#fuck you i hope you looked at my mask every day and remembered what april 2020 was like

[crunchycrystals]

almost wrote my age as two years younger than i actually am

[wilted-pikmin]

@xenasaur and anyone else who relates to what xenasaur said

I have ADHD, among other things, that cause me many types of memory impairments. I relate to this experience exactly as described. and while I know this may not help everyone, I think it might be worth looking into.

while I still have a lot of my memory impairments, this very specific experience has gotten so much better for me very recently

back in April I was diagnosed with obstrutive sleep apnea, and in June I finally got a CPAP machine (which can be a treatment for obstructive sleep apnea). it took some trial and error finding a mask that works best for me, but once I did it was like a fucking miracle.

After years of brain fog and inability to remember things I just thought/did/said/heard seconds ago, which got worse and worse since I first started having these problems- suddenly I was able to remember things well enough to carry a conversation that lasted an hour (could have gone on for longer, but it was a therapy appointment that needed to end) and was able to recall what I was trying to say sentences ago.

It didn't really fix my rambling and going on tangents problem, but when I did ramble and go on tangents- I was able to recall what I was actually trying to say and get back on topic, multiple times in the same conversation. I haven't experienced this in a very long time. I felt so much relief and hope for once and I am ever grateful I found something that works for me.

if you're having this problem, please look into multiple kinds of sleep disorders, and see if you have any symptoms of them. ADHD is very commonly comorbid with sleep disorders. if you have the ability, please look into getting diagnosed and getting treatment for them. I used to struggle with waking up every two hours because my body kept stopped breathing, and now I wake up maybe once every night between going to bed and getting up. I'm actually able to get a full nights rest and it's amazing. I still struggle with fatigue because of my chronic illnesses, but I'm no longer sleepy while I'm awake, hardly having brain fog anymore, and able to stay alert.

I should note, I also take Adderall and Vyvanse- and while those helped me wake up at a reasonable time in the day (if I was even able to take them. sometimes I couldn't because I was so groggy that I couldn't even move), it didn't help with focus at all for me. but now that I'm able to get better sleep, I feel more focused and able to think.

a side note about obstrutive sleep apnea- make sure you're using your CPAP machine for long enough each night, otherwise you won't have much of the benefits of it. if you're having trouble keeping it on for long enough, look into getting a different mask (and try as many as different ones as it takes to be able to wear it for long enough), and look into how to deal with other problems that might arise. please keep trying until you find the right setup that works for you! it's worth it, I promise <3

the curse of adhd:

i will remember with absolute clarity, when the thought strikes me that i have a text to send someone, that this is the fourth time in three days i've attempted to send this specific text

i will forget, in the time it takes me to pick up my phone, that i picked it up intending to send a text

[havethetimeofyourstyles]

Chapter Three.

a/n: get ready for the yearning in this chapter! also please make sure to reblog to share and leave feedback — it really helps writers continue wanting to post and continue writing.

SERIES MASTERLIST | word count: 8.2k

come talk to me about wtsgd! i’d love to know your thoughts!

April 30, 2017

Luci woke up to loud knocking on her front door, too loud for eight in the morning when she wanted to sleep in. She thought she was dreaming, like someone was knocking directly onto her head, telling her to wake up. But the knocking increased, making her scream into her pillow, getting out of bed. Her pink soft house slippers that Ren made sure she brought so she wouldn’t get her new floors dirty with her outside shoes padded on the wooden floor and towards the entrance, opening the door. 

Once she opened her door, her parents and Nathan were behind it, smiling as they waved their hands into a jazz-like movement. 

“Lulu!” 

“My Lucky!” 

“Ana!” 

Her family charged through her doorway, bringing her into their arms for a family group hug. Luci was wide awake and smiling at the sight and presence of her family. They all eventually let her go to give her individual hugs to have their own moment because they just missed her that much. 

They made their way out of the front entrance and hallway, walking more into her apartment as Ren and Beatrice looked around in awe of how much natural light that was provided. She gave her parents a tour before they all settled into the living room where they had a cup of coffee in to-go cups and ate breakfast sandwiches. 

Luci then told them the events that happened yesterday, minus her unexpected hangout with Harry, and they were furious. All at once, their hearts broke but were quick to ignite with anger. 

“How could she do that?!” Ren had an angry expression on his face, and it was one that she and Nathan had always been afraid of ever since they were younger; it was rare to see their father angry since he was much softer as it would take a lot for him to get him to that state. 

She shrugged her shoulders. “People favor power over fairness these days, or else they’d lose their biggest stars.” Nathan scoffed from the sofa chair next to the couch, but didn’t say anything more. 

It was the harsh truth of showbiz that almost everyone knew—it was a fact; Broadway and Hollywood don’t play fair, it’s obvious they want the best of the best, and if that’s passing up a new talent that could take them to the moon over the seniority of actors who’ve been in the industry for much longer, they’ll take that opportunity. And Luci knew that when she signed up for this. 

Beatrice told Luci that she was sorry this was happening, and they all agreed that whenever her time to perform on stage comes, they’d be there. Luci smiled at her lap, appreciating their support. The Suki family talked for another hour and a half, catching up on the month that passed when they weren’t all together, before they took the subway to the hotel they were staying at to catch their flight out of New York. Luci said her goodbyes to them in front of the hotel, apologizing that they had to come out here for nothing, but they brushed it off, saying that they would do it again just to see her. 

She watched them get into an Uber, waving at her family as they took off down the streets of Manhattan. She took the subway back to Brooklyn as she wrote down a list of what she wanted to do today; find more decorations, clean, eat pizza, and crack a bottle of wine because she damn well needed it. 

It was almost eleven a.m. when she got back to her apartment and decided to get ready for the day. Her throat felt incredibly dry, so she hydrated herself, gulping the liquid down her throat until she heard a knock on her door. Luci furrowed her brows, wondering if it was Nathan or Beatrice behind that door, asking if they’d left their wallet or phone since they were the more forgetful ones in the family, but when she looked around her living room, she didn’t find anything.

A knock on the door was heard and Luci sighed, walking over to open it as she didn’t expect the person behind it. 

“Samuel?” 

“Hey, babe.” A smug smile was present on his face, but a scowl was present on hers, rolling her eyes at the pet name.

“What are you doing here—no, how do you even know where I live?” Luci placed her hand on her hip, a wrinkle in between her eyebrows. 

“Not gonna let me in?” He gave her an amusing smile, and she rolled her eyes, huffing before moving to the side and letting him in. He walked into the main part of the apartment, looking around. 

Luci crossed her arms, trailing behind him. “So, are you gonna answer my question?” 

“I got your address when you texted me to come over that one night, remember?” 

She mentally cursed herself. Her relationship with Samuel had done a complete one-eighty. After the afterparty on opening night, things were very weird between them after she denied his request to have sex with him in the bathroom of the longue. He had avoided her unless it was work related, but even then, he kept the conversation and words to a minimum, adding attitude and rudeness. If she thought things were weird then, it got even weirder the night leading up to when Daisy took her spotlight on stage last night. 

During rehearsals, he’d flirt with Daisy sometimes even kiss her up. Daisy would give Luci a snarky look every time his face was in her neck, biting her skin, and that was when Luci found out the real reason why Daisy despised her. All because of Samuel. All because of a man. The bitter looks didn’t bother Luci and it wasn’t like she was jealous, but it simply confused her because one day he wanted to fuck her and was sweet to her but when she said no, he was rude and would fuck someone else—there was no real type of closure. He probably took her into the bathroom after she left, Luci thought. 

So, she didn’t really care for him anymore because after all, he was just a someone to fuck; all she cared about was why he decided to show up at her apartment unannounced and uninvited. 

“That was a very weak moment for me.” Luci rebutted mockingly; Samuel scoffed and smirked cockily. He leaned against her countertops, and she hated that she still found him attractive because anyone with eyes knew very clearly that he was a very sexy guy, and the worst part was that he knew it too—he knew it very well. “So, tell me what the fuck you’re doing here?” 

“I’m here to tell you that you’re probably not going to perform anytime soon…” he said in a mocking tone, a fake pout on his face as he gave her puppy-dog eyes. 

She scoffed, shaking her head lightly. “Aww, did Daisy tell you to come all the way here and tell me that?” 

“And if she did?” 

“It’s cute that you’re a messenger now. It suits you since you have all this time to waste, like you did mine.” She breathed out a laugh, making him roll his eyes, and it only brought satisfaction to hurt his huge ego. “Well, how about you tell your little Daisy to stop sending people to tell me things because if she had the balls, then she would tell me herself. Plus, you’re wasting your time here to tell me one little thing that doesn’t affect me.” Luci dramatically gasped. “I’m really living in both of your minds rent-free, aren't I?” 

Samuel inhaled heavily, biting back his words as if Luci had offended him, but it would only make sense that he felt that way because of his feelings for Daisy. He headed towards the door with Luci hot on his tail as a way to push him out faster than he came in. 

“Well, I’ll see you Luci—not on stage, but yeah, I’ll see you.” She wasn’t going to lie, but those few words took a dig at her heart; luckily, she’s an actor, so she was able to mask her pain and anger, giving him a scornful smile as she opened the door. Samuel chuckled, not amusingly but in a way that made him think that she was an outright bitch. 

Harry’s door suddenly opened, making him stop in his tracks as he witnessed the interaction happening because it definitely looked like this guy was just leaving her place. Luci’s head turned towards him as her eyes widened slightly; Harry had a weird look on his face, looking back and forth between her and Samuel. 

“Hey, Harry.” Luci broke his train of thought and Harry looked directly at her, smiling slightly. 

“Hi, Luci.” She suddenly felt a wave of nerves wash through her, butterflies erupting in her stomach once he said her name, thinking that he was by far the best person to say it. 

She felt antsy, fiddling with fingers as she started bouncing on the balls of her feet—a habit that she did when she started to feel nervous. Samuel could see straight through her, catching all the signs when she was a bit anxious and he had a feeling that it had something to do with her neighbor. 

Samuel brisked past her, giving her a kiss on the cheek to mess with both of them; Luci’s eyes widened, pulling her face back but it was too late as his lips had already connected with her skin. 

“See you, Luci.” Instead of the cocky smirk he had when he arrived, he had a loving and kind smile as he left because he wasn’t the only actor in the room. 

Once Samuel rounded the corner, Luci looked at Harry and there was a crease in between his brows. 

“I-I, uh, that’s not-”

“No worries. You don’t need to explain to me, honestly.” Harry walked out into the hallway, locking his door before giving her a toothless grin and walking down the hall. 

Luci’s mouth was slightly ajar as she watched him. She closed her door and placed her forehead against it quite harshly, letting out a frustrated groan.

After much sulking, she decided to get on with her day, hoping she can be as productive as she hoped to be. But the thought of if Harry liked her—even as a person or ‘friend,’ if she could call herself that—lingered around in her head; and she doesn’t know why what he thought of her had so much of an affect on her, but it did. Maybe it was because she had a sort of infatuation with her neighbor, or that she couldn’t stop thinking about him and what he was doing across the hall. Whatever it was, she only hoped that he liked her too. 

May 13, 2017 

Quite early, Luci received a phone call from Tal. 

Her phone was buzzing rapidly on her brown wooden nightstand; and in her sleep, she was trying to determine if she had set an alarm the previous night. When she thought she did, she let her phone snooze for ten minutes. But it was certainly not an alarm because just a few seconds after the buzzing stopped, it had started again. 

Grumpy as usual in the morning, she groaned, propping her elbows on her mattress as she pried her eyes open and picked up her phone. When she saw Tal as the caller ID, her brows furrowed in confusion. 

“Hello?” 

“Luci? Luci? Hi, can you hear me?” The gauging sound of the city was heard on the other end of the call, and she could just imagine Tal placing one hand to her ear as she walked through the bustling streets. 

“Yeah, I can. Hi.” Luci’s voice increased, becoming more audible for Tal. 

“Great! So, I’m glad you answered. I know things have been a bit weird lately ever since, y’know…” she said, referring to when Daisy had stolen her spotlight. “But I want to let you know that you’re performing tonight. I’m saying this in a calm manner because I know you know the shit in the show, so I’m not worried about it. But I need you to play Kim tonight.” 

Luci’s breath hitched in her throat as her eyes widened. She was completely speechless and she felt like she was dreaming. But first thing’s first, she needed to know why Tal’s statement at the end was demanding and slightly panicked. 

“What happened to Daisy?” She wondered, sitting up fully on the gray wrinkled sheets from her slumber. 

Tal sighed deeply, perceptible through the chaos of the outside. “Last night, she partied a bit too hard. She’s just getting back to her place, according to Samuel, and she was high off her ass. I don’t need that today, or ever. So, I figured this would be the perfect time for you to step in.” 

“And why me? Why not Wendy?” Luci referred to the understudy for Kim. 

“Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t stick up for you when I should’ve. Daisy has always been…intimidating to me, which is crazy because I run the show, but I should’ve been more stern with her. So, with Daisy out of the picture for today, I want you to perform tonight.” 

Tal genuinely felt guilty that she wasn’t being the stage director that she should’ve been. She let Daisy control some of the show when it should’ve been her to direct everyone. Tal loved her job, she did, but every time she had Daisy as one of the lead characters, she almost dreaded work. She didn’t want to be one of those people who dreaded work because although theatre is stressful at times, it’s also fun and her passion. 

“Okay…” Luci couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’ll perform tonight.” 

Tal let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much, Luci. I’ll see you at five.” \

“I’ll be there. Bye, Tal.” 

Luci hung up the phone and sat on her bed for what felt like forever, simply gazing into the sheets as she couldn’t believe what had happened. Luci was going to perform tonight; her dream was finally coming true. 

When the realization hit her, the corners of her lips turned up into a bright and excited smile. She laughed and screamed and squealed into her pillow, doing a little mini dance on her bed. Looking at the time, it was nearing eight so she had plenty of time to start her pre-show morning routine. But the first thing that she needed to do was to text her family. 

I’M PERFORMING TONIGHT! 

Instantly, she got responses from them. 

Nathan: REALLY?! I get off work at four, I could take a last minute flight. 

Luci hearted her brother’s message. 

Pa: Luci, I’m so happy for you! Your mother is still asleep but I’ll wake her up and tell her the news. We’ll see what we could do to make it to the show. 

She thanked them, texting that she hoped to see them tonight, but would understand if they couldn’t make it since it was last minute. 

Hopping out of bed, she washed up and changed into her workout clothes to go on a walk and grab a smoothie. It was such a beautiful day out that there were more people out on the streets in the morning than usual as they were basking in the bright sun and lovely weather. 

Once she got back home, she made her favorite breakfast—a bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel with cream cheese; and rehearsed some of the more emotional and dramatic lines, taking notes on which parts needed more depth of emotion. 

The day had gone by relatively fast as she showered, tidied, and packed her belongings; and it was already 3:45, so she headed out the door. 

As Luci was locking up and about to walk down the hall, she looked at Harry’s door. She hadn’t talked to him in about two weeks, since the time he opened his door to Samuel kissing her cheek. She had sort of missed him, and she felt like the event with Samuel had put up a wall; she felt like he was avoiding her.

Thinking back to their conversation at the diner, she remembered that he told her he would be there when it was her time to perform, and she didn’t want to not inform him on that because she had a feeling that he would be disappointed hadn’t he known. 

Bravely, she stood in front of his door and knocked, hoping that he was home because she didn’t have his number to tell him. Luci waited one minute before she knocked again and waited another minute before sighing. Just as she was two feet down the hall, his door suddenly opened, making her turn around quickly. Harry looked out into the hall without taking a step out of his apartment and saw Luci with a tote bag on her shoulder, wearing leggings, a vintage tee with Stevie Nicks printed on it, and a beige cardigan. 

“Luci?” 

She turned around. “Harry, hi. Uh, how are you?” Her attitude had visibly changed and brightened as she was ecstatic to see that he answered the door. His hair was wet, separating the strands of hair into slightly thicker chunks as water droplets lingered at the tips; which explained why he didn’t answer the door right away. 

“Good, good. How are you?” 

“Good—great, actually. I-I’m actually performing tonight and I wanted to tell you that in case you wanted to watch the show.” She suppressed a wide smile, linking his hands together to refrain herself from jumping up and down in excitement. 

Harry raised his brows before the corners of his lips turned upward. “Really?” She nodded. “Luci, that’s amazing!” He exclaimed. 

“Yeah, I’m really excited. I was just called this morning that I was performing tonight, so I’m heading to the theatre right now.” 

“I’m so happy for you. But I, uh, have plans already tonight. I’m sorry,” he said sympathetically. Luci couldn’t deny the ache in her chest when he said that, but she completely understood as it was a last minute decision for her to perform. 

“Oh, no worries. Maybe another time whenever I get to perform again. I’ll let you know?” 

“Yeah, please do.” He nodded. There was a bit of silence after as there was nothing left to say. “Well, uh, good luck out there.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. “Maybe we could get some coffee or a smoothie. There’s this really good smoothie place down the street-”

“Brooklyn’s Smoothies?” He asked; Luci nodded. “That’s my go-to smoothie place. But yeah, I’m down for that. Just let me know when.” 

Now, she had another thing she could be excited about: her second hangout with Harry. 

“Great!” She headed towards the hall before she walked back towards him, pulling her phone out. “Here, put your number in—only if you want to.” He chuckled, grabbing her phone as he quickly put his number and name into his phone before handing it back to her. “I’ll text you. Bye, Harry!” She waved as she walked towards the end of the hall; Harry waved back before walking back into his apartment and closing the door. 

Once she was on the subway, she found Harry’s contact, which he named himself ‘Harry (neighbor)’ as if he thought she was going to forget who he was. But it was quite the opposite as he seemed to invade most of her mind as she mindlessly thought about him. She almost always curses herself for being so nervous around him, but that was because he somewhat intimidated her; and that said a lot because she’s very confident in her own skin and rarely finds anyone intimidating. But there was just something about him that made her nervous, and that thought slightly scared her. 

Hi, Harry! It’s Luci, here’s my number. 

She placed her phone face down on her thigh that was relentlessly bouncing before she hit send. Before sending it, she looked over the text, practically overthinking a simple greeting that didn’t need any more thinking. A few minutes later as she was transferring trains and sitting on the blue bench, her phone vibrated. She picked up her phone as the screen lit up; Harry’s message appeared on the screen. 

Hiiii, thank you. Good luck tonight x 

Luci smiled crazily at her phone, putting her chin to her chest as she hid her smile from the many people on the subway with her. She thanked him, and decided to start another conversation after the show so she could tell him how the show went, which was an excuse to text him again. She locked her phone and turned the volume up higher as G Luné played through her Airpods. 

Her cheeks had started to hurt due to the fact that she couldn’t stop smiling, like it was genuinely difficult for her stop. A surge of happiness and relief had washed over her that she felt the happiness line on her chart increase. With a little over two months of living in New York, she had felt like her career was going nowhere when that was the entire reason why she moved there; the whole situation with Daisy had made her life plateaued as her happiness line wasn’t moving upwards. But tonight, it was skyrocketing.

T-minus five minutes until showtime, and Luci was bouncing on the balls of her feet. She started humming and whistling to get her mind off the perturbation that ran along the linings and spaces of her body; it didn’t help that everyone was literally running around, passing by one another through the dark corridor. 

Obviously, everyone knew that it was Luci’s first night performing, so they tried keeping everything light and easy for her, which she appreciated. Once she walked through the doors of backstage, she was immediately greeted with warm and excited smiles—the complete opposite as the last time she walked through the door. Nina squealed and hugged her as they both jumped around in elation; Luci truly missed the first friend she’d ever made on Broadway, and they promised each other that they’d hangout more often outside the theatre. 

After Luci had her hair and makeup done, changed into her costume, and was mic'd up, she was standing on the side of the stage where she could hear the crowd settling into their seats as they talked amongst themselves. Peter, who was playing Chris tonight, stood beside her, rolling his neck in circles and moving his jaw around. She was glad to know that Samuel wasn’t performing tonight because god only knows what he would say to her, only to get inside of her head right before the show. 

She heard the technical and stage crew speak into their headsets, asking if everyone was ready as they counted down from ten. The lights went out, the curtains were pulled to the side, and Luci’s mind went blank as ‘Kim’ took over, completely owning this character because it was fucking showtime. 

After two hours of pouring emotion to give her best act while the spotlight was on her, shining brighter than ever before so she couldn’t see the audience below her, watching intently, her first performance was successfully over. 

She’d earned a majority of standing ovations and was called for another curtain call, where she ran back on stage to overwhelmingly smile brightly, waved, bowed, and blew kisses to the crowd who were whistling and cheering for her wonderful performance. This amazing and exhilarating feeling was something she anticipated, and it did not disappoint; it was a feeling that she wanted to feel every other night. She loved the praise, the cheers, and the claps that were thrown at her so fast that she could cry at how hard the impact was. 

When she left the stage and headed over to the dressing room, her cast members cheered for her as Luci clapped all around the room for everyone’s hard work tonight as well. They all took pictures with one another to share this memorable moment; Luci told everyone to send her the pictures because she wanted to get them framed for her apartment because this moment was definitely frame-worthy. 

When it was time to leave, they all took off their costume and hung it on its rightful rack, and changed into their own clothes before walking out into the lobby where the audience could meet and greet some of the cast. Cheers erupted in the lobby once the cast walked through the doors, and they all smiled, mouthing ‘thank you’ and bowing their heads in appreciation. 

Luci walked through the crowd as they stopped her to tell her that she did an amazing performance; she was grateful and said thank you to everyone she came across. She weaved through the crowd, trying to find Nathan or anyone she could share this moment with; and she was lucky that Nathan was tall because she spotted him instantly. 

When she finally reached him, she was somewhat surprised to see their parents with him because they didn’t mention they were coming tonight, just that they had to see what they could do in order to make it. 

Beatrice was the first one to hug her. “Oh, my Lucky Star. I’m so proud of you!” She hugged Luci tight, swaying to the side. Once her mother let go, she hugged her dad who had the proudest and biggest smile on his face. 

“Lulu, you did amazing up there.” She smiled into Ren’s shoulder, feeling herself tear up from the positive reaction of her performance. 

Nathan was patiently waiting for his hug; and Luci pulled away from her father, giving him a smile before hugging her brother. 

“Ana, you’re so talented.” He squeezed her, patting her back as she always found the action comforting since she was a little girl. Beatrice was taking photos of her kids, tears glossing her eyes at her greatest accomplishments. 

“Thank you for coming. I know you’re tired from work, but thank you for being here anyways.” She could tell that Nathan had just put a long coat over his navy blue scrubs, meaning that he had flown to New York straight from work. 

“No worries. We wouldn’t miss this for anything, honestly.” 

Luci pulled away, smiling as she faced her family. She thanked her parents for coming, still surprised, and they said the same thing Nathan did: that they wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

They took pictures amongst each other, taking a family selfie before Ren had just asked someone nearby to take a proper photo of them. 

“Excuse me? Do you mind taking a picture of us?” The man turned around, making Luci softly gasp. Tonight was just full of surprises because Harry was the one who turned around and nodded, grabbing her mother’s phone to take a picture of her family. 

Harry looked dashingly handsome; he wore black trousers, a baby pink shirt with a black coat over. He held a bouquet of flowers in his arms as he took the picture; and for the life of Luci, she couldn’t dare to stop smiling at him instead of the camera. 

Ren was the first to walk over to him and thanked him, but Harry didn’t walk away, he simply stayed put until Luci walked over towards him. Her parents and brother were looking at each other warily, wondering how Luci knew the man who took their picture. 

“You’re here.” She smiled so brightly as if the spotlight was glued onto her. 

Harry blushed, looking down at his feet before looking back up. “Yeah, I told you I would be here when you were going to perform, right?” Something that she hadn’t witnessed yet until now, that took her by surprise, was the dimple that indented his left cheek, more so than his right cheek. He looked absolutely adorable when he smiled, on top of being handsome; Harry was simply a beautiful man. 

“You did tell me that, I remember.” She couldn’t stop the giddy grin that felt like it was permanently placed on her face because she couldn’t believe that he was here. 

“Oh, these are for you. You did an amazing job—the crowd loved you.” He handed her the mixed bouquet of pink peonies, baby pink roses, white lillies, and baby’s breath wrapped in brown paper. Luci smiled down at the bouquet, admiring how pretty the colors and how well the different flowers looked together. She wondered if Harry picked these out himself; if he individually picked every single flower that was in the bouquet. 

Feeling her face heat up, she unexpectedly leaned in for a hug; and this time, he was ready as he opened his arms and hugged her. He squeezed her tighter than he did when she was crying in his arms, making her heart flutter in her chest. Luci had completely forgotten that her family was behind her until she pulled away. Her eyes slightly widened, knowing that they were most likely enjoying the show that was happening off-stage of her hugging a man they didn’t know. 

“Thank you so much for coming, Harry. It means a lot to me.” He simply nodded. Luci slightly turned her body, presenting herself to her family. “Uh, Harry, this is my family. And this is Harry; he’s my neighbor.” 

Beatrice brows raised, and Luci gave her a knowing look that told her not to say anything weird. 

“Hi, I’m Beatrice, Luci’s mom.” She shook his hand. 

“Hello, I’m Harry. Nice to meet you.” Beatrice turned towards Luci with wide eyes once she heard his accented voice, and she chuckled at her mother’s reaction. 

Ren and Nathan introduced themselves, and they all made conversation quite easily. It was a side that Luci’s never seen of Harry—quite talkative. She wondered if she was the problem as to why he wasn’t so talkative. But she figured that almost everyone wanted to impress and get along with their friend’s parents. 

Once they were finished talking amongst themselves, Beatrice whispered into Ren’s ear and then Nathan’s; and Luci wondered what they could be so secretive about that they couldn’t say it out loud. 

Suddenly, Nathan said, “Well, we’ll see you soon, Ana.” He gave her a quick hug as Luci furrowed her brows, confused. 

“Oh, I thought we could get dinner or something.” It was like her parents didn’t even consider her suggestion as they were hugging her goodbye. 

“I have to get back to Boston, work tomorrow, y’know?” Nathan excuses; Luci nodded, understanding before turning her head towards her parents, seeing which excuse they’ll use since tomorrow was Sunday. 

“Uh, we have a flight to catch—red-eye.” Beatrice spoke up, a little white lie slipping so easily on her tongue. Luci looked at Ren, finding him nodding, warily looking at his wife. 

She could tell, inside and out, that her parents weren’t being truthful because she knew that they’d want to spend every minute with her while they were in the city so they wouldn’t get a red-eye flight on her opening night. Plus, Beatrice had been eyeing her and Harry ever since he introduced himself, so she knew that her family acting weird and how they suddenly had to leave was most likely them wanting Luci to hangout with Harry. 

“Plus, don’t you have an afterparty to go to?” Ren asked. 

“I mean, yeah, but I could always skip it-”

“Now, why would you do that? It’s your opening night; people are gonna be wondering where you are!” Ren did make a point, making Luci mentally agreeing. 

Luci didn’t bother asking any more questions, and decided to let them leave, although she was a bit sad that they had to leave again. They said another round of goodbyes and hugged each other tightly; they planned to come to New York again so they could properly hang out, and Luci said that she’ll see what she could do with going back home to visit. Of course, they didn’t forget to say goodbye to Harry; Ren and Nathan shaking his hand as Beatrice gave him a hug. Luci watched them interact as if he was an old boyfriend or a new boyfriend that they happened to like and adore so much. 

She waved to them as they headed outside the Broadway Theatre doors, and then she was left with Harry. He shyly smiled at her, and Luci hugged the bouquet of flowers tightly to her chest. 

“Uh, would you like to go to the afterparty with me?” She asked. 

Luci watched as Harry considered the invitation in his head. There were two options that he was debating from: go home and have a boring night in, or go to an afterparty with his insanely beautiful neighbor that he was slowly but surely taking a liking to. He realized that wasn’t such a difficult decision after all, so he chose the latter. 

“I’d love to.” 

The entire cast settled into the same lounge that held their very first afterparty. The lounge apparently didn’t mind since everyone contributed to buying lots of alcohol, so they obviously wouldn’t pass up the opportunity of business. 

Luci introduced Harry to the cast who decided to show up, and she was happy that they were very friendly and welcoming to him because the last thing she wanted was awkward tension between her neighbor and coworkers. She wished Nina had gone to the after party because Luci knew that she would get excited about the neighbor she’s crushing on. 

Luci and Harry decided to pace themselves with the drinks as they didn’t take the shots that were given to them at the same time as the rest; instead, they nursed and sipped their drinks. They were towards the end of the circle, in their own world as they talked to one another. Luci was happy they were getting to know each other better, but she figured that was the help and magic of what alcohol did. They told each other childhood stories that made each other laugh, increasing the buzz going on inside their heads. 

Harry had an additional glow to him when he was tipsy, and Luci thought it was the cutest thing ever. He was very touchy—placing a hand on her arm, shoulder, or knee at any given moment—and his laugh was contagious as it was loud and he threw his head back. It was a side that pleasantly took her by surprise, and she hoped that as they continued talking and hanging out, this side of him comes out more when they’re sober and comfortable with one another. 

“Can I ask why your brother calls you Ana?” He wondered, asking at the same time Luci was taking a sip of her drink. 

She nodded. “Yeah. So, Nathan is five years older than I am, and my mom and dad said when he was five, he still had a hard time speaking, like he’d babble and seem to talk gibberish. Anyways, when I was born, my parents were trying to get him to say my name, but couldn’t pick up on the first part of it; he started out with ‘An,’ but eventually picked up ‘Ana.’ And since then, it just seemed to stick—he’s the only one who calls me that and would personally get offended if someone else called me that.” She ended with a chuckle and a sip of her shot. 

“What’s your full name?” 

“Luciana Ivy Suki.” She said slow and a bit sultry, which she hadn’t meant to. The dark light and booze didn’t help that she felt a bit sexy. 

Harry smirked slightly. “Luciana.” He stated as if he was testing how it sounded and felt on the tongue. Luci felt a chill run down her body, making her skin prickle from the goosebumps. 

