#also find it funny that he out right states that what he writes doesn’t mean he believes it

[incorrecttowerofgodquotes]

Laughing at this disclaimer since Ryukishi ended up predicting both Russia interfering with Ukraine and the pandemic.

However, the most interesting thing in this disclaimer is Vatican Document #34. Now obviously, this document doesn’t actually exist (as far as we know). This is probably a reference to the overwhelming use of 34 in this series from Miyo Takano, to Lambdadelta, to even this game’s own Vier Dreissig.

However, could this not be just a simple joke but something that really exists in the game’s universe? Since the aforementioned Vier has made it her life’s mission to meet god, perhaps this document is something she drafted herself?

Or since Lambda has been involved in numerous historical events, maybe it was a document drafted by the actual Vatican under orders of Lambda, or possibly from an observation of her.

[carmenized-onions]

Something to Do. | Catering

logline; Itinerary for your trip to New York? Just try not to fucking cry.

[!!!] series history, this is the twelfth; gonna start season three after I post this. Wonder how bad it's gonna throw off the rest of my plot line. Ideally not at all. We'll see.

Spotify Playlist, if you like to listen while you read. I listen to it when I write :) Constantly gettin’ added to. I really like this playlist for all chapters, but for a wedding where music is blasting, it feels particularly fitting.

portion; 13.3k how does this keep happening.

possible allergies; Terrible self-image, everything feels bad, very real conversations abt ,,, self-death and addiction.

pairing; Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto & Fem Reader (gets referred to as a woman and other feminine honourifics but no pronouns, i believe)

i made you all so mad last chapter. Let's see if i can make it up to you, babydoll (probably wont)

You hate to admit it, but you were kind of relieved when you found out Carmen wasn’t coming on the plane. You’re in a bit of a state of fight or flight; well, more accurately, currently leaning towards the flight side— Pun intended.

He’s coming to the wedding. You know he is. For one, he’s getting thirty grand for this, he has to. For two, his location is still on for you— Whether he forgot to turn it off or just didn’t care, you’re not sure. But he hates you, so there’s no way it was intentional, you’re certain about that much.

You know you shouldn’t be looking at it, but you have. You’ve been looking all week. Checking your Find my Friends like a doting mother. He goes to work far too early, he stays far after close, he goes home. Rinse and repeat.

You check on him one last time before boarding the plane. He’s opted to drive, with Richie. Something about ‘wanting to bring their personal equipment’, Richie texted you. They’re halfway through Ohio. You’re sure that road trip is definitely going spectacular after their side of the explosion.

Richie texted the day after that fucking fiasco, asking if you’d want updates on how it’s going at The Bear. How it’s going with Carmen. You said you wanted to know if he wanted to tell. He opted not to tell.

You hate to admit, you were kind of relieved, to not know. To just look at Carmen’s little icon go from Point A to B. Instead of Carmen Reports, you and Richie text about much lighter things. Normal things. Eva drew a funny picture of you kinda things. It’s nice. You know you’re probably being childish, but it feels so much fucking better to ignore the Bear in the room. You don’t know how to feel about anything, and frankly you don’t want to try to figure it out.

You suck, Carmen sucks, what more is there to know? Process it? Fuck that.

Carmen hasn’t texted you; you haven’t texted him, the entire week. Radio silence. You stopped playing Connections. Didn’t see a point. Not like they even have a streak function anyways— You’d die before you let that Wordle streak break, though. That was your thing. Carmen doesn’t get to take your things, too.

You didn’t get a text from the Exec, either. So that’s… Something? Or, rather, explicitly, that’s nothing. Does that mean Carmen gives a shit? Not necessarily. Ugh. Your whole system was so shocked after that fucking fight that you didn’t really have time to take in the fact that that jag was into you? Vomit inducing. You’ve got to rethink your life choices, if they lead you to him. 

But also, you know if Carmen and you were okay right now, you probably would’ve given him your number. You would’ve catfished him for weeks, laughing over your phone with Carmen and Syd as this idiot falls into your trap. You miss Carmen. You also don’t miss Carmen. You want to see him desperately and also never fucking look at him again.

Carmen’s going to be in the kitchen; you’re going to be out in the banquet hall, on bar, this whole wedding. The likelihood either of you have to actually interact this weekend is quite low. The likelihood either of you have to confront what you’re supposed to do with yourselves now is quite low. You hate to admit it, you’re fucking relieved.

Sydney sleeps on your shoulder, for most of the plane ride. You sleep against her head. Shout out Marcus, for switching seats. He’s behind you, with Tina. He wakes both of you up about an hour in, shaking your seats— Because the dessert cart came out and he didn’t want either of you to miss it. The mini cheesecakes are better than expected, to be fair, so he’s forgiven.

This is going to be the stupidest weekend of your life. You’ll take that, over worst, at least.

“Be honest, would you tip me extra well?”

You give a twirl in your probably too fancy semi-cultural outfit. Your family shows up for weddings, if Vinnie and Mira didn’t want their bartender to go hard, they should’ve put that in their notes. It actually would have been nice to get sent notes, though… What is the theme for this wedding other than ‘Italian’ and ‘New York’…? Glitter eyeshadow is probably fine, right? Yeah it’s fine. Not like you could get that shit off now, anyways.

“If you were my bartender, I would ask ‘what are we?’” Answers Syd, watching you from the bathroom as she attempts to put her hair up. Definitely struggling in silence.

Sharing a hotel room was the best idea you ever had. It would be a nightmare to get ready alone in silence, right now. It’s nice to talk and have something to do. If you didn’t, you’d absolutely be ruminating about Carmen, debating whether or not to check on his room, that’s just down the hall, you could see if he needed help with getting ready and also see if he’s as tired as you think he is and— Plus, the amount you saved on splitting a one bed? Christ. Economy is in shambles. So is your brain.

“You would not be brave enough to ask your bartender ‘what are we?’”

“For you, I would.”

“Are we about to kiss, bro?” You duck into the bathroom, getting way too close to the side of Syd’s face. She laughs, pushing you away with the palm of her hand, you scoff, “Wooowwww—”

You clutch your heart, mortally wounded. Retching, truly. Now this is heartbreak in its rawest form. “—Reject me, why don’t you?”

“I’m playing the role of timid—” “I’m sick of this friends to lovers plot line!” “It adds! It adds!”

“Shut up— And tilt your head back, dumbass, what are you doing?” You stand behind her, taking her braids into your hands as she struggles to bundle them all herself.

“I do this all the time by myself, y’know.” So Syd says, but she lets you take her braids regardless.

“Yeah, but I’m here.” You stretch the hairband on your fingers. “Messy bun?”

“You think?”

“I think primal is too clean.”

“No, I was gonna do the one where it does like— Like the infinity in the front?”

“Who’s mom are you tryna fuckin’ look like?”

She kisses her teeth, attempting to reach a hand behind her head to smack you. You dodge and somehow manage to make it easier to smack you. “I’m literally only gonna get to come out after everyone’s left, I dunno why we’re making effort here—”

“High messy bun?” “High messy bun.”

Oh, the days of doing each other’s hair. You’re glad it’s back. You’re glad you get to become, together, again. It used to be bobbles, friendship bracelets, and glitter tattoos—but now it’s tying up each other’s hair, helping with the curling iron, clasping the gold chains on your neck, zipping up the back of your outfit, pinning the collar pins on her uniform, fixing makeup, asking each other to compare perfumes before going through with the final decision, mocking each other’s purchases.

“Wait, what mini deodorant did you get at customs?”

“Oh, one of those Native ones— I think it’s peach—?”

“Those cost like five fucking dollars, Ink. For like two swipes.”

“Excuse me for wanting to smell good, fuckin’ ‘wolfthorn’—”

“I work in a restaurant. I need Old Spice strength, okay—!”

“Oh, pbbbttt— Syd.”

“Pbb—Fuck, how do you do that?”

There’s a knock at the door, interrupting your squabble. “Are you decent?!”

Sydney groans, “No!”

“Yes, Rich, we’re decent, doors open.”

Richie comes in, unceremoniously. A touch awkward. He’s so rarely been in a room with women getting ready. It’s simultaneously exactly what he expected, and not at all what he expected. “Chip, can you put these fuckin’ things on f’me?”

Cufflinks. He presents the box to you. They’re just plain and silver, boring. Save that in your rolodex of gifts to get this Christmas. “You’re fuckin’ forty and you don’t know how to put on some cufflinks—?”

You’re nagging, but you’re already putting them on him, he holds his wrist out for you. “Nah, I was too busy runnin’ shit to learn.”

“Runnin’ your mouth, more like.”

“Yeah, yeah.” It’s a quiet moment, a tender moment, of adjusting his sleeves. Sydney’s scrambling to clean up the room around you two in the background. It’s hard to turn off the autopilot of cleaning one’s station, no matter where she goes.

You purse your lips. You shouldn’t ask and you shouldn’t care, but you do. You half-whisper, to Richie. “How was the drive?” He knows what you’re asking.

“Terrible start. Surprisingly okay middle. He went straight to the banquet hall once we got here.” He swallows, treading carefully, a thing Richie never does. “Do you wanna know the dirty details?”

Oh good, you wouldn’t be able to check on his room even if you wanted to. You want to. Need to? Stop thinking. Carmen sucks and you suck. 

“Not particularly.” You take one final look at his sleeves, happy with your handiwork, letting his wrists go. “You feel settled, though? Or jury’s still out?”

Richie shrugs, tilting his head back and forth. “Grovelled decent enough, by time we hit Penn. But I’m waitin’ on my informer.”

You cringe, knowing what he means. You also know he’d smack you if you said he doesn’t need your say in order to forgive Carmen. “It’s gonna be a minute, until your informer has an answer.”

“I know.” He nods, twisting his wrists back and forth, looking at the cufflinks. Then he gives you a once over. “Y’look good.”

“You too.” You look over him, he does look good. He’s in his suit, wearing his wedding ring, which makes your heart hurt a little bit, but he does look good. “What’s your fuckin’ job tonight, by the way?” He can’t be doing kitchen. He sucks at kitchen. But he’s also just not dressed for it.

“Fuckin’ everything.” Hyperbolic? Typically yes, with Richie, but not this time.

“Wait staff here had too high a fee—”

“Translation: more than free?”

“More than free, yeah.”

“Heard.”

“So, I’m server, set up, and fuckin’ whore-derve—”

“What?” That pronunciation snaps Sydney out of her autopilot clean, her back snaps up straight. Hands on her hips, like a disappointed teacher. “It’s hors d’oeuvres.”

Richie rolls his eyes and really his whole head back. “Just because you went to the fuckin’ CIA or whatever the fuck—”

You interrupt the fight before it can start. “Let’s just say appetizers.”

Sydney does not let you. “Apps and hors d’oeuvres are different.”

You angle your body from Richie to her, deadpanning. “Just because you went to the fuckin’ FBI or whatever the fuck—”

“Alright!” She’s already walking to the door, despite the fact that she started it— “We’ve gotta fuckin’ get to hall now or we’re gonna have like zero prep time, Chefs.”

You both follow after her, doing one last check to make sure you’ve got everything you need. You honestly don’t need to be in this much of a rush, you’re pretty sure, but you don’t mention that. Richie said Carmen just went straight to the banquet hall, when they came in this morning. You’re not sure how well you know him anymore, all things considered, but by your best guess, he’s almost certainly done all the prep by himself.

Carmen did not do the kitchen prep entirely himself. Well. He might’ve, you haven’t checked, but you don’t think he would’ve had the time.

Carmen did your prep entirely himself.

When you get to the bar, in the banquet hall, you have nothing to do. Side work finished for you. Lemons, limes, oranges— All cut into wedges and loaded in their baskets— even the cherries are pitted. The glasses are organized from wine to whiskey glasses, the sink is clean— Which you know the banquet hall staff didn’t do— They never fucking do.

You don’t see Carmen, but you know he did it. He showed up before anyone else, he was in the kitchen before anyone else— So no one else could’ve left the simple braised beef sandwich on your station. Exactly how Mikey used to make it. Half hot, half sweet. Your order at The Beef. Carmen would’ve done pork, but this is what they had on hand, and he had a feeling this would mean more, anyways. It does. Granola bar on the plate with it. One of the nice ones, too. The wrapping boasts fifteen grams of protein.

He knows how hard running bar is. He knows you won’t have time to eat once it starts. So, he’s making sure you get something down now— And that you have time to eat it in peace, and making sure you have something you can scarf mid-shift later, when you don’t have time.

Fucking. Hell. Fuck this fucking guy. Carmen fucking sucks. You fucking suck. This all fucking sucks so much. This sandwich is so fucking good. You’re so fucking mad. Stop saying fuck. Fuck your subconscious for wanting you to stop saying fuck. It’s so unfair, for him to be maybe the cruelest a person could possibly be, in front of an audience made out of your loved ones, and then be sweet, like this.

He is awful, with words— Well, he’s typically better, with you, par for the last time, but he’s best in the kitchen. You can taste the sorrow, the guilt, the apology. The first thing he ever made you, was a sandwich, the brisket sandwich, that Mikey refined for you, as an apology, for freaking the fuck out in a freezer and having that be your first impression of him— Or, at least, first first-hand impression of him. How far you’ve come.

This will not pass, as an apology. Not a proper one. But… You’ll give him a sign, in return, at least. A confirmation that you got the message, nothing more. Definitely nothing more.

“Rich.” You stop the guy in his tracks, as he marches through the room, helping the rest of the staff set up the hall. Not his job, but it’s Richie. “Can you ask kitchen their shifties?”

He nods, like he understands, walking away with stacks of chairs under both his arms.

He comes back after two minutes, straight up to your bar. “What the fuck is a shifty?”

“Oh.” You feel condescending, for being surprised. You’d never really thought about the huge difference between morning servers and night servers until right now. Richie has never worked with a bar staff. He worked at a fucking sandwich shop. “It’s uh— Your drink. Get a drink on your shift— Shifty— It can be like, a cocktail, a straight, a shot, coffee—”

“I know how many fucking drinks exist, Chip—” “Mocktail, smoothie, juice—” “Yeah, I’ll get a Pina Colada.” “I will break the blender over your head.” “I’ll get you a list.”

You nod, already starting on usuals you know will have remained unchanged since your absence. Steel trap memory. Getting drinks with The Beef staff used to be the highlight of your week, which isn’t a sad statement at all.  “I won’t tell anyone you like Dirty Shirleys.”

He defends. “Eva put me on them.”

“Insane thing to say about your five-year-old.”

“You know what I meant— She likes the normal—” “I’m pokin’ fun, go give this to Carmen.”

You’re hoping if you say it fast, coupled with bickering, Richie won’t make mental note of it. Won’t register it. Of course, he still does. How could he not? You slide the mug to him; he takes it, though, slow, with a perplexed look.

Yeah. They had lavender and maple syrup behind the bar. And cardamom. And milk to froth. And black coffee. Whatever. You didn’t have any dried lavender to top it with, this time, so it’s not actually that cool, anyways. Doesn’t make it special. Did you do a maple syrup drizzle to make up for this? Yeah. You hate yourself just a little bit, for it. You really cannot shut off the way you love, can you? Hopeless. Be even the slightest bit withholding, would you? Just a touch petty? God, you suck. Such a princess.

Rich shrugs, when you don’t try to justify yourself. You’re an adult, he won’t coerce you to be sharper, even if you should be. “Aye aye, Chippy.”

If Carmen ends up wanting to drink later, then he’ll have to come to you. That’s being tough, right? Sure. That’s definitely withholding, Chip. Really showed Carmen there. Certainly, a church woman must be clutching her pearls at your backbone, somewhere in the world.

Do you think you’d be able to handle him coming to your bar, anyways?

No. Decidedly no. Which is a bit stupid, because you’ve faced much scarier things in your life, than some asshole you owe two grand. Well, some asshole you owe two grand that you love deeply that hates you deeply because you are in some part responsible for not taking care of his brother—

Carmen doing your side work was unintentionally cruel, honestly. You don’t have anywhere for your brain to go but him. Don’t have anyone to talk to, or anything to do. Richie can tell and whether you want him to or not; he knows what you need. He repeats himself, walking off with the mug. “I’ll get you your list.”

He knows what you need. Something to do. Something to fix, for someone. Not fix someone. People’s princess. Still failed Mikey, no matter how hard you tried.

Sprite, grenadine, vodka, lime, maraschino cherries. Dirty Shirley. Something to do. Just focus on something to do.

You miss the naivety of wanting something to do. Three hundred guests versus one bartender without a barback is a layer of hell that Dante forgot to specify in his Inferno.

“What can I fix for you, ma’am?!” You’ve got to yell every sentence to get anything intelligible over the music and the cacophony of conversations.

There is an overlap of voices from every single woman crowding around your bar, despite the fact that you were definitely making explicit eye-contact with just one of them. You lean over the counter to hear her alone. She blinks, when you get in her face.

“What are we?”

You cannot stop the snort, but you’re pretty sure she didn’t hear it, music's too loud to hear anything. Syd’s a fucking oracle. “We’re fucked. What can I get for you?”

“Lemon drop shot?” Of course. It’s New York.

“Comin’ right up—”

The crowd of women interrupt you, and each other. “Oh, make that two!” “Make that three!” “Wait what are we making?”

Who the fuck is we? They’re more than welcome to get behind the bar with you. You’d take anyone, at this point.

“Lemon drops, babe!” “Oh—Oh, we doin’ lemon drops?” “Let’s just say ten and be safe!”

Of course.

It’s a lot of that, on repeat. But it’s better than the ones that want one very specific brand of scotch with their soda, because at least you can make huge batches for these ones— Does no one know how to fucking act around an open bar anymore? You get a vodka cran and you fuck off. You really need to start telling people you don’t know how to make bellinis.

Working alone is hard, because you can tell when you turn your back to make drinks, and aren’t able to take twenty more orders at the same time, that everyone’s real fucking annoyed with you. You have tried splitting your cells to become a second person, didn’t work. You’re constantly spinning around to accommodate people, and it’s getting fucking nauseating. And you’re usually patient, but the questions are getting just as mind-numbing.

“Can I get a uh… A negroni… Sbagliato? With prosecco?” “Sbagliato means prosecco is in it, sweetheart.”

“Do you do hurricane shots?” “I’m happy to slap you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh, so it’s open bar?” “Yeah.” “So, I don’t have to tip, either?” “Well— It’s appreciated— Oh, and you’ve already walked away. Okay.”

It’s a lot of that, on repeat.

You see from twenty feet away, amidst the crowds, Uncle Jimmy walking towards your bar, and when he waves all friendly, he sees your glower, and opts to turn in the other direction. Smart man. No wonder he’s successful.

Richie swings by your bar, waiting at the corner, where the line hasn’t congregated. You don’t need to be shaking this martini for as long as you are, but it’s a good way to look like you’re working when you’re just trying to talk to Richie. He presents his serving tray to you. “Tiny quiche?”

You open your mouth, hands full with your shaker. He gets the point, stabbing a toothpick into the appetizer and shoving it in your mouth. Oh God, food is beautiful. Food is what sustains. You could write a full book of poetry right now about why food is everything. Well, not everything. You’re still in hell.

“Richie, I’m dying, your job can’t be that important, come be barback.” You pour out the martini. You attempt to open the jar of olives by yourself, when you struggle, Richie puts his tray down and grabs the jar from you.

Thankfully for your pride, he’s also struggling with it. Plus, it gives you time to annihilate the tray of quiches. He shakes his head, his job is important, allegedly. “You want me to starve guests?”

“Ideally? Yes.” You ignore the dirty looks you get from eavesdropping patrons. He hands you the opened jar. You take a toothpick from his tray, since you’re already out of yours, pierce an olive, toss it in the martini, and pass it to someone— Quite frankly, there’s every chance that’s not the guy that ordered the dirty martini, but he takes it, so who gives a fuck.

Richie sighs, he does want to help. “I’ll ask kitchen if they can cut someone.”

Thank fucking God. “Ask Marcus, he’s got mixology experience or some shit.” You remember being occasionally impressed by his verbiage— At the very least, he knows what stuff is back here, and that’s enough for you.

Richie just shakes his head, lips in a line, when you mention Marcus. A universal sign that something has gone horrifically wrong. You furrow your brows, immediately worried, leaning forward. “What happened?”

“Excuse me! What’s it take to get a long-island iced tea around here? This open bar is not very open!”

You and Richie both grimace, at the thick Jersey accent on this woman waving her hand hysterically at your bar. He gives you a nod, already taking his empty tray and starting to walk back to the kitchen. “I’ll ask.”

You turn your body to the woman, but head still to Richie. “Don’t ask. Tell.”

Not even five minutes pass, before you get a barrage of texts, from multiple people, all at once. You watch them flood in on the notification screen of your phone laying on the counter, while shaking up a cosmo, this time.

From Marcus, worrying. ‘sorrysorysorrybakkingemergencymbmmbmb’

From Syd, concerning. ‘couldn’t stop him lmk if it’s bad’

From Richie, alarming. ‘yk how to call your dog right’

But it all makes sense, when Carmen comes up to your bar, removing his apron. “You need a barback?”

Hair is normal. Not at its best, not how you taught him, but it’s better than before. He smells excessively like you; like accidentally used half the bottle levels like you. Maybe not an accident. Don’t read into it, too much— They’re almost certainly the only travel sized bottles he had on hand. Of course he’d take them. He smells like Old Spice, too, though. Don’t read into it. He looks tired. You knew he would. You’ve watched his location, every day. By the time you go to bed each night, he’s only just left The Bear. He deserves to feel tired, he was a fucking asshole, and you’re glad your cat ate just short of all of his flowers.

But you brought in the plate, the next morning. You cleaned it, and then hid it in the back of your dishwasher. You wanted it to be safe, you also just didn’t want to look at it or think about it or have it exist in your mind, at all. That’s half the reason you couldn’t let it perch outside your window anymore. Taunting you. He’s a piece of shit, but you can feel it in your chest; the care you cannot get rid of. The desire to ask are you okay? Have you been sleeping? How are you? How’s your week been? Want a hug? Have you been playing Connections? What did I do wrong? Did you need me? Did anything break? Did you break?

You missed him. Was the radio silence relieving? Yes. Preferably, you’d never acknowledge each other for the rest of your lives besides an eventual wire transfer. Preferably, he’d stay in the back of your dishwasher for the rest of your life. But God, you missed him, this week. You’ll probably miss him for the rest of your life. Is that toxic? You’re working on it. No you’re not… He just made every space easier to breathe in, kept a light on, for you. Not at the end, but he did before. Before he figured out that he hates you.

It’s a thing that everyone says about you, that you bring ease, and whether you can confirm or deny that, who’s to say— But you know Carmen does it for you. Lights up a room for you. And you might be alone in that feeling, but that’s okay with you. Or it was. It was, before he figured out he should hate you.

Oh, shit, you’ve been staring at him in silence for way too long. It’s hard to know how to navigate this. You don’t know how to feel, so you don’t know how to act either. It’s all a weird state of limbo that you desperately want to get out of, but don’t want to do any of the work required to do so. What do you do with your hands? Your body? Your voice? Are you supposed to be funny and nice still? Christ, just say something. What’d he ask, again? Can’t remember.

“Uh…” Still can’t remember, but— “What’s happening with Marcus?”

He seems to falter, slightly, but he comes into your bar, oh right, barback. You needed a barback. He exchanges his kitchen apron for a bar apron. Not used to seeing him wear all black. You wish you could enjoy it. Wish you could say it’s cool watching him act as one of your professions. He answers, as he ties the strings around his waist. “Uber dropped their wedding cake.”

Fuck whatever tension you two have. You nearly fold over in shock. The current track on the speakers fades out, right as you yell back, “They dropped their fucking wedd—!?”

With haste, Carmen puts the palm of his hand over your mouth. Knife tattoo hand. Oh, he missed being this close to you. Not the point here, though. “Shhhhhhh…!”

You relax, he removes his hand, you’re annoyed that you wish he didn’t. You whisper, though it’s still screeching in tone. “They dropped their fucking wedding cake?”

He nods, combing his hair back with his hand. Knife tattoo hand. It’s making your shampoo waft. You both notice it. He stops. “Marcus is remaking one, now.”

“From scratch?” You were right to be so worried; Richie was right to make the face he did. Carmen tilts his head back and forth. “Box mix that he’s finessing—”

You finish the sentence with him, “—Because he’s Marcus.” The king of doing too much, especially when there’s no time for it. It’s his best and worst trait.

He nods, smiling just slightly, but not the typical smile you get from him. Timid. “Yeah, so he’s locked in, but I’m here.”

Simple sentence, but it still schisms your brain. You cannot help but feel a distrust of it. “Shouldn’t you be running the back, though?” Keeping his kitchen in order? Being the Exec in his head?

He shakes his head. “They run a tight ship without me just fine.” The first lesson you gave to him, that that’s a good thing. Is this conversation hitting specific pain points on purpose as a punishment from God or is this just how all your conversations are going to feel, from now on?

Probably both. You nod. “Okay.” You do need a barback.

“This is so cute, girl, and I love love but I’m gonna need that Cosmo like yesterday.” Why did this woman have to say love? That would already be terrible if you were good right now. Carmen’s probably not the type of guy to say the L word for like several months anyways. You’re not even dating anyways— Or weren’t? Can you use past-tense on something that never was?

You hand her the Cosmo, and you both pretend you never heard her.

