#I might still be a little delirious with fever. but you can’t prove anything

[cuteniarose]

Making the world a better place 😌

[roppiepop]

Hi

#9 “Fine, you can use me as a pillow.”- platonic relationship with Damian and Tim please

Hi!!!!! Thank you for coming in!! I didn’t edit this too much but i hope you enjoy!!

Dami + Tim for no. 9

Back when Tim was starting out and Young Justice was still an active thorn in the universe’s side, he contracted a rare alien fever from a random specimen Slobo somehow brought onto the ship.

Well, technically, everyone else got bitten too- but it just so happened that being the ‘squishy human’ of the group does wonders in catching everything with triple potency.

So for the next week or so Tim, as Robin- or in his most vulnerable moments, as Alvin, tried to conduct himself with as much composure as an ill 14-year-old that may or may not have had a bone-deteriorating disease could.

Which meant a lot of channeling one’s inner Batman- stubbornly ignoring symptoms, outright denying anything was wrong, and steadily snapping at anyone who insinuated that he should take a break in any way.

At one point Kon got so mad he was being unreasonable the Kryptonian tried to knock him out cold with repeated fists.

It was one of the most miserable missions in Tim’s life and remembering it now- almost a decade in- he hopes wherever Slobo is, he chokes.

But that’s neither here nor there.

His teenage encounter with designer diseases (extraterrestrial ones, not like, the clench. Was that in the same year? Jesus.) has little bearings towards his situation now.

With the exception of Damian’s stellar theatric reenactment of Teenage Robin in Stage II Thyrgozieitis, that is.

“Did you go to space anytime this month?”

A kick aims to his side. It misses him by a solid 3 inches. “That is the fourth time you’ve asked, Timothy. The answer has not changed.”

Not even laced with a single insult. Tim fears the kid might actually be dying.

Even now he can hear the labor in Damian’s breath, and the tension in the lines of his body that keeps him from shaking. Tim would eat his left boot if a thermal reading now puts him at less than 100 F.

“Stop looking at me, Drake.”

And yikes, back to last name basis.

He turns his head away but still monitors the teen from the corner of his eye. Damian of course, probably notices this (or doesn’t, who can tell how delirious he actually is) but he can’t say anything when it was Tim that let him stay on the op in the first place.

Not that he thinks Damian is any more useful than a vegetable right now though. In fact everyone’s been quite aware that the kid is in no shape to do anything besides basic eating motions.

Tim pushed back from Bruce trying to bench him though. Which understandably got protests from Dick and less understandably from Jason, but he stood firm.

Damian’s been in a weird teenage rebellion phase- one which maybe only really Dick could relate to, since Jason and Tim’s transitional periods was a death and a grief-stricken Fleabag arc- he’s shot up like an internet cryptid and with the change strayed farther and farther from Bruce’s sphere.

The kid’s trying to prove himself. And Tim guesses one of the ways dumb 16-year-olds do that is pushing beyond reasonable limits out of spite.

(Tim would say he never did that at that age, but again, Fleabag arc, who knows what happened there)

But grounding him like a child (despite all logical reason to) might be a nett bad in ways they haven’t even seen yet, so Tim proposed that Damian stay in position, just somewhere that won’t see much action. And then put Tim there too, to make sure he doesn’t get in the way.

This of course puts them down one man, but it’s not like they’re lacking in vigilantes. They should call Helena, this was around her turf anyway.

He presented it in the way that appeals to Bruce the most- mostly logical arguments with a sprinkle of parental skill scolding- and if he alluded to a few past instances with the intention to guilt trip no one can hold that against him.

So this puts them here now, on standby for a signal that will never come.

An imperceptible shiver. It’s the hottest night of the year.

He’s let the kid maintain his dignity for the past few hours, but the tug of concern is almost clawing at this point.

“Damian, maybe you should step farther from the ledge.”

It’s through grit teeth when the teen replies, “It’s fine.”

Not for the first time this night Tim considers telling him he’s on glorified baby watch just to get him to stand down, but that won’t help the situation now.

He pulls the kid back by the shoulder. The resistance is barely anything of note. “At least sit down properly.”

“This is inefficient. We won’t be able to see anything.”

“Speak for yourself, Gremlin. I’ll keep watch, you go lie down.”

“Ridiculous. It’s better to have two eyes on the situation.”

“Yeah? How well can you actually see right now?”

Damian narrows his eyes and scowls, but doesn’t actually try to argue. That just adds to Tim’s increasing worry.

Whatever Tim’s face did at that thought causes the kid to bristle, hissing “You will not send me back. I refuse to be a liability in the middle of a mission.”

And well. No sending him back via Batmobile then. Change of tactics.

“Look- Damian, it couldn’t be more obvious than a neon sign that you’re sick right now.” And the teen’s face twists at that, Tim pushes forward despite the twinge of guilt.

“You’re still on this mission so I don’t think Bruce knows,” a blatant lie, “But he will if you pass out from your drop and it would get you benched indefinitely if he does.”

“No, shut up.” He says, before Damian can even retort, the scrunched up expression on his visage will only start a fight.

“There’s two of us here. Nothing’s happened yet. Spare your energy for when things actually get rolling and maybe we can get out of this without everyone hounding your ass.”

It’s not his best cover story by far. If Damian was his regular self he would be poking the visible holes in this lie like a toddler’s first encounter with Swiss cheese.

But as it stands now his face smoothens quite a bit, but his eyes are still calculating and the line of his mouth tense.

“Why would you cover for me? I’m sure it’d be much more beneficial for you to rat me out.”

“Leveraging one’s weakness to prop yourself up’s always been more of your thing than mine, Brat.” Tim breathes out, crossing his arms. “And it’d look super bad on me for letting you hang here this long knowing you’re sick. I’m not looking forward to a lecture from Bruce and Dick just because you wanted to be dumb and reckless.”

He sneers the last part to really sell it- it’s too transparent otherwise. Truth is everyone is just really worried and Tim’s simple ruse is one conducted so there would be the least amount of fighting possible.

(And maybe he can appreciate worthless pride.

It’s a Robin thing to grapple with complicated relationships with legacy and relationships with Bruce, and with his own being as complex and multi-layered of a dumpster fire as it was, could he really be blamed for wanting to smooth out Damian’s?)

But those wouldn’t be reasons Damian would reliably believe.

The kid hums. Ruminates, maybe. All the while his expression still stays vaguely sour. But eventually Damian only says. “You swear not to tell anyone about this?”

Tim nods. “As long as you rest up until we have to go.”

A beat of silence. “I am not lying down on this floor.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Tim scoots forward. “Fine, you can use me as a pillow.”

[loversandantiheroes]

not to come yell at you or anything but i saw those frankie tags 👀 and i am in *need*

Lord, that is a whole-ass mood.  Needy!Frankie lives rent-free in my brain 24/7.  Like this exact scenario has been in my head for w e e k s and I just haven’t had the braincells to get it down.  But hey, no time like the present, right? *cracks knuckles*

1.5k of unbeta’d and unedited Needy!Frankie smut, f!receiving oral, with a side of frankie x floor (I kid, mostly).

-----------------

As soon as Frankie pulls in the drive, you know something’s wrong.  He takes the turn just a little too sharp, engine running too hot and too loud before he kills it.  There’s a long beat of silence, long enough that you begin to think that maybe you were just overthinking things.  But then there’s the unmistakable sound of the driver side door slamming shut, and your feet are already carrying you towards the front door.

You’re halfway down the hall when you hear his keys rattling in the door – and they keep rattling, the doorknob twisting as far as the lock will allow before releasing back.  Either he can’t get the key in the lock, or he can’t quite make it catch.  The mechanism clicks, straining, and for a second you’re afraid he’ll break the thing out of pure frustration.

“Ease up, Frankie,” you call through the door.  “I’m here, baby, I got it.”

The rattling ceases, and you hear the unmistakable thump of Frankie’s head coming to rest against the wood.

“Querida,” he says.  “I can’t...I can’t get the fucking door.”  It’s muffled through the wood, but there is a catch of tearful frustration in his voice that makes your heart beat a little faster as you undo the locks.

When the door swings open you’ve only got a second to take in the look of him – his eyes strained under the shadow of his crooked ball cap – before he’s pushing against you, crowding you back into the hall.  He catches the door with a heel and kicks it shut so hard the windows rattle in their frames.

“Hey, hey,” you try to soothe, pushing his hat off to smooth his hair back.  “What is it, what’s wrong?”

He only shakes his head, breathing hard and quick through his nose like an agitated bull.  His throat works, fighting to swallow or to speak, you’re not sure.  His hands fall heavy against your hips, fingers curling into the waistband of your jeans and tugging.  “Please, baby,” he mutters in a voice so strained it’s on the verge of breaking.  His fingers slide around until his thumb rests on the button of your fly.  “I need it.  I need you.  I–”

You nod, stroking your thumbs over the overgrown stubble on his jaw.  This isn’t the first time you’ve been here.  Something's gone wrong today.  It might be something big, it might be nothing, but whatever it was was enough to shake him down and leave him feeling like he can’t do anything right.  He’ll explain it to you later when he can breathe again, when his shoulders aren’t pulled up in one solid knot and his jaw has finally unclenched.  He always does.  But right now, more than anything else, he needs to prove that he can do something right. 

And that’s you.

“I’m right here, Frankie,” you tell him with a willing nod.  “You got me.”

Frankie makes a soft, desperate little noise in the back of his throat and carries you wordlessly to the floor, unable or unwilling to wait long enough to get you into bed.  His mouth is on yours only for a moment, just long enough for a hard, grateful kiss before he moves down your body.  He’s too needy to be gentle, too desperate.  You’re sure you hear stitches ripping as he yanks your fly open and drags your jeans and underwear both down to your ankles.  They bunch up around your sneakers, but Frankie's normally dexterous hands are too unsteady for that, clumsy with need and agitation, so he just pushes your legs up and ducks under them, settling on the floor between your bared thighs.

When his mouth finds you, you sigh and he groans.  The sound resonates through his whole body and into you, buzzing against your thighs and the closed seam of your cunt.  His hair is rough with the salt of dried sweat as you work your fingers into it, tipping your hips up as you press his head down.  His hands slide up between your thighs, pushing them aside, and it takes a little effort to keep your ankles from knocking into the back of his head as he opens you wider.

On a good day Frankie Morales is one of the most patient men you’ve ever met, in bed or out of it.  He’ll coax you open slowly, work you over with his hands and mouth – and always his whole mouth, none of that timid tongue-flicking bullshit – until you’re wet and open and ready for whatever he wants to give you.  Even if it’s just more of his graciously worshipful mouth.

But this is not a good day, and in place of that gentle patience there is an almost feral hunger.  Frankie parts you with his fingers, opening you up to drag the flat of his tongue up from your entrance to your clit over and over in hard, aggressive strokes.

You keep your fingers moving through his hair, breath turning ragged as he fits his mouth to you, lapping and sucking eagerly at your sex.

“Baby,” he murmurs, lips dragging against your clit.  It’s pitched up and plaintive like he’s begging, but he can’t find the words to fit what he needs.

“Yes, Frankie,” you answer, shuddering as his teeth press briefly against your tender flesh.  “God yes, baby.  You’re always so good.”

And there’s that desperate little sound at the back of his throat again as his broad hands grip the soft flesh of your thighs tight.  His shoulders shift under you, your legs rocking up and back, and you look down to find him rutting his hips shamelessly against the floor.

There.  That’s what he needs.  And that’s easy enough to give, praises flowing out of you steadily as you roll your hips against his voracious mouth.  “So good, Frankie,” you breathe.  “You’re getting me so wet, baby, I can feel it.”

Instantly his tongue trails down, delving into you with a strength that always takes your breath away.  He moans deliriously, the taste of your arousal only serving to whet his appetite further.  Two thick fingers curl into you, pressing up and drumming insistently as he devours you like a man possessed.

The praises dissolve on your tongue like sugar, your voice gone tight and ragged as he lights you up, the words harder and harder to focus on.  And that’s even better.  Your broken gasps leave him lurching, grinding down into the floor and moaning against you.  It’s good, it’s so good and he can tell how good it is for you, his shoulders rocking into you faster as you begin to quiver and jerk under the assault.

“Querida.”  The epithet leaves him in a whine.  “Baby, please.  I need you to come.”

“Close,” you rasp out, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and guiding him, holding him still while you rock your clit against the wet, yielding heat of his mouth. “Frankie, baby...f-fuck– ” 

The motion of his body falters as you use him, the sound of his belt buckle knocking against the floorboards now a hard, syncopated beat.  The pressure of his fingers inside you reaches a fever pitch and you shatter, shouting his name and pounding a fist on the floor as you come, shaking and rocking with the spasm.

And that, blessedly, means you get to watch him come right after, his body rigid, feet digging in for purchase as his hips knock stiltedly against the floor.  His shout is almost as loud as yours, and he muffles his cries against your still-twitching cunt.  You fall back on your elbow, head swimming, and you can feel the hard line of Frankie’s shoulders finally relax under you.

You unclench the fist in his hair, stroke down to cup the back of his neck.  “Come up, baby.  C’mere.”

Panting, Frankie nods dumbly, and pushes himself forward on his elbows.  He kisses you, gentle once more, his heart still beating hard enough to make his breathing falter. 

“Hey.  I love you,” you breathe into his mouth.

He knocks his forehead into yours, closing his eyes.  “Love you, too, baby.”

And then he curls into you, tucking his head into the side of your neck and pressing himself down.  His belt buckle digs into your stomach, and you can feel a broad stripe of wet warmth soaking through the front of his jeans under the slowly softening bulge of his cock.

With a contented hum you wrap your arms around him, holding him tight.  He smells of hot sun and dried sweat and the lingering sharpness of engine oil.  You cradle the back of his head with one hand, rub slowly up and down his back with the other. 

“Bad day?” you ask, kissing the corner of his jaw next to his ear.

He nods, scruff scraping along your shoulder.  “Yeah.  Bad day,” he agrees.  You feel the warm press of his lips against the side of your neck, slow and sweet, before he draws in a long, shuddering breath.  He holds it for a beat and then releases it slowly; a bone-deep sigh of utter relief.  “Better now.”

[justwritethatdown]

The Bella's house is haunted by the ghost of a girl who died there in the 80's . They have a seance. Things go very badly...

Rating: M for vivid description of violence

Words count: 3k

Trigger warning: cruent deaths, mention of blood

(I’ve been meaning to tell you)

I think your house is haunted

Beca had moved in the Bella’s house and had been living there with the other girls for just one week when she started to notice there was something weird going on in that place.

At first, she thought it might have been one of the girls – definitely Amy – who was playing tricks on her; it was just annoying silly things, really, like misplaced objects, doors that opened and closed on their own or songs that mysteriously changed to Cindy Lauper while she was listening to her Spotify playlists. All things Amy could have managed to do with little effort.

What made Beca question her believes were the events of that day she was sick and decided to stay home while all the girls went to class and then to rehearsals. She was home alone, so nobody could be pranking her, but strange things continued to happen – doubled even.

It started with her headphones; Beca could swear she’d left them on the desk, next to her computer, but when she came back from the bathroom they were gone. The brunette looked for them everywhere and finally found them in the fridge

“Mh, weird” she mumbled to herself, making her way back in her room to start working on a new mix.

 Halfway through her mix, her laptop started to flash and then it showed statics

“What the fuck!? Come on you can’t die on me right now” lamented Beca hitting her laptop, she took her brand-new iPhone 5 and saw it was doing the same thing “what the hell is going on?”

She threw the phone asides and stated that she was delirious, probably due to the fever, so she decided to make herself one of Chloe’s infusions. Beca put the boiler on the stove and started looking in the cabinet for the infusion, when the home theater they had in the living room started to blast Time after Time.

“Who’s there?” she called out but didn’t get an answer. If she was honest, she’d admit she was starting to freak out a little bit.

The brunette slowly entered the living room to see that nobody was there

“That’s not funny” she called out, doing her best to hide the shake in her voice “Amy I saw you, you can come out” she tried, but again, no answer. She gulped and went to turn off the stereo, then slowly sat on the sofa to calm down, but the boiler’s whistle made her jump

“Fuck” she spat out marching to the kitchen.

Beca took a deep calming breath pouring the boiling water in her favorite mug, put the boiler away and sat down to enjoy her drink. The warm bitter liquid running down her throat was starting to relax her and free her lungs, she put down the mug and rubbed her face with both hands, when she heard the mug crashing on the floor.

  Chloe opened the door and the first thing she saw was a baseball bat moving in her direction. She dodged it and saw a very startled Beca holding it

“Beca what are you doing?” she squeaked

“I- sorry I thought…” trailed off the brunette letting her weapon fall and tiredly hid her face with her palms

“Hey, what’s going on, how are you feeling?” Chloe asked removing Beca’s hands “Oh my god, Bec, you’re burning up! Let me take you to bed”

 “I broke a mug” mumbled Beca while Chloe was helping her under the covers “and my phone” she added

“Your phone is working…” stated Chloe showing it to her “don’t worry for the mug, now try to get some rest” she whispered tucking a lock of brown hair away from Beca’s forehead.

Beca let out a heavy breath and briefly considered telling Chloe what she went through

“Chlo…”

“Mh?” the redhead asked turning around with a soft smile

“Thank you” mumbled the brunette before rolling on her side. “Ghosts don’t exist you’re just delirious” she told to herself before falling asleep.

 “You’re such a loser”

“You will never be one of us”

“There’s no place for cowards in here”

“Ahahahah”

It was night, the cold air was making Beca shiver. The area of porch she could see from her bedroom’s window looked different than usual and she couldn’t recognize any of the voices laughing at her. She wasn’t looking down from her window, she was standing outside the window. She was barefoot.

“Come on, we don’t have all night!”

Beca swallowed hard, her head was spinning, she slipped.

 Beca woke up in her bed, damp with sweat, her – now working – phone pointed 4AM, she groaned and went back to sleep.

 Weeks passed and then months, objects kept disappearing and appearing in weird places and Beca made sure to never be alone in the house again, but she never talked to anyone about what happened, she was too embarrassed about it – ghosts don’t exist.  

One evening, after helping Jessica find her bracelet that ended up being in a plant near the bathroom, she decided to talk to Chloe about it.

“Hey Chlo, can we talk for a moment?” she mumbled, still uncertain about saying it out loud

“Sure, what’s up?” asked the redhead putting aside her Russian lit book

“I uhm… this might sound weir but…” she trailed off

“You know you can tell me everything, right?” assured her Chloe leaning in to grab her hand

“I – not that I believe in this kind of things, but uhm… I think there’s a ghost in the house”

Chloe’s face fell and she cleared her throat sitting back straight “Yeah, that’s Molly” she said casually, going back to her reading.

