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letsgetusaghostfriend · 4 years ago

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A Green Day concert, a bloody nose and a coming out – Sunset Curve & Green Day I

Summary: Luke and Bobby got them tickets for the Green Day show in LA on November 2nd 1994, also known as the night Billie Joe punched a homophobe and Alex came out to the guys.

Friendship fic, super Alex & Bobby centred, Luke and Reggie are not straight but don’t know that yet. Also, I know most people think Alex came out way earlier, but he has to not be out for this story to work.

((warnings: homophobia, homophobic language (not fully written out except in the band name of the opening act), slight violence, mentioned: alcohol, underage drinking (I am german, so for me it’s not underage drinking but yeah), in general: swearing))

word count: 4.9k, read here on AO3 x

Luke and Bobby got four tickets for the Green Day show in LA on November 2nd in 1994, it was one of Green Day’s bigger shows at that time. The boys previously have been to other concerts of the band, but the last one was in a small club in ’92, of course, all four of them being way too young for that place. Luke and Reggie were the first ones out of their group to get fake ID’s, mainly to go to gigs and play gigs. In the beginning, Alex thought he would never do the same, too scared of possible consequences, but then Luke used his stupid puppy eyes. (They still work even after Alex crush died, dead and buried). And if he was being honest, it was really helpful for playing clubs if the owners can at least pretend that they believe the four boys are old enough to be there.

Alex was aware that Green Day’s opening act, Pansy Division, was an all-gay band. And he was excited and scared at the same time. He found out because this one kid in his English class, Josh, went to the San Diego show earlier that week and told one of his friends that he shouldn’t go to the LA show as Green Day was just a bunch of “f*g lovers” and not worth their time. So Alex was scared: what if his friends would say the same thing?

They arrive late and the line is massive, Alex anxiety pitches in and reminds him that if it takes too long for them to get inside, he might miss Pansy Divisions performance. Logically he knows that they wouldn’t start letting people in so late that the opening band already starts when most people are not inside yet, but his anxiety is not that into logical thinking. He can’t help being fidgety, at one point Luke noticed and asks him if the crowd is making him uncomfortable. “Yeah, a little bit” Alex responds, not wanting further questions about why he was so anxious. The boys keep close to the bar, staying in the back first, not too excited to get into the crowd just yet. Alex knows the others would be inside the first mosh pit if it wasn’t for his anxiety, but not once did they show any signs of annoyance about his hesitancy. They just patiently wait for Alex to get used to the crowd and atmosphere, never angry when he has a bad day and he never signals that it is okay for them to go into the more crowded areas. Sometimes, especially when Luke doesn’t know where to put his energy he and Reggie go, but they always make sure that at least one person stays with Alex. He probably should tell them how thankful he is for this more often (the others would disagree here since they feel like Alex thanks them too much).

When Pansy Division started playing Alex didn’t expect them to actually sing about hooking up with guys at rock concerts, loving men, having real, deep and meaningful relationships and just, in general, doing normal daily life stuff, living with a boyfriend and how it feels after a breakup. He feels so excited, almost jumping up and down to the beat, not able to put his excited energy out on the drums like he would if it was their own concert. Alex completely forgets to check the guys for any reactions, too involved in the music. He doesn’t see that the other three boys enjoy Pansy Divisions music just as much as he does. He doesn’t see Bobby eyeing him from the side, a knowing glint in his eye.

Alex doesn’t know that Bobby saw the way Alex would look at Luke when they were 14, at Brian from History when they were 15, and how he sometimes looks at pictures from Billie Joe Armstrong in magazines. Bobby also didn’t miss Alex’ obsession with the song Coming Clean. The other boys sometimes forget about how Bobby’s parents are genuine open-minded people, who introduce him to a lot more diverse people than his friends’ parents do. So yes, maybe Alex was discreet enough for Mr Luke Oblivious Patterson and Captain Reg Oblivious Peters, and his parents who anyway only see what they want to see, but not for Bobby. Bobby, who might from an outsider’s perspective looks like he is standing a bit outside this friendship group due to him being less loud and sociable than his friends, but Bobby who loves his friends with all his heart, Bobby who truly sees his friends and knows that this is where he belongs. Seeing the absolute bliss, happiness and excitement streaming from Alex like waves is contagious.

After Pansy Division finished their set and there was a short break before Green Day would start theirs, Bobby slips from their group, mumbling that he would get another beer. Instead, he goes to buy Pansy Divisions EP, because the band was genuinely good but mostly because he knows Alex wouldn’t buy it, but he will definitely want it. On his way to the little corner where they sell the Green Day merch as well as Pansy Division stuff, Bobby realises that it was actually packed, but he soon saw that it was just a long long line for the Green Day merch. Actually, there are so many people he can’t even see the Green Day merch salesperson. He manages to get to the guy who took care of the Pansy Division stuff, he greets him with a head nod and a short “hey”, while scrambling his money out of his pant pockets to count it. He’ll have to nick a bit off of Luke’s beer later, not having enough money left to buy another one. When he reaches out to hand out the money for the CD somebody joins the guy who cared for the merch. Bobby recognises that it’s the singer of Pansy Division and he smiles at him. “Great performance, really enjoyed you guys’ music!”. The singer grins at that and holds out his left hand, which Bobby finds a bit strange, but takes it nonetheless.

“Jon, nice to meet you.”

“Bobby, pleasure is all mine.”

“Ah, you’re a musician yourself!” Jon says while checking out Bobby as if he could tell whether the kid in front of him was any good based on his appearance. It took the guitarist a second to realise that Jon must’ve felt his calloused fingers from playing the guitar during the handshake. “Yeah, I’m actually here with my bandmates.” A voice in his head, that sounds suspiciously like Reggie tunes in with “We’re Sunset Curve, tell your friends.” But Bobby pretty much felt like a child trying to play in the adults’ league, so he doesn’t say anything else. Jon grabs the CD he was about to buy and opens it while asking “So Bobby, is the CD for you or someone else?” Taken aback by that question Bobby tells him without thinking “We kind of always share records. Em, so maybe Sunset Curve?” Jon who was about to sign the inside of the CD case, pauses and looks up again “You’re in Sunset Curve?”

“Yeah, rhythm guitar.” He answers without much of a thought, it takes him two seconds then he adds: “You’ve heard of us?” Jon chuckles at Bobby’s shocked tone.

“Saw you play a few months ago. Didn’t remember your name till Mike mentioned one of your songs, always called you “the band with the cute drummer” actually.” Jon casually explained to a still shell-shocked Bobby. The comment about Alex makes him choke on his own spit though. Jon smirks, but before he can say more Bobby’s mouth starts talking before his brain gave its okay: “You saw us well enough to say that Alex is cute, but you didn’t recognise me?” After the words left his mouth, he feels his face heat up.

‘Way to embarrass yourself by having too much of an ego, Robert, great job’, he thought to himself. But Jon again laughs it off, as if he made a funny joke, smirks and asks if Alex was here tonight.

“He is,” Bobby says, voice cold, “he is also sixteen.”

Now it was Jon’s time to look embarrassed. “Oh shit, never mind then.” He pauses. “Sixteen is a bit young to play that club you played, isn’t it?” He pauses again. “You guys take this whole music thing seriously, I like that!”

More at ease again after Jon’s reaction to Alex’ age, Bobby’s brain finally catches up with everything Jon said before he called Alex cute.

“Wait, Mike as in Mike Dirnt? As in Mike Dirnt mentioned one of our songs?” he asks astounded. Jon laughs at the utter bewilderment that the younger one’s face was showing. But before he could say something about it a loud voice behind Bobby sneers: “Oh look at that, Bobby the f*g lover.” He turns around and sees Andrew from his math class. “Always knew at least one of you would be a shirt lifter!”

Bobby tries to take a deep breath before he answers but Jon beats him to it. “I would really think people were clever enough to listen to lyrics, but you still find the poser ones at these concerts, especially since Dookie got Green Day so popular outside of the scene!” Bobby needed a few seconds to realise that Jon wasn’t even talking to Andrew but instead just talked about him to Bobby and the guy selling the merch.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that you fucking fairy!” Andrew sneers, stepping closer to Jon. As soon as Andrews anger is directed towards Jon and not Bobby anymore, the guitarists fight instinct kicks in.

“Fairy? Really?” he asks Andrew with a snigger in his voice, “Didn’t know we live in the 50s, Andrew. Learned all these terms from your daddy?” Bobby tries to make his voice sound as degrading as possible. For a second it seems like Andrew might shut up and leave but then Jon starts laughing loudly about Bobby’s comments and before anyone can react Andrew takes a swing and hits Jon right on the mouth. Without thinking, Bobby copies his action and the next thing he knows is that his hand hurts and Andrew has a red square on the side of his face. He glares at the guitarist and strikes again. This time the fist hits Bobby’s nose and he sees black stars in front of his eyes for a few seconds. After that, all hell is breaking loose and Bobby is being pushed around for what feels like a few minutes before he gets pulled aside and finds himself behind the selling booth with Jon by his side who has a busted lip that is still bleeding. Jon has a hand on the teen's shoulder and looks worried at him. “Fuck your nose does not look too good!” he says. Hearing the words Bobby brings his hand up to his nose and winces when he feels a sharp pain as soon as his fingers touch his nose. “Fuuuuuuuuck, Alex is going to kill me!” he groans at the thought of how the blond will react to seeing Bobby like this.

“Hey man, good punch you got on the dickhead there!” an excited voice states beside Bobby, which makes him turn his head probably a bit too quick, considering he just got punched in the face a few minutes before. But the guitarists' instincts were right: standing beside him was no other than Green Days’ singer, Billie Joe Armstrong. The blond (with fading blue in his hair) is smiling at Bobby and continues with “but I think mine was even better” while pointing at something behind Bobby, who turns around just in time to see security carrying a half-conscious Andrew out of the venue.

“You know that guy?”

“He goes to my school!” Bobby answers, still in awe looking after Andrew.

“Oh, you need to tell me about how he looks tomorrow, man I don’t miss high school but I’d love to go to school just to see that!” Billie Joe tells him and Jon, still sounding way too excited. When Bobby turns around again to look at the two musicians in front of him, he catches Jon telling Billie Joe that Bobby is part of the band they talked about the other day. Somehow getting even more excited by the news he fully turns back to Bobby. “Love that! We need more good people in this scene so we can make sure the music stays clean of dudes like that! Well, it was lovely punching homophobes with you Bobby, but I actually have a concert to play!”

And with that Billie Joe is gone through the door leading to the backstage area and Bobby looks at Jon hoping that he can find answers with him (like is he hallucinating?) but he just chuckles at the teenagers in awe face and takes the CD Bobby wanted to buy all along, as well as the money he had already paid and hands both back at the teen with the words “I think you paid enough for this already, thanks for sticking up for me!” And adding, when Bobby tries to give the money back again, “You better go so your bandmates don’t worry and you don’t miss the Green Day show!” Bobby thanks him and with a smile he makes his way back to the other boys while putting the money and the CD into his pockets.

When Alex finally sees Bobby come back to them, he feels relief washing over him. Alex always hates it when they split especially if one of them is on their own and Bobby has been gone for way too long. The first thing Alex notices is that Bobby doesn’t carry any beer or anything else that he could’ve brought from a bar, the second thing is that Bobby’s nose is bleeding. The easing relief is instantly replaced by worry as Alex's brain catches up with his eyes. As soon as the guitarist reaches them Alex starts searching his fanny pack for tissues and anything else that can help with a bloody nose, all while berating Bobby about getting into a fight. Reggie and Luke excitedly ask Bobby about it, but when their bleeding bandmate tries to tell them about what happened Alex just shushes him and gestures for him to look up so that he can take a better look at his nose. While Alex is still cleaning up Bobby’s face the crowd starts cheering and Alex turns around quickly to confirm his suspicion that the main act finally made it on stage. He keeps on cleaning his friends face from now slightly dried blood when he hears Billie Joe's voice over the speakers.

“Sorry guys, I know we’re late, but I had to punch a homophobe…” The rest of the sentence does not reach Alex’ brain as he looks at one of his best friends, whose nose was bleeding after obviously being punched and all he can hear is white noise, while the realisation, that Bobby being the homophobe who was just punched by Green Days’ singer, sets in. He feels a sharp sting in his chest all while feeling overwhelmed by fear, cold naked fear. And his thoughts race through his brain, too fast to actually make any sense, all he knows is that his worst nightmare seems to be coming true: the people he trusts the most will eventually leave him. They will hate him. They will think he is disgusting, and they will leave him. Unconsciously he takes a step back from Bobby, taking both his hands off his friends face but before he can totally spiral into his thoughts, he is caught by Bobby who holds the drummer by his wrists and looks at him like Alex offended him deeply.

“Seriously?” Bobby’s voice comes out sharper than he probably intended, softening his tone as he sees Alex flinch at him, “You actually think I am homophobic? Fuck Alex do you really think that poorly of me?” The guitarists' words and face are both filled with what Alex can only describe as hurt. Bobby attempts to say more but he is cut off by Billie Joe's voice coming over the speakers saying his name.

“A special thanks to Bobby from Sunset Curve! Make sure you check them out they’re a local band that’ll make it big one day, I’ll promise you! I swear, give them less than a year and they’ll be playing here on this very stage! Thanks, Bobby, for helping me punch a dickhead!” And with that they start into their first song, leaving the boys standing completely mind blown in the back, each one trying to comprehend what just happened. After a few seconds, Reggie, Luke and Alex all turn to Bobby with questioning faces, but Bobby concentrates on Alex’ face. “Do you believe me now?” When Alex nods the, still bleeding, guitarist feels relief wash over him. “Good! Because I already have your Christmas present and I literally know no one else who has the same taste that you have!” He actually manages to make Alex smile with his stupid comment, feeling like they might be okay again, he holds onto Alex’ sleeve, needing something to ground him, knowing that Alex is uncomfortable with public affection. He turns to Luke and Reggie who as soon as they have his attention try to bombard him with questions, but he stops them and promises to tell them later.

___

After the concert:

When they leave the venue, a wave of, for L.A. unusually cold air, hits Bobby’s face and clears his head a little, making it easier to think about everything that had happened. As he was the first one out of the four to step out in the cold air, he takes a deep breath before turning around to see the other three boys walk up to him. He notices that Alex pulls his jean jacket tighter around his body, clearly not enjoying the cold air as Bobby does. He smiles at Bobby and then follows Reg and Luke who started walking towards the side street where they parked the van before the concert. The two boys talk animatedly about the Green Days show, analysing every detail. Seeing one of their favourite bands live did distract the two enough for them to not ask any further questions, right now. Alex smile tells Bobby that the same did not count for the blonde boy. Bobby jogs up to Alex to walk beside him, but when he tries to initiate a conversation with his bandmate, the blonde just shakes his head and mumbles, that he has things to think, but as if to calm Bobby down, Alex takes his hand and squeezes it before they reach their van. The van they brought because they actually started to be able to book enough gigs to pay for it (and to actually need it), they all paid for it, even though they don’t talk about the fact that Bobby paid the biggest part, with him having the only parents who actually support the band.

Bobby is driving, with Alex in the passenger seat lost in his thoughts and Luke and Reggie in the back, trying to get Bobby to finally tell them about what happened at the venue. The guitarist promises to tell them as soon as they arrive at the garage, but despite the impatience from Luke and Reggie to find out about everything they still have a quick stop at a small diner on their way home to get their after-concert food.

Alex, Reggie and Luke all go straight for the couch while bobby prefers sitting on the floor, facing them. For a few seconds they all munch happily but soon Luke starts bugging Bobby about what happened at the club, so he puts his sandwich aside and takes a short breath. He doesn’t know where to start, he kind of wants Alex to know that he got the CD for him, but he doesn’t want to put any pressure on Alex, nor does he want the other two to find out about Alex liking boys before Alex wants them to.

“So,” Bobby starts, “we all really liked Pansy Division, right?” he asks with a nervous laugh tinting his words. He looks at the three boys on the couch for confirmation and gets it from two of the boys while Alex looks like he gets scared by the simple indication that he might have really liked the queer band they all saw tonight. Bobby acts like he didn’t see it while deciding, that he won’t tell the blond that Jon was hitting on him. That might be a bit much information for one night. “Well, I thought,” he continues while pulling out the CD he brought earlier “I’ll get us their CD.” He waves the CD then places it on the table in front of the couch so the guys can look at it.

“And that’s where I met one of the band members, Jon, he is the singer.” He looks up at his friends who all stare at him with a mixture of shock and curiosity on their faces, even Alex nervousness seems replaced. ‘I didn’t even get to the really shocking parts yet’, Bobby thought to himself.

“Okay, so we got talking, he found out I play in a band and when he asks for a name to use to sign the CD I just said Sunset Curve, because we always share records, like I mean I don’t even know who owns what anymore!” Luke looks dead serious while nodding his head, Alex starts smiling slightly and Reggie looks like he is trying really hard to separate their shared music collection in his head.

“Anyway, it turns out he saw one of our shows earlier this year and apparently, he was talking about one of our songs with Mike, but before you get too excited, I couldn’t ask him about it because that dick Andrew from my math class interrupted us. He called me a – eh, never mind” he stops himself, giving Alex a short glance – “he started calling me and Jon names and I kind of started making fun of him for using really outdated terms and when Jon laughed about that, Andrew hit him and then I hit Andrew and he hit me back and suddenly everything got crazy. Next thing I know is that I am behind the merch booth with Jon and Billie Joe Armstrong, and Andrew is being carried outside by security.” He tries to rush the words out fast enough so that Luke doesn’t stop him because of the band being recognised and Alex doesn’t stop him because he hit someone.

“And then Billie Joe finds out I am in Sunset Curve and he says something about it being good that more good people will keep the scene going or something and then he pretty much left to play the show and Jon gave me the CD and I went back to you guys so you wouldn’t worry too much.” When he finally finishes his story, he is staring at three really shocked looking faces.

“Mike Dirnt and Billie Joe both know of Sunset Curve?”

“Who knew Bobby is such a badass!”

“You hit Andrew?”

All three started talking at the same time, but then Alex stands up and he looks real mad and everyone else shuts up. Bobby looks at him. “Alex, I didn’t plan to, it just happened. I got so mad when he started calling Jon these awful names and when he hit him, I just snapped.”

“What about our no fighting rule, huh?”

“So, when someone is being super homophobic, I am just supposed to do nothing?”

At that moment Bobby realises that Alex didn’t process until now that Andrew was using homophobic slurs against Bobby and Jon. He sees Alex anger vanish from him in mere seconds, replaced by fear and sadness settling in his eyes. Lips pressed into a thin line Alex sits down on the couch again. It breaks Bobby’s heart to see his friend like this. They all stay silent for a while.

“What did he say?” Alex asks with a voice so quiet Bobby almost misses it.

“Alex,” he sighs, “I am pretty sure you don’t want to know!”

With that Alex's eyes, which were glued to his hands before, snap up and meet Bobby’s. “You know, don’t you?” Alex asks Bobby, seemingly completely forgetting that the other boys are in the room.

Bobby does not know what to answer, not wanting to make Alex come out because he feels like he has to, or because Bobby figured it out already. “I only know what you want me to know, everything else is just a hunch.” He finally settles on.

Alex laughs. “So, you definitely know, and I actually thought I was being subtle.”

“I still love you, you know that, right?” Bobby just needs Alex to know that. Even if this is a weird one, Bobby wants this to be the reaction Alex gets for his first coming out.

It takes Alex a few seconds but finally, he looks up again, searching Bobby’s face for any trace of him lying. As Alex realises that the boy in front of him means what he said he feels like the biggest wave of relief washes over him. This, black-haired, awkward and quiet boy in front of him, who buys CD’s from queer bands, punches one of his classmates because he was being a homophobic bigot to a complete stranger and whose first reaction to Alex half-assed coming out is to tell him that he still loves him. This boy, who is so uncomfortable with most people touching him, who still wants to hold all of their hands all the time, calling them grounding. This boy, who would probably punch more people to protect them because he gets crazy protective about the people he cares about. And suddenly it’s difficult not to start crying and Alex feels like his voice will break if he tries to talk so he just nods.

And in that second, knowing he has Bobby on his side for this, he decides that he wants them all to know. So, he gets up from the couch and “gets on the runway” as Luke likes to call Alex’ nervous walking occasionally. After walking up and down three times, he suddenly stops, turns to Luke and Reg who look super confused by what is happening and he blurts out “Iamgay” so fast that there was no way that any of the guys could’ve understood a single word. So, he takes a deep breath and repeats: “I am gay” while standing there, eyes closed, and breath held.

“Oh, that…” Luke starts, but he gets interrupted by Reggie who says: “That makes so much sense, that is why you were staring at Brian so much last year! That really confused me, man!”

“I was... I was not staring at Brian Denver!” Alex sputters embarrassment creeping in his cheeks.

“You totally were, you even knew who Reg was talking about right away!” Luke laughs and gets up to pull Alex in a big hug, squeezing him tight. Reggie gets a hold of them and pulls them down on the couch where he squeezes between them, and wooshes through Alex’ hair affectionately. Alex, now half sitting on the couch and half lying on Reggie looks up to Bobby, who stands awkwardly in front of the couch. As the other two notice Bobby as well they all kind of freeze in their cuddle pile. Even as Bobby was more comfortable touching his bandmates than he was with touching his parents, or literally anyone else, he still never expressed any interest in being part of a cuddle pile before. Seeing how all of his friends stopped as he approached, the guitarist started taking a step back, but Alex stopped him by holding out his hand for Bobby to take. It takes him a few seconds but finally, he lets himself being pulled on top of Alex into the cuddle pile and even though it feels strange at first he likes the feeling of Alex’ soft t-shirt under his cheek, Reggie’s arm around his waist and the smell of Luke’s cologne.

Later that night Bobby snatches a picture of his best friends still cuddling on the couch hours later, now all fast asleep. He hasn’t shown that picture to anyone except for his daughter when she finds out about the band 25 years later and he decides to tell her about the loves of his life, even if most people wouldn’t recognise them as it since it was purely platonic love. And even though he got married, he never loved anyone as much, with the exception of his daughter, as he loved the three boys who left him when he was just 17 years old.

The next day Bobby snatches a picture of Andrews black eye. He shows that picture to Billie Joe, backstage at an event he attempts without his best friends after the man recognises him as the kid with whom he punched a homophobe. After that Bobby leaves the event early, not being able to hold up the image of Trevor, too consumed by grieve and guilt. Guilt over not being able to protect them. Guilt over not dying with them. Guilt over using their songs.

#julie and the phantoms #sunset curve #fantoms #jatp #alex mercer #bobby/trevor wilson #this is a bobby friendly blog #green day #sunset curve loves green day #that should be canon #reggie peters #luke patterson #friendship fanfic #julie and the phantoms before canon #before canon #set in the 90s #dookie tour #idk if i am missing hashtags

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jessicajonesrp · 4 years ago

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Family reunion

Jessica, texting Luke: who the hell let a Phillip Jones in the building

Jessica: if it’s Trish she’s way more fucking blonde than I thought

Luke texting back: Que? What the heck are you talking about woman and since when did I become your doorman?

Jessica: PHILLIP JONES FUCK HELLOOOO

Luke not having a clue what’s going on just calls her.

“What are you talking about, am I suppose to know this person?? Seriously how am I supposed to know what the hell you’re talking about Jessica?”

Jessica is talking very rapidly, her breaths shallow as she answers, pacing back and forth.

“My fucking brother, that’s who. The one dead 16 years now? Only not because he just left my office. Probably he did anyway, since I opened the window and jumped out of it after my whole fucking world imploded.”

“Oh your brother….Ooohh your dead brother?? Now your insane rantings make sense now..Shit Jessica I’m at a lost of words right now..What are you going to do?”

Jessica laughs, but it sounds far from humorous. “I don’t fucking know, I kinda just freaked out and bolted. It isn’t a ghost, and it was him, as soon as he said it I could tell it was. They said he was dead, why the fuck would they tell me that, and where the fuck has he been all this time?”

