#concerned i might have to try and contact chris for family history on his side bc i'm positive the uro issues are from his family

[killbaned]

how the fuck has IC had an official disability code in the US since 2007 but i've never been able to get help or accommodations for it on the basis that it doesn't count as a disability. i have a life long bladder condition that is medically known to have a quality of life "on that with end stage kidney failure" and i've been diagnosed since i was fourteen fucking years old and all anyone's ever told me is "sorry that doesn't count"

[jamielea81]

Just a Simple Lie

Chapter 1

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Description: Having worked on small independent films for the better part of a decade, your friend tells you about an opening for a script supervisor with a large studio. Wanting to advance your career, you apply and get an interview. The only downside, they prefer to hire crew who are married. It’s just a simple lie, right?

A/N: This fic is simply for fun. I know nothing about the personal lives of the two actors in this series and mean no harm. I am also totally guessing regarding the studio talk. This particular chapter is Chris light as it’s mainly a getting to know the reader. Chapters going forward will be heavy on the Chris aspect. Comments, reblogs, and likes are always welcome. Tag list is open, please send me an ask.

“Do you have the ring?”

“Of course, I have the ring.” You let out a frustrated breath. “This is so silly.”

Joanna chuckles over the line. “Where did you manage to get a ring from anyway?”

“It’s my grandmother’s. I feel like I’m majorly disrespecting her by wearing it when I’m not even engaged. Not to mention I’ve been single for-ev-er.” You drawl out.

“Breathe babe. Just breathe.” She says softly.

You inhale deeply and exhale it slowly.

“Maybe don’t do that directly into the phone.” She laughs again.

“Joanna Elizabeth.” You growl. “Why am I doing this?” You ask catching a glimpse of your reflection in the review mirror. Running a hand through your hair, you see the diamond engagement ring on your left finger. It feels so foreign, even stranger seeing it.

“Because this is a great opportunity to advance your career. Stone Lite is a major studio, Y/N. You can’t keep working on those student films.”

“Hey! I worked on a couple of independent movies. One even showed at Sundance.” You defend.

“And that’s awesome. Really. But this could be your big in. You’ve been doing this, what, for ten years?”

She was right. Ten years and the majority of your income came from student funded films and slinging beers three nights a week.

“And by your silence, you know I am right.”

Smug bitch.

“Ahuh.” You sigh.

“Look, I know it’s not right, but if this increases your chances of getting hired, just wear the damn ring.” Joanna huffs out.

“Easy for you to say, oh, wise married one.”

Joanna previously worked for Stone Lite Studios before moving on to Sony. It was a well-known amongst the employees that if you wanted to get hired for any position that put you in direct contact with any of the actors, you needed to be married. The studio was concerned with fan girls and fan boys. As if adults couldn’t control their urges and not make unwanted advances. Not to mention, married or not, some people still have affairs. Now granted, not every person there was married, but you had a greater advantage to get the job if you were. Right or wrong.

You drew the line at saying you were actually married and settled on being engaged. Not wanting to worry about details like how you kept your last name and lying on the tax forms you’d have to fill out. Even though you’ve only worked on small projects, Hollywood was surprisingly small when it came to the industry. It would be a lot harder to explain a sudden husband versus a fiancé. With Joanna’s agreement, you took your grandmother’s engagement ring from your jewelry box and slipped it on your finger.

“I’m just saying, give it a shot and see where this goes.” She reasoned.

“You’re right. You’re right. I better go in anyway. There’s a golf cart that keeps circling around the lot. They’re probably getting suspicious as to why I’m still in my car.”

She let out a chuckle. “They’re going to give you a ride to the offices. Welcome to the big leagues baby.”

 “Ms. Y/L/N, may I call you Y/N? Barbara Floyd, the interviewer and also the production manager asked.

The two of you had already gone over your previous crew history where you held a variety of positions including editor, grip, writer, and even wardrobe. On a whim, you took a script supervisor position on an independent short and really enjoyed it. The next job you took was on full length film in the same position, that’s when you decided that’s where your passion lied. Despite the copious amount of responsibility and that often brought on your anxiety, you loved the challenge.

“Of course, Mrs. Floyd.”

Her eyes went directly to your left hand. “That’s a beautiful ring.” She says.

Here we go.

“Thank you.” You stick your hand out for added affect.

“When’s the wedding?” She asks.

“Next year. We have a lot of out of town family. We just want to make sure they have time to arrange travel.”

Look at me lie. Maybe I should have tried acting.

“I’m sure it will be lovely.” She replies with a wide smile. “I’d like to introduce you to a few people. Please come with me.”

You received a contract via e-mail later that evening. They were bringing you on for one film with the option of three additional films after production. Granted, that’s if you didn’t mess up. Joanna was right, this is the big leagues. If you could make it through the next three to four months, you’d have a long term contract with a major studio.

The next day you received the script. Winter’s Sin was the working title. Whether or not the title would stick was anyone’s guess. You had worked with a few well-known actors, but more of the B list variety. Wonderfully talented actors, but they just didn’t get the parts or the recognition they often deserved. This film had a couple of big names, Keanu Reeves and Chris Evans to be exact. Maggie Jessup was this year’s it girl and rumor had it, this movie was going to launch her into stardom. Generally, you didn’t get star struck, but this was Keanu Reeves! You first fell in love with him when you saw Speed. And again, when you watched The Lake House. Too bad you were technically “engaged”.

Pre-production was set to start next week. This week would be spent going over the script a few times and creating notes. Some wouldn’t consider it the fun part of the job, but you loved diving into a script before it was brought to life. It was also a bonus that you generally liked the script. It was sort of a weepy drama with a love story tied in. But the main plot was between two friends, Milo played by Keanu and William played by Chris. You stayed up half the night and made it almost all the way through. To say you were invested was an understatement.

You read through the script twice more over the next few days and felt ready. Next week you would meet with wardrobe and the writers. The cast would be fitted and you would take photos for your own personal files to make sure styles remain the same for the shoot. Of course, this could all change the day shooting begins which is why you needed to be on your A game and get all the drinking out of the way tonight. You’d have Sunday to recover before starting at the studio on Monday.

 Laurel Tavern wasn’t necessarily your favorite bar, but it had become the place to get a bite to eat and a few drinks. It was also the most centrally located place for you and your friends to meet. Joanna and her husband Ian picked you up on the way, knowing you wanted to drink to excess. The three of you along with Travis and Jemma were celebrating your new job tonight. The five of you often found reasons to celebrate whether it was finding a twenty dollar bill on the side of the road, not getting fired from a particular job you’ve been slacking at, for the record, that was Travis, or getting a full eight hours of sleep. Tonight, was really worth celebrating.

“What do you want girl?” Joanna asked, getting up from your usual booth. “First rounds on me. If you’re nice, I might even buy you a second.” She throws you a wink.

“Ummm. I’d like a margarita, hold the margarita.” You say in all seriousness.

“Tequila. Got it.”  She says before turning away and heading to the bar.

“Extra limes.” You shout.

She waves her hand behind her head, not bothering to spare your table a look.

Travis joins your booth, a couple of pints of beer in hand. “Here, I brought you one.” Setting a pint of golden goodness in front of you.

You lean over kissing his cheek. “I feel so special.” You coo.

