#When will they let me have benzos again it's been over a decade since I took them irresponsibly :(

[chicago-geniza]

Good afternoon I was awake until 4 am then slept until about 4 pm. I have once again, in the absence of alcohol or pharmaceutical intervention, become Totally Nocturnal by accident. Please can someone kill my insomnia

[sweatandwoe]

The Breaking Point

Rating: Mature (Could be T, but like I’d rather play it safe.)

Summary: Fear has always been a good motivator for Vander. It’s his weakness, making it seem like it’s an instinct instead of cowardice. To trust his gut in every situation, even when his head and heart both agree that his gut is wrong. 

It makes it easy to do what he does. 

Word Count:  3k+

Note: It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. So have some stuff, that I didn’t care to edit too much. 

Anywho, this is my version of Vander’s POV at the river. Also with my headcanons about a young Vander. Hope it’s okay!

Ao3 Link

-

The river is quiet tonight. The moon hanging full in the sky, reflecting onto slow-flowing waves.  It’s still murky, dark; filled with enough chem you’d be able to smell it two streets off. But it is quiet with only the two men that stand there, one tall and thin and the other taller and broader. 

Both light up the night with embers of cigarette light. The shorter man speaks, smoke curling around his face. “Why did you bring me out here Vander?” 

The taller man, Vander, smiles. It holds a bit too much teeth like an excited dog. “We haven’t had any time to unwind in weeks.” Just a little upstream, the boat is set up already. “Benzo’s covering for us, I thought-”

“We have better things to do, Vander.” 

His face crumples, as the shorter man is so dismissive of the idea without even hearing it. “I know, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have time to unwind. Have fun you know? It’s been a long time since we just fished.” They had done it when they were teenagers a lot, while Benzo did the more dangerous jobs before his right leg needed to be replaced with iron. 

Benzo was four years older than the both of them. Had taken them both in once he had found them, made them all brothers when they had all been alone before. He had helped teach them how to fish, and bring home food while Benzo brought home gold.

And then taught them how to bring home gold, while he got used to his new leg. 

Thinking of the man at the bar right now, covering for the both of them, Vander tries again. “Benzo is taking care of things, Silco. He wants us to unwind. The man even brought out the old fishing supplies-”

“I don’t want to fish.” Silco is standing his ground, throwing down his cigarette into the dirt and stubbing it out with the hell of his shoe. “We did that when we were teenagers to get food, and because it kept us out of trouble.” 

Vander can also recall all the laughs they had from it. Nearly a decade ago, when the waters were a little cleaner down this smaller cutting of the River Pilt. They would fish off the bridge or in their small boat, laughing so loud that some adult would come to yell at them. Giving Benzo a lot more grief than needed for a 16-year-old. “Come on, we had fun.” 

“As teenagers, barely more than children.” Silco shakes his head, blue eyes gazing up at the larger man. The moon backlit his thin frame. “What’s the matter, Vander?” 

The hound of the Undercity swallows. “Nothing.” 

“Come on now, Van. I know you better than that. You wouldn’t try this unless you felt something was wrong.” A hand uncurls over the broad shoulder. A quick two pats before a squeeze against the joint. “What is it?” 

The larger man eyed over him.“I overheard you and Sevika the other day.” The hand on his shoulder lessens in pressure until it lays there for a moment. Fingers slip off, his shoulder to instead grasp his arm. When they tug at him, the large man turns. 

Silco’s expression is a sad one, chipped teeth showing from his parted lips, blue eyes wide. “I didn’t mean it like that-”

“You did.” He shrugs the hand off of him, and Silco lets it simply hang in the air for a moment, before the fingers curl together, the arm dropping back to his side. “I know I haven’t been on the ball lately-”

“It’s been more than lately-” Silco cuts himself off this time, looking wistfully at the cigarette he had tossed out. A sigh leaves him. “I’m allowed to vent, Vander. Especially to my friends.”

“I know! I know.” A hand runs through his hair, getting long again. He had shaved today, but perhaps he should start cutting his hair with it. “You’re allowed to vent, and I wasn’t supposed to hear it. I just wanted it to try to fix things, to… I don’t know? How things used to be.”

Silco says nothing, and the air is growing thick. Vander looks at the man, his brother, and prays he will understand him. That he will understand how Vander misses the old days, where everything was fun. 

They were so close to their dream now, but the taller man was realizing how terrifying that was. That he could lose either of his brothers in a blink of an eye, as they readied a fight against Piltover. 

A fight Vander wasn’t sure they could win anymore. Not since the-

Where it wasn’t a dream anymore, but becoming an active reality while his own dreams were filled with the corpses of people he loved. 

“I know they can’t be back to how they used to be, but I thought for a few hours-”

“You can’t handle it, can you?” Silco cuts him off, and he’s looking at him with eyes that are still wide but there’s that calculating nature behind them. An intelligence Vander has seen bloom over the years, a knack for reading people. Just one he’s never seen directed at him. “Is it too much pressure?” 

Vander chokes back a laugh or a sob, he isn’t sure. “What, leading people to a horrible death?”

The shorter man sighs and turns to face the river. The left side of his face appears in the darkness, while the right is hidden in the moonlight. “You can’t say those things, Vander.” 

A tightness enters his chest, because why shouldn’t he be allowed? It had been his crew. He could say anything he wanted.  “I can’t voice my fears?” 

“Not in that way.” 

“So what way should I do it, oh King of Zaun?” 

Silco’s blue eye glares at him, through the corner of it. “Don’t get snippy for me, just because you can’t handle what’s going on anymore.” 

Silence meets him. Vander can’t speak, with the sound of his own frantic heartbeat leaping into his throat, crawling up into his ears. 

Blue eyes turn back to look onto the river, a hand moves up to run through his own long locks of dark hair. “Maybe… Maybe it’d be best if you stepped down. For a little while.” 

Vander can’t look away from him, the blood now raging in his ears. “Step down?” 

Silco’s feet shuffle; his hands move into his jacket’s pockets. Fists outlined in the fabric.“Just for a while. Until you can adapt to what’s happening. We’ve been training Sevika on leading, she could handle it while you take a break."

Vander is staring at him, and something makes his fist curl. There’s a fire in his gut, with different pokers stoking at the flames.  Embarrassment, betrayal, and rage.  “How long have you been thinking about this?” 

The shorter man won’t look at him. His eyes remain on the river, refusing to budge to look at Vander. “Since the Mining incident.” 

“That was three months ago.” 

Lips purse, a pause before two words slip from him. “I know.” 

Silence fills the air with a thickness, one that makes it hard to breathe. Vander can feel his chest heaving with each breath he pulls in from it, air flaring out of his nose. “You’ve been just holding onto that for months? You haven’t said anything?

Blue flicks to him then, but there is no warmth in his eye. Only ice. “I wanted to be sure, Vander.” Then the blue is back on the river, settled and away from him. “I wanted to talk to Benzo about it first.”

Vander took a step forward, fists still curled at his side. Pain is shooting through him. “You were going to talk to Benzo about it, before me?” 

Silco turns to him, finally, with the ice melted to reveal the flames of ire underneath. “Yes, Vander. I was going to talk to Benzo about it. Because you need to step down.” 

Vander plants his feet in the dirt. “I don’t need to step down.” 

“Really? Do you think you’ve been in the right headspace to lead people for the past few months? I thought I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, that it’d wash away and you’d pull through.” 

“I’m fine.”

Silco’s teeth grit together, loud enough that Vander can hear it. His next words are hissed through clamped teeth. “No, you’re not.” 

“I am fine.”

