#I'VE LOVED HER SINCE MIDDLE SCHOOL SHE'S IMPORTANT 2 MY SOUL

[starheirxero]

Everyone say thank you to scp 3090 for inventing transgenderism. abn lesbianism. and also the crushing feeling of being excluded without ever understanding why. and also what its like to feel like you'll never know home again. and also what happens when you play a video game too long (The Pink Goo)

[polarisbibliotheque]

Survivor's Blood (Leon x Reader) - Chapter 7

Survivor’s Blood

Pairing: Leon x Reader

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 (you are here!)

Summary: After Raccoon City, Leon became the only Government agent with that kind of expertise. With relentless training, he was now a Special Agent - again, on his first day in the job. He just didn’t expect to live Raccoon City all over again… Maybe Leon was fated to always have the worst first-days-at-work ever.

Age Restriction: 18+. It’s horror, so expect a lot of graphic violence and blood dripping from this. I mean, VERY GRAPHICAL VIOLENCE. Nothing we haven’t seen on RE, but still. Yee been warned

TRIGGER WARNING: This whole fanfic is a trigger warning really

Author's Notes: Heeeeey, I know this is exactly what no one wanted, but it's what I've got. It's been sitting in my files for a while 'cause I wanted to have a couple of new chapters ready to post, but oh well. Blame this update on my mom - who got me explaining the whole history of Resident Evil and why it's so important to gaming along with its lore and she was "wow, that's basically the 2020 pandemic" and I was "exactly, now you get it". And she also kinda loves Chris for becoming boulder-punching-Chris and just suplexing Wesker out of existence. He's 10/10 her fave RE character so far.

Chapter 7

New Setosa State School, April 29th, 2001 – 22h31

“You’re late, Kennedy.”

It was the first time you were meeting the other Agents in charge of rescuing the residents of New Setosa.

It was quite a walk from the hospital to the school, but something kept everyone moving. Maybe it was all the undead in the way, making everyone keep a steady pace and a quiet step. Maybe it was Leon checking his watch almost every two minutes. Or maybe, it was the adrenaline running in your bodies, screaming inside every soul that they had to do their best to survive.

You didn’t hear a single thing on your way there. The houses, apartments, offices, stores… All quiet – except for the creatures groaning every now and then, noticing your group and trying to follow; too slow to be any kind of threat.

There was only one incident – and an incident that was expected by all of you, if you had to be honest to yourselves. In times of survival, the best side of humanity did show… But so did the worst.

You were quickly, and quietly, walking in the middle of the street – as per Leon orders: sidewalks were too close to establishments that could harbor undead creatures, silently waiting for a surprise attack. You still had the lead and he still preferred to remain on the back, since his odds of survival if he was grabbed by behind were a lot bigger than anyone else in the group.

The elderly lady was doing very well – being helped by Valerie, she could walk fast enough to keep up the pace – but the kid with the father were having a little trouble. The boy seemed to be weak, almost too tired to keep going, but his father was almost carrying him – and would carry his son if he needed to. The lab coat man kept fidgeting, sighing audibly every time you gave the group a couple of seconds to breathe – making him receive stern looks from Leon, who was more of a bleeding heart than you were.

It all happened too quick. The lab coat man, for some reason, insisted on being around the father and son and very close to you. There were a few cars up ahead, but neither of you thought it would be trouble: most cars were destroyed and their owners dead inside of them or roaming outside, undead.

You had no idea where the creature came from: in a split second, what once was a police officer jumped on the lab coat man, fiercely trying to bite his face off.

“Stay back!” You screamed to the other survivors, grabbing one of the creature’s arms and trying to fight it. Those things were strong – and, in all honesty, lab coat man wasn’t the best suited to fight one of them.

Valerie held the elderly woman and signaled the father and the kid to join them. Leon immediately ran towards all of you – but as soon as you managed to take a little weight off the lab coat man, he had the strength to handle the creature by himself.

“Take the ones who are already dying, you fucking shit!” The man threw the undead right into the teen, who was too weak to fight for himself. You gasped, trying to hold it back – but it seemed to slip right between your fingers.

Before the creature could bite the kid into pieces, Leon came through like a bulldozer – punching it right on the face, making it groan and stumble behind, as the teen fell on the floor and tried to crawl back to his father. The man immediately grabbed his son, protecting him with his own body, as Leon took a hunting knife from his holster and buried it under the creature’s chin – impaling its head, making it finally stop.

But the danger wasn’t over: another creature crept to the lab coat man, grabbing his foot and using him as a ladder to stand up and eat him alive.

“You… Damn! Leave me alone! Eat them!” The man struggled a little but was able to throw the creature in your direction – his intention of being around you and the invalid teen quite clear: if anything happened, he would rather have you dead than him.

The creature didn’t have time to reach you, because Leon’s kick on its chest reached it first. With a couple of dodges and some expertly placed knife attacks, he finally placed the killing blow by nailing the knife on its temples, right through its brain.

You couldn’t help but to stare wide eyed as Leon discarded the undead on the floor – who was once a living, breathing person, like you and him – and furiously walked towards the lab coat man. Gripping him by the sweaty shirt, Leon stamped the guy on the side of a destroyed, burning car – which was definitely too hot to the touch, and you could see it on the guy’s face as he winced the more Leon pushed him into the hot metal. Still holding the man’s shirt, Leon had his forearm across his chest, knife on standby in his other hand.

You definitely did not expect that from Leon… But it was a welcome thing, given the circumstances.

“What you think you’re doing, huh? You think you’re better than any of them? That your life is worth more?” Leon’s voice was low and his eyes were filled with something you still hadn’t seen that night – perhaps, that was the man who survived Raccoon City. Who became a Special Agent. ��I don’t give a fuck how important you think you are or what your name is. We’re in this shit together, and we only gettin’ out if everyone sticks together. Everyone.” With those words, Leon made the man look right into his eyes – even if the guy couldn’t hold the stare longer than a couple of seconds. “Pieces of shit like you are always the first ones to go. I’m gonna make my best to make sure your sorry ass gets out of here, but if you keep acting like this, something is gonna make sure you won’t. I fucking seen that before.”

You kept quiet, side eyeing Leon as soon as he let the guy go and looked back at you – suddenly, his stare softened again and he sighed, rolling his eyes as if saying it was part of the job.

“Oh, I’m glad you put him in his place. Someone had to do that already.” You murmured back to him, making Leon scoff a slight, humorless laugh.

“You kinda already did back in the hospital.” Placing his knife back in the holster, Leon looked back at you. “If you need anything, call. I’ll be…”

“In the back, I know. Don’t worry.” You winked back, slightly waving your gun. “I can take care of things over here.”

