#Death by hanging 1968

[bowlinggwithmargo]

The Trial (1962) Dir. Orson Welles / Death by Hanging (1968) Dir. Nagisa Oshima

[yxsu]

"What is a nation? Show me one! I don't want to be killed by an abstraction."

Death by Hanging・絞死刑

Dir. by Oshima Nagisa, 1968

[toiich]

Death by Hanging (1968), dir. Oshima Nagisa

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 2: Hera, Goddess Of Childbirth]

A/N: Enjoy Chapter 2 a little early! See you on Sunday for Chapter 3 🥰

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.4k

Tagging: @arcielee @huramuna @glasscandlegrenades @gemmagirlss1 @humanpurposes @mariahossain @marvelescvpe @darkenchantress @aemondssapphirebussy @haslysl @bearwithegg @beautifulsweetschaos @travelingmypassion @althea-tavalas @chucklefak @serving-targaryen-realness @chaoticallywriting @moonfllowerr @rafeism @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @herfantasyworldd @mangosmootji

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

You are buzzed at a private party in the Rainbow Room of Rockefeller Center, Midtown, February 1966, chandeliers and candlelight, pink and red hearts made of paper hanging from shimmering strings and littering the floor. Your roommate Barbara Nassau Astor—yes those Astors, Astor Avenue in the Bronx, Astoria in Queens, “the landlords of New York”—brought you along tonight, and the chance to be swept up into her glittering existence is precisely why your father sent you to a school like Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. Barb knows people who know people who know other people and every single individual in that grand design is wealthy and worldly and could possibly lead you into the generous arms of your future husband. You are from Tarpon Springs, Florida, heiress to a sea sponge fortune, and your father nurses powerful ambitions of intermingling his blood with the Northeastern elite.

You scan the selection as you sip your Pink Squirrel. You could marry a doctor and sit in the living room waiting for him to come home at 9 or 10 or 11 p.m., fix him a Whiskey Sour or a Sazerac, listen to him bemoan the complexities of nerves and veins before accompanying him to bed and repeating the whole process the next day. You could marry a lawyer or an advertising executive, and your fate would be much the same. Your own parents are partners in life and business, but you have seen enough to know how rare this is. These men of the Rainbow Room, 65 floors above icy streets radiant with headlights, want a wife whose hands will stay manicured and idle: nannies will tend to the children, maids will clean the house, mistresses will massage the knots out of the muscles of his back. And you—a relative upstart, new money among ancient bloodlines—will have no right to demand otherwise.

A man interrupts your reverie. He wants to know about the pendant you wear around your neck. You sigh before you turn to him; you resist the instinct to roll your eyes. And then you see him. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, with a curious intensity and a teasing little smirk, an Old Fashioned in his grasp like molten gold. You don’t know it yet, but he is a senator from New Jersey, very recently elected, victorious yet still hungry. He steals the oxygen out of your lungs. He drowns you in the amber-musk warmth of his cologne.

“It’s Athena,” you say, touching your fingertips to the silver medallion self-consciously; and you are rarely self-conscious. The black polish has been scrubbed from your nails and replaced with a soft, shimmering champagne. You spent two hours this afternoon having your hair painfully teased and arranged into a Brigitte Bardot-inspired updo.

“Goddess of wisdom.”

“And war and peace. And math.”

“Math?�� He is intrigued.

“That’s what I’m studying at school. Math.”

“And yet you are not disinterested in the humanities. You know Greek mythology.”

“Well, Tarpon Springs has a lot of Greeks, and that’s where I’m from, so.”

“Studies math. From Tarpon Springs, Florida. I’m learning everything about you.” He smiles, this magnetic stranger who has captured you like a moon lured into a planet’s gravity. He swallows a mouthful of his Old Fashioned, moisture glistening on his lips. “Do you like Greek food?”

You can’t seem to follow his words. Blood is rushing into your face, hot and dizzying. “What?”

“Greek food. Have you tried it? Hummus, tzatziki, gyros, spanakopita, horiatiki, baklava.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve had it. It’s great.”

“My family owns a house on Long Beach Island,” he says casually. “We eat a lot of Greek food there. You should join us for dinner sometime soon.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Very soon. Maybe this weekend. Are you free?”

No, you’re not; but you’ll cancel plans until you are. “Um, okay. Sure. And who…sorry, I might have missed it, but…who are you…?”

“Aemond Targaryen.” And he shakes your hand like you’re someone who matters. “I’m a senator. I’m trying to end the war.”

With him, you could be a part of something magnificent. With him, you could help save the world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Asteria is the goddess of falling stars, but the home of rising ones. On the north end of Long Beach Island, New Jersey—only 100 miles south of the sleek bladelike skyscrapers of Manhattan—lies the sprawling Targaryen estate. The nine-acre property features one main house and another three for guests, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a ten-car garage, a boathouse, a pier, and an ample stretch of beach that abuts the Atlantic Ocean, open water with nothing interrupting the infinite, miles-deep blue from the East Coast to the Iberian Peninsula. It is the first week of July, 1968, and your 23rd birthday. You are lazing in a lounge chair on the emerald green lawn and eating your third slice of melopita, a cheesecake-like dessert made with honey and ricotta. It originates from the Greek island of Sifnos.

“You two can’t murder each other while I’m gone,” Aemond says. He’s sitting between you and Aegon. His stitches have healed, the worst of his pain has subsided, his poll numbers have only improved since the assassination attempt. He has a glass eye that he can insert for public appearances, but he dislikes it; at home he wears a leather eyepatch that still unnerves the children. Tomorrow, Aemond is flying to Tacoma to campaign ahead of the Washington State Convention on the 13th. Most of the family will be joining him, with only three Targaryens remaining at Asteria: ailing Viserys, useless Aegon, and you, officially too pregnant to travel by plane. You are wearing a floral, flowing, two-piece swimsuit. The sun is blazing in a clear sky. The record player is piping out Time Of The Season by the Zombies.

Aegon waves a hand flippantly, then adjusts his preposterously large blue-tinted plastic sunglasses; he is shirtless, flabby, very sunburned. “I’ll barely be here.”

Aemond looks over at him, amused. “Oh yeah? And what pressing engagements do you have to attend to? I’d love to know.”

You take a bite of your melopita and scatter crumbs across the swell of your belly: seven and a half months along. “I’m sure the prostitutes miss him.”

“They do,” Aegon snaps. “I’m their favorite customer.”

“Well you’re a reprieve for them. It’s always over so quickly.”

Aemond is snickering. Aegon says to him: “23, huh? A 13-year age difference. She could almost be your daughter.”

“And 17 years younger than you. She could definitely be yours.”

“That’s how Aegon likes his girls,” you say. “Too inexperienced to recognize end-stage degeneracy. Still stumbling their way through Shakespeare for English class.”

“Why can’t she stay at the brownstone?” Aegon asks irritably. Aemond owns a historic townhouse in Georgetown for when Congress is in session, though he’s rarely been there since he announced that he was running for president.

“Because Doxie is here to make sure she’s taken care of,” Aemond replies. Eudoxia has been the head housekeeper of Asteria for decades, a formidable battleaxe of a woman who speaks very little English and has a seemingly endless supply of patterned scarves to wrap around her ink black dyed hair. There currently aren’t any permanent staff stationed at the brownstone, and Aemond does not trust strangers. “And because my future first lady is hosting a tea party on the 10th.”

“A tea party!” Aegon gasps, mocking you. “Surely that will patch the wounds of our troubled nation. She’s an inspiration. She’s motherfucking Gloria Steinem.”

“She’s Aphrodite,” Aemond says, beaming with pride, his remaining eye fixed on your belly. He’s lost one piece of himself, but in a month and a half he’ll gain another. “Goddess of love.”

“There must be a more appropriate mythological character. Medusa, perhaps. Lyssa was the goddess of rabies, Epiales was the goddess of nightmares.”

“Aegon, I had no idea you were so…” You search for the right word. “Literate.”

“Io was turned into a cow.” He grins at you, toothy, malicious.

“She’s also one of Jupiter’s moons,” Aemond muses. He draws invisible orbits in the air with his long, graceful fingers. “Beautiful, celestial, pristine…”

“A satellite,” Aegon says. “Mindless. Aimless. Going wherever she’s told.”

Aemond insists as he twists the bracelet around your right wrist, a delicate gold chain he bought during your honeymoon in Hawaii: “Aphrodite.”

“Didn’t she fuck around with, like, everyone?”

“Maybe you should be Aphrodite,” you tell Aegon.

Mimi appears, tottering across the lawn with the straps of her sundress sliding off her shoulders and her Gimlet sloshing precariously in its glass. The children are playing in the surf with the nannies and Fosco, who is entertaining them by diving for seashells and delivering his treasures into their tiny, grasping palms. Criston is supervising from the sand, though he steals frequent glimpses of Alicent as she feeds a wheelchair-bound Viserys—much diminished after a number of strokes—his own slice of melopita, one careful, patient spoonful at a time. “Can we…” Mimi bursts out laughing and almost falls over. She claws her way upright again using the back of Aegon’s chair. “Um…I was thinking…”

“What?” Aegon asks, annoyed, avoidant. If they’ve ever been happy, it was a transient epoch that came and went long before you joined the family. It was before the asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

“We should go back to Mykonos. We had such a nice time in Mykonos. Didn’t we? Didn’t we just adore Mykonos?”