Running bar with Carmen makes your life infinitely easier, though albeit tenser. He hasn’t done this before, but he’s watched previous bar staff from the sidelines— And one of his best traits is how quick he catches on to things. He’s not confident enough to mix drinks, but everything else, he does just fine.

“Behind.” There’re occasional autopilot moments that make you laugh, though. He snaps back into his body, when you do, moving next to you. He tilts his head, “What, you don’t say behind?”

You shrug, and it feels normal, for a second. “Professionals probably do, I’ve never worked in a place that does, though.”

“But what about when you’re holdin’ shit?” You allow yourself to feel normal, for a second. It is a delight to teach him something about your work. You continue to make drinks and hand off orders, all while you both speak. It reminds you of the domestic flow you were both so used to doing. That was so easy for you both to fall into. It’s nice that it somehow hasn’t gone away.

“So, you know when you’re in the kitchen, or here, behind bar, you get like, really fucking hot?” Don’t let that entendre stay doubled— “Like sweaty?”

“Mhm?”

You hold onto your chilled shaker, stepping behind him, “So, we don’t say behind, we—” and press it just under the back of his neck. He shivers, immediately, full shock running through his system. “Do that.”

“Christ!”

You want to enjoy the moment, but you can’t help but remember him calling you a modern-day saviour. You try to push it down, but the warmth you were starting to feel tones down, quite a bit. You manage to keep him from noticing, manage to keep the smile on. “What, don’t like it? It’s nice!”

“Think it’s a safety concern, f’sure.”

“Call OSHA.” You touch the shaker to his face, before going to pour it. He laughs. Actually laughs. You wish that made you feel good, still. And somewhere, in some corner of yourself, it still does. But not like it did before.

Soon enough, you two get a second of reprieve, as Vinnie’s Best Man gets up to do his speech, or whatever. He uses a knife to clink his glass, and of course, it fucking shatters. You’re half-mad, because technically for the night, those are your glasses, but it’s too funny to actually give a shit. Plus, the Best Man gets a pass tonight, in your book, because one, he understood protocol and got a vodka cran from you, and two, his speech is forcing everyone to sit down and leave y’all the fuck alone.

“Beautiful night, beautiful couple, beautiful people— Couldn’t ask for a better weddin’ for my best friend— But let’s be honest, I didn’t think he’d be gettin’ a wedding at all— Aye! This guy Vin, amirite?”

You take this moment to halve your protein bar from Carmen. You wordlessly hand the other half to him. He shakes his head. “M’Good, you eat.”

 You shove it towards him. You know he hasn’t eaten much, you don’t know how, but you just know. “I’ve eaten twelve tiny quiches and a beef sandwich, Carm, take the fuckin’ granola.”

He breathes heavily through his nose, but he takes it. You both watch the Best Man, quietly eating your halves. He is silently overjoyed at the verbal confirmation you ate the sandwich.

“I don’t need to introduce my goddamn self, I’m sure my reputation precedes me, right? But I’m Leo, I’m my boy’s Best Man, and I just couldn’t be more honoured, y’know? We grew up together, playin’ stickball in the Bronx, and now this guy’s marryin’ one of the most wonderful women in the world? And I get to be here? Man, I love ya.”

As cranky as you’ve been all night, this really is a gorgeous wedding. More often than not, the guests are nice, it’s just that the shit ones stick out in your head like nails to be hammered. Vinnie and Mira seem like a good couple. You wonder if you’ll ever get to have a wedding like this. They commissioned one of those painters to do a live painting, too. Always wanted one of those. And they’ve got little gift bags for the guests. You’re taking notes, internally, of what you like here, what you’d want to do for your own.

You wish you and Carmen were talking, right now. Despite the fact that Leo’s voice is booming throughout the hall’s speakers, the silence between you feels deafening, because you both know that you would be talking right now, if you weren’t living in fucking limbo. You need to work. You need something to do. The ice basket is running low, refilling it will take at least two minutes and maybe holding the ice will shock your nervous system.

You grab a bag of ice from the freezer behind you both, Carmen pretends to be listening to the speech, because he doesn’t feel like he has the right to help you with the weight. You cut the bag, emptying huge chunks of ice into the basket. You ball up the plastic in your hands to throw out; you nod to Carmen. “Can you break the ice?”

He seems surprised, taking a second, before nodding, crossing and uncrossing his arms. “I owe you an apology—”

“Oh, no!” You hastily correct. “No— Yes but no— I— I meant—” You hand him the metal scooper, nodding to the clumped-up ice you just poured out. “I meant can you break the literal ice blocks?”

Carmen wishes he has dead. And you can both tell that. “Yes. Yes— Yeah, f’sure, one-hundred— Course. Heard.” You nod back, pensive, throwing the plastic bag out, staring straight ahead, trying to refocus on Leo again. You can’t.

Carmen beats the ice, softly, so as to not make a noticeable noise for the audience. After a few seconds, he returns to his point. “…I do owe you an apology, though—”

“Don’t even worry about it, Carmen.” You don’t say this. Fak does. He sidles up to the bar. Where he keeps apparating from and hearing your conversations, you’re really not sure. “I’ve got this one.”

Neither you or Carmen know what Fak thinks he’s got, here, but you’re both too intrigued or surprised to stop him. Well, Carmen does give it a fair shot, after a second, “Fak, I’m—”

“Nono—” But there’s simply no chance. “I appreciate you trying to fix my problems for me, but y’know, I can handle myself, Carmen.” …You wish that’s what Carmen said, last Friday, instead of calling himself your charity tax write-off.

Fak pivots to you, sighing, shrugging, hands up, as if you know as well as he does what the fuck he’s about to say. You can’t tell if you’re supposed to be scared right now or not. When you don’t say anything, he starts, “Alright, I guess I’m the one that's brave enough to say it, there’s some major tension here.”

Now why does Fak think he’s the one to acknowledge this. Quite frankly, why is Fak here? Is he working, too? On what exactly? You don’t remember seeing him on the plane, either. Was he a part of the road trip? Dear God, that's a nightmare third wheel. You just let out a, “Huh?”

“Oh, come on, you haven’t shown up at The Bear since last Friday—” You’re now remembering that before the fight of all fights broke out that night, Fak ran out of the kitchen. Guess no one filled him in, after. “And like, this week, when something broke—” He nods to Carmen, who grimaces, hand over his face. “Carmy told me to fix it, instead of calling you, like he’d usually.”

You know you’re not allowed to be upset about that, and yet, you really fucking are. You’re Carmen’s fucking fixer. Or were? Fuck. Christ, are you jealous of Fak now? You turn your gaze just slightly to Carmen, who’s leaning over the counter, propping his head up on his hands. “What broke?”

He answers briefly. “Expo clock.”

It was extremely apt and even more upsetting for him, the way time literally stopped, when you left. When he made you leave.

You tuck your hands in your pockets, looking back to Fak. “You fix it?”

He shrugs. “Yeah.” Carmen stands back up, opening his mouth to intercept, Fak puts a hand in front of his face. “No Carm, I’ve gotta tell her the truth…” What.

“Tony…” Neil sighs, unable to make eye contact, at this moment. “I was really harsh on you, that Friday…”

“…Huh?” The fucking degree thing? Is that what he’s talking about? You honestly can’t remember anything before Carmen, from that night.

“You don’t need to hide your pain.” He nods solemnly, “I— I’m just gonna say it… I know it’s hard to believe, but I was… jealous.”

“I know.”

He ignores that you’ve said this entirely, “I know, I know, it’s crazy. Me? Jealous? But yeah, I was really good at hiding it, but you’re just really like smart, Tony, y’know? And everyone was like— Tony can fix this— Tony can fix that— And I was holding it together, but then you were good at serving, too. And it got to me— And obviously Carmen could tell, so he stopped calling you. Trying to be a true bro.”

Oh, Fak really doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, huh? “Of course there’s like, the other obvious tension in the room—” Oh okay, so he does know— “Between us.” What.

“What’s up?” You blink, voice going high for a second. Carmen cannot stop staring at Fak, face entirely unmoving, unblinking. Neither of you are sure what emotion to feel right now. Is Leo’s speech still fucking going? You’ve completely tuned it out, if it is.

Fak gestures to the air between you two. “Well like, there’s obviously a really intense sort of rivals to romance dynamic happening here…”

What.

“And like,” He raises his hands, in defense— Of what exactly? You couldn’t be less sure. “I could totally see that happening, in the future.”

It takes everything in you, to just hold your lips closed together. You have to bite down on your top lip, to not scream laugh in his face. “For sure, man.”

He nods, continuing, “But right now, I just don’t think I’m ready to take what you’re giving, y’know?” Holy shit, wait, is that how Carmen feels? Is that what the fuck is going on in his head? “Just not ready for all—” He gestures to you in general. “This.”

“Little harsh.” You tilt your head. “Fuckin’ cool it, Fak.” Carmen barks, in tandem with you. Oh, he’s upset. He wasn’t set on his emotions, this entire time, but he seems to have now settled in the upset category.

“Right.” Fak nods. “And so, I’m sorry I can’t be that for you… And I know it’s gonna take time to recover, but please come back to The Bear, when you’re ready. You’re… You’re a better repairman than me. We need you.”

You put a hand over your mouth, to cover your shit eating grin, trying your best to compose yourself and look sad. The best way out of this is to just agree with him. It’d take far too much energy to clarify everything for Fak. You’re nodding too much. “…Yeah, y’know, Fak… I will consider that. All those words you said? I’m gonna… Gonna really take all of it to heart, dude. I really appreciate… The directness— Y’know, that takes… Strength, man.”

“Thank you.” He nods. “Still friends?”

You did not realize you were even friends to start. And not in the insecure way, this time. You nod. “For sure, dude.”

You and Carmen both watch him walk away, in perplexed silence. Carm’s the first to break it. “…Was that anything—” “Obviously fucking not.”

He’s going to reply something witty in response, and it’s going to make you both feel like everything’s okay, again, but then he seems to see something that scares him straight. He turns to the back of the bar, aimlessly grabbing bottles, for no reason. Literally no reason, everyone sat for the speeches, what’s he doing—?

“You still serving?” Older man, oval glasses. He stands in front of your bar. Ah. Kinda rude of him, maybe that’s why Carmen’s giving the cold shoulder to this guy? Whatever. You'll serve him. Just because you're Chicago's Kindest doesn't mean everyone else has to be.

“Yessir, what can I fix for you?”

“Manhattan with bourbon?”

You salute, “Aye aye.” And get to mixing the drink. You’re pretty sure Carmen must know this guy, because he’s already set out the bourbon, vermouth, and angostura. It doesn’t take long to fix the drink.

When you go to hand it to the man, he seems to notice the mop of blond curls behind you. “Aye, Carmen? Jimmy told me you’d be workin’ tonight.”

A small, tentative, meek wave from Carmen. He sniffs. “Yeah. Hi, Uncle Lee.”

“Oh.” Is all you can say. Pulling the drink away from his hand, as Uncle Lee reaches for it. “You’re Uncle Lee?”

“My reputation precedes me?” He chuckles, nodding.

Carmen comes up beside you, and witnesses a smile from you that he’s never seen from you, and ideally hopes will never be directed at him. It’s the slowness of it, it’s a smile, but you’re doing it purely to bare your teeth.

“It sure does.” Give him a chance, it’s been four years, give him a chance. “I was a friend of Mikey’s.”

He fails the chance. “Ah… I see, friend, ya did a little—” He taps the side of his nose, sniffing. “Together?”

He really fucking fails the chance. Your smile grows, painfully so. The apples of your cheeks so high they practically close your eyes for you. You laugh a deeply fake laugh. “Hahaha, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly what we used to do. Uncle Lee.”

“Oh!” You tilt your wrist quickly, pouring the bourbon Manhattan in the bar sink. “Ah, fuck. Hand slipped.”

Lee is a bit taken aback. “Really—?”

“Really.” You repeat. Putting the glass down. “And y’know, I could remake that for you, but I dunno if you wanna trust my shaky junkie hands.”

Holy fuck. Carmen has always been great at keeping his reactions hidden, and still is, so Uncle Lee cannot tell how out of character this is, of you. You’re nice, you don’t bite— Or Carmy didn’t think you did, because of the amount of grace you gave him, last Friday.

“Lee, I’m gonna level with you.” You cross your arms, smile fading, but there’s still that venomous lilt in your voice. “I’ve been thinking for the last, I dunno, two years, what I’d say to you, if I had the displeasure of seeing you.”

There’s a pile of forks behind your bar, that you’d asked Richie for, just in case this situation came to a head. Just in case this fucking idiot came by. But it just doesn’t feel right, now. Doesn't feel right to leap over the counter and stab him in the neck with a fork. Though you've imagined it, and you still actively are.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” You nod, looking around the venue. “But we’re at this beautiful wedding, and Vinnie and Mira don’t deserve to have their reception ruined by us causing a scene.” You gesture to the air between you, almost comical.

He shrugs, “Better than Mikey, in that regard, then.” You know what he’s referring to, despite not being there.

You nod, smiling real big now, really baring your teeth, now. “His fuckin’ house, Lee.”

“I could have your ass fired, y’know.” “So do it.”

You lean forward, elbows on the counter. “I’m not getting paid for this. Please, get me fired. Snitch to Uncle J, c’mon, fire me. I’m delighted to get cut. Do it.”

After what feels like eons of a silent stare down, Uncle Lee throws a fake punch. Carmen’s the only one that flinches, immediately rearing his own fist back, stopping short when Lee does.

You’re still just coy, elbows on the counter. Lee scoffs, “Cokehead.” Of course.

“Yessir.” You just lightly shake your head, standing up straight again, smiling, amused, delighted, even. “That’s me. That’s who I am.” It’s not, but there’s no point in arguing with him— Especially when you agreeing just seems to piss him off more.

You’ve given Lee nothing to work with, to insult you, so it takes him a moment to generate something. “You’re—”

You don’t let him get it out, putting a hand up for him to give it a rest. “Lee, I’m not startin’ a scene, it’s a gorgeous wedding.”

“Oh, how grown of you—” “But, if you wanna have a scene, just wait in the parking lot.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You really think—” “I do. I do think, Lee.”

You lean forward, again, shrugging, speaking nonchalant, speaking with your hands, casually. “I wanna make it so clear, for you, too. I’m not gonna crack my knuckles, not gonna make some empty threats, not gonna scream in your face— I’m not gonna tell you I’m gonna kill you or anything like that. Because obviously, I wouldn’t do that.”

You nod, slowly, methodically, clearly. “What I am gonna say, is that I have been a bartender on and off since I was twenty-one. I was an E-M-T, for three years— All in our beautiful city of Chicago, Illinois. The sheer volume of geriatric white guys I have had to pull to the concrete in a full nelson in both professions— Insurmountable, Lee. So again, to be, so fucking clear, Lee— If I see you outside, I’m taking you to the fucking pavement, and I’m not getting off.”

Uncle Lee’s got no comeback, for this, but he’d be dead in the ground before he just lets someone have the last word. This is why Uncle Jimmy is more successful. “Oh, I’m sure you fuckin’ would.”

You grin. God, those forks are tempting. Resist. You keep your hands busy by grabbing a maraschino cherry from it's jar behind your bar to snack on. “Enjoy your night, Lee.”

“You’re a real fuckin’ bi—” A fork flies over his shoulder, clattering behind him. Not from you, from Carmen.

He speaks for you. “Enjoy your night, Uncle Lee.”

It feels good to be backed. Carmen’s here, and he’s on your team. You tack on, waving goodbye to the fucker, “Back lot, Uncle Lee.”

Lee pivots his gaze to Carmen, he rolls his eyes, disappointed. “Alright, Donna.”

Carmen goes for another fork, you stop his hand, holding it there, for a second. The metal clatters behind the counter. Lee’s pleased enough with the provocation. Men like him don’t leave until they’ve won something in their heads. He leaves, on his way to the punch bowl, since he’s determined he’s not getting shit from the bar tonight. You and Carmen just watch him, like prey, making sure he leaves without looking back.

“You’ve got teeth.” Carmen’s first to speak, cleaning a glass, both of you looking straight ahead. You nod.

“I do.”

“You don’t bite much.”

You shrug. “Try not to.”

Carmen considers the fact that what he wants to say would mean sticking his foot in his mouth. He then considers the fact that nothing he could say now will ever be worse than what he said then. He keeps rubbing away at a perfectly shining glass.

“You didn’t bite me.”

“I didn’t.” You nod, and your body goes on autopilot, as you start making a drink no one’s ordered. Just need something to do. “I couldn’t.”

He doesn’t like that answer. “I deserved it.”

“I deserved it, too.” You’re not a big fan of your own answer, either. But you can’t say it’s not true. You deserved it. Just some failure leech trying to reattach yourself to people through merry good deeds, as if they’d add up to fucking anything—

“No, you didn’t.” He pivots to you, tone inarguable. He puts the glass down. It’s a lowball, you need a lowball, you grab it from him.

“Do you like cognac or vodka?” You ignore his words, but you look him in the eyes. You regret it.

He lets you get away with it, because he is absolutely not the one allowed to lead the conversation, here. He did enough bulldozing, before.

“I dunno, I don’t really drink much.” You squint, you’ve seen his apartment. He clarifies. “Other than wine n’ beer.”

You nod. You opt for cognac. He watches you, for a moment, before asking. “What’re you—”

You’re already finished, by this point, sliding the glass over to him. “Black lavender latte. Cognac n’ coffee liqueur. If it’s too strong, let me know, I can add more milk.”

“Thank you, Chef.” Is all he can think to say. He takes a sip. It’s far behind in his long list of regrets, but certainly one of them in the way he spoke to you, is that there’s a strong chance he will never have a mixologist as talented as you working at The Bear.

“Hmm.” You hum, not watching him drink it, because you won’t be able to handle either reaction— You won’t be able to handle disgust nor pleasure. You never want to look at Carmen again. He’s also all you want to see. This sucks. You suck. Carmen sucks.

“Thank you for the coffee earlier, too.” You’re overjoyed at the verbal confirmation he drank it.

“Figured you’d need one.”

“I did.” He thinks about it, and decides to take the bullet. “Needed yours.”

Your breath hitches, and he can’t tell whether or not that’s a good thing. He doesn’t get the chance to ask, as a meek and overly sweaty man comes up to your bar. There are bar stools at your counter, though they’ve been tucked far under it to keep the flow of traffic moving. But the man points down to the stool, silently asking. You nod.

“You can sit, sir.”

He’s delighted. He sits. “Sorry, I’m not gonna sit long, I just uh— Just—” He turns around pointing to the Maid of Honour, who’s just gotten on the hot mic for her speech. “I uhm, it’s— Usually the bar is empty, when uh, when people are talking.”

“That they are.” You nod, smile soft. “Can I get anything for you, or d’you just wanna sit? No shame in that.”

“I— I, uh, if it’s not a bother— I was just wonderin’ if uhm— Totally fine, if it’s— If it is— Do uhm, do you— Do you do mocktails?”

Carmen watches you grow ten times softer, in demeanor. It’s wonderful, how you’re able to flip on a dime. It’s wonderful what you’re willing to give to people, when they deserve it. You nod. “Yeah, sir. What’s your drink?”

“Oh— I— Anything’s fine, really.” He plays with the loose strings on the cuff of his left sleeve.

You tilt your head, recognizing his nervousness. “If it’s not too personal, sir, are you…” You debate the best way to say it. “Taking twelve steps?”

He looks scared, initially, to be caught; but then he looks at your face, and he knows he has nothing to be worried about. He nods. “One— Two months, two weeks, one day.”

“That’s huge.”

He shrugs. “It’s a start.”

“A start is huge.” You emphasize, and he nods, because that’s inarguable. “What was your drink before? I can make a mocktail of that— Or maybe you’d prefer somethin’ total opposite?”

“Oh! Yeah, I uh, I liked uh, old-fashioneds, but you can’t really make those without whiskey—”

“Yeah, you can.” You’re already grabbing your shaker. “You just use barley tea. I can do that— If you want that.”

He thinks on it, for a second. Debates whether nostalgia is good or not. “Yeah, yeah I’d like that.”

While you work on it, the guy feels enough confidence, bestowed by you, to tell you about himself. “I liked sitting. That was the thing I liked about drinking. The sitting and the talking and the feeling good about it.”

“I hear that.” You watch the tea steep, nodding. “Reason why the phrase is ‘takes the edge off’.”

Carmen has to turn around. He’s listening intently, but he has to turn around. Again, he’s pretty good at hiding his tells, but you’re pretty good at reading them. And you’d be able to tell his flat expression is the equivalent of being absolutely fucking bug eyed on anyone else. You’re a bartender. You were a paramedic. You have seen so many people, on their worst day— Seen so many people like this guy, like his brother. You have taken care of so many addicts.

The number of times he said loser or junkie to your face, and the way that that was what you always fought back on. It will not stop replaying, in Carmen’s head. The way you think that wasn’t okay, but the way he spoke about you was. It’s all just nauseating. You’re so good to everyone but you. You defend everyone but you. Carmen's almost furious about this, though he doesn't feel he has the right to be. You should've treated him like Uncle Lee. He acted exactly like Uncle Lee. 

“It can make it easier, to be at the bar, for some people, I've found.” You continue, still making conversation with the man as you stir the steeped tea into the glass, over ice. “Makes you feel normal.” Forced sobriety is definitely in the top five, of the most ostracizing human experiences.

He nods, relieved to have someone. “Most people don’t get that.”

You nod, strain out the virgin old-fashioned, and push the glass to him across the counter. “Well, I get that.”

He takes a sip of the mocktail, it’s perfectly nostalgic in a way that doesn’t hurt. “Thank you.” He’s thanking you for a lot more than the drink. 

“A pleasure.” You nod. He stands up, tucking the stool back under the counter, as the speeches end. It won’t be long until the bar is crowded again, and he knows it’ll be too much, for him or you. You add. “Good luck with month three. It's a heavy one.”

“If you work it and you’re worth it.” He recites the line incorrectly on purpose, it’s an important one, but you both still laugh at it. Like an inside joke, practically. You give one quick dap, he puts a twenty in your tip jar, and walks off, with less sweat, and more spring in his step, this time. Good.

When he walks away, before guests start to stand, there’s a lull of silence. You don’t need to look at Carmen to know he has a million different thoughts, and a million more follow ups. 

“You have questions?”

“None of my business.” He sniffs, awkwardly. “Unless you want it to be.”

Why did he have to fucking say it like that. Why did he have to put the ball in your court. Carmen fucking sucks. Y’know what, no, turn it on his ass.

“Did you give the New York Exec my number?”

“No.” The reply is instant. He doesn’t get thrown by the topic change in the slightest. You were pretty sure you knew the answer, but the speed of it is still a little surprising. Like it wasn’t something that was ever up for debate.

“What’d you say to him, then?”

This is when he looks embarrassed, just slightly. This part was up for debate, seemingly. “We—”

“Everyone, please stay in your seats for just a moment, our wonderful catering crew will be coming around to serve you!” Says… Vinnie’s mom? Mira’s mom? They all kind of blend together. It’s not long after this, that Syd rolls by with Marcus and a cart of food. She’s starting with you, despite the fact that you’re not a guest. Sweetie.

“Salmon or chicken?”

“Just gimme both, we’ll split it.” You nod your head to Carmen. “Best of both worlds.”

And then, the game of eye contact conversation ensues. A game that Carmen nor Marcus can comprehend.

‘I asked you’ Syd glares.

‘You can’t just starve him out’ You deadpan.

‘Who said?’

“Syd.” You say aloud. She sighs, handing you both plates, mumbling ‘whatevers’, walking off to serve the actual guests. No time to bicker. You look to Marcus, worried. “Heard about the cake, how’s it goin?”

He shrugs but he’s smirking, proud and bad at hiding it, he hands you a paper plate with a little chocolate cupcake. The floral frosting job is simple, and you know if he had more time, you’d probably be looking at a full realistic rose, but it’s still beautiful. “You tell me. Taste test.”

“Lil sacrilege, to do dessert before dinner, but okay.” You grab a fork from your pile, digging in. “Oh fuck,” You have to laugh. “Marcus— You stress me the fuck out, how do you have time to make shit this good?”

It’s a built-in habit for you, to hand your fork to Carmen. He gives you a moment to realize or pull back. You should but you don’t. He takes it, thankful, and tries the cupcake for himself.

“S’fire, Chef.” He points the fork, emphatically. “‘Specially with what you had.”

“Thank you, Chef.” Marcus nods.

You tilt your head, curious, “Do you even have time to test, though? If this sucked you wouldn’t have time to remake the full cake anyways, would you?”

“No.” He answers bluntly, and you both snort. He adds, “Just wanted to make sure you got dessert, over here.” Just wanted to make sure you ate something.

“Marcus…” You pout, overcome by the sweetness of the sweets Chef. You’ve gotta return the favour. “Gin and juice still your go-to?”

“You tryna get me fucked up at work?”

You shrug, grinning. “Are you tryna get fucked up at work?”

He’s going to say yes, but then he pauses, and looks to his boss. Looks to Carmen. Ah, you don’t run his kitchen— Get that through your head. Of course, Marcus can’t just drink—

Carmen shrugs, smiling, “Are you tryna get fucked up at work, Chef?”

Marcus claps his hands, grinning. “Yessir!”

That makes you feel a little lighter. You nod. “Gin and juice, comin’ up.”

You pour out the pineapple juice— Marcus’ preferred juice, of course you remembered. And Marcus leans over the bar, to watch you stir in the gin, even if it’s just a stupid simple drink, the guy loves to learn.

