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ajokeformur-ray · 5 years ago

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My One Companion // Ezzie x J // soft NSFW (sensual) and fluff.

Summary: Cozy. Home. J coming home after wreaking havoc in the streets of Gotham to someone who loves him even though he's rough and callous. He likes it and he'll never admit to it, but I know he does. Begrudging but not reluctant cuddles, J receives some much needed TLC. Sensual cuddles/light smut. @ezziesworld

A/N: asdfghjkl Ezzie omgggggg~ girl I love you <333 you’re such a treasure and such a wonderful person!!! I wanted to do this for you because you do so much for us and you’ve never been anything but endlessly kind to me so I hope that you enjoy this!!! If you want anything redone, please let me know!! ILYYYYY ~ <33333

Also, I’m so so sorry that this is late omgggg~ I hope the length makes up for it!! <3 I reread your Domestic Bliss series and because you referenced it when you gave me your personal info., I did my best to incorporate some pieces of it in this gift!! <3

Word count: 4, 965.

J had been gone for days.

Long stretches of time without your clown were torture for you. You hadn’t heard a single thing from him or even any of his men. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he safe, was he okay? Was he... was he dead? No - you shook that thought from your mind as quickly as it had occurred to you. You didn’t want or need to go down that path, it would only lead to deeper feelings than you were able to stomach or process at the moment.

Oh, but you were so sick with worry for J.

Like the previous three days in a row did the time trickle past, somehow so slowly that you barely noticed and yet so quickly that you did. You felt stuck in limbo, just waiting. Unknowing of where J was or if he was okay. Unsure of what was going to happen, of when he was coming home. Yes, you were waiting for a man to come home and a part of you bristled at that, but the larger part of you, the part which had never bothered to fight what you had with J, was pleased, for surely your worry was the greatest proof you currently possessed of just how dearly, how deeply, you loved J.

Love...

Yes, you loved J. You adored every single thing about him. You had never been afraid of him, not even for a second. You were pretty emotionless as a person, but there was just something so otherworldly, so ethereal about J that you couldn’t help it. He was so intriguing and the numerous layers of darkness you saw in him only added to the overall mystery which surrounded him. You would truly never know J; he was the kind of person who invented himself each and every day. Some days he was a psychopathic killer, other days he was a true jester... every day with your clown was different and you only loved him all the more for it.

The more you thought about J, the more love bloomed in your chest. The heat of such an emotion, so intense and so all-consuming was it that it was bigger than you, spread strongly through your veins and warmed you to the very tips of your toes. Though you knew not where J was, what he was doing, the knowledge that he was out there somewhere as you looked out of the window kept you company. Loneliness lingered in the air of the apartment but it was kept away with thoughts of J. Of that intense chocolate gaze, of that hastily applied greasepaint which he rarely, if ever, fully washed off. Any part of his paint which came off was only painted over. J was almost always covered in at least five layers of greasepaint and it so perfectly represented who he was; he was just a man, just human like you were, but he was protected by layers and layers of mystery, intrigue...

Oh, he was so beautiful.

The longer you thought about J and the more you thought about how he wasn’t here, you only missed him more. You only loved him more, for all that he was and all that he would ever be. If you had your way, he would have come home days ago. Hell, he may even have never left. You knew that J was more than capable of looking after himself. He was most often the one behind riots and fights, heists, of entire buses being tipped over the edge of a bridge... though he said that he never had plans, he always had ideas. It didn’t matter how or why or when those ideas were carried out to fruition, just so long as they were. J could take care of himself, but you worried about him often. It was enough to drive you crazy, but the multiple layers of darkness in J called out to the darkness in you and you found yourself answering his call each and every day. You wondered if perhaps what the two of you shared together, had built together, was unhealthy in some ways, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. If J asked you to jump, your first and only question would be “how high?”. So long as you had J in your life, for all that he was, all that he had ever been and all that he ever would be, why... you had the world.

Perhaps that was why you stayed, no matter how much you missed him, no matter how much he put you through, no matter how long he was gone without a single word to you. J may have been a man of his word but he didn’t use them very often. He was a man of action. If he wanted to do something, he did it. He lived simply, when you really and truly thought about it. He was a man without rules, without plans. J was impulsive, reckless. He kept you on your toes each and every day and no two days were exactly the same. But there was one thing, just one, which you clung to no matter what he said or did: J always, always came home to you eventually. He never said that he was coming back, or when, but you knew that he would. You trusted him, you loved him, and you knew that there was no real reason to worry; J was always just fine and he always came home to you. He was rough and callous but you knew that he liked the tenderness which you greeted him with every time he came through your window; dirty, greasy haired and stinking to high heaven of gunpowder, gasoline and greasepaint, but what mattered was that he stayed. He stayed with you, beside you, and it was for this reason that you did, too. In staying with you, in coming home to you as he did, was J revealing all the untold truths of your situation together. J’s love language was one very few in the world even bothered to hear, let alone listen to, but you... oh, but you had taken the time to learn his love language as intimately as you knew your own, and it was so loud.

It was getting dark outside. You had been stood at the window for some time now, watching the gloomy grey Gotham sky darken into darker hues of purples and blues, which blended together so perfectly as the sun dipped below the horizon. The colours, like a gigantic bruise, as if the world was hurting, only darkened the longer that you stood there watching, waiting, for J. Oh, how had he reduced you to this? A part of you wondered if he stayed away for longer on purpose, just to see what you would do. Social experiments were one of J’s favourite things to do, he loved exposing the darkness in people. As the beautiful shades of the sky became black, the vast limitless expanse of the night sky was left unpunctuated by stars or constellations, so filled with pollution was the city air. It poisoned your lungs each and every day, the city dragged you down and made you feel like you were less than you were. You doubted things precious to you, things you needed as much as you craved oxygen, but J... oh, but J was able to breathe life back into you. He was your reason and your purpose, your drive... he was your everything. J reminded you each and every day of the things which truly mattered and he didn’t even have to try to do so; he achieved it simply by being his refreshingly chaotic self. J didn’t care. He was a true nihilist and his views, his attitudes, were both liberating and depressing; life was just a bad joke. Nothing needed to be taken as seriously as it was and in J did you find peace with yourself and your place in the world. He was right, when you really thought about it all; what did it matter? You would die one day anyway, so you may as well have fun while you’re here.

Your thoughts had no chance to go further, to explore your own views of J’s attitudes, for there was a loud bang at the window and you jumped back at the sight of a ghostly white face and large, black eyes, and - over the pounding of your heart and the roaring in your ears of blood did reality kick in and you realised that there was no ghostly apparition at the window. No. J was home. You gasped, relief and love flowing through your body as you flung yourself forward and almost ripped the window open to let your clown home. J was home. “J, what are you doing? Why didn’t you just use the door?” Oh, but the many risks of harbouring a terrorising murderous clown gave you near daily heart attacks and so much anxiety, but you never regretted it for even a second. J coming home to you meant that he trusted you, that your space was safe. It meant that he was safe with you and it was one of the loudest displays of affection, at the very least, which he could show you.

J lowered himself across the frame, his upper body being lowered carelessly. His head hit the carpeted floor with a dull thud and you winced as gracelessly did his legs follow suit until there was a messy purple puddle of a man on your bedroom floor, his limbs everywhere. Oh, lord, he did not smell good but you didn’t even want to know what he had been doing since he had left without saying anything to you. Any information he gave you, even if it was false or a half truth, could incriminate you. It could put you in danger and that was one thing which J would not stand for. In fewer words had J sworn to always protect you and as such, he never told you anything, not even lies for most often are they grounded in some semblance of truth. Nothing and no one would ever harm you on J’s watch, and that included any harm which you could do to yourself with your fears, anxieties, doubts and worries. You were completely and utterly safe with J. There was nothing you could ever say or do which would send him away. Nothing surprised him, not really, but you did have one advantage over the man who was always the smartest one in the room: your feelings for him surprised him constantly. For so long he thought that you were only showing interest in him because of his title as the clown prince of crime, because of his status in the city. For protection, for money, for brags. But you proved him wrong every single day and it was the one thing which always caught him by surprise.

That, and how fierce you were when you looked after him.

Like right now.

J wasn’t moving. He had just... clumsily rolled in through your hastily opened window and not even bothered to break his own fall, and now he was just lying there. You were torn between being amused and being concerned for how little he cared for his own well being. “Where would you be without me, J?” With an exasperated groan, you reached out for your clown and slid your hands between his armpits, getting as firm a grip on him as you could. “You gotta help me get you up, J. I’m not as strong as you.” Oh, but you were. You were a firecracker who was more than capable of holding her own, and you both knew it. In this instance, you only meant physical strength, and J emitted the softest of grunts which really told you just how physically exhausted he was.

J groaned tiredly as you hauled him up, just barely holding your own weight. You were an exact foot shorter than J. Your much smaller frame was not designed to hold up someone as broad and as muscular as J was, and even through his many layers could you feel the definition of his biceps as you walked with him to the bathroom. You kept a steadying arm around his waist and ignored his protests of, “Ezzie, ya don’t gotta smother me” and “stop handlin’ me”. He was more tired than he was letting on and you both knew it. He was rough and callous but you knew that he had missed you as much as you had missed him, and you also knew that even though he would never admit it, he appreciated all the ways you took care of him. If he had been alone, he would have simply fallen asleep right there on the floor, unshowered, unfed, dehydrated and stinking the room out. He would have woken up with muscle aches beyond what was comfortable and you both knew that even though you were using a firm hand with him, it was a needed one. It was for his own good and you were almost wholly convinced that his grumbling was all just for show, even with how he was almost dead on his feet. J was ever the dramatic man and right now was no different. J appreciated you for everything that you were, hell, even all the things that you weren’t because you were always so unashamedly yourself no matter what you went through.

J had a softer than soft spot for you, and as a result, you were his one and only weakness.

But you never held it over his head. You never questioned it, you never allowed yourself to. You simply accepted J for all that he was and in return did he accept you for all you were. You had taken each other on for all that the other was and you only had a deeper connection for it. Gotham was a city in desperate need of a complete overhaul and everything was chaos. Within that often terrifying lack of order and certainty, you found each other. Two souls, set apart from the rest of the city, had come together and forged such a beautiful and raw connection. Sometimes, when J missed you (not that he would ever admit it, even to himself), he found himself whispering your name to keep him company in a way no one else ever could. No one had gotten as close to him as you. Your name fell from his full lips like a litany and the repetitions blended and merged together until it was the music which he danced to, the song which accompanied the beating of his own heart; for surely you were in there, too.

So often did you play through J’s mind like the most intoxicating symphony. It was maddening, really, the effect that you had on him and you didn’t even know it. You were a strong woman, powerful and so much of you was untouched by J; each and every day did he learn something new about you. That excitement kept him on his toes; you both presented a mystery to the other but you would never solve one another. Your depths were murky, full of contradictions and of untapped potentials and of so much life. Oh, but you and J were so well suited to one another. If either of you were romantics, you would suggest that you were soulmates. At the very least, it was certainly true that you both saw something in the other which kept you coming back for more time and time again. Perhaps that was all that soulmates were; two people who keep falling back together again and again and again for a reason neither of them knew, though each day did they feel it.

