#i’ve always been a pope francis defender in the sense that i think he’s a smart old man. but now i’m way too curious

[lunaticamic]

the funniest thing about being catholic is that your friend would hit you up saying shit like “what do you think about the pope saying frociaggine?”

[jerardeusebio]

Birth Day

I suppose it was understandable when I was seven, maybe forgivable when I was a self-involved cliché of a teen. But at 32, I’ve come to find—through the help of stoicism—that being entitled to a day is a delusion worth shattering. I had to learn first hand, on my 26th birthday, that the world doesn’t owe me anything just because it’s my birthday.

This whole story took place on January 18, 2015, the first birthday I was to spend with Dylan. Earlier on, it had been destined to be an unforgettable day, made extra special by Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines, which the two of us, despite our considerable reservations about the Catholic Church, decided to take part in. The Pope was scheduled to tour Manila and later hold Mass at the Quirino Grandstand. The date fell on a Sunday. 

I had been so determined to make a day of it, that I even convinced my family, who’d be coming from Los Baños, to join me and Dylan. I proposed we grab dinner when it was all over. In the end, we all agreed that this was to be my birthday celebration.

From our F. B. Harrison apartment, Dylan and I braved the streets of Manila to catch a glimpse of the progressive Pope. We left once I got a text from my family that they were on their way. Soon enough it became clear that reaching the venue would be a challenge. It was hard enough we had to do it on foot, but of course we had to deal with the crowd. Prior to that day, I had only seen such large gatherings on television. We had the most grueling time getting through the dense throng, squeezing past countless elbows and knees, breathing each other’s air (possibly a death wish in today’s context), trying to outsmart everyone in finding the perfect spot in which to encounter the Pope, who was at this point still going around, peripatetic in his mobile. And the rain, oh, the rain didn’t help either. These were to be the most disgustingly profound hours of my life.

There were at least two reasons why my family—Pa, Ma, Marky, and Thea—weren’t able to join me and Dylan that day. For one, the crowds intimidated them. From a distance, it was just a sea of people on the streets. The view was even more overwhelming when seen from the LRT station. My family despised crowds, but I had hoped they’d make an exception for the Pope! And yes, because it’s my birthday, for me. Another reason, and perhaps what contributed the most to my disappointment, was that communication lines were jammed. Literally, the City of Manila had cut off phone reception as a safety measure. Because of this, my family had no way to contact me or Dylan, no way to find out where we were exactly, no way to be advised that they needed raincoats because umbrellas were not allowed, and no way to inform me that they had changed their minds about the whole day.

It was only when Dylan and I were out of the rain and sitting at our nice table in Makan Makan, Manila Ocean Park that I’d learn about my family getting as far as Quirino Avenue before deciding to retreat. They were also not going to share a meal with us at this nice restaurant because they were, in fact, already back home. I was stunned. Little did I know that when Dylan and I were singing Our Father with the mighty congregation, my family was watching the whole thing on our TV, roofed and dry.

I felt the flush of disappointment spread through me as my mother explained herself on the other line. Though she sounded equally disappointed at how things went, when she greeted me a happy birthday, I could only focus on how it all felt sucky. I remember feeling my feet, stinky and wrinkled in my rain-soaked socks. Dylan and I would’ve gone back to our apartment except we were starving and Manila Ocean Park was just right where we ended our rainy pilgrimage. Once I told him my family wasn’t coming, he ordered pad thai and laksa for just us two.

I put the phone down, frowned, and began to express my sentiments. Looking at Manila Bay through the glass walls, I articulated how disappointed I was, how I felt that my family didn’t really try, that they seem to have missed the point of the day—my birthday—and therefore didn’t try harder to come to me, to celebrate me. I must have gone in circles, as I tend to do when I act up. And I must’ve sounded exceedingly annoying, too, because the way Dylan castigated me right there, as soon as I finished saying my piece, even as the waiter meekly placed a large bowl of steaming laksa between us, was so intense and so surprising that it took me a few moments to realize that he was actually angry. 

We’ve only been together six months at this point, and seeing him defend my family and—in the same breath—point out my entitlement was a strange sight and a debilitating experience to sit through. Caught off guard, I let my intangible ego take a beating and my tangible body, wet and worn out, release the tears. Once it started, it was hard to stop. I cried as I shakily brought a spoonful of soup to my mouth. I cried as I curled the noodles with my fork. I cried as I sipped water from my glass. I spat a few futile rebuttals. And when those were debunked, I concentrated back on my feelings. I never thought anyone could be chastised in this manner on their birthday, after seeing the Pope in the flesh, and after successfully squeezing through a throng of Filipino Catholics—all through a cold and steady January downpour. 

Over the next few years, I would go back to that day and remember how I felt. But I also would mostly review my speech and behavior. I tried to look at the whole day from a stranger’s perspective, a mental exercise which has enabled me to question the way I’ve been taught about birthdays, and wonder where I could’ve picked up that sense of entitlement. Where had I learned to make other people sacrifice their comfort and do things they weren’t really up to just for me, because it was “my day”? Come to think of it, most birthday parties and weddings demand something from their guests—from wearing tacky, expensive, and uncomfortable clothes to requesting cold, hard cash as presents. So many of what we unquestioningly design and do breed such dangerous entitlement. Why had I felt that that was acceptable behavior? 

In my internalized disappointment, I had forgotten all the other things that were beautiful about that day. I focused on what didn’t happen instead of what actually did, on what the circumstances should have offered me instead of what it so generously did, which were nothing short of magical: seeing Pope Francis (the Vicar of Christ!) up close, the electrifying singing and chanting, and the romantic dinner overlooking Manila Bay, paid for by Dylan’s credit card. I had focused on what I thought I deserved and should’ve gotten, insisting that I was entitled to them, no matter what the cost. And each time I revisited what transpired that day, I’d be more and more convinced that, though Dylan was harsh, he was also right.

