#altogether this little challenge of mine took four hours

[snakesinsocks2005]

New York's not-completely-lineless Line-up!

[katnissmellarkkk]

Angst #9

Hahahaha, so uh... you wanted angst? You got it. It may not be exactly what you wanted but it’s what came to mind when you sent this prompt. 

This turned out wayyyyy longer than I intended but 🤷🏼‍♀️. I always overwrite 😂💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️.

Context I think necessary to know for this prompt is that it’s set four years Post-Mockingjay, three years post “so after”, and I think that’s all you need to know? 

Oh yeah, and I should also mention that I definitely took creative liberties here. And also, trigger warning for choking.

Prompt: Angst “Did it mean anything to you? Did I mean anything to you?”

"Peeta," I yelp as he playfully splashes me. "Stop."

"Get in here," he demands, pointing to the water his whole body is immersed in.

"No," I refuse, laying on my back, maybe a little teasingly. "I just dried off."

Today was a particularly sunny day, with the bright light from outside our windows rousing us from bed even before our usual wake up time. I know the people of Twelve will be disappointed they can't get their bread and pastries today--especially seeing that Sunday is the most popular day at the Mellark Bakery--but I just couldn't pass up a lazy day at the lake with Peeta.

Still though, I didn't get as much sleep as I've grown accustomed to and after hours of swimming in the lake—and, jokingly, teaching Peeta to find katniss roots—I'm lethargic. My exhausted body is perfectly happy to lay in the grass with the sun beating down on me, either darkening or burning my skin.

But Peeta, it would seem, has other plans.

"Don't you dare," I hiss as his cacophonous footsteps approach. Even without the noise he still makes when he moves, the sound of dripping water would have given him away.

Not listening to me and definitely not heeding my warning—either he's grown fearless in the four years since the war or I've lost my bite and grown soft on him—Peeta reaches down and grabs me up by the waist, easily hoisting me up into his arms.

"Did you say you dared me?"

"Peeta," I try to command, as a last ditch effort, before bracing myself for what I know is coming.

Like clockwork, just as I have my eyes shut and sucked in a breath, Peeta tosses me in the deepest part of the lake before jumping back in himself.

I easily push my head above the surface just as he creates a massive splash of water with his impact.

"You're going to drain the lake," I complain as his hands find themselves on my hips, pulling me in closer. I go without resistance, but remain annoyed he just tossed me back in the water.

His lips find residence on my cheek, trailing lower and lower, underneath my jaw and down my neck, a non-verbal apology.

"Is all this water really good for your prosthetic?" I murmur after a long moment, some of the irritation fading from my body as he kisses down my shoulder softly.

"My leg is waterproof, Katniss," he reminds, chuckling a little.

"Oh yeah," I try to respond but his lips trail down to my chest, pushing me up higher against him, and speaking becomes difficult. "Generous of them," is all I can manage.

He lets out a real laugh this time. "Can always depend on the generosity of the Capitol, can’t we?" He quips just as I capture his lips with my own.

I don't know if in the last three years that we’ve been together I've become a better kisser—I've definitely become more experienced—and I can't say for certain if our kisses feel any different now to him, but I do know for a fact that Peeta has grown leaps and bounds with time. His lips, which were always soft and warm, now move with expertise, now hold a confidence I didn't realize was missing all that time we were putting on a show. Kissing Peeta now is another kind of experience and one I never knew I needed, one I never thought to ask for, before I had it.

Of course, I get some credit here. I am the one who's lips have given him the practice, who's tongue has freely wrestled with his, the one who he's gained all his expertise from.

As we pull apart for air, my face lolling down into his shoulder, burrowing there, I hear a peculiar sound. One I don't cognitively recognize at first but my sense memory captures instantly. It's a sound that makes my stomach twist and lurch before I can comprehend exactly why.

Peeta tenses too, rather abruptly. I feel his hands grip my thighs tighter to him, almost wrapping me around him, as if to keep me protected from whatever is buzzing above us.

The buzzing only gets stronger—so much stronger, in only a matter of seconds—and I have to consciously force myself to breathe as it hits me where that sound is coming from.

Tracker jackers. A whole lot of them.

Someone, somewhere, must have knocked over a nest. Someone must have been both unlucky and careless and somehow expelled an entire hive by mistake.

That's what I tell myself, at least. That this was purely a mistake. That this isn't an attack, set out to hurt us, to endanger us for deadly entertainment labeled a game.

Because unleashing a whole hive of tracker jackers on us, while we're out alone, secluded, in the middle of the woods, is the exact kind of thing the Gamemakers would do.

"Katniss," Peeta whispers, his voice close to my ear now. I can tell instantly that he's petrified.

Of course he's petrified. Tracker jacker venom is exactly what he was injected with, over and over again, in an attempt to destroy his memory, his mind, the very essence of his being.

"Katniss?" He says again, a little louder and a little rougher. But I'm still too shocked to move. I'm useless, completely frozen in place while the horrible creatures, that are deadly in large quantities—just ask Glimmer—finally come into view, circulating above us.

"We need to run," he urges, and I don't have to look at him to know his blue eyes are desperate.

Nodding blankly, I don't take my eyes off of the venomous creatures flying over our heads. Somehow, a very sore, exhausted part of my brain wakes back up and I feel myself go into survival mode.

A mode in which I had wished to never transition into again.

My legs unwrap from Peeta's waist and I interlock our fingers, squeezing his hand as tightly as I can. I swim to the edge of the lake, towing him behind me, and climb onto the grass just as I hear the buzzing grow closer.

Peeta is only inches, if even that, behind me, and we both grab our shirts and pants from the blanket we set out and dress ourselves while moving through the trees. Our soaked skin makes this more challenging but not altogether impossible, and soon I feel Peeta's hand yanking on mine, propelling me forward.

I know he's even more afraid than I am when I realize he's running ahead of me, dragging me behind him. Peeta is by far a slower runner than I am. The idea that there's enough fear in him to compensate for a naturally slower gait and a fake leg makes my heart ache.

I hear the tracker jackers still getting closer though, no matter how fast we move. It's not a surprising, really, as when these creatures were designed, they were made to lock in on a target and chase it down until it died. After all, they were made to be a weapon in the first war.

And they were used as one in both.

I feel myself let out a loud sigh of relief as the sound of the wasps begins to fade away, as we come closer and closer to the edge of the woods.

Still, it isn't enough. It's never enough.

Peeta's prosthetic does better than I cynically imagined but in the end, it gives out just as I knew it would and he goes tumbling face-first down into the dirt and branches. I didn’t see it but I can tell by the way his leg, his only real leg, is scraped up, that it must have gotten caught on the fallen branches strewed across the ground.

"Peeta!" I scream, louder than I intend to. Louder than I know I should.

I kneel down beside him, adrenaline still pumping through my veins like red, hot blood, and I yank and tug at his arm, trying to force him to stand and run again, as my wail evidently alerted a few stray wasps that hadn't entirely disappeared yet.

"Peeta," I cry out now, desperation taking over my entire being. "We have to move." I try to push him to stand, to move forward, but he's shaking his head with a sad, defeated expression.

"Katniss, just run," he orders firmly, his voice surprisingly strong. "Leave me here, I'll be okay."

I give him an incredulous look, so shocked by his statement that I completely ignore the small growing buzz flying closer and closer by the second. "Peeta, I'm not leaving you!" I exclaim, as if the thought is outright offensive. Because to me, it is. "You can't honestly think I'm going to abandon you-"

"Katniss, please!" He snaps now, his eyes getting desolate. "Please, just go! I'll be home as soon as I can-"

"No! You're coming with me!" I demand furiously. Just as I am preparing to quickly stand and drag him by force out of these woods, his baby blue eyes widen fiercely and he envelopes me into his arms, shoving my body underneath his.

It all happens in a matter of seconds. Peeta holds me down the way he used to hold his opponents down in a wrestling match, paralyzing me into place, and I can't move to escape, to try and run and drag him with me.

I don't understand what he's doing though, what his true intent may be, until I feel through him, through his body that is sheltering mine, the vibrations of the tracker jackers' stingers.

I don't know how many times he gets stung but it's not enough to kill him—especially not him, who has such a high tolerance after the abuse he was subjected to—but enough to hurt him. Enough to have an effect.

Enough that only seconds after the creatures fly away, he flings himself upwards, attempting to get as far away from me as humanly possible. Attempting to put as much distance between us as his distorting mind will allow.

"Peeta!" I cry out again, plainly reaching for him. It doesn't click in my head what could be happening. It doesn't seem even real anymore, after four years home without a single episode, after three years of bliss together, that he could ever again become that dark, twisted shell of a person he was in Thirteen.

"Stay away from me!" He hisses and I recoil instinctively into a tree trunk behind me. His stumbles backward and snaps a branch with his prosthetic leg. The sound is enough to set him off and he practically snarls down towards the ground.

I don't know what he's seeing, what terrifying hallucination is taking over his psyche. I can't even imagine where his mind is right now, but I know that’s horrifying.

"Peeta, it's okay," I try again, but my voice is breaking and I must have started crying at some point and my eyes are wide and displaying just how blatantly unnerved I feel and I know I'm of no comfort right now. Still, I can't stop myself from saying, "it's just a tree branch, Peeta. Nothing is going to hurt you out here, I swear."

"Except you," he states, so blankly, so matter-of-fact, that I visibly flinch as he turns the gaze of his cold, dark eyes on me.

The sweet blue sky that live inside his irises are long gone and in their place is a blackened night and I haven't seen it in so long, I actually forgot what it looked like.

"Peeta," I whisper now, knowing it's fruitless to say anything, to try and get through. But I just can't leave him here, alone, when he's been hurt, when he's still suffering from what Snow did to him to destroy me.

His hands shake and he clutches the roots of the tree beside him to the point of pain. As if the wood can keep him in place. As if the wood can stop him from reacting to the venom like his every impulse is surely screaming to.

"Go away," he spats at me, his teeth clenching together so tight I'm afraid he'll chip them. "Would you just go!"

"No!" I yell stubbornly. My legs suddenly find a way to work and the shock must be wearing off because I find myself manically crawling through the dirt and leaves towards Peeta, where he's practically locked himself against a tree.

"You're a stupid mutt," he snarls as I come closer—closer enough to touch. "A mutt created by the Capitol to trick me. Don't touch me!"

I ignore his words and lay my hand on his forearm. "Peeta, please-stop!" I order desperately as he swings his arm in my direction. "Listen to me, please! This isn't real! I swear, this is just a bunch of lies the Capitol told you!"

"The only lies that I've been told were from you, sweetheart," he practically spits at me. "And I'm tired of your lies. In fact, I think I'm tired of you altogether-" He cuts himself off, one of his hands flying up from the branch and smacking him in the face. "Run!" He abruptly exclaims in a different voice. A voice that gives me hope. Hope that he can mentally fight this off. "Katniss, go!"

"No!" I refuse still, my jaw clenching and my eyes locking in on his furiously. "I won't leave you here!"

He squeezes his eyes shut at my words, and when he reopens them, my every hope he would be able to pull himself out of this evaporates. "I hate you! I absolutely hate you! Why won't you ever leave?"

"Because I love you," I hoarsely shout, not caring that he's in no position to listen to me. "I love you, Peeta. I love you and I'm not going to leave you."

I never say these things, even now. Even after the years since the war, I rarely offer sentiments. In words at least. Peeta knows I love him. I know I love him. But there's little need for me to proclaim it every single day and night.

Until now, until right now in these woods, with Peeta and all that he is nearly evaporated, do I wish I had showered him in verbal sentiments over and over again. No matter how unnatural words as opposed to actions are to me, I should have forced myself to speak up more, to say how I feel, to overdose him in it until he's tired of hearing my voice.

Maybe if I had been more vocal, he wouldn't still be so fast to believe the worst. Maybe then he wouldn’t be susceptible to these dark thoughts when the venom enters his system.

I shake that idea off as soon as it comes. This isn't my fault and it definitely isn't his. The tracker jacker venom isn't something we could have seen coming and it isn't permanent, I force myself to remember. This will wear off.

I just have to make sure Peeta doesn't hurt himself before that happens.

"Peeta," I whisper now, seeing his eyes squeezing shut again. I don't dare to let myself hope again he's fighting the hallucinations off. Cautiously, like I'm about to pet a tiger, I lean my hand in to touch his cheek.

He doesn't relax into it but he doesn't snap at me either and I take it as progress.

At least, I do until he opens his eyes.

They're still black as coal and my heart sinks at the realization. But before I can think to do anything else, his mouth opens again, his voice now slow and quiet and pleading. "You're the worst thing that ever happened to me. I loved you so much and you cost me everything."

I feel myself let out an involuntary sob at that, my chest heaving before I can swallow it down. Because it's true. If it weren't for me, if I'd just eaten those stupid berries myself, he wouldn't have been tortured and hijacked. Millions of people wouldn't be dead from the war. Finnick would be playing with his son right now, probably teaching him to swim or fish or tie a knot.

Prim would still be alive.

As if reading my mind, his next sentiment matches my line of thinking. "You destroyed me, just like you destroy everyone. My family is dead because of you. You killed them. You killed millions of people and laughed about it. You even killed your little sister."

And I know he's not in his right mind, but his words still ring true to me and all I can say, while trying to suppress the overflow of tears gathering behind my lids is, "I know."

"But it never meant anything to you, did it? No matter who you hurt or how much pain you inflicted, it never mattered to you."

I shake my head automatically, not even registering that I'm about as good as arguing with a wall here. "That's not true. I do care. I've always cared."

"Liar," he hisses again but it's under his breath, through clenched teeth and I can't respond to it. "You never cared about anyone besides yourself."

"Not real, Peeta!" I frantically try to get through to him. "Not real, not real, not real!"

He acts as if I hadn't spoken. "I always, always loved you. So much." He says it, not as a compliment or endearment, but as a dark fact, as a burden to bear. As if it were a heavy load he was forced to carry. "Did that mean anything you? Did I mean anything to you? Or was I just second best to him?"

"Peeta," I whimper out desperately, wiping my eyes with one hand and reaching out to grip his palm with my other. "You mean everything to me. You're my whole world."

Something flickers in his eyes and he snaps like the branches beneath our feet. "Liar!" He screams again, and shoves my hand off his. "You're a mutt! You're a liar! You’re not going to kill me like you did everyone else!"

"Not real!" I scream on the top of my lungs, giving up every other defense I have, just for the insane hope of getting through to him.

I remember how I got him to cooperate, to see reason, to fight, in the middle of the war. How I kissed him desperately, knowing I rationally should kill him, knowing there was a likely chance he'd kill me for even trying to save him, but how I did it anyway, in the face of all that.

It was different then. He wasn't freshly full of venom. He was already beginning to overcome his hijacking on his own. He was already starting to fight his way back to me.

But that doesn't mean the same methods couldn't be repurposed here. That doesn't mean they wouldn't work again, under different circumstances.

Somehow, in the seconds I considered this method, my eyes had traveled to his lips and my plan was foiled before it could be put into action.

"Don't you dare," he threatens, his voice dripping with fury. Even more deadly than I heard only a moment ago. "You're not going manipulate me like you always do, mutt."

Before I can gather my bearings or even process what he's implying, he forces both his hands to let go of the roots he's managed to maintain an iron tight grip on. His hands come flying at me, knocking me back against the forest floor, knocking the wind out of me painfully.

I feel my shoulder blade take the impact and fight back a wince, just as two large hands wrap themselves around my throat.

They squeeze tight, effectively cutting off my air supply, giving me the same horrible sensation I still remember from his rescue. The horrible day I still sometimes have nightmares about.

This whole entire thing is a nightmare come to life. Just as much as it was back in Thirteen four years ago.

I stare up at him, my vision swirling, my eyes stuck on his. And, in spite of how angry I should be—at Snow or Coin or the Capitol or just life in general—I find myself uncharacteristically hoping. Not hoping that he won't kill me. But rather hoping that when he comes back to his senses, he is able to forgive himself for this. That he is able to forgive himself for all of it.

I stare into his eyes, because if this is my end, I want the last thing I see to be the person I love, even if he isn't himself. I want him to somehow retain the memory of me right now, at this moment. So he can know that I'm not angry with him, that I don't hate him. That I love him. In spite of every reason anyone has tried to create for me not to.

I'm so focused on his eyes that I don't even notice that his grip is weakening. I don't even register his stance changing. All I see, all I register, is his eyes suddenly changing from black to blue and then black again. It's haunting to see up close, like a demon is stuck inside of him and he's having to fight it off from the inside out.

"Peeta," I whisper hoarsely, reaching my hand up to cup his cheek as his irises become a blue ocean again.

But his body language remains stiff, even as he clumsily pulls himself upwards and off of me. He trips backwards once again, and I watch in a frozen stupor as his eyes change once more to ebony.

"Go!" He shouts abruptly, his features wild and downcast and tormented. "Katniss, go!"

And I don't know if it's the fact that he's seemingly fighting off the darkness now or if the tracker jacker venom may be growing weaker inside him or if it's just the plain fact that he sounds like my Peeta again, but I listen this time. I roll over gracelessly and cough and sputter and grapple for a breath before finding my footing and blindly racing out of the trees. Blindly leaving Peeta behind, hoping he'll be able to find his way back to me.

Hoping that he'll come back to me at all.

X.

I crash onto the couch as soon as I step foot into the living room, lying down on my stomach, burrowing my face into the cushions beneath me.

I mindlessly ran from the woods, tripping and falling and unable to catch my breath, my heart racing a thousand beats per second. I didn't stop when Thom waved at me or when Haymitch barked to ask what I was up to now. I didn't even stop to lock the front door.

I wasn't worried about Peeta coming home to harm me. He was in enough control in the woods to hold himself against the tree, to stop himself from strangling me, to yell at me to run. If he was going to chase me down and hurt me, he would have done so in the woods when I refused to leave.

No, I wasn't worried about Peeta coming home to harm me. I was worried he wouldn't come home at all. I was worried that this is going to push him to the edge, that he won't trust himself, that he will insist he has to go back to the Capitol for hospitalization. I was worried that this will cost me him and our life together and everything we've worked so hard to build.

I squeeze my eyes shut to hold in my tears, terrified that the tracker jackers are going to cost me him, even after all this time. That what Snow did to take Peeta from me will finally succeed, even after his death.

Me and Peeta don't see eye to eye on this topic. This topic is one of the few things we can't agree on.

Peeta still gets flashback, on a fairly regular basis. He still grips the back of a chair or clutches a wall, hides in the back of the bakery when a customer triggers some atrocious memory by mistake. He still has insomnia some nights and still paints his nightmares.

Some of those paintings consist of things I never could stand to know. Some of his paintings, so haunting and gut-wrenching, display things that have brought me to tears more than once.

I was looking at them one morning over a year ago when I blurted out the worst possible thing I could have.

"What would happen if you ever were hijacked again? If you ever became the way you were in Thirteen again?"

I honestly expected him to say that Dr. Aurelius has warned him that there is a possibility of that happening and that he has a plan in place and he would have to go to the Capitol again and just about a million things I don't want to hear but I as much as expected.

But instead he caught me entirely off-guard and simply said, "I'd leave. Go out to the woods and probably never come back."

It's only now that I realize his wording, that I realize I left him out in the exact place he specified disappearing and I feel my blood run cold as I process this.

I don't know what I intend to do, as I stand up off the couch. I don’t know if I intend to go to Haymitch and see if he's too drunk to be of any help, to go maybe to Delly or Thom or anyone in the district who cares for Peeta, or if I even intended to just go searching for him myself in the woods, but in the end it all becomes irrelevant.

Because as soon as I stand, frantically trying to stop my shaking and figure out how I planned to find him, Peeta walks in through the front door.

His eyes are blue again and they've lost the cloudy look that have always appeared in his episodes. I don't know why I forgot that until now.

Probably because I black out the things that really hurt me. The things that hurt my heart too much to fully process.

Peeta, the sweetest boy I've ever known, being tortured and destroyed to pay for my acts of rebellion is at the top of that list.

I just stare at him, taking him in now, here, alive, relatively unharmed aside from some scratches. His eyes are clear but they're so sad and so desolate and I open my mouth to speak. To say just about anything that'll convey to him that I'm not angry with him, not in the least. That I just don't want him to leave, that I can't take losing him again.

But all that comes out are choking noises and I don't know if it's the cries I fought off or if it's because his hands were wrapped around my throat not long ago, or if it's just plainly that I don't put my feelings into words well. By any stretch of the imagination.

Either way, it doesn't seem to matter. Peeta just shakes his head slowly, the skin around his eyes already wet and swollen and pink and before I can utter another sound, he's walking forward towards me and falling down onto his knees, wrapping his arms around my waist. His face buries itself into my stomach and suddenly, the most painful, the most wretched sobs fill the room and if I wasn't right here with him, if I couldn't physically see Peeta, the cries would almost be unrecognizable as him.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I try to resist it, I try to hold it back, I do everything I can to fight it, knowing it'll only make him feel that much worse, but in the end it's a lost effort and it's all I can do to raise my head up to the ceiling just as the tears come pouring from my own eyes. If they're out of shock or fear or pain--or a combination of all three--I don't know, but I do everything I can to hide them from Peeta.

It becomes just one more thing I fail at, as he somehow instinctively notices and squeezes me tighter to him, clutches me like Prim used to clutch her baby blanket.

"Please forgive me, Katniss. Please, please, please forgive me."

I open my mouth to say there's nothing to forgive but once again, the words won't form. All that comes out is a simple sob, quiet but strong, and I feel Peeta squeeze me again.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

X.

"Roll over for me," Peeta whispers softly, his hand as tender as his voice, stroking my hair back attentively.

I do what he asks, rolling onto my stomach, but still manage to say, "this isn't necessary."

He ignores me, his eyes no longer wet but still swollen and bloodshot from the hours he cried. Lifting up my shirt—technically his shirt originally, but we repurposed it as my sleep attire months ago—he slides a cold cloth onto my back, holding it in place for a long moment of time.

There's now a particularly large bruise already forming on my back from where he knocked me to the forest floor. I couldn't care less. I got worse bruises than that from hunting on a regular basis.

But the look in Peeta's eyes when he saw the mark, almost--but not quite--rivaled the look in his eyes when he stood upright and saw my neck. I hadn't even seen at it yet, I hadn't even given any thought to checking for red handprints, but when Peeta stood upwards, when he'd calmed down enough to look me in the eye, his gaze flew there instantly and words can't convey how awful he must have felt.

If there were a way to verbally say how wretched and sick he felt inside, Peeta would be the first one to do it.

Telling him it wasn't his fault didn’t work. Telling him he couldn't have known about the tracker jackers nearby, he couldn't have known what would happen, did absolutely nothing to convince him that he shouldn't feel responsible. Especially not when I'm speaking in a hoarse tone of voice.

Of course, I knew he'd feel this way. I would feel this way. But somehow I just can't stop trying to alleviate his remorse, no matter how useless it may be to attempt. Somehow I just can't stop trying to remove that tragically sad look from his eyes.

As soon as he lets go of the cold cloth, I spin around in the bed and snuggle myself tight into him.

He takes me into his arms willing, wrapping his every limb around mine, burying his face in my hair. His lips press repeated kisses to my forehead, his hands rubbing up and down my spine, massaging my back.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, probably for the twentieth time.

"Peeta," I all but groan, leaning my head back slightly to peer up into his heartbroken eyes. "Stop. There's nothing you could have done."

He looks like he wishes to argue but nothing comes out of his mouth. Instead he rubs my back again and squeezes me tighter. I shut my eyes against him, breathing him in, a part of me finally relaxing for the first time in hours.

Even after he returned home, even after his breakdown, I remained cautious at first. The last thing I wanted was to let my guard down too soon and have the venom—that is surely still working it's way out of his bloodstream—cause him to snap again, to lash out at me or attack.

Just like the last thing I wanted was to make him feel worse, make him feel remorse for something that was done to him, something he didn't ask for and he'd worked so hard and made so much progress in controlling.

But when he'd noticed the tears I’d tried to hold in, down in the living room, the remorse was inevitable.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He whispers now, moving my hair aside carefully, pressing his lips gently to the red marks where his hands had left their imprint.

This isn't the first time he's asked though and despite the fact that I rather enjoy his lips on my neck typically, I can't help but respond with ire. "Peeta, I already told you my neck and back are just fine. Please stop worrying," I say tensely, my voice tired and worn thin.

He says nothing in response, instead placing more kisses against my throat and collarbone. I let out a sigh I didn't even know I was holding in and reach out to stroke the back of his head, massaging where his skull and neck met, where his blonde curls touch his skin.

"You scared me," I whisper finally, the words easier now that I can't see his eyes and he can't see mine.

"I know," is all he can say.

"Not physically," I immediately correct before he can take that and internalize it. "I don’t mean you scared me physically. You... you..." Speaking becomes a challenge all over again, the syllables not wanting to form intelligibly on my lips. But when he pulls back and looks me deep in the eye, his gaze full of love and sorrow, I force myself to just say how I feel. "I was scared I was going to lose you," I whisper, leaving whether I meant lose him physically or mentally up in the air.

Still, he doesn't seem surprised by the confession, whatever way he took it. "I know."

I have to bite my lip to keep an awful choking sob inside, as one is doing it's best to escape from the back of my throat. Almost as a distraction I bury my face into his chest again, shutting my eyes, and I allow myself to be thankful that Peeta's still here and he's my Peeta again.

When he doesn't fill the silence though, I realize I have to or else the tension in the room will continue to linger. "I was so scared," I admit, so quietly it's almost inaudible.

"I know, baby."

I scrub my face against his cotton-made shirt before rubbing my nose with the neckline of my own sleepwear, just as something hits to me. Peeta's words in the woods, even while hijacked, still sting inside my head. Not the cruel things he said, because even though I know they're true, I also know he doesn't truly believe any of them himself. He doesn't think I murdered his family or am an evil person who laughs at the misery of others, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, he doesn't think I'm in any way responsible for Prim's death.

But originally, his hijacking was predicated upon his insecurity and uncertainty in our relationship and in my feelings for him. In the last three years I know I've made my feelings clear. At least, in my mind I have.

But a quietly violent voice whispers, and I ache deep inside as it questions, what if I haven't expressed how I feel enough to him? What if he truly still feels unsure of my love for him?

"Peeta?"

"Yeah?"

"I just... I want you to know-" His finger presses against my lips now and he's shaking his head, his eyes forlorn.

"Katniss, if this is about anything I said, just don't. Okay, I meant none of it. I hate that those words even-"

"Peeta, you mean everything to me," I blurt out then, clumsily cutting him off. "You're the only thing that really matters to me an-and," I stop myself then, having spoken too fast, rushed my words and now am stuttering. There's so many things I want to say, so many things I want him to know. So many they all become jumbled up and confused in my head, and it's all I can do to say the simplest, plainest thing that comes to my mind. No matter how unnatural it feels for me. No matter how painful it is to rip down your walls and to physically have to force away an armor you spent years of your young life building up. It's so hard and so painful and I don't even recognize my own voice when I speak again, when I force myself to spit out how I actually feel. How, until today, I told myself he knew I felt. "I love you so much," I try to say but it comes out choked and raw. "I love you and you were never second best. To anyone. You're everything to me and I don't know-I don't know how to convey this right or say the right thing-"

He cuts me off—finally—then and moves his fingers against my cheek comfortingly. "You've conveyed it perfectly," he promises, his lips moving then to press lightly against mine, in a grateful but simple and sweet gesture. "I know you love me, Katniss," he assures again as he pulls back and breaks our kiss. "I've known it for a long time."