The shorter man’s old fists are balling up now, blue eyes fully heated. “You knocked Jonas’s teeth out last week, Vander. Someone from our side. You fucked up the mission for the Noxus Shipments. We needed those weapons-”

“So I’ve screwed up a few times.” The river is loud, roaring now. Every crash of the wave against the shore has his fists trembling. His heart aches, everything aches. Can’t Silco see he’s already bleeding? Why try to take more? “You telling me you haven’t?” Why were only Vander’s the prominent ones? 

Because he hates you. A small voice was in Vander’s head, calm and yet loud. It seems to know the truth, as Silco’s face twists, brow furrowing and lips curling. 

“I’m telling you that no one has screwed up as much as you have lately!” 

The punch comes swift, with enough force to knock Silco onto the ground. Blood pours from his left temple, while the skin around his eye already begins to swell and puff up. Vander can’t move, frozen, still in place with his swing. 

His entire body shakes, as Silco sits up, grasping at his head. He can’t move, can’t look away as the man on the ground holds his aching head, blood slipping between his fingers. “Silco, I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Just like you didn’t mean to lose all those weapons?” The words are venom, taking over Vander’s freezing form. Each one delivered a painful bite into his spirit. “Just like you didn’t mean to bash out Jonas’s teeth last week. Said you thought he was an enforcer sneaking up on you, but the man commented on how uncertain you were. He questioned your leadership, and look what happened when even I do it!” 

There’s a sigh, a pant, and Silco’s gaze softens a little while he looks over the taller man’s trembling form. “You’ve lost your touch since the mines, Vander.” 

There’s a quiet but it’s less thick now when it settles. He approaches the shorter man, still on the ground. He holds out a hand, and Silco tentatively grasps it. 

For a moment, Vander thinks it’s going to be okay then. That they will move past this before Silco opens his mouth again. “I know you’re scared, Van. We’re all scared. I’m scared. But we have to do what’s best for Zaun, not just for ourselves.”

“We can talk about this still. With Benzo there too. I don’t want to step down-”

“Oh for the love of Janna!” The softness is gone with the snap of his words, along with whipping his hand away. And though his fingers curl, there is no blow from them. His words are weapons enough, they both know this,  as he stands up. Legs wobbling while his left eye is swelling, words spat out. “I’m heading back to The Drop. I need to talk to Benzo about this.” 

Fear has always been a good motivator for Vander. It’s his weakness, making it seem like it’s an instinct instead of cowardice. To trust his gut in every situation, even when his head and hurt bother agree that his gut is wrong. 

If he tells Benzo, you’re going to be alone again. Or dead yourself. 

The fear makes it easy to grasp Silco’s shoulder before he can take the next step, whip him around and punch him again. This time holding him in place, as he makes the next few punches, hitting the man hard enough this his fists hurt.  Until there’s blood coating his fist, until Silco’s good eye is now closed, and his breathing heavy. 

Until there's no more blood pumping into Vander’s ears and the river falls quiet again. And then he sees what he’s done. 

The entire left side of Silco’s face is covered in blood. His left eye is swollen shut, while the other eye is simply closed. His breathing is heavy, and his limbs seem to hang off of him limply. 

He’s unconscious. Vander had beat his brother into unconsciousness. 

Benzo was going to kill him. 

That’s only if Benzo finds out. The small voice is still calm as it starts to speak. It’s his own voice, calm and collected. No fear is in this voice and yet it is made out of it. He wanted to get rid of you-

No! Vander couldn’t do that. He had already gone too far, feeling tears in his eyes while he gazes at Silco’s bleeding face. Draws him in close. I will not do that. I can’t. 

He was ready to get rid of you. Do you think Benzo’s going to let you back in? After this? You need to get rid of him. 

It starts to rain, splattering against his head and the river. Sharper sounding than the droplets should be like they were little blades falling into the river. The reason why his face is so tight. 

He stared at Silco’s broken face. No, Benzo would understand. It was a mistake. 

Would he? 

Silco would understand too, he’d make them both understand. He’d tell them all about the mines, about the body of Jefferson crushed under the rubble, Sandra’s body twisted and bleeding, how the enforcers had laughed-

They’ve seen death too. Your sight of it won’t matter. They understand death, but they won’t understand this. 

Vander is running out of arguments, his stomach flipping as the voice continues. 

They will never understand this. They’re going to abandon you. You’ll be on your own, with no family, no friends. A traitor-

“No, no, no.” It’s a sob, as he draws Silco closer, holding the man to his chest. He wasn't a traitor, he wasn’t. It was an accident, he hadn’t meant to hurt him-

-can’t control yourself. They’ll put you down like a mad dog. The one that you are. You have to do it. 

He moves the wet, sticky hair away from the wounds on Silco’s face. Tucks it behind his head, in an effort to try and care for him. To the friend who would always help him, and care for him. He had given him the benefit of the doubt. “I can’t do it.” 

You have to. 

Do it. 

Fear has always been his motivator, and its words are easy to give into. With the adrenaline still moving in his veins, maybe that’s why he does it. Why he carries Silco into the river, before curling his hands around his throat. 

He expected it to hurt enough because the man is unconscious. But then his body wakes him up, the urge to fight too strong as he is suffocated beneath the filthy waves. His head breaks above the water at one point, but Vander is shoving him back down underneath. 

Arms splash about before Silco’s fingers grasp his arms. Trying to get enough energy to pull himself up, but Vander only pushes him down harder. 

Until the splashing stops. Until Silco’s body isn’t moving once more. Until the quiet settles back in. 

Vander weeps, openly, hands still grasping around a now bruised and limp neck.  What was he doing? His fingers loosen in their hold slightly. 

The first slash of the knife is more of a shock and gets him to let go completely. Silco rises from the waves, blood washed mostly away, besides his eye socket that’s caked with blood. The man gulps in two breaths, trying to run as his boots catch against the sand in the river. Vander reaches for him again, because he’s going to tell Benzo. He’s going to tell Benzo. 

The second slash has him drawing back, grasping his forearm. Blood drips into the water, but he’s careful to leave it above. Whipping around, Silco is gone. He calls for him. 

Nothing. Silco is gone. 

He’s gone. 

Vander is alone. His nightmares become a reality, as he drags himself up to the shore. The two wounds in his arm sting, as he walks, before turning into a run. Nearly tripping as he gets into an elevator. 

Benzo. He needs to see Benzo. 

Along this level, there is no more rain, just the sound of it echoing against the metal above them as he runs along Drop street. Until he reaches The Last Drop. Laughter and music booming out of it. There’s no panic in the air, only a soft relaxed joy. 

No one knows what’s happened yet. 

He got there first. 

Vander isn’t sure what to say still, as he swings the door open. Soaked to the bone, his arm bleeding heavily. There’s a shout, as he settles his back against the door, shutting it tightly. The music cuts off. 

All eyes turn onto him. Looking at him, over him, to him. One of their leaders having run into The Last Drop injured, he can only imagine the thoughts they’re having. 

Benzo is brought to him, the heavy foot of his metal leg echoing across the wood floor. “Vander!” A thick hand grasps his shoulder, turning him slightly, enough to make him wince. “What’s happened? Who did that?” 

The world freezes. He cannot tell them the truth. The thought of seeing Benzo’s worried eyes turn to hatred coils something worse in his stomach. 

He doesn’t want to be alone. 

It’s fear, maybe some panic too, that makes him say it. Words that will carry him through the years, haunting him as he never tells anyone the full story. Because how could they understand the truth? They’d hate him. 

He doesn’t want to be alone. 

It’s words that will be his demise. And be the demise of the people he loves. And yet he still says them, because it is easier than the truth. 

“Silco attacked me.”

