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turnpage · 4 years ago

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send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

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❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜  ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness. ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives? ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope — It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together. ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord. ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you. ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory. ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are. ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences. ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table? ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place? ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable. ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you. ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner. ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away. ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

#sentence starters #generate sentence prompts #rp meme #roleplay prompt #roleplay meme #prompt for writing #rp prompt #send emoji meme #long tw

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sevlgi · 5 years ago

Text

chemistry

requested: yes

group: red velvet

pairing: irene x fem!reader

genre: fluff, angst

contents: college!au, tutor!irene, chemistry pickup lines

warnings: none

synopsis: When you end up with your ultimate crush and the goddess of the school, Irene, as your Chemistry tutor, you can only think of one way to woo her-chemistry pickup lines. But is that enough to woo the beautiful ice queen?

a/n: I can absolutely do an Irene drabble! I haven’t gotten many requests for red velvet, but I’m happy to write for them. also, happy birthday, Irene!

word count: 2.8k

Getting Bae Joohyun assigned as your tutor is probably the best thing that has ever happened to you.

Joohyun was recognized by everyone on campus as a literal goddess. Even among her friend group of the most illustrious and beautiful girls on campus, she stands out as the leader of all of them, the prettiest and most brilliant one of all. Armed with knife-sharp wit, stellar grades, and a gorgeous face to top it all off, Joohyun could have the world at her feet.

Despite how cold she is to everyone outside of her friend group, everyone is infatuated; you swear you’ve seen her receive at least a dozen marriage proposals in a week from guys and girls alike. If you had enough courage, you’d probably be one of those girls, although you’d probably be turned away like the rest with a scathing remark from Jennie or a sympathetic smile from Nayeon.

Recently, though, you’ve become friends with one of the sweeter girls in the group, Joohyun’s friend Wendy. She’s in your Chemistry class and is just like Joohyun, only nicer.

You groan as you spot the fat red D scrawled at the top of your paper as it’s handed back to you. “Ah, come on! I studied so hard this time!”

Sitting next to you, Wendy watches sympathetically, silently turning her own paper over to conceal the A at the top. “Hey, it’s okay, Y/N. I heard that the class average was a 61.”

Glaring at her halfheartedly, you mumble, “Yeah, well, I’m not far off from that.”

Wendy sighs, leaning down to get to eye level with you as you like face-down on your desk. “You studied hard, but maybe you just need some outside help? What about a tutor?”

“Are you offering to tutor me? I’m not that dumb. I just- I just can’t seem to get it. You get it.”

“Yes, but I’m one of the top students,” Wendy laughs lightly, placing a hand on your shoulder. “I can’t tutor you, though, I’m already signed up as a Calculus and History tutor.” You groan immediately; having one of your friends as your tutor is embarrassing enough, but it would be way worse with a stranger. “Come on, Y/N, a tutor isn’t bad.”

You open your mouth to retort but quickly clam up when you see Joohyun and Jisoo heading over. “Hey, Wendy. Are you coming to the tutoring meeting today?” Jisoo asks, giving you a polite smile. Jisoo’s pretty, and she’s definitely nicer than Joohyun, but you can’t help being infatuated with the other girl. You notice her eyes stray from your face to the D on your paper, her expression remaining impassive.

“Oh, of course. Joohyun, you’re signing up as a Chemistry tutor, right?” Wendy asks. She sounds innocent, but you’ve known her long enough that you know she has something planned.

Joohyun shifts her gaze to Wendy now, and the ice in her eyes melts a little at her smiling friend. “Yes,” Joohyun says, and you barely manage to not smile at the sound of her voice. “Jisoo finally convinced me to use my intelligence for good.”

“Ah, great!” Wendy grins, nudging you under the table. “It just so happens that Y/N here needs some help in that department.”

At a harder shove from your friend, you gulp and stutter out, “Y-yeah. I’m not doing so hot right now.”

Joohyun flashes you the tiniest of smiles that doesn’t reach her eyes, tugging on Jisoo’s elbow to leave. “Yes, great. I’m sure I’ll see you there, then.”

As soon as the two girls are out of sight, you smack Wendy as hard as you can with your rolled-up test. “What. The. Hell?” you hiss.

“I know you like her,” Wendy smiles innocently, rubbing her arm. “And you really need to get a tutor, so it was the perfect opportunity. Come on, Joohyun’s even better at Chem than me!”

You can’t deny the genius of her plan, but you’re sure you’ll embarrass yourself either way. “Fine,” you grumble, resting your forehead on the desk. “I guess I’m going to the tutoring meeting.”

“Stop fidgeting, you look great.”

Despite Wendy’s words, you can’t help but pick at your T-shirt, tucked into nice pants, and frown. You refused to wear a dress, but Wendy was able to force you into nicer pants than your beat-up jeans. She herself looks stunning as usual as she maneuvers the two of you through the crowd to sit by her entire posse of friends at the front. “Hey, Roseanne, mind if we sit here?”

You don’t hear what the blonde says in response, but you sit down between her and Wendy with your eyes on Joohyun, a few seats away. You signed up for a tutor right after class two days ago, so you can’t do anything but hope you get Joohyun assigned as your tutor.

Everything else the professor says goes in one ear and out the other, until he begins announcing the tutors. “Kim Jisoo, you’ll be tutoring Jeon Jungkook. Bae Joohyun, you are assigned to Y/N Y/L/N.”

Wendy clutched onto your arm with an excited smile as soon as he was done with calling out names. “See? This is great!”

“What’s great?” You look up to find Joohyun standing there with her arms crossed, expression impassive as always. She sticks out her hand to shake. “You can call me Joohyun, I’m your tutor.”

“Y/N,” you respond breathlessly, shaking her hand. Your hand is probably sweaty, but Joohyun’s face reveals nothing. “Um, we should probably set up a time? For our first tutoring session?”

Joohyun nods, already tugging Wendy up. “Yes, I’ll get your number from Wendy. Come on, Seungwan.”

Wendy flashes you an apologetic smile as she leaves, but you don’t mind- you’ve got your crush as your chemistry tutor, and she’s going to text you. All is well, as far as you’re concerned.

Joohyun doesn’t text you for a full week. You’re too scared to go up to her in Chemistry, and Wendy says she doesn’t know what’s going on, so you’re left to stare at your phone, waiting for that first text.

Finally, at 2:17 a.m., it comes.

Unknown number [2:17] Is this Y/N Y/L/N? It’s Joohyun.

You [2:17] yes, it’s me!

Joohyun [2:19] Good, I thought Seungwan would give me the wrong number.

You [2:19] I’m glad she didn’t haha

You [2:20] when are you free to meet up?

Joohyun [2:24] How about at 3?

You [2:25] like 3 this afternoon?

Joohyun [2:26] No, in half an hour.

Joohyun [2:26] Unless it’s too early for you?

You [2:27] no, it’s fine!!!

You [2:28] see you in half an hour at the library!

“Ah, where is she?” You rub your eyes, swaying a little bit as you survey the mostly-empty library for your tutor. You spot her in the corner, dark hair thrown up in a bun and her back to you, books heaped on the desk. “Hey, Joohyun!”

When she turns around, you notice the glasses perched on her nose and promptly fall down. Her footsteps echo as she walks toward you, and her face appears above yours, the slightest hint of amusement glinting in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” you groan, sitting up; your face flames hot red as Joohyun picks up your bag and leads you over to the desk. “Thanks for being my tutor, by the way.”

Joohyun glances at you, her face still cold. You can’t help but think about how incredibly beautiful she’d be if you could make her smile, just the tiniest bit, or even laugh. “I’m not doing it for you, it’s my job. I always tutor who I’m assigned, it doesn’t matter about my feelings.”

“Right.” You’re sure your face is even warmer now, but when you spot an open textbook, you blurt something out to change the subject. “So, what’re we learning today?”

“I thought we’d start with exothermic reactions,” Joohyun explains, pointing to the wall of text in the book. “Do you know what they are?”

“I think you’re an exothermic reaction,” you blurt out. Joohyun quirks an eyebrow, slightly confused but letting you go on. Your cheeks burn even brighter as you continue, “You spread hotness everywhere.”

Unless you’re so sleep-deprived that you were seeing things, you see the slightest tinge of pink in Joohyun’s pale cheeks, right before she rolls her eyes and sighs, “At least you know they spread heat.”

“Well, you look terrible.”

You roll your eyes at Wendy, plopping down in your usual seat next to her with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, Joohyun tutored me from 2 in the morning to 4. I’m dead inside.”

Wendy smirks at your disheveled state; your dark circles and messy hair are nothing like Joohyun’s flawless skin and neat clothes, despite the fact that she probably slept even less. “Yeah, I can see that. Did it help?”

“No,” you groan, throwing a paper with a C- glaring up at you on the desk. “It’s an improvement, but not much. Not enough.”

“Keep trying,” Wendy sighs, patting you on the shoulder. “With Joohyun’s help, you’ll be a genius in no time.”

At almost the same time the next morning, Joohyun texts you to go to the library. You arrive, armed with more pickup lines this time to try and make Joohyun actually smile. “Hey, Joohyun,” you smile.

“Hello,” she murmurs in response. “I was thinking we’d review the periodic table today; I saw you labeled oxygen as the first element on the quiz.”

“Forget hydrogen, you’re my number one element,” you grin, leaning back with a satisfied smile. “Do you like boba, by the way?”

Joohyun rolls her eyes and pushes the book toward you, ignoring your question. “Read,” she commands. You oblige, but you see a faint hint of a smile on her face as soon as she thinks you aren’t watching.

At that moment, you realize something-- Joohyun isn’t an untouchable ice goddess after all, and you really need to find more pickup lines. “Hey, Joohyun? I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have 11 protons? Because you’re sodium fine.”

Joohyun groans and shakes her head, pushing your head towards the book. “Keep reading, Y/N.”

After two weeks of midnight study sessions, your grades improve significantly and your dark circles are getting drastically worse. However, you’d been rewarded with a smile just the night before, so today, you’re going to ask Joohyun for coffee.

“Hey, Joohyun!” The girl turns at the sound of your voice; Jennie, at her left, looks exasperated, probably taking you for another desperate suitor, and Wendy looks surprised, especially when Joohyun gives you the faintest of smiles and stops Jennie from warding you off.

“You know, we always study at midnight. I was wondering whether you could tutor me this afternoon?” you ask, nervous that she’ll reject you. “Get boba, learn some more about chemical reactions?”

She seems like she’ll say something at first, but then agrees with a sigh. “Sure.”

“Great!” you beam, just happy that she didn’t turn you off. Right as she turns away, though, you call out. “One more thing. You must be made of uranium and iodine because all I can see is U and I together.”

She gives you an exasperated look before turning away and tossing over her shoulder, “4:28 sharp at Red Velvet Tea. Don’t be late.”

As she and her friends walk away, you swear you see Jennie whisper something in Joohyun’s ear and look at you with a questioning look in her eyes.

“You’re early.”

You grin as Joohyun sits down opposite you, setting down her books on the table and staring at the 2 unopened bubble teas between the two of you. “Yeah, I wanted to get a table and buy you something.”

“I don’t drink sweet things,” Joohyun raises an eyebrow, pushing the drink back at you.

You push it right back. “Ah, come on, Joohyun, just try it.”

She sighs a little harder than usual and pulls it towards her, but she doesn’t sip at it before she questions you, “Who told you to call me Joohyun?”

“Oh. Um, I hear your friends call you that, and we’re friends now, right?”

Joohyun looks like she’s restraining herself from saying something, but she gives you another one of her small smiles that doesn’t reach her eyes and responds, “Sure. Friends.”

She takes a sip and doesn’t frown or scowl, which you take as a good sign. “Hm. It’s not bad.”

“See?” you exclaim, victorious. “You know, I might be a physics major, but I’m no Bohr.”

“You’re not a physics major,” Joohyun deadpans, shoving yet another textbook at you. “Now read.”

Joohyun [3:19] Are you still awake?

You [3:20] always, for you xx

Joohyun [3:22] Give it a rest, Y/N. Ready for tutoring today?

You [3:23] ahh, it’s too early

You [3:23] meet me for lunch today? you can yell at me then

Joohyun [3:24] Fine, but don’t you dare order me a cheeseburger.

“You must be a magnetic monopole because all i get from you is attraction,” you flirt as soon as Joohyun sits down in the restaurant.

She walks right back out, but she comes back reluctantly after you chase her with a promise to never say that line again.

You made her smile that day, and you made it your mission to do so more often.

Two months or so later, it’s safe to say that you and Joohyun are pretty close. She’s even introduced you to some of her friends although Jennie remains hostile, and for some reason, almost all of them give each other knowing looks whenever you join them for lunch and make Joohyun laugh at your jokes.

You aren’t failing Chemistry anymore- in fact, your recovery is miraculous. Still, you’re pretty sure you failed the final exam.

“Ugh, and the question about prevalent bonds?” you groan, putting your head in your hands, your bottle of soju in danger of being knocked over. You’re out for drinks with your friends; the boys who elected to come out with you are all drunk to hell, dancing as if they’ll die if they don’t, and most of the girls have joined them. Wendy stays with you, listening to you complain. “I’m dead. Hey, where’s Joohyun, by the way?”

“Ah, she’s-”

Your question is answered by a fuming Joohyun bursting through the doors of the bar, but you and Wendy are the only ones who notice her as she storms towards you. “You-” she hisses, pointing a finger at you.

“M-me?” you stammer. You’ve never seen this much emotion of Joohyun before, and especially not anger. It’s admittedly scary as hell, but also the tiniest bit hot. “Uh, Joohyunie, what’s-”

“Come with me,” she snarls, grabbing your arm and leading you out of the bar. As soon as you’re out of earshot of the other girls and in the streets, she stops, and her expression turns to some mix of anger and sadness.

You step closer to her, watching her carefully to determine whether you’re in real danger or not. “Hey, Joohyun, what’s going on?”

Joohyun shoves you away at first, glaring at you. You notice the shine in her eyes, and if it was anyone else, you’d think they were tears.

“I failed the test,” she chokes out, putting her face in her hands. There are real, actual tears spilling down her cheeks, and you’re not quite sure how to react.

“What? Come on, no way,” you stammer out, putting your hands tentatively on her shoulders. Miraculously, she doesn’t push you away. “You’re like the smartest person I know, how could you have failed the test?”

She looks up at you, and you can’t help but think she’s so incredibly beautiful even with her nose reddened and her eyes shimmering. “You.”

“What?”

“It’s all your fault,” she sniffles, rubbing her nose harshly on her arm and tearing out of your grip once again.

You’re bewildered; how in the hell could you cause Joohyun, star student, to fail her best subject? “W-what?”

“You!” Joohyun is sobbing now, tears trailing down her cheeks and her nose redder than her lips. “I- I couldn’t stop thinking about you. During the test, during tutoring... I just can’t!”

“M-me?” You step forward now, taking Joohyun’s hands in your own. “How could I do that to you?”

“I like you, you idiot,” Joohyun blurts out, her eyes widening in surprise. She clamps her hands over her mouth. “Oh no, I-”

You take a few strides forward and snatch her hands away again, this time pressing your lips to hers. She’s stiff at first, and you almost pull away, but her hands fist in the collar of your shirt as she pulls you into the kiss.

It seems like an eternity has passed when you finally pull away for air. You stare at each other, eyes shining with something other than tears, before you eloquently decide to start the conversation again. “Uh...”

"I... I’m sorry,” Joohyun mumbles, her hands still loosely clamped on the front of your shirt. “You’re just... so unlike me. You know? You’re so beautiful and kind, and so warm.”

“Warm? The hell?”

She rolls her eyes, smudging her tears away roughly. “You know what I mean. You tried to make me laugh even when I was so cold to you... and you smile so much and you look really pretty when you smile, you know that?”

You smile and kiss her again, sweeter than last time, and you feel her smiling against you too. When you pull away, your foreheads are pressed together, and you can’t stop yourself from saying breathlessly, “I guess we’ve got chemistry”.

That breaks the spell, and Joohyun groans and rips herself out of your grip, running into the bar. “H-hey! Joohyun!”

You chase after her, and you can’t help the cheesy grin on your face. There’s no doubt about it- getting Joohyun as your Chemistry tutor is the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to you.

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wu-sisyphus-gang · 4 years ago

Text

Motion Sickness Chapter 61

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(Weiss PoV)

I sparred with my sister. She sent her Beowulf at me. It pranced along the generated training ground terrain at me. A bunch of prismatic cubes with glowing blue edges.

It entered a room of my glyphs and I used my pseudo-telekinesis to slam it around against each black glyph until it dissolved.

Winter tried to summon something else but I made my knight little and had it sweep her leg. Knocking her to the floor before she could try anything else.

I let a little giggle escape me.

Winter had never seen it coming. She looked down at my little knight in shock.

Big things weren't always the best application of my semblance. It reminded me a little of Jaune who sometimes held onto his own semblance just for the speed and strength improvements rather than spending it in a flashy display.

I let my little knight dissolve. And Winter rose back to her feet. She whipped her scimitar at me.

I flew at her. Launching myself towards her using a spiraling glyph behind me. I thrust my rapier at her stomach. She leaned to the side. I slashed the narrow tip of Myrtenaster at her stomach where I perceived a hole in her defenses.

She blocked it with her scimitar. It was a wide sweeping gesture that forced me to take a step back. Her weapon unfused and became two, one in each of her hands.

She twirled as she brought the weapon around her body. I ducked the first and met the second. My rapier was slightly longer than her cutlasses. It gave me an edge I didn't squander as I forced her to take a step back using three quick thrusts.

She spun and tried to sweep my lead leg with a low kick. I turned my knee inwards and met the blow at the same time I push-shuffled closer to her and put her off balance with my shoulder. My center of gravity was lower than hers. I capitalized on that with a brutish, inelegant shoulder check. The sort Jaune would have had no qualms about using against me or Yang.

Winter stumbled back and I tore a chunk of her aura away from her with a thin slash of my weapon, cutting through it as she stepped back.

Point me.

"That was unrefined of you." Winter seemed to scold me.

I shrugged. "It's only unrefined if it doesn't work," I returned.

"If I would have known you were going to do something like that I could have capitalized on it."

"But you didn't know. Couldn't have known. That's what made it a good tool. The element of surprise. Besides you over extended with that kick. You lost accordingly because I was able to punish it. If I let you get away with those sorts of attacks without punishing properly, I'll lose."

"That's what made it a good tool," she echoed my words.

"Not good enough," I shot back.

She lowered her weapons at me in response. "Your inelegance will only take you so far. Sloppiness is not the path to victory."

I stayed silent. I'd do what I had to do to win. That was the real path to victory. If Winter was bound up by strings like worrying about how elegant she looked doing what she did, then she would lose. I would emerge victorious because I was willing to do whatever was necessary. Even if that meant being a touch brutish. That’s how Jaune leveraged his edge over me. He was willing to be brutal.

My sister spun as she came at me and I met the first scimitar, then I transitioned my blade sideways to meet the second. Then I made the Titania edge vertical but to the side to meet the next.

She meant to keep me in block the entire time while she rained precise blows against my defenses.

It might work too, she had multiple blades to bring to bear and it felt a touch like all I would be able to do is narrowly keep up.

My chance would come, however. If I stayed patient. There. A gap, perhaps an artificial one but still an opportunity I couldn't slip by me. I thrust my blade forward and she caught it on both of hers and attempted to disarm me with a subtle twist of both her weapons at the same time.

I countered by stepping in closer and sliding my weapon against both of hers straight up at her face. She stepped back rather than get hit, and freed my weapon up once more.

I twirled and slashed at her, high, low, high. She blocked each attack in turn.

I stepped back and I waved Myrtenaster. Pinpricks of light emerged from it and raced towards Winter. She shattered the light easily with a motion of her blade.

Our weapons collided and she slid down my weapon towards my wrist. I twisted vertically up and out of the way, using the guard on my weapon to my advantage. Her weapon slid over and past my wrist without colliding with me. One of them did at least. Her off hand weapon slipped under and into the aura of my stomach. She spun with it, slicing upwards as it bit into my aura.

Point her.

It was mostly because she had two weapons to my one but that was no excuse to not concede the point.

"You've improved by wide margins," She said. "And you're only getting better all the time. You're making such sloppy attacks work for you."

"Thank you," I replied. I was doing well enough to match Winter. It was all that real combat experience I had against the agents of Salem that made the difference. Winter was used to fighting opponents who were her inferior. The opposite was true for me.

"That wasn't meant to be a compliment."

"We all slip up sometimes."

She laughed a little and smiled.

"You know I am always here should you need to talk."

"Whatever about?"

"Your Jaune Arc for one. The turncoat."

"I don't view him as a turncoat. Elsewise would Salem not have the relic of knowledge? Why then would she send agents to steal it from us?"

"You still haven't accepted it yet."

"And I may never. That's hardly a weakness of me considering the facts that have been presented thus far."

"And yet you handed me his description along with that of Salem's other agents."

"In the hopes that you may find him and we can get to the bottom of this mystery. That hardly means I view him as one."

"I too was betrayed once. By a teammate no less. It took a great deal of counseling and therapy for me to come to grips with what happened. And I hardly view that as a weakness. Perhaps you require the same thing. It is something I want you to closely consider."

"I have no intention of talking to a stranger about Jaune. It doesn't feel right."

"Then consider talking to me."

"When you've already written him off? Salem doesn't have the relic. That means something. And I learned a great deal from him. About the world, about fighting, and about myself."

"I learned from my teammate as well. Just know that you aren't alone in this. I know what you're going through."

I didn't think she did. Mostly because I, myself, wasn't sure what I was going through. Between Ruby and Jaune, that is. That wasn't Winter's fault, however. I didn't blame her for it a single iota.

It just meant that what I was going through I needed to lean on Ruby to understand. Of everyone in the world she would get it. She was in the know and unbelievably empathetic besides.

I just nodded to Winter but stayed quiet and readied my weapon for another bout.

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I manned a wall of Mantle. Overlooking the frozen tundra. It was ruined by the presence of Grimm.

There had been a mine collapse and that was leading to a miner's strike across Mantle. That much negativity was drawing the Grimm in spades.

I summoned my Knight outside the wall and directed it with a wave of my hand. It met one of the elephantine Grimm and stopped it in its barrelling tracks. They wrestled for an impossible moment before my great knight flipped it over onto its back.

