#im not altogether certain i would were i presented the opportunity

[deeisace]

.

[rokutouxei]

speaking your language

part 5 of atelier heart

ikemen vampire: temptation in the dark theo van gogh/mc, vincent | T |  2506 | [ao3 in bio]

spoiler warning: key plot points mentioned in chapter 10 and 15 are used in this fic, with the vaguest hint of chapter 24 at the tail end.

also: my deepest apologies to people who actually speak dutch, i’m taking all of your con/crit with an open heart.

The first Dutch word you’d ever learned was hondje.

Dog, you’d learned. Or puppy. Not the worst first word to learn in a new language, but definitely up there if one considers the fact that it was meant to refer to you. It’s not that bad, though, and puppies are pretty cute, so it was easy to let it slide.

Then, knabbeltje. A snack, a little nibble. Not that Theo has any interest in taking any bite at you. He’s made that clear from the first night. For someone who’s so good at smooth talking his clients, that was a weird word to use for you, you’d thought. But, Theo has his reasons, you supposed.

Which is exactly what makes you so keen into learning the language.

You’ve learned that a little bribery can get you a long way when it comes to Theo—as in, get him invested and you’re good to go—so that morning, you take the extra effort. You rise earlier than you’ve ever done to prepare pancakes for him, whipping the egg whites with as much vigor as you can muster to ensure that the pancakes are as fluffy as humanly possible. You make sure every portion is peak jiggly, and they are, because you can’t help but tap them contentedly on the plate as they cooled, watching them wobble. Then, like a cherry on top, you take out the special pancake syrup you’d bought the day before, having come with Sebastian to buy groceries, the one you’d chosen specifically for Theo. (And oh, only for Theo, because no other mansion resident with the right mind about sugar would dare try it.)

You try to keep it a secret as long as you can, presenting the plate of sweet goodness to Theo once he’s come down from his room. The both of you are alone at the dining table, because it’s still way too early. He’s already dressed and ready to go, even if it’s just six-thirty a.m., and if he has a comment about you being already up when you usually aren’t, he holds it back.

Good choice—you want him to focus on the pancakes, and a smile erupts on both of your faces when he begins to munch happily away on the syrup-drenched disaster of a plate. The sigh he makes goes straight under your skin.

But you can’t let your guard down, because you still have a mission, and that is: to convince him.

When his shoulders relax, you finally pop the question.

“Won’t you please teach me some Dutch?”

Theo’s fork hovers in front of his mouth. “What?”

Over the past week, you’d learned two basic Dutch phrases from Theo, in the notes he’d written for you. Tot ziens, which he said meant goodbye for now, and Dank je, thank you. That makes four total things you can now say in Dutch. Not much, but clearly already much more than what you started with. You belatedly realize you don’t actually have a reason you can dare tell him as to why you want to learn Dutch, but never mind that.

“I said, won’t you teach me some Dutch, sometime?” you repeat. “I still have three weeks to spend out here, and while my French and English are pretty fine, I can’t really keep up with your Dutch. I thought it wouldn’t be so bad to learn, especially since you’re bringing me along to work anyway.”

Cringe. That wasn’t a good reason, you were sure. But maybe the pancakes will make Theo’s steel heart a little more malleable for your favor.

What other reasons do you have? Well, maybe he’ll be able to better explain to you certain things about art and their work if he reverts to his mother tongue, right? There are certain things translations miss, after all, and maybe if you learned the language, it’ll be much easier on the both of you? Oh, wait, but does that mean you’ll be intruding on the shared, perhaps too-personal language he shares with his brother? Oh, no, that wasn’t what you meant. Maybe—

“Dutch syllables are very different from English and French,” Theo says, instead, after a long moment, a not-really yes or no.

You narrow your eyes with his response, but quickly realize maybe he’s just testing your will to do it. You are motivated. Learning languages are fun. “That’s fine, nothing practice won’t conquer. It’s really not cute that all I know how to say is stuff like dog and snack.” He snorts. “I mean, if you’re not up to it…”

Theo sighs. A sigh of defeat. “Okay, but you’ll have to work hard for it.”

You grin. That morning, you learn pannenkoek and siroop.

-

The learning curve for languages always differ according to the person, their own mother tongue, the language itself, and of course the work one puts into studying it, but one factor that really ups the vocabulary and grammar retention is being able to hear the language being spoken, rather regularly. This is how you end up having Vincent help you out with your little adventure in learning Dutch.

Having gotten used to conversing in French to each other, the brothers take time to adjust switching to their mother tongue for you. But when you’re looking at them with amazement exchanging words you can barely say, much less understand, there’s little they can’t do.

(Theo is mortified to have to surrender to it, but when he’s transparent to his brother, does he have any other choice?)

All of this happens just in time for the preparation for the exhibit to begin. The three of you spend much time together, selecting paintings, planning the exhibit orders, looking for themes. The two decide that this isn’t just a good opportunity to learn, it might also be in your best interests if they team-teach you the language.

Counting the paintings, Vincent teaches you the basics, hauling canvas after canvas going—een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, tien. With the chosen paintings laid out on the floor, you point out colors and he teaches you their names—rood, oranje, geel, groen, blauw, paars, roze. He teaches you how to introduce yourself, say your name, teaches you greetings, basic nouns, the kind you will learn in introductory Dutch classes in universities if you were back in the 21st century. Vincent is gentle and kind and claps when you get the words right. (It makes you feel like a child. The word is kind.)

Theo, on the other hand, focuses on teaching you things related to the work at hand: een gallerij, een tentoonstelling, een schilderij—of course, a gallery, an exhibit, a painting. Teaches you words to describe the things you see, like mooi, for beautiful, and interessant, for interesting. He corrects your grammar, teaches you how to say, “let’s go home” or “I’m hungry, let’s eat”. When you don’t get the phrase right, he gives you a look, completely ignoring what you’d just said until you finally say it right. He corrects your pronunciation to the best of both your abilities.

He’s also found great joy in teaching you phrases before telling you what it means, and that’s how you’ve practiced saying misschien ben ik een hond die een jurk draagt as if you were a dog wearing a dress.

But you hear his laughter and it doesn’t matter as much.

-

Theo buys you a notebook to compile the words you’ve learned. In only a few days, you’ve amassed a wide range of words you now sprinkle throughout your sentences like a playful multilingual. You’ve gotten odd stares, sure, but it’s always better to keep using the words you’ve learned, because that’s how you make it seem natural.

So far, though, for the ones you’ve learned, it’s the Dutch verbs that are trickier than you expected. The conjugations keep tripping you up. They seem simple, and in fact a lot of them sound pretty close to their English counterparts, but Theo’s stares and (im)patient waiting for you to correct what you’ve said betray your misuse of them over and over again.

So at night, you practice. Staan for stand. Zeggen for say. Helpen for help. Leren, for learn.

Blijven, for stay.

Sorting Vincent’s paintings at the gallery Marquis Vollard had lent you, you bump shoulders with Theo and ask, “How do I say, ‘I love this’, in Dutch?” as you pull out a canvas from the stack.

“Ik hou hiervan.”

“Hmm.” You put aside the painting and pull out your notebook and pen. “So hou means love?”

“Houden, means to hold,” Theo says. “Like a hand, or a book. Hou van is what’s used for love.”

“So it’s ik hou van…?”

“Ik hou van jou,” he answers, without a thought.

A long moment, before the realization hits.

He turns away from you, and you’re thankful because of how hot your face feels.

“You use the same for other things,” Theo says. His voice is as even as always, and it makes your heart fall a little. “Like paintings, and art.”

“I see,” you say, before dropping the topic altogether.

You’re getting good at this keeping your heart tucked away thing, so you write ik hou van jou in looping letters on your notebook before returning to work.

All the while thinking: to love means to hold.

-

So you hold him.

After the fire.

After wheatfields.

After Gauguin.

Even when it hurts to hold.

Even when it’s him that’s let you go.

Even after you’ve heard the gunshot.

You hold on to him, even if you’re not sure if the both of you are speaking the same language anymore, if you’ll still ever be able to understand the other.

You hold on even if there’s blood everywhere.

Blijven means to stay.

And herstellen… means to recover.

The hospital is rather cozy. Quite similar to the ones in the 21st century, but still different from the sterile whiteness of it. You sit next to Theo on the bed, waiting for him to speak. You are alone for the first time since he’d said goodbye.

You hadn’t left him yet.

That night, he presses the words please forgive me into your lips, praying it’s the last time he’ll ever have to hurt you that way. You cradle his face in your palms and hold his love in your hands gently, as you exchange promises that it will no longer break.

-

You learn a lot of words after that, too.

Like wheatfields, tarwevelden. And forever, voor altijd. Each word learned is linked to a memory, making them hard to forget. Like katje, the day a kitten spooks Theo in the garden. Lekker, once you’ve made him a delicious batch of syrupy pancakes once again. Schat, treasure, and schatje—that is, you.

You’re still years of practice away from being fluent in Dutch, but at this point you’re fluent in Theo, and that’s really what matters.

And one night, Theo’s got you in a kiss when the both of you enter the room. You push at him just enough so that he sees the look on your face. “Teach me Dutch,” you say, half-teasing, and he laughs as he joins you in stripping off your clothes.

There’s no easier way to remember vocabulary than to learn it viscerally, carve it against your skin into a memory, and Dutch is no exception. You both fall into the bed in an entanglement of limbs, righting yourselves up just to catch each other in another kiss.

You cup both his cheeks, and he teaches you, “gezicht.” Face.

You kiss his forehead, and he says, “voorhoofd.”

You gently run your thumbs under his eyes, and he says, “ogen.”

“Kus,” he says, “is like this,” pulling you toward him in a kiss. You sigh into the word without much grace.

Pressing his lips against your throat, he teaches you, “hals.”

Grazing a fang onto your shoulder, “schouder.”

He sucks a bruise onto your collarbone and says, “sleutelbeen.”

The sensation makes your hand fly onto his hair, and with a chuckle he teaches, “haar.”

He takes your hand in his, presses a kiss onto your wrist. “pols.”

You cup Theo’s face in your hand and scour his body for more words, like a dictionary made of flesh. Your free hand grazes the scar on his back and with a sigh he teaches you “litteken.” You wonder if the same word applies to those found in his heart.

“Rug,” he teaches you, the vast expanse of his back.

Your hand goes down to his waist and he says, “taille.” You touch his hip and he says “heup.”

He gives you a mischievous look, one that suited his boyish features so much, your heart nearly stops. “Where is je favoriet?” he asks you, teasing. A phrase you’d learnt earlier. Your face flushes at the connotation but you refuse to give him the answer he wants, tapping his nose (“neus”) with a finger.

“You are mijn favoriet,” you respond, and you know when he steals your lips even more deeply than earlier is only because you’ve made him flustered. You laugh into the kiss and he growls.

Never one to be outdone, Theo pushes you backward onto the bed. The two of you share a short moment of intimacy, staring at each other’s eyes with the kind of searing fondness that always leaves you breathless, before he’s on his way down again to teach you.

“Dij,” he mouths against your thigh; lifts your leg up toward him, pressing kisses all the way down. “Knie. Kalf. Voet.” You nearly kick him when he kisses your foot but he holds you still. “Enkel.”

“But I haven’t taught you the most important one,” he says. Crawling back upward, he cups the apex of your thighs and grins. “Paradijs,” he says, and you hit him on the shoulder, covering your mouth with one hand. The laugh that rolls out of him makes your embarrassment worth it.

You pull him upward to take another kiss from him, and while you could have at it tonight, you just want to bask in his presence. You whisper “omhelzing?” hoping to get the pronunciation right or else he’ll ignore your plea to cuddle, thankful that he pulls you up to switch position.

He rests his head on your chest and says, “hoofdkussen,” with a sigh, and you’re not an expert yet, but you’re pretty sure that’s not what it should be.

You push him off with a groan (“you’re heavy!”) and the two of you switch to your usual cuddling position, Theo holding you in his arms and your head on his chest.

You don’t realize your hand has hovered over the spot on his chest right over his heart until he places his hand on yours.

Whispers into the listening night air:

“Voor altijd van jou.”

---

in the atelier: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt 

also in the atelier, hidden somewhere hard to find, is Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du monde. (and because it is hidden, you’ll have to find it on your own. do be careful when you look it up though.) that painting singlehandedly inspired the paradijs bit, so it has to be mentioned.

[artificialqueens]

Everything And More, 1/3 (Blu/Cheryl) - Juno

Summary: Blu and Cheryl discover they are soulmates … at the worst time possible. Does distance really make the heart grow fonder?

(A/N: This is a prequel to another fic I wrote which is on AO3, but can be read on its own too. Just wanted to do something with some DRUK girls, and there will be more to come! No CWs for this chapter. Hope you enjoy this so far.)

“Surprise, surprise!”

Cheryl had only had to open the door to the oddly quiet living room to instantly jump out of her skin the sight and sound of all her friends, the synchronised bangs of party poppers, streams of colours through the air. Something shattered in the kitchen through the open door at the back of the living room (most likely the walking hazard that was Kendall knocking a mug over), but shrieks and cheers covered up most of the noise.

She instantly turned backwards to meet Vivienne’s smug smile, as she stood behind her, and hit her with the paper KFC bag that was in her left hand.

“I knew you were doing this!” Cheryl cried, although really she would never have guessed.

“Give over, Chez, you had no idea. You thought we were just going for nuggets. Anyway, d’you like it?” Viv’s grin was a little forced.

“I love it! Babe, thank you so much!” Cheryl tugged Vivienne down the six inch difference in height to hug her round the neck.

A gentle ahem from inside the front room interrupted them, and Cheryl turned to Divina, standing waiting her turn.

“Divina did the decorations,” Viv muttered, but she needn’t have said; it was obvious by their precise locations and mix of pastels (but no other bright colours) that it was Divina’s hand leading all of this set up. Cheryl just dragged Divina towards them both, happy they’d put their mutual dislike aside even if it just for this.

“You didn’t think we’d let you go off to America without one last party, did you?” Divina exclaimed.

“Guys! You really shouldn’t have! Oh, I’m gonna cry!” Cheryl finally put down the KFC bag, nuggets spilling on the floor, to wipe her eyes.

Divina seized her by the cheeks. “Less of that, Cheryl, no tears today, okay? Come in and we’ll get the party going.” Divina steered Cheryl into the living room out of Vivienne’s arms, and Baga grinned as she handed her a mug.

But Cheryl knew better than to drink it right off the bat.

“What’s this, Bags?”

“Just coke,” Baga shrugged.

“Coke and what?”

“Coke and a mug.”

“Coke and what, Baga?”

But Baga just grinned. “Drink it and find out!”

Cheryl put the mug to her lips and … Oh, yes, coke and some fucking paint thinner, she realised. This was going to be an interesting afternoon. Just Baga feeding them all more and more alcohol from her mum’s special cupboard and topping it all up with water or apple juice or whatever hair-brained scheme Baga seemed to have thought up next.

Speaking of her mum …

“Viv,” Cheryl realised, turning to her, “does my mum know you’re all here?”

Vivienne blinked and looked at the painting on the wall.

“Viv! Tell me!”

“What are we playing first, girls?” Baga ignored Cheryl, steering her to the dining table which was large enough for six, and littered with bottles and cans. “Make space! Cards? Anyone brought cards?”

“Baga, no way, I told you I’m not playing Ring Of Fire again.” Kat folded her arms, glaring at her.

“Shut up, Kat. Who wants Ring Of Fire?”

“I’ve got a deck of cards!” Vivienne declared, producing one from her bra.

“No way am I playing with those.” This time it was Divina’s turn to put her foot down. “Not when they’ve spent all morning in Vivienne’s tits. I might catch something.”

“Only thing you’ll catch is some class, girl.” Vivienne replied smoothly.

“Class? From you? I don’t think.”

“Okay, okay!” Baga huffed. “Jesus Christ, you lot. Someone else suggest something then. Chez, get that down your neck.”

Cheryl focused on drinking while the others argued about the game. Viv and Divina kept shooting barbs at each other, with Vinegar egging them on and Sum waving her hands in the air trying to calm both of them down. Baga’s face grew redder and redder as she fought not to shout at them, while Crystal, Kat and Kendall went to the back door to vape.

Wait.

“Is Blu not coming?” Cheryl asked in the kitchen, but the argument was reaching a crescendo. She drained the mug and went outside to the back garden. Crystal was blowing smoke rings, while Kat and Kendall sat in the grass, legs intertwined, passing Kendall’s vape pen between them and picking at the daisies.  

“Where’s Blu?” Cheryl asked Crystal, thinking Kat and Kendall were too preoccupied for company.

“She’s still got flu,” Crystal replied, blowing a cloud of smoke through the centre of her newest smoke ring. “She couldn’t come.”

——

Fuck this. Fuck the flu.

Blu felt like shit, and not just because of the flu. She was missing Cheryl’s surprise party. God, what irony. She hadn’t missed a day of term over the whole of sixth form, and now she had the worst flu of her life at the end of the summer holidays, right before everyone was going to uni and right before Cheryl was flying to America.

She looked down at her phone from earlier when she’d messaged Viv.

Blu: sorry im still sick

Blu: mam wont let me out the house

Blu: best i can hope for is to be better for monday to come to the airport

Viv: Can’t be helped girl xx

Viv: Hope your feelin better soon xx

She’d wanted to see Cheryl’s face when Viv brought her in for the surprise, because Cheryl would never guess in a million years and her face would be a picture.

She’d wanted to savour every minute she was still with her best friend before he had to get on the plane and go on that scholarship.

She’d wanted to give Cheryl her present at the party. Nothing worth a lot of money, or big, but something that meant a lot to Blu and she hoped to Cheryl too.

Sighing, she looked over at the corner where it was wrapped, ready to go. Where she’d almost fallen on it this morning, getting up and out of bed. Telling her ma she felt fine, before her unsteady legs gave out under her and she crashed into the wall.

It sucks being in bed all day.

She looked down at her watch - one of those new ones with the soulmate-finder on it, to see that the day was moving frustratingly slowly. There was nothing onTV, she’d watched what felt like the whole of Netflix, and she still didn’t really want to eat.

With a growl of frustration, she tugged the duvet over her head and snuggled down, hoping that being good and staying in bed would help her fever hurry the fuck up and leave her in time for Monday.

Then I can say bye.

She couldn’t let Cheryl go without saying goodbye. Cheryl was far more than her best friend.

Coming over from Belfast after her parents’ divorce two years ago felt like wrenching a tree from its roots and trying to plant it in rocks. London was too big, and even now Blu still wasn’t altogether used to central London, but here on the outskirts wasn’t as bad.

