#bc my brain is a moron sometimes

[brionysea]

.

[ursuburbanmother]

I’m On Fire, But I’m Trying Not to Show It || Chapter Two

Pairing: Angus Tully x fem!reader

a/n: Hi guys! Back with chapter two!! Thank you for all the love last chapter! You guys are too sweet! I hope you like this chapter as well, although we get a little angsty in this one oops. Also author note at the end!

Word count: 5k.

Find: Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

Enjoy!

December 17, 1970. Still.

Paul Hunham didn’t think his luck could get any worse but then that moron at the Janie Patrick's Girl School had to go make his problems, his. Then at the young lady’s arrival Angus Tully practically had hearts popping out his eyes like those cartoon characters on TV. That would be an issue. An issue he had to deal with at once.

As the boys grumbled and moaned on their way to the infirmary, as if they were the Athenians sent to march to Marathon in 490 BC, he made his way to the kitchen, looking for a certain cook.

“Hello, Mary,” he greets. She sits at her desk with a cigarette between two fingers, writing something down in her notebook.

“Mr. Hunham. I heard you got stuck with babysitting duty this year. How’d you manage that?” Her tone tiptoes on the edge of teasing.

“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I failed someone who richly deserved it.”

“The Osgood kid? Yeah, he was a real asshole. Rich and dumb. Popular combination around here.”

“It’s a plague. Uh, and you? You’ll be here, too?” God, he hopes she is. He doesn’t think he will be able to survive as the only adult on the school grounds.

To his relief she nods her head, “All by my lonesome. My little sister Peggy and her husband invited me to go visit them in Roxbury, but I feel like it’s too soon. Like Curtis will think that I’m abandoning him, you know. This is the last place my baby and I were together, not including the bus station.”

Paul pursues his lips, unsure of what to say. “Well, maybe you won't be completely alone. How would you feel about letting a female student sleep in the staff common room? We could push some couches together, I'm sure. Make a nice bed that way.”

“Female student? What do you mean?”

“I’m unsure about the exact details, but I have been entrusted by the idiots across the lake with taking care of one of their students.”

“Ahh,” Mary is beginning to understand.

He nods, “Her name is Y/n L/n, I think she and Tully are in cahoots somehow. You should've seen the way he looked at her.”

“Oh no, don't do that though. You can’t have that poor girl sleep on a lumpy couch all break. She needs a bed.”

“I just want this whole ordeal to go smoothly. If I can keep those two as far away as possible, I believe all will be well.”

“Please that Tully boy wouldn't try anything. Sometimes he is the only one to say thank you when we place the food down on the lunch tables.”

Paul mulls it over for a second. “I suppose I could give it a try. Not that I think it is wise.”

Mary smiles slightly, “I know those kids are hard to handle but hold out hope for them. Some trust too. It's not too late yet. Their brains are still moldable or whatever corny crap you teachers say.”

Paul smiles slightly, his attention pulled to the bottle of bourbon on her desk, “You mind if I uh…”

“You want some of that? All right.”

“Thank you.”

“You know this is a necessity,” Mary says as she pours the liquid into a mug for him.

“Oh yes,” for life, love, pain or the next two weeks. Paul understands too well.

…

“Put the bed farther away Angus,” you say, your arms on your hips and you watch him struggle to drag his bed closer to yours.

“Why? Do I smell or something?”

“It's already a stretch to think he might let us sleep in the same room, he's definitely not going to let your bed be that close to mine.”

Huffing he begins to scoot it back to its original place, “Fine.”

Music has started blaring loudly from where Teddy and Jason are bunking in. Park and Ollerman are minding their business in their own space. You are across, what you think will be the place Mr. Hunham will stay in. Your hope is that him having an accessible view will make him more lenient towards you and Angus, despite his earlier warning of having you be on your own.

You situate your lavender near the window and begin to unpack your things. Angus does the same and you can hear his rustling get faster.

“What's wrong?” You ask.

“My…” He trails off. Suddenly he storms off like a man on a mission. You ignore the magazine you were flipping through and let it fall on the floor as you get up to follow him.

You see him head directly towards Kountze. “Where’s my photo?”

“What photo?”

“I think you know what photo, and you stole it.”

“I resent that baseless accusation.”

“Give me my goddamn picture!” Angus shouts.

“Hey man, if you took the photo just give it back,” you plead exasperatedly to Teddy, already tired of his whole innocent act.

“Stay out of it Y/n, it's alright,” Angus assures you and you move back to lean against the doorway. You sort of hope Angus socks him.

Kountze leaps to his feet and stalks towards him, “You need your girlfriend to defend you now? Seriously, what's your problem, Tully? Homesick? Maybe the little boy misses his mommy?”

“Fuck you, Kountze. Leave her out of it. And hey, why are you even here anyway? Where’s your family?”

“We’re renovating our house. It’s all torn up. They’re storing the tools and stuff in my room.” “That’s what they told you? It’s winter, idiot. Nobody renovates their house in the winter. Your parents don’t want you around because you’re a fucking insecure sociopath.”

“Hey, take it easy, guys.”

You can see Angus getting angrier. His shoulders are tense and in a last ditch effort you go up to him and whisper in his ear, “Punch him later. In private. Hunham won’t even hear our reasoning for rooming together. He’ll punish you by punishing me.”

Misery loves company, right? That was the saying at least. In your mind, suffering with Angus was better than the alternative. You didn’t want to spend these two weeks inside a glass case. From what you had seen, Hunham would have no problem in making you sit at your own lunch table or study in a separate classroom. You know that is what Ms. Orchard would have done if she was forced to take in the boys. She would have locked you in your dorm and insisted it was because you would “distract” them.

You can see the gears turning in Angus’s mind. He bites the inside of his cheek and finally nods before turning back to glare at Kountze. “You’re an asshole. I just needed you to know that.”

He turns around to retreat back to the room only to run straight into Mr. Hunhams chest. Angus leaps off and leans his back against the wall. Your own eyes widened, you hadn’t even heard the man's footsteps.

He surveys the room and notes all your disheveledness. Teddy's face looks flushed while Angus is still trying to control his heavy breathing. Everyone is completely silent and too scared to even make a move.

“What is going on here?”

“They weren’t fighting,” Alex squeaked. Mr. Hunham only seems to grow more suspicious. He shifted his sights to you and his eyebrow begins to raise, “They weren’t bothering you were they.”

“No. We were just talking,” you swallow the lump in your throat.

“What about?”

“Hmm?” You hum, straightening up.

“What were you all discussing mere seconds before I barged in on what, I am sure, was a highly intellectual conversation.”

“Shocking Blue,” you blurt out and Hunham turns his head as if asking for clarification. “The band that was on the radio.”

“Yeah, we love Shocking Blue,” Angus nods. The rest of the boys chime in, faking their agreement.

“They’re so good.”

“I listen to them all the time.”

Mr. Hunham continues to look unconvinced. Without a word he walks out, and you all collectively let out a sigh of relief. For a moment, you all stare at each other with giddiness. Like when you're a kid and get away with stealing a cookie from the cooling tray. You let yourself relax but shrivel back up upon the echo of Mr. Hunham's haunting voice, “Mr. Tully, Ms. L/n, in here. NOW.”

You frown, gazing up at Angus, “I think he found the room.”

…

After a stern talking to, Mr. Hunham begrudgingly agreed to let you and Angus sleep in the same room. He took a string of jingle bells that hung from a nearby Christmas decoration and tied it around Angus’s bedpost so that if he dared to move, he would hear it. You two were just fine with that.

Later you were escorted to the large dining hall. Mr. Hunham sat at the head of the table as the rest of you indulged in mindless chatter. You and Angus were on your third round of rock, paper, scissors, competing for nothing, when a lady came in to set down a platter of chicken, potatoes and asparagus.

“Lovely. Thank you, Mary.” the older man says.

You wait for the initial rush of grubby hands and pushing elbows to pass before you serve yourself, when you find that Angus already did it for you. He sets down the plate in front of you and then gets himself a serving of the green vegetable on his own dish.

“Didn’t we already have this for lunch?” Jason asks.

“And it was crappy then,” Teddy says through his eager chewing. You gag at the scene.

“Consider yourselves lucky. During the third Punic campaign, 149-146 B.C., the Romans laid siege to Carthage for three entire years. By the time it ended, the Carthaginians were reduced to eating sand and drinking their own urine. Hence the term punitive.”

The woman from earlier, that you now know is Mary, returns with some water. You give her a passing smile which she returns.

“Mary, maybe you’d, um, maybe you would care to join us,” Hunham stumbles through his words.

Kountze looks up from his food then glances at you with alarm. Like he can't fathom the idea of sitting with the cook.

You think Mary can sense his disdain when you notice her demeanor sour after a glimpse in his direction. “No, I’m all right. Thank you.” She escapes through the kitchen doors.

Teddy pipes up, “I mean, I know she’s sad about her son and everything, but still, she’s getting paid to do a job. And she should do it well, right?”

The chewing and scraping of silverware halts. You and Angus gauge each other's reaction, both of you completely shocked and slightly horrified. That boy for some reason just never knows when to shut up and continues, “But I guess no matter how bad a cook she is, now they can never fire her.”

“Will you shut up!” Mr. Hunham yells loud enough for you to flinch. He slams his fork and knife down. “You have no idea what that woman has… For most people, Mr. Kountze, life is like a henhouse ladder -- shitty and short. You were born lucky. Maybe someday you entitled little degenerates will appreciate that. If you don’t, I feel sorry for you, and we will not have done our jobs. Now eat!”

…

You're on your bed and catching up on some reading and soaking in the orange hue that the bedside lamp offers you. The boys are still getting ready for bed, and you were graciously offered the first shift in the showers. You’re waiting for your hair to dry when Angus walks in with his pajamas on, and a towel draped over his shoulders.

“You look very dapper,” You smirk.

“Thank you,” he plops down into his mattress. “You think Walleye is still mad?”

“Probably. I don’t blame him.”

“It made for a pretty awkward evening though.”

“Not one of the worst dinners I ever had. I’d rather endure another night like this than any dinner with my parents.”

“Oh yeah,” he sighs, “Your parents... You never did tell me the reason why you’re here holding over.”

You shuffle around in your bed and bring your blanket up to your neck, “Doesn’t matter.”

“Come on, it's just me now. Tell me. I told you!”

“It's no big reason, just small ones. They didn’t specify. I didn’t want to go home. It's complicated.”

“Okay you just gave like four different excuses right there. What happened? Is it super embarrassing? Did they forget about you or something,” he laughs.

You wince at his words and pray that the world opens up and swallows you whole. Realization dawns on his face, “Oh shit. Did they?”

You nod solemnly and begin picking on the thread of the blanket, trying to make the threading come undone.

“How could they do that? The same assholes who always make a huge deal about RSVPs and invitations. Seriously?”

“It’s alright. I’ll live. I mean what would I have done if I was there? I’d be in my room and waiting for them to drag me out so they could introduce me to people. They’d act like doting parents, ditching me a second later to play blackjack with their friends.”

“I’m sorry. I wish you would have told me, we could’ve… I could have done something.”

