#because I’m just kind of assuming it’s middle aged/older women? and like. my bad if that’s completely incorrect

[cr0wc0rpse]

I’ve always seen posts about doll shows and I sigh wistfully because I’ve been like damn what a shame we don’t have those in my state/near me. But dude I just looked up “doll shows near me” and my state literally does TWO. And we have TWO DOLL CLUBS!! WHAT!!!!!! The only bad thing about this is I don’t drive so unless I can convince someone to drive me for this then I’m out of luck. Still excited to know it exists though!!!!!

[blackstarising]

coming back to this post i made again to elaborate - especially as the ted lasso fandom is discussing sam/rebecca and fandom racism in general. there are takes that are important to make that i had failed to previously, but there's also a growing amount of takes that i have to, As A Black Person™, respectfully disagree with.

tl;dr for the essay below sam being infantilized and the sam/rebecca relationship are not the same issue and discussing the former one doesn't mean excusing the latter. and we've reached the glen of the Dark Forest where we sit down and talk about fandom racism.

i should have elaborated this in my last post about sam/rebecca, but i didn't. i'll say it now - i personally don't support sam and rebecca getting together for real. i believe what people are saying is entirely correct, even though sam is an adult legally, he and rebecca are, at the very least, two wildly different stages of life. for americans, he's at the equivalent of being a junior in college. there are things he hasn't gotten the chance to experience and there are areas he needs to grow in. when i was younger, i didn't understand the significance of these age gaps, i just thought it would be fine if it was legal, but as someone who is now a little older than sam in universe, i understand fully. we can't downplay this. whether or not you think sam works for rebecca or not, even despite the gender inversion of the Older Man Younger Woman trope, whether or not he is a legal adult, i don't think at this point in time, their relationship would work. i think it's an interesting narrative device, but i don't want to see it play out in reality.

that being said!

what's worrying me is that two discussions are being conflated here that shouldn't be. sam having agency and being a little more grown™ than he's perceived to be does not suddenly make his relationship with rebecca justified. i had decided to bring it up because sam was being brought into the spotlight again and i was starting to realizing that his infantilization was more common than i felt comfortable with.

sam's infantilization (and i will continue to call it that), is a microaggression. it's is in the range of microaggressions that i would categorize as 'fandom overcompensation'. we have a prominent character of color that exhibits traits that aren't stereotypical, and we don't want to appear racist or stereotypical, so we lean hard in the other direction. they're not aggressive, they're a Sweet Baby, they're not world weary, they're now a little naive. they're not cold and distant, they're so nice and sweet that there's no one that wouldn't want approach them, and yeah, on their face, these new traits are a departure and, on their face, they seem they look really good.

but at a certain point, it reaches an inflection point, and, like the aftertaste of a diet coke, that alleged sweetness veers into something a lot less sweet. it veers into a lack of agency for the character. it veers into an innocence that appears to indicate that the person can't even take care of themselves. it veers into a one-dimensional characterization that doesn't allow for any depth or negative emotion.

it's not kind anymore. it's not a nice departure from negative stereotypes. it's not compensating for anything.

it's patronizing.

it is important that we emphasize that characters of color are more than the toxic stereotypes we lay on them, yes, but we make a mistake in thinking that the solution is overcorrection. for one thing, people of color can usually tell. don't get it twisted, it's actually pretty obvious. for another, it just shifts from one dimension to another. people of color are still supposed to be Only One Character Trait while white people can contain multitudes. ted, who is pretty much as pollyanna as they come, can be at once innocent and naive and deep and troubled and funny and scared. jamie can be a prick and sexy and also lonely and also a victim of abuse. sam, however, even though he was bullied (by jamie, no less), is thousands of miles away from home, and has led a protest on his team, is usually just characterized as human sunshine with much less acknowledgement of any other traits beyond that.

and that's why i cringe when fandom calls sam a Sweet Baby Boy without any sense of irony. is that all we're taking away? after all this time? even for a comedy, sam has received a substantive of screen time over two whole seasons, and we've seen a range of emotions from him. so as a black person it's hurtful that it's boiled down to Sweet Baby Boy.

that's the problem. we need to subvert stereotypes, but more importantly, we need to understand that people of color are not props, or pieces of cardboard for their white counterparts. they are full and actualized and have agency in their own right and they can have other emotions than Angry and Mean or Sweet and Bubbly without any nuance between the two. i think the show actually does a relatively good job of giving sam depth (relatively, always room for improvement, mind you), especially holding it in tension with his youth, but the fandom, i worry, does not.

it's the same reason why finn from star wars started out as the next male protagonist in the sequel trilogy but by the third movie was just running around yelling for REY!! it's the same reason why when people make Phase 4 Is the Phase For Therapy gifsets for the mcu and show wanda maximoff, loki, and bucky barnes crying and being sad but purposefully exclude sam wilson who had an entire show to tell us how difficult his life is, because people find out if pee oh sees are also complex, they'll tell the church.

and the reason why i picked up on this very early on is because i am an organic, certified fresh, 100% homegrown, non-gmo, a little ashy, indigenous sub saharan African black person. the ghanaian tribes i'm descended from have told me so, my black ass parents have told me so, and the nurses at the hospital in [insert asian country here] that started freaking out about how curly my hair was as my mother was mid pushing me out told me so!

and this stuff has real life implications. listen: being patronized as a black person sucks. do you know how many times i was patted on the back for doing quite honestly, the bare minimum in school? do you know how many times i was told how 'well spoken' or 'eloquent' i was because i just happen to have a white accent or use three syllable words? do you know how many times i've been cooed over by white women who couldn't get over how sweet i was just because i wasn't confrontational or rude like they wrongly expected me to be?

that's why they're called microaggressions. it's not a cross on your lawn or having the n-word spat in your face, but it cuts you down little by little until you're completely drained.

so that's the nuance. that's the subversion. the overcompensation is not a good thing. and people of color (and i suspect, even white people) have picked up on, in general, the different ways fandom treats sam and dani and even nate. what all of these discussions are converging on is fandom racism, which is not the diet form of racism, but another place for racism to reveal itself. and yeah, it's uncomfortable. it can seem out of left field. you may want to defend yourself. you may want to explain it away. but let me tap the sign on the proverbial bus:

if you are a white person, or a person of color who is not part of that racial group, even, you do not get to decide what is not racist for someone. full stop. there are no exceptions. there is no exit clause for you. there is no 'but, actually-'. that right wasn't even yours to cede or waive.

(it's also important to note that people of color also have the right to disagree on whether something is racist, but that doesn't necessarily negate the racism - it just means there's more to discuss and they can still leave with different interpretations)

people don't just whip out accusations of racism like a blue eyes white dragon in a yu-gi-oh duel. it's not fun for us. it's not something we like to do to muzzle people we don't want to engage with. and we're not concerned with making someone feel bad or ashamed. we're exposing something painful that we have to live with and, even worse, process literally everything we experience through. we can't turn it off. we can't be 'less sensitive' or 'less nitpicky'. we are literally the primary resources, we are the proverbial wikipedia articles with 3,000 sources when it comes to racism. who else would know more than us?

what 2020 has shown us very clearly is that racism is systemic. it's not always a bunch of Evil White Men rubbing their hands together in a dark room wondering how they're going to use the 'n-word' today. it's systemic. it's the way you call that one neighborhood 'sketchy'. it's how you use 'ratchet' and 'ghetto' when describing something bad. it's how you implicitly the assume the intelligence of your friend of color. it's the way you turned up your nose and your friend's food and bullied them for it in middle school but go to restaurants run by white people who have 'uplifted' it with inauthentic ingredients. it's telling someone how Well Spoken and Eloquent they are even though you've both gone to the same schools and work at the same workplace. it's the way you look down at some people of color for having a different body type than you because they've been redlined to neighborhoods where certain foods and resources are inaccessible, and yet mock up the racial features that appeal to you either through makeup or plastic surgery.

it's how when a person of color behaves badly, they're irredeemable, but a white person performing the same act or something similar is 'having a bad day' or 'isn't normally like this' or 'has room to grow' and we can't 'wait for their redemption arc', and yes, i'm not going to cover it in detail in this post but yes this is very much about nate. other people have also brought up the nuances in his arc and compared them to other white characters so i won't do it here.

these behaviors and reactions aren't planned. they aren't orchestrated. they're quite literally unconscious because they've been lovingly baked into western society for centuries. you can't wake up and be rid of it. whether you intended it or not, it can still be racist.

and it's actually quite hurtful and unfair to imply that concerns about racism in the TL fandom are unfounded or lacking any depth or simply meant to be sensational because you simply don't agree with it. i wish it was different, but it doesn't work that way. i'm not raising this up to 'call out' or shame people, but i'm adding to this discussion because, through how we talk about sam, and even dani and nate, i'm yet again seeing a pattern that has shortchanged people of color and made them feel unwelcome in fandom for far too long.

coach beard said it best: we need to do better.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 15 of 26

Title: Tehanu (Earthsea Cycle #4) (1990)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Third-Person, Female Protagonist 

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 6/24/2021

Date Finished: 6/30/2021

Decades after The Tombs of Atuan, Tenar decided to settle down and live an ordinary life on the shepherding Isle of Gont. Now a farmer’s widow, she adopts a disfigured and horrifically abused child, who she names Therru. When a giant dragon deposits a grief-stricken Ged at her doorstep, Tenar finds herself in a strange situation as she cares for her old friend and her adopted daughter. But threats from Therru’s past and a malevolent force on the island soon threaten Tenar’s small family. 

Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice.

Content warnings and spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death. Mentioned murder. Severe child abuse. Descriptions of traumatic injury and disfigurement. Mentions of r*pe, including of children. Trauma, sexism, and ableism are explored in depth. 

Tehanu is a much different book than the trilogy that precedes it. Perhaps this is unsurprising, considering the 17-year gap between this book and The Farthest Shore. I’d describe the Earthsea series as “grounded fantasy”. While all of them take place in a magical world, the thesis of each book is universal; the fantasy always comes second. Tehanu takes this idea to an extreme. The story is about everyday life as a common woman in the Earthsea world, with fantasy barely factoring in. The pacing is intentionally slow and introspective, which is something I normally don’t like, but Le Guin is a consistent exception. 

Key characters from the previous books make an appearance. Obviously Tenar is the biggest return, absent since The Tombs of Atuan. The Tenar in this book is older and much more mature, having decided to live a simple life in spite of her adventures and accomplishments. Ged returns, but he’s a shell of his former self, as he mourns the loss of his magic and the man he used to be. Even King Lebannen (formerly Arren, the main character of The Farthest Shore) makes a brief appearance, and is quite a palate cleanser after the horrible men throughout the rest of the book.  

Probably my favorite aspect of the novel is the fact that these characters stand well on their own without magic to prop them up. Tenar explored the terrifying freedom she won in The Tombs of Atuan; got married, settled down, had kids — but still finds herself at a loss on what to do with her life after her husband dies. Ged is in a similar boat; he’s gone from an almost mythic character to an ordinary man, and like Tenar finds himself at a crossroads in life. Other characters embody this idea of transformation and uncertainty; Therru’s escaped her abusers and now has a loving mother, but what does the future hold for someone with her appearance? Stuff like that. 

The idea of metamorphosis and new beginnings is well-trodden. But what makes Tehanu interesting is Le Guin primarily examines this with the middle-aged characters. Tenar and Ged are legendary figures in the world of Earthsea, but life has taken them to an uncertain future. The thrust of the novel lies in finding a purpose and becoming someone new. I also like that Tenar/Ged is endgame; I got Vibes from The Tombs of Atuan, but neither character was in a position where it would work. Seeing them form a romantic relationship much later in life is touching and cute. But it’s not the reason that either of them grow as people; finding one’s purpose is something one has to do on their own. Their relationship only develops once both parties have done so.   

My main complaint about A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book, is the sexism inherent in the setting, which is never examined below the surface level. Perhaps Le Guin’s outlook changed, or perhaps the publishing environment did, because often Tehanu reads like a response to this criticism. The central theme of the book is misogyny, the patriarchy, and its debilitating effects on women. Le Guin examines everything from micro-aggressions (“common wisdom” that happens to paint women as inferior) to domestic issues (“women’s work” and how much that actually is) to outright sexual assault (both in threats and actual acts; it is heavily implied this is part of the abuse Therru endured). She even goes into how powerful women are only considered as such because a man gave them that power. 

While I appreciate the fact she addresses these issues in such a frank, blatant way, at times reading Tehanu felt like reading a basic feminism primer. These subjects are all things I’m familiar with, and I feel like anyone who’s studied key feminist ideas would be aware of them also. Maybe 1990 was different? Le Guin doesn’t add any insights to the bleak reality of patriarchy and sexism, which is a little disappointing compared to previous books. That being said, this book is aimed at young adults despite its dark subject matter. Tehanu could be the first exposure to these ideas that many children receive; looking at it that way, it makes sense that the analysis comes off as basic. 

I also found the book’s examination of gender to be very cishet-normative. That’s definitely not surprising, considering the book was published in 1990, but to a 2021 reader this hasn’t aged super well. There’s a lot of discussion about the relationships and differences between men and women--whether there are any or not, how magic differs between them, the ability to bear children, and so on. There’s a weird sexual component to this, like how wizards (who are exclusively men) have to remain celibate in order to… keep being wizards? But women who are witches don’t have to do that, and that’s an advantage women have? (There’s mentions of male witches too, iirc, but it’s not expanded upon— do they have to remain celibate? Who knows.). I found this whole bit pretty odd and unnecessary, although I realize a lot of my perspective on the matter comes from a modern view of sex and gender (and, y’know, being trans). Not all the gender takes in the book are bad, but they are limited. 

I found Le Guin’s exploration of trauma and ableism through Therru to be more interesting. There’s a lot of examination about how society treats Therru, a survivor of unspeakable abuse. Her trauma is visible due to severe burns along part of her body, leaving her with a missing eye and disfigured hand. Tenar spends much of the novel wondering what future Therru has; no matter how capable she is and how much she acts like any other little girl, strangers gawk at her, or assume she “deserved” what happened to her. Therru becomes happier and more independent over the course of the novel, but relapses into a traumatized state when she encounters one of her abusers. As a survivor, it’s heartbreaking and distressingly realistic. As much as I like Tenar, I almost wish the novel was from Therru’s perspective (other than the brief jump at the end), but I realize it would spoil the ending.  

I’m torn on the ending because, while I thought it was cool and had some interesting revelations, it’s a jarring tonal shift. As I mentioned, Tehanu is a slow novel with a heavy focus on everyday life, and the trials and tribulations both Tenar and Therru experience. There’s even a climactic event a few chapters before the end; the only thing left is a persistent loose thread from earlier in the novel. That subplot explodes to the forefront a bare chapter and a half before the end of the book, and a lot of action-y fantasy stuff happens. It doesn’t come out of nowhere; it’s set up throughout the novel, but it is sudden. 

That being said, I do like that the subplot with dragons vs humans is hinted at as early as The Tombs of Atuan. When Tenar tells the legend about the origin of dragons early in the story, my mind immediately went to that one room from the Labyrinth with the sad winged humanoids painted on its walls. I’m curious if there are hints elsewhere in the series. I also figured out Therru’s true name and how she relates to that subplot based on context clues. While it’s not a shocking twist, it is a satisfying one. Though parts of it gave me a “magical destiny” vibe which is counter to much of the series so far; I do wonder how the last two books will address this. (Also… did Le Guin imply Kalessin is Segoy? AKA God? What did she mean by this. So Ged literally like… hitched a ride from God, who promptly yeeted out of the story until the end? That’s kind of funny. Maybe I misinterpreted something.) 

I probably sound critical of this book, but I did genuinely enjoy it. It just didn’t speak to me the way the previous two did. The next book is a short story collection before the conclusion to the series, so we’ll see where it goes! Tehanu set some stuff up that I expect will be expanded upon in these volumes.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

The Critique of Manners Part IV

~Or~

A Very Amused Review of Emma (1972)

One doesn’t really know where to begin with this one. I’ve watched a few of these 70’s/80’s period drama adaptations, but I’ve never written a review for one. I think the tricky thing is it doesn’t feel fair to judge them against more recent adaptations because the approach and quality are so very different to modern television making.

But people do. I’m sure it’s different for people who grew up watching these, who are just used to them and their objectively terrible, stagey quality and can look past that particular weakness on the sheer power of nostalgia.

So I’m going to try and find a middle-ground here where I ignore the stagey and obviously dated aspects and judge it primarily on its value as an adaptation – is it faithful to the book?

Let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

Normally I would start with Emma and Knightley but this time I’m gonna switch it up a bit and do them last because… well we’ll get there in a bit.

Let’s start instead with Mr. Woodhouse. I have to say, I kind of like this take. The 1996-7 and 2009 adaptations all kind of went for the same type of older man: a bit stout, or in Michael Gambon’s case… however you would describe Michael Gambon. With Donald Eccles, however, this version goes for a rather more frail looking Mr. Woodhouse; in fact to compare him to any recent Mr. Woodhouse, I suppose he comes closest to Bill Nighy (although the general characterization is of course very different.)  He’s a ridiculous but lovable soul who seems always, of course, worried about his own health and comfort, but in his own selfish way, concerned for his friends and family as well. My only complaint is that maybe they over-utilized him.

I thought the casting of a plump Mrs. Weston (Ellen Dryden) was an interesting choice, and definitely different from other versions. Her acting was actually really good too.

I wasn’t quite so pleased with the characterization of Mr. Weston, on the other hand. I have huge issues with this script vis-à-vis the men, but Mr. Weston and Knightley in particular. The problem with Mr. Weston is how he’s written as just verging on uncouth at some points. There are way too many rustic contractions here: “Ain’t I looking well too, Miss Emma?!’ “’Ark at that eh? The sly young rogue!” “Oh I think it looks tolerably gay and festive, don’t it?” and then just throwing himself back on the grass and chortling when Emma makes her fateful Box Hill faux pas? Like, what the hell? I’m not saying he shouldn’t use a few casual contractions (“How d’you do?” for example) but he seems almost like a positive country bumpkin and I don’t think it’s appropriate; he doesn’t talk like that in the book and I’m just all-around not here for it.

Constance Chapman, a well-respected character actress of the time was cast as Miss Bates, while Molly Sugden, of Are You Being Served? fame was WASTED in the bit-part of Mrs. Goddard. If you ask me, they should have swapped this casting, since I think Sugden, an outstanding comedienne, could have done so much more with the Miss Bates role than the usual wittery-old-lady style chattering Chapman delivered.

Mr. Elton was played by Timothy Peters (Right) and was, eh, adequate. They did slime him up a bit by having him over-eagerly offer to fix Emma’s bootlace, which she points out isn’t entirely appropriate for a man to do, especially the vicar and it’s pretty funny; but other than that, he has all the appearance of being a pleasant young man, as Mr. Elton should – becoming less pleasant as the story progresses.

One John Alkin (left) played Mr. Robert Martin, and he, too, was adequate. There’s not much of him and, since Mr. Martin wasn’t one of those characters this version decided to approach more three-dimensionally, there’s not much to say about him. 

Frank Churchill is… OMG IT’S PRINCE HARRY FROM BLACKADDER!

Ahem. Yes, Robert East (BETTER KNOWN AS PRINCE HARRY FROM BLACKADDER) plays a very agreeable (and smarmy, but not too smarmy) Frank. I think honestly this is as good as this part could get in the 70’s, although at 29 he was a little too old for the part.

John and Isabella, in an interesting (?) casting choice, were played by brother and sister duo, Yves and Belinda Tighe. I actually really liked Yves’s John Knightley (he’s actually one of the more handsome John’s, in a 70’s kind of way; for note-taking purposes I have nicknamed him “Not-Harrison-Ford”), but his sister as Isabella seemed kind of old and had just a really annoying voice. Also she doesn’t look at all like Doran Godwin, and Emma and Isabella are supposed to look somewhat alike.

The real casting stand out for me in this version is Fiona Walker as Mrs. Elton, although she too was a little old for her role, I’ve said before that there are no bad Mrs. Eltons (only bad accents) and she just absolutely nailed the insufferable chatter to a definitive standard (until the recent adaptations – 2009 onward).

I did however, get the feeling in this version that they kind of wrote in a through-line where Mrs. Elton is putting the moves on Mr. Knightley (to the point where they actually wrote out Mr. Elton from scenes he should be in) which was one of those unnecessary deviations which made me raise an eyebrow and also was just… weird.

Now my question is – why do all of the young women in this series kind of look like evil dolls?

Debbie Bowen, from a strictly book accuracy perspective is one of the most accurate Harriet Smiths I’ve seen – in fact we don’t get another this accurate (to my way of thinking) until Louise Dylan in 2009, who fits roughly the same model (fair and shapely). Its Bowen’s acting I don’t like, but I know that in the 70’s, this kind of simpering acting for this kind of character was just unavoidable. It was the style at the time, so I’m cutting her a break critically; but the performance just doesn’t cut it for me.

This Jane Fairfax (played by Ania Marson) is not my favorite interpretation of this character. At first I thought she was going to be alright, but in her first scene she bursts out and actually shouts in frustration at her chattering aunt (which she has some basis for, I’ll admit, since Miss Bates, in her muddle-headed way, could very well have unwittingly spilled the beans about Jane and Frank) but this is far more feeling than we should even have a hint of from Jane at this point. The whole reason Emma doesn’t like Jane (other than the fact that Emma is an attention whore and Jane steals her thunder by being so admired and accomplished) is because she’s timid and demure and reserved.

But the biggest problem I have with this Jane is that she can’t even fucking sing. I know they write it away as her having a sore throat (Which I think is a pull from a different part of the book?) but this was just egregiously bad to me. This is the only time in the series they show Jane singing so it’s never actually established that Jane really is more accomplished than Emma (although they don’t show Emma herself singing or even playing at all either.) Could the actresses just not sing well so they decided to write around it? You could have dubbed it; you had that technology in the 70’s!

OK. Now it’s time to talk about Doran Godwin. I’ve never seen her in anything else so I don’t know if it’s just that she can’t act, but I have no idea what she was going for with this portrayal of Emma, and this is something so consistent and unique to her that I, for once, can’t justify blaming it solely on the director because you can’t direct crazy-eyes. They just happen; and they happen A LOT in this series.

I’ve struggled to find the words to sufficiently describe my feeling about Doran Godwin’s facial expressions and her acting in this adaptation. In my ribbon rating notes I think I describe her as a “witchy automaton”? I stand by it. Every time she talks to someone her eyes go very wide and she sort of looks like she’s trying to hypnotize everyone in Highbury. The effect is just absolutely inhuman. I never thought I’d ever see anyone with more patently crazed Crazy-Eyes than Timothy “Crazy-Eyes” Dalton – but man, Doran “Hypno-Witch” Godwin just stole the prize. Perhaps she escaped from the set of a Doctor Who? telling of the story where Miss Woodhouse has been replaced by an android.

You have scenes such as this in episode 2 , where Harriet is trying to get Emma to acknowledge Mr. Elton calling after them as they walk past the vicarage, and Emma ignores her by mechanically continuing to talk, looking straight ahead with laser focus. Of course, Emma is intentionally ignoring Harriet because she wants Mr. Elton to follow them, but that wasn’t quite apparent to me until the end of her ramble – which I had assumed she was forced to complete due to some directive in her programming. I have more to say on her characterization, but we’ll get to that in a dedicated section of the review.

John Carson might actually be one of the better Knightley’s, but I’m sorry – at 45 he was just too old. This is something you can play around with in other characters (Mr. Weston and Miss Bates after all, have no stated ages in the book) but not only do we know how old Mr. Knightley is in the book, they state in the show that Emma is 21 (Doran Godwin was actually 28) and that Mr. Knightley is sixteen years older than her – 37 or 38 – and John Carson is CLEARLY no 38. This obviously-over-forty appearance does have an effect on how I view his banter with Emma, and it’s more avuncular than the older-brother feel that Mr. Knightley and Emma should have.

Whether by direction or actor’s choice, Carson’s Mr. Knightley speaks in a way that just doesn’t feel period to me. He has a very sort of 20th Century, stock British, hearty-good-fellow manner, that dates this adaptation pretty badly and feels old-fashioned (but not in a Regency/Georgian way) even in the 70’s.

Sets & Surroundings

Normally at this point in the review I would talk about the British manor houses and estates used and how they measure up to the book descriptions but the publicly funded BBC ran on a much tighter budget in the 70’s (apparent in the production values and number of obviously bad takes that they just decided to leave in, in everything they made) and as such they couldn’t afford to film in and rent out large estates quite as much, so this has the trademark 70’s/80’s BBC sound-stage quality of all of their other productions of the period. That said, this production actually has some of the better sets I’ve seen and that’s saying something, for being made in the 70’s. The walls didn’t actually shake when doors were closed, and it didn’t feel as stagey as some other Austen serials of the time. (This doesn’t improve the very “on-cue” acting in the series, but I have to give credit where it’s due.) I believe they may used a real manor house for the exterior of Hartfield (and not a landscape pastel) and maybe some of the interiors too? I can’t say for sure, and I would love to tell you what house and where it is but I can’t find any credits on it. I’ll just say that I think it’s very suitable and leave it at that.

Costumes

Much like today, the BBC almost exclusively used, re-used and rented costumes for their period productions. Almost every costume in this series was also used in the 70’s and 80’s BBC productions of Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Pride and Prejudice (P&P being the overwhelming common denominator – almost every one of Emma’s evening dresses and pelisses was seen, primarily on Caroline Bingley.) Some of the shawls have been picked out in BBC Austens as recently as 2008.

For being made in the 70’s the costumes in this production are really kind of nice. They don’t date themselves too badly. The ones that do feel 70’s retro, in fact, were mostly styles borrowed from period accurate fashions that just happened to coincide with contemporary 70’s tastes, and which aren’t often used in Regency costumes today because, well they don’t coincide with our modern tastes. For the most part, they look well-made (although some of them do have that stiff, dingy polyester look to them and there are definitely some plastic pearls here and there).

I’m quite pleased with the silhouettes which don’t suffer from Square Bust/Boob Droop syndrome the way the 1980 P&P does. All of the assets seem to be lifted and shifted in the right places.

Daywear

I like Emma’s blue day dress the best of all her day-wear looks. It’s a rich color and has pleated cups (Also on her white day dress) which is a style I really love.

Emma wears the gauzy… let’s be kind and say ivory instead of “Yellowish” ruff during the day A LOT (Emma Pic 2). It’s a popular look on Jane Fairfax too (Jane Pic 2) and I just… I don’t like it. Not that it’s not period appropriate (because it unfortunately is) it just makes them look like Dr. Seuss characters to me, especially worn with short sleeves which is something these dramas do a lot and I hate it. It just makes the person in question look very awkwardly disproportionate to me, especially because. if they had long sleeves to go with it (which would be more correct from a historical authenticity standpoint) it would even it out so much better. Compare Jane and Emma to see what I mean. The single layer ruffle (Emma Pic 1) is much more agreeable to me. (I wanna point out that Jane wears the same green dress without any partlet or undersleeves for strawberry picking at Donwell, which is blatant Eveningwear-For-Daywear™ and looked really out of place since everyone else was wearing day-appropriate attire).

Emma’s wider, cuffed, long sleeves and Mrs. Elton’s puffy segmented Renaissance sleeves are exactly what I mean about period accurate styles that suit the 70’s in a way that they just don’t jive today. Even Harriet gets some.

Mrs. Elton Orange ™ is another crayon color Crayola should consider I think.

Harriet gets stuck with a lot of brown outer wear but her day clothes are otherwise pretty nice. I especially like the ivory and blue number (Bottom right) and her white day dress with blue accents (Top right) which I think is the nicest thing she wears in this whole series. 

Evening Wear

Emma’s evening wear confines itself pretty exclusively to cool purples and blues except for her white ball gown. I find this interesting because other versions tend to dress Emma in warmer colors and pinks (As I’m very partial to purples and blues, I love all of them). I can’t say it’s inconsistent with Emma’s cold characterization in this version. Mrs. Weston’s evening gowns are uniformly amazing. I especially love her blue party dress, which is my favorite in the series.

Both of Harriet’s party dresses are characteristically pretty and girlish. The pink is a bit fussy for me but I love the blue one (which has a lot more detail but I couldn’t get a full length shot of it.)

I’m pleased that Jane is given a bit of a break from the Jane Fairfax Blue ™ trope with her evening wear. She has one light blue evening gown and gets a few green numbers, most notable being her mint ball gown. Her beige party dress is absolutely tragic though.

Mrs. Elton’s evening color seems to be chartreuse (Which I think was also the case in the ITV version? ITV fans back me up.) Her black overlay/spiky number is iconic of the Austen Bad Girl, but her ball gown is a bit disappointing in its simplicity to me.

I would love to have seen a full length shot of Isabella’s black and purple number because I have a suspicion THAT would have been my favorite but I just can’t make out enough detail on it.

Zig-zag patterns on the skirt are a huge theme in this version, which is so of the period. Mrs. Cole (shout out to another future Are You Being Served? familiar, Hilda Fenemore) looks straight out of a fashion plate in her dark green party dress, which has (drumroll please…) a padded hem! 

Outerwear

This version has SO MANY PELISSES AND REDINGOTES. Are they all nice? No. No they are not; I particularly hate Emma’s fugly salmon number that she wears for Strawberry picking/Box Hill. Mostly because she looks SO over-dressed compared to everyone else who’s wearing loose fitting light clothes (except Jane, who’s wearing an evening dress). Just looking at her makes me hot. I’m also NOT a huge fan of her pink winter cloak. The one trimmed with… faux ermine? One can only assume. It looks awfully tacky.

That russet pelisse tho! This is one of my all-time favorites. It’s SO. PRETTY and so detailed (See this number on Jane in P&P ’80). I think her gray fur-trimmed pelisse is pretty fabulous too, but I do not like the hat she wears with it. The brim is kind of a funky shape to me.

I know I’ve criticized brown before, but I do like it in moderation and this version is astonishingly brown-free for being made in the 70’s, so I really like her red/brown velvet spencer, especially with the cream dress and gloves, and her hat has some amazing decoration.

Jane and Mrs. Weston are the only other characters who get pelisses/redingotes. I’m not a fan of Mrs. Weston’s fuchsia number, and while I like Jane’s, it does put itself solidly in the Jane Fairfax Blue™ category.  

Harriet gets pretty much only one form of outer-wear, her brown school cloak (a different brown school cloak from the one in the ‘97 version, in case you were wondering) and while it’s pretty dull, it’s hardly unexpected. Here it is paired with her rather ugly blue bonnet, with yellow ribbon. The bonnet features heavily in this episode.

To be honest for the most part I totally forgot about the… 

because a lot of it is very standard. No dandy standouts here, but overall it’s pretty okay and I’m really pleased to say that there are no bib-cravats. That’s not usually so much a problem in Regency Era stuff (Since ruffles were going out at around this time), but you can really distinctly see that the ruffles (where ruffles there are – usually on older men which is good) are part of the shirt and distinctly separate from the cravat. Also there are LOTS of high collars and they’re not comically high to the point where they get wrinkled, like they were in Emma. (2020), so points for that also. These are the screencaps I gathered going back over it for posterity.

Mr. Knightley doesn’t really get a lot of cool outfits. His best is his purple velvet evening jacket which somehow manages to not look ostentatious (but is his only dress jacket), and his gold-topped Prussian boots (which you should just be able to see bottom right.) The worst though… I’m sorry, (looks up costumer’s name) Joan Ellacott – do you really expect me to feel the weight of Emma’s cock-ups when Mr. Knightley is rebuking her in such a cartoonishly proportioned top hat? It’s like being scolded by the Mad Hatter. All of the men’s hats are pretty flared in this series too, and I’m not totally sure but, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that flared top hats are not right for this period?

I think Mr. Weston only has one day outfit (which, in keeping with his characterization is pretty farmer-chic) and one evening outfit. Frank’s dark green day-jacket is a pretty standard look on him and I don’t think we get a fresh look until his fabulous blue jacket/yellow waistcoat combo that he wears for Strawberry Picking/Box Hill. I believe his evening jacket is also dark green but it was tough to tell. Again I think he has only one set of evening-wear. I would expect Frank to have more, since he’s such a dandy.