“WHAT?” gasped the brunette

“Molly” repeated Chloe “she died here in the 80’s” she explained

“You don’t actually believe she- she’s living with us, right?” stuttered Beca

“Of course, she is-”

“What are we talking about?” interrupted her Stacie

“Apparently we have a ghost” explained Cynthia-Rose who happened to hear the conversation

“Cool, a ghost story!” gasped Stacie excited “wait, I’ll call the others”

 They moved in the living room after Stacie gathered all the girls and Chloe started telling the story

“In the 80’s this house was the sorority house of the θγτ. Those girls were known to be the cruelest sorority Barden had ever seen. They always made their new members prove their worth through impossible dares, like eating worms or doing dangerous things. Most times the new girls run away crying and were thrown out of the sorority, but there was this girl – Molly – who wanted to be part of the sorority more than anything. She was willing to die for it-”

“How did she die?” interrupted Beca, her throat felt tight and her heart was beating incredibly fast

“It was initiation night. They gave her a dare, a test of bravery…”

The crunching of chips coming from Amy destroyed the mood Chloe was skillfully setting with her story

“Amy, would you mind!?” lamented Cynthia-Rose

“What?” asked Amy stopping with her mouth full of chips

“We’re kinda in the middle of something here…” added Ashley

“Go on” spurred her on Stacie

Chloe cleated her throat “they told her that to be a member of the θγτ she had to walk on the ledge from side to side of the house only wearing her nightgown. They knew she was scared of heights, they probably thought she would have given up, but she tried anyway…”

“fuck…” whispered Beca, she had chills thinking about her dream

“She fell” added Chloe in a sad voice

“Do you want to contact her?” offered Lilly in her usual creepy tone

“Yes! Let’s summon a ghost” squealed Stacie

“Dude, no!” gasped Beca horrified

“What? You scared Mitchell?” challenged her the tall brunette

“I’m not scared” retorted Beca

“Come on, it’s Halloween week, it’ll be fun” tried Jessica and the girls agreed. Beca didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all.

 Lilly seemed to be rather expert on the field. She made them move the furniture and drawn a pentagram on the floor in the middle of the living room, she turned off the lights and placed five candles, one on each point of the circled star. The girls were sitting in circle around the symbol while Lilly placed herself in the center and started saying something Beca assumed to be in Latin.

Suddenly a gust of wind turned off all the candles and the room feel silent

“You girls shouldn’t be playing around with seances” Lilly said in a demoniac voice and someone, probably Jessica or Ashley – Beca wasn’t sure – screamed. Some of the girls turned on the flashlight on their phones and they could see Lilly standing up, with her hair down on her face.

“Shit, she looks just like Samara” said Amy

“You foolish girls, must pay respect to the rituals” Roared Lilly

“Fuck, is she possessed?” gasped Cynthia-Rose

“Lilly that’s the best Halloween prank I’ve ever seen” laughed Stacie “You look disgusting”

At that Lilly howled in rage turning to Stacie and showed her face, her eyes were completely white, and her body was still facing forward while her face was turned to look at the brunette. The girls screamed and moved away but Beca noticed Chloe was still on the pentagram

“Chloe what are you doing?” she shouted to her

“Molly” tried the redhead swallowing hard

The monster turned to face her and Beca grabbed Chloe’s hand to drag her away. Molly grunted and started to walk towards Stacie, in the meantime someone had turned on the lights and Beca could see that Lilly wasn’t wearing her clothes anymore, she recognized the white gown she was wearing in her dream.

Molly reached Stacie and cornered her

“Please, please not my face! Or the boobs, please-” begged the girl, but the spirit reached out to her throat and ripped her trachea out making blood splash everywhere. All the girls screamed in horror crying out Stacie’s name and the lights went out again.

 The Bellas ran away in different places of the house and Beca had no idea where the others went, except for Chloe who had never let go of her hand. She had dragged her in a room and locked the door behind them, everything was dark and Beca could barely make out the silhouette of Chloe’s face.

“I can’t believe Stacie is dead” sniffed Chloe

“Yeah, that’s crazy” murmured Beca letting the redhead hug her

“I’m glad you’re her with me” she breathed out

“Me too, I can’t imagine being alone right now” confessed the brunette and Chloe pulled away from the hug

“No, I mean… I’m glad that it’s you” clarified the redhead looking into her eyes

Beca swallowed hard noticing how close they were and in the dim light she could see Chloe’s eyes looking down at her lips for a moment. It’s funny how you throw all cares to the wind when you think you’re about to die. Beca leaned in and kissed her. Chloe responded instantly pressing her against the door and slipping her tongue into Beca’s mouth. Her hands were desperatcely gripping at Beca and for a moment the brunette thought that maybe this was worth dying for.

Their kiss was interrupted by Cynthia-Rose pointing a flashlight at them

“Finally!” she cheered making them jump “we need to go to the basement, unless you have something better to do…” she added in a judgy tone

“Why to the basement?” asked Beca clearing her throat “of all places…” she added with a shiver

“To fix the lighting maybe?” retorted Cynthia-Rose

“Okay but why can’t you go?” asked Beca hissing when Chloe hit her with her elbow

“Because the black and the queer characters always die first in horror movies, and if you didn’t notice, I am black and a lesbian! So, I’m definitely not going there alone” explained the girl

“Of course we’re coming with you” agreed Chloe.

 “Lock the door” intimated Beca once they entered the basement. They reached the electric cabinet and Beca pointed the light of the phone to it “you know how to do that?” she asked

“Yep”

While Cynthia-Rose was working on the cables Beca let herself get lost in the comfort of Chloe’s body pressed up against her back and the girl’s fingers intertwined with her owns. It caused a weird warm sensation, like if it didn’t matter that there was a murderous demon around the house and that they were all going to be slaughtered by it.

When the lights started working again the girls turned around to find Molly covered in Stacie’s blood standing in the middle of the room. Beca whimpered and pressed herself more into Chloe who had pretty much the same reaction, while Cynthia-Rose threw her flashlight to the monster hitting her in the face and gaining them some important seconds

“Go go go go go!” she shouted, and they started to climb the stairs.

As soon as Beca and Chloe were out of the basement door, it slammed shut behind them trapping the other girl inside. They could hear her scream and hit the door trying to open it, so they started doing the same until Beca couldn’t hear her anymore

“Chlo…” she tried, but the red head wouldn’t stop “Chlo-”

“We need to get her out of there Beca!” she cried

“Chlo, it’s too late… she’s gone” she sobbed “we have to go” she added grabbing Chloe’s hand again, but this time it wasn’t enough to calm her.

They started to run towards the door, when the couch slid between them and their target, they turned around to see Molly slowly approaching them.

“You don’t belong here” thundered Molly tilting her head “you didn’t complete the ritual”

“Yes, yes she does” gasped Chloe placing herself in front of Beca “Bree didn’t want her at first, but then she was okay with it”

“Chlo what are you doing?” whispered Beca, but the monster suddenly turned around and walked away “what the fuck?” breathed out Beca in confusion.

They saw Cynthia-Rose crawl out from the basement and ran to help her

“How are you what did she do to you?” asked Chloe helping the girl up to her feet

“Slowly, slowly, I’m injured” she gasped showing them a bleeding wound on her hip “she pushed me downstairs, I must have caught a nail or something”

“Come on, let’s take you to the bathroom, Chloe has a first aid kit” said Beca pushing the girl’s arm around her neck to help her stand.

 On their way to the bathroom, they found Jessica with a tear-stained face standing next to the staircase that led to the second floor, Chloe moved to hug her and saw Ashley’s lying on the floor with her neck broken and some limbs twisted.

“Fuck” sadly whispered Cynthia-Rose rubbing her face with her palm

“Lilly was following us upstairs, Amy got away” sobbed Jessica “I couldn’t leave her”

“It’s okay, come here, it’s okay" tried to comfort her Chloe.

 The group made it to Chloe’s bathroom and the redhead was trying to medicate Cynthia-Rose as best as she could

“What else did you see in horror movies?” asked Beca

“About ghosts? They’re usually here because they have unfinished business- ouch”

“Sorry" whispered Chloe

“ ‘s alright. But those were movies I don’t know- OUCH!”

“I’m done" promised Chloe getting up

“I don’t know if it applies to real ghosts” added Cynthia-Rose

“It’s all we have" huffed Beca “I need to try, and we still need to find Amy"

“I’m coming with you" said Chloe

“No, it’s too dangerous I don’t want you to get hurt”

“You’re not going alone” argued Chloe and Beca gave up

“Alright. Jessica, you stay here with CR”

 Beca and Chloe started to wander around the house, looking for Molly

“Why did you think the ghost was after me?” whispered Beca

“Her name is Molly” corrected her Chloe “and I don’t know…” she trailed off

“You mentioned Aubrey, did she tell the ghost- Molly, to haunt me or something?” suggested Beca

“What? No" gasped the redhead “I just assumed because she’s been here the whole time I was in this house, but since when you moved in, she seemed to be… more nervous” she explained

“I had a dream about her" confessed Beca “I mean I was her. In the dream. The night she died… I think she just wants to be accepted"

They heard a loud noise and suddenly stopped swallowing hard

“we should check that” said Chloe in a tiny voice

“I hope it’s Amy" huffed Beca nodding

 As it turned out it was Amy, but she’d just been thrown against the wall by Molly.

“Amy” shouted Beca without thinking, letting the ghost know they were there

“Beca, finally! Save me, I’m too important to die" screamed Amy trying to free herself, but the monster shoved a hand in her chest ripping her guts out.

“No!” cried Beca “stop it, what do you want from us?” she shouted at the ghost

Molly let Amy’s body fall to the ground and started to walk towards them again.

“You did not respect the ritual" she kept saying, the lights were flashing like crazy and there was wind coming out of nowere

Beca took a step forward “what ritual? What are you talking about?”

Molly pushed her asides and took Chloe by the throat. The redhead gasped trying to free herself from the bloody hand chocking her, but it was pointless

“You must complete the ritual!”

“I’ll do it! I’ll do your ritual” volunteered Beca

Molly instantly let go of Chloe and turned to the brunette

“Bec no" begged Chloe trying to catch her breath

“You are a Bella now!” she declared, confusing both Chloe and the ghost

“I, as co-captain of the Bellas, declare that you have passed the test and are a Bella. You’re one of us" she gulped, her heart was beating so fast it was hard to breathe, like if she’d run a marathon. Chloe had reached her and was standing beside her

“And I, as the other co-captain, approve that" confirmed the redhead.

“Thank you" whispered Molly.

Suddenly the lights stopped flashing and everything seemed to be back to normal. Lilly’s body fell to the ground with a thud and Chloe immediately moved to go check on her but Beca stopped her

“What if she’s faking it?” questioned the brunette

“Why would she fake it?” pointed out Chloe and went to kneel down besides Lilly.

“Is she…” asked Beca

“She’s breathing” assured Chloe relieved

“We should call the police” suggested Jessica once her and Cynthia-Rose joined them.

 The police was still taking their depositions and Lilly was taken away with an ambulance, it was clear that the girls couldn’t have been killed by a person, but the policeman refused to believe their ghost story and kept asking them if they’d taken any drugs or were drunk. He kept bringing up an animal attack, almost like if he was trying to convince them.

Chloe went to sit on the porch next to Beca, both wrapped in those panic blankets they’d only saw in movies before that night.

“You saved my life" she stated humping her with the shoulder

“Well, you tried that first” answered Beca looking down at her feet “I noticed you stepping in front of me"

“Yes, but it turned out she was never after you… she just wanted the head of the sorority to accept her"

“If I only figured that out earlier Amy would still be alive, maybe Ashley too" sniffed Beca

“Hey, look at me” told her Chloe reaching out to gently tilt Beca’s face towards her “it’s not your fault, okay? If anything you saved the rest of us. If it wasn’t for you I…” she trailed off shivering at the memory of that cold hand around her throat

“I’m glad you’re okay" whispered Beca with teary eyes before leaning in to kiss her.

[rosethesongbird]

Lady of the Lake Chapter I

Geralt felt Jaskier’s breath hot at the back of his neck. The smaller man let out a small noise, like the whine of a hurt dog. His forehead touched Geralt’s hair and he could feel the beads of sweat pouring off his face. 

“Do we need to stop?” Geralt tried to let his voice be tender, less cold than his usual growl. Jaskier only groaned in response. 

“Hm.” 

Roach was running as fast as she could with two riders, but it was jostling both of them pretty intensely—and his bard’s condition needed stillness, calm, care, not a rough horseback ride. However, they had no choice. When his friend was taken ill, they were in the middle of nowhere, barely finishing a kill. He had not noticed the ailment until Jaskier had collapsed while walking next to Roach. He felt some sort of odd sensation in his stomach—must be guilt. He had ignored the bard’s usual complaining. He was like a needy puppy—always asking for attention—so he had assumed it was merely that desire since he was preoccupied with a hunt. 

Of course, the one time he decided to not pay any attention to the complaints was the one time they were serious. He had fallen to the ground, completely unconscious, and burning up in fever. Upon waking he had immediately vomited, and quickly grew less and less coherent. Originally, Geralt had intended to wait the illness out for a day or so, then make the travel to the next town. However, when a day went by and Jaskier was still very sick—worse, even—he had decided they needed to haul ass to whoever might be able to help. He could only hope that the day lost in seeking treatment would not prove fatal. 

Jaskier suddenly sputtered to life—coughing, retching, moaning—and Geralt immediately pulled Roach to a stop and dismounted. He was still burning up, but impossibly pale—lips blue, skin grey, eyes glassy. He coughed and retched for a moment unproductively as Geralt gently rested one hand on his shoulder to keep him from collapsing. Jaskier hadn’t eaten or drank anything in a day, so there was nothing to throw up. He breathed a shuddering, hitching breath. 

“Geralt,” he moaned. 

“I’m right here, what do you need?” he felt like the other man’s blue eyes could burn a hole in his skin. There was an air of vulnerability to this that the nearly untouchable Witcher was very uncomfortable with. 

“Don’t leave m’here.” his words were slurred and far from his usual quick wit.

“I would never, bard. Come on, let’s go. We need to get you some help.” 

Jaskier sobbed. “Hurts…” 

“I know it does. We need to get moving, the sooner we get to this town, the sooner we can rid you of your pain.” 

The bard moaned and went limp in Geralt’s arms. He picked him up and set him back on Roach. Jaskier had always been smaller than him, but now he was impossibly light and frail. His doublet hung lightly out of the pocket on Roach’s back and the linen shirt he wore was filthy, soaked in sweat and vomit. There was nothing else they had for him to wear. 

—

They finally reached a small, but bustling town, just as the sun was setting. It appeared that the local food market was closing down. Geralt dismounted Roach and led her, with Jaskier now shivering atop the saddle, into town. 

“Is there a doctor here?” his voice came out threatening, desperate. Different than he had heard it ever before.

A small, older man looked up at the bard, still moaning, then back down to Geralt. “You’ll need magic to fix that one,” he said. “Due east from here there is a lake, can’t miss it. Ring the bell at the dock. There is a woman who lives on the island in the lake. She can fix anyone.”

“How long will it take me to get there?” 

“Only about fifteen minutes, if your horse’s fast. Her name is Epione. She’s the best in the business.” 

Geralt grunted and pulled Jaskier back to a seated position. He managed a “thank you” as he got back on to Roach, and took off. 

Seven minutes of worrying silence went by on Roach’s back, pierced only by Jaskier’s labored breathing. Labored breathing became moaning, and moaning became wailing. Every jostle on Roach’s back was suddenly like agony, and Geralt decided to dismount and carry the bard in his arms, Roach following dutifully. They were swiftly running out of time, and the woods were dark. He wanted to bolt, to run, to sprint, but he could not do much more than a brisk walk without the dark-haired man screaming in pain. 

Jaskier moaned his companion’s name. “Please,” 

“Please, what? What do you need?” 

“Help, G’ralt, please,” he said, wheezing. A wet cough escaped his lips. 

“We’re almost there, I promise,” Geralt tried to comfort his traveling musician. He wasn’t sure his promise was true, but Jaskier was so delirious, he probably wouldn’t remember this if—when—he recovered. He didn’t want to think about what he would do if his friend did not become himself again. “You should try to drink something,” 

“Can’t…I’ll be sick,” he looked up at Geralt with blue eyes, diluted with fever. “Already wanna be sick.” His breathing quickened, wheezing. 

“Hm.” Geralt sped up his pace as much as possible without causing undue pain. Well, more undue pain. 

—

They emerged from the forest onto a beach. A rocky beach, with a lake, the lake with an island, the island with a cottage. There was a small dock going out onto the water, and a bell attached to a pole on the dock. There was a sign near the bell, written in English, and in runes. It simply read “Epione’s Home. Ring for crossing.” There was a pole for horses, and a small trough on the beach. Geralt quickly tied up Roach, and walked over to the bell, reluctantly ringing it. Jaskier moaned and buried his head into Geralt’s shirt at the sound. 

A woman suddenly appeared from the forest behind them. “Can I help you?” she said. Geralt spun around, surprised that his heightened senses didn’t notice her earlier. He was a little preoccupied. 

“I’m Epione, the keeper of this place,” she said, cautiously walking closer. She was small, but had strong arms, concealed under a long sleeved shirt and linen overdress. Her long hair was in a braid, coiled at the back of her head into a bun. “I heard screaming, and I thought you may be coming to seek treatment. Please, come, and untie your horse. I have a safe place for her on the island.” She gestured toward the water and a wooden bridge appeared, rising from the still waters of the lake. She was calm, measured. Despite her young appearance, she seemed accustomed to situations such as these. 

“You must be Geralt of Rivia, the witcher,” her footsteps were near silent on the bridge. “I’ve heard the stories about you. What’s going on with your friend here?”

“Are you an elf? A mage? How are you doing this?” Geralt was on high alert. He stepped cautiously on to the wooden bridge, and Roach dutifully followed. She seemed human, but not mage, and definitely not an elf. 

Epione shrugged. “Well, that’s not an answer to my question, but, I guess I’m a mage of sorts. The kind of magic I use is ancient—older than elves. It has been in my family for generations, and I have resolved to use it for good, not for violence.” 

Geralt was silent, staring straight ahead. That seemed like a fair answer. He could not sense dishonesty. 

“So, now that you know my life story, what’s his? His name? What’s going on?” 

“This is Jaskier, my… traveling companion. Two days ago he collapsed after a hunt, and he has been like this since.” 

“Hm. What kind of symptoms?” The light of the moon revealed her ginger hair and freckled skin. 

Jaskier moaned before Geralt could respond. He coughed before muttering “D-don’ leave me, Geralt, pl-please,” 

“I won’t, Jaskier. This girl can help you,” Geralt said, as reassuringly as he could. “Can you tell her what’s been going on?”

Jaskier was silent. 

Epione came nearer to the man. “I’ll get you fixed up soon, I promise,” she said, smiling softly. He met eyes with her, nodded slowly, and with a long, shuddering breath went back to resting his head on Geralt’s chest. 

—

As they stepped foot onto the island, the wooden bridge disappeared. The cottage on the island brightened with candlelight. Epione led them inside and gestured to a bed in the front of the room. There was a small cabinet nearby, covered with herbs, poultices, bottles of elixirs and full of who knows what else. A fire in the stone fireplace grew, seemingly from a smolder. Geralt laid Jaskier on the bed, and the dark-haired man grasped weakly at Geralt’s shirt. 

“No, Geralt, no, nonono no no,” he started getting agitated, breathing faster. 