You smile, “I didn’t tell you cause I know you. You would’ve cursed them out the minute you had hold of them. Anyways, maybe it was faith to get stranded at Barton.”

“Or bad luck,” he quips, “maybe the universe wants us to die of mundanity together.”

“Either or,” you grin. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let's go to bed.”

Angus nods and spreads his long limbs across the bed exaggeratingly before turning to face the wall. “Whatever you want. Goodnight, Y/n.”

“Goodnight,” you go to turn off the lamp, wondering if you're being paranoid in sensing something off in the way he says your name.

…

December 20, 1970

The last few days had been the same grueling routine. Mr. Hunham would wake you up with the banging of bedpans and you would groan and try to shove yourself deep into your pillows.

“All right, you fetid layabouts,” he would say, “It’s daylight in the swamp. Arise!”

In the quad you were all forced to run laps. You hadn’t anticipated doing exercise, so you were forced to wear some joggers from the lost and found. You had been able to convince him that walking would be better suited for you and your imaginary cramps. His face had completely paled, and he hadn’t even let you finish speaking when he said you walking would be just fine. Men and their immaturity, you think.

When Angus and the rest of the boys would pass by you, he would glare jokingly at you while you would stick your tongue out and wave him goodbye as he flew past you.

During study hall, you would read some more and ignore the ongoing feud between Kountze and Angus. In the span of the last few days, you must have read three entire books. There was a lot of downtime in between recreational time with Mr. Hunham and dinner.

Today you had all decided to walk along the river. You can hear the church bells in the distance signaling the fact that it is the afternoon. Angus is swinging around a branch while Teddy and Jason pass around a football. You steer clear of both. You walk in sync with Alex and Ye-Joon. You’ve taken a liking to them. They remind you of the little sibling you always wanted but never got.

“What about your car?” Angus suggests, “We could take it, go somewhere. Boston maybe.” Jason shakes his head, “Nah, we’d get in so much trouble. Face it. We’re stuck.”

“If we just had some way to get out of here. Just split,” Angus kicks a pile of snow.

“Well, you could put a chopper down right in the Quad.”

“A what?”

“A helicopter, dumb ass,” Teddy snaps, “His old man’s CEO of Pratt & Whitney.”

“Got his own bird,” Jason confirms, “Takes it from Stamford to the city every morning. Lands right in our backyard. Pilot’s name, Wild Bill.”

“Wild Bill?” Ye-Joon awes.

“Yeah. Flew up to Haystack with it. Took the presents and everything. Minus me,” he shrugs.

“Flying with presents, like Santa Claus,” Alex comments with glee.

“Yeah. Just like Santa Claus.”

Jason whistles and tilts his head for Teddy to “go long.” They play catch, getting farther from the group as they go.

“If I was back home right now back in Provo, it would be really warm inside, and my mom would be making baked apples, and the whole house would smell like cinnamon and brown sugar,” Alex reminisces. You smile sadly at the boy.

“That sounds so nice,” Ye-Joon agrees.

Kountze runs back suddenly and grabs one of Alex’s gloves and throws it into the river.

“What's wrong with you?” You intervene.

“Hey!” Alex says simultaneously.

“That’s what you get for ratting me out, little Mormon,” Teddy laughs, not an ounce of regret at what he just did. You tap Angus’s shoulder as you go trailing after the young boy, “I’m going to go help.”

“It’s gone! My glove’s gone!” Ollerman shouts. You continue searching for it through the clearing.

“Twisted fucker orphaned that glove on purpose. Left you with one so the loss would sting that much more,” Angus shouts back.

Ollerman looks to be on the verge of tears. He stares down at his hands and starts walking down a snowy ramp. He throws the other glove before you can do anything to stop it. He watches it disappear downstream as you make your own way down.

“Did your mother make you that?”

He nods. “It’s alright. I know where he keeps his wallet. We’ll steal it and buy a new one.”

You manage to bring out a muffled laugh from him. You consider it a win.

…

Angus wakes up in the middle of the night to see you knitting. He gets up from the bed to see your progress.

“Oh hello, grandma,” he scoffs. “When did you learn to do that?”

“Girl scouts before I quit. You guys had a bunch of yarn just rotting behind your auditorium stage. Did you know that?”

“No? Are you making that for the kid?”

“Yeah, I feel bad.”

“That looks like crap,” Angus chuckles as he messes around with the gloves fingers. You swat his hand away.

“I never said I earned the badge. Besides, it's the thought that counts.”

“I’m going to get a glass of water. You want some?”

“No thanks.”

Angus leaves the room, only to return a couple seconds later.

“Ye-Joon is crying,” he whispers. You furrow your eyebrows and get up to follow him. His cries become louder, and you turn the corner to see the poor boy shivering.

“Are you all right?” You ask.

“I had a nightmare,” You crouch down so you can hear him better.

“Don’t worry we get nightmares too. Right Angus?”

“Yeah, I’m always falling. Or drowning.”

“Also, I had an accident,” he weeps.

You motion for Angus to check. He doesn't have to look far.

“Yeah, you did. Shhh. Stop crying. If they hear you, they’ll crucify you. Which would be ironic, since you’re Buddhist.”

“I know it’s an excellent school, and my brothers went here. But I miss my family, and I have no friends,” he sobs full-on. You hush him gently.

“You have plenty of time to make friends. You’re like a freshman, right? I would start worrying when you're fifty and living vicariously through your kids.”

“Yeah man. You could have a thousand friends and not like any of them. What would be the point of having them then,” Angus adds.

“We’ll help you hide the sheets in the morning, all right?” You wipe his tears with a tissue from a Kleenex box nearby. “Find a dry spot and try to get some sleep.”

“Thank you,” Park smiles consoled. Before going back to bed you ask him one last thing, “Hey do you like gloves?”

Ye-Joon gives you a quizzical look. …

December 22, 1970

Once again, you’re all studying in silence in a fancy room with portraits of dead white guys on the wall.

Mr. Hunham clears his throat loudly and Jason leans in to mutter in disgust, “Are you kidding me? It’s only eleven and he’s already lit. I can smell the whiskey on him.”

“Can you blame him? It’s freezing in here. It’s fucking Greenland in here,” Angus retorts.

From outside you hear the faint whirring of a machine. Not a car but something else. You all approach the window and spot the helicopter flying above the trees. It lands in the quad just like Jason had said it could. An older man steps out and he looks like one of the men you imagine roam Wall Street.

“He finally caved, the big softie!” Smith exclaims. He all but skips to the door and turns to you all, “Hey, any of you guys like to ski?”

You and Hunham stay behind as the rest go racing after him, filled with hope for what must be the first time in days. He goes to subdue the riot they make as they whoop down the hall, but you stop him by grabbing a hold of the end of his sleeve.

“Uh, sir? If Jason is inviting us, would you have to call our parents?”

“That would be proper protocol, yes.”

“Oh. Is there a way I could stay here then? I never cared for skiing and my parents would say no anyway.”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I’d have to ask Woodrup about this first. Come on along,” he clears the path for you.

Grumbling, you find your way to the administrative offices. Hunham, Jason and his father shut themselves in a room. The boys along with Angus all try to listen in on the conversation by pressing their face as close as humanly possible against the glass. You watch from the sideline as Jason gives you guys a thumbs up. The hallway erupts in cheers and a minute later Mr. Hunham steps out with an announcement, “Gentlemen, good news. I was able to reach Dr. Woodrup and your parents. Most of them, anyway.”

Paul glances at Angus and you. Angus expression falters.

As the rest pack, you find refuge in your room. You can, however, hear Angus’s pleads.

“Try calling again. Just one more time. Please.”

“There’s no point. The desk clerk said no one’s answering. He says they’re away on some excursion.”

“Excursion,” he repeats.

Mr. Hunham scoffs, “I’m as disappointed as you are, if not more so. I could be spending the rest of my vacation reading mystery novels.”

“Maybe they’re back by now. Just call again.”

“Okay,” he gives in and marches down the corridor.

Ye-Joon had wished you goodbye a moment ago and now does the same for Angus, “Happy Holidays.”

“Same to you.”

“Take care, Tully.” Smith follows Park, giving him a pitiful pat on the arm.

You catch Alex as he is about to exit. You’ve wrapped the gloves you worked on endless last night in newspapers. “This is for you. Try not to get them stolen by Teddy again. I don’t think my fingers can handle another round of knitting.”

Ollerman smiles genuinely, giving you a hug you didn’t expect. You’re unable to return it as he has your stiff arms completely glued to your side. You follow him out, and Angus scowls in your direction.

“Why aren’t you more upset about this? That was our only way out and we blew it.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Did you really want to go skiing with Kountze that badly?”

“No, I wanted to get out of here badly. Your parents seriously didn’t answer either?”

“Um-.”

“Hey, you know what! Maybe Hunham can call them again and they can take us both in!”

“Angus no-,”

“Yeah, come on! Let's go ask,” he tugs at your hand to get you through the corridor.

“No Angus. I don’t want to.”

“What, why?”

You run your hand through your hair, “I asked Mr. Hunham not to ring them.”

“Wait. So, you didn’t even try to leave!”

“No! I thought I was clear the night we talked about why I didn’t want to go back to that house. If they answer they’ll pull the victim card and be all ‘I can’t believe you guys kept my child from me! Who do I sue?’ before coming to fetch me and berating me all the way back.”

“Listen, I wasn’t going to say anything because I could tell you were upset but you could have at least let them know for both our sakes. Then we could have spent the holidays in a hotel in Boston or something! We didn’t have to stay with them.”

“I knew you were off that night!” You curse the way you’ve managed to read him. “Anyways, with what money? To do what?”

“I don’t-, I don’t know… we could have figured it out.”

“I can’t believe you're getting mad at my decision.”

“It’s a pretty selfish one,” his eyes widened like he couldn't believe the words that came out of his mouth.

You gasp and hit him harshly at his side. “Ow!” he yelps.

“You’re being an asshole right now. I’ve never been madder at you in my entire life.”

“Really? What about that time I spilled mashed potatoes all over your dress? Your face was beet red,” he mocks.

You go to swat at him again only for him to dodge you. You try once more and fail, almost falling onto the floor but stopping yourself by putting your hand on the nearest wall. If you weren’t so angry this would have reminded you of the times you would wrestle when you were eight. Especially now and the way he holds you back by putting his hand on your forehead to keep you at arm's length. You give up with a huff and you b-line to your room.

“Tell Mr. Hunham I won't be at dinner tonight!”

You hear him groan behind the door you slammed shut and then the sound of his footsteps fading. In your solitude you collapse on the bed, letting out a scream into your pillow. Even though it's muffled, you hope Angus can feel it from where he is. That it reaches him and causes goosebumps to arise all over his stupidly long arms. …

You had skipped out on dinner like you said you would. Although Mr. Hunham had been polite enough to bring a plate down to the infirmary. As he handed it to you, he said lowly, “I’m not sure what that little deviant did, but I’m sure it's related to his foul mood and your absence tonight. Let me know if I can do anything.”

You almost wanted to cry at his politeness. Later he invited you to the kitchen common room and claimed there was a TV there. Considering you had only stared at words on a page for the last few days, you jumped at the offer. You saw Mary there and to your displeasure Angus had been forced to tag along so that Mr. Hunham could supervise him.

