#anything for you teaser

[lululawrence]

You Should Be Here With Me

A 2024 Advent Fic by lululawrence

Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson | 34k | 26 Chapters

The festive period is a traditionally hectic one in the world of Premier League football, and this year is no different. A lot is riding on how Manchester United is able to come through the fixtures in the coming weeks.

Louis and his teammates know all too well the pressure that is on their shoulders. They need to prove, not just to fans of the club but the entire league, that they still have what it takes to be a team worthy of fighting for the top of the table.

Throw in the fact that Louis is all too aware that he's not getting any younger in a profession that demands your peak physical fitness year round and the incredibly fit Harry Styles, who is part of the club's social media team, and this year's festive period might just be the most important one yet.

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NOW COMPLETE!

[itadooori]

the more we learn about s3 the more possible a gi-hun self sacrifice plotline becomes and that makes me feel very ill

[funger-rips]

Fear and Hunger: Termina - Reila with Glasses (Unused Sprites and Mockup) Note: The full-body sprites of Reila with glasses on are EDITS, where I placed the bust sprites (seen above- unused, but present in the files) of her onto her standard sprites used in-game. They merely serve as an informative mockup as to what she could have looked like, combining content present in the files. The sprites are otherwise unmodified.

[wackywatchdotcom]

before i go do smth else like smth i think abt often but was thinking abt a few hrs ago in particular is how the circus easily tricks the audience into thinking the circus would be Better Than Real Life. when i think from literally almost any angle you examine it its just as bad (if not worse, depending on your own problems)

i think theres like so many problems its hard to even list them all. some of it is personal taste things. cus i think a lot of people think itd be fun because they enjoy specific aesthetic choices in the circus, or bc of other interest related things. but like. what about people who HATE bright colors. what about people who dont like the idea of not being human. what about people who dont enjoy things like roleplaying. some aspects of the circus are only even appealing to specific tastes in things, making one of the few 'draws' of it not really even being a universal thing

and thats the superficial stuff. because more importantly, if you dont like the real world (for whatever reason), the circus may provide a temporary solution to that, because its so far removed from reality. but i think the circus is way smaller than people realize. theres definitely always going to be things to see since caine can always make things, but its just as limited if not more than the real world, because while the world grows and changes, genuinely new things are created and discovered and stuff. caine will never really get to see that, let alone recreate it for the players- and even then, it still isnt actually that thing. that doesnt even factor in that caine is already operating on limited knowledge of the real world. its not clear how detailed he can get on things, since the accuracy can vary (spudsys being so accurate to the real world, vs the dinner in ep 1 being so flat and lacking almost any detail), but theres a good chance that anything he makes is going to be limited to, at the most, a CONCEPT from the real world, if theres nothing in the real world you like, thats still all youll get, just in a different way.and if you DO like things from the real world, youll never get to truly reexperience it (even if caine remakes it, youll know its not the real thing, and it wont be 100% how you remember it, either)

then theres the safety/pain/horror aspect to what caine makes. i think because there hasnt been gore or anything its easy to assume the circus is still tame, and that anything bad that happens cant be TOO bad. but this is NOT true at all. the teaser of the show establishes that even when caine is not going for horror, he still hurts the players. theres things thatd be physically horrifying to a person like getting possessed, theres physical pain (i see it debated but i think its clear that even if they were to experience less pain, they still DO experience pain, but thats a different topic) or extreme discomfort, theres psychological torment (the exit doors are genuinely very cruel even if that wasnt caines goal, what ep 4 did to jax and gangle. kinger getting taunted in ep 3, etc). its all survivable but even if you like them caine isnt trustworthy enough in this way to never do smth horrific to a person, or cause it through his actions

