#and that he and hayward never met

[cherrywhite]

The Silt Verses: Final Partings

Carpenter & Faulkner (Chapter 45)

Faulkner & Paige (Chapter 12)

Carpenter & Paige (Chapter 34)

Carpenter & Hayward (Chapter 43)

Paige & Hayward (Chapter 45)

[phantomrose96]

I'm actually deeply obsessed with the tiny little anecdote Hayward tells about the god Henge and it makes me insane again every time I remember it.

You know the best god I ever met - they called him Henge. He haunted a village up north. He didn’t ask much of you. He liked keepsakes. Things that were no longer useful. Maybe you had a ring you didn’t want to wear any more because it hurt too much. Or you had a key that you weren’t going to use for a very long time, but you wanted to be able to find it again when you did. Or maybe your kid would be born with their eyes and throat shut tight and you didn’t know how to move on. You’d wrap your keepsake in green cotton, and you’d bury under a pile of pebbles in a place only you knew. And you’d make the prayer-marks so that Henge would know just what was being offered. And then one day, years later, when you were ready to pick up whatever you’d left behind but perhaps you didn’t even know it yet yourself, you’d turn and look outside your window, and the ring would be hanging from a tree-branch outside. The key would be resting on your sill. There’d be a newborn child, wrapped in green cotton, resting upon your doorstep. I never understood what Henge wanted with that stuff, but I understood the appeal of going through it. How nice it was to feel that someone had stopped to pick up the things you needed to drop.

The image about the stillborn child just stops me cold like. A child you loved and wanted and is born dead and you can't just part with, can't just accept it, can't find the way to put the work into the funeral and have them gone, forever, to nothing.

That you could put the child down and Henge will just... pick them up. Not save them. Not change what happened. Just give you time to step away. To not need to say "goodbye" to the child yet. To not have to deal, just yet. Just that one day, in the future, when you're ready, whenever that may be, the child would be back on your step for you to bury...

Hayward plays down the ring in his example of just hurting too much but, he plays down the kid too. Is that ring of your dead spouse? A dead family member? What kind of key do you need out of your possession until you're ready - or, Hayward, is this honestly just a strategy to keep something where you yourself can't lose it...? Can it be that simple?

I'm insane about Henge. I'm insane about putting a thing down temporarily, and having a god which will hold it while you can't.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Bad Faith Part Two

Part One | Masterlist

Pairing: Harvey Specter x Reader

Rating: Explicit - 18+. Minors, kindly get off my lawn.

Notes: Not beta-read because when is it ever. Read this over six times but there are probably twenty typos that I'll spot the second I hit post, so. Anyway! Welcome to part two of two!! Thank you for reading 💖

Length: 14.2k

Warnings: Angst; fluff! Huzzah!; Reader’s married surname is Hayward; reader is depressed for swaths of the chapter; unhealthy coping mechanisms; lovers to enemies to allies to lovers; explicit sexual content - vaginal sex, oral sex, hate sex, safe sex

Summary: Your life was four walls, a cruddy bed, rickety furniture. You spent too much time awake when you should’ve been sleeping; too much time reminiscing when you should have been moving on; too much time dwelling on the time that you spent with men in your life that probably wouldn’t spare you another thought. 

“Ross. Mike Ross.” 

“Cut the Bond schtick.” 

“I’m a contender.” 

“Not a chance. Besides, we’ve been over this; you’re Q at best.” 

“Could do a lot worse than Desmond Llewelyn or Ben Whishaw—Hang on, you think you’re Bond?” 

Harvey stopped, gesturing over his body sweepingly before scoffing, “Please.”

“Please is right,” Mike muttered, tucking his hands into his pockets. “You always go to this thing?” 

“...I’ve been once or twice.” In truth, Harvey hadn’t been to the New York City Estate and Properties gala in years. He hadn’t had occasion or reason; the last time he had, he’d made sure that she wouldn’t be there before he’d agreed. Tonight his purpose was manifold—drink good champagne, eat good food, and warn Hayward off of pursuing his lawsuits against his client’s property. 

His client. It wasn’t as simple as all that, but these days, he’d managed to separate her from the work. It was clinical—and clinical was exactly what he needed. 

“Did you see the menu for dinner? I didn’t see a menu.” 

“Get your fill of canapes. I’m talking to Hayward and then we’re going.” 

“What?” Mike pouted. “But I thought we were staying for the ceremony.” 

“You thought wrong. Keep your eyes peeled. Sooner we get this conversation over, the sooner we can get away from this den of cobras.” 

“Never have a mongoose when you need one.” Mike nodded over Harvey’s shoulder. “Found Mrs. Hayward.” 

“Thought she didn’t like you calling her that.” 

“She doesn’t, but around here, it might be better to use that rather than use her maiden name and have someone ask me who the hell I’m talking about…You gonna talk to her?” 

“What for?” 

“So she at least knows what suit to look for when she wants to avoid you.” 

Harvey’s chastising glare was met with a wide, smug grin. 

“Come on,” Mike groaned. “You haven’t spoken to her in weeks.” 

“And have you considered that that may be why things have been going so smoothly?” 

“Fine—I’ll give you another reason you should say hi to her.” 

“You better make it a good one this time.” 

“Jessica is catching on to the fact that you haven’t touched this case with a ten foot pole.” 

Harvey winced slightly as he swallowed the last of his champagne. 

“Fine,” He grudgingly conceded, setting the empty champagne flute on a passing waiter’s tray. “Point me.” 

“She’s at your two o’clock.” 

Harvey turned accordingly, pushed out an annoyed sight—and then felt what breath he had left catch in his throat. 

‘Stunning’ was the first word that came to mind, but in his heart, Harvey knew that it didn’t do her justice. For his lingering, abiding annoyance with her, and with them—with the whole goddamn situation—there were moments when Harvey remembered why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. 

She didn’t want to be there. Harvey didn’t need to ask to know that—it was common sense. But that didn’t stop her from showing her face, from being impeccably dressed, and maintaining what had to be a meticulously constructed poker face. 

“...You do know what staring isn’t talking, right?” 

Mike’s amusement cut into Harvey’s reverie, and he cleared his throat to refocus himself. 

“Keep an eye out for Hayward,” Harvey ordered before he forced himself forward, slowly weaving through the crowd. 

What the hell was he even going to say to her? Hi wasn’t going to cut it; Come here often? Was almost as stupid. How about something about her dress—Whether or not it was new? That had to be safe, neutral ground— 

Harvey had been so focused on what he planned to say that he hadn’t clocked her turning to face him. He chalked it up to panic radar—her hype-sesitivity given the current situation. He stared. She watched. And then—

“Come here often?” 

Damnit. Stupid, sure, but at least it wasn’t hi. 

-- 

“...Annually, at least.”

Was it your imagination, or was Harvey…Nervous? At the very least, he seemed as confused as you were at the fact that he was talking to you. 

“I’m a little surprised that you made a showing,” He admitted. 

“I could say the same for you. Does Jessica have you prospecting clients to get back in the good graces of the real estate department at the firm?” 

Harvey’s eyes narrowed with playful intrigue,and for a moment, you saw a flash of the man that you used to know—the man who gave you that same look when you slipped your panties off and tucked them into his jacket pocket to find later. 

“What did Mike tell you?” 

You shrugged nonchalantly, glancing around. 

“Nothing impor—...Tant.” You trailed off, falling still and quiet as your eyes landed on Steven. 

Well, he was hard to miss. 

Standing at 6’3, with a manufactured tan, swimmer’s build, full head of gracefully graying hair, and veneers that made his smile look like a neatly arranged row of chiclets gum, Steven Hayward was the very picture of the kind of health that only wealth could buy. With the stress of the last few weeks, you knew that you weren’t looking your absolute best. You’d had so many sleepless nights; you’d swapped out your favorite catered meals in favor of cheaper alternatives, or dollar slices of pizza, or ramen from the bodega down the block from your apartment, pulled gently from beneath the cat that seemed to always be napping on the exact flavor that you wanted. 

You were certain that Steven lost no sleep over the decision to divorce you, or to pull the rug out from beneath you. You expected him to be in tip-top shape—but you saw hints of his rage as he grew closer. 

“Oh—Hell,” You mumbled, tipping your head toward Harvey. “You might wanna clear out.” 

“You kidding? I’ve got a front row seat to the prize fight of the century.” 

“Target acquired.”

You frowned at the sound of Mike’s voice, but you didn’t turn to look at him as you muttered, “Target?” 

“Darling.” The term of affection oozed past Steven’s bleached-white teeth. He stopped just a couple of steps from you—not near enough to touch, but close enough to see the anger sparkling in his dishwater gray eyes. A pulse of vindication swept through your chest at the tense smile, and the tight pull of his jaw. 

“Steven,” You greeted cordially.

“I’m surprised to see you this evening.” 

“If I had a nickel.” 

“Oh, but you do. Putting all of those properties up for sale, I expect you plan on having more than a few nickels.” 

“What can I say? A girl’s gotta get by.” 

“Anything I can do to help?” 

“Have you considered unfreezing our joint account?” 

He chuckled humorlessly. “Anything but that.” 

“Then wire me half.”

“You haven't earned half.” 

It was meant to cut you down and lay you out, but you refused to bow to this man publicly when the other attendees must always hold you in such low regard as it was. 

“I agree,” You offered, and before Steven could preen in his false superiority, you clarified: “I deserve more.” 

Steven bristled, shoulders bunching tight. 

“Perhaps I should just take this evening’s expenses out of that half.” 

You furrowed your brow pointedly, shaking your head. 

“Mmm…I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” 

“Really.” 

“Mm…N—...No—?” 

“Perhaps you’ve been so busy hocking your clothes like a dog snuffling for scraps—” Your face flared with embarrassment as Steven pressed on: “But there was meant to be a reception at my penthouse this evening.” 

My penthouse. If it had only been the two of you in that room, you may have slapped him. How had he been able to detach, to force you from his mind and his heart so quickly? Had he ever loved you? Had any man? 

The heat of Harvey’s body suddenly seemed to flare just behind you. 

“Ah!” You nodded sagely, “It’s all coming back to me.” 

“What could have happened there, I wonder?” 

“You must not have taken care.” 

“Of what?” 

Of me. “Of anything.” 

Steven took you in for another long, cruel moment before he jutted his chin over your shoulder. 

“Friends of yours?” 

Ah yes. Your personal legal peanut gallery. You glanced back to confirm their positioning before raising your hand to gesture: 

“This is Mike Ross.” The name seemed to knock something loose in Steven’s mind as he shook Mike’s hand. 

“Ah, Mr. Ross. I saw your name on some documentation this morning.” 

“You’re about to see it a lot more, Mr. Hayward.” 

“And this is Harvey Specter.” 

Your stomach lurched as Steve’s eyes widened slightly, lips curling into a smile. 

“This is Harvey Specter?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement as he proffered his hand. ”I didn’t realize I sent you the worst possible port in this storm.” 

“You didn’t,” Harvey insisted, grasping Steven’s hand firmly. “You sent her to the best.” 

“Try not to drop her this time. My arms aren’t open anymore.” 

Your hands tightened where they were clasped around one another. You forced yourself to keep your gaze set stalwartly on Steven, rather than watch the contentious (and no doubt, painful) handshake that the two of them were sharing. 

“Well,” You chirped. “This was a lovely little catch-up.” 

“Yes,” Harvey chimed in, finally extricating his hand from Steven’s and tucking it into his pocket. “We must do it again sometime. Preferably at a deposition.” 

“Maybe in court,” Mike added. You had to fight down a smile at the sudden swell of support, and a wave of warmth that swept through you. Steven’s eyes narrowed just a touch more before he nodded. 

“I do hope you’ll stay for my speech.” 

“Who’d you have write it for you this time?” You asked. 

“I took a crack at writing it myself.” 

If that was true, it was sure to be a mess and a half. You always had been the one to draft his speeches or remarks—or you paired down any drafts sent over by the agency’s PR department. 

“I look forward to it.” 

Steven gave you one last look before he turned away, slapping on his businessman smile as he went, and raising a hand to signal someone like a politician trying to garner votes. 

“...Why didn’t you mention the forgery charges?” Mike asked. 

“It’s too soon to tip our hand...What table are you sitting at?”

“Thirteen,” You sighed. 

“Lucky number,” Mike muttered. 

“Go change our place cards,” Harvey ordered. “Put us on either side of her.” 

You whirled around to face him, stunned at the tight irritation pinching his features. 

“So we are staying for dinner?” Mike grinned. Harvey blinked flatly at him before reiterating: “Go.” 

You watched Mike duck through the crowd, heading for the dining room.

“Were you not going to stay for dinner?” 

“I’ve gotta eat some time. Come on,” Harvey nudged your arm with his, “Buy me a drink.” 

“It’s an open bar.” 

“Good. Then it won’t break the bank.” 

The press of Harvey’s warm hand to your lower back was far more steadying than it should have been, and it managed to dampen the enraged fire in your belly. 

“How’s that good faith deposit doing, anyway?” 

“I threw 98% of it into an HYSA.” 

“Smart move.” 

“I should’ve made moves like it sooner.” 

“Better late than never.” 

“I guess.” 

“...You don’t have to stay for dinner.” 

“We’re going to.” 

“On either side of me as well, I’m flattered. I wasn’t planning on having guard dogs this evening.” 

“As long as you don’t try to keep us on short leashes.” 

“Depends on whether you plan on doing more barking or biting this evening.” 

“I’ve barked enough for now.” 

“Biting?” 

“If you play your cards right, sure.” 

You didn’t bother to hide your open shock at the blatant implication, but when you looked at Harvey, you found him giving you a surprisingly warm smile. 

“Looks like speaking with Steven has put a little pep in your step, Mr. Specter.” 

“I wouldn’t say that.” 

“What did?”

Harvey leaned heavily against the bar, focus set elsewhere as he tried to catch the bartender’s eye. 

“You and I both know that this is going to be a long road. I like a good fight.” 

“You don’t say.” 

“It’s important to me that you’re ready for it, too.” 

You nodded a little. “It may also be prudent for us to keep that fight directed at Steven, and not toward one another.” 

Harvey took the two proffered champagne flutes, passing you one and holding it up to cheers: 

“I’ll drink to that.” 

-- 

It wasn’t perfect right away. You and Harvey still butt heads from time to time. On the purchases that the judges ruled that you were able to move forward with, you disagreed over terms—purchase price, contingencies, negotiations. But the knots unpicked sooner and sooner, and you reached resolutions faster. Mike hardly had to intervene anymore. Harvey gave Jessica status updates openly, and you abidingly ignored the smug, self-satisfied smiles that she gave you as you left her office. 

With the service and tenancy contracts, the two apartment building sales that aren’t mired in paperwork still chugged along slowly. You knew that it was protocol, but it was excruciating. You felt ill every time you got an email from Mike or Harvey, expecting correspondence that spelled disaster. Every little bit of good news only brought marginal relief. 

You spent most of your days in your apartment, packaging clothing or jewelry that you’d sold online. You got your packages sent off by five in the evening, and the rest of your night was your own—though it often ended similarly. Your logical mind often gave over to your emotions in the evening, and you allowed yourself to slip into quiet, depressed oblivion. The methods varied—slurping down two packets worth of dollar-pack ramen, and chasing that with a few bottles of beer as one of your favorite shows played in the background; curling up in your bed and staring at the ceiling at 8 PM, and laying wide awake with your mind racing until the sun came up; hunting through property listings online and plotting a comeback that felt like it would never come.

