil and hopefully would be 330C which is the kind of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” classic American and African-American story.) (Imagine the SPN Tale Type Index starting with “1-199 - Origin Stories - 1a Burning Wife, 1b Burning Girlfriend, 1c House Burns Down, 2 Demon Blood Fed to Infant” and etcetera… anyways.) And we know that Cas and Sam are going into Dean’s headspace to get him, so there’s the rescuing forces storming the sleeping castle trope (remember the “sleeping” patron in Rocky’s Bar?) getting resolved potentially. But I do believe that this focused close reading brings to light a “healing trauma” theme that the history of Sleeping Beauty makes explicit. It is not the only reading of the show to do that, but again, if I could describe Dabb’s era with one phrase it would be “There’s no such thing as too much meta.”

See y’all Thursday night!

#the folkloristics of supernatural #the folklore of supernatural #the folktales of supernatural #spn meta #sleeping beauty

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boogiewrites · 6 years ago

Text

Choking On Sapphires 61

Title & Song: Maybe I’m Amazed

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Genevieve (OFC)

Word Count: 4800+

Summary: Alfie and Genevieve enjoy their time alone together in Paris/ They finally have time to talk about the big questions in their future. Alfie learns something new about Genevieve and he couldn’t possibly be more in love with her for it.

Warnings/Tags: Language. FLUFF. The Louvre. Almost getting arrested. Talk of babies and marriage. Gen crying over paintings. A piece of Gen’s past is revealed to Alfie.

**Chapter song is Maybe I’m Amazed by Paul McCartney**

Click on my icon then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

You have lunch at a cafe, sitting in the afternoon sun at your small table with the elaborate backed chairs. You make whispered speculations about the other patrons, sitting with your faces close together, hands held together in plain sight on the top of the table. You share coffee and bread before full courses of soup, fish and vegetables and a cheese plate. Proving again that he knows you, he orders you dessert.

"And Babas au Rhum for the missus," he says, hand motioning out to you. As you lower your face and cover it with your hand and silently laugh. "What is it Genny, you don't want to play me wife now?" he chuckles, taking a sip of coffee.

"A girl tries to have a little fun and gets caught and has to pay the price."

"That'll teach ya not to get caught." he snickers.

"That..." you sigh and shake your head, resting on the table with your elbows. "That's entirely valid." you start to laugh, running your fingers through your hair. "It's been so long since I've made up a life I suppose I've gotten rusty. " you say with a thoughtful pout.

"At least nothing was at stake. And it's just me that caught ya."

"That'd be death for any ordinary man."

"Well you are no ordinary man are ya love? Even in trousers." he says playfully wiggling his eyebrows.

"I like to think not." you grin.

"How long have we been married, by the way, just so I know." he says with a quick nod of his head at your expense.

"Almost four months."

"Ah. Still new. How romantic of you, Gen." he grins. "And where was our honeymoon if not Paris?"

"New York." you admit, looking down at the table.

"Ah yes, plenty of Jews there innit there? Were we vistin' family as well?"

"No. I didn't go that far." your face is back to easy going and you don't mind sharing the fantasy with him really. He was being a big tease about it, but you he wasn't making you feel bad about it, and that certainly meant something good didn't it?

"And what about the wedding? What was it like? Did you take me for every pound I've got? " he says sweetly, picking away at his beard.

"Of course I did," you say obviously with a playful tilt of your head. "Why do you want to know?" you ask with narrowed eyes. "You're asking an awful lot of questions for someone making fun of the fantasy."

"I ain't makin' fun and it's not entirely a fantasy now is it, love?" you feel the hairs prickle up on the back of your neck. You see his casual delivery, the confident pout of his lips as he explained. "Fantasy is usually something extravagant, something out of reach. Or something you'd never want but only enjoy the idea of." he goes on with that Alfie Solomons tongue twisting. Sharing his knowledge as if it were a gift. "Marriage and a wedding aren't things I would describe as such. So it ain't a fantasy innit?"

You study his face for a moment, as unreadable as ever, and you knew it was on purpose. He was trying to feel you out, wasn't he? "More of an artist's imagining?"

"And you must draw inspiration from somewhere. So certainly it's something you could share with me, of all people."

"I could." you pause, now trying to remain stoic as well, trying to figure out the reasoning behind those blue eyes of his. "If you'd like me to."

"Of course I bloody do, wouldn't have asked, would I?" he says obviously.

"There were lots of flowers." you say with a softer tone, looking out across the street to a flower shop.

"So this wasn't fantasy at all. You'd love a chuppah dripping in flowers wouldn't you love?" he says watching your face glaze over into the daydream again.

"I suppose I would. I hadn't thought about it up until now." you shake your head and the corner of your mouth turns up. "And that was precisely what I described. Lilacs and lavender falling down like cherry blossoms in the spring. A dress so big and a train so long there weren't enough children in the family to carry it." you begin to grin again, breaking the dazed thousand-yard stare and looking back to the table. "Perhaps not actually that big for real life though." you let out a little giggle and meet his eyes for just a moment.

"Well that's a relief." he says with a laugh and raise of his brows.

"It is?" you ask with a tilt of your head.

"It'd be a shame to not be able to get close to you on the day of after waiting so long." he says matter of factly before meeting your cautious gaze.

You share a moment of silence, you find the others face to be softer than expected. You'd never talked about marriage before with Alfie. It should seem a natural thing to do, given the delayed circumstances of your courtship. You knew only a few people that had waited a year before getting engaged. Although you were still learning about the rules of Judaism, you knew from distant memories of childhood that the process was far different from the usual traditions you were more familiar with, growing up with a Catholic father.

He sees that look in your eyes, although it was rare, he still knew it to be fear. "Is marriage still only a fantasy to you, Genevieve?" his voice was cool and calm. "I recall the last I had heard you didn't want to be married."

"I never said that," you say with blinking eyes and a hesitant tone. "I had spoken from the point of view of assuming I would never find anyone worth marrying." you clarify, a blush rising to your cheeks.

"Ah," he says, a slow nod, reading your nervous body language. He didn't want to push you too far, but surely he was reading the signs clearly. "Like your belief of romance to be dead?" he suggests.

"Yes, like that." you hold his stare, willing yourself to face this conversation. You wanted to get closer to him in Paris. This hadn't been what you'd meant by that though. You should tell him you love him first, shouldn't you? And you most certainly did. You never wanted to be without him, that meant you should marry him, right?

"And I believe you've told me you had changed your feelings on that particular subject, yeah?"

"A particular someone has changed my mind on that yes." you give him a slow-growing smile, looking back down and the table, willing yourself to face the fear you'd held for so long when it came to love and commitment. You reach out and hold his hand.

"Who is he? I'll kill 'im." he says, leaning in closer to you with a charming smile that always causes you to address the tension you hold in your shoulders and release it.

"Bold of you to assume it's a man." you say with raised brows before you both laugh.

"Entirely different set of problems there, mate." he chuckles and squeezes your hands. "Then if I may be so bold as to believe it was somehow me that changed your mind. And you have in fact changed your mind, yeah?" he nods his chin your way. "Then may I also be confirmed in my belief that you have changed your mind about marriage as well?"

"I was never against marriage with the right person."

"The person who made you believe in the romantic sort of marriage, yeah?"

"Yes. That particular person." you say softly.

You see a new sort of smile come across his face. His boyish handsomeness coming through as he gives you a closed lip smile with slow blinking eyes. He leans forward and kisses you gently.

A plate with raspberries and rum smelled sponge cake is slide onto the table, interrupting the eye contact you'd managed to hold. "Excusez-moi, voici vos babas au rhum." the waitress says with an apologetic smile behind bowing her head and leaving.

"I think we would've had this conversation a lot sooner, had we had time alone like this, pet." he says, moving to take his fork and slice the end of the sweet bread and holding it out towards you.

"So do I." you say before taking the piece into your mouth. "But we have all the time here in Paris to do so." you say, finishing chewing.

"That we do, my love." he says before trying to cake himself.

"Perhaps if it were made with your bread?" you suggest with a crooked smile. He hums in appreciation for your praise.

"Perhaps." he nods and reaches out with his hand again, assuring you felt that he mean what he was about to say, as in reflection to the weeks you'd been together had led him to feel guilty about the effort he was putting into seeing you. "I'll make a point to mark more time for us once we return to London, eh? Can't very well be a man who neglects his wife now can I?" he grins.

"For my sake, I'd certainly hope not." you say with a gentle smile as you let out a quiet chuckle.

"Here love, let's eat ya sweeties and let's be off to see the paintings. Would that please the missus?" his face continues to be amused and soft and you feel your heart fluttering about in your chest.

"It would please her very much." you say with a giggle before taking another bite of cake off the fork in his hands. --------

You move throughout the long hallways of the museum much like you had the rest the Paris, hand in hand. Alfie is distracted by the expressions that pass over your face as you look over the painting and statues that line the walls. He notices you keep speaking of wishing you could be as good as good as the works that hung in these halls. He believes you to be, and when he keeps correcting you, a light tap to the nose to scold you speaking any ill of your skills each time until you stop. You do cry, and it was expected. He gives you his sleeve, his handkerchief and tenderly wipes your stray years from your cheeks with his fingers as you sigh heavily and rest your head on his arm.

"Oh, look at it Alfie, darling. My love isn't it just heartbreaking?" you'd say, your hand to your chest and your eyes were hundreds of miles away in thought.

You reach a painting that he knows, a hearty chuckle from him as you approach and he points to Carravaggio's, Judith Beheading Holofernes.

"Oh look, Gen it's our epilogue." he says with a gruff single note laugh.

"Come off it mon Fie." you chuckle, with a roll of your eyes.

"What I don't like is that he truly looks like me in 'is one." he says with his bottom lip disappearing under his mustache.

"I won't deny that. But I'd never cut off your head, darling, I'm much too fond of it." you coo at him, lightly cupping his cheek. "But I must admit she has much the same approach as I doesn't she?"

"If you were left a widow you would cut off the offending parties head? Sounds like you love, yeah." he nods and pouts his lips in agreement.

"I meant in the story, the text of "Approaching to his bed, she took hold of the hair of his head." you say with a smirk. "Something I much adore doing with you."

"Naughty thing. Turnin' bible stories into flirtations. Dirty girl." he says with a deep chuckle.

"It's not a part of our works, so who cares." you let out a dismissive laugh. ------

You come across another painting to resemble him, St. Matthew and the Angel by Rembrandt.

"I don't want to draw attention to it but it would seem as if we're very popular in these works." he says quietly with a pointed finger to the painting.

"That would resemble you, were you old and gray." you nod. "But this is St. Matthew he was an apostle."

"Ah. Then perhaps not." he lets out an amused little chuckle. "But it does remind me of us, yeah. Me workin' away and you come fluttering in, perching on me shoulder to remind me of how heavenly things could be."

"Yes if you'd stop working and let me have me way." you say in a prissy way and he snorts in amusement.

"Always the same with ya Genny. Meowing about, rubbing on me and demanding attention like a cat in heat." he teases.

"How rude. A woman can vocalize her need for affection and attention, mon Fie." you giggle. "Although your comparison is almost embarrassingly accurate." you shrug and grin, taking his hand and tugging him away from the painting. -------

The last painting to draw a deep, gut-wrenching emotion from you was, of course, a Leonardo da Vinci. He feels your stuttered inhalation and looks down at you, finding your face solemn while taking in La Scapigliata with wide watery eyes. It wasn't a very large piece, especially in comparison to the ironic giant size of the statue of David or the entire wall-sized paintings of battles and myths you'd come across. Its size was no indication to the way it seemed to move you.

"How is it this one moves you, my love." he asks, kissing your head as you sigh and put an arm around his waist, and he moves to rest his over your shoulders.

"Look at her face." you whisper. Even though the face was the only true part more fully fleshed out in the portrait, he does as he's asked. "How did he imagine or capture such an expression?" your hand rests on your chest as your words barely scrape past your lips in their raspy and emotion filled response.

Alfie could tell this one was hitting you particularly hard. "What do you see, Genevieve?" he asks softly, leaning down to your ear.

"I see a fully expressed inner emotion, depicted outwardly as if caught candidly on her face." you let out a long sigh. "The slightly messy curls falling about, the downward casted soft eyes, the glow that is reflected off her skin. She doesn't care about anything else except that exact moment. That exact feeling she's being consumed by."

