#i also used to dread when winter would be over because i knew there would be a mandatory day i had to go through everything

[faggling]

sobbing

[anyarose011]

One More Reason to Control Myself {Angus Tully x Reader}

Summary: Angus Tully knows she's hiding something. Why else would she lie about where she was the morning of Christmas Eve?

Part 5 of ?? (Masterlist)

Warnings: Swearing, period typical sexism, and mention of exploitation of a minor.

We get an Angus POV chapter, motherfuckaas!! I had fun writing from his perspective while also giving him a little more backstory as well. Also, considering I want to try and eliminate the Y/N effect, anytime there's a she or her (italicized) it's you, dear reader. Shoutout to me forgetting there was a character named Danny in the movie, so I have to cover my ass for naming the creep "Daniel". Also, part 2 of an Angus/Reader coded song (what do you mean it breaks my heart? No it doesn't!)

Word Count: 7.1k

“So, why’d you miss supper last night, and why is little miss Jane Bennet missing breakfast now too?”

That was what Mary asked Angus and Paul Hunham at Christmas Eve breakfast. Mr. Hunham glanced around, trying not to show his nerves, but failed. “Oh, we went into town on some uh, school-related business. As for my daughter…I do not know; she wasn’t there when I woke up, have you seen her, Angus?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

Mary hummed. The door opened, and in came Danny, the janitor who, even in the below freezing temperatures of winter, somehow almost had a smile on his face. Carrying in a mop and bucket, he greeted. “Good morning, everybody.”

“Good morning,” Mary pointed to the kitchen. “you can go on in and fix yourself a plate.”

He nodded. “I just saw something funny. I walked into the gym, and someone had vomited in there.”

Angus stilled as he drank his orange juice. Mary looked at him and Mr. Hunham, and the two of them looked at each other.

“You don’t say,” it was Paul who spoke first. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Angus answered loosely.

“No, uh, I’ll look into that right away. Thank you.”

Mary raised one of her brows. “I see how it is.”

Danny shook his head, walked over to Angus, and placed the bucket and mop by him before walking away. “You’re out your mind.”

Angus sighed, fiddling with the eggs on his plate. It had been a week of a frozen hell for him (perhaps not so bad…he made a friend. A friend who, despite there being billions of nerves in the body, she still managed to get on every single one of them; yet, he knows he does the same to her). Still, as Christmas Eve was supposed to be a time of excitement for the holidays, Angus Tully felt nothing of the sort.

He had no idea if it was because he was getting older, or because his father wouldn’t be there after Christmas mass, carrying him out of the car when he pretended to fall asleep.

Maybe it’s because he didn’t live in the same house anymore where the Christmases he used to love took place…

Fortunately, his moments of wintertime dread were gone once the doubles doors from the outside were opened. He watched as Mr. Hunham’s daughter entered, pulling off her gloves and unwrapping the scarf that was brought up over her hair and around her neck.

“And where were you?” Mary was the first to interrogate, sitting beside Angus, still smoking her cigarette.

She smiled, approaching the table. “Out.”

“Out where?” Her father then questioned.

Chuckling, the girl pulled out a chair by her father and sat down, taking an orange of the fruit basket, peeling it. “Just on a walk. I gotta clear my head from you people sometimes.”

Mr. Hunham shook his head, not necessarily shocked by her response, but still bewildered. “Clear your-? How long were you out?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I woke up around seven-thirty, read for a bit, then went out. So…maybe eight? Not for long, that’s for sure.”

Angus knew she was lying. He didn’t mean to peek into her room when he woke up (genuinely he didn’t, no matter what anyone says). Even though Mr. Hunham decided not to wake everyone up at the crack of dawn since Angus was the only holdover, the boy’s internal clock wouldn’t let him sleep in. So, the first thing he needed to do was go to the bathroom, and as he passed by the doorway to her room, she wasn’t there.

He didn’t think anything of it until he was eating breakfast at eight-thirty, and he still didn’t see her.

“I see.” Her father furrowed his brow, but then shrugged, going back to lunch. “Well, please at least eat something other than fruit.”

She took the whole bowl. “But it’s the candy of the good ol’ days.”

“And what are the good ol’ days?” Mary huffed,

“Ancient Rome and Greece,” she popped a grape into her mouth. “also when women had less rights than they do now.”

Angus snorted, trying to then cover up his amusement with a cough. He didn’t find women not having rights funny (please believe him), it was just unexpected of her to say. Still, he felt all eyes on him, and refused to meet any of them as he picked up a piece of bacon.

He likes to think Mr. Hunham’s daughter was smiling at him when she stood up. “Fine, I’ll get real food.”

She went to the kitchen to grab a plate, and Mary hummed. “Never thought I’d see that girl ever be happy this early in the morning.”

Angus finally looked up. “She usually isn’t?”

Mary smirked, placing her cigarette between her lips. “I don’t think you’d last a day with her if you were both ten.”

There was nothing else to do after Mr. Hunham lectured Angus for an hour about the aqueducts in Rome. What was usually two and a half hours was only one, since the teacher claimed: “I’m feeling a little generous because of the season.”

Not because he wanted to drink alone in Dr. Woodrup’s office reading mystery novels (Don’t be ridiculous).

So, that brought Angus Tully back up to the infirmary, to do what, who fucking knows? He glanced into the other room and saw Mr. Hunham’s daughter laying on the middle bed, reading. When she looked up, sensing his presence, he instinctively hid behind the corner.

“You don’t have to be creepy anymore.” She spoke with the sarcasm he knew so well. “We’re friends, remember?”

Angus, playing it cool, entered the room, leaning against the wall. “Who says I was ever creepy to begin with?”

“I did.” She placed a bookmark in her book before setting it down and sitting up. “And you know, ordinary people just enter a room; they usually don’t bother checking.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “maybe you’ve convinced me there are ghosts here and I just want to be safe?”

Not because he was hoping she was in her room and had a reason to go talk to her (Don’t be ridiculous).

She rolled her eyes yet smiled anyway. “Took you long enough to figure out I’m always right.”

“I said ‘maybe’. What’re you reading?”

“Just now or in general?”

“Yes.”

She held up The Two Towers. “You ever read Tolkien?”

Angus sat on the spare bed across from her. “I read The Hobbit my freshman year; one of the only books I liked reading in school.”

His eyes fell to the stack of books on her nightstand. Little Women, Sense and Sensibility, Giovanni’s Room, andThe Count of Monte Cristo.  

“You’ve read all of these?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Yeah.” She then pointed to The Count of Monte Cristo on the bottom. “Well, I actually tried to read this one when I was fourteen but got bored with it; I’m trying again.”

“Right after you reread everything else?”

“Shut up.”

She tried to sound serious, but he watched as she turned her head to try and hide her smile. He wasn’t ashamed to show her his. Angus’ eyes went back to the stack of books, and he took out Little Women, flipping to the first page.

“‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.’ Grumbled Jo.” He read aloud, then looked up from the book. “Now I know why Mr. Hunham calls you that.”

“Are you saying I’m selfish, Fitzwilliam?”

He shook his head, going back to reading. “No, you just complain a lot.”

She scoffed. “Just wait until you meet Amy. I love her, but I’m glad I don’t have sisters.”

Angus’ didn’t respond, his eyes trailing over the words on the pages. He didn’t truly know why he kept reading; whether it was out of boredom, or perhaps he was already hooked on the story, he would never tell.

“Wait,” he heard her. “are you still reading?”

“Damnit, you made me miss my spot.” He glared at her.

She already knew he didn’t mean it (that much). Still, the girl giggled, laying back down on the bed and opening The Two Towers, going back to her own reading. They were like that for ten minutes perhaps? It was a strange time that went by fast and slow. No, Angus Tully wasn’t even doing this to think of what to say to her, he was genuinely engrossed by Louisa May Alcott.

Then, it was when he was more than half-way done with the first chapter, that he asked. “Where were you this morning?”

She looked over at him. “I’m guessing you hate the book?”

“Don’t change the subject.” He sat up. “And no, it’s actually tolerable.”

“Tolerable for it being written by a woman?” She sat up as well. “And for your information, I just went to the woods. What, were you worried about me or something?”

“Maybe…I don’t know, maybe.” Were the only thoughts behind his eyes, but his mouth moved differently.

“No. Wait, you’re walking around the woods, and you’re calling me creepy?”

“What’s so creepy about walking around the woods by myself?” She questioned. “If there was someone following me, then they would be creepy, dumbass.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t know anyone who spends their time frolicking through the woods for fun.”

“You didn’t really know anyone, but neither did I, so we’re even.” She stood up, going to the window to look out of it. “I also prefer frolicking through flower fields, but this isn’t the best season for that.”

Angus hummed. “Yeah, I noticed.”

He debated on asking her why she was out there for an hour and a half; if she was in the woods, or if she was even outside. Just as he was battling with himself and wondering how to ask her without her biting his head off, he saw her tremble.

“Are you okay?” Was the first thing he asked.

“Come over here.” She commanded without looking at him.

He stood up immediately, and as he was halfway to the window, she giggled; a sound he had heard before but…not like this, somehow. Angus stood beside her at the window and watched as Mr. Hunham walked on the sidewalk by the quad, stretching.

“Look at that sad, little man.” She tisked.

Angus asked without looking away. “You talk about your dad like that?”

“You would too if he was yours.”

“Point made.”

They watched as the teacher picked up a stray football on the ground, and with perhaps the worst technique ever, threw it. Both she and Angus, as if her father would see them in the window, backed away from it, laughing at the absurdity.

“I almost feel bad now.” She said through her enjoyment. “That’s a lie, I don’t.”

Her honesty only caused Angus to laugh even more, and he can’t remember when the last time it was he had ever laughed this much. Especially over something so stupid.

“Well, it’s obvious he didn’t play football in high school.” He said.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “he’d go on and on about being president of Latin and Chess club.”

That’s where Angus’ amusement ceased. Even if it was at his own expense, he didn’t mind it at all since he could see just how wide her smile could get.

“Angus Tully, don’t tell me-.”

“-What’s wrong with Chess club?”

“I knew it!” She pointed at him. “You nerd!”

“You’re the one that knows all of Roman history and mythology like the back of your hand, and you’re calling me a nerd?!” He teased.

The girl snorted, crossing her arms. “Not all of it.”

“Yes, you do.”

“So why have I lost to you twice now?”

 “I just got lucky.”

“Uh huh, sure.”

“I’m serious!” He tried to brighten the strange air that settled in the room. “Your dad didn’t drill it into you for nothing.”

 “Yeah, you’re right about that.” She hummed, sitting back on the bed. “So, you’re good at chess?”

He shrugged, taking a risk and sitting next to her (with about two feet of space of course). “I guess so. My…my dad taught me how to play, and I never beat him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled, nearly losing himself in the memory. “I was like nine when this snowstorm hit, I was out of school for almost a week, and my dad and I just played the whole time.”

“So, you played without bathroom breaks, and you still didn’t win?”

“Okay, smartass.”

She smiled. “My dad tried teaching me chess and he beat me every time too.”

“You still play?”

“Hell no.”

“Why not?”

“I always cussed at my him whenever I lost, so probably not a good idea to keep going.”

Angus snickered. “How old were you?”

“Seven.”

“You were cussing at seven?”

“He was an asshole!”

“Yeah, I’ve met him.”

It was almost horrifying how her face dropped at his comment. One where it was like the words themselves shocked her. Then, before Angus could fully register what had just happened, she was laughing.

“Sorry,” she shook her head. “I’m just imaging what you looked like as a kid.”

He tried to laugh it off with her, but that odd tension crept its way back in. “I was weird.”

“So was I. You should’ve seen me when I was twelve, my father drilling Roman knowledge into my head, proclaiming how, if I wanted to be better than all of the boys in my class, I had to work for it.” She grinned. “It’s like he tried to make me a small version of him, which was impossible from the start.”

Angus nodded, not exactly knowing how to respond. “Yeah?”

“Of course.” She shrugged. “Well, he doesn’t mean to, but I feel like he sometimes forgets I might want to wear ribbons in my hair, put on makeup, girly things like that that I almost called stupid, but they’re not. But could you imagine it? My father wearing makeup and…okay, he doesn’t have much hair for ribbons, but you get it.”

“I do.” He smiled.

She nodded, and they fell into another beat of silence. It was almost a competition as to who would speak first, and in the end, she surprisingly lost. She stood up from the bed.

“I uh…I promised Mary I’d help her in the kitchen.” She walked backwards. “You’re more than welcome to keep reading my ‘tolerable’ books written by women.”

Angus hummed, trying to shake off her abrupt exit. “Yeah, I got nothing else better to do. Maybe I’ll meet you downstairs and keep harassing you?”

“Yeah sure.”

With that, she turned on her heel and scurried out of the infirmary. Angus always found her to be strange; from the moment she stepped into Mr. Hunham’s classroom in September, to her just then. Still, it was a strangeness he couldn’t help but be intrigued by. Not the same as how a scientist would study a foreign species but…he had grown quite fond of her.

He already had a liking for her that first day he met her (despite her harsh and course attitude towards the others in class). Not a liking enough to have it be a crush per say (he was still annoyed with her). Then, the whole catastrophe of him being stuck with her over Christmas break only added fuel to a fire.

A fire that has both warmed and burned him all at once.

What kind of shit was he going on about? He read half of a chapter from Little Women, and now look at him!

Not knowing what else to do with himself, Angus slid The Count of Monte Cristo out from the bottom of the stack of books. It had been one of his favorites as a kid; ironic in both a sense that he read it as a child, but also his mother of all people recommended it to him. Before he could even flip it to the first page, he saw a small gap in the middle as if there was a bookmark. He opened it and found a letter; an already opened letter.

Angus’ blood ran cold at the sight of it, and as he took it onto his hands, he turned it over. It was addressed to her, and the stamp was a toy train. He had only gotten a glance at the first letter when Teddy stole it, and he recognized the stamp.

Sighing, it almost felt like the envelope was burning in his hand as he hunched over himself. He could’ve read it…it was right there, and it was already opened so it’s not like she would’ve ever known.

But he would’ve. And he knew there was no going back if he read whatever Daniel wrote to her, and even if it wasn’t bad (how could it not be), then he knew she’d be able to sniff him out like a rat that he’d read it.

Wait…Daniel…Danny…The janitor.

“Shit!” Angus hissed, almost falling off the bed, then sprinting out of the infirmary and running blindly though the school he has gone to for months.

He ran outside without a jacket on, looking around for Mr. Hunham. When he already saw his fingers beginning to turn white in a matter of a minute, he ran back into the school and navigated the halls as if he were a bat out of hell.

It took him quite literally running into Mr. Hunham for him to finally stop.

“God almighty, Mr. Tully!” He gasped. “What is the meaning of this?!”

Angus, trying to catch his breath, said. “Mr. Hunham, I have to tell you something.”

Immediately upon noticing his distress, the teacher’s harsh demeanor and voice dropped. “Well…alright, what is it?”

“Can-.” He looked around, feeling suddenly exposed in the hallway. “Can we do this somewhere else?”

“Sure, sure.” Mr. Hunham nodded, looking around as well until his eyes landed on the first door he saw. “Let’s uh, is there fine?”

“Yeah.”

They both entered into a classroom that neither had been in before. It was smaller in size, more than likely meant for honor’s classes, but it looked like it hadn’t been dusted since the beginning of the year when parent’s would visit. When the door was shut, Mr. Hunham turned back to him.

“Now, what’s going on?”

Angus said her name. “Someone’s been sending her letters.”

“What kind of letters?” He asked, his face a mix of confusion and even a hint of denial.

“I…” Angus looked down at the one he had in hand and held it out to the teacher. Mr. Hunham took it, slipping his reading glasses out of his pocket. Angus continued. “Someone named Daniel sent her one days ago, Kountze stole it and read it aloud to everyone back in the woods. I think it’s Danny, the janitor.”

The moment he said ‘Daniel’, he’d already seen Mr. Hunham’s entire demeanor change. He saw him visibly tense, as he read the letter what must have been a million times. As time stood still in the dingy classroom, the teacher swallowed thickly.

“You said she got another letter a few days ago? Where is it?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head.

“Mr. Kountze read it aloud, what exactly did it say?”

“I…” Angus paused, trying to remember just what was written so he wouldn’t miss a thing, “He asked her to send a picture of herself to him, and wished her a Merry Christmas. He sent her thirty-five dollars too; did he send more?”

Mr. Hunham shook his head, obviously bewildered at the amount of money. “No, he didn’t. Mr. Tully, did you even read this?”

“No.” His response was instant.

“Why not?”

Angus’ eyes trailed to the side, somehow finding the blank chalkboard much more appealing than Mr. Hunham. To be honest, anything at the time was more-.

“Angus,” His voice was stern, but not mean. It was enough to catch the boy’s attention, but not enough to scare him. “I need to know what you know, so we can help her.”

He took a deep breath. “Teddy made a joke that she…she…has pictures of herself in a skin mag.” It was absolute hell to watch Mr. Hunham sigh, so Angus looked away as he continued. “She didn’t say that she did, but she didn’t deny it, and I didn’t want to know whatever creepy shit Danny sent-.”

“-First off,” Mr. Hunham interrupted, rubbing his face. “this isn’t Danny the janitor.”

“How do you know?”

“Daniel,” He tried to say the name like he was a historical figure and not someone who made his skin crawl away from his body. “was...a family friend of some sort. That is all you have to know about him.”

Angus nodded, but couldn’t ignore the tightness in his chest, and how his stomach began to tie itself into knots as he asked. “Why did he stop being a family friend?”

“I said that’s all you have to know about him.” He said with more of a bite, then calmed himself. “I’ll speak to her about this the next time I see her, and rest assured, I won’t mention you.”

“She’ll know it’s me.” He shook his head. “I found it in one of her books when she left the infirmary after we talked.”

Mr. Hunham clutched the letter in one hand while removing his glasses with the other. “Regardless of details I cannot share with you, this little incident should not effect on how you view my daughter-.”

“-It doesn’t! I just-!” He lashed out unexpectedly at even the assumption of him finding any shred of blaming her for what was happening to her. “I just…I want her to be okay. That’s it.”

The teacher all but froze at his response, it is apparent that he was not expecting him to say that. Still, after regaining himself, he nodded. “You’re a good man for doing this, you know that, right?”

Angus scoffed, shrugging. “I don’t think she’ll talk to me ever again.”

“She may not,” he nodded. “but she also might. I won’t force her to do either. Again, thank you for letting me know.”

“Sure.”

The two of them walked out of the classroom in silence, and with Mr. Hunham’s “See you at dinner?” and his student’s nod, Angus Tully was left alone again in the grand halls of the school.

 A fate that has somehow always caught up with him ever since he got there.

Angus read the same Popular Mechanics magazine three times over since he found it the night he was the only one left behind at Barton, and he’d gotten sick of it after the second time.

So, with nothing else better to do, and with it starting to get dark, he went down into the kitchen, where apparently everyone but Danny was, helping Mary cook. Including her. She was washing vegetables in the sink while Mary was preparing a roast, both of them laughing at someone one of them said. Mr. Hunham was just at the table, peeling potatoes like his life depended on it.

“Mary.” Angus greeted, smiling at her. Mr. Hunham’s daughter immediately turned back to the sink upon seeing him.

Mary looked up. “Speaking of…”

Deciding to ignore the strange tension in the room (He has a knack for doing that, doesn’t he?), Angus’ eyes traveled around until they landed on a dish beside him. “Oh, brownies? God yes, I want all of these.”

“Ah, ah!” Mary scolded when he took one. “Just take one. The rest is for the Christmas party tonight.”

“What Christmas party? There’s a Christmas party?” He said her name. “Did you know there’s a Christmas party?”

She didn’t turn around, and only responded with. “Uh-.”

“-Yes, at Miss Crane’s house.” Mary interrupted her. “She and I are only going for a little bit, show our faces, and say we were there. Well, she might stick around since her little friend is there. You know, Miss Crane said she invited you too.”

Angus furrowed his brows, looking over at Mr. Hunham. “I want to go to the party.”

He stammered. “She-she didn’t mean it. We were just making small talk.”

Mary shrugged. “If you don’t want to go, don’t go. I’ll take him.”

“Mary can take me.” Angus reiterated.

“No, that’s not how it works.” Mr. Hunham raised his voice a hint. “You’re under my supervision.”

Angus frowned. “So, your own kid isn’t under your supervision, but I am?”

“Don’t even think about pulling me into this.” The ‘kid’ in question shook her head, not even turning around.

Still, he scoffed, bringing his eyes back to Mr. Hunham. “Okay, maybe it’s fine for you to sit around here and read books all day,” he turned on his heel, beginning to walk out. “but I’m losing my goddamn mind, Jesus!”

“Hey!” Mary yelled at him once he threw the brownie across the room. “Watch your mouth, young man! Not on Christmas Eve.”

Angus ignored her, storming off back to the infirmary. He didn’t even make it to his room and a bed to dramatically throw himself on and scream into a pillow. He rested his back against the wall before sliding down it. Now sitting, his shoulders still tensed at what just happened. He’d been stuck in the school for a full week, only being able to go out when he dislocated his entire shoulder.

Who the fuck did that piece of shit think he was for holding him captive?!

Closing his eyes, he thought back to what Dr. Gertler told him. Sure, the guy was a quack, but once or twice he actually had a few things that helped him. Angus breathed in, counting to four, held it for three, then released it for another four.

He repeated that until he felt the tension (mostly) fall away from him, and there was even a hint of calmness in his head.

Which was then lost when he opened his eyes, and she was peeking from around the corner.

“Jesus!” He gasped, and she immediately hid. Once his heart stopped beating so damn fast, he said. “Okay, now who’s being creepy?”

“…Me.” She said after a moment’s silence, still hiding.

Sighing, rested his head against the wall. “I’m sorry I yelled earlier.”

She finally showed herself, standing in front of him now. “I don’t think I’m the one you should apologize to but thank you. My dad said you can go to the party with Mary and I.”

That got Angus to sit up taller. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, but he’s going with us, so it won’t be that fun.” She joked.

He snickered along with her, before asking. “What about dinner?”

“We’ll probably just have it at Miss Crane’s. We’ll just have a nice lunch or something tomorrow instead of tonight.” She explained before walking into her room.

This was what caught Angus Tully off guard. She wasn’t exactly acting like her father had just confronted her about the letters, she was being too nice to him…so did she know it was him? She had to; or was he just overthinking it and getting in his own head (Something he did frequently)?

“When are we leaving?” He asked.

“In an hour!” She yelled, her voice somewhat muffled. “So, get on it, Fitzwilliam.”

“Anything you say, Amy!”

He ran off before she could storm after him (like he assumed she would), and went back into his room, which had darkened quite a bit. He went to his bag and took out the razor and shaving cream that he had only opened a few times since the beginning of the semester. He shook the can and applied the cream to his face before bringing the blades of the razor up to shave.

There was honestly no need to. It’s not like he even had “sawdust under his nose” as one would put it when talking about the mustache men would try to grow after watching Top Gun, which didn’t exist at this time, but that’s beside the point.

Even so, as he wat attempting to shave what was not there, he heard a knock, and her voice asked. “Are you decent?”

“Yep.” He answered, not even bothering to glance at the hall of lockets she had knocked from.

She came into his eyesight and stood so close to him in the mirror that he could feel the heat of her skin on his. “Move over.”

“Why?” He scoffed playfully, yet still did so.

It was only then he noticed the small makeup bag she had in her hand, and she placed it on the sink before opening it and taking out a sponge and small jar of liquid that matched her skin tone (it was foundation; he’d heard the word before but didn’t know it was that until perhaps a year later).

“The lighting’s better in here.” She answered, getting close to the mirror and dabbing the liquid on the sponge and upon her face.

Angus took a second (and only a second, if he took any longer she’d yell at him) to look at her entire self, and saw that she was wearing a dress. A dress that he would never have imagined on her. Her hair was almost the same as always...but there was something more to it he couldn't quite verbalize.

She was still herself, and it was silly to Angus Tully that it took a different dress and perhaps some makeup (something he’d hardly see her wear) to realize just how…just how…

“You look…” His mouth trailed off faster than his brain before he could stop himself.

After finishing her foundation, she took out a powder and brush. As she applied the powder, she glanced up at him through the mirror, a smirk on her face that was holding back a laugh. “Yeah?”

He couldn't call her ‘pretty’ (both because she’d never talk to him again, and that would be belittling her), and he couldn't call her ‘beautiful’ (she just wouldn’t talk to him again period; and he’d probably be scaring her off). So, apparently, the best thing he could think of in a limited amount of time was-.

“-Like a girl.”

Oh, how attractive it was to open one of the windows and jump out of it. If it wasn’t the fall that would kill him, it would certainly be freezing to death in a foot of snow.

Instead, to his surprise, while she momentarily scowled at him (as she should have), she giggled. Shaking her head, she said. “I would say you look like a man, but there’s nothing about you to prove that.”

As his heart began to beat again from her apparent lack of offense, he took the towel off the rack and wiped the residue cream off his face. “Oh yeah? What am I then?”

“A boy.” She set down the brush and took out a small tube of liquid, shaking it. “A tall, little boy.”

He snorted, walking away from the mirror when her gaze became just a little too much. “You said you were friends with Miss Crane’s niece?”

“Yes.” Her tone changed somewhat (or was he just overthinking it).

“Do you think I could-?”

“-Should I put on eyeshadow?”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“You know,” she turned over her shoulder. “the color that goes on the eyelids?”

“I know what eyeshadow is. I’m not that big into makeup, so I don’t know.”

“Really?” She teased. “You aren’t into makeup?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She turned back to the mirror, opening the tube. “Nothing.”

Angus’ eyes scrunched as he smiled at her playfulness. “Well-.”

“-Shut up.” She interrupted him.

He scowled. “Huh?”

She had the pen (it was eyeliner; he actually knew what that was) hovering over her right eye, and she was glancing at him again through the mirror. “I’m doing the most important part, and it’s the one I’m horrible at, so I need complete silence.”

Angus Tully merely nodded, looking away. He didn’t know how long she took, but she knew she was finished when he heard her gasp.

“I did it!” He looked back and saw that she turned to him with the biggest smile on her face, and blackened wings kissing the corner of her eyes. “I did it!”

He could only nod. “Yeah, it looks good.”

She grinned from ear to ear before turning back to the mirror, setting down her eyeliner and getting out an eyelash curler. “Could I ask you a question, even though you’ll feel stupid afterwards?”

“Do your worst.”

“Why ‘Amy’?”

Angus felt safe to smile at that. “Does that bother you?”

“Why, on God’s green earth, would you say I was like Amy?!”

“Well,” he shrugged. “it pisses you off, that’s the first reason. Second is…she grew on me.”

She scowled, turning to look at him. “Oh yeah? How so?”

“I mean…you made her out to be so annoying, and someone who complains a lot which, yes she does. But she’s funny, and she sticks to herself like Jo does, but…I don’t know, I just like her.”

Her face fell for the second time that day; but not like it did that afternoon when he made a joke about her father. No, this time, he knew it was because she truly didn’t think he would say anything like that.

And, for the first time since he’d known her, she almost looked shy.

Something he thought would be the thing that terrified him the most that entire Christmas break.

So, when she didn’t respond, and wanting to disrupt the awkward silence, he then asked. “Wait, why was your dad so against going, but now he’s fine with it?”

She looked back at the mirror, looking at him through it. “Besides the fact it wouldn’t be fair that you’d be stuck here while I’d go, he has a crush on Miss Crane.”

Angus snorted. “Figures.”

She shrugged. “I kind of always knew. I mean, she’s worked here for five years, but I think he only started liking her last year. I’m also not sure what he’s more afraid of; how I’d react to him liking someone after Mom died, or him just liking her period.”

“And how do you feel about it?”

“My mother’s been in the ground for six years.” She decided to take the eyelash curler back in her hand, then brought it up to one of her eyes. “We still visit her of course. She wasn’t selfish either, and it’s been so long, so I don’t think she’d mind. Besides, I’m going to technically graduate next semester, and I don’t want to be stuck here, but I also don’t want him to be alone. Mary’s really his only friend so…yeah, I think I’d be okay if he was with Miss Crane.”

Angus nodded. At first, it felt almost invasive and even wrong for her to tell him all of that so effortlessly. But…he leaned into it the more she went on. She’d been vulnerable with him before (whether she thought it or not, she had been), but this time…it wasn’t a huge confession, it was just a simple conversation.

“I don’t…” He found himself saying.

He didn’t what? What was he going to say? Something about his father? His mother? It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her something.

She took the curler away from herself and turned to look at him. Her eyes…her damn-no, they weren’t damned; they were kind, gentle…but still he felt damned just as she looked at him in a way he hadn’t ever seen her look at anyone before. She was waiting for him to say something.

Say something.

Say something.

She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t done anything but stare at him, but he was suddenly twelve again. Angus Tully, with his hair that was just beginning to have out of place curls, walking into his parent’s room at two in the morning. He woke his mother up, who gasped when he touched her. After she calmed down, she was appalled to see him crying.