In addition to a different country, she’d had to shift her studies here too, and her first day at her new school had felt like all the wires in her brain had been rearranged. Besides, having the badge of honour of being the New Girl among these sixth formers who had already known each other for five years was never going to be straightforward.

But her first lesson, on her first day, Business Studies, had seen the prefect Cheryl toss her hair back from her shoulders and pat the empty space at the desk next to her, her smile charming and so fucking genuine.

It had been all Blu had needed for something hot to blossom in her chest.

She’d been so confused. Back at school in Belfast, she’d convinced herself having crushes on her girl friends was just a phase, as her ma had said, and she would grow out of it. But meeting Cheryl had made her sure that it definitely wasn’t just a phase. The crushes she’d had in Belfast came and went, like clouds on a windy day; like the boys who had entered her life but who had never felt real, and had let her go like the wisp of smoke she turned into. But Blu had never once moved on from Cheryl. Cheryl was the sky beyond the clouds. In her mind now, that was all there was.

Blu had shook when she’d told her ma she was certain now, over Christmas holidays in Year 12 - certain that she didlike girls, this wasn’t going away, and there was This Girl in her life now, and This Girl was incredible, kind, talented, gorgeous … and probably as straight as a poker. And her ma had nodded along with her confession, reassured her, let her cry at the relief.

Cheryl remained This Girl.

Incredible, kind, talented, gorgeous, and Blu was convinced poker-straight.

Blu opened her eyes, stunned to see the clock had moved on to seven pm in what felt like no time at all. She’d slept, by some miracle.

Her throat felt much better, too.

——

Three rounds of Ring Of Fire and countless attempts at Among Us later, and Cheryl was warm and drunk and swaying happily to the music from Divina’s Spotify playlist. Among Us had gone to pieces after everyone had collectively decided that Crystal was just always going to be the imposter and Crystal made no attempt to dissuade them; simply flipping her hair back and winking at them.

Cheryl felt the familiar sensation of Vivienne’s fingers at the back of her neck, tugging her hair back to braid. It transported Cheryl to being in Year 7 again, when Cheryl had had her super-long hair, and Viv had been obsessed with braiding it at every opportunity. Now, with long gentle fingers at the base of her scalp, Cheryl let herself ascend to cloud nine of relaxation.

“You having a good time?” Viv asked softly.

It was a tone she didn’t really use with the rest of the group; her own quiet way of caring. Cheryl tried to nod.

“Stop it, girl, your braid is coming out!”

“Sorry. Viv? Mum did know about this party, didn’t she, babe?”

Vivienne cackled in response to Cheryl’s tentative question. “Of course she did, like Divina would have decorated your house like that if your mum hadn’t known about us giving you a party.”

Divina spun round at her name, her red hair seeming to flare up. “Vivienne, if you don’t stop -“

But Divina was interrupted by a sharp nudge in the ribs from Crystal, and a pointed glance to Sum, who Cheryl only just noticed was lying on the ground, her hands in her rucksack. She sat back up with an impish grin.

“Do you want to play some pass the parcel?” Sum asked, her eyelids drooping as she handed a parcel wrapped in brown paper to Cheryl. Her words were slurred; Sum was the lightweight of the group, for sure. Still, Cheryl was drunk enough not to think that pass the parcel was a stupid idea.

“Let’s do it then!” Cheryl shouted above the music. “Everyone get on the floor!”

“Some of us don’t need to go far, do we?”

“Shut up, Kendall, I’m not that short!”

“Just shut up and sit down, Baga,” Cheryl pulled her down to sit with them all. “Right - who’s got the music on?”

“Me,” Divina said, holding her phone up. “I’ll do the stops.”

The parcel took forever to go round everyone, with them all having a turn to unwrap a layer. After the seventh layer was unwrapped, Vivienne realised that Divina was not stopping the music when she had the parcel, resulting in yet another argument. But once everyone had had a turn, as expected, the parcel landed on Cheryl as the music stopped.

It was a small box, big enough to fit in her hands as she cupped it. It had to be the last layer before the gift was revealed. Obviously, Cheryl thought to herself, they’ve planned all of this.

She tore the paper off, and was stunned.

“This is - guys -“

Cheryl had seen the adverts for the soulmate-finding smart watches, but holding it in her hands … it felt surreal.

“We wanted to get you something meaningful,” Sum was smiling warmly as she spoke, “and so we all got together and bought you this watch.”

Sure, Cheryl would have loved to have owned one of these watches before, but they were so expensive and so new, that she thought it would probably be years before she’d own one at least. And now, here was the small box that held one, of her very own.

“God - you must have spent a fucking fortune on me, you didn’t have to do that …”

Cheryl found tears come readily to her eyes as Baga gave her a hug.

“Chez, it’s fine. Maybe now you’ll find an American soulmate!”

“Maybe.”

“And then you can stay in America and not come back!”

Cheryl forced a smile as she patted Baga on the back, letting the tears fall now.

“We’ll need to set you up before you go so when you get there you can meet some American as soon as you land. There’s some, like, personality quiz or something they make you take so they can set you up with a soulmate. Give me your phone and I’ll set you up.” Divina reached for Cheryl’s phone.

“Hey, hey, what makes you think you’re going to be setting her up, Divina?” Viv protested. “We all bought it, so we allget to do it.”

“Why can’t you fucking -“

“Shut the fuck up! Both of you!” Crystal shouted above them both; the only one still seemingly sober. “God, you’re both being fucking childish.”

“We’re all doing it,” Vinegar announced, and her authoritative tone as always caused the rest of the group to go quiet; Divina as docile as a lamb as she handed over Cheryl’s phone and the watch.

The nine of them poured the rest of the spirits and the mixers into each other’s mugs and glasses, and gathered round Vinegar as she downloaded the app onto Cheryl’s phone and started filling in the questions on the personality test.

They’d been a group for seven years, and although they didn’t always all get along now, it was the closest Cheryl felt to anyone. Cheryl glanced round at her friends, close as sisters but loyal as family, feeling tears hot in her eyes once again. The slight unnerving feeling in her gut that she had every now and then threatened to throw her off course again, intrusive thoughts creeping back in.

Is this the right thing?

Divina and Viv weren’t staring daggers at each other for the first time in the last month; instead working in tandem and chuckling softly at each other. Vinegar, her tongue worrying her lip in concentration, tapped answers to the questions as the girls called them. Kendall motioned to Kat with her vape, and the two backed away to the door of the kitchen, Sum following them.

A Levels had been and gone, and school was officially done. Cheryl’s scholarship to the prestigious Iman Performing Arts college in New York City was secured, plus the resettlement grant which would pay for moving costs.

She was the only one leaving England behind.

Blu would get it. Blu knows what it’s like to move countries. But Blu has the flu.

She giggled to herself at the rhyming thought, the only thing she could do to keep from crying again. Baga was already eyeing her to make sure she didn’t. The last thing she wanted was for her makeup to smear any more than it already was.

But it felt so much like her bubble of school, of normal life, was ending; ready for this new world of academia and New York to begin. It was a dream come true and a nightmare rolled into one. But Blu would understand, because she’d already moved to another country.

She wished for Blu more than ever at that moment.

Before she could think about it too much, her phone was thrust back into her hand by Vinegar, the questions all completed.

“There you are, babes.” Vinegar pointed to the bottom of the page. “If you like what we’ve done, just hit go.”

Cheryl didn’t feel as if all the words were going in, as she looked down the page, reading descriptions of herself, answers to family questions, life, hobbies, hopes and dreams. She could see the words, but they didn’t register; and as she read them, they felt as if they were describing someone else, someone who maybe existed in a mirror rather than a physical form.

When she got all to way to the top, she blinked at the ‘looking for’ box. Vinegar had entered Men, but Cheryl hesitated. That wasn’t … quite right.

This is it, Chez. Now or never.

Vodka was great for a confidence boost. She tapped the button where Vinegar had added that she was looking for Men, and changed it to Any gender instead.

A detail that wasn’t missed by Vinegar’s inquisitive gaze.

“Wait, hold on, hold on. Chez? Chez!”

Vivienne turned to look, and so did Divina and Baga.

“Oh, finally!” Baga exclaimed, dragging Cheryl back into a hug. “We wondered if you’d admit it before you left.”

“What? How did you know?” Cheryl cried.

But none of them would tell her; just smirking at one another and alternating her with hugs.

——

Cheryl’s flight wasn’t set to leave until five, but she had to be there three hours early to get through customs - how did that make sense, Blu thought, when she could arrive forty minutes before and still get back to Belfast - and so Blu had wanted to be there early, but there were so many people on the Tube, plus a breakdown at St Pancras, meaning she had barely any time to sprint across the glistening tiles at Heathrow airport.

Where is she?

The departures board said her flight was already going through baggage check in and security. There wasn’t much time. She followed the signs to the bag drop …

“Blu!”

Crystal was coming towards her, and Blu saw behind her Divina, Viv and Baga; all presumably having come down in Divina’s cramped little third-hand Ford KA. Viv was rubbing her eyes, and the telltale mascara lines on her cheeks told no lies.

“That’s it, then,” Crystal nodded, looking gravely at Blu. “She’s putting her bags through and then - well, she’s gone until Christmas.”

“You can still catch her after she comes out of baggage check in, Blu,” Divina said gently.

Blu didn’t pause to second guess; she sprinted past them, towards the baggage drop, watching people queue with their cases, looking at the queues for any sign of her.

And there she was.

Cheryl in the flesh, coming out of the baggage drop and about to ship herself almost halfway around the world; her normally perfect blonde hair tied off her face; her normally flawless makeup not even slightly present. Just Chez in a baggy shirt, denim jacket, and a pair of leggings, ready to fly. Ready to leave this bubble behind.

Blu had never loved her more.

Before she had the chance to call her, their eyes met. Blu watched them expand, the elated grin flood her face, and her arms open as Blu ran into them. Cheryl caught her, squeezed tightly …

Time stopped.

How was she meant to let Cheryl go? They’d only known each other these last two years …

They hadn’t had the time as besties the rest of them had had, but Blu knew that Cheryl just felt like a part of her now; as if each of them were a jigsaw with one piece of each other that fit perfectly.

It’s not the end. It’s not the end.

But as much as Blu repeated that to herself, something churned in her stomach at the thought of Cheryl leaving.

When time finally flooded back into their day, as Cheryl pulled away; Blu watched her green eyes fill with tears and Cheryl hurriedly wipe them away.

“Sorry,” Cheryl muttered, “I knew I was gonna cry at some point.”

“It’s alright,” Blu whispered, her own voice breaking too much to speak louder.

Cheryl nodded, taking Blu’s hand and squeezing, gazing at the ground, giving Blu as reassuring a smile as she could muster when she was evidently breaking in two.

“I’ll be back at Christmas,” Cheryl was murmuring, meeting Blu’s eyes again, “and in summer. That’s not long. Christmas is only, what, four months away. And we’ve got Skype. Facetime. Whatever. We’ve got - we’ve got everything. We’ll stay in touch. We will. We all will. We …”

“I know.” Blu nodded back at her. “We’ll talk - every day if you want, Cheryl.”

Cheryl nodded again, hitching her rucksack higher on her back.

“I have to go through security.”

“Before you go -“ Blu had almost forgotten. Her own present. She tugged it from her bag, small as it was, wrapped in brightly-coloured paper. Cheryl would probably guess at what it was from the size and shape, but she still rattled it next to her ear for good measure, before laughing and taking off her rucksack to put it in.

“I’ll open it on the plane.”

“Alright,” Blu replied, but Cheryl was frozen, her eyes wide, pleading. Asking something that Blu couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand.

“You don’t want to miss your plane, do you?” Blu whispered.

“No.” Cheryl took a deep breath. “Thank you, Blu.” And with a shy smile, she leaned in and ever so gently gave Blu a kiss on the cheek.

It was the last thing Blu expected. She held her breath, wishing time would stop again, wishing she could hold on to this moment, or drag Cheryl back off the plane. But they’d had so much time. Over school, over summer, and nowwasn’t the right moment.

“Bye, Blu. Thanks for the present. See you at Christmas.”

Blu feigned nonchalance. “If we let you back in the country.”

Finally, Cheryl managed a laugh. Squeezing Blu’s hand for the last time, Cheryl pulled away, finally letting her go.

Blu let her, and watched her walk away to the escalator up to Security, the first steps to her new life in America.

It was only when Blu reached up to wipe the tears from her eyes that she saw the blue notification light on her new watch. She hadn’t figured out what all the notification lights meant yet, so frowning, she tapped the button on the screen.

‘A soulmate is within a 10m radius. Please press the blue button to start your timer. You have one day for your soulmate to respond. You then have 100 hours to connect. Alternatively, please press the red button to decline this opportunity.’

Blu felt her legs tremble.

No fucking way.

She was frozen to the spot, reading the message over and over.

Turning her head back up, she watched Cheryl reach the top of the escalator. About to head to Departures.

Now was the only chance she would have before she lost her.

But Blu couldn’t move.

Finally, her legs seemed to obey her as she tore to the escalator, taking the steps three at a time, and at the top - sighing with relief - Cheryl was still there, putting her liquid items into the tiny plastic bags, draining her bottle of water to the last drop.

“Cheryl!”

Cheryl spun at the shrill sound of her name, a split second before Blu launched herself at her. She opened her arms and caught her a second time that day.

“Blu? What’s wrong? What -“

“We got you a soulmate watch, didn’t we?” Blu could barely catch her breath, her heart hammering. “Are you wearing it right now?”

“Yeah, it��s here,” Cheryl nodded, and held up her wrist. Something caught her eye, and frowning, she looked at it. “Why is there a light on it?”

Blu didn’t reply; she simply held up her own watch, with the same notification light.

“You’ve got a soulmate watch too? Wait, why is yours like that as well?” Cheryl said, but Blu didn’t need to respond. Cheryl’s mouth fell open, and she turned her eyes from the watch to Blu; who watched her realisation and her every thought as it crossed her face.

Cheryl - isn’t straight either?

“You -“ Cheryl’s eyes filled with the same easy tears that she always seemed to produce; always the easiest cryer of the group of them, always the most emotional. “I can’t believe it. You did, too?”

Blu nodded, weak with relief. “Since the start of sixth form.”

Cheryl gasped. “Since we got paired up for business studies! God, two years! Two years we’ve wasted, not doing this!”

Before she could ask what she meant, Cheryl tugged Blu towards her, closing the distance, kissing her lips; and it was everything and more that Blu had dreamed it would be. Cheryl might not have been wearing makeup, but she still smelled divine, her warmth a solace, a right place to be. Blu wrapped her arms around Cheryl’s waist, hoping to go deeper, but Cheryl let her go suddenly.

Blu saw her eyes cloud over once again.

“How am I meant to get on the plane if we’re -“

But she couldn’t finish the sentence, words failing Cheryl for probably the first time in her life. Blu looked at the Departures gates, ignoring everyone else around them, and took a deep breath, swallowing hard.

“For your dream, Cheryl,” Blu whispered. “This is what you’ve wanted forever. You’ve always said that. Remember - remember that day you got the scholarship through? When we were in class?”

“God, we got so drunk that day,” Cheryl giggled.

“Yeah, well, you need to go for your dream.”

“But - “ Cheryl swallowed, her voice an octave higher than usual. “But we’re soulmates, Blu.”

Her words wrapped themselves tightly around Blu’s heart, and she thought she’d never in her life forget the ice-cold sorrow in Cheryl’s voice … but she couldn’t let that influence anything rash.

She sniffed, trying to hold her tears back. “You have to go, Cheryl. You’ll miss your flight. I’ll be here for you, when you get off it again, at Christmas. I promise.” Blu rubbed her arm. “I’ll be right here, at Heathrow. Go get your dream, girl.”

“God, we’re stupid,” Cheryl muttered, “for not realising sooner.”

Blu pressed Accept on her watch, and a new message came up.

‘Thank you for selecting. Your soulmate has one day to respond. You will be notified when they make their decision.’

“Tap yours.”

Cheryl giggled. “Why? It’s definitely me.” But she did so anyway.

Blu felt her watch vibrate again, presumably with another message, but she didn’t care; Cheryl was here, and the watch had somehow made everything they’d both hidden for two years come into the light, fall into place like the missing jigsaw pieces.

“What - what now?”

But Cheryl didn’t reply; she grinned through her tears as she pulled Blu back towards her for a last kiss; one that felt like sustainment, like life itself. Blu could do nothing now but enjoy this moment, the final one for now.

Cheryl finally let her go, and Blu had to tell her to go before she changed her mind.

“Get your flight! Go and get your dream!”

Cheryl looked at the security desks, then wistfully at Blu.

“I’ll be back at Christmas, alright, babe?”

“I’ll be here for when you land. I promise.”