then theres the complete lack of autonomy, which imo is one of the most frightening things about the circus. bc unless your tastes are always aligning with the exciting, completely family friendly existence of the circus, and you never deviate even a little, you are going to be barred from any semblance of it. its best illustrated in how pomni HATES being touched but caines always prodding her and moving her places and stuff, and in how zooble is denied the option to opt out of adventures even when they state they want to directly by episode 4 implying the choice to even have time to yourself is deeply conditional (plus, the whole lack of an exit entirely meaning that even if you liked the circus, the lack of option to leave would still affect a person. youre getting locked in a big room for the rest of time and youll never get to leave). and also this post

and THEN you factor in the social aspect. because regardless of how you prefer socializing if at all, the circus is a nightmare. if you dont like people, thats great! you dont NEED to be anyones friend! except that you are going to be forced to interact with them eventually, and when you do its going to be repeated. its not gonna be once. and once caine notices hes going to bother you about it. forever

alternatively, if you DO like social interactions in any way, no matter what, if its not you, youre going to see others abstract. you are going to inevitably watch those you care abt struggle and eventually get stuck in a state that Seems Extremely Horrifying To Experience forever. its long and drawn out and itd suck and it wouldnt happen once

then is the easy to forget fact that if you have psychological problems they can and WILL follow you to the circus. gangle and zooble are the biggest examples of this. the circus didnt get rid of their problems, they just gave it a new, horrifying inevitable consequence. i sometimes fall victim to looking at the circus and assuming that ohhh i wouldnt have this problem! because i wont have to deal w it getting set off! but like... yeah i would. i wouldnt stop having this or that in the circus id just have to deal w it while ALSO going on adventures

theres many things. you cant truly eat you cant die you dont get to decide anything when you do die it seems terrifying to experience and youll be stuck in some level of that forever and anything you enjoy is not with you and anything you dont enjoy will follow you too to some degree and the list goes on and on

all this said i dont think any of this is an indicator that the characters lives are meaningless or smth just because it sucks. theres a reason gooseworx has said that the takeaway from the show should be that theres meaning to be found in a stagnant life. theres still meaning in their existence and i dont think its as hopeless as it may seem- but i think its still BAD. and tbh the idea that its worse only HELPS that theme of the show!!! i dont think itd hit as hard as a theme if the circus DIDNT suck

[klaufir]

O O

[astral-herald]

24 hours from now we may have reached euphoric heights unknown to most mortal men, or a rage that belongs in the deepest circles of hell alone.

viktor better be in the trailer. i'm so serious rn.

[bizarrelittlemew]

Rhys giggling at his own (accidental) dirty joke

[electrozeistyking]

DID YUO SEE THE GIF GLITCH JUST DROPPED-

I DID NOT AND DO NOT WANT TO.

Allow me to explain: I want to watch any and all Murder Drones episodes blindly without knowing or seeing anything on them. In fact, that's how I enjoy watching this show. Why, you may ask?

Because that's how I first watched the pilot.

I knew literally nothing about it. I didn't know who voiced in it, what it was all about, who created it... nothing. I just saw a thumbnail for a show that had to do with robots on the internet, and decided to watch it on a whim.

I was blindsided by everything. The first thing I did when N spoke was to very loudly exclaim "MICHEAL?!" And you know what? I enjoyed what I saw! It may have taken me two separate occasions to finish, but I enjoyed my experience watching it!

Did I know episode two came out? I was hyperfixating on something else at the time, so I only found out about it months later. And like with the pilot, I knew nothing about it. I hadn't seen any teasers or anything on it, so once again, I was blindsided by everything I witnessed. So on and so forth, for each and every episode.

It was easy for me not to see anything, because I didn't have reliable internet at the time. Therefore, I was completely unaware of release dates, I didn't see any teasers, I didn't see anything for any episodes.

Obviously, I could not avoid the one featured in GLITCHX, so it was unavoidable and is therefore the only exception to this rule. I am willingly choosing to commit to how I watch these next episodes, because it's been an enjoyable experience for me to get slapped in the face by every episode of this series so far.

And I'd like to keep it that way.