That was the only serious incident. After that, father and son walked close behind you, followed by Valerie and the elderly lady and, on the back, the guy in the lab coat moping around, too scared to look back at Leon carrying the shotgun and giving you – and everyone else – cover.

You were late to the rendezvous at the State School… But all things considered, it was quite the miracle everyone got there in one piece.

“I know. But everyone is alive.” Leon marched towards the stern looking man as soon as the group was safe inside the entrance hall of the school. A few other agents holding rifles and wearing Special Ops gear wandered around – as well as some survivors of all ages and backgrounds. “Like I said they would be. No casualties.”

Rogers lifted his heavy eyebrows as he watched you and the group being welcomed by the few police officers who were brave enough to leave the NSPD and account for all the survivors left in the city. The man still had his arms crossed, but he had to recognize: what Leon just did was quite a feat.

“What about the one who helped us with the broadcast? Were you able to find each other?”

“Yeah. Y/n, right over there.” Leon pointed at you – and, as soon as you heard your name and turned around, he signaled you to come over. After exchanging a few words with Valerie, you regrouped with him. “Y/n, this is Commander Rogers, the man in charge of today’s operation.”

“You set up the broadcast and met Leon halfway through this city swarming with those creatures, no gun in hand, right?” The man asked, shaking your hand with a rather strong grip. You reciprocated in the same manner. “You have to be quite the fighter to do that.”

“Well, we do what we need to survive, sir.” You smiled slightly, taking that as a compliment.

“That we do. We’re leaving at 22h40.” And Rogers looked back at Leon, crossing his arms once more. “We’re escorting the people back to the NSPD and we’ll wait for the extraction at midnight.”

“Copy that, sir. I’ll help with the escort.”

You couldn’t help but to let out a sigh of relief – that nightmare would soon be over and you couldn’t wait to be in a safe place again.

*

“Hey, banana ice cream.” You heard Leon’s voice by your side, making you smile a little bit. You were taking some time to breathe by yourself in a corner of the school – still close to the survivors – while he talked with Rogers and the other agents. But, of course, Leon would check on you before you left for the NSPD. “How are you doing?”

“Better than expected, I suppose.” You sighed back, giving him some space to lean on the table you were leaning in. It probably belonged to one of the employees in charge of supervising the kids – a place now quiet and somber, that you had no wish to go any further inside. It was probably filled with corpses. “And you? Everything ok?”

“Guess we gonna ask that forever to each other tonight, huh?” He had to tease you, since that question became a staple between you two. You couldn’t hold back a small laugh. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

“Hmmm, I can imagine…” You murmured, having no idea how to bring up what you saw in the hospital – speaking to Valerie, she expressed her concerns about Leon having a panic attack; and even if you hadn’t known him for too long, it was something you could understand – to a certain level. “I’ve seen some pretty bad things, being a war correspondent. I mean, it’s part of the job, seeing the worst mankind has to offer… But I never thought I’d see and live through something like this.”

“Yeah, it’s fairly different from a warzone…” Leon sighed back, crossing his arms. “Both are pretty bad actually.” He risked a look at you – watching how your gaze was lost on one of the windows, looking out in the dead, quiet night. It all seemed so peaceful from that point of view. “Why do you do it?”

“What?” You snapped out of your thoughts, turning your eyes back to Leon.

“Bein’ a reporter at war. Why do you do it?” He patiently repeated the question – talking to you was the most calming thing he had that night. And, if he had you to talk to in Raccoon City, it would’ve probably been a little less harrowing of an experience. A little. “You voluntarily go to places where there’s nothing but butchering and blood. You could be doin’ anything else but this, you’re smart enough. So why this?”

“Why do you do what you do?”

That question made Leon furrow his eyebrows immediately, turning quiet for a moment.

“It’s not like I had much of a choice after Raccoon.” He answered quietly, still with that look of concern in his eyes. “I was recruited to be a Special Agent. You can’t turn down something like that.”

It was your turn to become silent. You always thought everyone who followed careers like his did it voluntarily, but there was Leon saying he didn’t have much of a choice. Be it because of his trauma, of his own will or being forced by the government to say yes because he knew too much about the Umbrella incident, you believed in his words.

“Would you have done something too different if you had had a choice?”

Once again, Leon looked back at you with that concern in his eyes. It was probably a question he never really got asked before – and probably never thought of; or avoided thinking of. But now, he had no escape and had to think about it.

“I dunno… Probably would still be a cop.” Leon turned his eyes to his feet, letting out a deep sigh. “Always wanted to help people. Ended up having to save my own skin right at the first day at work… And now, back at Raccoon again, first day as a Special Agent.”

“This is your first day on the job…?” You couldn’t believe his words, but the way Leon smiled and nodded made you trust in what he was saying. “That… Sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m definitely not the guy you wanna have around on your first day at work.”

“It’s bound to be terrific if you’re around.” You teased him a little bit, alleviating some of the tension with a few laughs from both of you.

“But hey, I answered you and you didn’t answer me.” Leon nudged you with his elbow, still having his arms crossed, leaning on the table by your side while you two watched the concentration of agents, policemen and survivors. “You chose a different career, and ended up reporting directly from hell. Out of everything you could choose, why this?”

“Yeah, I know it sucks in theory… And in real life too, it’s not an easy thing and you lose a lot of faith in humanity…” You sighed, now crossing your arms and turning your gaze to an empty spot on the floor. “But… I guess… Not having the option of knowing the truth is worse than having it available. You can choose to remain oblivious and ignore the truth, but it’s still there, being reported to you – you have access to it, you can search for it and learn if you want to. You have the choice. And for you to have the choice, someone has to report it.” You shrugged after a while, sighing once again. It wasn’t much of a reason why, but it was the best you could say at the moment. “I guess, that’s why. Someone’s gotta do it.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Oh, I’m terrified.” You looked back into his eyes, finding his expression of concern – a different kind now; the one Leon wore when he was worried about others. “First time I heard a gunshot close to me, my heart almost jumped out of my mouth. First time I saw a dead mangled body, I couldn’t sleep for weeks. But… You kinda get used to it. A lot of people get desensitized, and I’m probably going down that path too, but… I don’t know. It gets… Less worse with time, I guess.”

“Huh, less worse… I think I get what you mean…” Leon murmured back, now staring at the pattern on the floor as well. Both of you had your gazes lost in something else, while seeing vivid images from your memories. He could remember all the bodies he saw in Raccoon City, all the mutated experiments, all the dismembered people. Destruction everywhere, pieces of bodies everywhere, the streets reeking of blood and closed spaces smelling of entombed death. He had never seen things like that before – Leon was just a rookie cop, on his first job, thinking he would protect and serve; thrown into a warzone, with so much death, so much blood… He dreamt every night his whole body was drenched in it and he could never wash it off. “It becomes routine.”