It let out a trumpeting call and the enormous sword was brought down through its chest, it's exposed underbelly a great weakness of black flesh rather than the white plate armor that covered it's back and sides.

I felt the elephant get added to my collection of possible summons. Another monster I had slain, if only indirectly.

I could feel the rage of the protestors behind me. I hoped that my father would compromise and meet with the strike leaders soon. I knew him and he only responded to shows of force. The sort of collective action I'd seen in the streets which bordered on riotous had to be the sort that he'd now to.

Surely.

Despite that I was unconvinced. My father always had an angle and he'd broken up strikes before. Bribing leaders, making threats, calling in the military, or making brief concessions before returning to the previous status quo. And here I was defending him incidentally.

I hated that. I reminded myself that it was Mantle and Atlas I was defending from these Grimm. Not my father and his shady business practices.

The riots felt hot at the hairs on my neck as I directed my silvery specter to wrestle with another Goliath. It felt like their breath was right behind me. I knew that that wasn't the case. Kilometers separated me and the pocket lines.

Things may not work out how I thought. Maybe my father would really give in. But there was a build up in supply of dust. My father had been hurting for people to sell it all to. Surely he had a great deal of the energy propellant in the warehouses around both cities.

That meant he could afford to wait and eventually the fire in the belly of the strikers would die down. Then he could return to business as he had before.

The oversupply caused by the embargo would be beneficial to him in this case. I wasn't sure how much of that my teammates understood. I had been raised with proud conversations about strike breaking at the dinner table.

I cast a half dozen points of explosive light at a Chimera that hovered near the walls and it fell down. I rotated the barrel of my sword and I used dust, air and water in combination, and called up an ice storm from a glyph which pierced it's hide and sent it to withering ash.

The storm I called bowled into many smaller Grimm as well. It scattered a dozen Beowulfs into charred flakes.

I swept Myrtenaster over my head and called another great glyph to life. I rotated the barrel of my weapon again and the blade glowed yellow. A dozen lightning bolts jumped from the corners of the glyph into a group of Gryphons making their way towards the wall.

Much like the monsters before them they were dissolved by the force behind the electricity. With dust to augment my spells I may well be the strongest member of team RWBY. I was no slouch with the power of nature behind me.

It made me wonder what I would be like with the power of a maiden behind me. Would it be like I had a buffet of dust behind me at all times or would the power be entirely divorced from my semblance? Either seemed possible. Or it might be something completely different from both those options. I would have no idea until I became a maiden. If I became a maiden, that is. There was always the chance that the agents of Salem would win again. There was the possibility that I could die the next time we clashed, as Ren and Nora had.

Speaking of it was possible the agents of Salem were behind this strike. Sure it might benefit the workers, but not if we couldn't hold the wall against the Grimm.

I summoned my knight in mid-air in a spiraling glyph next to a Chimera in flight and my silver warrior brought it's sword down on the Grimm mid-flight and divided it in two.

I would hold this wall. It was my duty to defend the people from the Grimm that might come this way. That was all I should be worrying about for now. I was sure of that but I couldn't help but let my thoughts wander. I was backed by a regiment of robotic troopers and Atlas security soldiers.

They lined up and with short controlled bursts they brought Grimm down which were beneath my attention. Together we moved and slowly cleared this section of tundra of all black and white threats.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

I was watching over a patrol of machines. United we were overlooking the protests at the mines. They'd put me in charge of a batch of machines and I was to make sure that no fighting broke out between police and protestors.

Under no circumstances was I to fire upon the crowd, however. I understood how important it was. I was here to hold the line and remind people that the Atlas Military was watching.

Protestors held signs like Dust Lung Laws Now , and Give the Scabs Nothing , and even Save Our Pit.

I stood opposite a line of people fifty persons thick. It was spilling out onto a wide asphalt street. It had brick buildings on either side and the people were marching straight down the road and shouting. "No dust! Or bust!"

There was a little faunus girl with bear ears right out in front and screaming. She couldn't have been older than nine. Was that how old Blake had been when she started out? It was a chilling thought. As emotionally abusive as my parents had been I had been safe and sound in Schnee Manor.

Some of our family had been disappearing but that had been an abstract worry to a little girl who was being physically and emotionally abused by her parents. Even if she hadn't known it at the time. And I hadn't known it at the time.

I ordered the machines to line up against the walls of the street along the stores that made up either side. It was better to be out of the way of the marching crowd.

Someone set a trash can on fire and I watched in horror as it was thrown through an SDC storefront. Glass shattered everywhere and the people cheered as the building started to burn from the inside out. A group of machines set about moving people back from the burning building and putting out the fires.

I saw the man. A young boy really in a purple hoodie and black jeans.

"Arrest him," I ordered the machines. The boy dispersed through the crowd and the boy shuffled into it and vanished amongst the protestors. "Damn it."

I jumped high and landed on a glyph. I looked out into the crowd and saw the purple shape shuffling into the throng of people.

I blitzed forward on a wave of glyphs and landed on top of him. I held him down as people shouted around me. They booed me. I was surrounded by a mob of people set against me and firmly on the boy's side. They probably would be even more against me if they knew I was a Schnee. Someone threw a rock at me and it missed. It was the little girl with bear ears. I looked away. The machines gathered around me and took the young man into custody.

He was put into handcuffs and carried away by the blank faced robots. I watched them go and was returned to being surrounded and alone by a mob which disliked me and might hate me if they knew a little more. My glyphs weren't exactly subtle. But they were fast. I was booed as I moved about.

"Dirty Schnee."

"Money grubbing Schnee!"

"Schnee!"

I caught the words out of the mob. I was recognized, at least a little.

I bounced out on a set of glyphs to the rooftops and watched the crowd move.

The robots put out the fire and kept the swarm of people back away from the SDC storefront.

"Beat the Schnee with glee!" They shouted with fists moving forward.

I could really only watch from my vantage point and wait and see if they needed more interference.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

#rwby #ff7 #ffvii #motion sickness #weiss schnee #winter schnee #whiterose #white rose #whiteknight #white knight #cloud strife #clloud!jaune arc #sephiroth!Jaune arc #lancaster #war of the roses #ruby rose x jaune arc x weiss schnee #jaune arc #ruby rose

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

Link

In September of 2020, I published a book entitled The Stakes. It was billed as a “current events” or election-year title. The election behind us, the candidate I recommended is no longer president. But the analysis which led me to that recommendation is very much still “current.”

To recap briefly (but read the whole thing!), the book explains how every prominent and powerful American institution, including the federal government, has been taken over by a hostile elite who use their vast powers to attack, despoil, and insult about half the nation. In the sixth chapter (excerpted here), I outline what I think America will look like if the present ruling class refuses to moderate, cannot be forced to share power, and has the wherewithal to keep its regime going. In the seventh chapter, I sketch several possibilities—from secession to Caesarism to collapse—that might result if it turns out that our overlords are a lot less competent than they think. And in the final chapter (excerpted here), I offer policy and other ideas that might enable America to avoid those fates.

That chapter (from which this essay is adapted) culminated with a proposal now being talked about widely, namely, to allow counties, cities, and towns unhappy with their current state government to join another. This would be a practical, and practicable, way to ease Blue and Red Americans’ present discontent and exasperation with each other.

There are precedents. The counties that became Maine split from Massachusetts in 1820, and—more famously—those that became West Virginia left Virginia during the Civil War. Fittingly, when I wrote the chapter, West Virginia had generously offered to welcome western Virginia counties unhappy with rule from newly, aggressively Blue Richmond. Today, a year later, West Virginia’s governor says the offer still stands.

There are similar movements throughout the country—most, though not all, driven by disaffected Reds. The most recent, news-making example was five Oregon counties joining two others in voting to leave the Beaver State and become part of Idaho.

So far nothing has come of any of this. But why shouldn’t these efforts be allowed to proceed if both the welcoming state and the exiting counties want it? Wouldn’t that be “democracy”?

…

Classical philosophers and historians alike condemn democracy as a bad form of government, in part because of its partiality but mostly because of the specific nature of the demos, which they contend is the polis’s least wise and least moderate part.

I would here add that it’s both sad and hilarious to see classically-trained academics and intellectuals bleat on about the sanctity of “democracy.” The worst offenders are the Straussians, who really should know better. Haven’t we all read Republic VIII and Politics VI, to say nothing of the warnings from Strauss himself on the dangers and shortcomings of democracy? Their failure as analysts is worse. The present American regime that they celebrate as “our democracy” is all but identical to classical oligarchy (discussed in those same books) while the “populism” that gives them the vapors is much closer to the democracy they claim to revere. But even more embarrassing, the Straussians’ central boast is to stand above, in Olympian detachment and even disdain, all regime pieties and see through them as self-serving rationalizations. Yet when extolling “democracy,” they sound no different than an Assistant Secretary of State, foundation president, or CNN host.

…

States such as California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, and now Virginia are utterly dominated by one party, and often one city, which amounts to the same thing. This is how Virginia—cradle of the American Revolution and home to four of our first five presidents—suddenly, just like that, became implacably hostile to the first two amendments to the United States Constitution. Five cities and counties, three adjacent to Washington, D.C., essentially dictate to the other 128.

The uncomprehending angst of people who’ve lived the same way, in the same places, for generations suddenly finding themselves harassed by a hostile government—ostensibly “theirs”—is mocked by the ruling class as a lament over “lost privilege.” After Virginia flipped from purple to Blue in 2019, the state legislature immediately enacted draconian gun restrictions that flew in the face of centuries of tradition and peaceful practice. Too bad! You lost! That’s “democracy.” As Joel Kotkin has remarked, “The worst thing in the world to be is the Red part of a Blue state.”

We should not, however, give the powers-that-be too much credit for principled consistency. If and when popular majorities produce outcomes the rulers don’t like, their devotion to “democracy” instantly evaporates. Judges, administrative state agencies, private companies—whichever is most able in the moment to overturn the will of unruly voters—will intervene to restore ruling class diktats. On the other hand, when voters can be counted on to vote the right way, then voting becomes the necessary and sufficient step for sanctifying any political outcome. It doesn’t even matter where the votes (or voters) come from, so long as they vote the right way. The fact that they vote the right way is sufficient to justify and even ennoble their participation in “our democracy.”

Blues perpetually outvoting Reds and ruling unopposed: this, and only this, is what “democracy” means today.

Bad Faith Objections

Reds, increasingly, are catching on. They know the game is rigged, that they cannot win, and the veneer of their participation and consent is a sham.

This is why the gaslighting is being dialed up to the lumen levels of blue stars. Every objection to Blue despoilation is now openly ascribed to “white supremacy.” Don’t want to be late for work because regime-favored thugs “protesters” are illegally blocking an intersection? White supremacy! Object to being beaten on the streets? White supremacy! Want to see the laws enforced equally and impartially? White supremacy!

Obviously, nothing is more susceptible to this dread charge than calls for “secession.” Hence the entirely apples-to-oranges cases of redrawing state lines better to reflect residents’ preferences and interests will be—already is being—compared to the events of 1860-61.

…

Some opponents of Red attempts to leave Blue states will disingenuously point to Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the ne plus ultra anti-secession argument. But there Lincoln was talking about replacing ballots with bullets throughout a sovereign state—overturning not merely the outcome of one election but the form of government itself. The peaceful rearrangement of political and administrative boundaries within a sovereign state is an entirely different act, with far lesser—and less grave—consequences. Indeed, in the latter case the consequences may be entirely salutary: there is ample precedent in history and around the world of countries redrawing internal lines to suit shifts in population and interests.

Others will try to muddy the waters by facilely equating the peculiarly American use of the word “state” for our 50 regional governments with the far more common meaning of state as “sovereign and independent country.” Lincoln said secession was unlawful, unconstitutional, and immoral—but this hypocrite Anton who claims to be a Lincolnite is endorsing the very practice! The argument is false and will be offered in bad faith. If you wish to waste a moment of your time, which I don’t recommend, remind such liars that the anti-secessionist Lincoln not only supported but presided over the division of Virginia. The decisive point is that this proposal is here proffered for precisely Lincolnite reasons: to save the Union and keep the current territory and population of the United States together.

…

Article IV, Section 3 states that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

In the Maine and West Virginia cases, new states were formed, hence the legislatures of the original and prospective states, plus the Congress, had to consent. (In the case of Virginia, then in rebellion against the government of the United States, two competing state governments existed. The Unionist government, recognized by the federal government, voted to allow the separation.)

The Constitution is, however, silent on the question of transferring a county from one state to another. No doubt should rural Virginia counties seek to join Charleston, Richmond wouldn’t like it—all that lost tax revenue! Look how many fewer people to boss around! Fewer Electoral votes!

But, constitutionally speaking, the state government’s power to stop it would be dubious. As would, if we want to speculate along such lines, the means. It could, and almost certainly would, take the issue to federal court where, admittedly, any outcome is possible regardless of law, and any outcome favorable to Red interests extremely unlikely. There’s little question that a Blue state capital could easily join with the federal judiciary and the Biden administration to block any such action. That may or may not be “constitutional” as you and I understand the term, but we don’t rule.

Or suppose we interpret Article IV, Section 3 to mean that moving just one county from one state to another constitutes creating a “new state.” That makes things harder, but hardly impossible. It simply means that legislative victories would have to be won. That may seem impossible now; no empire ever seeks to become smaller. But, dare I say, the election of Donald Trump seemed impossible as late as 9 p.m. on November 3rd, 2016. Public opinion is changing fast. Reds, who’ve put up with a lot only to face repeated demands that they put up with even more, are getting fed up.

Not only do they get nothing but abuse from the political system, increasingly they don’t even get to talk. Any dissent against regime ideology is swiftly and ruthlessly censored on Blue media platforms, which is to say, all of them. Reds’ elected leaders (to the extent that they have any) are declared “domestic enemies” by the Speaker of the House. Blue wise men talk of “cleansing” Reds from the political system. Nils Gilman—a man who called for my death—declaimed that “These people need to be extirpated from politics.” To have no say and no voice, forever, means that one’s only option is exit.

It would be an act of magnanimity, and even self-interest, for a sufficient number of Blues to recognize Red concerns and let the state-county reorganization proceed. Right now, at least half of Red America feels trapped in an abusive marriage, endlessly told they’re worthless, racist, and evil—but also that under no circumstances may they even broach the topic of leaving. Stay and take your deserved punishment is Blue America’s constant message to Red, the political philosophy of Judge Smails: You’ll get nothing and like it.

Besides, as Blues never tire of reminding us, aren’t we Reds poor, weak, and dumb? Who wants such dross as fellow citizens? Imagine (say) Virginia’s glorious future without all those retrograde hicks getting in the way of NoVa’s progressive utopian vision.

If Blues cannot see their way to letting such peaceful means proceed as a way of improving civic harmony and extending the life of the republic, they’re placing a giant bet that they can, through sheer brute force, rule Reds forever. Can they? They’d also be admitting that, in New America, “democracy” just means Blues outvoting Reds, effectively nullifying their franchise.

…

It’s worth pointing out, in this context, the utter hypocrisy of Blues who cry “Jeff Davis!” at the mere suggestion of some rural counties in a Blue State seeking refuge with fellow Reds, which almost certainly would not change the composition of the Senate, but who blithely demand that D.C. and Puerto Rico be made states so the Democrats can get four extra Senators and (likely) four more Electoral votes.

#michael anton #american mind #read the whole thing

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nosferatvpussy · 5 years ago

Text

distorted lullabies [chapter VII]

Word count: 6,292

Warnings: vulgar language

Pairing: Dracula x female reader

AO3 link

A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and I hope you do too while reading it. Side note 1: I reference a few movies here and there. I would advise you skipping one or two paragraphs to avoid spoilers if you still mean to watch it. But, I'm assuming everyone reading this has seen it already. Site note 2: Anne Rice will find a way to sue me if this somehow finds its way to her (it won't, who do I think I am) Side note 3: if you haven't yet, watch every movie and read every book mentioned here. They're all great.

____________________________________________________________

I had a huge grin on my face as I left the courtroom. My client grabbed my arm and shook it, chuckling.

“You won!” she squealed.

“ We won,” I corrected. I stopped walking and faced Mirriam. Her make-up was smudged beneath her watery eyes and her lips were quivering. “I’m happy for you.”

She pulled me into a hug, knocking the breath out of me. Both my hands were occupied, carrying my briefcase and purse so, I had no choice but to stand there, unable to hug her back. Mirriam sobbed, her arms tightening about my neck ever so slightly as she thanked me. Over her shoulder, I saw Judge Llewellyn leave the courtroom, still dressed in his robes. He looked at us, the perpetual crease between his eyebrow softening. Mirriam exclaimed and released me abruptly. The squeals of happy children echoed down the hall and I turned to see Mirriam make a run for the two kids sprinting towards her.

“Congratulations, Miss L/N,” said Llewellyn. I turned my head to see him standing at my side. “You did well.”

“Can you repeat that, please? I didn’t quite catch it,” I said, grinning from ear to ear.

His lips tugged up as he glanced away. When he looked at me again his face was serious.

“Don’t try your luck,” he extended a hand toward me. “I’m looking forward to seeing you at practice in my court again.”

Any moment now my cheeks would tear from smiling so much. I let go of my purse, not caring that it almost tipped over, and shook his hand. Although his fingers were long and bony, his handshake was firm.

“Thank you, my lord.”

He nodded and made his way to the opposite direction, presumably towards the judges’ chambers. I watched him go, his robes swaying after him and then turned the other way, taking in Mirriam on her knees, laughing at whatever her children had said. Yeah, I did well. As I picked up my purse, I felt it vibrating. I stuck a hand inside it, searching for my phone as I made my way out of the Royal Courts of Justice.

“Hi, Zoe.”

“Any news?” She asked on the other end.

“None.”

“It’s been over a week since he took you out. Shouldn’t he have called you?”

“Maybe he’s lost interest,” I countered, frowning at the twinge on my chest.

Out in the open, I lowered my head to protect myself against the drizzle as I walked.

“That’s absurd. He wouldn’t go to all the trouble of bribing someone--”

“I still regret telling you that.”

“Nevermind who he is, that was impressive.”

An outsider could hear our conversation and think we were complaining about some guy giving me the cold shoulder, not plotting against a five centuries old vampire.

“Zoe, I don’t care why he hasn’t called as long as he leaves me alone. Maybe he met someone else,” as I talked, I managed to make eye contact with a cabbie inside a passing taxi and nodded. “I saw you two days ago. I’ll call if anything changes. When do you want to meet again?”

“Let’s make it Sunday. It’ll be the fourth set of samples and I want to keep the every 2 days pattern we’ve got going on until your bite fully heals.”

The taxi stopped next to me and I juggled all my stuff in order to open the door. I glared at the cabbie, hoping that he would be moved by my anger and help me open the door. I could be Queen Elizabeth and he wouldn’t care.

“Fine,” I said as I managed to open the car door and get inside. “61 Marney Road,” I told the cabbie and he accelerated. “St Thomas Hospital again?” I asked Zoe.

“Yes. 11am. Call me if Dracula--”

“I know, I know. Bye.” I ended the call before she could keep talking.

Once I settled my belongings next to me and made myself comfortable, I leaned my head on the window, watching as London’s lights started coming to life in the nearing dusk. Getting complimented by Judge Llewellyn deserved to be celebrated. A good film accompanied by popcorn and lots of chocolate appealed to my body overridden by PMS. Add an hour in a hot bath and then I would have the perfect Friday night. How would Count Dracula spend his Friday night?

I lowered my shirt’s high collar and touched the scar on my neck. It was nothing more than small scabs now that the bruises were gone but I still wore turtlenecks to conceal the strangulation marks. I hadn’t felt the tingling sensation on it ever since my date with the Count and I wondered if it would react at all to him now that it was almost healed.

“Miss, you alright?”

I removed my hand from my neck like I had been burned.

“What?”

“Are you feeling alright? It sounded like you were out of breath,” he spoke the same way someone would if they were addressing an elderly person.

My entire face went hot and I thanked him silently for not being one those cabbies that always had the rear view mirror turned to the back seats in order to watch the passengers.

“I have, uh, asthma,” I shut my eyes as I spoke, overcome by embarrassment. “But I’m fine now.”

Had I gone mental? Rubbing my scar to test if it was still reactive to touch in the back of a taxi was just plain stupid, especially considering that I’d gotten so utterly lost in pleasure that I had been panting loud enough for the cabbie to hear me.

“Tragic, innit?”

That my bond to Count Dracula paired with PMS had made me become a dog in heat? Yes.

“Sorry, what?”

The cabbie leaned forward and a second later the whispering voices coming from the car speakers raised to an understandable volume.

“ Surrey police has no leads so far ,” was all I heard from the narrator before a song started playing.

“What happened?”

“Two students were found dead this morning in Surrey University. Bright youngins, can you imagine what they could--”

I straightened on my seat.

“Murders?”

“Makes no sense, how brutal. Police says it appears they were having a movie night--”

“How were they killed?”

The cabbie took hold of the rear view mirror and angled it at me. I smiled dryly at his frown.

“Professional curiosity,” I told him. “I’m a defense lawyer.”

That answer did nothing to soothe the crease on his large forehead.

“Police isn’t sure yet. But I heard from a pal from Surrey,” he lowered his voice, like he was confiding in me, “that the person that found ‘em threw up and so did a coppa. Looked like a scene straight from The Shining, I bet. Nasty stuff.”

I nodded, relaxing against the window again. Taking he referenced The Shining, that probably meant that there was a lot blood. Dracula wouldn’t waste a drop, I supposed. Odd horrific murders came about once in a while, sadly, and all of them committed by humans. Besides, would he really go all the way to Surrey just to murder a bunch of uni students? London was stacked with several student halls for him to pick from without the trouble of traveling across counties.

“First what happened at that company and then this… This is a bad, bad week. My gran used to say that everything comes in threes. I assure ya, miss, there’s more-”

“Which company? What are you talking about?”

“Ya haven’t heard?” he questioned, glancing at me through the mirror. “Why, miss. Two nights ago the, whaddyacallit, the big corporate cunts in charge of a company- oh, excuse my mouth, miss-”

“The board of directors?”

“Yeah, those blokes. Murdered, the whole lot of ‘em, inside a meeting room!” he started whispering again.

“Was this here in London?”

“Central London,” he nodded. “Can’t remember the name of the company, now-”

“Like the murders in Surrey? Bloody?”

“Nah, don’t think there’s been news about that. Cameras were dead, caught nothing of it. They were found by security at almost midnight after a wife of one of ‘em called looking for her husband.”