Blu let her go.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i was gonna send an ask like "have you considered: 'anger is a type of geography' + 4x11" and then i checked and you actually had! but if you feel like considering it More then here's a free space

oh thanks for these Layers of Allyship re: humoring my repeated [anger geography sign tapping] and checking for things and then sending me asks about it all to invite yet more Consideration.........yeah i feel like i mentioned it at least once in tags or smthing lol??? but here comes yet more consideration / giving it an In The Text post if that doesn’t exist already yet either

the Anger Is A Type Of Geography Quote From Hanif Abdurraqib in question for everyone’s reference:

anger is a type of geography. the ways out of it expand the more you love a person. the more forgiveness you might be willing to afford each other opens up new and unexpected roads. and so, for some, staying angry at someone you love is a reasonable option. to stay angry at someone you know will forgive your anger is a type of love, or at least it is a type of familiarity that can feel like love.

like, yeah sure what with winston originally talking to lauren and mafee about this and taylor Happening to walk in on it, he probably wasn’t necessarily planning to go off on his Indignant Monologue to taylor right then and there, but the fact remains that he was willing to do so, and i definitely think that that wouldn’t be the case if he didn’t have this Respect for them and think that they have respect for him in turn, and if he didn’t also think that that mutual respect is holding hands with mutually valuing each other. like, he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t think taylor might actually listen / consider what he says, and he wouldn’t even Want to say it if he didn’t give a shit about them, because he’s not just complaining about “um i simply ask for more money,” it’s about the fact he Feels Disrespected by the implied deprioritization of tmc employees and that the way this (false lol) choice is presented to them being Unfair and disingenuous. like, you could (and im sure most viewers do) interpret the other stuff he says as just him backing up his “Pay Me” argument when all he really cares about is the Pay Me part, but a) that’s not how We roll and b) doesn’t make sense with winston being just as happy as anyone else in 4x12with taylor Apologizing re: many of these 4x11 points, despite them not saying they were gonna change the Bonus situation lol, and c) it Does make sense to think that the Mutual Respect between taylor and winston matters to him due to [see: the rest of this post]

well wait lol first of all yeah sure the money Must matter to him b/c nobody could possibly be in the world of High Finance as a passion project (except for taylor apparently lmao cuz i mean we know that the Real reason they are determined to stick with hedge fundery (and involved in the first place) is b/c they are the best part of the show and elevate all the other Lesser Elements of it as well) and also we can figure that this was probably winston’s first year working a Big Time Official Job and he doesn’t have the savings that other ppl might when they’ve been in the business multiple years, and this seems to be backed up by lauren referring to him as they guy who’d be the First One Smothered by either taking a bonus cut by 40% or not getting that bonus at all until a whole other year, which, like he seems to also imply, is also Unhelpful in that surely these investment finance people turn around and invest their own finances, and Bonus Now is better than Bonus Then b/c.....interest....Long Shares.......and also just like tfw you want your job to pay you.......but anyways Seriously [next paragraph]

cuz winston *must* be working at Taylor Mason Capital b/c he really values working with taylor more than, say, wanting a job that will make him the most money, or will necessarily look the best on a resumé if he’s just looking to up his stats, b/c yeah, this is sure an unlikely opportunity for him where this is what we’re assuming is his First Fancy Job and he’s getting to be the Top Quant right out of the gate, but he must also know that like, it’s still like “oh so you were head quant at a brand new fund :/” and also he must know that there’s a Risk with said fund and he might even end up having been head quant at a new fund that burned out really quick, super impressive........and, we Know that winston *knows* how good he is at what he does, even though he keeps getting dunked on for that like he’s sooo conceited lol like. he IS that good, sorry!!!! why should he downplay it, we don’t actually see him being one of these shitheads with a fragile ego trying to prove themselves Superior or whatever.....ANYWAYS yeah the point being that, winston claiming to have a lot of offers already in the interview might very well Not be any kind of bluff, and he’d surely know that he could rise through the Quant Ranks quickly enough at some other fund even if he started out as anything but Our Main Quant at those places.......and if Getting Tf Paid Top Dollar was really his primary concern, “go with the brand new hedge fund which doesn’t have Established History / Experience / Clout and has the one big investor but who knows what’ll come next and any business that Just opened is not your safest bet even if you trust in your own skill and in that of your ceo and you Know that even if you’re not immediately destroyed, funds will be tighter / of a Lesser Amount than at a bigger established fund”.........the now-dramatic-irony of him talking about how those Tech Firms Out West pay guarantees, not bonuses.........like, when he was trying to get onboard with axe cap, he was obvs interested in trying to leverage to get Paid more, which is like, not necessarily winston wanting to be a trillionaire but also just how stupidly everyone’s supposed to like Play The Game of negotiating / leveraging / calling your employer’s bluff to get a certain starting salary / get a raise or whatever, dumb as hell baked-in Requirement........discuss your wages with coworkers gang!!! anyways. and but Also winston makes it clear when interviewing for axe cap that Working With Taylor Mason has appeal, even if he’s flippant about it, cuz he’s flippant about all of it cuz that’s his shtick here.....

like, when it’s Taylor Alone who calls him back eventually, he’s fine with meeting up with Just Them, and later on meeting up with Just Them (and the other quants, rip) again, and agrees to work in this lil basement evidently Not on axe cap premises b/c he’d been at axe cap’s offices and this is Not That Place......and yeah him talking about taylor selling axe on using his algorithm in kompenso sure implies that winston has this whole time Assumed that all of this was still ultimately in the service of axe cap.......and he was apparently fine with reporting to Taylor Alone and not getting to rub elbows with any other higher-ups, and he’s obviously pleased well enough with a “good work :)” from taylor and isn’t like “hey be sure to tell axe & co i did this singlehandedly etc” or anything, and he’s not really complaining about the whole “work in this lil basement Not at axe cap hq with taylor mason dropping in at least once to check on you and that’s about it” situation, which obviously is hardly that “You’re A Valued Axe Cap Employee” treatment one might expect if they wanted that.....winston’s glad that taylor called him, he’s trying to appeal to them and what *they* want to see rather than how he tried to go for what he thinks [a place like axe cap] would wanna see like he did in the interview, he’s showing up at this weird basement rendezvous to be on a 3 person quant team of taylor’s, he’s fine to not only do this on his own but also accept those increased demands that make it a [fifty(? or 15, either way) phds would work on this]-Level task, and then he’s glad just to have taylor’s approval at the end of the day.......they Wouldn’t have been able to promise him any leverage of “please do your best work on this” with like, promotions / clout within axe cap or axe-cap-levels of Lots Of Payment b/c like, well taylor wouldn’t outright lie anyways but also Especially wouldn’t if they wanted to keep this quant around for tmc, so winston must never have been asking about that kind of thing

and then, bless your Missing Scene fic but there’s zero canon content re: “uh how/when did taylor break it to winston that this algorithm was for their own fund actually and btw do you want to work for that fund instead,” but presumably it went smoothly enough, he was already happy to Effectively work for them alone apparently even if he still thought that yeah, he was working for taylor who was working for axe........just Yeah altogether it’s evident that “Working With Taylor Mason” must matter more to him than “working with any Other big name financiers” or “getting paid as much as he can get” or “raking in that clout asap to leverage with Other jobs or just like, in general.”

and then of course you have the fact that taylor is Recognizing his ability by calling him back and offering him this job, going “despite your demeanor your skills are superior” and “those other two were sweet, but you’re more talented, i need you,” [praying hands emoji], and giving him this Second Chance and entrusting him with this Solo re: building this algorithm which, unbeknownst at the time to him, is really this linchpin of their hopes & dreams of launching their own secret fund here, and really they must’ve been planning from the start to keep him around if he succeeded b/c it’s not like the algorithm and their whole planned Quant Department wouldn’t continue to be integral to the fund’s success, it wouldn’t really be ideal to have this guy be the one to build an algorithm to reel in an investor who’s working in.....wait for it......billions of dollars here, and then be like, okay bye dude. they must Know how good he is same as winston knows how good he is, and him being Head Quant from the very start was surely never just about mase cap having precious few employees at the very start of things....they could’ve like given him that Lead Position temporarily or whatever, they’re ceo. but they really do value him as like, maybe he doesn’t have the ideal ~personality~ for what fucking ever, either for being Properly Assertive and Impressively Flashy like axe cap might want, or just easy to work with, which taylor would care more about than axe cap would lol, but yknow, they value his Abilities and surely they must also value his efforts re: I Promise To Try and re: his really singlehandedly making that brilliant amazing algorithm which evidently did the trick as they hoped it would

and then......dare i get to the Emotional part of things, the Interpersonal....the anger and the love...............

i mean already when winnie n tay are having their post-math-meetup meetup, aka the first time they’re meeting After their disastrous really-first meeting aka the Interview, you have winston taking a way more grounded approach to this “yeah i want to work for you please accept me” process which is obviously in response to what he thinks Taylor wants from him based on the mess of the interview, evident thanks to winston telling them that he’s been thinking about all of that.......and i mean, part of taylor’s whole thing is they have that grounded approach pretty much always lol, (or try to....Want to...), but they sure seem to Also be bringing this effort to Accommodate him based on the hot mess of the interview, wherein yeah they wouldn’t’ve expected to have to ever interact again with this person they were dunking into the trash (and of course from that Meta Perspective, the scene when originally written was meant to be winston’s only appearance ever), but they really seem to also be bringing a more dialed down approach, letting him talk first and going along with his “you ever done math meetup” intro until he’s the one who changes the subject, and i really see that Head Tilt as a sympathetic one lol, not necessarily like “awww :’0″ levels lmao but still like. they Know he’s likely to have some [emotional vulnerability] re: what last went down between them since they weren’t especially gentle with him then, and they like, demonstrably give a shit about that fact lol. they’re also not just wholly swinging in the other direction to make up for it or anything lol but they’re Also making it clear that, yknow, they’re willing to work with him For Real, not just in this “are you willing to work for me, y/n, okay great” way, but in this way of [winston making an effort to make things easier on taylor] and [taylor making an effort to make things easier on winston] which is already playing out here between them.

and the whole matter of winston’s seemingly genuine Dismay at messing up even part of this exchange, i.e. the “[wince-ston] damn it, sorry,” like, sure maybe he just really wants the job, but [see: everything above about how he Must primarily want to work with taylor re: wanting any of these jobs lol] and, after all, he “oh shit, sorry”s @ them when he’s well-established as their Head Quant in ep 4x08 and generally shows this directed-at-self displeasure at thinking he’s messed something up even without some clear “your (potential) job is on the line” element......he just Doesn’t Want To Disappoint Taylor Themself, doesn’t need some particular fear of further repercussion behind that.

and speaking of Lack Of Fear, you Know we love to point out how kompenso (and really winston’s :/ + “sure, why not :\”ness at the end of 3x09 lol) demonstrates that winston isn’t afraid of taylor either as an [intense and unusually-demeanor'd person who Does apparently strike people as Scary(tm) sometimes lol] or as this Esteemed Rising Star Axe Cap Higher-Up or simply as his de facto boss.........he’s not raring to tell them that the other quants bailed b/c of his own disapproval lol, but he’s honest as soon as they deduce as much, the tone of “fine, yes, big time” + his standing up to get even closer to them instead of just shaking in his desk chair like :c pls forgive me obviously does Not convey that he’s terrified of them, and then the rest of that interaction jsut being like, ugh god so fucking essential, they’re both able to stand face to face and be like I Am Looking Directly At It / I Do See It re: each other, both of them just continuing to be Honest and Direct with each other, God.....taylor might’ve swatted his metaphor away but he was not all that put out, and then they’re Using His Own Language by bringing it back three seconds later, like, yeah sure at this point they have a vested interest in this individual quant (the only one left lol) accepting this Demanding Task, but a) they’re not exactly playing it cool on that front, they Just said “i need You,” it’s unlikely that this is just some all manipulative tactic here by encouraging his metaphor after all lol and that’s hardly their style anyways even if they Can be strategic(tm) about things, and b) they’ve Just Previously adopted his own words lol with winston having said “as for not being a dick” and taylor saying “you backslid into being a dick” (combining His Phrasing with Theirs aka “if you promise not to backslide”....god!!!!!!)

and so then yeah to top it all off winston even ~pushes his luck~ lol by being a lil deliberately rude re: his ex-coworkers lmaoo, and you get taylor’s Reaction to being sort of tested here to be Closing Off Their Expression (speaking of....their tiny lil Eyebrow Twitch when winston infers that he’s making something to pitch to an investor.....god!!!!!! a) winnie n tay and b) emmy) and making it clear that their interest in him acting Easy To Work With was a practical matter......winston watching them go up the stairs, taylor looking back at him as they Ascend and he gets back to his desk.....jesus

the point being!!! they vibe with each other so well by Kompenso already and just *get* how the other operates and communicates and Neither Of Them are offput by the other, Neither Of Them are unwilling or uninterested in meeting each other where they’re at, and each exerting this effort to really work with each other........and how winston is Not intimidated by taylor as either someone who’s so ~weird~ and can be so Intense, or as someone who is his boss lol........which yknow we always also point out as Important re: tayston developing from this point, where taylor would be careful in how they approach winston about fwbship but would feel like it was even reasonable to consider it in the first place thanks to not having to feel like oh he definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable being honest if he wanted to say no / wasn’t sure

also Yeah It’s Billions but winston freely swearing with the F-word when they’re assessing the completed algorithm, which taylor has no reaction to lol.......the both of them being Hyped about this algorithm lol, like, Of Course they’d both be, but it’s fun :)

and then 4x03, with winston not acting terrified about there being potential Algorithm Problems, and taylor making sure to be like “don’t you dare blame latency” lol like which obv he May Have been planning to mention lol since he’s intending to give this technical answer rather than throwing out his Front Running / Interference Theory like mafee then does.....fun little moment too anyways.......taylor Allowing winston’s tangent about being cassandra and emails and “it’s pronounced owned,” like, they’re not raring to Interrupt / cut him off even if it’s Not obvious what he has to say is absolutely crucial and considered relevant by everyone else, and they’re not telling him he’s a stupid idiot and wasting their time or anything else before sending him away.......imagine. and just think about the beauty of winston very intently / earnestly saying his “i’m cassandra: Always Seeing The Future” right to taylor. 

and in 4x08 they build on his metaphor Again after having just Validated him despite everyone else really wanting to do the opposite lol......i “lol” but would everyone else lay off a little Lol......his self-reproach upon Registering that disapproval / oh-no-i’ve-messed-upness again.......then despite winston Standing Right Beside and then Sitting Right Behind taylor they don’t really interact l o l .....we have taylor being all “why is He so happy” and silently observing his Solo “i won” moment, rip, but also congrats.....and then i suppose that covers the Prior To 4x11 stuff lol

just......even re: the relative little we’ve Seen between them up to that point, winston might not have intended to talk to taylor right then, and he might or might not have intended to eventually talk to them in front of anyone else, but You Know He Knows that taylor listens to him, and that he doesn’t have to like, say things in what other people think is The Right And Effective Way to talk (even by billions’s fucking off the shits standards on that front lol), because taylor Does care about what he actually means and what his actual intentions are, not just “oh that very direct/honest thing you said Seemed rude whether you intended it or not”.......the “sad” after his yngwie malmsteen metaphor was the only time they’ve critiqued something like that lol and they then used that metaphor, So, and they’ve copied him calling himself a dick lol, and they built on his Sword metaphor, and they’ve just always been interested in Understanding him and communicating effectively with him, not in trying to get him to communicate differently or just making sure he knows He Should Feel Bad about how he Does communicate, though god knows the latter is something that everyone else seems to be somewhat #about. god knows some axe capper would have that “are you finished?” simply be the Purely Rhetorical intro to their barrage of Dunking-Upon insults, although it sure seems possible that that could’ve been sort of gently dismissive enough anyways to Encourage winston to not be finished even if maybe he would’ve stopped there otherwise.....but everyone else follows taylor’s lead in Not Actually Interrupting Him at any point, despite all the 9_9 and >:| as it were, and like, even though taylor then lets this whole thing end just with mafee going tf off on winston and bullying him into deferring and would-be deference, b/c winston might have this amount of moxie and he might be honest and he might not be scared of taylor (or anyone else here really) but he’s obviously not that assertive and definitely not that aggressive, he’s self-loathing, he’s easily put out, and all of this just bolsters how much it means that he communicates so well with taylor, b/c they’re Not interested in anything that would be counterproductive to actual effective communication but which might be “productive” if they had a goal of wanting to twist his arm about anything or pressure him into acting a certain way or just fueling their own ego or sense of superiority, axe cap style. they Value all his actual input and they have this respect for him where they don’t Want to bully him even if it’s not that difficult, like, yeah mafee was being mean to him for sure and trying to insult him into simply shutting tf up rather than like, actually responding to any of his points or doing anything but reinforcing them, but also winston has been Put Out by milder [negative responses] too, it’s of course more than just “i respect you too much to like, yell at you and try to diminish you”

and Frankly Winston Was Right and he may have been Indignant and he may not have been ~polite~ about it (though like, relative to how he is generally this Direct And Honest, there’s also not all that much evidence he’s deliberately trying to add some extra servings of Rudeness or anything) but once again like with the “as for not being a dick, i can’t absolute guarantee it” moment and the “fine, yes, big time” moment, and the “im sure it’ll go faster without the dead weight; Whoops ;)” moment, and the [talking about the algorithm problems] moment, and him freely jumping in with the “this plan might get us killed (not literally)” and “it’s b/c it sucks that they had to decapitate their dad, also not literally lol....although...” remarks, he’s just like, never afraid to tell taylor something that sure might not be the most pleasant for them to hear, and sure might not be something they Want to hear. and what’s Honest is that he’s Angry about this, and they won’t want to hear that and that they will even less want to hear his Honest Thoughts about why this is unfair, but he’s willing to say that to them, and even though we were like “haha boy winston if this isn’t fixed big time you might wanna quit :/” it’s also like, he must’ve trusted them to not wanna just fire him for lack of reverence to his ceo, and we can Juxtapose this with a) the scene that we’re set up to juxtapose it with, wherein a group of axe cappers carefully tell axe he’s being dumb as hell and might fuck all of them over, and axe tells them all to shut the fuck up b/c He Is Their Sun and he can do what he wants and get the fuck out of here, and we can also juxtapose it with b) winston being jumped on immediately in The Interview for ~lack of reverence~ to the potential employer, putting on this cocksure hotshot act (trying to..) and daring to express confidence in himself and be like “i should be interviewing you” / you should be selling to Me lol......jump to 4x11 and winston is caught off guard, he’s not putting on any kind of act, he’s not trying to appeal to anyone, sure mafee might turn it around on his [last we checked, the quant hates himself]ness, but this wasn’t about Winston Lashing Out b/c he’s angry at himself, he’s angry at Them for not valuing him, for what he perceives as them not even *really* giving them the option of the 60% Now approach, which sure seems to be justified seeing as apparently nobody but lauren goes for it and after winston invokes the Peer Pressure / pressure to seem Loyal / Committed by deferring, mafee immediately uses that [social pressure] to crush his dissent........where was i. right like. winston’s truly just Mad At Someone Else this time, he wouldn’t be here if his self-esteem was so low that he was immediately ready to just accept and absorb this treatment, and he Knows that taylor will actually listen to him which is their fuckin Mutual Respect thing and who tf else does that for him all the time, and he knows that taylor doesn’t value their own ego above everything else Unlike Some People, and he knows that he can be honest and get an honest reaction and that their honest reaction to his honesty is not “ugh you’re stupid / annoying / rude / etc,” b/c he’s Not, and that might be everyone else’s idea of him to some degree, but taylor Gets him better than that

and then you don’t quite have taylor being obviously Angry back, but they’re not exactly thrilled, and letting mafee go off on winston / effectively telling him they expect him to consider That the response and in turn respond back to that, can sure be interpreted as an expression of something a little short of pure goodwill and best intentions towards him here lol......again, i lol through the pain.......winston only has further reason to be angry, his Complaints weren’t resolved in the least and he came in all “i feel disrespected” and surely that’s only been doubled down on, b/c this isn’t Just “pay me goddamnit,” it’s really also just about the fundamental respect itself, which he figured that taylor cares about too, and so this would be something he could appeal to / expect them to earnestly.....he feels like none of them are being valued more than this feud with axe cap, he (maybe) feels like said feud is causing the quants’ work to be deprioritized in favor of more elaborate schemes based on “what will screw axe over specifically,” he feels like he’s not being valued as a Very Important Employee, he feels like this False Choice thanks to Social Pressure is insult to injury, like they’re not supposed to get a real chance to question this. boy i’m really just going off talking about any and all aspects of this huh, where’s the Anger Geography core here

well here it is: winston doesn’t ever talk to taylor in any more Filtered way due to them being his boss / him feeling a need to be more careful around them, if anything, they’re the one person he can be Least filtered around, b/c they care about What He Actually Means and aren’t all hung up on whether his communication style seems gratingly weird / wrong / offputting. winston isn’t bringing any particular leverage to this situation, yeah sure he pointed out He’s Valuable but he also did that in the interview with even less leverage and in the basement when he thought he was just working on some weird side project for axe cap in this remote quant dungeon - he’s counting on them to just Listen To Him and care about what he means, same as he always does and like they’ve done thus far. and he’s Temporarily Burned by this, which is tragic, but then 4x12 happens, and who knows if taylor and winston talked between these scenes at all cuz billions sure won’t say at all, but either way winston sure seems to pick up on the fact that taylor is responding to his Complaints here, the implication they were taking a too-axe-esque approach to them now answered by taylor deliberately differentiating themself from axe, and asserting that they Do value their employees and their contributions, and that taylor has this responsibility to them, and maybe Had gone astray there with the revenge jag but aren’t actually interested in that being the core of everything.........winston is Validated and we realize it and he seems to realize it lol, he definitely Was listened to, and he sure wasn’t like fired or anything, he Could Be Angry with them and that wasn’t going to lead to taylor wanting to sever even the Professional relationship or anything like that. sure seems to be no grudge held between them during the “q is for quantitative, babey” scene there lol and yeah it’s billions and shit moves fast / people will roll with A Lot of mistreatment apparently (see: winston also does not seem to harbor any grudge against mafee here lol but who knows) but the Fact Is, here they are, having found A Way Out Of [Anger], after having had this altercation which wouldn’t even have been possible if Winston hadn’t felt it was possible for them to interact like this, for him to be mad and be honest about that anger and the hows and whys of it and for that Not to be a dead end between them or something that could shatter the relationship entirely. and he was Validated!!!!

