#but I won’t have writing time until second half of next month at the earliest

[hopecomesbacktolife]

local woman struck by the fanfic muse, frantically scribbles down the abstract before the idea leaves her, then is dismayed to check her calendar and realize she won’t have time to write for another few weeks yet

[mendesblurb]

Three times shawn says he miss you and send a photo, one time you surprise him by coming home early

Right now I’m missing you

Shawn Mendes x female reader

Warning: fluff, a lot of emojis used,maybe grammar error and maybe some punctuation errors.

Note: Hey Anon, thank you for requesting. I had so much fun writing this one. Hope you like my attempt in writing your story idea.

First

Bzzzt bzzzt

You paused reading your script and, grabbed your phone that was on the side table. You smiled when you saw it was a message from Shawn.

It's really sweet that Shawn always miss you whenever you travel for work. Frankly, you always miss him too. This is just the unspoken thing that happen when two busy celebrities start dating. Both of you have busy schedules, and so every little sweet uninterrupted moments are more precious than ever.

Text message

Shawn: Wish you were here with me, I miss you….

You: I miss you too 😍

Shawn: I miss you most 😏😏

You: I miss you mostest 😌

Shawn: Me + U = ❤️, so Me - U = 😢

You: Can’t wait to FaceTime you tonight 😏😏

Shawn: Can tonight just come sooner…

You: Patience, my love.

Shawn: Because you’re the one asking, I will try to be patient.

You: Shawn if you can survive me friend zoning you for 5 years, you can survive this 🤨

Shawn: I hate how you’re always right.

You: It’s just in my blood 😉😉😉

Shawn: God, I just love you. Anddddddd I misssssssss youuuuu ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

You: I love you tooooo and I missssssss youuuu tooo ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Second

It’s been a long, long day.

Your eyes felt heavy. You were struggling to stay awake to finish your night routine. Just a few more steps, that’s all you needed to stay awake then you could go to sleep. Suddenly, your phone vibrates and dings rather loudly. It snaps you out of your dazed state. You proceed to grab your phone and saw a text from Shawn with an image attached.

You have been away for your new movie and wouldn’t be returning until four more weeks at the earliest. Obviously, the two of you have been continuing to message and FaceTime each other throughout the time you have been away, but you were pretty busy.

It seems the only time he’s able to get you to himself is at Goddamn one in the morning. He knew you would still be awake otherwise he wouldn’t have sent the image.

Text message

Shawn: Right now, I’m missing you a little too much.

You: You know we just FaceTimed like thirty minutes ago right?

Shawn: Yeah, But I still miss my girl 😢😢😢😢

You: I still miss you too honey..😢😢

Shawn: No amount of FaceTime or texts can stop me from missing you. I just love you so much.

You: I love you too, wish we could cuddle right now🥺🥺🥺🥺.

Shawn: The bed is just too big and I wish I can be your pillow right now, come home soon Y/N 🥺🥺🥺

You: I will baby, as soon as I can 😉😉😉

Shawn: Promise?

You: Promise Shawnie.

Shawn: pinky swear?

You: YES! Shawnieeeeeee, I swearrrr ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Shawn: Tarzan says he misses his mommy 🥺

You: Well, Tarzan. Mommy miss you too 🥺🥺

Shawn: Come home soon, we both miss you a little too much and too often 🥺🥺❤️

You: Don’t worry baby, I’ll be home soon. I promise ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Shawn: I can’t wait! 🎉😆😆😆

You: Me too!! 🥲🥲🥲🥲

Shawn: Goodnight my love ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️, have a good sleep! Call me when you’re awake!! 😍😍

You: Goodnight Shawnie ❤️❤️❤️, definitely calling you once I wake up! 😍😍😍

Shawn: I’ll definitely dream about you 😌✌🏻

You: Stop making me blush 🙄

Shawn: then stop being so cute and lovable 😛

Third

You were in the middle of hair and make up on set when the first text comes in, followed quickly by a second and the third.

Text message

Shawn: 🆘🆘🆘‼️‼️

Shawn: 🆘🆘🆘🆘‼️‼️

Shawn: Help!!! I miss you so much 😫😫😫

You: I wish I could be at New York with you right now 😢😢

Shawn: New york is just not the same 🥺🥺… I like it more last time because you and I were holding hands while exploring the city ❤️❤️

You: Shawnie… 🥺🥺🥺🥺

You pout as you look down at your phone. The two of you haven’t been able to spend much time with each other in over a month. You have been filming in london for a month while he was at New York.

All you want is his kisses and cuddles. All you want is him holding your hand right now, all you want is his clingy behaviour who won’t let you leave the bed. All you want is to sit on his lap while talking about the most random things. All you need is him right here, instead of being millions of miles away.

Shawn: I know, it’s just it’s been a long month 😭😭

You: Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon.

Shawn: How soon? 🤔🤔🤔

You: Soon, soon! 😌😌😌

Shawn: Can I know the date of your arrival?

You: Nope! 😛😛

Shawn: please! Please! 🥺🥺🥺

You: call you tonight baby, gotta do a scene 😘😘

Shawn: you are so annoying… 🙄🙄🙄

Shawn: honey, you can’t just not tell me 🥺🥺🥺

Shawn: please! Let me know when 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Shawn: 🥺🥺🥺🥺

*missed FaceTime from Shawn*

You: Calling me won’t help, love 😌😌

Shawn: ugh 😑 fine, I thought I could convince you with my pretty face 😌😌. But I guess I’ll be a good person who knows the definition of patience.

You: Good Boy 😛

Shawn: Did you just refer me as a boy?

You: maybe….. 😜😜

Shawn: Excuse me!!!!

Shawn: Hello!!!

You: Yes?

Shawn: I’m a man, not a boy 😡😡

You: says the person who literally got a tattoo saying Good Boy.

Shawn: I can’t with you 😑😑

You: Aww, I love you too Shawnie 😙😙

Fourth

Shawn woke up before his alarm again, he slowly sat up while letting out an unhappy sigh; this whole month he felt like he’s all alone, while you were working. He missed the satisfying feeling where he can just roll over and find you there sleeping peacefully next him instead of being million miles away.

Shawn let out a small sigh again as he stretched his hands and slipped on one of his ring and watch, finishing his look. He scanned over himself in the mirror once again, adjusting the sleeves of his button-up shirt.

He just kept pouting at the sad reminder. He thought about texting you but then his phone began to ring from his bed and the next thing he knew he was rushing to the studio. 

—————

"Hurry up!" Brian simpered as he grabbed his hand and yanked him as soon as he arrived at the studio.

"Is everything okay?” Shawn asked. "Please just tell me what is the emergency.”

"Just step inside," Brian said hastily, motioning towards the doors, a big smile plastered on his face.

"Brian, I swear, if this is some sort of prank..." Shawn trailed off as he turned the doorknob and pushed opened the door slowly. Shawn was half expecting a bucket of water to dump on him or a pie in the face, but none of that happened. Instead, he was greeted with a dark studio. Shawn looked quizzically at Brian, who just shooed him into the room.

"Seriously Brian, what is going on?" Shawn questioned, looking warily into the room. He felt Brian’s hands on his shoulders and pushed him into the room fully, staying behind him.

The lights came on suddenly and you stepped fully to his direction and cleared your throat, loudly announcing yourself, “Hey Shawnie, did you miss me?”

From the the looks of it, and Shawn stood stock still for a moment.

You caught a glimpse of his expression of adoration, love and surprise, before you wrapped around him like a Koala Bear.

“Oh my god, Y/N! Whe-when did you get here?”

“Went straight from the airport, baby.”

“Oh baby, I’m so happy you’re here! I-I can’t believe you’re here.” he laughed and squeezed his arms around you, never wanting to let you go. He picked you up more and spun you around a few times, Shawn was just super giddy that you were finally here with him, finally.

You too squeezed him even harder, if that was even possible, “I’m here, love, I’m here.”

He pulled back slightly, kissing your forehead. “This is the best surprise ever, I love you.”

“I love you too Shawn.”

Thank you for reading guys... feel free to like, reblog, follow my account, leave a comment and my chat is always open for random chats or requests... appreciate every single one of you... ❤️

Taglist: @monikamendes @holland-styles @bvttercupbby @lonelyreputation @badreputationlove @shawn-is-my-giant-jellybean @benito-mi-vida @swiftmendeshoran @yournameoneverypage @shawn-is-bruh @mendesbhraanth @perfectlywrongsm @imaginashawnns @smendes-forever @nervousmendes @whenyoureadyholland @shawn-youth @myboyshawn @camilalewiss @camilalewisss @theregoesmyherojd @nanijaac1 @shawnieeboyy @silverswallow

[statticscribbles]

Puppy

Summary: Reggie/Reader Request: Reggie avoids you because he overhears you talk to Kevin about your perfect guy (comic book character) so as he’s avoiding you, you keep trying to get his attention, and finally you end up kissing him cause he’s just pining after you like  lovesick puppy; after the confession and when you start dating the “lovesick puppy act” gets worse

“Kevin I’m being serious!” You smack his arm as he laughs. “No it’s just funny he doesn’t seem like the type you’d go for.” “And what do you know about my type.” You laugh with him and he smirks. “Reggie, what would you say Y/N’s type it?” You can see Reggie frown before shaking it off. “Tall, dark haired, plays football.” He winks and you smile at him. “Wow that’s so off model it’s kind of sad.” Kevin nods solemnly and you smack his arm again. “You do have to admit it though, I mean the muscles, and the hair, plus have you seen him wearing a shirt? He practically never does!” “That’s sort of the point you know that right, not wearing a shirt to attract the ladies, you included apparently.” Kevin smirks and you scowl watching Reggie almost storming out.

“I’m guessing Reggie’s not a fan of the reboot then?” You chew your lip. “You think he knew we were talking about the newest edition? I mean we’ve talked about the second volume for months so-“ “I don’t think he cares about what I talk about, you on the other hand.” “Kev, he doesn’t care about comics half as much as you do, let alone me; how much do you think he thought I was talking about a real person.” “I mean inability to keep a shirt on just screams Sweet Pea, you know that right?” “Dammit; now I have to go find him to explain don’t I.” “It works out perfectly you explain your crush to him.” “My crush on-“ “On Reggie, not that paper cutout you have in your room.” You roll your eyes and run after where you think Reggie is.

You weren’t able to find him before science but you know having to sit next to him will at least give you an excuse to explain the comic book misunderstanding. You frown when he doesn’t look at you, doesn’t talk to you. You’re stuck doing busy work since your actual teacher is out; so the chance to talk goes out the window until lunch at the earliest; since you don’t share any other classes with him. You pass him in the hallway and wave and you can tell he makes a point to turn his head away. You try to brush it off, concocting reasons for his sudden change in attitude. You complain to Kevin during math and he just laughs at your ridiculous theories. “Oh yeah, and what do you think has a stick up his ass so bad?” “He likes you; it’s why he’s so bothered by your crush you realize that right?” “Kevin that’s ridiculous; he’s Reggie freaking Mantle, he can have anyone in the school; why would he want me?” “Do you want the list alphabetically or by popularity?”

“Popularity?” “You’re a River Vixen, you’re into those weird old books that he doesn’t admit he likes; since you’re a River Vixen you have a great figure, you know how to dance, you like Pop’s.” “Kev it’s Riverdale, everyone likes Pop’s. That one doesn’t count.” “You know you two order the same thing, every time right?” “No we don’t; do we?” he laughs nodding as you make your way to lunch. “Hey Reggie” Kevin nods to him and he looks up, turning slightly away from you to focus on Kevin. “Yeah?” “What’s your standing Pop’s order.” “Burger wise or in general?”

“Isn’t the burger in general, or do you order something we don’t know about?” “You thinking about making a run down to Pop’s cause I know pretty much everyone would kill for that.” He grins and Kevin smirks. “Yeah, you wanna help me carry shit? Meet by your car in five?” Reggie nods vanishing to the parking lot and Kevin grins. “So I want a cheeseburger, extra onions and-“ “Kev why are you- No, no he’s been avoiding me all day!! I’m not going to sit with him to get Pop’s!” “You’re getting Pop’s?” You cringe at Archie and Jughead’s hovering. “Yeah, write down what you want.” You scowl holding out a spare piece of paper.

“Reggie, Kevin asked if I could go instead, he has theatre stuff to; okay.” You sigh as he opens the door silently walking around to the drivers seat. You’re silent the entire car ride, trying to start conversation but the lack of even a glance your way keeps you quiet. Reggie doesn’t say anything just holding his hand out so you stop getting out of the car. “Wait.” He says it more to the car than to you and you huff, grumbling under your breath as he pulls the list from where you set it in the cupholder. He appears moments later. “What do you want?” You decide to give him a taste of the silent treatment and point to your order you’d written. “That’s mine.” He clarifies and you point to it again glaring. ‘So you want the same thing as me?”You nod and he laughs dryly. “Won’t even talk to me great.” “Say’s the one.” You hiss and he glares openly at you.

“Well I’m not the one with a crush on someone they can’t have now am I? So who’s the real loser.” “You.” He groans and slams the door retreating back into Pop’s to order and wait for the food. You watch from the car window as he pulls the bags towards himself, you lean towards the door, opening it and walking through. “Let me help.” He doesn’t say anything sliding two of the bags towards you. He silent until you put the food in the backseat. You buckle your seatbelt waiting for him to start the car. “Listen I don’t care about whoever you have a crush on. Just making that clear.” You sigh looking up to the ceiling of the car. “Me you mean, you don’t care about me.” “Who said that?” “You did, or rather didn’t; I’ve been trying to get your attention all day to explain.” “Explain what?” “Comic books.”

“Is that code for something? Or slang for you wanting some Jangle? Cause I don’t sell; what I get is my own-“ “Kevin and I, we were talking about comic books earlier.” “Oh good for you?” “That crush isn’t on a real person.” “Oh well alright then; once again good for you. So there are other crushes?” He questions glaring slightly; you realize he didn’t want to actually talk with you. You don’t respond as he drives back to school. “Grab the food?” You ask as he stays unmoving in the car; he must catch you rolling your eyes with how he scoffs. “What? I’m going to grab the damn food.” He snaps.

“Yikes, there’s no need to be in such a pissy mood, I get you’re hungry but-“ “I’m in a pissy mood cause you’ve been avoiding me for the entire day!” “I’ve been avoiding you? I’ve been trying to get your attention since you stormed off after the crush misunderstanding!” You scowl as he shoves the other bag of food towards you. “I can avoid whoever I want regardless of how I actually feel about you.” You snap at him. “You feel differently than avoidance about me? Hard to believe; but at least you admit you were avoiding me.” You laugh shaking your head.

“The only reason I’m admitting it is so you won’t complain for the next week about how much of a bitch I’m being.” Reggie sets the food on the hood of his car leaning over you. “Don’t put words in my mouth.” He hisses about to pull the food back over when you tug on his arm. “Reggie.” Your voice is soft and you can tell he’s confused but you’re relieved as you pull yourself towards him. You’re quick about pressing your lips to his, intent on kissing him and bringing everyone their food so he doesn’t get the chance to ask you about it.

It works and as you shove Jughead’s burger into his hands you scowl when you realize your order was packed with Reggie’s. You’re about to turn around to look for him surprised to find the burger and extra fries sitting at the spot on the table you’ve claimed. “Oh thank you.” You say more toward the general table but jump slightly when Reggie’s arm lays on your shoulder. “No problem.” He seems relaxed as you sit down, he sits next to you and you cast a look to Kevin who nods, you’re thankful he’ll be able to talk later. “These are yours.” You nod to the fries and he shakes his head. “Don’t want them.” “You don’t want the cheese fries you ordered?” “Not in the mood for them anymore.” You smile pulling them closer. “You’re welcome to them, since they are yours.” He nods relaxing slightly settling closer to you as he sits.

You sigh when the bell rings, standing to grab your bag confused when Reggie hands it to you. Kevin appears, walking with you to English. “So what was that about?” He mumbles as your teacher finishes the lesson for the day. “We kissed.” “So you just skipped confessing your crush then?” He laughs and you join him. “I guess I did; we’re probably going to have to talk later.” “You better, I’m not letting you get away with not confessing to him. I don’t think he’s going to either.” He nods and you smile confused as Reggie stands at the door smirking. “Can I walk you home?” “You have a car.”

“Walk sounds better.” You arch an eyebrow. “How is walking better than you being able to drive your car?” Kevin nods as he leaves and you walk towards the door. “Well like this.” He steps to the side, slightly closer, his hand grasping yours. “You don’t want to drive because you can’t hold my hand?” You watch a blush creep onto his face. “Maybe.”

“You know you can hold my hand while you’re driving.” “I didn’t want to assume anything.” “Well we kissed, and I do have a crush on you.”’ “So you do have a type?” He straightens up beaming; and you laugh. “Yeah, you were right about the tall dark haired footballers. AKA you.” You wink and he laughs. “Do you want to go out sometime.” “Besides this?” You nudge him and he shakes his head. “This isn’t going out, I’m walking you home.” “From being out, together.” “School doesn’t count as a date.” He counters and you rolls your eyes. “Well you’ll just have to plan a date then.” He nods eagerly and you smile as he reaches your door.

You’d been dating Reggie for a week and Kevin is constantly pointing out how much Reggie’s acting like a puppy. “Kev, it’s not a thing, you’re exaggerating.” “Point proven, look.” You’re standing behind him so you know Reggie can’t see you but you can see him. He’s laughing with the rest of the Bulldogs and nods to Kevin; you watch as Kevin moves, and Reggie’s face softens and he smiles excitedly.

“Babe!” He moves from the rest of the bulldogs pulling you into a hug. “Oh my god he’s right.” “Who’s right?” Reggie pulls back slightly and you shake your head. “I’ll tell you later, we’re still on for Pop’s after the game right?” He nods leaning down to kiss you. “Of course, it’s tradition.” “This is the first time we’re doing it.” “And after it’s tradition.”

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[polandspringz]

Fanfic/Writing Updates!

I know I just put this in a mess of tags on my last post, but just an update for my readers:

Sorry for the delay in updating fics/writing stories! I was dying towards the second half of my semester so I didn’t have time to much other than some one-shots. Right now though, I’ve kicked it into high gear, lol. So here is what I can currently promise you to look forward to.