Geralt was about to step in when the small girl crouched by the bed. “Shh, it’s alright, songbird,” she said, gently turning his head to look at her. “You’re safe here.” He immediately began to calm as soon as he met eyes with her. His breathing was labored, and he winced in pain, but he was silent. 

“Do you know where you are?” she was cupping his cheek in one hand, stroking his temple with her thumb. Her other hand was deftly unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Mmh, no… who are you?” He went into a fit of coughing, and her hand started gently rubbing circles into his now bare chest. “My name is Epione, I’m the healer here, and keeper of the pool.” She turned her head, hands still working on Jaskier’s clammy skin. “Geralt, would you mind filling this with some fresh water from the lake? We need to start working on getting that fever down, and quick,” she handed Geralt a small wooden bucket, with some rags inside. Geralt nodded silently and did as he was asked. 

Upon returning inside, Epione smiled at him and whispered her thanks. As she began placing the rags strategically, wiping the days-old sweat off his body, Geralt felt another pang of guilt. Jaskier’s stomach was red, bruised, swollen, angry-looking, and he had no idea. He didn’t even look, and this stranger immediately knew what to do. He was snapped out of his own thoughts by a soft whimper from Jaskier when Epione placed a cloth over his forehead and eyes. 

They were silent for a few seconds while Epione placed a hand gently on his stomach.  “Has he been vomiting?” she said, eyes trained on her patient. 

“Yes,”

“How much?” 

Geralt thought for a moment. “Basically every time he eats or drinks something.”

“Hm. He is pretty dehydrated. Any tenderness in the abdominal area?” 

“I think so. He got to where he couldn’t tolerate riding the horse.” 

Epione sighed. “I’ll be right back, hold on for just a minute,” she said softly to Jaskier. She stood up and gestured for Geralt to come outside. He lingered inside for a moment, eyes trained on the heaving rise and fall of the bard’s chest.

“So, I don’t want to frighten you, not that I think you are frightened by many things, Witcher,” Epione said, softly. “But I think I know what may be wrong with him, and the treatment is, well, complicated.” 

“Hmm,” Geralt growled. Just what he was worried about. 

“I think this is an infection of an internal organ, one we don’t know the purpose of. However, removal of this organ does not appear to be harmful, but it is complicated by what I think is a rupture of that organ.” She sighed. “Basically, what I’m saying is, I’m going to have to cut him open and find out.”

“When?” 

“Sooner rather than later. The longer we wait the more the infection spreads.” 

“Hm. If it must be done then it must be done. He’s in a bad way.” 

Epione nodded. “Thankfully, I can numb the area with magic, and we’ll do our best to keep him calm. I’m sure I’ll need your help, if you don’t mind,” she said, smiling. “He seems pretty attached to you. You must have been friends for a long time.” 

Geralt allowed a hint of a smile to cross his face. 

—

“Jaskier, wake up,” Geralt said, quietly. 

“Mmh, no, want to sleep,” moaned Jaskier. 

“I want you to wake up at least for a minute. We need to talk about what we can do to treat you,” 

Jaskier’s eyes fluttered open. Geralt was crouched by the bed. Epione was standing behind him, wearing a stark white apron over her dress, her hands and nails so clean they near sparkled. She pulled up a chair next to Geralt, smiling softly. She brought a small glass to Jaskier’s lips. “You need to drink something, sweetheart,” she said. He took a cautious sip. “It won’t kill you, I promise. It’s just for pain and to calm your nerves.” He took another sip as she began gently stroking his lower belly. Her hands began to glow, as if they were lit from inside. 

“Look at me, bard,” Geralt said, firmly. Jaskier slowly turned toward his friend. “I like you,” he said. Geralt shook his head. “You must have finished your tea,” he said. A stifled laugh bubbled up from Epione. 

“How are you feeling, songbird?” she said, calmly. Geralt noticed a small, sharp knife being cleaned in her hands. 

Jaskier frowned. “My tummy feels funny,” 

Epione looked at Geralt. “I’m going to do something that’s gonna make you feel so much better, sweetheart,” she said, turning back to her patient. “But I need you to keep looking at Geralt, okay? You’re probably going to feel some pulling, and your legs will probably fall asleep, but there shouldn’t be any pain at all, alright?” 

Jaskier nodded, his head lolling. “My head feels…h-hot…and my legs feel cold,” he said, to no one in particular. His breathing was still labored, but he was clearly not concerned about anything that was happening. Epione glanced toward Geralt and met his eyes. Geralt placed his hand on the bard’s cheek, brushing his hair out of his eyes. It was his job to make sure Jaskier didn’t look at what Epione was doing. Both of them agreed that it would be too panic-inducing for him to know what was happening. After the fact is different, but during… him keeping still was the most important thing. 

“Hey, Jaskier,” said Epione, after about 30 seconds of quiet. She had silently made her first cut, deftly, like a dance. “Why don’t you sing a song for us?” Geralt could hear the sounds of her rummaging around in Jaskier’s stomach. Smart, he thought. “I’d love to hear some straight from the source, not from the copycats we have here in town,” she said, her eyes smiling, preoccupied with both hands inside of the incision. 

“See, Geralt, sssssomebody appreciates my t-talents,” he slurred. Geralt only scoffed in response. “Fair lady, of…of…of course I’ll ssssing for y-you.” The irony of Jaskier, flirting with a woman who actively was rummaging around in his guts, was not lost on Geralt. 

He began to sing, breathy and shaky, but his voice all the same. 

The fairer sex, they often call it 

Epione sliced something inside of Jaskier’s body and tossed it, bloody, into a dish on the floor. 

But her love’s as unfair as a crook 

She looked around inside, scraping, slicing, sprinkling with a small vial of water. 

It steals all my reason

Geralt watched Jaskier’s face paling considerably despite the relatively small amount of blood lost. 

Commits every treason

Jaskier grimaced and flinched, breathing quickly and heavily now, but didn’t stop singing. 

Of logic, with naught but a look

Geralt felt him press against his hand, desperately trying to turn and look at the woman working. He shook his head and mouthed “No,” to the smaller man. 

A storm breaking on the horizon

Jaskier started to trail off as Epione began to stitch up the three-inch wound. “Come on, sweetheart, stay with me,” she said. “I’m almost done, finish your song,” 

Of longing and heartache and lust

Geralt gently tapped Jaskier’s cheek as he moaned. “Wake up, Jaskier, keep singing. This may be the only time you hear me say that, so take advantage of it,” 

She’s always bad news 

Stitching, 

It’s always lose, lose

and pulling, 

So tell me love, tell me love

“You’re doing great, songbird, almost done,” said Epione.

How is that just? 

Epione joined in quietly in the chorus, in an effort to keep his focus away from her work. 

But the story is this—

She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss

Her sweet kiss

She wiped off the incision area and applied a bandage. 

But the story is this

She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss

“All done, Jaskier,” she said, after covering his lower body with the blanket. Geralt moved his hand and sighed. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath. She took a clean rag and wiped the sweat from his face. He grimaced and arched his back. “You were so brave, sweetheart.” 

“Did-did you like my song?” he said, breathless, chest thick with sickness, still burning with fever. 

“Yes, darling, it was lovely,” she said, smiling. She tenderly stroked his face. “You’ll be a little sore tomorrow, but you can rest now.” 

He was already asleep. 

Chapter 2 here

[rohad93]

Sea Glass - CH 11

18+

At some point in the middle of the night, the crashing thunder and lightning roused Yellow from her fitful sleep. She frowned, looking out the dark window, the occasional flash of lightning lit up the barn, otherwise, it was black as pitch inside the building. The creaking wood and rain the only noises she could hear. 

She muddled through a yawn and sat up to check on Blue, who was still laying right where Yellow had left her.

The fabric on her forehead was warm and Yellow rewet it with the cool water falling outside the window. This seemed to rouse her some.

“No…,” the word was barely a whisper on Blue’s breath. Yellow blinked down at her in the darkness of the barn.

"Blue?” Yellow asked quietly.

Instead of an answer she merely flailed a limb beneath Yellow’s coat. A quick jerk, before going completely still and quiet again.

Yellow hummed and sat back against the wall, staring out into the darkness, but even in the quiet, she could never make her mind be quiet for long.

They still had seven days before The Menagerie was set to leave Grenada, moving on to its next adventure, without its famous captain. If it was even there to start with.

That all hinged on little Rose Doyle actually taking charge of the ship and making the crew do as they had been instructed

Yellow frowned to herself at that.

Rose was not the most commanding presence. If Yellow had to guess she’d say the only reason anyone followed the curly-haired young woman’s orders was that there would be real hell to pay with Blue if not. 

Yellow had met Blue's younger sister a handful of times and given the relationship she and Blue had, it had never exactly been the friendliest of meetings, though she wouldn’t call it hostile either. Rose stayed well out of her way, and she was smart to do so.

That being said Yellow had no problems with the younger Doyle sister. She was a girl in her early twenties who did not look like she belonged on a pirate ship. She could only guess as to how the Doyle sisters ended up plundering on the high seas at the ages they did. Blue was closer to her age, but Rose would have been little more than a child at the time Blue started to become well known. 

She’d never really thought about it much, or ever really.

She glanced in Blue’s direction.

Until now. 

From all their years of acquaintance, Yellow knew little about Blue personally, but she did know the woman was well educated, which even in the higher classes was strange for women. Yellow could only guess at the reasons. Even if she wanted to ask, right now that simply wasn’t possible.

She stayed sitting there in the dark, awake, and thinking as the sun slowly began to rise. The rain didn’t lessen any but the darkness did as the sun rose behind the clouds.

Yellow pulled one of the bottles of drinking water out of the sack and pulled Blue’s mouth open, slowly pouring water down her throat. She coughed and sputtered a little bit occasionally, but most of it went down smooth.

She grumbled under her breath, something Yellow couldn’t even begin to make out, but her eyes stayed closed and any tossing she was doing quickly stilled but into fevered sleep. 

She was still hot to the touch and Yellow sighed as she leaned her head back against the wall. Intermittently changing the cloth on Blue’s forehead and forcing water down her throat. 

At the moment that was all she could do, that and wait. She closed her eyes and let the rain lull her back to sleep. The last six days had made exhaustion settle in her bones it felt like.

She wasn't sure how long she had been asleep when she began to wake again. 

There was a noise.

She didn't open her eyes, but strained her ears to hear, listening for the sound that must have been coming from Blue.

Her blood ran cold the second she realized that she was hearing breaths other than Blues.

Carefully she peeked through her cracked open eyes to find a young man with long brown hair kneeling over Blue, his hand outstretched toward her face. 

Yellow lunged forward with a vicious snarl, grabbing up the knife that had been lying beside her in the straw.

The boy looked up, terror in his dark eyes as Yellow slammed him against the wall of the stall, the whole wall rattling with the force of the impact. Her left hand fisted into his shirt and the right held the knife up to his neck.

"Please, don't hurt me!" he squealed, shaking in her grip as she pressed the blade against the column of his throat. Yellow just growled in response to his panicked squealing.

Blue whimpered, drawing Yellow’s gaze for a moment, she frowned, she had jerked Blue by the arm when she had lurched forward.  

“Your friend looks really bad…” 

Amber eyes immediately darted back to the young man in her grip and she snarled, lips pulled back over her teeth. As she pressed the knife further into his neck, drawing a thin red line in his skin.

“I… I can help!” his voice trembled, Yellow could not only hear it, but feel it in the blade. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I have some herb mixes from the town doctor, it helps to bring down fevers.” He swallowed thickly.

Yellow’s grip on him tightened. She was at an impasse. If she killed him it probably wouldn’t take people in town long to notice and come looking for him, long before Blue was well enough to travel, and if she let him go chances were he was going to run straight to town and get help.

Damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.

With an irritated scoff, she dropped him, dropping back onto her hind end and leaning against the wall. 

He slid down the wall, trembling and clutching at his throat, looking at her with eyes still wide with terror. 

She kept the blade clenched tightly in her fist, in case he decided that he was brave, though just by the look on his face she knew he wasn’t. 

Without a word, he stood shakily and ran out of the barn, she listened to his frantic footsteps fade before her whole body sagged tiredly.

They were as good as dead now.

She pressed a hand against her face, and an aggravated hiss escaped her lips.

They couldn’t run if they wanted to. Blue was unconscious and Yellow was tethered to her.

Yellow squared her shoulders. Stalwart as ever, she wouldn’t cut herself loose. She’d rather her convictions get her killed than prove herself a liar and a coward, even if no one else would ever know, she would know.  

Within a few minutes, the steps were back and Yellow steeled herself, knife in hand. She might go down, but she’d be damn to the darkest, deepest pits of the sea if she went down without a bloody fight.   

The boy appeared again, a bottle in one hand, but nothing else, much to Yellow’s surprise. He eyed her nervously as he knelt down on Blue’s other side.

“I can give her this…” His voice shook as he held it up for her to see. Yellow only growled in response. As good of an answer as he was going to get. 

He carefully lifted Blue’s head and pulled the cork on the bottle and slowly poured some of the dark green mixture into Blue’s mouth. It’s thick, medicinal smell filled the small space between them.

Yellow watched his every move and he seemed hyper aware of this by the slow and carefulness of his movements as he plugged the bottle back up and slowly set it over by Yellow.

“Give her some of this every few hours until her fever breaks.” He instructed, glancing up at her nervously from beneath his hair that was sliding in front of his face. "I'll come check on both of you later…" he slinked out of the stall and Yellow listened to his steps fade before she let herself relax.

She couldn’t even begin to understand what that was or why he wanted to help two ragged looking strangers squatting in his barn, if that was in fact, what he was actually doing. She picked up the bottle and inspected it. It certainly looked like any bottle she’d ever see a doctor use. She set it back down at her side and turned to Blue. 

She seemed to be partially conscious now, awakened by the no doubt foul liquid being poured down her throat.

Her eyes were cracked open and they were looking around sluggishly before they fell on Yellow.

Her mouth moved like she was trying to say something, but no words came out. Yellow turned too better face her, waiting to see if she would say anything. 

"You can't put the rum there…," she grumbled under her breath, eyes flickering around.

What?

Yellow stared, face contorting into clear confusion as Blue gurgled under her breath. 

"Whales will drink it…,” she warned, voice low and scratchy.

Yellow blinked at that. 

Her fever was making her delirious. That was Yellow’s only explanation for the absolute nonsense coming out of her mouth.

���Go back to sleep,” she grumbled, pulling her coat back up to Blue’s neck. Luckily she did just that a few minutes later after more nonsensical mumbling about barrels and whores.

Yellow leaned back but there wasn’t going to be any relaxing, not now that that boy knew they were here. 

Whatever was in the bottle didn't smell like poison to her, it did however reek of very strong herbs though. She hummed thoughtfully to herself. 

It was some hours later when a sharp pain in her wrist dragged her out of her half asleep state. She opened her eyes to see Blue looking up at her, though Yellow could already tell by her eyes that she was no more lucid then she had been before. She was moving around, jerking on their linked cuffs, wincing as well whenever it seemed to dig into her wrist, but her eyes were locked on Yellow’s bare right arm.

This was further proven when Blue reached her left hand up, slowly, like her arm was too heavy to lift.

She reached over and ran her trembling fingers down the raised up scars on her arm.

“Notice that did you?” Yellow grunted quietly, gazing down at Blue before glancing at her arm.

The seared impression of a crude skull and crossbones with the words ‘Momento’ above it and ‘Mori’ below it.

A brand, old and seared into her flesh long ago. 

Blue ran her trembling,clammy fingers over the raised up scars. 

“Do you even know what that is?” Yellow cocked a brow as she looked down at her companion, who didn’t seem to be listening; lost in her fever clouded mind. “It’s the brand of indentured servitude in Martinique.”

Blue didn’t say anything, not that Yellow expected her too, though her cloudy cerulean eyes moved away from the rough, healed brand to look at Yellow, her soft fingertips dragging over the scars sent a chill up Yellow’s spine.

Something about Blue’s faraway gaze and the way her face seemed to sag as she started slipping back into unconsciousness spurred Yellow to keep talking, if no other reason then to fill some of the silence that had been so oppressively hanging over them as of late, even before Blue had gone unconscious. 

“I’ve had this a long time…,” she trailed off, thinking. It had been a long time since she had let herself think about this in great detail.  “Since I was a child in fact... To get by I stole anything I could get my hands on if it meant I didn’t go without… and there were still plenty of nights I went to sleep hungry. It’s like that, being an orphan on any of these islands,” she snorted, more to herself than to Blue. 

“I let myself be taken in by someone, thought of them as a mentor, someone I could trust. The same woman who taught me all those tricks you were so interested in…” Yellows face screwed up. “They convinced me to steal for them…petty things at first, just like I had done before, but eventually it became less petty and reached the point of no return, and when I got caught she threw me to the wolves and I wound up with a life sentence of indentured servitude.” she scowled to herself, looking at a point in the distance, caught up in her memories, reaching up to run her arm.

Blue hummed, drawing her attention, her eyes were open, gazing up at Yellow, but the blonde knew she wasn’t there. Something about speaking this aloud gave Yellow some sort of relief, though she couldn’t pinpoint what about it exactly. 

“Obviously that didn’t last. Pirates attacked the ship I was enslaved on and I went with them when it was over…” She smirked to herself, but Blue squirmed, flushed face contorted and she frowned as she looked down at her.

“That sly, seductive way you manipulate people reminded me of her. It’s why from the moment we met I didn’t trust you…,” she mumbled, as she fingered the cuff on her wrist, dried blood flaking off the metal as she ran her hand over it. She glanced over at Blue’s right arm, which had slid from beneath her coat, much in the same worn and bloody condition as her own. 

“Maybe I was wrong…,” she grumbled under her breath, covering her arm back up. 

She had been so caught up in her thoughts that Yellow never heard the approaching footsteps until the same young man from before was standing in front of her a loaf of bread in hand.

“Um, am I interrupting?” he asked nervously, gaze flickering quickly between her and Blue.

Yellow just grunted, biting her tongue when the urge to tell him to get lost rose automatically to it’s tip. 

“I brought you some food.” He slowly held the food out to Yellow. Who narrowed her eyes at him, staring hard at him for a few long seconds before he seemed to get what the look was about and ripped a chunk out of it and ate it himself before holding it back out, this time Yellow took it.

Seeming to accept this as some sort of invitation he knelt down, though smartly, beyond Yellow’s reach, which made the blonde’s lips twitch at the corners. He had some brains at least.

She tore into the bread. She was sick to death of hardtack.

“I’m Greggory, but you can call me Greg.” He introduced himself with a smile. Yellow chewed on the bread silently. He didn’t seem to recognize her or Blue. No reason to chance it by giving out names. She just gave a quick nod and he seemed to deflate a little realizing she wasn’t going to return the introduction. 

“What happened to her?” He nodded to Blue.  

“We were caught in the storms for days,” was her curt reply as she gnawed on the bread. 

He looked at them both carefully.

“Are you sailors?” he finally asked, eyes wide and Yellow nearly choked on the food in her mouth. 

