#if you have ever been suicidal you know it’s not uncommon to write a note in case you do it

[philsmeatylegss]

One thing about me is I get really into internet drama always a few weeks after it’s relevant

[vividachromatic]

Meant To Stay The Worst - Pt. 6

Alastor x Reader

Tags: ongoing, marriage, manipulation and toxic relationships, death, canon typical violence and language

Warnings / Note: This is a relatively dark / sad chapter and you obviously gotta be at least 16 (best case 18+) for Hazbin Hotel in general, so most warnings are canon-typical, but just ANOTHER warning, this chapter in particular talks about mental health issues, depression, suicide and death, so if you're sensitive about these topics, don't read. This is fiction and I don't necessarily condone what I write.

((<-Pt. 5))

"Miss L/N. This is Officer Sanford and Bailey. May we come in?"

Your entire body froze when you saw two police officers at your door.

You contemplated on what to do. Should you let them in? If they were here because of Alastor's... activities that wouldn't be smart.

Should you ask them if they had a search warrant? They had no right to go into the house without one.

But asking that would make you look suspicious... why were they here in the first place?

"Ma'am?" One of the officers asked you. And for some reason, the officers' faces looked sad.

Pitiful. But maybe you were just mistaken.

"Sure, of course..." you answered eventually and stepped aside to let them in.

There was an awkward silence for a minute and you decided to end it by playing the nice housewife. "Do any of the gentlemen want a cup of coffee?" You smiled.

The two men looked at each other and one of them nodded to the other like they were communicating telepathically. Your smile wavered.

"Yes. We would like that, Mrs L/N." The taller one answered.

Nervously you lead them to the coffee table in the living room and started preparing their beverages in the kitchen.

You weren't sure what they wanted, but you obviously only offered them coffee out of politeness, so them accepting it probably meant their visit would take longer. Right?

But at least they didn't seem hostile, or like they were trying to actively search the house.

You mentally prepared yourself to lie more than you ever did in your entire life.

After 3 minutes you handed the coffee to the two men, with optional milk and sugar cubes.

They thanked you and set down on your couch.

You sat down on the chair opposite them and nervously cleared your throat.

"Mrs. Y/N L/N, your husband is Mr. Alastor L/N, right?" One of the officers asked.

"Yes, he is..." You answered with an unsure smile.

"Do you know where he is right now?" The other one asked.

"He... is on a hunting trip right now. He is a hunter." You answered. Anxiously you looked at the clock on the wall behind the two officers. It was already half an hour past the time he was usually back, but that wasn't too uncommon. Did something happen?

Wait...

"Is he hurt?" You asked the officers, suddenly alarmed. Before this, you thought they may have come because they suspected Alastor to be the New Orleans' serial killer. But now you realize, that maybe something could have happened to him.

The two officers looked hesitant until the taller one decided to speak: "Mrs L/N, we found two dead bodies in the woods right next to your house last night. We assume that one of those two people might be your husband. Would you come with us to the police station to help us identify the body?"

Your eyes widened for a second at the mere thought that Alastor might be-

But that's impossible...

"I- I can, but... haha," laughing was extremely inappropriate in this situation, but you weren’t sure how else to react.

After all, there was no actual possibility that Alastor was dead.

Right?

The policemen just nodded and helped you to get to the police car. For the whole ride, you nervously tapped on your thigh, trying to get the thought that maybe something actually happened to him out of your head.

When you arrived at the station the two policemen warned you: the way the corpse looks right now isn't easy to handle for most people. It seems to have been torn apart by dogs according to them.

Regardless you chose to identify the person.

And to your disgust and horror,

It was actually Alastor.

The policemen noticed you crumbling down in front of them before you could even answer if it was really him or not.

They tried catching you before you hit the ground but were too late.

Having to see Alastor's lifeless body was a greater burden than you ever thought you had to endure.

When you sunk down and your knees hit the ground it didn't even hurt. In fact, it felt like nothing in your life was real anymore.

Your mind was constantly shifting between wanting to cry hysterically when you realized Alastor was actually dead and feeling completely empty.

You wanted to convince yourself that this could not possibly be real.

"Mrs L/N, we know this has to be really hard for you right now: but we want to ask if you would stay with us for another hour to answer some questions." One of the officers asked.

You didn't answer, trying to catch your breath but failing and breaking down over and over again.

One of the policemen sighed. "Ma'am, we have the suspicion that your husband may be... may have been the serial killer of New Orleans-"

He probably explained exactly why he came to that conclusion, but you weren’t sure. Your mind was completely fucked up at this point.

"...You have the right to have a lawyer,"

"..."

----------

The next couple of weeks were the most difficult you ever had to endure.

Not only did you have to accept the fact that Alastor, your husband and the love of your life was dead.

Which besides the emotional burden, meant planning his funeral, when you definitely weren't ready to.

Alastor's mother was heartbroken by the news of her son's death. You tried comforting her and let her move into your house to take care of her since she suddenly fell terribly ill.

She obviously heard the rumor of her son being a serial killer. But both of you decided not to talk about it.

Not until her last day - her illness was getting worse every day and the doctors told you she only had a couple of hours left.

"My dear, can you answer me this question honestly?" She asked you with a weak voice.

"I- of course..." you answered.

She sighed with a sad look on her face. "Is it true? What they're saying about my son, that he's a-" She didn't want to say the word but you understood.

Your eyes widened, unsure what to say. And she was a smart woman, she immediately knew the answer when she looked in your eyes.

Still, she waited for your response.

"I..." your whole body tensed up. You weren't sure how to respond to her. Should you tell her the truth? Would you want to know the truth in her place?

"...Of course not, Ma'am." You eventually answered.

She nodded and turned her head to look at the ceiling. A peaceful smile formed on her lips as she closed her eyes. "Of course not..." she whispered.

Those were her last words.

And as if you didn't have to go through enough misery and death in only the last couple of months in your life:

One of the family members of one of Alastor's 'victims' sued you for being an accessory after the fact.

And besides the stress and mental anguish of this whole situation, you started feeling physically unwell too after about three months.

You were in pain and had to throw up everyday and after a while it got so bad, your brother decided to stay with you.

And you were grateful for him. The two of you never spent much time together but you knew that deep down you always cared about each other.

And that was further proven by the fact, that your brother definitely wasn't encouraged to be meeting you right now.

Your reputation drastically sank when it was now known by practically everyone that your dead husband was most likely a serial-killer.

But your brother stayed with you and took care of you, even holding your hair back when you had to throw up.

After about a week or so, he hesitantly asked you if you might be pregnant.

You told him that that was impossible.

Even when that wasn't true - it was very possible. Alastor and you tried having a child for some time now.

But the thought that it actually worked right before he died was terrifying. So you convinced yourself it was impossible.

Your brother desperately tried cheering you up, and helped you talk to several lawyers, even when you personally had no motivation to defend your case.

Every lawyer you met tried convincing you that the only way you could get away with this was to play the dumb houswife, who didn't know about her husband's dark secret.

And you knew they were right, but you hated to stab Alastor in the back like this, even after his death.

The only reason you actually decided to play along, was when you found out you were actually pregnant.

Your and Alastor's mistakes should at least not affect your future child...

And when it was actually time for the trial you answered (almost) every question at least somewhat truthfully.

But the prosecutor was brutal with his questions. He asked you more and more about your personal life, trying to get you riled up on purpose until he finally asked you crucial questions:

And eventually, the exact thing the prosecutor wanted to happen, happened.

You slipped.

You mentioned something you shouldn't have known.

And of course, the prosecutor immediately fixated on that in his cross-examination.

And maybe you could have talked yourself out of this.

Maybe you could have.

But you didn't.

Even worse, when the prosecutor called you out on that specific detail you weren't supposed to know, you just laughed.

The crowd exchanged suspicious glances with each other, which only made the moment feel more surreal making you laugh even harder.

God...

In your defense, it was extremely difficult to continue acting with all the stares you were getting from some of the victim's family members.

"So what? All of them deserved it! All of your precious, innocent family members who were 'murdered in cold blood' deserved it and they were awful people! You," You pointed at the widow of that other famous radio star Alastor killed before he got famous, "Your kind and benevolent husband, who 'even donated to orphan children' was a pedophile and you know it! And he should have killed you, too!"

The entire crowd let out audible gasps at your declaration. Which made you even angrier, "Oh, so that is the part all of you are concerned about? Not the fact, that he is a literal- you know what? I give up. All of you are disgusting hypocrites and I can't wait until the day I'll finally see all of you in hell-"

You shouted at all of them even when the judge warned you that if you don't calm down he'll call the security. And your attorney practically begged you to shut up and asked the judge to pause the questioning to talk with you again.

The judge reluctantly agreed when he actually just wanted to get this over with and find you guilty after seeing your outburst.

When you and your attorney were alone in some office again, he just sat down and let out a big, frustrated sigh. Obviously, he was extremely disappointed by your outburst.

He calmly explained to you that after your display there is barely anything he can do for you anymore. Unless some kind of miracle was about to happen the judge would find you guilty.

'Crazy women' were never found innocent. And it didn't help that their judge was even more misogynistic than the average man was. You could have easily won this if you just played nice.

He explained that the most he could still do for you was to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but in that case, you would have to go to a mental institution.

"But... what about my baby?" You asked him fearfully.

"Your- God, I'm sure they will let you carry out the pregnancy but you won't be able to keep it." He sighed.

You gritted your teeth in frustration and tears started to well up in your eyes.

Great, great, just perfect.

It didn't even feel like life wanted to punch you in the face anymore - it was straight-up beating the shit out of you.

And so the verdict ended up being like your attorney had promised. You were declared not guilty by reason of insanity and were to stay in a hospital until your child was born. After that, you had to stay in a mental asylum for at least 5 to 10 years, depending on your behavior.

And the following months were excruciating. You spent every day crying and making awful drawings with the single notepad and pencil, that were given to you.

And when your beautiful baby daughter was born, you were only allowed to see her once before she was taken from you.

You called her 'Ana' - a short version of 'Anabelle' the name of Alastor's mother.

Thankfully, she was at least not given to an orphanage, but to your brother to raise her. He promised to take good care of her and you decided to believe him. It's not like you had any better options anyway. (Also your brother was happy because it meant he didn't have to sleep with a woman to produce an heir.)

When you had to go to the mental asylum after, you just quietly cooperated. You didn't have any energy left to fight anyway.

It was awful there, obviously. But you managed to go through one year at least before the doctors decided to sign you up for a lobotomy.

A medical procedure where they would butcher the frontal lobes of your brain to 'fix you'. The chance of this actually succeeding and not either killing or disabling you for life was very low.

So you decided that this was the last fucking straw for you. You really tried going through these 5 to 10 years, but even a single year was so excruciatingly painful. Every single day was.

And if you had to go, you at least wanted it to be on your own terms.

So you wrote one last letter to your daughter before deciding on your plan.

You befriended a younger and more inexperienced nurse and convinced her to let you go on the balcony for five minutes. Normally patients weren't allowed to go there, but you gained her sympathy by saying it was your last wish before the lobotomy and since she knew the high risk of the surgery she felt guilty and let you.

The fresh air surrounded you completely for the first time in months.

You calmly walked to the edge of the balcony, your fingers touching the cold iron railings. Your eyes wandered down, seeing the stoney path on the ground at least 60 feet below.

This wouldn't be pretty, but it's not exactly like you had many options in a high-surveillance place like this.

"Ma'am, would you please step away from the railings?" The young nurse nervously cleared her throat behind you.

You turned around to face her and calmly leaned back to sit on the railing.

The nurse looked anxious and opened her mouth to speak, but you interrupted her. "Would you do me another favor, please?" You ask her with a small smile.

"I, well... What is it?" She looked unsure.

"I have a daughter, you know? Could you please give this letter to my brother, so he can give it to her when she's old enough?" You pulled out the letter and handed it to the nurse.

She accepted the letter in confusion. "Ma'am, why are you talking like this is a goodbye?"

You smiled and leaned back, letting go of the railings. The nurse's eyes widened and she held her hand out to grab you. But it was too late.

You remember falling. And suddenly you felt scared and regretted it.

And then nothing.

----------

Taglist:

@cryptidghostgirl @adeadreader @yourdoorisunlocked @spirit-of-the-hollow @droopingdatura @reikamasama @over-the-little-blue-house @wonderlandangelsposts @mysterypotatoink

(Thanks for your support! ♡)

Note: There is no canon name for Alastor's mother, so I came up with one!

+ Sorry for the sad chapter 😭 the future ones will play in hell, so they're much more fun lmao

Sooo, Al and Reader have a daughter? 🤔 (Obv it's gonna be a girl bc we have to continue Vivzie's legacy of girls with daddy issues)

Many possibilities for the future plot bc of that, huh? You think she's gonna be in heaven one day? Or in hell? If she'd be in hell, the three could become a powerful overlord family (like Carmilla's). And if she'd be in heaven, it may be a reason for the two of them to actually want to redeem themselves?

Or not! You can comment your opinions bc like always I'm open for suggestions and criticism!

See youuu!

[anjumbai]

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Short Stories

White Nights

"Do you realize how you have reconciled me to myself? Do you realize I will no longer think so badly of myself as I have done at times? Do you realize that I will perhaps no longer agonize over having sinned and committed crimes during my life, because that sort of life is a sin and a crime in itself!"

A story of a lonely man confining to himself, finding solace and experiencing human compassion from a girl leading to an eventual heartbreak. The story starts with our lonely man seeing a girl cry on the streets, not sure whether to ask her what's wrong. Eventually, they talk and the girl makes him from promise not to fall in love with her. And he agrees. And the two go on multiple nights talking alone in the cold Petersburgh streets. The man opens up, maybe for the first time. The girl too shares her heartbreaks and love affairs, how a man who promised to marry her has yet not approached her and it's breaking her up inside. Sadly, our protagonist, the man breaks his promise and it leads to an eventual heartbreak for one side. Someone gets invited to a wedding too.

I love Dostoevsky due to how amazingly he portrays ordinary stories. A story like this is not uncommon in modern day, yet his dialogue just fleshes out this seemingly ordinary story to the next level. Dostoevsky appears as such a cold, nihilistic fellow that I couldn't really imagine him writing such beautiful stories filled with human emotion. Crime and Punishment was a proper introduction to his writing style but not to the man himself. A compassionate, loving human being who enjoys beauty.

Overall, a fun story to read. I started it in Sylhet months ago and finally finished it on a metro ride some weeks ago. The dialogue is beautiful and I guess it's something you can never take away from a Dostoevsky book.

"I do not blame you for the fact that I am powerless to guide your heart; such is my fate!" - what a line.

A Gentle Creature

"But my soul was in grim despair at that time: I was about to be annihilated myself, so how on earth could I have saved anyone else? And how do you know I wanted to save anyone at the time? Who knows what I might have been feeling?"

Credits to the artist. I didn't like the official cover so I went with a beautiful artwork perfectly capturing the story. The revolver, the window - all's there. It's another story of a man and a girl. An ex-military pawnbroker marries this girl, seemingly out of pity and hoping that she'll love him in his terms. She does love him, and he replies in silence. Abusing her not physically but psychologically, as if suffering will make her love him in a way he wants. "A higher kind of happiness" or something.

The story has essentially no dialogue. None. These are the thoughts of the person left behind through the suicide of another. The man explains us in vain why she must have killed herself, why she decided to fling herself out the balcony. He takes us through a trip through his thoughts and you can just tell this is one of the unreliable narrators. Just like "Notes from Underground", the narrator is a vile human being who never came to terms with his guilt. He deemed himself unworthy of the love of his wife and decided to torture her emotionally as if to prepare her to actually love him. He never opens up, never concedes his emotions and speaks in a matter of fact tone that she will never understand. What can't a woman's love heal unless you are denying to even receive it.

It turns out that the man did drive her to suicide. He is in shock, he is in denial and he tries to explain us, his humble listeners why it was her fault. Psychologically, it's one of the best short stories I've ever read. I enjoyed this thoroughly and I was eager to understand what would happen next. 9/10, one of my favorite short stories to this date.

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

"That in my hatred towards the people of our earth there was always an element of anguish: why could I not hate them without loving them? Why couldn't I deny them forgiveness, why was there this anguish in my love: why couldn't I love them without hating them?

A man, moments before picking up the revolver and shooting himself, falls asleep and goes on some kind of fever dream that only the highest form of cocaine can supply and he turns into a better man. I guess. I don't know how else to explain it.

The narrator hates everyone and everybody and he is ready to shoot himself soon. But he dreams. Dream of a different earth where humans lived without hate, lying, corruption, power. He looks at them at awe. He was bewildered at how compassionate they were. "Ah no, these people never tried to get me to understand them, they loved me without that, but I also knew that they would never comprehend me..." how could people who didn't understand one another show so much love and appreciation for one another? It hit him. That was simply the human condition. Sadly, our ridiculous man corrupts them. He teaches them lying just out of joke and then it starts- jealousy, corruption, cruelty, shame. "When they became wicket, they started talking of brotherhood and humane values and grasped these concepts. When they took up criminality, they invented justice and enacted whole codes of law to preserve it, while for the maintenance of the codes they set up the guillotine."

I don't know what to make of this story. Maybe love humans and have hope? "Because I have seen the truth, I've seen it and know that people can be beautiful and happy, without losing their ability to live on earth. I won't accept, and refuse to believe that evil is the normal condition of men."

Dude doesn't kill himself and starts preaching about the fundamental condition of man. Honest, loving and compassionate. The end.

[topazadine]

personal vibes u can ignore

So I don't really discuss it much on here because no one cares but I've ... had a pretty intense life ngl. [TW for mentions of trauma I guess?]

I'm a CSA and childhood domestic abuse survivor, suffered from self-harm for a long time, had a psychotic episode at age 21, have been dealing with bipolar since age 15, attempted suicide six times, and don't remember half my life because of dissociative amnesia and C-PTSD.

There was a time when I didn't leave my house more than a handful of times for a whole year. I used to have such bad panic attacks that I would literally run out of classes. Sometimes I would wake myself up screaming.

But despite that, I really did achieve my lifelong dream: I became an author. I published 9 Years Yearning and have completed six manuscripts so far, including two 100k+ manuscripts.

A lot of the time, I just kind of move on from my achievements and don't really think much about them. I didn't attend either of my college graduations because I didn't care; the process was over and it was time to look for what was next. I've always been hungry for the next thing, or maybe it's due to low self-esteem.

I need to change that, though. I sell myself short quite a lot. Many people want to become authors, but most of them give up and fizzle out when they don't get immediate recognition, or they endlessly babble on about what they want to do instead of actually writing the damn thing. They come up with a million excuses and spend all their time dreaming up story ideas that they never put onto paper, and then they shit all over everyone who actually does it.

They're not willing to put themselves out there and be vulnerable, nor will they put in the hard work of writing, revising, formatting, getting a book cover, marketing, etc. It's scary to show people your heart in your work and to know that others won't appreciate the struggle, nor will they be kind because they have no reason to. That shit is tough. Not everyone can handle it.

My mom recently gave me a strange compliment that has been sticking with me a lot, and I think it might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. She said that she admires me because I keep going even though there may be no tangible reward for it: I have entirely intrinsic motivation.