Obey Me

You Don’t Really Wanna Stay (Sequel to “Cause You Don’t Really Wanna Go”, now known as the Hot n’ Cold series): Chapter 2 has been finished since mid-April. I haven’t published it because I sort of screwed myself going off script and publishing chapter 1 before I wrote the entire fic (unlike how with CYDRWG, I wrote the entire thing in one week and then published it over a few days/like a week). I’ve had the entire story outlined in this case, but it was just a matter of writing it. Chapter 3 is also finished now, so I will be working over the next few days to finish Chapters 4 and 5 before I start publishing the rest of the work on a schedule. This was a story that was originally only meant to be 2 chapters, but as you can see, things have expanded. An epilogue may or may not be written later on (similar to the Mammon fic as well). I may or may not have plans for a third fic in this series.

Siberia: This story has had the entire plot and every detail outlined since I started writing it last fall. Again, it’s just a matter of writing it all together into a long chapter with scenes instead of plot points and summaries of events on a notebook page. Once the above fic is finished being written, I will immediately resume work on Chapter 8 of Siberia, and similarly, will try and get through 2-3 chapters before I start publishing again. At the earliest, I can guarantee an update by the end of May or June. I’m hoping to get ahead in my writing to help me out later on.

Designing in the Devildom (Series): There are SO many one-shots planned for this series still. I originally planned on having a loose chronological order for them, but as some of you may have seen, we’ve kind of deviated a bit. I have several documents with drafts for various stories that have been in the works for months, but am putting this series as less of a priority compared to the above works. I received an ask suggesting I continue the “M’Lady” fic with a follow-up of the actual fashion show the demons would participate in, and have drafted sketches of each outfit the characters would model, which I would like to publish alongside the work, so that is one of the projects that is taking some time.

gen:LOCK

I have so many stories still planned for gen:LOCK, and as I work on my other fandoms, I find myself itching to get back to this fandom that I love so much. I don’t want to give a lot away, but I have at least 3 ideas revolving around Yaz and 1 idea focused on the gen:LOCK team as a whole. They aren’t short one-shots or drabbles, so I ask you to be patient and promise by the end of the summer you will see something from me soon.

Cars gL AU: Believe it or not, I did plan a sequel to that joke fic. The idea came about after I wrote the ending to the story, and the response from the actual Cars fandom was so nice, it really made me want to write a follow up. It will be significantly shorter, but I hope everyone will enjoy it as well.

Miscellaneous

Omori: I have plans for a multi-chapter AU that if I nail it the way I want to, well it might not do anything but be self-indulgent for me, but I think it might obliterare the fandom (as I joke to my friend often). I won’t be working on this story until I finish Siberia, as there is a similarity between them and I wish to give each their proper attention.

SK8: I hate Adam but I love writing for Adam and Tadashi. I had another story idea floating around in my head but no concrete notes on it, so I can’t guarantee when this will be written, but know there are plans for it.

FF9: I’ve been promising my sister an FF9 fic for about 2 years now. I had an idea after beating the game but forgot half the location names in the game, and that’s what’s been holding me back. I planned for it to be more long winded and descriptive, but might go a more straight to the point approach. I’m hoping to try and finally sit down and write it before May 31st.

Genshin Impact: I have notes in my fanfic writing journal for a Xiao fic and a Dainsleif fic. Writing for Genshin Impact feels very volatile though and as much as I appreciated the response on my Albedo fic months ago, I cannot guarantee I’ll ever get around to these, lol.

Yu Yu Hakusho: ON GOD IVE GOT NO IDEAS FOR THIS YET BUT I DO HAVE THE DESIRE TO MAKE SOMETHING GOOD BECAUSE I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH. SO SOMETHING WILL COME OUT OF THIS BRAIN OF MINE

Demon Slayer: SAME THING I AM DETERMINED TO DO SOMETHING, DONT KNOW WHAT YET

[theemptyquarto]

Abandoned WIP

This is a melancholy little entry that I stopped working on back in 2015, apparently, since Mary and John’s daughter is an “Amelia” rather than a “Rosie,” and Mary’s real name is “Angela” not “Rosamund”  During the period in which I was writing it they announced, filmed, and released the film “Mr. Holmes” which deals with some similar subjects but which I did NOT rip off. I ripped off a Mitchell and Webb sketch:)

Age, eventually, makes mockeries of all of us.  When I was in my sixties and seventies, I discovered that I did in fact have a heart. And a pancreas.  And many joints, none of which seemed to want to work together properly anymore.  And several other failing body parts that required me to take a dozen pills every single day of my life.

None of this happened to Sherlock.  He remained more or less exactly as he’d always been, just craggier.  He kept his hair, and when it changed color it started in elegant wings over his temples then became a flattering overall silver. Meanwhile I discovered that even once I gave up on blonde, I would have to keep coloring my hair, since it was an unattractive yellowish grey when left to its own devices.

Despite my array of minor ailments, our life together was… good.  We split our time between the Sussex downs, where his bees were, and London, where our grandchildren were.  He took cases, but only the most interesting ones.  I wrote my novels, but only every three years, instead of the annual volumes I’d churned out in my prime.  Sherlock wrote a practical handbook on beekeeping and was furious that nobody wished to buy it.

It was a snowy winter afternoon in Baker Street, and he’d just come in from the cold.  He was flushed and excited to tell me all about what he’d been up to since he’d been gone for a week: a commonplace-seeming garroting that had led to the discovery of an active human-sacrifice cult with multiple sites across Europe.  I vaguely considered putting it into a story but decided it was so wildly implausible that even my extremely patient readers wouldn’t believe it.

“Oh, you should have seen it, Mary!” he exclaimed, “There I was, tied to the altar below the statue of Czernobog, and the priest was saying the chant and holding the rope over my head, when all at once the door burst open and-“

He paused, then, and said, “Oh, hell.  What’s his name?  The detective inspector?  Amelia’s boss?  Black, muscular, gay?”

“Ted Gregson.”

“Yes.  Right.  Him.”

He didn’t continue on, but flung himself into chair and stared into the fireplace.  I prodded, “So then what happened?”

“I believe something’s gone wrong with my mind, Mary.”

I rolled my eyes at that. For someone who was always as healthy as a horse he was a terrible hypochondriac.

“You had a senior moment. Anyway you never used to remember Greg’s name either… you may have some sort of block for DIs.”

“No.  This is something different.  And it’s been going on for a while.”

Sherlock was right. He mostly was.  Like a lot of intelligent people, he’d been able to compensate for the earliest stages, but he was right.  After that, the progression seemed terribly fast.  We spent several months in a haze of scans and therapy, and he accumulated enough prescription bottles to rival my own collection.  Some of them were highly experimental and provided by his brother’s network of mysterious scientists.  None of them really seemed to do much.

Amelia, being the dear that she is, volunteered to take us in when it all started getting too much for me to handle by myself.  But she had three young children and a husband to look after, a hugely busy career with the Met, plus far too many stairs for me to manage every day.  Therefore I sold the house at Baker Street for an obscene amount of money to a city stockbroker, and we moved out to the downs for what I knew would be the last time.

I’ve spent my life moving on and leaving things behind me.  I’d dropped the original version of myself with no real regrets.  I’d quit my first two careers, both of which I’d been proud of and enjoyed.  I’d managed to get through the death of a husband who I had loved so much that even thirty years later it still hurt to think of him.  So it’s silly how many tears I shed over that dingy Georgian money pit.  

But the cash I got for the place was very helpful.  Despite the continuing success of the Jim Winston novels and the fact that Sherlock had softened up on taking dull cases for money as he aged, we weren’t exactly rich. Then, too, we had new expenses.  I had to hire a nice young woman to help me look after the house, and a large young man to keep an eye on Sherlock in the evenings, since he tended to want to wander after dark.

Then I had to hire another nice young woman because Sherlock had deduced that the original one was unfaithful to her husband, and had of course done it to her face.  Then another large young man since Sherlock, who took a while to experience any of the physical debility that comes with Alzheimer’s, got confused and shoulder-threw the first one across the lounge one evening. At a certain point I arranged for a local hippie couple to come by and look after the bees in exchange for the honey.

We carried on for a few years.  He had his good days and his bad ones.  On his good days he’d still consult, by email, since he had a rock-hard certainty that England couldn’t get by without him.  I published “The Mountain of Fear,” which sold as well as any of my books but as always was savaged by the critics for popularist dreck.  

I started work on my next novel and got about a quarter of the way through it.  Then one day I realized that it was likely that it would be the last one I ever had time to write, and that after it was done, there would be no more Jim Winston stories.  I could face not writing it, but I couldn’t face a world where John, even a fictionalized and imaginary John, wasn’t around, and so I put the MS in a drawer in my desk and turned the key.  “Caught in transition from imagination to life” was the best epitaph I could have written for him, with my limited abilities.

We had fewer and fewer good days.

On a brilliant indian summer day, I went to London to have a new and complicated type of bone scan that couldn’t be done locally.  This was mostly uneventful, although we incidentally discovered that I had finally shrunk to the point where I was less than five feet tall.  The nurse said the radiologist would look over the films and be in touch in the next few weeks.  I took Amelia to lunch and we talked about the grandchildren, mostly, and she promised to bring them out for a visit at the weekend.  Then I took the train back home- I still drove, but didn’t care to do it in the city any more.  

When I got back from the station, there was a long black town car parked on the gravel drive in front of our house.  The driver, a lovely young woman and obviously a Secret Service agent, was leaning on the hood smoking a cigarette.  She nodded politely to me as I passed by.  I therefore was not surprised to see Sherlock’s brother sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea.  He shared the Holmes tendency for turning up where he wasn’t expected.  

Or wanted.  

Like his brother, he was well-preserved physically, though in the case of Mycroft the adjective “mummified” always seemed more appropriate.  He had to be nearly ninety but his eyes were as bright and judgmental as they ever had been.  He nodded to me as Vithnya, the second housekeeper, helped me out of my coat.  

“Mycroft.”

“Mary.”

We weren’t ever particularly friendly.  He’d never trusted me, and had verbally disapproved of my relationship with Sherlock until it was so well-established that it had become a pointless gesture on his part.  For my part, I despised the constant needling that was his preferred method of interaction with his younger brother.  To the best of my knowledge he and Sherlock hadn’t met in person for nearly three years.

Even with all that, it was oddly relaxing to talk to him.  We were both such skilled and professional liars that we never bothered trying it out with one another.

“How’s he done since I was out?” I asked Vithnya.

“Pretty well.  He had a nice chat with Mr. Holmes – with Mr. Mycroft Holmes, that is - and now he’s out with his bees.  But he was a little agitated this morning.  He kept walking around looking for someone called Angela.”

I could feel Mycroft’s eyes boring in to me over the rim of his teacup.  I smiled at the girl and said, “He was looking for me.  It’s an old joke we used to have.”

She giggled, and I realized abruptly that she was relieved, that she’d worried I’d be hurt that my husband, in his confusion, wanted to see another woman.  This was a thought that was so ridiculous on so many levels that I could have giggled myself.

Vithnya grinned, white teeth in her red lips, and said, “I don’t know about that.  This Angela sounds like a most desperate character!”

“I was quite the firecracker when I was younger, my girl.  Can you keep an eye on him while I chat with Mycroft, please?”

She poured me a cup of tea of my own and went off to do just that.

Mycroft said, “You don’t seem at all nervous of discovery now that Sherlock has lost what - minimal filters - he ever had.”

“I’m not.”

“No statute of limitations on murder.”

I rolled my eyes at him. He was the one, after all, who had replaced my rather half-assed false identity with something that could stand up to any scrutiny.

“She won’t think about it for more than thirty seconds after leaving this room.  I am a little old lady.  In the mind of a twenty-two year old, not only am I obviously harmless now but it is inconceivable I ever would have been otherwise.  You ought to consider hiring some of us on at MI-6. We’re practically invisible.”

“Perhaps I ought.”

I took a biscuit, damn my blood sugar, and dunked it into my tea.  

“Did you and Sherlock have a nice chat?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away.

“We did,” he said, eventually, “For seventy-eight minutes.  Not once in that period did he recognize me.  I could tell he was making his best deductions.  Sometimes he thought I was John Watson.  Sometimes Greg Lestrade, sometimes Victor Trevor.  I didn’t realize-”

“Didn’t realize what?”

“That he had become so debilitated.  That he was so far gone.”

I sighed.  

“He’s dying, Mycroft. What did you think it would be like?”

He took another biscuit from the packet on the table and put it into his mouth.  Chewed.

“I never thought that he would be the first to go.  I always assumed that I wouldn’t be the one left standing.  When he’s gone-”

He trailed off.  But I could read his thoughts as clearly as if they’d been my own.  When Sherlock was gone there would be no one left with the same sort of mind that Mycroft had… except the departure had already happened, and he’d missed it.

I had some sympathetic pangs – for Mycroft Holmes, of all people – and I said, “He generally perks up a bit in the evenings.  I’m happy to put you up, if you’d like.  Perhaps you could… try again?”

The British Government responded as I should have expected.  He rose, brushed nonexistent crumbs off his lapels, and took up his hat and umbrella.  

“I think that my presence is of no help to him any longer, Mary.  I expect that I will see you again.  At least once.”

He actually bowed to me on his way out.

I finished my tea, and looked out of the window.  Vithnya was sitting in the grass, folding a basket of laundry.  Sherlock was sitting on the bench that looked out over the garden. Both of them seemed contented, at least as far as one could tell from that distance.  The sun was at a deep angle, and so I picked up a blanket and left for the outdoors.

I was glad I had done, as it was starting to get chilly outside and he was in shirtsleeves.  Had I married any other man but this one I would have thought that his indifference to the elements was a sign of his decay, but frankly he’d done the exact same thing when he was forty.  “Just transport,” is the motto he maintained, in far worse weather than this.

At some point in his life someone, presumably his mother, drilled some basic forms of politeness into Sherlock Holmes.  He was terrifyingly, frankly rude in ordinary conversation but when you handed him a cup of tea or tucked a blanket around his body you would inevitably receive a gracious, “Ah, thank you.”  It’d be in the tone of a king addressing his subjects, but you’d get it.  I got just that as I settled the afghan around his knees, and sat down next to him to look over the hives.  

“I’m expecting John and Mary to turn up.  Have you seen them?” he asked me.

When he’d first become ill, he’d asked me to always correct him when he had his lapses.  I’d agreed, but, again, I was such a natural liar that it didn’t much trouble me to say now that, “I believe they’ll be along shortly.” Awful, I know, but sometimes I just wanted not to see him upset.

“Ah,” he replied.

A drone, a late survivor of the autumnal purges, buzzed up and landed on the blanket over his knee. He gently nudged it onto his hand and raised it to eye level before setting it down on the ground.

“I’m a bit worried,” he said, conversationally.

“About what?” I asked.

“Occasionally John’s wife lets me shag her.  And I’m not sure that’s right.”

I blinked. Occasionally?  Thirty-odd years, and I’m not going to go into details about our sex life but it was really very acceptable, and occasionally is what he remembered?  And that I ‘let him’?   But all I said was, “I’m sure Mary wouldn’t do that if John objected. So it’s all right.”

“Ah, good.  You know Mary, then?”

“I do, yes.”

He squinted at me, which, Gawd-help-us, was still terribly cute.

“You’re… one of her relatives,” he said, hesitantly.

I smiled.  “I am,” I said, “How did you know that?”

He grinned at me.  No matter what he’d ever said or how much he’d griped about the unobservant nature of most people, I knew that he loved to explain his deductions.  

“It’s the ears,” he said, setting the pads of his fingers on my chin and turning my face to the side, “Not quite as uniquely identifying as a fingerprint but with a strong genetic component.  The pendulosity of the lobes, the position of the pinnae… clearly you and Mary are closely connected.  You’re too old to be the younger sister, and the mother is dead, but..”

He took hold of my hand and looked at my fingers.  “There’s other things.  You and Mary both have a minor congenital deformity of the smallest finger.  It angles slightly outward.  Not enough to disable either of you, but distinctive, and…”

He turned my hands in his. I have nearly perfectly matched scars on my palms… on my right hand, the souvenir of a Caracas knife fight when I was twenty-seven.  On my left, the souvenir of reaching into a sink filled with dishwater and one broken glass when I was forty.  

And then he stopped, still staring at my hands, and said, “Oh.  Oh Mary.  How could I have forgotten you?  I had you off by heart.”

I lifted a hand and stroked his grizzled chin.  

“It’s fine,” I said, “You have me back.”

He just tangled his fingers in mine and stared.

“That’s my mother’s ring,” he said.  “Did I give that to you?”

I looked at the amethyst on my right ring finger and said, “Yes.  When we got married.”

“I remember that.  You were beautiful in your dress.”

I laughed, unwittingly. “That was my first wedding.  You and I just went to a registry office at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.”

“Really?”

“We did. There wasn’t much time to plan a wedding.  The exact words of your proposal were, “If I have to be Sir Sherlock you can damn well be Lady Mary.”  It was the day before you got your KCBE.”

“By God.  What a rubbish proposal.”

I smiled.

“Unconventional, definitely.  But I wouldn’t have had you any other way.”

[teeforhee]

Fuck, I'm not sure I'll ever get over how much CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service, it's the under-18s mental health service in Scotland) let me down as a kid.

It's like this. You're 11 and you're traumatised but you're scared of using that word, you don't know if you're allowed it, but you are traumatised. And you're so anxious you can't breathe most of the time, you can't sit down and speak to any of your friends, you can do your school work but you keep falling apart and everything feels like it's getting worse all the time. You don't fit in, you're weird and awkward but your schoolwork is good so you aren't worrying about your grades, you're not even sure why you feel this way (it's unprocessed trauma, but again, you don't feel like you're allowed that word). You're s/hing and struggling with suicidal ideation, and you're lucky enough to still trust authority figures, so you do what everyone says you should. You trust an adult. And she calls your GP, who is another adult you choose to trust, who you bare your heart to with all of these symptoms that make your feel sick to even acknowledge, and then they make you an appointment with CAMHS. You came in asking for treatment. They referred you to CAMHS. They did not explain what CAMHS was other than what the letters stood for. That's okay - it's treatment, right? They're gonna help. You can talk this through and they'll help- just gotta be careful you don't get institutionalised. You don't want that, yet.

You talk to a CAMHS worker. She's a psychologist. She says it's very likely you have autism to your mother after your first session. Your mother broaches the topic gently. You are overjoyed: there's an answer! oh fuck, this explains so much! but it's not treatment. It's a word. The psychologist puts you on a waiting list and you have 22 sessions of CBT with her, trying to unpack your trauma and trying to build up coping skills. So many of them feel like just denying the truth, so many of them feed into your magical thinking ("the one thing you can control is your thoughts, you must always control your thoughts, good things will happen when you control your thoughts and stop thinking the bad thoughts"), but it's treatment, mostly. You stop seeing her twice- once because you are trying to develop an eating disorder and having a mental health professional who wants to hear how you're doing is totally cramping your style (I wasn't actually trying to develop an ED really, I was trying to cope in ways other than s/h, in ways that felt honest to the situation and real and gave me a sense of control that "controling my thoughts" just wasn't doing). You come back for recovery. You tell her you want an eating plan. By the time she even considers an appointment with a nutritionist, you've moved past that stage in your recovery on your own. You stop seeing her again because you get into an abusive relationship who doesn't really like you having contact with people who aren't him, and he super super doesn't like you not being able to talk to him for a whole hour every week. That part isn't their fault: no one could be gotten me out of that until I decided to; believe me, everyone around me tried, and it didn't work until I wanted I to, the third time.