“Yeah…,” was all she said once she’d managed to swallow it. She and Blue were sailors after all; the semantics were unimportant. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a sailor…” Greg grinned brightly. “Adventure on the high seas… instead of being stuck here, plowing…” 

Yellow snorted and he frowned. 

“Not everyone is cut out for life on the sea, boy.” She smirked and he flushed. With anger or embarrassment Yellow was unsure. 

“I’d be great on a ship!” he insisted. “It’s not like I’m not used to taking orders for nearly nothing here on this farm.” He scowled.

“Being a farm hand is better than starving.” Yellow shrugged, taking another bite of bread.

“Not here…,” he grumbled. “I need excitement, adventure, not potatoes! I’d give anything to get on a ship and sail away from here…” 

Blue chose that moment to groan, making them both turn to look at her as she squirmed in place.

“Do you need anything for her?” he asked, looking back to Yellow. 

“Why do you want to help?” Yellow couldn’t stop herself from asking, distrustful and direct was simply her nature.

He blinked back at her, surprised.

“Well…” He scratched her head thoughtfully. “If I can, why shouldn’t I?” he shrugged. 

Yellow narrowed her eyes, staring intently at him for a long moment before exhaling sharply  through her nose and grunting in acknowledgment.

“There’s nothing to be done until she gets well enough to walk again…” Yellow grumbled. 

“Ahh.” He nodded to himself. “Guess you two must be close if you won’t leave without her, care about her,” Greg said more to himself than to Yellow but the blonde’s face lit up at the statement, head whipping to face him, mouth open, about to start shouting but she couldn’t think of anything to say, jaw working soundlessly before it shut with a snap. 

Greg just blinked at the odd reaction.

Yellow scoffed. She didn’t have the patience to explain herself to anyone, much less some clueless farmhand. It also occurred to her that from their current position he couldn’t see the shackles that linked them together.  

It was better he didn’t, lest that raise a lot more questions. 

“Even deathly ill, she’s really pretty…” Greg cocked his head and again amber eyes settled on him, though he quickly picked up on the glare. 

“I, uh… better get back… I’ll come check on ya later…” With that he quickly scampered away   

Once she was sure he was gone Yellow relaxed again. He seemed fairly harmless but that was no reason to let her guard down. She took the fabric off Blue’s still hot forehead and rewet it, then leaned back, still chewing on the bread as the rain continued to fall outside.

[tunemyart]

I still have three prompts to fill - apologies, requestors! and thank you all again for keeping me company during the extremely boring first part of my December illness(es) when I could still think. This one turned out a bit longer than the usual. @gecko153 requested the following:

For your prompt requests, I would love to see a hurt/comfort fic, maybe with xena getting hurt in battle?

To which my only disclaimer is... sorry sorry sorry I set this during the Rift!

***

Xena shrugged off the wound in the moments after the scuffle ended. This would prove to be a bad decision; but in the moment it genuinely didn’t feel that bad - at least, it didn’t feel worse than others she’d shrugged off and survived - and Gabrielle didn’t appear to have noticed. 

“You all right?” Xena asked her preemptively. 

Gabrielle appeared mildly taken aback by the question, but nodded. “Yeah, fine. Are you?” 

“Fine. Let’s get out of here before anybody else decides to try their luck, huh?” 

Riding exacerbated the pain, and so Xena walked until they made camp. Gabrielle had spent the remainder of the day stealing increasingly more frequent glances at her until she’d insisted on stopping. 

“You look white as a sheet,” she told Xena. “Go sit down, I’ll handle this.” 

She didn’t touch Xena, as had become their norm, and she didn’t press her with questions: two things which made Xena think she just might be able to get away with concealing it. She excused herself to a nearby stream, ostensibly to water Argo, and the most resistance Gabrielle offered was a tight nod and narrowed eyes. 

It wasn’t any worse than Xena had thought when she peeled away her clothes to survey the damage the knife had made in her side where it had managed to breach her leathers. It was a clean cut, or appeared to be; and Xena cleaned it with the supplies she’d surreptitiously spirited away with her and dressed it carefully. There was no reason to believe it wouldn’t heal well; no reason to worry Gabrielle. 

She awoke that night chilled despite her proximity to the fire, and absolutely parched. She fumbled for the waterskin and nearly drained it before she heard a sleepy, “Xena?” 

“Everything’s fine, Gabrielle,” she called back. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Just thirsty. Go back to sleep.” 

When she woke again, the word seemed distant and fuzzy. There was a hand on her forehead, a voice speaking to her with some alarm, and then hands shaking her shoulders. 

“What?” she said thickly. 

“By the gods,” replied the voice, relief mixing with alarm now. “Xena, what happened? You’re burning up.” 

Xena groaned and shifted under the blankets she’d piled over herself to try to bring them closer to her skin, crawling with artificial cold. “Hurts,” she managed before she drifted off, only vaguely registering the growing panic in Gabrielle’s voice. 

The next time she struggled back to consciousness she was naked, with compresses cooled by presumably river water tucked behind her neck and under her armpits. Her whole body shook while she clenched her teeth and tried to control it, even as her mind raced deliriously. 

“Gabrielle?” she called. The world was fuzzy. Her voice sounded slurred. Her arms, then her hands, were slow to respond to her commands when she tried, and she struggled through the weight that seems to have been added to them. 

Her first thought was that she’d been drugged; her second was that she’d been captured and restrained. Both made her panic spike. Where was Gabrielle? 

“Gabrielle!” 

“I’m here, I’m here,” came Gabrielle’s voice, rushed but calm, and in conjunction with the gentle touch on her forehead, it went a long way toward calming Xena. “You’re safe, we both are.” 

Xena let her eyes scan her regardless, letting her own vision prove the truth of Gabrielle’s words. “You’re okay?” she slurred. 

“I’m fine,” Gabrielle assured her again. “Xena - the wound on your side. Do you know if there was poison in it?” 

“Huh?” Her hands drifted clumsily down her body, searching for what Gabrielle was talking about. Gently, Gabrielle caught her hands and touched one of them very lightly to the place Xena was trying to find. She couldn’t help her pained moan at even the lightest of contact, and her hand was snatched away as soon as the cry left her lips. 

“Do you remember?” Gabrielle asked. “I think you got it in the last fight we had on the road; three big guys; you took two of them out. They had some kind of nasty looking curved knives.”

A flash of memory - was it days ago or years ago? Xena had fought so many men. There had been so many knives. She had killed so many. “Don’t - don’t think so…” 

“Please, Xena, focus. It’s important. You bound this wound yourself; somewhere in there you must remember.”

Gabrielle’s fingers were cool against her forehead and Xena did her best. Why - why wouldn’t Gabrielle know? Why was she asking Xena? She had a flash of memory: her hands cleaning a wound, maybe this one, accompanied by a vague feeling of mistrust and secrecy that was greater than what that flash of sensory memory could encompass, and which made no sense at all.

“Please,” Gabrielle said again, sounding perilously close to begging, “please try. I want to help you. Maybe you don’t believe me. But I can’t do that if I don’t know the poison, and I’ve done everything else I can do, and you’re still getting worse.”

Xena understood very little and her head hurt very much, but she fumbled for Gabrielle’s hand and held it while shushing her gently. “‘S gonna be okay. In good hands. Trust you.” 

It had the opposite effect Xena had intended. Even with her eyes closed, she could immediately discern the unmistakable sound of Gabrielle crying.

“Hey, hey,” she said, opening her eyes and focusing on Gabrielle’s face as best as she could. “Sorry, don’t remember any poison. Just… ride it out. You know the herbs. Best you can do.” 

When Xena next woke, she was alone. Her head still ached but more in a angry echo of the tight, unbearable pain that had come before it. She was also still naked, and she shivered more due to the breeze than the heat of fever. Her fingers found that the wound on her side was puffy and red, but no longer so tender that she couldn’t bear her own touch. It seemed that Gabrielle had put a lot of effort nursing her back to health: their supply of medicines and herbs was spread out to Xena’s left with a significant dent put in them, and by the look of the firepit and the pile of unwashed clothing and bedding, they’d been here some time. 

Gabrielle herself was at the edge of their little clearing, her back to Xena, cross legged and head bowed as if she were meditating - or, Xena considered the possibility with growing unease, praying. It was that unease that silenced the urge to call out to her, and slowly Xena became aware that Gabrielle was in fact weeping silently, as privately as she apparently felt safely able to do. 

Xena swallowed, closed her eyes, and tried not to listen. 

The sun had changed position overhead when Gabrielle finally rose and made her way over to Xena. Her shadow hovered over her for a time while Xena kept her breathing even. 

“I know you’re awake,” her voice said quietly. Slowly, Xena opened her eyes to see Gabrielle peering down at her, calm and composed, with no trace that she’d ever been anything but. 

“Hey,” Xena replied, just as quietly. 

“I see you’re feeling better,” Gabrielle said, and when Xena shivered again, she got a blanket and tucked it around her with something like an echo of the great tenderness Xena had once known from her hands. 

“How long has it been?” 

“Four days,” was the reply. “Your fever finally broke last night, and your wound stopped needing to be drained so frequently this morning.” 

“Gabrielle,” Xena started, “about that.” 

But Gabrielle cut her off with a look sharp enough to silence her. “You can keep your secrets, Xena,” she said, “but things like this? You tell me about.”

It wasn’t a request. “You’re right,” Xena said simply. “It was stupid not to tell you. I will from now on.” 

“Good.” The sound was harsh, and Xena watched as Gabrielle closed her eyes and pressed her lips together tightly. “Xena - whatever else… if you had died out here…” 

Neither of them had sought physical comfort from each other in longer than Xena could actually pinpoint, but the need to offer it now was suddenly more overwhelming than she could stand. “C’mere,” she said; and to her relief, Gabrielle did, fitting herself against Xena’s body and into her arms with a timidness and hesitancy that she only overcame when Xena’s fingers ran through her hair in much the same way, unsure what Gabrielle wanted or would allow. There was a distance even this close that made it hard for Xena to read her, for all it had once been the easiest thing in the world. 

Gabrielle’s eyes remained dry. I miss you, she didn’t say. What she did say was, “You’re all I have.” 

Plea, promise, epiphany, explanation - Xena understood. Xena understood perfectly. Exhausted, she closed her eyes. 

I miss you, she didn’t say. 

“Yeah,” she said - agreement, apology, promise, plea. “I know.”

[legobiwan]

There’s a large meta I would love to write comparing TPM and Master and Apprentice, but I’m a little too delirious with fever to do something that intelligent at the moment, some I’m just going to bullet point some things I noticed in my 5 hour rewatch of TPM (due to intermittent napping and shotgunning Dayquil).

Qui-gon and Obi-wan spend a fair amount of their on-screen time disagreeing, and one of Qui-gon’s first acts of the movie is to dismiss Obi-wan’s “bad feeling about this,” which, in retrospect, Jinn, was maybe not the best idea. This is very much in line with the way they are portrayed in Master and Apprentice, where Qui-gon and Obi-wan cannot seem to see eye-to-eye on things, how Qui-gon constantly is questioning Obi-wan and his abilities. 

I feel like Obi-wan spends a fair amount of this movie swallowing his reactions to Qui-gon’s increasing ridiculousness, like when they travel to the Gungan city with Jar Jar. Obi-wan immediately tries to negotiate with Boss Nass and when that does not immediately prove fruitful, Qui-gon bursts in with his favorite strategy, the Jedi Mind Trick. Obes doesn’t seem too pleased with Qui-gon’s tactics, nor to be undermined like that.

(this is not the face of a happy man)

Someone reblogged some other meta of mine commenting that Qui-gon (and much of the Lineage) has a savior complex, and don’t they’re all that far off. Qui-gon places himself as the ultimate authority on so many occasions in this movie, and while yes, he is the ranking Jedi Master on site, one might think he is a little too certain in the Force, in his abilities, in prophecy to always make sound judgments. 

(Narrator’s voice: she doesn't. And this is not the first time Qui-gon will say something like this. Which leads to Anakin coming to Coruscant, and well, you know how it went from there.)

On a different note altogether, it was lovely to watch this with the subtitles. Anakin’s statement that Padmé looks like an angel akes a lot more sense when you know he’s comparing her to the Angels of Iego, which we have seen (who Obi-wan and Anakin spoke with) in the underrated episode, Mystery of a 1,000 Moons.

(one has to wonder if Anakin made the correlation when he and Obi-wan *actually* traveled to Iego)

Speaking of other friends, I laughed (and coughed) very hard when Darth Maul uttered one of the very few spoken lines he has in this movie.

(Maul, you have no idea how much that is *not* going to work out for you, buddy.)

I feel like Shmi Skywalker is the only sane person in this whole cavalcade of characters. I love how she handles Qui-gon’s request that Anakin go to Coruscant. 

(“The choice is yours alone.” Not “This is your destiny,” or “this is your fate.” This is your choice, Anakin Skywalker, just as turning to the Dark Side was a Choice, not Fate, not Prophecy, just as Qui-gon’s devotion to Prophecy was his choice, just as Obi-wan made a very conscious decision to make himself believe in prophecy out of devotion to his Master. And in that way, choices become self-fulfilling prophecies.)

And again, we see this when Anakin leaves Tatooine. Shmi asks Anakin what is in his heart because it is what he desires, and as that old quote goes, “if something is that important, you’ll make time for it.” Not prophecy, not fate, but Agency. 

(And you have to wonder if part of the reason the Order is so caught up in prophecy and visions is because their ability to act independently is somewhat stymied by things like the Ruusan Reformation and their relationship with the Senate, because they tread this very fine line between being active and passive, both in government and their day-to-day activities.)

“Master Qui-gon, more to say, have you?” Man, if I were Kenobi, I’d be pissed at this point, and we haven’t even gotten to the scene where Qui-gon basically casts off Obi-wan in front of the Council. We see this again and again in Master and Apprentice, where Obi-wan just chokes down a lot of his true feelings, due to deference and self-esteem and Qui-gon, as well-meaning as he is, just...kinda does what he wants.

(”Not this again, I’m going to need to break into the Corellian whiskey.”)

As I’ve pointed out before, Rael was 5 when he came to the Temple, Obi-wan 3, and yet now Qui-gon seems to have no problem with an 8-year-old Anakin coming in. Oh, Qui-gon.

Qui-gon promises a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s interesting, because Obi-wan gets very upset at Anakin in the Clone Wars: Gambit and Siege books for promising people he would help them. Aside from the fact that it is never a good idea to promise anything to anyone (I personally avoid ever saying that word) and Obi-wan is aware of this, I feel like this upset may also harken back to Qui-gon’s disturbing habit of promising things and then using almost any means necessary to make those things happen. Like Anakin winning the race and becoming a Jedi, for instance. All done out of good intentions, but come on, Jinn.

(I mean, yeeeeaaaah? I’d be afraid, too, if I were 8 years old surrounded by these guys. Chill, Yoda.)

I just need to include a picture of Palpy’s shit-eating grin here. He is so smarmy in this movie, I love it.

I’m not going to post screencaps of the Council scene because we all know what goes down there. Qui-gon takes Anakin as his student, and Obi-wan’s heart gets trod upon again, although he puts up a brave front because it’s Obi-wan and he is repressing a lot.

“Your focus determines your reality.” It’s really great advice. Qui-gon should listen to himself, as his focus (on prophecy) has determined his reality.

(Come on, Qui-gon. Throw the man a bone. Maybe say, “Hey, I *think* you’re going to become a great Jedi! I believe in you, Obi-wan! Good job!” instead of “I forsee...” I mean, okay, everyone has a distinct manner of meting out praise and Qui-gon does say Obi-wan is wiser than he ((without actually listening to that wisdom)), but even Obi-wan, who catches a fair amount of flak for being reserved, gives Anakin more direct praise than this. You have to wonder where this comes from, if it goes back to how Dooku raised Qui-gon, which is *totally* possible.)

(Can we just sit and appreciate that one of Anakin’s first acts for the Republic is to blow up this droid control ship that had a fair amount of sentients on board? That’s our little murder machine!)

(Ouch. I can’t even imagine what is going through Obi-wan’s mind here. This is probably the only time we see him make a promise. And by the Force, he is going to keep it. But Qui-gon’s last words are about Anakin, and Obi-wan is obviously distraught over this, over Qui-gon’s death, over everything. He loves Qui-gon, despite all their differences, because Qui-gon meant well for him, for everyone around him, and to think Obi-wan has the gumption to demand to train Anakin right after all of this...just, poor Obes.)

I feel like I’ve really been on Qui-gon’s case lately. He is a fascinating character, and he makes a lot of good points about the Council and the Republic, but he is so blind to his own faults and I think that’s where my personal frustration comes in with the man. And he wants to do good in the galaxy, you can see he wants to free all the slaves on Tatooine, but probably knows right now he can’t, has learned his lesson from Pijal. He doesn’t want to necessarily get suckered back into prophecy, but then there’s Anakin staring him right in the face. And Anakin is powerful, but is he the Chosen One or was he molded into that role by expectation?

The lightsaber duel with Obi-wan, Qui-gon and Maul is still my absolute favorite live-action fight scene in Star Wars. So. Good.

Guys, I forgot how much I love this movie, I mean everything including Jar Jar and child!Anakin.

I really appreciate how consistent Claudia Gray made Obi-wan and Qui-gon’s characters through her book, linking Jedi Apprentice and TPM. There’s so much more to read into with TPM now having Master and Apprentice in the background.

[honeybee-babe]

Sharing is Caring (Except When You’re Sick) Chapter 5

Reginald Hargreeves would be pleased; for once, all six of his remaining children were asleep at a reasonable hour. Imagine his disappointment when the one stumbling around in the kitchen at 3 am was his precious, obedient-to-a-fault Number One.

Luther had woken up sweltering and parched. His sheets were sticking to his skin. He’d changed his t-shirt a third time and downed the glass of water Allison had left on his nightstand. An when that proved ineffective on his burning throat, he’d stumbling downstairs for more. But not before pulling on a hoodie and his gloves. As uncomfortably hot as he was, he’d had enough of his siblings seeing his arms in the past day to last a lifetime. The off-chance that one of them was lurking around in the kitchen at this hour was enough to make him put long sleeves on.

In a repeat of the previous morning, he downed three glasses of water in a row at the kitchen sink. Once again, the cold made him shiver; the hoodie wasn’t seeming like such a bad idea anymore. And once again, when he washed his glass in the sink, the steam tugged at his sinuses. Only now, his nose was raw, shot from all the sneezing and forceful nose-blowing it had been subjected to throughout the night. Knowing there was no way out of it, he raised his gloved hand to his nose and pinched it shut.

“h’NXGT! Hih-GNXXT!” His body shook with the force of the sneezes, but the burning feeling didn’t die down.  In fact, it only got worse, and the shaky breath that followed sent him lurching forward against his fist. “EhGNXT-chiew! Hrr’NGSTch!” Stifling was proving ineffective, and Luther had to think fast. With a loud, shivery gasp, he quickly brought his elbow to his nose instead. “Hhr’KSCH! Ih-G’XXT! Hah..hih! Heh-KSCHIEW! Heh-NXGT-chiew!”

“Christ on a cracker!” Luther turned around and saw Klaus leaning against the wall. “Were you trying to give me a damn heart attack?”