“Wait backup, you jumped out your window? And why would someone lie about him being dead? I think I have as many questions as you do.“

Jessica is still pacing the rooftop. “I mean, it was open already. The window. I dont know, but I’m definitely awake right? This is real? This isn’t….I don’t, another fucking hallucination thing?”

“Well I don’t know baby, how about you go back and crazy thinking here..Talk to him! Make sure he’s not some crazy fanboy..Do your detective thing..Get his fingerprints and some DNA, if he’s telling the truth, he shouldn’t object to proving it. I’ll wrap up things here and come to your office..And if he’s a nut, let’s just be happy you didn’t work from home today.”

“Whatever, you don’t have to,” Jessica muttered, exhaling. “I got it. I’ll go back and see if he’s still there. Hell, if he really is Phillip, he’s waited sixteen years to show himself, he can wait ten minutes for me.”

“You sure? Cause twenty…thirty minutes top and I could be there..I’m mean if you got family out there I’d like to meet them.” Looking down at his desk at the pile of boring papers. “Honestly I could use the break, I’m sooooo damn bored! We should have stayed on our honeymoon longer.”

Jessica huffed another breath, shaking her hair back from her face. “I’m stopping by the liquor store first, then I’ll go back. I mean…I guess it could be a trick, or some of my crazy head games with myself. But.. What if it isn’t? He looks like him. Like He would have looked.”

“Come on Jessica if it is your brother do you really want his first impression of you as a person that jumped out her own office window and his second you’re drunk off your ass, Look I’ll bring home a bottle of the good stuff but go back a face him with your wits intact.”

It was a good point. Fuck it, why did Luke always have to talk logic when Jessica was ready to run away and shove aside anything that tried to stop her or make her feel?

“Well, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to him, since his last impression of me before showing up on my doorstop was how I caused the accident that killed our parents because I wouldn’t let him have a fucking video game,” she muttered, and damn if her eyes aren’t getting a little wet.

It’s something that she’s always harbored, and never voiced aloud before, that it is her belief that she is the reason that her family had died. She had been too selfish, too loud, too much of a bitch, she hadn’t shared with her little brother and had made her father angry, she was the reason he took his eyes off the road. If it wasn’t for her, it never would have happened, her family would still be alive.

She had always pushed those beliefs far down; Dorothy certainly hadn’t encouraged her to talk about her family, and Trish had always been so tentative around the subject, not wanting to hurt or anger her, that it had become far too easy to blank out memories or feelings about them for someone already inclined to repress anything too painful. Now, the possibility was presenting itself that for all these years, she had actually had a little brother out there, orphaned because of her, needing her, maybe not knowing what had happened to her. Or had he? Had he known all along that his sister had been adopted by a celebrity, while he was left behind, and she was told that he was dead?

“Fucking Dorothy,” Jessica muttered, more to herself than to Luke, because whatever had happened all these years to her brother, she was almost sure Dorothy Walker’s hand was somewhere in the mix. In response to Luke, she said begrudgingly, “Fine, I’m going back. I’ll show up sober, but no promises I’ll stay that way once I’m there.”

Hanging up, she ran a shaking hand over her face, fighting to slow the escalation of her breathing. She manages to stave off enough anxiety to avoid a panic attack, even as memories flicker through her mind. Waking up at fifteen in the hospital bed, frightened, in pain, wanting nothing more than to see her parents’ face, only to overhear the angry voice of teenaged Trish, blurting out that all of her family is dead. Asking about funerals, about memorials or any sort of service she could take part in, only to be told that those had already taken place, that she had missed them all, and there was not so much gravestones for her to visit instead. Picturing her family cremated, as Dorothy had so blithely told her, decimated into pieces small enough that they would all together fit in a small box or vase.

If Phillip was alive, then whose body had they cremated? Or was even that a lie? Were her parents still alive out there somewhere too?

Hope mingled with dread as Jessica started jumping rooftops, making her way back to her office building’s. She swung herself back down inside the open window, unsure whether she was relieved or not when she saw immediately that the man who had introduced himself as her brother was still present inside, now sitting somewhat uncomfortably on her beaten couch.

“I figured you had to come back some time,” he muttered, not acknowledging the fact that her rather nontraditional entrance through the window. After her exit out of it, perhaps he expected that she preferred using it to doors. “Even if you do run your own business, you’ve gotta touch base at office eventually.”

Jessica didn’t move any closer towards him, even when he stood, angling his body to face hers. Leaning back against the window, as though prepared to make another hasty exit if needed, she crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes at him.

“So you’re my brother,” she said flatly, eyes looking towards his forehead, rather than the hazel eyes that so closely matched her own. “Prove it.”

“What do you want, my birth certificate, my DNA?” Phillip shrugged, sounding unsurprised. “I could get both or either. Mouth swabs can do the trick these days. But I’m guessing you’re wanting words. Well, let’s see, my middle name is Brian, after Dad, but I guess anyone could look that one up. Your middle name is Campbell, after Mom’s maiden name. I know anyone could look that one up too, but what they couldn’t look up is you used to hate it, because I would call you Campbell soup, to the point that you wouldn’t eat any kind of soup at all, even if it wasn’t actually Campbell brand.”

Jessica’s eyes widened, and she tried to cover her shock by pressing her lips together in a thin line. Phillip wasn’t finished. He seemed to actually enjoy throwing some of the old, mostly forgotten information about her long ago history back towards her.

“Hm, you used to watch Xena the Warrior Princess a lot, you wanted to dress like her for Halloween but Dad didn’t want you wearing the skimpy costume, so you were a ninja turtle instead. I think that was when you were maybe eleven? You lost a tooth when you were nine on the playground because you were trying to do a full flip on the monkey bars and bashed your mouth against a bar instead. I was crying, scared because of all the blood, but you didn’t even cry. You were just mad because Mom made us leave and wouldn’t let you try again.”

Jessica couldn’t speak. She tried, but her throat was closed up, and she couldn’t seem to form words or thoughts. Everything Phillip was recounting was true, memories she hadn’t touched in nearly two decades, and as they flooded back vividly, she stood frozen between pain and hope.

“Uh…oh, you had some troll dolls, and I hated them, because their eyes and those weird little jewels in their belly buttons glowed in the dark. So of course, you used to sneak them into my room and hide them in my bed or in a dresser drawer or something, just to make me scream. And of course, I did my part by waking you up when you were a teenager by burping or farting in your face, then running for my life.”

Phillip chuckled slightly, then intensified the easy, laidback tone of his voice, taking a slow step forward. “Take the DNA test if you want, Jessica, but you have to know it’s me. Don’t you.”

And she did. She knew before he said any of it, knew as soon as he identified himself aloud the first time. This was her brother. Her brother….alive.

“You’re not dead,” she said aloud, her voice small and dry. “They said you were dead.”

Phillip shrugged, one side of his mouth tipping up in a smirk, very similar to one Jessica’s own face often showed.

“Guess news of my demise was greatly exaggerated then.” More seriously, he said, “Technically, I guess I did die, they had to shock me back a few times, or so I hear. But in the long run, I survived. And I’m here. I wanted to see you, Jessie. Once I could find you, and get to you….I wanted to see my sister.”

Jessie. The name sounded different in his mouth than it did in Dorothy’s, or any of the other people who insisted on saying it and whom Jessica refused to accept it from. She had thought the only three people allowed to call her by her childhood name were long gone, and the privilege to do so gone with them. But this man, this person with her brother’s features on a grown man’s face, called her Jessie so easily and naturally, and it sounded right.

In a few jerky steps Jessica came forward, putting her arms around Phillip in an awkward but intense embrace. They had been fifteen and ten the last time they saw each other, and their relationship ship been far from one that showed physical affection; any physical contact with each other generally involved pinching, slaps, and shoves. It felt strange and strained to touch someone so familiar and yet so unknown, but as Phillip put his arms around her in return, with almost equal levels of awkwardness, his responding lack of ease only intensified her knowledge that he was the real deal.

“Ease up, Jess,” he said lightly, flinching slightly. “Not all of us have super strength.”

When Jessica jerked back, eyeing him, he shrugged at her. “What, how else do you think I found you? You were on the news constantly after that mind control guy, and everyone going crazy trying to kill each other. And then Dowling Investigations ads, it might be Trish Walker’s face, but she says your name and your title, and everyone in the world with any sort of TV or radio access knows you’re her adopted sister. Yeah, there are like, a million Jessica Joneses, and I didn’t know if you’d stay in New York or not earlier, but once the mind control guy happened, and Trish talking about you on her show, it wasn’t that hard to find you. I just…kind of took a while to get up the balls to actually go to you.”

He shrugged again, giving her a somewhat self conscious smile. “I guess now that we’re here, we have to get to know each other all over again. We’ve kind of spent more time living apart than together, you know? A lot can happen in sixteen years.”

He was right on that. And truthfully, Jessica had no idea where to start, so she focused back on him.

“So if you weren’t dead all this time…where have you been? What the hell happened?”

#Jessica Jones #jessica jones roleplay #Luke Cage #luke cage roleplay

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goldeneyedgirl · 4 years ago

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jaliceweek20 day 1: human/vampire

Title: Against A Wall (Part 1)

Prompt 1: Human/Vampire

Word Count: 3,851

Note: I’m going into hospital tomorrow, and I’ve run out of time to get this finished (so, so close but I need sleep). So I cut it in half in the most logical place.

As long as the JaliceWeek Mods don’t have an issue, I’ll finish off Part 2 and upload the whole fic to the AO3 collection around Tuesday when I’m feeling human and have a decent Wifi connection.

Fifteen.

He crouches behind Dewey’s Bar, spitting blood onto the pavement, and trying to pretend that whatever is seeping into his jeans is just water, and not runoff from the reeking dumpster beside him.

It’s Tuesday night, and Tuesdays are always the worst. Tuesdays are his mom’s night shifts at the VA hospital. Tuesdays are pay-day. Tuesdays are the only day his father doesn’t pull his punches.

His left cheek and eye are swollen and split, like overripe fruit. He can’t see real well, and the taste of aluminium foil in the back of his mouth makes him suspect another fracture around his eye.

But was it really a Tuesday night if cerebral fluid wasn’t leaking into his mouth?

He feels bad that his mother is going to walk in at five the next morning, exhausted, to find… well, to find Hettie and Flo asleep in Ava’s bed, as Ava studies and worries. To find Jasper’s bed empty, and Lydia’s too. To find the study door locked, no matter how long she knocks.

In fact, the only thing that Louise Whitlock won’t find when she gets home from work is the god-damned strength of will to leave her fucking husband.

Last time he said that to her face, she started to cry, and that made things worse.

It’s still early, which sucks. There are hours to go until it is safe to move, to drag himself to school, to shower in the locker rooms and get some food out of the vending machine and savour the fact that another Tuesday is behind him. Sheldon isn’t big enough for the other students and the teachers not to notice the bruises on his face, but it is small enough that everyone knows Jeremiah Whitlock, and no one is going to say anything to get him in trouble.

He could go find Lydia, hide in the tree-house, tell someone who wasn’t family or a local. But he always ends up behind Dewey’s. When he was a kid, it hadn’t just been a bar; it had been been Dewey’s Bar and Grill, and his grandfather used to take him there for fried chicken and ice cream. Dewey had been his Grandpa Jed’s best friend, but even in those halcyon days it hadn’t exactly been family-friendly.

It had become a dive bar sometime around the time Jasper finished middle-school, but it didn’t matter - by then, Dewey and Grandpa were dead, and he was too busy trying to protect himself and his sisters to eat ice cream.

He spits blood again, and rests back against the brickwork. Nothing for it; Tuesdays were always hell.

—

He tries to sleep, amongst the noise of passersby, and remain unnoticed - Jasper’s learnt the hard way that his uncles still frequent Dewey’s, and they will march him straight back home for round two, no matter what he says. Even when he came up with the strength to tell them, about Lydia and Jerry and Tuesday nights, his uncles just tell him to shut up, man up, and maybe Jerry wouldn’t have to whoop his ass.

He thinks of Lydia and hopes she’s somewhere warm and clean tonight. Lydia’s smart enough to stay away on Tuesday nights. Home is never Lydia’s first port of call any night of the week, but never, ever on Tuesdays.

He remembers the last Tuesday night she was home, two summers ago, when Lydia stormed upstairs, a twelve-year-old hurricane with fire in her eyes, and called their father a coward for beating the shit out of Jasper.

Jeremiah Whitlock hadn’t liked being called a coward. Not at all.

Now she is transient, a ghost sister who vanishes at day break; one who bunks down on couches and in treehouses before coming back to her own bed. Their mom and Ava worry about where Lydia gets her money, cigar-sized rolls of dollar bills that she keeps in a tampon box, but he knows.

He knows that his sharp and pointy little sister never let anything stop her, least of all hard work, and that a lot of people in town know that Jerry Whitlock has a lot of anger and a lot of disappointment that he tries to drown in cheap beer and cheaper whiskey. It just makes him angrier. If the only thing they can do is give Lydia Whitlock some work, well, that kid’ll cut the grass, paint the garage, and walk the dog for a few bucks and a drink from a spigot.

It’s easy to say that Lydia is the best of them, making it clear that she doesn’t need their shitty father or their tired mother, but they are all strong in different ways. Ava, who smiles and simpers at their father, waiting for that day when she can buckle Hettie and Flo into her car and take them with her to college in Houston with a middle finger raised in the air. Flo stays quiet, stays alert, darting and hiding when the moment comes, but whose slight of hand belongs to a survivalist magician. And sweet little Hettie, who never lived on the ranch and knew their parents when they were happy, is sunshine and laughter and innocence. The one that reminds them why they stick together.

He’s the boy, so his role is obvious and unquestioned: he takes the punches and slaps and kicks that were meant for their mom, for Lydia, for Flo. He mutters things under his breath so that Jerry doesn’t hear what his sisters are saying, forgets that Hettie is sniffling or that Lydia hasn’t been home in ten days or that their mother has burnt dinner.

He knows his place.

—-

If you asked anyone with the surname ‘Whitlock’, they’d tell you that the family was cursed.

Had been since the Civil War; the youngest son had run off and joined up. Tried to desert two months in, crying for his momma, and ran afoul of someone - or something. He was dead a month later, but no one was exactly sure if he’d been executed for desertion, or if he’d just got in the way of a Yankee bullet. Either way, his last letter was rambling and terrified of something he never named, and his cowardice was rewarded with his bloodline’s constant suffering.

Within the Whitlock family lore, the curse was held accountable for numerous failings - from great-great grandmother Edith running off with one of the Wilkerson boys, to little Brian dropping dead as a doornail one summer day after seven years of perfect health. It was the Whitlock Curse to blame the day the bank took the ranch away from Jasper’s own father.

It was the curse that had four and a half strapping brothers (Uncle Wyatt only counted as half since he went to the war in the Middle East and got himself blown up before he was even old enough to drink, and left behind a high school sweetheart with a bouncing baby girl they all called ‘Puddin’) father fifteen girls, and only one lousy boy.

Make no mistake about it, Jasper was a lousy heir to the Whitlock name. All three of his uncles reminded him of this every holiday season. Whitlock men were supposed to live and breathe the ranch, were supposed to be football players and champions. They were meant to knock up the head cheerleader and serve eight years in the army, like their brothers, fathers, uncles, and grandfathers before them.

Not snivelling little momma’s boys, who cried themselves to sleep when Sirius Black died, and could charm the birds from the trees. Not boys who helped their sisters catch rabbits, and keep them as secret pets, or name the house cat Socrates. Not boys who sat up all night when their horse had colic, and sit in the stable with her, begging and praying for her to be okay.

He tried, goddamnit. So hard. He was the best shot in the family (something that Uncle Bo had nearly hit him over, that one Thanksgiving. But everyone knew that Bo had the worst temper in the family.) Before things went to shit, he’d been a good student. He’d been able to convince the animals on the ranch to do anything. He was popular, without having any particular friends or putting much effort into it. He took care of his sisters.

But none of it was ever good enough.

Nothing ever was.

—

It’s Roy Lester that chases him off, before six the next morning. Roy runs the grocer next to Dewey’s, and went to school with his father and uncles - still had beers with them ever so often. The way he threatened Jasper and chased him off home whenever he caught him in the alley made Jasper think that they talked about him, and none of it flattering.

So he has to slink home because he stinks and he’s starving. The security at school won’t let anyone in before seven; he’s tried before; it’s not like he has much choice.

In a town like Sheldon, everyone knew everyone. You started kindergarten with maybe twenty other five year olds - most you probably already knew - and spent the next thirteen years with those same kids. You watched Maude Montgomery transform from the aesthetic-equivalent of Danny Devito to Jennifer Lawrence in a single summer, thanks to a late brush with puberty; you were right there when Casey Atkinson was put in a wheelchair and spent seventh grade learning to walk again. You knew that Ariel Turner was diabetic, Marley Harris was asthmatic, and you’d seen thirteen years of peanut-free lunches and birthday parties because Joey Thompson was highly allergic.

The joy of small towns.

Everyone knew that Jerry Whitlock hit his kids and his wife, but no one talked about it - not to their faces, at least. The adults tended to march Jasper home, to face his father’s wrath. The kids tended to get uncomfortable, and look through him. The few people who tried to reach out were from out of town, and were usually passing through - the odd teacher, a new neighbour, a concerned face on the bus.

Better to go home until school opened up.

Louise is in the kitchen, her face pinched and pale, clutching a cup of coffee. She looks hopeful when he walks in, but seems to crumple in on herself when she sees his bloody, swollen face. She looks old as she puts down her mug, and moves to pull him into a hug. He pretends not to notice her shuddering, as she cries onto his shoulder, before pulling away.

“I’ll make breakfast,” she manages, sniffling. “Okay? You must be hungry.”

He grunts and nods, as he heads upstairs. As if scrambled eggs and burnt toast can fix another Tuesday night.

But Wednesdays are good - the longest possible time until another Tuesday night.

He just has to keep telling himself that.

—

Seventeen.

Another Tuesday behind Dewey’s, but this time he’s puking up the few mouthfuls of food he managed before his father hauled him out the back - only because it was his mom’s week off and they were having a big family dinner. Louise resented those mid-week dinners; after a long day at work, having to make dinner for twenty-three people, and somehow find enough plates and chairs was the last thing she wanted to do. It was the only time Lydia would cross their father’s sight line, skinny and defiant.

If it had been a normal dinner, Jerry wouldn’t have dragged him out of the house. He would have beat him in the kitchen, yelling over Hettie’s sobs and Flo’s screams, and Louise’s pleading. He’s had a serving platter smashed over his head before, as well as a beer bottle, and a ceramic pitcher - one that had been made by Grandma Lillian, and Louise had sobbed over those broken shards.

His head is spinning, and he can’t remember exactly what he said to incite his father’s rage, though he remembers Uncle Bo’s jeers when he tried to stand up. The previous week’s wounds have reopened, and are bleeding onto his last decent t shirt. There’s vomit and alley-juice all over his jeans, and he wonders if he should drag himself to the hospital because his world is still spinning.

He wonders what will happen if he dies tonight; if Roy Lester finds him here in the morning, cold and dead. Most of the cops in town are from old families, and they’ve taken Lydia and Jasper back home enough times to know what goes on. It’s easier to picture the cover-up, that they’ll blame him and a make-believe schoolyard fight. Just a tragic accident.

Maybe then someone will help Lydia, help all of his sisters. Maybe it’ll be the thing that makes his mom leave.

He falls asleep facedown in the alley, and wants to cry when he wakes up the next morning to the bellow of school kids heading to the bus stop.

He was so goddamned close to it all being over.

So close.

—

“Do you need some help?”

It’s another Tuesday night, one that has come with busted ribs and possibly a dislocated shoulder. He missed lunch because of an English project, and his father had been drinking early, so he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. It’s making him feel sick, and wondering if anyone will notice if he sneaks in the back door of Dewey’s and grab some food.

And then someone is there and talking to him.

Her voice is high and sweet, and he expects a high school girl, maybe a sorority sister.

She is neither.

She’s only as tall as Flo, with uneven black hair curling around her cheeks. She’s one of the prettiest girls he has ever seen, with huge amber-coloured eyes that remind him of Hettie’s dolls and Lydia’s manga. She’s wearing a ragged button-up over a ruffled mini-skirt and leggings, with boots that look a size too big, a heavy man’s watch that hangs from her tiny wrist, and an ancient looking cadet’s cap - the entire effect makes him think of Oliver Twist as a female circus performer.

She walks over to him, and crouches in front of him, her head cocked to the side like a bird’s. He can only stare; other than the dark smudges under her eyes that speak of many sleepless nights, she is beautiful.

“Are you okay?” she asks, looking worried.

“Yeah,” he croaks, and winches as he jars his ribs. He doubles over, and cries out. She reaches out towards him but backs off just as suddenly.

“You’re hurt,” she says, looking bewildered and frightened. “Where?”

“I-It’s okay,” he manages, trying to reclaim his dignity in front of the prettiest girl. “I’ll be fine.”

The girl huffs. “Ugh, boys,” she mutters. “Hold on a second.” She gets up and slips out of the alley before he can beg her not to get help. In reality, going to the hospital is the last thing he should do - they can’t afford the bill, and they’ll call home and… no. Just no.

His head is spinning, so he finds it hard to tell how much time has passed, but eventually she returns. She’s clutching two bags, and marches right up to him and crouches back down.

“This will help,” she says, holding out painkillers and a bottle of water. He fumbles with the lids of both, but eventually swallows the pillows down. She watches him carefully. “Don’t drink too fast,” she advises. “Now, I can put your shoulder back in now, or we can wait. It’s up to you.”

He blinks at her slowly. “Now,” he decides.

“Okay,” she looks nervous, but moves forward. It’s all blurry in his mind, but there is something cold, then hot, angry pain, and then he’s blinking up at her again. “Sorry. But trust me, the worst is over now. At least I didn’t break it worse. Hungry?”

He blinks as she reaches for the other bag - a bag of Skittles, a packaged sandwich, two oranges, and a bag of potato chips. He’s not sure if he has a concussion or it’s an odd selection, but he’s also hungry enough that he doesn’t care.

“I nearly had to call Bella, to ask what to get - Edward never let me buy her food after the chicken incident - which was entirely Emmett’s fault - but I think I figured it out okay,” the girl jabbers, taking a seat beside him, and smiles at him. “Better no one knows where I am, anyway.”

“I… thanks,” he croaked, as he reached for the sandwich. She beams at him again, and then frowns.

“Eat, then we’ll finish patching you up. I’ve come too far to watch you die in this disgusting place,” she stretches her legs out in front of her.

The sandwich is dry, but he wolfs it down - an orange too, before he takes a breath - that hurts - and takes another look at the tiny girl beside him.

“Who are you?” he finally asks, and she looks up from her watch.

“Oh! I’m Alice,” she says. “Sorry, I forgot you didn’t know. Do you want your ribs taped now, or are you going to open those?” She points to the Skittles.

“Um, I…” he looks at the bag of candy. “Do you want some?” This feels like a fever dream; maybe he’s passed out and this is just what his banged-up brain has provided him with.

“No,” she shakes her head, and the cadet’s cap tilts a little on her head. “I can’t. They just looked nice. Happy.”

“Happy,” he echoes, looking at the red package.

“I hear that sometimes little things can help,” Alice says. “Come on, cowboy, take that shirt off and let me see those ribs.”

His side is mottled black and blue and purple, and moving in basically any direction is a new adventure in pain. Alice gasps at the sight, and then coos at him in a way that is oddly comforting as her fingers trace his ribs - the coldness of her fingers is actually wonderful against the pain. Then comes the painful stage - as she, not entirely gently enough, begins layering tape over the pain, his head is spinning.

“All done,” Alice says, and her voice is soft, and when he slumps against her shoulder, she doesn’t move away. She smells like old fashioned things, like roses and linen. It reminds him of the old family homestead. He finds his eyes closing, and his side aches in time with his heart, and then Alice’s gentle fingers are running through his hair.