I believe so strongly in my work that even though I know there may be no payoff whatsoever, I am still willing to put in the effort. There's no participation trophy, no guarantee that anyone will care; I'm not going to get an A+ in Writing from anyone now that I'm out of school.

This didn't even occur to me because I never imagined that other people didn't feel that way, that many need outside validation or they feel that their output isn't worth doing.

Maybe it's because I've been a ghostwriter for 8 years and an SEO writer for about 2 years, both of which are incredibly thankless occupations. I mean, someone literally puts their own byline on top of your own, and no one ever knows you wrote it.

I bust my ass all day finding statistics for the most random niche topics, and all it amounts to is a "Completed" note on an Excel spreadsheet and a confirmation that the client received it. (And money. That's the important thing.) That would probably demolish a lot of peoples' drive to work, but it doesn't bother me.

Whatever the reason I am like that, it is indeed an uncommon mindset. I do my best even if I get no positive feedback because it doesn't matter whether other people acknowledge me; I know I worked hard, and that's enough for me.

So ... I guess I'm just proud of myself. Proud of how much I have grown as a person and how I have overcome so many barriers to get here. I could have given up at any time and no one would have faulted me, but I didn't, and I'm still going, even when the odds are against me and it feels pointless.

That's really special. I'm honored to be the person I am today.

[chasing-rabbits]

.

I often deal with low level passive thoughts of suicide and not all the time not even necessarily daily but it does come and go. The difference is that they are now passive or were 100% passive. And what I mean by that is there was never any real risk to myself. People with BPD/Depression/CPTSD etc etc I think will probably get this, this passive suicidal I guess idealisation I think is the word idk. But the thoughts aren’t often super loud or they don’t stick around for really long or if they do persist it’s more like a background noise that sometimes it’s clearer other times it just sits there just a passive thing and I can’t explain why I have these thoughts if it’s entirely passive I can’t explain why these thoughts would persist even if I wasn’t in a state of mind where I’d truly consider doing it. It’s just something I and a lot of other people struggle with I know this isn’t uncommon you know. But here’s the thing, lately it’s been a little less passive and not that I would necessarily act on it but I guess it’s that the thoughts are making themself more known, they are more I guess ‘loud’ in my mind they push to the front & I get lost in my thoughts. It upsets me because it’s not as passive as it used to be and whilst I still don’t think I’d act on it so in that sense it’s still ‘passive’. It’s still distressing when I find myself thinking about taking my meds, thinking through the consequences and most recently whats been really distressing is thinking about what I would or wouldn’t say thinking about well a suicide note. See that’s some what more scary because my attempts have been pure impulse not thought through and for most of them I’d say it was a mix of BPD spiral and Bipolar combined adding fuel to the fire and it was often about wanting to make the pain to stop rather than wanting to die. So I’d very quickly come out of the spiral stop it and regret it and so it wasn’t ever too serious serious you know. And that’s because it was impulse driven & some of the times I was manic I think many of the times I was probably manic which is weird to say that, that when manic is when I wanted to do that not as much so when I was depressed. There was maybe only one occasion where I truly truly wanted to die more than I wanted the pain to stop. And not once did I ever really think about a suicide note in detail. I thought about what it might do to others around me I thought about what might go wrong about them finding me about what if I survived or what if I didn’t but I don’t know if I ever really truly thought in depth in depth about what I’d write or say or not say I know I’ve had thoughts about it in the past but idk I just don’t feel like I’ve had it like this & maybe its my poor memory but idk I guess it just upsets me & idk idk really it’s whatever I guess because I still think its very much passive but it’s just distressing obviously, to be thinking like that in any capacity.

[rozcdust]

She’s so mean

Pairing: Kokonoi Hajime x f!reader

Genre: Crack, SMAU

Word count: 1.2k

Warnings: Canon divergent, profanity, ooc, violence and substance abuse down the line, jokes about suicide, the reader is tired

Synopsis: Koko thinks she’s the best thing ever. She wants to put a boot through his teeth.

pt. 1 | pt. 2 | next

“Hey, y/n, can I borrow your phone for a second? I need to call my mum, mine’s dead.” Miya asked, standing in front of the doors to the employee restroom.

Just barely managing to pull off the tiny ass pants that have been scratching you for the past 8 hours, you let out a sigh, opening the doors to hand her your unlocked phone with the keypad open.

Smiling as she thanked you, she started typing the number in as you closed the doors again, getting out of the rest of the uniform.

With the restaurant being quite a high end one, you had to wear a full suit to maintain “the elegance of the workplace” as your manager put it, and it was a fucking pain in the ass to take off every night between running from the restaurant to the gas station.

“Huh, she’s not responding. Thanks anyway!” Miya handed you back your phone as you walked out of the restroom, now dressed in a hoodie 4 sizes too big and jeans.

The gas station owners had low expectations, so as long as you didn’t show up fully naked, they’re happy.

“You will freeze,” Miya cocked an eyebrow, staring you up and down, “You’re walking again?”

“Yep.” You said, quickly fixing your hair in the mirror, wiping away any makeup that smudged.

“You’re so pretty.” Miya pouted, staring at you.

“Thank you, I’m well aware.” Sticking your tongue out, you grin as she gently punched your shoulder.

“I honestly don’t know how you do it, y/n, I mean, isn’t it exhausting?”

“I basically do nothing at the gas station besides making sure drunks don’t kill each other, it’s pretty easy.”

“That sounds terrifying.”

“I get to yell at customers, it’s amazing.”

“…you yell at customers as a bartender too though?”

“Ah yes,” You sighed happily, “Perks of being a bartender.”

Walking down the back streets of Tokyo, smoking your cigarette, you hated to admit it, but Miya was right.

You fucking froze your ass off by the time you got to the gas station, and genuinely started questioning if that pay-check you get for being there from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m., sometimes longer if the mid-shifter was being an asshole, was worth it.

Besides that, the gas station owners were shady as fuck, the gas station selling way too many things that had no reason to belong in a gas station, and you were certain they just slapped those pumps in the front as a way to make a distraction for all the drug deals and money laundering you were well aware were happening behind closed doors.

Not that you planned to complain or bring it up. You didn’t have the time nor the fucks to give about what the fuck they did, as long as they paid you.

“Oh y/n! You’re early, thank God, I’ll clock out then.” The second shifter nodded at you, almost skipping out of the gas station as they waved at you, wishing you good luck on your night shift.

Staring at him as he finished his performance, annoyed, you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose.

God, you were fucking tired.

Glancing around the store, noting it was relatively clean, an uncommon occurrence, you smiled.

Less work for you.

The night shift was quiet, giving you enough time to study and take a break from running around, the most you had to do is occasionally break up a fight or wipe away some blood.

Sitting down behind the register, you opened your bag to grab your textbook, sighing loudly as you stared at the material, before getting to writing down your notes.

12 a.m., 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. all passed peacefully, a couple of customers dropping in and out to get snacks or fill up their tank.

When the clock hit three, you decided to take a break, getting up from your chair, groaning from how stiff your body was.

Putting on your jacket and grabbing a Monster drink and your pack of smokes, you walked out of the store to the front, lighting your cigarette.

And then he showed up, interrupting you in the middle of the cig, like a fucking asshole.

Trying desperately to take bigger puffs as to not let the cig go to waste, you observed the car as it pulled up.

Now, you barely knew anything about car brands, and you were not willing to learn. causing Keisuke grief on daily basis, but you knew enough to know that the fancy-looking car now parked in front of the gas station was lost as fuck.

You watched the guy park as you extinguished your cigarette, throwing it in the trash can.

Walking back into the store, you sat back behind the register, not paying attention to the man who just walked in.

“Good evening.” He greeted as he set the few items he picked out on the counter, his card already between his fingers.

Finally looking up, you raised an eyebrow, noting he was familiar.

His face looked surprised for a few seconds, before he chuckled.

“Oh, hello there. Long time no see.”

Uhuh.

Motherfucker.

“That’s all?” You asked, skeptically looking at the roll of duct tape, rope, screwdriver and a pack of gum.

How very not suspicious.

“You’re that bartender, right?” His grin made you want to bang his face against the counter.

“Yep.”

“Your note was very cute.”

“Is. That. All?” You gritted out, not bothering with a polite tone, pointing to the items.

“A pack of Seven Stars, too.”

Turning around to grab the smokes, you rang him up.

“You were the one smoking in front?” He questioned, looking at you expectantly.

Your blood pressure was rising by the millisecond.

“None of your fucking business. Your total is 1838 yen.”

“That’s pretty bad for you, ya know?”

Who the fuck does this bitch think-

“Motherfucker, you are literally buying cigarettes right now. Hop off my fucking dick and pay, or get the fuck out.”

You could tell he was amused.

“Oh, and do you by any chance have rat poison?”

Raising an eyebrow, you stood up, purposefully bumping shoulders with him since he didn’t want to get out of your fucking way.

Taking your time to get the rat poison from one of the isles, you slowly walked up to the register, ringing it up too and hastily bagging the items that absolutely did not scream ‘I’m either a serial killer or into some really weird kinky shit’.

“2370 yen.”

As he swiped his card, he politely smiled, picking the items up to leave.

Just as he opened the gas station doors to leave, you called out after him.

“Oi, you dropped your fucking wallet.” You threw the wallet at his feet, not bothered enough to stand up and hand it to him.

He seemed confused for a second, patting the coat pocket where he was sure the wallet should have been.

Finding it empty, he gracefully bent down to pick up the wallet, shooting you a smile.

“Call me.” He stuck his tongue out, smirking.

“Fuck yourself, and never return.” With a mockingly sing a songy voice, you waved at him.

Kokonoi hopped into his car and set his items on the passenger seat, opening his wallet to check if anything was gone.

And it was. All of his cash, in fact.

Looking up at you with a raised eyebrow, you grinned at him, flipping him off.

He had to laugh.

You were absolutely delightful.

Taglist (open):

@1818cigarettes @babu-haitani @dilf-city @wakasa-wifey @lagrimasdeglitter @kisekihany @missarabellla @bajifairyy @cryszus @r-xochitl @hana-patata @uchioni @crybabylisa @spookydraken @lovelybimbo @nalyana

if you are in bold, that means tumblr doesn’t let me tag you! please check and make sure your visibility on dashboard setting is on 💖💖

a/n: YES I’M BRINGING THE PETSHOP TRIO BACK PURELY BC I DIDN’T GET TO MAKE THEM BOYFRIENDS THE LAST TIME 😤 and reader in this needs someone supportive bc she is a p r o b l e m

[fandom-imagines]

Escape Artists

Fandom: Halloween/Slashers

Pairing: Michael Myers X Reader

Warnings: Murder, mention of parental abuse, lightly-written smut (not too descriptive).

Words: 2.4k

He had seen her around the hospital numerous times. She was always sat surrounded by those weird beads that she made designs with, only to have to hand them to one of the nurses who always seemed glad to iron the pattern for her.

Despite having seen her and observed her, Michael had never actually interacted with the girl. Sure, she was interesting, seemingly too innocent to be sat in Smiths Groves, but he wouldn’t talk to her; he wouldn’t talk to anybody. This was how he lived. Day in, day out. Never talking to a soul and nobody willingly talking to him. That was how Michael liked it which is why he couldn’t help but be irritated by the person who was interrupting his mealtime.

“Hi,” in front of Michael stood the bead girl, nervously fiddling with her fingers. “I-I made this for you.” Before he knew it, Michaels hand now held a beaded blushing panda.

He was tempted to snap the poor thing in half, and he would have had he not felt a piece of paper stuck to the back with the crappy tape the sanitorium provides.

“Don’t look yet, look when you’re alone.” She said, leaving with a short nod.

He listened to her words, going to the bathroom, the one place he was allowed to be alone, to read whatever note was scribbled on the paper.

Do you want to escape with me, Michael?

Confusion overtook his mind, the creaking of the tiled walls being the only thing he could fully register.

Not only did she know his name, but she also wanted to escape with him?

Weirdo.

He simply shrugged it off.

*

“Morning, Y/N,” a kind nurse awoke the young girl from her peaceful slumber, something that was rare for her. “Here is your medicine.”

“Thank you, Nurse Green.”

Her small hands grasped the bottle of water they provided her each morning, spare hand now filled with the medication she took daily before gulping down all nine of them with one mouthful of water.

Yesterdays interaction with Michael still plagued her mind.

She knew what he had done to his sister, everybody did, but still he was the only person she somewhat trusted her. Not that she had ever actually spoke to him of course, even though she was exceptionally kind to all those on the ward. She simply hoped he had read the note.

*

Lunchtime came round quite quickly, Y/N refusing to part with her beads and Michael nowhere to be seen, something that wasn’t uncommon.

Her fingers picked out another green bead to add to her new creation, a soft smile gracing her lips as she fit the final bead into the pattern, creating an amazing leaf. She looked up with a smile on her face, ready to show the nurse only to be met with Michael face, head tilted to the side.

“Oh,” she spoke quietly, evidently shocked at the older boy’s presence. “Hi, Michael.” Her kindness didn’t falter however, the shocked look on her face quickly forming back into the smile she wore previously.

Michaels hand reached out to grab the box of beads, pulling it towards him along with a square pegboard. He quickly got to work making a pattern, something that was done in mere minutes, pushing it back towards Y/N before leaving, not sparing her a single glance as he went back to his room.

Confused, Y/N pulled the board towards her. On it was a perfectly designed tombstone, yet it was masked as a grey brick, something Michael knew the nurses wouldn’t pick up on, only someone that was looking or expecting it would. However, beneath the board was a small slip of paper, something that caused her Y/E/C orbs to widen, quickly yet carefully sliding the paper into the pocket of her knitted sweatshirt.

*

“He what?” Loomis’s voice was loud, booming throughout the office. “He interacted with another patient?”

The nurses were unable to tell whether he was scared or happy at this news.

Michael had never interacted with another patient before, never interacted with anyone at all so this was a big surprise to him.

“Leave this to me,”

*

Yes.

This one word was floating around Y/N’s mind for the entire night.

He wants to escape with her? Michael Myers wants to escape with her? It was something she could not refuse, so she got to writing.

*

Over the following months the two shared notes through the beads they would both make. Nobody had spotted this yet, the scheme too smart for the nurses and doctors alike at Smiths Grove. Loomis had been keeping a close eye on the pair, looking for something significant that he could use against Michael but there was nothing yet, nothing at all.

The girl was sat at her usual table, alone for once which was uncommon for her. She wouldn’t have been alone had she not told the usual people that she wished to be alone today.

She was waiting.

Waiting for Michael.

A small sense of glee filled her chest when she noticed him walk into the cafeteria, a small smile following suite. The smile only dropped when he ignored her presence, walking towards where he usually sat. He must have sensed her gaze, glancing up to catch her sight before glancing at the chair opposite him, a silent hint for her to come over which she gladly did.

“Hi,”

Michael didn’t give her a verbal response, something she was used to by now, he instead looked towards her hands that held her most recent pattern: a pink milk carton. She eagerly passed it to him, watching him closely for any sign of reaction as he observed it, the two unaware that somebody else was also watching him.

*

“I want you to cut all communication between Michael and Y/N,” Loomis seemed to have come up with a plan of his own. “We’ll see how he reacts to that.”

“Yes, Dr Loomis.”

*

Y/N sat at the desk in her room, spinning the board around the wood with her finger.

“Why am I stuck in here?” Her tone expressed how fed up she was of being confined her for the entire day. “I’m bored.”

“Why don’t you make something?”

“Why am I here?”

“A doctor wants to see you.”

“I’ve seen all the doctors. Which one?”

“Dr Loomis.”

Oh, so it worked, good to know.

*

A few hours later she was seated on her bed, legs crossed with her pigtails falling down to her knee.

“We’ve met before, Y/N. After you were first sent here.” Loomis did his best to be friendly, hiding the burning curiosity and urge to ask her everything he wanted in one go.

“Yes, Dr Loomis.” Her tone was friendly, also forced.

She was waiting. Waiting for-

An excruciating loud beep blared throughout the entire ward, signalling a door had been opened by one of the patients.

Loomis’s eyes widened, worried that it was Michael who had escaped. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye before rushing off, forgetting to lock the door on the way out, something the pair had planned.

*

Y/N had half expected their planned escape car to be gone by the time she had finished running to the door, Michael probably having using her to escape. Weirdly enough, he was sat there waiting for her, something that made her smile as she hopped into the car.

Their plan, something that had been in the works for an insane amount of time, had worked. Every part of it had gone how they had planned.

“Thank you,” Y/N’s voice was as soft as always, glancing at Michael whose eyes were focused on the road, seemingly dismissing her appreciation.

He wasn’t however. He was silently grateful for her. She had stuck by him, his quiet and rude self. She knew what he had done and had still accepted him, he could see it in her face. He assumed she was simply in for depression or something of the sort, uncaring as to why because all he cared about was leaving and finishing what he had started, but something about her drew him in and he began getting somewhat attached to the girl.

*

The pair drove for hours, having to stop by to get gas before pulling into an abandoned place far away from the main road so that nobody could find them.

“Do you want a drink?” Michael gave her a confused look as she sat on the car, hand stretched out to hand him a bottle. “It’s weird you know,” she continued speaking after he took the bottle from her hand and sat beside her, “I never thought I’d make it to adulthood.”

This further proved his point of her having depression.

“Not that I’m depressed or suicidal or anything. I just thought I’d die by now.” This simply confused Michael. If she wasn’t in there for depression, what was she in for?

The nights sky hung over the pair, stars being one of the only things lighting the place, supported by the car’s lights.

Y/N seemed to sense his confusion.

“Oh, you don’t know what I’m in for? Well, was in for.” Michael simply shook his head.

“I killed someone. My dad. He used to hurt me, physically, mentally, emotionally and a few other things. My mother just watched it all happen, so I tried to kill her as well but she got away and I was dragged there.”

Michael nodded as to show that he understood.

“It’s weird. When I was younger, I always thought I’d be a popular eighteen-year-old with a boyfriend, a lot of friends and all that stuff. I never thought I’d be here,” her gaze fell on Michael, “but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if I am a virgin.” Y/N made sure to finish her sentence off with a joke, hoping to ease the tension she felt whilst expressing her emotions whilst continuing to stare up at the sky, oblivious to the thoughts running through Michaels head, his face not showing any signs either.

Y/N jumped at the cold sensation of Michaels hand touching her bare thigh, goosebumps rising beneath her dress. “Michael?” She turned to face the unmasked man, only to be pushed to lean against the back of the car with attempted gentleness. “Michael?” She repeated, growing even more confused as he lifted himself over her, able to feel her heart pound.

She didn’t fear him, she had never feared him; he’d never given her a reason. Sure he could be rude towards her, but never fear-inducing, never to her.

“Michael?”

Her words were silenced as Michaels body crawled onto her own, his chest pressed against hers, both hearts racing, despite Michael’s calm composure and Y/N’s confused look. Her eyes widened as she felt Michaels lips against her neck, roughly sucking with such force that she knew it would leave a mark.

A soft moan left her lips when Michael’s hand wandered down to her chest, lightly toying with her nipples before grabbing her breast, massaging it as he did so. The moans that left her lips simply increased Michael’s urges, his desires; he wanted her, and it seemed like she wanted him too.