Travis wormed his way into your life seven years ago. He was a senior in college at the time, tall and lanky with hair that stuck out from under his hat. He was filming his final project before graduation. The two of you had a mutual friend in common, Jemma, who was an ex-girlfriend of Travis, how they stayed friends, was beyond you. You helped with directing, a little bit of script management, and even filled in for makeup on a few days. Anything to help a friend of a friend. Travis became your pseudo little brother, well, a brother that you kissed once. You had just broken up with Chad, never date a guy name Chad. Anyway, you had just broken up with Chad and were feeling down in the dumps about yourself. He fed you some bullshit about never being there for him when he needed you. You got angry, he got angry, and then he told you that you weren’t hot enough for him. Yep, Chad was a douche. Travis invited you over, feed you pizza and a ton of beers, then you kissed. He wasn’t a bad kisser, but it felt weird. He was five years younger than you, but it wasn’t just that, he was too much like a brother. The two of you agreed that it was a mistake and never brought it up again. Not even Jemma knew.

The five of you munched on burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. Jemma bought you a margarita, even after you told her you just wanted the tequila. Her motive was to mooch some of the beverage off of you.

“I don’t want all of the calories. I just want to try it.” She grins. Big rosy cheeks and wild blonde hair. Her British accent on full affect after already consuming a few shots herself. She had lived in the United States most of her life, but when she drank, the accent became heavier.

She grabs your drink, taking a hold of the straw and consumes half of it in one go. If you didn’t love her, you would have ditched her years ago.

Pushing Ian out of the booth, you get up on wobbly feet and make the long twenty foot journey to the bar. “I’ll get my tequila myself. Thank you very much.” You tell the table.

 It’s after midnight by the time you’re dropped off. Running a makeup remover cloth over your face and stripping down to a cami, you call it good enough and crawl into your cozy bed.

 After a pit stop at Starbucks, you make it to the studio an hour earlier than you need to be. After parking in Timbuctoo, you graciously accept the golf cart ride from security.

One of the admins directs you to a small office down a long hallway with similar offices. There’s a laptop computer, various pens and notepads on the desk. You unpack a small plant you picked up yesterday after you dragged your hungover self out of bed and to the grocery store for food. There was no window in your office which you figured; a little greenery would liven the place up, literally.

 An hour later, one of the producers, David, came by to introduce himself and walk you around the grounds and through the soundstage you’d be shooting on. Filming would take place on the soundstage for a little more than a month. Then everyone would move the whole operation to Vancouver. The movie was called Winter’s Sin after all and there wasn’t a whole lot of winter in Los Angeles.

Before stopping back in your office, David popped into the office across from yours. He knocked while walking in, apparently already comfortable with the occupant.

“Hey Monica. I want you to meet Y/N. She’s the assistant script supervisor I was telling you about.”

Assistant? What?

Monica got up from her chair to greet you. You plastered on a smile and stuck out your hand. She was around your age and seriously gorgeous. Beautiful thick brown hair with a touch of caramel highlights that hung just above her chest.  

“Hi, Y/N. I’m looking forward to working with you. Would love to hear some of your ideas.”

“Same.”

What could you say? You weren’t told that you were an assistant script supervisor, you thought you had the position. Apparently, it was a shared position.

“Y/N will be working primarily with Chris and Keanu.”

Whoa. Well, at least there’s that.

Monica scoffs. “Really?”

Your eyes automatically go to her left hand. No ring. Of course.

“Yes, really. You’ve got Maggie. I think she can really flourish under your direction. Not to mention you have Hector, Tim, Daisy and Joe.

After the awkward exchange, you traded cellphone numbers with her and made plans to meet after the first read through with the cast.

Walking across the way into the safety of your office, you figured you might as well ask.

“I wasn’t aware that I was being hired on as an assistant script supervisor.”

David ran a hand down his face. “Y/N, listen. This is your first big film; you need to walk before you can run. Alright? If this goes well, you’ll probably get hired on as the lead.”

“Okay.” You sighed out

“Alright, I’ll see you later. Meeting at three on the soundstage.”

“Got it.” You replied, plopping yourself down in the desk chair.

David peeks his head back into your office. “You’ve got some visitors.”

“Thanks.” You call out, standing back up and pulling your door open wider.

Your heart stopped. At least you were pretty sure it did. Keanu and Chris were both in front of you. Yes, you were there to film a movie, but this felt like a freaking movie. The two of them, side by side, grins on their faces. Keanu’s hand outstretched while Chris’ hands were snugly in the front pockets of his jeans.

“Y/N, pleasure to meet you. I’m Keanu.”

You accept his hand but your pretty much speechless. You may have muttered “hi” but you can’t be sure. Sensing your nervousness, he gives you a smile and releases your hand. He looks to Chris and they exchange a silent conversation. Chris steps forward offering you his hand and once again you can’t breathe.

Has he always been this attractive? Apparently, I haven’t watched enough Avengers movies.

His hair’s a bit longer than what you remember from the one or two movies you’ve seen. He’s also sporting a full beard. Definitely something he can pull off.

You mentally slap yourself and pull your hand from his after you realize you hadn’t said anything.

“Um. Sorry. Haven’t had enough caffeine today. It’s nice to meet you both. I look forward to working with you on this shoot.”

“Nice plant.” Keanu says, pointing at the fern taking up the front corner of your desk.

You giggle. Like actually let out a giggle and you’re pretty sure your cheeks are flushed.

You’re a professional. Get your shit together.

“Well, you know?” Shrugging your shoulders. “Need to green the space up a bit.’

Chris nods his head and offers a closed mouth smile.

“Well, we won’t take up all your time. Just wanted to say hello.”

“Hello.” You reply with a wave.

Why am I so awkward?!

They both chuckle and Chris waves back at you.

Tomorrow you wouldn’t be so starstruck. These are just two men that you work with. Who cares that they both seem nice and are dangerously attractive? You’re an “engaged” woman who is also a professional. You can do this.

Yeah. I can do this.

If you are crossed out, I can’t tag you.

Tag list: @southerngracela  @chrisevansforever  @chrisevansfanfic @zsuzstyina @peach-acid @tanelle83 @pinknerdpanda @allaboutthebooz @estillion14 @panicfob@patzammit @heartislubbingdubbing @collinsstanharbour @twittytelly @thefandomzoneisdangerous @linki-locks11 @jennmurawski13

[jennifersylvesters]

give a little - part one

Pairing: Chris Evans / Sebastian Stan x fem!reader Word Count: 3.6k~ Warning: swearing A/N: this is my contribution to @suncityparker and @petalparker’s writing challenge. i chose the au / prompt fake dating. hope you enjoy! as always, feedback is always appreciated!

When you signed the lease for your apartment at Woodridge Oaks, it was only natural for you to be excited. After all, this was your first taste of independence. Finally you had a place to yourself, free of any family or roommates. There was no stress, no rushing in the morning worried that the bathroom would be occupied. You weren’t expecting much from a one bedroom apartment but just a nice relaxing home. After all, what could happen on the fifth floor of Woodridge Oaks?

Occasionally a loud party bustled throughout the complex, but it ended during reasonable hours and only happened on the weekends. They were tolerable, just like the tenants who resided in the building. You got along just fine with the neighbors, not particularly concerned about any of them.