He asks, “How much they payin’ you, tonight?”

You shake your head, “Tips. Nothin’ else.”

Carmen’s ears burn, at that, while he evenly divides and plates out the salmon and chicken plates so you both have a little of everything. If things were normal you could just eat off each other's plates.

Marcus tilts his head, just as surprised. “You in debt, too?”

“Just to Mikey.” You smile, shaking your head. “No, I’m doin’ this in exchange for Uncle J getting me out of work early, a couple weeks back.”

“That’s it?”

“I was in a rush.” You shrug, measuring out the simple syrup. “Got like thirty missed texts from Syd, I thought someone fuckin’ died, didn’t have time to bargain.”

“Wait—” Marcus cannot help but grin, nearly laughing, at the ridiculousness of it, at how bad you got fucked over, by your own permission. “You’re here because you… left work… to go deliver Nat’s baby?”

“Yessir.” Are you fucking serious? Carmen can’t help but stare at the side of your head, for just a few seconds, before going back down to the plates. You’re in this hellscape of a bar, three states from your home, because you were delivering his niece? You did that for them already, and promised yourself for this, in order to do that?

“You know me,” You hand Marcus his glass, and you shouldn’t make the joke, but you can’t help yourself. “Modern day Christ.”

Marcus stifles down his snort, turning his head away from Carmen, to look at the ground. You do the same. There is something painful, about it all, for everyone; but Carmen can’t say that pain isn’t deserved, on his end, so he takes it. You’re allowed to joke about it all you want, if that’s what it takes for you to feel lighter.

A timer goes off on Marcus’ phone. He takes a sip from his gin and juice, nodding in approval, “Oh, shit— Alright, cool times up—” He lifts the glass to you, you hurriedly get the point and grab a random empty cup to clink with him, cheers.

“I’ll be back.” He says. Doubtful, you think. But you nod and wave him off nonetheless.

“If T needs a drink, tell her to take five.” You haven’t seen her tonight, but you realize yourself, again, once you say this. Not your kitchen. “Uh— If that’s, that’s okay—”

“Tell Chef to take a break if she needs it, we haven’t seen her.” Says Carmen, beside you. We. Don’t read into it. He hates you, and you hate him, actually. Carmen sucks, and so do you.

Marcus nods, and makes his mad dash off as a tsunami of guests that have just gotten their plates decide now that they want a drink with their meal. Sonofabitch.

God, you need a break. It’s really hitting you, and your stomach. As full as everyone’s tried to keep you, you really need to just sit down and have your fucking plate. Working behind a bar is a nightmare on the feet and back— Your earrings feel heavy, and your bracelets feel like handcuffs. It’s just all too much, without a break. You need a nap and maybe a thirty-minute session of just staring at a wall.

But the tsunami.

Carmen watches your side profile, and thinking back in his head, the collage of memories forming your face— He’s never seen you genuinely fatigued before. He’s seen you in the middle of the night, he’s seen you caught off guard, seen you distressed— But you’ve never really been one to ask for a break. It’s always yes of course it’s done, with you. It’s your best and worst trait.

As the crowd closes in, and your face morphs into a smile, ready to serve, Carmen claps his hands together, calling out to the sea. “Ey, sorry everyone, we’re just gonna take a quick thirty, alright? Union mandated.”

There is no such thing as a Bartender’s Union, you and Carmen very well know that. You’re about to call it off and say it’s fine before someone can throw an empty glass at your head or something, but instead, a scrawny but wide built, deeply New York Italian man, at the front of the crowd nods.

And as he nods, the crowd groans. He looks deeply offended by this. He turns to his fellow guests. “Where do y’all get off? We fought for those thirty-minute breaks, you fucks!” This quiets them pretty quickly. “We can live with the fuckin’ punch bowl for thirty minutes, c’mon.”

Carmen gets close enough to whisper to you, but far enough that it’s still not personal. Far enough that he still hates you. “Most of the family does or did service work. Say ‘union mandated’ and you can do anythin’”

You smile, watching the crowd dissipate, you crack a joke, because that’s probably what you’re supposed to do. “Union mandated… Murder?”

“Revolt, y’mean?” “Is that an offer?” “I’d ride for you.”

It’s supposed to be light and fun, but you can’t stop yourself, you can’t play the part and it comes out. “Would you?”

That one hurts. It all hurts, but that one really gets Carmen. That you’d have genuine reason to have pause about his dedication to you. Not your fault, his.

You grab your plate from his side of the counter, embarrassed by your instinctual prod. “Sorry.”

He’s not embarrassed by his. “Stop apologizing.”

There’s a heavy silence, before Carmen adds, “I’m supposed to be fuckin’ apologizing.”

There are no more interruptions. Fak isn’t going to come by, patrons are leaving you be, the staff is either helping Marcus or serving food. There is nothing left, to interrupt you two. This is going to happen. Christ, why does Never Let Me Down Again have to be playing right now? That’s not a fucking wedding song. This is too dramatic and simultaneously awkward and clunky and bad. There is no somethings left for you to do. There is nothing left to do, but talk. Nothing left to do but escape the void, ideally together. Please let it be together. You hate to admit it, but you want it to be together.

There is no good place to sit. So, you pick up your plate, and one of the many forks from your pile. With a sigh, you crouch down, and slide yourself underneath the counter, sitting with your legs folded, so Carmen can join you. You nod to him, to let him know that he can in fact join you.

He does. You take a few bites, in silence, before he breaks it.

“I didn’t mean a fuckin’ word.”

“It’s okay if you did.” You can’t look up from your plate. You deserved it.

He says your name, with a severity, to it. “—I didn’t mean a fucking word.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

“I—” Despite rehearsing what he wanted to say, and having ample stage to say it, he does not know how to say any of it, anymore. “I was like, like, jealous? But not in the— Not in the normal way.”

“Normal way?”

“Like, I didn’t— Well I did— But I like—” He puts his fork down, “I saw you as competition.”

You don’t know what to say, and so he keeps going. “I saw you like… Like being so perfect at everything, and being so… Being so what everyone needed, and you being there, and and— I felt so… the way you can just do that— Like— Like you can just be you and it just works. And I just fucking can’t.”

A talent you share with his brother. A talent Carmen envied in Mikey, and thus, envies in you.

“And then I got so… weird about that thought. Like you being you is— You’re for everyone. And I got this idea in my head that…” He cringes, trying to find better wording in his head for it, and he can’t. “That you were for me.”

“But you’re not for me—” “Ouch.” “—Not what I meant.”

He thanks you, internally, for being willing to add levity, right now. “I lo— I like you, so much. And I don’t want you to change. If you were like…” He half gestures to himself, which you’re not a big fan of the deprecation, but you let it slide. “Cold, and not for anyone, you wouldn’t be… you.”

Carmen realized as much, watching you tonight. Watching you interact with full strangers to long time friends. If you were callus, you wouldn’t be you. If you didn’t love his family as much as he did, he wouldn’t have attached himself to you, so quickly. He loves the way that you love. The way that you can’t turn it off. It’s not that Carmen isn’t special. It’s that you are so fucking special. He’s fucking stupid for not connecting those dots, earlier.

He picks up his fork again, needing to do something with his hands. Your brows remain furrowed, as you try to walk back how he spiraled from what and where. 

“So, you just wanted to take me down a peg?”

He shakes his head. “It— I— With Mikey, I— I saw some shit that made me think that I was just… fillin’ a gap, or you were just being so good to me out of like… Guilt.” He chews down on his salmon. “And I couldn’t find your fuckin’ invoice, so I just kept drilling into my head that I was just… Charity.”

“You’re not charity.” You’re quick to refute.

“You didn’t fail Mikey.” So is he.

Oh Christ. You nod, but you don’t believe it. “You weren’t wrong to say it.” You have to put your plate down. “I— I don’t see you like I saw Mikey, at all. But I do…” You trail off, just looking at him has you tearing up.

He leaves home so early. He comes home so late. He looks so tired. Gaunt. Has he been eating? Did he light his oven on fire again? Remember how he looked in the freezer. Remember how Mikey looked in the freezer? Remember how they are so so different. They are so different but you still can’t stop connecting every fragment and taking it as a sign and worrying so fucking much, so fucking paranoid—

“Do what?” He swallows his last bite of chicken, and you can’t stop looking at him and fuck you just can’t hold it back, this time. You were doing so good about this. This isn’t even the point of the conversation— Well, kind of. Just breathe.

As your eyes begin to water, he sets his plate aside on the floor, reaching out immediately, worried, immediately. He pauses, hand floating in the air. Hesitating. “Fuck—Can I?”

Eyes barely open, you nod. He’s quick to take your plate from your hands, set it aside, and hug you there. It’s awkward, underneath a bar counter, half sitting, half crouching, grappling you. Carmen does not wish to be anywhere else.  

You wrap your arms around his shoulders and babble, unable to hold back a fear that’s been long standing, since the day you met him.

“Sometimes you remind me of Mikey so much and I get so scared and I just— Fuck, I just— Please don’t kill yourself, Carmen.” His arms wrap around just a bit tighter, as do yours. “I know that’s selfish—”

“It’s not.” Mumbled, to your neck. Skin to skin isn’t really the focal point, here, but there is a lurking part of his subconscious fearing that he will never be able to hug you like this, again. Never be your rock. “I won’t.”

It’s silent, for a minute. You believe him. He holds you there, and you believe him.

“Why did you think all that? That you were filler?” You pull back, just a bit, to look at his face. “Did I do something to make you feel like that?”

“No— God no. You’re—” He swallows. It feels stupid now, to even say how his fucking tantrum started, you had it so much worse, in your head. Why didn’t you tell him? “I was looking for your invoice, and—”

“I forgot the booths, by the way.” You recall the shoddy invoice you wrote. It’s a stupid time to interrupt, but as you slowly grow more comfortable, inches from his face, it feels like the time to be stupid. “And taxes. I owe you something more like eighteen-seventy.”

“You don’t owe me shit.”

“I’m paying back a Berzatto, somehow.”

“Where’d that money come from?”

“Where’d your tirade come from?”

He swallows again, getting back to the point. “I found a folder. Called ice chips, or something like that— But it wasn’t for ice. It was, for you.”

You look at him, genuinely perplexed for a second. Then you get it. And it makes a lot more sense, why Carmen knows you failed Mikey—Try as he might to deny it. “Oh… You found my Ice folder.”

“Fuck’s that mean?” You’re glad, honestly, that he’s never had a reason to learn what it means. It’s fair. You had to teach it to Mikey, too.

“Ice. I-C-E, Carmen. It’s an acronym.” You spell it out, slow. “In Case of Emergency. I-C-E.”

It knocks the wind out of him, immediately. He’s extra glad he’s holding onto you, because he’s starting to feel untethered. “What?”

You nod. It’s time to walk him through it. You have to tell him. “I made Mikey keep some sort of emergency stuff as a fail-safe, for when he forgot people wanted him alive.” When Carmen’s quiet, you continue. “I was in his work cabinet, I think Richie was in his bedside, you and Sug were in his wallet.”

His stomach lurches, at the idea of being the emergency his brother always had on him. “You knew he was suicidal?”

Who didn’t? You think, but don’t say, because that’s not fair. Mikey cut him out, how could he know?

“Everyone’s suicidal, when they’re trying to get sober.”

“What?”

“What?” You parrot back. It’s both your turns, to squint at the other, confused beyond belief now. How is he confused? You’re first to ask. “Carmen, what was in my ice folder?”

“Anniver— Oh my fucking God.” He unwraps himself from you, because he’s frankly too ashamed to touch you, realizing everything he misunderstood. “Oh, my fucking God.”

You let him go, though you don’t particularly want to. He’s probably realizing he’s hugging the enemy. 

“Carmen—?” “You didn’t fucking date Mikey.”

“What?!” You jump, your head hits the bottom of the base of the bar’s sink. “Fuck! Ow, no— What?!”

It’s a mess of limbs and emotions, as he grabs your head haphazardly, seeing if you’re hurt— It honestly hurts more, to be pulled around like this. “Are you o—” You don’t let him finish, grabbing at his wrists, ignoring your sore head.

“You thought I’d fuck your brother and then—What— try to fuckin’ get the whole set?” You’re cringing at the thought. This had just never come up in your mind. You would’ve set him straight, if it did. It was way worse in his head. Why didn’t he tell you? “I— Carmy, babydoll, are you fucking insane?”

You say nice pet names, when you’re perplexed. You’ve got a pattern of doing so. He also has no comeback for this, completely mum. You release his wrists. You add, again, aghast. “How old do you think I am?”

“Ah— As old as Syd?” “Correct.” “So, twenty-eight?”

“Turning, but yeah.” You nod, like a teacher walking him through a problem. “And how old was Mikey?”

“Forty something.” “Forty-three.” “No one remembers their brothers’ age—” “Sixteen years. Carmen.”

You press your hands over your eyes. “And listen, I get at a point age is just a number but I was twenty-five when I met him and he was already fucking forty— I grew up with Muppet Babies and he grew up with Muppets. Period end of sentence.”

You sigh. This situation isn’t funny at all, but you feel a load lighten off of you significantly. And also the situation is extremely funny. It’s hard to be mad at someone this thrown off. 

“It’s just— Listen, do I think Mikey’s hot? Absolutely—”

“Alright—” He cringes, putting a hand in the air, asking you to lay off this train of thought.

“Oh, what do you want me to say ‘your genetic make-up fucking sucks actually’? No, you have a hot family, Carmen.”

“Say this in any other way but this one.”

“I did not date your brother, Carmen.” You finalize, he breathes lighter. “Think about it for like more than two seconds. Richie would’ve fuckin’ run his mouth about it immediately— Would’ve said you’re getting sloppy seconds or call me a fuckin’ homie hopper—”

“I did think that he’d say that, yeah.”

“Well fuckin’ think harder on it, next time—” “Well, what about the joint bank account?”

The most romantic paperwork he’d ever seen. It makes you pause, and Carmen’s considers a universe where you’re just the most incredible pathological liar in existence. 

“I made him make it.” You finally say, saddened just thinking about the failsafe that didn’t fucking work. “I didn’t put any money in it.”

“Why’d you want it, then?” The idea of you dating his brother quiets in his head, now he just wants to listen.

“So I could keep track of his spending and withdrawals.” You pick up your fork and twirl it around, like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Need something to do with your hands. “Mostly his withdrawals.”

Carmen thinks about it, trying to tie together the red strings in his head without asking you first. “So you could see if he was buying.”

“If he knew he was being watched, he was less inclined to deal.” You shrug and nod. “Plus I wanted him to get into the habit of keeping savings.”

“Lotta good that did.” Carmen can’t help but laugh, pitifully, at that. “Everythin’ got claimed, when he kicked it.”

You shake your head, you tuck your knees to your chest. “Not everything.”

He just looks at you, curious, waiting for you to explain. Mikey had so much credit card debt— Everything he had outside of fucking tomato cans was claimed. 

You shrug. “Not the accounts he wasn’t sole proprietor on.”

Joint bank account. It was partially your money, technically. It deferred to you. Carmen’s head just falls over, another painful realization of another thing you did, that he got completely wrong. You never gave Mikey a cent. You just gave him the protection of your name and credit score.

“Why’d you do all that, for him?”

Holy shit, he doesn’t know. Carmen doesn’t actually know you killed Mikey. You live in a world, still, where Carmen doesn’t completely rightfully blame you. You tap your fingers on your knees. Staring aimlessly. There is nothing else to do.

“Anyone ever tell you why I get called Chip?”

“I asked Richie. Said to ask you.” Carmen shakes his head, he’s a bit sick of himself, for being almost excited to get an answer about this. “Said it was personal.”

You squint and snort. “Since when does Richie give a fuck about personal?”

Carmen smiles, finally, and tucks his knees to his chest to mimic you. “Since me, I guess.”

“Good influence.” You smile, trying to distract from the nervousness, thrumming hard in your chest. Spit collects in your throat like it’s trying to choke you. “I uhm… Chippy is, uh, Mikey started calling me Chip or Chippy cause of uhm—”

You take a moment, one deep breath. A breath of air in the world before Carmen knows. A sanctimonious breath.

You pull at the long black rope chain on your neck, pulling it out from underneath your top, where it’s always been safely tucked. Not hidden necessarily, just always close to your chest. Close to your heart.

“It’s a joke, about— It’s like—”

Just do it, Chip. Let it rip.

“It’s—”

You hold out your fist for him to put his hand out and take it. Carmen gets the point and holds his palm out. You press the pendant into his hand. Holding your hand over it, for a moment, as if you could decide now that actually he shouldn’t be allowed to see this. Like there’s still an escape option, somehow.

You move your hand, you try to speak calmly, as he stares. And the text on the large round pendant stares back at him.

To Thine Own Self Be True.

“Sobriety chip.” Unity, Service, Recovery.

A proud and large 3 months, in the middle of the triangle, leers back at Carmen.

“I was— I was Mikey’s sponsor.”

Now y'all in my asks see why I was waiting, eh?

Ya caught on! Well, after thinking collectively, ya caught on. Some of you got it quick. Anyways, I shouldn't be talking about this like it's some gotcha, it's deeply painful.

A lot of hard confirmations! Fuck! This conversation was so hard to navigate, because I was like-- There's just so much for them to catch up on, and so they keep like moving forward and so I was like wait I have to go back and address this-- No. That's not how most real convos like this work, they just keep running forward, they can clarify later. Such a weird brain challenge. I was tweaking. I hope it's sensical to read? If it's not, dw, i'll walk into the sea about it.

Can you believe this chapter began with Syd/Chip/Richie? Absolutely bonkers. We started with getting ready in a hotel/taking a flight. We were so young, then. I've gotta go watch season 3, so don't send me spoilers, but please send me literally any and all thoughts about this chapter. I really fuckin-- Rah.

I'm happy with this chapter and I honestly think I will probably make a separate post sometime this week showing bits you might've missed-- So much of this was me harkening back to those first three chapters. I went back and reread them recently and I was like woah. I don't know how I did the thing where the writing style felt distant and slowly became close as they became close as characters, but I did feel like that was a thing. In the early chapters. Having to recreate that distant feeling here? Oh fuck. Brutalizing feeling.

Oh but on the more cute side, if you also see Tony as Desi, I was thinkin like a lehenga style blouse with all the work, and like, some black flared pants? and she's got big fuckin jhumkas, OF COURSE!!! OF COURSE BRO!!! But I just left it at semi-cultural so everyone could have fun, hehehe

I feel almost certain, someone's gonna be missing from this tag list, and for that, a thousand pardons, I am gonna put it in my notes app so I don't forget next time, mbmbmb, also added people that did not ask but you are so frequent that i feel like you're just forgetting to ask? idk if you wanna get taken off always just ask dw

@anytim3youwant @navs-bhat @whoknowswhoiamtoday @gills-lounge @slut4supersoldiers @sinceweremutual @itsallacotar @catsrdabestsocks101 @popcornpoppin @renaissance-painting @lostinwonderland314 @v0ctin @ashtonweon @sharkluver @fridavacado @hoetel-manager @mrs-perfectly-fine

anyways, if you wanna be added send me your thoughts/analysis/diagnosis at length + ask to be added and i will ! try! sometimes they get lost and i am sorry abt that but i do try!

Next Part

[calliopesdiary]

hi i saw that you were taking requests and idk if this is a good one or too boring (never done this before) but you could always write smth kinda similar to where the reader is james sister and have her be remus or sirius's sister, with sirius you get all that black family drama.

have a nice day and love your writing!!

hi dear! sorry it took me so long to respond i was on vacation! i went with remus but with like a whimsy/luna lovegood esk reader!!

You and Me, Always Forever <3

synopsis; People have always seen and perceived you as a bit odd, a bit whimsy. and you were alright with that. but when your “friends” comment about you behind your back, you go to Remus and Sirius.

pairings: lupin!reader x bigbrother!remus, (platonic obviously ew 🤮), wolfstar

content: reader gets bullied lightly by her friends, remus is the best, sirius is like your older brother because he’s dating remus

“She’s just— so odd.” Lucy— your ravenclaw friend stated.

“Lucy, don’t say that. she’s just different.” Gracie scolded softly.

“She’s not wrong, Grace.” Taylor looked up from her nails.

“it’s just a bit weird how she goes around practically spewing nonsense out of her mouth, i’m surprised Remus doesn’t get tired of it.”

“I sure would if i were him, imagine having your sister being a complete loony!” Taylor ridiculed.

“Oh, Sirius! your Aura is oddly red today!” Lucy mocked, causing Gracie and Taylor to giggle along with her.

what they didn’t know was that you had heard all of that, and it wasn’t very funny to you.

but you had a feeling your aura was a bit blue.

you felt hot tears welling up into your eyes as you ran off from your hiding spot near the library.

why would they say those things? were they right? were you a loony? was remus tired of you?

you didn’t really know, but all you did know was that you needed to find Sirius.

before whispering the password into the portrait hole, you stepped carefully into the Gryffindor common room.

taking in your surroundings, you spotted Sirius. manspread across the couch as he perked up when he saw you.

“little star—!… are you alright?” his excitement faded once he saw your tear stained face, you never cried.

“n-no.” you answered truthfully, the nargles hated when people lied.

“what’s the matter, sunshine?”

he opened his arms just for you to fall into his chest, sobbing lightly as he stroked your scalp.

Sirius had always been like a big brother to you, always so sweet and kind ever since he started dating Remus.

it also helped that you were one of Regulus’ best friends, so you already felt a little connection with him.

“can you tell me what’s wrong, little star?” he lifted your head up gently by holding your cheek.

“m-my friends… s-said i was a loony.. and that Remus is tired of me a-and that i’m odd.” you struggled over your words, as he quietly shushed you.

“those aren’t your friends, sunshine. real friends wouldn’t say that to you.”

you knew deep down he was right, but it still hurt.

“and Remus could never be tired of you, nor could i, or Reggie, or.. Junior.” he wasn’t very fond of you being friends with Barty, but he knew that boy would move the heavens for you.

“he must be annoyed a little..” you added.

just as Sirius was about to protest, Remus walked in with a stack of books.

“star?” he asked quietly, setting his books down on the coffee table in front of the couches.

“Sirius, what’s happened?”

“some of her mean old friends called her some mean names, and she thinks your annoyed with her.” Sirius answered bluntly, yet still kind considering you were right there.

“oh.. star, how could i ever be annoyed with you?” he brushed a small strand of hair from your face.

“c-cause i’m a loony.” you looked up at him shamefully.

“but that’s a good thing, star. it means your different, but different is good.” Remus smiled sweetly.

“i’m a bit of a loony too, but so is Siri, and James, and Pete.”

“y-you are?” you asked nasally.

“of course, sunshine.” Sirius smiled, and you were happy to spend the rest of the day just like that. nuzzled happily into your actual brother and your bonus brother.

[ssweetiebop]

Things I would like to see written more, or would write about if I could write featuring Disco Elysium:

- Harrier Du bois is a Innocence ! It would start out very subtly, with Kim catching Harry just seemingly not breathing, of course his first concussion would be that Harry’s heart must’ve just stopped, que panicked moments where Kim shakes Harry awake or semi freaks out whenever he sees Harry napping at work or just sleeping in general, because Harry is just not breathing. (Because it’s stated in game that apparently Innocence’s are said to not even breathe, they just eternal like that.) or maybe Harry just makes one too many predictions that are scarily accurate which really fucks with Kim as he entertains the idea of Harry being an Innocence, like he doesn’t believe it, but it’s a entertaining thought to ponder until Harry’s lungs suddenly glow out of nowhere, maybe Harry doesn’t notice himself or Kim convinced himself it was a trick of the light… just alot of second guesses and whatnot!

- Harry dating (and it’s not Kim) Harry, after finding out about his sexuality and finally coming to terms to it — decides it’s time to head back into the dating scene! Maybe Harry just ASSUMES Kim is taken already because I mean… it’s Kim! Kim is so cool! Of course he has a partner! (He doesn’t.) and Kim is just like wow my lungs are burning with hurt right now. Kim painstakingly supporting Harry but also dying inside hearing about all of Harry’s dates and partner(s). I just want jealous Kim honestly. Or even possessive Kim teehee… like Kim overhearing Harry has a date tonight and before Harry himself can tell him Kim abruptly asks if Harry wants to hang out tonight, wanting Harry to choose him over his date, even sweetening the deal by saying he has alot of plans of *insert literally all of Harry’s favourite activities and also maybe Kim confessing or being willing to let Harry do XYZ for once* Harry of course just blurts out ‘YEAH ILL HANG OHT WITH YOU!!’ Without thinking and is like oh shit I have a date tonight. Oh god. Do I blow my date off or Kim?? Kim realllyy smug when Harry chooses him all while acting innocent. Even “scolding” Harry when Harry admits he choose Kim over his date. Just small moments where Kim feels guilty for sabotaging his dates but also just can’t help it, he keeps purposefully somehow ruining the relationship. Of course he feels really guilty but Harry will forgive him because it led to them finally dating. Maybe Kim takes it too far or EVEM GETS CAUGHT ACTIVELY TRYING TO RUIN HARRY’S DATES and for the smallest second Harry sees Kim as some sort of jerk (sorta rightfully so!) and gets mad at Kim until later he thinks about WHY Kim was doing that.