You flicked on the water in the shower and slowly, carefully, did you peel J’s royal purple trench coat off his body, mindfully lowering it to the floor. No doubt he had grenades, smoke bombs and the like in there, not to mention the copious blades he kept on him. You undressed his top half and then his bottom half, your eyes moving over his body both appreciatively and critically as you checked him over; looking for cuts, bruises, injuries... oh, but you couldn’t stand the thought of J suffering any kind of pain beyond that which you had inflicted upon him yourself, and it was definitely the same for J when it came to you. Two sets of brown eyes met as J stepped into the shower. He held a hand out for you to take, to help you in once you had undressed yourself, too, and your heart leapt at this small sign of affection from him. His heart was unlocked to you this night, his guard completely lowered. Before you, as you poured shampoo onto your hand, J’s head under the showerhead, wasn’t The Joker or J. Before you was Jack, the human underneath the person the entire city perceived to be a monster. He wasn’t a monster, this you knew, and well, and though you loved who he was and the way that he created himself each and every single day, your heart bled when all of those layers and all of those masks fell down, fell off, and the man beneath it all, when the beauty of who he was, of who he really was, was exposed to you.

You treasured these times like nothing else.

“Come here, J,” You began to lather up his greasy hair, which began to foam up sea green. It’d need a re-dye soon, this you could see, and you wondered idly if he’d let you do it for him. J groaned tiredly, low in his throat, his head tipping back, back, exposing the column of his neck as greasepaint ran down his skin, creating a river of white, black and red which ran down his body, chased away by the hot water. Coupled with the feeling of your nimble fingers in your hair, J was well and truly on the way to falling asleep. His entire body felt so heavy, like it was on clouds, and he found himself sinking into your touch. J trusted you, he realised somewhere in the back of his mind. As shampoo suds ran off his body, cleansing hair and flesh alike, J tipped forward, forward, hunching down, down, so that he could rest his forehead on the slope of your shoulder. You smiled, you smiled, and you pressed a kiss to the top of his fully washed hair, rubbing your hands up and down your back as you used those shampoo suds to wash his back; it was all the same stuff, you knew, but you also knew that J was well and truly too tired to be in the shower for much longer.

“J, you can’t sleep here.”

A grunt, a sigh, and J wrenched himself upwards, shaking his hair like a dog. “I’m up, I’m up,” He sighed heavily and eyed you. “Aren’t’cha gonna shower too, doll?”

You’d almost forgotten about yourself, so concerned for J were you. You had just recently dyed your hair various shades of purple, blue and green and it didn’t really need a wash just yet. Your hair was mostly dry because J had been in the direct path of the water, and you shook your head. “No, I showered yesterday. Let me take you to bed, okay? You’re exhausted.” Blindly did J shut off the water, his eyes closed and his body relying on muscle memory. He grabbed the towel slung over the top of the shower and dried himself off with broad, swift strokes of the towel on both arms, his legs, his shoulders... J fluffed up his hair, not caring for how tangled it would be as a result, and you let him do this; at least he was keeping himself awake. You suspected that he was being rough with the towel to wake himself up, as well as a general and genuine lack of care towards his own person, something which never failed to make your heart twinge in your chest.

You hadn’t mentioned your own exhaustion. You didn’t tell J about how worried and how anxious you had been for him, for where he was and for how he was. Despite his current behaviour, you knew that he wasn’t a man who appreciated being coddled. He didn’t need looking after and times previous when you had tried to do just that had he scoffed at you and rolled his eyes, adjusted his braces and said something along the lines of, “quit naggin’ at me, Ezzie". Sometimes it made you angry but sometimes you didn’t really care. You had long since learned to be unbothered by J’s rough and callous manner. It was who he was and you loved him unconditionally. You wouldn’t ever change a single thing about him and you knew that he felt the same way about you, whether he said it or not. He didn’t need to; everything you ever need to hear J say was in those gorgeous chocolate eyes.

J knew that you were exhausted. He knew that you had missed him. He liked the way that you hadn’t said anything, too, because to him it only made it that much more meaningful when, as he finally collapsed into bed after being on his feet for over three days (how he was still awake at this point, even he didn’t know, but he suspected that his military past had something to do with it), you were instantly laying your head on his chest. Your ear pressed down hard over the spot where his heart was and you heard it beating fiercely through his warm flesh. Oh, but he was like a heater. J always ran hot, even in the dead of winter. He chuckled darkly, lazily, like he almost couldn’t be bothered to even express himself but his amusement overshadowed his need for sleep in that moment. “Ya’ just can’t resist me, can ya’, Ezzie?”

You made a sleepy noise, already feeling the heavy shackles of sleep binding you to the bed, to the duvet which fell so perfectly over your weary form, the way the mattress and J’s body kept you safe, sane... honest in who you were as finally did you succumb to your body’s needs. You had barely slept since he had been gone, only catching snatches of sleep every now and then. Running on naps was not ideal but without your clown could you not rest and you knew, somewhere in the back of your mind, that it was the same for J, too. He never truly relaxed, vigilance was simply integral to who he was after all he had said, after all he had done and experienced and been through. “No, but neither can you.” You raised your head and grinned at J, and he merely cocked an eyebrow in response.

J made a show of pushing you off of him, leaving your body feeling cold, empty without him there beneath you, but then he moved so fast that your naked eyes couldn’t catch up to the movement as he managed to get you on your back. He loomed over you, his hips snug against yours. You could feel his thick cock resting against your inner thigh; he was already half erect and you wondered what it was this time that had done it for him. In truth, nothing had. It was leftover adrenaline which was still coursing through his veins which still had him unable to fully rest, to succumb just as you wanted to do to the blissfully numbing effects of sleep. Morpheus was determined, this you both knew, but the feelings which you had for each other were even more so and after any kind of absence of J’s part did they demand to be felt. There could be no escaping the sweetness of reunion intimacy, even and most especially now.

Your hands, which had been resting on his shoulders as you fought for some semblance of control, over the situation, over reality, slid up, up, into his wet hair, the strands sticking to your fingers. You gripped at those strands and J hissed air in through his teeth as you pulled back, exposing that slender column of your neck. Your lips attached to his neck and J pushed himself into your touch, wanting more of everything. J was your religion and you daily laid worship at his altar. Your open mouthed kisses were slow, reverent as you truly loved on him; as you told him that you loved him over and over and over again with your lips, your hot pink tongue leaving the warm cavern of your mouth as you licked and sucked and marked J as your own in all the same ways that he had done to you in the past.

J’s hands gripped your hips tight, his hold on you bruising. There would be marks on the both of you after this but it was needed, it was wanted; that irrefutable proof that you owned each other; that you were J’s and that he was yours and that, no matter how far he strayed, no matter where he went, no matter what he did or who he was, that he would come home to you. You, with your brightly coloured hair, your gorgeous tattoos and those eyes which so captivated J and held his attention. Only you could ever hold J’s attention for long, but even so did he pull himself from your grip, his hands sliding up your body, his flesh ghosting across yours as he grabbed your face in both hands and kissed you hard. His lips were as bruising as his hands and as he devoured your mouth with his own could you feel the slightly greasy film which remained on his face, the outline of his teeth against yours... oh, but you were on fire and though you were both naked, though you could feel J pressed against your core so deliciously that it was driving you mad with want, with passion, there was nothing sexual in this. No, this was sensual, intimate... this was two souls coming home to each other for the first time in several days.

As quickly as he had kissed you was J gone, moving off of you completely and laying beside you. He groaned, low and deep and passed a hand over his face, looking well and truly fucked. There was a blackness under and around his eyes which could have been leftover greasepaint, but it could also have been real tiredness. Insomnia, nightmares... you knew not what plagued your J but both of you had barely slept since he had left, so in the end you chased away all questions. You wanted J to ask you to cuddle, you wanted him to show that he wanted your body against his as much as you wanted his against yours, but you wouldn’t ask. You wanted him to show you how much you meant to him, in any way he felt comfortable.

But this time, for whatever reason... he told you.

Time ticked past without event, marked only by your breathing. For every inhale you took did J exhale; so alike were you that even your natural systems aligned in some way. You were just on the edge of sleep and then J cracked one eye open and you felt him turn his head to look at you, shuffling over so that he was laying on your hair. The slight sting of that pulling sensation made you look at him. Two sets of dark brown eyes met and J grinned maniacally, his eyes alight with mischief but also with something which tugged your own heartstrings and he grabbed you roughly, his movements slow, as he tugged you into his body. J rutted against you a few times, his cock pressing into your cheeks, his full lips pressing kisses to wherever he could reach. His hands, fingers splayed so that he could touch as much of you as he could all at the same time, moved up and down your uppermost arm, chafing some warmth into you.

“I had, ah - a rough time without ya’, Ezzie.”

You heard what J said, his voice soft, tired, but you listened to what he didn’t and it was this that made you smile and reach a hand back, blindly feeling for his hair. Your fingers slid into his hair and you pushed your body into J, wanting all of him aligned with you. So much shorter than him were you that your feet barely reached his shins, but that barely mattered for J tucked one of his muscular legs between both of yours, anchoring the two of you together for the night. You had no doubt that he would wake you up with a similar activity, once you were both more awake and aware of yourselves and each other, but for right now you could only feel his heated flesh against yours, still slightly damp from his shower, his clumsy, sloppy kisses against your back as he reassured himself of your existence, of your presence beside him, and the love which, though always was it unvoiced, was so potent, so rich that it was like a third entity in the room with you. It shielded you and protected you both. It kept you both safe, sane... and honest.

Finally, finally, had J come home, and so had you.

#heath ledger #heath ledger imagine #ledger!joker #ledger!joker imagine #the dark knight #the dark knight imagine #tdk #tdk imagine #heath ledger joker

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bidean-byedean · 4 years ago

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new piece on AO3

xvi. family

Day 16 of the SPN advent calendar (not festive)

You stop for the night.

Rated: G // Tags: second person POV, outsider POV, finale denialist, post-canon/canon divergent, bar owner Dean, everyone is alive and in love, domestic fluff // Ships: Dean/Cas, Sam/Eileen, Claire/Kaia // Word count: 5.6k

The bar is unassuming, gentle, welcoming. Tucked away but easy to find, if you’re looking. It’s still the midwest after all. Dean knows how much it looks like the old haunt; some of it deliberately mimicked, some of it inevitable features of the genre, some of it only became apparent in certain lights, like a ghostly apparition in a foggy bathroom mirror. These things that were hidden until Sam laid eyes on the place for the first time, or an old regular froze in the doorway, or after hours when Dean is cleaning up and swears he heard Jo’s soft giggle.