Your eyes were glued to the television, not letting Angus’s burning stare get the best of you. They were watching “The Newlywed Game” and drinking from mugs. It was not half-bad. In fact, it was starting to get pretty good to see these couples have their relationship crushed within a thirty-minute runtime with ad breaks in between.

The boy had begun throwing pieces of balled up paper at you and you picked them off your hair and tried your damnedest to not pay him any mind. You could hear him tear a new page from that magazine of his and finally you snapped at him. “Will you stop it? You’re wasting paper.”

“Thank God. You’re talking to me,” he stood straighter in his seat. “Here's the thing, I'm sorry. I should have never said that you were selfish. Cause you’re like, not. You’re honestly the most unselfish person I know.”

“I don’t want your apology right now. I’m watching TV.”

“I just got caught up in the moment is all. The truth is that-.”

“Angus, I said I don’t want to hear it!” You raised your voice loud enough to catch the attention of both Mr. Hunham and Mary.

“Everything alright back there?” Hunham takes the pipe out of his mouth to ask.

You get up, brushing invisible dust off your skirt. “Can I be excused. I’m pretty tired.”

“That’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” You pick up your discarded book from the nearby coffee table before leaning down and whispering in Angus' ear, “Don't follow me.”

As you stomp away you hear Mary say, “We need to get those two onto this program. Win us a trip to Bermuda.”

Mr. Hunham lets out a suppressed chuckle, embracing it soon after along with Mary. You roll your eyes at the pair and their drunkenness. You’re comforted by the fact that they’ll have a big headache tomorrow. …

You’re shaken at a frantic rate. You went to sleep early but were awoken now by a mischievous looking Angus. He dangles a set of keys right in front of your face.

“What are you doing?” You squint under the harsh glare of the flashlight.

“Inviting you on a night of adventure. Walleye is completely blacked out. He won’t even notice us gone.”

“No thank you,” you turn away from him and drape your blanket over your head. He tugs it back down.

“Come on. Please?”

“I’m still not in the mood. Plus, now I’m tired.”

“Y/n,” he whines.

“If you find a cookie in a pantry somewhere you know what to do,” you murmur, already being lulled back to sleep by the warmth you feel under the covers.

“Y/n,” he says more seriously, “I am sorry.”

“I know,” you sigh. Maybe you had been too harsh. You prop yourself up on your elbows, “It’ll be better tomorrow. We will talk then.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

He embraces you tightly in a hug. As he parts away, you two are face to face. You’re able to notice his eyes gleam under the light of the moon. You wonder when his eyes got to be that dark of a brown. Those same eyes flicker to your lips. You stare at him wearily as he clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck. He walks backwards to leave, his back bumping into a nearby lamp. “Shit. Sorry. Uh, goodnight. Bye.”

You were probably disorientated. Sleep deprived most definitely. Or maybe that secondhand smoke finally got to you. Surely you were just seeing things. Because surely, your best friend hadn’t just looked at you the way songs and books always seemed to describe love.

a/n: Thanks again for reading! Just to clarify some things, obviously Y/n knows about Angus’s dad, but just like in the movie, he doesn’t let it show how much it affects him. That’s why Y/n is unaware of why Boston is such a big deal. Anyways bye :)) until next time. Let me know your thoughts.

[jakowskis]

Day 13 - Favorite ship(s)? Any Torchwood OTPs? Go ahead, gush about them!

dude i multiship so hard in this fandom i dont think there’s a single combination i havent thought of + found a way to enjoy, and that extends to trios. AND i like tw poly. i am mashing them together like barbie dolls. i am having sm fun here in my room

even the ones i don’t exactly “like” still make me Feel Things (more on that later), and even the ones i tend to prefer as friends (more on that later, too), i can still see it if i want to yknow. that’s what’s fun about the slutty bisexy show! woo! they all compel me. 

nonetheless, here are the pairings i like the most, ranked by how often i think of them + how insane they make me. im not gonna gush a ton, actually, bc i get annoyed w how much i talk, so ill keep every explanation under 15 words

owen x ianto: I Want Them Covered in Blood Together (Gnashing My Teeth) (by fall out boy)

owen x andy: golden retriever boyfriend for owen bc sometimes it’s nice to not be angsty (gooseberry who?)

owen x jack: i dont know how they make me feel but they make me feel Something :/

ianto x tosh: THEY’D BE SO CUTE they’d be precious that’s all

tosh x andy: see above. tosh deserves a sweet bf (there are no girls to ship her with 😔)

owen x suzie: they’re mirrors, they’re the same… they intrigue me. also Hawt xD (im bi)

owen x gwen: better as besties imho but im still a bi moron who’s not immune

jack x ianto: overrated imho BUT i do still like them. sigh. dead line speech wahhh

gwen x rhys: i love their relationship troubles n the way it grounds the show. theyre cute

jack x the doctor: sending jack off to harass the doctor so the team can Rest (+ Im Compelled)

jack x gwen: they compel me a little. a teeny bit. not too much but a little

(can u tell i like owen ships. he just has such fascinating relationships w everyone)

ok i lied ill say a couple things. firstly my otp being owento… i’ve talked a bit about it but in brief it started out because i can't resist having at least one enemies/rivals to lovers ship per fandom and ep12 blew my mind a little - and then something just Clicked and they somehow achieved top ten ships of all time status in my brain?? idk what happened there. i usually go for canon-based ships, so having one that kind of lacks substance in the source media (allegedly; i think they’re fruity in canon. but u know what i mean like theyre not ‘canon’ in a show where there is in fact gay TEXT rather than just the subtextual shit theyre doing yanno) and is largely a beast of my own creation (+ the influence of the wonderful handful of fic writers we’ve had over the years) has been rlly fun. 

im largely preoccupied with those two, but i’ve found jack + his relationship with ianto kind of inherently haunts owen x ianto… if you’ve read my fic you know what i mean by that. i can’t see owento existing on its own, like janto fundamentally co-exists next to it so i have to take it into account, and then jack and owen also have a fascinating relationship so i’ve kind of just ended up spending a lot of time thinking about and figuring out owen x ianto x jack in all combinations, because there’s a lot of fascinating stuff going on there from every end. introducing owen to the equation also kind of… ig redeems janto for me, bc i found them offensively underwhelming in s1 and s2. they should be dark and fucked up, and they’re not. owen kind of… brings smth dark and fucked up to the table, and a lot of why i like shipping him with ianto is bc they bring shit out of each other - and owen, for his part, is capable of bringing out ianto’s repressed rage and forcing him to deal with things he’d rather try to compartmentalize and ignore… i find that super compelling, and i also find it useful for breaking down my issues with how jack & ianto’s relationship is initially presented. like, he’s a handy narrative tool for that hfsdjkf. point is, whether i like it or not, jack and his relationships with my girlies (owen n ianto are the girlies <3) is kind of also an intrinsic part of what most of my fixation-oriented brain power goes into thinking about. i’ve been developing this huge fic ‘verse fdhfjk.... Im Very Tired

sometimes i like fun, though, which is what’s behind a lot of those other ships. i’m generally into very dark + angsty + psychological themes, but sometimes fluff and domesticity and occasional silliness is nice, and that’s what’s behind owandy (i have an au where they meet before owen dies) and iantosh (+ gwen x rhys) as my sort of… alternative endgame. my comfort ‘au’. not an au, exactly, but an alternative fluffier world to the darker owento-based one i’ve crafted and spend most of my time thinking about fdshkfj. i also like sending jack off to go bother the doctor, in this ‘au’, because unfortunately i don’t think he’s conductive to the team’s happiness. i think he needs to find his own way to heal and that should probs include the doctor, considering how obsessed jack is with them + how much he needs to unpack All That Shit he has going on before he can be any sort of truly positive force in the lives of the tw team. so for now he’s banned from the polycule for jack crimes. listen, i love that torchwood’s inherently sad and dark and lonely, it’s what compels me, and i’m ultimately glad that’s the core of the show - but it doesn’t have to be. sometimes i enjoy a nicer alternative. i think they could fix it. and that’s what fandom + fanfic is for. 

i also have several ot3s i enjoy, mostly owen ones. i think he deserves a bf + a gf, i think it’d fix him. put that bitch in a bisexual sandwich and maybe he'd behave. in particular, i love owen x tosh x ianto, it’s the only place i ship owen/tosh bc i think ianto would keep owen in check and they’d all better each other. i love owen x tosh x andy for similar reasons. can you tell the four characters im biased towards fhdskj. (i love gwen just as much but she’s kind of doing her own thing with just rhys and jack imo fdkfjsd. perhaps torchwood is composed of two polycules and jack is the link between both of them)

[themonopolyhat]

shoulder the sky: the windix hanahaki au

that time i was screwing around in chat with @shootingstarpilot and accidentally coughed up a 6K+ windix-flavored hanahaki au for his shoulder the sky series. (hanahaki disease is a fic trope in which unrequited or unconfessed love causes flowers to grow in the afflicted person's lungs.)

compiling the comments here for funsies. featuring mace and helix, needle and stitch, cody, obi-wan, and a whole pile of tropes bubblegum-taped together.

as always, helix the clone medic belongs to @swmoddy, needle and stitch belong to @shootingstarpilot

the setup:

@shootingstarpilot​: this is taking the concept and running with it, but i like the thought that it's not just romantic feelings, it's familial too. im just thinking about kamino's fucked up upbringing, how dangerous that sort of out-loud acknowledgement would be--

@themonopolyhat​: oh i knew you would hurt me with this i knew it

@shootingstarpilot​: thinking about helix, helix who loves in everything he does but doesn't say it, never thought he needed to, starting to cough up flowers

my crimes:

so maybe it's not every clone, maybe it's just a few really unlucky ones that get hit with this predisposition

most of them die young bc kamino is a bad place and lots of clones get culled, it's statistically likely for any clone with a deviation from the norm to get caught and killed

helix is one of the very, very, very, very few that makes it out. and he does so without becoming a cold unfeeling bastard, which is the usual defense mechanism

if he loves someone, he starts to cough petals. the symptoms abate if he confesses. that's easy enough for him, he's a medic and he's kind and he's not shy. he tells his brothers he loves them, no problem.

sometimes he coughs petals for a few days before he figures out who the new culprit is.

sometimes he coughs for a few days and then the symptoms clear up, and he figures out that the culprit died.

the thing is that he really does have a good grasp of professional distance. he doesn't love every patient, though he cares for them. he's good at holding his heart carefully. he just doesn't mind loving colleagues and friends and batchers easily.

he loves needle on day three. coughs petals, isn't even fucking surprised. needle hugs him desperately when helix tells him he loves him. it's something needle hasn't heard since -- well. since he got up from the chair a different person.

he loves stitch on day two. that one's a surprise. it's not because stitch is quiet and wary and obviously, obviously hurt. that inspires sympathy and protectiveness.

it's the way stitch fixes pillows and adjusts cannulas and talks so softly to the men in his care. he remembers everything he's told. he's brilliant. he's sweet. he cares and he's talented and he doesn't ever look for praise.

helix tells him he loves him on day eight, because any sooner and he's sure the poor kid would shut right down on him. it's cutting it close -- stitch is confused but thanks him. helix pops another throat lozenge and goes about his day.