But I left, again, I was without support for 6 months, and when I came back it was after my father (the earliest source of my trauma) had died. They take 4 sessions compiling evidence as to what treatment i needed going forward, without telling me that was what they were doing (I was trying to build trust with an adult again after 6 months of constant reinforcing that I couldn't trust anyone but my abuser), and then an appointment with a psychiatrist and your mother and a new psychologist. They dismiss and justify the symptoms that most worry me, they have at this point turned down my request to be institutionalised multiple times (including after an aborted suicide attempt, I presume they thought that was fine because made it clear that I did want to live), and they say at the end of the meeting that they are going to give me an official diagnosis of autism and that after that CAMHS has nothing more to offer me.

They say that if after 22 sessions with a psychologist I am still struggling so much (bear in mind that probably close to half of those sessions I was concealing factors that were actively making my mental health worse and which were traumatising me) I clearly can't gain anything more from their service, and anyway, autism isn't a mental illness and CAMHS as a service can only help while waiting for/trying to get a diagnosis, or if you have a diagnosis or a disorder for which they could provide specialist treatment. My very obvious PTSD? nah, no big-T Traumas, and c-ptsd is way too hard to diagnose. I receive a hilarious letter detailing all of the evidence (I mean genuinely insightful but also fucking hilarious and I do want to note down funniest bits and post them hear at some point, stuff like "unusual speech was noted, (exclamations of 'wacky!' while describing his symptoms)") and then they refer me to a charity which, at time of writing, I have had 1 assessment phone call with, and am waiting for a call back for my next and first proper appointment.

They did not inform me when I was first referred that CAMHS is a diagnostic and specialist treatment service and if they did (this was well over two years ago now, I don't remember word-for-word what my GP told me), they did not tell me that meant that they would kick me out to a charity once they figured they couldn't label me with anything requiring specialist treatment. During our last sessions they were unyeildingly focussed on the trauma of my father dying and of the "shock" of my diagnosis (that I had been waiting for for 2 years. yes, very shocking/s) when those were not my biggest problems. My relationship with my father is complex and I won't get into it here, but suffice it to say that his death was the last step on a very, very long journey, and honestly one of the least traumatising.

I let them keep the focus there because I desperately hate talking about the actual, recent, debilitating trauma of being in lockdown with an abusive partner for 6 months. That shit hurts, I can't even say his name, but that is the thing that I need to unpack if I'm ever going to be able to go outside in the sun again.

Repeatedly ignoring the requests I made for specific treatment until past the point where I needed it anymore, not informing me how the service I was going to be working with for 2 years even worked in something so basic as "what is this for? what will happen to me if I get a diagnosis they can't give me specialised care for?", telling an 11 year old child that suicidal ideation is "not that serious", a fundamental misunderstanding of what I needed and wanted to hear ('normal' is not a helpful word. 'normal' tells me 'suck it up, everyone experiences this and they're all fine, you're normal, just think better' why are they all so adamant that I am normal? Not even considering my mental health I am an autistic bisexual gnc trans guy, we went past whatever 'normal' means a long time ago, fucking listen to me), at every single step of the way this system has left me in the same state I was before, the only improvement being through support from my friends, fucking Childline (gd fucking bless Childline volunteers, but still, I shouldn't have been getting so little support that that felt like my only option), mental health masterposts on Tumblr, chats with my (luckily) very nice guidance counselor (they're called pastoral teachers here but I know most folks reading this are American or are most familiar with the American school system) and what amounts to gritting my teeth and getting through it.

It was worth it, of course my life was worth it, of course I say the same thing every person who's attempted suicide says, I'm more grateful than words could possibly express that I survived, that I get to go home in a few minutes and feed my kitten and write and message my friends, but for fucks sake it didn't need to be this hard. And it doesn't need to be this hard. I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm still waiting on that second appointment with this charity, I'm still 3+ months behind at school, and I'm one of the lucky ones. My boyfriend has been hurt worse by CAMHS, left even more isolated than I was, even more traumatised by the way he was treated, and every single person I know who's been in this system agrees that it's deeply, deeply flawed.

I don't want people to have competitions over who's medical experiences are worse, who's country has the worst mental health system, who's been the most traumatised by their psychiatrists or lack thereof, please. Please don't make this the suffering Olympics. I'm just making this post cause I know, I know that other people have had similar experiences, whether with CAMHS or whatever their equivalent is. Mental health services need serious reform that puts patients first, listens to their needs and requests, that is well funded and well staffed by people who care about their patients wellbeing more than they care about controling other people's lives.

Austerity in the UK is a huge reason why this happened the way it did- my first psychologist left the service to go work somewhere that pays better, leaving just one newly-graduated psychologist that clearly had no idea what she was doing and didn't care to sympathise or show compassion for me.

This shit needs to change, because kids need help, and this is not good enough.

[etherealwaifgoddess]

Somewhere Only We Know

Main Characters: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Since joining the Avengers you can’t seem to get any alone time with Bucky. You take matters into your own hands and find a creative solution to get the handsome super soldier back in your arms.

Warnings/ Content: Referenced sex. It’s all off screen and nothing is blatantly stated. 

Dialogue prompt: “Pleeeeaaase, can we just step away for a little bit? I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” 

Word Count: 1.5k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! This is my little entry for Lani’s 3rd Mysterious Writing Challenge for the oh-so-talented @propertyofpoeandbucky. She’s amazing ya’ll. If you haven’t read anything by her yet I *highly* recommend you go take a look at her stuff. I hope you enjoy this Lani!! Thank you for hosting such a fun challenge :) 

Somewhere Only We Know

(title from the song by Keane)

It wasn’t often you had time alone with Bucky. If it was up to the universe, you’d have none at all. Since joining the Avengers you found yourself constantly surrounded by various members of the eclectic group. Whether you were on missions or just lounging around the tower on your day off, there was always someone, most times multiple someones, around. It was like living in a college dorm all over again, and that was not an experience you were happy to repeat. Especially while you were trying to flirt with a certain centenarian ex-assassin. 

You’d had one blissful week together when Bucky came to recruit you. He’d found you in a crappy motel outside Philadelphia, hiding out after your powers had manifested on live TV in an almost horrific incident at a NFL game. A bomb had gone off during half time and you managed to get a protective force field around it in time for the bomb to implode inside the bubble without harming anyone. Of course, a girl with purple energy flowing around her who was able to save thousands of lives garnered a lot of attention from both the good guys and the bad ones. You had been on the run for two weeks when Bucky finally caught up with you. 

You were his first recruitment mission and he was determined to bring you in to join the team. You weren’t certain about being an Avenger but you were sure about getting him in bed. The super soldier’s thighs gave you a brand new appreciation of the word thicc. You’d spent the next six days enjoying each other’s company until Steve showed up, thinking he could help Bucky convince you to come back with them. You had never seen someone blush so hard their ears turned red. Steve was blessedly oblivious and you returned with them the next day.

After you returned to the tower with the guys your life had been a blur of training and practice. Bucky and you both agreed to keep what had happened to yourselves, not wanting it to potentially impact your ability to join the Avengers. You sparred with Nat, learned marksmanship from Clint, practiced controlling your powers with Wanda, jogged with Steve and Sam, and picked up a little basic first aid from Bruce. You knew it was important to be learning all that you could, to get yourself ready for the inevitable first mission, but you still missed Bucky. You’d barely get ten minutes alone with him at a time, never quite enough to make good use of it. 

It was a month into your training when you’d hit your limit. Bucky was too shy to slip off to your room at night, he was still sharing an apartment with Steve and his absence would be obvious. You started looking for out of the way places you might be able to slip off to unnoticed together. There were a few regular times that your day intersected with Bucky’s so you strategized when you would be able to make your move. You just hoped Bucky was still interested. Though the way he’d had to excuse himself last week when your shirt rode up while sparring with Nat seemed to indicate he was. 

You were cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, packing away the last of the leftovers, when Bucky walked into the room. He was still sweaty from his workout and the sight of his grey joggers riding low on his hips made your mouth go dry. It was now or never. “Hey Buck.” you greeted him with a welcoming smile. 

“Hey, Y/N. Are there any sandwiches left?” he asked while refilling his water bottle from the tap on the fridge.

“There are, or I could go show you the new wing of the bionics lab they’re building.” 

“What? I thought they’d stopped construction on that until Spring?”

“They did. But you see, it’s all the way up on the twenty second floor and no one ever goes up there.”

“Then why would we… oh.” Bucky’s eyes widened as he realized what you were implying. 

“Oh.” you echoed, nodding your head. “So what are you more hungry for, Barnes? The sandwich, or me?” 

Bucky blinked a moment at your blatant proposition before his brain got on board and you raced to the elevators. 

It became a habit, meeting up in the abandoned construction of what would eventually be an extension of Stark’s bionics lab. It was always frantic, heated, and absolutely amazing. You were dreading Spring’s arrival when you’d lose your hideaway. Hopefully by then your relationship would be able to be public. 

After an agonizingly long mission away, Bucky returned to the tower, tac gear covered in grime and still reeking of smoke. The second you locked eyes on him, you desperately wanted to get him alone. You wanted to help ease the tension in his shoulders and sadness in his eyes, take his mind off of whatever he had endured for a little while. 

Everyone was gathered in the common room while Tony gave a mission report to the rest of the team. It wasn’t ideal but you were undeterred. 

“Hey.” you whispered quietly to Bucky, knowing his super soldier hearing would pick up your words.

“Hiya, doll.” he answered, making sure his voice was just loud enough for you, and you alone, to hear.

“Wanna go up to our spot? They’ll never miss us.” 

“We should hang around ‘til Stark is done.” he whispered with a frown.

“Pleeeeaaase, can we just step away for a little bit? I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” you begged, “We’ll be quick, they won’t even notice we’re gone.” 

Bucky sighed and you could tell he was relenting. 

You were exiting the elevators, ready to slip back into the common room unnoticed barely twenty minutes later. Tony’s debrief meetings were usually an hour, so you should have still had plenty of time. Bucky went first, phantom silent as he slid back to his place along the back wall of the room. You waited a heart beat before making your way back to your spot next to him. It should have been perfect, you had practiced your stealth moves with Nat and were getting pretty damn good. Unfortunately your best laid plans were all taken down by a chip. 

Clint had helped himself to a bag of potato chips from the snack bowl and he crunched into one loudly right as you appeared in the doorway. Everyone’s eyes snapped over to the source of the sound and saw your attempted sneaking in the background. It might not have been too suspicious if it weren’t for the smudge of soot on your neck and your deer in the headlights expression. The fact that you’d buttoned two of your blouse buttons wrong in your hurry was just icing on the cake. Bucky’s eyes widened in silent panic as he realized you were busted and he stayed frozen in place as you laughed nervously, eyes scanning the shocked expressions of your team mates. 

Finally, Tony cleared his throat. “Wow. Robo Cop and our own little Glow Worm.” he shook his head in amused disbelief, “Good job, Glow Worm. Robo Cop, don’t make me give you the shovel talk, capiche? Now, let’s get back to work.” 

Everyone else was too stunned to comment so you just slunk back to your spot next to Bucky. “So much for discrete.” you whispered with an apologetic smile. 

“It was inevitable.” he shrugged.

“At least we won’t have to sneak upstairs to fool around now.” 

“I don’t know, doll. I kinda like having somewhere only we know.” 

“Love birds!” Tony shouted, startling you both. “Do you want to pay attention to the class, or do you want to go back upstairs and keep defiling my almost-lab?” 

The two of you cringed in unison. 

“So much for that.” you chuckle quietly, nudging Bucky in the ribs. “Sorry Tony!” you shout back.

“Wait? What!? Were you really? I was just taking a stab in the dark there. Oh god, my new lab! FRIDAY, get a hazmat crew up to the twenty second floor, stat! And you two. Ohhh you, two. Please, I beg of you. Go make use of one of the many beds we have here at Avengers Tower, preferably your own.” 

Bucky blushed fiercely, his ears adorably on fire.

“I don’t want to see either one of you until noon tomorrow at the earliest. Go on now, shoo.” Tony waved his hands at you dismissively. 

“The boss said so.” you shrugged at Bucky with a flirty smile. 

Bucky grinned wolfishly at you, “Orders are orders.” he said before scooping you up in his arms. 

You let out a little squeak as Bucky carried you off and you could hear Tony resuming his debriefing in the distance. It wasn’t the most ideal way for the team to find out, but somehow you couldn’t seem to mind at all. 

[thoseindarkness]

DtD News Nov 2020

Thank you to anyone who came back for this nonsense. For brevity I have an announcement that I want to make up front. I didn't have room for it last month so I pushed it back, but I can't anymore. I had to make one major revision to the published story. I want people to know about it.

This is the TLDR version. I tell a more in-depth story at the end.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The summary: I had a bad outline walking into writing Mistrust Goes Both Ways. I ran into a problem mid-story. Instead of stopping and taking the time I needed, I challenged myself to creatively solve my way out of my problems. I re-started with about half of what I'd written, published Mistrust Goes Both Ways, and restarting my outline with high hopes.  I was proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Despite my best efforts, it didn't work out. In the end, I had to scrap my outline. I was able to structure the end I was going for and spent the end of 2019 trying to link the first two stories to the ending I wanted. It wasn't working. Then TRoS. Then COVID. Here we are. In June, I started experimenting with scrapping Mistrust and restarting from Read Between.

Mistrust Goes Both Ways will not be part of the finished story when I'm done. I know some of you love it. I love it. I have no intention of taking it down. I might, for a short time, when I'm posting the final story. I'll let you know if that happens and it will go back up afterward. I don't have specifics as there's no point planning for it now.

For right now, nothing is changing on my AO3 account. Feel free to read and comment to your hearts content. I promise it will stay up forever to remind me that some mistakes are worth sharing with others. I learned good lessons from this mistake. It stays.

That being said I think I owe you an actual update on the progress of this story.

WHAT THE HELL I DID THIS MONTH

After my first update I needed to re-integrate with Reylo friends. Funnily enough, that pulled me into another fic. I've been working on that between following this election. Now that it's called I can get back to writing. I tried a couple of times since I voted on Oct 30th, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about.

Thankfully, I've also begun doing more social/political essays lately. I'm not sure what overall form or shape those may take and I haven't published any. Still, I was creative and I did plenty of writing. Interestingly, all this political focus is good for Deceive the Deceiver. Spinning and listening to conspiracy theories is a big part of weaving a world like this one. A great deal comes from my thoughts and perceptions of the real world.

WHERE DTD IS

As of right now I am in the process of first drafting the entire story with Read Between as the starting point. That is, every one of the short stories in the series. What I'm doing is somewhere between a history, an outline and random scene writing. All of these elements are currently strung together in one long, continuous, chronological, first draft. It's everything from the history before Read Between (which starts in the 1930's), all the way to the final scene of DtD.

I'm taking all the good ideas I've created in the last couple of years and re-organizing them into a first pass. It's the skeleton and some of the meat now. I'm slowly building out now that I have a blank-er slate. It's about choosing what works and what doesn't.

I call it accordion writing. It just gets bigger and bigger. This outline will later level up into the first full story drafts for each part. I've got so much history when I finish this I might… I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't want to give too many clues away.

Another interesting thing that's happened recently is I've started pulling bits of other fic ideas that I’m just not gonna finish. A big chuck of the history I stole from a modern/academia AU where Ben and Rey are history students specializing in the ancient Jedi religion. Another was a complication between characters came from a canon story where I wanted to paint the relationship with a new layer. We'll see if I can pull that off.

I spent a lot of time prior to this year focusing on the heroes but my villains hadn't gotten much love. Filling in the history has given me a chance to flesh out the villains. All their moves and countermoves, woven through the bits I already have, are spinning a pretty tapestry. Oh, the villains are so much fun to write!

This other fic came together in the same sort of accordion fashion and it's been fun working through the kinks in the process now that I've seen some of the weak points on a scale like DtD. I think I've mentioned, but this is a writing experiment for me and I'm most invested now in improving my process and clue-threading with DtD. This other fic is helping me test it on a smaller scale.

Not that this needs to get any longer, I'm just going to throw pretense out the window and go with complete vanity. If you don't give a wet shit about my life (and I don't blame you) you have reached the end of your journey. I hope to see you next month. If not, then I leave you with this parting:

May we meet again in our next fandom, through mutes and not as rival shippers.

The following is the ridiculous story of my ups and downs with Deceive the Deceiver. I figure if I explain to you how much I'm invested in this story some of you will stop worrying that I'm going to abandon it. Trust me. I'm not.

This tale stretches from NANOWRIMO 2018 and the prompt that started it, through the ups and downs of 2019 and 2020, to the writing of last month's letter. Buckle up. I love bumpy rides.

DtD: from NANO '17 to COVID-19

This story truly starts in December 2017 when I drenched the seat beneath me during Last Jedi. I'm a TLJ shipper. I got caught on the thirst train. It hit a time when writing was becoming a really big part of my life. I've been writing since I was a kid. I stopped for a while and came back to it. It's a long story. Ultimately, I'd started writing a lot a few years earlier. A mix of fic and originals but I was running into problems so I start reading a bunch of books to get better. TLJ lit the fires. NO joke TLJ came out on the 15th. I have pages of writing from the 20th.

2018 was Reylo year! I was already on Tumblr for my previous fandom (Batman comics). I found Reylo AU week which is in August. I submitted a story for that. It was the first fic I published for Reylo. Fast-forward August to November. I'm in the Writing Den on Discord and someone throws out this spy prompt. People start running with. Throwing ideas around. One of those was the snuggie in Mistrust! I have that conversation saved and story spots for each crazy thing they threw out. Finally, I said I'd do it!

Mind you, this is November 2nd. Nano has just started and the event is about "turning off your internal editor." This prompt consumed me. I was trying to keep up with SpaceWaffleHouseTM that first year. I did, btw. We both crested 100,000. It was my first Nano. Word count is not my problem. Organizing my crazy ambitious ideas is my problem. Some of that 100k was other stories, like Custard which I wrote half of in November and the other half Jan/Feb 2019. Most of it… probably 80k of it… was DtD.