To the right of your apartment was your neighbor, Chris. You met him while moving in, lugging heavy miscellaneous boxes up to your place. He graciously offered to help which you gladly accepted. You hadn’t seen him much after that day, only greeting one another occasionally in the halls.The two of you sometimes briefly chatted in the laundry room while waiting for your loads, but it was nothing but mere small talk.

And although the number of women who visited his place seemed excessive, you didn’t particularly mind. It amused you to see the girls creeping quietly out of his place, passing you with a mix of shame and embarrassment all while refusing to make eye contact. As long as they weren’t loud, you had no qualms.That was his business.

However your neighbor, Sebastian, did not feel the same. Unfortunately Sebastian’s bedroom was right next to Chris’s, where he could hear him and his partners going at it in the middle of the night. While you weren’t technically friends with Sebastian - “commute buddies” seeing as your offices were only a block away from one another - you empathetically listened to his complaints.

Chris’s flings meant nothing to you, only serving as a trivial fact about the blond man next door. It caught you by surprise when a woman began frequently visiting his apartment. At first you found it sweet how he finally decided to commit. There was only one girl for Sebastian to complain about now.

Yet things seemed off. This visitor would show up at odd times of the day, skulking around the hallways constantly looking over her shoulder. Multiple times you witnessed her trying to yank his door open but to no avail. She left notes taped to his door, a lipstick kiss on the sheet with multiple hearts drawn.

All of these actions seemed peculiar, something you weren’t quite sure what to make of. You figured the least you could do was let Chris know. So one Sunday afternoon you knocked on his door waiting for him to answer. You heard rustling from the other side, locks sliding before a hand grabbed and yanked you inside.

“Oh, thank God it’s you” he breathed a sigh of relief, quickly locking the door. “Lucy’s been practically stalking me.”

“Who?”

He explained how he met Lucy at his job. He hadn’t thought much about his flirtation with her, only that she seemed like a sweet kid who ended up wanting more than a casual fling and got aggressive about her ambition to date him. There was absolutely no shame in his voice or face as he went into certain details about their sexual history, something that ended up flustering you instead.

You suggested he tell the landlord, figuring that he could easily ban her from the building. Chris shook his head, heaving out a sigh. “No, I can handle it. Plus it might mess up my business.” You weren’t sure what he did, but you politely nodded your head. “I just gotta ride out the crazy.”

“Thanks for telling me” he said, giving you a polite smile as he opened the door for you. Both of you jumped seeing Lucy standing at the doorway.

“Who are you? Who is this?” Lucy glared.

And in what Chris deemed a moment of brilliance, he blurted “This is my girlfriend, Y/N!”

Your jaw dropped at the notion, unsure of what in God’s name he was talking about. You barely spoke to him, and now he was deciding the two of you were dating?

Feeling a slight pinch on your arm, you yelped lightly. It took one look from the blond man to understand that he needed you to save him. His face said it all - “just go with it”. Still, he didn’t need to be that rough.

“Yes...I am dating...Chris” you slowly announced, trying to process the words as you said them. The idea of dating Chris seemed unfathomable. Sure, he was ridiculously attractive, but he wasn’t one for being tied down. Plus you didn’t even know his last name. Definitely couldn’t date someone without knowing their full name.

“How long? Why? When’d you meet?” Lucy didn’t have the right to ask either of you questions, but that didn’t stop her.

“Actually, we’ve known each other for a while” he nodded, explaining the situation. “We’ve always had chemistry, but we just didn’t wanna give in to it. I think I just wanted a sign to feel like all the stars were aligned. But a couple weeks ago we ran into each other at our favorite cafe, and we were talking about our favorite musicians. She was talking so passionately about her favorite band and that’s when I realized I couldn’t fight my feelings any longer. I just told her how much I liked her, and I’m just really blessed my baby felt the same way” he lied so easily even you thought it might be real.

He wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you in close. This was definitely new territory with your neighbor, and you weren’t too sure how to feel about it. Were you supposed to do the same?

So your arm hovered behind his back unsure of where to put your hand. Would putting it up near his shoulder blades be more friendly than a normal girlfriend would intend? But you also couldn’t just put it near his butt. That region was off limits. With a fake smile plastered on his face, he gritted “Just pick a spot.”

You eventually settled on the small of his back before grinning nervously at Lucy. Instantly you regretted this gesture as she shot you a murderous look.

“I, uh...I like him so much” you fumbled out. Apparently that wasn’t good enough. You received another pinch. Wincing at the pain, you deciding to rephrase your statement. “I mean, I love him. I’m just really...shy about admitting that stuff to strangers. Especially people I’ve never met.” That seemed to appease Chris.

Lucy eyed you, watching you do you best to pretend you were in love with a man you barely talked to. With one final glare, she huffed off.

As the sound of her heels disappeared, Chris dropped his arm from around you. Breathing a sigh of relief, he placed his hand on your shoulder. “Whew! Thanks for that!”

Scrunching your face, you couldn’t help but feel a little weirded out by the whole scenario. You rubbed at the spot that he pinched. “Sure. That was a bit strange though.”

Right as you were about to walk back to your apartment, he took your arm gently. “Hey. I know I don’t have the right, but I have a huge favor to ask” he started nervously, his other hand rubbing the nape of his neck. That’s when he asked if you would be his fake girlfriend, at least until he was sure Lucy would leave him alone for good.

You pointed out how insane Lucy seemed, afraid that she might come after you. There was something in her eyes from the brief contact that worried you greatly. But Chris promised he would take care of her as long as you did this favor for him.

All signs told you not to do this. It was crazy. Lucy was crazy. Chris was crazy for thinking this was a good idea. But you were weak when he repeatedly pleaded for you to help him out. His eyes looked desperate and when he actually got on his knees, clutching his hands together, you knew you couldn’t say no.

“Fine” you gave in, wishing you weren’t that weak to handsome men. “Also, what’s your last name?”

A couple days later you strolled through the grocery store, making your way through the sections as you focused on the information on your phone. Turns out that dating Chris wasn’t just a simple announcement and an occasional hug and kiss; it was actual work.

True to Chris’s initial belief, Lucy had no intention of giving up without a fight. Her visits became even more constant, asking Chris’s location or why the two of you weren’t together at that very second. You would fib, making any excuses to get away from the horrid girl. She rattled of questions to you about your “boyfriend”, expecting you to know the most obscure details about the man.

While her incessant hounding bothered you, she was right to question this relationship seeing as you practically knew nothing about him. The only certain fact you knew was that he owned a lovely dog named Dodger. Everything else about Chris was up in the air.

Lucy wasn’t buying into the sham, and both of you could tell. So he began sending facts about himself, typical details one would know about Chris if you were actually dating. Nothing more enthralling than remembering someone’s dietary restrictions and food dislikes for a fake relationship.

While you sent some of your own facts, you never bothered making any of them too personal. Learning about him was more for his benefit rather than yours. He didn’t need to know your allergies or music preferences because his stalker wouldn’t care.

As you muttered how Chris was originally from Boston, you looked up from your phone to see a familiar face. Oh, no. It was your ex-boyfriend, Jake. Your face immediately paled at the sight of him.

He looked good in that button down you always loved, hair gelled back as he browsed through the produce section. Why, oh why, was today the day where you decided to look completely disheveled?