[needle and stitch] figure it out after a while and in retrospect they're like ohhhhh helix you enormous sap you loved us that fast???

things are fine, really

u n t i l

there comes a day, a little ways into the war, when helix coughs petals. and it takes him some time to realize that he's coughing them up over his first natborn.

the first natborn he's ever loved -- the first who's ever earned it --

helix just kind of bangs his head down on his arms when he finally cottons on. he's a moron. of course it's their general. their kind, funny, exasperating general who loves them and flings his body between them and pain and death every goddamn chance he gets -- who defends them with every scrap of that gigantic brain and that silvery tongue and the weight of his own title and influence and connections --

helix loves obi-wan. he's coughing petals over it.

his boys figure him out way too fast, as always, and they suss out the complication just as fast when they've cornered helix in the office.

needle and stitch stare, a bit wide-eyed, as the reality sinks in.

"have you ever -- a natborn --?" needle asks delicately.

"no," helix grumbles tiredly, rubbing at his sore throat. "exactly which natborn would have made the cut?"

"how are you going to tell him? does it work if you use synonyms, or if you say it like you're joking?" stitch asks, undelicately.

helix gives him a wan little smile despite himself. "unfortunately, no, it doesn't work like that. i experimented when i was young. and... gods, i guess if i don't want to die, i'll have to figure out the how sooner or later."

fortunately for helix, blind luck gives him an easy out soon enough.

he's holed up with the general alone in a shallow crater, where they flung themselves to avoid being spotted while picking their way back to their own side of the battlefield.

why are they out here alone? because helix is playing field medic today, his larty got shot down, four men survived the crash aside from him, two of them died minutes after, the other two he was able to patch but they couldn't move fast with their injuries, and helix ended up hiding alone after an ugly chase.

and then obi-wan turned up to get him, in person, already dusty and sweaty and dinged up after the day's fighting, and helix still doesn't know exactly how the hells the general found one lone clone out here.

so they're here in the depression in the earth, catching their breath and drinking a little of what remains in their canteens.

"shouldn't be long now," the general murmurs lowly, checking the coordinates and the sky. "we're not far. another hour or three, if we're careful, and we'll be past the droids' scanning range. then it's just another half a day to camp, if cody's scouts pick us up right away."

helix nods. watches his general poke at the readout from his wrist comm some more. "i'm sorry you came all this way for just one," he hears himself saying out loud.

obi-wan doesn't look over, which is, helix has learned, a sure sign he's feeling some strong emotion and hiding it. "i'm not," he says easily, the reply so ready he must have had to express similar sentiments before. "this is what i am for, really. i'm just sorry i wasn't there soon enough to save anyone else along with."

helix's throat itches, and his lungs feel abruptly heavy. he hasn't coughed in front of obi-wan yet, and he doesn't intend to start now. maybe it's the fact that he knows he's talking to an empath, but it doesn't seem so difficult to get the words out, not when they're delivered on a swell of feeling.

"you make it easy to love you, general," he murmurs. "and i do. love you, i mean."

(he has to be explicit, or it doesn't work.)

obi-wan does look over, now, and his surprise is clear to see. "oh. ah. well." it's not often that he's caught so flat-footed, and helix finds it both hilarious and charming. "thank you? you must know i care for you, as well." a pause. "very much, helix. i care for you very much."

helix knows what he means. he feels lighter. breathing, of course, is easier. so is running, when they inevitably get to that point in the escape.

[fast forward to] the SECOND natborn helix loves enough to start the flowers growing again

everything develops in series canon... [mace and helix are] trauma besties. then friends. confidantes. they trust each other. they care for each other.

mace comes into helix's life at the same time that practically everything is horrible. so it's understandable that the realization takes time.

the coughing doesn't start, luckily, until after helix gets back from his trip through the rift. after seeing the utter lack of recognition in that other mace's eyes, the impersonal sizing-up and curiosity and distance. after seeing his mace again, clocking the warmth and depth of mace's attention and attentiveness, the way he carries himself with such grace, the faint curve of his mouth when he's amused and the light in his eyes --

helix coughs. realization comes swiftly. he hides from needle and stitch for nearly a full day.

the first time his voice goes scratchy, needle eyeballs him malevolently. the first time he stifles a cough around stitch, stitch immediately comms needle. it's inevitable. helix is resigned.

"who is it?" stitch asks outright. "it can't be someone new. we haven't gone anywhere in days."

"except to the past, and i can't see helix being the love at first sight type," needle muses, as he often has before. (he's very right and should repeat the facts often, in helix's opinion.) "so it's got to be somebody he already knows and just had a Moment about."

stitch gently, carefully listens to helix's breathing and hands him a lozenge, with the exact air of someone handing a child a sweet after shots. "do we need to guess or do you want to tell us?" he asks.

helix sets his hand over his eyes. "it's mace," he says flatly.

"oh," stitch says brightly.

"oh," needle says, deflating somewhat. "that makes sense."

helix swallows a chuckle and, in a spurt of ill-timed desire for support (even if it's in the form of teasing and the worst suggestions known to clonekind), he adds, "it's not... the regular kind."

"oh?" stitch asks, frowning, immediately concerned, the diagnostician in him leaping to the fore.

"oh," needle repeats. he blinks at helix for a moment. "oh." surprise, delight, and smugness are fighting an audible pitched battle for dominance. "stitch, buddy, put that away. it's not a difference in strain. it's a different catalyst."

stitch looks at needle and waits for explanation, which he will get -- nobody who loves stitch plays coy with him, it's not kind.

"helix doesn't just love like a friend or a brother this time," needle continues, though his voice is quieter now, soft and overjoyed and conspiring. "do you, helix? it's more than that."

helix leans back and looks up at the ceiling, biting the inside of his cheeks to keep from smiling like an idiot. damn, but it does feel good to have it outside his own head. good and annoying, but for now he'll coast on the good. "more," he replies simply, dryly.

it's more than enough for needle, who audibly grabs stitch and shakes him in place. "stitch!" he hisses. "helix is in love. romantically. with general windu!"

a deafening silence follows. helix can hear stitch processing from here. "is that even allowed?" stitch wants to know. he sounds baffled. little gods on rye, helix adores him.

helix looks at them again in time to see needle squishing stitch companionably under one arm. "if it's not, most of the army is in trouble," he answers cheerfully. "show me a man who hasn't got a thing for at least one of the generals and i'll show you a certified liar. or a you, unless you're holding out on me."

stitch wrinkles his nose. "i'm not holding out. they're the generals." which is all the explanation he seems to feel is warranted.

"right, right, but you've seen the nose art and the tats and the cartoons on the forums. the polls, too. didn't you vote for general kenobi in the last 'sexiest jedi' poll?"

"yes, because general fisto was winning and general kenobi deserves our support."

"well there you go."

helix doesn't want to think about any of the jedi generals in terms of sexiness (except one, maybe, and isn't that a new and shining and fragile line of thought), especially not kenobi. he coughs lightly into his fist, catching their immediate attention. "widespread pining aside, i know i can count on you both to be discreet about this," he tells them. "i probably wouldn't say anything to him if this damned disease wasn't going to force my hand, but as it is... well. i'll figure something out. i just need some time."

helix may not have any prior experience with this kind of love, but he knows it's not the sort of thing he can confess easily or casually, like he does to his brothers. nor does he anticipate circumstances conspiring to give him a good opening, like he had with obi-wan.

he has to figure out how to tell mace he's in love with him. a clone in love with a natborn. in love with a jedi, and the master of the order, at that.

but first, there's the rift. the past. and there's ben.

(watching mace tread carefully around ben does nothing to tamp down helix's feelings. he coughs for some minutes every morning, now. petals and more petals, mixed with mucus. sometimes it's tinged pink.)

he doesn't find the time. he doesn't make the time.

in his defense, there's very little time to be found or made.

he blinks, and ben is gone, the rift sealed, and mace has so many duties pulling him in every direction. helix is busy, too -- the clones are hurtling toward citizenship, and one of their first acts of freedom after the war is declared over?

[shoulder the sky spoilers redacted]

mace is going with them. he's on a different ship.

helix coughs and coughs and coughs. he takes suppressants during the day, and pays for it at night. pink turns to red. petals turn to buds, then to blooming flower heads. a leaf here, a young stalk there.

some nights he lays next to the commode after heaving up half a garden and gasps for air, his vision darkening all around the edges.

needle and stitch notice. of course they do. they know his throat is sore, his breathing hampered. they see the exhaustion dogging his steps.

needle takes helix aside one day and very, very seriously affixes an emergency call bracelet to his wrist. "it calls to stitch and me, both," he says crisply. "use it any time, any shift. you know we mean that."

helix just looks at it, guilt stirring down deep. he's killing himself slowly here, like a moron. and he's making them watch.

"helix," needle presses.

"i will," helix tells him softly.

"don't make us find you," needle begs him.

which is what makes helix decide he actually will use the damn thing. if he needs to.

he needs to sooner than he expected.

he gets a comm from mace that makes him chuckle fondly for half a day after. that night, he coughs so frantically that he finds himself fumbling for the bracelet -- he's going to pass out, he can't stay upright, he's afraid he'll vomit and aspirate, so he tumbles sideways and hopes it's close enough to the recovery position --

he comes awake hacking, convulsing with it. a hand strikes his back firmly, and a voice murmurs to him that he's all right, most of it's out already, there are just a few residuals, it's okay, you're okay...

he blinks wetly up at needle and stitch, who've wedged themselves into the little 'fresher with him and look very solemn indeed.

"drink this slowly," stitch commands, passing down an opened bulb of water. it's been warmed and tastes like salt and lozenges -- one of stitch's own recipes for sore throats.

needle holds helix's head in his lap, stroking his hair. "we pulled the major obstructions out while you were unconscious." he pauses. "it's never been this bad before."

he's scared them. he can see it.

"you have to tell him," stitch says, with such clear uncomprehending pain that helix has to close his eyes against it. "you can't do this for much longer, not without staying in medbay for observation and intervention."

"which means we'll tie you to a bed and intubate you and you'll have to make your confession via battle sign," needle adds darkly.

it's a little funny. helix doesn't mean to laugh, but he does, a little. a cough rattles free.

"i'm sorry, boys," he murmurs, and presses his cheek to needle's leg. "i really am. your cmo is an idiot."

"yes," stitch agrees. "which is why i already asked ponds to have general windu comm you tomorrow at lunch time. you can tell him then and your throat and lungs can start healing."

"you asked ponds...?" helix croaks in surprise.

"well. i asked ace who asked ponds who called to ask me for clarification and then told me he'd arrange it."

needle is all smiles. he lays a hand across helix's brow. "i want to hear the details of that conversation later."

"later," stitch agrees peaceably.

helix gives a shallow sigh. he didn't want to do this over comms, but he's running out of options and he knows it.

fast forward, the call with mace gets interrupted, helix does not get to tell him. he ends up back in medbay and needle and stitch look so hopeful and he feels worse about having to shake his head than he does about his own diminishing health.