Mr. John Knightley doesn’t have much to write home about in terms of evening kit, but DAYUM, his blue traveling coat is DOOOOOPE. 

Let’s Talk Script

This adaptation was directed by John Glenister and Dramatized by Denis Constanduros.

Now I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews for this on IMDB calling it the… let’s see here… “The best Emma I’ve ever seen” and “The most true to the novel”… *Takes off spectacles and sighs heavily* I’m afraid I have to disagree. Several people also really love Doran Godwin’s Emma (We’ve already gone over why I don’t, and I have also seen reviews that name her and her lack of charisma as the main sticking point preventing them from really enjoying it, so I’m not alone). I’ve also heard it described as “sensitively handled” “Intimate” and “The most faithful to the spirit of Austen” and so forth, and again maybe it’s that prejudice against the stagey production and… no there’s definitely some other reason I have a problem with this version.

Let me make this clear – I don’t totally hate it, and I’m not here to shame the people who really love this version. Once again – if this version gives you what you want from the story I think that’s great for you. I, myself, like it pretty well and I think it’s one of the better early BBC Austen serials. It’s certainly not boring; but I do want to go over some of the changes that were made and choices in the script.

Some of them aren’t really that egregious, but they’re annoying in that I think they didn’t need to be made and don’t really add anything. Characters being added to scenes where they didn’t need to be and written out of scenes where their presence was missed. Like writing Mr. Elton out of Box Hill (And really the whole second half of the series, to facilitate Mrs. Elton flirting with Knightley), and adding Miss Bates into the after-dinner scene, I think at the Randalls Christmas party? I’m sure this was done for expediency but you have six episodes. It’s not as though you’re strapped for time.

Particularly praised, as far as I’ve seen, is the scene at Christmas when Knightley and Emma make up after their argument over Harriet. It takes place in the nursery, which I suppose isn’t an unreasonable place for Emma to be fawning over her niece (in the dramatization she seems to have been feeding the baby, where in the book she is playing with her). The book doesn’t specify where the scene takes place, although I assumed it to be a downstairs room, and I’m not sure that it’s entirely appropriate for Emma and a man (even one connected to her family through marriage) to be alone in an upstairs room together with the door closed and no more chaperone than a baby. But in spite of this, perhaps inappropriate, level of privacy, the scene feels less intimate to me than the book, where in the course of the conversation, where Mr. Knightley takes the baby from Emma “in the manner of perfect amity” and holds her himself and it is very adorable and sweet. In the dramatization, Knightley sort of just stands next to Emma’s chair and leans down a bit. After this conversation in the book, John comes into the room to talk to George, while in the show Emma puts the baby in the cradle and they leave the room to go downstairs.

But there are more outstanding changes that just feel wrong to me. When confronting Emma about her meddling in Harriet’s response to Mr. Martin’s proposal, Constanduros changes “What is the foolish girl about?” to “What is the stupid girl about?” it’s not that big a change, but it makes Mr. Knightley sound unnecessarily mean.

I’ve already mentioned the, er, additions regarding Mr. Weston’s dialogue and Mrs. Elton, and Jane shouting at Miss Bates; but by far the biggest, worst additions were made with Emma. The worst, I think, is the handling of this scene in Episode 4 when Harriet is feeling heartsick following Mr. Elton’s marriage.

And for those of you who don’t wanna follow the link, here’s a transcription:

Emma: Now Harriet! Your allowing yourself to become so upset over Mr. Elton’s marriage is the strongest possible reproach you could make to me!

Harriet: Miss Woodhouse –

Emma: Yes it is! You could not more constantly remind me of the mistake I made, which is most hurtful!

Harriet: Oh Miss Woodhouse, it was not intended to be!

Emma: I have not said “think and talk less of Mr. Elton” for my sake, Harriet, because it is for yours I wish it. My being hurt is a very… secondary consideration, but please, please Harriet, do learn to exert a little more self-discipline in this matter.

Harriet: {Looks down} Yes, Miss Woodhouse.

Emma: We are all creatures of feeling; we all suffer disappointments, it is how we learn to suffer them that forms our character. If you continue in this way, Harriet, I shall think you wanting in true friendship for me!  

Harriet: Oh, Miss Woodhouse! You, who are the best friend I’ve ever had? Oh what a horrid, horrid wretch I’ve been!”

Emma: Oh now Harriet – (She’s gonna console her now, right?)

Harriet: Oh yes, I have, I have!

Emma: Harriet, control yourself! (ha ha bitch, u thought) Now, you will tie your bonnet, and you are coming with me to call on Mr. And Mrs. Elton at the Vicarage…

Harriet: Oh, Miss Woodhouse –

Emma: Yes you are! And I’m sure you will find it far less distressing than you think.

Harriet: Oh, Miss Woodhouse, must I?

Emma: Yes, Harriet; but you may borrow my lace ruff if you wish.

Harriet: Oh may I, Miss Woodhouse? Oh, thank you!

(Look how evil she looks! She looks like she’s planning on baking Harriet into a pie!)

While this scene is in the book and much of the dialogue is also from the book, it’s the lines that were added that stick out to me. Emma does tell Harriet that her allowing herself to become upset over the Eltons is a reproach on Emma more than anything else and reminds her miserably of the “Mistake [Emma] fell into” but from this point, the script takes a left turn from the firm but kind appeal to Harriet to move on for both her happiness and Emma’s own comfort, to a far more manipulative strain.

Even after Harriet apologizes, she goes from simply appealing to Harriet to let herself move on, to basically telling her that she’s a bad friend. She treats Harriet like she’s unreasonable for feeling this way, where in the book Emma is very understanding and feels that “she could not do too much for her; that Harriet had every right to all her ingenuity and patience…” and only after Harriet goes all afternoon with Emma soothing her and no improvement in her spirits does Emma take any kind of reproachful tack whatsoever.

    In this scene, Emma says that her own happiness is a secondary consideration (this is stressed much more in the book) but from the way she says it, it seems more like she just wants Harriet to shut up about it rather than actually meaning it. (This is a very prominent example of Emma’s not seeming to really like Harriet at all in this version, only tolerating her presence.)

AND THEN she does something which Emma in the book most certainly did NOT do and forces Harriet to come with her to visit the Eltons, as if to put her on the spot and test how good a little friend she will be. I can’t express how disgusted I am by the changes and interpretation here. This is the culmination of the general through-line of Emma’s manipulative characterization being taken to an extreme. She looms over Harriet sounding, by turns, like a school marm and a saccharine nanny. She’s like a (very) low budget version of Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia. 

My question about all of these changes is simply: Why? They don’t improve the story or the characters. They’re not big, but a lot of them just strike me as weird and unnecessary, but I guess there’s no accounting for artistic license.  

Final Thoughts

So is it a faithful adaptation? I often find this a more complex question to answer for myself than one would think, since inflection and line delivery and even, at some points, intention behind what the characters say tends to be up to the interpretation of the person reading the book.

Is the dialogue faithful? Other than the many changes I’ve mentioned (and the numerous cuts and edits I didn’t – and besides no screenplay can be 100% faithful), for the most part yes.

Are the characters accurate to description / faithful in their portrayal – again this tends to be subjective and opinions vary. In my opinion, Emma is not. I’ve mentioned that Knightley is too old, and Emma not only seems more intentionally manipulative than I believe she’s meant to be, and also just does not seem 21. She acts and looks like a much older woman, especially when preaching at Harriet) but she’s also very gawky, and Emma is supposed to look very healthy and glowing.

So my book accuracy rating meets in the middle at a 4.5. It’s NOT the most faithful adaptation I’ve seen, nor is it the most fun or the most intimate, but it’s not totally a travesty either and there are good things in it, even with a robot witch playing the main lead.

Ribbon Rating: Tolerable (43 Ribbons )

Tone: 4

Casting: 5 (Witchy automaton Doran Goodwin plays opposite avuncular good-fellow John Carson. Fiona Walker stands out as Mrs. Elton.)

Acting: 5 (Doran Goodwin is by turns crazed and mechanical with some momentary touches of what might be actual emotion. Raymond Adamson way over-acts Mr. Weston as a hobbeldy-hoi, verging on uncouth.)

Scripting: 4

Pacing: 4

Cinematography: 4 (A bump up from the usual 1 or 2 for TV dramas of the time. Surprisingly less stagey than expected.)

Sets and Settings: 5

Costumes: 7 (Very clearly of the 70’s but drawing on perfectly accurate styles that jived well with contemporary taste)

Music: 1 (Plinky, poorly played piano music. Only used for intro and outro I think? Jane Fairfax can neither play nor sing.)

Book Accuracy: 5 (They changed a lot of small details. Lines are changed unnecessarily (Calling Harriet “Stupid” rather than “Foolish” – Why?) Mrs. Elton seems to have a thing for Knightley? People present when they shouldn’t be, others absent when they should be present, again without any apparent reason.)

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

Whumptober Day 17: He Knows

Summary: Written for Whumptober Day 17. Set during RttE. A Hiccstrid AU. When Viggo knows something about Hiccup that the Dragon Riders don't, he's all too eager to share it with his young rival.

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hiccup, Viggo, Astrid

Pairing: Hiccstrid

Words: 4 264

Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon

Prompt: “Blackmail” + “Dirty Secret”

Whumpee: Hiccup

Author’s Notes: This is actually based in an AU/UA that I've posted one one-shot for before and do plan on writing a main fic for because there is just so much drama and plot that can be made with it.

The continued usage of the wrong pronouns is on purpose.

Constructive criticism is appreciated!

Enjoy!

NOTE: The Rape/Non-con warning is there for a correct warning. Nothing explicit happens in this fic. What does happen is unwanted touching above the belt, above the chest even, but still unwanted.

Ao3 Whumptober Fic

Ao3 Original Fic

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"I can't imagine how awful it must be to be in your position."

Hiccup looks up from the shackles binding his wrists at those words. They are the first spoken since Ryker has pushed him into this chair in front of Viggo minutes ago. There's been a tense one-sided silence of Viggo giving him the usual "did you honestly believe you would get away with this" speech with Hiccup not even giving him the time of day. But at those words, he has to look up.

They haven't been spoken with the kind of sympathy you'd expect to hear them be spoken in. Instead, Viggo gazes back at him with a smirk and that alone is enough to make him angrier than he already is.

"What position?" Hiccup asks, tone short, and showing the way he feels.

"Well, born the way you are, I can't imagine you have it easy." Deciding against giving him a straight answer, Viggo continues to use hints instead of giving him a straight answer.

"Berk no longer takes an issue with me being a runt." Hiccup replies and Viggo gives him that look, one of those he doesn't like. This one makes him feel like he's being played with.

"How does it feel knowing that your father, the Chief, will never truly accept you?" He asks and at this point Hiccup is confused.

Whatever gave him that idea? The relationship between him and Stoick is the best it's been since ever and Viggo shouldn't be able to know about the years before Toothless. And even if he did, that wouldn't explain why he thinks this.

Noticing the confusion Hiccup fails to hide, Viggo continues.

"You have to hide yourself, do you not? Can't imagine that must be pleasant." Viggo's fingers won't stop moving as he speaks and Hiccup almost finds them distracting. Is that what it's like talking to him? Is he that distracting, too?

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not hiding any part of myself." Hiccup denies what he thinks is an ungrounded claim.

"Good job, Hiccup, you almost sounded believable. I had no idea you were capable of such lies. How many times did you have to tell this to yourself before you started to believe it?" Viggo congratulates him on an acting job well-done and Hiccup isn't sure why.

"Repeat what? You're not making any sense." In the back of his mind, the very, very back, Hiccup feels like he knows exactly what his captor is talking about. But the last thing he wants to do, however, is admit to it.

Viggo readjusts his position and leans back in his chair, his expression hardly changes.

"Does it frighten you knowing you'll have to pretend you're a Chief someday? For the rest of your living days, I suspect? I assume this masquerade started because Berk's line of Chieftains has been entirely made up of men at this point. Bad enough they would get a runt for a Chief someday, but a female one? Now that must've stung." So this is what this has been all about, Viggo finally reveals the truth behind the lies Hiccup has supposedly been telling.

Pressing his lips together, Hiccup looks the other way, unable to bear that look of satisfying victory on his opponent's face. Viggo, meanwhile, is simply enjoying this little interaction.

"Are you suggesting that I'm... that I'm... You're-you're ridiculous!" Hiccup spits his denial at him, evidently shocked at this reveal.

"Can't even say the word, can you? Is that how far they've gotten the stubborn Hiccup Haddock the Third? You can't say "woman"? "Girl"? Or even the word "female" when it comes to yourself? You disappoint me, my Dear Hiccup." Viggo asks with mockery. This is still nothing more than a game to him, as everything always is with this man. A kind of frustration only he can make Hiccup feel burns within him.

But at least there's that one thing that doesn't change. Doesn't matter who he represents as Viggo still won't stop calling him "Dear".

"How did you know?" He asks, dropping the act as it's no use to keep it up.

Spending years in hiding, he doesn't exactly show it much. He's not like Astrid, who expresses her femininity with her clothes and her grace and her statements. He's not like Ruffnut, who would scream her pride as a woman from the rooftops if they hadn't explicitly told her several times to stop shouting in the middle of the night.

As far as he knows, he doesn't act, sound, or look all that different from his guy friends. And even after the months spent on the Edge together, they still have no idea what he truly is. So how did Viggo know?

"I simply have a keen eye, my Dear." Yeah, sure he does. It took the Dragon Riders ages to correct him on his pronouns before he finally started to call him...

Oh.

"So you've known from the beginning? Why keep it to yourself all this time?" It is a good question. If he really is as observant as he claims, why hadn't he brought it up sooner?

It's not like this is the first time he's been captured by the Dragon Hunters, so why wait until now? That something might've changed scares him the most.

As if having been invited to talk more about his discovery, Viggo stands up and walks from behind his desk.

"It was odd for sure. Is this simply who Hiccup Haddock is or is there something deeper going on? It didn't take much digging before I concluded that's exactly what's going on here." It is the intro to whatever speech he has prepared, the moment he's been waiting for, what he probably specifically captured Hiccup for.

"Berk has been keeping its dragon secret quite well, despite your theatrics." Hiccup rolls his eyes. Sure, he might have a bit of a dramatic flair going on, but it's not all purely theatrical.

"Did you know that your tribe's allies still refer to you as "the runt of Berk"? "Stoick's little embarrassment"? "Stoick's mistake"? I can't imagine any of those things being said about the Dragon Rider, especially about the Dragon Rider who ended the war with the dragons. That was you, wasn't it? Isn't that how you lost your leg?" So he knows about that, too, not that he's too surprised about this one.

Viggo has come to pace behind Hiccup, his hands behind his back. His footsteps are slow, relaxed, and yet somehow methodical as well.

Hiccup tries not to let it get to him, not that or the nicknames he used to hear so much growing up. He's always despised peace treaty signings for this exact reason. That and that his father expected him to keep the visiting Chiefs' spawn entertained and most of them loved to bully Berk's runty heir. The things they used to say to him, even in his own tribe, they still affect him to this day.

"But that everyone, even your allies, felt secondhand embarrassment for you and your father wouldn't explain your need to hide, so I dug a little deeper, a little somewhere else, and then I discovered Berk's lineage. No female leaders in your nearly 400-year-old history?" Viggo asks, the sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor accompanying him.

Hiccup's silence means he's hit the nail on the head. It's the lineage, that is why he needs to hide.

His hands land on the back of the chair and Hiccup visibly tenses up as a result. His hands intertwine, legs press close, shoulders move up, jaw clenches, within a single second, Hiccup is one human-sized ball of tension.

"This is why I can't imagine how awful it must be in your position." His voice is so close, he's looming over him and that, as well as the nature of this conversation, sends chills down his spine.

Hiccup wishes he could retort, sass, say anything, but his throat has closed up.

"Berk isn't the most progressive of places, is it?" Hiccup's silence keeping its hold on him, Viggo continues to talk.

But this time, Hiccup manages a response.

"And your tribe is? Where are your warrior women, Viggo, because we haven't seen a single one so far." Hiccup moves to the side, away from  Viggo. He doesn't need to look to know that his smile is still there. He's not going to respond to that one.

"What do you want people to call you? Are you truly satisfied going through life as someone you're not?" Satisfied? Of course, he isn't satisfied.

He's never told his friends this, but he's jealous of his female friends. Astrid, Ruffnut, Heather, he knows at least two of them were never ostracized for being a runt and for being useless. And they certainly haven't needed to prove their worth by fighting a dragon nearly the size of a volcano, lost a leg, and trained the dragons of Berk only to be forced to continue to hide.

He's resentful, too. Yeah, he's resentful. Some might claim he isn't capable of such an emotion, but that nagging feeling choking his heart is a familiar one.

As if able to tell the rush of emotions, Viggo leans in just a tad bit closer and suddenly his hands are on his shoulders. Not even on the pauldrons, but on the armor itself, close to his neck. There's a slight trembling he has a hard time suppressing. He does like that Viggo thinks he can just invade his personal space like this.

"Can I make you an offer?" The older man leans in closer, his lips right next to his ear.

"What about a place where you don't need to hide? A place where you can just be yourself, the woman you were meant to be from birth. Strong, intelligent, powerful, a true Mistress of Dragons." A place like that doesn't exist, not for him, but Viggo isn't quite done yet.

"A place next to me." And there it is. The tone in his voice always dips when they're alone, but this time it dips even deeper and Hiccup isn't sure how to feel about it. Afraid? Something else?

The suggestion isn't as tempting as he'd like it to be, however, because the Grimborns and their men still hunt dragons for a living, some even for sport. That isn't a community he can even consider living in.

But it is nice to dream, though. A life where responding to "she" and "her" instead of "he" and "him" is possible.

If only he hadn't been born an heir to a tribe that couldn't possibly accept a Chief that is both a woman and a runt. If only he hadn't been born an heir.

"Are you thinking about it? About what you could become? What we could become?" Viggo's hold on him tightens, but not in an entirely uncomfortable way. Or rather, Hiccup supposes it isn't supposed to be discomforting.

"What's in it for you?" Hiccup forces himself to bypass the lump in his throat in order to ask. Because Viggo isn't offering this out of the kindness of his heart.

"New opportunities." That's the only answer the man will give him and Hiccup is left to guess what exactly these opportunities may be.

So he's no longer interested in beating them or having a truce then? Viggo has never hidden his interest in his young foe, but has never made this offer before.

One hand moves closer to his neck, fingers curling so the back of them can caress his skin. At the same time, his index finger and thumb grab small locks of his hair to play with. The other hand, it moves down just a bit and sneaks the tip of his finger beneath his armor. Hiccup's breathing grows labored.

There's a sense of excitement that he doesn't like.  Because these are kinds of touches he doesn't let the Riders do in fear of being discovered. Not even Astrid, his girlfriend, can get too many touches in. The Riders, not knowing about this secret, believe it's because he just doesn't like to be touched. They respect this, whenever they remember to.

This must be why Viggo's fingers have this effect on him, because of how touch-starved he is to protect this secret his forebears forced onto him. That just makes him hate it even more.

"Are you thinking about my offer?" He repeats his question in that same low tone.

Hiccup's hands may be shackled together, but he's not tied to the chair, so he brings an end to this conversation by getting up before those hands can travel a little further. He could sense their intent to, could feel his armor lift just a tad.

Now pouting, Viggo watches Hiccup walk away from him.

"That won't happen. You hunt dragons and I save them. Don't forget that we're at war for a reason, Viggo." He tells the other, turning his head sharply to look at him from over his shoulder.

"This-this-this... fantasy! This fantasy won't work out. It will never work out! So don't bother trying to get me to your side, no matter what type of deal you try to make with me, I refuse to take it." He raises his voice, ignoring the stinging and the burning in his throat as the urge for tears wells up within him.

A fantasy, that's what the idea of him ever being himself, herself, is. A fantasy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Swallowing and taking a breath, he pushes that realization to the back of his mind. His mind.

But Viggo straightens and his amusement is gone as he approaches. Hiccup's stubbornness and his refusal to show his fear in the face of his enemy doesn't allow him to back away, but he can feel his heart thumping inside his chest.

"It wasn't a fantasy, far from it, it was a fair deal to save you from further humiliation. I'm sure you've suffered quite a bit of that in your young life, I had simply assumed you didn't want any more. But I see that I was a fool." The game picks right back up where it left off and Hiccup is left to wonder where it'll go this time.

He hasn't only declined, but essentially made fun of it, too, and that can't feel good to a man as prideful as he is.

"What do you mean?" He tries to keep his voice strong, unwavering, but he can't help the sense of anxiety that he feels when he asks.

"I have this information, do you expect me not to use it? I'm sure there are tribes, both ally and foe, that would be very interested to hear about Berk's heir. I'm also quite interested in knowing how Berk is going to react. Do the Riders know?"

"NO!" At that, Hiccup has quite the reaction and Viggo maliciously smiles once more.

The rational part of him knows his friends will accept him and won't reject him for this, but even so, that fear lingers. It's been ingrained into him since birth that nobody wants a runt, let alone a runt that's also a... So there is still a part of him that wonders how they are going to be any different from the rest.

Hiccup looks down, ashamed for the way he responded. He has just given the exact reaction Viggo is looking for.

"How about an ultimatum? Join me or the Dragon Riders will know. Refuse a second time and Berk will know. Refuse a third time, your allies. Can you guess what will happen if you refuse for a fourth time?" Viggo asks, satisfied with this perfectly cruel choice. He has always loved a good game. So long as it's in his favor, of course.

Hiccup stares at him, unable to hide his fear and the growing tears.

This is the day he has always been afraid would come, the day someone finds out and uses it against him like he has been warned it would. Ever since taking on this role of protecting dragons and facing countless of enemies, he has been afraid. Even before Toothless, when he was just Berk's embarrassment, he was afraid.

And now it's here.

If anybody finds out, he'll be shunned and bullied and belittled and thought of as worthless all over again. He can't bear to go back to those days. He can't bear being hated again for being born the way he is.

And yet...

"I guess you're going to have to... tell them." He can bear to see the Hunter harm dragons even less and so he refuses and in his mind doom himself to a life branded as the shame of his father. At least he'll still have Toothless.

Though not happy with this answer, Viggo isn't surprised.

"Shame, we could've had something great together, could've created some greats things, but you leave me no choice." He tells him. Hiccup casts his gaze downwards, a sense of panic is threatening to choke the breath out of him, but he has given the Hunter Chief his answer and he doesn't plan on taking it back.

"Shame, a real shame," Viggo remarks some more. He'd given Hiccup the chance to change his mind, but it didn't happen.

Then, as if sensing the dreadful end of this conversation, an explosion rocks the entire ship that they're on, throwing the two off-balance.

Slamming into the older man, Hiccup, and Viggo both make a tumble towards the floor, one ending up on top of the other.

"Dragon Riders!" The call is faint, almost too soft to hear, but it's Hiccup's cue to get out of here.

Using his cuffed hands, Hiccup strikes upward against Viggo's face with such force that it breaks his nose powered by nothing but the want to escape. He leaves the man no choice but to take a moment as a burning pain burst free.

Hiccup takes this opportunity to run, climbing to his feet and going for the door.

Toothless has to be here on this ship, too, they've been captured together.

As luck would have it, while he runs down the corridor, Toothless appears and their gazes meet.

"Toothless!" They meet each other halfway, both running to reunite and the dragon pushes the flat top of his head into Hiccup's torso, urging him to grab hold for as much as his tied wrists allow it for a brief hug.

"I'm happy to see you, too, Bud. We have to hurry and leave."

"Just what I was thinking." Astrid pops up as well, having been the one to free Toothless and letting him guide her straight towards Hiccup, always homed in on him.

"Come on," Axe in one hand, Astrid grabs one of Hiccup's in her other and pulls him along towards the deck of the ship, dodging Hunters and bracing for impact with each hit delivered by the other Dragon Riders.

They reach the deck soon enough and while Astrid and Stormfly reunite, Hiccup climbs in Toothless' saddle and the four of them take off towards the sky, the others providing them with cover fire.

"Dragon Riders, we're heading back to the Edge!" Hiccup orders. There were only two ships and they're both sinking, no use sticking around.

"Wow, we're happy to see you, too. Just a nice "Hello!" would've been fine, though." Snotlout teases Hiccup from on top of Hookfang. From what he can see, Hiccup is fine, so he thinks he's allowed to.

"Snotlout!"

"No, Astrid, he's kinda right. I'm happy to see you guys, too. Now let's go home." Hiccup stops Astrid from lecturing the other Rider. Barf and Belch, Ruff and Tuff, Fishlegs, and Meatlug join back up with them and the group heads for home.

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

The Dragon Hunters didn't get too far away with their prisoners, but still, it took a good hour of flying before the Dragon Riders arrive on the Edge.

The six Riders and one Dragon are in the clubhouse now, removing the cuffs and cleaning the chafing that they'd caused on his palms. Or Astrid is. Snotlout and the twins are off to the side, declaring their undying hatred for the Hunters while Fishlegs prods Toothless incessantly for possible injuries that may need treating.

"But I need to take a look at you!" Fishlegs exclaims when the dragon moves away again, much to Toothless' annoyance as he just wants to be left alone.

Astrid, who had been watching the rather amusing chase around the room, looks at Hiccup to see his reaction only to find none.

He's been down ever since his rescue. And though, being kidnapped can't exactly be called pleasant, Astrid feels like something else might be going on here.

She dabs his palms with a clean cloth soaked in water a few more times before she speaks up.

"You're not going to say anything?" She asks gently.

"Hmm?"

"About Fishlegs and Toothless."

At this, Hiccup looks up to see what's going on, Snotlout and the twins betting in the background how much longer it'll take for Toothless to get angry.

"Fishlegs, he's just tired and wants to be left alone. So leave him be." It may have sounded a little sterner than he intended it to, but it only further validated Astrid's assumption that something is up.

Turning their attention back to his stinging hands, she has to ask.

"So what's wrong?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I just feel like something is the matter. You know you can always tell me, so do you want to talk about it?" She offers herself up as a listening ear.

"Nothing is wrong, just the usual Viggo with his stupid threats." Hiccup tells her, deciding against sharing details about their talk for reasons that are obvious to him.

"Oh no, what was it this time?" Astrid asks, remarking on this being a very frequent occurrence.

Hiccup looks her in the eye and seemingly thinks about something for a good few moments.

Should he tell her?

He stares at her fiercely blue eyes, the long blond hair he loves so much, can feel her hands caring for him as she waits for an answer. Then he looks around the clubhouse, gazing at each of his friends when he finds them. Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut, just joking around and relieving the stress of the day.

He doesn't need to look at Toothless, who has settled on the floor behind him now that he has some peace. He has known from the start, all the dragons have, and they don't care what he is.

Looking at them all, fear wins. He's been so long without this, friendship, fun, just people who like him, you name it. He realizes he doesn't want to lose any of it.

"Hiccup?" Astrid says his name, thinking he's lost in thought.

"It's really just the usual, truce, or die." He tells her and if he reaches far enough, he can explain his lying as being technically not lying. Because what was basically a marriage proposal from one enemy to another is like a truce and revealing a secret such as his to the world is like a kind of death.

"Are you sure? We all know Viggo isn't pleasant to be around, especially for you. So we'll understand if you feel a little awful. Or a lot." Astrid tells him, lifting a hand to lay on his cheek.

Hiccup's eyes flit towards it as its warmth ends up on his skin and he needs to keep a hold on his breath, having a hard time keeping it under control. It's the biggest drawback to a lack of physical touch, the fact that every little thing makes his skin burn with a desire for more.

Astrid suddenly remembers Hiccup's believed aversion to touch, but before she can act on her realization and pull away, Hiccup leans into her hand. So she keeps it there, smiling as every little moment she gets to have with her boyfriend like this is a precious one.

But she has a point, he does feel awful. Viggo's offer and following threat aside, Hiccup hasn't been able to get his touches out of his head. He hates how they made him feel, still make him feel, Astrid's in comparison are much more enjoyable.

And then there is that deep, dark part of him that wants more.

Noticing Hiccup savoring her touch, she grows a little more daring and places her free hand on his other cheek and Hiccup takes her wrist and keeps them there, sighing in content.

Her hands are warm, they're soft though still calloused, and they belong to his girlfriend.

This moment makes Astrid wonder just why Hiccup doesn't like to be touched if he's taking such delight out of this. To her, this just screams a desire for more, and she's sad that he won't allow himself to have more for reasons he hasn't shared with them yet.

Meanwhile, Hiccup is savoring every second he gets because he knows this may be one of the last times he will get to enjoy it. There is no doubt in his mind that Viggo will make good on his threat and that means all of this, Astrid, the Gang, might end soon. It sounds like nonsense, but this fear is real to him.

So he holds Astrid's hands, hoping he can enjoy her warmth just a little while longer before he inevitably loses it all, all over again.

[rimmers-swimming-certificate]

Red Dwarf fanfic - Patience

The sleeping quarters on the new ship were bigger and a little more luxurious than the ones that Rimmer remembered. The last time he had been on Red Dwarf, or at least on Red Dwarf in this universe, it had been very different. This was an entirely new, upgraded model, rebuilt by nanobots for reasons that Rimmer still didn’t entirely understand, and from what he had seen of it so far, it was the kind of ship a second technician would have dreamed of being assigned to. Everything about it was better. Even the vending machines were more intelligent, better stocked, and probably much less prone to clogging.

In many ways — actually, probably in every way — it was better than the ship they had used to call home, but it was better in that ‘nice but not yet familiar’ way that a new car was better. It was going to take time to figure out what all the fancy new buttons did, and where to find the headlights and the windscreen wipers. It was going to take time before it felt completely comfortable. As someone who had spent years hopping between dimensions and encountering things and people that were familiar, yet subtly different from the ones that he knew, Rimmer was sure it was going to take time before it felt like home.

Lister didn’t seem to be having any such trouble. Of course, he had a head start on getting used to the place. To Rimmer’s relief, Lister, unlike the ship, hadn’t changed one bit. A little older, maybe, but otherwise identical in every way to the man that Rimmer remembered. He lounged slobbily on a sofa at the other side of the room, humming a tuneless tune under his breath as he casually flicked through the well-thumbed pages of a magazine aimed at women half his age and filled with celebrity gossip over three million years out of date.

All around him was a growing collection of junk. He had, predictably enough, already started to fill every available surface of the living area, and part of the floor, with things he had found around the ship. As though he sensed Rimmer watching him, Lister lowered the magazine and glanced over at him. “Hey,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. “You’re back in blue.��

Rimmer looked down at his clothing. It had been time. Now that the other Rimmer had left, and taken the Wildfire with him, it was official: he was himself again. It felt good; familiar, like putting on a comfortable pair of old shoes. Ace’s clothes had never felt like that. He nodded.

“What are you doing standing in the doorway?” Lister asked.

Rimmer took a few steps into the room, to allow the door to close behind him. “Just thinking I should get my stuff out of storage,” he said. He made a show of looking at the assorted junk. “While there’s still somewhere left to put it.”

Lister nodded. “You’re still planning on bunking with me then?” he asked.

Honestly, it had never even occurred to Rimmer not to. The ship certainly had enough quarters to spare; they didn’t need to be living in each other's pockets, but he just couldn’t imagine living any other way. For all he had used to complain about Lister's snoring, he had still occasionally had trouble drifting off to sleep on the Wildfire because it was too quiet. For years, when he had woken up in the middle of the night after a bad dream, or had some funny thought occur to him as he drifted off to sleep, he had instinctively tried to talk to Lister about it only to find himself alone.

He shrugged, attempting to give the impression that he didn’t mind one way or another. “Yeah, I’ll probably stick around here,” he said. A horrible thought occurred. He had just assumed he would be welcome, Lister had certainly seemed pleased to have him back on the ship, but what if he wanted his own space? “I mean… If that’s okay with you of course,” he added.