Aegon sighs, glowering out over the ocean. “Yeah, we sure did. Ten years ago.”

“Exactly!” Mimi gushes, oblivious. “When can we go? Next week? Let’s go next week.”

“Mimi, you and the kids will be in Washington, remember?” Aemond says. Alicent will have to be her handler; usually it’s your job to make sure Mimi is ready for photos, eats enough to stay conscious, doesn’t trip over her own feet, doesn’t talk too much to the press.

“Washington?” Like she’s never heard of it.

“The state. Not the city. For the convention.”

“Oh right. Right.” She gulps her Gimlet. You could set your watch by Mimi’s drinking. Tipsy by lunch, drunk at dinner, crawling on the floor chasing the dogs around by 8 p.m. The Targaryens keep a drove of Alopekis, small and white and foxlike. “Well…maybe some other time.”

“After the election,” Aemond says with an abiding, encouraging smile. He tolerates Mimi because he needs her: happy wholesome family, American Dream. Down at the water’s edge, the nannies are giving towels to Fosco and the children as they scamper out of the frothing waves, Mimi’s five and Helaena’s three: Daphne, Neaera—no one can ever seem to spell her name correctly, least of all the six-year-old girl herself—and Evangelos.

Mimi departs, on the hunt for a fresh Gimlet. Aegon reaches into the pocket of his swim trunks—Hawaiian print, royal blue—and pulls out a joint and a Zippo. He sticks the joint between his teeth and goes to light it.

“No,” Aemond says immediately, yanking the joint out of Aegon’s mouth and stomping it into the earth. Then he points down the beach towards the sand dunes. “You know journalists will sneak around trying to get photos. You know we’re never truly alone out here.”

“They can’t tell what I’m smoking!”

“Don’t argue with me.”

“You know there are teenagers getting their limbs blown off in Vietnam right now? I think society has bigger problems than me smoking grass.”

“And yet to solve those bigger problems, I have to win in November. And the suburban housewives will not vote for me if they think I support legalizing marijuana. Trust me, I know. I’ve met them.”

“I wouldn’t want those people’s votes,” Aegon says derisively.

“You’d rather Nixon get them?”

Aegon doesn’t have a speedy rebuttal this time. He contemplates the Atlantic Ocean, the wind tearing at his hair.

“It’s hot as hell,” Aemond says to you, gathering up the newspapers he’s been leafing through, never not thinking about the election, never not strategizing. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

As you accompany Aemond towards the main house—and of course you follow him, always, anywhere—Alicent waves you over to where she and Viserys are sitting to wish you a happy birthday again. From this vantage point, you can just barely spot Otto and Helaena strolling through her garden, a jungle of butterfly bushes and herbs. The stricken Targaryen patriarch beams at the swell of your belly. Viserys likes you, you are his favorite daughter-in-law, though perhaps this is not so lofty an achievement. Moreover, he likes that you are carrying the child of his decent son. Aemond has already decided on the baby’s name: Aristos Apollo. If it is in fact a boy, you suppose you’ll call him Ari, but he doesn’t feel real to you yet. He belongs to Aemond, to the Targaryens, to the nation, but not quite to you. He is more myth than flesh.

“Nothing is more precious than children,” Viserys tells Aemond, raspy and frail. “I would have had at least five more if I could.” Alicent bows her head, an acknowledgement of her failure in this regard. Viserys expects it. You and Aemond politely avert your gazes.

“Thank God for this baby,” Alicent says. “After the year we’ve had? That the whole world has had? We all need something to be grateful for.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees, smiling. It must be the promise of a son that has made his maiming go down smoother, and maybe it is his soaring poll numbers too, and maybe it is gratitude that he escaped with his life, and maybe it is even the fact that he has you.

But long after dusk when you’re getting ready for bed—slathering yourself in Jergens, stepping into your chiffon nightgown—as you pass through the sliver of light pouring out of the bathroom, you catch a glimpse of something that stops you. Aemond is standing in front of the mirror with his hands on the rim of the sink, his eyepatch slung over the towel rack, his voided eye socket exposed and gory and irreparably wounded. There’s something in his scarred face that you can’t recall ever seeing before. There is a seething, secret, animal rage. There is fury for everyone who has ever denied him anything.

You remember who you were before you met Aemond at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan at a party you were almost not illustrious enough to attend. You wore your hair long and loose, you downed shots, you smoked, you swore, you slept through class almost every Monday; and then you packed all of this away in your allegorical attic and became someone who could stand beside a senator, and then a candidate, and then a president, someone who could tip the scales of fate.

And you think as you lurk unnoticed in the doorway: Maybe he’s been hiding parts of himself too.

~~~~~~~~~~

July 10th, 10 a.m. He’s snoring on a couch in the living room, the one patterned with sailboats. He’s hugging his acoustic guitar like a child clinging to a teddy bear. Sometimes he plays it for the kids: Get Rhythm, Twist And Shout, Stand By Me, You Can’t Hurry Love. That’s about the extent of his involvement in their lives. He has a law degree from Columbia that his father bought for him. Aside from a brief and disastrous stint as the mayor of Trenton, he has never been gainfully employed. You pour the cupful of ice cubes you collected from the freezer all over his bare chest.

“What the fuck!” Aegon screams as he startles awake. “What is wrong with you?!”

“The guests are arriving in two hours. And you’re going to help me host.”

“I’m not slobbering at the feet of those manicured elitists.”

“It’s easy to say ‘vive la révolution’ from your family’s mansion that you reside in as a professional failure.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m so worthless. If only I spent more time hosting tea parties.”

“I can’t small talk with governors and congressmen, so I have to charm their wives instead. That’s how it works, you idiot.”

Aegon rolls off the couch and rubs his forehead, wincing, hungover. In the dining room, Eudoxia is readying cups and plates, polishing silverware, folding napkins. The caterers will be here soon, and there are also three dishes that you made yourself: stafidopsomo, a bread with raisins and cinnamon; rizogalo, Greek-style rice pudding; and baklava you spent hours chopping walnuts for. At least one show of domestic prowess is an expectation, two is impressive, three is above and beyond, something for the other political wives to chatter about. You know the importance of making a good impression on them. They are as much a part of their husbands’ careers as the speech writers, communication directors, fundraisers. “I need a Bloody Mary,” Aegon groans.

“You need to pull your goddamn weight. Everyone else is working to get Aemond elected. Your five-year-old kid is out on the campaign trail and you can’t walk around with a tray of hummus and mini spanakopitas? Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious,” he says, standing with some difficulty and then shoving by you. “Fuck off, Miss America.”

“Aegon!”

But he’s padding off towards the kitchen with his bare feet, tiki print boxer shorts, bedraggled hair. You follow after him in your spotless white heels and sundress patterned with common blue violets. Your earrings are pearls. You’ve wrangled your hair into a tidy French twist. Aegon is getting a pitcher of tomato juice out of the refrigerator, a bottle of vodka from a cardboard Apple Jacks box. He keeps booze and pills hidden everywhere; you’re always stumbling across his caches.

You open your mouth to unleash something hurtful, something hateful, but then you feel the cold flare of liquid on your thighs as the ocean breeze gusts in through the windows. My dress, you think, alarmed. What did I spill on it? One of the ice cubes you threw at Aegon must have caught on the skirt somehow and melted. That’s your first guess, and it is welcome; water doesn’t stain, and you aren’t sure if you have another outfit that is both formal enough and will still fit you. But when you reach down to touch your leg—now the liquid reaches your knees—your hand comes away red.

You look up at Aegon. He’s staring back at you, thunderstruck, horrified. His Bloody Mary ingredients are now forgotten on the countertop. He shouts for the housekeeper: “Doxie?!”

There is indistinct, cantankerous Greek grumbling in return.

“Doxie! Call an ambulance!”

“I don’t understand,” you say to Aegon, bright clotless blood dyeing the whirls of your fingerprints. I ruined my dress, you think nonsensically. “It doesn’t hurt. Shouldn’t it hurt?”

“Don’t move, don’t do anything, just wait for the paramedics.”

But the edges of your vision are going dark and hazy, and the room spins like a flipped coin. Your knees and ankles fold, bones turned to paper. As you drop, Aegon dives for you. You clutch at him, but there’s nothing to grab onto, no suit jacket, no tie, only skin that glows with sunburn. “If I don’t wake up, tell Aemond—”

“You’re not dying, bitch. My luck’s not that good.”

But his eyes are panicked; and they are the last thing you see before you black out.

~~~~~~~~~~

Arteries of cement, bones like lead, heavy eyelids opening to reveal strange white walls.

Am I dead?

But no: you hurt all over. Heaven isn’t supposed to hurt. There are needles pierced through the backs of your hands, a splitting rawness in your throat.

Was I intubated? Did I have surgery…?

You try to sit up. The pain is blinding; the severed and sutured latticework of your abdominal muscles is a pit of glass. You gasp, moan plaintively, fumble for the nurse call button on the wooden nightstand.

“Will you stop moving?” Aegon says as he walks into the room. He’s slurping on a straw that pokes out from a Dairy Queen cup. The fluid inside is clumpy and red. Instantly, you think of blood, and a wave of nausea punches through the shredded gore that was once your belly. Aegon flops down into the salmon pink armchair beside the bed and props his combat boots up on the ottoman. “They sliced you up like the Black Dahlia. You’re gonna rip your stitches.”