“Michael-“she murmured, fingers looping themselves in the strands of his hair as he nipped at her skin.

Her free hand ran down his front, searching for his clothed erection which she soon founds, enjoying the breathy moan that Michael made as she slid her hand into his pants. It was quiet, but not quiet enough. Michael’s own hand reached into her own panties, finger soaking up the wetness that had formed at his touch, something that almost made him smirk.

Another moan fell from Y/N’s lips as Michael’s fingers began to explore, the tightness she felt was almost too tight, yet Michael was surprisingly gentle considering who he was. This time Michael couldn’t resist his smirk, being thankful for the fact that his face was buried into the crook of her neck, marking her as his and his only.

Her grip on his hair tightened as he slipped another finger inside of her, giving her a moment to adjust before slowly moving. It wasn’t long before pleasure began to consume her, grip tightening on his hair further as she neared her end.

“M-Michael,” she moaned. “I want you,”

He seemed happy to comply, fingers leaving her heat to unclothe his member. He waited for a moment, searching Y/N’s eyes for any sort of hesitation before sliding in, giving her time to adjust.

“I’m ready, you can move.”

His movements were slow to begin with, giving it his best attempt at not hurting her, something that was incredibly hard for his rough self, but self-restraint can be a magical thing. It wasn’t until the word ‘more’ left her lips that he finally increased his movements.

The cold of the cars metal caused shivers to run down Y/N’s spine, made worse by Michael’s cold hands running across her, now bare, body as moans filled the air.

“I-I’m close,”

Her words only increased his movements more, desperate to reach both their ends. Michael’s hand moved down to her clit, harshly rubbing in hopes that in would held her meet her own release, which it did and she came with one final moan, her sudden tightness triggering Michael’s own orgasm as he came inside of her, their juices mixing together.

Cheeks flushed, both Y/N and Michael wordlessly laid against the car’s windscreen. Deciding to test the waters, Y/N leant herself against Michael’s shoulder, silently pleased when he showed no sign of rejection.

He was surprisingly warm, heating up her cold body in the cool night’s air; she never expected him to be so warm. She lightly wrapped her hand around his upper arm, snuggling herself into his shoulder before falling asleep.

Michael stared at the sleeping girl, confused and shocked at how she had so much trust in him, despite what he had done. It was oddly reassuring to him. Once certain she was asleep, he raised his hand to move a stray strand of hair from her face before falling asleep himself.

“Goodnight, Y/N,”

[the-girl-in-the-box]

One Swallow Can Make A Summer I

A/N: Hello! Thank you so much for deciding to check out this story :) I couldn't shake this idea when I was watching the show, and having finished it now months ago, I've finally gotten around to writing and posting this first chapter! I'm so excited to finally be sharing it, and I do hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it! Please be advised that this chapter does contain canon-typical references to a suicide and circumstances around said suicide, as well as a brief discussion of PTSD.

Summary: The world is at war, and none will be left unchanged in its wake. Downton Abbey is now a convalescent home where wounded officers are sent to recover, and Sergeant Thomas Barrow couldn’t be more satisfied with his position in running it. But with the arrival of a kind new maid, the downstairs dynamic shifts, and Thomas finds himself in the middle of a strange situation, which only grows stranger as the war goes on. With the answers he seeks hidden in the Abbey’s past, inaccessible to Thomas alone, and danger  lurking around any corner, he’ll have to learn to trust his instincts and his allies before it’s too late.

Masterlist

--

Long days weren’t uncommon for Thomas, but in the face of a war, and God knows how many injured men above his head, they had a tendency to feel a bit longer. Being in charge of the military operations in the house did provide him the luxury of his own office downstairs- sort of, it was a space they’d converted for him- for which he was grateful, especially in these moments. It provided him at least a moment to just lean back in his chair and shut his eyes, breathe a bit before he’d inevitably be called up to be productive again.

He was interrupted from one of these moments by his door opening, and he quickly sat up straight to see who was stepping into his office without even knocking. To his surprise, it was a girl he’d never seen before, dressed as a maid, but with an entirely unfamiliar face to him. She blinked a few times, as if she’d expected him not to be in there, and if not for the linens she carried- which did go in the closet in his office- he would have been suspicious of her motives.

What he was suspicious of, however, was the fact he’d never seen her before. With red curls pinned up in a perfect bun, and bright green eyes, she had a rather distinct look, one he didn’t think anyone would really forget. Thomas decided he’d have to keep an eye out- a girl like her could cause trouble, even if she didn’t mean to. He could still remember the fuss he and William had made over Daisy- and that was with him not even really being interested in her like that.

She looked at him with wide eyes, and began to apologize. “I’m sorry to bother you; you’ve normally gone up at this time, I didn’t think you’d be in.”

Thomas looked her over once again, and gave a brief nod. “I’ll be heading up soon,” he told her. “Go on with it.”

The maid smiled at him and gave a polite nod, before slipping into his office and opening his closet door. She made quick work of putting the linens away, almost unnervingly silent, and Thomas found himself watching her movements. He leaned back in his seat, narrowing his eyes just a bit. “When did you get here?” he asked.

Without stopping, she answered him, “About a week ago.” 

“Then why haven’t I seen you around?” he questioned. That didn’t make sense- even if their paths simply didn’t cross all that often, there were meals every day which all the staff took together. So where was she? 

“I’ve only ever seen you at meals,” she pointed out. “But we sit on the same side, and you only ever pay attention to the other end, where Mr. Carson sits.”

Thomas frowned. Had he really been that blind to those who sat at the table? He supposed if she stayed quiet and out of the way enough, he really might not have noticed her just yet. He felt a bit odd for that, considering they’d lived under the same roof for a week and he hadn’t once made note of her presence. He needed to start paying better attention to his surroundings.

“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” he promised. To anyone else in the house who knew him, that would be easily recognizable as a threat, but it was impossible to tell how this woman took it.

In fact, it was her reply of, “See that you do,” which threw Thomas the most, and by the time she had gone, it occurred to him that he hadn’t even gotten her name. What a strange woman she was, indeed.

At breakfast the next morning, he was surprised to see the typical order of things undone as she ousted O’Brien from her usual seat by arriving first and taking it for herself, putting her more in Thomas’s line of sight. He lifted a brow at this, and she simply smiled at him. That was unexpected.

Clearly, Thomas wasn’t the only one surprised, as when Carson came in and they all stood, he noticed immediately. “Sylvia?” he questioned. So that’s her name, Thomas thought. “Why have you changed your seat?”

Sylvia looked up at Carson with a polite smile, but one Thomas could read as easily more placating than real. It was a far cry from how she’d smiled at him in his office the night before. “I’m a fairly social person, Mr. Carson,” she replied in a tone which told Thomas she didn’t like to explain her every action. “I wanted to be more a part of the conversation.”

Carson hummed, and did seem placated at the least, though Sylvia seemed still a bit put off as she poured her tea into her cup, and topped it off with a small bit of milk. She stirred it slowly, then sat the spoon to the side. Very methodical, very specific in her movements. Thomas couldn’t help but approve.

“So… where are you from?” Anna asked the newest hire.

She looked up at the blonde and smiled at her. “London,” she answered easily. “I thought a change of pace might be nice- it’s all so loud and busy there. I like country houses far better.”

“It’s certainly a different way of life,” Anna agreed. “But if you find it more pleasant, you’ve come to the right place.”

“Until some high up comes to visit,” O’Brien grumbled, and Thomas lifted a brow as he glanced over to her. “Or until they get the mind to turn the house into a hospital.”

“Actually, I think that was a lovely idea,” Sylvia cut in. “Physical survival’s only half the battle, isn’t it? There’s a lot of recovery in the mind and heart after the ordeal they’ll all have been through. Providing them with a place to recover is good.”

“You sound like Lady Sybil,” Thomas commented, drawing everyone’s attention. It wasn’t always a common thing, to hear him speak up without something nasty to say. “She used to talk about that down at the hospital, after we lost one of the officers to the… more psychological side of his injuries.”

Sylvia frowned a little, her eyes growing sad as she pieced things together. “It’s my belief that the mind can grow sick just as easy as the body,” she said. “And the battle can be lost with any illness. I just hope he found peace.”

Thomas found himself struck by her words, and he looked at her with slightly narrowed eyes as he took out a cigarette and lit it. What a strange woman she was, to cut straight into the true heart of the matter so quickly, and so unashamedly in front of some who might prefer to pretend the mind was an impenetrable fortress which could fight all things. 

“We won’t ever know, I don’t suppose,” he said. “But I do agree- I think we’ll see less of that now.”

Sylvia smiled at him softly and nodded. “I certainly hope so.”

Thomas nodded slowly, and smoked as the conversation drifted away, Sylvia falling in easily with Anna. She seemed like a nice enough person, nice enough that, in any other version of events, he might have tried to be her friend. But he didn’t really make friends, did he? Not to mention that if she’d been there a week already, she’d have been warned off him by now.

Sometimes, he wished he could start over. If he’d not been so nasty before, or quite so cruel, he’d have more allies in the house, if not more friends. As it stood, he really only had O’Brien, who he supposed would count as something in the middle. As for actual friends? He didn’t have any of those, and why should he?

That wasn’t true. Lady Sybil was as good as a friend at times, even if they couldn’t be too close because of their stature in life, and there’d been Edward. I just hope he found peace, Sylvia had said of him. She must have been kind, more than just nice, or maybe she was just good. Lady Sybil would have agreed with that, and he liked to think Edward himself would have appreciated the sentiment- God knows he deserved to have that peace. 

There’d been something haunted in his eyes, Thomas remembered, even if he couldn’t see any longer. He had been afraid of being pushed out of the hospital before he was ready, and he wasn’t ready. If they’d just had this convalescent thing going already, they could have moved him here, and maybe he’d still be…

Don’t go there, he reminded himself. You can’t change the past. Don’t make yourself miserable thinking about it. It was unfortunately too late, and he put out his cigarette as though it had offended him somehow, then walked out of the room. They’d get suspicious if they knew just how affected he was by Edward’s death. 

Thomas stopped by the foot of the stairs, leaning back against the wall and letting his head drop back as his eyes slipped shut. He could just hear Sylvia asking after him, grand exit as he’d made. It made his brows crease together as he listened a little closer, trying to make out what was being said of him.

“Should someone be sure he’s alright?” Sylvia had asked. How thoughtful of her.

“Thomas can be a bit… moody sometimes,” he heard Anna reply. “You’d probably be best served keeping him rather at arm’s length.” There it was.

There was silence for a few moments before he heard Sylvia’s answer. “I don’t think so,” she said. He could just imagine how O’Brien would be perking up and listening in so she could tell him what was said. “He’s close to the situation upstairs right now. I can’t imagine it’s easy for him to talk about.”

Silence again. This silence hung as they presumably ate after she’d made her point. Was it difficult for them, he wondered, to be reminded he was human too? To be reminded he had a heart too? That he could feel things, too? He decided not to stand around and hear the rest. 

Thomas opened the door at the top of the stairs to go and see what needed doing when he almost walked right into Lady Sybil- or rather, Nurse Crawley, given the uniform she wore now, reminding him she was on duty. 

“Oh, Sergeant Barrow,” she said with a startled laugh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you to be coming up so early. Only, I needed to collect some water.” Sure enough, she was carrying an empty bowl, with a washcloth laying over the edge. It occurred to him this was the second time he had been noticed out of his routine. Was he really such a creature of habit that it was immediately obvious when he changed things up?

He offered her a tight smile and replied, “Thought I’d get an early start.” She lifted a brow at him, and rested the bowl against her hip.

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “What is it?”

Thomas blinked a few times at that. “I’m sorry?” he asked, confused.

“I can tell something’s bothering you,” she explained. “Won’t you tell me?”

His smile loosened a little with a sort of disbelief, and he shook his head. “Why do you think something’s bothering me?” he questioned instead of answering her.

Nurse Crawley sighed, levelling him with an understanding gaze. He sort of hated it when she did that, but he sort of loved it, too. It was rare that someone gave him that look. “You make this expression,” she began to say. “You’re smiling as if everything’s alright, but it quite doesn’t reach your eyes- and your eyes themselves look pained.” She paused and sighed, shifting slightly on her feet. “Thomas, I wish you would talk to me.”

Well… that was rather difficult to argue with, but… “I don’t want to take up your time when you’re trying to work,” he tried, his smile once again shifting- this time into something which seemed more genuine than the last- but his brows creased together and there was no happiness in his face. After all, as much as Thomas had long wished for someone just to care, Lady Sybil Crawley- on duty as a nurse or not- was hardly the most appropriate person to let care.

“I got an early start.”

Seeing that she wouldn’t be swayed, Thomas sighed. “You remember Lieutenant Courtenay?” he asked. She nodded. Thomas swallowed and looked around, shaking his head a little. “He should have been here. If we’d pushed for it a few days earlier…”

“Oh, Thomas…” Sybil said gently. She stepped forward and rested a hand on his arm, holding her bowl balanced against her hip. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. It took longer than that just to be approved, he still would have been slated for Farley Hall, and nothing would have changed… We did everything we could do.” He nodded a little, but- as much as he’d hate to admit it- wasn’t very convincing at all in his agreement. “I mean it,” she pressed. “Please, believe me.”

“I do,” he replied with a more subtle nod this time. “It’s just hard. He should be here.”

“He should be,” Sybil agreed. “I’m sorry he’s not. I know you miss him.”

Thomas looked up at her, swallowing hard once again, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat. He couldn’t cry here, not around her- not around anyone, really, but certainly not Lady Sybil. So, instead of really answering her, he simply said, “I should let you get back to work.”

If she noticed the thickness in his voice, she didn’t mention it, opting instead to squeeze his arm gently and offer him a kind smile. “If you ever want to talk, please come find me,” she told him. “I’ll always be ready and willing to listen.”

Thomas smiled tightly and gave her one last nod before she dropped her hand and walked away, heading on downstairs to fill her bowl, he imagined.

Lady Sybil was an exceedingly good woman, Thomas thought as he went on about his business. If not for the fact the war would end one day, and they’d again be separated by their status, he thought he’d have really tried to make a friend in her. But as it was, there wasn’t really room in his life for someone like her, anyway. People like Sybil were a lot like Anna in a way- very good, yes, but incorruptible.

He had O’Brien, of course, but as corruptible as she was- and probably had been for him, though he didn’t often think about that angle- she wasn’t very nice. If he hadn’t just almost spilled his heart’s contents to Sybil, he might argue that he didn’t need someone who was actually nice to him. Then again, that didn’t mean he couldn’t wish for it. 

But luck was with Thomas, for once, though he wasn’t aware of it just yet, as nice and good were two very different things, and what he needed was someone between the two- if only he could figure out where to look for someone like that.

Thomas shook all those things out of his mind as he started into the first of the larger rooms which had been commandeered for housing so he could see where he was needed. That could sort itself out when- or if- the time came. For now, he had work to do, and another long day began.

Taglist: @butwhyhavethey, @marxin-grilli

If you want to be added to the taglist, feel free to reach out either by commenting, reblogging, DMing me, or sending an ask, and I’ll be more than happy to add you!  

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 31

AO3

Taglist: @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @alastair-appreciation-month

Previous Chapter: Chapter 30

Next Chapter: Chapter 32

Warning: this is a heavier chapter, dealing with some self decrepetating thoughts, not suicidal thoughts but somewhat similar

‘And what do you have to offer?’ the thief asked.

Part of Alastair still couldn’t quite believe he’d done it. He’d summoned the thief of souls and could make a deal with him. Alastair wasn’t like Benedict or Tatiana, he wouldn’t kill another person, not even for Thomas. But he still had plenty to offer.

‘Myself,’ Alastair said. ‘In exchange for the life of Thomas Lightwood. He’ll live, and you can take me instead.’

‘Not much faith in your friends, I see,’ the thief said. ‘Not even in that little witch? I must admit I had not expected her, I do tend to lose track of my children, I thought Tessa had died. I had no idea Tessa had a daughter who’d inherited her gifts.’

They should have succeeded already, and if they hadn’t that meant Thomas was about to die. Realistically, there was no reason to have faith, which meant now was the time for more drastic measures. With Cordelia probably dead and Thomas soon to follow, what was there for him anyway? At least Thomas still had his family. Thomas could love again.

‘They have failed. So now it is up to me. My soul, in exchange for Thomas.’

The thief laughed. It was an odd sort of laugh, not quite like the evil laughter you saw in movies but unsettling still. ‘And why would I take such a deal?’

‘You know about my memory,’ Alastair said evenly.

‘Ah, yes. I admit you would make an interesting addition. A broken soul with a magic memory. I’ve never heard of such a power before. Thomas’ sight makes him valuable, of course, but I might not find a soul quite like yours ever again. It is a tempting offer.’

A broken soul with a magic memory. He guessed that was what he was. Too broken, perhaps, to be happy. He’d thought with Thomas he could find another way. But if Thomas died, what would be the point? It would be a blow from which he could never recover.

He wished it didn’t have to come to this, he wished the two of them could have a future together. But some things just weren’t meant to be and if either of them should get to live, it was Thomas.

‘Precisely,’ Alastair said. ‘It is a good trade, isn’t it? I don’t ask for power, or magic, or anything. All I want is that Thomas recovers and lives.’

The thief eyed him curiously. ‘You’d sacrifice yourself for him. Why?’

‘Because I love him. Because as you said, I am a broken soul,’ Alastair said. ‘I have no interest in living in a world where I couldn’t save him. So instead I’m here, offering myself.’

The thief put up an arm, gesturing as he spoke. ‘You could easily offer another. There are all kinds of souls I am interested in.’

‘I would not become a murderer for him. My own soul is what I have to offer. Nothing else.’

The thief seemed confused by his statement. How many would make the same choice, he wondered. It couldn’t be that uncommon, to love another enough to be willing to make such a trade, right? Whereas only the worst of people would kill to get what they want.

‘Alright,’ the thief said. ‘Amuse me. I will take your soul to my world, separated from your body but not quite dead. From there you have two options. You can find your way out of my realm. Your soul will be reunited with your body as long as it still lives, the deal will be off and Thomas is mine to claim.’

A way out, that was good, he guessed. If Cordelia and Lucie miraculously succeeded, they might still save him if his body was not yet dead. It would be up to them now. Perhaps there was still hope. Realistically, Alastair knew Thomas was not literally all he had, and that there were still a few people who would miss him. He also knew there was no way he’d survive without him. He was already so broken, Thomas’ death would be more than he could take. How had Lucie survived after losing Jesse? She’d been so young. Alastair remembered Cordelia would spend days, weeks, months with her, comforting her friend. He knew Cordelia would do the same for him. He knew it wouldn’t be enough, if she was even alive. Alastair had to face the truth, she probably wasn’t.

‘But if you wish to save your love, you must find him in my realm. His body is here, alive, but most of his soul is with me already, enough for him to have formed here. That’s why you cannot wake him. If you kiss his soul on the lips, he’ll be saved and you will die.

And if you fail at both, if after twenty four hours you have not found your love and still reside in my realm, you are both mine and will both die.’

It was a risk. Alastair had seen the thief’s realm in Barbara’s memory, it might not be easy to find Thomas. But he would be able to find his way around there, and he had some ideas of where Thomas might go. It was worth a try.

‘I accept to your terms,’ Alastair said.