He hadn’t noticed you so you sucked in your breath as you attempted to turn around. Your plan was foiled as your cart screeched, the back tire grinding down and refusing to cooperate. Jake looked up towards your direction, recognizing you immediately. As he called out your name, you internally groaned biting down on your lip.

“Hey, Y/N! Long time no see!” he greeted you. He surveyed your messy hair and unflattering sweats. From the look on his face, you could tell he felt that he dodged a bullet with you. You wanted nothing more than to flip him off and curse him out for that expression alone.

Despite your current state, you were doing fine. You didn’t need a man, especially one like him. This, of course, was something he would never believe even if you told him.

You wanted Jake to understand that you never needed him, that you were capable of bigger and better things. He was simply the pit stop on the side of the road. Yet to him he was the final destination you never got the opportunity to enjoy.

You could feel the resentment boiling in your body, wishing you could do something - anything - to make him see otherwise. And that’s when you spotted Sebastian.

Well, he actually spotted you. “Oh hey” he approached you, giving you a polite nod.

Something inside you snapped at that moment. That pitying look from Jake made you want to lash out, prove him wrong for all those times he made you feel inferior. You never got to do it during your relationship or your break up. Apparently now was the perfect opportunity, even if that meant absolutely losing your mind.

“Baby, where have you been?” you cooed, taking Sebastian by the arm and pulling him close to you. You rubbed his bicep, leaning in closer. Sebastian quizzically eyed you, unsure of the current situation.

“Uh, like in general or-?” he started before you realized he might ruin your plan.

“Aw, I’m glad you got my favorite chips! You’re so sweet!” you exclaimed upon seeing him holding a bag of Doritos in his hand.

Jake pressed his lips together. Obviously he hadn’t been expecting someone like Sebastian to show up. He cleared his throat, bringing your attention back to him. “You’re not even going to introduce me, Y/N?” He forced a chuckle causing Sebastian to raise an eyebrow.

It was only natural for him to feel intimidated by Sebastian. With his tall stature and good looks, he seemed like a step up from Jake. You couldn’t help but relish that the tables were turned.

“This is my boyfriend” you beamed, leaning in closer to Sebastian. This announcement shocked him as his eyes widened and his body stiffened. Yet somehow Jake didn’t seem to notice. Thank God.

You squeezed his arm, hoping he would understand to go along with the charade. Fortunately he got the signal and kept quiet.

“Oh, really? I didn’t realize you got a new boyfriend” Jake replied, irritation laced in his voice.

“Yup. He’s my boyfriend.” You tilted your head into Seb’s chest, acting as if it were only natural. “This is Chris.” Shit.

You hadn’t meant to say the wrong name. You heard the words slip out so carelessly and you almost winced. Almost. No, you couldn’t make a move. You needed to pretend you hadn’t messed up, that you hadn’t called Sebastian by his least favorite neighbor’s name.

Seb sucked in his breath, eyes widening at your name choice. He stared at you; it was almost as if he wasn’t sure you actually knew his name. You squeezed his arm once more, almost as if a lifeline to just keep quiet.

“Babe, this is Jake.” You extended out your arm, gesturing to him. “This is my, erm, ex-boyfriend.” Suddenly things began to make sense for him.

You knew Sebastian decently enough to know that he wasn’t one for lying. In fact, he always stuck to his guns about the rights and wrongs. It sometimes felt like he stood on his own pedestal, refusing to come down among the regular beings who made mistakes.

He had a choice to make: expose you or play along. The obvious choice would be to tell the truth, point out how the two of you were just neighbors and that his name wasn’t Chris.

But the pleading look in your eyes stopped him from doing so. He looked at your arms, still intertwined tightly to his arm. And with his free hand, he gently gave your arm a couple loving taps.

“Yes...I am...Chris” he eventually spoke, wishing you chose his actual name for this ruse.

Your arms relaxed slightly and you released a breath that you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. You knew you owed him big time, but that was to be discussed after.

As soon as it was clear he was willing to play along, things got increasingly easier. You told Jake about how you and Sebastian met, how you hadn’t meant to fall in love with one of your neighbors, but the two of you couldn’t fight the magnetic connection. Sebastian just stiffly nodded along, unsure of what to contribute to the conversation. You did most of the work; all he needed to do was stand there and look pretty.

So you continued faking pleasantries, taking Sebastian’s hands in yours. Your palms sweated, nervous about the piling lies as well as how Sebastian would later react. Clearly he could sense your discomfort but that this charade was something to prove. Letting go of your hand and pulling away for a brief moment, he adjusted so that you were in front of him and wrapped his arm around you.

Your heart beat quickly as you felt Sebastian rest his head on your shoulder. From Jake’s frown, you knew you owed him big time.

What you didn’t expect was Jake to ask the two of you to get coffee with him. Who in their right mind would ask their ex-girlfriend and her current beau out for a drink? Apparently Jake would. “I just think that it would be nice to catch up with you. And seeing as how Chris can’t keep his hands off you, I don’t mind if he wants to tag along.”

You wanted nothing more than to roll your eyes at the invite. There was no way you planned on spending more time with your ex, especially with this “Chris”. Except you and your neighbor were not on the same wavelength.

“That’d be great!” Sebastian agreed as the two men exchanged phone numbers. You could feel yourself mentally screaming, wishing that you could reverse time before Sebastian accepted that offer. If only.

As your ex-boyfriend walked off, you pulled out of Sebastian’s grasp and swiveled around to face him. “What are you doing?” you hissed, now looking at a confused Sebastian.

“I thought I was helping you with your ex-boyfriend.”

“I mean, yeah. Thank you for that. But you didn’t have to accept the offer!”

“I thought you wanted me to?”

“I would rather shoot myself in the foot than hang out with Jake again” you snarled, the memories of your ex-boyfriend flooding up. One look at Sebastian, and you realized your hostile tone was directed at the wrong person.  “Sorry, it’s not you” you apologized. “It’s just that Jake and I didn’t end on a good note.” He nodded, not needing an explanation.

“I guess...We just have to get through Saturday?” He agreed, and the two of you began heading towards the front of the grocery store to pay.

As the two of you made your way back to the apartment, you discussed plans of how to handle things. You decided you would visit his place to help pick out a good coordinating outfit and go over anything important that might arise in conversation.

Hauling the bags of groceries to your shared floor, the two of you stumbled onto the scene of Lucy and Chris arguing at his entryway.

“There’s something wrong with her! I know it!” she insisted, arms crossed across her chest.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chris spotted you. While this day had been nothing but poor timing, Chris eagerly welcomed the universe’s mistake. “You need to stop this right now, Lucy. You’re gonna upset my girlfriend!”

Sebastian turned around, expecting to see another woman in the hall. A perplexed expression crossed his face as he saw no one else, now confused by Chris’s words.

You, on the other hand, focused on the death glare being sent your way. What were you supposed to do? The woman looked like she’d rip you to shreds if you even attempted fighting her.

You opened your mouth, trying to form the right words. “I am...So upset…” Judging by Chris’s expression, this wasn’t going to get his stalker off his doorstep.

“No! I’m so angry!” you changed your phrasing, furrowing your brows. “How dare you?!” you yelled, gently placing your groceries on the ground before putting your hands on your hips. No way you were going to damage your eggs for this act. Please. But were you selling it enough? Chris rolled his eyes and gave a small nod, and you continued your awful performance.