It wasn’t a bad dream, it wasn’t because something had happened to him at school; he didn’t know what was making him weep, but he was doing it anyway.

He could barely say anything, he babbled like a baby learning to talk, and all he could get out was “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

His mother tried her best (he liked to himself that), but she could only say “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong.”

Didn’t she hear him? He didn’t know.

Even now, at seventeen, he didn’t know what to say to her.

“I don’t know how you can use that.” He glanced at the eyelash curler.

She furrowed her brow upon the change in tone. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, it looks like a torture device.”

Scoffing, she looked back to the mirror and curled the lashes of her other eyes. “You’ve just never tried it before.”

 “And I never will.”

She looked back at him once she was finished. “Are you scared?”

“No, I just don’t see the reason to.”

She shrugged. “I think you’re scared.”

“Am not.”

“Okay, then let me put mascara on you.”

He scoffed. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” She shook her head. “If you’re not scared then you’ll let me stick something in your eye. You don’t have to wear it to the party, but I think it’d be fun.”

Angus was at a loss. She was a good actress, so how was he supposed to know she wasn’t messing with him? Well…he didn’t; he just had to trust her. To be fair, he had been weird around her this whole time, so…

“I’m not doing the torture device, just the makeup.”

Her face lit up, and she took the mascara out of her bag, setting everything else inside of it. “Get over here.”

He followed, leaning against the wall by the mirror. Suddenly, as he stood in front of her, he was nervous. It wasn’t the first time he was (whether that was because of her wit, her confidence, or even her meanness), it was because it was just her.

“How uh,” he stammered. “how are we doing this.”

“Lean down first of all, fuck why are you so tall?”

“Not one of my favorite qualities.” He joked, pressing his hand against the sink for support as he lowered himself slightly.

“Meh,” she shrugged, unscrewing the cap of her mascara. “girls usually like tall guys.”

His heart flipped. “Yeah?”

She froze momentarily before continuing. “I guess. Elise told me.”

“Right.”

“Okay, close your eyes. You’re going to want to open them when you feel something touch your eye, but I promise you, you don’t want to do that.”

“Sounds good.” He closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling of discomfort. He could feel the heat of herself hover around him, but the pain from the mascara never came.

He heard her sigh. “This isn’t going to work.”

Angus opened his eyes when he felt her draw away, and he saw her sit on one of the beds. She titled her head. “Come here.”

He didn’t know if his heart was still or was going to beat itself out of his chest. Obviously, he sat by her before but…he had to be closer to her. Angus did his best not to make a big deal of it, but he felt like he was almost watching himself outside of his body as he sat beside her and closed his eyes.

“Do you want to know what my mom called me when I was younger?”

She was trying to distract him and he knew it. “Sure.”

“Ever heard of Orpheus and Eurydice?”

He tensed but soon relax when she rested her hand on his cheek; it felt like she was burning him, but the way that he felt whenever he had a fever. Somehow…it was comforting.  Breathing shallowly, he answered. “Greek? Kind of.”

“Well,” he cowered away a little when he felt something brush his eyelashes but kept calm as she continued. “where my father loved Roman history and mythology, my mother was more into the Greeks. They’d go back and forth debating on which was more influential, and that was more so how they became friends. She…before I was born, she talked about naming me Eurydice because it was her favorite story. My dad was obviously against it, so that was a no. So, that’s when she’d just call me Eurydice at home a lot, just to piss him off which was funny.”

Angus hummed, paying attention to her words, but having to bite his tongue to keep himself grounded from losing himself within her touch. “What’s she like in the story?”

“Not much to her.” She moved onto his other eye. “Well, what it gives us anyway. I always had my mom tell me their story, and Eurydice kept changing. It was always who I was like growing up.”

“Really?”

“Really. I was shy around the other kids when she first told me-.”

“-You, shy?”

“Shut up, I’ll mess up your eye if you make me laugh. But yeah, so Eurydice was quiet and shyer. Then, when I’m like nine, I’m a bit more outspoken, angrier even, so she became that.”

He didn’t move his head, scared that he’d mess her up. It was then, after she stopped speaking, he could feel her breath on his face. Her hand was still warm against his cheek, and he found himself leaning into it more and more. He had not felt this sense of peace since…he couldn’t recall.

“Done.”

With one word from her, she took her hand away and he opened his eyes. She was still so close to him, and while he saw her smiling at what he assumed had been her work, it was him staring at her that made it drop. Still, she didn’t look frightened nor upset, she was just…looking at him.

The moment his eyes dropped to her lips for only a second, it was all over.

He’d thought about it, of course. He wanted to. But…like with everything about her, he froze.

She didn’t.

“You…” She stood up from the bed, straightening the skirt of her dress. “you should probably wash that off after taking a look.”

Angus didn’t have time to respond before she grabbed her makeup bag and ran off. He just sat there, trying to process if he was waiting to wake up from a dream, or if it had been in fact real.

When nothing happened, he sighed heavily, getting up and walking towards the mirror. His eyes looked different, and he felt weird. He could not tell if it was from the makeup, her, or both. Still, what he did know, was that he made a fool of himself.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[littleoddwriter]

If you’re comfortable with such, may I request what would happen if Billy’s mother (assuming she’s the source of all his trauma) were to visit the (now) sorority house? Perhaps here, Billy and the reader are already in a relationship

Billy Lenz x Female!Reader | Headcanons (Fic in Bullet Point style)

Hi there! Thanks so much for the request and for waiting patiently. I hope it's okay I decided to do this in bullet points, rather than a regular fic. I just didn't quite know how to write a whole short story around this and be satisfied with it. Either way, I hope you like it! <3 notes; Female!Reader (can be read gender neutral; it's just fem because of the setting); Past Trauma; Mentions of Past Child Abuse; Trauma Reaction; Short Fic in HC-style.

Ko-Fi. Ao3.

It’s winter break, so most of your housemates are gone to visit their families, which leaves you and Billy alone at the sorority house when his mother comes by.

You open the door for her, not knowing who she is, and believing her to simply be an elderly lady that might have gotten confused when she insisted that this used to be her house. 

Billy leaves the attic very rarely, finding comfort in the dark, crammed corners of it; but he’d recognise that voice anywhere, no matter how much she’s aged and how long ago he’s last seen her. His mother.

It shakes him to his core to actually hear her voice coming from herself and not his memories, his mind, or his own imitation of her when he was having an episode. 

He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He wants to run down and confront her; although, he knew he’d get tongue tied. He wants to kill her and spray her evil blood all over the walls she once called her own. The walls his developing body often made brutal contact with. The walls that felt like they were closing in on him every time she cornered him and yelled at him as if he was an abomination. Sometimes, he still believes that last part to be true. No matter how often you tell him that you don’t see him as anything less than precious.

While you’re talking to Billy’s mother, you get an odd feeling about her. A sense of dread and danger. It confuses you because to your eyes she’s just an old lady, probably somebody’s grandma, who wasn’t quite right in her mind anymore. 

You try to keep her in the living area downstairs, not trusting her, and also not knowing if Billy is staying where he was up in the attic. 

She goes on and on about how she used to live in this house with her family; her late husband and daughter. She wants to mention something else when she talks about her family, but stops herself. You catch the look in her eyes, and it sends a shiver down your spine. Your inkling about her might not be all wrong, then.

You start to feel uncomfortable and you don’t know how to ask her to leave in the most polite and effective way. That’s when Billy makes himself known by throwing things around in the attic, going by the sounds coming from there. 

When she asks, you say it’s a raccoon that often causes a ruckus up in the attic. She doesn’t buy it. She’s persistent about going upstairs, wanting to see her old rooms and to look into the attic to check if she maybe did leave something behind when moving. 

Luck is on your side when the house mother comes back from an errand and sternly asks the lady to leave, which she does after a little fight; but once she’s threatened with having somebody called on her, she accepts defeat.

After a little chat with the house mother, you excuse yourself and go up into the attic, making sure she doesn’t notice. Billy is in complete distress when you enter. While he’s not throwing things, or himself, around anymore, he’s curled into a ball on the floor in the far corner of the attic where it’s darkest. You can barely even make out his shape. 

Sitting down on the floor near him, you keep quiet, knowing that he’ll come to you or talk to you if he wants or needs to. Sometimes, quiet company is worth much more to Billy.

After a short while, he sits up, reaches his arms out to you, pulls you in, and holds you tight. He’s still shaking and making soft noises of distress, but he’s starting to calm down. 

You simply stay in his arms, shushing him softly here and there. At some point, he shakily reveals that the old lady was his mother. It hits you hard. He’s told you bits and pieces about his past, usually during his episodes and mostly involuntarily. Not knowing what to say to that, you just hold him tighter. 

[matthyeu]

spring ― shb.

pairing ⇢ sung hanbin x gn!reader 

genre ⇢ fluff, slight angst, college!au

warnings ⇢ none 

word count ⇢ 1.9k

synopsis ⇢ everyone has the upperclassman they find interest in and never talk to. hanbin just had the chance to see you again.

many people dislike the season of winter. hanbin was one of those many people. however, he didn’t hate the season because of its frigid weather like most people. he actually didn’t mind being wrapped up in layers of thick jackets. he actually preferred that to the summer as cozy outerwear always allowed his mind to be the most at ease. 

sung hanbin hated winter because it was the time that took you away from him. 

well, maybe saying it took you away was dramatizing it, but hanbin dreaded the days of winter leading up to mid-february, the time you had to graduate from high school. 

it didn’t even make sense why he felt that way about your departure from the school. not once had you ever really interacted, but he had heard so many things about you from his peers, one of the upperclassmen who didn’t look down on underclassmen. your kindness radiated throughout the school, even leaving its legacy when you left. 

it was such a shame hanbin never got the chance to speak to you. you always seemed to be swarmed by people, whether it be your own classmates or underclassmen. being so popular with underclassmen, hanbin always felt stuck in a sea of people where he was constantly swimming against the current as he was pushed out of crowds. 

he tried to not think too much of it after you graduated, but still, the two years he spent at the high school without the legendary upperclassman was filled with grudges against the winter season. 

a lot of people like the season of spring. hanbin was also a part of that lot. however, he didn’t like the season because of the beginning of warmth like the vast majority. he could care less about it because of how his allergies acted up in the presence of the flowers blooming. 

sung hanbin loved spring because it was the time that brought you back to him. 

it was yet another dramatization of the situation, but it was true. the spring did somehow make your lives cross paths again once he entered university after his own graduation. 

“hey everyone. welcome to lab. i’m going to be your ta for this semester. i took this class almost two years ago, so hopefully i’ll still be of some help. let’s have a great semester.” 

he didn’t think he would be seeing you as one of the trusted instructors for the many science labs all over campus. he didn’t even know that was possible, but he soon found out many undergraduate and graduate students took offers to teach labs in exchange for some of their tuition paid off. 

this spring really was his chance to finally speak to you after a year of failed attempts. unlike before, he had a foolproof plan to see you: office hours. 

that is, if your office hours weren’t always filled to the brim. he didn’t even know who that guy sitting to your right was. he wasn’t even in your lab section! 

he scanned the corner of the coffee shop where you had decided to hold your office hours, students on your left and right trying to get your attention about one of the formulas on the lab worksheet. he certainly didn’t expect you to wave him over when you spotted him cluelessly looking around. 

“it’s a little cramped here, but go ahead and pull up a chair! if you need anything, don’t be afraid to get my attention,” you explained as you became preoccupied with another student. 

hesitantly, hanbin took one of the chairs from a nearby table after confirming with the occupant that it wasn’t being used. he sat down, and pulled out his lab notebook to mimic the actions of the few students looking to learn. most of them spent time ogling you instead of actually making an attempt to learn. it seemed even in college you remained as a legendary upperclassman everyone knew. they were bombarding your office hours after all. 

who was hanbin to judge though? he was practically doing the same thing. 

unlike the others who spent their free time dangling their feet as they sat on tables surrounding you, however, hanbin would make use of his time there. he hoped in the time it took him to review his lab notes and do homework, the crowd around you would eventually dissipate. 

well, it didn’t. it seemed the crowd that surrounded you only continued to grow as you became swarmed with questions from students who actually wanted to learn. slowly, it was like high school again where he was constantly pushed out by those who wanted only a chance to speak with someone as well-known as you. 

“these are all great questions, but i’ve stayed a little too long already. we’ve been taking up a lot of space in this coffee shop, so i think it’s time for me to go home and do my own work. i appreciate all of you coming to further your knowledge. if you need anything else, send me an email, and i’ll try to answer in a timely manner.” 

and just like that his chance to talk to you was over. he sighed and followed the actions of the other students, packing up all the stuff. he was disappointed in himself. he hadn’t even asked you anything related to the class, let alone anything about yourself to get to know you better. 

he was content with it. sitting in your presence was calming, allowing him to finish all of his homework in a timely manner. he could always try to talk to you again next week during your office hours. even if he wasn’t able to, at least he was able to finish his work. 

still, there was a part of him that was uncontent with the encounter. he really wanted to have at least one conversation with you. maybe that was why he was taking a little longer than the rest to put his things away. 

slowly, everyone said their goodbyes to you as you packed up your devices and papers from the table. as you were about to leave, hanbin sped up his packing in an attempt to leave the door with you and wish you a safe trip home. 

instead, his binder fell, several papers falling out of it and spreading all over the floor. he quickly bent down to clean them up before anyone could slip on them. that was probably one of the most unfavorable things in a coffee shop: slipping on some stray papers and spilling a drink because some random college student was trying to give himself a cliché moment with someone he idolized.

he shoved his papers into his binder without any second thought of organization. he was more focused on trying to not become the most hated person in the coffee shop. 

“here, let me help.” 

well at least, he got the interaction he so desperately wanted. this wasn’t how he anticipated it to be though, the two of you on the floor of a coffee shop trying to gather all of his papers. 

“thanks,” he mumbled as he shoved more of them into a pocket of the binder. 

“oh, you got through this problem,” you commented as you handed him one of the worksheets from the previous lab, “everyone was having trouble with it today.” 

he smiled, glad the interaction got to be a little more. “oh, well i was just listening to the conversations you were having with everyone. your explanations really helped.” 

“aw really? i’m still lacking knowledge, so i’m glad i could be of help in the background of your studying.” 

all he could do was nod. this wasn’t a conversation that could particularly lead anywhere, so he didn’t want to drag it out too long. you seemed to be in a rush to leave, so he didn’t want to keep you longer than needed. 

once he realized there weren’t many more papers scattered, he tried to assure you that he could do it on his own. 

“nonsense,” you retorted, “there are only a couple left. don’t worry i’m not doing anything important after. i just wanted to go home.” 

he chuckled at your insistence and diligence in helping him. you still were the kind upperclassmen everyone praised you to be. nothing about you had changed other than age. 

“thanks.” it was all he could really say. 

“mhm–” 

when he heard your pause, he looked over to see what you had stumbled upon. had he left something in there he wasn’t supposed to? were you going to find some hidden dark secret he had been trying to hide? did he even have dark secrets? 

“you also got invited to this?” you asked, showing him a flyer he had been sent by his old high school to talk to some of the students. it was a common occurrence for some of their most popular alumni to be asked to come back as per request of the students. he had never seen you come back, but he was sure you were always invited. you were spoken about like some celebrity, so why wouldn’t they invite you back?

“yeah, but i don’t know if i’ll be attending,” he admitted as he took the paper from you. 

as the two of you stood up, you added, “i also went to high school there.” 

“i know.” immediately after blurting out the response, hanbin realized how odd his statement must have sounded. “i mean uh–” 

you laughed, placing a hand on his shoulder to reassure him you didn’t find anything wrong with what he said. “no i get it. they always invite popular alumni back, so i understand my name is well-known around there.” 

he shook his head. “you don’t understand. you’re a living legend. even the new students who know nothing about you would hear all these crazy stories.” 

you raised an eyebrow. “crazy stories? i don’t think i did anything crazy while in high school.” 

“they say a lot of things that are inaccurate, but everyone always is wondering why the esteemed upperclassman never comes back. you’d be a celebrity if you went back there,” he rambled. 

“what about you then. you got an invite. won’t they be waiting for you to come back too?” you wondered. 

“i just graduated. my demand is not as great as yours. they would go ballistic seeing you back on that campus.” 

“hmmm what do you think about going back together? we could give them even more stories to tell. two legendary upperclassmen ending up at the same university and coming back to visit together. it would be one heck of a ride for them.” 

he thought about the proposal as he zipped up his backpack. it did sound like a good idea. it also gave him more reason to talk to you. 

“sure that sounds fun.” 

“you know me, what should i call you?” you asked as you two finally exited the coffee shop. 

“hanbin. sung hanbin.” 

“well then sung hanbin, my successor of legendary upperclassman, i’ll see you in lab next week. stay behind, and we can talk about our plans more.” 

yeah, sung hanbin’s favorite season really was spring. spring brought him a miracle. spring brought him you. 

[76blades]

I can no longer stay silent.

I always feel bad for venting out loud, whether it be publicly or to my Twitter circle (which I have been doing a lot lately, and I’m sorry if it’s been distressing (…my point exactly)). But things have not been ok, nor have shown any significant chances of getting better anytime soon. I know I’m gonna be beating myself up later for posting this, but I’m sick and tired and I can’t stay quiet. I’m desperate for change.

For those who don’t know, Winter’s family (and job) has been severely mentally and emotionally abusing her, and it’s not just because of her gender identity. They’ve threatened and harassed her over her showing any negative emotions, her body, her interests, the food she eats, you name it. Granted, it’s not my tale to tell, but it has been BAD as of late for her, and it definitely has affected me. I might be going through some similar stuff with my dad, but he’s nothing compared to them.

Speaking of, for those who don’t know about my dad, he’s a slightly better version of Winter’s parents; a well-intended asshole but still an asshole. He has caused me to question my sanity and safety several times, and he refuses to acknowledge my anxiety as anything serious, and believes it’s something I can easily control and/or an act I put on. He’s been trying to pull me into college even though I’ve told him several times that I don’t want to, and he’s told me several times that if I don’t follow his advice then I’m only gonna end up nowhere. He certainly doesn’t believe anything regarding Winter’s situation either, and views it all with rose-tinted glasses. 

He also demands to know my entire schedule for the week, that I laugh at his jokes or smile when I don’t want to; and he even touches my shoulders and back without my consent, and he’ll get mad when I express my discomfort. I was dreading having to move back in with him because I knew this would all be happening, only for it to be so much worse. I don’t even feel comfortable recording when he’s home because I’m afraid of him yelling and/or making fun of me. And yet, it’s funny and sad how he’s an absolute saint compared to Winter’s family.

Winter and I have been breaking our backs trying to save up for a new home, but our jobs have been cruel to us on top of our families. We’re being overworked and underpaid, and a good chunk of our paychecks goes towards food and travel expenses. And while we’ve been trying our best to push our comms, we’re still a far way from freedom.

I don’t ever want to come off as a beggar for money, attention, etc., and I feel anxious whenever I boost my comms because of that, and yet I also feel like that’s exactly what I’m doing here. But I need to be transparent with you all about my and Winter’s situation. I am truly afraid that one of might truly snap, with the little remaining of our sanity vanishing in an instant. Tbh I feel like that person is more likely to be me than her. 

Regardless, I’m unsure of what else to do right now other than to keep boosting commissions and whatnot (and I might make a Ko-Fi goal too, idk), but I want to keep finding affective (and healthy) ways to spread awareness of our situation and help bring us a few steps closer to where we want to be.

I know I’ve said that I feel like I’m waiting for a miracle that won’t come, but maybe you all could help us bring that miracle to life. Thank you all for taking time out of your day to read this and support us.

I will be attaching links to my comms and Ko-Fi, as well as Winter’s. If you have any questions or would like to consider commissioning us, feel free to DM or Email either of us.

TLDR: Winter and I are being abused. We're desperate to leave our perspective toxic environments, and we need some extra help.

My Commissions | My Ko-Fi | Winter's Commissions | Winter's Ko-Fi

[tracybirds]

Been sitting on this bit of fic for a couple of months :) Think I'm ready to put it out in the world

Hunger Games!AU - initially inspired by @tanushakyrano who I believe is knee deep in their own hg au <3 and also thanks to @gumnut-logic whom I inflicted this on when I first wrote it and played cheerleader :D

Hopefully more to come (I have ideas.....)

---

The clang of metal on metal pulled Gordon from his sleep, the grey light of a new day greeting him. For a moment, he didn’t move. If he stayed still, curled between Alan and Virgil, he could stave off the day and ignore the jolt of fear that clamoured for attention in his belly.

Another clanging pulled Scott upright, muttering as he rubbed a hand across his eyes. He reached out and placed a hand on Virgil’s shoulder and shook him roughly.

“C’mon Virg, dawn bell’s ringing.”

Virgil groaned, mumbling for five more minutes, but the day had begun and no-one in the district cared if one of their citizens would rather have a lie in.

Scott glanced across at Gordon as he hauled Virgil upright. “Don’t you have chores waiting? Harvest doesn’t stop just because it’s Reaping Day. You and John better get gone.”

Gordon didn’t say anything, the sick feeling in his stomach intensifying at the word. John was up already, pulling on a threadbare shirt. He didn’t look at any of them.

Alan yawned. “What am I doing today?”

Scott crouched down, smile fixed firmly in place. “You’re going to help Grandma with the meals – try barter with the Jones-es down the way for some grain – and we’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“Can’t I help with harvest? Pol’s been helping since his birthday.”

Scott swallowed thickly. “No, Allie. Not ‘til your first reaping’s done, you remember what Dad said. We’ll talk next summer.”

Alan nodded. “Okay,” he said easily. “Next year then.”

He scurried away without further protest, and Scott slumped forward with a sigh.

“It’ll be over soon,” said John quietly.

No-one said anything, not wanting to speak their fears aloud and invite them into reality.

“I want to apply for extra,” said Gordon, suddenly. “It’s John’s last year, and we need the tesserae.”

 “No.”

All three older brothers spoke as one.

Gordon met their horrified gaze steadily, his jaw set and face grim.

“You know I’m right. We nearly didn’t make this year without Virgil’s share. If we lose John’s too and there’s no way to make up the shortfall, what do you think will happen come winter?”

“It’s not worth the risk,” spat Scott, his fists shaking.

Gordon snorted. “It’s no less than what you did for us, or Virgil, or John. I’m fifteen now. John’s put his name in, what, eighteen times this year?”

“Twenty-four,” corrected John. He shrank back from Scott and Virgil’s twin looks of horror.

“I knew it,” said Gordon triumphantly. “Every year since he was fourteen, I’m older than that.”

“This isn’t a game, Gordon,” snapped Virgil. “You don’t win for getting your name in the most times, you just get dead.”

“We need that tesserae,” argued Gordon. “Look, I get it, we’ve been that low before, I can do the math as well as you, but last time that happened we had Dad.”

At once, the light diminished, as though the mere mention of the man who’d towered over their family extinguished all oxygen from the room, taking the candle flame with it.

Scott looked like he wanted to hit something, fists clenching and unclenching at his side.

“We can manage,” said Virgil. “There’ll be three of us working for the adult wage next year, we won’t need the extras.”

“Yes, we will,” interjected John.

The admission fell from gritted teeth. Living was a numbers game in the districts, and no-one kept track of the numbers better than John. Gordon exhaled slowly, hope and dread flickering internally with equal measure.

“He’s right,” said John, his voice louder. “Maybe we’ll survive without it, but that’s no guarantee if the crops fail like they did in ’56. Or if a new craze sweeps the Capitol and they need more grain than usual to make whatever extravagant waste-of-space meal is the hot menu item of the season. There’s too many uncertainties, and we can’t base our food supply on a best-case scenario.”

Virgil chewed at his bottom lip, still staring at Scott worriedly. “We might need to trade for medicine or fuel come winter, too,” he admitted reluctantly. “It was only luck we didn’t lose Gordon right alongside Dad that year. And Coney, she says this winter’s going to be a hard one.”

“What does Coney know?” scoffed Scott. “You’d risk Gordon’s life on a maybe?”

“It’s my choice,” snapped Gordon. “Besides, I’d be six slips out of what, a thousand? We need those supplies and you know it.”

Scott opened his mouth to argue, but a second clanging toll rung out and interrupted him.

“That’s the assembly bell,” said Virgil, eyes darting between Scott and the door. “We need to go.”

Scott hesitated, lips pursed as he levelled Gordon with a solemn look in his eyes. “Your choice. You’re right, I can’t stop you. But please, Gordon, think it through. You don’t know what it’s like to watch your little brothers…” His breath heaved in his chest, and he turned away. “Let’s go,” he said to Virgil, leaving John and Gordon behind.

The tension remained, shooting sizzling static through the air as Gordon tried to catch his thoughts and reorder them.

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” said John quietly.

“Next year we’ll need more than seven allotments.”

There wasn’t much else to say. Unless they brought in a fourth wage next year, by manner of marriage which only meant another mouth to feed, they wouldn’t last the winter.

The wages in District 11 were just enough to keep the population meagrely fed when the weather was fair and the farming a success. But there was no margin for error. Consequently, the poorest members of the district were reliant on the reaping for extra resources.

Gordon wasn’t stupid.

The least valuable were always more likely to be selected.

It was simple math.

[bratdotcom]

Inarticulation

( Chris Redfield x Ethan Winters fluff!)

authors note: I added a link to the instrumental version of Inarticulation by Rio Romeo because I think it fits better!! This is is my first post so enjoy!! I wrote this instead of doing my English hw (^.^) also I'm trying a new writing style so tell me what y'all think!!

wanrings: established relationship, Chris hiding how much he has a crush on his own husband (he's shy to admit it himself, okay?)

Chris huffs in annoyance, he wanted to take a nap. A long nap, a 'bear nap' Rose would say, because of the way he snored. The warmth of the light fixtures above him didn't help him feel any less sleepy.

"Take a picture. It'll last longer."

Ethan says behind him, for once, towering over Chris. Chris was knelt down, surrounded by dusty old boxes. In his hands was a dusty old napkin. A kitschy one at least, probably something Rose had nabbed while out for dinner.

Today was cleaning day.

A day that they both dreaded, dearly. Ethan hated the dust, Chris hated being the one who had to do all the heavy lifting when it came to moving boxes.

Chris again huffs, out of habit with his hands on his hips. The Redfield stance that Ethan knew so well. "What are we going to do with…" Chris gestures to the surrounding boxes with his meaty hand, eyebrows furrowed as he trails off. Another habit of his that the man didn't seem to break. Ethan kneels down beside Chris, picking up another object from the box in front of him.

"Look," He says gently, a soft voice Chris had grown accustomed to. He leans closer to Ethan, eyes raising slightly to soak in whatever he was going to show him. "It's us!" Ethan exclaims, pointing at the framed photograph in his hand. A photo of them and Rose at the beach. Chris meant to hang that photo up sooner- but things happen. He dusts off the glass carefully, a faint cloud of dust forms from where he palmed which causes him to scrunch up his nose slightly.

Chris's eyes soften, he can't help but chuckle seeing Ethan's close examination of the framed photograph in his hand. He uses his sleeve to messily wipe away the remaining dust, he didn't bother to pull out a handkerchief or use the equally dusty napkin in his other hand.

His eyes drop down to the napkin again, then to Ethan. The warmth of the light bulbs above Ethan's head made a small halo form around his crown, but Chris wasn't going to admit that. Even though they're married now. He was too reserved, too closed up to even tell Ethan what he was thinking.

"You're right, we should take a picture." He says instead, a faint smile on his features. Ethan can see every wrinkle, every dimple in his face curve up into a smile. He couldn't help but smile too.

"It'll last longer."

[annetictac]

Like I used to watch you sleep - Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 4

The last two races passed by quickly. Since he had already won the World Championship there was some stress taken off. He had raced just as fiercely, trying to gain the maximum of points for the team. There had been many celebrations after the season had closed with the team, with his friends and some of his family.

The winter break slipped in easily. He arrived home, still feeling weird at the silence that welcomed him. Kelly had used up the time he would be out for the last race to pack away their things from home.

She didn’t want to give him any information of where they would go, probably one of her father’s properties near his. She had been clear that he was not allowed to contact her. If you regret this, it will be too late, she had said twice and so far, she meant it.

He knew they had been having problems, but when he brought up the conversation they had pending, he never imagined it would end up like it did. He had tried approaching it in a moment of calmness, Pe sleeping away in her room. They had been at the sofa quietly watching whatever Kelly had picked for the night – not the documentary which had never again appeared on their tv since that night.

He wanted to clear the air with her, to explain his side of things, applying everything he had learned from therapy the last couple of years. He had felt her frustration with him accumulating as the days had passed from the last time she had dropped the subject to the table.