You never had visitors. Aaron was so entrenched at work that you  only got the odd text from him. Your former friends seemed to have further aligned themselves with Steven after his triumphant speech at the gala—during  which he had gone out of his way to omit any mention of you from his historical record. You had avoided seeing much of Jessica outside of the office, certain that she would council you on a good divorce lawyer, or encourage you to begin dating, or level another lecture about the stupidity with which you had bungled your last marriage.

For as well as you knew she meant, you didn’t have the time or patience—and some little part of you, some stupid, naïve part that knew well enough that the war was already lost, was convinced that Steven would change his mind.

It was unlikely, considering the magnitude of his cruelty over the last couple of months, and further exacerbated by your actions before the gala. Steven would not let you back into his arms, his home, or his heart. You didn’t truly want to be let back into his arms, or his heart, but you missed his home. You had taken such care in the planning, the curation, the furnishing, the upkeep. You were proud of it. You had been happy, and comfortable, and so goddamn foolish.

Now you were tired, and lonely, and you spent so much of your day feeling stupid. 

Sometimes, when the wind blew just a little too hard and rattled the flimsy windows, you let the sound of it cover your sobs against the paper-thin walls that connected you to your neighbor’s apartment (you’d learned just how much sound bled through when you first became privy to your neighbor’s light argument, which had then turned into a full-on shouting match. They’d sounded like they were in the same damn room with you, wall be damned).

It was one such sob session that you managed to hear someone knock on your door. You sniffled, shifting on your bed. You were certain that the sound was from next door, or that you’d misheard the rattle of the window. But when you heard the second, insistent round of knocks, the source couldn’t be mistaken. You sniffled, setting your beer aside onto the bedside table crowded with empties and pushing yourself off of the bed. You swiped haphazardly at the tears on your face as you walked over to it, calling out, “Alright, for fuckssake!” When a third round of knocks rapped against the door.

You threw it open, finally, wincing at the invasive flash of the flickering fluorescent hall light. You weren’t sure what was worse: the flickering, harsh strobe, or Harvey’s stunned confusion.

It may have been a tie.

“…What is it?” You mumbled.

“Have you been crying?”

“Little bit.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Getting there.”

“…Get dressed.”

“What?”

“Get dressed,” Harvey insisted, nodding over your shoulder. “We’re going out.”

“Harvey, I’m really not in the mood,” You sniffled.

“We won’t go far.”

“Then why are we going at all?”

Harvey opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by a sudden crash! and the swell of yelling voices from next door. His eyes darted toward it before he nodded.

“I’m not listening to that all night.”

“Who the hell says you’re going to be here more than five minutes?”

Your heart stuttered as Harvey’s hands planted firmly on your hips, steering you back into your studio before he nudged the door shut with his foot.

“Get dressed. And hurry up.”

You weren’t sure what it was—his touch, his firm insistence, or your own distaste for your screaming neighbors—but you turned around and began dutifully rifling through one of your remaining trash bags of clothing.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a diner around the corner.”

“A diner? How down heel of you, Mr. Specter.”

“I can appreciate the simple things.”

You snorted, straightening with a pair of jeans and a sweater. “Since when.” You glanced guardedly toward him before you nodded him toward the door. “Turn around.”

--  

“You can afford better than that place, you know.” 

You didn’t answer him. Instead, you shoved a handful of cheese fries in your mouth and leaned back to chew with laborious slowness. You expected Harvey to fill the silence, but he didn’t. He just watched, and waited, and stared at you until you swallowed. You nudged the plate toward him, offering: “Want one?” 

 You avoided his openly chastising gaze, tired of the fact that it was the only look you get from most of the lawyers in your life these days. 

“You have that good faith deposit.” 

“I told you where it went.” 

“The brownstone payment is on the edge of clearing escrow. Look for somewhere else to live.” 

“Not yet.” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s not a good idea.” 

“Steven isn’t going to weasel into every potential deal and hold it up.” 

“Forgive me for my skepticism, but I don’t exactly have many friends in this city anymore.” 

“...Are you planning on going somewhere else?” 

You’d be lying if you said it hadn’t crossed your mind. There were cities here you could rebuild your life and your practices, places where you were sure Steven wouldn’t bother to try and strike down your attempts to rebuild your life. 

“Maybe,” You admitted. “I liked Cambridge.” 

Harvey’s lips twitched with a gentle, regretful smile. It was his turn to reach out and swipe a few fries and chow down. 

“Realty up there is pricey,” You added. “Could make a polite killing on student housing.” 

“How does one make a polite killing?” 

“Decent rent and coin-operated laundry. Maybe some paid parking, a few overpriced but conveniently placed vending machines.” 

“Redbull?” 

“I was just thinking about snacks, but you know what, Redbull isn’t a bad idea.” You reached out, picking up a fry and drawing it through the splodge of ketchup remaining at the edge of the plate. “Why did you come over?” 

“I wanted to let you know that the inspections are finished.” 

“On which?” 

“The properties that you didn’t know about.” 

“Anything stand out?” 

“A foundational issue on one of the apartment buildings, but it doesn’t cost enough that it should’ve stopped work.” 

“What about the others?” 

“Nothing that popped as catastrophic.” 

“You have the print-outs?” 

“In my car.” 

“Why are they in there?” 

“I was going to offer to take you for a drink, but you seemed to beat me to it.” 

You scoffed, shifting in your seat. “Don’t get all high and mighty on me, Specter.” 

“You do that often?” 

“What, drink?” 

“Yes.” 

“Are you accusing me of having a problem?” 

“I’m asking if you do that often.” 

“Once in a while.” 

“New for you?” 

“Relatively.” 

Harvey eyed you critically for a few moments before he nodded. “Call me the next time you want to have a drink.” 

“So you can talk me out of it?” 

“So you at least don’t do it alone.”

“I’m usually not in a talking mood when it happens.” 

“We don’t have to talk.” 

“Oh, please. As if you don’t love the sound of your own voice.” 

“Call me anyway.” 

You were quiet for a moment before you nodded. “You know, the thought of you dropping by may just be an effective suppressant.” 

Harvey’s smile widened a little. “Do you want to put the other houses on the market?” 

“I want to walk through the apartment buildings myself before I go through them.” 

“What about the ones in the Hamptons and the Cape?” 

“I’ll drive up.” 

“And Gstaad?” 

“A little trickier.” 

“Could bill it.” 

“I doubt it.” 

“You could, under discovery.” 

“This would not be covered under discovery.” 

“How would you know that?” 

“I’m sorry, remind me who used to quiz you for the bar?” 

Harvey scoffed softly, averting his gaze to the diner counter. “Well, this may surprise you, but a few laws have changed since then.” 

“And this may surprise you, but not only am I aware of that, I’ve also been pretty deeply entwined with lawyers since then. So I’m pretty comfortable making that assertion.” 

“And this? You think I’m not billing for this?” 

“Oh, I hope you are. I hope you bill for every second that it took you to walk up the steps to my apartment. I want Jessica to pay for my cheese fries. You know why?” 

“Because it would kill her?”

“It would drive her nuts.” 

“I can’t wait to give her the itemized total.” 

“I await the enraged phone call.” 

-- 

“You don’t have to walk me back up, you know."

“Sure I do. Gotta work off those fries. Besides, I’m billing for this until I officially drop you off.” 

You rolled your eyes, nudging Harvey’s shoulder with yours. Your depressed, tear-ridden, sobbing buzz had worn off over the course of dinner, and you didn’t think that the mood would creep back in once you were alone again. 

“I’ll walk through the apartment buildings tomorrow and see if I can get up to the Cape at some point in the next couple of weeks. The pictures and notes from the inspection look promising. If I dip into the good faith deposit, maybe I could get the Cape Cod house fixed up and sold before the summer.” 

“Or you could keep it as a rental property.” 

“Mm.” “You always liked the Cape in the winter…For some reason.” 

“I kinda like when it’s all grey and gloomy…and quiet.” 

“Be a good base for your Cambridge operation.” 

“Oh, please,” You chuckled. “It’s not even close. The red line doesn’t exactly go all the way to Hyannis.” 

The two of you slowed as you neared your landing, listening closely. 

“...Think the coast is clear?” Harvey murmured. 

“For now, at least.” You fished into your pocket for your keys. “Thanks for dinner.” 

“Sure. Remember what I said.” 

“I will.” 

“Call me if you need anything.” 

Anything. That was new. You nodded, gaze set on your keys as he turned to go back downstairs. 

“...Harvey?” 

“Yeah?” He stopped just a few steps away, and you had to scrounge up your courage to turn and look at him again. 

“I don’t, um…” You swallowed thickly. “I’m gonna wanna talk about it.” You watched Harvey’s face shift with grim understanding. 

“I don’t want to litigate that.” 

“Isn’t that your job?” 

“Not like this.” 

“Not tonight,” You reiterated, “But…Sometime. Please.” 

Harvey’s jaw went tight, but he gave you a short, firm nod before he turned away. You watched him round the corner, and listened until his footsteps faded and the front door opened downstairs. 

--  

The apartment buildings weren’t anything special. Stripped of most of their insulation, and with several of the windows already removed, the wind that pushed through them made the buildings sound like they were breathing. It was eerie, and chilly. You tightened your coat around yourself as you went from floor to floor, eyeing damaged pipes, areas where someone seems to have come in and rooted around for copper wiring, and the billowing plastic that marks off some doors that have been removed. 

The paperwork on this building listed the purchase date as nearly a year ago. 

A year ago, you and Steven had been discussing expanding your current operations. Maybe he hadn’t gotten sick of you yet. Maybe he’d bought you the buildings as a present and stopped work when things turned sour…Whenever that had been. 

There had been signs, sure, but Steven always had been temperamental. 

You pushed the thought away as you drew in a deep breath, turning toward the stairs. It wouldn’t do to overthink this just now. If needed, you could panic looking at the Hamptons, or Cape Cod…Or Gstaad, if you ever found a way to get to Gstaad. 

You reached into your pocket as your phone buzzed, drawing it out to find an incoming call. You groaned, stomping your foot petulantly before you raised it to your ear. 

“Jessica, I’m a little busy—” 

“I need you to come into the office.” 

Your fingers tightened around your phone as your palm began to sweat. 

“What happened?” 

“I’d rather discuss this in person.” “Jessica.” 

“Come to the office.” 

She hung up without another word. You swallowed thickly, lowering your phone and watching her call blink and then disappear. If she wasn’t willing to discuss it over the phone, whatever it was had to be very, very bad. 

-- 

“Cheese fries?” 

“Jessica,” You groaned, “Come on, there is no way that that’s why you called me here.” 

“No, it isn’t. But I’d like to remind you that you should remain fighting fit and cheese fries are not the way to do it.” 

“My life has fallen apart and dipped into a moderately humiliating place. I think I’m allowed to have a few cheese fries. Why did you tell me to come in.” 

“I have someone that I would like you to meet.” 

“I’m not going to start dating anyone now.” 

“Well, we can attack that another time. This is for your defense.” 

“Harvey’s on that.” 

“Your divorce.” 

“You know that I can’t afford a defense right now.” 

“I don’t mind getting a start while you get the pieces in place.” 

The man’s voice caught you off-guard, and you turned to find a man leaning in the doorway. Your brow furrowed a touch as you took him in—the long lean of his body, the neatly fitted charcoal suit and sky-blue tie, the curl of his dark hair, the twinkle of his warm chestnut eyes, and his small, intrigued smile. 

“Well that’s very kind of you, whoever the hell you are, but I don’t exactly have anything on the board right now.” 

“The fact that you even have a board is encouraging.” 

“...This metaphor is beginning to exhaust me.” 

“This,” Jessica stepped past you to gesture the man deeper into the room, “Is David Alford.” 

“Alford?” You repeated. “Like the plea?” 

“No relation. What would you know about an Alford plea?” 

“I know of it.” 

“How’s that?” 

“Well, I used to date a lawyer.” 

“Lucky guy.” 

“I don’t think he’d agree with you, as evidenced by the fact that he is no longer my boyfriend.” 

“It’s nice to meet you.” 

You shook his hand lightly, still wary from the ambush. 

“Look, Mr. Alford—” 

“David, please.” 

“—I don’t know what Jessica’s told you about my situation—” 

“She didn’t have to tell me much. Forgive my bluntness, but your name has come up in our circles over the last couple of weeks.” 

“Well, forgive my bluntness, but it’s not my circle anymore.” 

“It could be again.” 

“Are you going to get me a circle back in the divorce?” 

“I’m gonna get you whatever the hell you want in your divorce.” 

You let out a soft, disbelieving laugh, unable to help yourself. 

“O-kay,” You lowered your hand. 

“Why don’t I see what we can do about getting some coffee,” Jessica offered. “You two talk.” 

Your brows furrowed as she waved the two of you more deeply inside. Jessica, at least pretending to get coffee? Damn, she really did want the two of you to talk. You gave David a polite smile as you lowered yourself to sit.

“I’m sorry she dragged you in here.” 

“Wasn’t much of a drag. My office is a block away.” 

“Well, then I’m glad you haven’t come far for nothing.” 

“Nothing?” His brows jumped as he sat beside you. “I don’t understand.” 

“I’m not currently looking for a divorce lawyer.” 

“You need one.” 

“That is beyond the point, Mr—” 

“David.” 

“...Mister David,” You bit out pointedly, and fought back a wave of annoyance at his amused smile. “I’m not sure how much Jessica has told you, but there are a lot of things up in the air right now. I’ve socked away some money for my defense, but not enough.” 

“How would you know what’s enough?” 

“...Let’s pretend that I don’t know anything about the law, or the legal quagmire that I’ve gotten myself into. Let’s pretend that all I know about my soon to be ex-husband’s business is that he has a lot more money than I do. The two of us went into our marriage with about 600 bucks and a dream held together with tape and spit. I have watched, and I have helped my husband build up his business for the last eleven years. I have signed contracts, I have signed purchase orders, I have signed mortgages, I have signed deeds. Even if I wasn’t paying attention to what I was signing, I would know that Steven has amassed a lot of cash, a massive legal team, as well as a significant number of holdings—in both our names. He has a lot of power in this equation, and I do not. Whatever comes down the pike, it is going to be a protracted legal battle. If I was optimistic, I would figure that this would take about a year, but I’m not, and I know that it could take a few.”  

David’s dark eyes darted fascinatedly across your face before he offered: “But you do know a lot about Mr. Hayward’s business.” 

“Yes, I do.” 

“Because it was your business, too.” 

You averted your gaze from him as that washed over you. His acknowledgement made your heart knock hollowly against your ribs, and it took all of your strength not to slouch dejectedly in your chair. 

“...Yes,” You agreed. “It was.” “I understand that you’re discouraged. I would be, too, a lot of women are in your position.” 

“Exactly what position is that, Mister David.” 

His smile flattened with nerves, and he let out a huffed, joyless laugh. 

“I mean, having been served—” 

“A piping-hot plate of out on my ass?” 