- Body swap au ! I know there’s already some of body swaps out there, but I want more! Like the idea of Kim hearing Harry’s skills and being like ‘This is what Harry is forced to hear all the time? It’s so noisy…’ and then Harry being like ‘wow it’s so… quiet… I don’t like it! I miss my friends!’ BUT ALSO!!! BUT ALSO!!! People always do Harry and Kim! I want to see some more variety! Hell even just adding Jean to the mix sounds so fun! Jean waking up at Harry and just being absolutely mortified. I think it would be funny if the skills know right away that the person in Harry’s body right now isn’t Harry, and are deathly quiet during those first few minutes when Jean first wakes up Harry’s body, until… let’s say perspective or reaction speed helps Jean stop a mug from falling and Jean goes very still at the sound of their voices. Harry in jeans body… or maybe KIM in Jean’s?! Oh Kim would be absolutely checking himself out in the mirror (and delighted at how he can SEE!!! WITHOUT GLASSES!) before catching himself and scolding himself to be more respectful. And I think we all know how Harry would be in Kim’s body…

- Furry Elysium ! Look… here me out. we all agreed that Harry and Kim have a very dog + cat dynamic — or at the very least it’s fun to draw them as animals! But alas… I have seen almost ZERO fanfics about them as actual animals/animal-like features! I want to explore a world like disco elysium filled with animal hydrids! … do you think Jean would be a horse? Or a bird like his name suggests? Would Harry actually be a dog or would he be something else? I feel like Kim being a cat or cat-like is perfect BUT if you think of another animal Kim would fit lmk!

- THEM AS KIDS !!! BUT, BUT… I want them to turn into kids! How? Idk! The pale did it maybe?! It doesn’t have to make logical sense. Maybe they remember their adults self maybe they don’t. I just want someone to hold Harry when he’s a toddler… he deserves some soft parental love… or Jean waking up as a teenager and being absolutely pissed because of it… MAYBE they all are different ages, Harry a toddler, Kim a little boy, Jean a teenager. Or just the classic one-person-magically-turns-into-a-toddler-and-then-the-remaining-adults-have-to-come-together-to-take-care-of-said-toddler.

- Kid fic OR parent fic I know I just mention kids but this time I want one of them to HAVE a kid. Of course Kim would likely be excluded from this biological wise but adoption works too! I just like the idea of of Harry being a father or Jean awkwardly holding a youngster or Kim looking around to see if he’s alone before cooing at a cute little kid. Harry would have a blast dressing the baby up. Also imagine just Harry walking into work with a baby strapped to him on day and Jean just spits out his coffee like WHAT is HARRY doing with a baby?? And Harry is just like ‘this is my baby! And you’re the godfather… kinda rude of you to not know!’ I read some kid fics and they were so, SO sweet.

- MAGICALLY TURNING INTO AN ANIMAL ! Yes. We are pulling out ALL the classics. It doesn’t have to be a cat but I WILL be using a kitty here. I’m so sorry this one is the longest. I wanted a fic like this for so long so please allow me to ramble my ass off:

They can’t change back… or maybe when they do change back to being a human it’s not their choice! Think of ‘A Whisker Away’ type of situation. Kim waking up as a kitty absolutely terrified and thinking the one person who would be able to tell it’s him would likely be Harry, right?! Like he gets premonition and predictions and insights all the time! Surely Harry will immediately know it’s Kim! …. Harry does not know or find out actually. Harry just immediately scooping Kitty-Kim once he ‘gains it’s trust’ (but really it’s just Kim stuck between indecisiveness of just running back home or not and trying to figure this out on his own because he already trusts Harry!) and Kim allowing himself for ONCE in his life to be held and loved and pampered and cooed at without shame. BUT I also love the idea of this happening to the others too, like Harry immediately using this to get to know what Kim is like behind closed doors, feeling guilty but also just can’t help but still go and try to get adopted by Kim (newsflash, it takes FOREVER for Kim to finally let Kitty-Harry inside his apartment, and even LONGER for Kim to officially adopt Kitty-Harry, (bonus points if Kim is still in/at precinct 57) but then ! Kim wants to introduce Harry to his cat! uh-oh! Kitty-Harry also kinda afraid of Jean’s reaction to Kitty-Harry but going to be nosy anyways and turns out — Jean is a big animal lover! It barely takes any convincing for Jean to decide to adopt Harry. Harry feeling jealous that he doesn’t get this soft side of Jean but also gives Harry a new perspective on Jean overall. Que Kitty-Harry awkwardly being owned by two of his friends and THEN also imagine them both talking about the cat they own and finding out it’s the same kitty and they both feel sorta backstabbed(?) or are like ‘wow my/our cat isn’t loyal…’ Jean as a Kitty sounds very amusing… just hissing and very annoyed that they don’t clock it right away that it’s him! Knocking over mugs to get their attention and whatnot, getting scolded and put in kitty jail.. :( !

- SWAP AU! Do I really have to go into detail here? I love the idea of a ‘very, very sane’ Harrier du bois and just an absolutely pathetic failure of Kim Kitsuragi in the swap au… shout out to @/Danielcalmdown0 on Twitter for the new perspective/dynamic on this au!! Kim doesn’t own the kineema in this au because they gave it to a more dedicated officer and Kim is just… absolutely heartbroken over it, but also a bit petty and jealous like ‘I WOULDVE TAKEN CARE OF IT THE BESTEST!’ I wish people discussed Jean and Harry’s relationship in this au more though! I like to think in this particular au they would have a bit of a more father-son dynamic?? MAYBE? not necessarily father-son, but something close for sure, just older figure Jean looks up too… (Maybe Harry baby’s or coddles Jean too much in this au and it PISSES Jean off.) would he still be his brooding self?! Let’s just say yes. I think Jean would have a bit of a crush on this Harry, of course he denies it to himself but it’s there, until Kim joins the picture then its pathetic loser vs pathetic loser and Harry wanting them to be friends but it doesn’t really work to much at first… they figure it out later though. IDK! I have a lot of ideas! And a lot of them contradict eachother!

I have alot more ideas. But I been typing for far too long so I’m gonna call it wraps. If you read the entirety of this I love you. AND if you’re a writer… and you get inspired by ANY of these and if you write it?? Please let me know! I would love to read it!

[coralinnii]

Hello again!

It’s Anon Frog 🐸

I have some good news! My sister is getting leave before she ships out to Japan!

Anyway I was hoping for a request …… I have long hair and it fun to do styles with it so I thought I’d ask you ….

So reader has long hair and noticed they could make little horn with their hair. Kinda like pig tails but horns????? If that makes sense

Malleus noticed throughout the school day but doesn’t say anything until their late night walk.

They(reader) smiles and tell him that she wanted to try new hairstyles and remember this hairstyle reminded them of him.

Just good feelings for everyone!

Much love Anon Frog 🐸

Matching “horns” MC with the horn hairstyle feat: Malleus genre: fluff note: long haired!reader, reader is referred as Yuu!reader but can be read as not, ambiguous relationship but romantic leaning, insinuation of offspring but not necessarily through pregnancy, roughly 1.1k word count 

I really have no excuse for how incredibly long this took to write but this was a cute idea to write and I wanted to try out this hairstyle but I’m not nearly skilled enough. Anyway, anon🐸 I hope you like it and that you and your sister have a great new year!  

I know you can go big with this type of hairstyle but I got inspired by Anya’s cute do from Spy x Family. Also (somewhat) in time for Malleus’ birthday so yay!

I might be busier since I’m celebrating the Lunar New Year (which involves a lot of cooking) but happy Lunar New Year to everyone and may this year be lucky and filled with great fortune! 

Throughout the day, you’ve gotten comments about your new look. Some were compliments (courtesy of mostly Kalim and Rook), and some were just itching for a hit from you (mainly Ace and Floyd). But even with the straightforwardness of your friends, it didn’t stop your instincts from telling you that someone else is watching you, wanting to tell you something. 

And you’d be right. 

During lunch, Malleus was watching you from his seat some tables away. Seeing as how he is the only student with horns (not to mention, he finds himself gazing at you a few too many times already), Malleus was quick to notice your new appearance. Two cute “horns” protruding from your head caught his eyes as the rest of your locks curl and frame your beautiful face. 

“Malleus, if you stare at the prefect any longer you might burn a hole” Lilia joked as he watched his young prince. A few of the other students quiver at Malleus’ gaze and wondered what great misdeed you must have committed to incur such an intense stare. 

“Please Lilia, even I’m aware that humans are not such fragile creatures” Malleus rebutted as he continued his observation. “What do you think was the human’s intentions for such an unique change in appearance?” 

Since he noticed your hairstyle, Malleus’ mind was in a tizzy trying to figure out what did you mean to do such a thing? Are you imitating him the same way as Sebek does with his forced interest in coffee? Were you attempting to capture his attention as some sort of human ritual he’s unfamiliar with? He has heard that couples participate in this “matching outfits” as Lilia mentioned in passing. Was he being too hopeful or too presumptuous to believe you are sending him a hint of your intentions?

Oh, how equally captivating and confusing you were. 

“In times like this, it is better to confront your confusion than to jump to conclusions, my young lord” as funny as it was, Lilia couldn’t bear to see the young prince in his frazzled mental state (even if he was the only one to see it) any longer. 

Such young love, Lilia mused. 

Malleus took the older fae’s words to heart and waited by the old Ramshackle dorm to see you. Nights like these became a secret routine between the two of you as you stroll around the dark landscape together. 

To his delight, Malleus heard your footsteps as you rushed out the old dorm and towards him.

“Tsunotarou!” You greeted him with a small, with your mini horns still in place. “Were you waiting long?” 

Malleus shook his head, a small smile graced his lips. “Not at all, Child of man” if you don’t consider an hour long. He doesn’t. “Shall we start our stroll?” 

The night was pleasantly silent and the breeze was light as the two of you walked through the plains, with the occasional small tidbits of your day shared between you two, to which Malleus took as a lead-in to ask the question he’s been curious all day. 

“I’ve noticed you’ve changed your typical appearance today” Malleus started off “Is there a particular reason?” 

He noticed! You were starting to get nervous over the silence from Malleus about your new hairstyle, worrying that he didn't care or worse, it may come off as mocking towards him. 

“I had some extra time this morning and thought about trying this hairstyle,” you explained, smiling as you lightly touch the locks that make your horns. “I reminded me of you and thought it’d be cute if we matched” 

You bravely turned to look at the tall man, trying to gauge his reaction to your new look. But Malleus was unreadable to you even as his eyes bore into you, more precisely, your “horns”. 

"Does it look good?" you asked but you were starting to worry he didn't.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case at all. In fact, Malleus was trying to pace his heartbeat after listening to your explanation. What a bold human you are in wishing to emulate his horns, a feature that he is aware can be intimidating to many people. And to do it with him in mind, more charming words have not been spoken. 

“Such a creative use of one’s hair. It is a fascinating form of style” Malleus let his curiosity take over and asked you, “If you allow it, I would like to touch them” 

Relieved, you nodded with a mischievous laugh, “I’ll allow it, but I can’t guarantee what will happen to you if you do” 

“What a cheeky human you are.” Malleus chuckled. He reached out to the top of your head and caressed the soft “horns” you carefully crafted, mindful of his fingers so as not to ruin your hard work. The moment was done in comfortable silence as you stood relaxed, trusting yourself under Malleus’ gentleness. 

Malleus’ mind began drifting to the days where his horns were small like yours. He recalled Lilia regaling the tales of Malleus’ younger years and as humiliating as that was, he now wondered if his children would have horns like these, so small and adorable. 

As the future King, he knew that he would have to sire an heir someday but he never spent a moment to visualize that image. But now, he couldn’t stop himself as he thought how cute his child would be with horns like these, along with other features from you. How cute his offspring would be with your bright eyes or your beautiful hair that you would brush as their parent. Perhaps they would have your laugh as well. In fact, he would be content even if they don't look anything like him, so long as they're your child, and his. 

“Tsunotaro?” Your voice broke through his wandering mind. “Are you alright?” 

Malleus didn’t realise that he stopped his previous attention to your hair as his mind delved deeper into thought. He also didn’t notice the small growl he emitted under his breath, but you certainly did. 

“Yes, I’m alright” he assured you “I was simply lost in thought for a moment” 

You believed him since you did see the way he had a faraway look in his green eyes. His gaze was still in the moment but there was a sense of wistfulness as he looked at you, which had you a little flustered. 

To ease your embarrassment, you took a step back (though you already missed Malleus’ touch) and smiled your nerves away. “Should we keep going with our walk?” 

Malleus agreed, resuming his stroll with you. But his previous thoughts have not left as he grew fond of the idea of children, more specifically children with you. As you shared the events of your day, Malleus was pondering on what he could do to match you as you did. 

Perhaps matching rings?

[ihni]

Of fathers

For @harringrovesummerbingo, square B3, prompt "Gardening" (VERY loosely interpreted, also I never state it in writing that it takes place in summer but it does)

3K, mentions of child abuse, mentions of spousal abuse, mentions of infidelity.