“You need to get away from my man, please.” Another ‘ramp up the anger’ look from Chris. “No, you know what? No ‘please’. Get away from my man before I call the cops on you!” you snapped, pulling out your cell phone. You randomly tapped buttons on your phone before holding it up to your ear, pretending to wait for the police to pick up. Your bluff worried Lucy as she clenched her fists before letting out a loud scoff.

“I know something’s up” she hissed as she pushed past you and Sebastian. Once the apartment building door slammed shut, Chris grinned.

“That was pretty bad, but I liked that phone bit” he complimented as he gave you a couple of claps. You jokingly curtsied, pretending to enjoy the praise.  

“Wait, what’s going on?” Sebastian asked, still clueless to the what just occurred.  

“Oh, Chris has a stalker” you responded casually giving a shrug. Sebastian’s eyes widened before he scratched the back of his head in bewilderment.

“Y/N is pretending to be my girlfriend until Lucy gets the hint and leaves me alone.” Thankful for your help, Chris plucked up one of the bags from the ground to lighten your load.

Sebastian remained quiet, finding himself squatting to take in all the information. “Wait...Can you...What’s going on?” he questioned again. The two of you explained the predicament, giving him time to fully absorb the situation. He nodded at certain points, making it clear he was slowly beginning to digest all this information.

He sucked in a breath before exhaling slowly, eying you nervously before pressing his lips together. “Well, that’s gonna complicate things because I’m Y/N’s boyfriend.” Chris nearly dropped the groceries, startled by his announcement.

“Fake boyfriend” he continued, and you remembered that this was true. “Because her ex thinks that I’m her boyfriend. He also thinks that my name is Chris.”

Things on the fifth floor of Woodridge Oaks were about to get interesting.

tags list: @sleepybesson, @tomhaz, @supernatural-girl97

[stellarbisexual]

Reddie / IT fandom

Companion piece to Whenever I’m Alone With You, from Eddie’s POV

READ ON AO3

Two months into college, Eddie’s life could not look more different than it did in Derry.  He’d gotten a car and driven up to Vermont a full week earlier than freshman orientation, lying to his mother about the start date since he’d been practically bursting to get out of that fucking house, away from her, and across the state line since getting his acceptance letter.

He’d come to Middlebury with no lifeline and no real friends, apart from Bev, Mike, and Richie, all of whom he was on okay terms with but definitely didn’t hang out with anymore.  Richie’d “gotten them in the divorce,” as Stan likes to say (Eddie often wonders if he’d actually coopted the joke from Richie), though Bev always stops for a proper catch-up session when they run into each other on campus--if she isn’t with Richie, of course.    

But Eddie’d marched right up to the LGSA table the first day and never looked back, instantly gaining a group of loyal, fiercely protective friends to replace the ones he’d lost in the transition to college and the others he’d been slowly, painfully losing over the last few years.  They drive into the city--sometimes Burlington, sometimes all the way to Boston--to go to clubs and other college parties (all queer, of course). They have parties of their own. Eddie drinks and dances and never stops being surprised when a guy (any guy, though especially the really cute ones) is drawn to him.  The ball of anxiety at the pit of his stomach, the one that’s dictated most of his decisions since he was a kid, has shrunken down to no more than a tiny ulcer. Sometimes it likes to burn particularly brightly, usually within the first few minutes of Eddie walking into one of these dark, loud, crowded parties. But he just clings to his friends, literally, and breathes, waiting for it to subside.  And it almost always does.

He hooks up with guys, still feeling painfully young and not at all sexy the first few times until one day he feels practiced enough to feel like he sort of knows what he’s doing.  It’s way better than it was when he was with Victor; in a way, he needed to get away from home to feel like he was even allowed. He has fleeting moments where he feels attractive, even, like when he’s out with his friends and they’re loading him up on compliments (your eyes, your hair, your skin, Eddie), but he doesn’t carry it around in his pocket the way that some of the others are able to.  He suspects he never will.

He watches Richie continue to grow up and apart from him.  He’s hard to miss on campus, perpetually dark clothing and all legs (is the fucker ever going to stop growing?).  He trades his glasses for contacts, which gives Eddie an unexpected pang, though there’s a lovely little intimacy in getting to see his face bare, even if it’s as they pass each other in silence.  

Eddie sneaks into a couple of Richie’s band’s bigger gigs, ones at which he’s sure he’ll go unnoticed.  He hasn’t heard Richie sing since they were kids, and not for real much, anyway, and when he does, he immediately realizes his mistake.  Maybe Richie couldn’t sing Rodgers & Hammerstein for shit, but he can purr his way through almost anything with a guitar. And seeing him on stage, it’s too nostalgic, a pure, unadulterated taste of his old best friend, the kid he once knew, to whom he was once attached at the hip and shared everything with.  Eddie truly hadn’t realized how much he’s missed that part of Richie, the clown in him, and it makes him ache, seeing it on display for a room full of strangers instead of concentrated on just an audience of one (or a chosen, cherished six).

Richie’s laugh, God, it’s still the same, absurd and carefree and dorky, as if it has yet to catch up with his shiny exterior.  The ward of Eddie’s heart, the one dedicated to Richie, the one that’s been all sealed up and ramshackled shut, opens wide, flooding his chest and down the length of his limbs until there’s barely room for air.

-

At the end of his freshman year, Eddie’s roped into being a bachelor up for auction at some fundraiser LGSA’s hosting.  A room full of guys bidding on him sounds pretty terrifying, but it’s for a good cause, and he feels like he owes the group for singlehandedly carrying him through his first year, so he reluctantly says yes.

He turns to his friends in a slight panic (I don’t know what the fuck to even wear), and they gleefully dress him up in a three-piece suit and make sure his hair is perfect.  Most of the other bachelors are going kitschy or sexy, so they think it’ll help him stand out.  Besides, Eddie’d quickly realized after his second or third queer party that cutoff shorts and glitter just aren’t his thing, so he’s happy to don more traditional auction wear.

He’s not sure what to expect.  His fear is dead silence.

When he comes out on stage, the response is overwhelming, the cheers, whistles, and whoops feeling warm and supportive rather than objectifying.  Most of the people in the room know firsthand or by proxy Eddie’s backstory, his struggles to come to terms with who he is and create a healthy boundary with his mom, so he supposes that has a lot to do with the reaction.  It doesn’t make it any less flattering.

His entire face goes red instantly, and he turns away from the audience for a long beat to screech into his hands--which makes everyone laugh and applaud that much louder.

He eventually turns back to them, smiling sheepishly as the auctioneer reads Eddie’s “likes” and “dislikes” (that he totally didn’t fucking write) off of a neon pink index card.  It’s difficult to see the crowd under the lights, but Eddie finds himself holding on to an irrational hope that not only is Richie there but that he’ll bid on him, make some grand, stupid gesture like he used to just to get them in the same room again.  But Eddie also has a feeling Richie ran out of inspiration for grand gestures a long time ago, at least where he’s concerned.

It’s a confident, funny sophomore named Chris who ends up winning the bid on him, and they awkwardly agree to not go through with actually going on a date, that bidding for a good cause is enough and the whole thing is kind of fucking weird.  