“If that’s what you’d like to call it—”

“I call it that because that’s what it is, not because I like it that way.”

“I understand. Look,” David shifted in his seat, twisting to face you a little more. “I think that regardless of when you get your pieces in place, you have a real case here. I think I can get you half.” 

If you had a touch less decorum, you would have jumped out of your seat and screamed—both from the excitement, and the certainty that David Alford was out of his mind. Instead, you blinked twice, and once you managed to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, asked:

“Half?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“There is no way.” 

“You’d be surprised.” 

“I don’t think I would, because I’m almost certain that’s impossible.” 

“Well, it certainly would be before.” 

“What exactly has changed?” 

“You didn’t know me. You do now.” 

You smiled in spite of yourself at the brash, almost fearless way that he said it. As skeptical as you were, you knew that this was exactly what you needed: someone as bold, confident, and fearless as—

“What a cozy little conference this is.” 

You turned back at the sound of Harvey’s voice, smiling a little. “Looking to join the fun?” 

“If I can hazard a guess at Jessica’s matchmaking, Alford is the one joining the fun.” 

“Specter,” David greeted, pushing himself out of his seat. “Haven’t seen you at the squash courts recently.” 

“I’ve been trolling the back nine,” Harvey offered, shaking David’s hand. “Nice to see you, Pleas and thank you.” 

Your brow furrowed at the term. “What?” 

“It’s what some of the guys at the club call me. You know, my name—” 

“Alford pleas and thank you.” You scrubbed your hand across your brow. “God, that’s dumb.” 

“We can’t all be queens of quip.” 

“You poor things,” You shot back scathingly. Harvey shot you a wink before turning back to David. 

“So, David, whaddaya say?” Harvey plied. “You filling the gap?” 

“Yeah, I’d love to fill ‘er in.” 

You didn’t miss his innuendo, nor the speculative, open, sweeping gaze that David leveled at you. Your brows inched toward your hairline, stunned at his brazenness. Surely you hadn’t seen it right—

“Coffee?” 

Your focus was broken at the sound of Jessica’s voice, and the sight of a coffee tray being wheeled in behind her. You let yourself be busied by it. You focused on your coffee, made it the way you liked, and let Jessica and David and Harvey talk about what you could reasonably expect out of the divorce battle. 

Reasonably, as if this entire situation hadn’t been insanely unreasonable. 

But you let yourself sit, and listen, and save your speculation for the train ride home. 

You must’ve read his look wrong, or misunderstood. He didn’t mean it like that. 

And even if he did, finding that look intriguing was incredibly appropriate. But it didn’t matter! Because he didn’t mean it like that. 

…And even if he did, it was probably just something that he tried to bring you on board. But it didn’t matter, because he did not mean it like that. 

…

Though if he did, it really wouldn’t matter, because it would be grounds for him to be disbarred. Nothing was going to happen…Even if you did find him attractive, and found his blunt approach and self-assured nature very, very hot. 

But you were not going to fuck him.

--  

“Don’t fuck him.” 

You had expected the warning to come from Jessica, but to hear it from Harvey of all goddamn people made you gape at him in shock. He just gave you a knowing look before he turned back toward the beer that he was opening. 

Your urge to have a drink that evening hadn’t been strong, but it had been there, and it had made you think of Harvey’s offer from the day before. You hadn’t expected such a quick response to your simple text of ‘Beer?’, but he had turned up a mere half hour later, a fresh six pack in hand. He had shrugged off his jacket, tossed it on to your bed, and walked over to your kitchenette—where he proceeded to say the most heinous thing.

“Excuse me?” You finally managed. 

“You heard me.” 

“I don’t think I did, actually, not properly, because it sounded like you just gave me an order that you had no business giving.” 

“I have plenty of business.” 

“No—” 

“Don’t—” 

“No no no, you do not, not here, and not like that.” 

“I’m just saying,” Harvey turned from the counter, planting his hand on the cruddy formica, “That I know—” 

“Do not say that you know me.” 

His expression darkened, and you watched as he drew in a deep breath. “I know him.” 

“...He has to be good, or Jessica wouldn’t have pulled him on to my case.” 

“He’s a good lawyer, but he’s a scuzzy asshole.” 

“I know the type.” 

“You think I’m a scuzzy asshole?” 

Your gut dropped at the hint of anger seeping into his tone. 

“I meant Steven.” 

Harvey turned away, hand curling into a fist and knocking lightly on the counter. 

“Just…Be careful with him.” 

“You are the last person that has any right to lecture me on the care that I ought to take with the men in my life.”

“I’m not lecturing you—” 

“No, you’re warning me off, like a little kid that’s playing too close to an electric fence.” 

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Fine by me, as long as you don’t fuck David.” “Alright, you know what,” You pushed off of your bed, striding over to your door. “Get out.” 

“We’re not done talking about this.” 

“Yes, we are. Get out.” 

“We’re not done until—” 

“We’re done when I say we’re done!” You began to yank your door open. Harvey was across your small space in a moment, palm flat against the door as he shoved it shut behind you. 

“And what the hell gives you the right to decide that?” 

“Because it’s my turn!” You barked. “I get to decide when we’re done now.” 

“It stopped being your turn when you stormed out of my office.” 

“Then make the damn decision yourself and get the fuck out of my apartment!” 

“If you want to ruin that man’s career and your chances of getting anything that you want out of your divorce, you go right ahead.” 

“I am not going to fuck him, and I’m not going to get him disbarred, you ass.” 

“Good.” 

“And I deeply resent the implication that I’m so sex-starved and desperate that I’m willing to fuck anyone who gives me any goddamn attention.” 

“I did not—” 

“Yes, you did, you did the second you opened your mouth. By rights, if that’s your view of me, I should’ve tried to not only fuck Mike, but you, of all people.” 

“I never implied that you were sex starved, but if you were, you could do a lot worse than Mike—” 

“Oh, really—” 

“And a helluva lot worse than me.” 

“Oh, please! There is no way that I could do worse than you. There are dictators that I’d sooner fall into bed with.” 

“If all you’re cutting out is the bed, I can work with the rest.” 

You could’ve slapped him. He was close enough, and you could just imagine it—the way the flush of red would look spreading across his cheek. 

“What makes you think I’d ever allow you anywhere near me again, Specter?” 

“I’m pretty damn close now.” He shifted closer, stopping as the tips of his shoes brushed your socked feet.

“Against your better judgment.” 

“You want to put me in my place, sweetheart, you go right ahead.” 

“Don't call me that.” 

“Why not.” 

“Don’t you dare call me that.” 

“Give me a good reason not to.” 

“You haven’t earned it back.” 

“Any idea of how I might do that?” 

You bit him. You grasped his tie, tugged him in, and sank your teeth into his lower lip. You expected an argument, but Harvey just groaned, grasping you by the hips and shoving you back against the door. You released his lip, groaning as he swept his tongue into your mouth. Your hand unwound from his tie, breath leaving you in harsh puffs as Harvey’s smearing kisses trailed down your jaw to your neck. You arched up into his touch as his hands slipped under your t-shirt, palming and squeezing whatever skin he could reach. You reached down, hands fumbling with nerves and heat as you worked off his belt. 

Every time your mind began to race, Harvey managed to quiet it, with his teasing tongue, and nipping teeth, and grasping fingers. For all of his big talk about getting David disbarred, Harvey suddenly seemed to not give a damn about his own career—

You whined as Harvey yanked down the cup of your bra, knuckles toying with your pebbling nipple. You palmed his hardening cock through the soft fabric of his trousers, thrilling in his moan, and the press of his hips up against your touch. His fingers snaked beneath the band of your sweatpants, sweeping against your clit before swiping slower. 

“You’re already so goddamn wet,” He growled, easing a finger into you. You pressed into his touch, gritting your teeth as he goaded: “You like pissing me off this much?” 

“Condom?”

“Left pocket.” 

You reached into his pocket, brushing against his cock as you drew out the foil packet. Why wasn’t it tucked somewhere discreet, like his wallet? You pushed the thought away as you ripped the foil packet open with your teeth. Harvey let go of you just long enough to shove his pants down around his thighs, then push your sweatpants. 

“Turn around.” 

You passed him the condom before doing as you were told, leaning heavily against the door. You expected a stretch, but slick heat pressed between your spread thighs. Your mouth dropped open in a moan, eyes squeezing shut as Harvey lapped and laved your slick, heated skin. You reached back, fingers scrabbling to grasp the neat coif of his hair. 

“Harvey, damnit,” You gasped. “Just fuck me already.” 

He groaned in dissent, giving your lips one more sucking kiss before straightening fully. You felt one palm smooth over to your thigh, and saw the other rest against the door as he eased into you. Your lips parted with a gentle whine at the pleasurable throb of his cock stretching you. You planted your hand on the door beside his, steadying yourself as you adjusted.

He didn’t give you long. Harvey drew back before his hips snapped sharply. You pressed your cheek to the door, skin growing clammy between the flimsy particleboard and the hot panting of your breath. The harsh slam of his hips forced your body uncomfortably against the door. You let your eyes slide closed as Harvey’s hands covered yours, drawing them just above your head as he intertwined your fingers. The door rattled in the frame with each thrust. You whimpered as Harvey pressed his face into your neck, felt his hot breath and the rumble of his groans against your skin. 

Your thighs ached, and your heart pounded, and your cunt throbbed, and goddamn it felt so fucking good. 

The swell of your orgasm rose and crested sharply, and you didn’t bother to hide the shuddering of your moan, your grip tightening on Harvey's hands. He followed close behind, hips pounding and juddering before he slowed. The two of you stood still for a few long moments, listening to one another’s panting and coming down. Harvey carefully extricated your hands from yours, drawing away and leaving you half-bare and chilly against the door.

“...I need a beer,” Harvey muttered, voice hoarse.

“You left one on the counter.” 

“You want one?” 

“Yeah.” 

You reach down, tugging up your sweatpants as you gently peel yourself back from the door. 

“It’s probably going to be lukewarm,” Harvey warned.

“I don’t care.” You drew in a shaky breath as you walked back toward your bed. You’d already sworn that you wouldn’t let him into it. You lowered yourself to sit beside it, looking at the door as the swirl of confused thoughts shifted back to the fore. You watched Harvey tie off the condom and drop it into your trash bin. You tracked his movement—from cleaning up, to doing up his pants, to washing his hands. You didn’t bother to hide your open speculation as he opened another beer, then took the two up. You drew your legs together, biting your lip as your slick cunt pulsed.

Harvey lowered himself to sit beside you, holding a beer out and lightly knocking his against yours before you each took a drink. You winced a little at the taste. You should’ve listened to him—the taste of lukewarm beer was not appetizing. You saw Harvey reach up out of the corner of your eye as he loosened his tie. 

“...What was that about getting someone disbarred?” 

“Shuddup.” There was no heat to how he said it, and that was probably why it made you snort a laugh. 

“Harvey?” 

“What.” 

“Did you come over planning to fuck me?” 

“What?” 

“Why was there a condom in your pocket?” 

“I had a date.” 

Your brow furrowed as you took that in. 

“...When?”

“Tonight.” 

“Why aren’t you there?” 

“Because I’m here.” 

Harvey Specter broke a date. Harvey Specter broke a date for you. You leaned back against the bed again, biting the inside of your cheek to quell a wide grin. 

“Don’t read into it,” He added. 

“I’m not reading into anything…Apart from the fact that you seemed pretty sure you were going to get laid.” 

“I was.” 

“Arrange for that, did you?” 

“No need to arrange anything. I’m just good like that.” 

“Well. Can’t argue with that. For the record—” 

“What.” 

“You really have no say over who I do and don’t fuck.” 

“I know.” 

“Good.” 

“...You going to the Hamptons next weekend?” 

“Yeah.” “How are you getting up there?” 

“I was going to take the train.”

“I could give you a ride.” 

“You already have.” You cast Harvey a knowing smile, grin widening as he shot you a sidelong, unimpressed glance. Your smile turned to giggles as Harvey seemed to smile in spite of himself. 

“You really think we could stand to be in the car with one another for more than twenty minutes?” You prodded. 

“If not, we could always pull over and work out our differences.” 

“Pfft. No other weekend plans?” 

“Nope.” 

“Didn’t promise a rain check?” 

“Didn’t specify when it might happen.” 

“Mm. And why would you want to come with me?” 

“Steven could be watching those properties, waiting for you to turn up. You could benefit from having back up.” 

“You make it sound terribly sinister. Have you figured out how to bill Gstaad yet?” 

“I’m working on it.”

“Keep me updated.” 

“Sure.” 

“I don’t mean for, you know—I don’t want a vacation.”

“You’ve earned one.” 

“Whatever, I just don’t like to put something on the market without doing a walk-through myself.” 

“I understand.” 

You leaned back against the bed a little more heavily, gaze wandering toward the door, where a little bit of your makeup was smeared from the press of your cheek. 

“...Harvey?”

“Mm?” 

“Can we talk about it?” 

“The sex or the other thing?” 

“The other thing.” 

“I’ve already had one fight with you today. I don’t think I have the capacity for two...Do you?”

You shook your head. 

“Some other time,” He promised. 

“Sure.” 

-- 

You had seen the paperwork and the inspector’s notes, but to see the house in the Hamptons was a whole other story. The long gravel driveway was lined with a horse fence on the left, and a plain wood fence on the right. You didn’t bother to hide your open, stunned stares as you passed the stables. It was hardly the first time you’d seen a home like it, but it was unfathomable that Steven seemed to have not only put the house in your name, but completely forgotten about it. 

Harvey pulled the car into the neatly manicured lot. 

“Do you want to start in the stables, the house, the pool, the tennis court…?” He shut the car off, waiting for your reply. You shook your head. 

“I only care about the house,” You admitted. 

“So we won’t be walking the expansive lawns? I brought my sneakers.” 

“Do I even want to know how expensive those sneakers are?” 

“They’re worth more than your apartment.” 

“I’m willing to believe that.” You climbed out of the car, eyeing the inspector’s report as you rounded toward the front steps. You turned from the paperwork to take in the house’s appearance more clearly. It was…Ugly. The large, L-shaped, gray-brick building had the modernistic development of the fast-casual apartment buildings in the city, with some of the gauche touches of your penthouse, like the expansive floor-to-ceiling covering nearly the entirety of the bottom of the floor. You could see a balcony on the left side of the house, and another around the other end of the L. 

“...This is different.” 

“It’s criminal,” You muttered. 

“Are you saying that because he forged your signature, or because it’s ugly as sin?” 

“Both. Come on.” 

You walked up to the front door, punching in the code that the realtor had given you to get the door open. 

The foyer was as flat and uninspired as the outside of the house—white marble floors, grey walls, and sterling silver furnishings. You grimaced as you looked around. 

“Are we doing a complete walk through of this millennial grey gulag?”

“If you’re going to hate it, you can wait in the car,” You offered, glancing toward Harvey. “Apparently there are fifteen bedrooms and nine bathrooms, and I don’t know how much of your cute commentary I can deal with today.” 

“Seemed to handle it fine in the car.” Harvey turned left before you could say or do anything else, and you followed him, looking down at the property’s map. 

“This place oughta have one of those fricking mall maps with a star labeled ‘You Are Here’,” You grumbled. 