“Yeah. Something like that…” You murmured back, shaking your head right after. “But I’ve never seen something like tonight. What scares me today is the lack of agency… These townspeople turn into animals, acting like animals, not out of free will – like people during war – but out of… Something that is turning them into these…”

Your words got caught at the tip of your tongue. You had already said that a thousand times that night, but for the first time you were having a level-headed conversation that didn’t involve fighting for survival. The words of your previous boss got in your head, chastising you for your choice of words, and, for a moment, you hesitated.

“C’mon, you can say it. Zombies.”

You and Leon shared a knowing look and couldn’t stop a quiet laugh between you both.

“Zombies.” You agreed right after, nodding slowly. “In a war, you see inhumane acts of cruelty, but you know you could never do that. You know you have morals and the people doing that have none. You know you could never get that low and must report their crimes. But today…?” You shook your head, as if to try to keep a thought away. “If one of those things get to me, I’ll turn into one of them. My mind will die, but my body will keep going, hunting like an animal, to kill and spread whatever the fuck this is. No agency. I’m no better, because my will doesn’t count. It’s not a choice. There’s no reasoning. If they bite me, if they kill me, I’m gone… And I’m one of them.”

“That’s not gonna happen.” Leon almost spoke above your last words, barely allowing you to finish – even so, you had to glance at him with a realistic look in your eyes. Few people had survived that night and, so far, you were lucky. But there was the possibility of your luck ending. You had just as much of a chance of dying to one of those things than anyone else in that room. “Hey. That’s not gonna happen. I’m gonna get you out of here. I promised you an ice cream, didn’t I?”

“That you did. You better keep that promise.” You bantered playfully in return, having a slight smile on your face. Even if Leon was saying that just for saying, you had to admit: it was efficient at calming you down and making you at least a little bit more positive about that night’s outcome. “For me and for you.”

Leon furrowed his brows for a moment, staring at you as if asking for an explanation.

“I don’t wanna leave this place alone. You’re my partner now, right…?” You risked a look at him, seeing how Leon already had a slight smile on his ever so serious lips, ready to quip back; but you had some more things to talk about. “At the hospital… I thought I lost you there for a moment.”

Leon’s eyes immediately turned somber, understanding what you were talking about. If he was going to be honest to himself, he thought he lost himself for a moment too. And that was definitely not good, given his current occupation and situation. It was his first mission after his unforgiving training… And after Raccoon City. No one ever expected the mission would be so similar to what happened to him years prior – and no one could know what kind of reaction Leon would have by being thrown in that sort of mess all over again.

With his training, he learned the best thing he could do was to keep going without thinking too much – but he never really learned what to do if his thoughts assaulted him forcefully, like it happened at the hospital.

“I’m just… Worried.” You tried, wanting to make sure he didn’t understand your words as you seeing him as a hinderance. That was the last thing that crossed your mind. “I’ve been through some pretty bad things too, you know…? And I’ve had some colleagues freeze mid-job because of… Unresolved issues.” You paused for some seconds, almost hearing the gears turning inside Leon’s head. “I… I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“What did you do…?” Leon’s question caught you off guard, making you stare at him with the same inquisitive eyes he turned at you before. “What did you do? To your colleagues who froze mid-job…?”

You flashed him a half-smile on your lips, immediately picking up the undertone in his voice – he wanted to know not only out of curiosity, but to understand where you stood in that matter. You could bet with almost entire certainty that Leon buried things inside himself because he didn’t want to look weak or to be a burden to people: his job was to be the hero, not to be the one cared about. What kind of hero needs support? What kind of hero had weaknesses?

You could almost hear his superiors saying he “couldn’t be a pussy” to survive his Special Agent training – and any kind of weakness, be it from feelings or trauma, would definitely be seen as “being a pussy”. You had seen that before.

“I carried them out of harm’s way and dragged them to our base. I’d never leave them behind.” You still had that smile on your lips, but your tone was soft and reassuring. Something in the way you spoke, made Leon’s shoulders lose a little tension and the expression in his face soften. “We’re human. Everyone breaks, one way or another. We just need people around us to lean on when our knees falter. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong with that…” Leon murmured more to himself than anything else, turning his gaze back to the spot on the floor you were once staring. He had many things to think about – but that was not the time nor the place to do so. “Did it ever happen to you?”

“Yeah, couple of times. Panic attacks suck.” You sighed, turning your gaze outside. It wasn’t something you were too comfortable talking about, but it was the very first time Leon heard it from someone else – and could share it. He needed it, and you wouldn’t deny that kind of help. You once stood in his shoes as well. “There are a few situations that trigger me still, though I kinda have it under control most of the time. It’s always good to have someone else around to help. If I don’t, though, I can only swallow it up and keep going – only to let all that tension go a few days later when I’m safe. Guess it happens to everyone with our kind of… Situation.”

“Huh. Guess so…” He nodded slowly, still going over your words. “I…” And Leon turned silent for a moment. You wouldn’t force him to say anything: if he wanted to stop talking, you would stay there in silence. He had to go at his own pace – but he had to move somewhere, or he would forever be stuck with that inside of him. “I still think about Raccoon sometimes. I still see some things… Some people… The blood. It’s still there, somewhere.” The way he spoke, it was as if Raccoon City was still alive. “It’s all happening. I don’t… Want to think about it. I don’t. But sometimes… It comes back. Even if I don’t want to.”

“Like a drop kick to your chest…?” You tried and he immediately turned his eyes towards you, but this time sporting a knowing smile on his lips. For the very first time, Leon was talking with someone who understood, even if you weren’t there in Raccoon City that night. He thought he would never meet someone who hadn’t lived through it who would understand. “And then you can’t breathe properly…”

“Your hands start shaking and you feel like you’re going to throw up.” He completed your thoughts, with you nodding enthusiastically in return. Something else stirred in his chest, though, something different. Like the joy of finally being seen by someone you admire in a crowd full of indifferent people – of not having to pretend all the time. “It fucking sucks.”

“Oh, it does. Been there.” As you agreed, you both let out quick laughs of complicity. You were also never so open about that before – but for the first time, sharing your experience might have a good outcome; and you were glad you took that leap of faith, with Leon there to catch you and not allow you to fall on the fields of self-consciousness from oversharing. “But we don’t have to go through that alone tonight.”

“Hmmm. Guess we don’t…” Leon shook his head, allowing himself to take a deep breath. For the first time in years, he had this weird – and alleviating – sensation that a weight had lifted from his shoulders. His grayish sea eyes turned back to you, now a little less worried than before. “Partner.”