Okay, this is turning out longer than I meant it to be, so let's get to the point I wanna make: while this is the first news we're getting in a long while and it's certainly exciting, I am purposely trying to avoid seeing it so I can continue enjoying it this way.

Anyway, here's N playing the trumpet as an apology if I came off as aggressive at the start there. :3

wait shit was it murder drones related i blacked out when i wrote this

[demadogs]

stranger things season one 2016 was so fucking incredible. it exists as an entirely different entity to me than the rest of the show. you literally just had to be there. to this day nothing has ever come close to the amount of universal love for a fictional story that stranger things first received. ive been chasing this high for eight years.

[gh0stv01d]

ok im tired of tim’s house changing like every season but im just going to assume that Tim used his half of the money from selling his dad’s house to get himself a bigger house with the intention that Lucy would eventually move in and they could raise a family together…

[kirbyddd]

between Dread continuing from a game on GBA (and really every game prior to that too) and Prime 4 continuing from 2 games on GameCube and Original DS, Metroid has the longest narrative endurance of any multi-creator series I've ever seen. Threads left in stasis decades ago when the series was shelved picked right back up once development resumes—an entire generation of developers later—like nothing ever happened

[itadooori]

the teaser has me pondering my junhun orb now

[astradyke]

being very truthful i wasn't feeling particularly positive about the trailer for TIT (still bought tix though hi nyc <3) and am holding out hope they do a little more teasing for what this tour is actually about in future videos,

but i cannot deny that this specific frame of it

("we basically raised half of them." - phil)

like very specifically got me? like obviously yes the bit is like, they're our dads i started watching them age twelve et cetera but. i don't know. with the way all of this is laid out, the contrasting colors that blend together and the silhouettes on their respective sides (as we always view them, dan to the left & phil to the right) and the screens, it says so loudly like... it's dan and phil, side by side. it's the two of them. it's been them for the last fifteen years.

it's a we, it's a testament that this kinda sacred thing of 'dan and phil' has lasted a really long time, and survived a hiatus, solely because dan and phil themselves have known each other and existed alongside each other for those fifteen years. and yes, obviously, this trailer is all scripted, but this exchange still has this feeling of it being about them, not just their brand together-- they aren't really talking to the audience, here, are they? it wasn't solely 'dan and phil' content that raised the audience; dan and phil did. (maybe a redundant point, but i am working off of the negative space here. a lot of this feels like intertwining themselves with their online personas, and simultaneously walking that line. letting us see only what they want to be shown, and now examining that introspectively).

i hope that makes sense, i'm not much of an analyst or theorist. i don't know what the dan and phil renaissance really is yet, and i am a bit afraid of it all, but i'm really excited, both for everything that's to come but also -- more importantly -- i'm just fucking excited for them.

for this bond between them and the phandom to blossom in the healthy ways it has been lately, for the opening of new doors amidst this phan renaissance... and for them to take back what the internet took from them.

[just-null]

so wild seeing "Noritoshi cuddling headcanons?" next to "i want to suffocate in his tits" in my inbox, two amazing vibes.

[smtown-tourist]

It’s nice that Taemin is finally letting us see what the demon that possesses him when he performs looks like

[scarletdreamers]

A small excerpt of a scene from the Hannigram fic for anyone who's curious. Had trouble finding something that wouldn't really spoil anything (and just selecting a scene in general goddamn). This scene takes places a little after the first half of the story. For reference, they are currently in Lisbon, Will killed a man the previous night and they are supposed to leave by boat the next day. A week or so prior Hannibal revealed some details about his aunt and his past, and Will can't stop thinking about it.

As requisted, angsty murder husbands, here you go. And thank you all so much for the support. I hope you all enjoy.

-

‘’It’s quite frustrating to be mad at someone who’s already dead, you know? To harbour wrath without being able to avenge it.’’ 

I didn’t ask where we were going. I would see it once the car came to a stop. That, or you kept driving until we tumbled off the face of the earth. I trusted you enough to make the choice. 