“Now who’s making cute comments.” 

– 

“My feet hurt,” You groaned, plopping onto a boxy, stiff-cushioned couch. 

“You’d think after the last couple of months of living in that walk-up, you’d be in better shape.”

“You’d think.”

“It’s all those cheese fries.”

“Oh—shut up.” 

“So, what do you think?”

“I think we throw it on the market for 18 million and I forget that it ever existed.”

“Why list it in your name, though?”

You shrugged, looking around. “Maybe it was in both our names when he bought it and the outcome was such a disaster he decided to leave my name on it. I think he designed it.”

“Really?” Harvey’s brows rose as he looked around. 

“Oh, god yeah. Steven can be smart, but he’s never really had any design sense. I wound up taking charge on some of our early flip projects because he just didn’t have the eye for it. He always tried, but I kinda wound up following behind and fixing his messes. If I had to guess, he bought this place to show me that he really could do it, and he just…Can’t.”

“Do you think Cape Cod and Gstaad will be the same?” 

“Doubtful. The report for Cape Cod said that the house was originally built in 1950…what. Four?”

“Something like that.” 

“It looks like he gutted it like he did the apartment buildings and realized how much of a project it would be. Gave up on it.” 

“And Gstaad?” 

“Work out how to expense the trip and we can talk.”

Harvey chuckled, wandering closer. “Should we christen it?”

“Christen what?”

“This house.”

“How?”

Harvey’s brows waggled salaciously, and you laughed, pushing yourself off of the couch. “Oh no, Specter. No way—”

“Why not?”

“You wanna christen every room? You don’t have the stamina for that—And I don’t have the patience.” 

“What about just in here?” He curled his arm around your waist, drawing you closer. “On that stupid couch, over the piano…How about up against the windows?” His voice dropped to a murmur. “There’s no one around for miles.” 

You rolled your eyes despite your amusement. 

“If you said that with the Kubrick stare, I’d think you were going all Jack Torrence on me.”

“Heeeeeeeere’s Harvey.”

“Ugh! God, let’s just go,” You pushed out of Harvey’s arms, heading for the door. “It’s kinda creepy being here, you know. Like Steven’s watching.” 

“The house can’t be haunted, he’s not dead.” 

“He is to me.”

–

“When are you planning on going to Cape Cod?” 

“Mm…Probably next week.”

“Driving up?”

“Taking the train.”

“Again with the train.” 

“I don’t have a car and I’m not going to rent one.”

“Are you staying overnight?”

“No.”

“You’re going to go up and back on the train in one day? That is a long day.”

“I can handle it.” 

“You’d be more comfortable in a car.” 

“Yeah, obviously—Eyes on the road, Specter.” You reached out, poking his cheek as he glanced over at you. He batted your hand away lazily before turning back to the road. 

“Why do you always insist on doing things in the most difficult way possible?”

“Because in most cases, the most difficult choice is also the most cost-effective. Efficiencies can be cruel, Harvey.”

“Cruel is an understatement.” 

“I can handle a day on the train.”

“If you say so.” 

“I do say so, thank you.” 

“Stubborn.” 

“...Do you wanna come up when we get back to my place?”

“What for?” 

You tipped your head to the side, waiting for Harvey to glance over before you teasingly waggled your brows.

“Oh, so now you want to?” 

“I wanted to then! But I couldn’t do it if I felt Steven looming over me. C’mon, Specter,” You reached out, gently teasing your nails along the back of his neck, and grinning as he shifted slightly in his seat. “See if you can get me any more out of breath than walking up six flights of stairs.” 

--  

“Hey, there you are! Jessica needs to—What’s that face for?” Mike’s concern fell away at the sight of Harvey’s self-satisfied smile as he stepped off of the elevator. Harvey gave a dismissive shrug. What the hell was he going to tell Mike? That he’d spent the weekend somewhere other than his place? That he had fallen asleep with her, and remembered how serene it used to be to wake up with her? That they’d hardly left her cruddy apartment—hell, they’d hardly left her bed? 

“Nothing. What were you saying?” 

“Jessica needs to see you.” 

“Right now?” 

No sooner had the words left his mouth did Jessica step out from around the corner, drawing him up short. 

“Yes,” She insisted firmly. “Right now.” 

Harvey had the strange sense of a child being marched to the principal as she led her way to her office. She shut the door behind the two of them, striding past him to her desk. 

“Can this wait?” Harvey hedged. “I’ve got coffee going cold on my desk.” 

“Well then, I’ll make this quick. Did you have a nice time this weekend?"

That should've been his warning. It was a solid leading question, and one that, on any other Monday, he would not have hesitated to answer. His eyes narrowed slightly, before he decided—Yes, she must have known that he drove to the Hamptons. Someone would have told Jessica: Mike was still in the habit of offering updates when he thought they would be helpful.

"Yes," He finally answered.

"Was it a productive trip?"

A second warning. Jessica was a strategist, and Harvey knew that any lawyer worth a damn didn't ask a question that they didn't already know the answer to. Still, he chose a carefully middle-of-the-road answer:

"She was happy to go through the home herself, set a listing price. Hopefully we can get it on the market and on its way as soon as possible.”

Jessica took that in thoughtfully, lips set in a placid smile.

"Were there any outstanding features?"

A third and final warning, but Harvey couldn't help but lean into it:

"Are we talking about the tennis court, the pool, the stables, or the thousand lawns?"

Jessica let out a tepid, flatly amused, "Hm," Before beckoning him closer. "Well if those all caught your eye, it would explain why you missed the cameras."

Harvey froze in his step, blood running cold. There was no way—Cameras? His gaze dropped to the laptop that she turned to face him. The black and white footage was grainy, but clear enough. Harvey watched as he wrapped his arm around her, drawing her into his chest. He could still feel the heat of her body, and the plush slide of her sweater beneath his fingers. He could see the gentle, adoring way that she gazed up at him before she nudged him away, leading the charge out of the house. 

‘It’s kinda creepy being here, you know. Like Steven’s watching.’ He didn’t know how, but she had felt it. 

"Where did that come from."

"I'll give you three guesses."

"Let me explain—"

"Explain what!" Jessica slammed the laptop closed, rounding the desk with self-righteous strides. "Explain what idiotic idea led to you putting on a show?"

"We didn't know that there were cameras."

"How long has this been going on?"

"We only went to see that one house."

Jessica's expression darkened as she shook her head.

"Don't play dumb with me, Harvey," She warned lowly. "How long have you been sleeping with her."

It hit him low in the gut. For a moment, he was too stunned to speak.

"She told you?"

"No, she didn't tell me. She didn't have to. It'll be plain as day to anyone who sees that footage."

"That’s not true, we were just—"

"Just what?"

"I was teasing her! It didn't mean anything."

"If I call and ask her, she'll say the same thing?"

He was certain of it. "Yes."

"Would she swear to it under oath? At a deposition? In court?"

His surety faltered, and his mouth worked wordlessly before he pursed his lips tightly. Jessica shook her head again.

"I am not the only one with access to this. Luckily for you—for both of you—she still has a friend or two on the inside. Aaron Delaney sent this to me before he deleted the original. He works closely with Steven, and has access to a few property accounts. He got an alert on his phone that someone had used the keypad to open the door."

"Has Steven seen it?"

"He isn't sure, but I'm not willing to take that chance. Louis will be taking over the Hayward case, and Mike will be assisting him."

"No, Jessica, that's not happening."

"It is, because I'm telling you that it is. You should be relieved. You never wanted it in the first place."

"Things are different now."

"You're damn right they are! What the hell were you thinking? Both of you?"

"Let me see this case through."

"If you see this through and Hayward does have access to this footage, you could be disbarred. You're going to hand the files over to Louis by the end of the day. He is expecting them. Mike will bring him up to speed and assist him until this mess is cleared up."

Harvey lowered his gaze to the floor as Jessica stepped around him, opening the door and waiting beside it. He curled his hands into fists in his pockets as he strode resignedly from the office.

"And so help you," Jessica warned as he passed, "If I hear that you are holding Louis up in any way."

Harvey only made it a few feet from the office before he pulled his phone out of his pocket, hurriedly dialing her number. It rang once...Twice...Three times...And went to voicemail.

"Damnit," He hissed, lowering the phone to redial. "C'mon, c'mon..." It rang once, "Pick up." Twice...

"Hey you."

"Where are you?"

"What do you mean?" She laughed, "I'm on my way to see Jessica for our check-in."

Fuck.

"How close are you?"

"I just got off of the elevator. Why?"

Harvey whirled around, eyes desperately searching for her through the gaggle of associates, paralegals, and lawyers going about their business.

"She knows."

"What?"

He could hear her frown. Harvey took three steps toward the elevator bay before he saw her come into view—and lock eyes with Jessica. He saw her body go tense, before her shoulders sagged with dejection.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Hell," She sighed before hanging up.

--

"I'm not going to even begin to approach what you may have been thinking—"

"Jessica—"

"—Putting not only your future, Harvey’s future, and the future of this firm in jeopardy."

"I wasn't thinking."

"Clearly."

"We didn't even do anything at the house!"

"That doesn't make the slightest bit of difference."

You slid down in your seat as Jessica paced in front of you, her pace and turn reminiscent of a caged tiger.

"I did you a favor and this is how you repay me?" She finally stilled, nailing you with a cold gaze. You folded further under the crush of her look, so similar to the disbelief that she had leveled you with at her apartment not too long ago.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be." Jessica strode around her desk. "Your case has been reassigned to Louis Litt. Mike will stay on, provided you haven't fucked him, too."

Christ. "I made a mistake, alright? I told you I was sorry, and I meant it," You insisted. "Don't bring Mike into this when he hasn't done anything wrong."

Jessica bristled as she lowered herself into her seat.

"I don't want you associating with Harvey until this is over."

"Oh—Come on."

"If this footage were to come out, Harvey's conduct and ethics will be called into question. He'll be dragged into your divorce proceedings. Is that what you want?"

Your stomach churned uneasily as you considered it. You knew she was right. You shook your head a little, trying desperately to swallow past the lump that was forming in your dry throat.

"Louis and Mike will be in touch."

"Okay." You turned, heading for her office door, and stopping just before you opened it.

"...Is now a bad time to remind you that bringing Harvey onto my case was your idea?"

The chilling glare that she leveled with answered for her: Yes. It was a very bad time to remind her.

--

“You slept with—” 

“Shut the door and keep your voice down,” Harvey warned stonily. Before either of them could move toward his office door, Donna hurried into view, reaching for the handle. 

“You don’t wanna hear this?” Mike’s brows rose. “You of all people?” 

Donna waved him away, offering, “Intercom,” Before she shut the door. Harvey sighed heavily, lowering himself into his chair. 

“What happened?” Mike stepped closer to the desk. “I’m just—You two hate each other.” 

“Thank you for the reminder. I forgot about that.” 

“Harvey, c’mon,” Mike shook his head as he tried (and failed) to keep from smiling. “What happened?” 

“I went over to hang out.” 

“At her apartment?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Okay, and? Instead of hanging out you…Let it all hang out?” 

“Get out of my office.”

“If that was at her apartment, what happened in the Hamptons?” 

“Nothing happened in the Hamptons. The footage just…We got close, that’s all.” 

“That’s not enough to disbar you.” 

“Because you’re the expert on being disbarred? It’s enough to call my ethics into question…And Jessica’s right, no one needs that headache right now.”  

“So I’m stuck with Louis because you got close? Where’s the Specter spirit? No way are you going to watch this one from the sidelines.” 

On any other case, no, he wouldn’t. Harvey would insist on backseat driving. But on this one…He grimaced, dropping his gaze to his desk. 

“I want regular updates,” He insisted. “That’s all.” 

Mike nodded slowly, conceding: “Okay. But I’ll be ready when you change your mind.” 

-- 

"I'll come over."

He sounded so positive about it—like nothing had happened, or changed. You eyed the remaining trash bags, trying to scrounge up the conviction of an excuse. 

"I don't think that's a good idea right now."

"Why not?"

You know why. You shifted your phone from one hand to the other, tucking it between your shoulder and your ear as you reached out, gripping a bag to make it crinkle loudly.

"I've still got some sorting to do."

"I'll help you."

"Not tonight, Harvey."

"...She's not in charge of us, you know."

You tipped your head back against your wall, closing your eyes. "She's actually very much in charge of you."

"At work."

"I know, but I just..." You winced. "I think she's right. We should lay low for a while. If Steven did see that video before Aaron sent it to Jessica, we're both going to have a whole new mess that we're stepping into."

"I'm ready for it."

"...I don't know if I am."

His silence on the other end made you want to crawl out of your skin. "I can only fight one battle at a time, Harvey—And right now, I'm barely managing the big ones."

"Fine."

You knew that fine coming from him. It wasn't fine. It was I'm shutting down. It was I'm finished with this conversation. It was I'm finished with you.

"Harvey—"

You lowered the phone from your ear as the line cut off, watching the inevitable flashing and darkening of his contact. You bit the inside of your cheek, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. How, after all this time, was Harvey Specter still able to make you cry?

-- 

You became solitary again. Life narrowed. You saw Aaron a time or two, but he was so busy either working or gathering intel that you were hardly able to keep up with him. For as much of a lifeline as she had been, Jessica was still pissed, and you hardly spoke more than you needed to. Mike was a dear, checking in to see how you were doing, but most correspondence led inevitably to discussing closings, proceedings, contracts (and you couldn’t blame him for it; he was only doing his job). 

Louis was…A lot. He was very eager, that was clear, and had been working hard to push the sales of the apartment buildings and the home in the Hamptons through. David and his firm were digging into discovery, and were making headway. 

But you had so little life outside of your divorce. Most of your pieces were sold off, so you hardly had any day-to-day tasks to keep you busy—and everything in New York was so goddamn expensive. It felt like you spent $50 just stepping out your front door. There were days when you simply didn’t. It was cheaper to stay in, and quieter (so long as your neighbors didn’t have a screaming match that day).

Your life was four walls, a cruddy bed, rickety furniture. You spent too much time awake when you should’ve been sleeping; too much time reminiscing when you should have been moving on; too much time dwelling on the time that you spent with men in your life that probably wouldn’t spare you another thought. 

--  

Walking back into the firm was uncomfortable. You’d avoided it for as long as you could, but Mike insisted that there were a few documents that absolutely had to be seen and signed in the office. You’d made it an entire three weeks without so much as getting anywhere near the building. You found yourself avoiding even glancing in the direction of Jessica’s office. It was alright, though—Donna was a smiling, comforting presence the second you stepped off of the elevator. 

“Find the place alright?” She teased. 

“I did, thank you. I’ve only been here a dozen times in the last couple of months.” 

“It’s been a few weeks. We thought you’d forgotten where we were.” 

You smiled tightly. You were certain that she knew everything that had gone on—she was the eyes and ears of the place. 

“You know, it’s the funniest thing,” You drawled sarcastically, “I kept coming to the right building and getting off on the wrong floor.” 

“Happens to the best of us. C’mon.” 

You frowned as she led you away from the usual conference rooms, and even further away from Louis’ office. You couldn’t imagine where the heck she was taking you—and your confusion deepened as she opened the door to a room lined with files. She nodded you inside, a knowing smile on her lips as she warned: 

“Two minutes.” 