“They did a c-section…?”

“Yeah, you had some kind of uterus…thing. I don’t remember.”

The baby?? Is the baby alright?? “An abruption?”

More slurping. “No…I think it started with a P.”

“Previa?”

“Yeah, that one.”

You remember waking up a few times: on the kitchen floor as men were lifting you, in an ambulance as the siren shrieked. Someone said you were being taken to Mount Sinai in Manhattan. And that makes sense, that would have been Criston’s plan. Mount Sinai is one of the best hospitals in the country. You look around the room for a bassinet or a crib. Instead you see a wheelchair and a myriad of flower bouquets; word has already gotten out, and so the customary well wishes are pouring in. Lady Bird Johnson sent bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas; Abigail McCarthy sent lilies of the valley; Muriel Humphrey sent roses, traditional, safe, uninspiring; Pat Nixon sent blood orange gladioli. Mrs. Wallace, newly deceased, neglected to call a florist. “Where’s the baby?”

“He’s fine. He’s downstairs in an incubator.”

Ari, you think, though he still doesn’t seem real yet. “What…?”

“His lungs are underdeveloped. But the doctors think he’ll be alright. You want a Mr. Misty? There’s a Dairy Queen like two blocks from here.”

“No, I don’t want a Mr. Misty,” you say, incredulous. “I want to see the baby.”

“Well they can’t move him and they can’t move you, so you’ll have to wait.”

“I’m going to see him—” You swing your feet off the bed and feel daggers, fire, a splintering like someone has taken a hammer to your bones. You almost scream; it takes everything in you to choke it down and only gasp as your flesh becomes an inferno. I want a joint, you think randomly, an urge you’d believed you had exorcised from yourself, an archaic relic of a past life.

“Told you,” Aegon says smugly.

You lie panting, helpless, glancing at the phone on the nightstand. “Aemond knows?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve called everyone. He knows.”

“Good. So he’ll be here soon.”

“Sure,” Aegon says, perhaps a tad noncommittally.

“Okay.” You’re still trying to catch your breath. Tacoma is a six hour flight away. Even if Aemond doesn’t leave until morning, he’ll be here by sundown tomorrow. “You can go now.”

“Go?!” Aegon exclaims, then laughs, one of his reckless, taunting cackles. “Oh no. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You definitely are.”

“No, I’m not,” he insists, grinning. “For once in my life, I’m the person who’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. I’m the honorable one. The sacred heir of the favorite son has just been born, and the blessed mother has been sawed in half like Saint Simon the Zealot, and where is Aemond? Where is literally everyone else? Across the continent shaking hands and forcing smiles to win him the great state of Washington. I’m not going home. I’m collecting every second I spend here like coins from a slot machine. I won the jackpot, babe. No one is ever going to be able to call me the family fuckup after this.”

The pain is horrible, insurmountable; you can’t think through it. You close your eyes and try not to sob, to wail, to split yourself open in body and soul. I can’t let him see me break down.

“What’s up?” Aegon asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I want a Mr. Misty. Go get me a Mr. Misty.”

“Okay,” Aegon says doubtfully. “What flavor?”

“I don’t care. Not red.”

“They have orange, lemon-lime, grape—”

“Just pick one!” you shout, tears brimming in your eyes. Get out, get out, get out.

“Calm down, psycho!” he yells back, heading for the door.

As soon as he crosses the threshold, you snatch the call button off the nightstand and press it frantically until a nurse arrives. You get more morphine and sink into a stillness like deep water, down, down, down.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s dark outside, stars and a crescent moon. On the television is grainy footage from the Battle of Khe Sanh. American soldiers younger than you are dragging their wounded brethren to a Chinook helicopter for evacuation: bandages, burns, missing limbs and faces. Aegon had dozed off in his chair—assisted by an ample amount of Vicodin, surely—but is stirring awake now. He blinks groggily at the screen.

“It’s so fucking awful,” you say, and Aegon’s eyebrows shoot up; it’s the first time you’ve ever sworn in front of him. You trained yourself to stop when you met Aemond. “30,000 Americans dead, God knows how many Vietnamese peasants, Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire, and for what? So we can say we did everything we could to stop communism? So we can humiliate the Russians? There is no liberation of Vietnam. All we’re doing is making those people hate us. And we’re destroying ourselves too.”

“I didn’t know you cared about the war.”

You look at him, mystified. “Everything I do is about the war.”

“But you never really talk about it.” Aegon yawns and stretches, reaching up towards the ceiling. “You talk about Chanel dresses and tea parties.”

“Well yeah, because it’s…it’s unseemly, I guess. For me to speak on the war. Me specifically.”

He snorts. “Because you’re a woman? Who told you that? Aemond?”

You hesitate, watching the television again. Now there are napalm bombs incinerating villages and rice paddies. “I had a boyfriend before Aemond, you know.”

“What, in kindergarten? Chasing each other around the playground? Illicit snuggles beneath the slide?”

You chuckle, shaking your head. “A real boyfriend.”

“No way. You did not.”

“I did,” you insist, smiling a little. “We met at a party my freshman year of college. He was at NYU studying…oh, I always forgot, that was one of our jokes. It was either archaeology or anthropology. I actually thought I was going to marry him for a minute there.”

“Scandalous.” Aegon is gazing at you with his murky blue eyes, grinning, playful. “What happened?”

“He had a moral crisis about poor kids getting shipped off to Vietnam to be slaughtered while he was tucked safely away in his ivory tower. So he enlisted, and honestly it was shocking how quickly I started to forget about him. We exchanged a few letters, it didn’t last long, I think he was forgetting about me too. But he ended up getting killed in action in October, 1965. His old roommate told me.”

Now Aegon is thoughtful. His crooked grin dies. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s his parents I feel bad for. He was an only child. I heard his father drank himself to death.”

“You’ve been carrying a story like that around with you and you never used it? Not in an interview or an article, not at one of your asinine little tea parties?”

“I can’t,” you confess. “Aemond doesn’t want me to. He doesn’t like to be reminded about…you know. That there was someone else before.”

Aegon throws his head back and cackles, combing his fingers through his disheveled blonde hair. “As if Aemond was a virgin when you met him.”

But it’s not the same. It isn’t to Aemond, and it wouldn’t be to the rest of the world either. It is your eternal disgrace. It is something you will be expected to atone for until you’re in the grave. “Give me a joint.”

Aegon is amazed. “What?”

“I know you have some, you always do. I want one. Give it to me.”

“You smoke grass?”

“I used to. Then I gave it up. But I’m making an exception.”

He gawks at you for a while, then slips a joint out of one of the front pockets of his green army jacket. He places it between his lips, lights it with his little chrome Zippo, and inhales deep and slow. Then he offers it to you.

“I don’t want herpes.”

Aegon laughs. “I don’t have herpes. I swear.”

“Not yet, maybe. Give it time.”

“Are you gonna smoke or not?”

You take the joint and fill your lungs with earth, floral notes, a tinge of spice. It’s been years, but it comes rushing back in an instant as the high hits your bloodstream: calm quiet weightlessness, a sense of wellbeing that fills the honeycomb hollows of your bones. “I need to see the baby.”

Aegon stalls. “The doctors were really insistent that you stay here.”

“And all the sudden you care about rules.”

He considers this, drumming his palms on his thighs. His jeans are ripped; he’s biting his lower lip. Then abruptly, he stands. “Alright.” He grabs the wheelchair and pushes it up against the bed. “Let’s go.”

You take another drag and then discard the joint in your empty Dairy Queen cup. You throw off your blanket and try to touch your bare feet to the cool linoleum floor. It hurts, it feels like razor blades, but you keep going. Then you remember you still have one IV in the back of your left hand. “Wait, how am I going to…?”

“You’re in luck. I am well-versed in needles.” Aegon holds out a palm. Nervously, you give him your hand. He peels off the medical tape, takes a moment to examine the vein, then slides out the needle so smoothly you don’t feel it at all; it barely even bleeds. He balls up a Kleenex from the box on your nightstand and secures it to the wound with the same strip of tape. “You’re welcome.”

“Junkie.” You try to lower yourself into the wheelchair and a yelp rips from your throat.

“Oh, this is pathetic,” Aegon says, but not quite unkindly. “Here.” He leans down in front of you. Too desperate to be prideful, you link your arms around the back of his neck. Aegon’s shaggy blonde hair tickles your cheek; his hands skim gingerly to settle on your waist, steadying you without too much pressure. He helps you into the wheelchair, where you collapse gasping and sweating bullets.

“If you ever mention this again, I will guillotine you.”

He winks. “Relax, little Io. I never kiss and tell.”

“I’d assume you’re usually too plastered to remember the details.”

“Be nice. I could roll you down a staircase.” But he doesn’t; he rolls you into the hallway instead.

The lights in the corridor are dim for night, for dreams. You see a few nurses shuttling in and out of other rooms from a distance, but none seem to notice you and Aegon. He steers the wheelchair into the elevator and you ride it down two floors, then cross another hallway and pass through a set of doors. There must be a dozen incubators, half of them occupied. The nurse on duty—currently cradling a tiny infant in her arms, a girl judging by the pink hat, and feeding her from a bottle of formula—gapes at you.

“Ma’am? You aren’t supposed to be—”

“Shut up,” Aegon tells her, and the nurse doesn’t say another word.