If she was starting to melt from the sound of her nickname from his lips, the sound of her full name had completely liquified her. 

After an hour, the two moved to the bar, completely forgetting that they were with the cast. Luci suggested getting more drinks for them, and Harry told her that he’d come with. He said something along the lines of “don’t want to miss a moment hanging out with you,” and Luci swore that her heart was becoming a butterfly’s nest as it sank down to her stomach and made her smile. 

“It’s genuinely insane how talented you are, like I was nearly crying by the end of the show!” He complimented, sipping on a Pomegranate Paloma through a thin black straw. Harry was genuinely so amazed as he watched Luci act, alas he was near the rear mezzanine, which was towards the back, he was still blown away by the entire production, especially Luci’s talents. 

“That’s so sweet. Thank you, Harry.” She smiled down at her Royal Manhattan, swirling the drink around in its glass. She was used to taking compliments about her acting and talent, but when Harry complimented her, it made her insides jittery and her face heat up; she felt so honored that Harry was praising her for her talents. 

“Now, can I ask…I thought you had plans tonight. What happened to that?” She wondered. 

Harry blushed, nervously chuckling. “Uh, I canceled them.” 

Her eyes widened. “W-Was it anything serious?” 

“It was a date that my friend, Jeff, set me up with but I wasn’t all that interested in the first place. 

She pouted. “Harry, I feel bad.” 

“Don’t be. I wanted to be here.” She smiled at that, looking at the contents inside of her glass. 

“I’m really glad you’re here.” She reciprocated the thought, clinking her glass with his as they both sipped their drinks. 

After another hour, the cast was lessening one by one, calling it a night as they said their goodbyes to Luci and Harry. She hadn’t realized how quickly time had gone by until the bartender of the lounge had told them that they were closing in a few minutes. Luci looked at her phone as the time read 12:55 a.m., which her and Harry laughed about because they were both in shock about the night being so late already. So, they left the lounge, not before generously tipping the bartender $40 each and gathered their belongings; Luci made sure to not forget the beautiful flowers Harry gave her. 

Neither of them felt like they were sober enough to get on the subway themselves, knowing they would probably get on the wrong one or fall asleep and end up somewhere else. So, they decided on an Uber, seeming as that was the most responsible and safest option there was. 

Luci got inside the black Honda, saying ‘hi’ to their driver. The entire ride back to Brooklyn was quiet, only the soft breaths they both exhaled and the pounding of their hearts. Harry felt himself getting sleepier, and unexpectedly resting his head against Luci’s shoulder. She tensed up at first, not expecting the action, but she welcomed it, placing her head on top of his. They both watched the city through the car window as it disappeared from their sight once they were in Brooklyn. 

Once they were in front of their apartment complex, Harry offered her his arm and she looped her arm through his, leaning into his side as he guided her to the elevator. He leaned against the corner of the elevator with Luci pressed up against his side with her arms still around his, and he looked down to see her eyes closed. He softly smiled, moving the strand of hair that had fallen in the middle of her face to the side. 

The loud Ding! of the elevator seemed to wake Luci up as she startled awake, making Harry chuckle. They walked down the hall and towards their door; Harry occasionally had to tell Luci to keep quiet as she was singing ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls, but Harry couldn’t help but join in. 

When they got to their doors, as usual, they unlocked and opened it; but they didn’t immediately go inside their apartments. Instead, they turned around to face each other; both of their eyes droopy from the slight buzz that was still in their system. 

Luci smiled before leaning in to hug him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders as his arms went around her waist. The hug was sweet and warm as it definitely fed to the touchy-feely side of their buzz. 

When they pulled away, Luci leaned up to boldly plant a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for being here, Harry. Shall we hang out next week?” Harry nodded, not trusting his voice to say anything as his heart erupted into flames. She gave him a smile as he was frozen from the chaste kiss; and Luci walked into her apartment, waving at him before she closed the door. 

Harry was out in the hallway, stunned as he blushed from the small kiss she had left on his cheek; and it was something he was going to be dreaming of until he wakes up, only to think about it over and over again. 

Harry was cooking breakfast when he heard relentless knocking on his front door. He peeked his head out from the kitchen to look at the door, like that would tell him who was behind it, as he was whisking some eggs in a white glass bowl. Setting the bowl down, he walked over to the door and opened it. 

To his surprise, Luci was behind it as tears streamed down her face with her phone in her hand; she was in her soft blue pajama pants with a black hoodie over, and despite her recent state, Harry thought she looked absolutely adorable and cuddly. But he pushed that thought to the side; immediately, Harry was concerned. His eyes widened and his protective side turned on, thinking he was going to lose his shit on whoever caused this poor girl to cry. 

“I-I’m sorry. I just…” she hiccupped, and Harry took her into his arms. He was slightly confused about what had happened during the six hours he’d last seen her—when they were coming home from the lounge. He still couldn’t get that kiss out of his head; in fact, it was difficult for him to sleep because he kept reiterating it in his head.

He pulled her into his apartment, closing the door as he sat her down on his brown leather couch. She cried into his shoulder as she passed him her phone that was unlocked on an article. He grabbed it, not letting go of her while he rubbed her arm. 

The article read on the bright screen read: 

Miss Saigon or Miss No-BE GONE! 

Just twelve hours ago, I went to see the show ‘Miss Saigon; for the second time. The first time I went to see it was last month when Broadway star royalty, Ms. Daisy Beck, was playing the role of ‘Kim.’ With its amazing cast, production set, and story-telling, I knew I needed to see the play again. 

My hopes and dreams were crushed when I didn’t see Ms. Beck on stage, but instead, a newbie Broadway actress known as Luciana Suki. Before writing this review, I did some research on her to my very best ability because she’s practically a nobody in this business, and found out that she had been in several commercials since she was a child (great another child actor) and has been on Off-Broadway, which definitely explains the acting! At least give a man a warning before I decide to put up with a shit-show of a performance. I couldn’t even stay for the entire show because it was completely horrifying to see injustice served to Kim and a downgrade from Daisy Beck. 

I tried, I really tried; but I left during intermission. Luciana Suki is not meant to be playing the part of Kim—almost everyone agrees. There was no connection, no emotion to the character, and it was a poorly done job in Luciana’s part and the casting. 

It’s Daisy Beck or no production. Simple as that, or else, the show will lose its audience and precious money that they wasted on paying Luciana Suki. 

Harry sighed, balling his hands up into fists as he locked her phone and set it aside. How could anybody be so cruel? He understood the importance of critics to the theatre, but to outright insult and humiliate someone wasn’t even critical—it’s being straight up rude. 

Once Luci was ready and had somewhat calmed down, she pulled away from Harry’s embrace, looking at him. Poor Luci’s eyes were swollen and her eyes were red from the crying, and she was a sniffling mess. Harry quickly grabbed her a few tissues to dry her tears, and she blew her nose into the soft cotton paper, not really caring how unattractive she thought it was. 

“That article was written by Adam West—the most important critic in Broadway.” She wiped the snot under her nose. “H-He practically just ruined my career and any chances I have on Broadway ever again.” Luci sobbed as it was difficult for her to accept the fact that she may never act ever again because of a senior journalist. Her chest hurt and her eyes started to become sore from the amount of times she squeezed them shut, freeing her tears. 

“No, come here.” Harry’s heart ached for her, and he couldn’t imagine what she must be going through when that article was directly made towards her. He pulled her in for another hug, and she softly cried against his chest, staining his white t-shirt with her tears, but he couldn’t care less. “You’re insanely talented—critics or no critics—no one could deny your talent. What he said was unprofessional and poorly written, and that’s coming from an English major and a teacher. Now, I’m sure that you know you’re extremely gifted and you’ve worked hard to get to where you are. So, don’t let him get to you because almost everyone loved your performance last night.” 

Harry reassured her quite well that Luci had calmed down; it helped that the vibrations from his chest to her ear as he talked had soothed her—it was quite relaxing. She pulled away again, looking at him through glassy eyes as another tear threatened to fall. He placed his palms against her cheeks, taking his thumbs and running it across her skin to wipe her tears away. 

“Would you like some French Toast? Heard it’s a comfort-food, but I may be wrong. Maybe I’m being biased because I think my recipe is good.” He tried lightening up her mood, and it’d definitely worked because she breathed out a chuckle and nodded. 

“I’m not intruding, right?” He shook his head. “No significant other to get mad at me and throw me out?” She slyly asked as she had been wondering if he had someone. Plus, she was still wondering about the red-hair woman who frantically left his apartment. 

“Nope.” 

“The…red-haired girl. You’re not with her?” 

Harry smirked as he definitely indulged into the slightly jealous feeling that Luci was portraying. “No, we’re not dating. She’s just a friend.” He chuckled. “What about you? Someone I should be worried about?” He stirred the topic towards her as curiosity also got the best of him. 

“Nope.” She answered the same way he did. “Do you make out with all of your friends? Noticed her lipstick was a bit smeared off.” Luci knew later on that she would regret opening her mouth and spewing out those particular choice of words. Her tone also seemed a bit jealous, and she had no right to be, but her crush on Harry was quickly increasing. 

“I mean, some of them; when the time comes.” He somewhat joked. 

“Would you make out with me?” Luci spat out, but quickly slapped her palm against her mouth, eyes widening. Her mind was speaking for herself as she’d been dreaming of the way Harry’s pink lips felt against her mouth and other places she wouldn’t dare speak aloud. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why-”

“Yeah, I would,” he responded honestly. This was the most honest and straight-forward he’d ever been, which only occurs every few months, so it was time to close that window again and wait for it to open. But he also couldn’t deny his attraction to her, like it was difficult to not be so enticed with her. He felt at complete ease with her, and it felt incredibly easy to talk to Luci and be open. “So, the French Toast?” He changed the subject, walking over to the kitchen, leaving Luci glued to her seat on the couch. 

Astonished by his words, she was extra shocked that he was so quick to move on from his response. But she was glad to know that he would want to kiss her, maybe, some time in the future; but the thought made her giddy because she undeniably wanted to kiss him too.

come talk to me about your favorite moments and scenes, and your thoughts and feelings! thank you for reading <3 next chapter will be posted next saturday! 

[halcyonstorm]

I'm so sorry this prompt took me a long time to start, but once I started, I finished it in three days. I loved writing this prompt so much. I hope you enjoy. Warning: Angst, Major Character Death

The title is: The Most Beautiful Flower (For You) (click to read on ao3)

If heaven was a place on Earth, it would be in Italy. When the gentle waves of the Tyrrhenian sea kissed the Mediterranean coastline, the cool water splashed against the very pregnant gardener’s feet, as well as the powerful Duke, the father-to-be. The bright, hot sun beamed from across the ocean as it submerged beneath the waters. Suddenly, the gardener felt a sharp pain in her stomach, causing her to groan loudly.

“It’s time…” She whispers harshly, beginning to place her hands on her knees.

It is ironic, though, how the scariest human to roam their city was born on such a beautiful night. The child’s father, the Duke of Smeraldo City, shouldn’t have impregnated the beautiful woman who tends to his castle’s garden daily, but he did. His wife, the Duchess, was infertile. This angered the Duke, causing him to have a secret affair with the gardener, a poor yet beautiful woman who he met with daily and eventually fell in love with. The Duke was scared. He didn’t know how or when to deliver a baby. He was smart, but he was smart in politics and economics, not childbirth. She sat down on the white sand behind a large rock, hidden from the rest of the world. He didn’t have time to bring her to a clinic. She opened her legs, ready to push. The Duke was ready. He patted her forehead dry of the sweat that had beaded up. He noticed then that she was extremely cold. This confused him; It was warm outside, almost too warm for the evening. She should be warm. She was starting to breathe heavy, her screams of pain becoming more breathless with each push.

With each push to expel the baby, more and more blood came out of her, staining the white sand dark red and black. It horrified the Duke. He was falling for this woman. He felt worse that he had no idea what to do to help her. When he saw the head, he cried out in joy, almost forgetting about the mother’s condition.

“You’re almost there! You got this,” he encouraged. His mistress looked ghostly pale with more sweat dripping down her face. She doesn’t look good. He noticed her neck pulsating. With three more pushes, the woman couldn’t scream any more; she was too exhausted. She was losing too much blood. The baby came out, crying and whining. The Duke was happy, extremely happy. All he wanted was a child. That happiness was short-lived, though. When the Duke wrapped his child up in his button-up shirt, he noticed his mistress hadn’t spoken a word. In fact, she was still… too still. He narrowed his brows in confusion and face contorted to worry. He placed his newborn down in the cool sand and quickly scrambled to place his ear to her chest. No heartbeat.

That is how Levi was born.

-

His father was scared he’d be caught by the Duchess, so he locked his child away in a tower on the outskirts of Smeraldo City. His father would come to visit him weekly, often having a maid tend to Levi in his place. Levi grew up hidden away in that castle. The castle, although extravagant, was torture for Levi. He hated it. It was a huge, tall tower made of cobblestone and vines. Levi had this aching, empty feeling in his chest when the maid would leave for the night. He described the feeling to her, and she explained to him it was “loneliness”. He never knew the feeling, but it was all that he felt when the sound of his shoes tapping the floor echoed as he walked down the dark, empty corridor at night. The lack of affection caused Levi to grow cold. He began to despise his maid, too. He was just her job, after all. Her extra chore. One more task to complete for the Duke of Smeraldo. When his prestigious father would come to visit, it was mainly to just apologize for avoiding him. It was a constant cycle. “I’m sorry,” he’d say, then proceed to do just that for another six months. Some nights, he would go to Levi’s castle to scream at him. “You are the reason she is dead,” he’d complain to Levi. The truth is, the Duke wanted a child. That child; however, was not Levi. Levi’s raven black hair and piercing grey eyes were too similar to his mother’s, causing the Duke to avoid Levi as much as possible. Levi despised his father. Whenever Levi’s maid/replacement mother came to visit him as a teenager, she always kept her distance. She’d stay on the far side of the room when she tended to his laundry, avert her gaze when he looked at her, and keep their conversations short and brief

“Why must you keep your distance from me?” Levi would ask.

“Because you are ugly,” she would reply. It didn’t hurt Levi’s feelings. He didn’t care about his appearance. He had no one to show. He was truly and utterly alone. Sometimes, the maid would come to his castle with a man. He wasn’t sure about many things. When he saw the man with her, he decided to watch them. He would wait around the corner from the maid’s bedroom, waiting and hearing what they’d do. When he’d leave her quarters, he’d press his lips to hers. Levi realized at that moment, he wanted a maid too. He wanted to feel whatever the fuck they were feeling. He decided to ask her about it.

“Why does that man press his lips to yours?” Levi asked as he stared at the stone ceiling in his bedroom. The maid was hesitant before replying. She realized she never taught him about those feelings.

“Because we are in love,” She replied plainly, sitting on a chair in his room, still keeping herself a safe distance away from the ugly and scary man. “We are close friends. Over time, we fell in love.”

“What is love?” Levi asked.

“Love is… complicated. It’s a feeling of deep affection... and it can be applied to anything or anyone. With a person, it is the feeling you get when you’re excited to see someone and enjoy their presence, but it’s also dangerous. Falling in love means you can get hurt, too. The person you love may decide they want to be with someone else, or they lose that feeling. Or, they may never feel that way about you at all…” She spoke from experience.

“Love is stupid,” Levi determined. “Why do it if you’re going to get hurt?”

“Love isn’t a choice,” she debated. “It can be, like the Duke and Duchess.” Levi perked up, the hairs on his nape erect.

“The Duchess isn’t my mother?” He asked. She hesitantly shook her head no. “Then who is?”

The maid told Levi about his mother, the gardener. She told him how his mother would sing to her belly every morning and evening, read him stories, and share her life stories with him. Levi smiled at this. From what the maid told him, his mother truly loved him, unlike the Duke. Learning about his mother inspired him to pick up gardening. He began by binge-reading the gardening and plant books in the master library. During the weeks, he would wear his black hooded cloak and mask and head into the town’s market. There, he found a stall that sold flower seeds of all kinds from Italy. The first seeds he bought were that of oleander flowers. He remembers from his book that they stood for “caution” and “destiny”. It is destined that he must be cautious around others, and others must be cautious around him. He was horrifying to the everyday civilians, and the shrieks of horror kept him cooped up in his tower for months until he finally got the courage to go into town again.

In those few months, his flowers began to sprout. The flowers were all he thought about day in and day out. They were his only joy. These were the first moments he felt “love”.

When Levi turned 22, his garden was blossoming into something extravagant. There was a dainty, white archway at the beginning of the trail that led to the tower. Inside, there were fields of white lilies -the flower of Italy- blooming in early April. As he walked through his garden, he bent down next to a budding cyclamen flower. It was a small pink flower, surrounded by its family. The family’s flowers were dark pink at the roots, becoming lighter in color towards the end of the petal. They opened up and out, allowing the sun to help them grow. He gently grazed his finger over the petals, feeling its velvety smooth texture.

“At least flowers can’t hate me,” he’d reassure himself. He placed his hands on his knees, standing up. With his bucket of soil and the packets of seeds laying on top, he found an empty patch of grass. He started to dig with his small shovel. Once he reached an area where the soil was moist, he opened the package and sprinkled the seeds inside. The seeds claimed to be for a Juliet rose. One that stood for love and beauty. He knew of love and beauty. He was standing all around it.

For hundreds of yards, the castle’s courtyard was filled with flowers in intricate patterns that were only visible from the top of the tower. Flowers that formed flower shapes, circles, lines, and everything in between. The bees had three hives attached to purple wisteria trees. He loved those trees the most. They were tall, old trees that were by his side ever since he could remember. The trees were almost like his grandparents, watching him take his first steps and speak his first words. Now, they take in his music when he hums a tune as he waters his flowers and console him when he vents about his father. He liked to walk through his garden and visit the wisterias. He would use the tips of his fingers to caress the petals between his fingers. He loved wisterias the most.

He woke up the next morning slumped under a wisteria tree, the purple tree creating a cool shade that enveloped his body from the warm sun. The grass beneath him was flattened by his body. He scrubbed it vigorously to help the grass stand upright again. Then, he stretched his arms above his head, groaning loudly. He stood up, using his watering can to hydrate the flowers as he walked through his garden. When he got to the rose bushes, though, he noticed some flowers were missing. He furrowed his brows, crouching down to examine the damage. One, two, three, four… Four roses were missing. They were intricately plucked from the bush, as if the perpetrator had planned this. Someone stole from my garden. His jaw clenched tightly when he realized this. How dare someone steal from me? He asked himself. He spent years and years tending to his garden and perfecting it, and now someone was trying to take his one and only joy away.

That night, he hid close to the rose bushes. He hid behind a tall vine of bougainvillea flowers. The beautiful pink flowers were bright as the moonlight shone on them. They hung over the tall, stone wall that encompassed his garden and the tower. As he lay in wait, he admired the beautiful leaf-like petals of the flowers. They were soft, rich, and pure. He was proud of his garden. He was reminded why he was waiting again, his blood boiling.

That night, the suspect did not show up. Nor did they show up for the few nights he guarded the garden. This person was sneaky. The person knew Levi was watching them, lurking, waiting to catch them. Levi caught on fast to this cat-and-mouse game. After a week of no luck, he decided to wait in his tower. He peered over his balcony one night and looked down at his garden. The white lilies blew in the cool spring breeze, They were hard to view, considering the moon wasn’t as bright. It was in the waning gibbous phase, darkened on its right side, bright on its left. It hung high in the sky, looking smaller than it did just a week ago. Levi was broken out of his trance when he heard a soft rustle in his garden. Levi glared out the window and off the balcony, peering down below. There, he thought. There they are. It was a girl. The girl had dark hair, wearing what looked like a piece of white cloth that draped over her lanky body. She had crouched down next to the rose bush, starting to tug. Levi decided to go downstairs. He grabbed his dark cloak and mask on the way out.

By the time he had gotten down to the garden, she was walking away, four more flowers in her hand. Levi was enraged. He felt his blood start to boil. Why is this girl stealing from me? Does she think this castle is abandoned? How would the garden be so well managed if it was? How dare she steal from him, stealing from the only thing he truly cared about. She walked slowly through the forest, talking to herself. She would ramble on about her mother and father and money. Levi was puzzled. She was talking as if there were someone standing right next to her. Maybe she knew he was there? No, he thought. She’d freak out. She’d never come back. Levi’s frown turned into a wide grin, a new idea popping in his head. He, unfortunately, thought of his plan too late. They had arrived in town. As Levi followed her to the marketplace, he kept asking himself why she stole from him. It was still booming at 2000 that night. The market was filled with stalls and tents. A lull of chatter hummed through the town as he followed the girl. He saw her stop at one specific stall and go behind it. She spoke to a tall man who looked to be her father. He shared the same brown shaggy hair as her. He gave her a wide smile as she handed him the flowers.

“I was only able to get four,” The girl explained to her father. “These ought to make us a lot of money! Then we can buy shoes!” At that moment, he realized both her and her father were barefoot. Levi felt a pang in his chest.

“Indeed, my love. Thank you,” her father said, kissing her forehead. Levi was taken aback. She wanted to sell his flowers? Is that what love looks like?

“These flowers are beautiful,” She said, recalling the scenery in her mind. “The garden has all different types! It’s breathtaking. I wish I could go during the day… but I don’t want to get caught.”

“Yes, that’s best,” he explained. “Hange, see what other types of flowers are there and see if any are worth selling.”

Levi felt his heart skip a beat when Hange complimented his garden. He was able to get a better look at her face. She looked about his age and had half her hair tied up in a messy knot. She had a hooked nose that fit her face perfectly. Her eyes were gleaming when the glow of the string lights hit them. He couldn’t describe how he thought she looked. It didn’t bother him that his heart was racing in his chest or how his palms were sweating. He didn’t know how to describe her, but he knew he wanted to see her more.

When he went home, he found a small rectangle piece of wood, a thick stick, some nails, and a hammer. He grabbed a bucket of paint and wrote the following on the rectangular piece of wood:

Be mindful of the thorns.

He went back downstairs to the garden to stake it into the ground after hammering it together. He wanted to see the girl again. He didn’t want her to hurt herself, though. He didn’t want to give her any measly excuse not to come back to his garden. She liked it. She complimented his garden.

-

“I think a ‘crush’ is the term you’re searching for,” the maid answered. She looked down in her lap. Levi felt his face go red.

“A what?” He scowled.

“It’s like… when you’re attracted to someone. When you enjoy seeing them and being around them…”

“I thought that was ‘love’ in your book.”

“Having a crush and being in love are different,” she began. “Love is developed over time. Eventually, a crush turns into love if you let it linger.” Levi shook his head fast.

“No, no,” he muttered to himself. “That can’t happen. I can’t love anyone.”

The maid stood up, stepping towards him. This was the closest she’s been to him in a long time. He looked up at her as he sat on the bed.

“Everyone is worthy of and deserves love. Even you.” When she spoke, he truly felt she meant it.

-

Two days later, Levi was in his tower waiting for Hange. Around 1945, she arrived on time. As she walked through the archway, she saw the sign right away. He heard her speak it aloud. She let out a short laugh. Her short laugh was like a loving punch to his gut, taking his breath away. It was so… crush, he determined. She didn’t stop and crouch at the rose bush like he predicted. She waltzed through his garden, careful to avoid stepping on his flowers. He heard her hum a tune as she danced through his garden. She took his breath away time and time again. She was as beautiful as the garden around her. She stopped humming when she noticed the oleander flower patch, right against the tower.

“Caution,” she said softly, careful not to rouse the garden keeper. Too late, though, but she didn’t know that. Levi was shocked at her statement. She knew why he put them there. The flowers rustled in the wind as it picked up. She crouched down to pet the flowers with the back of her index finger.

“These truly are beautiful,” she said to herself. Levi felt a smile creep up on his face. She looked up to the sky. “Why must I be cautious?” she asked herself. “Anyone who can create such beauty mustn’t be someone to be cautious of.” When she spoke, Levi had a thought cross his mind. Maybe I can show her myself. It was a silly thought, and Levi didn’t entertain it too much longer than that moment.

Another week passes by and the moon’s light is slowly diminishing each day. A new moon is coming. How will Hange know which flowers to pick? Levi thought of a solution. He grabbed his handy hammer as well as some string lights and secured them around the archway leading to his garden. On the ground, he stuck little lamps into the ground that radiated a white light. This way, Hange can come even when there’s a new moon. He also created a sign: The orchids are very loved. He loved his orchids so, but they were better off to give to someone who needed them. Orchids were rare to find and plant in Italy, and Levi had spent years and years trying to find the perfect technique to grow his lovely purple orchids. They were his favorites; he loved their long stem with the flowers that hung over the edge. He loved admiring the flowers up close, getting a very detailed view of the veins of the vibrant flower petals.

The moon was just a crescent in the sky when Hange came next. She wandered through the garden, not a care in the world, admiring the blooming flowers. She paused in her waltz when she saw his sign about the orchids. Her eyes shifted from the sign to the orchids. Indeed, they are beautiful, she thought to herself. She crouched down with her small shovel and pot and began to dig them up. This surprised Levi. The last few times, she picked the flowers with her hands. Now, she is preserving the flower’s life by relocating them to her pot.

“These sure are beautiful,” she said softly to herself. With the hustling and bustling of the town across the town, he wasn’t able to hear her. Again, he felt a pang in his chest when he imagined her seeing him for the first time. Her terrified face, her hands trembling in fear. He couldn’t scar her like that. He was too ugly, too brawny, too unworthy of being loved that he couldn’t dare to even consider revealing himself to her.

The next flower he wanted to draw her to were the gardenias. Now that she knew about flowers, he wanted to show her all he had to offer. He enjoyed seeing her in his garden. She talked a lot; he felt as if he were talking to her. She started staying for longer periods of time, which Levi enjoyed. He wondered if she even knew someone tended to the garden. She must, he thought. She sees your signs, right?

The gardenias were in a bushel next to the white lilies. He enjoyed having all the colors coordinated. Red when someone first walks in, met by rose bushes. Towards the castle were the oleanders of all colors, but mainly pink. That is where the bougainvillea’s were too, hanging from the castle window and wall surrounding the garden’s perimeter, as well as having their own bushel below. By his wisteria trees were the violets, orchids, periwinkles, and bluebells. The white flowers were blended with the purple and blue flowers. The white flowers included the lilies and gardenias, as well as jasmines. He loved the look of the small, delicate gardenia flowers climbing the wall surrounding his castle and garden. They had beautiful, rich white petals and a bright yellow center. He didn’t want to show them for his usual reasons, but in order to make a move. Gardenias stood for secret love, as well as a confession of sorts. After seeing her white cloth in the gardenias, he realized his crush was developing into something more. He decided to make another sign and placed it by the entrance: Open at dawn.

Hange seemed to understand his messages perfectly. One early afternoon, Levi was tending to his violets when he heard a familiar rustling. He didn’t have his cloak on or his mask. He was totally and utterly exposed. He quickly gathered his things and hid behind a grand wisteria tree. Please see me. Please don’t see me. She noticed footprints in the damp soil by the tree.

“Your flowers are beautiful,” Hange said aloud. “You have been a great help. I’ve finally gotten my own shoes!” She chuckles and glances at her covered feet. “I am trying to figure out a way to repay you…” You don’t have to repay me. I don’t mind.

“There are stories that a monster lives here,” Hange began, sitting down and leaning her back against the same wisteria tree Levi was hiding behind. “Is that supposed to be you? The person who plants these beautiful flowers?” Her words cause Levi’s cheeks to redden. She looks towards the bluebells. She sits up and kneels to admire them.

“Bluebells…” she murmured. “Gratitude. Everlasting love. I feel gratitude towards your everlasting love for this garden.” She giggled to herself. “Ah, I’m rambling nonsense. I should get going. My father will be worried. I hope you don’t mind if I take some flowers.” Take as many as you need. She walked through the garden. There was a sign next to the white gardenias as she walked towards the exit.

You’re lovely.

-

Levi was proud he was helping Hange and her family. From the sound of it, they were doing better. They were able to afford clothes for their bodies and provide two meals a day. She explained it was only her, her mother, and her father. She explained how her family loved her very much, and Levi believed her. He yearned for a love like that. He yearned to be loved at all. A foolish and childish thought ran through his mind. Could she ever love me? Does she love me? How could she love someone she’s never even seen before? Levi decided he must show himself to her. He must make some sort of confession to her. He planned it in the best way he could. He began searching the markets day in and day out to find the seeds to plant the most beautiful flower for Hange. It would be sure to bring Hange’s family wealth as well as help Hange understand Levi’s feelings.

He dressed in his dark cloak and mask and walked through the forest to the market. The smeraldo flower was one of the hardest to successfully grow in Italy. The smeraldo flower seeds were sold for dirt cheap since they were so difficult to grow. Many people attempted to grow said flower, but never succeeded. Once it blooms, it must be carefully maintained in order for them to prosper. He purchased a bag of seeds and headed home. He found the perfect spot in his garden: surrounding the wisteria tree. The purple of the wisterias and the blue of the smeraldos would perfectly blend together next to the violets, periwinkles, and crocuses. He got excited. Once he got home, he started to read about the Smeraldo flowers.

Must be planted at dusk. Must be watered every two days at dusk. Do not tear away dead leaves and flowers. Must be maintained in damp soil. If drought occurs, water daily. Meaning: I’m unable to tell you the truth.

Levi’s heart ached when he read the final line. Hange, he thought. I am unable to show you my truth. He wanted to, but he couldn’t dare to scare her away from his garden. He planned to make a grand gesture to express his love for her. He adored everything about her. She was his Sun.

That night, he went outside to plant his flowers. The sun was kissing the horizon, hanging low in the pink sky. He grabbed his small handheld shovel and began to dig a small moat around the tree. He palpated the soil with his fingers. It’s damp. It’s dusk. It was all ready. He sprinkled the seeds evenly around the moat of the tree and then scooped the dirt, placing it on top of the seeds. He patted it with his hands.