As his finger traces the outline of my mouth, I whisper, almost to myself, "So have I."

He gives me a smile, that is full of guilt and devastation, but still somehow warm and hopeful and kind. "Oh, have you?" I know he's feeling better when he teases me.

But my reply isn't sarcastic or cunning or anything but simple and small. Just like me in general.

"Longer than I could ever admit."

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Forty-Five) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: SMUT!! Cursing. Dom/sub relationship. Sir kink. Sex toy. Brat taming. Bondage (ropes). Forced orgasms. Overstimulation. Oral sex (male receiving). Dom dropping.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader

Word Count: 11,148

Timeline: Season 6 Episode 24. Three months after part forty-four.

Hotch was always gone nowadays. Between work and running errands for the three of us always stuck at home, he was just too busy to sit and relax. I missed him. I missed us, specifically, and how we used to spend every second together, and how good we were together at work. I missed work. I missed driving to Quantico every day or getting on the jet for a thousand different cases. I missed the bullpen, the roundtable room, Garcia’s office, my desk, throwing papers at Morgan’s head as he worked across from me, or teasing Reid, whose desk was across the aisle from mine. Everyone knew that I was anxious to get back— Hotch most of all. I loved our daughter more than anything in the world, but I loved work just as much. I understood now how Hotch felt about Jack.

“Elle was antsy to get back to work after Garner,” Hotch would always tell me whenever I would sneak into the office to look at some of the cases sitting on his desk. I jumped in my own skin as he caught me snooping. “You Greenaways are all the same.” He laughed and snatched me away from the office, practically carrying me down to the bedroom so that we could cuddle while watching Emily sleep in her crib.

At least we got those moments. They were scarce, but we tried to make as much time as possible, even if most of that time was spent sleeping. When he wasn’t around, though, I still tried to include him as much as possible. It was hard for him to talk on the phone whenever he was gone on cases, but I still sent him pictures and videos of the kids to keep him updated, like when Jack held Emily in his arms the other day and he was making fart noises in her face in order to get her to laugh. He called me immediately after I sent the first video. His voice was shaking on the other end, and I knew that something was wrong, so I asked, and he told me that Haley never sent him videos of Jack when he was young. She sent him one, and after that, they stopped altogether. I realized in that moment that he was terrified that I was going to stop sending him videos of Jack and Emily, and he would end up missing out on everything in their lives, and then I would leave him the same way Haley left him. So, I kept sending them. Every chance I got, I was recording one or both of the kids and sending them straight to Hotch’s phone.

It had only been three months since Emily was born. Sometimes it felt like an eternity, other times it felt like time was passing by too fast. When Hotch wasn’t around, it felt like time was moving at a turtle-like pace where I spent every waking moment counting the seconds until he would come home; but then, when he would be there, holding me in my arms, it felt like it came and went with a snap of my fingers. I wished I could have switched time. I wished that I could have just spent an eternity in his arms, not worrying about when I would see him next or if he would even come home.

I suddenly jolted awake when I heard Emily crying in her crib. “Shit.”

Hotch had called last night to tell me that they were finishing up a case and that he would be home soon, but his side of the bed was empty, and all of his stuff was untouched, which meant that he was going to be later than expected. So, that meant that I had to grab Emily and try to calm her down.

I sighed and sat upright. Emily continued to cry and shriek in her cradle until I leaned in to pick her up. As I cradled her in my arms, leaning back against the headboard so that I could close my eyes and rest for a little longer, I hummed a toon for her. Hotch’s favorite song was Blackbird by The Beatles. Since Emily had been born, he had been singing her to sleep with that very song every chance he could get. It seemed like it was the only way she could fall asleep now. I worried that the tradition and schedule was going to ruin her sleep patterns—and I guess I was right since she kept waking up throughout the night whenever he wasn’t there to sing to her. I kept trying to hum for her, despite that.

I was half asleep when she started calming down. I decided that putting her back down in the cradle wasn’t going to help—and even if it would, I was too tired to move. Having a baby was exhausting. With Hotch gone so often, I was having to endure these long nights alone, and the house was so quiet during the day that it sent a shiver up my spine, not to mention I was so bored whenever Emily would be put down for a nap in the middle of the day and I couldn’t call Hotch because he was busy. I couldn’t wait to get back to work. I knew that it didn’t make sense to do it just yet, but I was practically dying to get back. If anything, I’d ask to go back in a week or two. Hotch wouldn’t like the idea, but I was sick of sitting around with a sleeping baby all day while I was just drained. I needed a case. I needed something to keep my mind busy besides my daughter. As much as I loved her, I needed work, too.

“I could get used to this,” Hotch said. I opened my eyes while perking up to see him standing in the doorway, holding his go-bag in one hand and a bag of chocolates in the other. “Coming home to my gorgeous wife and our perfect daughter…” He set down his bag and hurried over to me on the bed so that he could kiss my forehead. He smelled like the jet. “I brought you your favorite chocolates from Seattle.”

“Mmm… Gimme.”

Just as I said it—not having even reached for them or anything along those lines—Emily started squirming and crying in my arms. There it was. Every time there was a bit of peace with Emily, she suddenly started losing it again. I couldn’t win. So, I sighed and slumped back again, ignoring the pleasant surprise Hotch had for me just so that I could try to focus a little more energy into dealing with my precious, perfect, miracle—No. The truth was, she was all of that, but she was also a little screamer, whiner, and… Oh, I loved her… I just had to remember that.

“Here, you take the candy, I take the baby,” Hotch said. He set the bag down between us, then reached to take Emily. “Oh, listen to our little singer.” He adjusted her in his arms with a bounce while standing up again so that he could bounce on his toes.

I opened the bag and took one piece of chocolate before setting the rest of them on my bedside table. “For the past four days,” which was how long he was gone for, “all I’ve done is change diapers and sit around, waiting for her to start crying again. Nothing helps.” Within an instant, Emily stopped crying, instead opting to start cooing and laughing at him. I rolled my eyes. “I hate you.”

“Mhm. I’m sure.” He shook his head at me and sat back down. “Listen, Jack used to cry every time I held him. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t seem to get him to calm down and love being in my arms. Even when he was already asleep and I’d pick him up just to hold him and admire him, he would suddenly wake up, as if he could tell that it was me, and he would immediately start crying. I hated it. The worst part was, every time Haley or Jessica would take him, he wouldn’t fuss a bit. I didn’t understand why. But now I’m on the other end of that deal, and I can tell you, Y/N, it’s nothing you’re doing or not doing. She’s just…” He smiled down at her. “I don’t know… But it’s nothing you can control, baby. I promise.”

I sighed. “One would think after carrying her around for nine months and then staying with her for the last three while you’ve been off at work, she would warm up to me, but nope.”

“She will eventually. We’ve got the next eighteen years at least with her. We’re going to be just fine.”

I smiled and snuggled up against his side, hiding my cold hands under his soft, warm shirt. His abs flexed against my freezing touch for a short moment before he relaxed and shuffled down on the bed somewhat so that I could rest my head on his shoulder, and he could kiss my hair. He inhaled deeply. Despite the fact that Emily didn’t like settling down in my arms anymore, at least we could afford to have little moments like these.

“Are you going to fall asleep again?” he inquired quietly, trying not to disturb me if I really was. I shook my head, though. “There’s something I need to tell you, then.” I hummed a question against him. “Cody and I had a meeting today.”

Uh oh. Personal meetings with the Director were never good during work hours. We had a friendly relationship with Cody, which allowed us to invite him over for dinner occasionally, and for our wedding ten months ago. But meetings during work were never good. Cody meant business while we were at Quantico, and him and Hotch liked challenging each other’s alpha personalities like it was fun for them or something.

“They’re making changes to the department again.”

I groaned, “I swear—”

“It’s okay. They’re just going to be contacting different people in the unit with different offers in order to consolidate their forces into other departments.”

“One of these days, I’m going to storm in there and ask why the hell he keeps sticking his nose in our business when we’ve been his best unit for at least the last ten years—or since you took over.”

“He’s getting pressure from the higher ups, baby. He’s doing his job, the same way we are. I’m just telling you this because if you’re approached by another department, you should tell me immediately.”

“I’m not going to leave the BAU, Aaron. I don’t care what deal it is someone has for me, I’m not leaving the one place that feels like home away from home. For the first time since I graduated high school, I feel like I have a purpose. People care what to hear what I have to say, people trust me, people love me, and people consider me family there. No offer can make me abandon my family.”

Hotch tensed in response to my words. “I think you should consider taking an offer in another department that doesn’t require you to travel as much,” he said quietly. I turned my cheek to look at him. “With Emily and Jack, our hands are so full, but we’ve been making it work because you’ve been at home. What happens when you’re back in the field?”

“Would you take the same job, if you were offered it?”

“Probably not.”

“Why?”

“Because I love the field.”

“Exactly.”

“Y/N…” he whispered in my ear, reaching over to lift my chin with his fingers. “You should really consider it. I don’t want you to get hurt out in the field.”

I put my hand over his. “Aaron, if there’s no pressure on you to stay home with the kids, and you just get to stay with the BAU because you love it, then I should be shown the same consideration.”

He kissed my cheek. “You’re right.”

“I know.”

He chuckled lightly. “I love you.”

“I love you.” I turned to look at him and kiss his lips slowly and passionately. And then his phone started ringing, making Emily squirm before letting out a cry that practically said: “Why have you awoken me from my slumber?!” I sighed. “Aaron—”

“I know, I know.” He passed Emily over to me gently before he started rolling off the bed so that he could answer the call in the hallway. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll be back in a sec.”

As he left the bedroom, I adjusted Emily in my arms, bouncing her lightly while cooing against her nose that everything would be alright. I was so done with the shrieking. Someday, I was going to give her a lot of shit for all of this yelling, crying, and pooping. She was going to hate the way I would inevitably tease her about it endlessly, but she was my daughter… my perfect baby girl… I wanted to remember her like this forever and always. When she was big, and maybe expecting a kid of her own one day, I’d tell her about how she kept me up night and day with her shrieking. This would all be a distant memory before I would even know it. I felt my heart break somewhat. I didn’t want her to get any bigger than this. Growing up meant that she would want to explore the world, and I knew just how cruel other people and places could be, and especially to innocent, precious little rays of sunshine like her. I didn’t want her to get hurt. Ever. I wanted to just keep her safe in my arms until the end of the time. I could do that, right? No… But I could cherish this for a little longer, at least.

“They need me in the office for something,” Hotch whispered to me while walking back in. I let my eyes fall shut in order to hide my disappointment. “Here…” He reached out for Emily, offering to help calm her down and put her in bed before he would leave. I let him. As he lifted her and rested her tiny torso against his shoulder, giving him a chance to pat her back while bouncing on his toes slowly, he started humming Black Bird for her. I smiled and slumped against the pillows. “I’ll call Jessica to see if she can stop by later to watch the kids so that you can rest for a bit,” he said after noticing how I was already out of it.

I nodded with my eyes still closed. “Thank you.”

Emily started calming down. Her cries and shrieks slowly turned into pants that turned into coos before she fell asleep in his arms. “And like that…” he whispered, “she’s out like a light.” I heard him shuffle to the crib so that he could set her down. Our bed shifted as he sat next to me. “Baby,” he put a hand on my thigh, “call me if she starts fussing again and your humming doesn’t work.” I nodded. “Y/N, I’ll stay, if you need.”

“No,” I insisted weakly. “Go. I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Just… Aaron…” I opened my eyes to look at him. “Promise you’ll let me come back for the next case?”

He stared at me for a moment while registering what I said. When it dawned on him, he shook his head. “I can’t promise that.” He grabbed my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I’ll see you later tonight. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered, my eyes falling shut again.

Not even an hour later, however, Emily started crying again, and Hotch was already long gone again, leaving me to roll out of bed and lift her up into my arms. I didn’t bother trying to sing to her again. Apparently, that was Hotch’s thing, and I was stepping on his toes by making the futile attempt. So, I just sat there and cooed to her while heading downstairs to make some food for myself and also Jack who would be waking up in a few minutes to start playing video games and watching movies for the entire day. I smiled when she managed to fall asleep after feeding, giving me a chance to make myself a lazy breakfast.

When Jack woke up, he came running downstairs in his pajamas, he begged for me to grab the Cocoa Puffs from the top shelf in the pantry. Hotch and I had to put them up there because Jack was getting addicted to them. He was eating them 24/7. But, on occasion, especially when Hotch wasn’t around, I would let Jack have some. So, I carefully handed Emily over to him so that I could grab the box from the top shelf and pour a fair portion into a bowl for him.

Afterwards, when he had shoveled every single pebble into his mouth and then proceeded to slurp down all of the chocolate-y milk, he put the dish in the sink for me, like I asked, then scurried off to watch TV, like I assumed he would. Only, this time, I decided to join him. With Emily in my arms, I dragged my feet all the way from the kitchen to the living room, where I crashed on the couch. Jack turned on something from Cartoon Network. You know, Saturday morning cartoons. I had Emily sitting on my stomach, letting her little hands play with my fingers up until the point where she started trying to chew on them. I shook my head and kissed her cheeks. At least she wasn’t teething yet. JJ warned me that if I thought Emily’s cries and shrieks were bad now, I just had to wait and see how bad it would get within the next few months or so when Em would start teething. Shit. I was hardly getting sleep as it was, I couldn’t imagine it getting any worse.

Halfway through a cartoon, Emily fell asleep against me. Her little breaths slowly turned into hiccups, which made me laugh. JJ used to warn me all the time when I was pregnant that Emily could hiccup in the night, which would keep me up. I guess I got lucky, though, because she only hiccupped once, and it was while I was at work with Garcia. We were sitting in her office, waiting for the team to call for help or with an update. We were ridiculously bored. At some point, Garcia revealed that she had a huge tub of Twizzlers hiding under her desk. Together, we went through all of it, and I supposed that was the trigger for Em to start hiccupping non-stop. It wasn’t annoying, like JJ said it would be. No, it was funny. When it started, I jumped, thinking that something was wrong, but then Garcia started laughing when it kept happening, at which point we realized what was happening. That was the only time she ever hiccupped, though. I almost wished that it would have happened again while Hotch was home, just so that he could have laughed with us.

Finally, when she stopped hiccupping during the cartoons, my smile faded and my eyelids started getting too heavy to keep open. So, I did what felt natural… I slowly fell asleep with the glow of the TV in the room and dumb cartoon sounds ringing in my ears.

----

I woke to the sound of the front door opening. The TV was off, Jack long gone to go play soccer outside, it seemed by the way I could hear the soccer ball hitting the side of the house over and over again as he practiced his passing. I rolled my eyes. At least Emily was still asleep on my chest, no sign of waking up any time soon. The drool soaking my shirt was a downside, though.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Hotch whispered.

I shook my head. “It’s okay, baby.” But then I realized who it was that was standing there and why that was odd. I tilted my head in curiosity at him. “Wait…”

Since he had been called away so early and left in such a rush, I was sure that he was headed off on a case elsewhere in the states. Yet, there he was. Standing there in his suit—which he must have changed into either before leaving when I fell asleep, or maybe even when he got to the office if he didn’t want to disturb me—he smiled shortly at me. At first, I didn’t think anything about it. I figured that we were both just tired, and he was probably busy, so I didn’t ponder on his short, yet still sweet, smile that he sent me, and I reciprocated.

“You’re home early.”

“Yeah…” He sounded like his mind was elsewhere.

“Is everything alright, my love?”

“Has anyone called with an open position?”

I furrowed my brows. “No.” Why was he asking?

Hotch swallowed hard before moving to approach the couch and sit down beside me, offering to take Emily from my arms. I watched him curiously. He was being awfully quiet for someone who just got home and would usually shower me in kisses and a thousand different ways for him to tell me he loved me. But he seemed like something awful was weighing on his mind, which was so concerning to me.

“Baby, I’m gonna have to go,” he admitted quietly to me while looking down at Emily. “I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged and smiled with relief. “Okay, so you have another case. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Hotch didn’t say anything. He kept his gaze glued to Emily as she played with his finger using both of her tiny hands. Something wasn’t right. If Hotch was being sent on another case, he wouldn’t have come home, especially not early. He would have stayed at the office and he would’ve just called me to tell me that he wouldn’t be coming home for a few days. This was different. He was acting differently.

Emily kicked against his elbow as she continued to wrestle with his finger. I cooed her quiet before looking back up at Hotch. “What is it?”

He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “They’re sending me to the Middle East to lead a task force.”

My heart sank in my chest. I let out a breath of disbelief then hid my face in my hands. A task force in the Middle East? What was he talking about? The BAU didn’t handle things like this— especially if it were just him. He warned me that morning about the possibility of reassignments, but I didn’t think this was what he had in mind, and I thought that we were going to talk about it before either of us accepted or declined any kind of offer that would be thrown our way. We just had a baby, and now he was being sent on a mission that was going to leave me alone for months? I didn’t know how to do any of this on my own. I wanted to go back to the BAU desperately, but that was because I was confident that between Hotch, Jessica, and I, we could balance it all. Jessica was struggling to keep up with Jack and Emily as it was… I couldn’t imagine what would happen if Hotch left. There was a strong chance that I wouldn’t even get to go back to the BAU if this actually happened. That didn’t feel fair. Why did I have to give up my dream so that he could lead a task force that he didn’t even want anything to do with? Or… did he want this and he just never told me? If so, when did he decide that it was something he was interested in pursuing, and why the fuck did he not tell me? It suddenly all made sense to me why Haley always got so frustrated with him. Our family was right there in D.C. and Virginia, and he wanted to tuck tail and run off to who knew where in the Middle East. 

“Don’t do this to me, Aaron… Please…” I lifted my head away from my hands so that I could look at him again. He seemed so sad to be leaving, but he wasn’t doing anything to prevent it. This was an opportunity, not an order. He could have turned it down whenever. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I’ve already talked to Jessica. She’s offered to move in until—”

I scoffed. “So, you’ve already made up your mind and talked to Jessica about it before you talked to your own wife.” I shook my head.

How could he do this? At first, I was distraught because I couldn’t bear the thought of being away from him for so long, especially while our daughter was only three months old, which wasn’t old enough for him to be away from her. He was the only one who could get her to sleep nowadays. The only one. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t get it to happen. I couldn’t do it all alone… I had never spent so much time away from him before Emily, but at least I knew that he was coming back to me every case. Now, I didn’t know anything.

I grabbed his face between my hands and turned his cheek to make him look right at me, though he was fighting to still look away. I was going to make him face this. If he was going to make a decision like this, he had to at least look me in the eye as we talked about it. I pouted at him. “Please stay,” I begged.

He let out a shaky breath. “I can’t.”

“Please.” Shouldn’t that have been enough? Shouldn’t his wife begging him to stay with his family been enough to convince him to never leave again?

“I can’t… The decision’s already been made. I’m leaving in a week…”

I hit at his shoulders roughly, a choked back sob finally escaping me. A fucking week. I was going to lose my everything in a week, and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop it. Was this fate? Were we always destined to fall apart like this? The worst thought I had in that moment was, what would Haley have done if she were still around and in my shoes? Maybe she would have taken this chance to leave him. Honestly, if she were still alive, I probably would have run to her, of all people, and asked what to do; even though I already assumed that she would tell me that it was time to leave him. But I didn’t want to. I loved him more than anything, and I didn’t want to have to leave him just because he was leaving us. That didn’t seem entirely fair.

“How long will you be gone?”

“I’m unsure.”

“What will you be doing there?”

“It’s classified.”

I chuckled. “Of course it is.”

“Baby, you know that I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

“Is that what you told Haley before you left for that last case before she decided to leave you?”

“Y/N,” he growled with a bitter tone.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

I knew that was wrong of me. I knew that bringing that up was unfair. Hotch and I always promised to fight for each other, even if it meant fighting with each other from time to time. Haley never gave Hotch the same courtesy. That was why she left and why I wouldn’t. Maybe Hotch should have thought about that before taking this offer in the first place. This offer… How could he beg me to tell him if someone called me with an offer, but he didn’t tell me first when he got an offer and before accepting it? I was so pissed… I couldn’t even bear to sit with him any longer. I knew that if I stayed on that couch with him, my anger was only going to grow, and I was inevitably going to hate him. Not on my watch, though. I just needed time to let this blow over so that I could try talking him out of it again later.

I took Emily from him without asking. Hotch hesitated for a moment, practically reaching out for her again before she was even out of his arms. I shook my head at him. “Maybe you should go talk to your son about why he won’t have a dad for a while.” I stood and left the room with that last stinging line.

----

The next morning, I was still angry. I think yesterday was spent sprinting between depression and denial over and over again while trying to find some kind of acceptance in between, but there was none. So, I woke up in the morning to find Hotch still resting peacefully, as if nothing were wrong, and I was mad. I was fucking pissed. He had fucked up a handful of times in the past—just like everyone else—but this was probably the worst. It felt like we were approaching the end. With our newborn in the cradle next to our bed and our son just down the hallway, I knew that it couldn’t be the end. It just couldn’t. But how was I supposed to believe that when he was going to be gone? We were going to both be alone on opposite sides of the world…

Perhaps there was one thing, however, that could remind him of why he married me. Maybe it would even be enough to convince him to stay. But I couldn’t do it while Jack was around. Saturdays were Jack’s relaxing days, then Sundays were his homework days, which meant that he was going to be working down in the dining room all day, which was too open for us. So, it had to wait until Monday. The good news was, that on Monday morning, I was still just as pissed as I was on Sunday. In fact, probably more so now. Yesterday, while I was sitting with Jack to help him with his homework, Hotch didn’t ever approach us. He didn’t ask to talk to me, he didn’t talk to Jack, and he didn’t even sit down to spend time with us or eat meals with us. Fucking ridiculous.

So, while Hotch was dropping Jack off at school, I started preparing my plan. At least, the first half of it, because the rest of it required Hotch to actually be there. When I was ready, I carefully lifted Emily out of her cradle and carried her to her own room to sleep, just in case. Then, I heard the door open. I rolled my shoulders back to fix my posture, as if I were suddenly dawning a new persona, and then I headed downstairs.

“Jessica called, Y/N,” Hotch said from the front door, meanwhile I was still on the stairs, “she said she’s going to be traveling next month, so she won’t be able to look after the kids. We might have to think about getting a nanny since you’re going to be heading back to—” He stopped when he saw me turn the corner. “I…” He chuckled to himself. “What’s this for?”

“Not you.” I turned away from him, the short skirt of my dress flaring up somewhat, revealing how I wasn’t wearing any panties.

I spent most of the morning walking around in that dress, bending down in front of him every chance I got, reaching up for things like the clean towels in the closet or a book up on the highest shelf in the living room. Hotch was silent about it at first. Then, he started testing the waters to see if I was really being bratty or just obvious. He learned quick that I was being bratty. When he asked if I could grab the laundry, I simply said, “No.” When he asked if I wanted any breakfast, I said, “No,” and walked away. Around ten, he asked me if I wanted him to pick up Jack from school later, and all I said was, “I don’t care.”

Next thing I knew, Hotch stormed across the room, held his hand out, and then he pressed his grip against my neck as he pushed me and against the wall. I gasped for air. It didn’t seem to matter, though, because Hotch only squeezed tighter, and he pressed his thigh between my legs. He glared at me. His eyes searching mine, I could see the hints of anger and lust brewing inside of him, something that she was trying to hide, to no avail.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing, what?”

“Nothing, Aaron.” I was testing him. He huffed before moving his grip around the back of my neck so that he could start leading me towards the bedroom. “No, wait— Aaron—” I started playfully struggling against him because I didn’t really want to escape from him. At least, not yet. “Baby, I’m sorry!”

Hotch didn’t respond to me. He just opened the door angrily, then led me to the bed with him, still careful to ensure that I wouldn’t trip or hurt myself on my way there. As we approached the end of the bed, Hotch pressed on the back of my neck with his palm, forcing my face down onto the mattress. I hissed at the feeling. When I tried to stand up straight, Hotch increased his strength, pinning me down. I finally gave in, my knees buckling in response to the way his aggressiveness made me embarrassingly wet. But before I could get too comfortable, Hotch made another move. While he grabbed my wrists in order to spread my wingspan across the width of the bed, he also kicked his foot between my ankles with a short and stern demand to spread my legs.

When he was sure that I wasn’t going to budge, he carefully stepped away from me, then moved towards the closet. Shit. Shit, fuck, shit, shit, fuck—Hotch had been so careful with me since we found out that I was pregnant. We hadn’t used the black box since the honeymoon. Of course, since having Emily, it was hard to find time here and there to actually get to all of the fun stuff in the box. I mean, there was hardly any time for us to fuck at all—but we managed to find time since it was an important part of our lives and our relationship, and we knew it. But this… I didn’t think he was going to snap like this.

“Do honorifics mean nothing to you now, brat?” he hissed while pulling out two length of ropes.

“I said I’m sorry!”

He leaned down to whisper in my ear, “Stop speaking out of turn,” as he took my left wrist and looped the rope around it. “Got it?” I nodded. He chuckled at how I caught sight of the trap before it could catch me. He kissed my shoulders. “We’ll use Colors.” I nodded again, knowing that he was probably on edge, too, considering this was the first time we were using ropes in a long time. After roughly tying my left wrist to one of the bedposts, he said, “Color, baby girl.”

“Green.”

“You’ll tell me if it’s Red?”

“Yes, Sir.”

With the reassurance, Hotch moved towards my other wrist, which he tied to the other bedpost. “Maybe you’ll learn your lesson this way.” Suddenly, he flicked the skirt of my dress up, leaving me entirely exposed to him. I gulped. “Stay like that.”

He stepped away from me to grab something else from the black box, but I couldn’t hear what it was until it was too late. He pressed a vibrator right against my clit. My legs buckled again, the mattress and the ropes barely catching me. When I tried to close my thighs around the toy to try and grind against it, or maybe even to escape it, Hotch pressed his legs between my knees to make sure that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Don’t even think about cumming, slut.”

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath while hiding my face in the covers.

“Brats don’t get to cum.” He started moving the toy up and down my slit, making sure that every sensitive part of me felt the full force of the vibrations. “I’m gonna keep it right here,” he pressed it directly against my clit again, “and if you cum, things will only get worse. Got it?” I whimpered. He grabbed my hair and pulled me up roughly. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He let go of me and turned up the speed of the toy. I cried out somewhat and tugged at my restraints as hard as I could, as if it would help make him stop. Even if I escaped, he wasn’t going to stop. He would inevitably just pin me down himself and make sure that I stayed there the way he wanted, taking what he had to give me. Fuck. My stomach was already twisting into a knot. I felt so out of practice with all of this. My stamina was suffering the most, which meant that my orgasm was already approaching, and it was going to be damn near impossible to hold back.