Max had tried to negotiate with her, make her understand he didn’t want to have children now when he knew he would not be able to give them the attention he had lacked from his parents. His mother he only saw for shorts amounts of times, his father who was coach first, mechanic second and who was many things before remembering he was also his father. Max wanted to be there, not to miss anything. With Penelope, because they had to share her with her biological father, he already felt he was losing much.

And he couldn’t resign F1 just yet. Not when they were finally reaping.

She had tried explaining that it would not be that bad, Pe’s dad and her own as her examples of stelar intermittent fatherhood. That children really didn’t remember anything from those firsts’ years. But Max wouldn’t budge. He offered to accompany her in case they could freeze whatever they would need to delay it, in case that was her concern. But things had gone out of proportion quickly and she had snapped him shut for the foolish suggestion. According to her, a band-aid for a gunshot wound.

Kelly had given him an ultimatum, and when he had stayed quiet not knowing what to do or say, she had informed him they would move out by the next race. It had hurt him; he hadn’t expected it. He expected her anger like many fights they had had during their two-year relationship. A stray thought had even passed through his head at the heat of the fight, while they had been doing some pin- pong with their arguments to the other, of asking her to marry him as a compromise. So, he could prove he was true with his intentions. But the whole idea of marriage still filled him with dread, somehow that puny paper still burned too close to his father’s unstable unions and he had stopped himself before offering it as a white flag.

What hadn’t surprised him was that he missed Penelope the most. The ease that filled the room when she was there, when she would slip into his controls room to tell him silly nothings or show him whatever she had as novelty. He would find his cats sleeping over the empty bed they had left in her room. How they would disconnect from the world while playing in her pretend worlds.

He missed the companionship Kelly represented, having a partner that was so willing to align their life to yours was not easy to find. And she had been willing. Once they began dating, he had felt as if she had been made for him. Any other problem he’d had in previous relationships had been easily surpassed, there were no schedule problems that they couldn’t solve with the jet or the black card. Her modelling gigs, now less than before, would always be planned around his schedule. She said it wasn’t a problem, he chose to believe her.  Pe was usually what could be the toughest fit sometimes, because her father also came into the equation but once again, easy to solve since the court’s decision and timings were set.

Most times Kelly seemed to know better than him where he was supposed to be, what he was supposed to wear and to whom he was supposed to talk to. When he met Kelly, he had still carried the bruise from Anna’s departure, and he had craved the constant companionship Kelly offered. Max missed the good days they used to have, when Kelly had showered him with affection. He didn’t miss the bad days where she could freeze him up for days, and once even for a couple of weeks because they hadn’t seen eye to eye. Like she was doing now.

He had tried calling her, messaging her, even contacted her mother. But to no avail. She didn’t want to talk to him and wouldn’t let him contact Pe. He worried he wouldn’t be able to talk again to Penelope. Kelly’s mother had said as much when he had tried gaining information on how to contact them.  

Some days he felt dread over the holidays looming by. His mother had forced him to agree to come pass them with Victoria, his nephews and her. Which he loved but at the same time sometimes he felt out of place.

The first two weeks after returning from the last race he had done most of his commitments. He was now merged in more amusing pursuits trying to pass the time as quickly as possible before starting the new season. The simulator had been a great distraction but the restlessness was a tough partner to beat.

Lando offered going to London for New Year’s. Max accepted.

He arrived a few days before, staying over with Lando who agreed pleased of having a temporary roommate.

“Do we need tickets?” he wondered taking another bite of the prosciutto sandwich Lando’s maid had done for him. Lando laughs loudly.

“Dude it’s a private party, Martin might mix for a bit,” the younger driver explained gulping down quickly the rest of his coffee. “Today we paddle, tomorrow we party!”

Max was grateful for the distraction of his high-spirited friend. He followed Lando around leaving the younger of the two to decide most plans for the days they had ahead. For a bit he regrated not for the first nor the last time, not taking more action when the chauffeur drops them at an expensive looking store, Boss he thinks he reads before being taken quickly inside before bystanders can stop them for autographs.

“Lando?” Max questions annoyed when he sees the flock of four sales men approaching.

“Flow with it,” Lando announces before greeting the apparent lead of the flock. “Sal!” they hug with back clap included effusively making Max even more uncomfortable than he was two minutes ago.

“Mr Verstappen,” A serious looking forty something man greets nodding discreetly “Will you be needing any help?” Max notes an accent he can’t place. He nods.

“I think I might need something,” he says looking for Lando.

“New Year’s party, we want to look good but not Oscar’s good,” the McLaren driver announces, not giving more information. “And before you say you have clothes, don’t”.

Surprisingly it’s not as terrible as he remembers going shopping. Manuel, his tailor, has understood him before he even explains anything. He lets Max sit on the lounge, while Lando is trying out tons of pants and shirts, while bringing an iPad to show him possible models for Max. Then he brings only two combinations made for dummies which Max tries and decides to keep both.

He waits for Lando sitting at the comfortable sofas they have near the changing chambers, using the free time to check his phone for messages. Victoria has sent him photos of his nephews with the gifts he’d given them

“You must be an incredible boyfriend,” an older woman approaches, seating by him. Max doesn’t know what to say because he’s not completely sure of what the woman is implying. She chuckles. “Oh, I don’t mean Mr. Lando!” she clears quickly, he notes there’s a small plate on her black tux. That clears she works at the store.

“Why do you say that?” he questions curiosity peaked.

“You look like a patient young man,” a loud snort announces Lando returning, shopping bags thrown over his shoulder.

“He’s the least patient Gretta, don’t let him trick you,” he adds cheekily, kissing the woman on the cheek before signalling for their departure.

They do paddle that day, Alex and George joining them as they are spending the holidays in London as well.

Lando is a better host than Max gave him credit for. Without him asking, Lando has understood the distraction he needed, maybe Dani called him? Max realized he hadn’t asked much about the party, other than Martin confirming he’s also coming. The chauffeur dropped them at a mansion that Lando clarifies it’s a high-end hotel. Max stepped over the wobbly stones at the car drop, music reaching them easily. He arranges his new jacket.

“Mr. Norris,” a tall stylish blonde girl greeted with a perfected smile. “Mr. Verstappen,” she adds when she eyes him. “Your keys”. A small silvered plate appears in front of each with a magnetized card. Max was already beginning to feel freaked out because he seriously needed to ask more questions before saying yes to things. Lando chuckled under his breath, putting the card on the inside of his jacket.

“Relax, it’s not a swingers party,” Lando joked pushing him to the stairs taking them to the back gardens. “It’s a hotel, I reserved rooms – separate rooms – so we can hangover with style”, Max finally guarded the card in the insides of his new midnight blue jacket.

CHAPTER 4

[valadren]

I didn’t really make friends growing up.

Ever since I can remember early on I was seen as the weird kid, the outcast, but, critically, my teachers really liked me. It was pretty easy in my head to do that, classrooms usually had basic rules told to us as kids, and they were things like raise your hand to speak, sit properly, share, stuff like that. I learned pretty quickly that most teachers like you if you talk to them about the things you were learning in class. I always imagine myself wearing that cloak from Zatch Bell when I think about my grade school me, which is funny because the only other memory I have about clothes from my childhood was how horrible most of them felt on my body.

I don’t think my parents really noticed how lonely I felt at school, how much I dreaded going because my teachers all pretty much only had nice things to say until the homework burden got higher, later into grade school and into middle school. See, I was a precocious reader, and I picked up basic mathematics really easily, so part of my early school years was going to gifted programs. I remember having a really stern math teacher who was also extremely funny and cool one-on-one, my favorite kind of teacher tbh. But once my school work got more complicated, I found myself struggling to pay attention, I had focus issues, if you can imagine, and this was during the time that video games became sort of the de facto hobby in me and my older sibling’s life. We used to play with our myriad action figures as kids, my sibling grew out of them, the only way I could hang out with them was by playing video games, but I never dropped the action figure habit to this day. Almost every game I play I have action figure representatives for my party members, weapons built out of knex, so I could reimagine, or redirect the scenes, I like feeling the action in my hands, moving each limb meticulously to approximate these things. If I knew how to animate I would probably end up liking it.

Focus issues. My parents were struggling with this, both their children seemed to not have many friends and usually sit inside playing video games. Both of them were slipping in their grades, so our usual punishment when we’d get bad progress reports was to get our games (and my action figures) confiscated. I remember sneaking into their room on one of the days we were home alone (it was a different time back then), sneaking out one male and one female action figure to hide in my desk. I needed to have something to do with my hands that wasn’t breaking pencils or chewing on them, or chewing on my hair when I got to have it long enough. I can still remember the feeling of each of these things like I’ve been doing them all my life.

Another thing that maybe hid my isolation was that as a family we were always moving. I spent my summer and winter breaks living with my grandmother in Illinois, while my mom moved from Missouri to Texas and then from Texas to New Jersey. I didn’t have consistent friends or even a consistent school until we got to Jersey. I was maybe 10 or so. Even then, I had very loose connections with friends. I wanted to have birthday parties but by then I had grown conscious of how much people avoided me, I had people who would call me the devil, who hated me because they hated my older sibling, who generally found me weird and avoided me, so asking people to come to my party, to the place where my parents would be stressing out constantly about how messy my room always is, how disrespectful it would be to have company over, it felt like a losing prospect. I didn’t want to bother people who didn’t want to come to a place that would incidentally house a couple of very stressed out adults.

Somewhere in this time period I was moved into this mid-school program, I want to say by middle school vaguely, but I genuinely can’t remember when this happened. It was a weird program too, it was two teachers, one of whom was the fun one, the other I only vaguely remember having dark hair and glasses and being… nice? I think she was the one who asked me if I wanted to help out here and keep these kids company, but it was asked after I was moved into here anyway. Mostly we would play chess or checkers or YuGiOh or connect four (I’m very good at connect four but that’s mostly because it’s easy). Every kid there was one of the weird ones in school, and I was trying to not be that. I was trying to get in with some cool kids who very explicitly hated having me around. I got to know the kids in this weird program pretty well. One was a chess prodigy, or at least he seemed that way to me. My parents suggested that this could have been another gifted program, or that I was assisting the school with this, but I know what a gifted program looks like, I’d been in them all through grade and middle school and they never had two teachers for one classroom. And being a teacher’s assistant, I looked it up for that school, requires parental signatures to opt me in and neither of my parents recall doing this at all.

But this was what things were like for me back then. I was a teacher’s pet until I couldn’t keep up with the school work, I had maybe one or two friends I was close with, almost none of them are in my life anymore, and most interestingly, I grew to have a lot of weird habits. For the longest time I didn’t have opinions on art, at least not until the person I was talking to expressed theirs, which I would then adopt, to make talking with them easier and more pleasant. I never really told many people about my interests, what music I liked, what games I play, that I was huge into anime like Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho, I kind of figured that I didn’t have the same taste as everyone else, because if I did I’d have more friends. It didn’t help that my perception of my own taste varied wildly. I believed I had so much better taste in music and film than my peers because my parents wanted me to appreciate good art. The first two albums I ever remember listening to as a kid were the White Album by the Beatles (which as a fun aside I used to listen to one song on it on loop to go to sleep to until my stepdad literally begged me to stop), and the Cabaret OST. I was maybe 6 or 7 or so. I think. I was shown the Matrix when I was really young too, Spirited Away, Moulin Rouge, Lord of the Rings, but everything that I had gotten into because my sibling was, or because I saw it on cable TV at my grandmother’s, or a friend got me into, I never had any confidence that those were good at all. I had two grown up adult people telling me constantly what was good and bad art, and they were usually pretty dismissive of video games in general and most anime, down to my stepdad getting genuinely shocked that we watched something as fucked up as Yu Yu Hakusho, what with all the blood and vagina plants (he watched the Karasu fight with us whoops).

I had these pseudo classes in school too. Things like “how to look like you’re paying attention” or people lecturing on what body language makes you seem rude, and it was constantly pitted against these conflicts with my peers where they found me obnoxious for reasons that were never made clear to me, and the increasing number of times I’d do something in public with my family and have them pull me aside and yell at me for being thoughtless or selfish or rude. I have a cumulative weight of experiences where I have been told that whatever it is that I’ve wanted to do, or things that I’ve said, or done, have been actually pretty mean to people. That I need to be aware of my actions. Actions speak louder than words. If I really wanted to be a good student I would be. If I really wanted to have a tidy room, I’d do it. If I really was passionate about music or writing or acting or directing I would work tirelessly to improve, but I’m always playing video games with my action figures and it’s a shame because I’m very bright, I could be a scholar, I could be a lawyer, I could have been an actor. I’m getting ahead of myself.

I got better at this stuff. A lot better in high school because my theatre program (which was run by my mother it was very weird) helped me develop my performing chops. I got funnier and figured out that being self effacing was effective, it let me off the hook from a lot of social scrutiny, I still do it all the time in public even though I have heard endless discourse about how it’s bad to do this because it only affirms depressive thought patterns or makes you a bad role model or whatever. Looking back on it high school really was the moment that I could see the brain mechanics in play. I had, though I never called them that or considered them that, scripts. I had game plans on how to talk to people I don’t know, that changed if they were people in authority or not (this had a horrible side effect of me being really deferential to the cops that patrolled our school), and more importantly I had been getting better at tailoring myself to friends. I had ways of talking to each individual person, almost subconsciously if not for the fact that I was hyper aware that this made me into a horrible gossip because some of my classmates were gossips. I was a vector for shit talking, and it led to a constant fear of conflict between friends, because I didn’t want to be both party’s confidant.

By undergrad my performative stuff had gotten into full swing. I was a man (at the time) who was sensitive, self degrading, funny, and I wanted to be open about it all. I wanted to be an advocate for sensitive masculinity, I wanted to be up front about my mental health, which had been doing worse and worse with every passing year. I bragged about going to therapy, I was painfully open about everything and it ended up hurting friends I cared about a lot. In retrospect I was a huge dick about it all, and I think that’s the point where I mostly tried to shut the fuck up about most things. I thought I had figured things out but I was still hurting people and I didn’t want to and I lacked the awareness to not do the obviously bad thing. And it didn’t stop there. Post graduation I fell into a group of friends that I got really, really attached to, attached enough that our friendship culminated in a plan to move out of our respective family’s houses and make it on our own. That ended with the friend group excising me like a tumor, and I’m mostly out of contact entirely with almost all of them.

I’m about to finish law school if I can stop writing this and finish my final paper. It took me until near the end of my coursework to realize I put myself through this out of an act of penance for the people I have let down. It felt like the responsible choice to make myself use my talents to make the world a better place, especially if the only cost was my own joy and passion. Things that had, at the time, not amounted to anything but jilted friends, a professor telling me she’d never recommend me as an actor to anyone, a couple of really rough albums that I can’t listen to anymore, and what felt like endless confusion. I could not, and still can’t understand what is so wrong with me, that my interests and wants and needs are always seemingly horrible and selfish and thoughtless while people imposing their needs on me are things that I always have to accommodate. If I were a more arrogant bitch, I’d almost proclaim that I seemingly have the superpower of being the only person on earth who can endlessly forgive people.

I meander a lot when I talk about my brain, about potentially having autism, because I don’t want to be thoughtless about this, and because trying to list out my experiences that led to this feels like it cheapens everything. I have texture issues, I can only sleep under my comforter and no bed sheets, I can’t comfortably wear pants, pajama or otherwise, to bed, there’s a bunch of clothes I have that fit me but have bad texture so I never wear them, but that doesn’t mean anything definitely. None of this does, I am a depressed and anxious person, according to every therapist I’ve ever had, and those things can lead to overthinking, and it could all just be that, it could just be ADHD, it could be that I truly am lazy, and the act of actually self-diagnosing requires a real sense of trust in yourself and that is the one thing that was beaten out of me growing up. How can I trust myself when my actions have been speaking for me against my will all my life? How do I feel like I have real agency in my life when I am playing Russian roulette with every social encounter I have? How do I know if I’m autistic or if I’m just actually a bad person? And this problem can start a wildfire in my head too, like, okay, I know how the script goes here, you’re supposed to say that I’m valid and that my lived experiences should be honored and there’s no shame in figuring things out and self diagnosing but none of that feels real. None of that is what’s said when I’m hurt and the response is that I should be more thoughtful of the other side, or that I should be able to get over this, or that I don’t have to feel guilty about the things I did to people because someone was lying about me during the entire situation. It is one thing to say that my experiences should be valid, but I don’t think I have ever felt comfortable in validity, especially in validity that’s so easily retracted.

Today is apparently autism pride day. I have never been one for genuine celebrations of pride because I don’t feel proud of most things that aren’t some of my video essays. I wanted to share my thoughts on my identifying with autism as something that helps me understand my head a little better, that answers these questions that otherwise would lead to the conclusion that I’m just a bad person in some immutable way. It’s hard to take pride in myself for things that I am, rather than the things that I do, but maybe just trying to get my thoughts on the page can be a start.

[echantedtoon]

Love Doesn't Do Encores Ch27 Christmas With Piers

(Artwork is NOT mine. I found it on Pinterest and belongs to the rightful owner. Just picture Piers in some winter wear like this. The songs Piers sings All I Want For Christmas- MINOR KEY! ft. Chase Hotfelder and Carol Of The Bells the rock version by The Living Tombstone. Links to all  songs are below.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0KxiP0Xgtc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDACj0tkD-s&list=LL&index=5

What was left of the night was a giant big blur. After your small blow up at Mr. Rose, you quickly dashed away and caught up to Leon just as he was herding the three kiddos into the lift back down towards the exit. Thankfully you and Silver were able to slip back within the group without Leon knowing you were gone. It was a blur of Leon acting as if whatever happened didn't happen and shift the topic to treating you four out to dinner at the nearest local curry place much to everyone's (especially Gloria's-) delight. When Leon eventually herded you four out of Rose Tower you noticed Piers and Marnie wasn't there anymore. They must've taken the chance to go back and gather Team Yell as you said. Good. You didn't want anymore conflict between anyone. Long story short, Leon did indeed direct you all to a cafe that seemed pretty low key and bought the lot of you curry to eat. Letting the three kids chat excitedly about how they managed to get to Rose Tower or the semifinals. You tried to ask Leon about what Mr. Rose said but after he deflected the topic twice you didn't bring it up again. No matter now much it nawed at your guts you shrugged it off. Whatever it was wasn't any of your business anyways. Whatever it was between Mr. Rose and Leon was obviously none of your business and as you wouldn't be here at the end of the year anyways, you shouldn't get too involved and cause trouble for anyone here anyways. Besides, you dreaded to think what bad things might happen if you disrupt the storyline thus far. After the meal Leon walked with all of you through the cheery night full of excited smiles right back to the hotel and you were surprised after learning that the other Gym Leaders and Marnie was staying there too with you all. But you guessed that made sense. The Rose of Rondelands was a BIIIG hotel and it was close to Wyndon Stadium and where the Christmas Festival would be taking place but that also most likely meant Piers and his group would also most likely be staying in the hotel as well, but you hadn't seen them yet. Maybe because they were all already asleep or you hadn't been out of your room much before or after the semifinals. But after escorting the four of you to your rooms and bidding you all good night, you almost immediately fell asleep dropping to your sleeping bag after a quick shower with a sigh. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. It was Christmas and you had already accepted a day out with Piers. How that was going to go you had no idea, but for now you slipped off into dreamland. The next morning you were only awoken by someone accidentally stepping on Silver's tail making him yell out so loud next to you that you instantly woke up to what the commotion was...only to pretty quickly realize what had happened when Silver was glaring at Gloria holding his tail to his chest as she gave him an apologetic look. 

"'M so sorry, Silver, Lad!," she apologized holding up her hands as you sat up there blinking. "I nah knew you'd be under mah foot!" Silver gave her an angry chirp before crawling his way over to the bed and climbing onto it, only to curl up lazily. Gloria blinked before looking to you when you yawned. "Sorry, Y/n. I really didn't mean ta step on your pokemon."

After your brain finally registered what she said you yawned again before waving a hand. "Nah. Don't be sorry. It happens. You're up pretty early on a holiday. What's up?" You asked gesturing to her all bundled up warmer than a yeti. 

"Dontcha remember? Lee's taking us all ta the fair today n' tomorrow!," her smiled brightened as she explained. " 'E's gonna be takin' us on a grand tour 'round the city visitin' all the famous shops n' landmarks for Victor to capture for his blog and then we're hitting all the booths n' games before linin' up to see the big ol' Wyndon Christmas Parade!! And then tomorrow we're visitin' the fair again for the rides n' anything else we missed the first time!!"

You smiled widely. "Wow. That's great, Gloria. I'm glad you guys finally get some time to take a break and enjoy yourselves."

She nodded. "Yeah. Hey, why don 'cha come? M' sure Lee wouldn't mind havin' ya along?"

You shook your bedhead. "Nah. Believe it or not I actually have plans for today without tagging along with you guys." You got up.

Gloria blinked as you did in surprise. "Oh really?"

You nodded. "Piers invited me to come hang out with him today. Granted I think it's because he feels sorry for me.." You paused sadly before shaking your head. "But it'll be a good chance to hang out with someone and make friends right?"

Gloria's brow rose. "So...He just asked you to hang out with 'em on Christmas unprompted?" You nodded again. And her eyes narrowed as she hummed. "...I dunno, Mate. It sounds like he's askin' ya out on a date?" 

You paused..."WHAT!?" You swear you never moved so fast in your life than when you snapped your head to her eyes wider than plates.

She nodded. "I mean I could be wrong, but this sounds like he's takin' ya out on a date."

"G-GLORIA!!,'' you sputtered face suddenly going very red. Oh god..I mean she did kinda have a point from an outsider's perspective, but that was FAR from true! You were freaking almost tearing up in front of the guy yesterday for crying out loud!! He probably just felt bad for you and being the kind guy he was wanted to cheer you up. Like how Leon was nice enough and wanted to pay you back for your kindness even though he didn't have too. "Gloria that is NOT what's going on!! I-If Leon invited me to come h-h-hang out with him does that mean he's got a crush o-on me?!"

Gloria shook her head no to your relief. "'Course not. Everyone knows he likes Sonia. But I dunno 'bout this Piers bloke. He might like ye like Raihan."

You held up a finger red faced but deadpanned. "Ok. Firstly, I've already been told by Sonia Dragon Boy likes to flirt with her and others too, so no. That's just h-h-how he is. Secondly, Gloria. IF this even was a date, Which it is not! He just wants to hang out on Christmas. There's a few things wrong with that c-conclusion." You counted on your fingers as you lifted off your reasons. "Christmas is FAR from a romantic holiday. The only thing romantic about it is mistletoe and I'm staying FAR away from that knowing Raihan's around town. I've only met the guy a total of at least three days throughout the entire year put together! That's not enough time to develop a crush and ask someone out. And even if he were to ask me out, why on Christmas? Like I said that's the LEAST romantic holiday only if you're into cheesy-romance-christmas-miracle movies. He would've gone with some other fitting holiday like Valentine's Day or my birthday!" You crossed your arms. "Plus I'm pretty sure I'm going to be hanging out with his pals and Marnie too considering their all a package deal. It'd be awkward to date when so many people's third wheeling. And trust me. Dating is THE last thing on my mind right now. I haven't got time for that." Considering you'd be leaving at the end of the year anyways and leaving this world, and you had enough on your plate worrying about how to deal with your mother when you got back. Why date someone when you wouldn't see them ever again after New Years? "And you've seen Piers yourself. The guy was nice enough to help us BREAK INTO Rose Tower! It's logical he would be nice enough to cheer someone up too!"

Gloria held up her hands. "Geez, lassie. I get ye point. I was jus' pointing it out is all."

"Y-Yeah? Well I get it too!" Both of you were suddenly interrupted by a knock on your door. You both stared for a moment before you spoke up. "You can come in."

The door opened and Hop was the one holding the doorknob with Victor bundled up thicker than a brick wall behind him. "Hi, Y/n! Hey, Glory!" He greeted with a big smile to his best friend. "Are you ready to go, Mate? Lee's waiting for us in the lobby!" 

Gloria instantly brightened up and nodded. "Yeah! I'll be right there!" She took a moment to look back at you and gesture to the guys. "Are ye sure you don' wanna come?"

"No. I'll meet you guys later today back at the hotel anyways. Go on and have fun..." You smiled brightly. "And Merry Christmas. Tell Leon I said so too."

"Ok then. We'll see you later, Y/n. C'mon Glory!"

You waved good bye to the three who disappeared out the door they closed behind them...before sighing and turning around. "Whelp. Better go get ready for my not 'date today." You joked but it still brought a bit of pink to your cheeks which you shook off with a sigh. "C'mon Y/n. Pull your head out of the gutter!" Your hands came up to pat your cheeks before inhaling and exhaling feeling better focused. "Right! Time to start the day and try to have a nice time for once!'' It was only a quick shower, and change into your winter clothes and you were ready to go. Fixing your hair up into a neat do and walking towards the door. "Hey, Silver. Are you coming?" Silver whined looking upside down at you from his position on the bed...before slinking off and crawling his way towards you as you chuckled. "Up for an adventure again huh?" He made a tired noise but followed you out when you opened the door and closed it behind you, stepping out into the hall, and just a few rooms down from you near the elevator someone else did as well. The figure turned and was followed by another smaller person dressed in black and hot magenta themed winter wear. You finished locking the door and turned walking down the hallway a little ways- Before you stopped. Pausing and blinking at the two figures walking away from you towards the elevator.  "......Piers?"

It was an almost instant reaction. The smaller figure turned first revealing herself to be Marnie, meanwhile the taller figure in a much longer coat and hood covering his entire head turned a lot more slowly revealing Piers's face and his fringe poking out from his hoodie. His blue eyes blinked in surprise for a moment before relaxing back into that calm bored face. "Oh, Y/n. What are ya doin' here?" His bold brow rose. "I thought we was gonna meet over at the plaza."

You nodded walking towards them again, Silver in tow. "That's where I was just heading." You jabbed a thumb behind you towards your room. "I'm sharing a room with a friend, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you guys would be here too....Where's your gang at?"

"Team Yell?" You nodded and he hummed. Whelp. He certainly wasn't really expecting to run into you so early, but it did make sense you'd be at the very same hotel too waiting for the finals. His pale hand gestured to the elevator. "My guys are setting up for the parade opening or jus' havin' a good time at the fair."

"Oh. Is that where you're heading?"

He nodded again and turned to Marnie who gave the faintest of smiles. "The parade doesn't start until seven 'night. Since I'm opening for it, I don't have to be there until about six o' clock. Which gives me plenty of time to spend with Marn-Marn, and you if you still wanna accept that extended offer."

You smiled and nodded. "Yeah. I'd love that. That is if Marnie doesn't mind either. I don't want to intrude on your time-"

"'M good with it," Marnie was quick to say and she rose a brow at her brother. Piers sending her a small frown. Please don't make another girlfriend joke- She looked back to you. "It's nice to see my big bro make new friends outside our team and the league." ..Piers felt himself let out a sigh of relief at her answer. "An' he seems to really like speaking about ya too."

Piers felt himself tense again and you blinked. "....R-Really?"

Marnie nodded. "You two must be really good friends."

Piers felt himself lowering into his hood as you chuckled what she said off. "Well I'm sure glad he thinks so." You smiled towards him. "So Rebel Man." You crossed your arms. "You're gonna be taking us to the festival huh? Ok. I can't wait to see what everyone has set up at the fair!" You then pointed to the elevator. "Should we go?"

Both agreed and together the three of you plus Silver went over to the elevator and took it all the way down to the lobby and from there the lot of you walked out to the front of the hotel where Piers paused blinking towards the spot where the taxi would usually park before humming more.

"Bullocks."

You turned to him with a raised brow. "What's up, Hot Pink?"

He lazily gestured to the reserved parking for flying taxies with a sigh. "The bloody taxi's gone. N' with so much people with the fair and parade settin' up traffic's gonnna be a pain in the neck." He sighed before shaking his head. "It'll take at least two hours with all them people walkin' there."

You hummed. It sounded like Piers wanted to get there early, and it sounded like Leon must've taken the last taxi out of here with the guys. But thankfully Marnie seemed to have found a solution when she turned her head, spotted something, and then pointed. "Why don't we take that there?"

Both of you looked over to where she was pointing and it was right at a mudsdale that seemed to be perfectly free for anyone looking for a ride. Immediately you lit up and Piers paled a bit more. "Hey! Good idea, Marnie." You both began walking towards it as Piers SLOWLY trailed behind. Certainly not as fast as a taxi or train, but it'll surely get you there faster than walking. Plus while you certainly had never ridden a pokemon this couldn't be much different than riding a horse. The snow crunched under your feet as you both walked up to the tame mudsdale who turned it's head to you but didn't react beyond that as you reached a hand over and patted his side. "This'll do just fine. Should we get on?" Marnie nodded and made a motion with her hand to the giant horse pokemon who to your surprise lowered it's frontal legs until it was easy for you three to climb onto it's back. Marnie climbed on first latching onto those longer dreadlocks of it's mane, and you gently picked up Silver in one arm as the water type sighed and climbed onto the pokemon's back behind her. Wow. Guess these Mudsdales were really trained well to behave so nicely. And you both sat there for a moment...before you looked up confused as to why Piers hadn't climbed on behind you. "Uh...Piers? What's the hold up, Dude?"