It took the Smeraldo flowers a long time to grow. Almost a year passed before the flowers were blooming. For every two days since he planted them, he watered them. Hange would stop by, chatting up a storm to the flowers before taking some in her bucket and leaving. As Hange aged one more year, she looked radiant. With the flowers to help her eat and dress, she filled out. She wasn’t as lanky as she was just one year ago. One specific summer day, Hange fell asleep in his garden. Her hair was sprawled over the white lilies, her body lying on the grass. Levi took this time to be brave. He walked over to her in broad daylight. He sat down next to her, admiring her face. She looked so peaceful.

“Hange, I am Levi,” he whispered, being careful to avoid waking her. “This is my garden. I am glad to hear you like it.” He looked into his lap then at the lilies. He plucked a lily from the bunch, tucking it behind her ear. Her dark brunette hair looked like melted chocolate scattered amongst the lilies.

“You are the most beautiful thing in this garden.”

-

Around 1700, Hange woke up. She noticed her pot was filled with beautiful gardenias. Levi filled it for her while she slept. Hange smiled softly.

“I wish to meet you someday, Levi,” she sighed, standing up then grabbing her pot. As the words came out of her mouth, she wasn't sure how she knew his name, but she was glad she did. The sun was beginning to set. She glanced up at the open castle window before turning on her heel to leave the beautiful garden once again. That night, Levi tended to his smeraldo flowers. They were beginning to bloom, a small baby blue head poking out of the green stem. It made him smile. He created this life.

It took about another month for the smeraldo flowers to fully open up and express their beauty. They were the most beautiful flowers Levi had ever seen. These are sure to help Hange the most. They were a light blue and purple with rather strange petals that opened less and less as they reached the center. They looked perfect surrounding the wise wisteria tree. They were so perfectly fitting for Levi and Hange.

He had planted some extra flowers in a hidden part of the garden just for Hange to take. He wanted her to be happy, so happy from his flowers. His flowers were all he ever knew. He wanted to tell Hange his truth, so so bad. He couldn’t. He couldn’t risk hurting her. All he wanted was for her to be at peace.

That day, he wrote another sign for her. He placed it along the path so she couldn’t miss it.

For you, behind the red camellias.

It took her a day to notice it - so yes, she did miss it. She loved the white flowers so much that she didn’t even venture to the red flower patches to find the smeraldos. She loved to dance and sing in the field of flowers that made Levi want to cry. It made his heart ache. She sounded like a siren; Her voice luring him, tempting him, but he had to try his hardest to resist her. As she had begun to leave that day, she noticed the new sign. Levi was in the garden that day, behind the wisteria. As she wandered behind the camellias, he followed her, peering at her behind the concrete archway leading to a hidden part of the garden. The smeraldo flowers were in a small bunch in a bucket, all ready for Hange to take. She gasped loudly when she saw them.

“Oh my God,” she exhaled. Her fingers touched her lips in wonder. Her eyes were wide. She ran to the flowers, kneeling down in front of them. She admired them closely, examining each vein of each petal and how the blue blended into purple. They were breathtaking.

“These are… extraordinary,” she said, caressing one flower with her hand. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Levi… thank you,” she said his name again. It made Levi’s heart skip a beat. You are extraordinary, Hange.

“When I return tomorrow, I want to meet you,” she said aloud, picking up the pot by its wooden handle. “I know you can hear me. I know you’re nearby. If not, I’ll let the whole world know. I’ll scream it from the top of my lungs so you can hear me. I hear what they say about you in the village. They say you’re scary and that you’re a monster, but I find that hard to believe. You are kind. You are special.” Levi feels tears well up in his eyes, his throat tightening. What is this? He asked himself. “Ah… I am rambling again. Anyways, I will see you tomorrow.” She started heading for the exit. She looked beautiful: she wore a long, white dress with sandals. Please don’t go, he wanted to say. But she left, leaving Levi alone again.

That evening as the sun set, Levi picked bluebells from his garden. He hated to pluck and kill his flowers, but this was for something special. He brought the flowers in a bucket to his bedroom. He sat on his bed with the bucket, using a delicate hand to turn them inside out. His book states, If you are able to turn a bluebell inside-out without tearing it, you will win the one you love. It also states, Wearing a wreath of bluebells will allow you to speak the truth. Levi’s gentle touch manipulated the flowers in such a way to turn every single one inside-out; It took him hours. He was up till the sunrise working to make sure he didn’t rip any flowers. God forbid if anything messed up his chance. Then, he weaved the flower stems together, forming a beautiful vibrant wreath of bluebell flowers. Today, he was going to meet Hange in person.

He slept late that morning into the early afternoon. He jolted out of bed, instinctively looking out his window. Did she show? He didn’t see her. He put on his cloak and mask and went outside. He made sure to put on his wreath.

He waited till nightfall, and she didn’t show. The next day, she didn’t show. The day after that, she didn’t show. The bluebell wreath was beginning to wilt. Levi was starting to worry. He felt this strong urge to go into town. So, he dressed in his usual cloak and mask and followed his instinct. He found her father outside a building talking to a man in a white coat. They looked distraught. Levi frowned. Why is a doctor talking to Hange’s father? Why do they look sad? The doctor started walking with her father down the sidewalk. Levi felt extremely concerned. He walked across the street to the door they came out of. It was unlocked; Levi let himself in.

On the couch, Hange lay. She had a cold pack on her head, covered in blankets. She was sweating but shivering. Levi felt the familiar pang in his chest again. Levi swore Hange didn’t hear him come in, but she did.

“Who’s there?” she called out, coughing harshly. It sounded like she was coughing up her lungs. Levi felt his heart begin to race. He was nervous and scared.

“...Levi,” he replied.

“Show yourself.”

Levi did. He stepped out of the shadows into her field of vision. She gave him a soft smile.

“Come here,” she whispered. Levi did. He kneeled at her bedside.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his face still completely covered.

“I got robbed,” she said, coughing harshly again. It made her wince in pain, a small “ow” escaping her lips. “They stabbed me.” She exposed her abdomen, blood seeping through the bandages on her upper left abdomen. Levi was too sad for words. His brows furrowed, lip quivered, eyes wide.

“I am going to die.” Levi felt his heart ache in his chest. His throat tightened again. No, no, no. This cannot be happening.

“Please, Levi,” she whimpered. “Let me... see your face.” Levi was like putty in her hands. He melted, seeing those rich beautiful hazel eyes looking at his face but at a black mask, unable to recognize any features. Levi slowly reached for his mask, untying the strap behind his head, letting it fall to the ground. That was the first and final time Levi got to look into Hange’s eyes. Hange gave him a sad smile. She reached her hand up to touch his cheek.

“You... are the most beautiful person... I have ever met,” She said, barely audible. Then, her hand fell from his face, her facial expression drooped. She was gone. Tears fell from Levi’s eyes uncontrollably. He tightly placed his hand on his mouth, sealing any sobs from escaping it. He wanted to admire her more, but he couldn’t. He had to go before they believed he killed her, delivering the final blow. He brought a white lily with him, her favorite, and tucked it behind her ear once more. He closed her eyes, pressed his lips to her forehead, as best as he could remember from his miniscule experience. Before he left her for good, he spoke.

“I will keep planting flowers for you. Over and over again.”

[platypanthewriter]

First Kiss (In the Time Of COVID)

Harringrove April prompt 01 (because I missed it the first time): First Kiss!  Second to last!  Almost there!  Steve gets touch-hungry enough to consider the ridiculous health-organization suggestions about gloryholes, and has sex and then a whole relationship with a man he meets at a bar...before he ever gets to kiss him.

Steve was only at the bar because it was right next to the dry-cleaners with no public bathrooms, but he couldn’t help staring at the New York City Department Of Health Safer Sex Guidelines, posted right on the wall between the sinks as he washed his hands.  

Gloryholes were recommended, it said.  Somebody had highlighted it, and somebody else had smacked a big lipsticked kiss on it, which was definitely not within sanitary guidelines.  Steve stood there like a post, thinking about a hot mouth around his dick, instead of going home to his cold, gray apartment, and yelling weird greetings every morning at his neighbors between balconies, stuff like “You hallucinating yet?  I hear people have been hallucinating!” and “How’re you enjoying solitary?!” 

He thought about being touched by another human being.

He hadn’t really noticed the hole in the wall before, other than kind of wondering why, like, why not make out in the car, even—but COVID changed things.  He bit his lips together, and eased back around to look in the stall again.  It wasn’t that bad, even if the people doing graffiti couldn’t spell.  It was tidy, and there was plenty of toilet paper, so at least the staff were in here regularly, he thought.  The floor wasn’t sticky, or anything.  He leaned to look through the hole, and saw a flash of pink skin, as he heard a scrambling in the next stall.

After a second, the person knocked on the stall wall.  “You stick your cock through there and I’ll suck it,” he said, his voice a little wobbly, like he knew exactly how bizarre this was, and he was trying not to laugh.  

Steve bit back a laugh of his own, snorting into his hand.  “Jesus, I’m not even drunk,” he told the voice, who laughed outright.  

“It’s my fucking lunch hour.  You gonna feed me?”

Steve raised his eyebrows, patting the condom he always, optimistically, carried in his back pocket.  “Now I kinda don’t want to,” he said, and the other guy laughed harder.  “Okay,” Steve said, steeling himself.  “I’m going for it.  Gonna put my cock in this creepy hole.  Don’t bite it off.”  He heard a snort as he checked the expiration date on the condom—he hadn’t had sex in eons, it felt like, and he half-expected to see it had expired in 1492—but it wasn’t even gonna expire soon, so he took it as a positive omen.  

“The hell are you doing, hurry up,” said the other man, shuffling his feet, and Steve rolled his eyes, and the condom onto his dick.

“Sure hope nothing over there’s hungry,” he muttered, taking a deep breath before he stuck his dick in the hole in a bathroom stall, stone cold sober, before noon.  “Hungry for a dick meal.  Ready to bite.”

“I might,” the other guy breathed, laughing, but Steve could feel him brush his lips along the side.  “Mmm, polyisoprene,” he mumbled.

“Suck enough dick you recognize condoms?” Steve asked, snorting a laugh, and felt him laugh along.

“You want an expert, don’cha,” he shot back, taking Steve’s cock on his tongue, and Steve groaned, his body thudding hard against the wall.  It creaked, loud, and the guy pulled off again, laughing.  

“I do,” Steve told him.  “I do, I do, I want an expert, come back, dick-monster.”

“I’m not gonna bite off your dick,” said the guy, snickering again.  

“I don’t even care,” Steve said honestly, “—just lemme come first, jesus—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, slipping Steve’s cock between his lips again, and in, deep down his throat where his muscles clenched around it.  Steve could hear him choking with gusto, and he just leaned against the wall, feeling the first human touch he’d had in months.  

He’d given the pizza guy a tip, ages ago, it seemed like, and the guy’s hand had brushed his, and they’d both stood there, staring at their hands, like maybe Steve oughtta propose marriage, and the guy like maybe he was gonna accept.  They’d said goodbye awkwardly, whipping the hand sanitizer out of their pockets as they turned away, and now Steve couldn’t order pizza without his neck feeling warm.  

The guy eating his dick for lunch was so much better, and Steve longed to touch him, and tip him back in a pile of pillows in the warm afternoon sun.  Take the man back to his bed, bury his hands in warm hair—pull him up the bed and kiss him, maybe—feel the weight of another person on his body.  He clenched his hands on the top of the stall wall, grunting as the hot tongue stroked the bottom of his dick, and the tip pushed against the spongy back of the guy’s throat.  

Steve wasn’t good at talking, really, particularly not when all his attention was on his dick, but he couldn’t grab the man, so he tried.  “God, you’re good at this,” he whispered, his mouth fumbling the words a little, but he thought the idea came through.  “Jesus, you’re amazing.  Christ.  God, your mouth.  I bet you’re beautiful, holy shit,” he rambled.  “Even if you’re not beautiful, you’re beautiful, holy crap, I wanna kiss you.”  

The guy pulled back a couple times, then all the way off, coughing and trying to breathe.  “Sorry,” he gasped, clearing his throat.  “Sorry—”

“Take your time, buddy,” Steve told him, feeling like his whole body was a bomb on a timer ticking down, but also like he wanted to draw it out, maybe, a little.  “Shit,” he panted, mumbling like a moron, now he’d started.  “You’re the best dick-eating monster ever, you’re like, better than the ones on Sesame Street,” he told the dude, sincerely, and heard him burst out laughing again.  

“You want a blow job or what,” he gasped, sounding like he was crying.  “Stop making me laugh, christ.  There aren’t dick-eating monsters on Sesame Street.”

“...oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Steve realized breathlessly, nodding.  The stall wall was cool against his sweaty skin.  “You’re smart, huh.”

“Jesus,” the guy breathed, and then Steve felt his mouth again, and his hips spasmed against the glory hole.  He made a guttural noise as he came, intending half a warning, half a compliment, but the guy just waited as he went still, and then pulled back, panting.  

“Fuck,” Steve whispered, coming down, his heart pounding half out of his chest.  “God, that was good.”

“I am an expert,” the dude said—hoarsely, probably because he’d let Steve fuck his throat for minutes on end.

“Yeah, you are,” Steve agreed, sitting down on the toilet edge.  “Damn.  Gimme a sec—wait, you got another condom?  I only had one.”

“...it’s fine,” the guy laughed.  “I’m a dick monster, remember, s’enough for me.”

“Next time,” Steve said, impulsively, and heard a thump on the other side of the wall.  

“...you, uh,” the guy said, and trailed off, as Steve checked his phone, and grimaced.  

“I gotta go,” he said, over the guy asking something kinda quietly on the other side.  “Wait, what?”

“Nothing, go ahead,” he laughed, and Steve frowned at the wall.

“...I have this Zoom meeting,” he said, grimacing.

“Same bat-time, same bat-channel?” the guy asked, and Steve laughed.

“This your usual break?”

“Yeah.  I’ll have you for lunch anytime,” the guys said, and Steve sighed, flattening his hand against the wall, and wishing he could touch.  

“Jesus, what’d I do right to get a day like today,” he said, and the dick-monster snickered.

“Better run, dude.”

“Yes, thanks,” Steve told him, yanking his zipper shut, and his mask back over his ears.  “Thanks, man, I haven’t touched anybody in like.  A year.  You’re a goddamn saint.”

“Saint monster,” he said, as Steve left.

 Steve had to pick up his dry-cleaning two days later, and it occurred to him he really should’ve gotten the guy’s number, or at least asked what days he had off.  He slid into the bathroom, touched his back pocket again, and felt the two condoms.  He cleared his throat, grimacing, because it seemed creepy as hell to drop and stare through the glory hole.  

After a couple minutes, he heard the door open and a flurry of footsteps, and then a thud at the stall wall as he dropped to his knees.  “I’m here,” his benefactor said, breathless.  

“Okay,” Steve said, pulling a condom out, and trying to find the spot to tear it open.

“Don’t sound all fucking excited to see me,” the guy said, his voice flat, suddenly.  “I know I’m just some—”

“No, no, hey,” Steve said, addressing the knees he could see under the wall of the stall.  “I was trying to get the damn condom open.  Your turn, right?”

“...you wanna suck me off?” the guy asked, slowly.  “You don’t gotta.  I’m an absolute whore for praise, seriously, just keep telling me how good I’m doing—”

“...I mean, I can do that,” Steve said, wishing he could see the dude’s face, instead of trying to gauge the meaning of every pause in his sentences.  “But I can suck you off, first.”

“...what a gentleman,” he said, laughing, and then Steve heard him unzip.  

 The sight of someone else’s skin, even through a glory hole, made Steve’s mouth water like he was a gotdamn cannibalistic psychopath.  He wished desperately that he could just touch, without the plastic barrier.  He pinched the end of the condom and held it against the end of the guy’s already-hard cock, pushing the ring up and over hot skin, and he knelt to try and breathe in the smell of another human.  

The guy smelled a little sweaty, and a bit like soap, and Steve’s hands actually shook as he resisted reaching through and scratching his nails through the bed of curls around the base of the cock in his hands.  Even through plastic, the dude’s dick was satisfyingly heavy, warm, and alive, and he kissed it as soon as he’d gotten enough of the condom on.  The guy grunted, thumping against the creaky stall wall like Steve had done, and they both laughed.

“You know the best part of bathroom sex,” the guy panted, the tip of the condom already filling as he leaked, “—it’s the acoustics, right, I sound like a whole-ass porno in here.”

“That’s not the best part,” Steve told him, swallowing, and then swallowing again, because he didn’t know touching someone, even through plastic, could make him want to crawl under the wall of a bathroom stall if it meant he could touch them more.  He never thought he’d be so happy to see a dick.  “God, you feel good.”  

“...I am good,” the guy whispered, barely audible in the weird, loud bathroom acoustics with the fan going, and Steve laughed, kissing his cock again.  It jerked in his hand.

“You are good,” he breathed against it, and the dude bit back a groan.  “You’re perfect,” Steve said, following a hunch, and felt the guy thump his hips against the wall between them again.  

Steve grinned, bending down to swirl his tongue around the tip, and he saw the dude’s hands grip the upper edge of the stall, his knuckles whitening.  The little hexagonal tiles dug into Steve’s knees, a bit, but he didn’t mind.  He felt himself getting hard, and unzipped his pants, absently freeing his dick with a sigh of relief.

 Steve had always liked sucking cock.  He’d wondered whether it would be any fun, though, without the feeling of hips under his hands, or fingers in his hair—but he could see the guy’s shoes shifting, and feel the soft thumps against the stall as he forgot everything except Steve’s mouth around him.  Steve could look up and see his grip straining on the stall wall, and smell him, the laundry and sweat and cologne smell of him—and hear him, louder than Steve, grunting streams of “Fuck, fuck, jesus, fuck,” and “God, don’t slow down, you asshole,” and “Oh shit, do that again, please, please, please…” trailing off into begging, panting gibberish.

When he came, he staggered back and thudded down onto the toilet seat with a clatter.  “Just—just gimme a minute,” he panted, as Steve grabbed toilet paper, and wiped the spit off his face and chin.  

“Take your time,” he said, and the toilet seat squeaked as the guy cleared his throat.  

“Yeah, yeah, shit, sorry, fuck.  Lemme just get down there, asshole—”

“No, I mean it,” Steve said, sitting down himself, and giving his dick a squeeze.  He let his eyes fall shut at the relief.  “Take as long as you want, I don’t have a meeting or anything.”

“...shit,” the guy breathed.  “Yeah.”

“...wanna give me your number?” Steve asked, trying to distract himself from the thought of the dude’s mouth, of pushing into the heat of another human being.

“Shit, yes,” the guy blurted.  “Yeah, yes, please.”  He recited it, and Steve put it in his phone, taking care his extreme horniness didn’t make his hand shake and drop his phone in the toilet.  

“I’m saving you as ‘beautiful dick guy’,” he said, and Beautiful Dick Guy laughed.  

“Text me, so I know you’ve got it,” he said, and Steve did, before tucking his phone safely away.

“What are you saving me as?” Steve asked.  “Best blowjob ever?  Nice Mouth Dude?”

“Surprised you didn’t save me as ‘Dick Monster’,” the guy muttered, and Steve snorted a laugh, as he slid the other condom on.

“Well, you haven’t bitten it off yet.”

“I’m not gonna bite it off!” he laughed.

“You might,” Steve told him, patting the wall, because he wanted to touch something.  “I mean—”

“Get your cock in my mouth, jesus,” the dude said, and Steve stood, and pressed his cock through the glory hole to the guy’s lips with a grunt of relief.  

“Jesus,” he whispered.  “Thank you, god.  Thank you.”

Beautiful Dick Guy pulled off, and Steve bit back a groan of protest.  “Stop making it sound like I’m donating to charity,” he growled, before sinking Steve’s cock between his lips again, and swallowing around it.

“Dunno what you wanna hear,” Steve muttered.  “God, you’re good at this.”  The mouth around his dick hummed approvingly, and Steve nearly came at the vibration, moaning.  “You’re perfect, you’re amazing,” he mumbled, on autopilot.  “Jesus, you’re a fucking gift, you’re the best thing that ever happened to my cock, I swear, you’re a goddamn miracle, you’re a natural disater on my dick—”

The dude started laughing again, choking and coughing, and Steve grabbed the top of the stall, wishing it wouldn’t be weird and unsafe to just climb on the toilet and lean over to kiss him like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet—or better yet, open the door and walk into the other stall, and dip him like the end of a tango.  Steve mumbled some version of all that, and the guy cackled harder.  “Sorry,” he wheezed.  “Sorry, sorry.”

“No hurry, man,” Steve told him, taking a deep breath.  “Can’t...rush art, right.”

“Jesus,” the dude snorted, coughing again, and Steve cocked his head, trying to think around all the blood pounding in his dick.  

“...other people must tell you you’re good at this,” he said, “—like, all the time,” and everything was quiet for a long second.  

“...yeah,” the guy finally said, sounding a little bitter.  “Everybody’s super polite and respectful, when you suck them off in a toilet.”

“Oh,” Steve said, grimacing, and squirming, a little, at the memory of how the dude’s voice felt against his dick.  “Well.  Um.  Would it be weird if I texted you?  Like.  I can’t ask you out.”

“...you wanna ask me out?” the guy asked, laughing.

“I can’t, there’s—there’s nowhere we can go,” Steve said, wondering whether it’d be rude to pull his cock back through, and jerk off, if it was just gonna sit there untouched.  “We could, um, we could like...wave at each other in the park, but it’s cold.”

“You’d date me?” came his voice again.  “You haven’t even asked my name yet.”

“Steve,” Steve said quickly.  “And you are?”

“...Billy,” Billy said, and just as Steve was distracted, thinking about what kinda shitheel would fuck a guy’s mouth and not ask his name, the heat of Billy’s mouth sank over his cock again, and Steve just tried to keep his mouth moving, mumbling how fantastic Billy had to be.

 Billy left first, while Steve took stock of the brain cells he’d lost through his dick.  Thanks so much, he texted.  Sorry I can’t kiss you.  

what, arrived back, almost instantly.

I mean, Steve sent, and then stared at the screen, trying to figure out what he meant.  I love listening to you laugh

I want to kiss your face while you laugh 

wrap around you when you shiver

leave hickies all over your body

hold you when you’re all fucked out

wake you up with my mouth on your cock

my hands holding your thighs

 dont do this to me at work, Billy sent back, and Steve hunched his shoulders, grimacing, but then his phone buzzed again.  i’ll die i’m fucking dying holy shit god yes kiss me hold me down 

I can come back next week, Steve sent, grinning.

fuck you, Billy sent back.  you know how many actual hours that is 

why you gonna make me wait that long

asshole

Steve laughed, grinning at his screen.  

 When he left, he took a long look at the bar, and a dude with light brown curls, thick, dark brows, and amazing gray-blue eyes watched him.  It was hard to tell his expression through the mask, but Steve was pretty sure it was a grin.  

later, beautiful cock monster, he sent, and he heard the familiar snorted laugh.

fuck you, his phone told him.  

 The next morning, he sent g’morning, beautiful, and hope you’re having a lunch as amazing as you are, and kiss emoticons, and Billy sent back eggplants and staring eyes and suggested Steve come by the bar twice a day.

 He learned over the next few weeks that Billy could get nearly any conversation back around to sucking Steve’s cock, and it made it kinda...hard to talk to him, honestly, when Steve wanted to put him on speaker over lunch, or watch a movie.  He had more phone sex than he’d had in ever, but Billy kinda sounded like he was taking his cues from a phone sex hotline, and that...wasn’t quite what Steve had been...longing for.  

“I watched some Sesame Street clips with this kid I know on Zoom,” Steve told him.  “Looked for you.  You live near, like, Bert and Ernie?  Is that the queer community there?”

“Were you thinking about my dick?” Billy asked, snickering, and Steve hadn’t been, really, he’d been thinking about Billy’s laugh.  “My mouth misses you more, though,” Billy whispered, “—misses your heat, man, misses stretching around you—” and Steve was half-hard in his jeans, again, and too tired to do anything about it.  

“I gotta go,” he sighed, and Billy was silent at the other end.  It felt less like dating, and more like watching the same porn over and over.  

 When Billy called just as Steve was settling in with warm pajamas, popcorn, beer, and a good K-drama, about to find out who the mother-in-law’s secret son’s girlfriend actually was, Billy called, already panting.  Steve couldn’t help thinking I just got you off after lunch.  

“I’m kinda busy,” he said, pausing the show.

“Aren’t you off?” Billy asked, after a pause.  “You’re off, right?”

“...yeah, I just have...stuff,” Steve said, grimacing.  

Billy was quiet for long enough that Steve glared off into space, because his popcorn was getting cold.  “...maybe in an hour?” Billy offered.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Steve said, “—or later this week.”

“...yeah, okay, you call me,” Billy said, and hung up.  

Steve shook his head, sighing, and clicked his show back on, watching with big eyes as he tried to figure out the complicated relationships.  He didn’t remember to text Billy that night—and he didn’t hear anything back, either, so he didn’t worry about it, too much.  It was kinda nice, honestly, not getting a phone call at seven am from a guy Steve barely knew telling him what to do with his huge, meaty cock.  Somehow, formulaic sex hotline talk didn’t help him feel any less lonely.

 By the end of the week, he was kinda dreading calling Billy at all, so he called Robin instead.  

“He’s too horny,” she said slowly.  “Steve, everybody’s horny.  We’ve all been in solitary for a year.  I would probably eat out a fire hydrant to feel some juices on my face, okay, go easy on this guy.”

“It’s not...ugh,” Steve sighed, rubbing his face.  “It’s like talking to one of those viagra emails, okay?  Like, why even talk to a real person, if he’s just gonna…like, I get him off, but he won’t talk about anything else, I don’t know if he’s ever seen a movie—”

“...he’s boring, it sounds like,” she sighed.  “That sucks, man.”

“He is,” Steve groaned.  “I feel like I’m talking to a budget sex line operator.  He cuts me off whenever I even mention work, or like, anything—”

“...sounds like he might think you’re boring too, buddy,” she said, with her trademark blend of cynical sympathy.

“Yeah,” Steve sighed.

“Better wrap it up,” she said, and he nodded, grimacing.

 hey, he texted.  I don’t think this is gonna work out.

 Billy called an hour later, and Steve sighed, but swiped to answer, and said “Hello?”

“God,” Billy whispered.  “I thought you might’ve already blocked me.”

“Haven’t yet,” Steve said, drumming his fingers on his tabletop, and waiting.

“‘Yet’.  Okay,” Billy said, laughing.  It sounded a little—pissed, maybe, and Steve braced himself, listening to Billy’s soft breaths.  It sounded like he was walking somewhere.  “Is—is there anything—any way I could get another chance,” he panted, and then it went silent, like he was holding his breath.

Why, Steve wondered, frowning.  He bit his lips, thinking.

“If there’s anything you want from me, just tell me,” Billy said, sounding a little less steady.  “Or shit, if—if you don’t want something, just—just tell me what you want, I don’t—”

“It’s not you, it’s m—” Steve tried, making a face, and Billy cut him off, laughing, but sniffling.

“No.  No, don’t give me that, it’s definitely me, I can tell, okay.  You wanted me and then talking to me was a fucking chore, what—come on,” he whispered, his voice cracking.  “You said you wanted to hold me, don’t—”

I was lonely, Steve thought of saying, and winced.  I can’t make myself like you.  

“Don’t make me get a job on Sesame Street,” Billy said hoarsely, laughing.  “I don’t think they actually have openings for Dick Monsters,” and there he was, the guy Steve had listened to giggling, the man he had liked.  

He took a deep breath, thinking.  

“...okay, yeah,” Billy said, clearing his throat.  “Fuck,” he muttered.  “Fuck.”

At least, Steve thought, feeling his face heat, he could tell Billy hadn’t been bored.  “...you...wanna try again,” he said, cautiously, and Billy made a weird noise like he was slurping up nothing through a wet straw.

“Yes.  Yes,” he whispered.  “Yeah, is that—is that even—”

“Okay,” Steve told him, and felt indescribably guilty listening to his boyfriend burst into tears.  

“Fuck, okay, tell me—tell me what you want,” he gulped.  “I don’t wanna piss you off again, tell me—”

“You didn’t piss me off,” Steve told him, and Billy swallowed hard.  

“Okay,” he said again.  “What—why—”

“...you’re like talking to a SPAM email,” Steve finally said, brutally honest.  “Like, every time I try to talk to you—”

“What?!” Billy asked, laughing, a little bitterly.

“I try to tell you what I’m having for lunch or something, and all of a sudden you’re all ‘biggest HUGE cock, daddy’,” Steve groaned.  “Like...if I’m that boring, d��you even want to date me?”

“...should I just call less,” Billy asked.  “I know I was calling too much, I was trying to just—just wait for you to call me, just call sometimes—”

“You’re not listening,” Steve said, sighing.

“No, I am, I swear!” Billy yelped.  “I’m listening, you don’t want me trying to keep you on the line, I’ll stop.  I’ll—when you’re done I’ll just hang up, I swear, I’m listening, I am—”

“I’m not...trying to get you to hang up,” Steve said slowly.  “I’m—I’m just telling you stuff?  I just—I’ve got a life, y’know, I thought maybe—you’d wanna know me.”

“I thought you were fucking bored,” Billy yelled, then, fuzzier, “—no, sorry, sorry—” before the phone was back to his ear.  “Every time I’d get you on the phone you’re like ‘So anyway, lots to do today—’”

“Oh,” Steve said, grimacing.  

“You always sounded bored.  You’re always bored, with me,” Billy said, laughing.  “Shit, I knew this was coming, don’t—don’t date me just because I begged, christ.”

“It’s not even really dating,” Steve sighed, wondering if he’d have noticed Billy’s tension earlier, across a table from him.

“...yeah, not—not really,” Billy agreed, then, more quietly.  “We’re just talking, sometimes.”

“Want to go for a walk,” Steve asked, and Billy held his breath again, then blew it out with a soft sigh.

“...not if you’re dumping me,” he said, and Steve sat up straighter.  