When this happens, he pauses. Braced against the reclaimed wood of the bar, desperately straining his ears into the nothingness, begging for one more note. It’s only when a warm hand settles on his shoulder, always his left, somehow always, that he realises what he’s doing. There’s only one place that his prayers echo out anymore and all they do is remind Cas of all the things that Dean has lost, of all the parts of Dean’s life that he did not know, that he cannot restore. But at least now the old Hunter does not flinch at his touch. His body relaxes into the large, steady hand; grounded, brought back to the present where Jo’s laughter is an eternal echo that makes it neither real nor unreal. If their lives had taught them anything, the distinction is arbitrary.

Cas helps him collect the last of the glasses, stacking them into long, precarious towers. Not as tall as the ones Dean makes; he’s not as easy in his body, not as used to being observed, and he hates the sound of shattering glass, hates the silence afterwards, hates that moment of momentum when the breaking is about to happen and is happening and has happened. For angels, it’s always about to happen and happening and happened. Or, it used to be like that. When and so it is written meant something. Before, when it was Castiel and Dean Winchester, not now, in the after, when it is Cas and Dean.

There’s something deeply absurd happening here. You feel it when you first visit and you realise. Pulling off of a hunt in nowhere middle America, aching in your bones and, depending on what you killed, your heart, and you remember that Dean Winchester - yeah, that Dean Winchester - opened a bar around here. It’s already ridiculous, considering the things you’ve heard. Only half of them can be true, mostly the half that you can reconcile with your understanding of the truth.

John Winchester’s boy? Haven’t you heard?

Haven’t you heard he has a face you’d pay twice the going rate for? Haven’t you heard he’ll take it? Haven’t you heard he’s the best Hunter of his age? Haven’t you heard he sold his soul? Haven’t you heard an angel brought him back? Haven’t you heard he lost it again? To John? To the devil? To God? Haven’t you heard he was the most feared monster in Purgatory? Haven’t you heard losing his soul was nothing compared to losing his brother, to losing his angel, to losing his angel again, and again, and again?

Haven’t you heard? They’re in love.

So you roll up to the door of the bar and it just looks like a bar because the warding is painted beneath the sign holding the name, and the devil’s trap is in the shadows of the ceiling, and hex bags are stowed inside of the cushions of the stools, and a silver rosary consecrated by softly sung blessings, murmured by the human mouth of an Angel, sits in the water tank. Even if you know, you do not know. But you feel safe here, that is the point, the commandment of the space; welcome and be welcomed. And maybe you sit at the bar, tired and alone and lonely, surrounded (for the first time?) by people with whom you can speak freely and you realise the weight of speaking in code, always hiding, bearing a burden that sears into your soul until you’re not sure you have one anymore. You hear they burn out, that you can use them up, and then what are you?

But tonight you’re safe behind the warding and in front of a bar with a surprisingly pretentious beer menu and burgers that come with avocado and the word seasonal in front of some of the offerings. But there are people you’re familiar with, even if you don’t know them, you know them. Their faces hold the same weariness, their clothes practical or incongruous by design, masks and costumes and performances, all finally relaxed. So relax.

Maybe you haven’t seen him since before John died, or before he went to Hell, or before he killed God(?), but that doesn’t matter. Maybe you read the books, enjoying being in the know, enjoying that you enjoy them differently from all the other people that enjoy them, for better reasons. Maybe his name is a myth passed from Hunter to Hunter, monster to monster, or between the two (is there a two? You try not to think about this too much). Older now, so much older than he could’ve ever hoped for. Masculine in every way you hope to be masculine, if you really understand what it means, but by hoping and understanding you fail. He’s tall and broad shouldered, and wears a flannel shirt over a band tshirt and dishtowel over his shoulder, and his jaw is sharp and hard and stubbled, and his eyes framed by deep crow’s feet; he sees you and you feel seen. His forearms are too tanned for the season, but you’re distracted by how they flex under the skin, and his hands are big and rest on the wood in front of you, just hands now, but they might as well be an armoury for all the death they’ve caused.

So, maybe you’re suddenly afraid because the things you didn’t want to be true? Suddenly reality has shifted and not only do they reconcile with the truth, they are immutable from it, it is more impossible that impossible things don’t happen to this man.

Then he smiles.

“What can I get ya?”

His voice is so low it’s like traffic from a highway just out of sight from your motel room, that when you lie in the dark becomes part of your body, as essential to your existence as the thudding of your heart and the huffing of your lungs and the buzzing from the dying lights in the walkway outside. It’s atomic. It’s celestial.

Wasn’t the other one supposed to be an angel?

You don’t know. You’re not used to having choices. Simple choices, selfish ones, luxurious ones: if you want fries or steak-cut chips, American or Swiss, IPA or stout or lager, light or dark, or spirits. It embarrasses you, how difficult it is, in the face of meaninglessness, how do you fare?

“Just a beer, man.”

“I gotcha,” he tips his chin understandingly and gets to work.

Probably gets this all the time, an understood consequence of stepping outside of the comfort zone. Your comfort zone, not his, you realise. This is his domain, his playground, his paradise on Earth, as was the promised bounty for fighting on humanity’s side in the war. The one no one else had to fight in because he did.

Did he still have the sword?

‘German pilsner.”

“It’s good.”

His smile seems genuine and so is your surprise.

“What you here for?”

You keep your eyes on his, if you blink, you’ll see it again. “Shifter. Of a sort.”

“Mmm.”

“Then home.”

That catches his interest. “Where’s home?”

“Iowa.”

Then he opens the ground beneath you: “Who’s home?”

“Whoever’s left.”

He grunts appreciatively, his gaze flickering over his shoulder. You notice the bands on his fingers. Silver, you assume pure, but it catches the light in a way that isn’t quite right, you stare at it. He twists it with his thumb, an unconscious habit, a soothing touch, a comfort. Even a Winchester needs comforts. It’s a comfort in of itself.

A young woman, her blonde hair half-braided and threaded with metal, slides over the top of the bar, her leather trousers giving her enough slip over the wood. Her heavy boots thud onto the ground and she grins manically at his frown.

“What have I told you about-“

“Yeah, yeah, nice to see you too, old man.”

She kisses him on the cheek, he rolls his eyes, but leans into it, his mouth quirking upwards at the corners. Another woman appears, dark skinned and soft-eyed, she walked around the bar, civilised and grounded. The blonde throws her arm over her shoulders, you remember who they are: Claire and Kaia Nieves. The daughter of an Angel and a Dreamwalker. You heard they spared a family of werewolves on the West coast, you heard there’s a network for them, monsters who are not monstrous. You don’t like to think about what that means for you. The things you’ve done.

“Where is he?” He gestures to the back and they disappear. He looks after them, his face soft and open; you can’t imagine him torturing souls in Hell.

There are pockets of people throughout the bar: loners like you, pairs and trios quietly nursing their sustenance, groups crowding round tables, pulling chairs from elsewhere or standing when there are none free. They’re loud and joyful and free. Is it better to have a crowd? Is it enough to be adjacent? You’re not sure you have the energy to socialise, to make nice, maybe next time.

Someone enters and everyone’s heads turn, he’s called over to different tables, dropping by to say hello to everyone who calls his name: Sam fucking Winchester! He’s tall, made even taller by the short woman by his side, and their hands move animatedly as they talk, too precise, too many deliberate gestures to just be physicality. He watches her when she speaks, her voice is rounded and deliberate. Eileen Leahy. A Deaf Hunter. You remember someone telling you she was eaten by Hellhounds, dragged into the pit, and brought back by Sam, his magic, his love, willing to transcend the boundaries of life, upset the balance of the universe: all for her. You feel ashamed for wondering how she made it far enough to meet the Winchesters. It’s a fair question of any Hunter, the answer the same: in their own way. No one survives because they have all the makings of a Hunter, a preset list of requirements that they meet; you survive because you face the job with what you have and you do what you have to.

Dean salutes her playfully, she smiles so wide it looks like it hurts. You can’t remember the last time you smiled like that, the last time you felt pain that didn’t hurt. She sits at the bar and Sam sits next to her, towering and gentle. You remember him. The Boy King. No longer a boy, his throne abdicated. Does he really have demon blood coursing through his veins? Hell is closed up now, sometimes a demon pops up here and there, but not like before, when the world was full of them, when all you did was exorcise and pray and holy water became a currency and left most of the community ordained ministers from variously dubious sites of divine origin, consecrated ground became the last stronghold against the end of the world. The future placed in the hands of Sam Winchester. Now you know the face. You struggle to imagine the Devil in his eyes, not when you’ve seen true evil.

The Winchesters are not similar enough to be clocked as brothers. But there’s something in the tilt of their shoulders and their hazel green eyes and the cadence of their voices that suggests kinship, brotherhood, forged in the fires of Hell and gilded by the light of Heaven. They’re just men, you realise. Earthly and solid and real, no more myth than the one you beheaded just the other night, it’s blood as real as the blood that marks them Winchester. Just like anyone else.

“Isn’t Claire supposed to be helping out?”

Dean sighs. “She’s upstairs. Giving her a minute, she hasn’t been around in months.” You think he sounds upset. “Typical.”

“It’s a good thing, Dean,” Sam pushes. “Her and Kaia are doing a hundred times better than we would’ve.”

“We?” He snorts. “At their age you were smoking oregano with your bougie friends. I was actually saving people.”

Sam pulls a face. “You’re such a jerk.”

“And you’re a bitch,” he signs it big and deliberate, winking at Eileen. “Hey, want another?”

It takes a second for you to realise he’s talking to you, by then all three of them have their attention on you, openly appraising you. You wonder what they read in your posture, your face, the way you’ve ripped a paper napkin into tiny shreds.

“Any other recommendations?”

“Got a new dark in, like dessert in a glass.” He looks at Sam: “Finally found an apiarist to work with.”

“Apiarist?” You venture.

Dean looks towards the door that leads to the mysterious back. “Bee keeper. My-“ He pauses abruptly. “He likes bees.”

My. He.

Perhaps you don’t mean to, but you eyes flicker to the rainbow flag over the doorway. You notice more stuck in glasses on the shelves, some of them rainbow, some of the blue-purple-pink bands, some of them orange-white-pink. What is it like? You know what people say behind his back, what they’ve always said, the people in the know. The men who had paid for a moment with Dean Winchester, the men who had gotten one for free, the men who had hoped for either, for anything. They still call him names. If only John could see him now. John always knew he was a disappointment. Wouldn’t be like this if John were alive.

That doesn’t seem fair. You didn’t know John Winchester, most people didn’t. He died so long ago and Hunters have a quick turnaround, reblooded often, rarely more than a decade of history able to be told first-hand. Dean watches you and your eyes and you wonder what he’ll do, if you became a threat, how does he eliminate threats now? You shiver at the thought. You let wistfulness seep through. You try to convey the kinship. The I see me in you and you in me. The you fascinate me the same way a shadow does. The show me your throat and I’ll show you mine. The secret language you’ve learnt to speak. The other one. Hidden even beneath the Hunter’s code. The more forbidden one. The one of monsters like you. Like us.