"You should describe things to the blind love. Your words are doing the art justice." he whispers, another kiss to your hair as he watches the tears fall from your eyes like he did the night of the opera. Now more certain in his choice to buy you the teardrop earrings for a memento from these days spent together. "What feelin' is it, my beautiful flower?"

"Love." you sigh out, another stuttered inhale past your trembling lips.

He studies the woman's face and truly tries to see in through your beautifully worded depictions. "I wonder what it is she's looking at?" he asks aloud.

"I imagine it to be what looking at your child for the first time must feel like. The exhaustion on her face, only countered with the slightest upturning of her lips, the heavy corners of her eyes crinkled just so, pouring wordless devotion to the new babe in her arms."

Suddenly he's hit with it. He sees what you see for a moment. "That is what it is, innit?" he whispers. Besides the babe itself, nothing else would matter at that moment except the emotion, and the unfinished state of the painting somehow made it more poignant suddenly to him. "You are bloody brilliant, Genevieve." he rasps out.

You blink rapidly, taken out of your fantasy of feeling the emotions for yourself. Beyond exhaustion, in pain and flooded with emotion, you lie in bed with a pinked babe to your breast, a vision coming to you as you cry silently. You turn your face with its tear-stained cheeks to meet his. You find his brow furrowed, lips in a tight line of thought as he brushes your cheek and holds the warmth to your face.

"The things I have seen you do, my love. The animal I have known and adored just the same as the tender and gentle soul that resides within you and it all astounds me. Your dual nature gives me hope that being hard and covered in blood isn't all my life may be. To have proof one can access such a broad range of emotions gives me a reason to believe there is more for me even when I am in doubt of it. The capacity for maternal love you hold was something I never expected in you."

"Having a child is a brutal and bloody business for a woman. You risk your life, you face unimaginable pain and gore just the same as coming by it through means of violence, you can come by it by means of love just the same."

"And you know of pain through violence, my love." he nods.

"Intimately."

"Do you wish to know of that pain through love, Genevieve? To bring a life into the world by blood instead of taking one out?" his brow shifts and he searching your face for answers. He holds his breath and he does not mean to. It was clear the art was working away at his emotions as well, forcing life's biggest questions out of him.

You nod and let out a shaky exhale. "I do." you answer simply. You realize the weight that lifted off of you that you hadn't known was there dissipates as you openly admit it to another person. To say it so closely, and to the person you hoped you would be making the life with touches you both. You can both feel it, a heartbeat shared in tandem for a moment as it skips at the thought of creating another heartbeat to share outside yourselves. So many things that seemed out of reach to you both were now attainable things because you'd found each other. You lean in to kiss him, he tastes the salt of your tears on your lips. "Is that something you wish to create as well?" you ask with a weak voice.

"Because of you... with you... yes." the delicate up turning of your lips as he confessed his hidden and never before shared thoughts with you stirs something deep and rooted within in at his core.

A tender and pure kiss, you place on his lips in repayment of the words you had spent so much time wondering if you'd ever hear from him. ----- Emerging from the stone rooms you feel the sun on your skin again as you take a deep breath of fresh air and have a good stretch, leaving the heaviness you felt as the emotions from the art weighed you down. You stand with your hands on your hips, looking about as Alfie adjusts his jacket. You suppose he too was dealing with the heaviness you felt. After all, you'd dealt with both topics of marriage and children today and so boldly and rather fearlessly for you both, the hangover from the intensity you shared when discussing deep topics.

"Excuse me?" you hear from behind you, revealing a policeman standing with his hands behind his back and an unwelcome look on his face.

"Yes?" you ask, straightening your posture, not hiding your distaste for the look he had on his face.

"I'm afraid your attire isn't legal in this city and I'm going to have to be placing you under arrest."

You openly laugh in his face and you feel the heat and power radiating off Alfie despite him being out of his jurisdiction. You hold your hand out behind you to signal him to stop, keeping your eyes on the man in front of you.

"My attire?" you scoff.

"Yes, it is illegal for a woman to wear trousers. It gives way to transvestitism and the law doesn't support that sort of behavior."

"Your city is full of artists, darling, you do nothing but support it!" you laugh with your head back.

"You're under arrest miss for the trousers and the attitude will not be helping your case, come now." he says as he reaches for the metal cuffs.

"I think not." you say with a deeper tone, narrowing your eyes at him.

"I can make a scene miss, or you can come with me as a lady should." he says as you continue to take steps backward as he approaches you.

"There will be a hell of a scene if you try and throw a Lafitte in jail." you say with a stubborn nod your head, your words strong and biting.

The man stops, his head pushing back as he studies you. You knew he would know who your uncle was. And if he wasn't in a precinct that was under his pay, chances are he was one that still feared him and his power.

"So you can leave me the fuck alone or I can call my uncle Altar from jail and have him come down and deal with you." you lean forward, hands on your hips and you stare into the man's uncertain eyes.

"Your uncle?" he says not convinced. "He's not your uncle, who are you? I've never even seen you before." he says with a worse attitude than you had.

"I'm Lilly Lafitte." you say crossing your arms across your chest, standing tall and taking a step towards him. "I've been living in London for years which is why you don't recognize me you pup." you say with a nod of your chin at the young man.

"Lilly?" he says with a face showing clear confusion. "But she disappeared."

"And I've reappeared, dear." you state obviously. "My goy father tried to silence me and now I'm back in the light. You could take your chances but do you really want to risk angering Altar by bothering his favorite niece with something as stupid and pointless as this?" you bark back at him.

You see the thoughts running across the young man's face. You keep your stern face and confident body language. You knew young ones like him wouldn't believe a woman to lie, and you were using that to your advantage.

"I won't arrest you." he says with narrowed eyes. "But may I ask that you change your attire? You're asking for trouble."

"You may ask but I will not respond in kind." you say with a purse of your lips.

He nods and looks you over, an annoyed look on his face as he turns and leaves, mumbling to himself.

"Fuck me, Genevieve," Alfie says gruffly. "Ya wanna make me think I'm gonna have to raise hands at a fuckin' French copper, love? Jesus." he says with a big roll of his eyes, lips pursed as he wags a finger at you as he speaks. "That was really fuckin' risky trying to pull the Lafitte name like that ya know?" he says with a scolding tone and a stern look on his face.

"What risk?" you ask in an innocent tone. You tilt your head and soften your body language as you take slow steps back to him. "There is no risk." you say with a soft huff of a laugh and a shake of your head.

"They could've taken you anyway and then where would you 'ave been, eh?" he says, leaning in close to your face as you stand only a breath away from him.

"But I wasn't lying." you say with a slow blink of lash up at him in a calm voice.

His chin pushes back into his neck, his brow shooting low just as fast. "You...weren't lyin'?" he clarifies with an angry but not aggressive stare. There's no way, he thinks.

"No." you state plainly, large eyes looking up at him as a smile slowly comes across your face. He really hadn't known. You thought in all the research he might've done that he would've heard of your old alias, the first real criminal work you'd done under the name Lily, the one your uncle gave you. And your uncle happened to be one of the most powerful Jewish men in France, at least when it came to the French mafia. Where had he thought you'd learned all your skills? Perhaps he'd never thought about your origins beyond what you'd shared with him.

"You're...fuckin’ ‘ell..." he blinks rapidly, his brow shifting unevenly, his eyes darting about the street before returning to you with a quick shake of his head, clearly his brain was backfiring at the realization.

"My first criminal alias was Lilly Lafitte." you say in a tone so casual he cannot understand why you are so cool in your delivery of the news. You place a hand on his chest to steady him. It'd been so long since you'd said the name, memories of museum and jewelry heists float about your mind in a warm and happy haze.

"Ya fuckin' wot?!" he says loudly as you laugh quietly at his dumbfounded face. You loved the expression as it was so rare. "You? Standin' there? Fuckin' Lilly Lafitte?" he harshly whispers, trying to get a control on the volume of his voice.

You nod and smile with a mischievous look he's seen before.

"You're a fuckin' legend, mate." he groans out, eyes wide and brow low, studying you to find any fault as if you were lying to him. He'd heard of the young woman, rumored to work with the French gangster Altar Lafitte of the same name, who made her way through Paris stealing art and jewels in the least likely of places and never being caught. He'd thought Lily Lafitte would've been older, as the jobs and their tales would suggest someone of more experience might've done them. But no, he sighs, you've had it in your blood the entire time. Raised under the influence of a man even he looked up to for his business sense. "I used to tell stories 'bout you." he says with a strange feeling of lust coming over him.

"A lot of Jewish boys did." you smirk.

"YOU are Altar fuckin' Lafitte's niece?" he asks with wild eyes and a crazed smile, scratching his head.

"Yes. He's the uncle I've spoken of on many occasions."

"Fuck me." he groans, shaking his head. "I've been with Lily fuckin' Lafitte." he says with a hard guttural laugh that makes him bend slightly, slapping his own knee. "If only I could've told me younger self about this. Well he wouldn't have fuckin' believed it but he'd like the fantasy I'm certain." he laughs heartily.

"And how does the fantasy live up to the reality love?" you coo.

"No fuckin' comparison, you magnificent creature." he groans and leans in close. "As always you make my words ring true as you can only be outdone by yourself, eh?" a bright and boyish grin on his face down at you.

You lean in to kiss him. What was meant as a treat for being so damned charming turns into his hands wrapped around you, picking you up slightly off the ground as he grunts into your neck, noisy kisses with his plush lips finding their way across your skin. You giggle and squirm under his touch, his beard tickling away at your ears as he mutters praise and disbelief.

"Would you like to meet him?" you ask with an innocent lilt.

"Meet... meet Altar? The fuckin' Jewish crime lord of Paris? Just fuckin'... meet him?" he says with a wide motion of his hand. "Pop is for tea like it's bloody Shabbat and we don't have a thing else to do?" he amuses himself and laughs.

"Yes, I could call him. He never minds when I drop by." you say with a shake of your head, once again your casual tone confounds him.

"I'm with a woman who can "drop in" on Altar Lafitte and be welcomed," he says quietly, taking your face into his hands. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" he asks with a sweet and simple kiss, words muttered against your smiling lips. The business opportunity's now open to him scramble around in his brain.

"You're Alfie fucking Solomons. That's what." you say with a doting smile as he growls and wraps you up in his arms, pressing his lips to yours as you kick your feet and wrap your arms around his neck and let out a happy squeal you don't recall ever having made before.

@fangirlfreakingout @jaegeeeeer @cosettewinchester @lookuptheskyisfalling-blog @brianaisasongbird @cry5t4l-w4rri0r @iliveonchocolateandnetflix @jess2464 @hardygal69 @thegarrisonpublichouse @a-flock-of-angry-pigeons @pootle @negansdirtygirl22 @musingsby-night @wtf-is-wrong-with-this @shine-dont-shadow @inkinterrupted @vale0413 @lafayettes-baguettes-1 @sxlomons @aphnxrising @emerald-bijou @elaenom @give-jack-a-lightsaber @anrm1 @ultrablackwidower @tinastarkandco @arrowswithwifi

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ravencall70 · 6 years ago

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The Heart of a Crow (excerpt)

"Zev,

I was so pleased to receive your letter so soon after arriving here in Amaranthine. Things here are... unsettling. Vigil's keep was under attack by darkspawn when I arrived and all the Wardens from Orlais are dead or missing.

They're organized Zev and more disturbing is that the one I killed... talked. He was threatening the Keep's seneschal when I stopped him. I don't know what this means but the Wardens who I thought I'd be leading are no longer here.

King Alistair, (and yes, Zev, I know how weird that sounds), arrived shortly after we cleared out the darkspawn. He couldn't stay, but did help me stop a Templar from returning a mage to the Circle.

Yes, another mage is following me around. He's been conscripted into the Grey Warden's, as was Oghren who was here when I arrived. And yeah he still reeks of... well, whatever that stench is, I still haven't figured it out.

I miss you Zev. I wish I was with you in Antiva. I don't like the thought of you on your own against the Crows. And before you mention my risk, you know it's different. I have people watching my back here and you're alone. Sorry, I just worry. Plus, I'm sure the weather there is a damn sight better than the northern coast of Ferelden.

