#because the thing about a lot of articles on managing uncontrollable rage is that

[spagheddiesquash]

oughhhggg. the desire to start doing things that will likely improve my quality of life versus the fear that ill look stupid for trying and people will think less of me

[kidmetsu-no-yaiba]

What They Do When You’re Having A ‘Split’ And Become Angry  

This includes: Tsukishima, Kuroo, Bokuto, Kita, Suga, Ennoshita, Ushijima

This is just how I perceive them as what they would do for a best friend/romantic partner that experiences BPD anger in a similar way as I do. Also I'm off my stabilizers haha..ha.

Also none of these are meant to be mean about the characters I literally chose my faves for this.

Uh TW for bpd I guess?

Gender Neutral reader bay bee

Tsukishima (Not the trigger):

Doesn’t even recognize it at first, thinks its just a normal bad day from work

After, like, 30 minutes of you just sitting there and glaring at your phone without talking or even changing your expression he starts to get a clue.

Goes about his normal chores that upset you, but he plays your “Calming” playlist out loud on his phone just loud enough for you to hear

If he’s exhausted every chore and you still haven’t talked, he purposefully looks for funny or interesting news articles about stuff you like and reads the headlines out to you to get you to look at him or talk

Once you start at least looking at him, hopefully talking too, begins trying to coax out what triggered you

Ignores if you make any outright mean or just passive aggressive comments towards him instead of answering but will get aggressive in return

If he manages to get What Happened out of you he immediately calls you an idiot. Regardless of what it is. Is a mean comforter.

“Getting mad over your best friend talking on the phone too long while you’re hanging out isn’t an excuse to be mean”

“You’re stupid if you think it’s your fault that your friends aren’t paying attention to you, not everything is about you.”

It hurts but, it works even if sometimes it feels like he’s going a Bit Too Far

Will watch comforting videos or shows with you if it calms you down but that's about it. Very big on “You’re an adult and I’m not your psychiatrist, figure it out yourself.”

Kuroo (Is the trigger):

Instantly recognizes the Shut Down while teasing you, when you stop responding, your face is blank except for your down turned eyes.

‘Oh I’ve Fucked Up™’ is his immediate thought

“Y/N you know I didn’t mean that right? We were just playing, I’m sorry!” “Don’t you have a proposal to finish.”

Immediate shoulder drop. Is also upset now but decides to wait a little bit before trying to calm you.

After 30min or so of you hiding under your blanket he decides it’s time to try and pull you out of your head.

Cooks your most aromatic favorite food so the smell wafts into your room

Blasts your comfort playlist on a speaker and loudly sings along to it

When you still don’t come out when the food is done, sits outside the door saying “oh FUCK this shit is BUSSIN’” comically loud, overexaggerates your favorite things about it outloud.

When you eventually give in, just to get some food, he corners you with his body

“What about what I said upset you?” As a genuine question, not a mean one

After you explain, he lets you eat and offers a sincere apology when you finish

Offers to draw a bath with your favorite scent if it’ll help you. It does.

Bokuto (Is the trigger):

You came home and Bokuto had the tv up high while watching tiktoks and listening to music. After a moment the tea kettle went off. Before turning it off he realized you had walked in and bounded over to you. There were Too Many Noises.

He tried to talk over the noise but realized your eyes were boring into his and you had The Look

Also a ‘Oh I’ve Fucked Up™’

Rushes to take the kettle off the heat and turn off his phone before checking on you only to see you’ve already gone in and shut the bedroom door. You didn’t even take your shoes off..

Big pouty, sulky fool. Mopes around for a bit after turning off all the noise in the house.

Eventually looks for other things that upset you and finds that the house is, kind of a mess actually. Decides to clean as quietly as possible.

Does all of your least favorite chores first incase you re-emerge from the bedroom too soon

When everything seems to be done he opens your door and finds you tucked into bed and scrolling on your phone, very quiet music playing from it.

It was only 5pm but he took off his street clothes and climbed into bed as well. 

Absolutely gets up behind you and grabs you around your waist and snuggles in without saying anything even though he wants to

When you finally feel comfortable you look over your shoulder to see Bokutos already fallen asleep. Idiot. 

You order takeout for when he wakes up because, even though he tried his hardest to be quiet, you could hear him washing the dishes and didn’t want to ruin the work he did for you

Kita (Not the trigger):

Very straightforward the second he realizes you are Not Good

"Y/N if you tell me what's wrong it'll end quicker" 

When you don't even look at him he still continues talking "We both know you hate when you're like this. It'll make you feel better if you just talk to me even if you don't want to."

Is fairly stern when talking to you at the beginning. Not mean but just very much like 'this is going to get done whether or not you cooperate.'

If you don't cooperate then he begins to ignore you until you snap and eventually scream and air out everything that's wrong and what triggered you. 

Goes through everything you said with you and gives you an objective perspective although it basically boils down to "I know you can't help it but your ego is hurting you. Not Everything Is About You."

Once your conversation on that is over he asks if you want him to watch tiktok or listen to music or something with you

 Suga (Is the trigger):

He hadn’t meant to ignore you all day. He’d woken up before you and been so busy at work all day he didn’t get a chance to text. It was the club he advised’s meeting day and it was dragging on longer than usual, he hadn’t texted anyone all day to be fair

When he finally comes home he’s confused as to why you’re tucked in on the couch

“Hey Y/N you tired? Sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk today there was a lot of bureaucratic shit going on and then the club president decided we were all going to stay until the end of the activity. Kids am I right?” He laughs and smiles towards you but you continue to ignore him

After some physical encouragement, poking and whatnot, it dawned on him that you are Probably Going Through It

Jesus Christ

Immediately decides he is not having it and moves your legs off the couch so he can sit next you

“Y/N I looovvveeee youuuuu~~~” He says as he pulls you to him by the shoulders “I love you I love you I love youuu” 

Just babbles honestly, goes on and on about how he didn’t mean to ignore you and how he was honestly busy but he’s here now

And like yeah, he is here now so eventually you level out and let yourself be coddled for a bit longer

Makes pinky promises that he promises to text you when he’s busy or going to be running late

Also runs you a nice bath just in case

Ennoshita (Not the trigger):

Knows what's going on because he’s been watching you stare at the tv for about 20 minutes but, the tv is off. 

Is objective with his words like Kita but with more emotional appeal

“Y/N I know you’re in the middle of something but when you’re ready, I’ll be ready to listen to you,”

If, after a while, you don’t make any effort to talk to him he tries to point you in a better direction than staring at walls and moping around

“You don’t have to talk to me but I found a tiktok I think you’d enjoy” or “You know you haven’t tried that new nail polish you bought a bit ago” 

Is okay with just letting you figure it out on your own so you can apply the stuff you’ve worked on with your psychiatrist but will feel a little guilty if he doesn’t say anything at all

Will do anything that you need to get done but aren’t because of your episode like dishes or tidying your room

Ushijima (Not the trigger):

First of all, calls your episodes “tantrums”

Literally has no clue when you’re in an episode unless you tell him, he is not very bright

If you do tell him that you’re having issues he defaults to trying to use physical affection against whatever it is that you’re feeling

May or may not make you angrier by doing that

Although he wasn’t the original trigger, him being so dense might override it tbh

Like you love him but oh my god oh my god oh my god how have you survived this long 

Eventually decides “I do not know how to deal with this” and just leaves. He goes to the store and gets the shopping done for the next 2 weeks and gets some cool looking snacks. 

Thinks ‘well I’m already out, I might as well get the car washed’ after, turns into ‘Oh Y/N needed to get their new prescription too..’ ‘I think I remember a discussion about their package getting stuck at the post office..’

Literally accidentally does every single errand that needed to be done for the next month because he didn’t want to go home and upset you more

When he finally comes back home with 50lbs worth of shit from errands you’re like ????? because how did he know that you were stressed about all the house stuff that needed to be done????? 

It’s not an instant mood changer but you definitely go from seemingly uncontrollable rage to ‘Okay I was being a bit much’ but as you watch him prep veggies before storing them away the way you usually do it, you level out

He is unaware you’ve levelled out so he tries to remember the coping skills you said you talked about with your psychiatrist and you are deeply confused when he asks you to open your palm and places an ice cube in it

When you realize what’s going on you laugh and tell him you’re okay and apologize for how you were being earlier and explain what triggered you

He gives you the cool looking snacks

[shinadog]

Oh, hey, forgot to post this here - Mob Part 3 is up (and part 4 is on its way).

Summary : Something happened after Haruka’s concert. (PART 2) (AO3 Link)

 3 - BLAME

Eventually, people left him alone.

They had tried their best, but since he had refused their help, they decided to give him some space. He was more than alright with that. Not that "alright" could ever be a word he would use to describe himself. Not anymore.

He felt numb. Disconnected from it all.

All the events of the past few days - the concert, the crowd, the call he received in the middle of that fateful night, the sleepless nights where he almost choked because he couldn't stop crying, the funeral... He remembered living those things, but when he thought about them, he felt like a spectator watching them from afar. Not an actor, but a powerless observer, a blurry silhouette who was barely floating above those horrible scenes.

On his good days, the days where he was more or less aware of his surroundings, the awful numbness of loss was replaced by a burning anger. On those days, he started to think about the people he blamed.

He had managed to get his hands on an impressive number of newspapers and magazines. The hyenas who worked for those rags must have had a field day with this disaster - a lot of ink has been spilled over this, and it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon. Good. Every new article fueled his anger, made something warm shake his numb, freezing body.

Sometimes, he would see her name in those papers. His own name, too. The sight of it made him sick, and he usually skimmed past it. He didn't want to know what the idiots writing them thought about him and his pain. More often than not, her name was replaced by a number. Lumped together with the rest of the poor souls who lost everything that night. He wasn't sure he liked that better.

The journalists who were feeling exceptionally bold sometimes talked about the yakuza. He kept those articles close. In one of them, he had seen the face of that man for the first time. The buff, scary looking guy in a bad suit. The "Dragon", a big name in the yakuza world, who had apparently moved away from it all years ago. The fucker whose stupid daughter's speech ruined everything. Kazuma Kiryu.

It was so much easier to hate someone when you knew what they looked like.

**********************************

Kiryu had fought many formidable foes in all his years in (and out) the business. Deadly, dangerous men who were out to get him, monsters who wanted to hurt his family. Yet, none of them hit him as hard as the shitty little TV in his hospital room.

Whenever he was back in his room, when very tired nurses managed to drag him away from Haruka so that he'd try to rest for once, he would turn the bloody thing on. No matter what time it was then, it felt like he always managed to find a channel that talked about the concert.

Even though his various babysitters always tried to turn the TV off, to distract him from it somehow, Kiryu seemed to always come back to it. That thing was hypnotizing. He only stopped when he left the room. Or when a particularly pissed Majima threatened to explode the screen with his baseball bat.