Those three words he speaks will never leave his ears, even as the bar shifts into outbursts over what has been said. Even as Benzo tells everyone to quiet down, before gazing back at Vander. Even when days passed, turning into weeks and into months. 

He doesn’t want to be alone. 

Vander hears the words constantly, a soft whisper in the back of the mind, growing loud and more noticeable when the face of the lie meets him head on. 

He hears those words when more people die on the bridge again, and again when he shakes hands with a devil in order to keep things the same. Nothing is safe, but he can keep his family. He can live with the lie. 

He doesn’t want to be alone. 

The truth comes in the form of a knife in his back, and then again in his gut. His stupid gut. 

“I knew you still had it in you.” 

It had always been in Silco’s nature, to believe in him. 

Even to the end. 

[psychedelictrashpanda]

It’s been awhile, weird old blog with unspecified direction. How about more of me me me?

I finally did DMT again, and WOW. It’s been at least a full decade since the last time. I still didn’t quite “break through” enough to “meet the entities” again but mein GOTT was it healing. Speaking of God, we’ll get to that soon... But before smoking the dimitri, I was beginning to sustain a mania in slow motion with dissociatives again. Not to any extreme like I did with PCP long ago (btw, glancing at my Eyehategod poster, I realize that horror/metal fest when I was blasted on PCP the entire time was all the way back in 2013! It seems to much more recent, but the way these drugs interact with memory is very peculiar. or maybe it was the traumatizing effect of it and other things at the time that makes me block out and thus distort the time signature of the memory... I digress). And I don’t have the destructive tendencies I did in the past anyway, so I’ve never been apt to push it as far as I was when I was shooting up 3-meo-pcp and blacking out for days at a time. I mean, I did push it I suppose. For the main George Floyd protests I was loading up on a combination of things. Can’t even remember if that was my sober window between methadone detox and the suboxone I’m on now. But, I was combining bits of weird PCP offshoots with opiate offshoots (4-map iirc) and/or kratom with maybe a drop of benzo... straddling the line between going overboard and a “party dose” for lack of a better descriptor; between recreation and desperation. In retrospect, I was summoning the courage to act like my old self used to in these sorts of situations. That is, giving it my all, being novel about it, idk, summoning the spirit of Dr Gonzo I suppose (who, after reading his two books, was more slimey of a jerk than he’s presented in Hunter’s stories. well, I need to finish the Cockroach People book, he started getting into his attraction to underage girls as a young 20-something man himself and ugh, gross). My true wild & adventurous spirit has been hampered, weighed down with anxiety and depression and all manner of undiagnosed mental illness. Who knows if it’s more the drugs or the environmental factors that trigger drug use, but the spirit is tortured like Griffith in the torture dungeon, the heart is wrapped in a black grime guarded by the Beast of Darkness, the will is subordinated to authoritarian capitalist hegemony...

Where was I? Oh so I started suboxone for the second time in my life innnn... February I want to say. Last time I did it I was able to detox myself simply buying subs off the street, but I did it too quick. That’s been one problem, every time I detox rapidly it’s too harsh a push back into reality and I succumb to relapse less then a year into sobriety. The reason reality is harsh is the same reason my stance on anti depressants has been further cemented. I’ve articulated it better lately... Basically I believe it’s a weird solution to depression to force your chemical makeup into the right position to function properly in the same environment that caused it in the first place. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” One of my conversations with a young college friend really illuminated why many don’t even consider this position. She was insistent there’s no cause of depression, you’re just born with a fucked up mind. Now sure, hereditary disposition is a thing, as a drug addicted child of an addict I should know. But for example she pointed to another friend with hard depression and was like “his life seems fine what explanation could there be?” But I put forth maybe his childhood of having to closet his homosexuality in a hard conservative family that had the possibility of disowning him if they knew about it contributed to that “natural chemical imbalance,” as it’s implied. YES, some people NEED it. But for the most part, it really seems to me to be what I’m gonna call the thyroid phenomenon. That is to say, a medical explanation for a small fraction of severely affected patients is used as a broad brush by the public to diagnose themselves. Forewarning: I am not fat shaming here, forgive the example. Dietary practices are a personal thing so my feelings are stronger as well. Anyway, it seems to me as soon as this thyroid malfunction became a hard biological explanation for obesity beyond the psychological, suddenly everyone was a candidate. It’s fine to think “maybe I have it” but when a growing and significant portion of the obese crowd started screaming they all had thyroid problems and can’t help themselves, when a teensy percentage actually do... well it sort of touches on the “addiction as a disease” narrative that’s never sat well with me. Addicts use the disease reasoning to skirt personal responsibility. I'm not denying it is a disease, but I believe calling it as such in the public discourse isn’t terribly constructive. (Okay, you’re seeing an opinion change in real time here... I changed my mind.) I was vehemently against the narrative, but I need to readjust to simply make people WARY of the narrative. As an addict, I could easily see myself using the excuse of it being a disease as a fatalist function; that is to say giving in, relinquishing personal control over my fate. Hereditary disposition, Rat Park, addiction as a disease... there’s also a severe lack of control it all conjures. Paradoxically, drugs can used to meticulously control your state of mind. I can’t control my desire to control myself?

God where was I going with this... Oh! God! May as well mention I’ve been warming up more and more to the spirit of monotheism beyond it’s structural and institutional dimensions. I could get deep into my recent past of not believing in the idea of a spirit, soul, etc. How the pendulum of my ideology swings between cold rationalism and loose spirituality, especially as I go through phases of rebellion against perceived oppressors. Growing up in a red state with a lot of Christian ideals, society around me was always telling me everything I seemed to like was the work of Satan. Naturally, I started reading into Satanism. I never self identified with occult-esque belief structures, except maybe chaos magick because it’s whole idea is to merge whatever practices work into something of your own, but I did staunchly identify as anti christian. Not a hard thing to do when you’re already a metal head, which definitely fueled the trajectory. Not to mention metal helped goad me into DXM use (thanks Velvet Cacoon ya bunch of goons), the first real psychedelic journeys I had. Because I never gave real consideration to myself having depression, I moulded my personal ideology around the symptoms it causes. Which is why for awhile after coming to terms with depression as a problem I probably have, I was only able to identify it in retrospect. I never felt it in real time because it was so old-coat to me, I adapted to it like an addict adapts to their drug of choice and ti becomes their world. So I would decide to skip social events, let my room get messy, watch only old comfort shows, etc... but only AFTER emerging from that state was I able to immediately look back and think “wait... I was doing all those things because I was depressed.” In the moment, it’s rationalized as “I don’t want to see these people for these reasons” or “I want to watch spongebob because it’s fun and an old favorite.” Rationalization, the concept of the west, serves as a detriment to the individual in a number of manners. This is one. I was a MASTER at rationalizing away my drug use. Statistically, more people die from this this and that, why be worried that I’m on this drug instead? Statistics quelled the perceived danger. It was also a formative tool in my skills of justification. I always felt I had to justify every action I took, but that’s getting back into family matters...