(it's not an easy death, or so he imagines. there's never been a clone who lived long enough to die of this particular ailment. they don't even really know how long it might take.)

there won't be another chance to talk to mace before they make planetfall. it will have to wait.

(he shakes his head, no he didn't tell mace, no he's not taking a shift off even though he was up late gagging on flowers, no he doesn't need a break, he's fine, he just needs to sip water and take a hit off the inhaler stitch concocted for him)

it must be mentioned that some of the 212th has noticed their cmo seems a bit off. the boys aren't stupid, and they're so accustomed to the way a clone ought to look and move that deviations due to injury or illness stand out like flashing alarms. helix's color isn't great, and his breathing is wrong, and he doesn't move as quickly as he used to. he talks like it hurts his throat. he shifts his balance like he's fighting dizziness, sometimes.

it's noticeable. they notice. they have noticed.

cody is the one who comes to ask. he sets his helmet precisely on the corner of helix's desk and looks him squarely in the eye. "you're sick," he says, straight to the point.

helix doesn't bother asking how he knows, or whether anyone else does, too. it's likely that every clone aboard has a hunch, at least, or has heard about someone else's. (kenobi is actually the least likely to know. clones keep some things strictly in-house, and old habits die hard.) "i am."

cody nods slowly. "treatable?"

"in a manner of speaking." helix sighs, shallow and careful. "but not at the moment. i'm managing."

"will you need to go back to coruscant for treatment?"

helix considers for a moment. it might not be a bad idea if cody knows the truth. he's trustworthy with secrets, and if helix does croak, someone ought to tell obi-wan why. "it's hanahaki."

cody's expression is sort of hilarious. "you -- what?"

"the love disease. i'm coughing up flowers. it'll kill me at some point, if, well. you know."

cody opens and closes his mouth, and apparently has to sit down, because he drops out of his upright parade rest and into a chair as though he's had a few strings cut. "what the kark," he finally says.

helix grins wryly at him. "yeah."

"that's... i didn't know anyone got off kamino with that. they all got caught as cadets."

"most did."

"but not you."

"not me."

cody just stares at him. "you're sick because you love someone and you haven't told them."

"that's the sum of it, yes."

"helix, that is the stupidest way a clone could possibly die."

helix is surprised into laughing, which threatens to send him into a coughing fit. he reaches for the inhaler, smiling, and rasps, "don't i fucking know it, cody."

(it will occur to helix later that he really should have ribbed cody about his thing for the general -- if cody had been coughing flowers, it might have saved them all years of watching him and kenobi sashay around each other like nubian flamingos.)

cody doesn't ask who it is, and helix doesn't volunteer the information. it's immaterial to the situation they're all about to be in, anyway.

cody does tell helix in no uncertain terms to get his shit together, though. he does not want him to die of this like some tongue-tied airhead shiny.

truthfully, that leaves helix feeling very cheerful indeed. after they've [redacted], he decides. he'll find mace somewhere and tell him. short and sweet.

[redacted shit happens]

helix glimpses mace twice, from a distance.

there's no time to talk to him.

and then there's even less time than before.

[redacted redacted]

he's choking before he can catch a full breath. choking, coughing fruitlessly, clutching his chest, his throat, staggering to his knees instinctively because he knows he's going to fall --

someone is shouting. several someones, nearby and far away. there are hands on him, frantic questions, a light in his eyes. so many dismayed expressions hovering over him, he wants to bark at them to quit gawking and do something before they catch flies.

he can't speak. blood slides down his throat, coats his lips. there's a flower caught at the root of his tongue, huge and strangling. he can't breathe. he can't breathe. he can't --

he wakes up.

it's slightly surprising, to be honest.

he knows he's in his own medbay before he's even fully conscious. the sounds, the smell, the feel of the place is sunk into his bones by now. he knows it. it's home.

helix gingerly swallows, curling his fingers slightly in the blanket. he's so sore inside. breathing hurts. his throat feels like it's been peeled raw. his chest is tight. the oxygen cannula in his nose is some relief, but he'd blackmail somebody for a lozenge or warm water with an analgesic dissolved in it right now.

"are you awake, helix?" someone murmurs from the bedside.

helix licks his lips, tasting the medbay chap gel there, and opens his eyes, blinking blearily until obi-wan's face swims into focus. "sir," he tries to say, and his voice is such a ruin, his throat flares with such pain, that he shuts up immediately.

"no, shh, don't try to talk," obi-wan says quietly. "you don't have to talk. just rest. i'm sure needle or stitch will be over in a minute, they've been watching over you very carefully."

helix absolutely believes that. his heart twists. they're such good boys. they deserve better than this bullshit. there's enough going on without them having to manage their cmo, too.

obi-wan eyes him a moment. "i didn't know you were sick," he offers quietly. "and no -- that isn't a criticism. you're entitled to your privacy. i'll go if you prefer that i am not here, but i wanted to watch over you while you slept, at least for a little while."

helix could cry, and he almost too tired to stop up the impulse. almost. he points wearily at an insulated cup on the bedside table. it's full of ice chips, he knows. kenobi can stay if he pays his way in ice chips.

obi-wan cottons on in an instant and immediately fetches the cup and a spoon. he feeds helix an ice chip without another word.

the trickle of cold water hurts. then it feels wonderful.

needle is the first to arrive over, and his smile is warm and sweet, though there's stress in the pinch at the corners of his eyes, and in the careful way he checks helix's vitals and monitors and the tuck of his pillows.

"you can read the chart if you want details," he tells helix softly. "but it was close." he pauses significantly, and helix glances at kenobi and then nods at needle, wordlessly giving him clearance to keep going. "we cleared your throat and suctioned your lungs as much as we could, but the... symptoms have advanced to the point that surgery is the next step. and no, we have no idea if that would help or make things worse."

helix sure as hell doesn't think surgically scraping the plants out will fix him. he shakes his head gently and sets a hand at needle's cheek, all gratitude and apology.

“that's what we thought you'd say." needle cups his hand over helix's, and he's still smiling, but it's even more painful now. "we're not sure how many more episodes like that you can survive, helix. and even if you... get the treatment, we don't know if the damage will reverse fully. no one's ever gotten to this stage, that we know of."

helix nods and eats another ice chip when it's offered. he's been thinking about that, too. whether his body will heal as magically as it's destroying itself, if he confesses to mace. nobody can know what to expect.

"needle," obi-wan interjects quietly, "is it... the treatment, is it a matter of cost? availability? i can make sure you have access to any help the temple can provide. anything we can do."

helix reaches for obi-wan's hand and squeezes it, and needle shakes his head. "sorry, sir. that's not the problem. there's nothing you can do."

obi-wan eyes him shrewdly, fingers curled securely around helix's. "but there's something that can be done. yes?"

"yes, sir."

"who do i need to make pleasant or unpleasant overtures at, in that case?"

helix huffs a silent laugh. their general is truly one of the finest the temple has on offer. /windu,/ he signs succinctly. /need windu./

obi-wan does not ask why he needs mace. he simply procures him.

needle is off duty and asleep, obi-wan is long gone, and stitch is helping helix sip some more lozenge-water when mace arrives, not three hours later.

he's such a welcome and painful sight, helix feels his chest constricting. he swallows his water carefully and lifts a hand in wan greeting. (truly, he thinks morosely, he has never felt more attractive a prospect than he does right now.)

"obi-wan told me you asked for me," mace tells him, coming to the bedside, his expression all concern. "i didn't hear you had collapsed until a short while ago. will you be all right?"

helix can't speak, still. there's no amount of painkillers that can mend his raw throat enough to let him talk. he gives the signs for /red band triage/, which isn't the clearest answer but it's as close as he can get with battle sign.

"red," mace interprets. "critical but salvageable, given immediate treatment." off stitch's and helix's confirmation, he looks between the two of them seriously. "how can i help? obi-wan seemed to think the treatment is something you can't access by yourselves, but he didn't know any details."

helix pats stitch's chest gently and flashes him a couple of signs. stitch nods -- he's not always great with reading the nuance of battle signs when they're used in other contexts, but these he can read easily enough.

"it's very private, sir," stitch explains, his voice pitched low, for their ears only. "a secret. no one knows. this condition is rare, and as far as we know, helix is the only one with the predisposition to have survived this long, and this is the latest stage of acuity anyone's ever seen."

mace absorbs that and gives helix a Look. "there's such a thing as striving to be singular in too many areas, you realize."

helix grins at him. he wants to touch him. he holds the impulse back.

"i'll let helix tell you himself how, exactly, the condition manifests, if he chooses to do that," stitch continues soberly. "but it's serious, and he will die if he doesn't take the necessary action in time." his expression twists. "there's not much time left, as far as we can tell."

"i see." mace presses a hand to helix's arm, warm and grounding. "what can i do to help?"

helix looks up at him. little gods, mace is so handsome, and his dark eyes are endlessly deep, unfathomably sincere. the constriction in helix's chest winds tighter, and he gulps in a breath, signs quickly to stitch.

"you can listen, sir," stitch replies softly. his palm rests lightly on helix's brow for a moment. "i'll be nearby if you need me." and then he's gone, stepping away and twitching the privacy screen closed behind him.

they're quiet with each other a moment. helix isn't sure how to begin this conversation, especially since he can't actually fucking say most of what he wants to. he hesitates, picks at the blanket.

"it's been a while since we were alone together," mace remarks easily. "i haven't talked with you in person for weeks." he arches a brow. "would i have noticed you were sick, i wonder."

helix considers. /maybe,/ he signs. he's been in obi-wan's presence a couple of times since this bout started, but not since it got bad, and anyway, obi-wan's been slightly busy, himself. if he didn't notice, it wasn't for lack of care. mace might have picked up on something, but there's no way to know, now.

"it seems to have gotten serious fairly quickly, in any case." mace tips his head, presses his lips together slightly, as he does when he's working through strong emotions. "stitch said you needed me to listen, helix. i am listening."

this is it. after everything, it feels almost anticlimactic. and yet -- it's unbearably dramatic, with helix lying on his near-literal deathbed and reduced to using gods-damned battle signs to confess his adoration.

(why me, he laments internally, and not for the first time in his existence.)

/insufficient signs,/ he begins. /rig on the fly./

"you don't have the signs to say what you want to, but you'll figure out how to get your meaning across," mace interprets aloud.

/you know s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g signs?/

"yes, i know the sign alphabet."

/copy./ helix swallows, his throat feeling more raw than ever, if that's even possible. /you and i. take cover together. trench battle. review footage./

mace takes in the sequence and nods slowly, somberly. "you showed incredible conviction and kindness, in suffering through that for obi-wan."

/you had injury. you k-i-n-d. no success without you./

mace quirks the faintest smile. "far be it from me to argue while you haven't got your sharp tongue available in full. it seems unfair."

helix hopes his expression conveys something like "damn straight." /i have an urgent report,/ he signs, and it's so stupid, but he thinks mace will catch his meaning.

"you have something important to say," mace guesses. "to say to me, specifically?"

helix nods. his tongue feels dry, despite all of the ice chips and stitch's water.

he lifts his hand and spells, slow and clear.