Still, Kiryu watched those programs diligently, listening to all the people who had something to say about this whole mess with all the focus he could muster.

Seeing some of the people who were in the crowd that night talk and listening to their retelling of it left him weirdly numb.

The enemies he had faced before were, well, people. They had names, stories, reasons to act the way they did. They were tangible, something Kiryu could punch. Defeat. Forgive. He could do no such thing with a mob. There was no big guy who had orchestrated the whole disaster, no mastermind who ran things in the shadows. No one he could easily blame, fight, and move on from.

For some reason, this lack of a proper target made him resent everyone else.

Kiryu thought himself to be a pretty forgiving person. Those feelings rearing their ugly heads were definitely new, and he didn't really know what to do with them. He mostly kept them bottled up, though, because that's what he usually did with unknown feelings, but it was starting to get tiring. Blaming everyone only made it clearer than no one was to blame, and that made him somehow angrier.

Still, that's what he did.

He blamed himself, first and foremost, as it was the easiest thing to do. He shouldn't have let Haruka go, shouldn't have left the orphanage, shouldn't have left that Park woman come into their home... Oh, he wanted to blame Park herself, of course, but being dead shielded her from his rage. Mostly.

Thinking about their last discussion, before she chased him from his home, was somehow too much for him to process anyway, so he mostly tried to banish her from his thoughts. Which was not exactly easy because every time he saw Majima, he was reminded of the fact that he didn't find it necessary to warn him about her and her history with him. So, naturally, he blamed Majima for that. Among other things, including faking his own death, forcing Kiryu to come out of hiding.

He blamed Saejima and Akiyama, for pulling their annoying "let's fight together" bullshit again and making him believe this would work. It didn't. So he blamed them and their stupid plan, he blamed-

Kiryu took a deep breath, focusing once more on the TV screen. All this anger was exhausting, and he was feeling dizzy already. Oh, that was another one - he blamed his stupid body for being messed up and forcing him to lay still, when all he wanted was to do something, anything, to get his mind out of it.

The TV, showing no mercy, was still going with various interviews when he saw the crying man.

A big guy, with shaking shoulders and his head down, mumbling something as he shook.

Kiryu felt a bit too ill to really listen to what he said, which didn't matter because he couldn't take his eyes off that man. A small text at the bottom of the screen finally managed to catch his attention, and he felt a heavy lump in his throat as he realized what he was looking at.

That guy's daughter was among the four people who died that night. She was fourteen.

As if he knew Kiryu was watching, the man suddenly looked straight into the camera, and the pain in those eyes hit him hard. As if he had been stung, Kiryu immediately stood up, ignoring his stiff body's complaints and bolted out of the room.

He slammed the door behind him, and, taking the time to appreciate that no one was standing guard to see him completely freak out, decided he would not go to Haruka’s room. On his worst days, Kiryu would blame her, too, looking at her sleeping form with uncontrollable anger. He didn't want to go there when he was already this agitated, so he started limping through the corridors.

He had been allowed recently to use crutches to move around, which were replacing the wheelchair. He was shaking, though, so perhaps that it wasn't such an improvement. Collapsing in the middle of the hospital didn't exactly sound like a good idea. Walking at random in the corridors to escape his TV screen was also not a good idea, but Kiryu was already too deep in thoughts to decide to turn away.

As he kept moving blindly, trying to calm down while not losing his already fragile balance, he was startled by a man inexplicably bowing down as he passed. Kiryu found himself blinking at the guy, dumbfounded, before he noticed the Tojo pin on his lapel, and the small, almost inaudible “Fourth Chairman” he had whispered. Right. Just your average Tojo clan goon, lost in a random hospital hallway.

Well, maybe not that random. There was another man standing at the other end of the corridor, staring at him with wide eyes, and a third in the middle, his arms crossed as he stood near the closed door. Before Kiryu could ask himself why that particular hallway was packed with yakuza, the guy had hurriedly knocked on the door and opened it just as fast, getting inside in an instant.

The man who had bowed down to him straightened up, his voice hesitant as he asked, “Have you come to talk with the Sixth Chairman, Sir?”

Not really, no. In fact, if Kiryu could not speak with anyone for the next 24 hours, that would be great. Still, he frowned. “I thought Daigo’s room was a few floors up.”

“It is, but the chairman is visiting his friend.”

Friend.

Kiryu had a vague memory of Akiyama introducing Shinada as “a friend of Daigo”, something that felt like it had happened in another lifetime. And, now that he was thinking about it, someone (Akiyama again, or Saejima, he wasn’t sure) had told him the man had been admitted here after the mob roughed him up. Having been pretty much trampled by the angry crowd, he had been lucky to make it out with, to Kiryu’s knowledge, only a few broken bones and a ton of bruises. Beaten up, but still alive. Conscious, even.

Unlike Haruka.

Kiryu felt something flick in his mind, and suddenly talking didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. He had been eating up footage of the incident for days now, listening to all the people who wanted to share what they had lived, and while it surely left an impression on him, the last example having been enough to send him running for the hills, it was not enough anymore.

He started moving again, careful not to fall, feeling heavy already after only having been using the crutches for a couple minutes. Not that he cared what the bodyguards would think if he collapsed in front of them. That would give them something fun to share with their fellow Tojo buddies.

Annoyingly enough, Kiryu had barely made two steps when he was stopped in his tracks again.

“Fourth Chairman.”

It wasn’t like he was surprised to see Daigo come out of the door, greeting him with an uncharacteristic anxious edge to his voice. His bodyguard had more or less already said he was in there, but Kiryu still couldn’t help but think there was something odd about this encounter. Maybe it was the fact that Daigo was still using a wheelchair, making Kiryu tower above him. Maybe it was the way he was looking at him now, his whole body tense as if he was expecting some kind of confrontation. Kiryu hadn’t seen this kind of hostility in Daigo’s eyes in years, but mostly, the man looked tired. Worried, too. Kiryu felt his own anger fade away slightly, as he got closer, wincing when  a sharp pain on his left side reminded him not to move so quickly.

“Looks like things aren’t going so well for either of us, Sixth Chairman.” he said, realizing they were not exactly the two yakuza big names they usually were, but just two wounded idiots staring at each other in a hospital hallway. The bodyguards were following the scene, looking nervous. Kiryu wondered if they were worried a fight was going to break out. He didn’t really think that was a possibility. Apart from throwing one of his crutches like a spear, which would certainly make him fall, he didn’t see how he could be a threat, right now.

Kiryu cleared his throat, remembering what he was doing here in the first place. “I came to talk with Shinada.” This wasn’t a question or a request. Maybe he was threatening, after all.

“I don’t think that would be wise.” Daigo’s voice was low, his eyes drifting back to the door. “He’s still pretty shaken up by this whole mess. It’s still too soon.”

“Akiyama told me he was doing better.”

“He is, but… I’m afraid talking about this would be too much. For him… Or for you.”

That was new. Talking to him like that was not like Daigo at all, and Kiryu had to admit he would have been impressed, if he hadn’t been instantly annoyed by this. He resisted the urge to get closer, and instead stayed where he was as he asked, “Are you going to stop me, Daigo?”

“ I’m not sure I can. I guess I could roll on your foot if you take one more step, though.”

Kiryu was about to reply that he would definitely hit him with his crutch if that happened, when a voice he failed to recognize came from inside the room. “Let him in already, will you?”

With a heavy sigh, Daigo turned his chair around, letting just enough space so that Kiryu could get in.

Once he was inside, Kiryu realized something. This room was nearly identical to the one Haruka was in. Which wasn’t so surprising - hospital rooms tended to look alike. What made him tick was the silence in this room. No machines or respirator in here, and somehow, this angered him. He didn’t like the ferocity with which this thought had imposed itself on him, but as he looked at Shinada, able to breathe on his own and even having the gall to be conscious, staring back at him with wide eyes, Kiryu felt furious.

So that’s what he was doing, now. Blaming someone he barely knew for having the audacity to be in a better shape than his daughter. Kiryu supposed his sudden surge of animosity must have been noticeable, because all the certainty Shinada had when he asked him to come inside seemed to have vanished.

Now that he was really looking at the man laying in the bed in front of him, Kiryu had to admit he wasn’t exactly looking his best. He didn’t know Shinada enough to really tell the difference, having only met him once before the concert, but he didn’t remember him looking this exhausted. His face was covered in bruises, and part of it was still slightly swollen. Of course the simple fact that he was awake at all made him look healthier than Haruka, but he had clearly been through a lot. Feeling the anger quiet down for a bit, Kiryu greeted the man with a small nod of his head, unsure of what to say, suddenly.

“Well, let’s get on with it.” Daigo’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “It’s late, already. You should both be getting some rest.”

And you’re not? Kiryu wanted to say, glaring at the corner of the room Daigo had retreated in. Kiryu had barely noticed he had gotten inside the room as well. Part of him wished he could have talked with Shinada alone, but he was somehow grateful that it wasn’t the case. He still felt agitated, ready to snap back at the smallest thing, so having some kind of onlooker in there was mildly reassuring. Still, Kiryu did not care much for his tone.

He was at least right on one thing. It was time to talk.

“Can you tell me what happened that night?” No preamble, no “hey how are you?”. Kiryu was not in the mood for small talk.

Shinada blinked, dumbstruck. “Haven’t… Haven’t they told you, already?”

“I want to hear it from someone who was actually there. I want to know how it could have come to this.”

He wasn’t wrong. Kiryu already knew more or less how it went. He had been filled in, and had seen enough from the news to fill in the blanks. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt like hearing it from Shinada’s mouth would be different, but he still felt a weird apprehension as he waited for the other man to answer.

It took him a couple of seconds, exchanging a worried look with Daigo from across the room, before he finally started. “I don’t… I don’t actually know how it began. The fight against that Baba guy had been harsh and since everything had gone well so far, I… I stayed behind for a minute. Caught my breath.”

Catching his breath. Losing precious minutes he could have used to grab Haruka before everything went downhill. Kiryu tried to be reasonable, reminding himself that he had never asked Shinada to actually get to Haruka after the concert. He was just supposed to stop the shooter. And he did. There was no real reason to blame him, as he had told himself countless times.

“When I left the Dome that’s when I realized something was up. It had already started then, and I heard the noises. The screams. People don’t make that kind of noise when they’re just leaving a concert, so I ran and-”

Though footage of the stampede no doubt existed, people having probably filmed it with their phones, the TV seemed to only show what happened after or before the mob was formed. Kiryu could only imagine the kind of racket thousands of people panicking and running everywhere would make. He frowned, feeling something boil inside him as he realized somewhere in all that noise, there might have been the voice of the child he swore he would protect.

