#feels strange to do a snippet on a tuesday somehow

[stylinsoncity]

a little snippet from the thrill of it all...

Harry pauses at the doorway to the lunchroom with a Tupperware bowl held in his hands. Over by the microwave, Louis and Kate pause too. A half-second later, Kate returns to her story about a recent trip to London.

Louis’ gaze lingers.

With a shallow exhale, Harry steps into the lunchroom. “Sorry,” he says, gesturing with the Tupperware bowl. “I just need the microwave.”

“Whoops, sorry,” says Kate and noticeably sets her hand on Louis’ forearm as if to guide him out of the way, as if he needs guiding. Harry doesn’t think he’s ever had the urge to hiss until now. He feels his gums ache as he quickly puts his back to them.

He shoves the bowl into the microwave a bit roughly, jostling some soup that he’ll have to wipe up later, and sets the timer. He sets it high because the microwave sucks and takes a while to get going, also so he has more time to eavesdrop. He crosses his arms tightly over his chest as he waits, his mouth set in a firm unhappy line that neither of his colleagues can see.

He can hear the quick uptake of Kate’s heart when Louis speaks and almost feels sorry for her. It doesn’t mean she’s in love with him, Harry knows that. But she’s moved by him, which almost seems just as bad.

Harry wants to feel sorry for her because doing so sets him apart. Doing so establishes a line of demarcation between her infatuation and his own. Harry is moved by Louis, too, but in a literal sense, they’ve moved each other. Harry’s infatuation is reciprocated. Kate’s isn’t.

Except he’s not entirely sure that’s true anymore.

And at least Kate isn’t the kind of person to vacillate ad nauseum between boldness and timidity. Kate is always bold and unapologetic with her attention. Whether Harry wants to admit it or not, she’s the one to envy right now, not him.

To his relief, one of Kate’s team members arrives to fetch her for their next meeting and after telling Louis she’ll catch up with him later, she’s gone.

Louis isn’t, though. “Is that homemade soup?” he asks, sliding into the space beside Harry.

For a second, Harry just looks at Louis in an inexplicable stupor. “Uh, I don’t know. It’s Jim’s,” he says, numbly. “I’m heating it up for him.”

“Jim can’t heat up his own soup?” Louis asks with a scowl.

“It’s my fault. I offered the first time and now he keeps asking,” Harry says. “It’s honestly fine.”

The microwave beeps. Harry carefully removes the container and turns to face Louis. “Good chat with Kate?” he asks.

“You tell me,” Louis says. “You were listening to most of it.”

Harry’s mouth drops open. “I was not,” he says, aghast.

“You absolutely were,” Louis says, plainly. “What’s for lunch, then? If not soup?”You, Harry thinks. Or pretends not to think. And nearly spills more soup.

He isn’t thirsty. He fed before leaving so he shouldn’t be. But he’s also been feeding more often than usual. When he confirmed his next delivery last night, he even considered increasing his subscription level. But he’s not sure he can afford to and he’s not so desperate yet.

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “Soup actually sounds good.”

“There’s a new Mediterranean place down the street some clients seem to like,” Louis says, randomly. “Want to go?”

Harry forgets to blink.

“After you give Jim his soup,” Louis adds in the silence. “Obviously.”

“Would that not be weird…? If someone saw us?”

“As far as anyone knows, we work together and we’re just getting lunch,” Louis says. When Harry still doesn’t reply right away, Louis’ smile visibly shrinks. “It’s lunch, Styles. But if you’re busy…or you don’t want to, it’s fine.”

“No, I want to, really,” Harry says. He’s more surprised that Louis wants to. “I’ll just drop off the soup. And meet you at the lift.”

[everyones-least-favorite-bard]

at the behest of some fellow orvies and western au truthers ive written a quick little snippet thats a combination of the jdj divorce arc and the divorce arc reunion

fic under the cut!

He’s trying to fit a seventh jacket into the suitcase when there’s the telltale rattle of a lock being picked and the creaky whine of his apartment door opening.

Heeled boots echo strangely through the little parlor area towards the front of the flat—he’s already packed away the dahlia-patterned rug he brought from out East. He almost can’t tell if it’s more foreign to hear the clicking of heel on wood or more foreign that he finds the sound discomfiting. It’s perhaps worst of all that he knows these boots, the way there’s a slight drag on one side from where the owner allowed the left sole to fall into disrepair, the slight rasp of beaded tassels flicking against leather. 

He ignores it of course. The damnable jacket finally relents enough to allow him to shut the suitcase and he lets out an exhausted sigh. 

“You finished fightin’ that carpet bag?”

The flippant casualty of the voice, coupled with the picking of the lock, and the tassels, and the boots, the goddamned boots incites a wave of rage so intense he has to stand in place for a couple seconds unmoving to let it pass. He exhales slowly and closes the latches on his suitcase.

“Ignorin’ a guest is real childish, Captain. Not even gonna offer me some water? I came all this way just to see you—I’m still an invalid you know. Gave your lady Doc the slip just to come see little ol’ you.” 

He can’t turn around. He can’t turn around; his hands are clenched so tight around his stupid suitcase handle the scabs spider-webbed across his knuckles are cracking, thin lines of red pushing up from under flat pads of dried blood. There’s poetry there, something about how they seem unable to do anything but tear open old wounds. He feels sick.

He closes his eyes. “What do you want.”

“So demanding! You’ll never catch a wife talkin’ like that, Cap.”

“I don’t have all day.”

“Can’t a guy just visit a friend? Or companion as you say.”

And it’s something about the way Star’s voice curls around the word, the way he turns the three syllables into something trivial, chaff in the wind, when it felt like spitting glass shards the first time he said it. He’s felt raw ever since, skin peeled back, muscle and sinew torn aside. He’s been nothing but bones since, an echo waiting for its creator to call back. It’s something about Star’s consistent irony, it’s something about the blood starting to collect on his knuckles, about red crusted under his fingernails, the red lining his eyes, it’s something about Star’s insistence on brevity, on light-heartedness until he feels like he’s drowning in cotton, he’s drifting in the margins of a story only Star knows and he’s sick of it.

“You don’t get it. You—” and now he turns, now he spins on his heel, blood running down towards his fingertips.

Star’s hands immediately fly up in a placative gesture, his eyes wide under the cotton of his mask. 

“Whoa, now, steady there, pal. You’re not still mad about Tuesday, are ya? I’m back! Shouldn’t that be enough?”

And they’re standing in his bedroom, some five or six feet apart, they’re standing in the bedroom of his one-room apartment, the dresser empty, the wardrobe empty, the walls somehow barer than they were before even though he hasn’t touched them and, and—

He almost wants to cry, is the stupid part. He hasn’t cried since he was nine years old and fell out of the big oak tree in the front yard of his parents house but he’s clenching his fists tighter and tighter and there’s something miserable and ugly coiled behind his sternum, clawing out the marrow of his bones from the inside and the only thing stopping him from crying is he’s tired. He’s so tired of it all.

Star is watching him, silent for once. Mouth a thin line. “Isn’t it?”

He turns back around and grabs his suitcase. “Go home, Star,” he says.

“No.”

“...What?” 

“I said no.”  

“What do you mean no?”

Star gnaws at his lower lip, sucks in a hissing breath before speaking. “I’m not leaving.” His arms have come back down to rest at his sides, one hand picking at the seam of his chaps.

He wants to throw something. He wants to scream, he wants to be nine years old, crying at the base of a wide, wide tree, he wants to cut the coiling mass of misery out of the center of his chest and throw it at Star’s feet. 

He doesn’t do any of it. “Fine. I’m not arguing with you.” He strides across the room, closes the five-odd feet and shoulders Star out of the way, grabbing the other two bags by the door to his room on his way.

“You—Captain!” Star unfreezes from his place and follows. “Captain, wait—”

He sets the bags down by the front door, grabs his coat off the rack on the wall.

“Captain, y’know I didn’t have a choice right? Croft had me backed in a corner; she’d almost figured me out and—well, you’re a professional, you know sometimes we don’t get to choose the easy way out—”

He can almost feel the empty space by his hip where the pocket watch used to be. He pulls a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and dabs at the blood on his knuckles.

“—come on, Cap, you threw your fit, I said my sorry, can we just move on—”

“Shut up, Star!” The words are out, cutting through his throat before he can stop them. “Would it kill you to be honest?”

And he does shut up, his mouth flattens into that awful line, the bottom half of his face going white. 

“It’s like this is a game to you. It’s like none of this is real for you. Are you having fun? I damn well hope you are because at least one of us will be.” He’s turned on a dime, he’s never been less tired in his life, there’s blood on his knuckles, there’s the weight of a gun on his hip, there’s a heaving mass of misery, of festering rage and grief and want all coiled in an awful Gordian knot and he’s shredding it with his bare fucking hands.

Star’s voice is small. That’s not right, he thinks distantly, that’s not right. 