Aegon pushes the wheelchair down the line of incubators until you reach the one with a name card labelled Targaryen, Aristos Apollo. And there he is: unmistakably fragile, impossibly small, blue veins like a roadmap beneath translucent skin, tangled in tubes and wires. In his sleeping face you don’t see Aemond or even yourself, but rather an inexplicable familiarity. You feel like you’ve met him before. You feel like you’ve known him all your life.

You press your hand to the clear, domed wall of the incubator; shadows in the shape of your outstretched fingers fall over Ari’s face. “He’s real.”

“Of course he is.” Aegon is watching you; you can see him on the periphery of your vision, a blur of blonde hair and high cheekbones. When you turn to him, he immediately looks away.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing.” But his voice is distracted, bewildered, like someone fumbling for a light switch in a dark room.

[poeticofthemargins]

Death by Hanging 1968

Nagisa Oshima

[bambi-kinos]

Thank you so much for replying to my ask! Sorry for the long reply back but I just love discussing these two.

Yes the rock and roll lifestyle and Paul’s infamous cheating before Linda has me very sceptical about him being 100% faithful to Linda too. That Jane Asher story is insane! The idea of Wings being a way to keep an eye on it is very interesting and not implausible at all. However in my opinion, Linda gives me the impression of someone with a strong sense of self, who would decide to walk instead of being disrespected in that way.

I also find it strange that decades and decades on, no one has said anything other than Paul being absolutely devoted to Linda. Not even anonymously, someone who doesn’t like Paul could seriously hurt his reputation spilling that information, not to mention the potential money, fame from it ect. This goes hand in hand with having a sexual relationship with John. I mean, surely they couldn’t have hidden it from everyone. Some people must of known, and not just an inner circle of loyal friends. Take tour managers or hotel staff for example.

So why do you think nothing has come out all these years later?

What comes to mind is the phone call Paul had with a biographer very soon after John’s death (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten his exact name) where he secretly recorded all he said and later published it. (Ouch!) Paul’s completely baffled at Yoko’s statement that no one had hurt John more than Paul had. (Said by John himself)

If they had a sexual, emotionally intense relationship, wouldn’t Paul have known that it was this John was referring too? He comes across as very smart, surely he could have put the dots together? His bewilderment seems completely sincere, not a pr trick. What’s your opinion?

I honestly go back and forth on this because I can see a relationship between those two being way more than just platonic. On and off hook ups in the 70s amongst the angst could also explain John’s sporadic comments about Paul throughout this decade. One day praising him, the other cursing him. Both parties not being brave enough (and a whole host of other factors) to not commit or acknowledge what was going on fully would have been very confusing to say the least.

But I still can’t get my head around the points I made earlier that counter this argument. Would love to hear your take on things!

EXTREMELY based ask anon, your mind is very sharp and I love it!

okayyyy there's a lot here so let's take it bit by bit

However in my opinion, Linda gives me the impression of someone with a strong sense of self, who would decide to walk instead of being disrespected in that way.

If we're anywhere close to the ballpark then Linda nearly called off the wedding when Paul told her about him and John. But then after that, she would chaperone Paul when he went to see John and hang out with him like when they went to LA. It's hard to say what Linda would or wouldn't stand for IMO because she saw the real Paul, all of him, and stuck that out for over twenty years.

I don't think that Linda would be okay with Paul cheating on her necessarily but I wouldn't write off her pretending not to see when he was sneaking out under her nose. It's not the same thing as having an open relationship but she and Paul had agreed to try for Mary sometime in 1968 before she knew about him and John and witnessed the messy break up. She doesn't strike me as the vindictive type so I wonder if knowing she was pregnant and wanting her kid to know who her father was played any role in her decision. And Linda purportedly didn't like the idea of getting married again according to a quote floating around here -- Paul had to convince her it was a good idea, not the other way around. There's reason to believe that Linda may have been happy just being a common law couple or whatever the UK's equivalent is and that Paul insisted on getting married.

I'm not saying definitively one way or another, Linda is much more opaque than Paul. But I'm hesitant to say that she wouldn't tolerate cheating or she wouldn't look the other way on it, because why else did she let Paul visit John so much otherwise? She knew what was going on.

Just something to think about I guess.

I also find it strange that decades and decades on, no one has said anything other than Paul being absolutely devoted to Linda. Not even anonymously, someone who doesn’t like Paul could seriously hurt his reputation spilling that information, not to mention the potential money, fame from it ect. This goes hand in hand with having a sexual relationship with John. I mean, surely they couldn’t have hidden it from everyone. Some people must of known, and not just an inner circle of loyal friends. Take tour managers or hotel staff for example.

So why do you think nothing has come out all these years later?

The biggest reason is that The Beatles worked very hard as a unit to cover up their infidelities. Paul was two paternity accusations lodged against him, one was the German girl and the other was Liverpool girl. Blood tests proved that both of these paternity claims were false (and Anita later admitted that she had a second boyfriend concurrent to Paul at the time, she just didn't think he was actually the dad until her son spilled the beans that Paul's paternity test proved false.) Despite these two paternity suits being lodged against Paul, he still paid the girls hush money through Brian. There's another story of a paternity claim being lodged against John that Brian paid to go away. The hookers they engaged with in the hotels were also paid for their time and to not launch any paternity suits against The Beatles. And so on.

The most encompassing answer is simply that Paul and the other Beatles paid off their babymamas AND that they have lots of legal representation on their side to make offers that can't be refused. I have long thought that the sudden muzzling of Heather Mills was the result of a super injunction, a feature of British law where a person with enough money and influence can forcibly shut someone up. A super injunction is, to put it mildly, a massive pain in the ass to obtain yet Paul is well positioned to have used one to make her shut her mouth and stop libeling him in the press. If Paul is ruthless enough to use something like that against his ex wife and mother to his child then he is absolutely willing to turn it on lays from the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the time I would bet he does not have to; we all have a price and for a sufficient amount of money, I wouldn't bother Paul with a paternity suit either.

Then there's just love and personal loyalty. The Beatles inspire incredible loyalty in their fans and their hook ups. Peggy Lipton went completely insane for Paul after meeting him only a handful of times including showing up at his hotel in a swimsuit hoping to be taken on Paul's Dirty Weekend with Linda. Now imagine that loyalty in a 19 year old girl who hooked up with Paul during 1966. Why would she say shit to anyone about having sex with Paul or getting pregnant by him? She would absolutely feel inspired to protect him. I think this would be just as true in 1976, the loyalty that the boys inspired in their fans is remarkable.

And think about it: if you had slept with one of the Beatles, would you out him to anyone? Or would you keep it a secret? Think carefully about it. By outing him, you are also outing yourself. Especially if Paul was married at the time. Do you want to admit you're complicit in Paul McCartney's adultery? That sounds like a very unpleasant prospect to me and besides, you want to keep a little piece of him to yourself.

Tour managers and hotel staff likely suspected something but it was truly a whirlwind for them too and I think a lot of them just second guess what they know. Homosexual activity was completely unthinkable and virtually unknown in the 60s and 70s. The only people who would truly know is the housekeeping staff. They would see the telltale signs of who slept where and what they were doing; those room manifests don't tell us shit because we can be sure that the boys swapped beds and rooms all the time depending on what they wanted. For John and Paul especially, I imagine there was a lot of wandering in the night and seeking each other out.

Take that story of Ringo disappearing during the 1964 tour to go on a joyride with a police man with Paul waking up and alerting Mal and Neil that he was gone. Why was Paul awake in the night? Why didn't he just go ask John and George where Ringo was first thing? Surely if your third band member goes missing your first instinct would be to ask the other two if they've seen him but instead Paul, for some reason, seems to have known immediately that Ringo was not with John and George in their hotel room and promptly tattled to the roadies. This is despite the room set up which was supposed to be Paul/Ringo and George/John. Hm!

Only housekeeping would know the truth of the situation and those men and women are dead or lost in the crowd. However even then we don't have reason to think they had proof: John and Paul being intimate would only leave behind the remains of...sex. And the truth is that The Beatles liked having sex with girls while they were in the same room together, including switching. What reason was there to think that it was just two guys boning instead of two guys and two girls?

What I'm driving at is that tour managers and hotel staff and housekeeping servicewomen had a lot of circumstantial evidence but unless they caught John and Paul in the act, then they had no reason to understand what they were seeing. Anyone who did catch them would have been paid off with the brown paper bag money Brian picked up from the bootleg merch vendors that sold fanmerch outside their concerts. And if that failed then yes legal action would have been launched through Capitol's legal arm because Capitol had plenty of superstars before The Beatles that had to be managed. They knew the drill, they weren't angels. Managing sex addicts and homosexual activity was business as usual for a suit even in 1964. They wouldn't want to scuttle that secret either because if Paul throws a fit and buys out his song catalogue then it's good night Felicia.

So in between those three things -- personal loyalty, bribes, and the threat of legal action especially since Paul has rich boy privileges -- no one is saying shit. Not any of the groupies, none of the women Paul was probably hanging out with while married, no one who ever caught him with John. It's just not worth it.

What comes to mind is the phone call Paul had with a biographer very soon after John’s death (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten his exact name) where he secretly recorded all he said and later published it. (Ouch!) Paul’s completely baffled at Yoko’s statement that no one had hurt John more than Paul had. (Said by John himself)

If they had a sexual, emotionally intense relationship, wouldn’t Paul have known that it was this John was referring too? He comes across as very smart, surely he could have put the dots together? His bewilderment seems completely sincere, not a pr trick. What’s your opinion?