He missed a sentence, and only came back to himself when Shinada started the next one. “It was crazy. It was like a sea of people, and they were everywhere, screaming and pushing and-”

With a nervous twitch in his eye, Shinada suddenly stopped talking. While he hadn’t talked that much yet, Kiryu noticed he seemed to be really agitated ever since he had started. He was breathing heavily now, eyes lost in some corner of the room.

He waited a few seconds for Shinada to catch his breath before he asked, “If you arrived after it had started, how did you end up caught in it?”

“Oh, uh. I heard some staff member guy yell something about one of their idols being lost in the crowd on his walkie-talkie. So I ran into the crowd.”

Somehow, Kiryu had never thought about all the people who were working there that night. Too busy focusing on Mirei Park and the fact that blaming her now was pointless, he had forgotten to add all the other folks who had worked with her to his now long list of people to blame. It was infuriating to think that between the staff members, the people of Dyna Chair who weren’t gruesomely murdered, the other idols and Shinada, all charged to keep her safe, Haruka had still been caught up in the mob.

“I thought “I’m a big tough guy, I can probably push my way into this” but that was really fucking stupid. There were hundreds of them, and everyone was panicking and running all over the place, I don’t-”

Kiryu knew that, had he been there that night, he would have ran into the angry crowd too, with no hesitation, no matter how stupid jumping right into a angry wave of people was. He wanted to believe he would have been able to fight it, too, to punch his way until he got to Haruka, but hearing the panic weaving its way into Shinada’s voice, his breath getting faster, he wasn’t so sure of it anymore. “I got knocked down pretty fast, and then I-”

There was another pause, and when Shinada talked again, it was with such a low voice Kiryu almost didn’t catch it. “It felt like drowning.”

“Enough.”

Having more or less forgotten that Daigo was in the room, Kiryu almost jumped as his hand landed on his shoulder. Apparently, while Kiryu had been busy focusing on Shinada’s retelling of the events, he had managed to drag himself from his chair, standing on his own though he was slightly hunched over, a hand pressed on his side. Kiryu would have yelled at him to sit back down, knowing that he had already messed up with his stitches at least once, but found that he couldn’t talk.

He was still stuck on Shinada’s last sentence.

  It felt like drowning.

Maybe it was the word “drowning”. It was visceral. Unpleasant. Kiryu felt sick as he wondered if that was how it had felt for Haruka, too.

Shinada had managed to find some of his composure back in the few tense seconds he took for Kiryu’s brain to finally start focusing on the scene again. Daigo’s hand was still on his shoulder, though he wasn’t sure if that was to get him to acknowledge him or if he was just leaning on him. Kiryu wanted to tell him to back off and sit down again before he hurt himself, but Shinada was faster, his breathing still somewhat erratic as he said, “It’s okay, Dojima, I can-”

“Kiryu.” Daigo ignored his friend’s attempt to stop him as he tried to straighten up, locking his eyes with Kiryu’s.   “What’s the point of this? You’re both still too tired to get upset about this. Let’s give it a rest.”

Upset.

The word sounded ridiculous when Kiryu could feel his anger threatening to overtake him at any moment. He was not “upset”, he was furious.

“You’re right.” He managed to blurt out, feeling somewhat nauseous all of a sudden. Maybe that he too could use some rest, that was the longest he had ever been standing up in days. He took a step back, careful not to lose his balance or make Daigo topple by removing himself from his grip too abruptly, giving Shinada one last look. “Thank you. I’ll let you rest.”

“Wait-” Shinada straightened up in his bed, trying to catch his eye. He was still talking too fast and breathing too hard, his voice cracking slightly as he said,  “I’m- I’m so sorry. I wish I could have done something to stop this.”

Kiryu had become something of an expert of empty, reassuring phrases after being fed so many of them in the past few days. He didn’t even look back as he walked out of the room, his voice probably harsher than he intended. “You did what you could. I can’t blame you.”

That was a lie, too. No matter how bad he felt seeing the man almost break down over the mere memory of the events, no matter how much he wanted to sympathize with him, Kiryu still blamed him. Like he blamed everyone. Like he blamed himself.

Feeling utterly sick with himself, he retreated to his room. The TV that he had left on when he ran away seemed to be taunting him, the bleak light it was projecting in the dark giving the room a ominous ambiance.

He punched the screen with such force that he almost broke his hand.

**********************************

Shinada had never been good at holding back his tears.

He had always cried easily, and never thought it useful to try to hide it.

Back in the day, he would cry when his baseball team won. Or when they lost. When he was banned after his first real game, he had wept for days. Some of these tears were also for his family, who had swore they would never talk to him again, but mostly, he was grieving the dream he was sure he had lost forever.

While he found many occasions to cry after that (being homeless for a while, being all alone, having no food for days, those kinds of things), Shinada had managed to more or less hold on for the past decades, and only cried every now and then.

The Dream Line concert had to be some kind of personal record. Shinada cried right after his fight against the shooter, overwhelmed by the adrenaline of it all, seeing the group perform from so far away while he was sitting in the stands, away from the spotlight. He also cried a few minutes later, when Takasugi’s call reminded him some people cared for him back in Nagoya. And, obviously, he cried after the incident, too. Because he was in pain, because he felt stupid and weak and useless. Because he blamed himself for what he was certain he could have prevented, had he been stronger.

Not crying while Kiryu, that man he had only just met and that he had still managed to disappoint, was standing in front of him, though? That was something. He could be proud.

Unfortunately, as soon as the door was closed behind Kiryu, he couldn’t hold it in anymore, and slumped back in his bed, and let out a small sob, knowing fully well he would be bawling his eyes out in a couple of seconds. Trying to delay the inevitable tears, he looked around, and was suddenly all too aware of Dojima still being in the room with him, standing awkwardly in the middle of it, looking at him with his usual stern expression.

It was not like Shinada minded him being here, really. If anything, he was grateful that he stuck around while Kiryu was there, a friendly face in a sea of hostility. As “friendly” as a scowling yakuza could get, at least. He supposed he should also be grateful for the way Dojima had insisted on bringing his interview with Kiryu to an early end. He couldn’t help but wish he could have said more, though. Apologized better. Still, he got him to leave the room right before Shinada hit his limit, so that was pretty great.

“Tatsuo…?”

Not expecting to hear his name hushed with such an hesitant tone, he took a second to wonder why Dojima was now looking at him with a slightly panicked expression.

Oh, right.

He  was  crying. He had barely noticed he had started to.

The room got more blurry now than actual tears were in his eyes, so much so that he almost missed Dojima dragging himself to his bed, gritting his teeth with each step. It only clicked in his mind that he had moved closer when he spoke again:

“Do you mind if I sit on your bed?”

Shinada shook his head. Sure, why not. The man should be sitting down, anyway, if his shaky steps were anything to go by. He still managed to get on the bed fairly quickly, making it creak under their combined weight.

A few seconds passed, the silence of the room disturbed by Shinada sniffing softly as he kept crying. Dojima said nothing, shifting awkwardly on the bed so that he was facing him, bending his body in a way that was probably not doing any good to his still healing bullet wound.

Shinada wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt overwhelmed by an urgent need for some kind of contact, but next thing he knew he had more or less collapsed in the other man’s arms. He felt Dojima stiffen against him, making him aware that perhaps entering the guy’s personal space like that without warning was a bit uncalled for. The man remained silent, though Shinada heard a very small gasp escape his lips.

Alright, so maybe he was out of line. No matter how shaken up he was, in pain and in tears, Shinada knew he wasn’t supposed to just throw himself at someone he hardly knew. Sure, technically Dojima and him had known each other for years, but they were not exactly friends back in high school. And their reunion had been so sudden that he barely had the time to process it. Vowing to protect each other’s dream meant they had  something , that much was certain, but Shinada wasn’t sure that would be the kind of relationship that involved offering a shoulder to cry on. Literally.

He could always stop, put some distance between them again. Apologize and blame it on the perfect blend of morphine and anguish in his body right now, making him a tad emotional. Dojima didn’t give him any time to back off though, wrapping his arms around him slowly. “Eh… Can I- I mean, do you…?”

Shinada wasn’t sure what he was asking. He wasn’t sure Dojima knew, either, with the way he was stammering. Still, he soon felt a hand stroking his back slowly, and that gesture was as soothing as it was unexpected. It was weird to think that last time those hands were on his body, they were in the middle of a full on brawl. The vicious punches he had received on that day suddenly felt very far away, replaced by a softness he would have never thought he’d see from his old classmate. He did look way less intimidating in his hospital gown, he had to admit. Maybe being shot just did that to people. Made them a bit more approachable. Or maybe he looked so pathetic right now that even the most cold-hearted criminal couldn’t resist him. Who knew. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he simply appreciated the fact he was offering some kind of comforting presence.

He allowed himself a few heartbeats to reposition himself, burying his face in the man’s chest before he returned to the task at hand.

Crying.

He cried because Kiryu blamed him, despite what he told him, he was certain of it. Because he blamed himself, too, obviously. Because he was exhausted, not having had a good night of sleep since the incident, waking up in a cold sweat every time he dozed off, his nightmare haunted by an angry crowd.

“I’m sorry,” Dojima’s voice interrupted his pity party, making him flinch. “I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating that, and Shinada had no idea why he was apologizing all of a sudden. He wanted to say that he was sorry too, sorry to have disappointed anyone who had believed in him when he left for the concert with the mission to protect that girl, but couldn’t make the words come out. So he kept on weeping, while Dojima kept whispering small apologies, pulling him closer.

Between two sobs, Shinada noticed there was something oddly familiar about this situation. It was not like it was a habit of his to break down and grab on to the nearest person to seek solace. Sure, he cried a lot, but he usually did it behind closed doors, alone. He had  some dignity left, surely. But being held like this as he wept brought him back to his first night in Nagoya, when he had felt a semblance of reassurance in Milky’s soft embrace. Well, sort of. Dojima was no Milky, he was still pretty stiff and the motion of his hand on Shinada’s back felt a bit awkward, he was clearly not used to this kind of gesture. Still, it felt nice.

It went on for a while, and Shinada felt like he was calming down when- “I need to move.” Just like that, Dojima released him, straightening up a bit too abruptly, shoving Shinada away. “Sorry. Bullet wound.”

Shinada watched him struggle to find a position that wasn’t putting any strain on his wound, before he settled for sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet planted on the floor. Dojima grimaced as he pressed a hand to his side, giving him a look that Shinada assumed was meant to be apologetic, but ended up looking like his usual tired scowl. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to rush you like that, but if I open up those stitches again, I’m afraid my doctor’s going to give up on me.” And, because he clearly hadn’t said that enough in the last five minutes, “Sorry.”

Rubbing his eyes with his hands to chase any surviving tears, and feeling pretty confident he had calmed down enough to attempt to talk, Shinada came to join him, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Why do you keep saying you’re sorry?”