“I didn’t like fakin’ my death. I didn’t like keepin’ all these secrets from you but I had to since, well,” he cracks a tentative, sheepish smile, “we both know you can’t act for shit, Captain.”

“I held your body.” He’s shaking all over, he’s trembling, pulled tight around himself like a spring. “I had to hold your—I held your fucking body, I told your daughter you’d—I took her to visit your goddamned grave.”

Star is silent again, eyes focused intently on a spot on the floor. 

He takes a shaking breath, grabs his hat from the rack. There’s been so many bloodstains on the old thing he can’t quite bring himself to care about the red dribbling over his fingers. 

“Is there—” and he hates how his voice breaks, “—is there anything real about you? About this?”

There’s no answer. He wants to say he expected it, but he wants to cry more than he wants to be right. He crams the hat onto his head and picks up his bags once more. 

A tugging on his sleeve.

“J–Joonghyuk, wait.”

He’d like to say it was the tone of Star’s voice. He’d like to say he could hear the regret, he could hear some sort of repentance he could absolve, some unnameable timbre of penance he could supernaturally detect, but it wasn’t. It was as simple as Star saying his name, his real name. He closes his eyes.

“What more is there to say?”

He can hear Star breathing, these awful, rattling breaths. He can’t tell if they’re from the wound at his side or from something else, some great emotional weight hanging in his larynx. He can’t tell which one he wants more.

He watches with something between horror and hope as Star reaches up and takes off his hat. Clutches it with a faintly trembling hand at his side. His other hand is still holding onto his sleeve, and without the hat he seems smaller now. Frail. 

Star looks up and he’s smiling, that same crooked curl of lips over teeth, dimpling one cheek but there’s something so distinctly sad about it, and he can’t quite tell if it’s something new or something that’s always been there, a weight always tugging on one side of Star’s smile, keeping him from completion, semi-colon in lieu of a period. 

“My name—my real name.” Star takes a shuddery breath that seems to rip through him. “I’m Kim Dokja. Twenty-eight. Only really did the deeds for half my bounties. You asked. You asked if any of this was real.” Star—Dokja—swallows. He drops his hat and reaches up slow behind his head, tugs at the knot holding his mask in place.

It loosens and it falls and he’s suddenly looking in the eyes of a man he’s been following for months, a man he’s been chasing after for what feels like years, and oh, he’s still filled with broken glass, he’s still choking on the shape of Dokja’s name in his mouth but god, he’s beautiful. 

“You asked if any of this was real. I’m tellin’ you now that this is.” Dokja lets go of his sleeve but slides down to his hand. He presses the mask into it, rough fingers running gentle over the raw, bloodied edges of his knuckles, wraps it around the opened sores. A balm come too late, a suture for a wound already gaping, already bleeding out on hardwood floor and, and, oh, he’s nine years old again, two decades since he last cried and Dokja’s closing his hand around the mask, his eyes are dark and wet and they’re maybe a foot a part, maybe they can cross that distance, maybe, maybe—

But he remembers gunpowder. Gunpowder and blood not his own running through his hands like sifting sands. He remembers scrubbing for hours, scouring his hands with hot water, with lye soap, peeling at layers upon layers of skin, peeling back his muscle, back his sinew, back to the bone and he’s hollowed out now. Nothing but marrow. He’s crying and he’s twenty-eight and he’s nine and he and Kim Dokja are more alike than he’d ever care to admit because he holds Dokja’s hands tight around his own for as long as he can stand to but at three o’clock sharp that afternoon Yoo Joonghyuk is on a train back to oak trees and dahlias out East and he doesn’t look back.

[lovecanbesostrange]

Welcome to another installment of random RRCAU fic, from the big, big universe that lives on the Ruby Lucas Harem Discord, because konako got that one random ask that time. (ask us about the insane College AU now, I dare you, we have answers you don’t even want)

So, if you follow that, have another scene. But this one is, heavy, because it’s all about the big dramatic death around the end of the second year. konako made me cry with the short snippet, so I will now repay that favor with the aftermath in a bit of a long form.

(this is towards the end of Ruby’s sophomore year at college, Granny has just died)

Ruby felt numb. If she could even call it feeling. But it’s either this or crying. And this is more helpful to get through tasks on auto-pilot. Sometimes there was the anger, now like an old friend. But it’s snapping at her friends, pounding the sandbag at the gym, running like mad on the field (Coach is a human after all, didn’t even make her do laps after clearly running the wrong plays). The last few days were a hazy blur. Food, hugging, a bit of sport, people, asking for an assignment extension.

And the phone call with Anita.

She was numb during that, too. And it was for the best. They both knew Granny wanted to be cremated. Just like her husband. But Ruby knew that she also wanted her ashes to be scattered like his. And Anita had said no. She had made arrangements for the urn to be buried. A small service and a burial. Ruby had said she’d be there.

“Whatever.”

A response Ruby knew well.

Regina and Mary Margaret had brought her to the airport. She was using up Regina’s miles again. But she didn’t argue. When she landed she thought she’d get herself to the trailer park somehow, maybe a car rental. Ruby hadn’t thought about that. There was something though. And yes, there was, Mary Margaret had told her - Eva was already waiting at the exit.

Another hug. Long. Warm. Welcoming. It brought Ruby out of the haze a bit, so new tears fell. Tears for Granny. Dead. The last bit of happy memories tied to that place her mind kept insisting on calling home.

“... you can sleep in Mary’s room and I’ll take you to the airport day after tomorrow of course.” Eva already had it planned out, telling her in the car. “Ruby? Is that all okay with you?” Ruby tore off her gaze from the scenery outside, pulling her head away from the glass of the passenger’s window.

“Can we go to the Terrace?” Suddenly the name sounded hollow. “I’d like to get a couple of things.” Maybe she would be too late. Maybe Anita had thrown everything out already.

“Right away?”

“If you don’t mind, please.”

“Of course not, honey.” Eva held the steering wheel with her left hand and put her right on Ruby’s knee, squeezing. Comfort. Reassurance. “Tell me what I can do and consider it done.”

The hint of a smile pulled on the corners of Ruby’s mouth. This was Eva. This had always been Eva, even when she didn’t understand it. She got things done for her.

Pulling up at the trailer park felt strange. For one it was because Ruby was sitting in a nice car. Not rushing through the side entrance on her bike. It was also because Ruby could count the times she’d been here in the almost past two years and every time she got away from it, the place seemed smaller and further away. But mostly, without Granny this was just a glorified parking lot with a bit of green.

Eva parked and waited. Ruby unfastened her seat-belt, but she couldn’t get out. She looked over. Ruby didn’t know if she wanted to go in alone. If she could. Was it better to have Eva there as back-up? Or was that disrespectful?

“I… would you… can you maybe come with me? I don’t know if…” She didn’t know if she could even step a foot inside or would crumble at the front door the way she had days ago in front of her dorm.

“I’m right behind you.” Eva smiled. The warm mom-smile.

Ruby didn’t know if Anita would be here now. She didn’t bother knocking though and didn’t need a key. Nobody needed a key to get in, when you knew the lock wasn’t working properly and all you needed to do was lift the front door at the right angle and push hard.

Ruby opened her mouth, but closed it immediately to not say hallo into the void. Everything looked mostly as expected. There were a few empty alcohol bottles stacked next to the kitchen sink, Anita had been digging in. But she still got herself together to not let them lie around. Maybe that was good. Maybe that was something to care about.

Suddenly her home - the trailer - looked depressing. More than usual. Granny wasn’t sitting outside or lying in bed. The tiny tv was not running. That specific background noise missing was a big deal. Sure, Granny had been in and out of the hospital, but the finality was felt.

Ruby breathed in, the hitch alerted Eva and she touched her on her back, steadied her. The smell. Oh the smell was home. The mix of the cheap laundry detergent, the sharp air freshener, the lingering scent of Granny mixed with Anita’s aggressive perfume. It smelt a bit different than she remembered, but that was probably herself missing from this equation for a long time now.

Slowly Ruby stepped towards the bedroom. The smell of Granny got stronger. Without thinking about it she sat down on the bed. The linens crisp and clean, waiting for someone to sleep here again. There were pills on the nightstand. The little tub with daily doses already in order. Ruby picked it up. Monday and Tuesday were empty, she looked at Wednesday and the morning was missing. Right, after that Granny had called an ambulance. Thursday’s pills were untouched. Thursday had been the last time she had seen her. Ever.

Anita hadn’t touched anything in here as far as Ruby could tell. It was a surprise. Maybe she didn’t know what to do with all the stuff. And maybe, just maybe, there was more emotional baggage inside of her and she couldn’t let go of her mother. She had never left either. She could have. She could have let Granny rot alone in here and not just disappear a few days at a time, but forever. And yet Anita had always come back. Despite everything.

Ruby put the pill box back down and grabbed the framed photo. It was Granny’s wedding picture. She had never stopped loving that man that barely had time to get to know his own daughter and who never knew that his memory lived in a granddaughter he never met at all. They were a handsome couple. This was one of three pictures she knew she wanted above all else.