“Cause of death?” I asked and he looked at me. “Just answer the question.”

“Stab wounds to the neck, all of ‘em. Apparently some of them put up a fight because there were broken arms and fingers. Scotland Yard said that it’s prolly more than one murderer, other than that they’ve been quiet about it… They’re investigating it,” he made air quotes, “that’s code for we don’t know shite.”

He continued ranting for the rest of the trip but I wasn’t listening anymore. I doubted that Netflix would be able to salvage my mood after that conversation.

Once I paid the cabbie, I bid him a nice weekend and jumped out of the taxi. Compared to how he had barely cared about my struggle to get in the taxi, he was nice enough to wait until I got my door opened. Now that the night had come, the automatic light above my front door had turned on and I could only make out the shape of his hand waving at me from inside the car. I waved back as a thanks before going inside.

I went straight upstairs after I locked the door. With how wired I was, I forgot all about my intentions of taking a bath and took a shower instead. Considering I was humming a tune to myself after thirty minutes under a steady stream of hot water, I was making a quick recovery. I was still singing when I turned off the shower and wrapped a towel about my body. I opened the door, tendrils of steam spilling from my bathroom into my bedroom.

“Ohmygod!”

Count Dracula grinned at me, lying on the middle of my bed with both arms folded beneath his head. I pressed the towel to myself, desperately seeking more cover.

“I was starting to wonder if you would ever come out of there.”

“I wish I hadn’t!” I exclaimed. “I locked my door! How the hell did you get in?!”

“Window." He pointed one long finger at it.

Deadbolts. I’d have to get deadbolts on every single window in my house.

“Couldn’t you have texted in advance?!”

“I did. You didn’t reply.”

I stared at him, waiting for something else to come out of his mouth. Instead, his gaze slid down my body, a crease appearing between his eyebrows as he inhaled sharply. I knew exactly why he was whiffing the air. Thank God my body was flushed from the hot shower, otherwise I would have gone bright red in anger.

“Ugh, leave!” I said, projecting my voice like I was in court.

I stretched an arm out, pointing at the window. The sudden movement almost caused the towel to open and I immediately took hold of it again with a little squeak. Count Dracula was up at once, circling the bed towards me. I gulped. His gaze pulled me in and for a moment my anger sizzled down.

“I’ve missed you,” he said and a shiver went down my spine.

I stepped back into the bathroom to put some distance between us.

“Too bad, go away.”

A smirk tugged the corner of his lips.

“You’ve missed me, too.”

“Absolutely did not.”

“Your heartbeat says otherwise.”

“It’s called anger.”

He clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“‘I’ll go wait downstairs,” he said before turning away from me and slipping out of my bedroom.

My knees almost gave out when he left and I rushed to sit on the edge of the bed. I held my head as I tried to concentrate and take deep breaths. Had he stayed any longer I wouldn’t put it past me to lock myself in the bathroom and remain there until morning. Not only I had to deal with him, I also could feel cramps coming. I wanted nothing more to curl up in bed with a heat compress and chocolate. Summoning my courage, I got up and went to get dressed.

As I went down the stairs, Dracula peeked his head out from the living room.

“You’re going out in your nightgown?”

I stopped for a second, frowning and then continued down.

“I’m not going out. I’m tired and uncomfortable and I’m staying home,” I forced a smile, batting my eyelashes just to annoy him. I rounded the staircase, giving my back to him and heading for the kitchen. “I do hope you haven’t wasted your money bribing someone else to grant us entrance to another museum.”

I swiped at the switch and soft lights came on over the kitchen island and at the corners of the room.

“I haven’t. There’s no problem in postponing tonight’s date.”

I turned around to see him standing on the other side of the island, staring at me.

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

“No.” He smiled. “Like I said, I’ve missed you.”

I leaned down and opened the cabinet under the sink. I pushed a set of pans to the side, looking for my heat pad.

“Been busy for this past week?” I asked, my voice echoing inside the cabinet.

“Unfortunately.”

I found the heat pad and stood up, closing the cabinet door after me as I put it inside the microwave and set 5 minutes. I turned to face him, propping my hips on the kitchen counter. I pulled on my courtroom face. If Count Dracula squinting at me meant that he saw me do it, then I needed to work more on my tells.

“Reading Jules Verne or killing a board of directors?”

One of his eyes twitched before he smiled.

“Both. Although I haven’t finished the book yet.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Not finish the book?”

“Dracula-”

“I was bored." He waved his hands on the air, dismissing my hard stare. “Please, I did the world a service! Yes, I went after them on a whim but as soon as I drank from one of them… I killed them on principle.”

“Principle? You’ve got that?”

“Is it that hard to believe?” He put his hands on top of the island and leaned forward, the light above his head creating shadows on his face. “The first one I bit was a child abuser. It was in his blood so, forgive me if killing him offends you. I broke his neck because I didn’t have a stomach for him. The rest of them… were palate cleansers. Although it didn’t do much good. Incredible how many of them had raped women and beat their wives.”

We stared at each other, frozen in place.

All my anger from before vanished and I had to struggle to keep my courtroom face on. In another world, one where there was no law binding me, I would have done the same. Was this the good in him I had been searching, however twisted it was?

The microwave chimed, prompting me to blink and break eye contact.

“I hope you hid at least some of the evidence,” I said, pushing back from the kitchen counter. “I’m not sure how representing a vampire in court for murder would look on my resumé.”

“No need to worry.” He grinned.

I grabbed the heat pad from the microwave, juggling it between my hands to avoid getting burnt until I dropped it to the counter.

“What about the students in Surrey?”

“Surrey? No, I haven’t been there.”

I nodded, somewhat relieved. I turned my back on Dracula to conceal my face as I broke the façade. He wasn’t responsible for the murders on Surrey as I suspected but after killing those ‘corporate cunts’, as the cabbie had put so appropriately, he probably went somewhere else to find another palate cleanser. Somebody else was dead because of him but for the life of me I couldn’t find something inside me to care enough. He had indeed done the world a service.

I rounded the island, past the Count so I could reach the pantry. From there I took popcorn and a bar of chocolate I had hidden, from myself, behind a set of spices. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time I moved and I fought the urge to steal a glance of his face to try figure out what was on his mind.

“I’m surprised you made an appearance,” I said in the unnerving silence.

“Are you, really?”

“Yes.” Hugging the popcorn and chocolate to my chest, I moved past him, congratulating myself for not looking at him. “No, actually. I was fairly positive you would come looking for me again, much to my dismay.” I chuckled. “One would think what happened at the museum would encourage you.”

My back burnt with the weight of his gaze. I started tearing the popcorn package frantically, making as much noise as possible to distract me. It was almost working but after I put the popcorn inside the microwave and closed it, I saw his reflection on the microwave mirrored door, moving towards me.

“It’s not very nice to sneak up on people,” I said, holding my ground.

He met my eyes through the reflection.

“I’m not nice.”

He had a reflection. I blinked, turning at once to face him. He was directly behind me, less than an arm’s length.

“You can be.”

“Do you want me to be nice?”

“No. It makes it harder to hate you.”

He smiled.

“I believed that for a second, really did. Especially when I found out that you had been asking our dear friend Renfield about me.”

I gulped.

“He wasn’t very forthcoming, if that makes you feel better,” I said and he chuckled but when his face grew serious again, I wondered if he forced that laugh. “Is that why you disappeared? Because Renfield gossiped about me to you?”

“Amongst other things,” he acquiesced, stepping back and supporting his body on the island much like I had done on the counter.

By his evasive answer, there was more to it but if he didn’t want to tell me it was fine. He had his secrets and I had mine.

“What do you know, boys really do gossip as much ladies do.”

He gave me a lopsided smile, one I judged was genuine, unlike his chuckle before. The microwave beeped again and I inhaled the delicious scent of done popcorn. I retrieved the popcorn with the tips of my fingers. I placed it briefly on the counter and then offered the heating pad to Count Dracula.

“Take this for me, will you?” I said and he did. I grabbed a glass of juice for me and then the popcorn and chocolate. “Come on. We’re watching a film.”

Count Dracula followed me into the living room. As I settled myself on the sofa, he gave me the heat pad and then occupied himself with analysing my library. Library was a kind word. It would take up the entire wall behind the telly if the fireplace had not been there. I wouldn’t say it was an impressive collection to a connoisseur but it was my collection and I had love for every single book in it, even the ones I didn’t like very much. Count Dracula had his hands laced behind his back and his head tilted as he admired it. I stopped myself from turning the telly on when I heard him whispering the titles to himself.

“Oh, would you look at that ?” He stepped forward and reached for the second to last row of books closest to the ceiling. I usually had to climb on the armchair to reach that far up but all he did was extend his arm up and pluck a book from up there. He turned around, showing me the gold cover with white and red lettering between his hands. “A vampire book?”

Of course he would find that. At least I should be thankful he didn’t find Story of O or Venus in Furs. If he had and then decided to flip through the pages, I would be doomed.

“Be very careful with that,” I warned. “It’s first edition and it was a gift. It’s sort of a classic.”

“Really?” he grinned, tipping his head up to the row from where he retrieved it from. “Are all of those classics?”

“Anne Rice might say so but the rest of the world wouldn’t,” I scoffed. He looked at me. “She thinks very highly of herself.”

“We would probably get along wonderfully,” he smirked. “Perhaps I should pay her a visit to give her real inspiration.”

“She’s an old woman now and would die of excitement if you actually visited her,” I laughed. “There’s a film for this one,” I pointed at the book in his hands. There was gleam in his dark eyes. “Do you want to watch it?”

“You’ve seen it already,” he said as he placed the book on the shelf.

“Yes but I can’t deny myself the irony of watching a vampire film with a real vampire,” I said, grabbing the remote control and turning on the TV. “We’ll watch this one and then you can choose the next one.”

I gazed up at him, waiting for an answer. He traced his tongue inside his lower lip, giving my body all sorts of ideas my brain was not agreeable with. My hand tightened around the remote. Count Dracula took off his blazer and threw it on the armchair beneath the window. I almost asked him if all his shirts were missing buttons because the top ones were undone like the last time I’d seen him but then he started undoing his belt. Popcorn spilled on my lap.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I exclaimed.

“Getting comfortable,” he replied with a frown, like I was ridiculous for asking. He rolled the belt around his fingers and then placed it neatly on top of the fireplace. “Like you are,” he gestured at me.

I was sunken back on the sofa between pillows and cushions, with my feet on the coffee table and popcorn all over my nightie. Technically speaking, I was indeed comfortable, especially because of the heating pad on my lower abdomen relieving menstrual cramps. I was less comfortable with Dracula undressing in front of me while my body was working against me in every way possible.

“Fine,” I said between gritted teeth. My eyes widened as he started moving towards me. “W-wait, no, no, no, you’re sitting over there.”

His smirk widened into a full grin as he sat by my side, letting out an exaggerated breath, he kicked off his shoes and stretched himself in the same position as me.

“What happened to personal space?”

“I thought we’d gone past that already,” he raised his thick eyebrows.

I clenched my jaw. His gaze fell on my neck. All he would need to do was lean to sink his teeth in me, if he wanted. His lips parted and I was reminded of their softness when he had kissed me.

“Stop it,” I all but whispered.

“I’m not doing anything,” he said, eyes fixated on my neck.

“You know exactly what you’re doing.” I started picking off popcorn from my lap, hoping that would show him that he wasn’t affecting me. “Let’s just watch the film.”

I endured his stare as I clicked on the remote to bring up Netflix and started searching the catalogue for Interview with the Vampire. He decided to focus on the telly once Louis started talking to Daniel. As the film went on, he laughed with Lestat and cursed at Louis constantly for his sentiment. More than once, Count Dracula was literally at the edge of his seat. He nodded approvingly at Claudia at times and at Lestat’s flare for the dramatics, making his critiques here and there about how Anne Rice had gotten it right or wrong.

“That’s Haydn,” Dracula said, eyes glued to the screen as a corpse-like Lestat played the piano and Louis and Claudia watched in horror.

“Good ear,” I commented. “Not that I’m an expert but it took me a few google searches to find out where this piece was from.”

“Good appetite,” he countered without looking at me, raising his forefinger.

I paused the film and he turned to me with an indignant look on his face.

“You ate Haydn?”

He grimaced.

“Ate is a poor term.”

“You did!” I accused, mouth falling open. “Who else?”

“I didn’t kill Haydn, that would be outrageous. I would have deprived the world of Mozart and Beethoven. I just stole a few sips to understand his genius. Chopin, however, I did kill. He was a prick, and so was Mozart. Bach, too, was unbearable but I didn’t get the chance to off him,” he shrugged. “Paganini was a riot, though. I tried turning him but he was committed already to a long time friend, you could say.”

I stared at him for a long moment. I didn’t know where to start but him saying that about Paganini, very subtly, confirmed people’s suspicion at the time that the man had made a pact with the Devil to have been that good. Finding myself unable to form another coherent thought faced with that, I simply pressed play again.

The film was doing a fantastic job of keeping the Count’s attention and I started relaxing because I didn’t have to be on guard, even if he was laying by my side. That is, until we reached the scene on a theatre where Armand drinks from a woman on stage in front of unsuspecting humans. My heart had begun hammering inside my chest as soon as Louis and Claudia stepped inside the theatre because I knew what was coming.

Though I kept my eyes on the screen, I was suddenly hyper aware of how close I was to Count Dracula. An entire side of my body touched his, down to where my leg ended. Had I grown that comfortable and not noticed it? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Count Dracula swiveling his head to stare at me.

“You’re missing the film,” I told him, jamming popcorn in my mouth to keep myself busy.

“Your pulse is more interesting right now,” his words tickled my shoulder.

I snuck a glance at him. His eyes were still bottomless pools of black. The heat in his eyes was just as worrying if his eyes had been red.

“Don’t,” I warned.

The human girl was on stage now, screaming and begging for mercy. Soft, cold lips touched my shoulder and I swallowed dryly. Another kiss marked his path up. I forgot how to move, caught in the rapture of his touch. I could have at least this. Nevermind that I was being touched by the man who meant to steal my life. My chest heaved as his kisses became sloppier, less sweet. My entire body shuddered in anticipation as a kiss landed on the curve of my neck.

“I--”

A hand delved into my hair with a demanding tug and I shut up. The popcorn bag crumpled between my hands. Armand was on stage with the woman, hugging her and providing comfort before her death.

“Say it,” his lips brushed my ear.

“I won’t.”

His lips brushed my scar and I released a shaky breath. His mouth descended on my neck and a cry tore out of me upon feeling him sucking on my skin. Another hand laid on my chest, creeping slowly towards the shoulder strap of my nightie. I closed my eyes, letting myself be consumed by pleasure and forgetting every reason why we shouldn’t do this.

“Be mine,” his words were muffled as he continued his assault on my neck.

Sharp teeth grazed my skin.

This couldn’t happen, not if I wanted to live. The minute he bit me he would know about my plan. I had to summon every ounce of control on my body to resist the sensuous ripple of pleasure coursing my body. I dodged his hands and shot up to my feet. Dracula caught himself on his elbow before he fell between the cushions. His eyes were still every bit as dark as before but his mass of hair was tousled, as mine probably was.

“I think--” I took a breath. “I think you should leave.”

He sat up and I noticed that another button on his shirt had come undone, revealing more of his chest than I had seen before. I didn’t dare look any lower. I almost cried in frustration. My body demanded him despite the fact that giving myself to him meant danger.

“I want to finish watching the film,” he said, gazing up at me as he buttoned his shirt again.

“I’m sure you’ve got Netflix at your place.”

“I do but I don’t have the pleasure of your company there.”

“Dracula--”

“I’ll behave if you do,” he put his legs on the coffee table again but I didn’t fall for it. No way I was looking below his waistline. “ Promise .”

Would I make it if I ran upstairs to my room? But what use would it be if he could simply climb through my window? I wasn’t ten years old anymore to run away from my fears, hoping they would disappear if I didn’t acknowledge them. Then again, Dracula wasn’t the monster under my bed. He was more likely to be the one on top of it. Jesus, focus! Mind over matter, come on. Up until that point he was being good company. If he was toying with my self control or not, I wasn’t sure. Besides, I couldn’t push the man away any time he made me nervous. I needed to lead him on until Zoe and I found a breach.

“I’ll hold you to that promise. You stay there,” I pointed a finger at him. “I’ll sit over there.”

Grabbing the remote and the bar of chocolate, I tiptoed my way between the remains of my popcorn and curled myself up on the armchair. I started unpacking the chocolate, doing my best to keep my eyes on the telly. Louis and Claudia were now below the theatre, in Armand’s chambers.

Feeling the Count’s gaze on me, I said, “Are you watching the bloody film or not? Because I think I would rather watch something else now.”

After I started chomping at the chocolate bar like there was no tomorrow, Dracula paid attention to the telly. I managed to breathe normally again once he seemed to be engrossed by the film and made conversation about what was going on, like we had been doing before. He celebrated Louis’ revenge by clapping at him and I laughed at the joy on his face as Lestat popped up from the backseat of Daniel’s car and bit him. I mouthed the words to Sympathy for the Devil as the credits rolled and Dracula stayed with his eyes glued to the screen.

“I must talk to this Anne Rice woman,” he muttered.

I chuckled.

“Leave her alone. She hasn’t completed the series yet and I need to know how much dumber Lestat can get in the next book.”

“He’s not dumb,” Dracula said, frowning at me.

I chuckled again. God, he’d grown attached to him.

“You haven’t read the books yet. You might loathe him as much as you did Louis if you read them.”

He groaned.

“Let’s watch another one.”

“Another vampire film?”

“Yes.”

“Narcissist,” I accused and he smiled.

After searching through the Netflix catalogue, I found a vampire film that didn’t seem so ridiculous called Byzantium. It seemed like a better alternative than Lost Boys or Fright Night. I could just imagine his outrage at Twilight so I spared him of that, too. Twenty minutes later, however, Dracula was rolling his eyes at the TV and asking for the remote. He chose Silence of the Lambs and I thanked the heavens for it. I wouldn’t be able to sit through another sexy movie with him.

“He’s a great actor,” I commented as Dr Lecter and Clarice talked through the glass prison.

“How many times have you watched it? You quoted that to me before, word for word of what he just said.”

I shrugged.

“An unhealthy amount of times,” I admitted. He looked at me. “It won four Oscars, c’mon. It’s fantastic.”

I refused to tell him the reason I loved it so much was because of Hannibal Lecter. The Oscars excuse was better. We didn’t say much after that, that’s how fascinated Dracula was. Afterwards, he chose Crimson Peak, at last, one I hadn’t seen. Resting my head on the armchair and using Dracula’s blazer as a blanket, I closed my eyes for a brief moment when Edith met Thomas.

Sleep’s warm embrace had me floating and I sighed happily. Something hard and cold pressed at my cheek, making my eyes flutter open. Dracula’s face hovered above mine. I wasn’t floating, if his arms around me and his hard chest on my cheek meant anything. My heart hurt like someone had squeezed it.

“I’m just putting you to bed,” he said in a low voice, sparing me a glance.

I was too tired to argue with him and simply rested my head on his chest again.

“You’re cold,” I complained, holding onto his blazer.

“I’m sorry.”

The harsh lights of the telly made me squint at it with drowsy eyes. Rachel Weisz was on the screen now and I frowned, trying to remember if she appeared in Crimson Peak. Had he started another movie?

“Did the sleep- huh.” I furrowed my brows and tried again, “did I the movie- no,” I sighed.

Hearing his laugh inside his chest made me smile sleepily.

“You slept little more than 2 hours,” he replied, maneuvering me out of the living room.

“You understood,” a yawn, “what I said,” I giggled and patted his chest. “Well done.”

He flashed me an amused smile before looking ahead again. I wrapped my arms around him when he started going up the stairs, afraid that I would fall. I tried listening to his heartbeat - something I enjoyed doing to people whenever I had chance - but there was no sound coming from his chest. Oddly, that was just as comforting as not hearing soft thump-thumps. But maybe that was just my sleep-addled brain.

“Tell me what happens in Croms- ah, whatever, in the film.” I frowned, mad at how stupid I sounded when I was sleepy.

He laughed again.

“A lot.”

I rolled my eyes before surrendering to my heavy eyelids and closing them.

“Be nice, tell me,” I mumbled.

“I thought you didn’t want me to be nice.”

“Right now, I do.”

He started telling me but the rumble of his voice coming from inside his chest, so close to my ear, made me drift back to sleep again. I woke up when he was laying me down on my bed. The bedside lamp made me squint. He set me in the very middle of the bed and perched next to me. I rolled on my side to face him and fluffed the pillow below my head, hiding my face from the light.

“So Edith and Thomas got married, huh?” I asked.

“You got nothing of what I just told you.”

“Not a word." I shook my head lightly.

He pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen on my face and his fingers hovered over me for a moment before caressing my temple.

“You were married,” I blurted. He dropped his hand and frowned. “When you were human. Weren’t you?”

“What does it matter?” He went to get up but I grabbed his wrist.

He glared at my hand.

“It was just a question,” I told him. “Don’t be mad. We bicker all the time, already.” I raised my eyebrows at him. His gaze fell on mine, indecipherable. “We don’t have to talk about her. Forget I said it.”

For a second I thought he would storm off. Dracula looked out the window, staring into the night. I waited for him to say something, waited until sleep started creeping again. My fingers slid down his wrist, resting on the back of his hand.

“She was nothing like you.”

My eyes fluttered open. He was still staring into the dark. I had to choose my words carefully if I wanted him to keep talking.

“How was she like?”

“Fragile and fearful of… everything. Deeply religious and foolish, at times. She smiled whenever she looked at me, even when I had done horrible things. In her mind, all that I did was in the name of God. There was this one time when I came from battle and I had blood on my face and armour-" he stopped, shoulders sloping and then stiffening "-she kissed me.”

“She wasn’t that fragile, then.”

He scoffed.

“I suppose not,” he conceded.

“Did you love her?”

“More than I thought I was capable.”

I had a feeling I knew the answer to my next question but asked it anyway.

“What happened to her?”

Finally, he turned his head to look at me. For the first time I saw a semblance of real emotion in his eyes and it broke my heart.

“I happened to her.”

I furrowed my eyebrows and took a breath to ask more but he stood up, his hand grazing mine briefly. I watched as he closed the curtains and then picked up the duvet at the bottom of my bed, unfurling it on top of me. I retrieved his blazer from beneath the covers and handed it to him. When he met my eyes again, his expression was devoid of all emotion. His hand reached behind me and turned off the bedside lamp, plunging us into darkness. I couldn’t make out his face anymore.