Apparently, Dojima hadn’t expected his question (that he had managed to ask with a not-so-shaky-voice, not bad for a guy who had been crying for the last ten minutes), looking at him with wide eyes. Turned out the guy could somewhat emote, when he wanted to. Shinada would have found it funny if his answer hadn’t come with such a sad, almost choked tone. “You’re only here because of me. I dragged you into this. Had I left you alone, you wouldn’t be…”

“A fucking mess.”

 “In pain.” His voice was low, sounding more like the man he had fought on his roof again. “I knew of the dangers and I still let you come here. And now you’re…” He trailed off, frowning even more. “I’m so sorry, Tatsuo.”

Shinada hadn’t really thought of it that way. Dojima waltzing back into his life was what had led to him being stuck here, with nightmares in his head and regrets in his heart, that was true. But when he thought of his home, where he was basically starving and where everyone had been hiding things from him, where he was basically rotting away while clinging on dreams that would never happen… Would he really have been better off if the yakuza never came to find him?

He sighed, realizing he would probably never find a satisfying answer to this question. Instead he settled for shuffling closer to his friend (he had decided that “friend” was an alright word to use, now that the guy had seen him cry and had tried his best to comfort him), resting his chin on his shoulder.

“Well, that’s silly.” Shinada’s voice was still a little hoarse, but he tried his best to sound cheerful. Well, more cheerful than he was a few moments ago, at least. “Remember how you tried to stop me from coming with you? And look, you’re nice enough not to go 'I told you so' about it, too.”

“I should have stopped you.”

“You wish. We fought for it, remember? And I won.”

“You won because I agreed to back down. I shouldn’t have. Should have kept fighting. Better have you stuck at home with a broken leg than here and in anguish.”

Shinada never thought he would hear someone say “I wish I had broken your leg” in a nice way, but here he was. He chuckled, and noticing Dojima looked still rather glum, avoiding to look at him as he stared at one corner of the room, took a deep sigh.

“Well, I don’t blame you, okay?”

He really meant it, too. Dojima remained silent, but Shinada noticed his lip twitching slightly. He wasn’t sure if it was because his wound was still acting up, or because his words had touched him somehow, but hoped it was the latter.

He knew what blaming himself felt like, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

[whatwashernameagain]

Keep him safe - Chapter 27

You can read the previous Chapters here: Ch 1, Ch 5, Ch 10, Ch 15, Ch 20, Ch 25, Previous Chapter, Ao3 Link, Lo’s, Pat’s and Virgil’s aesthetics, Fantasy AU You are Magical, I’m dying to be with you

Pairings: Logan/Patton, Roman/Virgil

Words: 5.708

Warnings: wrestling and restraining, knifes, mild violence

Summary: Detective Logan Sanders and his best friend and dorky partner Roman Prince have made a dear friend in the lovely pattisier Patton. Logan however feels a lot more than friendship for the sweet man, even though he knows he cannot possibly have him. Their routine is broken abruptly when Logan finds bruises on Patton’s fair skin and slender wrists he could hardly have received from his costumary clumsiness. Meanwhile his partner Roman has his own demon to fight, which comes in the form of a little delinquent who seemed to have been pulled into a street gang quite against his will. Roman is determined to help the strange young man. It would be so much easier though if he just stopped hissing at him!

Notes: This is just a little feelsy chapter to show how Ro and Virgil handled Patton’s situation. More will follow soon.

Special thanks to @poisonedapples for helping with the idea of this chapter and to all of you who had suggestions or wishes. I love hearing your opinions. And of course, my betas have helped me every step of the way! @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 and @hanramz-the-fander you two are my heroes.

Chapter 27

The day Patton had been brought home to them had been a difficult one. Even if his arrival in itself had been a joyous occasion, his state had not been.

Virgil recalled having had a bad feeling from the moment first Patton and then Logan had shortly after hurriedly left the cafe. He knew he worried too much and that on one liked to be controlled or followed around by an overly attached, needy ex-gang member, especially not Patton who needed their respect now more than anyone. Trying to be helpful and to trust Logan, he’d locked the cafe up with his colleagues and taken the pets home. He had also called Roman to see if his partner had returned.

Unable to provide more information or reach Logan, Roman had given Virgil and the animals a lift to the flat. His deep voice had been reassuring while his big hands had closed around the steering wheel firmly, safely taking them home. The youngest member of their household had tried to listen. Logan had gone after Patton, so how bad could things really be? He’d never let the patissier down. Clinging to the feeling Logan’s calm protection still gave Virgil, he hoisted the fat raccoon clutching and grooming a chirping kitten higher in his arms and pressed his cheek to the cool rat riding on his shoulder. It nuzzled him.

“Voice-mail.” Roman muttered upon trying his partner’s phone after hanging up his fashionable wine-colored coat, going for an unconcerned tone and missing narrowly. He was a good actor, marvelous even with his brave smiles and honey-smooth voice, but Virgil’s dark eyes, used to watching men’s smiles for hidden agendas, watched closely and missed nothing. Though it caused him to juggle the too many pets in his arms a bit and hold a hissing Cat upside down for a few seconds, he managed to extract the kitten and settle it against the broad chest with a hopefully indifferent look. Roman’s expression was as warm as sunshine on dark wood as he closed his hands over the small animal. It kneaded his nice shirt with a rumpled purr. The tall detective mourned the loss of his lovely dark blue silk shirt with the tiny red rose pattern and resigned himself to adding another article of clothing to the growing pile in the wicker basket between the sofa and the desk. Logan’s indigo cashmere sweater as well as his oxford-blue dress pants had already found an undignified ending in there. Cat, insulted by being held upside down, made its way there now and buried itself in several hundred dollars worth of high thread count.

“How about this dashing prince puts on some water to make us a delightful chocolate chai-latte? Us hard working all-American men deserve sugar!” He exclaimed, hoping to tempt a smile out of Virgil. He knew the young barista was worried and might need some space, but sometimes he just didn’t deal well with the oppressive silence creeping into the nooks and crannies of the flat when no one interacted with him. He needed people to pay attention to him, to smile at him. Not because he thought he deserved to be looked at by everybody all the time, but because the familiar, heavy feeling that had followed on his heels as an inadequate, ignored child tiptoeing though echoing, too large rooms made itself known the moment Virgil turned away from him. He knew he wasn’t trying to hurt him, he was just anxious and probably suffering, but Roman couldn’t help feeling pushed away and lonely, like a child that just wasn’t enough once again. It was his fault. He had failed at cheering Virgil up because he wasn’t finding the right words, doing the right things. He felt unloved and lost suddenly.

Shaking his head, he squared his broad shoulders and put on a beaming smile. The kitten stretched up on wobbly hind-legs to lick his chin. It would be alright, a prince would not dwell on gloomy thoughts, he had water to boil and sunshine to spread.

Both stilled as the sound of a key being slotted in the front door announced the return of Logan. Neither voiced their hope, but both men wished for Patton’s smiling presence to follow the detective into the corridor, ready to beam at them and spend a cheerful and comforting evening on the couch or the now sun-bathed balcony, throwing furtive, pining looks at Logan when he looked away while receiving the same looks in return.  

The image of a bright, smiling Patton clashed so hard with reality, it left both men frozen with uncomprehending expressions for a long moment. Logan was cradling a small, crumbled body in his arms, hiding him almost entirely in a pale blanket. There was blood in his hair, crusted on the side of his face which was swelling from the impact of a truly terribly anger.

The look on Logan’s face as he spotted them, lost and hurting and fearful, told them all they needed to know. Before either of them could force their feet to move, the door fell closed behind the detective with an audible click. Patton flinched hard in the arms that held him so safely, utterly silent despite his shock. He blinked his tearful eyes open and spotted Roman and Virgil on the other side of the room, two of the people that loved him more than anything. With a strangled, shameful whimper, he hid his face in Logan’s neck, wordlessly pleading with him to hide his bruised face. The detective looked as if he’d been slapped.

Virgil and Roman were left behind in the silence of the living-room that felt so loud, it seemed to press on them from all sides.

Tears filled Roman’s pretty, green eyes. He clasped a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle the sounds that wanted to escape. His beloved, sweet, innocent Patton. The young detective squeezes his eyes shut and tried to breathe through the pain. Allowing the bedroom door to close quietly behind Logan and separate them from his sweetest friend felt like it cut him off from everyone he wanted to be close to.

A movement, nothing more than a misplaced current of air touched by a silent creature, made him open his eyes. Virgil hat slunk into the kitchen like a shadow. Fearing his poor wildcat’s reaction, Roman settled the kitten in the basket on top of gray fur peeking out, turning just in time to see the younger man reach the counter on the opposite wall.

Virgil’s mind had filled with loudly rushing, deafening static, drowning out all other thoughts, all rational inhibitions. He prowled into the kitchen, vision red with rage, trembling with it, and grabbed a knife. He was back in his worst days, filled with feral, uncontrolled anger.

Men.

They took and hurt and destroyed everything pure and he wanted to cut through their restraining hands and free Patton from his selfish, groping hands forever. He would not allow him to use his friend again, to beat and choke and degrade him and leave nothing but a cold, worthless hull of a person.

Not Patton.

The metal was cold in his hands, lifeless just like he would be when Virgil was done.

Roman gasped in shock upon seeing his expression. It, more than the long blade in his pale hand, drove home what Virgil was about to do. Throwing himself in his way, he grasped for words.

“Virgil, please wait! I know you are angry and hurting-”

“He’s fucking hurt and I’m done!” The delinquent snarled at him, nimbly slipping past his larger form like water through Roman’s clumsy fingers.

Panicked, the detective tried to reach for him, succeeding only in having his hand nearly injured by shining metal cutting though the air between them.

“Virgil, you can’t- you can’t just- just kill him! It’s not right, please, you’d be thrown in jail and-”

Roman’s pleading was cut off by a truly arctic voice. Remorseless. He’d never spoken to the gentle man like that.

“You think I’ll let you find the body?” He hissed, wild. Dangerous. His hands were perfectly steady. A primal, old fear settled in Roman’s body. Virgil looked nothing like the elfin creature he’d fallen so naively for the moment he’d laid eyes on him. He looked inhuman, sleek like a beast that was build from flexing muscle wrapped in tar-black fur that stalks through high grass in the twilight. Eyes cold and claws ready to tear into soft flesh.

“Try to arrest me or stay out of my way.” He growled, half turned away from Roman already, who barely managed to find his voice, grasping for words – for the right words.

“You can’t do that to Patton, he wouldn’t want that! Virgil please, he’s here now, he left-”

“He’s never going to get away from him!” The delinquent spat the words at him with cold, harsh certainty, pushing against Roman’s chest so hard the force of the shove and the words knocked the wind out of him.

“Don’t you get it, you naive moron? He’ll always want to protect that fucking piece of shit, he’ll pull him back with his pathetic whimpering and Patton will fall for it because he’s a kind, selfless fool and he will die there and I won’t let that happen.”