But why not bring that up? it’s a sore spot. I feel like the tables have flipped from my dad always saying “you all just think I’m an asshole!” to me thinking I’m the asshole. It’s too much to get into but I’ll touch on a couple important things... I’ve learned a major source of my anxiety is not being able to draw the boundaries between business and family and myself, because they’re not properly defined. When I’m told by my bossfather after explaining the distress I feel simply thinking about the family company, and he goes typically all-or-nothing when I touch on crucial issue and says “if you want out just tell me you want out”, I can’t separate between whether he’s saying it as a father or as a boss in the moment. He would say, “of course I just mean the company”, but where does company end and family begin? It’s also an intense pressure, maybe shame, simply typing this and thinking in the back of my head about someone who might read and think “what a spoiled brat, has a family company and blah blah.” But who put all that in my head? He says he’s changed from the days of putting immense pressure on me with the sort of sentiments that cause that shit in my head like always telling me how great I have it and all the opportunities, shit, I’m feeling it right now, the frustration and I can’t even identify these emotions. At least I am aware of them, that’s a huge milestone for me. But the only thing that’s changed is he sees me as a the broken mother fucker I am and treats me as such. Sometimes it’s nice, and sincere sympathy, other times his frustration with having to check his language all the time is palpable so it does no good to do so. The immense pressure, the intense urgency, the confusing complexity, all those market pressures haven’t changed. This is evident when we were driving somewhere and I suggested not worrying about the fastest route on the map because one minute isn’t a big deal and he insisted that one minute IS a big deal. Sweating one fucking minute indicates a mountain of reputational pressure. In a way, that one minute is putting business ahead of family, but I feel harsh saying it because as he’s pounded into my head the business is what allows the family to survive. Not to mention why put the crack head of the family above that one minute (not literal crack, but it was obvious as soon as he saw I was “fucking around” on ketamine he decided to not take me as seriously) Still, I’ve made my decision that survival reasoning is fucking bullshit already. He’s the one that wants a mansion and wants enough mailbox money for us not to have to worry ever again, so he’s the one deliberately creating the pressure. Maybe he hasn’t considered how hardened he’s become to those feelings after a lifetime in the street and in prison. I really feel for mom. She’s okay now, but her spirit... It’s part of the reason I can’t relax myself at home. He has always painted her as dead weight in the past, never getting a job, sitting watching TV, but he’s unable to connect the dots psychologically because we’re all layman that part of the reason she’s like that is because her actions have been demonized already so who the fuck she got to prove herself to? Same reason I fell into relapse sometimes. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t sort of deal. The damned if I don’t being the reputation of yourself you have to live with after getting sober. He says “don’t worry about it” but I couldn’t accept that because the reason he doesn’t trust me (never mind respect, that’s even further away) is informed by my past. I can’t complain that he never allowed me to contribute to a crucial decision like choosing the building for the dispensary, talking about whether we want a certain investor or not, etc, is because that’s not something to entrust to a druggie. I’ve always felt he let me play make-believe CEO and gave me an allowance for it, while telling me otherwise. He’d say “this is all for you” but he’s making the decisions that truly move mountains and then putting it on us. Which is why I have a hard time saying “I want out”, he can be a baby about things just as much as I am, and I fear he’d let his entrepreneurial drive be affected by my departure. Sigh, this is already getting to be a headache to think about... He’s tired. I’m tired.

There was also something I wanted to say regarding the role social constructs play in all this, but it’s getting long enough already. Suffice to say I’ve been getting into psychoanalysis lately and it’s scratching the right itch for knowledge and wisdom. I can see why Zizek is enamored with Lacan, and why it’s so important to mix it with Marxism. And not to toot my own horn, but what the hell... There are a lot of lofty ideas I’ve been coming across that are already parallel to ideas I’ve developed through my own life experience, and it makes me think I’m meant for this sort of stuff. If I’m lucky in my pursuits (not to put too much weight on the luck aspect), I’ll be a journalist of some sort. Articles, video essays, whatever. Need to rein in my indecisiveness and dispel FOMO tho.

Back to DMT. But not really. Earlier in the summer I got some straight Ketamine and it was also immensely healing. But it has a great abuse potential, especially for me, so it’s harder to “hang up the phone” after I get the message as TmK would say. It made me feel again, and start to understand what love is. Partly because it conjured all these lost feels I had for Kat. She’s great people though, I think I’d just stress her out too much. Idk. Whatever. My love life is a total mess. Anyway after I ran out I wanted more of course and stumbled on some DCK, a somewhat rare ketamine offshoot. Coupled with my increasing propensity to trip acid more than once a week, they started building on each other. I was happier and happier at home, but at work/fam was getting more and more distressed about my place in that whole show. In his show. Simply thinking about the company, especially after having read that article about procrastination and how much it resonated with me, caused me unnecessary levels of distress. Normally as quickly as I can feel that, my mind will tuck it away and bottle it up somewhere so I can go about my day. The problem with drugs is they cause you to act instead. So he was doing the usual “it’s so easy! you’ll have it made!” and I interrupted with this torrent of shit I’ve been holding back forever, and he would not yield on his “you didn’t let me finish...” Incidentally, has he really never picked up on every time I interrupt I already know what he’s talking about? I said as much, something like “it’s not the labor” and he keeps saying “no you’re not listening” as though a frivolous detail changed the main thrust of the fact he’s always trying to make it easier for me. I wish he could simply let me go off and have the strength to take it a little less seriously, but considering how often I take things personally I shouldn’t be surprised he does to. On top of this, his brother/my uncle was in the hospital for some serious shit. But another reason I picked this time is because I only feel safe even confronting him when non-involved parties are around. He doesn’t care that I don’t feel safe confronting him though, he says “don’t worry about me” so maybe I shouldn’t. I feel like such an asshole about it, but that feeling is conjured by the ideological structure he helped to create. Where does my shame end with him being the causation and start with my personal ideology? How much can a person create their own ideology, truly? It’s about as small a window as free will, I imagine.

SO after feeling awful for going off after having all this stuff build up in my mind, I felt awful and went home to drug up some more. Again, not recklessly to the extent I used to be. But I did a fat line of DCK while on a couple hits of LSD and a smidgen of Zolpidem (a wholly underrated substance). Everything was getting to me all at once. A perfect storm of my problems. All the while another doubt caused by ideology from without (society and family both) was making me think it’s all the drugs. But the developments I’ve made are huge strides, I’ve matured so much from it all. And I realized every time I do this, those developments are wiped clean because the validity of them is rendered null due to both the general social stigma of drugs and my history with them. And maybe that’s a major trigger fo rmy relapse in the past. I’m not suppose to be on drugs, but I dabble, have incredible experiences and make strides of maturity, but because it’s drugs the exact opposite effect is percieved from the outside; the experiences are simple chemical euphoria, the strides of maturity are false delusions. It triggers a sharp roll back down hill. I wish someone respected me for who I am, I feel so alone sometimes.

Drugs as an umbrella term, drugs as a vice for the worst dregs of society. There are so many problems in our world regarding drugs. I could write a book. But how much I’ve written here touches on another pressure I feel. IS it simply him again? When he asks “you’re gonna be gone in a few days right?” is that what’s making me feel like this is a waste of time? I’ve got to get out of here. It’s so hard though. I simply have to be strong. The strength is in me to take the massive cut to pay and benefits when I move. Maybe I’ll get a portion of my strugglers card back and shit heads like Blasey Shomas can’t simply say “why don’t you take care of yourself instead of daddy taking are of you?” anymore. Part of me wants to say he says that because he’s driven by his own emotions and not smart enough to directly debate my claims, his insults should hold no weight. Another part of me is truly trying to be... I don’t know a proper term for it without sounding egotistical, but “enlightened”? This is why monotheism is sounding more interesting to me. Jesus’ position about those dregs of society. I’ve always tried to be a trusting person, understanding of people’s struggles, the ideologies they function under that make them lash out or otherwise act the way they do, etc. I even changed my wording there from “I’ve always been” to “I’ve always tried to be.” Not so much for my usual reasons of dodging a committing claim (which I’m working on -- instead of “I think ___” just say what I believe to give the claim more sense of authority so as to be taken more seriously), but trying to be more humble. And not to think lowly and use myself as a punching bag like I used to... ugh, whatever. This post is messy enough.