When I'm finished here, I intend to join you. I do not like being away from you. Promise you'll be careful? I love you Zevran.

Avery"

My dear Grey Warden,

Talking darkspawn. Braska, I do not like the sound of that but it is a delight to hear from you amor. Truly, your words are like the sweetest breeze across my skin. If I was not busy evading the members of my former order I would be inclined to write you some dreadfully sweet poetry. Alas, the Crows are nothing if not persistent and I do not have the time just yet.

But do not worry about me. I have enlisted some assistance from a friend we met in Denerim. She is most helpful, not to mention useful as a sinfully seductive distraction for my enemies. (As well as the most skilled blade I have ever known.) Besides myself of course.

We managed to neutralize the most recent attempt to put an end to my quest and the guildmaster of Treviso in Antiva. I pray your tenure in Amaranthine is a short and victorious one. I miss having you at my side. Not to mention over me and under me, naked and... Apologies, I got carried away. Be safe my dear warden. Camping in a tent while avoiding the Crows is just not the same without you at my side.

Z."

"Zev,

I hope you're safe. Things here are... weird. Not to mention gross, disturbing and... difficult. It is nothing at all like it was before we stopped the Blight. My companions here are... harder to tolerate or even like really than those we once travelled with.

I enjoy talking with Segrun, a female dwarf from the Legion of the Dead. She's like a breath of fresh air compared to some of the others. Oghren hasn't changed much and is going to be a father, though Felsi had to come here to confront him for leaving her or I would never have known. There's also a mad female Dalish mage who if I wasn't desperate for help I might have killed outright. (Don't worry, I won't kill her, though she is the rudest person I've ever met. Yes, even more so than Morrigan.)

I think I mentioned another mage yes? His name is Anders and though pleasant enough, I can't help but think he has a lot of secrets he hides behind deflection and bad jokes. There are two others in my misfit group but I hesitate to mention them. Perhaps next time.

How goes your hunt? You mentioned enlisting the aid of a friend in your last letter. I hope she's as good as you say and trustworthy. I got the impression she might not hesitate to serve up a little payback for how you parted from her the last time you were together.

Dreadfully sweet poetry? Really love, anything you pen would greatly lift my spirits. I cannot convey how dreary things are, though I sense we're nearing the end of the troubles here. When my work is complete, I am coming to join you in Antiva. I am weary of darkspawn and broodmothers (don't ask), and I want nothing more than to hold you in my arms.

Ti amo,

Avery"

"My dear Grey Warden,

Broodmothers? If I did not know you as well as I do, I might think you were toying with me. Alas, your tone was enough to convince me you are quite serious and it worries me.

Truly? You wish me to write you a poem? Hmm. Braska, I am interrupted. I will think on it and compose something suitable.

I have returned! Quite exhilarating that was. But you had asked for a poem and this is what I have for you.

When I faltered, my life was forfeit

When I failed, your hand was there

When I shared, you didn't judge me

When I fell, your touch was fair

Am I dreaming, am I deceived

Does he mock me, I cannot say

Then you kissed me, a dance I play

You asked for more, my heart was hard

I looked for tricks, they were not there

I know not this dance, I gave a token

You didn't press, my heart was warming

Can this be real, I think, ti amo

You smile, it's true

Tis a blessing, mi amor

You whisper, I love you, and I am yours.

Sincerely, I do not believe it is my best attempt. Perhaps I should just borrow from those more talented no? I hope your troubles in Amaranthine conclude soon. I wait with bated breath to hear from you again. Isabella and I have defeated the guildmaster here in Seleny and are moving on to Rialto. A pleasant coastal city closer to Antiva city but not too close. I am looking forward to a nice bowl of fish chowder and an indulgent amount of Antivan brandy, though I would much prefer to share these things with you.

Ti amo Avery,

Z."

"Zev,

Your poem is beautiful and exactly what I needed when it arrived. I mentioned there were two others here with me in Amaranthine last time? They are... unconventional, to say the least but are committed to stopping the darkspawn. One is Nathaniel Howe, yes that Howe and no, I am not crazy. I conscripted him and he has earned my trust if not my loyalty. I may even recommend he take over here when this business is done.

The other is a... how do I say this? We ended up in the Fade while looking for a missing Grey Warden. He was dead and when the blood mage we confronted sent us back, a spirit of Justice came with us (entirely by accident), and inhabited the Grey Warden's body. Yes, it is as creepy as it sounds but it didn't seem right to let him just wander off alone. Honestly, I've no idea what to do about him or if I even can do anything.

I am all right Zev, but I admit I get tired of being trapped in the Fade against my will. I hope you are safe and that your beloved fish chowder was delicious. Have another brandy for me, sadly all the Warden's have here is cheap whiskey and even cheaper wine.

Love,

Avery"

"Avery,

What do you mean you conscripted a Howe? A spirit of Justice? Your description reminds me of the mortalitasi in Nevarra. I do not like this amor. Also, I get the feeling things are much worse there than you have led me to believe, though I hope that is just my imagination and you are not holding something back.

Isabella has had to disappear for a time and I have left Rialto and am staying in a small village further inland. Things did not go well in Rialto but the fish chowder was just as I remembered it.

Do not worry about me amor, I am safe enough and it seems to me you have more than enough to deal with. I intend to remain here until Isabella returns as it is too dangerous to venture out on my own.

You liked my poem? Truly? Ah, ti amo you flatter me. Perhaps while I am here I shall attempt another one, better this time. Oh, I must go. The farmer has need of me. Keep yourself safe amor, I wish to see you safe and whole when you return to me.

Z."

"My Warden,

It has been two months since I last heard from you and I am worried. Isabella has returned to Rialto but we have made no plans as I am not at my best with worry for you. How can I plot my revenge on the Crows if I do not know what may have befallen you?

Please write soon ti amo. I am sending a second letter with this one, addressed to whoever might have answers for me. I hope they will be able to help.

Continued on AO3

#dragon age #dragon age origins #zevran ariani #male couseland #warden #zevran x warden #zevran x cousland #ao3fic #fanfiction

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lolli-pop-kiki · 7 years ago

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love story (incomplete)

One day, a sickeningly hot summer day, I decided to kill myself. I’ve always enjoyed the sight of blood, so it was easy to decide what method to utilize. However, I couldn’t actually watch the blade slice over my wrist. Ironically, I was squeamish watching my own veins wiggle around. But once the deed was done, all I had to worry about was watching the life slither out of me in solitude.

I had felt a jolt of fear on the initial cut, a twinge of guilt. But once you realize there’s no turning back, negative feelings eventually dissolve into a numb and bitter acceptance, perhaps an intense relief. I feel as though I felt all of those things at once. I started to drift off as I sat on the floor. My small window was above me, and the sky was pink and orange with the setting sun. It was all quite peaceful.

As the darkness slowly crept out from the corners, I finally saw him. Him? I’m actually not quite sure. Gender seems irrelevant regarding this particular person.

It was Death, crafted from the writhing shadows into a tall, looming form. His presence was not frightening. It was just there.

Have I mentioned that this is a love story? That is probably important.

He stood tall like a man, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was looking at me, and only me. He appeared to be wearing a black cloak, not unlike the Halloween costume. But this one was long and animated, changing shape with the moving shadows, so very ethereal. He didn’t hold a scythe, to that I was rather disappointed. But now that I think on it more scrupulously, such a thing seems too barbaric and unfitting. He did, however, have two large wings, which were only faintly visible when the light hit them, almost like twitching glass. Even though my vision faded in and out as if I were floating in water, I still found the pulsating feathers to be quite beautiful.

As I felt myself emptying, Death’s figure glided closer. He kneeled in front of me, and I was able to see his face. At first, I thought I was eye-to-eye with a skull in silhouette. Then transparent skin and tendons shimmered on top of the bone like fish scales. His features were that of a plain, meek young man, maybe a bit older than I. But I’m sure he could change that if he wanted. Maybe he becomes a child when delivering a kid.

The closer he got, the colder I became, the sensation crawling upwards from my toes and fingers to my legs and arms. In a timeless moment, his face was inches away from my own; I could see his eyes perfectly.

He had no irises or whites to speak of. Beneath his eyelids were orbs of shining black. Truly, they were fascinating. The longer I looked into them, the number my body felt. I almost felt awkward. But I suppose Death didn’t have to worry about modesty. His eyes showed cognition, knowledge, awareness. Yet no sparkle. His lips, a pale tint with just a hint of blue, parted as they slowly glided closer to mine.

“Hi.” I spoke suddenly, causing him to stop moving. He blinked a few times.

Was that a hint of surprise? I didn’t think Death was that swayable. It amused me as much as it could in my weakened state. But then, barely moving his lips, he whispered, “Hello…”

Not shockingly, his voice carried an otherworldly, tangible quality to it. It was low, yet soft. Almost comforting, yet a few voices mixed into one, which also gave it an eerie quality. Either way, I didn’t think he would actually answer me.

“Were you going to kiss me?”

“I was.”

“That’s rather nice.”

“Is it?”

“It’s nice to think that you’re the last thing that I’m going to see before I see nothing.”

That statement seemed to puzzle him for a moment.

“Do you know…what I am?” he asked slowly, the skin on his face shimmering, disappearing for a brief instant until nothing but a skull was staring me in the face, a delicate scare tactic, if I had to guess. But it didn’t work. I felt my heart flutter. I was lightheaded.

“Yes.”

There was a pause. He simply looked at me, eyes shining slightly. I was looking back at him, until I began to feel a bit awkward, bashful. Although my blood supply was currently limited, I felt a blush on my cheeks, as if I were face-to-face with an actual human. Embarrassing. He blinked, very slowly. I noticed that the red numbers on my digital clock hadn’t changed at all since he got there.

“Why do you speak to me?” he asked

“Am I…not supposed to? I figured I don’t really have anything to lose.”

That seemed to amuse him for a second.

“What I meant was, why do you speak to me in that way?”

I didn’t really answer him. I just lifted my mouth into a small smile.

Weakly, I lifted my shredded arm, nearly senseless from the lackluster tendons.

My fingers were so small and pale, even compared to his whitened, spindly ones, as I used them to lightly stroke his cheek. Even though it was fairly translucent, I felt chilled skin, yet soft and somewhat malleable. It felt peculiar, like the combination was off.

I was surprised he didn’t move. I wondered how far he was going to let me take it. Shouldn’t I have been dead and gone by now? My wrist was shaky, my hand wobbly, but I managed to delicately slide the tips of my fingers gently across his lips. It was like touching the surface of a smooth, slick ice cube. I think I felt him twitch.

I was rather amazed, but then I asked, “Wait…Isn’t it supposed to end once you kiss me? I’m…I’m touching your lips.”

I suddenly felt a little embarrassed as my thumb brushed his bottom lip slowly back and forth, like a lover or a pet. My thumb was starting to sting from the cold.

His head dipped slightly down, more into my hand, as if it were a comfort to him, though his expression remained stoic.

“For it to be done, I must kiss you on the mouth.”

I blinked a few times.

“Why is that?”

His eyes swiveled for just a moment, obviously trying to manifest a simplified answer for me.

“It provides…easier access…to your spirit.”

That actually sounded quite terrifying, especially being heard through that throaty mix of voices. My hand slowly lowered, and I looked into his eyes. They were so incredibly dark; they reminded me of cloudy hematite. Quite suddenly, there was a loud tapping at the window above my head. Apparently I should have shut the blinds, as there was a panicked onlooker staring at me with shining eyes, mouth moving rapidly with her cellphone pressed against her ear. I guess an ambulance would be coming. She resembled my mother. I felt another twinge of guilt.

“It appears…that I may leave after all…” I heard Death’s voice speak softly as his form gradually glided away from me.

“No…N-no, don’t…” I pleaded in a whisper, as all the pain in my body came creeping back the farther his form moved away from me.

I think I saw the tiniest of smiles curl up on his face.

“Many thanks…for the kind welcome…peculiar one.” He clutched a few strands of my hair in his hand, letting them slide off of his palm as he silently faded away.

All of the pain crashed into me. I shrieked as loud as I could, fainting soon afterward. At least I wasn’t dead? But now I knew that I had another dilemma.