Hunter Davies. The phone call with Hunter Davies is very interesting because he was someone Paul knew...but otoh he's still a reporter. Paul knows that. Hearing more about the Lennon McCartney feud soon after John's death was a hot story so could Paul reasonably assume that Hunter would write up the story.

I posit that Paul, in an act of true cynicism and spite towards Yoko, deliberately leaked some of his issues with John in order to spit in Yoko's eye. Especially with that pointed line about how he knows things about John that Yoko never knew...and that he won't publish them until after she is dead. You want to talk about ouch?!

I think that Paul is being genuine when he's confused about how he could have hurt John which makes me think @menlove is right and that India may have been a nothingburger or didn't feature Paul getting cold feet about John.

There are a couple of candidates for "John said no one hurt him like Paul did." We'll probably never know what they are but these are my personal options:

John asked for a relationship with Paul in India; Paul did something John interpreted as a rejection especially in light of Paul self destructing and John going on a multi-day bender when he got home.

Paul suddenly bringing Linda into the limo during the New York City trip to promote Apple. John seems genuinely baffled and confused about this with the "and next thing I know she's married to him" line. It was completely out of left field and John was caught by surprise.

Paul getting the drop on John with regards to announcing the Beatles break up. John expressed bitterness about this (because it was a ploy to force Paul to stay with him, Paul wasn't actually supposed to follow through with it) because it humiliated him publicly.

John was still hung up on the Family Way score and was destroyed by that and by Paul going "fuck it we'll do it live" and recording so much stuff solo for the White Album.

You may have spotted a problem with this already: there are multiple instances where Paul could have profoundly hurt John that would linger in John's memory. How can you possibly choose just one?

What if it was all of these and that eventually the hurt and abandonment mounted and John couldn't take it anymore?

Ultimately though I think Paul is/was confused and angry because the narrative was all about how Paul hurt John, and nothing about how John hurt Paul, another thing Paul brought up with Hunter during the interview. If John was pissy about Paul announcing the break up first, then why was no attention paid to John announcing "I want a divorce"? Why is it so important to sweep John being a dickhead under the rug? I think that's what had Paul so confused and pissed off, to the point that he couldn't really pinpoint one single thing that could have hurt John. 'Are you serious, I hurt him when he's the one who abandoned me multiple times through out our relationship and never apologized for any of it?' That would piss me off monumentally if I were Paul, I'd deny all knowledge of hurting John too since he refused to own up to hurting Paul in the first place.

I honestly go back and forth on this because I can see a relationship between those two being way more than just platonic. On and off hook ups in the 70s amongst the angst could also explain John’s sporadic comments about Paul throughout this decade. One day praising him, the other cursing him. Both parties not being brave enough (and a whole host of other factors) to not commit or acknowledge what was going on fully would have been very confusing to say the least.

That's pretty much it. Keeping in mind that Yoko kept John hooked on drugs to keep him from making up with Paul as well.

I think the confusion and frustration Paul expressed/expresses is a byproduct of the fog of war. He's too close to the subject matter, he can't figure it out because he can't see the big picture.

[mydaddywiki]

Robert Kraft

Physique: Average Build Height: 5’ 7" (1.7 m)

Robert Kenneth Kraft (born June 5, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group, a diversified holding company with assets in paper and packaging, sports and entertainment, real estate development, and a private equity portfolio. He is internationally recognized as the owner of the six-time Super Bowl winning NFL franchise, the New England Patriots. He also owns the New England Revolution of MLS, which he founded in 1996, and the esport-based Boston Uprising, which Kraft founded in 2017. As of July 2024, he has an estimated net worth of US$11.1 billion according to Forbes.

Born in Brookline, MA, after earning a bachelor’s degree (1963) at Columbia University and an M.B.A. (1965) at Harvard Business School, Kraft went to work at Rand-Whitney, a manufacturer of paper packaging that was controlled by his father-in-law, Jacob Hiatt. Kraft bought out half of Hiatt’s interest in 1968 and took complete control in 1972. In 1972 he founded International Forest Products to trade in wood, pulp, and paper products. He created the Kraft Group in 1998 as a holding company for Rand-Whitney, International Forest Products, and his family’s other interests, most notably in the field of sports.

Kraft’s first sports-related venture was the Boston Lobsters, a team in Billie Jean King’s World Team Tennis (WTT) league. He acquired the New England Patriots in January 1994, paying $172 million, the highest price for an NFL team up to that time. In 2000 Kraft hired Bill Belichick as head coach, and the move helped transform the Patriots into one of the NFL’s dominant teams, winning six Super Bowls (2002, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2017, and 2019). In 1996 Kraft and his family also founded the New England Revolution, which played in the Major League Soccer league.

Lets see… twice married, Kraft married Myra Nathalie Hiatt in 1963 and together the couple had four sons: Jonathan A. Kraft, Daniel A. Kraft, Joshua M. Kraft, and David H. Kraft. She died on July 20, 2011, of ovarian cancer, at the age of 68. In June 2012, Kraft began dating actress Ricki Noel Lander, who was 38 years his junior, later breaking up in 2018. In 2019, Kraft was charged with two counts of soliciting prostitution, but the charges were dropped the following year. In 2022, Kraft married his partner, Dana Blumberg.

Kraft proves two theories of mine. First: He as more than two children, so my loves to fuck theory applies. Second: If a man who was married for a long time (over 45 years) and loses his wife by divorce or in this case, death. Would go CRAZY for some new strange. He’s fucking a twenty something model/wanna be actress, getting blow jobs at cheap massage parlors and hanging around rappers. Strippers/groupies anyone. And included in all that, experimenting in man on man sex. Allegedly. Allegedly. But you can’t tell me he hasn’t had his dick sucked by a man.

Career Highlights and Awards 6× Super Bowl champion (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIX, LI, LIII) George Halas Award (2012) Theodore Roosevelt Award (2006) U.S. Open Cup (2007)

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

The Longest Night: Final Part

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Summary: Derek is hell-bent on finding the Prince of Darkness before he can kill the little girl he stole. Derek is lashing out at everyone in anger, Ellie is running out of time, and you're just trying your best to help the situation. The Prince of Darkness uses shadows to hide the monster that he is, and you don't realize just how close the monsters you know are to you.

Season Six Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

Spencer walks out of the RV.

"Hey, guys. The murders we found in Orange County in 1985 might not have been his first. I'll call Garcia about it."

Just as Spencer steps off to the side, JJ calls Hotch's phone.

"Hotchner."

"We have access to the local emergency alert system. The secretary personally set it up herself. It's in the city command center."

"Good. Get an LAPD unit to take you over there, get the system up and running, and I need you to start talking to him immediately."

"Excuse me?"

"It's gonna take me too long to get there from here. I need you to talk to him, JJ. I'll give you some strategies. The unsub may still be in this area, and if he surfaces, we need to be close."

"I'm not a hostage negotiator."

"I'm sorry. You are today."

"You need to be more sympathetic. Give me the phone," you say to Hotch, which he does. "JJ, listen to me. You can do this. I believe in you. Don't doubt yourself because you are going to do great. This situation sucks but you're the best person to do this."

"No, you are," she chuckles.

"No, I'm not. You're going to do great."

You hang up on JJ and hand Hotch his phone before going over to Spencer who is still on the phone with Penelope.

"How's my main man doing?"

"On the completely safe assumption that you're not talking about me, let's just say I wouldn't want to be this unsub when Morgan finally gets his hands on him."

"That bad, huh?"

"Has he ever yelled at you before?"

"Touche," she laughs. "How can I be of service?"

"How far back can you go with your records, Garcia?"

"How far back are you talking?"

"A murder investigation from 1968."

"Give me a second." As she is typing, he puts her on speakerphone so everyone can hear. "Okay, let me preface this by saying that a forty-year-old murder in a suburb of Los Angeles is an absurdly impossible request. Having said that, yours truly happens to know that the Pollack Library at Cal State--"

"Garcia," Hotch cuts her off.

"Yes, sorry, sir. Anyway, this murder was quite a scandal. Nora Flynn was a prostitute and a drug addict living in a desert community just outside of Los Angeles. It appears rough bikers were her stock in trade, and one fateful day, she and her client were murdered by her thirteen-year-old son Billy. Both were shot to death. The customer, ironically named John, was able to tell the police before he died that Billy made him beg for his life and then shot him anyway."

"That's him," Derek says.

"He was convicted but was a juvenile. In 1973, he was eighteen when he was released and was never heard from again."

"Oh, he was heard from," Emily scoffs.

"He never released a statement as to why he killed them, although it does appear his childhood was horrific. I'm sending you a picture of him on the day he was released to your PDAS."

"Make sure you send the files to JJ."

"Of course, my liege. Garcia bids you ad--"

"Penelope, wait a minute."

Derek takes the phone off speakerphone to talk to her privately, and you can safely assume it's to make up with her. Hotch's phone rings and he answers JJ's call. She must be at the command center.

"Okay, I'm here, Hotch."

"JJ, listen. The most important thing is that you build rapport with him."

"Rapport. Okay."