“I’m gonna tell the President that’s my role now, he better accept me on the ranks.” Your serious answer made him immediately laugh – probably the first genuine laugh you ever heard from him. “Codename banana ice cream reporting for duty to work with codename choco chip, that’s how it’s gonna be.”

“Oh, he’s gonna accept it in no time.” Leon bantered back, enjoying how absurd it all sounded. A few jokes were always good to lift the spirits – but he wouldn’t lie: having you around would be a welcome thing, if that ever happened. Maybe you’d get recruited just like he was, after you escaped New Setosa. “But hey, at the hospital… You had something goin’ on your mind too, when we were leavin’. Whatever it is, you can tell me. You don’t need to go bananas on your own.”

“Oh, that was horrible…” You shook your head after hearing his dad joke, but the smile on your lips gave away it was exactly the kind of humor you needed that day. Leon smiled back a little bit, but still carried worry in his eyes. “Yeah, well… You shared your worries with me, it’s only fair that I do the same, right…?”

“Right.” Given how tentatively your question was, Leon immediately answered you in the firmest manner he could. He wouldn’t let you run away.

“Hmmm… Maybe you can help me out a bit with this…” You sighed, looking down at your feet. For some reason, you couldn’t stand looking into his eyes when thinking about the things that crossed your mind at the hospital – like you said before, in times of war, you knew your morals wouldn’t allow you to commit atrocities. But you were living times of survival – and, sometimes, morals had to be abandoned in order to save yourself. You hated that. “That hospital is really big. It’s for the whole city and it’s very well equipped. A lot of people stay there for days, weeks, or even months…” You took a deep breath, closing your eyes. “I doubt there are only a handful of survivors in that place. If we went in deeper, I bet we would find so many others… So many people that survived so far only to be entombed in that place of death and sickness to slowly perish. It’s horrible. I…” You opened your eyes again, finally looking back at him – with a contrary resolve of someone who has been told by a higher power they cannot do the right thing. “I wanted to go in, to help them. We were there, we were so close. As far as we know, we could’ve passed by so many people and not even realize it. I didn’t want to leave them behind, but… If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have saved the ones who are here with us now, right…? I don’t know, I…”

But you sighed again, looking back at the lost spot on the floor, shaking your head. You had already said a lot and there was nothing you could string coherently into words anymore – there were only a storm of feelings stirring in your heart and that you couldn’t give him. You could only try to explain.

Leon also lowered his head. He knew exactly what you were talking about. You two cared – and, during his training as a Special Agent, he would be scolded exactly because he “cared too much”. To someone in his line of work, caring too much was a weakness: you had to do what you were ordered to do – and what you could do. And that meant, sometimes, working out the odds and literally choosing who would live and who would die. Leon despised that, which made Rogers have a few doubts in his heart about the rookie: in Leon’s book, everyone survived. No sacrifices. No choices.

“You want to save everyone.” He finally finished your thought for you, saying the words you thought you would be too ridiculous when saying out loud. A ‘hero complex’ as most people would say – but he preferred to think of it as a survivor thing. “You have the chance to save yourself, you have the resources, you have the strength and the will. Why can’t you extend that to the people who need it? Sometimes, all they need is a helping hand to save their asses too.” He looked back at you and you could see not only his characteristic bleeding compassion, but also a tad of… Emptiness. “You can help. So why wouldn’t you? Who are you to choose who lives and who dies? Who are you to choose who deserves it or not…?”

You nodded in agreement while your heart lost weight inside your chest. People always used to say that was one of your weaknesses, how much you cared. But seeing Leon that night, watching him work and help so many people… You could barely call it a weakness.

“I had many times in my life that I only needed someone to give me a helping hand.” You shook your head, but agreed with every word he said. Maybe, that’s how he felt when you understood his problem – and now, it was your turn to be seen. “And I know how it feels like when no one helps. How harrowing. How desolating. It makes you want to give up everything – and I bet there are many people in that hospital thinking the same thing. I…” And you sighed, crossing your arms. “I don’t want to be indifferent. I don’t want to make that choice. The choice to close my eyes and ignore everyone else suffering around me just because I’m safe and comfortable. I want to go there where they are and bring them to safety with me… That’s what they deserve. That’s what everyone deserves.”

“Hmmm… I know the feeling…” Leon’s answer was a murmur, but it wasn’t a lie. He knew exactly how it felt – how disgusting it was to only save his own skin when he could try to save someone else too. He wasn’t better than anyone else – and, apparently, that was the same thought that haunted you when you were leaving the hospital that night. “It’s something you gotta learn to deal with… The guilt, it’ll always be there. At some point, the screams will turn quieter and stop, even if your heart feels heavy. And that’s why we have to know what we can do, what’s within our reach.” Leon looked at you, making you reciprocate his stare. Even if his eyes could be cold and empty, at that moment, they had his quiet empathy as well. “You said it yourself. We’re human. There’s only so much we can do. We have to understand those limitations and make sure we did the very best with all we had at the moment. That’s how I learned to deal with it.”

“Hmmm…” You ruminated those words for a couple of seconds, barely noticing a commotion forming in front of you. A new, very small, group of survivors had just arrived – and a man tried to talk with as many policemen and agents as possible, trying to find the one in charge. “Guess we are doomed to be haunted by our humanity, you and me…”

“Hmmm. You can put it that way too.” Leon considered, crossing his arms, but looking less pensive than you. “It’s a lot more poetic.”

“I do have a weak spot for poetry.” You answered in a matter-of-fact tone, after a sigh. Thinking too much about everything he said at that very moment wouldn’t be the best of things – you had too much to do and too much to survive. You needed to focus on that – you could spend time with philosophy later, in a chopper back to safety. “Oh, salty sea, so much of whose salt is Portugal tears!”**

Leon furrowed his brows, but had a slight smile on his lips. He had never heard that before – not that he was well versed in poems, but that one was completely unknown to him – and he would have asked you to go on your declamation, but the commotion was now fully formed. The man spoke loudly, being held by a couple of agents, trying to speak to anyone who would listen.

“You are going to get them all killed! Killed!” His words would’ve been considered furious if his eyes didn’t carry so much desperation. “Their blood will be in your hands! You have to do something!”

You and Leon glanced at each other, finally leaving your small pause. It was a miracle, even, that you had so much time to rest and talk – and a much needed one, if any of you had to say so. Now, it was time to go back to work.

“Sir… Please, sir. Calm down.” As Leon approached, he tried to get the man to stop fighting with the agents. They glanced at Leon as he quickly nodded. “I’ll talk to him. You can let him go.”

