#i simply think that i should be impervious to sickness. i get sick like once or twice a year. which means it’s a personal insult every time

[genshin-impacted]

lost & found // Diluc x Reader (3/3)

Word Count: ~6.5k

Notes: Seelie!Reader, GN!Reader, Diluc/Reader, Mondstadt people interaction + Mondstadt Archon Quest, mild violence/fighting description and mentions of blood, Diluc POV briefly, mainly reader!POV

Summary: Oftentimes you find yourself wondering about your life before becoming a seelie, but with Diluc by your side, you don’t let yourself dwell on the long-gone past-- not when Diluc offers you affection and a tenderness that no one else is privy to. 

But on moonless nights, you let yourself wish upon a star.

(And sometimes, in this world ruled by the Gods and their stars, wishes are granted.)

Alternatively: Diluc has never asked you or needed you to change for him to love you.

[Part 2]

-

(thanks for the love for this fic! here is the final addition)

.

.

Diluc breathes out and sees the fog it makes in the frigid air of Dragonspine. The world continues to remind him that he’s lucky to have his Pyro vision, and again he’s inclined to agree that it’s a useful tool indeed. He cannot melt the snow that falls on the peaks of these mountains, but even he must admit that his flames have served him well in this icy winterland-- until it doesn’t. 

His phoenix burns through ruin guards and hunters alike, along with the icy foothold beneath him, and he falls into this cavern with no way up. He thinks it’s ironic that he’s the one that led himself into this predicament and attests it to your influence as his trouble-finding seelie.

Diluc huffs as he dusts off the snow from his shoulders and continues further into the hole he fell into, leaving tracks wherever he can so that you can find him. He knows better than anyone what you can do, and he knows that you cannot find him if he doesn’t leave clues. 

It is neither a surprising nor disappointing revelation to him. Diluc has always known that there is nothing special that binds the two of you together-- and perhaps that is why he cherishes what the two of you have. There is no contract, no string of fate, no hand of god that has put the two of you together or convinced the other to stay. You have chosen to stay with Diluc, and Diluc has chosen to let your presence change his life bit by bit.

Ever since coming back to Mondstadt, he has slowly grown more accustomed to working with other people, though with your appearance, his change has been accelerated. For with every adventure you drag him into, he meets new people, forming different teams. He’s helped Razor handle his broadsword better, and now he visits him ever so often to let him spar to his content. He let his stars be read by Mona, despite his initial hesitance (apparently, you are very into astrology), and can now see the constellations form above him much more clearly. And while he has never seen the need to be closer to his god, Venti sees the both of you more often outside of the tavern, and he sees a glimpse of Barbatos within the wind-weaving bard. 

You are a comforting presence: straightforward, easy to read, and compassionate. And he does not resist, much like everyone else, when you twirl your way into his heart. It is no longer surprising for him to understand that he does not need to be alone on the dark side of dawn when you have chosen to accompany him.

Speaking of choice, Diluc thinks irritably, wringing out the water from his hair. How did he agree to wander around Dragonspine of all places? He must have been caught up in the logistics of the experiment itself as well as your easy agreement. Diluc is admittedly the only person that understands your every nuance (or, well, most of it; some twirls are lost in translation), but even he cannot quite decipher what you want to take from this experiment of Albedo’s. 

When you find him-- which you will, he will ask you, and he thinks you will tell him as best as you can. For someone that cannot speak, you are the most honest individual in his life, which is something he has repeatedly found endearing and refreshing.  

Diluc climbs up the side of a cliff near the camp, only to see Albedo and Sucrose discussing at the edge of it. He briefly wonders if the experiment has ended, but when he does not see your light between the two of them, his breath hitches in the momentary panic he finds all too familiar to when he lost you the first time. 

Albedo spots him before he can speak. “Master Diluc, I’m relieved to find that you’re safe," he says briefly, and Diluc can at least respect how quickly the alchemist gets to the point, because he continues quickly. “Your seelie left to go find you before we could assess the situation.” He sighs as Sucrose frantically hands Diluc a towel to dry himself and a seat. “You gave them quite the scare, disappearing on us like that.” 

“You mean they’re out there on their own right now?” Diluc presses, feeling his hackles raise.

“Yes. We’re going to go out to recount your steps-- undoubtedly, your seelie will be trying to find you--”

Diluc doesn’t need to hear anything else. He holds the towel to Sucrose who nervously puts her hands up, unsure on what to do. “I’ll go find them,” he says. “The experiment is finished now, right?” 

“Do not go." Albedo sighs, and however Diluc thought of him before, it’s evident now that he is, above all else, frustrated with how things have turned out. “It’s my experiment and a miscalculation on my part. You should stay--”

“I’ll be fine--”

“Your vision does not make you impervious to the climates,” Albedo says calmly. He thinks he sees a gleam of cunning in Albedo’s eyes when he glares at the alchemist. “Besides, would your seelie be happy if you got yourself sick going to find them?” And Diluc cannot respond to that. 

“That being said,” Albedo continues, pulling at his gloves. “I predict you will refuse to stay here permanently. As it’s my fault, I’ll provide you with at least a potent heating potion before you go. Please wait; it won’t take long.”

“...Thank you,” Diluc says, taking back his towel much to Sucrose’s relief. When he sees Albedo head off onto his alchemy table, he sighs and settles into his seat. Where could you have gone, he thinks, drying his hair. After leaving the waterfall, he had… climbed the clifftop. Perhaps you lost him there without any way to notice which way he went afterward, which was a mistake on his part. Perhaps he should--

Diluc pauses his train of thought and instinctively turns his head to the left where he sees you floating. And the relief, oh, the relief he feels when he sees you fly toward him makes smiling easy. “There you are. I was about to go look for you since you weren't with Albedo." He swallows, beginning to breathe easy again. "I was worried," he admits, "I--" He stops abruptly when he looks up at you.

You are crying, and he almost does not know what to do. 

He didn’t realize you could cry. Diluc isn’t sure if he can even call them tears-- these globby droplets that disappear when they fall off your body that, when Diluc brushes them away, does not make his gloves wet. 

But he sweeps them away when they come anyways. “Hey,” he says tenderly, as you raise your voice from distress. “It’s okay. I’m fine; I’m here.” He cups your small orb-like body and listens to you as best as he can, sweeping his hand over your head and ears soothingly until your hiccup-like speech slows down to a halt. 

“You found me,” he tells you firmly. “You found me.” He repeats himself until you are warm in his hands and his hair is dry, the towel left forgotten on the ground.

Even when you have long calmed down, he continues to look over his shoulder to watch as you converse with Sucrose. “Did you get what you were looking for?” Diluc asks the alchemist, who hands him the warming potions for any emergencies. 

“Yes. Simply put, your mini seelie does not choose what it finds.” Albedo explains, “However, based on previous observations, they can hone in on things that are… otherworldly. You may be glad to confirm that you are, in fact, not otherworldly. And though this was not my intended result, I also would like to inform you that their attachment to you is out of their own volition…” Albedo watches in barely concealed amusement as Diluc glances over at you again. “Though, I’m sure you already knew this.” He clears his throat. “I would like to offer them future experimentation if they are willing.”

Diluc does his best not to look confused, but his pause gets the better of him. “Why are you asking me?”

Albedo only arches his brow and asks as a matter-of-fact, “Are you not each other’s keeper?” He continues without pause to quickly go over any logistics he has remaining, the details of Dragonspine (lest he fall into a pit again), before going over to talk to you briefly. Diluc wonders what the alchemist talked to you about but he decides to let the questions be asked later.

For now, you twirl up to him, beaming at him more brightly than usual, and he does not have it in him to say anything other than, “Let’s go home.”

.

.By the time the two of you arrive at the winery, it is dark. You do not hesitate to corral him into getting ready for sleep, and he indulges you by not protesting.

“What did you want to get out of the experiment today?” Diluc asks you, untying his hair and placing it onto his nightstand. Before he can finish his question, you bury yourself into his hair, and he thinks that your tweets and trills sound very much like laughter. He chuckles. “Avoiding the question, are you? How very unlike you,” he teases, and he knows you hear him when he looks into the mirror and sees you peek out from underneath the red and squeak indignantly.

“I’m kidding.” Diluc lifts his hair so you can climb out and face him. “You’re the most straightforward person I know,” he says fondly, and he briefly wonders when he has gotten so honest with himself, letting you know how he feels with the amount of emotion he puts into his words to you.  

Sated, you flip around once before settling into his cupped hands, deep in thought. Diluc doesn’t quite understand how your mannerisms make your emotions so recognizable, but he imagines that if you had hands, they would be under your chin in a thinking pose. 

He patiently waits for an answer, walking around his room and blowing out the lights. When he turns off the last one, you can only look up at him and let out a quiet coo-- an apology. His hands are already comforting you the moment after you answer him. 

“It’s alright,” Diluc says. “I suppose it’s not exactly easy to explain that.” He adds on immediately, “And don’t apologize again. It’s fine.” 

“I think I can understand why without you telling me,” he says, and if his voice is a little raw, he hopes it goes by unnoticed. “It’s hard, isn’t it-- not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing."

Quietly, you float up, and Diluc feels his heart tremble when you press a kiss to his forehead in a mix of an apology, a comforting notion, and an act of love. He lays down in silence with you, and if you make a nest out of his hair, and if he wakes up with you nestled at the crook of his neck, he does not say a word.

There is no need.

.

.

“Isn’t it enough?” Lisa asks him as she leans over the library railing. Diluc looks over to her as he puts away the last of the books he has asked to borrow, and he knows what she is asking before she finishes. Still, she tilts her head, her hat staying steady on her head, and repeats, “Isn’t it enough that they’re here with you?”

“Yes,” Diluc says without hesitation. “It is.” 

“Can I ask why you’re still researching about seelies then?” Lisa pauses, putting her hand over her shoulder, and Diluc knows she will arrive at the right answer without him telling her. “If not for you then… for them? You’re looking for answers for your mini seelie?” 

"I try to do what I can," he says, ignoring the way Lisa's eyes gleam all too knowingly. (He always knew there was much more to her at first glance.) "Thanks for the help, I--" He pauses when he catches Lisa smiling behind her fist. "...What is it?" he asks warily. 

"Oh, nothing." Lisa croons, giggling, "I just think it's sweet how the two of you treat each other. Anyone would get jealous of that." She pauses, looking out the window as the sun sets in the west. "It almost seems like a miracle to have the two of you find each other, don't you think? Fate, perhaps? How utterly romantic!"

"You're letting Kaeya influence you too much," Diluc retorts, much to Lisa's amusement.

"Maybe so," she says, sighing, "but even if it was fate, you wouldn't have cherished them any less." She gives Diluc a pointed look even he cannot deny. "Isn't that right, Master Diluc?"

Diluc huffs, walking past her to head down the stairs. "Asking that, I'm sure you already know my answer," he tells her, and he lets his mouth twitch in a semblance of a smile when he hears her complain about his tight-lipped attitude. It blossoms into a full-blown smile when he starts heading back to the winery.

.

When he comes back, you are waiting for him among the grapevines as the winery is basked in orange light.

He's home.

.

.

.

.

Diluc sleeps early and wakes up before the crack of dawn and takes you up the clifftop overlooking the winery. He had told you that there was something he wanted to do and left it at that. Not that you minded-- you were happy to follow him, blocking out any sharp rocks so he wouldn’t grab ahold of them as he climbed and scaring off any elemental wisps that came your way. 

When the two of you reach the clifftop, the sky begins to grow brighter as the sun peeks over the horizon. The color change from blue to yellow then orange is truly beautiful, and you are almost mesmerized as Diluc takes a seat down next to you, watching the sunrise. 

“...It’s almost been a year now,” Diluc says, “since we first met.” 

Happy Anniversary? You squeak in confusion, only to whip your body to face him when you realize why you’re here with him at dawn to watch the beautiful scene unfold before you. You squeak rapidly, stumbling over your words that he cannot hear but can understand anyhow. You hadn’t realized-- You were an idiot for not planning anything either, not that you could-- What kind of ore could you go find to bring to him as a present--? 

“Thank you,” Diluc tells you, “for the past year.” In the backdrop of the rising sun, you think he is almost too bright to watch with that gentle smile of his. The thought is only exacerbated when he cups you in his hands as softly as he has always done. “Let’s see what this year has in store for us together.” 

You trill softly, floating in the air to situate yourself on top of his head to watch the ocean shine brighter with the rising sun. 

It is not the New Year for any country nor culture, but you look into the horizon and make a wish that no one can hear. One year has passed, many things have changed, but you find that the one thing that has not is your adoration for Diluc.

"Let's go back home," he tells you, not for the first time, when the sun rises substantially above the horizon. Obediently, you float down into his sights where you twirl playfully in the air in thanks for the view. He chuckles. "No problem," he says, and he leans down just enough to place a quick kiss in between your ears.

(In hindsight, perhaps you should have wished for more kisses in the following year if you thought that was actually something you could wish for.)

.

.

.

Like the beginnings of a new arc, you lead Diluc onto the start of another campaign that lasts longer than normal and ties in with the previous adventures you have had with Diluc.

You find Aether on the shores east of Mondstadt. Diluc can only look at you curiously when Aether reveals his visionless powers and his desire to find his sister, for if there were ever any need for corroborating evidence on your talent or ability, Aether is living proof of it.

With the traveler, you resolve many of the things that neither you nor Diluc could comprehend. The red, crystalline tears are purified, the winds calm down with Dvalin’s defeat, and Venti-- or should you say, Barbatos-- as usual, disappears in a wisp of dandelions to leave the City of Freedom to its autonomy. In the breezes of Mondstadt, you can feel his protective gaze upon the city, and more often than not, you find him wandering in the tavern, looking for a quick drink that Diluc offers ‘reluctantly.’ (You know him better now; Diluc would rather hug Kaeya than admit that he cares for the people in his life more than he shows, and Venti is one of the people he can find a fondness for. You still find yourself abashed to know that you are the only one Diluc can say unashamedly and wholeheartedly that he adores you-- in his own way.)

Aether’s presence in Mondstadt is a breath of fresh air, considering how compassionate he is and how willing he is to help with the common troubles of those in the city. He is led along by Kaeya, tugged onto an impromptu date by Lisa, and given a mask to go undercover with Diluc and help him in ways that you cannot. The tug of jealousy is unfamiliar, but you are more glad than anything that Aether can be his partner during the most dangerous of missions. You tag along as moral support and as a guiding post-- and for that, you find yourself most similar to Paimon, who, for some reason, keeps being compared to emergency food. 

“You’re my companion,” Diluc tells you with finality when you look up at him, barely forming the thought in your head about being his emergency food. “Don’t doubt that.”

Turns out, people can not breathe when you are covering their entire face with your translucent body.   

When the dust settles, you never think of turning Aether down when he asks you if you can sense whether his sister is in Mondstadt. 

You leave with Aether and Paimon with the promise that you return to Diluc at the winery. You guide the two of them to Stormterror’s Lair, a place you have gotten far more acquainted with in the past month, and head up to the cliffside where a ruin guard’s footprints remain next to a dandelion. You can sense something here, though you are unsure of what, and you are about to apologize for finding nothing when Aether looks over to you with wet eyes.

You coo up at him comfortingly as he sighs with a mixture of relief and sadness. “Thank you,” he tells you, holding out his hand. You press against it, and you hope he knows that the best you can do to imitate a comforting hand-hold. “At least now I know for sure she’s here in this world.” He smiles at you. “This gives me a lot of hope that I’ll find her, so… thank you, really.” 

Aether leaves for Liyue in the next few days, and if you had known he would leave so soon you would have done more than held his hand. You wish you could comfort him, reassure him that his sister, too, must be looking for him just as hard as he was. (Even if this was not the truth, you think if you wish hard enough, you could maybe manifest it for him.) You have so many words within you and yet none of them are conveyed, and Aether’s sad smile stays. 

It gets hard sometimes, knowing how little you can do, and how much you could have done before-- and this is one of those moments. It is rare for you to feel melancholy over the things you no longer have, but they come and go like the waves on Falcon Coast. Without a word, Diluc can tell when you are feeling down, holding you when you fall into his hands. 

His kisses come more often now, and he places one between your ears when you are with him during your lower moods. You think your day improves almost immediately when he does so, but it helps tremendously also that Diluc never forgets to reassure you.

“If you want me to help you with anything,” he says, “you only need to ask."

You coo again, twirling once, nudging at his cheek before backing away just enough to look at him. If you had a heart (and you sometimes suspect you do), it would be beating quickly as you wait for him to decipher your actions.

“...Ah,” he says, picking you up again. You think for a moment he looks as embarrassed as you feel, but then he asks, “...Another one?” and places a second kiss onto your head. 

You trill, pleased that you are spoiled by Diluc and even happier that Diluc only joins you in your mirth when he huffs in laughter.

“What an honest seelie,” he says, and you could not be more content with how fond he sounds of you and how, again and again, he continues to be patient with you even when you cannot be patient with yourself.

.

.

Sometimes when the moon is high and Diluc is fast asleep, you find yourself at the place you first came to fruition as a seelie. The lake by the Winery and this exact scenery may as well be your birthplace. When you look into the reflection you see your orb-like features, viscous yet watery all at once, emitting light. 

But sometimes, when the only light is coming from the fireflies that glow beside you, you look into the lake and see a familiar face staring back at you. They have your face-- your eyes, your nose, your mouth, and your brows of a time when you were not a seelie. It’s the only time you get to see this image of your past self, reminding you of what you were before. Sometimes, you think you can hear your voice being carried over by the winds of another world, of another time. 

These moments are the only thing you have kept to yourself. 

After all, what’s the point of holding onto something that you no longer have? The man you’ve grown to care for-- grown to love-- is someone who has his eyes set forward toward the future, and you’re going to be there with him no matter what.

Although seelies cannot dream, you dream of carrying over the tray of tankards and washing the dishes in the tavern, of carrying Klee over your shoulders as you lead her to Albedo, of bumping elbows with Kaeya jokingly or placing a blanket over Jean’s shoulders when she falls asleep in her office again.

You dream of lacing your hands with Diluc’s, pressing your lips upon his temple, and hearing his heartbeat against his chest with a steady, grounding rhythm that reminds you you are home.

And sometimes, just dreaming is enough.

(And sometimes, it is not.)

.

.

Life goes on. You see more of Mondstadt and begin to know the land like the back of Diluc’s hand. Knights and adventurers alike know you as the little seelie, and whether they think you follow Diluc or Diluc follows you is up to each person’s interpretation. (Regardless, none of them are wrong.)  

You accompany Diluc when he trains Razor in Wolvendom, and you invite Bennett to adventure sometimes with the two of you. (The boy may be unlucky, but you’re a magnet of trouble, so you think you have some things in common. A lot more things explode when he accompanies you but Diluc can handle it.) You make sure Jean gets some rest (“Your seelie is, um… very…” “Stubborn?” “I was going to say determined.”) and follow Lisa around on her expired library book expeditions. (“You think she’s beautiful, don’t you?” Diluc says to you, and you wonder why you babble excuses to him-- You’re more beautiful!-- while he looks at you in amusement.)

You and Diluc spend more time with other people in comparison to before, but you still have quiet moments with just the two of you when the days are slow. You’ve been learning how to move small things even better than before, among other things, but with this skill in particular, you can actually slide the pieces on the chessboard when you play against Diluc, who looks on (fondly) as you do your best to carefully push the pieces with your body. 

You always end up knocking some down, but when you finally get a handle of it, you do it with such concentration that Diluc doesn't have the heart to offer help. He does, however, end up polishing the board so the pieces slide more easily. You notice it’s shinier but he doesn’t let you pay it any mind.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says to you, and you think the words I love you come to mind more often than not recently. 

Thank you, you trill instead, and you ache with a want that pulses ever so often when you want so much more than you have when Diluc reaches out to caress your head.

“Like I said,” Diluc says softly. “Don’t pay it any mind. It’s your move still, you know.”

And you move the pieces. And you pick the grapes in his vineyard. And you find artifacts of crimson for him. And you kiss the scars from the many years he has battled (with or without you). 

.

.

.

He gains another in the next, final battle with you as his seelie.

.

.

.

Diluc has gotten hurt before. It’s inevitable with the number of enemies he faces, the number of times you run into enemy territory, but it has never been a problem for him to stand back up and fight. His fire burns brightly-- shine true is his motto, and Diluc lives those words as though they have been etched onto his soul. 

Much like fire, Diluc is relentless, and you can only follow him as he pushes through enemies, listens to his connections, and finds a den of thieves that have been terrorizing Springvale for months. The two of you should have known that their efficiency was because they were led on by the Fatui, but you fail to notice until they have you surrounded. 

You have every faith in Diluc to come out safe and sound, but it takes only one mistake for you to be reminded that there is a limit to everything. 

The blade slices through so quickly you aren’t sure what happened, but when Diluc pulls his hand back from the cut on his side to have it painted with blood, your heart drops.

“A little out of depth, don’t you think, Darknight Hero?” 

“I’d keep my tongue in my mouth if I were you,” Diluc growls, and you can only tremble in mid-air as your mind races with the things you can do-- only to think of all the things you cannot do. You almost miss what Diluc tells you with the way your hearing fuzzes. “Go back to Mondstadt and tell the Knights where these bandits are,” Diluc says, and you know it’s serious when Diluc thinks about reaching out to the knights. (This is partly true, you would realize later, that despite Diluc’s hesitance on being associated with the knights, he knows you would reach out to Kaeya or Jean if needed-- if not for him but so you would be taken care of.) 

You should have told Jean or Kaeya or Amber or even Lisa where the two of you had gone just in case things go awry. The thought never crossed your mind things could go wrong when you had Diliuc with you.

“You’ll find me again,” Diluc tells you softly when you hesitate, and you wonder how he can lie to you like that when his gloves are too bloodied to even hold you. “I promise.”

How could you ask me to do that? You plead, feeling tears well up again. How could you ask me to leave you?

“It’s okay,” Diluc tells you, and his bare hands are warm. “It’s fine.”

You are ripped out of Diluc’s hands when someone throws an electro grenade in the fire below Diluc’s feet. He’s still standing even after this, but a throwing knife hits him on the shoulder, another grenade to his left. You can do nothing but watch as Diluc is hurt, falling onto the ground. 

If there was ever a moment you wanted something so badly, you would have done anything to get it, it would be right here-- right now. 

You are the last thing he sees.

.

.

“You whose strength stems from your devotion, I shall lend you my power.”

.

.

You don’t know whose voice you heard or how somehow you have the hands to hold onto the Vision framed with Mondstadt wings in your hands, but you’ve learned not to question the good things in life-- one of them being your life at Diluc’s side.

Your voice is loud, you realize, when you shout at the bandits to leave. And your powers are strong-- strong enough to protect the person that matters most.

The bandits run at the fight sign of trouble, and the Fatui agent is unconscious. (You checked.)

You hold Diluc as he lies on your lap, breathing heavily but still breathing-- thank the archons. You quickly brush his hair away from his face and press on his wound, wincing when he lets out a grunt of pain even unconscious. I won’t let them hurt you, you think, taking one of his hands to brush your lips over his knuckles. (His hands are rough and calloused, but you love them just the same for how gently they held you when you were just a seelie.) If they come back, they’ll have to get through me. 

“Hello, mini seelie.” 

You look up from Diluc just in time to see a hand reach down to softly rustle your hair, much to your dismay. The initial reaction gives way to surprise when you recognize that the voice comes from none other than Kaeya. He grins down at you with his sword by his hip, and you frantically look around to see if the bandits had come back.

How did you--?

“Nice wings you got there,” Kaeya teases you, making you look back and find that oh, when did those get there? “Didn’t even notice them because you were too worried about Diluc, huh?” When you nod, he softens his gaze. “Why don’t you let us take care of things around here, hm?” He glances down at Diluc who has been sleeping soundly in your lap. “Let’s get him back home.” 

.

.

When a few knights come with a cart to ambulate Diluc back to Mondstadt instead of the winery (you couldn’t argue with Jean even if you did choose to speak; she’s stubborn when the people she cares about are hurt), you feel the tension leave your body all at once, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, you actually feel sleepy. 

“I’m glad we arrived right in the nick of time.” You turn to Kaeya who had been working behind the scenes, directing the knights. “You did good work, chasing them out of here so we could catch them easily,” he says, “I-- oof!” 

You tackle Kaeya into a grateful hug, and it takes him a few moments to respond by placing his hands onto your back and giving it a few pats. “There, there,” Kaeya drawls, but you can hear the smile in his voice anyways. “Better not hug too long; Diluc might be jealous that I’m the person you hug first, you know.”

You let go slowly, grinning up at him as though you agree, and you dodge Kaeya before he can mess with your hair again. On the way out of the camp, Jean gives you a smile, Amber waves excitedly at you before rounding up a few more bandits, and your cheeks hurt a little from the way Lisa pinched it. You go find Diluc where he’s being taken back in a horse-drawn cart and hold his hand until you’ve fallen asleep by his side.

(In his sleep, Diluc holds onto you.) 

.

.

.

Diluc wakes up twice. Once, very briefly, when your wings are expansive and when the Vision at your waist shines brightly with power. Before he wakes up the second time, you can already feel the power fade from both you and the Vision. 

You knew that your transformation was temporary; powers do not always last forever, especially since the glow of your Vision seems contingent on the cycles of the moon-- particularly the moon that you were born on. You think that you should feel more disappointed, but you don’t. You get to hold onto Diluc’s hand in yours and wipe away the sweat from his forehead as he sleeps, and you think that if you only get this one chance to do these things, then you will take what you can get. 

You will love Diluc as you are, no matter what form you take. Your transformation wasn’t necessary. Your powers were a bonus, but even if you weren’t granted a miracle, Diluc would have been safe, as a courtesy of Kaeya who had been trailing behind the two of you since you from the start. (Kaeya and Diluc's connections had the same info this time around, so they were bound to intersect at some point.) What you’ve been given was not the power to save Diluc, but the chance to love him in a way you have always dreamed of doing.

When Diluc opens his eyes the second time around, more aware and more awake, you almost don’t know what to do. It’s a momentary panic when you think he doesn’t know who you are, but he only needs to take one look at you before he raises his hand to caress your cheek as he’s always done. 

“It’s okay, I’m here. I’m fine,” he soothes, though his voice is still raspy from disuse. “Don’t cry.” 

I can’t believe you wanted me to leave you behind. How could you tell me that? 

“...Sorry,” he says, and you raise your head from his bed just enough so he can wipe away the tears on your lashes. “It’s funny but even if you don’t talk, I can still understand you.” 

You watch as he slowly takes your hand and presses his palm against yours, lowering his fingers until they’ve interlocked with yours. “My seelie,” he says with all the warmth in the world. You can only nod before you’re wiping away the tears that spring up again. "Even in this form, you'll still lead me, right? Still find me if I get lost?"

You don't know what type of face you're making, but Diluc softens his gaze before shifting slightly in the bed offered to him by the church. "Come here," he whispers, arms outstretched.

You tentatively place your weight onto the bed, arms placed on each of his sides as you gingerly climb into bed with him. When he winces, you put a hand on his chest, alarmed, to stop him from exerting himself.

“I’m fine,” he says immediately, and when he looks at you, he bursts out laughing, only for him to wince again more strongly. “Sorry, your expressions-- they’re exactly how I imagined them.” He chuckles, though you purse your lips at him as you finally settle under the covers next to him. You make a sound of surprise when he leans over just enough to press a kiss onto your forehead. You hear his soft huff of laughter again when you bury your face into his chest out of embarrassment. “Still as easy to read as ever.”

You grab a hold of his shirt with your ears pressed against his sturdy chest. He gently rubs circles on your shoulder as you listen to his heartbeat, which is as steady as you have imagined it to be. It quickens ever-so-slightly, and you look up at Diluc in time to see him gaze down at you tenderly. “You don’t have to speak,” he says, brushing his hand across your cheek. “Nothing has to change at all. But there’s something I want to know.” You raise your hand to caress his hand (and he finds the courage to keep on speaking).

“Do you think you can tell me your name?” Diluc whispers, the most unsure you have ever seen him, and you think you’re so fond of him your heart (not just metaphorical this time) might burst from it.

It takes only a moment for you to decide to scoot yourself up just enough to kiss him on the side of his mouth, and you can't help but grin at the stupefied expression on his face. 

And you say your name. 

How interesting is it that it's the one thing you cannot convey through trills and twirls, cannot show through hugs and kisses? You never thought that your name could have such significance but you watch as Diluc's eyes widen and you think this moment is the gift the gods have given you. 

Diluc takes a moment to taste your name, and he calls out to you for the very first time out of many, many, many times.

.

Before the sun rises, Diluc wakes up to your bright glow and with your seelie body pressed up against his collarbone. He breathes your name into the quiet infirmary before he closes his eyes to sleep again.

.

.

.

.

You are found more often than you are lost. For every time Diluc calls your name-- as a seelie or as a human (fairy?)-- your heart soars as high as the anemograms at Brightcrown Mountain. 

As a seelie, your life with Diluc stays the same-- for the most part. No one treats you differently and no one loves you differently from when they knew you as just a seelie. If anything, the biggest change has been in Diluc's life where the stares from his admirers are more muted and the swoons reduced, for how could anyone continue to pine over someone that is so evidently preoccupied with someone else? (Even though they've only seen the person who Diluc holds in high regard once every new moon.)

Every adventure still has the same probability to go awry and Diluc still polishes the chessboard to perfection for you. Though on moonless nights, Diluc can hold you close, and you can hold him closer, saying his name (the second word you ever say) and hoping he can never feel quite as lost as before when you are here with him.

FIN

--

temp taglist

@creation-magician @inlustris-but-obey-me @lumi-ying  @thetwinkims @loveyoutothestars  @ninqat  @winterptilopsis  @nya-vivi  @just-noelle ​ @shr3ik

[docockbrainrot]

i think i want you (to leave)

Summary: We’re all running from something. Sometimes, metaphorically. Sometimes, literally. Literally running, from the very strangely hypnotizing supervillain that seems hellbent on ruining every bit of your life he can get all eight of his limbs on.

Pairing: Doc Ock X Reader/ Otto Octavius X Reader

Content: Slow Burn, NSFW eventually, 18+, Female Reader

AO3 link!

Previous Chapter

Chapter 12

slow dancing in the dark // joji

"It's not what it looks like," the words are out of your mouth before you can think of something, anything, else. Of course, it's exactly what it looks like and you think you're going to be sick with the implications of the situation. How did Otto not see this coming? He was watching the cameras… The cold pit in your stomach feels hard as a rock, twisting your insides up. Something must have happened to him- or at least something happened to muddy up his plans. Visions of Otto being ambushed in a tiny security room flash through your mind's eye and make you feel sick. 

It doesn't help that you're morbidly aware of the fact that the entire floor is still hauntingly empty. Was this a set up? How did things go so badly, so fast?

"Naturally," Harry replies smoothly, his demeanor calm and collected and in a way, it's worse than if he had taken the route of screaming and threatening to call the authorities. Which leads you to believe he intends to handle this on his own. He holds up the Bluetooth that he snatched from you and you watch pitifully as he simply crushes it in his hand and tosses the broken remains onto the desk. You eyeball the plastic-y corpse, all of the little wires and bits sticking out in different directions, the earpiece part just barely hanging onto the body. Every single instinct tells you that this is wrong, there's something about Harry that's just not right, but at the same time there's a magnetism to him that you aren't impervious to. He's dangerous. Otto's warning echoes in your head. Maybe even more dangerous than Otto himself.

Out of your peripheral, you see the download bar has ticked away to 100% completion and you reluctantly meet Harry's eyes, knowing the sharpness you're going to find there, but refusing to go out like a coward. "So what are you going to do to me?" You're proud of yourself for even finding words, though they stick to your tongue and feel heavy in your mouth. 

The distance between the two of you is closed alarmingly quickly. He's tall enough that it seems he's towering over you but it could just as well be the frightening way his presence makes you feel small. You can smell his cologne, heady and expensive and bizarrely wonderful. His hand snakes behind you and you recoil, waiting for him to touch you as you're pinned between him and the edge of the desk that digs into the small of your back. But he doesn't. He retreats from your personal space, lifting his hand to show the USB drive between his index and middle fingers. "You've been a busy girl. No doubt you had help." You can't tell if he's trying to bait you into ratting out your accomplice or if he's teasing you. You suspect it's the latter. Certainly he already knows that Otto is involved. 

"You don't think I could have done it on my own?" You can't help but snap in spite of your own fragile mortality in the wake of this very powerful man. Harry smiles and you think maybe he could have been a kind man once. Again, just like Otto.

"Yes, well, I'm sure you're quite the mad scientist, sweetheart. This is the research for Dr. Octavius, correct?" He muses, leisurely turning the drive around in his fingers. You don't say anything, but it's confirmation enough (like he didn't already know), seeing as how he reaches into the pocket of his slacks. You brace for some kind of… something. A weapon. A 911 call. You aren't sure what you should be expecting at this point. 

Harry procures a second flash drive. 

You definitely didn't see that coming. "Uh… I don't… I don't understand." He laughs. He laughs in a way that says 'of course you don't, you silly little girl'. He holds both drives up, the original in his right hand, the one he produced from his pocket in the left. 

"Pay attention. Listen very closely to me, Y/N." You decide the way he says your name feels akin to a cobra hissing before it strikes. You ignore the fact that you never gave him your name. He knows a lot of things that he has no business knowing, that's the least of your concerns now. So you listen. "Octavius is using you. You're the third person he's sent to try to get this research data, did you know that?" You didn't. You knew about David. Who was the first? You don't say anything, but you know your face probably displays your discomfort. "He needs to let it go. For his own sake. For your sake. He needs to stop dragging everyone down with him. Give him this instead. He will no longer be a problem." Harry extends his left hand, with the copycat drive. 

You're trying to wrap your mind around the impossible situation you're confronted with. Harry wants you… to lie to Otto? To deceive him? What kind of information is on that thing? "I can't do that. He's my… friend," that feels weird to say out loud and you aren't even sure if it's accurate, but you definitely aren't certain how to compartmentalize your feelings about Otto on the best of days, much less in the face of what could be your untimely demise. You try to study Harry's countenance, looking for some sort of weakness, a glance at the man behind the smarmy visage. You don't know if he's ever killed someone, but you are decidedly sure that he would be capable of it. 

"Would friends send friends to do things like this?" Harry asks and the sincerity surprises you. 

"I don't… I don't know. Where is he? Did you hurt him?" 

"Ha. Funny. No. Of course not. He's probably long gone by now, love." Another thing that doesn't sit well with you. Otto left you there? After he promised everything would work out? You have to say, you weren't exactly expecting a remarkable rescue, but you can't fight the dismay that aches in your chest. 

"He's… gone?" You parrot and Harry shrugs noncommittally. 

"He always gets away when things get dicey, don't you read the paper?" 

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You should have known better. It only briefly crosses your mind that Harry could be lying- after all, he did just catch you mid-data breach in broad daylight. But your previous doubts resurface and bubble up like magma through the cracks of the earth, searing away everything in its path. It makes sense, from an objectively logical standpoint. Otto doesn't have anything to lose by retreating; after all, who are you to him? That night on the pier… he was just trying to soften your resolve. And damn you (damn him), it really worked. Reaching out, you grab the USB from Harry's offered hand, clenching your fist so hard around it you can feel the metal corners biting into your palm. Tears sting at the corners of your eyes and you furiously blink them away. "What's on this?" You manage to ask, ignoring how hoarse your voice sounds as you speak past the lump in your throat. You refuse to let him see you cry, if nothing else. 

"Just a little something to throw him off the hunt." Harry pockets the other drive and you wonder miserably, once again, how this went so awry. The plan seemed so simple, truly. In hindsight, you see how foolish you were for believing Otto so blindly. Just another pawn, a stepping stone in his game. "And take this too. Just in case." When you look up, he's proffering a business card and you hesitate just a heartbeat before accepting it. 

Harry Osborn 

Chief Executive Officer

With the Oscorp logo on the flip side, the gilded card is lavishly printed and you feel almost like you aren't even worth enough to be holding it. You realize there's a phone number underneath Harry's name as well and you raise your eyebrows. "Uh… Do you give your phone number to all the girls who break in and try to steal information from your company?" You chuckle nervously, but you recognize the hollowness in your own voice as you trace your thumb over the aureate lettering before you retrieve your wallet from your jeans. You tuck the ludicrous and beautiful card judiciously into a protective sleeve. What are you doing? Why do you care? You should have ripped it up and thrown it back in his face along with his dumb little fake data drive! But you don't. You can't place the reasoning, no matter how hard you grasp for it. You don't trust him, you know that much. Are you really that cross with Otto?

"On the contrary, you're the first. Don't make me regret it; and don't make a habit of getting caught up with the wrong crowd. You're a smart girl. Make smart decisions," Harry grins toothily and you half expect to spot fangs to accompany the illusory devil horns you could almost imagine seeing on his head. You're pretty certain there's a thinly veiled threat in those well-spoken words somewhere. "Call me if you need anything. I take it you can see yourself out." 

You watch him stroll away through the eerily abandoned floor, hands casually in the pockets of his pressed slacks, before disappearing into the elevator. He trusts you to leave on your own? Or is it that he knows there's nothing you can do that he won't see? Less of a team building exercise and more of a power flex, you suspect. You're free to go where you please- because it simply doesn't matter. 

But for a while, you just stand there, at the lonely desk as the only soul on an empty floor, staring at the little device in your hand that's going to make or break Otto Octavius, according to Harry. Maybe you won't give it to him. Maybe you'll say it was confiscated; you barely made it out with your life. 

Or maybe you will; and you'll both be able to move on.

[mimik-u]

Flower Child, Ch. 18 (”Abyss”)

LINK

i.

The door that led into Room 11812 was already partially cracked when Blue Diamond arrived in front of it the next morning. Lost, hesitant, adrift, perpetually undone, she simply stared at it for a long while, sized it up, reified it into yet another monolith she would have to confront.

For she was surrounded by monoliths.

All the time.

They towered over her.

Mocked her.