Read Between the Lies is currently 33,710. I wrote at least 20k of that during that first Nano, as well as outlines and scenes for what I thought would be the starting point. I remember wanting to write Read Between to "get into their headspace" by writing their first meeting. I didn't think it would become a whole story. I was just going with it then. Any idea that came to mind.

I took December 2019 off for a few reasons. Some personal. Some burnout. I'm one of those people that can use writing to relieve stress, but I was so exhausted from that month-long writing sprint. By the last week I was dragging to get the final four or five thousand words to hit 100k.

Also, what I had by the end (no internal editor) was a bird nest of ideas that had too many beginnings, not enough middles, and endings to go around. I knew one thing right away: I knew I had more than one story. There were so many fun ideas. I figured, what the hell. I knew another thing right away: the prompt was at the end of the story. Like, the very end. Like, the last short story. Or the second to last short story, at the earliest. That hasn't changed. Ever. That's just where it ended up.

Between January and April of 2019 I touched DtD a few times. I kept coming back to it, reading through it, trying to untangle it. I made new notes on the stories. Expanded ideas. Tried to structure it. I figured out a bunch of good notes, but no real substance. The hardest thing was figuring out where to start! Did I:

(1) Start shortly before the prompt with Ben/Rey's relationship established and fill the story with the history?

(2) Start a lot earlier and build Ben/Rey's relationship from the beginning I'd written in Read Between?

If I'm being honest, Read Between was a lot better than I thought it would be and I didn't want to get rid of it. For a while I was thinking of publishing it last as a "prequel" if people liked the series.

Funny enough, the turning point happened May fourth weekend 2019…

In the week leading up, I was struggling through another story and decided to take a break for the weekend. I'd start writing again on Sunday when I met with my writing group. I met them through Nano. We used to meet at Panera. Now they meet on Discord. They mostly sprint though and I'm not a sprinter. I miss Panera. Anyway.

May 4th was a Sunday (look it up). I gave myself a writing break for the weekend and marathoned Star fucking Wars. It was nerd weekend. I was going to nerd out. I wore exclusively SW gear all weekend. I remember it well. It was the start of something fucking magical in my life.

Have I mentioned recently I really love this story. Trust me I will fucking finish it. Oh my god the demons won't leave until I do. Get them out of my head…

I had a pretty rockstar weekend. I believe the reason I skipped the PT that weekend was because I'd watched it the month before or so. Right after finishing the Clone Wars animated series (which is awesome and I strongly recommend both it and Rebels). I skipped them and SOLO.

Starting with R1, I went through in chronological order. I stopped at RotJ. I was with my family on Saturday and they were playing RotJ in the living room during the party. We talked about my marathon. My mom came over to my apartment after. We watched RoTJ properly. Then Force Awakens. It was too late by then to watch TLJ. I know I went straight to bed after my mom left on Saturday night.

Somewhere during or right after TFA I started thinking about Deceive the Deceiver. I don't remember what sparked it. I went to bed thinking about DtD. I know this with 100% certainty because I woke up thinking about again on Sunday and I thought it was quite odd.

I dream about this story in a way I have only dreamt about a precious few. Technicolor folks. It keeps me up at night.

I went to my writing group with (a) no plan for what to write, (b) a gordian knot that I had yet to untangle, (c) a sudden urge to re-read it. I opened my notes and read DtD through all our sprints. I read most of it during that writing session. We go about three hours.

That night I had Game of Thrones at my parent's. It was the (spoiler alert) episode where Arya kills the Night King. I remember because two minutes into the episode my brother's car broken down a few blocks from our apartment and we had to go help him. Derailed the whole night (this is foreshadowing).

Side note: I live with my younger brother and he's the best roommate I've ever had in my 35 years of life. Love you, Mo!

The episode was recording so we ran out. Had to leave the car in a parking lot. Someone had already helped him push it out of a puddle but my brother was soaked to mid-calf and the engine was shot. We dropped him off at home and I rode back to my Momma's crib to watch GoT. It was only the beginning of a wild night.

I went to bed late. I had to get up a few hours early to deal with the car before work started for either of us. I guess we were both hoping to avoid taking the day off. That wasn't going to happen. I drove home but I couldn't sleep. That crazy episode and the fact that my brain was already on fire with DtD.

I spent the wee hours finishing my re-read through the rough draft of Read Between the Lies. It saw my starting place. I started writing. I wrote through waiting in a parking lot, for the tow truck, in my car, at 6 am, with no sleep. I did a voice recording as I drove from the parking lot to the mechanic where the driver was taking my brother's car. I thought about it the whole way back. I sat on the sofa a wrote some more when we got home. I went to bed at 11 am and I'd written 10k more words for Read Between the Lies.

Somewhere between the chaos of May 5th and the official publish date on June 5th, Read Between got written. I know it didn't take too long. I remember sending it off to beta (by my amazing beta team on 1 & 2: Em, Jen, and Sai) and immediately pivoting to my outline. I slapped that together far too hastily and kept moving. I was going on holiday in the UK (I'm American and I'm ashamed) in early August so I planned on trying to publish Part 2 when I got back. At the very least I wanted it ready for beta.

Also some to admit, around the middle of 2019 I was fatigued with the fandom. We were hitting a lull. I was psyching myself up for the end and the exit. I was trying to clean house. I wanted to push out unfinished fics. To make them work. There was a lot of that mood from me in 2019. I was trying to make everything work. It's why Read Between came out, and that was a good thing. It's also why Mistrust came out, and that was a bad thing.

With that mentality looming, tough outline in hand, I started writing Mistrust before the end of May. I hit my snag sometime during the period I was publishing Read Between because by the time it was all done I knew I wasn't going to have a finished story by the time I left for London. I would figure it out when I got back. I picked up another project to distracted me from my problems for a little while. That is going to be an original if it's anything. One day…

At some point after I got back I started focusing heavily on problem solving. I had two stories already and a number of plot threads I had to resolve. I have heavy, heavy, heavy notes from September to December of 2019. Lots of possible ways to run this story. It sucks that a lot of that stuff isn't going to make it, but I'm recycling shit every day and I learned so much about the characters/story in that four month period. It really shaped the finished product in an important way.

This period is where I started to look at the bigger structure and how I was going to solve specific plot problems in each short story to bring the whole together. That focus on the different parts is important because it was the last thing on my mind when TRoS happened.

December 20th (the release date) is my birthday. My ass drove up to one of those Reylo-only screenings and I was surrounded by amazing people as I watched a movie that ruined my 35th birthday. Thankfully, I spent it in incomparable company. Thank you to all the hosts and super special thanks to Jen. Not only was she a DtD beta on both, she invited me. Thank you love! You are the reason I still remember that trip with joy.

Side note: I no longer hate TRoS. I've made my peace with it. I'm a far happier person now.

Needless to say, the only Reyloing I did in January of this year was venting frustration. Then I took a few weeks away from the fandom. I'd done my purging into the void. I knew other people still needed the space to vent but I had to get away. Once the toxin is out I couldn't let it back in.

What occurred starting in February of 2020 was a series of situations in which, every time I logged into Twitter I was faced with the kind of vitriol in the fandom that I don't need in my life. Some of it was still TRoS stuff, even as late as May. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, with the world on fire (literally), I didn't need it.

I don't think I have to explain why I've avoided social media like the plague since early this year. I live in America. If you heard anything about our recent President I don't have to explain any further what this year has been like. That has been par for course all over the world.

So here's my secret to happiness. I don't fux with the trolls. Do not engage. Sometimes that means radio silence. I'm breaking that silence because I want you to know 2020 has not destroyed DtD. It's only leveled shit up.

I have pretty much been working on this story consistently since March of this year. I go back and forth with reading, history, documentaries. I'm learning to wield many new weapons. They take time to settle in. DtD is the de-stressor I go to in between the real shit.

Sometime in June I was screwing around with the order of the parts. I had worked out the end but I was trying to bridge the gap between the ending I was certain I needed to get to and the two beginning stories I'd already published. I couldn't bridge the gap. It had been a year since I published Read Between and it wasn't working. Then I had an epiphany.

What if I got rid of Mistrust? Read Between is a pretty blank slate. I didn't want to re-write it and I still don't. I have no intention of getting rid of Part 1. I may clean it up and add some stuff at the very last minute, but it will be right before the new stuff drops as a pre-cursor to the flood of subsequent stories. I may add a few new clues or alter a scene or two, but I have plenty of room to move with it exactly the way it is.

What does that mean for Mistrust Goes Both Ways? To make a long story short, there was no good way for me to continue with what I'd published and still write the story in my head. I'm sure there are cool places to take the existing story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. In truth, I should have left 1 and not published 2 when I hit a snag. Lesson learned.

In June I basically threw Mistrust out and asked myself, "Now what?" I have months of great ideas rife for reshuffling and no restrictions on how to bridge the gap from 1 to the ending I wanted. But the end had shifted.

That brings us up to speed. The last thing I did before taking a much needed break was get through 90% of the history in my accordion outline/draft. I poured the foundation that was missing. I walked away in early October and let it set. I'm going to button up this other fic I'm working on and then go back to DtD and check the foundation I laid.

I'm very confident that not only will it hold, but that with fresh eyes and the fun side stories I've had the chance to lay to rest, I will finally be able to start building the finished products on top of it.

IN CONCLUSION

I'm still as excited as I've ever been for this story. It frustrates me all the time, but that means the medicine for my soul is working its magic. Change it painful, but pain is transformative. I've embrace changed. That ache is just a sign the muscles are getting stronger. Growing pains. As I learn to live with them in my family, my country, and my job, I find that life's lesson's often end up reflecting in every place in our life if we but open our eyes to look.

Growing pains exist in my writing process too. They are as transformative in this corner of my life as they are in every other. They have revealed as much about me as a person in my writing as they have in my politics. They have taught me how to compromise with my family as I learn to compromise with my characters. As I consider how people treat each other I am reminded that struggles in understanding our fictional counterparts may shine a light on our struggles to understand our truer selves.

Take care of yourselves. Once you've got that covered, if you can, take care of each other. Feel free to poke me and say hi. If not, until next month.

Fari.

[1dfangirls35]

Voir Dire (N.H.)

A fake dating OU about contracts, soulmates and risking it all for love

Masterlist // Tell Me What You Think!

twenty-four

If you had asked Kelsey what her plans for her weekend in Vegas were, they wouldn't have included this: standing at the door of Niall's hotel room at five in the morning with last night's mascara clinging to her cheeks, wondering if it was too late to turn around and run the other way.

It wasn't too late. Not yet, because she hadn't knocked and he didn't know that she was here and she hadn't stared into those gorgeous blue eyes that always seemed to hypnotize her. If she really wanted she could keep it that way; she could go back down the elevator and into her starched white hotel sheets, and get on a plane again in a few hours like last night night never happened. But somehow she was stuck. Her feet cemented in place in front of the white hotel room door. And as much as her brain told her it wasn't too late to forget last night ever happened, the rest of her body resists.

Niall had first proposed the idea of meeting up again last night after their...encounter...at the after party. But proposed wasn't the right word, Niall's words had been more urgent than that, borderline begging.

"I just need a few minutes to speak to you," Niall had pleaded. "I need to explain. Please let me explain." Niall's eyes begged for forgiveness.

Kelsey had turned away, making her way toward the door, every second she spent with Niall bringing her closer and closer to disaster.

"Room 502. 5 am. Please Kelsey just give me a chance to explain."

Kelsey hadn't said anything back. Instead, she'd made her way back to the dance floor and was met by Mallory's "where have you been?".

Kelsey had tossed and turned all night over this. She knew it was wrong, going to see Niall. She knew what was at stake. But she was like an addict, and Niall Horan was her drug of choice. Twenty minutes with him in a glammed up bathroom had rekindled every feeling that she'd tried to bury since she let him go months ago.

Kelsey inhaled deeply. She couldn't let this weekend ruin everything she'd sacrificed so far. But she had so many questions, and those questions could only be answered by doing exactly what she wasn't supposed to do. She raised her hand to knock.

"You came," Niall said with a grin as he opened the door and Kelsey entered the doorway. Her hair was half curled from last night, some remnants of mascara clinging to her lashes, but in the early morning light, all Niall could think about was just how beautiful she was.

He wondered how he ever made it through the past four months without her, but then realized he hadn't. Not really.

"Yes," she replied softly, glancing around the room as if she was being followed. She seemed scared, hesitant and Niall wondered just what had transpired that had made Kelsey so afraid.

"Let's go," Niall gestured out the door.

"Where exactly?" Kelsey raised an eyebrow, wondering where on earth Niall thought the two of them would be going, especially with Niall still dressed in a fluffy white bathrobe. His hair was tousled as if he'd just rolled out of bed, but his eyes seemed brighter this morning, as if he'd gotten a lot more sleep than Kelsey had.

"Somewhere no one will find us," Niall whispered, his voice creating goosebumps on Kelsey's arms.

The staircase was somewhere Niall and the lads had discovered back in the One Direction days. A rickety, metal roof-access staircase that was used once or twice a year. The stairs weren't pretty, but the view of Las Vegas from the rooftop was, and that was exactly what Niall wanted to show Kelsey in the early morning light.

It's still dark when Niall props open the rusty metal door revealing the hotel roof, but Kelsey still feels exposed, her mind racing at all the ways they could be caught up here.

Niall sensed her fear, because he places his hand, warm, on the small of back and whispered "Basil's watching the stairs, don't worry." Even that doesn't calm Kelsey's anxiety.

Kelsey followed Niall to a place on the center of the roof, sitting beside him and gazing out upon the Las Vegas strip. Sunrise is just beginning to appear on the horizon, and for a moment Kelsey forgot why she is here, or what has happened between them. It's just her and Niall. Like it used to be.

Niall cleared his throat nervously, bringing Kelsey back to reality. "Last night, there were a lot of..." he gulped, searching for exactly the right word to explain what happened last night. "Emotions." He glanced over at Kelsey, and saw that she had shown a sliver of a smile. "I just wanted a chance for you to hear it from me. My side of the story instead of TMZ's."

Kelsey didn't say anything. She just nodded. Niall wondered if maybe this was going to be a one-sided conversation after all.

"It was a mistake Kels," Niall exclaimed, as if that wasn't entirely obvious. "I was sad and she was sad and I just wanted something to numb the pain. And the second it was over all I could think about was you. And how much that hurt you," Niall felt emotion seeping into his voice at the memory of just how awful that moment had been. "Every day since then I've wished that I could take it back. That if I was just given one chance to live that day over again, I wouldn't do it. Because it didn't take away the pain, it amplified it."

Kelsey couldn't look Niall in the eyes, instead she stared out street blacktop below them, empty, with only the earliest of inhabitants cruising the streets.

Niall saying it was all a mistake should have made her feel better. But instead it makes her worse. Because the only reason he was ever in that position in the first place was because of her.

"I didn't want to be a father, not like this. But she's got no one. No one, Kelsey. And this isn't just her fault or her responsibility. It took two of us," Niall laughed forcefully, as if he had made a joke. "She gave me the option you know. We ended the contract. And I could have run, god how I wanted to run. But that wouldn't be right you know? We are still figuring it out. How to do this whole co-parenting, and we've got some time but I just. I need you to know that there is nothing there- nothing there romantically. It's just giving this kid a life with two parents that love 'em."

Niall turned to look at Kelsey, realizing he had been rambling, but she remained silent. She's staring at the concrete of the rooftop now, her fingers drawing circles on the cement. He wondered if he had gotten this all wrong. Maybe last night hadn't really happened, maybe there hadn't been a moment where everything seemed like it was going to be okay. Maybe she was still as angry with him as she was the moment he stepped into that bathroom.

Niall thought that maybe he should be quiet. He'd been doing an awful lot of talking, and he had really hoped that by sharing his story, maybe Kelsey would share hers. But there's one more thought in the back of his mind. And he know he can't come to terms with whatever the next chapter of their story is until he says it aloud. "A melody came to me last night, after the party," he paused. "I haven't been able to write in months and then BOOM, I see you and suddenly my music has returned to me. It's no coincidence, Kelsey. You're back in my life and now so is my music."

Kelsey stayed silent, biting the inside of her cheek to keep tears from forming. The fact that thee contract between Niall and Krystal had ended. The fact that he was handling the situation exactly as she thought he would. The fact that he thought she was 'back in his life'. It was all too much.

She tried to remain expressionless, because that's what she was supposed to do right? She was supposed to resist every bone in her body screaming at her to lean over and kiss Niall.

"Damnit Kelsey say something!" Niall exclaimed, reaching out to touch Kelsey's arm, as her eyes met his for the first time since he started speaking. They aren't the happy or forgiving eyes that Niall was hoping to see, nor the angry eyes he was fearing. They were blank, almost as if she wasn't there at all.

"Thank you for telling me," she said softly.

Niall sighed, and Kelsey can hear the annoyance in his breath. "That's it? Honestly Kelsey it would feel better if you yelled at me. I know something's going on, please just tell me. I won't be mad," his voice shifted to concern.

"I wish I could Niall. God, I wish I could tell you everything. But I can't."

"Then tell me what you're so scared of," he grabbed her hands and she didn't pull away.

"Everything," Kelsey said softly, "I'm scared I'll lose everything." I may have already lost it , she thought to herself.

"Whatever it is Kelsey, whatever they made you sign. We can fight it. I can fix it. Let me fix it!"

The tears Kelsey had tried so hard to contain were starting to escape, one sliding down the side of her nose. She reached her hand up and tried to quickly wipe it away before he noticed. "I can't risk it Niall. I just can't."

Niall opened his mouth again to speak, but Kelsey stopped him before the words could leave his lips. Because she knew how this would go. Niall didn't see things like Kelsey saw them. He was an idealist, and he wouldn't understand it unless she laid it out clearly- well, as clearly as she could without violating the NDA.

"You, you may lose your contract or your tour or your album but you will have something left. You have fans who adore you. Fans that worship the ground you walk on. Fans that would simply not allow you to never release a piece of music again. And even in the unlikely situation that you lose the music industry entirely, you will still have plenty. But me? Breaking this contract means I lose everything I've ever worked for. I lose my entire future." Kelsey's eyes pleaded with Niall to read between the lines, to connect the dots to what exactly her deal with the devil included.

"So that's it then? You just want to forget this weekend ever happened? Don't you think it was fate that we would even be in the same place at the same time again? I can't let you do this Kelsey, we have to do something."

"What Niall? What is this 'something' that we are going to do?" Kelsey said with frustration. "This isn't even something that can be done at the spur of the moment."