“Sir, may I cum, please?” I begged before I could get too close to the edge.

“No.”

I cried against the comforter. “Please.”

“I said, no.”

I tensed my stomach as much as I could in an attempt to stop myself from getting any closer to cumming than I already was. “Please, please, please…” the plea kept escaping me without thinking. I knew that it wasn’t going to do any good. I knew that he was probably grinning behind me while watching me struggle against the ropes that were keeping my arms spread, and at how I was wiggling my hips in protest—even though it was probably just making the stimulation worse. “Sir,” I choked out, “I can’t—”

“Hold it.”

But I couldn’t hold it back any longer. My legs shook as I tipped over the edge, my orgasm washing through me ten times harder than I had anticipated, making me scream into the mattress. Before I even came down, though, Hotch shoved two of his fingers into me and curled them right into my g-spot. I struggled again. It was too painful to keep going, but Hotch didn’t care. I had cum without permission, especially after being a brat all day, and that was a big no-no. Not that he didn’t expect this outcome. He knew exactly what game it was that he was playing by denying my orgasm and then proceeding to force it out of me, anyhow. He was hoping that I would break the rule. He was counting on my broken down stamina betraying me during the one scene where I needed it to help me out the most; because no he had every reason in the world to make my life a living hell.

“Did that feel good? Hmm?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir.”

“It felt good to break my rule and cum without permission?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“It won’t feel good in a few minutes.”

My eyes widened as I glanced back up at the wall. “No, please, wait—”

“Color.”

“Green,” I answered reluctantly. As much as I hated the thought of what was in store, Hotch hadn’t actually crossed a line with me yet.

Hotch kept the vibrator pressed against me, ignoring the way I was still trying to close my legs and pull against the ropes, and that was when his fingers started thrusting in and out of me at an unrelenting pace. “You want to cum, huh? Fine… Cum. I’m not going to stop.”

My knuckles turned white against the ropes as I kept pulling as hard as I could. “I’m sorry, Sir. Please.”

“Are you sorry? Walking around in this dress all day… Teasing me… How did you think this was going to end?”

“I— Fuck—” I stopped myself when he added another finger inside of me. “Please, I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I made an attempt to buck my hips away from the touch of the toy and his fingers, but he moved with me and then pressed harder to make sure I wouldn’t budge. I was too sensitive to keep going. I probably had another orgasm in me, but that was all, considering how out of practice we were with this stuff. If he tried to go any longer than that—

“Fuck!” I cried, shaking against his touch. “Please!”

“Cum,” he demanded when he felt me tighten my walls around him. I shook my head. “Do it. You said it felt good, so do it again.” I kept shaking my head in protest, but my body had decided that his words were enough to convince me to tip over the edge, so I came again, this time with a little less force considering how tired I was getting. “Poor baby…” he cooed when he saw me shaking helplessly.

“Please…” I whispered. “I can’t…”

“You don’t get to tease me and think that there won’t be a punishment in store for you, slut. You know the rules.”

“I was just mad…” I croaked. Hotch slowed his fingers and turned down the toy somewhat. “I just wanted to keep you here. I’m sorry…”

He turned the toy off and carefully slid his fingers out of my wet entrance. “Are you dropping?”

I shook my head, but Hotch was already working on untying me. “I was just mad,” I repeated. I was just mad and thought that I had to do something to make him mad, too… I was just mad…

----

Despite what we had done, I still wasn’t over Hotch’s decision, or the arguments that we were having. I was sore from straining my muscles, and my mind was exhausted. So, I was really just done with being around him constantly. I needed a break, and I figured that the best way to do so was by texting Morgan to see if he wanted to grab some lunch with me, and when I got the go ahead from him, I slid out of bed, got dressed into something more appropriate, and headed out without saying anything to Hotch.

When I arrived at the restaurant, I turned off my phone so that I could give Morgan all of my attention. I approached the hostess’ table to tell them that I was meeting someone. They grabbed a menu for me before leading me through the dining room and to the back door where the patio was open since it was such a nice day out.

“They live!” Morgan cheered from the table across the patio. I smiled and hurried over to him, my arms out to catch him in a hug after he stood. “It’s so good to see you, baby cakes.”

I squeezed his neck as tight as I could. “Freedom’s nice.”

He laughed and released me. “I’m sure.” He pulled a chair at the table out for me, then pushed it in under me slowly as I sat down. “How’s my goddaughter?”

“Always crying.”

“I told you I’d take her today.”

“You had her yesterday.”

“For an hour.”

“You know what, next time, she can just sleepover at your house with you and Clooney, and you can get up every time she throws a fit,” I joked.

“Deal.”

I squinted at him before glancing down at the menu to consider what I wanted. The thought struck me that if Hotch were really leaving, then we were probably going to have to get a nanny, like Hotch said when he came home from dropping Jack off at school, but it would also be nice to have Derek’s help. He always offered, after all. There were a handful of times over the past few months where he kept asking to take Emily to the park, or to introduce her to Clooney—which was a big no-no with me right now since he was such a big dog—and so on. Maybe it wasn’t too far out for me to ask if he’d be willing to help out just a bit. I mean, I didn’t mean that he had to constantly be there or answer my calls every time, but… Since she had been born, Morgan had been hanging out with Emily every Sunday that he was in town, so maybe he’d be interested in hanging out with her more often than just Sundays. Then again, he had his own life. He was still in his playboy phase, so it was unlikely that he wanted to carry a baby around all the time. Though, babies were chick magnets… Hmm…

“Something’s on your mind,” he finally said.

I looked at him. “What?”

“You’ve been staring at the menu.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m thinking about what I’m going to get.”

“Mhm. Hey, remember that conversation we had when we talked about how I always know when something’s wrong with you? Yeah… I remember. And it’s still true. So, tell me.”

I sighed angrily, slamming the menu shut, and set it on the table while rolling my eyes. Not at him, of course, but just in general. “Did Hotch tell you that the Director is trying to rearrange the BAU’s funds again?”

“Yeah. He warned the team that we might get offers.”

“Did you?”

“I was offered Kate’s spot at the New York Field Office again.”

“Are you gonna take it?”

Derek immediately shook his head. “No. I love where we are too much. Besides, NYC is too dirty and smelly for me.” Yeah, well, the Middle East was all dirt and sand… Maybe Hotch should have considered that aspect, too. “Y/N,” he began warily, “did you take an offer?”

“No…” I croaked, looking down at the napkin on my lap.

“Did Hotch?”

My lip quivered as I nodded.

Morgan sighed. “What is he—” He stopped when the waiter came over with our drinks. “Thanks.” When the waiter was gone, Morgan continued, “What was the offer?”

“A task force in the Middle East. The rest of it is ‘classified’, apparently.” I shook my head in disappointment while picking up my drink.

Morgan eyed me carefully but didn’t say anything yet. He was waiting for me to find the words to describe how it was that I was feeling about the whole situation, but the truth was that there were no words. I knew that I was angry, I knew that I was depressed, and I knew that I was going to be very lonely for a while because of how this was making me feel and react. I was lashing out at Hotch, and that wasn’t the right thing to do. Some part of me understood that. Some tiny, little piece of my mind was screaming at me to do better, to support Hotch like I normally would because I didn’t want to turn into Haley; but reality took the wheel instead of reason. The reality was that Hotch was leaving his family at a time when he needed to be around more. I just had a baby, our daughter was so young that she still needed her father around, and Jack needed reassurance from his father that he wasn’t being forgotten. But Hotch had decided to run from all of that. He made the choice to leave, and so I got angry, and I wanted him to fucking know it. Not that it would help.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “Is it weird that I just want to go numb?”

“No.”

“Then, why can’t I?”

“Because you know in your heart that you have to solve this—if not for your relationship, then for yourself. I know you, Greenaway, and you don’t like leaving pieces of your life unresolved. Whatever the decision ends up being, I know that you’ll at least end up feeling at peace with it eventually because you’ll know that you did all you could.”

“I want him to stay.”

“What does your life look like if he doesn’t?”

“Dark.”

“No. I mean, really, what would your life look like? How would you make it work, because I know for damn sure that you’re not going to give up on him.”

I hated it when he got all wise on me because that was when he started to make the most sense. “I—”

“Alright. What can I get for you two?” the waiter said while speeding over to our table and flipping his notepad open.

After we ordered and turned in our menus, he hurried away, and I looked at Morgan again.

“Realistically, Jessica would have to help out more, which isn’t fair of me to ask of her, even though, apparently, she’s offered to move in with us while he’s gone. I just don’t want to do that to her. But Hotch was right when we talked on Saturday about it. He’s going to be gone and I’m going to be busy with work. There’s no one around who can rush home if Jack or Emily suddenly need something important. Like, I can’t just drop a case because of it, you know? When Hotch and I were working together, it was easy because one of us could stay at work while the other ran home. But now… That’s not an option anymore. So, realistically, my life is going to boil down to family or work, not family and work.”

“And you don’t want to have to make that choice.”

“Of fucking course not. I’ve been dying to get back to work, Derek. I can’t stay holed up in the house any longer, I swear.”

“So, you need an extra pair of hands,” he said, almost like he was alluding to something.

My eyes widened at the realization. “No—”

“—Yes—”

“—Absolutely not!”

“Why not, pudding?”

I squinted at the nickname. “Because you have a dog, a line of girls waiting to fuck you, and your own life to worry about.”

“Well, Clooney can either stay downstairs all the time because you guys got those godforsaken baby gates—” Yeah, we all hated those because we kept forgetting that they were there, so we kept tripping, but then it was also ridiculously hard to open them while juggling a baby in one hand and trying to get the lock undone with the other— “Or, he can stay with a friend.”

“So, we do musical chairs, but with our babies. You get Emily, and your friend gets Clooney?”

“Why not?”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe…” I started laughing.

“Listen, Y/N, I really want to help out. You’re my best friend, and Hotch means a lot to me—and I know how much this opportunity means to him—and Emily’s my goddaughter, so, of course, I want to help out as much as I can. It’s not a big deal. Please, let me help.”

I stopped laughing long enough to gauge just how serious he was. His posture was still straight and unchanged, his eyes were soft like he was pleading, and his breathing was steady, which meant that there was no hint of an act or a lie. He was being serious. When I thought about asking him to help out here and there earlier, I didn’t anticipate this would be the outcome. But how could I say no? I mean, even if I did, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Derek Morgan was going to jump every obstacle between him and Emily until I would inevitably just give in to his offer; so, why not just make it easy for him?

“Okay.”

He smiled. “Okay.”

----

When I arrived home, a smile still on my face as I recalled a stupid joke Morgan cracked during lunch, I set my stuff on the table next to the door and hung up my jacket on the coat rack. The house was dark, which was… peculiar. It was Monday evening, which meant that Jack should have been running around or doing his homework downstairs. And there was no hint of Emily crying. Peculiar. Where had everyone gone?

That was when I turned into the living room to see Hotch sitting there, facing the TV, which was off. Odd. I carefully approached him in case he was holding Emily in his arms and she managed to fall asleep. But once I got close enough, I realized that he was just sitting there. He was staring at the wall.

“Hi,” I welcomed cautiously. He didn’t say anything. “Aaron?” He looked at me shortly, anger washing over him before he turned back to face the wall. “Where’s Jack?”

“A friend’s house,” he answered shortly.

“Emily?”

“Sleeping upstairs.”

“And you?”

He didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong?”

“Where were you today?” he asked quietly and calmly, even though there was a bite behind his words that insinuated that he was secretly boiling with rage. I sighed and shifted to take his hands. He moved away from me. “I dropped today.”

I stopped. “What?”

“I Dom dropped, and you weren’t there. I called you three times, and you didn’t pick up. I’ve just been sitting here all day, freaking out, thinking that I actually hurt you this time around, and that maybe that was why you were avoiding me… and that…” He took in a deep breath and looked away from me. “Where were you?”

“Baby, I didn’t know—”

“Where were you, Y/N?” he repeated, this time his anger breaking through.

I swallowed hard, then sucked in a shaky breath, none of which was helping me calm down for his sake. Hotch had never Dom dropped. Ever. I should have known that the one time I would disappear after a scene without a trace and without talking to him, it would take a toll. I should have known. And, yet, I didn’t do anything to prevent this because I was so caught up in the idea of escaping him and our stifling home long enough to just feel my legs again. Realistically, what I should have done was told him initially how I was feeling. I should have told him that I liked all the attention, and I liked what we were doing, and I was okay with the punishment I received for being a brat, but that I needed a break from all of it. I should have told him that I was mad at him. I was mad because he was leaving, and not even the sex was going to keep him home with me.

He would have understood. He would have cared for me and made sure that I didn’t drop, which would have been enough aftercare for him to not drop. But I wanted to see my friend, and I didn’t take my partner’s feelings into consideration. That wasn’t right. Not only did I fail in that moment as his submissive, but as his wife, and as his partner for nearly four long, blissful years. We were more open than this. We didn’t abandon each other’s feelings like this. All I could think was that I was sorry, but I knew that wouldn’t fly in this situation. I needed to do more.

“I was with Morgan, getting lunch.”

Hotch buried his face in his hands. “You could have told me that.”

“I had to turn off my phone so that I could focus on him. I’m so sorry, baby.” I tried reaching out for him again, and this time he let me. I put my hands on his shoulders, then slowly started squeezing, massaging away his tension, releasing all of the anger that was building up inside of him. “How long have you been dropping?”

“Since you left.”

“Okay…” I kissed his bicep. “Okay. I’m sorry. Did you have lunch?” He shook his head. “You need to eat. Do you want a sandwich or a salad or something?”

He moved to put his hands over mine. He brought them over his shoulders, moving me so that I was sitting on my knees behind him, my chest pressed against his back. “Can we just…” He let out a sigh after kissing the back of my left palm. “There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge. I’ll have that.”

I kissed the back of his head. “Alright.” I let him kiss my hand again before I shifted off of the couch and headed to the kitchen.

Once I had the pizza reheated for Hotch, I carefully balanced the plate and a cup of iced tea for him out to the living room. I slowly handed it to him while sitting down. He silently thanked me before setting the glass down, then settling his grip around one of the piece’s curst. I scooted closer to him so that I could rub my hand over his back as a comfort. He melted somewhat. He continued to eat through the two separate pieces before drinking the iced tea. Then, when he was done, he relaxed against my touch, letting me run my fingers through his hair over and over again.

“Baby, if I knew, I would have stayed. If I knew, I would have come back. I am so sorry, I wasn’t here, Aaron. You’ve never dropped, so it didn’t cross my mind.”

He sniffled. “I don’t know why it happened. I’ve just been so fucked up since I found out that I’m leaving, and I’ve been taking it out on you, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve gone that far with you this morning.”

“It’s okay. I was fine with it, Aaron, I swear. I know you think you hurt me, but you didn’t—you never have, and I doubt that you ever could.” I carefully grabbed his hand, but he reached around to hug me. I kissed his neck. “Look at me.” He did so. “How do we handle this in the future? Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll make sure this never, ever happens to you again.” When I offered getting him some food, I had just guessed that was what he needed, but everyone handled dropping differently.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” he admitted. I brushed my fingers through his hair. “I wouldn’t know what would help…”

“Well, there’s a handful of things. You know me, I like physical touch. Being held by you and loved by you is enough to help me not drop or to stop dropping entirely. But some people like service—like food, or clean, warm clothes or sheets; others like distractions, like movies or exercising; I’ve been with someone who always needed sexual release when she Dom dropped.”

Hotch squinted at me. It wasn’t that he disliked hearing about past partners, but he didn’t like being compared to them. That wasn’t even my intention. I only brought it up because it was hard to tell him that it was okay if he wanted to cum while he was upset. That didn’t make him a bad guy. Even though it was a long time ago, and she and I were young, I could remember vividly how she’d tell me if she felt off after a scene, and I would just know what to do, and she’d immediately feel better. That was how we worked. But I never thought that Hotch would need it, too. I hadn’t seen this coming—which was very much my fault—and so now I needed to find out how to prevent this in the future. His job as my Dominant was to make sure I was in a safe environment before, during, and after play scenes. I neglected my job as his submissive to show the same courtesy. She would have never let that happen because she knew herself well enough to warn me, but Hotch hadn’t seen this coming.

“Just,” I patted his chest, “whatever you feel like you need, tell me. I don’t want you to ever have to go through this again—especially alone. Okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He stayed quiet in order to consider all of his options. I continued to brush his hair back out of his face. A thought that was hitting me was that Hotch hadn’t cum before I left, which could have been part of the problem in the first place. He was so caught up in the idea of punishing me that he hadn’t even taken the chance to fuck me, or even use my mouth. And then, like he was reading my mind, he said, “Could you…” He gulped and rolled his hips instinctively. I smiled lightly. “I’m sorry… That’s stupid…”

“No, it’s not,” I insisted, shaking my head. “Just relax.”

I slid off the couch and landed on my knees before crawling my way between his thighs. He was already hard in his pants from waiting with anticipation. The point wasn’t to tease and play with him. The point was to make him relax and have him release the stress and anxieties that came with dropping. So, I immediately fiddled with his belt, buttons, and zipper, then pulled his pants down—with the help of him lifting his hips up, of course. When he was just in his boxers, I grabbed onto his waistband, then looked up at him. His head was already thrown back against the cushions, his arms stretched out over the back of the couch. While sliding his underwear down, allowing his erection to spring free against his stomach, I asked if he was alright. He nodded shortly.

When I took his shaft in my dominant hand, he hissed and tensed. I shushed him quietly to make sure that he would relax again, and I didn’t move until he did so. As his thighs on either side of my body released the tension that had built up, and his hands turned from fists to laid out palms on his chest, I pumped my hand up and down a couple of times before moving to luck my tongue over his tip.

“Fuck, Y/N—” He stopped himself from moaning too loud because Emily was still asleep upstairs. “More…” He tangled his hands in my hair. “Please.” I let him push my mouth onto as much of his length that would fit—and then some. Rather than pulling on my hair, like he normally would, he instead opted to run his thumb over my cheek bone to encourage me. “So good,” he whispered when I started bobbing my head quickly. He held me as I hallowed my cheeks and used my tongue for extra stimulation. The goal was his release, that was all. There was no need to waste any kind of time. “Baby…” He was so breathless, and I could feel him tensing up again, so I snuck my hands under his shirt to feel up his loose abs, careful to avoid the scars that had been there for years and would be there for the rest of his life. He removed his hands from my hair. When I felt his fingers dance over mine through his shirt, I spread mine so that we could interlock. “I’m gonna—” His abs tightened against my touch, a thousand curses and breathless moans escaped him, and his hips bucked around slightly as he came. “Fuck, fuck, fuck— Shit—” He whimpered submissively as he rode out his orgasm. When I was sure that he was done, I slowly pulled off of him and swallowed, and I wiped my lips clean with my fingers. Hotch sat up to slide his pants on. “Come here.” I sat with him, but then he moved us so that we were spooning together. “Thank you.”

“Do you feel better?”

“Yes.”

I kissed his bicep that was against my cheek. “Good. I’m glad.”

Silence hung in the air for a few minutes as we both caught our breath, and I was thinking about how he didn’t want me to leave today, and I didn’t want him to leave in a few days… It was all so messy.

“We do have to think about getting a nanny,” Hotch whispered. I scoffed. “I’m serious. With me gone and you heading back to work, it just makes sense that we have someone here all the time with Emily who’s not Jessica.”

“Well, maybe if you stayed, we wouldn’t—”

“I’m not fucking staying, Y/N,” he hissed. “I’m sorry, baby, but I don’t know how much clearer I can be.”

“I’m not going to stop trying to keep you home with me, you know?”

He hummed a “yes” in my ear while pulling me closer. “I know.”

“Will it help?”

“Probably not.”

I screwed my eyes shut to stop myself from crying quietly against him. “I love you, Aaron. More than anything in the world. I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You always feel like you have to control everything around you, Y/N, I understand that—in fact, that’s a reason I fell in love with you in the first place. But sometimes you can’t control everything… And when that happens, you just have to admit it and try to move on with your day.”

“I can’t.”

“You’re going to have to try if you’re going to get through this.”

I brought his hands up to my face and kissed his knuckles while thinking about how I couldn’t bear the idea of having to get through anything without him by my side. He was going to be gone for who knew how long. He was going to be who knew where in the Middle East, doing who knew what, risking his life who knew how often. How was I supposed to survive that? How was I supposed to sit around in our home or at the office and do nothing? How was I supposed to trust that he wasn’t going to get himself killed out there? I just didn’t want to think about it anymore. For once, I just wanted to pretend like he wasn’t leaving at all and that I had nothing in the world to worry about.

“I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “More than anything in the world.”

A tear slid down my cheek. “I love you, too.”

-----

criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22  @oceaneblu @brithedemonspawn @absolutemarveltrash @bshelley322 @rousethemouse @sunshinepower17 @weexinling @pettttyyyc​ @Braty-angel

[pascalls]

Are We Running Out of Time?

Helen is out of town and Charlie has an idea for a fun night out. Sometimes, the reverend just has to live a little.

{ Charlie x Lovejoy fic }

Playlist:

Running With the Wolves - AURORA

Pools - Glass Animals

despair - leo.

Stranded Lullaby - Miracle Musical

Dinner & Diatribes - Hozier

Tomorrow Never Came - Lana Del Ray/Sean Ono Lennon

Read it beneath the cut!

He felt a little like an opportunist.

Perhaps he was. When he’d heard that Helen was going out of town with her daughter - Jessica, he remembered - Charlie hadn’t wasted much time in formulating a train of thought that would eventually take him right to the reverend’s front door. It was a bold move that he hadn’t done before, especially since he’d been sleeping elsewhere for the last few weeks. Very few and far in between were the nights that he spent underneath Tim’s train table. Maybe that’s why this felt so nerve wracking.

But with Helen gone, what was the harm? She’d never be the wiser, so long as Charlie was smart. And he’d done his homework; made sure he knew exactly when Helen was leaving and bide his time until he was certain she would be long gone, leaving the reverend alone in his large and not-so-humble abode. It was only when the evening sun began to sink beneath the distant horizon that Charlie made his way to the home and gave the front door a knock. He fought the urge to pace while he waited, ears swiveling forward as the sound of footsteps neared. Straightening up, the hybrid did his best to hide any sign that he’d been at all nervous as the door opened and he was met with the less-than-enthused Timothy Lovejoy, decked from head to toe in his ‘conductor’ garb. He’d been interrupted, obviously. But Charlie didn’t let it faze him.

“...You really should be wearing something to hide those,” was all Tim said, pointing at Charlie’s long rabbit ears.

“It’s getting dark out. They’re fine,” Charlie replied without skipping a beat. “I came to get you outta your train hole for a while.”

“What makes you think I want to get out of my…” Lovejoy shook his head. He wasn’t going to dignify train hole with a response.

“Oh c’mon. The wife’s gone and you’re just gonna sit and do what you would’ve been doing anyway? Let’s go out! Go do something that she would pitch a fit about if she was here, huh?” Charlie’s mischievous grin and slight tail waggle gave away his enthusiasm. Internally, he wondered, if Lovejoy would have the gall - or the courage - to take him up on the offer. But he wouldn’t let the man see him doubt.

Tim sighed, glancing from Charlie back into his house and then back out at the giddy hybrid. A ‘no’ lingered on the tip of his tongue, but it was snatched away from him when he looked out, spying a sporty-looking bright red motorcycle sitting out in the middle of his driveway.

“Is that yours?” He asked, not answering Charlie’s invitation, but stepping out onto the porch and venturing out onto the driveway, eyeing the bike with skepticism - and interest.

Charlie fought the urge to lie, shaking his head. “Just borrowing it from a friend. Told him I’d bring it back in one piece, but I wanted to make sure that I’d make you an offer you couldn’t refuse.” The hybrid elbowed the reverend gently in the side, allowing Tim to circle the bike and make up his mind, in the process.

“...Alright, but not a word to anyone. And if you even run a single red light, I’m driving.” It was a reluctant agreement, but one nonetheless, and Charlie did his best to not grin like a fool as Tim retreated back inside to change, donning his usual pink shirt and tie affair. One that Charlie didn’t think altogether appropriate.

As Tim approached, Charlie went right ahead and reached out, tugging the tie off of the reverend and rolling it up gently, shoving it right into his own pocket.

“You’ll get it back at the end of the night, you big square. C’mon.” It was a tease - and a challenge - as Charlie clambered onto the bike and kicked it to life, the deep rumble of the engine sending tingles up his clawed toes. It had been a considerable time since he’d driven anything, but he’d always preferred vehicles of the two-wheeled sort over four. So he had no problem offering a hand to Tim as he awkwardly positioned himself on the back of the bike, embarrassed and bothered, but only huffing once or twice before settling in.

“Where are we going?” He asked, the words nearly choked from his throat as Charlie pulled away from the Lovejoy household and roared steadily down the street. The hybrid didn’t kick into high gear just yet - they needed to get a little further away from suburbia for that. Instead, he pointed to a backpack which hung off the side of the bike, bulging with the weight of its contents.

“First, there’s a helmet in there. Your head needs more protecting than mine,” Charlie called over the sound of the engine, pleased that Tim didn’t seem to argue. The last thing he needed was to cart the reverend home with a head injury. It wasn’t until he’d placed the helmet snuggly over that nicely coiffed hair that Charlie provided him with an answer. “I want you to see the kinds of sights I get to see all the time!”

Lovejoy frowned to himself. He didn’t know what that meant, but he was given precious little time for a verbal back and forth with the hybrid as they flew out of the subdivision and headed for the highway. As the road opened and the traffic flow ebbed with the approach of the night, their speed steadily climbed. It was clear that they were not staying nested within Springfield. And there was no real insulated space for them to have a conversation. All the man could do was hold tight to the hybrid and try not to regret his decision to come along. He wondered, absently, if it had been better to just stay with his train set.

But as he felt the slight flexing of the hybrid’s midsection in his arms, he lost his train of thought.

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

It felt like almost an hour had passed before they slowed again, the feeling of zipping in and out of lanes still making the reverend’s stomach do a few interesting flips as Charlie steered them away from the main roads and down what looked to be a sandy, almost hidden path. The sound of the engine’s roar was quickly replaced by the roar of a different kind, and before too long, Lovejoy’s vision was filled with dark, flowing waves, illuminated only by the light of a sparse assortment of street lights and the glow of the rising moon.

“The beach? Charlie, it’s the middle of May. And it’s night.”

Charlie could only allow himself a little huff of amusement. “Yeah, I got eyes too, Tim.”

The hybrid veered off the path and down onto the sand, though he was careful not to get too close to the water. The tires struggled enough away from the smooth concrete and he was quick to turn the engine off, leaving the ambient sound of the nearby waves as their only soundtrack.

“I really don’t understand what you wanted to do here,” Tim mumbled, a bit sourly, as he stepped away from the bike, removing the helmet and trying to smooth his hair back down with some frustration. Though the salt air would likely not do it much good either; he gave up after a few moments.