(On AO3 here)

~~~

“She said I’m just like him.”

The words are quiet, muffled by the way Billy is hugging his knees and burying his face in the sleeves of his arms. The angry tears have stopped, but his eyes are still puffy and red where Steve can see them behind the curls hanging over his face. The redness matches the blue that is darkening under his left eye.

Steve, who has spent almost an hour – the whole time since his boyfriend showed up at his door, face bruised and tense – just holding him and pretending he didn’t see the tears or notice the hitched breathing, almost doesn’t catch the words. “What did you say?”

For a second, he thinks that Billy won’t repeat it. That he’ll be stubbornly quiet, or say that it was nothing and brush it off. It’s a relief when Billy unfolds a little where he’s sitting on Steve’s bed, before saying, more clearly, “She said I’m just like him.”

Steve frowns. “Who said that? And just like who?”

Billy sniffs and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “Max. And Neil.”

That has Steve moving. He sits down next to Billy on the bed and reaches out to stroke the hair out of his eyes – carefully, as to not cause any additional pain. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

Billy lets out a laugh that sounds closer to being a sob than anything else. “Oh she meant it. She was really mad.” Before Steve can speak, he continues, “And I don’t blame her. I was mad too. After Neil did this –“ He gestures at his face, “– I needed an excuse to get out. Told her I’d give her a ride to Sinclair’s house if she wanted. And then I did, but … I was so angry. And I just can’t keep my mouth fucking shut when I’m angry. I’m the kind of asshole who just have to take it out on someone.” He lowers his voice so it’s almost a whisper as he states, “She’s right. I am just like him.”

Steve bites his lip. Puts his hand on the back of Billy’s neck while he thinks of how to ask, rubbing his thumb in what he hopes is soothing circles on the skin he can reach. He decides that the best way is to ask outright. “Did you … hurt her?”

Billy flinches. Pulls out of Steve’s grip. “No! Not … not like that.” He deflates. “I didn’t hit her or anything.”

“What happened, then?” Steve asks, instead of What did you do? Because that would sound like an accusation, and Billy doesn’t need that right now.

“I yelled at her. She yelled back. I yelled more. Then I hit the dashboard. I … I scared her.”

“But you didn’t hurt her. You didn’t lay a hand on her.”

“One doesn’t have to lay a hand on someone to hurt them,” Billy protests, and well. He knows that from experience, Steve supposes.

Still. “You didn’t hurt her like that,” Steve insists. “You’re nothing like your dad, Billy.”

Surprisingly, that makes Billy bark out a laugh. He squeezes his eyes shut and new tears roll down his cheek. “You’re actually right about that one, pretty boy!”

As much as Steve wishes that this is just Billy taking his words to heart and accepting them as truth, he doubts that’s what’s happening. Billy looks too devastated for that. So he asks, “What do you mean?”

Again, he expects silence, or to be brushed off. And again – albeit after a long while – Billy surprises him by speaking.

“I mean that … Did you know that Neil isn’t my real dad?”

Steve’s eyebrows flies up on his forehead and his mouth opens, but he doesn’t know what to say to that kind of revelation. He doesn’t know what one is supposed to say in a situation like this.

“Are you … are you sure?” is what he goes with, and he immediately makes a face and wishes he could take the words back, because what kind of question is that? Luckily it seems that Billy finds his transgression funny rather than offensive, because he lets out a snort.

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“But you …” Steve starts. Stops. Figures, fuck it, and continues, “You kind of … look like him?” It comes out as a question, and Billy makes a face. Like he knows, and doesn’t like it. “Sorry,” Steve adds.

Billy shakes his head. “No, that’s … I do, that’s the thing.” His voice breaks, and Steve’s heart twinges. “I do look like him. Or, well …” He trails off.

He looks so small, hunched over on Steve’s bed, arms around his torso like he’s holding himself together. Like he had to learn to hold himself, because no one else would. Well fuck that, Steve is here now – Steve will gladly hold him.

He reaches out, slowly and carefully in case Billy reacts badly. When there is no reaction, he puts his arm around Billy’s shoulders and pulls him closer. With his free hand, he reaches for Billy’s hand. Billy not only allows it, but melts into it. Relaxes into the almost-hug, and lets out a breath as if he’s been holding it for a while.

There is silence for a while. Steve doesn’t mind it. He waits for Billy to speak, and is rewarded when, after some time, Billy takes a breath.

“My mom kept a garden in our first house, when I was little. Just a small one, like a couple of flowerbeds and some bushes, but she liked it.” A pause. “She liked watching things grow.” Another pause, and when he continues, his voice is strained. “Too bad that only applied to plants, and not her son.”

Squeezing Billy’s shoulders, Steve wordlessly offers his support. He knows that it takes a lot out of Billy to speak of his mother.

“She wasn’t very good at it, though. Which … yeah. Figures.”

Again, Steve says nothing. After a while, Billy starts again, with something that sounds like a non sequitur.

“You know how Neil was in the war?”

Steve nods, even though Billy can’t see it. Tries to keep up. “Yeah, Vietnam. You’ve mentioned it.”

“Right. Uh, well. Neil has a brother. Had a brother. Or, no, has, I don’t know, I guess he’s still alive. Probably.” Billy shakes his head as if to clear it. His voice is raspy. “Anyway, his brother – Roger – he wasn’t in the war. He’d hurt his leg in his youth and he walked with a limp, so he didn’t have to go. Or so my mom told me, anyway.” He swallows and throws a quick glance at Steve before looking away again. “He did many odd jobs, but one of them was apparently gardening. So he helped mom plant that garden at that first house. She went to him for tips, asked advice. That kind of thing.” He licks his lips. “When Neil was overseas, Roger … helped her tend to it.”

Steve sits quiet and still next to him, carefully not interrupting when Billy huffs out a breath and continues, “He … helped her with other things too, while Neil was away.” A significant look in Steve’s direction. “He wasn’t just there for the garden, if you know what I mean.”

It’s Steve’s turn to swallow. “Oh,” he says as realization dawns. “So … he and your mom, they …” He trails off, as if not wanting to say it out loud.

“Bumped uglies?” Billy snorts. “Yeah. Or … they must have, because when Neil got home … I mean. I was born seven months after Neil got back. Not nine. And like, I’ve seen my baby pictures.” He smiles, a little more real this time. “I was a fat baby. Way too big to have been born two months early, if you catch my drift.”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says, and entwines his fingers with Billy. “I get it.” Billy relaxes marginally; softens under his touch.

“Neil and Robert, they were close when they grew up. It was just two years between them – Neil was the oldest. And they … they looked a lot alike.” He shrugs. “Which is probably why Neil caught on, eventually. Because he’d always known that mom had had an affair when he was away. But he didn’t know with whom, she wouldn’t tell him, no matter how much he … how much he hurt her. And then I got older, and I started looking like him. But … he knew I couldn’t be his.” He takes a deep breath, bites his lip. Steels himself to continue. “And Robert, he was still around, yeah? To me, he was just Uncle Rob. He used to come around the house all the time, have dinner with us and watch the game with Neil just like usual … And he’d play with me. Bring presents for my birthday and Christmas, spend the holidays with us, and ....” He laughs, but the laugh breaks and he clamps his teeth together. Forces a smile. “And help mom with her garden.”

He quiets, but it’s not the kind of quiet where he regrets speaking; it’s not him snapping his mouth shut and going on the defensive, it’s not him getting up and leaving. It’s more like, he doesn’t know how to continue.

So, gently, Steve prompts, “I take it your dad … I mean, Neil … knows?”

A beat, then, “Oh yeah.”

“How did he find out?”

Billy leans his head on Steve’s shoulder. “I don’t know. Him and my mom, they were fighting a lot when I was a kid. You know.” Steve hums in agreement. Billy has let a few things slip. “But … there were a lot of fights, and they got worse. From one day to another, Uncle Rob stopped coming over. Neil was angry all the time, and he’d look at me like …” He trails off, but he doesn’t have to continue. Steve has heard about the way Neil treats Billy – he can imagine. “Anyway. He dug up mom’s garden. I remember that, because she cried about it. And then we moved to another house. Smaller. No place for flowers.”

He puts a leg up on the bed and pulls it closer by the knee; making himself smaller. Steve doesn’t think he realizes that that’s what he’s doing.

“The fights got worse, Neil got worse. Mom stayed with him for a couple of years after that, but … But then she had enough. She told me the truth before she left, about Rob and that he was my real dad, and said that she’d come back for me and that we’d go live with him –“ His voice breaks, but he clears it and follows through; “She said that she’d come back for me.”

Steve can’t do anything but hug him, and feels like crying himself.

“But she didn’t,” Billy finishes. Wipes at his eyes uselessly. “And Neil … He went mental when she left. Destroyed all her things, threw out everything that she hadn’t brought with her, anything that reminded him of her.” He shrugs. “Unfortunately I reminded him of her, too. And of … Uncle Rob, I guess. I never saw either one of them again.”

The question is burning on Steve’s tongue; Why didn’t they come back for you? But he holds back, because he imagines that Billy must have asked himself that same question a thousand times.

As if Billy hears the unasked question though, he adds, “Neil’s name is on my birth certificate. By everything that counts, he’s my father. So it was his right to move us, again. To another city. I don’t think he told my mom that he was going to do it.”

It sounds like he’s grasping for straws, but Steve will never say it out loud. If Billy prefers to believe that his mother looked for him but couldn’t find him, over the fact that his mom gave him up and left him with her abusive asshole of an ex-husband, then that’s his right. Whatever helps. Steve is not so cruel as to pop that particular bubble.

“He doesn’t know that I know.”

“He … What?”

“Neil. He doesn’t know that mom told me. No one is supposed to know.” And yet here Billy is, telling Steve. “If people found out, Neil would be disgraced. Having his wife cheat on him, with his brother nonetheless, and then for him to knowingly raise another man’s child? He’d rather kill …” Himself, Steve’s mind supplies. But what follows is, “… me.”

There are a lot of things that Steve wants to say to that, and to everything else he has just learned, but he doesn’t know where to start. And besides, it doesn’t seem like Billy needs to be prompted into speaking, this time. The words are running out of him like he’s been waiting to tell someone.

“He hates me. I know he does. He looks at me and he sees my mom, and he sees my real dad, and … I’m just this walking, talking reminder of that betrayal, and I know he wants me gone, but he can’t throw me out because everyone thinks I’m his son and no one can find out the truth. And I know that he hates me.” He keens and turns his face into Steve’s sleeve, wetting his sweater with his tears. “Max too. And she’s right to hate me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Steve says and turns so that he can pull Billy into a proper hug. “She’s young, and she’s quick to anger, just like you, but she doesn’t hate you.”

“Yeah she does. She said I’m just like Neil, and she’s right.” He lets out a sob. “I don’t want to be, Steve. I don’t want to be like him.”

“You’re not,” Steve says, shushing him gently. “You’re not, baby.” Billy’s crying speaks of heartbreak, of a hurt that goes way back and Steve is desperate with the need to soothe it; make it better, somehow. “Listen to me, Billy, you’re nothing like him. You’re feeling bad about yelling at Max, right? Well, do you think your da–“ He catches himself in time, “– Neil has ever felt bad about hurting you?”

“I don’t … I don’t know.”

“You apologized to me for hurting me in November, remember? And then you apologized to the kids, too, and you can apologize to Max for yelling at her today. Has Neil ever apologized to you?”

“No.”

“Do you think Neil has ever sat on a bed with his boyfriend, all messed up because he doesn’t want to be the kind of guy who hurts another person?”

It’s a bad attempt at a joke, but it works. Billy huffs out a wet laugh and sniffles. “Definitely not.”

“Well then there you go,” Steve says. He releases Billy from his embrace only so he can put his hands on either side of his face and turn him so they’re facing each other. He looks into Billy’s puffy eyes, and gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You’re not your dad, Billy.” When Billy opens his mouth to speak, Steve speaks over him; “Either one of them. You are yourself.” He combs his fingers through Billy’s hair, watching him closely. “You’ve been dealt a shit hand in life. But you’ve made it this far, and you’re trying to be better every day and …” His eyes are burning. “I’m so proud of you for that.” Billy swallows and blinks, another tear running down his cheek. Steve can’t help but lean in and press a kiss to it, tasting the salt on his lips. “And I love you, okay? You’re not alone anymore. You’ve got me.”

Billy lets out a sound that is half-laugh and half-sob, and closes his eyes as Steve rests his forehead against Billy’s. They sit like that for a while, eyes closed, touching and breathing the same air, until there are no more sobs; no more tears.

“I love you too.” Billy’s voice, when it comes, is low; barely a whisper. But they’re close enough that Steve hears it, close enough that he feels Billy’s breath on his skin as he speaks. “Thank you.”

Instead of saying that Billy doesn’t have to say thank you, or that Steve didn’t really do anything, Steve gives him another quick kiss – on his lips, this time – and leans back. He puts his hands on Billy’s shoulders and rights them both, and then gives a little smile.

“When are you picking Max up at Lucas’ place?”

Billy takes a deep breath and licks his lips, trying to put himself back together. “Quarter to seven. She has to be home for dinner.”

“Then how about you,” Steve says and points his index finger to Billy’s chest, “drive her home and use that time to … talk to her,” Apologize, he doesn’t say, “while I,” he points the finger back to his own chest, “order some pizza. And then you come back here and we’ll have dinner and watch some TV and you can spend the night.” Because Steve knows enough to know that Neil doesn’t really care if Billy’s home or not, after a fight that leave marks. Seems to prefer it when he’s not, actually. “How does that sound?”

It’s a testament to how far they’ve come, and to how much Billy has changed, when Billy just responds to that with a nod and a barely-there smile. Where he would once have refused to do what someone told him just because someone told him, and where he would have hated to be talked to as if he was a child, and probably would have acted out after his bout of vulnerability, now he just accepts it.

He accepts it because he’s grown. And because it’s Steve. And because they love each other.

“Sounds good.”

[signanothername]

Hi! I love your rescue bots art and I was wondering who your favorite bot was?

Hello!! Thank you sm! <333

Ngl the show’s characters are so amazing that it genuinely is hard to say for sure, but I’d say Heatwave!!

Prepare for a ramble >:)

I already have a soft spot for grumpy characters and he falls into that category, but i genuinely love how the writers balanced his character so well that you don’t hate him for his gruffness, he’s that trope of “asshole with a heart of gold™”

The thing is, Heatwave isn’t fully a jerk either, he respects authoritarian figures, gives people credit where it’s due and has a sporting spirit and you can tell he cares deeply about the people he loves, but loves to put on a front (especially when it comes to kids)

He does have a bit of an ego but he knows when to keep it in check (basically doesn’t let his ego get in the way of his rescue work or uses it as an excuse to hurt people’s feelings)

In fact i’d say outta the rescue bots he’s the one who has faith in his family the most when it comes to knowing they can handle themselves, he’s the only one who doesn’t think Dani’s test pilot work is a big deal and explicitly states she knows her job and can handle herself, not that the others’ worries are out of place, it’s just that, for someone like him who’s overprotective, it’s nice to see him have so much faith

We can also see how much of a worrier he is in the “changes” episode, he doesn’t wanna leave the team cause he’s worried about them (and to me, it seems as tho he really doesn’t wanna seperate from them) but i believe that worry is less about him believing they can’t take care of themselves and more tied to his overprotective nature, he was worried they’d get hurt and he wouldn’t be there to protect them

He takes his job seriously both as a rescue bot and as a leader and takes responsibility for any shortcomings or reckless behavior that could’ve endangered people and i actually respect that a lot, cause most hotheaded characters are written in a way that they always think they’re in the right, which Heatwave doesn’t, his character breaks away from that usual writing and you’re presented with a hothead who actually takes responsibility for his actions which is really refreshing to see

The only times we see Heatwave acting recklessly is when he’s sure no one would get hurt, so it’s really funny to see for a hothead like him, cause he actually stops and thinks twice most of the time

All that aside, I do love when he acts like a jerk at times, they’re usually comedy gold moments, that one scene of him making fun of Blades cause of the scoop claw and when Cody gets upset with him, Heatwave literally tells Boulder and Chase “you guys never know when to stop do you?” Like MY MAN THAT WAS MOSTLY ALL YOU DHHDGDGDHHD (we here at signanothername do not condone bullying, we do however find it hilarious /j)

His character contrasts so well with Kade’s too and the two’s relationship is honestly so amazing aaaahxhdhdh

But what i love the most is the fact you can clearly see he grows as the show goes on, most his moments of him being a jerk are at the beginning of the series, later down the line he’s a lot more considerate and gentle, still acts like a jerk sometimes (cause he’s HW come on) but it’s a lot less than when in the beginning of the series

Not only that but how homesick he is and how Earth and Griffin Rock grow on him overtime, he starts very (and I mean VERY) angry, very not on board with staying, hell, he wants to leave in the first episode, but it’s so nice to see his struggle with accepting earth as his new home, and while I wholeheartedly believe everyone struggled through the same thing, they were prepared to look for their peace in their new home, Heatwave wasn’t at peace and he was very vocal about it

That’s why, the episode “Space Bots” is one of my favorites in the entirety of the series, aside the fact it’s a fun and unique episode, it’s the episode Heatwave finally calls Earth “home” and ngl it actually made me tear up a bit

Just THIS SCENE MAN (I love Blades’ big smile at Heatwave at the end, Blades is so proud of HW chhcc)

Obviously to someone who never watched the show the scene seems mundane at best, but to someone very invested in the story and characters? (Cough me cough) it was such a heartwarming scene, Heatwave finally finding some internal peace and calling it home??? 10/10 crying and screaming

Of course, he still struggles, as we clearly see with the Allspark day episode in S3, he refuses to celebrate it cause he doesn’t see himself as part of the community yet, yes he accepted Earth as his new home but there’s still that dissonance between him and the people in Griffin Rock

So it’s genuinely interesting to see his journey towards finally feeling at peace and finding himself among the community he lives with

I love when the bots finally revealed themselves as aliens rather than robots in S4, Heatwave was very apprehensive about it, really scared to do so even when he’s grown fond of the community, so you can imagine my absolute joy at the absolute shock Heatwave displayed when the people of Griffin rock immediately accepted them and were very excited about it

LIKE LOOK AT HIM HE CANT BELIEVE HIS OPTICS

And much, much more I can talk about but we’d be here for days hdhxhdhhd

Anyway I’m done rambling have this Heatwave sketch <3

[lilac-melody]

I was rewatching the Southern Raiders so I can re-evaluate how I can write Zuko and Katara’s dynamic and honestly, I forgot how angry this episode makes me. I forgot how angry I get when I remember how people genuinely wished harm upon Katara as a character because of her rightful frustration.

Hers and Sokka’s mother was killed, and it’s only Katara who wants closure. Because Sokka, many episodes ago (”The Runaway”), stated that whenever he thinks about his mother, he can’t remember her face, he can only think of Katara’s. This means that he was able to get over her death, because he had someone who was there who took on all of their mother’s responsibilities.

Katara, meanwhile, had no one. She, an 8 year old girl, took on the cooking, cleaning, sewing, acting as a mother to her older brother, and always looked out for everyone in the gaang by the age of 14. And when does she ever get a “thank you” or anything? Hell, in the episode “The Desert”, she’s the only one who focuses on getting everyone out. Aang is sulking (and she’s still supportive of him), Toph can’t “see” properly and is down, and Sokka is drunk off of cactus juice.

Yet Katara was treated like shit in the episode. She not once got onto Aang for taking his frustration out on anyone, yet he screamed at her “What are you doing?!” when he yelled that he was doing his best.

Also, Water Tribes have major gender roles, and it shows us explicitly that Sokka is closer to their dad than Katara is (not to say Katara doesn’t love him of course, but Katara even lets Sokka go see Hakoda while she stayed behind in Ba Sing Se) and Katara was obviously closer with her mother.

So, pray tell, why no one except Zuko supported Katara? Why did Aang compare losing an animal and losing his culture to Katara losing her mother? None of these are the same. For one, Appa was still alive, and two, a mother is something irreplaceable. Katara losing her mother is what shaped her into who she is today, and Aang got over the loss of his culture because the plot needed him to.

For all that Katara has done for the group, one would assume that they would support her. But no- Sokka told her “she was my mother too, but Aang might be right” (which, again, I point out that Sokka was able to process and get over his grief, while Katara never had a true outlet for hers. She was able to talk about it, but that’s not the same as processing grief), and Aang got all preachy, showing he didn’t trust her not to kill him, despite supposedly “loving her” and being her “best friend”.

The lack of empathy and sympathy from Aang and Sokka is honestly infuriating. And the fandom is only worse.

Did yall also forget Katara is literally 14 years old? Can you seriously tell me that you would be emotionally stable if you were 8, lost a parent you were close with, and found out you can get closure by finding that parent’s killer after they literally reshaped your entire childhood? Everyone processes trauma differently, and it’s especially hard on a teenager.

People literally have more sympathy for Sokka losing Yue, a girl he knew for, what, two days max? Than Katara losing her mother.

The Katara lost her mother memes were never funny. And the hatred for Katara specifically for this episode is really old, tiring, and hypocritical.

[agaypanic]

Alright I want drama so can you do Malcom and Stevie going after the same girl and all the stuff that happens

The Fight For Love (Malcolm Wilkerson X Reader)

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Summary: Malcolm and Stevie find out that they’ve been wanting the same girl. Now they’re fighting for her attention, and neither of them back down from a challenge.

A/N: anon doesn’t say who reader should end up with so she ends up with Malcolm bc that’s who I write for. But if you wanna see this with a Stevie ending lmk!

***

“Stop acting… like you’re… so good with… relationships… Malcolm.” Stevie rolled his eyes at his best friend before taking a bite of his sandwich. “You don’t… have game.”

“Yes, I do!” Malcolm protested. “Remember Sarah Coleman?”

“In eighth grade… and she… dumped… your ass.”

“What about Alison?”

“An idiot… who dumped you… for your brother.”

“Nicki?”

“Crazy… and locked you… in her attic.”

“Whatever.” Malcolm sighed. “It’s not like you’ve ever had a girlfriend.”

“Angela… Pozefsky.”

“Well, I dated her first. Besides, it’s not like you two lasted long.” Malcolm shrugged and shook his head from the annoyance of Stevie having a good rebuttal. He started picking at his food, which should’ve signaled the end of the conversation. But before he could take a bite, he dropped his fork and turned back to Stevie. “You know what? They don’t even matter anymore. I like someone else anyway.”

“Oh, really?” Stevie asked, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, and I got a real chance with her.”

“Of course… you do.” Stevie responded sarcastically, taking another bite of his food. Malcolm looked at him confused.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You like… someone… and think you… have a shot… so you… obsess.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes… you do.”

“Whatever. Look, I have a real chance with this girl, I know it. Have you ever connected with someone so well that you just know, deep down, that they’re it for you?” Malcolm stared off with a dreamy look on his face, obviously deep in thought about the girl he was talking about.

“I have… actually,” Stevie said, which surprised Malcolm, pulling him out of his state.

“Really? You’ve never talked about her before.”

“If I could… get a… word in… I-”

“So what’s she like?” Stevie rolled his eyes at Malcolm, but soon brushed it off, ready to talk about the girl he’s had his eye on.

“Treats me like… a person. Doesn’t… sugarcoat… but still… sweet.”

“Same with mine!” Malcolm responded. “She’s straightforward, but she’s still like, the nicest person ever.”

“She’s smart… too.”

“I can have an intellectual conversation with her without feeling like a freak. And she’s so funny too.”

“Her laugh… is heavenly.”

“Let’s say their names on three,” Malcolm suggested. Stevie nodded. “One.”

“Two.”

“Three. Y/n.”

“Y/n.”

The smiles on the boys’ faces faded once they realized what the other had said. It seemed they were both talking about the same girl.

“Crap.”

***

After a lengthy discussion, Stevie and Malcolm concluded that they were, in fact, talking about the same girl. Y/n had known them for years, meeting them back in middle school. She wasn’t in the Krelboyne class, but she was still clever enough to understand complex matters and keep up with the boys’ conversations. She was nice, but could still tell it how it is. And no matter what, she was still the boys’ friend.

Stevie and Malcolm also concluded that they both liked Y/n too much to back away and let the other have a chance to woo her. So they agreed to let the best man win.

“Hey, Y/n.” Malcolm greeted his friend, slightly out of breath. He woke up early and ran to school so he could talk to Y/n before Stevie could. But she didn’t need to know that.

“Hey, Malcolm. You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you come to school this early.” She smiled at him and he could’ve melted right there. He shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.

“Decided to try something new, I guess.”

“Well, I hope you stick with it. I’ve missed seeing you in the mornings.”

Malcolm felt like he could’ve died right there. She was missing his presence? They saw each other almost every day, and she still missed him?

“Really?” Malcolm asked. He felt like he had just imagined her response, but was really hoping that he didn’t.

“Of course, Malcolm! I miss the days back in middle school when you, Stevie, and I would hang out before we had to split to our different classes.” And just like that, Malcolm’s mood deflated. Y/n didn’t miss just him, she also missed his best friend, who he was secretly fighting for her attention. 

He shook off the disappointment. He had to stick to his plan.

“Well, speaking of different classes, want me to walk you to yours?” Malcolm felt proud of himself. It sounded so effortless and smooth, yet he was trying not to overthink every second of this interaction too badly. 

“Sure! I was waiting for someone, but I need to get to class early to ask my teacher something and I don’t think they’ll be here in time.” Malcolm tried not to ask who Y/n was waiting for. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was letting him walk her to class, step one of his plan.

***

“Hey, Stevie.” Y/n greeted the boy as he rolled his chair over to his assigned spot next to her. When he locked the wheels in place, he turned to her and mirrored the smile she had.

“Hi, Y/n.” When he reached back to grab supplies out of his backpack, he noticeably did a double take at her. “You look… really nice… today.” He acted like he just noticed, but Stevie saw it the second he came into the room. But to be fair, he thought she looked nice every day.

“Oh, thanks! I went to the mall last weekend and kind of splurged.” 

“Well… you have… good taste.” 

“Thank you, Stevie.” Her smile was softer but felt just as bright.

“Sorry I… couldn’t… meet you… this morning… Dad woke up… late.” If he could, Stevie would kick himself for missing her in the morning, even though logically it wasn’t his fault. He had to rely on his dad to drive him unless he wanted to go on the bus or wheel to school. Stevie just hoped he could make it up to Y/n.

“Oh, it’s okay. Malcolm walked me to class.” Y/n didn’t notice the quick flash of annoyance on Stevie’s face at the mention of Malcolm. 

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was kinda weird seeing him this morning. I usually never see him that early in the day.” Y/n pulled a notebook out of her backpack and set it on the desk before looking at Stevie. “But he said he was trying something new, so maybe I’ll be seeing more of him again.”

“Maybe,” Stevie whispered. He couldn’t believe that Malcolm would swoop in on Y/n when Stevie was supposed to walk her to class. Stevie had to think of something. “Wanna get… lunch… together?”

Y/n was about to answer when the bell rang, cutting her off. The teacher started talking but Stevie couldn’t pay attention, still waiting for her answer. When the teacher turned around to write something on the board, Y/n smiled at Stevie and nodded.

Perfect.

***

Lunch couldn’t come quickly enough. Stevie made his way to the quad and tried spotting Y/n. It was a simple task. He could pick the girl out in a crowded place any day. When he found her, he started moving towards her. But something stopped him.

Malcolm had also spotted Y/n and then noticed Stevie. The two boys glared at each other, and the race was on. It started slowly, a leisurely walk and roll, to not draw too much attention to themselves. But then they sped up and kept getting faster until they finally stopped at Y/n’s table. She looked up, startled, but the confusion left her face when she recognized who was in front of her.

“Hey, Malcolm! Hey, Stevie!” She turned to each boy when acknowledging him.

“Hi, Y/n.” They said in unison, glaring at each other before sitting down. Y/n didn’t seem to notice.

“I didn’t know… Malcolm… would be… joining us,” Stevie commented as he pulled out his lunch box. Before Y/n could respond, Malcolm dropped his backpack on the table and yanked out his paper bag of food.

“She asked me before third period.” He stared Stevie down. “Is that a problem, Stevie?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you guys okay?” Y/n asked, eyes darting between the two. “You guys are acting kind of weird. Well, weirder than usual.”

“We’re fine.” They both responded shortly. Y/n nodded, not convinced but not feeling like delving deeper into the boys’ behavior. The three friends ate, silence and tension thick. After a few minutes, Malcolm decided to make a move.

“So, Y/n, are you doing anything tonight?” Stevie glared at Malcolm, but he and Y/n didn’t notice. Malcolm was focused on Y/n, who was trying to recall any plans she had.

“Nothing, I think. Why?”

“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out after school.” Malcolm shrugged as if he had just spontaneously thought of it. “I think I heard about this movie that just came out.” When he got home after his talk with Stevie, Malcolm scoured the internet and newspaper for different things that would peak Y/n’s interest.