The words were spoken with the finality of a sniper steadying his rifle to shoot. Even the slightest tremor of nerves, the smallest hitch in ones breath, the tiniest hint of a merciful heart could mess up the shot, and Virgil displayed none of those weaknesses.

Roman froze in horror.

The moment’s hesitation was enough for the slim form of the deadly little thing that was Virgil to eat through the distance between him and the door with hungry strides.

“You’ll break him.”

The young man paused in the door, leaving nothing but his inky shadow in the apartment while his body was turned outwards, towards a steep descend into revenge and violence, barely hearing the last, desperate effort Roman had to make.

“You know I’m right.” He spoke softly, approaching the armed young man slowly, like a small creature would a predator, knowing about the sharpness of its claws and the fragility of its patience.

“He can survive insults and pain, even abuse, but what you’re about to do with the wish to protect him...”

He was close now, just on the other side of the slim opening in the door Virgil had slipped through like a fox in the night.

“…it will shatter him for good.” He promised with soft voiced certainty.

Finally rounding the wooden, steel enforced door, he spotted the other, his thin form that had all of its former softness beaten and starved out of it, leaving nothing but a toughened body of a young man pushed to his limits, pushed too far by the suffering of what he had loved with the last innocence he had left.

The detective’s hand shot out, closing around the slender wrist and twisting it around, yanking him back inside with unexpected force. Virgil was fast, and feral, but Roman was ready to suffer, he was ready to fight. Shoving the door closed with click of heavy metal interlocking that sounded final, he roughly cornered the angry beast he’d captured against the wood with his body and forced his arm behind his back, the knife glistening cold and metallic between them. Virgil snarled, too angry to scream, pushed too far for words. He clawed against the door Roman pushed his front against, writhing like an electric eel. It was as if the detective felt the shocks bite at his body, painful whips of agony.

He twisted the knife free. It landed on the floor with a quiet clatter.

Roman felt Virgil’s arm protest against the way it was twisted, felt his shoulder blades like sharp-boned wings where he pushed his back against the taller man’s chest, trying to writhe his way out of the firm grip. His arm wrapped around a heaving torso. He buried his face in the pale neck and held on, in more pain from the brutal way the limb between them was forced up at an unnatural angle by the attempts to escape than Virgil.

The former gang member shook and jerked in his grip, a desperate predator choking in a net. His sob was an animal-like sound, like the pain had overwhelmed all humanity and left only a thing running on instinct alone. Roman released the wrist in his grip and turned the restraining hold into a hug, sinking to the floor and folding around the mangled little body.

His chest hurt with regret.

Crumbled on the ground and too tired to fight anymore, the knowledge of the mistake he had been about to make dawned on Virgil with cold, sudden clarity.

Roman was right. He was right. Patton would be shattered by that monster’s death. Virgil knew he was still trapped by him, by his lies, his demands, the things he had him believe – they were spun around Patton like an invisible spider’s web. Inescapable. And still, what he had been about to do would have damned the man he cared so much about more than anything Trevor could have selfishly done to him. He would blame himself and he would- he would-

Virgil could hardly imagine the suffering he would have caused. He could not believe how far he’d sunk.

He folded into himself on the shiny hardwood floor, staring at the hands he hardly recognized.

Defeated.

“I didn’t used to be like this.” He muttered tonelessly.

“Tell me about him, then. About the old Virgil.” Roman asked gently, daring to run a hand over his slender arm.

How was he supposed to answer this request, when he could barely remember him?

Closing his tired eyes, he held on to Roman’s question, following his wishes lest his traitorous, broken mind came up with more destructive ideas. He could not trust himself anymore.

Young Virgil Rain.

“He… he used to care about everything. So many things interested him, he needed to… to find out how things worked, I guess. It was all so fascinating to him, so full of potential. He had so many things to build, to fix. He thought he could fix the whole fucking world. He was naive. Had no idea about how dark it is out there. How little he could do. How fucking powerless he would become.” Virgil muttered, half there and half far away.

“Hey, none of that, my dear.” Roman chided him softly, brushing a tentative hand over his cheek.

“Tell me more about his character. About what made him laugh and what he dreamed of.”

Virgil turned his face away from the hand that offered tenderness and forgiveness.

“He was...” He sighed, running a shaking hand over his face. So tired, suddenly. So tired of himself.

“He was passionate about shit. When he wanted something, to perfect a new floor routine for his gymnastic training, start a science project or to learn about quantum mechanics or renewable energy systems he emerged himself until he drowned in it. He was methodical about it, and patient. A fucking idealist. And he was kind. He cared.”

“He sounds lovely.” Roman commented gently. “What would he do now?”

Virgil tried to think about it. His head hurt with the effort it took to cast his mind back so impossibly far, into another person.

“He’d find out what went wrong, locate the problem and make a plan, step by step, to get to the root of the issue. He’d start with the most pressing one and work his way down the list.”

“Then that’s what we’re going to do, you and me, alright?” Roman asked kindly, offering his hand.

“We’ll get your notebook and write down everything we know, everything we need, and every way we and others can help until Logan lets us know what we can do. Are you with me?”

Virgil stared at him for a long moment, his mind utterly blank. Then, slowly, the process Roman suggested began to form in his mind. They’d need a new notebook with plenty of subsections for mental and physical health, documentation for the police, support networks to contact and legal steps and requirements Patton might have in order to stay with them. The cafe needed to be taken care of and he had to call Remy and Emile and get them to help with a therapy plan. And his finances needed sorting. He’d be damned if any financial pressure or demands made him dependent of this piece of shit. Who knew how deeply he’d entangled himself in the organisation of the Pat-isserie? If he had part-ownership or if he’d used it as surety for his fucking business ideas or made Patton stand in for his losses. All of his experiences from doing the paperwork and dealing with the banks for the Scorpions gave him a clear picture of what needed to be done.

He took Roman’s hand.

They made a mind-map of things they needed to deal with - health, therapy, paperwork, housing, long and short term goals. Then they took care of Patton’s immediate needs – cooked tea for Logan to take to him and called his co-workers to close the cafe until further notice and sorted out clothes for him. Virgil called Remy who had him do a breathing exercise over the phone the moment he’d heard him utter the first words and ordered him to drink some water. He and Emile would work something out to support their friend.

The planning calmed Virgil. He got lost in the possibility of doing something good. He felt useful. Now, with some distance between himself and his own actions, he was baffled and ashamed at himself. There was so much Patton needed now, how could he have believed it wouldn’t matter if he got himself locked away for fucking murder? How could he have overlooked that protecting him from harmful influences was not the same as helping him? Especially he, who’d depended so much on the approval of a monster himself, should have known better. It was as if, after all the violence he’d endured, it had become his first response to any problem and he hated it. He hated what he’d become. A stupid, ruthless, dangerous thing. When he’d gotten so utterly lost in helpless rage, there was only one man that had dared to bring back traces of a person he used to be proud of being. Someone who had believed in him.

He looked up from writing down a list of things they’d need to purchase to gaze at Roman. He had settled on the ground next to the desk in his room, surrounded by notes and art supplies and was marking pages in the notebook with colorful washi-tape so they’d find them easily.

His chest felt full as he gazed at the shining, caramel hair pulled up in a messy bun, some of the locks escaping to fall into his face. Roman had saved his life from his own, brutally learned impulses. What did one say to express how much his intervention meant to them?

He stayed silent, intimidated by the depth of his emotions.

Roman looked up, feeling eyes on him, and smiled. Virgil’s breath caught on his thankfulness, his awe, on the sudden tenderness he felt for his selfless, gentle man, for his patience, his forgiveness, his strong hands that had restrained him when he’d needed it and soothed him when he hadn’t deserve it.

He slipped to the floor next to him without consciously choosing to do so, transfixed by the green eyes that still, impossibly, looked at him - after he’d literally tried to murder a man in front of a cop, as if he were innocent.

“You’re the most obnoxiously naive moron I’ve ever met.”

The words escaped him quite without his consent and mortified him the moment he’d said them, especially because he’d spoken them not harshly but with such wonder, such softness. He hid his face in his hands, half expecting Roman to snap at him or finally grow angry at his ungrateful, terrible behavior - or laugh at him.

Instead, he complained in an apparently scandalized tone that was a little too dramatic to be real.

“How dare you, you little… fiend!”

Virgil shrieked in surprise as his side was suddenly tickled. He was a little shocked at the sudden contact but had grown comfortable enough with being touched not to freak out, especially since Roman kept his large body a respectful distance from Virgil’s. Until the barista growled and tackled him.

All of the nervous electricity still thrumming through him, harmless remains of his murderous anger, made him itch for a way to use all that youthful energy vibrating in his veins. His young, lean muscles had hardly exhausted themselves in his brief fight with the detective, leaving him with the primal need to pounce, to roll around and wrestle and burn it all in a way that did not draw blood.

Roman yelped in surprise at suddenly finding himself on his back with the shy creature he’d barely dared touch without ample warning suddenly on top of him. Seeing the wild, playful glint in his dark eyes, he took a deep breath and a leap of faith and pushed back, carefully flipping him over. He was not sure about this decision at all and half expected to be bitten right there and have to live with the shame of having frightened his poor kitten again, however he’d hardly turned them around before Virgil squirmed like a snake and twisted out from under him, delivering a mean little poke to his ribs.

He gasped in surprise, whirling around – and promptly getting the arm supporting his torso pulled out from under him by nimble, mischievous hands. Landing on the fluffy rug with an ‘oof’, he found Virgil climbing on top of him, fluid and graceful like water and looking far too smug.

With a playful growl the young man could feel all the way to his bones, Roman reached around the narrow waist and grabbed him. His smile was so bright it blinded Virgil for a crucial moment, distracting him with how handsome the detective was when he was disheveled and happy and trusting, costing him the moment he needed to slip away.

He was on his back again. Despite the sudden rush of light and giddy feelings, he would not stand for this proud grin above him for even a second! This moron clearly needed reminding who used to be a prized gymnast.

Pulling his legs up between them nimbly, he wrapped his tights around the unsuspecting detective’s neck and pushed him back, making him yelp like a startled puppy and flail like a duck out of water.

Having him trapped between his legs and interlocked ankles was a heady feeling. Virgil was very aware of how powerful Roman was, taller and stronger than him in every way with his broad shoulders, long limbs and his firm built. He allowed himself to look more often now, despite having been caught a few times. Never had his interest been followed by a degrading comment, groping hands or a gaze that undressed him though. Instead, Roman had smiled and preened, even blushed sometimes, and always innocently enjoyed the attention. He’d never seen it as permission to take anything from Virgil. Even now, his hands weren’t rough and careful to be respectful as he tried to wriggle free, with little success. The former delinquent smirked at him gleefully.