Luther’s heart dropped when he saw Klaus, who seemed to be even more pale and shaky than usual. Automatically, Luther stepped back and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He didn’t really have a reason to do so seeing as Klaus had clearly already caught whatever was bringing Luther down, but it made Luther feel better so he did it anyway.

“What are you doing up?” Luther asked.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Luther sighed. “I couldn’t sleep. My throat is killing me and I can’t stop sneezing. What about you?”

Klaus shrugged, “I don’t get much sleep normally and the nightmares that come with a fever are always a million times worse so I-”

“You have a fever?”

“Yeah, yeah I do. I haven’t checked my temperature since like ten o’clock though,” Klaus admitted.

Luther looked around the counter until he found the thermometer and he then handed it over to Klaus. “Check again?”

Obediently, Klaus took the thermometer and put it in his mouth. When he took it out and looked at it he winced. “It’s not the best. Might explain why I feel a little bit like I’m floating,” Klaus joked.

“What is it?”

“Nothing too bad. It’s 102.4 so it went up a couple degrees.” Klaus rubbed at his sweaty forehead and took a deep breath. “That explains why the nightmares were so bad then,” he mumbled to himself.

Luther asked, “What do you see in the nightmares? Like, what happens?”

“Hetschiew! Ah, sorry. Um, I don’t know. It’s mostly flashes of dead people who have died in really horrific ways. I mean, I see that all the time but in the nightmares, it’s just them touching me and trying to keep me in the world of the dead, I guess. I don’t know.” The way Klaus shrugged it off nonchalantly amazed Luther.

Klaus really was an enigma. He could be so dramatic and inflated about the tiniest situations just for fun, but when it came to serious things he never spoke a word. There were so many things that his siblings didn’t know about him and they would just come up in random situations and Klaus always explained them so casually, as if it was an everyday thing. It bothered Luther to a certain degree that there was so much that Klaus had gone through that Luther was never able to protect him from.

“That’s… jesus, Klaus, that sounds really horrible.” Klaus just shrugged.

“I’m used to it. It’ll be back to normal soon enough.” Luther bit down on his lip. He couldn’t even imagine accepting that as “normal.”

“I’m sorry if I ever…” Luther heaved a sigh. “I don’t mean to be dismissive about the things you go through. I should acknowledge it more.”

“You’re fine, Lu! It’s really not that bad.”

“I just -hh’XGSHH!- it’s hard for me t- h’gnXT! to-”

“Speak?” Klaus cut him off. They both chuckled a bit after that, until Luther sniffled and shook his head, gaze shifting to the floor.

“I don’t know, I just… I guess it’s just… I know there’s nothing I can do about it.” He caught Klaus’ eyes for a moment but then looked down at his feet again. “And that makes me feel really shitty.” Their gazes met again for a split second; this time, Klaus was the one who looked away. He appreciated the sentiment, but that didn’t make it any less awkward. And although he could tell Luther was genuine, he couldn’t help but feel pitied. And that was a feeling Klaus couldn’t handle.

“I think the fehh- hhn’tshiu-et’shyu! Fever is making you delirious.” He took the thermometer, that was still in his hand, and held it out to Luther.

“No, Klaus, I’m being serious, I-” Klaus cut him off by putting the thermometer in his mouth.

“No talking!” He grinned as Luther rolled his eyes, but nonetheless obliged. After a long minute of Luther pinching and rubbing at his nose, it finally beeped. He ripped it out of his mouth and turned away from Klaus immediately, holding the thermometer out to him in one hand and squelching his nose with the other.

“Heh’GTCHU! hh’NXXT!” Klaus pulled the thermometer out.

“Huh. 100.7, not bad. Maybe I’m the delirious one.”

“That wouldn’t be much of a change then, huh?” Luther joked. He caught Klaus’ expression of sadness before it quickly morphed into a forced laugh. “Hey I…I didn’t mean that.”

Klaus waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it, it’s what we’re all thinking,” Klaus said.

“Is Ben here?” Luther asked. Klaus nodded. “Do you think you can manifest him or will that take too much of the energy that you don’t have?”

“I don’t know. I can give it a try,” Klaus offered. He rubbed his hands together quickly and shut his eyes to concentrate. Ben showed up and Klaus opened his eyes.

Ben stuck around for a few minutes. He chatted with Luther and asked him how he was feeling. These conversations were always a bit odd because Ben was always there and the siblings tended to forget that so they would try and fill him in on things he was present for. Ben was always kind about it and never told the siblings that he already knew what they were telling him. Klaus told Ben constantly that he should correct them because even though he’s not there to them he’s still there. Ben didn’t want to do that to his siblings.

Klaus didn’t love it. It was one of the downsides of manifesting Ben. Another, that was rearing its ugly head at this moment, was that manifesting Ben tended to drain him of all the energy he had, and right now he didn’t have a lot of it.

Ben flickered twice and Luther could see how exhausted Klaus looked.

He suggested, “You know, I love talking to you Ben, but Klaus doesn’t look too hot. Do you think we can talk more when he’s feeling better?”

Ben nodded. “I’ll see you later, Luther.”

“Bye, Ben.”

Klaus let out a deep breath as he unclenched his fists and Ben faded away. He rolled his eyes slightly as Luther said goodbye to Ben. It pissed him off that they said bye because Ben wasn’t going anywhere, but he also understood that his siblings didn’t comprehend that Ben would always be there.

Luther’s voice broke Klaus out of his mind. “I think we should both try and get some sleep,” He said.

“I don’t know. I don’t really want to go back to sleep,” Klaus admitted sheepishly.

That was the moment in which Luther understood. He knew how shitty Klaus felt, he had the same damn sickness he did, and he would give anything to be able to go to sleep. Yet still, Klaus didn’t want to go to sleep because the ghosts were so bad that he wouldn’t even gamble on having a good sleep.

“We can stay up.”

“Hh-ingtshu! Hhhishiew-eshiiew!”

“Bless you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Uh, I said bless you?”

Klaus rolled his eyes. “No no, not that. Before that,” He prodded. He wanted to hear Luther say it again. Klaus thought he must be hallucinating.

“Oh,” Luther scratched the back of his head. “I said that we can stay up.”

In all honesty, Klaus was in disbelief. On the flipside of things, Klaus knew how shitty Luther felt, and he was now offering to stay up with Klaus and sacrifice the rest he was so obviously craving.

Klaus sniffed, “Why would you stay up?”

Luther shrugged. He said, “I guess because I don’t want you to suffer down here alone.”

“Hhheshjuh-hhinxgt! Hehhh! Ugh,” Klaus moaned.

“You’ve got to get some rest, Klaus,” Luther said. He meant it. He had seen his brother on all types of drugs and going through all types of withdrawal, and he doubted he had ever seen Klaus this miserable. He just looked defeated. His usually bright eyes lacked their playful glow. His normally arched eyebrows were furrowed. His instigative smirk was replaced by a slight frown.

Luther wondered if he had looked this pitiful.

“Can you hand me a tissue?” Klaus asked, deflecting Luther’s suggestion.

Instead of fighting against the sudden topic change, Luther stayed silent while he passed Klaus a tissue. Number Four blew his nose quietly but forcefully. When he removed the tissue his nose was laced with a red tinge that made him look even sicker. His nostrils were still glistening, and he must have felt it because he glided the tissue underneath his swollen appendage.

Klaus sniffled thickly. The nose-blowing clearly hadn’t done much for him. That was the story of Luther’s life for the past two and a half days–no amount of nose-blowing was ever enough.

“You should take a decongestant. And you’re probably due for another fever reducer.” Klaus just nodded his eyes behind his tissue.

“Sure thing, Captain.” Even though Klaus’ voice lacked its usual chipper cadence, Luther still smiled a bit at the nickname. He crossed over to the counter where all of the medicine was laid out and started assembling a cocktail of pills. Tylenol, Mucinex, Sudafed — that might help Klaus stay awake a bit longer. It was everything his brother could possibly need. He didn’t have a cough (yet — knock on wood), so Luther didn’t bother with cough syrup. He didn’t know if Klaus should even be drinking that, anyway, given his drug history.

He handed Klaus the pills with some water, instructing him drink the full glass with them. Klaus did as he was told, but quirked a brow at him.

“You’re not gonna take anything?” Luther shook his head. Leave it to Klaus to worry about other’s needs instead of his own. He was probably just trying to detract from his own sickness by focusing on Luther’s, just like he always used to do when they were kids.

“100.7’s not high enough for Tylenol.”

“Well you should at least drink some cough syrup, I could hear you coughing from down here earlier.”

“You could?” Luther seemed more embarrassed than worried. He shook his head again. “No, I can’t remember what time Allison last gave me some and I don’t want to screw up the dosage. Besides, I think it’s getting better.”

“You sure? You still sound wheezy. And you look really pale,” Klaus observed, furrowing his brows slightly at Luther as he sat down on the counter.

“Coming from you?” Luther raised his brows at Klaus, who still looked even more ghastly than usual. Klaus faked a gasp at the counter. The pills seemed to be taking effect, and his tone was becoming more jovial by the minute.

“Rude!”  Suddenly, his back was rimrod straight and he had a stern expression on his face. “Where’re your manners, Number One?” he asked, putting on his classic Reginald Hargreeves voice, and crossed his arms over his chest. Luther actually chuckled, though he brought a hand to his throat and winced slightly as he did so. “I will not tolerate discourtesy and insubordination in this household!”

“Sorry, Dad,” Luther still struggled at speaking ill of their father, but he tried to awkwardly play along. “Guess I’ll just go back to the - heh! moonhh’KSCHH-hh’KNGT! Moon.” Klaus dramatically gasped again and brought a hand to his mouth, still playing the character.

“Disgusting! How dare you disrespect me so. Thirty more years on the moon for y…hih! You - ah fuck-nxgtshiew! H’DtZshiew!” Luther chuckled behind the hand still raised to his own face.

“Blessyou-hh’nnXGT! Heh-NXTCH!” Now Klaus was laughing, too.

“Bless you!” Klaus giggled and got back into character. “Number One, are you ill? You know that’s only allowed on Tuesdays-”

“Hah-GNNXT-uhh!” Luther winced after that one and brought his hand down from his nose to clutch his throat instead. Klaus winced too and finally broke character.

“God, that even sounded painful. Why do you do that?”

“Don’t bring that up,” Ben said behind him. Klaus ignored him. He was focused instead on the way Luther tensed physically, clearly faking a chuckle to cover it up. Klaus may be a bit delirious from the fever, but he was no dummy. He could read Luther’s body language like a book. Granted, it was pretty impossible not to notice those huge shoulders hunching in on themselves.

“What, sneeze?” Luther shrugged, though it was a smaller movement than normal. Klaus knew he was playing dumb. “I don’t know, cause I have to? Why do you?”

“Cause it turns me on,” Klaus joked. “No, dummy, I mean why do you hold them in like that?” Klaus raised a brow as Luther crossed his arms over his chest. “I mean I do it too sometimes, I know. I think everyone does. But with you, it’s like… kinda intense.”

“Uh,” Luther cleared his throat and rubbed at it a bit with the hand he still has held there. “I dunno, force of habit?” Klaus didn’t get it. Why did Luther look so uncomfortable about this? It was just sneezing. If anyone should feel embarrassed by it, it was him, given how often he found himself having his ridiculous fits in public. Klaus tried to remember the last time he’d seen Luther sneeze before the almost-apocalypse. They must have been eighteen? He couldn’t remember a specific sound, but he didn’t remember it being too out-of-the-ordinary. And this kind of was.

“I don’t remember you sneezing like that before… oh.” Klaus cursed himself mentally. How could he have not made the connection sooner? The last time they’d seen each other before the apocalypse, his brother didn’t have ape DNA running through his bloodstream. Of course it had to do with his body. Of course he would try to attract as little attention to himself as possible.

“Well I’m louder than I used to be. Before ‘oh.’” Klaus felt like slapping himself in the face; he’d just accused Luther of trying to give him a heart attack when he was already self-conscious about his sneezes, and now he’d casually brought up the fact that he’d been permanently mutilated against his will in casual conversation, without even realizing it. How many times could he put his foot in his mouth in one night?

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” he said softly. He knew his humor often came across as dismissive or insensitive.

“It’s okay,” Luther grumbled. Klaus watched as he continued to rub at his throat.

“Still bothering you?” Luther just nodded and winced slightly. A crooked smile crossed Klaus’ face.

“Hey, I know what’ll help. And god forbid, it might make you smile!” He crossed over to the fridge and pulled out the pint of ice cream he’d begged Diego to buy earlier. Luther chuckled and rolled his eyes, though it did make him smile (just a little).

“Klaus, it’s three am.”

“So what? You’re already up!” He waved the container in Luther’s face. “Come oooon, Luther, live a little! Can’t you already feel it caressing that sore, achy throat?”

Luther sighed, giving in. “Get us some spoons.”

Klaus did as he was told and then took the seat right next to Luther. They dug in. It was almost silent for the next few minutes, the only sound being occasional sneezes from the both of them and some coughing from Luther. His coughs dwindled down a little bit as the ice cream soothed his sore throat.

The two were in the middle of laughing about some mission they went on years ago when things took a turn for the worse.

“What the hell are you two doing up?” Diego’s gruff voice boomed from behind them.

The two turned around and saw a very angry looking Diego. Klaus made a move to hide the ice cream—Diego wouldn’t be happy that they were shoveling it into their mouths at 3:30 in the morning.

Klaus saw Luther’s frozen expression and decided to take the lead. “We’re just uh, having a midnight snack, Diego!”

“It’s three thirty in the morning. You two are sick as hell, you should be in bed!”

“I’m sorry, we j-“

Diego boomed, “Can it, Klaus. I’m taking you up to your room, and you, Luther, I’ll deal with you tomorrow but for right now get your sick ass back up to your room.”

Normally Luther would try to fight Diego when he tried to take the lead like this, but Luther didn’t have the energy to do so and his bed sounded like a very comforting place right now. Without so much as a “goodnight,” Luther went up to his room.

“Hhiinxgtsh! HieNXGTchieh! Hihhhishiew-eshiew!”

“Klaus…” Diego frowned. His brother looked so much sicker than he had before. “I need to take your temperature before we go upstairs.”

Klaus said, “No need, mon frère, I took it a few minutes ago. It’s sitting at 100 even, so let’s just skidaddle on upstairs!”

Klaus couldn’t help but lie. Diego seemed so stressed out and he was already pissed at Luther for some reason, he didn’t need him to get even more worked up over his temperature. In fact, he just wanted him to leave him alone. So he let him tuck him in, hoping that would appease him.

“I’m gonna go grab the thermometer from downstairs.”

“You should really get some rest,” Ben suggested once Diego had gone. He was sat down on the edge of the bed, hand hovering over Klaus’ blanketed form and rubbing circles on his back. Klaus didn’t respond, just pulled the covers over his face. He was shivering now (though he still did not regret the ice cream, that shit was delicious). And when Diego came in to take his temperature, he clutched the blankets tightly around his face and fake snored – which wasn’t that difficult given the congestion. He heard Diego grunt and place the thermometer down on his desk before the door shut.

[guylty]

HI! I’m Guylty Pleasure and I am writing here to say thank you.

Seriously, that face above – easy to miss on the source video because it’s right at the beginning and half greyed-out – is pretty accurately the look on *my* face when I received a whole batch of happy mail yesterday. But I’ll get to that in a mo, first I want to get back to that happy clip.

OMG – if that isn’t a happy clip then I don’t know what is… After throwing us a tidbit just the other day, this is the morsel that Richard referred to: a free Audible download of a short Christmas story called The Christmas Hirelings. Happy happy – because like I said elsewhere, I *did* think it was about time that Audible rewarded Richard’s steadfast and loyal fans with a freebie. I have duly downloaded the piece – but not listened to it. Yet. But Richard sells the story well in this clip. It sounds sweet, and much better than the grumpy, misanthropic A Christmas Carol. I have never liked that story and could never fathom why that moralistic Victorian dampener was imposed on Christmas every year *ugh*.  Happy happy happy.

Search for The Christmas Hirelings online and you’ll get plenty of gorgeous, original illustrations from the Victorian novel (1894)

And yes, he looks really happy in this interview, too. Speaking lively and with many smiles. It could be the subject matter – a happy story of innocence and goodness and happiness. Mind you, The Snowman is another sweet Christmas story read by Richard, yet the video interview didn’t have the happy vibes that this one has. Anyway, you’d have to be a miserable old sod to frown while talking about this story, but I also hope it’s a little bit of genuine, inner-RA happiness, reflecting some regained peace and hope?!

And lastly, reading spectacles! Ha!

            Listen, Richard, now that you have come out with your presbyopic glasses (much less discreetly called “old-age sightedness” in German – Alterssichtigkeit – yup, the Germans tell it as it is…), how about you also lay off those pubescent Instagram filters and present yourself as the gorgeous mature man that you are? Especially since you don’t seem to mind the bits of silver on your temples and your chin? Those eye crinkles do not make you any less of an attractive man.

In any case, those crinkles are totally and literally overshadowed by those gorgeous lashes… *hearteyeemoji*

And just a quick word about the voice. *Guylty melts into a puddle just from listening to the interview* This quote:

The excitement increased to fever-heat when Mr. Danby found a sixpence in his portion, and exhibited an amount of pleasure which indicated an avaricious disposition, and quite shocked Moppet. “I suppose you’ll give me your sixpence,” she said, stretching out a tiny palm in his direction. “You can’t want it yourself.“

Particularly “exhibited an amount of pleasure which indicated an avaricious disposition” is actually quite a tongue-twister to read, but oh, Mr A voices this as smoothly as a knife cutting through soft butter. Try saying “avaricious disposition” quickly five times in a row… yup, avarishush dishposishush… It just proves once again – he truly is a *great* narrator. And not only that, also a tremendous performer – the way he voices Moppet in that excerpt, is just the cutest thing ever… In short – I do look forward to listening to this story, and I am already quite grateful to Audible. Not just for the freebie – but also for a lovely interview. (I am only still puzzled why that video appearance needed a stylist? Surely Mr A looked pretty au naturel… Honestly, styling community, lay off that stunning man. He doesn’t need improving!)

Anyway, after my recent grumbling, grousing and general nagging over anything vaguely related to RA, does this happy post convince you I am still with you all, smitten by Mr Armitage? Well, I am.

Not least because this fandom will not let me go. It’s just too nice. Continuing with the happy theme, I really feel that I need to mention the amazing happy mail that I received yesterday. First of all – for those who are unfamiliar with the term happy mail: Usually describes receiving unsolicited mail containing anything that relates to the recipient’s individual hobbies. I initially encountered the term ‘happy mail’ in the junk journal community where crafters often share their ‘happy mail’ in videos – packages and parcels full of papers, stickers, lace, fabric, and any kind of bits and pieces that the recipient might like to have. So yesterday, I had “deliriously happy mail”! I received three parcels which I had not expected at all!!!

3 parcels and a Christmas card

Hariclea spoils me with my favourite tea

Essential provisions from Germany thanks to Kate

Gorgeous gifts, wrapped by Donna

Guy-i-fied advent wreath thanks to Eugeal’s Xmas card

You only live once!