“‘Tis not simply enough to see a sight, my friend?” Charlie replied with an overly dramatic flourish. His own hair was already a bit tousled with the breeze, but he didn’t seem to mind. It was never very finally pinned in place to begin with. “Get away from the fluorescents and stained glass once in a while. It’s good for you.” He beckoned Lovejoy over as he drifted down the sandy dune and towards the water, breathing deeply. It had been some time since he’d stepped away from Springfield and towards the ocean. He was a good swimmer… he simply had little opportunity to do so.

Not that he thought that Tim would take him up on a somewhat chilly night time swim.

Tim followed, though he took his time, sighing upon realization that he’d need to figure out how to get the sand out of his shoes before returning home. This all seemed so silly, but he got down the dunes nonetheless, stepping to Charlie’s side and grumpily staring at the hybrid. Like he expected more of an explanation.

“Well? Did you see it?” He asked, impatiently, not bothering to look out at what they’d actually come to see. It took Charlie all of two seconds to shoot back that impatient stare right at him, though it faded into something a little more… sympathetic. Or piteous? What would the hybrid have to pity him for? Lovejoy was almost offended, but the thought was significantly jostled off of its track as Charlie reached up with a scaly hand and gently pushed it against the reverend’s cheek, steering his face out towards the water.

“Look.”

Charlie said nothing else for the moment as Tim allowed his gaze to fix forward and out to the shifting waves. At first, his irritation threatened to return, but as he felt the hand leave his cheek and he took his first deep breath in, his protests remained swallowed. There was a dark and moody beauty to the scene, driven to a relaxing swell as he listened to the water lap against the shore. He almost didn’t notice that Charlie had sidled up right to his side, watching him with a little smile. But the hybrid’s gaze only lingered for a moment before returning out to the sea.

For a time, neither of them said anything. Until the hybrid finally murmured, a bit dreamily, to Lovejoy.

“Y’know. If there is a God up there… who… y’know, made all this- I’d like to believe that he made this for me.”

Blinking, Tim glanced over at the hybrid who didn’t look away from his fixed stare on the waves.

“...The whole ocean?” That was silly. God would have created it for everyone- all of his believers. And Tim had been about to say as such, but he would get no chance.

“Nah. Just this moment.”

There was a ‘that I’m sharing with you’ in there that remained unspoken, but Lovejoy wasn’t stupid enough to miss the implication. Awkwardly, he shifted his feet, though he found himself unable to dispute the belief, even if he felt heat rising in his face.

He always did say that God worked in mysterious ways.

“Hey! Check this out.”

Surprised by Charlie’s sudden shift into his usual, playful self, Lovejoy watched as the hybrid skittered closer to the water, his tail lifted high enough to keep from dragging in the sand. With a little shiver, Charlie dipped a toe into the waves and then another. Lovejoy stared at him strangely. The idiot would freeze if the water was cold enough.

“Charlie, really.” He said dully, but the hybrid was not swayed. Instead, Charlie only went deeper, pausing only to roll up the cuffs of his pants to prevent them from getting soaked entirely. The water was halfway up his shin when he stopped, locking eyes with the reverend as he waggled his tail once again. Like a child, Tim thought.

“Watch.”

With a strange precision that he didn’t think the hybrid was capable of, Charlie sunk the tip of his tail into the waves, and with a quick spin, dragged it in a circular motion. The water swished around him, and where his tail had been, tiny, microscopic beads of light appeared in its place. The water glowed with bioluminescence, illuminating the dark waves with an eerie aura that was also strikingly beautiful. Lovejoy had little to say as he ventured closer to the water, though made certain to keep his shoes from being splashed with the salty waves.

“...That’s not you is it?” The reverend asked, skeptical about the source of the glow and wondering whether or not Charlie had received more ridiculous radiation in Burns’ factory than he thought…

“No!” Charlie replied with a laugh. Dummy. “It’s plankton. They light up at night. Come and see!”

Another temptation - another invitation. Lovejoy seemed to be trapped in a never-ending series of challenges from the hybrid. But his curiosity was piqued. He’d never been able to see something like this before, save for, perhaps, on TV when he stayed up late channel-surfing because he couldn’t sleep. How stupid would he have to be to pass up on something like this? Besides… he could probably frame it in a sermon later on.

Yeah. That was his justification.

Though he huffed in faux-agitation, Lovejoy eventually stepped back and away from the water, removing his shoes and socks, nesting them neatly in the sand nearby and returning to the water’s edge where Charlie waited eagerly. Though there was hesitation in his movements, he was already halfway there. Eventually, he goaded himself into the water, similarly rolling up his pants and staring - with half-hearted annoyance - at Charlie who only returned his look with an excitable grin.

“Go on. Give it a try,” Charlie said, glancing from the water back up to Lovejoy who stood, awkwardly, not wanting to look foolish, and yet…

He sighed.

Reaching down, he dipped his fingertips into the water - then his hand. No light gleamed from beneath the frothy water and he frowned.

“You gotta wake ‘em up a bit.” Charlie’s encouragement was genuine.

It was enough so that Lovejoy didn’t feel… too put out when he gave the water a bit of a swish with his hand. And though the glow that emanated from the creatures within was fairly weak, it was a reaction nonetheless. He stared, a bit wide-eyed, moving his hand a little faster to strike up a better, stronger glow.

“See? Easy.”

“I know how to stir water,” Lovejoy replied, his gaze venturing back up to the hybrid who had carefully plodded over to where he was, glancing down at his plankton-stirring handiwork.

“Do you? Because you seem like you’re having kind of a hard time with it,” the hybrid shot back with a little smirk. Teasing, as he was wont to do.

Tim prickled at the implication, chasing a sudden urge and reaching down into the water. He scooped a bit of it into his hand, shifting his stance a bit so he didn’t sink too far into the sand, and flicked the water at Charlie in a meager splash. It was enough to significantly surprise the hybrid who hopped away in a little shake, droplets splattered onto his glasses as he stared dully back at the reverend.

“You are so rude,” Charlie said, his gaze turning devilish as he lowered his tail back into the water once again, circling Tim mischievously.

“...Okay- look. Now- Don’t go too far with this. This is my good shirt-”

Charlie didn’t wait for Tim to come up with more excuses, his tail lashing against the waves and sending a spray of sea water towards the reverend which the man tried and failed to dodge. Now they were both wet. And the thought seemed to strike both men at once. Now it was a war.

Charlie bolted away from the reverend as the man gave chase, both eagerly trying hard not to face plant into the sand and still spray the other with a considerable splash of seawater to consider it even. Charlie didn’t bother trying to disguise his laughter, amused by the grave expression on Lovejoy’s face, even though he too was trying not to chuckle under his breath. It was only when their back and forth nonsense caused Tim to nearly topple backwards into the waves that their game came to an end, the hybrid reaching out to snag Lovejoy by the wrist and tug him back to his feet. They didn’t need to play chicken with the current.

“Don’t drown on me now,” the hybrid said as he steadied Lovejoy, hands drifting to the man’s hips to keep him rooted in place, though he caught himself quickly, returning his grasp to himself and clearing his throat. “You good?”

Tim, for all of his alarm at the thought of losing his balance, was not thinking about that so much as the press of those hands on his body. Though the water was chilly, he was feeling impossibly warm, his hair wet and plastered to his head in what was undoubtedly a mess. His gaze quickly flitted from Charlie, to Charlie’s scaly hands, and then down to his own feet.

“Uh. Yes. Just fine.”

The water around them was teeming with bright, illuminated creatures, but he was having a hard time focusing on that. Even if it was beautiful.

“Good. I’d really rather not have to call the coast guard out here to rescue you a mile off shore,” Charlie replied with a little smile. Lovejoy stared at him for a moment before reaching up to snag the glasses from the hybrid’s face. Bringing them down, he attempted to wipe them clean with his shirt, but to no avail. His shirt was fairly soaked through. A rare kind gesture, foiled at its inception. Lovejoy frowned a little, moving to return them to the other, but not before he felt a sudden drop of moisture from above.

Were the waves growing?

No. That was rain.

Charlie glanced up to the sky and flinched as another drop of water hit him square in the face.

“...Maybe I should’ve checked the forecast,” he said sheepishly as the clouds above them opened and began to shower them both with light, cool rain that stirred the bioluminescence below and lit the water as far as they could see.

“Probably,” Lovejoy replied with a gentle sigh. Their earlier attempts at keeping the rest of their clothes dry seemed fairly futile now. But at least they weren’t amidst a torrential downpour or anything.

“I’ll pay for your dry cleaning. No worries.” Charlie kept his gaze on the other, a friendly apology in his eyes. The words were reassuring to Tim, in some way. Had he been worried about that at all? He wasn’t sure. He owned a dryer. It wasn’t a big deal, even if he made it out to be. But… Charlie was still concerned nonetheless.

“It’s… fine.”

The word tapered from his lips as he met Charlie’s eyes, the rain coasting along the waves and the light below bathing them both in the ghostly glow. From where he stood, he realized that, without his glasses, the other man’s eyes were…

Interesting.

No, that wasn’t the right word. But he couldn’t find the correct one. And for a moment, he didn’t seem to care, their eyes locked on one another’s as the sound of the water rushed around them and the cool relief of the rain kept Lovejoy’s face from getting too hot for him to handle.

Before he knew what he was doing, his body was moving towards the other, the pair of glasses still in one hand as he closed the distance between them. His other hand reached to find the hybrid’s chin, keeping him in place as he inspected - really looked at Charlie’s eyes. Like he was looking for something… specific.

“...What…?” Charlie asked, his breathing somewhat short as his heart hammered in his chest. He was not… used to being handled this way. And part of him wanted to run. But he stayed put, allowing Tim to do… whatever it was that he needed to do.

There was a stretch of a few long seconds before they both understood. But it was Lovejoy who finally pulled Charlie closer to him, pressing his mouth to Charlie’s in a heated, nearly desperate kiss. His fingers gripped tightly to the glasses in one hand and to Charlie’s wrist in the other. But Charlie needed no rooting to keep him in place. His own hands were free, reaching up to frame the other man’s face and deepen that kiss as though his life depended on it. Truly, he told himself, this had not been his intent. He’d been making progress - convincing himself that there could be nothing - would be nothing - between he and Tim. But this…

He drank it in like he’d been deprived of water for his entire life, his eyes shut tight against the sweeping rain and the mist that it kicked up beneath them. Lovejoy’s chest clenched painfully at the warmth of the kiss; at the obvious days, weeks, months of mutual pining between them. Where would this go? Where could it go? Nowhere but down. Down into the depths like so many microscopic bits of plankton which disappeared when the sun rose once again.

But they had time yet - the moon was still full despite the clouds framing it in a gentle embrace. The rain still shrouded them both as the kiss was broken, only for it to be reconnected once again. More than once, Lovejoy almost dropped the hybrid’s glasses into the waves, but he held tighter onto them each time. He had let Charlie down in so many ways… at the very least, he could keep his damned glasses safe.

Sadly, the hybrid knew that such a tender, sweet moment was only destined for brevity. Despite the aching in his chest and the churning, bubbly discomfort in his stomach when he thought of pulling away, he forced himself to. Even if it was slowly; gently. His hands on Lovejoy’s face remained there briefly before they too fell back to his sides, claws digging slightly into his own palms as he watched the reverend place his glasses back in front of his eyes. Behind the glass, Lovejoy was blurry and spotty. Somehow… out of reach.

As he often was.

But Charlie didn’t let his sadness pierce the veil of the moment, offering Lovejoy a soft, encouraging smile. There was nothing wrong. It was fine. Everything was fine.

“Come on. We should probably get you back home before you get sick.” Concerned, as always, though he knew that the morning would bring the crushing loneliness that he knew stemmed from Lovejoy’s apparent lack of concern from day to day.

It was fine.

Charlie led the way back to the shore, fruitlessly trying to shake the water from his hair and climbing back up the damp dunes, turning to offer his hand to Tim as he followed behind, much more slowly, and seemingly lost in thought. Charlie wouldn’t blame him, patience in his eyes as he allowed Tim to take his time. He arrived at the bike first, pulling the helmet out again and doing his best to shake it free of the rain as the shower tapered into a light drizzle. He offered it to Tim, watching as the reverend distractedly placed it on his head and climbed onto the bike behind the hybrid.

They would drive home more slowly, the sting of the drizzle against Charlie’s face an almost jarring reminder that all he would have to show for his bold night out was memories and wet clothes.

--------

Lost in thought as they drove back to the Lovejoys’, Tim had said nothing as soon as they left the water. Though his grip on Charlie tightened when they increased in speed and he’d - at some point - rested his head against the hybrid’s shoulder, his silence persisted as they returned to the quiet, stifling air of the suburbs. His house loomed ever closer, his fingers gripping the fabric of Charlie’s shirt which clung to his somewhat-skinny frame as if he could slow down time and make the trip last longer. But it was not to be.

The bike turned gently into the reverend’s driveway, the engine quieting to a purr and then silencing altogether as Charlie parked, hopping stiffly off the bike and allowing Lovejoy to follow. Tim peeled off the helmet, unaware and uncaring that his hair had flattened against his head during the ride, setting it down on the seat of the bike and leading the way up to the doorstep. The hybrid followed, albeit with hesitation, not venturing up and onto the porch step, even as Lovejoy opened the front door, greeted with a dark, lonely front hallway.

“Make sure you get dry and warm,” Charlie said from behind him, his voice muted and lacking the earlier eager energy that he’d had when they’d left for the shore. Lovejoy didn’t look back, nodding and opening the door wider, prepared to go in and shut it behind him. Charlie had clearly found places to stay. He didn’t need Tim anymore.

But-

As the door seemed to creak to a close behind the reverend who disappeared into the house, Charlie turned away with a gentle exhale. He’d spent the long drive back preparing himself for the disappointment of pretending as though the night had never happened. Resignation was all he had left as he drifted back over to the bike. Lifting up the helmet, he stared into the visor for a moment, seeing his tired, weary expression staring back at him in the reflection.

You’re a fool, Charlie Dean Walker.

“Wait,” called a voice from behind him. Charlie’s ears twitched with curiosity, turning to see that Lovejoy hadn’t quite shut the door yet. The hybrid blinked, confused.

“...It’s too late for you to be driving around looking like that,” Tim said in his usual chastising tone, though his eyes betrayed his harsh words.

They were pleading. Desperate.

“Come in and let me throw them in the wash. Otherwise they’ll never get clean, knowing you.”

Charlie stood upright, staring at Lovejoy in disbelief. He knew an implication when he heard one. And this time… he really didn’t need to be asked twice. Placing the helmet back on the bike, he pulled the key from the ignition and carried it up with him to the porch. Hesitant, at that first step, he fought the urge to run. But here it was. The invitation that he’d wanted. He knew that Lovejoy would not ask him to stay just to toss him back into the basement.

This was something different.

Something new.

Something… exciting.

Oh, he was still a fool. And he always would be. But Charlie chased his foolhardy desires up those steps, snaking his way into the front hallway of the Lovejoy residence and disappearing behind the door.

What Helen didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

[vanessakirbyfans]

When it came to her portrayal of a grieving mother grappling with unimaginable tragedy in Pieces of a Woman, Vanessa Kirby sought one thing above all: authenticity.

Executive-produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Kornél Mundruczó, with a screenplay by Kata Wéber, the film follows Martha (Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf), a couple reeling — in very different ways — from the grief of losing their newborn daughter during a home birth. It doesn't shy away from the often unglamorous realities of childbearing, or womanhood, or grief, and for Kirby, that was an integral part of her performance.

"It was really important for me to try to portray a real woman, not a movie version of this where the actress is made-up the very next day. I just wanted there to be no vanities through all of it in any way," the Emmy-nominated The Crown alum tells EW. "I wanted to feel the authenticity of that experience, because to not do that would be betraying the experience that these women have had."

Pieces of a Woman had its world premiere over the weekend in Venice, where Kirby earned career-best reviews and was met with early Oscar buzz. Now the film heads to Toronto for its North American debut, and where buyers will no doubt be circling. (It's still seeking distribution.)

Ahead of its Canadian bow, Kirby spoke with EW about all the ways she prepared for the role (including watching a birth in person), the challenge of shooting the nearly 30-minute birthing sequence in one take, and how the film hits a bit differently during a pandemic.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What about this character really spoke to you and made you want to tackle this part?

VANESSA KIRBY: I guess the challenge of it, really. Also, I knew that it was a kind of an experience or a subject matter that hasn't been explored on film a lot. I know for the women that I spoke to and spent time with that had been through this, I don't think they've seen their experience on screen in this way before. I think we all felt like there was a responsibility here for anyone that's been close to someone who's gone through this or have gone through it themselves, as a woman, but as partner, as a man, too. It was that as well as the challenge and how demanding it was to truly kind of try and represent grief in that way. It made me think of Three Colors: Blue, which is one of my favorites films, and it felt like a companion to that somehow.

The birth sequence, which is nearly 30 minutes long, was one continuous take. What was your reaction when you realized you'd be doing that?

We kind of all made the decision together, really, and I actually was truly excited about it because I came from theater, which is kind of uninterrupted. So the idea of doing a 30-minute take with no cuts was really kind of exhilarating to me. It required us to kind of freefall. Also, as a company, we started with that as our first two days of filming — we did four takes [of the scene] the first day, two the second — and it required all of us to kind of jump off a cliff, really, and freefall altogether, including the amazing [cinematographer] Benjamin Loeb — he was the MVP — he just held his camera the whole time. He literally followed us for half an hour capturing different moments of the process. It just honestly felt like we took a jet and we jumped off. It was deeply bonding. We felt like we'd been to war together.

How do you prepare for something like that?

Well, I'd never given birth myself and I knew I had to try and portray it as authentically as possible, because if you don't believe that [scene], then none of the rest of the movie works. And to do it in one take, I knew that any moment where we didn't believe it would ruin it. And so I started off kind of watching as many different documentaries as possible and nothing quite captured it, that true, lived-in, whole experience.

So then I knew that I was going to have to find people that really, really knew this stuff and could help teach me and I could learn everything about it. I found this amazing obstetrician called Claire Mellon who works at a hospital in North London and went to shadow her and be with the midwives for many days. They were so generous and totally took me under their wing, and showed me everything. Then sort of a miracle happened where, on one of the afternoons, a woman came in and she was 9 cm dilated. So, she was really just about to start pushing. She allowed me to be there in the room with her, and that changed everything for me because I realized the miracle of it, and the terror as well. I could not have acted it without her being so generous. I also found this amazing woman called Elan McAllister, who'd made this documentary called The Business of Being Born, which was about the kind of industry of birth. We ended up flying her over from Portland and she was there with us during the birth and helped sort of devise the dance of the birth. She was unbelievably helpful.

The film is incredibly realistic with the details of birth and grief, from Martha's messy hair and her nails to the adult diapers she wears and the leaking breast milk. Was all that in the script, or did you add that in?

No, actually, we added them as we went along. So, the diaper was added because a friend of mine who had several miscarriages, she was like a really high-powered lawyer, and she had to go to work the next day after one of her miscarriages, and she said, "You know, I was at work, I was wearing a diaper and I was doing a big presentation. And I would go to the loo and have blood in my diaper, and I would go back to my computer and carry on, and I couldn't talk to anyone about it, and I couldn't tell my bosses, and I didn't know how to." And it just stayed with me so much because I just thought, God, this is such an unseen struggle, and a private one. I mean, from her experience, she said [it was] a very lonely one. And there were so many different stories from women that I spent time with; I tried to weave all of their individual experiences into the whole thing. So, one day on set, I ordered diapers and was wearing them throughout the film. Some of them you see and some of them you don't. I felt those little things were important because Martha is so restrained, she's pushing down her grief so much and actively not wanting to confront it because it's just too painful, so I wanted little bits here and there to portray it, so the audience would just feel for her.

You finished shooting the film right before the COVID-19 pandemic. Has the pandemic changed how you feel about the film and its themes?

Oh, yes, Kornél talked about this recently. I think there's been much loss during the pandemic. I think people have lost many things. And Kornél said to me that he hopes in some way that the film speaks to people who have lost something and how, although we might never be able to come to terms with it, it's how we live alongside the grief, basically. [The film] is in some ways universal — yes, this is a story of a woman who loses a baby or a family that loses a baby — but I think in many respects, people have lost things, or lost their loved ones as a result of [COVID-19] or other things, and so I hope in some way there's a sort of coming together over collective loss and looking at how do we find our way through it. I think for Martha, she finds her voice at the end. She'll never be the same, but through that process, I think Martha finds parts of herself. I think that's why it's called Pieces of a Woman, because she finds pieces of her that she didn't know that she had, and that's her way through loss and how she begins to come out of it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

[whiskynottea]

An Interruption in the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

Previously, Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38

AO3

@theministerskat, once more, thank you love, for beta-ing this story! ❤️

Chapter 39. The Exams

Biology.

Cell structure and genetics, homeostasis and synaptic neurotransmission. My first exam, just a week after Jamie’s birthday. A week after that perfect evening; the last time I removed school completely from my thoughts, free of the impending challenge of the exams that would shape my life.

Murtagh had disappeared after we cut the cake – supposedly to leave us alone, although we knew exactly where he was going – and the four of us had decided to make popcorn and watch old Disney movies, to keep the child in Jamie alive.

As if he wasn’t a child already, blowing out his candles with such wonder and fervor, as if a whole new world had opened in front of him.

Ian had declared that one of the movies we had to watch was Finding Nemo, since it had become our party’s unofficial theme. Jenny and I picked Hercules, already giggling over the lines of Hades and the Muses’ songs. Perched on the two couches of the living room – Jamie had stated we were to have the largest one because it was his birthday – we’d sang, laughed, and recited almost all the dialogue of each movie. When Murtagh had come back – whistling a happy tune that made the smiles on our faces broader – I’d given Jamie the longest goodnight kiss in the history of the world and went to sleep in Jenny’s room. After approximately two hours of talking and giggling, Jenny and I had eventually fallen asleep, smiling, celebrating our victory over Jamie’s grief, with his full, belly laughs still echoing in our ears.

When I left their apartment the next morning, I tried to memorize the feel of Jamie’s arms around my body, the softness of his lips, warm and inviting on mine.

We saw each other much less over the following month, and even though we had both agreed that this was the best strategy to follow, it still seemed like the stupidest idea we’d ever had. But we had a goal and we had to achieve it.

Not that many miles south of Edinburgh, lay our future.

Oxford.

Every time I was ready to give in and call Jamie to meet me for a walk, I refocused my mind on that single word, imagining us both strolling around in that fairytale city, hands linked, feet feeling the uneven cobblestones under our shoes. My life was already divided into the pre- and post-Oxford era, and that was enough motivation to make my eyes and my thoughts return to the notes laid out on my desk.

I just had to excel in my exams.

I had been planning, studying, and preparing for more than a year, and it felt surreal that the time of the exams had finally come. I was trying to remain calm, to remind myself that I was ready, that I had done the best I could. It was the truth, after all. Since the beginning of the year I had gone over the content of my subjects more times than I could count. I had even organized my time during the exams; what questions I’d approach first, what I’d leave for the end.

But I knew that my textbooks wouldn’t be enough this time. There was always something more to learn, some new information I could fit in with the knowledge I already acquired. Something that would make a difference, that would demonstrate how hard I had worked, how serious I was about my choice.

When I’d read everything I thought would be relevant, I started watching YouTube videos and reading scientific papers. It was then that Lamb started teasing me, saying if I’d continue like I was I could just skip going to medical school altogether.

Lamb, who kept saying it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I failed my exams, that life always offers new possibilities, some of which I probably never fathomed beforehand.

I couldn’t even listen to him talking about failure, about a future different from what I’d dreamed of. I wouldn’t let that happen.

But… What if I had missed something important? What if I hadn’t paid attention to a significant detail?

“Will ye stop before ye go completely crazy, Sassenach?” Jamie asked me when I voiced my thoughts. “Ye ken everything! Ye’ll do great tomorrow!”

I sighed dramatically and he pressed me tight against his body with a strong arm around my shoulders. I pulled his face down towards me for a kiss, to drink in some of his optimism, to feel the auburn locks cold between my fingers and his lips warm on mine. He had come straight from the swimming pool and had almost dragged me out of my house to prevent me from going through the previous years’ exams one last time.

“Just for a wee walk, Sassenach,” he’d said. “To decompress before the big day.”

It was impossible to say no to Jamie, so I’d tried to silence the little voices in my head, crying that I should stay at home and study, instead of walking around Edinburgh the night before the exams.

“Ye wee nerd,” Jamie said, when I told him I felt bad for going out. I huffed and I nudged him on the ribs, pulling away from him.

“I’m not a nerd!” I protested, in a voice that was more high-pitched than I’d have liked.

He kept silent but raised an eyebrow, while I could plainly see the corner of his mouth curling up in a suggestive smile.

“I’m not!” I repeated, and then crossed my hands across the front of my chest, pouting. Seeing that he still hadn’t said a word, I relented. “Okay, maybe just a bit.”

That made him chuckle. “Come here, my nerd,” he said, curling his index finger repeatedly in a come hither way, broadly grinning.

“Your nerd…” I murmured, thinking, but didn’t move towards him. “So that makes you my jock?”

“I’m not a jock!” he said in a nasal voice, and I could hardly contain my giggle. Following his lead though, I just shrugged and looked at him. “We’re not playing in a rom-com,” he continued, defiant. “First of all, you weren’t secretly in love with me from the beginning.”

I wanted to cackle, but I did my best for a serious voice instead. “No, I wasn’t.” It was a lost battle, trying to keep a straight face, and I knew it, but continued nonetheless. “I could never fall in love with you, the swoon-worthy swimmer... All muscle and no brain… No, not a chance.”

Jamie narrowed his eyes at me and pursed his lips, as if deciding what was the best way to take revenge. “Like that, is it, Sassenach?”

“Mmm, you were sae repulsive, ye ken.” I tried my best to mimic his accent and burst out laughing.

“Ye’re dead, Sassenach,” he said and came towards me with long strides. I ran. He ran, too, and I hadn’t even reached the next block when he caught up with me, capturing me in his arms.

I was dead. I was sure my heart would stop beating at any moment, overwhelmed by a euphoric feeling that made happiness seem trivial.

“You do know I wanted you from the very beginning,” I whispered to him, my breath brushing against his lips. “Jock.”

“And I, you,” he said, his voice utterly sweet, and swallowed my sigh with his kiss. “Nerd.”

--

The next day I sprang out of bed listening to my alarm clock, with blurry images of cell membranes still fogging my thoughts. I had dreamed of the exams, again.

I took a deep breath and checked my phone, finding a text from Jamie.

Scot: Show them how it’s done, Sassenach.

Scot: ILY ❤️❤️

He had set his alarm clock just to text me.

Sassenach: ILY TOO! 😘

I couldn’t imagine a better way to start my day.

An hour and a half later, I was at school, sitting at my desk, waiting for the paper. The moments before we were handed the exams were the worst. I had quickly found that looking around while waiting was the worst thing to do, so I focused on my desk instead, feeling the smooth surface beneath my fingertips. I fidgeted with one of my two pens, swirling it around and running my nail over the carved letters, to hear the reassuring scratching sound of their resistance. Not having much more to do, I took deep breaths, waiting.