“What happened, sir?” You mirrored Leon’s way of speaking: it was probably the best way to get the man to stop fighting and talk to you. “You can explain to us.”

“Well, that’s already a lot better than those brutes! There’s no reasoning with the likes of you!” He pointed at Leon, fixing the pair of glasses on his face and trying to comb his hair back with his fingers.

“He’s… Different.” You only realized you were saying something mid-answer, to which you made yourself stop as soon as you noticed you’d have to say something about Leon. The man in question only looked back at you with a question in his eyes – which you decided to ignore. “He’s not a brute. Well, not only.” And it started going downhill quickly, with Leon crossing his arms and just watching it all unfold in front of him. You had better stop before you said something you would regret later. “He has a good heart. You can talk to us.”

But you couldn’t have stopped, could you? Leon had a shadow of a smile on his lips while you just decided to completely ignore him and pay attention to the man as if it was all on purpose and you weren’t feeling self-conscious for your attempt at calming the man enough so he would talk to both of you – and not just curse Leon and “his type”.

“They won’t listen.” The man huffed, resting his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “I’m a doctor at the hospital, one of the very few who survived. I came here with a couple other ones who managed to barricade inside a room with me until we heard the broadcast on Channel 8.” With those words, you and Leon exchanged a look that could only be defined by pride and excitement. To think your plan worked, that made all the horror you had already lived through that night worth it. “We were deeper into the hospital. That place… It’s…” The man shook his head once more, apparently holding back some tears. He took a deep breath and looked back at you with resolve in his eyes. “As we were trying to leave, we found a body, another doctor… A colleague, a friend… Pediatrician. He was slaughtered on the floor, but he managed to write a message on the wall with his own blood before dying… ‘There are children inside’. Those were the words.”

And those words fell between you like led – being accompanied by dead silence. Neither you nor Leon could say something at that moment: your suspicions were correct, and a lot worse than you had expected. So far, you could see only a few children with their parents – either one or two, but there weren’t many of them. It was very unlikely for a child to survive, but a group of them…? You never saw it coming.

“Did you see them? Where are they?” Leon’s questions came right after the initial shock. The man started shaking his head frantically.

“We tried to get to the pediatric wing, but it’s far into the hospital…” He sighed, fixing the glasses on his face once more. “This doctor, we searched his pockets. He had a note inside, here… Lemme find it…” The man searched all of his own pockets, only to find a note stained in blood and hand it over to you and Leon. “It tells a little more how they were able to save as many children as they could and lock themselves somewhere safe. They won’t be able to leave there on their own. They need help. They need a rescue team.”

Leon had the note in his hands, but you read it together – silently, somberly, hating yourselves for being right about having more survivors in the hospital.

To anyone reading this,

I’m Dr. Howard, from the Pediatric Wing at the Arklay Hill Hospital. With the virus spreading fast, me and Dr. Willows quarantined as many uninfected children as possible in the X-ray room. It has good protection and we grabbed some food and water along the way, before locking the door and barricading it. We have eight children with us – most of them sick or injured – but all of them are free from the virus that has spread through the hospital.

We hoped to be rescued, but so far, no one came. We are suspecting they have considered everyone in the hospital to be dead – but that is far from the truth. We need help – we need to save those children. Upon talking to Dr. Willows, we decided one of us should try to leave and find help.

I volunteered – Dr. Willows has hurt her ankle when we were quickly helping the children we could, so I’m the best choice. I will do my best to find help, to have them rescued. All our efforts won’t be in vain.

But… If I can’t. If I die before I can find someone, I hope this note gets in the hands of someone capable to help. I beg you: these are sweet, scared children, locked in a room with another doctor who is doing everything in her power to keep them alive. We have to help them. They cannot die there, not after… Everything we done. We have to try. I have to try.

Please. They are in the X-ray room, Pediatric Wing, Arklay Hill Hospital. I have attached a hospital map to this note, it’s the place circled in blue. I know it won’t be easy, but please… They are alive. Please, save them.

As a final note: we have been hearing loud steps outside the room. It has been difficult to get the children not to scream, they are very scared, but they learned to control their fear and stay quiet. It isn’t something like the people who die and come back to life affected by the virus – those are slow, usually dragging their feet and body, groaning or screaming like animals – these steps are different. They are heavier, faster, paced… Sentient. I cannot think of someone who would be able to survive and walk around those creatures so peacefully, so I can only think it's one of the… Other atrocities. It’s roaming the deeper areas of the hospital, and it eventually goes back to the Pediatric Wing. Whoever comes to the rescue, be warned. And be careful.

The man looked at you and Leon with expectation – his heavy breath and sweat almost blurring his glasses. As you finished reading the note, your gaze met Leon’s grayish sea eyes.

“We cannot leave them.”

Something inside Leon knew you would say those words – and at the same time he had a surge of pride when seeing your eyes filled with certainty as you spoke, he also had dread stirring in his stomach; for he knew quite well you wouldn’t let him go alone.

“We won’t.”

And you almost smiled back as Leon’s answer had as much conviction to its words as yours.

You both just had to go through Commander Rogers first.

**Portuguese Sea, Fernando Pessoa

[acheittilyoumakeit]

13 Moons Reading Challenge 2024

Big news I've reached my reading goal of the year AND I completed the 13 Moons Reading Challenge! I can't wait to read more and more in 2025, I really wanto to make reading a second nature. Thanks to @readnburied for the prompts that often gave me new ideas for my readings during this year!

Reading goal reached – Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, 13 books Books read: 17 (15 new ones & 2 re-read)

Cold Moon

Read a book while wearing a pair of socks: La Piccola Conformista (The Little Conformist), by Ingrid Seymann. ☆☆☆ ½ The stars I removed are because of how each chapter felt disconnected from the other: it's a stylistical choice and I understand it, since the story is like a collection of memories told by a little girl, Esther (who is only in middle school by the end of the book); anyhow, this method makes the narrative really fast-paced and not too datailed or precise: simply not my preferred prose style. This book talks about some of the political changes of the '70s in France, filtered by the daily life of a - we coud say - dysfunctional family. But what's important to say is that this book, in all its confusion, left me something, wheter it's the handed-down feeling of melancholy and pain of a family who had to leave its homeland, or the crisis triggered by coming back to that same place, only to found out that that destination doesn't exist anymore (in this book, I'm talking about the French Algeria). I haven't experienced this feeling though, but do you know what I've experienced? The fucking dysfunctional family part. And my story is not the same of Esther, but I couldn't help but to feel closer to her in some odd, specific ways. If you want a slightly political and real, irriverent, easy but also full-of-climax reading, this book could be it. I finished it in just one day, but I haven't found any version in English. There's always the French version if you're skilled!