Two minutes? Until what?

“Thanks, Donna.” Harvey’s voice made you freeze, and you could do nothing but watch Donna close the door behind herself. You looked down at the floor, your hands wringing as you heard Harvey come closer. You felt him stop close behind you, close enough to feel the heat of him.

“...Are you going to look at me?” He hedged softly. 

“No need. I know what you look like.” 

He sighed softly, stepping around to stand in front of you. You watched as his shoes and pant legs came into view. 

“...And you’re just going to look at my shoes now?” 

“They’re nice shoes. Look expensive.” 

“They are.” 

“Figures.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

You looked at him fully, finally, stunned. You were surprised at how drawn he looked. Sure, his suit was impeccable, and his hair was frustratingly perfect, but you could see tiredness around his eyes. 

“You’re going through hell right now,” Harvey went on, “You don’t need me to pile on to that. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” 

You nodded slowly as you took it all in. “Well. We should never have, um…” You cleared your throat, averting your gaze again. “It was stupid.” 

“You regret it?” 

“It’s not worth risking your career over.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” Harvey closed the space between the two of you, and you had to force yourself not to lean into him the way you wanted—the way you’d missed for weeks. 

“Harvey,” You warned softly. “I can’t keep playing tug of war with you like this. I’m already at the end of my damn rope.” 

“I know.” 

You closed your eyes at the feeling of his palms sliding warmly over your arms, trailing down until he could gently intertwine your fingers. 

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” He promised, “Until we’re on the other side of this, and your business with the firm is closed out.” 

“And then what?” 

“And then I’ll give you hell.” You spluttered a laugh, unable to help it. Harvey chuckled softly, his nose nudging yours gently. 

“I should go,” You warned softly. “Louis will come looking for me.” 

“Donna will keep him at bay.” 

“She said two minutes. It’s been at least three—” You hardly had time to finish your protestation before Harvey kissed you. You swayed into him, lips slipping tenderly against his as he used his grasp to draw you flush against him. You wiggled your hands from his, curling your arms around his shoulders to keep close. You startled at the two knocks on the door, and smiled as Harvey groaned in irritation. 

“I should let you go,” He mumbled. You nodded, murmured,

“Probably.” 

But neither of you rushed to move. 

-- 

“I'm sorry to see you go. I've enjoyed our time together."

You sort of believed it, given the pinched, almost pained look that Louis leveled you across the desk. And, for all of your work with him over the last three months, you'd gained a sort of affinity for the man...Even if he was a little intense in a way that sometimes confused you. You smiled, taking up the final few documents that you would need for your record.

"I appreciate that, and thank you for all of your hard work, Mr. Litt. It's been..." You weighed your words carefully, "Interesting."

"For me, too. Reach out if you need anything else—doc review, mover recommendations, tickets to the ballet. Anything."

"Tickets to the ballet? I'm impressed." You held your hand out, smiling as he stood and pumped it enthusiastically. "Thank you again."

You were hardly four steps out of Louis' office when you found yourself flanked in the hallway.

"We should celebrate," Harvey insisted.

"And how would we do that?"

"Dinner at La Belle Vache."

Your brows rose as you glanced toward Mike.

"’The beautiful cow’?"

"Harvey's idea."

"With a restaurant name like that, it would have to be."

"Hey, that is not fair! I could be posh."

"It wouldn't suit you, Mr. Ross."

"Is that a yes or a no to dinner?" Harvey plied.

"When?"

"You busy tonight?"

"If I told you I had plans, would you believe me?"

"Not for a second."

"Well, I do."

"Cancel 'em."

"It's with my divorce lawyer."

"And here feels like a good stopping point for me." Mike wheeled around, striding back in the direction that he came.

"What the hell does David want with you after hours?" 

"Deposition starts next week. We're drilling testimony."

"As long as that's all he's drilling."

"Watch it, Specter." You reached out, jabbing the down button on the elevator before turning back to Harvey. He pouted contemplatively before offering: "What about this weekend?"

"I think I could swing this weekend. Is dinner on the firm?"

"It's on me."

"Do you think..." You trailed off, glancing toward Jessica's office, "That the powers that be will approve?"

"Honestly?" Harvey lowered his voice,"I don't give a damn. It's been months. Your business here is wrapped. If Jessica wants to give me a good reason why I can't see you, she's welcome to try—but it won't work."

You bit the inside of your cheek to quell a smile as you reached out, gently straightening Harvey's tie.

"Very forceful, Mr. Specter."

"You like it?"

"It's kinda hot." You turned back and stepped onto the elevator as it chimed.

"This weekend," You finally agreed. "Invite Mike—He's earned several dinners."

"He sure has."

The doors began to close, but Harvey darted in, catching them before they could shut all the way. He darted in, pressing a swift, warm kiss to your lips before he drew away again. You grinned as he stepped back, allowing the doors to close.

--

"As long as that's all he's drilling."

The memory of Harvey's teasing warning was on your mind throughout your time with David, and you found yourself fighting back smiles all evening.

"Do you have any plans for the weekend?"

David watched you from beneath his lashes as he asked, and where that look had intrigued you once, you knew better. You gave a short, firm nod, and insisted: "I have a date."

Your battle with Steven was far from over. You still had forgery cases pending, and your divorce case had hardly begun. But things felt a little lighter these days.

You had a direction, you had cash flow...But you didn't quite have the plan that you once did. You had told Harvey months ago that you were considering moving to Cambridge. It hadn’t completely ceased to be true, but it wasn’t your only consideration anymore. 

There were moments when you could see the glimmer of a life to carve out for yourself: a smaller real estate firm with a few employees—maybe Aaron, if you could lure him away from Steven; a more comfortable apartment than where you were now, but you could live with where you were for a few more months as you got things in order; and, at the very least, a friendship with Harvey. You didn’t know if what the two of you were doing would be sustainable, and you weren’t sure whether either of you really wanted to know—but after all this time, you thought that maybe the two of you deserved another chance. 

--  

“Impressed?” 

It was a fair question, but you were doing your best to school your expression. You didn’t want Harvey to know outright how much you did like his apartment. It was nothing less than you expected—large (though not quite in the palatial way that your old penthouse was), tastefully decorated, with a gorgeous view. You knew why Harvey had brought you up, of course, but now he was just showing off. 

Dinner had been its own round of grandstanding. You and Mike had watched, bemused, as Harvey had gone out of his way to pronounce all of the dishes in a French accent to the clearly not French (but feigning awe) waiter (who you were sure had to deal with this multiple times a day). Harvey had also taught you and Mike a thing or two about wine—or he had tried to, until Mike seemed no longer able to help himself and corrected Harvey on multiple facts about the Rhône valley in the south of France. 

It had been a far more pleasant evening that you had expected to have, and far more jovial than you’d had in a long time. Mike and Harvey were close; you and Harvey had a history; you and Mike had become friends over the course of your time working with him. When Mike had insisted that you all had to do this again sometime, you believed that he meant it. And when Harvey had invited you both up for a nightcap, Mike had politely declined with a smile and a shake of his head, offering:

“I think I should let you two have some time to do…Whatever it is that you need to do.” 

You hadn’t been entirely sure what he’d meant, or what Harvey had told him. You were almost certain that he would’ve been told why Harvey had been taken off of your case in the first place. And sure, now and again, over dinner, you and Harvey had caught one another’s eye, maybe shared a smile. Maybe he’d rested his hand on your knee a time or two, given it a squeeze—because he could. Because the two of you were close and on even footing for the first time in a while. 

“It’s…” You trailed off, shrugging. “Certainly an apartment.” 

“Oh, please,” Harvey scoffed, taking two wine glasses down from the cabinet. “You’re impressed.” 

“It’s nicer than I thought it would be.” 

“You’re dazzled.” 

“I like the kitchen.” 

“You’re helplessly turned on.” 

“‘Helplessly’ is pushing it.” 

“So you admit that you’re turned on?” 

You rolled your eyes, no longer bothering to fight your smile off. 

“Maybe,” You offered, settling onto the couch and kicking off your shoes. Harvey joined you moments later, passing you a glass of wine and gently clinking his against yours before you each took sips. His gaze remained heavy on yours, and he leaned in for a gentle kiss as soon as you lowered your glass. You hummed, raising a hand and cupping his jaw. You leaned back just a touch, smiling as he crowded closer, dipping his head to brush kisses along your neck as his warm palm gently smoothed up your thigh. 

“...Harvey?” 

“Sure, I can show you the bedroom.” 

You laughed softly, shaking your head a little. “Can we talk about it?” 

He groaned, forehead dropping heavily against your shoulder. “Why do you always insist on ruining a perfectly good time?” 

“Like when?”

“Like when we were in the Hamptons.” 

“You thank your lucky fucking stars that I put a stop to that.” 

“Yeah,” He grumbled, leaning back. You watched him swirl his wine in his glass. 

“Please,” You pleaded softly. 

“...I didn’t write the note.” 

Fuck. 

“Okay.” 

“I wrote a note, but…Not that one.” 

“Who wrote that one?” 

“Scottie.” 

“...Okay.” 

“I couldn’t find the one I’d written, she insisted that I couldn’t leave you with nothing.” 

“Well, she was right.” 

“Yeah.” 

You that that sink in for a moment before you pressed: “Why did you leave?”

“I had doubts.” 

“About me?” 

“About us. You know how my parents were, you know…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “You know what I saw.” 

“And you thought I would do that to you?” 

“I was afraid of it.” 

“If you were afraid of it, then you thought I was capable of it.” 

“—And when you got married to Steven so quickly—” 

“Oh—!” The heavy, stunned, indignant laugh was pained as it left you. You pushed off of the couch, standing and walking out of Harvey’s reach. You heard him sigh heavily behind you, chased by the clink of him setting his wine glass down as he muttered, “This is why I didn’t want to talk about this.” 

“Do you know why I got married so quickly?” You whirled around to face him. 

“Because you loved Steven?” 

“I never said that. I thought I loved him a bit, sure, but I was afraid that this,” You waved a finger between the two of you, “Would happen again. I thought he would leave. I was afraid that I would spend my entire life being left. So when Steven showed me the slightest bit of attention, I latched on. We eloped. He wanted a big wedding, but I just,” You waved your hand around, “I couldn’t do that a second time. Any of it. I didn’t get a new dress, neither of our families were there, because I knew that they would all watch me, and him, and they’d be thinking it: Is it going to happen again?” 

“You’re saying your entire life with Steven was my fault?” 

“I’m saying that I made a choice, and that what happened with you was a factor—Not a fault, a factor. And why!” You let out another harsh hysterical laugh as tears welled in your eyes, “Why didn’t you just talk to me? What did I do then to make you think that you couldn’t talk to me?”

“I wasn’t ready!” 

“And we could have talked about that! What made you think that I wouldn’t have been alright with moving the wedding back, or going to counseling with you, or whatever you would have needed to get us there?”

“You wanted to get married.”

“I wanted you, Harvey! I would have waited, I—” You turned away, sniffling heavily as tears slipped from your eyes. “Fuck. Ugh.” You raised your glass, draining it before striding over the counter, desperate to put some more distance between the two of you. You set the glass down and yanked a paper towel off of the roll, swiping at your under eyes to clear away any running mascara. You blew your nose as well before balling up the tissue and lobbing it toward the trash can. You heard Harvey’s approaching footsteps, and you pulled in a deep, stuttering breath as he rested his hands on your shoulders. 

“...There’s no way for me to take back or change what I did.” 

“Would you if you could?” 

“Yes.”

“...Okay.” 

“Do you believe me?” 

“I don’t know.” 

He sighed, pressing a kiss to the back of your head as his hands soothingly rubbed over your arms. You sniffled again, swiping away a stray tear before resting your hands on the counter. 

“You changed the way that I love, Harvey,” You shook your head. “For better or worse, whether you meant to or not, you changed it.” You glanced back toward him. “I can’t get those bits of myself back. You took them from me.” 

“I know. I took them from both of us.” 

You nodded, slowly letting yourself lean back against him. His arms curled around your middle, and you heard a soft, almost relieved groan leave him. You let your eyes close as he pressed a kiss to your temple. The two of you stood there in silence for a few moments, allowing yourselves to settle. 

“...Stay tonight?” He murmured after a few moments. You nodded, smiling as his hold tightened on you again, as if wary that you would change your mind. 

-- 

He had a few more smile lines. His hair still mussed the same; he still made little mumbling noises as he slowly rose from sleep to consciousness. He was still a furnace to sleep beside, and he still held you through the night. It was almost a relief that none of that had changed. 

Waking up in his arms made you feel like it had when you were younger: safe, and loved, and wanted. You hadn't appreciated it when you'd had it just a few months ago, but you were desperate to catch on to every little bit of him now.

You were never going to be able to turn back the hands of time—to go back and warn him, or yourself, or someone that your first wedding day would be a disaster, that it would set you off on a path that you could never have anticipated for yourself. Discussing what had happened hadn't truly healed any of your old wounds.

But as the sun began to creep over the Manhattan skyline and seep into Harvey’s bedroom, you felt closer to peace than you had in a long, long time. 

Harvey snuffled, nuzzling your shoulder as his fingers curled in your borrowed nightshirt. 

“You awake?” He mumbled, the same low, gravely murmur that you had once loved, and missed. 

“Mmmhm.” 

“Want coffee?” 

“Yes.” 

He yawned widely, pressing his face into your shoulder and warming your skin through the fabric. “Bagels?” 

“Sure.” 

“‘Kay.” 

Neither of you made a move to get either. Instead, you combed your fingers through his hair, closed your eyes, and listened to the steady rise and fall of his breathing as you both fell back asleep. 

Tag list: @missredherring ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta ; @massivecolorspygiant ; @blueeyesatnight ; @amneris21 ; @ew-erin ; @youngkenobilove ; @carbonated-beverage​​​ ; @lorecraft ; @moonlightburned ; @milf-trinity ; @millllenniawrites ; @chattychell ; @dihra-vesa​ ; @videogamesandpoorlifechoices​ ; @missswriter ; @thembosapphicclown ; @brandyllyn ; @wildmoonflower ; @buckybarneshairpullingkink ; @mad-girl-without-a-box ; @winchestershiresauce ; @gina239 ; @technicallykawaiisoul ; @coldheart-lonelysoul ; @kathrinemelissa ; @jacxx2 ; @pillowjj ; @chanaaaannel ; @avampirescholar ; @kmc1989 ; @mythical-goth ;

[cookiesandcantarella]

Despite everything, despite the fleeing and the hiding and the danger and the war, Hayward is so content with where he is in life, above all else so, so glad that he met Paige and Carpenter. And it makes me physically unwell.

[ID: two excerpts from transcripts of the silt verses. In the first Hayward says “Actual craziness is irrelevant to the story here. My point is-I’ve failed at nearly every damn thing I’ve ever done. If I’d never failed, I wouldn’t be here. Winning at skimming stones.”

The second excerpt reads as follows:

Hayward: I made you the second I spotted you in Marcel’s Crossing.

Carpenter: Yeah, and how did that work out for you?

Hayward: Pretty good, ultimately. All things considered.