“Sleep, Jasper,” she murmurs, “I’ll keep watch.”

He’s asleep before he realises he never told her his name.

—

She’s gone when he wakes up, and the Skittles are in his pocket - along with the painkillers. Happy.

It’s Wednesday morning, and it’s not exactly ‘happy’ he’s feeling, but he’s got candy in his pocket and time to go home for a shower and more food, so Alice was right - the little things do help.

—

She never turns up two Tuesdays in a row, but he does see her again. She’s always more prepared than the first time, with a bag that always seems to contain exactly what they need - in his less lucid states, he is reminded of Mary Poppins’ magic carpet bag as she produces snacks and first aid kits, and even clothing.

Her attempts at first aid are, at best, rough and she accidentally breaks two of his fingers and nearly ends up in tears when he yells in pain, and hugs him so tight, weeping into his neck, that he ends up trying to comfort her.

Sometimes he sleeps. She’s so thin and tiny that her shoulder isn’t a good pillow, and he feels like a shit man, letting such a tiny girl keep watch behind a bar. It wouldn’t take much to break her, and he can’t defend anyone in this state.

But some Tuesdays, he falls asleep anyway, breathing in that scent of fresh roses and linen, and listening to her chatter away about people he doesn’t know, about places he’s never visited, about books he’s never read.

Alice sounds like she’s living a really nice life. One week, she quizzes him on his Spanish before his examine the next day, and her accent is flawless. When her phone buzzes and buzzes and buzzes, and she ignores it, she usually swears - he doesn’t know in what language, one of the Eastern Asian ones he thinks - but it’s definitely a swear.

He wishes he could see her, talk to her, out in the real world and prove to her that he’s not just a beat-up kid. But she’s always gone on Wednesday mornings, and he doesn’t even know how to contact her anyway.

All in all, he met Alice in the reeking alley behind Dewey’s with a concussion, broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder, and now she’s the best friend he’s ever had in the world.

He’s getting closer to that ‘happy’ concept that she mentioned the first time they met.

—

The last time he sees her, he’s bleeding and he’s pretty sure his eye socket is fractured. He’s pissed with himself because he wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, to stop his father from going after Flo. So he’d thrown a punch at his old man for the first time because Flo is his baby sister and all haunted eyes and he’ll never forget the sounds of her wailing after the belt struck her, but hitting the bastard back just fuelled him and … fuck.

Then Alice is there, in jeans with stars on the knees and a billowy purple top that is just opaque enough to obscure the skin underneath. She looks angry and frustrated, and doesn’t just sit next to him and open her bag like she usually does.

“It’s a stupid fucking decision you’re about to make,” she stamps her foot, “and I am so mad at you right now, but Carlisle and Edward have made me promise not to interfere. Carlisle says that everything I’m doing now is enough. And I’m already in enough trouble, honestly.”

He can taste foil again - definitely a fractured eye socket.

“What?” he manages, snappish and tired. He doesn’t need this. He wants sweet Alice, who helps him patch himself back together, and gets him food, and talks him to sleep. The one who makes him laugh, even when it hurts, and seems to be light-years ahead of him but that’s okay because she’s always so happy about whatever she’s telling him.

“I’m going to say this once,” she enunciates carefully, still glaring. “I will be here every Tuesday. Don’t make a dumb decision. There is always another choice.”

“You’re making less sense than normal,” he retorts. “Either help me, or go away - I’m not in the mood.”

“Happy freakin’ birthday,” she snaps, unbuckling her giant watch, and throws it at him before she storms back the way she came, leaving him behind.

#jaliceweek20 #alice cullen #jasper hale #jasper whitlock #vampire alice human jasper #my fic: against a wall #my writing: against a wall #alice is so unhelpfully helpful

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swiss-army-fangirl · 4 years ago

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have y’all ever watched ‘unraveled’ by brian david gilbert on youtube? that was how i felt writing this. and i don’t even have a master’s degree in creative writing, i’m an engineering major with nothing else to do.

anyways, i present: ‘vessels’, unraveled

the order. the Beginning. We’re set up with a futuristic, cinematic vibe right away. Buckle up idiots.

satellite. The introduction of our hero and their beloved, blessed with a connection that transcends distance, obstacles, etc. Also the introduction of the interdependence between the hero and their partner. The hero is dependent on the partner for guidance, but at the same time, the partner is referred to as the hero’s satellite, with the hero’s gravity (down-to-earthness?) keeping them tethered. The first mention of a darkness within the hero, but this darkness is clearly kept in check by his connection with his partner. This is a love song, the only balanced love song on the album, honestly.

frequency. The aforementioned connection in Satellite has been corrupted. There’s a disconnect between the two of them, and initially the hero believes he’s imagining it, but over the course of the song, he realizes it’s real, his partner has been severed their connection, and he feels raw, angry, scared, and most of all: betrayed. He’s never been alone before. He wasn’t meant to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone.

DIE FOR YOU. This song is the death of me, personally. Fuck. Anyways, this is our hero coming to terms with his partner’s disappearance, in his own way. He acknowledges that they’re gone from his side now, but that he will not stop until they can be reunited again. In a ‘story’ scenario, I’d imagine this as the hero seeing that their partner has Turned, but the hero believes redemption is possible for them, or rather, that losing them is not an option. The hero will be there, waiting for their partner with open arms, no matter what happens between them, even if it means the death of them and what they stand for. Because death is preferable to separation.

Ricochet. A reflection of how the two of them ended up here, the first time we realize that maybe, their separation was fate. There were indications that the partner was bold, sometimes too bold for our hero to follow, but it never occurred that this would be their undoing. And that realization hurts, hurts him to his core. His beloved is beyond his reach, the gap between them self-imposed, but indomitable. We get the sense that this is a blow he will not be able to recover from. STORY MOMENT: the hero realizes that redemption is not possible for their partner, and it is completely, and utterly devastating. The person that was once there is gone, closed off, replaced by something that feels nothing for him.

starlight. Some insight into the bond between our hero and his partner. I’m choosing to interpret this song as from the point of view of them both: a plead from the hero, and maybe a moment of lucidity from the partner wishing he would just let them go, that they can be reunited, but they have to be separated now. The chorus and bridge are imbued with this sense of longing and dogged determination we saw in DIE FOR YOU, but the first verse is so reminiscent of someone consoling another as they slip away (‘the void is calling’/’it’s okay, I promise’). You know those moments in like every fanfiction where someone is possessed and then they break the possession for just a moment to say ‘I love you’ or something? This is that but a song.

into the unknown. HOOO BOY: this is the beginning of the end for our boy. This song is notably more aggressive that any of the above. This is our hero taking matters into his own hands, embracing his loneliness, his anger, all of those negative emotions he’s initially been pushing aside, and things are starting to get dicey. He’s walking the edge of a razor. Whatever it takes, he remembers. Whatever it takes.

gravity of you. Remember that razor’s edge from earlier? We’re about to go over. The loss has turned into an obsession, their love gotten twisted and darkened into something that is fundamentally changing them. The connection we thought was lost in Satellite is back, and this time, it’s Worse. There is a lot of imagery of a craft being pulled into a black hole; a toss-up between being reunited with his partner but to lose himself, or to live a life without them and in effect, lose himself anyways.

back to the earth. the alternate title for this song is ‘consequences’ because holy shit. We’ve gone over the edge, all logic is out the fucking window, we are committed and honestly, this would be the moment of wondering if the wrong decision has been made, because it feels wrong, so painfully wrong, but the question of ‘is this death or rebirth?’ makes one wonder if maybe, there could be a positive ending to this, that this pain might be worth it in the end.

last to fall. More exploration of falling, of going rogue, being the right choice. While Gravity of You had us worried (rightfully so), it’s clear that our hero’s intentions are pure at heart: he won’t abandon his partner, he won’t ignore that their connection is still strong (even if it’s distorted or corrupted), that he’ll put himself through hell for the chance that they’ll be by his side again.

bringing it down. In a story, this would be the moment our hero and their other half are reunited, but God at what cost. It’s finally sinking in that their partner is not the same, they’re something worse. And the worst part? He still cannot bear the thought of leaving them, even though the relationship that was once mutual is starting to become parasitic. The world is falling apart around them. We are nearing a life or death situation, saving yourself, or becoming unrecognizable alongside someone who was once the world to you.

unbecoming. Consequences 2.0. The decision above has been made unknowingly: the hero is being undone by all that he’s put at risk, and when he hopes, desperately, that his partner will be there when he needs them the most, they shun him. They laugh, ask how he could have been so trusting, so stupid? And now, our hero has no choices left. His partner’s knowing betrayal is the final nail in the coffin.

monster. Manipulation is the name of the game. Now that the trust, the love, is gone, all that’s left is a slew of negative emotions that are perfect for becoming an unrecognizable husk of who you once were. I talked about this song earlier, but the first verse being a railing against the partner for abandoning them as a catalyst for their corruption versus the second verse being a series of ‘I’ statements in which our hero realizes that this darkness was always within him, but never acknowledged? I’m just a slut for heroes becoming villains. The opposite of a redemption arc. The hero and his partner are truly together again, in horrible, distrustful love.

telepathic. Dustin fucking knocked it out of the park with this track and I wish we talked about it more. There are several moments of realizing that this love was cursed, but in this moment of clarity, our ‘hero’ realizes how his dependence truly was his undoing. Even before their Fall, his partner was always two steps ahead of him. There’s also a fun role reversal here: moons are referred to as natural satellites. In Satellite, our hero refers to his partner as his satellite, but now, he refers to them as the Sun, and to himself as a moon. There’s been a swap in power, I would even argue a subjugation, after this unraveling. I don’t know what conclusion to draw from that I just think it’s crazy.

everglow. This is still a song of admiration, even monsters have their moments of reprieve. Our hero is still so, so in love. It leads one to wonder if the love is reciprocated, because this song makes it feel one-sided, like we’re still the territory of ‘obsession’. Even after all that has happened, he’s willing to give everything he has to them, even if ‘everything’ is actually nothing at all. I also think it is fucking wild how this song goes from this really heavy vibe, to a final orchestral piece that makes one imagine end credits rolling. Wow.

#i can't believe i did this #i went off #to no one in particular #this is 1395 words #what the fuck #starset #vessels #lyric analysis #fr if you read all of this i love you #tori talks #more like tori gives a dissertation #does this count as studying for the fe bc dustin is a fellow engineer #that's how i'm justifying this

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babyshawwn · 5 years ago

Text

Ache

Masterlist

Word count: 4,1k.

There is absolutely no reason for it. At least not a rational reason you can think of, that would make him act like he was acting at the moment. You remain silent while Shawn continues to put away the clean dishes in the different drawers of your spacious kitchen. He’s fumbling more than usual, getting more irritated each time the handle on a drawer doesn’t obey his still slightly wet hands orders.

You can tell he’s bothered. It’s written all over his heated face. Also, he’s chewing on his bottom lip as he tends to do, whenever he’s in a mood.

You lean back in the chair, eyes following his silhouette carefully while forcing a breath into your lungs. Somehow, the air taste sour when it hits the tip of your tongue.

“You know, I wish you would just say it.”

“Say what, Shawn?” You ask, your eyes darting to his back turned towards you.

Shawn has purposely been avoiding all sorts of contact with you since he started making a scene. He wants you to know that he’s obviously frustrated with you, but he doesn’t want to give you the chance to actually face him.

It’s a typical Shawn move, really.

He’s always been too afraid of confrontation. And therefore, you have been sitting here for the past thirty minutes, watching him do the dishes in anger.

Throwing things into the sink with water splashing all over the floor and he hasn’t once turned around to look at you for even a few seconds.

He’s giving you the cold shoulder and it’s forcing an uncomfortable knot to appear in your stomach. It grows a little each time another bitter second pass.

“You know what I’m on about.” He fires back, raising his voice slightly at the end.

It’s not like him but you have no clue as to why he’s acting strange. The boy is a mystery to you sometimes and he can be impossible to read when he wants to.

Shawn drops a handful of clean cutleries on the tile floor, mumbling swearwords under his breath in respond while pressing his palms against the edge of the sink. You shake your head at your boyfriend, eyes rolling for a second while you stand from the chair and move towards him.

He lowers his head and you can tell he’s holding his breath for a few seconds, maybe trying to somewhat calm himself down. He cracks his neck a few times, a desperate attempt to ease the headache that is slowly reaching the surface.

Shawn has been rather quiet the past few days, more than usual, but you didn’t pay much attention to it at first. Shawn has a habit of getting slightly distant when he feels stressed or tired and given the fact that he’s been busting his ass writing new music, you didn’t put much thought into his mood swings.

But it’s clear to you now, that there’s another reason causing his silent treatments although you have no idea what it is. Usually, Shawn’s never mad at you for more than a couple of hours.

You bend down while collecting the silverware from the floor while the silence surrounds you as the seconds pass by. You can taste the tension in the air, it’s somewhat choking and therefore, you do your best to ignore the sharp yank you constantly feel in your chest.

When you have finally collected all the cutlery from the floor, you begin putting them into their correct drawers. Your moves are much softer in comparison to Shawn’s.

“Thanks.” He mutters, eyes flickering to avoid yours. His words are unwilling and sounds somewhat bitter but at least he says them.

He steps aside for a moment while you put forks and spoons back on place, it stings in your heart that Shawn won’t even allow your elbows to brush slightly against each other while you fumble in the kitchen.

You don’t comment on it, but you’re aware that Shawn can tell.

You sigh deeply when you close the drawer and lean your back against the counter, your arms folded in front of your aching chest.

Shawn shoves the cabinet with glasses to close in a quick move and then, his eyes finally fall on yours and you feel a coldness running down your spine in the matter of seconds. He seems cold to you, cold enough to form a sickening lump in your throat.

“Do you like him?” Shawn’s bitter words blurs from his mouth causing your jaw to drop.

“What?” You ask confused while Shawn keeps his eyes burning on yours.

“Adam. From your economy class-“

“I know who Adam is.” You reply bitterly, offended by his stupid accusations.

“I guess that answers my question.” He spits back, shaking his head in disbelieve.

“How does that answer your dumb question?”

“Because you won’t answer the fucking dumb question.” He yells back at you while your jaw drops and leaves your mouth gaping open.

Shawn’s livid, his eyes are wild and his face is heated. His entire body is quivering from the anger pumping around in his blood and he hurries to shut his fits to somewhat cope with the frustration rushing down his spine.

You take a breath to prevent yourself from rolling your eyes at his behaviour. You know it’s not the time to push his buttons more than needed.

“Because it’s a stupid question, Shawn.” You remind him, calmly. “Where is this coming from?”

He wasn’t exactly pleased with your answer but his body begins to ease just the tiniest bit. He blinks a few times and then, he forces down a deep breath to cool himself down. You can tell he doesn’t want to be upset with you.

“Shawn, come on. It’s Adam. You know him, too.” You say, your eyes searching his in hope of an answer. “You guys even hang out without me. Where’s all of this coming from?”

“He’s always here.”

“He’s not always here. Actually, he’s only here when we’re doing work.” You correct him.

“He’s all you ever talk about.”

“He is not. I talk about all my friends.” You tell him, narrowing your brows. “Equally much.”

“Somehow Adam, or Brian for that matter, always end up in your stories.” Shawn says, his tone is hard enough for your heart to drop an inch.

“Brian? Now you have a problem with me hanging out with your best friend?”

“Depends.” Shawn turns his head to stare directly towards you. “Is he just a friend to you?”

Your heart sinks to your stomach when he says the words and all you can do is stare directly back at him. Slightly confused and just a tad offended.

You wrinkle your forehead while shaking your head to cope with the beginning anger that appears in your veins. Shawn rolls his eyes at your lack of words and turns to continues with the dishes. A few wild curls fall into his eyes but he doesn’t bother to push them back.

“I get it.” He spits bitterly, throwing plates he’s already cleaned into the water. “They’re here with you all the time. You’re bound to catch feelings for someone, then.”

Shawn’s statement confuses you. His logic doesn’t make any sense and he’s never been the jealous type. Surely, Shawn has never been jealous about your friendship with Brian. In fact, Shawn loves how you have grown close with him over the years. It assures him that someone’s taking care of you when he’s not there to do it.

You glare to your side to watch him carefully. Shawn doesn’t seem to be fuming with anger anymore, but he’s still detached from you and does his best to ignore your eyes searching for his. It’s not like him and you’re getting worried.

You reach for his arm to prevent him from keeping his back towards you, but as soon as he feels your tender touch, he removes his arm to avoid full contact.

You stare at him but he doesn’t react and you have to fight to prevent tears from forming in the corner of your eyes.

Your hands fall to your side while you press your back further against the kitchen counter. You blink a few times to avoid tears while forcing air into your aching lungs. Your stomach is filled with knots by your boyfriend’s coldness towards you and you feel the sickening spread within the second.

“What’s really going on, Shawn?” You ask, your voice sore and slightly shaking. “We both know this isn’t about Adam or Brian. Or anyone else.”

He shakes his head in response and you’re rather certain he rolls his eyes, but you won’t let him dodge the question. Your tongue slips across your dry lips while you force fresh air into your lungs.

“Please, Shawn. Don’t be like this.” You beg him, feeling the lump in your throat grow. “What’s going on? What’s happening with you?”

“Nothing is happening with me.” He cuts you off, raises his head to stare at you for a short second. Then his eyes darts to the sink again as your heart drops further into your gut.

“That’s not true. Please, Shawn. What is all this about?”

“I feel like I’m missing out.” He finally blurs, shutting his eyes as the bitter words leave his mouth.

“Missing out on what, Shawn?” You ask him, reaching for his shoulder to embrace him softly. He shrugs his shoulder, though, and doesn’t allow you to touch him. “I don’t understand.” You mutter, your heart aching in your chest.

“On you, dammit. Your life. I’m never there with you. Never there for all the things I want to be.” Shawn’s voice cracks as he throws the dish brush into the sink, water splashing over the edges. A chock runs down your spine in response as you chew into your bottom lip. “But everyone else always is.”

You put your hand on his back while your heart ponds roughly and leaves your body numb. You feel him shudder by your touch and though he doesn’t allow tears to reach his eyes, you know they are hiding right underneath the surface. Hearing the pain in his fragile voice makes you feel sick to your stomach.

Shawn’s not mad. He’s not frustrated with you, he’s not furious. He’s hurting.

“I’m not there for the parties you throw. I’m not there for your brother’s football games or your friends’ birthdays. I’m not around when you need someone to get you through your exams or when you’re celebrating passing a class. I’m not there for the road trips you take or the spontaneous nights out. You’re able to share your life with everyone but me.”

And just like that, with no warning and no time for you to react, tears are forming in his blank eyes and beginning to drip down his flushed cheeks. You swallow the lump sticking in your throat as you watch your boyfriend sob silently next to you.

You feel somewhat guilty for not noticing how much his heart was apparently aching and your only reaction is to reach for his cheek. As you touch his soaking face with your palm, Shawn shuts his eyes and allows your tender embrace to heal small amounts of the pain nagging in his chest.

Your thumb slides across his soft lips and you struggle to breath properly as another sob rolls from his mouth.

And then, you realise something you never paid much attention to before. People are constantly telling you how much you must be hurting due to what Shawn does for a living, how strong you are for dealing with the crazy hours and the way too often goodbyes. How you’re such a supportive girlfriend for making sacrifices and dealing with not always being the first priority in Shawn’s life.

But those people hardly ever comment on what it must feel like for Shawn. No one ever takes into consideration that maybe he feels those things as well.

Sure, he might be traveling and seeing the world, getting to do what he loves for a living. And it’s not that you aren’t completely certain he loves it, because you’re fully aware that he does but you do get it. The ache in his heart.

You have this whole daily life that he has never really been much part of. There’s a side to you he hardly knows and almost never gets to see because he just isn’t home for most those days. And he feels left out. It really is as simple as that, he feels like an outsider.

He hates that he can’t be a part of your boring, day to day life where all you do is go to university, hang out with friends and whatever people your age does. To you, to other’s as well, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal in comparison to what Shawn gets to do on a daily, but to him it’s a hundred things he doesn’t get to experience with you.

A hundred things that other people in your life is such a massive part of and gets to share with you and Shawn wants that too. Even the little daily things that may not seem like such a deal breaker, he wants in on those moments too because they make you happy and whatever makes you happy, Shawn wants to be a part of.

He’s not jealous of Adam because he’s afraid to lose you to him. He’s jealous of Adam, and everyone else for that matter, who gets to be around you on a daily.

He doesn’t have a fear you’re going to hook up with Brian, he envies that Brian comes over after University to cook up some food and watch Love Island while you make sarcastic comments.

He’s jealous of the people who grabs a quick coffee with you after work, jealous of the people you’re eating lunch with and the people you greet every morning on your way out.

He’s jealous of your friends when they hang around your house for hours, gossiping and cooking dinner. Jealous of your friends and family because they get to be the first people to hear when you have good news or the first ones to give you a hug whenever your day is rough.

Shawn’s heart is breaking because all he wants to do is be as big a part of your life as possible and because he wants to be your biggest support like you are his and sometimes, he doesn’t feel capable of that.

You feel your heart sink into your stomach as a coldness slips down your spine. There are tears in your eyes while your thumb continues to brush against his lips, wiping tears away tenderly.

All Shawn ever wants is to love you and, in this moment, you feel just how much he truly does.

You tip on your toes while leaning towards his face, your thumb removing a teardrop from his nose. Shawn’s tongue slips between his pale lips while he forces a strained breath into his lungs. Your fingers disappear into his thick curls and you lower his lips to yours.

Pressing your forehead against his forehead, you rub the tip of your nose against his heated skin. He closes his eyes in response and you feel his body ease just a little from your warm embrace.

“I hate that you feel this way, Shawn. But whenever you’re gone, I keep you with me in my heart. In fact, you never leave.” You tell him softly. You reach for his hands and press his palm against your chest. “You’re always right here. Every second of the day.”

“But I’m not, I’-“ He stutters his way through the sore words, his throat aching while his heart sinks into his guts.

“Listen to me, baby.” You tell him, firmly. You lock his wild eyes with yours and allow yourself to just look at him for a second. “Whatever I’m doing, wherever I’m going, whomever I’m with you are always in my heart.”

Shawn shakes his head in protest, eyes flickering towards the floor. Tears are still streaming down his cheeks and once in a while, he chokes slightly on the cries escaping his mouth.

“You don’t get it. I’m missing out on you. On your life.”

“Shawn, you are my life. Don’t you get it?” You tell him, your eyes attached to his. “Would I absolutely love if you were able to be here twenty-four-seven? Yes. Do I know that’s not possible? Yes. It doesn’t matter, honey. You are there when I need you.”

Shawn shakes his head again, thinking you’re feeding him lies to make him feel better. You let your hands slide behind his neck, forcing him to look at you while you drag him closer to your face. You press your forehead against his for a second, kissing his lips tenderly.

“Do you know that you’re the only person I know who picks up the phone at four in the morning? Or that you’re the only one who remembers everything I tell you? Down to the last detail. You are the only one who makes things better when I’m upset, even when you’re a hundred miles away. You make me feel more love than most of the people I see on a daily. You might not be here all the time, but you’re the most present person in my life. Because you notice and you care, you take the time and you make the effort. Even when you’re not laying in bed right next to be, my heart is still so full of you.”

“You really mean that?” He whispers and you immediately nod back.

You attached your lips to his salty ones, deepening the kiss rather quickly to make Shawn feel intimate with you.

His fingers disappear into your hair, pushing your lips that bit further towards his to feel more connected and closer to you. You breathe against his mouth, a soft moan sounding when Shawn’s arms wrap around your hips. His curls are tickling your skin when he breaks the kiss to hide his face against your neck.

“Why have you never told me about this?” You ask him, fearing you might cross the line.

“Because...” Shawn mumbles, his warm lips moving against your skin. “It’s stupid.”

“Shawn.” You insist, your eyes softening when he looks up to catch your stare. You palm his cheek while sending him a small smile.