"I'm asking you to do one of the hardest things that anybody in our position ever has to do. I need you to empathize with him. Sympathize. Don't judge the things he's done. Garcia's sending you a file on him and his childhood. Look it over. It'll help. If he hears that you care about him, that's how you're gonna get him to care about Ellie. He has to understand that he's putting her through the same pain he went through as a child."

She's right, you're the best person for this particular job but you're not there right now.

"Uh, okay."

"It has to be his decision because power is too important to him."

"Power? Okay."

"You're going to be fine. Just talk to him. Go over the file and start when you're ready."

"Wait, you're going to be on the line, right?"

"I'll be listening."

"Give me the phone again." Hotch hands the phone to you. "JJ, listen to me. You're a mom. You're a good mom, great even. I know this is scary but what would you do if Henry was taken? How would you talk to someone whose mom didn't take care of him? Use that side of yourself and I promise you, he'll listen."

"Okay."

Hotch turns the radio on and everyone stays still as they wait for JJ to start. She mentally prepares herself before speaking into the radio hoping that he is near one and listening.

"Billy Flynn? Mr. Flynn, I--I don't know for sure that you can hear me, but my name is Jennifer Jareau. I work for the FBI as a communications liaison for the behavioral, uh... Okay. Mr. Flynn, I--I--I want to talk to you about letting Ellie Spicer go. I mean, I want to ask you to... Uh, see, I'm not a hostage negotiator. I've never done anything like this at all ever, but, um, sometimes circumstances, it's..." She's freaking out but you know she can do this. "Look, you can tell I'm not a hostage negotiator, but I am a mother. I know what your mother did to you when you were little. What she was, what she made you watch, what she let men do to you, and it makes me so... It's just not fair, and no one--no one--can make that better. I wish I could. I do.

"But... If I--if I could somehow go back there and, you know, make what was happening to you stop... I wish I could just... pick you up and just tell you that it'll all be okay. That's what moms are supposed to do. They're not supposed to be the cause of your pain, they're supposed to make it go away. They're supposed to hold you and tell you everything is gonna be alright. They're supposed to tell you that thunder are angels bowling and that it's okay to be afraid of the dark and that it's not silly to think there might be monsters in your closet and that it's okay that if you want to climb in bed with them just this once because it's scary in the room all alone.

"They're supposed to say it's okay to be afraid, and not be the thing you're afraid of. Most importantly, they're supposed to love you no matter what. What happened to you isn't fair, it's not right, but um... I'm supposed to empathize with you. Sympathize. Understand, but I can't. That--that would be a lie.

"The truth is, I don't understand what you've done. I don't sympathize with you killing people all these years, and I especially don't understand you taking Ellie. What I can do is tell you what a mother should tell you, and that is you can't take away your pain by hurting someone else. That doesn't make all the nights you went to bed scared and alone any better if you scare someone else the way you're scaring Ellie.

"What happened to you isn't fair, but what you're doing to her isn't fair either. If anyone should understand what that feels like, it's you. You have the power. You can do what you want to do. For once, you can choose to use that power to do for Ellie what should have been done for you. You can choose to let her go. You can choose to teach her that, yes, there are monsters, and it's okay to be afraid of them. But it's not okay to let them win, and it's not okay to be one."

Damn, she's good. You often think what your life would be like if you let the man that raped you control your life. Instead, you decided to become a better person than him and help those who can't help themselves. You wish you could have done the same for Hannah. You respect her space and wish you were more in contact with her, but you know she's happy with her family in New Jersey.

Emily's phone rings and she answers it while stepping off to the side.

"Agent Prentiss. ... Hello, Doctor. ... Yes, sir. ... Thank you." She looks at Derek with a solemn look. "Both of Kristin's lungs collapsed. She died a few minutes ago."

"Ellie's got no one now."

A police officer calls Adam regarding Ellie, and he looks at Derek with hopeful eyes.

"He let her go. He got out of the car and he just let her go. She's in a house about six blocks from here."

"Where is he now?"

"He's in another house, up the street."

"JJ. I don't know if you know. He let her go. You did it," Hotch says over the phone.

Ellie is with several officers when you arrive, and the entire SWAT team is en route. One of the officers sees Adam and immediately walks up to him.

"We have SWAT on the way, Kurz, and an HPT team."

"Yeah, but they'll be a while. We had a phone sent in with a direct line to this one." The phone rings and Adam immediately answers it. "This is Detective Kurzbard, LAPD." He hands the phone to Derek. "He wants to talk to you."

"What?" Derek listens to what Billy says before hanging up. "He wants me to come in."

"Morgan."

"I know this guy, Hotch. He didn't kill me before, he's not gonna kill me this time."

"No."

"I believe in my original profile. He will not hurt me unless I show him fear."

"Listen—"

"When you needed us, we were there for you. This one is mine."

"You sure?"

"As I've ever been."

Hotch allows him to go into the house alone while everyone else stays outside. You're not sure what is said inside or how Derek handled the situation, but you do know one thing. Only Derek came out. It doesn't matter if Derek was justified or not. No one will question it otherwise.

******

Frank wanted to be closer to you to keep a close eye on you despite his wife's protests. She's at home watching the kids and desperately needs him back with her. She understands his need to be near you, but she doesn't understand his obsession with you. You had such potential when you were younger, but he let you go. He let you move out and start a life of your own, and that was his first mistake.

Frank won't let this go to waste. He was shocked to hear you had gotten out of prison which means what he did didn't work. No matter. He's not done with you just yet.

"Baby, I wish you would just come home," Clarissa says over the phone.

"I can't and you know it."

"I need help with the kids we already have. She won't rat us out because she has nothing to suspect. She would have done it already."

"Let me worry about that. I'll call you later. Don't fuck this up, Clarissa. I mean it."

Frank grabs his binoculars after hanging up with his wife and points it at the building across the street from the apartment he rented for in cash. It's a month-by-month so he can use it for however long he wants. He waits five minutes before smiling widely at what he sees.

You walk to the open window and close it but the curtains are still open. You're wearing only a thin t-shirt, unaware that he's right across the street watching you. Spencer comes up behind you and pulls you into him which makes your nipples harden under the t-shirt. He kisses your neck and you turn in his arms to kiss his lips. Spencer picks you up and you wrap your legs around his waist, and Frank pictures the feeling of your legs wrapped around his waist.

He smirks knowing it's going to be so much fun to break you.

"A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another, the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one other it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden." – The Buddha

x

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[thepratandtheidiot]

🍿 movie knights 2025 official list ⚔️

[town crier voice] HEAR YE, HEAR YE!

so the deal was originally 52 films, but y'all are great at suggestions and i have apparently missed A LOT of cinema over the years!! hence we're listing an even (and extremely optimistic) 100 titles under the cut, in no apparent order.

what: our noble quest, to watch at least one film every week

when: every friday, i'll post the upcoming week's film(s) and a ✨ lazy review ✨ of the previous week! will also update this post with links once watched

who: me (lars), sometimes theo, anyone else who wants to yap about movies or schedule a watch-along!

and so, without further ado...

in 2025, we're watching:

In Bruges (2008) Wuthering Heights (2011) Gladiator (2000) * The Great Muppet Caper (1981) Silence of the Lambs (1991) The Godfather (1972) Brokeback Mountain (2005) Parasite (2019) Citizen Kane (1941) Reservoir Dogs (1992) There Will Be Blood (2007) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) The Dictator (1940) Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) Blazing Saddles (1974) Trainspotting (1996) The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) * Beetlejuice (1988) * Pulp Fiction (1994) Django Unchained (2012) American Psycho (2000) Blackklansman (2018) The Italian Job (1969) ✅ Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) Train to Busan (2016) Challengers (2024) The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920) The Passenger (2023) The Pelican Brief (1993) * Fire Island (2022) * Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) * A Man For All Seasons (1966) * That Funny Feeling (1965) * Cloud Atlas (2012) * Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017) * Impetigore (2019) * Rope (1948) * Ladyhawke (1985) The Big Sleep (1946) Bringing Up Baby (1938) The Outrun (2024) Moonlight (2016) The Dark Crystal (1982) * My Own Private Idaho (1991) Annihilation (2018) * Pride (2014) Ready or Not (2019) Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) * Pather Panchali (1955) Emma (2018) Mona Lisa Smile (2003) * I Saw the TV Glow (2024) The Thin Man (1934) The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) Velvet Goldmine (1998) * Labyrinth (1986) * Victor/Victoria (1982) * Conclave (2024) Ravenous (1999) The Thing (1982) Planet of the Apes (1968) Topper (1937) Psycho (1960) The Lion in Winter (1968) Some Like It Hot (1959) Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) Monkey Man (2024) The Lighthouse (2019) * Nosferatu (2024) * ✅ Prey (2022) Seven Samurai (1954) * Death on the Nile (1978) The Shining (1980) Maurice (1987) Space Sweepers (2021) Wings (1927) Flesh and the Devil (1926) Sherlock Jr. (1924) Goodfellas (1990) And Then We Danced (2019) Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) * Interstellar (2014) * 3:10 to Yuma (2007) Rebecca (1940) I’m No Angel (1933) The Court Jester (1955) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) Bill (2015) Kes (1969) My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) * The Wedding Banquet (1993) At the Circus (1939) The Old Dark House (1932) The Others (2001) Lisa Frankenstein (2024) The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) * The Martian (2015) * Amsterdam (2022) * God's Own Country (2017)

[onetwofeb]

Nagisa Oshima, Death by Hanging (1968)

[damthosefandoms]

Umm will you please feed us (ME) more content about how Soda changed after the war because I’m obsessed with the shift in his personality and how drastic it would be for the rest of the gang and how not only is it soda having to cope with his new self but everyone else too….