-

Seeing Richie sitting behind him in class the first day of sophomore year makes Eddie feel like he’s in middle school again.  Just the night before, reeling from seeing him dancing and laughing with Bev and Mike under the stadium lights, he’d finally confessed their history to his new friends.  They’d driven to the beach and gathered around a bonfire for a game of Never Have I Ever, Eddie lighthearted and buzzed off of Magner’s until someone had disrupted the flow of more salacious “I’ve Never” statements with “I’ve never been in love.”  Eddie had finished off his bottle of hard cider and tossed it into the sand with a grimace, slouching further into his hoodie.

The others had to ask, and he was suddenly, fiercely in the mood to answer, so he’d told it all, the whole saga of how they’d become friends, taken solace in each other, and discovered themselves together.  Everyone had sat around the bonfire leaning towards him, eyes wide, rapt.

Oh my God, childhood soulmates.

I’ve always wanted that.

Eddie’d given them a small, bittersweet smile, though he couldn’t help feeling that there was a huge, crucial part of the narrative missing, something darker.  He and Richie weren’t just soulmates; they were survivors. He knew it in his gut: they’d been through a fucking war together. And yeah, they’d both had their crosses to bear as far as their families were concerned, Richie especially--but it was more than that, something even more life and death than the people and circumstances that shape who you are.

With Richie right behind him in class, he feels the spectre of all that and more.  He feels Derry, the good and the bad. He can almost taste the metallic bitterness of his inhaler blast on the back of his tongue.   Battery acid.   Richie knows all of it.  All of him.

A force much bigger than Eddie brings him to Richie’s band’s first gig of the year, another one where he can fly under the radar and, thanks to his height, sink into the shadows.  He stands still at the back, drinks way too much, and ends up making out feverishly with some older, swarthy, tattooed, pierced guy who definitely doesn’t go to Middlebury and might be too old to even be in college.  They end up on a bench outside behind his dorm, where anyone can see them, Eddie practically trying to crawl into the guy’s mouth, whining loudly as he sucks bruises into Eddie’s neck and shoulder.

He doesn’t bring him inside, and he doesn’t think of him when curling a desperate hand around himself in bed that night.

-

I was giving handjobs back when you were too chickenshit to let anyone breathe on you, let alone kiss you.   Richie’s mouth curling viciously around the word: chickenshit.

Eddie’s soaked his pillow case with tears, both sides, and now, sitting up at his desk trying to focus his vision on his chem textbook, he pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes and heaves a raspy, dry sob.

let alone kiss you

This is it: this is the reason he’d started pulling away all those years ago.  This is exactly what he’s been trying to protect himself from, and now it’s happened.  Their kiss, Eddie’s first, something he still remembers clear as day and cherishes as one of the most beautiful, important nights of his life, meant next to nothing to Richie.  It’s been negated.

Holy shit, Eds, I always thought you were a eunuch down there.

He wraps his arms around himself and tries in vain to breathe.

Richie’s words have tapped into an ancient part of him, the part of him that would have hidden away in his tiny room in his mother’s house forever just to stay safe.

This is all assuming bisexuality is a thing that exists.

His own voice bounces around the edges of his brain, cold and clinical.

Eddie’d been cruel.  He’d negated Richie.   And if he’s completely honest with himself, he’d thrilled at the pain in Richie’s eyes.

Yeah, Richie’d been harsh, but Eddie’d been first.  Because Richie’s always been kind, especially to Eddie, and only bites when he’s already been gnawed to shit--and sometimes not even then.

Eddie’s mom had once told him that he had hidden barbs, and it’s possibly the only thing she’s ever said that he knew deep down was absolutely true.  

He immediately reaches for his stationery pad and tears a sheet from the top, clicking the nearest pen on his desk to life, throat raw and breath reedy as he scribbles out an apology.

-

Eddie’s vision goes spotty when he walks into Morgan’s Tavern that Saturday.  He sees them through the french doors at the front, all six of them impossibly beautiful to him, his hurtful history with one nearly forgotten in the face of all of them together like this.  He takes a deep breath, wanting to rush forward, throw himself into their arms, and yet not at all ready to snap that final piece of the puzzle into place. He observes quietly, swallowing down tears, flooded with a love he can’t believe he’d almost forgotten.

It was so fucking unfair of him, he realizes, to have ever thought he wasn’t himself until he came to Middlebury and linked up with the LGSA.  Bill, Mike, Bev, Ben, and Stan: they were the ones who’d actually opened the door and freed him, at no more than thirteen.

And Richie, of course.  Richie’d blown up the door with a cherry bomb, the two of them laughing all the while.  

Childhood soulmates?  Eddie’d had six. He owes them everything.

He sucks in a quiet, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” before cranking the handle and pushing the door open.  

Once they’re seated, Ben takes them all in and blurts it out: “I’m a little jealous, truth be told.  I don’t get to have any of you guys in New York with me.” His gaze lingers on Bev.

Mike jumps in, detailing his and Richie’s many failed attempts at making a trip down over the last year, and Richie smiles, though it’s soft and distracted.  His eyes glance at Eddie briefly, but his expression is clear enough, and it’s a sharp sentiment that Eddie shares, one of guilt for every moment they’ve spent ignoring each other in college.  

Bev takes Eddie’s hand under the table and whispers a swift, “You okay, honey?” into his ear, to which he gives her an enthusiastic nod and his patented of course I am face.  She winks at him and squeezes his fingers, and he ends up latched onto her side most of the rest of the night, Ben latched to the other.

Being in Richie’s room after dinner is more overwhelming for Eddie than he suspects it is for any of the rest of them; not only does it smell like him, but it’s got Richie’s personality all over it, right down to an orange blanket that Eddie recognizes from his childhood bedroom.  He has an eerie feeling that this inanimate object can somehow sense what he’s feeling; it knows a key part of their history better than anyone in this room.

Richie’s mere feet away, already digging into his liquor supply in the window bench and setting it up methodically on top of his dresser, but Eddie’s never missed him as much as he does right now.  Richie’s able to furnish “usuals” for Bev and Mike--and most of the others, too--but he has to ask Eddie politely what he wants, and that cuts deeper than Eddie expects it to.

-

Eddie wakes up the next morning in Richie’s bed, alone, his entire body aching with the memory of crying, the warm, forgiving embrace of Richie’s arms, and way too much fucking alcohol.  He wishes he could remember it all more clearly, though the emotional hangover is enough to piece together a narrative of last night, like a dream that dissolves away upon waking.

He’s in Richie’s clothes, he realizes, and that orange blanket is wrapped around him.  Richie’s eyes journey over his naked shoulder as it pokes out from under the collar of his own tee, then back to his face.  

Before Eddie knows it, he’s crying again, this time over Richie’s kindness rather than his cruelty.  He’s rambling, too, and Richie is shockingly patient through it all, one large, warm hand curled around Eddie’s shoulder--the one that’s still covered by his shirt.  He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s saying--he’s pretty sure there’s an apology in there--but he hopes what he wants to say comes through anyway: I need you, more than anyone else.

The rest of it happens even faster: laughter, hands grasping, kissing, and skin, so much skin--and not enough, either, desperate sounds from both their mouths, and in the end, even more laughter.  They laugh way harder than the moment probably warrants.

Then again, Eddie’s never been happier.  