“I feel guilty. All the damn time.” He whispers, forcing a sharp yank to appear in your chest. “I feel like I’m never there for you as much as you are for me.”

You tilt your head to the side, your heart dropping to your guts as you watch the tears fill Shawn’s eyes again. At first, you have no idea what to say because you can’t think of one thing to tell him, that will make him feel less upset.

You reach for his hands and pulls them towards your mouth to kiss his knuckles. They’re filled with bruises and you can tell he’s been taking the frustration out on the punching bag. You caress his hands lovingly in attempt to calm him down.

“I don’t know how to explain it to you, Shawn.” You tell him, licking your lips. “I don’t see it like that. I know you’re away often and I know you struggle with it, but it’s really not that bad for me and you shouldn’t ever feel guilty.”

You force your hand into his messy curls while massaging his scalp slightly just the way he likes. He blinks a few times while your fingers move in his hair.

“I don’t want to let you down.”

“You never have and you never will. That’s not you, you know that too.” You say, stretching your neck to give him a kiss.

“Listen.” You begin while your finger moves across his lips. “No matter who I’m with when these things happen, who I’m celebrating with or leaning on.” You say while catching his fragile stare. “They’re not you. And no one can ever take your place in my heart. It’s reserved for you and only you.”

Shawn sends you a smile and finally nods at your words. He doesn’t quite believe you, you can tell. He turns around and leans his palms against the cold counter, head hanging low between his shoulder as he tries to swallow the sobs wanting to slip from his dry mouth. He’s slightly shaking as he sniffles to prevent the tears from reaching the surface.

There’s absolutely no anger left in his body, you can clearly tell, but there’s tons of ache he’s been depressing for months. You feel bad for not noticing, for not see something was obviously eating him from the inside because it only takes Shawn two seconds to scan your mood.

You walk behind him to wrap your arms around his stomach. You shut your eyes for a moment while you place soft kisses on the back of his shoulders, holding him to your body as tight as you possibly can. Shawn barely moves but you feel his body easing immediately.

You know you can’t say or do much right now to ease the ache. All you can do is hold him for as long as he needs, hold him while he calms down and continuingly remind him that you are lucky to love someone like him and lucky to be loved by exactly him.

Because loving someone in the way you have always loved Shawn, means loving him on the days where his mind is nothing but dark clouds and storms and where his kisses taste like heartache.

Sometimes, you just have to carry the people you love until they can walk again themselves. Shawn had done this a million times for you, you could do it forever for him if needed.

You let your chin rest on his back, arms still wrapped around him to hold him close. Shawn turns around to face you, looks at you for a moment before he cuddles into your chest. You hold him to your heart while he hides his face somewhere in your hair.

He feels your love, you know he does. But Shawn’s insecure, much more than people can tell. He needs to learn, you want to help teach him, that he is one hundred percent worthy of your love and that he offers you so much in return.

“I’m sorry, Shawn.” You whisper, guilt appearing in the back of your mind. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice. That I made you feel like this. It was never the intention.” Your hands run down his back, embracing soft spots on his body.

“You didn’t make me feel like this, I did.” He mumbles, face still hiding against you. “I think too much and end up hurting myself. I never really feel like I’m doing enough, that I am enough.”

You reach for his hands and interlaces your fingers together. Giving him a slight squeeze, he moves his head towards your stare and then he leans down to kiss you.

“You are more than enough, Shawn. To me, to your friends, to your family. You just need to believe it too.”

“Thank you loving me when I’m like this.” He mutters between small pecks on your lips.

He doesn’t comment on your words, but you know he’s taking them to heart. Or at least he’s trying to. And you will remind him that you love him and that he’s more than enough tomorrow, the day after that and until he starts believing it too.

All of you really need from him is love and he gives you that in a way you never thought you deserved. It makes you sad that Shawn doesn’t see that, but you know his anxiety makes him blind sometimes. It makes him doubt himself and question everything he says and does.

You wrap your arms around his lank body, your hands sliding down his back while your fingers leave soft trails behind. Shawn lowers his head to let his forehead rest on yours, his lips nipping yours once in a while.

“I’ll love you no matter what.” You promise him, your fingers caressing the back of his neck. “You love me with all you have, Shawn. And that’s all I could ever ask for. It’s all I need, really.”

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes fluff #this really did come out of nowhere

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writehardwhumpharder · 5 years ago

Text

The boys decide to play a drinking game with Z2 as their victim, it doesn’t end well.

Disclaimer: These are @deluxewhump OC’s not mine. It takes place in the same universe but it’s not necessarily ‘canon’ and might diverge from the story a bit. Also the characters Brian and Jared I made up just to be side characters, it was easier than calling them frat boy #1 and frat boy #2.

You'd think finals week wouldn't be that big of a deal in a frat house but when that time came at the end of the semester, everything dissolved into chaos. Z noticed a shift in atmosphere immediately. The guys left him alone more, having no time to mess around with him. But when he did see them they were unusually tense and hostile. Z found himself shrinking under their presence. Even Alex and Dominic were irritable with him but he could tell that they were just stressed and tired.

"Bro, since when did you care about political science?" Jared asked.

"Look man, if I don't ace this final I'm gonna fail the whole class and have to retake it." Brian explained.

"So?"

"So college costs money dickwad, now go away, I need to focus."

The frat boy rolled his eyes and left the room, trying to find someone else to drink with no doubt. He almost ran into Z2, forcing Z to jump back and slam into the wall. He glared at him. "Watch where you're going."

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Hey Z, are you out there?" Brian called out from his room having heard them talking. "Come in here."

Z2 entered slowly, coming to stand a few feet away from the desk as he awaited more instructions. Brian shuffled some papers around looking for something in the mess of books, journals, and packets.

"You're gonna help me study," he said, finally finding a stack of notecards hidden under a textbook. "Ok so you read the question on the card and I'll guess the answer which is right below it, see?" Z nodded.

"Wait... can you even read?" He asked suddenly.

"I don't know... I guess," Z said. It was difficult for him to do but this was a direct request from one of his masters. His training waged an internal battle with him. He was supposed to forget all that and not know anything, it was part of keeping him dependent. But Brian asked him for help so he has to try.

"Guess we'll find out, first question."

Z2 sat down on the floor next to the bed and looked at the first question. "Um, who is the leader of the house of re-represent..atives," he stumbled over the last word. An internal block in his head throbbed as he said the words but he forced himself to do it.

"Nancy Pelosi."

"Yes," Z2 flipped to the next card, "How many c-cabinets does the president have?" He asked, brows furrowing in confusion. What does it matter how many cabinets there are in the kitchen...? He looked at the answer and a little note written off to the side trying to make sense of it.

"14."

"This says 15," Z responded, a little afraid to contradict him. "There's a note."

"Okay what does it say?" Brian asked.

"15, including the vice president."

"Right, right.. I forgot. Continue."

"What is the order of the presidential line of... s-sus-se...." Z2 tried to sound out the final word. He was completely at a loss for how it should be pronounced or even what it meant. He glanced up to see that Brian was in fact looking down on him like he was a total idiot.

Z thought he'd been doing pretty well so far but now he just felt like quitting.

"Well what are you waiting for?" He teased. "What's the question?"

"What is the order of-"

"Yeah I got that part," he clipped. "This is bullshit anyway."

Z stared down at the ground in front of him feeling like he'd failed. Can't even read some stupid cards.

Brian twisted back and forth in his wheely chair deep in thought, "I have an idea that could make this a lot more fun," Brian smiled mischievously. "Let's play a game. Every time you get to a word you can't read you take a drink."

The door opened wider and the same guy from earlier poked his head in. "Did I hear the word drink?"

"Were you waiting out there the whole time? God, Jared, you're such an alcoholic." Brian said.

"I just happened to be passing by, but, I think I like the sound of this. I'll go grab my biology homework, he won't last the night." Jared laughed.

Brian rubbed at his face with annoyance before conjuring up a bottle of vodka seemingly out of thin air. He set in down in front of Z2 and unscrewed the cap. "Take a sip for the one you already missed."

Z picked it up reluctantly. He hated it when they made him drink. Bringing the bottle to his lips he made a sour face as the foul liquid splashed his throat.

"You call that a sip?" Brian said, tilting the bottle further. More vodka poured into his mouth and Z had no choice but to drink it. When Brian took his hand off the bottle Z2 set it down quickly. The taste made him want to throw it right back up and the burn spread all the way into his lungs. He was still sputtering when Jared came back with his own study materials.

"Where were we?" Brian asked, nodding towards the notecards.

Z picked them back up hastily, looking for the one he had just read. "Uh, line of su-sess.."

"Line of succession," he corrected, "President, Vice president, speaker of the house, president something something of the senate, then the federal department heads." Brian answered. As he said the answer out loud Z matched it up with the words on the card, not really reading them.

"Hey let's alternate." Jared suggested. Brian didn't look at all happy to share his study buddy, but whatever, alternating questions would just confuse Z2 even more.

"S-sarco… sarc- omer is the..."

Jared made a buzzer noise and slammed a hand down on the floor. "Wrong, drink."

Deep down Z knew that they were doing this on purpose, it didn't really matter if he got it right or wrong. He took a swig of the vodka to get it over with as quickly as possible and continued. There was a brief window of time when the vodka actually made it easier to read. It became more natural, like he was on autopilot. The skills were there… they just weren’t very accessible to him.

"... is the smallest functional unit in what kind of body tissue?"

"Muscle." Jared answered, looking pleased with himself.

This went on for a while until Z2 started having a hard time even seeing the cards. They kept alternating between topics and he found that Brian's questions were a lot easier to read than Jared's. To be fair he was using a bunch of words Z2 had never seen before. Anyone other than a biology student would have a hard time reading them, at best he could sound them out and hope he was right.

Every time he got something wrong they they smiled and laughed at how dumb he was. If he didn't feel so sick Z2 would have drank the vodka willingly just to escape this situation.

He looked back down at the paper swimming in his hands, either the handwriting on these cards was getting sloppier or his vision was getting blurry, probably the latter. He had to open his heavily lidded eyes wide and hold the paper up close to his face. "What is the.. difference between.. mmm" he started to doze off mid sentence. Slurring even the easy parts.

"That counts as a fail, take a drink," Brian said. Z2 eyed the bottle and reached for it with uncoordinated hands. He managed to bring it up to his mouth, taking another sip of the poison. It didn't sting anymore.

Brian and Jared had been sipping on the vodka as well but not nearly as much as they made Z do.

"I really.... don wanna drink no more." Z2 said. He knew it was a risk but he had to say something. The more he was forced to drink, the harder the game got, forcing him to drink anymore. It didn’t take long for things to spiral out of control. The frat boys have made him do things like this before but usually it was with something weaker, like beer. This was straight vodka, hard liquor.

"We went over this already Z2, if you don't help me study I'll fail my class. You don't want to be responsible for that do you?" Brian said.

Z2 was so drunk now that he didn't even pick up on the manipulation behind his twisted logic. All he wanted was to please his masters.

When Alex was ready to take a break from studying he got up from his desk and stretched, just now checking the time. It was 2am, he'd been studying for hours straight. No wonder his brain felt like mush. He paced back and forth at the end of his bed a few times to restore circulation and headed out to find Z2. It was best not to leave him alone for too long, you never knew what the other frat boys might do to him.

"Zee zee?" He called out at the top of the staircase where noise traveled the best. No response. It was possible Dominic was sheltering him in his room. "Hey Dom, is Z in there with you?" He asked.

"No." Dom called out from inside.

Z2 had a number of hiding places in the house Alex could look in but usually he responded when he called him. It was arguably the middle of the night, most guys here considered 2am mid afternoon, but it was possible he was just asleep somewhere. He heard talking from one of the other rooms upstairs.

“Hey have you seen…” Alex started as he walked into the room. His face twisted into anger and disgust once he realized what was going on. He had found Z and the boy was on the floor leaning against the wall, slowly listing to one side. Brian and Jared sat around him surrounded by papers and textbooks somehow oblivious to the fact that Z2 was passed out and pale as a sheet. He hadn’t even perked up at the sound of him entering.

“What the fuck is this?” He demanded.

“We were just… studying,” Jared said with a laugh. “You can take him now if you want, he stopped reading the questions a little while ago.”

Alex forced down the panic welling up inside him at the sight of Z2 slumped against the wall with a nearly empty bottle of vodka at his feet. He probably just fell asleep... “Zee, wake up.” He said, leaning over to pat his face gently but as his hand made contact with the boy’s skin he froze. “Why is he so cold? And clammy? Do you guys even realize how dangerous this is?” Brian and Jared looked at each other and shrugged. “Zee, it’s Alex, open your eyes for me.”

Z2’s head just lolled against the wall giving no indication that he’d heard him. This was bad. If they couldn’t wake him up he might need to go to the hospital but Alex didn’t even know if you could take pets to the hospital. He had to do something, and fast. Alex picked up the boy with ease, carrying him just a few doors down to his own room. Finding his phone on his desk he sent Dominic a frantic text. “My room. Now.” If it was anyone else he would have called an ambulance already or somehow gotten him to the car to take him to the hospital. Alcohol poisoning was no joke. But with Z it wasn’t that simple. It made Alex feel guilty, like deep down he didn’t think Z was worth the trouble.

He got him comfortable on the bed and pulled a blanket up to his shoulders to keep him warm. Then he emptied out the trash can under his desk having a feeling they might be needing it. Dominic skidded into the room a minute later.

“Go get water, and some gatorade!” He ordered. Dominic turned on his heel and rushed to the kitchen.

“Zee zee, you have to stay awake, open your eyes.”

“Hnnnh,” Z groaned.

“Good! Good, now open your eyes,” he told him again. Alex’s voice came to him through a long dark tunnel. He couldn’t really tell what he was saying but some instinct deep inside him compelled him to listen, no matter how difficult. It only felt like a couple seconds but it took him much of the next five minutes to do the simple task of opening his eyes. They were glazed over and unfocused but at least he was somewhat responsive.

Dominic burst through the door again carrying supplies, “Is he okay?”

“No, but he’s waking up a little. If it’s not too late we should try to make him throw up to get some of the alcohol out of his system,” Alex told him.

“Okay how do we do that?” Dom asked,

“Good old-fashioned fingers down the throat I guess. You hold the trash can and get ready.”

Alex sat to one side of him and Dom sat on the other holding the small bin under his chin. Z2 was still very disoriented but he did manage to trail his eyes between the two, making an effort to stay awake despite the warm fuzzy feeling trying to pull him under.

“I’m sorry for this, Zee, but I have to, okay? For your own good,” Alex said. He grimaced then sat him up a little straighter and proceeded to finger the back of his throat. It didn’t take long before Z started gagging from the unpleasant sensation. His body already desperately wanted to throw up but it needed a little help to do it. Dominic made sure he was in a good position the whole time. With gravity on their side there was far less of a chance of him choking.

“There you go, that’s good,” Dom said as he patted Z’s back in a comforting manner. Alex sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “What?”

“Nothing… it’s just. This is such a dangerous place for him you know? These guys do some of the dumbest shit, it’s amazing they’re here to go to college.”

Z2 heaved over the bin until he had nothing left in his stomach to bring up. It was lucky they got to him when they did because if his body hadn’t managed to purge the insane amount of liquor they made him drink he would have just gotten worse and worse.

“How do you feel, Zee? You still with us?” Dom asked.

“Mmm,” Z responded. They both sighed in relief knowing that he was listening now. He shivered under the blanket, trying to nestle further into it.

“No, no, you have to stay sitting up.” Alex said. He grabbed the water and gatorade, opting to start with the water then in a little while he could have some of the gatorade for sugar and electrolytes.

Alex brought the bottle to his lips and told him to drink. To his surprise Z turned his head away and shuddered, “I don’t… want to… no.” He said. A single tear fell from one of his eyes. He must think they were still trying to give him vodka.

“It’s water, you need to drink it,” Dom added. Z blinked a few times, willing his eyes to focus on the two boys in front of him. Seeing that they were his friends he started to drink from the water bottle with blind trust. After only a few swallows though he had to stop. Everything was spinning, he felt overheated, any more than that and he’d just lose it again.

“What happened? Who did this?” Dominic asked, taking the bottle of water from Z and setting on the bedside table.

“Brian and Jared, they made some kind of drinking game out of studying I guess. So stupid,” Alex said.

“Stupid,” Z2 echoed.

“What?”

“Wouldna happ’ned if I wasn’t so dumb.. if I could read better. ‘s my fault,” he choked out.

“It is not your fault.” Alex said firmly. He wasn’t there for it but he had no doubt that once Z was drunk enough not to notice they made him drink for no reason at all. They thought it was funny seeing him like that. They thought it was funny to almost kill a person. “I’m gonna go bash their brains in.”

“What? Hold on,” Dom sputtered after Alex’s sudden change of mood. He wanted to follow him but he also didn’t want to leave Z alone so he just watched as Alex stormed out of the room.

He kicked the door in to Brian’s room. The knob scraped across the doorframe from the unnatural motion. Brian jumped up in surprise. He and Jared were still lazing about in his room, making a passive attempt to study.

“Woah. Someone looks mad.” Jared laughed. Alex crossed the room and knocked Jared onto his back. He didn’t even have the words to yell at him. He ended up just sitting there with Jared pinned under him. His chest heaved and his eyes burned with rage. A look of fear crossed over Jared’s face, finally realizing that he was serious and Alex was probably a few seconds away from strangling him.

“Dude stop, that’s enough,” Brian said, tugging at Alex’s sweatshirt.

“Wait your turn, Brian,” Alex spat. Unable to let this go without some kind of punishment, Alex punched him in the face twice. He could have done a lot more damage but violence wasn’t really in his nature.

“Keep hitting him like that and he’ll lose the only two brain cells he has left,” Dom said suddenly from the doorway. “I don’t think we should risk that. Come on, Zee is asking where you went.

“Oh how swe-” Brian didn’t get the change to finish that remark before Alex got up off of Jared and hit him too on his way out. Brian fell back against his bed frame, holding his jaw protectively, looking dumbfounded at what just happened.

They didn’t waste any more time getting back to Alex’s room. Without someone there talking to him Z could fall asleep and he was still in far too bad of shape to take that risk. Z looked so small in the bed tucked under the blankets. He smiled drunkenly when Alex came back to sit on the edge of his bed.

“You should have some gatorade too, and some saltines later,” he said. Z nodded obediently.

Dom stood off to the side awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, “So uh, I really need to get back to studying. My first exam is in less than six hours.”

“Shit, me too. But I don’t know how I’ll focus now. Someone should watch him for a while longer at least.” Alex said.

Z picked up bits of pieces from their conversation making him feel more and more like a burden. He struggled to sit up, his arms didn’t want to cooperate with him. “I’m okay.”

“You are not okay.” Alex said.

“If only there was someone here who already took their tests…” Someone piped up from the hallway. Cam poked his head in as if to respect his privacy before throwing the door the rest of the way open in a grand display of how little he gives a shit.

“You? Took tests?” Dom said skeptically.

“C’s get degrees,” Cam shrugged. “You guys look pretty busy. I’ll take Zee zee here off your hands.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Alex argued.

“What? You don’t trust me? I’ll make sure he drinks his water and eats his crackers. Don’t worry,” He paused to look right at Z2, “I’ll take good care of him.”

#box boy universe #frathouse boxboy #pet whumpee #Z2 #drinking game #alcohol poisoning #passed out #vomiting #all that fun stuff #not my oc's #but I'd happily adopt Z2 #mild violence

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citrinekay · 5 years ago

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What are you predictions for season 3, and what would you like to see happen? Anything particular in terms of Holden and Bills character development?

Oh, good question! I’ll try to answer this as to what I *realistically* want to happen, not what my fanfiction brain wants lol

Predictions:

The big question mark at the end of S2 is obviously Bill and Nancy’s relationship. I don’t see them reconciling, and I find it far more interesting for them to follow just how a divorce would affect Bill personally and also Brian’s future. I’m sure everything with Brian’s situation would complicate a divorce and custody agreements. I’d also just like to see more development of Brian in general since he represents that foundational aspect of the show which is nature vs. nurture. Are killers born or made? And at what point in a person’s development can an intervention be made to stop them from progressing into something worse? I think him being taken out of that nuclear family environment and thrown into the emotional instability of his parents separating would really increase that pressure. At the same time, this might be a wake-up call for Bill. He might not be able to save his marriage, but it might persuade him to try harder to be a better/ more involved father to Brian. (Not that he doesn’t already love his son, but he openly admits to Nancy in 1x7 that he has trouble connecting emotionally to Brian.)

As far as the BSU is concerned, I think they were really angling towards bringing Jim Barney into the team in S2 so I would love to see more of him! There’s a whole chapter in the Mindhunter book about Agent Jud Ray (who I believe Jim is based on) and how he was one of the first black agent in the department. Wendy’s initial conclusion about his race interfering with the study was obviously proven wrong in the Pierce interview when Jim makes more headway in the conversation than Holden. Atlanta was the big case that really launched the BSU in real life as well, and I imagine they will be much busier between interviews and requests for consults so they’ll need additional help in S3 to keep on track with the study!

Cases I’d like to see them work on the show: The Trailside Killer (irl, John Douglas predicted that the killer would have a severe stutter! That chapter of the Mindhunter book was so fascinating to me because he explains how he got to that conclusion and makes it sound very simple when in reality it takes someone who is extremely skilled at studying behavior to predict such a thing. I can just imagine Holden laying that out in his profile and all the locals going 😮😮😮) Robert Hansen (he abducted prostitutes in Alaska, took them out into the wilderness, and hunted them like wild game with a rifle. The police actually got his name from a victim who survived and it turned into more of a cat-and-mouse game to actually prove he was the real killer rather than a whodunit!) Larry Gene Bell (he killed a young woman named Shari Faye Smith and then proceeded to call her family and torment them for days before revealing that she really was dead.) These are all detailed in the Mindhunter book, which I totally recommend if you like the show and are interested in the psychology of profiling. I would also love to see them at some point get into the Green River Killer, but I think that would come later perhaps in a possible S4 or S5. That was the case during which John Douglas fell ill with encephalitis that nearly killed him and almost ended his career with the FBI. I can see them leading in that direction with Holden’s panic attacks and his disillusionment with his own beliefs/techniques, but I think a gradual build-up towards something so drastic would make it even more interesting!

As far as character development is concerned:

Holden: For him to question his techniques! We see the parallel of the dirty shirtsleeve in the end of 2x9 that hearkens back to 1x1 in which he’s questioning their procedures so I think it’s a natural conclusion that he might be wondering whether he is doing the right things or following the right logic. I would also like for them to go more into the panic disorder storyline (which they completely dropped after like 2x3 😐) Another moment I found interesting from the Mindhunter book was that Douglas was both censured and given a commendation within months of each other for different things that happened with the Atlanta case. He admitted it made him question his role within the FBI and whether or not they actually valued his work - a point which comes up again later with the Green River Killer and his encephalitis. Basically, he was so overworked (almost 150 cases at one time) that he was stressed out to the point of illness. Holden started out with that “blue flamer” mentality and I would love to see that broken down and turned on it’s head a bit. Of course, it goes without saying that I want him and Bill to fix their relationship and be close friends again. I know them arguing is good for tension and drama, but I miss the days when they shared good-natured banter and worked together seamlessly 😞

Bill: like I mentioned above, his family situation is going to be a trial by fire. He’s been married for a long time, and says that he doesn’t know what he would do without Nancy. How would he work through the divorce? How would he adjust to bachelor life? How would the stress of that situation affect him in his work? I can see a lot of repressed feelings, anger, and sadness in his future :( He isn’t one to talk about his personal issues at work or complain when it’s becoming too much. I would love to see his friendship with Wendy continue to be a lifeline to him during a difficult period. And obviously, for him to repair his relationship with Holden.