So that night after having done DCK every day for a couple weeks and tripping every other night on acid, I was at my wits end on what to do, where to go next, everything. The outside world is crumbling, the inside world is lost. I finally whipped out that DMT I’ve had for a long while, something inside told me it was time. Oh duh it was the wits end part, I had no other chemical recourse. I sat in my bed with a foil sculpture loosely resembling a pipe, repeated to myself “it’s okay, just let it happen to you, it will be okay.” A part of me even had a small fear based on those rare reports of those interdimensional beings mentally raping some people, but I don’t know what to make of those experiences, seem like flukes. I took my three deep hits and set the pipe aside as soon as the rusb began and laid back. It wasn’t enough to break through, so I need to get a proper pipe, but it was enough for a “being” (which I am convinced is a part of your mind, not from another dimension or otherwise external source) to appear before me. At least I think. Whatever it was slowly came closer, reassuring me that I’d be okay. The most profound part was an overwhelming sense of all these puzzle pieces suddenly falling perfectly into place where they should be. As though the answers to all my struggles obvious and within me the whole time. For example as soon as I came back I adjusted my posture, as that’s something that I’ve been wanting to work on, and because I was reminded of that just now I adjusted my posture in my seat while writing this. I felt an overwhelming sense of forgiveness toward myself, I think. Amazingly, the inebriation I felt before the trip was largely dissolved, as though the stuff I was on somehow all lost it’s potency. The distresses melted away. At least, the power behind them was nulled. I’m still facing the same problems, but there’s a zen(?) quality to my thinking when they come up in my mind. No longer will a pin drop trigger everything I’m feeling all at once. When I came-to completely, I started BAWLING. In being overwhelmingly consoled by the trip, I became inconsolable. Tears of joy. Tears of healing. And that was the main takeaway. The loudest words of the experience were “Now the healing can truly begin.” At the same time, now the real work also begins. 

Balance is key

[calleo-bricriu]

What I want to see is what over 100 years old Calleo and his cards have to say about Voldemort.

The hell do I need cards for that for? I could just tell you outright but, then, I’m sure you’d be back at me going on about how that’s no fun at all.

In the distant past, they’d described him as a bullheaded, reactionary wank cloth who’s prone to having violent tantrums when he doesn’t get his way–I’m condensing that down rather a lot but that was the gist of it; perfectly charming sort until he gets the idea that you think he’s roughly as interesting as watching paint dry.

But, hey, people change and maybe when he’s ready to try again he’ll have improved somewhat.

Which, in his case, would more than likely manifest as just becoming more wildly unpredictable with his meltdowns and moods but, you’ve asked my cards, not me, so here we go.

I wonder if he still does that thing where he tries to go as long as humanly possible without blinking because he could do it indefinitely with a little transfiguration and charms work.

Where was I?

Ah! The cards.

(( Larger resolution image is here. ))

Hermit’s pretty self explanatory; he’s been isolated, and should you find him and ask him he’d likely tell you that it was on purpose and/or for the purposes of enlightenment, introspection and contemplation–hopefully around why he didn’t account for basic defensive Blood Magic but, most likely not that. I know I don’t like to dwell on it when I miss something basic, I like to forget I did that and move on while also keeping it tucked away in the back of my head so I don’t do it again.

I’m going to go ahead and ignore that, all around, when the Empress shows up it she often signifies a pregnancy and considering Voldemort, unless he gets incredibly creative with trying to get himself back into a body (or just possesses the first thing he can manage that’s human) is not likely the sort to be able to get pregnant, which leaves the third option of someone else…letting him…do that to them.

It can also mean that he’ll just make an effort to be a little more creative and inspirational to anyone stupid enough to show up for a second round and with his recruitment efforts but if I had to have the mental image of somebody not only fucking Voldemort but letting him knock the up so the rest of you–and I say the rest of you because I don’t know specifically which one of you asked for this reading so you all get to suffer.

And I don’t think it’s that second one as the Ace of Cups revolves around beginning again which, fair, if you’re half-resurrecting yourself–but it primarily focuses around fertility and pregnancy. Someone is going to let that man knock them up.

Ew.

Getting away from that horrifying set of mental images, the Eight of Wands indicates he’s going to be about as good at being patient and planning things out (complete with contingencies or alternate plans in case the main one fails) as he was the first time around which is to say, not at all. However, since the Ministry is staffed largely by what I can only assume are tranquilised bonobos in suits, nobody here is going to care. Or notice. I’ll notice, I’ve already noticed, but I have enough benzos from Muggle doctors that I legitimately do not care.Or, if they do notice, they’re going to pretend they haven’t so all the progress speed, action, momentum, all that nonsense, is only going to seem speedy to the people who haven’t been paying attention.

The rest of us will have seen it slowly coming since roughly 1982.

He’s got abandonment issues head to toe based on the Eight and Five of cups, which is a large part of what makes him dangerous as, instead of focusing on the cups that haven’t been knocked all over the place and using those to rebuild, all he’s likely to focus on will seem, on the surface, to be a political revolution but that’ll just be a thin and fragile veneer covering the fact that he’s a desperately lonely, fundamentally unhappy, nearly always frightened basket case and that manifests (as it often does) in violent outbursts and an undercurrent of wanting to make everyone else suffer the way he feels he was made to suffer.

That’s not even all that uncommon, you can see it to a much lesser degree anywhere in Knockturn if you stay there long enough or visit often enough.

Queen of Swords is likely to turn out to be his most dedicated defender, coming from a point of power obsession and pity, though if she’s got any brains she won’t ever mention she pities him as it might get her killed, and wants nothing more than to shield and protect him, keeping him from harm; also indicates that she’s married–well, it mentions it in the inverse as a divorce, which would make sense if she’s one of those sorts that were pushed into a family alliance sort of marriage that she never particularly cared to be a part of to begin with.

And, at some point, he may be able to shake off all that flailing about to somehow manage to convince the general public that he’s not that bad, and he’ll do so through gratuitous shows of generosity, charity, investing in community (the community he envisions, at any rate; some of you will have to be his diversionary scapegoats, after all), and while everyone is distracted by someone who’s likely to be able to walk into the Ministry and buy them off with false gratitude, making them feel valued, paying them well, displaying what comes off as fairness unless you scratch the surface, he’ll get to work doing what he wanted to do in the first place.

And what does he want to do in the first place? Get himself into a position where he’s well liked, respected, viewed in a positive light, as a good leader, as someone who is successful, committed, has clear goals, and will lead the Ministry to greater things. This is someone who wants to be loved without having to leave himself vulnerable in the process.

For awhile, he’ll get it, and it’ll seem solid.

It won’t last, however, not for long, because that Eight of Swords is going to leave him feeling trapped, restricted, and lashing out at anyone or anything who he even suspects of holding dissenting views through harsh punishments, executions, imprisonments, persecution, “trials” in front of the Wizengamot that were rigged from the start, and at that point he’ll be at two distinct paths he can take.

I do love the Two of Wands for letting things go in different directions.

First potential path: If he goes that route, he’ll be able to leverage what little political and social capital he’ll have left after that mess I just described and, with a little creativity, should be able to pull it all back together in a way that cements his socio-political views as the new, accepted norm and any rebellion against it won’t be able to gain the following it’d need to challenge him for decades to come.

Second potential path: Nine of Swords circles back to the Eight of Swords, only more intense. Terror, not just fear, seeing enemies everywhere, being the subject of gossip, the narrative of which he will not be able to control as it will be a moving and largely invisible target that is perfectly willing to martyr itself if it means his downfall. As a result, he’ll fall further and further into paranoia, nightmares, despair, and stress, leaving him with an inability to cope with the reality of the situation which will only circle back to him lashing out at anything that comes within range, regardless of who or what it is, and when he hits his breaking point he isn’t likely to survive it.