“Oh, yeah! I think I know what movie you’re talking about. I’d love to go with you, Malcolm.”

“Great!” He felt so accomplished and smug, the way he did when he won an award for academic achievement. Stevie wanted to wipe that look off his face.

“Oh my gosh, we’re so rude.” Y/n gasped, turning to face Stevie. “I can’t believe we just made plans in front of you, Stevie. Do you wanna come with us?” With anyone else, Stevie would’ve rolled his eyes, feeling like the invitation was just out of pity. But he knew that Y/n was genuinely guilty about excluding him from something.

So it killed him when he turned her offer down.

“No, thanks… But you two… have fun.” He knew that if he came with Y/n and Malcolm, Malcolm would get nowhere with her. But at the same time, neither would he. So he had to restrain himself from trying to sabotage Malcolm’s time with her and make her time with him special and more memorable. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah… we can… hang out… another time.”

Malcolm was surprised. He thought that Stevie would have jumped at the opportunity to spend time with Y/n. But he wasn’t going to complain about getting some alone time with her. When he thought about it, it was fair for each of them to have their own time with Y/n to try to win her over.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Perfect.”

***

Malcolm felt like he was blessed by God himself. His mom let him take the car to school and said that as long as he went to the store before coming home at a reasonable time, he could go wherever he wanted. He considered the possibility that maybe Lois was high on something, but he decided not to question it.

Y/n was in the passenger seat, quietly singing along to the radio and bobbing her head to the beat. He wasn’t even dating her, and he was wondering how he got so lucky.

“We’re here.” He announced as he parked the car in the movie theater parking lot. They got out and went inside. Malcolm made sure to hold the door open for her. While in line, the two debated what they wanted for food. When they decided, it was suddenly their turn to go up to the counter. Malcolm gave the worker the movie title and their food order, and paid before Y/n could reach for her wallet.

“Malcolm, you didn’t have to do that.” She groaned as he put his wallet back in his pocket.

“It’s fine, Y/n, really.”

“At least let me pay you back half.” She insisted, trying to put the money in his hand. He shook his head, just as stubborn.

“Y/n, I’m serious, it’s okay.” Knowing he wouldn’t budge, Y/n sighed and put the money back in her pocket.

“Fine.” she said, grabbing the big bucket of popcorn as Malcolm grabbed their drink (they decided it would be cheaper to share a large than each getting their own drink). It was Y/n’s favorite drink. It wouldn’t have been Malcolm’s first choice if the drink was just for himself, but he was okay with drinking it. “But I’m paying next time.” Malcolm lit up.

“So there’s a next time?” He asked, letting her pick where they were going to sit in the theater. They sat directly in the middle.

“Of course!” Feeling more than content, Malcolm settled into his seat with a smile and they watched the previews. More people started to fill the theater. “Is that Stevie?”

They had to squint. The room was dark, and they were high up, but yes. Stevie Kenarban had wheeled his way into the theater, parking himself in one of the handicapped sections on the ground floor. 

“Wanna go sit with him, Malcolm?” Y/n asked, already starting to get up.

“Sure!” He acted excited, but Malcolm was livid. What happened to hanging out with her another day?

After squeezing their way through the aisle and down the stairs, the two ended up next to Stevie.

“Hi, Stevie!” The boy looked surprised when he saw the two.

“Hey, guys.” Just before Y/n was going to sit down in the seat next to Stevie, Malcolm took it. It was bad enough that Stevie was here, but there was no way Malcolm was gonna have Y/n sit between the two of them. Y/n didn’t mind, sitting in the seat next to Malcolm.

“What are you doing here?” Y/n asked quietly, previews about to end.

“Yeah, Stevie, I thought you weren’t gonna come,” Malcolm added on, a bit of venom in his tone.

“Dad says… I should… get out more.” Stevie shrugged before eating a handful of his popcorn. In reality, it took a bit of convincing to get Stevie’s dad to drive him to the movie theater. He had originally thought that it was okay for each boy to have time to themselves with Y/n.

But after thinking about what Malcolm would try to get up to, he didn’t care anymore.

The movie cut their conversation short. Stevie rolled his eyes every time he saw Malcolm and Y/n share their drink or bump hands while reaching for the popcorn. But then, the unthinkable happened. Malcolm pulled the cliche, yawning and stretching even though it was 4 pm, before laying his arm on the back of Y/n’s seat. Even worse, she didn’t mind. When Malcolm’s arm slipped off the seat and onto her shoulders, she smiled.

Stevie was livid.

***

“It’s nice out today,” Y/n said as she basked in the sun’s warmth. She and Stevie decided to study together for a test they had coming up and Stevie suggested the park. They grabbed some lunch and sat at her favorite park table, now flipping through books and writing down notes.

“Yeah… it is.” Stevie agreed, his focus more on Y/n than the textbook in front of him. He already knew everything he needed to know about this subject, but he enjoyed studying with Y/n. Her notes were organized, and she made clever jokes about whatever she was reading. Plus, he could never complain about the view that was in front of him right now.

“What did you get for number five?” She asked, looking at the study guide the teacher had provided them. Stevie glanced down at his packet.

“Number five?” He asked for confirmation. When she nodded, looked at his answer. “I got-“

“Oh! Hey guys!” A voice sounded a few feet from the table. The two looked up to see Malcolm. Y/n looked delighted by the surprise, Stevie on the other hand looked less than thrilled.

“What are you doing here, Malcolm?” Y/n asked with a smile.

“Yeah… What are… you doing… here?” Stevie asked with annoyance. Malcolm shrugged as if he had just popped up in the park. 

“Oh, just wanted some fresh air. Get out of the house for a bit.” He walked over and sat next to Y/n, who made room for him on the bench. “What are you guys working on?”

“We have a test next week, so we decided to study,” Y/n answered, looking through her textbook to try to find her answer to number five. Malcolm peeked over her shoulder at the question and then pointed to the answer in the book. “Oh! Thanks, Malcolm.”

“We have… a lot… of work… to do… So maybe-” Stevie started to say, trying to get Malcolm out of here as fast as possible. But Y/n, seeming to misread his tone, cut him off.

“Do you think you could help us study, Malcolm?” Stevie sighed. He knew that even if he wanted to, Malcolm would never be able to say no to those eyes.

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna intrude.” He smiled politely, but Stevie saw through the act. 

“Actually-“ Again, he was cut off.

“Of course! You could quiz us and stuff. You don’t mind, do you, Stevie?” Even though he wanted to, Stevie couldn’t say no to her.

“The more… the merrier.”

“Awesome! I’ll be right back.” Y/n stood up, gathering all the trash from her and Stevie’s lunch. “Gonna go throw this away.” The boys watched as she walked off to a trash can. When she was out of earshot, they turned to each other.

“Why… are you… here?” Stevie asked, anger seeping into his tone.

“I could’ve asked you the same thing the other day,” Malcolm responded. “I thought we agreed to let the best man win, fair and square.”

“And I thought… ‘screw that.’” 

Malcolm groaned, letting his head fall into his hands. He slowly looked up.

“Neither of us will get anywhere if we keep acting like this,” He sighed. “We gotta ask her.”

“Ask her… what?”

“Yeah, ask me what?” The boys jumped in their seats, startled. Y/n sat back down in her spot, looking at her friends as she waited for an answer.

“Uhhhh…” Stevie trailed off, trying to think of something. Luckily, Malcolm was always a quick thinker.

“We were just wondering… Do you have any plans next week?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Well, there’s this restaurant that I think you’d like.”

“And there’s an… arboretum… that just opened.”

“Aw, like a group friend date?” Malcolm and Stevie had to suppress their groans. They couldn’t tell if Y/n was messing with them or if she was actually oblivious to what they were hinting at.

“Something like that.”

***

“It’s kinda sad Malcolm didn’t show up. This place is beautiful.” Y/n said as she and Stevie walked around the arboretum. The sunlight shined through the tree branches, making it seem like they were glowing.

“At least… we can… enjoy it,” Stevie said, watching Y/n as she walked down the concrete path, the sun hitting her just right, making her look angelic.

“You know, these last two weeks have been so great. I miss hanging out with you all the time.” Y/n stopped under some shade, Stevie following suit. 

“Me too,” Stevie said excitedly.

“I don’t know what changed. But whatever did, I’m glad it happened. You and Malcolm are so fun to be around.” Stevie wished so badly that he didn’t hear his friend’s name. Y/n checked her watch. “Oh, gosh. Speaking of Malcolm, I gotta make sure I’m not late to that restaurant. Want me to walk you to your dad’s car?”

Stevie’s heart sank.

“Sure.”

They made their way towards the entrance of the arboretum. Stevie wished that he could’ve had Y/n all to himself today, but that’s not what he and Malcolm agreed on. After a few months of yearning and a few weeks of fighting over Y/n, the two made an agreement. Today was the last day for them to confess their feelings to her. 

And Stevie was about to miss his chance. Every time he tried to bring it up, he chickened out. 

“Well… this… is me,” Stevie said as they stopped next to Stevie’s dad’s car. “Are you sure… you don’t want… a ride?”

“I’m sure, Stevie. It’s not that far of a walk. But you’re sweet for asking.” Without a warning, Y/n leaned down and kissed Stevie’s cheek. When she stood up straight, she waved at Stevie’s dad before looking back at her friend. “I’ll see you around, Stevie.” She turned around and started to walk away.

“Y/n!” Stevie blurted out suddenly. She whipped around.

“Yeah, Stevie?” This was his last chance. All he had to do was say a few words.

“Have a… good time.”

***

“I hope you didn’t have to wait too long,” Y/n said as she plopped down in the booth across from Malcolm. She noticed that he ordered her favorite drink and an appetizer for her. How sweet. “Walk took a little longer than expected.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t wait too long.” Malcolm started fiddling around with the straw that was in his drink. He couldn’t stop wondering about what Stevie had said to her on their little outing. “How was the arboretum?”

“It was so beautiful. You should’ve been there, Malcolm.”

“Wish I was.”

“Enough about me.” Y/n took a sip of her drink. “What were you up to today?”

‘Thinking of you and hoping to whatever’s out there that Stevie didn’t say what I wanna say to you.’ He thought.

“Oh, nothing much.” He said instead. “Honestly, I was looking forward to this the whole day. I really like hanging out with you, Y/n.”

“Aw, I really like hanging out with you too, Malcolm.”

This must be a sign. Right? Why would you really like being around someone unless you like them to some degree? But did she mean it in a friendly way like Malcolm should have meant, or did she mean it in a more than friendly way like Malcolm did mean?

Malcolm was starting to think that Stevie was right about him obsessing.

“So, what are you gonna have?” the question pulled Malcolm out of his thoughts, but that only made him have different thoughts. Malcolm had actually gotten to the restaurant before Y/n on purpose to talk to the waiter. After he and Stevie realized they both liked Y/n, Hal found out. And being the hands-on man he was when it came to his sons’ love lives, he decided to help Malcolm out. Malcolm didn’t take all of his dad’s suggestions, but there was one that stuck with him.

Whatever Y/n ordered, Malcolm told the server to stick a note that he had given him to the side of her plate. It was a note explaining how he felt about her. He knew that if he tried saying it, he would just chicken out. So the note ensured that she would know of his feelings.

But now that she was so close to finding the note, he was starting to feel sick.

“Uhhhh, I don’t know. I’ll probably figure it out before the server comes.” But very soon, the waiter came. Malcolm just picked the first appealing thing he saw on the menu, not that he was feeling very picky. Then Y/n ordered, and the waiter left, leaving the two to themselves.

“Can I ask you something?” Y/n asked, taking a bite of the appetizer Malcolm had ordered.

“Sure,” Malcolm said nervously, though he tried not to show it.

“Is there a reason why you and Stevie have been wanting to hang out with me so much lately? I mean, I don’t mind, but it kinda seemed out of the blue. I don’t know, maybe I’m just imagining it.”

“You’re not.” Malcolm cut off what was about to become a ramble. Y/n looked up, somewhat confused.

“I’m not?”

“No.” Malcolm took a deep breath. Looks like he wouldn’t be needing that note after all. “Y/n, the truth is-”

“Here you go.” The server had come back with their food, faster than usual, the two noted. He set the dishes down in front of them and after making sure they didn’t need anything else, made his way to leave. “Enjoy.” The two were now alone again, but with more tension than when the waiter had come. Malcolm was about to tell Y/n that he liked her and Y/n was waiting to find out what had been up with him and Stevie the past few weeks. But no one wanted to speak first.

Y/n grabbed her plate and pulled it closer to her. Malcolm saw confusion cross her face as she felt for something on the underside of the plate. Malcolm’s eyes widened. She was about to find the note.

“That’s weird.” Y/n pulled it off of the dish and looked at the piece of paper. She flipped the paper for Malcolm to see. He looked at her name, which was written in his nicest handwriting. Which she recognized. “Did you do this?”

She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“Yeah…” She smiled, unfolding the note, and started to read it. Malcolm was terrified as he watched her. He didn’t think this far ahead. What if she rejected him? What if she left, leaving him to wallow in despair knowing that he blew it, his only chance? What if Stevie had told her how he felt, and now she’d have to let him down easy? He should’ve never listened to his dad. His dad finding his mom must have been an outlier, and he and his brothers were doomed to be unhappy and loveless. He would never find that antidote that Hal told him and his brothers about, that balanced out the insanity that was the Wilkerson boys’ hormones.

“Malcolm…” She sighed. Oh God, this was it. She was going to reject him, leave, and he’d never see him again. “This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“What?” That was not the response Malcolm was expecting. It was the one he had hoped for, but he didn’t think it would happen. “Really?”

“Yes!” She kept staring at the note, reading the lines over and over as if she was trying to engrave it in her brain. “It’s so beautiful. I love it.”

Malcolm let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“You do?”

“Yeah.” She slid out of the booth. She walked to his side and sat down next to Malcolm. “Were you telling the truth? Do you really like me?”

He nodded. He knew that if he said anything now, it would turn into an out-pour of words and would never stop.

“Thank God.” Note still in hand, Y/n grabbed Malcolm’s face and pulled him towards her in a long, sensual kiss. They knew that they were still in public, but they didn’t care. They were finally doing what they had wanted to do for so long.

Malcolm felt bad for Stevie. He’d never be able to experience this with Y/n, because she chose Malcolm. He knew he’d get over it someday and they’d still be best friends. But right now, Malcolm was focused on a more pressing matter. He pulled away from Y/n, somewhat reluctantly.

“Y/n, will you be my girlfriend?”

“Of course, Malcolm.”

Overfilled with joy, Malcolm kissed her again. And again. And again.

[belabellissima]

✨💭🍰 for the ask game!

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing:

Y’all started with the hard stuff 😅 alright uhhh

1) emotional - I feel like I'm really good at conveying what characters are feeling (at least when its angst) and bringing readers along on that journey

2) hopeful - except for my one mcd fic (but even then I wrote a second ending where it was happy and hopeful again), i only write happy endings. Like no matter how bad it gets, there's always something good waiting beyond that. Because life would suck without hope - it's imo one of the strongest things in the universe, and I like my writing to reflect that.

3) physical - i was told one (1) time during one of my classes that I was very good at writing the physicality of the characters during a fight scene, to the point that the reader had absolutely no trouble or confusion what-so-ever about where the character was, what they were doing, which hand the weapon was in, etc. and proceeded to make that my entire writing personality for years. Any time i write an action scene specifically, i think back to their complement and try to judge whether the new scene would get that same commentary, and if I think the answer is no, i go back and edit it to that internal standard. Which i think leaves the writing very easy to understand and easy for the reader to feel when reading.

💭 What is a headcanon you have about your own work?

ooh this one took me awhile to come up with! I don't really know if it means like... about my writing as a whole? or just one of my fics? So I'm going with the second. I 100% headcanon that azris is real in my State of Grace series (ace!Elain and amnesia!Feysand). I have more fics planned in this series and hope to get azris' story one day, but i don't have any ideas at all for them yet so it remains headcanon. I also headcanon that when Nesta finds out Feyre thought she was a puca she finds it hilarious (though she'll never admit to it), and doesn't let Feyre live it down for at least a decade.

🍰 Name one eight of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

I have so many for all the different ships let me try and narrow it down😫 and put them below the cut!

Feysand:

The A Court of Faded Dreams series and The Outlier, both by the-lonelybarricade. ACoFD is so good at making the angst of UTM and the fallout of time travel be heartwarming, and is definitely a favorite of mine to reread. Meanwhile The Outlier is adorable and definitely a comfort fic when I want to read something short and sweet with flustered!Rhys.

A Court Outside of Time by Sonata_IX - I reread this one so often its not even funny. Feyre trying to seduce Rhys while he's still wearing his UTM mask is hilarious, heartbreaking, heartwarming, and all around amazing. And the Starfall scene???? Rhys learning he's going to be a dad?🥹

What Dreams May Come by as_with_a_sunbeam - sick fic with feyre taking care of Rhys. What else is there to say? Feyre's desperation to save Rhys, only to be as self-sacrificial as him and give him up? It's so good I can feel Rhys' heartbreak every time I read, which makes the happy ending so so sweet.

Nessian:

Anything by TheTeaQueen - she writes Nesta so fucking well and has put out phenomenal fics focusing on Rhys and Nesta bonding. I'm in awe with every single one. Of Death and Resurrection specifically is amazing, and one I return to over and over again.

Begged and Borrowed Time by daughterofthesea - seriously go read this fic. Its so good and heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. One of my favorites hands down - Cassian noticing the embroidery right off the bat? Seeing something that even her sisters haven't noticed? Nesta admitting the truth to him when she can't to anyone else? I die in the best way. 🥹

Elucien:

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room and Don't Blame Me by separatist-apologist are my go-to fics when I need a pick-me-up. I think don't blame me was actually the first of mb's fics I ever read (it is I just checked), and SDIABR will always hold my heart with the fake-courting to real-feelings pipeline, and the way Lucien reacts when he learns of the truth, running around all night to help them out.

Literally the reason it took so many days to post this is that I got sucked into rereading these fics as I linked them😅

[mrs-gauche]

So, I had planned to write a comment on the three published synopses of the upcoming comic series "The Missing" (first volume to release on January 25th btw!), but since @felassan​​ kinda beat me to it and already wrote amazingly detailed posts summing up everything and elaborating further on what I fail to put into words lol, I'm just gonna add my pointless ramblings poor two cents to it now, I guess. 😶

(Beware also of spoilers for Tevinter Nights, Absolution and the comics under the cut!)

(Thanks Dark Horse btw, for already giving away half the plot with these, jeez 😂)

First off, when I first read the second synopsis, not gonna lie, I was genuinely surprised that Solas turned out to be the "former friend" in question. 😂 I know, it was kinda the obvious answer, but maybe that's why I wasn't really expecting it? I think the title also lead me a little astray here? Assuming that the title is actually referring to Solas.. Given the circumstances, referring to Solas as "missing" would be.. pretty funny and also more than a litte strange to me, actually? lol It would definitely raise a few questions here...

So, let us assume that the theory about the eight year timeskip since Trespasser turns out to be true. Have they (the Inquisition) been searching for Solas this entire time? And if that's the case, why is that so funny to me? 😂 (Especially considering the whole ending of Tevinter Nights, even though we can't really tell when exactly that last chaper took place.. Imagine they've been searching for him for the better part of a decade, and then he just pops up with a silly wig and a fake french accent at some tea house one day. lmaoo)

Furthermore, why is it *only* Varric and Harding that seem to be conducting this search? You would think that for something as crucial as finding the person that announced to destroy the world, there would be a few more people on this search than that? lol So, what's the rest of the remains of the Inquisition doing then? Are there several teams searching in different places maybe? To expand this search as far as possible? Maybe they're trying to keep a low profile by searching in teams of two, since it would reduce the risk of Solas finding out about what they're up to? I mean, wasn't that the whole reason for why they even said they needed to "find someone Solas doesn't know"/never sees coming at the end of Trespasser, to try and keep him in the dark about any efforts against him?

Also, speaking of Varric. Assuming that this story takes place after Absolution now, the ending of the series could explain why Varric left Kirkwall and his position as Viscount? Maybe, aside from trying to stop the obvious threat/end of the world, they are now desperate to seek help/information/any answers from Solas on what to do against the corruption of the Blight and the red lyrium spread? (Because if there's *anyone* who would know something, it's him right?) What does the state of the world look like in regards to the Blight and red lyrium in general after a potential eight year timeskip?

Okay, so why would they be searching for Solas in the Deep Roads beneath Marnas Pell then? Honestly, when I read this the first time, my mind (as always lol) immediately went back to the red lyrium idol again. And no, I still don't believe that a single thing about the Bard's tale in Tevinter Nights actually happened (but that's just me). lol So, assuming this happens after the end of TN (and Solas isn’t already in possession of the idol like he claimed), he would still be searching for that flippin thing now, wherever it may be. (How could the idol end up in the Deep Roads beneath Tevinter you ask? No idea. 😂) But I also can't forget about the ominous "Hunt of the Fell Wolf" poem from the Jaws of Hakkon DLC that talks of a demon wolf (Solas?) in a "labyrinth of winding cave" (Deep Roads?) where there's an "idol that could prove the monster’s doom"(!! Coincidence?? I think NOT! lmao).

Btw, wouldn’t it be kinda funny though if Solas was searching for the idol now, while Varric who found the idol with Hawke in the first place, is now searching for Solas? lol

So, what's the plan here exactly? Assuming they would be successful, in which case Varric and Harding find Solas and then.... what? You're telling me Varric and Harding are gonna tie him up and talk him out of his endeavors? 😂 Single-handedly kill him? Torture him with tea? Spy on him? Reminisce about the Inquisition days? lol I honestly think it's more likely that they would try to talk to him, being former friends and all, unless they have some type of super secret weapon against him that we don't know about yet.

So what *would* Solas be doing in the Deep Roads beneath Marnas Pell? (Besides, you know, painting yet another teaser trailer thumbnail for YouTube. lol)

(Our man has been procrastinating hard for the past eight years, painting as many Deep Roads cave walls as possible to avoid going through with his plans. lmao)

It's also worth to remember that a lot of Tevinter was actually build on the ruins of old Elvhenan, which could explain why there are still places with names like "Solas" to be found on the map. (And btw, what is it about this place that lead to it getting this name, anyway? I mean, that name practically guarantees for this place to become relevant in some form down the line in DA4, right? Especially since Solas' line about how he supposedly came from a "small village to the north" won't ever leave my mind and we all know that this man is always telling at least half the truth, so.. could he have been referring to the place literally called Solas, if that's his place of origin or would that be too much on the nose? 😂) Anyway, it definitely raises the question on how old some of these Deep Roads beneath Tevinter actually are and if there could be structures found beneath it that even precede them (like what we saw in The Descent)? And maybe that's part of the reason why Solas would go there..?

Anyway, since none of this actually seems to matter now, because as it turns out in synopsis two, apparently Solas wasn't there after all. 😂 Next stop is Vyrantium and an encounter with "deadly Antivan Crow assassins", which is interesting, since the last we heard of Vyrantium and crows, it was in the "The Wigmaker Job" in TN. Additionally, the cover of volume two features two characters that kinda look like the crows Teia and Viago!

I'll be honest, I had completely forgotten that Teia and Viago even made an appearance in Deception. lol But the look does kinda match? So the question is, what lead Varric and Harding to go from the Deep Roads to Vyrantium and then to the Arlathan Forest?

So, the Arlathan Forest. Again, please check out felassan’s post for more information, they’ve done a fantastic job to write down every important bit to know here. Much like Teia and Viago, it was also featured in both TN and one of the short stories “Ruins of Reality”. As were the characters Strife and Irelin! Could they be the mysterious “Veil Jumpers”? What even is a Veil Jumper, anyway (felassan gave some pretty cool speculations on this!)?

Former DA4 Creative Director Matthew Goldman made an interesting comment on a fanart once, that lead people to speculate that the group of people we've seen in a lot of concept art are called “Veilfire archer”?

..Which does sound to be in the same vein as Veil Jumper, so could they all be part of the same group of people/an entirely new faction even?

(Notice also the recurring background with the golden/autumn leaves. Reminds me of the leaves and branches seen on the (now removed) vinyl cover (showing the Black City *cough* Arlathan *cough*??).)

And lastly, what is this "crucious stone" and how does it relate to literally anything? lol While felassan did speculate about a potential link to Latin/Tevene, someone else pointed out that "crucious" is literally Greek for "crucial". So.. plot crucial stone? lol As in, literally another MacGuffin? (Red lyrium idol, you're getting competition lol) The fact that it's Greek is interesting to me, given that we've been speculating for a while now that BioWare seems to take a lot of inspiration from Greek mythology for anything regarding the ancient elves. 👀 And since we *are* in the *Arlathan* forest here after all, maybe that's where the connection lies..?

People have also pointed out that, based on the track Varric and Harding have been taking so far, first Marnas Pell, then Vyrantium and now the Arlathan Forest...

...assuming that, if they were to go further east, they would end up at the White Spire, which is why some people assume that this is where Solas has to be now. lol

I mean, anything is possible! We know next to nothing about the White Spire (not to be confused with the White Spire in Orlais btw lol), other than it's an Antivan mountain north of the city of Brynnlaw, so there is really nothing else to go on as to why Solas would even be there.. But considering how they are marketing this comic as a direct tie-in for DA4 and there’s still one volume to go (I think?).. Maybe we do end up knowing where Solas is at the end of this comic and this will segue directly into the beginning of DA4 somehow?

(I also want to mention that Rivain is also right next to the White Spire when going even further east. Rivain being also where the main base of a certain guild of treasure hunters is located. Lord of Fortune has been a very popular candidate for the potential next protagonist for a while now. Just saying... 👀)

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S7 E 10 (Chapter 127) American Graffiti

Jughead Jones has no time to open this episode with pithy narration because he’s too busy being helpful to the very incompetent Sheriff Keller.  The diner’s external neons are very red, the redness refracted through the windows adorned with red writing (very non-ominous “Home Made Fries”) and the red of the police lights.  (The idea of Sheriff Keller going, I need to talk to that Jughead kid! and then flashing the lights on his cop car to rush the 3  miles or whatever of an abandoned road in this tiny town to get to  the diner as fast as possible, and then ran in so very fast he forgot to turn them off is  very funny to me.)

The hyperurgent question that must be answered with such haste is - Did the dead Rayberry have next of kin?  Is he SERIOUS?  Aren’t there ways to check PUBLIC RECORDS?

Jughead Jones is at first flustered because they didn’t really talk about what Rayberry’s life was before Jughead.  They had a pseudo parent-adopted-child situation going on, and children are generally not interested in the youth of their parents.  Then Jughead recalls that Rayberry did mention a wife, but “only in passing” and was otherwise very tight lipped about it.  Sheriff Keller, the one that should still be looking for the killer who murdered a husband and wife IN THEIR HOME and left Ethel Muggs an incarcerated orphan, acts like talking to Jughead is the only thing he could’ve done, and now that he’s done it without getting a copy of the marriage certificate and the name and present address of Rayberry’s next of kin from the high school student,s he has no idea what to do next.

As per usual, Jughead Jones is the one with any sort of investigative acumen, policework or journalism or otherwise - he wants to take a look at whatever records might be at Pep Comics, a known source of Rayberry’s income. 

Keller initially started out saying he wanted to “solve” the Rayberry suicide, which was an odd choice of words, but now he says what he really wants to do  which is to “put this sorry mess behind” him “as soon as possible.”  So Keller is really terrible as a crime solver or bringer of justice - he doesn’t give a shit about any of it, wants to be ‘finished’ with his homework (i.e. stamp all the files CASE CLOSED) and try to get as many people to do the work FOR him while he drives around in his car with the shiny lights.

Jughead also finds Keller’s stated goals questionable.  His face goes from earnest concern to a full on ‘What the fuck did I just hear?’ scowl.

The next morning, at the Andrews house, the amount of youthful and aging testosterone has rendered the air in the kitchen too toxic for Mary to enter in her own house.  Uncle Fucking Frank walks in on the bisexual boyfriends having a lover’s quarrel about their favorite dream threesome partner.  Archie thinks Marilyn Monroe is sexier than Elizabeth Taylor, and seeks Frank’s support. Frank appears to dodge by naming three additional supersexy women - Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Eartha Kitt - and then says his vote goes to Elizabeth Taylor.

Why.

WHY ARE THEY GIVING FRANK GOOD TASTE IN MOVIE ICONS. 

Archie finds this unacceptable (‘what the frig??’) and then threatens to spank them (that’s what that means right? Itchin’ for a switchin’?). He woke up very horny this morning. 