Wendy: For her to get back with Kay!!! She’s such a pro at studying human behavior, but Kay was right in the break-up scene - Wendy’s issue was with herself, not Kay. She judged Kay for the kind of person she has to be to her ex and her son, but is also keeping her identity as a lesbian separate from her work. She needs to work on herself a little bit before she can revisit that relationship. Even though she was out in Boston, I think she still has issues with her sexual identity that she needs to resolve and find peace with. I’d also like to get more backstory on her. We know virtually nothing about her aside from her past in Boston. It would be pretty cool to see her back in interviews, too. I’m not sure if Ted would be down with that or how it would happen, but I loved the two interviews we got with her. She’s so brilliant, I want to see her in action more often 💕

aughh sorry this got so long!! lol I could literally go on forever, but I’ll stop right here. Thanks for the ask 💕

#I could write a 3k word essay on holden alone lol #mindhunter #Anonymous

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radiosteve · 5 years ago

Text

Need Your Loving Tonight Ch. 12

Summary: You recruit Brian to help make sense of Roger’s strange phone call. A party brings back some old feelings.

Note: This chapter was very Roger heavy, but the next one will have a lot more Deaky. Hope you enjoy! As always, the italicized part is the reader’s thoughts. This photo is one that I found on google. I do not own any rights to it. If you want to be added to the taglist send me a message or an ask and I’ll add you!

Warnings: Language

Pairing: Roger Taylor x Reader, John Deacon x Reader

Words: 3.2k+

November 12, 1972

With your jaw slightly hinged from tension, you grabbed at the telephone resting on the table next to you once more. As you jabbed in the numbers on the dial pad, you huffed out a deep breath and waited for the phone to start ringing. After a long series of rings, you gave in, hanging up the phone in anger. You tried to call Roger back a few times, but you didn’t have much luck in reaching him. So, you did the only other logical thing you could think of. You called Brian.

“Hello?” Brian answered, his voice still groggy from being asleep.

“Brian, it’s me,” your words rushed out in a heap of noise as you tried to bypass the typical formalities of a phone conversation. Brian was gearing up to respond before you quickly cut him off, wasting no time. “Did Roger say anything? Last night, I mean. Did he say anything about me?” Brian tried to wake himself up enough to fully understand what you were asking him.

“Y/n, what are you talking about? What are you so worried about Roger for?” Brian slumped down into a chair that sat by the telephone, resting his chin in his hand.

“It doesn’t matter why; I just need to know. Please Bri,” you whined into the phone before the line was overtaken by silence. Brian was deep in thought, trying to analyze the events of the night before.

He dropped Freddie off first, figuring that it’d be easier to drag Roger up to his apartment by himself. When he came to a stop in front of Roger’s building, Brian put the car in park before shutting off the engine. He leaned back over the center console, shaking Roger awake.

“Mate, we’re at your flat,” Brian spoke gently as Roger sat himself upright and straightened out his jacket.

“Oh yeah. Look at that,” Roger slurred as he peered through the car window, his gaze turned towards his apartment complex. Brian sighed, unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing out of the car. Before Roger could duplicate his actions, Brian swung the car door open and unbuckled Roger’s seatbelt himself. Brian then proceeded to haul Roger out of his car, draping an arm across his shoulders to steady them both as they headed towards the lobby of the building. They’d finally made it up the stairs (Brian did most of the work as Roger dragged along behind him), and to the door of Roger’s flat.

“Keys,” Brian held his hand out for Roger, who slowly came to realize that Brian was talking to him. Roger felt around his pants pockets first before remembering that his keys were tucked away in the inside pocket of his jacket. He then handed the keys to Brian, who opened the door with ease and proceeded to tug Roger in behind him. Roger plopped down on the sofa that rested against the wall opposite of the front door with a dazed look in his eye.

“I’m tired,” Roger spoke as a yawn stretched across his face.

“Maybe you should go to sleep then,” Brian had a slight edge to his tone, still upset from the fact that their drummer decided to get drunk while they were recording. Roger nodded, spreading his arms over the back of the couch as Brian turned towards the door.

“I just wished she loved me man,” Roger’s words flooded the air, making Brian stop dead in his tracks. “That’s why I did it. That’s why I was drinking.”

“Who? Wished who loved you?” Brian turned around, coming closer to Roger once more and crouching down in front of him.

“That,” Roger slurred once more. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that she doesn’t love me. At least not anymore,” his words clung to the stale air of his flat as silence consumed the room. The dull curtains hung from the windows as the moon peaked through behind them. The only source of light came from that shadow of moonlight as Brian studied the shadows of Roger’s face. He tried to gauge just how much truth was really behind Roger’s words. Attempting to judge if this was in fact Roger speaking or if it was more so the alcohol. Brian couldn’t tell yet, so he urged Roger to continue.

“Why? Why doesn’t she love you anymore?” Brian leaned closer, smelling the booze on Roger’s breath as he peered into his blue eyes.

“Because she’s in love with someone else. She’d never admit it to me, maybe not even to you, but I can see it. I can see it everywhere. God, the way she smiles at him is enough to judge it by. But that’s life, isn't it? You fall in love with a girl, a few years go by and then as soon as you finally work up the nerve to tell her, she meets someone else,” Roger scoffed at his own words, sinking into the couch cushion that he rested on.

“Why did you wait? And what makes this girl so special?” Brian’s curiosity got the best of him as he continued to pelt questions at his inebriated friend.

“It just never felt right. I thought she hated me for a while there. But then we talked, and everything felt right. That is until she started getting closer with him,” Roger’s train of thought fumbled for a moment and Brian spoke up.

“What makes her so special, Rog?” Brian repeated his previous question, wanting to know how some girl managed to leave Roger so heartbroken.

“Everything, Bri. Everything. She’s so smart. Smarter than anyone I’ve ever met,” Brian let out a slight scoff at Roger words, but Roger was too caught up and drunk to care. “And she so talented too. I bet she’d be the best at literally anything she tried. Hell, she could probably single handedly master world peace. She’s so supportive and caring too. I mean, she comes to pretty much every show. And not mention how forgiving she is. She’s definitely let me apologize one too many times at this point. And… oh I almost forgot to mention how absolutely gorgeous she is. I mean, no other girl could ever compare to her. Ever. No matter how hard I try, I can never find someone to take her place,” Roger finished talking and a sad smile spread across his face.

“Wow,” Brian spoke, almost amazed at the fact that his friend could feel so strongly about someone. Or even the fact that Roger had managed to keep this secret from him for so long. Roger shook his head, agreeing with whatever sentiment he thought Brian was conveying. “This girl, she comes to our shows?” Brian asked, looking Roger in the eye. Roger nodded, his eyes avoiding Brian’s as best as he could. “Do I know her?” Brian’s words evoked a panic within Roger as he nodded once more. Roger was too drunk and tired to lie at this point.

Brian sat still for a moment, still crouched in front of Roger on the couch. Roger studied his blank expression, hoping he doesn’t figure out who it is that he’s talking about. But it was Brian, of course he would figure it out. It was only another moment or so before Brian sharply inhaled, signaling to Roger that he pieced it all together. Brian gave him a sad smile, patting his knee in the process.

“I’m sorry, Rog. Y/n’s a great girl,” Roger’s head hung sadly as Brian spoke. “But what gives you the impression that she’s in love with someone else?” Brian couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“The way she looks at him, giggles at him, talks to him. All of it,” Roger mumbled under his breath, hiding behind a shield of blonde hair.

“Who?”

“John. John Deacon.”

Brian was pulled back from his memory as he heard you talking on the other end of the phone.

“Brian? Are you still there? What’s going on?” your words broke through the eerie silence and you heard Brian sigh.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m still here. I was just thinking,” Brian sat still, almost shocked at what he remembered from the night before. He always had a sneaking suspicion that Roger liked you, but he never expected it to be at such a grand scale.

“So,” you began, your fingers brought to your lips as you nervously bit at your cuticles. “Did he mention me?”

“Y/n, I really don’t see why this is so important,” Brian attempting to evade your question. It was the best he could do, trying to save his friend.

“Just answer the question and then I’ll explain. I promise,” your words hurriedly fell from your lips in a small fit of rage. It certainly wasn’t the first time you’d ever yelled at Brian, but it definitely seemed to be the most serious occurrence. Brian took a deep breath before shakily releasing it. He knew he couldn’t lie to you and that it would only aggravate you more.

“He did,” Brian’s words hung in the air as you inhaled sharply through your nose. You couldn’t tell if the feeling that washed over you was relief or guilt.

“What did he say?” you pressed, your teeth still chewing on the skin surrounding your fingernail. Brian spoke in a poor attempt to conceal Roger’s words, but you quickly cut him off. “Brian, I need to know. Please.”

“He said,” a shiver ran up Brian’s spine, feeling awful for revealing his friend’s drunken secret. “He said that he’s in love with you,” you stopped breathing as soon as you heard it. Your heart ceased to pound in your chest and every last drop of blood in your veins stopped pumping. These were the words you dreaded, but also craved. The sentence that you longed to hear a year and a half ago, but now only filled your chest with pain. You sat slumped against your couch cushion as your lungs desperately heaved for air. But you couldn’t will yourself to breathe. Because if you inhaled and let the oxygen spread throughout your wheezing esophagus, then you would have to speak. To acknowledge the words that Brian just uttered through the phone. “Y/n, please say something,” Brian’s words bounced around the line as your vision started to grow fuzzy.

“I-I,” you opened your mouth to speak and reluctantly let your lungs fill. “I don’t know what to say,” you felt stupid, like you should have known it all along. “How long?”

“He didn’t really say in so many words. I mean, he was drunk. But my guess is since you two slept together,” Brian rubbed his forehead with his hand, feeling a mass of guilt swarm within him. You started to continue talking but Brian stopped you before you could. “No more questions. Not until you tell me why you care so much about this all of a sudden,” Brian’s tone was strict and unmovable, so you gave in and told him everything. You explained Roger’s flirting in the studio last night and his strange phone call this morning, hoping to shed a little light on the whole situation.

“I just can’t help but think that this is all too much too fast,” you breathed out, pulling your finger from your lips as you awaited Brian’s response.

“About that, he mentioned something else last night too,” your body arched forward, almost eager to hear what Brian was going to say. “He said that he thinks you’re in love with John,” Brian paused, almost hoping you would quickly deny the accusation, helping him spare himself from more guilt. But instead he was met with silence, which only worried him more. “Y/n?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” you whispered out, overcome with shock. “I’ve thought about it and I can’t tell if I love him or not. I certainly like him, but love is a strong word Brian,” you laid with your head pressed against the armrest of the sofa, suddenly feeling drained. “It’s like I said, this is all too much too fast,” the words barely escaped your lips as you struggled to speak, slightly overwhelmed by your emotions.

“And how do you feel about Roger?”

“I don’t know, this is all too much too fast,” you repeated as you hung up the phone and closed your eyes.

December 20, 1972

Queen had just finished up their last show of the year before deciding to head over to some big party. They were joined by you, Sally, and a load of moderately drunk 20-something year olds. Many people wore Christmas themed attire in preparation for the upcoming holiday. You dodged an array of Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling as you stumbled through the door of the party. Sally grabbed your hand and dragged you to a table lined with bottles of alcohol. The two of you poured your drinks before hurrying off to find the boys. You quickly ran into Brian and John on the outskirts of the room but couldn’t find Roger or Freddie anywhere.

Ever since he called you on that morning in November, Roger had purposely been avoiding you. Of course, he saw you when you came to see them play onstage or record in the studio, but he never let you get him alone. Roger always made up some lame excuse to get out of going somewhere with you and you just couldn’t take it at this point. It was infuriating and the tension between the two of you only grew with each passing day.

“What are you drinking?” John shouted over the music blaring in the background. It wasn’t until then that you realized that you cup was empty.

“Oh, it was just some raspberry vodka and lemonade,” you leaned in so that he could hear you better and his hair brushed your cheek. John then snatched the cup from your hands and walked over to the table filled with alcohol. You, Brian, Sally, and John had been talking for over an hour, but you had barely realized it. Your head was too scattered to focus on the conversation happening in front of you. John returned, handing you your cup and you proceeded to drink it quickly, wanting to feel a little numb. It was then that you saw Roger emerge through a bedroom doorway. A short brunette followed behind him, pulling at the hem of her short skirt while running a hand through her tangled hair. You rolled your eyes before they landed on Roger’s and you saw, for a brief moment, the sadness and pain behind them.

“Rog,” you called out, trying to push your way through the crowd of bodies that filled the room. His eyes stayed locked on yours before he quickly started moving away from you. You tried desperately to follow him, but the people surrounding you made it rather difficult. Finally, you managed to catch up to Roger and you stopped just before him and looked up.

“Oh, hi Y/n. Fred and I were just discussing some party games. Right Freddie?” Roger spoke with a fake smile plastered across his cheeks. Freddie, slightly drunk and confused, let out an excited cheer.

“Oh yes, darling. What fun,” he stormed through the crowd before stepping onto a table near the center of the room. You glanced over at Brian who was shooting you a nervous glare in return. “Listen up everyone!” Freddie shouted towards the crowd, his voice booming over the music as everyone quieted down. “It’s time for a little game called spin the bottle,” Freddie peered over at you with a devilish grin and you felt a knot form in your stomach. You, Sally, Brian, John, Freddie, Roger, and a few other party goers sat in circle as the rest of the party raged on in a separate room. A couple of girls that joined the game all giggled and you looked over at Sally.

“You do realize that you might end up having to kiss a guy, right?” you whispered, making sure that only she could hear.

“Oh, I’m well aware. But if doing this gets me any closer to one of those girls over there, then I’m willing to take that chance,” she flashed the girls a small smile and they continued to laugh. You just quirked your eyebrows before returning your attention to Freddie, who had elected to lead the childish game.

“I still don’t get why we’re playing this. I mean, what are we? Twelve?” you spoke as everyone passed the bottle around, trying to empty it so the game could begin. John laughed at your words from where he sat next to Brian.

“I second that. This is a stupid idea,” Brian raised his hand slightly as the bottle of vodka landed in your lap. You looked at it for a second before you raised it to your lips, consuming the last few sips from the bottle. Almost everyone in the circle cheered as you handed it back to Freddie.

“Oh, hush Brian. Let the game begin,” Freddie said as he set the bottle on the ground, swirling it perfectly so that it spun around the circle. The game went on for a few rounds. Sally landed on one of the giggle girls and she happily leaned over to kiss her. You had almost zoned out for a bit until you heard shouts of your name.

“What?” you called out before looking down to see the bottle pointed directly at you. Your gaze trailed up from the ground and landed on Roger. He came closer to you and it took a second for you to realize that it was him. He was the one who had just spun. Your eyes widened before he stopped right in front of you.

“Are you ok with this?” he muttered lowly so that only you could hear him. You nodded your head gently as your mind ran a mile a minute. Roger saw your little nod and leaned in closer to you. His lips brushed yours roughly and you were brought back to that night in May. It was all too familiar, but also completely different. Instead of relief and passion, you were overcome by guilt and pity. Roger was in love with you and you didn’t know if you felt the same. After a few seconds Roger pulled away, a line of spit connecting your lips with his. He seemed dazed and blissful, but you just felt anxious. You sat still for a few more seconds as Roger crawled back to his spot in the circle. You stared blankly at the bottle before you felt Sally nudge you.

“It’s your turn to spin. Come on,” you looked down at the bottle once more as your hand slowly snaked out to grab it

“Flick of the wrist, darling,” Freddie gave you a reassuring smile as you spun the bottle. You closed your eyes, overcome by the mass of emotions that Roger’s kiss brought back. Your eyes reopened to see the bottle slow down before coming to a stop. Slowly, you trailed your gaze up, trying to see who it landed on. You recognized the long, wavy brown hair immediately and you felt your heart flutter. The bottle landed on John. And now you had to kiss him.

Taglist: @Retromusicsalad @bohemiansweede @Deaconsroger @queen-crue @ohtheseboysilove @Queeniesteiins @Kemeryyyy @onceuponadetectivedemigod @ixchel-9275 @rogmeddows @ziggymay @deakysmisfire @rogertaylorsfalsettogivesmehives @briarrose26 @greatdinosaursalad @queendeakyy

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crimsonbluemoon · 6 years ago

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Ooh this is my first time doing this >~

Nope, you did this fine! ^.^ Sorry it’s taking me so long, I wasn’t expecting to get so many and then Libahunt kind of takes up a lot of time. But I’m getting through em!

So I think you mean the Cop AU I started with the boys? If not, sorry! But this is based off of that.

13) “You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, cause guess what? It did!” 23) “We’ll get through this, I promise” Terrormoo Cop AU

Also this one is long, so I’m putting a read below

“What the hell was that out there?” Brock rarely raised his voiced, even when he was upset with his friends. He knew that speaking in cool and calm words was the best way to communicate, and as someone who negotiated lives as a living, he understood that yelling would only wind up the anger in the room more. But his logic was the last thing on his mind when he stared down Brian, who wouldn’t meet his eyes while he stared down at the gun he’d laid down on the desk in the empty office.

“Wildcat said it was a good shooting.”

“I don’t care what Tyler said; you shot a teenager.” The words were hard to get out, and he hated the bile that surged through his stomach. It was sickening to think of, and though he knew Brian wasn’t a bad person, the lack of guilt in his body language was sickening. “How can you not understand the gravity of your decision? You took a child’s-”

“He murdered six people!” Brian bit out, fire blazing through his eyes when finally raising it to meet Brock’s. “He wasn’t going to stop, he wasn’t going to just give himself up because you talk sweet to him and offer to hold his hand to the station. He slit his own brother’s throat without remorse, taunted me for months with gruesome murders, and had a knife to another woman’s throat; do you think I was going to let him touch you?”

“I know this case was personal to you,” Brock replied, remembering the calls from the killer long before they’d know just how young he was.

“He was a monster.” And he was; the details he had spoken into the prescient's answering service, the way he teased Brian about not being able to stop him, had been nightmare fuel for some of Brock’s hard nights. The photos of the crime scenes were no better, the killer seeming to enjoy using painful means to end the innocent’s lives. And the final call, the one that Brock hadn’t been able to hear because he was already on route to negotiate a ‘hostage situation’ which had been the Downtown killer himself, had been enough for Brian to kill the young man without a second thought.

“And I know that. But this is my job, Brian; I talk people down, whether they’re the nicest people in the world or the evilest men alive. There had been a hostage there who could have been killed and that would have been on us. I negotiate, that’s the only thing I’m here for, but you keep taking it away from me every time you get a hint of anything being slightly dangerous!” Brock let the statement float in the air before covering his forehead with his hand, running it down his face to try and calm his trembling body. “If you don’t think we can work together after what happened-”

“We’re not talking about that.”

“Well we have to, or I’m going to have to...” Brock hesitated to finish the statement, and Brian’s glare turned sharp.

“What? You gonna focking leave the precinct?”

“If it gets you to talk to me!” Brock’s answer was loud, bouncing off the walls of the old office and smashing hard into Brian’s stunned chest. Brock’s heart clenched at the pain that crossed the other’s face. He hated hurting people he cared for, hated making Brian sad, but he couldn’t bite his lip again. Not when lives were being put at stake. “You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, cause guess what? It did! And I’m sorry if you regret it, and you’re trying to forget about it, but it did.”

“How could I...” Finally, a tension in Brian’s shoulders snapped, and he dropped his hands onto the desk in front of him to support the weight of his slouched body. Brock was confused at the sudden shift, unsure how to take in the guilty glare Brian was giving to the desk in front of him. “How could I forgot you and that night when it’s all I ever think about?”

“Then why don’t you trust me anymore?” Brock asked quietly, unsure if he could approach without breaking the strained tension between them. Needing to hear whatever Brian was holding back, he took a slow step forward, letting his hand rest on the desk next to Brian’s. “You need to tell me. We’ll get through this, I promise, but you have to let me in.”

“...You weren’t on that last radio call.” Brian’s teeth clenched hard enough for Brock to feel, and his anger dissolved instantly at the agony rumbling in Brian’s voice. “He knew you, knew us, knew- you didn’t hear the details he gave me about what he wanted to do to you. How he was going to make your torture the worst, how he was going to make you scream for me to save you. He set that whole plan up; the bank, the hostage, the request for a negotiator, everything. he was waiting for you to let your guard down so he could kidnap you in front of me. Told me his whole plan on how he’d escape the bank with you, knowing I’d be helpless to stop it unless I put a bullet in his head and became a monster myself. I had to kill a child in front of you to save you, and he knew that.”

“Brian, I didn’t...” Brock hadn’t known, despite yelling at Brian for what he’d done, the gravity of the situation he’d been in. And he’d played into the killer’s hands, throwing threats and anger at him after seeing the lifeless form of the teenager fall by his feet at Brian’s hands. Guilt swelled inside of him, blackening parts of his soul at the sympathy he’d felt for the boy. Brian forced out a sharp breath before he nodded, seeming to understand Brock without words.

“The point is, you were put in danger, became a target for this focking piece of shit, because of my feelings and that one night I let myself have you.”

“How did he...how could he know about that? We were alone, I haven’t- I didn’t tell anyone.” Brock had kept the information to himself, guarding it even with his closest friends.

“I did.” Brian’s hand tightened into a fist next to the papers, crinkling them in without thought. “I told the chief one night when we went out to dinner, before I knew this creep was stalking the precinct.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want it to come out later and you get blamed for what I did. If Wildcat was gonna fire anyone, it shoulda been me. So I told him, and he yelled at me, gave me a weird blessing and said we could do whatever the fock we wanted if it didn’t interfere with our work. Don’t know why even bothered; half the focking station is shacking up like horny teenagers.” Brian tried to divert the conversation, but Brock picked up on the important details.

“Why would Tyler give us his blessing for having...for doing what we did?”

“Because I was drunk and stupid and hopeful that it wasn’t just that. It was a moment of stupidity and weakness and Nogla probably infected me with his idiocracy-” But Brock ignored all of the negative words when he moved forward, hands sliding to capture the face that flinched away at his gentle touch.

“You told me to forget, to pretend it didn’t happen,” he whispered, his own tears blurring his vision at how broken Brian’s scoff sounded murmured against his palm.

“Yeah, well I’ve always been a selfish bastard, haven’t I?” The bitter smile was reminiscent of the one he gave that night, but Brock refused to let Brian leave the same way he had before.

“I love you.” The words he’d been refused before pushed through his lips without hesitation, talking louder when he saw Brian’s own mouth start to part. “I love you, Brian, and I don’t want to be away from you anymore.”

“Brock...”

“I love you.”

“I said we can’t-” But he pressed a kiss to Brian’s trembling mouth, silencing him. He continued to murmur the proclamation between pecks that slowly turned deeper as Brian’s resistance wavered and faded with each connection between them.

“I love you.” When he pressed his thumb to the edge of Brian’s lips and looked up at him, he noticed the thinnest of hesitation still shimmering in the blue gaze. So he swallowed, still hopeful when he spoke. “I love you. Nobody, not even you, will take this feeling away from me. I’ve laid my cards out for you, you know what I have. I know the danger, the price I may pay, the stakes, but I’m all in. And now it’s your move. So what’s it going to be?”

And like an earthquake, Brian caved.

Arms crushed Brock against Brian while he fully returned the affection Brock had showered on him in one kiss. The lips were full of need when they pressed closer, desperate to taste every inch of Brock’s mouth when lifting Brock’s thighs to perch him onto the desk. The fear of death lingered in the air, as if reminding both of them of how close they’d been to losing this chance. Brock’s hands wrapped around the sturdy neck in front of him, heart hammering with excitement as his affection was received and given back twice as strong. Air felt secondary to the need of Brian’s touch, his breath against Brock’s lips, the words skimmed across his jawline and whispered into his ear when hands clutched tightly to Brock’s hips. Brock didn’t fight the touches, sinking into Brian’s waves of love and letting them suffocate him.

He would die for Brian without hesitation, but he wanted to live for him more.

#Crimson drabblez #Soft boys #Terrormoo #I don't know what just happened #BBS Cop AU #Terroriser #Moo Snuckle #<3 #seraphimleclara

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death---dealer · 6 years ago

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hey for angsty hot takes....how the boys react to u breaking up with them?