“Yeah, ‘course it is,” Lister told him. “I’ll help you move your stuff out of storage in the morning.” He grinned widely. “It’s not the same around here without your swimming certificates and newspaper clippings brightening the place up.”

Rimmer breathed a silent sigh of relief. “He didn’t have swimming certificates then?” he asked. “The other me?” He tried to keep the jealousy out of his voice, but he heard it anyway. It had been a shock to return home to find another Rimmer, a living Rimmer, no less, in his place. Not only a shock, but confusing too. For a time, he had been convinced that the computer was wrong and he had landed in the wrong dimension.

“Yeah, he did,” Lister told him. “But he took them with him.”

Rimmer nodded. He hadn’t had the opportunity to do that. When he had left, only Lister had known the truth, the others had thought he had died. It would have given the game away if Ace, who had happened to be there at the time, had mysteriously decided to take all of Rimmer’s keepsakes with him when he had headed back out into the unknown.

“I still can’t believe you convinced him to go,” Lister added. “I mean, considering how much work it was to get you to take the plunge. And he was a version of you with no experience at all of parallel universes and no clue about half the smeg he might run into out there.” Lister shook his head in apparent amazement. “When I first met him I thought he was exactly the same as you; you before you died, I mean. He changed a bit while we were in prison, loosened up a bit, if you can believe it, but I figured maybe not having to worry about duties and exams and all that stuff was good for him. Now, I think maybe he was different all along. I mean, he must’ve been, right?”

“How should I know?” Rimmer snapped. Honestly, he hadn’t known him well enough to say. For some reason though, it made him feel better that there might be differences between them. “He never met the real Ace. Maybe not knowing what an insufferable git he was helped.” Not knowing what he might run into out there had probably been a factor too. Rimmer wondered whether he should feel guilty about that. He hadn’t lied exactly, but he had emphasised having his own ship and being a hero side of things over the dangers.

Lister shook his head. “I don’t get it, Rimmer. You were Ace. How can you still hate him?”

“Easily,” Rimmer said. “Sticking on a wig and doing a silly voice doesn’t change who you are, you know. I wasn’t Ace, I was an Ace, just like your other Rimmer is now.”

Lister shrugged, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

Rimmer cleared his throat and folded his arms nervously across his chest. “Are you going to miss him?”

“Ace?”

“The other me.” What he really wanted to ask was, ‘did you miss me?’, but he couldn’t ask that. He couldn't bear it if the answer was no.

Lister frowned thoughtfully. “I mean, it’s only been a couple of days since he left,” he said. “And I’ve got you back… I mean we’ve got you back, so it’s not the same as when you left.” He shrugged. “But yeah, I probably will, a bit.”

Rimmer nodded. That was good. Someone should, and he knew that the others wouldn’t. He brushed a hand down his uniform tunic, then glanced around the room again. “Nice junk collection,” he said.

“It’s not junk,” Lister told him. “It’s salvage.”

“Salvage means things rescued from a shipwreck, Lister. This is junk you found while rooting through the belongings of your former crewmates.”

“Yeah well whatever it is, don’t worry I’ll make room for your stuff,” Lister promised. “You’re lucky it’s all still there, by the way. The others wanted to throw it out.”

A stab of irritation struck him at the thought of that. “Throw it out? My stuff? Why?”

“They thought you were dead, man.” Lister shrugged. “And I guess they’re not as sentimental as I am.”

Translation: they hated him, and they had wanted to get rid of any reminders of his existence. They had probably tried to eject it from an airlock the instant he had left the ship.

“We were still all living on Starbug at the time, don’t forget.” Lister added. “We didn’t have as much room and, well, most of it wasn’t stuff we had any use for.” Lister hesitated. “I think Cat might have been interested in Rachel, but don’t worry, I kept her safe for you.”

A muscle began to twitch just below his left eye at the thought of Cat and Rachel. Not that he had touched her since well before he had died, not even after he had got his hard light drive. Lister was right; Starbug was small, and he wouldn’t have been able to bear the embarrassment of someone walking in on them. He couldn’t imagine wanting to try it now, either. Rachel had been good to him, but it was over between them. Still, the thought of Cat touching her turned his stomach. “Thanks,” he said.

Lister nodded. “Maybe in return you can tell me a bit about what you got up to while you were off being a hero.”

Rimmer didn’t reply. He glanced around the room, looking for a way to change the subject. He strode over to a shelf filled with Lister’s things and picked up a packet of playing cards. The backs of the cards showed soft porn images of women, and he knew instantly that Lister had liberated them from Petersen’s quarters. He quickly checked the pack for anything disgusting, Finding it clean, he held it up to Lister. “Fancy a game?” he asked.

Lister looked at him suspiciously. “I’m going to get it out of you, Rimmer.”

“It’s not a secret,” Rimmer insisted. “I’ve just got back. Give me some time to be myself again before you make me talk about pretending to be him. Now, gin rummy?” he suggested. “Speed? Or how about snap?”

Lister shook his head, still looking suspicious. “Not with those cards. They’re useless. Every single one has a different picture on the back, so all you have to do is memorise which set of breasts belongs to each card. I’ll play later though, with a real pack. In fact, let's have a poker night tonight. All four of us. It’s been a while.”

Rimmer nodded. A quick glance at the deck confirmed that Lister was correct about the cards. He shuffled the assorted sets of breasts, sat down at the table and started to deal himself a game of patience.

“What’re you doing?” Lister asked.

Rimmer glanced over at him again. The magazine was discarded on the floor now, next to a dirty, curry-smeared plate and one — not a pair, just one — dirty sock. Lister was peering at him over the back of the sofa with apparent interest. “Patience,” Rimmer told him.

Lister got up from the sofa. He stepped around the magazine and old plate, and made his way over to the other side of the room, where he folded his arms and leaned against the wall, watching as Rimmer continued to arrange the cards on the table.

Rimmer watched him out of the corner of his eye, as he turned over a card and started to play. Lister continued to stare down at the game as though it was the most interesting thing that had happened aboard the ship in months, and it was a little distracting. “Lister, what are you doing?” Rimmer asked, finally.

“Watching you,” Lister told him.

Rimmer put down the card he had in his hand, and turned to look at him. “Yes, I can see that. What I meant was, why are you watching me?”

Lister shrugged. “I just wanted to see what you were going to do.”

Rimmer turned over another card. He couldn’t use it, so he dropped it on the reject pile and picked up another. “I told you what I’m doing. I’m playing patience.”

“Oh!” Lister grinned and shook his head. “Right, that makes sense. I thought you were telling me to be patient. I thought you were going to do something interesting.”

Rimmer looked up at him incredulously. “The game is called patience, Lister. You know, solitaire? Did you switch brains with the Cat while I was away or something?”

“No, I just…” Lister gave him an embarrassed grin. “I just thought maybe you were going to do a card trick or something.”

Rimmer turned over another card and placed it on top of one already on the table. “Lister, the whole time we’ve known each other, have you ever once seen me show the slightest interest in performing card tricks?”

“Well, no.” Lister pulled out the chair at the opposite side of the table and sat down. He looked down at the cards. “But you’ve been away a while, haven’t you? I figured maybe you picked it up while you were off being Ace.”

Rimmer turned over another card, placed it on the table and made several more moves. “I didn’t,” he said.

“Well you can’t blame me for not knowing that,” Lister told him. “You’ve been back nearly a whole week now and you’ve barely said a single word about what you got up to out there.”

“And so you leapt to the obvious assumption that I’d spent my time learning how to do sleight of hand tricks?”

“Well, no. Not until I thought you were about to do one.”

Rimmer shook his head dismissively and turned over another card in his game. “I did a lot while I was away,” he said. “Far too much to tell you about in just a week. Dozens of heroic rescues, overthrew a couple of fascist dictatorships, organised an uprising or two.” He shrugged in what he hoped was a modest way. “Nothing special.”

Lister smirked.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just you did that hair flick thing again. It just looks a bit silly when you don’t have the wig on.”

Had he? He hadn’t noticed. He glared at Lister, just on the off-chance that he was messing with him. “No I didn’t,” he said.

“Rimmer, you did. You do it about five times a day. Maybe you should just start wearing the wig again, at least that way you’d have enough hair to have to actually flick it out of your eyes.” He shrugged. “Or you could grow yours out.”

Rimmer shook his head. “Lister, there’s a reason that Ace decided to wear a wig; my hair just doesn’t do that. Anyway, I passed the wig on to the other Rimmer.” Like passing a baton in an endless relay race around the assorted parallel universes, he had handed over the wig to the living version of himself that the nanobots had created in his own universe, and sent him on his way. “And like I was saying, I did loads while I was away, and I’ll tell you about it one day. I’ve just been too busy settling back in.”

“Right, absolutely, makes sense,” Lister told him. “Well, except for the part where you haven’t even got your stuff out of storage yet. Anyway, you’re not busy now.”

He gritted his teeth. Technically, he supposed Lister was right; he wasn’t busy. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it. Not yet. One day, maybe. If it ever came up in conversation naturally, rather than when he was being grilled for information. And if it never did, well, maybe Lister would tire of asking after a few years. He pointed at the cards on the table. “I am busy.”

Lister looked decidedly unimpressed as he looked at the game. “Come on Rimmer, the only reason people play that is to kill time because they’re bored. And it’s not even a good way to kill time. Why don’t you watch a film or something, like a normal person?”

“I’m not ‘killing time’, Lister. I play because I enjoy it.”

Lister looked unconvinced. “Okay then, so how come I never saw you play it before?”

Rimmer turned over another card. “When did I have a chance before?” he asked. “Before I died I was always busy. When I wasn’t on duty, I was revising, or trying to convince you to pick up after yourself. I didn’t have a lot of time for sitting around playing games.”

“Yeah, okay.” Lister shrugged. “But I never saw you do it after the crew got wiped out either.”

Rimmer sighed in frustration and slammed another card onto the table. “Lister, why are you so interested in why I’m playing a game? I just wanted to.” God, Lister was infuriating. He could be a master irritant when he wanted to, skilled in the not so subtle art of being annoying. And what was worse, was that he revelled in it. Once he got an idea in his head, he would keep going until he got his way. Rimmer had missed him, more than he had ever realised he would, but he definitely hadn’t missed this. “Can’t you just smeg off and read your magazine, leave me to it?” he tried, knowing that Lister wouldn’t.

Lister didn’t smeg off. Instead, he tucked his chair a little further under the table, rested his chin in a hand and looked down at the cards on the table as though he were the one playing the game.

Rimmer watched him for a moment then sighed. “Fine. If you must know, the reason I didn’t play then, was because I was still soft light. Not being able to pick things up doesn’t exactly make it easy to play cards, you know. Just enlisting the skutters’ help to let me play poker was bad enough, and that doesn't take half the dexterity that this does.”

“Dexterity?” Lister shook his head dismissively. “I thought you said you weren’t doing card tricks. How much dexterity does it take to turn over a playing card and put it down in the right place?”

It took a lot more that Lister could ever realise, and a level that a skutter just didn’t possess. Not unless you were willing to spend about twenty minutes on every move. Rimmer shook his head. “Lister, until you know the frustration of spending hours coaching some idiot of a skutter to perform a simple task that should take two seconds, only to have to watch them screw it up over and over again, I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut on the subject.”

Lister looked at him, and for a moment Rimmer thought that he was going to argue. Instead, he frowned, then reached for the pile of cards. He moved slowly, as though paying attention to every minuscule movement of his hand and arm as his fingers slid the card from the top of the pile and turned it over. “Okay, yeah,” he said, and handed the card to Rimmer. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s probably a bit like that fake arm Kryten gave me that one time,” he said. “Took me forever just to make the stupid thing pick up a smegging ball. Something like this? There’d have been no way.”

Rimmer looked up at him sharply. “What?”

“Well, until Kryten upped the sensitivity, but that wasn’t any good either, ‘cos then it had a mind of its own.”

Rimmer tried to make sense of what he was hearing, but he couldn’t. He looked at Lister, specifically at Lister’s arms; they both appeared normal. They were covered by the sleeves of his jacket, making it difficult to be sure, but as far as he could tell, they looked exactly the same as they had always done. He allowed his gaze to move to Lister’s hands, where he could see bare skin. They both looked fine too; completely normal. “Lister, what are you talking about?” he asked. “What fake arm?”

“Oh, right,” Lister said. “You weren’t here for that.” He shrugged like it was unimportant, and pointed to one of the cards already turned over on the table. “You can move that one,” he said. “To there.”

Rimmer ignored him, and instead continued to stare at Lister’s hands. They both looked real. They both moved like they were real. If one of them wasn’t, it was the best prosthetic he had ever seen. “Lister, are you trying to tell me that you have a prosthetic arm?” he asked.

“What?” Lister grinned as though that was the funniest thing he’d heard all year. “Of course I don’t.” He flexed the fingers of his right hand compulsively. “Rimmer, have you ever seen those things? Trust me, if I did, you’d have noticed by now. He reached for the card he had told Rimmer to move, and moved it himself.

“Lister, don’t do that!” Rimmer snapped. He snatched the card up and moved it back to where it had been before.”

“I was only helping!”

“Well don’t. This is a one man game; you’re not supposed to help. For all you know, I was saving that move for later.” He looked at the cards, desperately trying to find another move to make first; any other move, just to prove his point. Typically, there were none. He scowled at the cards as though they had done it on purpose, then grabbed the one Lister had moved, and moved it again. “So if you didn’t lose an arm, what were you doing with a prosthetic?” he asked.

Lister shrugged. “I never said I didn’t lose it. I just kinda…” he shrugged, “found it again. But technically I didn’t lose it actually. I knew where it was, it’s just that Kryten hacked it off with a laser scalpel and flushed it out the airlock.” He winced and flexed his fingers again. “Anyway, stop changing the subject.”

“Yes, because the subject of exactly how many times I’ve played a particular card game in the past is infinitely more fascinating than the story of how you lost and somehow found an arm. Come on, what happened?”

“Actually, the subject was what you got up to while you were Ace,” Lister corrected. “Talking about your stupid card game came later.”

“Lister, I want to know how you lost an arm,” Rimmer demanded.

Lister frowned thoughtfully. “Oh, do you?” he asked. “Okay, let’s trade. If I tell you this story, you’ve got to tell me one of yours. Deal?”

Rimmer sighed, the idea that this whole thing might have been a setup suddenly occurred to him, but he really did want to know. He folded his arms and glared at Lister admonishingly. “Okay, fine,” he agreed. “But it better be a good story.”

“Killer virus,” Lister told him. “Got snogged by a three million year old corpse, caught this thing called Epideme.” He shrugged. “Kochanski and Kryten got the idea that they could chase it into my arm, then cut it off.”

Rimmer blinked. “You got snogged by a what?” he frowned. “Wait a minute, that wouldn’t work. You can’t just chase a virus into one part of the body and lop it off, or else they’d have been able to cure everything that way.”

“Turns out you can,” Lister told him. “Or you could with this one, anyway. Except for a few bits of the virus escaped back into my body, so I ended up armless for nothing. In the end they actually had to kill me so Epideme left, then they brought me back to life.”

Rimmer blinked. “Right. So you died?”

“Well, I mean not really. Not like you did, anyway. It doesn’t count if it’s only for a minute or so.”

That was a lot to take in. “And getting the arm back?”

Lister shrugged. “Nanobots. You know that part already.”

“I knew they rebuilt the ship and the crew. You neglected to mention the part where they also rebuilt you.“

“Out of the whole thing, honestly that seemed like the least interesting part.”

Rimmer shook his head. “It’s a part of the story, it’s relevant. And how could you think I wouldn’t be interested in you agreeing to let Kryten cut off your arm to save you from a deadly space virus?”

“Honestly? It wasn’t exactly something I was eager to relive. I only brought it up now because I figured I’d be able to get a story out of you in return.”

“So you did trick me,” Rimmer said. “You lured me in with a hint of a story, knowing I’d want to know more, just so that you could wheedle information out of me in return. I knew it!”

Lister grinned. “Yeah.” The grin faded. “But having one arm sucked like you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t play the guitar.”

Rimmer smirked. “Well in that case I’m surprised you found anybody willing to help you track down the nanobots. Personally, I’d have been completely willing to sacrifice your arm in order to silence your guitar.”

“Smeg off. You would have as well, wouldn’t you? It was my right arm too. Do you know how crap I am at everything with my left hand? I could hardly do anything for myself.”

Rimmer turned over another card in his game of patience. “You’d have learned. It was only one arm, so it’s not that bad, is it? I didn’t have any arms at all — any body at all — for years, and you didn’t hear me whinging about it.”

“Seriously?” Lister stared at him incredulously. “Rimmer, you used to whinge about it all the time.”

“I didn’t. Not all the time, anyway.” He thought back to the time after he had first been activated. “I mean, maybe I complained a little bit at first, but all things considered I think I handled the whole thing pretty well. Better than you would have done, anyway. And even if I had complained, I’d say that was a whinge-worthy problem. Losing one arm, not so much.”

“This is why I didn’t tell you about this before,” Lister told him. “I knew you’d find some way to trivialise it.”

“I’m not,” Rimmer assured him. “I’m sure the whole thing was very traumatic for you. How terrible it must have been, having to brush your teeth with your left hand.”

Lister shook his head. “Fine. Go on then, you owe me a story. And it better be a good one too.”

Rimmer mulled over his options. He had stories, of course he did. The issue wasn’t thinking of a story, it was thinking of a story that would paint him in the right light; one that Lister would be impressed by, but that didn’t make him sound too much like that insufferable git Ace. He needed something that would remind Lister why he, Rimmer, the Rimmer without a wig, was the superior Rimmer.

He couldn’t think of a single one.

“You’re right, you know,” he said, hoping to fill the time. “I didn’t play patience before. I picked it up while I was off being Ace.”

Lister nodded. “Yeah, I figured,” he said. “It couldn’t have been all daring missions and rescuing the damsel in distress, could it?”

“Sometimes it wasn’t a damsel, men needed rescuing too, you know. In fact, they needed rescuing more than the women because they have a tendency to do more stupid things and get themselves into trouble.”

Lister shrugged. “Fine, so it couldn’t be all rescuing the damsel or,” he hesitated, “…or damson in distress.”

“I don’t think that’s the right word.”

Lister waved a hand dismissively. “My point is, there had to have been some downtime in between. And it’s not like you had us lot around to talk to, so you would’ve needed something to do.”

“I kept myself busy enough.”

“Well yeah, but I bet because you’re, well, you, even though you probably could’ve spent the night in bed with whatever lucky sod you just saved, you’d’ve probably convinced yourself they didn’t actually like you or something, and decided to spend your nights alone in your ship. So you needed something to do, so you got yourself a pack of cards.”

Rimmer sighed. On the one hand, it was nice to be back around someone who understood him. On the other, sometimes it would be nice if Lister didn’t know him quite so perfectly. “I didn’t have to ‘get’ the cards, they were already there, left behind by a previous Ace.”

Lister shook his head. “That wasn’t really the point.”

“Fine. Well if you must know, Lister, I did have a few liaisons. I even had to turn down a couple of marriage proposals. But in-between all that, there was still a lot of time alone. There were times when I would jump into dimension after dimension and find them completely empty. I don’t know whether humans just never evolved there, or whether they wiped themselves out before I arrived, or if I was just in completely the wrong part of the universe. All I know is, there were times that I went for months without speaking to another person. So I had to find something to do.”

Lister nodded. He was quiet for a long moment, then folded his arms tightly and nodded. “Sounds lonely,” he said quietly.

It had been. Long stretches of loneliness and boredom interspersed with the occasional terrifying situation.

Lister was looking at him now with something approaching sympathy in his expression. Lister understood loneliness; a man who had surrounded himself with a large group of friends, who had been friends with everybody, who had thrived on and drawn energy from the social interactions that left Rimmer drained and anxious. A man who had found himself marooned in deep space, the last survivor of the human race.

“It was fine,” Rimmer assured him. It was only a partial lie, half of the time it really had been. Well, a bit less than half. More like a quarter. Or fifteen percent? He shook his head. “Okay yes, it was a bit lonely. But it’s your fault.”

“Mine? How’s it my fault? Because I convinced you to go?”

Actually, that was a good point too, but not the one Rimmer had been trying to make. He shook his head. “No. It’s your fault I couldn’t hack the solitude. Over the past however long it’s been, I must have got used to having you around.”

“So you’re mad at me because you missed me?”

Rimmer shook his head. “I‘m not mad at you, and I didn’t miss you, not specifically. I just missed not being alone; having someone to talk to.”

Lister grinned. “You did. You missed me,” he said.

“Fine. And what about you? Did you miss me?” He hadn’t meant to ask that, but now it was out there, he couldn’t take it back. He held his breath and waited for the reply.

Lister folded his arms. “Yeah, of course I did,” he admitted. He glanced away and dropped his voice to a mumbled whisper. “Even had a couple of dreams about you.”

Rimmer nodded in satisfaction. Lister hadn’t even been on his own. For some of that time, he had had a whole crew to keep him company, not to mention a version of Rimmer himself, and yet he still admitted to missing him. He smiled to himself, confident that he had come out the victor in this competition. “Wait,” he asked. “What kind of dreams?”

“Just dreams, not important.”

He decided to let it go for now. “So, your turn,” he said. “What else did I miss while I was off being a hero? Did Kryten hack off anybody else’s body parts?”

“One arm wasn’t enough for you?”

“Okay, maybe that’s enough dismemberment, but something else interesting must have happened while I was away.”

Lister frowned. “What, other than the entire crew, including you, coming back to life?”

“Other than that. I already know about that.”

“Well yeah, plenty happened,” Lister told him, “but you haven’t held up your side of the bargain yet, have you? A story about you sitting around in your ship playing cards on your own doesn’t exactly count, you know.”

“Of course it does. You never specified what the content of the story needed to be.”

“Suit yourself,” Lister told him, and turned over another of Rimmer’s cards. He placed it exactly where Rimmer would have put it, which allowed him to make five more moves and take two cards out of play. He moved to pick up another card.

“Fine,” Rimmer told him. “I’ll tell you one more story.”

Lister looked up.

“I rescued you once,” Rimmer told him. He hesitated. That wasn’t true, strictly speaking. “Well, no. Not you but another version of you. And it wasn’t much of a rescue either if I’m honest.”

“Great story, Rimmer. I’m on the edge of my seat!”

Rimmer scowled at him. “It was a couple of GELFs with a grudge, and they — the other crew — would have probably handled it fine if I hadn’t shown up, but I did, so I thought it was only right to lend a hand.” As he spoke, he heard himself slip unthinkingly into the Ace Rimmer accent he had perfected over the years. He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I kinda like it.”

Rimmer rolled his eyes and continued in his own accent. “He was a lot like you, the other Lister. If I hadn’t known better — well, if I hadn’t had a ship’s computer that could tell me better — I’d have genuinely believed I was home. It turned out his Rimmer had already left to become Ace, years earlier. When I showed up, the other Lister thought his Rimmer had come back.”

Lister winced. “Did you tell him he hadn’t?”

“I didn’t want to,” Rimmer admitted. He looked away. “Telling him that, was basically the same as telling him that his Rimmer was gone.”

“Yeah,” Lister said. “If I was him, I don’t know how I’d have…” He folded his arms and stopped talking abruptly.

Rimmer nodded. “This thing is, it was a bit more delicate than that. They’d been…” he hesitated, “They were pretty close. Closer than you and I.”

Lister frowned. “Closer than us? Rimmer, the only way they could possibly have been closer than us is if they were…” His eyes widened as understanding dawned. Rimmer nodded, and slowly a smile spread across Lister’s face. “Oh, right,” he said. “Right.”

“It turned out they’d been together for quite some time before he went off to be a hero,” Rimmer said. He shook his head. “The idiot.”

“Hey!” said Lister. “You’re saying sleeping with me makes him an idiot?”

Rimmer shook his head. “No. Well, yes, obviously he must have been. But what I meant was why would a version of me who had someone that loved him, give it all up to go off and be Ace? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Lister shrugged. “You did it.”

Rimmer looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure out exactly what Lister had meant by that.

Lister cleared his throat. “So, what did you think about that particular revelation?”

He considered the question. “Mostly, I thought that I really didn’t want to have to be the one to tell him his boyfriend had died. For a moment, I even thought about playing along, being his Rimmer for a day or two then telling him I had to go off and be a hero again.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

Rimmer shook his head. “Of course not.” He was still Ace at the time, and that would have been a cowardly move. Another time, another circumstance, maybe he would have done. “It wouldn’t have been fair to him.”

“Yeah,” Lister agreed. “Definitely not.”

Rimmer picked up another card, and rather than putting it down, he began to fidget with it, turning it over nervously in his hands. He cleared his throat. “I thought another thing too,” he said.

“Oh yeah?”

“I thought about how glad I was, that there was at least one universe out there where I’d been brave enough to accept who I was.”

Lister nodded, and Rimmer got the impression that he wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already known. “So how’d he take it?” he asked. “When you told him you weren’t his Rimmer?”

Rimmer continued to fidget with the playing card. “I think he already knew, really. I mean, I think he hoped I was his Rimmer, but he didn’t really believe it. He’d already accepted that he was gone. That’s how it works, isn’t it? As soon as you get into the ship and make your first jump that’s supposed to be it. It’s meant to be a one way trip, and he knew that.”

Lister nodded. “Meant to, anyway.”

“He asked me to stay,” Rimmer continued. “Not to replace his Rimmer or anything like that, just to make a home there. Stop leaping dimensions and just… just be me again. It was tempting, too.” In fact, he had stayed for a little while, but he had found that he needed to move on. “When I told him I needed to go, he’s the one that told me I should try to get home. I think he could tell my heart wasn’t in it anymore.”

“And so you came back,” Lister said. He smiled warmly. “I’m glad. No offence to the other Lister, but if you were going to settle down somewhere, it had to be here.”

“It wasn’t quite as simple as just ‘coming back’,” Rimmer told him. “It was actually very difficult. You can’t safely jump between similar dimensions, you know. It involved multiple jumps, a fair amount of danger, and a lot of luck. Of course, if I’d known you’d gone and made yourself a brand new Rimmer, I might have just stayed where I was.” He could hear the jealousy in his voice, and he didn’t care

Lister shook his head. “Come on, you know that wasn’t planned. Anyway, he wasn’t you. I mean, he was you, but he wasn’t you you, was he?”

That was the kind of thing that Rimmer might have rolled his eyes at, once upon a time. Now, it made perfect sense. He had met a lot of people who both were, and were not, people he had known. It was a strange feeling, one that he had never quite got used to. “Still, I was surplus to requirements around here, wasn’t I?” He was fishing and he knew it. He didn’t care.

Lister seemed to know it too. It was obvious that he was playing along as he shook his head sympathetically. “Of course not!” He paused, then shrugged, “I mean, two of you would’ve been a bit too much to handle, but you’re always welcome here, Rimmer. Always.”

Satisfied, Rimmer nodded. “And I suppose it’s good that you replaced me,” he said. “Because then I could replace Ace. If there hadn’t been another me here, it would’ve meant the chair was broken.” He shrugged. “Not that that’s exactly a tragedy though. Does the universe really need some smug git in a wig flying around being heroic? Really?”

“I didn’t replace you,” Lister insisted. “And I think the universe probably does need an Ace. Just like it needs an endless ouroboros cycle of List…” he stopped, then smiled. “Okay, my turn,” he said. “While you were off being a smug git in a wig, I found out who my parents were.”

Rimmer stared at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. And you’ll never guess who they are.”

Rimmer resisted the urge to groan. “It’s going to be something ridiculous, isn’t it?” he said. “Like you’re actually related to royalty or something.” He was never going to hear the end of it; Lister was going to be constantly lording it over him. “You’re the illegitimate son of some King or Queen, dumped in a pub by a jealous relative whose claim to the throne your birth put at risk.”

Lister grinned and shook his head. “Er, no. Not exactly,” he said.

Rimmer breathed a silent sigh of relief. The only thing worse than finding out something like that would be… oh smeg. “You’re my brother, aren’t you? Like in that reality we hallucinated when we encountered the despair squid.” Oh, that was all he needed, just when he was beginning to come to terms with the idea that he might like Lister. It was typical, and so in-keeping with his luck that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out sooner. “How the smeg did that happen?” He rested his head in his hands. “I didn’t even know my mum had been to Liverpool.”

Lister laughed and shook his head. “I have to give you this much, Rimmer, you’ve got a good imagination.”

“So we’re not brothers?”

“No, of course we’re not.”

Rimmer began to breathe a sigh of relief, then hesitated. “And not half brothers? Or cousins? Second cousins once removed?”

“We’re no relation at all. Well, at least as far as I know.”

Rimmer exhaled slowly. “Right. Good.”

“It’s even weirder than that, actually.” Lister paused, either for effect or to make sure Rimmer was listening, Rimmer wasn’t sure. “It turns out I’m my own dad.”

Rimmer frowned. That couldn’t be right. He looked at Lister, searching for any hint that this was some kind of a joke, but he couldn’t see any. Finally, he shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. But it’s true. Me and Krissie had a baby, and it was me. Then I…”

“Wait,” Rimmer interrupted. “You and Kochanski?” He tried to ignore the stab of jealousy that came with that particular revelation, and failed. “I thought you said you never got back together with her. You said she was too hung up on the other Lister. You said…”

“Hey.” Lister stopped his words with a gentle hand on his arm. “Relax. She was still too into the other Lister, and I can’t really blame her either. I mean, they were together a long time; as long as me and you. And over that time she’d moulded him into some kinda weird, opera-loving anti-Lister. I mean, I was never going to live up to that, and I didn’t want to either. All I had to do was make a… uh, a genetic donation, and she was planning on raising the baby with him.”

“Oh,” Rimmer said. “Well, good. Not that I care, of course.”

“Nah, ‘course you don’t,” Lister agreed. “Anyway, it’s probably for the best that she wasn’t into me; I was a bit too hung up on somebody else myself too, if I’m honest.”

Rimmer wondered who it could have been. Lister’s own Kochanski, he supposed. After all, the one that had ended up aboard Starbug with them had been a different Kochanski from a different dimension. If the years they had spent together had changed the other Lister to the point where he was almost unrecognisable. Maybe there had been differences between the two Kochanskis that Lister hadn’t been able to see past.

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter,” Lister continued. “So when the baby was born, we raised him for a couple of months until he was about the same age I’d been when they found me, then I went back in time and left him under that pool table so that he could be found, grow up, get stranded three million years in the future, work this all out for himself and then do the same thing to his own kid." He paused, then frowned. “Who will be me as well.”

Rimmer pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head slowly from side to side as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Of all the nonsensical things that they had encountered during their time in space, this had to be one of the most improbable, for so many reasons. “Lister, before I dignify this with an answer, tell me, are you being serious?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. Of course I am. You don’t think I could just make up a story like that, do you?”

He probably could but it didn’t sound like something he would do. For all he had always pretended not to mind, Rimmer knew how much not knowing the truth about where he came from had bothered Lister. He also knew how much it had hurt him having to give up the twins; he wouldn’t joke about giving another child away.

“So, if you’re your own dad,” he said in an attempt to break the tension, “that makes Kochanski your mum, right? So is that why you never got together?”

“What?” Lister pulled a face. “No. Why would it be?”

“Well, because she’s your mum,” Rimmer repeated. “I mean, you’ve got to admit it would be a bit weird.”

Lister folded his arms. “It’s not like that though, is it? She’s the kid’s mum, not mine.” Even as he said it, he didn’t sound convinced.

“But the kid is you.”

“Yeah, but…” Lister shook his head.

“Technically, it sounds like she’s your grandmother too,” Rimmer added, with a smile to show that he was joking. He wasn’t, actually, but Lister didn’t need to know that. “And your great grandmother.”

Lister folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “Smeg off,” he said. “You’re just happy because you think you’ve got a chance with me now, like that other Rimmer did.”

Rimmer sat back in his seat. He genuinely hadn’t thought he was being that obvious. He looked at Lister, trying to decide whether he was joking, or whether he was feeling particularly empathic today. “No I’m not,” he lied.

“Oh,” said Lister. “Well that’s too bad.”