Your fingers tightened around the wheel. Then loosened again. And a small pout became visible on your lips, though it was supposed to hide something harder to determine. The streetlights came over your face in gentle flashes, painting it a dark gold for two seconds before giving it back to the shadows of the car.

‘’I can imagine.’’

But of course you could only imagine. Anyone who ever angered you had either been slaughtered and served, or paid a great price for their mistakes.

‘’Is this about what I told you a week ago?’’ You then added, in a way that indicated you’d expected this conversation all along. There was no need to mention it for us both to know exactly what this was about.

‘’I just hate it that there’s things inside of you I can’t touch. Things I can’t have. Those people are examples of that. And that house was poisonous.’’

It was that exact moment that we drove towards the city’s harbour that I knew how you were going to handle the situation. I could see the lights of the giant bridge, they danced on the water like little moving stars in an endless night sky that held no light of its own. 

‘’I want to get them out of you.’’ I continued. ‘’I need to. I don’t think I can ever truly forget about them otherwise.’’

It was a very honest confession that exposed the centre of my frustration. And all I could hope for was for you not to get angry because I desired to save you, knowing you had no need or want to be saved.

It was just how I had felt, back in that house. Like a desperate surgeon of selfish pity. Who wanted nothing more than to take his scalpel and cut you open to get out what was killing you so much it made you live in silence. A surgeon that ignored your say in it, in the operation. Because I was supposed to save you. A lover is supposed to save you the way a doctor should either take away your pain or allow you to die.

But then again, what could I actually do? I wasn’t even a surgeon. I was but a lover, unable to express my feelings about some parts of you because I knew that I wanted them dead. You grew flowers out of lungs and made them into art, and I turned minds into maps that led to captivity or insanity. What more was there to say?

You pulled over and we stopped only a few yards away from the water. My attention kept being pulled to that bridge in the distance. Full of lights and iron grandeur, the way it towered over the water. Connecting two halves of a city that seemed like they had been ripped apart by the sea, or maybe just never close enough to really belong together. 

‘’My uncle was very kind to me. He was a great man and taught me most things my parents didn’t get the opportunity to. He was wise and caring. As was my aunt. You shouldn’t blame it on my uncle and aunt that I wasn’t fond of that house.’’ You explained. I couldn’t for sure say I was listening when I opened the car door and stepped into the cold night. 

It was very windy. My hair got blown into my face right away and the cold made my eyes sting. Lisbon was a beautiful city. Maybe in some other life we would’ve settled here. Maybe there we would’ve stayed to wither away of old age, in each other’s bed and each other’s hair and each other’s dust. It was a life in which the body in the trunk was the last body we buried and we, for once in our lives, accepted a future of bright normalcy. Bright like a soft ray of sunlight on smoke steaming from a teacup in the early morning. We might’ve been happy here. In some apartment with weightless curtains and a cellar filled with white wines and champagne, like I imagined old couples in Lisbon having. 

I leaned against the car, the stones tiles under my feet stopped to reveal dark waters to my right. I heard a second car door shut behind me. It wasn’t long until your figure approached and offered me a pair of leather gloves. They were probably meant to avoid unnecessary fingerprints on the bag, but I thankfully took them because my hands were cold. The pockets of my coat didn’t help much.

‘’Will, I know that what I told you has distorted your views of my aunt for the worse, but you have to understand she was not an evil woman.’’ Your voice echoed next to me. I felt the corners of my mouth stretch into a grimace. I hadn't meant to. ‘’One flaw doesn’t make a person immoral or cruel altogether. She loved me, and I adored her. As I said, she never tried anything when I didn’t want it and took better care of me than my own mother ever could. She was no worse than we are. She’s not even comparable to us. I am way worse, yet you don’t disregard me for it. Then why her?’’

It was almost annoying how there was nothing dishonest about that. The least I could do was to not be dishonest in return.

‘’It’s because I don’t know her. To me she’s a stain on a past that isn’t mine.’’ It was supposed to be a sigh in defeat, but it came out bitter. ‘’I want to protect you. From external influences.'’