I ask why you do this but i actually LOVE writing angst so i can’t complain LOL

Roger. Initial anger rushes over him as the words fall from your mouth. “We’re breaking up” was surely something he never imagined you saying to him. In fact, he’d never had someone say that to him before and it caused a moment of pure silence. Of course, you had your fights. Every couple did, Roger thought and tilted his head to the side. You’d fight and then make-up like clockwork. But, this time around, something was unfixable. Roger needed to think fast. What was it? Something between the two of you snapped like a twig and Roger could not pinpoint what it was. Perhaps, everything just snowballed to the inevitable moment the two of you were in. His face was completely bleak of any emotion as the phrase saunters into his ears over and over again, one of his hands raising in question. He can’t speak. He almost feels numb. It finally clicks inside of his head as he takes a step towards you out of desperation, a small ‘please’ exploding carelessly from him as he reaches for you. You take a step back, already on the verge of tears. “Don’t touch me.”Roger just looks at you with deep blue eyes, pleading for some sort of third, fourth, fifth chance. Any sort of signal that you were just joking around and were actually willing to give him another chance. “Whatever happened... I can... We can work on it, we can work it out. We always do.” There are cracks in his voice, sentences aren’t coming out in whole sounds anymore. “We’ve tried.” You whisper to him, wiping your cheeks. “We’ve tried over and over again, Roger. I can’t do this anymore...”“I need you.” Is the last thing he can push out.“And I needed you but you weren’t there.”

(After). Probably feels very desolate. Alone. He knows deep down that he’s always got Freddie, John, and Brian but they can’t replace the piece of him that you sauntered around with. It’s a bitter reminder when he wakes up in the middle of the night and instinctively reaches for you, only to feel nothing but the cold air. He balls his hands into fists, grabbing hold of the sheets and tugging at them rather viciously. Roger gets angry at himself more often than not. Beats himself up for letting you go so easily when you were the only person he loved more than anything else. He should have fought, he should have tried, he should have told you that he loved you one more time. There were a lot of ‘should have’s’ that ended terribly. Roger lashes out at the other Queen members, especially the days and few weeks after the breakup, and it takes them a while to actually figure out what happened because he refuses to talk about it. Brian finally put two and two together when you were brought up in a conversation(Brian mentioned how you were never around anymore) and Roger just up and left the room without a word, wandering off to find some place he could boil in misery for a few minutes by himself.

John. Too self aware at this point in his life to know that your relationship was as perfect as it seemed. There were problems that he was admittedly too afraid to bring up so they bubble to the point where they’re unsolvable. He’s been gone for months with Queen, he’ll drink heavily on tour and occasionally lash out, and he tended to keep things to himself without conferring to you, something that you thought he’d grow out of but he hadn’t in your years of being together. Somewhere deep inside of his mind, John knew that you were going to break up and he tried to convince himself that it was going to be a two-sided decision. But, from the look in your eyes, it wasn’t even a choice you wanted to make. But, things were so far gone that breaking up was the sensible and less hurtful thing to do. Gently, your fingers lace with his as you tell him, “It’s for the best we break up.”That was a fact but it didn’t make it any less painful. You were just ripping off a band-aid. “I... Can’t imagine... Not being with you, we’ve...”“Been together so long,” You finished his sentence and sniffled softly, “we’ll still be friends. I promise, we’ve always been friends.”“Then don’t leave me,” John looked at you with puppy dog eyes, grasping the side of your face and letting his thumb brush away one of your tears. Sniffling once more, you tucked back a piece of his brown hair and finally locked eyes with him. “stay with me.”“We’re both going to get more hurt that way, John. This,” You forced yourself to push him away from you, “this is for the best... It may not seem like it right now but it is...” You were right.... But god, it hurt that you were.

(After). The only person he really confides with about breaking up is Freddie. John had always trusted him and he didn’t know who else to talk to about it. It’s barely even a conversation, it’s just the two of them sitting in Freddie’s kitchen, a glass of Vodka between the two of them as they take sips from tea cups. John had explained everything that happened and Freddie was simply processing. The bassist was good at covering what his true intentions and feelings were so it was hard to get a read, but, it was obvious something was off as Freddie reached forward and put a reassuring hand on John’s knee. He didn’t know what to actually say. Something happy? Something truthful? Something that John needed to hear, he thought to himself, “I know you love them,” Simply put, “and call me a damned romantic but... Give it time, Deaky. Maybe you’ll both heal from this and find yourselves back together. I’ve told you time and time again, you two are soulmates, I can see it in the way you look at each other.”He needed that false sense of optimism.

Brian. The two of you had been drifting apart for what felt like years at this point, though, it was recent. Within the last few months, you noticed but it wasn’t until today that you thought it was worth bringing up. You look at him from across the table, the words on the tip of your tongue. Better now than never, “Bri?”“Hm?” He murmurs from behind his newspaper. “I have a question. More of an observation, really.”“Yeah?” The curly haired man sat the newspaper down as you shifted in your seat.“Have you noticed how things aren’t...” You shrugged your shoulders and sighed gently. There was never any easy way to bring this up, “The same between us anymore?” His heart drops a bit as he tilts his head to the side. Despite the surprise of the topic of conversation, Brian understood what you were talking about as it was something similar to what he was experiencing. “Like, that fire we had when we first started dating...”“Just gone?” He suggested and leaned towards you a bit.You nodded wordlessly, looking at him through wide, melancholy eyes. “It’s been this way since I got back from tour.” Brian admitted. “I didn’t know what it was, I thought maybe it was just all the time we spent apart. Months.”“Months.” You repeated. “but, I don’t think it’s that. Something’s different... I feel it, I think you do and I don’t think it’s fair to either of us to go on pretending like this.” You gestured between the two of your bodies and watched Brian shut his eyes. Despite your initial feelings, he felt like crying. The two of you had given your lives to one another for years and given so much to the relationship that at this point, it felt like it was all for nothing. But, maybe it wasn’t as you whispered, “Maybe we just need some time apart to sort things out...”

(After). Spends most of his time writing and composing songs that are ultimately not what he envisioned. It’s almost like his muse was gone but there was a logical voice in the back of his mind telling him that things will eventually get better. You’re still in his life as a friend, he still sees you once and a while when you hang out with John, Roger and Freddie. But, there’s a lingering sensation that toys with the concept of his logistics. He didn’t know if he still loved you or just loved the idea of being with someone to make his loneliness more bearable. He’s confused and very irritable after breaking up as Brian tries desperately to sort through everything, putting his emotions in files and trying to decipher their actual meanings. He doesn’t really talk to anyone about it, he likes to keep this sort of thing private though Roger had picked up on the breakup when the two of you were across the room from one another when you came to visit them at the studio. Roger didn’t press Brian for details, but, from body language, it was obvious that the two of you had broken up. Brian knows that Roger knows which makes it all the more annoying.

#Roger Taylor #John Deacon #Brian May #Roger Taylor x reader #John Deacon x reader #Brian may x reader #Bohemian Rhapsody #Bohemian rhapsody imagine #queen #queen imagine #emmy writes #fanfiction #fanfic #Anonymous

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bohemian-napsodyy · 6 years ago

Text

Somebody Else is All You Need

Request: Hi! Could I request some rami x reader fabulousness? Not gonna lie I kinda want it to be angsty but if you don’t wanna do that, it’s fine. You can do whatever you want (I just really want angst right now) love your writing :) xx -- requested by @lara-ludbey

Read part two here!

Word Count: 3.5k hooooo boyyy

Warnings: mentions of social anxiety at a party -- there’s also quite a few heavy feelings (anger and loneliness for the most part) in this one, so please be aware of that as you’re reading if you’re on the sensitive side. 💜

A/N: sorry folks, i got super, super carried away with a backstory i really hope i don’t lose you before the end

also when i said i thrive on angst...

i wasn’t lying so please make sure your seatbelts are strapped tight before the flight thank you

You referred to Bohemian Rhapsody as both a blessing and a curse.

More specifically, it was a blessing for Rami. But a curse for you.

You knew fully well when you started dating that the both of you would have to make the distance work somehow, when Rami flew off to another state or even another country for months at a time to film.

You made sure to Skype each other at least once every other day while Rami was away filming. Sometimes you’d stay up till three or four in the morning talking about everything and nothing, while other times both of you would fall asleep until someone woke up briefly and noticed the video call was still going.

It was really hard sometimes, going to sleep with nothing but an empty space beside you. You managed — you might have been practically counting the hours until Rami came home most of the time — but you managed.

The events of Bohemian Rhapsody, however, proved to be a twist in your tale.

You texted Rami often while he was in London, asking to Skype with you only to have him apologize and reply that he was too tired. You understood, of course. You couldn’t even imagine how much energy it must have taken to be goddamn Freddie Mercury all day, and almost every day. Rami was so strong. You admired his perseverance and dedication to becoming such a complex character.

But as the third month without Rami approached, you noticed something was off.

You were always the one who had to ask to Skype. He never did anymore. Most of the time, you wouldn’t even get as far as Skyping. He was either ‘too tired, babe,’ or ‘super busy, so sorry love!’

His texts were shorter.

You had no clue how his day had been. You weren’t even sure if Brian and Roger were still a part of the film, because Rami never brought them up at all like before. He had been beyond ecstatic when he first Skyped you from London, beaming like a little kid as he told you about his first day with ‘Brian fucking May, Y/N! And Roger Taylor, oh my god!’ there to help everyone out.

But now... you didn’t even know what scenes they were filming anymore. Maybe they had already wrapped, for all you knew. Rami seemed to be very reluctant to tell you anything anymore.

It was like he became a completely different person overnight.

You wanted to ask him what was going on. You desperately wanted to reach through your computer screen and shake Rami’s shoulders, hard, until he snapped out of whatever trance it was that London or Bohemian Rhapsody or Freddie himself had put him in.

But you were too scared. Some part of you thought that maybe you were imagining it all. Maybe it was the distance between the two of you making you overthink things. So you put up a wall, convinced yourself that everything was fine. Rami was going to be back before you knew it, and you’d be able to talk for hours in person about the entire Bohemian Rhapsody experience.

Yeah, that was it, you thought to yourself as you received yet another decline on his end to Skype. Maybe he’s just saving all his stories for when he gets home.

That little glass sliver of anxiety in the back of your mind never went away. And oftentimes, when you gazed at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, you could almost see it lurking behind your eyes if you concentrated long enough.

Rami had been home for a while now. Almost a whole year, in fact. And during that time, all the previous wrinkles had been shaken out and everything had fallen back into place. His weird behaviour was gone just like that, and he never mentioned a thing either.

Rami was back to his old affectionate, caring self. For a long while, in fact, you forgot all about the way he acted strange while in London.

Until the moment he suggested you accompany him to the Bohemian Rhapsody cast party, that is.

“Please, Y/N.” Rami begged when he noticed your spine stiffen as soon as he mentioned the film. “I know how much you hate going to parties, but I really think you should come. The people are really nice, I promise. And I know Joe, Gwilym, and Ben would love to meet you.”

Your strong dislike of attending events filled with superficial actors was only part of why you reacted so strongly to your boyfriend’s words -- the other half had to do with the fact that this was the first time almost anything relating to Bohemian Rhapsody had been brought up since The London Incident.

You were afraid something (you weren’t sure what, but something) was going to happen to Rami just like when he was in London.

You were scared he’d shut off, and shut you out again.

“Please, babe.” Rami whispered, reaching over and taking your hand. “Just this once. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

You sighed as Rami brought your hand up to his lips and kissed your knuckles gently, silently pleading with you to agree upon going.

Finally, and rather hesitantly, you nodded.

“I’ll go.” You answered. “But please don’t leave me for a long time by myself, okay?”

Rami let out a faint laugh of relief, and immediately pulled you into a hug. His arms were wrapped so tightly around you, you almost had trouble breathing.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He whispered, one hand caressing your hair and pressing you gently further into him. “We’re going to have so much fun, you’ll see.”

You found yourself gripping your boyfriend’s hand much too tightly in the car on the way there, earning a concerned glance from him.

“Hey,” Rami whispered quietly. “It’s going to be okay. These are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

“Could I stick with you?” You asked meekly. You weren’t sure if it was because of your nervousness around crowds, or if you wanted to try and prove to yourself that you had been imagining the events of London.

“Babe, you don’t even need to ask. Of course I’ll stay by your side. I promise.”

You only managed a nod in reply as the car pulled over in front of the venue. Before you could react, Rami had already gotten out and opened your door for you. You smiled a quick thank you as the two of you headed inside.

Rami had mentioned Joe, Gwilym, and Ben, but he never brought up just how many people were attending tonight. You knew what they looked like, but going by how many people were here, you’d be wandering around the entire night trying to find even one of the three of them. Maybe it would be best to just linger by the bar until Rami introduced you.

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” you told him after tapping his shoulder gently. “Would you like anything?”

He smiled, pulling you into a quick embrace and kissing your cheek. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, don’t worry.”

Sighing with relief, you nodded and returned his hug before grabbing a seat at the bar.

Nearly twenty minutes had gone by, and there was still no sign of Rami. You had already finished one drink, and judging by the amount of people that were still making their way into the venue, you were seriously contemplating ordering a second or third.

You glanced over your shoulder briefly, searching around for any sign of Rami, or even one of his other cast members. All you wanted was to see a familiar face, and that would be enough to cool your anxiety for now. But there were too many people roaming about. Trying to spot Rami in the crowd was like playing a nightmare of a Where’s Waldo game.

You had hit the forty minute mark now. Your heart hadn’t beat this fast since the day you thought it was a good idea to drink four cups of coffee and barely anything else to get you through the day.

Only this time, caffeine hadn’t been in your day at all.

You inhaled sharply, your mind spinning in circles as you tried to justify whether or not trying to find Rami was a good enough excuse to leave the safe little corner you had made yourself at the bar.

He said he would come back for you shortly. That was now over an hour ago.

Just that thought alone (and maybe the alcohol, too) was enough to get you to hop off your barstool and dive into the crowd before the logical part of your brain could convince you otherwise.

Where was he?

People were bumping into you every few seconds. Some said a half-assed apology that never hit their eyes, others glared at you as if it was your fault. You hadn’t even said anything to anyone and you were already hating this party.

Were you going in circles? You didn’t know. How big was this venue anyway? The people never seemed to end.

As you fought to push through a particularly dense crowd, you could’ve sworn the stretch of people was getting longer. Your head spun for a split second.

Oh god.

Your anxiety was getting really bad now. You just wanted to get out. It didn’t matter where you went as long as it wasn’t here.

Where the fuck was Rami?

Someone bumped into you, hard, and you glanced up in shock to find a somewhat familiar face looking back down at you. You thought he looked like one of the cast members, but it had been a while since Rami had last shown you a photo of the others.

“I’m so sorry- oh! You’re Rami’s girlfriend aren’t you?”

You nodded absentmindedly as you went through the three names you knew. You were trying to figure out if this guy looked more like a Ben, Joe, or Gwilym.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized once more. “Could you remind me again what your name is?”

“Y/N.” You managed. You were still distracted, your eyes darting around hoping to find even a glimpse of Rami. If you had just bumped into one of the cast members, surely he wouldn’t be far?

“Nice to meet you, Y/N, I’m Gwilym.”

Oh. So you were talking to the Brian May guy, you noted briefly before your thoughts became a scrambled mess again. What if Rami had just up and left the party? What if you’ve been alone this entire time? You knew he’d never do that, but after his weird behaviour in London--

“Are you alright? You don’t look very well.”

You inhaled sharply, feeling the too-familiar sting of tears begin to itch in your eyes. You weren’t going to cry. Not here. Not in front of Gwilym.

“H-have you seen Rami?” You managed to gasp out. “I-I’ve been looking for him for a while, now.”

Something in Gwilym’s face softened, and he placed a hand comfortingly on your shoulder.

“Parties aren’t your thing?” He whispered, even though it was near impossible to hear him through the music. You could only shake your head, which earned a smile from Gwilym.

“I understand. They sometimes make me a bit uncomfortable too.”

You bit your lip, only trusting yourself to nod once more in fear of the tears coming out again.

“I think Rami might still with us all in the back. Come on, we can look for him together.”

You followed Gwilym silently, his words playing over and over in your head. ‘Still with us all’? Did he mean Rami had been with his cast members this entire time?

Gravity seemed to pull harder on your limbs as you wondered if he had truly forgotten about you.

“I found us all a new friend!” you heard Gwilym announce. As you approached, you saw everyone sitting together on a couch, drinks in hand, laughing as if someone had just told the funniest joke in the world. Your breath was knocked out of your lungs when you saw Rami. And he wasn’t alone.

There was a girl with blonde hair sitting beside him on the couch. Her eyes crinkled with laughter as Rami whispered something in her ear, still oblivious to your presence. She was leaning into him like he was the couch itself, and you felt absolutely sick to your stomach when your gaze trailed to the arm he had tightly wrapped around her waist.

His eyes found yours right then, and you could see the alarm and fear that filled them for a split second before dissipating away.

You vaguely registered a couple people around you say hello, but you didn’t acknowledge them. All you could focus on was Rami.

Rami and her.

Who even was she? You wondered. You scanned the rest of the couch and saw Ben and Joe, but you couldn’t recall Rami ever mentioning, or even showing you a photo of, the girl he was with.

Was she the reason why he had been so secretive in London?

“Y/N,” Rami finally said. You noticed how his arm still lingered around the girl, as if he forgot he had pulled her close in the first place. “I was looking all over for you. Where were you?”

‘Looking all over for you’, my ass, you thought bitterly to yourself. It looked like Rami hadn’t even left his spot on the couch since both of you arrived at the party.

“I was right where I said I would be.” You managed to spit out. Gwilym glanced at you, then to Rami, then back to you nervously. He could see what was going on. He looked just as confused as you felt.

“Uh, this is, um,” Rami stuttered, running his free hand through his hair. “This is Lucy.”

She smiled at you, much too friendly for your liking.

“Hi Y/N,” Lucy greeted you warmly. “It’s lovely to meet you. Rami said you’re a friend?”

Oh no he didn’t.

You were bristling with anger now. Or maybe you were actually shaking, at this point you couldn’t tell. Everything you were feeling seemed to blend together and form one ultimate goal:

Get the absolute fuck out of here.

You forced yourself to nod. “Nice to meet you.” You managed through clenched teeth. You locked eyes with Gwilym for a split second, and that’s when you broke.

Tears began to spill down your cheeks and you spun on your heel quickly so that no one else would see how fragile you were. You heard Rami call your name, but you didn’t care. You just had to leave. This was a bad dream, this was all just a bad dream.

So why hadn’t you woken up yet?

You flagged down a cab as soon as you got outside. As you stared at the venue from the window, you were almost expecting Rami to come running out after you. You were hoping he would try and stop you, yank open the taxi door and beg you to stay. You’d be angry, definitely, but you’d stay for him.

But you never saw him near the entrance as your taxi drove away. You never saw him at all.

It was after you had gotten changed into more comfortable clothes and taken off your makeup that you finally decided to reply to the twenty-plus texts Rami had been sending you relentlessly. His messages begged you to come back at first, but they gradually transitioned to demanding where you were. He was afraid.

You felt bad for leaving him hanging, but then you remembered how you felt at the party.

It was only when he sent you a rather long text, expressing just how afraid he was for you, claiming he had been searching the entire venue for half an hour now and still couldn’t find you, that you decided to reply with three words:

I’m at home, you typed quickly before turning your phone on silent and burrowing under your blanket on the couch. Your phone lit up as Rami sent a series more of texts your way, but you ignored him once more. You didn’t have the energy to reply any further.

An hour later, you heard the door unlock. You kept your gaze fixed on the TV screen in front of you. Everything felt heavy. You just wanted to disappear.

“Why did you do that? I was so fucking worried about you!” You heard Rami exclaim as he closed the door behind him. You rolled your eyes.

“Hello to you too.”

“Why did you leave the way you did?” He demanded once more. Rami walked into the living room and snatched the remote off the couch. The TV went black in an instant, but you still gazed emptily at the screen.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Lucy?” You countered. You heard him sigh exasperatedly.

“Y/N, Lucy’s just a friend-”

“Oh, like how I’m ‘just a friend of yours’ to her too?” You demanded, feeling a surge of energy run through your veins as you pushed yourself off the couch and stood across from Rami. You glared at him, and he sent fire right back.

“You should’ve told me where you were going, you shouldn’t have left like that!” He exclaimed, going back to his initial argument. “If you didn’t reply after the fifty-something texts and calls I sent you, I would’ve been driving around all of fucking LA trying to find you!”

“Rami, you left me by myself at the goddamn bar for over an hour!” You yelled. The tears came back in an instant as you raised your voice, and you swiped them away angrily with the back of your hand. “You said you would be back in a few minutes and you never fucking showed up!”

You saw something switch in his eyes just then. He took a step back, as if you had physically hit him.

“Shit,” Rami hissed. “Y/N, I’m so sorry, I forgot you said that-”

“I’m not done.” You interrupted. You took a step towards him. “You have no idea how it feels, to try and find someone in a crowd while the entire time it feels like you’re being suffocated! And then I find you with her and she tells me you told her I’m only your ‘friend’? Do you know how that feels?”

“Y/N, I can explain-”

“Oh, please do!” You exclaim, throwing your hands up in defeat. “I’d love it if you could start at the part where you arrived in London, I really want to hear about that.”

Rami sighed, unwilling to meet your gaze.

“Lucy and I... she helped me work through Freddie. As a character.”

You frowned. “What does that even mean?”

“I stayed in character as Freddie even when we weren’t filming.” He explained slowly. You could hear his voice begin to tremble. “And as Freddie, I really got along with Lucy, she was everything he needed-”

“But you’re not Freddie Mercury.” You whispered. You shut your eyes as you realized Lucy was the reason you barely heard from Rami while he was in London. “You’re Rami Malek. You have a girlfriend, you have me.”

Silence stabbed the both of you like tiny knives. Neither of you wanted to speak first.

“Why did you do it?” You finally asked. “What were you trying to accomplish?”

“I missed you,” Rami answered. Tears had begun to trail down his face now as well. “The distance between us, it was hard...”

“So your solution was to hook up with your co-star?” You demanded.

There was only silence from Rami.

“You know,” you began, as you grabbed your coat out of the closet and shrugged it on. “I tried so hard to maintain a relationship with you despite the distance. I did everything I could to keep in touch with you, but when you were in London you shut yourself off from me. Now I know why.” You grabbed your keys from the hook beside the door.

“Where are you going?” Rami asked urgently, rushing over to you with panic in his eyes. You inhaled sharply.

“I’m going out.” You whispered, feeling a new set of tears spring forward as Rami wrapped a trembling hand around your wrist. It was his fragile way of trying to get you to stay.

“Please,” You managed to choke out. “Don’t touch me.”

“Y/N-”

“Maybe someone else can help you for now,” you added as you unlocked the door. “I don’t know what more I can do.”

“Stay.” Rami begged. His lip trembled. “Please, Y/N, stay.”

You longed so badly to just run back in his arms, embrace him tightly, and just cry. You wanted to tell him you weren’t going anywhere. But after the way he made you feel tonight, after what you saw, after those months of barely hearing from him in London, you knew staying was not the right thing to do. Not right now.

“Come find me when you figure things out.” You answered, your voice cracking. “Goodbye, Rami.”

#rami malek #rami malek x reader #rami malek imagine #rami malek oneshot #lara-ludbey #request #bohemian rhapsody #bohemian rhapsody x reader #mr robot #freddie mercury #freddie mercury imagine #freddie mercury oneshot

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explcsivcs · 5 years ago

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––––– ( jacob elordi, cismale, he/him ) i just saw CASEY O'NEILL walking down the street’s of provincetown the other day playing WATCH ME by JADEN out loud. rumor has it that the TWENTY-TWO year old is +CHARISMATIC, but can also be -RECKLESS — overall they’re a CRIMSON. they remind me of THE SOUND OF A REVVING CAR ENGINE, BOTTLE ROCKETS AT MIDNIGHT, NEUTRAL COLOR SCHEMES, and EMPTY MOVIE THEATERS. –– it’s your local idiot, here with a new child! he’s a mess, but aren’t they all ?? like this or whatevaaaa and i’ll come to u for PLOTS !