and guess who i also love to quote and paraphrase lol i also think of mariame kaba talking about interpersonal Conflict being possible Opportunities in a relationship, because working through said conflict can allow the relationship to grow / deepen / strengthen. which sure seems to Hold Hands with this idea: that you can Be Angry with someone because you already know that won’t break the relationship, and that even if you don’t already know that, going through that experience / process of Being Angry with someone and coming out the other side together will show that the relationship can handle that / will have involved gaining tools to be able to handle that going forward. and really like, we’ve seen winston Forgive taylor’s anger at him right off, and that may not be the sweeping heights of love but it came from Understanding (and....low self-es steam probably lol) but no really, he Shows that he understands why they reacted like that by behaving in this way that he figures is more in line with what they actually want, just talking and being direct with no boxes or [wags] or standard boring interview questions or posturing, showing he’s willing to work with them in the “please hire me” and “i’ll try to Behave” ways lol........and taylor is offering their own patience and sympathy and restraint and Understanding and willingness to bend.......things are happening on an emotional plane between them here.

and then after winston chooses to be on board with mase cap, and after he’s worked for them so long that it’s comp time baby, and after these few Sample Interactions we’ve seen in which taylor doesn’t cut winston down or show contempt for him and they continue to directly or indirectly validate him, winston can be Angry with them and taylor can (definitely Sorta) be Angry back, and winston surely even Stayed Angry after that scene in 4x11, and he didn’t quit, and was that [terrible self-esteem actually lol] or was it him believing that there could be a way out of this state of anger between him and taylor? both?? we get to decide!! b/c he’s sure not Validated and Vindicated until later lol.....what does he sit there on that couch alone in that room and Think in those moments...........and then once things Are better resolved, they have this whole [episode of conflict] in their history, and like is the whole Point of all of this, that’s hardly necessarily just some awful and unfortunate thing.......their relationship can survive something like that, and the conflict sure sparked this kind of Genuine Interaction between them which couldn’t have happened if winston just shied away from all this / kept it to himself because he didn’t think taylor would Listen or Care or Understand. 

and it’s Not Just About The Money, and even when he expresses that he’s upset about this perceived disrespect / not being valued as an employee, we Know that he’s not someone who’s got this need to feel superior to everybody else / like he’s always Winning, and we know he’s not after Maximum Clout, but he does want to Work With taylor and he evidently wants to feel valued By Them, who does happen to be his boss and does have this avenue to potentially treat any employees unfairly. and we know that winston *knows* in this objective way how good his work is, and both winston and taylor have acknowledged that yeah, His Work / professional quantly ablities have value, so winston Knows he should expect for that to be valued in the form of “your quantributions are important and you’re getting paid to reflect that”........and that he feels like he’s for once not being Allowed Honesty re: everyone supposedly being pressured into deferring is like..........what do he and taylor have if not earnest, open communication b/c they both value and respect what the other Really Has To Say!!!!!! that’s winnie n tay and it’s also tayston.

which, speaking of which, Sidenote: when it comes to tayston hcs we generally have this as a “they’re not currently doing Their Thing at this point anyways, and maybe the fact that that’s been ended (and they Haven’t been talking through this particular conflict yet) is adding to the tension / anger / feeling of not being valued hahaha rip” deal lol, but also if they Were still currently in their fwb/[???]ship like obviously this would spill over and probably require an at-least-temporary halt to give everyone some space seeing as it’d be a little impossible to truly completely Set That Aside in the recent aftermath l o l ......but despite the lingering tension / awkwardness that would be present whenever they Do next meetup [imagine: an I Was On The Phone With You, Sweetheart phonecall prior to 4x12′s scene?? wrow] the layers to that ensuing sex lol......reunion sex? makeup sex? not-hate-sex-but-maybe-still-needing-to-vent-a-lil-Emotional-frustration-maybe sex? maybe all of the above and more

ANYWAYS even i don’t know why this is so long, and also it’s 7am. i definitely think that winston trusted taylor and the Relationship between them to be able to handle Anger (his, for once, lol) and for that Anger to even potentially be something Constructive. and he was right. and in 4x12 he’s there with them at the very end, wearing the tmc logo, standing behind them in the hellhole which is axe cap hq, knowing that taylor is the one person (here, certainly) who definitely Gets and who’s Got him, who’s asserted this loyalty and commitment to him after he’s certainly done that re: them, and once again winston definitely has this Choice to be here with them just like he must’ve had that choice to join up with their fund in the first place, he’s never been trapped with them or forced into alliance with them, and we just Know that he’s not choosing to be here just for Linkedin reasons / what’s best for career advancement and/or for raking it in as best as he can manage and/or for gaining clout and status or whatever, and we sure never see him reaping some kind of deluxe treatment/benefits just for being closely associated with taylor / having their approval. everything we see points to winston caring most about what happens between him and taylor and that he gets to work with them and that he’s here because of that mutual respect and value for each other. 

and really, the show also repeatedly tells us that winston Does basically have these world-class abilities and *is* that valuable, and we know that winston Knows how good he is, and he must’ve legitimately had all those offers and known that he’s really good enough that these places Should compete for him. he must’ve known that he has this Potential here and all of these options laid out in front of him, and he takes taylor’s call and shows up in a basement for them and singlehandedly writes an algorithm good enough to found their fund upon and he follows them there when now he’s got this Proof of just how incredible his work is and could’ve leveraged that anywhere else. but his relationship with taylor has always had this personal aspect to it and the fact is that, even with his choice of Paths laid out in front of him, he chose and keeps choosing the geography of winnie n tay. Love. thank you and goodnight

[blueboxesandtrafficcones]

All I Want for Christmas is You (Naked) - Chapter 2

Part 2!  Rose and Nine make it to the Powell Estate, where Jackie drops quite the surprise on them about how they spend the holiday.  Later, conversations about movies based on Time Lords/Ladies.

Plus, smut.  Only one scene this time, sorry.  :P  NSFW

@chiaroscuroverse @dwsecretsanta

@timepetalsprompts - Eccleston smouldering/smirking.

@doctorroseprompts - snuggling under blankets.  Non-platonically.

Beta’d by the spectacular @stupidsatsuma!

Masterlist

Overnight bag in hand, Rose walked into the console room to find the Doctor standing off to the side, a puzzled look on his face as he glanced between the captain’s seat, the main console, and the railing by the front door.

“Everything alright?” She asked, wrapping an arm around his waist.  He pressed a quick kiss to her lips before smirking at her.

“Just trying to plan my reward.”  His eyebrows wiggled as he slid one hand into her back pocket, kneading the flesh below it before pulling her close against him.  Even through two pairs of jeans, Rose could feel him stirring to life.

“You’ve gotta earn it, first,” she reminded him sweetly.

“Oh, I will.”  The Doctor promised, leaning down to lay kisses along her neck.

“Mmhmm.  Keep in mind I will kill you if there’s a mark for Mum to find,” she murmured even as she held his head in place.

He shuddered in exaggerated horror.  “No chance I can talk you back to bed?”

“Sorry.”  Not sounding sorry at all, Rose slipped from his grasp to lay their bag by the door.

Scowling, he began his dance around the console, coordinates already set.  “Fine.  21st December, 2006.  Powell Estate.”

The landing was rough, and as always they were thrown to the floor laughing.  The Doctor ended up lying half on top of her, and took the opportunity to steal a kiss.

“Now, remember, Mum knows nothin’ about us, yeah?  Let’s keep it that way,”  she ordered.

“Yeah, yeah.”  His huff turned into a groan when she squeezed him through his jeans before running her knuckles along his zip.

Before he could react further she was up and away, bouncing by the exterior door.

“Come on!  It’s just a couple of days.”

Grabbing the bag, she didn’t wait for him.  She’d already learned that as much as he disliked the idea, he hated being separated from her more.

Muttering under his breath in Gallifreyan about teases and what he planned to do to her when she decided he’d earned his reward, he followed.

-

By the time the Doctor had gotten himself under control and reached the Tyler flat, Rose and Jackie had already hugged and were headed for the kitchen, gossiping away.

More than happy to be ignored, he merely closed the door behind him and headed for his usual seat in the far corner of the sofa.

He was flipping idly through Jackie’s mail when they returned from the kitchen.  Jackie pausing when she saw him, before settling the tea tray on the coffee table.

“Hello,”  she said stiffly, glaring at the alien she held responsible for her daughter’s continued disappearance.

“Jackie.”  He replied, adding a grin when Rose glared.

“So, you said you had a surprise involving cousin Mo.  What’s going on?”  Rose knew that limiting the conversation between her mother and her boyfriend/traveling companion/alien lover was the safest bet.

“Mo has a new boyfriend,” her mother announced with relish.

“So?”

“So – he’s young. Handsome.  Rich.”  Jackie wiggled her eyebrows.

“And that’s why we had to come rushing here so early?”  The Doctor demanded, looking up from fixing his tea.

Jackie glared at him. “Yes.  Because, he’s got an estate in the country, and he’s invited Mo to spend Christmas with ‘im.  And of course she said, ‘I’m sorry, dear, but I always spend Christmas with my cousin and her daughter, that’s the only family I’ve got’, and do you know what he said? He looked at her, and he said, ‘Darling, invite them along.  I must meet them.’  Isn’t that wonderful?”

Rose stared at her mother, aghast.  Being at the flat for a few days was bad enough; he could always flee to the TARDIS if Jackie got to be too much.  But a country estate?

“So instead of spending Christmas here…”

“We’ll be at his estate! It’s a full manor house, and Rose, Mo said it’s gorgeous.  She’d marry ‘im today if it meant she could keep the house, even pop out a kid or two!  Can you imagine?”

Rose smiled weakly, listening with one ear as Jackie continued to prattle on about her expectations, feeling the Doctor’s horrified gaze burning into her.

She was so screwed.

-

“No,” the Doctor said adamantly the first moment they were alone, Jackie off to begin tea.

Rose bit her lip, torn between her mother and him.

“Look, you don’t have to go, yeah?  Stay here, spend a couple days working on maintenance.  Or you could just wait ‘til we leave then jump forward to the 27th.”

“What and leave you alone for six days?  Not bloody likely, Miss Jeopardy Friendly,”  he snorted.

“Well, I’m going.  You can join me and suffer in silence, you can stay here, or you can jump ahead like I suggested.”

She glared as good as she got, and their heated staring contest only ended when the Doctor realized that with how close they were standing and the neckline of her top, he had a decent view down her shirt.

“I don’t like any of those options,” he told her breasts, and she snorted, obligingly rolling her shoulders back slightly to present a better view for him to ogle.  If the two lumps on her chest could convince him better than her promises, well, Rose knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Unless it was a Totrionian horse, but that was another matter altogether.

“Doctor.”  She casually folded her arms, smirking when his mouth fell open a bit at how the movement pushed her breasts together and up. For all his claims about ‘superior biology’ this, and ‘Time Lords don’t do relationships, Rose’ that, he was more susceptible to her womanly charms than any other bloke she’d ever met, and she wasn’t above exploiting that.

“Fine,” he capitulated, pulling her hips against his as her arms instinctively went around his neck. “But I’ve a right to complain, and you can’t stop me.  And when we’re done, I’m going to take you to Dreamia III, where they really know how to celebrate Christmas right.  The only preview you’re getting is: the best hot chocolate of your life served in a mug bigger than your head.”

“So long as your complaints are to me and me only, not where anyone else can hear, then fine.”

“Fantastic.”  He lowered his head to seal the deal with a kiss, but Rose stopped him before he could lay one on her.

“Uh uh, not where Mum could see.”

Groaning, the Doctor dropped his forehead to hers.  

It was going to be a long six days.

-

“Do you think he’s a time thingy like you?”  Jackie asked out of the blue.

It was much later that night, and she was in the armchair while Rose and the Doctor were snuggled together on the couch behind her, It’s a Wonderful Life playing on the telly.

“What?”  The Doctor looked up from where he’d been tracing a single fingertip along Rose’s ear, grateful for the dark room that blocked Jackie’s view of them.

“This angel person. ‘S he a time whatsit like you, to be able to show ‘im an alternate future?”  She munched on popcorn, waiting his answer.

He stared blankly at the back of her head.  “It’s a movie, Jackie.  He’s not a Time Lord.”

Jackie huffed.  “Well, I don’t know.  There’s more than just you, isn’t there?  Couldn’t it be based on one of your lot?”

The question sent a thousand images rushing through his mind, of things burning, glass breaking, children screaming, a terrible robotic voice crying ‘EX-TER-MIN-ATE.’  Rose’s warm hand on his thigh drew him from the memory.

“No,”  he answered shortly.  A squeeze to his leg told him he’d been too abrupt, so he tried to offer an olive branch.  “Mary Poppins was, though.”

“What, really?”  Rose looked up at him, startled.

“Yeah.  Friend of mine, actually - Romana.  Long story.”

She considered the idea for several long moments.  “Makes sense. After all, her bag was bigger on the inside.”

He grinned down at her, but instead of a reply, he let out an undignified squeak when Rose’s hand pressed along the front of his jeans.

“Alright, there?”  She asked, eyes twinkling up at him as her fingers began to stroke along his zip, coaxing him to life.

He was fairly certain he made some sort of affirmative noise, glancing over at Jackie to see her once again enthralled in the film.

Looking back at Rose, he saw the mischievous look in her eye just before she timed undoing the zipper to a sound effect.

“We watch this every year,” she explained unnecessarily, fingertips wandering through the slit in his pants.

“Fantastic.”  The Doctor struggled to keep his breathing even, suddenly understanding why Rose had insisted they cuddle under the blanket on the near side of the couch; they were mostly behind Jackie, leaving less of a chance of being caught.

After several minutes of her gently stroking him while watching the movie, he tried to relax and enjoy the low hum of pleasure.  Her touch was light enough it was unlikely he’d make a mess of himself, and he made a valiant effort to pay attention to the film.

Eventually, one hand still casually pumping him, Rose tapped his chest with the other.  Looking down at her, it took several seconds to process that she wanted them to shift.  Turning fully onto his side and sliding down, back against the back of the couch, Rose stretched out flat next to him, laying one foot flat so her raised knee would block Jackie’s view, were she to turn.

The Doctor resettled the blanket over them, before gliding his hand under Rose’s jumper to lie against her stomach, his thumb idly stroking her belly button and his pinky dipping below the waist of her trousers.  Meanwhile, she tightened her fist around him, giving him more of the friction he needed as she began to work him in earnest.

Giving up on the movie he allowed his eyes to fall closed, focusing instead on both the feel of her hand around him and the soft skin under his own as it crept further inside Rose’s knickers.

He’d just run his middle finger through the wetness she was leaking, about to work it inside her, when Jackie stood abruptly causing his eyes to snap open and Rose’s hand to freeze. “Right.  Bloody hell, that wine goes right through me now.  I’ll be back, but you can let it play.”

The moment Rose heard the bathroom door close, she scrambled off the couch to kneel in front of it, the Doctor staring at her.

“Well go on, sit up, we’ve only got a minute or two.”  She hissed at him, and he obeyed, still not understanding.

The moment he was upright, though, Rose whipped the blanket away and unceremoniously slid her mouth over him.

Barely managing to contain his shout of surprise, he gaped at her furiously bobbing head.  The low-burning fire she’d been cultivating in him for the better part of an hour quickly built to a raging inferno as his eyes rolled back and he pressed a hand to her hair, fighting the urge to thrust against her.

“Unh, unh, unh,” he panted as she sucked him, stroking what she couldn’t reach.  The third time she took him whole she hummed lightly around him and he was lost in a wave of pleasure.  It wasn’t until he came down he realized that he’d been steadily chanting a chorus of Rose, fuck, and yes.

She was just tucking him back into his pants when the bathroom door opened, and by the time Jackie returned to the sitting room they were back in their original positions, calm and casual as could be.

Completely unaware of what had transpired practically under her nose, Jackie settled in her chair, asking blithely, “Did I miss anything?”

No matter how many times she asked, her daughter refused to admit why she’d burst into laughter at the question.

[unsettlingshortstories]

Green Tea

Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)

PROLOGUE

Martin Hesselius, the German Physician

Through carefully educated in medicine and surgery, I have never practiced either. The study of each continues, nevertheless, to interest me profoundly. Neither idleness nor caprice caused my secession from the honorable calling which I had just entered. The cause was a very trifling scratch inflicted by a dissecting knife. This trifle cost me the loss of two fingers, amputated promptly, and the more painful loss of my health, for 1 have never been quite well since, and have seldom been twelve months together in the same place.