“Thank you for keeping your promise,” I whispered but I wasn’t sure if he was still in the room to hear me..

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anotheronechicagobog · 5 years ago

Text

Tylenol and Tequila Part 2

The pounding headache that was encompassing Boden’s entire skull had been unbearable since it started, and the cause had been unbearable long before that. Sylvie had been keeping her head down and avoiding Matt ever since Gabby’s last visit, resulting in Matt staring longingly after her like a kicked puppy. Everyone noticed it. And Chief Wallace Boden was motherfucking done. He gathered all his resolve and stood up from his office, ready to search for the two of them when the bells went off.

“Fucking hell.”

“Chief! I’ve never heard you swear before!”

“Can it Cruz, let’s go.”

——————————————————————————————-

When everyone arrived at the scene Boden saw Casey hop out, survey the scene, and then look for Sylvie. It all happened in a one second period, but Boden was concerned now. He couldn’t let this affect his captain, it may only have been a few milliseconds but someday those milliseconds could be part of the final countdown. Casey’s orders were being followed promptly and as truck made their way into the house while squad handled the car that had crashed into said house, ambo 61 prepared themselves for a number of patients and requested additional ambulances. Boden caught the worry and fear in Brett’s eyes as she watched Casey enter the visibly unstable house. Her lip was between her teeth as she clutched the empty gurney surrounded by the ambo’s various medical kits with one hand and clutched her stethoscope in the other.

“Mouch and Gallo are coming out chief, they’ve each got a victim. Unconscious but breathing with a pulse.”

“Alright Casey, what floor are you on?”

“Second, I’m with Kidd, we’ve only got one more room to check and we’ll be out.”

“What about the basement?”

“Capp and Cruz checked it out quick but there’s only laundry stuff, some tools, and half of the outside of their house down there.”

“Alright. Severide? What’s your status with the car?”

“We got the engine off and we’re using the jaws to open the doors. There’s two passengers, one drunk male in his 20’s, and one baby in the backseat.”

“Come again?”

“There is a baby in the backseat of the car. Crying but alert, they appear uninjured.”

“The first ambo took the homeowners, chief, we’re waiting on the driver.”

“Copy that Brett.”

“Alright Chief, ambo 27 grabbed the driver, can Brett and Foster come take a look at the baby?”

———————————————

When the sound of ambo 61 driving into the garage reached the common room they all grimaced when they noticed Casey’s head snap up and angle it so that he could see Brett through the windows. His eyes followed her tired form as she and Foster collapsed on the sofa, Sylvie in Mouch’s spot.

“Brett that’s my-“

“Oh bite me.” Okay, now everyone was watching Brett.

“Sylvie? Emily?” Stella asked apprehensively. “What’s going on?”

“Give us chocolate and the TV remote and no one gets hurt.”

“... Well alright then.”

Casey discreetly made his way over to Gallo and his lieutenants and whispered, “Gallo, keep them supplied with chocolate and water. Hermann, keep the TV and couch available for them, and by that I mean calm down Mouch. Severide, notify Boden and keep an eye on them. I’m gonna call med and find out what the fuck happened.” They all nodded at each other, eyes clearly concerned, especially since it was highly unusual for Sylvie to be snappy.

“Hi Maggie, it’s Matt.”

“Matt! Usually we talk when you come to the ED or at Molly’s. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to follow-up with a call ambo 61 had earlier, they brought in a baby?”

“Oh. Yeah... That, the baby’s hanging on by a thread. At best. Turns out she was born with a heart defect. Mother bolted when she found out and the father decided he couldn’t handle it either.”

“Shit.” Matt immediately knew why this had caused the damage it had. Sylvie’s birth mother had just died while giving birth to a baby girl, this fell far too close to home for her. And Emily probably looked at Sylvie’s depressed face and felt the same way herself. Sylvie just had one of those influential personalities that drew people into her orbit and reflected her aura. “Thanks, Maggie. You are a lifesaver, I owe you a drink.”

“Alright, well I don’t know what that was about but I will take free alcohol any time.”

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

Emily had left the couch with an armful of chocolate to go curl up in the bunk room. Night had come and gone and even after several calls Sylvie retained her spot on the couch, by commandeering Mouch’s spot. The older man continued to pout, looking to Casey for assistance when he returned. Casey shook his head with a solemn look in his eye. Subtle nods were exchanged. Understood. Gallo abandoned the ingredients he’d been gathering for pork tenderloin and started getting everything together to make Sylvie’s and Emily’s favourite dinners. Sure, it would’ve been easier to just go along with what he had originally planned to make, but this would cheer up 51’s rather desolate paramedics. Still in Mouch’s spot, Sylvie had curled into herself and just looked so heartbreakingly sad.

Without thinking too much about what he was about to do, Casey sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He didn’t say anything but it appeared he didn’t need to. Sylvie responded immediately, snuggling into his side, too exhausted to keep on crying. They were well aware of all the eyes on them, but they didn’t care. Sylvie was too hurt and Matt was too focused on Sylvie hurting. So they sat there, together, with nothing on the TV in front of them. Listening to Gallo bustling in the background making an Asian stir-fry and Irish stew. The smell surrounded all of the silent members of 51. Encompassing them all in a bubble of warmth and temporary comfort.

Dinner was ready, a grateful Sylvie and Emily sat at the table, excited to eat, when suddenly the bells went off.

Squad three, Truck eighty-one, Engine fifty-one multiple vehicle collision on MacLean Street and 32nd Street

“Alright, let’s go!”

“And don’t eat all the food ladies!”

“No promises!”

Just another day at firehouse 51. Sadness, grief, joy, and family.

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Just so you guys know, I LOVE getting comments

#Chicago Fire #One Chicago #chicago med #matt casey #sylvie x matt #matt casey x sylvie brett #sylvie brett #brettsey #Kelly Severide #stella kidd #Emily Foster #joe cruz #wallace boden #blake gallo #Christopher Herrmann #darren ritter

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honeydots · 5 years ago

Note

"61. “Were you drawing me?”" for the ask meme? 👀

“Were you drawing me?”

akira sleeps in and yusuke takes advantage of that. because of COURSE if im given the opportunity to write shukita im going to take it of course i am

(ao3 link)

Slugs were okay.

Akira didn’t have much of an opinion on them, to be honest. Nothing negative. They were a little goopy, sure. But that wasn’t a bad thing. Sometimes you’re goopy and squishy and occasionally poisonous, it happens to everybody. Akira was sure he’d had a Saturday just like that. They were just little creatures. Slugging along.

…That said, he didn’t like them much when they were on his face. He especially wouldn’t like them if they were the poisonous kind. He didn’t think these ones were, but still. That would be completely unpleasant. And then he’d be goopy until he died. Just terrible all around.

But not these bad boys. Akira was sure they were just your everyday slug. Lucky for him! But they were still on his face. He didn’t really want that. Slug along anywhere else, please. He was trying to relax. This wasn’t the time.

In his limited periods of consciousness, Akira often thought about how weird it was that he never realized when he was dreaming. Once he was in the dream, he was there. No second thoughts about it. The slugs were on his face now, and that’s where they belonged. But pointedly, again, they were not poisonous. Nice to know his subconscious wasn’t going for a gastropod themed execution.

He woke up blissfully slug-free. Thank god. What a morning surprise that would’ve been. He also woke up alone, which wasn’t too unusual. Yusuke tended to be an early riser. Up and about, doing his creative stuff. He had picked up sculpting, recently. So far, he’d made a lovely bust of Isaac Newton (and if not him, it was a not-as-lovely bust of Haru), and a pistachio (this one really was a pistachio). Akira was happy he was expanding his repertoire, since he seemed to be enjoying himself. He was keeping busy, and he had a career after all.

But the bed was meant for two.

He shifted a bit, peeked his eyes open and, oh. He was surprised to see Yusuke sitting not far across from him. He was staring deeply into his sketchbook, very focused and very quiet.

You know, he could always draw in bed. It’d be warmer that way. “Good morning.” Akira lazily stretched out his back. “Sketching?”

Akira probably shocked him, because Yusuke jumped. He usually felt just a little bit bad when he did that, but today there was something mischievous dancing around in his brain. A tiny goblin who had wanted so desperately to cuddle, probably.

You and me both, Goblin-kun.

Yusuke looked up to him, and he seemed a little stoic. “You’ve awakened. Good afternoon. Please do not move.”

Technical technical. Akira treated afternoons like mornings, anyway. He relaxed his body back down, trying to look as natural as possible. “Were you drawing me?” It wouldn’t surprise him. It’d hardly be the first time. Yusuke liked to make him blush by calling him things like his Muse, or his Starry Night, or his Lobster Fra Diavolo.

“Ah… I suppose,” said Yusuke. He swiveled a turn in his chair, and swept up a dab of paint with a brush. “Now, close your eyes again.”

Akira did. So he was painting him. Again with Yusuke’s technicalities, his this’s and that’s. It was endearing. There was something very sweet about his specifics, since Akira knew he was included in them.

He wondered if he could go back to sleep. If Yusuke wanted him to keep his eyes closed, the chances went up. He could already feel himself falling into it. Anyone who knew Akira was well aware that he wasn’t one to pass up opportunities to sleep in. Well, sleep in more than he already had. Yusuke knew better than to let him stay in bed, Akira couldn’t be blamed. And it was for art after all.

But the afternoon did have plans for Akira. Goddamn. For example, something cold and wet being splattered onto his forehead. It was… weirdly familiar?

He jumped, but in like, a groggy half-awake confused boy way. “Ghh?” His eyes flickered open. Yusuke was there? He hadn’t heard him come over. “What are you…doing.”

Yusuke remained focused as ever, eyes glued to, uh. Uh? “Akira, please. I do not want it in your eyes.” The wet spot moved and spread across his brow.

The dots were sleepy and the lines were wiggling, but all connecting nonetheless. “Are you painting,” Akira said, flinching at the sloppy feeling, “on my face?”

Yusuke lifted his paintbrush and looked very thoughtfully at the smear he’d created. “Do not speak much. I would hate for what has dried to crack.” He turned away, probably to get more paint.

Akira squinted at him. It was already drying? As in drying drying? “How long have you been… at this.”

Yusuke sighed, and shook his head. “Please, my love, if you must talk,” he said, turning back, “Try to be minimal. I will be finished soon.”

He returned to Akira’s side, this time with a pool of paint on the back of his hand, probably for quick access. Akira stared silently at him. He wasn’t mad at all, more completely amused. Unique way to spend a morning. He’d woken up before with drawings on his face, but that was usually Futaba scribbling squiggles and mustaches with her sharpies. Oh, but he’d always get back at her for that. He’d refuse to wash it off and make her be seen with him, Mr. Sharpie Face Man, in the all forbidden public. She was one of those second-hand embarrassment people.

Wow, the paint felt weird. He was all too aware of it sitting on his face. It was thick. And the actual spreading of it had been really strange. There were out of body experiences, and then there were all too aware of what is happening right now on your body experiences. Akira was the former. He was pretty surprised it hadn’t woken him up, actually.

Wait.

The slugs.

The non-poisonous slugs.

That made sense.

Yusuke continued painting. Little swirls and pointed dots. Akira tried to guess what he was doing. The paint he had was blue, so maybe a bird? A fish? He was sure Yusuke would do something more outlandish, though. Maybe a bird with glasses. He wondered if Yusuke would let him name it.

Inevitably, they made eye contact. Akira had been staring pretty relentlessly, and boy he was good at that. Yusuke held it for a moment, before something visibly clicked. There it was. Akira had been thinking about if he’d remember to answer. He didn’t, always. Yusuke had quite the way with concentration. He’d just about have to shake him out to come to dinner some nights.

Yusuke had run out of paint on his hand, and he turned back to get more. A short silence hung. “A few hours,” he said.

So, a while. His projects usually took a bit, so he was glad to hear this hadn’t been some all nighter. That could’ve been nice too, though, because then Yusuke would certainly take a nap. And of course then Akira would get to take a nap. Which would be great. But he’d have to wash all this paint off first. He hoped it would come off easy.

It wasn’t like Yusuke had never painted on his body before. But that was usually, you know, doodling with a pen on his arm. Or some grand experiment on his back. Face painting wasn’t technically something to be considered out of the ordinary, but unconscious face painting was. Yusuke’s inspiration strikes were always charming.

Akira watched as Yusuke readied his brush again. He felt him very gently move some hair out of his face. This wasn’t really a view Akira usually got. Hello there. Thank goodness he was nearsighted.

But, all good things must come to an end. Yusuke looked down at him. “It really is imperative you shut your eyes, now. This would sting.”

He probably spoke from experience. He already knew Yusuke had drunk paint water before. It was an accident, he said, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t also accidentally get paint in his eyes. Akira also doubted that the paint water incident was entirely accidental. He had evidence. But, despite all that, he heeded his advice. Yusuke was kind enough to wait until he did so. Akira wondered how long it would take for Yusuke to just start painting, anyway.

He felt the brush fit into his eye socket and curve around down, above his cheek bone. Very confident but delicate strokes across his eyelid, and then repeated on the other side. He decided this was much better than slugs. Though still just as goopy.

The brush lifted, and did not come back down. “There,” Yusuke began, “Now, please remain very still. I will return in just a moment.”

Akira obliged, keeping his eyes shut tight but careful not to scrunch. He heard footsteps, and a door opening. Yusuke was probably getting their camera. They’d bought a very nice once for situations like this. Non-portable art, or anything that would wash away. Akira supposed he wouldn’t mind being on display for an art show. Ehh, that was, as long as it didn’t last too long. He didn’t really get fidgety, but he did get bored.

He heard Yusuke come back, accompanied by some clicking and clunking. He probably also brought in a light, since he tended to be very particular about his art pictures. Akira appreciated that his face-canvas was being given such fancy treatment. He hoped he was doing the art justice.

There was shuffling. The sound of curtains opening. The buzz of a lamp. And eventually, many, many clicks. Yusuke always took bunches of pictures, with light adjustments and in different positions. He’d learned how to use a camera very well, at this point. Akira was glad to see it, because initially Yusuke had been a little helpless with one.

He took pictures all the time now. It was much more convenient, since instead of pulling over and waiting thirty minutes for Yusuke to be satisfied with a sketch, they’d pull over and spend just ten minutes taking pictures. They still had to leave an hour early for events, but they were late less often. They were also a little poorer, because memory cards didn’t come cheap. Yusuke’s new cocaine, he guessed.

The clicking went off and on. Akira sat through it, beginning to drift back to sleep again. When Yusuke had said ‘afternoon’ that could’ve meant 12:01, right? Which meant it would be perfectly reasonable to sleep for a few more hours. Just a little catnap. He’d bet anything Morgana was still sleeping. And how was that fair?

He was thoroughly lost in cat-jealousy thoughts, and did not notice the clicking stop. So, the sound of Yusuke’s voice scared him right out of his drowsiness. “You can move about now. I’ve finished.” Gah.

So, no naps for him. Yet. But Akira guessed he was getting a little bit cramped anyway. He stretched out again, properly this time, and opened his eyes. He watched as Yusuke turned off the extra light, and carefully put the camera down.

Yusuke looked to Akira and smiled very sweetly. Akira smiled back, entirely sure he probably looked very silly. His whole face was (presumably?) blue, after all. He was still thinking of a bird name.

Yusuke sat down at the foot of their bed. He fiddled a bit with his fingers, and scratched at the drying paint on his hands. A learned habit.“I do hope you slept well.”

“Mm,” Akira replied, pushing himself up. “I think you gave me weird dreams.” He felt around a little for his glasses. If paint got on them, oh well. He’d curse the glasses god today. He wanted to see.

Yusuke reached out and picked up Akira’s pair. “Did I?” He handed them to him.

This tended to be a typical morning procedure. “Thanks.” He was pretty sure Yusuke’s hands were covered in paint. Maybe it was inevitable his glasses would get messy. “You did.”

“I apologize. You seemed to be sleeping quite soundly.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Vision at last.

Yusuke seemed relieved. Akira was sure if he told him about his slug encounter, he would take a good fifteen minutes connecting it to art and philosophy. Which would be fine, but Akira’s face was kind of itchy and scratchy. He could tell him later. He picked at it a bit.

It wasn’t like Yusuke wouldn’t notice, obviously, but it probably gave him the wrong idea. “The paint is thoroughly non-toxic. There is nothing to worry about.” He rubbed hard on his hand.

Akira wasn’t worried. There were things to worry about with Yusuke, but he wouldn’t consider this one of them. Yusuke was particular, it was a completely defining trait of his. No, Akira would not trust him with their grocery money. He would also not trust him left alone in a candy store. But he was considerate, and precise, and attentive. Especially to his art. And especially, Akira would bashfully admit, to him.

He could still tease him a little though. “It’s not at all?”

Yusuke straightened himself up. Which was a little bit funny to watch with his typically impeccable posture. It was more like he shuffled his shoulders around and puffed out his chest. “Absolutely. I would never let you near such toxins, not even dream of such a thing.” It was hard to not constantly give Yusuke fond looks.

He failed. He was a fond look giving machine. “So a kiss would be fine?” He grinned a very bluish grin. Give him a smooch, art boy. It would probably be better than paint water. Actually, he really really hoped it would be better than paint water.

“Ah.” Yusuke said, giving a sigh. “An innocent request turned devilish, I see.” Yusuke was also a fond look giving machine. They could make it a competition. The most sugary and sweet one in the world. The kind that would give Morgana hairballs, the poor cat.

Akira didn’t say anything. He looked at Yusuke, guilty but not regretful, and waited. It was only a little devilish, he thought. He could do much worse. He could do better, too. But there was no fun in that.

Yusuke stood up, and walked right up next to Akira, standing just where he was before. Akira gave him an innocent look; he was good at those, and it made Yusuke smile. Which was only more reason to get even better at them. Lying at interrogations was just an added bonus.

Yusuke was an all or nothing kind of guy. Akira knew this. So he wasn’t surprised when Yusuke cupped his face and leaned down, to give him a kiss, first on the cheek, then on the lips. Soft and sweet. Lovey and dovey.

Akira was very unhappy to see that when they pulled away, a grand total of none of the paint had gotten onto Yusuke. A foiled plan. He wiped at his lips anyway. How rude, you mean to say he didn’t want second-hand (second… face?) paint on his mouth? Like some kind of moderately health conscious member of society? You drank paint water, Yusuke. You’ve eaten grass before, Yusuke! The thought made him chuckle.

“What is it?” Yusuke asked, sitting himself down on the bed.

He probably wouldn’t appreciate the thought. “Nothing.” Akira fiddled with a piece of hair. “Did you get the picture you wanted?”

The question made Yusuke beam. “Indeed. I took several. Adjustments do need to be made, however.”

“That’s good.” He was glad Yusuke had become accustomed to editing digital photos. He was very against it at first, pretty much because he didn’t really understand what the editing was. Not like, photoshopping things in. Just things like saturation and lighting. This was another little hobby he’d picked up. He had never accidentally recreated Isaac Newton in Adobe, though.

“I will most certainly show you the completed product.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Akira said. His nose itched. Not really in a sneezy way, but it was annoying him. He wanted to sniff, but he also didn’t exactly want to snort up Yusuke’s project. Yucky. “I think I want to wash this off, now.”

“Ah, of course.” Yusuke moved to let Akira off the bed. He hovered there quietly as Akira got up, and followed him to the bathroom.

Okay? “What’s up?”

Yusuke pressed his lips together. “Oh. I simply wanted to help you. As a penance, perhaps.”

Akira scoffed. “Strong word.” He didn’t mind Yusuke helping. He’d probably need it, or he’d give up halfway and finish by midnight. What wasn’t inherently tender about getting paint rubbed off your face. Ugh, and the peeling. It wasn’t a super great smell, either. He was gonna have such a look going on for this. Cute.

They walked in. Akira turned on the light and readied himself for a face scrubbing. He wondered if there had been any that got in his hair. That would suck getting out. He looked in the mirror, his mind set on checking, and thoroughly surprised himself at his reflection.

So the bird guess? He was kind of sort of close.

He’d made his whole face very lightly blue. There were feathers painted around his eyes that very gracefully formed into wings bending out and upwards towards his forehead. Little patterns of flowers and leaves framed his face and fell in swooping designs. It was all done in different shades of blue, you had to really look at it to see all the detail. Except on his cheeks. In a thick gold sat long tears, layered on top of each other. They traveled all the way down to his chin.

It was pretty.

He wanted to touch it.

He pressed his fingers into his cheeks, and squished upwards. It was sticky, and it didn’t give way much. But the farther he went, the more it moved. It got on his hands. He was all smudgy now. This was incredible.

He was also being watched. “I’m not sure that’s the most effective way.” Yusuke commented.

“I feel like,” Akira kept on squishing, “the slime in those stim videos.”

He laughed lightly at that. “I suppose we do all experience art in our own ways.”

Akira watched Yusuke absentmindedly through the mirrors reflection, while still giving his face a very blue massage. He grabbed a rag, and turned on warm water. He also took out a bottle from one of their cupboards. Yusuke had all sorts of painting things stored away, so it wasn’t all that surprising. Akira had found about eight bottles of acetone in Yusuke’s dorm room years ago. He remembered gaining a certain understanding of Yusuke’s budgeting problems.

He placed his materials down. “Will you be satisfied soon?” He asked, now watching him closely.

Akira paused mid-squish. He looked at Yusuke from the corner of his eye. “You want to give it a try?” Why not.

Yusuke blinked at him. And then visibly considered it.

“I’ve no reason to object, I suppose.”

Double the squish. This probably could’ve gone fifty-fifty. Akira dragged his fingers off his face, careful not to touch anything. They didn’t need a blue bathroom too. He held his own hands, and let Yusuke reach over to him.

Yusuke, who gave this a little more forethought than Akira had, removed his glasses first. Yeah, smart move. He couldn’t exactly wear them while they washed his face, anyway. He followed Yusuke’s hands as best he could when he put the glasses down, and followed them back up as he rested his palms on Akira’s face.

He pressed inwards and held him there for a second, and then moved his palms farther up just past his cheekbones. It made Akira quietly giggle, just quick little exhales. It felt way weirder when someone else was doing it. Not that it hadn’t felt a bit weird when he’d done it himself.