Rimmer blinked.

“So, did you ever figure out where the universes diverged?” Lister said.

It was such an abrupt change of subject that it took him a moment or two to realise that Lister was talking about the other him again. “More or less, yes. It was around the time I got my hard light drive. Remember that night we stayed up all night drinking and talking about things?”

Lister nodded. “I remember you talking for hours about different textures and temperatures, trying to make me understand why it was so great to be able to feel for the first time in years.” He smiled. “Must’ve been amazing.”

It had been. It still was, even if he sometimes took it for granted now. “Well, from what I can gather, that night played out a little differently in that universe, and ended up with the two of us… well, the two of them…”

“Gotcha.”

“What I couldn’t figure out is why that happened. There must have been something before that that changed things enough that we felt able to do that, but whatever it was, it must have been so small that the other Lister and I couldn’t figure it out.”

Lister shrugged. “Might be because there wasn’t anything,” he said. “Sometimes things just happen, you know. I bet I can guess exactly how the whole thing started out; Rimmer put his hand on Lister’s, to feel it I mean, and Lister grabbed hold of it, pulled him in closer and kissed him. Right?”

Rimmer blinked. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never asked for a play-by-play. Why?”

“Because that’s what happens, isn’t it? When realities split. You have a choice, you make it, and the other version of you makes the opposite choice.”

Rimmer nodded. “More or less.”

“So here’s the thing,” Lister told him. He picked up the pile of unplayed cards on the table and ran his fingernail down the side of the stack. “In this reality, when you touched my hand I was… well, I was kinda tempted to pull you closer and kiss you, but I chickened out.”

Rimmer stared at him, trying to process what he was hearing. “Why?”

“Because you were talking about all these different sensations you’d been missing out on, and how amazing it was, and I thought you might want to experience another one.”

“Not why did you want to, you gimboid. I meant why didn’t you?”

“Oh…” Lister hesitated. “Well, like I said, I chickened out. I thought you might not like it, or you’d turn me down. And maybe you would have. I mean, if anything that could happen did happen in one universe or another, there must also be a universe where I kissed you, but instead of whatever happened in the dimension you landed in, you freaked out over it and things got really weird between us. So I mean, maybe I dodged a bullet.”

Rimmer pursed his lips. He wanted to insist that wouldn’t have happened, and maybe he was right, but there was a good chance he wasn’t. After all, he already knew that theirs wasn’t the reality where they had ended up together. Not then anyway. He sighed. “You’re probably right.”

A shadow of disappointment fell over Lister’s face.

“No, I mean, it was different then,” Rimmer stammered. “It was a long time ago. Just because I might have reacted badly then, doesn't mean I’d do the same thing now, does it?”

“I dunno.” Lister looked at him like he was trying to figure out whether Rimmer was serious, and if so, how serious. “Does it?”

Lister put down the playing cards and rested his hand on the surface of the table. Not breaking eye contact with Lister, Rimmer slowly slid his hand across until the tips of their fingers touched. He kept going, until his hand rested on top of Lister’s. As he moved, he tried to remember how he had felt that night, when everything had been so new and every touch had felt amplified a hundredfold. He concentrated on the warmth of Lister’s skin in comparison to the cool air of their quarters, the difference between the texture of the soft back of his hand and the rougher skin of his knuckles.

He had been so afraid that night, convinced that the hard light drive wouldn’t last; that his bad luck would kick in and he would revert to his usual, soft light form, deprived once again of the ability to feel. He remembered thinking how much worse it was going to be, having experienced touch only to have it snatched away again, and he remembered how desperate he had been to cram as much sensation as he could into every second, before it was too late.

He had become complacent, he realised, as he pressed the tips of his fingers a little harder into the back of Lister’s hand, feeling the bones and tendons beneath the skin. He had become too used to it; started to take it for granted. He closed his eyes and savoured the sensation in a way that he hadn’t done in years.

After a moment, Lister placed his own free hand on top of Rimmer’s and simply held him for a while, Rimmer’s hand encased in Listers, feeling the warmth of his skin. Then, gently, he turned it over. When his hand lay palm upward on top of Lister’s, Lister began to trace the lines of Rimmer’s palm with his fingertips, then, when that was done, began to move his finger in slow, lazy circles. It felt good. It felt incredible, but it wasn’t what he had been expecting. He opened his eyes and looked at Lister, questioning.

“What? I wasn’t just going to grab you and go for a snog,” Lister told him. “I’m a bit more subtle than that. I mean, not much, but a bit.”

Slowly, he pulled Rimmer’s hand a little closer to him, lifting it from the table and toward his lips, then gently kissed his fingertips one at a time. Finally, he moved his grip further up Rimmer’s arm. Holding tightly at his arm at the elbow, he tugged gently. His grip was firm enough that he could lead Rimmer closer to him, but not so firm that Rimmer wouldn’t be able to back off if he wanted to. Rimmer didn’t want to.

Lister pulled him closer until he leaned far enough across the table that Lister could easily close the distance between them, then he touched his lips to Rimmer’s. Their lips brushed gently together, barely a kiss, barely even a touch. It left him wanting more. Rimmer leaned closer, trying to get more sensation, but Lister moved further back. He smiled and shook his head. “Wait for it,” he whispered. Rimmer felt his breath on his skin.

He moved a little closer, a fraction of a centimetre, and allowed Rimmer to feel the warmth of his skin and the softness of his lips as they pressed, slightly open, against his own. Lister’s hand snaked slowly around the back of his head, his fingers parting Rimmer’s curls as they worked their way through his hair. At the same time, Lister’s tongue teased Rimmer’s and Rimmer felt himself respond in kind.

For a moment, everything around then faded away. The living quarters, the ship, the years that they had been apart, everything but the moment. Rimmer was lost in sensation; drowning in it.

And then, it was over. All concept of time had abandoned him, and Rimmer had no idea how long it had been before they finally came up for air. At some point, he didn’t know when, he had closed his eyes. He opened them now to find himself staring directly into Lister’s eyes. Lister smiled nervously, and shrugged. “So, it’d have probably been a bit like that,” he said. “If I hadn’t chickened out that night, I mean.”

“Right,” Rimer said. He nodded, and sat back down again, unsure what he was supposed to do or say now. His game of patience was ruined, the cards scattered over the tabletop and on the floor. He tugged on the bottom of his uniform tunic, straightening any creases that might have appeared, and quickly ran his fingers through his hair in a futile effort to undo any damage Lister might have done to it. “Right,” he said again.

He could feel his own simulated heartbeat pounding in the hard light projection of his chest. His skin tingled everywhere that Lister had touched him, and he wanted more.

“Right,” he said, for a third time. He realised that he really should think of something else to say, but for some reason he was drawing a complete blank. He opened his mouth to speak again, and this time, closed it again.

“Well?” Lister asked. Rimmer could hear the apprehension in his voice, and see it on his face.

Rimmer took a slow, deep breath and tried to force his mind to regain the ability to speak. “That was…” he began, then faltered. He didn’t have the words to describe what that had been. Anything he might say would pale into insignificance in comparison to the real thing. He took another breath, slowly in and out. He needed to say something or it was going to start to get weird. “Lister, if you’d done that the day after I first got my hard light drive, you’d probably have shorted the damn thing out,” he said.

“What’s that mean?” Lister asked, appearing worried now.

Rimmer reached for him again. He grabbed clumsily at his hand before intertwining his fingers with Lister’s. “It means it was incredible,” he said. “But it would have been too much for me then. When I hadn’t been able to feel for all those years, suddenly experiencing something like that… it would have been overwhelming.” It was almost still too much for him now, but at the same time it hadn’t been enough. He wanted more. If Lister could do that with a few gentle touches, Rimmer wanted to know what else he could do.

“I mean, I’ve had a bit of time to think about it, so maybe it wouldn’t have been exactly like that,” Lister told him.

“So you’ve been thinking about it?”

“No.” Lister said, far too quickly. Then he shrugged and glanced away. “Well, you know, just now and then. Not all the time or anything like that. Just when I had nothing to do and my mind wandered.”

In other words, he had been daydreaming about it. About him. Of all the things Lister had told him about the things he had missed while he had been away, the deadly virus, the resurrection of the crew, finding out that Lister was his own father, somehow the revelation that Dave Lister had been daydreaming about him was the most unexpected. And the most wonderful.

“So,” Lister said. “It might have been too much for you then, but what about now? You’ve had a couple of years to get used to touch again, and I bet you had more than a couple of kisses while you were off being a hero, so…” his question tailed off, leaving it hanging in the air between them.

Rimmer thought about it. “It was still overwhelming,” he said honestly. “But I think…” he hesitated. “I think being overwhelmed now and then might be a good thing.”

“Want to try again?”

Rimmer nodded.

Lister got to his feet and pressed the manual lock on the door to their quarters. He offered a hand to Rimmer as he walked back past him, and when Rimmer accepted, steered him in the direction of the sofa. “Might be a bit comfier over here than leaning across a table,” he said.

He sat down and Rimmer sat next to him. He glanced down at his hands awkwardly, not sure what he was supposed to do.

“Hey, by the way,” Lister said as he edged himself a little closer and snaked a hand around Rimmer’s shoulders and then up into his hair again. “Don’t you think this gets you out of telling me stories. I still want to know everything you got up to when you were out there being Ace.”

Thank you to @coney-island-blitz for the beta on this!

[7team7]

Choosing Fate: Chapter 8

A surprise leaves Sasuke and Sakura alone for a while. // Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

A/N: thank you everyone for your encouragement and kind words on this fic. I’m trying to dedicate myself to it and finish it before moving on to new stories, but sometimes that’s still a slower process than I expect? And the plot seems to want to complicate itself more, but I promise more ss moments are coming!! Hope this chapter is ok, the slow burn is still burning

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Tsunade was relentless in her tutelage. Sakura’s tutoring sessions with Sasuke were idyllic in comparison. The older woman pushed and pushed and pushed. 

But the discipline and hard work only served to strengthen her. Tsunade raised a brow when the petite woman cracked her knuckles before getting to work everyday. She knew she had found a determined student, but her dedication was truly something remarkable.

And it yielded results. 

Once complicated combinations became embedded in her memory and her hands were able to move without thinking. Tsuande stopped lecturing and started questioning, pushing the envelope: What if we did this? What do you think of that? How would you approach it? 

What started as a favor she agreed to do on a whim became a cherished relationship. Maybe Konoha wasn’t so bad. 

Sakura greatly respected her teacher, but she barely knew the first thing about her. She used to keep her chatter to a minimum while they worked, but she had grown much more comfortable in the Senju’s house. “Tsunade-sama, you were never married, right?” For once, a woman’s professional work had superseded her romantic history. 

Tsunade paused in the middle of tidying up some papers she pulled out for reference. The question wasn’t necessarily unwelcome, but it took her by surprise. No one had asked her about that in a long time. “No. There was someone I would’ve married, but we never got the chance.”

“Did he have to marry someone else?” Arranged marriage was awkward at best, but it would’ve been downright heartbreaking if she was already in love with someone else. 

“He was hurt in battle. And I couldn’t save him.” She sighed heavily, “After him, there was no one else. Why do you think I leave the village so often?” The ghosts of her past would never stop haunting her. Her ties to Konoha weighed heavily. 

“Oh,” she bit her lip, “I’m so sorry.” She assumed Tsunade was just a wild spirit, but the reality was much more tragic. 

She shrugged. Time to change the subject. “And you? Was there someone else before that sulky brat?” 

Sakura opened her mouth to protest, he was not a sulky brat! But then she remembered the way he would hang around outside Tsunade’s house if she wasn’t home before the sun set. “No, I was too young and too busy with my household chores to find someone else. But Sasuke’s not so bad…” She blushed a little; before, she could hardly fathom getting married to Sasuke but now, she couldn’t imagine marrying anyone else. She couldn’t fault him for their circumstances, even if he was a little rough around the edges. 

“And your parents?”

“Ah, they were actually childhood sweethearts. Lucky them,” she said weakly. 

“Well, I guess Sasuke’s good enough for you to stay.” 

“What do you mean?”

“You could always leave. Plenty of women do it.” 

“Oh,” she said, taken aback, “I had never considered that. Where would I even go?” She didn’t think she had a choice in the matter, or any other real options. 

Tsunade raised a brow, “You could go home. Have you been home yet?”

Sakura laughed bitterly and confessed, “Actually, no. It’s not that I don’t want to, I guess I...just haven’t gathered the courage.” Was it her home there anymore? Was she a wife before she was a sister? She started fiddling with a stray herb that had escaped a jar.  

She continued, “I miss my siblings dearly, but it’s easier to just stay away. If I visited home and saw everything I’ve been missing...it would be too hard to come back here. I don’t know if that makes me a good wife or a terrible sister.” She had assumed she was leaving for good after the wedding. Life as Uchiha Sakura might still be new and full of surprises, but it wasn’t completely miserable. Should she expect more? The leaf in her hands was completely pulverized after she worked her anxieties out on it. 

Her mentor nodded in understanding. “You won’t figure it out in a day. And when you feel like you’ve got it, something will change and you’ll be back at square one. That’s life.” 

Sakura nodded glumly. She supposed being young almost always meant standing at a crossroads. They got back to work.

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Training and learning took up the majority of her time lately. She was exhausted, but not unhappy. Most days she stayed at Tsunade’s for long hours, only returning to frantically complete some chores. Today, Sakura slapped her palm to her forehead when she remembered that she had promised to help Mikoto fold dumplings. She all but flew out the door, shouting, “See you tomorrow!” before heading home. She rushed into the kitchen and greeted her mother-in-law. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to help with lunch-” she started, but Mikoto held up a hand to stop her. 

“Don’t apologize. I’m glad you’ve found something to keep you occupied. Tsunade is a formidable woman, history or not. There’s no reason for a young girl to be cooped up forever.” Her daughter in law always put on a brave face, but she could tell there was something missing. 

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank you for understanding. Still, I’ll try to be home a bit more.” She didn’t remember when she started calling this house her home, but she did have a certain obligation to maintain it. She would be so upset if Mikoto suddenly started abandoning her duties! Who would pick them up? Certainly not Fugaku.  

Mikoto shook her head, smiling, “I’ve become content with being at home with my husband and children. But until that day comes for you, just lean on me. Go rest, I’ve got it.” Even as she spoke, she kept deftly folding dumpling skins like it was second nature. 

“A-are you sure?” She had realized she was treated like a strange, permanent guest in the Uchiha household. In her childhood home, she was anything but a guest. “I’m sure. Sasuke’s home, by the way.” Sakura nodded and ventured off to find him, starting with the bedroom. It felt like ages since she’d last seen him. 

“Where have you been?” 

“Excuse me?” His tone was accusatory, but hers was incredulous. “I thought you supported me going? Don’t tell me you changed your mind.” His hot and cold personality was jarring.

“Didn’t think you’d be gone so often,” he grumbled. Those precious tutoring sessions together had been cut short by her lessons with Tsunade, but there was nothing he could do besides walk her there and back. He had half a mind to offer her another trip to the market just to get her to do something with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to impede on her schedule for such selfish reasons. So he sulked, even if he didn’t quite understand why he was so upset.  

He had just finished getting dressed, perhaps taking a bit of extra time smoothing down his hair and clothes in an attempt to get her to look at him. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go where? What makes you think I want to follow you anywhere?” If he felt like being a jerk, she would stay home and fold dumplings, thank you very much!

He sighed, like the answer was obvious. “We’re going to Itachi’s. Apparently Izumi’s been feeling off lately. They requested your presence.”  

She perked up slightly but then remembered she was supposed to be mad. As maddening as her husband was, their fights were usually small and quickly diffused. “Fine, I’ll go. But are you sure it’s alright for me to leave the house instead of waiting on you hand and foot?” 

“Annoying,” he muttered, leaving the room but not before he made sure his wife was following him.  

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Knock, knock, knock. Tsunade pursed her lips, who would be calling on her at this time of night? Everyone should be sitting down for dinner. She set down her cup of tea to answer the door.

To her pleasant surprise, Sakura stood at her doorstep looking breathless and bright-eyed. “I thought I sent you home hours ago?” Tsunade raised a brow at the girl. 

“You did. But I have news! And because of that news I can’t stop for today. There’s more to do.” The words tumbled out of her mouth and if she didn’t slow down, she might just swallow her own tongue. 

“More? But-”

“Izumi is pregnant!” Sakura blurted. A grin overtook her features, “Isn’t that exciting?” She pushed her way into Tsunade’s house for the second time that day. They had work to do! Sakura had so much to learn! Babies were so complicated. 

The older woman sighed. Uchiha or not, it would be useful for Sakura to learn about midwifery and the like. Really, she couldn’t say no to her favorite student. She closed the door and rolled up her sleeves again. 

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“She started out weak, you said?” Tsunade was mulling over which round of roots and herbs to send with Sakura first. Izumi’s pregnancy was still new, but was already proving difficult and draining. Even a placebo would help reduce the expecting mother’s nerves.  

“Mm, I had a suspicion that she has some kind of illness, and the pregnancy is just making things more difficult for her. I think she can carry to term, but she’ll need lots of rest. I want to do whatever I can to make this easier on her.” 

Smart girl, she praised internally. She finally picked out the jars she was looking for, “Here. Crush that bottom one up and mix it with her tea, the other is an ointment to rub on her ankles when they swell. She should be resting in bed, but there might still be pain. And tell everyone to stop hovering, they’re so pesky.” 

Sakura practically saluted her teacher, “You’ve got it, Tsunade-sama! I’ll be back tomorrow.” 

“Oh, I know you will,” she laughed affectionately. Her little apprentice was really something. 

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Between caring for Izumi and learning from Tsunade, Sakura barely had a moment to rest. While Sasuke initially made a few more snippy comments about not being home, he couldn’t help but feel the pride welling up inside of him. Other women had started seeking her advice and she earned a reputation as Tsunade’s apprentice who would one day surpass her. He felt smug thinking about how good of a mother Sakura would become, but then he reprimanded himself. He really needed to stop thinking like that. 

When a contraction ripped through Izumi’s body, she immediately gasped, “Get Sakura.”

Sasuke all but sprinted to Tsunade’s house, but somehow, by the time they got back, half the clan had gotten wind of the labor. They had to shoulder their way into the house just to get a glimpse of the expecting mother. 

“I thought you said you brought the best,” some grumpy old auntie eyed Sakura skeptically. 

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her, “Sakura is the best. Now everybody out, let her work.” No one dared question the authoritative tone in his voice. Sakura brushed past him after squeezing his arm in thanks.

Sakura thought she could be calm, but all sorts of emotions bubbled up inside of her when she knelt next to Izumi’s tense body. Her face twisted in pain and shone with sweat when she panted desperately, “I can’t lose this baby.” The implication was clear: or else she would prove useless as the one to produce the next heir.

And it broke Sakura’s heart. As a mother, she would naturally be worried about her child, but this was unacceptable. 

“Everything is going to be fine,” she reassured her, even as her voice shook and she could barely believe her own words. “Now if someone could please get me some water.” Itachi practically tripped over his own feet fetching the water. She had never seen the man so on edge. 

Sakura couldn’t help but let out her own sob when the baby’s first cry pierced the air and Izumi slumped back in relief. 

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After a tense eight months, Itachi and Izumi’s son is born, small but healthy. The clan breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was finally time to celebrate. 

Once a few weeks passed, it is agreed that the new little family should visit Izumi’s parents for a while. After only exchanging letters for the past three years, it is only right that they got to see their new grandchild for a while. They were only distantly related to the Uchiha and had established residence in a different village. The journey would take a number of days and Mikoto and Fugaku insisted on going along.

Which meant the main house was left to only Sasuke and Sakura for at least a month. 

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A/N: HAHA THERE’S ONLY ONE HOUSE!! AND THEY ALREADY SHARE A BED!! Pervsuke incoming also hopefully it goes without saying that Time is Passing so ss are getting a teensy bit older. I kind of liked how this chapter flipped it so that sakura is the one always gone but even if he’s grumpy at first he’s like damn..she rlly did that LOL you like her don’t u ssk /.\

[fanfictionaries]

Love’s in the Little Things - SherryBaby14′s Prompt Challenge

Prompt: Steve and a musician. Like she plays the piano and writes her own music; does small gigs here and there. They meet while he’s at one of her gigs, would bond over music. Sex on he Piano. Something intimate, soothing and musical.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x female reader

Summary: A little story following the progression of Steve and a musician falling in love. With a little added extra at the end! 

Warnings: Smut, Love-making, FLUFF! A tiny dash of Angst, Mentions of death

Words: 6.3k

Author’s Note: Thank you @sherrybaby14 for this lovely prompt. I got the opportunity to join my two passions together - writing and music. Stick around till the end of the fic for a little bonus tidbit (written and performed by yours truly)! 

Also - I switched the timeline around involving some character deaths to suit my own person story needs. 

*** 

“You realize this is the fifth time he’s been in here this month. If you don’t make a move now, he may never come back,” said Roxy, pouring you your pre-performance liquid courage.

“Oh please, Rox. He’s just here with his friends. I highly doubt he’s here to see me,” you scoffed, knocking back the shot. The alcohol burned as it trickled down your throat, the effects immediately going to your head, giving you a light, fuzzy feeling. In reality, the shot wouldn’t hit your blood stream for at least a few minutes, but the placebo effect also did wonders for your confidence.

It didn’t matter how many times you did this – got up on stage in front of people and performed for them – it was still nerve wracking. Older musicians always advised you that it would get easier with time. One day you’d feel more comfortable on stage than you did off. Well, five years and you were still waiting for that day. Therefore, the last thing you needed was the ridiculous notion that Captain America was coming to a little dive bar to hear you perform. It was too much pressure.

“I’d consider that true if it weren’t for the fact that he only ever comes in here when you’re here.” Roxy, one of your closest friends and the bartender at your regular paying gig location, eyed you and then the group of gargantuan superheroes in the far corner. There were three of them tonight. Sometimes there’d be more, a few more guys and the occasional girl, but no matter what, it was always those three. You were pretty sure you knew who they were – it was hard not to. There was Sam (The Falcon); he was usually the chattiest out of the three, flirting with women and loudly cracking jokes. Then there was the moody one, Bucky you thought his name was; he was quiet but seemed good-humored and kind behind the eyes. Lastly, there was Steve. He was somewhere in the middle. Livelier than Bucky, but not nearly as attention seeking as Sam. And, for lack of trying you couldn’t help but notice the way he watched you with rapt attention every time you performed. You figured it was just him being a polite audience member. Or at least that’s what you told yourself. What could Captain America possibly want with a dive bar musician?

“Coincidence at best. Besides, how could he possibly know what nights I’m performing? They line-up isn’t posted,” you reasoned, checking your makeup in the mirror behind the bar.  

“True, but who’s to say he didn’t come up to the bar one night and ask for the monthly line-up? And who’s to say I didn’t give him a copy with all your performance nights highlighted?” Roxy proposed, looking away from you to polish a glass and place it on the shelf behind her.

“What? You didn’t!” you exclaimed, chancing a glance at the super soldier to see his eyes trained on you, before looking away bashfully to his friends, who immediately began to give him a hard time. Or at least you assumed that’s what they were doing based on the teasing punches and boyish looks they gave you and then him.  Your gut flipped. Maybe Roxy was lying to get on your nerves. That had to be the only plausible option.

“Alright—” began the DJ, Matthew, stopping the music and bringing everyone’s attention to the stage “—tonight we have a regular to the stage. If you’re an alcoholic then you’ve seen her here plenty of times, and if this is your first time joining us, welcome but what took you so long?” A smattering of laughter flitted across the bar. Looking back over, you found Steve smiling politely at the joke. God he was handsome…

“Give it up for (Y/N) (Y/L/N)!”

Applause filled the air as you walked to the stage, exchanging niceties with Matthew before sitting down to the piano. You breathed deeply, trying to quell your nerves, but that night they seemed to be on overdrive. Heart rate elevated, the alcohol in your stomach burned. Closing your eyes, you placed your fingers to the keys and let the familiarity of them calm you. You could do this. Going into a simple chord progression, you began the intro to your first song. It was a simple little number, nothing too controversial, too fast, or too slow. Just enough of a pep to grab the people’s attention, without being assaulting to the ears. It was fun and you always found it livened the room up nicely. By the time it was over, your nerves had cooled a bit, but your hands still possessed a subtle tremor. So, diverting from the normal path, you did a cover for your second song. A tried and true rendition of Falling in Love with Love by Fred Astaire. The chords and words were familiar like a childhood blanket, the song bringing you back to watching your mom and dance in the kitchen as a child. It was when you moved into your original work again, a sweet little thing about sunny mornings and fresh spring mountains, that your eyes caught Steve’s as you looked out into the crowd. The dim fluorescents of the bar lights illuminated him like a spotlight, swirls of dust floating around his figure in the musty bar air. Illuminated in hazy golden light, he looked as though the heavens had opened up to present him just for you. Flaxen haired and clear, blue eyes, he looked reminiscent of another time. And you guessed, he technically was. But he looked at you like a man seeing a beautiful piece of artwork for the first time – his gaze so intense, so openly earnest and honest, you couldn’t help but stare back.

You didn’t look away the whole time.

After your set, you found yourself sticking around – something you almost never did. But you knew you couldn’t just flee from the establishment like normal. Not when you performed for one person and one person only that night. After about twenty minutes you began to wonder if you had been wrong. Maybe the connection had been in your head. No, it definitely wasn’t in your head. Maybe you should just go up to him? After all, this was the 21st century. Women approached men all the time. But then again, he was from a different time. What if he found it insulting? Or too forward? You were still debating the pros and cons of the situation when a tap on your shoulder brought you out of your musings.

Looking up and expecting to see Roxy or maybe even Steve, you were surprised to see his friend.

“Hey, I’m Bucky. I just have to say, great performance tonight,” he said casually, extending a hand.

You took it tentatively, shaking his hand. Confused as to why he was talking to you but not wanting to be rude you gave him a small smile, “Thanks. I’m (Y/N), nice to meet you Bucky.”

“Listen, I’m gonna cut straight to the point. I need a favor from you (Y/N).” Bucky proposed, running a hand through his slicked brown hair.

Intrigued, you leaned against the bar top behind you, “Okay, I’ll bite. What can I do for you?”

“You see my friend over there?” He pointed across the bar to Steve, who was currently looking anywhere but at the two of you. “Well, I’ve got a bit of a problem, because he keeps dragging us to this bar every weekend and as much as I like it here, I just want a quiet Saturday night in, ya know? Now, he’d never admit that he told me this, but he thinks you’re pretty much the coolest thing since sliced bread – which is a high compliment as he was actually there for the invention of sliced bread.”

“Is that so?” you asked, trying to suppress the wave of giddiness his words created.

“Yea, he looks great for his age, right?”

“So, what’s the favor then?”

“Well—” he began, drawing his face into an exaggerated eyeroll “—for some reason, while the man is completely unfazed by jumping out of exploding buildings, he can’t build up the courage to come and talk to you. So, your favor to me, would be to just look over there and wave him over so that I can go home and watch The Great British Bake Off.”

“The Great British Bake Off? Really?”

Bucky shrugged, “It’s heartwarming and educational.”

“Alright, I’ll talk to him. But what about your other friend? Mister Tall, Dark, and Goofy?” you asked, looking to Sam who was currently attempting to tell your golden-haired man some kind of story that required an enormous amount of arm movement. The comment earned you a guffaw from Bucky.

“Him? He’ll be fine. He’s already got the bartender’s number. I think they’re leaving together after her shift is over.”

Jaw dropping in shock, you looked to Roxy and pointed to Sam in question. She shrugged, an excited smile on her face as she turned back to her customers.

“Alright,” you agreed, shaking your head. “Go enjoy Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. I’ll take good care of your friend.”

***

“What?! That can’t possibly be true. I feel like you’re lying to me right now.”

“No, it’s the honest to God truth. Bing Crosby came right up to me and shook my hand,” said Steve, large hands wrapped around his beer bottle as he told you probably the coolest story you’d ever heard.

Sitting back in your chair heavily, you let out a huff of air, “Wow…I mean…wow. I guess being a war hero really does come with some perks.”

“I don’t know if I would call myself a war hero…”

“Oh, so he’s modest too. Tell me, is there anything you’re bad at?” you asked, teasingly.

“There’s plenty of things I’m bad at,” scoffed Steve.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay, name some. What is the great Captain America bad at?” You lifted an eyebrow in challenge, unable to keep the smile from your face as you looked at the man in front of you.

“Well, for one thing, I can’t flirt with a pretty dame without help from my friend—”

“I think you’re doing a pretty good job of it yourself right now,” you interrupted, giving him a wry grin from across the small bar table.

Cheeks tinging a light shade of pink, Steve took a moment to drink from the bottle in his hand before continuing, “I can’t dance. Seriously, all I do is sway. I have trouble tying a tie. It always comes out crooked, no matter how many times I do it. Oh! And I’m a horrible singer. Couldn’t carry a tune to save my life – unlike some people.”

It was your turn to feel the heat form on your face, “I’m sure you’re not that bad.”

“Well, I’d show you, but I doubt anyone else here would appreciate it,” said Steve. At his comment the two of your looked around the bar to realize there wasn’t anyone else there to bother with his singing.

“What?” you asked incredulously. “What time is it?”

Checking his watch, Steve’s eyebrows lifted almost all the way to his hairline, “Three in the morning. Doesn’t this place close at two?”

“Yea, it does. I can’t believe Roxy didn’t kick us out.” Pulling out your phone you found a text from the woman in question.

Roxy:

You seemed a little too patriotic to interrupt. Have fun and lock the door on your way out. ;)

“I guess we should probably get out of here, huh?” you suggested, standing and grabbing your purse from the back of the chair. Steve stood too, taking his bottle and your glass to the bar and disposing of them appropriately. Walking across the stage, you went to turn out the lights on the far wall when you stopped. Looking at the piano in front of you, you turned back to Steve.

“While we’re here, do you want a free concert?”

“Depends…what are you playing?” asked Steve, rounding the bar and coming to sit on the bench next to you.

“Anything you want. I’m open for requests,” you announced, brushing your fingers across the keys and playing out a small arpeggio.  

“How about one of yours?” Steve suggested, surprising you.

“Really? Out of all the music in the world, you wanna’ listen to mine?”

“Of course, it’s my favorite. Haven’t missed a show all month.”

***

Too early. It was absolutely too early for your phone to be ringing. But there it was, laying on the mattress next to you annoyingly loud. You contemplated throwing it across the expanse of your small loft, but ultimately decided that you were in no way financially able to afford a new phone. So instead, you swiped your thumb across the screen and held it up to your ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey! (Y/N)!” Steve’s chipper voice rang through the line, bringing you out of your sleepy stupor.

“Steve, hey, what’s up?” you asked, trying not to sound like you just woke up. Unfortunately, you were unable to suppress the yawn that escaped the back of your throat.

“Oh jeez, I didn’t wake you up, did I?” You could already hear the apology on the tip of his tongue.

“No, no. I’m always up at this time. It’s—” you looked over to the clock on the wall “—Five thirty. Five thirty?!”

“Sorry. I’ve been up for hours. I guess I didn’t realize it was still so early,” Steve apologized. You could hear the distant bustle of city life behind him; why was everyone in D.C. such early risers?

Sighing internally, you concluded it was probably better you get up now. You were due at your day job soon anyway. Sitting up and swinging your legs out of the warm cocoon of blankets, you stretched out, bringing life to your body, “It’s fine. Really. You get to hear me make coffee though. I desperately need coffee.”

The soft, nervous laugh on the other end of the phone made you smile as you padded barefoot to your small kitchen. “I will gladly listen to you make coffee, if it makes up for the fact that I woke you up,” said Steve, his words causing butterflies to form in the pit of your stomach. You had to stop for a moment, hand paused on your kettle as you tried to keep your head. When you failed to respond right away, Steve went on, “Anyway, I just called to tell you, that I had a really great time the other night.”

“Me too,” you replied, placing the kettle on the stove and turning it on, before grabbing the coffee from the cupboard.

“I was wondering if you wanted to do it again. Preferably sometime soon?”