I truly, deeply, greatly…wanted to see him again.

I won’t go into the details of what transpired immediately after the first incident. Isn’t it obvious? I was committed. Only for about two weeks. How many times has that been portrayed in media? Plenty. Crudely, but plenty. I know I will get the veritable question asked of me, although answering it causes a bad taste in my mouth.

Why did you want to kill yourself?

The simple answer is this:

I had trouble accepting myself. I dislike myself. I saw no improvement. That feeling of inadequacy was so intense and overpowering that it selfishly drowned out any worry about hurting others with my intentions. I simply told myself that they would be better off. My memory, like any other faceless figure’s, would fade within a matter of years, a blink in comparison to the life of Earth. It wouldn’t matter.

But.

This is a love story.

I participated in group therapy, gained the necessary camaraderie, learned coping skills. Blah, blah, blah. I actually considered it a small vacation. I suppose I would have to return to work soon.

I decided against returning to my old job at the bakery. My mother had called them when I was away and made up something. An illness, no doubt. I didn’t really want to discuss it. I didn’t want to discuss it with anyone. I felt ashamed at that point, completely. Humiliated. When I was in high school, cutting and being an edgelord made you royalty in some circles. Attention was all that seemed to matter. We were idiots. Being suicidal is not a quirk. It’s not beautiful. It’s a problem. That should go without saying, right? Thinking about my mother’s unforgettable face on that day still makes me choke up, even just a bit. It sounds incredibly cliché, but when you’re in a situation like that, you really do know which people matter in your life. You find the ones that stick around and the ones that don’t.

#lollipop fic

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mldrgrl · 8 years ago

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The Long Road to Improbable

by: mldrgrl Rating: NC-17 Summary: What if the flashbacks in Per Manum dated back to season 5? What happened between then and Requiem?

Thank you to @sunflowerseedsandscience for being a second pair of eyes for me!

One day, you'll ask me to speak of a truth - of the miracle of your birth. To explain what is unexplained. And if I falter or fail on this day, know there is an answer, my child, a sacred imperishable truth, but one you may never hope to find alone. Chance meeting your perfect other, your perfect opposite - your protector and endangeror. Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys - a search for truths fugitive and imponderable. If one day this chance may befall you, my son, do not fail or falter to seize it. The truths are out there. And if one day you should behold a miracle, as I have in you, you will learn the truth is not found in science, or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart. And in that moment you will be blessed - and stricken. For the truest truths are what hold us together, or keep us painfully, desperately apart. - Dana Scully “Trust No 1”

Her daughter was dead. A child, her child, that was, as Mulder said, ‘never meant to be.’ She could never really wrap her head around it. She didn’t feel like a mother, and that was perhaps the most distressing part of it. Losing her before she ever got to hold her, rock her, read her bedtime stories, kiss her tears away after a bad dream, love her. She did love her, though. In a distant, cerebral way. She told herself she loved her, but she never quite felt it.

Hallucinating her dead daughter during an autopsy was the last straw. Emily, with her wet blue eyes, whispering, “Mommy, please.” It made her recognize that there was an ache inside her for something more, something her career couldn’t fulfill. There was a small, baby-shaped hole in her heart, and in the days, weeks, months after Emily’s death, it had grown bigger and needier, and achier. Emily had never called her Mommy, and never would, but she wasn’t ready to give up on the idea that no one ever would.

She began researching adoptions, both domestic and foreign, but the cards were stacked against her. Single. Dangerous profession. Long hours away from home. Only months into remission from a life-threatening illness. Even she wouldn’t take a second glance at her application.

There were far less restrictions on fertility treatments. In fact, the only qualification seemed to be a willing and able body, which she currently lacked, but that was the whole point of treatment. She made an appointment with a specialist and was so distracted with her own life at that point that she never even noticed that Mulder was deep undercover without her until it was almost too late.

Fortunately, Mulder came out of his assignment relatively unscathed if you didn’t count the broken finger, but the news from her doctor wasn’t good. She needed more tests, but Mulder had gone and got himself committed and it had to wait. The news was even less promising from her doctor after the second round. She went for a walk after she got the news, just to clear her head and ran into Mulder in the elevator.

“There you are,” he said. “I've been looking all over for you.”

She moved to the side to make room for him in the elevator. “Hi,” she answered, eyes slightly downcast. “I'm sorry. I had a doctor's appointment and...I don't know, I guess time just got away from me.”

“Is anything the matter?”

“Nothing. No, I just...I went for a walk.”

He did that thing he does when he wants her to look at him and bent his neck towards her. “Then what's wrong?” he asked.

She sighed and contemplated her shoes with crossed arms. “I'm...I'm sorry I haven't told you. I don't know why I haven't. I mean, you were always there for me during my illness but…”

“Don't make me guess,” he said, softly, leaning close to her so that his arm grazed hers.

She straightened her shoulders and crossed her arms just a little tighter. “I was left unable to conceive with whatever tests that they did on me,” she said, defiantly. “And I am not ready to accept that I will never have children.”

The elevator dinged just then as they arrived in the basement and Mulder walked out slowly. He turned and shoved one hand in his pocket, the other nervously stroking his chin. She could immediately sense that there was something he hadn’t told her. Something big.

“Scully,” he said. “There’s...there's something I haven't told you either and I hope you forgive me and understand why I would have kept it from you.”

“What?” She watched him swallow and chew on his bottom lip and it made her eyes burn and her stomach drop.

“During my investigation into your illness I found out the reason why you were left barren. Your ova were taken from you and stored in a government lab.”

“What?”

The elevator doors started to slide shut and she slammed her hand against one to stop it. Mulder looked away for a moment and shifted his stance.

“You found them?” she asked.

He stammered a bit and nodded. “I took them directly to a specialist who would tell me if they were okay.”

“I don't believe this.”

“Scully, you were deathly ill, and I...I couldn't bear to give you another piece of bad news.”

She felt as though the floor had dropped out from under her. “Is that what it was?” she asked, a little weakly. “It was bad news?”

“The doctor said that the ova weren't viable.”

Blinding anger washed over her. Not so much at Mulder, but at the situation. She pulled her hand away from the door and stepped back against the wall. “I want a second opinion,” she said, jaw tight with tension. Her thumb jabbed the button for the parking garage just as Mulder reached out to stop the doors from closing again. He looked as helpless as she’d been feeling for the past few months, but in that moment, she was too angry to care. He finally moved back and the doors closed on his hangdog face.

The Gunmen had her ova. None of them looked her in the eye when she showed up to their lair that night. Byers handed over a cold-storage case to her and though she didn’t ask, she wondered if it had been sitting in the freezer amongst leftover chimichangas and ice cream for the last year. It was a mortifying thought.

Dr. Parenti took less than a week to analyze the vial she’d turned over and this time, he had positive news to report. Her chest swelled when he smiled as he led her into his office. “Got a good chance of getting you pregnant,” he said. “I don't want to lay odds but it's not out of the realm of possibility if we start soon.”

“We can start right away?” she asked.

“Well, you need a father, of course. I can get you genetic counseling on finding an anonymous donor if that's what you want...unless you already have someone in mind.”

“Yeah, I…” She hadn’t thought that part through very well. She’d been so concerned with getting pregnant, she actually forgot it would take more than just a willing and able body, it would actually take two. “I just have to figure out how to ask him.”

She called Mulder on her way home. She had left the office early for her appointment, but she knew he’d still be there. He answered on the first ring as though he’d been waiting for her to call. The sound of his voice made her hesitate. Could she really ask him to be the father of her child? She sat silently in her car, listening to him breathe while she fought for words.

“Scully?” He called her name three times, the panic increasing each time she didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I need to talk to you. Not over the phone.”

“Where?”

“Your apartment.”

“My apartment?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll leave now. If you beat me there, just let yourself in.”

She hung up the phone and sat in her car a little while longer before she drove to his place. It seemed like the most logical place to go. It wasn’t public. He’d be more comfortable there. She could leave if it got too difficult.

She did beat him there and used her key to let herself in. The evening sun cast an orange glow over his desk. She stood in the glow of it and traced a finger down the sticky remnants of an X on his window before she turned her attention to the fish tank. It occurred to her that in the five years she’d known him, the tank had always clean and she was pretty sure at least one of the mollies had been there for over two of those years. They mostly all looked alike, but one of them had a black mark on its fin that looked like a heart. She could swear she’d noticed it before, years ago.

She heard his keys in the door and she looked up from the tank as he removed his overcoat. “I got here as fast as I could,” he said. “Accident on the beltway. Were you waiting long?”

“Only a few minutes.”

“What do we need to talk about?” He flopped down on leather couch and toed his shoes off.

“How long have you had these fish?”

“Um…” He stretched his neck and peered at the tank for a moment and then glanced up at her. “Seven years? Maybe.”

“Not the same fish.”

“No, they tend to come and go. Pepper and Aphrodite, though, they’ve stuck around?”

“Who?”

“Pepper’s the one with the black speckles. She looks like she’s been sprinkled with pepper. If you look closely, there’s one in there with this black mark on the fin and it-”

“Looks like a heart?”

“Yeah, I call her Aphrodite. They’ve been with me three years at least.”

So what if Mulder could care for and maintain a school of fish, she thought. Could he do the same with a baby?

“You didn’t come over to get the life story of my fish, did you?” he asked.

“I saw my doctor today.”

Mulder moved his legs as she sat down on his coffee table to face him, hands clasped in her lap. He pushed himself up straight and leaned forward so his elbows were on his knees. She could tell by the lift in his chest that he was holding his breath.

“It was good news,” she said, just above a whisper.

He looked up at her and rubbed his lips together, but didn’t say anything.

“He thinks there’s a good chance I can get pregnant,” she continued.

“That’s...that’s great, Scully.” His shoulders relaxed a little and he reached out to cover her hands.

“But, I can’t do it alone.”

“Anything you need, I’m here.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course. I’d do anything for you.”

“Would you be willing to be the other half of the equation?”

“The what?”

She can’t say ‘sperm donor,’ it’s too detached and impersonal. She can’t say ‘Father’ either, it’s too intimate.

“I can only provide the eggs and the womb,” she said, looking down at where his hand covered hers. “I need someone else that can provide...the rest. I don’t want to do the anonymous donor thing. I’d like...I would like it to be you.”

Mulder withdrew his hand and sat back. He laced his fingers together behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.

“I don’t want your answer right now,” she said. “But, I will need to know sooner rather than later.”

He blinked up at the ceiling and chewed his bottom lip. She knew she’d made them both uncomfortable, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

“Do you have any questions for me?” she asked.

“What are the odds like?”

“Roughly, fifty-fifty. They have enough of my eggs that they think are viable for three implantations. So...three shots.”

“Three shots. And what if…”

“It doesn’t take?”

“I was going to ask, what if it does?”

She bit her lip for a moment and looked at the fish. “I think we should cross either of those bridges when we get there.”

Forty-eight agonizing hours later, he knocked on her door. She’d been preparing herself for the worst since she left his apartment. They were friends, but it was asking a lot. It wasn’t like borrowing a cup of sugar. He had every right and reason to say no.

“Come on in,” she said.

“Thanks.”

There was an awkward pause as she shut the door and he shuffled his feet as he lingered in the entryway.

“Can I take your coat?” she asked.

“No, I can't stay,” he said. “I gotta get back to the office for a while.”

She nodded. “Obviously you've had some time to think about my request.”

“Um, it's...it's not something that I get asked to do every day. And I am absolutely flattered.”

Flattered. He was letting her down easy and she was embarrassed by it. She sighed uncomfortably and opened her mouth.

“No, honestly,” he interrupted.

“Okay, if...if you're trying to politely say ‘no,’ it's okay. I understand.” She cast her eyes down and to the side and played with her fingers. A lump grew in her throat and she just wanted him to leave so she could cry in peace.

“See what's weird is...and this sounds really weird, I know, but I just wouldn't want this to come between us.”

She nodded at her feet. “Yeah, I know. I understand. I do.” It didn’t even sound like she was trying to convince herself, let alone him.

Mulder reached out and his finger grazed her chin lightly. She looked up, fighting tears. She had prepared herself for this. She wasn’t supposed to cry.

“Well,” he said. “The answer is yes."