Grief and ghosts and all those other inlaid, ingrained fears, carved deep into the marrow of her bones, muscle memory now. She was scared of everything, really: the continuance of life, the permanence of death, the human capacity for endurance, the inhuman throes of her nightmares. And how these nightmares were sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, waking dreams nowadays, stalking her far beyond the confines of a bed that was much too big for her. She was afraid of forgetting Pink Diamond and replacing her, caring for Steven Universe and losing him. Telling Yellow Diamond that she loved her. Showing it. Proving that she did. Never doing it in the end precisely because she was so afraid. (Of what? She scarcely could articulate in the labyrinthine abyss of her mind, where everything was guttural and murky and raw.) Consigning their marriage to the same grave where their daughter laid, the memory of their once great love dressed in funeral shrouds…. She was afraid of empty halls and empty penthouse suites and empty rooms where dust laid thickly on furniture that would never be touched again. Ratty hoodies, diamond quilts, pink sticky notes reminding dead twenty-one year olds to study for upcoming tests. She was afraid of living and afraid of dying, afraid of happiness and afraid of pain. She feared mornings, and she feared nights. Doorbells, sleeping pills, good days, bad days, her very shadow, her own wasted reflection. (Because fundamentally, Blue Diamond was afraid of herself most of all.)

She wasn’t particularly afraid of doors—because most of the time, a door was just a door after all—but she was afraid of this particular door on the sixth floor of a hospital. More simply, she was afraid of what was behind it. Simpler still, she was afraid of who laid in that hospital bed. Afraid of all the unspoken things that had simmered quietly in the space between them for years upon distant, aching years...

So, she simply stood there.

Lost.

Hesitant.

Adrift.

Perpetually undone.

She made a monolith out of a door.

Voices seeped from behind the narrow gap, rising and falling together in a conversation that didn’t quite make sense, try though she did to piece the snippets into a context that she could understand. Blue braced both of her hands upon the head of her cane as she leaned forward to listen, a long strand of her silvery hair falling listlessly between her eyes, curling just over her nose. 

How terribly her heart beat.

How loud.

Her fingers shivered; they simply ached.

“... ouch, dammit! Don’t poke me so hard,” Yellow Diamond snapped, her abrasive voice loud, clear, unmistakable, ringing.

(She was always so pleasant to be around in the morning.)

“Then you should quit squirming around so much, Mrs. Diamond,” a voice that she recognized as belonging to Dr. Reed replied, as amused as her patient was irate. “It’s just a needle.”

“Yes, well—it’s too early in the morning for me to be especially happy about being prodded like a cow.”

“Mm,” the doctor made a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat as she continued to work, noisily shifting invisible materials around.

“So, when will I get these results back?” Yellow asked, affecting a tone that was passably casual to anyone who didn’t know her, who was unaware that she clipped her consonants more shortly than usual when she was tense, scared, strained.

“A couple of hours if I had to wager. The lab’ll want to be thorough.”

“Naturally.”

“And once we get those results back—if they say what I think they will, of course—then we’ll have to run through the whole gamut of other procedures: urological assessments, medical histories, blood pressure tests, cancer screenings, chest x-rays, EKGs... it’ll be a long process.”

“Sounds like it,” Yellow returned in that same punctuated voice, and then the two women lapsed into silence as the ground revolted beneath Blue’s feet, simply eroded.

And she was suddenly falling at the same time that she was perfectly upright, a swaying pillar tethered only to the facticity of her cane. She clung to it all the more tightly, fingers whitening from the beds of her nails downwards; it was the only bulwark she had against total collapse.

Annihilation.

Ruin.

All these tests?

What were they for?

She furrowed her silvery brow and desperately thought back to her conversation with Dr. Reed just yesterday; nothing about it had suggested that something was seriously wrong with Yellow, except a few fractures and lacerations that would clear up with time and rest... so what reasonable line of logic led from a minor car accident to cancer screenings and chest x-rays? What had happened in the unaccounted for hours when Blue had been away? 

She closed her eyes as nausea suddenly rushed up the cylinder of her throat, sickness invading all her delicate senses.

The answer seemed to loom darkly ahead—only a door push away.

“Alright, Mrs. Diamond,” the doctor sighed, “I’m going to get these to the lab. I’ll draw up your discharge papers soon, too...”

Yellow must have made some sort of nonverbal reply because Blue didn’t have time to recover her face as the cracked door suddenly flung open, breaking the final divide between everything she thought she understood and all the awful things that she apparently didn’t.

“Mrs. Diamond, oh, hello! Good mornin’!”

Her wiry eyebrows hoisted high above her thin glasses, Dr. Reed looked equally surprised to see Blue Diamond standing just outside the door. The medical tray she bore in her arms jumped a little as she did, shaking a few test tubes that were filled with dark crimson.

But Blue was impatient, eager, scared most of all. (She was always scared.) Her hooded eyes involuntarily slid from the harried doctor to the test tubes to the impressively cut figure just beyond Dr. Reed’s shoulder.

For Yellow Diamond, wearing her favorite pair of silken pajamas like royal regalia, sat upon the edge of her hospital bed, simply staring at Blue from widened eyes, her cracked lips parted slightly, every line etched across her face a livid, pulsing scar.

It was an expression of contradictions, of paradoxes, of dichotomies: tender at the same time that it was strained, vulnerable and equally forbidding.

Yellow averted her gaze first, a dull flush suffusing her sharply hewn cheeks. When she turned away, the sunlight pouring in from the window eclipsed her features behind the curtain of its flaxen reach.

“Good morning, Dr. Reed,” Blue murmured, painfully wrenching her attention back to the more immediate woman. “I see you have been… busy.”

She glanced questioningly at the tray of test tubes again, but just as the doctor opened her mouth to respond, Yellow got there first, cutting across her with cold precision.

“She was just leaving,” she said pointedly, still not looking their way. She brought her left arm up—the one enmeshed in a brace—to absentmindedly skim the right where her sleeve was meticulously rolled up at the elbow, where a long piece of gauze had been nearly wrapped around the joint. “Right, Doctor?”

It was a clear dismissal, blunt and unsubtle, a maneuver of clear avoidance, of keeping those strange, private words in the dark. Blue imagined it was a tactic that would have worked exceptionally well on Poppy or Livia or one of their various other employees besides whom Yellow had already intimidated into submission, but Dr. Reed didn’t seem to be especially frazzled by Yellow Diamond at all—unbothered by her elevated status, impervious to the harsh way with which spoke, as though every word was a finely calibrated weapon. She only resigned herself with a meaningful sigh that Blue couldn’t quite miss, her wire-rimmed glasses slipping incrementally upon the bridge of her nose.

“I suppose I was,” she smiled grimly, adjusting her tray more securely in her arms.  Blue counted the scarlet tubes. There were four in all. “Be sure to eat that. cookie, Mrs. Diamond”—she called over her shoulder, as calculatingly sweet as Yellow was acerbic—“and it was nice to see you again, Mrs. Diamond.”

Blue stepped to the aside to allow the doctor passage. They exchanged a final nod, charged with unspoken significance, and then, just like that, Dr. Reed was gone.

And finally, they were alone.

Blue and Yellow Diamond.

Once upon a time, this had been one of their most treasured sensations in the world.

To be alone.

With one another.

In the confines of a room.

Oh, how Blue’s slender hands had once known Yellow as intimately as they had known her own body. The curvature of her sharp jawbone. The tender column of her pulsing neckline. The feeling of their hands together, gently intertwined. Spiny knuckles. Soft palms. Brushing thumbs.

And now, eight feet stood between them.

Seven once Blue timidly dared to step into the doorway.

Merely six once she made an awkward movement to close the door behind her.

And neither of them especially knew how to breach the space between them.

The distance.

The gulf. 

Yellow seemed to have finally noticed that she was massaging the place where the doctor had drawn her blood because she suddenly stopped, self-conscious, wrenching her left hand away from the spot. But the gauze was still there, wrapped around her bony elbow tightly, advertising its unspoken secret like a flag at half-mast.

“You’re having tests done,” Blue stated.

It was as bold as it was quiet.

The loudest accusation in an otherwise silent room.

“They’re nothing,” Yellow replied immediately, trying for a nonchalance that didn’t quite land. “It’s nothing. Just routine stuff.”

The lie landed between them, too, with an odd, dull plunk, and Blue felt the beginnings of something other than fear coil in the pit of her stomach for the first time all morning. A burning sensation—stinging, raw.

She squeezed her cane again tightly and absently thought that it wouldn’t surprise her if her fingers came away with indents from where she gripped the metal.

“You were drunk… you were in an accident, Yellow,” she whispered, her words acquiring an icy edge. They lashed. They lunged. They hurt. They were intended to hurt. “Are you sure there’s something you’re not telling me?”

On the ropes, cornered—she hated being cornered—Yellow’s features suddenly hardened, her nose upturning, mouth calcifying into its trademark sneer. If Blue Diamond’s cane was her defense, then Yellow Diamond’s snarl was her weapon, sharp as any saber or sword. 

“You’re being paranoid, Blue—even more so than usual,” she scoffed, fingertips digging into the sheets beneath her hands. “It wasn’t as though I caused the accident. I wasn’t even driving!”

“Then why has Dr. Reed ordered such an extensive battery of tests for you? Can you answer me that at least?” She insisted, now shrill, now angry, now hoarse, now unknotted, soon to be undone—her throat wrenched with its own rage. Tears burned the corners of her eyes, gathering like rushing rivers down the skeletal curves of her cheeks. “I’m your wife, Yellow Diamond, and you—”

“And I should what exactly?” Yellow interrupted, laughing so mirthlessly that the sound was feral, almost inhuman. “Give you yet another reason to fall apart for four years? You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue. I—“

But she stopped short.

She realized that she had said too much.

And six feet became six hundred feet as the two women stared at each other across the empty tiles, as the words that Yellow had growled registered to them both. 

Neither of them had barely survived Blue’s total dissolution.

Both of them.

Together.

Alone.

They were both so utterly alone.

“I’m sorry,” Yellow exhaled, the fight in her voice punctured. Leaking. Drained. “I… I’m—“

But what exactly she was, even she didn’t seem to know. Prodigious marshal of words that she was, she was clearly at a loss for words, her mouth quavering with its own forced silence. Yellow abruptly looked away again, and the sunlight threw the stitches across her cheek in sharp relief, the redness of them, the rawness. 

Painful to even look at.

How much more painful were they then to bear?

How many other wounds besides had her wife collected in all these awful, unspooling years? Not even simply the visible ones, but all the other sundry hurts, too. The lines beneath her hawklike eyes. Her perpetual coldness, wrapped like impenetrable armor around her skin. The very way that she spoke these days, as though each word was a marionette jerked by some strict taskmaster’s violent strings. 

In the night, when she was alone in that master bed that had never been intended for just one, Blue didn’t have to look at these things, didn’t have to acknowledge that there was a reason that the door to the study was perpetually cracked open, didn’t have to wonder about how her utter contempt for life reflected on others because fundamentally, there was no one other than herself; it was her and her alone.

During the day, she didn’t have to care.

Time stretched ad infinitum all around her, slipping, always slipping away.

And she remained in the mire of her own head.

Stuck.

Broken.

Sinking.

Sunken.

Gone.

“So, please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away, Steven Universe had whispered, indicting her, condemning her entire modus operandi with seven simple words as he laid in that hospital bed, dying for everyone to see.

She had looked away from Pink Diamond, and now Pink Diamond was dead.

She had almost looked away from Steven Universe.

Even still, even after all that they had ever been through together—and they had been through quite a lot—Blue Diamond was looking away from her wife even now.

Fool, masochist, coward.

She was, she was, she was—all of these things and very likely more.

Drowning.

Save me.

Spiraling.

Always.

Sinking, sunken, gone.

But the corrective, Steven Universe implied with every word and kind deed, wasn’t in the recognition of her problem; it wasn’t even in the actual acknowledgment that there needed to be a change.

It was in action and reaction.

It was in change itself.

A sickly boy could extend a flower to her in the cemetery, but she had to be the one to accept its grace.

She had to be the one to not look away.

Six feet, not six hundred feet.

Please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away.

Swallowing thickly, Blue forced herself to gain perspective in that tiny hospital room, narrowing the world to just the two of them and the few strips of tile which stood between them.

Six feet.

So close and yet so far.

(Their daughter was six feet under the ground.)

“We apologize to each other all the time,” Blue murmured, her voice lilting softly in her accent, “and yet… not at all. How many times have we hurt each other, Yellow? How many times have we had to repent before doing it all over again?”

“So many times,” Yellow returned automatically, and her voice was quiet, laced only with the fading dregs of bitterness. Her knuckles were white where she continued to clench the sheets balled in her fists. “Because I am sorry—every damn time, Blue. I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. Hell, but I—”

As her voice rose, it was just as quickly stifled.

Choked.

A single tear glanced down the consummate businesswoman’s sharply angled face, and perhaps it was the most visible sign of her defeat that she didn’t immediately make a move to scrub it away, to pretend as though it had never existed.

And perhaps it was this gesture, or lack of a gesture, that finally did it for Blue Diamond above all.

That taught her what she needed to do.

She moved forward, one halting footstep over another, the hem of her long dress sweeping across the clinically white ground.

Clank.

Five feet.

Clank.

Four feet.

Clank.

Alerted by the telltale clangor of the cane, Yellow Diamond abruptly jerked her chin upwards, her lined eyes wide with horror and disbelief, with fear, with apprehension, with confusion, and something else, too—something almost indefinable because it had been a long time since Blue had recognized the expression in her wife’s chiseled face.

Had seen it.

Had noticed it.

Named it and reciprocated it.

Yearning, that irresistible rush of longing.

It shone painfully in her eyes, a drowning man’s golden flare shot into the dark.

Clank.

Three feet.

Clank.

Two.

“Blue, what are you—”

Clank.

One.

Scarcely twelve inches stood between them now, the air quiet, unnervingly, unnaturally still.

For everything was on a tightrope, the line just ready to snap.

Between them, individually, over twenty years of history were stored in the shared memories of their bodies, and for a moment, if only for a fleeting second, Blue felt as though if she could only reach out and touch Yellow in just the right place, that the world would just as suddenly right itself on its tilted axis, and everything would make sense once again and forevermore.  They would be reconciled, reunited, restored, all of their damages undone, and they would know each other intimately, just by touch alone. They would be able to pick up where they last stopped, somewhere in the darkness, on a road that went by the wayside so long ago. Maybe, at long last, they would even join hands.

But, no.

That was simply naïveté.

Childlike belief.

A dream.

Touching Yellow Diamond would not change the fact that their daughter was dead and that four years of grief had nearly destroyed the both of them; touching Yellow Diamond was not an apology; it wouldn’t even be an adequate excuse. The touch, if such a thing were to exist, would only be a gesture, a microscopic movement towards what had heretofore been the impossible.

The beginnings of a bridge.

And one goddamn awful gulf.

But it was a start.

And that was what mattered, right?

Yes, Blue Diamond thought to herself.

Please.

Closing her eyes against the sudden vertigo—the fear, the terror, the rush—she slowly leaned over into the darkness and gently pressed her lips against Yellow Diamond’s forehead, exhaling softly as the stalwart general tensed beneath the touch, deathly still.

“I’m sorry, Blue.”

Her voice shook, a pillar cut off at its foundation, sunken to its knees.

Blue gingerly brought her hands up so that they were encircling her wife’s head, her tousled hair, the tips of her ears, her temples…

“I’m so sorry,” Yellow repeated simply; her voice cleaved itself in two; she was insisting on an apology, as though it was absolutely necessary for them to proceed.

And it was.

But so, too, was this.

“I know,” Blue whispered as Yellow’s shoulders began to silently shake. In response, in return, because she wanted to, because she desperately needed to, she began to absently skim her thumb through the woman’s hair.

 “I’m sorry, too.”

Three words still hung—unspoken—in the sterile air.

Suspended.

On the tips of fearful tongues.

ii.

Priyanka brought them all back to the slaughterhouse again because there was nowhere else left to go. There were five of them in total, so they couldn’t very well have their daily harrowing conversation out in the hallway. They were adults, and Steven was a child, Steven was fourteen, so they couldn’t baldly discuss his mortality in his hospital room, where he laid in a bed, hooked up to so many whirring machines. Her office was cramped, and the chapel was somber. The cafeteria was too noisy, the hospital’s atrium just the same. 

And so, that left only one option.

The conference room on the fourth floor.

The slaughterhouse.

They all took seats at that long, long table and did their best not to look at each other, at the griefs laid bare in all of their tired faces.

“I’m sorry,” Priyanka said abruptly, “for yesterday. I got your hopes up. I got my own up, and I... I should have been more circumspect.”

She stared at her lined hands, at how they were templed neatly upon the smooth surface of the table. Even sidled up next to each other, brushing, her palms felt bitingly cold.

“I knew better, and that—irrefutably—is on me.”

“Aw, come off it, Doc,” Amethyst shrugged dully from the other side of Greg. “You couldn’t have known.”

“You told us best yourself, Priyanka,” Pearl agreed, her voice an almost passable imitation of prim. She was sitting in the chair opposite to Amethyst, delicately massaging her temples with the tips of her long fingers. “That damage wouldn’t have shown up on the scans... we don’t fault you for that.”

“We won’t,” Garnet added pointedly, never moving her bicolored gaze away from the empty air just above Greg’s shoulder.

“We would never,” Greg finished kindly, and when Priyanka dared to look up at him—he was sitting to her immediate left—she was appalled to see a weak smile quivering on his bearded mouth. Of all the things she didn’t deserve, a smile was high on that list which seemed to grow longer with every passing day that Steven Universe was in her care.

“You’re all being far too nice to me,” she insisted in that same blunt tone, though she knew it was a losing battle, four against one, the weapons of their affection all drawn. “I made that child—I made all of you—a promise. And doctors don’t make promises.”

Take care of my baby for me... please.

You have my word.

“Not unless they’re arrogant,” she concluded coldly, glancing away. “Foolish.”

And she was a fool—assuredly. A jester in a white lab coat. All she needed was the hat. In the slaughterhouse, she half-demanded that the people around her admitted to it, that the victims of her fault had their chance to cleave her apart on the altar, too.

But because they were kind and good and everything that was compassionate in the world, not a single one of them did.

Garnet even reached over and briefly placed a warm hand on Priyanka’s arm.

“It’s a good thing you’re neither then.”

And of course, here was yet another thing she didn’t deserve—a consolatory touch—but the doctor did not have the heart to shake it off, not now—not when there were dark circles beneath Garnet’s eyes that spoke to yet another sleepless night in a long row of likely many.

“Yes, well, at any rate”—she hurried away from the subject, desperate to escape their kindness, goodness, their sympathetic gazes—“I’ve called you here to give a progress report… we potentially have another donor candidate… a live donor this time.”

Priyanka enunciated each word as though she was announcing the presence of a ticking time bomb, and it registered as much in the faces of her captive audience. Garnet withdrew her hand quickly, as though stung, and they all stared at the nephrologist, each and every one of them, with a naked disbelief that was a far cry from the unadulterated joy of yesterday’s declaration. They had been briefly happy, and then they’d been so quickly, so mercilessly burnt; it was no wonder then that they were skeptical.

It was painfully obvious that they were still licking their damn wounds.

“A patient at this very hospital,” she continued haltingly, precise in every word. She had to be careful here not to let something slip up, not to betray a word that would drive the blades sticking into these people’s chests in just one inch more. She wanted to be fastidious this time; she intended to be sure. “Their blood type is likely a match for Steven’s, but we’re checking again just to make sure… and even if that’s a certainty, there are so many other tests besides that we’ll have to do just to make sure their body is healthy enough to undergo a transplant… it could take weeks…”

She spoke into thick silence, excruciating to the last as each word was wrenched free from her teeth in some poor facsimile of her usual brusque fashion.

Pearl and Garnet exchanged a pregnant look across the table, but it was Amethyst who spoke the meaning aloud; she was always the one who seemed to be the best at translating what everyone was secretly thinking into words, what they were all too fearful to say.

“So we shouldn’t get our hopes up yet, huh?” She asked candidly. “That’s what you’re saying… isn’t it?”

“Something to that effect, yes,” Priyanka returned with a slow nod of her head. “I just don’t want to… I would rather not…”

But she struggled to find the right words, to strangle all her emotions into sentences that didn’t complicate the professionalism to which she was called.

Because she couldn’t break down.

She couldn’t flinch.

She was the doctor in the room for goodness’s sake, and that meant something.

But again, Amethyst stepped in so she didn’t have to—blunt, plain, merciful.

“… hurt him again,” she mumbled, her lavender hair forming a curtain around her lowered head. The young woman swiped her arm roughly across her face in a gesture that was lost on precisely no one. “Yeah, I guess that’s for the best…”

The ensuing silence was somehow worse than the last. 

It seemed to chafe at them all, rubbing their skins raw.

Greg Universe shifted in his chair.

He looked less man than mountain, carved ruggedly against a bleak, gray sky—hunched in on himself, avalanched, collapsing all over. 

(When she’d first met the man some fifteen years ago, he’d still had all of his hair.)

(A kid having a kid.)

“He hasn’t said more than a few words today, Dr. M,” the mountain whispered, his voice eroding in all the right places, crumbling. “He barely even looks at us.”

Priyanka didn’t know what to say.

She wasn’t naturally warm like Maisie Reed.

Wasn’t soft.

Wasn’t encouraging.

Being a doctor didn’t require any of those epithets, even though she knew cerebrally, intimately, that being a human did.

“It’s hard being sick,” she finally said.

It was the easiest way to utter an even harder truth.

(Sometimes, her patients found it unbearable.)

iii.

“And Archimicarus preened his feathers haughtily, all the while keeping one amber eye on Captain Bonham, whose apparent warmth wasn’t enough to stop the falcon from being wary of the witch’s eccentricities: the dual pistols she wore in the holsters on either side of her waist, the long knife handle jutting just above the ribs of her corset, and most ominously of all, the necklace she wore around her neck—a leather cord threaded through the skull of a baby bird,” Connie read aloud, adopting her most suspenseful voice for one of the most tense chapters in the book—Lisa and Archimicarus meeting Valentine Bonham, famed pirate witch of the jewel-bright seas, and her serpentine familiar Scyllane. 

Of course, Valentine would prove to be one of Lisa’s most beloved companions by the end of the book, a swashbuckling mentor with a semi-tragic backstory, a kind of mother figure who had a penchant for committing petty theft and tax fraud against the despotic king.

But Steven didn’t know that yet.

“Skyllane,” Connie continued, “her silvery scales glimmering beneath the midday sun, hissed her amusement at Archimicarus’s obvious discomfort as she coiled herself sinuously around Valentine’s neck. Show off, the falcon thought savagely…”

Her mouth twitched into a reflexive smile at this part, nostalgic at Archimicarus’s occasional petty asides, and she looked up automatically, hoping to see the same amusement reflected in the face of her one-person audience… but Steven… Steven obviously wasn’t feeling it.

He didn’t seem like he was feeling much of anything, really.

When she’d come in with her mother that morning, he had tried to hide it, insisting that she open The Unfamiliar Familiar again, that they could pick up where they had last left off like everything was fine and good and normal and dandy.

But it wasn’t.

And perhaps pretending was only adding insult to injury, salt to an already agonizing wound.

Her mother’s famously steady hands had been shaking all day. They shook around around the leather of her steering wheel; they shook around the circumference of her coffee tumbler; they shook as she fumbled with her keys to lock the sedan’s door. She dropped them. Connie picked them up and didn’t comment on the incident, just as her mother didn’t comment on the event except to proffer a perfunctory thank you. And still, her mother’s hands continued to shake as she ushered Connie through the double doors that led into the Truman Ward, where only the nephrologist’s most dire patients were hospitalized. 

On the ride to the hospital that morning, she had laid out the bare bones as best and well as she could to her daughter—Steven had been going to get kidneys, and then he just as suddenly wasn’t. 

Steven’s life had miraculously stretched before him, and then the ribbon was abruptly, cruelly cut.

And his heart is tired, Connie, her mom had whispered—very quietly, with evident strain. As though she was scarcely able to comprehend it herself. So tired. And his lungs are doing their best to keep up…

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask what happened to tired hearts.

Staring at Steven, who wasn’t staring at her but rather at a fixed point upon the ceiling, she instinctively understood that there was only one thing tired hearts could do.

And that was shatter.

Break.

“Hey… Steven?” She asked tentatively, replacing the straw wrapper bookmark in the place where she had last left off. (She didn’t quite close the book—not yet. There was a finality in that action, mundane though it was, that suddenly scared her.) “Are you… okay?”

Seconds dripped before anything happened. Surrounded by a nest of tangled wires and tubes, Steven was deathly still in their embrace, less subject than object, less object than tangible ghost. From her vantage point—the chair next to his bed—she couldn’t see his face, the expression in it, perhaps even the lack of one. But she observed the way that his right hand laid feebly on top of his stomach, fingers lightly curled into a ball. And she saw the feeble rise and fall of his chest, how it stuttered every so often with each arrhythmic movement that found its companion in a staccato beat on his heart monitor.

And here was yet another thing that scared the twelve-year old.

She surmised that all these signs and symbols had something to do with finality, too.

Endings.

She hated those.

Sometimes, when she was reading a really good book, she would stop just before the last chapter to steel herself for what was to come.

“Yes,” came a mechanical reply. “Just tired…”

“I can imagine,” Connie said. (She couldn’t imagine it all. She could barely reconcile that this was the same boy she had laughed and laughed with only so many days ago on the first floor of this very hospital. He had smiled at her so kindly, eyes shining with their own paradoxical aliveness. And she’d thought to herself, even then, how miraculous he surely was, how extraordinary.) “We can stop right here for now if you want to take a nap or something…?”

“I don’t like naps,” Steven immediately said in that same colorless tone, and yet, there was a slight edge to his voice that wasn’t exactly anger, but rather defiance, argumentative, defensive, self-directed—as though it was aimed towards himself. His chubby fingers tensed on his stomach, crumpling the paisley-studded fabric there.

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask why he didn’t like naps.

Or, maybe, it was entirely necessary.

Maybe it was one of those very human statements that required an equally human reply: comfort, consolation, concern.

But she lapsed into silence rather than pursue it, the weight of her book pressing heavily upon her knees, the weight of the moment overwhelming her in all of her twelve-year-oldish-ness. She glanced emptily at the page where the spine was cracked open and realized that they hadn’t even reached the halfway point yet.

There were still so many pages to go.

Hundreds.

“… how does it end?”

But now, very suddenly, with all the air of a startled cat, she glanced up, and saw that Steven had painstakingly tilted his head in her direction. And he was simply watching her, the expression in his dark eyes impenetrable and distant, even though he was so close, quite close enough to reach out and actually touch.

Her literary mind worked ahead of her.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

“The chapter?” Connie asked, wondering if he was implicitly asking her to keep reading. 

“No.” The line of Steven’s pale mouth barely moved. “The book.”

It registered with her immediately—he was asking for an entirely different thing besides.

Cold collapsed down her spine, settling somewhere in her stomach.

Icy.

Hard.

“Don’t be silly,” she returned numbly, as though it was just a game they were still playing. It was not in fact a game. It wasn’t even close to one. “You’ll have to wait for me to read the rest of the book to find out. We haven’t even reached Chapter Eight yet.”

There were twenty-one chapters total.

Epilogue included.

Steven was silent for a long time, but never entirely; the various machines invading him did all of the talking in his place: whirring, beeping, stuttering on.

“I guess we better keep going then.”

“Yeah…”

Connie removed her straw wrapper bookmark again and began to read.

She read very quickly now, as though something depended upon it.

iv.

A little before noon, Dr. Maheswaran briefly came in to disconnect Steven from the portable dialysis machine and send Connie downstairs to be picked up by her father for tennis practice. Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing. He looked away when the nephrologist gently disconnected the machine’s tubing from the central line grafted into his neck. He closed his dark eyes when she replaced the oxygen mask over his mouth for one of those quick albuterol treatments. (Ever since his episode last night, his breathing had been a little too stilted for the doctor’s liking, a little too short.) He barely opened them again when Connie said her tentative goodbye, placing a hand on Steven’s arm as Dr. Maheswaran placed a consoling arm around her daughter’s shoulder. 

Through his mask, he couldn’t say anything, so he only blinked slowly, the shadows turning beneath his eyes starkly pronounced. He coughed once. The feeble sound rattled across his chest. 

It shivered his whole body.

It shivered the entire room.

When Connie withdrew her hand, fear flashed across her face.

(For she was shivering, too.)

The Maheswarans left, and Garnet and Steven were left alone in that tiny hospital room that was filled with golden sunlight. It leaned through the window with a light, mocking smile, teasing a warmth that the gym trainer couldn’t feel as she continued to watch Steven.

Vigilantly.

With no little obsession.

Afraid to miss something.

(Maybe even more afraid to stay.)

Hunched over in the uncomfortable chair next to his bed, she curled the fingers of her right hand over her clenched left fist, gingerly rubbing her knuckles, and she stared plainly at the punctuated rise and fall of his chest as albuterol vapor leaked beneath his mask, spiraling into the air like fading smoke. The machine hissed pneumatically, nearly overwhelming the sound of Steven’s beating heart, which was measured out in shrill noise, clangorous noise.

Beep…

Beep...

Beep…

Garnet hated this sound and she was simultaneously desperate to keep hearing it.

A nurse came in some ten minutes later to remove the mask and readjust the oxygenated cannulas in their former place, gently threading the tubes around Steven’s ears, maneuvering the tiny nubs into his nose. He kept his eyes closed, but Garnet was almost positive that he wasn’t sleeping. 

It was subtle, but she knew the signs, having studied them night after night for almost nine months now—all those times she had curled up beside him in bed, resting her chin on top of his curly, black hair, keeping a vigilant eye out for all the demons she couldn’t exactly see. 

The shadows that lurked around and about them never quite materialized into foes she could punch, kick, or destroy, so she memorized all the telltale signs of his aliveness instead, committing each trait to memory as though her own sanity depended on it.

The slight furrow in his dark brow.

The twitch in his nose.

The grim press of his lips.

(When he was truly asleep, he had the tendency to snore, mouth lazily lolled open in unguarded torpor.)

But the nurse didn’t know him, so they only said poor kiddo before leaving too, and the room suddenly felt so much more vacant without the hiss of the albuterol to fill all the empty crevices—the silence, the all-consuming nothingness, the barefaced, omnipresent pain.

Beep…

Beep…

Beep…

Steven slowly opened his eyes as the nurse’s footsteps died away from the room.

And Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing, as he stared, very quietly, at the ceiling, without so much as moving a limb. She drank every micro-gesture in, as though every micro-gesture meant something in the wide cosmos of the universe. Every breath became consequential in this barebones theology, a butterfly’s wings rippling through space and time to matter in ways both big and small.

It mattered—fundamentally—that Steven continued to breathe.

Beep…

Beep…

Beep…

“Garnet?” He asked quietly. His voice was small, weak—the mewling rasp of an injured animal. She thought fleetingly of Cat Steven, of how they had found that tiny, defenseless kitten shivering in the pouring rain. If only Garnet could scoop his namesake into her strong arms just the same and keep him safe, holding him very quietly, very gently, against her chest.

“… yes, Steven?”

“Was my mom… was she ever scared, too?”

The question was simple enough, and it simply unmoored her.

Skewered her through.

Because they didn’t really talk about Rose.

Not really.

They referenced her obliquely, in passing mention, if they absolutely had to; her portrait loomed above the door leading into the beach house; every year, on her birthday, they laid flowers upon her grave and tried not to think about young she would have been had she never died.

And yet, here Steven was, trespassing that unspoken rule and doubling down upon it.

As little as they ever discussed Rose Quartz, they touched upon her illness even less.

So many memories.

Too painful.

Too raw.

Never healed, buried deep within their skins, buried six feet under the ground.

“…I think she might have been,” Garnet answered slowly, “but I can’t say for sure. She was good at pushing down her feelings for us… for our sakes.”

Which in turn made her an excellent leader.

(And an inscrutable friend.)

Steven seemed to silently grapple with this for a few moments, his expression complex, as though there were cloud shadows roaming across his eyes and mouth, threatening rain but never delivering.

“I dreamt of her last night,” Steven said, an explanatory note in his voice. Justificatory. He wasn’t bringing up his mother for just any random reason. “My mom.”

Garnet’s heart shriveled somewhere inside her throat.

“Mm.” She attempted to be calm anyway. “Tell me about it.”

“We… we were in a pink room full of swirling clouds,” the child whispered. “We played football together. And video games. And she told me that she was proud of me… that she loved me…”

What Steven knew of Rose came from stories and anecdotes, from picture albums and yellowed newspaper clippings, from the few videotapes she had left behind—from the one video she had explicitly recorded for Steven scarcely a month before she had delivered him.

It wasn’t a lot, but still, maybe it was just enough.

Because that sounded like Rose.

Her kindness.

Her warmth.

Her fun.

For she had loved, more than anything, to play.

“And then what happened?” She asked, her voice almost even.

“… I woke up.”

And Garnet watched, helpless, as a single tear wriggled itself loose from the corner of Steven’s eye, slipping gracelessly down his cheek and away.

He was silent after that.

She was almost positive, though, that he wasn’t asleep.

v.

“C’mon, Ste-man,” Amethyst wheedled, wafting the milkshake temptingly just below his nose. She’d walked nearly a block away from the hospital just to get the damn thing—a specialty of Stacey’s, the little retro milkshake bar on the corner of Pin Avenue and 32nd. The staff dressed up like they were from The Jetsons and everything. When Steven hadn’t been… when things hadn’t been so bad… they’d sometimes shlepped over there after his dialysis treatments to slam burgers and milkshakes as the jukebox played the Heaven Beetles’ greatest hits. One time, all five of them went together and sung shitty karaoke ’til Pearl was laughing so hard that strawberry milkshake shot out of her nose. “It’s got Reece’s Pieces in it—your faaaavorite…”

“I’m not thirsty, Amethyst,” he returned dully, turning his face away from her. “Sorry.”

His pale neck exposed to her in the gesture, Amethyst could now clearly see the livid bruises that crept vine-like out of the collar of his hospital gown, blooming blue and purple near the place where his central line was inserted just next to his collarbone.

If she could have, if it would have made sense, Amethyst would have crushed that stupid styrofoam cup between her fingers right then and there and enjoyed the feeling of milkshake pouring all over her shaking fingers.

She would have reveled in the destruction of the act.

The cathartic release.

Very probably, she would have begun to cry.

But Steven didn’t need that.

He didn’t need to see her lose her shit.

So, she only collapsed backwards on her feet and into the chair pulled up next to Steven’s bed. She was ginger, notably careful, as she placed the milkshake on the nearby tray, where it’d melt into itself between the hours and the blazing sun.

For the sun burned today, like golden fire, through the square window.

It scorched.

“You… you haven’t eaten in, like, days, my dude,” Amethyst stated plainly, as if he didn’t know that better than anyone else who cared to know. “Dr. M’s worried ‘bout you. If ya don’t get enough nutrients…”

But Steven cut across her bluntly then, still not looking at her. “… then they’ll have to put a feeding tube in me… I know. I heard Dr. Maheswaran and Pearl talking about it the other day.”

She supposed it should have surprised her that he already knew; maybe if she’d been Pearl, she would have jumped to try to sugarcoat the blow with something soft, something comforting, something consolatory. 

But the truth of the matter was that there was nothing soft nor comforting nor consolatory about the ugly reality that reared its head above them, ten feet tall and ready to fucking strike.

He was fourteen, not ten.

He’d long stopped believing in magic.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” She asked him, frustration edging the rims of her scratchy voice, and she knew, even as she spoke, that she was being hella unfair. The poor kid couldn’t help the fact that he was puking his guts up left and right, but he was just laying there, lifeless, like he’d already accepted the inevitability of the stars that had spelled out his fate. 

And it maddened Amethyst.

Sickened her.

She really want to pummel that goddamn milkshake cup into smithereens; she clenched her fists tightly on top of her knees to try and stop them from shaking.

She reminded herself—painfully—that it was only yesterday that happiness had been given to the kid before it was so brutally ripped away.

She told herself that even grown ass adults had trouble with that.

The volatility, the utter unpredictability of life.

“Of course it scares me, Amethyst,” Steven replied, his broken voice barely a whisper as he finally turned to look at her, his brown eyes drowning in the black bags which encased them. Grooved them. Hollowed them.  “I don’t wanna have another surgery… but what do I… how can I do anything? I… I don’t know if I… I can’t stop this. I can’t.”

He seemed to struggle for the words, each one wrenched from him with a punishing drag of air.

And it struck Amethyst then and precisely there, with all the sharpness of a knife, that she took it for granted.

How easy it was for her to simply breathe.

“Catch your breath,” she implored him wildly, leaning forward in her chair. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, Steven.”

“B-but it’s not okay,” he insisted fiercely, sniffing. A single tear slanted out of the corners of one of his eyes and down the hollow of his face, slipping beneath the oxygenated cannulas, following the gentle curve of his beaten, world-weary face. “Don’t say that it’s okay. Please. I can’t take that anymore.”

“Okay, fine!” The awful words exploded out from her, tumbled and rushed and spilled from her mouth headlong on their hands and knees. Amethyst would say anything to make him calm down, and because she had no filter, because she’d never known how to mince the truth, she would mean every damn syllable. “Everything isn’t okay. Everything isn’t fine. Is that better? Are you happy now?”

But to her utter horror, to her staggering discontent, the answer was apparently—

“Yeah,” Steven sighed, closing his eyes in visible relief. “Yes.”

He laid there quietly for a handful of seconds to take in deep gulps of air.

It looked painful.

Excruciating.

“… I just wanna be on the same page,” he eventually finished, his voice a barely distinguishable mumble, distant and muffled.

Amethyst’s entire chest seized with fear unlike that she’d ever felt in a lifetime full of fear; it gripped her, and it wrestled with her.

Put its hands ‘round her throat and squeezed.

“And what page would that be, buddy?” She tried to keep her voice even anyway, though. Steven had yet to reopen his eyes. “Enlighten me.”

But there was no forthcoming reply.

His outburst had exhausted him, and sleep was merciless.

It stole him away.

vi.

They worked together in tentative silence, Greg and Pearl, taking damp washcloths and running them along the parts of Steven’s body that they could reach beneath all the medical apparatus: the column of his neck, his pale face, his arms, his leaden legs. He was too weak to take a shower in the bathroom attached to his hospital room, and they wouldn’t have been able to get a few of his lines wet anyway for the fear of clogging them up.

So a nurse provided them with a basin of soapy water, and they each picked up a rag, gliding the rough fabric as gently as possible across his skin as he laid beneath them like a doll, limp and lifeless.