“I don’t think the manager will let us stay so late after closing again. Even if I do technically work there,” you teased, grabbing the French press and filling it with a few spoonfuls of coffee.

“I don’t know, I bet you could convince them to let us stay. You seem like you’d be able to talk any man into doing just about anything,” Steve teased back.

“Really, is that so?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe not any man – maybe just me.”

***

It was a nice, sunny spring day. Summer was just around the corner and midafternoons were beginning to warm up considerably. You were on your lunch break, iced lemonade in hand as you walked through President’s Park with Steve. Tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear in response to the light breeze, you glanced down to make sure that the skirt of your sundress was still in place. The last thing you needed to do was accidentally flash him on your first official date.

“Obviously performing at the bar isn’t your only job if this is your lunch break. Tell me about your day job,” said Steve, walking idly next to you, hands in the pockets of his khakis.

“I’m actually a music teacher,” you answered, taking a sip of your lemonade.

“Really?” asked Steve, a hint of pleasant surprise in his voice.  

“Yea, I guess you could say music pervades every part of my life,” you answer with a laugh.

“Do you like it?”

“I really do. Enough to do it for the rest of my life at least. I mean – performing is fun, but I don’t know if I could do it for a living. I’m much happier teaching kids how to read music or play an instrument.” The two of you came to a small park bench and sat down under the shade of a large tree.

“So, no dreams of being big and famous?”

You scoffed, shaking your head, “No. Absolutely not. I don’t think I could handle the pressure.”

“Yea, it definitely isn’t easy,” Steve sighed, looking down at the ground between his spread legs. At his comment, you realized how insensitive you must have sounded. For a second you had completely forgotten than he was Captain America – a famous household name. To you, he was just Steve Rogers, the man with a warm smile and a genuine aura that emanated throughout and around him.

“I think it was my music teacher in high school that really made me want to be a teacher,” you said, changing the subject. “She was always encouraging me to pursue my music and creativity. Which was great to hear when no one else in my life seemed to care much at the time. Who was your favorite teacher growing up?”

Steve seemed to perk up at your question, looking out into the expanse of the park as he pondered his answer, “Probably my art teacher. I always liked to doodle and draw, but he was the first person to tell me I had talent. After that, I actually took a few classes at the local college. Nothing too fancy, but I learned a lot about techniques and different mediums.”

“So, you’re an artist?”

“Well, I don’t know if I would call myself an artist…”

“There you go again being modest. Tell me, do you make art? Do you put pencil to paper or paint to canvas and makesomething with it?” you asked in a guiding manner.

“Yea, I guess—”

“Then you’re an artist! I bet you have a pencil and sketch pad on you right now. Am I wrong?”

Steve looked at you in bewilderment, before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small notebook, “How did you know?”

“Because, you’re an artist! And, I may have seen the outline of it earlier when we were walking,” you admitted.

“Were you checking out my ass?”

The question caught you off guard, leaving you gawking at the surprisingly forward question. Steve laughed at you, indicating that he was obviously teasing, and you slapped him playfully on the arm.

“Maybe I was. It’s a nice ass,” you teased back. “Now show me some of your drawings. You’ve seen all of my creative genius; I want to see yours.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t I draw something now and you can be the judge of whether it’s accurate or not?”

“Okay—” you looked around, trying to determine what would be the best thing for him to sketch “—that’s even better. How about that flower bed over there?”

“Nah, I think I see something much prettier,” responded Steve. Looking back at him, you found him already sketching away, pencil to the paper of his notebook as he glanced between it and you. He was drawing you. “No, no. Look back over that way,” he instructed. “The light was catching you perfectly.”

You did as he said, directing your gaze back towards the flower bed, the soft sound of pencil scratches mixing with the chirping of birds, and murmur of people walking by. Stealing glances at him out of the corner of your eye, you watched as he worked. Brow knitted in concentration, jaw relaxed, and soft pink lips parted, long, straight lashes brushing his cheekbones every time he blinked; it was in that moment you came to realization that you could watch him like this forever.

“Hey, no peaking,” he pouted, catching you staring when he looked back up at you for reference. You looked away, training your eye on a couple of squirrels chasing each other across the lawn. Perfectly content, you sat listening to him work until his voice broke the silence.

“Okay, all done.”

Turning back towards him, you scooted down the bench till you were hip to hip, peering into his lap to view his hard work. The sight took your breath away, a soft gasp moving past your lips as you stared at yourself in graceful strokes of graphite. He was right. The lighting had been perfect. Somehow, he managed to capture the rays of sun catching the side of your face, illuminating you like you glowed from the inside out. You held a small smile at the corner of your mouth and your eyes held a wistful romance to them as little tendrils of hair danced around your face. He even sketched some of your sundress – scribbling the lace and little pattern of peaches at the neckline. You were beautiful. He had made you beautiful.

Speechless, you stared at the sketch and then back up at Steve who looked down at you with an apprehensive expression. You beamed at him before gushing, “It’s amazing Steve. Thank you.”

Maybe it was a bit too soon. Maybe you should have waited till the third date, or even the second, but something just felt so right in that moment. Lifting up, you pressed your lips to his, the soft warmth of his mouth comfortable and exciting all at the same time. Brushing your lips against his softly, your heart fluttered when he did the same, kissing you back tentatively. When his large hand came to cup your face, you melted into him craving the feel of his firm hand against your soft skin. Surprisingly gentle for his size, but not for his demeanor, he kissed you like you were a flower and he a gentle breeze, caressing your petals with a tender confidence.

Pulling away, you found a softness in his eyes and in his smile that made your heart clench. It felt so strange to be already so enamored by a person you had just met. But you couldn’t help the lightness that coursed through your body when it came to him.

***

“You know, you really don’t have to keep coming to all of my gigs. You’ve already got the girl,” you half-joked to Steve as he swung your guitar over his shoulder and lifted your heavy amp with ease. Two months. That’s how long you’d been sharing early morning phone calls and lunch-time walks through the city. Peppering in the occasional dinner date, Saturday matinees at the theatre, and him attending every single one of your gigs, things were really beginning to click. However, you couldn’t help but shake the familiar monster of apprehension and doubt.

You knew perfectly well where your feelings stood with Steve, but did he feel the same way?

You’d been hurt in the past. Partners that left you guessing and clawing for any type of validation and affirmation that you were important to them. Countless hours spent worrying and wishing that they’d just show up like they said they would, and without complaint or snide remarks. Therefore, when Steve actually showed up, it felt obligatory – like he was doing everything right not because he wanted to, but because he felt like he had to.

“Do you not want me to come?” Steve asked as the two of you left the bar and headed down the street to your building.

“No—yes—I mean, of course I want you to be there. I just mean, it can’t be very fun for you to be in a smoky bar listening to me play the same ten songs over and over again. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to be there when you don’t want to be.” You couldn’t believe how stupid and insecure you sounded as you said the words, but at the same time you needed to say it. At the very least it would be an out for him to take, no matter how sad it made you seem.

“Hey.” Steve stopped you, grabbing you by the wrist and turning you towards him. “I’d listen to you play a rendition of Pop Goes the Weasel over and over again for the rest of my life, if that’s what you were passionate about. I love your music and I love listening to you play it. You’re my girl. I’m gonna’ be there to support my girl.”

Moving your hand, you intertwined your fingers with his. Unable to find the words to express to him how much his proclamation had meant to you, you simply nodded as tears of relief and happiness began to well in your eyes. Silently, he disentangled his hand from yours and reached up, thread his fingers in the hair at the nape of your neck. He pulled you into him, bending down to kiss you sweetly, but firmly. His kiss was a promise and a reassurance that he was there, and he wasn’t going anywhere. The flutter of your eyelashes as they closed pushed a single tear down the side of your cheek, the warm wetness of it rolling until it reached the line of your jaw. Steve pulled away from you, using his thumb to wipe the stray tear from your face.

“Stay the night with me tonight?” you asked, the words leaving you like a physical need.

Steve’s eyes widened in response, before searching your face for any sign that you didn’t mean what you said. But you did.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

The room was lit by only moonlight as you slowly undressed. Each article of clothing removed, revealing more of your body and more of your soul to the man in front of you. Reverently he sat at the edge of your bed, shirt and shoes already removed, as he watched you bare yourself to him. Once completely free of your clothes, you were overtaken by a wave of insecurity, wanting nothing more than to cover yourself, but the sound of Steve’s voice broke you of the urge.

“Come here,” he whispered, eyes shining in the darkness.

Tentatively you stepped towards him, toes digging into the plush rug sat under your bed. He guided you onto his lap, his hands ghosting over the skin at your sides as he took you in. Steve looked at you the way he looked at you the first night you spoke – like a man seeing a beautiful piece of artwork for the first time. The heat of his gaze made you both unbearably aroused and unbearably uncomfortable. Wrapping your arms around his neck you kissed him, a mesh of lips and tongues that left you breathless and wanting. Moving your hands down his chest, you felt the unyielding muscle under warm skin. Like a Greek god, sculpted by the greatest minds of the renaissance, he was gorgeous. The feeling of his mouth connecting with one of your nipples stole the breath from your lungs, making you keen with desire as you arched into him.

He continued to lavish your chest, switching between breasts as he kissed, licked, sucked, and nipped. Within no time, you were putty in his hands, a garbled mess of pleasure and want. When you thought you couldn’t take any more, he flipped you over, placing you gently onto the mattress and pulling away to remove the last of his clothing. Standing in front of you, stripped and vulnerable, you had the lucid thought that you had never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

Climbing over you, he kissed his way up your body, leaving little bites and marks from your hip bone to your neck. You felt the hot, weight of him at your center, causing your hips to buck in response. A small whimper escaped you as he slid his length up and down your folds, grinding into you as bit down on your lower lip. Hot and wet and hard, he eased into you slowly, watching your face as he did. Eyes endlessly light blue, he stared into your soul as he panted heavily at the tight feel of you around him. Impossibly full of him and only him, you took deep breaths as you adjusted to it. Pulling your arms from around his back, he pinned your hands to the pillows behind your head, threading his fingers with yours as he pulled out of you slowly and pushed back in. The sweet friction was enough to make you sing.

Steadily, his pace picked up speed as he rocked in and out of you. And while neither of you had said the words, he made love to you like they had been uttered a thousand times before. Your sweat-slicked bodies glided over each other as he fucked into with a devotion unlike any other. And you did the same, your hands and lips amorously worshipping his body as he brought you closer and closer to the brink of ecstasy. Fingers plucking and hands strumming, it was as if the two of you were making music of your own, playing each other like instruments in the moon-soaked bedroom. The sweet sound built and built, an orchestration of harmonious balance rising higher and higher until you both reached the peak of your crescendo, only to fall blissfully from it in a lilting melody.

Laying in the aftermath of your song, you couldn’t help but think the words: I love this man.

***

“You really should eat something,” you said once again, pointing to the tray of untouched room service breakfast.

“I told you. I’m not hungry,” Steve snapped, moving in front of the mirror to tie his tie.

You sighed quietly to yourself. It had been a hard week. For both of you. This was not the first time Steve had been short with you today and you expected it would not be the last. Then of course, you couldn’t blame him. You were going to a funeral after all. Grabbing your cup of coffee from the tray, you wordlessly excused yourself to the bathroom to finish your makeup. Once in the crippling silence of the surrounding white tile, you braced yourself against the bathroom counter and took deep, calming breaths. You could do this. You had to be able to do this. For you. For your relationship. But most importantly, for Steve.

And you were trying, really you were, but nothing had prepared you for this. Although, you doubted anything really could. Supporting your boyfriend through the death of a past love was not an everyday scenario. He was trying to keep it together; you knew he was. You could see the sadness in his eyes and on his face when he thought you weren’t looking. But you were always looking. It was not easy watching him mourn the loss of another woman. It brought up all the ugly insecurities you tried to mask and move past. In no way did you blame him either. Peggy was an important part of his life – a part that you would never fully understand – and he had loved her. You respected that, but it didn’t stop the evil thoughts that crept into your mind. The ones that whispered things like he would never love you like he loved her, that this loss would make him realize that you were nothing but second best, that he would realize that you weren’t good enough. Shaking the nagging voices away, you unzipped your makeup bag and began pulling out the items you needed.

Steve cared for you; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have asked you to be here with him. He wouldn’t have flown you all the way to London with him for this funeral. He wouldn’t be depending on you for support and companionship. All of this you knew, but every jab and harsh word left you feeling more and more doubt. Of course, this was not Steve’s fault. He was grieving and if that meant you had to be strong for the both of you, then so be it. You would put your hurt aside and put on a brave face so that Steve could be the weak one. He deserved, at the very least, that.

Brushing on a bit of mascara and pulling out a sensible lip color, the sound of a light knock brought your attention to the exit of the bathroom. Steve, in black suit and tie, stood in the doorway, hair neatly jelled and tie crooked. He pointed to the askew item of clothing in utter defeat, a hopeless expression on his face. You set your lipstick down and crossed the room to him, reaching for his tie and undoing it before going through the familiar routine.

“I’m sorry.”

Too engrossed with the movement of your hands, you didn’t look up when you answered, keeping your voice light and casual, “You have nothing to be sorry for.” You finished the knot, straightening it snuggly against his Adams Apple and giving the length of the tie a little pat. He caught your hands before you could bring them down to your sides, holding them in his own and bringing them up to lightly kiss your fingers.

“Thank you for being here with me. I don’t think I could have done this without you.” His words were honest and sincere and meant the world to you. The fact that even when he was falling apart at the seams, he still cared enough to keep your emotions in mind, held more weight than any cynical thought your brain could create.

Standing on tiptoes, you held his face in your hands and looked into the depths of his blue eyes, “Today is going to absolutely suck. It really is. And I’m so sorry that it has to happen. But I’m right here. Anything you need, I’m right here. I promise.”

Steve nodded, his eyes becoming misty and red. Silently, the two of you exited the bathroom and grabbed your things. You, a coat and purse; him, a coat and a slice of toast.

You were just out the door, Steve following behind when you felt the soft brush of his fingers as he tucked in the tag of your blouse. The act though small and seemingly insignificant, was like a whispered proclamation on your skin. A murmured promise of I love you.

***

A year and a half and blissfully content, you lounged in your bed, staring at the expanse of Steve’s naked back as he stood in front of the kitchen sink. Muscles rolling and flexing, he scrubbed at the dishes from dinner.

“How is it, that I always end up doing all the cooking and cleaning when this is your apartment?” Steve asked teasingly over his shoulder as you stretched out in satisfaction across the bed, sheets still wrinkled and twisted from your after dinner ‘dessert’.

You laughed, rolling over and smiling lazily in his direction, “Because you’re a much better cook and you love me.”

Steve chuckled, a short, barking sound you had come to know as sarcastic, “I don’t know what me loving you has to do with getting stuck doing the dishes every night.”

“Shall I play you a song to make the job easier?” you asked, reaching over the foot of the bed and pulling up your guitar from its careless place on the ground. You pushed yourself into a sitting position against the headboard and began to strum a series of chords.

“Mmmm, I guess that’s a fair payment,” Steve responded warmly.

“I knew you’d say that!” you exclaimed happily, starting into one of Steve’s personal favorites.

A half hour later, dishes done, and Steve now laid on the bed with his head propped up on your outstretched legs, you were still playing. Languidly, you plucked and strummed through all the songs you knew until you found yourself playing something you hadn’t planned on showing him yet. He picked up immediately on the unfamiliar progression, turning his head to look at you.

“I haven’t heard that one before, what is it?” he asked, running his fingertips tenderly up and down your bare calf.

“Just something new I’ve been working on,” you answered sheepishly, continuing to repeat the first few chords.

“Something new? What’s it about?”

“You.”

Your profession took him by surprise, a delighted smile spreading across his face as he looked up at you, “You wrote a song about me?”

“Maybe,” you answered, nudging his far shoulder with your toes.

“Is it a sad song?” he asked playfully as he turned his head to stare up at the ceiling.

“No, it’s not a sad song.”

“Oh no, is it an angry song?”

You giggled, “Definitely not.”

“A happy song?” he questioned once more, knowing full well that that was the answer all along.

“Yes. It’s a happy song. A very happy song,” you stated, looking down at him and wondering how in the world you got so lucky. “The happiest song, actually.”

“Well then, play away.”

And you did. You played, pouring every ounce of love and adoration into the melody and lyrics, as Steve listened quietly, looking at you like the world began and ended with that one song. You played knowing that you had never been happier than in that moment, and you played knowing that life could only get better from there on out.

To listen to the song written for Steve, please follow this link: https://soundcloud.com/user-144129307/steves-song

Marvel Taglist: 

@caffiend-queen 

@hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall

@grincheveryday

[shakespeareanwannabe]

Play by Play

Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia x F!OC/Santiago Garcia x Rebecca Cooke

Summary:  Santi gets in way too deep with this woman that he barely knows, but finds that sometimes a leap of faith can be worth it.

Warnings: References to parental issues, age gap in a relationship (both participants are well over the age of consent), child abuse/child trauma, misogyny, swearing, PTSD, low self-esteem

A/N: Hi everyone! So, I started writing this story way out of order. Started with Protective Instincts, jumped to Best Laid Plans, went backwards to Strange Comforts, then came all the way back to the beginning with New Beginnings. But that’s because I was just writing them as they came to me (or, if I’m being honest, as @darksideofclarke provided me with golden headcanons that I just expanded on). But now, I’ve sat down and written a general plan for this multichapter story that is turning out to be so astoundingly different from everything else I’ve ever written. 

So, I’ll be posting in chronological order now, and I’ll make an announcement here in the A/N about where Protective Instincts, Strange Comforts, and Best Laid Plans fit into the whole scheme of things.

Anyway, here’s chapter 2!

                                                 **********

“Hey Jackie,” Santi greeted as he strolled through the front door of the clinic.

“Evening, Santiago. How’re you?” the red headed receptionist replied with a smile, looking up briefly before resuming her typing.

“Same old, same old,” he replied, eyes scanning the clinic. “How’re John and the kids?”

She smiled brightly at him. “Lorelai got accepted to Clemson with a scholarship!”

“That’s amazing, you must be so proud,” he replied, turning his attention back to her when he didn’t find who he was looking for.

“Why is Jackie proud?”

He smiled and felt his face heat up as he turned to face Rebecca, who was just slightly limping through the front door. She was dressed in her usual artfully professional work attire and toting a gym bag that was undoubtedly stuffed with her workout clothes.

“Hey Bex,” he greeted as he slid over to her. “Want some help with that?”

“Ugh, please,” she whined. “I spent the day running after three kindergarten classes, and my hip and back are aching.”

Santi relieved her of the bag and offered her his elbow, a slight tremor running up his spine as she leaned into him.

Three months. That’s how long he’d been going to physiotherapy with Steve. It also happened to be exactly how long he’d been working up the courage to ask Rebecca out.

That first day they met, he’d assumed it was the same kind of visceral reaction he’d had with other women in the past. She was stunningly beautiful, sarcastic, and witty. In other words, just his type. But he wasn’t looking for anything at that moment. He’d just gotten out of a year of trying the domestic thing with Yovanna, and it had crashed and burned spectacularly. He had a new home; he had his friends surrounding him once more. He was good. He was solid. He decided then and there not to do anything to screw up the upward trajectory he was on. That, plus he didn’t want to make things awkward for Charlie, who had a business to run.

So, he’d ignored it. Pushed down the desire to engage and romance, and focused instead on trying to get his knees back under him. But then, their appointment times had lined up and they spent their entire sessions chatting with each other and sassing Charlie. Then it happened again. And again. And, before long, Santi found himself listening in on Rebecca when she booked her appointment times with Charlie so he could book the same slots with Steve.

Three times a week for three months, he spent two hours talking and laughing with this resilient, funny, and kind woman.

That first week had been the introductory stuff.

                                                **********

“So, what are you in for?” she asked, a sly grin on her face.

He grimaced. “Does a lifetime of poor choices count?”

She snorted, burying her face in her arms in an attempt to hide her embarrassment at the unladylike sound. “I’m pretty sure that’s why most of us are here.”

He nodded slowly in acquiescence. “Even you?”

She sighed as she settled further into her table, the heat from the heating pad soothing her sore muscles. “I got into a bad car wreck seven months ago. Idiot driver T-boned me when I was on my way back to work from an in-school art class. Fractured my hip, got a nasty concussion, and a wicked case of whiplash. I got lucky when the concussion symptoms stopped after a few weeks, but I had to come here to get my butt kicked to fix my hip and neck.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. Being military, it was sometimes easy to forget that the civilians they were trying so desperately to protect could also be taken down by something as simple as crossing the street or taking a drive.

Rebecca leaned herself up on her elbows to fix him with a thoughtful look. “You know what? You’re the first person to say that to me.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded slowly as she relaxed back into the pillow beneath her. “My mom took the ‘Woe is me, my poor baby is hurt’ route and the doctors were more concerned with making sure I was physically okay than checking in on my emotional state. So, thank you for that.”

He shrugged as easily as he could lying down. “My buddy Will always says that sometimes the best thing you can offer someone are words, so they know you’re there.”

“Will sounds like a smart guy. How’d you two meet?”

“We were put into the same squad in the military. Worked together for years.”

“Ah, I shoulda guessed you were military,” she groaned as she shifted slightly, moving quickly to catch the heating pad before it slipped. “You’ve got that kinda look.”

“You mean the beat to shit look?” he sighed, turning his head away from her to stare at the ceiling fan rotating slowly above him.

A poke in the arm startled his attention back to her. She had strained herself across the gap between the tables, barely able to poke his arm with her middle finger without sliding off.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she replied gently. “I just meant that you look like the kind of guy who has seen too much bad in this world. Which isn’t fair. Nobody should have to carry that kind of burden.” Santi struggled to swallow; his emotions all caught up in his throat and his skin tingling from the slight brush of her finger against his arm. “I’m not gonna say ‘thank you for your service’, because I feel like that’s just an empty platitude at this point. But I will say that I hope you find a way to make that burden just a little lighter.”

He looked over at her again and smiled. “Thank you.”

                                              **********

Okay, so the introductory stuff got heavier than Santi anticipated. Parental problems, traumatic events, talk of his service. He was in heavy with this girl and he didn’t even know her last name.

That came in week two.

                                              **********

“Basketball or baseball?”

“Baseball. Same question.”

“Baseball. Hockey or football?”

“Football. Same question.”

“Hockey. Cats or dogs?” Rebecca grunted as she kicked her leg out, struggling against the sliding weights attached to her injured leg by a cuff and a cord.

“Dogs. Same question to you,” Santi replied, voice distorted as he squatted on the FitVibe.

“Dogs. You know, you can’t just say ‘same question’ every time it’s your turn. It kind of defeats the purpose of the game,” she gasped as she finished her first set, twisting around to grab her water bottle from the chair behind her.

Santi shrugged as the machine stopped vibrating, giving him 90 seconds to rest before his next set started.

“Did you have a dog growing up?” he questioned as he sipped from his own bottle.

She nodded as she gulped down her icy water, Santi trying and failing to keep his eyes off her delicate neck and chest, which were gleaming with a sheen of sweat. “A St. Bernard. Cookie. I loved that dog, but I hated his name. I mean, really? Cookie Cooke? What were my parents thinking?”

Santi chuckled as his machine began counting down to start the next set. “Probably that it was cute? Who knows? Your turn…” He grunted as he carefully squatted as the pad began to shake again. He closed his eyes against the twinge of pain and missed Rebecca blatantly staring at his ass before beginning her next set.

“Star Wars or Star Trek?”

“Star Wars. Books or movies?”

“Both. Goonies or Stand by Me?”

“Can’t go wrong with Goonies.”

“Ugh, and here I was just thinking that you had good taste! Who in their right mind picks Goonies over Stand by Me?” she teased.

He shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. Even blurry from the vibrations coursing through his body, she was the prettiest girl he’d seen in a long time.

“Never said I was in my right mind, sweetheart,” he winked and that giggle that he was so enchanted by escaped her lips again.

                                              **********

Week three was when he really tried to pump the breaks on his rapidly developing feelings for her. Not only had Yovanna sent him a box of his stuff via airmail, but he became privy to some information that assured him that this thing between them would never work.

                                              **********

“Don’t tell me you’re done already!” he called from the Kin-Com as Rebecca practically skipped over to the table closest to him. She had her good days and her bad days with her injured leg, and Santi liked chatting with her the past nine days, but he loved chatting with her on her good days. There was this spark, this energy she radiated when she was feeling good that he just wanted to bathe in.

“This is what you get for showing up late, Santi! You’re strapped into the death machine and I get a massage to wrap things up.” She shot him a bright smile before lying down on the table, just out of his range of sight thanks to the half partition wall that separated the machine from the rest of the clinic.

“Don’t tease the old man, Rebecca,” Charlie cautioned in a faux-mocking tone.

“Hey, if I’m an old man, what does that make you? Frankie is two months older than me!” he pointed out, pressing against the mechanical arm that was slowly manipulating his leg.

“Apparently the term is ‘panther’,” she replied, straight-faced. “Learned that one at ladies’ night after one of my friends had a few too many and found out Frankie’s 10 years older than me. Me, I call it lucky.”

“Yeah, you better,” he warned as the machine stopped moving. A quick look at the computer screen told him he had finished his set for the day, and he quickly unstrapped himself and hopped down, walking slightly creakily to the table next to where Charlie was carefully massaging and manipulating Rebecca’s hip.

“Your fiancé’s ten years older than you, Chuck?” Rebecca asked, her eyes closed as she tried to relax her aching joints.

Charlie shot Santi an unamused glare as he lowered himself onto the table and laid back, Steve approaching with the cryo-cuffs and ice machine.

“Yeah, Frankie’s 40 and I’m 30. Why?” she asked, an accusation hiding deep in her voice as her body tensed up.

Inwardly, Santi was nodding approvingly. Frankie sometimes got too in his own head about his age, especially in relation to his fiancée’s, and Santi knew how much Frankie doubted himself when it came to their relationship. Charlie was a successful business owner and college graduate. Frankie was a retired soldier who almost lost his pilot’s license because he’d been desperate for money when his girlfriend got pregnant and knew just how lucrative drug running could be. It wasn’t difficult to see why Frankie felt so insecure about the relationship, but Charlie was so good at getting him out of that headspace, and even better about shutting down anyone who had anything negative to say about her man.

“Nothing!” Rebecca was quick to reply. “I was just curious. Age is just a number, right? Besides, I saw you two together when he came to pick you up that one time, remember? You two are cute as hell. He just doesn’t look 40.” Rebecca rolled her head to look at Santi, and he felt his own hackles raise a little, suddenly self-conscious of his greying hair and his weak knees. Then, she smiled softly at him and, if he wasn’t fooling himself, a warm affection infused her gaze. “Neither do you.”

He felt all the blood rush to his face and once again had to bat down the idea of asking her out. A box full of old mail and knickknacks had just arrived on his porch that morning from Australia. Domesticity didn’t work for him, and even casually seeing someone felt like too much of an effort. Still, there was something about that look in her eyes, the easy repartee they had going on, the support they gave each other during their workouts, that told him that, if he was going to try again, she was the one to try with.

“Hey Becky!” a loud voice boomed across the clinic. “Where you at?”

Rebecca smiled apologetically at him and Charlie before raising her voice just a little to call back, “I’m over here!” She turned her attention back to them, looking almost sadly at Santi as she said, “Sorry guys, that’s my date for tonight.”

A tall guy sauntered over from the reception desk and Santi felt himself reacting instinctively.

He was tall, well over 6 foot, and wearing a fancy, well-fitted navy suit with a white button down underneath, no tie and the first two buttons undone.

“Ah, there’s my girl!” he leaned down and gave her a claiming kiss, almost like he knew that Santi was watching.

“Uh, hi Derek. I thought you were going to wait outside?” she asked, looking away from them all as she raised a hand to her cheek.

“I was, doll, but I’ve been out there for twenty minutes. Our reservation is set for 7:30, and it takes ten minutes to drive out there, so go get yourself cute and let’s go.”

“Uh…” Rebecca looked between Santi and Charlie while worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

Santi had never wanted so badly to punch someone he hadn’t even officially met. He wanted to speak up, tell Derek that Rebecca was already cute in her leggings and off-the-shoulder t-shirt. Tell him that he can’t just barge in and interrupt an appointment in a place of business.

Charlie leaned into his line of sight and subtly shook her head and, deep down, he knew she was right. If he punched him, or called him out, he would be just as bad. Plus, what right did he have? He’d spent a few hours with this woman and had zero claim on her time or her attention.

“It’s okay, Rebecca. We’re done for today anyway. You can use the staff bathroom to wash up if you’d like,” Charlie assured, helping Rebecca off the table.

“Okay, thanks Charlie. Santi?” He slowly slid his eyes up to meet hers and read the apology there clear as day. “I’ll see you next week, okay?”

He cleared his throat. “Sure thing. See you then.”

Rebecca smiled, a hint of relief overtaking her features as she sighed. “Good. Have a good weekend everybody!”

She headed towards the staff bathroom with her gym bag in tow and ‘Derek’ left, presumably to go and wait in the car like he was supposed to.

“Frat boy lookin’ douche,” Santi grumbled under his breath.

“Yeah, and the bag it came in,” Charlie muttered as she wiped down Rebecca’s table.

“Isn’t he a little young for her?” Santi asked rhetorically. “He looks like he just stepped off the stage at college graduation.”

“Dude, she’s like, 25. They’re probably the same age.” Charlie flung the white towel she had been using over her shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone I told you that. Patient confidentiality and all that.”

Santi felt his heart sink but told himself it was for the best. Now he had a good reason for not asking her out. What 25-year-old would want to date a broken-down old man anyway?

                                              **********

Week four didn’t happen, and it was the one time Santiago Garcia considered himself a coward.

He’d promised. He’d explicitly told her that he would see her the following week, but he’d called at the last second and rescheduled with Steve for times when he knew she would be at work.

He just didn’t know how to face her. Yes, he had no claim to her time or attention. Yes, he’d spent a grand total of 18 hours in her presence. No, he had never explicitly asked if she was seeing anyone. And, yes, he had sworn off dating for a while, so he had no right to get his back up about her having a date.

And yet, the thought of seeing her, all smiley and happy after her date with ‘Derek’ made him sick to his stomach.

Week five he tried to reschedule again. He picked a time slot that aligned with the closing of the museum she worked at, knowing she often stayed a little longer after closing to chat with coworkers and stare at the art. He should have known, however, that things rarely ever turned out the way he wanted them to.

                                              **********

“Have you been avoiding me?”

The soft voice made him trip over his feet, his left foot tangling in the rungs of the rope ladder he was currently working with.

He looked up and met Rebecca’s soft eyes, tinged with sadness. He sighed and walked around her, stooping to pick up his water bottle before perching himself on a padded wooden block.

“No. Why?”

“Because I haven’t seen you in a week and Charlie wouldn’t tell me why,” she huffed, wrapping her arms around her chest as she moved to lean against the wall across from him.

“I was busy.”

“Really? Huh,” she chuckled sarcastically. “So, this has nothing to do with Derek coming in here?”

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “Nope.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Okay, Santiago. Whatever…” She turned and began to walk away, out of the back room where he was working out and back into the main gym area.

It was then that he noticed her clothing. A really pretty black blouse with a purple and red floral pattern and a black pencil skirt that pulled his eyes straight to her ass, and no red gym bag hanging from her arm.

“You not staying to work out?”

She turned back to him and laughed humorlessly. “No. I called reception and asked if you were coming in today. Gwen wasn’t going to say, but then Jackie got on the phone and told me you were here. Apparently, she’s got a soft spot for you. So, I left work early because I couldn’t stand not knowing if you were mad at me.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he mumbled looking down at the silky fabric of his gym shorts, guilt beginning to gnaw at his core.

“Oh, I’m getting that message loud and clear,” she snapped, marching back over to him and getting right up in his face. “But I did. Because I was worried that I had offended you with my age comment, or that I made you uncomfortable by saying that you didn’t look your age, or that I somehow upset you by not telling you that I was, unfortunately, going on a date that night.”