Dylan would apologize a couple of years later, about the way he did what he did. This, after I expressed to him how that day scarred me. I accepted his apology, but quickly explained how it was, in retrospect, a good and necessary thing. I had needed shaking and, more than anything, someone who’d exorcise the brat out of me. It’s clear to me now that the only way I would’ve listened to reason was to have been dressed down, wet and hungry, on the day I had deemed for so long was mine.

Today, I have a completely new philosophy for and way of celebrating January 18th. Since 2016, I’ve deliberately associated my birthday with my mother, who really did most of the heavy lifting. I vowed that celebrating my birth should mean celebrating her and all the things she went through to bring me into this world. What I now do—which is what I did this year—is wait for 2:01 PM to strike (the exact time I was born), and spend the entire minute holding my mother in a tight embrace, thanking her for the life and nourishment she unselfishly gave, for choosing to carry me for as long as she did.

As for Dylan and I, well, we’ve since gone back to Makan Makan every year. We grew to highly regard their laksa, which we’d always order and consume to the last drop. This year, without meaning to, we ended up making vegan laksa for my birthday dinner at home. And except for Dylan’s cooking and that 2:01 PM hug, I’d say my birthday was pretty uneventful, modest, and every bit happy.

[sicut-in-caelo-et-in-terra]

I was wondering what your thoughts on Pope Francis and how he has said that same-sex civil unions are okay. I thought it was against the Bible. I'm just curious, really. I guess my big question is, does the Pope dictate what every catholic believes?

Hey friend, thank you for the ask!

So there's definitely a couple of questions here, I'll grab them one at a time.

First question: my personal thoughts on the events of this past week regarding statements alleged to Pope Francis. I think there's just a lot of confusion going around about what was actually said. Some people are saying that it was a mistranslation and that he actually said something different, some people are saying that it was not as much of a mistranslation as others claim and that this has been Francis's position since before he became pope. You are correct in understanding that Catholic teaching considers sexual acts between two members of the same sex as a sin. In my personal opinion, what frustrates me is that this keeps happening, and that whenever it happens it feels like the Church splits into two camps: The Pope Is Ruining Everything versus There Are No Problems Right Now, and unfortunately it seems as though that the split occurs directly down political party lines. Now I get that perhaps people are only coming across that way because they are trying to address the falsehoods of the people on the other side of them. But really I think that a) the Pope is in a position where he has more information than us and he has been selected for this job, and therefore he may be making these decisions based on whatever information or contexts that we who criticize him do not have; b) the Pope is a person who is going to make mistakes, and he is operating in an age where he is under a particular type of scrutiny so we should be quick to forgive; c) at the same time this has shown itself to be a consistent pattern, and while it is a complex issue with many facets very much including the secular media, however there are a lot of other elements related to how he chooses to present himself and the nature of the follow-up from the Vatican, that this keeps happening tells me that there is definitely room for us to be criticizing the leadership in a spirit of charity. But I think in criticizing the Pope or defending the Pope on social media we really really need to be aware that we are indeed in a public and secular space, and that we are coming across as very divided and very disorganized. I've seen a lot of an apparent lack of charity from both sides. There's a lot more to say and it's definitely been something that has been on my heart.

Second question: whether or not same sex civil unions are okay by Catholic teaching. So the answer to this is yes and no. What I mean by this is that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a non-marital legal union, for example if two siblings or two best friends of the same gender happen to be living together and plan to do so full time, there can be tax and other benefits for having their partnership recognized (e.g. many hospitals only allow immediate family to visit, depending, and so having a legal pairing can be useful). However, the Church does not endorse same-sex sexual relationships, and it is scandalous for the Church to advocate for laws that endorse same-sex sexual relationships. Now of course there's questions as to whether or not it makes sense to have a law that says "you can have same-sex civil unions unless you're in a sexual relationship" and all this. But that's a huge long topic and this post is already so long and I haven't answered all your questions yet.

As a note here which I think is always important to make given the current climate: a sexual orientation is not a person, it is an appetite. When we discuss sexuality in this context, we are talking specifically about acts/lifestyles, not the people who participate in them. People are people and deserve human rights. This is, I believe, more along the lines of what the Holy Father was talking about. That said, marriage and sex are actually not human rights (if they were, you could make a good case for laws requiring marry or have sex with someone who is otherwise unable to procure it on their own). That's not to say that this produces many struggles for people who experience different things, but again this is for another post.

Third question: papal infallibility. This again is a very complex topic and I'm by no means an expert on ecclesiology but I'll give a basic overview of what I understand. Basically, the Catholic Church (and, as I understand it, most religions) makes objective claims. Claims about reality. Either God exists or He doesn't, and that fact isn't changed by whether or not anyone believes it. When the pope, and the Magisterium in general, teaches, they're not changing reality- they're telling us something that is already true and has always been true. With this, we also know that the infallible authority of the Magisterium (that is, the bishops of the Catholic Church, all in direct lineage by ordination to the twelve apostles, of which the Pope is the shepherd) applies to teaching. The Church makes no infallible claims about anything else. Now within the teaching of the Catholic Church there are different levels of teaching. There's dogma, which we rarely change, but that the Pope does have the authority to change, but only has done so a very small number of times throughout history. These are like basic truths about what it means to be Catholic, such as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Mary was always the Immaculate Conception, she didn't suddenly become it once the Pope proclaimed it ex cathedra. But we do trust that when the Pope speaks dogma, that he is guided by the holy spirit in doing so, and that what he says is true. The pope speaks infallibly elsewhere besides dogma, such as canonizing Saints - once someone is canonized, we know without a doubt that they are in heaven. But these things are already true, and the Pope just tells everyone that it is true. If the Pope says something that we already know to not be true, such as if he were to say that marriage can be between two men or two women, then that wouldn't become true and we wouldn't believe it. We actually have detailed guidelines on what constitutes the development of doctrine versus the corruption of doctrine. Check out St. John Henry Newman's book Grammar of Assent for more detailed info on that. (Someone please correct me if that's not the right book). The Pope / the Magisterium also has other roles, such as telling us how to practice our religion - it is objectively true that we need to keep holy the Sabbath day, however it is up to the Magisterium to determine what constitutes 'keeping holy the Sabbath day,' in this case, largely, going to Mass (and the Magisterium tells us what the Mass is and what if anything would invalidate the Mass). Also not eating meat on Fridays in lent, that's a thing for the Magisterium to decide about.