Like the fics of him being in Vietnam are usually a little 🤨😬 but the character exploration of him post homecoming…. I eat that shit up (but I think mainly because I love angst and specifically Sodapop angst)

man I can’t even lie to you. 90% of it was I listened to (the Big Time Rush cover of) Revolution by the Beatles and went “post-Vietnam soda would’ve loved this song.” so do with that what you will.

actually i will! the Beatles are notorious for being a Soc Thing in the book, it’s stated that the Greasers like Elvis but the Socs like the Beatles, and I’ve mentioned this before probably in some tags somewhere but I think Soda’s guilty pleasure is that he doesn’t actually like Elvis, he likes the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Personally, my parents grew up in the 60s/70s so my music taste is whatever they played in the car for me growing up and this is entirely me projecting but it feels in-character to me for Soda to love all kinds of music, so anyway. One day when he’s home he’s driving around with some of the gang and Revolution comes on and they’re booing it telling him to change the station bc it’s a Beatles song but he just very passive-aggressively turns the radio volume up because that song is literally a fuck you to the world for the Vietnam War. Soda likes the Beatles now. Something is clearly wrong in the world. But they can’t tell him to turn it off now bc he’s belting the lyrics because it’s like cathartic for him. They cut his hair short when he joined the army. They cut his hair short and as a greaser that’s all he had, and now this song is all he has, too.

the rest is under a read more bc this may get long lol.

Soda would’ve turned eighteen a year after the plot (so 1966 in the book/movie timeline, 1968 in the musical timeline and the musical is the one I go by personally), and in my head it’s all pretty fast; he’s drafted and sent away as soon as he turns eighteen. His birthday’s in October and he’s gone before Christmas. He doesn’t come back until maybe the next Christmas, maybe right after—and I go back and forth on this depending how I wanna play it but I think for the sake of the rest of the gang still seeing the greaser/soc thing as something that matters, he’s just over nineteen when he gets back, and that matters bc they’re all still pretty young.

And Ponyboy’s probably still home and in high school and definitely is still in Darry’s care (he’s 16 now). and anyway at some point Pony & Soda are walking home and get jumped bc people are still mad about Bob’s death, and Pony steps in front of Soda bc Soda’s still injured from whatever causes his medical discharge from the army (I’ll get around to that) but when the socs pull a knife Soda just watches them tiredly, and he’s like “ain’t y’all realized there’s worse shit in the world than what side of town ya live on?” and that’s when they clock his knee brace and the bags under his eyes, the buzzcut hair that looks so silly on an east-sider walking around town in a too-big flannel and blue jeans, his hair’s shorter than Pony’s was after his trip to Johnny’s barber shop. Soda never ever let anyone cut his hair. He was so proud of it.

But now he’s there and they see the dogtags hanging around his neck, not the old rusty ones he wore in school but shiny new ones with his name and blood type and religion (yes, that used to be on dogtags, idk if it still is or was in Vietnam but I know it was during the Korean War so they’d know what kind of last rites or whatever it’s called to do for you if you died) (I also grew up on reruns of M*A*S*H can you tell. Soda would’ve loved that show btw) branded on there and they hesitate and Pony grips Soda’s arm tight and tells the socs to scram and they do, cause once upon a time soda was known around Tulsa for never having lost a fight and now he’s got military training and a shit ton of trauma and a bad knee.

and yes i think he went home after a year bc he got shot in the knee! I think he had a bad knee anyway (from the rodeo injury mentioned in the book) but now it’s kind of. he’s either on crutches for the rest of his life or once he recovers as best he can it depends on the day if he needs crutches or a cane or what. in an au where Johnny and Dally live, Soda post-war & Johnny bond over their legs not working like they used to anymore!!!!!!

they also bond over knowing what it’s like to be so scared you end somebody’s life, but like, that is something I haven’t thought too much about yet and don’t have the energy to put brainpower into tonight lol but I know Johnny feels bad about relating to him for a bit about it bc Soda was “protecting his country” and Johnny just stabbed Bob to save Ponyboy and thinks it’s not the same. But Soda’s trying to explain to Johnny that the “protecting his country” thing is a load of crap and they never should’ve been in Vietnam in the first place.

I don’t think any of the gang would be pro-war at all, but it’s the sixties so we’re talking blind patriotism bc they just simply Do Not Pay Attention To Politics Outside Tulsa Very Often (they’d all be liberal in today’s society tho) but I think Soda is so radicalized into the anti-war movement by the time he comes home bc of what he experienced they’re all like “ooooookay slow it down and explain one more time.”

[dead-lights]

deadcanons: the vatores (earlyish stuff)

I've been slowly typing up headcanons lately while I'm waiting on renders - I'll put them up as I finish them! These are my ramblings about what I think the vatores' early vampire years were like, starting a bit before Lilith turned and ending around when Caleb was a prime vampire. This is pretty long.

Caleb, Lily, and Lilith were born in Veronaville in the late 1930s/early 1940s, meaning they came of age as occults in the 1960s.

Lilith met Vlad shortly after her parents, along with Lily’s, died in a horrific car accident back in the good ol’ days before cars were required to have seat belts (which btw, in the US wasn't until 1968). He preyed on her grief and her fear of death and human weakness. At the time, Lily was lost in her own grief and Caleb was jealous of the attention Lilith was getting from Vlad.

While Vlad was absolutely manipulating Lilith, she did ask to be turned.

Caleb was super naive when Lilith first turned. He thought he’d be able to spend time with his sister as usual and didn’t recognize the danger in being the lone mortal barhopping with a bunch of unruly vampires. Lilith used to hang out with the Rebellious Vampires amongst others, soooooo...

Lilith told her new vampire friends that Caleb was off-limits. No feeding, no turning.

Caleb had fairly recently finished culinary school, and was working as a sous chef in an Italian restaurant. He was so stoked.

Though Lilith respected the fact that becoming a vampire would destroy Caleb’s life - you can be a vampire, you can be an Italian chef, but you definitely cannot be both - she quickly realized that she didn’t want to do the occult thing or live the immortal life without the people she loved. Shortly before Caleb was turned, he and Lilith talked it out and decided that he should become a spellcaster, with the hope that he could cure Lily with magic and make her a spellcaster too, and then they could all be immortal together. Miss Hell got to him before he could figure out where the portal was, and their relationship with Lily only got worse from there.

Miss Hell was turned a few years before Lilith was, but they became minor vampires at around the same time. They were rivals for Vlad’s approval, and he had fun playing them off each other. Very much a "Daddy loves ME best!!!" kinda dynamic.

Miss Hell is kind of a shitty vampire - like I get big Team Rocket vibes off of her. Caleb surpassed her within a few decades.

After some petty disagreement between Lilith and Miss Hell, Vlad suggested that turning Caleb would be a hilarious prank and a great way to get back at Lilith. Vlad wanted Caleb turned because it would give him an extra level of control over Lilith, but he didn’t want to do it himself because he thought (correctly) that Lilith would never forgive him, and might even leave the coven.

Caleb felt comfortable around his sister’s new vampire friends because he didn’t think any of them would go against Lilith’s order not to harm him. He didn’t realize that Miss Hell was more of a frenemy than a friend, so one night when she asked him if he’d like to find somewhere a little more private, he really didn’t think it’d be his blood getting sucked.

Lilith was not amused by Miss Hell’s “hilarious prank.” After she found Caleb and got him safely home, she stormed over to Vlad’s mansion and tried to beat Miss Hell to death with her bare hands in front of the entire coven. At this point, Lilith had started to develop supernatural strength, and she would’ve ripped Miss Hell’s shriveled heart right out of her chest if Vlad hadn’t called her off. Vlad was very impressed by Lilith’s ferocity. She gained his favor, but he lost her loyalty. Miss Hell wound up sidelined.

Caleb has always served as Lilith’s moral compass. She is aware that she is selfish and lacks empathy - she has trouble truly caring about anyone except Caleb and Lily - and she doesn’t like that about herself. She deeply loved and respected her parents and feels bad that she struggles to live by the values they taught her. Caleb, on the other hand, has their father’s compassion and patience (as well as his ambitious and materialistic traits), and she generally looks to him as the authority on what their parents would’ve wanted. After Caleb turned, he got fully caught up in the chaos and debauchery, turning his back on the person he was. Without Caleb to moderate her worst impulses, she fully embraced her darker side.

Caleb’s journey back to the light started when he developed his guilty drinker weakness as a minor vampire. I don’t see this as just switching on like it does in-game, but rather developing over time. He had trouble figuring out what was happening to him for a long time, and it’s not like Vlad had any advice for him beyond “stop being a goddamn baby.”

Caleb met Inna at a gala the Bloodvein coven was hosting when he was a minor vampire. Bloodvein, her owner at the time, had her mesmerized and was more or less showing her off like a trophy or pet (like this promotional render). Something about that made Caleb deeply uncomfortable, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.