In my wanderings I became acquainted with Dr. Martin Hesselius, a wanderer like myself, like me a physician, and like me an enthusiast in his profession. Unlike me in this, that his wanderings were voluntary, and he a man, if not of fortune, as we estimate fortune in England, at least in what our forefathers used to term "easy circumstances." He was an old man when 1 first saw him; nearly five-and-thirty years my senior. In Dr. Martin Hesselius, 1 found my master. His knowledge was immense, his grasp of a case was an vintuition. He was the very man to inspire a young enthusiast, like me, with awe and delight. My admiration has stood the test of time and survived the separation of death. I am sure it was well-founded. For nearly twenty years I acted as his medical secretary. His immense collection of papers he has left in my care, to be arranged, indexed and bound. His treatment of some of these cases is curious. He writes in two distinct characters. He describes what he saw and heard as an intelligent layman might, and when in this style of narrative he had seen the patient either through his own hall-door, to the light of day, or through the gates of darkness to the caverns of the dead, he returns upon the narrative, and in the terms of his art and with all the force and originality of genius, proceeds to the work of analysis, diagnosis and illustration. Here and there a case strikes me as of a kind to amuse or horrify a lay reader with an interest quite different from the peculiar one which it may possess for an expert. With slight modifications, chiefly of language, and of course a change of names, I copy the following.

The narrator is Dr. Martin Hesselius. I find it among the voluminous notes of cases which he made during a tour in England about sixty-four years ago. It is related in series of letters to his friend Professor Van Loo of Leyden. The professor was not a physician, but a chemist, and a man who read history and metaphysics and medicine, and had, in his day, written a play. The narrative is therefore, if somewhat less valuable as a medical record, necessarily written in a manner more likely to interest an unlearned reader. These letters, from a memorandum attached, appear to have been returned on the death of the professor, in 1819, to Dr. Hesselius. They are written, some in English, some in French, but the greater part in German. I am a faithful, though I am conscious, by no means a graceful translator, and although here and there ! omit some passages, and shorten others, and disguise names, I have interpolated nothing.

CHAPTER I

Dr. Hesselius Relates How He Met the Rev. Mr. Jennings

The Rev. Mr. Jennings is tall and thin. He is middle-aged, and dresses with a natty, old-fashioned, high-church precision. He is naturally a little stately, but not at all stiff. His features, without being handsome, are well formed, and their expression extremely kind, but also shy. I met him one evening at Lady Mary Haddock's. The modesty and benevolence of his countenance are extremely prepossessing. We were but a small party, and he joined agreeably enough in the conversation, He seems to enjoy listening very much more than contributing to the talk; but what he says is always to the purpose and well said. He is a great favourite of Lady Mary's, who it seems, consults him upon many things, and thinks him the most happy and blessed person on earth. Little knows she about him. The Rev. Mr. Jennings is a bachelor, and has, they say sixty thousand pounds in the funds. He is a charitable man. He is most anxious to be actively employed in his sacred profession, and yet though always tolerably well elsewhere, when he goes down to his vicarage in Warwickshire, to engage in the actual duties of his sacred calling, his health soon fails him, and in a very strange way. So says Lady Mary.

There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings' health does break down in, generally, a sudden and mysterious way, sometimes in the very act of officiating in his old and pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his heart, it may be his brain. But so it has happened three or four times, or oftener, that after proceeding a certain way in the service, he has on a sudden stopped short, and after a silence, apparently quite unable to resume, he has fallen into solitary, inaudible prayer, his hands and his eyes uplifted, and then pale as death, and in the agitation of a strange shame and horror, descended trembling, and got into the vestry-room, leaving his congregation, without explanation, to themselves. This occurred when his curate was absent. When he goes down to Kenlis now, he always takes care to provide a clergyman to share his duty, and to supply his place on the instant should he become thus suddenly incapacitated.

When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite, and beats a retreat from the vicarage, and returns to London, where, in a dark street off Piccadilly, he inhabits a very narrow house, Lady Mary says that he is always perfectly well. I have my own opinion about that. There are degrees of course.

We shall see.

Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentlemanlike man. People, however, remark something odd. There is an impression a little ambiguous. One thing which certainly contributes to it, people ! think don't remember; or, perhaps, distinctly remark. But I did, almost im mediately. Mr. Jennings has a way of looking sidelong upon the carpet, as if his eye followed the movements of something there. This, of course, is not always. It occurs now and then. But often enough to give a certain oddity, as I have said, to his manner, and in this glance traveling along the floor there is something both shy and anxious. A medical philosopher, as you are good enough to call me, elaborating theories by the aid of cases sought out by himself, and by him watched and scrutinized with more time at command, and consequently infinitely more minuteness than the ordinary practitioner can afford, falls insensibly into habits of observation, which accompany him everywhere, and are exercised, as some people would say, impertinently, upon every subject that presents itself with the least likelihood of rewarding inquiry. There was a promise of this kind in the slight, timid, kindly, but reserved gentleman, whom I met for the first time at this agreeable little evening gathering. I observed, of course, more than I here set down; but I reserve all that borden on the technical for a strictly scientific paper. I may remark, that when I here speak of medical science, I do so, as I hope some day to see it more generally understood, in a much more comprehensive sense than its generally material treatment would warrant. I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression of that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life. I believe that the essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is an organized substance, but as different in point of material from what we ordinarily understand by matter, as light or electricity is; that the material body is, in the most literal sense, a vesture, and death consequently no interruption of the living man's existence, but simply his extrication from the natural body --a process which commences at the moment of what we term death, and the completion of which, at furthest a few days later, is the resurrection "in power." The person who weighs the consequences of these positions will probably see their practical bearing upon medical science. This is, however, by no means the proper place for displaying the proofs and discussing the consequences of this too generally unrecognized state of facts. In pursuance of my habit, I was covertly observing Mr. Jennings, with all my caution--l think he perceived it--and I saw plainly that he was as cautiously observing me. Lady Mary happening to address me by my name, as Dr. Hesselius, I saw that he glanced at me more sharply, and then became thoughtful for a few minutes.

After this, as I conversed with a gentleman at the other end of the room, I saw him look at me more steadily, and with an interest which I thought I understood. I then saw him take an opportunity of chatting with Lady Mary, and was, as one always is, perfectly aware of being the subject of a distant inquiry and answer.

This tall clergyman approached me by-and-by; and in a little time we had got into conversation.

When two people, who like reading, and know books and places, having traveled, wish to discourse, it is very strange if they can't find topics. It was not accident that brought him near me, and led him into conversation. He knew German and had read my Essays on Metaphysical Medicine which suggest more than they actually say. This courteous man, gentle, shy, plainly a man of thought and reading, who moving and talking among us, was not altogether of us, and whom I already suspected of leading a life whose trans actions and alarms were carefully concealed, with an impenetrable reserve from, not only the world, but his best beloved friends- was cautiously weighing in his own mind the idea of taking a certain step with regard to me. I penetrated his thoughts without his being aware of it, and was careful to say nothing which could betray to his sensitive vigilance my suspicions respecting his position, or my surmises about his plans respecting myself.

We chatted upon indifferent subjects for a time but at last he said:

"I was very much interested by some papers of yours, Dr. Hesselius, upon what you term Metaphysical Medicine--I read them in German, ten or twelve years ago--have they been translated?"

"No, I'm sure they have not--I should have heard. They would have asked my leave, I think."

"I asked the publishers here, a few months ago, to get the book for me in the original German; but they tell me it is out of print."

"So it is, and has been for some years; but it flatters me as an author to find that you have not forgotten my little book, although," I added, laughing, "ten or twelve years is a considerable time to have managed without it; but I suppose you have been turning the subject over again in your mind, or something has happened lately to revive your interest in it."

At this remark, accompanied by a glance of inquiry, a sudden embarrassment disturbed Mr. Jennings, analogous to that which makes a young lady blush and look foolish. He dropped his eyes, and folded his hands together uneasily, and looked oddly, and you would have said, guiltily, for a moment.

I helped him out of his awkwardness in the best way, by appearing not to observe it, and going straight on, I said: "Those revivals of interest in a subject happen to me often; one book suggests an other, and often sends me back a wild-goose chase over an interval of twenty years. But if you still care to possess a copy, I shall be only too happy to provide you; I have still got two or three by me --and if you allow me to present one I shall be very much honored."

"You are very good indeed," he said, quite at his ease again, in a moment: "I almost despaired--I don't know how to thank you.

"Pray don't say a word; the thing is really so little worth that I am only ashamed of having offered it, and if you thank me any more I shall throw it into the fire in a fit of modesty."

Mr. Jennings laughed. He inquired where I was staying in London, and after a little more conversation on a variety of subjects, he took his departure. CHAPTER II The Doctor Questions Lady Mary and She Answers

"I like your vicar so much, Lady Mary," said I, as soon as he was gone. "He has read, traveled, and thought, and having also suffered, he ought to be an accomplished companion."

"So he is, and, better still,' he is a really good man," said she. "His advice is invaluable about my schools, and all my little undertakings at Dawlbridge, and he's so painstaking, he takes so much trouble--you have no idea wherever he thinks he can be o~ use: he's so good-natured and so sensible."

"It is pleasant to hear so good an account of his neighbourly virtues. I can only testify to his being an agreeable and gentle companion, and in addition to what you have told me, I think 1 can tell you two or three things about him," said I. "Really!" "Yes, to begin with, he's unmarried." "Yes, that's right---go on."

"He has been writing, that is he was, but for two or three years perhaps, he has not gone on with his work, and the book was upon some rather abstract subject--perhaps theology."

"Well, he was writing a book, as you say; I'm not quite sure what it was about, but only that it was nothing that I cared for; very likely you are right, and he certainly did stop--yes."

"And although he only drank a little coffee here to-night, he likes tea, at least, did like it extravagantly."

"Yes, that's quite true."

"He drank green tea, a good deal, didn't he?" I pursued.

"Well, that's very odd! Green tea was a subject on which we used almost to quarrel."

"But he has quite given that up," said I. "So he has."

"And, now, one more fact. His mother or his father, did you know them?"

"Yes, both; his father is only ten years dead, and their place is near Dawlbridge. We knew them very well," she answered.

"Well, either his mother or his father--l should rather think his father, saw a ghost," said I.

"Well, you really are a conjurer, Dr. Hesselius." "Conjurer or no, haven't I said right?" I answered merrily.

"You certainly have, and it was his father: he was a silent, whimsical man, and he used to bore my father about his dreams, and at last he told him a story about a ghost he had seen and talked with, and a very odd story it was. I remember it particularly, because 1 was so afraid of him. This story was long before he died--when I was quite a child--and his ways were so silent and moping, and he used to drop in sometimes, in the dusk, when I was alone in the drawing-room, and I used to fancy there were ghosts about him." I smiled and nodded. "And now, having established my character as a conjurer, I think I must say good-night!' said I. "But how did you find it out?"

"By the planets, of course, as the gypsies do," I answered, and so, gaily we said good-night.

Next morning I sent the little book he had been inquiring after, and a note to Mr. Jennings, and on returning late that evening, I found that he had called at my lodgings, and left his card. He asked whether I was at home, and asked at what hour he would be most likely to find me. Does he intend opening his case, and consulting me "professionally," as they say? I hope so. I have already conceived a theory about him. It is supported by Lady Mary's answers to my parting questions. I should like much to ascertain from his own lips. But what can I do consistently with good breeding to invite a confession? Nothing. I rather think he meditates one. At all events, my dear Van L., I shan't make myself difficult of access; I mean to re turn his visit tomorrow. It will be only civil in return for his polite ness, to ask to see him. Perhaps something may come of it.

Whether much, little, or nothing, my dear Van L., you shall hear.

CHAPTER III

Dr. Hesselius Picks Up Something in Latin Books

Well, I have called at Blank Street.

On inquiring at the door, the servant told me that Mr. Jennings was engaged very particularly with a gentleman, a clergyman from Kenlis, his parish in the country. Intending to reserve my privilege, and to call again, I merely intimated that I should try an- other time, and had turned to go, when the servant begged my pardon, and asked me, looking at me a little more attentively than well-bred persons of his order usually do, whether I was Dr. Hesselius; and, on learning that I was, he said, "Perhaps then, sir, you would allow me to mention it to Mr. Jennings, for I am sure he wishes to see you." The servant returned in a moment, with a message from Mr. Jennings, asking me to go into his study, which was in effect his back drawing-room, promising to be with me in a very few minutes. This was really a study--almost a library. The room was lofty, with two tall slender windows, and rich dark curtains. It was much larger than I had expected, and stored with books on every side, from the floor to the ceiling. The upper carpet-- for to my tread it felt that there were two or three--was a Turkey carpet. My steps fell noiselessly. The bookcases standing out, placed the windows, particularly narrow ones, in deep recesses. The effect of the room was, although extremely comfortable, and even luxurious, decidedly gloomy, and aided by the silence, almost oppressive. Perhaps, however, I ought to have allowed something for association. My mind had connected peculiar ideas with Mr. Jennings. I stepped into this perfectly silent room, of a very silent house, with a peculiar foreboding; and its darkness, and solemn clothing of books, for except where two narrow looking-glasses were set in the wall, they were everywhere, helped this somber feeling.

While awaiting Mr. Jennings' arrival, I amused myself by looking into some of the books with which his shelves were laden. Not among these, but immediately under them, with their backs up ward, on the floor, I lighted upon a complete set of Swedenborg's "Arcana Celestia," in the original Latin, a very fine folio set, bound in the natty livery which theology affects, pure vellum, namely, gold letters, and carmine edges. There were paper markers in several of these volumes, I raised and placed them, one after the other, upon the table, and opening where these papers were placed, I read in the solemn Latin phraseology, a series of sentences indicated by a penciled line at the margin. Of these I copy here a few, translating them into English.

"When man's interior sight is opened, which is that of his spirit, then there appear the things of another life, which cannot possibly be made visible to the bodily sight."....

"By the internal sight it has been granted me to see the things that are in the other life, more clearly than I see those that are in the world. From these considerations, it is evident that external vision exists from interior vision, and this from a vision still more interior, and so on." .... "There are with every man at least two evil spirits.".... "With wicked genii there is also a fluent speech, but harsh and grating. There is also among them a speech which is not fluent, wherein the dissent of the thoughts is perceived as something secretly creeping along within it." "The evil spirits associated with man are, indeed from the hells, but when with man they are not then in hell, but are taken out thence. The place where they then are, is in the midst between heaven and hell, and is called the world of spirits--when the evil spirits who are with man, are in that world, they are not in any infernal torment, but in every thought and affection of man, and so, in all that the man himself enjoys. But when they are remitted into their hell, they return to their former state.".... "If evil spirits could perceive that they were associated with man, and yet that they were spirits separate from him, and if they could flow in into the things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand means to destroy him; for they hate man with a deadly hatred." .... "Knowing, therefore, that I was a man in the body, they were continually striving to destroy me, not as to the body only, but especially as to the soul; for to destroy any man or spirit is the very delight of the life of all who are in hell; but I have been continually protected by the Lord. Hence it appears how dangerous it is for man to be in a living consort with spirits, unless he be in the good of faith." .... "Nothing is more carefully guarded from the knowledge of associate spirits than their being thus conjoint with a man, for if they knew it they would speak to him, with the intention to destroy him." .... "The delight of hell is to do evil to man, and to hasten his eternal ruin."

A long note, written with a very sharp and fine pencil, in Mr. Jennings' neat hand, at the foot of the page, caught my eye. Expecting his criticism upon the text, I read a word or two, and stopped, for it was something quite different, and began with these words, Deus misereatur mei--"May God compassionate me." Thus warned of its private nature, I averted my eyes, and shut the book, replacing all the volumes as I had found them, except one which interested me, and in which, as men studious and solitary in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as to take no cognisance of the outer world, nor to remember where I was. I was reading some pages which refer to "representatives" and "correspondents," in the technical language of Swedenborg, and had arrived at a passage, the substance of which is, that evil spirits, when seen by other eyes than those of their infernal associates, pre sent themselves, by "correspondence," in the shape of the beast ()fera) which represents their particular lust and life, in aspect direful and atrocious. This is a long passage, and particularises a number of those bestial forms.

CHAPTER IV

Four Eyes Were Reading the Passage

I was running the head of my pencil-case along the line as I read it, and something caused me to raise my eyes.

Directly before me was one of the mirrors I have mentioned, in which I saw reflected the tall shape of my friend, Mr. Jennings, leaning over my shoulder, and reading the page at which I was busy, and with a face so dark and wild that I should hardly have known him.

I turned and rose. He stood erect also, and with an effort laughed a little, saying: "I came in and asked you how you did, but without succeeding in awaking you from your book; so I could not restrain my curiosity, and very impertinently, I'm afraid, peeped over your shoulder. This is not your first time of looking into those pages. You have looked into Swedenborg, no doubt, long ago?"

"Oh dear, yes! I owe Swedenborg a great deal; you will discover traces of him in the little book on Metaphysical Medicine, which you were so good as to remember." Although my friend affected a gaiety of manner, there was a slight flush in his face, and I could perceive that he was inwardly much perturbed. "I'm scarcely yet qualified, I know so little of Swedenborg. I've only had them a fortnight," he answered, "and I think they are rather likely to make a solitary man nervous--that is, judging from the very little I have read---I don't say that they have made me so," he laughed; "and I'm so very much obliged for the book. I hope you got my note?"

I made all proper acknowledgments and modest disclaimers. "I never read a book that I go with, so entirely, as that of yours," he continued. "I saw at once there is more in it than is quite un folded. Do you know Dr. Harley?" he asked, rather abruptly. In passing, the editor remarks that the physician here named was one of the most eminent who had ever practiced in England.

I did, having had letters to him, and had experienced from him great courtesy and considerable assistance during my visit to England.

"I think that man one of the very greatest fools I ever met in my life," said Mr. Jennings.

This was the first time I had ever heard him say a sharp thing of anybody, and such a term applied to so high a name a little startled me.

"Really! and in what way?" I asked. "In his profession," he answered. I smiled.

"I mean this," he said: "he seems to me, one half, blind--I mean one half[ of all he looks at is dark--preternaturally bright and vivid all the rest; and the worst of it is, it seems wilful. I can't get him--I mean he won't--I've had some experience of him as a physician, but I look on him as, in that sense, no better than a paralytic mind, an intellect half dead. I'll tell you--I know I shall some time--all about it," he said, with a little agitation. "You stay some months longer in England. If I should be out of town during your stay [or a little time, would you allow me to trouble you with a letter?"

"I should be only too happy," I assured him.

"Very good of you. I am so utterly dissatisfied with Harley."