Marnie turned to to her brother slowly blinking, "Did you change your mind about coming to the festival with me?"

Piers stood there hesitantly before shaking his head. "N-Nah. It's just.." You both caught his blue eyes eyeing up and down the ever patient pokemon. "I think i'd rather walk."

"Why? You even complained about there being no taxies. This would be faster to the fair wouldn't it."

He hummed. "It would. It would....But I'm not exactly too sure 'bout...actually ridin' a pokemon."

And that's when it hit you. You frowned. "Piers...Are you..scared of riding a mudsdale?"

"Absolutely bloody not!," he quickly protested frowned, "I just...rather not put my trust in a pokemon big 'nough to buck me off."

"Piers! I particularly don't enjoy riding around super high in the sky in a taxi but yet I put my trust in a pokemon big enough to fly off with me. C'mon." Your hand patted the mudsdale's side. "He's a good boy, and he's too majestic. You wouldn't do anything like that would you?" The mudsdale gave a pleased whinny to your compliments. "C'mon! You were brave enough to want to mess with Oleana and that woman's scarier than any pokemon. And they're specially trained. I doubt he's going to buck us off unless you provoke him hard enough."

"She does have point," Marnie agreed seeming to share no fear with her brother, "And I would prefer to get there before it gets too crowded by the holiday rush." 

Seeming to have two against one seemed to finally get Piers to relent. He looked between the two of you for a moment before giving a grown followed by a sigh. "Alright fine." Of all the things I get myself into." You both watched as Piers shuffled up to the Mudsdale and it took Marnie turning around fully to raise a brow at him for him to finally throw a leg over and sit on the pokemon's back. As soon as he sat down the giant pokemon stood back up. "HAH!!" You yelped when suddenly two hands gripped your arms and you threw a look over your shoulder only to find Piers with his blue eyes blown wide in panic looking over the sides of the pokemon....You snickered at his reaction and he threw a look at you. "O-Oi! Ain't funny!"

"Well consider it payback for laughing at me getting bombarded by Raihan."

"Wyndon Park," Marnie spoke and the pokemon began walking.

You did cringe a bit as Pier's grip increased on you. "Crikey. Oh crikey. I knew I should've j-jus' walked."

You chuckled again earning another frown from him but he seemed to be paying more attention to the walking pokemon as you all left the hotel. To say it was very crowded outside was an understatement. From what happened between when you first arrived and now, it was STILL VERY MUCH crowded with people walking and bumping against one another on the side walks and streets. Above you all loads of flying taxies were taking off around you and you briefly wondered if one of them was the one that had your friends in it. Thank goodness the mudsdale lane seemed to be mostly empty, it was a much more enjoyable ride in your opinion than the taxies. Although by the way Piers never stopped gripping your arms and cursing under his breath, he didn't seem to be enjoying it as much as you or Marnie. You busied yourself with looking around all the bright lights and different buildings as you passed by them all seeing all kinds of christmas decorations and lots of people carrying colorfully wrapped gifts meant for others. From some stores you could hear faint christmas music from open doors and through the dark snow clouds above you almost swore you would see Santa any moment now. After some time of this you could see the pink high walls of the Wyndon Stadium a few sky scrapers away as you all passed through the crowds, which begged the question.

"Hey. How fair is the festival anyways?"

"It's being held at Wyndon Park," Marnie explained pointing forward, "It's jus' a little bit past the stadium. Shouldn't take too long to get there at this rate."

You nodded before looking over your shoulder at Piers who looked a lot paler if that was even possible and still gripped onto your arms. "Hey, Hot Pink. How are you holding up back there?"

"B-Bloody peachy!," he stammered out, "I-Is it possible ta get car si-sick on a pokemon?"

You cringed a little bit. "I...suppose so. But if you feel sick then you should ask us to stop so you can rest your stomach."

He shakily shook his head. "N-Nah. T-The sooner we get there t-t-the sooner I can get OFF this bloody creature!" The mudsdale turned it's head slightly narrow eyed and snorted making Piers flinch slightly. ...Before he groaned and leaned his head back. "I knew I shoulda walked. I knew I shoulda walked. I knew I-"

"Hey." He snapped his head back down and blinked when your free hand that wasn't holding Silver reached up to pat his nearest hand as you smiled. "Don't think about it if it bothers you that much. Just do what I do when I need to clear my head. I replay some of my favorite songs in my head that relaxes me the most. So instead of thinking about the hor- Uh...Mudsdale! Why don't you think about what you're going to be doing for that show of yours tonight?" Piers blinked at you again, and Marnie turned her own head to catch a glimpse of your interaction, before snapping back around once you faced forward. "Plus we're almost there anyways. Right Marnie?"

"'Bout ten minutes tops."

"See? We'll be there in no time! Just hang on for just a little while longer."

Piers didn't answer you when you turned back around but you three once again passed a store than played loud Christmas music from within and you smiled...before blinking as the faint sound of humming came from behind you...And you smiled wider hearing Piers hum. While he didn't loosen his grip on your arms which by now was starting to hurt, he did start softly humming the song that was playing. There it was. Can't say it wasn't pleasant hearing music as the mudsdale continued until you all FINALLY reached a break between the tall buildings and you were met with awe. A GIANT park was greeting you as hoards of people flocked towards it. Filled with trees and beyond the trees you caught sight of a ferris wheel further into the park and your eyes grew in wonder. A fair. You're very FIRST fair ever!! The mudsdale brought you through the crowd and stopped across the street from the park entrance before leaning down enough for you all to get off. Piers was the first one off practically leaping off the mudsdale like a swimmer off a diving board and scrambling to lean against a nearby lamp post taking deep breaths as you both slowly dismounted the horse pokemon. Marnie sighed at her brother's actions as you put Silver down and walked over to Piers groaning.

"Hey, Piers. You good?," you asked.

After a moment Piers took a giant inhale of cold air and stood back up to his full height before turning to you looking better than he did riding on the pokemon. He nodded. "Y-Yeah. 'M good." To change the subject he gestured back towards the entrance as Marnie stood awaiting for you guys. "We should go in before it gets too crowded."

Nodding you agreed and followed him as he began walking off towards the park entrance. Marnie joined walking alongside you and Piers after you warned Silver to stay close to you while crossing the street and into the entrance you went. There was a lot of people walking around you all as you went through the snow covered streets with the snow crunching under your feet, and being able to see your breath. The cold hitting your face as you looked around. It was really beautiful and perfect for Christmas, but you couldn't imagine actually living somewhere always cold like Circhester. Walking with Piers and Marnie you all eventually heard and saw it. The many screams of delight, the smells of popcorn and other fair foods, distant fair music, and then the absolute menagerie of colors that hit you once the flood gates. Your eyes widened seeing the many MANY booths lining the many splits and different sidewalks that the parks pathways split into. There was more than the ones in front of the Wyndom Stadium yesterday. Lots were selling different items such as gym leader merchandise, Christmas themed things, food, or some were games. You could still see the giant Ferris wheel in the backgroud so you guessed the actual rides were further into the park not that you'd want to go on the really high ones.

Piers must've noticed your wonder filled eyes because he let out a small 'Heh' under his breath before putting his hands in his pockets and looking up. "So. Where do you gals want to go first?"

"How 'bout the food courts?," Marnie suggested which was quickly backed up by Silver who gave a chirp after her, "Haven't had time to eat yet n' I could use somethin' to warm me up."

Piers hummed before nodding. "I'm down for that. Can't do my best tonight if I'm just lettin' my stomach grumble more than a starvin' snorlax."

With you agreeing the group made your way to the left path where the smell of food was a lot more prominent and soon found yourselves walking down booths of popcorn, candied apples, some kind of meats on sticks, and of course the regular carnival foods of hot dogs, funnel cakes, sodas, corndogs, and the like. You were drawn to one particular booth that was selling a variety of those items. Silver came right up to the booth and immediately pointed at one of the giant boiled eggs before looking at you and giving a curious noise. Piers coming up beside you with a small tray of drinks in his hands. 

"Oh. Is that what you want?," you asked and Silver nodded. "Will you behave if I get it for you?" He nodded again and you smiled. "Alright then. Hey, Piers." He blinked as you smiled at him. "You want something?"

He....blinked. Before holding up a hand. "Nah. 'M good, Mate-"

"Oh no you don't." You patted his shoulder and he blinked again at you. "Listen. You invited me to hang out with you. You helped me yesterday. And you bought me hot chocolate. The very least I can do is buy you breakfast."

He blinked again at your words. "I thought we were already even after I got your shoulder fixed."

"We're equal in terms of the shoulder, but I owe you one for the drink and invite." You smiled brightly. "Besides it's Christmas. Isn't the holiday about giving back to one another? C'mon. Pick anything you want. It's on me this time. I'll get something for Marnie too." It was the least you could do and you had plenty of money to spare from working four months at the store. 

Piers gave you a look as if he wasn't believing what he was hearing, before turning his head to the food booth quietly. "...Well...I know Marn-Marn likes those dumplings n' that pickled meat's pretty good."

You smiled and turned back to the guy handling the booth. "Consider it done. Hey! Can I get a couple orders this way please?"

And forty minutes later you three were walking your way back the way you came after looking through the other booths there. All of them were some kind of food go figure, and by the end of it the three of you walked out with hot coco courtesy of Piers and each of you all having something warm to fill your stomachs. Marnie with her dumplings and some kind of crepe, Piers settled on what you understood to be some kind of meat they pickled raw before frying it on a stick...(odd), and you settled on just a cheap hot dog. Silver by now had already swallowed the entire boiled egg and kept eyeing your food but you weren't about to go give it to him. Not sure where you'd be going now but Piers seemed to be following Marnie's lead so you went along with it as she slowly looked around the booths you passed with people shouting at you all or entertaining other people one caught your eye and you suddenly paused, Piers did too when you suddenly weren't next to him. What caught your eye was a booth with a woman who was selling key chains with all kinds of cute and shiny metal pokemon charms. And as the small sign suggested all were just a dollar and by the size of the booth there was a decent amount.

"Somethin' caught your eye?," Piers questioned looking around the booth also.

You opened your mouth to answer- "PIERS!!" Both of you turned as Marnie pointed to a particular game booth. "They're givin' 'way morpeko plushies as prizes. Win me one will you?"

Piers turned back to you. "Hey. Don't worry about it. Go win Marnie something nice and I'll meet you in a second after I grab a few of these for my friends." Piers nodded after a moment and turned to walk away before you turned back to the lady of the booth. An idea forming in your mind.

"Are you interested in anything you see, Young Lady?"

You nodded. "I need four duraludons, two silveon, a charizard, five wooloo, a morpeko, a mochamp, genger, onix, frosmoth, sobble, a yamper, and a ninetales." The booth owner stared at you. "Oh. And an obstagoon if you have one."

With a newly acquired bag you smiled and met back up with Piers and Marnie, noticing she was carrying a brand new morpeko plush in her arms Piers assumedly won for her. "Oh hey. You're back...What's in the bag?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Well you rather give it to them sooner rather than later anyways. Both watched as you went rummaging through your bag before pulling out two of the shiny metal tinkets and holding it out to them. "TA DA!! Merry Christmas you two!"

Both blinked and stared at the small key chains you present Surprise more on Piers's face than Marnie's, in fact it was Marnie who reacted first happily taking the small little metal morpeko to match her own plush at the moment. "Oh wow. ...This matches up with my team so well." The faintest of smiles appeared on her face. "Thank you."

"Hey! Think nothing of it! It's all in the spirit of the holiday!"

Piers was...much slower to take his from you. More surprise in those blue eyes than you've seen as he looked at the charm and then to you slowly. "You....bought this? For me?"

You nodded. "Yeah. I got everyone one." You gestured shaking the small bag a bit to reveal the metal clanking inside. "I mean everyone's been working hard and has been really nice to me. It's Christmas too, so everyone should at least get something."

"....Oh." He glanced between the Obstagoon key chain in his cold hand before nodding. Of course she'd get something for everyone for Christmas, not just him. Even Marnie right next to him had gotten one. "Of course." He turned back to looking at the small keychain in his hands. 

"Hang on a second." Your head tilted and he followed your gaze behind him as you both realized Marnie was gone. "Where'd Marnie go?" 

Piers's eyes immediately wide as his head snapped around and behind you both...before sighing when he realized Marnie was just a few booths away from them looking very interested in a booth that displayed some kind of rotomi machine next to it that resembled more of a techno-fied gumball machine with a screen. What the world was THAT?? Both of you walked on over to where she was with Silver tailing after you until you walked right up to the booth and the man behind it. 

"Hey Marn-Marn," Piers greeted looking into the booth and stopping next to her. "What's goin' on 'ere?"

The man behind the booth, who had short brown hair and was bundled up enough to cover half his face with pink eyes, seemed to perk up upon seeing more of you trailing up to the booth. "Greetings and salutations!" He greeted the both of you gesturing his arms out to his booth. "Can I interest you fine folks in some rotomi adoption?"

"Rotomi...adoption?"

The man nodded to you before slapping one hand on the machine thing. "We're giving away many of the abandoned pokemon in the rotomi system to people who'd offer them all good homes and we already made a grand stride in giving away a good portion of the little guys! After all what better gift to give your kids for christmas than a pokemon of their very own!?"

"That seems a bit counter productive," Piers spoke and you blinked at him as he pointed to the machine. "Pokemon aren't toys to just distribute out like that. They're living breathin' creatures that have feelings like any other person like you or me."

"Er.." The man seemed to falter a little bit at Piers's blank stare before coughing. "Well we don't really push THAT point of view. I-It's more about finding them all good homes this year." Piers hummed and you watched as the man's attention slowly turned from Piers over to the bottom of the both at your feet. More specifically at SILVER as the shiny water type chirped and attempted to peer over the side to see what you were all looking at. And it was like a switch flicked in his mind as he hummed, hands on his hips, and leaned over to get a better look at Silver who blinked. You blinked too looking between them. "Well..We also do trades of all kinds as well if you nice folks are interested."

You IMMEDIATELY snatched Silver up into your arms as he gave a startled noise suddenly being lifted up into the air. You GLARED at the guy as he blinked. "Sorry. Silver is NOT for grabs. At all!"

"Are you sure? We have plenty of good deals fo-" An arm shoved itself between you and him.

Blue eyes narrowed. "She said she wasn't interested, Mate." With a stern tone Piers gently grabbed Marnie's shoulders and started pushing her away. "C'mon, Girls. Ya don't want any pokemon from here."

You were happy to follow the Spikemuth siblings giving one last look behind you at the man as you left. But rose a brow as you saw him leaning up from under the booth with a small cage and go into the covered back of said booth. What the heck was that about? Oh well. Silver was happy to have a break from walking in the cold snow and flopped against you as you carried him after the siblings. You all but soon forgot the encounter when Marnie directed her brother's attention over to another game booth which had the classic knock down the pins theme. You were surprised when Piers was able to knock down all three towers of pins with a single throw, but you guessed he'd have a good throw from being a gym leader and doing all those fancy tricks with his mic. He won what was a small Pichu plus but when Marnie declined wanting it he opted to give it to you which you didn't mind. You didn't take Piers for the type to want a plus anyways. You paid for your own shot at a couple games while you were there and ended up winning a small handful of trinkets and buying yourself one or two things you found interesting at the merchandise stalls. At one point you even ran into some groups of people. One was Raihan with his little trio of trainers chaperoning them around the fair most likely. You both said hi and you gifted the four of them the duraludon keychains as a sort of apology for sicking Silver on them the other day. Raihan..gave a flirty look but did back off when Piers directed you away and he was swept up by a few people wanting an autograph. Allister getting piggy backed around by Bea looking at a display of ghost type pokemon which you understood why and he seemed really happy when you gave them some more keychains. And then trio you traveled with with a badly disguised Leon. To his credit it did seem barely anyone else recognized him, they were happy to have ran into you so far arms full of either food or things from one of the booths. And even happier when you gave them the wooloo charms and Leon offered to deliver the rest of the gym leaders' gifts for you and mail Sonia's hers when talking about joining the others for the parade. Which you kindly took him up on his offer so you weren't carrying them around all day. After bidding them good bye Marnie ended up directing the three of you towards the ride section which you didn't mind but when she expressed interest in some higher rides like the roller coaster or ferris wheel you declined using the excuse of watching Silver or wanting to save more money which seemed to suffice for them. It went from the roller coster, ferris wheel, and sling shot to ones you did join like bumper cars, an all ages merry-go-round, and Rapidash rides....Piers absolutely refused to join you and Marnie on the last one and used the excuse of watching Silver for you which you didn't mind as well. There was some other games and rides but as it was nearing lunch time you were starting to get hungry again after the small breakfast and being out in the cold for hours now. Piers offered to take you both back to the food booths to pick up around round of hot coco and some food for lunch. Sounded good to you. However it wasn't until you were halfway into the food area did a VERY loud whistle blow and a female voice shouted out across the cold night.

"HEY!! YOU THERE!! STOP!!," a woman's voice shouted but you three didn't pay it much mind other than a look over your shoulder and sharing a shrug with Piers. "THE ONE WITH THAT SHINY POKEMON!!" 

At this you did pause, and turn around as did the Spikemuth sibs. Some faces were looking over too as a woman with green hair and a shiny golden badge pinned to her winter coat came charging over to you with a glare that could crack diamonds. And your brows rose. "Officer Jenny!?" What was a policewoman doing marching her way over to you?

Officer Jenny stomped her way right up to you all before pointing a finger straight in Piers's face who didn't even blink. "You there! Where are you going with that shiny pokemon?!" She demanded.

Piers...blinked. "Huh?"

"Don't play games with me! Now I asked you a question! You better tell me if you don't want to be questioned at the station!"

"Silver's my pokemon!," you cut in making them both look to you as you frowned at Jenny. The last thing you need was Piers getting in trouble over....over..Well you didn't know that yet. You crossed your arms. "Is there a problem, Officer?"

The woman nodded hands on her hips. "I'd say! You mind telling me where you got him?"

"I've had him ever since he was a sobble!" You reached down and Silver didn't protest when you picked him up. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal?!," She asked in a tone that sounded like she didn't quite believe you, "The big deal is that there's been cases of someone taking and selling shiny pokemon illegally from rotomi boxes within Wyndon City! An anonymous tip said there would be someone doing that within the fair!" Again she eyed Silver in your arms. "But so far the only shiny pokemon I've seen around here is that one! Has he been in your possession this entire time?" You nodded. "Can anyone vouch for you?"

"I can vouch for that," Piers agreed much to your relief knowing you had back up, "That pokemon sticks to 'er better than super glue. Def not the kind of bond they'd have if she jus' bought 'em from a poke poucher."

Officer Jenny looked him up and down for a moment narrowing her eyes. "You look oddly familiar. Have I seen you somewhere before?"

"You might've." Reaching a hand up Piers ended up grabbing his hood and pulling it back enough to show his entire face to her. "The name's Piers. 'M the Gym Leader from Spikemuth."

Surprise bloomed across Jenny's face for a moment before her face returned to that frown as she hummed. Looking him over and then you before nodding. "A gym leader...Alright then. You're free to go. But if I was you I'd keep a real close eye on that drizzlie of yours with those shiny poachers running amuck. It's not uncommon for them to snatch up others' pokemon."

"Thanks for the tip, but I'm sure I'll be fine with a strong gym leader and trainer with me." With a salute in respect to Piers Officer Jenny left as Piers returned his hood onto his head. You watched her go...before turning to Piers. "Shiny hunting is illegal in Wyndon?"

he shook his head no. "No. Not shiny hunting. Shiny hunting is different. It's one thing ta actually go out and capture a wild shiny for yourself or trading one or even adoptin' one from abandoned boxes. But pokemon hunters sell pokemon with rare abilities or more commonly shinies to the highest bidder cuz they're rare n' all that. I believe I told ya that back in good ol' Spikemuth." His eyes narrowed. "What poachers do for a profit disgusts me."

You nodded fulling agreeing with him. It was like poachers back on your planet. That jerk! You hoped Officer Jenny caught whoever it was that she was after. Safe to say you'd definitely be keeping a closer eye on Silver for the rest of the night. You three made it back to the food booths where you took a small food break and of course you bought Silver another giant boiled egg to eat although you did have a bad feeling wash over you for some reason. By now it was around noon which meant Piers still had about five hours until he had to go and ready himself for the concert. Despite you feeling cold with your nose a pink and being able to see your breath, you still felt alright to be out. Silver didn't seem to mind much either so maybe he was more durable against the cold than you thought he was. Once you all were finished, Marnie expressed going back to where the gaming and merchandise booths were and looking at one who sold punk and goth themed jewelry. Well you all still had five hours to kill and Marnie seemed to be having fun so why not? It was only when you were walking back through when you stopped...And remembered that one booth. With the guy who was giving out pokemon from abandoned rotomi boxes, and the one who you had SEEN carrying a small cage big enough to hold a sobble in....Why would someone who's giving away pokemon for FREE need a cage? Especially one so small. You ended up stopping eyes wide in thought. Making Piers stop as you had been walking beside him and having him raise a brow at your wide eyed look.

"Hey. What's the hold up there with you?," he asked raising a brow as  your mind whirled...and you suddenly looked at him. 

"Hey! Do you guys remember that guy giving away pokemon?"Instantly Piers's face soured as he narrowed his eyes but Marnie nodded. You started walking again past them as they followed you with their gazes. "We need to go there. NOW." Both siblings looked at each other for a second before following you. Your eyes narrowed into one of anger as your hold on Silver increased. Walking past people and swiveling your head around looking for one booth in particular and stopping. There it was. And there HE was. The man with a big smile on his face happily handed over a pokeball to a happily smiling couple who seemed to coo over the pokeball in their hands before walking off in a big smile. There he was. 

"Oi! What are you bloody up too?," Piers asked finally catching up to you and glancing where the booth was before back to you. ".....Are you really thinkin' 'bout tradin' that drizzlie of yours after all? Or gettin' a pokemon?" Silver gave a noise of alarm at the news and gave you a startled look. His frown deepened. "I would highly advise against it for moral reasons-"

"Nope! Not even close." In a swift movement you handed Silver to marnie who didn't look the least bit surprised to have even been made to hold Silver. "Hey Marnie. Do us a favor and distract him will you? Silver should catch his attention but don't actually let him touch him."

Piers stared flabbergasted at what you just asked his own little sister to do. "WOT!?" Marnie gave a thumbs up before turning with Silver still looking worried in her arms and walked off towards the booth. ?! Piers held out an arm towards her. "MARNIE WAIT- ACK!?"

His protests were cut short when your hand grabbed his and you quite literally began dragging him off quickly off the beaten paths, between two booths and now behind most of the booths along the sidewalks, you two started stepping through snow right towards the one booth in particular. You watched as Marnie walked past booth after booth until she stepped in front of the dreaded one you were checking out. Stopping right behind the one next to it, you peeked around the back of it at an angle where you could see them but only Marnie could see you. Like you suspected the man noticed Marnie just standing there with Silver in her arms, and the man IMMEDIATELY lit up upon noticing the shiny she had. Behind you Piers was ...well...at a loss for words as he stood there watching you peep out....Before looking down to where you were still holding his hand and stared at it for a fairly long moment. Only blinking when you as quietly as you could snuck one booth over to the one Marnie was currently in front of, dragging him along with you. What were you doing!? Were you trying to bloody get them all in trouble!? Was Marnie in danger!? Meanwhile you paid no attention to Piers's having internal panic behind you. Now was your chance. If there was one thing you knew from watching so many pokemon episodes, it was how to spot an obvious plot point. A man giving out free pokemon and a shiny poacher on the lose and you had seen him with a cage? It was a dead giveaway as was the way he took specific interest in Silver. You could spot a Team Rocket like mystery a mile away...but you had to check just to make sure. The back of the booth was openable by a flap entrance made for easy access out the back way. Suspicious. Turning to Piers who looked about ready to drag you back out of there you silently held a finger to your lips in the universal signal to be quiet and he didn't say anything. Ever so slowly you turned back to the flap and grabbed it, opening it just enough for you and Piers when he leaned above you to peer inside....It was an INSTANT reaction. A hand flew up to your mouth and Pier's blue eyes widened to the size of dinner plates at what you two had stumbled upon. Cages. Not just one but FIVE of them. Inside of the five cages each was a different pokemon. A pikachu, a zorua, a zigzagoon, an espurr, and a sylveon. But that wasn't what all of you have such reactions. It was the fact that all four looked so scared, small, huddled in on themselves shivering but you couldn't tell if that was because they were cold or scared. .....YOUR TEMPER FREAKING R O S E!! Instantly gaining a glare that could rival Oleana's, Piers jumped as you pushed your way inside the closed in booth. Thank Arceus Marnie was still keeping the guy busy. Your hand instantly reached out for a cage, but a sudden pale hand grabbed yours making you blink and whirl around to Piers ...and frown. Because WHY did he stop you!? You got your answer when he silently pointed to the cages or more like the strange device like thing on top of each of them. You didn't get it at first..but the more you stared at it you eventually understood why. The cage was rigged to keep the pokemon in in a way that would make them scared, the only place that looked safe to touch was the hook like lock on the outside of the doors and the handle on the top that made it safe for a human to carry. Level Two Anger Activated. 

"Piers...Would these pokemon all be considered shinies?," you whispered to him. And he nodded.

Piers paused as you wretched your hand from his, but rose his brow as you then proceeded to unzip your coat and take it off. Good thing you wore a thick wool sweater today. He proceeded to watch silently as you laid your coat on the ground before turning to him anger clearly evident in your face. 

"Piers. Do you think you can open these cages and wrap these guys up using that?", you asked gesturing to your coat.

Piers gave a bewildered expression but nodded. "Yyyyesss? Why tho?"

"Let's just say you should be glad you're not the one I'm mad at."

Piers blinked but didn't really question you as you, more angrier than the onix that had chased you back in the wild area stomped towards the front and with a hand you shoved the curtain. Back in the front Marnie had been asking the man a few odd questions here and there about different type of pokemon that were a 'good trade' for Silver hypothetically even though she had zero intention of actually trading him much less without your permission. And the guy had been going on for a bit now. Talking about psyducks or maybe a beartic would be a good trade off for a much weaker water type. She wasn't expecting someone to come bounding up to her. 

"MARNIE!!," a cheerful scottish voice called out to her. The girl slowly turned her head and blinked as Gloria full arm waved to her walking right up to her with a bright smile on her face and cotton candy in her other hand. ''Haven't seen ya in a while!"

Marnie blinked as Gloria stopped in front of her. "Gloria. What are you doin' here?"

She waved a hand off. "We're on our way to this cafe Lee wants us ta try out. Says they have the best cakes in Wyndon." Her eyes tilted downwards to the pokemon she was holding and blinked as Silver chirped at her......The scottish gal pointed. "Is that Y/n's drizzlie?"

"Yes."

"......Where is Y/n?"

No sooner had they said that then they had suddenly been sprayed by snow making Gloria yelp in surprise as Marnie just...blinked. And to their absolute SHOCK watched as you wrestled down that guy from the booth within the snow. What HAD happened was that you had angrily shoved the blinds out of your way seeing red and seeing that the guy was standing there totally oblivious and Marnie was out of the way...Well...You football player style tackled him causing the both of you to tumble out of the booth and onto the ground below spraying up snow in your wake. 

Piers kneeled down near the closest cage with the shaking Sylveon who upon noticed the hand fiddling the lock on the cage and opening it, cowered away. "Shh. Shh." The man gently leaned down to peer inside of the cage and the poor shaking pokemon. Making eye contact with the small creature and giving it a smile. "There there." The hand reached in further and the sylveon flinched when he just barely grazed it's back. "C'mon now, Lil Guy. Don't be scared now." The hand was joined by another and still shaking, the Sylveon didn't fight back when Piers wrapped both hands around it's front and gently pulled it out. It blinked in what he assumed was surprise when he didn't make any forceful actions and instead carefully sat it back down on the coat. One hand gently stroking down it's back in a hopeful attempt to calm it down. "You're goin' to be alright."...He looked back up as the guy gave off a scared sounding yelp. "....Him however I ain't so sure."

With an iron grip on the man, as soon as you tackled him to the ground he started squirming around like a rabid snake on a sugar rush thrashing around and cursing at you bet the adrenaline rush pumping through your veins combined with the anger you felt made you an unstoppable force to reckon with. When he realized he couldn't thrash you off of him, he made the bold move of flipping over and slamming your back against the ground. Winding you for a moment as he attempted to get away- Only to faceplant as she struggled to get up and instead met your foot lifting up as he crawled to his hands and knees kicking his behind, sending his face first into the snow.  Sending out a snarl you pushed yourself up faster than a raboot's quick attack, grabbed the man by his leg, and YANKED his screaming body back to you. You weren't sure how, it was all a blur, you ended up on top of him pinning him down with one knee on his chest as hands gripped fabric so hard your knuckles turned white and the man found himself pulled up and staring into the eyes of the deranged beast that was you.