“No!  No, just—I wanna see you.  I didn’t even wanna dump you, I thought you were fucking bored, man.”

“...okay,” Billy said, sounding like he might be smiling, finally, and when Steve arrived at the park, there he was, texting.

Steve’s phone buzzed as he approached—sure enough, it was the guy he’d seen at the bar, with dark eyebrows and pretty gray-blue eyes over his mask.

dont make me wait, dickhead, it said.

“I’m here,” Steve called, and Billy looked up, and grinned with his eyes.  “Shit,” Steve said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and Billy’s smile dropped.  He searched Steve’s face.  “I just wanna hug you,” Steve admitted, staying six feet away.  “You look cute.”

Billy laughed, his eyes crinkling, and Steve wriggled his hands in his pockets, groaning melodramatically.  

“Tell me something about you,” Steve told him.  “Uh, not about your cock.”

“...um,” Billy said, kicking a pinecone along the path.  “Huh.  I got a little sister.  Max.  She’s home now, but she’ll head back to college.  When they reopen.”

“This is the kinda shit I should know when we’ve been dating for nearly a month, and we talk every goddamn day,” Steve growled, hunching his shoulders.  

“Well, truly fucking sorry,” Billy said, glancing over.  “The only part of me I knew you liked was my dick, so—”

“No, I’m not—I should’ve asked,” Steve said, swivelling, and waving his hands in the air as another horrifying thought occurred to him.  “What’s your last name, Billy?!”

“Hargrove,” Billy said, grinning at him.  

“Jesus,” Steve muttered, shaking his head, and walked on.  He grabbed his phone, and changed his boyfriend’s contact info to include his actual name, feeling like a dipshit.

 When they decided, shivering, to head home, Steve turned around to watch Billy walk away, and caught him doing the same thing.  

I really like you, Steve texted.  sorry you didn’t know.

Billy turned on his heel and blew Steve a kiss, and Steve jumped and pretended to catch it like a fly ball, before holding it cupped in his hands.  

nerd, Billy sent.

your nerd, Steve sent back, triumphantly, with two thumbs up across the park at Billy, who started laughing so hard again he had to lean on his knees.

 He found Billy Hargrove on Instagram, and Twitter, and scrolled through photos of a really unfairly hot man as he sat in his car, his eyebrows raised.  There were photos of Steve’s texts, with loads of comments and hearts, and Steve found himself grimly going through posts where he’d texted and Billy’d posted the screenshot, and then video of him screaming into a pillow, or things Steve had said with two pages of comments and analysis.  

‘I think you could do better than somebody who doesn’t like you very much’ caught his eye, and he bit his lips together.  

Good thing it’s not up to you, Billy had replied, and Steve nodded, glaring at the username, MadMax666.  

I like him a lot, Steve typed, but that didn’t seem like enough, so he deleted it.  ‘I like him more than anyone else does’ was worse, and he grimaced, deleting that one. I know he’s amazing, he put, finally, and got back a Who is this?? from Billy’s logon.

The dumb boyfriend, Steve told him, and then everything exploded with heart emoticons, and Steve just called him, grinning.  “Hey, Billy,” he said, and Billy laughed.  

“Hey, Steve,” he said back, softly, and Steve talked him off the way they had at first, in the bathroom at Billy’s work, telling Billy he was amazing and perfect and good.  

 The next time Steve went by the bar, he called first, and Billy laughed breathlessly when he said he was coming by.

“Advance notice,” he said.  “Almost like a date, huh?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice a little sooner,” Steve admitted, and got a short pause before a hissed “Oh my god.”  Steve laughed.

“Maybe something special, then,” Billy whispered, and when Steve got there, instead of seeing Billy’s knees as he dropped to the floor instantly, Billy’s hands were curled over the wall of the stall.  “...just shove on in,” he said, and Steve realized that, bizarrely, he was about to have actual penetrative sex with someone he’d never touched.  

He unzipped his pants, and rolled a condom on, as Billy said “I know this isn’t what you want.  From dating.  I—I thought maybe—”

Steve dropped his already-dripping dick to slide his fingers over Billy’s, on the wall of the stall, and hear his voice hitch and shudder.  “You’re perfect, babe.  You’re enough.”

“...love you,” Billy whispered, maybe.

“What?!” Steve asked, startled, and Billy said “Nothing, nothing.”

 Billy didn’t seem to know Steve had found his Twitter too, and all discussion of Steve floated over there, which would have made him feel creepy about reading it, except it was invariably something that just meant Steve needed to call and cheer him up, that he wouldn’t have known if he wasn’t eavesdropping.  

What are you gonna do in that huge apartment all by yourself, somebody asked Billy, in the spring, and Steve’s heartbeat a little faster scrolling back to see Billy’s boyfriend had moved out months before, and his little sister was going back to college.  

Want to move in with me? he typed, and reconsidered, staring at it instead of hitting send.  He counted the months he’d known Billy on his fingers, grimacing.  

Can’t pay the rent here with reduced hours, can’t get the deposit to move, popped up on Billy’s Twitter, and Steve glowered at it, then called.

“Move in with me,” he said, when Billy answered.

“...what?” Billy breathed.

“Move in with me,” Steve said again.  “You’re alone, right?  Come live with me.”

“...is there room?” Billy asked, sounding bewildered.  “For me?”

“There’s a little room I use as my office,” Steve said, making a face.  “I, uh, I kinda thought you wouldn’t be using it, though.”

“You want me to live with you?” Billy asked again, like his brain was skipping, and Steve laughed.  

“Yeah, dick-monster, I do.”

“...you’ve never even seen my face,” Billy muttered, and Steve laughed.

“Is it my fault you’re so fucking tired of Zoom?”

“That doesn’t count,” Billy huffed.

“I’m vaccinated,” Steve told him.  “I’ve been quarantining.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Billy said dourly.  “I’m crawling out of my skin over here.”

“It’s safe as it can be.  D’you want to?”

“Of course I—we’ve never even had the exclusive conversation,” Billy groaned.  “Are we?!”

“COVID makes shit weird,” Steve sighed.  “I figured you were it for me, yeah.”

“I have never touched your flesh,” Billy moaned, like a serial killer, and Steve snorted.

“Calm down, carnivore,” he said,  “—you want help moving?”

“Yes,” Billy sighed.  “Yeah.  Gimme a couple days—”

“Days?!” Steve asked, startled, and Billy was quiet on the other end.  “Days are fine!” Steve corrected.  “Days are good!”

“Okay,” Billy said, laughing softly.  “Days.”

 As soon as the furniture and boxes were piled in Steve’s front room, he sidled over to Billy, who was leaning against the counter panting, his eyes closed.  Billy’s jacket was open, from the heat of hauling boxes up the stairs, and Steve ran his fingers down Billy’s neck, and then yanked him close into a hug, feeling the warmth and bulk of him breathing.

“Oof,” Billy whispered, but he relaxed into it with a sigh, leaning his whole weight against Steve.

Steve breathed him in, realizing he felt weak, a little, with the need to squeeze Billy as hard as he could.  “Hi,” he whispered.

“Mmmn,” he said, contentedly.

 Steve hauled him back to the bed, stripping him down on the way.  He wouldn’t quit squirming, and Steve rubbed stubble all over his neck, making him yell.  They nearly tripped, because neither of them wanted to pull back enough to look down, but they made it to Steve’s bed.  Steve pushed him back, and then crouched over him.  

Steve unhooked the mask from his own ears, and ran his fingers up Billy’s arm to his head to untie his.  “Feel like I’m lifting your veil,” Steve told him.

Billy kept his eyes shut, smiling as Steve lifted his mask.  He was pretty, prettier than his pictures, square-jawed and mustached, and Steve ran his fingers over his boyfriend’s cheek for the first time, just exploring.  He tweaked the one dangling earring, and brushed his thumb over Billy’s lips, and Billy bit back a moan, turning his head in Steve’s hands to kiss his fingers.

“...y’know I’m never gonna stop touching you,” Steve whispered, and Billy laughed, his long lashes brushing his freckled cheeks.  “...you’re perfect.”

“Mmmn,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows doubtfully.

“You’d be perfect if you had a smashed nose like a cauliflower, and nine-hundred eyes like a fly,” Steve told him, honestly, and Billy burst out laughing.  

“Not much of a compliment, then,” he pointed out, opening his eyes and grinning at Steve, and Steve couldn’t help touching his grin, feeling where his cheeks bunched as he smiled.  

It felt so good to touch someone.  

“...god,” he whispered, leaning in to brush his lips over Billy’s smile.  "May I kiss the bride?" 

Billy laughed against his lips, hot and human.  

My other Harringrove April prompts are here!

[zigtheeortega]

calm before the storm

✿ pairing: bryce x mc

✿ word count: 2.5k

✿ warnings: loss, death, funeral – angst.

✿ author’s note: i didn’t necessarily think that bryce was written ooc, but the whole post-funeral sequence was pretty weird to me. i’m someone who copes very similarly to bryce, so i could see myself reflected in him a lot. and i thought the s*x scene was very oddly placed so, here’s me warping canon again bc i’m dissatisfied! lmao hope u enjoy <3 also this fic is very close to me emotionally – i experienced two close deaths in april and june. 

•─────────✦✿✦────────•

Since the moment his hands trembled amidst one of the most important surgeries of his life, Bryce was holding on by a thread.

With each half-assed joke he cracked, each wavering smile, each time he tried convincing others – including himself – that he was coping, he fell apart more and more.

The first night he went home after Spencer was quarantined, he trudged through the halls of Edenbrook, like he was dragging his legs through wet concrete. He was nearly magnetized to her bedside, not wanting to leave, but he needed to rest – he’d been awake for nearly a day and a half by the time he clocked out.

He blinked and he was back home. Couldn't remember how he got there. He was on autopilot and didn’t have a clue until he’d already wasted so much time. When night came, he couldn’t recall what he’d done that day.

The days between the diagnostics team finding a cure were torturous, the mere thought of not knowing what the future held – for the first time in his life – shaking him to his core.

He found himself paying close attention to Keiki. Each sarcastic quip, rude comment, or joke at his expense, he listened, soaking it up, no thoughts about the problem back in Hawaii. He whole-heartedly enjoyed her. Through one of the hardest times in his life, he was rekindling a relationship that never should’ve fallen apart.

The night he spent with Spencer, cuddled up next to her in his starchy hazmat suit, was the most daunting of them all. He was smiling and flirting with her, a little bit of his normal self shining through, but the crushing weight of his reality was distracting him.

This could be the last time that you see her smile.

God, he knew he had a killer smile of his own, but hers put the whole damn sun to shame. Her grin lit up her whole body, like every atom in her body was in it. And despite her sunken in eyes, her pale, sickly appearance, she still emitted those same infectious rays that he was eager to soak up.

This could be the last time that you hold her.

He curled himself around her, spooning her like he’d done a handful of times before. What he wouldn’t give to have a faceful of her hair again, the tropical scent so familiar to him that he couldn’t help but associate the scent of coconut with her.

This could be the last time that you feel her.

He stroked her face with a gloved hand, wishing for nothing more than to feel her smooth skin beneath his fingertips again. He pressed into her, hoping she could feel his warmth through the thin layer of fabric.

When her eyelids finally fluttered shut, overcome with exhaustion, his mind wandered to the possibility of it all being over.

And he couldn’t cope with that.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to.

When the treatment worked, and both she and Rafael were cured, it was the first time in months he’d experienced genuine joy. He didn’t know what higher power out there was looking out for him, but he silently thanked the universe for looking out for her. And for putting her in his life, and decidedly keeping her there.

The funeral was too much for him.

Seeing the two caskets, sealed tight, the endless arrangements of flowers, the sea of black clothing… it was overwhelming. Foreign. Like he was intruding on something so intimate that wasn’t meant for him to see.

And the sounds. He’d never forget it. Choked sobs from every angle, constant sniffling, a sporadic wail. The atmosphere made him antsy. His suit was itchy, his shoes were uncomfortable, and he was surrounded by grief.

Both Danny and Bobby meant a lot to Edenbrook, but it was nothing compared to what Spencer meant to him.

He must’ve slipped into auto-pilot (again), because before he knew it, the funeral was over, and he was outside of her apartment.

Wordlessly, he wrapped her in his arms, burying his face in her shoulder, the smell of her shampoo enough to bring him to tears. He was so fucking close to losing that forever. His free will to kiss her, to touch her, to hold her.

She invited him in, and every step to her room felt like each string that held him together was snapping, his sutures buckling under the weight he carried.

He was digging deep, trying to pull any kind of genuine quip from within him, to maybe – just maybe – convince Spencer he was okay.

But did he want to keep her in the dark?

Opening up was so fucking hard for him. Either he was a burden or he was let down by the people he confided in.

Trustworthiness was hard to come by, and Bryce knew that. That’s why Spencer was the first to know about Keiki, about his parents, about him. Not entirely, since he wasn’t ready for that just yet, but he was getting there.

It was a slow process, and he revered Spencer’s patience. Not once did she get upset with him for not sharing every detail.

And he almost fucking lost that.

His torturous inner monologue that he worked so hard to bury showed up when Keiki did. Guilt ate him alive, anxiety gnawed his insides, and regret feasted on whatever was left.

His mind was a hurricane, angry waves crashing painfully against his subconscious, the storm surge from his repeated trauma more than he could handle alone.

The one person he should’ve let in was almost taken from him, ripped from him like a surfboard after a wipeout.

He was drowning, and he flicked away the only hand that was outstretched for him.

And he almost fucking lost her.

The moment Spencer’s brows furrowed at whatever unconvincing mask he had plastered on his features, he broke.

His throat ached and flexed as he tried to choke back the tears, but he just… couldn’t.

Fuck, you’re so weak. He cursed at himself as the tears started flowing, warm streaks trailing down his bronzed skin, vision blurred like his head was under water. This isn’t about you.

The one time deflection was warranted, he broke down into a blubbering heap at her feet.

Like the angel she was, Spencer coaxed his body towards the bed, settling him against the down comforter before his legs buckled beneath him.

She gathered him in her arms, holding him exactly like he needed (like he wanted, but he didn’t want to admit it out loud).

She held him like he held her – like it was the last time.

The revelation tore him up inside, knowing she’d never take a second of their time together for granted again.

He pulled back, running a shaky hand through his hair, loose strands clinging to his damp forehead.

“I normally can hold it together better.” “You don’t have to do that around me, Bryce. You know that,” she encouraged, eyes still red-rimmed from the funeral.

“You’re the one that almost died, and I’m sitting here crying letting you comfort me,” he laughed through a sob, bouncing his leg on the ground nervously.

“You watched me almost die,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. “You’re allowed to be upset.”

His chin wobbled, and he rolled his lips to mask it. He took a shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut. “Spencer, I – have you ever…” He trailed off. Why was this so fucking hard?

“Have I been through this before?”

“Yeah,” was all he could manage.

She nodded. “Have you?”

“No.”

She nodded again.

“It’s making me think about my life… and the people in it. And things I could’ve done differently… better.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I saw you in that room, after the gas started affecting you, and your face… it –” he bit his lip to hold back a soft sob. “It got me thinking about everything that we didn’t do.”

“Bryce…” she laced her fingers in his, rubbing her thumb methodically over his skin.

“We’ve barely seen each other this year, Spencer. I got caught up with Keiki, and trying to figure shit out, and –” he searched her eyes, tears welling up again. “When I saw you in that room, nothing else mattered.”

“More than one thing can be important to you –”

“You’re important to me, Spence. You deserve better than what I’ve given you this year,” he shook his head, tears spilling over. “I can’t lose you.”

“You aren’t losing me, Bryce. I’m right here,” she practically cooed, trying her best to soothe him.

“I shouldn’t be the one being comforted right now. Please,” he whispered.

She pulled back, scooting backward onto the bed to cross her legs, as he stood up, pacing.

“It’s like I’m fucking up left and right with the people who matter to me,” he fisted his pockets, avoiding her eyes as he strode across the room.

“You of all people should know that you can’t take the blame for things that are out of your control,” she murmured softly, tugging at a loose string at the hem of her dress.

“I know I can’t control it and that’s why it makes me want to tear my fucking hair out,” he said through gritted teeth, biting back tears. He didn’t want to cry anymore, but his body had other ideas.

“Bryce, you couldn’t have stopped a bursting gas canister. Nobody could’ve stopped it.”

“That’s not what I’m frustrated over. I’m… I don’t know how to say it without sounding like a dick and making this about me. There’s a lot going through my head right now,” he laughed humorlessly, stopping in the middle of the room directly across from the bed.

“Talk it out with me. I’ve got time,” she smiled encouragingly, folding her hands in her laps politely, like the angel she was.

God, sometimes he was thankful for his parent’s demonic behavior, because if not for the bad karma the Lahela’s accumulated, there’s no way in hell the universe would’ve balanced itself out by placing an angel like her in his path.

“On the one hand I’m angry at myself for not spending time with you like I should’ve,” he chewed his lip for a second, trying to gather his thoughts, before speaking again slowly. “I could’ve lost you and I was more worried about keeping secrets from everyone and dealing with shit on my own, you know? Which I never should’ve done.”

“But you didn’t and still don’t have to tell me anything. You’re allowed to have boundaries,” she interjected calmly.

“But maybe… maybe I don’t want that anymore,” he shrugged out of his tux jacket, draping it over the back of her desk chair as he spoke. “You still barely know Keiki. I barely know Keiki. And I holed myself up when you were waiting there with open arms. I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t want to burden anybody? I don’t know.” He repeated, downplaying his own self–realization.

“And I’m frustrated because I don’t… know how to deal with this,” he gestured around the room, then to himself. “How to wrap my brain around all of it. This was the first time I lost anybody like this.”

“I wasn’t even super close to Danny and Bobby,” he continued, shoving his hands in his pockets to calm his shaking hands.

“Losing people is always hard. Doesn’t matter how close or distant you are to somebody,” she said, trying to hold his eyes, but he could barely look at her.

He’d never opened up like this before. He was so vulnerable… so exposed, and he was afraid. Afraid she’d run away. That she’d bolt the second he plopped his thick suitcases filled to the brim, nearly bursting with emotional baggage from the past two decades.

“I’m sad about losing them, definitely, and going to a funeral for the first time in my life really fucked with my head but… fuck, I’m gonna sound like such an asshole,” he willed himself to look up from his shoes, staring intently at her. “None of that even comes close to what I felt when I thought I’d lost you.”

“Kyra was hanging on by a thread while I thought you were –” he choked, pressing his lips in a firm line to stop his sobs, which escaped through his nose in short breaths instead.

“I’ve never felt pressure like that. And my life has been nothing but pressure.” The words were freely flowing from him, like a dam held together by a few twigs, snapping to release a flood that neither of them anticipated.

“You had to run towards your problems, not away from them,” she whispered, like she wasn’t sure if he’d agree. But the moment the words left her lips, it was like the puzzle pieces fell into place for him.

Maui should’ve been his safe haven, but from the moment his parents were exposed in every form of news throughout Hawaii, he was itching to leave. The island fever settled into his bones and never left. It was an ever present anxiety he struggled with despite finding a home in Boston, Edenbrook, and Spencer.

When shit went down back home, he ran. When people found out who he was states away from the fallout, he ran. It was predictable, methodical, like an appendectomy. The same muscle memory that sliced skin and fastened sutures with delicate precision pumped his legs until he was as far away from his problems as he could get.

“Everytime I lost somebody, it was because I chose to. This time it was like something was being ripped away from me, and I couldn’t handle it,” Bryce said, a profound statement that caused a pained whimper to escape his lips.

“Bry…” She breathed, scooting to the edge of the bed, gently tugging at his shirt sleeve to pull him down to sit on the comforter.

“You don’t have to have all the answers right now, alright? And you don’t have to carry all of this alone. I’m here. You’ve got all of us,” she said, motioning towards the walls of the apartment. “Sometimes just letting it out can take the weight off your shoulders. And you’ve got a heavy load, Bryce.”

She rubbed soothing circles on his back, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “I’m not leaving you.”

He held her eye, doe-eyed gaze piercing – Spencer could see right through him, and god did he love feeling seen.

There was nothing he could say to thank her properly for putting aside her feelings to listen to him for a few minutes. Those few minutes where he unleashed a small portion of the shit he’d been building up for years.

So instead he did what he’d been craving since the moment he saw her behind the glass.

He pulled her into a frenzied kiss, pouring every part of himself into the embrace, wrapping him in her arms like she belonged there, as if he was saying “I’m not leaving you, either. You’re safe now.”

––––

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[aurora-the-kunoichi]

The Forgotten - Part Four Temptation

Part four of my self indulgent smut and angst filled fic. 

SMUT SMUT SMUT (I know why you’re here)

In it’s entirety 

She could see Donnie; plain as fucking day but behind what seemed like a blue portal in flux. The light was in the middle of a giant arch, something the genius had been working on for years but was unable to get powered up. He had told her it was supposed to be a window between dimensions or possibly more. Leo had hoped it would be an easier way to move from Earth to the battle nexus and visiting Usagi but when the war had started it was abandoned for more important issues.

 It was like looking at an old tube television that didn’t have the best reception. The rolling lines of static rolled up the portal skewing her view of him occasionally but there was no doubt, it was her beautiful nerd.

She could see most of his body and he was typing away at a tablet in his hand. His goggles that sat upon his bald crown were smaller yet looked more advanced but that purple mask was still wrapped around his skull. Her feet moved before her mind caught up with them racing towards the gorgeous sight of the tall genius. “Don!”

 His head snapped up at her voice “Aurora!” Don’s voice was muffled like static, distant but she heard him. God he looked beautiful and most importantly alive!

 The view of the tall terrapin in the vortex suddenly became unstable swirling violently around him. Shrinking and growing with each pop of energy, like it was threatening to sever the connection at any moment. Aurora hurried to cross the large lab but the closer she got to it, the smaller the portal seemed. It was going away; she was going to lose him again!

 “Damnit!” She heard him growl looking down at the tablet that was now out of sight. “It’s still not right.” His brown eyes rose in sheer panic locked in on his advancing kunoichi. Donatello’s green arm pushed through the closing vortex outstretched for contact. “Aurora!”

 “No! Donnie!” She reached his hand just in time grasping it tightly reveling in the feeling of his three fingered appendage, he was warm and real. “Where are you?” she was nearly sobbing now as the portal shrunk further leaving only his shoulders and head visible. Her grip tightened on his hand ready to yank his tall ass through the opening. But then the warm flesh in her hand began to disappear, fazing in and out of solid matter much to her horror. No, she didn’t want to me alone anymore…..

 “Auo….r…a……I’m …st……tryi…….to get…….back.” his voice was breaking up along with the view of him.

 “No, no, no Donnie please I need you!”

 “My….broth…..I mis……..Aur...love………” Then the portal snapped and fizzled loudly before shutting down with a bang taking Donatello with it.

 The lab sank into darkness once again as the arch powered down. He was right there; she was touching him…..after 3 years Aurora had Donatello within her grasp. The crushing realization he was gone again brought Aurora to her knees. The cement floor was unforgiving but that pain didn’t matter. Her hands lifted to her nose and took a good pull finding his scent there, faint but it was there. She pressed the palms of her hands to her face trying not to cry, this wasn’t a bad thing, she had to remind herself. They thought he was dead; the idea of Donnie abandoning them was too incomprehensible to entertain so the other options were terrifying. Or maybe he was locked away in Bishop’s keep doing work for him against his will, the one they could never find. But now, now it was clear he had been transported someplace, someplace he was trying to return from. He was trying to get back; she had to hold onto that, it was all she had.

 Slowly she got her to feet, the resistance needed to know this. Maybe there was something they could do. Casey, April and Aurora could bring the arch back to head quarters and see if they could get it back open, find the last location of the transmission?

 Aurora began closing the Lair back down prepping for its extended hibernation. One last look at their bed she flicked off the light and made her way back up into streets of New York. April and Casey would be happy to know Donatello was alive and it would give the resistance new hope. It gave her hope.

 She kept to the roofs avoiding prying eyes from the streets. The way home was straight forward but still on high alert Aurora took a few extra turns to make sure she wasn’t being followed, even sitting in the shadows of a billboard to keep an eye on the horizon. There was no telling how persistence Raphael was in this state.

 When she deemed it safe to return to base Aurora slipped into the abandoned warehouse by the Hudson keeping to the shadows.  Moving past the old canning machinery and empty shattered crates the blonde made it to the secret door to the resistance’s base.

 As she reached the main level Aurora was greeted by April and Casey who looked like they had just returned their selves hands filled with boxes. April turned and let out a long breath seeing her friend returned safely.

 Casey set down the two boxes he had been carrying and greeted the kunoichi with a hug. “You ran into him? How’d the asshole look?”

 “He’s looking healthy and still a horny shit as usual.” Aurora moved to the boxes he had been carrying and peered into them finding canned goods and a small stash of ammunition. “Even under Bishop’s control he still has sex on the brain. I think his memories were trying to break through though. Raph remembered the game him and Leo used to play.”

 “Who marked you first right?” April chuckled handing off her extra weapon to the armory for safe keeping. “They were relentless weren’t they? I don’t’ know how you accommodated them every morning. You were lucky Mike and Don didn’t get into that.”

 “Yeah...” Casey chimed in handing off his gun as well. “They would have put you in a wheelchair for sure. They were in rut most of the time I can’t imagine four of them vying for the first fuck every morning. You’d never leave bed.”

 “They weren’t that bad…”

 “Commanders!” a voice shouted from down the hall. A young soldier came into view hauling ass as he ran to his superiors. His wide toothy grin was evident he had good news or at least thought he did. “We have one!”

 “You have one what?” Casey looked to April confused.

 “One of the turtles! We caught one! We wanted to surprise you.”

 All at once Aurora, Casey and April stopped breathing turning to each other in shock. This was not happening, what had they done?

 April swallowed hard moving towards the eager young man, “Which one?”

 “From what I’ve been told, Leonardo.”

 With the mention of his name the room began to spin. Aurora’s heart hammered into her chest making it hard to breath. This wasn’t happening. She pushed past April and gripped the man’s shoulders squeezing maybe a little too hard with her growing unease. “Please tell me you didn’t bring him here.”

 The man’s face paled instantly mouth opening to speak but nothing came forth. His silence was all the answer they needed.

 “Fuck.” Casey moved back to the armory and called for his gun again. “That’s it, we’re fucked you god damn morons.”

 “You fucking idiot.” Aurora growled pulling the inexperienced solider closer; she was ready to rip his head off his shoulders. “You did NOT catch Leonardo!” It was suddenly hot in the large hallway. Why was it so fucking hot?  “This was planned, Leonardo allowed you to catch him. Now he’s in the base compromising our position putting everyone here in danger. Please tell me you at least blindfolded him? Tell me you at least did that?”

 “Oh yes! We put Greg’s sound canceling headphones over his ears blasting his shitty music. Wrapped his eyes in black gauze and put a thick black hood over his head. He has no idea where we are.”

 “At least you had the sense to do that. But it might not be enough. Where is he?” April grunted in frustration resting her forehead on Casey’s shoulder.

 The soldier’s enthusiasm had dwindled with the curt scolding from his three superiors and now as he brought them to their willing captive the man’s head hung with embarrassment.

 As they moved towards the base’s center, where the lethal mutant was being held Aurora’s mind began to fill with anxiety. This is what he wanted; you don’t capture Leo unless he wants you too. He was a ninja master, taught by the very best and an efficient escape artist and a strategist, he was simply perfection. It was the very reasons Bishop coveted him and his brothers. In the wrong hands they were the prefect weapon, skilled killing machines that disappear into the shadows before you even knew you lost. This would not end well.

 Rounding the corner Aurora caught sight of him right away. Green taut skin stretch over mountains of muscle, thick arms and legs bound to the table in the integration room. His vision was still restricted but as soon as Aurora entered into the room Leo’s head turned towards her and she could see the fabric concave as he took in the air.

 “There you are.” His smooth voice purred through the fabric going straight to the center of her soul. She was in trouble and there was no denying her body still remembered him, craved him, just the deep vibrato of his vocal chords sent her body into overdrive.  

 Leo’s head followed Aurora as she moved around the table taking in his bound form. She watched his muscles flex and bunch as the terrapin tested his binds, calculating his options. The urge to touch the green scales of his arms was tempting, he was restrained but it was only a matter of time before he broke loose and reeked havoc on the good people here. She needed to prevent the bloodshed but how?

 April broke the bitter silence first her voice rising with her anger for their disregard of protocol. “How could you idiots bring him here without consulting us first? Especially Leonardo!”

 “We thought you’d be happy April. You too Aurora…..especially you…..We’ve been trying to get them back for years.” One solider stated as he stepped forward, the look on his face was of confusion but he had no idea what they brought down on their home. “He attacked us on our supply run and all of us were able to overpower him.”

 “Yes we want them back but not still under Bishop’s influence!” Casey came in next starting to pace the floor eyeing up his soldiers.

 Aurora paid no attention to the continuing argument between Casey, April and their team, the only thing that mattered was the green mutant laying a few inches from her. As she watched his hands clench and unclench Aurora remembered their soft caresses, endearing and sure. They were talented beyond anything she could have imagined when they first experienced each other. This deadly being, sleek, and inefficient so feared now, once brought her to the highest heights. She loved him without question but she knew if these restraints were gone he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her in this state of mind. Her fingers ran over the scar he had gifted her a few months ago. It was a sobering thought and a gloomy one.

 It was killing her being this close to Leo and not being able to touch him. Just a small touch couldn’t hurt…could it? Her hand moved from the cold metal table and ran over the dense muscles of his thigh. She smirked as they jumped at the connection; maybe fearless was a little anxious after all.

 “I have an idea.” Leo spoke again calm as ever yet pressing up into her hand. “How about we take this blind fold off, it’s getting rather itchy. Is this any way to treat a prisoner?”

 Aurora let a small laugh escape giving his thigh a quick squeeze before releasing the dense tissue. “Cut the shit Leo, we know well enough that you’re here on your own accord.”