From people other than me. You know damn well I only accept fear and hurt when love is the motive.

‘’She didn’t curse me. Neither is she the reason that I am who I am today. I had acknowledged my own cruelty long before her, Will. And my worst memories come from a time way before her. She was just there, after it happened. An aftereffect that came with the damage of losing my parents and later my sister. You should broaden your perspective. Try not only looking into my mind, but also dive into hers. You will see why I am not angry at her. Not like you are at the figures that did you wrong.’’

It was almost funny, how the wind was messing up your hair, too. 

‘’You think I’m angry about my past?’’

I saw it in your eyes, a clear answer. A reflection of something I couldn’t see unless I was presented with a mirror.

‘’Your past is a white flame that swallows you alive, Will.’’ 

Had you been anyone else, I would have taken that as a personal attack. It was the way there were hints of adoration, of understanding, that made me tolerate it.

I caught a man who saw such things once, after all. Sinners with their heads on fire. That man thought he was God, and he was convinced that God was destroyable. He made himself angels. Guardians. To allow those wrongdoers, swallowed by flames, a passage to heaven. And to avoid ending up in there himself. 

God is destroyable. He truly is. I saw it. I saw it happen three times. There’s multiple versions of him, too. Multiple different takes on the story. Pieces of him in different bodies, different people. Some don’t know what to do with a piece of God inside of them, and others completely become him. Some, very few, maybe only one, become their own nemesis. Fighting against that piece of cruel divinity by becoming something even worse. As if to challenge it.

I said I had known three. The first one strung himself up in a barn, because the burden was too much to bear and being an angel seemed simpler. 

The second had a son with the eyes of a saint and the mind of the devil. He raised it. The little monster, the tiny beast. He raised it until it got old enough to know what it could do with its hands. Then he succumbed to the waters, hoping he would be forgiven. God can’t be forgiven. My father learned that the hard way.

The last of the three destroyed himself in my arms on the bedroom floor not even a week ago. He destroyed himself in his own kitchen years ago, also in my arms, knife stuck in my guts and a dying daughter at our feet. He couldn’t make an angel of himself in the hope of being saved. He knew there was no higher being to save him. Instead he chose to endure, in the hope of finding a better life with the man that didn’t consider him untouchable, unlike everyone else he ever met. Unlike everyone he ever created, controlled, influenced. This god wanted to marry his own end, as the best of us do.

There have been many gods in the world, but this one was mine to believe in. Mine alone. And none of those others could ever be lovelier and more real than he was.

‘’I see it burning you every day. Your anger is visible. I might not know the specifics. I don’t know what your father did, what happened to your mother and what role your uncle, whom you mentioned only once, plays in this, but I know that it makes you angry. Your pain is your power. Your anger is a motivation, often it’s the fundament of your beautiful strength of character, but it will also be your downfall if you try to keep it inside of you for too long.’’

And unlike others, this man refuses to watch over everything. To see everything. This man who carries fragmented pieces of god in his heart that he keeps as fuel to his spite, sometimes closes his eyes. He withdraws, and realises that he can get hurt too. 

He gave me his understanding, his trust, and half of his heart came along with it. Everything that hurts me, hurts him, and he can barely manage it. Despite his narcissism and the belief that he can do anything, he can hardly carry it. And he knows it, that’s why he gets quiet.

‘’No one has ever called me angry before.'' I mumbled. The wind was still hurting my eyes. 

‘’That’s because you’ve been dominated by empathy your entire life. Your ability to sympathise with the actions and personal pains of those who did you wrong overshadows the rage that is stored in a deeper, darker place. Everyone assumes you can’t actually be angry because you understand the wrongdoer, but understanding doesn’t kill anger. It only makes your rage more righteous. I can see it, Will. That you’re angry, but you have never tried to mention it. That’s why I never asked.’’