/i l-o-v-e y-o-u/

he sees it, the exact moment the meaning becomes clear.

mace's eyes don't go round, he's far too controlled for that, but there's an opening-up in his expression, a glimpse of utter surprise.

"you love me," he echoes, so very softly. "i didn't misunderstand?"

/l-o-v-e./ and, because why not, helix taps his own chest twice, directly over his heart, and points to mace.

and something in his chest twists. helix gasps thickly, claws at the neck of his scrubs and digs his heels against the mattress. terror spirals through him -- is it killing him anyway, was he too late, is mace going to watch him die -- ?

the alarms are shrieking. there are hands on his arms, on his chest, on his face. mace is here, warm and steady. stitch has reappeared and is just as steady, in his own way -- grim and fast and going through the steps, a dance they both know like --

well. shit. they know it like breathing, don't they?

"sit him up," stitch orders sharply. "in case he has to cough it up."

they slide their hands behind his back, hoist him half upright, half leaning into the support. helix doesn't quite feel like coughing. his chest feels -- strange. not necessarily bad. but strange.

he swallows and realizes with a start that his throat doesn't hurt. the weight on his chest is sliding free, like someone's released a vice around his ribs.

"helix," stitch says imploringly, "cough if you need to. i'm right here. i'll help you get it out."

helix tentatively sips at the air, disbelieving. there's no pain. no threatening tickle in his throat, no sandbags in his lungs. he's still tired, and his head is spinning, but -- but --

he shuts his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, the kind he hasn't been able to draw for weeks.

stitch's hand does not leave his back, but the familiar sounds of a scanner start up. "oh," he says, shocked at whatever he sees.

mace's hands are here, too. one at helix's back, the other secure around his arm. "what is it?"

helix breathes in again and again, biting the inside of his lip and mashing down the urge to cry with relief. he opens his eyes and looks at stitch. "i'm fine?" he asks aloud. his voice is a little thready still, but he thinks that's just reaction, not damage.

stitch nods, huge-eyed. "the scan indicates no abnormalities. no blockage, no foreign mass."

helix smiles at him. he takes his face in his hands and leans to press a kiss to his forehead. "scram for a minute, i want to talk to mace. get needle, will you?"

stitch scrams, nearly tripping over himself on his way out.

mace's expression is bemused but soft when helix turns to him. "sorry about all of this," helix tells him first, reflexively. "i didn't mean to let it go so long."

"i believe you." mace curls a hand around helix's, gently, questioningly. "i have never quite felt anything like that in the force before. are you all right, really?"

helix grins at him and squeezes his hand. "i'm better than i've been in a while, mace. the boys will run tests to be sure, but i feel like it's receded completely. and the damage got undone, but don't ask me how the hells that happened."

"that question is maybe sixth on my list," mace says dryly. "i would rather ask you if you meant to tell me what you did, just now."

an easy question, in a way. helix looks at him squarely. "yes. i meant it." he feels his smile turn crooked. "i love you. i have for months, i think."

mace does not take his hand from helix's. he looks like he's listening to something far away. it's a very jedi look. "i won't do you the disservice of pretending i don't know what kind of love you mean."

"i appreciate that."

without so much as a blink, mace is back with him, right here, close and sturdy. he lifts his other hand and cups helix's cheek. "you must know that i have thought very highly of you since the beginning." there's something in his voice, a note of softness helix hasn't heard from him before. "i have cared for you for nearly as long. we were in the trench together, as you said. a bond not easily forgotten, even if i were of a mind to."

helix nods wordlessly. he realizes he's holding his breath and makes himself inhale. he doesn't know what answer to expect from mace, but whatever it is, it'll be kind. mace is kind.

mercifully, mace is also straightforward. "i think that, given room to grow, my regard for you will become love." he smiles, more a warm cast in his eyes than a curve of lips. "quickly."

helix covers his hand where it's fitted to his cheek. "what kind of fertilizer do you need?" he asks, a chuckle threatening for more than one reason.

END

[gayspock]

like i swear im done haaaahaaaaaaaar

does anyone just feel a sickfucking resentment whenever they see anyone remotely interested in anything any more. idk. it gets harder to not submit to being such a bitter, jaded bitch sometimes but what else do you have. trying genuinely to find some fucking interest in any of it, or something to just help me bide my time til i fucking die and none of it fucking helps. the number of failed, stupid hobbies, attempts at outings, etc. and i just cry over it all, cuz in the end i wasted so much money and time and i felt nothing but fucking dogshit. idk it feels so fucking dumb. its such a dumb thing to fucking cry about sometimes and its so embarrassing because i know people would do nothing but roll their eyes & grit their teeth and tell me i just havent found anything yet or its not important and its like i dont know. its not just this is it its like. something something i feel so fucking barren in every aspect of my fucking personhood because i cant seem to fucking do anything right even the most bare fucking essentials. something something. im not just lonely bc i dont have people to talk to right now but about it being a repeated fucking problem and not havingany means of ever getting myself out of the fucking isolated hole im in. stupid shit like this being wrapped up into it. i dont have anything to put on dating apps oranything to talk abt with people because i think im like a fucking ghost at this point, im struggling half the time with basic fucking comprehension , my fucking brains slowed down to a grinding hault and im losing so many years and i dont know where theyre going just that its nonstop neverending never any way out never any improvement im not getting out etc ... because i cant fucking do anything but spiral downwards and theres nothing fucking else to do any more and hasnt been for a long fucking time. something something get fucking help like for fucking what at anymore. think they all justgave up because its just a road to fucking nowhere and theres no helping me not in a fucking melodramatic, oh i was alwaysss doomed way, but in the pathetic fucking nothing way . the youre not depressed way you need to fucking kill yourself because thats the sensible option why the fuck would you want to exist as yourself thats moronic bc nobody fucking likes you nobody ever would theres nothing remotely fucking notable nevermind likable nevermind lovable does anyone feel insane i keep crying bc it doesnt feel fucking fair that it takes so much time and energy and everything just to not even not-function but to just fucking coast sometimes. i keep thinking abt how sad i was as a teenager and how much it fucking drained and hurt all the time to keep trying to keep up with everyone like pleaseee please fucking like me and for what for what . i dont think a single person remembers who i am at this point and i used to think i was crazy and i still catch myself thinking it now but no they do not. like you. nobody likesss youuuu.... you iddiottttttttttttt... something, something AHHAAA THE BAD THOUGHTS! ARE SIMPLY NOT TRUE! ON ACCOUNT OF THEM BEING BAD!!! but screaaaam it turns out they are and they prove to be every single time...... keep fucking sobbing about how youre never the priority, my guy you are not fucking remotely anything to anybody because youre nothing and you are alone you are the failure you always thought you were nobody fucking likes you youre going mental trying to leech onto people and its not like anythings fucking different its just more detached like god why do i fucking show up for work and even fucking bother pretending. like fine im not actively trying toget close any more. im long past .that. go into work smile try to not fuck it all up come home and cry. but why even fucking pretend im fucking paper mache craft of a person does anyone want to set fire to everything before they die just for some vague satisfaction like

i keep wanting to fucking detach from everything and run away and never fucking see anyone ever again in some fucking fantasy world where its possivle to fucking torch everything. but like even that isnt real is it like is IT bc its just in my fucking head where i torch everything no matter what and nothing MATTERS IN THERE ITS JUST A STUPID LOOP and by gdo i wish i could remain apathetic but i start going nuts every time im stuck in a situation playing house and nicies too long its poisonnnn its poisonousssss help me CHRISTTTTTTTTTT BECAUSE i cant die in this house i keep thinking abt when i off myself trying to come up with solutions to never being found i am not fucking being another fucking husk of a fucking being not for forever I NEED. TO. DISAPPEA.R COMPLETELY. NOOO REMAINSSS CUNT NO TRACE POOF

[ssaalexblake]

I mean this in the nicest way as it's possible to mean something objectively kind of dickish, but at some point, the absolute cynical Need to assume that the people in charge of the media you consume are just bumbling fools never knowing what they're doing only makes the people assuming that look, uh, not super smart, and has absolutely zero bearing on the creators. That this happens on meta posts that Literally Explain what's going on and people still fail to comprehend that the work of a few different people all pitching in and agreeing on it would have been necessary for it to happen, doesn't help. And yes, it's a thing that's happened a whole bunch of times on my posts alone, let alone on random ones.

Me: hey look how theyre showing that 13's messed up!

Person: lol I doubt the showrunner knows that!

Sure, Jan. The 89 times he wrote 13 being as messed up as all the other doctors were just flukes for his blonde fairy-princess of good mental health and goodness regeneration 🤷

Well buddy, that's Your problem. It's one thing to see a messy as hell narrative with no clear ending or moral to it (think of the new star wars trilogy) and clock it was totally on the fly and that anything profound was likely to be an accident (I use this example cuz they admit this is what happened). It's another to look at a complete narrative that includes foreshadowing from the very beginning that tracks all the way to the end, written by a guy who is open about having planned it for a while, who has said that he has A story to tell and then he was done and left, and then go 'yeah he has no idea what he was doing'.

I have no idea when cynicism became the suave fandom thing in Any situation even if none is warranted, but it doesn't actually make people look cool and unaffected if that's what you're all going for, it just makes it look like you're incapable of making separate judgements on a case by case basis. I am cynical as hell over certain things because I actually thought about them and decided I was. I am not like this for everything bc not everything deserves cynicism. Sometimes, it doesn't actually matter what was or what was not intentional to start with. Anybody who has created anything, ever, has unintentionally started something and it turned out to be something they pursued. It just works like that sometimes! It's not a problem!

But if you can Honestly look at 13 doing all that messed up crap she did with no introspection over it and think it was the writer not realising she was being messed up because they didn't hold your hand and point it out every single time like they do in peppa pig, despite the fact that the character is Always to some degree messed up and this tracks with the show outside the era, and Fail entirely to consider that her lack of repentance in 13 was an actual consistent character trait and that you should use your brain to actually analyze what that means for the story and for the person... You should have paid more attention in English classes. You are supposed to think about what that means. I know it's a kids show, but it's not preschool.

The problem is not the material not having the depth to analyse, it is the audience's inability to objectively parse it. It does not matter if you love it or hate it! but people are merely displaying they lack the skills to even decide if they do or not by refusing to look for narrative reasons for things and instead just looking behind the scenes to say Obviously it was all just an accidental written by the clueless to justify not bothering. And then going on to make that fact very public.

And you know what, I don't care if you bother or not, you don't have to justify not wanting to think about it! but when people make it my problem I get sick of the crap.

Like why? Really? If you dislike it why are you blogging about it? And if you like it but feel like you're honour bound to act like chibnall is a moron every time his work is brought to your attention just to Make Sure Nobody Will Think You Like It, I mostly think you need to take a step back and smell some grass (or your own regional equivalent of an outside smellable thing).