He stood up, standing nose to nose with her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, we both know you don’t owe me anything. I hope you and Derek had a wonderful time together.”

“Screw you,” she seethed.

Santi scoffed and shook his head, turning away from her to escape into the bathroom.

Once he had the door locked behind him, he sighed heavily and splashed cold water on his face.

This. This was why he didn’t want to seriously date anyone. He inevitably would screw things up. Or, worse, he’d ruin things before he even had the chance to really start with someone.

Fuck, Yovanna had been right. He somehow always managed to dim whatever light there was around him. Rebecca’s warmth and energy were so bright, so addicting, that he had thought it possible to bask in them without hurting her. She was like the Sun, drawing him in even when he wanted to stay away. Nobody could hurt the Sun. It was so warm and so bright and so uplifting that it couldn’t be damaged. Yet, there he was.

Santi sighed and stared at himself in the mirror, resolving to fix things next week. He’d switch back to his regular time and pray to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in that she would be willing to hear him out. That was his long-term plan. His immediate plan was to get through the day’s session and go home to drink that bottle of whisky he’d been saving.

Opening the door, he took two steps onto the rubber flooring of the back room and froze.

Soft sobs echoed in the airy space, and he felt his heart sink down to his toes as he followed the sound back to that padded block, finding Rebecca hunched over on it, a hand pressed delicately to her mouth as she tried to muffle the sound.

He grimaced to himself, knowing he was the cause of her distress. Hesitantly, he reached out and tried to place a gentle hand on her shoulder, but Rebecca caught sight of his shoes first and jerked back in surprise, looking up at him with tears gleaming like diamonds in her eyes under the harsh florescent lights.

He slowly crouched down in front of her, balancing on the balls of his feet.

“I’m an idiot,” he started, and felt his heart lift slightly as she choked on a laugh. “And I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head at him, desperately swiping at her tears. “No, you were right. We barely know each other, so we don’t owe each other anything. I had no right to get mad at you. For all I know, you had a family emergency that made you switch your appointment times.”

Santi was already shaking his head. “Your instincts were good, sweetheart. I did change times to avoid you, but not because I was mad at you.”

“The age comments—”

“Were sweet,” he finished for her, meeting her gaze for the first time since he had lowered himself down. “If you had said anything bad about Frankie, I wouldn’t have had time to argue with you before Charlie jumped down your throat.” She laughed again and his heart lifted just a tad higher. “And I appreciate you saying I don’t look my age. I always think the grey gives me away,” he added wryly.

“It suits you,” she rebutted quickly. “Not many people look good with the salt and pepper, grey thing. All I can think of are Idris Elba, George Clooney and you.”

Santi laughed loudly. “Well, I will take that compliment.”

“Good,” she nodded decisively. “Now get off your knees before Steve comes and yells at you.”

She shifted over on the block and he laboriously heaved himself to his feet, coming to sit next to her, a few inches of space between their bodies. They sat in a cloud of quiet calm, both knowing that there was more to resolve but unwilling to break the silence.

“Maybe it’s not my place, but I just think you can do a lot better than Douchebag Derek,” Santi finally said. “No offense,” he added quickly, silently berating himself for the slip.

She giggled at the nickname. “No offense taken. It was actually my first time ever meeting him,” she admitted quietly.

Pope’s mind rapidly went over the brief interaction and he felt his blood begin to boil. “But…”

She nodded sadly. “I know. He’s the son of the museum curator, so I felt like I couldn’t turn him down without affecting my job. And you know how much I love my job.”

He did know. She was the educational liaison for the local art museum. She led field trips that came through the museum, explaining different art pieces and their historical and artistic significance, while also leading the students through art lessons on how to either imitate an artist’s style or create their own styles. Occasionally, she would also make trips to low-income schools in the area through an outreach program, going into classrooms to teach art lessons and give the teachers a break. It was on her way back from one of those in school visits that she got into her car accident, but it hadn’t diminished her enthusiasm for her work. In fact, it had made her desperate to get back into the museum and back into the classroom.

“But he kissed you. And he called you Becky,” Santi commented, confused.

Rebecca allowed her head to fall into her palm. “I know…apparently his mom really talked me up and made me seem really desperate and really into him. Plus, he seems to think he’s God’s gift to women, so it was the perfect storm of misogynistic crap.”

Santi was shaking his head. “Next time, tell me. I don’t care if you have to do it in front of the guy, just let me know and I’ll get him out of your hair in ten seconds, tops.”

She sighed and shuffled closer to him. “Thanks Santi. It’s nice to know that someone has my back.” She ended up pressed right against his side and gently lowered her head to his shoulder.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

                                              **********

That day marked the end of Santi sticking to his guns about not dating. After that, it became an increasingly difficult game that he was playing with himself.

Get closer to her, get to know her more, be that shoulder for her to lean on when she needed it, but don’t cross that line. Just because she said he didn’t look his age; it didn’t mean she wanted to be with someone his age. It didn’t reduce the 15-year age gap between them. She said it was nice to have someone have her back, so that’s who he became. Her constant cheerleader, her confidant, her friend. It was the first female friend Santi had had since Charlie. Before Charlie, never.

They exchanged numbers that day, and soon his days became filled with texting her different stories about his day, like how he ended up at the hospital with Benny because the idiot accidentally put a nail through his finger when he was helping nail down Santi’s new kitchen floor, or how he couldn’t move after a session where Steve had him in the therapy pool for 45 minutes. She’d send him funny quotes she heard her ‘kids’ say on field trips or in the classroom, or photos of paintings in the museum with ridiculous captions.

After she laid her head on his shoulder, he knew he loved her. After she sent him a photo of Queen Elizabeth the First’s portrait with the caption “wanna thank your mother for a butt like that”, he knew he was in love with her. And after she showed him a picture of her childhood dog Cookie and her at age 6, he knew he was drowning in her and that his only salvation would be asking her out.

Still, he kept drowning for months.

“Santi?” He turned his attention to Rebecca, still leaning gently on his arm as they stood outside the change room. “You okay? I lost you there for a second.”

“Yeah, Bex, I’m fine,” he smiled warmly at her and felt a silent thrill go through him when she got a little flustered. “Uh, Jackie was excited because Lorelai got accepted at Clemson.”

“Wow, good for her.” They both paused, a slight awkwardness hanging over them. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you out there?”

“Oh…uh, yeah.”

The door closed with a quiet click and Santi wanted to kick himself. They had spent weeks dancing around this thing, and it was pissing him off to no end.

He had never been like this. Not since he asked out Libby Stiles in the fourth grade. Why was this one girl sending his head spinning? Okay, he knew why, but it wasn’t fair. He could ask out any girl he ran into, except the one he wanted.

“Hey!” Santi turned around at the hissed greeting and found Charlie pumping up an exercise ball behind him. “If you don’t ask her out, I am going to ask her out for you!” she whispered.

Santi took a cautionary glance back at the door before stepping over to her. “What are you talking about?”

“Cut the shit, Santi!” she huffed quietly. “You think I haven’t noticed that all of your appointment times line up with hers? Or that you spend more time talking to her than you do actually doing your stretches? Or that you get this sad sap look in your eyes when you look at her?”

“And what the fuck do you know about it, Charlie?” he snarled under his breath.

“Because it’s the same way I look at Frankie, you dork!” she smirked. “It’s the same way Frankie looks at me, it’s the way Benny looks at every fucking Ring Girl who walks by. Oh, and it’s the same way she looks at you when you’re not paying attention. Now, get this ridiculous sexual tension out of my clinic and ask her out!”

“How?” he exhaled. “And what do we do? Where do I take her?”

“Jesus, Santi…” she breathed, straightening herself and running her arm over her sweaty forehead. “Who are you and what did you do with Santiago Garcia?”

He rolled his eyes and stomped over to the stationary bike. A minute later, Charlie rejoined him after adding the exercise ball to the ball bin.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she murmured softly, one hand on his back.

“I know,” he apologized, grinning at her and nudging her with his elbow.

“It’s just clear as fucking day, Santi. What’s holding you up?” Charlie crossed her arms and leaned against the handlebars of the bike he was riding. “And don’t say it’s the age gap. Not to me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Is 15 years not a good enough reason, Chuck?”

She shrugged, leaning down to rest her chin on her arms. “Not to me it isn’t. Besides, Santi, that girl is into you.”

“Right, yeah. These looks she’s been giving me. Okay.”

“Jesus…” Charlie swore under her breath, Santi chuckling as he recognized a few Spanish curses mixed in with the English. Charlie really was Frankie’s lady. “Okay, you didn’t hear this from me, right?” Santi nodded, leaning in as far as the bike would allow him. “Those first few weeks, before you started stalking her schedule to get the same time slots? She would call in and ask Jackie what times you were coming so she could book the same times as you. That’s why Jackie told her you were in here that day you made her fucking cry in my back room. Jackie’s a hopeless romantic and has wanted you two idiots to get together from the start.”

Santi sat back, feeling like the wind had just been knocked out of him. “S-seriously?”

Charlie nodded, a smirk on her face. “Yep. And if you ask her out this week, I win the jackpot.”

“You guys have been betting on us?” he hissed, leaning forward again.

“Oh, please. Like you and the Millers weren’t taking bets on when Frankie would finally pop the question, and I know for a fact you pulled the strings on that one to turn things in your favor, Mr. Best Man,” she rolled her eyes. “Look, ask her out today and I’ll use the winnings to cover your tab at the Beer Garden tonight. Deal?”

Santi fixed her with a suspicious look. “Is this you wanting to win or is this you actually having my best interest at heart?”

Charlie gave him a light smack on the back of the head as she moved away to her desk, conveniently located between the main gym and the back room, with the therapy pool behind her.

“You know me better than that, Santiago. Now get your girl, please.”

                                              **********

Charlie was right. She was always right. It was one of the things that drove Santiago up the fucking wall. Frankie and Charlie were the perfect pair because, between the two of them, they were right one hundred percent of the time. Ben needed advice for his next fight? Forget Will, he was going to Frankie and Frankie’s future wife. Will revamped his speech and needed someone to read it over? Send it to Mr. and Future Mrs. Morales. Santi needed to pick paint colours? He just handed the paint chips to the couple of let them go wild. When they argued, it drove Frankie nuts because his lady had a knack for being right about almost everything. (The one time she was wrong in all their years of dating was when she claimed that Mateo would be a little girl, and Frankie wasn’t going to let her live that down as long as they lived.)

This time, she was right about Santi having to ask Rebecca out, and Santi was sure that ‘Fish would have the same advice if he were to call him up. This hurry up and wait bullshit was driving him crazy, so he needed to do it now, for his own peace of mind.

“Hey, man,” Steve hustled up to him, worry etched across his face.

“Hey Steve, you okay?”

He was already shaking his head. “My brother just called. Our mom took a nasty spill down the stairs. I’m really sorry, but I’m gonna have to cut this short. You’re basically done anyway; I was just gonna do some laser work with you but we can do that on Monday. I talked to Charlie; she can set you up with the cryo cuffs.”

“Yeah, man. No worries. Hope your mom is okay.”

“Thanks, man.”

Santi watched Steve leave for a minute before getting off the glider and heading into the back room, where he knew Charlie and Rebecca were.

“Hey Santi,” Charlie called from the goalpost set up in the corner. “Did Steve talk to you?”

“Yeah. Shame about his mom.”

Charlie nodded emphatically. “She’s a sweet lady. I’ve got my fingers crossed for her.”

“Me too…” Santi watched as Charlie bent to attach a weight to Bex’s foot. “You want me to go grab a table, Chuck? No rush.”

“Sure, if you want,” she replied distractedly. “Or…I was just gonna have Rebecca kick some soccer balls to work on her range of motion. Maybe you could goal keep for her?” she shot him a sly smile.

“I’d love that,” Rebecca piped up, a touch of embarrassment washing over her at her too-enthusiastic tone. “I mean, if you’re free.”

“Sure. Yeah, I can do that,” he agreed awkwardly, moving across the room to stand in the net.

“Alright then. Rebecca, you’re in good hands. Have fun you two.” Charlie turned and sauntered away, turning back once to mouth “Ask her out, dumbass” at him.

“You ever play soccer, Bex?” he asked, adjusting his stance so he stood in the middle of the goalpost.

“Ha, no,” she replied, kicking the soccer ball over to him. “My physical exercise is limited to yoga and swimming. Anything involving a ball or a racquet or running? That would be a no from me.” Santi kicked the ball back to her as it reached his feet. “You?”

“I played some when we would go visit my cousins in Colombia, and I played for my fifth-grade team in school, but that was about it. Sometimes we would play with some of the village kids when we were in Afghanistan. Give ‘em a taste of normal for a few minutes.”

She smiled sweetly as she returned the ball to him, leg moving a little steadier this time. “That’s really great of you.”

“Not really,” he shrugged, sliding over a step to stop the ball before kicking it back to her. “We were the ones fucking up their country. It was the very least we could do. But, god, Tom hated when we did that.”

She scoffed. “Well, that’s not fair of him. Those kids deserve something at least a little fun after all the crap they have to deal with.”

Santi grunted in agreement. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Bex laughed once, low and devoid of joy. “Oh but I do.” Santi stopped the ball and meandered over to her, looking at her questioningly. “Santi, most of my job revolves around kids. You’d be surprised how many of them tell me that their daddies hit them or their mommies throw things at them or that their grandparents intentionally starve them for being bad.” Tears welled up in her eyes and Santi quenched the urge to wrap her in his arms. “I’ve made more CPS calls than I can count and, the worst part is, I never know if that kid is safe after I make the call. Santi, there’s a reason my trunk is full of kid sized snack packs, granola bars, juice boxes. The museum doesn’t cover any of it, but at least I know that, when I walk into a classroom or those kids walk into my museum, they’ll feel safe and loved, and they won’t have to worry about food for at least a day.”

“Jesus, Bex,” he sighed, a small, sad smile on his face. “And they call us the heroes.”

She let out a tear-filled laugh and wiped at the single tear that had managed to escape. “We all do our part, Santi. You play soccer with kids in war torn countries. I feed the ones who get left behind at home.”

Rebecca turned away from him, heading for the main gym when he reached out and grabbed her elbow gently, giving it a squeeze as he turned her towards him and doing his best to ignore the electricity that ran up and down his arm at her touch.

He sighed and released her, his hand coming up to rub at the curls on the back of his head.

“Look, stop me if this is way off base, but if I don’t say this I’m gonna go crazy. I…I really like you, and I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while but, uh…” he smiled wryly and chuckled, hating how she made him feel like an inexperienced teenage boy.

“Santi?” Rebecca stepped closer and entwined her fingers with his remaining hand, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Do you want to go to the Beer Garden with me tonight?” he burst, the words falling out of his mouth. “A, uh, a bunch of us are going tonight. My old squad, Charlie and Frankie. Would you like to come with us? I mean,” he felt his cheeks heat up. “Would you like to come with me? As my date?”

A sweet, giddy giggle surged past her lips. “I’d love to.”

“Really?”

She squeezed his hand, more laughter bubbling up from her lips. “Yeah. I…I’ve been trying to build up the nerve to ask you out for coffee for the last, like, month.”

“Maybe if tonight goes well we could go for coffee next week?” he asked hopefully.

She sighed and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

“Awesome,” he breathed. “I’ll pick you up at 8?”

“That sounds perfect.”

                                              **********

Tags list (open): @darksideofclarke, @writefightandflightclub, @eternallyvenus, @rae-rae-patcha, @himbopoes, @sophoclese, @phoenixhalliwell, @buckstaposition

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

get to know me tag

I was tagged by @ammocharis! thank you! :)

answer questions / tag blogs, u know the drill :)

nickname: Jade

gender: [dial-up internet noise] but she/her pronouns are fine

height: p much everyone I meet (online OR in person) assumes I am taller than I actually am, which is intentional. 

time(zone): its mountain time baby

song stuck in my head: the Orpheus & Eurydice song from the Hades soundtrack because my friend sent me a post about Orpheus 

last movie: Wolfwalkers!!!!!! It was so beautiful and charming. I recommend every movie Cartoon Saloon puts out this one included!

last show: some netflix competition show about glassblowing, as background noise while working. I’ve watched a lot of that sort of thing lately because I’ve been too busy to really devote my attention to anything :(

when did you create this blog: hm, I don’t actually know how to look that up. Sometime in 2016 after I’d been obsessed with DA:I for a while and decided it was enough content to merit its own sideblog off my main account. I would guess maybe March? 

what do I post: most of my Bioware reblogs go over here now, both Dragon Age and Mass Effect :) plus my original fanric, fanart, and bioware-themed crafting! Also some general writing advice/memes/etc since this is the account I interact with more fanwriters through. My non-fandom art, writing, and crafts go onto my main blog, @songofsaraneth!

last thing googled: “kinds of fruit spiky” becuase I was trying to remember the name of a new weird fruit I have eaten. My 2021 resolution is a continuation of my 2020 resolution, which is to eat more strange fruits! As in if I go to the grocery store, and there is a fruit for sale I have never tried before or not eaten in a long time, I buy one and sample it :) The fruit in question for this googling btw was “rambutan”! It was good, pretty sweet and sort of like a juicy gummy in texture. 

do I get asks: every now and then I get a fit of inspiration and reblog a bunch of prompt lists in a row, and then when people actually send them and I look in my inbox, I go “Hmmmm” and vanish for a week becuase writing is hard. so sorry if you have ever sent me a prompt, i promise you i made a word document with the prompt copied and pasted into it before i got moody and went out for a hike instead. No one wants to know what the inside of my WIP folder looks like...

why I chose my url: I was just desperately searching for any DA/Solas related url that wasn’t already claimed, at the height of the DAI fandom heyday. I’m sure many are free now.

following: 503... and so many dead

followers: 648 it looks like

average hours of sleep: depends on how early I have to be awake the following day. If I have no obligations I’ll sleep for ~7 hours or so. But if I do then usually less since I’m fairly nocturnal and it’s really hard for me to fall asleep. I’d guess 5-7 on average, but sometimes with bad nights of only 3-4.

instruments: I spent the last several years learning Taiko Drumming from an amazing group of older women in the town I lived in. I was heartbroken to move and no longer be able to drum last summer. I could still practice on my own just with the motions/no drum, but losing the group energy element of it really makes me too sad to do so. I also grew up playing classical flute from grade school through the start of college, and once in college transitioned a bit to tin whistle instead. I’ve collected a variety of flutes/whistles/piccolos over the years in different styles but am not good about playing them on my own.

dream job: literal dragon, but i’d settle for mermaid astronaut

dream trip: I’ve been recently obsessed with Greenland. Also, anywhere tropical. 

last book I read: I’m currently almost done with of A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

favorite food: cheese... like a really nice charcuterie board with a nice variety of cheeses + cured meats + jams + fruit + crackers. though Charis’ answer for this was homemade pizza and oh boy am I craving that now

nationality: All 4 of my grandparents were 1st generation americans! So I’m a mix of Lithuanian, Irish, Italian, and the other 1/4 is a German/Belgian/European mystery 

favorite song: gosh so many. I’ve recently been in a country/country-gothic/folk/folk-rock mood because of a D&D game I’m a part of, so here’s a link to the playlist for my character that fits that vibe

top three fictional universes: hmmm i’m going to go with besides the obvious DA/ME universes (which I love to play in even if i wouldn’t want to live in them)... so I’ll pick Middle Earth, Star Trek, and Animorphs :)

i will tag: @nug-juggler  @raposabranca  @thebookworm0001  @m-m-m-myysurana ohhhhhh thats all my brain will give me off the top of my head right now but everyone feel free to play along & tag me :)

[coraxaviary]

Sister-in-Arms | CHAPTER 1: Toccoa, GA

(Part I, Run the Gauntlet)

Summary: June arrives at Camp Toccoa. 

Word Count: 5.8K 

AO3 | Masterlist | Next Chapter

Author’s Note: Welcome to my main fic. This is the start of a long journey. I am proud of this fic, and I hope you like it. If you have any questions, refer to my first post or shoot me a question. Once I get about five chapters out, I’ll start posting on AO3.

Warnings: None

Taglist: @keoghans​ @papercinders​ (ask to be added)

.

June Hazel Diedtrich stood at the depot in Toccoa, Georgia, wondering how she’d gotten there so soon.

Cars rushed by; buses passed and young men crowded the corners of the plaza, supply trucks being loaded and unloaded. More than a few men in uniform were about the area, their jackets and pants creased and tucked, berets cocked at a slight angle. The town was rushed, hot, and dusty, but bursting at the seams with a dynamic energy: the energy of hope, and dually the uncomfortable undercurrent of lingering expectation. 

Most of the men would eventually ship out. Maybe it would be months, or even years. But it was going to happen, and with combat came the unavoidable reality of pain and death that were the bounty of war. 

June gripped the handles of her suitcase tighter, eyeing the military men, most her age or only slightly older. They looked energetic and diligent. Spirits were high. And yet the feeling of a held breath remained.

Such was the nature of a nation at war. The Japanese had made sure of that.

June took a deep breath of the Southern air, the dry smell of red dust drifting from the ground. A few pigeons pecked errantly at the dirt, and some flock birds chittered overhead from rooftop to rooftop. A car horn honked; someone shouted in return. Boxes and crates knocked together.

She craned her head, looking for a taxi. She didn’t expect many: Toccoa was a sort of backwater area except for the military presence that brought in a lot of soldiers and trucked-in supplies. She’d have to wait for the bus.

Some other women milled about. June figured at least some of them might know the bus schedule, and she approached one woman dressed similarly to her – in a light cotton shirt and a knee-length skirt – and cleared her throat. 

“Excuse me, would you happen to know the bus schedule?” June asked, already feeling lost in the new environment. 

The other woman turned around. She was blonde, tall, and her red lips curved into a pleasant expression. 

“Sure. There’s a bus coming in a few minutes, heading out to the base,” she said with a mildly Southern twang. “Where are you headed?”

June exhaled, relieved that there was a bus. “I’m trying to get to the base, too.” 

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, um…” she trailed off. 

“June. June Diedtrich,” June supplied. 

“Nice to meet you, June. I’m Bea,” she responded cheerily. 

“Likewise,” June said, adjusting her sliding grip on her suitcase handle as her palms started to sweat in the hot Georgia air. 

“You know, it’s always nice to see a new face around here,” Bea said, smoothing down a piece of hair that had come free from its pin. “Sometimes it gets a little old seeing the same few people.” She glanced quickly at June, and added, “Working up at the base is nice and rewarding, because we’re helping the war effort. Never bad work, I’ll assure you.”

June breathed a brief laugh. “I’m sure it’s that way,” she said, not sure how to relate to the woman who most likely assumed June was there for secretary work. “Good all the same.”

“I wouldn’t want to scare you off on your first day,” Bea said. “Typing isn’t bad overall.”

June watched Bea’s face, careful not to encourage any new questions about her position. She was sure it was coming, though, and she prepared for how to answer inquiries about the place she was stationed. Bea was going to ask sooner or later. 

“Are you a typist?” Bea asked innocently, and June straightened, breathing deeply. 

“No, I’m not,” she said, not sure how to respond. “I’m not working in the office.”

Bea looked at her curiously. “Nurse? I didn’t take you for the nursing type, but I suppose we could take on more nurses. The men are always getting injured out there, God knows how.”

June looked at Bea, careful not to interrupt, trying to find a way to explain that no, she was not going to be a nurse. She was not going to shuttle papers, pound a typewriter, or drive jeeps – half of which women were rarely permitted to do. She would not be a WAC or a WASP or a WAVES woman or another ridiculous acronym, though God knew they were needed too.

Bea kept talking, and June took that as a good sign. 

“... last week, another one came in with a broken leg. And that was after he’d been denying that he needed to get it fixed, can you believe it? The nurses down at the aid station must get at least three sprained ankles a day, the way it would seem.” June understood then that Bea was an avid talker. “There ain’t much scrapping, between the boys, you know, but there are some mysterious injuries that the nurses gotta figure out. Gosh, how does a guy get all those bruises?” she finished, looking to June for some kind of acknowledgement. 

June coughed into her sleeve hollowly, to stall for time, and then got out a weak, “I wouldn’t know.” Which wasn’t exactly true because James taught her to sock a guy in the eye – and knee a guy in the balls – but June didn’t know a broken arm from a dislocated elbow. “I’m not a nurse,” she said.

“Oh, then where are you? Do you drive?” Bea asked, clearly confused. “Have you not been assigned yet? Because then I’d think you’d just be a typist like me,” she said nonchalantly. She picked a fold out of her skirt and let it fall back against her legs. “Do you know yet?” she asked, blue eyes searching June’s face.

“I’m―” June started, when the bus pulled in, in front of the depot. She glanced at Bea. “It’s complicated.”

“I can handle complicated,” she said brightly. “My dad is a biology professor down at Emory.” The bus came and the women began filing inside one at a time. “I mean, he talks about very complicated things,” she said, connecting her anecdote to the conversation. “You can tell me once we’re seated.”

June stood in line with Bea, trying to come up with a way to explain. Despite her preparation for Toccoa, both mentally and physically, June somehow neglected to prepare a predetermined statement on why she was there. She’d glossed over it, probably assuming that she’d just be inducted into the barracks fairly quickly without much prelude. With the road to Toccoa looming in front of her, June was forced to reconsider how optimistic that thought had been. 

She moved through the bus silently, sitting down mutely beside Bea, and when all the women were on, the bus started to drive down the road. June felt more than a few curious looks to her, the newcomer. 

“Well,” June started. Bea looked at her expectantly. “It’s hard to explain,” she said, betraying a little frustration on her face. 

“Aw, honey, are you trying to get a job near a husband or something? I hadn’t pegged you for the already-married type, but with a face like that, I’d be married outta school too,” Bea said.

“I’m here to join the Army,” June said quietly. 

Bea looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry, girl, but the Women’s Army Corps doesn’t have much of a presence at camp, if that’s what you’re looking for.” Bea shifted, placing her bag on her lap. “You sure you’re in the right place?”

June pressed her lips together. “Mm, no. Not the WAC. The Army. The Paratroopers, to be exact.” The truth, she found, was best in some situations.

Bea squinted, trying to make sense of the statement. “You’re stationed with the Paratroopers? What, writing papers?” She half-laughed, expecting something out of June. 

June cringed internally. “No, I’m going to be billeted with the men, training. Basic training. At least, that’s the plan. After that, I’m trying to become a combat paratrooper.” It was hard for June to say at this point for some reason, but she pushed out the words with diligence, as if putting them out into the world for the first time would make them more true. Her future had never seemed more remote, though. She wished she could explain more, but the words didn't exist. It was a simple statement. “It’s the plan,” she ended, not knowing what else to say. One shoulder lifted in a shrug.

Bea blinked at her, and leaned back in her seat with eyebrows knitted together for a few long seconds. 

June looked concernedly at Bea, trying to gauge her reaction. Damn, if everyone reacted this way, June was going to have a hard year. Even worse, June realized, if she had this hard of a time telling people why she was here, it would be even harder than she expected. 

Pale grass blurred under the blue sky outside the windows. Sparse fences passed by, and then the rare supply truck or car. A tree appeared every moment or two, and June watched it all flow together after some time trying to clamp onto the image of the clouds or the birds. It was better to just watch from afar and see the colors blend.

“So, you want to do a man’s job?” Bea said slowly. 

June nodded.

Bea failed to say something multiple times, starting and stopping before settling on a phrase. “Why?” she got out. 

June saw confusion in Bea’s eyes. She searched for judgement, but there was none yet, mercifully so. 

“I want to make something of myself.”

That was what June’s father and younger brother had said when she was admitted into West Point. She was making something of herself, they’d said, and June took the phrase to heart. She was doing it alone, herself, and for her only. It turned into a mantra. She’d made something of herself yet: a girl from an apartment above a small grocery, smack-dab in the middle of the middle class, vying for a spot among the political and the academia. This time, she was aiming for a spot that many men didn’t even achieve. The paratroopers had one of the highest wash-out rates in the nation. She’d make it, just like she made it to West Point and out in three years. She’d do it, and make something of herself.

She’d do it, and maybe die trying.

Bea shifted somewhat uncomfortably, fiddling with her hands in her lap. June looked out the window, not as fidgety as before she’d explained, but still pulling at her fingers incessantly. 

“Why didn’t you want to be a WAC? It’s safer. As a woman, you know, you should be doing more appropriate things. The men fight. And we do our own fighting away from the front lines, but it’s just not holding a gun.” Bea’s voice was starting to rise in indignation.

June looked down, then decided to straighten and face Bea. This was June’s decision, and it had been approved by the military. She was going regardless of what Bea thought.

“How is this even possible?” spluttered Bea, in disbelief. “Who let you? And why do you feel the need to–to do something like this?”

June sighed, fearing the reaction. “I sent correspondences to the military base and some other branches. I got support from my local politicians. I suppose the West Point degree didn’t hurt,” she said, trying for some levity. 

Bea still looked concerned and scandalized. “West Point? You don’t mean–” Bea looked intently at June’s face. “You don’t mean you’re one of them?”

“The graduates this year?” June offered, neutrally.

Bea nodded, eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, I graduated with the class of ‘42. This month of June, actually.”

Bea wore the same expression on her face, half confused and half dismayed. June told herself that minds changed slowly. People like Bea were in the majority. Most Americans found any challenge to their status-quo unbearable. She was just like June’s mother when she’d been admitted.

And because Mom was against it, so was Sharon.

June had a very distinct memory of Sharon trying to talk her out of it.

“Mom doesn’t like it, you know,” she’d said, a frown on her face. “She says it’s ridiculous. Just go to University of California or something. You wouldn’t even have to go that far.” 

June told herself that she’d consider Cal. Her family had even visited – many of the young people from their area went there and it seemed like a natural progression for a girl like June. She didn’t like it – not because of the area or the attitude emanating from the school, but because for some reason, she’d already had her heart set on West Point. Assuming she got in. 

When June left for West Point, Mom cried and Sharon grudgingly gave her a hug. She left with a pit in her stomach. Leaving for Toccoa had created a similar reaction. 

“Stay safe,” her mother had said, probably hoping Toccoa would refuse June from the start, despite their promise in the letter to consider June’s military-style education. Sharon probably thought June would wash out. It was an elite division with high drop-out rates, after all. Paratroopers.

Paratroopers. The word was unfamiliar and sounded wrong. She figured the concept of dropping from the sky was in itself, wrong. Humans had figured out how to fly close to the sun and now they were falling voluntarily, too. 

June wasn’t really sure she could do it. This wasn’t West Point, where intellectual and memorization skills could supplement your success if your other scores were lacking. This was the Army. It was physical. It was about survival and combat. She couldn’t just be there, passive, and study at night to play catch-up. She had to take her future into her own hands, once again. 

It didn’t matter if she thought she could do it. It only mattered if she did it. 

And here she was, having a hard time explaining her situation to an amateur typist, God forbid her struggle when she got up to base.

June checked her watch. They were going to get there soon. 

Bea looked into June’s eyes suddenly. “I knew I saw you somewhere else. The newspapers…” she muttered, looking as if she didn’t know what else to say despite being full of questions. 

“I know it would be a lot less audacious of me to just stay on the home front.” June said, waiting for the storm. “That’s what people have already told me. You wouldn’t be the first.”

Bea furrowed her eyebrows again, taking in the grass and trees out the window. “No,” she said quietly, suddenly uncharacteristic. “No, I won’t say that.” She sat in silence for a while, and something came up on the horizon: a peaked hill, poking up from the trees and bushes, ringed with clouds and sitting against a blue sky. “Times are changing,” she said, shifting to look once again back at June. “You seem like a nice girl. I don’t think you’ll make it. You’ll drop out in a week or two, tops,” she said, shrugging, then paused. “But in the instance that you somehow make it, you’ll have done a great thing, female or not.”

June didn’t know what to say. No one had said anything like that to her. Be it with wonder or disgust, people who knew her story would always look at her with a sort of alien strangeness.