This was something the therapist could’ve told me in Baltimore, but somehow it didn't sound like him. Not at all. Written on paper, his words would’ve read like a diagnosis. Here, under a sky so dark the crows couldn’t pierce through it and a city burning behind us, it felt more like a reminder. A reminder by someone I had spent a lifetime knowing. A lifetime opening up to, opening up for. 

I never mentioned it, because deep down I must’ve known that you knew it all along, anyway. 

I turned my head and laughed. Smiled so broadly I must’ve looked like a madman. The white rows of bony teeth baring themselves to you like a row of bullets. I lowered my head. If it had been hanging on a small string, a little ribbon, it would’ve tumbled right off and ended up in the sea.

‘’Do you think I’m angry right now?”’

You hesitated to answer. Not because you were unsure of what you were about to say, but because I’d surprised you. You were trying to find out what made me smile like that. I was too.

‘’At my aunt? Yes. Intentionally. At your own history? Also yes, but unintentionally, enough to forget it’s there. At us and the situation we’re in? No. For the first time in years, no. Ever since before I framed you, I haven’t seen this much peace in you when it comes to our relationship. And that’s what ultimately matters, isn’t it?’’

I lifted my head. The smile had been swept off my face.

‘’Is there really that big of a difference?’’

‘’Currently your mind is a calm sea wherever I’m involved, Will. I can smell lovesickness. It’s physical, you know. It has the same smell as nausea if you were both really high on sugars and toxins. I used to smell it on you all the time, sometimes stronger or weaker, but there have rarely been days where I haven’t smelled it. And when you get really used to something, you’ll realise it way sooner once it’s gone. I don’t smell it on you anymore. Or at least, barely. That’s enough to tell me how you feel about me right now.’’

Could I hide anything from you? 

‘’When did you first smell it, then?’’

‘’The night I killed Abigail.’’

I shook my head, trying to wipe it clean of the memories that were trying to push their way in.

‘’Not earlier?’’

‘’No.’’ You answered, steady, smiling at me with a nostalgia that gave me the impression we were talking about birthdays. Old, never forgotten, but always melancholic at their core. Another year passing. Another year lost. ‘’Before that it was betrayal and anger, but not lovesickness. Back then we weren’t far enough past one another's walls to know we were in too deep. Lovesickness only comes when you realise you’re absolutely lost in the other.’’ 

Lovesickness. The way you described it made me think of bad, fabricated chocolate. Full of so much stuff you shouldn’t want to put into your body, despite the desire to. And in the end, you still do. Because your small child hands can’t resist temptation. Just like the way adult hands always long for another hand to hold. The need for chocolate will fade as one grows older, sensitivity to temptation won't. To wanting things you aren't supposed to have.

‘’I realised that I didn’t do anything to hurt you back when you stabbed me. I had a gun, I could shoot or fight, but I wanted your embrace. So much that I let myself be hurt for the sake of being held. I think it dawned on me there, that I was in love with you. Badly, unfixably and unhealthily. That it wasn’t just a game for me anymore.’’

I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. And you probably meant to speak up, but remained silent. 

Identically different.

I wanted to ask you when you smelled it on yourself for the first time, but the nights in Essonne that were full of nothing but hollow, aching loneliness came back to me. What did when matter. My nose wasn’t as good as yours, but I could also sense it. I could feel it in the throbbing pulse of your heart. The restraint. I noticed it through your hitched breaths in the deep blue dark, through the tiniest of twitches as you slept and the most subtle of gazed. That deep rooted sadness of which I still wasn’t sure to who it belonged. Not to you. You were many things, but you weren't sad. Not Hannibal Lecter. Maybe the orphan who lost his little sister in the eternal snow.

I blamed it on that stupid house. That stupid woman. That stupid room and kitchen and those stupid woods. If I wanted to make conversation with the dead I had a whole graveyard ready inside my head. I didn’t also need one in my garden. Or under the floor on which I slept.

I slammed my hand against the car behind me. It surprised me, too. 