The card between those two paths, as I was curious as to which route the deck thought he’d take, is a reversed Star.

Hopelessness, despair, the inability to take responsibility for one’s actions being what led them to where they are, lack or loss of trust in those around him and in himself, feeling as though everyone, even his closest followers, are plotting against him.

Considering that, I suspect he’ll go the second route to hang out with the sword filled guy in an egg costume.

Let’s see if one overarching card will give some closure here, shall we?

Regret, refusing help from those who legitimately want to give it (back up a bit and re-read the bits that mention paranoia) because, as surprising as it may seem, there are people who genuinely do care for him–in their own, strange way–disillusionment, becoming even more self-absorbed and depressed, focusing on the fantasy in which he’s–apologies, but I’m going to jump back to how two of my former Archivists often described him–seen as something greater in terms of charisma, success, skill, and political success than Grindelwald.

I watched that mess rise to power and fall from it spectacularly, and my memory has more than enough clarity to state with certainty that the only things I’ve seen that Voldemort is better than Grindelwald at are:

1) Keeping himself out of prison.

2) Being ballsy enough to apply for that Defence Against the Dark Arts position looking the way he did when he got that interview. He had to have known what he looked like, unless he doesn’t cast a reflection anymore and nobody told him how off he looked. Just to note, it’s not that I think he’d have been unqualified for the position so much as he may have come off as only wanting it to use as a recruiting platform which is–one of those things you really need to hide until you’ve got tenure, or at least a signed contract.

3) Being repeatedly thwarted by children yet still having followers willing to both overlook it, stand there with a straight face while he probably blames his wand for it (because they all do, you find any Wizard over 60 that has a spell fail and the first thing you get is some variation of, “I swear this has never happened before! It must be the wand acting up!”), and continue to follow him despite the fact that all they’d really have to do is walk away and start telling people what he’s really like and it’d kill any chances of recruiting anything with any skill or ability to follow through.

4) Talking to snakes, allegedly. Not entirely sure how useful that skill would be but I suppose snakes probably have some interesting things to say now and again.

At any rate, Four of Cups almost guarantees he’s going the Nine of Swords route so it’ll get a bit hairy for awhile but whatever grip he gets on anything is going to be tenuous at best and even holding onto it with both hands his reach is likely going to exceed his grasp.

I never like to see raw talent wasted like that, and he does possess a great deal of raw talent as well as the intelligence to have made it, with right people around him, into something spectacular; it’s just been–misapplied and left in the hands of people who never did have his interests at heart, and it’s easy to take advantage of a kid like that. See it all the time in Knockturn.

Pity, really.

[brittanythescrivener]

Behind Trinity Lines - Chapter Three: Welcome to the Jungle

Tags: @embracetranquilityson, @eintausendschoen, @roxlovescommanderourke4ever

Cozumel, Mexico

 It was early afternoon when Lara and Jonah arrived in Cozumel. The sun was shining, and the sky was bright blue with fluffy, white clouds. On the way into the village, Lara couldn’t help but marvel at the stunning scenery. White sandy beaches, turquoise blue waters, and vibrant green foliage surrounded them. Lara promised herself that once her business with Trinity was finally done she would take some time to just relax and enjoy life. She’d never been to Mexico before, but she already found herself quite fond of it.

“Where are we meeting your contact, Jonah?” Lara asked as the taxi came to a halt.

“A little place called La Casa Mexicana,” Jonah said. “I know the chef there.”

“Didn’t you eat on the plane?” Lara joked.

They exited the taxi, and Jonah led Lara toward a deserted courtyard. Lara immediately saw the darkened neon lights on the building ahead of them. La Casa Mexicana.

“There it is,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They were seated in a corner on the upstairs balcony overlooking the courtyard. They had only just ordered a round of drinks when Lara saw a short, heavily-built man in an apron and a ball cap approaching them.

“¡Oye, Jonah!” he called. “¿Cómo estás?”

Jonah stood and shook the man’s hand. “Lara, this is Hector Riviera.”

Hector joined them at the table, barely acknowledging Lara’s presence. She didn’t mind—she wasn’t exactly a people person anyway.

“You have some info for us?” Jonah asked.

“Dr. Dominguez has been searching for the entrance to a temple here for many years,” Hector said. “I think they are getting close. They have been bringing in more and more reinforcements.”

“Dr. Dominguez is here in Cozumel?” Lara asked. The name was familiar. She’d seen it in her father’s journals; they’d been friends before his death.

“No, I hear he is in Brazil right now. The man has fingers in many pies. The one in charge here is named Rourke. I’ve only seen him a handful of times, but he is a real pendejo.”

“So what is so important about this temple?” Lara asked.

Hector shrugged. “We do not know. Everything is very hush-hush.”

“Can you get us into the digs?” Jonah asked.

“Jonah, my friend, Dr. Dominguez and his men have been a great help to the people of this village, but they are not messing around. You need to be careful," Hector said.  “All I can do is give you the locations." 

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Lara asked.

“I’ve had eyes on the dig closer to the city. I think that’s where their base camp is. I thought I had the front gate guard’s schedule down to a science, but they stuck a new guy up there today. A big guy with a creepy, scarred up face. Looks like he wants to strangle everyone he looks at.”

Jonah laughed. “Sounds about like Konstantin, doesn’t it, Lara?”

A wave of unease washed over Lara. She didn’t want to admit that the thought had already crossed her mind.

“I should get back to the kitchen,” Hector said. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it down onto the table. “I’ve written down the locations of all the dig sites. Good luck, my friends.”

Lara watched Hector leave the table, and she stared down at the bottle of beer a waitress had just placed in front of her.

“Something bothering you?” Jonah asked.

“What if Konstantin is here, Jonah?” Lara asked quietly.

“Don’t you trust him?” Jonah asked.

“I—I don’t know,” Lara muttered. “I want to trust him, but I’m not sure that I can.”

Jonah shrugged. “If he is here, there’s not much we can do about it . . . is there?”

Lara sighed. “I guess not.”

Jonah patted Lara’s shoulder and said, “Then don’t worry about it unless you have reason to. Let’s go back to the hotel and catch some sleep, and we’ll start checking out those dig sites tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” she said. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and said, “I’ll be right up.”

Lara unlocked her phone and started composing a message. K, we made it to Cozumel. Trinity is here in full force.

She sent the message and waited for the delivery notification, but it didn’t appear. Either his phone was off, or he was out of range. Konstantin always had his phone on, so Lara was once again hit with a wave of unease. If he really was there in Cozumel, she would find out sooner or later.

 *                    *                    *

  Trinity Base

Mobile, Alabama

 Commander Rourke wandered across the airplane hangar with his hands stuffed in his pockets. They were set to leave for Mexico in a matter of minutes, and he was waiting for the rest of the team to board the chopper idling outside.

The night before, for the first time in almost three years, Rourke slept in his own house in his own bed, and it felt damn good. He had never considered himself to be much of a homebody—sometimes he had trouble remembering what home was even like—but he decided that at that point in his life, at thirty-seven years old, putting down roots was sounding better and better.

His patience with Dr. Dominguez was growing thin. Dominguez had sent him on a wild goose chase all over Central and South America since the botched mission to find the Divine Source, and after almost a decade in the Special Forces, he was growing weary with living out of a duffel bag. He was always moving around, living somewhere new with new, unfamiliar people.

Rourke thought of his family back in Providence. He hadn’t seen or spoken to them in nearly ten years. He had long been seen as the black sheep of the picture-perfect Rourke family, but he was virtually disowned and disinherited when he decided to leave the Army to join the ranks of Trinity.