Blue Moon

Read a classic / book with a dramatic title: The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. ☆☆☆☆ Let's talk about this book. Let's talk about it. It was my first real / classical / serious / complete reading in English. I really, really liked it. It was a bit hard to grasp some sentences, and sometimes I had to focus way too much on understanding the meaning of the concepts rather than paying attention on the poetic or sarcastic hints Hawthorne filled the pages with. I think that if I had read it in Italian, I would have enjoyed it all a bit more. Nonetheless, this is a classic worth reading. I really enjoyed the nod at the unearthy, the visual descriptions that in some ways felt in-between different worlds. I loved every part where I could read the insides of a conflicted sinner's soul and his delusions, I loved to delve into the life of an excluded woman, who had the fearlessness of facing the puritan punishment. I loved exploring sin and its rigid interpretation of a distant age, the responsability and self-guilt that comes with it, but also the liberation that comes when admitting it and the painful yet relieved redemption to pursue in order to be truly forgiven. Oh and wanna talk about how in this book it is also addressed that spending a life on revenge can only lead to perdition, the loss of oneself and hallowness? Or how the sinner-woman becomes legendary in the end, making an honest life on her deeds rather than her sins? Or how Pearl, her daughter, is also a metaphorical being for the consequences of sin but she's also the only human character really capable of offer redemption? Because Pearl is not only the "product" of sin, but also of a star-crossed love between two people that only wanted be free by growing old together. You could say there's a lot in this book, and I think even some early feminist inputs — well the plot itself was surely feminist for its time. What can I say. If you like a bit of a challenge with old English, I recommend this one!

UH - What is this? I'm not done writing! It was while writing these reviews that I realized that the two main characters of my last two books of the year are named Esther or its variant. We have:

Hester Prynne, from the The Scarlet Letter

Esther Dahan, from The Little Conformist

 Soooo there are indeed lots of analysis of the names used in TSL, so I'll try to put a little recap here; then I'll try to personally interpret the choice of Esther for TLC - I found no references by the author :(

Names analisys because I want to⁓

[ SPOILER ALERT; The Scarlet Letter ] First things first: the entirety of TSL talks about religion and sin, so you can't tell me Hawthorne didn't read the Bible and didn't put religious references in his book. That's, like, basic stuff. Of course, the name Hester comes from the biblical Esther, who is described as a woman capable of compassion, and also faithful, courageous, cautious and resolute. There are some similarities between the two women, not only regarding aspects of their personality, but concerning their actions too. Both of them have to confront a high-placed figure of their society: Hester visits Bellingham's mansion to maintain little Pearl's parental responsability, while Esther shows up at King Ahasuerus court and she's able to gain his favour in the end. Both of them are also forced into a unwanted and unfulfilling relationship with an older man - Hester is tied to Chillingworth, Esther marries Ahasuerus without feeling any love for him. And if Hester is Esther, Dimmesdale is probably the counterpart of Mordechai (a spiritual leader of the Jews*), Esther's cousin and guardian, claimed to have had a secret sexual involvement with her that was never resolved. And what about Chillingworth? He could be inspired from Haman, a character who seeks revenge against Mordechai, but fails. Fun fact: Hawthorne never writes the word Adultery, for which the Scarlet Letter A stands for, and I will not dwell on the meaning of this in the story (this post is already long enough). But do you know which other book avoids a particular word? Exactly! The Book of Esther doesn't mention God, and it's the only book from the Hebrew Bible that doesn't refer to the divinity directly. Sorry I wrote so much, but. Actually. I'm not sorry. I love this stuff aaaaah.

* If you want to know more I took everything from this link, it's a nice and quick summary to start: https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/significance-of-names-in-the-scarlet-letter/ Excuse for any eventual inaccuracies, this is just meant to provide a basic understanding; more info is welcome, since I've never studied this literature piece and its influences!

And what about The Little Conformist? I'll write down my short and easy interpretation. I know nobody is gonna read this part, since probably no one read this book. But, you know, who fucking cares?

[SPOILER ALERT; The Little Conformist ] Needless to say, Esther Dahan has the exact same name of Esther from the Bible. And that's no news, since her father in the story is, in fact, Jewish. A lot of Esther Dahan's story revolves around her identity as a Jew, except that she doesn't really feel one. At first, she and her brother are decribed as "half-Jews", since their mother, Elizabeth, is French. This part of her heritage disappears more and more as she grows up: she starts attending a catholic school and later on she decides to be baptized as a christian. In order to be accepted in her new school, she hides the characteristics of her family (strongly non-conformist and leftist), considered factors of unacceptable antithesis with the burgeois world she now frequents. She also starts to hate her father and everything he represents, she despises his maniacal need of order, his outbursts and his fights with Elizabeth, his attitude; in the little girl's eyes, "the only problem in her mother's life was her husband". Esther Dahan doesn't have that much in common with the Esther of the Bible, she's not a woman yet and she still has to find herself, she has no concrete faith in whatsoever religion or political view. She's just a teenager trying to survive during delicate times. Her name in Hebrew means "I will hide" (*): the biblical Esther hides her real identity in order to save the Jews from the massacre ordined by Haman; while Esther Dahan hides her family origins throughout the whole book, and it's right when she has the courage to open up with a new friend about it, that she feels at a turning point, sensing the positive comfort of a real understanding. Maybe Esther parents' gave her this name because they hoped she'd become a resilient and fierce woman, with faith in her values; maybe that is the woman Esther Dahan is destined to become, as the author pictured it, but we are not meant to meet that version of Esther.

* I took the translation of Hebrew from Wikipedia, I hope it's right. If any of the information I found isn't correct, again, please let me know. This is just a friendly curious post - I haven't read the Bible and I don't know Hebrew. mwah

Conclusions: I know there's so much more symbolism behind Hawthorne's work. I wish I would've studied The Scarlet Letter at school.

[destinyc1020]

Your obsession on shitting on M&M is getting a bit old girl. It was released 2 years ago and it was a really important project for Z and both Z and JDW were highly involved in the process of creating it. Saying they were just puppets for Sam is extremely disrespectful to them. You hated the movie, we know that. But let it go girl. There are a bunch of celebrated white directors like Greta Gerwig and Tim Burton that don't hire one black person in a significant role because they claim they don't understand the black experience. But then they understand how white people lived in the 1800s or the Middle Ages

Hey girl... it's cool! We all have various different opinions on here, and that's okay! 😊

An Anon simply sent me a link to a Critic's review of the film and I commented on it, that's all. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I understand everything you're saying about the project and how monumental it was for Z.... I totally get it. But did it ever occur to you that TWO things can be both true at the same time? 👀

I can recognize that the M&M film was a passion project for Z that allowed her to work during the pandemic (instead of twiddling her thumbs at home), explore her acting skills and challenge herself, get her some EP rights, provide creative input, and pour her heart and soul into smthg that had nothing to do with being a high school student. It also afforded her the opportunity to be able to work with Denzel Washington's son JDW, who is like the son of Hollywood royalty.👍🏾😁

I get all of that!