Anyway that was a lot but I hope you enjoyed it! If you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask!

[adoredykelano]

Where She Went (Part 2)

[PART ONE]

pairing: daveed diggs x reader

summary: daveed and reader were high school sweethearts who had a bad breakup, fate (and a well-timed cello concert) brought them together in NYC. they had a lot of catching up to do.

warnings: swearing, mentions of car wrecks and death, smut at the end because i’m still me after all.

word count: 6,459

a/n: ayyy it’s day five of the @hamwriters write-a-thon which is reverse POV day. this is a continuation of my lit day fic, linked at the top of this post, and i can’t tell u how to live ur life but it really would make more sense if you read that first. love u!!!!!!!! hope it was worth the wait!!!!!!!!!!!! 

“Daveed,” you breathe. “Hi- I, um…I hadn’t really figured you’d come backstage.”

Daveed shifts uncomfortably, looking around the room.

“Yeah, well…I almost didn’t,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

You stand from the chair in front of the vanity, taking a few cautious steps toward him. You’re staring at him like he might run away or disappear.

“I would’ve understood if you hadn’t,” you center yourself in front of him. “Dale? Can we have a moment?”

“Of course, my love,” Dale obliges, kissing your cheek before pulling the door shut behind him. So you’re with Dale, then. Daveed refuses to let the disappointment show on his face.

It’s a bit unprofessional, he thinks, dating your client. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? As far as everyone knows, he’s dating Emmy anyway. So no, it doesn’t really matter if you’re seeing Dale.

Though now he’s wondering if you actually know about Emmy. You’ve been out of his life for four years, he doubts you’ve been keeping tabs on him. Especially after the way you left things.

The two of you stand there, waiting for the other to say something. Daveed fiddles uncomfortably with the hem of his sleeve. Why did he agree to come back here, again?

“How did you find out about my concert? I didn’t think you were still in contact with anyone from home,” you finally break the silence.

“Yeah, I’m not really. Besides the band and my parents and stuff,” Daveed shrugs. “I actually was in some café and there was a poster? And I debated with myself over whether or not I should come, and then when I got here and the only ticket left was in the third row I debated again if I should leave but…”

You move to the small couch pressed against the wall and sit down, tucking your legs under yourself. He can remember many nights that you’d sat just like that on his parents’ sofa, eyes glued to the Law & Order SVU marathon on the television. “But what?”

“But I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see you play, I’ve never been able to,” Daveed gazes cautiously at the open spot on the couch next to you. He’s about to go sit there, but at the last minute he changes course and sits in the chair across from you.

“I don’t bite,” you say softly, taking in the distance between you.

Daveed hears your stomach growl, punctuating your sentence for you. He laughs lightly, “Your stomach doesn’t seem to agree with that sentiment.”

“Ha,” you guffaw. “My stomach can deal with it for a few more minutes. I’m sure you have important places to be soon. What brings you to the city, though? You’re living in LA still, right?”

“I actually don’t have anywhere to be until my flight at noon tomorrow,” he’s not sure why he mentioned it. He’s pretty sure you don’t care anyway. “I lived here for a while, actually, while I was on Broadway, but I’m back on the West Coast now. I was actually here today for…an interview.”

He thinks back on this morning and wishes he had come up with a different story. He’s terrified you’re going to ask how-

“Oh, really? What magazine? How did that go?” Your fingers tug at a loose thread on the arm of the sofa.

Well fuck. He really didn’t think that one through.

“It was- um…Interview magazine? It went well,” he lies. He has to. “The photographer had a cool concept for the shoot.”

“Very nice,” you smile easily. “What was it? Of course, only if you’re allowed to say. I’m not trying to get you in trouble or anything.”

“It was supposed to be a commentary on masculinity? He put me in a traditionally feminine pose,” Daveed tells you.

Your stomach growls loudly again and Daveed lifts a brow at you.

“If you’re starving, I can leave. I know you don’t- or, well, you didn’t used to eat before a big show.”

Daveed stumbles over the words. He has to keep reminding himself that he doesn’t know you anymore, no matter how familiar it feels to sit and talk with you.

“Actually, if you don’t have any plans…” You trail off.

“Hm?” Daveed hums, gazing at you intently.

“There’s this Italian restaurant down the street? I was going to go by myself, but I know that lasagna is your favorite so…I figured I’d ask if you wanted to come too?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” you nod at him. “It’s been…a really long time. I want to hear about the band and stuff. And Broadway, of course. But I understand if you don’t want to.”

Daveed glances at the clock on the wall. 8:45 PM. He’s starving, and he can’t pretend he doesn’t want to hear about your time at Juilliard.

He can’t pretend he doesn’t want to keep listening to your voice.

“Sure,” he relents. “That sounds nice.”

“Perfect,” you grin, standing up. Rather abruptly, you begin to remove your robe.

“I can leave the room,” he interjects quickly, cheeks burning. He shouldn’t be here while you’re changing, right?

“Daveed,” you say coolly. “You’ve seen me naked. Probably more times than anyone else has. I know it’s been a while, but things haven’t changed that much.”

He shifts a bit, studying the grey carpet of the dressing room. He knows you mean your body hasn’t changed, but the double meaning of your statement sits like a lead ball in the pit of his stomach. He wishes that were true, that things hadn’t changed much. He wishes that he hadn’t missed out on four years of your life.

He hears, rather than sees, your robe fall to the ground and the zipping of a garment.

“Okay, Pope Francis,” you laugh. “I’m decent.”

Daveed looks back up at you, eyes scanning over your body. He takes in the yellow sundress and his eyes meet yours.

“Is that-”

“The dress I wore to my Juilliard audition? Yeah,” you blush. “It’s kind of become my good luck charm. I wear it to every important audition or recital, even if I can’t wear it on stage.”

Daveed smiles softly, rising from his chair. “That’s amazing. God, I can still remember how nervous you were for that audition.”