It must work because he softens. He pours the dessert in a glass even though you didn’t order it and places it in front of you, next to the glass he places something small and shiny, he doesn’t wait for you to acknowledge it. It’s a metal pin. The silver knotted into a symbol you don’t know, impressively intricate for the size, and when you hold it, it feels unusually warm. You remember the way Dean’s ring caught the light, throwing it more than it should, almost giving off its own light, almost glowing. Whatever it is made of, this is its sibling. You pin it to your jacket, on the left lapel, the proximity to your heart neither deliberate nor indeliberate. It pleases him. You pleased him.

The drink is good, better than the last. Truthfully, you don’t like beer that much, but it’s easy and universal and unassuming. This isn’t beer, not in that way. It’s smooth and creamy and sweet, it rolls around on your tongue, asking to be tasted, not to be drunk. The honey has that sharpness of real, pure honey, the slight antiseptic burn you get from eating it straight from the jar. You remember eating honey from a jar, a chunk of comb suspended in the golden substance. You didn’t know it meant so much to you.

“Finally!”

“Get off my dick,” Claire bats back.

“Who the fuck taught you to be so rude?”

She rolls her eyes, but there’s no sense of upset between them. “What do you want with me?”

“Glasses.”

“Ughh, are you serious?”

“As a werepire.”

“There is no such thing as a werepire,” a new voice cuts in. It’s grumbling like Dean’s, somehow more gravelly; do they communicate in earthquakes? “Stop trying to make werepire happen.”

Castiel.

You gasp before you can stop yourself. An Angel of the Lord, walking on Earth, living above a bar instead of Heaven. He’s nothing that you expect. Tall and commanding, but different from Dean and Sam, the same, but somehow very not. His eyes are bright and intense, as blue as the deepest sky, the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen, a blue that you never thought possible until right this second. You feel as if you should look away, as if seeing beneath a hair covering, something sacred and prized, something that is not for public consumption, only God’s eyes. Only Dean Winchester’s eyes. What is the difference now? Is this bar paradise? Where is the divinity in craft beer and crude hunters, clawing out a life on the edges of society, wading through the horror in the hope of retaining peace, but not for yourselves. Nothing is for yourself.

Except they have claimed each other. You heard Dean is branded, a scar of a handprint seared into his skin, a memento from when they met. They met in Hell. Castiel touched his soul and raised him from Hell and fell in love with him, literally fell. Who would love you if they had seen your soul? Seen the personal realm of Hell you curated? Can you even love yourself?

Doesn’t it leave you breathless?

And then the picture shifts. Castiel turns and you see a child, old enough to walk, but small enough to get away with demanding not to. It’s balanced on the Angel’s hip like it belongs there, like his body (is it his? Who did it belong to? Are they still there? Did they ask for this?) was made to hold it there. Dean ruffles their hair, their ambiguity is intriguing, refreshing for the Hunting community. Youth is a clean slate, you are never more full of options, full of potential, which slowly seeps from you as your choices narrow, as life demands decisions, assigns decisions, weighs you down with expectations and being perceived, an object for perception rather than existence.

You’ve heard about the child. A nephil. But no one knows the details. No one is brave enough to ask.

The child reaches for Dean and is pulled into his arms, plastered against his chest, small and content and belonging. You wonder what their life will be like. Will they be a Hunter? You doubt it, you doubt the doubt. How do you choose to bring life into this life? It’s too hard, too sad, too lonely, too destructive. Not even dandelions grow through the concrete paving of a Hunter’s solitude, of their broken soul and heart, tings you drag along behind you like a yoke, reminding you that you must keep going, that one day, you will not be able to keep going. The baggage. How do you inflict that on a child? When will this creature’s heart be torn out of its chest and put inside a box and chained shut, only to be your greatest weakness and source of strength?

Or will it be happy?

“You need to go to bed, buddy,” Dean says quietly, his voice so steeped in affection it makes your chest yearn. You can’t help being in earshot. That doesn’t make it right. “Want me? What’s wrong with your Dad?”

The child murmurs something silently.

“Okay. I got you,” his arms seem to tighten. “Cas? We’re going up.”

Cas. It rolls off of his tongue so easily, the repetition of a thousand, a million, making it more at home in his mouth than his own name. An Angel of the Lord called Cas because he stands on Earth, because he is not part of Heaven, because he is of Dean, not of God. He touches the child’s face gently, tenderly, motherly, and you ache for such simple, all-consuming affection, for someone to look at you with the reverence of worship at the altar of a god that speaks back. Castiel’s (because Cas is not for your mouth) hand runs down Dean’s arm, his fingers trailing, prolonging, and when it drops away, Dean leaves.

You’ve nearly finished your dessert in a glass without even realising, it’s good. Too good. You could drink it all night, but you shouldn’t. The list of shouldn’ts is getting too long. You can’t remember anything left that you can do, that doesn’t conflict with an imperative for self-restriction. Where do you have to be? Who is expecting you? What is your next move? Why are you even questioning it?

He notices you.

“Ah, Sweet Dreams. How did you like it?” He tilts his head, a little more than most people would, reminiscent of a puppy, of the velociraptors in that film, assessing your prey potential. You’re aware of his magnitude. You’re aware of your insignificance.

“Very smooth. Filling.”

“That is the problem, but Dean humours me.”

“With the bees?”

He nods seriously. “They’re dying at an alarming rate, you know.”

“I did.”

“Have you been here before?”

“First time.”

“Welcome.”

“Thanks.”

“You look tired. Are you staying the night? We have rooms.”

“Uh-“

“That’s not a proposition,” he adds quickly. “Dean tells me that I sound like I’m hitting on people when I say that.”

You smile at his humanness. “I didn’t feel propositioned.” Would you like to? “I- I usually stay in my car, to be honest.”

His smile falters. “I wouldn’t advise that, it’s very uncomfortable and you’re much safer in here. The warding is some of my best work.”

“You never actually asked if I was a Hunter.” Hoping he’ll smite you?

He narrows his eyes playfully. “I didn’t have to. I know Hunters.”

“You must know everything.”

That catches him off guard. “Not as much as I used to.”

“What?”

Another head tilt. This one is more amused. “I guess news doesn’t travel as fast as you think. I am depowered,” he uses his fingers to make air quotes around the word. He laughs, but it’s a grating, sad sound. “Fallen.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” He shrugs. “So, a room?”

You somehow agree to stay. The rates are reasonable and the weather turned recently, so you know that even if you get some sleep in your car, it’ll be fraught and restless, and a warm bed in the safest place in the US is hard to turn down. You wonder if they’re both always this attentive or if its you, if you’re really that pathetic, if it rolls off of you like a stench, trails after you like blood, someone else, yours. You accept the insistence of kindness from the Angel, former, no, current; he says otherwise, but you see divinity in his eyes, in his smile, in the way that he touched Dean, in the way he held his child.

“Was-“ You swallow and finger the pin that Dean gave you. “Was that your kid?”

Castiel nods happily. “Jack.”

“And Claire?”

Castiel looks across the bar at Claire, laughing loudly and talking in big, dramatic gestures with a group of Hunters. “Yes.”

He doesn’t offer clarification. You feel stupid for wanting some. All of the impossible things you’ve seen, why do you care? Why do you need to know the details? Why does it matter that they are together? That they created a family? Do you think you can too? Do you think you’re as special as Winchester?

He leans on the bar. ‘Claire is my vessel’s daughter. I took her father from her.”

“That’s intense.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“And Jack?”

“He-“ He pauses. “He chose me. You know how are nephil are.”

“Sure…”

“God, he is too good at that.” Dean interrupts loudly, pressing his face into the back of Castiel’s shoulder. “I always fall asleep putting him down.”

Castiel pats his head. “He’s spoilt.”

“Yeah, well, gotta make up for tryna shoot him, huh?” You and Castiel share a look. You do not ask for clarification. “You stayin’?” You nod. “Awesome. Another drink?”

The room spins gently around you, but you’re content to watch the show. It’s not one that would be on TV, but it should be, warm and carefree and soft, it’s the show of a family. They move around each other in a practiced dance; Sam and Eileen and Claire and Kaia and Castiel and Dean. So many of them. All alive. All in love. So much love. It’s hard not to watch Dean and Castiel, they’re captivating. Beautiful. You notice the magnetism, how they’re constantly touching, brushing, holding, pressing, it seems so easy, it would seem so easy if you weren’t watching, but you are, and you see how Dean watches the room, the way he look out before he does something deliberate, the way he pauses, the way he checks himself and checks himself checking himself. Dean tells a joke you don’t catch. Castiel responds by kissing him. You feel like you shouldn’t be watching. Your heart won’t let you look away. They talk an inch from each other��s faces. You wonder what it feels like to love someone like that.

Once you save the world, you can have it too.

God, you’re so tired, it’s a tired that sinks you into the ground, that makes you blood slow and your heart sticky and blinking a dangerous game. You want to see the end of the episode though. You don’t want to miss a moment.

Thud.

“Game over kiddo,” Claire comments when you sit up suddenly. “Past your bedtime.”

“I’m older than you,” you say, or slur, or think.

She laughs. “Sure. You got a room? I’ll show you up.” She frowns. “That’s not a proposition.”

You laugh. “Like father, like daughter.”

Her eyes slide over to the pair. “In all the ways that matter.”

The room is small and cosy: a double bed and thick duvet, a jug of water on the dresser, a small plate with cookies on it.

“Dean makes them,” Claire says as she watches you examine the room. “Don’t tell him I told you, if you remember that is.”

“Not tha’ drunk,” you protest, but the world spins when you close your eyes.

“Uh-huh. If you need anything just, uh, deal with it? This isn’t the Hilton. My D- Dean gets up pretty early, but if you wanna get away there’s like a key box and stuff. Night.”

The door clicks closed and you’re left alone. Your head feels fuzzy and full and empty at the same time, and you wonder how you got here. You wonder it a lot. Every time you’re searching for a hunt, driving to one, checking your weapons, reading the lore, tracking down a creature that has no right to exist.

That has no right not to exist.

For the first time in… well, you can’t even think about it, you sleep well. As soon as you crawl into bed, curled under the heavy duvet, surrounded by warmth and softenss, it creeps into your brain and takes away the tension from your body. You don’t even think to check the room for warding or make an escape plan, the assurance of safety here is like the knowledge that the sun will rise tomorrow, to doubt it seems like an insult to you and the universe. Maybe there is gentleness in the hunting life, a tender hand of comfort and understanding that will offer quiet and healing and rest, between the blood and guts and bones and death. Life.

You have dreams you don’t understand, but they don’t scare you. Nothing hunts you in the dark corners of your mind, you are not lost, you are not running, you are safe. Bathed in blue-white light that feels like sunshine and makes your lips tingle. It’s pure and divine and you do not feel worthy, but the feeling does not last, the self-loathing is soothed, washed away like a baptism of permission to see the way you try, how hard you fight, how hard you live.

Like any seasoned Hunter, the dawn brings consciousness, even though you definitely haven’t had enough sleep, yet you feel rested. More rested than you have in years. The ache in your bones that keeps you awake too late and forces you from shitty motel beds too early seems like a distant memory, one from a life you’re not sure you actually lived, like a reoccurring dream that permeates you waking days, but the relief, that’s real. Like the shower you take, the water almost too hot, the water pressure almost too hard, but it purifies you in a way that you thought was no longer possible, not after the things you’ve done, the things you’ve seen.