But imo, you can recognize all of these things and STILL not really have cared for the film, or really care for Sam as a writer or director in general. 🤷🏾‍♀️🥴

And I would have had the SAME feelings about the movie had the movie starred Kerry Washington, Janelle Monae, Nicole Beharie, or WHOEVER else some fans were wanting opposite JDW in this film. 😬 My view would have been the same. So it's not a slight on Z at all. Z did a decent acting job given the script she was handed. 👀

Lol I keep telling y'all that there have been some films of my faves that I just didn't really care for at all. But I still love them as actors and people, and I haven't boycotted their films in the least lol. Imo, that's the BEAUTY of movies ... We can all have our own opinions on them because at the end of the day, it's just art! 😅

Since this is my blog, I'm simply providing my opinion. You don't have to agree, and it won't hurt my feelings if you don't lol. You all know I'm always 100% honest on here about my feelings on matters. I've also talked about other films on my blog that I just didn't care much for, but I never heard a peep from anyone about them. 🤷🏾‍♀️

BTW, one of those critics is a black woman herself, so it's not just me who saw the film a certain way.

And believe me, I'm ALL for white directors hiring Black talent. To me, that's the LEAST they can do. But it doesn't mean that every film a white director has made with a black cast is one that I particularly like... And again, that's just my right to my own opinion.

Thank you for sharing your opinion! I appreciate it! 👍🏾😁

I've said from the get-go that I don't mind ppl having a different opinion from me, just as long as we can discuss things respectfully and peacefully. 😌❤

[shanastoryteller]

Saw your post mentioning reading your favorite poems and I was wondering what they were? I've never really liked poems but I really liked that one by Emily Dickson you put in the front of that teen wolf fic so you probably have really good taste in poems, and I've been trying to find some to like.

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I’ve shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI’ll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.

~

Because I could not stop for Death (479)

Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses’ HeadsWere toward Eternity –

~

this one is an old nursery rhyme:

One bright day in the middle of the night, Two dead boys got up to fight. They turned their backs and faced each other, Drew their swords and shot the other. One was blind and the other couldn’t see, So they chose a fool for their referee. A mute eyewitness screamed with fright.A cripple danced to see the sight. A deaf policeman heard the noise.He came and shot the two dead boys.A paralyzed donkey passing by,Kicked the copper in the eye, And knocked him through a rubber wall, Into a ditch and drowned them all.If you don’t believe this lie is true,Ask the blind man. He saw it too.

~

She swearsshe will nevergive birthto a daughter.Won’t evenplant a garden.— Adira Bennett

~

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~

My mouth is a fire escape.The words coming outdon’t care that they are naked.There is something burning in here.

— Andrea Gibson

~

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weepI am not there; I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow,I am the diamond glints on snow,I am the sun on ripened grain,I am the gentle autumn rain.When you awaken in the morning’s hushI am the swift uplifting rushOf quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.

~

Never regret thy fall,O Icarus of the fearless flightFor the greatest tragedy of them allIs never to feel the burning light

— Oscar Wilde

~

Annabel Lee BY EDGAR ALLAN POEIt was many and many a year ago,   In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know   By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought   Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child,   In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love—   I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven   Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago,   In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling   My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came   And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre   In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,   Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,   In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night,   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love   Of those who were older than we—   Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above   Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,   In her sepulchre there by the sea—   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

~

self-parodies & psalms for shit-scared twenty-somethings by gyzm

is perhaps my favorite poem and just gut punches me whenever i read it but they are a tumblr person who’s poem deserves more attention so please reblog/comment on their poem directly :)

1.

most of what i’ve learned in the first half of my twenties is to embrace statistics i’m not smart enough to verify; theones about black holes and how much of the universe is justempty space: between atoms and from one planet to another.it makes it easier, to stare at my overcrowded sink and thinkthat to get from the floor of this filthy kitchen to the neareststar would take more lifetimes than i could borrow or steal.maybe there is a single withered raspberry molding beneath every single plate i own but in the scheme of things that’s insignificant, a non-event in the life of a non-event, and so canwait until tomorrow, when this hangover is gone.

2.

please, god, don’t let me die before i turn thirty. i’ve heardthat that’s when it all comes together, and i know those’re allfish stories, probably, the lies of those who need to pretend justlike me, but hell, i choose to believe. because the thing is, god, if idie tomorrow, a few years from now, i can pretty much guarantee it’ll be in torn underpants, on a bad hair day, in a bra that doesn’t fitthe way i’d like it to; please, god, don’t let me die before i work outhow to drag myself out of bed in time to dry my hair every morning. i’vebeen promising myself for years i’d learn to get off the couch on monday nights and do laundry, god, okay, i don’t mind living in dirty jeans but i don’t want to die in them, i’m begging, i thank you, i’m sorry, amen.

3.

there should be a page at the back of every baby book thatsays “baby’s first moment of cold realization that they are an gigantic shitheaded asshole.” it’s important, as milestones go. iknow it’s not as glamorous as a first word or a graduation but i’dargue that developmentally, it means at least as much — god knows i put more thought into the bleak portrait of myself at two a.m., staring haggard out from the filmy surface of my mirror, than i did in my ham-fisted infant attempts to say my father’s name. it would benice, is all, to have a warning, to flip through pages of childhood accomplishments and see that placeholder, at the end; to know that the future was coming, inevitably, to make dipshits of us all.

4.

don’t put liquid soap in the dishwasher. don’t put your vibrator in the dishwasher. don’t forget that your mother is coming over until fifteen minutes before she shows up and put every scrap ofevidence that you are a disaster zone living underneath a veneerof overdone eye makeup and slapdash dreams of better tomorrowsin the dishwasher. don’t put your grandmother’s china, that vase you bought at the flea market, a bowl half-full of aged guacamole,in the dishwasher. on the mornings that will keep coming — when the shower does not seem like enough, when you can feel your long history of mistakes pockmarking your face and oozing out from beneath your armpits — don’t put yourself in the dishwasher.