It turns out Archie’s grades are up to a B+ GPA!  It … it is?? I’m -. Really?  Wow Archie, I really didn’t expect you to be capable of that.  Good on you.

As a result, Archie gets his “cruisin’ street machine” back.  

Archie catches the keys.  As soon as he looks back at Reggie, the two are off running towards the garage.  Reggie leaves behind his cornflakes and everything!

The soundtrack tells her this car’s “front is slagging.”  Slag = British slang for slut = Archie’s car has a slutty front.   Reggie agrees with the song - this car is “the most beautiful thing” he’s ever seen.  Archie runs his hand alongside the edges of his car,   This is the only thing in the world that he finds more irresistible to look at than Reggie.  Reggie says he’s always loved cars but could never afford one. 

As the music abruptly switches to what I named The Fred Sonata for Piano (which on further listen turns out to be a variation on the main theme tune for the show that plays over the credits), Archie tells the tale of how he and Saint Fred found the car in the dump, adopted her and brought her up right, to this present state of glory.  A labor of love that took years and completed just before Fred went off to die in Korea.  Interestingly, though Archie Andrews has said the word KOREA more times than I ever thought he would, he doesn’t say it when talking to Reggie.  The two engage in car-lingo related foreplay which I have no basis of comprehension (Is this a straight six?  - V8 with headers), which thankfully develops into innuendo that I CAN follow (“Can she lay rubber?” - “why don’t we play hooky and and I’ll show you?”).  I mean. If this was on HBO they’d immediately perform sex acts in this car, right?  Archie has literally heart lights in his eyes as he sits legs spread and crotch presented to Reggie. 

At Pep Comics, Fieldstone has a genuine reaction to the death of Rabyerry - chuckling.  I like him for this, for being very honest about how much he doesn’t care. (“It’s a shame. Talented guy” is his summary, delivered with a smile.)   Jughead takes the body blow of being told “you writers” are inevitably headed for this sort of “kick in the teeth” death via “secret demon” because he wants to know if Rayberry had a wife.   Turns out, Fieldstone doesn’t know (Why would he?) but he does know where the MONEY was going: Half of it sent to a P.O. box in a small town in S. Carolina. 

We cut to the activity board at Riverdale High.  There’s the cross country team, the life guards, the tryout notice for baseball, the track and field team, the Bulldogs, and some place with new classes to which all students are welcome.  Black Athena, the literary club, has a really fabulous, well designed poster, except it’s really kind of obnoxious.  It’s a club that you can attend “By Invite Only” except they also tell you when they hold  meetings.   Who’s idea was it to be so meangirl about this? If it’s invite only why put up a sign?

Clay is talking about Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man which I have not read.  Clay, Tabitha and Toni are there, as are two other black students.  Tabitha is wearing a wonderful cardigan - navy blue with golden butterflies set off by embroidered shiny things all round.  Toni says something about how the writing feels jazzy and improvisational, to which Clay, who is revealing a sort of annoying know-it-all-and-monologue-in-a-discussion aspect of his personality, agrees with by providing  factoid about the author (he played jazz trumpet).   Tabitha is not a fangirl of Ellison because he reveals a sexist attitude in his critique of  Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (which is a book I *have* read and found amazing so 1 for me on the Tabitha side of things.)   The show gives a new-to-me black male character the final word on Hurston - that she wrote in a caricatured way for a white audience.  (Being Korean and not an American I have no way to participate in this sort of debate.)     The other woman there, whose name I also don’t know, says that she dislikes Ellison for being dark and angry all the time with no reprieve.  This time it’s Clay that phrases a disagreement about a work of art with a woman in the form of a CORRECTION.  Clay and the other guy will brook no criticism about Eliison, apparently.  

When Clay says “our skin” a white teacher (female) issues a warning - a sort of harrumphing. 

Toni says she’s really “digging this conversation” but I really am not.  This feels like someone went and cribbed a  term paper available for free on the 2022 internet, plus Clay and this other guy are just being sexist clods who won’t hear any woman criticize their hero.  Toni of course has to try to salvage this situation because this club was her idea, but that is disappointing.  She does turn the conversation over to seek everyone’s thoughts on Their Eyes Were Watching God. 

Cheryl was walking by in her cheerleader uniform, so of course she takes a creepy peek into the room before leaving.

Meanwhile, Reggie and Archie are out driving, top down to take in the pristine air, having a blast.  Reggie is whooping it up.  

In the hallway at school, Fangs tells Midge (who still looks very not pregnant but also somehow everyone knows?) that he has a gig in Centerville, where the headliner is Richie Valens.  There will be producers scouting for talent. 

OH MY GOD I MISS JOSIE.

I can’t begin to express my horror at what I thought was the inevitable prospect of Fangs performing a whole number.   He wants a very excited Midge NOT to come because it’s the boonies in a rough part of town.  His whole plan for marriage and fatherhood is to be a rich and famous musician.  Is this the Romeo and Juliet storyline, where they are given a really stupid plan by a really stupid priest (Toni) and go about executing it in the stupidest way possible?

In the student lounge, Jughead is telling Tabitha all about his recent findings - about the PO Box, about the money.  Tabitha immediately catches on - this sort of behavior does not seem like suicidal ideation to her.  (Is it not? I have no idea).  When Jughead brings up his plan to a) break into a dead man’s apartment that is b) being investigated by the police, such as it is and c) snoop into a near-stranger’s personal life when the possibility of consent is nonexistent, Tabitha says the thing that marks her as a true-blue denizen of Riverdale:  “Would you maybe want some company for that?”

This 50s Tabitha just like the OG one - she who was up for cosplaying a truck stop prostitute to bait a serial killer, the one who went on a mushroom trip with Betty who had always been sketchy to her, sold to them by the sketchiest person possible (Jughead’s NY girlfriend Jess) in the weirdest location ever (the underground bunker where Jughead once ran away from in his underpants, leaving only bloody handcuffs behind), his desire to commit arson etc.  Same energy, really.  Plus being a black girl in the company of a white boy in a dead white man’s apartment - isn’t the peril for her possibly quadruple whatever might befall Jughead if things go sideways??

Meanwhile, Betty and Veronica are choosing  THEIR dream threesome partners, trying to make the choice between Marlon Brando and Paul Newman.  Well, Veronica is asking about dream threesome partner, but Betty answers a question that isn’t asked. She answers the fuck/marry/kill question, with kill omitted.  So she’d fuck Marlon Brando and marry Paul Newman.  Which I think is literally everyone’s answer.   

Veronica lays another heavy handed compliment on Betty Cooper (“Your skin is glowing”) to which Betty says that having Alice no longer try to ‘mother’ her has been the thing that’s been great for her skin.  Of course, being banished from your mom’s home altogether to be drop kicked into Riverdale like Veronica is different from Alice Cooper pitching a hissy fit to ‘stay out of ‘ her daughter’s life are categorically different, but as I’ve said, Veronica Lodge of the 1950s AU is deeply lonely, so she will take whatever common ground she can find with literally anyone.   She tells Betty that their mutual (but very different) motherless situations means they are “independent’ and “unconstrained.”

Just then, Reggie and Archie finally roll into school together. They’re both wearing their letter jackets but that also means they color coordinate together as a set with the car.  Someone whistles at the three of them - the car, Reggie and Archie.  Betty’s eyes light up. Veronica suggests that they have their “very own Marlon and Paul to play with” at the school, so all that about tossing boys’ expectations to the wind is hereby canceled.   Veronica and Betty are giving the two the most heated, knowing looks, but neither Reggie nor Archie even notice, because they are so sated by the car.

Which I don’t understand.  I commute via long distance drive every weekday, but I just don’t have this sort of relationship with cars. 

Determined to make good on her word, Veronica approaches Reggie at his locker.  His locker has what looks like a schedule, a pinup of a dark haired bathing beauty standing against a surf board, photo of cars, and something else I can’t make out.  Veronica apologizes standing Reggie up the other day, seeking another chance.  Reggie turns out to be very very smooth.  He says, “I’m not scared of the chase, but in my experience, some people don’t really wanna be caught. Is that you?”

Sir. SIR? 

Wow.

Veronica invites him to give chase, so Reggie asks to borrow Archie’s car to take Veronica on that date.  It’s not the borrowing of the car that bothers Archie about this proposal - it’s that he wants Veronica to keep her silky manicured mitts off of Reggie. When Reggie insists, Archie gives in, applying what they recently learned in school  (Mi casa es tu casa!).  They shake hands at a very low level that made me initially think that Reggie was slapping Archie’s ass.   Reggie is so happy.  It was both entertaining and a bit odd to see these two act like bouncy teenagers in s7 when in all previous seasons they’ve been very intense and not particularly playful with each other. 

Toni is explaining how much she loves Black Athena  to Cheryl, who isn’t invited.   She calls it “finally something worthwhile and worthy.”  Which is a deeply insensitive thing to say to Cheryl, who is the head cheerleader, dance captain of the local danceathon tv show, and president of the James Dean fan club.   Further, she’s the one who bankrolled this endeavor by either embezzling the funds or  out of pocket  (at some unstated personal sacrifice to herself).  Is this justice for Cheryl, that she funds a club to which she is not invited, only to be told how amazing it is by the person she expressly enable to create it?

Cheryl is wearing a wonderful cardigan, scarlet let with lots of embroidered jewel details.  

Cheryl confesses that she took a peek inside the room that one time when the Black Athena meeting was happening.   Toni agrees that this meeting was indeed ‘tremendous’ which I have doubts about because it looked like the typical thing where men monopolize the conversation unless they’re ‘correcting’ the opinion of a woman who disagreed with them.  Because Cheryl will not be allowed into the room as far as Toni is concerned, Toni feels safe talking about Clay’s tendency to ‘take the floor’ too much behind his back, though she didn’t do anything to back up either of the other women when the discussion was actually happening.

Seriously, what is happening with Toni?

Cheryl is being a very sweet girlfriend.  Where Toni has been prattling off about how her bookclub is the most awesome, only-worthwhile-thing-ever, blah blah, Cheryl when asked about how she’s doing only says that she really misses Toni and desires her and wants to be intimate with her.  

Toni does not feel the same.

She’d rather read and prepare for the next meeting of her “tremendous” book club where Clay drones on nonstop than spend time with Cheryl.  Because Cheryl thought that Toni accepting the money meant something about her emotional re-engagement, not realizing that Toni is vain and self-centered enough to think that hearing about how very pleased with herself she is should be sufficient for Cheryl. 

Cheryl really has it so bad for Toni, because this is one of the lowliest forms of date rejection ever (I have to read for my bookclub?!??!), yet she doesn’t give up. She tries to finagle an invitation to this club that WOULD NOT EXIST but for her providing the funds for it.  Toni refuses even that.  What Toni says is that she wants to make sure ‘everyone’ is comfortable, but of course she means SHE is uncomfortable.  Then she sets a date - towards the END of the semester - with additional qualitative conditions - “when Black Athena is more established.”  And I can’t help but add, when Finals are around the corner and clubs tend to slowly cease their activities.  I think Toni is betting that by the end of the semester, she will find alternative sources of funding for this project so that she won’t even have to do this showing-off-but-calling-it-conversation that she’s doing with Cheryl.

Why is this happening with Toni?  She’s being actively made an asshole, but she wasn’t really that kind or nice a character to begin with, so it’s not like this shows some shocking new aspect.  Toni was always the kind of person who bought a bar so she could force people to watch her sing karaoke while writhing her heavily pregnant body around with a snake on her shoulders.  Egotism was a feature of this character. So why the added emphasis?

The two of them hold hands (very nervously, on Cheryl’s part).  They both have very long, very pointed nails, which I would normally object to in the context of Choni but since they’re not fucking at all, I guess I have to let that go. By the by- Cheryl seems NOT AT ALL out.  Does she know or will she ever find out that Toni outed her to Clay and Tabitha, whom she has not been shown to ever be talking to, and that they had no reaction to that outing?

Elsewhere in school, the heterosexuals are being wholesome and nontoxic. (Toni, LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE).  Betty asks out Archie and they both smile adorably with their huge, perfect American teeth.  Betty wants to go out on the date TONIGHT, except of course, they can’t use the car because Reggie and Veronica have it.   Archie doesn’t want to do anything sexual with anyone without that damn car - the prospect of bus and walk are just horrific to him, but for Betty the point is to be on a date with Archie, so she doesn’t mind.

Jughead has made good on his word, broke into the Rayberry apartment and is sifting through his stuff.  This is the same apartment that Jabitha live in together, both in Rivervale and Riverdale.  Rayberry has the same sort of ship-tossed-by-the-sea artwork that Jughead and Fred Andrews also favored.  Tabitha is of course with him.  It’s Tabitha who finds the motherload of letters, including a photo of June, taken in 1948.   June Simpson, a black woman, wrote a whole brick’s worth of love letters to Rayberry from South Carolina.  June has her name, address and phone number in Rayberry’s little black book. 

Jughead braves the phone call.  He addresses June as “Mrs. Simpson” but she doesn’t react to that designation.  Instead she wants to know who it is.  His voice very gentle and with as much courtesy as he can muster, Jughead tells the lady that Rayberry is dead. As she begins with weep, he answers her questions - he isn’t sure how Rayberry died, he hopes he didn’t suffer, they were coworkers, and his apartment is in Seaside, on Magnolia Street.   She’s also extremely polite and composed through her tears, thanking Jughead for his offer to ‘tidy up’ Rayberry’s apartment.

At school, where the ground is very wet outside, Kevin is staring off into the distance on the steps.  When asked about it by Cheryl, he says that he was “floating on a cloud” because he just heard Clay recite his “Ode to Sidney” (Poitier??) at a meeting of Black Athena.  I’m grateful to the show for not making me hear this.  From the way Kevin is reacting, I assume this was an erotic poem to the magnificence of Sidney Poitier, and of course Kevin would get off on something like that.  More importantly, Cheryl is shocked that Kevin got the invitation. 

At her date with Archie, Betty is talking about how much she is enjoying being liberated from Alice’s attention.  Archie is (understandably) bored by this conversation, as anyone would be, because this is not good date talk, but more than that, of course, he’s thinking about his car.   He’s not listening to her AT ALL.  The conversation goes from bad to worse.  “I’m wondering were Reggie and Veronica are on their date!” Archie says.  Why aren’t they at the diner (with his car!)? Archie would like to know. Betty is extremely annoyed. 

At the coffee house, Cheryl confronts Toni in the most passive aggressive way (“Kevin says it was amazing, life changing even!”)  about the inconsistency in Toni being extremely cautious about inviting Cheryl when Clay could just call another clueless white person into a Black Athena meeting.  Toni says something very pointed - that Clay could “invited his boyfriend” when he is going to recite a poem, which means Cheryl is not her girlfriend.  I mean, Kevin and Clay aren’t out, are they, about their relationship?  Or is that why Keller is so distracted in his police duties?   Does he want to suicide because his son came out?? 

In the most begrudging, unsmiling way possible, Toni hands Cheryl the book that will be discussed, sighing, and says she can come.  Which means that the whole bit about making sure everyone else was comfortable and all that was just a lie. 

That night, Reggie comes home to the Andrews house very late.  Archie is waiting like a disapproving father (of the car, which is gendered female), yelling at Reggie like he’s a guy who took advantage of his ‘little girl.’  He calls Reggie “Mantle” and is mean for the first time - “That is your last time in my car.”

I’m with Archie on this one. When someone lends you their car, you should bring it home in a reasonable amount of time. Reggie being obnoxiously not-sorry about the late hour did not help his case at all.  Instead of just explaining himself, he says that he DID take advantage of Archie’s daughter -  I mean, car.  Took her out on the highway, ‘opened her up’ etc. 

The next morning, Uncle Fucking Frank is trying to take care of his bag, which is intimately tied to Reggie Mantle being willing to be a free boarder at Mary Andrews’ house (WHERE DID SHE GO?) so he can be the only competent basketball player at RIverdale (thereby allowing Uncle Fucking Frank to keep his job as coach).  He urges Archie to give Reggie a break, because he’s far from home, far from family, and grew up scraping by without the Andrews’ boys’ advantages.

Betty is sucking on her lollipop of sexual frustration because of her terrible date with Archie yesterday.  Veronica wants the full skinny, but then both girls end up confessing that both of their dates were not fun. Both boys were distracted.  Betty seems almost to be over Archie - she suggests switching dance partners to try again.  I’m not sure if she meant switch partners with Veronica or find a new set of boys, but Veronica is still very hot to trot for Reggie, so she doesn’t like that idea.  She suggests a double date, telling the lollipop wielding Betty that they need to give their beaus a chance to “redeem themselves for being such unlicked cubs.”  She wants everyone to go to the concert that Fangs mentioned earlier - where “hipsters and hepcats” will be. 

Hepcat was actually a word back in the day, it’s not a Riverdaleism.  Why did it fall out of favor while hipster went on to have a modern life? 

This is an interesting bit of self censorship that Veronica keeps engaging in. She never corrects or says no to Betty.  She just suggests something different, in order to distract her from the Betty idea she doesn’t like.

In the student lounge, Tabitha gives Jughead a summary of what she’s learned about the Rayberry’s marriage.  They got married in New York, then moved to S. Carolina where their relationship became the target of the KKK (brick through the window, burning cross on the lawn, no help from the police).   Tabitha finds their love story beautiful. The Rayberry’s plan was to get June’s family somewhere safe before leaving for Paris.  Because this plan seems so future oriented, Jabitha find it ever more unlikely that Rayberry suicided.  I find this all rather unsupported  by how Rayberry was living his life.  Why not try to sell his novel, for example?   Plus the thought that a black woman and a white man would marry in NYC and then go to South Carolina to start their mixed race family makes me think they were really, really silly people, tragic as their story is.   Tabitha says that she saw racist attacks and incidents all the time when she was on tour for the Emmett Till remembrance campaign. Tabitha’s sartorial theme is butterflies - she’s wearing a butterfly belt.

Archie catches up with Reggie to apologize, to which Reggie also finally apologizes.  He says he’s “car crazy” to a literal disease level.  They make up, and just in time - Veronica and Betty want to be taken on a double date to Centerviille. 

At the Native Son discussion at Black Athena, both Cheryl and Kevin are there. Why does Clay get to be the master of ceremonies?  Is it because Toni, though she’s black, needed to have blackness explained to her by Tabitha?   (Oh, I haven’t read this book either.)  Clay is insufferable, as well as very incompetent as a book discussion reader.  He insists that the correct opinion is to find the book “harrowing and thought provoking” but honestly, and this is true for any book, anyone can find any volume opaque or irrelevant, just as much.  He also controls who gets to speak when.  Why is Toni, THE FOUNDER, and a weak ass piece of shit, allowing this to happen? 

Tabitha turns out to be much better at this than Clay: “The book asks, where does the responsibility lie.”  

According to Riverdale, the plot of Native Son involves a man killing a woman, but even though a girl is murdered, the main message (in service of which a woman character was femicided) is about white ignorance.  The reader is supposed to hold hands with a woman killer because he was oppressed by the “box that white society built around him” (according to Tabitha). 

Pause and sidebar to ask some questions.  Is this a fair summary of Native Son?  Further, why is Riverdale taking it upon itself to tell this story?  And for non-American women (uh, me) a man killing a woman in the story is not going to make me want to read it if the ‘correct’ reading is to brush her killing aside to talk about the very specific, America-only problem of coping with the legacy of racialized chattel slavery.  Clay having read this book three times almost makes me determined not to read it, because he’s OBNOXIOUS.  The unnamed(?) black woman in the group says what she evidently thinks might be a ‘hot take’ - “All right I’ll say it” before she gives her thought, but Clay can’t help himself.  He shoots down her thought AND shuts down her ability or opportunity to say anything more because he obnoxiously tells her someone else, someone better, a MAN no less, already had her exact thought already (“And James Baldwin would agree with you.”)

Because I don’t know this book, I’m only reacting to the gender dynamics of this discussion group and the way it’s unfolding, and now I think that Clay is as much a woman hating piece of shit as Kevin, which is why they are so happy together.  Clay just WILL NOT LET women speak, ever.  He also puts Cheryl on the spot. 

In a panic, Cheryl initially says that she has nothing to add. This vow to keep quiet was something that she offered Toni when she forced this invitation out of her, to which TONI DID NOT DISAGREE, but at this moment, Toni abandons her wholesale,  shooting her a look of disapproval.

Other than the fact that Toni is the only out girl she knows, what the hell is Cheryl’s attraction to this shitty person? 

Anyway, when pushed, Cheryl does come up with some cogent things to say.  That the novel is powerful, and that the “family in the book, the Daltons” seemed familiar to her in “unpleasant ways.”    Apparently, the other black male student’s name is “Jeremy” according to the closed captioning I just turned on.  He’s exactly the one that is made uncomfortable by Cheryl’s presence.  Or maybe he’s actually more sensitive than Toni and Clay - that is, this book has as its main plot point the murder of a young white girl, after all.   Anyway, Jeremy takes Cheryl to task asking “Is Native Son the only novel by a Black author that you’ve ever read?”   

For some reason, Cheryl is supposed to feel bad about this even though none of this has been in her formal education.  Clay steps in to offer Cheryl his syllabus of must-read books.  This isn’t really for Cheryl’s benefit though.  It’s  because Kevin apparently started from the same place of unfamiliarity, so Clay is defending himself for having brought the first clueless white newbie to this book club more than he’s trying to be of service to Cheryl.  Did Jeremy ask this same question in that same way to Kevin when he came to his first Black Athena meeting?  Why was THAT awkward initial encounter never referred to or shown?

WHY ARE WE TAKING CARE OF KEVIN FUCKING KELLER IN THE STORY AND PUTTING CHERYL BLOSSOM ON THE SPOT?  

And why allow white people into this space at all?  Simply because Clay’s vanity needed Kevin simping for him live as he simped for Sidney?  I thought the point of this group was to showcase black writers, while providing the black students a safe place to say what they needed to say (which was already hampered by a disapproving white teacher).  Did they change their minds?  Because this seems to have lost its way a bit, in Clay wanting to evangelize (and show off) about black literature to white people, which is a categorically different conversation.  

Jughead, whenever he finds something out, has to go directly to the  authorities, so he’s done that here.  He is giving Sheriff Keller some very unwanted additional homework.  Jughead says “disguising murder as suicide has been a gimmick in detective fiction since” forever.  Keller doesn’t want to do the homework, so he asks how well Jughead knew Rayberry.   Then he lays out some unflattering facts about Rayberry - communist, draft dodger, war protester, dope fiend, mental illness sufferer.  The file compiled on Rayberry is quite thick.  Keller, whose son is living (I think?) a secret gay life, which is the same Keller, who cultivates a consultant-client relationship with prostitutes while a cop, says that someone with a lot of secrets is inevitably going to commit suicide.  That is to say - he really, really doesn’t want to do any real detective work.   Jughead glares at him. 

Clay doesn’t do any of the clean up after the Black Athena meeting. That sort of housework he leaves to the women.  And Cheryl has volunteered for maid duty.  (I did not expect that this is the episode where I hate Clay, but I hate Clay now).   Cheryl stayed to hear Toni’s thoughts.  Toni says she was relieved, that she was worried about everyone’s discomfort (Cheryl’s and her other friends, in turn) but that’s a lie. She was worried about being called out for having a clueless white (ex?) girlfriend, i.e. she was worried for herself.   Cheryl is very honest  - she says that she WAS uncomfortable, and that Toni’s other friends were also uncomfortable (especially Jeremy) but Toni glides over that with “everyone settled in nicely” because above all else, she can’t have this thing she started, The Black Athena Club, not be a success.  Even though it’s called ATHENA and a man completely takes over every conversation.  

Cheryl comes out as actually heroic.   From this conversation, even though Toni didn’t say a single word to or for her, even though Clay put her on the spot and then condescended to her, even though Jeremy made her the representative to be low key told off for not including black writers in Riverdale’s curriculum - even though all this happening, Cheryl still came to the correct conclusion, that her unaware white self should not be changing the nature of what Black Athena was founded for.  She’s alert enough to figure out, unprompted, that her very presence alters things in a profound way.

There are so many things weird about this.  Cheryl coming to this astonishing level of self awareness that there are spaces necessary in which the majority members of a diverse society should not seek a seat and that her very presence might be a detraction, is actually out of character for Cheryl.  This is too advanced for where and who she is, for one.  For another, Riverdale the show gathered its sparse number of black characters with names and speaking roles into one room to have their own space to discuss black literature, but constructed a plot so that CHERYL, a BLOSSOM, a rich white girl descended directly from land snatching (implied) genociders, is the one with the hero’s journey.  Granted, she paid for it, so that interpersonal weirdness between Cheryl and Toni is just making things murkier.

Toni seems relieved (I think she was worried Cheryl might pull funding OR not be her back up funding next semester).  And Cheryl is giving me whiplash because I said all that I said above about her having the heroic arc with Black Athena, but I also spoke too soon (even though this is my second time through).

Because what Cheryl is really after is more time with Toni.  To be close to Toni, to understand Toni, to have things to talk about with Toni, and get into Toni’s pants.  She’s willing to plough through whatever homework Toni wants to set her to feel OK dating Cheryl Blossom.    Cheryl is rewarded for her good behavior by Toni asking her out on the date to the concert in Centerville.   I am very sick of this. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Rayberry is talking about her dead husband with Tabitha and Jughead. She reads it to them. Rayberry was going to try to get his novel published, which he hoped would get them enough money “to buy your parents a place in the city and move to Paris.”   Thanks to his relationship with Jughead (which he seems to have never mentioned to her), Rayberry was “filled with such optimism about” the future.  They all agree that thai doesn’t seem suicidal in the least. 

Jughead feels the need to check in with the widow about the ‘negative’ things Keller told him about Rayberry.  She is very patient and kind, providing an explanation for each item.  He did protest the Korean War but he fought in the uh, good one, I guess (Full disclosure: My whole life, which I’ve enjoyed very much so far, would be impossible without the American men who fought and died in the Korean War.)  His injury in WW2 got him addicted to opium,  his stay at mental hospital was a voluntary self-check in, and he went to Communist gathering in the Great Depression (because capitalism had a big hiccough then). 

Mrs. Rayberry says that her husband was “an optimist despite everything that life threw at him.” I mean, he had to have been. It also explains the extreme attracting Jughead Jones felt for him too.  Jughead Jones is attracted to hope.   “Always believing something better is around the corner” has the same ring to it as “I’ll figure something out, I always do.”

Jughead makes a face that lets us know he is going to get really feral about this new fixation.  He wants to know who may have wanted to harm Brad Rayberry, and why.  Mrs. Rayberry is too heartsick and sad, only able to say that the world is a tough place (to which Tabitha has a very emotional reaction), but she won’t stop or forbid Jughead from investigating what really may have happened.  

In an abrupt change of pace we check in with Reggie, Archie, Veronica, Betty and the two boys’ obsession with cars, all out on a joint date at Pop’s.  The boys are poring over some car magazine, which Veronica belatedly recognizes was a bad idea to permit them to get.  They try to get the boys’ attention (but why though?).  Veronica says she used to be driven around by Steve McQueen, to which Betty one ups her and says she’s a V8 fixing expert.   This does make Archie lift his head from his car porn to actually look at her face for just a second.  But then it’s right back to car porn, so the girls get them out of there and on to the road.

Except Reggie and Archie confront each other about who gets to drive.  Reggie drove to the diner, so Archie wants to drive to Centerville.  They biker while the two fed up hotties step out ahead of them.

Mrs. Rayberry takes her leave of the two young people.  She is going to give Rayberry a proper burial, then get his novel published.   She also, as I guess the executor of his estate, gives Jughead Jones express permission to adapt his stories into comic books.  Jughead says that he’ll get Pep Comics to do some sort of tribute issue (with proceeds going to the estate.)  

Then, Mrs. Rayberry asks Jabitha if they’re going steady.  These two have the single cutest romantic moment in the whole episode.  They’re both startled by the question, though not at all displeased. Jughead understands the question first, saying, Oh no, no, while Tabitha takes a moment to comprehend it (“Who, Us??”).  After saying No No, while grinning in a pleased way, Jughead says, “I mean…” and stops talking while he stares at Tabitha like the sun is rising from her forehead.  When Tabitha says, We’re classmates, he turns quickly to look at Mrs. Rayberry wondering if she caught him saying “I mean..”    Then Tabitha adds that they are “friends, I would say,” which makes Jughead so disappointed for a second that he can’t look at anybody. He does recover though, enough to say “Good friends, good friends, yeah. Pals.”   When he says PALS though, it’s Tabitha’s turn to be disappointed - she gives him a quick sideways look, which he feels like a touch on his cheek, causing him to look back at her. 