-

Later that morning, after their five friends have given them no shortage of shit for looking like they spent the morning doing exactly what they’d been doing, they all go apple picking.

As the group makes its way down the narrow, sun-dappled rows of trees, Richie reaches down and envelops Eddie’s hand in his.  They stroll hand in hand, Eddie with a quiet smile on his face--until Richie pulls him into a secluded little clearing to make out for a bit and slip his cold hands under his shirt.  Eddie yelps, playfully smacking his hands away but still pulling him down for one last kiss by the collar of his open overshirt. They look at each other, both clearly remembering the last time they’d stolen a kiss in public, their friends providing unintentional protective cover just by being nearby.  Eddie smiles wide and pulls Richie’s face down again, sliding their mouths together sweetly, with all the gratitude in the world.

Being here reminds Eddie of how beautiful Richie looks in the autumn light, how it puts fiery yellows and oranges and reds into his eyes and hair.  It’s an incredible thing, to be able to look at him this way so openly, after all these years. He reaches out and touches it, the fire of his hair, and Richie gives him a soft smile, hooks an arm around his neck, and presses a kiss into his hair, leading them back toward their friends.

Eddie can’t help but look over his shoulder, back at the secret spot they’re leaving behind, up at the sky above it, blue with the threat of grey just underneath.  He can’t help but think that though they’re protected, they won’t be for long.

When they rejoin the rest of the Losers, he notices Mike and Bill look up at the sky and shiver, clearly thinking the exact same thing.

-

Later that day, after everyone’s gone back to their respective homes (Mike graciously giving them the room again), they have the time to truly savor each other.  Eddie’d be totally tempted to skip all of his classes this week if he could afford to; it is almost time for midterms.

Richie sits on his bed, Eddie standing in front of him.  “Let me look at you,” Richie says, fingers playing with a loose thread on one of the thighs on Eddie’s jeans.  “It’s not every day that I have the cutest guy on campus in my room.”

Eddie ducks his head, but Richie pushes a gentle knuckle under his chin so they can connect eyes, Richie’s filled with an odd mixture of anticipation and relief.  

Richie reaches up and musses his hair just so he can put it back into place--or maybe he’s just arranging it how he likes it.  Eddie’s eyelids go heavy at the touch. “You growed up real good, Kaspbrak.” Richie’s smile is lopsided and adorable.

“I hope I’m not totally ‘growed up’ yet.”

“I hope you are,” Richie murmurs into his neck.  “You’re the perfect height for me,” he says, then kisses his neck.  “I missed you. I missed you so fucking much.”

Eddie’s hands dive into Richie’s hair, holding him right there in the crook of his neck, irrationally afraid he’ll disappear.  “I missed you too, Rich.”

When Richie pulls back to look at him again, his eyes are big, brown, and glassy.  He lays a hand over Eddie’s heart, then starts tapping along with the beat, fast.   “Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom,” he mimics quietly.  “Like a hummingbird’s wings.”

He pushes Richie’s hair out of his eyes and straddles him again, just like this morning, Richie’s arms settling comfortably around his waist, tight and yet never tight enough.  

Richie isn’t his first, and he’s not Richie’s, either, but it feels way more important than his first time, way bigger.  Richie knows him--not just confident, out-of-the-closet Eddie, but all the icky stuff that got him there--and Eddie’s so fucking in love with every version of Richie, too: the Richie that used to climb through his window, the one that used to pretend to sneeze on his pizza just to freak him out, even the Richie that broke his heart.  

He especially loves the Richie that’s wrapped up with him now, making him feel all kinds of good and gorgeous, the one that dips him onto the mattress so he can lay properly, settling his manic heart.

permatag list: @reddie-to-fight @hurleyhugo @raspberrywind @losver-kaspbrak @lilgeorgie @geckolover001 @its-stranger-than-you-think @gazebo-motherfucker @waypunsarelife @reddietofall @happytozier @librablossom @aesteddie @tapetayloe@spagheddi-kaspbrak @sadhelianthus @adhdtozier @justcallme-trashmouth @fuckboyrichie  @bandaids @20gayteeneds @richietoaster @burymestanding @reddiepop@notsugarandspice @richiefuckfacetozier @noahsschnapp

[itsfinancethings]

Marcus-David Peters had just left his day job teaching high school biology and arrived at his second job at a hotel, where he worked as a part-time security guard, when he apparently experienced a psychiatric episode.

He left the hotel naked, got into his car, then veered off the side of a highway in Richmond, Va. A police officer, Michael Nyantakyi, who had seen the vehicle crash, saw Peters climb out, and attempted to subdue him with his Taser. When Peters advanced, Nyantakyi fired two shots into the belly of the unarmed, unclothed 24-year-old, killing him.

Peters had no criminal record, his family said he had no history of mental illness or drug use, and his death, like those of many killed by police around the country, left his friends and family in anguish. “People ask me all the time, ‘What do you think caused him to have a mental break?’ And I say, ‘We’ll never know, because he was killed,’” says Peters’ sister, Princess Blanding. “It was easier to take out the threat, which was his brown skin, than to try to help him.” Richmond’s top prosecutor later concluded that the May 2018 shooting was justified.

There is no reliable national database tracking how many people with disabilities, or who are experiencing episodes of mental illness, are shot by police each year, but studies show that the numbers are substantial—likely between one-third and one-half of total police killings. And in the renewed national debate over racial injustice sparked by George Floyd’s killing at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May, those deaths should loom large.

Advocates for both racial justice and disability rights say Black Americans are especially at risk. Due to a host of social, economic and environmental factors, Black people are more likely than white people to have chronic health conditions, more likely to struggle when accessing mental-health care and less likely to receive formal diagnoses for a range of disabilities. By dint of how others react to their complexion, they are also nearly three times as likely as white people to be killed by police. The combination of disability and skin color amounts to a double bind, says Talila A. Lewis, a community lawyer and volunteer director of Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf Communities (HEARD). The U.S. government, Lewis explains, uses “constructed ideas about disability, delinquency and dependency, intertwined with constructed ideas about race to classify and criminalize people.”

The danger for people with mental illnesses and other disabilities is also born of police departments’ “compliance culture,” says Haben Girma, another lawyer and activist. “Anyone who immediately doesn’t comply, the police move on to force,” she says. The approach doesn’t work when police interact with someone who doesn’t react in the way they expect. Girma, who is both Black and deaf-blind, says that for her, the danger is hardly abstract. “Someone might be yelling for me to do something and I don’t hear. And then they assume that I’m a threat,” she says.

Ryan Garza—USA Today/SipaA man speaks with a demand for help with people with disabilities as protesters gather at the Detroit Police Department during the eleventh day of protests against police brutality on June 8, 2020.

To address the problem, advocates promote a range of remedies—many dovetailing with the nascent national movement to rethink public safety. They want to decrease the total interactions police officers have with disabled people, redirect funds to other support services, and rethink law-enforcement systems and protocols to better protect people. The demands lend specificity and substance to the protest cries to “defund the police,” drawing attention to the tragedies that follow when armed first responders encounter a situation that demands not enforcement or coercion but care.

Some departments are trying. In recent years, police agencies around the country have offered their forces crisis-intervention trainings, which are designed to help officers safely and calmly interact with people with disabilities and de-escalate confrontations with the mentally ill. But the quality of these training programs is all over the board, and the priority remains elsewhere. A 2016 report from the Police Executive Research Forum found that nationwide, police academies spend a median of 58 hours on firearm training and just eight hours on de-escalation or crisis intervention.