The room was quiet, but there was a tension hanging low over our heads, filled with dreams and opportunities, stress and hope. It felt so heavy and real, that I was afraid I would accidentally breathe it in and it would close my throat, linger in my trachea, to end up in my lungs and keep the oxygen out. The atmosphere was thick with apprehension, and we could almost capture it between our fingers. The same fingers that minutes later, gripped the pens and started writing.

The moment the paper was in front of me everything around me disappeared. It was me versus myself – my favorite competition. My brain was on the verge of being burned with overthinking, my hand hurt from holding the pen too tight, but I continued to write the answers. I knew them all.

I almost danced in the middle of the street when I met Jamie later, success making me deliriously happy. Jamie had one more week before his English exam, which was his favorite subject, and the only one he wouldn’t need in his application for a business management bachelor’s degree. He wasn’t anxious at all, the bloody Scot, and I couldn’t understand how he did it.

Not anxious about the exams, that is. Because every day I watched him become more and more worried about the Scottish National Championship. It seemed absurd to me that he would care that much about swimming, right in the middle of the exams. Especially after all our work, to make his grades in math descent again. “You do realize that you have to finish the exams first, right? That we have more than two months until you’ll swim at the Nationals?”

“Aye, Sassenach. I do.” His voice was rigid, and it made me feel like a mother scolding her child. “Ye dinna trust me now?” he asked, and I kept silent, guilty, because the thought that he overestimated his preparation for the exams had crossed my mind more than once. Jamie exhaled loudly and took my face in his hands. “Claire,” he said, “I do study and I will get the grades I need. I’m no’ a fool.”

His eyes were so serious and sincere that I couldn’t but nod in agreement. Jamie kissed my forehead and pulled me in for a tight hug. “Tis just…” he started, but trailed off.

“What?” I mumbled, and nuzzled against his neck, breathing him.

“I think it’s more difficult to win the National Championship than it is to write an A+ in math and business management. My personal best needs so much improvement.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with the statement, but I decided to trust him. “I know you’ll make it,” I said, and kissed the hollow between his clavicles, that little part of him I had declared mine, months ago.

--

It’s sometimes difficult to realize, incomprehensible almost, how things you’ve been waiting for so long come to pass, like fast breaths taken after a long run. And the air I breathed in, leaving the testing hall for the last time, had the taste of accomplishment.

Math was our last exam. When I saw Jamie waiting for me with his red curls falling over his forehead totally disheveled from all the times he ran his hands through them, my heart stopped. But then I saw the huge smile on his face, and it told me everything I needed to know.

We had more than a month before the results would be announced, but we had done well. We had made it.

Oxford was waiting for us.

I walked towards him, grinning, and I felt like flowing above the shiny floor, my feet inches away from the surface.The moment I came to stand in front of him, Jamie hugged me tight, lifted me up in the air, and asked me if I would be his date at the prom.

“We’re going to the prom?” I asked, uncertain.This was the last thing I expected to hear at that moment.

“Aye! Of course we are! So, will ye be my date, Sassenach?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” I replied, teasing him. “This is really on short notice, and I might have plans for that night.”

Jamie shook his head, lowered me to the ground and bent his head to kiss me. “Cancel yer plans, mo ghraidh. Ye’ll be all mine that night.”

Chapter 40

[takingcourage]

A Vision of Sunset

A Desire and Decorum Gothic AU (Part 4 of 4)

All previous parts can be accessed through my Masterlist 

Pairing: Harper x MC

Word Count: 4,025 

Summary: A mysterious ally has come to Helena’s aid. Chaos ensues, and the fate of Edgewater hangs in the balance. 

Author’s Note: My warning about needing to suspend your disbelief is about to become pertinent, dear reader. As a realist, I fully acknowledge that gothic tropes aren’t very plausible -- but goodness, they make for compelling stories! Thanks for reading this far and for putting up with my first attempt to write genre fiction. I’ve had an absolute blast!

Even with her mouth unbound, Helena was still unable to make any sound in that moment. The sight before her rendered her entirely speechless.

Her rescuer, a tall, lean man with chestnut curls, was not the stranger she had believed him to be after all. She still did not know his identity, but the connection between them was undeniable -- a link more tangible than the tenuous attachment of a dream.

He strode into the stables with confidence, hand resting on the pommel of his smallsword as he took stock of the Duke and his men. Their attention drawn by the newcomer’s presence, all three turned away from Helena, their backs stiffening in anticipation of conflict.

“If it isn’t Lord Harry, back from the dead!”

The duke’s words turned Helena’s blood to ice. Her brother, alive? She squinted at the man in question, wondering just how hard she had fallen when she had swooned an hour before. Yet, how else could the familiarity be explained?

“You know me well, Duke Richards. And you will understand that I don’t take kindly to your invasion of my home, nor your assault on my sister.” He turned to Helena then, greeting her with a roguish smile.

She could do little more than stare back at him, agape.

“It just so happens that I’ve been spoiling for a fight,” Harry confided, easing his way toward the three men. “And I think your actions are ripe incentive for drawing swords.”

Fully engrossed by the sight before her, Helena startled at the sensation of sudden pressure on her shoulder. She shifted, catching a glimpse of black jacket in her periphery. Her gasp came involuntarily.   

“Shh,” Luke urged her, his fingers working quickly to dissolve the knots that held her fast. “You should return to the house, Helena. Even with Lord Harry here, things are likely to take a nasty turn.”

Before them were the escalating voices of confrontation, though the four men had not yet come to blows.

Despite his warning, she could not swallow back the question that rose in her throat. “How is he alive?”

“There is little time to explain now.” The last of the bands had fallen loosely to the floor, but he still held one wrist between his gentle hands. 

Helena turned toward him on the stool, stomach clenching at the sight of the swollen lump at his temple. She raised her free hand to cautiously trace the purpling skin, wincing at the broken skin beneath her fingers. 

He continued under his breath, “I only found out minutes ago when he roused me.” He stepped back with great effort. “If you are well enough to run, you should go back to the house.”

“I would fight beside you.”  

The tension in his face softened as he noticed the set of her jaw, and his eyes grew tender. “I have no doubt of that, Helena. But if it comes to the worst, I would not have you here to witness it.”

Even as the words left his mouth, their ears were met with the metallic rush of sword being drawn from scabbard. Luke sprang to action, preparing his own weapon as he entered the fray.

Having been freed from her perch, Helena followed close behind. She scanned the building sharply, eager to find anything that she might use as a weapon. Her eyes lighted on a shovel that one of the stable boys had left behind from mucking stalls. The same heady feeling that had overwhelmed her senses as she ran came to her once again.

Helena took the implement from its place against the wall with every ounce of determination that eluded her over the past weeks. Now that her course had been decided, she channeled everything she had into bringing it to pass.

Luke had already pulled the duke’s attention away from Harry, but the two accomplices remained trained on her half brother. Shovel weighing heavily in her grasp, Helena approached the three men, carefully tracking each of their movements.

The taller man lunged toward Harry, but her brother parried effortlessly and answered with an attack of his own. Her eyes narrowed at the short man’s stance. She didn’t know what he was planning, but what he lacked in strength, he made up for in speed.

Fortunately, she shared much the same advantage, and managed to strike down his sword with the head of the shovel before he even realized that she had entered the fight. He tried again to lift his weapon, but she swept the implement beneath his legs, catching him off balance.

He regained his footing, regarding her open-mouthed as she held his gaze with defiance. Helena took a small step back, leading him toward the open floor at the middle of the building. The man took her challenge, abandoning his partner in pursuit of this new opponent.

It occurred to her that, of the six of them, she was the least likely to suffer harm in the brawl. Although she had taken no training in any form of combat, it was unfathomable that the duke would allow her to come to serious physical harm. Therefore, if she wanted to distract this man, she would have to be the one to strike first. It was imperative that she keep him away from Luke and Harry, no matter how much she disliked violence. 

Helena shifted her hands to the center of the handle, wary of her opponent’s capable stance. He looked competent -- certainly more assured of his place than she. 

How is one to fight with a shovel? Unfortunately, her mind offered no answer to the query. 

“Are you Cyrus?” she inquired, remembering the name the duke had mentioned before. She paired the question with a wide stroke at the man’s legs.

He sidestepped and lowered his weapon in defense. “I am.”

“And you have been spying on me?” Helena stabbed toward his chest, allowing ample time for him to dodge the blow.

Cyrus evaded confidently. “The duke paid me to keep a watch on the stables and report back to him.” He lowered the sword by a hair, relaxing his grip under Helena’s keen eye.

Just a little further, she urged herself, taking another step back.

He followed again, eyeing her as if awaiting a response.

“And you were only too happy to do his dirty work for him, I suppose.” Her indignance, having been forgotten in all that had occurred since her conversation with the Duke, came again to the fore. Helena lowered the shovel to her side, but held on steadily with both hands.

He cocked an eyebrow in consideration. “I must say, I got a pretty good show out of it this morning.” The guffaw that accompanied his words proved her undoing.

Forcing down a rush of anger at the man’s admission, she adjusted her grip, bringing her right hand just higher than her left on the long handle. “I’ll thank you not to pry into my business anymore.” Her words were calculated, but the fire behind them left her trembling.

If the man took notice of her movement, he did not react. Seizing her chance, Helena swung with lightning speed, clipping him with the breadth of the shovel’s head. She recoiled at the sound her weapon made on contact with his skull, whispered apologies passing her lips instinctively at the sight of the man who lay before her.

Cyrus, at least, was incapacitated.

She then took stock of what was happening around her. Harry was managing skillfully, though she feared the sweat on his brow was a show of strain. Much to her dismay, Duke Richards was proving an abler swordsman than she had anticipated. Luke kept pace with him without great effort, but she could take little comfort as long as the fight continued. Perhaps if I can sneak up on the duke, I can catch him by surprise...

Just as she was considering her next move, several things happened at precisely the same moment. Mr. Marlcaster stormed in from the side entrance to the stables, his hasty footsteps pounding through Helena’s ears. Harry’s opponent fell to his knees, neck bare before the man who had bested him. The duke, having cornered Luke into an empty stall, threw down his sword and drew something from beneath his coattails.

Helena inched closer to the duke, heart hammering wildly against the hollow of her chest. Rounding the corner of the stall, the beating stopped altogether. 

Between his hands, Duke Richards held a pistol trained on Luke. 

Mr. Harper faced his opponent bravely, eyes glinting more with anger than fear at his opponent’s boasts. “You were a fool to underestimate me, stable boy. Helena will be mine. I only regret that you won’t be around to see it.”

Helena’s stomach roiled, her temples throbbing with the rush of blood. She adjusted her grip on the shovel and prepared to deliver the hardest blow she was capable of. 

“You mangy cur!”

There was a pause before she identified where the shout had come from, and her eyes bulged when they lighted on Marlcaster’s reddened face.

Changing targets, the duke whirled round. “Has the milksop decided to become a real man, Mr. Marlcaster? You always have been your mother’s puppet,” he derided. Helena could not see his face, but she heard the menacing smile in his voice.

“Not anymore,” her stepbrother replied, facing down the older man with steely nerve. His sword was at the ready, but there was too great a distance between them for him to prove any immediate threat.

“It’s a pity. You’d have come out of this much better off if you’d listened to her.”

Marlcaster took the bait, eyes flaming as he charged the duke.

Helena’s warning shout was lost in the deafening sound of flint hitting frizzen.

The space between the spark and the firing was momentary, but it seemed a lifetime to Helena. 

In a blur, Luke descended on Duke Richards, his sword passing through the man’s side with sickening ease. The lead projectile sent down a rain of splintered wood from the ceiling, and gun clattered from the duke’s grip as he collapsed to the stone floor.

Ears ringing, Helena dropped the shovel and took several steps forward. Even from several feet away, she could see that the body had fallen into an unnatural position. The features of the duke’s face were twisted in a horrific mockery of the smile that had haunted so many of her nightmares. 

Luke stepped in to shield her, enveloping her in his arms as his broad chest heaved steadying breaths. 

“Is he…?” Helena managed once her voice had returned.

“The duke will never harm you again,” he promised against her hair. Helena sagged into him, fingers grasping tight against the stiff fabric of his jacket. She forgot the world around them until Harry’s quiet cough reminded her that they were not alone. Too shaken even to blush, she pulled away from Luke and looked to her brothers.

Marlcaster’s face was ashen, his shoulders shuddering with each intake of air. “Thank you.”

Luke nodded solemnly at the soft utterance, still angling himself between Helena and the body. “What are we to do with the others?”

She cringed at Cyrus’s prostrate form. The other man had fared better, it seemed. He was still conscious, at least, having surrendered the fight in Harry’s favor.

“They’re just a pair of tavern goers looking to earn some coin. I doubt they’ve done anything of their own accord.”

Helena nodded, grateful for Harry’s mercy. Looking between her brothers, she realized that Edmund, while shaken, remained entirely unfazed by Harry’s arrival. She could think of only one possible explanation. “How long have you been keeping this secret?”

The surprise on Edmund’s face told her that she had guessed correctly even before the answer followed. “A matter of weeks. I will tell you all, but this is hardly the time or place.”

Before they could converse further, the main door burst open to reveal a bevy of servants. Helena made out Briar’s shouts before she saw her friend’s face. In a moment, the woman was prattling at her side, prodding her arms and legs with fingers inquisitive for signs of injury.

“We must get you to the house, Helena,” Briar insisted against her lady’s many protestations. 

Helena tried to find Luke within the crowd, but it seemed that he too had been swallowed by the tumult. Too exhausted to fight further, she allowed Briar to lead her out through the drizzling rain.

Haggard as Helena had felt when climbing into bed, new vigor came with daybreak. The storm of the night before had broken, and streams of mid-morning sunlight illuminated the room around her as she stirred. In spite of all, the dull pain at her wrists was the only trace to speak for the events of the night before.

The memories rushed back to her at once, falling into a pattern that she could only begin to discern. Her brother was alive -- but how? Would he take kindly to her presence or send her back to Grovershire? Would he force her to marry into some other noble house now that the duke was no longer a prospect? Could she still arrange to marry Mr. Chambers if all else failed? Her mind dizzied with questions, and she was grateful when Briar arrived and put an end to her solitary musings.

Harry and Edmund were already seated around the breakfast table when she went to take her meal, but the other women of the house appeared to remain abed. Helena supposed they were still recovering from the shocks that had interrupted their rest during the night.

If her Lady Grandmother’s immediate response was any indication, Helena thought it very unlikely that the lady would ever cease mourning about the duke. Her distress at Duke Richard’s death was unmatched even by her surprise at the appearance of the grandson all had thought lost. 

The countess, for her part, had been more caring toward Harry than Helena would ever have anticipated. There had been genuine tears in her eyes when Harry had embraced her at the bottom of the stairs the night before. As much anger as Helena had harbored toward the woman these past months, she could not help but be affected by sight of the mother and son’s reunion. 

Brushing a stray hair from her eyes, Helena found a seat across from Harry.  The three exchanged pleasantries as she began spreading preserves over a slice of bread. She had to force her hand to remain balanced under the weight of questions that poured into her mind. One, at least, she knew Mr. Marlcaster could satisfy. 

“What was the reason for your secrecy?”

Edmund accommodated her after he’d taken a generous measure of tea. “When I found Harry, he was not himself. It seemed foolish to raise everyone’s hopes if they were only to be dashed again. I thought it best to hide him away in the attic, where he could take tinctures and proper rest...although I think you have discovered this already.”

Helena’s cheeks reddened at the revelation. It seemed at least some of her mistrust in the countess had been unfounded. 

By turns, her brothers unfolded the rest of the story. Unbeknownst to her, Harry’s body had disappeared after being laid out for burial, but the disgrace of having had body snatchers on the grounds of Edgewater kept the family from calling for restitution. Harry, of course, had not been stolen, but had woken in the night, badly disoriented and confused. A family had taken him in and cared for him in the interim, but his returning memories had prompted him to seek the estate. Marlcaster had intercepted him there little more than a month before and had smuggled him into the house.

“And the noise that I heard two nights ago?” It was the one point of the narrative which remained unanswered.

Harry’s laugh caught her off guard, pleasant as it was to hear. “The sound that brought you to the attic? It was a howl of wind, and nothing more. The attic has always been full of the worst kinds of noises, especially in these storms. It’s a terrible place for a man to recover.” He glared at man responsible for his lodgings with mock severity. 

Edmund laughed at the ribbing, and Helena couldn’t help smiling at the jovial exchange between brothers. It was clear that, whatever maladies had afflicted him before, Harry was now well and fully capable of resuming his role as their father’s heir. 

Helena looked up to find Harry’s blue eyes on her, radiating the same warmth that she had seen in her father’s gaze so many times. The similarities stole her breath and sent a sharp pang of longing through her.

Harry pulled her back to the present with a half-smile. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have a sister, Helena. And from everything I have seen and heard, I’m even happier that the sister is you.”

Helena returned his smile, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. She could not have asked for a better welcome, yet so much still felt uncertain. Her left hand ventured to her skirts, fumbling to grasp something that could not change. 

“And above all, I want to assure you of your place here. While I expect to be recognized once more as our father’s heir, Edgewater is much better for having you. If you are content to remain with us, I swear that you will never lack for anything.”

Her grip on the coin tightened and she dodged his gaze. As much as she wanted to accept the offer, she could not deceive him. “Your kindness means a great deal…” Helena breathed slowly, uncertain how to continue. “But I’m afraid I am not suited for the life of a noble lady.”

His teacup clinked softly into its saucer, the noise prompting Helena to lift her eyes from the table. “I have seen how often you visit the stables, Helena, as well as how attentive Mr. Harper has been toward you. If I am not mistaken, there is an understanding between the two of you.”

“I had hoped to marry him,” she confirmed.

“I would not turn you away. Either of you,” he specified, boring into her with a meaningful stare. “And if anyone takes offense, I’ll have them thrown into the lake.”

In her relief, words were not enough to affect a response. Instead, she forsook the table and threw her arms around Harry’s neck, biting her cheek to keep the tears from falling. For the first time since her father had died, Edgewater again felt like home.

At evening, she at last had opportunity to find Luke in the stables. Save for the missing length of ceiling beam, all traces of the night before had been cleared away. Still, Helena shuddered at the patch of neatly-swept flagstones in front of the empty stall. Was he really dead? It seemed impossible that so much chaos could be restored to order.  

Helena fell into step alongside Luke as he finished turning the horses in for the night. “They all look so content,” she mused, unable to resist bestowing special attentions on Clover. The animal’s soulful eyes went on staring until she produced the desired sugar from her pocket.

“The time outside today has done them a world of good.” Luke nodded toward her horse. “Clover missed you this afternoon. She’s come to expect you.”

“I hated to disappoint her. I did try to get away, but it was as if everyone in the house had been consumed with madness. We were writing letters and talking of social events all afternoon -- everything has been in an uproar.” She stole a glance at Luke, her heart warming as it always did at the sight of him. "Either way, I would have much preferred to be here with you.”

Closing the door to the final stall, Luke turned his full attention toward the woman in front of him. “And are you well, in spite of all?” “I’m better than I have been in many weeks,” she beamed. “I still cannot believe that Harry is alive. Nor that he is so like my father --” she had to cut the sentiment short to keep her emotions at bay.

“I have not had opportunity to know him well, but I will be forever grateful for his aid last night. I do not dare think what might have happened if he hadn’t woken me.”

“Nor do I.” Helena sobered for a brief moment, but was too consumed by her joy to remain so. “I can tell we’re all going to get on very well. I cannot believe that Edmund managed to hide him away for so long without anyone knowing.”

“Aye. And that explains the poison that you found, I suppose?”

She affirmed with a decisive nod. “Now, since it’s such a lovely evening, would you walk with me?” she requested simply, smiling demurely at the curious gleam in his eyes.

Luke brushed an errant curl from her forehead as he considered her face. “Of course.”

It had been so long since either of them had spent time out of doors, that it took some time to adjust to the sensations around them. Helena could never have predicted that a mild, sunny day might feel so unearthly, but the feeling of sunlight on her skin sent a shiver along the center of her spine.  

When they came to the lake, she tugged at Luke’s arm to guide him to a seat on the wooden bench. Blue sky stretched before them, dappled with harmless wisps of cloud. The sun itself was making its descent, attended by strokes of the deepest orange that either of them had ever seen. Discerning the trails of vibrant red and purple, Helena laid her head against his shoulder in deep contentment.

“So,” he began, taking her fingers between his own, “our plans have been foiled again. Where shall we go from here?”

“I thought you might have guessed by now,” she teased gently. “Harry will inherit and I will be free to marry you. And to remain at Edgewater, if we so choose.”

Squeezing his hand as she shifted closer toward him, she briefly considered how strange it was that failure could lead to an even better outcome than the one she’d spent weeks hoping for.

His silence lasted but a moment. “We may marry outright? Without need for a marriage of convenience?”

Helena pulled away so she could look him in the face. The setting sun reflected brilliantly against the flecks of green in his eyes, and her heart clenched at the vulnerability of his gaze.

“Harry has given his full support, and the Countess is so pleased to have him back that even she does not protest against it. If my grandmother ever ceases whining about the duke, she may prove upset, but she will hold no power to change it.”

“I never dreamed that we would be given such a chance.”

“Nor I. And I never doubted that you would make good on you promise to protect me, but I never expected what happened last night. You have been my strength through all of this. You are the bravest, kindest, and noblest man that I have ever known.” Her heart was fairly bursting with adoration, words tumbling out with each fresh reminder of why she loved him. 

“The night may have had a very different outcome if you had not stayed. Don’t sell yourself short, Helena.”

“It was desperation,” she admitted, fixing her eyes on the dancing hues reflected in the water. She took no pride in her actions, however pleased she was at the outcome they had wrought.

“It was so much more than that. No matter what has happened, you have persevered. You have been through darkness, but you have never stopped burning. Even the fiercest of storms could never extinguish your light.”

Unable to speak through her emotion, Helena captured his lips in a rapturous kiss. 

[clarkratliff-blog]

The Fantastic Four: The Heroes Within

The Fantastic Four: The Heroes Within

Logline: Sometimes what brings out the hero in you, brings out something far worse.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1StdZCvVOZlXwd6mZJHjF0PtyFhTBXRNI/view?usp=sharing

A little bit about the script I’m working on and me:

I had planned on making this a movie with about 5 altogether, but I got so into it it would've had to be a series.

So this script is what would be a season, only a season would be more stretched out and more developed. Such as, the hate monger and Sue/Malice. The Monger would be able to spend a good part of the season messing with her head like it was on the Hannibal TV series.

I of course would have liked to submitted the idea to the studios/comic company but they don't take submissions, ideas etc. I think the idea is there with the right help it could've been interesting. Hopefully something people would've liked. But, we'll never know.

I'm still learning about writing, so, understanding the three act structure etc and time is a challenge for me.

This version is based on the John Byrne era in the 80's. Plus, I tried to honor the original Stan Lee/Kirby version of Sue's dad is in prison for murder and he didn't want Johnny to know, to say he was dead. I took that and tried to build and twist on that. Such as I try to explain why each one has different powers even though same cosmic rays, etc. I twisted things around by having the hate monger play a part in their development making Malice the first villain as he will be a professor-x to Sue. Also, I didn’t like in the comic the Monger was an android I think it was. Mine, he’s just a twisted individual.

I didn't set out to make this version dark just because it's the in thing now, but the first one sets up the others and to come from a place of the FF to be being so dysfunctional. It gave me something to build on.

I added at least three characters that are not I the comic. One, to lighten the mood such as Johnny's agent Amy. It was getting depressing enough to where the script should come with a razor. So she added humor without making it silly (I hope). So my dynamic would be Reed and Sue are the parents and Ben and Johnny are more the kids. Eventually the FF would be more like the comics more fun etc, but they have to get there after all the dysfunction. There's a reason to get there.

So I would like feedback not just from writers, but people who enjoy reading, fans of film and television and of course, fans of the Fantastic Four comic. Do they like my vision of the FF?

I know I could use notes on my writing its self. I have an alphabet of learning disabilities, so stating the obvious may not be that simple for me. I've tried reading script books and checked on a few sites and everyone says something different etc.

So my hopes by putting this out there is one, to get read and hopefully maybe find the Hall to my Oats and find a collaborator who can work with me that has the same twisted visions I have.

Also, just in general, fans of the FF comic, I would like to hear from them as well. Keeping in mind this is a version of them, not trying to say it is the only version, just how I see things. I can go more into here or e-mail me. I could talk for hours about what I would've liked to have done. Things such as, in the comic the ship was on a military base and they stole it and I don't think it was mentioned anymore. I have it where to keep from jail they work with the military for some time. Also, Reed has money, so when he learned of Sue's dad he bought the prison to make sure her dad was taken care of and respected his wishes to remain there.  

I have a DVD-Rom of the first 40 years of the FF. I wanted to go through and work it in and honor all that came before, but I wanted to get this out and only if it were go get a lot of request would I continue it. But if no one is interested, then it's just for me. That’s at least one good thing about the internet, you don’t have to suffer alone in never getting anyone to read what you have.

My hope of course is maybe someone will like this version and maybe see fit to let me collaborate on something.

Also, my writing style, though I know it needs work, the overall content, do I capture dialogue well, execute this and that. Basically, is it anything you'd like to see? One of my script heroes is Shane Black. I enjoy just reading his scripts and for someone with ADD etc. That’s saying a lot. I hope to have a style one day like his to have it easy to read/hard to put down and some of the best movies out there.

So enough about me e-mail me if want to collaborate or know what else.

clarkratliff@ymail.com

[sometipsygnostalgic]

tipsy reviews: breath of the wild

So last month, early november, I went and got myself a Nintendo Switch. And for my new console I bought 3 games: MarioKart Deluxe, Super Mario: Odyssey, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

What I used it for mostly during this time period was.... Mariokart. It’s a fun and addictive little game while the two openworld games required a lot of effort with no linear path, so I wasn’t looking forward to a lot of busywork.

To my pleasant surprise, when I finally sat down to complete Odyssey, I discovered that the game was filled with many little secrets. It would reward you for experimenting, for putting objects in funny places, and solving its puzzles. The addictive gameplay helped me steamroll through the game to its logical conclusion, and then beyond.

Breath of the Wild, fortunately, follows a similar path. Gone are the many hours of tutorials, talking swords, and narrow Hyrule paths. Now we find the world not only open, where you’re free to move in any direction  and climb any mountain, but filled with many secrets and challenges to spend your days working through!  It’s not fair to say that Breath of the Wild is without its challenges though; the open-world formula starts out with many, and though Zelda subverts the issues plagueing more well-known users like Assassin’s Creed, it does fall into some unique pitfalls. 

In this post I will discuss the different areas of this game - story, gameplay, puzzle elements - and see how they compare.