Mrs. Rayberry tells them to take care of each other, before leaving.  I love that her gloves, belt, and hat are all the same color.  It looks so stylish. 

On the Riverdale faildate, the car has broken down.  Apparently, it’s just empty of gas, not broken. So the two girls send the boys off to get the gas.  While she and Betty “stay here and huddle for warmth.”

The long walk back along the road would be shortened quite a bit by being able to hitch a ride, but the boys are out of luck.  Archie is tired of Reggie continuing to paw at his vehicle, so he suggests that he ask his sponsor for a car instead.  Ask for it as a star player’s perk.  “Is that how you see me? As a germ who’s looking for handouts?”  I mean, Archie being unable to refuse fancy gifts from the Blossoms is canon, so I don’t think that he thinks that’s at all a bad thing.   Reggie gets all defensive, using words like “uppity” and “waxing your car” and “forgetting my place”  and so on, but Archie, when it comes to his car, will not let his focus get derailed and won't get drawn into a battle of words.  So, they fight physically about it, on the dark side of the dark road.  Reggie gets the upper hand, telling Archie to “submit.”

Meanwhile, it’s the lesbians to the rescue!  Cheryl pulls up with Toni and Midge in tow, asking if Veronica and Betty are having car trouble.  Betty explains their situation, so Toni invites them to hop in.  Betty worries about the boys, but Veronica has it right.  “Who cares about the boys,” she says, grinning from ear to ear as she skips out of the stalled car. 

At the Diner, Jughead is discussing their evening with Tabitha.  The meeting with June and reading her letters served as a reminder that she needs to go “back on the road with my folks.”  She’d originally wanted to rest, but not anymore.  Jughead says he supports her (“There’s nothing more meaningful than that.”)  He says he wants to court her (“Maybe I’ll send you some letters too.”)  

Archie and Reggie are all disheveled and out of sorts, so Pops, giving them a container of gas, tells them that he has a junker he wants to unload on Reggie.  Reggie gives him a big hug.   Then, on the walk back to the car, Reggie confesses that he took the car all the way home when he had it that night.  He confesses to being homesick, and Archie, who hasn’t really gotten a big grief-related monologue like Jughead gave about Rayberry, says that his grief has settled into a feeling of homesickness for his best friend.  (Not surprising, because in Fred’s place has come the terrible Uncle Fucking Frank, who also somehow managed to make Mary Andrews completely disappear.) 

Archie says that he hasn’t had a best friend since his father died.  Reggie suggests Betty might be a best friend candidate, but Archie just looks back at him.  What’s that mean?    I’m not sure but apparently she’s not a candidate for best friendship anymore, now that they have sexual feelings for each other.  

The whole Beggie / Retty (whatever that ship name is) undercurrents are interesting.

Reminding me that I can’t recall the last time Jughead and Archie actually had a conversation, Reggie asks why it is that “Beef Soup? Soup Can?”” can’t be the best friend.  I think in the comics, Jughead had a brother Souphead? Is that where the Soup references come from? Archie laughs as he asks,”Do you mean Jughead?” but he doesn’t confirm or deny anything about him either.  Reggie sums it up as “I guess you can’t really talk V8s with him.”   Archie does call Jughead a “good egg” and Betty? He seems like he has so much to say about her he can’t get any of the words out.  Reggie looks disappointed.

More Beggie/Retty undercurrent.

Also, if OG Jughead knew that Archie in this universe was this tepid about him, he would be so completely crushed. 

Reggie’s mystery parents, who they can never show us because of the mishandled race relations episode, are happy Reggie landed with good people.  I mean, we’ll see if Reggie gets that scholarship that he needs so badly or if Julian like, takes a bat to Reggie’s knee in a fit of jealousy or something, but for now, they’re not wrong.  He’s roommates with Archie, has adjusted more or less OK to the new school, and he’s doing great at his basketball.

Both of them finally remember that they left behind the two girls in the open top car a while back. They giggle about the prospect of being told off by Betty and Veronica.   Of course, the girls aren’t there!

Riverdale did a wonderful thing in sparing me from Fangs’ concert.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Fangs was apparently a big hit.  Everyone wants his autograph. We have to listen to his very karaoke version of Tutti Frutti but still, it could’ve been a lot worse.   He’s carried his guitar to school in the most douchey way possible.  Midge being at the concert was “his lucky charm” which netted him a contact with a producer at Phantom Rock Records.  I hope it’s a scam.

The school is indeed allowing Reggie to keep Pop’s old vehicle in the shop class lab. Reggie is already working very hard on it. He’s named the car Bella.  Archie says it’s in even worse shape than his own car had been.  He’s come to offer his help, but it turns out that Betty was the one Reggie called on to help. This might be the first time in his life that Archie is facing some sort of rejection.  He not unreasonably must have thought that all the inquiry about best friendships from Reggie was an application to occupy the spot himself, which is why he didn’t cop to his childhood best friendships with either Betty or Jughead. Alas, it turns out Betty is the preferred partner in this instance. (More Beggie/Retty undercurrent!)

Betty says the concert yesterday was excellent.  Archie is awkwardly the third wheel as Reggie and Betty work fluidly together on Bella.

At the Rayberry apartment, Jughead is cleaning up when there’s a knock at the door . It’s a lady with a cat held in her arms like a baby. I am so jealous. I’ve never had nor met a cat that allowed any person to do that.  She wants milk, which she is sure is going to be in Rayberry’s fridge.  She heard the milkman make a delivery to this apartment, because the cat had a strong reaction to the milkman’s bottles clinking.  Jughead has his first clue!

[renneiscent]

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Note: Life hits me so hard so I decided to pour it into writing. I'm not sure with this though but I will just drop it and get back as soon as I can to continue haha. Please excuse my writing and messy grammar since English is not my mother tongue. I wish you could bear it and enjoy my writing.

Summary: Three years after the Duskwood tragedy... is it tragedy though or more like one of those memories which leaving the bittersweet after-taste in your life? Living the ordinary life without the hackerboy seems the best option so far, or you want the universe to pull you back and let you drown in the unknown and bizarre event like what happened in three years ago?

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Chapter 1: The Momentous Choice

It’s been three years after the incident which changed my life completely. It’s been three years after the bizarre event which is stained like a gum under my shoe that so hard to get rid of… or it’s just me who didn’t want—never want to get rid those memories of. It’s been three years after Duskwood. Three years, huh? Time flies so fast but the memories, the wounds, everything still stay the same. They said time will heal everything, but I think it depends with the condition too. Or am I the one who don’t allow my own self to be healed yet?

I’m not sure.

Three years has passed; everyone is still in the Duskwood, Phil got out from prison and Aurora is getting the popularity back. Only Rogers’ family moved out from Duskwood. Of course, it is understandable after everything that happened with their son. Hannah is also being better and better, Lily and Thomas keeps making sure with that. Hanson’s family seems like have so much sympathy after everything since they choose to let Hannah go just like that after the veracity of the story is revealed. And Jake…

“It’s time for you to let go, MC.” Jessy sips her cappuccino after saying those hurtful words. “I already buried my memories with Richy and I hope you do the same thing,” her tone is quite flat but her gaze is still showing grief. It doesn’t look like you move on already, Jess.

I can only serve her with the silence. The words I want to let out, it’s just clinging inside my throat and then disappear like thin air. She is not completely wrong and I hate the fact that she is absolutely right with this. It’s been three years already and my last interaction with Jake was kind of… not quite charming.

JAKE: MC. MC: Jake! Are you okay? What happened? Did you manage to hide? JAKE: MC. JAKE: Forget everything I just said just like how I will erase the conversation and everything between us. MC: Jake, what did you mean? This is not funny. JAKE: MC. JAKE: Take care.

JAKE IS NOW OFFLINE

I sigh, playing with the straw of my iced tea. I wonder what actually happened with him; after saying that he loved me, then in several hours he showed up just to end everything out of the blue. I want him to explain, but how could I? When his trace is no longer exist as if he’s never been here at all, as if he’s just an illusion I created to escape from Hannah’s case.

Thanks to Jessy and everyone, because if it’s not because of them that still remembering Jake… I really thought I already lost my mind by creating a hallucination which helping me to investigate Hannah. I really almost lost myself when he erased everything like it was nothing, till the point I was in the state that will do everything just to find him and ask him to explain everything, or even kick his ass so hard for leaving me like that.

I tried so hard to find his trace, hell… I tried really hard. I searched from everything just to look for the glimpse of him even it’s just as tiny as the dust. But not even a little particle could I find and reach with fingertips. What did I even think, I should realise to trace back a hacker isn’t that simple; especially when even the FBI is involved. I should just praying to God for making him still breathing well and no harm laying on him.

I chuckle and of course my sudden chuckle makes Jessy flinched, making her to look at me worriedly. “It’s just funny,” I said as I sip my iced tea; answering her question even though she didn’t say it out loud. “How a short encounter can make me stress for years.”

It’s been a while since I have long conversation with Jessy. She took her days off and begged to pay me visit and here she is, completely sleeping deeply next to me in my small apartment after we spent our weekend for whole day. After what happened with Richy, she’s been through a lot but then she still choose to keep staying in Duskwood and opening flower shop. It’s just a typical of the angst story I used to read when I was in high school, but if it’s the best for her… then I couldn’t complain.

While she is sleeping so deep, here I’m next to her staring at the ceiling above me. My mind is wandering to somewhere I shouldn’t pay attention with. It’s been so long, but why I couldn’t erase it all like he did? I get up from the bed and walk to my desk, getting something out from the drawer. I’m looking at the thing on my hand, the old scratches on its screen, I smile dryly. I turn on my old phone, the mute witness that looking at everything I’ve been through and that include with what happened in Duskwood. All of the conversations I had with them are inside here, except for Jake. Even the screenshots I took from our last conversation also gone like it’s another of my illusion.

I’m searching everything inside my old phone, checking if there is something I miss out; gallery, message, even the email… but nothing. The email I used to send to Jake is also disappeared and of course Hannah’s cloud which used to be attached on my phone, but that’s also no longer there. He is completely gone. I take a deep breath as I turn my old phone off and put it back to the drawer.

There is nothing good to stay in the past; I need to move on like Jessy said… like Jessy also tries to do. I need to put everything behind. After all, I have job to be taken care of. Life as a journalist is enough to keep me busy and put my mind away from everything.

But it’s hard when I’m walking down the street, smelling the delicious smell from the Chinese restaurant across the street. It’s hard when I’m watching the Ghostbuster’s DVD that I borrowed from my colleague. It’s hard when I find a man with black hair and hold myself to not stare at them for hoping one of them is you. It’s really hard.

It’s hard when the sun is setting and the moon is above our head; when you told me about the farewell, that day when you decided to leave that is also the day that you left with half of me. The day when the concrete of our soon-to-be-home became collapsed as easy as the ocean waves crushed the little girl’s fragile sandcastle.

“God, you might be sick of hearing this,” I snickered. The night breeze is brushing my cheeks, playing with my hair while the cold of night didn’t even bother me at all. “But I miss him so much. Jake, do you even miss me like I do?” I whispered as if hoping the breeze will take my words to the air, make it flying to every corner of this world and then reach him and to his heart.

[dontmatterblog]

Gray out right says that he doesn’t like her and rejects her.

Not to mention the fact that when Lyon is hitting on Juvia, he backs off after being fully rejected, and during the Edolas arc when Edolas!Gray continuously hits on the uninterested Edolas!Juvia, it’s seen as weird and creepy, and he isn’t even a fraction as bad as Earthland!Juvia is to Earthland!Gray.

Many shippers were ready to fight Lyon for having the audacity to like Juvia when she said no, even after he backs off. Because No means No, and he needs to respect her wishes, which he did.

What they need to learn is that No means No REGARDLESS of gender.

Gray. Said. No. And there is nothing shippers or Juvia can do to change that.

As I’ve said before it’s okay if you don’t like them but baby they can only do what Mashima writes. That’s my whole point. You go into spaces on twitter where you can mute them. It’s fine you don’t like them but since it bothers you so badly you might want to mute Juvia, NaLu, Gruvia, and anything else that bothers you.

Gray didn’t like Juvia at first and I can admit that but Mashima the writer has always stated that he loved them as a ship so it was obvious they would get together. I’m not trying to make you love them. Gray did say no in the beginning but Mashima have stated in interviews and questions at the end of chapters who he was obsessed with for Gray. AGAIN ITS OKAY IF YOU DONT LIKE JUVIA OR GRUVIA.

I’m sorry you have been in terrible situations where Juvia’s character remind you of real people but Juvia isn’t real. She can only do what Mashima writes nothing more nothing less. Mashima has also stated during one of his lives that Juvia might not be understood outside of Japan because she is a girl they call a girl in love. He said it’s very popular in Japan and the reason why fans love her. He also said that fans in the west might not get it and that’s okay. It’s okay if you don’t get Juvia’s character but Juvia didn’t manipulate, force, and do anything to Gray because she’s a character and the only way for her to do any of that stuff is for Mashima to write it.

I think the issue you are having is that you applying real life to it too much. It’s okay. They not real and can’t hurt you. You might want to leave the fandom and just enjoy your graylu pocket of the fandom with fanart and fanfic because it appears to me that it’s consuming you. AGAIN YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIKE GRUVIA OR JUVIA. Just giving suggestions.

Gray said no in the beginning is correct and I agree with you on that but I’m an adult with my own little family only 28 and I don’t see the way you see it. I can’t change the way you see it no more than you can change the way I view the anime. I just don’t see none of what Juvia doing besides the stalking as anything bad. Yes she would denounce her love to Gray every chance she got and call other women love rival but those moments are suppose to be comedic relief. It’s also okay if you didn’t find them funny. I don’t find them funny either. I live in America and understand that Japan’s sense of humor is different from mine.

I’m praying you be alright at the end of the day. I just want you to see that Juvia is not a real person. You speak of her often as if she’s a living breathing human doing these things. I hate Mest but I don’t have to shout it to the rooftops and treat it like Mest is truly a person out here liking little girls. That’s my point. I agree with some of what you say especially about Gray telling her no in the beginning but Mashima didn’t take Gray’s as serious as you take them. If there’s anyone you gonna be upset with about how Juvia is it should be Mashima and not a character drawn on paper or digitally.

Also I know you don’t read 100YQ but Gray has declared his love for Juvia multiple times in the manga and Mashima has stated that he is growing Gray emotionally from the cold and closed off person he was in the original. Just fyi.

Again my post wasn’t to get you to like them but to realize you are mad at a character that is written by an author when it’s all the author doing.

Have a good day! Thank you.

[dalchiid]

Wow even Jimin had me fooled up until the very last moment. I thought he was genuinely being nice and wanting to spend some actual quality time with y/n. But now it makes sense why all the other brothers have been so weary of him when it comes to her. He’s destructive and chaotic at best, and I still can’t believe his kink is necrophilia. Hoseok’s reaction was appropriate. We already know how protective he is of y/n and what he did to Jiyoo is a living testimony of that, so Jimin should’ve known better. Well, at least Jimin was smart enough not to take things any further physically. Despite his scheming ways he’s still loyal to his brothers at the end of the day so perhaps that counts for something. Also it’s interesting how Hoseok hesitated to satisfy y/n’s “needs” given the circumstances. Basically he doesn’t mind using his own venom to satisfy any sexual urges, but Jimin’s is off limits? I wonder if it’s a territorial thing or if he was simply concerned about y/n not being in the right /consenting/ headspace.

I wonder if other brothers have distinct characteristics with their own venom too? Seeing as how Hoseok’s is pure euphoria and Jimin’s unbridled lust. Also if any of them have special powers like Namjoon being able to turn a human to a vampire.

Finally, anons wanting y/n to sleep with Namjoon feels like a line that shouldn’t even be crossed. Given the way he acted to Jimin using his venom on her I can’t imagine how absolutely maddening he’d react if one of his brothers were to actually go further than that. I’m afraid it’d be a true blood bath. Hoseok’s sense of smell is already sensitive as is towards a simple kiss between them, and that’s already crossing the line. So I can’t even begin imagine how he’d react to other more intimate places of her smelling like his brother.

Another great chapter! Your writing is brilliant as always and of course that sex scene was hot af.

— cloudy anon ☁️

(I’ve written a few asks so I’m going to start signing them off just to keep track since everyone always sends in such good ones, and until next time, take care <3)

Jimin really tricked Y/N into believing that he was nice despite the fact that she was warned about him. He can be really mean because he finds it funny and yes the necrophilia! Now we know why Jungkook hates the smell of the women he brings home. It's because they're dead.

Hoseok did what anyone would have done. He has his issues but punching Jimin was the best course of action. At least for me it was lol. It's not the first time Jimin has done something stupid. He likes messing with people. He's a bit sadistic if you think about it, but he does have his loyalty to his brothers that keeps him from getting into too much trouble.

Hoseok hesitated to help Y/N because he knew she was like this because of Jimin and not because he did something to her. It was a bit of a turn off for him but he went through with it because she really needed the help. So far the rest of the brothers have similar saliva to Hoseok. They are of varying states of high. Seokjin though is a little different. If you take too much of his saliva in one sitting it can cause hallucinations. As for special abilities we know Hoseok can control minds and Namjoon can turn people. Taehyung can alter people's emotions so he can calm, agitate, or make someone happy. Interesting that he can seeing as he's the one who gets angered easily.

If Hoseok were to ever find out Namjoon and Y/N had sex... I don't even want to think about it. He would never kill his brother but he'll definitely do damage. The type Namjoon would probably have to take a lot of time to heal from. And Y/N will probably never see the light of day ever again, but is it a risk she and Namjoon are willing to take? I have no idea but we'll see!

And thank you, thank you! I aim to please 😊

I'll be sure to tag your questions with cloudy anon ☁️ then so we can keep track! You take care as well 💜

[ananke-xiii]

“Beat Lucille” or when spoofing resurrection fails. Pt II.

Part I Part III

(I’ll do my best to tag this post will all the possible trigger warnings but I’ll say it here too: the content’s about Sam and Lucifer in “Beat the Devil” and all the implications of their “relationship” in the episode so I’ll touch upon a lot of sensitive themes)

I love Lucy!: comedifying Lucifer and aestheticizing Sam’s corpse.

Interestingly, Lucifer’s (forced-upon) intimacy with Sam is highlighted when he calls him “Sammy” or “Samuel” and who are the only two people who use those names for Sam? Of course, Dean and Rowena, respectively. I’ll write about Dean later because it’s time to focus on Rowena.

Sam’s peculiar relationship with Rowena isn’t exceptionally new but S13 does rebrand it a bit. Sam and Rowena are united in their fear of Lucifer and they’re also tied by the thread of “fate” because, for unknown reasons, the only Death Book that never changes its finale is Rowena’s: she will always die by the hands of Sam. S13 also explicitly states that Rowena can be redeemed if she helps the Winchesters out and so she does. This is the main reason why she appears in “Beat the Devil”, because they need the most powerful witch to cast the spell to open the rift to the other world. Or do they?

It turns out that they don’t really need her, after all. She tells Gabriel, who’s trying to blame her for his own “failure”, that “A drunk 6-year-old could execute that magic. It wasn’t the spellcaster or the spell. It was the ingredient”. So yeah, Rowena is here with us not as the Most Powerful Witch Ever Existed but as a trait d’union between Lucifer and Sam. She’s also the one who gives Lucifer the funniest nickname ever: Lucille.

Consistent with the episode’s parodic tone, Lucifer and Rowena “bicker” about gender stereotypes to cover up the biiiig elephant (or maybe… the piglet? I’ll explain later) in the room: this is not Gabriel anymore, this is the Archangel who had brutally murdered Rowena. Twice. The same Archangel she’s terrified of. The same abuser she has to face now and be in very close proximity of. This is very, very similar to what Sam will be forced to face later on in the episode in the same parodic fashion that tries to mask the horror.

While at the beginning of the episode Rowena is shown to know “a thing or two about wounded masculine pride” as she covertly “bicker” about sexuality with Gabriel, by now the latter has been substituted with Lucifer who’s trying to get a rise out of Rowena by belittling her not as a witch but as a woman (because he knows anger powers him up)((much to think about the meaning behind of all this but I digress)). Rowena doesn’t fall for that:

LUCIFER: I don’t know, Red. I think I’d be a tad insulted if I were you. It’s not like you’ve got the posh job here of babysitting me. I mean, there is a sort of old-fashioned rightness to it, if you think about it. The men going off to face the trials and glories of war. Woman staying home in the kitchen, where she belongs. ROWENA: I know you’re trying to bait me with your seeming Neanderthal misogyny. Anything to distract yourself from your profound, deeply emasculating humiliation. Mm. Sorry, Lucille, I’m not biting.

Rowena calls Lucifer “Lucille” because she’s making fun of his attempts at baiting her and is paying him back in kind without knowing that this is Lucifer’s plan all along. But, interestingly, Lucifer doesn’t bite either. And I think he doesn’t bite because it’s a bit true by virtue of who “Lucille” refers to, aka famous actress Lucille Ball from the sit-com I Love Lucy. Lucifer’s not being himself for a while now because he’s this sit-com version of himself which I’ve personally and maliciously named “Lucifer’s a virgin who can’t drive”.

I think the change started after Lucifer’s recycled stint as rock star in S12 but it was surely amped up in S13. Somehow we’re supposed to find him funny? Goofy? But at the same time we’re reminded, because of Jack’s storyline, that he’s evil-evil-evil, like irredeemably evil. It worked for Crowley so why doesn’t it work for Lucifer? Well, to me, it doesn’t work because of Sam and this episode shows it.

In the movie Beat the Devil the relationship between two male antagonists is written as a parody because they, as we would say  today, are “frenemies”. Peterson/Lucifer is the villain who’s also incredibly funny and Billy/Sam is the hero who’s also incredibly shrewd. They share the same interest which is going to “British East Africa” to acquire uranium to get rich. It’s not difficult to see the parallels with this SPN episode where “British East Africa” is the Apocalypse World and “uranium” is Jack and Mary with all the colonization’s implications that entail. One of the funniest moments in the movie is when Peterson compels Billy to take a plane together to go to British East Africa but their car to the airport breaks down on the Amalfi Coast (<3) and eventually crashes into the sea but, luckily, they are not in the car. People, however, think they’re dead when, lo and behold, they come back together to their hotel and everybody is shocked by their “resurrection” (just for the sake of completion, to conclude the parallels, Gwendolen/Rowena who’s a self-professed “something of a witch” sort of falls in love with Billy/Sam).

The thing is that transferring this parody onto Sam and Lucifer doesn’t work because a. they’re not even en route to becoming frenemies and b. some episodes prior we were explicitly told that Sam is absolutely scared of Lucifer. Berens tries to address this in the kitchen scene (lol, where women belong!) with Sam, Cas and Dean but it’s important to notice that Sam agrees to bring his abuser into his own house (again!) just because he thinks he can drain him, aka he can use him, overpower him and finally kill him. Which, of course, doesn’t happen.

So we, as viewers, find ourselves in the rather dire situation of finding “fun” that Sam leaves Rowena alone with her abuser (the throwaway line “You gonna be okay back here?” is definitely not enough) and where Rowena, unwittingly, sends Sam’s abuser back to him. And the abuser is, of course, the same. And it’s a good thing! Because Sam is dead! And Lucy saves him! And he’s funny! He’s Lucille! It can’t be fun if it’s not earned and this definitely doesn’t feel earned.

The spoof of Sam’s resurrection doesn’t work because “comedifying” Lucifer doesn’t work. But this is only a half-truth. The other half is to be found in the aestheticization of Sam’s corpse.

Since I’m reflecting on resurrection I must pay attention to the representation of dead bodies. Cas’, Sam’s, Jack’s and Mary’s resurrections (and lack thereof) show very different approaches to the topic. To limit myself because this is becoming a PhD thesis, I want to compare Cas’ and Sam’s corpses and how they are presented to us.

Cas’ corpse is re-arranged for us to view it in a way that hides his real death. Angels’ deaths are usually quite gruesome, brutal and a bit horrifying because they’re almost always shockingly violent. Cas’ death in S12 is no exception although it is abundantly toned down. Nevertheless, Cas dies of a violent and very sudden death and we see nothing of it in the aftermath, no scorched eyes (his eyes are even closed), not even blood: his dead body looks almost peaceful and commands our respect. One of the angels who uncovers him even says that “he deserved better”. Not to mention the heart-breaking scene where Dean has to prepare Cas’ body for the pyre. It’s an intimate, discreet moment but full of gravitas.

Sam’s corpse is arranged for us like Sunday roast, it’s almost delicious. This is not the body of Ray Brower from Stephen King’s novella The Body, it's more like For the Love of God by Damien Hirst, aka it’s presented as an object of desire. Sam’s dead body is like one of those Baroque paintings where the staging and the lighting make the scene almost look… sensual. To make matters worse, Sam dies because he gets attacked by vampires who bite into him and drain him of his blood like he wanted to drain Lucifer of his grace and then kill him. It’s another violent, brutal but also ironic death. Being caused by starving vampires means it’s also connected to sexualization. Sam is mouth agape, open-eyed, blood-sullied, wounded, lying on the ground and framed by a spider-web: this is what we and Lucifer contemplate and it’s getting a bit uncomfortable now. There’s nothing funereal about it but there are undoubtedly morbid and macabre vibes to Sam’s resurrection.

This is not something new, not even for Supernatural where violence and death are romanticizing and aestheticizing from the pilot. And yet I must ask: why is Sam’s corpse arranged this way and why Cas’ isn’t? The episode was supposed to be a fun parody but it’s now betraying itself (and the audience?) because we find ourselves trapped in a tunnel with a highly eroticized corpse and an archangel who’s historically been associated with rape and whose grace the show has repeatedly compared to semen. In the shadows, vampires are waiting to get back to their prey. We, as viewers, start to look a lot like Lucifer and/or the vampires. The writing doesn’t lend any gravitas to the moment as I’ve already established so what does it mean? Is the episode mocking its characters or is it mocking us? Is it even aware of it? To be honest, I don’t know. What I know is that Sam Winchester died, Lucifer has resurrected him and we all move past it as if it never happened. Just like Sam’s trauma from the Cage. Or his trauma from being soulless. Or his trauma from his hallucinations. Let’s just never really address all these things, shall we? (but let’s keep using them for retelling and style purposes)

What we do know is that Dean says they have to get Sam’s body because we know the significance of the dead body in the hunters’ community. But whose other body is sexualized by another Archangel in this episode? It is Rowena’s: “Oh, she’s so tiny…so angry. That milky white skin, dancer’s body. God, I bet she’s flexib—“. And how did her story continue? She had sex with said Archangel. The same Archangel who’s implied to be impotent and whose grace is not enough so they need Lucifer’s. The same Lucifer who was supposed to be “drained” (“We drained you” Sam tells him) and who’s been tracking Sam in Apocalypse World and ate (this is the verb that’s been used) “a handful of Michael's angels” to pull off his “little Lazarus trick” (the "Then" part of the episode shows a S5 Gabriel saying "Tricks are for kids").

To sum up: Sam’s resurrection doesn’t get to have the same solemnity as others do. It’s a parody, it’s a gift, it’s the nth metaphor for rape that we do see up close but that we also don't need to see up close because we gotta move on.

In the beginning of the episode Castiel (who’s not written exceptionally well this season, I wonder why) says:

CAS: Look, Sam, I was used by Lucifer, too. It was the worst possible violation. So I-I’m not taking your reluctance lightly, but he is already out there, and we’ve been ignoring it and avoiding dealing with him because we’re afraid.

Well, I think the same can be said about the show re: Sam and Lucifer. It’s not that the show is directly avoiding dealing with it, it’s just that everything is stored in the subtext and the parallels and other narrative techniques, which are fun to analyze alright, but it wouldn’t hurt for some stories to come to the fore. There’s an over-reliance on the viewers’ ability to pick up what the show is trying to say on the sly which is cool and I love it and definitely don’t want to be spoon-fed, but yeah, sometimes it does verge on connivance and I’m not so sure about that. Eventually, the responsibility is solely mine as viewer so I take my fair share of it but that doesn’t change the fact that, even if this quite good and sufficiently honest storytelling, it still feels like it’s… afraid.

To be continued! (Last part :P)