"UNLESS YOU WANT ME TO SHOVE YOU INTO ONE OF THOSE JOY BUZZER JAIL CELLS YOU"LL STAY DOWN YOU SPINELESS POKEMON POACHING JERK!!!," You bellowed at his face making all the color drain from him until he could blend in with the snow.

Silence rang out all around you as many people stared including the two girls behind you as you stared down this absolute jerk. 

".....Y/n?" ...You looked over your shoulder at the familiar voice only to find Gloria staring at you wide eyed staring at you. ....Uh oh- Her hands flew up to clutch her head as she stared at you in shock. "HOLY BLOODY RAPIDASH CRAP!!!" her arms gestured to you. "WHAT ARE YE DOIN'!?"

"GLORIA!," a grown man's voice called. Double uh oh. And you froze as Leon jogged up from the staring crowd followed by the other two guys. Did I mention triple uh oh? Leon pushed his way past all the watchful eyes on you that refused to move- "Are you ok!? I heard yell-....ing." ...until he saw you in what you were sure looked like a deranged monkey holding a person hostage as you sat there silently staring at one another....before he sighed and reached a hand up to rub at his face. "Oh goodness gracious....What did you guys do now?"

"Leon! I swear to you this isn't what this looks like," you tried to assure him just imagining what was going through everyone's minds at the moment. You yanked the guy up a bit. "This guy's a poacher!" Leon's eyebrows shot up all of a sudden at the bold claim. "I'm SWEAR to you I am NOT making this up! We had a whole slew of shinies just trapped in the back."

"THIS GIRL'S A LUNATIC!!," the man suddenly shouted and you blinked at him. "I was just trying to bring joy to everyone and finding homes for those abandoned by their trainers cold hearts! Clearly she's suffering from the cold! Look at her! She's not even dressed for this weather!"

"Leon! You gotta believe me please!!"

You could see the Champion's face stone to a serious expression looking at you and for a moment your face faltered. Would he believe you? Was this it? Was this where you finally got in trouble after all this time? Whelp..No. Someone from above must've answered your payers because your guardian angel in the form of Piers arrived. Coming from the booth, your bunched up lumpy coat in one arm and in the other one of the cages, Leon instantly looked to him and seemed to be a bit more surprised seeing him standing there.

"Piers?"

"Leo."

"What in Galar are you up to now?" He got his answer when Piers placed the cage down in front of him. "...What's this?"

"HEY!! I know what that is!" Hop to the rescue you thought as All eyes turned to the Champion's younger brother who's mind sped up to a hundred seeing the cage. "It's an Electro-Capture Four Thousand. Professor Magnolia invented them. Electric companies use 'em to safely capture small electric type pokemon like joltic to keep 'em from tampering with electric lines and power generators. But they're not supposed to be used for other types other than Electric."

"So why's one here?"

"One? Heh." Piers rolled his head to his side as Leon watched him carefully look towards the back. "Try five of these cruddy things."

Leon stared silently at Piers...Snow crunched under the Champion's feet as he walked right up to the rebel punk and both stared at each other. Prime gold eyes meeting electric blue ones. Piers made absolutely no move to stop Leon when he reached out to your coat and pulled it out a bit to peer at the passengers inside. You watched as he with the same unchanging face closed the coat Piers was holding back and inhaled closing his eyes.....Before turning back around and...and-.....Smiling?? At you?? You blinked as the Champion smiled and beckoned you to get off him. 

"Again you all never cease to stop the help every time I turn." He turned away from Piers and gestured for you to get up. "Come on, Y/n. Let's release the guy for now. I think I can handle it from here. SOMEONE GET OFFICER JENNY HERE!!"

You were...reluctant to actually do that but you trusted Leon enough to actually slowly get off of the guy. You guessed you could've just had gotten Officer jenny or someone else to deal with this but you swore you weren't gonna do soemthing like this again. Speaking of Officer Jenny the scuffle had attracted her attention and she came charging over with two other officers and a arcanine. She seemed confused seeing you again but luckily Leon took lead and explained to her what exactly what had happened. Giving a statement as Jenny handcuffed the man and the other two officers closed off the booth before more officers arrived in order to collect more evidence. At one point Piers even handed your coat filled with the shiny pokemon over to an awaiting officers' hands mentioning they'd have to be taken to the pokemon center for an emergency look over which you agreed whole heartedly. Standing off to the side you finally got a moment to breath, taking Silver who seemed bored back from Marnie and then sighing.

"THAT WAS BRILLIANT!!" You jumped at the sudden yell and turned to look at Gloria who was beaming up at you with a wide smile. "Ye was all like 'Don't ye move or 'm gonna shove ya in a cage' and he was like 'please don' hurt me'!!"

"Or it just sounds to me that she can be a pro wrestler," Victor deadpanned making Gloria roll her eyes.

"Hey. Don't be praising me like that," you said, "I wasn't thinking clearly and shouldn't you three get back to Leon? I think he's almost done talking to that officer."

Leon was indeed finished giving a statement and returned to your group. He...semi scolded you for acting so irrationally and you took it. Before piers suggested you all skidaddle before being swamped by any mobs of unwanted attention, you fully agreed with that too and the whole lot of you retreated back towards the park's entrance. From there your two groups bid one another good bye for now, after all Leon was taking the lot to a fancy lunch before heading off for the parade. Piers suggested going ahead and heading off towards the parade grounds early despite there being about another three hours until it actually started, but it was probably for the best that you all did to avoid anymore drama from the crowds. There was two free transports there. One was a flying taxi that Leon's group quickly claimed and a free mudsdale. You suggested it but Piers IMMEDIATELY shot that idea down. Quickly making it quite clear there was NO way in Galar he was going to be riding on the back of another pokemon and suggested you all walked to where the parade would be starting. ..Well, you all did have three more hours to kill. So why not? Marnie didn't have any objections. Gathering your things and Silver in your arms, you followed Piers as he took lead in walking off with marnie beside him but she made a face at him raising a brow.

"So she likes joining your rebel justice too? Are you sure you two are jus' friends?"

"Marnie!"

Luckily you didn't seem to hear them over the crowd of people walking all around you and only followed Piers who gave his little sister one last frown before shoving his hands into his pockets and walking through the crowds of people. You followed them through tons of people, past busy stores and streets, marveling and cringing at how noisy and crowded the entire place was as people brushed past you. You couldn't imagine living in a crowded place like this your entire life. Soon enough the people on the side walks became more compact and you noticed that there was metal fencing on the sidewalk keeping them from getting on the streets that seemed to now be completely empty. For the parade? Squeezing your way through the tough crowd you clung onto Silver still following Piers lanky form through the crowd until you all came to a particular roped off area that was being guarded by none other than Team Yell! He recognized the three of you in an instant. Piers said something to the grunt you couldn't hear over the crowd but the grunt pulled the rope between you all and the area back. With a 'follow me' gesture from Piers you and Marnie both followed him into the area and you blinked at what you saw. In front of the building was a couple chairs on the side walk safely where some people could be able to watch the parade as the members of Team Yell had set up some kind of speaker system on the cleared road with some intruments. Obviously some kind of set up in order for Piers to do the opening performance for the parade. Also on the sidelines you could see a couple people with those news cameras pointing at various angles down towards the road or towards where the set up was. Lights were on everywhere in the city now as it had gotten darker and darker until the sun looked like it would set any minute now. Piers directed you two to some of the chairs safely off to the side and you blinked. This was a front row view to watch the parade! 

"Mr. Piers!," you three were stopped by a woman's voice and Piers turned his head towards a woman who approached him with her hair up, wearing a head mic, and a clipboard in her hands. Clearly someone manning the parade. Maybe even an event organizer by the looks of her. Either way Piers gave her his attention when she approached him. "There's one hour until showtime. Why weren't you here for makeup and wardrobe earlier!?"

"Sorry 'bout that. I got a lil..." He glanced at the two of you standing there. "...Side tracked."

"Uh huh. Well now we have to rush things and get you all ready if we're all going to keep up scheduale here!"

"It takes that long for you to do someone's hair?"

He turned back to you. "It does with mine. Y'know. Gotta give Galar that signature Spikemuth look they all know from me." He paused...noticing you shaking slightly before pointing at you. "Oi. Ya cold or somethin'?"

You blinked, looking down at yourself and noticed you were indeed shaking a bit. As thick as your sweater and sweat pants were, you were noticable a bit colder without your coat, and after rolling around in the snow to stop that poacher. It had also taken at least two hours for you all to walk here. ..You shrugged. "I-I guess a bit yeah. Sort of lost m-my own coat a little while back."

Piers regarded you for a moment before he silently began removing his own coat. Reaching up to take the hood off showing his flat hair instead of it's normal do, cascading down his back in a water fall of shiny black and pretty pale white mixture. Unzipping the long coat open until he could shrug it off his own shoulders. You blinked as he removed his arms from the sleeves, shook the long thing out, before in a fluid motion throwing it into the air over you before pulling it down over your shoulders. You blinked as Piers pulled it over you and gave a small pat to your shoulder before pulling his hands away. The coat was...surprisingly warm, makes sense as Piers had been wearing it for a long time so it should be the trick to warm you up. Marnie stared...First at you looking up and down at the hot pink and black coat you sported. Then at Piers who still wore that blank face meeting your surprised one.

"You two should go sit down and wait for the show to start," he finally said gesturing towards the empty chairs making you blink. "I'll be back after the make up team fixes me up photo finish for the show. Jus' sit tight n' everything should go well. Kay?"

He didn't give you a chance to answer before he turned and followed the woman  with the clipboard away. You watched them go before blinking again and looking at yourself and the coat drapped over you. .....What was that all about? You flinched when Marnie tugged at your side and gestured to the seats Piers had pointed at to you. 

"Let's go sit down n' rest for a sec."

Not knowing what else to do at the moment you complied and followed Marnie on over to the chairs to sit down in. The next hour was spent with you rubbing your cold pink face to warm it up every so often, and go between watching the crowds around you or Team Yell who seemed to be putting any last finishing touches on the set ups but one woman's voice caught your attention as you peered over to where the loud and close voice was coming from. And low and behold there was the same blonde reporter lady and her camera man from the hotel the other day. She ran her hands over her blonde hair and coat making herself look 'presentable' for the camera man pointed the large and heavy equipment over her shoulder at her.  

"Gillian! We're live in five. Four. Three." In an instant the woman plastered a happy fake smile for the camera as her camera man began counting down. Mic to her mouth. "Two. One!"

"Welcome! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays for all!," she spoke with a sweetly forced voice you found slightly annoying, "This is Marcos Cosmos Newscast with Gillian coming to all you folks at home live at a very special celebration that we've had for years now and what many folks have been lining up for hours to see now. The Annual Wyndon City Christmas Day Parade! This year we have a spectacular event lined up for the audience including over thirty two floats, fourteen giant balloons, and performers of all kinds awaiting the signal to come walking down Wyndon Main Street with special guest star interviews like our very own Chairman Rose and rising star actress Gwen Admins. " Her arm gestured behind her to the opening set. "But perhaps the most anticipated scene is the opening event that's being done by none other than the very musically talented Gym Leader of Spikemuth, Piers. Already well known for some of his more famous hit songs such as The Love Purugly and The Caterpie Girl. Truly quite the Christmas gift to be giving us this year." The woman looked towards the direction you were in all of a sudden and brightly lit up. You rose a brow where you sat. "And it looks like we're live just in time to capture the opening act about to begin!"

You were confused at what they were looking at before you turned your head and blinked as Piers walked past you all and towards the lit area set up on the road as it had finally gotten fully dark now from the sun setting. Only now he was sporting his usual punk look. The crowd on either side of you all perking up as the rebel gym leader walked up to the lit micstand in the light with the same blank face and slouched form before grabbing it. The mic made a small noise as he grabbed it before inhaling closing his eyes-...Before doing a complete 180 and like the day before that same confident smile and look in his eyes appearing before giving a confident point off to the crowd. 

"'ELLO GALAR!!," he shouted amplified by the mic throughout the calm city night enlisted an immediate response in the form of a cheer from the crowd. "How are we all doin' tonight?" The camera's pointed right at his face as he smiled back to the crowd. "Sounds like we got a good crowd tonight! Probably one of the best lookin' crowds I've had in a long time! To thank ya'll for gracin' me with your presence, how 'bout I deliver some tunes befittin' for this holiday yeah?" The crowd cheered more to his presence and you admitted you were excited too. After all this would technically be your second concert you had gotten to see if you counting that one you stumbled into back in Spikemuth. Piers pointed off to the side. "Hit it!"

Somewhere on the side lines one of the staff noticeably fiddled with the giant speaker set on wheels (Wheels??) in the dark out of Piers's spot light until music blasted out. And you stared at what you could only describe as a rock version of Carol of the Bells seemed to blast out for the world to hear. Odd choice, but hey. It was Christmas themed so you guessed it was fitting. Piers let the first few bell chimes of the music that echoed throughout the night to grace play before drums dropped in to join the beat and he visibly took in a long breath. 

"Hark how the bells!~ Sweet silver bells!~ All seem to say throw cares away!~ Christmas is here!~ Bringing good cheer!~ To young n' old!~," he shouted out and you watched as he picked up the pace of his voice to match the speed of the song hands firmly gripping onto his mic stand. "Meek n' the bold!~ Ding dong ding dong!!~ THAT IS THEIR SONG!!~ With joyful ring!~ All carolin'!~  One seems to hear words of good cheer from everyone!~  Fillin' the air!~ OH how they pound!!!~ Raisin' the sound!!!~ O'er hill n' dale!!~ Tellin' the tale!!~'' ...HOW!? How was he able to do all of that in just one long breath like that!? Your mind bobbled at the thought just watching him STILL go without looking tired at all. "GAILY THEY RING WHILE PEOPLE SING SONGS O' GOOD CHEER!!~ CHRISTMAS IS HERE!!~ MERRY, MERRY, MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!~ MERRY, MERRY, MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!~ On, on they send!~ On without end!~ Their joyful tone!~ To every home!~" 

He paused in his moment of singing as the rock music began dropping a good few beats- Silver made a startled noise and backed up against you when all of a sudden caught a flash of lights. Red, green, and then a regular but REALLY bright white light blasting all about Pier's body. Your hand came up to block half the light show from your face as Marnie watched completely unphased at all...And it took you a good while of blinking and getting your barings to realize that it was in fact indeed a light show organized to flash around Piers to highlight the show. ...OH!! Duh!! That's why they were in Christmas colors. The audience sure seemed to like the display of fancy lights, as did you once you managed to get your eyes used to the bright display. Piers meanwhile was taking a few deep breaths before readying himself for the next fast verse.

"Ding dong ding dong ding dong!!~ Ding dong ding dong ding dong!!~," his voice cut back through as the light show abruptly stopped letting his form be visible to the masses again. You blinked not quite used to the sudden changes in light and dark. "HARK how the bells!~ Sweet silver bells!~ All seem to say throw cares away!~ Christmas 's 'ere!~ Bringin' good cheer!~ Ta young n' old!~ Meek an' the bold!~ DING DONG DING DONG!!~ That is their song!~ With joyful ring!~ All caroling!~ One seems ta hear words of good cheer from everywhere!~ Fillin' the air!~ OH how they pound!~ Raisin' the sound!~ O'er hill n' dale!~ Tellin' their tale!~" Blinking your blinking you did seem to notice that Piers sucked in a very quick breath before singing the next verses. "GAILY THEY RING WHILE PEOPLE SING SONGS 'O GOOD CHEER!!~ CHRISTMAS IS HERE!!~ MERRY, MERRY, MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!~ MERRY, MERRY, MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!~ ON ON THEY SEND!!~ ON WITHOUT END!~ THEY'RE JOYFUL TONE!!~ TA EVERY HOME!!~"

This time you had the insight to quickly put up your hand again as the lightshow returned and sparing yourself from the second light attack as the beat dropped and continued on for a good long moment. Silver resorted himself into shoving his face into the coat you wore to escape the light as it continued on until finally with a few bells chimed the song ended and the lightshow immediately cut out with Piers standing back there smiling. An absolute UPROAR only matched by that of the stadium crowd's cheers rang out from everyone around you and you weren't ashamed to smile brightly and clap along yourself. Your heart pumping through your chest and electric excitement rushing through your viens from the performance. That was an amazing display!! Although Silver was less than impressed and let you know it in the form of a grumble as he firmly stayed put where he was. 

"THANK YOU!!", Piers spoke back up waving a hand real quick, "It's a down right honor to be here in Wyndon and entertain all you 'night! An' it looks like m' not the only one." He tilted his head down the long street to the left and you couldn't see where you were sat with Marnie but the outlines of lit up floats and people were slowly making their way down towards them. "But I think I got time for one more song for such a beautiful audience! How's about it?!"

With the people's cheer of approval Piers tilted his head towards the people handling the many sound equipment and instruments off the sidelines as they ready themselves. With a breath he turned back to the floats still heading towards them slowly as if calculating the best song to sing with the limited time, before taking another inhale and exhale. But you were surprised instead of any rock music soft piano music instead flowed out making you raise a brow. ..Wasn't that not Piers's usually genre of music?

"I don't want a lot for Christmas.~" Your attention turned back to him as he sang in probably the softest most gentlest tone you had ever heard him sing other than the time you had stumbled on him strumming his guitar. As he gentle sang with his eyes closed. "There's jus' one thing that I need.~ I don't care 'bout the preasents underneath the Christmas tree.~ I just want you for my own.~ More than you could ever know.~ Make my wish come true.~" The People in the sidelines manning the instruments either raised their hands or grabbed the certain tools needed to suddenly amp up the music's soft voulume to eleven. "All I want for Christmas is...YOUU!!!!~" You jumped when all of a sudden guitair and drums were added to the mic of piano now as well as the music took a sudden jump in volume! Piers snapping his eyes back open now. "OH BABY!!~ I won't ask for much this Christmas.~ I won't even wish for snow.~ I jus' wanna keep on waitin' underneath the mistletoe.~ I won't make a list an' send it to the North Pole for Saint Nick.~" Piers tilted his head back a bit singing a bit higher. "I won't even stay awake to 'ere those magic stantler click.~  I jus' want you here tonight.~ Holdin' onto me so tight!~" He gave what you could've called a sultry look to the audience. "What more can I do?~ ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS-...You.~"

A Christmas..LOVE SONG!?!? Well you had to admit it DID fit the holiday aesthetic very well and Piers's small acting skills of tossing a small smirk or look every so often to different people was getting the swoon on. The reporter lady seemed to certainly blush when Piers gave her a small smile and side glance. He certainly wasn't a casanova charmer like Raihan, or know how to model a good shot like Gordie, but he still had a charm about him that only he and certain singers from your world could pull off being a singer. ....And his blue eyes were pretty to look at too you guessed. And his voice was VERY nice to listen too.

"All of the lights are shinin' so brightly everywhere.~ An' the sound of children's laughter fills the air.~," he continued singing softly as the solo soft piano returned, "And everybody's singing.~ I hear those sleighbells ringin.~ ....Santa wont'cha bring me the one I really need!?~ Won't you please bring my baby to me!?~" And just like that the rock dip with guitar and drums returned. "I don't want a lot for Christmas!!~ This is all m' askin' for!!~" He sang loud and proud in that rock tone you knew so well by now. "I jus' wanna see my baby standin' right outside my door!~ I just want YOU for my own!~ More than you could ever know!~ Make my wish come true!~ All I want for Christmas is..." There was a pause in both the music and Piers before he suddenly lifted his head head to the heavens. "YOU!!!~" The rock style really picked up now. "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU BABY!!~" He sang loudly pointing back towards the audience. No doubt you were sure he made someone swoon out there. "YOU'RE THE ONE I WAAAANNNTT!!~ ALL I WANT IS JUST YOU BAABYY!!~" The music stopped as he sand one last sentence softly. "All I want for Christmas is you, Baby.~"

You could've sworn he glanced over to you and Marnie's way before quickly snapping back towards the audience but you brushed it off. Instead clapping wildly enough to jostle Silver in your lap as he looked annoyed. Marnie absolutely caught his look though and stared hard at him...before looking to you oblivious to it....and then back to Piers like nothing happened. He bowed to the audience and noticed the floats were indeed VERY close now. Everyone on the side lines hustling to remove the sound equipment from the road (OH! So that's what the wheel were for!) back to the side walk and out of the way of the approaching parade. 

"Thank you! You've all been a great audience! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! Please support and consider donating to combat the power crisis!!," Piers shouted and with a wave picked up the mic stand with one hand and promptly sped walked his way off the street and back towards you both leaving the cheering crowd behind him and the reporter to pick up the slack

"*ahem* A-Anyways. Wasn't that just a great opening into what Surely's going to be an exciting Christmas with the parade and later Santa coming tonight? I hope you've all made it onto the nice list because behind me is our first gift of the night in the form of the first float of the parade making it's way down the streets as you can see-"

Piers visibly sighed and let his body untense as he walked over towards you two carrying the mic stand. When close enough he handed the stand off to one of the workers passing by him. Before walking his way up to the both of you sitting there smiling at him. "That was a pretty good show you put on out there." You complimented and he blinked at you. Before you chuckled "The best start to a parade I've seen actually."

He stared at you for a moment before looking away and one of his hands reached up to fiddle with his choker again. A habit he seemed to do a lot. "Yeah?....Thanks. This your first parade too?" He asked changing the subject.

You nodded excitedly. "First everything today for me actually. First fair. First concert. First parade. First time in the city..You get the picture."

He hummed....before slowly sitting next to you as the first float approached which looked like a giant pikachu. "....You warm?"

You again nodded. "Yeah thanks. But what about you?"

"'M fine." he was quick to answer. "If ya want I can take ya home after this. I mean...I'd feel bad if ya got lost on the way back with it being your first time in Wyndon after all."

"I'd like that actually. It's very kind of you."

Marnie leaned forwards looking between the two of you again.....before turning her attention back onto the parade as a giant balloon of an eevee was next being manhanlded down the streets by a large amount of people. You enjoyed the next two or three hours sitting there wrapped in Piers's coat happily watching and marveling at all the colorful floats and balloons bigger than your own house going by or the performers than did back flips, dressed as clowns, danced in costumes, or other tricks down the streets between all the floats and balloons. Each more different and exciting than the last being lit up by the bright lights of the city. Every so often Piers would glance over at you, catch a glimpse of your awestruck face, and then quickly look away when Marnie looked over at him feeling his gaze turn. In turn she'd raise a brow at her older brother...before thankfully going back to watching the parade come to a close. At which point...you were VERY tired. How long had you been staying up? As the last float and cheers from the audience made it's rounds you let out a yawn that caught the rock star's attention. He made the suggestion of you all going back to the flying taxi that in between all the floats and things, he had asked one of the staff members to reserve for all of you. Guess he didn't feel like walking back or taking another mudsdale ride. Too tired to argue, you agreed as it meant getting back to the hotel faster and the warmth it provided. The trip back there was a blue in your tired mind. All you remembered was briefly getting shoved by people when Piers escorted you through the crowd with an arm around your shoulders, getting ino a taxi, and only being jostled awake by the sudden lurch the taxi gave upon take off and the cold air hitting you that made you bristle and pull the coat over you and Silver more. Gosh it was SO cold! It wasn't too long until the three of you got back to the hotel and went inside. You shook more than a leaf in a tornado! How was Piers not phased by this?..Or maybe he was but could hide it really well? As you three went towards the elevator none of you noticed the police officer with the bunched up coat in his arms, but he certainly noticed you three as the elevator doors closed. Rising to the floor you three were staying on, you exited and walked until the Spikemuth siblings stopped in front of what you assumed to be their room and you took the moment to give Piers back his coat with one hand with a smile and put Silver back down.

"Hey. Thanks for letting me borrow this. I just hope you won't catch a cold because of me."

He shook his head taking it from you. "It'd no trouble. An' if I do get sick it's not gonna be cuz of you. It was my choice to let you borrow it."

You smiled a lot brighter than before. "Still what you did for me today....Well I can't remember the last time I ever had so much fun on a holiday before. Minus the poke poacher of course."

"Hehehe." He chuckled and the faintest of smiles appeared on his face. His brow raised. "Well can't say it wasn't entertainin' to watch you give someone a piece of you're mind that wasn't Rai-Rai for a change. 'M sure he'll he happy 'bout that."

"Yeah," you agreed. "And Piers." He hummed and FROZE as you once again hugged him, platonically of course as thanks before releasing him quickly after and smiling. "I mean it. Thank you for everything. You really are a great gym leader. Spikemuth's lucky to have you." With that you turned and waved them good bye feeling this would be a good time to leave them off and you were so tired that you feared you'd just drop in the middle of the hallway out of exhaustion. "Good night. Merry Christmas!"

Piers stood there for the longest moment...before feeling eyes on him. Blue eyes met another pair of electric blue eyes as Marnie stared at him..then at your retreating form, then back at him. ".....So did Raihan introduce 'er to ya or did you meet your 'not girlfriend' somewhere else?"

"MARNIE!!"

You paid no attention to the siblings' banter as you headed to your own room. You were very tired, and very cold. All you wanted to do was curl up into your sleeping bag and fall asleep for the rest of the night. But upon opening the door you realized you weren't alone. Gloria was there! Having had been going through some things from her back pack on the bed..but she smiled when she realized it was you.

"Y/N!," she greeted as you walked in closing the door behind you. "There ye are! I waitin' forever for ya to get back!"

You waved with a yawn towards her. "Hey. How was your day out with Leon?"

She beamed. "IT WAS GREAT!! We flew 'round the city and saw all the cool landmarks, and checked out the fair, an' then lee took us to see the parade!! We had ta leave it early though. Some kind of emergency with the stadium. But Lee promised he'd take us back to the fair tomorrow so we can see what we missed! How 'bout you?"

You smiled. "It was alright. Mostly just did the same things you guys did. I think I'm just gonna hit the floor and call it a night-" 

No sooner had you said that then a loud wrapping at the door sound out making you both jump. Whirling around, both of you ended up staring at the door for a moment. And looked at each other again when another knock came from it. ...After a moment you approached the door and Gloria hopped herself off the bed to see who it was too. Maybe it was one or the guys or Piers? Grabbing the door knob, you opened the door but was shocked into silence upon seeing a POLICE OFFICER on the other side!! And not just any officer, it was the one from the park who took your coat with the pokemon back towards the pokemon center. ...What happened?! Were you in trouble!? Were you going to be arrested for something!?

"Excuse me, Miss," he started out looking at your frozen state. You blinked as he held up your bundled up coat and looked strangely a bit bulky. "You didn't come by the station to get these, but we didn't have any way to contact you so I figured I'd wait for you here since you were with the gym leader and Champion. It's too cold to be running around without a coat on, and I wouldn't want your pals to get caught up in more trouble again."

......You stared at it...before deflating in relief. Oh..He was just returning your coat. Gloria was nice enough to take it from him looking at it curiously before turning around and walking back into the room. You smiled and nodded. "Oh...T-Thanks. That's really nice of you." You closed the door a few inches. "H-Have a nice night, Officer." With a nod the officer turned and started walking back towards the direction of the elevator and you closed the door with a sigh. "Uuuuuh. Man. Can I go one week without getting a heart attack around here?"

Gloria meanwhile was looking at your coat curiously. Wondering why it was so bunched up and lumpy before opening the coat to the room. And her brown eyes instantly widened to the size of plates. "Uuuuuuh...Y/n?" You hummed looking from the door to her. "I think there's been a mix up."

Confused you walked on over to where she was and you dawned the same googily eyed expression as her when you realized what was in the coat. "......Oh no..." Inside the coat all curled up and asleep was five SHINY pokemon. The same pokemon that you had seen from the fair. Gloria blinked when in an instant you whirled on your heel and charged to the door, flinging it open and shoving your head into the hallway to look around. ...But it was too late. The officer was Gone. ".....He's gone!" You said turning back around to see Gloria's expression.

"WHY THE BLOODY HECK DID A COP GIVE YA SHINY POKEMON!?"

"I don't know!," you insisted closing the door back behind you looking panicked back towards the sleeping pile of shiny fluff. Silver looked as confused as you staring at the pokemon with confusion. "The last time I saw them was when that guy took them to the pokemon center HOURS ago!"

Gloria stared at you...then paused. As if a lightbulb suddenly popped into her head. ".....We're they wrapped in your coat when he took 'em?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Well....You DID let them know that ...you didn't actually own them right?" You stared. She pointed. "You were really angry when you tackled the guy, an' you already have a shiny...and they were wrapped in your coat. It woulda looked like you were their trainer....Y/n. Ya DID clarify to 'em you didn't own these shinies. Right?"

You stared at her for a long silent moment. She stared back at you for a long silent moment. ......You INHALED bringing your hands clasped up to your face before you pointed at her. "Do you have any extra pokeballs?"