"I don't know..." Niall shrugged, his face defeated.

"I love you Niall, I do," Kelsey whispered. "Just know that I've always done what I've done because I love you. Now I'm asking you to do the same- keep this to yourself. If you love me, you'll understand."

"I love you," Niall murmured. "But.."

"No more buts..." Kelsey smiled, reaching a hand up to brush the side of Niall's face. "Maybe our love was just meant to be at a distance."

She leaned over, placing a soft kiss on Niall's lips, then stood, stepping away from Niall's grasp and once again made her way away from Niall before he can say anything else. Or more accurately, before she could change her mind.

She'd already said far too much.

Tag List: @awomanindeniall​​ , @ihearthemcallingforyou​ , @niall-is-my-dream​​ ,​  @stylishmuser​​​ , @thicksniall

[mell-eight]

What’s New?

2/8/21

Fingers crossed, but I haven't had any home issues in the last week!  I'm running out of big ticket appliances to replace, which hopefully means there's less available to go wrong.  Not worrying about my house does mean I have more free time to focus on writing!

Circle Y, the second (untitled) book in my (also untitled) series about a witch and some werewolves, has reached the halfway point.  I've introduced the bad guys, set up the main drama, and am ready to get the ball rolling. FYI, if anyone has any suggestions regarding what you think I should title the books or the series, I am definitely open to recommendations. I'm not in a rush to decide, since I won't be submitting these stories to NSP until the end of 2021 at the earliest, but it would still be good to have something to actually call them.

I have also reached the point in book two where I need to start thinking about a book three.  I'm not certain there needs to be a third book, but I'm loving these characters and want to keep working with them for a few more books.  The problem boils down to: is there enough plot to carry more books?  I am hoping as I keep working on the latter half of Circle Y, I'll be able to come up with an answer.

On a different note, I have begun work on the first round of edits for Justified, book two in my Magnified series.  

Magnified comes out in March (only a few short weeks away!), so I don't want to spoil anything for first time readers by talking too much about Justified right now.  Let me just say the edits are going smoothly and I expect Justified to stay on schedule for a May release.

Here's a quick status update for my books being released in the next few months:

March: Magnified

Completely edited with a lovely cover.  Will be released on time.

April: If A Butterfly Don't Fly

Working on copy edits and awaiting the cover.  On track to be released on time.

April: Wounded Alpha

Awaiting copy edits and the cover.  On track to be released on time.

May: Justified

Started first round of edits.  Technically too early to say, but appears to be on track for release on time. 

May: The Coup and the Prince

First round of edits should be arriving as soon as I'm done with Justified's.  It's too early to know about being on time for proposed release date.

[vcg73]

Witch!Kurt #42: The Calm Before the Storm

As promised, I got back to work on this.  :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Adam hummed as he moved through the kitchen, fetching plates, cups, and cutlery from their cabinets and drawers before dishing up the two servings of eggs and sausage links he’d just finished cooking.

He pulled a large orange from the refrigerator and cut it into halves, placing one on each plate. He really preferred grapefruit, but Kurt hated even the scent of them, so he compromised by purchasing a large bag of Mandarins on his last shopping trip. It made him feel better, since Kurt had ceased purchasing his own former staple of strawberries once he had discovered that Adam was allergic. Adam had insisted that there was no need for Kurt to give up a favorite food, and Kurt had made a noise of agreement but Adam had noticed soon afterward that their grocery list never had that particular fruit on it anymore. The bottle of strawberry pancake syrup that had formerly graced their little condiment shelf had also mysteriously vanished. It was the sort of sweet gesture that his husband tended to make without thought, and Adam was determined to show that he appreciated it in just as subtle a fashion. He refused to be another one of those people in Kurt’s life who took his generous nature for granted.

Pouring a steaming cup of tea for himself and coffee for Kurt, he smiled at how delightfully domestic this was. Other than company, the thing he had missed most during his seemingly endless span in the emptiness of the Void was simply having something to do. Getting his hands on some small chore and keeping busy with it. Adam had never been an idler, never one to just sit quietly with his hands folded and wait for something to come along. From earliest childhood, he had been a doer, taking satisfaction from playing games, cooking meals, scribbling notes, inventing choreography, learning some new skill, or sorting out an activity for others. He and Kurt had that in common, along with having work and living spaces that tended to stay tidy and well organized, though neither took it to neat-freak levels. Adam had missed being able to set his hand to a thing and see it completed, and a small part of him thrilled at the mundane little task.

It bothered him more than he liked to admit that he was still slightly off his game when it came to getting his nerve up for comings and goings beyond the loft, even after six months back in the real world, but having a full time stay-at-home job now helped immensely. Most of his daylight hours were kept busy making calls, booking online appointments, and sorting out talent for various casting calls about town. It made him feel useful again, and after only two months on the job, he was already earning praise from his employers and glowing reviews from their clients. That little boost to his self-esteem was making him bolder about going outdoors and meeting people again. Now that winter was over, greenery was beginning to pop up everywhere and the days were becoming mild and pleasant, beckoning him to take a nice walk through the park, or down to Bui’s for a spot of tea on his lunch hour. He no longer worked for Mrs. Bui, having given up his position as stock-boy to an eager young high schooler once his schedule with H&B had been set, but he still liked to pop round for a hot cup, two or three delicious chocolate biccies, and a nice gossip.

And then there was Kurt. How lucky he felt each day to wake up to the sight of that beautiful face on the pillow next to his, to phone him at lunchtime to say ‘how are you’, ‘what would you like for dinner’, and ‘I love you’. Such simple words, but so full of delight to them both. And he liked to be here, finishing up his work for the day, or bustling about getting the evening meal when it was his turn to cook, having it ready when Kurt came home from work or school, and seeing his face light up with joy at the sight of him.

“Hello, husband,” Kurt would say, with that loving look in his beautiful eyes as he came forward for a kiss and a fond embrace. “How was your day?”  

Kurt took positive delight in that greeting, and Adam enjoyed hearing it just as much. He supposed over time the shiny newness of being married would wear off, but for now it was still great fun.

Adam buttered four newly popped slices of toast and once again divided them between the waiting plates, adding a quick smear of marmalade to his own half and a dribble of honey to Kurt’s. He added a bit of honey to his tea as well, then used the spoon he’d stirred it with to mix a helping of nonfat creamer and a packet of sweetener into the coffee. He took a small sip of the latter to test the level of sweetness, and then grimaced, wondering what he’d been thinking as he took a quick swig of tea to banish the taste. Kurt had grown up drinking Burt Hummel’s noxious brew, and he still preferred his coffee strong enough to degrease an engine or melt the spines off a cactus.

“Breakfast is ready, husband of mine,” he said, setting a plate and the coffee on Kurt’s side of the breakfast table just in time to greet him with a kiss as he wandered out from the bathroom, wearing a towel about his waist, skin fresh and still ever so slightly damp after showering.

Kurt kissed him back with a smile and immediately went for the cup, taking an experimental sip followed by a large happy slurp. “Mmm, this is great!” he said. “You used hazelnut creamer, didn’t you?”

Vaguely amused at his enthusiasm, Adam said, “I did. I used that cocoa infused espresso you bought last trip, and I thought hazelnut would be a nice complement to it.”

“Nutella in a cup,” he sighed blissfully, belting back another swallow. He kissed Adam again, on the cheek this time and said, “Be right back.”

Kurt disappeared into the bedroom, and Adam had just enough time to top up his cup and add another good dollop of creamer before Kurt emerged again wearing a smart new outfit of gray checked trousers, black shoes and belt, and a shimmery green, patterned button down. Now that he had truly got the hang of using his assorted magics, Kurt could get himself dressed for the day in the literal blink of an eye. The only delay would be in choosing which outfit to wear. It was the one power that Adam envied him, though he doubted that even being able to instantly don and discard clothing would give him the impeccably chic and polished look that Kurt always had.

After all, even his own power to whisk his hair into order with a thought did not give him the ability to look sexily tumbled when rising from his pillow of a morning the way Kurt typically did. Adam usually looked as though he’d received electric shock until he got himself under a hot shower, and he knew he could potter around in his closet for a good half hour trying on assorted items and still look like he’d just escaped from a harrowing ride through a clothes dryer. Lucky for him that Kurt found the rumpled look attractive.

“What’s funny?” Kurt asked, sitting down to breakfast. He hadn’t been gone long enough for the food to grow cold and he tucked in with an appreciative appetite.

Adam just waved a hand. “Oh nothing. Just musing about how unfairly gorgeous you are for first thing in the morning.”

Flattered, he blushed a bit, his eyes sparkling at the compliment. “You look nice too.”  

And he did. Adam had a video call with a producer this morning, someone his agency had landed for casting of a big-budget film. Adam’s job was simply to take down the particulars of cast size, shooting schedule, and what sort of roles they were looking to fill, and then he would take down their availability and set up a second meeting with one of H&B’s more senior casting agents. But even that required a bit more spit and polish than usual.

He told Kurt as much. “I must let them see that Hanover & Bradley is a posh firm, even down to the lowliest of booking clerks.” He straightened his black and gold striped tie before lifting his nose in the air and sticking his pinky out with extreme dignity as he took a sip from his teacup.

As he had expected, Kurt laughed. “Well, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. I wish it wasn’t considered unprofessional to suggest casting yourself. I glanced at the script spec you were reading last night and that movie sounds right up your alley.”

Adam smiled. “Appreciated, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for the chaos of a film set yet. Though I must admit that I have been growing bolder of late. I’ve been considering scraping the rust off of my acting skills and joining the Lightning Circle for one or two evenings a week.”

For a moment Kurt looked blank, but then he brightened as the name clicked. “That’s the Improv group that your friend Joey runs, isn’t it?” At Adam’s nod, he clasped his hands. “Adam, that would be amazing! It’s a perfect way to stick a toe in the water and find out whether or not you’d be comfortable on stage again. Joey was an Apple, so he’ll totally get it if you’re not quite ready to get out in public yet. You two were really close during my freshman year, so I imagine it would be like slipping into a favorite pair of shoes to work with him again. It won’t even matter if you’re rusty, because figuring your way around an awkward moment is the whole idea of Improv.”  

Adam beamed at his support. “Exactly right. I had a talk with Janice during my last session about wanting to take baby steps back toward my aborted career. She suggested testing the waters in some small way, then reporting back on how it went. I was thinking Community Theater, or joining the Lexington retirees for one of their in-house productions, or a sketch comedy night somewhere. Then I recalled Joe telling us at the last Apples get-together that he’s renting a space in the Village. His troupe rehearses a few nights a week and performs on Sunday evenings. They write sketches, work out the framing, and then sort of fill in the blanks before an audience. I know for certain that I’m welcome to join.”

Kurt was grinning. “Then you should totally do it. Maybe we could start by attending a performance on the weekend, just to see what it’s like. That way you can make an informed decision about whether or not it’s something you want to do. I think it would be so good for you, honey. I know how refreshing it can be to put your problems aside and just be someone else for a little while. Plus it sounds like a lot of fun!”

Pleased at how easily Kurt had not only accepted the plan but dove straight in with his support, Adam said, “So, it’s a date then?” 

Privately he was thinking that if this worked out, it might be a bit of fun they could do together. The others always asked after Kurt, and seemed quite interested in his progress at NYADA, so they would be glad to have him.

“It’s a date,” Kurt confirmed. Munching the last bite of his breakfast, he glanced at his phone on the table beside him and made a startled sound. “Oh, gosh! Is that the time already? Isabelle asked me to help choose the summer dress selections for the website today and I don’t want to be late.”

Adam nodded. He needed to get himself ready for the meeting soon as well. “Have fun and I’ll see you this afternoon. Is it your turn for dinner tonight?”

“It was, but I’ll do it tomorrow. Brittany called earlier and asked if she, Santana, and Tubbington could join us. They’ll pick up something from the Golden Lotus on the way here.”

He was used to this. Members of their witch family dropped by at odd hours all the time and usually brought food with them, so Adam nodded. “I’ll text and ask them for an order of sweet and sour, or maybe some General Tso. That pineapple and green pepper concoction they picked out the last time was revolting. I was belching peppers for two days straight.”

Kurt laughed. “I already asked. Santana likes that stuff, but Brittany agrees with you, and of course Tubbington would probably stage a revolt if they didn’t get his beloved Kung Pao Chicken, so nobody balked at my request to add Pork Fried Rice and General Tsao.”

Taking one last swig of coffee, Kurt took his dishes to the kitchen, then hurried to the bathroom to quickly brush his teeth. Giving his husband a minty kiss goodbye, Kurt grabbed his bag and a light jacket and was out the door.

Adam stared fondly after him for a moment, then willed the magical ward back into place and went to his own work.

~*~*~*~*~

“What’s happened?” Adam asked when Kurt came through the door without his usual cheerful greeting. 

The buoyant mood Kurt had left home with this morning had transformed throughout the day into a feeling of tense foreboding that had been palpable the moment he walked in the door. Before that, actually. A more tamped-down version had been singing along their emotional bond for the past couple of hours. 

Adam found himself wondering if their idyllic breakfast this morning had just been the calm before some great storm. Whatever it was, he suspected that their Sunday theater plans had just been cancelled. “Is something wrong in Ohio?”

“No,” Kurt said, speaking the word with a hint of hesitation. He made an impatient gesture with his hands as he amended it to, “Not exactly. Nothing’s really wrong, but I had a text from Sue Sylvester today and I suspect it’s no coincidence that she sent it to me on the same day Brittany and Santana suddenly decided to drop by for dinner.”

Adam agreed that this was unlikely. Sue had kept her promise to keep tabs on the Blaine situation for them, but she wasn’t the ‘just dropping a friendly line’ sort of person. “What did it say?”

Pulling out his phone, Kurt showed him the message. ‘Red Alert. Paddington has taken a flea dip.’ “What on earth?”

“Sue always codes her messages,” Kurt explained. “She thinks satellites are sharing them with the C.I.A. or something. Paddington is the nickname she gave to Dave Karofsky after he came out as gay. Y’know, as in a baby bear.”

Adam snorted, picturing the hulking young man he had briefly glimpsed on his aborted surveillance trip to Lima dressed in a duffel coat, red hat and wellies. “So in her own peculiar way, she’s telling you that Dave has rid himself of a certain pest?”

“That’s how I read it,” Kurt agreed. “He must have broken up with Blaine. Either he shook off Blaine’s persuasive influence somehow, or he just wasn’t as taken in by it as we assumed. I’d be interested to find out what happened. The important thing for now is that if Dave is gone, then Blaine doesn’t have anyone handy to power-dump his stolen magic into. That might make Blaine vulnerable.”

“Or it might make him more of a problem,” Adam reminded him, willing away the shiver of apprehension that skittered down his spine at Kurt’s words. “If Blaine has suddenly found himself alone and forced to return to what Santana colorfully calls the ‘snatch and splooge’ technique of transferring power, he could be extremely dangerous.”

Kurt shook his head. “That’s assuming he hasn’t stored power in half the innocent Standards in Lima. He was always unnaturally good at swaying a crowd to his side, long before the soul-polluting began. He’s a lot easier to deal with one on one than with a pack of supporters behind him. Especially ones who are convinced against all logic and evidence that he can do no wrong.”

Reading his meaning in that, Adam said flatly, “You are not going to face him alone, Kurt.”

“Well, I’m not sending you to spy on him again,” Kurt countered with a trace of heat. “I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”

“Nor I you, so if you think I’m going to just sit here safely on the sidelines while that nasty blighter attacks you, then …”

“Adam, I’ll be at twice as much risk if I’m worrying about what might happen to you,” Kurt interrupted. “I’m not an idiot. I know how dangerous he can be, and that you both want and deserve to be with me when I face him, but he nearly killed you once, and then just seeing him for an instant all but paralyzed you! The last time you two were face to face, you were at full strength and he still nearly destroyed you. What if he finds out that you’re not only still alive, but that I’ve married you, and once and for all torpedoed his plans for me? He’ll go berserk and I don’t want to risk him taking that out on you. If I put you in his line of sight, I might as well be pulling the trigger on you myself.”

Adam wanted to argue back that he would be equally devastated if Kurt were to face their enemy alone and be killed or sent to the Void. Which might well be the same thing, since none of their group might be able to find and rescue him if he were to be banished to that place without an anchor. But Kurt would resist such reasoning. For all his instinctive mother-henning of loved ones, he could be remarkably blind when it came to his own well-being.

“Darling, what with all the Lima people who came to our reception, I highly doubt that Blaine has remained oblivious to my miraculous return from the great beyond. I’m safer with you, and the members of our coven, than I ever would be alone.” He struggled to keep his voice calm, even though he suspected that his emotions were broadcasting loud and clear anyway. “I may not be as physically strong as I was the first time I encountered him, but magically I’ve grown stronger. One of the upsides to being part of a good coven. Since Joining with you, I’ve gained new levels of control. But what you’re forgetting is that neither one of us is in this alone. We have a group of excellent witches and Familiars at our back, as well as friends and family. It may turn out that Blaine has put together an army of brain-washed sycophants, but if the Intelligence we’ve received thus far is true, then we also have Coach Sylvester’s magically-inclined Cheerio squad to counter them.”

As he had hoped, Kurt responded to the logic of this statement. “That’s true,” he said slowly. “I hate the idea of putting kids at risk, but I’d put my money on the Cheerios over Blaine’s personal Fight Club any day of the week.”

“I wouldn’t discount Sebastian’s influence over his former prep-school peers either,” Adam pressed. “Or for that matter Finn and Sam’s influence over your old Glee Club, which might even have countered Blaine’s a bit. Just because you’ve been left with that self-enamored tosser as your sole responsibility in the past, doesn’t mean you still are. You were a lone ship on a stormy ocean once upon a time, Kurt, but now you’re the captain of a veritable armada, and the rest of us are just waiting for an order to fire a shot across Blaine’s bow.”

Kurt’s mouth, which had fallen open during Adam’s impassioned speech, clicked shut and he gave him a wan smile. “I’m not sure you aren’t being just a little too optimistic here, but you have a good point.” The smile widened. “You like to claim that you’re not much of an orator, but you give a darned good rallying speech.”

“I think so too,” Santana said by way of greeting, making the two of them jump in surprise as she opened the door and walked casually into their discussion. Kurt had dropped the ward as he came inside, and left it down knowing his friends would be arriving right on his heels. “And he’s right, oh Captain my Captain. If you go back to Lima and cut us out of all the fun after keeping us waiting for months to kick Anderson’s bubble butt, we’ll disown you and elect a new coven leader. I hear Drumsticks has his eye on the spot.”