"A little leaning to the materialistic school," I said.

"A mere materialist," he corrected me; "you can't think how that sort of thing worries one who knows better. You won't tell any one--any of my friends you know--that I am hippish; now, [or instance, no one knows--not even Lady Mary--that I have seen Dr. Harley, or any other doctor.

So pray don't mention it; and, if I should have any threatening of an attack, you'll kindly let me write, or, should I be in town, have a little talk with you." I was full of conjecture, and unconsciously I found I had fixed my eyes gravely on him, for he lowered his for a moment, and he said: "1 see you think I might as well tell you now, or else you are forming a conjecture; but you may as well give it up. If you were guessing all the rest of your Iife, you will never hit on it."

He shook his head smiling, and over that wintry sunshine a black cloud suddenly came down, and he drew his breath in, through his teeth as men do in pain. "Sorry, of course, to learn that you apprehend occasion to consult any of us; but, command me when and how you like, and I need not assure you that your confidence is sacred."

He then talked of quite other things, and in a comparatively cheerful way and after a little time, I took my leave.

CHAPTER V

Dr. Hesselius is Summoned to Richmond

We parted cheerfully, but he was not cheerful, nor was I. There are certain expressions of that powerful organ of spirit--the human face--which, although I have seen them often, and possess a doctor's nerve, yet disturb me profoundly. One look of Mr. Jennings haunted me. It had seized my imagination with so dismal a power that I changed my plans for the evening, and went to the opera, feeling that I wanted a change of ideas.

I heard nothing of or from him for two or three days, when a note in his hand reached me. It was cheerful, and full of hope. He said that he had been for some little time so much better-quite well, in fact--that he was going to make a little experiment, and run down for a month or so to his parish, to try whether a little work might not quite set him up. There was in it a fervent religious expression of gratitude [or his restoration, as he now almost hoped he might call it.

A day or two later I saw Lady Mary, who repeated what his note had announced, and told me that he was actually in Warwickshire, having resumed his clerical duties at Kenlis; and she added, "I begin to think that he is really perfectly well, and that there never was anything the matter, more than nerves and fancy; we are all nervous, but I fancy there is nothing like a little hard work for that kind of weakness, and he has made up his mind to try it. I should not be surprised if he did not come back for a year." Notwithstanding all this confidence, only two days later 1 had this note, dated from his house off Piccadilly:

DEAR Sir,--I have returned disappointed. If I should feel at all able to see you, I shall write to ask you kindly to call. At present, I am too low, and, in fact, simply unable to say all I wish to say. Pray don't mention my name to my friends. I can see no one. By-and-by, please God, you shall hear from me. I mean to take a run into Shropshire, where some of my people are. God bless you! May we, on my return, meet more happily than I can now write.

About a week after this I saw Lady Mary at her own house, the last person, she said, left in town, and just on the wing for Brighton, for the London season was quite over. She told me that she had heard from Mr. Jenning's niece, Martha, in Shropshire. There was nothing to be gathered from her letter, more than that he was low and nervous. In those words, of which healthy people think so lightly, what a world of suffering is sometimes hidden! Nearly five weeks had passed without any further news of Mr. Jennings. At the end of that time I received a note from him. He wrote: "I have been in the country, and have had change of air, change of scene, change of faces, change of everything--and in everything ---but myself. I have made up my mind, so far as the most irresolute creature on earth can do it, to tell my case fully to you. If your engagements will permit, pray come to me to-day, to-morrow, or the next day; but, pray defer as little as possible. You know not how much I need help. I have a quiet house at Richmond, where I now am. Perhaps you can manage to come to dinner, or to lunch eon, or even to tea. You shall have no trouble in finding me out. The servant at Blank Street, who takes this note, will have a carriage at your door at any hour you please; and I am always to be found. You will say that I ought not to be alone. 1 have tried everything. Come and see."

I called up the servant, and decided on going out the same evening, which accordingly I did.

He would have been much better in a lodging-house, or hotel, I thought, as I drove up through a short double row of sombre elms to a very old-fashioned brick house, darkened by the foliage of these trees, which overtopped, and nearly surrounded it. It was a perverse choice, for nothing could be imagined more triste and silent. The house, I found, belonged to him. He had stayed for a day or two in town, and, finding it for some cause insupportable, had come out here, probably because being furnished and his own, he was relieved of the thought and delay of selection, by coming here.

The sun had already set, and the red reflected light of the western sky illuminated the scene with the peculiar effect with which we are all familiar. The hall seemed very dark, but, getting to the back drawing-room, whose windows command the west, I was again in the same dusky light. I sat down, looking out upon the richly-wooded landscape that glowed in the grand and melancholy light which was every moment fading. The corners of the room were already dark; all was growing dim, and the gloom was insensibly toning my mind, al ready prepared for what was sinister. I was waiting alone for his arrival, which soon took place. The door communicating with the front room opened, and the tall figure of Mr. Jennings, faintly seen in the ruddy twilight, came, with quiet stealthy steps, into the room.

We shook hands, and, taking a chair to the window, where there was still light enough to enable us to see each other's faces, he sat down beside me, and, placing his hand upon my arm, with scarcely a word of preface began his narrative.

CHAPTER VI

How Mr. Jennings Met His Companion

The faint glow of the west, the pomp of the then lonely woods of Richmond, were before us, behind and about us the darkening room, and on the stony face of the sufferer for the character of his face, though still gentle and sweet, was changed rested that dim, odd glow which seems to descend and produce, where it touches, lights, sudden though faint, which are lost, almost with out gradation, in darkness. The silence, too, was utter: not a dis tant wheel, or bark, or whistle from without; and within the de pressing stillness of an invalid bachelor's house.

I guessed well the nature, though not even vaguely the particulars of the revelations I was about to receive, from that fixed face of suffering that so oddly flushed stood out, like a portrait of Schalken's, before its background of darkness.

"It began," he said, "on the 15th of October, three years and eleven weeks ago, and two days--I keep very accurate count, for every day is torment. If I leave anywhere a chasm in my narrative tell me.

"About four years ago I began a work, which had cost me very much thought and reading. It was upon the religious metaphysics of the ancients."

"1 know," said I, "the actual religion of educated and thinking paganism, quite apart from symbolic worship? A wide and very interesting field."

"Yes, but not good for the mind--the Christian mind, I mean. Paganism is all bound together in essential unity, and, with evil sympathy, their religion involves their art, and both their manners, and the subject is a degrading fascination and the Nemesis sure. God forgive me!

"I wrote a great deal; I wrote late at night. I was always thinking on the subject, walking about, wherever I was, everywhere. It thoroughly infected me. You are to remember that all the material ideas connected with it were more or less of the beautiful, the subject itself delightfully interesting, and I, then, without a care." He sighed heavily. "I believe, that every one who sets about writing in earnest does his work, as a friend of mine phrased it, on something--tea, or coffee, or tobacco. I suppose there is a material waste that must be hourly supplied in such occupations, or that we should grow too abstracted, and the mind, as it were, pass out of the body, unless it were reminded often enough of the connection by actual sensation. At all events, I felt the want, and I supplied it. Tea was my companion-at first the ordinary black tea, made in the usual way, not too strong: but I drank a good deal, and increased its strength as I went on. I never, experienced an uncomfortable symptom from it. ! began to take a little green tea. I found the effect pleasanter, it cleared and intensified the power of thought so, I had come to take it frequently, but not stronger than one might take it for pleasure. I wrote a great deal out here, it was so quiet, and in this room. I used to sit up very late, and it became a habit with me to sip my tea--green tea--every now and then as my work proceeded. I had a little kettle on my table, that swung over a lamp, and made tea two or three times between eleven o'clock and two or three in the morning, my hours of going to bed. I used to go into town every day. I was not a monk, and, although I spent an hour or two in a library, hunting up authorities and looking out lights upon my theme, I was in no morbid state as far as I can judge. I met my friends pretty much as usual and enjoyed their society, and, on the whole, existence had never been, I think, so pleasant before.

"I had met with a man who had some odd old books, German editions in medieval Latin, and I was only too happy to be permitted access to them. This obliging person's books were in the City, a very out-of-the-way part of it. I had rather out-stayed my intended hour, and, on coming out, seeing no cab near, I was tempted to get into the omnibus which used to drive past this house. It was darker than this by the time the 'bus had reached an old house, you may have remarked, with four poplars at each side of the door, and there the last passenger but myself got out. We drove along rather faster. It was twilight now. I leaned back in my corner next the door ruminating pleasantly.

"The interior of the omnibus was nearly dark. I had observed in the corner opposite to me at the other side, and at the end next the horses, two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light. They were about two inches apart, and about the size of those small brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon their jackets. I began to speculate, as listless men will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From what center did that faint but deep red light come, and from what--glass beads, buttons, toy decorations-was it reflected? We were lumbering along gently, having nearly a mile still to go. I had not solved the puzzle, and it be came in another minute more odd, for these two luminous points, with a sudden jerk, descended nearer and nearer the floor, keeping still their relative distance and horizontal position, and then, as suddenly, they rose to the level of the seat on which I was sitting and I saw them no more.

"My curiosity was now really excited, and, before I had time to think, I saw again these two dull lamps, again together near the floor; again they disappeared, and again in their old corner I saw them. "So, keeping my eyes upon them, I edged quietly up my own side, towards the end at which I still saw these tiny discs of red.

"There was very little light in the 'bus. It was nearly dark. I leaned forward to aid my endeavor to discover what these little circles really were. They shifted position a little as I did so. I began now to perceive an outline of something black, and 1 soon saw, with tolerable distinctness, the outline of a small black monkey, pushing its face forward in mimicry to meet mine; those were its eyes, and I now dimly saw its teeth grinning at me. "I drew back, not knowing whether it might not meditate a spring. 1 fancied that one of the passengers had forgot this ugly pet, and wishing to ascertain something of its temper, though not caring to trust my fingers to it, I poked my umbrella softly towards it. It remained immovable--up to it--through it. For through it, and back and forward it passed, without the slightest resistance.

"I can't, in the least, convey to you the kind of horror that I felt. When I had ascertained that the thing was an illusion, as I then supposed, there came a misgiving about myself and a terror that fascinated me in impotence to remove my gaze from the eyes of the brute for some moments. As I looked, it made a little skip back, quite into the corner, and I, in a panic, found myself at the door, having put my head out, drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and staring at the lights and tress we were passing, too glad to reassure myself of reality. "I stopped the 'bus and got out. I perceived the man look oddly at me as I paid him. I dare say there was something unusual in my looks and manner, for I had never felt so strangely before."

CHAPTER VII

The Journey: First Stage

"When the omnibus drove on, and I was alone upon the road, I looked carefully round to ascertain whether the monkey had fol lowed me. To my indescribable relief ! saw it nowhere. I can't describe easily what a shock I had received, and my sense of genuine gratitude on finding myself, as I supposed, quite rid of it.

"I had got out a little before we reached this house, two or three hundred steps. A brick wall runs along the footpath, and inside the wall is a hedge of yew, or some dark evergreen of that kind, and within that again the row of fine trees which you may have remarked as you came. "This brick wall is about as high as my shoulder, and happening to raise my eyes I saw the monkey, with that stooping gait, on all fours, walking or creeping, close beside me, on top of the wall. I stopped, looking at it with a feeling of loathing and horror. As I stopped so did it. It sat up on the wall with its long hands on its knees looking at me. There was not light enough to see it much more than in outline, nor was it dark enough to bring the peculiar light of its eyes into strong relief. I still saw, however, that red foggy light plainly enough. It did not show its teeth, nor exhibit any sign of irritation, but seemed jaded and sulky, and was observing me steadily. "I drew back into the middle of the road. It was an unconscious recoil, and there I stood, still looking at it. It did not move.

"With an instinctive determination to try something--any thing, I turned about and walked briskly towards town with askance look, all the time, watching the movements of the beast. It crept swiftly along the wall, at exactly my pace.

"Where the wall ends, near the turn of the road, it came down, and with a wiry spring or two brought itself close to my feet, and continued to keep up with me, as I quickened my pace. It was at my left side, so dose to my leg that I felt every moment as if I should tread upon it.

"The road was quite deserted and silent, and it was darker every moment. I stopped dismayed and bewildered, turning as 1 did so, the other way--I mean, towards this house, away from which I had been walking. When I stood still, the monkey drew back to a distance of, I suppose, about five or six yards, and remained stationary, watching me. "I had been more agitated than I have said. I had read, of course, as everyone has, something about 'spectral illusions,' as you physicians term the phenomena of such cases. I considered my situation, and looked my misfortune in the face.

"These affections, I had read, are sometimes transitory and sometimes obstinate. I had read of cases in which the appearance, at first harmless, had, step by step, degenerated into something direful and insupportable, and ended by wearing its victim out. Still as I stood there, but for my bestial companion, quite alone, I tried to comfort myself by repeating again and again the assurance, 'the thing is purely disease, a well-known physical affection, as distinctly as small-pox or neuralgia. Doctors are all agreed on that, philosophy demonstrates it. I must not be a fool. I've been sitting up too late, and I daresay my digestion is quite wrong, and, with God's help, I shall be all right, and this is but a symptom of nervous dyspepsia.'

Did I believe all this? Not one word of it, no more than any other miserable being ever did who is once seized and riveted in this satanic captivity. Against my convictions, I might say my knowledge, I was simply bullying myself into a false courage.

"I now walked homeward. I had only a few hundred yards to go. I had forced myself into a sort of resignation, but I had not got over the sickening shock and the flurry of the first certainty of my misfortune.

"I made up my mind to pass the night at home. The brute moved dose betide me, and 1 fancied there was the sort of anxious drawing toward the house, which one sees in tired horses or dogs, sometimes as they come toward home.

"I was afraid to go into town, I was afraid of any one's seeing and recognizing me. I was conscious of an irrepressible agitation in my manner. Also, I was afraid of any violent change in my habits, such as going to a place of amusement, or walking from home in order to fatigue myself. At the hall door it waited till I mounted the steps, and when the door was opened entered with me.

"I drank no tea that night. I got cigars and some brandy and water. My idea was that I should act upon my material system, and by living for a while in sensation apart from thought, send myself forcibly, as it were, into a new groove. I came up here to this drawing-room. 1 sat just here. The monkey then got upon a small table that then stood there. It looked dazed and languid. An irrepressible uneasiness as to its movements kept my eyes always upon it. Its eyes were half closed, but I could see them glow. It was looking steadily at me. In all situations, at all hours, it is awake and looking at me. That never changes.

"I shall not continue in detail my narrative of this particular night. I shall describe, rather, the phenomena of the first year, which never varied, essentially. I shall describe the monkey as it appeared in daylight. In the dark, as you shall presently hear, there are peculiarities. It is a small monkey, perfectly black. It had only one peculiarity--a character of malignity--unfathomable malignity. During the first year looked sullen and sick. But this character of intense malice and vigilance was always underlying that surly languor. During all that time it acted as if on a plan of giving me as little trouble as was consistent with watching me. Its eyes were never off me. I have never lost sight of it, except in my sleep, light or dark, day or night, since it came here, excepting when it withdraws for some weeks at a time, unaccountably.

"In total dark it is visible as in daylight. I do not mean merely its eyes. It is all visible distinctly in a halo that resembles a glow of red embers, and which accompanies it in all its movements.

"When it leaves me for a time, it is always at night, in the dark, and in the same way. It grows at first uneasy, and then furious, and then advances towards me, ginning and shaking, its paws clenched, and, at the same time, there comes the appearance of fire in the grate. I never have any fire. I can't sleep in the room where there is any, and it draws nearer and nearer to the chimney, quivering, it seems, with rage, and when its fury rises to the high est pitch, it springs into the grate, and up the chimney, and 1 see it no more.

"When first this happened, I thought I was released. 1 was now a new man. A day passed--a night--and no return, and a blessed week--a week--another week. 1 was always on my knees, Dr. Hesselius, always, thanking God and praying. A whole month passed of liberty, but on a sudden, it was with me again."

CHAPTER VIII

The Second Stage

"It was with me, and the malice which before was torpid under a sullen exterior, was now active.

It was perfectly unchanged in every other respect. This new energy was apparent in its activity and its looks, and soon in other ways.

"For a time, you will understand, the change was shown only in an increased vivacity, and an air of menace, as if it were always brooding over some atrocious plan. Its eyes, as before, were never off me."

"Is it here now?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "it has been absent exactly a fortnight and a day--fifteen days. It has sometimes been away so long as nearly two months, once for three. Its absence always exceeds a fortnight, al though it may be but by a single day. Fifteen days having past since I saw it last, it may return now at any moment."

"Is its return," I asked, "accompanied by any peculiar manifestation?"

"Nothing--no," he said. "It is simply with me again. On lifting my eyes from a book, or turning my head, I see it, as usual, looking at me, and then it remains, as before, for its appointed time. I have never told so much and so minutely before to any one."

I perceived that he was agitated, and looking like death, and he repeatedly applied his handkerchief to his forehead; I suggested that he might be cured, and told him that I would call, with pleasure, in the morning, but he said: "No, if you don't mind hearing it all now. I have got so far, and I should prefer making one effort of it. When I spoke to Dr. Harley, I had nothing like so much to tell. You are a philosophic physician. You give spirit its proper rank. If the thing is real----"

He paused looking at me with agitated inquiry.

"We can discuss it by-and-by, and very fully. I will give you all I think, " I answered after an interval.

"Well--very well. If it is anything real, I say, it is prevailing. little by little, and drawing me more interiorly into hell. Optic nerves, he talked of. Ah! well--there are other nerves of communication. May God Almighty help me! You shall hear. "It is power of action, I tell you, had increased. Its malice became, in a way, aggressive. About two years ago, some questions that were pending between me and the bishop having been settled, I went down to my parish in Warwickshire, anxious to find occupation in my profession. I was not prepared for what happened, although I have since thought I might have apprehended something like it. The reason of my saying so is this--"

He was beginning to speak with a great deal more effort and reluctance, and sighted often, and seemed at times nearly overcome. But at this time his manner was not agitated. It was more like that of a sinking patient, who has given himself up.

"Yes, but I will first tell you about Kenlis my parish.

"It was with me when I left this place for Drawlbridge. It was my silent traveling companion, and it remained with me at the vicarage. When I entered on the discharge of my duties, another change took place. The thing exhibited an atrocious determination to thwart me. It was with me in the church--in the reading desk--in the pulpit--within the communion rails. At last, it reached this extremity, that while I was reading to the congregation, it would spring upon the book and squat there, so that I was unable to see the page. This happened more than once.

"I left Drawlbridge for a time. I placed myself in Dr. Harley's hands. I did everything he told me. he gave my case a great deal of thought. It interested him, I think. He seemed successful.