She felt a little overwhelmed in that moment. Her emotions did a complete one-eighty. Sadness was conquered by joy and relief and she reached her arms out to Mulder for an embrace. She felt him smile against her cheek and then they both pulled away a little awkwardly. They didn’t usually display a lot of emotion with each other.

“Um,” she said. “Well, I'll call Dr. Parenti and...I assume that he'll want to meet you and go through the, uh, the donor procedure.”

He chuckled and gave her a brief thumbs up. “At that part, I'm a pro.” He grinned as he left her apartment and she covered her fist with her mouth to stifle a sob of pure hope.

Five days after Mulder had agreed to help her, she was lying back with her feet in a pair of stirrups while a catheter implanted three fertilized embryos into her uterus. Two hours of ‘relaxation’ later, Mulder drove her home. Nine days after that, she found out their first shot had failed.

Right on the heels of the failure, Diana Fowley entered. They couldn’t do the second implantation until she’d gone through another round of progesterone, so she was already irritated and hormonal, but the woman so effectively got under her skin, she almost considered putting off the second implantation. Then, when Agent Fowley was shot, when Gibson Praise went missing, when all their files were lost to them and the X-Files were shut down, she thought it could be a good thing to have something to look forward to.

The second shot failed and a week later they were in Texas looking for a bomb in the wrong building. It seemed like one minute she was chasing tanker trucks through dirt roads, outrunning black helicopters through a cornfield, and arguing with Mulder in his hallway about quitting the FBI, and the next she was waking up in Antarctica half-frozen. The frostbite was a bit of a setback for the third and final try.

For whatever reason, Mulder insisted on being there when she found out the results for the third try. She compromised and told him he could wait for her at home. He was still recovering from his injuries in the Bermuda Triangle, after all. When Dr. Parenti sadly shook his head at her, she wished she had told Mulder to stay home, that she’d call later.

She drove around for awhile, delaying the inevitable. Nothing left to do but face the facts. Emily, the sweet little stranger with tainted blood that drew pictures of potatoes, was to be the only child that would ever be of her flesh.

Mulder was asleep on her couch when she opened the door. She thought she’d pulled it together by the time she got home, but she was wrong.

“Scully?” he asked, rolling off the couch and blinking the sleep from his eyes. “I must have dozed off. I was waiting for you to get back.”

She walked towards him slowly, her mouth tightening along with her throat.

“It didn't take, did it?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly, back and forth. “I guess it was too much to hope for,” she said.

He shook his head as well and opened his arms, pulling her in towards his chest. She sighed and tried to shake the sadness out of her body.

“It was my last chance,” she managed to say before her voice broke and the flood of emotions hit.

Mulder squeezed her tighter and lifted his head to place a kiss on her forehead. She shuddered at the contact and he rested his head against hers. He rubbed her arms and they swayed slightly.

“Never give up on a miracle,” he whispered.

Her chin wobbled and she grabbed onto him to steady herself. Her knees felt weak. She kissed his cheek in gratitude and then let him hold her because up because she was tired of doing it for herself. She fell asleep on the couch with her head against his shoulder and when she woke up in the morning, he was gone and there was a note on the table requesting that she pack a bag - they needed to meet a source of his at Area 51 later that night.

They didn’t speak about the failed attempts until the Weinsider case - what Mulder deemed ‘The Rosemary’s Baby’ file. She didn’t believe in demon babies, but she did believe in birth defects and she felt for Laura Weinsider. She didn’t know how she would feel if the in vitro had been successful, only to have a late-term miscarriage shatter that dream. They spent the night in Roanoke after excavating the bodies of Betsy Weinsider’s murdered infants and Mulder knocked on her door late that evening.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, sitting in one of the scratchy motel chairs across from her bed.

“About what?” she asked.

“What we can do.”

“Do about what?”

“Having a baby.”

She shook her head a little. “That ship has sailed, Mulder.”

“Not necessarily. I’ve been reading a lot about adoption.”

“I can’t adopt. I tried that. I’m not fit in the eyes of the system to be a mother.” Over a year later and the thought of someone deeming her unworthy of adopting her own child still hurt. She drew her knees up to her chest and looped her arms around her legs.

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, softly, and he got up from the chair and sat down on the bed next to her. “I’ve been reading stories of couples that tried for years to get pregnant, ended up adopting, and then all of a sudden, they get pregnant out of nowhere.”

“What’s your point?”

“The point is, those people were also told they were infertile. And it turned out to be wrong. So, what if we still kept trying, despite what the doctor’s say, because it could happen.”

“I used up all my chances, Mulder. I don’t really want to use a donor egg or a surrogate, I just…”

“I’m not talking about IVF.” He rubbed her knee a little.

“Well, then what are you talking about?”

“What if we just tried good, old-fashioned sex?”

She would have laughed if he didn’t look so serious. He couldn’t be serious. There was not even a hint of his particular Mulder-brand of sarcasm in his voice or his eyes.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it. Why not? Why not try everything?”

“That’s...that’s just ridiculous.”

“Why is it ridiculous?”

“Because, we can’t just...suddenly have sex.”

“Well, why not?”

She felt so flustered all of a sudden. In her struggle to find a logical argument as to why it was a ridiculously bad idea, Mulder moved up on the bed and sat beside her, propped up on motel pillows against the fake wooden headboard. Their shoulders pressed together and he took one of her hands, lacing their fingers together before settling their joined hands on his thigh.

“In the past, I’ve had sex with people I didn’t even know or like,” he said. “You can’t tell me you haven’t.”

Her cheeks burned with the thought of Philadelphia and Ed Jerse.

“Why can’t you have sex with someone you know and...trust?” he asked.

“You’re a co-worker,” she protested.

“I’m a co-worker? Ouch, Scully.”

“You know what I mean. We work together.”

“And that makes being a sperm donor okay, but sleeping together not?”

“No, of course not.”

“Look.” He squeezed her hand and then blew out a breath and ran his fingers back through his hair. “I’m not trying to convince you to do something you don’t want to do. I’m offering it to you as an option. If you still want to try, we can try. Set a limit or something. Three months, three shots, same as the IVF. Or six months. Or a year. Twelve chances. Whatever you want.”

“Why would you even want to?”

“Call me crazy, Scully, but I’d like to take the improbable and make it happen for you.”

“I don’t know, Mulder.”

“Just think about it. It’s up to you.”

She did think about it. She thought a lot about it. She even did her own research on these spontaneous pregnancies that had inspired Mulder. Some of the stories made her cry. Women just like her, some having tried for more than five years, exhausting every avenue available to have a child, just suddenly pregnant. She was actually surprised in some cases that Mulder hadn’t opened up an X-File on it and suggested they interview these women. It seemed too good to be true. But, if it could happen, and if it was what she wanted, then she owed it to herself to try.

On Monday morning, after booting up her computer and checking her email, she asked Mulder if he would take a coffee break with her. It was only 9:15 and she could tell he was bored already and the stack of what he called ‘the manure folders’ wasn’t going anywhere. They bundled up and went outside to the vendor on the corner and then sat on a bench under the winter-bare branches of a Chinese Elm. There was still a bit of snow left on the ground from the weekend dusting.

Scully lifted the lid of her coffee to blow the heat off the top. “I don’t really know how to say this and not make it awkward,” she said, licking her lips once and putting the lid back in place. “I’m ovulating on the ninth. And if your offer still stands, I think I’d like to try.”

Mulder coughed into his coffee and she used one of her napkins to dab at the splatters on his gloves and coat.

“Thanks,” he said. “Um, today is the fourth.”

“Yes, it is.”

“So the ninth is this Saturday.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

“No, I’m just...well, how do you want to do this?”

“What do you mean?”

“My place? Your place? Is it an exact science? Like, do you know down to the minute or something?”

“No, I don’t know down to the minute.” She smiled as she took a sip of her coffee. She never imagined having a conversation like this with Mulder. “I think I’d like to go to a hotel.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“I’ll look into it. God only knows what you’d find.”

“Virginia Beach is nice this time of year. We could get something on the waterfront.”

She raised her brows in surprise.

“A weekend away is different from finding accommodations on a shoestring government budget,” he said.

“All right then,” she said. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

The week went by excruciatingly slowly. The manure files kept coming and every day was filled with nine to five calls on suspicious amounts of fertilizer. On Thursday, Mulder left a brochure on her desk for a resort hotel on the beach. On the front, in black marker, he’d written ‘Saturday 1/9 3pm check in.’

At ten o’clock on Saturday morning, Mulder picked her up at her apartment for the drive to Virginia Beach. It was less than four hours away, but the roads were still slick with half-melted snow and it would give them time to stop for lunch along the way. They pulled up to the valet stand in front of the hotel at a quarter past three.

At check in, they had a brief, whispered argument about whose credit card would be charged for the room. Mulder finally won by being smart enough to push his card across the counter to the clerk before Scully could even pull hers out of her wallet. She would get him back by paying for dinner later.

The room was cozy. Two queen beds separated by a nightstand on one side and a long dresser with a TV in the middle on the other. They had a balcony with a sixth floor, unobstructed view of the ocean. It was a little overcast and the waves were grey and angry. She could hear the surf pounding softly even with the sliding glass door closed. It was perfect.

“Should I have got two rooms?” Mulder asked.

She turned from the balcony door and glanced at the beds. His overnight bag was on the left, hers was on the right.

“You really didn’t need to get two beds,” she replied

“I didn’t want to be presumptuous. You could change your mind at any time.”

“So could you.”

“I’m not.”

“Neither am I.”

With that settled, an awkward silence fell over the room. Mulder shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and Scully turned back to watch the ocean. She felt him move up behind her and they stood on opposite sides of the glass door, watching the waves.

“It’s still early,” he said. “We could go to the pool. There’s a mall somewhere around here. It was in the brochure.”

“Do you think it’s too cold to walk on the beach?”

“Too cold for the water, not too cold for the beach.”

“Would you like to take a walk with me?”

“Sure.”

Mulder was fine in his sweater and Scully wore a light jacket. It was breezy, but mild. The clouds kept things cool, but every so often, the sun would peek through and brighten the sky for a moment or two. Their walk was briefly interrupted by a pair of eight year old boys arguing over a red plastic pail.

“He’s mine!” The boy in a blue jacket shouted.

“Nu uh, I caught him!” The boy in a black sweatshirt shouted back and then wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“What’d you catch?” Mulder asked, crouching over the pail the two boys argued over. “Hey, looks like you got yourself a hermit crab.”

“I caught him,” both boys said at the same time.

Mulder reached into the pail and gently put a quarter-sized hermit crab on his palm. The crab wiggled his antennae and opened and closed his pinschers. “See this,” Mulder said, pointing at one of his antennae with his pinkie finger. “Right at the top there, those are his eyes. And the stalk right here is actually how he smells.”

“He can smell with his eyes?” Blue jacket asked. “That’s weird.”

“That’s cool.” Black sweatshirt sniffed and wiped his nose again. “I wish I could do that.”

“Hermit crabs don’t like to live alone,” Mulder said, gently putting the crab back in the bucket. “Unless you find another, you should probably put him back in the ocean.”

“Do they like dogs?” Black sweatshirt asked. “I have a dog.”

“I have two dogs,” Blue jacket added.

“They’re a little afraid of dogs,” Mulder said, rising up and brushing a bit of sand off his knees.

“Let’s put him back,” Black sweatshirt said.

“Yeah, he can go find friends.” Blue jacket nodded and the boys both grabbed the handle of the bucket and walked it down closer to the waves together.

“How do you know so much about hermit crabs, Mulder?” Scully asked.

Mulder kept his eye on the boys to make sure they didn’t get too close to the water. “Samantha and I had a pair of them as kids. Herman and Herbie.”

“Cute.”

“They were all over the place on the island. Probably could’ve had a whole colony if we wanted one.”

It was dusk when they made it back to the motel. Scully showered as Mulder watched TV and then Mulder showered while Scully dried her hair. The guidebook in their room recommended a surf and turf restaurant that was within a ten minute walk from the hotel. No reservations required. Scully ordered the salmon and a white wine. Mulder ordered a steak and a beer. They shared crabcakes and light conversation about what life was like growing up on opposite coasts.