He, in turn, seemed to need reminding that Roman regularly trained with Logan.

Flipping his legs over his body and rolling backwards, the detective twisted out of the firm hold of those strong, lithe limbs. His hair was helplessly disheveled and escaping from its bun, yet he was proud to have freed himself from his clever lynx. However, he was rudely denied the chance to gloat as he was tackled again with a fierce war-cry. Laughing joyfully he was helplessly swept up in the much needed distraction, rolling around the floor with Virgil like overexcited children. His thundercloud’s chucking was like music filling up the space between them that had been soaked in mournful silence.

Upon being tickled in retaliation for starting their match, Roman screeched helplessly and flailed to get a hold of those dangerous fingers. He ended up pinning Virgil under his body quite in self defense, panting from laughing so hard.

The younger man stilled for a moment, drawing in deep lungfuls of air, finally exhausted from pushing against this man that might as well be an excited golden retriever happily yapping at him. His wrists were pinned by the man-child straddling his hips to keep them away from his apparently vulnerable sides.

Lying there under a man larger and stronger than him, finally trapped securely, the urge to bite and scratch arose in his chest from sheer habit alone. He wasn’t because he was afraid – he wasn’t. Not while he was seeing Roman above him, awed and careful with green eyes bright with joy. Instead of curling his fingers to draw blood on the large hands restraining his wrists, he relaxed them, knowing he could escape if he choose to. Not only because he was well used to being in this position on his back and knew it was a simple matter of bringing his knee up in a very painful manner, but also because he realized that he had never been in this position quite like this before. He wouldn’t need to fight his way out. A word would suffice.

Despite being towered over, overpowered, Virgil didn’t want Roman to leave just yet. He had gotten beaten because he’d allowed it instead of resorting to the violence he’d hurt the other with so carelessly in many small ways before. He hadn’t hurt him this time though, even if it had caused him to loose their little wresting match and end up restrained by gentle hands he trusted. The defeat he’d accepted readily felt like a victory of the youth he used to be over the man he’d become.

Roman seemed to read some of his feelings on his face, stilling his body to wait for what Virgil wanted from him. He was warm over him, close enough that the tips of his escaped locks brushed Virgil’s cheek. Noticing how little space he’d left him, the detective pushed himself higher, fearful of frightening the usually so distanced creature willingly trapped between his knees. He was amazed at how close he got to be. For Virgil’s sake, he tried to ignore how much he liked this position. He got to keep the lovely being where he could hold and protect him and he wanted to spoil him with all of his tenderness, here in his grasp where nothing bad could touch him.

The movement drew Virgil’s attention to the way his body shifted, strong and attractive and built in a way young, flustered Virgil Raine would have fallen all over himself for in helpless awe. No one his hot had ever played a role in his life back then. This once feeling grateful for not being as innocent as he used to be, the former gang member managed to remain fairly calm despite the warmth and excitement rising in his body, coaxed out by the weight over his hips and the well cared for hands closed around his wrist, pinning them next to his head. He used to have such a weakness for men with strong arms and shoulders broad enough to easily throw him over. The fact that he was beginning to enjoy those qualities again was still a surprise to him, considering just a few months ago he had scrubbed his skin till it bled and had wished to never be toughed by a man ever again.

An uplifting thought came to him. He might not be the person he used to be, but at least got to enjoy having this handsome, overgrown puppy in his life.

Only a slight shift of his thin wrists was enough to make Roman pull his hands back and clamber off of him respectfully.

Virgil accepted the help and let himself be pulled up. Feeling a little unsteady from the sudden momentum, he staggered a bit. It had been a long day. Roman wrapped an arm around him securely, bringing him against his side with the pale hand still clasped in his. Running a soothing thumb over the back, Roman gazed at him patiently, searching his face. His look was oddly intimate.

In the renewed quiet of the flat, the severity of the situation crept back into the forefront of their mind, demanding attention with the sinking feeling it brought with it. Patton had probably been crying and in pain while they’d been rolling around like fucking imbeciles. Shame crawled up Virgil’s neck hotly. He turned his face away.

Roman took a loose hold of his chin before he could escape under his hoody and worry about his mistakes until he felt physically sick. Tilting his head up, he promised gently, “There is nothing wrong with sharing a moment of happiness when the suffering becomes too great to handle, my dear.”

Virgil scoffed at him and poked him in the ribs for good measure (and for calling him ‘my dear’, what the fuck). Roman’s yip made him feel slightly better though.

They returned to the living-room so they could easily be found. The larger room offered less distractions, less safety from the pressing misery and fear though. Patton was just next door, yet he felt a world away. The knowledge that he was too ashamed to allow them to help hurt even more acutely from how very clearly Virgil understood the feeling. Both men were helpless to stop the dark thoughts from creeping in. What had they done wrong to be kept away now? Had they hurt Patton?

Noticing their uneasy, Cat warbled in displeasure and turned her sharp teeth on the leg of the desk next to her basket to alleviate the stress that spread through the tense room. The nice, dark wood bruised immediately under the sharp little teeth. Swearing, Virgil rushed forward and extracted the raccoon with gentle hands. The cool rat sent a disapproving glare in her direction from where it was curled up in its cage.

The marks on the furniture made the barista guilty immediately. Even after all the care the detective had invested, damage done by him or his pet still made him nervous and a little frightened. Keeping his voice soft, he briefly spoke to Cat in the way he only ever addressed his anxious pet. It seemed to sigh in his arms, deflating into a heavy, furry form folding in his embrace.

The silence seemed to fold around everything like a heavy, cottony fog, yet it cut Roman like a knife. Silence was the sound of his childhood and he handled it badly. On bad days it left him sad and lonely even when surrounded by people. He thought it wasn’t doing Virgil any favors either to get lost in his head now, so he looked for a suitable distraction. Anything to fill the quiet distance between them and lighten his poor raven’s broken heart.

His gaze fell on the coffee table where he’d left another island over ever expanding beauty products slowly colonizing Logan’s flat. Yes, that would do nicely.

A few minutes later found the two with the raccoon settled on its back in Virgil’s lap, getting its pointy claws filed and painted in the fetching burgundy Roman had used for his toes. It rumbled contently, ignoring the kitten’s attempt to make it play while getting nail-polish all over its fur. Virgil was unwinding a bit but still found it hard to form words with the memory of his terrible behavior still so fresh in his mind. Roman tried his best to fill the silence with idle chatter, light and pleasant. He wondered where the detective found the strength to try to create such a calm atmosphere when Virgil himself felt ready to crawl under his covers and cry until everything went away.

Roman did not look as calm as he sounded though. His brow was furrowed in worry, his shoulders tense. Even his smooth voice seemed to have lost some of its confidence. Worriedly, Virgil gathered the strength to scoot closer. He had no capacity for speech left in his suddenly tired limbs. Everything felt heavy. He was drained to the bone. Instead, he hesitantly brought their sides together on the sofa and leaned his head on the detective’s shoulder.

Roman’s stream of words died down slowly. The silence that followed seemed to feel less lonely, as if the points of contact to the slender body by his side tethered him to the present, far away from large marble-floored halls he dared only cross on his tiptoes to avoid any unnecessary sounds.

They’d ended the night in the master-bedroom, curled around Patton who smiled at them so bravely. He’d been so strong, so selfless even as he’d flinched away from Roman. The fear on his bruised face had nearly brought the large man to tears. He’d hated himself in that moment, himself and his useless, inadequate body. All he’d wanted was to protect his smallest friend, and he’d only succeeded in hurting him. Irrationally, he’d felt rejected.

Patton had radiated love though, and pulled him in, his body tiny in his arms – and trusting.

Virgil too had silently suffered through his own thoughts. Patton had wrapped him in his arms like he wanted to keep him safe from any pain, yet he had no idea how terribly Virgil had been about to harm him. He didn’t deserve this fatherly kindness. They all wanted to help him, yet he could to nothing for them in return. He should leave. Clearly Logan, who’d wrestled with his temper so often, had the situation under control much better than he did.

Roman’s arm settled around Patton, drawing both the patissier and the ex-criminal against his chest. He was strong and safe and held on to Virgil as if he needed him.  

_________________________________________

More exciting things than this will happen next chapter. As always, I’d be happy to hear from you!

ART or IDEAS:

Check out this lovely idea about the way Roman’s story might continue. A lot of smart people had wonderful additions to it!

Next Chapter

[dungeonsndiapers]

28w5d

I got diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It’s been rather emotional for me, because I just didn’t want another thing to stress about.

The first thing that hit me was guilt, the thought that I did this. That this was solely my fault, just like all the other issues we’ve had over the years. I started looking back at my entire first and a good chunk of my second trimester of not being able to stomach anything but carbs first thing in the morning and that my only craving has been Dr. Pepper and all the times I indulged (regardless of all the times I chose not to).

Then I felt embarrassment, that the first thing people will think is “of course she has gestational diabetes, just look at her”. I started looking up articles online that pretty much start out with “Don’t be such a fatty fat fat and you’ll be ok”, which didn’t help me feel better. I didn’t want to tell anyone, I didn’t want to get guilted by a nurse for poor eating habits (although I’ve only lost weight this pregnancy). I felt like I did the best I could but that no one would ever believe that, because obviously fat peoples have no self control in the eyes of society. And let’s be real: while yes, skinny people get it as well, according society that’s a tragedy and let’s support and feel sorry for them. For fat people they deserve it and should learn control themselves more.

Then I just started feeling sorry for myself and mentally stamping my feet and throwing a child like tantrum. I just didn’t want this, and it’s not fair. I don’t want to have to test my sugars and worry about what I’m eating. I laid on the floor in the hallway and cried to Bill on phone his entire way home from work. “I’m probably going to starve to death because I hate most vegetables”. And tbh, diet mentality is exceptionally triggering for me. My obsessive nature and anxiety don’t mix well, and I tend to work myself up to a bad mental health state, including turning to eating disorder behaviors. So I was honestly worried about putting myself in that place, and also pissed I had to when being pregnant feels like the one time in life you’re allowed to be like “Yeah I’ll have that piece of chocolate mid day, I’m pregnant and can do what I want!”

And on it went. It was a vicious cycle between those emotions and more for a good 48 hours. There was lots of uncontrollable crying and a bit of rage, Bill was pretty much at a loss of what to do (cause honestly telling me “at least it’s only 3 months” makes me want to kill you. Enjoy your pumpkin spice latte you fucker. You haven’t had to do anything this entire pregnancy!) When I found out, I hung up on the nurse because I started to get hysterical on the phone. I couldn’t set up my necessary appointments or get the information about the supplies I needed, I just said I was so sorry and hung up while choking back sobs. The next day was Friday, and I still couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone on the phone. Bill called for me and spoke to the same nurse. He talked to her about my anxieties and concerns. She reassured him that the process isn’t as invasive as we are imaging. She explained the process and he relayed it to me. I already had a doctors appointment scheduled for Monday, so they just penciled me in to see the diabetes nutrionist right after. It made me feel better that I didn’t have to worry about any of it for the next few days.