‘Good. Now, sealing the deal requires another kiss.’

Alastair made face. ‘You mean you want me to kiss you?’

The thief laughed. The sound chilled him to the bone. ‘No. I mean your twenty four hours will start once you kiss your Thomas. You have until midnight, if you do not kiss him before then the deal is off. I suggest you make your peace, write a note to your family. After all, you won’t ever see them again.’

Alastair felt a heavy weight settle in his stomach. The thief was right. He would never see Cordelia again. Never meet the baby, never make his peace, he would never recover from everything he’d been through. This was it, this was where he would die. For Thomas, it was worth it, but Alastair wished it could be different.

He quickly wrote a note for Cordelia, in case she was still alive and would find him. No, he couldn’t let himself think that. Cordelia couldn’t be dead. His mother should have at least one child alive, one of them should get to go home to her and meet the baby and live. Someone would read the note, if not Cordelia herself. He left the note outside near the circle, kept in place underneath a rock, and then he wrote another note. This one for Thomas, who would wake up within the next twenty four hours and find Alastair dead. Alastair gently put it under Thomas’ pillow, and then sat down on the bed next to him. He knew Thomas was far away and couldn’t hear him, but Alastair spoke to him anyway.

‘I’m so sorry, Tom,’ Alastair said. ‘But there’s only one way to save you now. And I will. I promised I won’t let you die, and it’s a promise I intend to keep. You’ll survive, and I know it’ll be hard at first. I know losing me is like nothing you ever experienced, I know you’ll miss me and I’m sorry I have to put you through that. But you’ll find happiness again, I’m sure of it. You’ll heal, and you’ll go on with your life and when the time is right you’ll find another man, someone who can love you better than I ever could. Please don’t hold back for my sake. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I really should have known this was the best I could do for you.’

Alastair was crying, and he desperately tried to wipe the tears from his eyes. He wanted so badly to be with Thomas, to have him here alive and well, and give him everything he could. He wanted to go to museums with him and he wanted Thomas to meet his family, and eventually the baby. He’d envisioned a future for them, something that could never be.

Alastair gently stroke Thomas’ cheek. Part of him wanted to lie down here, crawl into Thomas’ arms before kissing him. It would be cruel, to let Thomas wake up next to his dead body, but as per the thief’s term, there was no other way, he’d die right here in this room. But perhaps Thomas would want to hold him as he died. It was the way Alastair wanted to go, that he was sure of. He’d gone so long without receiving the affection he craved, if he died he wished to at least be in Thomas’ arms.

It felt wrong, to kiss him without asking, but it was the only way to save his life. In the end, Alastair settled beside Thomas, holding his hand. He knew it was selfish to want to die close to Thomas, their hands intertwined. He leaned over and quickly kissed Thomas on the lips. It felt like falling, falling into the nothing until he awoke in the dark realm of the thief of souls.

***

Cordelia didn’t know what to do anymore. Her brother was still breathing, he had a pulse but both were so weak. He was in a deep sleep and no one could wake either of them up. In Thomas’ case, she understood it was because of what Tatiana was doing. He would die tonight, if Tatiana succeeded. Cordelia didn’t quite understand why she hadn’t before. Unless Alastair had interfered somehow. Was that even possible?

‘What have you done, Alastair joon?’ she asked him, tears in her eyes.

‘They’re still not awake, are they?’

Cordelia didn’t recognize the girl who entered the room. She looked Indian, she guessed, Cordelia didn’t think she was related to the Lightwoods.

‘I’m Kamala,’ she said. ‘Genie asked me if I could try to heal them.’

‘Genie?’ Cordelia asked, a little confused with what was going on.

‘Thomas’ sister Eugenia. We arrived last afternoon. Your brother was still awake back then. Can I try if there’s anything I can do? I admit it’s unlikely, but the least I could do is try. My gift is minor, you see, I mainly heal injuries. I doubt I’ll wake him up.’

‘No, go ahead,’ Cordelia said. ‘It’s worth a shot.’

Kamala touched Alastair’s cheek first, holding her hand there for a while. Then Thomas’.

‘His pulse picked up,’ Kamala said. ‘Thomas is the same, Alastair seems a little improved? But still in coma, so it’s probably not helpful. I’m sorry.’

Cordelia nodded. Kamala had done the best she could. None of them understood what had happened to Alastair. Kamala walked out, but Cordelia remained in the room, holding Alastair’s free hand. Perhaps Jem would know what was wrong with him, she thought, as she saw her cousin walk in.

‘Cordelia, Lucie found something you should see,’ he said in a calm but pained tone.

Cordelia knew whatever Lucie had found, it wasn’t good news. She sat down as Lucie handed her a note, holding her hand. ‘I didn’t read it,’ Lucie promised. ‘But I found it outside, hidden underneath a stone, in a drawn circle…’

‘Alastair, what did you do?’ she whispered.

Cordelia opened the letter, hoping she would find something reassuring there. Hoping it said Alastair was going to be alright and would just be sleeping for a little while. Foolish, she knew, but hope played wicked games with the mind.

Dear Cordelia,

I know while I’m writing this you’re probably already dead. But still I write, because even with a minor chance that you’re alive, I wanted to explain to you what happened. And I thought, maybe your ghost would visit, and wish to read my last words. Either way, there are some things I wanted you to know.

It has been too long since I heard from you, and if you’re still alive I know you have not succeeded in stopping Tatiana. That means Thomas would die at midnight, unless someone else intervened. So I did.

I summoned the thief of souls. I know what you’re going to say, but I firmly believe it was the right choice. He offered me a deal, I can go into his realm as a soul, and search for Thomas. If I escape his realm, I survive and Thomas dies, but if I find and kiss Thomas within the timeframe he has given me, I will take his place and die and Thomas will live. There’s a chance that I fail and we both die, but I’m trying not to think about that. I won’t fail Thomas, I will find him. Perhaps, if you and Lucie kill the thief before our agreement is fulfilled, we can both survive. I am not counting on it. But if you see this, hurry and you might still save me.

I am sorry to leave you alone, assuming of course you will ever see this letter. I want you to know this is not what I wanted. I know you worry about me hurting myself, but I assure you I did not make this choice because I wanted to end my life. Rather, I wanted Thomas to live, and this is the best I can do for him. I know it will hurt him to lose me, but I’m afraid there is no other way now.

I wanted you to know, that I do love you. For years, you were my reason to live. I know I haven’t always been the best brother to you, and for that I am sorry. I still find it difficult to tell you how I feel, even in a letter you may very well never read. But you must know that without you, I likely would not have survived until now and for that I am grateful. What would be the point?

I love you, Layla, and I’m begging you to live. I know losing me will be hard, but maman and the baby will need you. I love them both very much, please tell them that, alright?

Love

Alastair

Cordelia read the letter a second time, a third, to try and find a hint that it wasn’t real, that Alastair could wake up any moment now. Then she burst into tears. Alastair had sacrificed himself for Thomas, given his life. He’d been under the impression that she was dead, even if he’d still written this letter just in case she’d make it back.

He was going to die. Unless Cordelia saved him before his deal ended. She put her hand on her necklace. With cortana, she would slay the thief of souls. She would not allow him to take her brother away from her. He should get to go home, he should get to meet the baby. He claimed it wasn’t what he wanted, and Cordelia believed this wasn’t a suicide attempt, but it wasn’t the choice a healthy person would make, was it?

It frightened her to know Alastair would trade away his life, his soul, for Thomas. She knew he would do the same for her, but Cordelia would never want that. She was fairly certain Thomas didn’t either.

Cordelia found a clean paper tissue somewhere and dried her tears. She would find him. She and Lucie would go into the realm of the thief of souls, kill the thief and bring back Alastair and Thomas. She would destroy him for taking her brother.

She understood now why Jesse had not come to life last night, why Thomas still lived. For what it was worth, Alastair’s sacrifice had saved Thomas, at least for another day. From the contents of Alastair’s letter, she presumed both their souls were in his realm while there bodies lived. That’s why they couldn’t wake up.

She returned to the living room of the cottage, which had become entirely too crowded.

Gideon had returned, his arm encased in a cast. Kamala was next to him, touching his arm, a concentrated look on her face. Cordelia realized she must be trying to heal him, or at least speed up the process. Gideon looked exhausted.

Thomas’ sisters were beside him and the oldest turned her attention to Cordelia. ‘My mother told me what you can do. Is there anything left we can do to save Tommy?’

‘I think so,’ Cordelia said. She would have to explain then, what Alastair had done. What she and Lucie would have to do. ‘Alastair has made a deal with the thief of souls. Something that presumably saved Thomas last night. He traded away his own soul, and had twenty four hours to find Thomas in the land of the thief of souls and wake him. If he fails, they’ll both die. But there’s another option, which is that Lucie and I enter this realm and kill the thief of souls before the deal is done. Alastair and Thomas are both still alive for now. I think taking back their souls will save them. But we don’t have much time. Lucie and I have to go.’

***

Alastair appeared in a palace. It wasn’t the same as the ruins in the woods. Admittedly, this one was more to his taste. It was built in an ancient Greece inspired style. Pillars decorated with ionic curls, and an open garden in the middle of the house.

‘Do you like it?’ a man asked.

He didn’t look like the thief as he’d appeared in his circle, but from his voice Alastair recognized him. A shapeshifter, of course he was. That’s why Tessa had inherited that power from him.

‘This will be your home after all,’ the thief continued, shifting in yet another form, a handsome brown haired young man wearing a roman style toga. ‘It doesn’t have to be so bad, you know. I know it looks rather horrifying out there. So many lost, hopeless souls. Many of them have their use and give me power, but are not particularly useful people. Some are pretty enough to look at and get to work around me. Only a few are like you. That memory ability is why I wanted you, of course, but you’re clever and cunning. I know you think the way I do. If you do well, you could even become my second in command.’

Alastair didn’t think he had any interest in being a personal assistant or even second in command to the thief. But if Lucie and Cordelia failed, if they were already dead or failed to slay the thief, Alastair would do it. He could be patient, he could be clever. He could get close enough to the thief to destroy him. He didn’t care how long it would take.

‘You will be summoned back here once you free your love,’ the thief said. ‘Permanently dead, that is. You may still feel a sliver of a connection to your body for now, feel free to ignore that. It will be gone soon enough. Good luck, Alastair Carstairs, for my realm is vast and Thomas Lightwood is free to dwell wherever he wishes. Or perhaps it’s best to leave him be for now. Why save him, when you can keep him here with you forever? If you proof to be a good assistant, you could keep him here with you in the palace. You could be together, forever. Or you could set him free and never see him again. Your choice.’

‘I will find him,’ Alastair said, turning his back on the thief and the palace and entering the vast woods.

It looked a bit different here from where he’d previously entered, the forest was dense and mostly consisted of pine trees. He couldn’t say he understood exactly how this realm was layered over the realm world, Alastair suspected it was smaller, and consisted mostly of forest where the souls wandered.

He thought of the comment the thief had made, and Alastair hated to admit he pictured what it would be like in his head. Stay there with Thomas. It would not be much, not until they destroyed the thief together, but it could be something, and they would be together. But Alastair would not do such a thing. He’d come here to save Thomas’ life, and he would. Even if it meant they would never see each other again.

He wondered if he should explain it all to Thomas, and let him choose what he wanted. Perhaps he’d urge Alastair to find the exit, and help him go home. Perhaps he’d choose to stay together. But Thomas was young and in love and he would make the wrong choice. If he stayed with Alastair, he would never see his parents or sisters again, he would lose everything. If he left, he’d only lose Alastair, and in time he’d realize Alastair had not been his life after all, and he could love another. It was selfish to wish for them to stay together, and Alastair refused to be that selfish. Thomas would live, it was the only possible outcome.

***

Thomas wasn’t so sure who he was anymore. He knew his name. Thomas Gabriel Lightwood. He repeated it to himself. Thomas Gabriel Lightwood, that was his name. He was fairly certain Gabriel came from his uncle, although he could not remember who this man was, could not picture his face in his head. He had parents, that he could be sure of.

Thomas wandered aimlessly through a pine forest. Where was he, anyway? What was this place? He felt like he should know, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was frustrating. There were more people around here, and Thomas decided to ask a woman.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

The woman stared at him blankly, then turned around and walked away. That wasn’t helpful. He tried with a few more souls. Some gave him a name, others walked away. Some even pretended they did not hear him at all. Perhaps they really didn’t.

Thomas closed his eyes. There had to be someone he remembered. Deep in his memories he found a man in his forties. Green eyes. Light brown hair, or was it dark blonde? The doubt about the hair color sparked a memory.

‘Dad has blonde hair,’ a round faced girl of about eight or nine years old said.

A smaller girl disagreed. ‘No, it’s brown. Are you blind? It’s clearly brown.’

The two girls resembled each other. Both had brown hair, darker than the father they were discussing, who sat on the couch with them, laughing at the argument his daughters were having. Thomas had been very small then, nothing like he was now. He’d walked to the couch and pulled at the man’s leg. His father, he realized. He had a father and two sisters.

His father picked him up and Thomas crawled into his lap. He was fairly sure his hair was brown, just a few shades lighter than Thomas’ own brown hair. His father put his hand against Thomas’ small forehead.

‘You’re burning up, Tommy. I think you have a fever again.’

‘Don’t wanna go back to bed,’ Thomas protested. ‘Not tired.’

Even at this young age of three, he’d learned that when he had a fever, he would have to go to bed and rest. But Thomas didn’t want to rest, he wanted to play with his new airplane toy.

‘Sophie, can you get the thermometer?’ his father asked.

A little later, he saw his mother, the familiar scar on her cheek comforting.

‘Hold still, Tom,’ she said as she put the thermometer in his ear.

He struggled against the grip, but his father held him until his mother was done taking his temperature.

‘You’ve got a fever again,’ his mother said. ‘I’ll call the doctor. A child shouldn’t be ill this frequent, right?’

‘Don’t wanna go to the doctor,’ Thomas protested.

‘You’re going to be alright, Tommy,’ his father said gently. ‘Your mother and I will come with you, there’s no need to be scared. We will always be there for you.’

Thomas realized the memory had been years ago, when he was about three or four. He had parents who loved him very much. Two sisters who were protective of him. He had a family he needed to return to, but Thomas had no idea where they were or how to find them.

He remembered someone else. A girl with brown hair and blue eyes who was excitedly telling him about this new book series she’d started. It was a about a land with witches where people had all sorts of powers called witcheries. The main character could discern lies from truth and was sought after because she was the only one who could and fleeing from an arranged marriage to an emperor. Her best friend was a threadwitch and she was this girl’s favorite. Although her powers were not quite the same as the other threadwitches. Thomas could not quite remember what the differences were. Then there was a windwitch prince from a small, starving kingdom who’d agreed to help the two girls, and a bloodwitch who hunted them. The girl was a writer herself, Thomas realized, and she was a dear friend. He’d ended up reading the series she’d recommended, and then had to wait for a long time for the next book.

Then he remembered a boy with a deep golden brown skin and dark eyes and hair. Thomas couldn’t quite tell who he was, but he had to be the most beautiful man Thomas had ever seen. He’d been angry and bitter once, Thomas remembered, although he wasn’t sure why. Then he’d been tired and sad. Lately, he’d been happy too though, at least sometimes. Thomas secretly hoped he had something to do with that. He felt this boy was important to him, and he needed to make sure he was alright. He couldn’t do that from here.

Trying to orientate himself, Thomas kept walking. He needed to find people he remembered. He needed to find his mother and father, who undoubtedly worried for him. He needed to find his sisters, because even if they would stuff him back in bed and shove a thermometer into his ear, Thomas remembered he loved them. He needed to find the girl with the blue eyes, because Thomas knew she was his friend, even if he didn’t remembered her beyond that. And he needed to find that dark haired boy, who wasn’t alright, and might never be. But Thomas would be there, to help him through it, to help him find happiness. He needed to go home. The memories, he hoped, would follow.

[yellowocaballero]

hi i know it's been the hottest of seconds but director's cut for the prophetic spring if you're still doing these? 👀

Sure! I’ve spoken a lot about the prophetic spring, but I’m fairly certain I could give some meta information about my intense life-long obsession with Tim Drake. Dude has been showing up in my fics since I was 14.

But actually, the ficlet I wrote ages ago might be more interesting? So here it is. Exploring a dynamic that was WAY underserved for how important it is: the Steph, Cass, Tim dynamic!

No CW that haven’t appeared in the prophetic spring, but specific mention for drug addiction and drug depiction, as well as references to molestation, abortion, torture, and suicide. Story under the cut. 

Tim stared down into the toilet bowl. It was a little yellowed. He needed to clean it. 

He stared at the small baggie of pills in his hand. 

He visualized dropping it into the bowl, flushing it. Possibly mutating an alligator, or giving the race of mole people that lived in the Gotham sewers a nice surprise. 

Tim sighed, and pocketed the drugs. Maybe tomorrow. 

**

A month after the incident with a runaway foster kid and a, in retrospect, kind of embarrassing fake fight with his older brother, Tim got a text from an unknown number. To make matters worse, it was at an insane hour of the day - noon. 

Texts from strangers were hardly uncommon. Tim had an extensive contact network, growing larger by the day, but he had set up a Google Voice on his computer so they were all routed through a program there. Being bothered at all hours of the day on his phone was hardly his idea of a good time. The only people who really had his real number were his bullshit ‘friends’ and his asshole ‘family’. He hadn’t even given his number to his ‘friends’ - he had given it to Kon under strict confidentiality, and then Kon had given it to all of Young Justice. Asshole. 

405-555-1998: dropping by in three hours so make sure ur presentable :)

As Tim had just woken up, most of his brain was occupied by a single whuh? 

Just as his mind swirled in sleepy confusion, his phone buzzed again.

405-555-1998: B1706XQE45

The code checked out. It was an ally, not an unknown or an enemy. 

Tim groaned, covering his eyes with an elbow. He needed coffee.

****

The coffee was a new thing - rather, it was something he had drunk plenty of growing up, because there had been nobody around to inform him that coffee was bad for developing brains. Growing up completely unsupervised was probably why Tim was a drug addict now. He could totally blame this on his parents never loving him. 

Not a drug addict, Tim thought to himself anxiously as the coffee sputtered into the extra large gallon pot. Just someone who...uses drugs...in an unhealthy way. Substance abu - substance user, who just used it maybe as a bad coping mechanism. Not that Tim had good coping mechanisms, but it was better than sawing off heads or becoming a drug lord. When you thought about it, it was either being a serial killer or doing drugs, so logically it means that he should do more drugs to decrease the amount of fun little murders he does -

Tim made toast.

The coffee was a new thing, because he was trying to use it to replace the drugs. He had cut back. The stupid little sorority that called themselves the Birds of Prey had been talking to him about it. He had agreed to try. It was best to set expectations low, so he couldn’t disappoint. Actually, Tim loved disappointing, maybe he should set them higher. Maybe he could make inspirational speeches about how he was a good guy now? Ha ha. 

The three hours had been a deft move. The texter knew noon was his average wake-up time at best, and the three hours gave him enough time to sober up if he had been high or drunk at the time. Tim didn’t like to start popping the minute he woke up, but - well, sometimes he did. Or sometimes he was awake at noon because he had been on an all-nighter drug binge. They hadn’t given their name, either, which meant that it was somebody who he wouldn’t want to see. 