When they got back from dinner, it was still relatively early. Mulder suggested they find a movie on cable, but it was hard to focus with the elephant in the room. She didn’t even know what they were watching.

“Mulder,” she said, quietly. “Turn off the TV.”

Mulder pointed the remote at the TV and then he put it on the nightstand. She took a deep breath and swung her legs over the side of the bed and he did the same. They faced each other from across their beds and Scully pushed her hair back over her ear as her heart started racing.

“If we’re going to do this,” she said. “Then, I think we need to do this now. Or not.”

“What do you want?” he asked, moving from his bed to hers and sitting beside her. He touched her back lightly and she straightened her shoulders because his touch made her hot all over. He moved his hand away.

“I think we’ve already gone to a lot of trouble for this. I don’t want to walk away and not...try.”

He nodded and put his hand on her back again, up high, just below her neck. He reached over and eased the curtain of hair that had fallen across her cheeks back over her ear. She was nervous to look at him, but she took a glance anyway and he gave her a reassuring smile. He leaned closer and she blinked and leaned away in surprise.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

He pulled back. “I was going to kiss you.”

“Why?”

“Uh...that’s usually how things start.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Mulder took her hand and put it on his chest, holding it in place with the press of both hands over hers.

“Your heart is pounding,” she said.

“I’m nervous too. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“I hear it’s like riding a bike,” he said, chuckling at his own joke.

She closed her eyes and chuffed what could have been a laugh. In the quiet that followed, she heard the rasp of movement and felt Mulder’s breath on her face before his lips touched hers. Her hand was still pressed to his chest, trapped between their bodies as he closed the gap between them. Flames rose through her chest, up her neck and to her cheeks. She opened her mouth to take a breath, forgetting for a moment that Mulder was softly caressing her lips with his and he mistook the gesture for an invitation. His tongue swept cautiously over hers and she squeaked in surprise and jumped back, panting heavily.

“I...I...give me a minute,” she said.

“Okay.”

He rubbed her back while she caught her breath. She wasn’t an inexperienced, virginal teenager anymore, but she suddenly felt like one. There was no reason to be so skittish, it was only Mulder for Christs sake. But, maybe that was the problem. It was Mulder for Christs sake. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe her nerves were a sign that they weren’t supposed to do this.

“Hey,” Mulder said. “Let’s just forget about it.”

“I don’t want to forget about it,” she said, and it surprised her that it was the truth. She wanted to try, but it occurred to her she was more afraid of failure than she was of Mulder.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Kiss me again.”

He moved his hand to her neck and ran his thumb over the shell of her ear. She stared at his mouth and the anticipation made her lips quiver. He leaned in, but instead of her mouth, he kissed her cheek, lingering there before moving on to her brow. She shut her eyes and reached up to hold his arm.

“Mulder,” she whispered.

“You can close your eyes and think of Brad Pitt if you want,” he said.

Her lashes fluttered open and shut as he kissed her face. “Brad Pitt is who you think I...fantasize about?” she asked.

“I thought all women did,” he mumbled against her cheek. “Or is that just People Magazine propaganda?”

“Not my type.” She put her hand on the back of his head and tried to redirect his mouth to hers.

He pulled away and his eyes fell to her lips. “What’s your type?” he asked, seriously.

“I don’t have a type.”

“You have to have a celebrity crush. Tell me.”

“If we’re talking celebrity crushes, I’m more of a Clooney girl.”

“Then close your eyes and think of Dr. Ross,” he said, right before he kissed her.

She couldn’t stop the whimper in the back of her throat and she clutched his sweater with one hand and clutched his hair in the other. He kissed her like his tongue was conducting an investigation - slowly, thoroughly, no stone left unturned. She was damp with heat and short of breath when he pulled away. He pressed his forehead to hers. They were both breathing hard.

“Do we stop?” he murmured.

“Do you mind if we turn out the light?”

Mulder reached over and flipped the switch on the lamp, darkening the room. The loss of vision heightened everything else, but her eyes slowly adjusted to the room. She shivered when Mulder touched her arm, despite feeling like she could melt butter on her skin.

“I’m going to take my sweater off,” she said.

“I will too.”

She pulled her sweater off and hesitated before she tossed it over the far side of the bed. Mulder’s bare shoulder and arm glistened in the moonlight that managed to cast a glow around the edges of the venetian blinds across the balcony door. She reached out slowly and touched his chest. His hand went to hers and then slid up her arm to her elbow.

Silently, she lay back, holding on to Mulder’s arm to bring him with her. He had to move blindly over her, feeling his way as she settled on her back and he hovered over her. He stepped on her hair with his hand and she let out a soft yelp.

“Sorry,” he whispered, raising his hand.

“S’okay.” She lifted her neck to roll her arm up the back of her head and move her hair out of the way.

“You smell good,” he said, his nose brushing her neck as her head rose.

“Vanilla body wash.”

“I like it.”

She moved her knees apart and her hands came to rest lightly against his sides. She pulled softly with her fingers to let him know it was okay to come closer. Instead of lowering himself down between her legs, like she thought he would, he moved down onto his side and rolled her towards him.

Mulder moved his leg over her hip and encouraged her knee to move between his thighs with the press of his calf to the back of her leg. They had never had so much skin to skin contact before. Her belly was pressed to his abdomen. His hand cupped the small of her back against her jeans, but his thumb rested on the waistband and occasionally swept up over the arc of her tattoo and then back down.

Just when she felt settled, Mulder kissed her again. It was easier and more relaxing to kiss him this way. He was a good kisser and her body responded to it, like it was supposed to. She was foolish to think there wouldn’t be foreplay involved in this venture. If they were going to have sex, he was going to have to kiss her and touch her and she would need to be open to it.

Feeling emboldened, she reached back and unhooked her bra. They didn’t even have to stop kissing for her to remove it completely and then she pressed her bare breasts against his chest. Mulder groaned into her mouth and pulled away. She took his hand, placed it onto her breast, and then let out a deep breath.

“God, Scully,” he said.

“I want you to,” she whispered.

He gave a cautious squeeze of her breast and passed his thumb lightly over her areola. Her stomach futtered with tiny pangs of arousal and she did her best not to drive them away with her thoughts. She focused on the feel of Mulder’s hand on her breast and the growing, tell-tale tightening of her nipples as he touched her.

When he put his mouth over her breast she gasped and clutched his head. Her fingers shook in his hair and she didn’t know if she wanted to pull his head up or hold him in place. It was dark and it was surreal. If she wanted to, she could take his advice and imagine George Clooney was currently tonguing his way across her chest to her other breast, or the cute cafe manager where she had brunch sometimes, or a nameless stranger she picked up in a bar.

But, no, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t close her eyes and erase the fact that Mulder was here with her, in this hotel, trying to get her pregnant. And she was mostly lying passively, letting it happen instead of participating in something that was supposed to be for her in the first place.

There was no reason for this to be so hard. She loved Mulder. She trusted him. He was gentle and attractive. He was her best friend - he was right, co-worker was offensive. It just felt unprecedented and strange.

Scully rolled away from Mulder onto her back. She tugged him with her though, wanting to feel his weight over her, wanting some sort of primal, biological urge to take charge of her body. He hovered over her, his knees on the outside of her hips and his hands pressed outside her shoulders. She ran her hands up over the muscles of his forearms and biceps, across his shoulders, over his pectorals, spread her fingers along the ridges of his abdominals.

Her hands settled into the natural grooves at his hips and she craned her head up to press her face to his chest and breathe him in. He smelled familiar. Familiar, and Mulder, and male. She pulled his hips down and had to drop her head back to the bed when he dipped his pelvis just enough that she could feel the hard length of him against her belly. She shifted her legs in restless anticipation as she grew heavy with wet heat.

Her fingers began to shake again as she unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans. Mulder lifted his hips out of the way and she shimmied her pants off and kicked them away from her feet. Her panties were still on, but they’d been disheveled by the removal of her pants and one side was pulled low on her hip. Mulder found her bare skin like a moth to a flame. He didn’t do more than brush his knuckles back and forth over her hip, but it was enough to quicken her breathing.

Slowly, tentatively, he traced the lace edge of her panties to her pubic bone and paused. Her lips parted and she swallowed, waiting to see what he’d do. His hand stayed still on her belly, and she realized that from his wrist to the tips of his fingers, he spanned the length of her hips. It made her feel safe in some bizarre way.

Scully lifted her hand and cupped Mulder’s elbow of the arm that was still pressed next to her shoulder. It seemed to break the spell of inertia and that’s when he slipped two fingers inside her panties. She squeezed his elbow and unconsciously pressed her hips against his hand.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she breathed.

“You’re not quite...what can we do to get you more aroused?”

“Jesus, Mulder.”

“I’ve been reading about it and female orgasm is supposed to aid in increasing the likelihood of pregnancy. We’re not trying for mediocre here, we’re trying for...baby-making sex. So tell me what I can do.”

God, she was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see the heat in her cheeks. She closed her eyes and covered her face anyway. He wasn’t wrong. She was sufficiently aroused, but not enough to reach her full potential if they were to go ahead and just finish this now.

“You could...use your mouth,” she said.

Mulder circled his hand over her stomach once and then his lips touched her solar plexus. He hooked the waistband of her panties under his fingers at her hip. “Can I take these off?” he asked.

She nodded and then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she said.

He pushed himself away from her and she tipped her hips up to help him slip her panties free. She felt Mulder kiss the side of her knee and his hair tickled the inside of her thigh. His hands were on her legs, opening her up, loosening muscles that had gone tight with trepidation. And then he was there. Mulder’s sunflower seed-loving mouth was on her and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

Scully clutched the bedspread with tight, sweaty fists. She pulled hard, straining the muscles in her neck as she grit her teeth to stay silent while his tongue performed acrobatic tricks of pure delight. She couldn’t stop the guttural whimper from escaping when he parted her folds with two fingers for better access.

“C...could you,” she stuttered.

“Hm?” he hummed.

“With your thumb again...like that…”

He pressed his thumb against her and rolled it in a tight circle. “You like it?”

“Yes!” she husked, breathing roughly. “Yes...yes…”

A shiver ran through her, starting from her toes and all the way up through her hair. There was heat and everything inside her melted and stayed liquid for a beat, then two, and became solid again. She’d gotten what she needed and it was time for the last step.

“Mulder,” she whispered.

He moved up her body at the call of his name and covered her mouth with his, though how he found her so easily in the dark, she didn’t know. His lips were slick and salty with the taste of her. The mere thought of where he’d just been brought the heavy ache back to her pelvis. She pushed his head up from hers and held his face.

“I’m ready now,” she said.

She heard the sound of his zipper and the rustle of clothes being pulled away. His body heat came down over her before he did and he settled low into the cradle of her thighs. She stroked his shoulders as he rose above her and then paused.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

She could just make out the shake of his head in the dark. “Just had a fleeting thought that I don’t have a condom,” he said.

“That wouldn’t be very helpful in this situation.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” He adjusted the position of his arms and reached down between them to guide himself to her. “I’ll go slow,” he said, nudging into her cautiously.

He was maybe a little girthier than she’d had before, and it was different without protection, but her body was pliant and ready for him, thanks to the wonders of his mouth. He moved slowly anyway, as though he expected to encounter resistance along the way. Her hips did shift a little uncomfortably when he hit the end of the line, as it were, and he stopped to give them both a chance to breathe.

She wrapped an arm around his neck and could feel the strong beat of his heart against her hand at his back. She moved first, tipping her hips down and back just a little in encouragement. He pulled back and thrust softly, working his way up to harder and faster. They fell quickly into a steady rhythm with Scully bracing her feet on the bed and pushing into every thrust. It was quiet, save for the rough panting from exertion and the wet slap of their bodies coming together.

Suddenly, Mulder changed positions and sat up a little taller, spreading his knees apart. He pushed one of Scully’s legs up towards her chest and held on to the back of her thigh. His other arm slipped under her back and pressed her hips up just a little. The change of angle was exquisite. She moaned softly in spite of herself and hooked her other leg over his hip. Her heel bounced softly against his ass with every thrust.

The angle, the pressure, the friction, all combined to build a coil of pleasure within her once more. Mulder was panting now and he was moving more heavily against her. He had to be close, but so was she. He leaned into her on one of his final thrusts and suddenly she was there, body shaking under his and he was there too, with a hoarse groan and rough pull at her hips.