“Who wouldn’t be nervous?” You defend, slipping on a cardigan and your shoes.

“Fair point.”

“You were really great about it, though,” you look up at Daveed. “The way you found pictures of the artwork on the ceiling where I’d be auditioning, and then printed them out. You spent the entire afternoon taping them up just right in my bedroom so I’d be able to look at the ceiling while I practiced. You always did everything you could to soothe my nerves.”

“I was just trying to be supportive,” Daveed says quietly. He doesn’t really want to talk about this. Not about your audition. Not about anything that happened that summer.

“Anyway, let’s get you some lasagna,” you laugh, heading out the door.

—

You finish dinner hours later, having covered every topic from your professors at Juilliard to Daveed’s Broadway stint. Daveed insists on paying, though you express your disdain at the act, and with your guidance the two of you head out to the Queensboro Bridge.

By the time you’re standing near the center of the bridge together, looking out over the water, Daveed is running through what a typical day on tour is like.

“And Jerry usually yells at us to get some sleep at around two in the morning,” he chuckles.

“So you party a lot, then,” you mumble with a hint of…something Daveed can’t place.

“Not all the time,” Daveed scans your face to gauge your reaction. “And it’s mostly just a couple drinks at the bar, maybe a little weed, and some dancing.”

“Right,” you clear your throat and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “It sounds nice. I just didn’t think you’d be…never mind.”

“Think I’d be what?” He tries not to get upset at your tone, but the thought that you might be judging him has him on edge.

“Just…such a guy,” you say after a brief moment of deliberation.

To anyone passing by, it’s a throwaway comment. But to Daveed, it’s a low blow. A sucker punch right to the gut.

Because Daveed recalls a long late-night conversation with you, one where you underlined your belief that there was a difference between being a “guy” and being a “man.” You had described “guys” as carefree, immature, and irresponsible. Someone with a lack of discipline and a lack of fundamental knowledge of how life works. A “man” was someone trustworthy, dependable, and cultured. Someone who treated others with respect and took responsibility for his own actions, took control of his own life.

“You’re kidding,” he blanches, staring directly into your eyes.

“What? I’m not,” you shake your head, confused.

“That’s really fucking unfair,” he takes a small step back from the rail of the bridge to turn to face you. It might be a bit of an overreaction, but he has four years worth of hurt and anger built up inside of him.

“How is that unfair? I just didn’t think you’d become so careless. I mean, I always knew you would be famous,” you shift, angling your body toward him. “I just never thought you’d become one of those stars in cheap tabloids that we always used to laugh at.”

Daveed chuckles darkly, gazing out over the swirling fog collected on top of the river. “You don’t get to do that, you know.”

“Do what?” You huff, crossing your arms in front of you.

“You don’t get to do what you did and then judge me!” He bellows. “You don’t get to walk away from me like I’m nothing, you don’t get to take my heart with you, leave me with nothing but my memories and a bleeding chest- you don’t get to do that and then stand here and tell me the way I handled my heartbreak is wrong.”

“I didn’t-” you try to defend, but Daveed cuts you off.

“No, I’m not done. I’ve been bottling this shit up for way too long. You left,” he points an accusatory finger at you. “I know you went through something, but I was there, too, [Y/N]. I needed you, and you left. And now you think you get to look at what I’ve done to put myself back together and tell me that I’m a joke?”

“Daveed,” your voice wavers. “You’re the one who told me I could leave.”

Daveed’s heart stops beating at your words. No. There’s no way.

“What?” He whispers.

“In the hospital?” You relax your arms from their position in front of your chest, letting them drop down to your sides. “My parents died in that crash. My little brother, too, and I was lying in that hospital bed in a coma. And you took my hand and you said-”

“You could hear me?” Daveed’s face twists in confusion. This can’t be possible. It doesn’t make any sense. You had been asleep, unconscious; he knows because he had been terrified you’d never wake up.

“I heard everything,” you confess. “Gramps came in before you did, by just a couple hours. He held my hand, and he told me that he understood that I had lost so much. He told me that it was okay if I wanted to stop fighting, if I wanted to let go. And I thought about doing it.”

Daveed’s blood runs cold. Even if you can’t be in his life, he hates imagining a world where you don’t exist.

“But then you came in, so I waited. I listened to what you had to say. And you took my hand and said ‘if you stay, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I’ll do that, too. Maybe coming back to your old life would be too painful, maybe it’d be easier for you to erase me. And that would suck, but I’d do it. I can lose you like that if I don’t lose you today. I’ll let you go. If you stay.’”

He closes his eyes, swallowing hard. He’s transported back to that day, back to seeing you in that hospital bed. You had looked so frail, so breakable and lifeless. Tubes and tape and gauze. You hardly looked human.

He had wanted to run. He hates to admit it, even to himself, but he had wanted to run away.

But he couldn’t do that, he realized. He wouldn’t. So, instead of running, he held your hands. It was the only part of you that still looked like it belonged to you.

They were calloused, and freezing like always. He had rubbed them gently between his own hands, blowing warm air across them like he always did.

He remembers thinking it was lucky your hands were okay, because without your hands there’d be no music. You had lost so much already, both your parents and your brother. You were so close to your family, he knew the loss would be absolutely devastating. But your music is so fundamental to who you are, and he knew that if you had lost your music, you would have lost everything.

He thought that somehow, wherever you were, you had to realize that, too.

So as he sat in the ICU, warming your fingers, he thought about your music. He thought about the life you might lead, the things you might do, if you just stayed.

Going to Juilliard, becoming an even better cellist, he thought a lot about your career goals. What your professional future might look like. But he also thought about you, walking down the aisle, having kids, going to PTA meetings, building a life. And he realized that it didn’t matter if it was with him- though he wanted it to be, God did he want it to be with him. He knew that he could live in a world where you weren’t his anymore, as long as you were still yours. As long as you were alive.

And that’s when he made his promise. The promise you had remembered, held onto, for the past four years.

Daveed opens his teary eyes and his gaze meets yours.