Gorgeous crafting gifts

I am still floored by all these unexpected parcels and gifts. Christmas has definitely come early for me. Big thank yous to all of you, Donna, Hariclea, Kate and Eugeal – not just for the gifts enclosed, but actually for the gift of your time, your thoughts and your implied friendship. I am very, very happy to receive it all. And I hope I can eventually return all your kindnesses in some shape or form. Thank you xx.

    Happy Clip and Happy Mail HI! I'm Guylty Pleasure and I am writing here to say thank you. Seriously, that face above - easy to miss on the source video because it's right at the beginning and half greyed-out - is pretty accurately the look on *my* face when I received a whole batch of happy mail yesterday.

[itsthejuggernautbitch]

"Deny it all you want" with Cable. The prompt gives off a particularly Cable-esque vibe.

100% agreed

“Deny it all you want. I know it’s me you think about when you’re horny.”

Taglist: @this-that-and-every-thing-else  @ptite-shit  @lesbianyondu  @chromecutie  @gallifreyangrandtorino  @ra-ra-rasputiin  @akihecko

Cable is infuriating. No one else seems to think that he is - just you. Everyone else just complains that he’s grumpy sometimes - never that he’s completely exhausting. Yeah, you realize that the implication behind the fact that you finding him infuriating means everyone is constantly picking on you and teasing you over and over that you like him. You don’t like him like that. (Yes, you do.)

If there’s anything more annoying than Cable being infuriating, it’s that Cable is always right. Right about which door the baddies are gonna be behind, right about which direction they’re going to come from, right about which window Wade is going to burst through. It’s like he just knows. You want to catch him being wrong just once.

As you see it, your time has come to do just that.

You’ve been sent, along with Cable, to investigate and address a mutant-turned-drug trafficker. Currently, you’re holed up in one of the kingpin’s hideouts, stuffed into a closet so that you can maybe, kinda, sorta figure out if he’s actually in the building. This is as close as you’ve come to the guy in the past few weeks of searching for him, and you’re convinced he’s there. Cable is not quite so convinced. This is another one of those instances where you just want to catch him off guard and prove that he can’t always be right. It’s kind of like your private game.

“I can definitely hear them through the vents,” you say, chest pressed to the wall. You’re hiding out in a janitor’s closet, fighting mops and brooms for space in the dim half-light. There’s a vent situated just above your head that you can hear voices coming though, and you’re pretty sure that the kingpin you’ve been sent after is directly above you. “That’s his bodyguard talking.”

Using a broom closet as your vantage point was Cable’s idea. Quiet, discreet. There’s not a single maintenance person employed by the building you’re in, so no one is going to accidentally open the door and find the two of you instead of a mop. 

The downside to the broom closet, if one could call it a downside, is that it’s kind of a tight space, so you’re quite aware how close you are to Cable. You don’t quite know how to feel about being in such close proximity to him. A little irritable. (A little horny.)

“I don’t think he’s here at all,” Cable replies, leaning against the wall next to you. You can see the metal cords crawling up his neck peeking just past his collar. You try not to stare (why do you like that?). “He hasn’t said a word since we’ve been here.”

You’ve been persistently trying not to look at him for the past hour. It’s not exactly easy when there’s only about four feet of space in any direction. It’s not the optimal space for two fully grown adults to be crammed into, but you think you’ve been doing a great job of avoiding him. 

“Then why would his bodyguard be here?” you ask.

“Might be a rotation of guards.”

You purse your lips, glad that he can’t see you well in the dim light. “I still think he’s up there.”

Cable is a few inches taller than you, so he can actually put his ear to the vent and listen in. You shift over as far as you can to give him room. “Well, we’ve gotta wait for him to say something to prove that he is. If we give away our position, it’ll be that much harder to find him later.”

You stretch up on your tiptoes; you still can’t get close to the vent. You can, however, get closer to Cable’s height, which is oddly satisfying. “I know that, it’s just a pain in the ass.”

“Don’t know why you’re so antsy to get out of here,“ Cable replies, moving away from the vent. In fact, he moves closer to you, which is the only way he really can move. "I figured that you’d be pretty happy to be trapped in a closet with me…”

Now that makes you jump. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cable laughs, a deep chuckle that resonates from deep in your spine to the fun little area of your brain that says oooo how very masculine. “I’m not an idiot, darlin’.”

Yeah, well, you know that. You just didn’t think that he’d picked up on how weird you tended to get around him.

“Never said you were,” you reply, a little twitchy at the prospect of being found out.

“I know you’ve got some feelings for me.”

And he’s choosing now to bring this up? When there are scary men with guns just above you? Of course.

“I really don’t,” you reply, very much unconvincing.

“Then why have you been crowded into that one little corner the whole time like you’re trying to avoid me?”

“I’m trying to respect your personal space. I know you have a wide bubble.”

He laughs again, and that traitorous little part of your brain swoons. “Why’s your face red, then? Hell, you’re blushing so hard I can see it in this god-awful light.”

“Because you’re questioning me, Nate!” you snap with a little more venom than you really intended to. “I don’t like you like that.”

“I’m just teasing you, darlin’,” Cable says. He’s smirking in the dim closet light, and you know that he’s just getting a good kick out of this.

“I know that…”

“Besides…” He leans forward on the balls of his feet, so close that he’s barely six inches from you. “Deny it all you want. I know it’s me you think about when you’re horny.” 

So, yeah, that’s confirmation that he’s well-aware of how much you like him. Best case scenario is that he just picked up on it by your mannerisms. Worst case scenario is that he’s heard you jerking yourself off before. Even worse case scenario is that you might have admitted to Wade while you were drunkthat he’s who you think about and Wade told him. All of these scenarioes are distinct possibilities (especially that last one, goddammit Wade).

Well, if Cable wants to play like that, you might as well play back. He already knows anyway, and if he’s teasing you like this (especially at this truly inopportune time), then he definitely likes you back.

You shrug, looking up at him. He’s so pretty, even in this horrible, terrible dusty closet light. He’s so close to you that you could just bridge that gap and kiss him. “So what if it is? Are you going to do something about it?”

Cable stands up so that he’s chest-to-chest with you. He’s not tall, but he’s definitely taller than you are. “I’ll do anything you want me to do about it, sweetheart.”

“Is that right?” You stretch up on your toes, challenging him to bridge the half-inch between your mouth and his.

“Sure as hell is.”

As a man of few words, Cable lets his actions do the talking for him. He bridges that tiny little gap, pressing his lips to yours. His mouth is soft against yours, just gentle pressure and pliant lips. He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you in close to him. He smells spicy, masculine, and it makes your head swim the longer you’re in contact with him. 

He bites your lip and you let him slip his tongue in your mouth, tasting you like he’s never tasted anything as sweet. His fingers glide up your back, just on top of your shirt, and you’ve got half a mind to just take his hands and stick them up your shirt yourself. You throw your arms around his neck, and he presses you back against the wall, a little fevered, a little too eager.

And that’s when you hear him. The kingpin you’ve been sent after is yammering away right above you, loud and clear and plain as day.

You have to use every ounce of your preciously thin willpower to pull away, but alas, duty calls, so you pull away from him and stand stock still. “Wait, listen - that’s our guy.”

Cable hums. “Well, I’ll be damned. He is here.”

“The quicker we get this guy taken care of, the quicker we can get back to the mansion...” you say, looking up at him. His mouth is red, lips swollen, and you can only imagine that yours looks similar.

He nods in agreement. “Can’t argue with that. Let’s go get this guy - I’ve got better plans for the rest of the night.”

Your face burns and you’re pretty sure that all of the baddies are going to see that you’re kiss-bitten and a little delirious, but you do get a warm pleasure out of the fact that you were fucking right.

[alessavias]

ALESSAVIA NORTH. 

﹙a human member of the thieves guild,  alessa currently lives in the  IMPERIAL COURT.  she’s twenty four, and notably quite quick-witted, bullheaded, irresolute and ambitious. she can often be seen snacking on fruit or climbing trees with a stolen book to read. ﹚

statistics

name —  alessavia north  ( born phoibe aretino )

nicknames —  alessa. rarely & with only her favorite people, she goes by allie.

age, d.o.b —  twenty four.  she doesn’t know her birthday, but she celebrates it whenever she feels she needs it most

sexuality — bisexual, no preference between similar / other genders

birthplace —  undiscovered / unknown ( imperial city )

physicality —  long dirty blonde hair often braided with a spiked strap. wide hazel eyes. five feet and a few inches tall, and athletically built. not quite slender. 

family —  two adoptive mothers, arcadia & edda, members of the thieves guild. both human.

basics / backstory

then unknowing of her own name, she seemed to appear out of nowhere in muck-soaked cesspool at age thirteen, feverish and shivering, in relatively well-made clothes, and with fingers free of calluses. 

picked up by two lovers members of the thieves guild on a late-night stroll, she’d come to call those women her mothers. 

they nursed her out of the delirious fever they’d found her in and named her. then they taught her to foist and to pick locks and to walk on the very balls of her feet in a way that didn’t stir even the dust around her

the mysteries of her circumstance grew as she did-- first it was found that she somehow knew she could read. and then that no one seemed to be looking for her, though she hadn’t been dressed like the starving orphan child one might expect to find in a cesspool

although she found a new family to be a part of, life is hardly easy in poverty, let alone as a child of criminals living in constant transience and fear of discovery. 

eventually alessa gave up on finding the truth about herself and threw herself into her career in the thieves guild, following her mothers’ footsteps and wishes. though she’s often-times a stubborn child with too much lip in her, her loyalty is unquestionable and she doesn’t flinch at an order

her size, skill and determination made her a perfect candidate to train for the shills and heists that took place in gaudy manor homes. later, when she began to branch out and find jobs for herself, she started to work in the business of creating, learning and selling secrets

it’s lucrative and enjoyable. it gets her past locked doors and introduces her to the strangest of people — and it’s a kind of sabotage that leaves little trace and makes her clients very happy.

though she still steals and plants goods on others for the chaos of it, ( mostly out of a desire for fun ) her currency these days is secrets and sabotage. she’s taken down entire merchant families by making contracts disappear, changing numbers in ledgers, and by giving their rivals the perfect blackmail material.  

as a member of a guild, she’s determined to be one to watch. she wants to find herself a step away from the guild master someday — though she doesn’t want the pressure of leading, she wants to prove her loyalty to her people and bring the thieves guild power like it’s never had.

as a human looking forward to war, her feelings are a bit more complicated: both of her mothers have tightly-held prejudices towards immortals and especially high lords. 

while alessavia’s never been able to find out what happened to instill hatred and distrust that deep, she’s a loyal creature, and she owes everything she has and everything she could be to her mothers. 

often times her beliefs fall along a similar line -- that under no circumstances can she trust an immortal. the treaty means very little to her. raised to believe the worst of far-away enemies, she believes it is neither a force of good, nor much more than a piece of paper. she believes that when the time comes, war will.

personality / misc

character inspiration:  leliana (dragon age), vex (skyrim), koramin ingensra, beka cooper (tortallverse)

she’s very much a chameleon. as her job requires some form of finesse, both in her official rank  ( infiltrator )  and in the side projects she’s nursing to life,  ( spywork )  often times her persona changes many times depending on who is looking

in one of her favorite roles, she likes to use the girlish, sad-eyed face to get what she wants and play a helpless street urchin grown. she also loves to play a spoiled merchant’s youngest brat on occasion

those closest to her know her as a playful, albeit high-strung young woman. she’s got a mouth on her, and often finds the darkest humor in situations she shouldn’t.  

she’s got this mean, icy, “excuse me? i’ll wait” thousand-yard stare she’s perfected over years and years of being somewhat of a people person. it’s usually enough to shut someone up mid-sentence and she’s lowkey known for it among her friends because it’s intimidating

she’s been through a lot, raised from amnesia onto the streets, and it’s taught her to be wary of who knows her complete story. she’s often lying and it’s not difficult to catch her in them — the truth is that what little she DOES know about herself is precious to her, and she fears her missing past more than anything.

DISLIKES:  people who harm children, large chunks of meat in her food, stale bread, slavery / indentured servitude, immortals / especially those with superiority complexes, thick ales, being cold, sickness, skinned knees

LIKES:  fruit, fresh bread, the underdog, pretty things & pearls, fortune tellers, tavern music, large and soft shawls, cats, children, swimming, rain, sleeping in

alright, pHEW. i typed most of this out with a raging migraine so if there’s a ton of typos i’mma be real they might not get fixed xD but i’m so freaking excited to be here!! i’m e, i’m also in the discord, and i love my girl so far. she’s gonna be really fun : ‘ )

i’m gonna put some feelers out before i type up a list of ideas for connections, but PLEASE come plot! i’m so excited to get to know everyone and their characters, you can’t even believe. i’m open to anything plots-wise, literally hit me with the wildest shit and i’m down. 

[spookyscullies]

how to begin an ending

rating: NC-17 (for language)

plot: Mulder is trapped in a downward spiral of grief after Scully is shot in her apartment instead of Melissa.

tagging: @today-in-fic

Stacks upon stacks of files. Everywhere. Covering the floors, lining the walls, upon every surface in apartment number 42. Files interspersed between piles of dirty dishes. Some hadn't been touched in ages, with dust that created a film on them. Others had been left open, papers spilling out. The rooms were left dark, always. Never a light turned on. It was a hopeless place, and just like it was devoid of any light, it was also devoid of any real life.

The lock clicked and the door pushed open. He stumbled in the doorway and slammed the door behind him. He slumped against it, falling slowly to the floor as his back pressed against the door for some stability. He buried his face in his hands, his head pounding in excruciating pain. It always felt like this. Even without the hangovers. Sure, he went out every few days to get hammered, but the headaches were a preexisting condition. It was a wonder his still had his job, although he was damn near close to getting fired. Skinner wouldn't fire him, though. Mulder knew he just felt sorry for him. One sorry son of a bitch. That's what Scully's brother had said to him that day.

Characteristically, that day had been dark. He had found it hilariously fitting. Of course it was stormy. Of course it was raining. Of course the sky was overcast and angry. It was only suitable, and it only made sense. It was a grim day, overflowing with sorrow and despair. A lot of hatred for himself and a lot of hatred towards him from others. How could he be forgiven? He was to blame. It was his fault she was dead.

Mulder eased himself up from his position and walked over files to reach his couch. His coffee table was littered with the current leads he was following. All of them were dead ends, and he knew it. There was nothing that could be traced to anyone. They covered it up too well. They took what was most precious to him. They did it again. His eyes wearily glossed over the M.E. report. Single gunshot to the temporal fossa. Cause of death: fatal injury to the brain and blood loss. Absolutely nothing left at the scene. No finger prints. The bullet had proved to be untraceable. No sign of a break in. The perfect set up for a case to go cold. He squeezed his eye shut tightly.

It had been the first place he'd gone to after returning from New Mexico, Scully's apartment. He had to get back home eventually, but he'd wanted to see her first. Upon reaching her apartment complex, however, he was greeted from a few blocks away by flashing lights and dozens of personnel flocking outside the building. He had immediately pulled over on the side of the road. He ran the rest of the way, pushing past law enforcement officials and residents of the building, flashing his badge along the way.

He followed the corridors, ignoring the looks of pity or confusion that came from the local police . The door was wide open, and there she was. Skinner stood above her, his eyes filled with grief. Her auburn hair was splayed against the floor, stained a darker shade of red by the pool of blood that leaked from the wound. Her eyes. The sight of her eyes wide open, staring into nothingness was an image he could never get rid of, no matter how much he tried to drink it away.

Mulder sunk to his knees, his breath stolen from him. His fingers gently brushed her cheek. She was still warm. Her lips were slightly pulled apart, as if in shock.

"Mulder, you can't." Skinner said quietly.

He didn't listen. He tenderly closed her eyes.

"Agent Mulder."

Mulder felt tears slip from his eyes, his hands squeezing her shoulders and drawing her close to his body, holding her lifeless form in his arms. He shook violently as his sobs overtook him. Her blood-soaked hair was pressed against his face, her head fitting perfectly in the crook of his neck.

"Scully." He whispered softly, rocking back on his knees. Her tiny frame remained motionless in response to his whispers. His hot tears trailed down his face, landing on the top of her head.

It might as well have been if he held the gun to her himself. He killed her. He did this. He did this to her. His life's mission destroyed her, an innocent. It wasn't even her quest and here she was because of him. He knew why she stayed, but God, he should've told her to leave long ago. He should have told her to stay the hell away from him. She would have fought him, told him that she wouldn't leave her side, but he should've done something. If he had done anything, she wouldn't be lying here dead.

Mulder slammed his fist down on his coffee table, his sorrow pulsing through him, coursing alongside his rage. His fingers gripped the underside of the table, and through a fit of fury, he overturned it and threw it hard to the floor. The wood splintered and groaned and he kicked at it in indignation.

He sunk onto the couch, clutching a pillow against his chest. His heart clenched excruciatingly, remembering all the hurt Scully had suffered for him. How she had bravely undergone it, never asking for pity, never looking for sympathy. Why did she do it? It baffled him to this very day, why she so stoically remained by his side, never backing down. Even after her abduction, even after her coma, she came back and aided him.

It wasn't fucking fair. Why her and not him?

Everyone was clad in black. A long procession of people trailed around the coffin, draped in the colors of the country Scully had served so faithfully. Mulder stood staring for what seemed like hours. It hadn't been an open-casket ceremony, and he thanked whatever god that was out there for that. He wouldn't have been able to handle it. Hell, he wasn't handling it now. One by one, each member of the congregation placed a rose upon the coffin. Finally, he had reached the front of the line. His hand shaking, he lowered the flower onto the small pile that had already been laid there. He had attached something to his rose. It was something he had been saving until her birthday. It was an Apollo 11 keychain, just something that he thought she would appreciate.

He watched as the coffin descended into the cold ground, turning away when members of her family began to pour dirt into the darkness she had been entombed in.

"Fox?" Melissa tapped him on the shoulder.

"I can't do it. I'm sorry." Mulder muttered, forcing his voice not to shatter.

Melissa was silent for a few seconds, as others around began to do their share in the work.

"You know Fox, I think she loved you." She said solemnly.

He glanced up at her, his eyes red, tears threatening to break free.

Mulder leaned against the arms of the couch, fighting to stay awake. For what, he sincerely didn't know.

_______________________________________________________________________

His eyes jerked open. Sunlight was peaking through his windows. His head felt heavy, and his brow was beaded in sweat. He looked around, inspecting his surroundings. There were no files on the ground, none on the table. In fact, the table was still in one complete piece.

He heard rustling in the kitchen. Alarmed, he stood to his feet. He swayed back and forth a little, shaky on his feet. He staggered toward the kitchen.

He saw a flash of red hair.

"Scully?" He mumbled, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

She turned to face him, her eyes filled with concern.

"Mulder, what are you doing up and walking around? Go lie back down, you still have a fever." She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and guided him back to the living room.

"Scully, you're... you're alive?" Mulder stopped in his tracks, his hands gripping her arms.

"Of course I'm alive." Scully laughed, but her smile faded as Mulder leaned in toward her, their faces nearly touching. "What are you doing?"