Staring up at them from dark, button eyes.

Greg pulled his own cloth around Steven’s left ear, now rubbing the tip of it, now gently scraping behind, and tried not to think about how he’d done the very same when the kid was just a baby, so tiny in his arms, so helpless. He’d been afraid then, desperately so, to make just one wrong move. What if he accidentally hurt the little tyke? Rubbed his head a little too hard? Accidentally got soap in his eyes? What if he fucked up? (He was so good at fucking up.)

He’d miss Rose the most then, in those far too common moments, when he was at his lowest.

He’d miss the way she used to wrap her warm arms around his shoulders and show him, without so much as saying a word, what he looked like in her eyes.

Like he was someone worth loving in spite of everything.

In the face of it all.

Fourteen-years later, Steven was tiny beneath his arms.

Helpless.

And Greg missed Rose.

(He would always miss Rose.)

Pearl’s hands trembled as she gingerly lifted Steven’s left arm, weaving her cloth through the gaps between each of his fingers, swiping its breadth across his sweat-stickied palm. Greg followed his hooded gaze to where it settled somewhere on Pearl’s face, where there were faint circles cradling the spaces beneath her eyes, where there was a recent gauntness in the pointed architecture of her cheeks.

She must have noticed, too, because she blinked quickly, self-consciously, pausing her ministrations.

“Are you okay, Steven? I-I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Because that was the most important thing after all—neither of them wanted to hurt him anymore than he was already irrevocably damaged.

Couldn’t bear to even leave so much as a bruise.

“No,” came his simple reply.

It was the monosyllabism that was somehow the most dreadful above all.

Pearl also caught onto this, swiftly folding her slender fingers over Steven’s knuckles, her rag dangling like a white-sheeted ghost from her fingertips.

“Are you sure? You… you haven’t been yourself all day.”

He was silent at this, and Greg was pretty sure it was because the answer was obvious, painfully so.

(He hadn’t been himself in eight months now.)

The man swallowed thickly and turned away, dipping his rag in the basin on the nearby tray; the lukewarm water slushed around his wrists. He made a meal out of squeezing the cloth out, hoping that when he faced Steven and Pearl again, the moment would have passed, the unspoken things remaining unspoken.

But it was the very absence of a reply that seemed to gall Pearl, spiral her, and Greg could see, when he turned back to them, that she was utterly ruined.

She couldn’t hide it; it shone in the over-bright lights of her eyes.

“A-a kidney is bound to turn up,” she said, speaking in that rapid way she always did when she was upset (and trying not to let people see). “Dr. Maheswaran is looking for one even now, and… and… she thinks she might be able to secure a live donor kidney this time because, y-you know, the numbers and everything. Your numbers. Not that they’re abysmal. I mean, they’re bad, but—”

Greg tried to step in, tried to rescue her, before she got in too deep.

“I know it’s hard, Shtu-ball… but chin up,” he said gently as he maneuvered his washcloth beneath the kid’s neck. He skated around the bruises when he could. (There were so many new bruises, erupting like angry supernovas all across his tender skin.)

“Pearl’s right”—she shot him a grateful glance—“Dr. M’s not gonna give up, and neither are we.”

The silence stretched again.

It absolutely groaned.

And Steven finally moved his gaze away from Pearl and back to the bare ceiling.

Apparently, he’d been staring at the ceiling a lot today, divining something in it that no one else could see.

“Were you guys this scared… when Mom… when she was…”

But before he had ever gotten the words out, before he could finish another word let alone the whole sentence, Pearl abruptly extricated herself from Steven, gently setting his hand back on the bed, gently throwing her white cloth of a flag down.

“Excuse me,” she muttered feverishly. “I’ve got to… I can’t—restroom.”

But rather than flee into the door that led to the ensuite bathroom, she swung through the adjacent door, the one that led out into the hall, and Steven watched the place where her lithe form disappeared with cavernous eyes.

Sunken eyes.

Dull.

His mouth still partially open where he was still forming the words.

“I… I was so scared, buddy,” Greg said quietly, his throat constricting with all the surging memories. Her big, brown eyes. The tubes running through her skin. How he held her hand at the end, when Dr. Howard unplugged the machines, so she didn’t have to be alone.

Pearl, of course, held the other.

And there they were, the three of them.

And then, just the two of them.

Alone.

Steven’s eyes, so much like his mother’s own, turned to capture him now, penetrating his father somewhere deep in the muck and mire of his soul.

“… are you scared now?”

He choked back a sob.

“Yeah, buddy. I am.”

vii.

They sat together on Yellow’s hospital bed for a long time, not exactly talking, but communicating in other ways—in the brush of their nearly touching shoulders, in the painful glances they would occasionally shift each other from the corners of their eyes, in the way that Yellow’s pinky finger rested on top of Blue’s wrist where their hands were placed on top of the sheets in the microscopic space between them.

Now once more armored in a button-down shirt and a pair of slacks, Yellow Diamond almost looked herself—brilliant and impressive, striking to the last.

And then she would look to the side again, revealing the raw cuts now laced into her sculpted cheeks.

And Blue would fantasize about gently touching one, running her fingers across one of those tentatively scabbed lines, capturing the measure of her wife’s face, relearning it all over again.

But in the end, she didn’t dare.

Because for right now, this was simply enough.

To be sitting next to Yellow Diamond.

To simply be.

Together.

For once, not entirely alone, even though so many unvoiced things still remained.

Three words.

Mountains of griefs.

And something else now, too.

I don’t want to commit to claiming anything about these tests, Yellow had explained earlier, her usually gruff voice working itself into something gentle, a little more kind. Not until I know something for sure…

You don’t believe I can take it? Blue’s tone was as gentle as it was accusatory in that devastatingly contradictory way of hers.

Frankly, her wife returned quietly, no.

And somehow, it was the truthfulness in the other’s expression which made Blue stop short of pressing for more, for she could see, in the lines beneath Yellow Diamond’s golden eyes, just what these past four years had done to her.

You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue.

It was a miracle that they were even sitting here.

Barely touching, barely talking, but still… it was a start.

It was something simply to be breathing the same air.

Around three, Dr. Reed finally dropped by with Yellow’s discharge papers and another doctor whose name Blue didn’t quite catch; she was a tired-looking lady, though, with a fiercely drawn face. Salt-and-pepper hair. Hands shoved in the pockets of her lab coat. They asked if Yellow would come with them. It’d maybe take an hour or so.

The businesswoman made to get up, but Blue stopped her with a withered hand on her arm.

“Wait,” she murmured. “Your collar is crooked.”

She reached upwards to adjust the crumpled white band, straightening the crease between her delicate fingers. 

And Yellow stared at her silently—with open tenderness and rawness and aching disbelief.

And when she swallowed, Blue could see every cord convulse in the smooth column of her throat.

“Would you wait for me, Blue?”

But she must have realized how vulnerable that sounded because she quickly tried to amend herself, always aware of her audience, that there were people watching. She stood up abruptly and a little awkwardly; it was clear that one of her legs was killing her.

“In the town car, I mean?”

“Yes,” Blue returned softly. “Of course.”

Yes.

A complicated expression quivered across Yellow Diamond’s plump lips then; it was hesitant and rich, stiff and almost unbearably visceral in its reluctant vulnerability.

It wasn’t necessarily a smile, but it was something.

It was a start.

viii.

Pearl would have done something, anything, to escape her own body, but it clung to her stubbornly as she half-ran through the hospital’s halls—down Truman Ward and down the glass-encased skywalk, down the elevator, down some forsaken hallway and then another, the turns she took arbitrary and varied.

Anywhere but Room 11037.

Horror clawed its way up her throat—shame and awfulness and terrible, maddening grief—until she could hardly breathe for its presence in her mouth. The nausea was overwhelming. The memories she usually kept carefully tucked away surged forth, frothing like foam on the waves that skimmed the shore near their home.

Just the mention of Rose.

That alone was enough to undo her on any regular day.

But context mattered, too.

Steven had brought up his mother so readily, as though they and their situations were one in the same.

Like they were both—

But she couldn’t complete the thought, even to herself, because fundamentally, Pearl couldn’t accept the inevitable—not when Rose Quartz had once taught her what it was to touch the stars. 

Blindly, haphazardly, unintentionally, she found herself in one of the larger hallways in the hospital, and she immediately knew, from experience, that she had made her way down to the first floor. This particular corridor emptied out into the larger atrium and housed many of the administrative offices and various waiting rooms. 

It was fairly empty. A few people in olive colored scrubs walked by and paid the woman no attention, her total disintegration invisible to them.

Unseen.

And somehow, the fact of this was soothing to Pearl.

Comforting.

So she swiped a delicate hand across her face and moved forward until a sight towards the end of the hall stopped her short, like a blow to the stomach without being half as neat—so uncomplicated and yet so devastatingly simple.

A silver-haired woman wearing a dark blue dress.

Hands poised on a metallic cane.

Staring inscrutably at a pair of nondescript double doors.

Her heavy braid fell thickly across her shoulder.

ix.

Blue Diamond had been on her way out to the car when she noticed a half-open door in a dyad of two on the first floor of the hospital. Golden light spilled from the room upon the bare, white tiles, submerging them in a brightness, a warmth.

The brass label on the adjacent wall gleamed at her invitingly.

The chapel.

Because naturally, hospitals possessed chapels—sanctified spaces where people could pray to their gods and hope they would intercede on the behalves of their loved ones. There was something psychologically comforting in the gesture, she supposed—to do something in a situation where it felt like nothing else could be done, to speak to the Divine and take comfort in the fact that they were not alone because the Divine was omnipresent, and the Divine was all-encompassing, and the Divine loved them powerfully.

She stood in front of those doors for what seemed like an eternity and remembered painfully when she had once loved God.

She’d grown up with a Rosary woven between her fingers, singing Alleluia every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at Mass until her daughter was murdered, and every theological comfort she had ever held dear scattered to the floor like beads.

She supposed it was only nostalgia then, which drove her to lightly press on that already half-opened door.

But as to what made her go in, the former headmistress could hardly articulate.

Her fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the head of her cane.

Clank, she proceeded forward.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

x.

Above all, Pearl didn’t know what made her do it—it was almost as though a sense of daring reckless gripped her and propelled her forward, step over unthinking step. She approached the spot where Blue Diamond had only recently disappeared, her pale eyes flicking upwards to the label which named the room for what it was, and then back to the double doors again, which hadn’t been completely shuttered to a close since the entrance of its last visitor.

It was a small chapel from what Pearl could tell at a cursory glance, only offering the essential trifecta of artifacts—a couple of pews, a tiny altar, and what appeared to be the portrait of a dove, spreading its elegant wings across the back wall. 

And there, sitting in the middle of the front row, was Blue Diamond, her head defiantly lifted.

As though determinedly not in prayer.

Her concentrated gaze seemed to be trained upwards, directed at the beautifully painted mural, upon which the gentle lighting threw its warm, amber glow, casting the bird in molten gold.

That same feeling of daring propitiated her again, and it was with her arms tucked neatly over her chest that Pearl impulsively drew closer, stepping across the boundary of the threshold with tender steps, ballerina movements. Her footfalls were light by nature, and in the thin carpet, they were hushed to the point that the older woman didn’t seem to be aware that she had company at all. 

Her cane stood, temporarily abandoned, on the side of the row.

Though her head was high, her shoulders were hunched in on themselves.

Caved.

When Pearl reached the pew directly behind her, she skimmed her knuckles against the grains of the wooden armrest, producing a low, plaintive note as a means of attracting her attention without entirely startling her.

And it was with painful slowness, a certain gracefulness, too, that Blue Diamond finally turned her head to look Pearl’s way, her shadowed eyes wide with surprise and melancholy, with curiosity and well-practiced temperance.

Pearl’s thin brow furrowed.

She bit her lower lip.

xi.

“May I sit?” The Crystal Gem asked, and there was a brusqueness in her otherwise smooth voice that reminded Blue Diamond of yet another encounter with one of Steven’s motley guardians—the one who had stood in front of the door, the muscled woman with bicolored eyes. 

She had warned her against hurting Steven.

She, too, had looked at Blue with quiet disdain.

Perhaps loathing was the more fitting word.

“Be my guest…?” Blue returned, allowing a pause by which the woman could introduce herself. 

“Pearl,” she curtly supplied as she lowered herself to the end of the pew and sat rather primly, with one ankle crossed daintily over the other. 

“Pearl,” Blue echoed gently, trying the name on her tongue. It was a lyrical number, assonant and delicate, much like the person to which it belonged. 

For she was slight—as willowy as the other Crystal Gem had been powerfully built. Simply put, she looked as though one puff of wind would blow her over, bending her back like the breeze did stalks of long reeds, rending her, bifurcating her, snapping her in two. And just as Yellow and Blue’s physiognomies told the stories of their griefs, so, too, did the lines beneath Pearl’s eyes announce her own.

There was a boy in the hospital bed.

There was a wasting disease.

“May I assume,” she continued tentatively, “by the expression in your face, that you already know who I am?”

“Yes,” Pearl replied certainly, but then just as immediately said, “No. I don’t know.”

She closed her pale eyes against some inner turmoil as the ambient lighting gently kissed her beaten face, caressing her cheeks in honeyed gold.

“I know your name, and I know what your family’s company has done,” she continued, “but I suppose that isn’t the same thing as knowing you, is it? Understanding why my… why he… why Steven loves you.”

There was it again—that same oblique indictment that the other Crystal Gem had leveled at Diamond Electric, silently condemning her for all sorts of untold flaws, and Blue Diamond frowned, sucking a little on her lip as the charge did what it was intended to do—level a finger directly at her chest, pressing neatly upon her sternum.

Perhaps these activists were not as inconsequential as she had wanted them to be after all.

Perhaps they had something important to say.

Perhaps here was yet another instant in which Blue had looked away, painstakingly ignoring all of the uncouth things in order to more capably realize the vision of her perfect, invulnerable, tableau of an ugly, imperfect, sheltered life.

She accused Yellow of shoving Pink Diamond in a drawer, but perhaps Blue had always made sure to be in another room when all the shoving was being done.

“Because he loves you,” Pearl finished quietly, “and I’m trying to… I can’t quite figure it out.”

She turned to Blue directly then, appealing to her simply with her over-bright eyes and her slightly parted mouth, with the shadows all over her face.

So many premature lines.

And Blue Diamond returned the gaze as steadily as she could.

Perhaps she even mirrored it.

Lines and shadows and lines.

xii.

“I don’t think… I don’t imagine that I’ve been good at love in a very long time,” Blue began, each word slow and precise, maneuvered carefully on her lilting tongue like a hand-rolled cigarette wheeled between expert fingertips. “Giving, receiving it… showing it… even with my daughter… even before she—”

But the woman could not complete the sentence.

And Pearl found that she didn’t want her to.

The unspoken conclusion sat in the space between them—a little girl Pearl imagined her to be, arranged in a pretty pink dress, dangling her Mary-Jane enclosed feet from the crimson pew.

“But Steven Universe,” she continued, and even at his very name, the mere mention of him, the older woman’s expression seemed to subtly transform, the heaviness in it unfurling.

Incrementally lightening.

Surely.

“He extended a flower and smile to me that day in the cemetery. He noticed that I was sad. And that taught me a lesson I had never thought to learn in all of these many staggering years…”

Pearl couldn’t help herself then; a breathless question fell impatiently from her lips.

“And what would that be?”

Blue Diamond arched a dark brow at her that would have been haughty were it not for the tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to exceed their sunken edges.

“That there is such kindness, such… such love, in your troubles being seen, identified, and acted upon. He saw my sadness, and he named it. He gave me that tiny hibiscus and showed me, wordlessly, that I was not alone.” 

She glided a skeletal hand across the side of her face, her palm capturing the beginnings of those now falling tears.

“I was being seen, Pearl, for the first time in I cannot tell you when… and it made me realize that this is what I wanted most of all, that perhaps, this is what all humans really want in the end.”

“To be seen,” Pearl repeated, her voice constricted, so many emotions thick.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond whispered with a gracious nod of her head, disturbing the heaviness of her silvery braid, “and to be loved by another.”

“Is that what he wants?” She pressed insistently, but deep down, the answer was already known to her, spelled out to her in the rush of so many memories. How many times alone in the past couple of days had he told them as much, both with words and without them? How many times had he asked them all not to look away? Amethyst opened a window for him so he could hear the words they’d all been too cowardly to utter in his presence. In a hospital room, in the dead of night, he told her to rip the bandaid off, to confirm that which everyone already knew and tiptoed around instead of saying.

You’re very sick, sweetheart.

I know.

And even still, even after all these horrible and unsubtle signs, she’d already done the damn thing and run away from him again anyway.

He asked if she’d been scared when Rose had been in the same place, laying in a hospital bed.

Sick.

Dying.

And yes, the answer so clearly, so blatantly was.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond murmured, her quiet voice tender.

And almost, if not entirely, kind.

“I think that is what he has desired all along.”

Pearl had no other recourse then, no semblance of a facade left by which to cling to, to desperately hold onto in a chapel where two entirely different women sat side by side, utterly undone by the same boy.

She brought both of her hands up to her mouth then and began to weep.

xiii.

Blue allowed the woman her moment of private grief, turning her head away from the sight, even though the sounds weren’t as easily escapable.

The sobs.

The keening.

The primality of it all.

Tears gathered in her own eyes, but she refused to let them fall, she swept them all away—because she understood intimately, viscerally, somehow without really knowing it—that this wasn’t her moment, her child, her bone deep, unbearable, unlivable grief.

Though it had once had been.

And it still was.

But not for this child.

Not for Steven Universe.

She’d lost a child; she wasn’t currently losing one.

And there was a fundamental difference in the fact.

There was primacy.

Five minutes passed, maybe ten, and Pearl gathered herself, collected all her tiny, fragmented pieces into a frame that wasn’t entirely shaking with its own reckoning anymore. And Blue finally looked over to see that the woman was leaned forward on the edge of her pew, the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

“He’s not doing well,” she said faintly.

If Blue hadn’t been staring at the movement of her thin mouth, she wouldn’t have known where the words had come from.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have even believed them.

They struck cleanly, like a slap to the face.

“Yesterday’s… disappointment”—disappointment was not the correct word—“hurt him badly, and he’s shutting down. Closing off.”

Each word was painful, razor sharp in clarity, dragged from Pearl’s teeth against her will. She dragged her fingers in lines down her wet face, now reaching the point of her chin, now cupping them into fists on either side of her jaw.

“We can’t get through to him,” she finished quietly. “We’ve all tried.”

And tried and tried and tried—Blue could see every failed attempt scrawled in the lines all over the woman’s tired face. The devastation bruised her black and blue.

“I’m sorry,” she offered simply. “I’m so… sorry.”

But Pearl, with all suddenness, with an aspect of barely repressible contempt, leveled her an incredulous look as though to say, What good will sorry do?

She had an excellent point.

“You should talk to him sometime,” she went on to say, turning away from Blue now. A series of conflicted emotions seemed to be playing out in real time across her pale, sky-colored eyes—disdain warring with grief warring with loathing warring with grudging respect.

It wasn’t quite endearment, though.

And Blue Diamond had a sneaking suspicion that it never would be.

“Maybe not today… he’s tired… hurt… but some day… you should visit him. He would like that.”

It was Blue’s turn to stare at the other woman incredulously now, her mouth slightly open as she awaited a punchline that never quite came. Pearl obstinately refused to meet her gaze, fingertips templed just next to her trembling lips.

“I… I have nothing to offer him,” she whispered, a trembling note in her voice as she tried to convey exactly just how serious she was being. “I’m hardly… I mean, he was the one who saved me. I don’t know what I could ever give him in equal return.”

But somehow, without really knowing why, how, or all the sundry explanatory variables in-between, she knew that this was perfectly untrue.

And Pearl seemed to know it, too, for the corner of her lip slightly lifted in the sliver of a sardonic smile.

“Start with a flower and a smile, perhaps.”

[miss-tc-nova]

Shared Ailments - Sora x Reader

Okay, I could probably do this better, but I’m brain dead and got other things to do. I was inspired to write something after listening to Yuukei Yesterday but figured the best fit was Sora, which I don’t normally write for but tada! Enjoy. 