Environment: I felt like it was most important to talk about this aspect first, because the world of Hyrule is so significant to the potential and failures of every other part of the game. Everything to do with story, puzzles, difficulty, it’s all related to the open world, what’s in it, and how you navigate.   Breath of the Wild kinda looks like a barren, empty game when you look at its open world face-value. There’s very few cities, most of the place is ruins littered with some enemy camps and lots of caves. Not a lot of history at all! It reminds me of the empty Hyrule Fields in Ocarina of Time. And there are no sprawling dungeons like in its predecessors. The closest to this is the shrines, short mini-dungeons which were created by the Sheikah predecessors to help the Hero destroy Ganon.  But what Breath of the Wild does RIGHT is utilize this seemingly empty open world to its full advantage. It’s filled with a variety of animals and critters to use for cooking, challenging opponents who you can loot, korok seeds which you need to solve a riddle to collect (but which are far less irritating than riddler trophies), hidden treasure for you to discover... And perhaps the most immersive tactic is how we are able to take damage from the environment - you can freeze to death on a mountain, or dehydrate in the desert, or roast in the Goron mine. All of this, combined with the many, MANY shrines and seeds and their corresponding puzzles, makes this world feel... alive. Like people and animals actually live here.   And the most adrenaline-bursting part of all is entering a Divine Beast for the first time and realising you can manipulate the environment using the map. THIS is what makes a great adventure game. Now, it’s still a fair departure from the classic dungeon crawlers or the previous three entries, but I think Breath of the Wild pulled off its world very impressively. Much more fun to explore than London or North America. It is only for an issue I’ll discuss later on that I have to rank it as low as 8/10. 

Story: BotW does make an interesting departure once again from before, though in some ways I feel this had lost potential. The story is COMPLETELY optional - as soon as you leave the great plateau, you can fight Ganon and call it a day. But if you choose to dig deeper into the memories of Link, you’ll discover that you were ALREADY the Chosen Hero, sealed deep into the Resurrection Shrine by instruction of Zelda. You were identified early because of your upbringing as the son of a Royal Knight, and that’s about it for Link’s known pre-mastersword history. It’s unknown what adventures you went on before. Now you and four Champions were chosen to prepare to fight Ganon. The backstory between you and Zelda is.... mixed, kind of depressing actually; she resented you for a long time because you were so good at your job as the Hero of the Sword while she was deeply insecure over her inability to activate her powers and how her father kept putting pressure on her to constantly pray when she just wanted to become a huge nerd, helping out in other ways.  It ends with Ganon unleashing its power across Hyrule, the Champions being killed and trapped in the Divine Beasts they were going to use against him, and Link nearly dying protecting Zelda who  saves him last second with an awesome Light that Burns the Sky.   After watching 25-ish cutscenes, I... was quite disappointed, because they kept rehashing stuff I already knew; Zelda was insecure over her lack of power, she disliked Link but grew to respect him, and the other Champions are.... well, Mipha’s the only one who has any real history with Link. Revali sees him as a rival, Urubosa looks after Zelda, and Daruk is very hardy and enthusiastic. It’s really cool meeting these characters in the Divine Beasts but you don’t learn much more, and I heard the Champion’s Ballad DLC is the same...  Ganon himself isn’t a chilling villain like before, moreso an intimidating threat. He’s not nearly as scary as the Twilight Beasts or any named Ocarina of Time boss, and he takes very little skill to defeat, even compared to some of his Blights (Thunderblight Ganon took me multiple attempts with its fast hard-hitting moves). In fact I think I’d be able to sweep him easily without saving any Champions. The worst part of all though has to be how it just CUTS YOU OFF.  You complete the game? Yeah, that’s kind of it. There isn’t a “post-game”, it just lets you load your past save. That’s what pisses me off the most. I wanted to speak to Zelda about all those memories I found! Oh yeah the game is also sneaky and won’t load the secret ending cutscene if you didn’t report to Impa and recover the hidden memory after unlocking the Hyrule Tower memory, so good luck doing what I did and getting that one last just before the final boss.  All in all, 5 out of 10. It did its job, but was nothing special whatsoever, lots of wasted potential.  

Gameplay: When you first start playing Breath o the Wild it is extremely punishing. Your weapons  are shit, your damage is shit, you WILL get oneshot many times. But when you pump more hours into it, you gain lots of momentum; since there are so many areas of gameplay, so many ways to approach a certain situation, it becomes inevitable that you’ll figure out a good solution to any fight.  This is a double-edged blade; while it’s lots of fun to kill enemies inventively, the difficulty curb at the BEGINNING of the game is so steep that you’ll find it becoming stupidly easy later on, when you’re more overpowered and you’ve mastered the enemy attack patterns. Sure, they may turn black or silver and do hella damage, but what’s a god to a player who knows how to exploit their AI?  And you’ll be swimming in so many powerful weapons that you’ll abandon them all after a certain point, cos there’s nothing worse to trade out.   The biggest victims of the difficulty scaling have to be the Ganon bosses, all of them, which DO NOT gain health or difficulty at any point. It’s like fighting Champion Wallace’s level 40 watertypes with a level 70 rayquaza, which is what I did in my Emerald playthrough...  This means that the greatest elements of Breath of the Wild’s gameplay are those moments where your tools aren’t quite enough, where you have to prepare and plan. Maybe there’s too many moblins to take on at once? Maybe you’re playing the Island Trial and you have no decent weapons? Maybe you’re trying to complete the Zora divine beast quest and you come face-to-face with the Lynel on the summit? Maybe there’s multiple Guardians aiming at your direction and you have no Ancient Arrows? In all these situations I’ve had to be inventive, sneak around and attack on the sly, or avoid combat altogether.  But what’s even more reliable is the puzzles. You’re not handheld, you’re not told how to do anything outside of the very basic controls - every single puzzle you solve is completely your own accomplishment, your own skills, and sometimes it’s not set out clearly at all so you have to be creative. Nobody TOLD you to put that one rock in the gap between all the others, but you did it, and now you have a rock! And nobody TOLD you how to make a recipe that heals all your hearts and gives you 3 to spare, but your experimentation crafted a recipe.   THIS, in my opinion, is what makes a definitive gaming experience - respect for the player. 9 out of 10 too many royal swords.

Music - No videogame review is complete without an OST ranking. Now.... BotW tried to play a certain role with its music, having it in the background colouring your experiences rather than defining them. This is quite appreciated because it would have been distracting to have booming enemy music for an opponent I knock out in 2 seconds (cough OOT cough). However, outside of its main theme, Breath of the Wild lacks almost all the signature Zelda tracks that have been defining for the series. I’d say that the absence of this booming music makes it.... not feel much like a Zelda at all. It better reflects the open and partially destroyed world, at the expense of recogition. That’s not to say it’s without gems though.. there are very few things more chilling than the music that plays in ganon-possessed guardian containing the tormented soul of your dead zora girlfriend. 7 out of 10, servicable and decent. 

Conclusion - Breath of the Wild is a smashing game, which deserves the praise it gets, not because it’s an open world Zelda but because it REDEFINES the possibilities of an open world game. Instead of littering itself with countless copy-paste fortresses, it offers puzzles and challenges that show respect for the player’s adaptability, encouraging you to explore all the different options its mechanics offer. Instead of making you choke through an insufferable and possibly frustrating campaign to unlock new areas, it gives you the options and tools to go anywhere you like as long as you prepare. It says much when even this game’s biggest weaknesses can be played for strengths. And oh man, what a solid introduction to the Nintendo Switch generation. 

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: 8 out of 10. 

[thehikingviking]

Mt Goddard, Mt Goethe & Mt Lamarck via Lamarck Col

When Asaka was pregnant, we agreed that I would be allowed a backpacking trip for every baby book I read. I read “Brain Rules for Baby” by John Medina and promptly reserved a four night permit in Kings Canyon National Park over the July 4th weekend. The rough plan would be to set a base camp at either Evolution Lake or Wanda Lake along the John Muir Trail via Lamarck Col from North Lake. The main objectives of the trip would be Mt Darwin and Mt Goddard, with an emphasis on the latter due to it’s extreme remoteness. I also planned routes on several other peaks so we would have the option for bonus peaks if energy and time permitted. I was lucky enough to find interest and get a commitment from Colin Gregory and Dave Dully, two JMT alumni and backpacking experts. I figured they were the perfect partners for the long haul towards Evolution Basin. I carpooled with Colin from the Bay Area and we met Dully in Bishop. We ate dinner then chose a campsite along Bishop Creek. The next morning we drove to North Lake where our adventure began.

While I had been to North Lake several times, this was my first time heading over Lamarck Col.

We conversed about mundane topics as we approached Lower Lamarck Lake.

While things were going okay for Dully and me, Colin wasn’t feeling so hot. I tried to walk him through a Wim Hof breathing exercise, but it was a poor effort which didn’t seem to help at all. We continued walking and seemingly out of nowhere, Colin began projectile vomiting all over the trail. It was both a magnificent and gross sight. I was speechless. I had never witnessed someone succumb to such terrible altitude sickness at such a low elevation. We were only at 10,600 ft, and we still had to go over Lamarck Col at almost 13,000 ft. It then dawned on me that our trip was in jeopardy, and there was a good chance we would have to head back down to the car. This was nothing new for Colin and Dully, however. Apparently Colin got really sick on the John Muir Trail, and he recovered while on the trail without having to descend. Colin seemed committed to continue, so we resumed hiking against my better judgement.

We continued moving, but at a much slower pace. My dreams of making it to Wanda Lake were fading, and I even started to wonder if we would make it down to the Darwin Lakes. There were too many unknown variables, so I just decided enjoy the scenery and hope for the best.

I have to give credit where credit is due. Colin was fighting some major demons, but he won small battle after small battle.

During one of our long rests, I noticed a lone figure with a recognizable gait. I said to the guys half jokingly that it looked like Iris, and I wouldn’t even be that surprised if it was really her. As she walked closer, I became more and more sure of my assumption, so I yelled out, “Who are you?” As she stopped to take out her ear earphones, I recognized how awkward of a question that was, so instead I asked if she was Iris, to which she replied yes. As we were catching up, another couple walked by and yelled out, “Are one of you Sean?” My brain slowly analyzed the question, and I realized yes indeed, my name is Sean! It turned out to be Chad Thomas and his fiance. I met Chad on Stuart Point in the desert the previous winter. Iris followed up by asking if he was Michael Graupe’s Chad, to which he replied, “I guess so. I mean I’ve hiked with him a few times.” What a small world these vast mountains truly are. Iris was on her way to Mt Lamarck, and Chad and his fiance were on their way to Darwin Bench, since Chad was chasing the remaining California 13ers he had yet to climb.

Iris asked Colin if he had any altitude sickness medication. Colin did, but said he hadn’t taken any. Iris quickly responded, “Well that’s not smart.” Direct, but true. Colin didn’t want to take it because he felt it was like taking a performance enhancement drug. While the basis of his reasoning may have had a slight bit of truth, there are no rules forbidding such recreational usage, so I allowed it without giving him too much grief.

He took the pill and over time things got better. Lamarck Col came into view. From there we would drop several thousand feet, so there was a good chance that we would be alright after all.

I had studied the col and came equipped with photographs, as I’ve read of people in the past missing it altogether. As we approached, there was an obvious boot track taking us right where we needed to go.

We were all relieved to finally reach the col, as this was a major milestone. We took a long rest here, and I most likely named every mountain within our viewshed.

After a healthy break, we started down the col towards Dawin Lakes. I studied the west ridge of Mt Darwin. There was some lingering snow still in the chute which gave me cause for concern. We came prepared with crampons and ice axes, but it still looked precarious.

I made the wise decision of following the use trail directly down to the first lake, while Colin and Dully took a more diagonal line over rougher terrain. On a map their route looked better, but in practice mine was faster and more efficient.

I beat them down to the lakes and followed the use trail to intercept their soon to be position. I expected a freeway along the side of the lake, but the use trail wasn’t nearly as good as I expected. I found myself talus hopping and scrambling between giant boulders. 

Once we regrouped, we assessed our situation. It was still early in the day, so we agreed to continue towards Evolution Lake.

We followed the outlet of Darwin Lakes to Darwin Bench. Mt Goddard and The Hermit came into view for the first time.

\

We then dropped several hundred feet towards the JMT. Once we reached the JMT, we followed this uphill towards Evolution Lake. I was getting tired, but we were now in the acceptable range of finding a base camp.

We reached Evolution Lake and the others voiced their intent to set up camp. I wanted to continue at least a mile further. I now had my eyes set on Mt McGee in addition to Mt Goddard, and I felt a base camp at Wanda Lake would be optimal. Colin and Dully were not sold on my proposal, so I tried to find a mid point that would make us all happy, but they would not budge. They were convinced that there were no campsites between the north end of Evolution Lake and Wanda Lake. I lost the vote 2-1, so I had to accept the outcome. At least I was done back packing for the day.

I set up camp and took a swim in the lake. My mind raced as always, overwhelmed with all the peaks in the nearby area. Tomorrow was very important, as it would be our Mt Goddard summit day, so I focused on the task at hand. We agreed to leave camp the next morning at 7am.

The next morning we finally broke camp at 7:45am. I was a little frustrated with the lake start, but we had a crystal clear forecast and plenty of daylight, so I decided to let it go. We followed the JMT around the eastern shore of the very long Evolution Lake, taking in views of Mt Spencer, Mt Huxley and The Hermit along the way.

On the south end of the lake we had a iconic river crossing. 

Mt Huxley stood above us as we approached Wanda Lake.

We reached Wanda Lake after 4 miles. Oh how much nicer it would have been to start from here instead, saving 8 total miles on summit day and possibly giving us the opportunity to climb Mt Huxley as a bonus peak. One of the guys made a comment suggesting that I should have found better hiking partners, which made me feel bad. It was my job as the group leader to push the group to their upmost limits and maximize our chances of success. At no point did I ever want to make anyone feel inadequate.

We took our first break on the other side of the outlet.

The remaining route to the summit would be all cross country. We planned to take Starr’s Route, so we aimed for the toe of the rib.

Down the valley were Davis Lakes and Mt McGee.

To reach the start of Starr’s Route, we had some steep snow to cross. The snow was soft so we didn’t need to use our crampons nor ice axes.

The route is advertised as class 2, but this rating is outdated. The route is definitely class 3, and the very first move on the rocks borders on class 4. This crux can be avoided by climbing up the talus scree on the west side of the rib before transitioning back onto the rib proper. We took on the challenge of the initial stiff move onto the route, and found it within our abilities and comfort levels.

The next couple hours consisted of class 2-3 climbing with moderate route finding.

The climb was mostly fun, but all of us were sucking wind. The altitude was definitely having an effect on our pace.

Just when it felt like our route was leading to vertical cliffs, a weakness in the rock wall appeared. 

The summit was now in sight, and all that remained was a talus slog.

We drudged our way up the barren slopes, stopping every few hundred feet or so to suck in the thin air. Reinhold Messner once said, “I am nothing more than a single, narrow, gasping lung, floating over the mists and the summits.”

After a toilsome effort, we finally made it to the summit.

After a short rest, we visited the lower west summit. The sky was clear all the way down to the San Joaquin Valley.

We then returned back to the true summit where we took our official summit rest.

To the northwest were Goddard Canyon and Mt McGee.

To the north were Mt Humphreys, Mt Mendel and Mt Darwin.

To the east were Mt Huxley, Mt Warlow, Mt Agassiz, Mt Winchell and North Palisade.

To the southeast were Mt Solomons, Black Giant and Charybdis.

To the south were Scylla, the Ionian Basin and the Enchanted Gorge.

There was sadly no writing utensil in the summit register, so I wrote my name in Taco Bell hot sauce. Hopefully future readers will think that I signed in my own blood.

It was getting a bit late in the afternoon, so while I wanted to remain atop the giant, we began our trek back down towards camp.

My contacts bothered me the whole descent. My contact solution had exploded in my pack, and my contacts were dirty. I had blurry vision the whole descent, which took away from the enjoyment of the hike.

Instead of following Starr’s Route all the way down, we bailed off the western side of the ridge and plunge stepped down the soft snow. Once it was safe, we glissaded a short distance down to the tongue of the snow.

What followed was a very tedious boulder hop over the small but not negligible saddle towards Wanda Lake and the JMT.

Once back at Wanda Lake, we took a dip and began our 4 mile march down gradual trail back to camp.

We spotted a healthy looking coyote along the way. I didn’t know they ventured to such high altitudes.

Shortly after a big herd of deer ran across our path. Colin and Dully said they saw more wildlife on this trip than over the span of their whole JMT trip.

It took us over 12 hours from camp to camp, which was much longer than I expected. There were fish jumping left and right, so I took whatever energy I had left and had a go at fishing. 

I had no luck. The fish here were too smart. At least I had first row seats to an amazing alpenglow.

I started brainstorming what peak we should do the following day. In retrospect, I overthought everything. I should have planned to do the west face of Mt Darwin, but I had better beta from the Darwin Glacier, and I somehow convinced myself it would be easier to move camp and climb Mt Darwin from the other side. This would also allow me to climb Mt Goethe as a side trip while moving camp. The mental gymnastics needed to justify such a plan was remarkable! I willingly gave up my hard earned base camp next to remote peaks in exchange for moving back to more accessible peaks. I could not see my error at the time. Alas, exhaustion, elevation and cognitive dissonance were getting the better of me.

The next morning, we broke down camp and began our move back towards Darwin Bench.

I somehow got ahead of the others, but I welcomed the solitude in such a peaceful and scenic byway.

I reached Darwin Bench and saw some fish jumping, so I decided to try my luck. I fought with the mosquitoes, but my perseverance paid off. After a few minutes of fishing I got a bite, and to my pleasant surprise, I caught my first Golden Trout.

I released the beauty and continued fishing. I caught my second golden as Colin and Dully arrived.

The fishing was good so Colin gave it a shot and had he caught some fish as well.

We packed up our gear and continued alongside the bench. Colin and Dully noticed a super light tent and began fawning over it. They told me this was the same tent that Chad had, so I put two and two together and realized it was probably Chad’s tent. I called out for him, but instead heard Chad’s fiance yell, “Chad not here!” Chad was out climbing peaks while his fiance rested by the bench. I can’t think of a more scenic place to hang out.

We continued upstream until around 11,500 ft where we dropped our heavy packs among some rocks. We continued north to two large unnamed lakes. Mt Goethe stood above the opposite shore.

It appeared shorter to go right and hike across the isthmus of the two large lakes, but we soon reached an impasse. A steep snow bank blocked the way. I did not want to encircle the lake, so I committed myself to finding a way across. I noticed a more favorable angle about a hundred feet above the waters edge, so up I climbed.

I led the way across the steep snow. At first the snow was soft enough to kick steps, but as I crossed, the snow became slightly harder and icier, making the crossing more difficult than I expected. This was the most dangerous part of the whole trip.

It took a lot of focus, but I eventually made it. Colin and Dully were not willing to give it a try, and opted to take the long route around the lake.

Looking back, I think we both had the wrong answer. If I had it over again, I would have looked more closely at taking off my shoes and walking across the shallow edge of the lake.

I refilled water at the isthmus and watched the two little dots make their way around the deceptively large lake.

Rather than wait for them, I thought it would be better to get a head start to make sure that the route would work. 

What remained was a nasty slope. My pace was slow, but my energy levels remained high.

I was surprised to find myself making distance between the others. Their self-assured mountaineering hubris had been somewhat shattered by the demanding efforts of trip. They began taking really long breaks, and I started to worry that they would bail altogether.

At this point, all I could do was worry about myself, so I pushed onward.

In due time I reached the top. To the northeast were Mt Humphreys and Mt Emerson.

To the east were Keyhole Plateau and Mt Lamarck.

To the south were Mt Darwin, Mt Mendel and Mt Goddard.

To the southwest were Emerald Peak and Evolution Valley.

To the northwest were Seven Gables and Southern Yosemite.

To the north were Goethe Lake and the Humphreys Basin.

I found a good place to lay down and wait for the others. They arrived 30 minutes later in seemingly good spirits.

We flipped through the summit register, finding humor in Daryn’s log.

Rather than return the way we came, we headed south from the summit, aiming for the western edge of Lake 11540.

Mt Goddard looked a long ways away.

We followed the ridge past a lingering snow bank and took sandy slopes down to the lake below. Somewhere along our descent, the others informed me of their desire to skip Mt Darwin the next day. I was disappointed, but felt like I could change their mind after a swim and a good rest at camp.

I got ahead of the others and found myself on some wet class 3. It wasn’t the best route, and thankfully the others didn’t follow me, choosing a much better class 2 route further right of my descent path.

I spotted the others on their better route and aimed to meet them at the shore of the lake. They had left some trekking poles along the shore and hoped to recover them.

What a scenic location! Mt Goddard spied us from a distance.

The conditions were too nice to pass up a swim. With a fish caught and a summit under my belt already, all I needed was a dunk to complete my second ever triple crown.

We dried off and continued our walk around the lake. We were surprised when a couple crossed our path, and even more surprised to discover it was Chad and his fiance. It was a pretty obscure and remote location, and they were equally surprised to see us. They were on their way to Keyhole Plateau. In an effort to bolster confidence in the others, I asked him to tell us about his experience on Darwin. This strategy somehow backfired, and he described a dangerous route where ropes were needed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, considering every other person I asked about the peak said the class 5 rating was grossly exaggerated. Chad realized his mistake after the fact, and sent an email apologizing for his severe critique of the route. While his frightful experience was most likely due to him taking the wrong route, the damage was done, and there was now nothing I could do to convince the others. We said goodbye, and continued our way around the outlet of the lake back towards to our packs.

I spent the rest of the afternoon running through different scenarios in my head, but the decision was simple. I either had to climb Mt Darwin solo, or cut the trip short and head back with the others. We got back to our packs and continued towards the Darwin Lakes.

With a lot of daylight left, I wanted to camp at the easternmost lake, as this would make our final day easier, but the others found a couple nice spots that they didn’t want to pass up. I lost the vote once again, so we settled beneath the northern face of Mt Gould. It was a marmot paradise.

I have to admit that I was pretty tired myself. The longer I thought about it, the more I leaned towards cutting the trip short. I started to miss Asaka and Leif. The easy way out became more and more appealing. I decided to hike out with the others, so long as we could tag Mt Lamarck on the way out.

The next morning we began the dreaded march towards Lamarck Col. I spied some huge trout in the water below. I stopped to try my luck but didn’t get a bite.

I took my time up to the col. Every now and then I would look back enviously at Mt Darwin. We were so close to the peak and the FOMO was killing me inside. I began documenting several possible camp sites for a return trip. Perhaps I could even do it as a day hike during the Sierra Challenge the next month.

We reached the pass where I was able to get service for the first time in days. I sent a text to Asaka telling her I was alright.

We dropped our heavy packs and began up the ridgeline towards Lamarck Peak.

While this peak can be attained via a class 2 route just below the south side of the ridge, I felt inclined to challenge myself and take a more direct and challenging route.

I found a keyhole that got me through an impasse, and challenged the others to do the same.

Dully took my challenge head on and found an alternative way up the granite wall.

The next challenge was a boulder problem along the ridge. Dully again answered the call.

Where was all this enthusiasm earlier? We could have easily climbed Mt Darwin with this newly ascertained zeal. The final distance to the peak was an easy walk up, and we soon found ourselves on the summit. To the north was Mt Humphreys.

To the east were Upper Lamarck Lake and Owens Valley.

To the southeast were Cloudripper, Mt Agassiz, North Palisade and Split Mountain.

To the south were Mt Darwin and Mt Mendel.

To the west was the higher north peak. The others were interested in bagging this bonus peak as well, so we signed the summit register and continued on to the next objective.

The top was easily attained.

We had enough juice to go for the west summit, which was a sub peak but a fine objective.

Getting to the base of it was easy and we were rewarded with some fun class 4 scrambling.

Dully championed up the pitch and conquered the summit fin, while Colin felt the exposure was too rich for his blood.

We traversed from the west summit back to the col.

We stopped along the way to practice our scrambling. I was a little overconfident and inadvertently found myself on stiff class 4 and possibly even low class 5.

I almost bit off a little more than I could chew, so I very carefully made my way back down. Lesson learned, I suppose.

We shouldered our packs once more and began the short but steep hike down to North Lake.

I began having trouble on my descent and started to overheat. I was out of water and the nearest respite was Lower Lamarck Lake. I toiled down the sunny trail, a little bit concerned for my well being.

My death march ended with a nice swim at the outlook of Lower Lamarck Lake. Colin caught a fish, but I came up empty handed.

I was able to keep cool enough for the rest of the hike out. I enjoyed the green aspen leaves quaking in the breeze.

Once back at the car, we drove to the Whoa Nelly Deli for a well deserved meal. While I didn’t get every peak I wanted, I got the most important one in Mt Goddard. That peak deserves a “Tough Bastard” designation. I was now one step closer to completing the Sierra Emblem List.

[spideyboyholland-blog]

Red and Blue | Peter Parker

A/N: HI! So I’m hoping on that writing train for Spider-Man/Tom Holland because I literally spent like three weeks binge reading? the shit out of fics and wanted to write my own. Yeah, I know Christmas is over, but I started this beforehand and wanted to post it anyway. Oh, I also have another writing blog: @twenty-onedirections where I write for bands (mainly 1D & twenty one pilots). Whereas this blog is strictly for, well ya know already. ONE MORE THING before I shut up: All of my fics regarding Peter, I’ll be making him university age (like early twenties) cause I feel uncomfortable writing about a fifteen-year-old.

Gif not mine!

Summary: (Y/N) discovers a different color scheme while hunting for Christmas decorations at Peter’s apartment.

“A little to the left."

"This way?"

"No-no. My left, sorry." A slight pause. "And perfect! Right there."

May slides her hand across the large snowflake decal, sticking it against the glass of the window that overlooks the rest of Queens. The city lights begin to click on as the sun sinks into the horizon, turning the sky into a mixture of pinks, oranges, and reds. “Alright, let me see!” She hops off the back of the sofa that sits just in front of the window, then scurries over to my side, gasping in awe. “Oh, it looks great! I like how it sparkles in the lights we placed around the window.”

“Me, too! That was a nice touch, May.” She smiles at me with delight. “So what’s next on the agenda?”

Ever since around four o’ clock in the afternoon, I’ve been over at the Parker’s helping May decorate for Christmas since Peter was nowhere to be found. Initially, this wasn’t what I had planned. When I knocked on the door of their apartment with my messenger bag filled with notes and books over my shoulder, I intended to have Peter help me study for a calculus exam. There was only less than a month of my freshman year left, and I wanted to ace this final so I wouldn’t have to take any more mathematics for the rest of my college career. I wasn’t necessarily terrible at math, it was more trouble concentrating on what was on the page. All of those formulas, numbers, and symbols just deflate my interest right off the bat, so Peter acted more like a babysitter rather than a tutor.

As soon as May opened up the door, festive music poured out into the hallway, echoing down either side. She was outfitted in her pajamas with her brown hair all tied up in a messy bun and greeted me with a warm smile. “Pete’s not home, but you can come in if you’d like?” I thanked her with a grin, and she pushed open the door to allow my inside, the music reaching full volume once she shut the door behind us. Apologizing, she trotted over to the radio to crank it down a few notches, then joined me in the kitchen where I was setting my bag on a chair. “Bet you can guess where he is.” May challenged, picking up her mug that was either full of coffee or hot chocolate. The steam fogged up her glasses when she took a sip. I hummed sarcastically, leaning against the coffee table with my arms crossed like I needed to think it over.

"Let's see: either the library on campus or the Stark Internship?"