He pulled out of her slowly and collapsed at her side. She eased her trembling legs down to the bed and pulled her arms up into her chest. It was cold without his heat. The bed jiggled with movement and she felt tugging behind her and then Mulder’s hand under her back.

“What’re you doing?” she murmured drowsily.

“I read that if you elevate your hips, it helps,” he answered, wiggling a pillow underneath her.

She almost laughed at all his strange little bits of information that were, at best, old wive’s tales, but lifted her hips anyway to appease him.

“Should’ve turned the bed down first,” she said. “I’m cold.”

“You want to get in my bed?”

“I just want to lay here.” She could feel their combined fluids trickling out of her and she clenched her thighs and shifted her hips up to stop it.

Mulder got off of the bed and came back with a blanket which he draped over her. “Better?” he asked.

“You can stay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Stay.”

He crawled in next to her and lay down beside her, facing her, his head close to hers. She stayed on her back, but tipped her head towards his and closed her eyes. When she woke up the next morning, the pillow under her hips was gone and she was the the little spoon to Mulder’s big spoon behind her. Her back was pressed to his chest and her head was under his chin. Her arms were drawn into her chest and his arm was over hers, holding her tight. His morning erection pressed hotly against her thigh. She lay still and listened to the quiet surf outside until Mulder stirred.

“Morning,” she rasped.

“Mm,” he answered, stretching and sliding against her like a waking cat. He nuzzled the back of her head and breathed deeply as though he were still asleep.

She probably should’ve gotten up, showered, got dressed, and let him do the same. There was a continental breakfast until ten. Checkout was at noon. They could’ve been on the road and back home by mid-afternoon. But, Mulder’s hips nudged her backside and his hand rubbed her belly.

“You wanna increase the odds?” he murmured.

“Yeah.”

She closed her eyes as Mulder touched her, exhaling softly through pursed lips as he did the thing with his thumb that seemed to work like magic. He sucked at a spot on her shoulder as she moved her hips in time with his hand.

“Mulder,” she groaned in frustration as he took his hand away and lifted her leg slightly by pulling on the inside of her thigh.

He pressed his hips firmly into her and pushed up inside her in one fluid motion. They moaned in unison and he rocked against her at a leisurely pace. She throbbed where he’d abandoned her with his touch, but his hand was now busy at her breast. Slowly, as not to call attention to herself, she let her hand wander down between her thighs and she rolled her throbbing flesh between her fingers.

Mulder pressed his teeth into her shoulder and groaned. She glanced back at him and could see him watching her in her periphery. His fingers pulled a little more roughly at her pebbled nipple and his hips pumped a little harder against hers. She turned her face away and pressed it into the bed, brows pulled together in concentration.

It took her quietly and less intensely than the night before, but still, she went over the edge with a swift intake of breath and a light shiver through her chest. Mulder circled his hips through her climax and minutes later, followed through with his own. After he fell back into a semi-conscious doze, she quietly got out of bed and brought her bag into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

They didn’t talk much on the drive home, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Sometimes, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye and tried to imagine what his face had looked like in the dark when he was inside of her. Her cheeks would turn red and she would have to look out the window to cover her embarrassment. They’d managed to have sex twice that weekend and not even see each other naked.

A week later, they were in Kroner, Kansas, and she was feeling bloated, crampy, and premenstrually irritable. She started her period shortly after they got back and had to tell him it didn’t work. They tried again a second time, just before she got called up to New York on the Fellig case. It was less awkward the next time around, and they were at her place, in her bed, and he didn’t stay the night. Even if by some miracle she’d been pregnant, a gunshot wound to the abdomen three days later didn’t put the odds in her favor.

Their third try was by far the most brutal. She almost didn’t go through with it, she was still so angry with him about Cassandra Spender and Agent Fowley. He’d embarrassed her in front of The Gunmen and it had destroyed a lot of the trust in their relationship. If he hadn’t reminded her of the date, she wouldn’t have gone to him at all, but a little piece of her was adamant about not letting his stupidity stand in the way of her goals.

He had her against the bathroom door in his bedroom, her skirt hiked up around her hips and her panties still on. His mouth felt like an attack on her, not the loving, skilled way she’d known before. And still, it worked. Faster and harder than any of the other two times, it worked. She pulled his hair in her frustration because she didn’t want to like it so much.

She poured her anger out on him in the slam of her hips against his. His pants were still on and her shirt was still buttoned and he didn’t look at her. She watched herself rake her nails down his back in the mirror over his bed to get his attention and he pulled out of her to flip her over. She waited on hands and knees until he slid back into her to glance over her shoulder.

“Do you think about her when you’re fucking me?” she asked.

He pushed her away so fast that the disconnection was painful. The door to his bathroom slammed so hard the framed landscape painting above his dresser fell off the wall. She put her heels back on, left her torn panties on the floor, and walked out. Needless to say, she did not get pregnant that night.

She was still angry with him when they went undercover in Arcadia Falls, but it had waned into general annoyance. She didn’t like the case and she didn’t like the situation, but they had the X-Files back, and he was her partner again. They owed each other apologies that would never come. That’s probably why Mulder turned to someone like Karin Berquist. She wanted those days back where they could tell each other everything.

The fourth try was out of town. Pinker Rawls was dead and his son, Trevor, was safe. Even in the Spring, Mississippi was humid. Their motel rooms were connected and she let him inside when he knocked. Neither of them had an air conditioner that worked.

“I know we’re a day late,” he said, and her eyes followed a path of sweat from his temple to his neck. “But, it can’t hurt, can it?”

She left the lamp on and he pulled her into his lap, facing him. She watched his face as she led the rise and fall of her hips above him. He let his head fall back, mouth open, while she ran her hands up and down the sheen of sweat on his chest.

“Open your eyes,” she whispered. It was difficult to hold his gaze, but she wanted him to know it was her.

She knew she wasn’t pregnant before Phillip Padgett wreaked havoc in their lives. She hadn’t had a chance to tell Mulder yet. When she came to on his floor, covered in blood, he told her to lie back and be still, just in case. His hand rested warmly on her belly and he stroked her hair. She shook her head. No baby.

He was curiously quiet when it was time for the fifth try. She didn’t know what he was up to when he asked her to come to the park for a very early, very late birthday present, but it had to be something interesting. He kissed her against the backboard after the kid shagging the baseballs had gone home and all the lights went out.

“I know it’s not until tomorrow,” he said, rubbing his hips against hers. “Let’s start tonight, anyway.”

“Okay.”

He found a loose nail to hang her suede coat. Her pants fell to the ground and her legs went around his waist. She held onto him and he held onto the fence behind her. The night was full of crickets and the rustle of leaves, punctuated by the rattling of the chainlink fence, their restless moans, and whispers of encouragement.

She had high hopes for that fifth time, but it wasn’t meant to be. The sixth time was just before the man-eating fungus case in North Carolina. It was also a failure. She had been thinking of telling Mulder that she didn’t want to try anymore. Each failure was getting too heartbreaking and she thought she might need a break, but that was all put to the wayside when Mulder got himself committed again, and she was forced to make an emergency trip to Africa to save him.

They missed what could have been the seventh try because of Mulder’s brain injury, but still, touchstone or not, she wasn’t going to be able to go through the loss any longer. When he came to her on the night of her next cycle, she had to sit him down.

“I can’t do it anymore,” she said, brushing tears away from her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know you put it a lot of effort on my behalf-”

“It was never effort,” he said. “It wasn’t effort at all.”

“You know what I mean. I just need to face reality now. It’s not going to happen.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. “What if we took away the pressure?” he asked.

“What pressure?”

“Scully, I...I like making love with you. I don’t want to stop just because you didn’t get pregnant. What if we just...kept going because we want to, not for any other reason.”

She pulled away from his embrace and wiped her face, stunned. “You’re talking about...essentially…dating.”

“Yeah. I guess, essentially, I am.”

“We...shouldn’t…”

“Just like we shouldn’t sleep together? Try to have a baby together? Why shouldn’t we, Scully? If we both want to.”

“I need to think about it.”

Why was dating Mulder harder for her to imagine than trying to have a baby with him? She tried to picture it every time he put his hand on her back. She tried to picture it every time he called her late at night and wondered what it would be like to hear him ask her what she was wearing instead of if she uploaded the autopsy report to the database. She tried to picture it on New Year’s eve when he kissed her as the ball dropped, because she knew he could kiss better than that. A lot better.

She almost said yes to him in Chicago when they were investigating the case of Henry Weems, the luckiest man alive. She had it in her mind to actually surprise him, ask him on a date, but Donnie Pfaster derailed her plans on that front and it took her awhile to recover. Unfortunately, Mulder’s mother died shortly after that, and though he had finally been free from the burden of the thirty-year search for Samantha, his grief lingered.

Everything got in the way. Full moons in LA. Virtual reality. Voodoo dolls. Cancerman… As winter turned into spring, she grew more and more frustrated with herself, and with them. Why couldn’t they have started off like normal people? Maybe met at a bar, or a work seminar, or been introduced by a well-meaning friend at a barbeque? Why did they have to experience abductions, stolen ova, genetically altered embryos, dead children, dead sisters, infertility, awkward sex, bad sex, pain, Agent Fowley, CGB Spender, death fetishists, zombies, werewolves, etc.?

No, she didn’t want to go to England with him. She was done chasing crop circles. Her priorities felt upside down. What if she’d led a different life? Gone down a different road? Married Daniel Waterston?

She remembered looking in Mulder’s eyes as he made love to her and knowing, deep down, that it really didn’t matter if she got pregnant or not as long as he always looked at her like that and loved her like that. She remembered waking up in his arms after their first night together and wanting to feel him inside her again. She remembered walking out on him at The Gunmen’s place after he refused to acknowledge the intel she’d found on Diana and knowing that she couldn’t possibly hate him so goddamn much if she also didn’t love him so goddamn much.

It was quiet when she woke up on his couch and she rolled the kinks out of her neck and let his Navajo blanket fall to the floor. She blinked into the light of the fish tank and moved closer to look inside. The fish were sleeping. Floating aimlessly. She put her fingers against the glass. Pepper was still there, but she couldn’t find Aphrodite. No, there she was, half-hidden behind a rock. Any man who could keep fish alive for more than four years would be a wonderful father. She wished she could’ve made it possible for him, and for them.

She slipped silently into his room and undressed at the foot of his bed in a cold slice of moonlight. She knew he was awake by the sound of his breathing, too quick. He opened the sheets to her and she snuggled up against him.

“From now on, just because we want to,” she said, trailing light fingers across his bare chest.

“Gee, I don’t usually put out on the first date,” he answered, squirming as she tickled his sides.

“I hear it’s just like riding a bike.”

“Let’s find out,” he said, slinking down and pulling the covers up over their heads.

*******

As she lays in her hospital bed, the news of Mulder having gone missing still ringing in her ears, she strokes her hand across her belly under her hospital gown and stares out the window. Come back, she says to the sky with her eyes. Come back so you can see how you made the improbable possible.

The End

#i wrote this #x-files fanfic #ANGST #mulder #scully #baby-making sex

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filmista · 8 years ago

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Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music The Director’s Cut! (1970)

If a fire broke out in the book and film shelve in my apartment, and I only got the chance to save a few books and a few films from a fiery death, What would I save? Michael Wadleigh's documentary capturing Woodstock would now be one of the first things I'd think I'd reach for.

Why? Because it is truly a time machine: a time capsule, a glimpse into one of the most beautiful and peaceful moments in human history. The kind of moment that makes you wish you could time travel only to witness it and this film allows that a little bit. The film succeeds brilliantly in evoking the atmosphere of the festival.

Not only because it is beautifully filmed, which of course since it was the 70's means intense psychedelic colors and light, a delight mostly for two senses your eyes and your ears. The film transports you into the mindset and the hearts, the soul of these people.

The hippies: what they stood for, what they rebelled against, what they so fervently believed in: peace, music, love, really just letting everybody live freely. These people truly believed in freedom and you see in their faces as they're interviewed that they're convinced of their beliefs, these people believed without a doubt the world was going to become a better, prettier, happier place...