He’d do it over again, he knows that now. He’d lose you, watch you walk away a thousand times over to have heard you play tonight. Even without that. He’d do it over again just to know that somewhere, even if it isn’t with him, you exist.

Daveed begins to cry, not realizing he’s doing it at first. He just dissolves into tears, trails blazing down his cheeks while you watch what you must perceive as grief.

But he’s not grieving a loss, not anymore. He had lamented the loss of you for far too long. What he had asked of you that day was incredibly selfish, he can realize now, even if it had turned out to be the most unselfish thing he’d ever done.

No, he’s not crying from a sense of grief. He’s crying in gratitude to a universe that still holds you, the you that he has always known and loved.

The entire night, your conversation and his thoughts had only been focused on what had changed. It isn’t until right now that he’s able to see what hasn’t.

“Hey,” you say softly, putting a hand on Daveed’s cheek and brushing tears away with your thumb. Daveed holds his breath. It’s the first time you’ve touched him in four years.

“My apartment is just over the bridge, if you want some tea- or maybe wine,” you smile gently at him.

He sniffles, hand rising to wipe the wetness from the cheek you weren’t touching. “That sounds nice.”

At some point on the journey to your apartment, his fingers wind up tangled with yours. Neither of you even thinks about it until you try to grab your key out of your bag.

“Oh,” Daveed flushes. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s okay,” you reply faintly. You open the door and lead him inside.

Walking into your tiny studio apartment, it feels like a dream. Like Daveed’s plunged too far into the fog and he can’t get out- but he doesn’t mind, he doesn’t want to.

As he surveys your apartment, he notices little touches of your life in Oakland. A board of pictures of your high school best friend, the young cello students you had helped tutor, and your family. Dozens of pictures of your mom and dad and brother.

“I miss them, too, you know,” he lets slip.

“You do?” You don’t have to ask who he means. He had been nearly as close to them as you had been, so it really shouldn’t come as a shock.

“Every time I get a new record,” he smiles faintly, recalling days spent with you and your father at record shops. “Or visit a farmer’s market,” he recalls Saturday mornings buying an absurd amount of heirloom tomatoes and locally harvested honey with your mother.

“And every time I pass a park with a merry-go-round,” he finishes quietly. The two of you had often taken your brother to the park near Daveed’s house, and Daveed had been the one to spin you and your brother around. Your brother would giggle and shout for Daveed to go faster, spin faster, always faster. And Daveed, a grin so wide it threatened to split his face, never denied him.

You nod, closing the door gently and sliding the chain into the lock.

“There’s a moment every morning,” you confess, “right after I wake up, when I’m so sure it never happened. I think I’ll walk into the kitchen and my mom will be there scrambling a half dozen eggs for everyone at the stove, even though no one but her will eat them. And my dad will walk in and pour a cup of coffee and ask her why she makes eggs every morning, and her eyes will crinkle at the edges when she smiles and says ‘Maybe [Y/N] woke up this morning and decided she liked eggs.’ My brother will shuffle down the stairs in his fire truck pajamas, hair sticking up all over the place, and wrap his arms around my hips and beg me to take him to the park after school.”

Daveed slides the hand that had been holding yours into his back pocket to replace the warmth in the absence of your touch. He’s not sure what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

“And then I remember that there’s no eggs cooking, no coffee to be poured, no reason to go to the park. I remember every morning that they’re gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Daveed whispers. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s okay,” you smile, a bit of amusement dancing behind your eyes. “Do you really think if you don’t talk about them I’ll somehow forget?”

“Well, no,” he admits.

“It’s really okay,” you assure him, a hand briefly touching his shoulder. “It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t hurt. They’re not ghosts anymore.”

His thoughts briefly flicker to Emmy. She’d always been so insecure about you, about the parts of Daveed that you had taken with you. It hadn’t started as a publicity relationship, she had really wanted Daveed. He knows that she still does. But when she learned about you, she had given up. There wasn’t anything left in Daveed for her anymore, there was no part of him that could grow to love her. There was no part of him left to love her because you had taken his heart with you- and though he hadn’t told her that, she had figured it out anyway.

There had been a huge fight when she confronted Daveed about it. He swore that he could love her if she just gave him time, but she knew better. It had been almost a year, if he didn’t have feelings for her she knew that he never would. He can hear Emmy’s voice in his head now, telling him to go back to you. Go back to your ghost.

But she was wrong, Daveed knows that now. Emmy had been the one living with a ghost. A hollow shell of a man who couldn’t stop loving someone else.

“So, did you want tea or wine?” You say from the kitchen, having slipped your shoes off.

“Wine would be nice, please,” Daveed decides. He follows your lead and steps out of his shoes, moving to examine the frames hanging behind your couch.

“Your dad’s albums?” He asks quietly.

You pad out from behind the kitchen island, two wine glasses in one hand and an open bottle of Pinot Grigio in the other.

“Yeah,” you step up next to him. “His bandmates gave them to me just before I moved here and I had them framed- I don’t have a record player anymore, Grandma and I went through and gave most of my parents’ collection to charity shops. And I wouldn’t want to damage them by playing them too often, anyway.”

“That’s fair,” he nods, sitting down on the sofa.

“I hope white wine is still okay for you,” you step the glasses down on the coffee table and begin to pour. “I had a Lambrusco, but I finished that last night.”

“I’m not particular,” Daveed reassures, sipping as you hand him his glass.

You settle into the cushions of the couch, tucking one leg under yourself.

“So…” you begin.

Daveed looks at you, an eyebrow raised. “So?”

“You’re seeing Emmy, right?” You sip at your wine nonchalantly, but Daveed can see the curiosity lighting up your eyes.

“Um, right,” he mutters. He tips his head back, draining the rest of his glass and reaches forward to pour himself another. “And you’re seeing Dale?”

“Dale?”

“The kiss? He called you his love?” Daveed tries to keep the bitterness from seeping into his tone, but he can’t.

“Dale is my manager,” you furrow your brow. “And he’s married. But even if he weren’t, you’ve got Emmy, so why do you care?”