“Johnny? But he never…oh,” Kurt said in chagrin, laughing a little when he realized she was teasing. “I guess I’m being kind of stupid.”

“Never bothered us before,” she replied, a wicked twinkle in her eye. “I take it you heard from Sue?”

Brittany and Tubbington, who had come in behind her, put their sacks of food down on the kitchen island and Brittany said, “She sent us a message this morning before I called. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything then.”

“Paddington?” Adam queried, wondering if they’d got the same text Kurt had.

Tubbington gave him a frown and said, “Dawn Patrol”.

Not as familiar with Coach Sylvester’s unique personal code as the rest of them, Adam said, “What does that mean?”

“Be on alert because it might be time to come to Lima and get Blaine out of everybody’s way,” Santana translated casually.

Seeing his confusion, Kurt said, “Dawn. You know, as in the dish-washing soap that’s supposed to be extra good at clearing away greasy messes? It … never mind. The point is that Blaine has been dumped, and Coach thinks it might have him off balance enough for us to make our move.” He looked at their guests and said, “Adam was reminding me that we’re a team and that Blaine is no longer just my problem.”

“He’s right, Junior,” Tubbington garbled as he pulled a steaming box and a pair of chopsticks out of the nearest bag and stuffed a large bite of food into his mouth while he spoke. “I been keeping tabs on your family through Sebastian and he tells me that Blaine has already started sniffing around your house now that Sam is living there again.”

“What?” Kurt said in alarm, jumping up from the chair he had just taken.

Brittany patted his arm. “Don’t worry, nobody is in danger. That’s part of what we wanted to tell you tonight. Your dad has Fam, that’s what Sam and Finn call themselves when they’re not being individuals, did you know that? Anyway, Burt has made them wear that cologne Adam made for him at Christmas, just to be safe. He offered some to Sebastian too, but a Familiar can’t be influenced by Wild Magics so he didn’t need it.”

“I should mix them up a fresh batch if Burt is sharing,” Adam mused, already considering ways he might beef up the recipe while still keeping the cologne smelling pleasant. Having been victim to Blaine’s venomous influence once, Sam and Finn might be more than usually vulnerable, and that wasn’t a risk he wanted to take. “Perhaps I could mix it into a deodorant, so there would be no danger of anyone forgetting to wear the potion. ‘Magical Musk for Men’, or some such.”

“You should do it,” Santana agreed, shrugging when she saw that nobody was bothering with food except for the always voracious Lord Tubbington, and going for plates and forks, which she spread around the table before helping herself to a serving of fried rice. “The old stuff does its job, though. Sebastian reported to L.T. that Blaine showed up at the house last night, God only knows why, and Burt met him at the door with a wicked set of hedge-clippers in hand.”

She cackled at the thought and everyone else had to grin at the picture it painted when Brittany added, “Your dad told him he’d had a feeling that it was time to prune away the obnoxious weeds that were in his yard. Then he clacked the blades just a couple of inches from Blaine’s crotch and stared him down until he ran off.”

“Didn’t stop moving until he hit the Lima Bean, from what I hear,” L.T. said with satisfaction, treating them all to a window-shaking belch as he picked a stray vegetable from his beard and popped it into his mouth. “Damn, that’s great. The Lotus must have a new chef.”

Kurt, no longer surprised that his father hadn’t reported the visit, sighed and sad down, taking a spoonful of rice and another of steaming beef & broccoli. Adam and Brittany likewise sat down and helped themselves to a serving of mouthwatering entrees. Adam happily sailed into the box of spicy chicken, also accepting a spoonful of beef & broccoli when Kurt shook the box with an inquiring look. Santana pulled out a second container of Kung Pao, having known from experience that nobody else would have a chance at the initial serving of Tubbington’s favorite, and passed it around.

“If Blaine is already trying to get in good with Sam again,” Kurt mused after a moment, “then it really does support the idea that losing Dave must have come as an unpleasant shock. To his ego if not his magic-stealing. There’s no way he could know that Sam isn’t alone anymore, right?”

“No,” Adam said, “I’m sure he doesn’t know. After all, he believes that he murdered Finn, just as he thinks he did to me. But if he’s seen him around Lima, then even without Sight he must realize that Sam is suddenly a good bit healthier than he was when their friendship was broken off. I could see so clearly, and I don’t even know the poor fellow well.”

Brittany nodded. “We went to visit my folks a couple of weeks ago and I looked in on Fam. Sam’s almost back to his old self again. You did a really good thing for him when you joined him with Finn.”

“Technically that was Sebastian’s idea,” Kurt said, giving credit where it was due. “And all of you helped.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who actually did the heavy lifting,” Santana countered, having no patience for self-effacement. Not when it came to an act of combined delicacy and power, not to mention personal risk, that had left even her cynical self in awe. Sounding baffled by her next words, she added, “And Finn is happy riding around in the back of Sam’s brain. I thought sure he’d be going crazy by now, given how much he liked being the center of attention back in high school. Instead he seems to think he’s some kind of secret agent. As long as Sam lets him take the wheel and do what he wants a couple of times a day, he doesn’t seem to give a flying fuck that nobody else knows they’re taking to Finn Hudson, ex Lima superstar.”

“I suspect without the influence of power-hungry girlfriends, he’s actually happier out of the spotlight,” Kurt said dryly. “He liked being part of the Quarterback-Head Cheerleader power couple, until it became more pressure than fun. Then he hooked up with Rachel and she was a cattle prod in the backside as far as the craving for fame and popularity went. It wasn’t until they went long-distance and Finn didn’t have anyone to give him orders, or any independent direction of his own, that he kind of crashed.”

Brittany nodded. “And Sam always felt more comfortable having an image to hide behind, so he probably likes being able to sit back and let Finn take over some of the time.” She smiled gently. “I think the people who used to know them both are a little confused, though. People never seem to see things clearly without a map.”

Remembering some of the mind-bending leaps of logic this woman had taken in the years he had known her, Kurt had to agree. Brittany always saw things clearly, it was one reason she had the most powerful gifts of Sight and magical intuition he had yet encountered, but unfortunately her idea of clarity rarely matched up with anyone else’s. At least not without a lot of practice in translating her thoughts. He had become far better at ‘speaking Brit’ over this past year than he had ever done when they were schoolmates.

“Makes sense,” he said. “Okay, so assuming my family is safe, Fam’s secret is still intact, and Blaine is beginning to lose control, how much time do you think we have to deal with this?”

“Not long, I would say,” Adam said, brow furrowing in thought. “When I confronted him two years ago, he panicked and went into immediate attack mode. Same with your brother. If he’s reeling from the insult of being dumped, and possibly from the withdrawal of whatever power he’d stored up in your friend Dave … well, I fear we’ve left this kettle boiling too long as it is.”

Tubbington cut in, “Oh, he’ll be feeling it, I’m sure of that. I don’t know if that other kid is still in town or not, but if he broke off their relationship it’s a cinch Dave’s not willing to let Blaine cozy up for a nice easy power withdrawal. Whatever magic had been stored in him would have started draining away almost immediately once he was at a safe distance.” 

At Kurt’s querying noise, Adam said, “As you know, magic has a shelf-life. We can only do so much before we’re either starving or exhausted from having used up our reserves. Storing magic in a prepared object allows it to stay viable for a while, like storing perishables in the freezer. But storing it in a person would mean using their physical reserves. Like storing those perishables in a hot garage. The power would begin to ‘go bad’ in a very short amount of time, and while the vessel could be damaged in the long term, they could also be helped by it in the short.”

“In what way?” Kurt asked, resting his elbows on the table and pressing his lips to steepled fingers as he unconsciously adopted a studying pose.

Santana answered, “Like, if Sam had been critically injured and Blaine had siphoned a portion of his own power, his own life-force, into him to keep him alive until they could get medical help, that would be okay. Noble, even. Not that something that selfless would ever occur to him.”

Tubbington agreed, “I’ve been around long enough to see that happen a couple of times, but before the human litter-box came along, I’d never even heard of a witch, regular or Wild, stealing magic from other witches without their knowledge and power-dumping it into some poor unwitting Standard. Only to steal that power back for their own personal use with no thought as to how much damage they were causing. That he did it to supposed loved ones?” He made a sound that suggested he was about to reject the box of Chinese food he had just inhaled.

“The sorts of things we can do as witches gives us an advantage over the majority of society,” Adam resumed. “And it is widely accepted throughout the community that that sort of privilege gives us a firm ethical responsibility to not misuse our power, nor go mucking about in the lives of Standards. I have wondered from time to time if the general bias against the weak, uncontrolled power of most Wild witches hasn’t led to the rest of us dropping the ball there. After all, if one never knows they’re a witch, how is one to develop the ethical foundation that is, quite frankly, expected of us? Blaine Anderson is an extreme case of self-aggrandizing moral decay, but I doubt he’s alone in it.”

“Well, there’s a cheerful thought,” Santana said sourly. “You’re saying all this is somehow our fault?”

Surprising them all, Kurt who said, “No. I spent months, years even, blaming myself for all the crap Blaine pulled when we were together. I’ve finally accepted that I wasn’t responsible for his actions or responses, only for my own. I’m not going back to thinking otherwise. Blaine was hypocritical, oblivious to other people’s feelings, and painfully self-absorbed long before he and I first started having problems. I was just too infatuated at first, and too emotionally beaten down later, to actually see it. I suspect from certain things he’s told me about his childhood that he always has been that way.”

Adam nodded. “True, and we’re speaking of Blaine as though he were a child, with no ability to recognize how destructive his behavior has been. He’s not.”

Brittany nodded. “There are a lot of bad people out in the world who got there without any help from magic. People who commit terrible crimes every day. Blaine is just doing his the easy way.”

Making a frustrated motion with his hands, Kurt said, “If the magical community is at fault in any way, it’s in not actually behaving as a community. NYADA is as much a school for witches as a school for performing artists, but you’d never know it until something goes wrong.”

“Do you know they actually had the nerve to send us a sternly worded letter after our wedding, admonishing us for performing a Major Working without a senior coven official present?” Adam said to Santana, Brittany, and Tubbington in response to his husband’s disgusted tone. “Basically they scolded us for not asking permission. Kurt was ready to go down to NYADA on the spot, likely leaving a few scorch marks in his wake, but I convinced him to not ruin a promising academic career, and to take a different approach.”

Smiling slightly, having come to appreciate Adam’s occasionally twisted sense of humor, Santana said, “What did you do to them?”

He blinked at her with calculated innocence in his too-wide blue eyes. “I merely passed the letter over to Gran, with a gentle hint that she wasn’t being properly respected for her status as a Senior level witch, and reminding her that Carmen and her crew never did apologize for their laxity in my own rescue.”

She laughed, “Oh, you are evil!”

Kurt laughed as well. “We got another letter that same week advising us to ‘please disregard the former missive’ and congratulating us on our wedding and a ‘difficult job well done’.”

“Honestly it was as close to groveling as I ever expect to see from the Almighty Carmen,” Adam chuckled. “Gran must have given them a tongue-lashing they’ll never forget.”

A sigh came from Kurt. “That’s what’s so frustrating, though! If powerful coven leaders like Madame Tibideaux, whose business is supposed to be education, would only make it their mission to trade information, help those who need it and make sure nobody falls through the cracks the way Finn and I almost did, and assessing and training those with power without treating those with unusual types of magic as second-class or unimportant, the world would be a much better place. They have the power, and they could make sure that cases like Blaine’s wouldn’t happen, because someone would always have their eyes open to step in and redirect someone who’s going the wrong way before they turn into a complete disaster.”

A swift interested chain reaction of glances and nods passed between his companions. Every good coven eventually developed a higher purpose, something beyond mere friendship and the occasional Major Working. Kurt had, without quite realizing it, just hit upon theirs. Their peculiar mixture of powers and creative problem-solving, Adam’s interest in the history of witchcraft, Johnny’s fascination with the mechanics of spell crafting, the unexpected co-mingling of Animagus and Purebred Familiars, Kurt’s own seeming magnetism toward all manner of people, both magical and Standard, drawing even Wild witches and the extremely rare Magic Dampers into his sphere; all spoke to the blending of a wider, more open overall community.

Oblivious to their silent communication, Kurt went on, “I guess that’s why I still feel like confronting Blaine is up to me. Or rather, to us.”

“Well, you know you can count me in,” Lord Tubbington said. “I’ve wanted to flex my claws on that ugly little scratching post since the first time I saw him.”

“Mine too,” Brittany said with no trace of irony. “I knew he was up to something bad the first time he came to Glee Club dressed like male Rachel.”

Still smirking a bit, Santana said, “I’ve been waiting to kick his ass since last Thanksgiving. What do you say, Kurt?”

He nodded. "Let’s get Dani, Johnny, Monica, and Elliott over here. I think it’s time we put together a plan.”

THE END

[feuilly-cakes]

The Maze Runner (series) - review

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one. My thoughts on the series as a whole is that it’s an alright one, and you’ll soon see why the praise isn’t higher there. I’ll go book by book with my thoughts on each, so you can know exactly the way my feelings progressed to this point.

Book 1: The Maze Runner - 5*

I gave this book a 5 star rating, but honestly it's been nearly 2 months since then and I'm still not sure on that rating. Ideally, 5 stars for me means I got so attached to the characters I cried or had some other emotion, but that didn't happen here. Instead, I got a fantastic plot with a ton of mystery and a lot of terror, all with amazing writing but uninteresting characters. I won't say they are flat characters, because they aren't, but I didn't really feel a connection with them. There is only so much you can relate to a character who has no history.

Thomas is obviously the main character and so we see everything from his perspective, and we do see his emotions, his personality, his struggle. He spends a good portion of the book confused, angry, sad, frustrated. He's not a flat, boring character by any means, but for some reason I just didn't feel that connection I usually do with main characters. Maybe it's a side effect of the third person limited narration, or maybe he just isn't a character I can relate to, but I wasn't really interested emotionally in his character. I didn't need to be really, because the plot more than made up for it.

When it comes to the plot, I found no faults. It was fast paced and had me asking questions the whole way through, and most of them even got answered. Most of the questions pertained to how the Maze worked; How was it so high up that the box rose for half an hour? What was really around The Cliff and how were they seeing stars below them? How did the walls move? Was it actually indoors or not and how would that even work anyway? I love when I’m constantly asking questions and coming up with theories while reading, and this book was one huge question mark. Just the memories plot alone had me on the edge of my seat, and I wanted to know more.

If you only read books for the characters and their personal arcs, this might be a bit weak on that for you. If you love a good mystery mixed in with a bit of horror and sci-fi elements, plus a dash of dystopia (which I’m sure will become a big dollop in the next book) then this is absolutely the best thing to read. It’s definitely a 5 star quality, just in my personal opinion not a 5 star emotion.

Book 2: The Scorch Trials - 3*

Honestly, this was not anywhere near as enjoyable as the first book. Technically speaking it was a well written book, but personally I didn’t find it great, simply okay - average. Enjoyable to an extent but irritating to a certain degree. I kept reading because I expected something to be answered but all I got was confused. After watching all the films and powering through the first book I genuinely expected so much more from this and I was let down.

It’s darker and more gory than the first book, with some shocking scenes that kept me going. I did appreciate all the dream flashbacks from Thomas that helped put together what exactly he had to do with the Maze. Outside of these dreams I just didn’t know what was going on half the time and I felt frustrated by it all. His backstory was legit the only reason I was interested at all. I didn’t really care where they were going or their journey, l just wanted to know about his missing memories.

I understand this one was to set up the world a bit more and go into character development, but this was the most mediocre of middle book syndrome books. I can honestly say here I preferred the film.

Book 3: The Death Cure - 4*

Oh boy with this one. I have a very immediate reaction with lots of spoilers here on my goodreads if anyone wants to see that, but I'll summarise with the good spoilery bits cut out.

Well, my brain hurts.

This book honestly started out kinda meh, with some interesting tidbits thrown in. Then it got less meh, but more disturbing. Whether all of it was really that bad or whether it was bad because of the real world parallels right now I do not know, but I got a little bit messed up by everything that happened in Denver. The worldbuilding became more relevant here, we learn more about the Flare, the way people are living alongside it and/or with it, and the way Cranks are really treated. We get to find out about The Purge too, which I'll leave as a lovely surprise for those of you who haven't yet read, but what happened and my loud opinions are through that goodreads link if you want entertainment.

And on that note, let's talk Teresa. Full disclosure, I went into this trilogy already loving the films, and I still stand by that love. The treatment of Teresa in those films, however, was abysmal, and to read her actual character arc, well, I was enraged. Her arc in these books is fantastic, and the way she grows and realises the consequences of her actions is actually realistic, especially after all the trauma of the trials. We barely even see her and yet we see most of her character arc in this book. Simply getting her memories back wouldn't make her forget all the horror and go back to Wicked, and the way it was all handled was super satisfying. It does all make me wonder if perhaps she knew about the Brain thing, though. I won't know until I read that prequel story so until then I'll just have to speculate [currently reading that, still don't know]. On a similar note the Chancellor Page storyline was bizarrely different, and I had a shock when we get to interact (?) with her in the capacity we did.

Chapter 56 can choke. I knew it was coming okay, yet it still made me feel like I was punched in the chest. Especially after the previous scenes where we see things happen with a certain character in a scary way.

I can't talk about the Brain thing. It's disturbing to think about and I will be repressing the memory of that whole section of the book as soon as I can. It also kicks off a series of horrifying imagery and tragic events that hurt my emotions. All I can really say is that it's a strong ending to a trilogy, and if you're here you probably got past the travesty that was The Scorch Trials so this book will be a breeze compared to that, just be wary of the medical horror and the horror in general, since it's pretty graphic.

You may notice I haven't discussed Thomas, and that is because I'm too messed up by the Brain thing. The medical horror plus his reaction to the knowledge of what was about to happen knocked me flat emotionally and I may never get past that in terms of these books. No one has ever mentioned the Brain thing in any fan space I've been in, and that's for a good reason. Just know Thomas grew on me slowly just in time to cause me great distress. That is all.

Book 4: The Kill Order - 4*

I kind of loved this book, but as a friend. It basically shows the story of the Flare virus' bad beginnings in the world, with flashbacks to the solar flares that caused all the initial devastation. It was one hell of a page turner. It read like it was just meant to be a film, if you know what I mean. It does stand alone if you don’t read the prologue.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to get quite so many tidbits of information about the actual Flares event itself; to be honest I was expecting this to be a typical zombie kind of story that starts after the beginning and ends before the end, but it actually starts at ground zero on day 1 of the Flare (outside of the control group that is). I thought it was horrifying and fascinating to see how quickly it mutates and the effects changes, and also how the characters react knowing that they’ve probably been exposed to it from the beginning. Seeing the inside of the mind of one the earliest Cranks as they become infected was amazingly interesting after seeing how Newt acted in the Death Cure when he got sick.