Her hand was already under the bed, searching the shoe box stashed there. Yes. She opened it and was greeted with all the letters she had sent home the last two years. It felt like so little, but she knew it had meant much. Granny had taken the photos from some of these out and put them on the wall next to the tv. But the pictures Ruby was searching were underneath it all.

An old black and white photograph. More brownish actually, genuine sepia, grainy, worn on the edges. It was Granny as a child with her three older brothers. It was the only thing Ruby knew of, that even proved they once had been alive. Before that fateful accident. Three brothers and their father, all gone in one go.

This family was cursed. Mothers and daughters left. And Granny’s mother hadn’t made it much longer on her own. Maybe Granny and Ruby got along, because they skipped a generation between. Mothers and daughters gave each other plenty of resentment.

And then there was the third picture. Granny with her dear husband and a fancy new car. The red Camaro had been out of their price range, but on their anniversary they had gone to the dealership, got a long test drive out of it and made that a date. Granny had talked about that day a lot. Grandfather promised them a brighter future where they would be able to afford a car like that. Not just stealing fake moments, but creating happy ones for real.

That had never happened.

Granny had deserved more and yet life had rejected her. But she had held on. Despite her heart condition, the many losses of family members around her, the slipping into poverty. Granny had always held on. For over 80 years. Nobody had thought that would even be possible. So maybe it was okay to say goodbye now. Now that Ruby understood how Granny could look at a picture of her dead husband for hours and feel nothing but love.

Ruby put the frame into the shoe box, then her gaze fell onto the chair. Granny’s knitted cardigan hung over the back. She’d always worn that grey monstrosity, though it was unflattering even on her. Ruby got to her feet and picked it up. She buried her face in the fabric. Granny. Yes, she wanted this. The pictures, her own letters, the cardigan. It meant something.

Tears began to fall again. Ruby wasn’t numb at all. Breathing in all the memories came rushing back. Sitting on Granny’s lap during Christmas story time; teaching her the sacred lasagna recipe; listening to unimportant happenings at school; the encouraging words when Anita’s indifference turned into vile insults; daydreaming of long trips with fingers on the maps of an old atlas; sitting in front of Granny’s bed, eating something from the microwave and letting Granny catch her up on her soaps. There had been love.

Eva had been silent all this time and given Ruby space. Now she stepped closer and wrapped her up in her arms. Ruby hugged the cardigan and felt Eva kissing her on the head. This was goodbye. But she wouldn’t be alone.

The service was lovely, but what really got to Ruby was seeing people attending. She had thought she’d be there alone with Anita, maybe Eva in the back. But there were a few neighbors. Mrs. Johnson even gave her a quick hug, she had come by like once a month to do Granny’s hair for free, but really it was about the conversation. Nurse Wilcox had retired herself three years ago, but before she had worked at the doctor’s office Granny got her subscriptions from. She had seen the tiny ad in the paper and wanted to pay her respects, remembering one of her favourite patients.

A part of Ruby wanted to scream, because she knew burying the urn in the dirt was wrong. Even though Anita had picked a nice little headstone. Ruby knew this was money she couldn’t really afford to spend. But causing a scene in the cemetery was the last thing she would do. She’d rather run away and not attend at all, while more than a dozen people paid their respects.

There wasn’t much said between Ruby and Anita. Who cared about one more argument and hollow questions about their current living situations? Ruby would remember the way Eva kept holding her hand, let her ramble through incoherent memories and tugged her into Mary’s bed. (Something Ruby rejected by getting up at night to sleep in the treehouse, the cardigan close to her chest.)

And when summer came around, Ruby would clean a whole week out of her schedule. No summer class, no work, not anybody around. Maybe it was irresponsible to blow through a portion of her savings, but she found a car rental that could get her that red 1975 Chevrolet Camaro. And maybe it was called grave robbing, but she dug up Granny’s urn and put her on the passenger’s seat. A week on the road right up to the beach where Granny had scattered her husband’s ashes.

That would be Ruby’s last goodbye. When she finally could let go of the woman, who had mostly raised her. The road trip they had talked about in giggling voices.

Turning into the parking lot was hard. And just when Ruby doubted she could scatter these ashes alone, she spotted Regina waiting for her. She had send so many texts to her friends and called to let them know she was okay, that Regina knew when she would arrive at her destination. Regina, who had been there when Ruby had last spoken to Granny. Fitting. Granny’s final blessing.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with MaybeAmanda

MaybeAmanda has been a longtime participant in X-files fandom. She has 29 stories at Gossamer, the earliest being archived there in 1998 and the latest in 2012. I've recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including "Malus Genus" and "Snow in Alabama." Big thanks to MaybeAmanda for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It does, in a way.  The feedback I get nowadays is either of the "I read this like 20 years ago and I just read it again" variety or the "I was too young back in the day but I have been watching the show in reruns/on XYZ streaming service/on the full-series of DVDs I got for $3 from the thrift store and I was THRILLED to discover fanfiction was being written even in the Dark Ages!" So it's a bit of a surprise, but it's a pleasant one. I answer every mail/comment because my mama raised me right!

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was great. It was fun. It was educational. It was a godsend. Even with the occasional bouts of back-stabbing and flame-throwing, it was mainly a welcoming, inclusive place to be. I made so many online friends who have turned into meat-friends (do they still call them that? Probably not).  During the first run of the show I had small children and we had relocated for my husband's job.  I had very little social life, but the fandom gave me a chance to meet and connect with people who liked what I liked. Then I discovered online fanfic, and it was even better!

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC I think.  A lot of email lists - 5 or 6 or 7 or so over the years. Gossamer, of course, Ephemeral when that came into being.  Haven discussion boards. My own websites.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

More than anything?  I am a fangirl.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I have always been partial to sci-fi and speculative fiction, but it rarely makes it to the screen - large or small - without being trite, clichéd, or just plain bad. It's easy to forget that The X-Files was groundbreaking - smart, scary, funny, insightful, intriguing, complex plots, on-going mythology. It looked great. It sounded great. David Duchovny was pleasant to look at, too, and damn! Gillian Anderson is/was one hell of an actress.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I found XF fanfic - somehow - probably by accident, or by way of a recommendation - and it blew my mind.  I had written fanfic (of a sort) with my friends in highschool, so I was familiar with the beast, but to find what amounted to excellent story after excellent story for free within (relatively) easy reach (because dial-up, right?) written by people who, for the most part, were thrilled you read their story and were happy to talk to you about it, about writing in general, about your shared obsession - that was amazing. As I am sitting here typing this I am feeling that thrill again - discovering Karen Rasch, Madeliene Partous, Paula Graves [Lilydale note: AKA Anne Haynes], Sheryl Martin and all the other early BNFs was, well, the only word is exciting. I felt like I was a member of a secret society and that I was sitting at the popular kids lunch table, all at once. (Don't forget, in the early days, shippers were considered delusional outliers - seriously!)

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Good?   It's not as lively a place as it once was, but I haven't renounced my citizenship or anything. If I get a rec, I check it out. I know there are those who like to pretend they never had anything to do with the fandom, but why? I am still a proud XPhile.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Angel (a teeny tiny bit) while XF was still running, but those fans were - I don't know the word.  Hardcore does not begin to do it justice. I wrote two short pieces at a friend's request then backed away slowly. Sherlock (a bit) - it is/was very LJ centred and that made it hard to find things. A lot of it moved to tumblr which made it harder, then to twitter, which - no.  I was involved in one of the less fashionable facets of the Sherlock fandom, so I was really a fringe-dweller there, too. It seemed clique-ier than XF, and they all seemed so young, and they all knew EVERYTHING about everything, and every damned thing was political, and, and, and... GET OFF MY LAWN!

But maybe I am remembering the XF fandom wrong. ;)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Like, all fiction? Mulder and Scully for sure. Arthur Dent. Sherlock Holmes in most of his incarnations. Spock. Winnie the Pooh. Why do I like them?  They speak to me, I guess.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I haven't watched an episode in probably two years (back when it was on regular tv).  Yeah, I think about them surprisingly often.  Story ideas, weirdly.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic?

I finished re-reading The Iolokus Series a couple of weeks back, so yes.  It's excellent comfort reading.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Lots! But as far as authors go, I hate playing favourites. I will miss someone I shouldn't and feel like crap.  The Iolokus Series by MustangSally and Rivka T. is probably my all-time favourite fic because it's so very well-written, and so very fucked-up. Kipler's Strangers and the Strange Dead is also terrifically well-written and clever. For complex, interesting case files, you can’t beat syntax6 - pick any of them.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Oh geez. Seriously? I wrote a lot of collaborations and I love them - and my co-authors - all!  Stuff I wrote on my own: Anniversary Waltz (first XF fic I wrote so it's sentimental.) Or Blue Patches. Or Epiphany. Or The Gifts of the Magi (On a Kaiser Roll). Or 221XF.  Gonna stop now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story?