The bus was entering the base, and gates loomed in front of them. Wooden structures started to appear along the path, and men became more and more common along the path. The bus finally broke through the fading trees and the base was spread out before them: half paved, half dirt, with wood and brush and trucks everywhere. And the sheer volume of young men, all in uniform, all making their way to a specific destination. Each soldier here was here to train. 

June intended to become just like the men.

She’d almost forgotten about Bea beside her, and there was a brief touch on June’s hand as Bea got up to walk towards the front of the bus. 

“Wait,” June said. Bea turned around, expression unreadable. June couldn’t figure out whether Bea had concluded that she disliked her, but it didn’t matter. “I’ll see you,” she decided to say, the statement impersonal but not too remote, because in the back of her mind, June genuinely hoped she’d see Bea around base. She’d soon have no friends and have to start all over.

Bea gave her a half-smile. “You’ll know where to find me.”

And with that, June was the last woman on the bus. She made her way out in a daze, memorizing the leather of the seats with her fingers as she stepped out into the hot sun, the sounds of the base flowing over her. 

June stared up at the sky, trying to gather her thoughts. She was here to be like the other men. A girl named June couldn’t make this trip to the finish, unscathed. But maybe a soldier named Diedtrich could. 

She was here to fight, to learn to kill the enemy – to advance the mission of democracy throughout the quickly darkening age. The task of the U.S. Army was something huge and something glorious. 

If June’s nation was embarking on the greatest mission of faith and attrition on God’s good world, she wanted in. She wanted in, bad.

And here she was, with the hardest part far ahead.

♤

She found herself gawking at the place. The other women scattered quickly after leaving the bus, reporting for their jobs in various directions. June was left standing in the dust, taking in the huge hill rising above the camp, drowning in blue sky and flanked by hastily built wooden buildings.

A few groups of men – platoons – jogged past, running around the base. The pop-bang of rifle fire drifted distantly from somewhere to June’s north. Some yelling voices floated over the din of engines and footsteps.

A man came walking briskly out from a corner of one of the offices, in his service greens. He immediately spotted June and made a beeline towards her, dodging a passing truck. He came closer, and June noted the triple chevron on his shoulder and kept a smile to herself, preparation already paying off. Sergeant, she thought. He was dark blonde, of medium build, and tall. As he arrived in front of her, he slowed.

“Sergeant John Coates,” he said, extending a hand to her. June took it and gave a firm handshake. 

After a moment of indecision, June decided in a beat to introduce herself the civilian way. “June Diedtrich, sir,” she said with a smile. 

He nodded, already leaning around to take June’s suitcase. She pulled away. “That’s not necessary, but thank you,” she said hastily.

“Alright,” he said brightly, not looking put off. “I’m going to take you to Colonel Sink.” He turned away, starting up a cement path pointing away from the road.

June hauled her suitcase along, switching hands, and followed quickly after the Sergeant. Her heels clacked noticeably against the ground as she picked up speed in comparison to Coates’s boots. They were jump boots: the pride of parachutists and the envy of non-paratrooper infantrymen. June tore her eyes from Coates’s uniform when he spoke, suddenly aware that she was staring.

“So, you’re here to join the Army,” Coates commented, from a few paces ahead. June blinked in surprise. She figured no one would know other than Sink and some upper-division ranking officers. There was no way to tell, except for her suitcase, which wasn’t really an obvious indicator in itself. 

“Yes, I am, sir,” June said. 

“Interesting thing, a woman wanting to fight and all,” he said, voice curiously devoid of judgement. People always had to comment on the idea, and June expected nothing less of Coates, even if he seemed courteous at first glance.

“I think so, sir,” she responded cautiously, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It always did. People always had something to say about her outlandish ideas.

The two were passed by another jogging platoon in silence. June felt the weight of their curious stares, probably sizing her up as another new nurse or secretary to try and take out to the movies. 

More buildings passed. June looked out over the field to her right, a large expanse of flat green grass, which had a primitive track lining the perimeter, and forest beyond that, fading into a gradient of thin trees and ground cover. There were rows upon rows of barracks between her and the field – wooden row houses, long and narrow with square windows and thin walls. Some of them were covered with tarp fittings over the roofs and sides. June thought of winter in those poorly-insulated boxes and wondered how the men stayed warm. 

“Look,  I just want to tell you one thing before you go in,” Coates said suddenly, rounding a corner and facing her. June straightened again. “Colonel Sink may have let you in, but he’s not a nice man,” Coates said, looking slightly down at June, who was a good deal shorter. His tone was not harsh, but it seemed to be genuinely honest. “You’re here for a unique reason. I know that you are aware you will have to prove yourself more than any other man here.”

June looked seriously at him. “I know, sir. You have no idea how well I know.” She immediately reconsidered her statement. Was it too disrespectful? She searched his face. He didn’t look particularly upset. She told herself not to push it.

He nodded, looking at her sidelong without malice. “You will know if you didn’t before,” he said lowly. “I don’t envy your position, Private.”

June looked up, startled. This was the first time she’d been acknowledged as a military person, let alone a hopeful. 

Private Diedtrich. She would have smiled to herself if not for a wave of overwhelming nervousness as she looked at the door that would lead to Sink. Coates broke eye contact and rose back up to full height. 

“Colonel Sink is in here,” he said, holding open a door and following June into the building. 

Inside, the air was cooler, but still warm. A narrow hallway led down the building to the left, and office doors – some shut, some open – punctuated the wood wall every few feet. June stepped aside to let Coates pass, and she followed him down the corridor to the last door on the right. Coates knocked. 

“Come in,” a voice drifted out from the room. Coates nudged open the door and held it open for June, who slipped past him into Colonel Sink’s office.

The office was filled with light from the window behind Sink, who rose from his chair at the sight of June entering the office. June heard the shift of fabric behind her as Coates stood at attention, and after another brief moment of panicked debate, she too snapped her heels together and raised her right arm in salute, feeling a little strange doing it in her civilian clothing: skirt, lipstick, pin curls, and all.

The Colonel looked at June for a few seconds with an unreadable look, then back at Coates. 

“As you were,” he said in a strong, slightly nasal voice. He had gray hair and a composed mannerism. 

June heard Coates’s uniform shift again, and a half-second later, she relaxed her arm, not wanting to be found incompetent. She was feeling out-of-place already. Knowing how to salute and drill and address officers in the book was different than when the Colonel of Camp Toccoa was standing right in front of her. 

Would he offer his hand for shaking? Was she supposed to take it and shake once or twice? Thankfully, Sink didn’t offer a handshake, but instead dismissed Coates with a brief wave. 

“Sergeant Coates, please wait outside,” he said, and then turning to June, he pointed to a chair in front of the desk. “Have a seat, young lady,” he said, and June obediently pulled out the chair and sat down, setting her suitcase down next to her. The thought that Sink hadn’t called her Private briefly flashed through her mind, but June’s thoughts were so jumbled that she pushed the useless observation out of her mind and tried to breathe deeply to calm down her rapidly beating heart.

Sink sat down in his chair across from June and folded his hands, looking at her, the beams of noontime sun slatting through the blinds in the window and giving Sink a backlit glow. June met his eyes straight on, challenging him to make any assumptions before he talked to her first. 

This was the man to impress. If anyone, it was Sink. He could throw her out of the camp right then if he wanted to. June was no Congressman’s daughter, no relative of a high-ranking official. Sink had the right to deny her requests immediately without repercussions, and they both knew. 

Yet Sink had been the one  – the only one – to answer June’s request, asking her to come on base to begin training that September. That had to mean he had some sort of hope for her when the others didn’t. It had to. Right?

Sink’s letter promised her a shot. It might have been a shot in the dark, but June took it.

“June Diedtrich. We finally meet,” Sink said, leaning back in his chair. 

June nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said steadily. Sink laughed, probably at her stiffness, or maybe at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. 

“Well, let’s get into it,” he said with an air of business, turning to a few papers on his desk and laying one on top of another. He had a particular habit of enunciating syllables and drawing them out in a Carolina accent. It reminded June of her grandfather, though she wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to make that comparison.

“In your letter you stated that you specifically wanted to join the Army. Not the WACs, or other female divisions,” Sink said, looking fleetingly at the mentioned letter and back at June. “You do realize how strange and frankly abstract an idea like this is, June?”

June kept her face stoic, but she felt a cold flash of nervousness. “Yes, sir.”

Sink scanned the rest of the letter and put it back down. “Your request has been approved by the top brass, as you already know,” he said, drumming a finger on the table and leaning back once more. “This is something that has never happened. Not once in the history of the United States Armed Forces has a female actually entered front-line combat,” Sink said with an air of finality.

She nodded, not knowing what else to say. A growing fearful anticipation of rejection grew in her mind, and she shifted in the chair uncomfortably. She reasoned with herself: why would Sink kick her out now? She’d taken a train all the way from California to get here. Sink seemed to be a man of practicality. She told herself she was being ridiculous by having anything to fear, but her own voice of logic was drowned out by anxiety.

Their correspondence had been constant, but June still knew nothing was ever concrete with such a tenuous plan relying on scant approval. Was Sink preparing to drop her right here and now? Was that why he’d kept Coates outside the office, so she could be driven back into town? June’s heart sank, even though she knew in her mind that she’d been approved to this position. 

“You’re a high school valedictorian, West Point graduate, and women’s distance running champion. You have political contacts all over the country in top positions, a secure home in San Francisco, and job prospects open everywhere because of your degree. You’re smart. You’re also a woman. You have the option,” Sink said, clearing his throat and leaning forward, “of completely ignoring the war as someone who will not be affected by any possible future drafts. In fact, there will be more jobs for you when men start draining out of the country by the millions.”

June watched his face, trying to follow his logic. 

“So, when I ask this, answer me honestly, because I want to know,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Bea had asked June the same thing on the bus but curiously, it seemed different when the words were coming from the mouth of a distinguished Colonel, sitting here with June’s fate in his hands. She twisted a finger in her lap and stopped herself, knowing Sink could see.

“You could be in danger if you wanted, Diedtrich,” Sink said. “You could fly a plane. You could make yourself useful by manufacturing artillery shells.” He snorted. “Hell, you could even haul ass to Europe and do some fighting yourself without being–” he waved an arm around, one side of his mouth lifting below his moustache in a scowl, “restricted by the organization of the U.S. Army. God knows we haven’t been as welcoming as some Holland revolutionaries could be on the other side of the world.”

June pressed her lips together, thinking. “I’m not bilingual, sir,” she started, and Sink laughed for a moment, his stony exterior breaking for just that second. “I don’t have a pilot's license. I don’t want to work in a factory, sir,” she forged on, wondering if her use of sir was too frequent. No matter – it was better to sprinkle in too many than too few. “I feel love for my country, this great nation I was born into. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. And if I am daring enough to count myself to be among the free and the brave, then I intend to take up arms and fight for it too.” 

Colonel Sink had asked why. Why was she here? She paused just for a few seconds. 

“And if not for Europe or the free people of the Pacific, I want to fight for my country. The United States of America.”

Sink looked down at the papers without reading them, up at the ceiling, and then back at June, exhaling. Then he nodded. “That’s exactly why every other man is here,” he said. “I’m glad you feel so strongly about our country. But I’ll ask you this.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Are you prepared to watch your comrades die? To have the cloud of death and blood all around you as you pack yourself into trenches, waiting for the artillery to tear some poor boy’s arm off? To be hit by the blood and guts of the man next to you, deafened by gunfire and blinded by flares?”

June swallowed, trying to picture the carnage, knowing it was a reality that was all too near, men torn limb from limb just across the sea.

“The taste of ash and metal doesn’t leave your mouth. And if you yourself get hit in battle, sometimes it’s a mercy to not have to watch your brothers bleed out in front of you or get their helmet shot through with some German machine gun,” Sink concluded. “If you ever get through the training and somehow make it into battle, can your female mind and soul bear it?”

June stared into the distance, trying to imagine it – a familiar mental choreography she’d replayed again and again for months, trying to picture the mud and screams and rivers of red. She’d watched war films when she could, but she had a premonition the worst was never shown. She’d known veterans from the Great War, hollow and haggard, missing limbs or parts of their skin or sections of their face. Burns. Amputations. Bullet wounds. Broken arms that never healed. Big scars that were never named, but pointed to some greater wound inside their soul. Empty eyes.

June hoped she’d never get to that point. Empty-eyed was the worst that you could become.

“I know it, sir,” June said, knowing it was a woeful lie. “In the event that I am eventually deployed overseas, I am prepared for it.”

Sink grimaced. “You will never be prepared. You do not know. But I have faith that you are willing to learn what it takes to become a brother-in-arms.” He paused. “Sister-in-arms.”

June nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You are not one of them yet,” Sink said, pointing over his shoulder into the window, framing a scene of men doing drills, running, and standing at attention. “You may never be one of them. You have to make them understand, Diedtrich. You must make them. No one else will do it for you.” A brief shake of his head. “But the battle for now is not to make friends. You will earn their respect by your actions, your fortitude, and your resilience, something each man must do. And now you are a woman attempting the same thing. If they accept you,” he said, “and that is a big if, you will do it by surviving Toccoa. There is no shortcut. You either shape up or wash out, same as the others, West Point degree be damned.”

June’s eyes narrowed slightly, hating that her degree was probably going to be held over her the whole time she was here, if she lasted longer than a few days. She hated being told about her own education, because she was reminded of how she’d been given exceptions that made her class graduate in three short years. 

If she ever earned something, it would be her place in the Paratroopers.

“I cannot stress this enough, Diedtrich,” Sink said. “You must earn this. The Army men will not be easily convinced of your competence unless you demonstrate it.”

June nodded firmly, face hardening. “I will try my best, sir.”

Colonel Sink looked as if he was going to try to say something else, but then decided against it. “Well, Private Diedtrich, I wish you the best, but that’s all I can do. Welcome to U.S. Army training,” he said, rising from his chair. “The Basic Training exam is in a few weeks. I’ll see you then.”

June stood up quickly too, and Sink offered a hand for a shake. June gave him her firmest handshake, and Sink nodded at her. 

“Survive this, and you make history,” Sink said, face serious.

June felt the unsaid implication hang in the air. 

Fail, and you’re just another drop-out.

June didn’t intend to fail. She’d weather this, just like she had weathered her other obstacles. This time, the obstacle was called Toccoa. And maybe – just maybe – she’d eventually face down the forces of Europe.

.

[bisluthq]

no i think u were right ab the tiktok stuff tbf. like theres nothing wrong w using that app but the people in her age group are normally making different content. like humour, or educational stuff, like there's soo many people making really niche interesting stuff. its only really teens that do the dances. and a lot of her model friends don't use it. off the top of my head i know bella uses it but gen z worship her so like its smart for her to have it you know?

I mean a bunch of people made them in quarantine because they got bored but most people gave them up. Gisele’s are bad but they’re not cringe they’re just a big question mark and the answer is probably because... she was bored in quarantine. And even people who could do okay on it because they’re hilarious - eg Chrissy - have generally avoided. It’s just not necessary and can go too easily haywire.

You could also make like a private one or whatever a finsta TikTok is called if you wanna make them for friends. If you make a verified one it’s for likes/engagement. And likeeee Karlie is never gonna meaningfully appeal to Gen Z, I’m sorry, beyond being like a cool big sister/auntie with the KWK stuff and TikTok isn’t reaaaally the place for that (tho like you say she could try carve out a niche for it on educational TikTok). She’s not fun or funny or hip enough. That’s not me being shady lmao like I always say to you guys even if you’re not a celeb you should know your platform and market and lane tbh. Like you can’t just use every kind of social and expect results. It’s a really basic mistake celebs and businesses and like aspiring influencers lmao make tbh like they assume more is better but often more is just... more. So Kar gets every platform and floods them all with streams of content but the result is I don’t think anyone’s totally sure what she’s aiming for? Her branded stuff is generally on the decent side but I think coz they don’t write that in-house, her lifestyle content could be better but it’s okay, her personal stuff is a fucking cringefest because it just completely misses who she is and it’s stuck at like 22/23. Like her “23 things I learned in 23 years” and her “27 things I learned in 27 years” are basically the same video and they... shouldn’t be. Maybe “right where you left me” is about Kar’s socials strategy 🙄

She needs to figure out who she’s targeting (I’d assume trendy centrist/lip-service liberal upper middle class and upwardly mobile/aspiring upwardly mobile millennial women) and for what purpose (I’d say to encourage women in STEM and sport and to sell products accordingly, maybe also mommy content after Bébé Kushner is born). She needs to remind herself she’s a pregnant older millennial married to a shady billionaire who is, himself, pushing 40. TikTok dances just isn’t where it’s at.

[wo-wann-was-wer]

WHAT I WAS THINKING: DARK SEASON 3 EDITION

EPISODE 1:

Who are these dudes with the harelip and what do they want

Why did she just take him to a cave and leave that’s kinda rude

So everything in this universe is just gonna be backwards. Love it

Ugh I’ve said this a million times but this show has such Fringe energy and I can’t wait to get a tattoo for this too

This is super freaking me out, i dont like that everyone’s in everyone else’s house.

Ooooh Katharina with glasses yes girl you better work.

I like Michael and this hat he’s rocking

Super into the fact that magnus and fransizka are involved in this universe too

There’s nothing cuter than sex before school. Ahhh the nostalgia

Ten bucks says that Hannah gets out of this bed and is pregnant

Fucking YEP

I am loving Martha in this Jonas journey

I know that all they did was flip the lens of the camera but my brain is breaking at this flipped Winden

Who the fuck is this random dude Martha is with

You know what he kind of looks like Jonas. I wonder if that's relevant or if I'm just grasping at straws

Bartosz looks like he's going to his first grade violin recital

I straight up just did not recognize Charlotte with makeup. She looks hot

There's got to be another person in that picture other than Ulrich because that's a lot of space to rip out for one person

okay hold up Woller looks so good and then when I saw that he was missing an arm I almost lost my fucking mind

Oh shit okay Hannah is living in Katharina's house.

Oh my God are Ulrich and Charlotte having an affair

Is it normal in Germany for kids to just walk into classes that aren't there’s and just sit down

follow up he has a clear noose mark on his neck

Aleksander looks so hot with this beard. universe B is the fucking glow up universe

It's weirding me out that the whole school is black and gray instead of light brown

The look of satisfaction on katharina's face

Wow honestly Louis just broke my heart with his facial expression when he realized his mom didn't know who he was

he looks so scared

Yes yes do it afffffffffair

Oh no you done got found out!!!

Oh the theme of the play here is red and set of gold

Fransizka looks so cute in this little outfit

Oh my God she's deaf!!!!

What the fuck. the fact that this actress can talk is blowing my mind

RIP to Regina a real queen

Peter's a fucking priest

All the fucking weird-ass freaky motherfucking trio is back

The dopplers have the same house That's cool

excuse me sir I think your child is broken

these guys are so creepy What the fuck

I definitely don't like the piano wire

oh this motherfucker is the one who gets lost

I feel like winden in this universe is just a little bit fancier

Well Charlotte and Ulrich just be fucking like crazy

Bartosz is the Jonas of this group and I love it

who was that??????

I cannot get over Aleksander in this beard

I like that things are opposite but they also have things that are different enough.

Like I'm so into the fact that they all went down into the bunker

who in the unholy fuck is that. who is that

Oh shit old Martha

What the fuck is this Tannhaus’ factory we're at

hold up Martha's in 1888

What the fuck. why is Jonas in 1888 and looking SO good

EPISODE 2:

casually sitting over your bed watching you sleep

he's look so good though

yo what the fuck everybody else is there too

Oh no things got really ugly at Mads’ wake

Not for nothing but Tronte is a dick

I kind of don't understand why Claudia would want Regina to live in such pain in this type of universe

Peter is such a good boy

lurking is the freaking national past time of this place

Oh shit we got some spin-off timeline stuff good

who is This is blind guy

I love Katharina so fucking much

I know what she's thinking and it's the same thing I'm thinking which is can I kill a child

why does this picture of Tronte make him look like Jimmy Smits

Katharina looks amazing in this jacket

Also I definitely did not just start yelling GO GET YOUR MAN KATHARINA

Regina just gets more and more badass as time goes on. Also all of the women of the tiedemann family are so fucking badass

I am so excited to watch this fucking relationship develop. they're both too cute

awwww he's using signs!

oh they're writing back and forth

DAMNIT PETER

I always feel like little Noah should do fuckboy sign offs when he leaves rooms because he's so smooth

yesterday Laurel said that this was back to the future but serious and just now Bartosz said it's not super easy to get nuclear fuel in 1888 and now I think that Laurel's right

I will never get over how good he looks JONAAAASSSSSSS

This guy feels like the OG inventor of sic mundus right

Katerina why are you even trying to check in at the front desk bitch Go and get your man

Is this Katarina's mom why does she just recognize that woman's name

everyone on the show is so talented.I spend the whole damn time being like oh my god the performances on the show and it's like yeah we know

Katerina get your man

I literally love them so much look at the look on her face She is a mama bear She is not going to let anybody take her man or her children and I love her

Not a huge fan of people who quote Shakespeare right before they kill other people or am I an enormous fan of people who use Shakespeare right before they kill other people

using a garotte to kill someone is ugly as fuck

I feel so bad for Jana

see this is one of the reasons why I'm like why would you bring Regina back to this world.

wowwwww TRONTE what's up dude

YO WHAT

Oh so how did Charlotte get back there but Elizabeth's still there too. didn't they switch places?

oh the head bump

Not excited for the mother daughter abuse stuff that's about to happen

I love these split sequences that they do at the end

anytime somebody stands and stairs for a lonely at a spot on the ground I assume to somebody died there

Oh shit that guy is a tannhausokkkk I see you

a religious images we love to see it.

This show is a whole series of pause that frame.

No I ruined something for myself!!!!

EPISODE 3

got to love those through and through Ariadne references

okay so Charlotte's great great grandfather has her watch?

who are these horrible traveler human beings

they look like less sexy Francis dolarhydes

I can't get over the fact that wollers missing an arm here I swear

we ARE the glitch BITCH

alternate universe Ulrich is a better person than standard Ulrich

what's this new like zoom-y thing they're doing

I was attracted to Magnus at this jump of the show but he looks better with dark hair

How did they not all die of fucking flu

eternally repeating deja vu

I looked at the production stills and I was like what the fuck is this hair do that Moritz has but he looks amazing

Also everyone on this show deserves an acting award

and Magnus is wearing a skeleton sweater

Hannah does that deep dive detective work any bitch knows the Nose doesn't lie

why doesn't anybody want to fuck wöller

omgggg eat the RICH

also he has that x tattoo on his hand that represents the no future thing

oh the light is rectangular and not circular ooooooh fancy

The show is also a lot of people catching each other's wrists as they walk away

I knew we couldn't trust this bitch

What did he give her

I love the parallels and characters behaviors between universe a and universe b

I want to know how Noah factored into all of this on this side

Martha has a type and her type is iconically Aryan

Oh Aleksander's back with that beard he's back

Hannah is such a snake

Omg that's her!!!!! I thought she was a trans actress.. hm. not super happy bout that :/

What is Helge talking about Ulrich did what??? omg

I would be like SIR DO WE NEED TO FIGHT STOP FOLLOWING ME

I stopped taking notes for the last half of that episode cuz I was really sucked in haha

EPISODE 4

FIRST OF ALL I'D LIKE TO GO ON RECORD THAT I DON'T CARE FOR THESE GENTLEMEN AT ALL

second of all why is this guy being like oh I took your name

why does he have Agnes's bracelet I don't like that

I don't like anything about this guy That's the end of the story

Also hold up a red hot second is Agnes dead cuz if so that's a hate crime

see what did I say

I knew that Hannah was going to get involved with Egon

from the second she walked in that office I was like that bitch has her eye on him and as she should he's handsome as fuck

Also he spoils her so much more than any other man she's ever been with AKA is Egon the only man she ever deserved

Is Hannah going to develop a heart cuz I'm not sure how I feel about that

Also what happens if Hannah gets pregnant

why is Ines a bitch I thought she was mad cool the beginning and now I feel fucking deceived

Also it's such a sweet gig that The kids who are playing kids can now play teenagers

poor Doris. Also he was shitty to her but he was far nicer than I would have been

Doris is so beautiful it's bullshit

older Magnus is so handsome

All I wanted was middle-aged Martha

bitch you have been having unprotected sex with him why do you think that pregnancy was not on the tabl

I'm like who's this guy in the church if it's not Noah I bet it's that little bitch

yeah I fucking knew it

Is this the dude that was married to Agnes I feel like this guy isn't real or something

I'm not surprised he let her go but I don't know why I'm not surprised. I feel like she's important to his timeline and I'm not sure why

look at these relationships forming between these sweet little bab

Hannah looks good in this red. Hannah looks good in all of these styles. 

who is this child

I like that already as a child Bernd had his eye on Claudia as someone who was smart and had a ton of potential

 I keep forgetting that I'm taking notes because I get so invested in episodes

Also I realize the zoomi thing which is going back and forth between the universes

Is Agnes Silja’s mom And if so with whom 

he gave her Agnes’ bracelet that dope All right Tronte

Wow Claudia needs to back off her man

Claudia force him into a relationship with her

I fucking hate Hannah but sometimes she speaks so much sense

ooh I don't need anyone Yes girl that's true You don't need anyone You needing people was what made you act fucking crazy You don't need anybody

This was always my big problem with Hannah was that I initially identified with her because she was such a survivor but then she did such horrible reprehensible things I just couldn't let it go and I absolutely couldn't identify with her anymore

Oh here's my daddy Noah looking so good

I mean okay so I have been in this position before where I was cheating and then my man cheated on me and I was like how dare you but also you cannot be mad if your partner cheats on you when you cheated too. You both fucked up

Is Hannah going to have a redemption arc cuz that's a lot

Oh my God she's not going to get rid of this child is she

Oh my great God I cannot believe that she gave Helene that necklace. 

I knew she was fucking connected to Katharina in the older generation I knew it

Louis and Lisa are a super cute couple and I know that they're not dating in real life but I think that they're very cute together

Oh everybody fucking

yeah they created the Apocalypse yeah

Oh no they have a child outside of worlds that's a mess How does that work so they had they gave birth to that ugly fuck

honestly I hate that he's their child for the most part just because he's ugly as fuck and neither of them are ugly as fuck so it makes me mad.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Arcanum || Morgan & Mercy

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @cryxmercy & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Mercy and Morgan go witch hunting.

CONTAINS: Mild gore, blood poisoning

Morgan gave Mercy the details as soon as she realized the truth and before long they had everything they needed on her whereabouts. Jo Muscgraves was staying at the Haven Hotel, but of course that wasn’t satisfactory for the kind of butchery she’d been up to. So naturally she had rented out a storage unit for the month too. Under a freaking anagram, no less, like no one had ever heard of those before or would think twice about seeing Grace J Mussov on a list if they went looking. What kind of person thought a storage unit was really the place for doing whatever bullshit magic she was after? The backlash from any experiments were bound to affect anyone in the units nearby and potentially destroy anything unlucky enough to involve the wrong elements.

Morgan didn’t want to bother with knocking on her hotel door and playing nice. She wanted to go straight to the source and put an end to it all. She was taking the bolt cutters out of her bag when she realized the unit was already open. Her body went stiff with dread. This was what she wanted, she reminded herself. This was what Coraline deserved. Morgan exchanged a look with Mercy, trying to draw on some of her strength. The PI was a valkyrie, a fighter with more experience than anyone else she knew. And Morgan could still work her own will in the world, magic or not. She had to. “I’ll do the honors,” she muttered, giving Mercy an uneasy look.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but white light and storage jars hadn’t been on her list. Jo had amassed more than your average witch’s cupboard. Along either wall that stretched deep into the storage complex were jars of herbs, flaked or ground rock, bottled elements in easy to work with states, and shelves of what must have been past experiments. Hybrid plants bowed and purpling with strain as they tried to grow in their new spliced state. Teeth from wolves and vampires thinned and warped into weapons or fused into impossible shapes Morgan could only imagine to be impossible. A pair of wings hung over the worktable at the end of the room, and on the surface itself, lit even brighter by a lamp, were the missing pieces of Coralaine’s body, most in jars ready to be worked with, but her scales were already fused with a piece of cotton, flaking and shriveled. Jo was in the middle of the room, wrestling with Marina Adams, Coraline’s older sister. Both women turned their heads at the sound of intruders. Morgan froze. Killing a witch was one thing; freeing a captive fae was another.

The strong preyed on the weak. That was the way of the world. Always had been. Always would be. It was the natural order. Be stronger than what wants to kill you... or die. Mercy knew this better than most. But she also knew that the laws of nature, the laws that most creatures that inhabited this world obeyed because they had no reason not to, and no choice otherwise, didn’t apply to humans. Or the supernatural. They killed because they could. Because they wanted to. Or because they held some antiquated notion that they had to. Not all, of course. An individual didn’t define them as a whole. But every species had evil in its ranks.

And the witch she had offered to help Morgan find was as evil as they came. So Mercy would have no qualms relieving her of the terrible burden of living. And thus ridding the world of one more evil creature that didn’t deserve the time she’d been given.

When they arrived at their destination, Mercy was fully ready for whatever came their way. She was just about to touch Morgan’s arm, to indicate that the doors she’d intended to cut open were already slightly ajar, but Morgan noticed. When she looked to Mercy, the Valkyrie gave her a nod of encouragement, and followed her inside.

What awaited them there was… horrific wasn’t the word for it. Despicable wasn’t right either. Monstrous was closer. But the only word that seemed to fit…. was evil. Mercy would be lying if she said this was the first time she’d seen something like this. Supernaturals being experimented on. Made into weapons. Killed and maimed and tortured for the sake of someone’s fucking curiousity. Or worse: profit. She wasn’t innocent of killing for money, but that was a lifetime ago now. And she’d never harmed the innocent or the weak. Not on purpose.

The wings across the back of the unit briefly drew Mercy’s eyes, but the struggling figures in the center of the room took precedence. Mercy glanced at Morgan as the other woman paused. “Courage.” She turned her eyes back to the witch and the young fae. Tilting her head curiously, Mercy started slowly forwards, peering at the shelves and their collection of items as if she were simply in the grocery store, trying to choose what to have for dinner. And not in the lair of a homicidal, psychopathic witch.

“You know, Jo - Can I call you Jo? - as much as I love the whole…” Mercy gestured vaguely. “- Island of Dr. Moreau vibe you got goin’ here…” She focused her gaze on the witch, hoping to hold her attention for as long as possible. “- I’m gonna have to ask you, from the bottom of my heart…. to stop being a murderous fucking cunt. And let the girl go.” Mercy’s easy smirk faded to something cold and unforgiving. Slowly, she pulled a small vial of dark blue liquid from her pocket and gave it a gentle rub with her thumb. The center bled a bright, angry red. “Or… I let my little friend here go. And we see if you new age witches still burn like the old ones did.”

Marina used the shift in the room to try to pull free. She twisted in Jo’s grip, dragging her feet over the edge of the circle to smudge it enough to be rendered useless. But something on Jo’s wrist (probably another fucking circle) made her go shrill with pain. She writhed, still pulling, wrenching as best she could. Morgan felt like a first class idiot for having assumed Jo was fae in the first place. She inched to the side, trying to close the distance between herself and Marina while Jo and Mercy had it out.

“You have no idea what you are getting yourselves into,” Jo said firmly, “Or that this ‘girl’--” she emphasized the word bitterly, “Is capable of. Turn around, walk away, and I’ll forget we crossed paths. Do I make myself perfectly clear?” she stomped her foot on the ground and sent out a ripple of power towards them. The ground went slick under Morgan and she fell hard, landing on her wrist, which snapped with an awful sound. Morgan grimaced and eased it back into place. Jo nodded with intrigue as she saw Morgan’s skin reshape itself with ease. “I’m not going to repeat myself,” she said evenly. “Trust me that this is not how it looks, and leave.”