End ID]

[arizonaaaaaa]

GLEE LGBTQIA+ HEADCANONS- HAPPY PRIDE MONTH PART 3

21- Unique Adams- trans

-canonically trans

-her story felt a little rushed in my opinion, she went from a drag queen to a crossdresser to a trans person in a spam of like 6 episodes

-underrated Queen

-the best singer in my opinion

22- Marley Rose- pansexual and asexual

-this could be an interesting story line

-like the reason she doesn’t feel ready for sex is because she’s not sexually attracted to anyone

-although this would potentially make Jake an asshole

-her and Unique are gfs tho❤️

23- Jake Puckerman- bisexual

-def wanted to smack Ryder

-he was watching Sam “twerk”

-just gives of energy tbh

-I would actually spend a lot of money to see Jacob Artist make out with a ma

24- Ryder Lynn- gay

-never liked Marley, he actually liked Jake

-i really like Rynique but gay Ryder just speaks louder in my heart

-we could’ve met his father in this possible storyline like the opportunity😭

-Ryan Murphy had a chance to do an actual love triangle on glee but NOOOO LETS MAKE THEM FIGHT FOR THE PRETTY GIRL AGAIN FOR THE FOURTH TIME

25- Kitty Wilde- lesbian

-“what would Quinn Fabray do?” She would be a lesbian

-she dated Jake, Artie and had a crush on Ryder yet she had absolutely 0 chemistry with all of them

-Marley on the other hand…

26- Roderick Meeks- aroace

- I find it interesting how him (and Madison) are the only ones that never showed interest in another person

- really wish assexuality was discussed more back in the 2010’s

- he should’ve been one of the characters introduced in season 4 and I would die on that hill

27- Jane Hayward- unlabeled

- probably thinks labels are stupid and shouldn’t exist because it’s misogynistic or offensive or sm

- idk I really dislike her I feel she would say something annoying like this

28- Mason McCarthy- bisexual

- yeah you’re not straight

- he’s also a really boring character for me so I have nothing to add💀

29- Madison McCarthy- aromantic and lesbian

- now THATS a feral lesbian

- her and Jane as girlfriends tho?

- aromantic part is bc I feel she’s the type of aro who’s disgusted by love

-still likes touching boobs tho

30- Spencer Porter- gay

-canon

- interesting storyline for the first seasons

- although it’s kind off like Dave’s storyline

There’s a limit of ten pictures per post but I really don’t want to make a fourth post just for the students so…

31- Alistair- gay and genderfluid

- Billies brother wow

- this is just based on vibes cause I have no idea if he ever spoke on glee

32- Myron Muskovitz- trans and lesbian

- Josie Totah it’s trans so I feel her character should also be

- maybe figured out when she was about 16?

- so by dreams come true she would already be in her transition🥹

33- Skylar- polysexual

- who? Oh yeah the Blaine of season 6

- again based on vibes

- he’s also a really good singer go listen to the album version of take me to church

34- Super Gay Warbler- indeed gay

- behold the oracle has spoken the truth

- also a good singer go listen to the album version of rise

35- Sunshine Corazon- trans and pansexual

- same with Myron, since the actor is trans I feel like his character should also be

- just imagine after all those years Sunshine returning on season 6 for his transition

- what would be his name tho? Moonlight? *old people laugh plays on the background lmao lol haha*

That’s it for the main kids, prolly won’t do a fourth post for the adults because I don’t really care about them but only time will tell

[galateacakes]

Explaining IDV characters' lore bc I'm bored (Part 7)

"Destiny is often determined in a split second. The key lies in whether one has the courage to face it head-on."

𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗸𝗼 (The Geisha)

▪︎ Michiko was born and raised at Eversleeping Town. At a tender age, she trained and became a geisha.

▪︎ She was known as "Red Butterfly" because of the way she dances in her red kimono; in a way that resembles a red butterfly fluttering its wings.

▪︎ When she was performing at a banquet, she met Miles Donald, a foreign army officer who was admiring her afar.

▪︎ The two fell in love and married on February 18, then sailed to Miles' hometown afterward.

▪︎ Unfortunately, his family did not approve of their marrige— prominently her father-in-law, but that didn't change Miles' love for Michiko.

▪︎ One day, Miles was ordered by his superiority to a six-month business trip to India, thus he had to leave home.

▪︎ Using this to his advantage, his father decided to dispose of Michiko and "mail" her as a package to Eugene Hayward (Margie's uncle).

▪︎ When Miles came back from his trip, his father claimed she had run away with a servant and had stolen some of his family's property.

▪︎ However, Miles did not believe in his father's words and began searching for his wife every day.

▪︎ Miles then recruited the help of his friend, Martha Behamfil, and was able to track down Michiko's location.

▪︎ He arrived at the Manor with plans to meet up with Behamfil, but she never showed up.

▪︎ On the third night, he received a hatpin from a Manor servant.

▪︎ After being offered to take the hatpin and leave or stay, he agreed to participate in the host's 'game' in exchange for news of Michiko's dissaperance.

(I've been wanting to take up Michi's lore since I first started ♡ Her lore is a bit tricky to explain since it's a dual pov, but I hoped I wrote it well ˙˚ʚ(´◡`)ɞ˚˙)

That's all thank you !!

[ballet-symphonie]

European/American Dance Companies Asks

As it seems from the website, Francesca Hayward was promoted to a principal in 2016. However, she made her debut as O/O in Swan Lake last season. Why did it took her so long to be given that role?

Listen, not every company is like the Bolshoi, where you just show up and are given O/O willy nilly. I jest, but first of all, there’s simply not always enough shows for every principal to get one and there also not always enough time for countless casts to be rehearsed. Although to be fair, ROH do prep quite a lot of casts. They do SL frequently of course, and while I’m unsure if she had any injuries that caused her to miss out on an earlier seasons’ run, I’m quite confident that her participation in CATS certainly could have delayed it a season or two depending on her schedule and form. 

Thoughts on Elisabeth Beyer? I found her incredible... wish to see her dancing in the ROH or the Dutch National or the Staatsballet in Berlin

She’s very exciting and is finally in the main company corps as of this June! Hopefully she’ll start getting more opportunities soon!

Do you have promotion predictions for the Royal Ballet or ABT this year?

ABT: Carols Gonzales and Fangqi Li have the roles to make a push this Met Season. I  also think Jake Roxander’s potential is very high but he’s very young but Jaffe is not McKenzie. I  would also like to see Zimmi Coker out of the corps. I would be shocked if anyone goes to principal, they could use another guy but I’m not sure they’ve got one ready just yet.

ROH: I think Not promoting Daichi Ikarachi would be crazy, especially after wining the Eric Bruhn Prize. I know there’s a push for a new male principal, either Luca Acri or Joseph Sissons but I think someone has to retire, they just have too many. I am hoping for Annette Buvolli and Mariko Sasaki to be first soloists and I think Sae Maeda and Joonhyuk Jun should be soloists. Yu Hang to first artists as well. ROH is so difficult, there are so many talented people. 

Thoughts on Alina Cojocaru?

An angel sent from heaven. She’s never allowed to retire- I don’t make the rules. 

Do you know if Madison Penney is in a company? She graduated from Royal Ballet School in 2022, in a seemingly high position, having danced Raymonda in the grad performances. I would find it strange if she wasn’t hired by the royal but there seems to be no indication of a company on her instagram?

Getting into the Royal is no cakewalk, they not only have to compete with the graduates but also the prix prize winners. I thought I remembered her going to BRB? But she’s not on the site. I don’t really keep up with her. 

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I never have to dig very much to find comments like this.

[Also, random side note; wasn't Drax in prison when we first meet him for going on a killing spree after the death of his family? I feel like everyone forgets that.]

He's called Drax the Destroyer for a reason.

Thor may not be a villain to others but he's destroying himself ever since IW. Quill became a ravager and the dude was a thief and a liar, he treated women like crap and was overall a manchild before he met his team (poor thing was taken as a kid, I'm not putting all the blame on him but I'm trying to say he wasn't exactly an angel either). Spidey would have gone full-dark had not been for Tobey and Andrew's Spideys interfering.

The last one is interesting though. Peter losing May is seen as enough justification for his thirst for revenge, to the point where taking the villains from a safe space over to a building in the middle of the city (therefore putting everyone else at risk) is glossed over.

However, when it comes to Wanda losing Vision or her hate towards Hayward for desecrating Vision's corpse, all of a sudden Vision is just a robot and her pain is irrelevant... or we have to read someone claim loss doesn't "justify" her becoming a villain. Yeah, it doesn't. It explains it. It contextualizes it. It tells us why she was hurting.

Just think of the victims of the characters mentioned above. The Jotuns are treated as monsters and the Asgardians' actions are never put into question (TDW was close though). We never hear from the people hurt by Quill or the Ravagers, same with Drax's victims. And we have no idea how many people the villains in NWH killed because it's never addressed. But we know Wanda's, we have names even.

[ouro-bones]

Hayward explorer note today 😇

" Am I awake ?

I remember,, fire. I remember a horrible stinging in my entire body. blistering pain.

Sand.. The Desert ? It's so foggy. like.. cotton. or something else ?

Now it's dark. and cold. the desert was never cold. I'm surrounded by metal.

There are two voices. the first is calm.. she sounds friendly. like a familiar friend. the accent. how she talks..? have we... met before ?

The second is cold. Not friendly.. but.. Alluring. It slithers into my ears and around my skull like a swarm of earwigs. I feel as though I shouldn't. but..

He feels even more familiar. Like a friend. maybe more familiar than that. The voice..voices.. promise safety and comfort and family. in exhange for loyalty . Why would I ever say no ?

The first voice. She tells me to ignore it. I suppose I will. for now. until I can survive on my own. Then. I think I will follow. " - Curtis Hayward

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

I would love to hear about Emily! Oh, and the ghost dog! There is a ghost dog right?

all I do these days is think about Emily Hayward I'm just. rotating her in my head. She has prophetic dreams. No one believes that she does really except for her little brother. she goes to university and starts losing herself to it. She falls asleep at a table in the library and is woken by a boy in her year and she blurts out some part of his future to him then runs off but then he finds her again and says it came true and asks her to help him solve a mystery in the older parts of the building and she says yes (and later sometimes when he's asleep in a hostel bed and she's beside him because the moonlight is keeping her awake she wonders who she would have become if he hadn't believed her and she doesn't think it would have been good, she thinks she might have destroyed herself because of it all). They graduate and instantly decide to become monster hunters (because the world is getting smaller, you know, and people thought this would mean fewer monster sightings, less and less superstition, but it was real the whole time so there's just more and more but most people still don't believe but it's harder and harder not to). Her parents think she should get a real job so she only ever calls her brother to tell him when she sees his future (usually she can't see the future for people not near her when it doesn't affect her but she always can for him). They get on trains and hide in the bathrooms when the ticket collectors come down so they don't have to pay when they can't. They turn up at people's doors, offer to rid them of monsters, beg them for a place to stay the night. Emily is so lonely all the time but Will believes in her, he believes what she sees and he believes that she can survive it all and maybe that's enough to make a cursed girl uncursed, to take a curse and make it a blessing. and the point is it's TERRIFYING they're 23 and SO scared they don't know what they're doing!!! no one knows anything! they're working off contradictory folklore and legend! no one else seems to be doing this! so they have bits which aren't funny anymore, and names for things that don't need names, they call the monsters beasties because it makes them less scary, they take an unknown routineless world and they fill it with rules and routines and rituals to try to bend it into something liveable.

And Emily, Emily's trying to be professional, she tries to pay attention but her mind's never quite present, she's nosy and curious, she sleeps with an iron knife under her pillow, she's an oracle she's a prophet she fights dragons for a living she doesn't believe in magic. and Emily's always scared of it but also she knows deep inside her that Will saved her life when he met her in the library that day, and so she believes with every part of her that he'll always do it. And she couldn't fight anything alone, but she can because she knows he's there. And she's tired and her dreams are filled with doom and loss, and she has no home to go back to, not really, her home has become tiny hotel rooms and the living room floors of strangers and train rides up and down the country. And her best friend who's the only thing she believes in really. And MAYBE that belief is strong enough to shape the whole narrative! who can say!!!

There IS a ghost dog though it's not a ghost, it's just incorporeal, harder to fight. And unfortunately it's a bringer of doom and a harbinger of death! (just like. just like. like. like an oracle. Like a prophet. Perhaps the narrative foil is the dog). Unfortunately I no longer think the dog will be a friend, but the dog is SUCH an interesting role in the plot and I'm so excited.

[mariacallous]

‘I admired the force of his writing, even when I often didn’t support what he wrote, and he was always warm when we met.’ So wrote John Simpson, the veteran BBC foreign affairs correspondent, on news of the death of the campaigning journalist John Pilger on 30 December at the age of 84.

Those who know of Pilger’s work only in recent years and from the obscure far-left websites that published it may struggle to imagine that he was once a big figure in print and broadcast media, when newspapers sold in the millions and there was only terrestrial television with three channels. But he was, and generous sentiments like Simpson’s have abounded in the past few days. Pundits, politicians and others have typically praised Pilger for his journalistic integrity while making clear that they did not necessarily share his politics.

There’s a more sceptical variant of the same message, which I’ve noted especially among people of my generation, born in the 1960s and 1970s, who were impressed by Pilger’s reports when we were young and he was at the height of his fame. It runs like this: though Pilger descended in later years into apologetics for repressive regimes, he was once a principled and vital foe of oppression and human rights abuses, and it is this side of his work that deserves to be remembered.

The dichotomy is unfortunately not raised at all in an obsequious and evasive Guardian obituary by Anthony Hayward, from which you will learn little, but more thoughtful admirers of Pilger are exercised by this question and do pose it. What made Pilger, the famed voice of radical conscience, go from his celebrated series of films on the plight of Cambodia to his defence of Slobodan Milosevic, Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin and his furious denial of their amply documented war crimes?

I immodestly claim to have the answer to this conundrum. There is an essential continuity in Pilger’s work. It’s not, as many believe, that his judgment dramatically deteriorated as he got older: he was always that way, and his reputation has progressively adjusted downwards to match reality. Pilger was not really an investigative journalist at all, for he never did investigations. As a reporter who once worked closely with him explained it to me, Pilger was a polemicist who went out looking for what he wanted to find.

Therein lies the essential transience of Pilger’s life’s work, for while there is much suffering and evil in the international order, a journalist’s first duty, allowing for personal biases and partial information, is to describe the world as it is and not as they might wish it to be. Pilger, by contrast, fabricated his conclusions in order to accord with his premises. This was always his method and I will give examples of this malpractice from his output on two particular issues. The first is his celebrated reporting from Cambodia and the second concerns the wars in the former Yugoslavia, a region he neither knew nor understood.

There is no diplomatic way of saying it but, in his journalism, Pilger was a charlatan and a fraudster. And I use those terms in the strict sense that he said things he knew to be untrue, and withheld things he knew to be true and material, and did it for decades, for ideological reasons. If you know where to look, you’ll uncover his inspiration.

In 1983, the newly established Channel 4 broadcast a series of interviews by Pilger with people who, in his words, ‘have challenged orthodox ideas that lead us in the same direction’; additionally, ‘he or she must have demonstrated the courage of his or her convictions’.