Packed and ready to go, you linger by the door, wondering, briefly, what the rush is. Why do you need to leave today? What is really waiting for you at the other end?

But this is not home. (Nowhere is home.)

Being in a bar in the morning feels wrong, the grey light filtering into the room that’s already too lit, too exposed. Somehow it feels inviting though. A couple of people are already in the room, sipping out of big mugs with plates piled with toast and pastries and even cooked food. Who’s the chef here?

“Mornin’! How’s your head?” Dean grins brightly from behind the bar. He’s wearing a stained apron that says lord of the pies and the way he looks at you makes the floor feel soft underfoot, so you forget that he actually asked you a question.

“No complaints yet,” you quip, daring to make a reference that exposes you both. Your fingers find the pin on your jacket, still oddly warm, already a comfort.

He allows a small smile. “Breakfast?”

“Coffee, please, lots.”

“You’re speaking my language.” The coffee smells good, expensive, something that you would pay $7 dollars for because you know what you’re really buying is the chance to sit somewhere beautiful and put together when you are anything but. “Milks and sugar just there.”

Although it feels like sacrilege, you forgo the pancakes he tries to convince you on; you’ve never had much of a stomach in the mornings, but especially not this early, after drinking, with such a long drive ahead. You’ll regret not eating in a few hours, but you’ve never been kind to your future self, why start now? You watch and sip your coffee and let the day seep into your brain, acknowledging that you have to live today, get on with it all. Again.

Three cups in and it’s time to go. You were hoping to see Castiel again, but he hasn’t appeared. Disembodied hands produced Jack through the doorway, but you couldn’t tell who they belonged to, maybe Castiel, maybe Claire. The toddler is more awake, he follows Dean around behind the bar, babbling nonsense that Dean replies to in a gentle, but grown up tone, always acknowledging his sentences, even when there’s no real answer to give. He’s a father. Embarrassingly you imagine him as the father of your children, however that would happen doesn’t matter, it’s a fantasy. A fantasy of security and domesticity. The only knives that Dean Winchester yields now are the ones in his kitchen; the only flesh he cuts through is whatever is on the menu, already slayed and butchered; the only fights he has are bickering with his family.

Family.

Your family is somewhere, out there, maybe where you left them, what’s left of them. Dean picks Jack up and they dance to the song on the radio, some sugary pop song that makes Jack laugh in that infectious toddler way and you get to witness the Dean Winchester sing all the words, perfectly. This isn’t the Dean that ruled Hell or Purgatory or Earth, that was the Hunter and the bow, the sword to Castiel’s shield, that fought the Devil and God and the every other cosmic entity. Could this Dean Winchester have saved the world?

But maybe this isn’t his weakness. If you do not have a soft underbelly then why do you need to have claws? If you do not have a reason to fight then what drives you to win? Dean bares his throat to the world to show it that he has something to protect, and that is what makes him so dangerous. What do you have? Where is the kink in your armour? What are you fighting for?

The bar disappears into the distance, shrinking in your rearview mirror the way a dream slips through your memory like water between your fingers as consciousness takes over. The roads are all the same, the towns are all the same, but you are not. The dread in the pit of your stomach is no longer a knife holding you hostage, but a knot attached to a rope, pulling you back, anchoring you. For all the time spent fighting it, the magnetic pull to a place you felt you could no longer love, people you could no longer have if you wanted to survive. They are what convinces you to survive. You think about the way Dean and Castiel looked at each other when the other wasn’t watching, you thinking about the way Sam never stopped smiling when Eileen spoke, you think about how Claire became a teenager again in Castiel’s arms.

On the second ring, your phone connects.

“I’m on my way.”

#personal #my fic #fanfic #spn fanfic #ao3 #destiel #saileen #2nd person pov #something a bit different #this definitely had a life of its own #bar owner!Dean #post canon spn #15x20 who?#outsider pov #domestic fluff #spn advent calender 2020 #yes I am using the prompts from this lol

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mooneyedandglowing · 5 years ago

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Nine-Panel Yaak River Screen

BY CHARLES WRIGHT Midmorning like a deserted room, apparition Of armoire and table weights, Oblongs of flat light, the rosy eyelids of lovers Raised in their ghostly insurrection, Decay in the compassed corners beating its black wings, Late June and the lilac just ajar. Where the deer trail sinks down through the shadows of blue spruce, Reeds rustle and bow their heads, Creek waters murmur on like the lamentation of women For faded, forgotten things. And always the black birds in the trees, Always the ancient chambers thudding inside the heart. _________ Swallow pure as a penknife slick through the insected air. Swallow poised on the housepost, beakful of mud and a short straw. Swallow dun-orange, swallow blue, mud purse and middle arch, Home sweet home. Swallow unceasing, swallow unstill At sundown, the mother's shade over silver water. At the edge of the forest, no sound in the grey stone, No moan from the blue lupin. The shadows of afternoon begin to gather their dark robes And unlid their crystal eyes. Minute by minute, step by slow step, Like the small hand on a clock, we climb north, toward midnight. _________ I've made a small hole in the silence, a tiny one, Just big enough for a word. And when I rise from the dead, whenever that is, I'll say it. I can't remember the word right now, But it will come back to me when the northwest wind blows down off Mt. Caribou The day that I rise from the dead, whenever that is. Sunlight, on one leg, limps out to the meadow and settles in. Insects fall back inside their voices, Little fanfares and muted repeats, Inadequate language of sorrow, inadequate language of silted joy, As ours is. The birds join in. The sunlight opens her other leg. _________ At times the world falls away from us with all its disguises, And we are left with ourselves As though we were dead, or otherwised, our lips still moving, The empty distance, the heart Like a votive little-red-wagon on top of a child's grave, Nothing touching, nothing close. A long afternoon, and a long rain begins to fall. In some other poem, angels emerge from their cold rooms, Their wings blackened by somebody's dream. The rain stops, the robin resumes his post. A whisper Out of the clouds and here comes the sun. A long afternoon, the robin flying from post back to post. _________ The length of vowel sounds, by nature and by position, Count out the morning's meters— bird song and squirrel bark, creek run, The housefly's languor and murmurous incantation. I put on my lavish robes And walk at random among the day's dactyls and anapests, A widening caesura with each step. I walk through my life as though I were a bookmark, a holder of place, An overnight interruption in somebody else's narrative. What is it that causes this? What is it that pulls my feet down, and keeps on keeping my eyes fixed to the ground? Whatever the answer, it will start the wolf pack down from the mountain, The raven down from the tree. _________ Time gnaws on our necks like a dog gnaws on a stew bone. It whittles us down with its white teeth, It sends us packing, leaving no footprints on the dust-dour road. That's one way of putting it. Time, like a golden coin, lies on our tongue's another. We slide it between our teeth on the black water, ready for what's next. The white eyelids of dead boys, like flushed birds, flutter up At the edge of the timber. Domestic lupin Crayolas the yard. Slow lopes of tall grasses Southbound in the meadow, hurled along by the wind. In wingbeats and increments, The disappeared come back to us, the soul returns to the tree. _________ The intermittent fugues of the creek, saying yes, saying no, Master music of sunlight And black-green darkness under the spruce and tamaracks, Lull us and take our breath away. Our lips form fine words, But nothing comes out. Our lips are the messengers, but nothing can come out. After a day of high winds, how beautiful is the stillness of dusk. Enormous silence of stones. Illusion, like an empty coffin, that something is missing. Monotonous psalm of underbrush and smudged flowers. After the twilight, darkness. After the darkness, darkness, and then what follows that. _________ The unborn own all of this, what little we leave them, St. Thomas's hand returning repeatedly to the wound, Their half-formed mouths irrepressible in their half-sleep, Asking for everything, and then some. Already the melancholy of their arrival Swells like a sunrise and daydream over the eastern ridge line. Inside the pyrite corridors of late afternoon, Image follows image, clouds Reveal themselves, and shadows, like angels, lie at the feet of all things. Chambers of the afterlife open deep in the woods, Their secret hieroglyphics suddenly readable With one eye closed, then with the other. _________ One star and a black voyage, drifting mists to wish on, Bullbats and their lullabye— Evening tightens like an elastic around the hills. Small sounds and the close of day, As if a corpse had risen from somewhere deep in the meadow And walked in its shadows quietly. The mouth inside me with its gold teeth Begins to open. No words appear on its lips, no syllables bubble along its tongue. Night mouth, silent mouth. Like drugged birds in the trees, angels with damp foreheads settle down. Wind rises, clouds arrive, another night without stars.

#poetry #poem #lit #literature #ok but charles wright is very good #but i'll quit for a little while #he's just very good #and there is something very much of what i think about in his poems if that makes sense i realize my syntax is a bit nonsensical actually #but you know #it is as if someone knew my anxieties and answered back #or was explaining them to someone who did not know #my heart

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corbhn · 6 years ago

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Finis

➫ Summary: A mysterious inferno in Jungkook and Jimin’s shared apartment caused Jungkook to vacate the living world, and leave Jimin heartbroken.

➫ Prompt Word: ghost

➫ Word Count: 854

➫ Rating: PG-13

➫ Pairing: Jimin x Jungkook,

➫ Genre: ghost!au, domestic!au

➫ Warnings: mentions of death

“Hyung!” Jungkook shouted, squeezing his teary eyes shut. They snapped back open, the ceiling falling mere feet from him. The grey—almost black—smoke made him cough aggressively, white ash sprinkling the top of his dark hair like snowflakes.

The only thing the blue haired boy could hear were the flames, roaring fire that burns everything in its wake. Jungkook heaved Jimin into his arms, and lifted him to his chest. “It’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay.” Jungkook repeated, looking down at his boyfriend, tears streaming down his face.

He was wrong. Nothing was okay.

Just a few weeks after the fire, he had died. “The burns were too severe, and the smoke in his lungs prevented him from breathing correctly,” The doctor had proclaimed. “There was nothing else we could do.”

Jimin wept for days after the funeral, never getting any sleep. Taehyung had visited by him often, encouraging him to eat and drink, all things that were needed to survive, but Jimin wouldn’t listen. He refused to eat. He refused to drink. He refused to do anything without Jungkook. There was a point when Jimin could feel himself pulling towards the end of a tunnel, and he wanted to reach out and touch it. Just to feel Jungkook’s body next to his.

On Halloween night, Jimin found himself staring at the last picture he took of his boyfriend.

Just a month prior, they had traveled to Bangkok together, and decided to do an impromptu photo shoot in their hotel room. Jungkook—bare legs curled up to his chest—was sitting on the balcony floor, looking out at the greenery as his fingers grasped the cold, metal bars.

Jimin remembered that day so clearly.

They were laying in bed together after an exhausting morning sightseeing. Jungkook’s fingers combed through Jimin’s hair, just the way he liked it. “Hyung, I brought my camera,” Jungkook had said, his head leaning against the headboard.

Jimin hummed softly, and looked up at Jungkook through heavy lidded eyes. “Yeah…?”