Music Inspiration: Yuukei Yesterday cover by Jubyhonic

~~~~~

              The sun beats down on the defenseless, little Destiny Islands. Citizens are subject to the glaring sunrays but have come to adapt to their harsh heat. I’ve only been here a few years and even I’ve become somewhat accustom to the tropical temperature but I will blatantly state that I detest the sunlight: it’s blinding and burning and ruthless. I’d rather spend my time inside, perfectly content in my own company.

              Today offers no relief from the typical threat of sunburn. I only just left school and my body is already starting to feel sticky with sweat. My feet swiftly carry me down the sidewalk towards my home, eager to get someplace cool.

              Just as I round a corner, something heavy slams into me. The force throws me to the ground before subsequently squishing me. Pain grates across my arm but I can’t even gripe about it because my winded lungs are busy with a coughing fit.

              “Sorry! Are you okay?!”

              Still hacking away, I open my eyes to see the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Despite his concern, the brunette doesn’t seem to think his full weight on top of me is a problem and the proximity sends fire surging up my spine.

              “Sora! Get off!” someone else demands.

              “Right! Sorry! Let me help you!”

              Relieving me from his mass, the boy hops up. He not-so-carefully takes my arm and pulls me off the ground. Hissing at the sting, I immediately rip out of his grasp. It’s not gushing, but the concrete certainly shredded my skin.

              “Look what you did,” a third voice scolds, the girl standing behind him.

              In this trio, I only know of Riku—he’s my neighbor. However, since I moved here a few years ago, I’ve only seen these three in passing; they seem to disappear for months, sometimes years, at a time before randomly showing back up. I’ve run into Riku a few times, but we didn’t really interact which was fine by me. From what I have seen of his personality, it seemed he wouldn’t be a bother at all, unlike the brunette: Sora.

              Sora apologizes again. “I’m sorry. Here, let me help.”

              I flinch away from him. “Get away from me!”

              “I can help!”

              “I don’t need your help,” I spit. “I need you to get away from me.”

              “But I can fix it!” Somehow, those big blue eyes get even bigger and something about that look disconnects my brain from my mouth. “Please?”

              Whatever he’s done to destroy my defense prevents a response, which brings a giddy grin to his face. The next thing I know, I’m being dragged in a different direction. The entire time, Sora radiates happiness like the sun even though his plans are now to help someone he injured.

              I’m still a little hazy on what happened from there. We ended up at Sora’s house, sitting around his living room. I thought he was going to get a first aid kit or something, but he just held my arm. I would’ve jerked away, except a gentle glow seeped from beneath his fingers, distracting me long enough to lull me back into the tedious discussion. When he finally let go, my jaw dropped. There was nothing left behind—no scrape, no scabs, nothing but unmarred skin. It had me stunned and questioning the normalcy of these people, especially Sora. He was able to overcome every habit cultivated to maintain my peace and privacy. I don’t know if it had to do with the stuff he used on my arm—or if that light was some sort of virus or something—but my sharp tongue could not get through his lightheartedness. Still, I was desperate for an escape so I dropped it and left, briefly mentioning that I hoped to never run into him again.

              But I did.

              Somehow, Riku conned me into hanging out with him—what he failed to mention was that Sora and Kairi would be joining us. I figured it was worth my while to be on neighborly terms with the guy next door, whether it be for favors, friendship, or emergencies, so I thought there wouldn’t be any trouble. Well, trouble was his middle name and he showed up just five minutes after I did.

              Unfortunately, that one accepted hang out apparently gave them the okay to bring me along on all their random shenanigans. They would ambush me after school or even straight up kidnap me from my front door. They were harmless inconveniences, so I endured them, but they repeatedly ignored my every attempt to sneak away or shut down another get together. Nothing I did stopped them from showing up later to abduct me again.

              Admittedly, Riku and Kairi are nice people that I could get along with pretty easily. Sora—Sora is like the sun; he’s so much for one introvert to deal with. He’s so peppy and energetic, even when he’s being lazy. Sure, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I just can’t deal with that for so long.

              To add to the exhaustion, every time I see that guy it’s like my body is trying to shut down. My heart shudders while I start to overheat and I can’t think straight. Sometimes I can barely get a word out, let alone against him. He must be using more of that weird magic or something to make me sick. I’ve considered talking to the other two about it, but as soon as Sora’s gone, I’m fine so I haven’t pressed for any answers yet.

              Today is Saturday. I’ve been holed up inside since I woke up, expecting to have the perfect, peaceful day. All my homework is already done, I don’t have any chores except for making food, and I’ve already collected everything I need to enjoy my free day. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.

              There’s a knock at the door. I don’t like that knock; I wasn’t expecting anyone today. For a moment, I simply stare at the door, contemplating whether or not I should answer it.

              What if it’s an emergency?

              A hand slaps against my forehead for such a stupid thought; now I can’t just let it go. Grumbling, I stalk towards the door to see who’s intruding on my respite.

              Immediately, I’m greeted with his beaming face. “Morning!”

              The door slams shut.

              Fuck.

              In that short second, my heart stopped and I can feel the blood rushing to my ears.

              “Ah c’mon!” he calls. “You didn’t even hear what we wanted!”

              “I don’t care what you want!” I shout, thankful I’m not arguing face-to-face with him or I’d never win. “Go away!”

              “We know you’re not doing anything today,” Kairi says.

              “Exactly! Nothing! And you can’t make me!”

              Riku’s with them. “C’mon. We need your help.”

              “No!”

              I find it suspicious when there’s a delay in their coercion but all hope of them abandoning their harassment is lost when I hear Sora’s voice faint on the other side.

              “Really? You think that’ll work?”

              I press my ear to the door.

              “Of course,” Kairi replies; there’s something in her tone that sends shivers down my spine.

              Riku’s got that same note in his voice. “Do you want them to come or not?”

              “Yeah, but they already said no.” The brunette is the odd-man-out, sounding more confused than anything.

              “Just do it,” orders the girl.

              Sora sighs. This time, loud enough that it must be intended for me, he begs, “Please?”

              It must be some magic spell because, without first consulting my brain, my arm reaches out to tear the door open. Sora seems just as surprised as I feel, however, when I realize what’s happened, I throw a glare to the smirking cohorts behind him.

              “What do you want?” I snap, grateful that this unforeseen circumstance hasn’t yet destroyed my conscience.

              This is where it starts to deteriorate. With all that sunshine back in full force, Sora says, “We’re gonna do some repairs on the stuff on the other island and we wanted to know if you’d help. You don’t have to do any of the hard stuff.”

              A hand over my eyes feigns frustration; in reality, it’s there to shield me from his cheeriness.

              “I just wanted to relax and be lazy today,” I groan.

              Somehow, Kairi shimmies past me to nudge me out the door. “You can relax while you keep us company.”

              “Uh, hey!”

              She drops a pair of my shoes at my feet and closes my front door.

              “And hold the nails,” Riku insists, pushing a bucket of metal into my hands.

              “I hate all of you,” I growl as the pair continues ushering me out of my yard.

              Sora jumps ahead, looking back at me joyfully. “It’s gonna be fun. But thanks for coming; we really appreciate it.”

              That happy face—those dazzling eyes, that beautiful smile—is the spell he holds over me; it eradicates all coherent thoughts and causes my stomach to squirm.

              Unable to lash out, I drop my gaze. “It’s fine.”

              So my plans are effectively destroyed. Once we arrive, the trio gets to work just as they said, fixing up some of the old structures scattered about the place—just a few worn planks here and there. We chatter along as the work goes by and I diligently do my job of providing nails. It’s hot and I’d still prefer to be at home right now, but it’s not the worst Saturday of my life.

              I’m not exactly sure when, but Riku and Kairi abandon Sora and I on the bridge in favor of the docks. Riku took with him a handful of nails, essentially condemning me to alone time with Sora. So I sit around, passing nails out, while he attempts to talk my ear off. And no matter what quips or insults I throw at him, he just goes on as if I hadn’t said anything. It’s like he’s impervious—or deaf. Still, no matter how many times I tell him to shut up, I can’t block out a single thing he says. He’s got my undivided attention whether I want to give it or not.

              He beats on the board with his hammer. “But I gotta say, being a pirate was more fun than being a mermaid…man…merman?”

              Exasperated, I reply, “Sora, if you’re gonna lie to me, you could at least make it believable.”

              “But I’m not lying,” he says with a childish pout.

              I pass another nail into his open palm. “Really? Pirates? Mermaids? Monsters?! There’s no way you turned into all these crazy things.”

              “I did!” he insists, lining the nail. “But you can’t tell anyone.”

              “And have them think I’m crazy too? No thanks,” I snark, looking away. Curiosity gets the better of me. “But why not?”

              “It’s this whole crazy world order thing. We’re not supposed to tell people about other worlds or it might freak ‘em out,” he casually says as he works.

              “Then why did you tell me?”

              Ocean eyes lift to ensnare my heart. With a smile more blinding than the sun, he answers, “Because you seem like someone I can trust.”

              That’s it: I’m done. Panic takes over while I fight the urge to vomit beneath this woozy feeling. That inexplicable fever begins to run rampant again.

              Sora’s high spirits falter. “Are you okay?”

              Dropping the bucket, I stand and blurt out, “I’mgoinghome.”

              “What?”

              “I can’t do this anymore!” I start for the hut, only for a hand to take my wrist.

              “Hey, what’s wrong?”

              “Don’t touch me!” I snap, ripping my arm away. The trepidation prevents me from answering his reasonable questions.

              “Wha…Did I say something?”

              There is no rational answer. “Leave me alone!”

              He slips around to block my path, that worry on his face aggravating my ailment. “Are you okay?”

              “Get out of my way!” I demand, my heart thumping so violently I’m sure even he can hear it. “I’m going home!”

              “But, why?”

              “BECAUSE OF YOU!”

              The second I realize what I’ve said, my hand slaps over my mouth. Sora’s surprise turns to horror and hurt. All the disorders in me disappear, replaced with utter dread—I royally screwed up.

              “Because…of me?”

              The words stockpile in my mouth, random ones falling out. “I-I…you…I can’t…”

              “Are you mad at me?” This is the first time Sora has ever taken anything I’ve said to heart. His heartbroken voice and kicked-puppy expression cause a vice in my chest.

              “N-No! I just…”

              “What did I do wrong?”

              “I DON’T KNOW!” I shout. “I don’t know what you did but every time you’re around I can’t function! I’m burning up! I always feel like I’m gonna puke! My brain doesn’t work right and I say stupid things! It feels like someone’s squeezing my heart! I don’t know what you’re doing but it’s freaking me out!”

              The sadness I instilled in Sora melts but gives me no comfort. It turns into some sort of revelation.

              “You feel it too?”

              I hesitate. “What?”

              Looking away, he scratches at the back of his head. “Every time I’m near you, I feel kinda sick, like I’m gonna throw up. I feel warmer, I always forget what I’m doing, and I know I talk a lot but, with you, I can’t stop talking—I even tell you things I shouldn’t. Mostly, it feels like my heart’s gonna burst. I really thought I was crazy or something but if you feel it too, maybe I’m not.”

              All I can do is stare; he describes it differently, but the basics seem to be there: fever, mild nausea, brain failure, stupid mouth, and a bewildering heart. I would almost consider this some minor illness, but I can’t think of a single illness that muddles thoughts and runs a mouth the way I have.

              “But you know,” Sora adds, “it’s also hard to stop staring when I’m with you. And…I can’t stop smiling.” Those are different but I still can’t make sense of any of it. On the other hand, for Sora, it seems like he’s following some train of thought. “It’s actually not that bad. I like seeing you and I like talking to you, even when you nag me. I really like hanging out with you.”

              He’s reached an epiphany, the light in his head shining in his eyes.

              So happy, yet so gentle, Sora says, “I like you.”

              “You…like me?” I whisper, trying to wrap my head around his diagnosis. “You feel it too…and you like me?”

              “Yeah.”

              The concept rolls in my conscience, taking in each symptom and carefully fitting it against Sora’s conclusion. They all align perfectly. Somehow, someway, I fell for this dork of a man and was just too much of a coward to confront it.

              “Oh no,” I complain, hiding behind my fingers. “I’m such an idiot.”

              “What’s wrong?” His concern is back.

              Looking him in the eye was difficult to being with; it’s damn near unbearable now. The sun is no match against the blood in my veins. Arms wrap around me to contain the anxiety building inside. It feels like an eternity before I manage to voice my problem.

              “I…like you too.”

              The sunshine that he radiates feels different. There’s nothing different about it by any means, but it represents something different now. It’s not the burning, overbearing brightness that I’ve been trying to avoid; it’s warm and welcoming. It’s still uncomfortable as hell, I still want to vomit, but with a tweak of perspective, it’s tolerable—maybe even enjoyable.

              “You do?” he asks hopefully.

              I can’t recall having ever smiled like this. “Yeah.”

              Sora’s expression blanks, a cherry red blooming across his face.

              “Sora?”

              Without warning, he grips my shoulders and pulls me into a tight embrace.

              “You have the most amazing smile,” he murmurs.

              My heart skips and I might be on fire but I don’t want to run away this time. So I slip my arms around his neck and hide my face in his shoulder.

              “You goof,” I hum into his shirt.

              Then I see them, across the sand, sitting on the docks, with the smuggest grins on their faces. The thought strikes me like a bolt of lightning—they knew. Those two assholes knew everything this entire time and planned this whole thing. As I glare, a pair of fingers wave at them behind the brunette’s back, receiving sneaky snickers in response.

              Sora leans back. “You okay?”

              I put on a quick smile—he doesn’t need to know. “I’m great.”

              A quick peck ambushes my cheek, reigniting the flustering awkwardness.

              “Yeah you are.”

[shnuggletea]

Chapter Two of D-Men is now live! 

The prequel to Feudal Connection’s Best Dark Fanfiction 2020 Cell Mates continues! For the awesome and beautiful event @inuparentsday​, we see Izayoi and Toga finally meet! And get a few more looks into the world before Cell Mates. 

Art by @kirrtash​ for the event can be found here!

Don’t forget the playlist!!!

Tag List!

@underwater0phelia​ @lavendertwilight89​ @mamabearcat​ @nartista​ @nopenname22​ @echobows​ @superpixie42​ @smmahamazing​ @redflamesofpassion​ @jme-chan​ @cstorm86​ @cicleydark-light​ @ruddcatha​ @lavaffair​ @kirrtash​ @sistasecbhere​ @obsessandfangirl​ @britonell​ @lordofthechips​ @mcornilliac​ @faolenwolf​ @keichanz​ @phoenix-before-the-flame​ @artisticloveexpressitsall​ @lamuertadehambre​ @noyourenotreal​ @mitty-san​ @thenoammonster​ @little-deeluna​ @royaltrashpanda​ @sailorbabydoll92​ @storyweaver2017​ @malditamigs​ @adorabubblesblog​ @petri808​ @anniehcresta​ @fan-dumpp​ @itzatakahashi​ @utakuprincess​ @theschultinator​ @all-too-ale​ @little-inukag-obsessed​ @theseagullqueen​ @queenofthesquirps​ @jolinaaa00​ @knowall7k​ @neutronstarchild​ @fawn-eyed-girl​ @eringobroke​ @sapphirestarxx​ @clearwillow​ @dangerouspompadour​ @misspepperpottss @kagometaishostory​​ @egosolivagant​​ @fandompromptsandfun​​ @fandomartlover​​ @fanficnewbiee​

Always feel free to let me know if you want to be added to my tag list!

Chapter Two

As far as cells went, this was far from the worst Toga had ever been in. After all, he’d been married once. 

He laughed at the joke inside his head; even Miya would have laughed at that one. The monk was nearby, watching and waiting. Or he was supposed to be. The whole point of allowing these humans to capture him was so they would know where they were and what they knew. And just how many of them there were. 

It wasn’t just for his kind, it was for the humans as well. If MiLady and her croons discovered this place first then they would blow it up and call it a gas leak. Accidents tended to happen to humans that knew too much.

Toga wasn’t surprised his weapons were taken but they took his clothes too! Including his jacket! More than just for warmth, the fire rat robes it was made of kept his chest from being easily pierced. It was his armor and he very much wanted it back. Especially with the guys in lab coats coming in close and carrying needles.

He hated needles.

“Are we sure these will even work?” A skinny one with thick glasses asked.

They all looked to the tall guy with long hair. He was the one that ‘greeted’ Toga when he arrived. They’re boss, Toga didn’t so much as sit a little straighter as the tall man stood before him. The only thing that separated them was a thick layer of glass. Did they think the caution stickers on the front of the glass somehow made it stronger? None of them seemed to realize that, if he didn’t want to be here, it would be nothing for him to leave their small prison.

“What’s your name?” The man asked.

Toga eyed the needles again as the men stepped closer. “Well… my enemies call me Fighting Fang. While my friends call me Toga.”

He put it to the humans to decide; friend or foe.

“Will this needle pierce your skin?”

Twerking up a brow, he eyed the man carefully. “Yeah…”

“Good. Dr. Yosh?”

The boss gestured to the skinny one (a Dr. Yosh it would seem) and he stepped up to the glass. Pressing some buttons that Toga could hear and not see, a small hatch in the glass opened up. The cage was just long and deep enough for him to lay down on the raised floor. Miya would bitch at him later but unless he wanted to break out of this cage without any idea how much these humans knew about them then he would have to let them take his blood. 

Just as he said it would, the needle broke through his skin and allowed them to take his blood. Toga wasn’t impervious (hence the need for his armor) he just healed quickly. So quick that most wounds were similar to the needle under his skin like a pin prick. Right now, Toga wasn’t sure which was more annoying. A shot to his gut or the Prick smirking at him. 

“Guess you’ll be calling me Fighting Fang then.” He spoke as calmly as possible to the man in charge as they stared one another down.

“Is that a threat?” Dr. Setsuna asked.

“No. I just don’t like you.”

The jerk laughed and took a small vial of Toga’s blood. “Like I care.”

He had spoken softly as if he didn’t know Toga could hear him. When Dr. Prick looked over his shoulder back at him, he was clearly gaging to see if Toga had heard him. Resisting the urge to flip him the bird, Toga remained as if he had heard nothing. The point was to learn what they knew; not give them more information. 

Maybe he could steal his blood back on the way out? He also wasn’t sure how much it mattered; he and Miya had watched them collect samples of Snowflake’s blood she left behind that night. What was some more blood for them to play with?

“Dr. Hime? You’re still here?”

One of Takemaru’s lab partners stood in the doorway of her lab. She wasn’t leaving until they did. And even then, she was going to take a peek at whatever they were working on. “Yes, of course.”

“Dr. Setsuna has another sample for you to examine.”

More blood. Was there a point to studying this one or would he simply tell her not to worry about it a few hours from now? Izayoi took it regardless. It was a piece of the puzzle and she hoped it would help her understand the samples she had already. 

Extraction, Quantification, then Amplification. Steps she had run so many times in her lifetime that it was muscle memory. It was how she knew she hadn’t made a mistake when again, animal DNA was present with the strange markers that even she couldn’t identify. This time it was canine DNA. 

Was this some kind of joke? Was Takemaru messing with her and wasting her time?! Fuming, she left her lab and stormed over to the one across the hall. The lab assistants were still in a tisy with excitement and all Izayoi could think was that they should have their coffee privileges revoked. 

“Dr. Setsuna!” 

He turned and smirked at her as she stomped over to him. “Dr. Hime, you’re still here?”

Like she was going anywhere with all this bullshit going on. “Yes.” She answered with a hiss of irritation.

“Well then. Since you’re so… insistent, I suppose you can get a peek at our new project.”

She hadn’t expected it to be this easy. Takemaru was bragging and it only made her feel sick as he placed a hand on her shoulder to guide her around. A sickness that grew when she spotted the man that had entered through the loading bay was now in a cell. A cell that wasn’t constructed hastily; it had been there long before the man showed up.

And there was more than one.

The man looked alright, laying out in the cell like it was any other night or as if it were his couch. His eyes found her and he sat up a little straighter in his box but it didn’t allow much movement. It was more than enough for her to feel light headed. 

The blue streaks on his face she saw before. Now in a white t-shirt and pants like a test subject, she saw matching marks on his arms and one peeking from under his shirt on his side. But that wasn’t what had her struggling to breathe. It was his eyes. They were amber. Like crystalized sap that was held up to the sunlight. They glimmered and glowed and stuck to her; as if sticky like sap too.

“Izayoi, this is our new specimen.”

She wanted to glare at Takemaru for his informal tendencies as well as calling a man a specimen. But her eyes refused to leave the strange man. His long, flowing locks didn’t help; he was very handsome. 

Now close, he grinned back at her through the glass and winked. “You can call me Toga.”

Before she had a chance to say a single sound, Takemaru stepped between and started pushing her back. “As you can see, we have a lot to do here and it is already very late.”

“Wait! You can't just lock him up…”

“He volunteered. There is no harm being done here. Now excuse us, Dr. Hime, as we get to work.”

She was shoved back out into the hall and the door was locked behind her. The sound echoed off the walls. 

“Volunteered?” She said to herself. They had no clue she’d been there when they ushered the man in with cuffs on his wrists. 

Izayoi hated lies.

Busying herself with blood samples and other tissues from other cases sent her way; Izayoi bided her time until the sounds of others in the hallway came to her door. It was one am and those bastards were finally leaving. The locks on the door clicked loudly and Takemaru followed behind the others; leaving last. She waited a beat to make sure no one was coming back and rushed to the other end of the hall. There were video cameras in her lab but that was due to the nature of her work. Many of her cases involved criminal activity so she never questioned the need for her and her assistants to be watched. Izayoi had to hope it was a different story for Takemaru’s lab. But with them imprisoning people she had little doubt they were filming in his lab.

Her ID/access card in hand, she swiftly ran it through the reader; not surprised in the least when she was denied access. Glancing around her twice (making sure she was really alone) she pulled out another ID card. Takemaru was so full of himself that he had a bad habit of leaving his card in the break room. Izayoi had intended to give it back to him but after two weeks of his patronizing ways and his ease with getting a new one, she didn’t feel the need to be so… helpful. Instead, she helped herself. 

Takemaru didn’t even cancel the card. How is it an idiot like him got promoted over her? She rolled her eyes at the thought; she lacked an important piece of anatomy and that was it.

Slowly, Izayoi made her way to the back of the large lab; looking for cameras as she went. Not in sight of the ‘cage’ yet and already the man somehow knew she was there. “What are you doing here so late?” Taking the last few steps, she revealed herself and the man wasn’t surprised in the least. “Someone as pretty as you shouldn’t be out this late alone.”

“So if I was ugly it would be okay?”

He smirked and gave her a wink. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

His eyes were hypnotic. Maybe that was why he was in here? That didn’t make sense, why would Takemaru care about magnetizing eyes. “I’m not sure you understand the meaning of that proverb…”

“It means that everyone is beautiful to someone. So no, even if I found you unattractive, it still wouldn’t be alright that you were out this late alone.”

Izayoi shook her head. Not because she didn’t like what he had to say but because it was far from the point. “What are you doing here?”

“Me? I’m enjoying this lovely cell. Isn’t that obvious?” He gestured as much as he could to his small surroundings. Which wasn’t much.

“Why?”

He leaned forward until his breath fogged up the glass. “Cause I’m special.”

At some point, Izayoi had gotten closer too, her hands now on the glass between them. “Why does your blood have canine DNA mixed in?” Her eyes danced from his amber eyes to his blue streaks. “They… would have sanitized you… washed the paint off your face…”

His head tilted to the side at her but then he held up a finger; the long claw on the end of it made her shiver. Then he licked the finger and ran the wet digit right through the middle of the mark on his arm. “Not paint. Just skin.”

“A tattoo?”

“Who would get tattoos like this? On purpose?”

“Same person who donates their body to science while they’re still alive?”

He rested his head against the glass and (although impossible) she swore she felt the heat of his skin through the glass on her fingertips. “You got me there, I guess.” He stared up at her through his lashes, watching her every micromovement. “Izayoi, right?” She nodded. “My friends call me Toga.”

“And those who aren’t so lucky?”

He sat up at that and crossed his arms in defiance. “What are you doing here? You don’t strike me as the type to be into freak shows…”

“I came to… get you out.”

He huffed, a broad grin on his face that made his eyes sparkle. “You don’t even know me. I could be a killer.”

Izayoi considered his words carefully as well as his demeanor. “Two blood samples came to my lab tonight. One that had feline DNA mixed in. It arrived before you did. Then I got another sample of completely different DNA. Which I can assume is yours?” He didn’t nod or react in any way but she continued regardless. “Did you kill the person with feline DNA?”

Toga scrutinized her, studying her face. “I didn’t. But I did get you your blood sample if you know what I mean.”

“You hurt her?”

His smirk returned at the mention of a gender. “Clever. And yes. But believe me when I say she deserved it.”

Izayoi couldn’t explain it but she did believe him. He could have been telling her what she wanted to hear though; he was in a cage and at her mercy. “I need to get you out of here now. Before anyone comes back.” She looked at the keypad but there was no card access. You had to know the code. “Any chance you caught the code for this?”

“They didn’t share that sort of thing with me.” She passed him a glare and he chuckled softly. “I did hear the keys. If you press them again, I’ll know which ones are the right ones.”

“If I put in the wrong code it’ll set off an alarm for sure.”

“What if we broke the glass?”

She looked around the lab for something to use. “It’s way too thick, I’m sure. I could maybe try a chair but there’s probably an alarm set to it too…”

Loud squeals filled the air as well as a red flashing light. Izayoi turned back to the glass but it was gone; the large and thick layer was now mostly on the floor in large chunks. And the cell was empty.

“Oops.”

Now she squealed, spinning on her heel to find Toga right behind her, breathing down her neck. “Holy shit!”

His hands went off, showing off his claws again. “Sorry. But I didn’t want you getting in trouble”

Her mind spun as she looked between the man and the broken cell. “Could you get out the whole time?! What the hell?!”

“I was just visiting,” he said casually while slipping his hand into hers, “I’m going to need your help getting a few things.”

His ‘jail break’ was a little earlier than he had originally planned. But the Doctor was so damn cute, he couldn’t help himself and was showing off a bit. She also seemed to know the most about him and his people out of all the others in this place. Which wasn’t much.

Her hand felt so small in his and he was trying to focus on not crushing it. She also wasn’t pulling away from him even with his claws. Dr. Izayoi Hime was intriguing to say the least. And her scent had his other senses in overload. Toga knew better than to get in over his head… for now anyway. He had more important things to worry about, following Izayoi’s scent back to her lab. 

“I’m going to need those blood samples you have.” She shook her head at him and his response (without control) was to pull her closer. Now towering over her, he looked deeply into her fawn colored eyes. “It’s not safe for you to have them.”

Izayoi’s heart skipped and settled quickly. It was clear she appreciated honesty. So how honest would he have to be with her now to keep her safe? Because at this point, he was very attached to her and he didn’t just mean their hands. 

“Cameras…” She didn’t point and he felt like an idiot because he could hear them clearly now as they turned. “If I just give you the samples…”

“I get it.” He held up a claw and placed it to her neck carefully so as not to cut so much as a fine hair on it. “Please, get the samples and trash them.” She moved and he followed, keeping close to her while trying to keep watch. The lights were still going crazy and the siren was really getting on his last nerve. “Do you know where they’re keeping my clothes and the weapons I had on me?”

Dr. Hime finished dumping the blood down the sink and then filled the vials with some kind of liquid solution. “I might know.”

They said nothing more while in the room with eyes and ears. Toga kept his wits this time as they entered a room at the far back of the facility. Only to have Izayoi lead them to an elevator. It was the same one they had put him in when he got here and he had counted the floors. They were on floor twenty out of twenty-four. Toga had no clue how many floors were owned by the scientists but now he knew floor twenty and floor sixteen where theirs as Izayoi led them off on the lower floor.

She took his hand again but when he heard the whir of a camera and yanked her back. With one arm around her neck he felt the situation looked far more threatening for the Doctor. “Sorry about this…” he took a deep whiff of her scent and her soft black hairs tickled his nose, “actually, that’s a lie.”

Her hands were gripping his forearm but they did nothing to hide the small shake she did from his honesty. Nor the thumping her heart did from his closeness. It all made her scent permeate more and she smelt like sweet peach blossoms. 

Izayoi took one hand off him to point. “It’s the room up there but there’s another lock on the door.”

They stumbled up to the door and he pulled it open easily. “Must have forgot to lock it.”

“The building is on lock down,” she hissed when he lied to her, “that means everything locks automatically.”

Once out of the hallway, he let her go completely and began to search. “Well, I was right about one thing. You hate liars don’t you?”

She was stunned at the doorway. “Yes.”

“Guess that means you’re not a fan of that Setsuna guy?”

The little huff she did as well as the roll of her eyes was adorable. “He’s my boss.”

In a small locker along the wall, Toga smelled his scent. He popped open the locker like a can of soda and turned back to Izayoi, her eyes wide. “He’s a dick.”

Toga didn’t give a shit about his shirt and slacks, they were replaceable. So the only thing he grabbed was his jacket; the fire rat robes. “We came all the way down here for a worn out coat?”

He was shoving his arms through it and searching the rest of the space hastily. “Not everything is as it seems.”

“Is that your way of dodging the truth?”

Stopping, he looked back at the perturbed beauty with a grin. “It’s not a lie. I just don’t have the time to explain it more than that.” Izayoi rolled her eyes but no longer seemed pissed. “I have to find my swords.”

“Swords? You go around with swords?! What are you a ninja??!”

Laughter spilled out of him and he causally wrapped an arm around her waist to ‘escort’ her out. “Ninja. I like that.”

Out in the hall again, he held Izayoi tightly to give off a sense of captivity. Toga was certainly taking advantage though, turning her so her curves pressed against him. She had to tilt her head back to look at him; her light browns actually made him shiver when they found his eyes again. “I don’t… I don’t know where your swords are.”

She was whispering and it wasn’t because of the cameras. He was pretty sure they couldn’t hear much over the sirens that continued to irritatingly blare. “That’s okay, we’ll find them together.”

Before she could say anything else, he had the two of them back at the elevator. He was no longer hiding his demon speed; she had already seen his strength a few times. Izayoi looked pale and he felt her go slack in his arms. So he switched to carrying her. Sweeping an arm under her limp legs and lifting her was easy since she didn’t fight him on it. The many floor numbers were before him while Izayoi blacked out in his arms. 

“Alright… if I was a demon sword… where would I be?”

“Demon?” Izayoi murmured.

He doubted she would remember this. As it were, she was likely to think the whole night was all a nightmare. Leaning in, he whispered in her ear. “That’s right, Izayoi. I’m a demon.”

“Demon….”

“A dog demon to be exact. Some call me Fighting Fang while others call me The Great Dog General.”

“Fighting… Fang…?”

She was really out of it and if her heart and breathing wasn’t regulated, Toga would have been concerned. It was all just too much for the sweet Doctor. “Yeah. But as I said before, you should call me Toga.”

He pressed the floor they started on, twenty, and the box lurched. “Toga…”

Izayoi was grabbing his armor tightly in her fist; she was starting to rally. “My friends call me Toga. And you are definitely a friend… at least.”

The elevator was fast and they would be back at her lab soon. And Izayoi was blinking away her confused and overwhelmed sleep. Toga would never be able to explain it other than he felt it was his last chance, his only chance, lifting Izayoi up and gently pressing his lips to hers. It gave him a rush, a shot of adrenaline that had his heart racing and his body tingling. 

Her eyes were wide open when he opened his. She might remember that part but he had no problem with that. “Welcome back.” He smirked.

The ding of the elevator pulled her bright eyes from his and they moved in sync to put her back on her feet. She tried to walk out on her own but he couldn’t stand that; grabbing her and pulling her back like she was in danger. There was nothing to fear, only him. But she didn’t fight him (yet again) as he pressed her to him. 

“What are we doing back here?”

“We aren’t doing anything,” she got his meaning instantly, glaring up at him, “I’m going to find my swords.”

Izayoi shoved him hard. It did nothing but he noted her anger regardless. “There are seconds left until the building will be swarming with cops and other people with guns!”

He huffed. “They really need to work on their response time…”

“It’s the middle of the night and we’ve never had a break in before.”

“This isn’t a break in, it’s a break out.” Gently, he pushed her into her lab. “Stay here and wait for your friends. I’d say I’d see you later but…”

“You’ll never make it.” She said, stepping out of the safety of her lab and up to him.

“I think I’ve proven my abilities tonight. I’ll be fine.”

Her hands shot out and grabbed his arms. It shouldn’t have stopped him but it did. “Toga, listen. You need to leave now or they will keep you forever.”

“Izayoi, I let them bring me here in the first place…”

“And now they know more about you! You don’t think they’ve already set things in motion to make it harder for you?” He really doubted it since Dr. Setsuna had been at many of their battle scenes after the fact, collecting whatever he could and yet he still put Toga in that pointless cell. “I’ll find your swords and get them to you.”

He twerked a brow up at her in true interest. “You? Won’t that break some code of ethics and go against your personal morals?”

“It would be worse if they locked you up again.” 

She was flushed, her skin hot with embarrassment and he felt a need to touch it; to feel the heat. Brushing the pads of his fingers along her cheeks he soon had her blush against the palm of his hand. Her head tilted back again and he instantly thought about her lips on his. They had been soft and warm. Just a peck, he hadn’t gotten a taste but he imagined she was sweet like her scent. 

But he was also running out of time.

Miya was going to kill him, messing around like this and completely forgetting his mission. But Izayoi was a good distraction, pulling her close and whispering into her face. “Alright, Dr. Hime, I will entrust the return of my swords to you. Listen carefully. You can NOT touch them.”

“How am I supposed to get them if I can’t…”

“Then find them and tell me where they are. I’ll come back and get them. Either way, don’t touch them. It will kill you.”

She was shaking her head but he knew she would listen, pulling her the last few inches to plant his mouth on her forehead. She leaned into it, pressing her skin deeper into him. He had to force himself to let go of her and it was a struggle. One he had never felt before; not for anyone as his muscles strained just to push her back enough to break contact. 

“Thank you, Izayoi.”

He caught the small stumble she did when he released her completely; stepping back and speeding away. There was a window at the end of the hallway and he was at it in a blink of a human eye. Looking back over his shoulder, Izayoi was still watching him; her eyes were wide again and her mouth parted. Toga had to force himself again to keep moving away from her, breaking the glass with ease and leaping out of it. Twenty stories was a bit much, even for a demon, so he had to bounce his way down off the building next to him. Rolling to his feet once he hit the bottom, he dared to look back at the window high above. It was nothing for him to make out all the details of the shattered window and marks he had also left on the side of the building.

So he could make out every detail of Izayoi’s astonished face as she hung dangerously out the shattered glass; watching his every move.

If you want more Cell Mates, head over to my Patreon and subscribe!

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

Here, have a free pass to ramble about losleep!! -space anon

LOSLEEP RAMBLING YOU SAY

today’s losleep rambling sponsored by @blinksinbewilderment who gave me a prompt thingy to talk about: prince!Remy and knight!Logan losleep. also she looked it over (which is code speak for I wanted someone to read it while I couldn’t post it and she also did some editing while she read it and I believe in credit where credit’s due)

Warnings because I wrote this while my tumblr was nerfed so it got REAL long: Mentions of war/fighting/blood/injury, (false) belief that a main character is dead, not eating/sleeping, grief, but all and all a happy ending because Me

    -So Remy’s a prince

    -He’s as expected- slacker, not very interested in running a kingdom, mostly messes around in his room and goes between sleeping (rarely) and reading (excessively, since no twitter to scroll through in these times)

    -Logan’s a peasant in one of the towns under the monarchy’s power

    -He wants to be a scholar, but like I said… peasant

    -He can’t afford proper teaching

    -He also can’t read or write

    -He’s very smart, of course, but there’s only so much you can learn from village elders and the such

    -So Logan applies to get proper teaching from royal teachers

    -No one accepts him, of course- he’s a peasant, why would they?

    -He’s hanging around the area near the castle a lot, though, and eventually someone mentions to him that the only job he’d ever get at the castle would be as a guard

    -So Logan figures, hey, at least with that he’d be in proximity of royal teachers and such

    -So he becomes a guard

    -Well

    -Guard in training

    -But, like with everything else, he takes very well to learning the sword

    -And reflexes and fighting and protecting and all of that

    -He ends up at the top of the ranks, tossed in with the group being considered for a new head of guard

    -Head of guard not only organizes the squadrons and their patrols, but is also personal guard to the prince

    -The most recent one was thrown out after being found conspiring against the prince, so this time, the prince himself will be helping to select his head of guard

    -For reasons of trust and such

    -Remy comes mostly before a dozen or so strong men fighting for the right to spend time with him can’t be that bad of a time, right?

    -Logan catches his eye, not just because of his muscles (though that does help) but also for his skill- in his battles, he never has the physical upperhand… but he always wins with the strategical one

    -Remy catches him in between battles, moving and speaking with ease and charm

    -Most of the guards bow easily and greet him warmly, looking to be favored

    -Logan doesn’t

    -His bow and greeting are perfunctory, done of duty and training alone

    -He keeps his eyes on Remy, but they’re bored, and Logan’s stiff. The prince does not excite him, especially not just by existing

    -Remy should be offended

    -But he isn’t

    -He’s… intrigued

    -‘so. looking to be head guard?’

    -‘I’m looking to be whatever you need me to be, my highness’

    -‘well then, would you be looking to be my head guard if I asked you to?’

    -‘of course, your highness’

    -‘and what if I told you to be head guard you had to call me beautiful?’

    -‘then I suppose I wouldn’t be head guard, your highness’

    -Remy just smirks

    -He can work with this

    -So Logan becomes head guard

    -He’s only thrilled a little since being around the castle will likely mean more chances to hear information, to learn more

    -But he’s mostly stuck with the prince who, in his honest opinion, is a moron

    -Prince Remy’s flighty and daydreamy and cares more about his looks and flirting than the kingdom

    -Logan will give him half points for being pretty enough to warrant part of his confidence but that’s about it

    -The problem, however, is that for how much Logan dislikes Remy?

    -Remy just loves him

    -Not romantically though (not yet anyways)

    -But he loves Logan as a person. Loves his stubbornness and his principals and his looks and his muscles and his brain

-Especially his brain! Logan may not know much (or speak much) but when he does, it’s always so… refined, especially for a peasant

-Remy just knows there’s more to him than meets the eye

-So he drags Logan around the castle, walking beside the head guard as he talks endlessly, mostly jokes and flirts and compliments

-Logan mostly ignores him or gives him odd stares, but every once in a while…

-Well

-Seems not even the ‘emotionless’ guard is completely impervious to his charms

-Logan, if asked, would say he is

-(But he’s a liiiiiii-arrrrrrr)

-It all comes to a head three or four weeks after Logan is promoted to head guard

-Remy’s strolling them through a garden

-Logan’s focusing between the flowers and the area past the garden walls, looking for security threats

-That is, at least, until Remy completely catches his attention

-‘And you see, here, the common poppy, also known as the papaver rhoeas, or as I call it, the sleepy bitch flower-’

-‘wait. say that again’

-(no ‘your highness’ because Remy got sick of that within two days. He told Logan to call him ‘Remy’ or any variation of ‘beautiful’ he liked, but Logan seemed content to simply use neither)

-‘sleepy bitch flower?’

-‘no, no- the, the name you called it after ‘common poppy’’

-And Remy tilts his head with some confusion before he repeats the scientific name

-Logan’s eyes light up

-‘how do you know that?’

-‘well… I am a prince. I’ve had an expensive education’

-‘can you-’

-Logan cuts himself off before he can finish his thought, shaking his head mostly to himself and going back to looking for threats

-Because he wanted to know if Remy could teach him, make this worthwhile, let him actually get at that knowledge he had been seeking for as long as he could remember

-But Remy was a highly educated prince. Why would he want to help teach some peasant who’s quick with a sword?

-But Remy isn’t letting this drop

-‘can I what?’

-Logan doesn’t respond. Remy frowns

-‘guard, I’m ordering you to tell me what you were going to say’

-And Logan grimances, because he can’t defy a direct order, as much as he’d like to, so he sighs and finally turns back towards Remy

-‘can you teach me’ he says, lamely, not even a question, really, hoping that Remy won’t respond to it, especially since Logan could already feel his reactions: anger, disgust, maybe amusement as if it were some sort of impossible joke

-That wasn’t his reaction

-Instead, Remy smiled, and tilted his head even further

-‘I’d be happy to, if you really want, hun’

-Logan’s… surprised, to say the least

-‘you… really? No jokes?’

-‘none. swear it on this patch of sleepy bitch flowers’

-So Logan starts getting an education

-Instead of wandering all day long, he and Remy sit down in Remy’s room, where he’ll pull a book at random off the shelf and start teaching Logan from it

-It’s not easy, at first, especially with having to teach Logan how to read and write

-But they do have a lot of time, so eventually, Logan has the alphabet down, and he’s starting to be able to spell all those complicated words he can say with ease

-It’s about two weeks into all the learning that Remy breaks the schedule they had fallen into

-‘y’know, Logan, all this has been fun, but I’m starting to feel a little taken advantage of’

-‘…how so?’

-‘well, babes, I’m teaching you all this stuff, and yet getting nothing in return. I think that’s going to have to change’

-Logan’s not sure what Remy could possibly want from him. He’s just a peasant guard, after all, he has no riches that the crown cannot outmatch with ease. All he really has is himself and… oh

-‘I’m not entirely sure why I would be your first choice for, eh… such, um, matters, your highness, but if that is, eh, what you… require, than, uh, I-’

-Remy raises a hand and silences Logan

-‘firstly, sugar, I think I told you to stop calling me ‘your highness.’ secondly, I was gonna ask you to teach me the ways of the blade or whatever. What were you thinkin’?’

-Logan doesn’t answer, just staring at Remy as his entire face steadily turns a very bright shade of red

-Remy stares back, still confused, until his eyes widen in understanding. His face quickly also becomes red.

-‘…I see. uh, please… please never think that, just uh, never, ever think that again. um. yes’

-So, horrible miscommunication and following insane awkwardness aside, Remy is now getting sword lessons!

-They can only practice at night, however, because Remy’s parents and kingdom are based on a foundation of peace

-The prince should look pretty and be smart and uphold peace, not be weapons training

-But it’s fine, because Remy’s already used to nighttime environments and Logan say it’ll help with his night vision/night fighting, should he ever need it

-So now they’re learning by day, fighting by night, and sleeping during dawn and dusk

-All sounds good, right?

-Well it gets even BETTER

-Because, really, there’s only so much time two pretty gays can spend around each other and remain uninterested in the other

-Helps that Remy’s never been exactly ‘uninterested’

-And that, for all he protests it, Logan has always found an odd sort of charm to Remy’s… Remy-ness

-So things, as they are ought to do, start happening

-Hands brushing more often as Remy passes Logan papers and quills, his smile never changing no matter how many times he saw Logan’s eyes light up as he learned something new, Remy always congratulating Logan on a day well spent in a soft tone matched with a sincere smile

-Remy constantly seeming to need Logan to readjust his grip on his sword, Remy favoring moves that forces him and Logan right beside each other as they trade blows, Remy still stumbling despite being such a quick learner (but he only ever stumbles when Logan can catch him, and he always seems to linger in the soldier’s arms. doesn’t help that Logan lets him)

-The trip back to his sleeping quarters seeming to become more tedious every time Logan has to make it, one time even falling asleep for a minute halfway there, making it easy for Remy to convince him that it’s quicker, and safer, if Logan just shares his bed when it’s time to sleep. to protect him better from attacks twenty-four/seven Remy says

-Because it’s just for protection, really, when Remy curls up against Logan, and Logan wraps his arms around him, just protection to hold him close, because if there’s an attack he’ll be able to get Remy moving as quickly as possible, and like this he’s blocking attackers from getting to the majority of Remy’s torso, which is very important

-It’s also important to be warm

-And to be able to nestle his head on top of Remy’s

-And to listen to Remy mumble in his sleep quietly and nonsensically and yet beautifully

-But that’s still all for protection, clearly, since a warm, talking Remy held close to Logan is a safe, living one

-And those are the only reasons he’s doing any of this

-Clearly

-Things continue like that for a few months

-Fleeting glances, prolonged touches, too much sincerity in what should be harmless flirts and pet-names

-Talk starts up, of course, between the guards and the lords and such

-Talk of the head guard who has a much too close relationship with the prince

-The two of them spend all day with each other, they whisper, and they spend all night out and about doing something, something explicit, likely

-Logan’s not even reporting to the barracks, anymore; stopping by in the mornings to assign their stations for the day, but never for bed, never to sleep

-It doesn’t take a fool to guess where he must be sleeping instead

-Remy and Logan mostly ignore it

-They don’t care, after all

-Logan is still the guard Remy’s chosen and trusts

-Logan still protects Remy, and he would do so with his life if it came to it

-The king and queen, luckily, also don’t mind

-It helps that Remy has made it clear to them, multiple times, that he and Logan are close, yes, but not like that

-They’re just friends, he says, and he’s not lying, even if he almost wished he was

-So they allow it

-But it’s a grim reminder, the day Remy finds a book of royal etiquette left in front of his door, a very specific page marked

-Royals marry Royals or Nobles

-They do not hold relationships with peasants

-And they are never officalized

-Ever

-‘it’s not pertinent information to us’ Logan says when Remy drops it on the table

-‘nope.’ Remy agrees. He smirks at Logan, but it’s slightly more flat than it should be, doesn’t carry the right weight with it. ‘thought if you fall in love with me, let me know’

-Logan smirks back at him, but it’s also flat, also wrong

-‘not a problem’ he says

-But it already is

-But it’s alright

-They’re alright

-They still have their lessons

-Logan still protects Remy (from day to night, and from dusk to dawn)

-Remy’s still… not dead

-So they’re fine

-It’s fine

-Everything’s fine

-Until it isn’t

-There’s an attack from a western nation

-The kingdom’s thrown into war

-And they need soldiers

-When they say that they have to take Logan away for the fight, Remy protests as much as he possibly can

-He needs a head guard! There are plenty of men who can go! Why must it be Logan?

-Because Logan’s a strong fighter. He’s tough. He’s one of the best guards they have. They’ll replace him with five guards, Remy will be safe, they promise

-When Remy spits at them that they know that’s not why he’s upset they just look away from him and say they’re sorry

-It hurts to say goodbye

-Logan tries to tell Remy he’s going to make it back, tries to promise that he’ll return

-Remy just shakes his head and asks him not to

-Because they both know he can’t promise that

-And Remy can’t take that false hope

-So they just say goodbye

-And pretend neither of them want to cry (because they do, but Logan’s a head guard being sent to battle and Remy’s a prince with an image to maintain)

-And Remy pretends he’s just staying by the gate as long as he can see the troops marching off for the fresh air

-And Logan pretends that he just keeps glancing back as long as the castle’s within sight to check that all the men are keeping in file

-The time they spend apart is… hard

-Remy doesn’t sleep as well, the bed colder, and his dreams always nightmares now, bloody and much too realistic

-In the middle of a warzone, Logan isn’t sleeping any better

-Remy has nothing to do with his time anymore, no lessons he can teach or learn, his love for books gone sour without Logan

-Logan is constantly thrown into battles, fighting not necessarily for his life but for the one he had with Remy, fighting to get home

-After six months, Logan is taken captive in battle

-He’s only a prisoner for three days, however- the troop that caught him is unorganized, mostly untrained; his bindings are loose, his guard is easily distracted, and by the nightfall of the third day he’s gone

-But Logan’s injured, a bad leg cut alongside the common scrapes and bruises

-He makes it to a forest near the battle zone, and gets as far into it as he can, because he knows he won’t survive trying to cross the warzone to get back to his squadron

-He makes his way through the forest instead, surviving on plants he knows are edible thanks to his lessons with Remy

-But by the time he gets to the other side… his squadron is gone

-Moved on to a new fight

-And he’s officially MIA

-Back at home, Remy knows none of this

-His parents are getting updates from the war, but they refuse to tell him anything but vague details of general stats

-Remy almost prefers not knowing

-If Logan really was hurt or a prisoner or…

-Well

-Remy’d just rather not know

-At seven months, the nation warring against them offers to establish a peace treaty

-But only on one condition- that Remy is the one to negotiate with them

-It’s clearly a trap, the nation clearly hoping that the inexperienced prince will be a poor negotiator

-But Remy agrees, because he doesn’t care what it takes

-He wants peace

-He wants Logan home