‘’I just feel so worked up about it. About what you told me. And I know you don’t like it and probably shouldn't have shared it if you had known about this, but-’’

‘’You’re angry for me. Not at me. That makes all the difference.’’ You cut me off, hand and fingers digging into my jaw. I was kissed after those words. Lips on cold lips that were as cold as my hands. When you let me go it felt as if the wind rushing between us was trespassing through a holy space.

I broke free from both you and the car, walked over to the trunk and took out the big, heavy bag. Without thinking twice about it or asking for your help I marged to the water. I didn’t bother telling you that all his organs were still intact. I could do well for a few more weeks without human meat on my dinner plate. We didn’t have a kitchen here in the first place. 

You watched me as I took some bricks out of the car once I put the bag down. Then I walked over to the edge, dropped the bricks in the bag without looking inside of it, lifted the thing, and dropped it into the big inky liquid in front of us. I knew that you wouldn’t have brought me here if the water wasn’t deep enough, so I didn’t actually worry about it being found soon.

As easy as that was, I got rid of the body. After a few seconds the rimpling of the water was all the evidence there was that something heavy was now sinking to the bottom. I promised myself to never learn the man’s name. Names created empathy, empathy made attachment and a bunch of nightmares.

You were probably a bit undignified by my direct and impulsive way of taking care of the matter, but you had no say in this. I killed him, you wanted me to get rid of him, and I did. There was nothing ceremonial, nothing beautiful, about this murder. It was plain cruelty, then forgotten in a night of desire, and now discarded to be forgotten again.

You never forgot, but I made sure to give you something else to associate this night with as I pushed you back against the car and crashed into you. I pushed my hands up the ridiculously neat and expensive shirt of your tuxedo and kissed you, both of us seeking stability against a car in the empty night. My leather clothed fingers took a hold of your waist and for a moment I forgot who we were and who we were supposed to be.

A hurricane in the shape of a body doesn’t make it less powerful. Or less destructive. Natural disasters and forces are, after all, the rage of the world allowing itself to manifest and burst on the earth’s surface. They rip land and sea in two, separating cities in halves, dismembering humans and making houses give in on themselves. 

Maybe we had that in common too. You collected church collapses, and as a little boy I used to keep track of every hurricane, every earthquake or flood and tsunami near the west and southern coast. Growing up in Louisiana it was common to hear stories about natural disasters, and I liked them. The idea of them. Not in the way you were amused by a church roof tumbling down, but in the sense that it comforted me. The knowledge that something very big and unstoppable, something humans had no say in, could come around and wipe out a whole state. I sat in front of tv watching the news in silence, while my father got restless with concern. I never figured out if he was concerned about the hurricanes or about me.

I wondered what he would say if he saw me now. I wondered if he would want me to apologise or vice versa. I hoped that despite everything, he still cared for me like he did back then. He might not have liked me very much, but he loved me enough to worry about me. I would’ve liked it if he had said something to me now, for that heavy voice that was almost identical to mine nowadays to make itself audible inside my head like it used to. With you all over my mouth pressed up against an old car that he would’ve loved, seeing me with a man that I loved. I was in love with the most horrible man alive. Though that was only true when I didn’t count myself among men, and remembered who the title actually belonged to. 

But my dad didn’t say anything. And that if he asked me what happiness was to me, then I would’ve told him it was this. This was the closest I was going to get, at least for now. Leaving it all behind really does work when you have someone to forget it all with.

Eventually we ran out of breath and I was satisfied with the extent of which I ruined your shirt. I pulled open the car door while my other hand still held your hips in place and gave you a little tuck at the rim of your trousers.

‘’Let’s go and spend the night in the hotel. I’m cold.’’

There was a little cut in my lip that I didn’t notice until it started to sting from nakedness in the cold. I wasn’t sure how it got there, but the coppery taste wasn’t unwelcomed. I sucked on it as I stepped back inside the car, thinking of the colourlessness of water. Thinking of how even a quiet stream can colour red if it’s filled with enough corpses.