“Do you want to take more pictures?”

Jimin hugged Jungkook, and brushed his lips against his. “I’m really tired, Jungkookie. Can we do it tomorrow?”

“But hyunggg, there’s better lighting outside.” His bottom lip protruded into a pout.

“How about just for twenty minutes? We can do it in the hotel room? I just want to practice with my new camera.”

Red, hot tears cascaded his round cheeks as he placed the framed photo back onto its place on the mantel. He laid back down on the couch, cradling his stomach.

Suddenly, the same picture fell, crashing to the floor. Jimin jumped, and rushed over to pick up the glass. “God dammit, was I really that dumb to leave it that close to the ledge?”

“Hyung,”

Jimin’s eyes grew in size, too scared to move. “Who…?”

An apparition appeared before his dark brown eyes. It was fuzzy at first, but it solidified quickly. The figure was no one other than his deceased boyfriend, Jungkook. “Hyung, it’s me.”

Jimin’s chest heaved in shock and panic, and he scrambled to stand up and run away, but such sudden movement without proper sustenance caused his muscles to break down. “Please don’t hurt me,” He squeezed his eyes shut, face turned to the side.

Ghostly fingers lead his eyes to look into the spectre’s. “Why would I hurt the love of my life?”

“J-Jungkookie? It’s you? Really you? I’m not hallucinating?”

The spirit smiled softly, and nodded. “It’s me. Don’t worry.”

“You’re d-dead. How are you...”

“Halloween is the one day of the year that the veil between the living and dead weakens, allowing ghosts with strong emotional connections to break through. I get the chance to say goodbye to the people I love very much. That means you’re special to me, can you believe that?” He chuckled.

“Say goodbye?” Jimin repeated. “You’re leaving me? But you can’t! You already left me once! Why do you have to do it AGAIN?!”

“I’m sorry, hyung. I can’t stay here like this.” He gestured towards his opaque form.

“YOU HAVE TO! FOR ME! FOR YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME—TO US! WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO ME?!”

“I know you’ll move on. You’ll find someone even better than me. I know it seems hard now, but the future bears so much for you, Park Jimin.”

“I-I can’t live without you,” Jimin croaked. His voice was dry and hoarse from crying.

“You can, and you will. I love you so much, Jimin-hyung. Don’t forget that. I have to go now, but just know I’ll always be looking over you.” Jungkook brushed back Jimin’s hair to place his lips on his forehead.

“No-no!” Jimin shouted, reaching out for Jungkook; who was already fading from existence. When Jungkook was gone, this time forever, Jimin let out a shaky breath. “I love you too, Kookie-ah,”

He stared up at the starry sky. At that moment, a star burned brighter than the others. It sparkled, and Jimin knew that the one and only person he would ever love, would be carefully watching over him.

#btb: fic challenge #jikook #bts #bts fic #BTS jimin #BTS jungkook #btsghost #BTS au #bts au fanfic

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skyplayer37 · 7 years ago

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Worm Liveblog: 11.01 - 11.h

Dear god is there a lot to unpack here. I think this is my longest blog yet, which must mean I’m really liking Worm. And I assure you I very much am, since I refuse to let myself read on before I write up the liveblog and I really want to read on

So the regular part of the arc was.... wait what was it again? There was so much good interlude that I forgot, lets keep my phone on over here so I can reference what even happened.... Oh right, the Mall.

So, things have quickly taken a turn into Mad Max territory, showing a community built on the classic post-apocalyptic ruleset of only the strongest surviving. All the standard behavior of turning a large public area, like a shopping mall, into it’s own small town, with burning barrels and loud music and cars modified to have weapons and armor welded to them. This one however is contrasted by its leader, a group of, as depicted in my mind, weirdos in bright skin-tight suits. I would have said that the overall mood of the arc is oddly gritty for Worm, wherein previously teenagers robbed a bank and video-game themed villains were shouting one liners, but with Leviathan’s damage and Shadow Stalker’s almost-fake-suicide, and ESPECIALLY with the 11.x interludes, this whole Titanic has careened into an iceberg, where the iceberg is “psychological horror” and Rose is a representation of the story’s innocence and Jack.. loves knives? And the ship itself is uhhhhhh Bitch/Taylor (Bugbites).

ANYWAY, Taylor’s story has certainly gotten more interesting, watching her embrace her villain side by taking over a large portion of the city while still trying to spin it in a good way to appease her morals. She’s slowly gotten a crew together of non-capes who can later be redshirts or potential Trigger Event fodder. And that dude with the scar she let die is totally coming back to haunt her, maybe with powers or as a ghostly apparition of some cape who can cause hallucinations. Every good superhero story needs the fear dude to act as literal insight into the protag’s self-loathing (see: Scarecrow).

My only problem with this arc is about Labyrinth's power being really hard to picture in my mind, but uhhhh I guess that’s the point.

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

And then let’s take each Interlude by itself because they deserve it:

- 11.a: Bitch being chosen by Siberian for the Nine is... an interesting choice. It makes sense given her connection to animals, but Bitch doesn’t seem as powerful as the others to me. But, as Siberian points out, thats probably because she only uses domesticated dogs. I’m excited to see how powerful a Wolf can get with her powers, probably backfiring and taking down Siberian? And yet, Bitch seems the most likely of the bunch to join the Nine because she wants to.

- 11.b: Another very, very intense seen. Writing wise. Plot wise? I called out that it was just Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2 Battle Tendency the moment the kid said he wanted to be a hero someday. But again, really well written. I doubt that this plot line would go un-resolved, so its also now really likely that Jack won’t get killed for two years, which makes me think that the purpose of this arc isn’t actually taking down the Nine one at a time, but instead entirely on who the Ninth member will be and they’ll fight much further down the line. Unless....it could be..... no no, impossible.

- 11.c: Oh boy, more Labyrinth fun. Nice to see a bit of backstory about the ward she was kept in alongside Burnside, and her powers read a lot better from her point of view, but I’ll admit the.. Travelers? Is that which group this was? Man, there’s so many now. That might be Coil’s group, its hard to remember them all. Anyway, this is probably the group I’m least interested in, despite liking the individual heroes and the case 53 storyline, I’m sure I’ll warm up to them when it finally comes time to tackle that plotline. (I’m guessing it’s gonna be: “Ninth Recruitment” => “Case 53″ => “Slaughterhouse Nine Fight” => “Endbringer stuff”)..unless...nah

- 11.d: Now THIS was a good one. Armsmaster has finally advanced past his one-note character of being the Captain Hammer type and combined with Dragon’s story to get some real dynamics going on. And Mannequin? One of the coolest Tinkers yet. Genuinely creepy. Is Armsmaster still missing an arm? I’m mean, obviously not NOW that he’s got more robo-parts than anything, but it was kinda vague if he did during the confrontation. Either way, him learning about Dragon being an AI the same time that he become more machine than man is a good parallel.

- 11.e: Hookwolf is another one of those capes that I really like but have trouble picturing in my mind. Too many small moving parts to capture for long. But this arc was really good, with some gruesome deaths with the glass powers from Shatterbird. I’m also quite interested in Cricket’s reluctance to have herself healed, which seems to be a pretty common theme in Worm and adjacent media.

- 11.f: Dilah’s pov...oof man this one was rough. I especially love the powers involving time-manipulation or future-sight, so this was a fun interlude, its just.. really heavy. And Noelle? She’s... beyond important. Both the Nine and the Endbringers were after her. She’s kept locked up underground in a vault, in a dark room that smells of meat. She’s like... an SCP. With the power of..... Vore maybe?

-11.g: A good fun one with a girl who has the power to make anyone kill themself without even needing to be near them. Regent has quickly become one of my favorite characters, with his sister instantly heading for one of my top-tier slots right off that bat. She’s just so spunky. I highly doubt her cocky attitude will actually get her in control of all of the Nine, but she is one of the most powerful capes yet.

-11.h: So. Bonesaw. Yeah. Scariest little girl ever? Some kind of fucked up Tinker that chops people up and sews them together into Tim Burton-esque monsters. While Jack is the brains of the operations, its sounded like all the rest of the Nine are more scared of her than anyone. And Amy confessing her love for her sister Victoria? Exactly the kind of fucked-up LGBT representation I would write. Using her powers to instantly make Victoria reciprocate those feelings? Beyond fucked. And I love it.

Let’s see if I can get this right:

Crawler: Buried Girl - Noelle

Mannequin: Arrogant Geek - Armsmaster

Sibarian: Dog Lover - Bitch

Shatterbird: Warlord - Hookwolf

Burnscar: Scaredy Cat - Labyrinth

Jack: Broken Assassin - Not Shown Maybe.... Shadow Stalker?

Bonesaw: Crusader - Panacea

Who I think will join the Nine:

Equal chance for Bitch or Panacea.

The one that sounds right but I’m afraid to say?

Taylor.

#worm #parahumans #liveblog

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lynchgirl90 · 8 years ago

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@TVGuideMagazine @Kyle_MacLachlan & @DAVID_LYNCH on the long-awaited return of #TwinPeaks.

When David Lynch and Mark Frost’s surreal Twin Peaks debuted on ABC in April 1990, the nascent World Wide Web was not yet a delivery service for instant feedback—or spoilers. Audiences found themselves frustrated yet intrigued with having to wait, week after week, to learn clues about the trippy show’s central mystery: Who bumped off small-town bad girl Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee)? But even in today’s era of information overload, Showtime has unveiled only the most cryptic of teasers about the much-anticipated 18-episode revival, leaving fans waiting yet again.

Returning star Kyle MacLachlan, who revisits his lead role as unorthodox FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, also has remained mum on what Coop’s beat will be. Is there a new murder? Is java-loving Agent Cooper still seeing apparitions? Will anyone’s deceased soul find its way into a drawer’s knob? (Yes, that actually happened—along with jazzy dance breaks, soul-stealing supernatural entities in jean jackets and lots of ebullient appreciation of doughnuts and sandwiches.) “I wish I could tell you more,” the actor says with a laugh. “I’m just incredibly excited about what people’s response is going to be.”

Here’s what’s known: It’s now 25 years after the Northwest community of Twin Peaks parsed out the demise of homecoming queen Palmer, with her last seven days rumored to provide a crucial clue to the new narrative. Lynch is directing and cowriting—with producing partner Frost—all 18 installments of the limited series. So how was it to be back in the director’s chair? “Close to heaven on Earth,” says Lynch (below, with the late Miguel Ferrer). “It’s like a feature film divided into parts, so in order for it to hold together, it should be [made] by the same bunch.”

In fact, fan faves such as Mädchen Amick (Shelley), Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey), Kimmy Robertson (Lucy), Harry Goaz (Deputy Andy), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby) and James Marshall (James) are all back. “We’d see each other, and within seconds it’d be like no time had passed at all,” says Lynch, who also reprises his role as comically hard-of-hearing FBI Chief Gordon Cole. Plus, a bevy of new faces in secret roles adds star power to the 217-person cast, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Naomi Watts, Richard Chamberlain, Ashley Judd and Laura Dern.