-They meet at a neutral point, beside the road that is between both their territories

-Each bring the same amount of guards, who all station themselves at equal points around the area, to serve not just as protection but also as witnesses to the deal to be made

-Everything goes fine enough at first

-The nation’s king makes a demand, Remy matches with something lower, they come to a compromise and move on

-Remy knows he could probably be bargaining harder, longer, for better peace and better benefits for his kingdom, but he doesn’t care. He just wants this all over with

-Eventually, however, things go south

-The warring king makes too high of a demand, and Remy can’t offer him anything he’ll take

-He gets frustrated by Remy’s offers and he draws his sword

-The warring king shouldn’t even have had the sword on him, not at this meeting of peace, but Remy’s not surprised when he draws it. No one brings a sword to a peace meeting and doesn’t use it

-His parents hadn’t allowed him to bring his own, but that’s alright

-Logan had known he’d never be given a sword

-So it’s more instinct than thought when he reaches over and steals the sword of the guard beside him, the move one he had practiced many a time before

-He takes a single step back as he does, avoiding the jab the warring king makes at him with ease

-It’s three slashes to get the king’s balance thrown off, the sword thrown behind him and barely in his grip

-Remy turns to the side just enough to elbow the king in the chest, hard

-The king stumbles, falling, his sword fully slipping out of his grasp and sliding across the ground

-Remy puts a foot on the king’s chest, presses the tip of his blade to the base of his throat

-None of the guards move

-It is clear that the battle started is a problem of the negotiators, not them

-Remy leans down, putting more weight on the king’s chest as he does so, sword tipping moving up to rest uncomfortably close against the top of his neck, just below his chin

-‘this war ends tonight’ he says, voice low and and serious and deadly. ‘the only choice you have left in the matter is whether or not I seal the peace treaty with your blood’

-The king agrees to a peace treaty that easily favors Remy’s kingdom by an insane degree, but he does walk away with his life, so it balances out in the end

-The troops and soldiers and guards come home

-Remy is ecstatic

-Ecstatic until it’s been two hours of men straggling home and nowhere amongst them is Logan

-His parents eventually pull him aside and tell him the truth

-Logan’s been missing for a month and a half, last heard of as being a prisoner to the other side

-He’s assumed KIA, but officially he’s just MIA

-Remy’s… well, Remy’s a lot of things

-Angry, at first, that they never told him, that he didn’t have a chance to force a peace earlier, to find a way to help him sooner

-Then desperate, talking to every soldier he can, hoping for any hint, any information, anything that might lead him to Logan, to even lead him to believe he’s still alive

-But no one has any good information, nothing to put him at ease, nothing to help him, only to hurt him even more

-So then he’s just… well, sad isn’t quite it

-He feels more numb

-Empty

-As much as it hurt to exist away from Logan, it hurts even worse to be forced to exist without him, likely forever without him

-He no longer has nightmares, but he doesn’t dream, either, just sleeping and waking and barely recognizing the gap in time

-Remy wanders the palace, because there’s nothing else to do, and sitting still just makes the void in his stomach settle in place and hurt worse, so he keeps walking, endlessly in circles with little regard for how long he does for any stretch of time

-It’s been two weeks since the soldiers returned home

-Remy’s out in the garden

-It’s late, but what does he care?

-Day, night, light, dark… it doesn’t matter anymore

-None of them have Logan in them

-So he’s in the garden, wandering past the flowers and plants with very little care

-He stops by the patch of poppies, still alive and blooming even though it’s been roughly a year since Logan asked Remy to teach him

-He brushes his fingers against them

-‘Common poppies’ he says, because Logan liked it when he’d list the plants and flowers and their names, common and scientific, because it was knowledge and learning and Remy loved it too because his eyes would always light up and-

-‘Common poppies’ he repeats, voice now sounding choked as he fights back tears, ‘also known as papa- as papaver rhoeas’ he manages, and he’s stumbling over the words and the pronunciations are wrong but that’s okay, really, it’s not like anyone cares now, especially not now that- that-

-‘I think I prefer to call them sleepy bitch flowers’

-Remy turns so fast his vision blurs (which might also have to do with the lack of sleep and his non-existent appetite and the tears he’s one hundred percent sure are in his eyes and running down his face)

-He almost doesn’t believe his eyes

-But that tone? That reference? That voice?

-Remy knows it even before he sees him standing there, in the middle of the garden, looking dirty and tired but alive, oh so very alive

-It’s Logan

-He’s next to him before either of them can so much as blink, holding Logan’s face in both of his hands, looking him over

-‘Are you alright?’ he asks, because that’s what matters first, matters now that he’s here and with him

-‘More than’ Logan answers. He’s tired, yes, and there’s still a healing scar on his leg, but it’s been two months and he knows how to take care of himself, knew how to get what he needed as he fought his way home, giving up on finding his troops and instead focused on finding his way back to Remy, on finding his way back home

-And now that he’s here, now that he is home… he’s almost certain he could fly

-Remy nods to himself, glancing over Logan again, finding him dirty and ragged and a little bloody but he really is okay, really is alright, and he looks back up, finally, looks in those crystal blue eyes that he’s been missing for too long, and it’s not a choice so much as a need when he pulls Logan forward and kisses him

-It lasts for a mere second, Remy pulling back almost immediately after he moved forwards

-They pause, looking at each other, eyes wide, both surprised

-And then they kissed again

-It lasts longer this time, like it’s meant to, the kiss filled with desperation and fear as if the other will suddenly disappear again, as if this isn’t the beginning of their forever but instead the end of it

-But it’s also filled with hope, with hope and promise and love, filled with every bit of wishful thinking and misplaced hope that they had throughout it all, all of it building up to one thing, to one moment- this one, right here, right now

-When they pull away this time, they’re breathless

-Logan’s hands had moved to hold Remy’s waist, while Remy’s still cradling Logan’s face, and even when they pull away they press their foreheads together because they just can’t let there be space between them not now, and likely not for a long time

-‘I’m going to marry you’ Remy promises, fervently, and maybe hastily, but he really can’t bring himself to care at all

-Logan laughs, and it’s watery but it’s genuine, ‘I don’t think you can do that’

-‘Don’t care. I’m going to marry you and make you my king and you’re never going to get sent away to any stupid war ever, ever again and I’m not going to- I’m never going to lo- to lose you again because I- I can’t-’

-Logan’s arms slip from their place at Remy’s hips to wrap around his back instead, holding him close as Remy sobbed into his shoulder, and Logan cried too, Remy’s arms moving to hold Logan too

-They stayed like that for several minutes, holding each other and crying, every once in a while murmuring something, sometimes a promise or partial sentence but mostly just the other’s name

-Eventually they start to sag even more heavily against each other, Logan tired from his journeys and the remnants of his injuries, Remy tired from sleepless nights and feeling so empty for so long

-They stumble to Remy’s room, to Remy’s bed, to their bed, still holding each other even as they fall onto it, curling into each other as they get comfortable

-In the morning, Remy will call the court doctor and make sure Logan’s truly okay, and wrap and bind and take care of whatever they need to

-They’ll then go to face Remy’s parents, together, still holding each other, as Remy declares he’s going to marry him, regardless of what they say or think

-His parents will protest it for a moment, but not long

-And they’ll begin the wedding preparations as soon as possible

-But for now, they’ll sleep, holding each other close, finally warm, finally close, finally whole again

[theliterateape]

Red Brick Door - A Fiction

by Dana Jerman

“These were my people, but I was not theirs. Their clammed unhappy world was my world, and it terrified me.” – Dale Gunthorp (from Gypsophilia)

Her face was constantly consumed in a grin that lent her an emotionally invincibility. Somehow, no one could piss her off. In high school, a time when the rest of us were doing nothing but being pubescent and grumpy and frowning, embracing its toughness, its indifference- she was busy being engaged in a teeth-flash fest all day long. Even in class when concentrating her closed lips were upturned at the corners. She endured taunts with laughs that only brightened her face, because she was beautiful, although it was easy to make fun of her. Those who would blow off steam on others knew they could go to her because she wasn’t going to get all huffy and turn their friends on them later. I only saw her get mad once and it was all in her eyes and brows.  Her mouth remained open and perky. Tall, brown eyes. A high voice that danced around you with singsong qualities. Never had a boyfriend and walked with a tall briskness that defined direction. Ashley.

I was graduating a class ahead, so during my sophomore year, she showed up for her first at the same city university. I suppose it wasn’t a day, as in a defined 24 hours, that the temper in her smile changed, dissolved. It was a pretty subtle process dragging for weeks, insidious. I still feel as if I should have guessed that something like it would happen. That her mouth would get tired.

I’d run into her on campus at a random juncture and was startled into an indignant curiosity not to find that brazen show of oral cavity on display. Upon trying to engage her in that familiar shining smile her bottom lip would barely twitch in a gesture akin to a muscle spasm and she would breeze past like the embodiment of the cold shoulder. All that wattage was burning right out.

I spied her in a study carol at the library one day, her head buried in a few open texts at a time and writing diligently. I’d never had the opportunity to study her physically before beyond the smile and for a minute I thought she was someone else. Older. With her hair up in a bun on her head, it was plain to see the words “Red Brick Door” tattooed simply on the pale flesh of her neck. Struck by a bewildering force, I stood in amazement. Once glee-filled oozing endorphins this girl was now shrouded in an enigmatic cloud that rebuilt her. I recalled the furiousness of her pen as it moved across a near full sheet of notebook paper. It was probably at this time that I felt I could have changed things, like everyone believes in their individual power to affect a situation and pivot history.

//

Much later amongst old friends at a house party with drinks in hand, I observed an old comrade feed her new significant other hummus for the first time as they sat around a long table. Watching, smirking, until my ears burned as a few seated around the television in the next room began to call the name Ashley White in casual speaking. I moved in to eavesdrop.

“You heard about all this, right? Do you remember the tall blonde from the 1991 class?  She acted kind of scatterbrained?” The question.

“Yeah, somebody mentioned something to me a few days ago. Isn’t she, like, dead now, er something?” The remark.

“No, no, she’s been incarcerated for murdering members of an all-girl gang. Like, thirteen of them are dead. Amazing. She has yet to go to trial, but I guess she was part of the gang, the “brick house” or something.”

They nodded in understanding and went back to drinking and watching the news, full of superficially covered street crime and commercials. I felt flush with anger for hearing this report second hand and of all places at a party. It made me consider the largeness of the city, the impersonality. Ashley’s smile was like a beacon of pure light, accompanied by those wild brown eyes. In my memory again this time like a force changed- a sense of history and balance now altogether flawed, astray. Who could have guessed how much she really needed from a community that continually denied her?

I left the party. Seized with a sensation ineffable, existential. Before realizing it I was seated at home with a pen in one hand, writing a letter to Ashley. I asked questions and made statements.  She returned my post after a few months with this:

"Look, it’s hard for me to write in here. I’m not comfortable with how mail is handled and scrutinized. My general ability to be mobile in this ward is continually limited. To be blunt, I’m getting used to things. Deep thanks for writing to me. Explanations will follow if you wish to communicate further by making your presence known on an allotted visitation date. Until then, with hope and liberation – Ashley."

And so I went. There is a belief that places only really exist between when you come and when you leave.  Everyday for the rest of my life that penitentiary and things said there will blaze on in the back of my brain like an ache impervious to aspirin.

//

Max security. The walls gray and pea green and orange, reminding me of middle school– stale, injected with a numbing agent, a tranquilizing drug that made my insides feel like mildew. The rhythm of thick doors slamming around me gave a claustrophobic feel to each room I was escorted through. The plexiglas window had a stainless steel circular screen in its middle. We would be speaking through a bathtub drain. Two women down on the end were engaged with inmates I couldn’t see. The feeling of encouraged separation, isolation, of total warranted domination by a system sat on my shoulders like puttied guilt. Then the door buzzed and a blue light came on across from me, through the glass.

Her hair was cut very short. Her eyes only sunken a little, she smiled when she spied me with her mouth and nothing more. She wore loose fitting grey scrub-type pants and black moccasin slipper sandals that made her feet look too small. A yellowish shirt. Her hands, the deft fingers lithe with clean, short nails, cuffed in front- a death-row Christ. As she sat, I smiled to return her grin but no words would come out.

“I’ve been excited at the thought of your coming.”  In the opening confession her voice was a warm rasp like high grain sandpaper. I thought about her sitting at her typewriter (it was a typewritten note she had sent to me not so long ago), not speaking for days on end as she wrote, her diligent pain pouring out onto sheet after thin sheet – easily ripped and discarded, the dry ink smeared on the edges from the tips of tongued-wet curious fingers. I knew I was crouching in my seat and felt like a tree stump that never got any sun from its place on the back of a hillside. I sat up. I wanted to be candid and open, but asking again the questions I’d posed in my letter seemed trite. I almost forgot the woman was a murderer. It made me sick for a split second to feel safe behind the glass. I didn’t want safety.

“Ashley, I owe you an apology.” I cleared my throat, “I’m here for selfish reasons- I only want to listen.” I couldn’t move a muscle under her wily eyes that might have wanted my voice more than her own. Her smile, like glimpsing her naked, stayed as her eyes dropped away.

“Hmm. You’re probably interested in all the minor bullshit my lawyer would advise me against sharing. But hey, you’re the first to visit me, you know? People are too busy worrying about what I have become and what I’ll look like if they do finally get around to visiting me. Anyway, it won’t matter for much longer, someone’s pulling my number. Women survived my injustice and I don’t want to be a part of that world. If there is a need to say it, life with them became more about hard-line assertion. Vengeance.” She seemed eager to launch into philosophy, regardless of my understanding. A guard moved over to light the cigarette that appeared between her lips.

“Life with the affiliated clan, you know success became less about presenting situations and initiating challenges to one another. Less about liberation and embracing the “necessity to freedom” that for so long we nailed ourselves to in credo. RBD to us represents the entrance to our minds. We have the power to bulwark our consciousness and keep ourselves and what we need in, while the rest stays out. Reducing our wants through sisterhood. That’s why when you come in, you don’t leave.”

The look on her face suddenly weakened.  She reached back with both cuffed hands in a motion to loosen her neck muscles. I thought again of the tattoo there. A reminder and announcement, an enunciation.

“There were two women- partners, central to the group. Had just adopted a baby girl. Before too long one of them was being neglectful. Turns out she was abusing her position by seducing a woman from another organization. One night the other woman came and tried to take their child. The innocent lover discovered that the guilty one had encouraged this woman to kidnap their baby, and she went off.  She used those within and solicited other alliances to start a war. It’s always easy to find an enemy if you want one.

For me, it’s a case of  “right time, wrong revolution.” My attempts at destroying what I believed was a stagnant, poorly executed terrorist movement landed me here, because even if I wasn’t the punisher first, someone has to be punished. I was devoted to a localized uprising that had to die before it fell into the oppressive trap of mainstream power by associating with the wrong ideas, the wrong classes. But my struggle isn’t new.

I think about the women I chose to assassinate and admitted to slaying in court not but two weeks ago – in front of mothers and fathers and husbands and children and friends. I have three months to live because I called these women to my apartment one afternoon- just picked up the phone like it should be done. I’m not insane. I feel pain when I think of them. I think of what we did as a family. Little moments of peace.” She dropped the cigarette under her slipper and leaned back.

“A handful of us worked at the sugar plant near the east side. The sunset at the horizon point there reflected on this huge set of sheet glass windows on the rooftop– it made everything warm. I felt a balance when I went there, like I was standing on the equator. Like South America. Have you ever been there? We were beginning to plan a trip to Argentina before things…”

She paused with a sigh under closed eyes.

 “I fought for a freedom and that’s exactly what it cost me. Hard to face that I was a part of them, yes, but more a part of this… future that ironically I no longer have?”

Taciturn, I waited for her to answer her own question. Then her smile, that shining light, possessed of a kind of sheer magnetic power, returned briefly at the buzzer before she rose and left. She melted back into the cell of my memory now reconstructed from conflicting histories and righteous agendas. Of course I never saw her alive again, so she remains very much trapped there, in-between but whole, smiling.

[reformedkingsmanagent]

could you do an imagine where maybe instead of Eggsy in the opening scene of Kingsman the golden circle it's the reader?? Like, Charlie and the reader have had a past or something? Don't worry If you can't! :)

A/N: I am not sure if I like how this turned out, as I am not the best at writing action, but I hope it’s okay. I really did try! I wasn’t sure how much of it I could change and get away with it, so it’s really very minor what I did. (Though I didn’t mind rewatching the scene multiple times…at all) I hope this is acceptable, I really did want to do SOMETHING for this as I think it’s one of my favorite fight scenes ever!

Prompt: You’re alive?

Pairing: Loose Charlie x reader

Word Count: 2025

It had been a while since you’d spent an entire day at HQ. Normally you’d check in here and there, but tonight was a rare exception. Despite doing paperwork all day for Merlin instead of hunting people down, you were just as exhausted. You couldn’t wait to get home and fall into bed.

“Excuse me,” the distorted voice met your ears and you turned, continuing down the steps to stop in front of the hooded figure. “Mind if I share your cab?” The hood was pushed off and your eyes widened. The glasses confirmed what you already knew to be true.

No.

“Charlie?!” He was dead, everyone insisted he was dead. He had been given one of the chips, they had all been detonated. You’d watched the footage with everyone else, doing your best to hide the pain you felt as the screen filled with bright colors. Everyone else cheered around you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to join in. Not with Charlie being one of the victims.

He drew a golden-toned gun from the pocket at the front of his hoodie, fingers tightening on it. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Here you are, a Kingsman agent, while I’m out here skulking around.” There was no emotion in his eyes, no indication that he remembered you or the time you two had spent together during training.

He motioned to the black Kingsman cab beside you. “If I was you, I’d unlock your cab.” You were still dealing with the idea that he could have survived somehow. You didn’t have a second to think about how different he looked or how your heart still reacted to him. What was he doing here?

You noticed him glance over his shoulder and a few golden SUVs pulled up into view, waiting a little further down the street. He hadn’t come alone then. You knew you were in no position to fight him, not here at least. You’d get shot down before you landed your first punch.

He stepped closer, grabbing your shoulder roughly as he steered you over to the door of the cab. You breathed deeply as you put your hand under the scanner. He seemed bigger than you remembered.

You had seconds, actually even less time than that, to do something. He could just shoot you the second you opened the door. He wanted access to something inside. He didn’t need you once that door was open. Would he really do that?

You steeled your nerves as the door opened and you quickly grabbed a hold of him, pulling him in front of you and shoving him into the back seat. You joined him, forcing him down into the leather seat while yelling at the driver to move.

You kept your weight on him as the cab lurched forward, but he was strong. You were forced against the door as he recovered and fired off a couple of shots in the small enclosed space. Your ears were ringing. You didn’t want to hurt him, you just wanted to find out how on earth he had survived. It didn’t seem like you’d get the chance. Your training kicked in and you ended up punching him into the glass divider, hearing the glass crack with the force. One more should-

A hand on your neck forced you down into the console, and music began playing. You were dazed.

You sat up, eyes settling on the gun in his hand. Out of desperation you kick his arm back into the divider which shatters the glass. He fires off a shot through the window but you manage to discharge the next bullet in the chamber. You feel relief for a moment as the bullet flies through the air. Now maybe you could restrain him a bit easier, get him to talk-

His fist connects with your jaw and your vision takes a moment to clear. He grabs your collar and forces you back into the seat. You receive another punch and you wonder for a moment if you’re going to make it out of this. If you could just talk to him, find out what happened, how he had survived…You had to stun him somehow. The ring might be too strong, but it should work.

You touch the contact on the back of the signet ring and press it into his neck. He just watches you, dark amusement in his eyes. “Don’t think that shit’s gonna work this time,” he taunted. You recall that he was shocked shortly before the implants were detonated…was that how he survived? Why was he impervious to it now? “You’re way out of your depth.” Maybe you were.

You brought a leg up and got it around his neck, squeezing hard. You pulled him down against the seat. If you could hold this, maybe you’d be able to knock him out. “Charlie, please,” you begged. “You don’t have to do this.” He got free and made no move to stop.

You opened the door and shoved him towards it. You thought you might have been successful for a moment, but he reached out with a hand to steady himself on the asphalt. Was he crazy? His skin would be shredded in seconds at this speed.

There was a great shrieking sound, and you saw sparks. The glove he had been wearing was torn off and it revealed a metal hand. So he hadn’t simply survived. He’d lost some things in the process.

After a few seconds he reached up for the side of the door with the metal fingers, trying to pull himself back up and into the cab. You reach over and slam your hand against a panel which produces a pistol of your own. You aim for his other arm, hoping to simply wound him, but he blocks the shots with the metal hand, grabbing onto the gun and twisting it around until you can no longer hold on.

The gun falls to the floor and before you can react he grabs you with the metal hand, throwing you around the small space. You get the wind knocked out of you but you know you can’t stop to recover. You never thought you’d ever be fighting him like this. And at this point, you never really thought you’d ever see him again, either. Your chest hurt both from the physical pain and the emotional stress of seeing him alive again. And not on good terms.

He presses you into the floorboards, your head dangling perilously out of the side of the taxi. Through all of this, his expression hasn’t changed. Unrestrained fury. At what, you could only guess.

“Charlie, stop it!” you shout, wishing the two of you were alone, wishing you could just have a conversation. He tries forcing you out and you bring up a leg, pressing your foot against the metal device on his throat. You manage to catch his neck between your foot and the top of the doorway. He reaches up and grabs at your shoe but is unable to move your foot away.

You hook your other foot around the back of his knee, pulling it towards you so he falls into a crouch. You mentally apologize for this as you punch him in the groin, hard. He falls back into the cab, pain clear on his face. Before you can try to do anything else to restrain him, you see a golden shape coming up alongside the taxi, too close for comfort. It’s going to ram the cab-

You can vaguely make out Charlie yelling, though it surprisingly isn’t directed at you. You’re forced out of the open door which you thankfully grab on to. Before you have time to recover, you see a car coming straight for you, not aware of the danger right before it. You manage to vault yourself up and onto the top of the taxi, the sign digging into the middle of your back as you try to stay as flat as possible.

The car hits the door, knocking it halfway off its hinges. Up here you’re far from safe, but you’re out of Charlie’s grasp. You look to the golden SUVs, wondering if they were going to begin firing at you. Most likely not since they’d probably hit Charlie by accident with the cab swerving like this.

There’s a loud thunk and a section of the panel beneath you gets pushed into your flank, hard, forcing you up into the air. You don’t have time to panic about falling off before the metal fist grabs your shirt, pulling you upside down and back into the cab. Your legs get caught on the crooked door and you dangle there, swaying as the door moves.

You reach beside you and pick up a heavy decanter, smashing it against the side of his head. He isn’t as affected by it as you hoped. He kicks you, and you manage to see his eyes widen as the door falls away, taking you with it. You can feel his foot where it pressed into your stomach. The door shudders underneath you as it scrapes against the road. You start losing the cab and you reach out desperately with your limbs, finally managing to grab hold of the underside of the bumper. You feel sick as you realize that one of the SUVs is right behind you.

You manage to get the trunk open and roll inside it before the impact. The door makes loud noises as it scrapes the underside of the SUV. That would’ve been you. “The fuck?!” you hear Charlie yell. You quietly kick your heels together and bring up your foot to slice through the seat. The sliver of light falls over your face, but you can’t see anything. What did he want with the cab in the first place?

You push your head through and see that he’s trying to gain access to the Kingsman files through the console. What on earth did he need them for? In your confusion you don’t notice him spot you until his hand is at your collar, pulling you through the seat and into the back again, where you started.

He couldn’t get those files. You couldn’t let him. “Charlie, please just tell me what’s going on!”

“You wouldn’t understand!” he roared, reaching for you again. Your reflexes caused you to bring up your foot, the blade narrowly missing his throat. You really hadn’t meant to. He grabbed your foot, using the metal hand to snap off the blade and send it flying into the side of the driver’s neck. The cab starts drifting, but your hands are at his neck, pulling at his jacket.

“Tell me how you’re alive, what you’re doing here! Where have you been?!” His hands touch yours and for once he isn’t filled with rage. You look past him and notice the barriers the car is headed straight towards. He turns to look.

“Get down!” Charlie shouts, hands forcing you onto the floor. You realized too late that he wasn’t protecting himself. He pressed you down with his left hand as he reached up with the metal one to grab onto the handle on the side of the roof. He offered you a smile before the impact wrenched him out of the car and through the windshield behind the driver. His arm was left dangling above you.

Everything went quiet. You sat up, instantly seeking him out. He was on the ground in front of the car, the headlights highlighting his long frame. You needed him to be okay. That moment told you everything. He certainly did remember.

He pushed off of the ground, bringing himself up on his feet slowly. He looked past you, through you at the SUVs waiting around the cab. “No, don’t!” he called out, reaching up with his lone arm to signal for the others to stop. They didn’t listen. He looked to you. “Get out of here!” You moved up over the divider and into the driver’s seat. You stole one last glimpse of him before you were gone.

You’d find him again.

[dstrachan]

LUCY SPRAGGAN 'CHOICES'

To start off I really must thank one of my ex-students for encouraging me to give Lucy Spraggan a critical listen.  Taz McDougall had been providing me with regular reports about our local speedway team; I appreciate that for commercial reasons their exact name varies according to principal sponsorship, but as far as I'm concerned they are simply the 'Berwick Bandits'.  As a result of her input I was able to produce weekly 'Speedway Reports' for a couple of seasons which featured in my shows on TD1 Radio and also on Lionheart Radio. As time passed things changed and these updates ceased.  Nevertheless I remained in contact with her and was impressed by her developing passion for photography and was thrilled for her when she was able to get trackside and pit lane access to enable her to capture many excellent images of the bikes and riders.

As a result of our connection she persuaded me to step away from my somewhat 'anti-populist' views regarding such TV shows as 'The X Factor' and listen carefully to Lucy Spraggan.  I had come to realise that I really shouldn't be so dismissive of artists who attempt to pursue success by engaging with such programmes after I bought a CD which turned out to be by another artist who had participated in such shows – bought in 'Rough Trade' – it was only after purchase that I disciovered that Bo Bruce aka Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce had been a contestant in 'The Voice' in 2012.  More recently I encountered Livia who used a number of negative experiences from 'The X Factor' to help re-inforce her determination to produce music her own way.

So; I listened, and was very impressed.  Fast forward and I noted that Lucy would be playing at a local venue, Mac Arts in Galashiels.   I made some enquiries there and as a result was so happy to be able to invite Taz to attend the venue for the gig with a triple A pass that would enable her to get up close with her cameras.  I also attended that night and experienced a truly inspiring live performance that ensured that I was aware of Lucy's stage presence in addition to her songwriting and singing talents.  Having previously been persuaded of Lucy's talents I most definitely came away from that night in Galashiels as an even greater believer.  She had the sell-out audience totally entranced; her rendition of The Proclaimers' '500 Miles' was a true joy.  

Subsequently, following her social media posts it became abundantly clear that Lucy was undergoing a personal transformation and I could very much empathise with her posts as she dealt openly and frankly with confidence and body image issues.  Unlike some followers, I was perfectly at ease when Lucy's posts shifted in emphasis from her keep fit and healthy lifestyle content to a focus on the impending release of her new album 'Choices'.  Why would anybody claim to be a supportive follower only to become critical about a professional musician seeking to positively promote her latest creative output, particularly at a time when opportunities to generate income via live performances have disappeared?  Quite rightly Lucy's social media feed highlighted her positive feelings regarding the way in which 'Choices' was received by the general public.  It rapidly climbed the i-tunes cart to reach number 1 and Amazon sold out of all physical format copies ahead of the first official chart after release!  So on Monday 1st March, 'Choices' was listed in the UK Album Chart at number 5, looking like the first openly 'out' lesbian to have a Top Ten solo album in almost twenty years.  Personally I only concern myself with whether or not I like the music but I can certainly understand Lucy's excitement about such achievements given that is how she makes a living.

Well, as usual, what was intended to be an album review starts off by getting rather sidetracked – but, hey, that's just me rambling on; should you wish there are plenty other more standard reviews of 'Choices' just a click away via your chosen web browser.  So now I'll get to the music.  Throughout the album Lucy's intelligent and thought provoking lyrics span a range of topics.  The opening track 'Flowers' sets the scene with Lucy's unique voice soaring over atmospheric jangly guitars that for some reason got me imagining a 1960s cold war spy movie shot in black and white.  Track two, 'Roots' is a great upbeat rocker that simply begs to be sung along with; I briefly wondered if the line “I'm not made of stainless steel” was a subtle reference to her earlier life as a plumber's apprentice – probably not, more a recognition that she is not impervious to the corrosive effects of the environment, particularly on social media.

Next is 'Sober' which considers her relationship with alcohol which she has stated as having “been a very difficult and sad thing”.  'My drinking has closed so many doors in my life and the gravity of that only really hit me once I decided to stop drinking”. Lucy has said that she found herself drinking to "take the edge off" and then doing the same the night after to "take the edge off" the edge she'd created for herself the night before.

“Long winded way of saying my drinking career has been a vicious cycle since it began. You might think I talk about this a lot - you're right, I do”.

Regular listeners will know that I frequently seek to link songs to topics that I have been discussing and now track four, 'Run To The Hills' enters my library as an alternative to Iron Maiden if I ever refer to hills and mountains.

'Heartbreak Suite' continues Lucy's determination to open her heart and sing about deeply personal issues; followed by 'If I Had A God', which underscores her propensity for deep and searching lyrics such as “I'd give anything for something to believe in, but you won't let me in”.

'I Spent A Night In The Desert' is yet another song that inspires me, and finds me considering the pre-Covid world where artists freely toured extensively, playing indoor venues and outdoor festivals. Having been privileged to see her play live in Mac Arts, Galashiels, where I experienced the electric rapport that she so readily generates with her audience, like many songs on this album, I can quite clearly visualise Lucy delivering this to live audiences and having them totally captivated.

'You've Let Yourself Down' maintains Lucy's distinctive vocals whilst flirting with a more contemporary style.

We now reach track nine, 'Animal' – check out the 'Rockyesque' video that accompanies it which provides Lucy an opportunity to showcase her current physique and attitude.

Track ten is 'Wild', although the genre doesn't particularly fit this song's lyrics start with a great nominee for the best country and western song title, “she's sick and tired of being sick and tired”

The next track is my former 'track of the month', 'Run', which also has a great video to compliment it.  Whilst always having enjoyed running, it wasn't until my 'nervous breakdown' / 'head exploded' that I truly came to appreciated just how important physical fitness could help to maintain mental health and so the message contained in the lyrics of this song are so wonderfully inspirational!

The penultimate track is the one that provides the album title, 'Choices (Don't Be Afraid)' which again provides Lucy with the opportunity to showcase the breadth of her talents; echoes of Emmylou Harris as far as my ears are concerned, yet still so obviously Lucy Spraggan!

Finally, to close this wonderful compilation of tracks is 'Why Don't We Start From Here?', another truly anthemic song that serves to confirm my belief that Lucy Spraggan is an underappreciated genius – something that might hopefully change following the release of this album.

1/ 'Flowers'

2/ 'Roots'

3/ 'Sober'

4/ 'Run To The Hills'

5/ 'Heartbreak Suites'

6/ 'If I Had A God'

7/ 'I Spent A Night In The Desert'

8/ 'You've Let Yourself Down'

9/ 'Animal'

10/ 'Wild'

11/ 'Run'

12/ 'Choices (Don't Be Afraid)'

13/ 'Why Don't We Start From Here?'

Photo credits: Lucy live at Mac Arts, Galashiels by Taz McDougall

[the-wig-is-a-metaphor]

Stab Right Through

by Yuudan

Harry Potter/Tom Riddle

Time Travel

Angst

Harry's Life Sucks

Time Travel Fix-It

Thinly Veiled Antagonism

Set In Harry's Sixth Year

Unspeakables

Summary:

Getting lost in old memories is a dangerous thing for anyone, but in Harry’s case the whole situation is slightly more literal, and - as it always tends to be - much, much worse.

Chapter 1: Arrival

“Merlin’s beard, Tom!” yelped memory-Slughorn. “Seven! Isn’t it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case . . . bad enough to divide the soul . . . but to rip it into seven pieces . . .”

Slughorn looked at the young Riddle with a disturbed expression, perhaps starting to realize his true nature for the first time. Harry tried to meet Dumbledore's eyes, wondering what the old man thought of this, but the Headmaster appeared entirely focused on the memory playing out in front of them, seemingly refraining from blinking lest he missed something of importance.

If he was getting this right, didn't it mean Voldemort had split his soul seven times? Even contemplating it made him sick to his stomach . . .

And even leaving aside the unnatural act of ripping one's soul apart multiple times, this probably meant there were seven pieces of Voldemort's soul to somehow get rid of before he could even contemplate killing the man – or whatever he had become.

“This is all hypothetical, what we’re discussing, isn’t it? All academic,” Slughorn was saying, though Harry could tell he was regretting the conversation very much. After reassuring the Potions Professor, memory-Riddle left, but not before Harry had glimpsed his face – it looked feral.

“Thank you, Harry,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Let us go back now . . . ”

Harry was all for the idea, really – they had a lot to discuss after this particular revelation, and Dumbledore must have some more information to add – but the universe didn't seem to agree. Instead of soaring weightlessly, or being automatically ejected like every other time, the opposite seemed to be happening – it felt like he was being dragged down by force, like someone had grabbed his legs and was refusing to let go. He looked down at once, and saw Slughorn's carpet, on which he'd been standing, had started to swirl and collapse around his feet, forming a vortex he was already knee-deep in.

"Profesor!" he shouted at the disappearing figure, "Professor –"

Dumbledore noticed his plight, and alarmedly tried to grab a hold of his outstretched arm, even while being in the process of being expelled by the memory.

"Harry, don't let go of my hand!" the Professor said urgently, gripping his own sweaty hand with his good arm, "Focus on your mind, and try to – "

But he never found out what he had to try, because Dumbledore was violently blown away like a leaf in the wind, and disappeared in the distance, presumably out of the pensieve.

Meanwhile, the scene around him – Slughorn alone in his office, eating candied pineapples with a perturbed expression – dissolved like the rain had washed it away, replaced by a thick white mist that didn't let Harry see anything further than his nose.

He tried yelling for help, and tried focusing on his mind – whatever that meant – but with every pasing moment he was getting dragged deeper. Before he knew it, he was submerged to his waist, and thought he glimpsed an endless expanse of sand through the mist . . .

He heard Dumbledore yell "Harry!" from somewhere far, far away before the world turned black and he had the dinstinct feeling of falling down from a great height.

And then he did fall, with the sickening crack of broken bones, on what felt like metal spikes.

He made a squeaky sound like a dying seal, but in his defense his back hurt really badly and he couldn't feel his left arm.

"Why, hello there," a calm, if slightly confused voice intoned from beside him, "And who might you be?"

Harry jumped, or at least tried. Big mistake. He almost screamed with the pain.

But that voice . . . he cautiously turned his head to the side and realized a number of things simultaneously. For one, it wasn't spikes he'd fallen on, but Dumbledore's desk, which was more or less the same thing given the many metallic and pointy instruments that populated his worktable. Secondly, that was indeed Dumbledore who was staring at him perplexedly, but not any Dumbledore. Oh no. It was an auburn-haired Dumbledore, with marginally less lines on his face and an even bolder – if possible – taste in fashion. His arms were also both perfectly fine. In fact, he resembled very much the one he'd seen in the other memories he'd been shown. The one from fifty years ago.

Harry opened his mouth, to answer the question or to splutter he didn't know.

What came out was a feeble, "Merlin's saggy ballsack," before he passed right out.

"Are you awake, lad?" a brisk female voice asked as soon as Harry opened his eyes. He didn't need to ask where he was, the white ceiling all too familiar after years of waking up to it. He was in the infirmary. That was nice. It meant it had all been a bizarre dream – Voldemort hadn't created seven horcruxes after all and he hadn't been sucked into a memory vortex-thing, and –

And that wasn't Madame Pomphrey. And Dumbledore, who was standing next to his bed, was still red-headed and perplexed.

Blast.

"Am I?" he answered wryly, "No, I don't think I am,"

The unknown nurse – blonde, with an unfortunate nose – started to fuss around his head with her wand, muttering to herself.

"I fixed his back, but his arm needs rest and a bone-mending potion every day for two weeks," she said, presumably talking to Dumbledore, "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with his head,"

"Nothing? Are you sure?" Harry croaked, "Maybe you should check again,"

The nurse sent an unimpressed look his way, but repeated her spells and confirmed, "Your head is perfectly fine,"

Dumbledore nodded and said, "Thank you, Madame Spleen. I'd like to exchange a few words with our guest, if it's all the same to you?"

Madame Spleen nodded and left them alone in awkward silence, at least for Harry. Dumbledore seemed impervious to such pesky things as awkwardness, even as a slightly younger old man.

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry said hopefully, "I don't suppose you know who I am?"

It was unlikely by a long shot, but who knew? Maybe the headmaster had simply dyed his hair and the situation had nothing to do with him, for once.

. . . Yeah, right.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I've ever seen you before. And I make a point of knowing the names and faces of everyone in the castle," the headmaster said pointedly, "I also make a point of checking the anti-apparition wards every month . . . would you mind explaining who you are and how you got in my office?"

"I'm Harry, and . . . I'm not sure what happened, Professor," he said honestly, trying to sit up without jostling his arm, "I was in your office, watching a memory in the pensieve, and then bam – I was sucked into this vortex thing and fell on your desk,"

Dumbledore blinked at him a few times and started to say, "In . . . my office? With me?" but then something seemed to occur to him and he asked cautiously, "If I may ask, what memory were you watching?"

"My potions professor's memory from 1943," he replied honestly. No point in lying – maybe he was still dreaming, but if he wasn't Dumbledore was sure to be the only person who could help him out of this pickle.

The professor stilled, and stared at him at length with those eerily penetreting eyes of his. Finally, as if accepting that he was telling the truth, he said quietly, "Today . . . is 1 September 1942,"

Harry's eyes widened and he repressed the knee-jerk reaction of yelling 'Lies!' and shutting his ears. But it did seem extremely unlikely . . .

Dumbledore, seemingly reading his mind, twirled his wand murmuring "Tempus," and sure enough, the numbers wobbling two-dimensionally in the air confirmed what the professor had said.

Minutes and minutes of silent, dumb-struck denial ticked by, until Dumbledore cleared his throat and assumed a very grave air.

"I can't help but notice that you seem to know me personally, Harry, and if you were watching a memory in my office, a memory that has yet to happen . . . I'd have to deduce that you travelled here from the future, however unlikely that sounds,"

Despite Madame Spleen's reassurances, Harry's head felt like someone had used it as a gong and it was still ringing.

"But sir . . . ! How's that even possible? I wasn't doing anything related to time at all – I was watching a memory, taken from Professor Slughorn's head! If anything I should have ended up in his head!"

Dumbledore, still looking remarkably calm, replied, "Magic cannot be taken lightly, Harry, especially when interacting with the mind. It is entirely possible that your Professor's memories acted as a gateway between the present and the past – or for us, the future and the present,"

Trust Dumbledore to start theorizing in three seconds flat. "A gateway?" he repeated somewhat dazedly, "But you were with me sir! Why was it only me who ended up here?"

"Such things cannot be divined without proper study, my boy. Time, mind and magic are the most enigmatic and incomprehensible things in existence, and you seem to have run afoul of all three at the same time,"

After that they fell into helpless silence, Harry trying to come to terms with it all, and Dumbledore looking like he was terribly curious about something but at the same time dreading to hear about it.

"Aren't you going to ask why we were watching Slughorn's memory of 1942 together, sir?"

Dumbledore looked guilty for a moment, then said firmly, "Such matters are best handled by the people most qualified to – I'll contact the Department of Mysteries at once, Harry, so you must refrain from revealing anything until then,"

"The Department – ? But . . . I need help," he said with a truly pathetic amount of desperation, "I need your help. I'm sure – if you just hear me out for a moment, I'm sure –"

The professor raised a hand to stop him, and said sadly, "I'm sorry, Harry,"

Harry tried not to feel crestfallen, and failed. Even knowing that this Dumbledore didn't know him, the cold rejection stung.

Dumbledore stepped away from Harry's bed and headed for the door, "Wait here, I'll firecall Unspeakable Croaker, he should be here shortly," he said, then he paused and turned around, looking more vulnerable than Harry had ever seen him, "You mustn't tell me anything, Harry. I proved it, time and again – I cannot be trusted with this kind of power,"

Then he disappeared in the corridor, and Harry gave a half-hysterical snort.

"And you think I can?!"

Waiting with nothing to do, Harry tried napping a bit, hoping to Merlin and Morgana and every deity he knew that he'd wake up and find out he'd dreamed the whole thing. And yet, when he woke from his feather-light fitful sleep, his broken arm was there to remind him that no, everything was real. He was in the past. In a past where he hadn't been born yet – hell, his parents hadn't been born yet – where nobody knew him. Where Ron and Hermione were nowhere to be seen and Dumbledore wasn't yet old and all-knowing.

After a while he tried to get up, but doing that without moving his back was sort of impossible, so he gave up. Dumbledore had said an Unspeakable would be coming. Surely, he would know how to send him back to his time – he did remember from last year's escapade to the Ministry, that the Department of Mysteries had a Time room, full of Time-turners and whatnot...

Just then, the door opened and a tall man with glasses and an odd moustache stepped in, his almost black eyes immediately finding Harry and staring unblikingly at him. Dumbledore lead the wizard to Harry's bed and said, "Harry, this is Unspeakable Croaker, he studies time, as it happens, and would be very interested to know the circumstance of your accident,"

Croaker opened a briefcase and handed him a folder, saying, "A pleasure, Harry. You understand this sort of thing doesn't happen every day, but enough that there is a procedure to follow – firstly, you must fill in that form – you may leave out things if you wish, but I must warn you that the paper is spelled to prevent untruths from being written upon it, so please refrain from lying,"

Harry didn't bother looking at the form and demanded, "You'll return me to my time, right? You have a Time room at the Department, so you must know how, right?"

Dumbledore stilled and Croaker looked at him sharply, his eyes lingering on his lightning bolt scar, and he said softly, "Now how would you know that, Harry?"

But he didn't want an answer, Harry could tell. He would have thought an Unspeakable, and one who worked with time at that, would be especially interested to know everything he could grill out of Harry, but apparently Dumbledore's friends were as wise as him.

"No, I'm afraid we haven't the means necessary to do that just yet," Croaker answered to his earlier question, "But your accident may help us get closer sooner,"

Harry lowered his eyes to the form even as a weight plunged into his stomach – he'd never go back to his time, never see Hermione and Ron again. Or Ginny...

Or well, wizards lived long lives, so he'd probably live to see them be born and grow up, but they'd never be friends like they were now – had been – never share all those adventures...

His sight became blurry and he was mortified to discover that he was, in fact, crying.

Croaker and Dumbledore tactfully refrained from commenting, and he was able to calm down and pretend nothing was wrong without incident.

He filled out the form in a matter of minutes, detailing what had happened to the best of his capabilities, hoping against hope that it would help the Unspeakables send him back. He wrote only his first name, not quite trusting the document with his full, famous name. Then he described the vortex of sand and the swirling white mists, and the sensation of falling down that had resulted in a literal fall on Dumbledore's desk. The form asked for a description of his background, which he refused to share as his background was not only distinctive and rather unique, but also something he preferred to keep to himself. The rest was normal enough – blood status, would-be date in his timeline, school he'd been attending and so on.

When he was done, Croaker skimmed it interestedly and asked clarification on some points, ("what color was the sand?", "How far did they extend?", "Was there a sun?" and so on) then stuffed the form in his briefcase and pulled out a roll of parchment marked by an official-looking seal.

"Don't worry about the form – it will appear blank to anyone outside the Department," the Unspeakable tried to reassure him, "Now this, this is a contract of sorts, also part of the procedure for time travellers. It will stop you from spilling the beans on things like politics, wars, natural disasters, economy and so on,"

After his drop of blood had been spilled where indicated, Croaker looked him in the eye and said, "The contract is not perfect, as you may have guessed, but then nothing human-made is, is it? I would still advise you not to divulge too much, as our department will be keeping an eye on you,"

Harry nodded distractedly. This seemed all pretty inconsequential before the looming knowledge that he would not be getting back to his time, would not get to kiss Ginny or avenge his godfather, or even get to see Ron and Hermione get married like everyone knew they would. Would they miss him? Would someone else fullfill the prophecy in his place?

Irritatingly, a picture of the Dursleys celebrating his disappearance popped in his head.

"The contract will keep you from revealing anything of great impact, but you'll be able to talk about innocuous tidbits normally – which I'd be careful with, by the way," Croaker stressed, "We will try to keep an eye on you, of course, but you have more than that to worry about. I don't know if it's the universe, the forces of time or magic itself, but something always happens to people who are more loose-lipped than they should. Many time-travellers suffered a horrifying fate for their carelessness,"

"Horrifying? Like what?" Harry asked, fascinated and nauseaous all at once.

Croaker leaned forward, an intense look in his eyes, "A woman who told everyone who asked about the future under the guise of being a seer, one day became inexplicably and incurably insane. They had to strap her to a bed until the end of her days. Another example is the man who published everything he knew on the newspapers looking for fame and money, and ended up paranoid and unable to get out of his house. he killed himself soon after that,"

Satisfied that Harry was suitably disturbed, Croaker cocluded, "It might just have been that living in a time not meant for them messed them up, but . . . you'd do well to be careful, anyway,"

At Harry's coscentious nod, Croaker got up and extracted a contraption that Harry recognized after a few seconds as a camera. Bloody hell, did it look old. The unspeakable muttered some spells on it, swirling his wand in small circles, and said, "Now if you would, I'd need some photographs,"

After that, throroughly documenting his appearance from all angles in what Harry suspected would become moving pictures of his puzzled blinking, Croaker left.

Dumbledore, perhaps interpreting Harry's pale face, reassured him, "He's mentioned only the blatant cases. It's actually a lot more common than you would think, for someone to be misplaced sometime else, and the great majority of them manage to live a normal life just fine. No need to worry, Harry, I'm sure you will be alright,"

"I hope so," he muttered, but he was still spooked and jittery.

After a few minutes in which Harry contemplated the complete joke that was his life and Dumbledore looked out of the window, Madame Spleen made another appearance, this time with a tray of about ten different-sized, different-coloured potions hovering about her elbow.

Harry made a face, but the routine of being in the infirmary and being fed foul-tasting potions was actually calming in its extreme familiarity – he'd been at it since first year, after all, and this almost seemed just one more of those adventures that had seemed insurmountable when he was living them but had ended up mere memories over time.