"Yeah. Why tho?"

"We're gonna need them."

[clementinefight]

Drift Drive

Seeing the sunrise come up now, not because I’m so timely but because I haven’t slept. Seeing the window-boxes of light shift across the wall, I get a little scared of clockwork and continuums. I get a little scared that it’s all gonna happen whether or not I’m ready. On the flip, there’s a lot of things I want that I’m just not ready for that can’t happen unless I let them, anyway, and I’ve got a way about me, built in now, that just seems to refuse it all... I’ve got to be real cognisant to be open

I MAKE PROMISES IN THE DEEPEST SNOW.

In the ice palace The light Heavy as lead Built up These falling drops Strong and green A blinding flood After my drenching in the stars.

IF THE DARK LEFT.

People Taking place continually In the bright drifts, in Other ways. Everyone knew About the unknown; People had seen Photographs taken that summer; A glimpse of what goes on In the universe; The great lake Non-existent The splendid broad No more. No night In people’s memories. Night turned into a legend, Fallen into a light river And carried away.

Do not want to do a thing today. Not class, or the pub, or the dinner, or the dance. It’s the first day in a long time I’ve had this many things to get through and I dread it with an earnestness that surprises me, and shames me, I just want to sleep. Probably don’t do all-nighters, is my advice. Not unless your plan is to remain in bed all day, in a state of half-life, watching old colourful (I loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Wickerman) or scrolling online in a dazed, dozed over way—or playing The Sims, if all else fails you. Or be on the run, you know, super busy like I guess I am going to be today; I just get a little worried about interacting with others in this state; my words arrive in the space between us like slipped stitches; I’m very aware it's all an error.

So much has happened since I last wrote on here, mostly intangible things, though. I got another small contract book job but immediately regretted taking it on cause I’m just not in the right headspace. Anyways, now got to do it. But as of late, I’ve hit a state of avoidance so severe it seems unreal and almost like a joke I’m playing but oh boy it’s not a joke; oh boy is it ever serious. Sometimes it feels like a genuine nightmare but it’s just me. I cancelled my trip to Vermont and have been a no-show to two different movie screenings I booked (which I typically love to go to, even alone, these were Friday the 13th and It Follows). I have people I genuinely like that I haven’t responded to in at least three weeks or more; jobs left unfinished for two months plus; school assignments due days or even weeks ago and still extremely untouched. Don’t know what gives, but I’m asking. I’m asking Google and Reddit and I’m on a waitlist to see a doctor. Anxiety at an all-time high and barely got time to sort it. When it all gets going, it just has to go till it’s gone. I keep saying to myself that when winter break hits, and snow overcomes the world (I find that white blanket calming), I’ll lay down and look everything in the eye, attempt some recalibration. And I will. I might also go to the Catskills with my cousin, R. Just drive there and sleep a couple days in a hotel and walk under gusty snowed up trees and visit diners, obviously, she and I love doing that. One thing I love about R is that she seems to have this untested patience with me and a deep understanding of who I am and how that makes me operate. Though sometimes it can feel so humiliating to be so accommodated!

So it all hurts but on the plus side, I’ve got my sobriety still! Thank you, thank you. Yeah, she’s cute and nearly a year old, soon to be walking…. I love her like mad. I’ll do everything in my power not to ditch her, because that would make me feel ditched, too. As if that happened, I would miss me a lot. I think the acuteness of my pain is a testimony to my current lucidness, anyway. I’m glad I can feel, even I freeze up under the toll half the time, never sure what to do with it all…

You know Volcano Choir’s song Dancepack? Those lyrics: (Take note, there's still a hole in your heart / And you're shoveling shit and they pay you to talk / My young little soul's unlearning to walk / Clover green / Like bravery done up like a towel sopping wet in the street). That’s what my sobriety feels like! I’m teetering all over the place. And I don’t make “quick friends” like I used to. I’m painfully slow now. Maybe it was always meant to be that way, and whenever I drank, I tried to override that step “the making of,” since it involves a general ambiguity and uncertainty that, due to my personal history, I have a habit of turning dark or against me. I try to force us together very fast, thinking that means we’re saved from ever having to fall apart. But whenever I move fast like that, I sort of betray myself. Reaches a point where I realize I can’t handle it, that I wasn’t even ready to hold anything. Then comes a point where I’m unsure what to test myself with (which connections) as I’m tired of hurting people or trying to apologize the same apologies, or forever and ever explain. Will cut myself some slack here, though, and keep trying.

Ordered some Flavacol popcorn salt online, and purple popcorn kernels from Amish Country Popcorn. What else did I order? I like to order things to make myself feel better! It’s not a permanent fix but it sure is a fucking Band-Aid. These last few months: a medium bookbinding press, a bookbinding cradle, an origami shoulder bag, two Christmas cards, three rolls of washi tape, a sheet of 30 poinsettia stickers, and an ex-libris stamp (it’s a tree with my name below it).

Oh, and I watched 7/8 episodes of Our Flag Means Death season two. I like it a lot, it pulled me out of a depressive state in a way, and I have a theory burning that Blackbeard is asexual. Hard to explain. But I feel it. Especially in regards to his death-bed fantasy of Stede as a merman (which conceals genitalia), his desire to “take it slow” despite the obvious depth of his romantic emotion and there was also his complete 180 on Stede shortly after the first time they have sex, which could have been caused by a sense of dissociation within himself that was spurred on by the act…. Mind you, haven’t seen the final episode, so maybe misreading all that. Not sure why I’m reading into it at all, anyway. Sometimes I watch stuff and have nothing to say about it. And other times I watch stuff and a certain this or that just resonates and gets me thinking…

All this to say, what? I’m struggling atm! But not with everything. Just with a lot of things. If I haven’t got back to you, I will! I miss reading. I miss deep reading deeply, that feeling of falling into a chasm of a page, seeing other places, being other people. I miss Iceland and Edinburgh like hell. I miss having jammy toast and tea for breakfast. Aye, I’m up anyway—let me go do that now.

Farewell to the Bravehearts

[slashtakemylife]

I think I'm just realizing I've been so deeply shellshocked by Endgame... It has literally taken me 4 years to finally, finally start mourning it

I just... Please if there's anyone out there willing to talk to me because how can I tell anyone in my close circle I'm mourning a MOVIE

And not just that, I'm mourning it 4 years later

I guess it really is the stages of grief and I've lived in denial for 4 years because I simply just couldn't bring myself to believe a franchise that I have absolutely adored and poured all my love and trust... Kicked me back like that... And after giving me a movie that was everything I could've asked like... I just don't know how to say it and I'm sorry I'm using tumblr as a personal journal but I simply have to put it down for words.

Endgame for me was everything.

It reunited storylines, characters and even made dumb internet jokes canon

That's America's ass

I can still cry of joy and laugh at so many scenes I still remember softly so to admit it's actually garbage... Would mean I'd have to admit nearly 10 years of dedication have gone down the drain and everything I loved is now gone and my trust was severely used.

I'm broken

And for me personally it really just boils down to one fcking character

Sure I've seen talk about other characters but my main favorite, my all time beloved my just everything

Steve

Steve steve oh god I can't take it, I can see why they did what they did, they do have real life restrictions like the actors' contracts and the fact is a movie and just their plain open "white male writers" but... It's my Steve, I've been rooting for him and emotionally attached myself to him so bad

I still remember the fxking joy I had watching every movie, the absolute sheer glee when I was gifted an avengers vase because it had been everything to me

Steve's ending broke me and not just as a stucky shipper but a steve fan and a bucky fan and yes I absolutely knew stucky WOULD NEVER be canon like trust me I knew, never asked for it to be true, didn't even engage with the hashtag GiveCapABoyfriend but I at least expected them to end together as in friendship as in finally journeying together this new world after the main threat was finally over, their fight for each other finally welding results.

Now I have to live with Steve's BULLSHIT ending that not only breaks their own premise on time travel, it also breaks the foundation that is Steve, breaks everything that's been building up straight up from his introduction and literally the third fxking movie in this mega cinematic universe

And ofc since this is a connected cinematic universe of fcking course they have to rub it in my face.

I see you the falcon and the winter soldier and partially loki since he is directly from their disastrous time heist.

I'm starting to understand why I can't enjoy this anymore and only marginally have with production that have minimal contact with the source

Aka Eternals, Black Panther (although this mostly because of Namor and maya cultura and I am mexican so) and Shang Shi, I do get a punch in the gut like in Eternals and Shang Shi like everything goes back to normal as if fcking half the population did not just left and magically all went back and just everything was back to normal and just occasionally mentioned?

Bitch we couldn't stop talking about covid and has been the main topic for as long as it happened and it took years for it to truly just be a passing topic and these mf be like oh shame well carrying on

There's not a single movie I look forward to watching and I'm still debating on seeing the marvels and if I did it would just be out of curiosity but honestly now that I'm letting out my tears... I don't want to, i never liked how Carol has been handled, mind you, not her, I love her but her character has been severely butchered since her introduction and also at this point I don't even know what they are building and also now I'm not even sure I care.

I dread the next cap movie and thunderbolts because I know I'm going to see them wh0re out Bucky until his last breath as if he hadn't just being dumped by his best friend and only connection to the past, sure he can make new friends, Sam is but it's not the same you know?

I don't know what to do with myself and I have to keep it together and pretend I'm a functioning adult just doing their 9 to 6 as if my head isn't splitting in half

[dragonbinx]

Secret Santa

Part of my Christmas series from last winter.  Posted on Ao3 here.

Series: Legacies

Ship: Hizzie, BenJed

Characters: Lizzie Saltzman, Ben, Jed Tien, Hope Mikaelson, MG, Kaleb Hawkins, Cleo Sowande, Finch Tarrayo

“We’re gonna do a Secret Santa!” MG exclaimed, looking very proud of himself.

There was a moment of silence as every face in the room turned dubious.

“Oh, come on, guys, we need a team building thing. Cleo’s been busy learning about being a fury, Jed doesn’t even live here anymore, we barely know Ben - no offense, man, you seem cool aside from betraying us that one time - and me and Lizzie are … well, we’re working on it.”

The rest of the Squad exchanged glances. It was two weeks until Christmas, and it was the first time they’d all been in a room together in weeks.

“Fine,” Lizzie conceded, because MG was right and because she still felt bad about the breakup. “Let’s get this over with.”

“That’s the spirit, kinda.” MG held out a Santa hat with little papers inside. “Everyone pick a name, no switches, and everything has to be under a hundred bucks.”

The hat was passed around without enthusiasm, but without complaints either. Lizzie looked down at her name and felt her lip curl without permission. Ben. Great. What to get the demigod who has nothing and also seems to want nothing? The only thing she really knew about him was he was obsessed with Jed, which wasn’t helpful. Maybe she could get him bigger shirts, he always seemed to be in ones a size too small.

“Okay, everybody have a name?” MG rubbed his hands enthusiastically. “Great! Deadline is the twenty-third before everybody has to travel, please make it personal, and have fun!”

The group dispersed, but Hope and Lizzie lingered, making matching faces of dread at one another. Lizzie held up her slip of paper. “I got Ben. You?”

“Uh, not telling. That would be cheating, Lizzie.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, we wouldn’t want to ruin Secret Santa. It’s definitely not a weird, forced socialization thing that will probably end with all of us giving gift cards.”

Hope stood up, shaking her head at Lizzie fondly. “I know you can do better than a gift card. And MG’s right, we could use the chance to bond, right?”

“I guess.”

She jumped a little when Hope pressed a warm hand to the skin of her shoulder when her sweatshirt dipped. “I think you should have some faith in this idea. After all, whoever is your Secret Santa might surprise you.”

Hope walked away before Lizzie could think of anything to say to that, let alone stop blushing. Having a potentially unrequited crush was truly inconvenient, she couldn’t imagine how MG had dealt with it for so many years.

Speaking of MG, she saw him through the window, looking like he was heading for Jed and Ben’s RV. She got up and hurried out the door after him, hoping to figure out one of her problems right then and there.

*

“Who’d you get?” Jed winced when Ben showed him Kaleb’s name, cementing his belief that this would be a less than ideal situation for him.

“He still doesn’t like me, does he?” He opened the RV door for Jed. While they had a room in the school, they often preferred to be alone here or at the Old Mill, Ben especially glad for the solitude at the moment.

“Well, he could’ve forgiven you for his car getting torched or the parking meter to the face, but both is probably going to take a while.”

“That’s probably fair. Do you think there’s a gift that will lessen his ire at all?”

“If you’ve got a lot of money lying around I don’t know about, his car. Otherwise,” Jed shrugged to indicate how hopeless Ben’s predicament was.

There was a knock on their RV door. They exchanged confused glances before Ben pulled it open to reveal Lizzie and MG.

“Hey, guys,” MG greeted. “We just wanted to check in with you guys. You haven’t been home very long and you keep hanging out here.”

Lizzie had already pushed her way in, letting MG trail in behind her, and perched on kitchen table, looking around the small space with a critical eye. “This is … cute.”

“It’s awesome, and why are you here?” Jed asked, crossing his arms.

“Like MG said, I’m trying to be a good friend, bring you two out of your isolation.” She wrinkled her nose at the sight of their garbage can. “That is a lot of styrofoam. How much takeout do you eat?”

“We are still learning to cook, given neither of us previously had much opportunity to learn,” Ben informed her with as much dignity as he could, crowded into the corner to allow everyone else room to fit comfortably and defending their clear reliance on takeout.

Lizzie still winced, probably at the reminder of his curse. “Right, of course. Sorry.”

“Hey Ben, are all these your books?” MG had found their small library, mostly stuck in clear containers under their bed.

“Some. Most are Jed’s. He’s been taking a few college classes over the internet,” Ben said proudly, making Jed smile shyly at him. Jed hadn’t really talked about it much because he’d been nervous that he wouldn’t be any better at college courses than he’d been at high school, but from what Ben understood, he was doing very well.

“Wait, really? I didn’t know you were going to collage, Jed!”

MG seemed to be genuinely happy about it, but Jed clearly had picked up the same surprise in his voice that Ben had, and he scowled. “It’s not that weird, I graduated high school.”

“Oh, right I didn’t mean … that’s great, Jed,” MG tried to recover with a big, awkward smile.

Lizzie, who had been poking around their refrigerator while this conversation had been going on, closed it and grabbed MG’s arm. “Okay, good talk. Jed, Ben, it was great to see you, come into the school next time. Let’s go!” Then she pulled MG out, closing the RV door behind them.”

Ben tilted his head. “They may have us for Secret Santa.”

“Y’think? And I thought I was crap at being subtle.”

*

“You think they figured out why we were there?”

“Who knows, it’s Jed. Although he’s taking college classes now, so who knows.”

“Right? But good for him, I think it’s great.” MG sighed. “I could’ve sounded less shocked, huh?”

“At least we got good ideas for gifts, right?”

When they were almost at the school, MG pulled Lizzie aside, a serious look on his face. “I’m not your Secret Santa but I thought I’d give you a gift anyway.”

“MG …” Lizzie sounded pained to her own ears. She’d had this kind of conversation a lot with MG when he was trying to win her over. Now that they’d given a relationship a try, she knew it only ended one way, and she didn’t want to have to hurt him. Again.

“Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.” MG took one of her hands in his. “It’s okay that you have a thing for Hope.”

Sharp panic sparked in her chest. “What are you talking about? Me and Hope? Please, I just moved her from ‘frenemy’ to ‘friend’ in my hierarchy of acquaintances, and now you think I’m romantically interested in her? Milton Greasley, your imagination can really run away from you.”

“Uh-huh, sure. I get it, you aren’t ready to talk about it, especially with me.” He looked at her with that earnest MG look, the one he got before he gave big speeches before they faced insurmountable odds together. “But I want you to be happy, Lizzie. No matter what’s going on with us, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted. So if there were someone you were into, and you did want to tell them at Christmas, you should know that I’d be okay. That we’d be okay.”

She looked down and blinked away any forming tears, before giving MG the best smile she could. “You know you’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had, MG.”

“Of course I am. I’m amazing.”

“You really are.”

*

On the twenty-third, things went were going well, at least as far as Ben could tell. Finch had gotten Cleo and gave her what were apparently very nice paint brushes. Finch was given a leather jacket with studs on it by Kaleb, while Cleo gifted MG a statue of him as his favorite superhero, making him hug her for a minute straight in excitement.

MG hesitantly handed Jed his present, an extensive compendium of world myths. “I saw the stuff you were studying, and I thought you might be into it,” he explained, probably hesitant after his initial reaction to Jed attending college.

Ben nudged Jed gently and Jed gave him a look that suggested he didn’t need the encouragement. “Thanks, MG. This is really nice.”

MG perked up, looking please he’d gotten it right. “Great, I’m glad you like it! Who’s next?”

To Ben’s complete lack of surprise, Lizzie stood up and handed her present to him, a thin envelope. “I got you five cooking lessons with the guy that runs the Grill while you’re here in January. The two of you need to eat things that aren’t takeout.”

He was taken aback. It was exactly what he wanted; a practical skill that could be used for both him and Jed. “That’s perfect, Lizzie. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And you owe me a dinner when you’re good at it.” She looked around expectantly. “Okay, who’s got me?”

“I do,” Hope said, avoiding her eyes. “But it’s in another room, I’ll show you when everyone else is done.”

Lizzie seemed to want to protest, but MG plowed over her. “Okay then, the last one is Kaleb! Ben, since you’re the last one left, I’m guessing that’s you, so give him your gift. And Kaleb, remember it’s Christmas and be nice.”

Ben looked at Jed, who gave him a small nod and rubbed his thumb on the back of Ben’s hand comfortingly. He took a deep breath, and stood, rubbing his palms on his jeans. “My.present is outside.”

They all trooped out to the front of the school, where Kaleb’s car was now parked. Kaleb’s jaw dropped. “Wait, what did you do?”

“I improved it. Or, I tried to. My sister is skilled with automobiles, and she helped me. The engine will no longer stall out, the steering is better aligned, and she said the acceleration has a kick now, whatever that means. And I hope you like the new color.”

Kaleb walked down the stairs to his car slowly. He ran his hand over the candy red paint. “It’s not bad,” he allowed.

“I can’t give you back the car you burned trying to help me, but I hoped this might help mitigate the loss.” Ben swallowed heavily, leaning slightly back into Jed behind him.

Kaleb nodded thoughtfully, then looked at Ben for a minute, letting him fidget. Finally, he said, “Cleo and I were going to pick up something for lunch at the Grill. You and Jed wanna come with us, help me test this thing out?”

Jed knocked his shoulder into Ben’s and he gave Kaleb a lopsided smile, hopeful but still a little anxious. “We would enjoy that.”

“Awesome, let’s go!” Jed grabbed Ben’s hand, then looked over at MG. “I mean, we’re done here, right?”

“Well, I guess we did all the presents …”

“Cool, bye.” He pulled Ben down the stairs, Cleo following behind them, chuckling. “Merry Christmas everybody, text us if you want us to bring you anything back!”

He pushed Ben into the back of the car and clambered in after him. They were too big to fit very well but Jed leaned into him happily, and he wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer, feeling surprisingly optimistic. Maybe fitting in with Jed’s friends wasn’t going so badly after all.

*

After the station wagon drove away, the rest of the party broke up, except for the heretic and tribrid. Lizzie turned to Hope and gave her an expectant look. “Well?”

Hope smiled faintly before tipping her head. “Follow me.”

They wandered through the school, Lizzie getting more and more confused as they went. “Okay, seriously, where are we going? You better not be taking me outside, it’s like nineteen degrees.”

“It’s not outside and we’re almost there.”

“We’re almost where, what are you …”

Hope pushed open the doors to the kitchen, where there was a surprisingly cheery and almost childish display. There were big bright balloons, pastel wrapped presents, and a cute three-tiered caked in the middle of the counter.

“Its your eleventh birthday party. You remember, the birthday I ruined?” Hope explained when Lizzie just stood there, wide-eyed. “I made the cake, and I asked Caroline about some of the presents I messed up.” She held up a Leia action figure. “Apparently your mom got this for you.”

“Aw, I love it,” Lizzie crooned, taking the doll and admiring it, before noticing the amusement on Hope’s face, clearing her throat and putting it down on the counter. “I mean, I would have loved it, then. It was a good present.”

Hope was smiling widely now, clearly happy with Lizzie’s reaction. “So you like it?”

Lizzie stepped closer, shaking her head in wonder. “Hope Andrea Mikaelson,” she murmured, sighing as she came to a decision.

She bent down and kissed Hope softly, sweetly, and briefly. “Thank you for my present.”

Hope beamed up at her and laughed happily. “You’re welcome.

Lizzie looked over at the counter. “So do I finally get to eat my cake now?”

“In a minute.” Hope looped her arms around Lizzie’s neck, backed her up to the counter, and pulled her down to kiss her again, open-mouthed and lush.

Lizzie had to give MG credit. Secret Santa had been a great idea.

[hellofanidea]

oh PLEASE tell me teddy an leyendecker is baout teddy being a model for him PLEASE the implications of that

but pls hit me with the inception AU Please

sorry for the typos i am 2 comsopolitans in and very drunk i went thru this 5 times to amke sure it make ssense

Sam I love you, have fun, stay safe!

And I WISH 'Teddy and Leyendecker' was about the actual guy but I'm afraid I was simply thinking about him when I needed to name this doc. It's more about Teddy being compared to a Leyendecker. It's also about him being a nerd and reciting Whitman at Arthur and Natalie when they go to visit. I'll put an excerpt and the Inception AU under a readmore.

“I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,” Teddy sighed with a smile. “Whitman?” Arthur turned to Natalie. “It’s usually Whitman.” Teddy clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You absolutely ought to know that by now. Did I teach you nothing?” He chided. Now picking up an eyebrow pencil, he cleared his throat and started to recite again, in earnest: “I too had receiv’d identity by my body, That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.” “Yeah, yeah, real clever,” Arthur conceded.

THE INCEPTION AU(s). Oh boy. I have two versions of this with two different casts (in the same draft file because I'm messy like that). There is, of course, the Webgott AU we discussed, with Joe spiraling out of control as Shade!Web infiltrates his dreamscape. The slightly less dramatic and slightly more procedural fic that is focused on a crew doing multiple unrelated jobs is the one with our OCs in it. Since it's you (...and its the one I have the most written for), that's the one I'll share a bit of.

"What were you even playing with?" Arthur asked, curiosity briefly winning out over suffering. "Longevity?" "Intensity," Toye admitted, becoming slightly more animated as he talked about his work. "One of our biggest problems is a target realizing they're in a dream. I figure there has to be a way to adjust the drug to make it more vivid, or at least keep their minds too busy to make the connection." Well. That would explain- No. Compartmentalization. That was how this worked. "Huh," Arthur said, letting himself sound impressed. "Certainly make my job easier." Something flickered on Toye's stony face, a barely perceptible twitch up at the corner of his mouth. Just in that fraction of a second he almost looked like Arthur's Joe, and the memory of his smile hit him like a haymaker. Then it was gone, and Toye was straightening up, looking concernedly over Arthur's shoulder before stepping away. Arthur turned, and saw what chased him off. Natalie looked like she was one wrong word from blowing a gasket. He opened his mouth, then quickly snapped it shut. "What the hell are you playing at?" She hissed. It seemed like a rhetorical question, so Arthur fought to keep quiet. "Are you tryin' to get us thrown off this crew?" That was less rhetorical, and Arthur made an indignant noise. "Hey, it's not-" "Do not turn up hungover again," Natalie snapped. When Arthur opened his mouth again, she leaned in real close. "From booze or the machine." That was enough to shut Arthur up properly, and he watched her storm over to Winters with a building sense of guilt and dread.

[kammartinez]

By Safiya Sinclair

The first time I left Jamaica, I was seventeen. I’d graduated from high school two years before, and while trying to get myself to college I’d been scouted as a model. And so I found myself at the Wilhelmina Models office in Miami, surrounded by South Beach’s finest glass windows with all my glass hopes, face to face with a famous one-named model who was now in her sixties. When her gaze halted at my dreadlocks, I shouldn’t have been surprised at what came next.

“Can you cut the dreads?” she asked, as she flipped through my portfolio, her soft accent blunting the impact of the words.

Back home in Kingston, hair stylists would leave my dreadlocks untouched, tied up in a ponytail with my good black ribbon, deciding that the problem of my hair was insolvable.

“Sorry,” I said. “My father won’t allow me.”

She glanced over at the agent who had brought me in.

“It’s her religion,” he explained. “Her father is Rastafarian. Very strict.”

The road between my father and me was woven in my hair, long spools of dreadlocks tethering me to him, across time, across space. Everywhere I went, I wore his mark, a sign to the bredren in his Rastafari circle that he had his house under control. Once, when I was feeling brave, I had asked my father why he chose Rastafari for himself, for us. “I and I don’t choose Rasta,” he told me, using the plural “I” because Jah’s spirit is always with a Rasta bredren. “I and I was born Rasta.” I turned his reply over in my mouth like a coin.

My father, Djani, had also been seventeen when he took his first trip out of Jamaica. He travelled to New York in the winter of 1979 to find his fortune. It was there, in the city’s public libraries, that my father first read the speeches of Haile Selassie and learned about the history of the Rastafari movement. In the early nineteen-thirties, the street preacher Leonard Percival Howell heeded what is known as the Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey’s call to “look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king,” who would herald Black liberation. Howell discovered Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, the only African nation never to be colonized, and declared that God had been reincarnated. Inspired by Haile Selassie’s reign, the movement hardened around a militant belief in Black independence, a dream that would be realized only by breaking the shackles of colonization.

As he read, my father became aware of the racist downpression of the Black man happening in America. He understood then what Rastas had been saying all along, that systemic injustice across the world flowed from one huge, interconnected, and malevolent source, the rotting heart of all iniquity: what the Rastafari call Babylon. Babylon was the government that had outlawed them, the police that had pummelled them, the church that had damned them to hellfire. Babylon was the sinister and violent forces born of western ideology, colonialism, and Christianity that led to the centuries-long enslavement and oppression of Black people. It was the threat of destruction that crept even now toward every Rasta family.

Just as a tree knows how to bear fruit, my father would say, he knew then what he needed to do. On a cold day in February, his eighteenth birthday, my father stood before a mirror in New York City and began twisting his Afro into dreadlocks, the sacred marker of Rastafari livity, a holy expression of righteousness and his belief in Jah. When he returned to Jamaica, his mother took one look at his hair and refused to let him into the house. It was shameful to have a Rasta son, she said. My father, with nowhere else to go, reluctantly cut his hair back down to an Afro.

Soon my father began spending time around a drum circle with Rasta elders in Montego Bay, sitting in on the spiritual and philosophical discussions that Rastas call reasoning. “Rasta is not a religion,” my father always said. “Rasta is a calling. A way of life.” There is no united doctrine, no holy book of Rastafari principles. There is only the wisdom passed down from elder Rasta bredren, the teachings of reggae songs from conscious Rasta musicians, and the radical Pan-Africanism of revolutionaries like Garvey and Malcolm X. My father felt called to a branch known as the Mansion of Nyabinghi, the strictest and most radical sect of Rastafari. Its unbending tenets taught him what to eat, how to live, and how to fortify his mind against Babylon’s “ism and schism”—colonialism, racism, capitalism, and all the other evil systems of western ideology that sought to destroy the Black man. “Fire bun Babylon!” the Rasta bredren chanted every night, and the words took root in him. He was ready to decimate any heathen who stood in his way.

Hanging on the mint-green living-room wall of our family’s house in Bogue Heights, a hillside community overlooking Montego Bay, was a portrait of Haile Selassie, gilded and sceptered at his coronation, his eyes as black as meteorites. It was flanked by a poster of Bob Marley and a photograph of my father, both onstage, both throwing their dreadlocks like live wires into the air.

Every morning of my childhood began the same way, with the dizzying smell of ganja slowly pulling me awake. My mother, Esther, who had first embraced the Rastafari way of life when she met my father at nineteen, was always up before dawn, communing with the crickets, busying herself with housework and yard work. Whenever she worked, she smoked marijuana. The scent of it clung to her long auburn dreadlocks. She carried a golden packet of rolling paper on her at all times, stamped with a drawing of the Lion of Judah waving the Ethiopian flag, the adopted symbol of the Rastafari. My brother, Lij, my sister, Ife, and I pawed and pulled at her, but she did not mind. If she was with us, she was ours.

My father was the lead singer in a reggae band called Djani and the Public Works. When I was seven, Lij five, and Ife three, he met some Japanese record-label executives at the hotel where the band performed nightly, and they agreed to fly the musicians to Tokyo to play reggae shows. They stayed for six months and recorded their first album. After he left, my mother cleared our back yard and planted some crops, which soon became towering stalks of sugarcane, a roving pumpkin patch, and vines and vines of gungo peas, all exploding outward in swaths of green. We had always kept to an Ital diet: no meat, no fish, no eggs, no dairy, no salt, no sugar, no black pepper, no MSG, no processed substances. Our bodies were Jah’s temple.