“There would’ve never been an Emmy if you hadn’t decided that you hated me,” Daveed says defensively.

He watches the hurt flash across your face.

“I don’t hate you,” you confide. “I don’t think I ever did.”

“You told me you hated me, [Y/N]. You looked me right in the eye before you got on the plane to your audition and told me that you hated me,” he can feels his ears starting to burn with anger.

“But I didn’t. I wanted to- God, I wanted to. I told myself that I hated you, because I needed to hate someone. I needed to hate someone, and you’re the person I love the most, so the burden fell on you.”

Daveed doesn’t say anything. He can’t.

“At first I told myself it was okay,” you continue, taking his silence as an invitation to explain yourself. “I told myself that it was what was best for both of us. But once I confronted the issue head-on, I knew I had messed up. I had messed up monumentally. And I knew I owed you an apology. I’ve been trying to get it out all night, actually,” you admit, leaning forward to set your glass on the table.

“But the word sorry is too small for what you deserve. What I did to you was so wrong, but it felt so necessary at the time, like the world would cave in on the both of us if I didn’t leave you behind. I don’t know if it’s possible that both of those things could be true, but that was the way I thought it had to be. If it’s any consolation,” you fiddle with the hem of your dress, not meeting his eyes. “After a while, after there was some distance between me and that summer, it didn’t feel necessary anymore. The only feeling I had left was regret, the realization of just how hugely I had made a mess of things. Left with nothing but missing you. And I had to watch from afar as you thrived, as you surpassed every one of your dreams, as you lived this seemingly perfect life-”

“It wasn’t perfect,” Daveed interjects.

“I can understand that now, but watching you from so far away- how was I supposed to know that? I watched as you lived the life you had always wanted, and I just accepted that the distance between us was…was the punishment that I deserved for what I had done to you,” you sighed. “My penance for disappearing from your life. But then…” you trail off.

“But then what?” He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“But then tonight, the biggest night of my career, I see you standing in the third row. God, I thought you were a hallucination at first,” you huff a laugh. “Some figment of my imagination, some ghost of my past that I had placed in the crowd. When I realized that you were really standing there, it felt like-” you choke up, swallowing hard.

“Felt like what?” Daveed leans forward, placing his hand gently on your thigh.

“It felt like a gift. It had to be more than a coincidence.”

He just looks at you. He had felt the same way the moment he saw the poster in the café. Like there was some cosmic force at work.

“A gift from them,” you explain. “For my first recital, they gave me my own cello. And for this, they brought me you.”

Daveed’s hand squeezes your thigh lightly, neither one of you saying anything for a while. You don’t have to.

At some point, Daveed glances out the window at the rising morning light.

“Hey,” you say unexpectedly, as if you’re just remembering something. “I’ve actually got something of yours.” You stand, going over to your dresser.

Something of his? Daveed runs through the memory of that summer in his mind, searching for what it might be. He’s at a loss, he distinctly remembers you leaving the box full of his stuff on your doorstep the day you left.

You root around in the bottom drawer and come back over, grasping something behind your back.

Daveed’s jaw drops as you unfurl the Golden State Warriors jersey out in front of you. He remembers donating the jersey to the Broadway Cares Flea Market & Grand Auction. The winners of the auction were anonymous, but he remembers being told someone had paid top dollar for his jersey.

“You?”

“Me,” you smile sheepishly. “Who else?”

Daveed shakes his head, standing and holding the material between his fingers. “But why?”

You bite your lip before responding. “I had lost every piece of you. It’s selfish, but this was a way to get a part of you back without crashing back into your life like I was entitled to be there.”

“You could’ve crashed back in,” he admits. “You could’ve come back to me at any time, with any excuse, and I would’ve taken you back without a single thought.”

“Part of me knew that,” you look down at your feet. “I knew that and I didn’t think I deserved to. I had hurt you so badly, and I thought coming back would only make that worse.”

Daveed realizes then that you had stayed away not because you hate him, but because you love him. You hadn’t come back, not because you didn’t want to, but because you couldn’t stand the thought of hurting him more.

He can’t wait any longer. He leans forward, for once in his life not thinking, and smashes his lips to yours.

The jersey falls from your hands, blue polyester pooling between your feet on the floor, and you wrap your arms behind his neck. You kiss him back hungrily, desperately.

His hands find the small of your waist, pulling your body against his. The sensation of his lips against yours feels both familiar and foreign at the same time. He remembers every kiss you had shared in the past, and your lips feel like his home, like they always have, but this kiss is somehow different. There’s an urgency, a recklessness, but also a sense of serenity. Like he’s been drowning for years and he just learned how to float.

“Daveed,” you break apart from him, panting. “I know I don’t-”

“Don’t,” he responds, shaking his head. “If you’re about to say you don’t deserve this, don’t you dare.” His eyes are serious as he gazes into yours.

“Okay,” you say softly.

“[Y/N],” he whispers. He needs you so badly it feels like his heart is going to split in two. “If you don’t want this, I’ll stop right now, but I’ve never needed anything as much as I need you right now.”

“God, yes,��� one of your hands reaches up to thread into his wild locks. “I need you just as badly.”

Your lips connect again, the two of you maneuvering toward the bed.

It feels like a dream. Daveed has dreamed of you so often, for so long, that he started to be able to tell when he was still asleep that they weren’t real. He began to anticipate the alarm blaring into his ears, disturbing his slumber.

He’s grounded when your fingers slip under his shirt, your skin pressing against his. He knows it isn’t a dream. There won’t be an alarm to rip him away from you.

Your fingers deftly unbutton his shirt and he drops it to the floor, breaking apart to pull your dress over your head. His mouth quickly returns to yours and he steps forward, making the back of your knees hit the edge of the mattress.

The two of you settle on the bed, tongues coalescing and hands wandering. You hadn’t been wearing a bra under your sundress, so you’re left in just your panties underneath him. His fingers trail up your thighs and hips, and over your ribcage, before kneading gently at your breasts. You let out a soft moan and he smiles into the kiss.

“I haven’t heard that sound in so long,” he murmurs as he kisses down your neck. His teeth graze your pulse point and you moan again.