[boojersey]

☕ fave mcr eras and albums?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OKAY OKAY I LIKE THIS ONE AND HOPE NO ONE HATES ME FOR MY ORDER BUT

1. revenge (obviously i mean look at me i am drenched in black and red at all times and gerards hair was just so nice) specific parts include flour face gerard and that photoshoot with the blood covering his hand in a building with brick walls and arches it looked like a church basement and the vampire one for kerrang where its a girls back and theyre covered in blood and hes biting her neck hehe, reasoning for it being my favorite is it has only one song i skip (ghost of you) and every other has a lot more that i usually do and just how theatric and dramatic but also edgy everything was, tbp is more theatric BUT theres more Hope vibes and this is that but with despair and blood and guns and coffins and that just appeals to me fundamentally way more especially when im in my bag. it probably has my most favorite songs too, like to the end cemetery drive jetset life and HANG EM HIGH OR MOTHERFUCKING DIE. maybe my favorite mcr song but im not thinking too hard when i say that

pic of my closet below lmao two of my favorite drawings ive done (theyre for sale wink wink! dm me if interested anyone, gerard is blacklight reactive)

2. bullets, its just so suburban i feel like I'm back in Jersey its October and im walking past cul de sacs and the sunset is bright fucking orange its fantastic its art in every sense and its full of sorrow bc its the closest album chronologically to 9/11 and gerard had the least sureness in the future but he was so confident and it just bleeds into everything so hard, my favorite moments in life are majorly moments similar to what i described. wearing a hoodie and jeans and converse and observing the way the streetlights color the concrete and asphalt, especially if theres been rain. chinese food from family restaurants and rolling rock beer and sitting at neighborhood playgrounds on the swingset rocking back and forth with the carbonation buzzing in your brain. favorite moments include the pic of frank and gerard smoking on pool chairs and that pic of them in some grandmas house with wooden walls and a china and tchotchke cabinet and lace curtains and im pretty sure mikeys sitting on the leg of a couch.it was my desktop bg for a year or two.

3. black parade; i really appreciate the death topic and i will admit i struggle to get on the Hope wavelength throughout esp in famous last words ykno the keep on living part but there are some of my favorite fucking demos like emily and all the angels and im Pretty surE desert song but smack my ass and call me a moron if its wrong. i will say visually other than the marching band outfits its the least interesting era, the white hair was just kinda there to me and no one else had anything outstandingly russling my jimmies. frank did have some cute hair curls on his bangs tho sometimes. i do rlly like the whole haunted vibe tho bc of the paramounts effect on them tho, when i notice it in songs and lyrics it is pretty effective in makin my spine straighten with the hollow eyed, sleepless and frankly a little scared nervous energy. house of wolves has been in my rotation the past month or so bc it reminds me of trevor gta a lot. wttbp i skip every time just about. i save that song for when people are trying to be emo allies and queue it on the aux or when it comes on the radio or in public. blood is AMAZING and reminds me a lot of the song air from the hair soundtrack, and i wonder if gerard was trying to specifically mimic that songs vibe because if u ask me thats very gerard. i think overall the concept and the lore of the album's fruition appeal to me more than anything else, i also love mother war and some of the other various character designs.

4. current era; im saying this because foundations of decay is literally that promising of a single and the shows' outfits are so wonderful and the energy and love and happiness is just so fucking palpable that i already know this is where the new album is gonna sit for me. its gonna be so fucking good. we all know this so well. favorites include nurse gerard the mikey fuckin way shirts and that slicked back hair gerard mmf yum

5. danger days; im SORRRY i just. the songs only appeal to me on a surface level aside from destroya and i always just get rlly bad feelings when i see pics of gerard bc i know he said he was starving himself and it makes me :/ more than anything else seeing him. i feel Bad saying he looked hot. this is also the only album with songs i actively dislike within. i will say that when i say i like destroya. i fucking Love destroya. its so good its so fucking good its everything to me. OH and im gonna include the killjoys comic in this and say that even though i love it so fucking much its not enough to put it above current era. its not that i dislike danger days. its that every other era is so strong compared in my mind that since something has to be last it will be this. favorite moments include the videos of them behind the scenes for na na na laughing and having fun the photoshoot with the backdrop where they're all underneath it and gerard looks like a fucking otherworldly being level insane like hes made of porcelain and the mv shots of them in the trans am at night especially going in the tunnel speeding ass out of town. i will add that i discovered mcr thru sing bc it was on a rhythm game i owned at 11 and i still remember the two days before mcr broke up when i finally remembered to give them a listen and openly cried watching them all die in the killjoy vids so theres a nostalgic rawness that part of me wants to leave preserved like an artifact at a museum.

anyway novel over those are my full thoughts on the mcr eras

things i didnt mention that i shouldve include the bat buckle the infamous stage kiss the spitting and gerard palming his cock through his jeans on stage lmao

oh also dewees is great and needs more recognition

[majoringinsarcasm]

Instagram comments are the worst but the amount of Americans who are so against trains bc

The government will control it (bitch did you forget where we live)

It would cost way too much money (that we do have they just say we don’t)

They personally live in the middle of nowhere (which means it’s a bad idea bc They can’t use it but also nobody said get rid of All cars)

And I’m. I’m so fucking depressed bc I can’t go anywhere without a car. I still haven’t learned to drive for several reason. And only being able to be at home or work has ruined my brain. If I had a train YES EVEN ONE I NEED TO BE DRIVEN TO THE STATION OF I could just travel. Visit ppl and places. In a safe way that isn’t costing me money for gas every other day.

“Imagine if a train gets stopped you’ll be there for hours” getting home from a busy airport has been a joke for years. You cut down on your own stress related to driving by having alternatives. Having more options to move independently is never a bad thing

“Public transport sucks so trains would suck” it’s bad bc it’s underfunded and managed poorly. Also not every city or neighborhood or town is built with public transport in mind. I would have to walk an hour away from my home just to get to a bus stop. At my old house it was right around the corner. Buses are not suddenly evil bc I don’t live close to one. The structure is bad bc we live in a CAR DEPENDENT SOCIETY

“If there’s traffic I can just take a side street or go an alternate route. If a train gets stopped you’ll be stuck for hours” and people who live in train heavy areas learn to deal with this. Also the subway exists in America which is already a form of train. Are you gonna tell New York and New Jersey to shut that shit down??

I would rather be able to relax and close my eyes or draw and watch the scenery go by than be stuck in a car I had to operate for a long time. Short trips to places yeah use a car. Nobody is saying get rid of them.

Or maybe these people see “we want trains all over America” the same way they see bike lanes as being annoying and in the way. Because god fucking forbid people want to travel safely. They sometimes have to ride in the street bc not every road has a sidewalk

Like. I feel so stupid reading those comments and it only makes me angrier when I’m reminded how helpless I am due to lack of transport that isn’t a FUCKING CAR THAT YOU HAVE TO PAY A NOTE ON BY THE WAY

“They would use your tax money to pay for the trains. Why would I pay for something I’m not using?” My tax money is already going to places I don’t want it to you stupid fucking moron. You idiot asshole. I would love for the money I’m not gonna get either way actually go toward SOMETHING GOOD

[deparler]

I'm going to be really fucking judgemental but I don't get the deal of the "butches" (not lmao) that then find out they're gay ftm and have a hard time with "internalized homophobia". I'm a real butch. I've always known sometimes the line can be thin between butches and ftms and it's fine it happens but going from lesbian to a gay man is so inconceivable to my brain like I feel like I can seize from how insane that is. Are people fucking dumb morons? For real I don't understand how anyone can struggle this much with their identity as an adult. Especially westerners lmao. I'm morrocan and knew I was a gender non conforming lesbian ages before I even arrived in western countries.

Another thing is. Why are lesbians so boring and insecure? White lesbians actually... Bc the rest of us actually have lesbian sex. 🥰🤔

[dex-starr]

Sometimes my moronic brain thinks I should’ve actually shown you the different of what I’m capable of when I want to hurt someone, because I just needed you to realize it was never like that. I’m just careless and dumb and don’t register certain things because of my brain not developing right. But like what I mean is, I saw how you could be when you wanted to hurt me but I still wanted to treat you with all the softness in the world, that both you and I didn’t experience.

I just don’t know if it wasn’t fair to myself or you to not be harsh or unfair to you in retaliation. Bc really all I did was talk about how you were making me feel with your ultimatum and pressing. It didn’t change my feelings for you I just felt super pressured while I was already feeling the press from life itself. This rant made more sense in my head I guess that’s what slep deprivation to an idiot like me

[madqueenalanna]

it's amazing how fast neurodivergent people online began doing the EXACT SAME "well i can do xyz just fine so idk why it's hard for you" shit that has always been done to us

like obvi this doesn't apply to people using their neurodivergence as an excuse to be a dickhead or whatever, but what is honestly gained through "well I'M autistic and i know better than to..." or "well if you REALLY had anxiety like me you would know..." just any version of "you must be lying about your brain working a certain way bc mine doesn't work like that" like idk what to tell you

my personality disorder affects my thought trails and my pattern-detection and my habit-forming and so like, i don't see things the way many other people do, even other neurodivergent people! my brain just doesn't form the same natural pathways! i don't make the same connections, bc my brain makes its own connections that aren't immediately obvious to other people! it doesn't (necessarily) make me a moron, unempathetic, whatever, it just means my brain doesn't see things the way a lot of other people do, i don't experience the same emotions or desires at the same points. it sucks actually i feel like an alien

but like. "you would have to be some sort of heartless monster to react this way and i would know bc i'm neurodivergent and i wouldn't do that" is like. bad. have you guys considered sometimes that other people are different from you

[windwardstar]

#murderbot#I have Thought about this#tho perhaps not quite as critically as it warrants#it does seem like less intelligent entities are still depicted as being worthy of kindness and care#eg: Ship#but also there *is* a background radiation of like#equating intelligence as Better#and I’ve waffled about the use of the words ‘dumb’ and ‘stupid’ when I’m writing#generally I don’t completely refrain from using it but I try not to use it in an outright derogatory way#kinda how I wouldn’t avoid using the word ‘fat’ if it’s descriptive yunno2#however. idk. perhaps I should reflect more#it’s one of those things that’s so engrained in the social consciousness#and in the books too#and it’s an ableist pervasive poison that rubs me the wrong way#I should read though the books again with this in mind#more deliberately#dissect the use of the infamous ‘you little idiot’#even if it *is* affectionate#etc

nice to see other people thinking about this :D

"the still depicted as worthy of kindness and care" is absolutely present in the story, more for bots than for humans (which are collectively treated as somewhat infantalized by murderbot bc murder bot absolutely sees them as lesser bc they're not as "intelligent" as it). the problem here is the hierarchy of worth based on intelligence/processing power. (The two aren't mutually exclusive, and in fact tend to combine quite frequently into paternalistic infantalization)

and yeah, the problem is that it's so pervasive in society and there's no larger social understanding of this as something that needs to even be addressed. I'd also say it's very different from fat as a descriptive word-- because the body positive movement has done a ton of work to make fat a neutral descriptor and push for people to use it in a neutral or positive way. Dumb, stupid, idiot, etc haven't had that. The word disabled has though. (Basically, fat and disabled have been reclaimed as identity words AND been pushed as general use descriptors for the group by the affected group(s) themself. Dumb, stupid, idiot etc do not have any such push, do not have any such recognition-- and in fact I'll see things like "X doesn't make you stupid" because it's still so ingrained as a negative that people who are advocating for other disabilities still have to say "but it doesn't make you [this kind of disabled that we definitely see as a bad thing to be/that you wouldn't want to be]"

like. When I am having a bad brain day and can barely process language inputs, when it takes me a minute to look at something and identify what i'm looking at and any body actions that I need to take (and sometimes I just can't even do that, I'll just stare and my brain will buffer because it is too much for my brain to process), saying "it doesn't make you dumb" is just... you're [generic] trying to say it doesn't make me worth less than people who don't have those cognitive difficulties, but what it actually going on is "you're not like this group [who is undesirable to be], so you're still worth something"

there's just. not really any room right now for "neutral" use because there's been no push by the affected groups to reclaim it + the fight right now is in just trying to get people to recognize that it's ableist in the first place and "well it's ok if it's not used in an outright derogatory way" is very much an undermining of that and just feels like a way to justify continuing to use it because it's "not as bad" (which is very much how a lot of the ok we can't call people retarded, so we'll call them moron, oh moron is bad too ok so braindead/brain damaged/smoothbrained/stupid and so on where instead of actively examining how they talk and think about intelligence they just find new words to use that aren't deemed socially unacceptable yet).

hope that helped explain some things. it's always nice to hear when people are thinking about these things and reflecting and trying to pay attention.