Except this time there was no clear enemy to defeat or person to save, no clear course of action that lead him to his objective, that is going back home – which had been deemed impossible by both Albus Dumbledore and the head Unspeakable . . .

But there had to be a way, and goddammit, he was going to find it if it took him decades to do it. So what if those old geezers thought it was impossible? He was Harry Potter, his very existence and survival had hinged on impossibilities since he'd been one year old.

They thought travelling back to his time was impossible, but then he bet they would say the same about surviving the killing curse.

[dreamernobody979]

No Going Back Now: Fighting White Supremacy as a Black Follower of Christ

The task and call on the table: Deconstructing Institutional Racism, Structural Racism and how it expresses itself in higher education. This includes how seemingly normal, neutral and unbiased rules, codes, guidelines and policies disproportionately disadvantage people of color on this campus. I guess I should specify that I’m talking about LBC. It would be easy for to go after society as a whole and examine how these principles play out in the general American higher education system. Seeing the different mechanisms of racially coded language, the erasure of blackness through curriculum that centers whiteness, non stop promotion of predominantly euro-centric heroes, teachers, musicians, poets, preachers, scientists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals in society that all work together to dehumanize black and brown humanity is hard enough. But seeing the evil of this system, trying to point it out to people with more power and influence than me and having them willfully deflect and kindly refuse not to see it is infuriating. I feel as if I see the smog of poisonous gas permeating the classrooms, soaking into the assigned reading in each class, staining the walls of chapel, distorting the features of the students, warping the text of the scriptures, slowly eating away at the skin of black and brown students and no one will listen or can even understand it. We are dying not just here but in society as a whole from the poison of white supremacy. 

It is frightening and if I wasn’t a Christian, if I didn’t believe Jesus that you were greater than any evil that is in this world, even the insidious and pervasive yet subtle evil of white supremacist ideology, I would give in to complete, utter and permanent fear and despair. It’s for that reason that James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Malcolm X surprise me. I feel bad for saying that, I mean all of their books are on my reading list so I still don’t fully know where they found their hope but I’m gonna assume (which is usually a bad thing to do but I will this once) that they were not Christians. I am sure that Malcolm X wasn’t and for that, I cannot blame him. I wish that he could’ve known the true and living Christ behind the smoggy, subtle and idolatrous white Jesus that he certainly met in his lifetime. But anyway....I just wonder where their hope came from....how they continued to fight against this evil. I mean I know that this is largely an issue of social structures of injustice. Man made and insidious. But I also know that there’s a spiritual element to this evil too....there is no way that I as a follower of Christ and Your Word could think that such a pervasive, systemic and enduring evil as racism has no roots in the demonic realm. If not the man made structures than certainly the ideology of whiteness and white supremacy on which racism rests is evil beyond human ability to fight. 

Oh Heavenly Father....I am one woman. You ask me to stay here....it seems like if I stay here I will be giving up. I don’t know how to explain it to you or anyone else but I cannot knowingly stay in a place where no one is willing to confront the ugly reality in front of them. I would be wasting my effort, time and energy on people that are not ready to confront their complicity, their racism, their acquiescence to injustice. Staying would be like telling them “I agree with you” If I have no agency as a black woman to set my boundaries, declare what I need and reasonably hold people accountable for their actions, and I stay....Lord what kind of example does that set? That goes against everything you taught me over the past few years. It’s unhealthy, it’s dysfunctional to think that if I just martyr myself at the altar of their ignorance that they (read: white people) will eventually understand. Look I’m not saying I don’t want to follow your will and stay....ok I don’t wanna stay here but you’ve known that since last summer that’s nothing new. But let’s get one thing straight and this is something that’s been frustrating me for awhile: there seems to be a misunderstanding and spiritual minimization of the suffering and pain that people of color endure from racism and how we are expected to respond. I don’t know if this narrative of redemptive black suffering has come from the suffering of Christ or the collective suffering of black people throughout history in their relentless fight for dignity, equity and respect but there’s something in there that is subtle and dangerous. 

I am not against suffering for Christ’s sake but suffering persecution from other Christians. And then there’s this expectation that people who are being abused should just take it and endure it for the sake of unity, progress, peace and forgiveness. In this case i will speak of black women. There’s this narrative that black women exist for the sole purpose of being the pack mules for everyone’s suffering, the female messiahs of society’s burden and are just simply made to endure constant disrespect and shame without complaint. The narrative of “the strong black woman” impervious to pain and weakness, never gives up, is superwoman and has no need for breaks or protection. She capes for everyone, fights for everyone, never rests, always fights, and society seems very comfortable with this concept of black women enduring pain for others. The black community does this as well. I can’t speak on the collective behavior of everyone in the African diaspora but as an African American I see a strong resistance to admitting weakness, vulnerability and fear in the black community. There is this ideas that “No matter how bad things get, especially in the face of racism, we can’t get mad, we can’t leave, we can’t feel we have to get through it and rise above.” And the clear understanding of what success looks like seems to always be “Stay in the racist environment and be the champion and go in and change things, no matter the cost. Don’t think about your own needs as an individual, you are always representing the group, you have no right to your own health, boundaries nor do you have the right to say no. You must always be there for everyone else and never ask for anything for yourself. Self care is selfishness. And besides even if you left, everywhere you go you’ll encounter racism so you just gotta learn to deal with it” 

I think the resolution of black people to endure horrific cruelty and dehumanization both overtly and covertly throughout history is amazing. However I think we need to realize that although we are amazing we are not super humans nor do we always have to pretend to be. In embracing the stereotype of “limitless strength and endurance: i.e- strong black man/woman/etc, we in essence don’t allow ourselves to say no, that’s enough, stop, I’m wounded, I need/want, I’m not okay. In a society and a world that never allows us to have a break, I think it’s important as oppressed people to create spaces and pockets of humanity for ourselves which includes supporting each other when we are weak and not shaming each other or judging someone’s blackness because they choose to not fight. I think asserting our right to not engage with trying to fix racists/racism (which by the way is the job of white people) we are fighting a different kind of battle. We are reclaiming out three dimensional humanity. We are saying “I have the right to take care of myself, I am not the prop for every cause, I am human and I cannot always be strong, sane, “coherent” or “on”. And that’s ok. ....we are humans. 

It is ok to be soft, to be weak, to be vulnerable and fight for your right to say no. No, I do not owe anyone my time and energy, No it is not my job or responsibility to fix the racist environment on your campus that you created and refuse to acknowledge. No it is not my job to suffer, cry, email, scream and tear my 4C hair out every day trying to fix your school for now pay, 20,000 in debt and failing all my classes. I have the right to not share my experiences, emotional baggage and racial trauma and I don’t have to stay in an environment with people who refuse to see me. I don’t have to write proposals, meet with white RA’s, professors, staff and board members and splay open my pain for their curious perusal. It is perfectly right and reasonable for me to hold people in power responsible for doing their own labor to deconstruct the injustice system they are complicit in maintaining in thousands of ways.

 I think I am doing the best I can to set an example for other people of color and the example is this: You do not have to endure your education and you have every right to be here. You are a student the same as everyone else. Don’t ever let anyone use you as a token for their agenda at the expense of your dignity, voice and agency. They are lucky to have you not the other way around. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re demanding or aggressive for holding them accountable for their words and promises. And don’t EVER EVER EVER let anyone shame you for your response to racism or judge the extent of your racial trauma. Do what you need to do to heal and if that looks like leaving the environment then so be it. If anyone has a problem with you or questions your character for leaving, you tell them you have every right to leave a dysfunctional environment where the company was not delivering the product they advertised. And if they still wanna criticize you more than the discrimination that brought about your response, tell them to come to me. I’ve had it with the policing by both white people and people of color, of each other’s reactions and coping mechanisms in the face of institutionalized injustice (racism, sexism, able-ism,etc) Stop with the respectability politics and stop with the criticizing of the traumatized. It is healthy to acknowledge and deal with your pain before attempting to help others. The problem with the world is you have sick people helping sick people. Wanna humanize people of color? Let them know it’s ok to feel pain when they’ve been hurt, that they are intelligent and capable of properly perceiving discrimination and remind them that the systemic minimization of their humanity is not normal, natural or acceptable. Help them find their voice on their termsl. 

[fangroyal]

Lessons In Silence

Author: FangQueen Rating: R Pairing(s)/Character(s): Gen - Bellatrix, Draco, Narcissa, Theo, Original House Elf Characters Word Count: ~5k

CHECK THE TAGS VIA THE AO3 LINK BELOW BEFORE READING. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Read on AO3

"Come see me tonight, after dinner. We’ll discuss the task Our Lord has provided you. Now now, I know you’re nervous. This is your first big responsibility! I understand. I want to help you."

When he’d entered the ballroom, he could hardly walk through the door, the air was so thick with wards and silencing charms. That should’ve been the first clue. The room was dark, save for the handful of candles floating in a circle above the center. Their orange glow shimmered off of skin still sallow from prolonged imprisonment as his Aunt smiled in greeting and gestured to the single chair set in front of her.

He should’ve just turned around. Had he done so, had he simply tried to avoid her for the remainder of his summer holiday, then perhaps things would’ve ended up differently. He should’ve known better; he’d heard the stories. This room was tucked away in a now unused wing of the Manor, and was clearly being heavily guarded against anyone eavesdropping or walking in on them. However, he’d also heard his mother speak highly of her eldest sister, of the strong woman who had stood up for their beliefs and had been wrongly punished for doing so. Sure, she was a tad...off. But she’d been nothing but kind to him upon her return to their lives. She treated him like he was someone--an adult. Offered him brandy when his parents had only ever allowed butterbeer or maybe a glass of elf-made wine. Talked him down from that last bout of cold feet before his initiation…

"Have you heard of Legilimency and Occlumency?"

The still-fresh tattoo smoldered like a rug burn under his sleeve. It constantly itched in a way he could never quite satisfy. A reminder of what he’d agreed to, of the binding contract he was now burdened with. The task he’d been given shortly after that evening was forever lingering at the back of his mind. He’d felt as if he was drowning ever since hearing the words, and he’d been more than grateful when his Aunt had stopped him in the hall earlier and asked how he was doing. He’d told her the truth: that he was terrified. That he was sure he wouldn’t be able to accomplish it, and that he feared that failure with everything in him. She had appeared warm and open to hearing his anxieties, and had assured him they would figure something out, that none of them would let him fail.

"Good, good! I think the latter, especially, would help you a great deal in completing your task--don’t you agree? We wouldn’t want anyone being able to find out about your plans, now would we?"

He’d trusted her. He knew he shouldn’t have; he was old enough now to know that the rumors weren’t just that, and that his mother’s opinion on it all had never been anything but familial bias. But he did. Merlin help him, he did…

Draco struggled against the ropes securing his wrists to the arms of the chair. Another pair pressed his ankles taut to the front legs, his thighs spread. His Aunt Bellatrix stood before him, a large butcher’s knife in her hand. She was speaking, but he was having trouble deciphering it all, distracted as he was by the glint of the sharpened edge of the weapon she held so casually, as if this was something they did all the time.

"The Dark Lord has entrusted you with a very important mission. It is imperative that your plans for it not fall into the wrong hands. Or minds, perhaps we should say. And I’m going to teach you how to close off yours so that no one, not even our enemies, would be able to read it."

A flick of her wand sent the buttons on his dress shirt flying every which way, clanking off the floor and the walls as they hit. He shivered as the sudden whoosh of air hit his now bare chest. She knelt before him, then, the blade aimed at the revealed skin. In a moment of blind panic, he tried to shuffle away, only to scrape his wrists against their bindings.

"H-how are you going to do that?" he stammered, to keep her talking, to try and prevent whatever she was planning to do with that knife from happening.

"By teaching you how to close yourself off, even under the worst of circumstances."

Those words made every nerve in his body squirm and his hairs stand on end. Now he was beginning to get an idea what the knife was for. But that didn’t make any sense! He didn’t know the first thing about closing his mind, and now she was already jumping to the extreme! "I-I don’t know how to do that, Aunt Bella!" he swore emphatically. "Maybe we can start small? W-work up to this?"

"These are trying times, Draco. We don’t have the luxury to start small. You have to remain calm, turn your conscious into a blank slate. Occlumens are those who can steel their minds from invasion completely. They can choose to feel nothing, so that they are impervious to the influence of others. If our enemy were to catch you, they would most assuredly attempt to torture the information out of you. I want to be sure that you can withstand anything they throw at you."

"B-but how would I...I don’t understand--"

"Take a breath. Calm down. Think of nothing. Keep your mind silent."

"I don’t know how to do that--"

"You must! If you’re going to complete your task, then you have to learn! You don’t want them to find out what you’re planning, do you?"

"No! No, I promise, I wouldn’t let that happen!"

"Oh, dear," she cooed softly, cradling one side of his face in her free hand and caressing his cheek with her thumb, "I know you wouldn’t mean to. But in times like these, unfortunately...we can’t trust promises."

The point of the knife finally slipped beneath his skin, and he watched, his mouth hanging open in muted horror, as the flesh zippered open and the first rush of scarlet burst forth. Several seconds passed before pain permeated shock, and by then she was already making another, deeper cut right next to it. All he could do was half choke on a garbled noise that rose in his throat, cut off as her hand--surprisingly strong--clamped down on his jaw and forced his head up.

The last thing he saw in that room was the piercing gaze of her dark, mad eyes. Then he was falling, the bottom dropping out of his stomach, leaping off the edge of reality headfirst into a sea of memories. Some he knew like the back of his hand, some he didn’t even remember having till now, as they flew by, coalesced, pulsed and swirled together like a kaleidoscope. He tried to reach out and grab onto one, to anchor himself, to stop this sinking feeling that was overwhelming him, robbing him of breath and sight and sense.

Then he could see it, clear as the night it had happened. He was in the woods somewhere--no one had told him the location, and he’d never asked. Even now, he could smell the scent of pine, dew, and mud in the air, feel the wind whip through his robes, chill despite the summer heat earlier in the day. The Dark Lord was holding Draco’s arm, sleeve rolled up to bare his pale skin to the light of the full moon, wand poised in his opposite hand to perform the spell that would forever bind him to his cause. Before he could, however, Draco started, tried to pull away. He could still feel those bony fingers digging into his wrist as he was yanked back. A derisive snort from his slitted nostrils, and then he was leaning in, asking in a teasing whisper if the boy was going to take what he’d consented to...or if he was going to force him to teach him what happened to blood traitors in front of all of these "fine ladies and gentlemen." With several of his loyal followers currently behind bars, the circle around them was small. But the threat was still enough to make Draco shake his head and finally comply…

He returned to the room, sucking on oxygen and shaking like an addict. There were a few more cuts accompanying the first two now; he could feel the stinging burn of them across his chest. She was still studying his face, but even though her look was thoughtful, there was a hardness underneath that told him all he needed to know: she’d seen it, too. She’d seen it. She’d seen him hesitate, and he couldn’t breathe, because now she knew. She knew he regretted it, that he’d never wanted it in the first place. What was she going to do with him now? Turn him in to the others? Make an example of him, as their leader himself had threatened that night? And afterwards, what would happen to his parents…?

But she didn’t appear to be inclined to do anything of the sort. Instead, she hummed a little to herself, stroking his cheek once more as she mused aloud:

"I see we have a lot of work to do."

***

"I’m sorry?"

Draco looked up from his barely eaten breakfast to see his mother’s smiling face from across the dining table. She was eying his relatively untouched plate with concern as she dabbed at a corner of her mouth with a napkin.

"I said it’s nice having your Aunt around again, isn’t it? She tells me you two have been having great talks, about," he watched her expression falter, "your duties, and she thinks you’re coming along very well."

He twirled his fork nervously, but didn’t show any signs of actually using it. He suddenly felt sick--sicker than he already had. The smile on her lips told him she had no clue. More than anything, he wanted to tell her, hoped that doing so would make it all stop...But he couldn’t do that. Not to her. Not now, when there was so little joy left for her to hold onto. She was trying so hard, really, to keep it all together. Her presence was like the sun penetrating the otherwise dreariness currently blanketing his childhood home. And he couldn’t have felt any more distanced from that light than he did now.

"Oh. Yeah, she’s been...very helpful."

The door at the end of the dining hall opened, and in bustled the lady herself, all twitters and smiles as she greeted her favorite sister with a kiss on the cheek on the way to her seat. Her hand was like a lead weight on his shoulder as she tucked in beside him, and her touch, even through his clothing, made his skin crawl. It trailed down to rub his back. However brief, the contact was enough to ignite a dull throb in the welts there: a reminder of what happened when he tried to avoid their…"talks." Or fight back...Swallowing against the twisting sensation in his stomach, he suddenly shot to his feet, startling both the women at the table with him and the house elf that had been busy pouring his Aunt a cup of tea and asking after how she’d like her eggs this morning.

"M-may I be excused?"

"Of course, dear, but you haven’t even touched--"

"I’m not feeling well."

"Oh, well, go and have a lie down, I’ll come check on you--"

"No! No, thank you, I’ll be fine."

In his quarters, he nearly ripped his shirt over his head, tossed it aside, and marched into the private bathroom, where he snatched a bottle of dittany from the medicine cabinet with trembling hands. A little splash on a washcloth, and he was wincing as he pressed it to the fresh wounds across his abdomen. Green smoke billowed around him as they slowly, but surely, scarred over. Yet, when he glanced at his worn and ghostly countenance in the mirror, they still looked pink and fresh next to the faded lines around them. And when he moved, he could still feel the tug and sting of the abused skin underneath.

***

"How about we try something a little different tonight, hmm?"

Draco fidgeted in his chair, but said nothing. The knife had been set aside on the ground, his blood shining garishly along the blade, and he’d thought they were done for the evening. She’d stripped him this time, left cuts littering his thighs, in addition to his arms and torso. He longed for something to cover up with--could no longer stand the vulnerability in being spread open as he was, manhood bared to the scrutiny of his Aunt’s gaze and the chill of this abandoned room.

"You’ve been doing quite well with this portion of our training! You almost blocked me out that last time, I could feel it. But it’s occurred to me recently: our enemies might not be as lenient as I’ve been thus far. I know I wasn’t whenever I was tasked with interrogating one of their own. And knowing them, they’d probably torture you in several unspeakable ways, but you must remain resolute, no matter their form of attack. Calm, blank, and silent. That’s what we’re looking to achieve. When someone tries to peer into your mind, no matter what’s going around you, you must not allow them to see anything. No matter what’s going on around you, do you understand?"

It was getting difficult to stay alert, with the thick, sticky redness pouring down his chest, his biceps, over his knees and between his legs. The sharp scent had invaded his nostrils, the constant pain of exposed flesh and reopened wounds scrambling his senses. His Aunt was withdrawing her wand now from a pocket in her robes, and he tried to think of what she could mean by "try something different"...

"I’m going to need you to breathe through this one, all right, dear? Brace yourself."

His eyes widened, suddenly very much awake, and stared unblinkingly at the slender, carved bit of wood in her hand as if he’d never seen such a thing in his life. Somehow he knew. He didn’t know from where, but he knew by the way she was looking at him. Her smile was different now; manic, less the comforting relative and more the deranged Azkaban escapee that he knew her to be. That sneer was the last thing he saw, before she uttered the forbidden incantation, and his vision went black.

***

Flying was a long-used stress reliever for Draco. The house was stifling. His mother was having one of her bad days, shrieking and crying over his father’s absence in his study. Aunt Bella was an ever-present shadow, observing his every move. He had to get outside, get some air, so he could think clearly again.

There was nothing else quite like this. Afternoon sun beating down on his back, cool breeze soothing the burn. The whoop of joy in his belly as he soared higher and higher, and the resulting adrenaline rush through his veins. He cut across the yard and over the hedge to circle amongst the line of trees on the other side. Their leaves tickled his cheeks and sides as he dodged them, creating a sort of training course around their trunks. Like he had as a child, bobbing and weaving, feeling yet another rush after rush every time he managed a near miss. Then up he went again, till the tips of the highest branches were nothing but specks. He could see the lake in the distance, it’s glassy surface reflecting the clear sky and rippling with the waves of summer heat rolling across it. For a moment, he wondered how far he could get before someone would come looking for him. Since his indoctrination, he hadn’t been permitted to wander. But oh, how nice it would feel, to sit at its shore, stretch out on the bank and relax, with his feet cooling in its waters...

He flinched, shivering, and his ride shook between his legs. The sun had warmed his clothes enough to have reached the wounds on his biceps; he could feel them sizzling under his sleeves. Not unlike the tingling of the Curse through his nerves…He didn’t want to think about that. He’d come out here, with the intention of flying till he exhausted himself, specifically because he didn’t want to think about that. So he turned towards the lake once more, his Aunt be damned. She’d already claimed his nights; he wasn’t going to let her take his days as well.

But the shaking was getting more persistent. Like the chair rattling beneath him...He tried to ignore it. He tried to think of more pleasant things and just focus on the water calling to him on the horizon. He tried not to see her eyes boring into his soul, to hear his own screams reverberating around him. Even outside and as far up in the air as he was, it was still like he could feel her: her hand holding his head up, and her magic crackling over him. A glance up forced his eyes into the harsh light of the sun, and it was so like that first flash behind his lids when the Curse would hit that he gasped, and the broom jerked to the side.

Okay, this clearly wasn’t going to work. He figured it would probably be best to lower his altitude and head back now. But he felt a sharp tug at one of the cuts around his waist as he twisted, and the broom suddenly dipped down a couple feet more than he’d asked it to. He pulled up, then kept it still, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath against the heavy thud of his heart. Only when he was sure he was back in control did he urge it forward again.

Apparently, he’d been wrong to assume, as it, instead, surged another yard downwards. A startled yelp burst from his throat, and he gripped the handle hard and pulled up and as much away from the ground below as he could. But it was no use; he was scrambling, diving, falling, and a few good, insistent yanks at the broom were the only things that saved him from an even harder landing. His right shoulder hit first, then he was skidding across the grass, wincing at the solid dirt beneath scraping at his already raw skin through his shirt.

He lay there for a moment, to catch his breath and blink back the pained tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost control of his broom, just...the first time since he was very young...When he finally flipped over and pushed himself up, it was on wobbly legs. From his crouched position, he stared at the broom--having rolled a little ways off, but thankfully still intact--and willed away the uneasy feeling in his gut.

Determined, he rose and stumbled over to it, then held his open palm out above it and waited for it to jump into his hand.

It didn’t.

Gritting his teeth, he tried again, this time commanding in a firm tone: "Up."

Nothing.

He tried again, his voice deeper, more authoritative.

Still nothing. The broom simply lay there. But for the shiny brand name etched into the top of the handle, he wouldn’t have known it from just another stick on the ground. No matter how many times he urged it, his voice growing more and more feeble every second, cracking with emotion, nothing! The bond he typically felt in his hand whenever he called his broom was mostly gone, leaving behind a faint flicker that merely tickled his fingertips. It was like he could feel his magic short-circuiting.

No. No, he wasn’t going to let her have this, not this too. Bitch didn’t deserve it. She hadn’t earned taking away the one thing that had ever given him purpose.

The world spun when he suddenly bent over and snatched it up. He thrust it between his legs and kicked off, heading for the treetops once more. It carried him that far, but was trembling violently now. The thoughts had already entered his brain, and no matter what he did to try and redirect it, he could still feel them buzzing. She’d gotten him, and she was going to take everything that made him happy, till there was nothing left but a calm, blank, silent shell.

The broom dove for the ground. Sheer physical strength was only thing that helped him brace for the inevitable crash; he jerked the handle, trying to force it up and back and around the trees, till he collided with the earth once more. He could already feel a bruise forming on his shoulder from the impact, and one of the cuts on his thigh had been reopened and was dripping blood onto his trouser leg. With a defeated shriek of rage, he lashed out, chucking the offending object at a nearby tree, where it hit with a sharp "thwack" and promptly tumbled to the grass at the base. His hands then flew to cover his face, where he felt the tears flowing before he even knew they’d come.

***

"Crucio!"

"Haaa!"

"Crucio!"

"Ahhhhaa!"

"CRUCIO!"

His scream bounced off the marble walls, pitch intensified, distorted, and echoing over and over in his head. Every single nerve in his body was on fire, tingling and twisting as if he’d been struck by lightning, and his body convulsed with each white-hot shock. The restraints were the only things keeping him in his chair, but he was thrashing so hard it was a wonder how it hadn’t broken out from under him.

His Aunt’s hand shot out to take hold of his face, and he couldn’t do anything other than whimper--a pitiful sound that made shame churn in his gut. Her thumb smeared in some of the sick still left on his chin, from when the pain had become too much. She’d done a shoddy job of spelling the mess off his lap as well--probably on purpose--and the lingering stench of it made him want to retch again, but her iron grip kept his mouth sealed firmly shut. He would’ve bitten her had he had strength left to fight it.

He could feel her probing his mind, but he could no longer see any of it. Although, after all their sessions, there was nothing new she could’ve found. She’d seen everything from his last Quidditch game to his first kiss to that time his father had spanked him after he’d thrown a tantrum at the toy store. Each time she entered, his soul was laid bare, his every thought and feeling just there for the taking. And did she take. She took all he could give, and still kept asking for more.

Scoffing, she suddenly tossed his head aside, quick enough that her palm slapped against his cheek. He didn’t even feel it over the magic still stabbing into every inch of muscle. "You must try harder to resist! Calm. Blank. Silent! I’ve told you this before, have you not been listening?!"

Of course he’d been listening! He’d heard everything she’d ever said to him during these sessions, had catalogued and tried to make sense of it all. Her voice haunted him day and night, always insisting on more, harder, he must try harder, because their enemies wouldn’t go as easy on him as she was! And he did try, he really did, but he didn’t know what she was asking for. No human alive could blank their mind like she wanted him to under these circumstances. And somehow he didn’t think that the Order would do this, even if they knew what he was now, even if they knew what he’d been asked to do. But she was unwavering, and he knew if he didn’t comply and eventually give her what she wanted, he was going to die here...

She waited for an answer he couldn’t give. The Curse cut the air once more, and he screamed.

***

Draco stared at the glass littering the tiled floor for a good long while before realizing it was he who’d dropped it. He didn’t even remember pouring the water it had contained. The hand that had been holding it was shaking so hard he had to squeeze it in the other to get it to stop. His heart was racing from what, he didn’t know, and his head felt light, dizzy. He looked up to see that he was in their kitchen, but didn’t remember how he’d gotten there. It was like he’d been sleep walking. It would’ve been the most sleep he’d gotten in weeks.

"Draco? Sweetheart, are you alright?"

His mother was suddenly at his side, having entered from the drawing room across the hall. A house elf she’d summoned was tidying the mess at his feet. Her hands massaged his shoulders, her eyes searching his for a sign of what was wrong. Her touch was the most comforting thing he’d felt in a very long time...and something inside him snapped.

"Mum, I don’t...I don’t want Aunt Bella here anymore."

The look of bewilderment she gave him confirmed just how very out of the blue his statement was. But he didn’t take it back, didn’t try to brush it aside. He was still trembling from head to toe, and only her strong hold on him kept him upright.

"Please." His voice cracked on the plea, which seemed to spur Narcissa into further action.

"Whatever do you mean? She’s family, she’s here to help us, why wouldn’t you--?"

"She...she does things to me…" Even now, he couldn’t say any of it aloud. There was a house elf peering shiftily up at them, clearly eavesdropping. And if he said what things she’d been doing, it would only make it all the more real, but he...he had to say something, he had to get it out somehow. "When we have our ‘talks.’ And I...I don’t know how much longer I can--"

"What are you saying? She would never hurt you, you know that--"

"But she has! She has! She’s sick, she needs help--"

"Draco Lucius Malfoy, don’t you dare."

The air suddenly ran cold. Draco had half a mind to ask what was the matter with her, but then he felt it: her grip tightening almost imperceptibly, but enough so that he could almost feel the tips of her fingernails digging into his skin. He could see it, then, too: the mad twinkle in her eye, so like her sister. He recoiled, but she held on, drawing him close till he could feel the spittle from her hissing lips hitting his nose.

"Do you have any idea the gravity of the task you’ve been assigned to perform? Do you have any clue at all what’s at stake if you fail?!"

"Mum, I...I do, it’s just...Aunt Bella, she--"

"She is the only reason either of us is even still around to have this conversation. She was the one who went to the Dark Lord and begged him to take you in and give you these duties, to prove yourself! Don’t you understand?! You know what will happen if we disobey! He will murder us. You know that, don’t you? You, me, your father. We’ve already failed him one too many times; this is our last chance! I will not see this family I’ve worked so hard to protect be destroyed! Do you understand me?!"

His head lolled as she shook him. She must’ve taken it as a nod, because she finally let him go and took a step back, absentmindedly wiping her hands on the front of her dress. He swallowed as he watched her, afraid to move or make a sound, lest he set her off again. With a final haughty glance to the slave at their feet, she turned on her heel and stalked upstairs to her bedroom, where she sequestered herself for the remainder of the day.

***

Over the pain searing his nerves, frying his retinas, he could hear his Aunt cackling at him. He could feel the chair shaking beneath him as he flailed, struggled to resist, refused to scream for her this time. He’d already bitten his tongue in previous attempts, and a metallic taste still invaded his mouth.

"I can see you’re trying, but I don’t think you understand yet! You’re meant to feel nothing, not even the hatred for me I can see all over your face."

To feel nothing? Well, what was there to really feel about anymore, anyway? There was nothing he could do, and no one to help him. His father was in Azkaban. His mother had all but forsaken him after their last encounter. His Aunt was...doing this. And in the instance that he realized that, he felt an overwhelming sense of dread wash over him. It wasn’t emotionless, as she’d been requesting, but it was enough that his mind began to slip into a stasis, the opening she’d been poking at slowly closing.

The push to finally snap it shut took all of his mental and physical concentration, so much so that she was suddenly sent sliding backwards on her heels, and he toppled to the floor, his chair the only thing that broke his fall. It wasn’t enough to save his head from smacking the tile, however. He was still seeing stars when her beaming face finally swam into view, knelt beside him with her wand held aloft.

"Ha! Yes! That’s it! Now again!"

She cast, and it hit him hard--pain upon pain from the tightness in his muscles already. He finally let out a single, agonizing shriek before clamping his jaw and steeling himself once more.

***

Outside the window, the rain poured, fogging the glass and obscuring the scenery beyond. Inside, the clan of Slytherins--comfortably tucked away in their usual compartment--chatted animatedly, as if it had been years since they’d last been all in one place, rather than months. The train rocked gently beneath them as it strained for their destination: the castle, their sixth year, and a time that would change Draco’s life forever.

He felt like he was sitting light-years away. The noise of their conversation was nothing but a din against the blood pounding in his ears. There was a swelling in his chest like he just couldn’t get enough air in. It made him dizzy, disoriented, and it had been building since he’d reached the platform.

A sudden hand on his shoulder made him jump. His head whipped around, his heart thrumming like a stampede of centaurs, and he saw a wide-eyed Theo staring back.

"You alright, mate?"

For a split second, he imagined himself telling him the truth. Imagined himself falling into Theo’s arms, sobbing. Spilling every dirty secret, every carefully-crafted plan upon backup plan upon backup plan. Easing that weight in the pit of his stomach. Because Theo would understand, wouldn’t he? Their fathers were alike, in more ways than one. He’d been through many of the same hardships in life that Draco had, and he was just as wary of the whole thing, that much was certain. He’d understand. And together they would do something about this, all of this, before it was too late...

Then Theo was looking him in the eye, and he felt himself--instinctively--wipe his mind clean. The images faded and were replaced with a void, a near tangible nothingness. Calm, blank, and silent. Enough so that he was able to crack a very small smile, just an insignificant upturn of one corner of his mouth, and say, "I’m fine." The brunette didn’t look convinced at first. But he soon smiled back, knocked their shoulders together genially, and rejoined the conversation. As the chatter continued around him, Draco began to feel the pull himself, gradually--but surely--returning to a more natural state of being. No one was any the wiser.

Aunt Bella would be proud.

[theliterateape]

To Bro, With Disregard: Substitute Teaching in the New World

by Don Hall

Churning up the Way Back Machine, I recall seeing the Sidney Poitier film To Sir, With Love in seventh grade at an assemble. It was 1979 and I loved it. The tale of a black teacher suddenly thrust into an all-white high school of British juvenile delinquents was both moving and had a great theme song.

Jumping forward to the nineties, I was my own version of Poitier, teaching music to young Chicagoans on the West side. If one was interested in that experience, one could certainly purchase a copy of Strippers, Guns, and The Holocaust Museum: OR: How I Survived My Time as a Chicago Public School Music Teacher available on Amazon.

After a solid twelve years out of the public school teaching workforce, I'm infrequently back to substitute teaching for charter schools. Once or twice a week, balanced by events work, Literate Ape work, podcasting, and pretending to be a reporter on Chicago Med. Not because I have any interest in rejoining the profession but because I got the damn degree and freelance work sometimes leaves some down time. Gotta make a few bucks while you can, amirite?

The experience has been eye-opening to say the very least. In that twelve years, there have been some extraordinary developments that have almost completely changed the very nature of students, public school classrooms, and the job. Mind you, substituting for the lower grades is almost exactly the same in most schools. I spent a day as the music teacher for grades 1-8 and it was an absolute joy.

High school kids? Not the same. When observing the brilliance of high school students working to change the world while, at the same time, reading about their classmates eating Tide Pods and filming themselves getting punched in the nuts, squaring the circle is a more complicated process. This is not to say that kids are no longer kids but to indicate that today's kids have tools and attitudes that even Sidney would find overwhelming.

One of the things I've been doing during breaks from the kids is jotting down random thoughts about things that happen during the day:

High School:

Some classes are like being assaulted.

Disregard so concrete that the students completely ignore my presence.

Interestingly, raising my voice has almost no effect whatsoever. If anything, the louder I get, the more attitude is thrown at me. I'm rarely called by my name (which is fine.) However, most of the kids call me "Bro." Mostly my response is "That's MR. Bro, please and thank you."

The question is how do I do this without simply ignoring them as well?

Ultimately, the most important thing I can do is keep my sense of humor. I’m not here to teach but to keep order with no tools or authority whatsoever.

I’m assigned a charter high school on the Southside. 

“Good morning, everyone. Everyone have a seat, please.”

Thirty sophomores continue to talk and play with their phones and basically ignore me.

“Everyone have a seat, please.”

I know if I raise my voice even slightly I will have at least one loudly indignant child divert things by arguing about me raising my voice. So I keep it steady.

“Everyone have a seat, please.” “Everyone have a seat, please.” “Everyone have a seat, please.”

Most of them have managed to avoid the frequency of my voice as if I am a dog whistle and they are impervious.

“Everyone have a seat, please.”

I detach for a moment and decide that, as an experiment, I will continue to stand there and say this phrase until they sit down or the hour is over. I say it twelve times before a smallish girl screams "CAN'T YOU HEAR HIM? SIT DOWN!"

And they sit. I look at her and smile. "You wanna be my sidekick today? That was amazing."

She grins from ear to ear.

“You gonna call the police? Why? BECAUSE I’M BLACK?”

“Because I’ve asked you to take a seat until someone can come from the office to walk you to where you’re supposed to be,” I answer, gripping the door handle frame to prevent the student’s exit.

“BLACK LIVES MATTER!” he screams as if I’ve violated his rights.

“YOU’RE RIGHT, THEY DO!” I bellow thinking my volume might dissuade him from further pulling at me, a boy almost twice my size, wrestling me to get out and away.

I’m wrong. He continues to push and wrestle, almost lifting me off my feet to get out of the room. I can’t quite reach the button to call the office so we are at an impasse.

Three girls, at least ten minutes late for the class (or perhaps they ditched another class when they heard there was a sub in Room 211) force the door open from the other side and he charges like a linebacker, knocking me aside, and runs down the hallway.

And I realize that the only way to get through this day — a day when eleven teachers called in sick on a Friday with only eight subs in the building to cover resulting in a low-grade, incredibly loud chaos — is to simply not care.

Earlier, I saw one of the eight subs leave in tears. Another just up and split after second period. At least I care enough to stick it out.

I know people who would think that calling the police and having the kid arrested for assaulting a substitute was the right call. Not me. These kids have enough horseshit to deal with and I’m just not that kind of asshole. I'm an asshole just not that kind of one.

So I sit for the next 45 minutes. The kids in the room go from quiet because of the altercation to less concerned to not giving a shit.

One girl calls across the room. “Hey, SUB!”

I get up, walk over to her, “Yeah, STUDENT?”

She laughs. “You must get paid a lot to teach at THIS school,” she says.

“Nope. Not a lot.” I reply.

Reading the above, one might wonder what could possibly bring me back. I could easily avoid the upper grades and just be the fun substitute for the seventh grade and have a ball. But that feels a bit like conceding to the failure.

At this point, it's the challenge. Each day of high school subbing is similar in that it feels like I'm surrounded by people who have such a casual disdain for my existence that it pummels my self esteem. In this scenario, I am even less than the sum of my physical parts. I am He Who Must Be Beaten In Order To Run Amok. I spend eight hours with a dozen Lydia Lucio's calling me a motherfucker and to get out of their way and to quit pretending to be what I'm not, I'm exhausted -- not out of physical exertion but rather from the almost non-stop adjustment of my rage management.

I used to be damned good at this. Time to re-learn the ropes, get my chops back in shape. And, in an almost sociological experiment, learn more about humanity from these young humans.

I can tell you a few things as I engage this:

Public education in America is failing not because of Betsy DeVos or guns or lack of money but because of smartphones. Imagine if every kid in school had a video game strapped like a feed bag around their neck with a permanent battery and unlimited access to games and movies and constant contact with their peers. What possible hope could one expect that any of them would learn to read or do math?

I asked a few regular teachers about the fact that even they do not enforce the bizarre school rule against smartphones in class. Why don't you just ban them from the building? "The parents insist they have them." is the standard response. In fact, in the suburbs, it has been made illegal to take students' phones away.

The last goddamn thing teachers should have in the classroom is a weapon. Not a gun, not a taser, nothing. Trust me on this — the hardest part of this temp gig is wrestling with the anger of looking into the eyes of a kid calling you "motherfucker" over and over. Most, if there was a weapon on their hip, would not use it to defend these kids but to exact power — just like the police do. Any teacher who denies this is a liar or terrified of the consequences of admitting it.  

I saw it happening when I was a full time Poitier but it’s worse now. The distrust of teachers and authority in general combined with the helicoptering of parenting skills has created a stew of children who know that there is no consequence to any of their actions. I’m certainly not advocating corporal punishment — we can all be happy the days of a teacher hitting a student with a board or a ruler are long gone from public education. That said, there is almost no form of consequence in place, leaving teachers to be more afraid of getting canned than the students have of hurling a chair across the room in a fit. 

It’s poor preparation for a world of brutal policing, unemployment, and Donald Trump as the leader of the (not so) Free World. We piss and moan about tone policing but mouthing off to a 25-year old in a uniform and a loaded pistol is pretty much always going to work out badly. 

On the other hand...

None of this is the fault of the kids. None of it. Poverty, underfunded schools with crumbling infrastructure in neighborhoods that have been neglected by the City for decades, the media drumbeat that these kids don’t matter (at least not as much as those white kids on the cover of TIME magazine) all contribute. Add to that the reality that graduating high school means almost nothing considering that college is abortively expensive and that, even if one manages to pay for it, unless you know someone important, there is little chance this education will result in meaningful employment.

I’m happy to say that I am not returning to the profession as my initial leaving had much to do with the sense of these things coming. We are failing our children on so many levels that it isn’t any wonder that they’re angry and are going to swarm us like zombies and eat our dim-bulb brains while SnapChatting it the whole time. We have left them to fend for themselves and that negligence has bred a generation of people so independently disdaining of authority, the world is no longer this to inherit but to burn down and create a new one from the rubble and ash. So what if some of them eat laundry detergent as a way to get YouTube hits? Some of them organized one of the largest mass protests since the late sixties.

And the next time someone tells you they are a teacher, walk them over to a local tavern and buy them a Long Island Iced Tea. Trust me. They’ve earned it.

[iiciel-blog]

Devour .

Okay ! As I have said from the last entry. Watch out !

Look at the picture below.

Do you have an idea about this week’s entry subject ?

Anything that comes to your mind ?

Yes, that’s right. IT LOOKS AWESOME !

And when I say awesome, the game is really great (in my OWN OPINION).

Let’s start !

For my eleventh journal gamedev entry (#journalgamedeventry11), the game I will be featuring is :

What kind of game is this ?

God Eater 2: Rage Burst (ゴッドイーター2 レイジバースト Goddo Ītā 2 Reiji Bāsuto) is an enhanced version of the original game for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. It was announced at Tokyo Game Show 2014. A new chapter titled "Rage Burst" is added to the story, featuring content separated into six difficulty levels within the main quests. Rage Burst introduces a new game mechanism known as "Blood Rage", which involves filling a yellow gauge by attacking enemies, and then making a pledge to the God Arc once it activates, granting various buffs to the player. Temporary invincibility can be toggled during the pledge selection process, at the expense of draining the yellow gauge on the bottom left of the screen.The game also introduces new characters, enemies and weapon types.

At the beginning, the player (by the way, this is a single player game) will create his character. This is called customization where the player will decide the appearance of the character. In this game, there are no classes, you know something like swordsman, wizard, assassin, etc. Character appearance will never affect the gameplay but I think, the character must have this cool/badass aura/attidtude because well, the gameplay of this game is really great. After that is the name, of course. Name is a very important element (I guess.) because the player will use it throughout the game. 

Then, the story starts (the player, of course, is the protagonist of it).

Like most games, a tutorial will guide the player before the actual combat.

In this game, the player will receive missions, consists of the main story and sub. As the player finishes a mission, the story will continue.

So, here it is, my experience on this game.

This game is really really great. The gameplay as well as the design is a masterpiece. I mean, like in the anime version (the game is originally a video game but an anime series was adapted from it), the designs is great. And, I’ll start judging it: Design will 10/10.

Next will be the gameplay: The gameplay is sick, as in awesome. Let me tell the more about this game. So, the characters fighting the Aragami (called Gods), are called God Eaters. These Aragami are everywhere, and humanity will eventually be extinct. Consider it like a zombie apocalypse but with these Aragami. And then, there are these people who can fight against them. But normal weapons cannot damage these gods. Instead, there are weapons made especially to slain these gods. They are called God Arcs, and they come in different forms such as short blade, long blade, buster blade, variant scythe, boost hammer.

I might not be able to tell clearly so feel free to read:

Aragami

First reported sometime in the year 2050, the Aragami is a race of mysterious beasts that had consumed a majority of the Earth's resources and pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. Made of hundreds of thousands of "Oracle Cells", the Aragami can consume any given object/organism, as well as any smaller Aragami, and take on its attributes, allowing any individual Aragami to "evolve" beyond its evolutionary chain. In addition, newer evolved species of Aragami starting to resemble humans. Impervious to any modern firearms, as well as any form of weaponized energy, the God Arc is the only weapon capable of "cutting through" an Aragami's "core", effectively killing it.

God Arc

Known as Jinki (神機 Jinki, translates as "god machine") in the Japanese release, the God Arc is a series of biomechanical weapons created by Fenrir as a means to combat the Aragami. Usually looks like a mix between a sword, a gun, a shield and a mass of black Aragami flesh, each of these God Arcs are controlled by an artificial Aragami core embedded near the grip area, allowing the God Eaters to control these weapons to their fullest extent. In other words, every God Arc is a man-made Aragami that can be controlled by humans. In the early installment of the games, they are two types of God Arcs: the "Old-type", in which a God Arc is designed for either close-quarter combat or long-ranged combat; and the "New-Type", which can freely switch between forms. So far, the God Arc has five known forms:

Blade Form: A form normally used for close-quarter combat, it simply makes use of the God Arc's blade part to attack the Aragami in close-range.

Gun Form: A form used for long-ranged assaults, it utilizes the gun part of the God Arc to shoot the Aragami.

Shield Form: A form that can be accessed in Blade Form, this deploys a shield to protect the God Eater from enemy attacks.

Predator Form: A form that can be accessed in Blade Form, this form produces a massive pair of jaws from the God Arc to "devour" the Aragami, bestowing them with a powered state called "Burst Mode", which greatly enhances the God Eater's power and abilities. This form is also used for salvaging cores and materials from fallen Aragami, which are essential for crafting new items and equipment.

Blood Rage: A form introduced in God Eater 2 Rage Burst that can be accessed only by the player. In this form, the God Arc temporarily unlocks its Restraining Frames, producing a crystalline "wing" on the God Eater's back, giving them invincibility and increased speed and attack, as well as capable of dashing infinitely. Unfortunately, it only lasts roughly 30 seconds, and it requires a portion of the Awakening Gauge to be activated again.

However, not everyone can wield the God Arc, as each of them are connected to a specific God Eater. Also, if a God Eater touches someone else's God Arc apart from their own, they will get "devoured" and killed, or in a rare case, turns them into an Aragami.

God Eater

God Eaters are individuals capable of wielding the God Arc to fight the Aragami, and serving as Fenrir's main line of defense. Chosen through a series of aptitude test, the selected subjects are then painfully equipped with a bracelet containing the Bias Factor, a substance that determines what the Aragami should and should not "eat", as well as protecting them from getting devoured by their assigned God Arc. The bracelet also grants super-strength and enhanced speed. If the bracelet is damaged and/or removed, the invading Oracle Cells from the God Arcs will gradually mutate the God Eater into an Aragami. If this happens, they can only be killed by their own God Arcs.