She held a small smile. "Although, those were great guesses, they were wrong, unfortunately." I tilted my head in confusion, causing May to giggle. "He's at Ned's, well, that's the story I got this time at least. He was supposed to home an hour ago to help me decorate.” She sighed then set the mug behind her. “That kid doesn’t know when to take a break, he’s always on the run and go. It worries me to death.” The corners of May’s mouth pull into a frown with spreads over to me. For the eight years, I have known the Parker’s, I’ve only seen May distraught twice. The first being when her husband, Ben, passed and the second when Peter and the decathlon team almost died in the Washington Monument elevator the sophomore year of high school. Other than that, she’s usually a ray of sunshine and one of the nicest people ever if they stay on her good side that is.

The very first time I had met May was when I was in seventh grade. Peter and I weren’t exactly fast friends since we were never in the same class together until that year. He sat two seats behind me in Chemistry, always engrossed in his notes and books never really talking to anyone, except for Ned, unless he had to. All in all Peter and I weren’t all that different. Sure we “belonged” to different social circles: myself being the artsy type, while Peter was the typical science nerd, but we both were shy, listened rather than spoke, and were loyal to the ones we love the most. It was toward the end of seventh grade, just a month before summer vacation, and our teacher wanted to throw in one final project. The Midtown Science Academy held a science fair every single year with many students participating mainly just for fun or if extra credit was rewarded, but this year our teacher made it mandatory calling it our final exam. Since all of us couldn't win, he graded us on presentation, creativeness, and originality. He didn't let us choose our partners either which led to Peter. We sat at four black tables with four seats at each of them; I was at the front while Peter sat in the third row. Instead of pairing us off with the person on our right like he usually did, he went to the person directly behind us, and consequently enough the peer behind Peter and the one behind myself were both out sick that day, so we were defined as partners.

At the start of it, our conversations were strictly about the project, then, a week later, it branched off later into related subjects like what are favorite classes were to extracurriculars, subsequently resulting in debating on what the best video game character was. All in all, it took the remainder of the school year for the two of us to warm up to each other, but we still weren't classified as best friends, just mere acquaintances. I remember Peter inviting me over to his apartment for the first time late after school the day before the science fair to go over some finishing details. I came to find out that we lived in the same complex on the same floor when he gave me his address. However, when I knocked on the door, an older woman answered instead of the brown haired boy. Immediately, all of my shyness came back when she smiled sweetly. May was super friendly that entire night always checking up on us, seeing if we needed anything. I didn't know if she was always like this or just thrilled that Peter had brought a new friend home from school. Either way, as the years went on, she's become the fun aunt that I had always wanted.

"I'm sure he's alright, May. This is Peter we are talking about. How much trouble could he get into?" Although, she was right about him slipping away all the time. He never did it before, but it's expected now ever since he started this Stark Internship, and the name of it is about how much we know about it. Peter never keeps secrets from the two of us, but he is definitely hiding something when it comes to this. Of course, I never ask because I don't want to feel intrusive, and May asked a few times, and all she received was the same blunt answer: "I can't really talk about it right now." So we just stopped asking altogether, hoping one day he would spill the beans.

She giggles at the statement. "I don't know. He did get a detention in high school once, remember?"

"Oh yeah, how could I forget?" I chuckled. "Seriously though May, I'm sure he's okay."

She sighed then pushed away from the countertop she was leaning on to walk back out into the living room. "Okay. I won't be such a worry wart, but since Peter is still gone, would you like the honor of helping me decorate? Christmas is only two weeks away!" She added an excited smile at the end that made her brown eyes sparkle with delight.

And the answer to that question leads up to now. Our bellies are full of eggnog, some spiked and some not, our voices humming to the sixteenth Christmas song in a row, and half of the apartment is sparkling with decorations. Needlessly to say after an hour and a half of snowflakes, wreaths, reindeer, and snowmen, I'd say we are making pretty good progress. The only thing left to do was the tree which May had already drug the large box into the living room and started to pull out the branches setting them in different sections on the floor. I picked up the entire bottom portion and placed them individually into the desired slots; then May followed behind by fluffing them out. It took another half an hour to finish fluffing the tree. The sun disappeared well below the horizon as the clock struck six and faint white stars began to decorate the sky. “Oh shoot,” May mutters, staring the at the strand of unlit lights in her palms.

“What’s up?” I ask, making a few adjustments on the branches toward the top of the tree, then I avert my gaze to her, answering my question a few seconds later. “Oh, do you have any more?”

“Yeah, I think Peter has some in his closet from some project he did forever ago. I have one good strand here, but I two for the tree.” She unplugs them from the outlet to begin wrapping them around her arm. “It's on the top shelf, I think?”

Nodding, I disappear down the hall toward Peter’s room. My socked feet pad on the hardwood floor before scuffing the carpet when I push open his door. It's changed so much since he was a little kid: no more bunkbed or clutter from all the toys he had, but he still had the same old desk and posters that covered the pale green walls, along with the books that lined the shelves just above it. As my eyes scan the room I've seen a million times, they fall on something just beside the lamp on the desk. Smiling to myself, I walk over and pick up the frame admiring the contents. It was a graphite sketch I drew a last year of the abstract spider that Spider-Man has on the center of his chest. Peter has been obsessed with this guy ever since the public discovered him. Anytime he does something, Peter knows about it and will gush about it for the next few days. So I thought as a little birthday present for the fanboy, I drew Spidey's symbol for him. Only I never framed the photo just gave it to him in a protective sleeve, so it warms my heart to see the gesture.

Sighing, I set the picture back down, then head over to the closet opening up the door and flicking the light on to browse the contents. I scan the top shelf but see no box of lights, so my hands slip across the wood hoping to find the strand at least. No luck. I let out of breath of frustration, then push all of the clothes hanging on the bar to the left to browse the small shelf next to it. A scent of musk and faint laundry detergent fill my nostrils when I move the clothes back to the right to search the last rack. However, something tumbles off a hanger and onto the floor right next to my left foot. Instinctively, I pick it up to put it back not even paying attention to what it was, but the rough texture immediately tore my focus away. It was red with black lines running in a pattern along the fabric. Flipping it over to examine it further, my brows come together not in confusion, but in bewilderment. Two white almond eyes with thick black outlines stare straight back at me resembling a specific face that's all too familiar. "You're kidding me..." I whisper, then avert my full gaze up to the last hanger holding a long suit that drags the ground. The iconic colors slap me across the face, but surely this can't be right... right? I mean Peter is a fantastic friend, but this is also Peter I'm talking about: the nerdy, awkward, shy, clumsy Peter Parker. Sliding the hanger back to reveal the front, I sharply inhale as the answer becomes more apparent. How is this possible? I rush back over to the desk, grabbing the picture to compare it to the symbol on the front of the suit and it... matches. My jaw falls open. "You're-"

"(Y/N)? May said I find you in he-" Peter says as he steps into his bedroom, but freezes in his tracks when he catches me holding the mask and frame. His brown eyes grow the widest I had ever seen them, then hurries and closes the door. "I- uh- can explain- this-" He tears the fabric from my fingertips as well the photo, placing it back on the desk. "a-and t-that." He closes the closet door, breaking my dead stare from all the red and blue. "I-it's not what it l-looks like, this is just a c-costume (Y/N) a-and..."

Peter’s excuses fade away as my mind trails off somewhere. As he stutters on, a little fire ignites in the pit of my stomach. How dare he hide something so huge, so damn dangerous and vital from May or from me! He could get hurt or.. worse. The word I refuse to acknowledge shakes me to the core because I cannot and will not picture a world without Peter Parker in it. Thinking that all of the laughs we’ve shared, heart-to-hearts, tears, and anything else in those long eight years would be nothing but a memory. Neither of us could handle that kind of devastation and to make matters worse, he's been lying the entire time to cover his ass. This Stark Internship is probably a bullshit excuse for him to run around and play a superhero. No internship would require someone to leave at the drop of a hat like that, or work a ridiculous amount of hours per week. Friends don't keep secrets from each other, especially big ones like this. With all this pent-up emotion, I expected myself to scream at him, but my responses are quiet and pained. "Just. Stop." I order through gritted teeth, and Peter does with a guilty expression written all over his face. His lips form a thin line as he looks down at the ground. “Why didn’t you tell me, Peter?" It’s hard to look at him without the feeling of punching him a thousand times or just bursting into tears.

"I-I didn't want you to worry about me-"

"Of course I'm going to worry about you! I do it all the time already!" My sudden rise in octave caused him to flinch, and look up. "How could I not when you disappear for hours on end, never return my calls or text messages during that time? I’d lie awake in bed wide for hours wondering what the hell has happened to you? And for you to show up in class the next morning acting like nothing was wrong? Do you know what that does to me, Peter? To Aunt May?" I began to pace around his room, my eyes starting to fill up with tears. His concerned eyes followed my shaking body back and forth, then trailed up when my hand came up to wipe away the wetness falling across my cheeks. The corners of his mouth turned down into a frown.

"(Y/N), please don’t cry." Peter steps away from the closet door, but I hold out my hand trying to prevent him from coming any closer, but he just brushes it away and engulfs me in his arms. I can’t help but lose my composure in his comforting embrace when my arms wrap around him. “I’m really sorry I hurt you. This is the last thing I wanted.” He murmurs into my hair.

“I’m mainly upset because you lied to me instead of telling me the truth. Sure, I would’ve still been angry with you risking your life, but... don’t you trust us?” I whisper, pulling away from him to find watery brown eyes, but not sad ones; they almost appear angry.

"It’s not that I don’t trust you two... It’s way more complicated than that.” A sharp knock on the door brings our attention to May’s voice asking if everything was alright. “Y-yeah, May we’re okay. We’ll be out in a second.” Peter calls out to her.

“Okay, well don’t be too much longer! I wanna get this tree finished!” Her chipper voice replies, then we hear her footsteps fade away before mixing in with the music.

Peter turns back to me with a frustrated sigh paired with a hand running through his soft curls. “Look (Y/N), I never told you because I don't want you interfering with this part in of my life.” That line felt like a knife being jabbed right into my chest. Weren’t best friends supposed to go through everything together, no matter how awful it was? And aren’t they are supposed to have each other’s backs? “It’s too risky and dangerous. There are people out there that would do awful things to you just to make me suffer, and that’s the last thing I want.” My rage started to fade at the biting words and was replaced with a pang of guilt and sadness. “I’m sorry that I made you worry so much, it was hard not to just explain everything right then and there, but I just couldn’t do it.” Peter bites his bottom lip, holding back the tears threatening to spill over. “Say something, (Y/N).” But I couldn’t, no matter how hard I wanted to, my mouth wouldn’t open nor could I find the right words to say. I love Peter so damn much, probably more than a best friend should and now knowing that there was a chance I wouldn't see him tomorrow just tears me up inside.

His name tumbles off my lips in the faintest whisper as a couple more tears escape. He perks up at the sound of my voice then falters at my next statement. "I-I just... d-don't know what I would do if I lost y-you."

Peter pulls me in for another bone-crushing hug without any hesitation. "Please don't think like that. I'm standing right here, right now... with you. And just know that I will always come back to you." Peter's warmth, the familiar musky scent, his big brown eyes, the shy smile, and quirky personality was wrapped around me like a comforting blanket that I never want to throw off. He's my best friend. The corners of my lips pull up into a small smile at the thought and grows even more at the next. And I love him.

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[2] Glitch in the System - A Guest

By K. A cat happens.

—

Autumn descended on Talon’s Venetian outpost like the leaves which heralded it, lazy and uncharacteristically calm. Summer’s slow death and the chaos sown in its final throes gave way in increments to inertia; with every passing day, Talon’s deployments grew fewer and farther between as Akande Ogundimu, fresh from his prison break, set his sights on the new year and the work to be done therein. Between his meticulous planning and the tight-lipped response from the rest of the Council regarding the sudden passing of Councilman Vialli, the organization’s rank and file found themselves suddenly devoid of objectives.

Lesser operatives took to the dearth of work with relief or abandon, availing themselves of old Italy’s attractions while the opportunity - a rare one, indeed - presented itself. Widowmaker, however, was no lesser operative.

She indulged once, twice: an evening stroll along the coast, an art museum; yet what fleeting interest she was able to manifest in these altogether brief flights of fancy always and without fail gave way to the familiar, instinctual restlessness which underscored the minutiae of her days. Few things, most of them far from above board, assuaged that innate disinterest comprising the framework of her existence. Those distractions which were permissible beyond the constraints of a given mission were rooted almost exclusively in physical exertion and the adrenaline rush it offered. Reading, sometimes, but even her interest in that reliably eroded after any prolonged endeavors. More often than not, she returned to basic training: sprinting, acrobatics, stealth exercises - areas of expertise in which she excelled, but always found room to be better, if not the best. At the very least, it distracted from the question which buzzed, gnatlike, about the periphery of her thoughts with troubling constancy: why was life, for her, defined by her work while others seemed perfectly capable of thriving beyond it?

“Lacroix!”

Widowmaker averted gold eyes from the atrium path ahead of her, glancing only momentarily to the balcony overlooking the gardens. It was a perfunctory reaction, rooted in sheer instinct and utterly unnecessary; the deliberate, over-emphatic aspiration given her last name betrayed Sombra’s trademark irreverence immediately. She ignored the interruption as easily as she identified it, returning her gaze to the thin dirt path and the ghost of her own footsteps where she’d been jogging for the better part of an hour.

“Got something to show you,” the other woman continued. “Secret.”

The assassin kept running, breezing past the balcony wordlessly and keeping time with the metronomic sound of her own, relentlessly steady heartbeat in her ears. She could hear Sombra, of course, could hear the conspiratorial glibness that was the hallmark of her speech, but knew better than to pursue whatever bait the hacker threw at her feet; if it wasn’t the means to an end, it was the setup to a punchline.

“Come on,” Sombra whined in a mock plea, descending the stairs to the garden two, then three at a time. “It’s a good secret.”

The taller woman rolled her eyes as she came to a gradual stop, turning to her colleague approaching from across the garden. “The last time you wanted to share a secret with me-“

“It’s not porn,” Sombra interrupted, dismissing Widowmaker’s suspicion with a wave of her hand. “Not this time, anyway. Promise.”

Eyeing Sombra with pointed scrutiny, the sniper pursed her lips as she tried and failed to will an excuse into existence.  She could just brush her off - it would be far from the first time she’d done so - but the other woman’s insistence betrayed a modicum of excitement that was, if nothing else, intriguing.

“Fine.”

If she were to ascribe a singular tactical advantage to Talon’s Venetian estate, it would be its sheer expansiveness. Truthfully, Widowmaker had neither known nor particularly cared where Sombra established herself amongst its myriad rooms; as such, discovering she’d chosen a corner suite along the far edge of the outpost’s westernmost wing was only noteworthy in its proximity to her own - only a few, elegant hallways removed, in fact. That their paths rarely crossed in the smaller hours of the night was curious, but a thought easily dismissed.

As Sombra slid from the dusk-darkened hallway into the neon purple glow of the dimly-lit room beyond, her colleague lingered in the doorway, arms folded and eyes narrowed with the same, persistent suspicion. The hacker preempted her before she could even open her mouth to speak. “It’s not porn, okay? Just because you invite a pretty lady to your place to show her a secret-” she trailed off, kneeling at the far side of the bed and reaching for something beneath the mattress with obvious difficulty. Widowmaker considered moving to assist precisely as she reappeared over the edge of the bed cradling a small, black bundle in her arms.

It purred.

“Got us a friend,” Sombra grinned.

Widowmaker sighed, punctuating her immediate irritation by pinching the bridge of her nose with two pale blue fingers.

“You are kidding,” she muttered.

“Am not.”

“Gabriel hates cats,” the sniper hissed, refusing the kitten as the other woman offered it to her. “I hate cats.”

“You hate everything,” Sombra quipped. “Shut up and take it.”

The hacker left her little choice as she pressed the puny ball of fur into her arms, relinquishing it more quickly than she could reprise her refusal. Widowmaker considered, albeit briefly, the unimpressive modicum of force required to snap its neck or crush its windpipe, ending the other woman’s insipid whim with ease. Yet just as she conceived of it, she noticed that, agitation aside, this diminutive, four-legged surprise makes the first time in days she didn’t feel the nagging, hungry restlessness to which she was so accustomed. Inconvenience, yes - in leaps and bounds - but cagey? Not quite.

Strange.

“Cute, right?” the dark-haired spy asked, eyebrows canted. “Couldn’t think of a name, though. Thoughts?”

“Chat,” Widowmaker replied glibly.

“You can’t just call it ‘Cat’, Lacroix. Je parle Français, lo tengo? Romance languages and shit. Try harder.”

The assassin clucked her tongue, shrugging with marked disinterest in the challenge set before her. “I don’t know,” she groaned, grimacing as the kitten stretched to place petite, white-tipped paws against her shoulder and press its face beneath her jaw. “Please, take it back.”

“Not until you give me a name,” Sombra replied, crossing her arms in a perfect imitation of her colleague’s earlier posture.

“Toulouse,” Widowmaker grumbled against the cat’s face, lifting her chin to avoid its continued affection. The name came like an electric shock, unprompted and uninvited but undeniably there - an echo from another place and time which felt both strangely familiar and impassibly distant. “Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Le Chat Noir. His favorite cabaret.”

It was consistently perplexing, these bits of information from another life that filtered through at the strangest, most unpredictable moments - jarring, even, in the way they roused some inkling of something, an almost-sadness.

Sombra tilted her head to one side, studying the woman before her. She’d seen it before, these transient moments of confusion, but was never able to grasp its catalyst or implications. She knew the story, of course, had dragged it from Talon’s databases kicking and screaming; moments like this made her question whether their reprogramming was as steadfast as estimated.

“Not bad. I like it,” she chuckled, dismissing the thought as she slid deft fingers beneath the kitten’s stomach and removed it from Widowmaker’s grasp. “Toulouse. Classy.”

“I know.”

Silence settled between them as Sombra sat on the edge of the bed, pressing her face into the soft fur along the kitten’s stomach. A smile lingered at the corners of her lips when she returned her gaze to her colleague. “Always wanted a cat,” she grinned. “Saw this little guy and thought, ‘mine’.”

“Well, don’t tell Gabriel,” Widowmaker said, acquiescing only as she turned on her heel to leave. “And clean up after it.”

“Him.”

“Him.”

“You’re going to help me, right?” Sombra asked, simultaneously coy and sincere.

“Help you with what?” Widowmaker asked, stopping mid-step to cast an incredulous glance over her shoulder.

“With the cat. With Toulouse.”

“Absolutment pas.”

Sombra frowned. “You don’t do anything, Lacroix,” she chided, and for a moment Widowmaker almost took her for sincere. “Just try.”

The assassin opened her mouth to retort, only to find the string of excuses that leapt to mind washed away by the uninvited brush of fur against her leg as the kitten circled her.

She sighed.

“Fine,” she said, curling thin fingers around the doorknob as she left. “But you’re doing the litter box.”

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic.

[ipilates]

Take it easy on yourself, sweet soul. You are doing much better than you think.

Notes on Menopause

Jen Day

Being stopped in your tracks

By the Menopause..

2014, aged 39, I lay on the bed sobbing. I hadn’t the energy, I had run out of steam. That year I had competed in Aix en Province half Ironman, I followed a five month training plan to the letter and trained for 18 hours a week. The seven years before I had been competing in Olympic distance Triathlons. I ran a Pilates studio, teaching for 30 hrs a week. I was raising two spirited teenage boys. I was tired, really tired. Looking back it was no wonder, but something wasn’t right. I have always had boundless energy, this year I also married Tim, my love, my biggest fan, support crew, steady step father, and all round best human being who stood shoulder to shoulder with me, and also dried my tears and told me I was doing a good job. 

As it happens, at 37 I started to feel drained, I kept coming over ‘all funny’, I was getting hot and bothered all the time, I was anxious, I felt every bit of sorrow in the universe, I had become emotionally super sensitive. I worried about the boys, not just general stuff like have they brushed their teeth worries, but astonishingly irrational worries. I worried about everything. I wasn’t sleeping as I was being roused out of sleep by a hot sensation that started in the palms of my hands and souls of my feet that radiated throughout my whole entire body. I once woke up convinced I could smell gas and that we should get the hell out of the house. I put most of it down to being over tired. It got quite crazy, I went to the Dr’s, they ran some blood tests. And boom there it was Oestrogen levels way low, I was going through the Menopause.

I wasn’t a sporty child or adolescent. I was artistic. I have an Arts degree, arty people are rarely sporty. After my son Olly was born I started running (in 2000) and have never really stopped. In 2011 a girlfriend and I cycled 700kms in Northern Vietnam. I hadn’t been on a bike since I was 11 and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. Also that year I was asked to take part in my first team triathlon. I was asked to do the run leg and I had a decent 5k time of sub 21 minutes. I was a runner, marathons, half, 10k’s, I loved running. 

The day of the triathlon I watched in awe as swimmers launched into a lake, freezing cold, very early one September morning. I couldn’t swim, never learnt. After being disturbed watching Jaws when I was nine years old, I was convinced I would get eaten alive in a swimming pool. I even went through a phase as a child of having to look behind me whilst sitting on the toilet, convinced something would emerge and take me down. But something sparked in me that day as I watched the swimmers, and it ignited a passion, albeit a little obsessive for the next seven years, I had found Triathlon. Slight hurdle to overcome though.

I had to learn to swim. Both my boys swim well, I watched them progress from babies, they had to love the water, I was certain they wouldn’t feel my fears. Never once had I the urge to learn to swim. I had never been out of my depth particularly, and could just about tread water in my Pajama’s if necessary. That I remember doing at school. As a child we never went on holiday, and I certainly didn’t have the privilege of swimming lessons like my boys. So I read EVERYTHING about swimming, I found a pool and started swimming. Kicking hard with my arms stretched out in front of me dipping my face in and out of the water (which I hated doing). 25 meters was a massive goal.

I swam everyday for the first year and that really is the truth (ok maybe not Christmas Day). I joined a swim club that met every Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes called Swimfit and I was by far the worst. Everyone swam amazingly. David the group coach gave me every bit of encouragement that I needed, not that I needed a great deal as I am quite determined it turns out. He inspired me to keep trying to tickle the toes in front of me. I was seriously slow, and to this day I blame my ‘runners’ legs. I learnt only front crawl and four months in I signed up to do a 3k open water swim, having NEVER swam in open water. So that was next, come early spring my first experience was a complete disaster. Terrifyingly cold, the wetsuit was so tight around my neck I couldn’t breathe. I tried to put my face in the water but the shock sent me into panic. Lets not even talk about the demons lurking low in the murky waters…

If at first you don’t succeed….and of course I persevered, I had set myself a goal and being an upholder I was sticking to it. After seven months of learning to swim I found myself on a chilly (they are always chilly) morning treading water (still not very good at that, but the wetsuit gives you buoyancy) facing my biggest challenge yet. 

We had pink caps on, about 50 women, I decided a women only race would be a good gentle start to my swimming career, goggles on and waiting. The klaxon sounded loudly, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Everyone surged forward, I hung back thinking basically I’m going to drown. I got going and about 30 metres in, disaster struck. My ‘lucky’ goggles snapped, (I had fiddled with them and tightened them so much with nervous anticipation). I suddenly became the biggest NON swimmer out there, my goggles gave me security, without them I was going no where. You are told if you get into trouble just lay on your back and put your hand in the air, well I couldn’t think straight and somehow thrashed my way back to the start, ( I have no idea how that happened), thinking I can’t even lay on my back and float, I’d never even tried doing that before..

So I hauled my body out and sat in shock on the jetty, by this point the stronger swimmers were almost completing the first 750m lap. Trying to compose myself, my legs were like jelly and I was shaking so much with cold and adrenaline,  I said to myself that’s it, that’s over then, just get back to the car and get warm. What the hell was I thinking anyway?! I clearly wasn’t ready in the slightest, no way. And this is what happened next: A lady marshal in her 50’s asked me what happened and I explained that my goggles snapped and that is was ok, I just want to go home. ‘Hang on’ she said ‘there’s a bucket over there with spare goggles, go grab some and get yourself back in’. I protested politely  and said ‘NO but thanks, really.’ What she wouldn’t have understood at that point is how utterly terrified I was and that my ‘lucky’ goggles were the only pair in the whole wide world that were going to assist me in swimming 3k( I had trialled so many pairs, it was a joke).

‘Don’t be silly’ she said, I rolled my eyes like a teenager and dutifully went to peer into the bucket, which in hindsight I should have used to throw up in, but I showed willing just to get her off my case. FORTUNATELY they were all mens, all large, all wrong and hallelujah I’m going home! ‘WAIT’ she exclaimed I have mine in the car, and off she runs. I stood there thinking what the hell? What the actually F*@k. Is this really happening? At this point the swimmers are almost two laps in by the way, sure enough like a flash she returned with two sets of goggles.

Again, I said ‘look really kind of you but I don’t want to get back into that water and I’m absolutely 100% ok with that, ok?’ ‘Not ok’ she said. ‘Put the goggles on, she was a little stern which could of gone two ways but I found myself complying. ‘Listen’ she softened ‘ I don’t care what happens today, I want you just to jump back into that water, swim to the first buoy and back, then you can go home, deal?’ I actually started to cry, ‘ I don’t think you understand (of course she did) this is all new, I have a fear of the water, I have made a huge mistake, I’m terrified and I just cant, I’m sorry” I sat down in protest still holding onto her goggles. Then this happened: She started to undress, to my relief, surprise and dread she had a bright orange swimming costume on underneath, she took my hand, ‘come on, we will do this together’ Was this woman out of her mind? She said ‘get the goggles on, we are going to jump in together, that’s all, then you can get out’ I was in such shock that I didn’t really have time to think about it ( however I do remember thinking get this god dam woman off my case). So, three, two, one we jumped. To my utter surprise the goggles stayed put and we bobbed up like two corks, she must have been freezing, Her eyes never left mine, ‘few strokes?’ She pleaded. My heart rate would have been 200 I swear, we remained still for a minute eyes locked. I decided to start swimming to the first buoy, that’s it, no further, and we did, together, I had her orange swimsuit on my right hand side the whole way, 20 freaking metres. I had a choice, I could turn round and swim back or I could carry on, and that’s what I decided to do, for that woman. With no word or signal I just swam, I found myself on the course with a mantra that went over and over until my heart rate settled, ‘bubble bubble, breathe’. I completed the four laps, 3 kilometres, at one point a guy in a canoe with a flask of tea paddled along side me, probably thinking I may drown at any point. I surrendered and found a rhythm, a flow, and I remember the swim being very peaceful given the struggle.

I exited the water, second from last (yes that’s right!) and she was there (dressed) , our eyes met, she cried, I cried and that was the start of something truly amazing. That lady was a gift to me, we didn’t know it at the time but she was the reason that Triathlon became my next big passion. I’m convinced I would have left that lake (had I not gone back in) and stopped swimming altogether. Instead that was the start of a fabulous journey with many many more strokes to come. That lady was a gift.