At that point, Caleb was struggling to maintain his place in the coven - Vlad was increasingly disappointed in him and Caleb badly wanted to win back his approval, so he had the idea to pull a hilarious prank against Bloodvein for some perceived slight. He thought it would make him look cool in front of Vlad. At first he thought about drinking from Inna - feeding on another vampire’s thrall is an enormous mark of disrespect - but something about that made him feel deeply uncomfortable, so he decided to turn her instead, essentially doing to her what Miss Hell did to him. He still feels deeply conflicted about the whole thing - he legitimately was not trying to help her and he didn’t ask permission, and yet it ended up being the best thing that could’ve happened to her. They've remained friends, though he feels incredibly guilty when he's around her.

Lilith started coming back to herself when she realized just how miserable Caleb was. If feeding on humans made Caleb feel that bad, they must be doing something horrific, even if it didn’t feel that way to her. She started making plans to get her and Caleb out of the coven.

[yxsu]

Death by Hanging・絞死刑

Dir. by Oshima Nagisa, 1968

[toiich]

Death by Hanging (1968), dir. Nagisa Ōshima

[victusinveritas]

Death by Hanging (1968), dir. Nagisa Ōshima

[kamryn1963]

Summary: In Chicago from 1968 to 1969, a man by the name of Caleb Grant had been kidnapping children between the ages of 4-8, beating and raping these children before burying them alive in barrels until they suffocated and died.

Richard Voight was one of the cops working this case.

TW: Child death, mentions of rape and torture

Alvin walked through the hallways of the school, his backpack hanging off one arm and his stuffed dinosaur, Tank, tucked under the other. He got outside the school, looking around and frowning when he didn’t see Dee anywhere. 

Her dad, Mr. Platt, was supposed to drop him off as Mr. Voight had said he couldn’t walk home alone anymore. Alvin looked around for a few more moments seeing if he could find Trudy or even Henry anywhere. 

When he couldn’t, Alvin just clutched Tank tighter and started walking. He knew how to get home very well and hoped he wouldn’t get in trouble for walking. 

As he walked, Alvin never noticed the man who was following him from a distance. 

–

Richard Voight headed into his district quickly and up to the bullpen where everybody was gathered around a desk. He knew what that meant, they all did. Another kid had been taken. 

In Chicago from 1968 to 1969, a man by the name of Caleb Grant had been kidnapping children between the ages of 4-8, beating and raping these children before burying them alive in barrels until they suffocated and died. So far he had killed ten children, the cops being a little too late every time. 

It had made a lot of them on edge, having children that fit the ages of the victims. Including Richard who’s own son was seven, his close friends being six and eight. It made Richard hug Henry a little tighter every night. 

It was only in the last few weeks they had got an identity on his monster. They had people working this case at all hours of the day and night but had been unable to catch him yet. So the nearby schools had made sure every child was being either bused home or picked up so nobody was left walking alone. Parks had been closed, after school activities were postponed. 

But Grant had figured this out too and in the last week alone had killed two children, four year old twins Ella and Marcus. 

Richard could only hope they would catch this sick psychopath before more families were forced to bury their babies. 

“Do we have a name for the child?” Richard asked as he set his stuff down and headed over to the desk where everybody was gathered. 

One of the other cops nodded, handing him a picture of a child. “Six year old Alvin Olinsky was taken forty minutes ago. Detectives found his backpack about five minutes from his family's home.”

Richard didn’t hear anything else that the cop said. 

–

Richard had his sirens on and knew he broke more than one speeding law, as he rushed to Robert Platt’s house. He knew he should be helping the others locate where Grant was holding Alvin, but Richard needed to know why the hell Alvin was even left walking alone in the first place. 

Richard’s wife Marie was able to pick Henry up and take him home. Same with Robert able to pick up Trudy. Because the Olinsky’s house was on the way to the Platt’s, Richard had asked Robert to just drop Alvin off too as he knew Alvin’s parents could care less. 

Robert had grumbled about it at first, but until now had taken Alvin home everyday. Richard needed to know what had gone wrong. 

Richard banged on the Platt’s door, barging in as soon as Robert opened the door and before he could even manage to say something, Richard grabbed him by the collar and slammed him hard into the wall. 

Richard made sure Trudy wasn’t around before he reeled back enough so that he could slam Robert into the wall a second time. He had a feeling he knew what had happened, he wasn’t stupid he’d heard Robert’s comments and complaints that he had to take five minutes out of his day to make sure a little boy was safe. 

“Why didn’t you bring Alvin home today?” Richard questioned once Robert had seemingly got his bearings back. 

“I said if he wasn’t out ready at three I wasn’t taking him home. I have other things to do, Voight.” Robert responded between gasps of breath. 

Richard glared, slamming him into the wall again and moving closer so they were nose to nose. “All I asked you to do was make sure a six year old boy got home because his own parents don’t care. He’s a fucking child. It’s likely the teacher held him or the class back and that’s why he was late today. That isn’t Alvin’s fault.” Richard kept his voice low just in case Trudy came down. 

Robert opened his mouth but didn’t have a chance to say anything before Richard slapped him and then suddenly let go of him, letting him crumble to the ground in a pathetic heap. 

“Alvin’s gone. If he’s dead that’s on you, Robert.” Richard whispered harshly, before standing and leaving. 

How could so many people fail a little boy?

–

Alvin whimpered as he woke up, finding himself in what looked to be a small room. He was stuck to the chair, unable to move. Alvin struggled, tears streaming down his face as he looked around trying to figure out what happened. 

“Mommy? Daddy?” Alvin called out as his tears turned into soft sobs. He was cold, alone and his head hurt. Alvin reached a hand up to touch it, crying more when he saw blood on his hands. 

Suddenly a door opened and a man entered the room. Alvin didn’t know him but he was holding a baseball bat and had a scary look on his face. Alvin sobbed again as he looked around for Tank. His dinosaur always made him feel better. 

“Where’s my mommy and daddy?” Alvin cried as the man came closer to him. The man stared at him before suddenly slapping him hard across the face, hard enough Alvin’s nose started bleeding. 

“They're not here.” The man said back, a sick smile on his face as he kneeled down and reached out to pull Alvin’s pants down. 

Not too far away there was a couple walking their dog. When they heard the sound of blood curdling screams they exchanged a look and quickly walked away. 

– 

The CPD worked all night and the next morning trying to track Alvin Olinsky down before it was too late. They had brought his parents in, and part of Richard was surprised when they showed genuine concern and worry for their son. 

Richard observed as his partner Sam tried to give them some comfort and reassurance that there were dozens of cops searching for their son. Richard wished the words could comfort any of them. 

Richard hadn’t got home until almost two that morning and had spent a half hour in Henry’s room just watching as his son slept. Henry had known Alvin and Trudy for almost three years at this point and Richard couldn’t help but care for them too. They were sweet kids and Henry loved them. 

How did you even explain all this to a seven year old?

All night Richard could only think about how scared and alone Alvin was. 

Richard had explained what happened to Marie before heading back to work. He didn’t know if he was supposed to, and while it was selfish, Richard couldn’t handle this burden alone. And his wife deserved to know, she loved Alvin as much as he did. 

After Alvin’s parents had left, Richard headed back to his desk to once again go over any possible area that Caleb Grant could be holding Alvin, anywhere he had held his previous victims, anywhere Grant could bury a barrel. 

Unfortunately as they had been zeroing on Grant and getting closer to catching him, he’d become more paranoid and careful never holding more than one victim in a given location and erasing all previous traces. 

Richard sighed as he went through yet another file, only looking up when Sam came running back into the bullpen. “We have a location.” Sam stated, as he handed Richard a piece of paper. 

–

Soon Richard and Sam found themselves searching through what was abandoned land surrounded by hills and a lone shed that had already been ransacked by other cops, and all that was found inside was a chair, rope and a used condom as well as Alvin’s blood was on the chair and walls. 

It made Richard sick but he knew he couldn’t break yet, they were in the right spot and he could only hope they would be able to find Alvin before it was too late. The cops had been searching for a half hour when Richard nearly tripped over something and looked down. It was covered in sand, dirt and blood but it was still clear. Especially as Richard had been the one who bought it for Alvin’s fourth birthday. 

With shaking hands Richard reached down and picked up Tank the dinosaur. “He’s somewhere over here!” Richard shouted as he fell to his knees and started digging through the dirt and sand with his hands, trying to find anything. 

It only took a few moments before they had the dogs and several shovels and were able to locate the barrel that Grant had put Alvin in. Richard was the one who removed the lid, pulling out Alvin’s limp body. The boy’s clothes were dirty and bloody and his pants were missing like all Grant’s victims. 

Richard reached a hand to Alvin’s neck feeling around helplessly for a pulse even if he knew it was useless. Richard tried CPR, tears streaming down his face as he looked at Alvin’s young face seeing the dried tears tracks on his face and the scratch marks on the inside of the barrel. 

“Richard. Richard, he’s gone.” Sam said quietly as he set a hand on Richard’s shoulder. 

Richard slowly moved his hands off Alvin’s chest, cradling the young boy instead. He looked at Alvin’s face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out Tank, tucking that under Alvin’s arm where it belonged. Moving Alvin’s arm caused Richard to catch sight of the friendship bracelet Alvin, Henry and Trudy had made together that spelt H.A.T out on it. He cried harder as he gently rocked Alvin back and forth.

Richard knew soon he would have to tell another set of parents, specifically ones he already knew, that their child was dead. 

A month later they finally tracked down Caleb Grant and were able to save the little girl he’d take a few hours prior. The shooting that came out of that rescue and arrest, killed both Grant and Richard Voight.