Yusuke was smiling too. Akira was very adamantly keeping his eyes open, which sometimes proved to be a challenge. He was gonna sit there and stare him down like this was the height of romance.

Yusuke placed his thumbs on the crook of Akira jawline, and swiped with his fingers outwards on his cheeks. He stayed there. Akira leaned into it. “Having fun?”

Yusuke tapped his fingers. “As much as you will let me.”

Akira nestled himself farther into Yusuke’s hands. It scrunched his face up more. He felt so squashed. Now this was amore. He was the king of romance.

It made Yusuke laugh, just a little. “You know, we are wasting water.”

In reply, Akira (very masterfully) kept as blank as an expression as possible while giving him fish lips.

That got a real laugh out of Yusuke, and he took his hands away. It was always nice to get laughs out of him. He didn’t used to often. That was, other than his occasional hearty chuckle when he was feeling an odd kind of inspired. Akira liked those ones, too.

Yusuke scrubbed his hands as well as he could in the water, and then wet down the rag. “Let us get to work, then.”

He was very gentle, wiping off big pieces and rinsing the rag whenever it got cold. Alright, this may have been better than Akira had anticipated. Yusuke was considerate and routined. Working through section after section, and making sure no water dribbled down onto his clothes. It was almost nice, even with the inevitable scrubbing that came with it. Yusuke picked up the mystery bottle. Akira gave it a look.

Yusuke had always been good at reading him. “It is coconut oil.” He unscrewed the cap. “Oils do well to get paint off of skin.”

He made a little noise of understanding, and Yusuke went back to his work. It was less rough this time. He felt super greasy, though. He was pretty sure coconut oil was good for your face? Maybe this would turn out to be a miniature spa session. He wondered if Yusuke was any good at nail art.

“Close your eyes, now,” said Yusuke. Akira was also pretty sure coconut oil was not good for the eyes. Just a wild guess. He did as he was asked, and Yusuke went to work, very careful on his eyelids. Very very careful around his eyes.

That reminded him. “I have a question.”

Yusuke hardly hesitated. “Anything.”

“Why was I crying?”

Yusuke stopped, just for a moment. “Ah,” A silence sat. “It was only that, in your rest… you simply seemed horribly melancholic.”

He sounded so sad.

And Akira about choked.

Yusuke retreated immediately. “Have I gotten some in your mouth? I am terribly sorry.” Understandable question, he’d made him start coughing like a maniac.

He cleared his throat. He was fine, he was chill. “No, don’t worry. That’s not it.” He wiped around his eyes. Oil was kind of gross, actually.

“Oh.”

He should probably elaborate. Yusuke looked confused. “It’s just funny you say I looked sad.” He leaned down onto the counter. “I was dreaming about slugs.” Or, the everlasting woes of slugs, apparently.

Yusuke paused. Processing, a little bit. “Slugs… you say?”

Slugs… he said. “Yep.”

“Were they… causing you any discomfort?”

Akira shook his head. “They were just hanging out.”

Yusuke was obviously considering this. It made him smile too, of course, but he was certainly lost in thought.

He’d come to his conclusion. “Perhaps they meant something more profound. The ways of the subconscious are ever mysterious.” He wet down the rag again, and poured more coconut oil.

Did they need that much? “Maybe.”

Apparently, they did. Less is more, but more is also more. He started up again, lightly scrubbing. “You know, due to ancient influences, a slug is considered to be more of a spiritual being than an earthly being. In symbolism, that is.”

“Is it now?” He’d known this would happen. Of course it would, it was Yusuke. He always kept little random pieces of knowledge about symbolic references in art and literature.

Which, you know, was fine. He was happy to hear it. He was covered in paint and coconut oil, sure, but they were working on it. Sometimes, this was what your days were like. Lazy, and a little slimy. He hoped that his skin would glow like goddamn Polaris after this.

They’d fly down a list of topics, starting at one point and ending at another. Yusuke would lose himself in talking, and Akira would always love to listen.

So, the morning ended the way it began. Feeling goopy.

And slugs.

#hello no i did not forget about these!!!! im just slow #also sorry i am incapable of making things short and sweet #i mean it its kinda probably longer than these prompts are supposed to be;;;;;;;#but. whatever.#anyway!!! i hope u enjoy #ask #relationshipcrimes #my fics #my p5 fics

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always5hineee · 5 years ago

Text

Hell and Back- Chapter 35: Test Tubes (Trials 61-70) [Part 1]

Word count: 4151

Chapter warnings: Mild language and themes

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She finally worked up the courage to open the app again. No one wanted to keep going. Why would they? This was a nightmare, it had to have been. She'd remembered everyone's constant warnings and predictions, which had been so frequent at the beginning of the game that they were borderline annoying. Things were always bound to get harder. Was it worth continuing? Or were they all just so broken by this game that they were mentally married to the idea of going on?

Congratulations! You have completed the Delegate Trials. Welcome to Round 6, the Vat Trials! Round 6 will consist of 10 simultaneous trials, one for every player. If a player cannot continue or chooses to drop out, the trial will be null for that player and they will be penalized with the dropout fee. Other players are not affected. Round 6 will end after trial 70.

"Are we really doing this?" Xiumin asked, trying to get one of the other members to make eye contact with him. "After..."

"If you don't want to do it, drop out." Kai said curtly. "None of us will blame you."

"No, that's not..." He tried to defend himself, but just fell silent. They were all waiting to see who would take charge. Everyone listened to Suho, but now that he was gone, there was sort of a power void. While everyone wanted direction, they also didn't like it being anything other than their status quo. If Kris were to take charge, Chen would be upset. Same with Kai. But if Chen took charge, the reverse would be true. Sehun and Xiumin weren't stupid, but they also weren't forceful enough to demand anything from the stronger members. Kyungsoo was the most logically thinking, but he was too sarcastic and confrontational for anyone's liking.

Finally, Y/N was the one to make the decision to continue. She didn't want to, but she was the best choice they had right now. She was by no definition a leader of their friend group, but no one really had a problem with her, and no one wanted to upset her, so she had a good feeling they'd listen to her, or at least pretend to. Not to mention that she was the one who had entered them in the first place, so it was sort of her responsibility.

"It says the trials are simultaneous, that means we're all doing them at the same time." She said, looking at the message again. "We could end up separated. Do we have a plan?"

"As if making any sort of plan against this thing is going to be helpful." Kyungsoo said. It was unlike him, he was generally the first proponent for a designated course of action. Still, he wasn't wrong, nothing they did would really be of use.

"Everyone has their phones?" She asked, receiving only nods. "And their items?" Nods again. "Alright..." There was no putting it off. She pressed the button to start the trials.

The first instruction they were given was simply an address. It was about thirty minutes out of town, an empty distribution center that had ben poorly located, so much so that it ended up abandoned. Sooner or later, as the city expanded, someone would buy it, but for now, it was desolate. They all piled into Kris's car, which was admittedly less crowded, not that anyone liked it that way. They spent the first few minutes in silence, but eventually she couldn't take it any more.

Sehun, who had the window seat, had already fallen asleep because of the monotonous vibrations of the car, with Xiumin leaning on him from the middle. She couldn't see Chen or Chanyeol well, as they were in the very back, but they certainly weren't paying attention to anyone else. Lay had passed out in their row as well, half on top of a slightly squished Kyungsoo, seemingly tired all the time. Kai was staring out of his window side, ignoring Baekhyun to his left, who was messing around on his phone with earbuds in. They had given her the front seat now that Suho was gone, and obviously Kris was driving since it was his car.

"Do you care if I put music on?" She asked. He looked over momentarily, then shrugged.

"Yeah, whatever, go for it." Plugging her phone into the aux and scrolling through her options, she put on a tune all to familiar to him. The electronic vibe, the crushing bass, it was the kind of music he loved. And created. It was one of the songs he'd been working on for the band- she didn't usually partake in writing or singing, but as their friend/manager/supporter, she tended to help them organize it all. In doing so, she tended to hear everything they were working on. So what if she saved it to her phone?

"Ah, come on, don't play this garbage." Kris laughed, moving to turn the volume down. She slapped his hand away, turning it up two clicks.

"No, it's so good! Leave it be!" He looked mockingly dissatisfied, shaking his head in distaste. As she poked his arm and began to sing the melody purposely off-key, the grin on his face grew a little wider. He couldn't help but hum along a little. By the time the song had come to an end, they were both full-on belting. She knew he was being loud to be funny, but he was actually really talented.

"Could you two cut it out?" Kai grumbled from behind her seat.

"Aww, come on, Kai, have some fun!"

"Nothing about this is fun." He muttered, glaring at Kris's hand on her knee as they continued laughing. Ignoring him, she asked Kris what he wanted to listen to next. It wasn't until they arrived at the distribution center that they bothered to turn it down to a relatively normal volume, Y/N looking in the rearview mirror to see how everyone was doing. Kris put the vehicle into park, stepping out into the crisp air. This far out and with the distribution center not running, the atmosphere was actually quite clear. She stepped out as well, followed by Kai and Baekhyun, then Chen, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo climbed over the seats. She walked around to the other side, gently opening the door so Sehun wouldn't fall, shaking him and Xiumin awake lightly. They both sat up, making similar funny faces as they rubbed their eyes, glancing around.

"Well, I..." She looked over to the building. "I guess we go inside?" They all looked between each other, but no one had a better plan. They made their way to the entrance of the building, which was loosely boarded and marked with faded condemnation tape. They easily busted through it.

"Hey, Chen, you still have that flashlight?"

"Yeah," At this request, the boy turned it on, illuminating the long, dirty hallway in front of them. He took the front of the line, Y/N following closely, holding onto his waist to make sure that she didn't get left behind. He didn't say anything, so she hoped it didn't bother him. After the first few steps, though, it flickered out.

"Shit! Are you kidding?!"

"That's not funny, Baekhyun." Kai said, completely unfazed.

"Ah, you caught me." The boy laughed, the flashlight coming back on.

"Now's not the time to be messing around."

"Au contraire, my friend," he corrected, "It's always the time to be messing around." The continued down the corridor, the end dimly lit by an external light from theirs. It was coming from under a door, clearly where they were supposed to be going. Swallowing nervously, Chen looked at it.

"So, uh... who wants to go first?"

"You're in the front." Sehun said. "Good luck." Chen rolled his eyes in annoyance, but agreed. Y/N still hanging onto him, he reached for the handle, swinging it open. It was heavier than he had expected, but it wasn't locked, clearly different from the rest of those in the building. The hinges were well oiled, it didn't squeak, and it opened smoothly. Staring in, his jaw loosened considerably. The boys crowded behind him, trying to get a glance.

The room that stood in front of them was objectively huge, and lit with a strange type of whitish-turquoise LED strips across the ceilings and around the edges of the floor. Up on a slightly raised platform in the center, (not taller by any more than a few inches), there were large glass tubes reaching floor to ceiling, ten in total. Each was numbered as such from left to right. The walls were completely comprised of some sort of sheer, black, smooth material, unrecognizable by her.

"This is insane." Sehun said under his breath.

"It's incredible." Kyungsoo chimed in, whether out of agreement or contradiction. "The craftsmanship that must have gone into this? And to sustain it in such an environment, I-"

"What does it say to do next, Y/N?" Chanyeol interrupted, causing her to let go of her grip on Chen and go for her phone. He seemed annoyed at this, but didn't say anything, just straightened out his shirt.

"Oh, shit, there's a lot." She said as she looked over the text. There was a full paragraph of substance for them to go over, the rules of the next trials. "Do you want me to read it out?" They all gave a mixed response of shrugs and nods, letting her go ahead.

"The Vat Trials will consist of one trial for every player, adding up to ten trials in total. All players will choose and enter one vat. They will be permitted to leave all belongings outside of the vat, including their chosen items, or bring them in as they wish. Once all players have chosen and the start has been commanded, the vats will begin to fill. Each vat has a different substance depending on the number. The players will not know what these are until the trials have started. For the vat trials to end, one of three things must occur. First, if all vats are filled to the top, the trials will end and the vats will drain. Second, if three players drop out, the trials will end and the vats will driain. Third, if three players are rendered fatally unconscious, (similar to dropping out), the trials will end and the vats will drain.

In the event that a player chooses to drop out, that player will be subjected to the dropout penalty, the maze. If the player completes the maze, the player will be allowed to continue in the trials at his/her discretion, or leave with no further penalty. If a player is non-fatally injured in the maze, they are required to leave the trials, but will suffer no further penalty. If a player is fatally injured, their name will be removed from the game as though they had willingly dropped out.

The limited power is..." It was here, after all of that reading, that she paused. "It's me again." She said.

"Why do they keep doing that? You have no-" Kyungsoo started to say, but Kai elbowed him in the side, reminding him that he was being insensitive.

"Whatever. The dropout penalty is this 'maze', like you heard."

"So, we just... pick tubes?" Kris asked.

"I think we should maybe consider it a little more than that." Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, walking up to the raised platform. He attempted to see up into the tops of the vats, looking for any potential clues on what could fall from each. Xiumin tried to assist him, but shook his head.

"It's just dark up there, man, there's no point. We should just start early and get it over with."

"I call number one." "I call number one." Both Kai and Kyungsoo spoke at the same time. Glaring at each other, they both ran for it at the same time in a strange showing of male bickering, but Kai, being taller and slightly stronger, made it there first. Sticking his tongue out, he slid open the high-tech door, shutting it in Kyungsoo's face. Rolling his eyes in annoyance, the boy walked all the way over to number 10- the next best thing.

Chanyeol chose number 2, and Sehun looked torn. Finally, he chose the third one, likely because he didn't want to be standing alone while everyone else chose. Baekhyun chose four, despite it being widely considered an unlucky number. Lay, who hadn't really said anything since they'd gotten there, just stumbled to five. Chen picked eight- that was Suho's favorite number. Whether or not that was why, she didn't know. Kris picked nine, which left Xiumin and Y/N with six and seven. Looking between the two, seven just gave her a better feeling, so she picked that, and Xiumin stepped into 6. All the doors shut, she looked down at her phone. As she skimmed over the rules one last time, she'd realized that she hadn't noticed who did and didn't leave their stuff outside the vat. Oh well, it wasn't bound to matter anyway.

"Is everyone ready?" She asked, her voice echoing off the glass walls of her tube. It was hard to hear each other, but not impossible. Searching for nods or calls from the rest of the group, she took a deep breath, pressing the start button on his phone. There was a loud rumbling above them as the mechanics in the ceiling whirred, the soulless noises putting her off. Then she watched as liquid began to flow down the sides of her tube. It wasn't impossible to see out, but she had to find gaps in the substance in order to do so. It was white and cold, giving her a few guesses as to what it could be. Before she determined for sure, though, she heard screams from the other tubes.

"What's going on?" She tried to yell, some of the boys freaking out still. "Hello?" She heard Sehun's distinct scream from all the way to the side. How was she able to hear him so clearly if she was four tubes away? "Sehun? Are you alright?"

"Everybody calm down so we can decide what we're going to do!" Kai yelled. Finally, in a whimper, everybody stopped talking and shouting at each other, just leaving the low humming of the machines.

"Okay." She breathed, grateful to Kai for controlling the situation. "Let's start with Kai, since he's in vat one. What's in your tube?"

"Ice." He said, not sounding too upset about it. "It's like, crushed ice, from a vending machine or something."

"Okay...Chanyeol?"

"N-needles." He said, more torn up about it than the boy before."

"Needles?"

"Y-yeah, like, seeing needles. They're falling down the side walls and onto the floor, b-but once they start to get too high, I-"

"It'll be fine, just hold on. Seh-"

"Bugs!" He yelled finally, as if he were just waiting for the second in which he could go back to freaking out. "There are fucking bugs all over the place, it's disgusting, there are centipedes and worms and roaches and-"

"That's so gross-" Chen said, quite obviously.

"You think I don't know that?! I can't do this, I'm not gonna be covered in bugs, I-"

"Hold on, all of you, we just need to know what's going on first." She continued repeating monotonously. "Baekhyun, please tell me yours is better."

"I have snakes." He said, trying to sound calm, but evidently a little freaked. "They're not really doing anything, they're just... Slithering around. I can't tell if they're poisonous or anything."

"Venemous." Kyungsoo corrected.

"Whatever."

"Okay, so that's ice, needles, bugs, and snakes. Not really great options." She sighed. "Lay?"

"Uh, it's kind of yellow, and smells like... citrus-y. I think it's some sort of juice. Maybe pineapple?"

"That's not too bad." She said, not really willing to think through the side effects of swimming in pineapple juice at that moment. "Xiumin?"

"I- I don't- This-" He was stuttering and tripping over his words.

"What? Are you okay?"

"I- I'm not 100 p-percent sure, but it's- it's red, and sticky, and it s-smells like metal, I- I think it's..." he paused for a second. "I think it's blood." She didn't know where they could have gotten that much blood, or rather, whose it was, but she had to admit it was disgusting. Shaking her head, she looked at her own substance again. Pressing one finger to the glass and letting it flow over, she held it to her nose.

"Alright, I think I have milk." She finally said, refraining from sighing in relief. She got off lucky with that one. "Chen?"

"It's some sort of weird, pink... paste stuff? It smells really bad, and it's super thick, like frosting. Except it's definitely not frosting."

"Taste it." Kris laughed from his vat, earning a glare from Chen. If he hadn't wanted vat eight, he would have moved as far away from him as possible.

"Speaking of, Kris, what do you have?" She asked.

"Red, runny, smells like alcohol? I'd say this is a nice cabernet." The an responded smugly.

"He got wine?" Sehun groaned from the other end. "What the fuck did I do to deserve this?"

"Quit complaining, we're not done." She scolded him. "Kyungsoo?"

"I have wood chips. It's another one that's fine for now, but as it gets higher and higher up, it'll be less than pleasant."

"Alright," she recapped. "Ice, needles, bugs, snakes, pineapple juice, blood, milk, pink... stuff, wine, and wood chips." She took a deep breath. "Wow, that is a lot. Now we just have to decide whether we want to wait it out, or have three of us try... whatever the dropout fee means."

"The 'maze'?" Kyungsoo asked skeptically. "That sounds less than pleasant."

"More pleasant than swimming in needles." Chanyeol argued.

"Stop!" She said. "We can't just fight with each other the whole time. Who is in favor of trying to get out?" She asked. She heard calls from Sehun, Chanyeol, Xiumin, Chen, and Baekhyun. Kai, Kyungsoo, Chen, herself, and obviously Kris, were all fine with waiting for the tubes to fill up.

"This isn't fair!" Sehun yelled, still panicking. "You guys want to stay because your tubes aren't full of fucking spiders!" Looking down to her feet, she saw that the milk came up just past her ankles now. True, it was uncomfortable, but she could barely even see the two vats on either side of her, so it wasn't as if she could tell what exactly was going on in the others.

"How long do you think this could take?" Chen asked as a counter, hoping that the time would be short enough that they could wait. Kyungsoo leaned over in his own vat, examining the woodchips.

"The substances have filled up about six inches in five minutes." He looked up. "The vat seems to be a about double my height, so at a rough guess, that would be twelve feet. Double that for six inches, times five minutes..." A moment later, he declared, "Two hours."

"Two hours?!" Sehun yelled.

"Well, actually, it would take forty-five minutes, give or take, for the stuff to reach our noses, so then you'd either have to float, swim, or cover your mouth to create an air pocket and keep bugs, or needles, or wood chips," he referenced his own dilemma, "From falling into your mouth. It's doable, just barely." Looking over, he continued, "Another option for people with solid objects, like me, Sehun, potentially Kai and Chen, is to pack it down and create a surface to stand on as we go up, until we're close enough to the top that we can sit and wait for it to fill up with no isses."

"I am not sitting on a platform of dead, squishy bugs." Sehun demanded.

"Yeah, you're probably right, that would make it take longer to fill up, might even double your time."

"Can we stop arguing over whether we are or aren't going to drop out?" Kris groaned. "Just sit in your vat, and if you wanna drop out, do it. None of us can stop you. We don't need Y/N's permission, there's a damn handle on the sliding doors. Just leave if you wanna be a baby." He didn't say anything. It wasn't that he was afraid of Kris calling him a wimp- that happened all the time anyway. He was scared of the punishment, of the maze.

Kris's plan of 'just do what you want' was actually not very time effective. By the time three people got around to quitting, they may have been halfway done, or more. After the first half an hour, Kai was beginning to change his vote, as the ice around him was growing colder and colder by the second, seeping into his bones. Chanyeol was getting increasingly uncomfortable, muttering with Sehun in a low enough tone that she couldn't hear what they were saying. All the people with liquid substances were uncomfortable as well, but she was continuously reminding herself that it was probably good for her skin, or something like that. It could have been worse, obviously.

At an hour in, it was reaching their shoulders, meaning that Kyungsoo's estimate had been a little low. Xiumin knocked on the glass of his tube from next to her, drawing her attention away from her fleeting thoughts. It was honestly a welcome conversation. At least, until it actually happened.

"Y/N? I think we have a problem with Lay." Concerned, she tried to peer through the white film of her vat, wiping it away with her sleeve as best she could. Just barely, she could make out his half-lidded eyes, swaying as he struggled to stay standing. "He's fallen asleep twice now, he's going to accidentally drown himself." He said with worry.

"I'm sure he'll be fine..." Just as she said this, he collapsed for what, as Xiumin has said, was the third time. But after a few seconds, he hadn't woken back up. "Xiumin?"

"Oh my God, Oh- I-"

"Xiumin! We have to do something!"

"Uh, I- I can- I can freeze him in place, maybe?"

"He's under the juice, he'll die!"

"M-maybe if I only do part of it, it'll rise to the top! Ice floats, right?"

"Well, if you think it'll work, do it then!"

"B-but what if-"

"Xiuimin! He's going to die!" Panicking, he held out his hand, trying to direct his frost powers towards Lay's midsection, wrapping him in a ring of ice from the outside in. Still, it was sticking to the sides of the vat, only starting to become loosened by the continuous flow of liquid.

"Come on," she muttered under his breath. "Come on, come on, Lay, don't die on us now," She didn't know if it was the new juice, or Xiumin's powers, or her sheer willpower, but the ice freed itself from the clutches of the chilly glass and shot to the top of the vat, dragging Lay's body with it. As his face broke the surface, he shot awake, choking on the juice that had made its way into his lungs. Coughing, it started spewing out of his mouth and back down into the vat, clearing itself of his body.