Early on school mornings, under the watchful eye of the holy trinity, my mother combed my black thundercloud of hair, often with me tearfully begging her to stop. Once, the children at my grandmother’s Seventh-day Adventist church had asked me why I didn’t have dreadlocks like my parents; I remembered the certainty in my grandma’s voice when she said that we would be able to choose how to wear our hair.

Even though the combing was painful, I still wouldn’t have chosen dreadlocks. When my mother was finished, I swung my glistening plaits, fitted with blue clips to match my school uniform, back and forth, back and forth, pink with delight. I felt it was all worth it then. My mother made it look easy, corralling three children by herself to school every morning while my father was away.

Babylon came for us eventually, even in our kingdom of god-sent green. One Sunday during our Christmas break, my mother dragged a comb across my head and gasped. Two large fistfuls of hair were stuck in its teeth, yanked loose like weak weeds from dirt. I screamed.

“Oh, Jah. Oh, Jah. Oh, Jah,” she said, holding me as I cried, blocking my hand from trying to touch my scalp, where I now had a bald spot. Ife was fine, but Lij’s hair was also falling out in clumps. My father distrusted Babylon’s doctors. My mother did, too—until she had children.

We had been infected with barber disease, the doctor told us, a kind of ringworm spread first by barbers’ tools, then by children touching heads at school. Babylon’s disease. Mom closed her eyes as she listened. The doctor prescribed a thick antifungal cream and a chemical shampoo.

A week later, despite the treatment, there was scant improvement. My mother gathered up all the combs in the house and flung them into a trash bag, along with the medicine. Hair for the Rastafari signified strength. My father called his hair a crown, his locks a mane, his beard a precept. What grew from our heads was supposed to be most holy. My mother took our blighted scalps as a moral failure, ashamed that we had fallen to Babylon’s ruin so soon after my father had gone.

For the rest of the break, she tended to our heads with a homemade tincture. After a few days, my hair started growing back. “Praise Jah,” Mom said, as she began the process of twisting all our hair into dreadlocks. Day after day, we sat, snug between her legs, as she lathered our heads in aloe-vera gel and warm olive oil.

Within a few weeks, my hair had stiffened and matted into sprouts of thick antennae, bursting from my head. There was no turning back now. From that point on, combing and brushing our hair was forbidden, on a growing list of NO.

When my siblings and I returned to our primary school after the break, the students gawked at us as if we were a trio of aliens disembarking from a spaceship. They crowded around, trying to sniff or pull at our locks. If they could have dissected us alive, I think they would have.

Not long after, a sixth grader began shadowing me. She crept up close while singing in my ear, “Lice is killing the Rasta, lice is killing the Rasta,” a widespread taunt in the nineties, which co-opted the tune of a popular reggae song.

My cheeks stung in humiliation. For the first time, I felt ashamed to be myself. At lunchtime, I told my brother about the girl, her needling insult. My brother shook his head and kissed his teeth the way grownups did.

“Saf, don’t pay her no mind. All ah dem a duppy,” he said. “And we are the duppy conquerors.” He was trying to sound like a big man, talking like our father.

I tried to imagine what my father would say. He always told me to be polite but right. “I man and your mother didn’t birth no weakheart,” he said. “Always stand up for what you know is right. You overstand?” Even from afar, his mind moved mine like a backgammon piece.

I decided to go to the teachers’ lounge and tell my third-grade teacher about the girl’s teasing. Tapping me gently on the shoulder, she told me that with my good grades I should pay such things no mind.

As I walked away, still pensive, I heard her and some of the other teachers talking.

“But it’s a shame, innuh,” a new teacher’s voice chimed in. “I really thought the parents were going to give them the choice.”

We were under our favorite mango tree by the front gate when a car rolled up one day in early May. Suddenly, my father appeared like the sun, beeping the horn and flashing his perfect teeth at the sight of us. We jumped on him, and cried; the fireworks of feelings had nowhere else to go. He brought in a parade of bags and boxes from Japan, a brand-new electric Fender guitar slung across his back. He was buoyant. All afternoon, he kept touching his fingers to our dreadlocks. We could tell he was pleased.

Inside the house, he unzipped his suitcases and showered us with mounds of stuffed toys, exquisite notebooks, new clothes and shoes, and a Nintendo Game Boy with Japanese cartridges. For Mom, he brought fancy lotions, a robe, and packets of something called miso. We cheered at every new gift. My father was our Santa, if Rasta believed in Babylon’s fables.

Dad was home with us that entire summer. Every day, he was a more carefree version of himself. He taught us to play cricket, told us the same ten jokes of his childhood, and dazzled us with his tree-climbing skills. His recording contract was for two years, but the record label could obtain only six-month visas for the band at a time. Once school began, he went back to Japan to finish the album. We didn’t have a phone, so we visited the shop of his closest bredren, Ika Tafara, to call him every weekend.

By the time we walked into Ika’s shop for the Kwanzaa celebration that December, I felt like I belonged. About thirty Rasta bredren and their families had come from all over Mobay to gather and give thanks. We recited Marcus Garvey’s words like scripture. I played the conga drum and sang of Black upliftment with other Rasta children. There were about twenty of us there, peeking from behind our mothers’ hems. And though he was across the sea, my father felt present, the sound of his voice ringing out through the store’s speakers.

But when my father got back the second time, the following May, he seemed different. His relationship with one of his bandmates had imploded, taking the band’s hopes with it, and he was once again playing reggae for tourists at the hotels lining the coast. My sister Shari was born a month after his return. With the birth of another Sinclair daughter, my father’s control over us tightened. One afternoon, he decided that my siblings and I needed to be purified. I watched him stalk through the yard, pulling up cerasee leaves, bitter roots, and black vines, which my mother blended into a pungent goop and poured into three big glasses. He loomed over us for what seemed like hours, as we bawled and retched, struggling to swallow the foul potion. We were there until night fell, until my father believed we had finally been cleansed.

“The I them have to be vigilant,” he said when it was over. Our joy had made us heedless, easy prey for the wicked world. We would no longer be allowed to run around outside, or even to leave the yard. “Chicken merry, hawk deh near,” he reminded us.

“I man don’t want my daughters dressing like no Jezebel,” he told my mother later. At his instruction, she threw out every pair of pants and shorts my sisters and I owned. Now we would wear only skirts and dresses made from kente cloth, as our mother did. Our hems were to fall below our knees, our chest and midriff to be covered at all times. Pierced ears, jewelry, and makeup—all those garish trappings of Babylon—were forbidden. “And once you reach the right age,” my father said, “the I will wrap your locks in a tie-head like your mother.” I realized I had been naïve, in not expecting that this was the life my father had imagined for me.

My hair hadn’t been brushed in two years. Flecks of lint and old matter knotted down the length of each dreadlock, a nest containing every place I had laid my head. Dad caught me pushing my fingers through the thicket of roots in the bathroom mirror once, as I tried to twist the crown of my hair into shape.

“Stop that,” he said. “Hair fi grow. Naturally and natural only. Like Jah intended.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said.

With each month came a new revocation, a new rule. Soon he didn’t even allow us around other Rastafari people. He trusted no one, not even them, with our livity. In our household rose a new gospel, a new church, a new Sinclair sect. The Mansion of Djani.

Whenever our father was out of the house, which was almost nightly, my siblings and I resumed our outdoor play. One day, a few weeks later, Lij chased me across the lawn. I zipped left and ran sideways into the house to lose him. But there he was again. Laughing, I turned to face him, and his running motion drove the full force of his body into my jaw, which slammed hard against the bathroom wall. I felt my front tooth crumble to chalk in my mouth. I slid my tongue across my gums and found a sharp crag in the place where my tooth used to be, and sobbed.

My parents couldn’t afford to fix my tooth. They didn’t have insurance, and a dentist friend told them it didn’t make sense to get it capped until I was older anyway, because my mouth was still growing. I wanted to protest, but I knew my father thought that my distress over my tooth was only vanity, and vanity was a mark of Babylon. I suspect he liked me this way. My mouth was now a barricade between me and the onslaught of adolescence, a broke-glass fence around my body.

I stopped smiling. At school, I sat clench-mouthed and held my hand across my mouth whenever I spoke.

At the end of the school year, there was a carnival. Venders came with cotton candy and peanut brittle and their bright pandemonium of wares. One of the attractions was a mule ride, and after some begging my mother said Ife and I could do it. I pulled my hand-sewn dress over my knees and got on the mule sidesaddle. As we were led around the parking lot by the animal’s owner, a photographer appeared and snapped our picture; I made sure to shut my mouth tight. The next day, the local newspaper printed the photo in a half-page spread, my face gloomy above the caption “Two Rasta girls riding a mule.”

One morning, when I was nearing the end of sixth grade, my mother held up the classifieds in excitement. “Look at this, Djani,” she said. There was an ad announcing two scholarships for “gifted and underprivileged” students to attend a new private high school called St. James College, in Montego Bay. For my parents, this would mean tuition paid, uniforms made, one less child to worry about. A burden lifted. Students had to apply, and a chosen few would then be interviewed by the school’s founders.

I pushed out my lips. “So does this mean that if I want to go to any school in my life, I’m always going to have to get a scholarship?” I asked. I knew, as every Jamaican child knows, that no sentence directed to your parents should begin with the word “So.”

“Have to get a scholarship? You think I and I made ah money?” my father said. “Gyal, get outta my sight.” I hid in the bedroom for the rest of the day and wept. My father used only regal honorifics for the women in his life. Empress. Princess. Dawta. The word “gyal” was an insult in Rasta vernacular. It was never used for a girl or a woman who was loved and respected. For weeks, the word taunted me, my girlhood a stain I could not wash out.

We applied, and when my mother told me I was one of the finalists I was not surprised. I had alchemized my father’s rage into a resolve to be so excellent that my parents would never have to worry again.

My mother and I went to an office building downtown for the interview. We were met by a short white woman wearing round glasses who introduced herself as Mrs. Newnham. She asked me to come with her, and I followed. I looked back and saw my mother raise a confident fist in my direction.

Five men, most of them white, sat at a table in the center of a large, cold room. They all wore gold watches and school rings with large ruby insignias on them. I had never been alone with so many white people before. The men greeted me. One white man asked what I did in my spare time.

I told them I loved to read and write poetry, and that my favorite poem was “The Tyger,” by William Blake. Before they could ask another question, I began to recite it. I looked at each of them as I spoke. The words gave me electric power.

“My God, you speak so well,” another white man said. “You speak so well,” they all repeated. I was unsure how else I was supposed to speak.

The kindest white man at the table, who had a long nose and blue eyes, asked me to tell him about something in the news. I stopped to think. I knew that everybody had been talking about the West Indian cricketer Brian Lara’s triumphant summer and that would be the most expected answer.

“I’ve been following the Donald Panton scandal,” I said. Two of the men looked up at me in surprise. Donald Panton was the other big story that summer—a prominent Kingston businessman who had been under investigation for financial fraud. (Panton was eventually cleared.) Here was my audience, I thought.

When the interview was over, the committee came out with me, congratulating my mother and asking her what her secret was to raising children. “If I had a dime for every time somebody asked me that,” my mother said, laughing, “I would be rich.”

Before we even left the building, Mrs. Newnham told us that I had been awarded a scholarship to St. James College. My mother hugged me, and thanked Mrs. Newnham and the committee. Outside the building, she jumped and squealed.

“Donald Panton?” my mother said. “What do you even know about that, Safiya?”

“Everything,” I said.

There were eight girls in my class, two of us scholarship students. The others were mostly white Jamaicans and children of American and Canadian expats, chirpy girls whose toy-blond mothers picked them up every evening by car. These girls had all gone to the same private prep school together, had all played tennis and lunched at the yacht club together, and, when it was time for high school, their parents had built them a private school. The bond between them was as unspoken and unbreakable as the barrier between us.

One morning, I arrived at school early enough to wander around in the back yard. Suddenly, the quiet was broken by the science teacher, whom I’ll call Mrs. Pinnock, beckoning me up to a terrace on the second floor.

“Sinclair, why were you down there?” she said. “You should not be wandering around the school grounds alone before the teachers arrive.”

I concentrated on her shoes as she spoke; she wore the ubiquitous sheer nylons and polished block heels of Jamaican teachers.

“And can you please brush your . . . hair?” she added, her voice sharpening. “You can’t be just walking around here looking like a mop.” I would not let her see me react.

“Miss, my father says I am not allowed to brush my hair,” I said, trying to sweep my locks away from my face and off my head forever.

Mrs. Pinnock suddenly took hold of my wrist.

“What’s this?”

There were deep-brown, intricately laced henna patterns across my hands. I explained that a family friend had stained my hands and feet with her homemade henna.

She reminded me that tattoos weren’t allowed.

“It’s not a tattoo, Miss,” I said, my voice quivering now.

“Then go to the bathroom and wash it off, ” she said, articulating each word slowly.

In the bathroom, I scrubbed my hands raw, then walked back to the teachers’ lounge, where I showed Mrs. Pinnock that the dye truly didn’t come off so easily.

“You see this?” she said, gesturing to the other teachers in the room. “Now these people just taking all kind of liberties.” There was no mistaking whom she meant.

At morning assembly, she announced that any student seen with any kind of tattoo at school would get detention or suspension.

During lunchtime, the rich girls often skipped the cafeteria and ate under the shade of the trees in the front yard. The rest of us would follow them out into the noonday sun. Many girls would buy beef patties and warm coco bread from a tiny tuckshop on the premises—all food that I was forbidden. My cheap nylon lunch bag held a sweaty lettuce-and-cheese sandwich, a peeled orange, and a bag of off-brand chips my mom had bought from a Chinese grocery store.

That day, a classmate whom I’ll call Shannon decided to climb a young mango tree. I watched her as she clambered up onto the lowest branch, her pleated skirt ballooning and exposing her legs.

“I think it’s cool, by the way,” Shannon called out to me from above. “I always wanted to try henna. Teachers here are such prudes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Shannon leaned down from her perch, her gaze fixed on my locks, and asked me if henna was part of my religion. I shook my head no. Then she asked if I could wear nail polish. The answer was no, it was always no. But she kept going, as if she were trying to reveal something clever about Rastafari to me. Why can’t you pierce your ears? Who made the rules?

My father, I wanted to tell her. But how could I convey that every Rastaman was the godhead in his household, that every word my father spoke was gospel?

I leaned back against the trunk of the tree, smoothing down my skirt, which was longer than any other girl’s at school. I longed to go up into the branches, but I was too old now to climb trees, my father said.

That night, our power went out without warning, which meant Mom reached for our kerosene lamp and some candles, and we all lay in the dim firelight playing word games until we heard my father at the door.

My mother and I launched into a testimony of what had happened at school with the teacher. My father listened, pulling on his precept silently. His face looked weary in the candlelight. He held our world up on his shoulders, but I never once thought about what he was carrying. He flicked his locks over his shoulder and said, “They don’t know nuttin bout this Rasta trodition. Brainwashed Christian eejiat dem.” I nodded and smiled, ready for the big bangarang that would come next. But then he shook his head and said, “You need to keep your head down, do your work, and don’t cause no trouble.”

“I’m not. She was the one—”

“You’re on a scholarship. Don’t make no fuss,” he said again. “You hear me?”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said.

Later, my father came and lay next to me in bed. He was good at ignoring my moods, or eclipsing them entirely. “Now tell me again about school,” he said. I’d been regaling him weekly with which of my classmates’ fathers was a businessman and what kind of car each classmate’s mother drove. He seemed to relish these stories, so I hoarded details to report back to him. I might have found it hypocritical, but anything that lifted him meant the whole house lifted, too. As I spoke, his eyes closed.

“There’s a girl in my class whose father owns Margaritaville,” I began.

“He owns all of it?” he asked me, with a faraway voice.

“I think so,” I said. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I knew the grander the parent’s success the more spirited he seemed.

“My daughter goes to school with the owner of Margaritaville,” he said, his voice drawn out with pride, if Rasta could feel proud.

This was what being thirty-four with four children and still no record deal looked like: one or two fewer dumplings on our plates, or shredded callaloo sautéed for breakfast and again for dinner. “Jah will provide,” Dad would say when food was short, and Mom would walk out into the yard and find something ripe—June plums or cherries—for us to eat.

My father was never going to be a carpenter or a banker or a taximan, he said. He sang for Jah, so he had no choice but to cover the same ten Bob Marley songs for tourists eating their steak dinners in the west-coast hotels. At home, though, he could still be king. My mother placed every meal before him as soon as he beckoned for it. He had never turned on a stove, never washed a dish. Every evening before he left for work, my mother would wash his dreadlocks, pouring warm anointments over his bowed head at the bathroom sink, and then oil each lock as he sat eating fruit that she had cut for him. I imagined a servant, just out of frame, fanning a palm frond back and forth.

One sweltering afternoon, Lij, Ife, and I found ourselves alone at home. Racing out to the yard, we crawled through the damp crabgrass, then galloped from bush to bush. We were glistening with sweat as we approached the cherry tree, which was so laden with unripe fruit that some branches scraped the grass. Each green cherry hung hard and bright like a little world.

I reached for one. It was crisp and tart, a bright tangy juice filling my mouth.

Soon the three of us were shaking the tree like locusts, jumping and snatching green cherries out of it two and three at a time, stuffing our mouths and laughing. “Let’s take some for Mommy and Daddy,” Ife said. I held out my T-shirt like a basket in front of me to catch the falling fruit.

It was not yet dark when our father hopped out of a taxi at the gate. He was back early, a bad sign. Perhaps his show had been cancelled. We ran up to greet him. Mom was not there to interpret the particular riddle of his face, but by the way he slammed the car door we should have known that he wasn’t to be bothered.

“Why unnu still outside?” he snapped. “Go bathe now,” he said, swatting us away.

In the living room, our father examined the state of us. Twigs in our dreadlocks, sweat and dirt on our foreheads, green stains down our shirts. He pointed to Lij’s bulging pockets.

“Fyah, whaddat?” he asked.

“Umm. Some . . . some cherries, Daddy,” Lij said.

“What yuh mean, cherry?” he said, cocking his head. “There is no cherry. The cherries are green.”

Lij explained that we had tried them. “They actually taste good!” he added.

My father’s smile did not reach his eyes.

“Don’t move,” he said, and walked out the door.

We heard him curse from the front yard. “Ah wha the bomboclaat!” he shouted, using a curse word usually reserved for record-label execs and hotel managers. His voice was ragged, unfamiliar. His footsteps pounded back up to the front door, which he slammed behind him. The walls shook in their frames.

He glared at us, and we were small, so small he could crush us under his heel. He began unbuckling the belt he was wearing. We had never seen him do this before. It was a new red leather belt that had been given to him by a Canadian friend, still shiny and stiff from lack of use. We looked at each other with confusion, soon mown down by fear as he pulled the red belt out from the loops of his khaki pants.

“Fruits fi eat when dem ripe,” he said, wrapping the belt in a loop around his fist. “Let every fruit ripen on Jah tree.”

“Daddy, we didn’t think—” I said, but couldn’t finish. I moved in closer to my siblings helplessly, close as I could get to them.

“The I them too unruly!” he roared, suddenly circling around behind us. He whipped the red belt down with stinging force across our backs.

Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. The world was upside down. I cried and pleaded, not to him but to something beyond him, anything that might make it stop. Everything was sideways then; roof and rubble crashing down on us, our little kingdom shattering.

When the beating was over, my father walked into his bedroom and drove a nail into the wall above his bed. There, next to another portrait of Haile Selassie, he hung the red belt, waiting for the next time his spirit bid him pull it down.

Not long after, I began detangling the roots of my hair, so it was dreadlocked only at the ends. Every morning before school, I brushed down those precious few inches of unmatted hair at my scalp and kept the strands soft and oiled at the roots. I started unbuttoning my school shirt one button down and wearing my tie at my chest, instead of at my neck, like a boy. Each time I looked in the mirror, I thought I might find something beautiful, as long as I didn’t open my mouth.

When I was fifteen, a few months before I graduated from high school, my mother found the money to get my tooth fixed. Suddenly, friends and acquaintances began suggesting I go into modelling. My mother heard that the Saint International modelling agency was scouting for models not far from where I was taking SAT prep classes.

At the entrance to the scouting event, a slim, bright-eyed man introduced himself as Deiwght Peters. He told me about the agency, which he had founded to celebrate Black beauty. While he spoke, he circled me with a feline liquidity, sizing me up like a museum artifact.

“You have a very unique look,” Deiwght told me, his eyes flitting over my dreadlocks, which had grown halfway down my back. “We have to get you,” he said, reaching for his Polaroid camera.

I don’t know what magic my mother worked behind the scenes, but my father, with a brooding resignation, agreed that I could sign on as a Saint model.

My grandmother lived in Spanish Town, near downtown Kingston, where a lot of fashion events took place, so it was decided that I would stay with her. Deiwght taught me how to glide with one heeled foot in front of the other without looking down, to appear both interesting and disinterested. Suddenly, I was moving in and out of the most beautiful clothes I had ever seen: turquoise pants and sequinned halters and ruffled dresses and stilettos. The first time I wore makeup, the makeup artist stepped away to show me my face in the mirror: “See? You barely need a thing, honey.”

My body was a gift, but I didn’t quite believe it, not until I sailed down that first runway as the crowd cheered on the Rasta mogeller who would be anointed in the next day’s paper. After the show, Deiwght grabbed my beaming mother and shook her, saying, “Your daughter? She is one of the classics!”

I began going to castings all over Kingston. Nighttime was always for poetry, and I spent the late hours at Grandma’s house nibbling away at the dictionary while writing by lamplight. I carried my poetry notebook wherever I went.

I had published my first poem, “Daddy,” at sixteen. The day it appeared in the literary-arts supplement of the Sunday Observer was one big excitement in the Sinclair household. I ran around announcing to everyone that my name would be in print. My father, who read the Sunday Observer every weekend, was the most excited of all of us, especially when he saw the title. I didn’t bother to warn him that it was not a tribute to him but a reimagining of a story in the news about a young girl who drank Gramoxone to kill herself because her father had molested her. I didn’t caution him that the language was visceral and the details gut-wrenching. Instead, I watched him as he opened the page, and savored the long droop of his face as it fell.

One weekend, my father stopped by Grandma’s house to pick me up for a model casting on his way to a meeting with music producers in Kingston. I had been instructed to dress for a music video that was “fun and young and sexy,” and I had made a short pin-striped pleated skirt from one of Grandma’s old skirts, adorning it with safety pins along the waist and hem, like a punk. My father honked impatiently as I walked out in my new outfit, trying to pretend I was bulletproof.

“Oh, Rasta,” he said, his eyes bulging as I swooped into the car. I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t look in my direction.

We pulled up outside a large iron gate in silence. Down a long gravel driveway, I could see a house, where brightly attired young people were milling about on a veranda. Instead of turning in to the driveway, my father pointed out my window. “It’s up there,” he said, still looking away from me.

I started to climb out of the car.

“I’m ashamed of you,” he said.

“O.K.,” I said, and started walking, surprised at how little I felt of the old humiliation.

In Miami, where I had flown a few months later with Deiwght, the older model leaned back in her chair. “Oh,” she said. “That’s a shame.” She looked from my face to my portfolio photos again and smiled politely. “The dreads just aren’t versatile enough.”

Foolishly, I had believed that my dreadlocks would make me one-of-a-kind in the fashion world, since I’d never seen a model with locks. But this was a profession in which one needed to be emptied of oneself, and I was still too much of my father.

Later that night, I called my mother and asked if I could cut my dreadlocks.

“Oh, Saf,” she sighed. “I think you already know the answer to that one.”

“Mom, I have no hope of doing this if I don’t.”

After a long pause, she said, “I will see.”

I learned that my father forbade me from cutting my dreadlocks. I knew that if I ever did I would not be allowed back under his roof. My hope for a new kind of life withered, and I had no choice but to return home.

In the end, my mother called a friend to help her. She chose a day when she knew my father would be gone. My siblings were at school, and her friend, whom I’ll call Sister Idara, arrived with a smile, ready. I closed my eyes and leaned my head over the laundry sink. The two women poured cupfuls of hot water over my scalp to soften the hair, massaged my roots with their hands, and then lathered my dreadlocks and scrubbed. They lifted me up and wrapped my damp hair in a towel. We three walked together arm in arm to my bedroom. The window curtain lifted in the breeze as I knelt between my mother’s knees and waited.

“I went through this with my eldest daughter, too,” Sister Idara said. “After all the anger, we got through it. Distance helps, of course.”

Sister Idara was an American, the wife of a friend of my father’s, and lived abroad with her two children for most of the year. She was a plump and jovial Rastawoman who kept her dreadlocks and body shrouded in matching African fabrics. My mother had asked her to be here because she was a perfect shield. My father could not unleash his anger on his good bredren’s wife, and she was scheduled to fly back to the States the next day, so he would be able to spit fire only over the phone. “Have you told him we’re doing it?” I asked my mom. “No,” she said. “But I don’t need his permission.”

Mom told me to hold down my head. She asked me if I was ready, and I said yes. This was the first time since birth that my hair would be cut. I don’t know who held the scissors or who made the first cut. All I heard were the hinges of the shears locking and unlocking, the blades cutting. And then long black reeds of hair came loose in their quick hands. I closed my eyes then, because I could not look at what I was losing. I had not expected it to matter when the moment came. But now I found that it mattered a great deal.

There was hair. So much hair. Dead hair, hair of my gone self, wisps of spiderweb hair, old uniform-lint hair, pillow-sponge and tangerine-strings hair. A whole life pulled itself up by my hair, the hair that locked the year I broke my tooth. Hair of our lean years, hair of the fat, pollen-of-marigolds hair, my mother’s aloe-vera hair, my sisters weaving wild ixoras in my hair, the pull-of-the-tides hair, grits-of-sand hair, hair of salt tears, hair of my binding, hair of my unbeautiful wanting, hair of his bitter words, hair of the cruel world, hair roping me to my father’s belt, hair wrestling the taunts of baldheads in the street, hair of my lone self, all cut away from me.

When they were finished, my neck and head were so light they swung unsteadily. The tethers had been cut from me, and I was new again, unburdened. Someone different, I told myself. A girl who could choose what happened next.

[kamreadsandrecs]

By Safiya Sinclair

The first time I left Jamaica, I was seventeen. I’d graduated from high school two years before, and while trying to get myself to college I’d been scouted as a model. And so I found myself at the Wilhelmina Models office in Miami, surrounded by South Beach’s finest glass windows with all my glass hopes, face to face with a famous one-named model who was now in her sixties. When her gaze halted at my dreadlocks, I shouldn’t have been surprised at what came next.

“Can you cut the dreads?” she asked, as she flipped through my portfolio, her soft accent blunting the impact of the words.

Back home in Kingston, hair stylists would leave my dreadlocks untouched, tied up in a ponytail with my good black ribbon, deciding that the problem of my hair was insolvable.

“Sorry,” I said. “My father won’t allow me.”

She glanced over at the agent who had brought me in.

“It’s her religion,” he explained. “Her father is Rastafarian. Very strict.”

The road between my father and me was woven in my hair, long spools of dreadlocks tethering me to him, across time, across space. Everywhere I went, I wore his mark, a sign to the bredren in his Rastafari circle that he had his house under control. Once, when I was feeling brave, I had asked my father why he chose Rastafari for himself, for us. “I and I don’t choose Rasta,” he told me, using the plural “I” because Jah’s spirit is always with a Rasta bredren. “I and I was born Rasta.” I turned his reply over in my mouth like a coin.

My father, Djani, had also been seventeen when he took his first trip out of Jamaica. He travelled to New York in the winter of 1979 to find his fortune. It was there, in the city’s public libraries, that my father first read the speeches of Haile Selassie and learned about the history of the Rastafari movement. In the early nineteen-thirties, the street preacher Leonard Percival Howell heeded what is known as the Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey’s call to “look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king,” who would herald Black liberation. Howell discovered Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, the only African nation never to be colonized, and declared that God had been reincarnated. Inspired by Haile Selassie’s reign, the movement hardened around a militant belief in Black independence, a dream that would be realized only by breaking the shackles of colonization.

As he read, my father became aware of the racist downpression of the Black man happening in America. He understood then what Rastas had been saying all along, that systemic injustice across the world flowed from one huge, interconnected, and malevolent source, the rotting heart of all iniquity: what the Rastafari call Babylon. Babylon was the government that had outlawed them, the police that had pummelled them, the church that had damned them to hellfire. Babylon was the sinister and violent forces born of western ideology, colonialism, and Christianity that led to the centuries-long enslavement and oppression of Black people. It was the threat of destruction that crept even now toward every Rasta family.