Every time I thought I wouldn't, I did. I would never say never.

Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Nothing finished ever went un-posted. All the unfinished stuff remains unfinished.

Do you still write fic now?

Haven't for a while, but it's not as if I have said "I SHALL NEVER WRITE FANFIC AGAIN!" I just have nothing in the works at this moment.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

With fic, it's usually from canon - some question unanswered, some road unexplored, some "what if?" that needs iffing.  With "original" fiction, damned if I know.  A snippet of overheard conversation, an interesting photo, something a random story generator spit out at me.  Sometimes things just click.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Okay so...many years ago I was on a (smallish) fic list with a friend.  There was a challenge posted - a bad fic challenge. We knew we could write some truly bad fic if we really tried.  One of the rules of the challenge was to post under an assumed name so no one would know who they were voting for. Well, my friend and I wrote something truly, painfully horrid and we were very proud of its ghastliness, so were brainstorming possible pseudonyms. She hated everything but had no real suggestions of her own.  I knew that she was a bit of a Trekkie (like me) and I said - What about Amanda Greyson and Joanna McCoy?  And she said  - What?? Huh?? Why?? And I said - Spock's mother and McCoy's daughter and she replied, "Maybe Amanda is Spock's mother but on Star Trek there is not a Joanna." By this point, I was SO DONE, and I became MaybeAmanda and she became NotJoanna. Really.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

It took years for me to admit it, but yeah, they know.  They didn't entirely get it.  The reactions I most often got were:

"Ew! You write stuff without being forced?? Ew!!"

or:

"Is it smut? I bet it's just smut. You write smut, don't you? Pure filth, right? I can't believe you are wasting your time writing pornography! That's disgusting! You sicken me! Um, can I read some of it?"

And of course:

"If you are going to write anyway, why don't you get published and become fabulously wealthy?"

which is really two questions, neither of which is easily answerable.

Anyone who tracked my work down (because I told them I wrote, but not my pseudonym) usually said something like, "Hey! You're an okay/passable/decent writer! Why don't you get published and become fabulously wealthy?"

Yeah.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Same old email (maybe_a@rocketmail_dot_com). Gossamer, my site, my LJ and probably some other places.  I can't lie - it's a bit scattered.

(Posted by Lilydale on August 4, 2020)

[plumpromises]

TUA S1e2 novelization snippet

Five had waited at a nearby bus stop for the store to close and the sun to set. By then the rain had started and the temperature had dropped. As he marched towards the entrance, the neon above reflected red across the wet pavement. It looked like fresh blood. He could vaguely remember coming here once as a kid before his trip to the future, but he remembered picking through the rubble afterwards with startling clarity.

A shiver of déjà vu traveled across his skin as he looked up and recognized the gleaming sign overhead.

The last time he’d seen it the plastic had been cracked, and it had sat half buried in a pile of shattered cinderblock. Pulling his hands from his pockets, Five jumped to the other side of the glass door. His damp skin pebbled in the artificial air, and he tucked both hands back where they’d been. The store was large, open, and devoid of people. It was strange being back here. The roof had been missing on his first post-apocalyptic visit, so despite the tall ceiling and wide expanse, the building felt claustrophobic somehow.

He strode further in, passing a placard that was almost prescient with its relevance. Senior Tuesday’s, it read, 10% off. Yeah well, he qualified – had qualified once – but he wasn’t there to shop either way. This was a rescue mission. Of sorts.

Five headed towards the women’s clothes section, the figures standing ahead of him bathed in blue light. It was nice, seeing the way everything looked before he’d met her. It was almost like looking at pictures of a person before you knew them, seeing them in an element you were never part of. Something in his stomach fluttered.

Well shit.

He was nervous again. Unbelievable.

Licking his lips, Five made a quick detour. He needed better light, he told himself. Couldn’t find her if he couldn’t see her. He wasn’t stalling. He swung by a shelf with some random items, a shelf he recognized from his first visit as he’d been scouring the place for survival gear and a change of clothes. It was a small discount section, but it had held some useful things.

Clicking the flashlight on, he headed towards the blue glow. He passed by a group of faceless bodies standing together as they modeled the latest fashion, casting his light across them just to make sure she wasn’t hidden among their group. She wasn’t. He continued out into the main aisle. As he pointed the light ahead, his breath caught and he paused, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.

There she was.

She stood straight ahead, waiting for him; quiet; beautiful.

He’d never seen her whole before, so as he slowly approached, he took in her full figure. Yellow hat. She pulled it off of course, she always did hats well. Brunette with bangs; somehow, he’d always known that, had always imagined her like that whenever they talked about how tedious hair was in a world without running water. And legs. Those didn’t suit her at all. He’d known her practically his whole life; seeing her stand on a set of legs was unnatural. She was beautiful – perfect – regardless, but he preferred her as he remembered. She smiled, looking coyly off into the distance, knowing his thoughts, and he sighed.

“Delores.” He called out, mollified by her presence and more relaxed than he’d been in over a year, even if he was thrilled to see her.

“Five.” She said, her voice soft and sultry.

She knew exactly why he was here, but she was letting him do the talking. He tried to feel guilty about seeking her out, but he didn’t. Not now that he saw her.

“It’s good to see you.” He said, when she remained quiet.

“You’re back awful soon.” She replied. “Sooner than expected. Sooner than we agreed.”

“I’ve missed you…”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously.” He agreed.

“You aren’t looking too good.” She commented, her voice concerned.

“Well. I… It’s been a rough couple of days.” Five admitted.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” She asked. “Take a seat. Let’s talk.”

He was ready to do just that, but then he saw them. Two silhouettes standing on the other side of her display. Their heads were too bulbous. Masks. Guns out. Pointed their way.

“No!” Five shouted, panic and adrenaline flooding into him.

And then they were firing.

From  Hello Apocalypse, Goodbye 2019        

[awkwardplantwrites]

holy fuck I found one of the first original stories I wrote. this is from 2013, when I was 16. It’s called “The School Gate.” I have virtually no memory of writing it.

violence/death cw

The school gate. That was where everything happened. Teachers couldn't scold you. It was out of sight from every adult. It gave us the buzz of freedom; some of us so drunk on it we’d riot and cause havoc. We’d do things no-one else would dare do.

I’d fumbled over my own tongue here at the school gate, trying to ask the girl from the year below on a date, and had somehow succeeded. One time my friend’s older brother had given me a cigarette as we waited on my friend to arrive. This place, where the paint on the metal bars were worn by memories... This place was the foundation of my gang. That day had been a Tuesday. Rain pattered on my head as I trudged out the school doors. I wiped droplets from my forehead with a damp sleeve. I could feel it as soon as I walked out of the school building; that feeling you get when you know something will happen by the school gate. As I walked across the school grounds, I could see the scared and excited faces of others glancing at the school gate between snippets of hushed gossip. I looked up to see the gate's threatening presence. I walked past it slowly and slouched against the wall beside it. Today would be the day. I could feel my breathing becoming quicker. I saw my chest rising and falling with every breath as I stared at the ground. Feet scuffed around me. I pulled down my hood. Shanks nodded at me. It was a sign of respect. Ralph grinned at me. His eyes were wide with crazed enthusiasm. The three others, Alan, Smith and Greg towered behind them. Each of them with ill fitting names for their dark, sadistic minds and bulky bodies. I led them all down the dirt path. We were hidden by trees. Our tracks were washed away by raindrops. After ten minutes we were in the middle of the woods. It was dark. A crow cawed. What we all heard was hurried footsteps not too far away. Our first victim. The trees hung above us and sheltered us from the now pouring rain. Mud clung to our shoes as we walked towards him. It squelched beneath our feet in an almost rhythmic pattern. We could see him now, a small, skinny boy about our age. Mousy-brown, wet hair and thick rimmed glasses. Obviously a nerd. We'd be doing him a favour, I reckoned. We walked faster. I held up my hand to let them know we still had to be quiet. The boy sat underneath a tree. For shelter, I supposed. Then he saw us. His eyes widened in fear. I felt the corner of my mouth curling upwards. It was too late for him to run away. Ant and Smith ran ahead and grabbed both his arms. Then they dragged him behind some trees up ahead. I heard muffled screams and the deep, loud voice of Smith shouting abuse. They pulled him back into view. He was a wreck. His glasses were smashed and lay in the mud a few feet behind. His eyes were dark like someone who hadn't had much sleep for a few days. That was the way to hurt him- it would make his stories seem unbelievable. His clothes were soaked with sodden earth. He looked up at me from Ant and Smith's firm hold. I held up my hand. Ant and Smith dropped the boy like a small pebble. "What do you want with me?" he asked in a surprisingly deep voice. I could see the fear still burning in his eyes but a strange sort of understanding lay there too. He stared daggers of hatred at me. I kneeled down and stared into him. "We need you to do something for us." I said. I attempted to keep a cool and calm expression. "If you don't, we're going to tie you to a tree. Then we'll burn that tree. It's very likely that you'll die." I held out my lighter to show him we were serious. Smith was already holding the rope in his enormous hands. "However," I said as I stood up. "If you agree to it, we'll let you go. Maybe even invite you to join our little "group" here." I indicated to the others with my hands. "What'll it be, Junior?" He flinched at the sound of his name. Ant frowned at me. I smiled. I had done my homework all right. The air suddenly seemed heavy, like you could taste the tension in the air.  Junior looked around like he would break. His expression showed inner conflict. It was easy to see things like that. It was never a good sign. Lightning crackled. No-one even flinched."