On a small farm in Bethel, in upstate New York Woodstock was presented: 3 Days of Peace & Music better known as simply Woodstock nowadays, a 1969 music festival where the largest hippie congregation in history ever assembled to celebrate the festival. Life, love, and music. Michael Wadleigh wrote this documentary in 1970, showing the construction and experiences of those three days, winning an Oscar as best documentary at the time.

The authors of this great festival are the people who attended and lived in Woodstock in addition to the bands that attended. In this documentary, we're shown how many of those present celebrated life and with a motto of love and peace they rejected and protested against wars, specifically the Vietnam War.

Woodstock would go down in history as the most legendary music festival of all time. Everything seemed to work to perfection during that magical summer of 1969: the atmosphere, the people, the music. 500,000 hippies descended into a meadow to hear greats like Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Jefferson Airplane.

The traffic got stuck in the areas surrounding Woodstock, the food ran out and there were too few toilets and first aid workers. Still, there were hardly any disturbances and help came quickly from all possible corners. The locals donated food, the army flew in relief supplies and doctors offered their services for free. Woodstock proved that half a million young people , for three days, could live and get along in harmony and was thus a symbol of the fraternizing effects of music.

Director Michael Wadleigh was there and shot pictures that you could frame and hang up in your house. In his documentary Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Wadleigh presents atmospheric images which he alternates with performances and interviews with festival-goers, artists, organizers, local people and even authority.

He appears to have an eye for special moments; the camera always seems to be in the right place at the exact right time. This makes Woodstock more than just your average festival film, but a living and breathing document with high historical value.

The film paints a stunning portrait of the generation that grew up with rock, recreational drugs and free love, but also with racial hatred, the Vietnam War and the threat of nuclear weapons. The magic of Woodstock gave America and other parts of the world, for a brief moment in time the feeling and sensation that peace and freedom were at hand's reach, not an illusion, not a fantasy, a gorgeous and realistic possibility.

The script of Michael Wadleigh is build up according to how this great festival was being constructed and how it was unfolding and shows the coexistence of the assistants. Michael wanted stories of the young people: their feelings about Vietnam, about the time and feelings and thoughts about i, they most certainly had.

He didn't only want it to be music and with several cuts and screen divisions he was visualizing different parts of the farm where people are shown exactly as they are, with absolute spontaneity. His way of filming included mostly close ups and traveling. The camera followed the assistants, in fact there is a part that I found hilarious where Wadleigh follows someone on a motorcycle and he eventually bumps into the helmet of the guy on the motorcycle.

Giving an accurate chronology of what was the first mega festival in the history of music would almost be like attempting to sing a song that we all know there is always someone who doesn't know it. But I think it's good to refresh some facts and curious data.

We know that Woodstock didn't take place in Woodstock but a Bethel farm owned by a good man named Max Yasgur who agreed to receive 6,000 people (in the end there were more than 500,000) to please his son Sam who was a mediator along with his father and the twenty-somethings Michael Lang, Joel Rosenman and Artie Kornfeld, producers and creative minds of the festival.

What perhaps no one imagined is that Woodstock would become an event that would transcend the strictly musical to acquire a deeper meaning: a spiritual and philosophical one, more than half a million people living peacefully for three days, making this festival the milestone that marked a revolution of love And peace counteracting the violent events that happened in the world.

For US $ 18 you could see and hear from the 15th to 17th of August of 1969 (among others) Legendary Janis Joplin, The Who, Country Joe McDonald, Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar, Joan Baez, Santana, Canned Heat, Mountain, Sly & The Family Stone, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, Ten Years After, The Band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Johnny Winter, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha-Na-Na and Jimi Hendrix. (Anyways eventually an anarchist group broke the fences the first day officially making it a totally free festival).

Those who were not there: Bob Dylan (he was angry with the fans who had harassed him during his motorcycle accident that had kept him away from the stage for a long time). He was only to play at Woodstock '94. King Crimson, because of commitments in Britain; The Byrd said "it's just another summer festival"; Led Zeppelin because they did not want to be "another band on the list"; The Beatles were no longer playing live and John Lennon apparently was unable to enter the United States in those days; The Doors two versions: one that underestimated the festival, the other that Jim Morrison feared he would be killed on stage. In short, we do not know if they later on regretted it or not, I know I would.

The film has so many golden moments that it is difficult to choose a favorite. The aerial shots of the huge crowds. The yogis who are through breathing exercises getting naturally high. The couples that are kissing or making out, or even taking it to the next level. The organizers explaining with a big smile on their face that Woodstock is an utter financial disaster.

A girl with a colorful umbrella on a deserted trampled festival ground.The Chief of Police calling the parents of America to be proud of their offspring. Hippies Chanting “NO RAIN! “, noticing that it doesn't help, and then allowed themselves to fall and glide into the mud.

There are only a few minor points. The picture quality logically falters here and there, and leaves stuff to be desired, interviews are difficult to understand because of the background noise and Wadleigh is somewhat too excited with alternating formats at times.

Not everyone likes to contemplate big black bars on the screen. Also, the documentary with It's 3.5 hours is perhaps a bit on the long side. But, then you at least have something that entertains for a few hours right? in the case of Woodstock I'm inclined to say more content is definitely better than less content of lesser quality!

(And personally I find It's imperfectness uterrly charming, it is authentic just like it was, if you go to a concert or a big festival there's just a lot of noise and a lot of what's going on might actually pass you by, and that's that). Woodstock is a film that should be seen by every music lover. Even if you, metaphorically speaking hatched out of the egg after the hippie era.

It is enormously striking to me that nearly everybody that is interviewed is either grinning, smiling, chuckling or laughing: animatedly or loudly, and the ones that aren't being interviewed are having silly or deep, philosophical conversations or they're joking with a friend.

They're smoking weed, they're skinny dipping, they're kissing or they're off making love in between the grass and the flowers, no inhibition, and no shame. For me also striking is that these people when you’re watching them seemed so alive, they were right at the moment, so into it, they were really living it, no one was only half experiencing it, because they were more focused on getting good footage on their phones, nowadays half of them would probably be staring at a screen.

These people were really genuinely happy (with the exception of one angry older couple that lived near the festival, who were angry at all the noise and the kids taking drugs, to which somebody counter suggests they're peaceful, maybe we should all smoke); happiness permeates throughout the entire film and you really can't help but smile, the belief in love and kindness that permeates through here would melt the hardest and the coldest of hearts.

Woodstock shows that people can come together and coexist together, calmly in harmony and in peace, without violence, without posing a threat to one another. Everybody seemed to believe in helping one another, and it all came from the belief in one thing: peace and love, the power of love, that loving is the one thing that frees us. And it is a beautiful thing to witness.

Of course, it wasn't all perfect or beautiful, Woodstock was, of course, one massive open air manifesto for love and peace, a protest against one thing war and violence, against the worst sides of our nature.

There is something harrowing and chilling under the surface: of some of the happy, smiling young men that you see, some even if they didn't believe in war and killing would be sent to Vietnam and never come back. Some would experience shell shock afterward or other psychological disorders, some would never smile or make love again; but hey at least for three days they were completely free, they spoke their minds and they defended their beliefs.

And yet still there the army was: helping them, probably partly so that they'd have enough men to serve in the army later... but still it was an act of kindness and they seemed to really believe something good was happening, they brought them food (there allegedly once during the festival was breakfast on bed or better in tent for everyone) and drinks. Everybody simply seemed absorbed into the magic of the festival, everyone believed in kindness and in love for a few days.

Woodstock was declared a disaster area and a financial disaster as I said earlier and, yet the organizers were happy and smiling about it, they didn’t see it as an economical failure, they saw it as a success, human nature at It's best, everybody at the festival was civil with one another.

One of the reasons that I love the documentary, even if the hippie movement and what they believed in didn't last and in many things, I'd say, unfortunately, except of course for the STDS that inevitably came with free love...

But I love that these people so passionately defended and held onto their beliefs, even in the world around them weren't all that beautiful at that particular time, there were fear and threats also, but they preferred defending the positive and trying to get the world to see the positive rather than focusing all their attention and energy on the negative, they actually, physically tried to make a change...

It's a nice reminder of human decency and of the fact that people can live with each other harmoniously, that everybody can be each other's equal, these people really believed that and for a beautiful moment in time it really was so...

I find that watching Woodstock when really helped to instill a new positivity, a renewed belief in humanity, but then I think: it didn't last, was it really one of the all-time highs in human civilisation and has it in some aspects gone downhill since? But then some part of me thinks if these people could do it, then surely it oughta be possible again, so I'm a bit conflicted by the end, both sad and happy.

And then there's the music of course! It is pure, honest and straight from the heart ... The lineup of Woodstock was mouth-watering and would give many people goosebumps and chills of pleasure and many performances are considered classic. Richie Havens who improvised the song "Freedomi" during his set.

Janis Joplin who died too young was singing her lungs out.”Pinball Wizard" by The Who and "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix. Carlos Santana that presents himself to a large audience, with a very young Michael Shrieve behind the drums. The energy explodes from the stage and all that beautiful music is thanks to the improved sound quality of the Director's Cut allowed to shine even more. So a real treat!

The biggest concern and which was the motive of the film is to show the rejection of the government system as such, people were tired of wars and the festival was a way of being able to express themselves and not to obtain an economic purpose but rather to unify and to make known to the world their peaceful ideals and the love of art.

It shows how an event defined a generation, how the love of art and music can achieve a feeling and unite many people in the goal of achieving peace. In addition, Wadleigh accomplished his mission, to show the ideas and stories of the people besides making evident what the acts that took place in Woodstock were. Simply a delightful documentary.

Some facts: The poster of Woodstock 69 is one of the most famous images in the world and also became a symbol of peace. Rolling Stone included the festival on a list of the 50 defining moments in Rock and music history. Jimi Hendrix insisted on closing the festival and gave the longest concert of his career. The festival started an hour late because it was difficult to find any of the artists in the fit enough condition to perform.

Tim Hardin was too high and his repertoire was limited to two tracks (later he died of a heroin overdose). Richie Havens, who opened the first day's performances, had to lengthen his repertoire because the next ones to play were not ready. His song Freedom became a worldwide anthem.

The drugs deserve a separate paragraph: Nine out of ten festival goers smoked marijuana and in total 33 were arrested for drug use, according to health services. "Bad trip" cases with LSD: 400. Bond price in Dollars to release those arrested for possession of LSD: 20,000. Price in dollars of 30 grams of marijuana: 15.

There were two births in Woodstock, as well as free sex, mud, music, food shortages (the army sent aid by air). Three deaths: a boy hit by a tractor while sleeping, another after a ruptured appendix and another by overdose of heroin. Hundreds of people who could not get through because of chaos in transit. The average speed of the cars was 1.6 km per hour. And a millionaire loss that took 10 years to recover from for the organizers. The cleaning of the property demanded U $ S 100,000 extra.

To finish, I extract a paragraph written a couple of years ago in Rolling Stone magazine signed by Andy Greene. The note refers to the filming of the documentary and it seems to me a beautiful summary:

“Smiling nuns make peace signs to the camera; Cops eat ice cream from popsicle sticks with hippies; And the old folks make a common cause to feed the fans. And, like everyone in Woodstock, the very existence of the documentary is a small miracle. Just moments after cameraman David Myers finished filming a couple having sex on the grown grass at the Woodstock festival in 1969, he found a garbage man that was cleaning a chemical toilet that flooded with a huge sucking hose. "It’s hard to keep up,” he says. “I’m glad to do it for these kids. My son is here, and I also have one in Vietnam. Now he’s in the demilitarised zone, flying helicopters. "As the man heads to his next chemical toilet, a tall hippie stumbles out of one, smoking a pipe, looks fixedly at the camera and says, ”They don’t see us. Do you want some?”

The Woodstock film crew:

L-R: Michael Wadleigh, Renee Wadleigh, Martin Scorsese

Arlo Guthrie: It's incredible. I heard the New York Thruway's closed. News Reporter: Closed? This morning we heard that they were backed down Route 17 with an eight hour delay. Arlo Guthrie: Right. Well, the New York Thruway's closed. Isn't that far out?

“Max Yasgur: [to crowd] This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place, and I think you people have proven something to the world: that a half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing *but* fun and music, and I God bless you for it!”

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