For nearly three months I was perfectly free from a return. I began to think I was safe. With his full assent I returned to Drawlbridge.

"I traveled in a chaise. I was in good spirits. I was more--I was happy and grateful. I was returning , as I thought, delivered from a dreadful hallucination, to the scene of duties which I longed to enter upon. It was a beautiful sunny evening, everything looked serene and cheerful, and I was delighted, I remember looking out of the window to see the spire of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the point where one has the earliest view of it. It is exactly where the little stream that bounds the parish passes under the road by a culvert, and where it emerges at the roadside, a stone with an old inscription is placed. As we passed this point, I drew my head in and sat down, and in the corner of the chaise was the monkey.

"For a moment I felt faint, and then quite wild with despair and horror, I called to the driver, and got out, and sat down at the road-side, and prayed to God silently for mercy. A despairing resignation supervened. My companion was with me as I reentered the vicarage. The same persecution followed. After a short struggle I submitted, and soon I left the place. "I told you," he said, "that all the beast has before this become in certain ways aggressive. I will explain a little. It seemed to be actuated by intense and increasing fury, whenever I said my prayers, or even meditated prayer. It amounted at last to a dreadful interruption. You will ask, how could a silent immaterial phantom effect that? It was thus, whenever I meditated praying; It was always before me, and nearer and nearer. "It used to spring on the table, on the back of the chair, on the chimney-piece, and slowly swing itself from side to side, looking at me all the time. There is in its motion an indefinable power to dissipate thought, and to contract one's attention to that monotony, till the ideas shrink, as it were, to a point, and at last to nothing--and unless I had started up , and shook off the catalepsy I have felt as if my mind were to a point of losing itself. There are no other ways," he sighed heavily; "thus, for instance, while I pray with my eyes closed, it comes closer and closer and closer, and I see it. I know it is not to be accounted for physically, but I do actually see it, though my lids are closed, and so it rocks my mind, as it were, and overpowers me, and I am obliged to rise from my knees. If you had ever yourself known this, you would be acquainted with desperation."

CHAPTER IX

The Third Stage

"I see, Dr. Hesselius, that you don't lose one word of my statement. I need not ask you to listen specially to what I am now going to tell you. They talk of the optic nerves, and of spectral illusions, as if the organ of fight was the only point assailable by the influences that have fastened upon me--l know better. For two years in my direful case that limitation prevailed. But as food is taken in softly at the lips, and then brought under the teeth, as the tip of the little finger caught in a mill crank will draw in the hand, and the arm, and the whole body, so the miserable mortal who has been once caught firmly by the end of the finest fibre of his nerve, is drawn in and in, by the enormous machinery of hell, until he is as 1 am. Yes, Doctor, as I am, for a while I talk to you, and implore relief, I feel that my prayer is for the impossible, and my pleading with the inexorable."

1 endeavoured to calm his visibly increasing agitation, and told him that he must not despair.

While we talked the night had overtaken us. The filmy moon light was wide over the scene which the window commanded, and I said: "Perhaps you would prefer having candles. This light, you know, is odd. I should wish you, as much as possible, under your usual conditions while I make my diagnosis, shall I call it--otherwise I don't care."

"All lights are the same to me," he said; "except when 1 read or write, I care not if night were perpetual. I am going to tell you what happened about a year ago. The thing began to speak to me."

"Speak! How do you mean--speak as a man does, do you mean?" "yes; speak in words and consecutive sentences, with perfect coherence and articulation; but there is a peculiarity. It is not like the tone of a human voice. It is not by my ears it reaches me-it comes like a singing through my head.

"This faculty, the power of speaking to me, will be my undoing. It won't let me pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go on, I could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and prayers of man avail me nothing!"

"You must promise me, my dear sir, not to trouble yourself with unnecessarily exciting thoughts; confine yourself strictly to the narrative of facts; and recollect, above all, that even if the thing that infests you be, you seem to suppose a reality with an actual in dependent life and will, yet it can have no power to hurt you, unless it be given from above: its access to your senses depends mainly upon your physical condition--this is, under God, your com fort and reliance: we are all alike environed. It is only that in your case, the 'parties,' the veil of the flesh, the screen, is a little out of repair, and sights and sounds are transmitted. We must enter on a new course, sir,---be encouraged. I'll give to-night to the careful consideration of the whole case."

"You are very good, sir; you think it worth trying, you don't give me quite up; but, sir, you don't know, it is gaining such an influence over me: it orders me about, it is such a tyrant, and I'm growing so helpless. May God deliver me!"

"It orders you about--of course you mean by speech?"

"Yes, yes; it is always urging me to crimes, to injure others, or myself. You see, Doctor, the situation is urgent, it is indeed. When I was in Shropshire, a few weeks ago" (Mr. Jennings was speaking rapidly and trembling now, holding my arm with one hand, and looking in my face), "I went out one day with a party of friends for a walk: my persecutor, I tell you, was with me at the time. I lagged behind the rest: the country near the Dee, you know, is beautiful. Our path happened to lie near a coal mine, and at the verge of the wood is a perpendicular shaft, they say, a hundred and fifty feet deep. My niece had remained behind with me--she knows, of course nothing of the nature of my sufferings. She knew, however, that I had been ill, and was low, and she remained to prevent my being quite alone. As we loitered slowly on together, the brute that accompanied me was urging me to throw myself down the shaft. I tell you now--oh, sir, think of it!--the one consideration that saved me from that hideous death was the fear lest the shock of witnessing the occurrence should be too much for the poor girl. I asked her to go on and walk with her friends, saying that I could go no further. She made excuses, and the more I urged her the firmer she became. She looked doubtful and frightened. 1 suppose there was something in my looks or manner that alarmed her; but she would not go, and that literally saved me. You had no idea, sir, that a living man could be made so abject a slave of Satan," he said, with a ghastly groan and a shudder.

There was a pause here, and I said, "You were preserved nevertheless. It was the act of God. You are in His hands and in the power of no other being: be therefore confident for the future."

CHAPTER X

Home

I made him have candles lighted, and saw the room looking cheery and inhabited before I left him. I told him that he must regard his illness strictly as one dependent on physical, though subtle physical causes. 1 told him that he had evidence of God's care and love in the deliverance which he had just described, and that I had perceived with pain that he seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating that he had been delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than such a conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, less warranted; and not only so, but more contrary to [acts, as disclosed in his mysterious deliverance from that murderous in fluence during his Shropshire excursion. First, his niece had been retained by his side without his intending to keep her near him; and, secondly, there had been infused into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the dreadful suggestion in her presence.

As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings wept. He seemed comforted. One promise I exacted, which was that should the monkey at any time return, I should be sent for immediately; and, repeating my assurance that 1 would give neither time nor thought to any other subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case, and that to-morrow he should hear the result, 1 took my leave.

Before getting into the carriage I told the servant that his master was far from well, and that he should make a point of fre quently looking into his room. My own arrangements 1 made with a view to being quite secure from interruption. I merely called at my lodgings, and with a traveling-desk and carpet-bag, set off in a hackney carriage for an inn about two miles out of town, called "The Horns," a very quiet and comfortable house, with good thick walls. And there I resolved, without the possibility of intrusion or distraction, to devote some hours of the night, in my comfortable sitting-room, to Mr. Jennings' case, and so much of the morning as it might require. (There occurs here a careful note of Dr. Hesselius' opinion on the case, and of the habits, dietary, and medicines which he prescribed. It is curious--some persons would say mystical. But, on the whole, I doubt whether it would sufficiently interest a reader of the kind I am likely to meet with, to warrant its being here reprinted. The whole letter was plainly written at the inn where he had hid himself for the occasion. The next letter is dated from his town lodgings.) I left town for the inn where I slept last night at half-past nine, and did not arrive at my room in town until one o'clock this after- noon. 1 found a letter m Mr. Jennings' hand upon my table. It. had not come by post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. Jennings' servant had brought it, and on learning that I was not to return until to-day, and that no one could tell him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable, and said his orders from his master were that he was not to return without an answer.

I opened the letter and read:

Dear Dr. Hesselius.--It is here. You had not been an hour gone when it returned. It is speaking. It knows all that has happened. It knows every thing-it knows you, and is frantic and atrocious. It reviles. I send you this. It knows every word I have written--I write. This I promised, and I therefore write, but I fear very confused, very incoherently. I am so interrupted, disturbed.

Ever yours, sincerely yours,

ROBERT LYNDER JENNINGS.

"When did this come?" I asked.

"About eleven last night: the man was here again, and has been here three times to-day. The last time is about an hour since."

Thus answered, and with the notes ! had made upon his case in my pocket, I was in a few minutes driving towards Richmond, to see Mr. Jennings. I by no means, as you perceive, despaired of Mr. Jennings' case. He had himself remembered and applied, though quite in a mistaken way, the principle which I lay down in my Metaphysical Medicine, and which governs all such cases. I was about to apply it in earnest. I was profoundly interested, and very anxious to see and examine him while the "enemy" was actually present. I drove up to the sombre house, and ran up the steps, and knocked. The door, in a little time, was opened by a tall woman in black silk. She looked ill, and as if she had been crying. She curtseyed, and heard my question, but she did not answer. She turned her face away, extending her hand towards two men who were coming down-stairs; and thus having, as it were, tacitly made me over to them, she passed through a side-door hastily and shut it.

The man who was nearest the hall, I at once accosted, but being now close to him, I was shocked to see that both his hands were covered with blood.

I drew back a little, and the man, passing downstairs, merely said in a low tone, "Here's the servant, sir."

The servant had stopped on the stairs, confounded and dumb at seeing me. He was rubbing his hands in a handkerchief, and it was steeped in blood.

"Jones, what is it? what has happened?" I asked, while a sickening suspicion overpowered me.

The man asked me to come up to the lobby. I was beside him in a moment, and, frowning and pallid, with contracted eyes, he told me the horror which I already half guessed.

His master had made away with himself.

I went upstairs with him to the room--what I saw there I won't tell you. He had cut his throat with his razor. It was a frightful gash. The two men had laid him on the bed, and composed his limbs. It had happened, as the immense pool of blood on the floor declared, at some distance between the bed and the window. There was carpet round his bed, and a carpet under his dressing. table, but none on the rest of the floor, for the man said he did not like a carpet on his bedroom. In this sombre and now terrible room, one of the great elms that darkened the house was slowly moving the shadow of one of its great boughs upon this dreadful floor.

I beckoned to the servant, and we went downstairs together. I turned off the hall into an old-fashioned paneled room, and there standing, I heard all the servant had to tell. It was not a great deal.

"! concluded, sir, from your words, and looks, sir, as you left last night, that you thought my master was seriously ill. I thought it might be that you were afraid of a fit, or something. So I attended very close to your directions. He sat up late, till past three o'clock. He was not writing or reading. He was talking a great deal to him self, but that was nothing unusual. At about that hour 1 assisted him to undress, and left him in his slippers and dressing-gown. I went back softly in about half-an-hour. He was in his bed, quite undressed, and a pair of candles lighted on the table beside his bed. He was leaning on his elbow, and looking out at the other side of the bed when I came in. I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said No. "I don't know whether it was what you said to me, sir, or some thing a little unusual about him, but I was uneasy, uncommon uneasy about him last night.

"In another half hour, or it might be a little more, 1 went up again. 1 did not hear him talking as before. I opened the door a little. The candles were both out, which was not usual. I had a bedroom candle, and I let the light in, a little bit, looking softly round. I saw him sitting in that chair beside the dressing-table with his clothes on again. He turned round and looked at me. I thought it strange he should get up and dress, and put out the candles to sit in the dark, that way.

But I only asked him again if I could do anything for him. He said, No, rather sharp, I thought. He said, 'Tell me truth, Jones; why did you come again--you did not hear anyone cursing?' 'No, sir,' I said, wondering what he could mean.

"'No,' said he, after me, 'of course, no;' and I said to him, 'Wouldn't it be well, sir, you went to bed? It's just five o'clock;' and he said nothing, but, 'Very likely; good-night, Jones.' so I went, sir, but in less than an hour I came again. The door was fast, and he heard me, and called as I thought from the bed to know what I wanted, and he desired me not to disturb him again. I lay down and slept for a little. It must have been between six and seven when I went up again. The door was still fast, and he made no answer, so 1 did not like to disturb him, and thinking he was asleep, I left him till nine. It was his custom to ring when he wished me to come, and I had no particular hour for calling him. I tapped very gently, and getting no answer, I stayed away a good while, supposing he was getting some rest then. It was not till eleven o'clock I grew really uncomfortable about him--for at the latest he was never, that I could remember, later than half past ten. I got no answer. I knocked and called, and still no answer. So not being able to force the door, I called Thomas from the stables, and together we forced it, and found him in the shocking way you saw."

Jones had no more to tell. Poor Mr. Jennings was very gentle, and very kind. All his people were fond of him. I could see that the servant was very much moved. So, dejected and agitated, I passed from that terrible house, and its dark canopy of elms, and I hope I shall never see it more. While I write to you I feel like a man who has but half waked from a frightful and monotonous dream. My memory rejects the picture with incredulity and horror.

Yet I know it is true. It is the story of the process of a poison, a poison which excites the reciprocal action of spirit and nerve, and paralyses the tissue that separates those cognate functions of the senses, the external and the interior. Thus we find strange bed-fellows, and the mortal and immortal prematurely make acquaintance.

CONCLUSION

A Word for Those Who Suffer

My dear Van L--, you have suffered from an affection similar to that which 1 have just described. You twice complained of a re turn of it. Who, under God, cured you? Your humble servant, Martin Hesselius. Let me rather adopt the more emphasized piety o[ a certain good old French surgeon of three hundred years ago: "I treated, and God cured you."

Come, my friend, you are not to be hippish. Let me tell you a fact. 1 have met with, and treated, as my book shows, fifty-seven cases of this kind of vision, which 1 term indifferently "sublimated," "precocious," and "interior." There is another class of affections which are truly termed- though commonly confounded with those which I describe--spectral illusions.

These latter I look upon as being no less simply curable than a cold in the head or a trifling dyspepsia. It is those which rank in the first category that test our promptitude of thought. Fifty-seven such cases have I encountered, neither more nor less. And in how many of these have I failed? In no one single instance.There is no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly reducible, with a little patience, and a rational confidence in the physician. With these simple conditions, 1 look upon the cure as absolutely certain. You are to remember that 1 had not even commenced to treat Mr. Jennings' case. 1 have not any doubt that 1 should have cured him perfectly in eighteen months, or possibly it might have ex tended to two years. Some cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the task, will effect a cure. You know my tract on "The Cardinal Functions of the Brain." I there, by the evidence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, the high probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its anism, through the nerves. Of this system, thus considered, the brain is the heart. The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves, returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as 1 before remarked, light or electricity are so. By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents . as green tea is one, this fluid may be affected as to its quality, but it is more frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid being that which we have in common with spirits, a congestion found on the masses of brain or nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a surface unduly exposed, on which disembodied spirits may operate: communication is thus more or less effectually established. Between this brain circulation and the heart circulation there is an intimate sympathy. The seat, or rather the instrument of exterior vision, is the eye. The seat of interior vision is the nervous tissue and brain, immediately about and above the eyebrow. You remember how effectually I dissipated your pictures by the simple application of iced eau-de-cologne. Few cases, how ever, can be treated exactly alike with anything like rapid success. Cold acts powerfully as a repellant of the nervous fluid. Long enough continued it will even produce that permanent insensibility which we call numbness, and a little longer, muscular as well as sensational paralysis.

I have not, 1 repeat, the slightest doubt that 1 should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently opened. The same senses are opened in delirium tremens, and entirely shut up again when the overaction of the cerebral heart, and the prodigious nervous congestions that attend it, are terminated by a decided change in the state of the body. It is by acting steadily upon the body, by a simple process, that this result is produced--and inevitably produced--l have never yet failed. Poor Mr. Jennings made away with himself. But that catastrophe was the result of a totally different malady, which, as it were, projected itself upon the disease which was established. His case was in the distinctive manner a complication, and the com plaint under which he really succumbed, was hereditary suicidal mania. Poor Mr. Jennings I cannot call a patient of mine, for I had not even begun to treat his case, and he had not yet given me, I am convinced, his full and unreserved confidence. If the patient do not array himself on the side of the disease, his cure is certain.

[captain-ezri-dax]

ALL of the questions for Q2

42. I have a question of my own! - rip

PHYSICAL PRESENCE AND GESTURE.

1. How do they move and carry themselves? Pace, rhythm, gestures, energy? - probably slow & deliberate

2. How much physical space do they use, active and at rest? - probably not much either way. She’s a sneaky gal & taking up as little space as possible is an ingrained habit by now

3. How do they position themselves in a group? Do they like to be the center of attention, or do they hang back at the edges of a crowd? - she doesn’t rly like talking anyway, so she doens’t rly bother trying to be the center of attention. She just hangs back & listens if she has to

4. What is their size and build? How does it influence how they use their body, if it does? - im not sure if synths have like. A certain size they’re built for cause im 90% sure they don’t grow, but i like to think she’s p small & uses it to sneak around doing her job and/or hiding from other coursers if she defects

5. How do they dress? What styles, colors, accessories, and other possessions do they favor? Why? - before she defects, just the normal courser uniform cause i think all coursers have to lmao. If she defects & gets her memories changed she’ll probably have the hooded rags outfit

6. What are they like in motion–in different environments, and in different activities? What causes the differences between these? - honestly i have no idea how to answer this rip

7. How do they physically engage with other people, inanimate objects, and their environment? What causes the differences between these? - with people, at least before defecting she probably kinda.. Doesn’t? She’ll hurt synths she needs to bring in if she has to but otherwise, she just doesn't physically interact. Depends on the object too - if a computer console needs hacking & she can’t manage it she’ll just give up & break it

8. Where and when do they seem most and least at ease? Why? How can you tell? - she is literally never at ease. Ever. She’s constantly a little stressed. She’s always around other coursers which she doesn’t like, doing a mission she doesn't enjoy or defecting & worried about being caught

9. How do they manifest energy, exhaustion, tension, or other strong emotions? - mMM shrug

10. What energizes and drains them most? - she just wants to sleep & eat pie. That’s probably all that energizes her tbh. Tho if she ever got a gf being around her would probably be a little energizing

11. How are they vocally expressive? What kind of voice, accent, tones, inflections, volume, phrases and slang, and manner of speaking do they use? - honestly i. Dont rly know. She’s definitely v quiet & only says things she has to, like mission reports or asking for pie

12. How are they bodily expressive? How do they use nonverbal cues such as their posture, stance, eyes, eyebrows, mouths, and hands? - she just. Isn’t. If u were trying to guess her mood on body and face expressions, there’s literally no difference between happy & excited or horny & hatred

DISPOSITION AND TEMPERAMENT.