The series was titled The Outsiders. Some of the interviewees were genuinely courageous or at least of real historical weight and importance. They included Salman Rushdie, Jessica Mitford and the redoubtable anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman. And there was also an interviewee called Wilfred Burchett.

Few people now have heard of Burchett but he was not like these others. He was, by his own lights, a pioneering radical Australian journalist, though he travelled on a British passport. In Pilger’s words, Burchett was ‘the only Western journalist to consistently report events from the other side in the Korean War and the Cold War, and from China, the Soviet Union and Vietnam’.

That’s quite some euphemism. Burchett didn’t merely report from the other side: he literally repeated their propaganda and pretended it was news. He notoriously claimed the US was conducting biological warfare in the Korean War. He never presented a shred of evidence for this incendiary allegation, because it wasn’t true. For these efforts he was secretly awarded the (North) Korean Order of the National Flag. Not even the radical American journalist I.F. Stone, later exposed as having been a Soviet spy from 1936 to 1938, believed the germ warfare allegations and he publicly rejected them. It was later proved, from documents uncovered in Moscow in 1998, that the whole story had been a propaganda ruse concocted by the Chinese Communists.

I am not, of course, suggesting Pilger was ever an agent of a foreign power. I’m pointing to the model of his journalistic mentor, who lied to his dying day in order to serve what he believed to be the greater cause. And that is what, as I shall discuss presently, I charge Pilger with having done too.

If I’m right (and I am) that Pilger operated with a combination of evasion, misdirection and fakery for decades, it is explicable though inexcusable. This was, after all, easier than the arduous and unglamorous tasks of fact-finding and fact-checking, for which Pilger was temperamentally unsuited. His obituary (unsigned, as is the custom) in The Times, a more balanced and reliable treatment than the Guardian’s, offers pointers.

Pilger was a man of such natural credulousness that he never thought to check his own story when, investigating child slavery in Thailand in 1982, he ‘bought��� a girl and returned her to her family. It was a hoax. The girl had been prevailed upon to act the part by a Thai fixer who knew Pilger wanted to ‘buy’ a slave. When the Far Eastern Economic Review pointed out Pilger’s error, he responded characteristically with wild and irrelevant invective, accusing the journalist concerned of having CIA connections. Auberon Waugh then additionally pointed out in the Spectator the sheer improbability of this account, whereupon Pilger responded with bluster and libel writs. The case was settled out of court, with no payment made by the magazine.

The fiasco was due in part to Pilger’s vanity, which took the form, among other things, of extreme sensitivity to any perceived slight, consistent rudeness to those he counted as ‘the little people’, and a hair-trigger litigiousness. He was the only journalist I’ve come across who habitually wrote angry letters for publication in response to criticism of his articles by readers. This is in my view an improper practice even supposing the writer has a genuine point, which Pilger rarely did. The letters page of a periodical should be for readers, as writers already have all the other pages.

Pilger’s vulnerability was compounded by the weakness of his technical grasp of almost any given subject. Sooner or later in public debate, and it was generally sooner, he’d flounder. Fortunately for him it was rare that any top-notch scholar considered his work but this was a danger he continually ran.

In his book The Price of Peace: Living with the Nuclear Dilemma (1986), Lawrence Freedman, one such academic heavyweight, noted ‘a tendentious television documentary which had sought to demonstrate how mendacious governments were in handling nuclear issues but which was in fact riddled with errors of its own’. Freedman was too tactful to name this documentary, but it was Pilger’s film The Truth Game (1983).

The gravamen of the film is as Freedman states it. Pilger purports to offer a critique of ‘nuclear propaganda’ but his errors of fact are legion. Freedman, with William Shawcross, itemised numerous of these fallacious claims for the magazine New Society (since subsumed in the New Statesman), to which Pilger replied, and it’s worth digging out the exchange. It’s not online but it should be available in a good university library (you can find it at Senate House in London). Pilger plaintively thanks the many people who, on reading Freedman and Shawcross’s critique, sent him sources and information with which to counter it. The notion that he might have investigated sources and checked his claims before making the film rather than after had apparently not occurred to him.

The general thesis of the film is extremely weak. Pilger argues that ‘by using reassuring, even soothing, language – language which allowed the politicians and us to distance ourselves from the horror of nuclear war – this new type of propaganda created acceptable images of war and the illusion that we could live securely with nuclear weapons.’ His sources include Wilfred Burchett, whose very trade was deceit and treachery on behalf of the Communist bloc. And the evidence is overwhelming that, so far from seeking to diminish the threat of nuclear war, western policymakers were anxious to stress that the bomb had changed everything.

In the much-quoted words of the American military strategist Bernard Brodie in The Absolute Weapon (1946), ‘thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other useful purpose.’ And in an extraordinarily prescient memorandum titled ‘The Atomic Bomb’ in August 1945, shortly after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the new prime minister Clement Attlee wrote: ‘While steps must be taken to prevent the development of this weapon in any country, this will be futile unless the whole conception of war is banished from people’s minds and from the calculations of governments.’

The theme of official deceit was an abiding theme of Pilger’s work and he fancied himself a penetrating debunker of evasive language. Hence in the New Statesman on 9 May 2013 he congratulated himself on the thoroughness of his early journalistic training: ‘A style developed by a highly literate editor, Brian Penton, who had published poetry in the Telegraph, instilled a respect for English grammar and the value of informed simplicity. Words like ‘during’ were banned; ‘in’ was quite enough. The passive voice was considered lazy and banned, along with most clichés and adjectives…’

As you will surely already have perceived, Pilger in this brief passage roundly condemns the passive voice while using three passive clauses himself. Indeed, ‘the passive voice was considered lazy and banned’ is itself an agentless passive of the type almost universally (though in my view misguidedly) condemned by style guides. Were it not for the fact, noted by the Times obituarist, that Pilger was famously humourless, you’d have to wonder if he was being ironic here. The more plausible explanation is that, while he talked a lot about the power of language, he didn’t know much about it, and he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

That sort of arrogance has its inadvertently comic side, but it could also be ugly. Pilger prided himself on his courage in rejecting what he derided as ‘identity politics’ but in truth he lacked even an elementary sensitivity to issues of ethnicity and gender. Employing a startlingly demeaning racial epithet, he lambasted Barack Obama in 2008 as ‘a glossy Uncle Tom’, and in 2013 lamented that ‘the problem with media-run “conversations” on gender is not merely [sic!] the almost total absence of male participants, but the suppression of class’. He considered Hillary Clinton a more dangerous presidential prospect in 2016 than Donald Trump.

Pilger’s politics can fairly be described as anti-American, in that he reflexively saw the United States as a malevolent actor in any conceivable situation. That idée fixe in turn drove him to the conviction that any regime opposed by the US was automatically innocent or even benign. Interviewed on the state-propaganda outlet Russia Today in 2018, he declared the Putin regime’s attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury a ‘carefully constructed drama in which the media plays a role’. He said in December 2021, as if Ukrainians lacked any capacity to speak and act for themselves and were merely puppets of Washington: ‘It was the US that overthrew the elected govt in Ukraine in 2014 allowing Nato to march right up to Russia’s western border.’

The apotheosis of this approach was an article in 2016 in which Pilger claimed: ‘The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has quietly cleared the late Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, of war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre at Srebrenica.’

There was, I need hardly say, no truth whatever in this preposterous fabrication. With all too familiar legerdemain and gullibility, Pilger had alighted on an article on the Russia Today website and, without stating this was his source, plagiarised it. In my view this episode marks, in its combination of idleness and indecency, the nadir of Pilger’s career, and it was a very low and shady point indeed.

This is not the place to set out the chronology of the Bosnian war but what the mainstream media (including The Guardian, through the exemplary reporting of Ed Vulliamy and Maggie O’Kane) said about it at the time was simply the truth. The war was not a cover for American power: it was a campaign of genocidal aggression conducted by Bosnian Serb forces covertly orchestrated from Belgrade, and in which Nato intervened against their positions far too late. It was also, as I have described here, a terrible augury of the barbarous assault that another European autocrat, Vladimir Putin, would direct against Ukraine 30 years afterwards.

What, then, of the earlier body of Pilger’s work, before his alleged journalistic and ethical deterioration? In the nature of things, it was not always wrong, but it was always reductive. His condemnation of Australian recognition of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, in print and in his 1994 film Death of a Nation, was entirely correct. But to be right on a discrete issue was never enough for him. He would have to construct some overarching explanation (or, less politely, a conspiracy theory) in which to embed it. He hence charged that Australia was administering a ‘hidden empire’ that ‘stretches from the Aboriginal slums of Sydney to the South Pacific’. You’d be hard put to find any such coherence in Australian foreign policy, which has often been made on the hoof and at the mercy of events.

When East Timor eventually achieved its independence, it did so to the fury of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It was, in their eyes, an affront, for East Timor (whose population is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) was properly a ‘part of the Islamic world’ and belonged to Indonesia. This complaint was explicitly cited by bin Laden in justifying al-Qaeda’s bombing of the Indonesian tourist resort of Bali in October 2002, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.

Pilger was usually quick to blame western foreign policy for provoking terrorism – he referred to the 7/7 attacks in London in 2005 as ‘Blair’s bombs’ – yet here was a case where western nations incurred the wrath of al-Qaeda for unequivocally (if belatedly) doing the right thing. The geopolitical situation was more complex than he had supposed, and than you would imagine from reading his output. He dealt with the disjunction of theory and fact in time-honoured fashion, by never mentioning it.

And then there is the case of Cambodia, the single best-known body of work Pilger did. His first film on the subject, Cambodia: Year Zero (1979) elicited a huge public reaction. (It made a big impression on me as a teenager.) It had two undeniable benefits, though one was more alloyed than the other. First, it raised a lot of money from the public to alleviate the desperate plight of Cambodians after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Second, it dramatically raised public awareness of the issue.

The problem was that public awareness was not necessarily equivalent to public understanding, and Pilger’s work didn’t serve the latter. Pilger’s message in this first film and still more so in its several successors was essentially propaganda on behalf of the Vietnamese puppet regime that had supplanted the Khmer Rouge and that was itself guilty of extensive human rights abuses. It was misleading and dishonest, and it involved defaming decent people trying to do their best for a ravaged nation.

Let me first give a bit of background. Pilger is often thought (and he did nothing to dissuade people from believing it) to have been responsible for exposing the sufferings of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. He wasn’t. Journalists who broke this story, whose horrors were almost impossible to conceive of, as early as the summer of 1975 included Tony Paul of Reader’s Digest, Bruce Palling and Elizabeth Becker of the Washington Post, and Henry Kamm (no relation to this author) of the New York Times. They were the first writers to publicise refugee accounts, yet – for their pains – their reports were rubbished by some on the radical left as media distortions.

Noam Chomsky, the famed theoretical linguist, and his coauthor Edward Herman, a grotesque fabulist who went on to deny the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, wrote an infamous article in 1977 in which they complained that American newspapers were presenting a ‘seriously distorted version of the evidence available, emphasizing alleged Khmer Rouge atrocities and downplaying or ignoring the crucial US role, direct and indirect, in the torment that Cambodia has suffered’.

But the refugee accounts of Khmer Rouge atrocities, under which about 1.7 million out of a total Cambodian population of 8 million perished, were in all essentials accurate. Western journalists, in impossibly difficult conditions, had alerted the world to depravities that almost defied the imagination. Pilger was late to the story. This was due not to oversight on his part but to politics. He was a cheerleader for Vietnam, which had only just turned against the Khmer Rouge and invaded Cambodia.

Pilger’s consistent theme was that western governments and the United Nations were giving tacit support, including military aid, to the Khmer Rouge in order to undermine the Vietnamese-backed regime in Phnom Penh. And to muddy the truth that the Khmer Rouge had itself been supported by radical left-wing pundits in the west, and that its leaders were all former members of the French Communist Party, he slyly and repeatedly compared the movement to the Nazis.

In, especially, his second film in this series, Cambodia Year One (1980), and thereafter Pilger developed the theme that the west was denying development aid to Cambodia while providing assistance to the resurgent Khmer Rouge. These were shocking fabrications with direct and baneful humanitarian consequences. The truth was that Vietnam was deliberately preventing food aid from reaching the starving people of Cambodia: it was using international aid as a political tool, choosing who would be fed and who would not. UN agencies and NGOs told Pilger this, so he accused them of lying.

The aid agencies were correct and Pilger was the one telling untruths, which he never retracted. In fact the regime in Phnom Penh along with the occupying Vietnamese forces required every UN agency or NGO operating in Cambodia to pledge not to provide aid to starving Cambodians languishing at the border with Thailand. A real campaigning journalist would have exposed this scandal and inhumanity, but it was not Pilger’s cause. His documentary Cambodia: The Betrayal (1990), in which he alleged that SAS members had trained the Khmer Rouge, provoked a libel writ that Central Television settled at substantial cost.

Pilger went on to engage in reckless and extravagant fakery in the case of Kosovo, a province (and since 2008 an independent country) that he showed no sign of having visited. Nato forces engaged in a military campaign, beginning in March 1999, to stop the Milosevic regime in Belgrade from assaulting the Albanian population of Kosovo. It was a desperate last resort when diplomacy had failed. Though Pilger later depicted it as the forerunner of the Iraq war, the cases were nothing like each other.

The campaign against Milosevic was fought not for regime change or even for the independence of Kosovo but for the single and specific reason of protecting a Muslim population from genocide. It was the right thing to do. Milosevic’s forces had already expelled some 300,000 Kosovans from their homes, killed almost 2,000 and destroyed dozens of villages. And they threatened to do much worse. After 78 days, and nearly 40,000 combat sorties, Nato forced Milosevic to back down.

This limited, just and necessary campaign was described by Pilger in apocalyptic terms (‘the truth is that the US and Britain are engaged in a form of nuclear warfare in the Balkans,’ he wrote in The Guardian on 4 May 1999) that had absolutely no purchase on reality. But the reason I cite it in this context is that it elicited a series of demonstrable falsehoods by Pilger, all crafted to convey the message that western governments were lying about the threat to Kosovo and the numbers of Milosevic’s victims. He later wrote: ‘There was no genocide. The Nato attack was both a fraud and a war crime.’

In the wake of the war itself, Pilger wrote in the New Statesman in November 1999: ‘The numbers of dead so far confirmed suggest that the Nato bombing provoked a wave of random brutality, murders and expulsions, a far cry from systematic extermination: genocide.’ He was rubbishing the entirely accurate charge that Serb forces had engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing. And to make his point, he alleged that western politicians had wildly exaggerated the numbers of Serb victims. Hence, wrote Pilger: ‘Figures were supplied. The US defence secretary, William Cohen, said: “We’ve now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing . . . They may have been murdered.”’

But Pilger deliberately elided the context from this remark. This was an interview that Cohen gave on CBS television, and he was not suggesting that the Serbs might have murdered 100,000 military-age men. As Michael Ignatieff correctly pointed out in The New York Times in November 1999: ‘In Mr. Cohen’s appearance on Face the Nation, his statements were actually much more complicated. While he said that 100,000 were missing, he also clearly stated that his reports showed that 4,600 Kosovars had been executed, a claim that has been confirmed by the forensic trail of evidence uncovered by war crimes investigators since June.’