He could bounce, escape to some corner of Gotham until they gave up. Except he had the sense that whoever had gone through the effort to get his number wasn’t the type to give up. Almost nobody Tim knew was the type to give up. His ‘friends’ and his ‘family’ never gave up. On anybody but him. 

A voice in his head, not quite yet suffocated, sounding altogether too much like the Replacement, echoed in endless attempts to get him to come back. Oh, whatever. Kid was a try-hard. He needed better taste in made up families. 

Over the next three hours, he debated his tactics. If he wasn’t escaping and the texter was playing the buddy card, then the situation probably wasn’t dangerous. He strapped in his armor under the baggy pyjamas that he never took off anyway, and spitefully made no effort to control his hair. He did put on make-up, an old hand from keeping CPS off Bruce’s trail - man, he should have pretended Bruce was molesting him, that would have been funny as fuck - to hide the bags under his eyes. No use looking pathetic. 

He hid a few more weapons around his apartment. He anxiously checked his phone, staring not at the new texts but at Harley’s offer sent a week ago. He still hadn’t replied. He didn’t know what to do with it. 

As if he could ever feel safe sleeping under the same roof as her?

As if he ever felt safe anywhere?

Maybe he had nothing to lose. That was the greatest part about this, the most wonderful aspect of what he had done to everybody in his life. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. That’s freedom, or so Janis had always told him. She knew what she was about. Overdosing on heroin at 27 - that was understanding what it meant, to have nothing. To be free.  He was almost jealous. 

At two on the dot, a polite knock echoed through the apartment. Tim looked up from where he was relaxing on the couch, with all of the possible entry points in his line of sight. That wasn’t a knock he had memorized, and he had memorized everyone’s knocks. 

Nothing for it. He’d have to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Maybe he can pull the insane sociopath schtick again; that had always been effective in ditching his parents. Tim sighed, walked over to the door, swiped his thumb against the keypad, undid the three deadbolts, and opened door only to see - 

Stephanie Brown, hands propped on her hips and smiling widely. Cassandra Wayne, standing right behind her, serene as ever. 

Tim closed the door - or he tried. Steph had expected the move, and the minute he had opened the door her foot had jutted out and blocked him from closing the door. Effortlessly, she wrenched it back open and stepped into his apartment, forcing him to press against the wall and scowl as insane women infiltrated his space. 

“Wow,” Steph said loudly, “this place looks like a wreck!”

Tim groaned. 

***

The thing with Steph and Cass was this:

How to describe it?

The sister he had never expected, the best friend he had never thought he would have. Cass was his twin, Robin’s shadow, the other side of his mountain. Bruce had adopted Cass barely five months after he became Robin, and Tim had unabashedly resented her for stealing Bruce’s attention so quickly. He had always liked her more, but Bruce had liked everyone more than Tim, so maybe it was no surprise. She was sweet, kind, gentle, and no trouble. Tim wasn’t any trouble either, but he couldn’t be the rest of it if it bit him in his ass. 

Robin was the brain. Cass was the muscle. They were a team so closely linked, conjoined at the hip, that Tim couldn’t remember a patrol ever done without her. Bruce had let them start patrolling alone at fourteen (“You didn’t let me work alone until I was fifteen, and I was an assassin,” Damian had spat), and they had been an unbeatable team. Robin’s hand-to-hand was weak, but nobody ever got through Batgirl. Batgirl struggled with technical knowledge, reading and writing and investigating and chasing down leads, the only area where Tim had ever excelled. Together, they had almost been as good as Batman. Sometimes, Tim had let himself think that they might be better.

They had been so similar. Everyone had always said so. They’re both so quiet, the Justice League had said. Emotionless little freaks, the Rogues had said. Neither of them blink, their schoolmates had said. But there had been nothing to say, not between them: they could have a conversation without words, without even Sign. Cass had known every twitch of Tim’s body, had understood him down to his core. Nobody else ever had. Everybody had always called Tim inscrutable and impossible to understand - but to Cass, Tim had been an open book. She knew every inch of him. And she had loved him anyway. 

And Steph! When Steph had found them when they were fourteen veering on fifteen, and from then on it was as if she had always been there. She was so big, so smiling, so much, and she had never apologized for any of it. Nothing scared her. To Tim, that was the perfect vigilante - somebody who was scared of nothing, who never hesitated, who was good. 

Not even Bruce could intimidate her. When Tim was fourteen, he had thought that was the most amazing thing in the world. Bruce intimidated everyone, but Steph had just stuck out her tongue and kept badly backflipping off roofs anyway. Through twin convincing, Tim and Cass had convinced Bruce to give her a chance, and Spoiler had slot into their dynamic perfectly. She was their best friend, always. 

She wasn’t good at hand-to-hand at first, but Tim had improved by then, and they could cover her. She improved faster than he had, and judging from the reconnaissance footage Tim had frantically consumed after he came back to life, she was amazing now. She was wickedly smart, practical and down to Earth. If Tim was better at hacking into a computer, Steph was the one who found the post-it note with the password stuck under the desk. 

But more than any of that, she had brought the social skills. She had brought the calming presence, the sweet hand to victims and civilians, and her good humor was infectious. Steph was good with people. She was a born leader. Resilient. Brave. Everybody liked her. Everybody loved her. Tim had. She had loved him too. She could have done so much better than Tim and Cass, weird little societal rejects, but she had chosen them as her family. 

It had been the three of them. For as long as Tim’s life had meaning, for as long as he had been loved, they had loved him. Tim had grown up alone, in a world of one, and they had infiltrated it. They had expanded it, and they dragged his life into more than just Tim. Into Tim-and-Cass-and-Steph. Into Robin-Batgirl-Spoiler. Into meaning, and love. 

Tim hated them. And he wanted them to suffer. 

“That’s the Stephanie Brown I remember,” Tim sneered, closing the door behind him. Steph had quickly thrown herself onto Tim’s couch, clearly somewhat surprised at how comfortable it was, and Cass had  perched daintily on the arm. Cass had always refused to sit like a normal person - she would rather sit on the backs of sofas, or on the arm, or perched on chairs like a bird - “If I had known you were coming I would have jumped cities.”

“We would have chased you down and you know that,” Steph said cheerfully, like she said fucking everything. “Besides, if you had known we were coming you would have gone into witness protection. You’ve been avoiding the fuck outta us.”

“Wonder why,” Tim said, injecting as much mean-spirited sarcasm into his voice as possible. “I need more coffee, don’t go through my shit.”

The apartment was small, and the kitchen had a cut-away wall where he could see through into the living room. Stephanie hated nothing more than being ignored or looked down upon, and if he dismissed her and didn’t react then she’d grow infuriated with him and leave. He couldn’t fight with her, because if it came down to a battle of rhetoric or emotions she’d win single-handedly. She was so good with words. Cass...had no weaknesses. 

Which was inconvenient, because it was Cass he absolutely had to get rid of as soon as possible. She was very emotional, and more than a little sensitive. Especially to rejection. If he was cruel enough to her, she’d start crying and leave. There was only one problem with that. 

As he jammed more grounds into the machine he watched the girls out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t talking or whispering to each other, both fully aware of how well Tim could read lips. They weren’t even having one of those body language conversations they could only have with each other, aware that Tim could crack that too. Instead Stephanie was casually sprawled on his couch, looking for all the world like a middle aged dad watching the football game, looking around the room. Cass, as usual, was zoning out. Or, of course, looked like she was zoning out - Tim could tell that she was waiting for something to happen, and was preparing herself for it. 

Shit. Tim fought the urge to gnaw on his fingernail. Cass was going to be a problem. 

He risked another glance backwards. She could see him, so she knew. Fuck. He had never been on the other side of her mind reading. It was fucking inconvenient. Psychics should be shot on sight. 

The coffee sloshed into the biggest cup he could find in his kitchen, and Tim began draining it immediately as he leaned over the cutaway. He kept the cup held up to his face, obscuring it. Face covered, everything under the elbows covered - best he could do without preparation. 

“This little field trip sanctified by Sgt. Brother?” Tim asked, sipping the scalding hot coffee. Not hot enough. He needed - he needed - they’d see -

“We’re nineteen, we don’t need his permission for everything we do,” Steph said, amused. So she was going to speak for Cass - hardly unusual, as whenever they were all together Steph tended to be the only one who spoke - but seeing as Tim was Tim then it was definitely a strategy. 

“He lets his precious baby sisters knock on the door of drug lords for fun?” Tim sneered. 

“If they’re incompetent and retired, sure!”

Tim gritted his teeth. Don’t rise to her bait. Don’t. She was the best person in the family at getting a rise out of their enemies. He didn’t stand a chance. 

“What do you want?”

“We thought we’d take you roller skating at the rink,” Steph chirped. 

Tim stared at her. 

“Or the pool,” Steph said, faux-thoughtfully. “Or just the mall?”

Fuck this. Tim headed for the door, ready to walk out of the building barefoot in his pyjamas. He tugged at the doorknob, only to find that it wouldn’t open. 

Tim breathed in through his nose, then out through his mouth. There were other exits. He was not trapped. Had his apartment always been so small? He could have sworn that it was bigger. 

He turned around slowly. Stephanie was grinning at him, twirling what looked like a small plastic cylinder. Tim recognized it instantly - fancy League tech. Overrides all electronic locks and controls them. They all used it to trap perps and heighten their fear tactics. Tim jammed his thumb on the keypad. Nothing happened. 

Cass glanced at Steph, and made a small motion. Tim couldn’t interpret it. Why couldn’t he interpret it? Did they have a new code? It was Cass. When nobody else had understood her, Tim always had. Now they had their own language, one that Tim couldn’t interpret anymore. Tim was lost in translation, always drifting. 

“We aren’t bringing you in,” Steph said, just as light as ever. No trace of pity or caution or gentleness in her voice: just relentless cheer. “Literally all we want to do is talk. Play a board game, maybe?”

 Tim’s eyes flickered to the hidden panel in the wall next to him where he had stashed a gun and a sword. 

“Bro,” Steph said, “you really don’t want to escalate this.”

“Do you think you can take me?” Tim asked curiously, letting his hand drift to his arm. He shook his long pyjama sleeve down to cover his wrist. “That’s pretty cute. Last time I checked, you’re the shittiest at hand-to-hand in your team.”

But Steph just rolled her eyes. Shit, wasn’t he supposed to be ignoring her? He couldn’t, not so long as she kept pushing and pushing. Not so long as she was in his house. “Leave off. Just because Jay and I are the last people in the fam who weren’t trained in Mystical Ninja Arts doesn’t mean I’m incompetent. Hands in the air, by the way.”

Stephanie was overly sentimental. New tactic. He raised his hands slightly in the air, caught reaching for the weapon hidden in his armor. “Incompetent enough to let me die.”

There. Finally. Thank god, Tim thought he was losing his touch. The muscles clenched in Stephanie’s jaw, and just a twitch of her eye - banishing a bad memory. “Everybody’s been saying you’ve turned rude. I guess you’ve just been avoiding us because you don’t want to hurt our feelings, right?”

“I didn’t remember a lot when I was first resurrected,” Tim said casually, despite the fact that he had never told anybody about the first awful six months. Something about Steph and Cass just pried it out of him, like invasive surgery. Or an autopsy. “I remember everything about those six months, though. Homeless. Practically retarded. Brain damage does that to you, you know. I lived on the streets, did you know that? It was a miracle I lived through it.” He gasped, as if he was remembering something. “I slept on 34th street! You lived near there, didn’t you? Maybe you even walked by me.”

Steph went white. Cass’ expression froze. He was pushing hard, but these two wouldn’t react to anything less. Steph could trade barbs better than he could, even now. 

“It’s a good thing Talia found me,” Tim continued. “She was the only one who cared.”

That did it. Steph tensed, leaning forward, and even Cass stiffened. “Is that what she told you? How can you believe her?”

Tim just shrugged, walking back to the kitchen and hiding his body language again. He took an extra loud slurp of the coffee, just to be annoying. “Talia never lied to me. She said that nobody cared enough to save me. And guess what!”

Steph’s jaw clenched again. She was a hot head. A fierce temper, an impulsive girl who jumped in feet first and sanity second. Woman, now. When had that happened? “Cut that shit out. We all know what you’re doing. You’ve been doing it to everyone. Did you think Connor didn’t warn us?”

Snitch. Tim slurped his coffee again. “Connor’s been telling everyone to give me space.”

“Yeah, everyone but us.” She stood up now, ignoring the flicker of a frown on Cass’ face, and folded her arms. A challenge against the world. Against Tim. It didn’t matter. “You don’t believe half the shit you’re spewing. You’ve never believed your own bullshit, Tim. You’re just saying it to drive everybody away. It’s not going to work on us.”

“Why?” Tim asked innocently. “You’re too thick?”

“Because we love you!” Steph cried. Tim rolled his eyes. As if he hadn’t heard that one before. “Saving Richie proved it, you aren’t as insane as you keep pretending you are. You know what you’re doing is wrong, you just don’t care.”

“Wow, you caught me.” Tim took another long swig of his coffee. It was making his hands jittery. Good. “Local genius aware of his actions. Call the press. Call Uncle Clark, he needs a scoop.” He arched an eyebrow at Steph. She hated that expression of his - she had always found it so aristocratic and pretentious. Joke’s on her, he was pretentious. “Do you mind if I go do a line? I’m not high enough for this conversation.”

If she had told him who she was, he would have done a line anyway just to spite her, and she knew it. “You don’t want to try,” Steph said stubbornly, “but you’re trying. You don’t want to care, but you care. You don’t want to feel it, but it hurts so much you can’t bear it. You can’t get anything past us, Tim. It’s always just been us. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Doesn’t that mean -

“What that means,” Tim said, and he found the words scraping his throat. He found himself talking a little louder than he meant to. The coffee, you know. Made you jittery. “is that you should have saved me. If you loved me so fucking much, you would have been anything other than useless. You’ve always been the most useless girl in the world, Steph. You couldn’t save your crook of a dad or your junkie of a mom. You couldn’t save your baby and you couldn’t save me. You’re ghetto trash putting on airs, and everyone can smell it on you.”

As soon as he said it, he tensed. He shifted his stance, ready to throw the coffee and spill the scalding liquid on her. Obscure her vision. It would take a second for her to vault the cover, so he could duck down. From there he could get the gun, shoot the window, jump out the window. She couldn’t win. Tim had the most powerful weapon in the world in his disposal and that was his infinite, burning hate. His hate for Steph and Cass burned him to the ground, and his world with it, and he was going to burn them to cinders because he couldn’t do anything else. 

But Steph didn’t move. Cass got off the sofa. She walked up to Steph, and gently pressed a hand on her shoulder. She squeezed. Steph exhaled, long and shaking, and nodded at Cass. She walked into Tim’s bedroom - hey! - and shut the door. 

Then Cass stared at Tim, and there was no more need for words. Not between them. 

Tim vaulted the cut away wall, aiming for her feet first. Cass didn’t dodge - that would imply that she moved like an object moved. She moved like water moved - swift and supple, with such infinite grace and precision that it was like she wasn’t human at all. 

But he had gotten better. He didn’t spend two and half years trained by the League of Assassins in crochet. Tim lashed out with a foot, she dodged again. He threw a punch, she moved. He feinted, clearly leaving her an opening, and she didn’t take it. 

Bitch. 

Cass shoved away his coffee table, sending it skidding across the floor and opening the floor space. The rug became their arena, tight and intimate, no room for maneuverability. Tim acted and she reacted, Tim lashed out a sweep kick and she jumped over it, Tim tried to grapple and she broke his hold. She never threw him to the ground, never pinned him. She just moved. 

She was good, but not good enough to toy with him and win completely. The way to win against Cass was to leverage your height - Tim was taller than he once was, although that wasn’t saying much - weight, and strength against her. A couple good hits and she was down. 

The issue, of course, was hitting her. 

He got a hit in. It was much easier when she wasn’t even fighting back. She rolled with it effortlessly, taking the impact to gain a little space between them. She breathed deeply, sweat rolling down her neck. Tim used to take a cold compress and press it to that neck. She used to smile at him. Thank you. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass said. 

“Too bad,” Tim said. 

Fights weren’t like in television, long and choreographed extended scenes to entertain and thrill. When Ro - Tim was in a fight, a real fight, it was typically finished in less than a minute. The only way that a match can get long is if the other person was deliberately tiring you out - a risky strategy - or if you were of completely equal strengths with similar fighting styles. Or if it was a spar. 

As Tim tried to hit her again and again, he realized that it was a spar. 

No, not even that. It was a conversation. 

Tim grabbed her wrist, and said: I want you to hurt. Cass broke the hold, telling him that he can’t. Tim leveraged the motion and kneed her in the back, telling her that the only goal of this fight was pain. Cass let the impact take her down to the mat, an incredibly disadvantageous position, but rolled out of the way just as Tim tried to exploit the opportunity. I’m not scared of you. Tim hit again, and again, and again, failing every time. I want you gone, Tim said, and this is the only way I know how to do it. 

This is what Tim said: as much as I once loved you, I now hate you. The infinite depths of my love, my twin sister, how we moved in perfect sync. I hate it all. As much as I cared, I now hate. Feel this hate. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass said. 

They moved in perfect sync, even now. Cass couldn’t predict his movements before he made them, like she used to - his training was different now, developed and refined. But Cass knew the League of Assassins too, had been trained by them just as he had, and they were written into her bones when they were only carved into Tim’s. After his third patented Talia move, she adjusted to fit his style, and their fight metamorphosed into more of a dance. Like they used to. 

“Why not!” Tim screamed, the stupidest possible thing to do in a fight, but Cass didn’t take advantage of his exhale. He lashed out a fist to cover the opening, but it was lazy and over-extended, and she dodged easily. “I’m going to kill you!”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Tim desperately tried to call the green to his vision. It was so easy. All he had to do was tap into that rage. Talia had called it blood lust. Said it was normal, even good. But it wouldn’t come. Where was it? It was his only friend. 

Desperately, Tim went in for another punch to the face - Cass’ jaw was the weakest part of her body, an old injury - but he over-extended again, and this time Cass took the opportunity. She grabbed his arm and pulled him forward, dropping him to the mat. She didn’t try to twist him around, instead landing him on his back. Bad move for her. 

She kneed him in the chest, putting her full hundred and thirty pounds on him. She twisted his hands behind his back, pinning him, and Tim could do barely more than wheeze. 

He looked at her in the eyes for the first time. They were infuriatingly calm. Her hair was tangled and clumped with sweat, but she wasn’t breathing hard. Her expression was placid and serene, as if she was watching one of her stupid fucking nature documentaries instead of pinning her brother to a hard and scratchy rug in a shithole apartment, three years after he was tortured to insanity and shot himself in the head. 

So much time had passed. So much had happened, nasty and festering and putrid, and Tim had let it happen. He had made it happen. There was a rot in Tim, and it had eaten him up until there was nothing inside. If you cut him open, would it spill out? Would it infect her, infect Steph? Could he make them suffer?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass repeated. “So don’t be scared.”

“Scared?! I’m not fucking -” Tim wheezed, cut off by the lack of air as Cass pressed down. 