~~~~

By completing missions, player will receive rewards that can be use to further increase the character stats. So, the gameplay is 10/10.

Honestly, I find this game really great, I mean if it could just be played multiplayer, then good.

As for the elements:

Challenge - Player will need to beat these Aragami (because they come in different forms, and bosses are also in a different level).

Rules - Rules seems to be fine.

Story - The story is also great, maybe because of the apocalyptic era.

Objectives - Complete missions and strengthen your character.

The game is long. Because it has story, and is a RPG, the player might lose interest in it. Also, single-player is a factor, but rejoice, the game will have a new released entitled God Eater Online. Though it is not released yet in Western countries, the game is similar to that of the original, only ported to phone and is now online. Games are really great when played with friends.

And that’s all for this week’s entry. (I’ll try to make it short next time...)

Need to search for more games ...

『　　』

[dionahfeferrer]

Every successful relation is successful for the same exact reasons.

LOVE IS PATIENT Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons Mark Manson  January 13, 2017  Respect each other. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson) Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this, especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for. But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further. See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? Why not ask them for their best relationship/marriage advice? Why not synthesize all of their wisdom and experience into something straightforward and immediately applicable to any relationship, no matter who you are? Why not crowdsource THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE TO END ALL RELATIONSHIP GUIDES™ from the sea of smart and savvy partners and lovers here? So, that’s what I did. I sent out the call the week before my wedding: anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship, what lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner? And if you’re divorced, what didn’t work previously? The response was overwhelming. Almost 1,500 people replied, many of whom sent in responses measured in pages, not paragraphs. It took almost two weeks to comb through them all, but I did. And what I found stunned me… They were incredibly repetitive. That’s not an insult or anything. Actually, it’s kind of the opposite. These were all smart and well-spoken people from all walks of life, from all around the world, all with their own histories, tragedies, mistakes, and triumphs… And yet they were all saying pretty much the same dozen things. Which means that those dozen or so things must be pretty damn important… and more importantly, they work. Here’s what they are: 1. Be together for the right reasons Don’t ever be with someone because someone else pressured you to. I got married the first time because I was raised Catholic and that’s what you were supposed to do. Wrong. I got married the second time because I was miserable and lonely and thought having a loving wife would fix everything for me. Also wrong. Took me three tries to figure out what should have been obvious from the beginning, the only reason you should ever be with the person you’re with is because you simply love being around them. It really is that simple. – Greg Before we even get into what you should do in your relationship, let’s start with what not to do. When I sent out my request to readers for advice, I added a caveat that turned out to be illuminating. I asked people who were on their second or third (or fourth) marriages what they did wrong. Where did they mess up? By far, the most common answer was “being with the person for the wrong reasons.” Some of these wrong reasons included: Pressure from friends and familyFeeling like a “loser” because they were single and settling for the first person that came alongBeing together for image—because the relationship looked good on paper (or in photos), not because the two people actually admired each otherBeing young and naive and hopelessly in love and thinking that love would solve everything As we’ll see throughout the rest of this article, everything that makes a relationship “work” (and by work, I mean that it is happy and sustainable for both people involved) requires a genuine, deep-level admiration for each other. Without that mutual admiration, everything else will unravel. The other “wrong” reason to enter into a relationship is, like Greg said, to “fix” yourself. This desire to use the love of someone else to soothe your own emotional problems inevitably leads to codependence, an unhealthy and damaging dynamic between two people where they tacitly agree to use each other’s love as a distraction from their own self-loathing. We’ll get more into codependence later in this article, but for now, it’s useful to point out that love, itself, is neutral. It is something that can be both healthy or unhealthy, helpful or harmful, depending on why and how you love someone else and are loved by someone else. By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship. 2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance You are absolutely not going to be absolutely gaga over each other every single day for the rest of your lives, and all this “happily ever after” bullshit is just setting people up for failure. They go into relationship with these unrealistic expectations. Then, the instant they realize they aren’t “gaga” anymore, they think the relationship is broken and over, and they need to get out. No! There will be days, or weeks, or maybe even longer, when you aren’t all mushy-gushy in-love. You’re even going to wake up some morning and think, “Ugh, you’re still here….” That’s normal! And more importantly, sticking it out is totally worth it, because that, too, will change. In a day, or a week, or maybe even longer, you’ll look at that person and a giant wave of love will inundate you, and you’ll love them so much you think your heart can’t possibly hold it all and is going to burst. Because a love that’s alive is also constantly evolving. It expands and contracts and mellows and deepens. It’s not going to be the way it used to be, or the way it will be, and it shouldn’t be. I think if more couples understood that, they’d be less inclined to panic and rush to break up or divorce. – Paula Love is a funny thing. In ancient times, people genuinely considered love a sickness. Parents warned their children against it, and adults quickly arranged marriages before their children were old enough to do something dumb in the name of their emotions. That’s because love, while making us feel all giddy and high as if we had just snorted a shoebox full of cocaine, makes us highly irrational. We all know that guy (or girl) who dropped out of school, sold their car, and spent the money to elope on the beaches of Tahiti. We all also know that that guy (or girl) ended up sulking back a few years later feeling like a moron, not to mention broke. That’s unbridled love. It’s nature’s way of tricking us into doing insane and irrational things to procreate with another person—probably because if we stopped to think about the repercussions of having kids, and being with the same person forever and ever, no one would ever do it. As Robin Williams used to joke, “God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to operate one at a time.” Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most. That dizzying high you get staring into your lover’s eyes as if they are the stars that make up the heavens—yeah, that mostly goes away. It does for everybody. So, once it’s gone, you need to know that you’ve buckled yourself down with a human being you genuinely respect and enjoy being with, otherwise things are going to get rocky. True love—that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy—is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances. It’s a commitment to a person who you understand isn’t going to always make you happy—nor should they!—and a person who will need to rely on you at times, just as you will rely on them. That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to. But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs. Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life—the good, the bad and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world. – Tara Many people never learn how to breach this deep, unconditional love. Many people are instead addicted to the ups and downs of romantic love. They are in it for the feels, so to speak. And when the feels run out, so do they. Many people get into a relationship as a way to compensate for something they lack or hate within themselves. This is a one-way ticket to a toxic relationship because it makes your love conditional—you will love your partner as long as they help you feel better about yourself. You will give to them as long as they give to you. You will make them happy as long as they make you happy. This conditionality prevents any true, deep-level intimacy from emerging and chains the relationship to the bucking throes of each person’s internal dramas. 3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect What I can tell you is the #1 thing, most important above all else is respect. It’s not sexual attraction, looks, shared goals, religion or lack of, nor is it love. There are times when you won’t feel love for your partner. That is the truth. But you never want to lose respect for your partner. Once you lose respect you will never get it back. – Laurie As we scanned through the hundreds of responses we received, my assistant and I began to notice an interesting trend. People who had been through divorces and/or had only been with their partners for 10-15 years almost always talked about communication being the most important part of making things work. Talk frequently. Talk openly. Talk about everything, even if it hurts. And there is some merit to that (which I’ll get to later). But we noticed that the thing people with marriages going on 20, 30, or even 40 years talked about most was respect. My sense is that these people, through sheer quantity of experience, have learned that communication, no matter how open, transparent and disciplined, will always break down at some point. Conflicts are ultimately unavoidable, and feelings will always be hurt. And the only thing that can save you and your partner, that can cushion you both to the hard landing of human fallibility, is an unerring respect for one another, the fact that you hold each other in high esteem, believe in one another—often more than you each believe in yourselves—and trust that your partner is doing his/her best with what they’ve got. Without that bedrock of respect underneath you, you will doubt each other’s intentions. You will judge their choices and encroach on their independence. You will feel the need to hide things from one another for fear of criticism. And this is when the cracks in the edifice begin to appear. My husband and I have been together 15 years this winter. I’ve thought a lot about what seems to be keeping us together, while marriages around us crumble (seriously, it’s everywhere… we seem to be at that age). The one word that I keep coming back to is “respect.” Of course, this means showing respect, but that is too superficial. Just showing it isn’t enough. You have to feel it deep within you. I deeply and genuinely respect him for his work ethic, his patience, his creativity, his intelligence, and his core values. From this respect comes everything else—trust, patience, perseverance (because sometimes life is really hard and you both just have to persevere). I want to hear what he has to say (even if I don’t agree with him) because I respect his opinion. I want to enable him to have some free time within our insanely busy lives because I respect his choices of how he spends his time and who he spends time with. And, really, what this mutual respect means is that we feel safe sharing our deepest, most intimate selves with each other. – Nicole You must also respect yourself. Just as your partner must also respect his/herself. Because without that self-respect, you will not feel worthy of the respect afforded by your partner. You will be unwilling to accept it and you will find ways to undermine it. You will constantly feel the need to compensate and prove yourself worthy of love, which will just backfire. Respect for your partner and respect for yourself are intertwined. As a reader named Olov put it, “Respect yourself and your wife. Never talk badly to or about her. If you don’t respect your wife, you don’t respect yourself. You chose her—live up to that choice.” So what does respect look like? Common examples given by many readers: NEVER talk shit about your partner or complain about them to your friends. If you have a problem with your partner, you should be having that conversation with them, not with your friends. Talking bad about them will erode your respect for them and make you feel worse about being with them, not better.Respect that they have different hobbies, interests, and perspectives from you. Just because you would spend your time and energy differently, doesn’t mean it’s better/worse.Respect that they have an equal say in the relationship, that you are a team, and if one person on the team is not happy, then the team is not succeeding.No secrets. If you’re really in this together and you respect one another, everything should be fair game. Have a crush on someone else? Discuss it. Laugh about it. Had a weird sexual fantasy that sounds ridiculous? Be open about it. Nothing should be off-limits. Respect goes hand-in-hand with trust. And trust is the lifeblood of any relationship (romantic or otherwise). Without trust, there can be no sense of intimacy or comfort. Without trust, your partner will become a liability in your mind, something to be avoided and analyzed, not a protective homebase for your heart and your mind. 4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts We always talk about what’s bothering us with each other, not anyone else! We have so many friends who are in marriages that are not working well and they tell me all about what is wrong. I can’t help them, they need to be talking to their spouse about this, that’s the only person who can help them figure it out. If you can figure out a way to be able to always talk with your spouse about what’s bugging you then you can work on the issue. – Ronnie There can be no secrets. Secrets divide you. Always. – Tracey I receive hundreds of emails from readers each week asking for life advice. A large percentage of these emails involve their struggling romantic relationships. (These emails, too, are surprisingly repetitive.) A couple years ago, I discovered that I was answering the vast majority of these relationship emails with the exact same response. “Take this email you just sent to me, print it out, and show it to your partner. Then come back and ask again.” This response became so common that I actually put it on my contact form on the site because I was so tired of copying and pasting it. If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it. Saying it builds trust and trust builds intimacy. It may hurt, but you still need to do it. No one else can fix your relationship for you. Nor should anyone else. Just as causing pain to your muscles allows them to grow back stronger, often introducing some pain into your relationship through vulnerability is the only way to make the relationship stronger. Behind respect, trust was the most commonly mentioned trait for a healthy relationship. Most people mentioned it in the context of jealousy and fidelity—trust your partner to go off on their own, don’t get insecure or angry if you see them talking with someone else, etc. But trust goes much deeper than that. Because when you’re really talking about the long-haul, you start to get into some serious life-or-death shit. If you ended up with cancer tomorrow, would you trust your partner to stick with you and take care of you? Would you trust your partner to care for your child for a week by themselves? Do you trust them to handle your money or make sound decisions under pressure? Do you trust them to not turn on you or blame you when you make mistakes? These are hard things to do. And they’re even harder to think about early on in a relationship. Trust at the beginning of a relationship is easy. It’s like, “Oh, I forgot my phone at her apartment, I trust her not to sell it and buy crack with the money… I think.” But the deeper the commitment, the more intertwined your lives become, and the more you will have to trust your partner to act in your interest in your absence. There’s an old Ben Folds song where he sings, “It seems to me if you cannot trust, you cannot be trusted.” Distrust has a tendency to breed distrust. If your partner is always snooping through your stuff, accusing you of doing things you didn’t do, and questioning all of your decisions, naturally, you will start to question their intentions as well—Why is she so insecure? What if she is hiding something herself? The key to fostering and maintaining trust in the relationship is for both partners to be completely transparent and vulnerable: If something is bothering you, say something. This is important not only for addressing issues as they arise, but it proves to your partner that you have nothing to hide.Those icky, insecure things you hate sharing with people? Share them with your partner. Not only is it healing, but you and your partner need to have a good understanding of each other’s insecurities and the way you each choose to compensate for them.Make promises and then stick to them. The only way to truly rebuild trust after it’s been broken is through a proven track record over time. You cannot build that track record until you own up to previous mistakes and set about correcting them.Learn to discern your partner’s own shady behavior from your own insecurities (and vice-versa). This is hard and will likely require confrontation to get to the bottom of. But in most relationship fights, one person thinks something is completely “normal” and the other thinks it’s really grade-A “fucked up.” It’s often extremely hard to distinguish who is being irrational and insecure and who is being reasonable and merely standing up for themselves. Be patient in rooting out what’s what, and when it’s your big, gnarly insecurity (and sometimes it will be, trust me), be honest about it. Own up to it. And strive to be better. Trust is like a china plate. If you drop it and it breaks, you can put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into twice as many pieces and it will require far more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you do. 5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals Understand that it is up to you to make yourself happy, it is NOT the job of your spouse. I am not saying you shouldn’t do nice things for each other, or that your partner can’t make you happy sometimes. I am just saying don’t lay expectations on your partner to “make you happy.” It is not their responsibility. Figure out as individuals what makes you happy as an individual, be happy yourself, then you each bring that to the relationship. – Mandy A lot is made about “sacrifices” in a relationship. You are supposed to keep the relationship happy by consistently sacrificing yourself for your partner and their wants and needs. There is some truth to that. Every relationship requires each person to consciously choose to give something up at times. But the problem is when all of the relationship’s happiness is contingent on the other person and both people are in a constant state of sacrifice. Just read that again. That sounds horrible. It reminds me of an old Marilyn Manson song, “Shoot myself to love you; if I loved myself, I’d be shooting you.” A relationship based on sacrifices cannot be sustained, and will eventually become damaging to both individuals in it. Shitty, codependent relationships have an inherent stability because you’re both locked in an implicit bargain to tolerate the other person’s bad behavior because they’re tolerating yours, and neither of you wants to be alone. On the surface, it seems like “compromising in relationships because that’s what people do,” but the reality is that resentments build up, and both parties become the other person’s emotional hostage against having to face and deal with their own bullshit (it took me 14 years to realize this, by the way). – Karen A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy and happy individuals. Keyword here: “individuals.” That means two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time. This is why attempting to control your partner (or submitting control over yourself to your partner) to make them “happy” ultimately backfires—it allows the individual identities of each person to be destroyed, the very identities that attracted each person and brought them together in the first place. Don’t try to change them. This is the person you chose. They were good enough to marry so don’t expect them to change now. – Allison Don’t ever give up who you are for the person you’re with. It will only backfire and make you both miserable. Have the courage to be who you are, and most importantly, let your partner be who they are. Those are the two people who fell in love with each other in the first place. – Dave But how does one do this? Well, it’s a bit counterintuitive. But it’s something hundreds and hundreds of successful couples echoed in their emails… 6. Give each other space Be sure you have a life of your own, otherwise it is harder to have a life together. What do I mean? Have your own interests, your own friends, your own support network, and your own hobbies. Overlap where you can, but not being identical should give you something to talk about and expose one another to. It helps to expand your horizons as a couple, but isn’t so boring as both living the exact same life. – Anonymous Among the emails, one of the most popular themes was the importance of creating space and separation from one another. People sung the praises of separate checking accounts, separate credit cards, having different friends and hobbies, taking separate vacations from one another each year (this has been a big one in my own relationship). Some even went so far as to recommend separate bathrooms or even separate bedrooms. Some people are afraid to give their partner freedom and independence. This comes from a lack of trust and/or insecurity that if we give our partner too much space, they will discover they don’t want to be with us anymore. Generally, the more uncomfortable we are with our own worthiness in the relationship and to be loved, the more we will try to control the relationship and our partner’s behaviors. BUT, more importantly, this inability to let our partners be who they are, is a subtle form of disrespect. After all, if you can’t trust your husband to have a simple golfing trip with his buddies, or you’re afraid to let your wife go out for drinks after work, what does that say about your respect for their ability to handle themselves well? What does it say for your respect for yourself? I mean, after all, if you believe a couple after-work drinks is enough to steer your girlfriend away from you, you clearly don’t think too highly of yourself. Going on seventeen years. If you love your partner enough you will let them be who they are, you don’t own them, who they hang with, what they do or how they feel. Drives me nuts when I see women not let their husbands go out with the guys or are jealous of other women. – Natalie 7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it Over the course of 20 years we both have changed tremendously. We have changed faiths, political parties, numerous hair colors and styles, but we love each other and possibly even more. Our grown kids constantly tell their friends what hopeless romantics we are. And the biggest thing that keeps us strong is not giving a fuck about what anyone else says about our relationship. – Dotti One theme that came up repeatedly, especially with those married 20+ years, was how much each individual changes as the decades roll on, and how ready each of you have to be to embrace the other partner as these changes occur. One reader commented that at her wedding, an elderly family member told her, “One day many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person, make sure you fall in love with that person too.” It logically follows that if there is a bedrock of respect for each individual’s interest and values underpinning the relationship, and each individual is encouraged to foster their own growth and development, that each person will, as time goes on, evolve in different and unexpected ways. It’s then up to the couple to communicate and make sure that they are consistently a) aware of the changes going on in their partner, and b) continually accepting and respecting those changes as they occur. Now, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “Sure, Bill likes sausage now, but in a few years he might prefer steak. I can get on board with that.” No, I’m talking some pretty serious life changes. Remember, if you’re going to spend decades together, some really heavy shit will hit (and break) the fan. Among major life changes people told me their marriages went through (and survived): changing religions, moving countries, death of family members (including children), supporting elderly family members, changing political beliefs, even changing sexual orientation, and in a couple cases, gender identification. Amazingly, these couples survived because their respect for each other allowed them to adapt and allow each person to continue to flourish and grow. When you commit to someone, you don’t actually know who you’re committing to. You know who they are today, but you have no idea who this person is going to be in five years, ten years, and so on. You have to be prepared for the unexpected, and truly ask yourself if you admire this person regardless of the superficial (or not-so-superficial) details, because I promise almost all of them at some point are going to either change or go away. – Michael But this isn’t easy, of course. In fact, at times, it will be downright soul-destroying. Which is why you need to make sure you and your partner know how to fight. 8. Get good at fighting The relationship is a living, breathing thing. Much like the body and muscles, it cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You have to fight. You have to hash things out. Obstacles make the marriage. – Ryan Saplan John Gottman is a hot-shit psychologist and researcher who has spent over 30 years analyzing married couples and looking for keys to why they stick together and why they break up. Chances are, if you’ve read any relationship advice article before, you’ve either directly or indirectly been exposed to his work. When it comes to, “Why do people stick together?” he dominates the field. What Gottman does is he gets married couples in a room, puts some cameras on them, and then he asks them to have a fight. Notice: he doesn’t ask them to talk about how great the other person is. He doesn’t ask them what they like best about their relationship. He asks them to fight. Pick something they’re having problems with and talk about it for the camera. And from simply analyzing the film for the couple’s discussion (or shouting match, whatever), he’s able to predict with startling accuracy whether a couple will divorce or not. But what’s most interesting about Gottman’s research is that the things that lead to divorce are not necessarily what you think. Successful couples, like unsuccessful couples, he found, fight consistently. And some of them fight furiously. He has been able to narrow down four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to divorces (or breakups). He has gone on and called these “the four horsemen” of the relationship apocalypse in his books. They are: Criticizing your partner’s character (“You’re so stupid” vs “That thing you did was stupid”)Defensiveness (or basically, blame shifting, “I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t late all the time”)Contempt (putting down your partner and making them feel inferior)Stonewalling (withdrawing from an argument and ignoring your partner) The reader emails back this up as well. Out of the 1,500-some-odd emails, almost every single one referenced the importance of dealing with conflicts well. Advice given by readers included: Never insult or name-call your partner. Put another way: hate the sin, love the sinner. Gottman’s research found that “contempt”—belittling and demeaning your partner—is the number one predictor of divorce.Do not bring previous fights/arguments into current ones. This solves nothing and just makes the fight twice as bad as it was before. Yeah, you forgot to pick up groceries on the way home, but what does him being rude to your mother last Thanksgiving have to do with anything?If things get too heated, take a breather. Remove yourself from the situation and come back once emotions have cooled off a bit. This is a big one for me personally—sometimes when things get intense with my wife, I get overwhelmed and just leave for a while. I usually walk around the block two or three times and let myself seethe for about 15 minutes. Then I come back and we’re both a bit calmer and we can resume the discussion with a much more conciliatory tone.Remember that being “right” is not as important as both people feeling respected and heard. You may be right, but if you are right in such a way that makes your partner feel unloved, then there’s no real winner. But all of this takes for granted another important point: be willing to fight in the first place. I think when people talk about the necessity for “good communication” all of the time (a vague piece of advice that everyone says but few people seem to actually clarify what it means), this is what they mean: be willing to have the uncomfortable talks. Be willing to have the fights. Say the ugly things and get it all out in the open. This was a constant theme from the divorced readers. Dozens (hundreds?) of them had more or less the same sad story to tell: But there’s no way on God’s Green Earth this is her fault alone. There were times when I saw huge red flags. Instead of trying to figure out what in the world was wrong, I just plowed ahead. I’d buy more flowers, or candy, or do more chores around the house. I was a “good” husband in every sense of the word. But what I wasn’t doing was paying attention to the right things. She wasn’t telling me there wasn’t a problem but there was. And instead of saying something, I ignored all of the signals. – Jim 9. Get good at forgiving When you end up being right about something—shut up. You can be right and be quiet at the same time. Your partner will already know you’re right and will feel loved knowing that you didn’t wield it like a bastard sword. – Brian In marriage, there’s no such thing as winning an argument. – Bill To me, perhaps the most interesting nugget from Gottman’s research is the fact that most successful couples don’t actually resolve all of their problems. In fact, his findings were completely backwards from what most people actually expect: people in lasting and happy relationships have problems that never completely go away, while couples that feel as though they need to agree and compromise on everything end up feeling miserable and falling apart. To me, like everything else, this comes back to the respect thing. If you have two different individuals sharing a life together, it’s inevitable that they will have different values and perspectives on some things and clash over it. The key here is not changing the other person—as the desire to change your partner is inherently disrespectful (to both them and yourself)—but rather it’s to simply abide by the difference, love them despite it, and when things get a little rough around the edges, to forgive them for it. Everyone says that compromise is key, but that’s not how my husband and I see it. It’s more about seeking understanding. Compromise is bullshit, because it leaves both sides unsatisfied, losing little pieces of themselves in an effort to get along. On the other hand, refusing to compromise is just as much of a disaster, because you turn your partner into a competitor (“I win, you lose”). These are the wrong goals, because they’re outcome-based rather than process-based. When your goal is to find out where your partner is coming from—to truly understand on a deep level—you can’t help but be altered by the process. Conflict becomes much easier to navigate because you see more of the context. – Michelle I’ve written for years that the key to happiness is not achieving your lofty dreams, or experiencing some dizzying high, but rather finding the struggles and challenges that you enjoy enduring. A similar concept seems to be true in relationships: your perfect partner is not someone who creates no problems in the relationship, rather your perfect partner is someone who creates problems in the relationship that you feel good about dealing with. But how do you get good at forgiving? What does that actually mean? Again, some advice from the readers: When an argument is over, it’s over. Some couples went as far as to make this the golden rule in their relationship. When you’re done fighting, it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, it doesn’t matter if someone was mean and someone was nice. It’s over. It’s in the past. And you both agree to leave it there, not bring it up every month for the next three years.There’s no scoreboard. No one is trying to “win” here. There’s no, “You owe me this because you screwed up the laundry last week.” There’s no, “I’m always right about financial stuff, so you should listen to me.” There’s no, “I bought her three gifts and she only did me one favor.” Everything in the relationship is given and done unconditionally—that is: without expectation or manipulation.When your partner screws up, you separate the intentions from the behavior. You recognize the things you love and admire in your partner and understand that he/she was simply doing the best that they could, yet messed up out of ignorance. Not because they’re a bad person. Not because they secretly hate you and want to divorce you. Not because there’s somebody else in the background pulling them away from you. They are a good person. That’s why you are with them. If you ever lose your faith in that, then you will begin to erode your faith in yourself. And finally, pick your battles wisely. You and your partner only have so many fucks to give, make sure you both are saving them for the real things that matter. Been happily married 40+ years. One piece of advice that comes to mind: choose your battles. Some things matter, worth getting upset about. Most do not. Argue over the little things and you’ll find yourself arguing endlessly; little things pop up all day long, it takes a toll over time. Like Chinese water torture: minor in the short term, corrosive over time. Consider: is this a little thing or a big thing? Is it worth the cost of arguing? – Fred 10. The little things add up to big things If you don’t take the time to meet for lunch, go for a walk or go out to dinner and a movie with some regularity then you basically end up with a roommate. Staying connected through life’s ups and downs is critical. Eventually your kids grow up, your obnoxious brother-in-law will join a monastery and your parents will die. When that happens, guess who’s left? You got it… Mr./Mrs. Right! You don’t want to wake up 20 years later and be staring at a stranger because life broke the bonds you formed before the shitstorm started. You and your partner need to be the eye of the hurricane. – Brian Of the 1,500 responses I got, I’d say about half of them mentioned at some point or another one simple but effective piece of advice: Don’t ever stop doing the little things. They add up. Things as simple as saying, “I love you,” before going to bed, holding hands during a movie, doing small favors here and there, helping with some household chores. Even cleaning up when you accidentally pee on the toilet seat (seriously, someone said that)—these things all matter and add up over the long run. The same way Fred, married for 40+ years, stated above that arguing over small things consistently wears you both down, “like Chinese water torture,” so do the little favors and displays of affection add up. Don’t lose them. This seems to become particularly important once kids enter the picture. The big message I heard hundreds of times about kids: put the marriage first. Children are worshipped in our culture these days. Parents are expected to sacrifice everything for them. But the best way to raise healthy and happy kids is to maintain a healthy and happy marriage. Good kids don’t make a good marriage. A good marriage makes good kids. So keep your marriage the top priority. – Susan Readers implored to maintain regular “date nights,” to plan weekend getaways and to make time for sex, even when you’re tired, even when you’re stressed and exhausted and the baby is crying, even when Junior has soccer practice at 5:30am the next day. Make time for it. It’s worth it. Oh, and speaking of sex… 11. Sex matters… a LOT And you know how you know if you or her are slipping? Sex starts to slide. Period. No other test required. – Anonymous I still remember back in college, it was one of my first relationships with a cute little redhead. We were young and naive and crazy about each other. And, because we happened to live in the same dorm, we were banging like rabbits. It was everything a 19-year-old male could ask for. Then after a month or two, we hit our first “rough patch” in the relationship. We fought more often, found ourselves getting annoyed with each other, and suddenly our multiple-times-per-day habit magically dried up. And it wasn’t just with her, but with me. To my surprised adolescent male mind, it was actually possible to have sex available to you yet not want it. It was almost as if sex was connected to emotions! For a dumb 19-year-old, this was a complete shocker. That was the first time I discovered a truth about relationships: sex is the State of the Union. If the relationship is good, the sex will be good. You both will be wanting it and enjoying it. When the relationship is bad—when there are unresolved problems and unaddressed negative emotions—then the sex will often be the first thing to go out the window. This was reiterated to me hundreds of times in the emails. The nature of the sex itself varied quite a bit among couples—some couples take sexual experimentation seriously, others are staunch believers in frequency, others get way into fantasies—but the underlying principle was the same everywhere: both partners should be sexually satisfied as often as possible. But sex not only keeps the relationship healthy, many readers suggested that they use it to heal their relationships. That when things are a bit frigid between them or that they have some problems going on, a lot of stress, or other issues (i.e., kids), they even go so far as to schedule sexy time for themselves. They say it’s important. And it’s worth it. A few people even said that when things start to feel stale in the relationship, they agree to have sex every day for a week. Then, as if by magic, by the next week, they feel great again. Cue the Marvin Gaye tunes: 12. Be practical, and create relationship rules There is no 50/50 in housecleaning, child rearing, vacation planning, dishwasher emptying, gift buying, dinner making, money making, etc. The sooner everyone accepts that, the happier everyone is. We all have things we like to do and hate to do; we all have things we are good at and not so good at. TALK to your partner about those things when it comes to dividing and conquering all the crap that has to get done in life. – Liz Everyone has an image in their mind of how a relationship should work. Both people share responsibilities. Both people manage to finely balance their time together with the time for themselves. Both pursue engaging and invigorating interests on their own and then share the benefits together. Both take turns cleaning the toilet and blowing each other and cooking gourmet lasagna for the extended family at Thanksgiving (although not all at the same time). Then there’s how relationships actually work. Messy. Stressful. Miscommunication flying everywhere so that both of you feel as though you’re in a perpetual state of talking to a wall. The fact is relationships are imperfect, messy affairs. And it’s for the simple reason that they’re comprised of imperfect, messy people—people who want different things at different times in different ways and oh, they forgot to tell you? Well, maybe if you had been listening, asshole. The common theme of the advice here was “Be pragmatic.” If the wife is a lawyer and spends 50 hours at the office every week, and the husband is an artist and can work from home most days, it makes more sense for him to handle most of the day-to-day parenting duties. If the wife’s standard of cleanliness looks like a Home & Garden catalog, and the husband has gone six months without even noticing the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then it makes sense that the wife handles more of the home cleaning duties. It’s economics 101: division of labor makes everyone better off. Figure out what you are each good at, what you each love/hate doing, and then arrange accordingly. My wife loves cleaning (no, seriously), but she hates smelly stuff. So guess who gets dishes and garbage duty? Me. Because I don’t give a fuck. I’ll eat off the same plate seven times in a row. I couldn’t smell a dead rat even if it was sleeping under my pillow. I’ll toss garbage around all day. Here honey, let me get that for you. On top of that, many couples suggested laying out rules for the relationship. This sounds cheesy, but ultimately, it’s practical. To what degree will you share finances? How much debt will be taken on or paid off? How much can each person spend without consulting the other? What purchases should be done together or do you trust each other to do separately? How do you decide which vacations to go on? Have meetings about this stuff. Sure, it’s not sexy or cool, but it needs to get done. You’re sharing a life together and so you need to plan and account for each person’s needs and resources. One person even said that she and her husband have “annual reviews” every year. She immediately told me not to laugh, but that she was serious. They have annual reviews where they discuss everything that’s going on in the household that they like and don’t like and what they can do in the coming year to change it. This sort of stuff sounds lame but it’s what keeps couples in touch with what’s going on with each other. And because they always have their fingers on the pulse of each other’s needs, they’re more likely to grow together rather than grow apart. 13. Learn to ride the waves I have been married for 44 years (4 children, 6 grandchildren). I think the most important thing that I have learned in those years is that the love you feel for each other is constantly changing. Sometimes you feel a deep love and satisfaction, other times you want nothing to do with your spouse; sometimes you laugh together, sometimes you’re screaming at each other. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, ups and downs all the time, but as you stay together long enough the downs become less severe and the ups are more loving and contented. So even if you feel like you could never love your partner any more, that can change, if you give it a chance. I think people give up too soon. You need to be the kind of person that you want your spouse to be. When you do that it makes a world of difference. – Chris Out of the hundreds of analogies I saw these past few weeks, one stuck with me. A nurse emailed saying that she used to work with a lot of geriatric patients. And one day she was talking to a man in his late-80s about marriage and why his had lasted so long. The man said something like, “relationships exist as waves, people need to learn how to ride them.” Upon asking him to explain, he said that, like the ocean, there are constant waves of emotion going on within a relationship, ups and downs—some waves last for hours, some last for months or even years. The key is understanding that few of those waves have anything to do with the quality of the relationship—people lose jobs, family members die, couples relocate, switch careers, make a lot of money, lose a lot of money. Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love, regardless of where they go. Because ultimately, none of these waves last. And you simply end up with each other. Two years ago, I suddenly began resenting my wife for any number of reasons. I felt as if we were floating along, doing a great job of co-existing and co-parenting, but not sustaining a real connection. It deteriorated to the point that I considered separating from her; however, whenever I gave the matter intense thought, I could not pinpoint a single issue that was a deal breaker. I knew her to be an amazing person, mother, and friend. I bit my tongue a lot and held out hope that the malaise would pass as suddenly as it had arrived. Fortunately, it did and I love her more than ever. So the final bit of wisdom is to afford your spouse the benefit of the doubt. If you have been happy for such a long period, that is the case for good reason. Be patient and focus on the many aspects of her that still exist that caused you to fall in love in the first place. – Kevin I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the readers who took the time to write something and send it to me. As always, it was humbling to see all of the wisdom and life experience out there. There were many, many, many excellent responses, with kind, heartfelt advice. It was hard to choose the ones that ended up here, and in many cases, I could have put a dozen different quotes that said almost the exact same thing. Exercises like this always amaze me because when you ask thousands of people for advice on something, you expect to receive thousands of different answers. But in both cases now, the vast majority of the advice has largely been the same. It shows you how similar we really are. And how no matter how bad things may get, we are never as alone as we think. I would end this by summarizing the advice in one tidy section. But once again, a reader named Margo did it far better than I ever could. So we’ll end with Margo: You can work through anything as long as you are not destroying yourself or each other. That means emotionally, physically, financially, or spiritually. Make nothing off limits to discuss. Never shame or mock each other for the things you do that make you happy. Write down why you fell in love and read it every year on your anniversary (or more often). Write love letters to each other often. Make each other first. When kids arrive, it will be easy to fall into a frenzy of making them the only focus of your life…do not forget the love that produced them. You must keep that love alive and strong to feed them love. Spouse comes first. Each of you will continue to grow. Bring the other one with you. Be the one that welcomes that growth. Don’t think that the other one will hold the relationship together. Both of you should assume it’s up to you so that you are both working on it. Be passionate about cleaning house, preparing meals, and taking care of your home. This is required of everyone daily, make it fun and happy and do it together. Do not complain about your partner to anyone. Love them for who they are. Make love even when you are not in the mood. Trust each other. Give each other the benefit of the doubt always. Be transparent. Have nothing to hide. Be proud of each other. Have a life outside of each other, but share it through conversation. Pamper and adore each other. Go to counseling now before you need it so that you are both open to working on the relationship together. Disagree with respect to each other’s feelings. Be open to change and accepting of differences. Print this and refer to it daily. This post originally appeared at MarkManson.net. Follow @iammarkmanson on Twitter.