 “Your troops got the better of me and subdued me with their superior skills; I am at your mercy my lady.” She could hear the sarcasm in his voice as Leo played out his game. She couldn’t see his mouth but Aurora could hear the smile, it absolutely dripped with superiority.

 “Where are your brothers Leo?” Aurora asked softly as the whole room watched their interaction.

 “Oh I assure you I am solo. When Raph came home he was rather frustrated. Told me he had gone looking for something we both covet, actually all three of us want but was unable to secure it. I decided I would try to locate it on my own. Besides, the thought of taking it first made me very……… motivated. Unfortunately I was found and taken captive by these fine soldiers before I could find my target.”

 Her heart began to thump wildly within her breast at the thought of his words, “What will you do when you finally get what you’re looking for?”

 The terrapin took in a slow breath before letting it out in a long low growl, “I haven’t figured that out yet. What does one do with something they obsess over? Kill it or let it consume you? All I know is I’m looking forward to the opportunity to purge myself of its influence.”

 Casey came up behind Aurora resting his hand on her shoulder. “Maybe we can send him to R & D and see if they can find that little thing in him? I mean now we know what it looks like maybe they can pin point it somehow?”

 That was something. There would need to be round the clock security on him but if he was here they could try and utilize the opportunity to see if they could locate the device with a living host. “He does not leave this table and his restraints will NOT be removed for any reason. Any reason you hear me!? Not without Casey, April’s or my explicit orders.” Her violet eyes moved with urgency as the soldiers took in her orders. “There will be no less than six guards posted to him at all times. If he tries to fidget more than usual you knock his ass out. Am I clear?”

 “Yes Aurora.” They all responded in unison.  

 The sound of the terrapin laughing behind her was off putting but she did her best to ignore him, she was too tired for this bullshit.

 As they carted Leonardo out the door towards the R & D wing she heard him, “I’ll be seeing you later Aurora.”

 The room empty April moved to her friend wrapping her arms around her neck pulling her into a tight embrace. “You look like shit.”

 “Thanks.”

 “How was the lair? Anything need attending?”  Casey asked softly coming up behind the two woman.

 That’s when Aurora remembered, she pushed April from her embrace and her face lit up, “Donnie!”

 “What about him?”

 “He’s alive! I saw him for a few second today! In the lair, in his lab!”

 Casey and April’s mouth hung open still trying to process what the kunoichi was saying.

 “Fucking what?” Casey moved first his eyes wide and hopeful. “Why for only a few seconds? Where the fuck is the genius?!”

 “Do you remember that big arch he was working on, the one he said would be a doorway to different dimensions? It happened right after I got off the phone with you. I could hear something going on in his lab and opened the door to that thing powered up and Donnie just behind the blue energy field.”

 “No fucking way! What did he say?” April was now bouncing up and down smacking Casey on the back waiting for more information.  

 “Oww Ape, fuckin stop it.”

 “No! Keep going Aurora.”

 “The portal was unstable and began closing right away and the connection was shottie. His voice was breaking up but I heard him say that it wasn’t right yet and he was still trying to get back.” Aurora’s voice was cracking with her exhaustion and her bubbling emotions, it had been months since she had a good night’s sleep and it was catching up with her. Taking a small second she recomposed herself and started again. “He’s not dead and he didn’t abandon us. God I wish the guys were here to hear this.” Another shaky swallow of her dry mouth and Aurora looked up at her hopeful friends.  “I’m not sure if we should bring the arch back here and see if we can figure out where the last transmission came from or if we should just wait until he figures it out? The thing is, I never saw it working before. Did he go to the lair the last day we saw him to work on it and did something go wrong? Mikey was certain he saw him go into his lab here before we went to bed.”

 Then two sets of hands landed on her shoulders making the kunoichi stop. April’s hands cupped her cheeks and leaned in to press a soft kiss to her parched lips. “Take a deep breath Rora, we are so happy you were there to witness it. It gives us hope, but I can tell you’re about to crash, you need some sleep.”

 “Yeah we’ll have this discussion when you’ve had at least 6 hours sleep. We’ll deal with Leo and the arch when you’re a little more rested. She’s right you do look like shit and today has been an emotional one for you.

“For us all.” Aurora corrected him with a shuttering breath.

 “Sleep.”

 Begrudgingly Aurora shuffled to her room, her large empty room and didn’t even bother with a shower. She could swear she still smelt Raphael on her and maybe, just maybe that would help her sleep. Maybe she could trick her mind into thinking he was there sleeping at her side. She stripped of her clothes and crawled into bed pulling the cool covers up to her chin.

 Closing her eyes Aurora pictured Raphael and Leonardo, the brute and his taste, her lips rejoicing at his familiar flavor and Leo’s voice and the feel of his skin. Then Donnie and the quick but thankful handful of his grasp, all it was missing was her ball of sunshine, Mikey. With their memories fresh in her mind Aurora’s subconscious began to drift allowing her a seamless transition to slumber.  

 She didn’t hear the door open or the bed dip with his weight but as the cold steal pressed down on the soft flesh of her throat Aurora knew it was too late. She didn’t struggle there was no point in it, if she moved even an inch the way he didn’t want he could soak theses sheets they had once shared with her blood.

 Her eyes opened slowly, Leonardo’s face coming into focus as the sleep faded from her vision. The terrapin was just above her and the look he wore was purely sinful. Like the cat that had just eaten the canary or was about too. Aurora swallowed feeling the mutant finish crawling onto the bed to join her.

 “H-how many did you kill?”

 A soft patronizing chuckle filtered from between his perfect lips. The blade clutched in his hand tilted making Aurora’s neck follow, that was if she didn’t want her carotid to open. “Don’t worry, I took no lives tonight.” Leo shifted forward grabbing at the thin sheet that covered her naked form and began to pull. “I came here for only one reason tonight and killing your people would put a rather large kink in my plans.”

 She didn’t resist and allowed the fabric to pull free of her breasts watching the blue in his eyes disappear as his pupils engulfed the vibrant color. “You mean your men.”

 Leonardo’s breathing had increased but his hold on that damn blade never wavered. “Yours, mine, it makes no difference, I did not kill a soul within these walls. They will wake in a few hours with splitting headaches.”  His lips pursed for a moment focusing in on the two round globes now heaving on her chest. “They are more spectacular then what I could have imagined.” The descent of fabric halted for a moment as Leonardo’s head lowered and his nostrils flared. “I can smell him on you.”

 “Your brother? Yes, Raphael was rather insistent that he have me before you.” Aurora rose slowly making sure not to make any sudden movements keeping her eyes locked with her deadly guest. “He found out just how inventive I can be.”

 Leo allowed her to rise to a sitting position finding as he did the rest of the fabric fell pooling at the ultimate prize. Her midriff wasn’t perfect, the scare he had left months ago plus a few others that kept it company had healed nicely. His free hand reached out touching lightly at the abrasion smiling as the muscles below jump at his contact. “Raphael is impulsive, undisciplined but none the less is the very best on my team. When he told me you got the better of him tonight my already peaked interest in you heightened. I didn’t’ dare tell him the mere scent of you on his clothes sent my animal instincts into overdrive. Now smelling him on you makes me want to drench you in my scent.”

 “It’s presumptuous to think I’d allow that to happen if I refused Raphael’s advances earlier.” Aurora’s voice shook slightly as her confidence waned at the sight of him looming closer, eyes practically fucking her. Suddenly the walls of her sodden cunt began to vibrate with unparallel need.

 “You forget my little ninja; I’m mutant and part animal.” His nostrils flared once again. “I can smell your arousal, its delectable aroma is thick and I can taste it on my tongue. In fact I am positive you want me just as much as I want you. Maybe even more?” Leo closed his eyes and took a deep breath growling as her pheromones made every pleasure receptor snap to life. “Fuck…. why do I want you so much?”

 That was when she heard the desperation in his voice, it was faint, but she could hear the slight tremor in his words. He was breaking under the stress of uncertainty. That was her moment and she moved with all her training taking possession of his weapon and lunged forward.

 In the scuffle the sheets pulled free and Aurora found herself on his lap, arm securely around his throat pressing the tip to his jugular. Their mouths were so close, so fucking close and she could smell the tea on his breath as it fanned over her face. Leonardo still drank the same Gyokuro brew; his expensive taste followed him into servitude. Fuck, she didn’t think this through at all. She was naked straddling his thick powerful thighs and she could feel it, straining against his pants pulsating with each beat of his heart.  

 “Tell me I’m lying.” He mused but found his cockiness underappreciated and sucked in a breath as the tip of the blade pierced the green scales drawing a bead of crimson. But he was a stubborn turtle and refused to back down. “If we were something, show me. Remind me of what I’ve been missing all these years.  Your scent, your god damn scent has been haunting me for months, haunting us. I don’t do this… I don’t…… I don’t lose control and all I want to do is bury myself so far in your body that I forget everything. Forget this war; forget why I don’t feel at home anywhere but with you, someone I have absolutely no memory of. Do you have any idea how infuriating that is?”

 He had no fucking clue; her bitter laughter filled the room, “Try loosing the people you love the most for years, coming up empty handed in your pursuit to find them again and again. Then suddenly they appear with no knowledge of you, dead set on your demise. Try enduring the pain of being sliced open by one of the men you love and as you bleed out he wraps his hands around your throat slowly squeezing the life out of you.”

 She watched the cockiness drain from his face, unexpectedly at the loss for words. The hardness in his cold blue eyes softened searching her for the truth. He was contemplating something.

 She continued, “Raphael remembered something tonight, a game you and him used to play. I think smelling me on him jogged your memory a little as well.”

 The terrapin let out a long sigh and she could feel a little of the tension leave his body, he was no longer coiled to strike, “I wasn’t angry or jealous. It was strange……it was just the competitiveness; he had gotten to you first. ”

 “Tell me Leo, why did you come to my home?”

 “For you.” His voice was but a whisper, soft and sweet against her lips, the venom slowly disappearing with the space between them.

 Aurora’s tongue moved across her bottom lip tasting his breath, he was so close. “What do you want with me?”

 “I had two plans; one would rid me of the temptation and the other………. would satisfy it.”

 “I see since I am still breathing I deduce you’ve chosen the latter.” Her hips rotated slightly brushing the bulging fabric of his crotch against her folds, so close. “What was next on your plan then?”

 His vibrant blue eyes moved from her violet eyes to her lips before moistening his own with his tongue. “To…to taste you. I need to know what you taste like.”  

 Keeping the blade semi embedded Aurora leaned forward closing the last inch granting Leonardo what he craved, she in turn savoring him. The tea and his scent invaded her senses as she opened her mouth entering Leonardo’s with her tongue swiping over his finding it just as eager.

 Then she heard it, his rumble the deep vibrating growl that emanated deep within his chest pouring out and into her mouth. Over and over their mouths engaged and reengaged in a desperate battle, breathless and aggressive feeding off each other’s growing excitement. Leo made no attempt for the weapon, but his hands moved to her naked waist pushing her down coating his pants with her arousal gaining just enough friction he yearned for.

 Aurora whimpered into his mouth, what was she doing? What the fuck was she doing? Her body was moving on its own but she didn’t want it to stop. Her hand moved between them fumbling for the belt buckle of his pants making quick work of them. Her deft fingers unbuttoned the top of his pants and drew the metal teeth of his zipper down keeping it free is the sensitive flesh below.

 It didn’t wait for an invitation and sprung free as it’s clothe prison was peeled away. She could smell him now, the salty musk of his precum that was smeared over the spongy head of his freed cock. Her fingers encompassed the remarkable girth and the tip of her thumb dipped into the moister swirling it under the head making the terrapin gasp.  

 Breaking their kiss Aurora sunk the tip of the blade in further and Leo growled in reaction. “Tell me what you really came here for Fearless?” rising up Aurora hovered over his cock positioning the long throbbing flesh just below her. “Did you come all this way to fuck me, to have me first, to drench me in your scent?” Her tongue came out and painted a warm wet stripe up his cheek stopping at his ear. “Do you want to remember how it felt when you poured all that you were up into my womb, marking me inside and out…” lowering her body she pressed the weeping helm just into the wet heat of her cunt. “I want to feel the stretch of you filling me with this enormous cock.” Aurora could feel the tears begin to form in the corner of her eyes. It had been years since she had him like this. She could feel the heat of him, the throbbing flesh in her grasp. It had been too long. But she had to remember this wasn’t her Leo.  

 “I want to be inside you. I want it so bad.” Leonardo growled pulling her down on him, but the strength of her thighs held up against his.

 “Say please Leonardo…..don’t be fucking rude….” She could feel him shaking with need desperate for a taste of what his body was apparently so starved for.

 His sudden shift made Aurora pull the blade back before it severed his carotid as his warm mouth enclosed around her throat kissing and sucking gently. Leisurely his hands abandoned her hips and traced up her naked back making her arch at the wondrous feather light sensation. “Please.” He finally whispered through heavy exhales into the moister he left behind.  

 The sensation of him splitting her open on the down slide was overwhelming, reminding Aurora that it had been years since she had taken any of them. Thankfully there was no pain but a twinge of discomfort accompanied with the delicious stretch of being so splendidly filled. Leo’s ascending fingers finally reached the top of her shoulders and clamped down assisting the final few inches to climb home.

 When he was seated fully inside her body, the terrapin let out a throaty groan pressing his beak to crook of her throat. One hand left her shoulder and wrapped protectively around her waist keeping her securely sheathed. Besides the elevated breathing the mutant made no noises but refused to let her rise to ease the pressure building.

 Suddenly his hips rocked up eliminating any space that had remained between them. His mouth opened taking in a section of her neck letting his tongue run over the heated flesh. Then she felt his cock expand and his grip loosen allowing her to lift up beginning the unhurried pace.

 Rolling her hips rotating them just enough to make slow circles finally made the hulking turtle below her voice his appreciation.

 “Fu..ck…mmhmm…faster..”

 “No.” she growled softly into his ear while running the cool edge of the blade still in her possession across the green scales of his throat. “You came into my room uninvited with a weapon and intentions of ending my life, we do this my way or I send you back to the lab missing a few limbs.”

 Leo’s griped shifted back to her hips while he tilted his own to change the angle. When she gasped and shuttered at the new friction his mouth opened into a toothy grin. “You won’t hurt me. You said it yourself you love me.”

 Leaning down to his neck Aurora began to cover his lustrous green skin with open mouth kisses rising until just the tip of him remained in her body. When she got the weeping wound she had inflicted her mouth enclosed around the hole clearing the tepid crimson from his flesh. She felt the vibrations through her lips as his voiced his pleasure tilting his head to the side to give her better access.

 With a pop her mouth released his throat and she began gradually lowering herself back down on his titanium length.  “You nearly killed me a few months ago while Raphael watched on. I spend nearly a month in the infirmary because of you, one of the most important people in my life. That was a sobering reminder you are not my Leonardo, my kind, gentle, honorable leader…my lover. You may have his ridiculously muscled body, his unmatched skill but your soul isn’t there. There is something in your body keeping you under Bishops’ thumb, keeping the real you from surfacing. The real Leo would rather be dead then be in the service of that mad man and I am now 100% behind that. So you better be on your best behavior.”

 No form of protest came from the turtle, but his mouth turned up into a smug grin before leaning forward to capture Aurora’s lips. The demand behind the kiss was insistent as his tongue pushed into her mouth and his hold around her waist began to urge her to move.

 She could feel him throb with each beat of his heart; every inch of her core was stretched to its limit. That was how big Leonardo really was and he wasn’t even the largest of his brothers. Raphael held that title, his length was roughly the same as Leo’s but to take Raphael was always a slow start. Luckily he was a patient man.

 She began again, taking her time with each rise and fall on his engorged length. Up and down tilting her hips back so the tip of him could hit just the right spot. Every cell in her body started to ignite with awareness of the long lost sensation of being taken by a mutant turtle. Each time Aurora sheathed herself on every inch of Leo the head of his cock pressed to the back of her channel eager to flood it with his climax.

 The pace was kept slow. Aurora didn’t want this to end too quickly; it had been far too long since she had experienced any of their bodies like this. And she had forgotten how intense being intimate with them was. Leo’s grip on her was tight, keeping her as close to him as possible. His mouth ran wild over her, dragging his wet tongue over her throat to her clavicle and down to the top of her breasts. His hands moved up from her hips to her waist urging her back so the warmth of his mouth could find the dark tissue of her nipples. He sucked at each of the heavy globes with enthusiasm, circling each peak with his tongue until it hardened to a stiff nub. Trying her best to stay on guard as the blue terrapin began to worship her chest Aurora found the new angle and sensation of his feasting too distracting and released the pressure of the blade off his neck.

 “Leo…fu..uck…..” it was impossible to refrain from praising him, he was a man of focus. When he set his sights on a goal Leonardo did all he could to complete it to perfection and the act of lovemaking was no different.

 Both hands fell to his broad shoulders and started to roll her hips faster fighting at the coiling pressure of her climax as it started to chase her down. Harder she fell down on him spearing herself over and over until the fire in her belly erupted in a blinding rush of endorphins.

 Leo must have sensed her at the end of her rope and bit down on the puckered flesh of her nipple sucking it into his mouth. His right hand left her side and lowered between them slipping a single digit into her heat finding the soft pearl and began rubbing the flesh in soft circles.

 There were no words to express the feeling that washed over her senses. The feeling of dying and being brought back to life was the best way to describe it. Her body arched, tensing up and Aurora let her head fall back allowing his name fill the room in blissful cries of ecstasy.

 “That’s so pretty.” He growled breathlessly rolling his hips up harder into her body.

 As her body ran through her climax Leo took over the rhythm fucking her though her high right into the slow climb to the next one. The blade held loosely in her hand Leo took advantage of her momentary distraction and stole the weapon from her slack grasp.

 She barely registered the loss of the upper hand as he increased the tempo of his hips and kept the steady strike of that one spot sending her higher and higher prolonging her peak. Even after all these years his body knew how to bring her the utmost pleasure, or was it Leonardo himself remembering.

 As the crest finally began to ebb bringing her back to her mutant partner Aurora’s mind finally registered she was no longer in control of the knife. His three fingers held the handle firmly and ran the sharp tip over the scar he had left months ago and his eyes flashed dangerously.

 “Do it.” She wouldn’t be scared of him, if this was how she went it was one hell of a way to go; stuffed full of Leonardo still buzzing from her orgasm.

 Leo chuckled softly rolling forward until Aurora was on her back and he was hovering over her pressing her thighs open wide with the hard plain of his pelvis. His head tilted reaching for her chin making sure she was looking at him. He thrust abruptly sinking to the hilt before pulling almost all the way free. “I don’t think I will.” With the flick of his wrist the knife flew from his hand and embedded into the wood of her closed door. “I’m not done with you yet.”

 Grabbing her right thigh Leo hoisted her calve up over his shoulder and rocked smoothly forward sinking into her tight heat with great care. The plunging girth of the rooted flesh was overwhelming dragging splendidly within her walls igniting the fire in her belly. Rapidity it allowed her rising climax to feed on her view above her. The view of Leonardo, the dominate male taking claim to what was once his, it made her core clench and ache.

 As he started to drive forward gently Aurora could see the softness return to his gaze like her Leonardo. Like it was six years ago and he were still hers. She knew she shouldn’t get her hopes up as long as that thing still roamed his body Leo would never be hers. But in this moment she allowed herself to dream.

 Then out of nowhere Leo’s voice dropped an octave, dark and needy, “Aurora…tell me you love me.” The look on his face was serious but his eyes gave the mutant away, the blue orbs were pleading like he genuinely needed to hear the words. His grip tightened on her hips and he began to pound into her faster chasing after his own climax. “Please.”

 Ripping her leg from his grip Aurora rolled them claiming the high ground once again keeping with his hurried pace as she resumed her ride. She allowed him to recover pulling him back up into a sitting position. The terrapin wrapped his arm back around her waist and set his gaze back on her flushed face.

 “W-why? Why should I g..ive you that? Mmm …fuck!”

 “Humor me….please.”

  What could it hurt? She did love Leo, just not this version of him.

 Then she could feel him pulse and expand, he was about to topple over into oblivion. Eyes widened and Aurora arched as the extra width made her peak hit without warning. The heat of it raced through her body like a box of fireworks going off under her skin. Her hands shot to his face cupping his sharp jaw line and she leaned back into her spine curling climax. With what little cognitive ability she had left she gave him what he wanted. “I love you.”

 It consumed her quickly eating up all of her strength racking her body with small but powerful tremors. She blacked out for a moment but Leonardo kept her from falling, like he had always done, keeping her safe when she was most vulnerable.

 “Rora.” It was faint but the nickname only the brothers were allowed to call her escaped Leo’s lips.

 It was then she felt Leo tense and grip her hips sinking as deep as he could reach as the turtle spilled his molten seed deep into her willing body. Each brutal drive up erupted ropes of ejaculate coating her with his scent filling Aurora until it her body could take no more. With one final drive Leo pulled Aurora down on his cock locking them in place making sure every drop of his cum reached its destination, marking her. His.

 They clung to each other with all their remaining strength riding out their euphoria until Aurora kissed him, kissed him with such ferocity it stole the final breath from their lungs.

 With the need to breath staggering they finally pulled apart.

 As his blurred vision became clear Leo could see tears flowing freely down her cheeks, and the sight startled the leader momentarily. His hands reached to her face brushing the moister with his thumbs, “Did I hurt you?”  

 “No, not in this moment at least.” Aurora could feel her heart thundering below her chest as she stared at the terrapin. But this wasn’t her Leo and if she didn’t do something now their location would be comprised so she did what she had to do to keep everyone here safe.

 Her hands shot out in concession pressing into the soft tissue of his body. Three points, deep into the muscle making Leonardo gasp in shock. His blue eyes widened in surprise and his lips thin into an angry frown.

 “I can’t have you leave here conscious, he’ll take us all and kill Casey, April and I. Everything will be lost.”

 Leo’s hand shot out and his fingers tips dug into her arm sluggishly. His eye lids drooped and his mouth opened as his muscles gave up their tension. With his final conscious thought Leo’s lips formed his last thought before he succumbed to the darkness, “I would never ……….let him hurt ….you.”

 As his body went slack Aurora wiped away her tears and shuttered as he slipped from her body. The loss of his warmth tore through her like a hurricane sinking her further into despair. She took a moment to run her hands under his shirt tracing her fingers along the scarred lines of his plastron. She had to remind herself, he was warm, he was alive and he was healthy.

 With a heavy sigh she dismounted and wiped him clean before securing his pants. Gathering her com Aurora pressed the button making a connection to the person on the other end.

 “Casey, I need you to come to my room. We need to get him out of here before he wakes up.”

 “I’m on my way.”

@imthegreenfairy88 @alonia143 @ravn-87 @tmnt-bucklover @tmntspidergirl​

[crygimethydgoode]

Lover’s Fantasia Chapter 5 (Crystal Methyd x Gigi Goode RPDR12) Green Light

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32286397/chapters/80979646

Summary: After Crystal and Gigi’s... adventure in New York City, everything has changed between them. And also, Drag Race Season 12 has premiered! Must be exciting to watch from home. 

honey i’ll be seeing you down every road

March 2020

Between: COVID edition

Gigi had learned to bask in the silence. The streets of L.A. were bare. She was supposed to be doing viewings of every episode at bars, she was supposed to be meeting fans around the country, maybe even around the world, and enjoying her new fame. But instead, Gigi just sat inside the House of Avalon and watched as Covid cases went up and the quarantine extended.

Rosy, Gigi, Symone, and Hunter started going on drives, just to kill time. Sometimes Marko or Caleb would hop in, but most of the time it was just the four of them. Rosy and Gigi sat in the back, Gigi’s favorite seat to see the views. While Symone sat shotgun, navigating Hunter who drove. Rosy had hooked up to AUX and had already hit shuffle on her driving playlist. They drove with all the windows down, letting the wind blow on their faces. Crystal would love this. Crystal. Crystal, who had been silent since New York. They had texted here and there, but only a few short texts that didn’t amount to any conversations. Gigi couldn’t help but assume it was about the kiss.

“Okay but that could be a good or a bad thing,” Symone said to Gigi after Crystal didn’t answer her call.

“Definitely good,” Rosy squealed.

“Definitely bad,” Hunter argued.

“Both?” Rosy suggested.

“None of you are helping!” Gigi yelled, head in hands.

“Maybe she’s reconsidering everything!”

“Or she’s regretting kissing you and now things are awkward,” Hunter quipped.

“You’re both fucking dumb. She’s only been home from press week for two weeks and now she’s in quarantine. Give the girl time to figure her shit out,” Symone said, shutting Rosy and Hunter both up. Gigi remembered why she appreciated Symone so much.

And so Gigi shook the thought of Crystal out of her head and focused on having fun with her friends as they drove around. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and was shocked when she saw the caller ID. Widow? Why would Widow be calling Gigi?

“Rosy, turn it down, Widow is calling,” Gigi said. Just as Rosy turned down the music, “Green Light ” by Lorde started playing.

“I do my makeup in somebody else's car”

“Hello?” Gigi asked hesitantly.

“Hi, Geege, how have you been?” Widow sounded cheery. Way too cheery for Widow.

“Great- uhm, yeah no I’ve been great, you?” Hunter shot Gigi a puzzled look, Gigi just shrugged.

“I’ve just been enjoying my quarantine, thinking about learning how to cook...” Widow trailed off.

“And?” Gigi was now suspicious of Widow. If there was one thing Gigi knew about Widow it was she was not one for small talk. If Widow called you, she had something to say.

“And I’ve talked to Crystal a bit, and you’ll never guess who she is quarantining with,” Widow said, mischief ridden in her voice.

“Paul?” Gigi asked, sitting up straighter at the mention of Crystal.

“They’re talking about Crystal! Put it on speaker,” Rosy begged. Gigi hushed everyone before putting Widow on speaker.

“No. She’s quarantined with Lux...” Widow trailed off.

“Oh, cool?” Gigi said. Symone’s jaw dropped, Hunter clasped a hand over his mouth, Rosy screamed.

“No fucking way...” Hunter muttered. Why? It’s just Lux.

“Am I missing something here?” Gigi chuckled awkwardly.

“Jesus Gigi, read between the lines,” Widow laughed into the phone. Crystal was quarantined with Lux. Crystal was quarantined with Lux. Crystal was quarantined with Lux. Crystal was quarantined with Lux and not Paul. Why wasn’t Crystal quarantined with Paul? Why wasn’t Crystal quarantined with-

“Oh,” Gigi said. “OH. Oh my fucking god, holy shit, Widow did Crystal-”

“Yes. Yes, she did. Yes she fucking did. Do what you will with this information,” Widow cackled. Symone had turned around and grabbed Gigi’s hand, a wild grin on her face. Rosy was slapping Hunter over and over again whispering “I fucking told you'' repeatedly. Gigi sat there, stunned.

Crystal Methyd broke up with her boyfriend.

Crystal Methyd broke up with her boyfriend after they kissed in the Uber. Crystal Elizabeth Methyd kissed Gigi Goode, Gigi in the Uber, and maybe, just maybe her lips burned as much as Gigi’s did. Crystal Elizabeth Methyd kissed Gigi in the Uber and it made her lips burn so much she couldn’t bear to kiss Paul anymore. But that was wishful thinking, Gigi knew that. So why did it echo throughout her body, rattling her ribs, pumping blood to her heart, ringing through her ears? It was wishful thinking, but why didn’t it feel like it? Why did it feel all too real?

“I’M WAITING FOR IT THAT GREEN LIGHT I WANT IT”

“Gigi? You with us?” Widow said, snapping Gigi out of her trance.

“What do I do?” Gigi asked.

“Call her!” Symone and Rosy both said together.

“What if she doesn’t pick up? She probably won’t, she might not want to hear from me and I don’t want to push-”

“Jesus Christ, Gigi, fucking call Crystal,” Hunter cut Gigi off.

“Okay, I gotta go Widow! I’m gonna call Crystal,” Gigi said, laughing like an idiot.

“Go! Call her!” Widow said before hanging up.

“Now you fucking listen to me-”

“Shhh! It’s ringing!” Rosy squealed. Okay. Gigi couldn’t go out and blatantly ask her, that would be rude, she’d build up. ‘Ask her how her quarantine is going, ask her how her quarantine is going, ask her how-’ and then Crystal picked up, and Gigi’s heart dropped. She was silent. Rosy slapped her.

“Hi,” Gigi said a second too late.

“Hello?” Crystal giggled. Gigi relaxed at just the sound of Crystal’s voice. What was she going to ask again?

“You broke up with Paul,” Gigi blurted.

“Jesus Christ-” Symone sighed. Gigi heard a laugh that wasn’t Crystal’s, it was Lux.

“Yeah... yeah I did,” Crystal chuckled. Her voice sounded warm, Gigi melted.

“I- uhm was just chatting with Widow and it came up in conversation,” Gigi lied.

“Did it now?” Crystal questioned, but she didn’t sound angry or annoyed, she sounded...happy? Or Gigi hoped she did.

“Yeah and I just thought I’d... give you a call?” she said, covering her face with her hand as if Crystal could see her. Crystal and Lux both burst out laughing.

“You’re a terrible liar, Gigi Goode,” Crystal wheezed.

“Shut up...” Gigi hoped Crystal couldn’t hear her grinning over the phone. She caught Hunter’s eye, for once he wasn’t giving Gigi a pointed look, but a smile. “Well, I hope this quarantine doesn’t last too long, cause I think I need to pay you a visit soon,” Gigi said. Again, Symone’s jaw dropped, Hunter’s hand clasped over his mouth, and Rosy AND Lux screamed.

“Sounds like a plan,” Crystal whispered into the phone.

“Okay,” Gigi giggled.

“Okay.”

“Alright, I’m driving with Rosy, Hunter, and Symone so I’m gonna let you go,” Gigi said.

“Okay, bye Gigi,” Crystal whispered.