Alright." he said. He stood up and faced me. Direct, gutsy. I was a little impressed. I didn't let it show. "What do you want me to do?" 

I almost grinned. I was right to see potential in this guy. "We want you to steal something from Mrs Powell's house. Something...expensive. Worth some cash, you know?" 

His jaw dropped but he quickly shut it again. He appeared to be clenching his fists. "That's my grandmother." he said. You couldn't miss the pure malice in his voice. It was music to my ears. "Well, if anything, that makes it easier. Don't you think?" I gave him the eye. When he nodded I felt not merely happy, but superior. "Right then." I smiled. "You can go tonight. Ant, Smith and Greg will be waiting for you outside her house at seven on the dot. If you're not there, well let's just say we know where to find you so..." I shrugged. 

He laughed, a sharp, short snort. "Dude, you don't even know my name, let alone where I live." I frowned. I had thought I had done it all right, thought I had found his name and a victim. I had done everything right and he was spoiling it. Then he ran. We weren't expecting this at all. The kid went like lightning speed. One minute he'd been there, close enough to smell the sweat on him, then he'd flown away. Faster than you could see. I had to blink to make sure I wasn't imagining it. I wasn't. "Get him," I said. "GET HIM!" I shouted. "Go and get him you lazy lowlifes!" I screamed at Ant and Shanks. "What use are you if you're just standing there?!" Ant frowned. Smith crossed his arms. They looked at each other. "Well now, Zachary. It seems like you've lost our first victim. Or maybe we should say your victim since you were the one that dragged us all out here. Telling us we'd be the new cult The Gate Crashers". Smith sneered at me. He looked me in the eye, sized me up, decided he was the biggest. The rain had stopped. A heavy fog blanketed the ground. Ralph looked at me, the excitement was still there in his eyes but it didn't seem to be for the right reason. Oh God, I realised. They'd planned this from the start, maybe even before. I looked for a way out. There was none. They wouldn't listen to Manipulative Me anymore. I couldn't outrun these bastards if my life depended on it. I thought that it probably did. Smith was still holding the rope. He was coming towards me. I didn't run. I knew there was no point. "I'm surprised you haven't tried to leg it." Smith said as he tied me up with his rope. It burned my skin but I had a feeling that things would be worse than this later on. I really wanted to worm my way out of this, wanted to at least try and convince them that we could try someone else, and that I wouldn't include them in the planning this time and we'd be equal. The words were stuck in my throat. It was probably a sign that they wouldn't have worked, had I tried them. My chest felt tight. Smith knotted the end in a bow. I think it was supposed to be ironic. They thought that I believed I was a God given gift so they were going to have me all prettied up so that they could give me back to Hell, the place they thought I came from. And giving me back meant killing me. Smith watched me as I figured this out, probably seeing in his mind my train of thought. Finally, he picked up the lighter which I had dropped in my rant. I could barely breath. I squeezed my eyes shut. Somehow I found my voice again. "You can't set me on fire, or the trees. It's too wet." Smith considered this then looked at me like you would when trying to explain something to a child. "That's a very good point, Zachary," he used my name as a way of annoying me, I knew. And because I knew it it wouldn't bother me. "Perhaps we should leave you somewhere until it all dries up then? And then set you and the woods alight? Would that please you?" he added sarcastically. I clenched my jaw. I looked at the others. They weren't looking at me or Smith. "You're not honestly going to do as he says, are you?" I asked them, ignoring Smith hitting me in the chest. I shrugged him off. "I only tried to get a boy to steal something, not kill one." I hit home. Ralph's eyes widened and the excitement was gone. Smith was raging. "What? Don't listen to that idiot. He's using you. He'd keep all that money to himself. Say it was a part of being a leader. I mean, who even made him the leader?" I looked innocently back at him. "Isn't that what you're doing though Smith? Aren't you suddenly becoming the leader even though no-one ever suggested that you do?" He came for me. I went down to the ground, the ropes still tight around me. He used them to burn my skin. I winced, but I wouldn't scream. He punched me but the ropes softened the blows. Greg suddenly came up from behind him and hit him over the head. He dropped like a dead fish. Or just like something dead, really. He lay still. Ant kicked him lightly. "He's deffinitely out." he said. I restained the urge to roll my eyes. After getting help untying the ropes across my body I lifted his limp wrist. I felt for a pulse. "Oh my God, Greg, you've gone and killed him!" my voice went up by half an octive. I forgot about the burning on my skin for half a second. "No, no I didn't." He shook his head frantically. Ant pushed him away. "Right, so what do we do with his body then?" "I stared at Ant. He stared right back at me. I had no idea he was this inhumane. Maybe it was just shock. A guilty conscience speaking. Or maybe I had turned this boy into a heartless murderer. I looked around. There was no way out of this at all. Everyone seemed to be looking at me for what to do. "Well... I guess we either leave him here for everyone to see. Or we burn the place and his body. Or we drag him into a ditch where he will be found ten years later by a guy walking his dog." Everyone stared at me incredulously. They burst out laughing. Greg hit me in the back. "You're so funny Zach. So funny. Right, how about we go with option two and burn the place down? Or maybe just his body would do, do you think?" Ralph nodded in agreement. I was frozen with horror-not Ralph as well. Not the funny boy I went to nursery with, the boy who helped me learn how to ride my bike when he couldn't even ride his own. I looked into spaces between the trees. Could I..? Well of course I could, but should I? I looked at the group of boys surrounding their friend's body on the forest floor. One had a lighter in his hand, another searched his bag for a jug of gasoline. This was it. The moment I decided whether to  stay here and become a killer in a cult or to run away from it all with a guilty conscience of an act I hadn't directly commited. I stepped forward. I knelt down on the forest floor to join The Gate Crashers in their planning. I stayed.

[tarnishedhalo]

☪

Five Times Our Muses Almost Hold Hands, and the One Time They Do:

{{Spectrum}}

I.  HollowHe’s sitting there, head down, ends of his hair spilling over his hands, and for the first time Riley notices they are darker than the rest of him. Years of oil and grease and wrenches have built up callouses but it’s built something else. Shadows of all the things those hands are capable of that no matter how much pumice-soap he scrubs with it doesn’t wash away. Only closer inspection shows that there’s more. Hints of rust under his nails…no. Rust is a different shadow of red. Rust doesn’t leave someone scourged and empty. Rust doesn’t cause shoulders to shake. Hesitantly, Riley reaches out and Baz pushes him away, shakes his head. Saying with actions he doesn’t need this.

Riley nods and grabs whiskey instead.

II.  Two Man TeamThe rain was coming fast, hard and heavy. A storm brewed in the background, lighting striking haphazardly in the distance. But the thunder isn’t from crashing clouds. Riley holds up a fist. Holds up a finger. Then two. Makes a fist, and he’s moving. Low crouch, rifle braced shoulder high. Kevlar soundless. They move and breath as one.  Riley doesn’t have the luxury of wondering how exactly he’d gotten here, on this Strike Team. It’s a by product of too many late nights spent worrying. It’s because Baz is transparent as glass. When the younger walks into a room and looks around before his blue eyes finally fall on him, Riley knows it’s gonna be an issue some day. Riley’s not stupid. He knows that look well. And he loves the guy, really he does. It’s just…just…. So this is the best he can do.

Rounding the corner, he scans through the scope. He reaches behind his back. Hand glances off the fucker’s wrist, just shy of his intended target. There’s no sound over the comms, but he feels his head duck forward as the fucker tags his helmet.“Got this. Laying down cover fire. Go.”

III. Paradox

It was the turkey sandwich that woke him up.

He stares at the unholy alliance of bread, turkey, lettuce and cheese, thinking I’m stuck. Stuck in this perpetually shifting span of time, in which the same day is repeated over and over again. Like Groundhog Day which was a stupid movie. Only worse because time was actually continuing to move forward. Mondays became Tuesdays which turned into Wednesdays. Months still passed by synonymously with the changing of seasons. Children grew into adults. Adults still sank in their depression.Yet the events that occurred in each individual day were exactly the same. Every day Riley would wake up and go to work. He’d be stuck with the same case as the day before and the day before that. Then he’d eat lunch with people who talked in a language he did not understand.  Then he goes home to a world that chooses not to understand. Sleep.