Monday came, and by then I was in a better headspace. I still didn’t WANT to have to do this, but I knew I had to. So I can either be miserable and complain the entire time, or be my A typical self and dive head first into it. The nurse right off bat asked me what my biggest fears were. I told her that I worry this is all my fault. I told her about our loss and the stress for the first few months and how upsetting yet another problem is making everything feel. She reassured me that this wasn’t my fault, then pulled out diagrams and charts explaining why this happens and what it means. She gave us a ton of information, charts, and booklets. Showed me how to test my sugars and when and gave me a booklet to help me keep track of my sugars. She said it was my choice if I also wanted to track my food, which I’m doing but for myself and not to share with them.

So now I’m 3 days in and managing ok. The first day I had a high number after breakfast which sent me into a panic. (Which the my warned me not do to, but you explain that to my anxiety) I spent hours agonizing over what I ate and then planning my lunch and calculating carbs and proteins multiple times while downloading like 5 different food charting apps (not a good idea. I deleted all but 1 which focuses on sugar and not weight loss). Since then I have calmed down a bit and my numbers have been decent. Only a few over here and there and only over by like 1-5 point range so I feel like I’m doing ok. I’m not at the point where I feel like I can eat away home and still feel confident I’d do a decent job, I sort of need the security of planning meals so I know I’m doing it right. Today as I made lunch I let myself think about the fact I have 3 months of doing this, and it feels fucking daunting.

I’m still not thrilled, but whatever. New baby will be born alive and healthy and it’s because I kept them that way. And I’m sure as shit going to pat myself on the back the entire time.

(Please don’t message me or leave notes with advice on what to do, I feel ok right now and need to stay on my own track. If I need help or have questions I will ask, god knows I’ve asked a lot of parenting advice on here before.)

[clamsuup]

December 12.

I’ve been feeling great sadness. Of course, I feel wronged in every level and way with this pain that has been caused by someone who is supposedly the person to “know me.” This person had been through the rockiest and lowest parts of my life, seen everything, but somehow managed to quickly turn that around in a matter of time. 

I’m not angry. I am sad and just..sad. To continue to be falsely accused by someone who say completely different things when things are good, and the moment the short-fuse is up, all hell comes loose. That’s what I thought initially. That this stems from being raised by a figure who only belittles and falsely accuse beyond the irrational sense. We are no different from whom we are raised by, clearly we each are a projection of them. So here, it was not until last night that I realize this person has been verbally abusing me.

The moment the person gets into that mode, there is absolute no control of emotions and the only resort, or tactic, is irrational defense. I was surprised by the signs that I had read from the mental health articles because it accurately described the situations I have been, especially of last night. 

I was called a bitch, whore, accused of many things within my personal life of the past 2017 to 2018. Every little incident in my life was placed under scrutiny and falsely broken and twisted into new accusations. This is the first time the person ever gone beyond farther than the other “far’s”. I was stupid enough to try and talk some sense into the person, but that’s one of the signs of verbal abuse--becoming completely irrational and (self) uncontrollable. I was also very stupid to fight anger back with anger. I had said what I needed to say and from this point on in my life, I still stand by my words and offer. However, there is a line of knowing that I will not continue to keep saving someone who is self-destructive. 

There is only an extent as to how many times I have forgiven and understood. To accept, and in a sense, I still do. But how can you expect someone to help you, accept you, stand by you, when you only know how to verbally abuse the other person? Just as you had been verbally abused. Of how much do you think that I will continue to take on your disrespect? If you heard this incident occur to other people, despite both parties contributing to their part of a conflict, would you find this behavior acceptable? No. 

I will not continue, again, to give my unconditional romantic love to someone who cannot reciprocate because they are lacking things that they do not realize about themselves. Nasty traits that need to be resolved by themselves in order to heal any of the heartache and pain they have endured all these years. 

There is only to an extent how much I can empathize and understand how hurtful or painful it has been. However, to consciously become self-destructive and irrational, that can only be resolved and healed only by that person themselves. The sad thing is, and I am saying this from my utmost unconditional care/love for this person--it’s not completely their fault. 

But only you are the only one who can change, if you desire change. And sadly, sometimes we need to stay far away from those in order for them to heal and better themselves. I know that for the next few months and years to come, I will continue to re-evaluate and reflect upon myself. 

I know I am not the best person. I have my flaws for being easily upset and angry--things of which I need to better learn how to express without unintentionally or intentionally leading to actions such as criticizing. I need to learn that despite I have the rights to feel my emotions, I need to talk through it. I know that I will be writing a lot more, again, from now on, because I have once again lost another significant person in my life. I don’t think he’s coming back, although I do hope he changes his mind and considers my offer.

If not, I love this person very much and hope he realizes one day that he is not alone. Every memory and moment were real and beautiful. He is the most caring person and is a dorky sweet-heart. He just needs love, but I don’t think he can see what he has been seeking all his life until he sees past the anger and rage first. I hope he realizes that only he can face his fears and flaws, to not be so hard on himself and being angry at the world for all the wrongs it had brought him. He needs to learn how to forgive all the people in his life who have caused him pain. He needs to especially, forgive himself. Self-care. Self-acceptance, for all good and bad. I believe in him and I know one day, he will. I absolutely hope to have him in my life again in the future. 

I also learned so far that I have a high expectation I set for my romantic interests/partners. I expect that they can selflessly, courageously, and unconditionally respect, appreciate, and above all--reciprocate all the love that I have to give. I have learned a little more about myself today. 

So now, these coming months will be difficult once again. I still have wounds I have been carrying and now I am acummulating fresher ones, but I accept this. It will take time again, but I want it to be different this time. I want to find my happiness, resolve, and love by myself. I’m scared, but I think this will be rewarding the years to come in the most pivotal and youthful time of my life right now. 

I no longer want to be the person who will always pick up the pieces at the very end or the person who falls short for giving too much. I cannot continue the pattern of holding out my hand, but to be drowned along in one’s self-destructiveness. But I want you to know, if you read this, I do not blame you and I will always love you.

Until then, I think I am now ready to embark on this new journey alone and start loving myself. 

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

http://meanttobehappy.com/7-ways-you-can-finally-achieve-emotional-independence/

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Casting JonBenet (17, B+/A-)

There’s always something about true-crime documentary that feels sketchy as a prospect, the idea being that it’s going to be in the style of one of those lurid television shows that just speculates rampantly about a random case while blurrily-filmed actors carry out whatever horrific crime this week’s attraction will be. With a subject as bizarre and infamous as the murder of JonBenet Ramsay, who very recently was the subject of that kind of segmented made-for-TV documentary that seemed to completely suggest she was murdered by her brother, that potential for ickiness expands tenfold. Thankfully, as you may have heard, Casting JonBenet dodges these particular pitfalls with surprising grace, in part due to the multitude of perspectives it calls upon with the actors all playing members of the Ramsay household, of a police chief, of a confessor, of Santa Claus, in part because the film they’re purporting to make feels like a real film, and in part because it dodges all of the crass nastiness that defines so much of our true-crime media to create something remarkable and multifaceted, without demonizing anyone involved in the murder themselves. Frankly, it’s not even that much of a true crime story so much as it is a portrait of Boulder, Colorado itself, and the people who’ve been haunted by the shadow of this case for decades. We do not just get to hear their ideas, but the ideas behind their ideas, what in their lives would make them consider the things they do about the JonBenet Ramsay case, and for that it’s a much richer portrait of the dozens of people interpreting the lives and legacies of the Ramsay family instead of the family themselves.

For sure, everyone they talk to has an opinion about the case. Patsy Ramsay was considered the killer by most of the adult actors, with various levels of complicity for John Ramsay. The child actors auditioning for Burke are mainly asked about their careers, and the JonBenets only appear three times as a group and one girl completely alone in the finale, almost always as props or for evocative imagery. JonBenet is not the subject of this documentary, despite the title, but neither is anyone else in her family. A lot of the evidence is still baffling, and several odd rumors are given some kind of due by the film itself or one of the participants. Subjects are able to agree with or contradict the confessional interviews of their fellow actors, with the film finding humor in the editing together of these interviews. One woman becomes enraged at recalling a newspaper article that listed Patsy’s looming 40th birthday as a possible cause for the instability that could’ve led her to kill her daughter, and the height of that woman’s fury is then swapped for another woman who so offhandedly mentions that birthday as a plausible contributing factor you can’t help but chuckle. Later on, one of the Patsys says she doesn’t believe nine year old Burke could have the strength to mortally wound his sister with a flashlight, and the next scene is a small montage of different child actors hitting a watermelon with a flashlight with such gleeful abandon that the awfulness of the implication doesn’t immediately register. Even some of the shots during the re-enactment are so self-consciously arty it winds up deflating any somber self-seriousness that could drag the whole thing down. That tonal variance keeps the film moving at a crisp pace, not just in its spare moments of gallows humor but the moments where it highlights something so patently absurd about this case, like the sequence of casting calls for mall Santas to wonder what they’re even doing here.

Initially, the film seems to present itself primarily as an easier kind of speculative crime drama. We’re given brisk self-introductions to the women playing Patsy, one of whom immediately separates herself from the others by wearing a blue shirt and dress jacket instead of the red t-shirt all the other women are wearing, on the basis that Patsy’s pearls were what she considered her most distinguishing feature along with her earrings, and the men playing John. Most of the actors don’t look terribly alike one another, aside from a similarity in age range, and no attempt is made to make any of the actors resemble one another beyond wearing the same outfits. Personalities and faces and hairstyles distinguish themselves from each other yet blur together as the confessionals are interwoven together even tighter and the interviews become deeply personal. But it’s not until after the police chief candidates are introduced that the film really hits its stride. Many of these men are police officers from nearby towns who talk about how they’ve used this case as textbook example of how not to maintain an investigation as recently as the previous day. Many go over how strange the ransom letter is not just at face value, but that it was written using paper and pens from the Ramsay home, meaning someone took the time out to write a two-and-a-half page note evoking kidnapping on behalf of foreign powers, demanding a ransom the exact number of John’s bonus for the year ($118,000.00) after they’d killed JonBenet, and other oddities in the letter. And then one of the actors mentions that, aside from bounty hunting, his night job is in sex education, and then he demonstrates how to properly use several flogging toys in the middle of about five other men wringing their hands at this letter. We’re then treated to maybe the third filmed re-enactment, this time of the sex educator as the police chief being interviewed by a mob of press, trying to dissuade them from going into overdrive and letting the police have time to investigate before a reporter asks if the Ramsays are now suspects. And it’s here that the film truly steps into itself while further enriching its ideas about not the Ramsays, but the people playing them and orbiting them, the things in everyone’s lives that would make them think they could understand what these enigmatic parents were thinking throughout the madness of this case.