The flashbacks to the Solar Flares and its aftermath were just terrifying. The imagery was horrifying and the whole concept of sun flares and then massive floods of boiling hot water put me right on edge even though obviously they were alive at the start of the book. Something that massively surprised me as I read was that the Flare virus had only been around for 13 years before the start of The Maze Runner, and it only took the government 1 year after the solar flares to decide to kill off part of the population. No other dystopian I’ve read can top that level of evilness from governmental systems.

Aside from the horror aspect, I was also mightily confused and a bit amused-but-also-horrified at the cult. If you’ve read it you know. If you haven’t yet then you’ve got a storm coming let me tell you. Although we see in Death Cure that Cranks form mobs with a common purpose and of course they they lose their minds, I wasn’t at all expecting to see an actual cult just casually thrown in. It just adds to the madness of the story and actually fit right in among the other craziness of what went down.

My one question is: is DeeDee Teresa? (She was! It was implied in the next book.)

The reason I didn't rate this higher despite my enjoyment was that it just isn't a book I would reread. It's like an action film or horror film that you really enjoyed and appreciated but won't stick around for too long.

Book 5: The Fever Code: 3* on Goodreads, 2.5* in my heart

This one was a slog to get through. It goes over Thomas' life in Wicked, from the first few days to the day he goes into the maze. I didn't like it very much at all. My biggest problem was the torture of a 4 year old only a few pages in. It ruined the rest of the book for me. My second biggest problem is that we never learn Newt’s name. The betrayal of it all is astounding.

I’ve got to be honest, I was only pushing myself to read this because I wanted to know about the purge. It doesn’t happen until pretty late in the book and nearly everything before that is terribly boring. Everything after that happens pretty quickly.

I appreciated that we get added context to some things that happened in the main trilogy, however, some things that happen take away from the story in a bad way. Dr Paige is one example of this, where in the main trilogy she only appears in a positive context to save Thomas and the other immune, while in this she does some truly evil things behind the scenes unrelated to the context of the trials (or so she tells Thomas. We don’t know how much of that was truth and how much was intended as a Variable but either way it contradicts what we know of her in the Death Cure). The huge reveal at the ending regarding Teresa is also out of nowhere and seems contradictory to the main books. How much of her actions were planned and how much were real? Why would she lead the gladers to escape if she was as this book said she was? Was it a change of mind or was this particular aspect a retcon that wasn’t intended with the original books?

This one felt like an unnecessary addition to the series and I’m disappointed by how it turned out. I expected more and got less. If it hadn’t picked up in the last 150 pages this would’ve been a 2* simply for the disappointment that equalled that of The Scorch Trials. This may be a bit harsh but I do believe the books should have ended after The Kill Order, and the rest be left to the imagination.

To end on a semi-positive note: it turns out The Brain Thing was actually mentioned to them, but it's unclear if Teresa picked up on it, as we know Thomas didn't. It all came out at a very inopportune time while they were killing a crank who knew about it. The Brain Thing isn't positive at all, but I was very excited to learn if they had any inkling and that was sort of answered!

[stattic-writes]

Puppy

https://statticscribbles.tumblr.com/post/639099629845233664/masterlist

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[mongrel-eyes]

Everything I Read in 2019

In total, I read 45 books of my own accord in 2019, and there were probably about one-fourth as many that I started but never ended up finishing. A loose goal for myself (which I formed in the later half of the year as I realized that I had read quite a lot) was to reach 52 books so that I would effectively have one book per week of the year. That obviously didn’t happen, but it’s not something I feel was of great importance. Last year, I read 10 books (I think I may have read a few more than that, but I don’t remember). That was more than all the books I’d read in the past 7 years added together. The past decade has been a rollercoaster, but this final year has brought something of a conclusion, closure, and some healing. It’s the end of one novel of my life - time for the next.

2019 Booklist

The Slow Regard of Silent Things // Patrick Rothfuss

I have read all of the books published for The Kingkiller Chronicle thusfar; however, The Slow Regard of Silent Things honestly trumps both The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear for me (and I do not say this lightly because I think both novels are fantastic, and I was practically drunk and grinning from ear to ear after reading “A Silence of Three Parts” for the first time). Auri’s quirks and the way she sees and moves through the world is nearly identical to what I have experienced for much of my life. The first time I read this book, I wept because I saw myself so vividly written in its pages. Though it is short, and I think many would deem it as not particularly exciting or significant, I understand it very deeply. As Rothfuss writes in his end letter: it is not a normal story for normal readers; it is a story for the storytellers and the dreamers.

The Magician’s Nephew // C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe // C.S. Lewis The Horse and His Boy // C.S. Lewis Prince Caspian // C.S. Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader // C.S. Lewis The Silver Chair // C.S. Lewis The Last Battle // C.S. Lewis

I grew up reading C.S. Lewis’s stories of Narnia. One of my earliest memories is of listening to an audiotape recording of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I remember exactly where I was in this memory, and the exact sentences of the book being read to me through the car speakers. Narnia has always and will always hold a special place in my heart, and it was good to visit again after such a long time away. Thanks to a variety of health problems which had all but wiped out my long-term personal memories, I remembered only an echo of the enchantment of these books, and when I picked them up again early in the year, I was not disappointed.

Educated // Tara Westover

Educated was a hard book for me to read. It was raw and powerful, and I know a fraction of the pain and circumstance Westover describes. In one portion of the book, she writes that believing you are not hurt is sometimes the way in which abuse hurts you the most. I understood that, and by the end I felt so proud of this strong young woman who challenged her entire world. It wasn’t always pretty or heroic (oftentimes it was ugly and lonely), but it was true.

Bridge to Terabithia // Katherine Paterson

I grew up 10 miles away from the small town which served as the inspiration for Lark Creek. It has been a powerful and significant story in my life from the time I first read it early in 2009. Again, due to failing memory, I only recalled an echo of what it really was. One spring morning, I walked outside, hung in my hammock and didn’t budge until I had read this book from cover to cover. It was like reuniting with a very old friend.

Mortal Engines // Philip Reeve

I became interested in Mortal Engines because of the trailers for the upcoming film that kept showing up for me in Spotify. I was thoroughly warned by the internet to steer clear of the film (I still would like to see it at some point, but I don’t have high hopes), but my friend highly recommended that I read the book. I actually listened to the audiobook recording from Hoopla. Barnaby Edwards is a brilliant narrator, and I loved every minute of it. It was not the kind of story that struck me to my absolute core (personally), but it was powerful and captivating all the same.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars // Glendy Vanderah

I picked up this book because I liked the title, nothing more. It turned out to be a beautiful story of the making of a beautiful family (it also made for a beautiful hardcover). It was unfortunately triggering at one point, but despite that I enjoyed the story and the characters and the cleverness crafted into Ursa’s character.

Perelandra // C.S. Lewis

In the Fall/Winter of 2018, I listened to Out of the Silent Planet on my commutes to and from school. Many years ago (I can’t even remember how long), I had read Out of the Silent Planet but had quite forgotten anything about it other than that the main character’s name was Ransom. After returning to it at the end of last year, I listened to Perelandra in late May. Out of all of books in the Space Trilogy, I found this one to be the slowest and least interesting. However, that is not to say that I did not enjoy the book. Lewis’s descriptions of the world on Venus were riveting and vivid, and listening to and analyzing the debate/war between Ransom and Weston was of particular interest and importance to me.

That Hideous Strength // C.S. Lewis

Following Perelandra, I immediately listened to That Hideous Strength. It surprised me later to learn that this third installment of the Space Trilogy was received with the least positive appraisal of the three. I found it to be my favourite of them all. I see many echoes between this fiction and the reality which we face, and that was somewhat intriguing, frightening, and comforting all jumbled together. I have a theory (or more accurately, a hypothesis) which I refer to as “the mortal gods.” I won’t go into any details of it here, but I felt in That Hideous Strength that C.S. Lewis understood my mortal gods. He just called them by different names.

Night Flights // Philip Reeve

I listened to this book on Hoopla, and though it was short I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the character of Anna Fang. This story provides details on how she rose to become the notorious Wind Flower plaguing the cities from Mortal Engines.

I Rode a Horse of Milk-White Jade // Diane Wilson

I first read this book when I was younger than 9 years old. Even back then, I loved this book, and when I returned to it this year, I loved it again. I had not even touched it for over 10 years. When I was very young, I had a great respect for the Mongolian nomads; and, of course, since this book brought those people to life, it became and is very special to me.

The Bible (English Standard Version)

Though I was raised in a religious household, I had never actually read the Bible from cover to cover (although I had read the majority of it in bits and parts throughout my life and been lectured on it for countless hours). It took me 3 months to slog through it, but in the end, it wasn’t just slogging. I found that if I put aside everything I thought I knew about this book and read it as if it was historic mythology instead of whatever rigid, legalistic stories and verses I had been led to believe it was when I was younger, it came alive in the way the story of Icarus comes alive every time you read a new rendition or see a new painting. C.S. Lewis described it as “true myth,” and I am inclined to believe that approaching it as “myth” is perhaps the most accurate of all the different ways in which I see people trying to describe or understand it and failing in their attempts to squash a god (seriously, the thought of a god in and of itself is mind-bending if you really stop to think about it) to fit into the tiny boxes of their mortal lives.

The Wanderer’s Journal: A Journey Through the Heart of Hallownest // Kari Fry & Ryan Novak

Saying I loved the game Hollow Knight is an understatement. Of course, when Fangamer announced they would be publishing a wanderer’s journal in collaboration with Team Cherry, I had to read it. I’ve always loved field guide-esque books (specifically, Dragonology), so of course I was especially delighted while reading the journal.

The Hobbit // J.R.R. Tolkien

Previously, I had only listened to The Hobbit as an audiobook. Once. That was over 10 years ago (probably closer to 13 or 15 years). This summer, I finally read the words written on the pages myself. Middle Earth is home to me, and it was good to be home.

The Book of Three // Lloyd Alexander The Black Cauldron // Lloyd Alexander The Castle of Llyr // Lloyd Alexander Taran Wanderer // Lloyd Alexander The High King // Lloyd Alexander The Foundling // Lloyd Alexander

I remember I was in the car with my mom and sister on the way to Nowhere one day. I was reading a book of my own in the back (I have a vague recollection that it might have been from the Redwall series by Brian Jacques) when my mom announced that she had a new series from the library that she wanted us all to listen to together in the car. Initially, I was annoyed because my mom did not always pick out the most interesting of books (there had been occasions where I was bored to tears when she picked something), but I grudgingly gave in. Of course, it was The Prydain Chronicles. I returned to these books this summer and barreled through them within two days (during which I had been excused from work with a doctor’s note due to a curious situation). Middle Earth is home, but Prydain (alongside Narnia) has to be a close second.

Native American Myths // Diana Ferguson

I have held great respect and admiration for the Native Americans and their cultures for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I’ve read books on Norse, Welsh, English, German, Greek, Egyptian, and Sumerian mythology; however, finding good books on Native American mythology seemed almost impossible (at one point I did find a book of Native American myths centered around Raven in a used bookstore but it was 60USD, and while I did want it very much, I was a poor student who couldn’t afford expensive second-hand books). Ferguson’s compilation of myths was fascinating to read. Some of the stories I had heard echoes of before in various places, but Ferguson also provided anecdotes and insights of how these myths were woven into the Native American tribes and cultures. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed learning even a little bit more about these people whom I have admired since I was a small child.

The Fellowship of the Ring // J.R.R. Tolkien

[ See The Return of the King ]

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen // Lloyd Alexander

I started out reading this story expecting it to be one thing, but it turned out to be something else entirely. I had read it before a long time ago and gotten it mixed up with a different story I have been able to vaguely recall but unable to find for 10 years and counting. Jen’s story is captivating and lovely in its own right – simple and enchanting, like a dandelion wish.

The Two Towers // J.R.R. Tolkien

[ See The Return of the King ]

Tolkien and Lewis: The Gift of Friendship // Colin Duriez

Despite having read the vast majority of Tolkien’s literature and a good amount of Lewis’s, I had never read a biography of either of them. I found this biography addressing both authors and their unique friendship. I enjoyed learning more about both of them and how their relationship formed and affected each other’s work.

The Return of the King // J.R.R. Tolkien

[Unlike Narnia and Prydain, I felt I couldn’t lump the titles of The Lord of the Rings together and still maintain the chronological list; therefore, the first two titles received no paragraph, but here is a summary for all three.]

In lieu of how easy it is to just watch Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, it’s easy to forget how deep and rich Tolkien’s writing really is. I can say this with honesty and without judgement, because I forgot too. Relearning the depths of Tolkien and rediscovering why I came to love and live and breathe Middle Earth in my childhood in the first place was powerful and healing for me. If you’ve only watched the movies, you’re honestly really missing out. Yes, Tolkien loves to talk about plants and trees and forests to no end, and maybe that’s not your thing and that’s okay; however, these stories are pure magic – tried and true.

The Raven Boys // Maggie Stiefvater The Dream Thieves // Maggie Stiefvater Blue Lily, Lily Blue // Maggie Stiefvater The Raven King (+Opal) // Maggie Stiefvater

I had tried to listen to The Raven Boys on Hoopla earlier in the year and become bored to tears – the narrator was just that bad and I felt the whole thing was just doomed to become a terrible love polygon. Several months later, a friend encouraged me to give it another try. I did (this time reading it straight from the page), and I was delightedly surprised. I had heard of The Raven Cycle for years but been too scared to pick it up (honestly, love polygons can be terrible things), but I’m glad that this year I finally did.

Carry On // Rainbow Rowell

I heard of Carry On while in the midst of reading The Raven Cycle. I found it to be highly amusing: reminiscent of Percy Jackson, but perhaps with better writing (in my personal opinion; I still have a fondness for Percy).

Comet in Moominland // Tove Jansson

I have seen screenshots of the 90’s Moomin show for years but never bothered to truly figure out where they came from until recently. I learned that Moomin originally came from a book. I thought it would be a picture book, and I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Moomin actually came from a book book. I found Comet in Moominland to be heartwarming and cute with beautiful illustrations and words that can speak to the oldest soul, despite being a children’s book.

Call Down the Hawk // Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan was my favourite character from The Raven Cycle because I felt I understood him the most, which is a rather amusing sentiment to me on the surface level since I am probably one of the least edgy people you will ever meet. Learning more about Stiefvater’s world of Dreamers was particularly interesting and important to me (dreams have always been important to me, and dreams have shaped a good part of my life, actually). Chapter 3 (starts on page 19 of the hardcover copy) was very much like reading The Slow Regard of Silent Things for me: I understood, and I felt understood.

Tales from Moominvalley // Tove Jansson

A collection of cute short stories from Jansson’s Moomins. These were amusing, but at this point Moomins are important to me, so the book was very special all the same.

Six of Crows // Leigh Bardugo Crooked Kingdom // Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows is a significant book to me. I remember when it was first published in 2015. I heard of it and immediately wanted to read it; however, there were many circumstances and unfortunate happenings which led to me not being able to read it until this year. The duology is now ranked among the stories which made me. To me, it’s a victory song.

The Moomins and the Great Flood // Tove Jansson

I had heard talk of the Great Flood in Comet in Moominland and been slightly confused from it being out of context. This book provided the context for this flood and is somewhat of a prequel to the rest of the Moomin books. As always, it’s a cute story with wonderful illustrations.

Shadow and Bone // Leigh Bardugo Siege and Storm // Leigh Bardugo Ruin and Rising // Leigh Bardugo

After finishing the Six of Crows duology, I learned that it was actually a sequel series to Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy. I finished Ruin and Rising last night and while I didn’t enjoy the trilogy as much as Six of Crows, it provided context for some of the characters featured in the duology, and I enjoyed the characters of Alina and Mal as well as learning more about Bardugo’s Grishaverse.

Other Reading

For school, continuing education, etc… Basically stuff I was compelled to read in one way or another.

Gilgamesh (English version by N.K. Sanders)

“The sleeping and the dead, how alike they are, they are like a painted death.”

The Song of Roland (translated and with an introduction by Robert Harrison)

I’d read this long ago, and re-reading it would have been a better experience if I wasn’t being pressed into writing a paper about it for a professor who was Machiavellian in behaviour but only intelligent in his own pride (these are gentle words).

The Prince // Niccolò Machiavelli

I seriously hate this guy.

The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People // Oscar Wilde

I read this for a compare-contrast essay between the original play and the 2002 film adaptation. I thought it would be annoying and tedious to re-read, but I actually enjoyed it because the professor was simply a delight to work with.

A General Introduction to the Bible // Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix (8th printing, 1975)

I’ve always been interested in how the Bible came to be compiled because almost no one talks about it (asking questions on this topic basically got me excommunicated when I was 12 hah). I read this book to find the answers to the questions I suffered for asking. I found some answers and a whole lot of data (seriously, these people aren’t messing around).

In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens // Alice Walker

A beautiful short story – perhaps one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I have ever read.

[mirthless-misanthrope]

Earl Grey (Jotaro Kujo Imagine)

A/N: oh boy, this is probably the longest imagine i’ve written for jotaro so far! it’s nice and angsty, because I decided to consider reality today. relationships aren’t all fluffy like fanfics can say sometimes, so i decided to write about the first big argument in the relationship.

however, today’s prompt was “coffee and/or tea” so i tried to incorporate that too whoops

Trigger Warnings: angst!!!! argument, swearing, hopeless thoughts, self-blame, self-worth issues, harassment, jotaro feels guilt :0

Enjoy!

...

Living in Japan, I’m accustomed to drinking tea with almost everything. That’s… not even because I’m in Japan. I just love the scent of tea, no matter what kind, and I somehow managed to get used to the taste of certain blends. Earl Grey is my personal favorite. Bergamot mixing with the general aroma of black tea always soothes me whenever I’m upset or stressed out.

In this case, Earl Grey is the only thing keeping me from doing anything rash. As miserable as I am after such a harsh argument, the steam hitting my face reminds me that there’s more things to life than love… but are any of them really worth it? I suppose that’s the question of the night. 

Wisps of fire burn in the fireplace beside me, similar to the frustration Jotaro threw at me before storming out: fiery, heated, bitter… just thinking about the words he said sends me into a crying fit again. Salty tears fall into my cup of tea, ruining it, but I don’t care. Nothing matters to me at this point. God, I sound like Jotaro right now…

Why should I care though? Looking back, I didn’t do anything except try to help him tidy his office… He just exploded for no reason. His words hit me like a train as he mocked every single one of my insecurities out of nowhere. And yet somehow, I feel like this is my fault anyway. No matter how much I try to convince myself it’s his fault, I just… can’t. I know he’s been stressed since finals are next week and he has research papers due soon, and to me, it seems I’ve made him more stressed. 