In 2015, the Arc, one of the country’s largest disability-rights organizations, launched its own program to teach law-enforcement officers, lawyers, victim-services providers and other criminal-justice professionals how to identify, interact with and accommodate people with disabilities. “We’re talking about having a community really understand each other, and what that can look like,” says Leigh Ann Davis, who leads the Arc’s National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability. The program has now trained 2,000 people in 14 states.

But training programs, regardless of quality, are not enough, activists say. As protests continue nationwide and demands to defund or abolish the police gain steam, some advocates are pushing for more radical models that seek to avoid bringing people with disabilities, or those experiencing mental-health crises, into contact with the police.

In Eugene, Ore., for example, the White Bird Clinic runs what’s known as CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets), a program that reroutes 911 and non-emergency calls relating to mental health, substance use or homelessness to a team of medics and crisis-care workers. Those teams respond to such calls instead of—not alongside—police. The CAHOOTS program, which launched in the late ’80s, receives roughly 24,000 calls each year; 17% of Eugene police calls are redirected to CAHOOTS, a boon to police departments, which can better use resources combatting crimes.

Police unions have criticized CAHOOTS and similar programs on the grounds that it’s dangerous for medics and crisis-care workers to respond to calls without armed officers. But Tim Black, the CAHOOTS operations coordinator, says that’s mostly not the case. His teams work closely with the Eugene police department, and last year, just 150 of the 24,000 calls directed to CAHOOTS required police backup.

“There’s a really constructive relationship that we have with law enforcement because they see us as the expert,” Black says. “They trust us to engage in all sorts of situations that they’re not equipped to handle. But they also trust us to provide them with feedback and oversight when we see things that aren’t going well because they know that it’s coming from the place of understanding.”

Olympia, Wash.; Denver; and Oakland, Calif., have developed programs modeled after CAHOOTS, and Black says other cities are beginning to call for advice too. In New York City, a coalition of civil rights and social-service organizations has proposed a pilot program for two precincts in which EMTs and crisis counselors would respond to mental-health calls instead of police. The coalition wants to devote $16.5 million to the pilot over five years. (New York spends nearly $11 billion on police-related costs each year.)

Chris Pietsch—The Register-Guard/USA Today/SipaVe Gulbrandsen, center, an EMT with CAHOOTS, joins a team from White Bird in screening guests for health concerns at the Egan Warming Center in Springfield, Ore. on March 16, 2020.

“A police response is not the kind of response you want when people are in a mental-health crisis,” says Carla Rabinowitz, advocacy coordinator for the mental-health nonprofit Community Access and the coalition’s project leader. She notes that at least 17 New Yorkers experiencing mental-health crises were killed or injured by police in the past five years. “It’s much better to have a peer and an EMT who can talk to the person, figure out what is going on in the person’s life, offer them resources.”

Racial equality and disability rights advocates are demanding change beyond law enforcement. Police violence, after all, is only part of why Black Americans have overall worse health outcomes and shorter life expectancies than white Americans. Due to years of systemic racism, Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to have lower incomes, and to live in less safe neighborhoods with fewer grocery stores, fewer parks, worse air quality, and less desirable schools. These factors not only contribute to higher instances of physical ailments, like asthma and diabetes, they’re also intrinsically intertwined with worse mental health outcomes. Black Americans are more likely to have schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

These challenges are compounded by many Black Americans’ lack of access to unbiased medical and mental health care. Black Americans are less likely than their white counterparts to be identified as having autism and learning disabilities.

Even talking about disability and mental health in the Black community can require adopting a language separate from mainstream medical culture. “Disability is commonly understood through a white and wealth privileged lens,” says Lewis, the lawyer with HEARD, who helps disabled people facing violence and incarceration across the country. Lewis explains that government officials and even mainstream disability rights leaders often rely on formal definitions of disability that can lead them to overlook the experiences of disabled Black people.

Many Black Americans grow up experiencing police violence, witnessing it in their communities, and seeing videos of deaths as a matter of course. But due to the ways the U.S. medical and education systems have created distrust among communities of color, advocates say there can also be stigma and a lack of awareness about disability in Black communities, even as they push back against violence that impacts these vulnerable populations.

Teighlor McGee, a 22-year-old who has been gathering personal protective equipment and sending medics to help protesters in Minneapolis, says that racial justice groups often don’t think about disabled people when holding demonstrations or advocating for change. “A lot of people don’t see disabled people as people,” she says. “People can’t picture disabled people facing police brutality and violence because they can’t picture disabled people going places.” McGee noticed the lack of spaces to connect with others who shared her experience as a Black autistic woman, so she started the Black Disability Collective online to fill the void.

When people with disabilities or mental illness are not at the center of the conversation, activists say that makes it harder to build understanding and make change. Adrienne Bryant in Tempe, Ariz., says she witnessed the limits of police understanding this year. In January, she called the police because her 29-year-old son Randy Evans, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia last year, was experiencing a manic episode and she needed help getting him to a mental health facility. But when police showed up at her apartment with riot shields and rifles, she and her younger son panicked, the officers were yelling, and the situation quickly escalated.

“I said several times, ‘Please do not kill my son,’” Bryant recalled, near tears. “One wrong move and I could have lost two sons that night.”

The police dispatcher had given the responding officers an incorrect name, which turned out to belong to a felony offender who was wanted for violating probation. The dispatcher also told officers that the man they were responding to had knives. (In reality, Bryant and her younger son had collected and hidden all of the knives in the house to keep them away from Evans until police arrived.) As a result of these mistakes, the responding officers believed they were confronting an armed felon, rather than just performing a mental health call. Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir told TIME that the responding officers said the mistaken name did not change their behavior. The department believes they responded appropriately in this situation. “We have to first start with, are the police the right societal actor to be inserted into this space and into this societal issue?” Moir says.

More than 60% of Tempe police officers are trained in crisis response, Moir says, and the city has a separate crisis response team that can also be called in to help in situations such as mental health crises, sexual assaults and domestic violence incidents. But she said that she would be worried about sending a crisis response team without police officers carrying lethal weapons in case situations turned dangerous. “I think this is reflective of the police really being the reflective muscle of the government and that there is nobody else out in this space doing this work in this kind of very complex and volatile space,” Moir says.

But Bryant says the damage has been done. Her younger son remains traumatized by the incident; he avoided leaving the house for months afterward. And she is still working to ensure Randy’s name is not associated with the incorrect one provided by the dispatcher. “We will never call the police again,” she says.

Courtesy of Princess BlandingMarcus-David Peters and sister Princess Blanding

Meanwhile, in Richmond, Blanding, whose brother Peters was killed near his car, is using the current, galvanizing prominence of race and criminal justice to push the reforms she has been seeking since his death. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney recently released a plan “for re-imagining public safety” in the city that includes a civilian review board and a version of the family’s idea for a crisis alert that would involve mental-health experts responding to a mental- or behavioral-health crisis, in addition to other policy changes.

Blanding says she is glad to see progress, but won’t celebrate until the city implements a system that ensures “having a mental-health crisis does not become a death sentence.”

This appears in the July 06, 2020 issue of TIME.