So I spent the next seven years pushing boundaries, always slightly out of my comfort zone. I went to Mallorca early springtime and trained with proper age group athletes, I acquired a series of bike upgrades ( that was fun). I swam in seas, rivers, lakes and lidos. I ran tracks, trails, mountains, and cities. I cycled everywhere and hunted hills. I met a brilliant community of triathletes. I succumbed to taking HRT in this time and it truly lifted me. I still had good days and bad but my anxiety was reduced and I could sleep. There was a nagging feeling that I wasn’t fully listening to my body, it was asking me to slow down. Teaching Pilates is a fairly physically demanding job and it takes a lot from you. So something had to give.

My last race in 2015 was Aix en Provence, a stunning course, beautiful lake swim ( horrendously physical start) the bike ride was the moment for me where time stood still and something shifted, that’s the only way I can describe it. I had been so convinced I would get a puncture, I was worrying I wasn’t eating or drinking enough, cramp was starting in my feet, by the time I actually lifted my head up to breathe I was about 30k into the 90km course. I was going through a very flat section purple mountains ahead, the scenery was breath taking but I couldn’t afford the breath, and that’s when a voice inside my head said, slow down, you’re missing this. I had become fixated with times and numbers and stats that I had begun to loose the joy, I couldn’t even appreciate the view. And I was tired, so tired my body wanted to stop.  

I have never been so relieved to finish, the run was the biggest endurance (aside from childbirth) of my life. But I felt like I’d achieved a massive goal and I was happy with the race. However that voice got louder. I got home had a lot of moments of crying on the bed, I took some time off. Scaled my work schedule down a tad, stopped training and had to go through a transition of not beating myself up for not training, this I found hard. At that point I had been running for 16 years, triathlon for seven, I needed a break. By the way, I’m one of those slightly obsessive people if you hadn’t noticed, when I do something I do it.. 

*a note: The one consistency in my physical life has been Pilates. I have been practising and teaching for 18 years. I absolutely adore The Method, it has kept me strong, pretty much injury free and sane. It has given me so much more, I couldn’t imagine life without it. And yes, I think it is absolutely brilliant to ease you through Menopause. I started practising Yoga, gently, carefully knowing not to get competitive with it. I introduced meditation, again without trying to make it my next big obsession. 

I tread lightly these days. When I was first told at 37 I was going through the menopause I was in denial, I felt it wasn’t fair, I was embarrassed, I felt like life was slipping through my fingers. Some of my friends were just starting their families! I felt my life just stopped, having been very driven, active and determined, I lost my joy and that drive. My path seemed to fizzle out, I wasn’t sure of my direction anymore. The menopause made me fuzzy, forgetful, and low. Having entered into my second marriage I was young enough to have more children, but that was taken away. The very feeling of not being able to have children anymore is quite frankly sad. 

Seven years in and I’m feeling a shift again. Over the last year a more dramatic one. And it’s this, I am starting to feel that this is a special time. A time to reevaluate and put your health ( which includes mental health) first. Given that I am incredibly grateful to be gracing this beautiful planet, I feel life is a gift, like that woman. We have a choice, keep swimming up stream, feel the sun on your face, walk barefoot, eat nutritiously laden food, move our bodies with grace, be strong and centred, breathe well, meditate, jump in when you feel scared and don’t let life pass you by, love and be loved, its a gift.

These words by Susan Sontag from the book The double Standard of ageing pretty much sum it up for me..

“Women have another option. They can aspire to be wise, not merely nice; to be competent, not merely helpful; to be strong, not merely graceful; to be ambitious for themselves in relation to men and children. They can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society’s double standard about ageing. Instead of being girls, girls as long as possible, who then age humiliatingly into middle-aged women, they can become women much earlier - and remain active adults, enjoying the long, erotic career of which women are capable, for longer. Women should allow their faces to show the lives they have lived. Women should tell the truth.”

*Today I am still on HRT, the advice is to take it for 10 years. Originally it went against everything I believed in, I went down every natural avenue I could find first, nothing helped. I stopped eating meat three years ago, one of the best decisions I’ve made for my health. A whole plant based diet works for me.

Thanks for reading xx

[winchesterandpie]

Son of a Patriotic Biscuit (Part 6 - Epilogue)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 1635

Warnings: None (Just a bunch of fluff again)

A/N: Wow... This is the end of the first series I’ve written. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it! Feedback is appreciated (I don’t bite, guys... Unless you’re made of chocolate or cake or something. Then you might have a problem). Gif is not mine

By the way, this whole part is in Steve’s point of view.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part 5

Your name: submit What is this? // <![CDATA[ document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', myHandler); function myHandler() { var v = document.body.innerHTML; var input = document.getElementById("inputTxt").value; v = v.replace(/\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, input); document.body.innerHTML = v; } // ]]>

When I woke up, I instantly noticed the lack of the warmth against my side, even before I opened my eyes. My fingers questing over the now-empty side of the bed told me that she had been up for at least a half hour, not an altogether infrequent occurrence these days. Still half-asleep, I rolled out of bed and pulled on a hoodie in preparation for the cold. Before leaving the room, I made sure to pick up a blanket - her favorite: a fuzzy, blue one that happened to also be my favorite because it smelled like her.

As I had guessed, I found her on the tower balcony gazing out over the city, facing the direction the sun would rise from in a few minutes. Getting closer, I could see that she was shivering despite having her wings curled around herself. I set the blanket on her shoulders before wrapping it and my arms around her.

“Hey,” I mumbled into her hair, pressing a kiss into it as I felt her relax into my chest.

“Morning,” she returned quietly. “Thanks for the blanket.” I didn’t reply, humming contentedly instead. A peaceful quiet settled over the two of us as we watched the sun come up over the horizon. The smell of her invaded my nose, her body pressed against mine as I reveled in her presence. The sun had been up for a few minutes before my hands came into contact with her arms and discovered the goosebumps dotting them.

“You’re cold as ice, doll.” Worriedly, I turned her toward me, running my hands up and down her arms to generate some friction. Dissatisfied with how quickly she was warming up, as well as the fact that I noticed her teeth chattering, I started tugging her towards the door. “Let’s get you inside and warmed up, hmm?”

“Only if it involves food.” She grinned up at me, following without resistance as her hand slipped into mine.

“Pancakes?” I replied, intertwining our fingers more securely.

“You know it. And bacon. Always bacon.” She said it with so serious a demeanor that I couldn’t help but laugh which made her pout and poke my arm pointedly. “Dishonor on your cow. Nobody disrespects the bacon. Not even you, Spangles.”

“Hey, I wasn’t disrespecting the bacon, Feathers.” I held my hands up in surrender. Since her hand was still in mine, I took advantage of the opportunity to kiss to her knuckles lightly, being careful not to pull her arm up too high. Her shoulders were getting better, but hanging by them for three weeks had done a fair amount of damage and she still couldn’t move them freely. Satisfied, she stepped closer to me, tucking herself into my side and leaning some of the weight off her healing leg.

Before making our way to the kitchen, we made a pit stop in my room. She only protested mildly when I sat her down on the bed before turning to pull out one of my hoodies for her. It only took me a moment to find her favorite - the one she always stole from me, but I never minded - and then help her into it. Once that was done, however, she seemed reluctant to get up again and go to the kitchen.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I sat down next to her, knowing she would know I was asking about what had woken her up. Looking down at her lap, she shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Hey, that’s alright. I just want you to know that I’m here whenever you need me, whether you want to talk or not.”

“Thanks, Steve.” I knew then that my work would be cut out for me, when she replied in a voice barely above a whisper. It was shaping up to be one of the not-so-good days.

“C’mere, sweetheart.” There was only the tiniest hesitation in her limbs as she crawled into my lap, her arms sliding around me. It was an instinctive response to pull her as close to me as she could get.  For a long moment, neither of us moved. She was content to remain in my arms, and I was happy to hold her as long as she wanted.

“Hey, doll?” I had thought of an idea that might help make this day a better one, despite the rocky start.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to head down to the common room, maybe grab some hot cocoa and either binge that one show or read a book?”

“That sounds…” she trailed off, muffled by my chest, and I thought she was going to refuse, “really nice, actually.” Evidently not planning on walking there herself, she curled herself more into me, her arms wrapping around my neck so that I would have to pick her up, which I did without a second thought. I carried her easily down the hall, happy to feel that her ribs were less prominent than they had been when we’d rescued her.

By the time we reached the couch, her arms had slid down from their hold on my neck, resting on my chest and shoulder instead. Grinning at the opportunity, I playfully dropped her unceremoniously onto the cushions. Apparently, she’d been falling asleep again, for she shot bolt upright when she hit the couch.

“Fricken fracken, mother truckin’, son of a biscuit eating, little pretentious butt munch!” Her words sounded like she was spitting fury, but her eyes danced with a lightness I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Is that any way to treat the guy who’s going to be making hot cocoa for you?” I leaned over her, holding my weight up with my hands and knees.

“It is when he so rudely drops me on the couch when I was half asleep.” This was accompanied by a pointed mock-glare, but I was distracted by her hands running up to my shoulders, bunching in my hoodie.

All of a sudden, my lips were on hers, but I didn’t remember moving to close the distance. The sudden fire from her made my knees weak as the butterflies, no, fireworks invaded every inch of my body, no less for the number of times we’d kissed before. Her fingers ran through my hair, bringing me even closer to her though such a feat seemed impossible. I smiled against her lips - it would’ve been futile to try and stop it from spreading - and we finally had to pull away for air.

Her eyelids fluttered open, her lower lip finding its way between her teeth as she looked up at me. Unable to resist, I pulled myself up a little higher along her body before ducking down to kiss her forehead. She seemed eager to kiss me again, but I pulled back farther, sitting up next to her legs.

“Don’t give me that look.” I bopped her nose lightly with one finger as her face fell into a pout. “I can’t very well get you anything when you won’t let me go. I’ll be right back, I promise.” With a whine of disappointment she let go, allowing me to move toward the kitchen.

A few short minutes later, I was returning with two fresh mugs of cocoa. Her eyes lit up with a childish joy, crinkling up at the corners as she looked for the marshmallows when I sat next to her again. With her tucked snugly into my side, I didn’t have the heart to dislodge her and reach for the remote, so instead I pulled her closer with an arm around her shoulders. We sipped from the mugs in companionable silence as the day began to look up. In my defense, it was only when she had finished her hot cocoa and set down the mug that I lightly flipped the blanket up so it covered her entire face like a hood.

“Fricken fracken, mother truckin’, son of a biscuit eating, little overgrown child!” Under the blanket hood, she had on a mock-irritated look. I could see it in the way her mouth set, like she was trying very hard not to bust out giggling.

“Aren’t you ever going to run out of endings?” I asked no one in particular, rolling my eyes to the ceiling as I feigned exasperation. All of a sudden, she had pushed the blanket back off her head and placed herself inches from my face.

“Challenge accepted,” she murmured quietly, close enough that I could feel the brush of her lips across my own as she spoke. Her proximity made my brain short circuit, so that’s what I blame for not understanding her meaning quite quickly enough. Almost the instant after she spoke, there was a whisper of her lips on mine gently before she was curling back into my side.

“That’s not what I meant!” My mouth hung open in bemusement and shock when I finally realized what she meant. She’d already gotten the idea, and knowing her she would probably never be unable to come up with a new ending. Nonetheless, I had to try and dissuade her. Looking down at her, fully prepared to argue my side, my reasoning died in my throat when I saw her. She’d somehow managed to fall asleep in the .002 milliseconds after my death warrant was signed, sealed, and delivered. Shaking my head amusedly, I turned to lay across the couch, pulling her with me so that her head rested on my chest.

“Eight in the morning, and we’re already taking a nap. What am I going to do with you?” I sighed the question, my grin giving away my lack of solemnity, especially as I knew my eyelids were growing heavier by the second as her presence lulled me toward sleep. “Sweet dreams, doll.”

Forever Tags: @riddikulus-obsessions

Son of a Patriotic Biscuit Tags: @barnes-toddpartnersinheartbreak @addictivewriter @wildestdreamsrps

Series Masterlist

[sealgirl96-blog]

wednesday 11th january 2017, 20:02

So, this was meant to be a daily journal, but I haven’t written for over a month... sorry! Long story short, the wifi did cut out, just in perfect timing for finals, which literally drained me (I think I must have pulled at least 4 all-nighters in the space of a week... even the regulars at the 24hr café began to recognise me). Then I spent Christmas with Mum in Quebec, went back to London for New Years’ for a week, and now I’m back this side of the Atlantic again. Although I do wish I’d updated on the past few week as it was happening, I hate for diary entries to just be massive catch-ups, so I’m just going to write about the very recent past. (There aren’t any hugely exciting gaps to fill in, don’t worry.)

I flew back on Saturday. It’s weird coming back to Canada this time around. Remembering how last time I made that journey, and travelled what felt like a huge, huge distance, I had absolutely no idea what the next four months held; what the city looked and felt like, where I would live, what school would be like, and I didn’t even know a single person. Now this time, having done a long-haul flight to London a week prior, the journey didn’t seem that arduous, I just whiled the hours away on the plane snoozing and watching Sex and the City, then hopped off (no painfully long immigration to go through), and took two buses to my cosy little apartment and bed. How can somewhere that once felt so unknown feel just like home?

I can’t lie, I’m quite glad to be back. I’m always less sad about that than I think I will be - leaving Mum, leaving London, and knowing it’s going to be for a while. Since this is the longest and the furthest away I’ve ever been, it’s hard to know whether it’s just because I like this place, or because I underestimated my capacity for not getting homesick. Maybe both.

I don’t miss London right now. I don’t think I was there long enough to really get into the swing of things. When I first got back, I hated it. It felt like I was wearing grey-tinted glasses - I know it was especially foggy that day, but in comparison to here it just seemed so dirty, grey, and polluted. I was walking down Holloway Road, thinking, did I really grow up here? I honestly think you just become accustomed to it when you live there. And then when you consider the fact that I pay 1/4 of the rent I would pay living in London, and for a nice place, in a great area, too. I do love London because it’s London and it’s home, but living there at this (financially unstable) stage in your life is becoming harder and harder to justify.

Seeing my friends soon alleviated my sadness though, and I can’t lie, NYE was good. Just got extremely waved with the girls and went to some punk night in Hackney. We thought it might be a risk, punk, but it wasn’t even bad at all, and they were playing other stuff too. They played David Bowie - Let’s Dance when it turned 2017. Hanging out with good friends is the one thing I do miss, and regret not doing more of last week. I had this shitty flu which incapacitated me for a few days (probably that London pollution) and NYE was the only night I actually went out. It’s bittersweet in a way, because I did want to come back here, but then that had to be in the knowledge that I wouldn’t see certain people for a really long time.

Class started this week. I’ve liberally arranged my timetable so that I have Monday and Friday off, and I know I won’t regret that later on. Since last term was quite challenging, I was going to try and only take easier modules this term, but that turned out to be a logical impossibility, especially if I wanted those two days off. I know it sounds like I’m just trying to cut corners, but it’s more like I’m just trying to not make life unnecessarily hard for myself, because I’m finding studying in a foreign language quite hard as it is. It’s a pass/fail year and all modules are weighted equally, so I would get the same amount of credits for an easier module as I would a harder one. But anyway, I just ended up with 2 harder / 2 easier like last term (sorry, boring, who cares, I’m literally just writing this for my own benefit, ok.) The term ahead does look quite difficult, but it could be manageable. I just wish I had a stronger work ethic. As it stands, I literally have the worst work ethic known to mankind.

Last night I went for drinks with three of the Brits and one Canadian. It was Tom’s birthday incidentally, but I don’t think he would have done anything for it if Rory hadn’t otherwise suggested drinks. I do like Rory, but the others... it’s like I said before... I find it hard to have a connection with people with whom the sole basis of our friendship is nationality. As a result, the banter was a little bit dead. We went to the (really corny) Irish pub because Rory’s friend worked there. Who doesn’t work at the Irish pub, to be honest? It’s actually such a small world, this city. The Canadian guy we were with also works there, my ex-flatmate Nick works there and my also-now-ex-flatmate Mary’s friend Tony who I went on one date with and never spoke to again works there. I was praying the latter wouldn’t be there as it would have made for a very awkward encounter... I guess my prayers were answered, thanks, God!

Rors convinced us all to go on this ski trip... I’ve never skied, I’m so so scared o of making an ass out of myself, but apparently people mainly go for the atmosphere. We would all share a chalet and I think it would actually be super fun. It’s also quite cheap (for a ski trip) but my heart rate does increase slightly when I think about my finances over the coming months. I can’t currently get a job on my visa, but I mean to send it off and hopefully have it amended so that I can - but even still, I don’t know how easy it would be to find one, not being perfectly bilingual. With NYC and now possibly this ski trip, my bank account is really not looking pleased with me at the moment. I transferred some of my savings over, but my student loan mainly served to clear my overdraft. This one time, AB said that he wanted to take a trip to Iceland this summer - and I know it was just said in passing and he’s probably forgotten, but obviously it’s stuck in my mind since. If he was still up for going, and I couldn’t afford it, that would be a serious bummer. And if he offered to help me pay or something, that would just be awkward! He’s not my sugar daddy! Anyway, I’m getting way ahead of myself here. We shall even have to see about the ski trip, as Agata might not even be able to go since it’s in Vermont, and unlike us Brits, she can’t get a visa waiver to travel to the States. I don’t think I would go if she doesn’t.

In other news, we have a new flatmate, Josie, who has replaced Mary. It’s hard to gauge too much this early on, but the more time I spend with her, the more I begin to miss Mary. I mean, for example, she just wandered into my room to ask me to wash up my dishes in the sink, from a few hours ago. A) Has she heard of knocking? B) Is she my mother? C) Not all of those dishes were mine, in fact, some of them were hers from dinner last night, and D) Does it even matter, does it need to be done this instant?! Mary would never do that!!  The thing about the old set-up before Josie is that we were all on the same wavelength. I could sense it from the first time I met those guys. There was kind of a mutual understanding that we were all as ‘messy’ as one another (which isn’t even that messy, by the way.) I knew from the initial skype interview with Josie that she wasn’t quite on our wavelength, and it’s already beginning to show in subtle ways. This is why I much preferred the other flatmate candidate, Emma, but the votes were in Josie’s favour. I just hope it doesn’t culminate in one big argument or something one day.

To be fair, I suppose you could do a lot worse for a flatmate. I should be thankful that she’s clean and tidy and doesn’t like, play the drums or something. She also invited me to her friend’s gig tomorrow, so I guess that’s nice. It’s a brother and sister duo, though. Um, no comment.

P.S. By the way, in case anyone cared (they definitely didn’t), I’m not pregnant. I had two massive spells of bleeding over Christmas (I guess you could call it the festive period lmao - sorry, worst joke ever...) I swear I always think I’m pregnant, maybe subconsciously I love the drama. But what the fuck is the mini pill doing to my hormones, that I can just have random, really long, really heavy periods? It makes me want to go back to the combined, so that I can regulate my periods - but then I couldn’t smoke. Or ideally, stop loading my body up with artificial hormones altogether, but then I would just have to have regular periods, and use a condom on the rare occasion that I get laid. Is there any ideal form of birth control? Someone help!

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

The Great Pizza and Diabetes Experiment

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/the-great-pizza-and-diabetes-experiment/

The Great Pizza and Diabetes Experiment

I hate pizza. Sure, it has that great smell. Yeah, it has an amazing look, as steam rises up over a landscape of melted cheeses dotted with toasted veggies and crisp meats. Oh, and the taste is wonderful, a molten fusion of flavors that rocks the taste buds.

But I still hate pizza.

Because no matter what I do, it effs up my blood sugar. Big time.

And I’m not alone.

The problem is that every pizza is two glucose highs waiting to happen. There are fast sugars in the crust and in the sauce, and there are slow carbs in the cheeses and meats. And pizza’s challenges for the pancreatically-challenged are everywhere.

Pan, hand-tossed, or thin crust?

What toppings?

How generous or stingy is the cook?

Does one brand have more sugar in their sauce than another?

And what about the slices? A “slice” of pizza has a published carb count in many cases, but rarely are pizzas cut uniformly. It’s a nightmare.

In wondering how on earth we're supposed to deal with all of this, my solution has been to avoid pizza altogether.

So you can imagine how I felt when the 'Mine team asked me to take on pizza as the next in our line of "great food experiments" that have included ketchup, coffee, and craft beer so far. Given that March is National Nutrition Month, it seemed like a perfect time for the so-called Great Diabetes and Pizza Experiment.

Know Thy Enemy

I started by studying the enemy. And there’s a lot of information out there, despite the fact that pizza sales are actually on the decline with only $38,504,164,116 in sales last year. For those of you who can’t count your commas, that's $38 billion!

There are more than a dozen brands of pizza out there and they have a pretty big carb range. Or so it would appear at first glance. But something interesting is lurking in the math. As I compared products, I noticed that the serving sizes varied a lot, too, ranging from 85 grams up to 152 grams.

Digging deeper into the math, I divided the carbs into the serving sizes to find out the carb impact of each kind of pizza on a per-gram basis. And when I did, I was stunned. Pizza -- regardless of crust or topping or brand -- has a carb impact very close to 0.23 carbs per gram.

Could it be true? Was there, lurking in all the confusion of size and style and brand, a universal pizza bolus? Do we just need to weigh any piece of pizza and multiply the results by 0.23 to get the carb count? Could it really be that simple?

Time to find out...

Pizza Science in Action

I ran a small-scale scientific experiment. And to gain the most data beyond just myself, I recruited a second lab rat: a fellow T1D sister who is a pizza-lover and didn't need much arm-twisting to join in on this experiment offering free pizza dinners.

Like me, she’s on insulin pens and CGM. We agreed we’d both do a fingerstick calibration as a baseline before the meal, then record the CGM readings at two and four hours.

In a perfect world, peak glucose would be in two hours, and at four hours we should be back to our normal fasting blood sugar levels.

Of course, a perfect world wouldn’t include a diabolical food like pizza.

Each of the pizza meals would be limited to two pieces of pizza, with no sides. I wanted my data to be as pure as parmesan. But to drink I selected low-carb dry red wine, because I love wine more than science.

Here’s my lab journal:

Experiment One: Pizza Hut

We opened the cardboard box and beheld the pizza. “You have a really tough job,” said my D-sis, “Having to eat pizza and all...” Then she pointed to a slice on the left, and then one across the pizza from it. “I’ll take this one, and that one.”

I transferred her choices to the waiting paper plate on my digital Salter kitchen scale. We had used the “tare” function to erase the weight of the plate before adding the pizza. Her two slices clocked in at 207 grams. I multiplied that by our theoretical universal constant of 0.23 and came up with a carb count of 47.61. “Round it up to 48,” I suggested, and she entered the figure into her RapidCalc app, along with her (grossly) above-target blood sugar, and took a combined pizza and correction bolus.

She said the carb count sounded waaaaaaay too low to her. I did the math on my two slices after weighing them, and the count sounded waaaaaaay too high to me.

What happened? Surprisingly, not much. I went up a bit, but not too badly. D-sis came down, but not as far as she would have liked. Here, check it out:

Base 2 HR 4 HR

Wil 137 193 235

D-sis 342 242 201

The glucose response to the pizza was better than either of us usually see with traditional carb counting, and we were amazed by how close our final sugars were, especially given how far apart they were at the start.

Experiment Two: Little Caesars

Much like KFC has fried chicken cooked and waiting, Little Caesars has cheese and pepperoni pizzas waiting for eager eaters at all hours. During the dinner rush, a wider array of options is available. Price-wise, they are about half the cost of Pizza Hut, and the flavor was great. How’d it work out blood sugar-wise?

I’m happy to report that, using the universal constant of 0.23 carbs per gram, the Little Caesars hand-tossed 3 Meat Treat treated my blood sugar similarly to the way that the Pizza Hut Pan Meat Lover’s did. Which is to say, hardly perfect, but better than I’ve ever experienced in the past.

Both of the test subjects started with respectable numbers this time. I stayed flat with a slight rise towards the end, but had no excursion whatsoever. My D-sister dropped a bit in the middle, and rose more sharply towards the end, but nothing to write home about -- especially since this is pizza we're talking about.

Here are our numbers:

Base 2 HR 4 HR

Wil 146 151 161

D-sis 134 106 186

Despite the fact that Little Caesars and Pizza Hut pizzas have radically different crust styles, the “universal” constant delivered similar results: Basically a fairly flat response, ending above target, but not hideously so.

Experiment Three: Totino’s Frozen Pizza

Science is a lot of work: Get the frozen pizzas out of the oven, cut them, weigh the servings for me and my D-sis on the scale, multiply the grams of weight by the universal bolus figure of 0.23 to get the carbs, enter the carb count and current blood sugar into RapidCalc, and record all the figures in my notes for this article—all before the damn pizza got cold!

Meanwhile my D-sis quickly turned her iPhone upside down after entering her blood sugar. I sighed. “How bad is it?” I asked her.

Four hundred and thirty-five fricken’ mg/dL. “What on earth did you do?” I asked, whereupon she admitted to eating “yummy” cake and forgetting to bolus for it. Naturally I read her the riot act about being an irresponsible D-person. Then I sat down to eat my pizza.

When the two-hour alarm went off I checked my CGM. I was at 276 with a quartering arrow up. What the f---?! How could that be?! That high… And still rising!

We put our heads together to figure out what went wrong. One idea was that the “universal bolus” didn’t work for frozen pizzas, as they have a higher crust-to-topping ratio than restaurant-type pizzas. While I could buy that, I just couldn’t reconcile it with an excursion that bad. “It almost looks like I didn’t take any insulin at all…” I started to say.

“That would be being an irresponsible D-person,” said my D-sis with a triumphant twinkle in her eye.

I activated my Echo pen and looked at the base. The last bolus was many, many, many hours before. Well, shit. I was so busy figuring out the bolus, that I had forgotten to take it.

Base 2 HR 4 HR

Wil 155 276 --

D-sis 435 -- --

I terminated the experiment at two hours. Then I took a rage bolus, and ate the leftovers.

Experiment Four: Local Fare

Of course, none of this science does us any good if it only works for chain pizza. The real prize is having a method for taking on local mystery pizza. The final phase of our experiment was to apply the universal constant to local pizza and see if the numbers came out similar to the numbers we saw on the brand-name pizzas.

I packed my scale and we headed to J.C’s New York Pizza Department, a combination eatery and three-lane bowling alley on the Plaza in the heart of my town of Las Vegas, New Mexico — the Las Vegas you can’t see from space.

Did it “work”? Did we get readings similar to our first two experiments?

No. Damn it.

Base 2 HR 4 HR

Wil 127 128 263

D-sis 188 317 359

D-sis shot up crazy-high before the two-hour check and continued to drift up. Eight minutes short of the final check she bailed and took insulin. I stayed flat for the first two hours, then began a sharp rise.

So much for science.

D-Pizza Takeaways

What did I prove in the end?

Well, even if there may be a universal carb-count for pizza, navigating this using traditional insulin may not allow for steady numbers unless you can plan ahead and dose accurately each and every time.

In other words, Your Pizza May Vary (YPMV), just as Your Diabetes May Vary and everything under the sun plays into the Blood Sugar Effect you'll experience when consuming this kind of pie.

For me in the end, the Great Pizza Experiment proved nothing... beyond the fact that I’m justified in really hating pizza.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article