“I’m sorry you’re scared. I didn’t mean to leave you alone. But I did. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to kill -”

Cass pressed down on his chest again, cutting him off. She had finally done the one thing nobody in Tim’s life had ever figured out: how to make him shut up. “You can be as mean to me as you want. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll stay.”

Tim wheezed. In that, maybe, Cass heard something, because she continued as if he had spoken. Or maybe she just wanted the chance to talk. It had been stolen from her for thirteen years, and it was valuable to her. 

“You do not have to be kind. You do not have to hug me, even if I want you to. You do not have to be my brother. I know it hurts too much. But you are me. I am you. You do not even have to try for that. I do not have to give it to you. You have it.”

Tim couldn’t help it. He cried a little, and then he couldn’t stop. 

Cass got off him, but she kept her promise. She didn’t hug him. She just propped him up against the sofa, holding his hand, and didn’t speak. At some point the door creaked, and he felt Stephanie next to him. 

This is why, Tim thought hysterically, he had been avoiding them.

He knew this would happen. There was no hiding from Cass. There was no posturing, no pretending. She didn’t want anything from him. She never had. There was nothing he could say that would drive her away, because Cass did not listen to the words people spoke. She spoke only for clarity, when she could not afford for her words to be misconstrued, and for the comfort of others. 

Cass knew that he had been lying out of his ass. Cass knew that he wasn’t as insane as he pretended, as cruel as he wanted to be. 

He couldn’t make Cass hate him. Shit. 

None of them said anything. Nothing needed to be said, not between the three of them. Cass might be having a silent conversation in Sign with Steph, but he didn’t care enough to open his eyes and look. When they had first met, it used to make Steph so mad that Tim and Cass were having ‘secret conversations’. She had poured over her dictionaries, learning as quickly as physically possible so she could keep up. Everything Steph had, she had worked hard for. 

Steph was in college now. Premed. She wanted to be an ER doctor. Steph wasn’t a genius, she had to study hard. She wouldn’t be able to superhero in med school, so she was ready to hang up her cape for a few years until she achieved her dream. Steph said that she could do just as much good as a doctor as a superhero. She hadn’t always wanted it. When they were kids and Bruce used to ask her what she wanted to do when she grew up, in his awkward faux-dad way, she had always shrugged and said that she might be a nurse. 

“Why not med school?” Bruce had suggested, between sleepy spoonfuls of oatmeal. She used to spend more nights at their place than at her own. Her mom hadn’t noticed. 

Steph had just shrugged awkwardly, nibbling her whole-wheat organic toast that she would stare at suspiciously. Rich people, she would say, sighing. “I would never be able to afford it. And no way I’m smart enough.”

“You’re good enough,” Bruce said, which was the closest he ever came to praising somebody. “I’ll pay for it.”

Steph had gaped. Cass had eaten her Lucky Charms smugly. Tim had rolled his eyes. “An in-the-know doctor for the vigilante community would be invaluable,” he had informed her, pretentious and callous. “We could use you.”

“You deserve it,” Cass had signed. 

“You have a bright future, Stephanie,” Bruce said, buckling under the panic of being a responsible adult. “I would hate to see you waste it.”

He would hate to see any of them waste their future. He had hated to see what Tim had become. He knew that. The last time he had ever seen Bruce, it was just to disappoint him. Bruce was the only parent he had ever had, and his standards were so sky high it was impossible to do anything other than disappoint. 

The fact of the matter was this: he loved Cass and Steph more than he loved Bruce. He could hate Bruce. He could hate himself. But Cass and Steph…

Bruce had ear-marked a lot of money for Steph, both for whatever continuing education she chose and for her future. It had raised a lot of questions among the lawyer team, but ultimately she had been written off as another of his strays. Tim had left her a lot of money too. There probably wasn’t any point: when she married Cass she’d have equal access to the fortune. Rich people, Stephanie used to whisper in awe, looking at organic toast. 

Cass was majoring in dance. She wanted to be a ballerina. 

Tim’s future...Tim’s future…

“Or we can watch a nature documentary,” Steph said out loud. “If we all promise not to say a fucking word.”

Incredibly, unmistakably, irrevocably, Tim groaned. “Not the fucking bee one again.”

“I like the bees,” Cass said serenely. 

“If you aren’t going to get out of my house can I at least smoke up?” Tim asked miserably. 

“I brought gummy bears,” Steph said, chipper as ever, “which are way better.”

“I’m going to the fucking bathroom,” Tim grumbled, which everybody knew was as good as a yes. 

“If you take anything I’ll know,” Cass said serenely, and also threatened. 

“Fuck you, bitch.”

Steph and Cass high-fived, and Tim sulked angrily to the bathroom. He took a second to look at himself in the mirror - looking for Tim Drake, failing, as always - before opening it and grabbing his baggie of pills. 

He looked at it. He looked at the toilet. He looked at the baggie. 

He didn’t flush them. He put them back in the medicine cabinet. Tomorrow. He’ll do them tomorrow. Not today. He can hold out for 24 hours. It’ll be fine. 

For a wild, stupid, insane second, Tim wondered if he could say that tomorrow too. If tomorrow he would look at them and say: maybe tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that…

If there was a future, for a fuck-up like him. 

The faint strains of Cass’ stupid fucking bee documentary began playing through the thin walls of his shitty little apartment, and Tim turned out the lights of his bathroom and closed the door, locking it securely behind him. 

[missmentelle]

Your posts are so informative and I was wondering if you could help me. I'm a BA psych student in a smallish town in canada and I'm considering applying to work in a womens homeless shelter. In the past I've worked in youth residential care and daycare, but this is a big step in another direction. What is it like working in a homeless shelter? When I talk to people in my class (who have never worked there) they just say it's dangerous and I shouldn't bother. But, I want to help women and youth who are more vulnerable in my community. But is it dangerous? Are your expected to work alone? At the youth residence, there was clear communication and there were always other staff around. I was so sure, before I started talking to others about it.

You have excellent timing, I just got home from a night shift at the youth shelter! (I’m picking up shifts at my organization’s youth homeless shelter while the whole org is short-staffed due to COVID, which is why you’ve been seeing a lot fewer posts from me lately. Doing swing shifts on top of my 9-5 is kicking my butt.)

I can’t say exactly what working at one particular shelter will be like, because every shelter does things a little bit differently - they all have different rules, schedules and policies. There are some things that they do tend to have in common, though. For instance, I would be absolutely shocked if any shelter made any staff member work alone. That’s unheard of in my experience. At every shelter I’ve ever visited or worked at, you will have several staff on shift at any given time, plus an on-site manager or supervisor to handle emergencies, or an on-call supervisor that you can phone for advice or direction if you aren’t quite sure what to do. My org’s shelter requires that there be a minimum of three staff on-site at all times (it’s a small shelter with less than two dozen beds), plus a supervisor either on-site or on-call. If you work at a shelter, you will have support (and if you don’t, you should quit and find another shelter that does). 

At the shelter I’ve been helping out at, youth who arrive there are typically there for around a 2-3 month stay. Each youth gets their own private room (somewhat common in domestic violence, youth and family shelters, fairly uncommon in men’s shelters and general homeless shelters) and they are allowed to bring two bags of belongings with them. Youth are woken up in the morning, fed some breakfast (not all shelters will serve breakfast), and then the youth are required to be out of the building for most of the day (this is pretty much universal for homeless shelters, but many domestic violence and family shelters will not have this requirement). 

During the day, shelter staff inspect rooms, write documentation, contact other professionals who are working with the youth, supervise any youth that are in the building due to extenuating circumstances (illness, night shift workers, etc), inform the incoming shift about last night’s activities, and prepare dinner. Youth return in the late afternoon, have dinner, do their chores, and are free to come and go until their curfew - they can meet with support staff for counselling, do homework in their rooms, watch TV, do their laundry, or just go out with their friends. There is a set time where they have to be in their rooms, and staff come around to check on youth a few times during the night. Then morning comes and it starts all over again. Many shelters run in a similar way, although there will be slight differences to their policies and procedures - some homeless shelters, for instance, do not give residents a “set” bed and require people to line up for beds on a first-come, first-served basis every night. It just depends on the individual place. 

You will absolutely have to deal with some tough situations while working at a shelter. I would be lying if I told you otherwise. Note that “tough” does not always mean “violent” or “dangerous” - basically anything that can happen at a shelter will happen sometimes. You can have all sorts of medical, mental health, maintenance or general emergencies. This past month at the shelter, we’ve had everything from a broken washing machine flooding the basement to a youth arrested outside the building for throwing rocks at cars to a youth having a miscarriage. We did have one youth making violent threats against staff, and a few making threats to harm themselves. It’s a fast-paced work environment, and you can really never be sure what will happen. At my shift last night, we settled all the youth down in the lounge for a movie night with some popcorn and leftover Halloween candy and they all went to bed without incident. Other nights, I’ve been screamed at for having to enforce the rules, or I’ve had to call 911 because someone is violent and out of control. It’s impossible to say how any one shift will go. 

I will say, though, that I’ve been in this field for 8 years now, and my organization has been around for almost 50 years, and in that time we’ve never had a staff member seriously injured by a client. I’ve actually never worked anywhere that has. The potential to be injured is there - you can get injured at any job - and I’ve been in some pretty tense situations, but I’ve never seriously feared for my life or my safety. At the shelter I’ve been working at, you are either with a team member or you have a team member watching you on the security cameras at all times, and they will immediately jump in to help the moment anything tense starts to happen. The only staff injury we’ve had this year was a staff member who cut herself while chopping vegetables for dinner. We all receive regular, comprehensive training in suicide prevention, crisis deescalation, non-violent crisis intervention, motivational interviewing and mental health first aid. Management is incredibly supportive. We are quick to call the local mobile crisis team or 911 if there is a situation we need help with. All staff carry either a cell phone or a panic button (a little plastic button that alerts 911 if you push it) so we can get help quickly if we need it. No one ever has to deal with anything alone. 

Personally, I love working shifts at the shelter, and if you have any interest in working at one, I would say to go for it. You meet some of the most incredible people, both among the staff and residents. For every hard moment where you’re calling 911 or dealing with an emergency, you will also have funny, endearing human moments, like when we put on some music last night and the kids had a dance contest as they cleared away their dinner dishes, or when you finally get to help a resident move out of the shelter and into their first real apartment. You’ll also make some of the best friends you’ve ever had amongst your fellow staff - I am still in daily contact with old co-workers from every social services job I’ve ever had, even jobs that I left years ago. Working at a shelter can also be a great segue into other careers in social services - my org is very supportive of people who want to further their education, and many of the people in upper management started out as casual shift workers at the shelter. If nothing else, it’s a great way to learn more about how the system actually works, and to start thinking critically about what needs to be done to improve it.  If I had to make up pros and cons for working at a shelter, it would be this (keep in mind this is my list, and things that are “pros” for me might be “cons” for you)” Pros:

fast-paced work environment

hands-on work, not just paperwork and desk work

unpredictable work environment, no routine or monotony 

get a chance to use a variety of skill sets, from counselling to cooking

lots of ongoing training and professional development 

get to make a difference to people in crisis 

get to connect with all kinds of people and hear their stories

supportive and friendly co-workers, easy to make friends

great introduction to a life-long career

get to see how social work and metal health theory actually looks in practice

Cons:

shift work, shelters are open 24/7

sometimes have to deal with very serious emergencies 

pay could be better

can be very tough to enforce rules, both emotionally and logisically

absolutely sucks to have to turn someone away 

can be difficult to see people return to shelter after getting out, or to continue to get worse

sometimes required to do gross tasks, like cleaning up vomit

unpredictability means sometimes the worst things happens on days where you really just needed a quiet day 

Honestly, I would not take advice from anyone who has never actually worked or resided in a shelter. A lot of people hold very unfair or discriminatory views toward the homeless, even if they claim not to hate homeless people, and someone who has never actually spent quality time watching the daily operations of a shelter has no business making statements about how “dangerous” it actually is. I know people who have spent their whole careers working at shelters and are still passionate about it and love what they do. If you want to give working in one a try, I would say absolutely go for it.  Best of luck to you! MM

[baekterflyeffect]

half moon ― two

You remembered the messy clothing sketches sprawled on the desk, and also remembered how proud you were when you modeled for his final assignment. The promise of you being the first one to wear his first official product was made. Years passed by and the promise was forgotten as it wasn’t meant to be kept; until you received an invitation that has B.B.H signed on it. Ironically, you found yourself confronting your past at your ex-boyfriend new collection launch event with your memories with him flashing through your mind.

☽    pairing: byun baekhyun x fem reader ☽    characters: exo members, red velver members, others. ☽    genre: angst, slice of life, adult-hood, hurt-comfort.   ☽    aus: ex to something!AU, beauty youtuber Reader, fashion designer Baekhyun ☽    warnings:  vague description of depression, suicidal situations, unhealthy relationship. ☽    word count: 2.4k

☽   half moon masterlist  |   general masterlist

― note: please take the warning seriously! i personally have a very hard time writing this because it reminded me of all those times i have been put in a situation similar like that. enjoy the short update!

― taglist: @fullsuninbloom / @in3vitably3v3 / @itsbaekhyunsbutt / @byunbeautifulb / @yeol-wish​. let me know if you want to be tagged or untagged!

Eighteen years old her would not believe how she would be standing in her current position right now. With people of influence from across the globe crowding inside a room to attend a launch event of a brand that is successful. Her past self wouldn’t believe that she would be standing in the middle of a crowd, taking pictures to upload on her social media with champagne on her hand. 

The night after the awkward encounter with Baekhyun feels so surreal for her, walking back to her friends with her cheeks flushed red and thoughts in a jumble of mess. She couldn’t blame it on the liquor, she hadn’t taken one when she talked to her ex-boyfriend. Yet, his presence was enough to make her drunk. 

Great time, can’t wait to review the new products soon! Xx. She typed for her instagram story that showcases the event of the night. Before she even gets to press the post button, Seulgi is calling out to her name, ever so softly.  

“It’s picture time, you want to come?” Seulgi questioned her. There is nothing new about taking pictures at the designed booth of an event, but she hesitated to agree. Baekhyun would be there, she knew as much. After all, nobody could go home from an event without taking a picture with the owner of it. 

A sigh escapes her lips, she knew ten years had passed since her romance with Baekhyun died, but it would be a lie if she doesn’t feel the same spark when she encountered him earlier. Then again, a picture wouldn’t hurt.. right? So she grins at her best friend, nodding her head then to agree. 

But of course, it would. 

Baekhyun didn’t change at all, at least with his act of affection. He was flirty with every of his guests―male and female―, putting his arm around them, smiling at them so sweetly, and even holding one of the guest’s hands for whatever reason it was.

She shouldn’t feel like this, like her emotions are eating her up alive. There is no valid reason on why she should be jealous; knowing that Baekhyun is a man whose language of love is skinship. She tried her best to shrug it off, to not look, and it wasn’t until Seulgi nudged her shoulder that she realized she had been glaring at Baekhyun for a good two minutes. 

“Coming here is a bad idea. Very, bad.” She groans, gripping on Seulgi’s arm ever so tightly. The chuckle that came out of Seulgi’s lips are comforting, it was one of her chuckles that indicates she understood. 

“It will be okay. We’ll get out of here, he’ll be gone again, and you’ll forget about him.” Seulgi reassures.  Oh, how she wished she could trust her best friend. 

And it is frustrating how she knows she wouldn’t forget about him as when it was her turn, Baekhyun’s smile turned into something that is different. His smile was gorgeous, the smile that she remembered was reserved for her and only her when they were dating. His signature smile where only the edge of his lips curled, a lopsided smile that always made her body tremble. 

Oh, how much she wished Baekhyun was still hers. 

It was nonchalant, the way Baekhyun leaned in to her and wrapped his arm around her waist to take a picture. But she wouldn’t miss how tight his fingertips are on her skin, as if he wouldn’t let go. She genuinely wished he doesn’t, but when the stutter sound reaches her ears, Baekhyun pulls away right away. 

What she didn’t notice was when Baekhyun slipped in something to her slightly opened purse.

The entire ride back home with Seulgi and Sehun is quite awkward on her part, only listening to the couple’s random banters without her joining. She usually helps Seulgi in bullying Sehun, but with her mind filled with Baekhyun, she couldn’t find the strength to do so. 

She wasn’t always like this, she was always cheerful despite the hardship she faced, her head always held high as if nothing will ever ruin her happiness. It was only after Baekhyun left her and took those parts of her away together with him. 

For some people, ten years is a long time for someone to move on. And she used to think the same way too, because who could stay in love with someone even after ten years of separation? Then again, her relationship with Baekhyun has always been more special. 

Baekhyun was not her first love, neither was he her first everything. She had her fair share of ex-boyfriends before Baekhyun, even after him, but nobody ever came close to what she had with him. 

Because nobody went through so many hardships with her for five years, nobody held her close the way Baekhyun did and made sure she’s safe and sound, nobody loved her permanent wounds as much as he did, and nobody loved her as much as Baekhyun did.

There was a point in her life after her separation with Baekhyun where she realized she depended herself too much on him, that she knew being apart from him was a good thing, that her love for Baekhyun had started to get unhealthy. Relapses are not uncommon in her part where she collapsed in her bathroom door begging for someone to save her, but she managed to walk past that, opening a new chapter in her life with memories and wounds forgotten. 

If there was anything Baekhyun had taught her, it was how to love herself. If Baekhyun was able to love her through and through; why couldn’t she do the same?

The road for her to be able to value and love herself wasn’t easy, there are so many trials and errors. What matters is the fact that she managed to pick her life back together and be as successful as she is now. 

Baekhyun coming to her life after ten years of separation only made her realize that after all these times, her feelings for Baekhyun are still deeply rooted inside of her. She may have realized that she no longer depended on her happiness to him, but she acknowledged that she wished her romance with Baekhyun never came to an end. 

Her thoughts are cut short when Seulgi calls her name, questioning her how she’s feeling. Making her sigh before answering to her best friend.

“I’m not sure, honestly.” Mumbled her, her fingers unconsciously playing with the hem of her outer shirt. “I never imagined I would be able to converse with him, let alone meeting him at an event like this.”. It’s a lie, of course she knew it is inevitable to not meet him under her earlier circumstances. 

“I was shocked when you came up to him like that. What did you guys even talk about in that short period of time?” Sehun asked her, taking a glance at her from his rear view mirror. 

A groan escapes from her lips the same time Seulgi pinches him, leave it to Sehun to be rather insensitive in a situation like this. She stays quiet for a little, recalling her little reunion with Baekhyun earlier at the event, in the middle of the venue with curious eyes focused on them. 

“He only asked how I’ve been, and automatically I asked the same,” she huffs, “which are dumb because I know very well how he had been.” 

Sehun chuckled then, quietly making a U-turn to her apartment complex. “That’s good, at least he didn’t make you cry.” 

Before she could answer Sehun with insulting words, her phone rings indicating there is a new notification. Taking it as a great chance to ignore Sehun to check her phone that she had been ignoring throughout the event. The first, newest notification, manages to make her squeaked rather uglily. 

INSTAGRAM: [baekhyun]: mentioned you in a story.

“How the fuck he knew my Instagram account!?” She screamed to her phone, completely forgetting the presence of her two best friends. Her heart beat is going faster, she could even hear how loud her heart thumping because of that one notification. 