Ever after, Pilger claimed that the Nato allies had deliberately and vastly exaggerated the number of victims in Kosovo at the hands of Milosevic’s forces. It was completely untrue. He amplified his fakery by claiming that, during the Kosovo campaign, ‘David Scheffer, US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, announced that as many as ‘225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59’ may have been murdered’. Again, Pilger was lying. What Scheffer actually said, and Pilger trusted that his readers wouldn’t check, was that these men were unaccounted for – a very different thing.

Then and thereafter, Pilger always referred to a final body count of 2,788 victims of the Kosovo war, to reinforce his message that Nato had maligned the Serbs with false claims of mass violence. Again, he was lying by misdirection. The accepted number of those who were killed or went missing during the war is a little over 13,500. These included just under 1,800 Serb civilians, as well as more than 8,600 Kosovan Albanians.

Thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, more would have perished under Milosevic’s orders had Nato not intervened. Pilger adopted the bizarrely literalistic view that someone could only be counted as dead if their body had physically been found. That is not the reality of war. In particular – as my family, friends and colleagues who reported Milosevic’s depravities observed directly – it was the aim of Serb forces to bury and hide their victims’ body parts far from any theatre of war, trusting these would never be found.

And here is the final weirdness of Pilger’s coverage of the Kosovo war. He not only lied about the statements of Nato governments and denied the atrocities of Milosevic’s regime, but also sought to spread flagrant disinformation about the war itself. Writing in The Guardian on 18 May 1999, some three weeks before Milosevic capitulated, Pilger dramatically claimed: ‘Nato is suffering significant losses. Reliable alternative sources in Washington have counted up to 38 aircraft crashed or shot down, and an undisclosed number of American and British special forces killed. This is suppressed, of course.’

Pilger gave no indication of who these ‘reliable sources’ were, but they were anything but reliable. The aircraft that Nato lost in the entire campaign amounted to exactly two, an F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft and an F-16 fighter jet, and there were no allied fatalities.

This was before the digital age, and I did not take up the trade of journalism myself till several years later, but I did try to identify where Pilger was getting this stuff from. I never managed to track it down. I’m familiar with the small circles of pro-Serb lobbyists but every inquiry came up a blank. I wrote to Pilger, via The Guardian, asking for his sources but I neither expected nor got any reply. It’s conceivable that someone, knowing Pilger’s record of swallowing tall stories and never checking them, fed him these whopping falsehoods in order to see if he’d put them in the public domain. But I have no direct evidence that any such third party existed.

The dispiriting but economical explanation is hence that Pilger himself invented the tale of extensive Nato losses which were being suppressed by the state and the news media, because he wished to stimulate popular opposition to government policy. He was spectacularly lying for the cause, which in this case was to assist a genocidal regime in its campaign of brutal repression.

I am sorry for Pilger’s family that he is now dead but sympathy does not necessitate sentimentality. Pilger’s career, at least till his more recent brutish outbursts, was replete with glamour and awards but it was in the service of deceit, and it exemplified indifference to human suffering and disregard for human rights.

[phantomrose96]

So do you have any Silt Verses thoughts that you wish to share with the world?

oh boy! okay time for some buckshot statements

Paige absolute character of all time for being an upper-middle class benefiter of the oppressive class structure who is radicalized and skips right past the "slacktivism on twitter" phase to instead jump directly into "creating gods and killing people." She's smart she's driven she's idealistic she will rend the earth in a horrid symphony of predator and prey ensnarled on bloody oaken crucifixion and I support her.

Hayward does not actually deserve the disproportionate attention I give him and that's because he's a loser and a failure (said with all the love in my heart.)

I may give the impression Hayward is the single fail-man of the series but that is not true. It is actually the case that every single The Silt Verses character is batting between a 50%-70% on the "a situation has occurred and it's gone So Fucking Wrong for them" measure. However Hayward stands out as the single indominable character batting a pure 100% in this category who can never be surpassed.

The voice acting is SO across the board good?? Hayward and Carpenter and Faulkner and Paige would all, in isolation, stand out as examples of excellent voice acting and they're all just together. Also the cameo from Harlan Guthrie in season 2 went so fucking hard.

When I started TSV I was like "oh okay so WE'RE the bad guys. like we're following the disciples of this bloody human-sacrificing river god cult. It's like if the TMA avatars were the main characters." And it was a fascinating revelation for the world to peel back and make clear that, actually, everyone is doing this. The world works like this. The Trawlerman followers are not being targeted for being human-sacrificing cultists - they're being targeted for being the losing human-sacrificing cultists on the wrong side of history. I haven't dug too deeply into this thought but it feels significant in the vein of "MY country's wretched human rights violations are the just and moral ones, because we're the correct people. Unlike those losing nations barbaric and unforgivable human rights violations."

The unavoidable cycle of "I kidnapped you as my hostage but maybe we're fwiends now? 👉👈🥺"

Why did Hayward LARP a whole story about being in a fail-marriage with a fail-wife. Why did he tell all this to Carpenter, a woman he just met. Why is he like this. 💖💖💖💖

Really love Faulkner's brand of "happy little sunshine boy who's being that way precisely because he wants to manipulate you into thinking he's a simple happy little sunshine boy." Very guy-who-killed-his-brother behavior of him.

[byneddiedingo]

Louis Hayward and Joan Leslie in Repeat Performance (Alfred L. Werker, 1947)

Cast: Joan Leslie, Louis Hayward, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer, Benay Venuta, Ilka Grüning. Screenplay: Walter Bullock, based on a novel by William O'Farrell. Cinematography: L. William O'Connell. Art direction: Edward C. Jewell. Film editing: Lewis Sackin. Music: George Antheil. 

When Repeat Performance ended, I thought, "That was different. I wish it were better." The premise is a good one: the time loop, usually the stuff of sci-fi movies and seldom of noirish melodramas. And who hasn't wished to live a year (or day or week or month) over, knowing what you know now. That happens to Broadway star Sheila Page (Joan Leslie), who shoots her husband, a blocked playwright and alcoholic philanderer named Barney Page (Louis Hayward) just before midnight on New Year's Eve in 1946. She flees into the night, wishing that she had the year that had led up to the shooting to live over again, sure that she could prevent what had just happened. Well, sure enough she can. As New Year's Day arrives, she discovers that it's not 1947 but January 1, 1946 again. And that she's not wearing the nightgown that she threw a coat over when she ran from the apartment, but instead the new party dress she bought for New Year's. Of course, she can't convince anyone else what has happened, though she does manage to interest her Gay Best Friend, the poet William Williams (Richard Basehart), with her story that he's going to meet a woman, Eloise Shaw (Natalie Schafer), who will have him committed to a mental institution. She also knows that in the first 1946 she and Barney went to London where they met a playwright, Paula Costello (Virginia Field), who wrote the play she starred in but also started an affair with Barney. So can the past be course-corrected? Would there be a movie if it could be? What Repeat Performance needs is a somewhat better script and much better actors. Leslie doesn't make Sheila into a credible figure: She's too much the suffering wife and not enough the resourceful woman who rose to the top on Broadway. And Hayward gabbles some of the soap operatic dialogue and never shows us what Sheila saw in Barney in the first place. The best performance in the movie is Basehart, who handles the coded role of the gay man well enough to let the audience glimpse his secret life. To its credit, the screenplay handles the coding well, too, although we never find out why he was committed to the asylum: Something happened in a toy store, it seems, so maybe we're supposed to infer that William was a pedophile rather than gay. (Although in 1946, the two were often regarded as synonymous.) But despite these flaws, Repeat Performance is a watchable, if frustrating, movie. 

[blogger360ncislarules]

Hollywood is mourning the death of visionary filmmaker David Lynch, with friends, fans and frequent collaborators paying tribute to his immense legacy.

Kyle MacLachlan, who played FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper on Lynch’s Twin Peaks and also starred in Lynch films like Blue Velvet and Dune, said on Instagram: “Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision.”

He added: “What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to. Our friendship blossomed on Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks and I always found him to be the most authentically alive person I’d ever met… I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone. David, I remain forever changed, and forever your Kale. Thank you for everything.”

Steven Spielberg, who cast Lynch as legendary Hollywood director John Ford in his 2022 film The Fabelmans, paid tribute to Lynch in a statement: “I loved David’s films. Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and Elephant Man defined him as a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade. I got to know David when he played John Ford in The Fabelmans. Here was one of my heroes—David Lynch playing one of my heroes. It was surreal and seemed like a scene out of one of David’s own movies. The world is going to miss such an original and unique voice. His films have already stood the test of time and they always will.”

MacLachlan’s Twin Peaks co-star Lara Flynn Boyle, who played Donna Hayward, added in a statement to our sister site Deadline: “There goes the true Willy Wonka of filmmaking. I feel like I got the golden ticket getting a chance to work with him. He will be greatly missed.”

Nicolas Cage, who starred in Lynch’s 1990 film Wild at Heart, tells Deadline that Lynch “was a singular genius in cinema, one of the greatest artists of this or any time. He was brave, brilliant, and a maverick with a joyful sense of humor. I never had more fun on a film set than working with David Lynch. He will always be solid gold.”

Oscar-winning director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13) called Lynch “a gracious man and fearless artist who followed his heart & soul and proved that radical experimentation could yield unforgettable cinema.”

Director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) honored Lynch on X, posting a photo from Lynch’s Blue Velvet and adding, “You inspired so many of us.”

[shhlima]

Hey, Lima, I’m JANE HAYWARD but everyone calls me JANE, I identify as a CIS WOMAN and use SHE/HER pronouns. I was born on JULY 16TH making me TWENTY years old and a CANCER. Most people call me the ACTIVIST, maybe that’s because I am PASSIONATE but also JUDGMENTAL. If I had to describe my vibe, I would say it revolves around SPIRITED DEBATES, DESIGNER PANTSUITS, 80S HORROR FILMS. Of course there is one thing I hope no one ever finds out, and that's MY PARENTS ARE PAYING PUCK OFF TO CONCEAL THE FACT THAT I’M HIS BABY MAMA. Anyway, on a more fun note, people always say I look like ZARIA.

FAMILY INFORMATION

HOMETOWN: westerville, ohio FAMILY: hayward TYPE OF SIBLING: full BIRTH ORDER: middle PARENTS STATUS: yes POSSIBLE SIBLINGS: full or adopted

SCHOOL DATA

YEAR IN SCHOOL: sophomore MAJOR/MINOR: political science EXTRACURRICULARS: glee, GSA LIVING QUARTERS: 2 br apartment with bree OCCUPATION: what is a job when your family is wealthy?

HEADCANONS

Growing up, the Haywards expected perfection from their children, and Jane was always one to comply with whatever was asked of her. After all, they were wealthy and given all sorts of advantages as children, such as music and dance lessons, creative summer camps, vacations that were both luxurious and educational. It only felt right to soak up the vast opportunities being presented to them, so by high school, Jane had never gotten any grade lowered than an A, could play multiple instruments, had been in show choir for years, had a dance background, and had developed a knack for fighting for what was right.

Call her a feminist, a social justice warrior, an activist — it's all true. After her parents had to sue the all boys' academy that her father and uncle attended for high school just to get her enrolled, Jane grew passionate about fighting for women's rights, as well as the rights for any and every one that was ever discriminated against or unjustly mistreated by the law. She's constantly attending protests, she started a Ride Home program as a teen that allows sober teenage girls to drive drunk girls home from parties to keep them safe, and she's regularly forcing her parents' friends to donate to important organizations and to even help the wrongly accused in Ohio hire good lawyers instead of public defenders. For her parents, this is practice for the political journey they plan to see her go through on her road to becoming the first female president, which is their goal for her whether Jane truly wants it or not.

One summer, Jane met one Noah Puckerman at a party, and him taking her virginity turned into her getting pregnant. The Haywards were not about to allow their gifted daughter be a teen mom, so they told everyone that she'd signed up for a study abroad program, while she was really staying with relatives on Martha's Vineyard and being homeschooled to conceal her pregnancy. Her family wanted her to either abort the baby or give it up for adoption, but Jane asked Puck what he wanted and Puck chose to keep their baby, a daughter they named Maya.

Thus the other part of the secret was born: in exchange for keeping Maya and raising her without their side of the family being involved, the Haywards pay Puck to keep the identity of Maya's mother a secret. Jane doesn't like it per se, but she also knows better than to go against her parents, so she's kept her word to stay out of her daughter's life and let Puck raise her alone. To do that, she didn't come home after she had Maya or after she got her diploma, enrolling in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to keep distance between her family.

Unluckily for Jane, she spent her first year of college partying and drinking to get rid of her mom guilt, and for the first time in her life, she'd even failed a few classes. Her parents were pissed, as one would expect, so they made her take a year off afterwards to get her shit together. Now, she's getting back to her old self, and her parents thought it was time she come back to Lima so they could keep her on track.

[prettytragcdies]

"in another life" (For all of your muses)

Send "in another life" and my muse will say something they'd be doing in another lifetime, were it not for circumstance, possibility, or regrets.

⦁ In another life, my family and I would still be living happily in Minnesota, and we never would have followed my husband's brother and niece out to the west coast. ( Margaret Nash ) ⦁ In another life, I would know who my biological father is and have an actual relationship with him. ( Meagan Maynard ) ⦁ In another life, Weston and I would still be happily married, and he would pay as much attention to me as he does his career. ( Amanda Ryder ) ⦁ In another life, I would follow in my family's footsteps and become some type of detective. ( Bryannah Curatola Reagan ) ⦁ In another life, I wouldn't have any insecurities when it comes to my abilities as a mother and my husband risking his life every single day by putting it on the line due to his chosen career path. ( Adrianna Carpenter ) ⦁ In another life, I would have better coping mechanisms for some of the things I witnessed during my time as an army nurse overseas. ( Katherine Callahan ) ⦁ In another life, I would actually have an answer when someone asks me where I see myself in five years. Or even one year, for that matter. ( Madison Ruzek ) ⦁ In another life, I never would have turned away from Emma's stroller, not even for a split second, and lost her for so many years. ( Ann Ewing ) ⦁ In another life, I would be happily married with a family of my own right now, instead of having so many damn commitment issues. ( Scarlett Ewing ) ⦁ In another life, J.R. and I would have a healthy, loving marriage, and neither one of us would ever even be so much as tempted to have an affair. ( Sue Ellen Ewing ) ⦁ In another life, I would be a successful artist in my own right, living somewhere like Italy. ( Alexandra Dexter ) ⦁ In another life, I never would have been abducted and experimented on by aliens. ( Fallon Carrington ) ⦁ In another life, I would have been born nonprematurely and without blood and heart problems. ( Krystina Carrington ) ⦁ In another life, I would have actually had the chance to get to know the woman I'm named after, my paternal great aunt, Constance. ( Lauren Colby ) ⦁ In another life, I would have been a paramedic and never completely followed in my parents' footsteps. ( Kate Ross ) ⦁ In another life, I wouldn't have made so many mistakes that ultimately cost me my marriage, as well as my medical license. ( Allison Hayward ) ⦁ In another life, I would have stayed in New York, graduated from NYU, and more than likely never moved to Pine Valley and met my paternal half brother. ( Grayson Martin ) ⦁ In another life, I would be a total rebel and probably even enjoy breaking the rules. ( Serenity Scorpio )