"That was too close." She said under her breath as he looked around, dazed. She'd have to start swimming soon. Not only that, but it would become incredibly more difficult to hold her phone above the waterline. She wondered if the rest of them brought their phones. Maybe Xiumin could do the same ice-float thing for her that he'd done for Lay? Looking around, noting Xiumin's relieved face, she saw a shadowy figure move past the veil of milk in her vat. Moving to a clean spot in her glass, she saw that it was Chen, vaguely covered in what she could only assume was the mystery paste fro his vat.

"Chen? What are you doing?!" She said, beating on the glass, grabbing his attention.

"None of you even want to try and get out of this. I don't mind my vat, as disgusting as it is, but this is going to get really hard for most everyone in no more than a few minutes. If..." He stopped for a second, but decided to finish his sentence. "If Suho were here, he would have been the first to try and do this. Someone has to try it now." Reaching for his phone, (and simultaneously answering her previous questions), he pressed the drop out button in his own app. At this, the room began shaking, and the black wall on the far side began shifting, as if it were a a one-way mirror becoming a window. And behind this window, it sat.

The Maze.

Go to Chapter 36

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nathanneedsausername · 6 years ago

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Most Overlooked Movies in Oscar History

Well guys, its official, Green Book was awarded the highest honour a single film can be given. Best Picture. If you spent any time on Twitter the day after the 91st Academy Awards you will have noticed that film nerds were not exactly thrilled by the decision, film Twitter immediately erupted into a discussion about all the films that didn’t receive the nomination that may have been more worthy winners than Green Book. Films like Eighth Grade, The Miseducation of Cameron Post and If Beale Street Could Talk appear to have benefited far more in regard to free publicity than any of the actual nominees. Of course, this isn’t the first time that the academy has failed to acknowledge the real best of the year and it certainly won’t be the last. So, in the spirit of being mad at the Academy let’s take a look at some of the worst historical snubs of all time.Well guys, its official, Green Book was awarded the highest honour a single film can be given. Best Picture. If you spent any time on Twitter the day after the 91st Academy Awards you will have noticed that film nerds were not exactly thrilled by the decision, film Twitter immediately erupted into a discussion about all the films that didn’t receive the nomination that may have been more worthy winners than Green Book. Films like Eighth Grade, The Miseducation of Cameron Post and If Beale Street Could Talk appear to have benefited far more in regard to free publicity than any of the actual nominees. Of course, this isn’t the first time that the academy has failed to acknowledge the real best of the year and it certainly won’t be the last. So, in the spirit of being mad at the Academy let’s take a look at some of the worst historical snubs of all time.

The Avengers (2012)

Actual nominations: Argo, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty.

The Academy has historically looked down on superhero films with no comic book adaptation receiving a Best Picture nod before Black Panther earlier this year. While The Avengers may not have been the most artistic or dramatic film of 2012 it is hard to deny it’s impact. When future generations look back on the films of the 2010s The Avengers will likely stand out as one of the most important releases. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe feeling like a part of everyday life it can be hard to remember just how big a risk this movie was at the time. Think pieces were all over the internet about how the film would ultimately end up as an unwatchable, convoluted mess of ideas that would end Joss Wheadon’s career. How wrong they were.

If the Best Picture award is supposed to honour the greatest and most important achievements in modern cinema then The Avengers absolutely deserved to end up on the ballot, but we don’t live in the universe where The Academy does cool stuff like that.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Actual nominations: Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways.

How on earth did this happen? It truly amazes me that more members of the academy felt that Finding Neverland deserved more acclaim than Eternal Sunshine. Going of the assumption that the ‘best picture’ should be the film with all its filmmaking elements working perfectly together then Eternal Sunshine should win every year. Charlie Kaufman won the award for original screenplay and Kate Winslet received the only other nomination for lead actress, this film didn’t even receive a nomination in any of the technical categories. The treatment of Michel Gondry’s masterpiece by the Academy should be seen as a permanent black spot on the ceremony’s reputation.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Actual Nominations: Rain Man, The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, Working Girl

Hear me out on this one. Roger Rabbit is one of my all-time favourite movies and for that, I’ll admit, I’m a little bias. That being said I truly believe that this is one of the finest achievements in cinema history from a purely technical level. The nominees for the 61st Acadamy Awards are solid (for the most part wtf is going with The Accidental Tourist?) but none of these films are as impressive as what Robert Zemeckis and his team were able to achieve by mixing live action film with 2D animation. Roger Rabbit is more than just a gimmick however, this a very entertaining and genuinely compelling detective story at its core. Once again, the term ‘Best Picture’ feels perfectly defined while discussing this film, a film that wasn’t even considered for the award.

Donnie Darko (2001)

Actual Nominees: A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge

Excuse my language but Donnie Darko is a fucking great movie. Here is another year where the nominees were pretty solid but come on you can’t tell me that Donnie Darko was too weird and abstract when you nominated Moulin bloody Rouge! Donnie Darko is the sort of film that is still being discussed to this day with so many incredibly well thought out details both in the direction and the screenplay. When you ask a film lover what is so special about the medium it is films like this that they will point to, with an excellent score, great performances, hypnotically simple editing and masterful direction it doesn’t put a foot wrong. Do I really have to spell out what the words ‘Best Picture’ mean again?

WALL.E (2008)

Actual Nominees: Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader

Let’s talk about animation for a bit. Only three animated films have ever been nominated for top prize (Beauty and the Beast, Up and Toy Story 3) considering the amount for excellent animated film are not those three I had a lot to choose from. With the likes of My Neighbour Totoro, Toy Story, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Princess Mononoke and The Nightmare Before Christmas going completely unnoticed the academy has found a way to further segregate the medium of animation from live-action film by introducing the ‘best animated feature’ award at the 2002 ceremony. This addition has led to films like Spirited Away, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Frozen, Inside Out and most recently Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse receiving an award without having to let them compete with live action films. There are no academy rules that state animation cannot be considered for Best Picture it just doesn’t happen. I have singled out WALL.E because I think it showcases exactly what modern animation has achieved. WALL.E is a largely silent film with gorgeous visuals and a strong environmental message that is still accessible to general audiences, including children. Surly one of Pixar’s finest achievements deserves to be held in just as high regard as David Fancher’s 8th best film.

Ps. You will notice a distinct lack of The Dark Knight in the 2008 nominations as well.

Psycho (1960)

Actual Nominees: The Apartment, The Alamo, Elmer Gantry, Sons and Lovers, The Sundowners

Another genre historically left out of the running is horror. Only 6 horror films have ever been up for the award (The Exorcist, Jaws, The Silence of the lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan and Get Out). Horror is a genre that is often looked down upon in the film community for being ‘low-brow’ and not as artistic, a similar struggled as the one faced by the superhero genre. With important releases such as: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Suspiria, Halloween, Alien, The Shining, Let he Right One In, Night of the Living Dead and perhaps most surprising, Psycho going unnoticed by the academy it is clear to see that there is a bias against the genre somewhere in Hollywood. Psycho is also emblematic of another problem with historic best picture nominations. What on earth is the academy’s issue with Alfred Hitchcock? Psycho is not the only of Hitchcock’s classic films not to receive the nomination, in fact North by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window and Dial M for Murder were all snubbed.

On a related note despite being nominated 5 times Hitchcock never received the Oscar for best director putting him in the prestigious company of: David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Edgar Wright, Spike Lee, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Wells and Stanley Kubrick. So, I guess you could say that it isn’t just the Best Picture category that doesn’t make sense.

These were 6 examples I felt I could make a point out of, it is important to remember that many more examples are out there of revolutionary masterworks that went unrecognised come awards season. People don’t take into consideration what happens behind the scenes at the Oscars. The ceremony needs good ratings, The Academy needs to honour films with progressive messages that are easily digestible, and everyone has an agenda and wants to see their friends win. The Oscars are a lot of fun, it gives people like as a chance to talk about the films we loved that year hopefully see our favourites given some well-deserved recognition but let’s not take it more seriously than we should. Next year when the Academy inevitably choses to honour mediocrity remind yourself that The Third Man wasn’t nominated in 1950 or you could remind yourself that Singin’ in the Rain wasn’t nominated in 1953, alternatively mention that 2001: A Space Odyssey was snubbed in 1969, The Matrix in 2000, Back to the Future in 1986, Pan’s Labyrinth in 2007, Cool Hand Luke in 1968. Or if you want your could run into the street and shout about how, Duck Soup, Modern Times, His Girl Friday, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Oldboy, Reservoir Dogs and The Big Lebowski all weren’t nominated for god dammed thing.

Nathan Needs A Username’s Must See Movies: https://letterboxd.com/nathan_r_l/list/nathan-needs-a-usernames-must-see-movies/

Nathan Needs A Username’s Avoid At All Cost Movies: https://letterboxd.com/nathan_r_l/list/nathan-needs-a-usernames-avoid-at-all-cost/

#oscars #acadamy awards #the avengers #eternal sunshine of the spotless mind #who framed roger rabbit #donnie darko #wall.e #psycho

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thebeethathums · 6 years ago

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Observers - 61

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes

The inner workings of your mind woke you with frightening images, jolting you awake to a spell of shaking as your eyes desperately tried to adjust to the dark. It had been late afternoon when you'd pretty much collapsed on the large four-poster bed in the room Mycroft had deemed yours for the extent of your stay. He’d tried to get you to let someone look you over but you’d refused and asked to be alone so he’d left you with a first aid kit and some pajamas he’d had Anthea pick up since you’d lost your duffle. The only thing you’d felt like doing was sleeping so you’d just flung yourself as is on the bed and had been asleep at least long enough for the soft light of dusk to fall into the full darkness of night. You took a number of deep breaths as you tried to stabilize your brain’s grasp on reality and then carefully readjusted to go back to sleep. One of the most frustrating things in life is being entirely exhausted- physically, mentally, or both as you were now- and finding that you aren’t able to sleep. Growling in frustration, you slowly shifted to your side with a little whimper- the first night after a beating was always the worst. With your ability to toss and turn as you normally would limited by the fact that it felt like you’d been steamrolled by a train, you couldn’t even attempt to get comfortable. Letting out a weighted sigh, you rolled to your stomach, forgetting that you very likely had a couple of fractured ribs, and let out a yelp as pain rippled up your chest. You hastily righted yourself and slipped out of bed, giving up on your quest for sleep – the room was too quiet, the bed too big, and you were too uneasy with being alone.

Aiming to solve at least one of those problems, you quietly padded down the hallways of Mycroft’s home in search of a nice looking armchair to sleep in and stumbled upon the man himself. You hesitated in the doorway to the big opulent office where Mycroft was sitting behind a large mahogany desk, looking deep in thought with his fingers laced beneath his chin and his eyes closed. Just watching for a moment as you tried to decide what to do, you wondered if he would know you were there and then if he would care if you were before deciding you were entirely too tired to care, creeping into the room to curl up in one of the two comfy looking chairs by the fire. When Mycroft did eventually come out of his thoughts in the early morning, he was not surprised in the slightest to find you asleep in his office, in fact he’d assumed you’d end up there eventually. It hadn’t taken long from when you’d curled up for you to fall asleep, as you’d found the sound of the fire, the small space of the chair, and his silent presence comforting. He moved to sit across from you, debating if he should wake you to insist you at least let him clean the cuts on your face or not, but ultimately decided to let you sleep for a little while longer. Mycroft didn’t believe in revenge- it was far too tied up in emotion and irrationality- but he did believe in punishment for wrongdoings and hurting you in the way that that man had was serious wrongdoing in his eyes. He’d never really had a friend before and he was very aware that it was not only a nuisance but a weakness to care but if he was going to have a friend to care about then he certainly wasn’t going to let anything happen to them. As such, he’d not only made the arrangement for your ex to be banned from England, as you’d asked, but had also made sure the man would face charges in France for kidnapping and assault without his usual loopholes. Mycroft shifted in his chair, accidentally knocking over his umbrella that had been leaning against the arm, and the noise startled you awake, panic settling on your face for a moment before you remembered where you were. He offered you an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry, my dear, it was not my intent to wake you.” You returned his smile weakly, “No need for apologies, Mycroft. Thank you for letting me intrude in your space for as long as I have.” “It’s not an intrusion if I am not bothered by it. How are you feeling?” “Better now that I’ve slept,” you huffed, getting up, “but I should probably go clean up a bit.” Mycroft escorted you back to your room since your knowledge of the house’s layout wasn’t sound, offering, “I am pleased to inform you that you no longer have to worry about that man. The detective inspector has done his part and I have done mine. He will be sent back to France tomorrow morning.” You let out a soft relieved sigh, “I cannot thank you enough, Mycroft. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Reaching your room, you opened the door to find your duffle and satchel sitting on a chair and turned to give him a confused look, “How did you-“ “I figured you might want them,” he offered, giving a small smug shrug at your surprise. You quickly bounced up to press a kiss to his cheek, exclaiming “Thank you,” before practically skipping over to your bag. He blinked, recovering from what had just happened as he was reminded of why you’d caught his attention in the first place- your unpredictability, and then cleared his throat, “I’m afraid I must go, there is some work I have to take care of, but I’ve left your phone on the nightstand. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if something comes up.” You nodded, shuffling a little awkwardly as you realized you’d be alone in his house, “I won’t. Have a good day, Mycroft” Once he was gone, you got to work, taking a long shower before beginning to tend to your injuries, and after a few hours, you were done. You sank down into the chair in your room, just slouching for a few minutes before pulling your satchel into your lap. Reaching your hand in, you were quickly reminded of your predicament at the train station and pulled a face- you needed your sketchbook. Finding your laptop, you quickly hacked the GPS for John’s phone, mentally noting that you needed to help him come up with a better password… It was no wonder Sherlock got into his stuff all the time. His phone was across town and you checked your own phone, finding that he hadn’t contacted you yet to figure out why you hadn’t called which meant he was caught up in the case with Sherlock. You shot a text to Mycroft that you were going over to your flat to pick up a few things while the boys were out on the case and then pulled on your shoes and left the house.

#Sherlock Holmes x Reader #sherlock x reader #BBC Sherlock #reader insert #Watson!Reader #Sherlock #Sherlock holmes #mycroft Holmes #John Watson #reader #sibling!reader #Artist reader #slow burn #mycroft bonding #x reader #fanfic #fan fiction #thebeethathums #Observers

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palmettoes · 6 years ago

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Aaron/Katelyn 61

(hehe this has only been sitting in my inbox for uhh 6 months i am so sorry! anyway !!!! never written aaron/katelyn before !!! also haven’t written m/f fanfiction since i was 13 but i love these kids thanks for giving me a reason to make up katelyn’s whole backstory)

disclaimer: if ur pro inc*st u are legally not allowed to touch anything i write

read it on ao3! | prompts are closed :(

61. “I told you not to fall in love with me.”

Katelyn, eight years old, loses her mother to white lights and hospital beds. It’s preventable, low mortality rate, chance of survival looks hopeful. Katelyn knows this because she looks it up on her dad’s old box computer when he’s working late one night, her older brother playing outdated records too loudly to notice her disappearing into their father’s private study. Katelyn knows this because the doctors tell her so—not in so many words, because she’s eight, but enough that she knows they are optimistic about the results.

Katelyn, eight years old, wonders why doctors can juggle something so fragile as a life playfully among them and lie through their teeth when they catch the corner of an eye.

Katelyn, eighteen years old, is determined not to be like other doctors. Getting into biochemistry at university feels like winning the sprint but losing the marathon. Her professors crack down on the workload immediately, adamant that medicine is not for those who do not want to be there. And Katelyn wants to be there, maybe more than anyone else, but life has already dealt her so much weight and Katelyn is fast running out of strength to lift these stooped shoulders.

She tries out for the Vixens, Palmetto’s cheerleading team, mostly because her roommate, Marissa, waxes poetic about the nights she’ll spend huddled between football players in one of the downtown bars, and Katelyn figures she could do with the extracurricular.

(The exy team does not factor into her decision, but gossip travels far and fast and the idea of standing in close quarters to them puts her on edge for reasons that can only be explained through hollow whispers and stolen glances behind their backs.)

The Vixens are a rough and tumble team, from the figure eight pattern of cigarette burns on Marissa’s forearm, to the handful of Zoloft Anaïs throws up in her dorm toilet during Freshers’ Week, to the way Billie sleeps with their chin tucked over their shoulder so they can watch their own back. Katelyn is just scraping this side of nineteen, knows the weight of Prozac on her tongue better than that of a meal, and cannot remember the last time her father looked at her without looking right through her. Inexorably, Palmetto State University feels like home.

“How about that backliner though? He’s a tall, dark stranger I’d welcome into my crystal ball,” Marissa says, shaking her pom pom in Anaïs’ face as they stumble towards the bus the night after Palmetto’s first exy game of the season. Anaïs bats Marissa’s arm away, switching her duffel to her other shoulder to put an extra distance between them.

“Didn’t notice. It’s their offensive dealer that I was paying attention to.”

“Their captain.” (It sounds like an innuendo but almost everything does coming out of Marissa’s mouth.) “Anyway, I heard from Mick on the football team that Ainsley told Prati that Mia sits with two of the exy players at lunch on Tuesdays and apparently Mr Tall and Dark is hitting it with the captain. Isn’t that a sandwich you’d love to get between?”

“Not particularly.”

“Boo, you whore.”

Marissa shakes her pom pom again and Anaïs’ shove gains force.

“Don’t boo me because I’m gay.”

Billie taps Katelyn’s elbow and rolls their eyes at the other two, sweeping an arm out to offer Katelyn to climb ahead of them onto the bus. Katelyn hitches her duffel a little higher and climbs the steps. Anaïs likes the seat over the wheel so Katelyn chooses the row in front, tucking her bag under her seat so Billie can settle next to her. Anaïs and Marissa scramble in behind them, still bickering over the attraction of various exy players. Katelyn glances out the window and catches sight of an orange and white gaggle making their way to the other PSU bus parked outside Breckenridge stadium. Mr Tall and Dark backliner is holding hands with the captain but chatting to a lanky boy with a frown too many shades short of pleasant. Most of the Foxes move as a unit, a crowd collected behind their coach, but several steps and a whole chasm behind them trails the remainder of the team.

Katelyn recognises assistant coach Kevin Day because, as strong as her distaste for the sport, she grew up this side of the turn of the century. She doesn’t think she could miss Kevin Day if she tried. He is flanked by two identical blond men and an emphatic, dark-skinned man a head or so above the other two. Katelyn had watched one of the twins block the goal all night with a ferocity like he was exercising a personal vendetta against the ball, seen the other punch an opposing striker square in the jaw seemingly unprovoked. She shudders, remembering the rumours she’d heard whispered about the exy team and, for the first time, believing them. She turns away from the window and bumps Billie’s shoulder with her own, pushing blond hair and murderous glares from her mind.

The thing is, Katelyn has no reason to engage with the exy team. She cheers at their games and catches glimpses of them between stadium and parking lot, but she doesn’t learn their names or dance with them at college parties the way she does with the football team.

The thing is, Katelyn’s hands are full enough already. She is unofficially deemed in charge of the first year Vixens—some combination of the fact that Marissa listens when Katelyn tells her to shut up, and Anaïs trusts her enough to press a pill bottle into her hand after her second overdose in as many weeks, and Billie talks to her more than anyone because Katelyn is the only one who speaks ASL. Katelyn finds she doesn’t mind it. The constant demand for attention makes a welcome difference to the stony silence of her family home. With homework, cheerleading, and three new best friends keeping her busy, Katelyn barely has time to dwell on the hollow feeling that has been cutting her chest open for the past decade.

The thing is, the short blond boy from the exy team is hard to miss. (Well, one of them is anyway.) Katelyn figures out he’s the backliner, the one she saw punching that striker from Breckenridge, and not the one that sticks to Kevin Day like glue, or a prickly burr. He crops up in her biochem lectures, at her favourite campus café, tucked behind a bookshelf at the library across from her and Billie’s usual study spot. He is always accompanied by at least one of his little posse, usually the noisy one, except during their shared lectures. Katelyn finds herself seeking him out when she enters the room and, more often than not, she catches him blinking back at her.

They’re two thirds through their first quarter by the time she learns his name. He stops by her desk on the way out of the lecture hall, causing her notebook to slip out of her hand in surprise. He kneels to pick it up for her and doesn’t smile, but there’s a friendliness to his eyes that Katelyn has never seen before.

“Katelyn, right?” he asks. Katelyn has no idea how he knows this but she nods instead of questioning it. “Aaron. Did you get notes on Voltolini’s lecture this week? I missed it.”

She’s so caught out by the disruption to their routine, by the brittle edge to his voice that she hadn’t expected, by the abrupt introduction to the quarter-long suspense of wondering his name, that she almost forgets to answer. When she realises she’s been staring at him for coming on ten seconds, she shakes it out of her system and finishes zipping up her backpack.

“Oh. Yeah, did you want to borrow them? Or,” she swings the strap of her backpack over her shoulder and steps towards the door, Aaron falling into pace beside her, “we could go over them together?”

He is quiet for a moment, as if the question requires extensive thought. Katelyn wonders briefly if she should be offended by his lack of immediate interest, but decides she finds it endearing that the authenticity of his response matters so much to him.

“At the library?” he offers. “I have a study period now.”

“Sure,” she says. She’d been headed that way to meet Billie anyway and doesn’t suppose they’ll mind the small intrusion.

“So how come you missed the lecture?” she asks when it becomes apparent their trek to the library will remain otherwise silent.

“Andrew,” Aaron says vaguely, waving his hand as though this is sufficient enough an explanation. When Katelyn doesn’t look convinced, he adds, “My brother. You’ve seen him?”

She nods, not totally understanding but realising it’s personal enough that she doesn’t want to pry.

Billie is already sitting at their table when Katelyn arrives, Aaron in tow. They have printouts of various articles spread across the desk and a focused frown on their face, but they look up when Katelyn and Aaron stop in front of them.

“Aaron, this is Billie. Billie, Aaron. From the exy team.”

Billie waves at Aaron, then pierces Katelyn with their gaze, tilting their head slightly in Aaron’s direction.

“Do you speak ASL?” Katelyn asks him as she pulls out a chair and begins unpacking her bag. Aaron settles into the seat next to her, tapping the tabletop anxiously.

“No. Was that in the lecture?”

“No, no, of course not. Don’t worry about it.” Katelyn laughs lightly and makes eye contact with Billie.

“Since when do we hang out with exy players?” they sign, eyes flicking to Aaron.