“Has it crossed your little brain that it might be his social media admin who posted it?” Sehun questioned her mockily. She shook her head right away, defending her statement then. 

“No, this is his personal Instagram account, not his official brand account. Whatever, he was probably just posting every picture he took with everyone earlier.” 

Before she could even think about what Baekhyun posted, Sehun announced that they had arrived in her apartment building. Both her best friends bidding her goodbye and an unnecessary good luck for no reason at all. She did notice the soft smile adorning Seulgi’s lips though, making her wonder what’s inside her friend’s head.

She doesn’t remember much what happened the night at the event the moment she opened her eyes. There is no after taste of alcohol in her throat and she doesn’t wake up with a massive headache. It is enough of a sign that she didn’t drink alcohol the night before. With a sigh, she took her phone to check her notifications―nothing weird, just the usual new partnership emails and contracts that she needs to review later. 

As she mindlessly scrolled through her notifications bar, she noticed one unopened notification from Instagram. She winches a little at the username, getting a reminder of his husky yet soft voice and gentle touches last night. Her sleepy state decided that it is time to open and see what Baekhyun had posted on his Instagram Story. 

The post is nothing out of the ordinary, just a picture of them―rather awkwardly―standing next to each other with a smile on their face. What led her heart to beat faster was his caption, and the way he slipped his hand inside her shirt pocket. 

Lovely to see you again. Here’s to a smooth sailing future for the both of us. Was what he wrote as a caption, for his fans, of course it wouldn’t be odd that he wrote his caption that way.. but a smooth sailing future? For the both of them? What the hell it was supposed to mean. 

What’s more unsettling for her is the fact that Baekhyun didn’t post another story with his other guests, only with her, with a caption that led her heart beat faster. 

She doesn’t want to think about it, because if she does, she would read too much into things and nothing great would come from it. So she shrugged it off, placing her phone down on her bed to even out her breathing. 

Inhale, exhale, everything is going to be alright. After all, she’s nothing like her past self. She has a great stable job, lives in a good environment, and is crowded by only the best people. There is nothing to worry.

With a reminder of how grateful and how much she loves her job, she gets up from her bed to stretch her sore limbs. Opening the curtain in her room to greet the sun with a smile on her face. It is only ten in the morning, she notices. The day is still long and she could do her job peacefully without any deadlines rushing her. 

There are plenty of things she could do, going out to get herself a cup of coffee while editing one of her videos that she had recorded the days before would be a great choice for her to not procrastinate, she deems. Nonetheless how much she adores and loves being alone inside her apartment, she of course enjoys being outside too. 

She didn’t have much thought when she was done dressing herself up, going out with only a t-shirt and a pair of worn out jeans, dressing for her own comfort as she knew she would spend at least two hours sitting and looking at her laptop screen.

The smell of the familiar brew of coffee greeted her nostrils the moment she opened the door to the coffee shop she often visits. Making her lips stretch into a smile and positivity filled her body. Right away, she walks towards the line of people that are queuing to order, minding her own business by focusing on her phone to reply to any texts she received. 

She barely notices her surroundings, making her jump in shock when a very familiar voice calls her name. It doesn’t take her a second to even realize who had called her, knowing how she used to listen to that voice every day in her past. 

Turning her head to where the voice belonged, her eyes widened at the figure in front of her. Byun Baekhyun; fresh and blood, extremely attractive with his slightly oversized black hoodie and messy bed hair. She timidly waves her hand at him, unconsciously stepping to the side to give him space to stand next to her. 

“Didn’t know I’ll see you in here.” Baekhyun softly said once he stood next to her, his eyes set on her figure. She nods her head as an answer, not knowing what else she could talk about. Of course, he was right. Out of all places, she never thought she would see her ex standing next to her in her favorite coffee shop. 

“I live nearby,” she said shortly, continuing her words then for the sake of courtesy. “What about you?” 

Baekhyun's eyes rounded at her answer, then his lips stretched into a smile. “I just moved to this neighborhood, actually. Too many people have discovered where I lived so, yeah.” 

“I see. I hope you enjoy being around here.” 

He just laughs at that, nodding his head towards her. They stood in silence then, both of them aware of the awkward atmosphere around them. When it was their turn to order, Baekhyun took the liberty to tell the cashier her order, making her stunned. He doesn’t say much as they wait for their order, she doesn’t dare to say anything too. 

Only after they received their order did he break the silence, “I have to go,” was what he said as he took a glance on his silver wristwatch, then patting her head with his left hand. “I left you my number the other day, maybe you didn’t realize.. but, contact me, yeah? I would love to catch up.” 

She just nod awkwardly at him, seeing his lopsided smile before he turned around to walk outside the coffee shop. The supposedly cold drink in her hand feels too warm. After all the years they separated, he still remembered her favorite coffee order―and she’s sure her heart will soon fail her with how rapidly it is beating.

“One cafe latte with two espressos shot for the lady.”

― additional note: this chapter is so tiring to write and that is why i couldn’t even bother to continue writing more even though the gdoc has around 4k in it, so i decided to finish the chapter right here. do let me know what you thought of this one!! i appreciate it a lot <3

[dweetwise]

day 11: crying

prompt from: whumptober pairing: felix x ace notes: all this angst is getting to me, i’m so glad tomorrow is a fluff day ;w; warnings: amnesia, implied suicide word count: 1960

If there was anything Ace had always been good at, it was dealing with all the various shit life threw his way. He'd smile and roll with the punches, not wasting time on pointless concepts like regret and what if:s.

The Entity's world had been no exception. Sure, it was objectively worse than just another poker losing streak or scam gone wrong, but since there wasn't anything he could do to change it, he just tried to make the most of it. And no, he didn’t particularly like getting chased or stabbed or brutally murdered, but in the end he was still alive and free to hang out with his newfound friends and make shitty jokes. It was the new normal, and like always, Ace adapted with surprising ease.

Until he didn't.

It had been like any typical not-day at the campfire, where a trial was taking place but Ace wasn't chosen for it. The only thing different from usual was that Ace was a little on edge, though from worry or anticipation, he wasn't sure.

Felix was the newest addition to their group, and despite only being there for what couldn't be more than a couple of months, he'd made a huge impact on Ace's life. Ace had never been any kind of clingy in his old life, but even he had to admit that he'd much rather have Felix by his side at the campfire than in a trial at the mercy of the Entity's Monster of the Day.

And maybe his heart broke a little when Adam, Cheryl and Quentin returned from the trial and Adam met his eyes and offered a pained “I'm sorry, we tried”. Ace gave a half-assed reassurance in return, and despite knowing that they always came back after a sacrifice and weren't any worse for wear, it wasn't a pleasant thing to go through.

But if he'd thought that information broke his heart, the next one shattered it into pieces.

Felix finally returned to the campfire, his look just as impeccable as ever, like he'd been preparing for an important business meeting instead of taking a chainsaw through the gut. Ace felt his fake smile give way to a genuine one, unexplainable relief flooding through him upon the confirmation that yes, even after a hundred sacrifices Felix was still alive. For some reason, Felix was frowning, so Ace made his way over to cheer him up, a witty comment already on the tip of his tongue—

“Wo zum Teufel bin ich?" Felix said, looking at him with a very confused expression that made him stop dead in his tracks.

It wasn't uncommon for Felix to revert back to his native tongue in certain situations, but it was usually only a word or two. And it wasn't like him to keep his distance from the others like this, not since befriending the group and especially not after they’d started dating.

“Come again?" Nea snorted from somewhere behind Ace, probably thinking it some kind of joke.

When Felix looked at her with clear wariness, Ace already knew what he was going to say, having seen that same exact look only months before.

“Where am I?” Felix asked, and then further twisted the knife in Ace's heart by looking back at him and adding “Who are you?”.

Ace didn't pay much attention after that. He sat by the fire while the others hovered around Felix in worry, staring at the ground and asking himself why.

Claudette came by to offer him some empty words of comfort and a gentle hand on his shoulder. He heard Bill raising his voice in the group and urging them to “calm the fuck down and let the guy breathe”. And eventually, Yui was there, kneeling before him and commanding Ace to look at her.

“He got hit with Leatherface's mallet really hard during the mori,” the biker told him, her stern expression being enough to convince Ace. “Adam and Claud said it's post-traumatic amnesia from the concussion. It's temporary.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Ace said, realizing how shaky his voice sounded, dragging a hand through his hair to try to quell his doubts.

Hours passed and Felix didn't get any better. Meg and Steve were by his side the entire time, reminiscing stories from the campfire and some of his best moments of outsmarting the killers to try to jog his memory, but nothing seemed to work.

Claudette suggested maybe Ace should talk to him, as he'd been the closest to him since he got here. So he swallowed his own grief and put on a shitty smile and shooed Meg and Steve away to sit down with Felix alone.

But when Felix started talking about how he had to get back because of his girlfriend and the baby he was so excited for, Ace had to nope the fuck out before he started bawling or cussing him out.

He avoided Felix for the entire day, playing some dumb card game with Ash he was pretty sure the other just made up, and despite his mind not being anywhere near the cards the bastard let him win. Nea was being even more obnoxious than usual, shit-talking the killers and trying to get Ace to join in, and it was really obvious that they were trying to keep him distracted, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

Then the next trial came and Dwight, Tapp, Kate and Zarina were off, and Ace was left to stare at the futile sight of Jane asking Felix about trials he had no recollection of.

“What if he never remembers?” Ace heard Cheryl whisper.

“It's temporary,” Yui immediately snapped.

“Maybe it takes another resurrection to fix,” Adam said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

Ace felt empty. The worry and fear and absolute loneliness had created a hole in his chest he didn't know how to fix, and wouldn't until Felix was back to his old self, because he would be, because that's how it always worked—

And then Dwight stumbled into camp and looked around with pure terror in his eyes and asked if they knew a way back into the city and Ace's world stopped turning.

The hole in his chest was instantly filled with grief and anguish and he was helpless to stop the sob from wracking his entire body, burying his face into his shaking hands and mourning what he now knew he'd never get back.

There was a commotion again, and he wasn't the only one who was crying, the entire group shaken to the core at their leader losing his memory and now realizing it wasn't an accident.

There were arms around Ace’s shoulders and who he thought was Laurie whispering that she's “so, so sorry, but we’ll get through this”, and if he could do something other than cry he'd have told her that no, he doesn't think they will.

The Entity had a lot of creative ways to torture them, but none of them had been enough to break him until now.

It was hours or maybe even days before Ace came to and could try to think somewhat clearly. Nancy and Adam were standing in the middle of camp, evenly explaining that they needed to start documenting everything, that the Entity had changed its rules and a death now meant forgetting everything after coming to the realm.

Some of the others were sobbing and the rest looked grimly serious, the usual laughter and outrageous stories around the fire long forgotten. Yui was hugging Kate in a death grip and Nea and Meg held each other and carried a hurried conversation with worried expressions, the couples no doubt terrified of forgetting each other.

He looked over to Dwight, and saw Jake being much more calm and collected than Ace could ever be, patiently explaining everything to his boyfriend and gently holding his hand. Dwight already looked almost as smitten as before he lost his memory, and Ace couldn't help the sharp pang of jealousy at how easy it was for them.

“So you, uh… said you left your family? Can I ask why?” Dwight asked, just as eager as ever to get to know Jake, and blushing when Jake gave a lovestruck smile and shared his life story without complaint.

How Jake wasn't a broken shell of a man like him, he'd never know.

Ace considered telling Felix everything, but what would be the point? Even if he did somehow manage to worm his way into Felix's heart again, the memories were lost forever, not to mention he’d be back to square one after Felix got sacrificed the next time.

There was a map and a piece of charcoal shoved into his hands, and Ace looked up at Zarina's usually carefully schooled features twisted into uncertainty.

“We're writing letters to yourselves,” Zarina explained. “For when—if we die, we have some guidance and know about the important stuff.”

She left him to it and he idly wondered if it would have even made a difference for Felix.

Suddenly, a new determination hit him and he started jotting down what he knew he needed to hear. His codeword for safety, so he’d know it was real. How he got to the realm and how long he'd been there. The names of his friends and the insistence that he trusted them all with his life. The few killers who were somewhat reasonable. The names of the couples and some random gossip he could use to lighten the mood.

‘Felix’ he started a sentence automatically, but then paused. A dark thought was creeping up in the back of his mind, and he knew exactly what needed to happen next. He finished the sentence with ‘has a girlfriend and kid in the real world’, before folding the piece of paper and placing it in his jacket pocket and waiting for a trial to start.

It was two days before Ace got called into a trial, and while the others were panicking and hugging each other and trying not to cry, he felt calmer than he had since this whole thing started.

“Keep an eye on Ace, okay?” he even heard Kate murmur to Bill, and it was almost enough to make him change his mind.

But then the trial started and Ace ran right into the center of the map to get chased first by the Wraith.

He was on his second hook, struggling against the Entity’s claws, with only one generator left and only one other person having been hooked. His chances were looking good, a weak killer on a strong map, his teammates pumping out generator after generator. With a much worse threat than sacrifice and resurrection looming in the distance, their determination had improved tenfold.

The Wraith was nowhere to be seen when Bill made his way over to the hook.

“Hold on, bud,” Bill grunted, slowly vaulting the window in front of him as not to alert the killer of the rescue in advance.

The last generator popped and Ace smiled for the first time in days, a toothy grin that probably came off as maniacal, realizing he could finally fulfill his plan while knowing the others would make it out.

“Ace, what are you—” there was alarm on Bill's features and he picked up his pace to a sprint, but it was too late.

“Sorry, old friend,” Ace offered before he let go.

“ACE!”

Bill's panicked scream was the last thing he heard before the claw pierced straight through his gut, and he had a few seconds of time to feel a bad for putting Bill through that, before his consciousness faded to black.

At least he wouldn’t remember any of it.

[myaekingheart]

Thoughts on Writing Trauma in [Fan]Fiction

For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about the inclusion of trauma in fiction, namely fanfiction. It’s one of those things that so often pops up in fic but just because it’s done often doesn’t necessarily mean it’s done well. I feel like this is especially true for writing original characters.

Precursory trigger warning for speaking about, you know, trauma (suicide, self harm, eating disorders, death, etc.) in depth. As you can probably already predict from the title. Full text under the cut for brevity’s sake. 

Traumatic experiences and backstories are like this rite of passage in fanfiction. Most everyone’s earliest original characters are always given the most heartbreaking, terrible backstories possible because we, as authors, think that that will make our readers more sympathetic to them. I say this as someone who is definitely guilty of this myself. And this is all well and good--some of the most popular mainstream characters come from terrible backstories. It can help explain why characters do what they do and act the way that they act when they are first introduced in a story, and provide space to allow them to grow and evolve throughout the plot (for better or for worse). 

I think the issue in giving a character a traumatic backstory, however, lies in the way that this is presented. So often I feel like tragic backstories are used to try and force readers to empathize with and love a character. It’s the almost overbearing sense of “please love me” that I think can cheapen the effect of this developmental tactic. You can’t force an audience to love a character and laying it on thick with why the audience should love your character often seems to do the exact opposite. Readers don’t like to be told what to do or what to think or who to root for. Your character has to prove that they are worth rooting for, or not, based on the way that their past influences their present and the fate of their future. A character who was neglected by their parents as a child is obviously going to be desperate for affection, but think about how it makes them desperate. Do they find themselves constantly in abusive relationships because they are willing to take whatever they can get from whoever will dish out “love” to them, regardless of whether it’s healthy or not? Or because they find comfort in a sense of abuse based on past experiences? Or in contrast, do they push everyone away because they are terrified of letting themselves be loved and opening themselves up to getting hurt again? I know every writing class ever always harps on the “show, don’t tell” but this is one case where I feel like it’s really important. Readers are not stupid. We don’t need to be told straightforward why a character is doing what they’re doing, and sometimes laying everything about a characters past out from the get-go can even dampen the allure of your character. Let the readers learn about the character at the same pace that they would let someone else learn about them. Human beings don’t give away their entire life story in one sitting, and your character shouldn’t, either. 

Not only are traumatic backstories so common in fiction, but so are traumatic plotlines. It’s fun to put your characters through hell! It’s fun to break them down and see them at their lowest, when they are left with nothing. After all, conflict is the gasoline which fuels the car of your story and sometimes you never really know what a character is capable of until you break them. I feel like the most symbolic and succinct way to describe this is through that quote “Your characters are like geodes. If you want to see what they're really made of, you have to break them.” However, trauma is a tricky subject. There is a fine line between being authentic and meaningful in dissecting traumatic experiences and laying it on too heavy for the sake of being edgy. I feel like that’s another mistake so many early writers make: feeling as if you have to put your character through ten layers of hell in order for the audience to care about them, too. But this is a dangerous game and trauma is a very personal thing. You don’t want to write insensitively about something very significant at the risk of alienating or even maddening the communities that have personal experience with whatever trauma you’re exploring--if you haven’t experienced it yourself, too, that is. I am a huge supporter of using fiction as catharsis for coping with and processing trauma and anything else troubling that you as a writer may be dealing with, and every situation is different so of course your specific experience will not fit everyone’s narrative of how that trauma may transpire. And if you have been through this sort of thing personally, of course you can be trusted with writing candidly and authentically about it because those are your experiences and no one can steal those from you! You deserve to approach the subject in whatever manner you feel is best for both the story and your own mental wellbeing. For those aiming to write about trauma that they don’t have personal experience with, however, it is so important to write these scenarios with respect. Please do your research, read personal accounts and familiarize yourself with all the ins and outs of what you’re aiming to write. Read up on what it’s like to attempt suicide, what happens after a failed suicide attempt or self harm gone wrong, what to do when you suffer a miscarriage, what grief feels like, what a panic attack feels like, the challenges that chronically ill people face every day and the things that can go wrong when we have flare-ups or are not given the accessibility we need. Don’t trigger yourself, of course, but make sure you are well informed so that you can write trauma in a way that is respectful and authentic. 

I am also not going to sit here and tell you not to stack trauma onto a character in a story. I know that life happens and sometimes multiple bad things pile up all at once. Fiction is no different and it’s certainly not uncommon to see a string of bad things befall a character in a story, either. The thing that is important to consider with this, however, is not only respect and authenticity but the way in which these sorts of things would realistically affect someone. The domino effect should feel believable.