"I thought I lost you." He whispered. He pulled her into a tight embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Lost me?" She questioned softly against his chest. She pushed back to look into his eyes. "Mulder, I think you're a little delirious."

"I think I am too, Scully. I can't believe how deliriously stupid I've been all these years." He held her face in his hands, his thumb tenderly stroking her cheek.

"What do you mean?" Her deep blue eyes searched his, looking for something to tell her what this all meant.

"I had a fever dream. You were dead, Scully, you died. You were shot... instead of your sister. I saw what my life turned out to be. How miserable, how lost I was without you. It was a nightmare. You were gone and the pain was stifling, like all the air in the world had been taken away. I couldn't breathe. Every day was a day filled with enduring agony. And out of all of the horror I've felt in my life, all of the pain I've experienced, I don't think a single thing can compare to that feeling of having you gone. It was unbearable. What I mean is that I don't know how I ever went through life without you. I don't think I can go through life without you."

Scully stared at him in stunned silence, her fingers interlacing with his.

"You know you don't have to. And you know that was just a dream, Mulder. I'm here." Scully kissed his forehead delicately, remaining there for a few moments.

"Scully."

She met his eyes; they shone at her with such intensity. He tilted his head forward. There was an instant that seemed to last for thousands of years. The second before their lips met, their noses touching, so close they could feel the breath from the other bouncing off their skin. His lips captured hers, tender but with zeal, like a desire fulfilled after years of longing. They moved with each other, feeding off of the other's passion, tongues wandering. Hands roaming.

They broke apart at last, eyes shining with joy.

"You're it, Scully. You're all I need." Mulder tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

She nestled her head against his chest, wrapping her arms around him. She deliberated for a moment

“I love you too, Mulder.”

[nonstop-smashing-expectations]

Soulmates: Alexander x Reader

Warnings: talks about the effects of sleep deprivation and I used google translate

This is a soulmate AU so keep that in mind as you read. It is set in modern times.

You lived in a world where soul mates are a reality. From the moment you were born, you received a tattoo that imprinted itself into your wrist. The faint lines that started out on your wrist would eventually become the first words your soul mate says to you.

Until your soulmate learned to write, the words were gibberish. As you grew older, the handwriting would change as your soulmate’s handwriting did. You loved watching the childlike letters slowly change over the years into the elegant fancy script it is today.

Today you woke up with a feeling that something had happened. On reflex you checked out the tattoo on your wrist. It still had the same words as normal, “You are magnifique”, but the handwriting was different. The handwriting looked really shaky.

You sucked in a breath in shock, feeling as if someone had punched you in the stomach. This wasn’t good at all. You were a doctor so you knew what could have been causing the shakiness, and you really wished that everything was ok. You really hoped it was something like a fever or a cold that could be temporary messing with your soul mate’s handwriting and not one of the alternatives.

You spent about twenty minutes worrying about it until you happened to glance up at the clock hanging from the wall across your living room.

Scrambling, you jumped up and ran into your bedroom to change clothes. You had work in twenty minutes and you’d been so worried that you forgot about it until now.

You were only supposed to work an eight hour shift today but they needed doctors to cover for someone who suddenly called in sick. As a result, it was two hours past the time you normally went home and you had taken on some of the sick person’s cases.

You made your way into the last patient of the day’s room. The patient was sitting on the bed and a group of people were standing around it. The man on the bed was shaking terribly and staring at the far wall blankly.

With a small sigh, you read over the patient’s chart that was hanging from a nail on the wall.

His name was Alexander Hamilton and it looked like his friends brought him to the hospital when he didn’t respond to their texts. They didn’t know how long he had been like this.

You walked over to the group with a polite smile. “You are Mr. Hamilton’s friends correct? You brought him here?”

The group nodded and one by one introduced themselves.

A man with brown hair and freckles stepped forward and introduced himself as John Laurens.

Another one of the men, perhaps the most intimidating, introduced himself as Hercules Mulligan.

A man with a French accent introduced himself as Marquis de Lafayette.

Smiling toward them you introduced yourself as Dr. L/N.

“I have some questions I need to ask. Would you mind?”

Seeing the group shake their heads no, you continued.

“Has Mr. Hamilton had an event like this occur before?” “Does Mr. Hamilton drink a lot of coffee? Is there anything in his family history that might have caused this? Does he do drugs? Does he drink a lot?”

They answered no to every question and with that, you had no more questions to ask. You turned to look at Alexander and noticed the bags under his eyes.

“How long have those bags been there under his eyes?”

The group shrugged and each gave an answer along the lines of “He hardly ever sleeps, they are always there.”

With that extra piece of information, you asked one more question.

“How long has it been since you last saw Mr. Hamilton?”

The boys looked at each other and after having a quick conversation between themselves they settled on an answer. “About three or so days, we didn’t think it was abnormal, sometimes we don’t see Alex for a couple of weeks at a time because he’s always working except normally he responds to our texts. Which is why we knew something happened.”

You shook your head and said “Mr. Hamilton is just sleep deprived. I’m going to give him some medicine so that he can sleep and he’ll be fine in a few days.”

His friends visibly relaxed after hearing that and you told them that visiting hours were almost over and that they should leave.

They all said goodbye to Alex and you watched them slowly shuffle out the door.

You shook your head with a smile, they all really cared about him.

You walked to Alexander who only just now focused on your face. With a goofy smile he said “You are magnifique”. Your heart soared for a minute but you quickly focused again on your work.

“You are sleep deprived Mr. Hamilton, I don’t think you can say that if you can’t see straight.” His mouth dropped and you quickly continued on before he could say anything else. “I’m going to give you some medicine to help you sleep. If you remember this, we’ll talk again when you wake up. Until then, you need to rest and let the medicine take hold.” As you spoke, you had moved him so that he was laying down on the bed.

You had barely got the sentence out before his snores reached your ears. With a laugh, you walked out of the room after dimming the lights.

The medicine did its job and Alex slept for a little over a day, only waking up to use the bathroom and eat a bit.

You were in the room when he woke up again. You had just walked into the room to check the monitors. His voice caught you by surprise. “Even sleep deprived and delirious, I know who my soulmate is.”

You laughed and showed him your tattoo. He watched as the writing slowly shifted from shaky back to its previous style.

He smiled and said “That’s definitely my handwriting. And I can prove it, give me a pen.”

You handed him a paper and pen and watched as he wrote down his number.

He tore off that section of paper and gave it to you. You put it in your pocket and you wrote your own number on the part he didn’t tear off.

“And to think we only met by chance! I wasn’t supposed to have you as a patient but your doctor was sick so I filled in for her.” Checking your watch you continued, “Speaking of, she should be here any moment and I don’t think she’d be happy that you’re awake. Pretend to awake up when she’s here and call me when you get better.”

Alex agreed and with a smile toward him, you left the room to go home. Because now you needed your sleep. ———————————————– I just wanted to write a soul mate au and I wanted the tattoo to be in a language that wasn’t English. So French came to mind but I didn’t want to write about Lafayette in this one. Also, I don’t speak French but the tattoo is supposed to say “you are gorgeous”. Let’s hope google translate did ok.

[bungou-stray-haikyuu]

Sick Day

Part of the Soukoku, but not really collection

Chuuya had been feeling a bit off all week. It started when Dazai pushed him into a lake while they were on a mission and Chuuya couldn’t get dry until they got back. On top of that, this week had been heavy on the workload and he hadn’t had a lot of time to unwind and de-stress. He thought nothing of the slight ill-feeling and thought it would just go away once he had some more time to himself again. This morning proved him wrong. “Ugh…” Chuuya groaned. For some reason, he felt cold and had an awful headache. He wondered if it was the wine he drank last night but that didn’t explain why he felt so cold, even with the covers on. He rubbed his eyes tired and lay there for a few minutes, waiting to see if the headache would subside. Instead, he felt his body begin to heat up. Soon he threw the covers off and spread out, suddenly sweating and feeling the need to cool down. He did. A few minutes later he suddenly started to shiver and hastily pulled the covers back over himself again. “The hell is going on…?” He mumbled as his body began to feel heavy and he closed his eyes again. “Chuuya~” Came the familiar voice at his door. Chuuya groaned and thought that this was the worst possible time for Dazai to appear. However, as always, Dazai had picked the lock and was strolling into his room as he thought that. “Chuuya~ Where are you-” Dazai stopped when he saw Chuuya was still in bed. “Well, well, looks who’s being lazy for once, eh?~” He sauntered over, grinning. “Buzz off, Dazai…I’m not in the mood…” Came the slightly, slurred reply. Dazai frowned, immediately noticing something was wrong. He walked over to the bed and peered down at Chuuya. “Gee you look really pale this morning…you feeling ok?” “What do you think, idiot?” Chuuya’s voice was quiet and husky. “Got a sore throat or something? I told you shouting was bad for you~” Despite his jokey tone, Dazai put the back of his hand to Chuuya’s forehead. “Good God, Chuuya, you’re burning up!” He took his hand away, surprised. Chuuya sighed contentedly when he felt Dazai’s cool hand on his forehead. It seemed logical that he was burning up if he felt this bad and he grunted in reply. “No wonder you look and sound so awful! You’ve gone and got yourself a fever!” Dazai shook his head and fetched a flannel, soaking it in cold water and wringing the excess out, bringing it back and placing it on Chuuya’s forehead. “Better?” Chuuya nodded slightly and Dazai sighed, dragging a nearby chair over and sitting down, watching him. “You’re not going anywhere today, alright? You’re going to lie in bed and rest. We want that fever gone by tomorrow so you’re on the mend. I’ll delegate our work to someone else so it gets done. You’re not to worry about it, ok?” Chuuya nodded slowly. “Go to work…I’ll be fine…” “You sure as hell will be once I’m finished with you. But I’m staying here and making sure you don’t wander off. In your almost-delirious state who knows what you might do.” Chuuya grunted again but didn’t protest, he thought it too much effort. “Now then, the first order of the day, breakfast!” Dazai stood up and took his long coat off, draping it over the chair. “On the menu, today is soup, soup and soup! Everyone knows you eat soup when you’re ill and that’s what I’ll be making you all day!” Dazai kept rambling on as he began to rummage around for a pot. “Apparently chicken soup is very good for colds, maybe we should see if it works!” Dazai began to make a pot of chicken soup, still talking nonsense. It was more for Chuuya’s sake than his own but he didn’t mind. Around an hour later, the chicken soup was ready and Dazai put some in a bowl, taking it over to Chuuya who was dozing. “Chuuya,” Dazai shook him gently. “Chuuya it’s time for some soup.” Chuuya stirred and opened his eyes sleepily. “Soup…?” “That’s right, soup. Now, will you be able to drink it yourself or will I have to feed you?” The small part of Chuuya’s brain that was still functioning, and so hated Dazai, knew exactly which option to pick. “Gimmie that soup I’ll drink it myself…” Dazai helped him sit up a bit and handed him the bowl. Chuuya began to drink but soon his arms were shaking and Dazai took the bowl back. Just the simple task of sipping from a soup bowl seemed too much for Chuuya at the moment. “Dammit, Dazai I can do it myself…I don’t need your help…” Chuuya tried to reach for the bowl again but Dazai gently pushed his arm back into his lap. “Chuuya stop being so stubborn…you know you can’t do this yourself at the moment…” Dazai’s voice was soft but stern. He took the spoon he’d put on the table earlier and filled it with soup, bringing the bowl and spoon up to Chuuya’s chin. “Open wide~” Chuuya reluctantly obeyed, opening his mouth so Dazai could feed him. The process of Dazai filling the spoon, lifting it to Chuuya’s open mouth and Chuuya drinking it, repeated for a while until Chuuya got tired and no longer wanted to eat. “Come on, Chuuya, just a little bit more, hm?” Dazai coaxed, wanting to get him eating as much as possible. He shook his head, however, and Dazai gave in, helping Chuuya lie down again and changing the cloth on his forehead. “Alright then, you take a nap,” Chuuya dropped off almost immediately and Dazai sat there and watched him, making sure he was ok.

When Chuuya next woke up a couple of hours later, he saw that Dazai had poured the soup into a mug and stuck a straw in it. That way, Chuuya didn’t have to hold anything and could just drink as and when he wanted to. Unfortunately for Dazai, Chuuya didn’t feel like drinking any soup and most likely wouldn’t unless Dazai was there to gently force him. Dazai had gone back to the kitchen and made himself something to eat, fetching Chuuya’s medicine box and looking for anything useful while he was at it. He came back shortly after Chuuya woke up with a thermometer and some painkillers. “Alright, Chuuya, let’s check you out,” Chuuya let Dazai slip the thermometer under his tongue and waited for Dazai to read the result. “Yep, you’ve definitely got a fever alright, your temperature is really high!” Dazai removed the thermometer and crushed a couple of painkillers into a glass of water, figuring Chuuya probably wouldn’t be able to swallow tablets right now. Dazai handed the glass to him, saying he had to drink it all. Chuuya groaned but managed to finish the glass, not liking the bitter taste of the tablets. “Good boy, that’ll help with the headache and might just bring your fever down a bit.” Dazai took the glass and motioned at the soup. “Don’t forget to drink that up too, I still have lots left in the pot for you to eat.” Chuuya mumbled something and closed his eyes, not feeling up to it. “Chuuya…” Dazai crouched down beside him. “Please drink the soup for me…we need you to recover as quickly as you can…” Chuuya shook his head, mumbling something about wanting to sleep. Dazai sighed sadly but gave in. “Alright…you just keep sleeping then…” He stroked Chuuya’s head for a moment as he fell asleep and then stood up and took the glass to the kitchen. Chuuya slept on-and-off for another few hours, Dazai checking on him every few minutes and changing the flannel frequently to keep him comfortable. Later in the day, Kouyou paid Chuuya a visit while he was asleep. She talked to Dazai and asked him how Chuuya was doing. Dazai reassured her that Chuuya was fine and that he’d get better soon. At around 7 pm Chuuya finally woke up properly and Dazai managed to get him to finish off the mug of soup, plus a whole second mug-full of it. Once that was taken care of, Chuuya dozed. He wasn’t quite awake but he wasn’t quite asleep either. Dazai listened to Chuuya’s muttering as he continued to potter around, keeping Chuuya comfortable.

As the night wore on, Dazai managed to get Chuuya to eat once more before he went to sleep for the night. Dazai made himself comfortable in the chair and settled down to keep an eye on Chuuya throughout the night. He hoped that Chuuya would wake him up if there was a problem, but Chuuya’s stubborn personality meant that there was a possibility he wouldn’t and Dazai didn’t want to take that risk. Dazai kept himself awake by routinely checking Chuuya’s pulse and temperature, and also changing the flannel. Although, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help but doze off in the early hours of the morning. While he was asleep, Chuuya began to get restless due to the fever. He began to toss and turn, muttering and sweating. He was still asleep and as such, couldn’t tell Dazai what was wrong. Dazai didn’t wake up until Chuuya accidentally hit Dazai’s knee with his hand. That jolted him awake and he became aware of the situation

”Damn, I fell asleep!” Dazai hissed quietly and quickly got up and changed the flannel again. That calmed Chuuya down a bit but he was still restless.

“What else can I do…?” He mused, watching Chuuya.

Chuuya continued to toss and turn until Dazai started stroking his head once again.

“Shh…”

Chuuya, to Dazai’s surprise, started to calm down and soon he was sleeping peacefully.

Dazai managed to stay awake for the rest of the night until Chuuya woke up the next morning, however, he was very tired.

“Good morning. Chuuya…” He mumbled as Chuuya began to stir.

“Dazai…? Are you alright…?”

“Yeah…but what about you…?”

“Better…but I still feel pretty awful…”

“I’ll get you soup…wait here…” Dazai stumbled into the kitchen and miraculously managed to bring back a mug of soup.

“Dazai, you look exhausted,” Chuuya took the mug from Dazai as he began to try and feed him again.

“I’m fine…eat your soup…”

Chuuya managed a chuckle and drank his soup.

“I’ll get you more…” Dazai stood up again but Cchuuya stopped him.

“No, no, it’s alright, Dazai…I’m ok…”

“More soup…” Dazai ignored him and brought back another mug.

“Thank you, Dazai…could you get me some painkillers?”

“Painkillers…yes…” Dazai shuffled off again, almost as if he was in a trance.

Chuuya still had a throbbing headache and he still felt a bit ill, but compared to yesterday he knew he was on the mend. He continued to drink the second mug of soup as Dazai found the painkillers, swallowing two of the pills and waiting for them to take effect.

“Dazai, go take a nap, you idiot,”

Dazai was stumbling around only half-awake as he tried to make sure Chuuya had everything he needed.

“Dazai I don’t need any more soup!”

“Soup is good…soup helps you get better…”

“Soup will make me sick if you give me another mug!”

“No no…not sick…soup is good…”

“Dazai! Sleep!”

Eventually, Chuuya made the excuse that he felt better when Dazai was close to him and managed to drag him onto the bed next to himself.

“Now we both sleep.”

Chuuya kept a firm grip on Dazai until he drifted off. Soon after, Chuuya followed and both of them were sleeping soundly. Chuuya woke up a few times throughout the day but was content to just lie there until he fell asleep again. He also didn’t want to wake Dazai up who slept soundly until the following morning.

”Good morning, sleepyhead,”

”Huh…?” Dazai stirred and opened his eyes to find Chuuya looking down at him.

“I said good morning, come on up you get,”

“But…Chuuya you’re supposed to be in bed.” Dazai was completely puzzled and yesterday was a blur to him. He had no idea what happened.

“I was in bed for two days, silly, but I’m feeling better today so I decided to get up.”

“Then…what am I doing in your bed?”

“You barely got any sleep and so yesterday you wouldn’t stop going on about soup and you were barely awake but you stubbornly refused to sleep so I pretended I needed you next to me to sleep. Then I dragged you onto the bed and kept you there until you fell asleep. You’ve been asleep ever since.”

“Oh…”

“Now then, I’ve got some of that lovely soup for you to eat.” Chuuya grinned and handed him a mug.

Dazai quickly sat up to take it and, after giving Chuuya a stern look, drank it quickly.

“Good boy!” Chuuya chuckled at Dazai’s expression and took the mug away.

“Chuuya you may be feeling better but still take it easy for today.” Dazai got up and followed Chuuya around, trying to convince him to sit down and let Dazai do the work.

“Only if you make me a solid breakfast,” Chuuya said.

“Fine, fine, just sit down.”

Chuuya sat down and Dazai made him a big breakfast. Unluckily for Chuuya, he sneezed just as Dazai was taking his empty plate away.”

“Hot shower. Now.”

“No, Dazai-”

Dazai wasn’t having it. Before he knew it, Chuuya was standing in the bathroom in nought but his underwear.

“Now, take a hot shower.”

“Dazai I just sneezed-”

“The cause of this fever was you falling in that lake now get in the shower.”

“Dazai please-”

“Now.”

Chuuya sighed and resigned himself to his fate. Dazai left and Chuuya took his underwear off, getting under the hot shower for ten minutes.

Once he got out again, Dazai was waiting outside the door with a mug of soup.