Rinse and repeat.But that turkey sandwich. Something inside of him had gone missing. The anger rises in response. He was sick of the sandwich. Sick of the watery-crunch sound the lettuce made when he chewed it. Sick of the cheese. Sick of soggy bread that almost dissolves in his mouth. The same thing he’s eaten for years now.

He averted his gaze and looked around. He saw fellow cops sitting at the same tables, wearing the same clothes, conversing with the same people about the same things. Amidst the sea of voices he could make out snippets of conversations he’d heard countless times before. All the meaningless gossip and small talk wrapped around his brain.His head begins to throb furiously, a circuit board overloading with too much data. Squeezes his eyes shut only to see the sickening mirrors reflecting infinity on the back of his eyelids. It was like someone had put the feeling of deja vu in liquid form and shot it through his veins. He gets up and sprints.

In the men’s room, there’s silence. He looks at himself in the mirror and his reflection stares back, seemingly surprised by direct-eye contact.“Are you done yet?"What?”“Are. You. Done. Yet?”“I don’t know what you’re talking-”

The mirror splinters in cobweb fragments.

He only just manages to throw his arm up to shield his face.

“"Fa'fuc'sake s'only a'sandwich, asshole. Don'want it? Don'eat it.”

If Baz only knew. His first instinct to grab the kid’s hand, make sure he’s real. But that’s a whole lot of crazy he doesn’t want to get into, because how do you explain Quiet, a mage’s version of metaphysical time-out for bad behaviour?

He eats the sandwich.

IV.  Six

“Be there n'six”The last thing B says to him. He wonders, after six minutes has passed, if the shithead meant six hours, but somehow that couldn’t be right.  He doesn’t remember there being a job out of town.

An hour later and he’s worried. Calls his cell, sends texts, wonders what else he could do.  The worst part about it, Riley broke his word. Long distance knocking around the castle walls, even though he promised he wouldn’t. But the gates are all shut up, the windows bricked up and despite the power he commands, he can’t find a way inside.

And that sparks a wildfire of well…not jealousy exactly. Nor anger.

Hurt, asshole, the word your looking for is…hurt.Normally sleepers have little resistance to his magick, though Baz isn’t technically a sleeper. Nor is he awakened. The best way he could put it was the kid’s a kind of sorcerer, and that’s not right either. It is what it is, but the point was…to get around Riley like he’s doing… SOMEONE has to have shown him how. And that someone isn’t Beth because she couldn’t will her way out of a wet paper bag without him knowing about it.

So that means Baz has been hanging out with someone else.

Someone who’s deliberately shutting Riley out.He paces his way through a half bottle of Glen Livet before he switches to Vodka.Two hours.Three.At this point Riley’s grabbing his keys and his jacket, mentally composing a missing persons report for his missing person, because the inner cop won’t let this shit go.Throws the door open and there’s a strange collision of puffed up chests. There’s a spectacular display of juggling as the plastic sack hits the floor, ass over tea-kettle, though Baz manages to retain his grasp on the bottle, because of course he has priorities.

“‘Y'fuckin’ kiddin’ me? S'fuckin’ dinner, jackass.”The words don’t matter. Riley grabs his hands, and then takes it a step further by dragging the fucker into a hug, arms like vices around his neck and shoulders. 

“Next time, fucking call.”

This is how Baz discovered Riley doesn’t do surprises well.

V.  HettiquetteRiley’d heard, knew Beth and Jay went to these kinds of things in support of their friends, but it’s goddamn fascinating. Like if someone took Carnival and mated it with Mardi-Gras and somehow incubated the result inside of a Vegas Strip floor show. It was absolutely mesmerizing.  And there’s a lot he didn’t inspect. There’s a man and his wife not far away, a group of teenagers. A couple wearing 'Theirs’ and 'Theirs’ tee-shirts that he makes a mental note to ask about later.

And Riley has to wonder if he’s even got a right to be here, that maybe his attempt to offer B moral support isn’t actually having the opposite effect, even if he laughed in his very Baz way over the 'Not Gay but my Boyfriend is’ shirt. Beth had given him one piece of advice before they separated for the day. 

“No dare aks wen Straight Pride is. Jus’…no. If ya do… no gonna be let out of da hale wi'out woke adult supervision, yeah? An’ wha'evah ya do…no embarrass. If I hear ya make him uncomfortable….I will make YOU uncomfortable.”Then she vanished into sequins and feathers and flower crowns.She hadn’t needed to warn him.

Despite everything that marks him as out of place, the people are welcoming. They’re warm and beautiful and the beer flows. Sees a couple people he would never have thought ought to be here. The only awkwardness is when he comes across Wojakovitz. Riley’s not usually intimidated but the rookie is six foot seven and about as wide across. Apparently, his partner…boyfriend… is a school teacher at PS 182. Good on them.At some point, in the bar later, Riley’s managed to hit his limit, and teeters his way over to Baz whose been strangely quiet most of the night, more so than usual. Arm around the younger’s shoulder, Riley leans down and lays his cheek atop Baz’s head.“C'mon asshole. Dance with me. This is a good song.”The look he gets  from both of them would have curdled paint.

He asks twice more in variations.

Twice more he’s rebuked.So he sits down next to B and his hand falls to the other’s side. Trying not to make an issue of it, one pinkie curls around Baz’s and then Baz is up and muttering something about hitting the head.“Did I…say something wrong?”No one answers him. Not even his sister.

VI. The Hang of Thursdays

         “Pick sum’m else dickhead.  Shit’s kill yer dog depressin’.”

There’s a point where his face is pale and haggard, where lack of sleep has left him looking five days dead on a three day weekend,  and the next line of the song stutters into a choking breath. He doesn’t imagine it, Baz’s mouth had moved, had formed the words and it’s stolen all of the oxygen from Riley’s brain. He doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry or …there was a phrase for this, they used to call it 'don’t know if he should shit or go blind’. 

His hands tighten around the fucker’s, careful not to dislodge the IV shunt.It’s a process. Rough palms sliding against each other. Long, blunt fingers seeking the crevices between the other’s hand. The grasp is as tight as he can make it, a warning that if Baz slips out of consciousness, he’s dragging Riley’s two hundred and five pounds with him.Baz’s scarred and battered knuckles are brought up, pressed against Riley’s lips. They’re dry and chapped but gentle as Riley bows his head over their joined hands. It takes him long minutes to compose himself enough to actually speak.

“You EVER scare me like that again, fucker, and I will beat your ass into the fuckin’ ground. You hear me?”He doesn’t mean a word of it.His eyes squeeze shut, lines spiraling around the corners and for the first time since they’d gone and recovered Baz Barton, he can breathe.What he can’t do is let go.

[little-lottie]

Happy Tuesday! Please accept another BoB Big Bang snippet. It’s from the first draft of chapter 1 (timeline wise: the end of the Last Patrol)

~

He looks over at Nix, just a glance. After the war Dick’s best friend will return to New Jersey, to his wife and child. And the thought claws at his chest.

“Alright, Captain Winters,” Nix announces with a dramatic flourish as he uncurls himself from the chair. “Lights out for you. And I need to go and write this up.” He pats Dick on the shoulder as he walks past, leaves heat and comfort in his wake. When he reaches the door, he looks back and there’s a strange intensity in his eyes. His mouth is parted ever so slightly like he’s waiting to breathe hesitant words off of his tongue, but he remains silent and the moment stretches out. Dick feels a shiver on his skin as though the room is drawing in a breath.

Dick waits, smile slowly fading because Nix still hasn’t said anything and it's starting to look like the unspoken words are somehow hurting him.

Nix pushes a hand through his hair. “You know, I-” he cuts himself off abruptly, studies the floor and takes a breath. “I’m really proud of you, Dick.”

Dick blinks and smiles, feeling something lighten in him that he didn’t know was weighed down. He can’t think what to say and so for a few seconds they just watch one another. They actually do that quite a lot, Dick’s mind helpfully points out. He doesn’t know what that means, but it sends a dart of warmth through his body and a flush onto his cheeks.

With a tiny nod, Nix’s spine straightens and he raps his knuckles on the door frame, the sound of a decision made, then he turns and walks away. Dick watches him leave with a sense that something’s not quite right, a feeling like there’s something...unsaid.

@easycobigbang @suitcasefullofmixtapes @dancinguniverse

[marlaalcott]

I'm going to make a post about OCD.

Let's start with some very very basic background story on my OCD. I have struggled with this illness for a long time. I can trace it back to as early as age 9/10. I have no recollection whether it existed beforehand, but even as a child I could recognize that I was doing things that didn't feel "normal" without rationalized/logical explanation. I felt overwhelming compulsions to carry out the actions.

In retrospect, the earliest symptoms that I can recall aligned with the period of my life that my brother was in a near fatal car accident (that's a whole other emotional post in itself). Irregular thoughts and actions for sure started at that point.