Just as a tree knows how to bear fruit, my father would say, he knew then what he needed to do. On a cold day in February, his eighteenth birthday, my father stood before a mirror in New York City and began twisting his Afro into dreadlocks, the sacred marker of Rastafari livity, a holy expression of righteousness and his belief in Jah. When he returned to Jamaica, his mother took one look at his hair and refused to let him into the house. It was shameful to have a Rasta son, she said. My father, with nowhere else to go, reluctantly cut his hair back down to an Afro.

Soon my father began spending time around a drum circle with Rasta elders in Montego Bay, sitting in on the spiritual and philosophical discussions that Rastas call reasoning. “Rasta is not a religion,” my father always said. “Rasta is a calling. A way of life.” There is no united doctrine, no holy book of Rastafari principles. There is only the wisdom passed down from elder Rasta bredren, the teachings of reggae songs from conscious Rasta musicians, and the radical Pan-Africanism of revolutionaries like Garvey and Malcolm X. My father felt called to a branch known as the Mansion of Nyabinghi, the strictest and most radical sect of Rastafari. Its unbending tenets taught him what to eat, how to live, and how to fortify his mind against Babylon’s “ism and schism”—colonialism, racism, capitalism, and all the other evil systems of western ideology that sought to destroy the Black man. “Fire bun Babylon!” the Rasta bredren chanted every night, and the words took root in him. He was ready to decimate any heathen who stood in his way.

Hanging on the mint-green living-room wall of our family’s house in Bogue Heights, a hillside community overlooking Montego Bay, was a portrait of Haile Selassie, gilded and sceptered at his coronation, his eyes as black as meteorites. It was flanked by a poster of Bob Marley and a photograph of my father, both onstage, both throwing their dreadlocks like live wires into the air.

Every morning of my childhood began the same way, with the dizzying smell of ganja slowly pulling me awake. My mother, Esther, who had first embraced the Rastafari way of life when she met my father at nineteen, was always up before dawn, communing with the crickets, busying herself with housework and yard work. Whenever she worked, she smoked marijuana. The scent of it clung to her long auburn dreadlocks. She carried a golden packet of rolling paper on her at all times, stamped with a drawing of the Lion of Judah waving the Ethiopian flag, the adopted symbol of the Rastafari. My brother, Lij, my sister, Ife, and I pawed and pulled at her, but she did not mind. If she was with us, she was ours.

My father was the lead singer in a reggae band called Djani and the Public Works. When I was seven, Lij five, and Ife three, he met some Japanese record-label executives at the hotel where the band performed nightly, and they agreed to fly the musicians to Tokyo to play reggae shows. They stayed for six months and recorded their first album. After he left, my mother cleared our back yard and planted some crops, which soon became towering stalks of sugarcane, a roving pumpkin patch, and vines and vines of gungo peas, all exploding outward in swaths of green. We had always kept to an Ital diet: no meat, no fish, no eggs, no dairy, no salt, no sugar, no black pepper, no MSG, no processed substances. Our bodies were Jah’s temple.

Early on school mornings, under the watchful eye of the holy trinity, my mother combed my black thundercloud of hair, often with me tearfully begging her to stop. Once, the children at my grandmother’s Seventh-day Adventist church had asked me why I didn’t have dreadlocks like my parents; I remembered the certainty in my grandma’s voice when she said that we would be able to choose how to wear our hair.

Even though the combing was painful, I still wouldn’t have chosen dreadlocks. When my mother was finished, I swung my glistening plaits, fitted with blue clips to match my school uniform, back and forth, back and forth, pink with delight. I felt it was all worth it then. My mother made it look easy, corralling three children by herself to school every morning while my father was away.

Babylon came for us eventually, even in our kingdom of god-sent green. One Sunday during our Christmas break, my mother dragged a comb across my head and gasped. Two large fistfuls of hair were stuck in its teeth, yanked loose like weak weeds from dirt. I screamed.

“Oh, Jah. Oh, Jah. Oh, Jah,” she said, holding me as I cried, blocking my hand from trying to touch my scalp, where I now had a bald spot. Ife was fine, but Lij’s hair was also falling out in clumps. My father distrusted Babylon’s doctors. My mother did, too—until she had children.

We had been infected with barber disease, the doctor told us, a kind of ringworm spread first by barbers’ tools, then by children touching heads at school. Babylon’s disease. Mom closed her eyes as she listened. The doctor prescribed a thick antifungal cream and a chemical shampoo.

A week later, despite the treatment, there was scant improvement. My mother gathered up all the combs in the house and flung them into a trash bag, along with the medicine. Hair for the Rastafari signified strength. My father called his hair a crown, his locks a mane, his beard a precept. What grew from our heads was supposed to be most holy. My mother took our blighted scalps as a moral failure, ashamed that we had fallen to Babylon’s ruin so soon after my father had gone.

For the rest of the break, she tended to our heads with a homemade tincture. After a few days, my hair started growing back. “Praise Jah,” Mom said, as she began the process of twisting all our hair into dreadlocks. Day after day, we sat, snug between her legs, as she lathered our heads in aloe-vera gel and warm olive oil.

Within a few weeks, my hair had stiffened and matted into sprouts of thick antennae, bursting from my head. There was no turning back now. From that point on, combing and brushing our hair was forbidden, on a growing list of NO.

When my siblings and I returned to our primary school after the break, the students gawked at us as if we were a trio of aliens disembarking from a spaceship. They crowded around, trying to sniff or pull at our locks. If they could have dissected us alive, I think they would have.

Not long after, a sixth grader began shadowing me. She crept up close while singing in my ear, “Lice is killing the Rasta, lice is killing the Rasta,” a widespread taunt in the nineties, which co-opted the tune of a popular reggae song.

My cheeks stung in humiliation. For the first time, I felt ashamed to be myself. At lunchtime, I told my brother about the girl, her needling insult. My brother shook his head and kissed his teeth the way grownups did.

“Saf, don’t pay her no mind. All ah dem a duppy,” he said. “And we are the duppy conquerors.” He was trying to sound like a big man, talking like our father.

I tried to imagine what my father would say. He always told me to be polite but right. “I man and your mother didn’t birth no weakheart,” he said. “Always stand up for what you know is right. You overstand?” Even from afar, his mind moved mine like a backgammon piece.

I decided to go to the teachers’ lounge and tell my third-grade teacher about the girl’s teasing. Tapping me gently on the shoulder, she told me that with my good grades I should pay such things no mind.

As I walked away, still pensive, I heard her and some of the other teachers talking.

“But it’s a shame, innuh,” a new teacher’s voice chimed in. “I really thought the parents were going to give them the choice.”

We were under our favorite mango tree by the front gate when a car rolled up one day in early May. Suddenly, my father appeared like the sun, beeping the horn and flashing his perfect teeth at the sight of us. We jumped on him, and cried; the fireworks of feelings had nowhere else to go. He brought in a parade of bags and boxes from Japan, a brand-new electric Fender guitar slung across his back. He was buoyant. All afternoon, he kept touching his fingers to our dreadlocks. We could tell he was pleased.

Inside the house, he unzipped his suitcases and showered us with mounds of stuffed toys, exquisite notebooks, new clothes and shoes, and a Nintendo Game Boy with Japanese cartridges. For Mom, he brought fancy lotions, a robe, and packets of something called miso. We cheered at every new gift. My father was our Santa, if Rasta believed in Babylon’s fables.

Dad was home with us that entire summer. Every day, he was a more carefree version of himself. He taught us to play cricket, told us the same ten jokes of his childhood, and dazzled us with his tree-climbing skills. His recording contract was for two years, but the record label could obtain only six-month visas for the band at a time. Once school began, he went back to Japan to finish the album. We didn’t have a phone, so we visited the shop of his closest bredren, Ika Tafara, to call him every weekend.

By the time we walked into Ika’s shop for the Kwanzaa celebration that December, I felt like I belonged. About thirty Rasta bredren and their families had come from all over Mobay to gather and give thanks. We recited Marcus Garvey’s words like scripture. I played the conga drum and sang of Black upliftment with other Rasta children. There were about twenty of us there, peeking from behind our mothers’ hems. And though he was across the sea, my father felt present, the sound of his voice ringing out through the store’s speakers.

But when my father got back the second time, the following May, he seemed different. His relationship with one of his bandmates had imploded, taking the band’s hopes with it, and he was once again playing reggae for tourists at the hotels lining the coast. My sister Shari was born a month after his return. With the birth of another Sinclair daughter, my father’s control over us tightened. One afternoon, he decided that my siblings and I needed to be purified. I watched him stalk through the yard, pulling up cerasee leaves, bitter roots, and black vines, which my mother blended into a pungent goop and poured into three big glasses. He loomed over us for what seemed like hours, as we bawled and retched, struggling to swallow the foul potion. We were there until night fell, until my father believed we had finally been cleansed.

“The I them have to be vigilant,” he said when it was over. Our joy had made us heedless, easy prey for the wicked world. We would no longer be allowed to run around outside, or even to leave the yard. “Chicken merry, hawk deh near,” he reminded us.

“I man don’t want my daughters dressing like no Jezebel,” he told my mother later. At his instruction, she threw out every pair of pants and shorts my sisters and I owned. Now we would wear only skirts and dresses made from kente cloth, as our mother did. Our hems were to fall below our knees, our chest and midriff to be covered at all times. Pierced ears, jewelry, and makeup—all those garish trappings of Babylon—were forbidden. “And once you reach the right age,” my father said, “the I will wrap your locks in a tie-head like your mother.” I realized I had been naïve, in not expecting that this was the life my father had imagined for me.

My hair hadn’t been brushed in two years. Flecks of lint and old matter knotted down the length of each dreadlock, a nest containing every place I had laid my head. Dad caught me pushing my fingers through the thicket of roots in the bathroom mirror once, as I tried to twist the crown of my hair into shape.

“Stop that,” he said. “Hair fi grow. Naturally and natural only. Like Jah intended.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said.

With each month came a new revocation, a new rule. Soon he didn’t even allow us around other Rastafari people. He trusted no one, not even them, with our livity. In our household rose a new gospel, a new church, a new Sinclair sect. The Mansion of Djani.

Whenever our father was out of the house, which was almost nightly, my siblings and I resumed our outdoor play. One day, a few weeks later, Lij chased me across the lawn. I zipped left and ran sideways into the house to lose him. But there he was again. Laughing, I turned to face him, and his running motion drove the full force of his body into my jaw, which slammed hard against the bathroom wall. I felt my front tooth crumble to chalk in my mouth. I slid my tongue across my gums and found a sharp crag in the place where my tooth used to be, and sobbed.

My parents couldn’t afford to fix my tooth. They didn’t have insurance, and a dentist friend told them it didn’t make sense to get it capped until I was older anyway, because my mouth was still growing. I wanted to protest, but I knew my father thought that my distress over my tooth was only vanity, and vanity was a mark of Babylon. I suspect he liked me this way. My mouth was now a barricade between me and the onslaught of adolescence, a broke-glass fence around my body.

I stopped smiling. At school, I sat clench-mouthed and held my hand across my mouth whenever I spoke.

At the end of the school year, there was a carnival. Venders came with cotton candy and peanut brittle and their bright pandemonium of wares. One of the attractions was a mule ride, and after some begging my mother said Ife and I could do it. I pulled my hand-sewn dress over my knees and got on the mule sidesaddle. As we were led around the parking lot by the animal’s owner, a photographer appeared and snapped our picture; I made sure to shut my mouth tight. The next day, the local newspaper printed the photo in a half-page spread, my face gloomy above the caption “Two Rasta girls riding a mule.”

One morning, when I was nearing the end of sixth grade, my mother held up the classifieds in excitement. “Look at this, Djani,” she said. There was an ad announcing two scholarships for “gifted and underprivileged” students to attend a new private high school called St. James College, in Montego Bay. For my parents, this would mean tuition paid, uniforms made, one less child to worry about. A burden lifted. Students had to apply, and a chosen few would then be interviewed by the school’s founders.

I pushed out my lips. “So does this mean that if I want to go to any school in my life, I’m always going to have to get a scholarship?” I asked. I knew, as every Jamaican child knows, that no sentence directed to your parents should begin with the word “So.”

“Have to get a scholarship? You think I and I made ah money?” my father said. “Gyal, get outta my sight.” I hid in the bedroom for the rest of the day and wept. My father used only regal honorifics for the women in his life. Empress. Princess. Dawta. The word “gyal” was an insult in Rasta vernacular. It was never used for a girl or a woman who was loved and respected. For weeks, the word taunted me, my girlhood a stain I could not wash out.

We applied, and when my mother told me I was one of the finalists I was not surprised. I had alchemized my father’s rage into a resolve to be so excellent that my parents would never have to worry again.

My mother and I went to an office building downtown for the interview. We were met by a short white woman wearing round glasses who introduced herself as Mrs. Newnham. She asked me to come with her, and I followed. I looked back and saw my mother raise a confident fist in my direction.

Five men, most of them white, sat at a table in the center of a large, cold room. They all wore gold watches and school rings with large ruby insignias on them. I had never been alone with so many white people before. The men greeted me. One white man asked what I did in my spare time.

I told them I loved to read and write poetry, and that my favorite poem was “The Tyger,” by William Blake. Before they could ask another question, I began to recite it. I looked at each of them as I spoke. The words gave me electric power.

“My God, you speak so well,” another white man said. “You speak so well,” they all repeated. I was unsure how else I was supposed to speak.

The kindest white man at the table, who had a long nose and blue eyes, asked me to tell him about something in the news. I stopped to think. I knew that everybody had been talking about the West Indian cricketer Brian Lara’s triumphant summer and that would be the most expected answer.

“I’ve been following the Donald Panton scandal,” I said. Two of the men looked up at me in surprise. Donald Panton was the other big story that summer—a prominent Kingston businessman who had been under investigation for financial fraud. (Panton was eventually cleared.) Here was my audience, I thought.

When the interview was over, the committee came out with me, congratulating my mother and asking her what her secret was to raising children. “If I had a dime for every time somebody asked me that,” my mother said, laughing, “I would be rich.”

Before we even left the building, Mrs. Newnham told us that I had been awarded a scholarship to St. James College. My mother hugged me, and thanked Mrs. Newnham and the committee. Outside the building, she jumped and squealed.

“Donald Panton?” my mother said. “What do you even know about that, Safiya?”

“Everything,” I said.

There were eight girls in my class, two of us scholarship students. The others were mostly white Jamaicans and children of American and Canadian expats, chirpy girls whose toy-blond mothers picked them up every evening by car. These girls had all gone to the same private prep school together, had all played tennis and lunched at the yacht club together, and, when it was time for high school, their parents had built them a private school. The bond between them was as unspoken and unbreakable as the barrier between us.

One morning, I arrived at school early enough to wander around in the back yard. Suddenly, the quiet was broken by the science teacher, whom I’ll call Mrs. Pinnock, beckoning me up to a terrace on the second floor.

“Sinclair, why were you down there?” she said. “You should not be wandering around the school grounds alone before the teachers arrive.”

I concentrated on her shoes as she spoke; she wore the ubiquitous sheer nylons and polished block heels of Jamaican teachers.

“And can you please brush your . . . hair?” she added, her voice sharpening. “You can’t be just walking around here looking like a mop.” I would not let her see me react.

“Miss, my father says I am not allowed to brush my hair,” I said, trying to sweep my locks away from my face and off my head forever.

Mrs. Pinnock suddenly took hold of my wrist.

“What’s this?”

There were deep-brown, intricately laced henna patterns across my hands. I explained that a family friend had stained my hands and feet with her homemade henna.

She reminded me that tattoos weren’t allowed.

“It’s not a tattoo, Miss,” I said, my voice quivering now.

“Then go to the bathroom and wash it off, ” she said, articulating each word slowly.

In the bathroom, I scrubbed my hands raw, then walked back to the teachers’ lounge, where I showed Mrs. Pinnock that the dye truly didn’t come off so easily.

“You see this?” she said, gesturing to the other teachers in the room. “Now these people just taking all kind of liberties.” There was no mistaking whom she meant.

At morning assembly, she announced that any student seen with any kind of tattoo at school would get detention or suspension.

During lunchtime, the rich girls often skipped the cafeteria and ate under the shade of the trees in the front yard. The rest of us would follow them out into the noonday sun. Many girls would buy beef patties and warm coco bread from a tiny tuckshop on the premises—all food that I was forbidden. My cheap nylon lunch bag held a sweaty lettuce-and-cheese sandwich, a peeled orange, and a bag of off-brand chips my mom had bought from a Chinese grocery store.

That day, a classmate whom I’ll call Shannon decided to climb a young mango tree. I watched her as she clambered up onto the lowest branch, her pleated skirt ballooning and exposing her legs.

“I think it’s cool, by the way,” Shannon called out to me from above. “I always wanted to try henna. Teachers here are such prudes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Shannon leaned down from her perch, her gaze fixed on my locks, and asked me if henna was part of my religion. I shook my head no. Then she asked if I could wear nail polish. The answer was no, it was always no. But she kept going, as if she were trying to reveal something clever about Rastafari to me. Why can’t you pierce your ears? Who made the rules?

My father, I wanted to tell her. But how could I convey that every Rastaman was the godhead in his household, that every word my father spoke was gospel?

I leaned back against the trunk of the tree, smoothing down my skirt, which was longer than any other girl’s at school. I longed to go up into the branches, but I was too old now to climb trees, my father said.

That night, our power went out without warning, which meant Mom reached for our kerosene lamp and some candles, and we all lay in the dim firelight playing word games until we heard my father at the door.

My mother and I launched into a testimony of what had happened at school with the teacher. My father listened, pulling on his precept silently. His face looked weary in the candlelight. He held our world up on his shoulders, but I never once thought about what he was carrying. He flicked his locks over his shoulder and said, “They don’t know nuttin bout this Rasta trodition. Brainwashed Christian eejiat dem.” I nodded and smiled, ready for the big bangarang that would come next. But then he shook his head and said, “You need to keep your head down, do your work, and don’t cause no trouble.”

“I’m not. She was the one—”

“You’re on a scholarship. Don’t make no fuss,” he said again. “You hear me?”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said.

Later, my father came and lay next to me in bed. He was good at ignoring my moods, or eclipsing them entirely. “Now tell me again about school,” he said. I’d been regaling him weekly with which of my classmates’ fathers was a businessman and what kind of car each classmate’s mother drove. He seemed to relish these stories, so I hoarded details to report back to him. I might have found it hypocritical, but anything that lifted him meant the whole house lifted, too. As I spoke, his eyes closed.

“There’s a girl in my class whose father owns Margaritaville,” I began.

“He owns all of it?” he asked me, with a faraway voice.

“I think so,” I said. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I knew the grander the parent’s success the more spirited he seemed.

“My daughter goes to school with the owner of Margaritaville,” he said, his voice drawn out with pride, if Rasta could feel proud.

This was what being thirty-four with four children and still no record deal looked like: one or two fewer dumplings on our plates, or shredded callaloo sautéed for breakfast and again for dinner. “Jah will provide,” Dad would say when food was short, and Mom would walk out into the yard and find something ripe—June plums or cherries—for us to eat.

My father was never going to be a carpenter or a banker or a taximan, he said. He sang for Jah, so he had no choice but to cover the same ten Bob Marley songs for tourists eating their steak dinners in the west-coast hotels. At home, though, he could still be king. My mother placed every meal before him as soon as he beckoned for it. He had never turned on a stove, never washed a dish. Every evening before he left for work, my mother would wash his dreadlocks, pouring warm anointments over his bowed head at the bathroom sink, and then oil each lock as he sat eating fruit that she had cut for him. I imagined a servant, just out of frame, fanning a palm frond back and forth.

One sweltering afternoon, Lij, Ife, and I found ourselves alone at home. Racing out to the yard, we crawled through the damp crabgrass, then galloped from bush to bush. We were glistening with sweat as we approached the cherry tree, which was so laden with unripe fruit that some branches scraped the grass. Each green cherry hung hard and bright like a little world.

I reached for one. It was crisp and tart, a bright tangy juice filling my mouth.

Soon the three of us were shaking the tree like locusts, jumping and snatching green cherries out of it two and three at a time, stuffing our mouths and laughing. “Let’s take some for Mommy and Daddy,” Ife said. I held out my T-shirt like a basket in front of me to catch the falling fruit.

It was not yet dark when our father hopped out of a taxi at the gate. He was back early, a bad sign. Perhaps his show had been cancelled. We ran up to greet him. Mom was not there to interpret the particular riddle of his face, but by the way he slammed the car door we should have known that he wasn’t to be bothered.

“Why unnu still outside?” he snapped. “Go bathe now,” he said, swatting us away.

In the living room, our father examined the state of us. Twigs in our dreadlocks, sweat and dirt on our foreheads, green stains down our shirts. He pointed to Lij’s bulging pockets.

“Fyah, whaddat?” he asked.

“Umm. Some . . . some cherries, Daddy,” Lij said.

“What yuh mean, cherry?” he said, cocking his head. “There is no cherry. The cherries are green.”

Lij explained that we had tried them. “They actually taste good!” he added.

My father’s smile did not reach his eyes.

“Don’t move,” he said, and walked out the door.

We heard him curse from the front yard. “Ah wha the bomboclaat!” he shouted, using a curse word usually reserved for record-label execs and hotel managers. His voice was ragged, unfamiliar. His footsteps pounded back up to the front door, which he slammed behind him. The walls shook in their frames.

He glared at us, and we were small, so small he could crush us under his heel. He began unbuckling the belt he was wearing. We had never seen him do this before. It was a new red leather belt that had been given to him by a Canadian friend, still shiny and stiff from lack of use. We looked at each other with confusion, soon mown down by fear as he pulled the red belt out from the loops of his khaki pants.

“Fruits fi eat when dem ripe,” he said, wrapping the belt in a loop around his fist. “Let every fruit ripen on Jah tree.”

“Daddy, we didn’t think—” I said, but couldn’t finish. I moved in closer to my siblings helplessly, close as I could get to them.

“The I them too unruly!” he roared, suddenly circling around behind us. He whipped the red belt down with stinging force across our backs.

Thwap. Thwap. Thwap. The world was upside down. I cried and pleaded, not to him but to something beyond him, anything that might make it stop. Everything was sideways then; roof and rubble crashing down on us, our little kingdom shattering.

When the beating was over, my father walked into his bedroom and drove a nail into the wall above his bed. There, next to another portrait of Haile Selassie, he hung the red belt, waiting for the next time his spirit bid him pull it down.

Not long after, I began detangling the roots of my hair, so it was dreadlocked only at the ends. Every morning before school, I brushed down those precious few inches of unmatted hair at my scalp and kept the strands soft and oiled at the roots. I started unbuttoning my school shirt one button down and wearing my tie at my chest, instead of at my neck, like a boy. Each time I looked in the mirror, I thought I might find something beautiful, as long as I didn’t open my mouth.

When I was fifteen, a few months before I graduated from high school, my mother found the money to get my tooth fixed. Suddenly, friends and acquaintances began suggesting I go into modelling. My mother heard that the Saint International modelling agency was scouting for models not far from where I was taking SAT prep classes.

At the entrance to the scouting event, a slim, bright-eyed man introduced himself as Deiwght Peters. He told me about the agency, which he had founded to celebrate Black beauty. While he spoke, he circled me with a feline liquidity, sizing me up like a museum artifact.

“You have a very unique look,” Deiwght told me, his eyes flitting over my dreadlocks, which had grown halfway down my back. “We have to get you,” he said, reaching for his Polaroid camera.

I don’t know what magic my mother worked behind the scenes, but my father, with a brooding resignation, agreed that I could sign on as a Saint model.

My grandmother lived in Spanish Town, near downtown Kingston, where a lot of fashion events took place, so it was decided that I would stay with her. Deiwght taught me how to glide with one heeled foot in front of the other without looking down, to appear both interesting and disinterested. Suddenly, I was moving in and out of the most beautiful clothes I had ever seen: turquoise pants and sequinned halters and ruffled dresses and stilettos. The first time I wore makeup, the makeup artist stepped away to show me my face in the mirror: “See? You barely need a thing, honey.”

My body was a gift, but I didn’t quite believe it, not until I sailed down that first runway as the crowd cheered on the Rasta mogeller who would be anointed in the next day’s paper. After the show, Deiwght grabbed my beaming mother and shook her, saying, “Your daughter? She is one of the classics!”

I began going to castings all over Kingston. Nighttime was always for poetry, and I spent the late hours at Grandma’s house nibbling away at the dictionary while writing by lamplight. I carried my poetry notebook wherever I went.

I had published my first poem, “Daddy,” at sixteen. The day it appeared in the literary-arts supplement of the Sunday Observer was one big excitement in the Sinclair household. I ran around announcing to everyone that my name would be in print. My father, who read the Sunday Observer every weekend, was the most excited of all of us, especially when he saw the title. I didn’t bother to warn him that it was not a tribute to him but a reimagining of a story in the news about a young girl who drank Gramoxone to kill herself because her father had molested her. I didn’t caution him that the language was visceral and the details gut-wrenching. Instead, I watched him as he opened the page, and savored the long droop of his face as it fell.

One weekend, my father stopped by Grandma’s house to pick me up for a model casting on his way to a meeting with music producers in Kingston. I had been instructed to dress for a music video that was “fun and young and sexy,” and I had made a short pin-striped pleated skirt from one of Grandma’s old skirts, adorning it with safety pins along the waist and hem, like a punk. My father honked impatiently as I walked out in my new outfit, trying to pretend I was bulletproof.

“Oh, Rasta,” he said, his eyes bulging as I swooped into the car. I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t look in my direction.

We pulled up outside a large iron gate in silence. Down a long gravel driveway, I could see a house, where brightly attired young people were milling about on a veranda. Instead of turning in to the driveway, my father pointed out my window. “It’s up there,” he said, still looking away from me.

I started to climb out of the car.

“I’m ashamed of you,” he said.

“O.K.,” I said, and started walking, surprised at how little I felt of the old humiliation.

In Miami, where I had flown a few months later with Deiwght, the older model leaned back in her chair. “Oh,” she said. “That’s a shame.” She looked from my face to my portfolio photos again and smiled politely. “The dreads just aren’t versatile enough.”

Foolishly, I had believed that my dreadlocks would make me one-of-a-kind in the fashion world, since I’d never seen a model with locks. But this was a profession in which one needed to be emptied of oneself, and I was still too much of my father.

Later that night, I called my mother and asked if I could cut my dreadlocks.

“Oh, Saf,” she sighed. “I think you already know the answer to that one.”

“Mom, I have no hope of doing this if I don’t.”

After a long pause, she said, “I will see.”

I learned that my father forbade me from cutting my dreadlocks. I knew that if I ever did I would not be allowed back under his roof. My hope for a new kind of life withered, and I had no choice but to return home.

In the end, my mother called a friend to help her. She chose a day when she knew my father would be gone. My siblings were at school, and her friend, whom I’ll call Sister Idara, arrived with a smile, ready. I closed my eyes and leaned my head over the laundry sink. The two women poured cupfuls of hot water over my scalp to soften the hair, massaged my roots with their hands, and then lathered my dreadlocks and scrubbed. They lifted me up and wrapped my damp hair in a towel. We three walked together arm in arm to my bedroom. The window curtain lifted in the breeze as I knelt between my mother’s knees and waited.

“I went through this with my eldest daughter, too,” Sister Idara said. “After all the anger, we got through it. Distance helps, of course.”

Sister Idara was an American, the wife of a friend of my father’s, and lived abroad with her two children for most of the year. She was a plump and jovial Rastawoman who kept her dreadlocks and body shrouded in matching African fabrics. My mother had asked her to be here because she was a perfect shield. My father could not unleash his anger on his good bredren’s wife, and she was scheduled to fly back to the States the next day, so he would be able to spit fire only over the phone. “Have you told him we’re doing it?” I asked my mom. “No,” she said. “But I don’t need his permission.”

Mom told me to hold down my head. She asked me if I was ready, and I said yes. This was the first time since birth that my hair would be cut. I don’t know who held the scissors or who made the first cut. All I heard were the hinges of the shears locking and unlocking, the blades cutting. And then long black reeds of hair came loose in their quick hands. I closed my eyes then, because I could not look at what I was losing. I had not expected it to matter when the moment came. But now I found that it mattered a great deal.

There was hair. So much hair. Dead hair, hair of my gone self, wisps of spiderweb hair, old uniform-lint hair, pillow-sponge and tangerine-strings hair. A whole life pulled itself up by my hair, the hair that locked the year I broke my tooth. Hair of our lean years, hair of the fat, pollen-of-marigolds hair, my mother’s aloe-vera hair, my sisters weaving wild ixoras in my hair, the pull-of-the-tides hair, grits-of-sand hair, hair of salt tears, hair of my binding, hair of my unbeautiful wanting, hair of his bitter words, hair of the cruel world, hair roping me to my father’s belt, hair wrestling the taunts of baldheads in the street, hair of my lone self, all cut away from me.

When they were finished, my neck and head were so light they swung unsteadily. The tethers had been cut from me, and I was new again, unburdened. Someone different, I told myself. A girl who could choose what happened next.