“Thank you, Dazai…” Chuuya allowed himself to be led over to where Dazai had plugged in a hair dryer. Dazai then proceeded to dry Chuuya’s hair while he drank his soup.

Although Chuuya would never admit it, he loved having his hair dried for him and he found himself closing his eyes and enjoying the warm air and Dazai’s fingers running through his hair.

“There, all dry.” Dazai put the hair dryer away and came to sit beside Chuuya.

“Thank you, Dazai, I’m ok now,”

“I’m just glad to see you’re feeling so much better today.”

“I’ll be back at work tomorrow, don’t you worry,”

“Only if you’re well enough,”

“Dazai, I’m fine now. I drank practically that entire pot of soup you made. There’s no way I can get ill now.” Chuuya shook his head, “Stop worrying,”

“Fine, fine, I’ll stop,”

The two of them spent the rest of the day recovering before heading off to work again the next day.

From then on, they would always take care of one another when they got sick and they always, always, drank their soup from mugs rather than in bowls.

Bonus Ending:

“Chuuya you’ve had one less mug of soup than me, go drink some more,”

“I’m full you bandage-wasting device!”

“But you won’t get better if you don’t drink another mug of soup!”

“I’m smaller than you, I don’t need as much!”

“But you need more soup to compensate for the illness having spread further through your body!”

“That’s utter rubbish! You need to drink more soup to accommodate your awful health!”

“My health is fine!

The two of them sat on the sofa in Dazai’s house, wrapped up in every blanket they could find. Both of them had caught colds while stranded out on a mission and, as such, there was no one to take care of them. So, they tried to take care of each other. Needless to say, it didn’t end too well.

[anhed-nia]

5/3/17: FIRE WALK WITH ME vs PHENOMENA - The Comparative Analysis No One Asked For!

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992) and PHENOMENA (1985) is a pairing that may not immediately leap to mind, but they have two obvious things in common: They are products of two of the world's best loved genre filmmakers, and they were thought to represent the nadir of each director's career at the time of release. Incidentally, they are also both predicated on a sort of Alice through the looking glass structure, and as such, they may have more to offer as a duet than a cursory consideration would suggest. 

When FIRE WALK WITH ME made its debut, after David Lynch’s groundbreaking television series was cancelled, the former suffered a lot from the preciousness with which audiences regarded Twin Peaks. A show fan (as opposed to a Lynch fan) might accept cutesy kookiness but not psychoanalytic abstraction; they might welcome a few good scares, but not constant terror and misery; and importantly, they might enjoy the idea of a cheerleader with a dark side, but sicken when the facts of Laura Palmer's life are laid bare unromantically in all their R-rated glory. Topping all that off with the absence of most of the show's beloved characters and/or actor (many of who expressed bitterness over Lynch more or less abandoning the program in its oft-maligned second season), it is unsurprising that the film met with boos, walkouts and scathing reviews upon release.

After a fashion, FIRE WALK WITH ME enjoyed a favorable reappraisal by its public, but no such forgiveness would come for Dario Argento's PHENOMENA. (At least, not for a while) This grisly fairy tale in which Jennifer Connelly uses her psychic connection with insects, and the aid of Donald Pleasance's wayward helper monkey, to solve a series of murders, was considered by many to be the beginning of the end of Argento's envelope-pushing career. Up to that point, fans delighted in the logistical acrobatics of manic detective stories like PROFONDO ROSSO and TENEBRE, and happily accepted the rather loose story structure of a fever dream like SUSPIRIA in light of its astonishing aesthetic powers. However, even these adventurous viewers had a hard time with PHENOMENA's delirious dialog, its hysterical musical blend opera with speed metal and surf rock, and its entirely preposterous premise. I have yet to come across a piece of critical writing that values this film as more than a collection of extreme examples of Argento's defining characteristics as an artist. With that said, I have preemptively congratulated myself for attempting to say something about it as a story.

Both FWWM and PHENEMONA tell a little-girl-lost tale, in which the girls are specifically lost in a world of intimate violence and betrayal, with supernatural overtones. Their similarities are cosmetic, too: The mountain town of Twin Peaks, where prom queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) lives and dies, is bathed in a searing white light by day as if to parody the pretended purity and simplicity of its people. A similarly blinding daylight bleaches the eerie environs of the Swiss Alps where a movie star has sent his beautiful daughter, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), to a fancy boarding school. By night, an evil darkness seeps out of the pines surrounding both settings, laying cover for libidinous young men and bloodthirsty murderers. Our schoolgirl heroines have to battle the mundane evils of ignorant adults and predatory peers, as well as real monsters disguised as loving fathers.

Although FIRE WALK WITH ME is a prequel to Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer is already in deep trouble at the beginning of the movie. Because she is the most popular girl in the world, seeming to have it all, no one in a position to help thinks to wonder about her erratic behavior, nocturnal flights from home, and often-transparent misery. With nobody watching out for her, Laura's fate is determined by the men in her life: her boyfriend Bobby, who is more a rabid dog than a person; her secret lover James, who lacks the humility to imagine anything more important than his shallow puppy love; and Jacques, the owner of a bar on the wild Canadian border, who feeds Laura's cocaine addiction and her compulsion to endanger and degrade herself. As per the unfortunate cliche, Laura's relationships are patterned after her relationship with her father, who in this case is essentially the devil.

Jennifer Corvino is also haunted by the specter of her father, who has a huge impact on her life, even though he never materializes. When she arrives at the elite Richard Wagner Academy for Girls, she is burdened with the stigma of having a rich, famous, and desirable daddy. Her social life basically has two facets, which her new roommate Sophie demonstrates succinctly: Jennifer is either subject to other people's sexual obsession with her father, or subject to their sadism and jealousy of her supposedly desirable station in life. When Jennifer reveals that she knows movie star Paul Corvino, Sophie mindlessly assails her with a lustful rant about his body, and an invasive question about whether she has fucked him yet, before Jennifer patiently explains that he is her father. It's hard to completely blame Sophie for her behavior, since Jennifer has brought armloads of pinups of her dad to decorate their dorm--a strange way for a person to relate to a parent. The oedipal vibe of this scene is underlined by a weird comic touch in which Jennifer, hungry from her long journey, eats a jar of baby food left behind by Sophie's family. Throughout the film, the infantilized Jennifer pines for the father who has abandoned her for a foreign film shoot, longing for his protection from even less caring adults.

Where Jennifer's character is colored by this subtle form of romance with her father, Laura's life is ruined by the very real affair that her father (Ray Wise) carries on with her during the twilight fugue states shared by both of them. Her repressed awareness of this ongoing trauma bubbles up to her consciousness in the form of hallucinatory visions of a demonic older man called Bob (Frank Silva) who has been raping her since childhood. Laura sees Bob lurking in her bedroom, blames him for pages torn out of her secret diary, and believes he that he intends to fully possess her and thereby incarnate himself as her. Laura has only one real friend in the world, who she can't possible tell about Bob: innocent Donna Hayward (played here by Moira Kelly rather than Lara Flynn Boyle, to pretty much universal dismay). Donna loves Laura with the kind of unconditional love that easily blooms when a person doesn't really know anything about the object of their affection. Donna's naivete is so total that Laura must shield her not only from the story of Bob, but from her crippling drug addiction and forays into prostitution. Inevitably, Donna martyrs herself on the cross of their friendship, attempting to prove her devotion by borrowing some of Laura's sluttier clothes, getting wasted and almost screwing a young tough in the middle of Jacque's bar. The harrowing sequence concludes with Laura, who has been perfectly evil to Donna all night in an attempt to scare her off, giving vent to a shattering scream at the sight of her friend being molested. Still, she is unable to experience or express actual love, screeching at her best friend, "DON'T YOU EVER WEAR MY STUFF!" 

Donna's love for Laura is only as deep as her maturity allows, and FIRE WALK WITH ME and Twin Peaks frequently touch on the way in which teenage relationships are exactly as passionate as they are shallow. PHENOMENA takes this a step further, describing the corrosive, sadistic social environment that stereotypically sprouts up between girls. After Jennifer tells the heartbreaking story of her philandering mother walking out on the family on Christmas (which, apropos nothing, bears a curious similarity to Phoebe Cates' dead santa story from GREMLINS), Sophie says, as if she hadn't heard a word, that she's glad Jennifer has arrived because she gets so lonely at night. Throughout their entire conversation, in fact, Jennifer's dialog and Sophie's dialog never seem to quite match up, as if they were in two separate movies. This makes for an acute description of the way in which young women readily perform the drama of being best friends forever, while not really acknowledging each other as individuals, or even liking each other very much. Shortly hereafter, Sophie absconds with Jennifer's black and gold Armani pullover (all of the apparel in this film is provided by Armani, which contributes excellently to the film's slick, icy look) to rendezvous with her boyfriend along the shadowy treeline. She brags about knowing the daughter of a celebrity and stealing her clothes, but when she realizes that her boyfriend is now interested in Jennifer, she changes her tune. "She wears her hair like mine," Sophie boasts, as if she were the influencer, and then cattily divulges that Jennifer sleepwalks, and must be crazy. PHENOMENA being essentially a slasher movie, Sophie isn't long for this world, but Jennifer responds to her gruesome murder with a spirit of vengeance for her supposed friend. Jennifer’s sweetness is offset by her stuck-up peers, and PHENOMENA boasts the mother of all mean girl sequences, a psychotic update of CARRIE's "plug it up" scene in which Jennifer's classmates attack her for believing she can speak to bugs. A fabulous swirling tracking shot gathers a growing gang of girls around Jennifer, as they taunt her with insect noises which transform into a chant: “WE WORSHIP YOU! WE WORSHIP YOU!” Naturally, Jennifer's insect friends descend on the school, threatening to crash through the windows as she declares messianically, "I love you. I love you all." Of course, the grownups at the academy are partially to blame for the atmosphere around Jennifer. This revelation about her powers came to light because, guided by the psychic voice of a firefly, Jennifer discovered one of the missing Sophie's gloves, which contained a helpful maggot. This is another one of the film's great and powerful scenes: Jennifer, cherubic in a white nightgown and dwarfed by the cold luminous cube of her dorm, glides across the pitch-black lawn as if in slow motion--while, in stark contradiction to this dreamy image, the soundtrack blasts a scathing speed metal anthem. It's a fascinating aesthetic device that Argento will employ again later in the film, accompanying slow, quite action with crushing, thrashy music. In any case, when Jennifer naively admits that a maggot told her about Sophie's murder, the domineering headmistress (the astonishing-looking Dalila Di Lazzaro, who is no Alida Valli but she gets the job done) calls the men in the white coats. Jennifer is subject to a number of humiliating experiments and tests to evaluate her mental health ("Do you take anything? Like, do you understand...DRUGS?"), on which she storms out. Where Laura Palmer is almost totally alone in the world due to her perceived perfection, Jennifer Corvino is alienated by constant scrutiny.

Laura has just one, tragically ineffectual source of aid--generically, forces from the Black Lodge. The backwards-speaking Man From Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) seems to try to warn her and Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) of her fate, but he speaks only in poetic code. Cooper himself tries and fails to advise her through her dreams, and Laura also receives strange messages from one of her Meals On Wheels recipients. Mrs. Chalfont (Frances Bay) and her grandson, a mute junior magician who hides behind a disturbing pagan mask, try to intervene with Laura, but only manage to terrorize her further. Ordinary sources of support are absent or utterly corrupt, including Laura's mother (the inimitable Grace Zabriskie), who exists in a state of fragile, attenuated silence, unable to confront what she must know is happening between her husband and her daughter. Although Sarah Palmer also receives visions from the Black Lodge, she retreats from them in terror and resigns herself to her circumstances. She even accepts an obviously drugged libation from her husband before bedtime, when the trouble begins.

The great power of FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also Twin Peaks, is that Laura's father is not pure evil. Leland Palmer is given profound depth by Ray Wise, with his limitlessly expressive face, and unpredictable vacillation between warmth and violence. We simultaneously pity and fear him: He truly loves his daughter, urgently consoling her when they are confronted by the One-Armed Man (Al Strobel) in traffic, and making a tearful bedside appearance that amounts to a tacit admission of guilt. He evinces a genuine desire to be close to his daughter, which is unfortunately inseparable from his desire to be with her as a man. Leland is much more than a good guy by day, and a bad guy when possessed by an evil spirit; he caught in the unbridgeable schism that yawns between the aspirational ego-self, and the id, the self taken over by trauma and pathology. Within David Lynch's supernatural fable is a completely authentic story about mental illness and incest that strikes all the right psychological chords.

While Jennifer's father never becomes more than an idea, she does attract a separate father figure in the course her search for Sophie's killer, who may in fact be a serial killer. Donald Pleasance plays paraplegic forensic entomologist  Dr. John McGregor, who happened to have been close friends with a previous victim. Jennifer meets him after one of her somnambulistic excursions, when she is led away from the scene of a near-gang rape by McGregor’s chimpanzee Inga. McGregor, who apparently has a way with teenage girls, quickly determines that Jennifer has a special connection to insects--specifically, he notes that a certain beetle in his care is trying to get it on with her: "You're arousing him, and he's doing his best to arouse you." While McGregor is meant to be charming, and never does anything explicitly inappropriate, his role in the story contributes to a feeling that Jennifer can never escape a certain freudian pattern, whether she is being accused of having sex with her father, actually pining for her father, or being eroticized by the nearest father figure in her life.

PHENOMENA takes much stranger strides in examining the maternal archetype in this saga--most often enacted by some form of wicked stepmother. By now we have been introduced to the idea of Jennifer's deadbeat mom, and the angry, jealous-seeming headmistress who tries to have Jennifer committed, but there is a third figure in play who the audience may have counted out at the beginning of the movie. Dario Argento's erstwhile creative and romantic partner Daria Nicolodi (from whom he separated the year of this film's release--and whatever it means, Argento cast his daughter Fiore, from another partnership, as the first victim) plays Frau Bruckner, an employee at the school who seems pretty dismissible at first. She suddenly becomes relevant toward the last act when McGregor is murdered by the mysterious killer. Seemingly sympathetic, Bruckner invites Jennifer to spend the night at her home--but once they're there, the helpful older woman becomes strange and threatening. Noticing a profusion of shrouded mirrors in the house, Jennifer prompts her hostess to deliver a disturbing monologue about her "sick" son, the product of a rape whom she considers a burden and a constant torment. "These things can happen in a woman's life," Bruckner observes darkly. Indeed, even a normal pregnancy is something that happens to a woman, something she cannot share with her husband nor her children. The child is under no natural obligation to empathize with the trials of motherhood, and inevitably, and a mother has little control over the person her child will become. This can be pretty bad news for the mother, but from the child's point of view, if you are primarily identified as something that has happened to your mother, then what can you possibly expect from her?

Things escalate quickly with the obviously bad-news Bruckner, leading to a chase that includes one of the gnarliest images ever to grace a screen: Jennifer, in her chic white-on-white uniform, plunges into a basement dungeon brimming with a stew of putrifying human remains. Jennifer struggles to tread water in this rancid soup as Bruckner taunts her; nearby, an interloping detective is chained to a wall, and uses Jennifer's diversion to break free and attack Bruckner with his chains chain. Jennifer flees the scene, and finds herself in the room of Bruckner's little boy. Foolishly, she sympathizes with him, perhaps as one abandoned and stigmatized child to another, and tells him that he is finally free of his evil mother. When she removes the shroud from a mirror, the child flies into a rage, revealing himself to be indescribably deformed and equally violent. He chases Jennifer out to a lake and onto a motorboat, in a scene curiously reminiscent of the end of FRIDAY THE 13TH. She summons a swarm of insects that skeletonize the boy, and makes her way to shore, only to be confronted by Bruckner. The madwoman confesses to murdering McGregor and others in order to hide her son's taste for schoolgirl blood, and nearly decapitates Jennifer with a piece of sheet metal--before she is attacked by Inga, the monkey, in a climactic battle that defies description, even by the standards of a movie that already stretches the definition of “over the top”. Then, as Wikipedia eloquently puts it, "With the ordeal over, Jennifer and the chimp embrace."

Even detractors of PHENOMENA will usually admit that its high camp is extremely entertaining. FIRE WALK WITH ME, on the other hand, has hardly a shred of humor, unlike the frequently kitschy and nostalgic Twin Peaks, making it a constant stream of wrenching terror and sadness. Laura's appalling fate is sealed by a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: She is being raped by her father, which produces in her a suicidal self-loathing, which leads her down a path of dangerous prostitution, and then when her father discovers this activity, he does away with her. Although FWWM is much easier to identify as a work of art, its finale has problems that are not dissimilar to PHENOMENA, and I personally find it less easy to like. Half-possessed by Bob, Leland drags Laura and another young sex worker off to a disused train car. There, he savagely brutalizes both women in an aria of sadism, punctuated by hysterical confessions from Leland and Bob about their collaborative, lifelong victimization of Leland's child. It is hard to watch, and even harder to look away. This is all well and good, but then, as if Lynch had painted himself into a corner, something utterly untrue to the world of the film takes place. Referencing a gaudy religious painting in Laura's bedroom, an actual angel appears to her as her soul leaves her body and is relegated to the Black Lodge for eternity. If it is meant to be a hallucination, this is a lousy place for it, since Twin Peaks features literal ethereal figures all the time. If it is meant to be taken literally, and I believe it is, an angel is a lousy choice, since the Black Lodge is dominated by a distinctly non-Christian ideology, usually with Native American overtones. There is a single reference to a guardian angel in an especially terrible piece of the second season of Twin Peaks, but I would refuse to accept that as a reasonable excuse for this. Just to pour some salt in the wound, the angel is accompanied by opera music, marking a jarring aesthetic departure from the entire rest of the film and the show, which is characterized as much by Angelo Badalamenti's jazz score as anything else. Lynch could at least have cast Julee Cruise as the angel to help keep us in the mood, but no such luck. This interruption makes it hard to stay focused on the film's concluding image of Laura weeping in terror and relief, under Dale Cooper's benevolent gaze, in the Black Lodge. Oh well; fortunately, the rest of the film is so forceful that its resonance survives this gaffe.

Before I cut myself off, I would just like to make one further remark about FIRE WALK WITH ME. It is a serious shame that people remember Laura Palmer better than they remember the actress Sheryl Lee. Even fans who can easily name Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn have a hard time calling Laura Palmer anything other than Laura Palmer. I'm not entirely sure what accounts for this, other than that the Laura Palmer character is so exciting to people that she has become more important as an archetype, than as a work of art executed by a skilled performer. It's completely unfair to Sheryl Lee, who gives us a performance that I wouldn't even want to live through myself. The woman has to cry throughout the entire film, which seems exhausting to say the least, but it's not a simple matter of emoting; she makes it so raw that it's terrifying to watch. Lee takes a simple line like "Who was that man? Do you know him?", and delivers it with the blistering urgency of a woman mounting the gallows. There is a lot to love about the formal composition of FWWM, but the truth is that without this actress's torturous commitment to making Laura Palmer psychologically correct, the whole structure might come crashing down. Everyone whose life has been touched by Twin Peaks, even those of us who relate more to the iconic Donna and Audrey, owe Sheryl Lee more thanks than we have given her.