Heart throbbing in agony, I wander to the kitchen and pick up our shared notepad, scribbling an apology for him to read if he comes back home… I don’t think he will until I head to work. Regardless, I’d forget if I didn’t do it now. Once the note is done, I pour the cold, ruined tea down the drain of the sink. It’s mesmerizing to watch the dark liquid swirl around in circles like this… but I have to sleep. I know I don’t want to, but if I’m gonna work tomorrow, I’ll have to, or else I’ll fall off the ladder we use to put books back on shelves…

Sleep doesn’t come to me. It’s been hours since I first laid down in our bed, but it feels so empty that my heart won’t let me sleep. Lucky me, I know where Jotaro keeps his dolphin stuffed animals that I keep getting him, and so I throw myself out of bed, heading towards the closet where each dolphin is. Pushing the door open, I observe the different shades of blue and gray fabric around me for a moment before deciding to take as many of the dolphins as I can carry, bringing them to the painfully empty bed and filling Jotaro’s side with the soft plushes. That solves one of my issues, but… there’s still something missing.

Realization dawns on me as I look at one of Jotaro’s hats on the wall. So… despite my internal embarrassment, I go to his closet and pull out one of his giant coats, pulling it around me like a blanket. That’s better, I think to myself, maybe now I can sleep. Jotaro’s lingering scent on his jacket brings more tears to my eyes, and I cry myself to sleep for the first time in months, wishing Jotaro was with me as weak sobs leave me. Arms wrapped in a vice grip around the largest dolphin I brought with me, I curl up on top of the blankets and sheets, not even bothering to dress down into pajamas. No, I pass out under the fabric of Jotaro’s coat, feeling worthless and guilty, which leads to endless nightmares.

… I’m already in deep sleep when Jotaro walks back into our apartment and sees the state I’m in. And so I don’t know that he finds out about just how hard his words hit me. He leaves without a word as soon as he sees the pile of dolphins on his side of the bed, the coat draped over me, and the tear tracks on my scrunched up face. He doesn’t want to mess this up even more.

…

8 A.M. sharp and I’m walking into the library for my shift. I don’t know why they decided to give me the earliest shift today, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. The library is quiet at this hour. I have some time to think… and consider everything. The note on the counter wasn’t messed with, and the dolphins were all still there, so… Jotaro must’ve stayed somewhere else. Probably with Kakyoin. I thought I heard someone come in at some point, but all those dreams might’ve been fucking with my head. Besides, he had no reason to come home. It’s not like he-

“Yo, librarian,” a voice sneers in front of me. I recognize the voice. Damnit, not this kid again… “Whatcha thinkin’ about over ‘ere? We’ve been callin’ your name for the past half hour, so what’s the big deal?” His tall, lanky form leans on the desk in front of me, attempting to intimidate me and it only reminds me of Jotaro yelling at me, oh god, what did I do now-? “Whoa, holy shit, why’re ya cryin’? I didn’t even say nothin’ to ya yet! Geez, ya can’t even hold yourself together… Ya look like complete shit.” His buddies behind him cackle, but I don’t hear them. I only hear Jotaro’s words: “Jesus, woman, why can’t you stop cryin’ for two fuckin’ seconds? Pull yourself together. Yare yare, what a fuckin’ pain in my ass you are.”

A brittle shriek pierces through the air. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me. My eyes notice the boy’s hand inching towards me, and I cry out in agony. “Don’t-Don’t touch me-! Please, I… just leave me alone for today, okay? You can bother me all you want on any other day, just - please not today,” I beg, eyes pleading the boy to just leave me alone…

I never get a response. The boy goes flying across the library before he can make a sound, and Star is puffed up in front of me, in a protective stance. It’s too bad nobody else in the library can see him though, because now it seems like I’m insane as I freeze in place, my shaky voice piercing the silence. “S-Star... What are… you doing here…?” Sniffles and hiccups take over me as I see Star look at me, utter sorrow painted on his angular face. I’ve never seen him so distraught… so when he comes closer to me and pulls me away from the desk, I let him. 

“Ora…” The stand before me makes sure nobody is around before picking me up off the ground, cradling me close as he starts to cry. Stands… can cry? Does this mean Jotaro is crying too? Shoulders shaking, Star refuses to let go of me, as if I would die if I left his hold. “Ora ora,” he cries to me, and I figure out what he’s trying to say: “We’re sorry.” That realization takes the breath out of me. Jotaro… is sorry about what happened? But… it was my fault, wasn’t it?

A deep baritone voice breaks me out of my thoughts. “Yare yare… So this is where Star Platinum went. What a pain.” There stands Jotaro, and holy shit he looks like a zombie. Dark circles showing his lack of sleep are the most prominent blemish on his skin, accompanied by a bit of red (perhaps from crying and rubbing at his eyes). His eyes are more dim than usual. And as soon as I see that, I know he’s been feeling as much pain as I have. “You look like shit. You shouldn’t be working.” He takes me from Star’s arms, the stand whining at him but not making a move to fight back. “I already called your boss. Said you’re sick and can’t come in. I would’ve left you here but that boy pissed me off.” And with that, he turns and walks out of the library, carrying me bridal style down the street towards our apartment. 

The walk is dead silent. Neither of us say a word. Not even Star dares to break the silence… and somehow, I appreciate it. Reading Jotaro’s expression turns out to be a soothing action - almost as soothing as the scent of Earl Grey tea - as I decipher a few emotions. I can tell he feels guilty (or did feel guilty, anyway) but his eyes are lit up now that he has me in his arms. His hands that grip my body are firm, yet gentle, leaving no marks but ensuring I don’t disappear. Really, the way he holds himself during the whole walk makes it clear that he’s glad I’m there. Nothing could possibly distract my soft gaze from observing his lips twitching every few seconds. He wants to say something… but he’s hesitating. It must be important if he’s thinking about it.

To my disappointment, we get to our apartment before he says anything, and I assume it must be insignificant when he sets me on our couch and walks away. Tilting my head, I hear him rummage around in our room, the sound of a closet door opening and closing, and footsteps as he returns to me. “Had to clear the bed,” he grumbles, “we’re going to sleep.” Tugged up by his strong arms, I follow him without a word, plopping onto my side of the bed and seeing the dolphin I had cuddled last night still resting on Jotaro’s side. Confusion must be on my face, because Jotaro scoffs and settles into his side of the bed. As his arms pull me into him, he allows me to clutch the dolphin plush to my chest. It’s comforting for me to feel the soft fabric, as well as his warmth, so I’m sleepy as soon as he has his arms around my waist. “Hey. I… said a lot of shit last night.” These words make me perk up. “I… Yesterday was rough. Stressful. I didn’t mean to… I took it out on you.” Tears gather at the corners of his eyes, causing my eyes to widen and tear up as well. “I’m sorry. I love you. Never meant to hurt you like this,” his thumb brushes against my cheek, “and never meant to make you cry yourself to sleep like that.” He… did come back?

“JoJo, I… I know,” A hiccup causes my words to get stuck and I lose it, sobbing into his chest. “I know you-you didn’t mean it, but I-I’m sorry. I pissed you off again, I should’ve known not to mess with your office-”

“Yare yare, woman. Stop apologizing and go to sleep. You didn’t do anything, so stop looking at me like a guilty puppy.”

So much for that moment of being soft. 

Listening to his heartbeat, I drift off, mind filled with dreams of affection from the man laying with me. And he falls asleep as well, murmuring the sweetest nothings he can think of until his breathing evens out. 

The entirety of the day is spent napping and cuddling. Jotaro is so much more affectionate and clingy as usual, but I don’t mind. He spends all day making it up to me by showering me with compliments (in his own way) and keeping me in his arms (except for when I use the bathroom, of course). Sweet kisses are shared throughout the day as well, sealing our unspoken promise that we will be okay.

[skelezbian]

I saw your thing on AO3 about requests and I was wondering if for any skeleton, any AU, if you could do a 'I came to a dance class because of my brother and now we have to awkwardly slow dance/tango/waltz together'. Thank you for your wonderful writing!

UGH this one is so good it’s haunted me since i saw it in my inbox. (i chose underswap papyrus btw)

ao3 link

Papyrus, if pressed, would’ve said that his second least favorite thing to do was move. His ideal day had him lazing about, sketching out some complex Rube Goldberg machine to move even less but with more complex hijinks involved. He certainly hadn’t been so low when he was younger, but growing up seemed to take the wind out of his sails, and the fact that his friend group extended to one person and his brother certainly hadn’t helped. He’d had big dreams- becoming a part of the Royal Guard and all of the romance that entailed. The suit of armor, the fancy outings, the prestige of it all, the hope for a future on the Surface… It had painted a very shiny and ideal future to a kid whose earliest memory was of his older brother panicking about finding them somewhere to live.

That future had dulled as he got older. Some dreams, he had supposed, were best left as dreams. He was slow and achy at only twenty years and those weren’t the kind of goals an achy skeleton got to have.

Unfortunately, Sans disagreed. He’d been the president of the Papyrus Fan Club the day that he’d become an older brother, and his optimism and hope for him never ceased to amaze Papyrus. He’d long since given up trying to get him to physically prepare for being a knight in the Royal Guard (giving Papyrus all of his sentry shifts so he wouldn’t have to move as much), but Papyrus had been naive to believe that his brother had forgotten about his childhood ramblings.

On the Surface, now, everything seemed limitless and possible, and Sans has fucking signed him up for a ballroom dancing class.

“i’m not going. you can’t make me.” Papyrus says, petulantly, childishly, sitting at their living room table. His fingers find a carved indention where he had tried to write his name in the wood when he was younger- ‘papiris’. “you remember what happened when you signed me up for a yoga class. what do you think is going to happen?”

“OH, DON’T GIVE ME THAT.” Sans turns around only briefly from where he’s scrambling eggs to roll his eyelights at him. “YOU DIDN’T DO THE WARM-UPS, IT’S NOT THE ENTIRE PRACTICE OF YOGA’S FAULT. BESIDES, BALLROOM DANCING IS THE LOWEST EFFORT DANCE LESSON I COULD FIND.” The spatula gently scrapes the bottom of the pan. “BESIDES. YOU USED TO LOVE THOSE CHEESY HUMAN ROMANCE SOAPS.”

“well, i’m about a decade and a half older than i was when i first watched ‘beauty and the beast’, so i don’t think that counts, sans.” He grumbles, slumping onto the table. Yoga had been a horrific incident- the humans were nice, the atmosphere was fine, but they’d done a simple move and his thigh bone had popped out of his pelvic cradle and the woman next to him had screamed and fainted. And then the instructor had called a human ambulance despite Papyrus’ protests, all while he tried to calm down enough to get his magic to reattach his leg. It was single handedly the most embarrassing moment of his life, even over the time Undyne invited her girlfriend over and had completely forgotten that he hadn’t left her house yet.

If he knows Sans, though, there’s no way around this because, “I ALREADY PAID FOR IT.” Then, to soften the blow, “IT’S ONLY ONE LESSON. WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?”

“my leg could fall off again?”

“WELL, KEEP AN EYE ON THEM SO THEY DON’T RUN AWAY, THEN!” He starts building his plate- a slice of toast, several strips of turkey bacon, and his eggs (lightly salted). “I EVEN SPOKE WITH THE INSTRUCTOR ABOUT THIS- SHE SAID SHE’D PAIR YOU WITH SOMEONE EXPERIENCED SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THEM STEPPING ON YOUR TOES. JUST…” Sans hands him his plate, a small smile on his face, “JUST TRY TO HAVE FUN!”

Papyrus stuffs his face with eggs and tries to ignore how hard his brother is trying to make him happy.

-

Even though the idea of being over-dressed for this occasion was horrifying, Papyrus could only imagine how embarrassing it would be if he had ended up underdressed. When he was younger, he used to love fashion and his idea of what was ‘cool’ (usually, clothes that looked like they were covered in car decals), but he had been hard-pressed to find one dress shirt in his closet. Ultimately, he’d ended up borrowing one of Sans’ and tucking it into khakis he hadn’t worn in four years, which exposed his growth spurt and, incidentally, his thin tibias.

He walked into that auditorium room feeling like a class-a clown in the worst of ways. He couldn’t tell if it was a good or a bad thing that no one turned to look at him when he’d walked in, and the indecision had sweat beading on his skull. Was it too late to just bail? Could Sans afford for him to just leave and lose the money on this lesson? It was ballroom dancing, so it couldn’t have been cheap- what if he’d spent that extra money he was going to use for his vacation days on this? What if-

“Hi! Are you Papyrus?” He lurches, feeling someone’s hand touch his shoulder, disrupting his running thoughts. “Oh! Sorry to startle you!”

“oh, uh, um, uh.” He can’t physically return his eye sockets to how they were normally. He’s suddenly very glad that Sans had pressed his shirt for him, because you’re wearing a sleek black outfit that compliments you so well that he has to tell himself not to stare. “yes. papyrus. that’s me. and, um, you are…?”

“I’m your dancing partner for today.” You say with a smile, and introduce yourself. “You’re a bit behind with the lessons, so everyone’s a bit more advanced. Your brother, um, mentioned that you’d be a bit uncomfortable with having more attention on you than necessary, so we’re going to be practicing separately from the group to get you caught up. Is that alright?”

“yup. that’s alright, yeah.” Stars, why can’t he make his mouth say something, anything, cooler than that? The light sweat on his face still hasn’t faded.

You chuckle, just a little, and reach out your hand. It takes him a moment to realize you wanted him to hold your hand. For the dancing. Duh. He hesitates, fitting his hand into your’s slowly, a wobbly smile reaching his face when you flex your fingers on his. “Wow! You’re real solid.” Staring down at your joined hands, it takes Papyrus a moment to realize why his soul is racing in his rib cage- this is the first time in months that anyone other than Undyne or Sans has touched him. Stars, he’s a mess. Taking his pause for more hesitation, you try to amend, “We won’t be doing too much dancing today- it’s mostly about helping you find some rhythm and sync up with me. Just, um, let me know if anything makes you uncomfortable?”

You’re really nice and he feels super bad about this entire situation- he can only imagine how frail his brother must’ve made him sound. “don’t worry- i know you’re just doing your job. if anything’s sour, i’ll let you know.” He hadn’t noticed that you were tense until he’d finished speaking and saw your shoulders relax.

“Phew, okay. I mean, it’d get really hard to get you into rhythm if you’re not comfortable, so that’s our first obstacle.” You sway forward and, automatically, Papyrus leans forward to make sure you don’t fall. He then realizes it was on purpose, to test if he could take your weight. “Okay, Papyrus, talk to me. What kind of music do you like?”

“for this kind of stuff? i’d say blues.” You rest your other hand on his shoulder, and indicate for him to do the same. He feels your shoulders raise with a small laugh.

“That was a joke, right? ‘Rhythm and blues’? That’s cute.” You say it so genuinely that it pulls a chuckle from him. You begin to sway side-to-side- initially, the both of you are mismatched, but he falls into step easily soon, matching your pace.

“hey, i got a few more up my button-down’s sleeve. you ever heard the one about the old duck comedian?”

You got a silly smile on your face, as if you could guess the punchline. “Nope, never have. Is it going to… quack me up?” Your fingers slide more securely towards his neck, and he finds that holding you under your arm and around your shoulder blade is far more comfortable than locking his elbow straight to hold onto you.

“nah, but he’ll bill you for it later.” The punchline gets a small laugh from you, shaking your head. “hey, how long have you been dancing?” The two of you had fallen into an almost-natural sway, gently rocking to-and-from. You take one step to your right, and he immediately follows with you. Papyrus can suddenly see the importance of being familiar with your partner’s body language.

“Oh, not too long. About two years- I did a competition a little while back. Not much came of it.” He misreads you and steps forward, stepping on your foot. You simply take a step back, pulling your foot out. “The instructor’s a friend of mine- I help the newbies out. And don’t worry about my shoes- I always wear a scuffed pair for the first-timers.” You wink, and it sends his soul fluttering.

“that so? you know, i’ve never really looked, but i’m pretty sure i have two left feet, so i might wear a hole down on those shoes.”

“Now, that’d be a feat!” You look so proud of your little joke, your smile crinkling the edges of your eyes. He laughs and, for some reason, that little joke makes the rest of the evening go so much faster. It’s mostly swaying to the beat and chatting idly, you moving him and him being moved until he finally gets it and he can almost predict your next steps. You shoot him a wicked grin, “So, did you notice?”

“notice what?” To make sure, he looks down at his feet to make sure they aren’t scuffing your shoes again. You giggle at that, so he tries to crack a joke, “now, are you saying that my two left feet are making a right?”

You snort. “Actually! I just taught you the box step, so I’d consider that a right! Here, watch your feet.” You pulled him back, stepped to your left, then forward, then back into resting position. It wasn’t anything impressive, but Papyrus was somewhat amazed that he hadn’t noticed the both of you moving in a perfect square. “So? Not as bad as you were expecting, huh?”

“no, not bad at all…” He responds, almost surprised himself. Forward, right, back, return. All with your hand resting on the slope of his shoulder, all with you smiling up at him. “huh.”

“Yeah, ‘huh’.” You laugh and wink at him again, as if all of this was some elaborate plan on your part, to lull him into a sense of security and trick him into dancing. “So, you want to refine it a bit?”

“yeah, i think that’d make us square.”

When Sans comes to pick him up, he can’t conceal the smile on his face. You wave to him from amongst teenagers reuniting with their parents, partners sharing water bottles and dabbing sweat from their foreheads, and your grin is so wide it forces your eyes shut. Papyrus watches you from the passenger seat of Sans’ economic Nissan, fingers drumming on his pressed pants’ leg. “SO. HOW WAS IT? DID YOU… SHAKE A LEG?”

The joke startles a laugh out of him, “you know what? i shook two of them, and they stayed attached this time.” Sans lets out a mock gasp of surprise. “it was a lot of fun, sans. honestly, i didn’t think i’d enjoy it, but… well, i guess part of it is the partner.”

As hard as he tries to ignore it, Sans is giving him an ‘I TOLD YOU SO’ grin in his peripheral. “WELL, I GUESS THAT OLD DANCING SKELETON JOKE ISN’T TRUE ANY MORE.” He turns to wink at his younger brother, “I’M GLAD YOU HAVE SOME BODY TO DANCE WITH.”