“He’s borrowing some notes. What’s wrong with being friendly?” she signs back. Billie shrugs and turns back to their articles. Katelyn flicks open her notebook and grins at Aaron.

“Let’s do this,” she says. His responding smile is small and fleeting but Katelyn catches the hard upturn of his lips and her skin tingles all over.

Aaron falls easily into place among Katelyn’s friends. He becomes a regular at their study sessions, reading notes over Katelyn’s shoulder or catching her eye across the table with that same smile like a secret that hurts his throat on the way up. He never brings any of his teammates, but Katelyn can’t complain. Study Aaron and Exy Aaron, she decides, are two sides of the same coin. He’s softer around her and her friends, all secret smiles and nervous tapping. She can’t imagine Study Aaron punching anyone in the face.

He spills into her other routines intrinsically. She stops making excuses to invite him out for coffee or to lunch or on a walk around the campus green when she’s feeling antsy. She struggles to remember a time when the sight of him intimidated her, when she believed the rumours turning the air sour at his heels wherever he walked.

Katie he calls her from across the hall to grab her attention, and Kate when he talks about her to her friends, and K (intimate and familiar and warm in her chest) over text. Katie-Lyn he teases when they’re alone on one of their walks and he relaxes enough that his smile stops looking like barbed wire. She laughs and elbows him and writes Double-A-Ron on the back of folded notes they pass between them during lectures.

Katelyn doesn’t engage with the exy team, but every rule has its exceptions and Aaron is hers. Brilliant, beautiful Aaron, who keeps his smiles a secret and his family a mystery and who holds her gaze across a crowded hallway like it is the most fragile of things.

They never call it dating, though Katelyn suspects that might be what it is. She hardly qualifies as an expert but the shared lunches and secret notes and blushing eye contact feel too reminiscent of her high school girlfriend to be anything else. (She asks Billie, once, if they think Aaron thinks they’re a couple and they roll their eyes and wave her off. She cannot bring herself to put up with Marissa’s crowing long enough to ask for another opinion.) So it’s hard to say where he falls in the categories of her relationships, but when she invites him out for dinner he doesn’t say no and, though she doesn’t call it a date, it doesn’t feel platonic.

They go to an Italian restaurant on campus, partly because Katelyn figures everyone likes pizza and partly because Marissa says the sundae for two is a date-saver. (Not that Katelyn likes to think their sort-of-date will need saving, but it’s always nice to be prepared.) And she’s right, because Aaron does like pizza and the sundae is delicious and the date doesn’t need saving. Until it does.

“I had to beg Nicky to cover for me tonight,” Aaron is saying, no trace of the curl Katelyn has come to search for at the corner of his lips. “He doesn’t like disrupting the balance.”

Katelyn isn’t sure she follows but she doesn’t have to ask to know the only explanation she’ll get is Andrew. His name is the answer to every question, no matter how she phrases it. His name is the flat line of Aaron’s mouth and the fierce swing of his uppercut. His name is the undeniable truth behind the rumours that tail Aaron wherever he goes.

“We can’t do this,” Aaron says and the ice cream turns to dust in Katelyn’s mouth. She thinks bitterly that at least she can prove Marissa wrong; no sundae for two is saving this date.

“Do what?” she asks and her voice is too small for her mouth. She is eight years old and Aaron is the doctor dangling hope too far out of her reach.

“You, me, us,” he says, frustrated and lonely and scared all at once. “You can’t fall in love with me.”

It aches in more ways than she could have known it would. Because how do you predict the outcome when you’re missing the beginning? How do you prepare for the fallout when you aren’t part of the equation? When you’re just collateral damage?

“Says who?” Katelyn asks, and then, “Andrew” in unison with Aaron because, of course. Because, who else?

Aaron’s cheek dimples between his teeth and he lets his spoon clang against the rim of their shared bowl. Katelyn pushes hers through the half-melted ice cream, appetite fast disappearing. She wants to demand answers or argue the absurdity of their situation or maybe just cry. Instead, she folds.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay?”

“I get it. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t get it, but Aaron looks at her like she’s handing him the moon so she breathes through her nose, counts to five, and offers him a shaky smile. Moulding herself into the shapes other people need her to be is Katelyn’s specialty. She grew up a chameleon in order to survive. This is no different to her father looking at her like he needed a clinically detached housemaid more than he needed a daughter mourning the loss of her mother.

“Ready to call it a night?” she says, because there is something irreparable in the air between them.

“I’ll walk you back,” Aaron agrees.

They say goodnight outside Katelyn’s dorm building, but what they mean is goodbye. What they mean is this is it. What they mean is we had a good thing and neither of us are good enough people to deserve that.

Katelyn, nineteen-and-three-quarter years old, watches hope shatter in all too familiar shards.

They never called it dating, so they don’t call it a break up, but that’s what it feels like. It is broken where Katelyn can’t reach to fix it because she does not know what fractured it to begin with. There is a week between Katelyn’s return home for the holidays and her brother’s scheduled time off, during which the silence of her childhood home sits heavy on her shoulders. She passes the time under a mound of blankets, drowning out her father’s refusal to acknowledge her with television static.

When Antoni returns, so does the life slowly trickling out of the air. He wields noise like a blade to the abrasive reticence of their home, and goads Katelyn out of bed to help him make potato fritters.

“Chiquita, college has made you so mopey,” he says, watching her instead of the eggs he’s whisking. Katelyn slices onions and pretends they are the only reason her eyes sting.

“More like being in this house makes me mopey. College keeps me too busy for that.”

Antoni hums, and watches her, and whisks his eggs.

“And how is college? Top of your class yet?”

Katelyn rolls her eyes but tells him about her lectures and her friends and her cheer practice. She finishes with the onions and starts combining the second bowl of mixture while Antoni scoops the first into misshapen ovals. When the fritters are under the grill and Katelyn’s eyes have stopped stinging altogether, Antoni pours them each a glass of iced tea and leans across the kitchen island to smile at her.

“So has the little Vixen caught a Fox yet?” He pauses to consider her a moment. “Or another Vixen perhaps?”

Katelyn sucks in a breath but doesn’t answer the question, and the silence rings deafening in her ears. She tells her brother everything but she cannot tell him this. (They never called it dating. There is nothing to tell anyway.)

“Oh, Kitty-Kat. Come here,” Antoni says. He doesn’t wait for her to move, instead rounding the island to wrap his arms around her from behind. She leans her head against his bicep, turning so her face is mashed into his woolen jumper, and closes her eyes. They stay like that, his chest to her back and his chin against her crown, for as long as it takes her to stop holding air in her chest until she’s gasping and shaky. She doesn’t cry, but her throat feels raw enough that she could have.

“Ant,” Katelyn whispers, her voice shaking on the vowel, “do you think I’m broken?”

“Of course you’re not.” His arms tighten a fraction around her shoulders. “Why would you think that?”

“It feels like everything I touch shatters.”

She thinks of her mother’s life splintering to pieces in Katelyn’s eight year old hands, of her father’s voice splitting in two and washing away whenever he tried to speak to her, of Aaron’s face contorting as their date cracked and caved around them. She feels like a fractured bone, cleft down the middle, never whole as she is.

Antoni lets out a soft breath against her hair and presses a kiss to the curve of her skull.

“No, chiquita,” he says, “you’re not broken. The world is.”

Returning to Palmetto is easier than Katelyn expects it to be. Antoni only has three weeks leave, so Katelyn spends the last month of vacation alone with her father. She is almost ready to welcome the noise and clutter of her college dorm.

Returning to the Vixens is more of a homecoming than entering her family house. As sophomores, they’re expected to throw themselves both into their own practice and that of the freshmen, and Katelyn and Marissa’s room becomes something of a communal ground for the first and second years. Katelyn doesn’t mind so much, because it takes her thoughts off the scowl she hasn’t seen leave Aaron’s face since they returned from break.

She watches the exy team walk to and from the stadium on game nights, their divide in half somehow having become thirds, until she realises the centre group is actually a solitary affair: a dark-haired, rabbit-eyed boy curled in on himself, alone in the rift between his teammates. She focuses on him because it stops her gaze from betraying her resolve and straying to where Aaron walks several paces behind.

And it almost lasts; this painstaking stalemate, this mutual ignorance. Katelyn sits with her back to his table in the library and Aaron walks past her without pausing on the way out of their lecture theatre. It almost stops feeling like a bruise underneath her skin.

But somehow he trickles back into her life as easily as he did once before. Katelyn finds she can smile at him when they pass each other on campus and she can make eye contact when she waves his teammates onto the court during games. She remembers the way he cupped her name in the curl of his tongue as if it were reverent and fragile as glass. She remembers how he held her gaze like he was trying to keep her afloat, and how he saved his smiles to share in the privacy of her company. She remembers he did not build the wall between them, only said he wouldn’t climb it, and she can’t blame him for resting his weary hands.

So when she misses her morning lecture because Marissa woke with a bad taste in her mouth and a tremor in her hands, Katelyn catches Aaron on his way to the library, a hand in his path and a question in her eyes.

“I had to skip this morning. Do you mind sharing notes?” It’s a surrender of sorts, an end to their face-off. Aaron made the first move all those months ago, so this time Katelyn dresses in white armour and guides her pawn forward. They have come full circle.

Aaron’s smile is slow, a tentative curl that crawls quietly up his face, and Katelyn realises for the first time how much she has missed seeing it bloom for her.

“I’m headed to the library now if you’ve got time,” he says. The words are marrow filling the cracks of Katelyn’s broken bone and she feels herself coming together as their steps line up with one another.

It’s easier, after their not-breakup, to build their routine around honesty. Andrew is still an answer, but this time one that comes served with an explanation. Katelyn still doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand the chokehold that Aaron calls family, but she respects it. After all, she isn’t in a position to point fingers at dysfunctional.

They confine their dates to the library café and the medicine building, avoiding places that Aaron’s family are likely to haunt. And it isn’t perfect, it isn’t textbook romance, but for the first time it is something whole that Katelyn cradles to her chest and it does not shatter on impact.

When Aaron leaves for a weekend and comes home a broken man—brotherless, breathless, hands a bruised and bloodied mess—Katelyn does what she has always done best and builds him back together with her own chipped pieces. She fights his nightmares with nothing but her fists and takes his hands in her own when he cannot look at them without seeing blood beneath his fingernails. She does what she can but she is still just collateral, she is still on the outside looking in on a rupture that happened long before she became a spectator. There is still a tear that Katelyn does not know how to stitch up.

(The dark-haired, rabbit-eyed boy is called Neil and his hair isn’t actually quite so dark and he is fixing the broken parts Katelyn can’t reach and when he says Andrew’s name it sounds like a question, not an answer.)

Getting Aaron back is the gift Katelyn doesn’t think she deserves. Cutting him off feels like shattering her own hope. She watches the pieces slide between her fingers, shoves the remnants deep where she can’t cut herself on their serrated edges, and tries not to think of the way Aaron’s face split apart when she told him Andrew was the answer to a question he did not ask.

She tells Billie, late one night as they pass a bottle of Marissa’s claret between them from opposite ends of the couch, that she doesn’t know if she’ll be whole again. It is a vulnerability that no one but Antoni ever sees, but Katelyn is wine-drunk and fractured, too disheartened to care that her misery has an audience.

“Why not?” Billie says, holding the bottle between their knees to free up their hands. “You were whole before him. He didn’t take anything you can’t replace.”

“He was the first thing I had that I thought I could hold on to.” Katelyn’s hands falter as the weight of her honesty hits her. She doesn’t know who she is when she isn’t fixing other people and Aaron is a fissure that is out of her hands. “What’s the point if I can’t keep anything without breaking it?”

“You have us. You have the team. You have a career path you’re good at and a hobby you love. You have a brother who adores you and you have Marissa and Anaïs and me. You are whole on your own but you’re part of bigger things too. He’ll come back to you or he won’t and either way you’ll still be the person you always have been.”

It doesn’t seem appropriate to cry, but Katelyn is wine-drunk and fractured, so she does anyway. Billie hooks their ankle around hers on the couch between them and knocks the claret bottle against her knee. Katelyn alternates between drinking and sobbing, and loses the rest of the night to the breaking of her heart.

Aaron comes back to her piece by broken piece. He shows up at her dorm with his pain a palpable weight in his hands and tells her he’s trying, he’s breaking faster than he can put himself together but he’s trying. And Katelyn knows a thing or two about falling apart.

They pour their fragments into one another in Katelyn’s bed because Marissa is out with some of the older Vixens and they both know better than to waste an empty dorm room. Later, with his back to Katelyn’s chest and his legs slid between either of hers, Aaron finds the parts of his voice he has been missing.

“You were the first beautiful thing I ever called mine,” he says and Katelyn remembers midnight with Billie, remembers the saccharine claret slipping down her throat, remembers thinking Aaron was the first thing she could ever keep whole. “I won’t lose you for him.”

Katelyn slides her hand across the bare expanse of his stomach, presses her face into the base of his neck, and breathes and breathes and breathes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, and means it.

They patch themselves up in tandem—Aaron knits one, Katelyn purls two—and they are old hands at this now. Katelyn watches their healing overlap in familiar stitches and she waits and she hopes and she breathes. Because this thing between them is chipped and bruised but it is whole. It is theirs.

When Andrew comes for her, Katelyn wonders if she should be surprised. She has heard his name in response to too many questions to be shocked when he treats his words like an arrow and her the target. He and Aaron are identical twins but when Katelyn looks at him up close for the first time, all she sees are the differences. He carries none of the regret that bleeds through Aaron’s teeth and too much of the horror that feeds behind his eyes.

“You won,” rabbit-eyed Neil says, gaze already chasing after Andrew like he might not be just any answer but the answer. “Aaron’s not in class now, if you want to call him.”

Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, her brain says and her fingers, though numb with fear, respond on reflex. He picks up while Katelyn is halfway through a choked sob and she hears his breath sharpen like a dagger.

“Katelyn?” His voice is a rush of concern, a spear and shield readying itself in her defence. “What happened?”

“Andrew,” is all she can say between broken breaths, and it is the answer to every question. After all this time, she gets it.

In the time it takes Aaron to get from his dorm to the library, Katelyn has found her breath but not her strength. She is still curled in on herself behind the bookshelf in the far corner and she knows her friends will be wondering but she doesn’t yet trust her legs to support her. Aaron sinks down next to her, an anchor holding her steady in the aftermath of Andrew’s storm.

“Did he hurt you?” he asks quietly and Katelyn doesn’t know how to answer. She thinks if she opens her mouth she might not know how to do anything but cry.

It’s enough of an answer though. Aaron vibrates with an anger that he almost never wears around her and Katelyn thinks of the Breckenridge striker who took Aaron’s fist to the face. He looks more like the other side of the coin, more like Exy Aaron, than she has seen him in a while.

“I told you not to fall in love with me,” he says. It is frustrated and lonely and scared, and Katelyn has heard him sound like that once before and she will do anything before she lets him shatter again.

“I didn’t listen.”

He falls into her at that, half straddling her lap, arms around her waist and face pressed hard to her shoulder. Katelyn raises her arms to cradle his body against her, rests her cheek in the nest of his hair, and thinks this is it. Thinks he is the answer. Thinks we won.

“My Katie,” Aaron whispers into her skin and it is the glue drawing her broken shards together.

#if u sent in a prompt ages ago it's still happening dw !!!!! im uhh slowly slowly getting thru them #this is the last thing im posting before rbb tho bc i Have to focus on that fic for now #maz.dox #katelyn #amm #kaaron #fic #anon #answered

150 notes · View notes

lovemesomesurveys · 6 years ago

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1. Are you related to the last person you spoke to? Yes, I was talking to my mom and brother. 2. Are your blankets normally kicked all over the place when you wake up? No. 3. Do you wear an eye mask when you go to sleep? Nope. I’ve been wanting to get one of those eye cooling sleep masks, though. I get bad headaches and cold washcloths help with those, so I figured a cooling sleeping mask would be great for that. And for when it’s hot. 4. Are family get-togethers fun or awkward for you? I like them. 5. Are any of your friends hoping to be famous one day? No.

6. What do you do if someone way too old for you hits on you? I’d decline. 7. Can you eat a whole pizza by yourself? I typically only eat 2-3 slices at a time. 8. Do you wear a lot of red clothes? No. 9. Do you lock the doors? Of course. 10. Is coffee better with or without milk? I only use milk (well soy milk) when I order lattes/mocha/macchiatos. If I order a regular coffee at like a restaurant then I use Half and Half and sugar. At home I use flavored creamer. 11. When was the last time you were at a hotel? Last weekend briefly when dropping my brother off. My mom and I went up to check out his room and stuff before we left. 12. Who would you kiss right now if you could kiss anyone? My doggo. 13. Are you afraid of the dark, or were you ever? I mean, I sleep with the TV on for some light and sound because I can’t have it completely dark or silent. 14. Do you have trust issues? Not really. I just have a hard time opening up and expressing myself to anyone. 15. When was the last time you cried from laughing so hard? I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed that hard. 16. What are your plans for Thursday? I don’t have any plans for tomorrow. 17. Have you had your birthday yet this year? Yes, back in July. 18. Are you playing hard to get right now? No. I’m just hard to want. 19. Do you still talk to the person you were dating five months ago? I was single and still am. 20. Does cuddling freak you out? No. 21. Are your toenails painted? Nope. 22. Have you ever told someone you were in love with them? Yes. I laid all my feelings out on the table for Joseph, which took every ounce of courage I could muster up. It was so hard for me. 23. Ever slapped a guy in the face? Only playfully, and it was lightly. 24. Would you ever dye your hair blonde? Nah. I had blonde highlights for several years, but I never went full on blonde. 25. Did you make anything to eat today? I had a sandwich for lunch. 26. Do you wear eyeliner? When I wear makeup, which is rare nowadays. 27. What’s your favourite part of the song that you’re listening to? I’m not listening to music right now. 28. Do you think you’re a good friend? I haven’t been at all for the past few years. I’ve been very shitty. :/ I can’t even call anyone a friend anymore. 29. If the year consisted of only one season, which would you choose? Fall. 30. Could you go out in public looking like you do now? I’m wearing leggings with Santas all over and A Christmas Story shirt at the moment... in October. :X lol I’d really rather not. Plus, my hair is messy. Like, I couldn’t even just throw a hat on it. 31. What was on your mind mostly today? Blah. 32. Who was the last person you got into a small argument with? My mom and I bicker sometimes, mostly cause my moody moods get especially bad and I just end up butting heads with everyone. :/ 33. Can you handle the truth? Depends. 34. Are there some songs you can’t listen to because they remind you of someone? I listen to them anyway and get sad. 35. Last night, did you go to sleep smiling? I never go to sleep smiling. 36. Where did you sleep last night? My bed. 37. Did you have a good day yesterday? It was alright. 38. What was the highlight of today? I’m getting my favorite pizza for dinner. 39. Do you hate anyone? Besides myself, no. 40. Do you wish you had the chance to tell someone something right now? Not right now. 41. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? My mom. 42. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now? No. 43. Do horror movies these days scare you? I love horror movies now it’s so weird. I used to be such a scardy cat. It’s October aka spooky time and I want to watch a ton of scary movies. 44. What is the best thing that’s happened in the past week? Spending the afternoon this past Sunday in one of my favorite touristy cities that’s near water so it’s a lot cooler there temp wise and it was great and getting my favorite pizza twice. 45. What colour is your hair? Naturally it’s dark brown, but I dye it red. 46. What did you do yesterday? Same stuff I always do. 47. What are you doing tonight? Eat pizza and watch AHS. 48. Have you ever thrown your cell phone in anger? When? No. 49. Do you think you will be in a relationship three months from now? No. 50. Do you want to fix things with anybody? Yes, but I know I’m not in the right space mentally to do so yet. 51. Could you go the rest of your life without drinking alcohol? I’ve gone 6 years so far since the last time and I have no desire to drink as of now. 52. Is your hair long enough to pull over your face like a mustache? Yeah. 53. Do you ever find yourself making up survey questions throughout the day? There’s been times I’ve thought up a question or two. 54. Who is your favourite online friend? I think the survey community on here is pretty cool. 55. What was the last thing you tried for the first time? Hmm. I can’t think of something at the moment. 56. What was the last thing you said out loud, and how loud were you speaking? I was saying goodbye to my mom and brother who were leaving to go get our food. 57. What’s your favourite nail polish colour to wear or see on others? I liked wearing black the best. 58. What was the last thing you learned? Hmm. 59. How warm do you like your showers/baths to be? Not scorching, burning hot, but hot. 60. Are there any advertisements/commercials you actually like? Which? There’s been some commercials that I actually like, but generally I don’t pay much attention to them. 61. How often do you visit your relatives? Not often these days. There’s some family members I was really close with that I haven’t seen in a few years, which is crazy. I just really became withdrawn, distant, and reclusive these past few years from everyone. :/ 62. In your opinion, what is the scariest natural disaster? All of them sound terrifying. I’ve thankfully never experienced one. So far anyway... 63. What design is on your bed sheets? They’re just pink. 64. What is your favourite brand of fizzy drink? Like soda? I like Coke and Dr. Pepper, but I haven’t actually soda, only just a bit when I take my medicine, in like 2 years. I used to have one a day and I had been drinking soda since I was a kid (not regularly as a little kid, but I had it sometimes. I regularly started having it in middle school). 65. As a kid, did you use toothpaste that wasn’t minty? Yeah, I remember having bubblegum flavored ones. 66. What is your favourite vegetable? Spinach, potatoes, broccoli. 67. Do you have any other countries’ timezones saved to your computer/mobile phone? No. 68. Is your username the same for every website? No. 69. What do you have in your online bookmarks? On the bookmarks bar on Chrome I have Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube. 70. Do you have a lucky number? Why is it so lucky? I don’t believe in luck, but my favorite number is 8. 71. Do you set your browser to remember passwords? No. 72. Describe the perfect burger: I’m not a big burger person, but if I were to have one I’d just want cheese, ketchup, mustard, and mayo. 73. What was the last thing you made yourself to eat? A sandwich. 74. Do you agree that the nude scenes in movies are generally unnecessary? Uhh sometimes, but it’s whatever. I still act like a kid and mostly look away, though lol. 75. Have you ever stood on a sea creature while at the beach? Uh, no? 76. What’s worse; speaking in all caps, or all lowercase? When people type in all caps my mind reads it like yelling. 77. What’s your favourite place to go for fast food? Taco Bell, Burger King, McDonald’s, Chick-Fil-A, or Jack in the Box. However, I haven’t really been into fast food at all for the past few months, oddly enough. 78. How many fillings do you have? A lot. 79. Do you prefer warm or cold hands? I’m fine with my hands being warm, just not me overall being hot. 80. Have you ever had a mud fight? No. 81. When you see people in love, is your first reaction “ew” or “cute”? Cute.