“Bye.” Gigi hung up the phone. The car was silent for a few moments until-

“Holy fucking shit-”

“Did that actually just happen?-”

“Guys I’m crying-”

“Rosy was actually right-”

“Oh my fucking god-”

Gigi just sat there, not even hearing what any of her friends were saying over one another. She just looked ahead at the streetlight shining green.

April 2020

One month. One month of quarantining, hand sanitizer, and wearing masks. Life had become so mundane, Gigi missed going to the grocery store. Wasn’t this supposed to be one of the best times of her life? Every Friday night Gigi got to sit in the House of Avalon and watch herself on TV, her fanbase growing every day. Why was she so bored, despite the fact that she was so busy?

Once Drag Race aired, Gigi’s life became a whirlwind of digital press interviews, photoshoots, Instagram Lives, and everybody in the country suddenly knowing who she was. Not to mention, they were starting to prepare for the finale, which unfortunately had to be held at home, all recorded on Grant’s iPhone. And it was really hard to enjoy it. COVID was still tearing through the world, and Gigi was stuck at home, quarantining with the House of Avalon. While she loved everyone, Gigi had lost nearly everything that was so fun about being on the show. No traveling, filming the finale, hosting watch parties, none of it.

And she never got to go to Springfield, to see Crystal. Crystal. Who was quarantined with Lux and her roommate. Because Paul was... out of the picture. Gigi didn’t know much. But Rosy and Symone had come to the conclusion that Crystal kissed Gigi, knew she was in too deep, that she couldn’t just get over her, and broke things off with Paul. And Gigi couldn’t help but agree.

Even Hunter didn’t object to what they said. Because... Crystal kissed Gigi. And then Paul was gone. It was real. Crystal wasn’t just a stupid crush Gigi had to get over. Hunter didn’t warn Gigi about getting her heart broken anymore. Gigi didn’t lie in bed and wonder if Crystal liked her. No. Now she laid in bed and thought about what it would be like when she finally got to see Crystal. If only fucking COVID would just end.

But Gigi could wait. In the meantime, she would enjoy Drag Race as much as possible. The fans were really eating up the season. Especially since everyone was so bored, locked inside. But the issue was, there wasn’t that much crazy drama this season. In the beginning, there was some drama but it was usually resolved within an episode. Gigi blamed Jackie for being so mature and bossy. And also, the girls just loved each other.

As the show progressed and they got closer, they basically just held hands and sang Kumbaya during Untucked. Gigi had fun, she loved it. But without the drama Drag Race was used to, the fans needed something else to cling to. And one of those things was Crystal and Gigi. Well- their... relationship? Flirtationship? The producers hadn’t even noticed it. But Gigi noticed. Gigi’s mom noticed. Everyone in the House of Avalon noticed. And so did everyone on Twitter. And then of course Crystal and Gigi added fuel to the fire on social media because they were bored and it was funny and… partially true. Anyways.

Crystal was so excited, immediately telling Gigi that they were the next Larry Stylinson, and needed to do this right because Crystal understood what the fans wanted. “Because Larry was amazing but it fucking hurt, Gigi. I can’t go through another Babygate,” she said one Friday night over FaceTime.

All Gigi could do was laugh. The fans had already become so taken with the ship. And once the Untucked moment of them nearly kissing was aired, it only got stronger.

There were people who genuinely believed that Crystal and Gigi were actually in a relationship. But those fans had no idea what was actually going on between them.

  If only they knew. If only they knew. If only they knew.

But then again, Gigi also had no idea what was going on between her and Crystal. Other than the fact that she was given strict orders from the Drag Race producers that she couldn’t confirm or deny their relationship. And that she missed Crystal so much. She felt worlds away. All Gigi wanted was to go through their conjoined door, and crawl into bed with Crystal. Things had been so much easier, so much simpler in the summer. But it was spring now. Drag Race was worlds away too, forever just a memory.

But Gigi would see Crystal soon. Eventually, COVID would be over. It had to be. How long could it really last? Gigi really hoped things would be better by summer, at least. They had to be.

July 2020

Things didn’t get better by summer. Thanks to useless politicians and assholes in America refusing to follow COVID guidelines, Gigi was still stuck in L.A. in July. No Pride, no 4th of July barbecues, still no Drag Race tours, performances in clubs, trips to Springfield.

Gigi also hella lost Drag Race which she was actually okay with. Of course she wanted to win. But Gigi was so happy for Jaida and filled with so much love for all of her Season 12 sisters, she was just grateful she ever got the chance to go on Drag Race.

But still, she was aching to perform live, to see Crystal and everyone else again. And then one afternoon in early July, Gigi got a Facetime call from Jaida Essence Hall that left her glowing gold with hope.

“GIGIIIIIIIIII!” Jaida, the reigning queen of season 12 yelled into the phone.

“JAIDA!” Gigi screamed back, so excited to see her season twelve sister again, even if it was just through the phone. “I miss you bitch!”

“Miss Gigi Goode I miss you too! And that’s why I’m calling you! Gimme one second, I’m trying to add Crystal to the call,” Jaida muttered, looking down at her phone. Suddenly Crystal’s face was on the screen too.

“JAIDA!!!” Crystal cheered, and everything felt right in the world again. “Hi Gigi!” Crystal added, waving into the camera. They had just Facetimed the night before, but Gigi still couldn’t get over how beautiful Crystal was. Still couldn’t get over how happy she was to see her.

“Now listen bitches,” Jaida said, getting their attention back. “I miss y’all! And if you didn’t know, I am going on tour with Drive N Drag. So I thought, at one of our stops, you two could come join me on the tour. We’ll perform together, drink together, maybe you two will make out or something. It’ll be so fun! Say yes,” Jaida said quickly, and Gigi didn’t have to think about it for even a second. And Crystal didn’t either. Because they both started screaming, yelling that yes of course they’ll come. Of course. “OKAY WAIT WHAT CITY ARE Y’ALL COMING TO THOUGH?” Jaida had to yell over them.

“Chicago!” Crystal immediately said. “It’s semi-close to me, and Gigi can see her family! And I really wanna see Chicago. It’ll be nice,” Crystal explained, and Gigi didn’t bother hiding her fond smile.

“Crystal…” Gigi muttered, and she didn’t remember the last time she smiled this big, the last time her chest had ached like this.

“Alright it looks like you two are about to have a moment, so I’m gonna get out of here. Chicago is the first weekend in August! I’ll send you the dates, and you’ll be emailed all the information soon. You should do a little dance together or something! Bye bitches I love you!” Jaida quickly hung up, and it was just Crystal and Gigi FaceTiming now.

“So… I guess I’ll see you the first week of August,” Crystal said slyly, and Gigi could feel her heart beating in her chest, could feel tears welling in her eyes.

Finally finally finally    

“I’ll see you the first week of August, Miss Crystal Elizabeth,” Gigi sang, and they were both silent for a moment, just looking at each other. Gigi hadn’t seen Crystal since February. And now, in less than two months, they would be spending nearly a week together. “How have we gone so long without seeing each other? Being away from you like this… just doesn’t make sense. We’re not supposed to be apart like this. It’s not fair,” Gigi breathed.

“I know,” Crystal said, somewhat sadly. But Gigi could still see how excited she was.

“I don’t wanna bring the mood down though. I'M GONNA SEE YOU IN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS BITCH!” Gigi exclaimed, and they were both yelling again, just so excited. So excited. So ready. They talked for a little bit, already making plans for all the places Gigi wanted to take Crystal. And then it was time to say bye.

“Well Gigi… I’ll just say this,” Crystal began, a glint in her eye. “After all this time apart… after all these nights alone just… just missing you. Wishing you were with me… I’ll see you soon. We’re gonna see each other, we’re gonna be TOGETHER, and the wait will have been worth it. Because we’re worth the wait,” Crystal said softly, and Gigi really didn’t want to cry. But Crystal wasn’t making it easy.

“I’ll see you soon,” Gigi whispered, and soon they hung up. And so she started counting down the days until Chicago. And although she didn’t know it, so was Crystal. And Gigi knew, things would truly never be the same after Drive N' Drag.

[meloncubedradpops]

Repo! The Corona Opera: Final Countdown

This is the third and final installment of Repo: The Corona Opera. In the first piece, I made the argument that the surreal events we are experiencing in 2020 remind me of the world in the movie Repo! the Genetic Opera. My second essay compared the characteristics of fascism with the same movie. Here we will tie together ideas in both works to highlight a dark path that America is on, based on what we know about Repo!, in the hopes that we can reject the evils of those who are sacrificing our health and safety for their own selfish reasons. 

When I began thinking about this movie through the lenses of COVID-19, I saw uncanny patterns that just years ago seemed like an exaggerated storytelling. Millions of people dying from organ failure. Yeah, but how? 

Then 2020 happened. Oh, that's how. Sure the disease doesn't affect everyone in the same way, but its wrath and potential to harm are tremendous. The death toll in the United States alone is, as of today, is 231,000. At least, that is the death toll we are know so far. It will take time when the dust settles and we can analyze the excess death data to truly know how many of our fellow Americans have died. 

And while our world does not currently emulate those opening comic scenes in Repo, the impact from the sudden loss of life will be felt for a long time. There are a lot of really great themes in Repo: the concept of the family, drug addiction, the impact of corporate monopolies, and let's not forget it's a gothic coming-of-age story too. I am going to highlight three concepts that weave together our current reality with the world of Repo: the parallels of the Trump and Largo family, the Graverobber as the symbolic "other", and organ repossessions is genocide.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I highlighted the ways that Rotti Largo is a fascist. I went into detail supporting the argument that his company GeneCo holds tremendous and unyielding power in the city we see in the movie. And despite his efforts to save humanity from extinction, his assumed heirs and blood-related children are nothing short of entitled mediocrity. I will draw many parallels between President Donald Trump and Rotti Largo throughout the duration of this essay, but let's take a few minutes to talk about their children. Believe it or not, this meme was made by myself and my friend FOUR years ago, almost to the day! 

But unlike 2016, I had no idea that I'd find multiple comparisons to draw upon. And frankly, if we all knew how bad this presidency would be, for both America and the rest of the world, we might have made less jokes from our complacency. I ask the the real question though, which Trump and Rotti offspring are most alike?

Now, I've wanted to do this thought exercise since the inception of my essays. The surface level combinations would look something like, Amber and Ivanka (since they're both women, obvs), Donald Trump JR as Luigi (oldest child), and Eric Trump as Pavi ("you're just his useless brother!"). 

However my boyfriend raised a great point that had me rethink this: Donald Trump Jr is ACTUALLY Amber Sweet. When I took out the gender aspect out of the equation, it made so much more sense. In my next point, I will go into drug addiction in a much more dignified manner. But let's just take a moment here to consider the following. 

We know that Amber Sweet is addicted to two things in life: surgery and pain killing drugs to make surgery bearable. Amber Sweet's character provides an incredible insight to the daily life of the people in Repo. If you subtract the Zydrate Anatomy scene, you would hardly even know that zydrate is devastating lives of the people addicted to it. We hear about zydrate in the graveyard as a commercial and the media spends its first opportunity asking Rotti about zydrate's "use and abuses". After Sweet becomes a no-show in the presser, we quickly learn that she runs a support group for fellow addicts, or at least she is supposed to. 

How does this relate to Trump Jr? Quite simply, many are speculating that Trump Jr abuses cocaine. The most compelling evidence is his speech during the Republican National Convention. Now, obviously we don't have solid evidence that he is indeed consuming and abusing cocaine, and quite frankly if he is, that would not be incredibly surprising or even a huge deal. 

But the conversation doesn't end here. President Donald Trump did not hesitate to bring up former vice president Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his battle with addiction during the first Presidential Debate. It was a low jab, especially considering that the United States is going through a crippling opioid crisis, which he even admits is exacerbated by covid-19 and related lockdowns. Both Donald Trump and Rotti Largo exploit their own children in this manner. I mean, Donald Trump helped fucked up the Trump Foundation where his children were held prominent positions, which was caught stealing from a charity intended to help children with cancer! Every time we see Donald Trump Jr on our doom-screens, we get another glimpse into Jr's downward spiral. And with every additional crime that all of president Trump's children become implicated in, the more and more we can see that this family is rotten to the core. 

If Trump Jr is Amber Sweet, then Ivanka is Luigi. In Repo, Luigi can be described as nothing short of a homicidal maniac. I am not saying that Ivanka commits murder, at least not directly, but she does hold a lot of power in the White House. Spend any time learning about the machinations of the White House, particularly in the early days, and you will learn Ivanka competed with Melania for a voice in the administration, and still works for the White House today. Even if you exclude all of the shady business ties, such as the dozens of Chinese patents (including for voting machines!!!) Ivanka has filed, clearly the boundaries of nepotism do not exist for this family. Luigi somehow kills multiple people in the movie and faces no consequences for it. How can this be? Obviously corruption, but that is too simple. If there were multiple checks and balances at one point that would have forced Luigi to face justice for his crimes, they have obviously failed to come to roost in the movie. The obvious common denominator between today and the world of Repo is that those who want power will do anything to obtain and maintain it. Does the public know about every murder committed by Luigi? Does the public know about every crime committed by Ivanka (and also by proxy her husband Jared Kushner, who by the way, failed to pass mandatory security clearances but still has access to the intelligence of our government)? Jared intentionally made it difficult for many of the states hit hardest by covid-19 in the early weeks to acquire the necessary medical supplies because the electorate did not vote for Trump in 2016. That. IS. MURDER. Just as Luigi calls the common citizens in Repo "filthy mice", “Jrvanka” (and the Right at greater) frames the nation as two groups: us and THEM. Luigi is much less calculated, but the comparisons are there. If given the chance, the Trump and Largo family will kill because of their sociopathy, greed, and egos. 

Admittedly I don't have as compelling of a comparison for Eric Trump and Pavi. However I will say that both Pavi and Eric do the bidding for their father's empire, and I would also argue that both feel like they have to compete to get a modicum of attention and love from a paternal figure devoid of basic empathy. And at the end of the day, they do not reject their father's tyranny. And honestly that is enough of a comparison for me. 

Last but not least, I can't ignore the fact that the official Republican Party platform for the 2020 election is loyalty to Trump in the absence of any other political or philosophical idea. A majority of the speakers at the Republican National Convention were members of his family. Their pitch to Americans is “Just Trust Us”. However, a quarter million Americans aren't here to agree or disagree with that statement. With each passing day, more and more Americans are getting sick, to the tune of tens of thousands of cases a day on average currently. The Largo family and GeneCo are not much different. Remember that scene in 21st Century Cure where Shilo and Graverobber are in a mass grave where we can see truck loads of humans being added to the pile of corpses? 

The only real thing separating the corpses from the rest of the city is a poorly constructed brick wall and the years of propaganda that normalizes what I imagine would be a terrible pungent smell of death. 

The entire Trump family came into the first presidential debate without masks. The president was literally sick with a virus that statistically speaking, could kill his opponent; and he was on stage shedding this incredibly contagious virus screaming and shouting, spreading his droplets everywhere. The Trump family failed to show up early enough to be tested for covid before the debate. 

This was not an accident. Jared Kushner bragged to journalist Bob Woodward back in April that Trump was going to take the country "back from scientists". As of this past weekend, we learned that Trump is floating around the idea of firing our nation's leading disease expert Anthony Fauci in a time where our cases, deaths, and hospitalizations from covid-19 are surging. It is almost grotesquely poetic how similar this is to GeneCo. GeneCo is a company in the healthcare industry, but they exploit the worst parts of society, which I will go into very soon. And in its effort to achieve maximum quarterly profits, the ends always justify the means, even if that results in fascism and excess death/suffering. Rotti's body guards kill the doctor who gives him his grim diagnosis. Trump didn't kill the doctors treating him during his recovery with covid, but information we got from the White House doctors were straight up WEIRD. We witnessed a Gentern being killed by Luigi in the Mark It Up Scene for no other reason besides existing in the proximity of him. Trump has spread misinformation about how there's more money to be made when a doctor declares a death as a covid death. I am finding it hard to see the difference. I think I've made my point regarding the parallels of the Trump and Largo family quite clearly, but you may see additional points I bring up as the rest of my essay unfolds. 

Society is complex with more nuance than we give it credit to. The different ways that various groups of people interact with are endlessly interesting, and one of the reasons I love Repo so much is because there's an incredible amount of unpacking that you can do, even in the absence of written dialogue about it. 

If you don't know, Repo started out as a story originally penned as "The Necromerchant's Debt", which gave the Graverobber character a more active role in the world crafted by Darren Smith and Terrace Zdunich. When watching the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera, the Graverobber is certainly a character seen in multiple scenes, but in a lot of ways, his importance is left out. An entire scene was cut from the film, see Needle Through a Bug below if you're interested. 

Regardless the parts that we do see are still greatly impactful. Graverobber is essentially the symbolized "other" living in a world that is greatly stratified by social class, and he's doing what he can to survive. 

Now if you have been living on this planet we call Earth and have ever paid attention ever, you probably have noticed that there are a lot of power structures that influence the resources and opportunities that aid in our development and maintenance of our needs. The access to being able to elevate ourselves above basic survival are typically contingent upon a few things, one namely our ability to draw a paycheck. As I mentioned in my last essay, so many things went wrong to have what would equivalently be either a drug trafficking felony in today's terms or maybe theft, result in permissible extra-judicial murder. And I am not saying that Trump's bragging of the extra-judicial murder of an ANTIFA activist is at all related, but look at the way Trump compares his dissidents with the way GeneCo treats Graverobbers.

 We are experiencing the early stages of economic collapse, millions of people are hungry, soon-to-be evicted, jobless. And yet, the Republicans in power just HAD to rush through a Supreme Court justice. When arguing against lockdowns that would have saved lives, the Right spent countless hours arguing about increase suicide, drug use, poverty, domestic abuse, blah blah blah, you know all the things that were there and as equally as important pre-pandemic? And they did NOTHING to help mitigate this disaster beyond the bill that was passed this spring. The house passed the HEROES Act back in May, and senate majority leader Mitch McConnel declined to take a vote on it. 

Never mind the fact that landlords are still expected to pay the banks their mortgages on their investment properties. Never mind the fact that rent wasn't cancelled. Never mind that the Trump administration sought to prevent any oversight into the first bill passed previously to prosecute fraud. So you know, we can make sure the money went to small business owners, and not instead to the many, many crony ties to the administration who were approved for huge amounts of money. Honestly to think about this is kind of sickening, particularly when you relate it back to Repo and my essay I wrote on fascism.

I could probably talk all day about our failure with the "War on Drugs", but I feel like you can probably see based on the efficacy of its policies that drugs still exist and people are still abusing them. I bring this up because the Graverobber's occupation is essentially a drug dealer. However he sells a counterfeit of zydrate derived from the body of a bug who naturally borrow in a corpse's body, which is and also isn't stealing from the corpse / their estate, but is somehow still "bad" enough that you can legally be killed "on site" if a Gene Cop thinks you're harvesting the blue brain goo. I mean this entire concept makes my brain hurt. 

The Graverobber, as a concept, is a perfect example of the enemy who is simultaneously the biggest and the least threat, and the only way to stop them is to kill them before they can appeal before the jury of their peers or go to prison to pay for their crimes. And I am sure the propaganda that justifies this is beautifully orchestrated. It literally mimics Russian propaganda, AKA the biggest foreign intelligence threat since, I don’t know, the Cold War? I can picture authoritarian stump speeches now: 

"Here the Graverobber who comes in the night, tempting your children. They sell the promise of a good time, but did you know they are raping your daughters for this drug?? They can get your husband hooked on zydrate, and you won't know it's coming until he comes home unrecognizable. These thugs are stealing your grandmother's ring off her corpse, and you will find her half-rotted corpse thrown askew across her tombstone when you go to pay your respects."

And yet Graverobber defends himself:

"Industrialization has crippled the globe (Enjoy GeneCo's day and nighttime formula of Zydrate) Nature failed as technology spread (Ask a gentern if Zydrate is right for you) And from this wake a market erected (Buying Zydrate from an unlicensed source is illegal) An entire city built on top of the dead! And you can finance your bones And your kidneys For every market a submarket grows But best you be punctual With making your payments Lest it be you on the concrete below It's quick! It's clean! It's pure! It could change your life! Rest assured! It's the 21st century cure! And it's my job To steal and rob GRAVES!" 

He then goes into detail about how this is just the cost of doing business with his modern world. How many of our current and future stories by those who will not make a single sentence in our history books will be casted as enemies of the state who were ultimately just trying to make end's meet? You can deport the illegal immigrant but neglect to prosecute the American company who hired them to work here? How is that much different? If the people in Repo need this drug to cope with the deaths of their loved ones and their livelihoods, then what does that say about the soul of their nation? 

If you are still with me at this point, I want to thank you so much. I am going to conclude on a fairly heavy topic, but it is one worth having. Organ repossessions in Repo are genocide and in America, we are currently also committing genocide. 

The whole premise of the film is the justification that those who fail to make payments on their surgeries deserve to have their organs repossessed, because what other reality is there with unrelenting end-stage capitalism? People are losing their whole lives as I type this, through no fault of their own. Most Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense pre-covid-19. Millions are unable to pay for basic life expenses, such as rent, healthcare or food. Our president specifically shoved a Supreme Court justice because he wants the American Healthcare Act to be deemed too unconstitutional for public policy. Never mind the 100+ million Americans with pre-existing conditions. Never mind the millions who acquire their healthcare through the ACA marketplace. Never mind the fact that we are in a once-in-a-century PANDEMIC. Never mind that we spend more per capital on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. Never mind that the Right does not have ANY sort of plan to replace something in its place. How could MILLIONS die in an organ failure crises in Repo anyways? We already know that the Trump administration already stopped caring about covid deaths when we learned it was hurting people of color disproportionality than the general population. 1 out of 1000 black Americans have died from covid. Reread that sentence. If you don't believe me, go out and seek those facts for yourself. When we think of genocide we think of Hitler killing thousands of people via gas chambers. But there are SO many other steps that lead to the normalization of that. 

Undesirables, aka the "others", are easy to discard. Is it a surprise to anyone that ICE gynecologists are removing the uteruses of detainees? I almost made my whole essay about that one controversy alone. Genocide is insidious like that. 

"Oh but if she didn't want that hysterectomy, she shouldn't have tried to come to America for a better life, even if that's what my ancestors did." 

Of course not, she's the "other", and you're the law-abiding citizen. You were able to afford the extra $30 a month for the upgraded booby package that gave an otherwise unremarkable kidney transplant a fun twist by including breast implants. The orphan who works the streets because his parents died during the plague who needed a new pancreas because insulin became too expensive is threatening your suburbs. Bonus points if the orphan has a hint of melanin in his skin or if your daughter shows favor towards his antics, completely ignoring the fact that his mommy and daddy were killed by preventable disease. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but look at the makeup of people who get their organs repossessed in Repo and try not to tell me there's a trend. Yes it could have been the coincidence of casting, but nevertheless it is worth mentioning. We don't see many people of color in this movie, but of the few we see, they get murdered by GeneCo/Wallace. And I don't care how stupid coincidences are because that is exactly what is happening with covid-19. The so-called essential, working class citizens (who are disproportionally POC) are putting their whole life on the line to serve everyone else who works at home. 

The ends justifies the means, kill enough elderly and the federal government won't have to pay out on social security. Force everyone to get back to work and fuck you if you think you deserve money for the hours you weren't allowed to work (oh and by the way we want to make it so you can't sue for covid-19 related liabilities). Oh you lost your job, "try something new", as told by Ivanka Trump earlier this summer. 

My main point is if you let fascism get control, they will normalize genocide and put you in jail for even making the connections of corruption. "Millions of people dead from organ failure, what's adding a few more to the pile in the name of law and order?" "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". Once again, I am failing to see the difference. 

Okay I threw a lot at you just now, and the fact you made it to the end is a miracle. If you skip around because you have a squirrel brain like me, I thank you as well. The fact we get out of bed everyday and do anything right now is a miracle and I know attention can be finite. 

I am writing this on the eve of the United States General election after having wanting to write this since June of this year. I am tired. We are ALL Shiloh right now. Our lives have been on pause. "I must be brave", "I'll capture it", "Run back inside". Yeah girl, same! I haven't talked about her much throughout any of my essays, but I have to give credit where credit is due. 

Humans are a resilient creature. We have millions of years of experience on this Earth, and much of our survival has been based on pure dumb luck. But we have blown so many other species out of the water in one way alone, and that is our ability to communicate. 

We don't have to let people who exploit our weaknesses control us. The sociopaths who try and run our society did not historically aid in our survival. They didn't care if we ate the mushroom that killed us or would have protected us when threatened by wildlife, it was our tribe. The Right has successfully hijacked that bond between the self and the tribe so that it can fit the needs of sociopathy and greed. It is not normal for a president to tell a nation that "it is what it is" when over 100k citizens die from a preventable disease. Do not let the sociopaths throw us in that tiny pine box in a mighty small drop in a mighty dark plot, hastening the trip to our epilogue. Because every inch you give, they will take a mile and charge you by the hour. Never forget that.

[imsofthelp]

Eijirou Kirishima x f!reader

Category: angst

Warnings: suicide (nothing graphic) slight cursing, mentions of sex under the cut

Word count: 2,881

Summary: Kirishima's journey of learning how to live without you and the fault he feels for your decision.

A.n: This is told from Kirishima's POV, the character Daichi is completly random and has nothing to do with bnha lol. Things have been... Kinda bad lately, so I guess it's my way of ranting. Hope ya'll like it!

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

There’s a few Astilbes in a tall vase on my bedside table. There’s this sweet smell coming from them, but it’s masked by the scent of a strong vanilla cologne.

It’s cold in the room because I can’t make myself get up to close the window, which lets ice cold air from the darkness to leak in.

I’m talking with her on the phone while wrapping the phone charger around my finger, untangling then twirling it again. My fingers remembered it as a routine during the hour we spent talking.

Even if her words are joyful, even if she’s talking about how’s school been and how she spent today studying at this super cute coffee shop with her friends, her voice feels heavy. Heavy with something she doesn’t want to show me. Something that she tries to hide under her stuttering laugh and stories.

But I’m not stupid. I can hear hints of pain stabbing her in the “It was fun” like sharp knives, and her “My new classmates are awesome!��� covered by a mask of longing.

I want to help her, but my throat is dry and my tongue feels like it’s tied. I am held back by my own insecurities and doubts - I don’t want her to think that I’m an idiot or that I’m not minding my own bussiness.

“Eijirou? You still there?” she asks, oddly calm.

I wake up from my little trance. It seems like I got lost in the halls of my mind again. I feel a bit guilty. Did she tell me something important?

“Sorry, I got carried away for a second,”

There’s silence on her end of the line. A sigh soon rolls off the silence. I screwed up again.

“No, it’s okay. Nothing important.”

I hold my breath. What did she say? The smartest thing to do right now is just ask her-

“I will go now. Thanks for the convo, though,”

My teeth catch my bottom lip and I bite it. Idiot. I’m a fucking idiot.

There’s silence staying on the phone with me for a while until a quiet beep announces the call ending.

I couldn’t really sleep that night.

Somewhere near midnight, the line between sleep and search for comfort within the spots of the celling, in the stripes of the wallpaper or the folds of the blanket, blurs.

I don’t know when did I fall asleep but I think I saw angels, or maybe, just soft rays of sun, flooding into the room through curtainless windows.

I’m thinking about her. I’m thinking about how’s her day going and if she got any new opportunities to join a big agency.

Calendar on the wall shows that today is 11th of April, 2022.

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

Time as a pro-hero flies fast. Now I have a lot of problems, or maybe, just more than I had when I was at school. I don’t bother to remember the names or faces of people. Don’t want to.

Bakugou says that I’ve changed and that others are really worried, but I just bury myself in more work.

I can’t tell when a patrol starts and ends or the voices of villains and other heroes. It all blurs into one mess that lays on my shoulders like a dark cloud.

I come back home with an empty head and a full work shedule.

While I try to watch TV, not minding the buzzing on the other side of window and in my head, the bouquet of pink Camellias in the vase seem to stare at me.

I try not to mind themuntil a delicate petal falls on my arm. I don’t know how to keep flowers. Maybe I should stop buying them - they seem to not like my place.

I try to change the water, hoping that this would fix everything, and then I go back to mindessly watching tv.

I wait. Laying in my bed, a soft blanket wrapped around me as I desperately search for any warmth. I wait. Tick Tock.

Then there’s only one minute left of waiting and that minute soons ends as my phone rings, throwing me out of my endless thoughts.

“Hey!”

“Hello! How are you? How was hero work today?”

Her voice sounds different today. A lot brighter, like she has a smile on her face as she’s talking and I feel myself smiling too.

“It’s good, it’s good... Hero work is hard, as always. I’ve got a nasty case, dealing with some shitty drug dealers. It’d be better if you told me about your day.”

She stays quiet for a moment. It feels as if she’s holding her breath and, for a moment, I hold mine too. As if we’re underwater in our own safe bubble, where no one else can reach us.

“Everything’s very good. Great, even,” she finally answers and our bubble bursts.

“How did that audition go?”

“Uhm, I didn’t go.”

I frown, not even knowing what to say. She wouldn’t shut up about that audition, how the hero that ran it shared her opinions and ideals, how that place was just a dream, how-

“Why?” I trap all of my thoughts in that simple word.

“Just thought it wasn’t worth it,”

I wrap my finger around the phone charger and unwrap it again.

“Why?” I repeat my question again, dumbfounded.

“Dunno, maybe that place wasn’t that fit for me after all.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

After that silence follows. Then we talk some more about work, but it seems that conversation just doesn’t flow freely tonight. I drag it out like bubblegum that’s not meant to stretch this far.

“I’m coming back for a few days soon.”

I almost jump up. Don’t know if it’s from excitment or from shock. I haven’t seen her for a year.

“Wait, really?” I ask, finding it hard to believe.

“Yeah, and I have a huge favor to ask.”

“Anything.”

“Could I crash at your place while I’m here?”

My heart jumps with excitment. She’s more than welcome to stay. My heart aches just at the thought about an opportunity to see her.