For example: character A gets a phone call that character B, their best friend and love of their life, has unexpectedly been killed. This is a traumatic experience enough on it’s own, and the story deserves to explore this character’s consequent grief as they try to navigate their life with this massive hole in their heart now. Perhaps the last thing that character B told character A was something about unwavering support for A in the pursuit of their lifelong dream, something that holds weight and that the grief of losing B can serve as both an obstacle and a motivator for achieving. Familiarize yourself with the after effects and symptoms of mourning in order to write character A’s grief as authentic. Say, for example, they are having trouble sleeping. They are constantly tired but can never fall asleep when they want. They are driving somewhere a few days later and begin dozing off at the wheel. They subsequently get into a nasty car accident. Character A ends up in the hospital with severe but not life-threatening injuries--injuries that completely erase any and all hope of character A ever achieving their dream. What does this loss feel like? How heavy is the betrayal in their chest after having felt so determined to fight against the grief weighing them down in order to accomplish their goals for the sake of character B’s memory? Consider the emotions. Consider the anger and the hopelessness and the depression. Consider what your character decides to do about this. Consider how your character attempts to cope. Perhaps they turn to self harm. Perhaps they feel that the only way that they can manage the pain that they feel is by cutting. Maybe they even think that if they make themselves bleed, it will give an outlet for all of the pain that’s stirred up inside of them. Maybe they even feel as if that pain is deserved, as if everything is their fault (whether it realistically is or not). Maybe they revel in the pain, maybe it becomes the only thing that keeps them sane even if they logically understand that this is unhealthy and dangerous. And maybe their emotions get the better of them and they accidentally take things too far. They accidentally attempt suicide and wake up in the very same hospital they were in when they got into the car accident. The very same hospital where character B was also pronounced dead. Focus on what this means for the character and the story. We as the audience should be able to understand why this character felt like it was necessary to do what they did and what they were feeling in the moment of having made that decision, as well as how having failed will influence and effect them moving forward. That progression should be clear and visible, it should be easy for the audience to track and follow the plot of. 

And while writing trauma can be fun and interesting, on the same note of authenticity it is also important to ensure that we are not glorifying trauma, either. We should not be presenting these situations as fabulous deaths and drama. Trauma is a very real and very heavy thing that should be handled with care for the sake of respecting both the characters and the readers. Readers who have gone through similar trauma should not feel as if their struggles are being written as a joke or not taken seriously. They should be able to empathize with the character even if the struggles presented in the story do not exactly mirror their own. Like I said before, the trauma should be believable. And readers who do not have experience with these subjects should not feel inspired by the trauma itself. It is one thing to present a character who is perseverant despite their setbacks, who pushes forward even when it would be easier to quit, and even when they want to quit, but it is another thing entirely to present a character who glamourizes these struggles. A character with an eating disorder should not be seen as an aspiration for thinness and a character who self harms should not be seen as “edgy” and “cool” for hurting themselves. If we are going to write about trauma, we should accept the responsibility that comes with writing subjects in a way that is respectful and authentic rather than glamourizing trauma.

We as writers, however, should not accept the responsibility of censoring ourselves for the sake of a reader’s preference, by the way. We can include trigger warnings and tags all we want, and I think we ought to for the sake of being responsible and letting our readers know exactly what kind of story they are getting into, but that’s just the thing. The reader should know what kind of story they are getting into, but if they click on something with explicit warnings/tags that they know are going to trigger them and continue reading anyway then that is on them and not us. We should not have to completely omit trauma and other taboo/sensitive subjects from our writing for the sake of purity culture. 

And on one more note in terms of the inclusion of trauma in fiction itself, also consider how a character’s trauma affects the people around them. How does a character’s suicide attempt affect their best friend? Does their mother recognize their disordered eating behavior? Is their mother the reason behind their disordered eating behavior? Does the character’s love interest cock a brow at them wearing a hoodie in summer and grow curious as to what they’re hiding? And even more: how do the people around your character influence or inspire or motivate them to get better? Or not? Are they steadfastly loyal and determined to help your character through their pain? Or do they feel as if it is not their responsibility to shoulder your character’s burdens and they would rather exit from their life completely? Your character does not exist in a vacuum, so it is important to consider not just the way in which they respond to the world around them because of their trauma, but also the way in which the world responds to them because of their trauma. Let your character exist in conversation with their universe and their social circle. Let your character’s trauma barge in and create a big, looming, unwelcome presence. Let your character work through their trauma in a way that feels believable, and let the people in your character’s life respond to that in a way that feels believable, too. 

Overall, just approach trauma with respect and authenticity. Create characters that feel real and believable. Don’t try to force your audience to love your character but rather work to create a character that is dimensional and messy like real people. Let your audience learn your character in the same way that we learn about other people in real life. Let their past trauma influence the way they act in the present and the way they exist within their world and among the people in their life. Do your research, be candid and honest, and above all handle with care. 

*Note that I am of course not the end all be all and I do not consider myself some sort of wealth of writing knowledge. I am only writing based on my own personal experiences and things I’ve gleaned from both college-level creative writing courses as well as both reading and writing fiction, specifically fanfiction, for years. 

[marginalgloss]

A little while ago I wrote about Swimming to Cambodia, a copy of which I discovered in a charity shop. I read it and I liked it a lot. And then for a while I forgot about Spalding Gray until one day my wife pointed him out to me in the film Beaches. I think he played a doctor of some kind — I wasn’t really paying attention — but it was enough to get me thinking about his stuff again.

I started trawling YouTube for what I could find. Most of his stuff is out of print, but there at least you can find a few of the monologues — Terrors of Pleasure, Gray’s Anatomy and It’s a Slippery Slope are all delightful. The most interesting primer is Steven Soderbergh’s documentary And Everything is Going Fine, which is assembled entirely from excerpts from Gray’s monologues and interviews. It’s a deft, skilful, and beautifully elegiac piece of work which feels more like one great final performance than it does a conventional biography. Appropriate, perhaps, given that so much of what Gray did was rendering up his life through storytelling. 

I also bought a couple of books: Impossible Vacation, which is the only novel Gray published, and the posthumous collection of extracts from his journals. Apparently he laboured for years over the text of Impossible Vacation, with the original draft running to over a thousand pages — the monologue Monster in a Box was actually performed with the manuscript sitting in a scruffy cardboard box at his elbow. The final published form of Impossible Vacation is a relatively svelte few hundred pages in paperback, which is enough to make anyone wonder about the scale of the original. 

I was expecting Impossible Vacation to be a bit more novel-like. I was expecting a modern American comic story along the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces, perhaps. But in fact, the novel is a lightly fictionalised version of Gray’s own life. And that’s about as ‘light’ as it gets: it’s funny, but it’s also just as self-involved as any of his monologues. Gray’s protagonist is renamed Brewster North, but not much detective work is required to map North to the author. Much of the novel is mirrored elsewhere in Gray’s stories from the stage: the trip to India, his brief stint as an actor in pornographic movies, the experimental theatre scene in New York; and above all the memory of his mother, and the lasting effects of her suicide. 

If you read (and watch) far enough into Gray’s work it feels a little like wandering into a hall of mirrors: we see the same selves and preoccupations reflected over and over again, sometimes in distorted or disturbing ways. Glimpsed in passing the effect is comic, but after a while the effect becomes haunting. There is a moment in Gray’s Anatomy where he describes watching a student in a storytelling workshop, and staring into her eyes, and watching her face somehow disintegrate until the flesh falls from her skull and her face becomes a sort of ball of white light. Sometimes that’s what reading his stories feels like: the contortions of history and storytelling are subject to a relentless focus that becomes so intense that the reader is lulled into a sort of hypnotic compliance. 

This feeling of falling into a sort of dissociative trance is not uncommon in his work; it seems emblematic of a sort of transcendental feeling that Gray was perpetually striving for. Hence the dream of the ‘perfect moment’ in Swimming to Cambodia, hence escapism via skiing in It’s a Slippery Slope. Set against that dream of escape is everything the real world has to offer: the anguish of the domestic; the problems caused by anxiety, depression, drinking; the sad, strange, tortuous complications of his love life. In these respects, it hasn’t aged well – I can imagine audiences today having a little less patience for Gray’s occasional sways into mysticism. And his attitude towards women might at times be generously described as ‘problematic’. In the 90s perhaps it was easier to dismiss his casual reports of philandering as the trappings of the tortured artist; today it only seems sad, and a little wearying.

So why is it that I find his stuff so appealing? I’m not in the habit of reading biography. I like podcasts, but while Gray seems like a model for all kinds of modern tendencies in vlogging, I’m not aware of anyone who is doing exactly what he did in the same way he did it. Current trends towards the confessional in stand-up comedy don’t quite fit, either. The form of the thing is so important. He was as much a performer as he was a storyteller. The closest equivalent that I know of is David Sedaris, and I find his stuff intolerable. There are a few reasons for this, but to me Sedaris always seems convinced that the problem is with other people. He is stuck in a mode of perpetual disdain. But with Gray, we are never really left in any doubt that this author is in fact the only author of his own troubles. And yet he also knows how to have fun, sometimes; and I find that endearing because it seems to me more honest, and less spiteful.

One point of comparison is Proust. I don’t mean to say Gray’s prose is exactly Proustian, but they have an endearing amount in common. There’s a perpetual anxiety about death and entropy that often manifests itself as hypochondria. There’s the obsession with the mother, the retiring nature, the preoccupation with irony. The pursuit of the perfect moment through which emotion can become recollected in tranquility. And though both took to entirely different forms of media, it seems like both were attempting something a level of formal innovation which, while initially seeming familiar, approached a new way of committing memory and experience into art.   

Impossible Vacation is often intense but it’s not always laugh-out-loud funny. More often it seems possessed by a restless, struggling, enquiring energy. Sometimes the writing is inspired, but it lacks form – the feeling of form that was so dominant in the monologues themselves. As it stands, you wouldn’t consider half of the things that go on in the book as the plot for a novel because (like life) they don’t entirely cohere. And the story ends before it ever really begins, though it does at least contrive a neat circular ending that recalls (lightly) Finnegans Wake. 

Still, it’s a shame that the novel is out of print because, much like his monologues, it’s certainly worthwhile; the published journals of Spalding Gray are an entirely different and more difficult thing. The journals are kind of a mess. An enormous amount of biographical heavy lifting is provided by the notes and annotations by the editor, Nell Casey, and without this context any reader would struggle to discern what was going on. But the notes are pretty comprehensive, and in the end this seems as close to a biography as we are ever likely to get. It does, however, take a long time to get going. The journal entries all through the 70s and early 80s are sketchy, and not especially interesting. A lot of the time they’re purely expressive, and we have to be told what it is exactly that they are referring to. It’s only once the monologues get going that his private style becomes elaborate and involved enough to be worth reading.  

The picture we get of Gray is less of a single-minded auteur and more of a man who sort of wandered-or-fell into fame as a monologuist. After the fame and exposure of Swimming to Cambodia there is a sense of freewheeling — of doing what he’s doing because it’s what he does, and it’s rarely entirely under his own steam. He is perpetually worried, questioning, uncomfortable. Eventually he would become concerned with the idea that he had used himself up, and that he had no private life worth living outside the performances. But some of this was ameliorated by the late in life arrival of children and a more settled family situation. For a while, he thought himself happier than he had ever been.

In 2001, Gray was involved in a terrible car crash while on holiday in Ireland. His injuries included a broken hip and a fractured skull that likely caused brain damage. The accident changed his life, and afterwards he was never the same. The journal entries from after this point are harrowing — there is no other word for it. I knew of his eventual suicide, but I had no idea until of the extent to which depression utterly consumed his life. I didn’t know about the frequent hospitalisations, the shock treatment, and the pain his failed suicide attempts caused on others. There aren’t many extracts from this time shown, but what we are given was enough at times to make me wonder if any of it should have been published at all. But perhaps there is a purpose in trying to give a picture of the anguish he was in. 

All through his life Gray had been preoccupied with the idea of his mother taking her own life. The story he told about this was that this was precipitated by his parents moving house, to a new place away from the ocean, which his mother could never feel at home in. After the accident he and his family also moved house, and he came to regret this decision intensely. The editor Nell Casey calls this ‘his obsession, a mythic rant’. Gray cannot seem to accept the idea that a house might be, as a psychologist puts it, ‘a pile of sticks’. Here is how Gray considers trying to explain it to his sons:

‘…And they said, I’m sure, that, you know, Mrs. Gray—my mom—has other problems about the house, it must be symbolic of something, that same old Freudian rap, you know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a house is just a house. She missed the house. It wasn’t symbolic of something, she really missed walking along the sea. I miss walking in the village, I miss the cemetery, I miss hundreds of things. But boys, listen: when you get to that point, where you have been driven so crazy by something, like for me, when I think about the house, it’s not me thinking about it, it’s thinking me…’

[hugotontheonbiquiffinarians]

Arthur & The Myth of Sisyphus

(Arthur/staircase juxtaposed to Sisyphus/rock)

As disclaimer, this may be a generalised statement/inductive analysis, not unique to his diegesis. Will probably be too verbose for some to read, but writing is organic as breathing for me and if I don’t discuss my beautiful clown husband at length, I might very well be caught with a bruised and desiccated lung lol (as you can probably tell, academia is hæmorrhaging into my casual diction)

I’m typing this, more or less, to illustrate my (possibly exhausted) perspective on how significant the staircase is to Arthur’s narrative. Specifically focusing on how it relates to Sisyphus and his eternal struggle to push a cumbersome stone uphill. (Says this all the while knowing I’ll lose said focus by the end of this, oops) That being said, this also just might be some cathartic release in the form of diluted research.

All things considered, with an economy that appears to teeter just so on the verge of instability, most, if not all, may resonate with the impending sense of futility that accompanies society’s defective concept and subsequent flawed execution of ‘adulthood’, including, but not limited to: excessive demands imposed by draconian academia, 9-5 corporate mandates exercised to excess; in addition to parenthood (if applicable). All for the sake of feeding continued survival in a universe where life is erroneously scrutinised under myopic scope of legality. Summarily, we can all embrace solidarity in our respective sharing of adversity, attended by a seemingly endless, merciless journey towards acceptance.

Arthur is my most current muse within the fictional realm (irreplaceable, to boot) so this character study might be more gratuitous than enlightening, but, in essence, I often like to conceive him as a resounding echo that’s effectively sound in giving voice to the voiceless; whispered and indistinct though it may be. However, it could be said that the power of his presence resides, not in the delicate, understated nuance of his vocal tone, but rather the elegant and passionate language of dance pronounced by his feet. Namely, the Sisyphean task of climbing that emblematic staircase.

Whether suffering a daily, if not arduous, ascent one derelict step at a time, or dancing a rhythmic descent to liberation, Arthur’s soles bespeak of a soul that’s been tormented relentlessly throughout the near 40 year span of his existence. Heels throbbing with Weltschmerz, the resulting ache of his travails would often appear as little more than a numbing nuisance to be rubbed away upon a less whimsical return as the prodigal son. In this way, the audience might compare Penny’s impact in Arthur’s life to that of the onerous stone that plagues Sisyphus. Despite being an absent force to her son’s oppressive intimacy with these formidable steps, there is something to be said for the manner in which concern is essentially a wisp in the void when her child’s health utters a silent plea, a murmured urgency, for attention.

Perhaps, we could all agree that a fraction of Artie’s extroverted anger towards Thomas was only partially misdirected. As a means to demonstrate the implied difficulty Arthur expresses for emotional release, especially so for repressed anger, it would have been interesting to witness a scenario in which he doesn’t heed Penny’s request whilst hiding behind a closed door. Given the egocentric brush that paints a broad stroke to her demeanour, would he be vindicated in raising his voice a few decibels ? If for no other reason than to dispel frustration by virtue of necessity. Of course, this isn’t to undermine the fact that Arthur displays potential signs of regressive behaviour (not exclusive to his circumstance but nevertheless germane). A hapless symptom of afflicted childhood incited by an inflamed basis of Nature v. Nurture.

With nearly all sense of identity drifting aimlessly as unanswered queries, there could be reason yet as to why Arthur adopts his Carnival and Joker personas. Beyond factors of aspiration and affinity alone. As someone (myself) who could be classified with mild alexithymia, all the while being fairly averse to labels, the concept of employing alter egos solely to assist in self-expression may not be uncommon, if not muted in translation. In a way that isn’t explicitly stated, we could infer that Arthur enforcing a purpose to evoke genuine smiles and laughter is a means to compensate for those of which he was deprived during his formative years. Speaking as an armchair psychologist, there could be evidenced an intimation of placebo effect for the presence of Pseudobulbar Affect. While this syndrome affects the nervous system and is hence more physiological than psychological, the nature of its infliction could be considered as a bridge between the two.

Certain conditions, of which remain unknown, from his childhood may have contributed to the development of this condition, emphasising a noted relation to thinking patterns. My theory is that any measure of neurosis is directly proportional to the degree of physical complications that may manifest. Arthur is a fairly sensitive man. A rough sketch of this attribute can be observed even whilst Arthur is gallivanting as Joker. In fact, one could even venture to say that his identity is actualised in this form. Cliché ? Yes. But, no less pertinent. Furthermore, a deduction might be made in which Carnival alludes to being a medium that balances the dichotomy between Arthur/Joker.

Yes, these may be points that have been proposed ad nauseam 😶 You also may be wondering: Exactly what role does Sisyphus play in this ?

Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion (hagiography) that Arthur, while emotionally sensitive, hardly translates that sensitivity to his visceral being. Revisiting the first bathroom scene, maybe one could see the gloomy reflections of Atlas and Sisyphus reflected in one burdened man, lost in soulful dance. Summarily, he could never strike me as one to admit defeat. To succumb to the siren’s lure of quietus. As illustrated by every Joker rendition before him, Arthur Fleck is no different in how his philosophy materialises. Blending the colours of absurdism and nihilism. While the assertion seems contradictory, considering Arthur’s initial intent to commit suicide on live television, I do believe his animus was strictly encouraged by his comedic inspiration, opposed to an active desire.

Fundamentally, this leads me to my final point (although, admittedly, this isn’t the end, I could literally talk to death about this man, and I will). The contrast of comic styles between Arthur and Murray. This might be the understated controversy of discourse, and my perspective on the matter may be unpopular, if even acknowledged, but just to clear the air, the following assumption isn’t meant to excuse him or his actions. Rather, to offer perspective. If you observe carefully, you might notice that there’s no distinct disparity between Murray and Arthur’s sense of humour. Given the era and its dogged appeals to censorship, Murray’s delivery could be regarded as nothing short of condensed and disguised. As our dear Artie reiterates, comedy is indeed subjective, but, as a matter of course, the brand that either presents isn’t particularly risible given context.

As an audience, we only know Murray on a superficial level. We know he’s a comedian. By the end of the film’s duration, we might have dismissed him as the stock bully. His humour was cruel, callow and sadistic when dispensed towards a man who deemed him a pillar of admiration. However, similar could be said for Arthur’s execution. Consistently morbid and sardonic, these elements of comedy that provoke laughter for Arthur comprise a vague semblance to Murray’s comedic anatomy, despite how patently trite and puerile the latter’s jesting was, when delivered to our undeserving victim.

Arthur was thoroughly justified in his feelings of despondency and disenchantment. Yet, objectively speaking, depending on either side of contention, one’s perception may be determined by whether or not his sensitivity was merely exaggerated when juxtaposed to a comedian who was, more or less, just doing his job; albeit questionably. Unprofessionally. We couldn’t know exactly what Murray was thinking or precisely why he invited Arthur on his show. Surely, public humiliation wasn’t his prime agenda. Curiously enough, I seemed to detect an air of indifference expressed by him when Arthur confessed (*insert delusional gif*). As if it was to be expected.

Ipso facto, with how the sequence pans out, there may have been the possibility of Murray personally investigating the subway murders and considering Arthur a suspect, consequently aiming to extract his confession (a reach, I know ! ) but, maybe not...

Not when the theory of Arthur contriving delusions, having been situated in Arkham the entire time, chimes as possible reasoning.

That, in itself, is a paradox...

...Will we ever ?