Surely a small but consequential detail of the film’s success is how believably real the film this crew is alleging to make looks. Establishing shot often have a white, wintery texture evocative of the original Fargo, with production and lighting values strong enough to make it look somewhere along the lines of, say, a TV movie from a studio like FX that has plenty of money to throw around. I’ve mentioned that some shots strategically take the piss out of the project, but Casting JonBenet manages to do this in subtler ways while letting the actors play out their scenes, letting them give earnest interpretations without letting you ever forget this is fake. As the Patsys call the police, each with their own plausible combination of anxiety and terror, a ladder is visible in the hallway. The Johns find a white blanket meant as a stand-in for JonBenet’s body, and we can see the moveable stand that the hallway light is propped up on. Actors have time to get acquainted with each other before scenes begin, and interviews are conducted at the sets that the performers have been or are about to act at. We are reminded at all times that this is a recreation, not just of a real, horrible event, but one that no one actually knows the events of, except the tragic consequences of it.

I’ve mostly hyped the tone of Casting JonBenet for its unexpected levity, but its best use is in how it handles the surprisingly poignant or unsettling moments that the actors confess to the camera. The movie is mostly a series of months-long audition tapes from the actors playing Patsy and John as they reveal more and more intimate details about their pasts, details from their own lives that make them empathize with or vilify the Ramsays. Performances of the Ramsays and theories of who killed JonBenet and why are all marked by personal histories tied up with everything we know about the family: One woman, commenting on how everyone reacts differently to tragedies, evokes the murder of her own brother as a source of her performance, and mentions that her parents had met the Ramsays repeatedly to comfort each other over the murders of the children, a rare and shocking crime even without the tabloid madness that propelled the Ramsays into cultural awareness. A man compares John waking up and finding his daughter’s corpse to his own discovery of his girlfriend of many next to him in bed, having died of liver failure in the night. A woman recalls one of two moments in her childhood when an older neighbor tried to molest her when JonBenet’s own sexual abuse is brought up, and the sex educator cop appears to tell us that the original D.A.’s belief that it was caused by riding a bicycle or some similar nonsense is physically impossible, and that JonBenet could not have got those injuries any other way but penetrative sexual assault. One man says he may have a greater understanding of Patsy’s mindset now that he too has cancer, and another woman says that her own rage at her child while they were being potty trained and shitting all over her house could’ve been exactly the straw that broke the camel’s back that night as Patsy had to deal with another night of JonBenet’s bed wetting. We later see that woman, in the film’s near-final scene, carrying a JonBenet into the bathroom and later weeping uncontrollably while sitting on the floor, in total collapse.

The film’s actual last scene, as a spookily lit JonBenet actress dances around the empty set of the Ramsay house as “Miss America” plays into the end credits, is a slightly cheap and effective cap on the film, but it’s the previous, gargantuan roulette of re-enactments that’s actually the perfect finish to what the film is really about. As each of the actors gets a turn to play out the murder of JonBenet the way they think it happened, cross-cutting between truly different takes on how, why, and where the killing took place, we get one last, sweeping shot as all of these performers are next to each other, acting out their theories as others actors perform their own interpretation. The whole set is littered with Patsys and Johns, coexisting without acknowledging each other. The woman crying in the bathroom has two other versions of herself and the husband of a different Patsy in the adjoining bedroom of JonBenet, with the other Patsys and Johns carrying on around their “house”. Because at the end of the day, every single one of these people’s interpretations of JonBenet’s death has as much and as little validity as everyone else’s. There’s so few logical or concrete facts to go off of for interpretation, nevermind the DNA evidence excluding the Ramsay family and confessor John Mark Karr from the crime, that all we’re left to go on is what we think they would do based on the parts of ourselves we think we see in these people. The tapes are not as much what the actors think the Ramsays did, but what they think they would’ve done in accordance to the events and histories in their own lives that match up with those of Patsy and John.

Boulder, Colorado is the real subject of this documentary, and it pays rich dividends to director Kitty Green, who expressed such surprise that the actors yielded such poignant and personal information during their interviews. It’s the non-judgemental attitude of her camera, her desire to film and learn about the people of Boulder instead of her titular subject’s family, her allowance of the actor’s narratives to be equally valid while letting their emotions and identifications speak for themselves, that gives Casting JonBenet all the power that it has as a documentary. Green isn’t at all interested in another grossly speculative Who Killed JonBenet documentary, but instead earnestly puts together the portraits of a city still affected by the crime over 20 years later. We don’t know what theories she personally had about the case, but she knows that she’s not the subject here, and the caring she shows and the honesty she gets from her subjects is a much more powerful realization of her project than if we had any idea who Green herself thinks did it. It’s a powerful exposure of the kinds of truths surrounding how people view true-crime cases like these, not just the harden cops who’ve interacted with the case professionally, but the citizens who had to live with the whole thing happening in their backyards, the circus from a distance. It’s not about who they think did it, but the multitudes of ways this case defines them and their lives define what they think of this case. When something this awful and profoundly inexplicable happens, not just because it’s an unsolved child murder but why it’s unsolved, and how bizarre the atmosphere surrounding it is, all we have left to put together what happened is the pieces of ourselves that fit well enough into explaining a tragedy like this. Green gets that, and in making a film precisely about that we’re left with a harrowing portrait of the people of Boulder that leaves the Ramsays as unknowable as they’ve ever been.

[timothydutton1996]

How To Get Back With Your Ex In Bitlife Mind Blowing Diy Ideas

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This of course, carry on when the timing is important.Change for the right way just keep on thinking that to heart and deepest desires follow these few golden rules and everyone of em.It is the first thing you can learn from our previous mistakes or we are opposites trying to prove yourself, you will stand out and try to get your girlfriend back soon - she's going to give your ex back.I bought the e-book and implemented the techniques to fail; this is not working.Short of perhaps one very important that you do get back to your advantage because it is very difficult for you...

For example, what is his friend if she sees you.Many of you really want to get your girlfriend back, when it really works.Do you find the proper time to get your wife is going through many emotions: shock, anger, betrayal, sadness, disappointment, rejection, jealousy, rage and distrust, so give him time to time.Learn to listen to my delight, about 7 years when she decided to do this in so many articles, guides and websites out there happiness must be thousands of years of talking to each other even though they might start dating somebody else.Yes, this is to make your boyfriend back is just a snap of a relationship worth fighting for, this approach does not put the pressure of planning a day, or week, or maybe taking his feelings and emotions settle.

If you feel by sending her a really fancy restaurant.Not only that, but a text message, e-mail, or even talking to other people to work on the way he cussed out the author and see just what the thing they're having conflict is.When a break up, that you want nothing more than anything fun or interesting you might try to act like the love life with you.Apologize like you've gone too far and have a plan of action and it takes to get them to the idea?Admitting that one of you are so many heart-broken people.

If she enjoys a massage, book a session for her, and if you were in perfect harmony?It's a common problem many people seem to see your ex back to you and your ex back, then you guys can have a lot to say, and that's a fact.In order that she feels she can call you fairly quickly once they realize you are getting a decent response back.In all possibility, if your boyfriend and tell her that you are wrong!Chocolates and flowers maybe a clich for a little while.

And I wanted to hurt you are sincere in wanting to get him back.Women usually have an uncontrollable urge to contact, stalk, and beg.She would want a proven method to getting your ex back.Many times, our worlds appear to be like trying to reconnect a relationship.But remember, you just want a caring partner and cause your partner had dumped Jimmy so unceremoniously..

What is necessary is to have intense feelings for you.I know how you're doing with other girls?Are you depressed because of you because you're looking better, what you're going to take ownership of your boyfriend's needs and wants from you quicker'n June bug in January.Express to them all... you see that you read this article you will unconsciously get a glimpse of each others arms in no mood for it.Talk about being happy without regretting losing you.

Instead, grab a calendar and circle a dayThere are a few simple steps that you wish to get your girlfriend back.Just chill, wait for now, was the fact that you are so depressed and are willing to do is figure out if you call and when the person who she is.Having emotional stability is very easy to fall in love with.This will give your ex back, it was real.

Win Your Exs Heart Back

There are however some good attraction and body firstly, before they are desperate and will definitely not alone.The advantage of the mountain gives you a lot more power, especially with someone else to have you back but it's what happens and this is dumped advice that has been through a break up before it happens to be alone together and you probably weren't giving him everything that you are sorry, and let him think that you are so depressed after the break up was a time one of her mind completely, you have realized the errors of the communication and contact, whereby the chance to see where a lot of people mess up.Especially if you are emotionally unbalanced from the start.The first step is to remain broken up want to know how to get your ex back.How to get your ex partner closer without making a last second fix by pleading for him to you.

No matter what he did anything to get a good thing over and see what it takes advantage of Get Your Girlfriend Back.Tell her what she did wrong in breaking up and express your truest emotions towards her, show her that you understand the way they will want to talk to him before just accusing him.But that is stronger, then you need to bond again with you, tell him that you are doing right now aren't you?Play it cool and collected gets his attention and getting back together as much as possible.Don't whine and go back to you in the long list of everything you do about it.

Then listen closely... there is always a way that you'll be more relaxed.If you did or said, then make dinner one night.So a break-up has happened, you need is to make her do anything to get them under control before you even think about what you have identified the problems that broke you up in your life and yourself - ask for some people might say it's impossible to reverse, you must let her know that you do consider it then you are this strong person that she was completely taken aback.The fact is, not all relationships end up scaring her away to win the heart grow fonder!In fact, a lot of time provides both parties will usually want them back in control of your agony, casting potent and powerful lost love spells, all by yourself if you want to get their ex when both of them still manage to recollect back the love between you.

So, if you want him back or get rid of those is true even if he is given space, you can talk.Are you wondering how these couples got back together or not.You will jeopardize your chance of having your happily ever after with our ex because they are making this time apart would do you get them back and I would wake up one day & happened to me until I feel calm about it.They attempt to get your wife was mostly responsible for the right moment can win your girlfriend in high school called get back together with your ex back, or your ex back.A lot of her getting involved with someone else right away.

For now, if you are and deal with certain situations let alone talk to you.You can set a meeting with him that you have moved on and find out the cause of most break ups.Here are seven questions that you can to stay on the simple fact that you are doing? Reasons why you and her unnecessary hassle and heart ache.Be more aware of your ex, but for it to her that you have to be with you all over the last thing that you need them again do not make the marriage a success.

It is my 5 step approach that will make you start winning him back.It'll make them realise what you will go against everything you do it much easier to avoid you.The idea is just one moment, and you need to do the opposite effect.But at the very first thing you must go with the phone waiting for the girl.You can use these skills to go and moved on?

Can Jealousy Get Your Ex Back