I suddenly remember that she’s still waiting for my answer.

“Yeah sure! Just give me a message when you have the date set.”

She sighs with relief,

“You’re the best, Eijirou.”

The way she says my name makes a blush creep up my checks,

“Don’t mention it.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

Just like that, the call ends and I’m left with pleasant silence. Tonight I don’t feel lonely.

The calendar shows 11th of April, 2023.

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

It’s a few weeks of waiting until she grants her promise. She stands at my door, more beautiful than ever and for a second, I doubt if that’s just a vision, but after she flashes one of her sunshine smiles I instantly know that she’s real. She’s there and she’s real.

I pull her into a tight embrace, burying my face in her hair. Words cannot describe how much I missed her.

I give her a bunch of red Chrysanthemums and I instantly knew it was worth getting to the flower shop so early in the morning - her smile lights up the room brighter than the sun ever could.

“I missed you, Eijirou,” the name rolls off her plump lips so softly. It gives me the feeling that if I do as much as breathe, I’ll shatter the moment.

We talk all day, watch some TV and then talk some more. The stars shine so bright tonight that we don’t even need lamps. It seems as if they’re enjoying our moment too.

She tells me countless stories and I want to hear each one of them over and over again, her voice makes me feel drunk off my mind.

She talks about struggling with living in a foreign country, about missing me and other friends, about everything that bothers her and I’m here to listen. Soon, I tell her all my secrets and we’re sitting in front of each other pulling away all of our lies.

I don’t know what events lead up to our next step. Truly, it’s all a blur and the only significant thing I can point out is the flowers, gently sitting in the tall glass vase.

We get rid of our clothes, the same way we got rid of our secrets just minutes ago. There’s nothing separating us now and we can and get drunk off each other’s bodies.

Making love with her is tender and sweet, with lots of praises and sweet nothings, she manages to whisper out.

I pause for a second, taking a moment to truly look at her and memorise every inch of her body. From the way her hair is draped on my pillow and her face is so calm, to the way her legs, wrapped around my waist try to pull me as close as possible.

We spend the night naked, flush against each other, finally free of everything. If only for a moment.

The calendar shows 14th of May, 2023.

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

When my phone rings again, I’m putting a bunch of yellow Zinnias into the vase. The flowers that I had before them have already wilted so I threw them away.

I sigh, expecting another call from her brother, who suddenly became worried about her like two weeks ago, or maybe someone from the former Bakusquad.

When I see her name on my phone I pick it up faster than I never knew I could.

“Eijirou...”

I haven’t heard her voice in so long, it almost feels surreal. I want her to repeat my name, slowly, so that could remember every syllable she says and repeat it on my mind forever.

“Is everything okay? I was so worried!”

Her voice cracks. I hear a quiet sniffle that she tries to hide.

“No, actually... No... I don’t like it there, I want to go home.”

All the other emotion in my body are conquered by pain. It’s so good to hear her, but it hurts so much to hear her voice is filled with sorrow I wished she would never experience. I want her to come back. I don’t care how selfish it is.

“I can’t... You know I can’t,”

I blink. I want to tell her, but my tongue feels heavy and all my words begin to slur.

I wake up with a jump. My shirt is flushed against my back and my whole body is covered in goosebumps. I snake my arms around myself, desperately seeking any kind of warmth.

My phone is turned off and the calendar shows 11th of April, 2024.

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

I put red and white striped Carnations in a vase. Flowers from before are dead, as always.

Work goes by the same as always and while I’m sitting down trying to finish tomorrow’s plans, I wait for a call.

Time goes by, but it doesn’t ring. Tick tock. She always calls at the same time.

She used to call at the same time, my mind corrects. I push that thought into the deepest part of my brain, never to be found again.

Tick tock. That’s how another hour goes by, filled with walking from one end of the room to the other and checking my phone again and again.

I don’t get a call.

The other three weeks are tense. The bags under my eyes are filled with darkness from staring at the windows during long, sleepless nights, searching for answers from the dark and dim stars. Answers that none of them want to give to me.

When I get a call, my clock shows that it’s almost 4am.

“Y/N?” I ask, my voice colored by hopeful hues. Droplets of sleep still hang on my lips.

“No, dude it’s Daichi.”

I grit my teeth. I’m not mad at him. I’m not mad at him for calling me, I’m not mad at him...

I’m mad because he’s not Y/N.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to ask something about Y/N,”

“Eh?”

And what about her? For me to tell him what Y/N thought of him? To tell him that he was a bad brother? To tell him that his sister left because his family sucks?

“You’re her best friend.”

“Was.”

“What?”

“Was her best friend.”

“Yeah...”

“And?”

“And you.. Well you... Well she probably told you...”

“She didn’t,”

My answer is cold and what would put an end to this conversation.

“She... didn’t?”

He obviously doesn’t know when it’s time to end a conversation.

“Daichi, are you drunk?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why are you calling me at 4am?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Maybe it’s the only aspect he and his sister share - that small little doubt, showing that they’re never sure of what to say.

“Because I don’t u-understand,” he hiccups.

“What?”

Then his voice breaks, like a ship that’s slowly claimed by the waves to be sunken forever.

“Eijirou... Eijirou... I don’t understand why she left... Eijirou, was it really bad for her? Was it that bad that she couldn’t tell anyone?”

I bite my bottom lip until I feel a hot droplet of blood running down my chin. What do I say to him? That she was trying to tell them? That they didn’t listen? That none of us did?

“It’s not your fault, Daichi. Go to sleep,”

“But...”

“We’ll talk again tomorrow if you want to. Now go to sleep.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Yeah.”

I end the call and fall back to my bed. My bed is incredibly cold and unwelcoming. I slump my way towards the kitchen and sit there until the first droplets of liquid gold begin to pour inside.

Calendar shows 11th of April, 2025.

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

I put Cyclamens in the vase. It’s the day we meet again. I don’t know what to hope for and while I’m going, my insecurities and fears follow close, only to disappear as soon as i see her.

She looks like a goddess. Her hair like rays of sunshine that found their place in the waves of locks on her head, her skin seems to shine, like it’s been kissed by stars and her smile only compliments her beauty.

Nothing’s changed but when I come closer, I notice that her eyes are different. All the happiness and joy is drained and now they’re empty. No, not empty... Just filled with something I can’t quite identify.

“It’s you...” I manage to whisper and before I start feeling like an idiot, she laughs with that wonderful laugh wrapping me with the feeling of safety, telling me that everything’s okay.

“It’s me.” she confirms and puts her forehead against mine. We drown in the silence, away from everything.

“I often wonder why you did that.”

She pulls away and her hands find their place on the back of my neck, as if we’re dancing, “I did it for myself.”

I sigh, “I don’t understand it. I don't understand it, Y/N,”

My hands dance on her waist, not finding their place.

“I wasn’t happy, Eijirou. I wasn’t happy there.”

I sigh again and pull her against my body. She smells like vanilla and clean laundry,

“Could I’ve made you happy?” I quietly ask and she raises her glance. Her empty eyes that pulled me in so strongly.

“No, it’s not your fault, Eijirou,” she answers and wipes away my tears that I didn’t even know were falling, “I did it for myself, I did it so I could be happy. Eijirou, I feel good now.”

I look up to the bright blue sky. There’s only one cloud there.

I take in a stuttering breath.

“Wasn’t there anything I could do?” Tears now flow freely as I try to not look at her. Somewhere deep inside I know this isn’t real and I’m afraid that she’ll disappear if I look at her for too long.

She takes my face into her hands, softly stroking it with one hand. Her glance is soft and for a moment, I see the Y/N I used to know before.

“All you can do right now is forgive me,” she whispers and I pet her silky hair, “And forgive yourself, Eijirou. You can’t carry the guilt of other people’s choices. You can’t live with a fault that isn’t your’s.”

That’s the last time I hear her voice.

When I wake up, I see her face right before my eyes but it’s not a ghost who drags a trail of unanswered questions after itself. No, it’s now a person I once loved so much. A person that I couldn’t hate for leaving me in pieces of my former self.

There’s a bunch of yellow Daffodils and Forget-Me-Not’s in my hands. Forget-Me-Not’s for a promise, that she’ll always be dear to me and Daffodils - the second promise, that I will finally start everything over again.

I leave the flowers on her grave, which I finally visited after two years.

It’s time to forgive her. It’s time to forgive myself.

I come back home and check the calendar for the last time. My new beginning is on 11th of April, 2026. Two years after her death.

“The sun will rise, and we will try again,” she used to say. With those words, I breathe in and peel the calendar page off.

✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*✧˖*

As always, thanks @velvet-kissesss​ for editing! 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

A Prompt

April 14th: What do you like about being autistic?

can be Hard To Say only because it's like, literally everything about me being an autistic person's Characteristics lol, and that like, that initial sense of Difference between myself and other people was like, noticing some sort of mismatch / misalignment, but also that i was the one feeling shut out / out of place about it, so it's defined in that negative way like, well i guess i'm doing things wrong somehow, and it all keeps being framed like, whenever it seems to stand out that there's something Different about myself, it's about trying to figure out what's wrong here, why some interaction isn't working or whatever, and when actually getting positive responses or whatever, it's doesn't quite feel so individual, like, oh i guess i'm just seeming normal to people here, right lol. but that, also, of course, things you Could consider positive / like about yourself sure might not be received / responded to in that way by other people, can't always even just feel neutral about anything / not notice it, even if it can't possibly actually Matter / isn't causing any kind of problem for anyone else it's like well why are you doing this unnecessarily & Weirdly.....and you know, pathological model vs social model, naturally, where i don't think "hey if this part of being autistic led to Negative Experiences, it's b/c being autistic is worse than being allistic and i wish i was allistic, b/c that's the only way to Not be, for example, objectively and rightfully excluded and punished by people around me" lmao

but for a start i saw some quote from an autistic person the other day mentioning just this sort of like, what they love about themself re: being autistic, and i remember one of them being You Mean What You Say lol, with the example "if i ask 'how are you' it's because i want to know how you are" lmao like yeah a really exhausting Greeting Ritual in particular when it's like, literally every time you hear that you have that awareness like "okay remember this person doesn't Actually want to hear about how you are," tbt to times like "when it's was really discouraging being texted regularly like 'what're you up to / how long will you be away' because for a sec i'd interpret it as 'this person is actually just asking what's up or wondering when you'll be around to hang out with, might be asking with the intention of making plans With you,' but then i have to remember it's about hoping i'm Away so my presence isn't interfering with what they want to do and of course it's not about genuine interest in my life/day otherwise or wanting to hang out" like, this shit is exhausting lmao. and you know, of course i know Different Communication Styles and how people will read different implications and intentions into the same kinds of interactions or behaviors or whatever, it's just Funny(tm) when like. some nt ppl think their social/communication styles are what's Objective, Universal, Correct, Intuitive, Effective, etc. like they'll be like "it's Great to say what you mean instead of Playing Games" and think autistic people are blunt / rude & it's b/c they're communicating Wrong, like actually you guys are saying you love ppl who are Real & Honest while being that post like "i love drama i love games if you fuck with my friends i will help you do it" lmaooo

also yknow to an Extent i think that like. sometimes just being very independently Enthusiastic about something can seem fun to nt people lol like, yes i can monologue about something aloud for 5 or 10 or 80 minutes maybe, or just you know, talk about it to myself via Posting lmfao, and sometimes that appeals to people or they at least regard it Neutrally because it's like. supposing that sometimes even when it's not something someone else is also interested in, idk, people are down for a like, individual experiences of unfettered expression of that passion lmao, but like, ftr i would hate instances of this as like a "because being enthusiastic like that is," deep inhale, "cute" or whatever, like, if i'm gonna talk about something it's a Lecture okay lmao. and plus i do plenty of it via Text lmfao, so, not many times i get to in person talk about whatever, or it'll be like, look at this video of a cool bird. i do not need someone's like, Personal Affection to find it Cute or Wholesome that i'm passionate about birds, or, god knows, fine anything else Cute, an assessment i never need or want, engage w/the information being shared please lmao. and then also, you know, i Draw Things based on it being v Of Interest lol so that's like, thank you to myself for having these Thoughts i want to express about Things Of Interest, i get to have fun like, just focusing in on what Creative Project i wanna do about it lol even if it's also like, boy, what if i could just have the idea and it'd Manifest, and you know, drawing is a way i am Talking About Something, certainly also if i'm dropping a tags essay about it lmao.........love to just delve tf into things and have all these thoughts & things to say about it, and really like, Exceptional when anyone wants to engage with this like, repeatedly / regularly lol. shoutout, Thanks, Epic

and well you know. i don't have any incredible specifics coming to mind here but in whatever ways i might think of things Differently it's like, hell yeah then, epic of me, i will be out here Figuring Shit Out even if i have to marinate on things, i'm sure motivated to engage with stuff that's Of Interest to me, when i have these solid ways to communicate with other people it's fun and flexible lmao, and i think there's that fun of being like, Performative in a way, theatricality, which i think like, maybe a source of that can be when you Have to be aware of the "rules" of interactions / social performance, but also how yknow, you can Act any way, there's nothing universal, there's maybe plenty of bullshit involved, hence how you can Have to be at least somewhat aware of things because you have to try to figure out the Secret rules and patterns and you know, simply Being Yourself and Behaving Naturally at all times isn't an option.....def have the Theatre type Theatrical thing lmao, the "theatre gay ft religious parents, enjoying harmonizing in the church choir lol i'm a Tenor babey" experience lmao, being in 4th grade auditioning for this set of play scenes like oh i get to be the main Antagonist guy? also i'm playing a guy? also i'm in this play and have lines and stuff? Hell yes lmao. and the Stage Performance via eventual roles via dance classes, i remembered the other week the studio i used to be at Used to have this like, idk, thing where the older dancers in a certain group maybe used to have a trip to nyc, think that fell away not long before i was one of those more Skilled Dancers like damnit, never really went to nyc except driving in and out to pick people up from the airport, like hey that distant smudge out the car window is probably the statue of liberty or something.....but the rehearsing and playing a Part and being in shows was. a ton of fun. i Said No to Stage Fright lmfao and really enjoyed being backstage and rehearsals and etc. but also i think i just Can be theatrical you know, in my own social approach lmfao, i'm big on talking with my hands lmao and i can get like, some Social Momentum going that way, i can have some confidence and can sort of hit that groove and it's like, not exactly masking trying to act """"normal"""" but i'm still Being Myself in this more "acceptable" way that nt people might better Understand or whatever. i also just like, personally, i love to be kind of theatrically Funny for sure lmfao and like, if people are just like overwhelmed by the least amount of goofiness / can't or won't play along at all i'm like, Please, work with me here lol, also like damn you live like this??? cmon lol

and well, nonconclusion, but it's pretty difficult to think of things like, what do i Dislike about being autistic which isn't about the way allistic ppl treat you sucks, like, e.g., it'll be like damn augh oof Misophonia, aural texture hell, hardly fun but that's not always a disaster, and as long as i can like, do something to block it out, and if i have to be like "hm this is distressing me b/c this noise is really really pissing me off lmao" as long as you know, i'm not amongst people who are just going to be annoyed at me for making up some problem and/or daring to speak about this experience inconveniently. be normal maybe. idk i'm just like right on, Myself

[a-method-in-it]

I Say This With Love

It’s April 10, 2020, and I really do honestly and truly say this with love. Because I do genuinely love all of the young radical people on here. Depending who you talk to, I also am kind of a young radical, though by tumblr standards I am An Old. And you guys are great, you really are. But I need you to hear this. 

You need to stop pinning your hopes on Bernie Sanders. 

I like Bernie a lot. He was not my first choice in this primary, but he was absolutely my second. The fact that he lost to my second least favorite of the legitimate candidates (Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang are not legit, don’t @ me) makes me really tired. I’m old enough to remember the time the Democrats nominated John Kerry to take on Dubya and look where that got us. I was looking forward to voting for Bernie in the primary -- and in fact I still will to help him shore up his influence going into the DNC -- and the last few days were not fun for me either. 

But it’s time to face facts. And the facts are these:

First, Bernie has dropped out. In this context, “suspending his campaign” means he is dropping out. It’s a way of dropping out that allows his name to remain on the ballot in whatever states already have his name on the ballot, but it means he’s dropped out. You can and should still vote for him to give him more political influence before the convention, but he will not be the nominee. That is the reality. It sucks. It is still the reality.

Second, harm reduction matters. That thing I mentioned above, about Kerry going up against Bush 43? Yeah, for those of you too young to remember 2004, Kerry couldn’t turn out the base and he lost. And do you know what happened in the next four years? Here is a short list:

Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Actually genuinely had a bill introduced into Congress that he planned on signing. 

He completely bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina, screwing over thousands of people, most of them black and low income

We added 21,000 troops in Iraq

Private contractors working for escaped hell demon Eric Prince, who Bush paid $1 billion in military contractor money to run around in Iraq playing soldier, opened fire into a crowd of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, killing 17 innocent people

John Roberts was nominated and confirmed as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where his ass still sits, fucking us over to this day.

Bush vetoed funding for stem cell research.

He continued to deny that global warming was real, running out four more years on humanity’s clock.

And -- oh yeah! -- the whole goddamn economy crashed.

I really don’t care how little you like Joe Biden. I also do not like Joe Biden. But I promise you, however frustrating it would be to see him elected president, that is nothing -- nothing -- to what it would be like to go through four more years of Donald Trump. And if you disagree, please read any newspaper. 

Third, and this is the big one:

You need to stop pinning your hopes on a single candidate. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how movements happen. 

Politicians do not save us. Not even politicians we like. Not even politicians we agree with. Not even politicians who inspire us and care about us and try to do right by us. No, that’s not how it works. We save ourselves.  

So if you’re pissed off right now, then go unionize your workplace (advice for that here); join your local DSA; donate to Black Lives Matter or Planned Parenthood or the ACLU or Greenpeace or NARF or any one of the dozens of other organizations fighting the good fight; volunteer at an abortion clinic or homeless shelter or domestic violence shelter or food bank or conservation group or with anyone else doing good work in your neighborhood; sew face masks for your neighbors; join -- or start! -- a community garden or urban agriculture group; volunteer for a state or local politician with a good platform that you do believe in; sign up to register voters in your area; start calling your congress people every day; and for gods’ sake, vote blue in November.

To everyone who skimmed over that list because you think I’m full of shit and it was too long -- go back and read it because the fact that it’s long is my whole fucking point.

We need to save ourselves. And that starts with -- big sigh -- electing Joseph Robinette Biden (gods even his name is stupid). 

It just doesn’t end there. Honestly, if you want a movement to reshape the country, trying to just elect a person as president is objectively the least effective way to go about that. It’s trying to cut to the end. It’s building your roof before you’ve laid your foundation. It’s backwards. 

So pick yourselves up, brush off the dirt, patch up your bruises, and go build some foundations. 

I meant it when I said I love you guys. I believe you can do this, that we can do this. Please don’t prove me wrong. 

[batkidsaremadkids]

Fart-man

New fic! Read it here or head over AO3

Jim Gordon stood in the roof of Gotham City PD, leaning on the railing while smoking. He had turned on the Bat-Signal some time ago and was biding his time until Batman would show. Jim actually solved a lot of his cases on this roof waiting for Batman, when he had the time to think, the time to breathe and watch the skyline. Time to change his perspective.

The commissioner heard fabric rustling behind him and knew Batman had arrived.

"Commissioner."

He turned around to face the vigilante. "Batman."

The imposing figure half hidden in the shadows was still as intimidating as the first time he'd seen him. The menacing glint in the glowing eye lenses of the mask really sold the whole demon from hell-idea that criminals spread when they first laid eyes on the man.

Jim exhaled smoke and let his eyes sweep over the man – for that was without a doubt what he was.

Batman stepped out of the shadow into the dim light. "I assume you called about the new drug spreading through the city?"

"Yes. My guys only got that they're operating from the docks."

Batman nodded. "They do. It's a new gang that's compromised out of people that used to work for Joker, Ivy and some other big players. They're-"

FRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT

Jim had never known how a record scratch in your head felt like. Until now. Batman seemed frozen in place. So Jim cleared his throat to shake the mental block and continue. Everyone had embarrassing moments, no need to make Batman suffer. "So they aren't newbies but learned from some of the flashiest criminals in all of Gotham. Did you-"

FRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT

Jim saw Batman's jaw tense. He actually saw his jaw tense. Batman's threshold was usually a lot higher than some involuntary flatulence.

Batman took deep measured breaths that reminded Jim of meditation and the anger management seminars he regularly sent some of his officers to. If he was a gambling man – and anyone else was on this roof with him – he would bet Batman had his eyes closed behind the cowl. After about half a minute his intense gaze was back on Jim and the vigilante seemed ready to keep going.

"The gang thankfully didn't adapt their mentors' flair for the drama-"

FRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT

The clink of Batman's teeth meeting as his jaw slammed shut was audible.

Was that a vein pulsing under the cowl or was Jim imagining that?

"Do- do you need a minute?" he asked.

Batman threw a freezing glare Jim's way. "No. Why would I?"

Ignorance was bliss. Or something like that. Let Batman do what Batman needed to do. "Yes. –  No." Jim shook his head. Start over. "We're really lucky if the gang doesn't decide to pick up a theme."

"Until now they've only established a small-"

FRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT

A deep sigh. "A small parameter around-"

FRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT

"-their warehouse as territory-"

FRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT

Batman trembled all over by now. From the grit of his teeth Jim tipped on repressed anger. But he wasn't nearly crazy enough to ask.

Jim got his answer anyway when Batman exploded.

"Enough!" he shouted. Like the crazed lunatics he usually caught Batman jerked his head from left to right, peering into shadows and growling. "I know you're there! Get out here!"

Had Batman just lost his mind because he accidentally farted, or was Jim missing something?

"Now!" Batman growled like thunder. His stare was now focused on a particular shadow to their right.

The shadow shifted. Jim watched as Nightwing did that trick of appearing in the darkness that all the Gotham vigilantes seemed so fond of. His hands were held up on chest height, palms out. A good call on his part – if Batman started expelling steam from his nostrils soon Jim wouldn't be surprised.

"April fools?" he asked with a sheepish grin Jim had seen top often in the boy's Robin days. He couldn't imagine what Batman had had to deal with.

"That was more than a week ago," Batman said. He stared Nightwing down for another minute before turning to another shadow. "The rest of you can get out too."

Red Robin and Spoiler appeared from the opposite direction of Nightwing.

"But B-man!" whined Spoiler theatrically, "That's the beauty in waiting! You were totally wired on the first!"

Batman met her eyes with a cold stare designed to intimidate.

"Red had the speaker's remote!" she offered as she stepped aside, hoping Batman would find a new target in her partner in crime.

Red Robin looked betrayed for a second, gaze switching between Spoiler and Batman, before he seemed to remember something and focused solely on Batman. "It was all Hood's idea."

As if on cue Red Hood landed on the roof. "What the fuck Red?"

Jim would concentrate on the fact that Red Hood was on his roof in a second. As soon as he had processed that the man carried Robin kicking and swearing under his arm. "Unhand me you oaf!"

But Red Hood ignored him as he got into an argument with Red Robin. Then Robin caught sight of Batman.

"Father! These imbeciles hatched a most dastardly plan to humiliate you in front of Gordon!"

There was a second of silence before every youngster vigilante in Gotham started to defend themselves, blame the others, or argued that it was hilarious so who cared. Jim jerked his head this way and that but there was no chance to follow anything. The noise level kept mounting until Batman decided to end it all.

"Enough!" he shouted for the second time that night. "Cave. Now. Agent A will decide your punishments."

A low murmur swept over the kids and the roof emptied faster and more quietly than it had filled.

Just a few seconds later Jim Gordon stood on the roof of the GCPD alone again. Even Batman had abandoned him mid-discussion.

"Fuck."

Jim took another drag from his cigarette. The whole scene hadn't even taken long enough for it to burn down. He'd have to try to catch Batman again later. For now, he'd get back inside and get a coffee and something against this headache.

His phone beeped with an incoming message and a data transfer.

Please excuse the children. -O

[route22ny]

I grew up in the Bay Area at the height of AIDS panic, and all of that era’s sex paranoia remains burned into my brain, repurposed for Covid-19 and the act of commingling wet breath. A few weeks into this crisis, I found myself having a ten-foot-distant conversation with my neighbor Patty, both of us incredulous at people who still tried to talk to us in-tight face-to-face, like we weren't all suddenly barebacking reality with everyone they'd chit-chatted with that day and everyone in their lives, etc. Patty allowed that she should be able to strike people she considered a threat. I mentioned Florida's attitude toward this legal principle and firearms. I suggested she become militant. I tell that to a lot of people, but I attenuate the humor of it for the audience. I tell every teacher I know to strike.

There are more sirens now. It's hard to tell, because unlike New York, everything isn't quiet. Cars are out on the road—fewer, but enough that hearing a siren can still be vehicular idiocy and not a more sinister house call. But I still hear more of them.

I don’t know why Luke asked me to write about Coronavirus in Florida. I mostly stopped writing last year when a good friend dropped dead in front of his family. (Subscribe to my Substack—we don't update regularly!) Before that, I felt increasingly overborne by events. Things ground to a halt in 2019, but the machine began to break down long before. I ended the 2016 campaign periodically sitting under my desk, high, feeling secure because I wasn't writing anything stupid and feeling good because I was appropriately afraid of everything, but people thought I was exaggerating when I mentioned it.  

I wish I could say my seriousness about the novel coronavirus stems solely from believing in science and peer review and that I would take it seriously regardless, but my spouse is immunocompromised, and my father, who lives out in the Bay Area, had Covid-19, back in March or early April. He didn't tell us kids until he was out of the woods, but for days he had fevers over 103º. My stepmom, a former emergency room nurse, couldn't get him admitted anywhere, because he wasn't having respiratory problems. He woke up the same every day: It felt like someone had parked a Volkswagen on him.

We're supposed to say he's out of the woods. I'll believe that when he dies of old age, or something more reasonable that kills men in my family, like colon cancer or car accidents. Sometimes I think about him dropping dead like my friend, only from whatever post-Covid-19 effect triggers the brain’s forgetting to tell the lungs to breathe—or from the one that leads to storms of strokes, like a brain's blood vessels recreating the burning energies depicted on a CRISS ANGEL MINDFREAK poster. Then I wonder how I would die, or my wife, or my friend in Atlanta, or my brother. I think about drowning in open air, alone in a hissing world, and being incapable of saying the overdue apologies I ran out of time for.

After a while I realized that basically all Luke wanted was to hear from a coward living in the mismanaged kleptocracy of Florida, and the thing is, I can do that! I’m frightened right now!

I considered opening with, Every day I wake up frightened, to throw a fucking jolt into a piece about facing down a pandemic in a place where they have a paradise just for the cheeseburgers. But the joke is, I'm not wastin' away here in Coronaville. Sometimes I wake up and just have to pee, on the rare days when I don't wake up from the sensation of my son elbow-dropping my head because—how rude of me—it's 6:45 already.

In this respect, I am serene: My son and I exercise outside to burn off his energy, so I'm out in the sun for hours a day. I'm tanner, I've lost weight, and my phlegm feels looser. I grew a lushly indifferent goatee. My haircut looks like something that belongs on the gatefold cover of a concept album about a form of locomotion by a band named after geography. While the term "Lebowski Phase" has been applied to my appearance and to the fact that my leg injury and medical-marijuana prescription have collided with the reality of never having to drive anywhere again, I must insist that in many respects I have come to look like Jesus Christ. I am pro life and take no pleasure in reporting this.

As I have said, I am frequently awakened by my son, whose full name is My Beautiful Five-Year-Old Son Maitland. He is a treasure who spends quarantine within earshot of 24-hour news, regurgitating West Wing Democrat observations of mine with five-year-old precocity to harvest follows for Instagram. Maitland is an influencer already on record as supporting L’Oréal, opposing Medicare For All, and, when I first read him the shaggy start to this piece, he said, "Not a good look." He's a natural.

Waking up is violent but easy. The problem is everything after that. By the time I close my eyes, I'm not sure what I felt most on any given day—anger, sadness, impotence, a resentful churning need for vengeance, despair. Any one can seem like a day's dominant emotional dysfunction and then suddenly be overwhelmed by the dread that suffuses prolonged thought about the world outside.

I am one of the people who is Taking It Seriously. Seriously Taking It Seriously, though—not the people who say they're taking it seriously and then tell you about:

• Going to a recent indoor birthday party.

• Having a multi-course dinner at a fancy restaurant, "But it was okay because it was [extremely not-worth-a-life celebration]!"

• A full-contact playdate their kid had recently with two other children.

I abhor these people. I have an existential loathing of these people, and a granular scientific indictment. I enjoy reading new articles to learn new ways in which they are a danger to me. My apprehension is rich and exquisite. May their friends shun them, and may they be abandoned by their gods.

Sooner or later, every day, I think of the threats arrayed against me and my family. Each day, I see the most recent thing said by my governor, Ronald Fuckface DeSantis, in which he explicitly endorses and declares his intent to pursue actions that all available data say will kill Floridians by the thousands. Each day, I think about how, if I do so much as suggest fostering a free exchange of ideas about the proportional value of using every means to stop him, I will be arrested.

Every day, I bounce the "Evil or Moronic?" debate around my brain. I check in with an alumna buddy in Atlanta to see whose governor has shown more recent determination to murder his citizens. I gotta give Brian Kemp credit, because he's really holding his own. Naturally, this leads to wondering if either of them have a natural or acculturated advantage in terms of idiocy and malevolence. DeSantis' enrollment at Yale and Harvard and service in the military problematizes the idiocy narrative only for as long as it takes to remember all the people you've met who've gone to any of them and were dumber than dogshit. It would seem like fate to be murdered by an oaf, but I don't know that it's not merciful to at least be murdered purposefully rather than contemptuously and indolently.

Eventually, this leads to spending some time thinking about DeSantis as a kind of lethal bro angel. It's hard not to see his shitchyeah, brah, people are dyin', it's classic! expression and recognize that the state's chief executive resembles a lout you don't want to run into walking alone at FSU after a home loss. I prefer my jokes about the governor, but my friend David Roth nailed it when he said that DeSantis seemed like a person who would describe himself as “kind of a DUI guy.”