“Well get used to it,” you laugh breathlessly. “You’ve gotten even better at kissing, which is supremely unfair.”

“I could say the same for you,” he mumbles into the skin of your chest. His hand reaches between your legs and rubs over your underwear, feeling your wetness.

He takes his time, kissing, touching, memorizing every curve, every freckle. His fingers gather your hair, tugging your head to the side to ravish your neck. He trails open mouthed kisses down the valley between your breasts, over your stomach, and to the top of your panties.

Daveed peeks up at you, eyes seeking consent.

“Please,” you whine, a hand dropping to tangle into his hair. “Anything you want tonight, I need anything you’re willing to give me.” His fingers hook into the sides of the lace fabric and pull it off, exposing you fully. He nudges your knees apart and kisses over your inner thighs, a finger ghosting in a circle around your clit teasingly. He sucks a hickey into the flesh of your thigh and you groan, moving your hips down.

“Daveed, please,” you tug at his hair lightly.

He runs two fingers over your entrance before easing them in, his tongue finding your clit. He laps at your bundle of nerves and begins to thrust his digits in and out of you at an achingly slow pace.

Daveed pulls his fingers out of you and quickly replaces them with his tongue, his facial hair rubbing against your inner thighs. Both of your hands grip tightly at his hair and you whimper, urging him on. As he plunges his tongue into you repeatedly, the tip pressing against your walls, his nose bumps against your clit. You hold his head against you and roll your hips, and Daveed knows by your reaction that he hasn’t forgotten how to make you feel good. It’s one of his favorite things in the world, so forgetting would be pretty difficult, but it had been a long time.

He replaces his tongue with his fingers again, wrapping his lips around your clit. He remembers something that used to drive you wild, and wonders if it still does. He sucks gently before grazing his teeth, just barely, over your swollen clit.

“Daveed,” you gasp, your back arching off of the mattress.

That’s a yes, then.

He scissors his fingers inside of you before twisting them, crooking them to coax along your inner walls. You come undone quickly and unexpectedly, your orgasm making your legs quiver, a gasp ripping from your lungs as your fingers tug harder at the root of his hair.

He groans against you, vibrations traveling up through your core. He kisses his way back up your stomach when your orgasm subsides, lips meeting yours eagerly.

“Condom,” you mumble against his lips. He pulls back, looking around the room. “Top drawer,” you point to the point to the bedside table.

He reaches over, rooting around for the foil packet. When he finds one, he rolls back to you and passes it into your outstretched hand, scrambling to remove his jeans.

He’s fully naked by the time you’ve got the condom open, the wrapper lying discarded on the floor.

You slide it over him slowly, capturing his lips as you do so.

Daveed doesn’t hesitate once the condom is in place, sinking into you slowly. Your head tilts back, hair fanning out across the pillows.

He feels your hand tap against his shoulder blade lightly and meets your gaze.

“Ready,” you confirm, rolling your hips slightly.

He begins driving himself into your warmth, eliciting moans from both of you. He picks up the speed a bit and you move your hips down in time with him, the two of you setting a rhythm.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, dropping his head to pepper kisses over your chest. “God, you feel so good.”

“Oh,” you gasp as his lips wrap around your nipple. “I’ve needed you so badly, so so badly.”

Daveed kisses you again, moving in and out with a bit more force. His thumb brushes your clit, prompting a mewl from you.

Daveed changes the angle, hooking one of your legs over his shoulder. Your mouth falls open, an airy whimper escaping it as he thrusts deeper into you, his tip brushing your g-spot.

It isn’t long before Daveed can tell you’re close again, your walls beginning to clench around him. He picks up the speed again, the music of your moans ringing out to his ears. He’s close, too, but he needs you to come first, needs to hear more of your sounds.

When your second orgasm overtakes you, you whine his name, nails scraping down his back. He continues pumping into you through your climax, coming himself with a low groan just as your muscles begin to relax again.

He collapses onto the bed next to you, tying off the condom and tossing it into the trash bin next to your bed.

“I love you.”

Your voice is barely above a whisper. At first, Daveed’s not sure he heard you right. He rolls back over, eyes searching your face.

“I love you,” he whispers back.

A grin spreads over your face, and it feels like the entire universe has opened up in front of Daveed. The moon, the sun, and every star shine out of you, and he can’t resist being completely captivated. He doesn’t want to.

You settle against his side with a yawn and he draws the blankets up over you. The two of your drift to sleep quickly, your head nestled into the crook of his neck and his arms around your waist.

When Daveed’s eyes open back up again, he takes in his surroundings. He looks down and sees you still pressed against him, breathing evenly. He smiles softly, ghosting his fingertips over your spine.

All at once, the weight of the world comes crashing back down on him.

“Shit,” he murmurs. He looks at his watch and realizes it’s nearly eleven. His mind flashes to Jerry, probably pacing back and forth in the Delta SkyClub lounge wondering where the hell he is.

You shift, squinting up at him. “What time is it?”

“Almost eleven,” he sighs.

“You’re going to miss your flight,” you sit up quickly. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry, I should’ve-”

He cuts you off with a kiss.

“It’ll be fine,” he says evenly. “I just- can I borrow your phone? I left mine at my hotel.”

You nod, rolling over to fish your phone from your purse.

Daveed takes the phone, shuffling out of bed and back into his boxers before walking toward the kitchen.

“Hey, Jerry,” He greets when he’s finally connected to him.

“Where the hell are you?” Jerry is frazzled. Daveed can’t blame him.

“I’m at [Y/N]’s, actually. I’m not going to be able to make the flight. I can get one later tonight-”

“Daveed, you have rehearsal today,” Jerry reminds him. “In fact, it’s only shortly after we’re supposed to get off the plane at LAX.”

“Well, it’s not going to happen,” Daveed asserts. “I can’t get there in time. Plus I’ve been working non-stop for the past year, Jerry. Between writing and recording the album, rehearsals, and shows, I know those songs inside and out. I’ll meet you tomorrow night at LAX. In time for our flight to Germany for the first show of the tour.”