[dionahfeferrer]

Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons 🙆

https://qz.com/884448/every-successful-relationship-is-successful-for-the-same-exact-reasons/?utm_source=kwfb&kwp_0=317583&kwp_4=1209691&kwp_1=545607 Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons Mark Manson  January 13, 2017 Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this, especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for. But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further. See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? Why not ask them for their best relationship/marriage advice? Why not synthesize all of their wisdom and experience into something straightforward and immediately applicable to any relationship, no matter who you are? Why not crowdsource THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE TO END ALL RELATIONSHIP GUIDES™ from the sea of smart and savvy partners and lovers here? So, that’s what I did. I sent out the call the week before my wedding: anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship, what lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner? And if you’re divorced, what didn’t work previously? The response was overwhelming. Almost 1,500 people replied, many of whom sent in responses measured in pages, not paragraphs. It took almost two weeks to comb through them all, but I did. And what I found stunned me… They were incredibly repetitive. That’s not an insult or anything. Actually, it’s kind of the opposite. These were all smart and well-spoken people from all walks of life, from all around the world, all with their own histories, tragedies, mistakes, and triumphs… And yet they were all saying pretty much the same dozen things. Which means that those dozen or so things must be pretty damn important… and more importantly, they work. Here’s what they are: 1. Be together for the right reasons Don’t ever be with someone because someone else pressured you to. I got married the first time because I was raised Catholic and that’s what you were supposed to do. Wrong. I got married the second time because I was miserable and lonely and thought having a loving wife would fix everything for me. Also wrong. Took me three tries to figure out what should have been obvious from the beginning, the only reason you should ever be with the person you’re with is because you simply love being around them. It really is that simple. – Greg Before we even get into what you should do in your relationship, let’s start with what not to do. When I sent out my request to readers for advice, I added a caveat that turned out to be illuminating. I asked people who were on their second or third (or fourth) marriages what they did wrong. Where did they mess up? By far, the most common answer was “being with the person for the wrong reasons.” Some of these wrong reasons included: Pressure from friends and familyFeeling like a “loser” because they were single and settling for the first person that came alongBeing together for image—because the relationship looked good on paper (or in photos), not because the two people actually admired each otherBeing young and naive and hopelessly in love and thinking that love would solve everything As we’ll see throughout the rest of this article, everything that makes a relationship “work” (and by work, I mean that it is happy and sustainable for both people involved) requires a genuine, deep-level admiration for each other. Without that mutual admiration, everything else will unravel. The other “wrong” reason to enter into a relationship is, like Greg said, to “fix” yourself. This desire to use the love of someone else to soothe your own emotional problems inevitably leads to codependence, an unhealthy and damaging dynamic between two people where they tacitly agree to use each other’s love as a distraction from their own self-loathing. We’ll get more into codependence later in this article, but for now, it’s useful to point out that love, itself, is neutral. It is something that can be both healthy or unhealthy, helpful or harmful, depending on why and how you love someone else and are loved by someone else. By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship. 2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance You are absolutely not going to be absolutely gaga over each other every single day for the rest of your lives, and all this “happily ever after” bullshit is just setting people up for failure. They go into relationship with these unrealistic expectations. Then, the instant they realize they aren’t “gaga” anymore, they think the relationship is broken and over, and they need to get out. No! There will be days, or weeks, or maybe even longer, when you aren’t all mushy-gushy in-love. You’re even going to wake up some morning and think, “Ugh, you’re still here….” That’s normal! And more importantly, sticking it out is totally worth it, because that, too, will change. In a day, or a week, or maybe even longer, you’ll look at that person and a giant wave of love will inundate you, and you’ll love them so much you think your heart can’t possibly hold it all and is going to burst. Because a love that’s alive is also constantly evolving. It expands and contracts and mellows and deepens. It’s not going to be the way it used to be, or the way it will be, and it shouldn’t be. I think if more couples understood that, they’d be less inclined to panic and rush to break up or divorce. – Paula Love is a funny thing. In ancient times, people genuinely considered love a sickness. Parents warned their children against it, and adults quickly arranged marriages before their children were old enough to do something dumb in the name of their emotions. That’s because love, while making us feel all giddy and high as if we had just snorted a shoebox full of cocaine, makes us highly irrational. We all know that guy (or girl) who dropped out of school, sold their car, and spent the money to elope on the beaches of Tahiti. We all also know that that guy (or girl) ended up sulking back a few years later feeling like a moron, not to mention broke. That’s unbridled love. It’s nature’s way of tricking us into doing insane and irrational things to procreate with another person—probably because if we stopped to think about the repercussions of having kids, and being with the same person forever and ever, no one would ever do it. As Robin Williams used to joke, “God gave man a brain and a penis and only enough blood to operate one at a time.” Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other’s faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most. That dizzying high you get staring into your lover’s eyes as if they are the stars that make up the heavens—yeah, that mostly goes away. It does for everybody. So, once it’s gone, you need to know that you’ve buckled yourself down with a human being you genuinely respect and enjoy being with, otherwise things are going to get rocky. True love—that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy—is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances. It’s a commitment to a person who you understand isn’t going to always make you happy—nor should they!—and a person who will need to rely on you at times, just as you will rely on them. That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to. But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs. Happily Ever After doesn’t exist. Every day you wake up and decide to love your partner and your life—the good, the bad and the ugly. Some days it’s a struggle and some days you feel like the luckiest person in the world. – Tara Many people never learn how to breach this deep, unconditional love. Many people are instead addicted to the ups and downs of romantic love. They are in it for the feels, so to speak. And when the feels run out, so do they. Many people get into a relationship as a way to compensate for something they lack or hate within themselves. This is a one-way ticket to a toxic relationship because it makes your love conditional—you will love your partner as long as they help you feel better about yourself. You will give to them as long as they give to you. You will make them happy as long as they make you happy. This conditionality prevents any true, deep-level intimacy from emerging and chains the relationship to the bucking throes of each person’s internal dramas. 3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect What I can tell you is the #1 thing, most important above all else is respect. It’s not sexual attraction, looks, shared goals, religion or lack of, nor is it love. There are times when you won’t feel love for your partner. That is the truth. But you never want to lose respect for your partner. Once you lose respect you will never get it back. – Laurie As we scanned through the hundreds of responses we received, my assistant and I began to notice an interesting trend. People who had been through divorces and/or had only been with their partners for 10-15 years almost always talked about communication being the most important part of making things work. Talk frequently. Talk openly. Talk about everything, even if it hurts. And there is some merit to that (which I’ll get to later). But we noticed that the thing people with marriages going on 20, 30, or even 40 years talked about most was respect. My sense is that these people, through sheer quantity of experience, have learned that communication, no matter how open, transparent and disciplined, will always break down at some point. Conflicts are ultimately unavoidable, and feelings will always be hurt. And the only thing that can save you and your partner, that can cushion you both to the hard landing of human fallibility, is an unerring respect for one another, the fact that you hold each other in high esteem, believe in one another—often more than you each believe in yourselves—and trust that your partner is doing his/her best with what they’ve got. Without that bedrock of respect underneath you, you will doubt each other’s intentions. You will judge their choices and encroach on their independence. You will feel the need to hide things from one another for fear of criticism. And this is when the cracks in the edifice begin to appear. My husband and I have been together 15 years this winter. I’ve thought a lot about what seems to be keeping us together, while marriages around us crumble (seriously, it’s everywhere… we seem to be at that age). The one word that I keep coming back to is “respect.” Of course, this means showing respect, but that is too superficial. Just showing it isn’t enough. You have to feel it deep within you. I deeply and genuinely respect him for his work ethic, his patience, his creativity, his intelligence, and his core values. From this respect comes everything else—trust, patience, perseverance (because sometimes life is really hard and you both just have to persevere). I want to hear what he has to say (even if I don’t agree with him) because I respect his opinion. I want to enable him to have some free time within our insanely busy lives because I respect his choices of how he spends his time and who he spends time with. And, really, what this mutual respect means is that we feel safe sharing our deepest, most intimate selves with each other. – Nicole You must also respect yourself. Just as your partner must also respect his/herself. Because without that self-respect, you will not feel worthy of the respect afforded by your partner. You will be unwilling to accept it and you will find ways to undermine it. You will constantly feel the need to compensate and prove yourself worthy of love, which will just backfire. Respect for your partner and respect for yourself are intertwined. As a reader named Olov put it, “Respect yourself and your wife. Never talk badly to or about her. If you don’t respect your wife, you don’t respect yourself. You chose her—live up to that choice.” So what does respect look like? Common examples given by many readers: NEVER talk shit about your partner or complain about them to your friends. If you have a problem with your partner, you should be having that conversation with them, not with your friends. Talking bad about them will erode your respect for them and make you feel worse about being with them, not better.Respect that they have different hobbies, interests, and perspectives from you. Just because you would spend your time and energy differently, doesn’t mean it’s better/worse.Respect that they have an equal say in the relationship, that you are a team, and if one person on the team is not happy, then the team is not succeeding.No secrets. If you’re really in this together and you respect one another, everything should be fair game. Have a crush on someone else? Discuss it. Laugh about it. Had a weird sexual fantasy that sounds ridiculous? Be open about it. Nothing should be off-limits. Respect goes hand-in-hand with trust. And trust is the lifeblood of any relationship (romantic or otherwise). Without trust, there can be no sense of intimacy or comfort. Without trust, your partner will become a liability in your mind, something to be avoided and analyzed, not a protective homebase for your heart and your mind. 4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts We always talk about what’s bothering us with each other, not anyone else! We have so many friends who are in marriages that are not working well and they tell me all about what is wrong. I can’t help them, they need to be talking to their spouse about this, that’s the only person who can help them figure it out. If you can figure out a way to be able to always talk with your spouse about what’s bugging you then you can work on the issue. – Ronnie There can be no secrets. Secrets divide you. Always. – Tracey I receive hundreds of emails from readers each week asking for life advice. A large percentage of these emails involve their struggling romantic relationships. (These emails, too, are surprisingly repetitive.) A couple years ago, I discovered that I was answering the vast majority of these relationship emails with the exact same response. “Take this email you just sent to me, print it out, and show it to your partner. Then come back and ask again.” This response became so common that I actually put it on my contact form on the site because I was so tired of copying and pasting it. If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it. Saying it builds trust and trust builds intimacy. It may hurt, but you still need to do it. No one else can fix your relationship for you. Nor should anyone else. Just as causing pain to your muscles allows them to grow back stronger, often introducing some pain into your relationship through vulnerability is the only way to make the relationship stronger. Behind respect, trust was the most commonly mentioned trait for a healthy relationship. Most people mentioned it in the context of jealousy and fidelity—trust your partner to go off on their own, don’t get insecure or angry if you see them talking with someone else, etc. But trust goes much deeper than that. Because when you’re really talking about the long-haul, you start to get into some serious life-or-death shit. If you ended up with cancer tomorrow, would you trust your partner to stick with you and take care of you? Would you trust your partner to care for your child for a week by themselves? Do you trust them to handle your money or make sound decisions under pressure? Do you trust them to not turn on you or blame you when you make mistakes? These are hard things to do. And they’re even harder to think about early on in a relationship. Trust at the beginning of a relationship is easy. It’s like, “Oh, I forgot my phone at her apartment, I trust her not to sell it and buy crack with the money… I think.” But the deeper the commitment, the more intertwined your lives become, and the more you will have to trust your partner to act in your interest in your absence. There’s an old Ben Folds song where he sings, “It seems to me if you cannot trust, you cannot be trusted.” Distrust has a tendency to breed distrust. If your partner is always snooping through your stuff, accusing you of doing things you didn’t do, and questioning all of your decisions, naturally, you will start to question their intentions as well—Why is she so insecure? What if she is hiding something herself? The key to fostering and maintaining trust in the relationship is for both partners to be completely transparent and vulnerable: If something is bothering you, say something. This is important not only for addressing issues as they arise, but it proves to your partner that you have nothing to hide.Those icky, insecure things you hate sharing with people? Share them with your partner. Not only is it healing, but you and your partner need to have a good understanding of each other’s insecurities and the way you each choose to compensate for them.Make promises and then stick to them. The only way to truly rebuild trust after it’s been broken is through a proven track record over time. You cannot build that track record until you own up to previous mistakes and set about correcting them.Learn to discern your partner’s own shady behavior from your own insecurities (and vice-versa). This is hard and will likely require confrontation to get to the bottom of. But in most relationship fights, one person thinks something is completely “normal” and the other thinks it’s really grade-A “fucked up.” It’s often extremely hard to distinguish who is being irrational and insecure and who is being reasonable and merely standing up for themselves. Be patient in rooting out what’s what, and when it’s your big, gnarly insecurity (and sometimes it will be, trust me), be honest about it. Own up to it. And strive to be better. Trust is like a china plate. If you drop it and it breaks, you can put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into twice as many pieces and it will require far more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you do. 5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals Understand that it is up to you to make yourself happy, it is NOT the job of your spouse. I am not saying you shouldn’t do nice things for each other, or that your partner can’t make you happy sometimes. I am just saying don’t lay expectations on your partner to “make you happy.” It is not their responsibility. Figure out as individuals what makes you happy as an individual, be happy yourself, then you each bring that to the relationship. – Mandy A lot is made about “sacrifices” in a relationship. You are supposed to keep the relationship happy by consistently sacrificing yourself for your partner and their wants and needs. There is some truth to that. Every relationship requires each person to consciously choose to give something up at times. But the problem is when all of the relationship’s happiness is contingent on the other person and both people are in a constant state of sacrifice. Just read that again. That sounds horrible. It reminds me of an old Marilyn Manson song, “Shoot myself to love you; if I loved myself, I’d be shooting you.” A relationship based on sacrifices cannot be sustained, and will eventually become damaging to both individuals in it. Shitty, codependent relationships have an inherent stability because you’re both locked in an implicit bargain to tolerate the other person’s bad behavior because they’re tolerating yours, and neither of you wants to be alone. On the surface, it seems like “compromising in relationships because that’s what people do,” but the reality is that resentments build up, and both parties become the other person’s emotional hostage against having to face and deal with their own bullshit (it took me 14 years to realize this, by the way). – Karen A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy and happy individuals. Keyword here: “individuals.” That means two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time. This is why attempting to control your partner (or submitting control over yourself to your partner) to make them “happy” ultimately backfires—it allows the individual identities of each person to be destroyed, the very identities that attracted each person and brought them together in the first place. Don’t try to change them. This is the person you chose. They were good enough to marry so don’t expect them to change now. – Allison Don’t ever give up who you are for the person you’re with. It will only backfire and make you both miserable. Have the courage to be who you are, and most importantly, let your partner be who they are. Those are the two people who fell in love with each other in the first place. – Dave But how does one do this? Well, it’s a bit counterintuitive. But it’s something hundreds and hundreds of successful couples echoed in their emails… 6. Give each other space Be sure you have a life of your own, otherwise it is harder to have a life together. What do I mean? Have your own interests, your own friends, your own support network, and your own hobbies. Overlap where you can, but not being identical should give you something to talk about and expose one another to. It helps to expand your horizons as a couple, but isn’t so boring as both living the exact same life. – Anonymous Among the emails, one of the most popular themes was the importance of creating space and separation from one another. People sung the praises of separate checking accounts, separate credit cards, having different friends and hobbies, taking separate vacations from one another each year (this has been a big one in my own relationship). Some even went so far as to recommend separate bathrooms or even separate bedrooms. Some people are afraid to give their partner freedom and independence. This comes from a lack of trust and/or insecurity that if we give our partner too much space, they will discover they don’t want to be with us anymore. Generally, the more uncomfortable we are with our own worthiness in the relationship and to be loved, the more we will try to control the relationship and our partner’s behaviors. BUT, more importantly, this inability to let our partners be who they are, is a subtle form of disrespect. After all, if you can’t trust your husband to have a simple golfing trip with his buddies, or you’re afraid to let your wife go out for drinks after work, what does that say about your respect for their ability to handle themselves well? What does it say for your respect for yourself? I mean, after all, if you believe a couple after-work drinks is enough to steer your girlfriend away from you, you clearly don’t think too highly of yourself. Going on seventeen years. If you love your partner enough you will let them be who they are, you don’t own them, who they hang with, what they do or how they feel. Drives me nuts when I see women not let their husbands go out with the guys or are jealous of other women. – Natalie 7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it Over the course of 20 years we both have changed tremendously. We have changed faiths, political parties, numerous hair colors and styles, but we love each other and possibly even more. Our grown kids constantly tell their friends what hopeless romantics we are. And the biggest thing that keeps us strong is not giving a fuck about what anyone else says about our relationship. – Dotti One theme that came up repeatedly, especially with those married 20+ years, was how much each individual changes as the decades roll on, and how ready each of you have to be to embrace the other partner as these changes occur. One reader commented that at her wedding, an elderly family member told her, “One day many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person, make sure you fall in love with that person too.” It logically follows that if there is a bedrock of respect for each individual’s interest and values underpinning the relationship, and each individual is encouraged to foster their own growth and development, that each person will, as time goes on, evolve in different and unexpected ways. It’s then up to the couple to communicate and make sure that they are consistently a) aware of the changes going on in their partner, and b) continually accepting and respecting those changes as they occur. Now, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “Sure, Bill likes sausage now, but in a few years he might prefer steak. I can get on board with that.” No, I’m talking some pretty serious life changes. Remember, if you’re going to spend decades together, some really heavy shit will hit (and break) the fan. Among major life changes people told me their marriages went through (and survived): changing religions, moving countries, death of family members (including children), supporting elderly family members, changing political beliefs, even changing sexual orientation, and in a couple cases, gender identification. Amazingly, these couples survived because their respect for each other allowed them to adapt and allow each person to continue to flourish and grow. When you commit to someone, you don’t actually know who you’re committing to. You know who they are today, but you have no idea who this person is going to be in five years, ten years, and so on. You have to be prepared for the unexpected, and truly ask yourself if you admire this person regardless of the superficial (or not-so-superficial) details, because I promise almost all of them at some point are going to either change or go away. – Michael But this isn’t easy, of course. In fact, at times, it will be downright soul-destroying. Which is why you need to make sure you and your partner know how to fight. 8. Get good at fighting The relationship is a living, breathing thing. Much like the body and muscles, it cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You have to fight. You have to hash things out. Obstacles make the marriage. – Ryan Saplan John Gottman is a hot-shit psychologist and researcher who has spent over 30 years analyzing married couples and looking for keys to why they stick together and why they break up. Chances are, if you’ve read any relationship advice article before, you’ve either directly or indirectly been exposed to his work. When it comes to, “Why do people stick together?” he dominates the field. What Gottman does is he gets married couples in a room, puts some cameras on them, and then he asks them to have a fight. Notice: he doesn’t ask them to talk about how great the other person is. He doesn’t ask them what they like best about their relationship. He asks them to fight. Pick something they’re having problems with and talk about it for the camera. And from simply analyzing the film for the couple’s discussion (or shouting match, whatever), he’s able to predict with startling accuracy whether a couple will divorce or not. But what’s most interesting about Gottman’s research is that the things that lead to divorce are not necessarily what you think. Successful couples, like unsuccessful couples, he found, fight consistently. And some of them fight furiously. He has been able to narrow down four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to divorces (or breakups). He has gone on and called these “the four horsemen” of the relationship apocalypse in his books. They are: Criticizing your partner’s character (“You’re so stupid” vs “That thing you did was stupid”)Defensiveness (or basically, blame shifting, “I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t late all the time”)Contempt (putting down your partner and making them feel inferior)Stonewalling (withdrawing from an argument and ignoring your partner) The reader emails back this up as well. Out of the 1,500-some-odd emails, almost every single one referenced the importance of dealing with conflicts well. Advice given by readers included: Never insult or name-call your partner. Put another way: hate the sin, love the sinner. Gottman’s research found that “contempt”—belittling and demeaning your partner—is the number one predictor of divorce.Do not bring previous fights/arguments into current ones. This solves nothing and just makes the fight twice as bad as it was before. Yeah, you forgot to pick up groceries on the way home, but what does him being rude to your mother last Thanksgiving have to do with anything?If things get too heated, take a breather. Remove yourself from the situation and come back once emotions have cooled off a bit. This is a big one for me personally—sometimes when things get intense with my wife, I get overwhelmed and just leave for a while. I usually walk around the block two or three times and let myself seethe for about 15 minutes. Then I come back and we’re both a bit calmer and we can resume the discussion with a much more conciliatory tone.Remember that being “right” is not as important as both people feeling respected and heard. You may be right, but if you are right in such a way that makes your partner feel unloved, then there’s no real winner. But all of this takes for granted another important point: be willing to fight in the first place. I think when people talk about the necessity for “good communication” all of the time (a vague piece of advice that everyone says but few people seem to actually clarify what it means), this is what they mean: be willing to have the uncomfortable talks. Be willing to have the fights. Say the ugly things and get it all out in the open. This was a constant theme from the divorced readers. Dozens (hundreds?) of them had more or less the same sad story to tell: But there’s no way on God’s Green Earth this is her fault alone. There were times when I saw huge red flags. Instead of trying to figure out what in the world was wrong, I just plowed ahead. I’d buy more flowers, or candy, or do more chores around the house. I was a “good” husband in every sense of the word. But what I wasn’t doing was paying attention to the right things. She wasn’t telling me there wasn’t a problem but there was. And instead of saying something, I ignored all of the signals. – Jim 9. Get good at forgiving When you end up being right about something—shut up. You can be right and be quiet at the same time. Your partner will already know you’re right and will feel loved knowing that you didn’t wield it like a bastard sword. – Brian In marriage, there’s no such thing as winning an argument. – Bill To me, perhaps the most interesting nugget from Gottman’s research is the fact that most successful couples don’t actually resolve all of their problems. In fact, his findings were completely backwards from what most people actually expect: people in lasting and happy relationships have problems that never completely go away, while couples that feel as though they need to agree and compromise on everything end up feeling miserable and falling apart. To me, like everything else, this comes back to the respect thing. If you have two different individuals sharing a life together, it’s inevitable that they will have different values and perspectives on some things and clash over it. The key here is not changing the other person—as the desire to change your partner is inherently disrespectful (to both them and yourself)—but rather it’s to simply abide by the difference, love them despite it, and when things get a little rough around the edges, to forgive them for it. Everyone says that compromise is key, but that’s not how my husband and I see it. It’s more about seeking understanding. Compromise is bullshit, because it leaves both sides unsatisfied, losing little pieces of themselves in an effort to get along. On the other hand, refusing to compromise is just as much of a disaster, because you turn your partner into a competitor (“I win, you lose”). These are the wrong goals, because they’re outcome-based rather than process-based. When your goal is to find out where your partner is coming from—to truly understand on a deep level—you can’t help but be altered by the process. Conflict becomes much easier to navigate because you see more of the context. – Michelle I’ve written for years that the key to happiness is not achieving your lofty dreams, or experiencing some dizzying high, but rather finding the struggles and challenges that you enjoy enduring. A similar concept seems to be true in relationships: your perfect partner is not someone who creates no problems in the relationship, rather your perfect partner is someone who creates problems in the relationship that you feel good about dealing with. But how do you get good at forgiving? What does that actually mean? Again, some advice from the readers: When an argument is over, it’s over. Some couples went as far as to make this the golden rule in their relationship. When you’re done fighting, it doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong, it doesn’t matter if someone was mean and someone was nice. It’s over. It’s in the past. And you both agree to leave it there, not bring it up every month for the next three years.There’s no scoreboard. No one is trying to “win” here. There’s no, “You owe me this because you screwed up the laundry last week.” There’s no, “I’m always right about financial stuff, so you should listen to me.” There’s no, “I bought her three gifts and she only did me one favor.” Everything in the relationship is given and done unconditionally—that is: without expectation or manipulation.When your partner screws up, you separate the intentions from the behavior. You recognize the things you love and admire in your partner and understand that he/she was simply doing the best that they could, yet messed up out of ignorance. Not because they’re a bad person. Not because they secretly hate you and want to divorce you. Not because there’s somebody else in the background pulling them away from you. They are a good person. That’s why you are with them. If you ever lose your faith in that, then you will begin to erode your faith in yourself. And finally, pick your battles wisely. You and your partner only have so many fucks to give, make sure you both are saving them for the real things that matter. Been happily married 40+ years. One piece of advice that comes to mind: choose your battles. Some things matter, worth getting upset about. Most do not. Argue over the little things and you’ll find yourself arguing endlessly; little things pop up all day long, it takes a toll over time. Like Chinese water torture: minor in the short term, corrosive over time. Consider: is this a little thing or a big thing? Is it worth the cost of arguing? – Fred 10. The little things add up to big things If you don’t take the time to meet for lunch, go for a walk or go out to dinner and a movie with some regularity then you basically end up with a roommate. Staying connected through life’s ups and downs is critical. Eventually your kids grow up, your obnoxious brother-in-law will join a monastery and your parents will die. When that happens, guess who’s left? You got it… Mr./Mrs. Right! You don’t want to wake up 20 years later and be staring at a stranger because life broke the bonds you formed before the shitstorm started. You and your partner need to be the eye of the hurricane. – Brian Of the 1,500 responses I got, I’d say about half of them mentioned at some point or another one simple but effective piece of advice: Don’t ever stop doing the little things. They add up. Things as simple as saying, “I love you,” before going to bed, holding hands during a movie, doing small favors here and there, helping with some household chores. Even cleaning up when you accidentally pee on the toilet seat (seriously, someone said that)—these things all matter and add up over the long run. The same way Fred, married for 40+ years, stated above that arguing over small things consistently wears you both down, “like Chinese water torture,” so do the little favors and displays of affection add up. Don’t lose them. This seems to become particularly important once kids enter the picture. The big message I heard hundreds of times about kids: put the marriage first. Children are worshipped in our culture these days. Parents are expected to sacrifice everything for them. But the best way to raise healthy and happy kids is to maintain a healthy and happy marriage. Good kids don’t make a good marriage. A good marriage makes good kids. So keep your marriage the top priority. – Susan Readers implored to maintain regular “date nights,” to plan weekend getaways and to make time for sex, even when you’re tired, even when you’re stressed and exhausted and the baby is crying, even when Junior has soccer practice at 5:30am the next day. Make time for it. It’s worth it. Oh, and speaking of sex… 11. Sex matters… a LOT And you know how you know if you or her are slipping? Sex starts to slide. Period. No other test required. – Anonymous I still remember back in college, it was one of my first relationships with a cute little redhead. We were young and naive and crazy about each other. And, because we happened to live in the same dorm, we were banging like rabbits. It was everything a 19-year-old male could ask for. Then after a month or two, we hit our first “rough patch” in the relationship. We fought more often, found ourselves getting annoyed with each other, and suddenly our multiple-times-per-day habit magically dried up. And it wasn’t just with her, but with me. To my surprised adolescent male mind, it was actually possible to have sex available to you yet not want it. It was almost as if sex was connected to emotions! For a dumb 19-year-old, this was a complete shocker. That was the first time I discovered a truth about relationships: sex is the State of the Union. If the relationship is good, the sex will be good. You both will be wanting it and enjoying it. When the relationship is bad—when there are unresolved problems and unaddressed negative emotions—then the sex will often be the first thing to go out the window. This was reiterated to me hundreds of times in the emails. The nature of the sex itself varied quite a bit among couples—some couples take sexual experimentation seriously, others are staunch believers in frequency, others get way into fantasies—but the underlying principle was the same everywhere: both partners should be sexually satisfied as often as possible. But sex not only keeps the relationship healthy, many readers suggested that they use it to heal their relationships. That when things are a bit frigid between them or that they have some problems going on, a lot of stress, or other issues (i.e., kids), they even go so far as to schedule sexy time for themselves. They say it’s important. And it’s worth it. A few people even said that when things start to feel stale in the relationship, they agree to have sex every day for a week. Then, as if by magic, by the next week, they feel great again. Cue the Marvin Gaye tunes: 12. Be practical, and create relationship rules There is no 50/50 in housecleaning, child rearing, vacation planning, dishwasher emptying, gift buying, dinner making, money making, etc. The sooner everyone accepts that, the happier everyone is. We all have things we like to do and hate to do; we all have things we are good at and not so good at. TALK to your partner about those things when it comes to dividing and conquering all the crap that has to get done in life. – Liz Everyone has an image in their mind of how a relationship should work. Both people share responsibilities. Both people manage to finely balance their time together with the time for themselves. Both pursue engaging and invigorating interests on their own and then share the benefits together. Both take turns cleaning the toilet and blowing each other and cooking gourmet lasagna for the extended family at Thanksgiving (although not all at the same time). Then there’s how relationships actually work. Messy. Stressful. Miscommunication flying everywhere so that both of you feel as though you’re in a perpetual state of talking to a wall. The fact is relationships are imperfect, messy affairs. And it’s for the simple reason that they’re comprised of imperfect, messy people—people who want different things at different times in different ways and oh, they forgot to tell you? Well, maybe if you had been listening, asshole. The common theme of the advice here was “Be pragmatic.” If the wife is a lawyer and spends 50 hours at the office every week, and the husband is an artist and can work from home most days, it makes more sense for him to handle most of the day-to-day parenting duties. If the wife’s standard of cleanliness looks like a Home & Garden catalog, and the husband has gone six months without even noticing the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then it makes sense that the wife handles more of the home cleaning duties. It’s economics 101: division of labor makes everyone better off. Figure out what you are each good at, what you each love/hate doing, and then arrange accordingly. My wife loves cleaning (no, seriously), but she hates smelly stuff. So guess who gets dishes and garbage duty? Me. Because I don’t give a fuck. I’ll eat off the same plate seven times in a row. I couldn’t smell a dead rat even if it was sleeping under my pillow. I’ll toss garbage around all day. Here honey, let me get that for you. On top of that, many couples suggested laying out rules for the relationship. This sounds cheesy, but ultimately, it’s practical. To what degree will you share finances? How much debt will be taken on or paid off? How much can each person spend without consulting the other? What purchases should be done together or do you trust each other to do separately? How do you decide which vacations to go on? Have meetings about this stuff. Sure, it’s not sexy or cool, but it needs to get done. You’re sharing a life together and so you need to plan and account for each person’s needs and resources. One person even said that she and her husband have “annual reviews” every year. She immediately told me not to laugh, but that she was serious. They have annual reviews where they discuss everything that’s going on in the household that they like and don’t like and what they can do in the coming year to change it. This sort of stuff sounds lame but it’s what keeps couples in touch with what’s going on with each other. And because they always have their fingers on the pulse of each other’s needs, they’re more likely to grow together rather than grow apart. 13. Learn to ride the waves I have been married for 44 years (4 children, 6 grandchildren). I think the most important thing that I have learned in those years is that the love you feel for each other is constantly changing. Sometimes you feel a deep love and satisfaction, other times you want nothing to do with your spouse; sometimes you laugh together, sometimes you’re screaming at each other. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, ups and downs all the time, but as you stay together long enough the downs become less severe and the ups are more loving and contented. So even if you feel like you could never love your partner any more, that can change, if you give it a chance. I think people give up too soon. You need to be the kind of person that you want your spouse to be. When you do that it makes a world of difference. – Chris Out of the hundreds of analogies I saw these past few weeks, one stuck with me. A nurse emailed saying that she used to work with a lot of geriatric patients. And one day she was talking to a man in his late-80s about marriage and why his had lasted so long. The man said something like, “relationships exist as waves, people need to learn how to ride them.” Upon asking him to explain, he said that, like the ocean, there are constant waves of emotion going on within a relationship, ups and downs—some waves last for hours, some last for months or even years. The key is understanding that few of those waves have anything to do with the quality of the relationship—people lose jobs, family members die, couples relocate, switch careers, make a lot of money, lose a lot of money. Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love, regardless of where they go. Because ultimately, none of these waves last. And you simply end up with each other. Two years ago, I suddenly began resenting my wife for any number of reasons. I felt as if we were floating along, doing a great job of co-existing and co-parenting, but not sustaining a real connection. It deteriorated to the point that I considered separating from her; however, whenever I gave the matter intense thought, I could not pinpoint a single issue that was a deal breaker. I knew her to be an amazing person, mother, and friend. I bit my tongue a lot and held out hope that the malaise would pass as suddenly as it had arrived. Fortunately, it did and I love her more than ever. So the final bit of wisdom is to afford your spouse the benefit of the doubt. If you have been happy for such a long period, that is the case for good reason. Be patient and focus on the many aspects of her that still exist that caused you to fall in love in the first place. – Kevin I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the readers who took the time to write something and send it to me. As always, it was humbling to see all of the wisdom and life experience out there. There were many, many, many excellent responses, with kind, heartfelt advice. It was hard to choose the ones that ended up here, and in many cases, I could have put a dozen different quotes that said almost the exact same thing. Exercises like this always amaze me because when you ask thousands of people for advice on something, you expect to receive thousands of different answers. But in both cases now, the vast majority of the advice has largely been the same. It shows you how similar we really are. And how no matter how bad things may get, we are never as alone as we think. I would end this by summarizing the advice in one tidy section. But once again, a reader named Margo did it far better than I ever could. So we’ll end with Margo: You can work through anything as long as you are not destroying yourself or each other. That means emotionally, physically, financially, or spiritually. Make nothing off limits to discuss. Never shame or mock each other for the things you do that make you happy. Write down why you fell in love and read it every year on your anniversary (or more often). Write love letters to each other often. Make each other first. When kids arrive, it will be easy to fall into a frenzy of making them the only focus of your life…do not forget the love that produced them. You must keep that love alive and strong to feed them love. Spouse comes first. Each of you will continue to grow. Bring the other one with you. Be the one that welcomes that growth. Don’t think that the other one will hold the relationship together. Both of you should assume it’s up to you so that you are both working on it. Be passionate about cleaning house, preparing meals, and taking care of your home. This is required of everyone daily, make it fun and happy and do it together. Do not complain about your partner to anyone. Love them for who they are. Make love even when you are not in the mood. Trust each other. Give each other the benefit of the doubt always. Be transparent. Have nothing to hide. Be proud of each other. Have a life outside of each other, but share it through conversation. Pamper and adore each other. Go to counseling now before you need it so that you are both open to working on the relationship together. Disagree with respect to each other’s feelings. Be open to change and accepting of differences. Print this and refer to it daily. This post originally appeared at MarkManson.net. Follow @iammarkmanson on Twitter.