I don't know precisely what age this began, or if it existed before said car accident, but I also remember having hoarding tendencies for useless inanimate objects. I shared a bedroom with my brother, and in it we had these 2 dressers that were stacked on top of each other (we didn't have a lot of space). The open area/gap that existed between the dressers became a storage place for me. I used to put a lot of stuff in there. Most of it was useless crap. For example: I remember saving wrappers from Spice Girl bubblegum and lollipops.

There was also a time in my early teens that I used to save transit tickets. I legit was able to pick up any given transfer, look at the time and date, and remember exactly where I went and who I was with. They held sentiment and served as keepsakes.

Fast forward through my mid teenage years. I seemed to have fought off my illness for the most part during this period. By the time I met my life partner in my late teens, he described my outwardly strange actions as nothing more than "quirks". Yes. He agreed that some of the stuff I did seemed strange, but not outright crazy.

In my early 20's I had a full on OCD crash. The illness litterally consumed my entire existence. The 2 people who were closest to me watched and stood by as my sanity crumbled like the Roman Empire. I was lost. I was a shell of myself. It was rock bottom at that point in my life. My own personal hell. Something I would never wish on anyone. I strongly believe this was also the catalyst for the demise of my romantic relationship. My illness drove away the one person I loved more than anyone or anything in the world. And that fucking sucks. (More on that another day!).

Anyways. Let's fast forward to the present. I have tried my best to keep it under wraps the best that I can since way back then. It comes and goes varying severity, but luckily it hasn't been anything nearly as bad as back then. I battle it every waking moment of my existence.

Now let's speed up to the past few days. An incident took place Monday night/into Tuesday, that I'm not OK with. I entered into it willingly. Nothing "wrong" happened per se, but fuck if I felt anything but wrong afterwards. Here's some more back story to my current life and the situation at hand. I have spent the past year and a half living in denial of my still existent love for my ex. He broke up with me last May, and we have had nothing short of a rocky road since. We are 2 puzzle pieces that no longer fit together (there will be numerous posts on the topic of my heartache in the future). Not too long after we split, I had a sexual encounter that I consider non consensual. I refuse to classify it as r*pe due to the intense ramifications of that definition, but what took place was certainly not OK. To say the least. (Side note, that guy is a douchebag). I didn't handle the aftermath of that incident well. I made an effort to seek the help that I needed, but it fell through due to horrible management who denied my request to go to hospital emergency (because y'know. My 4 hour shift in a part time retail environment was the most important thing in the world!). Ugh.

Time carried on, and I fought through each passing day with mounting hurt and emotional trauma that stemmed from the devastation of the loss of a marriage (essentially), and then the non consensual scenario. Somehow I've made it through the last year running from all of this fuckery.

Yesterday a snippet of the buried trauma came creeping back in. I turned to 4 of my close friends for consoling. It was needed. I gained 4 different insights to try and put the situation into perspective. At the end of the day the most important questions were "Why do I feel guilty?" "Why do I have so much anxiety?" "Why do I feel "icky/dirty"?" The shitty thing is that I couldn't answer any of these questions with any amount of definitive clarity.

I have learned a few things though: I am NOT ready for sexual relations with any new human beings. As it turns out, I value sex as more of a sacred and spiritual connectiveness act than I previously thought I did. My heart and body still metaphorically belong to someone else (even though in reality they are MINE). I also believe that I need to be in love and part of an established relationship before I can consider engaging in any sexual acts. I need a foundation.

I didn't get any sleep Monday night. (Half an hour in and out consciousness if I'm lucky). But fuck if my OCD didn't kick my ass. My primary struggles are "contamination" oriented, coupled with magical thinking (I'll make a separate post with a more in depth definition of magical thinking). When those 2 are combined, you get me as a result! And God damn it is hell on earth.

Here's what happened. And I don't expect anyone to understand any of this (unless you have OCD as well).

I came home and headed straight into my room (as I usually do) to remove my boots and socks. My dogs came to greet me and tried to give me kisses, but I denied said kisses because I didn't want "oral sex germs" on my babies. I headed into the shower, got out, and then continued to commence my usual after shower routine. Here's where shit started to hit the fan. I grabbed a cotton pad and sprayed my toner onto it to wipe my face, and BAM. Magical thinking contamination OCD brain kicked in! I thought to myself "I haven't brushed my teeth yet. The inside of my mouth is still contaminated. What if the cotton pad spread those still existent germs onto my clean face?". I tried to ignore my irrational concerns and carried on. I applied moisturizer and the rest of my face products, put hair product in my hair, deodorant on the pits, I peed, then I exited the bathroom and got dressed. When I was done all that I acquired my toothbrush and brought it back into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I finished brushing, I broke down. I used hand soap to rewash my entire face, but I couldn't shake the feelings that my face was contaminated. So back into the shower I went! 2 showers. 2 FUCKING SHOWERS. FML. And when I got out the second time, I had a hard time believing that I even brushed my teeth to begin with (yay magical thinking brain for being able to convince myself of untruths!). I got through it all and went out to see a friend, but when I got home my anxiety was still fucked and I felt unsafe in my bed.

I got lots of MUCH NEEDED sleep, but I still felt "scared" of my bedding when I woke up. That fear did not diminish with the sleep. Remember how I said I took off my boots when I got home? Yeah. My "dirty" clothes touched my bedding. *Gasp*

I was supposed to see a couple of close friends today, but she had to cancel. So I succumbed to my OCD! I full spiraled. Like I did years ago. I legitimately felt my brain unraveling into that same insanity. I recognized this place. I have been there before. And my biggest fear is falling right off the rails again.

After I was cancelled on, I didn't know what to do with myself or my day. I was also emotionally worked up and anxious, because I had just looked at my exes Facebook page (this is a form of self harm for me. Seeing his public flirtations with his new love interest, is more than I can handle at this time in my life). So into the wash half of my bedding goes! And then I hopped back into the shower, sat down, and cried under the running hot water while asking higher powers to help me. All in all I have rewashed bedding that was already cleaned not even a week ago along with some clothing (clothing that included what I wore into the hotel Monday night), and showered twice. Totally unnecessary, but fuck. At least I feel calmer.

I think my OCD is coming back into play as a control mechanism. My ex is building a new life for himself along with a new partner, and it's my mind's way of easing itself. Everything is falling apart (hopefully to eventually come back together), and my illness is resurfacing in attempts to regain some kind of power. (I'm scared of my toothbrush btw).

I believe suppressed feelings of my non consensual sexual encounter from last year also resurfaced yesterday. Disclaimer: This incident was with someone I know and trust. It wasn't "wrong", but it felt wrong for me. I am NOT someone who can do the whole NSA/FWB thing. I learned about myself!

The guy I was with even made a few comments along the way of being concerned about my fragility. Turns out, he was right! I guess he knows aspects of myself better than I even do. :(

Today was a huge OCD failure. I NEED a psychiatrist referral. I don't want to go back to my dark place.

[whitelennykravitz-blog]

I guess Warsaw now has very high contrast memories for me. I’ve been there twice: once on a fickle weekend for sex, and now on a weekend that was dense with my life. This second time was a Friday through Tuesday that included everything: laughter, crying, broken teeth, and mental spaces that both seemed insignificant and insurmountably oppressive.

I’ve been seeing Katarzyna for about a year. Or I guess we met about a year ago, when I walked into the building that housed my new studio, and saw her alit on a balcony wearing a kimono. I say “alit”, because she seemed to be drifting around the concrete railings after having just landed from above, with ivy around her that clung with an air of casualness to walls that showed no signs of hand holds.

She introduced herself a few minutes later and I was smitten. Her face beautiful and turned towards mine, and eyes that held vast confidence that clearly masked severe self-doubt. Eyes like mine. I think that’s why we got along so well. And the sex. Which was amazing. Although, we had the worst first sex I’ve ever had in my life. About halfway through there was a moment where we both looked at each other and the unspoken was almost deafening as it reverberated around awkwardly entangled limbs, “Do we really want to keep doing this?” I would have never thought that sex so clumsy and awful could ever become what it did. Insatiable. Our sex life was the Brussels sprout of my sex life: intolerable at first, and now craved and lusted for.

She was not so keen on me at the start of things. In fact I think she didn’t like me. But something of me found hooks in her, and vice-versa, and a year of fucking in clubs, lead to long distant telephone calls across the world, to us finally landing in the same area of the world once again, where I decided I wanted to break up. It’s hard to tell if it was a flare up of the crushing depression I suffer from that is what caused me to pull the trigger, or the fact that two artists hanging out is basically a pingpong match of people starting sentences with “I”. All those “I”s and distance and it became a practice of spending time with someone while somehow still being completely alone. Either way, distance and the sensation that I was screaming behind my face made me call it quits.

I initially did this over Skype. Never break up with people on Skype, especially if they are prone to large swings of emotion. I now know this after a 4 hour session of being yelled at, being called a coward, and then being told how much I was loved.  This all ended with us planning on meeting in Warsaw to talk about things face-to-face. I know that doesn’t logically follow, but suspend disbelief in the details of this story.