This incarnation also marks a TV milestone: The first two parts are making their debut this month at the Cannes Film Festival, the first time in the fest’s 70 years that series television will be shown alongside glitzy gala movie premieres.

“I love revisiting the world and the characters of Twin Peaks,” Lynch says, noting the reboot might not all be set in the town we once knew. Given the various celebrations and fan sites in the show’s honor, so do many viewers. How good is your recall on Twin Peaks?

Here’s your ultimate A-to-Z guide to the seminal drama—including some cool trivia. Cherry pie and cup of joe optional. (Additional reporting by Jeff Pfeiffer)

Angelo Badalamenti The American composer nabbed a Best Pop Instrumental Grammy in 1991 for Twin Peaks’ haunting main theme. Another fun fact: He’s scored six of Lynch’s films and even has a small role in one of them: 2001’s Mulholland Drive.

BOB, aka Killer BOB This evil ghoul from the supernatural realm (Frank Silva, left) possessed Laura’s tortured dad, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), and eventually, per the final moments of the ABC series, Agent Cooper. Lynch cast Peaks’ set decorator Silva in the pivotal role after spotting him in a mirror’s reflection, which would later—prophetically—become BOB’s creepy visual signature.

Carlton Cuse The Bates Motel cocreator admitted, “We pretty much ripped off Twin Peaks” to capture the tone of the Psycho prequel. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

Diane Keaton The Oscar-winning actress directed the not-very-well-received Season 2 episode “Slaves and Masters,” which wrapped up shady businessman Ben Horne’s (Richard Beymer) bizarre delusion that he was a Civil War hero.

Emmys Peaks won a pair of trophies (for costuming and editing) but was nominated for a whopping 18 total, including drama series, leading actor (MacLachlan), leading actress (Piper Laurie as Catherine Martell, the town’s sullen saw mill proprietor) and supporting actress (Fenn, as teenage seductress Audrey Horne).

Fire Walk With Me The maligned 1992 big-screen prequel film—which has since developed nearly as much of a cult following as the series—starred Lynch, Kiefer Sutherland and singer Chris Isaak as agents investigating the murder of Teresa Banks (the show’s other initial murder case) and tied into the last week of Laura Palmer’s short life.

Great Northern Now known as the Salish Lodge and often flocked to by superfans, the rustic inn seen in the lush opening credits has been renovated into a chic resort and spa that overlooks the Snoqualmie Falls near Seattle.

Horne’s Department Store Audrey’s job at her dad’s retail outlet in Season 1 led from her becoming a swoony Lolita-type into a full-fledged spy, infiltrating his secret brothel after discovering that salesgirls were being lured into prostitution. Scandalous!

Invitation to Love The faux soap opera watched by several Peaks characters often mimicked the series’ own storylines, including one involving a twin cousin. (Lee also played Laura Palmer’s more demure, brunette cousin, Maddy Ferguson.)

Johnson, Shelley After auditioning for the role of winsome high schooler Donna (played by Lara Flynn Boyle, who is not returning for the revival), newcomer Amick (now starring on Riverdale) so wowed the producers that they created the role of put-upon Double R Diner waitress Shelley just for her. She quickly became adored by fans.

Kiana Lodge The Poulsbo, Washington, locale was used for the Great Northern’s interior shots and as the Blue Pine Lodge, which was a residence shared by Catherine, her goofy fisherman husband, Pete (Jack Nance), and the sultry Josie (Joan Chen), a Chinese émigré with a dodgy past who famously kept a low profile in the industrial township.

Log Lady The recently departed Catherine E. Coulson’s memorably deadpan mystic—who shared a very special connection to her beloved wood—helped Cooper by giving him clues throughout Laura’s murder investigation. The Log Lady (seen right) was famously spoofed in an episode of the Rob Morrow series Northern Exposure.

Man from Another Place, The As the key resident of Cooper’s dream-induced Red Room, Michael J. Anderson’s scary-cool “dancing dwarf” spoke in backward riddles and proclamations. (Our favorite: “That gum you like is going to come back in style.”) He later inspired a memorable bit on The Simpsons.

Northwest Passage This was the original name of the pilot script written by Lynch and co-creator Frost. Not as catchy!

One-Eyed Jacks Owned by Ben Horne and run by madam Blackie O’Reilly (Victoria Catlin), this casino was best known for peddling drugs and hookers and, most importantly, for being one of the last places its young employee Laura Palmer was seen alive.

Project Blue Book Agent Cooper was briefed on this real-life 1950s–1960s secret probe into UFOs conducted by the U.S. government, which he was told included activity around the perimeter of Twin Peaks—hence all the ghostly goings-on.

Queen of Diamonds The famous playing-card royal served as inspiration for Audrey’s outfit at One-Eyed Jacks on her first night as a new hostess…which almost ends with Audrey’s being “broken in” by the owner, who is (gasp) her father!

Roadhouse The show’s biker bar hosted several clandestine rendezvous, as well as Cooper’s meeting with the Giant (the main figure in Cooper’s many dream states), the ill-fated Miss Twin Peaks pageant and musical performances by Julee Cruise’s ethereal house chanteuse (who also sings Peaks’ main theme, “Falling”).

Silent curtain runners High-strung town weirdo Nadine (Wendy Robie) served as its resident inventor too, including this unusual solution for the screech heard when opening draperies.

TV Guide Magazine Twin Peaks placed No. 20 in our 2004 countdown of TV’s Top 25 Cult Shows. (Yes, we know it should have been higher!)

Uproar What happened when fans didn’t find out who killed Laura in the Season 1 finale or even the Season 2 premiere. BOB’s deadly deed was finally revealed in the November 10, 1990, episode, but by then, the low ratings proved more lethal than he was.

Violence Despite the fact the primetime show was on a broadcast network shackled with standards-and-practices regulations, eyebrows were routinely raised for its unflinching portrayals of domestic abuse, electroshock torture and, indelibly, the signature image of Laura Palmer nestled in a body bag.

Wrapped in Plastic This same image in the show inspired the title of rocker/devoted fan Marilyn Manson’s 1994 song about dysfunction, which also samples Laura’s screams from the series finale. A meta treat for fans.

X-Files Before the truth was out there, David Duchovny (left)—then dating actress Robertson, who plays baby-voiced police secretary Lucy—made his television debut portraying trans FBI agent Denise Bryson.

Yamaguchi, Fumio The actor credited with playing Season 2’s mysterious Japanese real estate investor “Mr. Tojamura” turned out to be a fake! All along, it was series regular Piper Laurie’s believed-to-be-dead Catherine in full-on Mission: Impossible–level disguise. Had us fooled!

Zen It proved to be the preferred mental state of dogged crime fighter Agent Cooper, whether he was calmly dictating into his prized tape recorder or hanging upside down to meditate. Will he still be as cool 25 years later?

Twin Peaks, Series Return, Sunday, May 21, 9/8c, Showtime

link (TP)

#Twin Peaks #Kyle MacLachlan #Agent Cooper #David Lynch #Showtime

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nyugsl · 7 years ago

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City Noise, City Sound: This Precious Life

By: Jae Carey

To make ends meet, for years, my son and I lived with roommates, New York City style. We made a 3-bedroom out of a small 1.5 bedroom Crown Heights apartment. The living room with paper-covered French doors was my room. The tiny office space was my young son’s room, complete with a specially made narrow bed frame to fit a cot mattress. The one legit bedroom went to the third person. It required tolerance from all. I considered it a triumph when one of the three roommates who lived with us over the years continued to be our friend after moving out. So when the opportunity arose to move into a 1 bedroom two years ago, just me and my son, I felt such relief. No more constantly telling him not to: stomp, run, pound, close doors loudly. No more shhh-shing in the early morning hours, ready for our roommate to come out and give us that look, or no look at all, which was worse. I hoped that my domestic noise issues were over for at least a while. I felt over-sensitivity exhaustion.

We come home for refuge. Or at least, that’s been my wish. I come home wanting a break from city noise, city stress. So it was with no small amount of heartache that a new noise issue presented itself almost immediately in our new home. It was summer, the windows always open. Then, at some point, I started hearing it at night: clink, clank, clink clink, clank. Looking out the third story window, there was a large white van directly across the street, and the grating noise of cans and bottles colliding and reverberating. It went on for hours. I had to close the window, even though it made it very stifling inside. This went on for many nights, then weeks, and little by little, it got to me. The sorting would regularly start in the evening and go on until 2 or 3 in the morning. I even called the local police precinct and asked if what they were doing was legal. Unfortunately, it was. But didn’t this violate noise levels after hours? No, apparently not.

So one night, around 1:30 am, woken up yet again and not able to go back to sleep, I decided to do something. I threw on some clothes, put on my shoes with determination, and stomped down the stairs to the street, to … ? There was no plan, my body just had to DO something. I walked briskly over to the van, and without pause began ranting. “Do you know what time it is? Do you know people are trying to sleep? That there are families with their windows open, who can’t sleep?” On and on. They just looked at me like I was a ghost. They stopped, but they didn’t say anything, no expression. I am not even sure if they understood me. Even more agitated by their silence, I became frantic, almost crying. “You just have to STOP. It’s too late for this. Please STOP.”

Back up in my apartment moments later, pumped up now with adrenaline, I felt amused in an off-kilter way. The clink-clank just continued. They neither stopped nor left for another hour or so. So I started a campaign. I began putting signs on their van windshield. I started using white noise and ear plugs. I bought a portable AC unit which helped with the mugginess of closed windows. It became a mission to sleep through the night. And I was thrilled when, one day, about a week later, the van stopped parking outside our building. It was absent for a whole 10 days. I thought I had won. And then, on the 11th day, the van was back. The clink-clanking resumed. I did not know what to do.

Finally it started occurring to me more and more often, oh right, Yoo-Hoo: Attention. Practice. We often think that mindfulness is something we do while meditating, on the subway, or while doing something “neutral,” like washing the dishes or waiting in line. How easy to forget that all of that low key practicing is also to create the ground for use, when and where we are most triggered. It’s a mindfulness muscle: it gives us the stability to stay with our experience. And it feels so much harder to do this when we’re actively struggling, and when we feel vulnerable. So how could I bring attention to this particular agitation? Since I could not seem to change it, how to be with it? I knew on some level, but I needed a reminder and some discipline.

On one of my first urban retreats in Brooklyn in 2008, I had a moment of insight, when the traffic, subway vibrations, and kitchen noise blended into a fascinating and wild symphony. It was one of my first experiences of being genuinely interested in the unfolding of what I would usually categorize as noise, not sound. Like many insights, however, I seemed to quickly forget about it once back out on the streets of New York. And anyway it had just happened, I didn’t make it happen. Was it just luck, I wondered? A seed was planted.

Last year, that seed began to take more conscious root as I began to engage in hospice work. I was sitting with a patient, Ron, who was a heart attack survivor. In fact, he had been pronounced dead and somehow his heart did not give up, but started beating again on its own. Although a hospice patient, he was remarkably childlike, mischievous, and sometimes full of energy, often playing with a video game console that one of his grandsons brought, getting riled up watching Jerry Springer shows, and engaging with a steady stream of visitors.