BACKGROUND.

casey boiiii was born in london to a couple’a rich folk. dad, sean, is the ceo of a massive pharmaceutical company, and mom, emma, is from old money but spends most of her time bein’ a lil socialite and doing heavy charity work. they were good for a long long time. like casey grew up wanting for nothing, attending elite private schools and just all around living The Dream™

his dad is stern and driven by logic and money. if it were up to him, he woulda been working 24/7 and leaving his son in the hands of a nanny until he was old enough to inherit the company lmao. his mama is the one who really ... held the family together. she stayed home with case, she made sure sean regularly spent time with the family. queen of holidays and sunday dinners. casey was absolutely a mama’s boy

all was well! until casey turned 12 and his mom fell terminally ill. she passed away within like six months of her diagnosis and yessir this is.. when shit hit the fan. sean became absolutely miserable and threw himself into work, thus throwing casey into the hands of house staff. he was rarely ever home and really... kind of just stopped dad duties and wallowed in his own grief.

casey tried desperately to get his dad’s attention back. he was making stellar grades, perfect grades even. he was in sports year around, and he was fucking good at them esp lacrosse. he ... fuckin learned to cook in hopes of taking after his mom and being able to keep sunday dinners going. he joined student council and even faked an interest in business. lil dude grew the fuck up at such a young age. and it! didn’t! work!

when he ... got into high school ... he got frustrated with his situation and started leaning into his unresolved anger because let me tell you he was ... pissed. about all of it. this is when he fell into the wrong crowd. he made friends who were rowdy and rude and violent, and he found that the most fervent things he felt was when he was doing something wrong. he ,.... dabbled in vandalism but also really started to get in trouble for fighting akdjfh

and it worked. his dad was halfway paying attention, being called into school after school as casey was suspended and occasionally even expelled for.. fighting. .. he was woken up in the middle of the night when casey was escorted home for being too drunk at a party or for getting caught street racing. every time they saw each other, his dad was screaming at him, but at least he was seeing him ya know??

casey really got into a lot of trouble when he got his license and began street racing. the adrenaline from racing kinda.... solved all of his problems?? like it dulled the anger and numbed the pain while also ... bringing him all the excitement and joy ya know.

when he was sixteen he uhhh got kicked outta the last private school in london that would take him for shitty attendance and fighting. the same week, he completely totaled his car, damn near killing himself in the process, by racing in a new housing development and uhhhh literally taking out an unfinished house (it’s ok all that was standing was like the wooden support beams aight) BUT it was either... spendin time in a juvenile detention center...... or being shipped off to stay with someone else and hopefully start over

so that’s what happened! good old sean o’neill said “nope” and sent his son to live with his brother in a tiny town in a tiny state in america. that’s right bois... when he was seventeen, case moved from london to provincetown. casey kinda saw this as... his dad giving up on him and got... angrier. but it’s better than prison so!

he was kind of... a brat when he got to provincetown. didn’t want to be there. didn’t want to be anywhere really. just broody and mad all the time. participated in sports solely to get some of the angry energy out but didn’t do much else. he’s really only a part of snackpack because his cousin (hiiiii bronny) is.... and he loves her tons so he was obligated to at least be civil to her friends

he ,... got his grades on track, for the most part... and stopped fighting, for the most part. but this dumb bitch can’t stop doing reckless shit. like i’m surprised he still has a license bc the number of speeding tickets is borderline not livable.

he never really felt like he... fit... in provincetown. he still doesn’t really know where he fits in the grand scheme of life. his grades and his dad’s bank account were the only reason he got into a decent college. he went for business, bc that’s all his dad would pay for, and his heart just wasn’t fuckin’ in it at all. he graduated in may but has no fuckin idea what he wants to do. at this rate though, if he keeps fucking around, he’s going to end up being :) a nothing :) just like good old dad expects :)

PERSONALITY.

very dude bro. like you look at him and you’re like ‘idk if i wanna fuck with that’ bc he is large and stupid confident ... sometimes arrogant. definitely one of those cocky smirk lookin, backwards hat wearin, lemme take u out types of assholes idk like he’s not broody ya know.

he doesn’t really initiate conversation. like he’s not one for small talk, kinda thinks its a lil bit of a waste of time. he’s not unapproachable.. he just values good, interesting conversation

think ... jess mariano from gilmore girls, ronan lynch from trc, and a lil sprinkle of brian o’conner from fast and furious kAJSDAHFA

his moral compass is outta whack ok! like life is not black and white in his mind. everything is grey

very clever boy. consciously makes bad decisions, but he’s clever as fuck. quick witted. he doesn’t look it but... ya boy is smart. just doesn’t fuckin’ apply himself

charming! but like ... into the woods charming, not cinderella charming. charming with an ulterior motive. charming to get what he wants. very rarely charming just for the hell of makin someone feel nice. selfish lil shit

fearless as hell, always down for adventure and a good time

a lot nicer to his close friends than he is to everyone else like akdfhas sorry @ everyone who isn’t in the snack pack ur automatically a lil bit worse in his mind

a massive flaw of his is that he truly doesn’t know how to handle his own emotions,. he’s become a pro at repressing them. even when they’re good . feelings, he has a hard time showing it?? that’s why he... acts out dude. he’s pissed

would die for his lil cuzzo y’all should know this now to prepare urself

fiercely loyal to his people

still luvs to fsu when he has the chance,,... loves a good adrenaline rush

surprisingly good at cheering people up. not great at comforting them! he’s workin’ on that... but he is good turning that frown upside down!

literally just needs someone to kick his ass.

PLOTS IDEAS.

a best friend... obvi. someone he clicked with as soon as he moved to ptown

frenemies bro... like they rag on each other all the time, they’re always competitive as hell, but in the end... they’ve got each other’s back type of frenemies

i have a plot in mind based on billie eilish’s ‘i love you’ that could be interesting aksdjfh specifically the ‘say you were tyrna make me laugh, and nothing has to change today you didn’t mean to say i love you’ line lol angsty

a mom friend! someone to kinda... keep an eye on him

partners in crime bro the kinda person that just..... when they’re together it’s next level . and borderline dangerous because they just continue to hype each other up and play off of each other

a bit of a hookup .. situation like kajsdf basically the type of shit you see in friends with benefits and no strings attached before they catch feelings. smth like a fling idk

college roommatesr

flirtationships or just generally flirty frienships those are s ofun

exes and unrequited loves and slowburns y’all know i’m a slut for that shit

ok that’s all!! this is so shitty lmao aksjfh ok like this and i’ll come to u for plotzzzzzz

#snackpackintro

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soveryanon · 5 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG150 /X__X/

- … So this is how you guys pronounce “cul-de-sac”, you absolute barbarians. (No, you don’t pronounce that L in French……………..)

- Statement-giver was, this week again, an absolute delight of sarcasm/self-awareness/casual self-deprecation… and so honest about his own faults and wrongs and personal pet-peeves that, even with the cheating, he didn’t seem antipathetic to me at all? Except for:

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “There’s plenty of things I’ve done I couldn’t explain to you. I mean, I’m constantly, constantly looking back on my past self, and thinking: “What an idiot. How the hell could he have down such an obviously stupid thing? How was I surprised it went so badly; what a relief I’m now so much older, and wiser.” … Except that last part never really turns out to be true, does it? The line of when you were your dumb younger self seems to keep moving forwards with you, until each more mature and reasonable version of you… eventually falls foul of it, and becomes… a young idiot.”

YOU’RE RIGHT BUT YOU SHOULDN’T SAY IT………… SHHHHHHH…

- The moose thing. The effing moose thing. I love that in the middle of cheating and probably-depression/middle-age crisis and bad break-up, there was suddenly the mention of the moose:

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “I’d probably have stayed away forever if it… hadn’t been for the moose. There was a… carved wooden moose, you see, something Alberto’s grandfather had carved, apparently, and a real family heirloom. It was an ugly old thing, with this… weird angular face that always made my skin crawl a bit. I’d never let him display it in our house, so it had lived in one of the suitcases under the stairs. The suitcases I’d pulled out and filled in a tearful rage when I was leaving. So… yeah, I’d kind of accidentally stolen the moose?”

How do you “accidentally” steal a carved wooden moose. (But then, was it truly an accident? Herman must have seen it when filling a suitcase – so it may have been… bitterness and anger in the spur of the moment, a mix of wanting to steal something precious to hurt someone he had loved, and keep something precious to a person he still loved, because it reminded him of him?)

- I got the Spiral-vibes of getting lost in the endless suburb, but to me, it was pretty clear from the start that this was a Lonely statement because:

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “You’re all alone, trying to connect with people, trying to find your place in the world – but in the end, the only person you really know is yourself.”

… was textbook what Peter had told poor Brian in his very first ‘on-screen’ appearance:

(MAG100) PETER: Peter Lukas! Lovely to meet you, Brian. Now, am I to understand – you don’t work here? BRIAN: Uh, no; I was just, um… making a s–statement, o–or, or whatever, u–um… PETER: That’s probably for the best. Elias can be quite… “protective” of his people. [CHUCKLING] Never really understood why – I mean, in the end, the only person you really have is yourself! Wouldn’t you agree, Brian? BRIAN: Wh– I–I don’t… What…? PETER: Well. Plenty of time to make your mind up, I’m, I’m sure.

(Hi, This Was Another Incidental Reminder That Even If He’s Not In This Episode And Only Mentioned In Jon’s Post-Statement: Peter Lukas Is Hella Bad News.)

- Gerry had described The Lonely as “feeling that you’re just… alone. Maybe there’s no-one else there at all, maybe you just can’t connect” (MAG111); MAG150 reminded me mostly of MAG048 and MAG108 in that aspect – statement-givers surrounded by almost-people, the idea that things around are becoming empty shells, that people are fading/losing their identity? And in this episode, yeah, the dull repetitive suburb made a lot of sense (combined with impersonal TV shows and the… logic of them going wrong, the disconnect getting more and more pronounced as their actions made no sense and their words turned out to be unintelligible).

Two things strike me about The Lonely statements so far:

* They were either triggered by a Lukas (MAG013, MAG033, MAG057, MAG092, Peter Lukas being there-and-not-there throughout season 4), either… just happened for seemingly unknown reasons, just because the statement-givers had a personal rapport to isolation/loneliness/feeling singled out, initially taking comfort in it until it was twisted all over (MAG048, MAG150). (+ MAG108, but Adonis’s case is not clear to me: when Peter asked Martin “Did [Elias] suggest you record a statement today? One that mentioned me?”, was it an exaggeration and was Peter talking about The Lonely in general? Or was it literal, and Peter had been in the audience, and the one responsible for messing up Adonis?)

* … People who got out of it through an emotional anchor (Naomi’s dead fiancé in MAG013, Andrea’s mother in MAG048, Herman’s (ex-)husband in MAG150)… got out of it. No “half-finished meals”, as far as we know, amongst the people who escaped it? On the other side, Adonis dragged himself to the Institute before disappearing entirely but he knew it was coming, he hadn’t managed to escape it; same with Barnabas Bennett, who was stuck in The Lonely and only managed to transmit a call for help (that remained unanswered by Jonah). Yetunde Uthman apparently didn’t have any anchor and was a vulnerable target (Gerry had warned us that the Fears tended to pick on the vulnerable and people on the margins). There is still Carter, whose whereabouts are unknown (he was clearly messed up, but Jon didn’t mention if he was still around or not).

(… but then, there is Martin, who seems to have begun using Lonely powers, and it’s… another matter entirely to get out of that, probably.)

- Given how Herman mentioned that Yetunde seemed to have died recently:

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “My eyes found themselves focusing on the ceiling. On a small spot of red, that seemed to have seeped through from above. As I climbed those stairs, I desperately tried to tell myself I didn’t know what was going to be up there. And to be fair I was surprised by some of the details. But as soon as I saw the spot, I just knew that… someone else was up there. And that they were dead. The only questions were “how”, and “who”. I think I’d given up on “why”. I didn’t know them, as it turned out. A young woman, conservatively dressed. Her face was bloody, but… I was sure I didn’t recognise her. She had a bag with her and her ID read “Yetunde Uthman”. Not a name I’d ever encountered before. Just another victim of this place. […] I don’t think she’d been dead that long. But I’m not a doctor, and I didn’t really try to check. Instead I turned and ran, all my tiredness gone in a sudden rush of adrenalin, down the stairs, out the door and into the night and the rows upon rows of bland, empty houses.”

… I wonder if he got stuck in the Lonely place to replace her as a Fear-battery of some sort, because she had ended her own life? We may have got a similar case with Sean Kelly (MAG033): Jon mentioned that his body washed up six months after his disappearance on the boat, but that the coroner had established that “it had only been in the water for five days” – had he been stuck on the boat alone all this time, until he couldn’t stand it anymore and threw himself in the sea to make it stop…?

- This week’s static were (not including Jon when he Knew Melanie was at the door – which… has happened a lot this season. The specific thing of Jon Knowing when someone is close / about to come in):

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “I’ve never seen [STATIC:] people happily living in a place so obviously dead. Two years we lived there. [/STATIC] Two years imprisoned in that beige, comfortable house, with the man I loved, watching our relationship turn to… sniping and snapping and bitter passive-aggression. […] Because the sign said: [STATIC] “Road”. No name. Just: [STATIC] “Road”. […] [STATIC] “Avenue”. “Close”. “Way”. “Lane”. Only ever the suffix; never with the name attached.”

… And I still don’t know what to make out of that first one? Is it about being Swallowed By Banal Life?

(The statement reminded me a looooooooooooooooot of Wajdi Mouawad’s Seuls, actually, and oh. This play is indeed such a sheer complete utter Lonely mood.)

- … it’s rare, but this one was… kind of a sweet ending?

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “It was Alberto. He was… calling me. I don’t know how, but the tears came even faster now as I answered, sobbing with relief to hear him yelling at me for taking so long. Had I forgotten? Was I even planning to bother? I tried to reply, to explain, but all I could manage to say, to get through the shaking sobs… was “I love you”. He went… very quiet. And then he hung up. It didn’t matter though, because when I looked around, the windows of the houses were lit, and a woman was coming down from her front door to ask if I needed help with my car. … We’re working on it, the two of us. We’re not exactly back together yet, but I think it’s going well. He’s reluctant to sell the house, but I’ve made it quite clear that I’m never going back to the suburbs. Even if I can’t… really tell him why. I checked. To see if I could find anything about Yetunde Uthman. And I did find a few old social media profiles. But I wasn’t able to get through to any family or friends. As far as I can tell she disappeared a year ago. And nobody noticed.”

Not perfect but: it helped to push Herman to acknowledge that he still loved Alberto, they reconnected, the fact that they’re working on their relationship is honestly the best possible outcome – things aren’t perfect but… oddly hopeful? Although, at the same time, we had confirmation of what happened to Yetunde, who hadn’t been so lucky.

- … and at the same time, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF did that statement feel like Specifically Going After Jon.

Main relationship about a duo of romantically involved males who (got) separated, snappy statement-giver who can’t stand monotony, who had the feeling of being “imprisoned” for “two years” and then got trapped alone (… Martin and Jon have been “trapped” for almost three years at this point), bitterness and annoyance covering up remnants of love; statement-giver wanting to see Alberto again, getting stuck in The Lonely, managing to get out of it thanks to his lover calling him… Jon, right after: Have I mentioned Martin recently.

(And I feel, too, that we heard a lot more… background corporeal noises than usual, in this statement? Here and there, we could hear sounds as though Jon was shifting – uncomfortable? Trying to get out of the statement’s trance as an experiment? It was especially jarring there:

(MAG150, Herman Gorgoli) “… Maybe I was hoping for a fight. Or just… to see him again. I don’t know. I was younger then. Foolish. [HUFF]”

That part was followed by some ruffling of clothes and, I think, a faint scraping of his chair? It was… quite noticeable.)

- Which makes me wonder: why did Jon read this statement? Because… it sounded way too targeted to feel like a coincidence? Annabelle made fun of Jon (and us :w) for not being sure of when and where Beholding and The Web were influencing him, if there was any influence at all, but… it’s still an actual question. Or is it that Jon was drawn towards a statement matching his feelings and mood, on his own?

If it’s Beholding-or-Web, why would they push him towards this specific statement, which seems to be basically just talking about Jon’s relationship with Martin and giving him tips on how to get Martin back? Because indeed, Jon seemed to entirely miss the point, if there was any (that to get out of The Lonely’s influence, which is insidious enough to make you feel like you’re embracing isolation on your own, you have to rely on connections – in both ways, to reach and be reached):

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. The Lonely is… possibly the most insidious of the powers, I believe. Certainly it is the one that… most delights in having you do its work for it. Even the Spiders seem to have a hard time matching it for sheer seductiveness. [HUFF] “Time to yourself”, “self-care”, “putting yourself forward”… “not being a burden on those you care about”… [PAUSE] It doesn’t even need to tell you any lies; just waits for the lies you tell yourself. […] And at least none of us is suffering alone. … Martin’s got it the worst, of course. But it still seems to be his choice. And I have to trust that he knows what he’s doing.

And yeah, Missing The Point is a typical Jon thing; but here, it felt… even more than that. Pointedly ignoring the statement to talk about another logic. … Is Jon fearing that Beholding-or-The-Web are trying to push him to reach for Martin and/or get him out of Lukas’s influence, and assuming that that’s precisely a reason why he shouldn’t try to pull Martin out…?

The matter of “trusting Martin” had been brought up with Basira first:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: Do they? … W–w–who else– Did Martin say something? BASIRA: … It was a few months back. After the attack. He’d started spending time with Lukas. At least, he said he was. And I wanted answers. He kept telling me to trust him, to hear the guy out even though he still wouldn’t actually show his face. I told him he could… drop me an email or vanish me.

(MAG129) BASIRA: Then everything ended, and Daisy was gone. And you were gone. And Tim. And then I got back to the Institute, and Martin sent me to meet the new boss. Then I stood alone in an empty office for more than one hour. I can trust me, Jon. That’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

So is Jon reacting in opposition to Basira because he saw what happened to her? Is he sticking to his decision to “trust” the assistants that he had stated in MAG117? When it comes to his involvement with Peter, Martin has never actually told Jon to trust him; it’s something that Jon came to on his own and tried to stick to, even though he’s been obviously forcing himself and uneasy about the whole situation:

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: No, it’s fine, I know you’ve got… whatever this is, I’m not going to question you. MARTIN: Thank you.

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] I’m just worried about Martin. … Christ… Every other Avatar gets to have their feelings… burned right out of them, but me? I’ve… just got to sit in mine. … I know he said he had everything under control. I need… to trust him; whatever he’s doing with Peter, he’s… he knows what he’s doing. Probably. I just– … [VERY FAST] I need him to be okay. I just do.

It’s still curious how Jon is sticking to this idea…? Is it because Jon knows a bit more about Martin’s whereabouts than he has been telling on tape? (His affirmation that “Martin’s got it the worst, of course.” was… a bit strange – how can Jon be so certain of that?) Is it because Martin was a bit more explicit to Daisy that they had to rely on him? (Since Daisy spotted the recorder at the end of MAG142 while Martin and her were still discussing, and she told him that she had reported their conversation to Jon in MAG144 – we might have missed some information outside of the recording.) Is it because Jon learned from the end of season 3 that Martin knew how to hide his plan, and then Jon might be overestimating him in that regard, thinking that Martin will be able to take down Peter? Is it because it has become a convenient excuse for Jon to not interact with Martin – because he’s afraid that Martin will be too disappointed and disgusted with what Jon has done and become…?

(Jon felt especially self-deprecative with the “not being a burden on those you care about”, followed by a pause…)

- Hey! We now have canon footage of Jon saying “I love you”, cheers!

- Surprise!awareness with Jon pointing out the danger Peter represents:

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: We’re… all well aware that with Peter Lukas in charge of the Institute, it’s a very real danger to all of us. We are trying. Daisy, Basira and I, we don’t leave the Institute much anymore – so we do spend a lot of time together. It’s not that easy, though. When everyone has so many walls, so many defences… [SIGH] sometimes you can feel lonely even when you’re in the same room. … But it’s better than the alternative. And at least none of us is suffering alone.

… at the same time, that arrangement sounds… so stiff and awkward. They “spend a lot of time together”. Sure, with close friends, you don’t need to do things together to be at ease and have an amazing time in the same room. But still; it… sounds so cold and impersonal, with Jon’s words…?

- ;; The vocabulary…

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: Statement of Herman Gorgoli, regarding his period trapped alone in a suburban area of Cheadle. Original statement written 9th November, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. Statement begins. […] MELANIE: Jon, have you got a moment? ARCHIVIST: Uh… [DOOR CLOSES] Of course, I was just, um… having a statement. MELANIE: Uh… an, an old one? ARCHIVIST: Wh– Yes, an old one! I’m not– I’m doing my best.

That… was, I think, the first time Jon introduced a statement as “written” (instead of the usual “given”). I reaaaally hope that it’s because Jon is not perceiving the live-statements as the actual given ones, because we saw multiple times that people didn’t have a choice when it came to them (Jon would make them tell him their story, whether they consent to it or not); is it because he’s becoming suspicious of the written ones being dub/noncon’d out of people too…? In any case, that “written” was… odd.

The “having a statement” was awful and, yeah, addict getting his fix. … And at the same time, making me awfully sad: because these are people’s stories and at the moment, they’re just handled like… food. They’re consumed, and nothing else: once again, Jon wasn’t interested in any follow-up, he didn’t have a thought for Herman. We only heard about Yetunde Uthman’s disappearance because Herman searched her up and reported on it – and usually, it would have been part of the follow-up that Jon or the assistants would have provided? They would have checked for the time of her disappearance, they would have tried to find out if a missing report was filed, where and when? But here, nothing from Jon, who prefers to focus on the Fear dynamic (like he did in MAG125 when he tried to get meta on the Slaughter and the idea of control). And in the same way, we haven’t heard of Jon’s victims from season 4 at all except for Jess’s complaint in MAG142 and Jon describing what he had done in MAG146 – it feels like, for the team Archives… they’ve ceased to exist as people past the fact that Jon attacked them…?

(Once again, I!! still!! find!! it!! hard!! to be emotional over Jon right now, to feel sad or emotionally invested in him. Because: he’s not the primary victim. Depressed and in a bad place, sure; but the people he hurt don’t have a protagonist status ensuring they’re heard, and I want to hear about them the most…)

- ALRIGHT, SO.

M e l a n i e, holy Mew. Everything Melanie.

(MAG150) MELANIE: Look. [INHALE] I’m not going to do my job anymore. ARCHIVIST: … I am not sure I follow, you–you know we… we can’t… quit, we’ve all tried. MELANIE: I didn’t say I was going to quit. I said: I’m not going to do my job. No researching; no filing; no… field trips. Nothing that is going to help the Institute in any way. I’ll still be around, I just… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: I can’t be a part of this anymore. If, if I get sick, I get sick. And, and if I die… ARCHIVIST: Why? MELANIE: Because this place is evil, Jon! And so… doing this job… ARCHIVIST: [LOUD EXHALE] MELANIE: Helping it out… even in small ways, i–is in some way… evil too! Every time we try to use it to do good, it just seems to make everything worse, and… and I will not be a part of that anymore. ARCHIVIST: What about The Unknowing? We, we saved the world! MELANIE: Did we? I… I mean, I–I think it was the right thing to do, but how many people were killed to do it? We, we weren’t even a neutral party; we did it as agents of The Eye, because Elias told us to. ARCHIVIST: An–and then you put him in jail! MELANIE: Martin put him there. And, and–and he’s still doing harm. [INHALE] You ever think that maybe this whole… ritual business is just an excuse, an–and that we’re all part of some… huge miserable Fear-machine? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I’ve… considered the possibility. MELANIE: Right. Well. If I’m… just another cog, er… Maybe I can’t leave the machine, but from this moment? I–I–I’m not turning. I’m… jammed. [SIGH]

* I love how you could hear Melanie’s efforts when it came to communication all through the exchange. She’s struggling with words, they have trouble coming out of her, almost physically; you can hear that they don’t want to come out, but she keeps pushing through. Even at the end, when she pointed out to Jon “Look, I… didn’t come here for a fight. I… just wanted to let you know what was going on.”: she put efforts into not answering with anger, she softened a bit.