5.

the human body replaces skin cells so quickly that two weeks from now, every part of me will be brand new, and i will still feel as though i have spent my first quarter-century on this planet touching both too much and not enough. that feels profound atthis moment but the human body replaces humiliations fastereven than skin; two weeks from now i will remember saying this,stare at the ceiling above my bed and think: no one has ever been as big of an asshole as you are. there are billions of stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in our universe and my ceiling is the only clean part of my apartment. i know it’s a fish story, but c’mon, god, okay — i’m just asking to believe i’ll make it to thirty better dressed; less selfish.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi! Sorry to bother you with a bit of a dumb question...but I've been seeing the phrase "the story became the story" a lot in the past few weeks on my dash, and I never understood what exactly it means? I think it was mostly on some other blog but I can't seem to find it. Just very confused ^^'

It’s from 9x07:

SAMSo, what was that all about, ‘Dee-dawg’?

DEANYou remember when we were kids that spring in upstate New York? Dad was on a rugaru hunt. We, uh – we crashed at the, uh … the bungalow colony with the ping-pong table?

SAMYeah. Uh, y-you disappeared. Dad came back. You were gone. He shipped me off to Bobby’s for a couple months and went and … found you. You were lost on a hunt or something.

DEANTHAT’S what we told you. (as if Sam’s story refreshed his memory) Right.

SAMI’m sorry? That’s what you told me?

DEANTruth is, uh… I lost the food money that Dad left for us in a card game. I knew you’d get hungry, so … I tried taking the five-finger discount at the local market and got busted. I wasn’t on a hunt. They sent me to a boys’ home.

SAMA boys’ home, like a … reform school?

DEANYeah, more or less. It was a farm, and the guy who ran it – Sonny – he, uh, you know, he looked after me.

[…]

SAMHey, Dean … I mean, why didn’t you just tell me you went to a boys’ home?

DEANI don’t know. Uh, it was Dad’s idea. And then it just – you know, the story became the story. I was 16.

I copied most of the exchange (that’s the end of the scene, with Dean using that last line to end the argument) because I think context is sort of important… Basically a lot of meta writers since this episode have picked up on it as a really important phrase to explain a lot of things all round the show, where people have been holding onto ideas and stories which helped but really aren’t that great long term for their development and all. 

This one exchange summarises the entire point of this episode before you even get into it, and basically anything where they were holding onto an idea for safety or denial out of their childhood. Most John Winchester focused episodes have an element of it, this is just the most overt (I think it’s the key episode really for all Carver/Dabb era John-related stuff) so it gives us this great line to explain everything.

Now Mary’s back it’s even more critical because it’s basically explaining everything where there’s difficulty communicating, and Mary was still in the “story” up until Toni told her to her face that there was a different truth to the one she’s been clinging to. (I just scrolled past this great gifset with some side by sides) 

Essentially the entire story of Mary to Sam and Dean has been, well, a story. She has a whole history of being their tragic saintly mother, they never got to knew through anything but hazy memories and stories. Ever since then her image has been challenged, I mean, like, in 1x09 she apologises to Sam for what happened/will happen (not that she remembers this now) - but at the time it showed there was maybe something more to what Mary knew. Still, going back in time and meeting her, whatever we learn that she’s a hunter etc never changes who she IS to Dean and then Sam - they both look at her like she’s a flawless angel and permanently with tears ready to fall just to be in the same room as her. 

As much as John stuff has stories that became the story - the things they say to explain how bad it was to themselves, that they can focus on him being a great hunter, a hero who sacrificed himself for them, who had his noble tragic quest to avenge Mary, doesn’t really cover that he neglected them and raised them poorly, messed up, with too many expectations and dangerously. Which again is a theme since season 1 - if nothing else shows it clearly, then 1x18 with John sending Dean to clean up his mess with the striga… Which John blamed Dean for despite him being a kid, it was his fault for messing up the hunt not John’s for expecting this tiny child to protect his brother with a shotgun from a terrible monster. And I’ve never been certain he wasn’t using them as bait if he had left them alone in the same town as the monster knowing its pattern was to feed on kids.

So they have their stories about John - stuff where Dean accepts the blame or things where they can kid themselves it wasn’t all as bad as that, because they DID love him and he loved them and all that stuff is apparently what family does for each other - all the selling their souls etc.

Of course then it turns out Mary was the one who started it not John, which is the narrative asking us to question her, to allow her to be more human, as messed up as them, etc.

But actually having her back is difficult to get over the image, so for them the hurdle with Mary has been seeing past the story that became the story, that she is miserable and human and messed up as well (hence all the drama she’s put them through so far)… And they’re struggling with the image of John, where the story became the story and they haven’t exactly conquered that yet EITHER so asking them to be upfront and comfortable discussing it with Mary? She’s been folded into their perception of John and though they very very gently poked at the idea to start with, she was making essentially the same error as Henry Winchester:

HENRY You’re also Winchesters. As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope. [DEAN and SAM look at each other.] I didn’t know my son as a man, but having met you two… [HENRY takes DEAN’s hand with his right hand and holds out his left hand to SAM] …I know I would have been proud of him.

He ALSO read all of John’s journal and was horrified by what had happened to him, but for his own sanity drew a nicer picture of John as a hero and a good man (because, on a cosmic level, he was and his actions were good and he saved people and sold his soul for Dean and didn’t even break in Hell when Dean did, like, what a great guy). Mary as a character with a full season long arc has a chance to learn more and get past that same introduction to what she missed while skipping ahead in the story to what to both Henry and her is essentially after the story ended, and to understand what’s underneath the story - that this upbringing by a crusading hero was not exactly a story of great parenting when it came to her sons. And even the only thing she doesn’t know yet after Toni’s attempt to tell her a version of the truth to upset her is that cupids connected her and John, and that her whole story THERE is also a half-truth because unlike the story Dean told her in 12x01 about how she met John, there is no cute love story - there’s manipulation from Heaven and in the end the same love that made her make that deal wasn’t all her fault because it came from a cupid’s arrow not just from her own heart. And it all “had” to happen because of the apocalypse.

Anyway, that’s the sort of thematic thread that has been running through the entire show but since 9x07 had really easy words to put to it to mean anything where this messed up family has constructed an easier truth over its darkness. 

(I have to say as I just watched 10x05 last, I really hated the Winchester Family Story as presented there with them all singing Carry On Wayward Son, and I think it was meant to be fake because Adam was there and they had to ask who he was… But the whole take away from the episode even for the actual Sam and Dean was a very very glossy idea of what they do and how their family is. Works great as a 1 off episode completely in isolation to actually celebrate the show and fandom as we love it, but in context 2 episodes after demon!Dean was laying into Sam about how they were raised and the real dark heart of their family, before trying to kill him…. it’s so fake, and watching those 2 episodes side by side like I did, without the werewolf melodrama in the middle… It’s so obviously a “the story became the story” to smooth over the whole demon!Dean incident so they can function for most of the rest of season 10… If you need another example of seeing it in action :D)