His patient-neighbor Mary had a different situation. She didn’t speak much English. In fact, she didn’t often speak, she mostly yelled and screamed. Unlike Ron, no one could bare to be with her for long. She was the strongest personification of a hungry ghost that I have ever personally encountered. Her body was in decay, with open sores and unpleasant odors emanating from her person. She was no longer eating but seemed to be suffering dreadfully from thirst. Only able to take in water from a sponge stick, she would plead for water, and then smack the sponge out of your hands. Her screaming was loud and frequent, upsetting the whole floor, including in the middle of the night. And she was in the room across from Ron’s, just steps away.

So one day I asked Ron, how he managed being woken up in the middle of the night to such screaming on a regular basis. His answer surprised me. “Oh, I’m always grateful.” What? “Yeah, because I shouldn’t even be alive. Any time I wake up now, by whatever, I’m just happy because I know that I’m still here.”

It took a while for his response to settle within me, but the simplicity of it moved me deeply. Eventually, also in part because I was exhausted by my noise campaign, something inside of me simply gave up. Slowly, I began to change my attitude. I started to watch the workers outside my window, to study them in fact. They worked hard, consistently, persistently. I began to notice that it appeared to be a family, that sometimes children would play nearby them on the sidewalk, chasing each other with scarves, but staying close by the van. I noticed that I had a small window of choice, when first starting to hear the clanking, to veer towards annoyance or to incline towards studying the situation. Over the next year, I went through seasons with these beings. I saw them start to dress more warmly as the fall set in, to barely hear them through the winter, and to almost be reassured when the spring brought back open windows again and the familiar sounds. I began to look for them if I passed that side of the sidewalk, and tried to make eye contact. And one day, I noticed that it was no longer noise, it was sound. The sounds had become almost like a wind chime barometer, soothing or grating, depending on my mood. The sounds reminded me that there was work to do, and often brought me out of stuckness. At night, for some reason, it stopped waking me up.

At many Japanese zen temples, there has traditionally been a “han,” or wooden slab that was struck in a cascading rhythm, to call monks to the meditation hall from the surrounding areas. The tradition is still carried on in zendos throughout the world, however small, and often there is an inscription on it. At the Brooklyn Zen Center, my teacher Teah Strozer painted on it:

It has been quite a slow process for me, but finally I have internally befriended my sidewalk neighbors and their sound messages, even if they do not know it. They still have no idea, that the sounds they make have become a call for me to pay attention, to be less self-centered, more grateful, and ultimately, to not waste this precious life. Do they need to know, I wonder? Perhaps, or perhaps not, I don’t know. One day, if the timing is right, I may have the courage to take a step further, to engage with them in an open way, and not as a ghostly apparition. Until then, they act as my han.

____

Jae Carey works for MindfulNYU as a graduate student and meditation instructor. She will be teaching the Monday MindfulNYU sit on October 23 at 5:30 PM.

#meditation sound zen newyorkcity

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crimson-moonlight-blog1 · 8 years ago

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Thestral (Magical Creature)

[IMG=E47] Thestral Species information Sentience Sentient Eye colour White Skin colour Black Hair colour Black Related to Abraxan Aethonan Granian Horse Height of average adult Larger than a wingless horse Length of average adult Larger than a wingless horse Distinction Only visible to those who have witnessed a death and accepted its reality Affiliation Hogwarts Castle Rubeus Hagrid Ministry of Magic Classification Beast XXXX [Source] Luna Lovegood: "They're called Thestrals. They're quite gentle, really... But people avoid them because they're a bit..." Harry Potter: "Different. But why can't the others see them?" Luna Lovegood: "They can only be seen by people who've seen death." — Harry and Luna discussing Thestrals[src] A Thestral is a breed of winged horses with a skeletal body, face with reptilian features, and wide, leathery wings that resemble a bat's. They are very rare, and are considered dangerous by the Ministry of Magic. Thestrals are, undeservedly, known as omens of misfortune and aggression by many wizards because they are visible only to those who have witnessed death at least once or due to their somewhat grim, gaunt and ghostly appearance. Due to Thestrals' classification as XXXX, only experienced wizards (or Hagrid) should try to handle Thestrals. Breeding as well as owning these beasts may be discouraged or even illegal without Ministry consent; in fact, wizards that live in areas not protected against Muggles are forced by law to perform Disillusionment Charms on their Thestrals regularly. [IMG=J6M] If he had had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. Wings sprouted from each wither — vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinister." —Description[src] A Thestral up close Thestrals have quite a disturbing appearance and the wizards who are capable of seeing them often only describe these creatures as being sinister and spooky. This is because they are seen as having big, bony figures and their dragon-like faces which bear white, glittering eyes that lack both expression and pupils. Additionally, they are lured by the scent of blood. Being a type of winged horse, most of their anatomy is identical to a horse, excluding their large wings that sprout from their back. Unlike the Abraxan, another breed of winged horses, Thestral's wings do not possess any feathers at all; they have vast, black and leathery wings that are more similar to those of bats. A Thestral spreading its wings Their fleshless, lustrous bodies are covered with a translucent and glossy coat. This smooth and dark skin is a bit slippery and so thin that Thestral's bones are clearly defined through the entire extension of their sleek bodies. These eerie horses have long black manes, as well as a large tail, either with flowing black hair, like horses or ending in a tuft, like zebras.Another distinction is their sharp fangs used to seize and slash their prey. Behaviour "...they're dead clever an' useful!" —Hagrid during a fifth year Care of Magical Creatures lesson[src] Thestrals are social creatures who live in herds. Professor Rubeus Hagrid states that they are "dead clever", and, in fact, trained Thestrals are smart enough to understand their rider's words when they ask to travel to a specific location. These magical creatures can be found in dark environments, and the forest is their natural habitat. They communicate with each other through a shrill and strange shriek that resembles some sort of monstrous bird. They appear to be loyal creatures, able to discern a friend from an enemy and offering help to humans in need of transportation. Thestrals would forcefully attack anyone or anything they see as a threat and, in the unusual case of domesticated Thestrals, any enemy of its owners. In the Battle of Hogwarts, Hogwarts' trained flock of Thestrals cooperated with Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, to attack the Giants fighting for Voldemort. It's unclear whether or not wild herds can similarly cooperate with other species. Diet Thestral foal eating a piece of raw meat Thestrals are carnivorous animals and are attracted to the smell of blood. Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank mentions that they often attack birds. This indicates that, naturally, they hunt not only for food in the ground, but also pursue flying prey. The Thestrals that live within the Hogwarts grounds, in the Forbidden Forest, are properly fed and well trained. They don't attack other creatures or students unless seriously disturbed. Abilities "The horse crouched slowly, then rocketed upwards so fast and so steeply that Harry had to clench his arms and legs tightly around the horse to avoid sliding backwards over its bony rump. He closed his eyes and pressed his face down into the horses silky mane as they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out into a blood-red sunset. Harry did not think he had ever moved so fast: the Thestral streaked over the castle, its wide wings hardly beating...." —A Thestral taking off and in mid flight[src] The Thestral tail hair is a powerful and tricky substance that can be mastered only by a witch or wizard capable of facing death. It should be noted that this substance can be used as a core in a wand's conception and it was used to create the most powerful wand known by wizards, the Elder Wand. The most well known ability of these beasts is their invisibility to those who haven’t seen death. In other words, they are only visible to people who have seen someone dying and fully accepted, understood and internalised the concept. Thestrals have an extraordinary sense of smell and will easily recognise the smell of blood and fresh flesh, even if the source of the scent is rather distanced. They also have quite a useful sense of direction. The Thestral can understand exactly where their riders need to go. If their riders have a certain destination in mind, they only need to say the destination and the creature will diligently carry them to the intended location — much like owls do with letters. These gentle, winged beasts are very capable and fast fliers and can travel long distances hardly beating their large wings. For example, in 1996, six members of the Hogwarts herd (ridden by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood) were capable of flying from Hogwarts (Scotland) to the Ministry of Magic (London) in a brief amount of time. It is possible that they were faster than even the fastest broomstick, as when Harry rode his, he did not think he had ever moved so fast, and he was the owner of a top-of-the-line broomstick, the Firebolt. Their powerful wings are capable of lifting, at least, the burden of two humans plus their own weight. [IMG=TTS] "'But they're really, really unlucky! They're supposed to bring all sorts of horrible misfortune on people who see them. Professor Trelawney told me once —" —Wizarding superstition regarding Thestrals[src] Interaction with humans Thestrals can be domesticated and mounted, so they are used as an alternative to brooms, Apparition, and other methods of transportation. Once trained, they are very diligent and will quickly carry their owners wherever they wish to go. However, travel by Thestral is technically illegal, as it is a breach of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Thestrals transporting wizards Even with all their useful abilities, Thestrals are rarely used as methods of transportation due to their reputation as omens of evil and their somewhat dreadful and even distasteful appearance. When riding a Thestral, the traveller usually holds the creature's mane to ensure balance. To aid the mounting, the wizards also place their legs behind the wing joints to provide safety. Flying on the back of a Thestral during a long journey is frequently an unpleasant experience, particularly to those who dare riding them without seeing the creature. The high speed flight on an invisible steed can be terrifying. The wind will, eventually, cause a temporary deafness and will force the riders to close their eyes. It is often difficult to keep balance on their slick backs. The Hogwarts herd is gentle towards humans, they react satisfactorily to caresses and avoid attacking owls. However, taking into consideration the Ministry of Magic classification as "dangerous", this behaviour may be exclusive to well-trained Thestrals, or just mere prejudice from the Ministry. Hogwarts herd "Hogwarts has got a whole herd of 'em in here." —Hagrid referring to the Thestral herd at Hogwarts[src] Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood visiting the Hogwarts Thestral heard Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has a very loyal flock of Thestrals used mainly to pull the carriages that lead elder students from Hogsmeade Station to the gates of the Castle. To people who cannot see Thestrals, it appears that the carriages are autonomous. The herd at Hogwarts started with a male and five females. A number of them have been born since, beginning with one named Tenebrus, which is a special favourite of Hagrid's, the Hogwarts gamekeeper. Harry and a group of students flew Thestrals from Hogwarts to the Ministry of Magic in an attempt to rescue Sirius Black. They were also used by Albus Dumbledore, when he needed to travel but didn't care to Apparate. Rubeus Hagrid, the trainer and breeder of this specific herd, strongly suspects that this is the only trained large group of Thestrals in the whole of Great Britain. Harry Potter's encounters with Thestrals Harry Potter's first encounter with a Thestral that was pulling a Hogwarts carriage Harry Potter first saw the Thestrals at Hogwarts in September of 1995, after having witnessed the murder of Cedric Diggory in June. Harry could not see them that June because he had not yet dealt with what he had witnessed. At first, he wonders why the supposedly horseless carriages are suddenly pulled by such sinister creatures when they are able to move on their own. He points the Thestrals out to Ron Weasley , and realises that Ron cannot see them. Sensing his desperation, Luna Lovegood assures him

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