* Jon had already singled her out by mentioning that Basira, Daisy and he were spending time together (leaving out Melanie) and that they weren’t leaving the Institute much anymore. We knew that it wasn’t the case for Melanie, since she had been told to frequently leave it: she was going to therapy in MAG136, Daisy said that she was out in MAG142, Georgie came to pick her up in MAG145 and MAG149. Unlike the others, Melanie has managed to reconnect with a life outside of the Institute – she has put work in her recovery, she relied on someone who was staying out of spooky matters (Georgie), she separated herself from a place she has deemed toxic. It only feel logical that she would reach the mental state and the decision to… cut her connection to The Eye even further.

* It…………………… fits……………….. her so well… I’m not sure I’m explaining it well but, with MAG117 and her rant about Elias (which really felt like a “down with the patriarchy” one?), I had gotten the feeling that Melanie… fitted well with “activism” as a notion: denouncing and firmly refusing to close her eyes in the face of things sticking out to her as unfair or oppressive.

* “Control” and “choices” have been extremely present themes this season and… Melanie is putting her own touch in that picture. Regaining control over her life, but also highlighting that even though they’re stuck in the Archives, they’re in that “dead end” too, they still have options and that even passively serving The Eye is still serving, is still choosing to feed a Fear-machine; and that they still have the possibility to… plainly stop. She didn’t say it but the idea is also quite clear that Jon still reading statements for his own survival is, in parallel, an active choice on its own. And it’s true that Jon never questioned or wondered about the possibility of stopping even though it would make him suffer – when he realised he was experiencing withdrawal without them in MAG107, he just decided that he would roll with it because his priority was still to stop The Unknowing and he couldn’t afford to waste time pondering about it:

(MAG107) ARCHIVIST: It looks like the recording of statements has now passed over from psychological compulsion into… a more physical dependence. I don’t whether this is… some sort of classical addiction or something a bit deeper. But either way, this is not the time for experimentation. I’m on a deadline, and if I need to be reading statements to stay well enough, then I suppose that’s what I shall do.

But in season 4, it’s not something he thought about questioning, or at least, not out loud. We still hear him reading statements. He’s currently choosing to try to not attack people anymore, sure, and it indeed means not hurting any more innocents… But it’s true that even reading statements is not an “innocent” act, if it’s also feeding The Eye.

* Melanie’s choice is radical and is… probably the bravest thing ever done by a character this series, along with Sasha jumping at Tim to save him from Jane Prentiss?

And there are many ways it’s going to turn awful for her – she mentioned it would probably be bad, could go to “dying” level. We heard from Tim that trying to run away from the Institute was bad. Even if Melanie manages to stick to it, in exchange for the comfort of sticking to her ideal, it will be pain and misery. It means the others will witness it. I’m not even sure that Jon will let her carry through with it – given how he didn’t “want to lose anyone else” in MAG118 and still lost Tim. It’s going to be bad, and I’m so, so impressed that Melanie is choosing to take that road, because it makes sense, but still: it’s a personal sacrifice, without glory, and yet it sounds like the most effective thing to do to stop feeding The Eye and to not participate in the Fears business.

* (… I’m not even sure, though, that Melanie’s sufferings (and/or that Jon observing it) wouldn’t… feed The Eye, incidentally.)

* GUUUUUUUH, I love the direction the similarities she shared with Tim took… We knew that they had discussed together off-record:

(MAG106) ELIAS: You already have doubts, though. You’ve been talking with Tim, and have convinced yourself that– MELANIE: [DRY LAUGHTER] ELIAS: –even if I’m telling the truth, I’m too dangerous to live. MELANIE: Well.

There were a few random/comic bits – both Tim and Melanie had expressed some longing for the real Sasha, both are bit more crude than the other characters (holders of “fuck” and “asshole”). Both expressed wariness/disgust for the tape recorders:

(MAG098) MARTIN: […] Have you seen [Jon] since…? TIM: [GRUNT] Kind of. We tried to talk, but he, he reached for that– Ah, he, he wanted to turn on his recorder. I freaked out a bit, and I said some stuff: if he wanted to talk, no tapes, I just, I just hate that thing.

(MAG136) THERAPIST: Right, have a seat. Do you mind if I record our sessions? MELANIE: I do mind. Yes. THERAPIST: Ah? I mean, it’s just for my own notes. MELANIE: I categorically and completely do not give consent for you to make any recording of me, ever. Turn it off. Please.

But what was striking this episode is how close Melanie’s words were to Tim, when it came to the Institute and their work there:

(MAG098) TIM: Still doing those? MARTIN: … Yeah. Yeah… I did ask Elias if I could stop. TIM: And he said “no” for a mysterious reason? MARTIN: I don’t know? I mean, he kind of explained – I think? Jon’s “too inconsistent” at the moment. He needs to make up for the shortfall, which, I guess, means me. … Unless you… TIM: No. MARTIN: He did suggest I try to get you involved, and– TIM: And I suggest that he not be a scary, magic psychopath. … Whoops! Too late. MARTIN: … Yeah. TIM: [SIGH] … Sorry. MARTIN: No, I– I get it. Heh. They’re not exactly much fun. TIM: Look, it’s not that. I… [SIGH] This place is evil, Martin. And I think doing what It wants? Probably makes us evil. And It wants those things to be read. I mean, I’m not gonna stop you, but, at the same time– MARTIN: I– I get it.

And Tim was the only one of the assistants to experience the sickness of not serving The Eye anymore/trying to flee, which Melanie took into account in her decision:

(MAG090) TIM: I hopped a flight to Malaysia. Found myself a hotel. ELIAS: I see. … You were trying to leave us? TIM: Yeah…! ELIAS: But you’ve returned. TIM: I… I got sick. The longer I was gone… I felt weak, like… like I was, I was losing myself…

(MAG150) MELANIE: I’ll still be around, I just… I can’t be a part of this anymore. If, if I get sick, I get sick. And, and if I die…

And although Melanie and Tim share a reasoning, their conclusions… differ so greatly. Tim fell into depression (confirmed by Mike in the Assistants Round Table) and ultimately chose anger and self-destruction as his answer. Melanie… goes with something that is technically self-destructing, too, but which also feels like self-preserving – and more interestingly, without anger, although it had been a long-term companion over the course of her life?

* Goooods, we got Basira and Martin visiting Elias in prison – now, I want Melanie visiting him and taking none of his shit anymore. I’m worried it would go super badly for her because Elias can be shitty when he wants to be, but still want………………… Melanie uncomfortable but resisting her anger and not letting him get under her skin this time around………………….

* I’m a bit worried over what Jon will take out of the exchange, however, since:

1°) Unlike Melanie, he has continued constantly feeding The Eye by reading the statements. The comparison does him a disservice.

2°) What Melanie said about The Unknowing:

(MAG150) MELANIE: Helping it out… even in small ways, i–is in some way… evil too! Every time we try to use it to do good, it just seems to make everything worse, and… and I will not be a part of that anymore. ARCHIVIST: What about The Unknowing? We, we saved the world! MELANIE: Did we? I… I mean, I–I think it was the right thing to do, but how many people were killed to do it? We, we weren’t even a neutral party; we did it as agents of The Eye, because Elias told us to.

… was absolutely fair and true. Nikola had pointed out to Tim just before he exploded the place:

(MAG119) NIKOLA: You… idiot! Do you really think the world will fare any better under the Watcher? You think you’re saving anyone? TIM: I don’t care.

But it also tells Jon that there is absolutely no way serving The Eye (or even being trapped with it) can do anything good, ever; that there is no positiveness to take out of their awful situation. Jon had made out of MAG127’s statement that the Institute had been created in evil purpose, that the aim of the place had always been bad… but it’s something else to be told from one of the assistant that stopping The Unknowing wasn’t even a “victory”. That Tim died almost for nothing, unwillingly furthering the interests of something he hated although he was pursuing his own revenge.

I doubt Jon’s defensiveness was out of loyalty for The Eye, but it’s true that this is not the first time it popped up this season (in MAG129, when he tried to argue with Martin that The Eye hadn’t gone “after our own” unlike Peter); it might be that Jon was still clinging to the hope that at least, getting compromised and twisted and “becoming a monster” could at least mean getting powerful enough to protect innocents and/or the world, that they could still find meaning in that… and no. Jon has been attacking innocents; and he’s being reminded that the Institute is not neutral. (And indeed: what about The Eye’s own ritual…)

* On the matter of isolation and of Jon lacking connections… although I am delighted by Melanie’s announcement, it also sounded like a goodbye. She did point out that she would still be there, but by deciding that she would stop working for The Eye, that she wouldn’t do anything resembling Archival assistant work… it sounded, to me, like she was “leaving” the Archives, and Jon too, on an emotional level. And I’m a bit worried that Jon would take it the wrong way: given that Martin doesn’t want to interact with him, and that now, Melanie is cutting one of their only connections, he’s getting even more isolated, abandoned by them?

(When talking with Gerry, Jon had called The Lonely “isolation” before learning its usual denomination, and it… might be telling that he’s more sensible to that aspect.)

- Aaaaaaaaaaaand Jon was thinking that Melanie’s therapist could be Annabelle, too, and it’s SO SILLY presented this way:

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: … Did your… therapist suggest this? […] Melanie, could you… could you describe your therapist for me? MELANIE: [CHUCKLING] What? You think I wouldn’t notice if she had cobwebs down her face? ARCHIVIST: … No? MELANIE: [DEEP INHALE] That’s it, isn’t it? [EXHALE] You… you really think I’m so stupid I wouldn’t have noticed if my therapist was some kind of monster! ARCHIVIST: I just… It was a worry. MELANIE: Right, right… Okay: I know. That is why I ruined my first four sessions, and almost torpedoed the chance at a genuinely, really good therapist, because I was so paranoid that she was going to turn out to be some… some thing trying to manipulate me – but no. She’s not full of spiders, or made of wax, or wearing the therapist’s skin, or whatever: she’s just a well-trained professional, who I am paying to help me. ARCHIVIST: O–kay. [SIGH] It’s just… The Web can be subtle, you understand? MELANIE: And? For all you know, its plan is to paralyse you with indecision…! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: Leaving you… sitting here, terrified that… everything you do is somehow all part of its Grand Plan… And who do you think that fear is gonna feed? ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. [INHALE] You are… not the first, to make that point.

To be fair: Jon and Melanie hadn’t identified Elias as an Eye cultist when they were new to it, and Jon is apparently unable to focus on his Web-lighter – the therapist could still be… something (someone relevant and/or an avatar). I’m glad, though, that the therapy seems to be working!! (… although I’m a bit worried because, on the one hand, Melanie Got It when she points out she’s paying a professional to help her; on the other hand, the way she said her therapist was “genuinely, really good” felt… weird to me? It’s not something I’d say of mine? I would talk about methods and how it’s working for me but not… compliment like this.)

- Crying very hard that Melanie is absolutely spot-on on the fact that The Web is mostly a perfect culprit for Jon, at the moment. Once again. Because that was his idea in MAG146 – MAG147, too.

It’s interesting how Jon has been settling more and more with referring to The Web as “the Spider(s)” this season!

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: I do not know how many of them there are, or precisely how they separate, but I do know that the Eye – Beholding – was not the first that I encountered in my life. The first was the Spider. The Web. And I have no idea what that might mean.

(MAG130) ARCHIVIST: I found this tape tucked in the corner of my desk drawer. [AGGRAVATED SIGH] Covered in cobwebs. I suppose subtlety is gone out the window a bit. And the question is now simply … how much I trust the Spider to have my… best interests at heart.

It fits him, and I still do like how The Web is actually referred to in feminine form (“she”, “Mother”, “Mother-of-Puppets”) by People In The Known, but Jon tends to go with “it” – it’s… probably more of a “he” for him, too, because of his own personal experience, given how he (almost) met “Mr. Spider”? He’s not been the only one going with “the Spider” this season, though, it sounds like an actual way to refer to it:

(MAG121) OLIVER: Honestly, I’m… still not exactly sure why I’m here. But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what She asks!

(MAG128, Breekon) “A thrumming, silk-wrapped thing of the Spider, hiding away in an old steamer trunk. […] The Spider’s always an easy job – no fuss, no complication, everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a Stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to endure.”

(MAG136) DAISY: [SCOFF] She’s… Web. Spider’s sneaky like that. [PAUSE] Like that lighter you’re always using. Where’d you get that?

(MAG146) HELEN: There is… something wrong, with Hill Top Road. You know it as well as I do. Some strange “scar in reality” at the centre of… whatever it is the Spider is spinning. […] But the Spider’s strings are subtle, so I suppose it’s not impossible. Why?

(MAG148) ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…!

(Although Elias/Daisy/maybe Helen could have picked up the habit from Jon.)

- rgefdjerkfd

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: … Did your… therapist suggest this? MELANIE: N–not… not exactly. … She’s just… helped me work through some things I’ve been thinking for a while, uh, she doesn’t know the details. Just that I’m in a “bad contract situation” working somewhere pretty awful. [HUFF] … She thinks I work for the Tories. ARCHIVIST: … God…

I love that 1°) this is how the therapist translated Melanie’s situation, 2°) that for Jon and Melanie, being bound to an eldritch entity feeding of pain and fear that is trying to reshape the world as a factory farm is still… way better than the perspective of working for the Tories. BABES, I LOVE YOU.

- Especially given how we only know that not serving The Eye means getting sick because Tim experienced it, that Tim had been the first one to call the Institute “evil” and to point out that working for it meant corrupting themselves, and given how The Unknowing was mentioned… I’m still utterly baffled that Tim wasn’t even namedropped in this episode. I still kind of hope that there is something coming about it because? It was super-weird?

- Guuuuh, Melanie and Daisy are so good this season!!

(MAG150) MELANIE: If you need me, I’ll be trying to get Daisy drunk. ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] Good luck. It only ever happened once in 2006, she drank a– … Sorry. Didn’t mean to. MELANIE: Sure. See you around.

… and pffft: Martin highlighted that Daisy was “pretty observant” (MAG142), and we now have confirmation that Daisy very rarely gets drunk… which means she’s probably used to watching people get wasted around her? To hear compromising stuff while she remains sober? Daisy, you’ve been getting a lot of Beholding points lately.

- That means that, right now, three members out of four of Team Archives are under withdrawal: Daisy is resisting the call of her blood/The Hunt, Jon has stopped taking live-statements (and ;; isn’t recovering well from their trip to Svalbard: MAG150, “… Still feeling weak. Restless. I want to be proactive, but there hasn’t…! That hasn’t been going quite so well for us lately.” He probably won’t truly heal until he takes one…), Melanie has now stopped working for The Eye.

- Alright, so both with Jon commenting that Basira-Daisy-and-him are spending a lot of time together bundled up in the Institute (in the Archives / in the tunnels?), and Melanie announcing that she would stop to do any work for the Archives… What are they spending their time on? Because Melanie’s decision implies that the assistants were currently still doing research and follow-ups, although we haven’t heard a trace of it lately: in season 1 and 2, Jon was constantly crediting his assistants’ work during follow-up; in season 3, we heard them adding some data after the statements they had read, and we had a few mentions of Jon asking for their help while he was away. In season 4, Jon highlighted here and there that it wasn’t the case anymore:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. [EXHALE] Well that… certainly helped, I think. No notes or follow-up in the statement, and obviously no research done by myself or… my team.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. The Web does seem to have a preference for those who prefer not to assert themselves. The investigation is tricky, I don’t want to impose on Basira and, obviously, Melanie and… Martin… aren’t available, but I did do some light searching myself on Gregory Cox.

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: … Of course, even if I did want to do research into the statement, I wouldn’t have any help doing so. It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened. And Basira, though she is very willing to talk, still doesn’t seem to trust me enough to let me in on whatever plans she might have – if she has any plans at all, of course.

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: I did do a small bit of follow-up on Deborah Madaki, just for my own curiosity. She didn’t go to Sannikov Land in the end.

And Jon admitted in MAG148 that he was less interested in doing a follow-up, which he has indeed… stopped doing at all at this point. Annabelle had also portrayed Jon as unable to not read out a statement once he has it in mind nowadays (MAG147: “But think about it, Jon: when’s the last time you were able to read a statement quietly to yourself without instinctively hitting record and speaking it aloud? It is just instinct? Habit? Or is it a compulsion – a string pulled by the Ceaseless Watcher or the Mother of Puppets? Or both? I know the summaries have started to confuse you. Where did they come from, when you read a statement fresh? How do you just… sort of know what it’s about, before you even start to read it…? But by then, you’re away: the roller coaster is dropping and you’ve no real choice but to hold on and hope that… I don’t crash you.”), although she might have been trying to confuse him on purpose (since… he had done follow-up into statements shortly before that episode, which implied doing some work before reading the statements out loud…? Or is it that the overall glimpses of what-this-statement-is-about-before-reading-it were enough to do some research?).

But in any case: there was no mention of Basira, Daisy or Melanie providing any follow-up this season. So… what have they been doing, in the Archives, that counted as “assistant work” to not get sick? Follow-ups on past statements? On statements we haven’t heard yet? On dummy statements? Or did they just do some filing and/or organising (like Tim was moving boxes around in MAG104)?

- We’re going back to the “assistants can’t quit” deal and aaaactually:

(MAG150) MELANIE: Look. [INHALE] I’m not going to do my job anymore. ARCHIVIST: … I am not sure I follow, you–you know we… we can’t… quit, we’ve all tried.

If we trust his words (…), Elias indeed confirmed the trapping aspect (MAG092: “Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are. Like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it. Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit.”), but I’m curious about Jon’s “we’ve all tried”… because as far as we know, only Tim tried to quit?

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: Then quit! If you hate it so much, leave your post in the Archives. Permanently. TIM: You’re firing me? ARCHIVIST: … I’m offering you a chance to quit. No notice period, I’ll even make sure you get the rest of the month’s paycheck. [PAUSE] Just say the words. [STATIC RISES] TIM: I want to. ARCHIVIST: So do it. TIM: I… … can’t. ARCHIVIST: [SOFTLY] Why not…? TIM: I… I… I–I can’t! I don’t know… Why can’t I quit?! ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know. But I don’t think I can fire you either. TIM: What? ARCHIVIST: It’s this place. TIM: I don’t understand. ARCHIVIST: Neither do I. [STATIC FADES] I’m trying to figure it out, I’ve– I’ve got the shape of it but… I’m sorry, Tim. Truly I am. But I cannot, and will not, trust you. This place isn’t right, you see that now. I don’t know how or why, but there is something very wrong with the Archives. And I don’t know who here is a victim of it… and who is an agent. TIM: So… what do we do? ARCHIVIST: For now? I suppose we just… do our jobs. TIM: I don’t want to. ARCHIVIST: No…

(MAG079) TIM: There is something in this place, and it’s messing up our heads. It watches us all the time. It stops me quitting. I’m pretty sure it would stop Elias firing Jon even if he decided to actually try running this place for once. MARTIN: You’re sure you don’t just want to stay? TIM: I’m. sure. MARTIN: But, like, deep down– TIM: No. MARTIN: … Oh.

… But the others don’t seem to have tested these boundaries as far as we knew? Martin is unclear (although he mentioned feeling trapped in MAG039 and MAG117); we didn’t witness Melanie trying to actually flee (although Elias mentioned to Jon that “Even more than the others she has a visceral hatred of being trapped. Regardless of how much freedom I afford her.” in MAG102); and it had been pointed out how Basira hadn’t even tried:

(MAG095) MARTIN: Kinda thought your job was to be a hostage. […] Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, trying to escape? BASIRA: Sure. How’s that gone for you? MARTIN: What? BASIRA: The way Tim tells it, we’re all in the same boat here. So, how’s your escape plan coming? [NOISES OF CONFUSED EXASPERATION] MARTIN: How… Doesn’t it bother you?!

(MAG112) DAISY: You’re getting comfortable with all those books. Don’t forget why you’re here. BASIRA: I know where I am, Daisy, and I know that I’m a prisoner. DAISY: And you want to escape. BASIRA: Yeah. But not on my own. We’re working on something. I’ll ask Melanie to fill you in.

And Jon himself was a weird case – he indeed fled the Institute at the end of season 2, but it was more… circumstantial? And he didn’t come back because he was getting sick like Tim?

- Oufffffffttt, Jon…

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: Uh… [DOOR CLOSES] Of course, I was just, um… having a statement. MELANIE: Uh… an, an old one? ARCHIVIST: Wh– Yes, an old one! I’m not– I’m doing my best. MELANIE: … Sure.

… What is the definition of his “best”, here? Staying in the Archives and accepting to be tailed by the others…? That’s… better than (re)traumatising people, sure, but the contrast with how Melanie is doing her best (forcing herself to go through therapy and to go past her distrust, working on herself, deciding that she prefers to be dead rather than collaborating with a Fear-machine, putting efforts into going to tell Jon although we could hear that it was hard and they’ve never been best friends in the first place) is quite astounding, and it was really not surprising that she was absolutely unimpressed.

(To Jon’s credit: that also means forcing himself to Not Know, probably. But still: if he feels like he’s currently doing “his best”, what does it say about his current mental state, except that it’s… bad all over?)

- For once, I’m still not sure that I clearly understand the different meanings of the title! Herman’s was pretty forward (feeling like he was stuck in the suburb & in his life, getting stuck for real in a Lonely dimension without issue) and I’m guessing that it’s also a representation of Jon&co right now: stuck and unable to go anywhere, just condemned to… wait (is Jon waiting for the end of 2018? He said he was conscious that the year marked the Institute’s 200th anniversary, in MAG127); although, at the same time, Melanie is proving that choices and options are still possible.

Right now, we’re indeed in a strange situation where it feels like, unless another new crisis suddenly explodes at their face (Maxwell Rayner not actually dead-dead? Jon had mentioned seeing people with the pendants of the cult, shortly after he woke up from his coma) (Vast ritual? We haven’t heard anything about it) (other Beholding folks coming to prepare their ritual?) (Hunters going after the Institute?)… Martin is the only one currently able to move things forwards.

- Cheers: this episode marked the end of the penultimate quarter of the season… and of the series in general! … Now, we’ll be entering the last quarter. It. Feels. Weird (usually, at this point, you would have a clear idea of the end line in sight and, uh, I… have… no idea… what we’re heading towards… and I am absolutely confident that, whatever happens, it will make sense and will have been introduced for a long while. But right now, it’s only “something most likely awful coming” and just. Dread.)

Title for MAG151 was used by Peter, twice, so I’m expecting the episode to be about Martin meeting his “friend” and… getting some answers/leads. Whoever that friend is – but given how the title can serve as a Vast pun and/or be a reference to a camera, I would say that Simon Fairchild (the Fairchilds collaborated with the Lukases on the Daedalus project, one of Jon’s first cases as a researcher at the Institute was about him, Jon has jinxed it by spitting that he didn’t want to meet Simon ever, and Peter said his friend was currently out of the country when Jon pointed out in MAG124 that Simon apparently likes to travel…) and Mikaele Salesa (since Peter and him were at least acquaintances making bets together according to MAG066, and there is… that camera from Floyd’s statement…) are gaining a few points as likely suspects.

(Anil had mentioned that this episode could trend at number 1 on tumblr, too, and squints, if I had to guess at why an episode would be more likely to trend, it would… probably contain reveals (Martin meeting Peter’s friend would cover it indeed), but also “Jon & Martin meeting again” or “Peter and Elias actually in the same room for the first time”, so………………)

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