82. Have you ever woken up from a dream and thought it had actually happened? 83. Do you know anyone who closely resembles someone else? Yeah, family members. lol. 84. When your sunburn peels, do you leave it or pull at it? I’m the worst cause I pull it. :X 85. What type of food do you find yourself craving most (sweet, savoury, meat, etc.)? Savory. 86. Why did you last go to the doctors? Monthly checkup for one of the ongoing things I’m dealing with.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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boogiewrites · 6 years ago

Text

Choking On Sapphires 61

Title & Song: Maybe I’m Amazed

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Genevieve (OFC)

Word Count: 4800+

Summary: Alfie and Genevieve enjoy their time alone together in Paris/ They finally have time to talk about the big questions in their future. Alfie learns something new about Genevieve and he couldn’t possibly be more in love with her for it.

Warnings/Tags: Language. FLUFF. The Louvre. Almost getting arrested. Talk of babies and marriage. Gen crying over paintings. A piece of Gen’s past is revealed to Alfie.

**Chapter song is Maybe I’m Amazed by Paul McCartney**

Click on my icon then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

You have lunch at a cafe, sitting in the afternoon sun at your small table with the elaborate backed chairs. You make whispered speculations about the other patrons, sitting with your faces close together, hands held together in plain sight on the top of the table. You share coffee and bread before full courses of soup, fish and vegetables and a cheese plate. Proving again that he knows you, he orders you dessert.

"And Babas au Rhum for the missus," he says, hand motioning out to you. As you lower your face and cover it with your hand and silently laugh. "What is it Genny, you don't want to play me wife now?" he chuckles, taking a sip of coffee.

"A girl tries to have a little fun and gets caught and has to pay the price."

"That'll teach ya not to get caught." he snickers.

"That..." you sigh and shake your head, resting on the table with your elbows. "That's entirely valid." you start to laugh, running your fingers through your hair. "It's been so long since I've made up a life I suppose I've gotten rusty. " you say with a thoughtful pout.

"At least nothing was at stake. And it's just me that caught ya."

"That'd be death for any ordinary man."

"Well you are no ordinary man are ya love? Even in trousers." he says playfully wiggling his eyebrows.

"I like to think not." you grin.

"How long have we been married, by the way, just so I know." he says with a quick nod of his head at your expense.

"Almost four months."

"Ah. Still new. How romantic of you, Gen." he grins. "And where was our honeymoon if not Paris?"

"New York." you admit, looking down at the table.

"Ah yes, plenty of Jews there innit there? Were we vistin' family as well?"

"No. I didn't go that far." your face is back to easy going and you don't mind sharing the fantasy with him really. He was being a big tease about it, but you he wasn't making you feel bad about it, and that certainly meant something good didn't it?

"And what about the wedding? What was it like? Did you take me for every pound I've got? " he says sweetly, picking away at his beard.

"Of course I did," you say obviously with a playful tilt of your head. "Why do you want to know?" you ask with narrowed eyes. "You're asking an awful lot of questions for someone making fun of the fantasy."

"I ain't makin' fun and it's not entirely a fantasy now is it, love?" you feel the hairs prickle up on the back of your neck. You see his casual delivery, the confident pout of his lips as he explained. "Fantasy is usually something extravagant, something out of reach. Or something you'd never want but only enjoy the idea of." he goes on with that Alfie Solomons tongue twisting. Sharing his knowledge as if it were a gift. "Marriage and a wedding aren't things I would describe as such. So it ain't a fantasy innit?"

You study his face for a moment, as unreadable as ever, and you knew it was on purpose. He was trying to feel you out, wasn't he? "More of an artist's imagining?"

"And you must draw inspiration from somewhere. So certainly it's something you could share with me, of all people."

"I could." you pause, now trying to remain stoic as well, trying to figure out the reasoning behind those blue eyes of his. "If you'd like me to."

"Of course I bloody do, wouldn't have asked, would I?" he says obviously.

"There were lots of flowers." you say with a softer tone, looking out across the street to a flower shop.

"So this wasn't fantasy at all. You'd love a chuppah dripping in flowers wouldn't you love?" he says watching your face glaze over into the daydream again.

"I suppose I would. I hadn't thought about it up until now." you shake your head and the corner of your mouth turns up. "And that was precisely what I described. Lilacs and lavender falling down like cherry blossoms in the spring. A dress so big and a train so long there weren't enough children in the family to carry it." you begin to grin again, breaking the dazed thousand-yard stare and looking back to the table. "Perhaps not actually that big for real life though." you let out a little giggle and meet his eyes for just a moment.

"Well that's a relief." he says with a laugh and raise of his brows.

"It is?" you ask with a tilt of your head.

"It'd be a shame to not be able to get close to you on the day of after waiting so long." he says matter of factly before meeting your cautious gaze.

You share a moment of silence, you find the others face to be softer than expected. You'd never talked about marriage before with Alfie. It should seem a natural thing to do, given the delayed circumstances of your courtship. You knew only a few people that had waited a year before getting engaged. Although you were still learning about the rules of Judaism, you knew from distant memories of childhood that the process was far different from the usual traditions you were more familiar with, growing up with a Catholic father.

He sees that look in your eyes, although it was rare, he still knew it to be fear. "Is marriage still only a fantasy to you, Genevieve?" his voice was cool and calm. "I recall the last I had heard you didn't want to be married."

"I never said that," you say with blinking eyes and a hesitant tone. "I had spoken from the point of view of assuming I would never find anyone worth marrying." you clarify, a blush rising to your cheeks.

"Ah," he says, a slow nod, reading your nervous body language. He didn't want to push you too far, but surely he was reading the signs clearly. "Like your belief of romance to be dead?" he suggests.

"Yes, like that." you hold his stare, willing yourself to face this conversation. You wanted to get closer to him in Paris. This hadn't been what you'd meant by that though. You should tell him you love him first, shouldn't you? And you most certainly did. You never wanted to be without him, that meant you should marry him, right?

"And I believe you've told me you had changed your feelings on that particular subject, yeah?"

"A particular someone has changed my mind on that yes." you give him a slow-growing smile, looking back down and the table, willing yourself to face the fear you'd held for so long when it came to love and commitment. You reach out and hold his hand.

"Who is he? I'll kill 'im." he says, leaning in closer to you with a charming smile that always causes you to address the tension you hold in your shoulders and release it.

"Bold of you to assume it's a man." you say with raised brows before you both laugh.

"Entirely different set of problems there, mate." he chuckles and squeezes your hands. "Then if I may be so bold as to believe it was somehow me that changed your mind. And you have in fact changed your mind, yeah?" he nods his chin your way. "Then may I also be confirmed in my belief that you have changed your mind about marriage as well?"

"I was never against marriage with the right person."

"The person who made you believe in the romantic sort of marriage, yeah?"

"Yes. That particular person." you say softly.

You see a new sort of smile come across his face. His boyish handsomeness coming through as he gives you a closed lip smile with slow blinking eyes. He leans forward and kisses you gently.

A plate with raspberries and rum smelled sponge cake is slide onto the table, interrupting the eye contact you'd managed to hold. "Excusez-moi, voici vos babas au rhum." the waitress says with an apologetic smile behind bowing her head and leaving.

"I think we would've had this conversation a lot sooner, had we had time alone like this, pet." he says, moving to take his fork and slice the end of the sweet bread and holding it out towards you.

"So do I." you say before taking the piece into your mouth. "But we have all the time here in Paris to do so." you say, finishing chewing.

"That we do, my love." he says before trying to cake himself.

"Perhaps if it were made with your bread?" you suggest with a crooked smile. He hums in appreciation for your praise.

"Perhaps." he nods and reaches out with his hand again, assuring you felt that he mean what he was about to say, as in reflection to the weeks you'd been together had led him to feel guilty about the effort he was putting into seeing you. "I'll make a point to mark more time for us once we return to London, eh? Can't very well be a man who neglects his wife now can I?" he grins.

"For my sake, I'd certainly hope not." you say with a gentle smile as you let out a quiet chuckle.

"Here love, let's eat ya sweeties and let's be off to see the paintings. Would that please the missus?" his face continues to be amused and soft and you feel your heart fluttering about in your chest.

"It would please her very much." you say with a giggle before taking another bite of cake off the fork in his hands. --------

You move throughout the long hallways of the museum much like you had the rest the Paris, hand in hand. Alfie is distracted by the expressions that pass over your face as you look over the painting and statues that line the walls. He notices you keep speaking of wishing you could be as good as good as the works that hung in these halls. He believes you to be, and when he keeps correcting you, a light tap to the nose to scold you speaking any ill of your skills each time until you stop. You do cry, and it was expected. He gives you his sleeve, his handkerchief and tenderly wipes your stray years from your cheeks with his fingers as you sigh heavily and rest your head on his arm.

"Oh, look at it Alfie, darling. My love isn't it just heartbreaking?" you'd say, your hand to your chest and your eyes were hundreds of miles away in thought.

You reach a painting that he knows, a hearty chuckle from him as you approach and he points to Carravaggio's, Judith Beheading Holofernes.

"Oh look, Gen it's our epilogue." he says with a gruff single note laugh.

"Come off it mon Fie." you chuckle, with a roll of your eyes.

"What I don't like is that he truly looks like me in 'is one." he says with his bottom lip disappearing under his mustache.

"I won't deny that. But I'd never cut off your head, darling, I'm much too fond of it." you coo at him, lightly cupping his cheek. "But I must admit she has much the same approach as I doesn't she?"

"If you were left a widow you would cut off the offending parties head? Sounds like you love, yeah." he nods and pouts his lips in agreement.

"I meant in the story, the text of "Approaching to his bed, she took hold of the hair of his head." you say with a smirk. "Something I much adore doing with you."

"Naughty thing. Turnin' bible stories into flirtations. Dirty girl." he says with a deep chuckle.

"It's not a part of our works, so who cares." you let out a dismissive laugh. ------

You come across another painting to resemble him, St. Matthew and the Angel by Rembrandt.

"I don't want to draw attention to it but it would seem as if we're very popular in these works." he says quietly with a pointed finger to the painting.

"That would resemble you, were you old and gray." you nod. "But this is St. Matthew he was an apostle."

"Ah. Then perhaps not." he lets out an amused little chuckle. "But it does remind me of us, yeah. Me workin' away and you come fluttering in, perching on me shoulder to remind me of how heavenly things could be."

"Yes if you'd stop working and let me have me way." you say in a prissy way and he snorts in amusement.

"Always the same with ya Genny. Meowing about, rubbing on me and demanding attention like a cat in heat." he teases.

"How rude. A woman can vocalize her need for affection and attention, mon Fie." you giggle. "Although your comparison is almost embarrassingly accurate." you shrug and grin, taking his hand and tugging him away from the painting. -------

The last painting to draw a deep, gut-wrenching emotion from you was, of course, a Leonardo da Vinci. He feels your stuttered inhalation and looks down at you, finding your face solemn while taking in La Scapigliata with wide watery eyes. It wasn't a very large piece, especially in comparison to the ironic giant size of the statue of David or the entire wall-sized paintings of battles and myths you'd come across. Its size was no indication to the way it seemed to move you.

"How is it this one moves you, my love." he asks, kissing your head as you sigh and put an arm around his waist, and he moves to rest his over your shoulders.

"Look at her face." you whisper. Even though the face was the only true part more fully fleshed out in the portrait, he does as he's asked. "How did he imagine or capture such an expression?" your hand rests on your chest as your words barely scrape past your lips in their raspy and emotion filled response.

Alfie could tell this one was hitting you particularly hard. "What do you see, Genevieve?" he asks softly, leaning down to your ear.

"I see a fully expressed inner emotion, depicted outwardly as if caught candidly on her face." you let out a long sigh. "The slightly messy curls falling about, the downward casted soft eyes, the glow that is reflected off her skin. She doesn't care about anything else except that exact moment. That exact feeling she's being consumed by."

"You should describe things to the blind love. Your words are doing the art justice." he whispers, another kiss to your hair as he watches the tears fall from your eyes like he did the night of the opera. Now more certain in his choice to buy you the teardrop earrings for a memento from these days spent together. "What feelin' is it, my beautiful flower?"

"Love." you sigh out, another stuttered inhale past your trembling lips.

He studies the woman's face and truly tries to see in through your beautifully worded depictions. "I wonder what it is she's looking at?" he asks aloud.

"I imagine it to be what looking at your child for the first time must feel like. The exhaustion on her face, only countered with the slightest upturning of her lips, the heavy corners of her eyes crinkled just so, pouring wordless devotion to the new babe in her arms."

Suddenly he's hit with it. He sees what you see for a moment. "That is what it is, innit?" he whispers. Besides the babe itself, nothing else would matter at that moment except the emotion, and the unfinished state of the painting somehow made it more poignant suddenly to him. "You are bloody brilliant, Genevieve." he rasps out.

You blink rapidly, taken out of your fantasy of feeling the emotions for yourself. Beyond exhaustion, in pain and flooded with emotion, you lie in bed with a pinked babe to your breast, a vision coming to you as you cry silently. You turn your face with its tear-stained cheeks to meet his. You find his brow furrowed, lips in a tight line of thought as he brushes your cheek and holds the warmth to your face.

"The things I have seen you do, my love. The animal I have known and adored just the same as the tender and gentle soul that resides within you and it all astounds me. Your dual nature gives me hope that being hard and covered in blood isn't all my life may be. To have proof one can access such a broad range of emotions gives me a reason to believe there is more for me even when I am in doubt of it. The capacity for maternal love you hold was something I never expected in you."

"Having a child is a brutal and bloody business for a woman. You risk your life, you face unimaginable pain and gore just the same as coming by it through means of violence, you can come by it by means of love just the same."

"And you know of pain through violence, my love." he nods.

"Intimately."

"Do you wish to know of that pain through love, Genevieve? To bring a life into the world by blood instead of taking one out?" his brow shifts and he searching your face for answers. He holds his breath and he does not mean to. It was clear the art was working away at his emotions as well, forcing life's biggest questions out of him.

You nod and let out a shaky exhale. "I do." you answer simply. You realize the weight that lifted off of you that you hadn't known was there dissipates as you openly admit it to another person. To say it so closely, and to the person you hoped you would be making the life with touches you both. You can both feel it, a heartbeat shared in tandem for a moment as it skips at the thought of creating another heartbeat to share outside yourselves. So many things that seemed out of reach to you both were now attainable things because you'd found each other. You lean in to kiss him, he tastes the salt of your tears on your lips. "Is that something you wish to create as well?" you ask with a weak voice.

"Because of you... with you... yes." the delicate up turning of your lips as he confessed his hidden and never before shared thoughts with you stirs something deep and rooted within in at his core.

A tender and pure kiss, you place on his lips in repayment of the words you had spent so much time wondering if you'd ever hear from him. ----- Emerging from the stone rooms you feel the sun on your skin again as you take a deep breath of fresh air and have a good stretch, leaving the heaviness you felt as the emotions from the art weighed you down. You stand with your hands on your hips, looking about as Alfie adjusts his jacket. You suppose he too was dealing with the heaviness you felt. After all, you'd dealt with both topics of marriage and children today and so boldly and rather fearlessly for you both, the hangover from the intensity you shared when discussing deep topics.

"Excuse me?" you hear from behind you, revealing a policeman standing with his hands behind his back and an unwelcome look on his face.

"Yes?" you ask, straightening your posture, not hiding your distaste for the look he had on his face.

"I'm afraid your attire isn't legal in this city and I'm going to have to be placing you under arrest."

You openly laugh in his face and you feel the heat and power radiating off Alfie despite him being out of his jurisdiction. You hold your hand out behind you to signal him to stop, keeping your eyes on the man in front of you.

"My attire?" you scoff.

"Yes, it is illegal for a woman to wear trousers. It gives way to transvestitism and the law doesn't support that sort of behavior."

"Your city is full of artists, darling, you do nothing but support it!" you laugh with your head back.

"You're under arrest miss for the trousers and the attitude will not be helping your case, come now." he says as he reaches for the metal cuffs.

"I think not." you say with a deeper tone, narrowing your eyes at him.

"I can make a scene miss, or you can come with me as a lady should." he says as you continue to take steps backward as he approaches you.

"There will be a hell of a scene if you try and throw a Lafitte in jail." you say with a stubborn nod your head, your words strong and biting.

The man stops, his head pushing back as he studies you. You knew he would know who your uncle was. And if he wasn't in a precinct that was under his pay, chances are he was one that still feared him and his power.

"So you can leave me the fuck alone or I can call my uncle Altar from jail and have him come down and deal with you." you lean forward, hands on your hips and you stare into the man's uncertain eyes.

"Your uncle?" he says not convinced. "He's not your uncle, who are you? I've never even seen you before." he says with a worse attitude than you had.

"I'm Lilly Lafitte." you say crossing your arms across your chest, standing tall and taking a step towards him. "I've been living in London for years which is why you don't recognize me you pup." you say with a nod of your chin at the young man.

"Lilly?" he says with a face showing clear confusion. "But she disappeared."

"And I've reappeared, dear." you state obviously. "My goy father tried to silence me and now I'm back in the light. You could take your chances but do you really want to risk angering Altar by bothering his favorite niece with something as stupid and pointless as this?" you bark back at him.

You see the thoughts running across the young man's face. You keep your stern face and confident body language. You knew young ones like him wouldn't believe a woman to lie, and you were using that to your advantage.

"I won't arrest you." he says with narrowed eyes. "But may I ask that you change your attire? You're asking for trouble."

"You may ask but I will not respond in kind." you say with a purse of your lips.

He nods and looks you over, an annoyed look on his face as he turns and leaves, mumbling to himself.

"Fuck me, Genevieve," Alfie says gruffly. "Ya wanna make me think I'm gonna have to raise hands at a fuckin' French copper, love? Jesus." he says with a big roll of his eyes, lips pursed as he wags a finger at you as he speaks. "That was really fuckin' risky trying to pull the Lafitte name like that ya know?" he says with a scolding tone and a stern look on his face.

"What risk?" you ask in an innocent tone. You tilt your head and soften your body language as you take slow steps back to him. "There is no risk." you say with a soft huff of a laugh and a shake of your head.

"They could've taken you anyway and then where would you 'ave been, eh?" he says, leaning in close to your face as you stand only a breath away from him.

"But I wasn't lying." you say with a slow blink of lash up at him in a calm voice.

His chin pushes back into his neck, his brow shooting low just as fast. "You...weren't lyin'?" he clarifies with an angry but not aggressive stare. There's no way, he thinks.

"No." you state plainly, large eyes looking up at him as a smile slowly comes across your face. He really hadn't known. You thought in all the research he might've done that he would've heard of your old alias, the first real criminal work you'd done under the name Lily, the one your uncle gave you. And your uncle happened to be one of the most powerful Jewish men in France, at least when it came to the French mafia. Where had he thought you'd learned all your skills? Perhaps he'd never thought about your origins beyond what you'd shared with him.

"You're...fuckin’ ‘ell..." he blinks rapidly, his brow shifting unevenly, his eyes darting about the street before returning to you with a quick shake of his head, clearly his brain was backfiring at the realization.

"My first criminal alias was Lilly Lafitte." you say in a tone so casual he cannot understand why you are so cool in your delivery of the news. You place a hand on his chest to steady him. It'd been so long since you'd said the name, memories of museum and jewelry heists float about your mind in a warm and happy haze.

"Ya fuckin' wot?!" he says loudly as you laugh quietly at his dumbfounded face. You loved the expression as it was so rare. "You? Standin' there? Fuckin' Lilly Lafitte?" he harshly whispers, trying to get a control on the volume of his voice.

You nod and smile with a mischievous look he's seen before.

"You're a fuckin' legend, mate." he groans out, eyes wide and brow low, studying you to find any fault as if you were lying to him. He'd heard of the young woman, rumored to work with the French gangster Altar Lafitte of the same name, who made her way through Paris stealing art and jewels in the least likely of places and never being caught. He'd thought Lily Lafitte would've been older, as the jobs and their tales would suggest someone of more experience might've done them. But no, he sighs, you've had it in your blood the entire time. Raised under the influence of a man even he looked up to for his business sense. "I used to tell stories 'bout you." he says with a strange feeling of lust coming over him.

"A lot of Jewish boys did." you smirk.

"YOU are Altar fuckin' Lafitte's niece?" he asks with wild eyes and a crazed smile, scratching his head.

"Yes. He's the uncle I've spoken of on many occasions."

"Fuck me." he groans, shaking his head. "I've been with Lily fuckin' Lafitte." he says with a hard guttural laugh that makes him bend slightly, slapping his own knee. "If only I could've told me younger self about this. Well he wouldn't have fuckin' believed it but he'd like the fantasy I'm certain." he laughs heartily.

"And how does the fantasy live up to the reality love?" you coo.

"No fuckin' comparison, you magnificent creature." he groans and leans in close. "As always you make my words ring true as you can only be outdone by yourself, eh?" a bright and boyish grin on his face down at you.

You lean in to kiss him. What was meant as a treat for being so damned charming turns into his hands wrapped around you, picking you up slightly off the ground as he grunts into your neck, noisy kisses with his plush lips finding their way across your skin. You giggle and squirm under his touch, his beard tickling away at your ears as he mutters praise and disbelief.

"Would you like to meet him?" you ask with an innocent lilt.

"Meet... meet Altar? The fuckin' Jewish crime lord of Paris? Just fuckin'... meet him?" he says with a wide motion of his hand. "Pop is for tea like it's bloody Shabbat and we don't have a thing else to do?" he amuses himself and laughs.

"Yes, I could call him. He never minds when I drop by." you say with a shake of your head, once again your casual tone confounds him.

"I'm with a woman who can "drop in" on Altar Lafitte and be welcomed," he says quietly, taking your face into his hands. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" he asks with a sweet and simple kiss, words muttered against your smiling lips. The business opportunity's now open to him scramble around in his brain.

"You're Alfie fucking Solomons. That's what." you say with a doting smile as he growls and wraps you up in his arms, pressing his lips to yours as you kick your feet and wrap your arms around his neck and let out a happy squeal you don't recall ever having made before.

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