Reading the murderbot books bc murderbot is very entertaining and there is a ton of good parts of the stories but also the fact that it seems someone is getting called stupid or idiot or moron on every page is very grating. Especially because I'm three books in and there doesn't seem to be any recognition at all that it is ableism or any indication that there will be. This is likely because the author doesn't actually see it as ableism and is just reproducing her own ableist biases in the works. (Because like yeah the vast majority of people don't realize the ableism involved and will actively argue that it isn't. And there's no current cultural understanding that it is ableist that you can count on to reliably assume the readers will recognize it as ableism without framing it as such.)

And for anyone confused about this and thinking it means you can't write about ableism.

Writing about ableism as a topic: you put the content warning for ableism to let people know it will be present in the work as a topic/theme + it's recognized as ableism within the work either narratively or directly by the characters, the harm abelism does is shown and so on.

Reproducing your own ableist biases in your work: other people put a content warning in their recs the same way they mention the racism and ableism and misogyny in dracula or other historical works that were very much reproducing what was the prevailing attitudes of the time. The work itself does not actually recognize the ableism as ableism. It is simply reproducing it in the same capacity that it exists in real life and perpetuating it.

[rugessnome]

...

[pollyna]

On this queer house (and I'm sorry for the running comments? annnd it got shippy lol):

Class '86:

Wolfman: gay but when the kids start using the moronsexual name he starts to identify with that because he married Hollywood, didn't he?

Hollywood: gay and he would like to say to his husband that he's the moron, not him, get it?

Sundown: bi

Chipper: bi

Slider: bi even if thought he was straight for the longest of times (did know u were that old, Ronnie)

Iceman: gay/homosexual/gay (the day he comes out to Ron he would liked to answer: and during summer the sand is hot. Something other earth breaking truth I should made aware of?)

Goose: queer (he serenades them and leaves them with a broken heart, and then Carole comes around and his brain fries once and for all)

Maverick: the bi king

Cougar: he's probably gay but he's repressed af so he says he's the most heterosexual person on this and other planets (I read too many past!cougar/iceman where he breaks iceman's heart to not be of part)

Merlin: not enough informations on him but after surviving being Mav's backset he will probably reconsider half of his life

Jester & Viper: they're tired dads™️ nothing else is required by them, that's says more than anything else.

People around the '86 class:

Carole: bi

Charlie: bi? (me🤝charlie: questioning her sexuality)

Class '22(?):

Rooster: bi (the tale wants that Bradley realised he was bi while putting milk in his cereal, at the tender age of 13, obtaining to spill milk everywhere and on his uncle Tom's uniform too)

Hangman: gay (the day he did coming out with Javy he presented himself drapped in rainbow flag because he had to make an entrance. He was fifteen and Javy was still asleep. The cuddle a lot after because Javy was still sleeping Seresin.)

Coyote: he's the tired bisexual of the group for the love of god someone should give this man a break

Phoenix: greyro bisexual (she is the dangerous thing Halo sleeps with. Who needs a knife or a gun when she is there)

Bob: aroace (his&Phe queerplatonic relationship is life. Apparently in this language is known as the ay-ay spectrum bc you can't pronounce the a someone should give bob the maracas to play as introduction when they ask him his sexuality)

Halo: aro lesbian (Phe says she kisses her in the softest and more determined way someone has ever kissed her)

Omaha: biromantic asexual (flying as backset with Halo give him time to talk about shit he isn't really comfortable talking with everybody around)

Payback: gay (when he was five he asked his mom if he could fall in love with a plane because they were absolutely the best thing ever. Now he thinks the same everytime he looks at Mickey)

Fanboy: pan (his granma ironed the the flag for his first pride because don't you dare going around with that thing all wrinkled)

Harvard: greysexual homoromantic (his bio on Instagram says, Harvard graduate, medical doctor, Naval aviator, my other half snors)

Yale: gay (he's a big fan of ds9 and most of his photos have a quote of the tvshow expect from when he postes about Harvard, than is poetry. It's nauseating, the entire squad hates and loves it.)

Fritz: raging bi with a little application for older people that everybody in the NAVY knows about (see his crush on Admiral Kazansky)

People around the '22 class:

Cyclone: he's bi but he won't let anyone knows because he's not weak

Hondo: pan (his wife made him a patch that he wears for all June and it has the dagger squad insigna in but it isn't in black and white but in blue, pink and yellow)

Warlock: queer (he says the term fits quiet well with him and honest to God Navy is already hard enough without him having to question his own label. His cat is the most affectionate creature this planet has ever saw and sometimes he takes her to work because it's a good antistress and leaves Cyclone and his problems out of his door)

Penny: bi™️ (she meets Charlie, at someone point along the line, and they have a sort of rebound night because of Maverick but it stops being about Maverick 0.01 second after they kiss.)

[femsolid]

i hard agree w you on your post abt male children's capacity for cruelty + just not wanting to chance it in a separatist space. i experienced the cruelty you're talking abt firsthand since KINDERGARTEN, and yet so many self-proclaimed feminists are deliberately misreading you and treating you like you're malicious and/or stupid smh... why tf should little girls risk getting assualts and SA'd bc some women can't let go of 'not all men'?? boymom mentality is fucking insane. you said what you said and it was trueeeee!! hope you're having a good day otherwise!!

Thank you,

But don't worry about it, the reactions on the post are not from feminists. Feminists have reacted normally and a lot of women have messaged me sharing their experiences.

My post was shared in an anti-feminist subreddit hence the amount of insane reactions, the moronic usernames like "cumlord" or "vorejuiceguzzler" or "trueking", the repetitive "feminazi" "misandrist" "hysteria" "man-hater" "feminism is a mental illness" "women should die" "femoid" etc and the memes and reddit jokes. They are mostly men with their tiny little men brains and the few women are openly anti feminists.

We just forget that there are people like that on Tumblr sometimes lol.

As I always say, if men get worked up about what a woman does or say, it means she hit a nerve and is on the right track.

[ssreeder]

okay so this is leekie (hiiii) and here’s my comment bc ao3 is being a bitch and cut me off:

SREEDYYHY MY LOVE I MISSED YOU *picks you up and shakes you around like I’m making a cocktail using fancy bar equipment*

ZUKO MY BBY HES ALIVE AND WELL

n o. sokka my love Do Not tempt fate you and zuko WILL BE BOTH SAFE AND HAPPY AND ALIVE AT THE SAME TIME you’re probably just going to suffer a bit more before that happens…

ahh sokka with his achy hands.. we don’t want our boy getting arthritis before he’s even 18 </3

YAY sokka’s getting his insatiable appetite back, nature truly is healing (even tho ZUKO YOUR FUCKING MORON EAT YOUR STEW)

dad-chief and fatherlord buddies lmao

ohoho shen with his fire nation knowledge about fire nation hair and fire nation intimacy ;)))

“the teen was incredibly skilled at concealing his emotions” my oh my how we have Evolved from dramatic ass zuko in the show.. it’s depressing.

okay I’m interested in knowing about how you’re depicting cultural differences actually. like hakoda thinks that zuko looking him in the eye is a sign of respect bc that’s swt culture, but (at least I thought) isn’t it respectful to not look authority in the eye?? in which case, absolutely fucking iconic that zuko is being a defiant little shit and hakoda is like “what a polite young man :)”

“that’s why we risked it all” OHOHO WE DO LOVE A SNEAKY LITTLE TITLE REFERENCE

okay wait I lowkey love the zuko and shen dynamic it’s legendary

lmao not hakoda finding out katara purposefully got herself imprisoned

“why are you arguing with me?”

“because you are fucking stupid”

way to make a new friend zuko <3

OH NOOO SHEN DONT ASK WHY ZUKO KNOW WHAT THE CAPTAINS QUARTERS LOOK LIKE I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD

nooooo katara your father is very much being a father to your very much not dead brother don’t be saaaaaad

bruh imagine if jet had been allowed in the war meeting that would’ve been an entire fucking mess omg

why is reho talking about sex it feels so wrong bc he’s such an innocent little fool.. omG ACE REHO??? i love this for him

oh no jet trauma :((

FUCK we’re gonna have a zukka and jet confrontation aren’t we

*moment of silence for boots*

yeahhh we’re getting a zukka and get confrontation.

ik this is going to evolve into a Bad argument but it’s hilarious that zuko of all people is the one lecturing sokka about having a short temper (also, something something taking on each other’s traits parallels something something)

wheezing at jet discovering that zuko is the blue spirit omfg FUCKING HELL REHO DONT SPILL THE BEANS ABOUT ZUKO BEING A PRINCE DO YOU ACTUALLY HAVE DISHSOAP FOR BRAINS

holy shit reho whyyyyyyy

ah yes sokka when if doubt, tackle the love of your life so that you can annoy them into expressing their trauma

I swear to fucking god sreeder if you having zuko run away from the camp I will hunt you down

jet. jfc. this boy. needs to be put on a leash.

also FUCK the dai li, the dai li can EAT SHIT

ALSO jet and ara parallels???? earth kingdom nonbenders with immense trauma who send a message to an evil big boss man to tattle on where zuko is hiding????

LEEKIE!!!!

*hoping I make a delicious cocktail*

Ughhhh Zuko is starting to feel better which means some of his dramatic flare may return….

Haha Zuko & Shen have a weird dynamic of “I fucking hate you” but “we get along for brief moments”

Everyone thinks Zuko in Zhaos quarters is all depressing & yeah it kind of is but I’m pretttttyyy sure it’s only because he and Iroh had tea there many times. lol

Yay for ace Reho he deserves nice things sometimes.

Yeahhhhhhhhh…. Confrontation is on the horizon, so you see it? I see it.

(Something something you’re onto something like always)

Zuko is a flight risk, someone tie him to something, ignore his trauma. Lock him down.

*claps* omggg yessss!! Ara & Jet parallels all day, they are two peas in a pod and 85% of the readers HATE that pod.

Love you very much sorry it took me a million years to get back to you. <3