13. How do they greet the world — what is their typical attitude towards life? How does it differ in different circumstances, or towards different subjects? Why do they take these attitudes, and why do they change? How do these tend to be expressed? - again she’s not v expressive before defecting but she doesn’t rly think about her day when she’s a courser? It’s all just routine & kinda numbing cause she doesn't rly wanna do the job anymore, tho being inexpressive helps her hide it. Once she defects, her inexpressiveness is definitely still there but if she makes friends her legs bounce just a little in excitement being around them & maybe she’ll even smile a little

14. What do they care deeply about? What kind of loyalties, commitments, moral codes, life philosophies, passions, callings, or spirituality and faith do they have? How do these tend to be expressed? - wellll she doesn’t really care about the institute at all while she’s there tbh, she’s only there cause it’s where she was made & the only kinda life she’s rly known. I wonder if she’ll get attached to a travelling caravan once her memories are changed, tho keeping her loyalty for too long would be pretty hard if she has options that might be better for her

15. What kind of inner life do they have — rich and imaginative? Calculating and practical? Full of doubts and fears? Does it find any sort of outlet in their lives? - definitely full of doubts at the institute, she’d view herself and other synths as literally just machines like a protectron designed to do a job. (tho at some point she’s forced to kill or nearly kill a synth she was supposed to retrieve, her outlook fuckin shattered when they were scared & felt a lot of pain.) She’s a little more practical & mindful for her own needs once her memories are changed

16. Do they dream? What are those dreams like? - before she defects she probably just doesn’t. But after, Q2 dreams of pies, dogs & cute girls

17. Are they more shaped by nature or nurture — who they are, or what has happened to them? How have these shaped who they’ve become as a person? - uhhh im dumb & cant work out what this means

18. What kind of person could they become in the future? What are some developmental paths that they could take, (best, worst, most likely?) what would cause them to come to pass, and what consequences might they have? What paths would you especially like to see, and why? - worst case scenario is that she doesn’t defect & instead throws herself into her courser work, starting to enjoy hurting people in bringing synths in. She’d probably end up dead if the institute is destroyed or survives & fights one-handed against the railroad. Best case is that she forgets all about the institute, gets a gf & a dog & learns how to cook something edible after like 3 years

CONNECTIONS WITH OTHERS.

19. How do they behave within a group? What role(s) do they take? Does this differ if they know and trust the group, versus finding themselves in a group of strangers? Why? - She never rly likes contributing to a group, even if she knows them well, but knowing them well means she’s more likely to actually listen. She still doesn’t like large groups after defecting but can be around 2-3 people & have decent conversations, tho she shuts down if the group is any larger.

20. What kind of individual relationships do they have with others, and how do they behave in them? How are they different between intimate relationships like friends, family, and lovers versus more impersonal relationships? - like. Rn? In the institute? Fuckin NONE. She’s completely alone. Give her a friend

21. What kind of relationships do they tend to intentionally seek out versus actually cultivate? What kind of social contact do they prefer, and why? - again she. Doesn’t rly. It isn’t that she wouldn’t want a friend it’s just that. If they defect it’s v possible she could be called to retrieve them & it’d hurt her, so she just avoids the premise altogether

22. How do people respond to them, and why might these responses differ? - honestly i. Have no idea lmao

23. How do they respond to difficult social moments? What makes them consider a social situation difficult? - again she. Kinda doesn’t? Most social situations feel the same to her before defecting, tho if it’s particularly long & needs a lot of input from her she’d probably just have a nap right after

24. How do they present themselves socially? What distinguishes their “persona” from their “true self”, and what causes that difference? - Q2- “don’t talk to me” -33 vs Q2- “hold my hand” -33.

25. What do they need and want out of relationships, and how do they go about getting it? - i think, for her, it’d depend on the person she wants to know? Before defecting most relationships she has are just “i need u to do a job” or “what job do i need to do?” but after, she mostly just wants people who’d like. Actually show that they care

26. How do they view and feel about relationships, and how might this manifest in how they handle them, if it does?

ACTIVITIES AND PREFERENCES.

27. What do they strongly like and dislike, in any category? Why? - uHH my brain is blaaaank sorry

28. What are they likely to do if they have the opportunity, resources, and time to accomplish it? Why? - probably just practice cooking. She wants to be able to not rely on someone else to cook for her, or having to spend like 500 caps on one meal

29. What kind of activities, interests, and hobbies do they have? What significance and impact do these have in their lives, both positive and negative? - uHHHHH i never thought of this either oops

30. What is their preferred level of activity and stimulation? How do they cope if they get either too little or too much? - she doesn't mind a lot but if she needs to do something she’d prefer less stuff to do before her goal is completed. If the amount of shit she needs to do exceeds her limit she just powers through it w/ force. She’d stop sneaking around a settlement & instead just force her way through, hurting people if needed

31. Is there anything that counts as a “dealbreaker” for them, positively or negatively? What makes things go smoothly, and what spoils an activity or ruins their day? Why? - honestly like. Not rly? The only real dealbreakers are having to retrieve someone she’d considered a friend, after defecting, doing something that would actively negatively impact or hurt her. Like having to pay a lot & getting nothing back

32. Do they have any “props” that are a significant part of their life, identity, activities, or self-presentation somehow? What are they, how are they used, and why are they so significant? How would these props’ absence impact them, how would they compensate, and why? - uhhh what the fuck does this mean. Is this like an actual object or something she uses to like prop herself up or????

THINKING AND LEARNING.

33. How do they learn about the world–what is their preferred learning style? Hands-on learning with trial and error? Research, reading, and note-taking? Observation or rote memorization? Inductive or deductive reasoning? Seeking patterns and organization? Taking things apart and putting them back together? Creative processing via discussing, writing about, or dramatizing things? - she probably just observes. She’s relatively patient & can observe for a long while if she has to, tho i wonder if institute synths can just have knowledge programmed into them

34. How do they understand the world–what kind of worldview and thought processes do they have? Why? - before defecting she probably just. Doesn’t think of the surface world? To her it’s a ruined irredeemable mess. After defecting she probably still thinks it’s a mess but it’s her mess

35. How and why do they internalize knowledge? What effect has that had on them? - uh

36. How much do they rely on their minds and intellect, versus other approaches like relying on instinct, intuition, faith and spirituality, or emotions? What is their opinion on this? -idk she probably just doesn't think on it unless someone points it out, but i’m she she’d rely more on instinct & intuition, tho she can think on problems when she needs to

37. Have they had any special education or training that colors their means of learning about or understanding the world? Conversely, do they lack some kind of education considered essential in their world? What kind of impact has this addition or lack had on them? - well i’m 100% sure her courser training would affect literally everything about her life lmao

38. Is there anything they wish they could change about their worldview or thought processes? What, and why? - probably not tbh?? Until she defects she doesn’t rly think on it

39. What sort of questions or thoughts recur in their lives, either specifically or as a theme? Why are these never answered, or answered permanently to their satisfaction? - who even knows i haven’t thought of this much detail about her ;-;

40. What do they wonder about? What sparks their curiosity and imagination, and why? How is this expressed, if it is? - she probably just has existential thoughts about whether or not she’s actually like. Alive or not? Her entire life the institute probably just tells her she’s a programmed machine, so she wonders if she’s a machine, what being alive is actually like

FREE FOR ALL.

41. What associations do they bring to mind? Words or phrases, images, metaphors or motifs? Why? - titty

[kurokiiratsuchii]

doing some justice lol

RE :: AIZEN vs MADARA

a major breakdown. get your snacks ready ppl

read if you are really bored lmao its fucking long

psa don't mix your personal biased based off of something that should solely be factual and unbiased but whatever to each their own, right?

lol okay before i begin this i just wanna say that i have zero knowledge on aizen’s abilities yet since all i know so far is that he disappeared up into the sky with the blind dude and gin but whatever. this is mostly concerning how the post made madara, kaguya and whatnot appear as though they were weak by giving FACTS and counter examples that ARE NOT BASED OFF OF MY own biased opinion to prove otherwise.

i am gonna go in order in which everything was presented in the original post otherwise everything will be all over the place lol. i am so tired 

Okay well they started off with the fandom and presented this hilarious pic (honestly i am wheezing save me)

im not even gonna lie, this does seem like the case with the multiple switch of protagonist, but each one of them was opening for the opportunity to a higher power. in part one of naruto, it would have been safe to assume that orochimaru was going to be the whole series main villain. i mean, it was partially true since he was for the majority of the first part but i just want to say this

THE SERIES ‘NARUTO’ WAS ABOUT THE STRUGGLES THAT NARUTO HAD TO ENDURE TO ACHIEVE HIS DREAM.

lmao the series starts off with him shouting ‘I AM GONNA BECOME HOKAGE, BELIEVE IT!!’ bam. thats it. thats literally fucking it to the series. its just about naruto becoming strong and mature throughout the series to become hokage.

with that, through a person’s whole life, you don’t only face one struggle and that’s it. the series was about his life and yeah, physical people were his ‘struggles’ in a sense but that was to him to become stronger. so its only fair that through his life, he faces a series of people who challenges his strength and all this other shit.

like if i remember the series correctly the order of people that he had to face to become stronger was :: literally his whole entire village, mizuki, zabuza, the sound nin during the chunin exams, fucking gaara, orochimaru, sound four, kurama, the whole akatsuki so thats like seven to ten people arguably, then here’s where it becomes complicated nagato, obito, madara and then kaguya.

i took out zetsu because he posed no direct threat to naruto.

so if you are going criticize a series for not having a solid villain, then don’t bring in other alternatives to come up with a solution as to who and why that person is the main villain. idk did that make sense?

get my point with this? ultimately, the purpose of the series isn’t made to have a ‘main’ villain because all the ‘villains’ had a key role to play in naruto’s growth. 

fight me. 

also, i am going to just throw this out there right now before i continue- don’t crossover the series to fit your bias!!! lmao okay lets continue

the second point that was mentioned was a joke post that was mentioned for shits and giggles and then taken too far by this person. 

so here is the source to the following pic

gotta admit, thats actually very fucking funny if you ask me. lmao but anyway BESIDES THE POINT !!!!!!!!!!

let me quote something properly for one “Naruto Chapter 679 - [...] This is the chapter where Madara swells, blows up, and literally disappears from the main story altogether. Yes, it is that chapter.” 

let me just point out the fact that this person claimed to be in the naruto fandom but yet they fail to understand the true events of that chapter. 

so essentially this is what happens. to a regular person, it does seem as though madara did in fact swell up and die but that wasn't the case. 

let me give you a little context to this. THE madara uchiha had the ten tail, which was a combination of all the tailed beasts in one within himself. so he’s like naruto, he's a jinchuriki of ONE OF THE STRONGEST FORCES in their universe. the ten tails is everything tbh so its hella powerful.

ONE. SINGLE. MAN. was able to live and still be able to maintain his own psyche without the ten tails taking over. that alone should be evidence enough that madara is powerful but whatever lets continue. 

anyway, he didn’t ‘swell up and disappear’ he expanded because his physical body could handle the extra chakra that was release in him, which happened to be kaguya. so the ten tails was kaguya all along but her powers was finally release, thus exerting a large amount of force/power so madara just morphed into kaguya. in a way???

look at the top left panel with sakura. if you can't read it she is saying “he shrunk down” hence his body compressing into kaguya’s figure, and in the following panel, you see kaguya, she finally makes her debut.

see? look at that, she’s so beautiful. ANYWAY. so yeah. madara didn’t just disappear, he body was just consumed by the power from within and that ‘true power’ took shape. like he was a dummy but it all worked out for kaguya’s debut. 

they then proceed to mention that..... this event is what killed madara, which is true, but not exactly. its a little but more than just that simple. even the strongest person or shinobi can’t survive the extraction of a tailed beast. no one. any one of the nine tailed beast could kill someone with the strongest life force after no more than a short time after its extraction but madara managed to die shortly after the TEN TAILS was extracted from his body. (again the ten tails is one of the strongest forces in the naruto universe, so thats saying something but whatever) IRRELEVANT. I GUESS??

MOVING ON !!!

“Another comment even brings up Aizen mindfucking with ‘Shatter, Kyouka Suigetsu’; all the Naruto world is merely an illusion created by Aizen. The second comment dismisses the Naruto world as a joke created by Aizen on a whim. However, what is more interesting is the first comment, where Kaguya (the antagonist who killed the previous antagonist Madara within seconds) is placed on the same level as Hinamori Momo (a character who is often associated with getting stabbed by Aizen). Placing Kaguya (who killed Madara) on the same level as Hinamori SAYS SOMETHING.”

so i am going to merge two of their points into one major point to get my point across.

there’s that quote, then there this one: “In comparison with Kishimoto who never (or rarely if you are desperate) refers to Madara as God, KUBO EVIDENTLY DESIGNATES AIZEN AS GOD. There is an entire series of chapters named Deicide, which means Killing God, or much more like Soul Society’s attempts to kill God. Ichimaru Gin’s Bankai, which’s sole purpose is to kill Aizen, is appropriately named Kamishini no Yari, the God-Killing Spear. Yet again in Chapter 617, Kubo titles it RETURN OF THE GOD, complete with Aizen’s image above it. Aizen is never called ‘God of ‘*Something*’, as opposed to how Yoruchi is the God of Flash, Baraggan is the God of Hueco Mundo, or Juhabach is the God of Quincies/Christians. For Aizen, it is purely God. (and God of Trolls does not count FYI because it is not a named element in Bleach). In contrast, Kishimoto has not even given Madara the title of ‘God of Shinobi’. That title is reserved for Hashirama, Hiruzen, and Hagoromo.”

now i am going to rant a little more. those two arguments are a little reaching, wouldn’t you think? 

so back with the ‘theory’ that the naruto is merely an illusion created by aizen. lets see, as far as i know, kyouka suigetsu had the ability of ‘near flawless illusions’ non? wanna know who is the daddy of a lot of the current uchiha abilities? madara fucking uchiha. the sharingan wasn’t mentioned, why? oh yes, thats right. because the sharingan is NOTORIOUS for genjutsu. (fancy word for saying the art of illusions lmao) so a counter argument to the one where the naruto universe was an illusion made by aizen on a ‘whim’ would be that the bleach universe was made by literally A N Y person who is able to preform any genjutsu. that’s right. not just madara is able to preform ‘illusions’ but so is his whole clan and anyone who can do genjutsus. so that means that... a hella weak person, who has a basic grasp of genjutsu could come up with the bleach universe FOR FUN!!!!!!! that shouldn’t have even been a valid argument but whatever. 

going with the first quote, (trying to destroy the kaguya argument) you shouldn’t be relying on a made up theory to demean characters. i can assure you that kaguya is NOT on the same level as hinamori. that argument was a stretch.

in the naruto series, kaguya is LITERALLY a god. there’s no denying it. she’s a god. kaguya is a god. one of the highest powers in the whole naruto universe because that’s how high you can be in it because nothing can surpass a god. she is. a. god. well goddess because she's a female but you get my point. so being compared to a god is literally the shit. there’s no fooling around with it. like you're powerful af if you get compare to a fucking god. 

anyway, moving into the second quote. i am pretty certain that madara was never referred as a god, but i do believe he was referred as possessing ‘god-like abilities’ (by all means, with anything that i have to state, or have previously stated, feel free to correct me if i am wrong) as for aizen. there is a difference to being MADE OUT as a god and BEING a god. 

being made out to be a god is just being super fucking powerful and practically unbeatable.

while being a god is literally, by definition, a god.

i found it where madara was said to have god-like abilities:

right side, fourth panel down, it says “...the power... of a god...” there. course was chapter 560 of the naruto series. wanna know the following chapter’s name? it’s called “the power in a name” while chapter 560 was simply called “Madara Uchiha”

yes, with the fact that were stated, aizen was in fact made out to be a god. guess what? aizen is NOT a god, though. there are references that aizen was made out to be a god, same goes for madara. (directly and indirectly)

the naruto universe and the bleach universe are both very distinct and very different. with the point mention that its basically insignificant to be ruled as the “god of ‘something’” in the bleach universe, it is something to take seriously in the naruto universe. that’s the major difference that also shouldn't be viewed as a valid argument. some things were just viewed differently. 

titles are just thrown around in the bleach universe like how oetsu is titled as “god of the sword” but does that make him a legitimate god? no. just ‘ruler’ over it.  just like how in the naruto universe being titled at “the god of shinobi” doesn't make that person a legitimate god, but literally almost god like.

again - 

KAGUYA IS A LEGITIMATE GOD!!

wanna know who’s a god in the bleach universe?

the soul king. 

ANYWAY......

MOVING ON !!! 

“Madara is basically written out “just like any other Uchiha, only more powerful” even before he gets any development as a person. He is EXPECTED to be powerful, aggressive, dangerous, vengeful, the founder of Sasuke’s and Itachi’s clan, etc. [...] Death (after a long line of supposed deaths) becomes the end of Madara’s story.”

F A L S E !!! I MEAN ISH AT LEAST

there are four characters of the uchiha in which you have an insight of their past/backstory. let me list them and tell you how there backstories came about.

madara - energetic little kid who worked for a better world and worked to become stronger and achieved most of his strength by stealing his brother’s eyes

obito - literally a dumbass who got crushed by a boulder and taken in by madara when madara was an old man, and gives obit his powers through the gedo statue

sasuke - family killed by his brother and who’s goal was to become strong enough to kill said brother

itachi - literally hailed a prodigy, strong ass mother fucker and killed his clan and just rolled over and let his brother kill him bc he his illness killed him, not actually sasuke 

now tell me the similarities between all these uchiha boys to make madara “just like any other uchiha”.... can't? good because all characters are different, but anyway.... the reason why madara was “only more powerful” was because at that time, he was the ONLY ONE who had awakened his eternal mangekyou sharingan after stealing his brothers after his death. he possessed all of these powers that no one had seen before. but whatever, right?

he was never credited for being the founder of the uchiha clan, but founder of konoha along side hashirama. unless he was somewhere, which i don't this he was though.... he was simply a legendary leader as i recall. 

---

look, i am not trying to say that madara is stronger than aizen and that he could beat him (actually.... look at everything i stated, he is fucking strong but whatever) but there’s just too many differences between the two universes to even make a safe decision. 

idk i am sticking with n/a - not applicable for who would win between madara and aizen

okay, off to sleep 

i feel so bad if u read this. how bored were u?