I know there's supposedly a culture war out there. There's a truck in my neighborhood with a Q sticker, and another with a Three-Percenter sticker, and there are more than a few neighbors of the "easily victimized white dude who owns a $50,000 truck he rarely takes off the pavement and who becomes physically belligerent when you correct him" variety, but there's a reason why you really only see “war” shit on YouTube. Few Americans are hostile to general safety protocols, and even fewer act out against them. I live where hate groups and old fashioned unaffiliated redneck trash drive in from the county to make a show of rebel flags, rolling coal and honking to intimidate protests, but people line up six feet apart at Home Depot, wear masks at Publix and get takeout at the pizza place outside without insisting on barging in. Most wars don’t need one side of them to be this manufactured.

Most of my friends and colleagues from this gig live in New York, so I've already sat through weeks of descriptions of streets silent except for ambulances, and I’ve already woken for weeks to the half-twilight of nightmares where friends died in a spare white hallway. There aren't a lot of surprises in store for Florida, and no images I can describe that would make you want to turn back now. It's like we're waiting for the rolling premiere of a franchise blockbuster. The dead won't really start packing them in for a few more weeks, but all the scariest shit hit YouTube when it opened in New York a thousand years ago. The coronavirus as an image, what it functionally is, as a horror, feels as familiar as the Scream mask, and the context that makes that scary as hell already feels dangerously been-and-gone, like an apprehension that Florida had for too long before the actual scare came.

There's a hope that all this will come to little again. Despite Governor DeSantis' refusal to take the initiative on shutting down the state until the last dollar was wrung from the last snowbird, the original shellacking never came. The Tampa Bay Times sampled smartphone data and concluded that Floridians overwhelmingly took the initiative to stay home, and they were aided in their quarantine process by the fact that Florida is car-dependent and atomized.

The heartbreaking realization, as you gradually run across more people who are Not Taking It Seriously or are Expressing Moronic Skepticism, is that for a month there about 80 percent of America was on board with doing the right thing. We, a people who suck at doing the right thing even for the wrong reasons, stood on the side of doing the harder thing if it helped people who weren't even us.

I really can't tell if I feel more anger than sadness at the fact that those who were meant to encourage us in safety, to serve us by offering difficult guidance, wasted our sacrifice and our trust. They squandered the patience given by a beggared and exhausted people. All they had to do was the right thing, and if they weren't sure what that was, they could have erred on the side of saving people’s lives and hoping it counted, and they failed.  

Instead, more people will die, and we'll be shut down again, and we will realize we are fundamentally unequipped for life with Covid-19. Florida is built on enclosed air-conditioned spaces: It's dependent on divorcing yourself from Florida as a climate and place. Asking Floridians to generate a public life under the unshielded rage of God’s angriest sun and baked from beneath by a sprawling pave-ocalypse requires asking them to rebel against everything their infrastructure has taught them for as long as they can remember. It is a car culture to the flesh and bone, and a restaurant relocating indoor tables to a road patio would park its diners inches away from eternity.

A picnic day like that is months off, again. It's time to go back inside and resume Inside Time. Inside Time melts away. I saw a headline around the Fourth of July, from the New York Times, that read, "In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Can’t Have Both," and I remember seeing colleagues tweet, mmmm, so true, and, gets at something crucial we aren't talking about, and shit like that, and I was like, "Buddy, let's get in the DeLorean and visit March." I have nowhere to go, anyway, and all life is timeless.

We have no family in the area and have had no break. It's the three of us, like No Exit, but if most of the dialogue was the word "no" and a lot of stuff about poop and butts and farts, good guys and bad guys, and what Lego Star Wars would do, but with a lot of excruciated pleading for silence because Mom and Dad Are Working Right Now and We Love You Very Much but Jesus Christ Please Stop for the Love of God I Will Give You a Dollar If You Go in Your Room and Be Quiet and Play That Kindle App That Teaches You to Read That You Pay Attention to More Than Us Even Though I Would Read You a Fucking Novel If You'd Just Shut Up and Sit Still.

I'm resigned to staying in here until 2022. I’m screaming, but I will do it. I'm lucky in that I have access to a community pool and a neighborhood where my son and I can roam around on bikes and romp and look at water and birds and turtles. When we're lazy, we have a porch where we can feel nature without feeling exposed. We have a dependable (ok!!! haha!!!) income, and I can do irregularly scheduled work that allows me to be Parent rather than Employee. Exercise, meals and stories take up enough hours that I might as well lean into it.

But we’re lucky. We have a house and prescription mood-altering drugs and one thousand years of undersleep, but we are in less immediate danger than most. The state, almost reflexively, reaches out to open more doors even as Covid-19 blows past reopening benchmark after reopening benchmark.

The inexorable march for commerce doesn’t even come from malice in many cases; people in charge just don’t know how to do anything else but extort and scold people into working under any conditions, so long as it devours most of their time. All the exploitive principles are expected to work the same even if the world they built is fraudulent. We feed meat and the virus into the machines, irrespective of what the data says, and pray for rain. Watching Florida government on the state and local level is like watching two parents bring an alcoholic home after he got kicked out of rehab and deciding that the best course of action is leaving him with $5,000 in an apartment up the street from a dive bar and then going to Cancun for the week. It was on the calendar already, there wasn’t any choice, he looked very healthy at the time!

We have friends who are teachers, and we are scared for their spouses and kids. I don't know what Florida's plan for its teachers is other than to murder them. Again, I don't know if DeSantis is an idiot for flirting with giving enormous bipartisan sympathy to arguably the most effective labor group in the state, or a genius for flirting with finally eliminating a lobbying obstacle to conservative governance by simply liquidating its members as a class.

I worry if I start listing all the things I'm scared of, they'll never stop, but every day I see my son reach for something he should be able to reach for, and I either have a low-grade panic response and stifle it, or I have the panic response and yelp at him to get his attention and tell him to stop, startle him, and add another layer of gun-shy haunting to his day. I'm afraid he'll eventually become an animal in a Skinner Box in which all the buttons and levers are electrocuted, and there are no prizes.

I'm afraid that my son will always be emotionally arrested at two years behind the development of people the same age who had siblings in their house, or who, like many kids in my neighborhood, had parents who thought kids were invincible to Covid-19 and let them play with whomever they wanted. I worry that he may pay a price year after year even into adulthood because other kids got to practice socializing as we rode past. They got to hang out with people their own age and run around and do vitally stupid shit and say "butts" a lot, and he got look at me heartbroken and knowing empirically and epidemiologically that he couldn't play with his friends anymore but still needing to know why, and knowing that I couldn't tell him anything more sophisticated and anything less terrifying than, "So we don't get sick."

The other day he started crying and then screaming, "I hate the sickness! I hate the sickness!" repeating it in a higher and higher register, until he was up even past that piercing birdlike screech that prepubescent boys make whenever trying to sound like lasers or dinosaurs or squealing brakes. Every day I worry that I see another little bit of his capacity for happiness is dying—that the same awkward process of terror that took me from happy little kid to profoundly unhappy teen to scarred adult is even more rapidly at work, and each day another sparkling and joyous little light of childhood winks out in him, replaced by fear as a necessity of life.

I know that there is no plan for us. Conservatives don't want to be taxed or have their businesses lose money, so people are being kicked off unemployment and sent back to work with no test and trace protocols, irregular access to PPE, overwhelmed hospitals and often limited access to any care. We're doing all this as Florida blooms scarlet like paint being spilled into a mold shaped like the state. We're sending the men in the gasoline suits right at the heart of the fire.

It's a cruelly lazy little culling genocide of the working class, a Wall Street gamble that the blow to the labor force won't be more than a blip on the Dow and, a little recession aside, the One Percent will come out ten years later owning an even greater percentage of the United States. To the extent that there is a plan, that's the plan, and whether you land on the dead or the living part of any of those exchanges is more of a Your Problem than a Their Problem.

For now, it's enough to be hermits and hope the rest of Florida goes on strike by going inside and staying there and writing letters to representatives threatening to never come out. Cooking the same things, getting the same exercise in the same places, having the same awkward conversations on VOIP delay, and living every moment outside like we're three drinks in so we’re ready to get belligerent with anyone who is getting too close. Living every moment with some low-level neurasthenia that grows spine-deep and for the rest of our lives sends shuddering disequilibrium at the thought of air that never seems to move, hallways that lengthen without exits, and objects that seem both unavoidable and unclean. It’s fine. We’re all fine, here, now. How are you?

I feel a sudden Git Offa Mah Land thing about my son, a resolute commitment to homeschooling for the foreseeable future and to keeping the gummymint away. It sucks so much. I was so happy to send him to the public school just a few blocks away, instead of the shitty little charter schools nearby, but now that it’s Plague or Parents, he’s got his parents. Between us, he'll have access to 1.5 first-class educations. I still have my grandpa's service weapons from WWII, the last time America was in a war with fascism, when we took the opposing side. I'll empty a couple magazines into anyone who comes onto my property and tries to stop me from teaching my son critical race theory, Howard Zinn, and Leonard Levy's Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side. I refuse to turn my back on the heritage of my youth, of watching thousands of hours of MASH, by refusing to wear a mask outside or in fact any time I am doing anything other than drinking gin that I made in a tent.

Outside, records fall and progress rolls on. A governor whose go-to pejorative for opponents of all ages and sexes is very likely still “queef” watches as even the president concedes that a Republican National Convention here would be too lethal, as the state repeatedly sets records for daily deaths, beats out all of Europe in terms of new daily cases, leads the nation in cases per day, then tries to set them again. And then, every day, our governor makes his ahegao-but-for-ethnic-cleansing face and psychotically clangs a bell indicating that Florida just became the 15,000 customer at Leadshoe Larry’s Kicked-in-the-Dick, and it’s time for all us lucky winners to line up and drop our pants.

Florida’s lethality is so tacky that it’s almost camp, but there is no satisfaction in being right about how wrong everything is. Nobody gets a prize for correctly guessing the surplus death toll. All you have to do is look someone else in the eye working in life under Covid.

I’m old now, so I have Humiliating Injury Syndrome (HIS), and somehow in the month between the Super Bowl and the pandemic, I tore a rotator cuff, a labrum, or both, by throwing a (mini!!!) football with friends. After four months, I broke down and went to get an MRI. I skulked down corridors and lurked in a corner of a waiting room, like playing spies with an opponent who was the air. Even the clean and modern fixtures felt miasmic and corrupted, like they were a parking garage in an Alan Pakula film.

Eventually a nurse emerged from an office, crinkled her brown eyes, waved and surprised me by asking after my family by name. She lives three blocks away from me and had hosted me at a party once. Later that day, as my car coasted down the approach to my house, I saw a garage door open and my neighbor’s son walk out on his way to his shift at the same grocery store that I treat emotionally like a Superfund site.

I thought about how much I unconsciously held my breath where they work, and how I unconsciously associate those places with poor choices. The danger of the world outside is so massive that I reflexively need to cordon off the threat into areas of blame and blamelessness. In a moment of crisis, years of conservative rhetorical conditioning in the discourse have taught me to reflexively pathologize those in harm’s way. There is less chaos if someone is at least responsible for something. There is less risk to me, if it turns out someone else’s epidemic is someone else’s fault.

But it is someone else’s fault. And it’s not some poor fucker doomed to sit in a box somewhere and accept paper money and hand metal money back and point at where toilets are, because that’s how he keeps the lights on. It’s not the person consigned to some life-sucking task that, on the best of days, is too humiliating and cruelly impoverished of purpose to ever be a reason why someone should die. It’s not the person around whom you hold your breath because you don’t know where they’ve been. It’s the person and people who put us all in position to suddenly feel like we’re suffocating together.

I hate that I sometimes unconsciously hold my breath around strangers, and I hate that they have heard it. I think of my neighbors, and of the workers on whom we’re dependent, and the permanent uncertain shortness of breath I feel, and I want every moment of their anxiety and mine gathered up and then rained on those who shepherded it into being, those who nurtured it and feasted on it, those who profited from it and were indifferent toward it. Those who consider themselves DUI guys and those who pay to elect them and give them sinecures and who are simply too rich to be arrested for boating under the influence anymore.

I think of how I hold my breath near good people and near vulnerable people in places I am wary of and that we all need to share, and I wonder if we will simply hold our breath for the rest of the year, and if we’ve bargained for standing near each other and holding it for all of the next. And I wish so eagerly that all our suspended futures and the air between us might catch at the throats of those who put us here. That justice for a man like Ron DeSantis might be a permanent and sucking terror: stuck always in an involuntary startled gasp at the sight of responsibility, afraid at the approach of every stranger, incapable of drawing a full and restful breath, and never knowing peace again.

Jeb Lund used to write about politics for Rolling Stone, The Guardian and Gawker, and a bunch of other places, and was the Spectacle of Trump Editor at 50 States of Blue. He and David Roth have a podcast about Hallmark original movies that is mostly funny and exasperated and not unkind, and it's not ultimately about the movies anyway. It's fine and people enjoy it. Don't make it weird. He also has a podcast where he watches every Dennis Quaid movie in a row. That is also completely normal.

Ok here’s me again with a couple more things.

You’ll want to read this in the New York Times today about a forthcoming documentary on ICE. After it was completed the filmmakers were apparently threatened with legal action by the agency over the inclusion of parts that made ICE look even worse than they already look doing literally everything else they do.

Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.

At town hall meetings captured on camera, agency spokesmen reassured the public that the organization’s focus was on arresting and deporting immigrants who had committed serious crimes. But the filmmakers observed numerous occasions in which officers expressed satisfaction after being told by supervisors to arrest as many people as possible, even those without criminal records.

“Start taking collaterals, man,” a supervisor in New York said over a speakerphone to an officer who was making street arrests as the filmmakers listened in. “I don’t care what you do, but bring at least two people,” he said.

Here’s one disgusting detail among many.

They followed Border Patrol tactical agents who took pride in rescuing migrants from deadly dehydration even as the agents acknowledged that their tactics were pushing the migrants further into harm’s way. They showed how the government had at times evaluated the success of its border policies based not only on the number of migrants apprehended, but on the number who died while crossing.

***

source:

https://luke.substack.com/p/all-they-had-to-do-was-the-right?utm_source=Brooklyn+Today&utm_campaign=dd6f63665c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_28_01_15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ba554d7d5-dd6f63665c-125128182

[broadwaycantdie]

Race’s Quarantine Journal

( Race’s POV ) + ( Diary ) + ( High School AU )

a/n: aka me projecting

sorry this is shitty, i’m just feeling a lot rn and i wanted to get it all out

warnings: mental health, mentions of self harm and death, language

March 10, 2020

Everything has been crazy. People keep talking about some virus going around. It’s probably not too bad, I’ve had the flu before.

March 13, 2020

My school just sent me an email saying we can’t go back until April? Huh? Well at least I can finally get a break. School has been kicking my ass. I need a nice little vacation. I’ll relax and hang out with my friends. A quick little month long break ain’t too bad my senior year.

March 18, 2020

You’re telling me that my teachers are still giving work on this break? And they want me to video chat with them? Hell no. This is my vacation. I’ll just catch up when we go back to school.

March 21, 2020

So my parents aren’t letting me leave the house? It can’t be that bad. Maybe I should do my own research cause there is no way that all these shops should be closing and that I can't leave. I don't know what I’ll do if I’m stuck in this house for a month. All my friends can't leave either. Maybe we can just video chat I guess. I’ll see them soon enough anyway.

March 31, 2020

I’ve done so much research. Everything is so bad. So many people are dying. No one is doing anything about it. Why the fuck isn't anyone doing anything about it? Why are people still going out? Nothing is open. Go home.

April 1, 2020

I woke up today hoping this all was a crazy April Fool’s prank.

I wish I was right.

April 6, 2020

I was supposed to go back to school today.

Instead I got another email saying the closure got extended.

I don’t know when we’ll be able to go back.

April 10, 2020

I’ve been picking up a lot of hobbies.

Mostly I’ve been dancing. It calms my nerves. I’m going crazy in this house.

I tried painting but that got messy. I tried reading some books but words have never been the easiest things for me. I tried playing guitar with an old one I found in the garage but it hurts my fingers too much.

I’ll stick with dancing.

April 15, 2020

I don’t know what else to do. I’ve redecorated my bedroom 3 times and my parents told me if they hear me moving furniture in the middle of the night one more time they’d make me take everything down.

I feel trapped.

April 16, 2020

Maybe I should try to write in here more. That’s the only thing I can think to do. I could do a “what I did today” or a mood tracker. I might actually do the mood tracker but I know all well I won’t do it everyday. Maybe weekly? Maybe every couple days? Maybe whenever I feel like it?

Okay....today I feel: Bored.

April 22, 2020

It's Earth Day. One of my favorite days.

I hope that with the world shut down the Earth can breathe a little easier today.

Today I feel: Hopeful.

April 25, 2020

Today would’ve been my senior prom.

I actually had a date and everything, for the first time. How great would that have been?

I’m not gonna write a lot today. Too sad.

May 1, 2020

I can’t do this much longer. Everything sucks and I feel so stuck. I haven't left my house, I haven't seen my friends, my family is driving me crazy, my sleep schedule is totally fucked, I haven’t been this depressed since middle school, and I can’t do anything about any of it. It fucking sucks.

May 3, 2020

Let’s play a fun game. Okay so I’ll start with 10 fingers up and if this thing has happened put a finger down.

Okay so put a finger down if you really liked someone and you had a good thing going with them but you let the worst person in your life convince you that you shouldn't be with them and that they were the problem so you had to hurt the person you really liked to make the worst person feel better cause they manipulated you and took control of your brain and then the person you liked ended up dating one of your friends and you couldn't even be mad at them cause they were so happy and cute and you were happy for them both but then they broke up and you don’t know if it’s cool to talk to the guy you liked cause your friend is the ex and you haven't talked to them in a long time and they probably hate you cause you hurt him and he wouldn't understand cause your excuse is so shitty and you guys are now so different and life is just really hard and you think about what y’all had and miss it so much cause it was so good and thats all you want, to be loved, and you know it’ll never be the same so you don't even bother.

I’m down to 9 fingers.

God I fucking miss him.

May 4, 2020

For a long time I’ve convinced myself I don’t deserve love and I really think it’s true. That’s all I’ve ever wanted but I’ve done so many bad things what if no one wants me?

Everyone hates me. My friends only pretend to like me. I don’t understand why someone would want to be friends with someone like me. I’m so difficult.

May 6, 2020

It feels like I dropped out.

I’m not doing any school work. I missed my prom. I probably won't have a graduation ceremony. Worst part is, I didn’t drop out. I can’t just move on. I have to just sit with this.

I guess it's not hitting me as hard as some other people because I didn’t even plan to be alive this long so I was already prepared to miss them. It’ll probably hit me soon tho. I just won't let myself breakdown. Not yet.

May 8, 2020

Can I just say something?

I’m so fucking tired of being alone.

Not just cause quarantine, like in general. I want to be loved but I have to fuck everything up all the time, God why am I so stupid all the time?

And I don’t mean my friends just saying “oh I love you!” like no, thats nice, but at the end of the day that’s not the kind of love thats going to marry me, or hold me when I can’t sleep at night, or cook dinner with me.

I’m so tired of being undeserving and undesirable. What is wrong with me? What does everyone hate so much?

If I’m being honest, I cry every night because of this loneliness I feel. I just want it to stop.

May 10, 2020

My panic attacks are getting worse. For no reason.

I panic over things that 3 months ago I would've just pushed away. But now this isolation and fear is making everything so bad.

I started seeing things again. I started picking and twitching and shaking again. I haven't been this bad in a long time. How long before the thoughts come back? The urges? Will I be able to stop them this time? I hope so. I really hope.

May 13, 2020

So I’ve officially reverted back into my childhood state of watching old cartoons all day for any sort of serotonin. It's working a little ngl.

May 15, 2020

I picked up my yearbook today. I drove to my school and they handed it to me through a window. Can’t get it signed, can’t see anyone, can’t do anything.

I don't know if I have the strength to look through it right now knowing I might never see these kids again.

May 17, 2020

I had one of the worst episodes in a while today.

I saw this video and I don’t wanna talk about it cause I don't want to think about it but it made me twitch and shake for so long.

I couldn’t stop. I was so scared. I picked at my skin for a long time. I couldn't open my eyes. My head hurts from shaking for so long.

I just want to go to sleep.

May 20, 2020

My parents are so clueless. Do they really not know? Do they choose to look past it? Do they know and not want to say anything?

Can they not see that I’m not fucking okay?

There is no way they don’t notice how I twitch and shake and pick at my skin. They can’t ignore my tear soaked face almost daily. They might not see when I wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and desperately try to calm myself. But they never ask me if I’m okay.

The answer is “no” if they ever decide to ask.

May 23, 2020

I’m official a high school graduate!

Though it doesn't really feel like it.

I drove to the school and picked up my diploma and that was it. A masked “congratulations” and a piece of paper and that was that.

Congrats to me though. I guess.

May 27, 2020

I feel so empty.

Actually, I don't feel anything.

I just sit here. I don't remember when I last ate. I haven’t gotten out of bed. Haven’t watched anything. Just thinking.

Today is not a good day.

I don't want to be alive today.

I just hope the urges stay at bay. I don't know if I can stop myself this time.

May 30, 2020

I wish I was dead.

Everything I love is being taken away from me.

I want to kill myself. I haven’t felt like this in years. Everything is only getting worse and I can't stop it.

I want to but I can’t. If I try and fail thats selfish cause I’d be taking up space in the hospital for people who actually need it.

I’m useless. I’m powerless. I want out.

May 31, 2020

I’m so sick. I’m so weak. My head is killing me.

I’m not sick, I just feel shitty. Not an uncommon feeling.

I don’t know how much longer I can fight off the urges.

I’m sorry.

I wish I was sick. It would make this whole thing easier. I feel like this will never end. I want out.

I’m sorry.

[dxmichelle]

I am not normally one to throw a whole lot of personal stuff around on my blog, but I feel the need to rant. 

Some big-name grocery stores are paying hazard pay to their employees. $2/hr bonus for having to deal with the customers panic-buying all the eggs, meat, toilet paper, and pasta sauce (but not pasta? What’s all the sauce for???), restocking as much as they can, and dealing with the likelihood of catching COVID-19 just because they have to show up for work because it’s an essential business that can’t close.

That’s great! Now that the employees have to be there, of course, because I’m sure they’d all rather be home, but that their companies are acknowledging that they are what’s keeping the store afloat and are compensating them better for it. Even if it is a temporary boost in pay until the pandemic is over, I’m sure it will not go unnoticed by the team members.

Now. Having said that...

I think I’ve mentioned once before that I work at Walgreens. (If not, it’s no big secret *shrug*). Like any other grocery store and pharmacy, we are an essential retailer that can’t just close down in the face of a serious pandemic. We know the store has to stay open. We don’t expect it to close. Ever. I mean, we’re the only store in town open on Christmas all day. The world can end twice over and we’ll still be selling cigarettes and printing photo orders.

Some of what’s happened to other stores (read: grocery) has happened with us. My store in particular is out of toilet paper and paper towels, milk, eggs, sanitizer, etc. All those nice things that the panicking hoarders bought everyone out of within two weeks or so, they’re gone. They’ve been gone. And it’s near impossible to get it back in stock.

We’ve had customers give us shit because we don’t have any paper goods, cleaning supplies, disinfectant, masks, gloves, rubbing alcohol, heck - even the Tylenol is all gone. You know how much OTC pain medicine we keep on the shelves year-round? TONS. And it’s wiped clean. Even the generic Tylenol is out. It’s nuts. 

“Why are you still out of everything!? Don’t you guys receive trucks anymore?”

“When are you getting “[name that product]” in?”

“WHY DON’T YOU EVER HAVE TOILET PAPER?”

Okay, truth be told, we have been getting paper goods back in stock. By the third hour it’s been restocked to the floor, it’s gone again, and that’s with setting a harsh limit per customer. We’ll get maybe two bottles of hand sanitizer in a week. Clorox or Lysol wipes and disinfectant spray? Forget it.

The Tylenol is a recent addition to the “whoop, it’s gone!” club. We’ll probably restock just fine on it, but it might take a week or so. ...Or maybe it won’t. Who knows.

I can see exactly what comes in on each truck before it arrives. But I can’t tell the customers that in fear they’ll storm the truck or something before we’ve finished unloading it. 

“Our truck comes later this week. We can’t guarantee what’s going to be on it.”

Which is true, because essentially every distribution center is out of all the things people want. 

And because we are also a pharmacy, where the sick come to get the medicine to feel better, we are constantly in the line of fire for picking up whatever illness our customers drag through the front door. Doesn’t have to be COVID-19. People don’t know how to stay the fuck home when they’re ill.

You would think that all the Karens and the Susans who bought all the hand soap, sanitizer and face masks would have better sick etiquette, but nooo, they’re the ones not covering their mouth and nose and spreading their germs all over everyone and everything.

And don’t even get me started on how dirty money is.

So, being such a large and well-respected(?) retail pharmacy, what has Walgreens done for our employees in these troubling times of uncertainty and unease for their team members?

1. 2 weeks of paid sick pay but only if you’ve been confirmed to have COVID-19. And since testing is so readily available (HA), if you have flu-symptoms and choose to stay home and self-isolate, you can! But it comes out of either your PTO, or goes unpaid. 

And if your child is home because no school and you have no one to watch them? It’s fine to stay home, but you won’t get paid unless you pull PTO. If you have it.

2. Social distancing markers! There are tape lines on the floor for the checkout and pharmacy lines. Except that when you need the pharmacist for a consult and you’re at the window, or standing at the pharmacy/front checkout counter, it is impossible to stand 6ft away. What, am I supposed to let the customer throw the money at me? Am I supposed to ring out their purchases and fling the bag back at them? Let me tell you a secret: it doesn’t work.

3. Discouraged wearing of gloves and masks at the front register. Okay, I see the point behind these. Not that anyone has masks to wear, mind you, but they don’t prevent the catching of COVID-19. And wearing gloves just keeps the dirt and germs on the gloves, and keeps you from frequently washing your hands, which is what everyone recommends you doing anyhow. But...realistically. The checkout cashier doesn’t have the ability after every 2 transactions to go wash their hands. And sanitizer is really only so effective. Either way, it’s not stopping whoever wants to wear gloves from wearing them, so we have gloves up front to use. 

4. Sent care packages to help us clean, and reduced store hours. My store was open 8am-10pm. Now it’s 9am-9pm. That hour in each direction really doesn’t do a whole lot of difference. The idea is to clean, disinfect everything, and restock in the new time window that the store is now closed. Which is fine. But we don’t have anything to restock, our stockroom is BARE. And those care packages for the store to use? A case of toilet paper that I could have ordered myself when ordering supplies, a 6-pack of paper towels, two tubs of Clorox wipes, a box of 30 gloves. Oh yes, this will last a long time... We’ve also been given the go-ahead to expense any product off the shelf that we need to keep the store disinfected. 

...Expense what!? THE SHELVES ARE EMPTY.

---

To give my company some credit, they are very good at keeping us updated with what’s going on. There are usually message posts every/every other day, and I honestly do feel like they are trying to do well in a situation that is trying for just about everyone. 

Many team members have spoken up in comment forums with concerns, and they are doing what they can to address them.

Now, having said that....

(Remember that first paragraph about hazard pay? I know it was like a year ago up there at the top of the post)

Today, 3/22/20, Walgreens announced that they are giving their store and distribution team members a one-time bonus to show their appreciation for us. 

We, the team members ringing out all of our customers purchases while they cough and sneeze uncovered in our general direction, the pharmacy technicians and pharmacists dealing with angry and impatient patients because the lines are long and everyone’s trying to get early refills on their medications, on top of the usual crowd in for their regular pickup or just trying to drop off a new script. We the team members having to placate the customers by walking into an empty stockroom, look at the empty shelving for 10 seconds so we can then walk back out and assure them that “no, we really are out of face masks and rubbing alcohol”. 

We hourly team members fighting the fight on the front lines and praying to whoever we believe in that we don’t contract COVID-19 from anyone and everyone, will get a one-time bonus of $300 for full-timers, and $150 for part-time, at the end of APRIL.

Are. You. Serious?

I realize that it is better than them shrugging their shoulders and doing absolutely nothing. For many people, I’m sure it’ll be welcome. I can definitely use the $300, considering I lost all my hours at my second job and am going to probably be short in the upcoming months. 

But, as this is a bonus, it’ll probably be taxed to hell. I’ll probably really see only half of it. And when you break it down, it’s like a $.53 raise, for four weeks. But you have to wait four weeks to get it. 

We are just as vital as the grocery store down the street. The fact that Walgreens think that this will placate its worried employee-base is completely out of touch. But then again, the people making these decisions are probably doing so from the comfort of home and not in the stores super busy with customers standing on top of each other, and us while they grab the last can of soup and box of vinyl gloves available. 

For us fighting to keep everyone else happy and healthy, this is a slap in the face and a punch to the gut. 

If I am going to work every day, risking my health and the health of my family just so everyone else can pick up their essentials...and non-essentials, I should be compensated for it. Without us in the stores, no one is getting their good sad stare at the toilet paper aisle, ranting over the lack of Tylenol, or waiting in line for that flu shot they should have gotten at least 5-6 months ago.

Not to mention...you know...getting their medication. That’s important too.

It’s time Walgreens gave us the hazard pay we deserve. And conveniently enough, several days ago, someone started a petition in hopes that might happen.

So if you’ve made it to the end of my rant, and want to try and help out a frustrated shift manager, or any of the other thousands of store and DC employees who must feel extremely slighted right now, feel free to click and sign. There are already 45,000+ signatures. Every bit helps.

And if not? Maybe signal boost this post. It might wander onto the blog of another Walgreens employee just as frustrated as I am. Who knows.

Thanks for reading,  Michelle the disgruntled employee