We decided to put off Our Talk until Sunday, giving us 2 days of pretending like we were a real couple. We saw friends, went to exhibitions, fucked like we were trying to redecorate rooms through kinetic energy. I don’t think I’ve ever navigated the texture of so many surfaces with my balls before. This was due to a stage of the fucking that meandered through a foyer and kitchen, where different ledges and surfaces (each adorned with it’s own selection of free range objects, knobs, and finishes) meant a new terrain for my balls to high five like a drunk frat boy at homecoming. Oven knobs, keys, and a steak knife, I believe, were all involved at one point.

We spent some time with her friends: artists she knew and an ex-boyfriend. The ex, had always treated me sort of like shit telling me that weekend, in condescending tones, how to pronounce Katarzyna’s name correctly while we bought beer in a convenience store. Or maybe it wasn’t condescension, but just the protection of someone who knew I was a day or two away from really hurting her. It’s hard to tell. The first time I met him he walked into the room briskly and declared “tell me something about you.” Which is a dismissive and affronting command that I tried to laugh off, as I thought about the ways gorillas establish dominance. I also thought about how I really didn’t have anything to say about myself, but the first thing that came to mind was to tell him the last thing I had had to eat. After this first meeting, Katarzyna agreed something strange had happened. Feelings that still dwelled? Anger over their breakup?

Katarzyna loved to talk about how beautiful she was and I could see how certain men looked at her. When I look back at the group of characters that I was flung through, I’m trying to guess which one she’ll fuck now. I guess that’s pretty stupid and shallow, but it’s the truth. My money is on Dawid, a photographer/PhD in art, who clearly likes Katarzyna, and who she clearly likes the attention from. Maybe he’s the one.

We also had a dinner with her brother who I had never met before. His boyfriend and he met us at an Italian restaurant where I watched the dynamics of sibling order take over, as Katarzyna turned into a younger sister, with simplified vocabulary and school girl antics. I think the love between siblings has the potential to bring out their deepest insecurities. Maybe it’s because they can’t let their ego swell up in the face of someone that knows them so well.

The breakup talks started the next morning, Sunday, around 1pm after a night in a shitty club, doing some shitty drugs, and having some rough sex that ended up with Katarzyna chipping two teeth. She was into getting slapped and thrown around during sex, but with the teeth grinding invoked by this particular drug, one slap ended with a chipped bottom and top tooth. This now gives us one more thing in common, besides our narcissism and being lovers, as both of my front teeth are chipped due to a night that involved acid, cocaine, a flaccid penis, and a woman intent on fixing this with an extremely eager blowjob (which I could only look down at both with fright and awe while I bit down so hard, that I broke my teeth. This woman, Cleo, was actually someone that I dated after a particularly long relationship, and on this teeth breaking night I had randomly ran into her at a bar and somehow ended up walking back to her place as I explained, “I’m pretty fucked up and definitely can’t get hard.” And she nodded with a sly smile like she knew something I didn’t. But she didn’t know such things. It was like a mall cop standing outside an English football stadium in the throws of a riot and saying, “Don’t worry, I got this.” before bolting into an entrance with too much enthusiasm.)

It’s an interesting connection to notice, because Cleo was the first person to get me into rough sex. Ropes, gags, and pushing the limits of physicality. We met when I didn’t have a room of my own — I was floating around Seattle — and I asked to use my friend Jon’s room for a date night with her. After being tied spread eagle onto his bed, fucked, and hit with a belt, we took a break for drinks, only to have Jon and his girlfriend return to his room. I guess a pro tip here is: don’t leave a bunch of ropes tied to the bed of your friend, with a random belt and a heap of condoms presented almost like gifts at the foot of his bed, when this friend has a very jealous girlfriend. This girlfriend will never talk to you again.

But Katarzyna and I took all that to a whole new level. It’s not a place to unpack here, but she made me reframe what a physical relationship is: the celebration of the independence of two bodies that choose to spend a moment of time together.

Anyway.

The thing about breakups is that both people want to be understood. To be heard, and acknowledged. The problem always is that if you both understood each other perfectly there probably wouldn’t be an issue in the first place; the issue would have been fixed. So the Long Tail of relationships can happen where you mix arguments with breakup sex over and over in the hope of baking the perfect We Both Understand cookie. This cookie doesn’t exist.

An extra piece to the whole thing was that on Sunday around 2 or 3 hours into talking/yelling, Katarzyna’s mom called to say her grandpa had died. This wasn’t out of left-field, he had stopped eating and drinking fluids a week before, but the timing was somewhat absurd. Over drinks the following day Katarzyna jokingly retold the story of our breakup, as if talking to friends, saying “and then my mom called to say my grandpa had died, and he thought, ‘nah, I’ll still break up with her.’” There’s a lot I want to say about her grandfather. But there are only a few snippets that popped into my head when I heard he had passed: he was in the war, his wife was mean to him, he had seen too much. My sister remembered that he had an apartment that looked exactly the same since he moved into it after the war. It was like going back in time. I didn’t remember this, which made me feel very bad.

There was a lot of crying that weekend. From both of us. At a certain point I broke down and wailed like an animal. Katarzyna drew me a bath and lead me to it as I seemed to be overplaying the part of a lobotomized patient. There was a point right before where I thought, “this looks good if I seem to feel this bad.”, but then I realized I actually felt that bad; playing crazy and then realizing no game is actually happening. 

She soaked a scarf in the hot water and draped it on my head. Splashed water on my shoulders and back. She couldn’t help but flick my cock once. That’s one thing: she creeped on my body hard, all the time, and it was the sweetest thing. The next day I was able to return the ritual to her, making her a bath and caressing her as she wept and took deep breaths.

I think she performed the ritual better: my approach felt a bit like applying sunscreen to someones face using only the backs of my hands.

Such strong emotional engagements in bed made for some interesting conflicts between body and mind. Katarzyna would scream or cry, but this look would creep in her eye, and she would excuse herself in an emotional explosion, getting out of bed by pushing off of me, her hand placed fully on my chest, or resting precariously close to my cock. It was like subway creepers “accidently” brushing against strangers. Similarly, I would be talking and holding her, and suddenly be completely hard. We were in middle school, slow dancing; a lot going on with maybe only a 30% conscious understanding of what was happening.

I think as I get older and look at what I have failed to accomplish, it can be hard to hang out with younger people making something of their lives. The whole breakup conversation was made worse by it being lead by a young woman driven and dedicated to a certain path. If I had been coming to awareness of my poor basketball skills while talking to Lebron James, the sensation would be similar.

I cried, and laughed, and fucked, while thinking, “that could be me!” Which is actually a funny sentiment to have with her as the previous year she had thrown me a surprise party where everyone was wearing masks of my face, which I then asked if she could wear during sex. We cut a hole in the mouth and I watched my unblinking face as I blew myself. It felt a little like getting a blowjob from a character in Goldeneye. After I gave myself a facial, she put on one of my sweaters and jumped eagerly onto all fours on my bed, looking over her shoulder. My face peeking over the shoulder of a beautiful young woman’s body, which made me see my normal face as one begging for sex as I tried to put everything together in my head. I couldn’t finish fucking doggy style. It felt like a bit much.

Anyway, I had technically been her at one point in my life. And fucked myself. Which seems very similar to the current situation.

On Monday we woke up late and I think I ate the best pussy of my life. Katarzyna’s entire body became paralyzed and she retreated to a ball and started crying. She was terrified at not being able to move and described something that, to me, sounded like her pussy throwing up all over her body. I’m sure the intense emotional context had a lot to do with it, but I’m going to go ahead and give myself a gold star anyways.

We went out for one last date together. We drank Prossecco and got a seafood platter that reminded me of how I hated seafood platters. It’s a lot of work spread across suspicious flavors; all Mike and Ikes mixed with black licorice that is too salty. But the point is they’re fancy and it seemed like a thing people get on a first date, which maybe are also the perfect things to get on the last date.

I left early the next morning. We lay in bed those final moments and I told her I loved her.  It felt a little like saying hello to say goodbye; Hawaiian customs adapted to a failed relationship. She stood in the apartment’s entry in a kumano. Her body a stripe down the open front. Light switches and door bells seemed to hover around the walls. But the door wasn't a good place to say goodbye, because half of my mind was on the elevator arriving. It did. I entered, and it closed around her body, the building swallowing her up.

I’m still trying really hard to remember exactly the look in her eye. Probably over the years it will be many things.

I turned to look at the mirror in the elevator and my hair looked like shit — I looked like shit — and I thought about how this is exactly as she would remember me.

I thought about two nights before as we both entered the elevator and immediately did the preening checks that most are wont to do in elevator mirrors: the subtle turns of the face and drawing of facial muscles, as we quickly scan the imperfections that we are trying to hide.

I can see her pretty clearly in the mirror at that moment, as stacked layers of a woman seen on a balcony, in a doorway, and through some things in-between that seem hard to put my finger on.