Mercy stood calmly, keeping her eyes on the witch and the girl as Morgan slowly moved in the opposite direction. This was her show. Mercy was merely a player. Though it appeared the witch wasn’t going to take Mercy’s verbal bait. But for the moment, Mercy had her talking, bringing whatever spell had been in progress to a pause.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Mercy huffed, pocketing the vial of blue liquid for now. “I know exactly what this girl is capable of.” Her eyes flicked to Marina, and it was to her that Mercy spoke this time. “I bet you’d like to drown her, wouldn’t you, little nøkke? Feast on her flesh for what she did to your sister?” But Jo sent out a wave of magic, turning the floor slick as ice beneath their feet. Mercy managed to catch herself before she went down completely, but still fell hard to her knees, hands splayed in front to steady herself. She saw Morgan go down as well, the woman’s wrist crunching unpleasantly. But she righted herself, so Mercy carefully pushed to her feet and turned her attention back to Jo.

Antagonizing the witch seemed like a bad idea, though the very air around Mercy hummed with the desire to do just that. But she couldn’t. Not while the young girl was still in the alchemist’s grasp. So maybe changing tactics would work. They needed time. And distraction. So Mercy could only hope that Morgan would catch on to what she was doing. And not think herself betrayed.

“Say I believe you.” Mercy’s tone was thoughtful, but cautious. “Say I believe that whatever this is,” She gestured towards Jo and Marina. “- it’s the girl that’s the real threat, and not you.” Mercy took a few steps closer, clasping her hands behind her back. “Say I turn around and leave, and forget about you and this place. Say I forget about all of it. And I make sure she forgets too.” Mercy tipped her head towards Morgan, while still holding the witch’s gaze. “What’s in it for me?” Another step, and Mercy’s fingers slipped idly beneath her jacket and curled around the hilt of a blade tucked into a sheath concealed across her back. “What can you offer me, Jo Muscgraves, so that I forget you ever existed? Because trust me when I say that whatever this girl is capable of… I’m capable of much, much worse.”

Jo had been in plenty of tight spots before. Taboo research to crack the code of organic supernatural magic would do that to you. So did obtaining live samples from murderous animals like the Adams girls. Jo really had been fond of them, to the point that it made her sick with guilt. After what they’d done in their hometown? Fae and beasts were just specimens with power they had no right to monopolize for themselves and use against humans. If Jo could just finish her work in peace, maybe she could find the key to sharing the wealth. But Marina was whimpering and moaning in a way that made Jo’s stomach twist, the circle was smudged, and the women/creatures before her were probably about to ruin everything. “You leave me, you let my work succeed, and you’ll be first in line. You--” She turned to Morgan, looking at the way her bones were rearranging themselves inside her skin. “You know about this world. You know what kind of power is being used to keep humans ignorant and underfoot. Don’t you think you deserve a piece of it too? Shouldn’t you be able to glamour yourself at will? To jump into the air and out of danger on wings?” Her gaze flitted back to Mercy, sizing her up. She might be less human than she looked, but Jo could hardly slip her some litmus right now to tell for sure. “What would you give in order to fly? To change your face, your form? This isn’t senseless, this is--”

“If it wasn’t senseless, you shouldn’t have dumped the girl who trusted you out with the trash!” Morgan snapped. “Shouldn’t have butchered her like a hack!” The words burst out of her before her mind could think of words like ‘stealthy’ and ‘careful’ and ‘no one will warn you you’re going to die this time’ could stop her. She staggered upright and lunged for Marina just as Jo sent a lightning streak of magic her way. The power crashed through her, but Morgan didn’t stop. She grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled. Maybe being a living dead girl was good for something after all.

“First in line for what?” Mercy asked, partly to keep Jo talking, partly out of a sense of morbid curiosity. Because Mercy - perhaps more than most - could empathize with the desire to know. The search for their origins, for the answer to how the abilities - the magic - possessed by supernatural (or preternatural) creatures worked, and where it came from, wasn’t a new quest. And Jo wasn’t the first person throughout history to go about their quest the wrong way. Through murder and butchery. Which was also something Mercy could understand. But not when it involved spilling innocent blood.

So Mercy watched Jo watch Morgan. She saw how the witch’s eyes lingered on the healing bones, the way the skin knitted itself back together. Mercy kept her hands behind her back, one wrapped around the blade that was now loose in it’s sheath but still hidden, and continued her slow pacing to try and flank the woman as Morgan moved opposite. She paused, however, when Jo addressed her again.

What would you give in order to fly?  

For just a moment, the Fury… considered. Of all the questions to ask… why that one? Mercy had wanted wings for close to 1200 years. It was one of the few things she felt she was owed after so long. Did Jo know something she didn’t? Did the witch have some uncanny sense of what might sway Mercy to let her live?

Almost everything. Mercy nearly spoke the words out loud. Her eyes flitted to the wings strung overhead. Where had they come from, she wondered. What creature had died, or more likely been killed, so that Jo could display them in such a vulgar, disrespectful way. And then offer them up as some sort of… reward. Mercy had a response waiting, but the witch’s words had fueled Morgan’s anger to a fever pitch and she reacted accordingly. Morgan lunged for the girl, ignoring the violent, sizzling magic that ripped through her body. The smell of sulfur and burnt flesh permeated the air, but the moment Morgan had hands on the girl, Mercy moved as well.

There was a soft ‘shick’ sound as the short-sword was pulled free. It spun in Mercy’s hand, a blur of motion as she brought it down with deadly accuracy, aiming to sever the witch’s hand at the wrist, and release the girl into Morgan’s arms.

Jo had only a second to see the blade coming and in that second one long equation fired in her head, racing to calculate the balance of her next move. Pull on the girl, hope she could be a shield. Maybe some scales would be damaged, maybe she preferred to remind them both how little her life was worth by testing the limits of her power personally, but her body would still be usable. She could risk some damage to her own body in an effort to keep Marina’s intact, and being injured might make the girl bold. She fought harder than Coraline, already, but that was a temporary state. She could let go, try to get her back later, or escape unharmed and try again in a different town. She had some contacts she could rely on, people who were counting on her to help them with her work. But how? And how did she know they wouldn’t chase her? Three supernaturals trapped in her vault, including a zombie? But Jo had a second, only a second, and in that time her body, not her mind, took control. She released Marina in time to catch the blade mid air. The sharp edge sliced into her palm for a moment, deep enough that she grunted with effort. Then the blade splashed down her sleeve and did away with any hope of keeping her circle charged, melted into water. “Nice try,” she said, and wound her fist up to land a punch. If she would get a hand on her, her tattoos could help her do the rest…

Marina crashed into Morgan as soon as she was let go. They toppled onto the slick floor together and scrambled to their knees. “There’s a car outside,” Morgan grunted. “Go. You’ll be safe inside.” She gave her a push as the girl scrambled to her feet. She flashed her teeth at Morgan. “Don’t touch me!” She spat, and staggered away. Morgan braced herself to her feet in time to realize Mercy might just be in some serious trouble if the tried hand to hand with an alchemist fast thinking enough to transmute at a moment’s notice. “Get back!” She reached to pull back her friend, but her mind hadn’t gotten around to calculating what might happen with a sudden distraction.

Over a millennia of life had given Mercy an advantage that most would never possess. Centuries upon centuries of time to hone the craft she had learned as a girl. So when the sword hit home, slicing through flesh and bone, Mercy wasn’t surprised. It was what she’d asked the blade to do, after all. But for all of the Fury’s deadly speed and accuracy, for all her confidence in those skills, when flesh and bone and blade connected because the witch caught Mercy’s sword with her hand - and in less than a moment the blade was gone, forge-hardened steel turned to nothing but a puddle of water -  Mercy was, for a heartbeat, well and truly surprised. Her eyes shot to the witch’s face as she spoke, but the single moment of shock seemed to be enough for Jo. Her fist caught Mercy square across the jaw. Mercy grunted, staggering slightly to the side and nearly slipping on the slick floor. But she righted herself almost immediately, her expression turning from shock to something else. Something that welcomed the faint taste of copper in her mouth... the hum of power in the air… the unexpected (and yes, thrilling) challenge of a witch that could change one element to another at will…

Mercy turned to face Jo again. “I can do better.”

Behind her, Mercy registered that Morgan was on her feet and shoving the girl towards the exit. She heard the girl scream and snatch away. She even heard Morgan’s voice calling out to her, felt the zombie’s hand on her arm, trying to pull Mercy away. “Go!” she told Morgan, though her eyes stayed on Jo. “Take the girl. This one doesn’t have the power to kill me. Do you?” Mercy taunted. Though she didn’t miss the circles inked onto the woman’s arms and the palms of her hands.

Jo didn’t squander her advantage. She closed in as Mercy stumbled, stabilized the floor with her boot, and grabbed her by the shoulders, pressing down good and hard with her tattooed palms. A flash of power passed from her body to the strange woman’s, unlocking her skin and her blood, flooding her with iron, enough to send her body into shock. She shoved her away and started to make a break for it. Right now she didn’t need a perfect kill. She needed to make sure she was alive to finish her work.

Morgan nearly left Mercy where she stood. She had what she needed and the valkyrie was a consenting adult. She could exercise her autonomy no matter what. But she saw Jo getting away, saw something bubbling under the surface of Mercy’s body and froze. She wanted to make the witch pay. She wanted Mercy to be okay. She wanted to stop her from grabbing Marina again and running off with her. She wanted, she wanted… Morgan’s hand shot out for the witch, but Jo was ready. Even Morgan’s dulled senses registered the pain of her flesh falling away from her bone. “Fuck!” She staggered back into Mercy, cradling her skeleton hand to her chest. That was gonna take a bit to heal.

A single moment of distraction cost Mercy dearly as Jo grabbed hold of the Fury’s shoulders. Mercy shot a hand out to grab the witch’s neck, while the other swung hard at the woman’s ribs. But that was as far as she got. She felt the sudden, sickening flow of magic as it was forced beneath her skin and into her blood. As it… changed something inside Mercy. Her healing factor pushed back instantly, trying to right what had so suddenly been thrown off-kilter. But the Fury still grunted at the sudden white-hot pain, like shards of glass soaked in acid  being forced through her veins. Mercy met Jo’s eyes for the span of a moment, the cold fury of the Valkyrie’s gaze both another taunt - Is this what you call power? - and a promise - This isn’t over. - just before she was shoved aside. She caught herself against the wall as her body started to slip into shock.

Fire laced through her belly, followed by nausea so intense she thought she might very well faint. It took all Mercy had not to double over. Everything hurt. Every movement, every breath, every heartbeat felt like it took a monumental effort. But then Morgan was being shoved towards her and the smell of burning flesh was in the air and Morgan was screaming…

Mercy tried to steady her as they collided, but she felt near to collapsing herself. Whatever Jo had done was making her feel weak. Tired. Underneath the pain and increasing systemic shock.  “Need to go...” Mercy said. “No good like this…” Mercy with her blood poisoned by magic and Morgan with her flesh peeled away from her bones. The Valkyrie coughed and spit red onto the ground. “We saved the girl. ‘S’what matters. For now…” Later, they would make Jo pay. For today. And for all the days before. But right now they were in no shape to continue. Live to fight another day and all that.

Morgan averted her eyes as the muscle and sinew around her skin stitched itself anew. On a fresh meal, it might have been done by now, but she was stretching out her feeding schedule to make sure she at least had raw strength going for her in this encounter. Apparently it hadn’t counted for much after all. At least she knew Mercy had seen worse. “Hey, you’re okay, right? You’ve made it twelve hundred years, a little hack job like whatever she did can’t knock you down now.” She braced Mercy against her shoulder and staggered out into the open air. There was no sign of Marina in the car. Figures. She probably wouldn’t have waited around in some stranger’s car to find out what would happen to her either. Wherever she’d gone, Morgan hoped she was safe. “I’d say at least you can sleep this off,” she said, laughing dryly, “But we both know that's gonna be a whole other hell of a time.”

[sleepnginstardust]

Dryad Girlfriend (Prologue)

Hello y’all. Ahhhhh I promise it gets more happy. Also, I’m back on a leave of absence again. One of my coworkers tested positive for Covid, sooooo yeah. I’m on lock down. Granted I am moving at the end of August but hey, you know whatever. Enjoy!

Summer vacation had always been one of my least favorite times of the year. Every year my parents purchased me a bus ticket and shipped me off into the middle of nowhere to visit my great aunt. 

My great aunt was one of those women who decided a long time ago to never get married. So she didn’t. Instead the money her parents had put aside for her wedding that never happened was instead used to purchase a plot of about 1000 acres where she decided to start a farm and orchard. At the center of her land was a large house right next to one of the largest trees I had ever seen. 

The house alway amazed and confused me because my aunt told me every time I came that in the whole house the only iron was in the kitchen. She apparently used traditional methods of building the house that didn’t use iron. Whenever I asked her about it she smiled and said that she wanted all of her friends to be able to visit. 

The only friend I saw visit was Thistle. Thistle was this amazing woman who was tall stately and who kind of reminded me of the tree outside. She was soft spoken and alway knew how to cheer me up. As a young child she would sit on the porch with me overlooking the giant tree and would feed me some of the ripest fruit I had ever tasted. So by the end of summer even though I had hated the idea of being off in the middle of nowhere. Between Thistle and my great aunt, I always wound up having the best summer.

The last summer I had there was the summer before my junior year. When I arrived it had been storming. After having hired a carriage from the train station, I let myself into my great aunt's house. It was quiet and dark within the house. I looked through the house and saw a light on in the living room, as I got closer I heard hushed voices. 

“Thistle, I can’t leave here. I have a family and the farm needs someone to take care of it. You’ve heard those developers say they'll tear this place apart to build houses and all of the time and effort I’ve put into making sure these people and creatures have a place to live will be wasted.” I stopped and kept quiet. I had known that my Aunt’s land was a place where creatures could gather in peace. Not many people wanted creatures like Minotaurs and  on their land and had been driven off lands. I knew for a fact that my Aunt’s house had brownies somewhere in it. Thistle had shown me one time by leaving out a bunch of ingredients one night and the next morning when I had woken up there was a giant loaf of apple and cinnamon bread with some type of muffins. My thoughts were interrupted by Thistle.

“Please, you don’t have much time left. I don’t want to lose you! The Land will take care of itself. You made sure of that when you hired the minotaurs and the dragon. They will never let something happen to what they consider their land!” My stomach dropped. Why would my aunt leave, she was the closest thing I had to grandparents. Stealing myself I knocked on the door.

“Auntie, Thistle? Are you, you okay? Why would you leave?” I slowly pushed into the living room. Thistle and my Aunt looked up Thistle had been crying and my aunt looked sad.

“I’m fine, and I’m not going anywhere.” With that she shot a look at Thistle, who grimaced. I looked closer at Thistle. I had been coming every summer to this house since I was six, and while my great aunt age into a fine older woman Thistle hadn’t changed a day. Her coils had stay that rich jet black, and she never seemed to get any crows feet and her smile lines never deepened. 

‘’Your Aunt is going to be fine, I was hoping she would think about maybe moving somewhere where it would be easier to live.” As she said that I saw a tear go down her face. She moved past me and into the entryway. “I’m going to bed, I’ll see you both in the morning.”

After that strange night my summer was quiet, after that overheard conversation I watched my Aunt and Thistle closer. As I watched I came to the conclusion that they both were closer than I had assumed. I had known that sometimes women liked other women but my parents and my teachers were very religious and had made me “understand” that was unexceptable for myself. For other people it was fine, but not for myself.

That summer my great aunt introduced me to the minotaurs and the herd of centaurs who helped her take care of the land. I was able to spend time with Minotaurs and centaurs who were around my age. It was the best summer of my life. When I received the letter from my parents with a bus ticket home I knew it was their way of saying that it was time for me to leave. I cried that night, I finally felt welcomed and I had to leave.

Thistle came for dinner and my aunt made the most amazing food. For desert the brownies in the house had created this amazing lemon and raspberry cake decorated with fresh raspberries and lemon curls. As I was going to bed Thistle came into my room and gave me a giant hug. 

“You’ll take care of her right? My Aunt I mean.” Thistle looked at me and gave me a small smile.

“I will take care of her as much as she lets me. You know your aunt, she’s headstrong and doesn’t like when people try to take care of her.” I nodded and gave Thistle another hug.

The next morning I packed my bag and my grandmother called a cab and sent me off. As I was leaving I watched black clouds roll over the orchard.

I went back to my religious school and my religious parents. In the middle of September we had a small family of Gnolls move into the town. After them it felt like something had changed in our town. Soon a large Orc family bought the largest house in the city and opened a glamorous hotel. A werewolf pack took up residence on the outskirts of the city and started a building company. By the beginning of the new year everyone in town had just accepted that things were changing. 

My school over the holiday break decided that in order to be more accepting towards the new people they would cut ties with the church. My parents, upset at first, realized that the school was still the best in the city and that it was still very much humans. I felt like maybe things wouldn’t be so bad here. Until the end of January.

Coming home I caught the tail end of a conversation my mother was having on the phone.

“No, no, I’ll tell her. What about her property? What do you mean it’s in trust? She left it to her. She’s not even legal! What is our daughter going to do with 1000 acres of land and a burnt out house? Hold on I think she's here, Darling is that you?” I looked down that hallway into the kitchen.

“Yes mom I’m back from school.” I walked into the kitchen. My mother hung up the phone and turned to me with a sad look on her face.

“Sweetheart, I have some bad news. Your great aunt passed away. There was a storm and lightning struck the tree outside the house. The house caught fire and your grandmother was stuck inside.”

“Wait no, Thistle said she’d take care of her.” It was like a punch in the gut. My great aunt was gone. 

“Honey, no one has heard from Thistle either. The centaur herd looked for her, apparently there’s even a dragon on your aunts land!” I couldn’t hear her. I felt my head spin all I could hear was my heart pounding and my backpack thunk onto the hardwood floor. I blacked out.

[ohbillyboi]

Lost Boy (Post-S3 Billy Hargrove Redemption) - Ch 3

Summary: Post S3. Billy’s life has completely fallen apart after the events of July ‘85. He’s started drinking, lost his job, and gotten kicked out of the Hargrove/Mayfield house. Luckily for him, word gets around in Hawkins, and Chief Jim Hopper has a more generous heart than advertised. A story in which Billy faces his demons with the help of a police chief – and the fourteen-year-old girl he fears most in the world.

Index:

Chapter 1: Hopper Makes An Offer Chapter 2: The Cabin Where My Mind Was Flayed Chapter 3: He’s Your Brother

Chapter Excerpt: His attitude evaporated when they turned onto a street he recognized. Dread pooled in his stomach, and he sat up straight. No. They weren't going there for dinner. Were they?

They were. It was confirmed when they pulled onto a long private drive, the one he’d barreled down in his Camaro last Halloween.

“From now on, you leave me and my friends alone, do you understand? 

“Say it. 

“Say it!”

Chapter 3: He’s Your Brother

The rest of the day sucked ass. Even with all his branch-pulling and thorn-wrangling, by 3PM, Billy still hadn't finished. And that was with barely any breaks - just a fifteen-minute lunch break (a sandwich from 7/11, delicious), and maybe two smoke breaks.

Woods. He fucking hated them.

Even worse, for most of the day, Hopper was either on the phone or chatting to his subordinates via walkie talkie. The rest of the time, he was sitting on the porch smoking and occasionally barking out directives. It was like prison labor without the prison. By the end of it, Billy was struggling to remember what was so great about this deal anyway.

Fortunately, the chief decided to show a little mercy. Billy had just thrown more branches on the pile, his biggest armful yet, it felt like. Right as the anger was bubbling up, making him fantasize about screaming at the trees, the chief came across the yard toward him. “Alright,” he said, “that’s enough for one day. Let’s get you out of here, get you cleaned up.”

Billy immediately peeled his gloves off. “God damn finally,” he muttered under his breath.

The chief didn’t hear, or pretended not to. As they walked toward the truck, Billy glanced back at the cabin and, when the chief wasn’t looking, flipped it the bird.

It glared at him as hard as ever.

--

Somehow, the full meaning of “give you a couch to sleep on” didn’t occur to Billy until they pulled into the driveway of the chief’s trailer.

Hopper threw the truck in park and unbuckled his seatbelt. Billy sat frozen, staring at the unassuming single-wide before him. His heart beat faster; a prickling sensation swept up his back and down his arms.

She was here. The girl.

He’d be fucking living with her.

He cleared his throat. Shit! Fuck! “You sure about this, chief?”

Hopper paused as he was getting out. “Not when you ask like that.”

Billy swallowed, trying not to look as nauseated as he felt. When he didn’t respond, Hopper shrugged, got out of the truck, and headed for the front porch. Billy followed, his thoughts a litany of curses. Shit, fuck, shit, fuck.  

Hopper let them inside without preamble. Taking off his hat, he called, “Hey honey, I’m home.” He glanced sharply at Billy. “And...I brought company.”

Billy frowned in confusion. Wait - was the chief married too? Then he realized, and his heart slammed into his chest. It did it again when a door opened down the hall, and a wiry girl stepped out.

El. She was dressed in a flannel and jeans, and she looked paler than he remembered. Her hair definitely hadn’t been brushed today, and dark rings under her eyes told of bad dreams and sleepless nights.

Billy stared at her; she stared back. Surprisingly, she gave him a ghost of a smile. “Billy,” she whispered hoarsely, as if she hadn’t spoken much.

He didn’t know what to do with that. Blinking, he turned and walked into the living room.

“This the couch?” he asked, gesturing to the hideous floral affair near the wall.

“Sure is.” Still holding his hat, the chief addressed El. “Sweetie, why don’t you go back in your room for a minute? I need to have a talk with our, uh… visitor.”

She obeyed, giving Billy one last smile. As soon as her door closed, the chief turned to him. His face was stony, and his eyes bored holes through Billy’s skull.

“Now that you’ve seen her,” he said darkly, “some ground rules. Number one: if you hurt her in any way, I’ll kill you. Number two: if you drink any of the booze in this house, I’ll kill you. Number three: you’re not to be alone with her at any time. During the day, I expect you to be out working. If you’re done before I get home, find another place to be. Number four…”

He stepped closer. His eyes narrowed.

“...No. Girls. You have a car. Use it.”

Billy’s nostrils flared. “So… what? You're not gonna impound it?”

“Not yet.” The chief looked at him shrewdly. “That depends on you.

“Now get cleaned up,” he said, hanging his hat by the door. “We're going out for dinner tonight.”

“You're fucking serious?”

“Like a heart attack.”

When the chief noticed Billy staring at him, his expression fell flat. “It's not for you, hotshot. We already had plans.”

With that, he walked down the hall toward what Billy assumed was his bedroom. Not even breaking stride, he pointed at another door to the left. “Bathroom,” he said.

Billy scoffed. This had to be a fucking joke.

Besides, what the fuck would he wear?

--

Turned out the answer was: “clothes he wouldn't be caught dead in.”

He had to wear his jeans, of course. Not much choice there. He rubbed as much dirt off as he could, then hit them with room spray to freshen them up. They'd smell like an old lady till he washed them, but it was better than the smell of sweat.

The rest of his ensemble was a total loss. Sweat stains in the armpits, smears of dirt, the like. So, out of the goodness of his heart, Hopper lended him one of his Hawaiian shirts.

Even leaving it half-buttoned couldn't save it. As they piled into the truck to go on their dinner date, Billy was ready to either kill or be killed.

El sat between them. She was wearing the same clothes as before, but she'd managed to brush her hair and pull it back in a scrunchie. All told, she looked halfway decent.

Goddammit. He'd been outdone by a fucking fourteen-year-old.

He spent the whole ride staring out the window, ignoring her existence. She stole glances at him a lot - he could feel it every time. But he wasn't about to reward her by looking back.

We're not friends, little girl. And we're not going to be friends.

His attitude evaporated when they turned onto a street he recognized. Dread pooled in his stomach, and he sat up straight. No. They weren't going there for dinner. Were they?

They were. It was confirmed when they pulled onto a long private drive, the one he’d barreled down in his Camaro last Halloween.

“From now on, you leave me and my friends alone, do you understand?

“Say it.

“Say it!”

As they stopped in front of the house, he clenched his fists so hard the nails cut into his palms. The universe was out to get him. If Hopper had known, he would've said something, right? So yeah, he didn't know, and the universe - or God, or karma - was using Hopper to punish Billy.

Not that it wasn't richly deserved, Billy thought.

The walk to the front door was the closest he had ever come to a walk of shame. His only saving grace was, as far as he knew, no one in this house had any idea he'd been here before. They didn't know he'd smashed plates, threatened children, and beaten Steve Harrington to the point of unconsciousness.

Unless the kids had told everyone. In which case, yeah. Walk of shame.

Hopper knocked on the door. The woman who answered looked kind but harried.

“Hiiiii,” she said with a smile, drawing it out the way middle-aged women loved to do. She turned to Hopper with a softer “hey,” and he stepped forward to kiss her.

Okay, so this was the chief’s woman. Got it.

Billy glanced at the room behind her, where two boys stood some distance from the door - her sons, he guessed. The older one seemed vaguely familiar, probably from school, though if you'd asked Billy where in school, he couldn't have said. The younger one he'd never seen before. And yet--

--his pupils dilated.

The younger one was staring at him with a recognition deeper than sight. He seemed shellshocked, like he was looking at a long lost twin. Billy stared back, and when the same recognition sparked inside him, it rocked him to the core. A single, unspoken thought leapt between them.

You're like me.

Billy couldn't hide the shudder that swept through him.

Just then, the chief's woman said something about coming inside, dinner’s already out of the oven, yada yada. Billy dragged his eyes away from her son. As they filed through the door - Hopper first, then El, then Billy - El hung back a second to look at him.

He met her look with a scowl. “What?”

She just looked at him, with eyes that saw far too much. Nettled, he jerked his chin at the door and mouthed, “Go.” She complied, though with squared shoulders that said, I'm going because I want to, not because you told me.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he followed her inside.

This was going to be a terrible night.

--

His prediction came true in spades.

Dinner itself was okay. Billy had never been a picky eater, and meatloaf was far from the worst thing anyone had ever served him. The sides weren't bad either - mashed potatoes, nicely salted, and steamed vegetables that were neither mushy or bland.

He had to hand it to Joyce Byers: she wasn't a bad cook.

But god, the company ruined the whole thing. They were packed in at the table like a bunch of sardines. To his left sat El, who he preferred to studiously ignore. To his right sat the kid - Will - who he preferred to ignore for other, more panic-inducing reasons. So that meant he could only look straight ahead, at the older Byers kid.

Billy speared a bite of meatloaf and tucked it in his mouth. Jesus, the guy looked like a fucking lizard.

“So, uh… Billy,” Joyce chirped from across the table. “Hopper tells me you're going to be working for him.”

“Uh huh,” Billy drawled, twirling his fork in his hand.

“Billy's got himself in a tight spot, so we're gonna get him straightened out.” Hopper took a bite of steamed broccoli.

“I see,” Joyce said. “And...you’ll be working for one of Hopper’s friends too? Yes?”

Billy didn't answer. He could feel the chief glare at him as he said, “Yeah, I talked to Merrill. We’re going over first thing in the morning.”

“Well, that sounds promising. I hope it works out.”

Silence fell over the table. Billy glanced back at Lizard Boy, who was pushing his mashed potatoes around on his plate. When he realized Billy was looking at him, he met his gaze uncomfortably.

Billy smirked. “Hawkins High?”

“Yeah,” Byers said, sounding very much like he didn’t want to talk at all.

“So why don't I recognize you?”

Byers shrugged and kept picking at his mashed potatoes. Joyce leapt to her son's defense with a smile.

“He works in addition to school. I don't make a lot of money, so he goes out of his way to help me. Even if it means he doesn't have time for friends.”

Her smile turned sweet, and she reached out to rub her son's back. It made Billy want to puke. Looking back at his plate, he speared a piece of cauliflower and ate it.

More silence. Eventually, Joyce cleared her throat. “Well... I hope everyone likes carrot cake.”

To Billy's right, a fork clinked as it was set down on a plate. “Actually, Mom… can I… be excused?”

It was the first time Will Byers had spoken all evening. Though Billy kept his face neutral, as he took another bite of meatloaf, his senses went on high alert.

“Sure, sweetie. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired.”

“Okay. Go get some rest.”

Will's chair squeaked, and Billy felt a shift in energy as the kid left the table. At first he was relieved - one less person to eat an awkward dinner with. But as he picked at his vegetables, ignoring the conversation around him, a strange awareness tugged at the base of his neck.

Go to him, it said. He's your brother.

He slowed, gaze lifting from his plate. But just as quickly as the thought came to him, he shoved it down. Fuck no. Go fuck yourself.

It came back. Go to him.

No!

Go to him!

Fuck! You!

His thoughts dissolved into a scream then, a horrible, high-pitched scream like static and a screech rolled into one. He all but threw his fork down on his plate. The others looked at him in alarm, Hopper stopping mid-sentence.

“Uh. Sorry. Uh…” He wiped his mouth on his napkin. “Where's your bathroom?”

Joyce stared at him, not quite registering his question for a few seconds. Then she blinked and gestured. “Oh! Uh...down the hall, first door on the left.”

“Thanks.”

He tossed his napkin on the table and stood. As he turned to leave, he caught El’s eyes. She was watching him with the same look as before, the one that made his innards wriggle in discomfort. He returned her look coolly, then walked away, adding some fuck-you swagger to his step.

For the sake of appearances, he made a pit stop in the bathroom. Then he slipped down the hallway, peeking through the doors until he found young Will’s bedroom. The kid was sitting on his bed, looking straight at the door, as if he knew Billy was coming.

Billy hesitated in the doorway. First, because he was startled to see Will staring right at him. Second, because it really hit him that, Christ, this kid was a nerd. Everything about him screamed it, from the way he dressed to his ridiculous bowl cut. Back when life was normal, Billy would’ve made a point of ignoring him, with only occasional looks of disdain to remind him that, yeah, you're weird.

But nothing was normal now. Chewing his lip, Billy walked in.

As he scanned the room, a frown formed between his eyebrows. Something about this place felt...off. Like how he imagined a haunted house would feel. Someone - or some thing - had left an indelible imprint in this place, like a hand in wet cement, or a smeary artifact in a photograph. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

And just like that, he knew.

Brother.

Billy turned to Will, eyes widening. “He got you too.”

Will swallowed and nodded.

“How’d they get him out of you?”

“They burned him out. I...I don’t really remember.”

The kid rubbed his arm, visibly mustering courage.

“H-how about you? Why didn't you die when they closed the gate?”

Billy hesitated. The wave was seven feet.

“I...threw him out,” he said.

Will’s mouth fell open. “You did?”

“Yeah. I mean...I had help.” And you were happy. “Then he died, and I lived. Somehow. I’m not…” He swallowed. “I’m not...sure what happened.”

“He didn't die.”

Billy’s heart stopped. “What?”

“We killed part of him,” Will said, voice falling to a murmur. His eyes were wide, his hands gripping the mattress. “The real him is still out there somewhere. In the...in the Upside Down.”

The Upside Down. Billy had heard that term only once, when Max tried to explain what the fuck he’d just been through. He’d shoved it out of his mind, though, as he had so many other things. He’d just come out of a living hell, and he had no desire to think about it more than he had to.

And now here he was. Thinking about it.

Funny how he used to believe he had a choice.

“So he can come back.” Billy stared hard at Will. “Whenever the hell he wants.”

“Not exactly. There has to be a...a gate. Between his world and ours.”

“And there are people out there opening gates.”

“Yes,” said a voice at the door.

Billy turned, feeling a stab of panic. It was El. She couldn't resist following him, of course, and forcing him to deal with two strange kids at the same time.

Alright, fine. If he was gonna do this, he was going to commit. Folding his arms, he said, “Okay. So I'm guessing we can't do anything but wait. Hm? Somewhere out there, people are trying to open gates, other people are trying to stop them, and we're just caught in the crossfire. Am I right?”

El and Will looked at each other. After a bout of unspoken communication, El nodded slowly.

“Well, shit. What the fuck am I doing here, then.”

Dropping his arms, he stalked toward the hall. El scrambled out of the way, then called after him, “Where are you going?”

“Outside. I need a smoke.”

As he walked through the dining room, everyone at the table stared at him. He ignored them all and blew through the front door.

This deal was getting worse all the fuckin' time.

--

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