Trinity had changed everything for Rourke. He was respected, even revered, for his accomplishments and was put in a position where he could use his talents and experience accordingly. He didn’t have anyone to impress or satisfy. He was able to create an identity for himself that he was pleased with.

He watched from afar as Jo entered the hangar cautiously. She too was dressed in Trinity’s standard-issue hot weather uniform. Despite the masculine cut of the combat fatigues she wore, she looked incredible. Her shirt was casually unbuttoned, and Rourke could see the tiny gold cross necklace she’d worn for as long as he could remember.

Her saw her face go white the moment she laid eyes on the black utility helicopter nicknamed Cardinal Two. He felt bad for a moment; she’d told him over a year ago that she was done with Trinity, and he pulled her back in despite everything that had gone on in Siberia.

When Rourke finally boarded the chopper and gave the order to move out, he sat down in the empty seat beside Jo. As they prepared for take off, he heard her draw in a deep breath as she stared at the seat directly in front of her.

“You okay?” Rourke asked as he buckled himself into his seat. He knew she wasn’t.

Jo shook her head. “The last time I was on one of these birds . . . it was crashing.”

She pulled her duffel into her lap and fished around inside it until she found a bottle of pills. She popped one into her mouth and clenched her eyes shut.

“What are those?” Rourke asked with concern.

“Benzos,” Jo muttered. “How long is this flight?”

“About four hours,” Rourke said.

“Fuck,” she said under her breath. “Jesus Christ, why did I agree to this?” Jo said.

Rourke reached toward her and offered her his hand.

Jo ignored his gesture and said, “I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”

She was clearly not fine.

The cabin rocked slightly as the chopper ascended, and Jo drew in a sharp breath. She grabbed Rourke’s still outstretched hand and clenched her eyes shut.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Rourke said.

Jo squeezed his hand tightly and said, “I will be so happy when this thing lands.”

“Jo, look at me,” Rourke said earnestly.

Jo slowly opened her eyes and turned to face him.

“You’re safe,” he reassured. “You’re not alone.”

Jo nodded her head slowly and turned her attention back onto the empty seat across from her.

“Hey,” Rourke said, “do me a favor and don’t throw up in my lap this trip.”

Jo groaned. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me.”

Rourke laughed softly. “No problem.”

“So what are we doing in Cozumel?” Jo asked, her voice still trembling.

“Dr. Dominguez is running a few digs on the island.”

“Dr. Dominguez?” Jo asked with surprise. “So this must be a pretty big deal for you and him both to be running things.”

Rourke sighed and rubbed his beard with his free hand. “Honestly, Jo? There aren’t many of us left. Croft has been a busy little bitch the past year.”

Rourke felt Jo bristle next to him at the mere mention of her name.

“So is that why you called me, too? Because there was no one else left?”

“No,” Rourke said. “I wanted you back.”

Jo met his eyes again.

“We used to be so close, and then with the Army and med school, we lost a lot of time.”

Jo gave him a small smile. “I see what you’re saying—in your long, convoluted way of putting it. I’ve missed you too.”

Rourke smiled to himself as Jo turned away from him again.

Jo closed her eyes and finally let herself relax in her seat. “So I hope this assignment is like 95% working on my tan and 5% actually treating patients.”

“I hope so, too,” Rourke said a little uneasily.

He knew that once they arrived in Cozumel Croft wouldn’t be far behind.

 *                    *                    *

  Cozumel, Mexico

 Konstantin shielded his eyes from the scorching sun and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He was wearing heavy cargo pants and a tactical vest—far too many layers for the current weather in Mexico. He had only just arrived a few hours before, and he already didn’t appreciate being volunteered for watch in an open area during the hottest time of day. He supposed Rourke was punishing him by giving him all the duties no one else wanted to make some sort of an example out of him.

He was starting to get lightheaded from the heat, so he stripped off the vest, tossing it to the ground. Getting shot at that point would’ve been sweet relief from the damn heat. He rolled up his sleeves and wiped his face again. He sighed with irritation as he glanced down at his watch. He only had an hour left until someone else came to relieve him.

Konstantin was scanning the treeline, looking for anything interesting, when he heard footsteps approaching him. He turned to see a tall, very tan, and very well-groomed man in an officer’s uniform. His eyes dropped to the name patch on his chest. Winters.

Winters shielded his eyes from the sun and said, “Commander Rourke sent me to tell you that your backup got detained, so you’re going to have to stick it out a few more hours.”

Konstantin clenched his jaw and said, “Yes, sir.”

Winters smirked at him and said, “You got a problem with that, Miller?”

“No problem at all, Winters,” Konstantin said through gritted teeth.

“It’s Commander Winters,” he said smugly. “So I guess you won’t mind pulling a double, then?”

“Even better,” Konstantin said. He tightened his grip on his rifle to keep himself from taking a swing at him.

Winters’ radio crackled. “This is Rourke. Winters, I want all dig sites rigged with explosives. I don’t want anyone getting inside unless they’re supposed to be in there.”

Konstantin’s gut wrenched into a knot. He knew that Lara was probably already in Cozumel, and it was only a matter of time before she found her way into Trinity’s business. He hadn’t yet taken the time to consider what he would do if they crossed paths. He knew he was going to have to figure out where he stood with all of it before they found themselves face to face, or he knew it wouldn’t be pretty.

Konstantin watched Winters walk away and then turned his attention back to the gate.  Just then it rolled open, and he found himself staring straight at her.  It was Jo, staring right back at him, just as surprised as he was.

“Jo!”

Jo wrapped her arms around herself uncomfortably. “Konstantin.”

“How are you?”

“I’m well,” Jo said.

“How long have you been here?” Konstantin asked.

“I just got here a few hours ago,” Jo said.

“I had no idea you’d be here.”

A strained silence fell between them before Jo finally said, “Listen, I’d love to catch up, but I’m late for . . . a thing.”

She started to walk away, but Konstantin yelled after her. “You could’ve taken my calls! I’ve been trying to find you for months.”

Jo stopped and slowly turned to face him.

“I had no way of knowing if you were okay,” Konstantin said sternly.

Jo put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

He braced himself for her worst. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about this.”

“This is the perfect time to talk about it since you brought it up, Konstantin. Where should I start?”

Konstantin stared at her blankly.

“You fucked Trinity’s Most Wanted. You forced me onto that chopper with you. You hit me. You put my life in danger.”

Konstantin frowned. “Jo, you are being overly dramatic about all of this.”

“I almost fucking died, Konstantin!” Jo shouted.

“I never meant to hurt you.”

Jo pointed her finger at him and said, “I was nothing but loyal to you for six years. I was always there for you, and I never asked for anything in return. I never bothered you with my problems. But I guess I was expecting too much to think that you’d show some loyalty to me. I loved you for six years, Konstantin. For six years. And you knew. But you didn’t give a shit. So, no, I didn’t take your calls because I thought it would be for the best that we don’t talk anymore.”

“Jo—.”

“Everything okay here?”

Konstantin and Jo both turned abruptly to see Rourke standing behind them.

Jo backed away from Konstantin and joined Rourke. “I was just leaving.”

 Once they were out of earshot, Jo rounded on Rourke.

“So did you forget to mention that he would be here, or did you do it on purpose?” she demanded.

“I don’t know what went down between you two, but it must’ve been some serious shit.”

“Yeah, it was,” Jo said darkly.

“I didn’t tell you because I knew this is how you would react,” Rourke said with annoyance. “I’ll make sure you don’t have to deal with him again.”

“You better,” Jo said. She poked him in the chest and said, “Or I will rip your dick off and shove it so far up your ass that you’ll taste cock for the rest of your life.”