“Daveed,” Jerry squawks, clearly panicking.

“Bye, Jerry,” Daveed leans one hand against the counter. “Oh, and by the way,” he adds as he glances over to you. “I’m going to need a little break after this tour is over.”

Daveed hangs up the phone before Jerry has time to reply. He would never pull out of a tour unless circumstances beyond his control forced him to, but he needs to set aside some time.

He’s just gotten you back. He isn’t willing to let go so soon.

You make your way toward him, a sheet wrapped around you and dragging along the floor in your wake.

“A break?” You loop your arms easily around his waist, leaning into his chest.

“Yeah,” he smirks. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” He slides one hand to the back of your neck and presses his lips to yours lovingly.

[jamesginortonblog]

By Ben Lawrence

James Norton has cut-glass cheekbones, hair that’s an artistic shade of blond and light brown eyes across which emotions drift like rain clouds. He is constantly objectified by female fans (the curious should look out for websites with names such as Norton Addiction), and yet it is the words of his great-aunt, Grainne, which resonate most clearly for the 31-year-old actor. “She said she couldn’t understand why I looked so good on TV because she thought I looked so bland in real life.”

Only someone with a healthy dollop of self-esteem would admit to being thought of as bland, and indeed there is a lack of neurosis about Norton, which I imagine  serves him well in a fickle industry. “I look at some people, men and women, who are breathtakingly beautiful and I know they will always play the romantic lead. I did get a jawline at some point, but I don’t feel limited by the roles I’ve been offered. I feel that I’ve been entrusted with parts that are more than just me being the matinee idol.”

Those roles, to date, have included the tragic, brilliant young aristocrat Andre, searching for a sense of purpose away from the ballrooms of St Petersburg in War and Peace; the psychotic thug Tommy Lee Royce in Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley; and Sidney Chambers, the unworldly, questing, jazz-loving vicar of detective series Grantchester, which returns in a couple of weeks. That show, set in Fifties Cambridge, has been occasionally dismissed as cosy heritage television, but Norton will defend it to the hilt.

“People’s perception is that it’s saccharine and sugar-coated, but really it doesn’t pull any punches and shows how far we’ve come – the fact that a gay man could be sent to prison, the deep-rooted racism – those suffocating parts of the Fifties that we’ve been able to leave behind.” Norton, however, is not simply upbraiding the past. His immersion in the role of Sidney has made him wonder if we are inclined to take our modern freedoms for granted and, indeed, whether the thing we might compartmentalise as “mindfulness” today was a fundamental part of mid-20th-century living. “You see moments of stillness in Sidney, where he is lost in prayer or thought or wrangling with the existential stuff. No one does that anymore. We don’t have enough boredom.”

Faith has been a thread throughout Norton’s life. He was raised a Catholic and, at 13, attended Ampleforth College, known as the Catholic Eton. “My school was archaic, I mean we were surrounded by monks who had taken their vows of celibacy and poverty and dedicated their lives to the rule of St Benedict. But they were also inspirational, particularly when you’re a teenager and confused about a lot of things. I remember one guy who had been in a band and had given up his rock and roll lifestyle in order to live in an abbey in North Yorkshire. To be surrounded by people like him was terribly affecting.”

Norton is no longer a practising Catholic, although he admits to being still intellectually curious about the faith that shaped his formative years. He admires the way in which Pope Francis is dragging Catholicism into the 21st century and believes that institutionalised religion is often a necessity. “It is a human construct, and although it’s fallible, it is a crucial way for some people to explore their sense of the divine.”

He also believes it can offer more: “Through my parents, I met a vicar who was a traditional Anglican and I went to see him at his church. What struck me was that they [his parishioners] turned to him for more than just spiritual guidance. He is a remarkable force in that little community.” While filming Grantchester, Norton says that it has become clear that fans sometimes blur fiction and reality. When the position of vicar at the real Grantchester became vacant, he had a letter suggesting he might apply. When he’s on set, dressed in a dog collar and robed, people come up to him and start asking him about a thorny passage in, for example, Mark, Chapter V. I suggest that he might be well-equipped to engage, given that he graduated from Cambridge with a degree in theology.

“Honestly, I would have no idea,” he laughs. “Much of my degree was in Hinduism or Buddhism, I’m really not up on Christian theology.” It must be strange, I say, that Norton is back in a city which was a defining part of his past, but is now inhabiting a fictional world. “I take Robson [Green, who plays Sidney’s sidekick Geordie Keating] and other members of the production punting on the Cam and give them my version of the Cambridge tour, which is basically just people falling out of trees or jumping over bridges. It’s nice to have the opportunity to be nostalgic and share that with new friends.”

Grantchester has done for Cambridge what Inspector Morse did for Oxford and Norton says that filming can become incredibly intense when a crowd gathers. He hasn’t experienced anything that would suggest stalking and believes the goodness of Sidney’s character filters down to the show’s fans. Has he received marriage proposals? He is, after all, perfect husband material. “I am definitely not perfect husband material,” says Norton.

I say that I mean his character, Sidney, but Norton seems unsure. “I don’t know. He’s got commitment issues and any woman would have to be a lover of Sidney Bechet…”

Norton has a dry sense of humour and seems determined not to take himself too seriously. He lives in Peckham and is dating his War and Peace co-star Jessie Buckley who, one assumes, is sanguine about his female fans. One only wonders at the eruption of hysteria should Norton become James Bond. His is a name that surfaces at regular intervals in the speculation over who replaces Daniel Craig. Has he thought about it?

“Well, of course, if the question is asked it does make you think about it,” he says. “I mean, there is so much madness about the whole thing, but it is always very flattering to be part of the conversation.”

For now, Norton is busy enough. His projects include a remake of the seminal Nineties hit film Flatliners, in which he co-stars with Ellen Page. Back then, to that question of looks which will become more pertinent as Norton’s stock continues to rise. “You can play up to the looks thing, but I think, ultimately, you have autonomy in how you define your career. Anyway, I think I look quite normal.” Great-aunt Grainne would be proud.