He smirked and said, “So . . . we still drinking tonight?”

Jo rolled her eyes and walked away.

[cameronomicon]

Becoming Robin

I’m standing at the top of a carpeted staircase in the house where I spent my earliest years. The long sunlight of a Texas morning pours in through a window high above me, and I have shit my diaper. I’ve done something bad, and I know it. I’m in tears and I’m ashamed. This is my first memory, and it’s the moment that I become Robin.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this,” I said to my brother, “and I don’t think I could tell many people without getting a negative reaction. But I’ve thought many times that it would be better if she were dead.”

I was talking about my mother, from whom both my brother and I are estranged. The ebb and flow of rapid deterioration and chronic decay that lasted the better part of two decades has forced us to remove our alcoholic mother from our lives. It’s an act of self-preservation she has often labeled as cruel. 

Everyone, it should be noted, is guilty of this cruelty. My mother, the great victim that she is, has cast the rest of the players in her life’s story as irredeemable villains who took advantage of her, set her up for failure, or outright betrayed her. This is after the countless half-hearted attempts at sobriety, the multiple treatment centers, the interventions, the third, fourth, and fifth chances. Those who have loved my mother have given her much. And it should always be noted in the same breath that she has also given much to those she has loved. But through the insane cataract of her disease, she now sees only villains. She has become twisted by resentment and fear, anger and self-pity. I think this must be a survival mechanism of her own, to reframe the narrative as “Robin vs the world” or else she might not be able to find the strength to wake up every morning in a reality where everyone she loved is gone. We are all of us, as it happens, just waiting this thing out now.

Robin stalks the perimeter of our lives like a predator just beyond the throw of the campfire’s light. We know she’s there, we’ve seen evidence, but she moves unseen the in darkness and shadows. She is a hungry ghost, as Gabor Maté would say. She haunts our lives, the ghost of who and what she once was, her unknowable but undeniable existence emanating from the howling void at her core. 

It would be better if she were dead. Then at least we would know where she was and what she was doing instead of dreading the infrequent but crushing calls from strangers, nurses, EMTs. And it would be over. That would be better. 

*

It’s impossible for me to separate myself from Robin, because I am her. Like my mother I have a passion and talent for the arts, and I share in her very dark but brilliant sense of humor. I am quite intelligent but fragile, and proud to a fault. I am aloof to the point of seeming arrogant, and insecure to the point of self-destruction. I hold others at arms length for far longer than necessary, but those I allow into my heart I hold there incredible fierceness, just like her. 

Most obviously, we share in disease: I am an alcoholic just like her. I’m also a drug addict, having been addicted to nicotine, prescription amphetamines, and cannabis. Some of these things I used together, and towards what I hope is the end of my own history of alcoholism, I was regularly mixing alcohol, benzos, and weed. I drank in the morning to silence the shakes. I could hardly eat. I felt like I was dying. In fact, I spent most of 2018 thinking about my own death, and wishing I had the courage to bring it about. A few times, in my booze-fueled despair, I held a knife to my wrists. I thought about buying a gun. I believed I was doomed, and there was no point in delaying the inevitable. 

This had all happened before, in the early 2000s, when I went to rehab for the first time, and then lived in a halfway house, and sank to unprecedented depths before finally resurfacing to join the world again. And since then I had been coasting in relationship and lifestyle which permitted and encouraged daily alcohol use, until that itself met its inevitable and cataclysmic end. And then I climbed into a time machine back to 2005 and began to self-destruct once more.

And it is impossible for me to not compare the sorry state of my decline with that which I have found my mother in many times. Her passed out on the floor of her apartment was me passed out in a doorway outside. Her vomiting in public and the deterioration of her physical appearance were my own. Her leaving friends and loved ones baffled, heartbroken, and confused was the look of bewildered pain on the face of my friend Stephanie when she came to my apartment to help me get to rehab this past summer. The anger and white hot resentment churning at the core of her engine spun its revolutions within me as well. I have seen her claw her way back from the edge of total defeat in brilliant and heartbreaking flashes of sobriety, only to let the people of this world fail her and give her the excuse she was desperate for to try her hand at drinking again. I have been there, too. 

I think that, ultimately, I am lucky that I came to learn my truth at a young age. Even when still active in my addiction, I knew. My ex-wife knew. There’s no way to arrive at a conclusion other than “I am an alcoholic” after going through everything I’ve been through and to still have been a daily drinker. This is where my mom and I begin to differ. 

Along with lacking her tireless ambition, her work ethic, raw talent and the many, many successes she achieved by my age, one other major thing sets us apart: my mother has always denied that she is just like me. She has never admitted she is an alcoholic. 

*

“No human being is empty or deficient at the core,” Dr. Maté writes, “but many live as if they were and experience themselves primarily that way. Attempting to obliterate the sense of deficiency and emptiness that is the core state of any addict is like laboring to fill in a canyon with shovelfuls of dust.”

Something that my therapist told me, that I had never realized before, is that human beings aren’t born with shame. That’s why little kids are so free and charmingly weird, untethered by the conventions adults place on them. Kids learn shame. They are taught to feel it. Shame isn’t the same thing as feeling guilt, shame is something much more insidious, something that can eat away at a person’s sense of self. Shame is not feeling bad about what you’ve done, but about who you are, is I think how my therapist distilled it. Shame is my first memory. That’s how my story begins.

And I can point back to feelings of shame, and trying to erase or cope with shame or any other strong emotion, as a core motivation for my drinking and substance abuse. That is my original damage, the flaw in my life’s marble.

The writers of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous say “bottles were just a symbol” when describing their malady. And I agree. If I hadn’t found alcohol first, and if it hadn’t done for me what I desperately craved—the silencing of my inner dialogue, the obliteration of my self-hatred and insecurities, the soothing of pain and freeing of emotion and desire, that utter freedom to feel and to destroy feeling—then I would have found something else to do the job. Hell, Adderall did that, too.

When I say that my first memory at the top of the stairs is when I became Robin, it’s because I believe that there’s also something missing in my mom, some perceived void as Dr. Maté said, that is at the core of everything she is and has become. I believe there was a fundamental ruination, perhaps similar or entirely different from my own, that snapped off a part of her brain that she’s been scrambling to find, fix, or obliterate the memory of ever since. I believe that she stood at the top of her own staircase and sustained her own mortal wound. She has been laboring to fill in her own canyon with dust, yet cannot see the futility of the effort.

I don’t remember much of what my mom told me about her childhood, other than my Nana made sloppy Joes and her older sister was a bully about two things: The Rolling Stones (mom was a Beatles fan) and Star Trek (mom liked Star Wars). Knowing what I do now about my mom—and myself—I would not be surprised if she chose these diametrically opposed favorites just to needle her sister. But my takeaway now from this lack of knowledge, and the fact that we were never particularly close with either her family or my father’s, is that the damage she experienced lies somewhere therein. Something happened to her in childhood that formed her: some great pressure exerted upon her formed the diamond of her unbreakable will, and ultimately, the poison in her heart. 

She had some moment in which she became Cameron, which she never could have recognized at the time. She may not remember it, and she would certainly deny that anything like this could have had such an effect on her. But I believe strongly in my heart it was there. 

Of course, I may be wrong about all of this. I’m not an expert on addiction, I’m just a drunk like Robin. But I’ve gotten honest and looked deeply at myself and that itself has tremendous value; I’ve held up the mirror, and in it I’ve seen my mother there looking back at me: a little girl in Arlington, Texas, crying. Afraid. Ashamed, even. I would hug her if I could, and tell her everything will be ok. That no matter what happens, she is loved, and she is enough.